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Vyoshensky Memorial and Historical Complex

In autumn 1926, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov and his family moved to Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya for their permanent residence. In 1928, he bought a house and estate in Sovetskaya Street (Now it is 103, Sholokhov Street), where the Sholokhovs lived until 1935.

Here M.A. Sholokhov wrote his third book of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” and the first book of “Virgin Soil Upturned”, worked over articles and essays.

It is a typical Cossack “kuren” (house) built early in the XX century with a four-sloped roof, attic, “the lowest floor” and veranda. It is built of wooden planks covered with siding, painted, surrounded with a three-sided narrow balcony.

In the house there is a sitting-room, the writer’s study and a room of his mother, Anastasiya Danilovna. Sholokhov loved his mother dearly and embodied many of her traits in the female images of his books, for instance, in the image of Ilyinichna in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.

In the reception-room, the biggest in the house, there is an exhibition “The Family Album”. The photos, letters, documents tell about Sholokhov’s relatives and friends in the 1930s.

In the former study of M.A. Sholokhov the memorial things are collected: books, a writing-table with a desk-set, a kerosene lamp, a bookcase, an armchair, a sofa. Mikhail Alexandrovich used to keep night hours in his study working at his manuscripts till morning.

On the left of the house porch there is an entrance leading downstairs, to “the lowest floor” called “nizy”. Here the Sholokhovs had a kitchen with a big Russian stove and a dining-room. Besides, the foodstuff and utensils were kept here.

In the yard there is a shed, a cellar, a summer stove, an arbour – everything is kept just as it was with the Sholokhovs in the 1930s.

On May 24, 1987, the memorial house-museum of the writer was set up here. In one of the outbuildings there is a set-out “At Hunting and Fishing”, where the original Sholokhov’s belongings are shown: clothes, footwear, outfit, spoon-baits, lures, fishing rods, and a punt.