Tchaikovsky State House-Museum
The house was located on the bank of the Sestra River, and had but overgrown park with ponds and old lime trees.
In the evenings Tchaikovsky read magazines and books, played the piano, had conversations with guests, strolled in the forest, gathered mushrooms, gardened and swam.
During his time at the house in Klin, Tchaikovsky finished proof-reading the scores of Iolanta and The Nutcracker, wrote 18 Morceaux for piano, Op.
A conversation at breakfast, as well as a walk in someone's company, meant that Tchaikovsky was not going to compose that day; instead he would be busy with instrumentation, making corrections, or writing letters.
Over the desk, in the place of honor, is a picture of Anton Rubinstein, the founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music and his first teacher of instrumentation and composing.
On the other walls are many photographs of his family, in particular of his father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, and his mother, Alexandra Andreyevna.
The other cabinets in the room are filled with gifts to Tchaikovsky, including an ink-pot in the form of the Statue of Liberty given to him during his visit to the United States.
The table was made of Karelian birch by village workers in Maidanovo, when he first settled in the Klin region.
He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck: "The nearer I approach old age, the more lovely is my pleasure being close to nature.
After his death, his brother Modest planted islands of lilies of the valley around the garden, along with the violets, forget-me-nots, and bluebells that Tchaikovsky admired.
The garden has many other varieties of flowers it had in Tchaikovsky's time: roses, begonias, gillyflowers, phloxes, and sweet tobacco.
The composer's nephew, Vladimir Davydov, who held the rights to Tchaikovsky's works, joined in the project.
In 1917, after the Bolshevik revolution, an anarchist named Doroshenko settled with his family in the museum, and was reported to have fired shots at the portrait of Pope Innocent hanging in one of the bedrooms.
Following the Nazi invasion of Russia in June 1941, the museum collection of memorabilia and the library were transferred to the small town of Votkinsk, Tchaikovsky's birthplace, in Udmurtia.
Noted pianists, including Vladimir Horowitz, were given the privilege of playing Tchaikovsky's grand piano in his salon.
Beginning in 1958, winners of the annual International Tchaikovsky Competition, including Van Cliburn (1958), Mikhail Pletnev (1978) and Boris Berezovsky (1990), were also invited to come to Klin to play his piano.
