The Bad Flat

Where is the best place to begin a literary pilgrimage in Moscow? Some believe it is the cozy courtyard of 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya. In 1921, a completely unknown doctor named Mikhail Bulgakov moved into a communal apartment, No. 50, in this building, with neither money nor possessions. And it was here that he broke with medicine and devoted himself to writing.

“This is the darkest period of my life. My wife and I are starving.” Bulgakov wrote in one of his letters at the time.

From this “bad flat,” as from many others, people disappeared from the late 1920s on. And even though Bulgakov left here before that period, this is part of the reason why the writer later called it “bad.” But that was not why he did not invite anyone to visit; that was because he was embarrassed by the squalor of his communal apartment. He did not get along with his neighbors. They reproached him for keeping the lights on late into the night and threatened to petition for his eviction (meanwhile they were busy making moonshine). Out of revenge, perhaps, he populated his stories and sketches with them.

Mikhail Afanasyevich created some of his best works in No. 50 – The White Guard, The Diaboliad, Notes on the Cuff – works that brought him a certain renown in Moscow literary circles. Little did anyone know at the time that another work had taken hold of his dreams – The Master and Margarita.

It was The Master and Margarita that made Bulgakov world famous. The heroes of his final novel even moved into this apartment. This is where Satan’s infamous ball took place (in the author’s imaginary fifth dimension, of course).

Apparently, even today there are hints of otherworldliness in No. 50. On September 27, 2004, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article about strange goings on in the apartment:

“In the evening, painters coated one of the apartment walls with white paint, but when they arrived the next morning, a dark spot emerged. It was in the shape of a cat’s silhouette. They thought it was merely an optical illusion, and painted it over again with white paint, but it reappeared. They tried applying several layers of whitewash, but the image persisted. After that, many of the painters refused to work in the apartment.”

In one of the flat’s rooms there hangs a mirror that allegedly can make wishes come true. Tour guides say that returning visitors have frequently attested to this. But not tourists and not even the guides know all of the “bad flat’s” secrets. The novel’s only true hero – the cat Begemot – keeps his own counsel. It is his silhouette that could not be whitewashed away. And it is he who smoked, drank fuel oil from the primus stove, and played chess there. In the end, he set fire to the “bad flat” and flew out the window. But that, of course, was in the fifth dimension. RL

Bulgakov’s Moscow

Patriarch Ponds. This is where the action begins in The Master and Margarita, when Berlioz dies after being run over by a tram. The ponds have always been there, but the trams were an artistic invention.

Moscow Satire Theater. Located at Triumfalnaya Square 2, the theater was the site of the novel’s black magic variety show.

The Master’s House. Here, on Mansurovsky pereulok 9, is where the Master lived. In reality, a friend of Bulgakov’s lived here, and the writer visited him often.

Tram route “Annushka.” The route so dubbed by Muscovites in honor of Annushka, the bit character in the novel who spills the cooking oil on which Berlioz slips in the beginning of the novel. The letter “A” designated the boulevard ring route back then. Today, the route goes from Kaluzhskaya Square to Chistiye Prudy metro station. Inside one tram there is a restaurant.

Spaso House. Spasopeskovskaya Square 10. This mansion, built in 1913-15, once belonged to Nikolai Vtorov, the most powerful banker in Russia (“the Russian Morgan”). Beginning in 1933, the building briefly served as the American embassy, and in 1935 Charles Thayer (see his memoir, Bears in the Caviar, published by Russian Life books) instigated a “Spring Festival,” which became the inspiration for Bulgakov’s “spring ball of the new moon.” It is still the official residence for the US Ambassador and over the years its walls have overheard the conversations of countless presidents, diplomats, writers and spies.

Prechistenka 24. This building served as the prototype for Doctor Preobrazhensky’s “Kalubukhov building” in Bulgakov’s novel Heart of a Dog. Bulgakov’s uncle, the famous Moscow gynecologist N. Pokrovsky, lived here, and the Bulgakovs visited him often.