Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita in exile while the “hospitable, remorseful, racemosa-blossoming Russia” that his family fled in 1917 was replaced by a Russia that was busily banning his work. But Nabokov, too, has been rehabilitated in his homeland. In 1997 the mansion where he spent his cosseted childhood was turned into a museum. The building seems to have changed little since Nabokov described it as “a stylish Italianate construction of pink Finnish granite built by my grandfather circa 1885, with floral frescoes above the third (upper) story and a second-floor oriel.” Sundry Nabokoviana, donated by the writer’s son, Dmitry, and various Western institutions, takes up Nabokov’s former foyer, library, dining room, and vast meeting hall, all ornate and reeking of affluence. Among the most memorable objects: Nabokov’s butterfly net and lepidoptera collection, and his Scrabble set with S-P-E-A-K M-E-M-O-R-Y spelled out on the board. Me, I would also like to have seen the Rolls-Royce that took young Vladimir to school every morning.

Actually, I’m too starstruck to concentrate on Nabokov’s pince-nez, because during our visit the museum is hosting a glamorous conference on the work of another writer: the ’60s-era novelist Andrei Bitov, whom I happen to love. One of his best-known works, set in Leningrad, is a hyperliterary meta-novel called—what else?—Pushkin House. The septuagenarian author is holding court under the fanciful carved wooden ceiling of the library where Nabokov’s father took fencing lessons. Around him Russia’s greatest surviving literati are munching Oreos and drinking Nescafé from plastic cups. What’s everyone talking about?

Why, Pushkin, of course. 

For St. Petersburg by the book, Moscow's endangered constructivist buildings, and other diversions in both cities, click here. "Pushkin Is Our Everything" originally appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Culture+Travel. For a complete list of articles from Culture+Travel available on ARTINFO, click here.