Dmitrov. Kropotkin returns

An event important for every anarchist happened on Saturday, September, 6 in Dmitrov, north of Moscow. Museum dedicated to Peter Kropotkin was finally opened. 

It is located in the house where the prominent Russian anarchist spent the last years of his life. Dramatic history of the house was once described in the article named “Dmitrov: the Long Returnof Kropotkin” by Piotr Ryabov. The latter came to the opening ceremony demonstrating a badge with the house likely associated with the foundation of the museum in the early 1990s.

Peter Kropotkin moved to Dmitrov in 1918 after the quarters assigned to him in Moscow were requisitioned by the Bolsheviks. As Jane Burbank wrote in her “Intelligentsia and Revolution”:

In Dmitrov, forty miles north of Moscow, Kropotkin and his wife subsited on the produce of their garden and the aid offered by Kropotkin’s many admirers. He was helped in his old age by anarchist friends from Russia and abroad and by the local peasants, who revered their new neighbor. Isolated from Russian politics and contacts with the West, Kropotkin devoted his time to writing and to activity in his new community. Life in Dmitrov offered him a chance to take part in the local communal organizations. He became a member of the Dmitrov Union of Cooperatives, the town’s self-organized government, and defended it against the encroachments of Soviet authorities until the destruction of the union and arrest of all its leaders in November 1920. 

P.A.Kropotkin and his wife Sophia Grigorievna

in their Dmitrov house

After Kropotkin’s death the house that represents a comfortable variation of Russian izba and now hidden between two modern blocks was occupied by different public services. The museum was founded only in the 1990s but not opened. Within that period the house was repaired in Moscow manner, i.e. it was demolished and built all over again.

Then & Now. History of destruction

Unfortunately the museum was opened not in the original house. But its staff did their best to preserve the atmosphere of the anarchist’s home. 

 

 The opening ceremony started with a brief excursion around the house led by Yan Prussky, a research worker and the Kropotkin museum enthusiast.

 According to Russian tradition Yan Prussky is going to let a cat first walk into a new home

 to bring good luck

The excursion

 Then the guests came to the statue of Kropotkin, visited the Kremlin and Dmitrov town museum and took part in the conference timed to coincide with the museum opening.