Mikhailovskoye Pushkin Reserve

Pushkin was sent to his mother's family estate at Mikhailovskoye in 1824 under police and church supervision, and spent two years there with almost no company but his old nurse Arina Rodionovna and the neighbours at Trigorskoye - a confinement he complained about bitterly and during which he wrote a great deal, including most of Boris Godunov and central chapters of Eugene Onegin. The reserve now covers several estates and the country between them: Mikhailovskoye with the house and the nurse's cottage; Trigorskoye, the neighbours' house, with a bench and an oak attached to Onegin; Petrovskoye, the older family estate; and the Svyatogorsky monastery at Pushkinskiye Gory, where he is buried after the duel of 1837. The houses are all reconstructions, since the originals burned in 1918 and again in the war, but the landscape - hills, lakes, avenues of lime - is the thing that carried over.

What you actually see

• The exile house - Mikhailovskoye, where two years of supervised residence produced Boris Godunov.
• The nurse's cottage - the small building associated with Arina Rodionovna.
• Trigorskoye - the neighbours' estate with the bench and oak tied to Onegin.
• The grave - Pushkin's burial at Svyatogorsky monastery after the 1837 duel.

When to go

May to September. A full day for the estates and the monastery. Anniversary weekends in June are crowded.

Honest expectations

Every house is a reconstruction; nothing standing is the original building. The estates are several kilometres apart with limited transport between them. Tickets are per house and visits are guided in Russian. Pskov is two hours away and public transport is sparse.

Nearby

Svyatogorsky monastery is in Pushkinskiye Gory; Pskov and Izborsk are north.