http://www.freep.com/news/nw/vlad17_20040217.htm

Passion alone not enough to save Russian museum

BY MARK MCDONALD
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

February 17, 2004

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- They come like pilgrims, wide-eyed and reverent, clutching their copies of "Lolita" or "Pale Fire," sniffing the stale air in the elegant old rooms off Bolshaya Morskaya Street, trying to catch the scent of the legendary novelist Vladimir Nabokov.

But the Nabokov faithful -- along with his Scrabble board, pencil stubs and butterfly-hunting jacket -- are facing eviction. The private Nabokov Museum hasn't paid rent for five years, and the city, which owns the building housing it, is demanding $23,000.

"We're still hoping for a benefactor to save us," said director Tatiana Ponomareva. There is a government hearing March 1.

One longtime benefactor, Terry Myers, a not-wealthy technical editor at Pratt & Whitney Aerospace in San Jose, Calif., has promised $10,000. Myers, whose fascination with Nabokov began as a teenager, has already donated some of the museum's best items, including a number of first editions.

The museum, which subsists mainly on the sale of 75-cent admission tickets, doesn't have enough money for security guards and decent display cases. Not that there's much to steal: the premium items -- including Nabokov's field jacket and Myers' first editions -- are locked in storage.

Nabokov was born in the three-story mansion in 1899. He wrote his first book there at age 17, a collection of dewy love poems that his family paid to have published. The poems were written in English, which was his first language, thanks to his English governesses and tutors.

The Nabokovs were wealthy -- one grandfather owned Siberian gold mines and another was the minister of justice. The family fled Russia in 1917, just before the Bolshevik Revolution, and Nabokov later moved to England, Berlin and Paris.

As World War II was breaking out, he and his wife, Vera, went to the United States, where he took up a series of university teaching positions.

He never returned to Russia and died in Switzerland in 1977.

Contact MARK McDONALD at mmcdonald@krwashington.com.

Detroit Free Press