On my first trip to Russia, I got there via a three-week Trans-Siberian rail trip, which gave me a lot of reading time – and I’d carefully picked some Russian literature to occupy my time, in particular Dostoyevsky, which led me to visit the Dostoyevsky Memorial Flat in St Petersburg.

Russian literary history is liberally sprinkled with famous writers and if you’re a book lover like me, some of the many Moscow museums dedicated to these writers are bound to interest you. Unfortunately, given the state of tourist information in Russia they’re not always easy to find, but here’s a useful list from a Moscow map giving the locations of museums for some of the most famous Russian writers, plus a couple of general literary sites:

• Museum and Flat of A M Gorky – 6/2 M Nikitskaya Ul
• House and Museum of B L Pasternak – 3 Pavlenko Ul, Peredelkino Pos
• Museum of L N Tolstoy – 12 Pytnitskaya Ul
• Museum of Books – 3 vozdvizhenka Ul
• State Museum of L N Tolstoy – 11 Prechistenka Ul
• Pushkin Memorial Museum – 12/2 Prechistenka Ul
• State Literary Museum – 28 Petrovka

While not all of these museums have all the exhibits accompanied by English translations, many offer audio guides or English language brochures so you can pick your way through the memorabilia related to each writer’s life. I find it fascinating to see what kind of lives these writers led, and especially to compare that to what I’ve gathered about them from reading their novels. If you’re planning a trip to Russia, my Europe travel tip is to brush up on some of the Russian classics first and you’ll be even more enthralled with what you find. I’ve just finished reading Anna Karenina and now I’m dying to get back to check out the Tolstoy museum.

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