Bulgakov House Museum

A small, deeply atmospheric museum at 13 Andriyivskyy Descent, the actual childhood home of Mikhail Bulgakov. The conceit is that the rooms are simultaneously the Bulgakov family's and the fictional Turbin family's of The White Guard — the more imaginative of the two is rendered in white-painted props.

Guided tours are essential to make sense of it. They run in Ukrainian and Russian; English tours are available with advance booking. The house itself, with its steep wooden staircases and shadowy courtyard, is worth the visit on its own.

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A story
The novelist Mikhail Bulgakov grew up at 13 Andriyivskyy Descent and used the house — barely altered — as the setting for The White Guard, his 1925 novel about a Russian family in Kyiv during the 1918-19 Civil War. The museum's curators painted everything mentioned in the novel white, leaving the rest of the original furnishings untouched.