Lermontov Museum Pyatigorsk

Lermontov rented four rooms in this small whitewashed house with a reed thatch in May 1841 and lived there until 15 July, when he was killed in a duel at the foot of Mashuk with Nikolai Martynov, an acquaintance he had mocked once too often. He was twenty-six. The house was bought for preservation in 1912 and is the oldest literary museum in the north Caucasus; the rooms hold his desk, drawings and belongings, and the adjoining houses now carry a literary exhibition and a collection of paintings on his themes. Pyatigorsk itself runs through A Hero of Our Time - the spa colonnades, the Elizabeth gallery, the grotto, and the Diana grotto where a ball was held days before his death - so the town works as a walk with the book. The duel site on the slope of Mashuk has a monument, and his first grave is at the town cemetery; his body was later moved to the family estate at Tarkhany.

What you actually see

• The thatched house - four rented rooms where he lived for the last two months.
• The duel site - a monument on the slope of Mashuk where he was shot in July 1841.
• The novel's town - the colonnades and grottoes that appear in A Hero of Our Time.
• The first grave - the town cemetery plot, before the body was moved to Tarkhany.

When to go

May to September. Two hours for the museum, half a day with the duel site and the spa walk.

Honest expectations

Visits are guided and Russian labelled. The house is very small. The duel site monument is a 1915 structure on an approximate spot, not a marked exact location. Pyatigorsk in summer is hot and crowded with spa visitors.

Nearby

Mount Mashuk and the spa colonnades are in the town; Kislovodsk is half an hour away.