Writer’s House (Dramlit)

17 Lavrushinskiy Lane
Subway station «Tretyakovskaya»
Bulgakov wanted to get a flat in the writers’ house when it was built in 1937, but he was refused. Most likely, this house became a model for the Dramlit house in The Master and Margarita – this is where Margarita destroyed the critic Latunsky’s flat.
‘Yes, they say that even to this day, the critic Latunsky pales when he’s reminded of that terrifying evening.’ In the novel, the Dramlit house in which the critic who scathingly reviewed the Master’s novel, is located on Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane (Vakhtangov Street in the 1930s), but the most likely source of inspiration for the house lies on Lavrushinsky Lane. At different times, I. Ilf, V. Kaverin, V. Kataev, Y. Olesha, B. Pasternak, K Paustovsky, E. Petrov, M. Prishvin, K. Fedin, E. Erenburg and many others lived in the writers’ house. From 1935, Bulgakov frequently communicated with various authorities (the ‘Soviet Writer’ Management Committee of the Workers House-Building Cooperative Association, the secretariat of the Union of Soviet Writers and the office of the playwright section of the Union of Soviet Writers), requesting that his ‘flat issue’ be considered. The long-awaited flat on Nashchokinsky Lane did not suit the writer for a number of reasons: the quality of the building, the lack of space and ‘monstrous’ ability to hear what was going on in other flats and the high level was bad for Elena Sergeevna who was suffering from heart disease as Bulgakov noted in his petitions. Bulgakov requested to be provided with a four-roomed apartment in a house being built on Lavrushinsky Lane in exchange for his current flat. Only in 1939 did he receive an official refusal.