Malaya Morskaya Street 10, Queen's of Spades house, Regional cultural heritage site in Saint Petersburg, Russia
The house at Malaya Morskaya Street 10 is a building from the early 19th century that displays architectural features from the Russian Imperial period. Today it houses multiple establishments, including a police polyclinic, and sits within walking distance of the Winter Palace.
The residence was built in the early 19th century as a home for Princess Natalya Petrovna Galitzine, a wealthy aristocrat of that era. Decades later, writer Alexander Pushkin used the location as inspiration for his famous novella, transforming the house into a place of literary significance.
This building holds deep connections to Russian literature as the setting for Pushkin's story The Queen of Spades and Tchaikovsky's subsequent opera adaptation. Visitors can still trace the link between this real location and the famous literary work that made it known across generations.
The building sits near the Winter Palace and Palace Square, making it an easy stop on walks through the city center. Keep in mind that the building is still used by various institutions today, so public access may be limited at certain areas.
Few visitors realize that Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades was directly inspired by the literary work that itself came from this real location. This multiple artistic connection makes the house a rare example where literature and music converge at a single physical place.
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