Композитор А.Г. Рубинштейн

1900–1930 · Residence

Repino

1900–1930

Wednesdays at Penaty: Chaliapin, Gorky, Mayakovsky

The estate was eccentric: a studio under a pyramidal lantern roof, a landscape garden with a “Pushkin alley”, a multicoloured Egyptian-style music kiosk and a telescope looking over the Gulf of Finland. Repin gave vegetarian breakfasts, a habit taken from Tolstoy, and lavish Wednesday receptions attended by Chaliapin, Gorky, Glazunov, Kuprin, Polenov, Brodsky, Fechin, Mayakovsky, Rozanov and Bekhterev.

1907

Okonchatelnyy ukhod iz Akademii khudozhestv

После конфликта с учениками написал второе прошение об отставке, сдал академическую квартиру и уехал к Толстому в Ясную Поляну. Причина в заявлении: «малое время, остающееся для собственных работ».

1910

The death of Tolstoy: thirty years of friendship

Tolstoy died in 1910. The friendship between the 36-year-old painter and the 52-year-old writer, begun in 1880, had lasted thirty years.

1914

Illness and death of Natalia Nordman in Switzerland

With the outbreak of the First World War Repin’s wife fell ill with tuberculosis and went to Locarno for treatment; she refused help from her family and died in Switzerland in 1914.

1917

Finland breaks away: Penaty ends up abroad

Repin welcomed the February Revolution, but after October he was appalled by the violence and terror the Bolsheviks unleashed. Finland, and with it Penaty, declared independence, the border was closed, and he refused to return to Russia — he remained in forced emigration for the rest of his life.