Researchers tend to believe that the eponymous chapter of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is based on real-life events that Mikhail Lermontov experienced during his brief stay in Taman in September 1837. There the poet was waiting for the mail ship to Gelendzhik. Lermontov, like his hero Pechorin, settled in the house of Cossack Fyodor Mysnik, built of mudbrick (unfired brick).

A sepia drawing depicting Lermontov’s cabin was made in 1879 by the archaeologist Yevgeny Felitsyn and presented to Pavel Viskovatov, the first biographer of Lermontov. This drawing is currently also kept in the Literary Museum of the Pushkin House. Lermontov’s temporary shelter is described on the pages of the novel as follows,

The drawing shows, probably, the same hovel by the cliff, in which, according to the novel, lived a deaf old woman and a young woman “Undine”, an accomplice of smugglers. The prototype of the heroine was a Cossack woman called Tsarychikha, with whom “the poet experienced a strange kind of collision, ” according to Viskovatov. Neither Mysnik’s cabin nor Undine’s shack have survived to this day.

In the chapter “Taman” from “A Hero of Our Time”, Pechorin, coming to this area, becomes a witness to the activities of smugglers. One night, he sees some people in a boat sailing towards the locals from the other shore. At first, Pechorin is convinced that the newcomers are risking their lives for something really valuable, and decides to solve this mystery. He tells a local girl about it, whom he saw on the beach at night. She lures him onto a boat and tries to drown him, but Pechorin escapes. “Taman” is chronologically the first chapter of “A Hero of Our Time”, but Lermontov intentionally violates the order in the novel.

“A Hero of Our Time” was published in parts. “Taman” was first published in the magazine “Otechestvennye Zapiski” (Notes of the Fatherland) in 1840.