Draft:House on Priorka

The house on Priorka is a branch of the Taras Shevchenko Museum. The last time Taras Shevchenko visited Kyiv was in August 1859: before he departed for St. Petersburg, he was thought to have stayed in this house for two weeks.

House on Priorka and Taras Shevchenko

The last time Taras Shevchenko visited Kyiv, he wanted to stay on the outskirts of the city. From the center, he walked to Podil until he found himself on Priorka. Shevchenko further recalls:

I was walking and walking, and I saw a hut standing there, not a lord's or a man's, white and white like sour cream, and even overgrown with a garden, and in the yard, there were children's shirts hanging and waving their sleeves as if calling me to them...

The poet stopped here. Throughout her life, the owner of this house, Varvara Pashkovska, was proud that Taras Shevchenko himself lived with her. It was said that for two weeks, Shevchenko enjoyed the hospitality of the locals, the surrounding garden, Ukrainian songs, and the children of Pryorchany. And the holiday of treats for his little friends, organized by the eccentric tenant, became one of the brightest local legends. The Kobzar was simply called "Uncle Taras" in Priorka. Shevchenko's last Kyiv shelter became a comfort and a real home for him, and the ordinary people with whom he managed to make friends became his family. From here, the poet walked to his friend, the painter Ivan Soshenko, who lived in a house on Velyka Zhytomyrska Street. After Shevchenko left for St. Petersburg, Varvara Pashkovska's house was called Taras's.

The hut under the roof where Taras Shevchenko lived stood until recently, outliving its usefulness. Near it stood a memorial plaque with a bas-relief and an inscription that has survived to this day. On the site of the house was built the current building, where in 1989 the exposition of the Taras Shevchenko Memorial House Museum was opened.

Museum work and exposition

The museum's offers excursions:

• Shevchenko in Kyiv
• Shevchenko on Priorka
• The third trip to Ukraine
• The history of the Kyiv neighborhoods of Kurenivka and Priorka in the time of Shevchenko
• Walking tour of the park: from Taras's oak tree, which is 400 years old, to the dacha "Kyn-Grust" mentioned in Shevchenko's works
• An ecological tour of the park.

The tours are conducted in Ukrainian and foreign languages.

In addition, researchers conduct specially designed tours for visually impaired visitors.

The House on Priorka hosts exhibitions of children's drawings on Shevchenko's themes, exhibitions of Christmas and Easter cards, and personal exhibitions of talented children dedicated to Kobzar. Every year the museum also holds a children's competition for the best recitation of Taras Shevchenko's poetry.

The "House on Priorka" often gathers elderly people for "Shevchenko in my life" evenings.

The museum honors the poet with poetry, songs, and performances on Shevchenko Days, March 9 and 10 and May 22. On March 10, the day of Shevchenko's death, the museum holds a memorial service and a memorial dinner.

Veracity of the claims

Since the 1960s, doubts have been expressed about the possibility of Shevchenko's residence on Priorka. More recently, scholars have proved that S. Krapyvina's memoirs, the basis for the version of the poet's stay on Priorka, are largely falsified and that, purely chronologically, he could not have lived there for two weeks.