Anton Chekhov built this neat white house on the hillside above Yalta in 1899 when tuberculosis forced him to leave Moscow's damp winters. He lived here until 1904, the year of his death, returning to Russia only briefly. The house has been preserved largely as he left it.
The museum tour takes you through the rooms Chekhov actually used: the downstairs study, the dining room where he received visitors (Tolstoy, Gorky, Rachmaninov, and Stanislavsky all came), and the bedroom where he slept under a ceiling painted with irises. His medical bag is on display — he trained and practiced as a doctor before writing became his primary occupation. The garden, which Chekhov planted himself and tended with considerable pride, still produces the roses he described in letters to his wife.