A journey through historical literary sites will lead you to the famous summer house of Ivan Turgenev in Bougival. We invite you to visit this place near Paris, hidden in a fir forest. It was undeservedly forgotten, but thanks to the efforts of the museum's caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Zvigilski, it has come back into conversation. Don't miss the opportunity to meet Madame Zvigilska, who will enthusiastically tell you about the history and culture of her homeland.

The Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, author of novellas and short stories, was born in Oryol in 1818 and was connected to France for 38 years. He first visited Paris in 1845. After the 1870 war, Turgenev settled at 48 Rue Duret, along with the Viardos, and at the end of 1874, he acquired the estate "Yaseni" in Bougival, where he built a small house in the Russian style opposite the Villa Durectoire, where the Viardos lived. He spent the summer and autumn months there, and from 1875 until his last days, suffering from lung cancer, he passed away in his room with a balcony on the second floor on September 3, 1883.

It was in this study that Turgenev wrote and completed some of his significant works, including his last novel "Nouvelles" and "Poems in Prose." In "Yaseni" in 1876, he finished the Russian translation of "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" by Gustave Flaubert, whom he considered his best friend among French writers in the famous "Group of Five" (Flaubert, Turgenev, Daudet, Zola, Goncourt).

Turgenev hosted guests in Bougival such as Guy de Maupassant and Henry James, Russian writers Sologub and Saltykov-Shchedrin, artist Vereshchagin, and other prominent figures of literature and art. At the Villa "Yaseni" with the Viardos, Turgenev met with Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. Pauline Viardot had a brilliant career as a singer, was a professor at the Paris Conservatory, and gave singing lessons in her home in Bougival, hosting musical matinees in the salon on the second floor.

Her husband Louis Viardot, a former director of the Italian opera in Paris, was an art historian and Hispanist. He created the collection of guides "Museums of Europe" and translated Cervantes' "Don Quixote" into French, which had a significant influence at the time.

Turgenev's attachment to France was based on a sensual foundation: his love for Pauline Viardot lasted 40 years, he followed her across Europe, lived nearby in Paris, at the Château de Courteuil en Brie, in Baden-Baden, in London, and finally in Bougival.

Turgenev was particularly connected to France through its culture and literature, which he knew deeply, as well as the language he studied from childhood and used fluently in communication and correspondence with French friends.

Turgenev's cosmopolitanism and liberalism, reflected in his works, contributed to the liberation of Russia from serfdom in 1861.

On the first floor, there is a permanent exhibition telling about the writer's life in Russia and France, as well as his surroundings: the Viardo family, composers, artists, and writers. Special attention is drawn to Turgenev's German piano, acquired in 1990 and recognized as a historical monument.

On the second floor, two rooms of Turgenev have been restored: the study where Flaubert's translations and other works were created, and a room restored by the Boulay School based on the only drawing by Pauline Viardot's daughter, where the writer is depicted a few days before his death.