Saving Chekhov’s Yalta ‘White Dacha’ Home
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 11.20.08 | 11:00 AM ET
Photo by The unusual house where Anton Chekhov lived and wrote for several years was turned into a museum in 1921, but it’s now falling apart, and territorial issues aren’t helping matters.
Says the scholar who has launched the Yalta Chekhov Campaign: “[The dacha] is in a strange position. The Russian government didn’t want to fund the restoration because the house is in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government didn’t want to pay to promote a Russian author.”
Among the actors supporting the effort: Kenneth Branagh and Ralph Fiennes. Classy gents.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Roger 11.20.08 | 3:06 PM ET
I visited Yalta in June 1993, with a group of American college students, and I wanted very much to see Chekhov’s home, but time contraints wouldn’t allow it. Our Ukrainian guides basically dropped us off in Yalta, and left us to wander around without so much as a map, or any suggestions about what to see. They disappeared for ninety minutes. I guess they felt like it wasn’t enough time to bother trying to see anything of importance. I have always regretted not getting to see this special place. I hope the effort to save it is successful.