In 1867, General Aleksey Melnikov (1808–1879), one of the builders of the St Petersburg-to-Vilnius railway line, purchased a plot of land at Markučiai from the Polish doctor Ignacy Godlewski.
He began building a house, completing it before the end of the year. He also built several outbuildings: a smaller building for the servants’ quarters, stables, and a coach house.
In 1875, Melnikov’s daughter Varvara married Vasily Moshkov. Her father gave her the house at Markučiai as a dowry. The deed of gift details all the assets that were handed over: woods, bodies of water, arable and non-arable land, the main house, and all the estate buildings. Melnikov estimated that the entire property was worth 100,000 silver roubles.
The estate buildings stood at the foot of the hill: a quadrangular courtyard framed by stables for six horses, a wooden ice house, an aviary, a garden shed, and a cellar. There was a large orchard nearby. The enclosed 15-hectare park was meticulously maintained. It boasted four ponds, a croquet lawn, a wine cellar, an ice house, a conservatory planted with palms, ficus trees, oleander bushes, roses and cacti, and peacocks roaming freely around.
Melnikov’s daughter did not immediately settle at Markučiai. After divorcing Moshkov in 1877, she and her daughter, also called Varvara, lived for a while in St Petersburg, where in 1880 she met Grigory (1835–1905), the younger son of the famous Russian poet Alexander and Natalia Pushkin. The couple married in Vilnius on 24 October 1883.
After their wedding, Varvara and Grigory spent more time at Mikhailovskoye in the Pskov region, the summer residence of Alexander Pushkin’s family which they had inherited. The mistress of Markučiai only visited Vilnius for short periods of time, mostly in the summer. However, in 1899 the Pushkins sold the Mikhailovskoye estate and moved permanently to Markučiai.
The estate at Markučiai had a number of summer houses and wooden villas, which Varvara and Grigory rented out to other people. Not only did they let out summer houses on the estate, but also various plots of land. Restaurants, cafés and shops appeared on these plots. In 1901 the couple provided two houses, a cellar, an ice house and a plot of land for the use of the Dobrochotnaya Kopeika (Kopek of Good Will) charity free of charge. Varvara Pushkina was the chairwoman of the Paplauja branch of the organisation.
After Grigory’s death, Varvara managed the estate on her own. She lived by letting out holiday homes and selling off plots of land. The estate buildings and land had also been parcelled out to a lesser extent when Grigory was alive.
In 1910, the estate was included in the city of Vilnius.
During the First World War, Varvara lived in St Petersburg for several years. The Markučiai estate suffered considerably in the war. According to a list of losses drawn up by the mistress of the estate, two summer houses were burnt down, several other buildings were destroyed, and large swathes of woodland were cleared. The park and garden, and the main house, were badly damaged. A valuable collection of Grigory Pushkin’s hunting trophies and weapons, and a number of paintings, books and other items, were lost. The ravaged estate never recovered financially. Varvara had to fight until her death to keep it from going bankrupt.
Without a regular income, apart from her husband’s pension, which she inherited on his death, and unable to pare down her lifestyle, Varvara continued selling off parts of the estate, but her financial situation did not improve, and she fell deeper and deeper into debt. The suburb of Markučiai grew up on land that had once belonged to the estate, developing into a network of about 20 streets. Eventually, the suburb began to encroach on the house itself. In the final years of Varvara’s life, she had just a little over three hectares to her name. In her will in 1935 she bequeathed the estate, its outbuildings and all their contents to the Russian Society of Vilnius.
Varvara died in 1935, leaving the estate in debt and subject to claims. Vladimir Nazimov, her trustee and executor of her will, continued to manage the affairs of the bankrupt estate. He prepared a liquidation plan for it, but then the Second World War broke out.
Soviet Russia occupied Lithuania, and the estate was nationalised in 1940. The government of the LSSR decided to make it into a museum, but the country’s occupation by the Nazis delayed its plans. The museum first opened in 1946–1948 under the title the Alexander Pushkin Literary Museum. Due to the selective emphasis on the poet’s political views and his influence over Russian revolutionaries, the Soviets portrayed Pushkin as an opponent of bourgeois literature and culture, and as a pioneer of Soviet literature and poetry.
In 1992, a bust of Alexander Pushkin (sculpted by Bronius Vyšniauskas, with architectural design by Vytautas Nasvytis) that stood in the city centre in Sereikiškės Park from 1955 to 1992 was moved to the estate.
The Alexander Pushkin Museum at Markučiai operated until 2023, when it became the Markučiai Manor Museum, and the events, tours and educational activities organised by it began to change. In 2025 the Markučiai Manor Museum merged with the Vilnius City Museum and became one of its four branches.
In 2020, Markučiai Manor published a book entitled ‘The Story of the Construction of the Wooden Manor House at Markučiai’. The publication is available for purchase at Markučiai Manor and in major Lithuanian libraries.
