Sheremetiev's palace – The Fountain House, one of the most beautiful mansions
of the 18th century in St. Petersburg, faces the Fontanka River. Northern gates
are still decorated with Sheremetiev's family blazon with the motto Deus conservat
omnia (God saves everything). Destiny brought Akhmatova to this place several
times. An ironical record preserved in her Notebooks: ‚My lodgings. Palaces
and beggarly life there‘. She lived in the northern annex from 1918 to 1920
with her second husband – the orientalist, translator and poet Vladimir Shileiko,
who educated the children of the last Count Sheremetiev. Recalling scattered
cuneiform tablets on the floor and astringent coffee’s smell Akhmatova used
to call Shileiko’s room ‚Shumer coffee house‘.
In the early 1920s part of the apartment in the southern wing on the third
floor, was granted to commissar of the Russian museum and Hermitage Nikolay
Punin, who became the closest friend of Akhmatova in this time. On the October
19, 1922, Akhmatova climbed the old stairs laying with the bedplate of the XIX
century for the first time and entered his home.
