This ticket was found in the Leningrad Angleterre hotel among the belongings of Sergei Esenin after his tragic death on December 28, 1925. In September that year, Esenin visited Konstantinovo. He travelled from Moscow to Divovo station by train, then he took a coach. The poet stayed in Konstantinovo for two or three days and wrote the poem called Blue is the fog, the expanse is snow-bound… This was the poet’s last visit to his native village. The ticket was kept in the archives of his son, Konstantin Esenin.

The poet’s sister Alexandra Esenina recalled: ‘Even his arrival was unusual, and not only to us, but to all our fellow villagers. Sergei loved to drive up to the house in a dashing coach rather than on a barely jogging horse. Such fast-driving coachmen were called hot rods. Sometimes, Sergei took a pair of horses, who ran like the wind. Flexing their necks and barely touching ground, they left a cloud of road dust behind. I can’t say that Sergei spent a lot of time with us, his family, during these visits. He was always busy working, or went out in the meadows or to the Popovs, but the mere thought of him being home was pleasing to us’.

During his days in Divovo, Esenin wrote Blue is the fog, the expanse is snow-bound… (1925):

Blue is the fog, the expanse is snow-bound,
Fine is the beam of the moon that shines.
Isn"t it nice to be sitting around,
Thinking about the bygone times?!

<…>
Now I am back in my land, oh so dear,
Some have forgotten me? Others have not?
Just like a man in disgrace I am here
Outside my house with a garden plot.

Squeezing my fur cap, a dismal newcomer,
Somehow I don"t like this sable at all.
Now I remember my granddad and grandma,
Friable snow in the graveyard and all.

<…>
I nearly burst out crying. I pondered.
And, forcing a smile, I stood in a fog,
Was it the very last time, I wondered
That I saw this house, this porch, and this dog?