Category:

10 Khoroshevskoe Highway (1957–1972)

Address: 10 Khoroshevskoe Highway, Moscow (the house has been demolished)

Khoroshevskoye Highway, the house construction. Photo: PastVu

Khoroshevskoe Highway, the house's construction. Photo: PastVu

In October 1958, Varlam Shalamov moved with his wife Olga Nekliudova and his son Sergei from their cramped room on Gogolevskii Boulevard to another communal apartment. It was located on the Khoroshevskoe Highway in one of the houses built by German prisoners near the Begovaya station. Living conditions improved remarkably and the family even had two rooms. Shalamov worked in one of them.

Shalamov in the 1960s. Photograph of his passport. Photo: shalamov.ru

Shalamov in the 1960s. Photograph of his passport.
Photo: shalamov.ru

Shalamov’s marriage with Olga Nekliudova lasted for ten years. Eventually, the marriage of the two writers, both of whom had a difficult character and a difficult biography, fell apart. After the divorce, which came into force in October 1966, Shalamov continued to live for one and a half years in the room where he had worked. In April 1968 he moved to another room in a neighboring apartment. In 1972, Shalamov had to leave the house.

His residence on the Khoroshevskoe Highway was the most fruitful period of Shalamov’s life in Moscow, despite his periods of illness, deteriorating hearing, and numerous rifts with people who seemed to have been close to him. During this period, Shalamov worked on Kolyma Tales, reviews, articles on literature, autobiographical texts, and he also prepared four collections of poems for publication. Shalamov was also in close contact with Nadezhda Mandelstam and her circle of friends (L. Pinsky, N. Stolyarova, E. Grin). Shalamov was acquainted with Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well, but their friendship was shortlived.