The art collection of the National Pushkin Museum features a painting by Karl Ivanovich Rabus (1800–1857), an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
The canvas depicts a charming corner of Crimea —
Hurzuf and the house of the Russian and French politician Richelieu. There, in
Hurzuf, the first great journey of Alexander Pushkin, which lasted almost four
months, came to its end. In a letter to his brother on September 24, 1820, the
poet reported,
From here [from Feodosia] we went by sea past the sunlit shores of Taurida to Yurzuf, where the Raevsky family was staying. At night on the ship, I wrote an Elegy that I am sending you… the ship sailed in front of mountains covered with poplars, grapes, laurels and cypresses; Tatar villages were everywhere…
The Elegy “The Daylight is Now Gone” was the poet’s first poem inspired by the sea and Taurida.
In Hurzuf, the travelers were greeted by the general’s wife, Sofia (granddaughter of the great Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov), and two older daughters, Ekaterina and Elena. In a letter to his brother, Pushkin also reported,I lived there for three weeks. My friend, I spent the happiest moments of my life with the family of the venerable Raevsky…
Everyone was staying at Richelieu’s house, which was the only European-style building on the entire Southern Coast built after the annexation of Crimea. It was erected by the Duke of Richelieu when he was governor of Taurida. He himself had never lived in the house, but by his command, anyone passing by could stay in it. Almost all its guests remembered his generosity with gratitude.
In Yurzuf I was a stay-at-home man, swam in the sea and gorged myself on grapes; I immediately got used to the sunlit nature and enjoyed it with all the indifference and carelessness of a Neapolitan lazzarone [a homeless idler]. I loved waking up at night and listening to the sound of the sea — and I could listen for hours.
In mid-September, leaving his wife and daughters in Hurzuf, General Raevsky, his younger son Nikolay and Pushkin set out to travel back home. Almost ten years later, the poet relied on his impressions from his travels in 1820 to describe Onegin’s journey.
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