Varvara Bakhmeteva

In 1835 Varvara Lopukhina married Nikolay Fyodorovich Bakhmetev, a wealthy landowner and an Active State Councillor.

Lermontov, tormented by jealousy, alluded to Nikolay Bakhmetev several times in his writing with sardonic humor as a greybeard and cuckold.

However, his stinging attacks on Bakhmetev were also transferred to his wife: As the dessert champagne was served, Pechorin, raising his glass, turned to the princess: "As I did not have the good fortune to be at your wedding, let me congratulate you now".

But a secret anguish cast a fleeting shadow across her face, and the water glass in her hand was trembling... Pechorin saw it all, and something akin to remorse crept into his chest: was he the source of her torment?

In 1839, to save all her materials associated with Lermontov from destruction, Varvara Bakhmeteva gave them to her friend Aleksandra Vereshchagina when she was at a European resort.

Varvara Bakhmeteva had repeatedly traveled with her husband abroad for treatment, but after Lermontov's death in an 1841 duel, her condition deteriorated.

The name Varvara Lopukhina is closely linked to Lermontov's poem addressed to Yekaterina Bykhovets: "No, it is not you whom I love so ardently".

I think I drew his attention because he found in me her likeness, and his favorite topic of conversation was her.Autobiographical passages occurred in "A Hero of Our Time".

According to Lermontov's first biographer, Pavel Viskovatov, everyone who read the chapter "Princess Mary" recognized the Bakhmetevs in the characters of Faith and her husband.

However, according to research by N. Pakhomov[4] this is similar to a change the poet resorted to in "Hero of Our Time", when a mole on Princess Faith's eyebrow - a feature identical to one that Varvara Bakhmetev had - is, in the final version, moved to the cheek "to avoid speculation about the overly close resemblance" Lermontov also painted several portraits of Varvara.

In 1846, Nikolai Fedorovich Bakhmetev constructed a stone church, the altar of which was dedicated to Saint Barbara, in the hope of curative divine intercession for Varvara.