Ivan Turgenev Museum

Ivan Turgenev—one of the giants of Russian literature—fell madly in love with the singer Pauline Viardot—sister of Malibran—whom he met in 1843 in Saint Petersburg and whom he would follow on her triumphant tours throughout Europe. In 1875, he bought the "Ash Tree Estate," installed the Viardot family in the Palladian Villa, and built a dacha in the park 30 meters away—now a memorial site—where he died in 1883. A social reformer and a great European, he spent 38 years in France, forging literary and musical friendships with Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, and Fauré, and holding a salon in Bougival with Pauline Viardot. The author of "First Love, Dimitri Roudine, Nest of Gentlemen, Fathers and Children, Smoke" or even "Prose Poems"... invites you into the intimacy of his chalet to discover the Memorial: his bedroom, his office and a permanent exhibition bringing together memories and documents on this second half of the 19th century so rich and so fertile, a true "literary and artistic pantheon".