Stray Dog Café

gathered there to discuss theories of literature, give poetry readings, and perform theatre.

[1] Run by proprietor Boris Pronin, out of the cellar of the Dashkov mansion, it opened New Year's Eve, 1911 and was shut down by the authorities in 1915.

A key locale for the followers of the emerging acmeist and futurist literary movements, the Stray Dog clientele rejected the symbolist school of thought.

This was the apartment of the symbolist poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, who also influenced Vsevolod Meyerhold's use of theatre.

Poets/performers at the Stray Dog Café included Anna Akhmatova, her husband Nikolay Gumilyov, Velimir Khlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Sergei Esenin, Mikhail Kuzmin, Osip Mandelstam, etc.