Anna Kern

Anna Petrovna Kern (Russian: Анна Петровна Керн, née Poltoratskaya (Полторацкая), name after second marriage: Markova-Vinogradskaya (Маркова-Виноградская); 22 February [O.S.

"Lately, our land has been visited by a beauty, who sings the Venetian Night in a heavenly way, in the manner of the gondolier's cantillation", Pushkin wrote to his friend Pyotr Pletnyov.

"Every night I stroll through a garden and repeat in my mind: she was there - a boulder she stumbled upon rests on my desk, beside a withered branch of heliotrope; I write a lot of poems - and this, you may be sure, has all the symptoms of love..." Pushkin wrote to Kern's sister several days after her departure.

Although Pushkin's biographers tend to idealise their relationship, it is known that he referred to her later as the "whore of Babylon" and wrote to one of his friends that "with God's help I screwed her the other day".

Anna Petrovna was buried in the churchyard near the old stone church in the village Prutnya (Russian: д. Прутня), which is 6 kilometers from Torzhok, near Tver.