Leading British playwrights and actors have launched a campaign to save the Crimean mansion where Anton Chekhov wrote some of his most famous works, including Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.
The building is in danger of collapse due to clashes among Russian and Ukrainian authorities: since 1991 Russia has stopped assigning means to keep up the building in a proper state, whereas the local Crimean administration claims that it is not its duty to allocate funds, “since Chekhov was Russian and not Ukrainian”.
Chekov’s mansion, also known as Belaya Dacha (White Country Cottage) was built in Yalta in relation to the writer’s forced removal from Moscow: he suffered from tuberculoses and was prescribed Crimean air. The house is a unique monument for the fact, that everything there has been preserved just as it was in the lifetime of Chekov who died in 1904. Till 1957 the mansion was looked after by Chekhov’s sister, and after her death it was turned into a museum.
Source: newsru.com