The Museum of Mendeleev
Our trip
Our trip at Mendeleev Museum starts from Saint Petersburg University in via Mendeleevskaya Liniya, where at the beginning of the Boulevard, we are welcomed by the statue of Mikhail Lomonosov Vasilevic 1708-1765 writer, poet, Russian chemist and physicist. Passing the entrance of the University , on the ground floor, directly left, you enter the apartment of Mendeleev. Dott.ssa Natalia , chemist , there acts as a guide. We are the only visitors.
She don’t speak English very well, but reads a guide compiled by herself and accompanies us with warmth and helpfulness. Admission is free, the whole thing is very informal. It is here that Mendeleev wrote several scientific works. After his death in 1907 the University and the Russian chemical society took over his personal library, archive and some pieces by his widow. These belongings formed the basis of the Museum that was established here just four years later in 1911.
The apartment
Mendeleev Museum’s main attraction are the four rooms that were originally the living room, dining room, study and a small bedroom where he slept alone. The master bedroom was located in another wing. From his spartan bedroom was accessed directly in the lab. Imagine his experimental work that lived fully and the small room he needed to break from his usually work at night. The first room, the living room, contains memories of the early years of their children, like photographs of family members, artists, scientists, architects and colleagues with whom he was tied by friendship and with whom he was to socialize and converse every Wednesday afternoon. The second room of the apartment is the largest. This is the dining room. There are located several documents, private objects, lab supplies, photo .
The halls of the instruments
The instruments and equipment. In this wing of the Museum adjacent to the apartment are preserved numerous tools, drawings, models and laboratory equipment. Their variety shows us how vast and varied scientific interests and activities of Mendeleev.
A photoshoot of the Museum
The University, the living room, dining room.
The message boards
The study
The halls of instruments and equipment
Alexander Borodin: a great chemist and musician, colleague of Mendeleev
In the monumental cemetery of St. Petersburg is buried the great musician and valente chemist Alexander Borodin, Mendeleev’s friend and colleague. Together participated in the first Congress of chemists held in karlsruhe, Germany. Alexander Borodin, russian composer (Petersburg 1833-1887) , was the illegitimate son of a Prince, studied chemistry at home and in Germany by invoking scientific world attention soon with his research on the properties of benzene; in 1864 he was appointed Professor of organic chemistry at Petersburg, while Mendeleev was that of General and inorganic chemistry. The most important contribution given by Borodin was, apart from the Symphonic sketch “in the steppes of Central Asia” (1880), the opera “Prince Igor” elaborated in the course of 18 years, but left unfinished.
Mendeleev Museum article on the blog in downloadable PDF format
https://www.robertopoetichimica.it/en/the-d-mendeleev-home-museum-st-petersburg/
