The Mayakovsky Museum has a new director: will he bring the frozen overhaul to the final?

Vladimir Lisenko is hoped that he will be able to move the situation around the legendary museum off the ground

As it became known to MK, the contract with Alexei Lobov, who headed the Mayakovsky Museum since 2014, was not renewed. Vladimir Lisenko has been appointed as the new director. He will have to do what his predecessor failed to do – to bring to fruition the overhaul, which began in 2013 and has not moved one iota since then.

Recall that 10 years ago, a serious scandal erupted around the Mayakovsky Museum on Lubyanka, where the poet’s life ended. It was decided to disassemble the unique futuristic exposition, which was a four-story total installation and was created by Taras Polyakov back in 1989. The city authorities reported that it was necessary to replace communications and the ventilation system, and to repair the building. Museum employees protested, went to meetings, wrote letters to all authorities, trying to protect the extraordinary exposition, which, after dismantling, would hardly have been reassembled. However, nothing helped. As a result, the entire staff of the museum quit or was fired. The then director of the museum, Nadezhda Morozova, promised that everything would be fine – the repair would be completed in two years, and the exposition would be collected again.

However, she was not destined to lead the overhaul process for a long time: seeing that nothing was happening and, apparently, wanting to calm the agitated public, Alexei Lobov was appointed director of the museum in 2014. He fed the museum world with promises for a long time, but nothing happened. Now, behind the closed gates leading to the Mayakovsky Museum on Lubyanka, it is clear that no work is being done. A pile of building materials was piled in the yard, and tiles were dismantled in front of the gate, on which people stumble when leaving the bookstore, whose exit is adjacent to the Mayakovsky Museum. At other sites – in apartments on Bolshaya Presnya and in Studenetsky Lane – there is no special exhibition activity. Obviously, the new appointment should change the situation.

Let’s hope that Vladimir Lisenko will be able to break it. The Museum-Reserve of Tchaikovsky in Klin, which he once headed, looks quite worthy: the main exposition is made with the latest technology, the historic house has been restored and well maintained. Various events regularly take place on the territory of the museum, which attract the general public, right now there is a Tchaikovsky festival created by Yuri Bashmet.