The Turbins' House is a literary memorial house-museum of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in Kiev. It was founded in early 1989. The main exhibition is located on the second floor of the house. Here you can see Bulgakov's personal belongings, as well as hear the story of his life in Kiev. The latter is closely intertwined with the novel "The White Guard".
The name of the Turbins' House was assigned to the house thanks to the writer Viktor Nekrasov, after his essay "The Turbins' House" was published in the Novy Mir magazine. The house is called not by the surname of the author of the novel "The White Guard", but by the surname of his heroes who "lived" here.
The building was built in 1888-1889 by architect N. N. Gordenin for the wife of merchant Litoshenko. Bulgakov's tu lived for 13 years from 1906 to 1919.
The mansion has a stone basement and the first floor, and the entire upper floor is wooden, lined with brick and covered with iron.
The owner of the house was Z. P. Mirovich, a merchant and honorary citizen of Kiev, who besides this house owned three more houses on the same street, together the houses represented an entire estate. All the estate's real estate was valued at 22,250 rubles. The main house costs 13,000 rubles, two small ones — 4,500 and 3,750 rubles. A very tiny house adjacent to a large one (from one room and a kitchen with a corridor — the apartment of the Shcheglovs in the "White Guard") — 1,000 rubles.
All the premises were rented out for 2,620 rubles a year. The most expensive apartment was on the second floor ("all seven full and dusty rooms"), it cost Bulgakov 720 rubles a year.
All the interior items that Bulgakov invented are painted white. His personal belongings (or those he used) are left as before.
In 1909, the architect V. P. Listovnichy bought the house and settled with his wife and five-year-old daughter Inna on the ground floor. The Kiev Mutual Credit Society gave him the opportunity to pay only half of the required amount, to repay the remaining half within 8 years for 7% per annum. The last payment had to be made on November 7, 1917.
"We bought a house together with the tenants," recalled the daughter of the owner I. V. Listovnichaya.
In the purchased estate, in addition to the Bulgakovs and Listovnichs, about 70 people lived, there were 8 apartments in total. In the basement of a two-story house on a stone foundation there was a grocery store of the merchant Shaiter. The family of General Komarnitsky lived in the central house of the estate, and in the basement of his house there was an apartment of a janitor. In the third wing lived the family of merchant Grobinsky.
Listovnichy made some redevelopment of the estate — excavating a plot on the side of the yard and building a new brick room under the yard. Organized a stable with a couple of horses and a carriage. Part of the Bulgakov verandah was redeveloped under the stairs to the attic. The slope of the mountain, which overhung the estate, was planted with lilac and acacia bushes to protect against a possible landslide. The estate was fenced with a new blind wooden fence.