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‘I Decorate As If I Owned a Child’

When you’re amy sedaris, you don’t need a baby to furnish a nursery..

This story was originally published in the May 9, 2011 issue of New York Magazine.

I wouldn’t call myself a shut-in. I have the ability to leave my home; I just choose not to. But because I’m such a homebody, it’s important to be surrounded by things I love. I prefer items that convey a sense of mystery, playfulness, or theatricality. My favorite things often have a story behind them and are usually handmade or discovered at a flea market. My furniture is small and low. It’s not unlike living in a dollhouse.

Sometimes, to keep things exciting, I decorate my house as if I owned a child. I’ll toss a tiny pair of shoes in the hallway or lean small wooden crutches in what I refer to as “the baby’s room,” which is actually a tiny space where I make things. I continue to call it the baby’s room because it confuses people and it’s creepy.

I love theatrical props: a cup filled with solid fake tea, say, or a collection of fake food, including a rubber turkey, which, during the holidays, I wrap in tinfoil so it appears to have just come out of the oven. I also have a fondness for prosthetic skin disorders, artificial nails, and stage weapons. My favorite lamp shade is adorned with hair-sample swatches dangling from the rim. I have 60 wooden flying bats — 60!

So, what is my decorating philosophy? Mostly, I choose things on a whim and worry later about how they fit my décor. For many people, this wouldn’t be a big problem. But without any preplanning, why don’t you try and figure out where the antique wax medical model of syphilis goes — above the table with the taxidermy duck or next to the papier-mâché Cyclops? Hmmm … And now you begin to understand my world. — Amy Sedaris

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Amy Sedaris's Greenwich Village Apartment Is The Most Cheerful Home In Manhattan

Her bookshelf is perfectly organized by color.

Even though making changes to an apartment might mean you won't get your security deposit back, "personality fees," as actress Amy Sedaris calls them, are worth it—most of the time. Especially if it means your apartment could be as vibrant as her colorful Greenwich Village retreat, which is—dare I say—one of the most fun New York City apartments I've ever seen.

Maybe it's the fact that her male rabbit, Tina (yea, she found out he was a boy later in his life), has free range of her abode. He even leaves scratches and nibble marks all over her furniture—which she neatly covered up with cute patches on her couch. It's really part of the charm.

Or perhaps it's the various other quirky items she has around, as seen in an exclusive video for New York Magazine 's The Cut , like her lamp made of wig swatches that she literally has to steam when it gets humid out to "fight the frizz." Yes, this is a real thing she says she does...For another, she has an enviable rainbow bookshelf where each of her books are organized perfectly by color.

This, she says, makes it nearly impossible to get rid of books because she can't ruin any of her color sections. While it makes sense why she wouldn't want to mess up her rainbow decor, it's probably safe to say Marie Kondo wouldn't want to hear about Amy keeping books around that 1) she won't read again and 2) that don't spark joy just to maintain a color scheme.

Rabbit, wig lamp, and rainbow bookshelf aside, a tour through her apartment proves she left no space untouched. From a fake frosted beer can from Tokyo, to strings of paper roses made by her sister, to a craft room she calls "the baby's room," Amy's NYC home is truly one-of-a-kind. I'm just jealous I can't see it for myself.

Watch the full apartment tour from The Cut here to see it all for yourself:

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Amy Sedaris Buys Apartment Directly Above Her Whimsical Greenwich Village Home

Amy Sedaris is expanding her real estate portfolio—vertically. The actress and comedienne recently dropped $1.7 million for a fifth-floor unit in Greenwich Village in the building where she already lives, exactly one floor above her current home, likely prepping to construct a duplex.

According to the  New York Post , Sedaris's new purchase is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit, and was originally listed for $1.85 million. The building, built in 1883, is known as The Hampshire, and is located just north of Washington Square Park.

The At Home with Amy Sedaris star recently showed off her current home in a video for New York magazine. The eclectic dwelling boasts customized furniture like built-in yellow cupboards in the living room, a lampshade made of wig samples, and a low couch. “It’s kind of nice to sit on something where you don’t have to swing your legs,” she says, crediting Matthew Broderick 's home as the inspiration for her choice of seating. “And I always have to do that, because I’m short.”

A huge marble fireplace takes up much of the space in the living room, with a mantel full of candles, flowers, and photo frames; a custom built-in bookshelf dominates the dining room. Sedaris explains in the video tour that her decision to color-coordinate her bookshelf makes it tough to find a particular book—she often has to look online to remember the color of a given book’s spine. The kitchen is where the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star cooks for herself but rarely entertains, given the cozy size of the space.

Plastic foods she purchased in Tokyo sit next to real produce on the countertops. A fake glass of wine and a plastic sausage with a fork in it are located in the craft room, which Sedaris says she calls “the baby’s room.” And in her bedroom, dark indigo wallpaper with white flowers lines the wall, adding perhaps the only dark element to the unit, which is otherwise resplendent with floral-patterned wallpaper and prints. No doubt her new upstairs apartment will get the same Sedaris makeover in no time.

Interior Lives Visits the Magical Greenwich Village Apartment of Comedian Amy Sedaris

Interior Lives with Wendy Goodman is an interesting new series from New York Magazine and The Cut that reveals the interiors of New Yorker's homes. Similar to MTV Cribs but for wealthy and famous New Yorkers instead of musicians and actors, the series gives you a revealing peek into just what might be hiding behind your (rich) neighbor's walls. In this episode, visit the magical Greenwich Village home of comedian Amy Sedaris.

With the help of Todd Oldham, her longtime friend and design collaborator, Sedaris gave us a treasured look into her theatrical one-bedroom home, which she often uses as the inspiration (and source!) for the set design of her show At Home With Amy Sedaris. Watch as Amy takes us down the rabbit hole of her wonderland full of whimsy and charm.

via New York Magazine

Matt Coneybeare

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Matt enjoys exploring the City's with his partner and son. He is an avid marathon runner, and spends most of his time eating, running, and working on cool stuff.

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Amy Sedaris Reveals Her Magical Greenwich Village  Apartment

You should paint your walls so they look good with your skin tone. All your lights should be on one level. Think of your security deposit as a personality fee and then do whatever you want to your home. These are just a few tips Amy Sedaris shared with us when Wendy Goodman, our design editor, recently visited her Greenwich Village apartment.

With the help of Todd Oldham, her longtime friend and design collaborator, Sedaris gave us a treasured look into her theatrical one-bedroom home, which she often uses as the inspiration (and source!) for the set design of her show At Home With Amy Sedaris . Watch as Amy takes us down the rabbit hole of her wonderland full of whimsy and charm.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Go inside amy sedaris's magical greenwich village apartment.

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Amy sedaris buys apartment above current village home.

In a recent New York magazine video tour of her Greenwich Village home , Amy Sedaris reveals a darling rabbit, a lampshade made of wigs, a craft room and a rainbow bookshelf.

Now Sedaris has pulled another rabbit out of a hat: She just bought a co-op directly above her existing apartment at 50 W. 9th St., according to city records.

Sedaris bought the one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit on the fifth floor for $1.7 million, down from its $1.85 million asking price.

She bought the spread below it – a one-bed, one-bath on the fourth floor, where she currently lives – for $1.3 million in 2008. Owning both means she’s primed to create a magical duplex.

Sedaris purchased the unit upstairs from celebrity business manager Harley Neuman, who reps Ellen Degeneres, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Murphy.

The actress, comedian and writer currently voices Princess Carolyn on Netlfix’s “BoJack Horseman” and hosts TruTV show “At Home with Amy Sedaris.” She often collaborates with her humor-writing brother, David.

Her 1883 building, designed by Ralph Townsend, is known as The Hampshire. It’s on the so-called Gold Coast, between Fifth and Sixth avenues just north of Washington Square Park.

Actress Amy Sedaris Gives a Tour of Her Wonderfully Quirky Greenwich Village NYC Apartment

• December 26, 2018

Actress Amy Sedaris welcomed the cameras of the New York Magazine series The Cut into her quirky Greenwich Village, New York City apartment for a tour. On hand for the tour was Sedaris’ longtime friend, designer Todd Oldham and Tina, Sedaris’ very cute and very destructive rabbit whom she thought was female for a long time. (He’s not.) With pointer in hand, Sedaris showed off the contents of each room in her home, her most treasured items and even the things Tina has destroyed, all described with her trademark sense of humor.

With the help of Todd Oldham, her longtime friend and design collaborator, Sedaris gave us a treasured look into her theatrical one-bedroom home, which she often uses as the inspiration (and source!) for the set design of her show At Home With Amy Sedaris. Watch as Amy takes us down the rabbit hole of her wonderland full of whimsy and charm.

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Amy Sedaris channels her vintage aesthetic in her Trump-free analog show ‘At Home’

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Amy Sedaris’ apartment, tucked away on a quiet block in Greenwich Village, is a riot of flea-market whimsy, decorated with paintings of her pet bunny rabbits, paper-flower garlands and a lamp made of hair color samples.

The cheerful maximalism may be out of sync with the current, Marie Kondo-inspired vogue for barren bookshelves, but Sedaris is fine with that.

“I read her book. And then I got rid of it because that’s what she says to do. And I feel like I am surrounded by everything that I really like,” says the actress, who on this spring afternoon is sorting her collection of miniatures — itty-bitty dollhouse furniture, food and accessories she keeps in hand-stenciled jars. There are teensy-weensy bags of potato chips, a stamp-sized portrait of Charles and Diana, a vanity made of matchboxes, even a “cute little syringe.”

“I got into collecting these,” she says, opening a box of a dozen or so antique ham-shaped charms, with the words “Smith’s Premium Ham” stamped in gold letters. “I would love to do little hams that say ‘Amy Sedaris.’ Wouldn’t that be cute?”

It would certainly be on-brand for Sedaris, the co-creator and star of “At Home With Amy Sedaris,” a surreal sketch-comedy show rather loosely based on her off-kilter how-to books “I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence” and “Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People.”

The show, which airs on TruTV and recently wrapped its second season, was nominated for an Emmy last year in a category won by “Saturday Night Live.”

Co-created with her longtime collaborator Paul Dinello, “At Home” is a more niche concoction, one that appeals most potently, she says, to “ugly people, misfits and outcasts.”

To be clear, that’s a compliment.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour »

Sedaris has been happy to play the oddball since she first gained a following with the cult comedies “Exit 57” and “Strangers With Candy.” In the latter, which marked its 20th anniversary last month, she starred as Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old who goes back to high school after decades as a “boozer, user and loser.”

An off-color spoof of the moralizing after-school specials of the 1980s and ‘90s, the underappreciated “Strangers With Candy” aired for three seasons on Comedy Central and helped launch the career of Stephen Colbert, who played Jerri’s closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. She thinks the show couldn’t be made today, because people have become too sensitive. (“What a drag,” she says.)

Since then she’s played supporting roles in “Sex and the City,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and “BoJack Horseman”; popped up in the humorous essays written by her brother, bestselling author David Sedaris; and become one of late-night TV’s favorite go-to guests. She’s done well enough that she just bought the apartment upstairs, which she plans to use as a hybrid storage space, studio and writers room. But she’s not interested in being super-duper famous the way her old friend Colbert has become.

“I’d rather be a little bit under the radar,” says Sedaris, who likes that “At Home” airs on TruTV. “You have to really find it. I like the audience that’s willing to do that. They’re more loyal and dedicated.”

Sedaris is trying to decide the appropriate home for some miniature tombstones when Tina, her pet bunny, silently hops into the room. Sedaris explains that she recently learned that the rabbit, who will be 5 in September, is actually a male. She points to a portrait of Tina, painted by her brother-in-law, that’s hanging over the couch. The animal’s left paw looks unmistakably phallic. “Tina must’ve been putting out male energy. Right?”

Sedaris’ twisted sense of humor co-exists with an essentially wholesome quality that dates back to her childhood in North Carolina. She was involved in Junior Achievements and Girl Scouts, experiences that fueled her industrious spirit.

“I always sold the most cookies, always. I like making money. I still sell stuff to make money. I love getting cash and having a table between me and whoever it is. I like that transaction. I keep waiting to see when I’m going to grow out of that.”

Long after she became semi-famous, she sold cupcakes for extra income. Then it was potholders made from a kit. “I used to spit them out: Go, go, go. Then the company changed the loops and I lost the one thing I was really good at.” So she has moved on to decorating butane lighters — “everyone needs one for their tool kit,” she figures — using Dum Dums wrappers and packing tape.

“At Home” draws inspiration from “The Lawrence Welk Show,” “SCTV” and “At Home With Peggy Mann,” a show that aired on the local public television station when Sedaris was growing up and had a stilted, lonely quality she remembers fondly.

In “At Home,” Sedaris plays a version of herself, the chipper host of a homemaking show set in a bright vintage kitchen, as well as a number of eccentric supporting players who could all be descendants of Jerri Blank.

There’s “Regional Wine Lady” Ronnie Vino, a lush who offers tips on getting drunk on cheap booze; Patty Hogg, a busybody with a thick-as-gumbo Southern drawl; and Nutmeg, whose distinguishing feature is a nose turned up with tape. Grotesque is Sedaris’ comfort zone. Several times in our conversation, she slips almost involuntarily into Jerri Blank mode — nasal voice, overbite, crossed eyes, furrowed brow.

Sedaris, who is 58 but looks a decade younger, has never “played the pretty card” because, she says, “it’s much more fun to go ugly.”

Episodes are organized around seemingly innocuous themes (“Halloween,” “Entertaining for Peanuts”) but tend to take gonzo turns. In Season 1’s holiday episode, for instance, Sedaris was attacked by a demonic nutcracker.

“At Home” has attracted big-name guest stars like Justin Theroux and Michael Shannon, who, she jokes, “are in it for the $700.” Her dream guests include John Malkovich and Patricia Arquette, whose performance in “Escape at Dannemora” as a frumpy prison guard she raves about. “I just love when people put themselves out there like that.”

In an era when TV is flooded with topical humor, “At Home” stands out for its utter lack of contemporary references — there’s no Trump, no social media, no cellphones, lending the show a refreshingly apolitical, analog feel.

There is a lot they have to run by the standards department, including a sketch involving pubic wigs made of yarn and, once, a turkey that went to the bathroom in the middle of a scene.

“They wanted us to blur the poop,” she says, “but we didn’t.”

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Meredith Blake is an entertainment reporter for the Los Angeles Times based out of New York City, where she primarily covers television. A native of Bethlehem, Pa., she graduated from Georgetown University and holds a master’s degree from New York University.

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At Home With: Amy Sedaris

Where a Comedian Does Her Serious Entertaining

By Ginia Bellafante

• June 22, 2006

THOSE people in life whom we are most apt to think of as "characters" — those who keep odd hours or amuse themselves by making art out of rickshaws or tend bar while they learn how to juggle — are generally the ones from whom we least expect regular invitations to dinner. And to meet Amy Sedaris or to know her work is to imagine someone far removed from domestic ambition.

Ms. Sedaris, the playwright and comic performer who has long portrayed the oversized, the deformed and the delusional, lives in a small, dark apartment in the West Village with a collection of plaster meats, a few stuffed squirrels, books on skin disorders, some plastic layer cakes, wallpaper made from candy wrappers she procured in Chinatown, sandwiches made out of felt and her celebrated rabbit Dusty, who replaced her celebrated rabbit Tattletail after Tattletail died.

As much as her surroundings suggest a personality disinclined toward human fraternity, Ms. Sedaris is, of all things, a people person, and beyond that, a homemaker. Should she meet you and find you sufficiently genial, she will have you over for chili, baked ham or spanakopita (a Greek spinach pie, her mother's recipe), and she will undoubtedly bake.

The apartment where Ms. Sedaris, 45, has lived for 12 years is the center of her social and professional life. It is here where she most enjoys seeing friends, inviting 17 of them over, say, to celebrate Martin Luther King's Birthday. And it is here where she collaborated with her writing partners, Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello, to create the movie version of the Comedy Central series "Strangers With Candy," which arrives in theaters on Wednesday.

"I really don't like going out," Ms. Sedaris said one afternoon last week. "I don't like restaurants because I don't like the idea of someone, a waitress, being responsible for my evening. I like seconds, and more, and lots of conversation, and I've always hated the idea that in a restaurant an evening just ends. I find that incredibly depressing."

Her friend David Rakoff, a writer, uses the term hamish to describe her gatherings. "Do you know what it means?" he said. "It is Yiddish for homey."

Recently, Ms. Sedaris has sequestered herself in her apartment with a handful of young graphic designers in order to finish her book "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence." Due from Warner Books in the fall, it assembles her recipes, her ideas about entertaining and instructions for her crafts; one project is a grieving pouch, for memorializing a beloved dead hamster, mouse or gerbil.

"I was thinking a lot about hot lunches," Ms. Sedaris said, elaborating on the concept for her book. "And I thought, Who eats hot lunches? Well, lumberjacks eat hot lunches, so there's a whole part about how to entertain a lumberjack." More practically, she tells readers how to make room dividers out of colored pantyhose and offers advice for conducting a funeral reception. "When my mom died, wow, suddenly we had all these people to entertain," Ms. Sedaris said. "People are great and bring all this food, and I found a good tip is to put names on dishes so you know who to give a dish back to."

Ms. Sedaris's mother, Sharon, to whom she was close, died of lung cancer 15 years ago. Ten years before, at age 20, Ms. Sedaris had gone into business with her mother, making and selling spanakopita in Raleigh, N.C., where Sharon and Lou Sedaris raised their six children. One evening after she and her mother had been cooking, Ms. Sedaris came home to her apartment to find her boyfriend unconscious on the floor. He had had a brain aneurism and would have four more, and Ms. Sedaris spent the next three years caring for him as he worked to regain his speech and mobility.

"I learned so much about I.C.U. nurses and hospitals," she said. "I learned that you take care of the nurses; that if you want something done, you bring a Crock-Pot of soup." Her boyfriend had immigrated to the United States from Greece by himself a few years earlier, so Ms. Sedaris was in charge of his recovery. Her parents worried that her whole life would be wrapped up in caring for someone else. "But it never entered my mind not to do it," Ms. Sedaris said.

"It has left me now with the feeling that just because I'm in a rocking chair here today does not mean I'll be in a rocking chair tomorrow, because I could be crippled," she said.

When the couple eventually split up, Ms. Sedaris, who chose to forgo college, followed her brother, the writer David Sedaris, to Chicago, and joined the Second City comedy troupe. It was there that she met Mr. Colbert and Mr. Dinello, who directed the movie version of "Strangers With Candy" and plays a gay art teacher, Geoffrey Jellineck, in it. Ms. Sedaris moved to New York in 1993 and her friends followed a few years later.

"Strangers With Candy" revolves around Ms. Sedaris's character Jerri Blank, which was inspired by a former substance abuser turned motivational speaker featured in a documentary Mr. Dinello found in a video store. "The film was terrible and preachy, and the woman looked like Michael Dukakis," Ms. Sedaris said. But it propelled her to start playing an overweight 46-year-old who decides to go back to high school after years spent as a drug addict and prostitute. "Strangers With Candy" is at once a wry and puerile comment on our cultural obsession with prolonged adolescence. In the film Jerri competes in a science fair in the hope that it will rouse her father out of a coma.

Throughout her career Ms. Sedaris has said she would have little interest in playing anyone who looked like her, which is to say anyone slender and pretty. Years ago, when she used to produce monologues for auditions, she would read from "Our Bodies, Ourselves." Once, in a play she wrote with her brother David, she assumed the role of a young woman who became a TV star after her face was mutilated in an accident involving a boat propeller.

"A lot of Amy's choices, personally and professionally, can just seem so random, but they're incredibly considered," Mr. Dinello said. "You don't know how she's gotten from A to B to C, but she has really, really thought everything through." Her home, apparently, is further proof. "You look at it," he said, "and you think, O.K., this belongs to some 65-year-old crazy cat lady, but there's a real precision to everything; if you moved one of her squirrels two inches, she would know it."

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Take a walk through the most ancient Kremlin in Russia

The Novgorod Kremlin, which is also called ‘Detinets’, is located on the left bank of the Volkhov River. The first fortified settlement was set here during the reign of prince Vladimir Yaroslavich, the son of Yaroslav the Wise. During these times, all the state, public and religious life of Novgorod was concentrated here. It was the place where people kept chronicles and copied the texts of books. The Novgorod Kremlin, the most ancient one in Russia, was founded here in the 15th century.

St. Sophia Cathedral (11th century), The Millennium Of Russia Monument, Episcopal Chamber (15th century) and the main exhibition of The State Novgorod Museum-reservation located in a public office building of the 18th century are all situated in the Novgorod Kremlin. The exhibition will tell you about the whole Novgorod history from ancient times to the present day. There are also restoration workshops, a children’s center, a library and a philharmonic inside the Kremlin walls.

Send a letter with the State Novgorod Museum-reservation stamp

While visiting the main building of the Novgorod Kremlin museum, you’ll see a small bureau near the souvenir area. Two more bureaus like that can be found in the Fine Arts Museum and the Museum information centre. This is the Museum Post, the joint project of the State Novgorod Museum-reservation and Russian Post.

The tradition to exchange letters (at that time written on birch bark sheets) dates back to the 11th century so it’s hardly surprising that such a project appeared here. The bureaus are desks and mailboxes at the same time, so you can send your friends a postcard with a view of Novgorod right from the museum.

Find the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin among the figures of The Millennium Of Russia Monument

In 1862, 1000 years after the Varangians were called to Russia, a monument dedicated to this event was launched in Novgorod. To tell the story of Russia’s one thousand years, the sculptor used 129 bronze figures: from state and military leaders to artists and poets.

One of figures portrays Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, a politician and reformer who was responsible for Russia’s diplomatic relations in the middle of the 17th century. He is believed to be the father of international and regular mail in Russia. He was also the person who came up with the idea of the first Russian Post official emblem — a post horn and a double-headed eagle.

Cross the Msta River over the first arch bridge in Russia

The steel bridge in Borovichi town that connects two banks of the Msta river was built at the beginning of the 20th century. The project of the bridge was created by Nikolay Belelyubsky, engineer and professor of St. Petersburg State Transport University. This is the first arch bridge in Russia.

In 1995, it was included in the national cultural heritage register. More than 100 bridges across Russia were developed by Belelyubsky, but only this one is named after him.

Cast a virtual bell

When in the Novgorod region, you’ll definitely hear bells ring and learn about the Novgorod Veche Bell. During the siege of the city, tsar Ivan III ordered to remove this bell from the bell tower and send it to Moscow. Legend says that the bell didn’t accept his fate, fell to the ground near the border of the Novgorod region and broke to pieces against the stones.

In the biggest Museum Bell Centre in Russia located in the Valday town, you can see bells from across the world and learn why Novgorod bells are unique. The museum’s collection represents bells from different countries and ages, some of them dating back to the 3rd century BC. You’ll learn about the history of casting and modern bell-making technologies and also play games on a touch table. For example, harness virtual ‘troika’ (three) horses with bells or cast a virtual bell.

Spot the pigeon on the cross of St. Sophia Cathedral

St. Sophia Cathedral was built in Novrogod between 1045 and 1050 by Kievan and Byzantine masters. It was conceived as the main cathedral of the city, and during its first years it was the only stone building in Novgorod. So where does the pigeon on the cross of the cathedral’s biggest dome come from?

Legend says that while tsar Ivan the Terrible and his Oprichniki were cruelly killing peaceful city folk in 1570, a pigeon suddenly sat down to the cross of the city’s main cathedral. It looked down, saw the massacre, and was literally petrified with horror. Since then the pigeon has been considered the defender of the city. People believe that as soon as the pigeon flies away from the cross, Novgorod will come to an end.

Visit a monastery, that was founded by Patriarch Nikon

The Valday Iver Monastery is situated on the island in the middle of the Valday lake. It is considered to be one of the most important and picturesque orthodox shrines.

The monastery was founded in 1653 by the initiative of Nikon who had just been elected Patriarch. Nikon wanted the monastery to look like the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos, including the architectural style and monk’s clothes. Legend says that Nikon saw the spot for the monastery in a dream.

Check out Fyodor Dostoevsky’s country house

Fyodor Dostoevsky, a famous Russian writer, first visited Staraya Russa town in 1872 during a summer trip with his family. They liked it so much that the next year they rented a house near the Pererytitsa River’s embankment and spent every summer here ever since.

Dostoevsky loved this house, called it ‘his nest’ and considered it the perfect place to work and to be alone. In Staraya Russa he wrote his novels ‘The Adolescent’, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ and ‘Demons’. Today, this place is a museum where you can explore what Dostoevsky’s house looked like and see his family’s personal belongings, photos and letters.

Visit an authentic Russian ‘izba’ (wooden house)

If you want to really enjoy the atmosphere of the old Novgorod, you should come to the Vitoslavlitsy Museum of folk wooden architecture that is located on the Myachino lake not far away from Veliky Novgorod. In this open-air museum you’ll see the best examples of Russian wooden architecture, including authentic old ‘izbas’ (wooden houses), rural chapels and churches.

During the year, the museum hosts fairs of crafts and folklore, christmastides, and even an international bell ringing festival.

Learn what Brick Gothic looks like

The Episcopal Chamber of the Novgorod Kremlin is the only non-religious German Gothic building of the 15th century preserved in Russia. You can have a good look at the facets of the gothic cross-domed vaults inside the chamber. This is why this building is also called ‘Faceted Chamber’ or ‘Chamber of Facets’.

The chamber was part of Vladychny Dvor, the place where all important city events took place: court hearings, gatherings of the Council of Lords of the Novgorod Republic, ambassador’s receptions and feasts. The seals of the city’s lords were kept here. The decree of tsar Ivan III on merging the Novgorod Republic with the Moscow State was first announced in 1478 in Episcopal Chamber. This is when the name of the new state, Russia, was first pronounced.

See the murals by Theophanes the Greek

The Byzantine Empire had a huge impact on the development of the Russian culture. Many works of art and architecture in ancient Russia were created by Byzantine artists and masters. Theophanes the Greek was one of them. He was born in Byzantine and created icons and murals in Constantinople and Caffa (modern Feodosia). After that he moved to Novgorod where he was commissioned to paint the walls of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Ilyina Street. You can enjoy his unique and expressive style if you look at the murals inside the dome of the church and the Trinity side chapel.

The most recognizable and the only monumental work of Theophanes the Greek that is preserved today is the chest-high portrait of the Savior the Almighty in the dome of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior.

Take a photo with an ancient Novgorod citizen who is learning how to read and write

In 1951, a letter written on birch bark dating back to the 14–15th centuries was found in Veliky Novgorod. Many decades later, in 2019, a sculpture designed by Novgorod artist and sculptor Sergey Gaev appeared on this exact site.

The sculpture portrays an 8–year old boy sitting on a stool and holding a piece of birch bark. At this age children in Novgorod started to learn how to read and write. During archaeological excavations in Novgorod, scientists often found ancient handwriting practice books and children’s drawings on birch bark sheets.

Feel like an ancient viking or prince Rurik’s guest

Novgorod is one of the waypoints of the famous trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The route passed through the Volkhov river. In the 9–10th centuries there was a fortified settlement of the Viking Age here.

Some scientists believe that Novgorod is named after this area which was called ‘Stary Gorod’ (‘Old City’) at that time. Some historians and archeologists consider this place to be the residence of Prince Rurik who was asked to rule the city in 862. That’s why this ancient settlement is called ‘Rurikovo Gorodische’ (‘Ruruk’s Old City’).

Learn more about the Soviet modernist architecture

On the bank of the Volkhov river near the Novgorod Kremlin, there is an incredible building that looks like a spaceship and contrasts strongly with the ancient buildings of the city.

This is the Fyodor Dostoevsky Theater of Dramatic Art that was built in 1987. It is one of the most striking examples of the Soviet modernist architecture. The theater was built for 10 years according to the project of architect Vladimir Somov.

See what an everyday life of Old Believers looks like

The Krestsy town in the Novgorod region has always been considered to be the center of the Novgorod Old Belief community, and it still is. Before the Soviet revolution there were three Old Believers churches here.

The Lyakova village, which is located not far from the town, used to be inhabited completely by Old Believers. You can learn more about their lifestyle in the local interactive museum. You’ll be introduced to Old Believers’ traditional crafts and ceremonies, drink tea with healing herbs and learn how to chop wood and use an old spinning wheel.

Buy a traditional embroidered tablecloth

A unique embroidery style that is now famous all over the world was born in the Staroye Rakhino village in the Novgorod province. By the middle of the 19th century, it had become a folk craft. Since then, linen tablecloths, towels and clothing items decorated with unusual ornaments have been popular not only among the locals, but also travellers.

In 1929, the first cooperative partnership of embroidery masters was created in Kresttsy. Later it turned into a factory that still operates today. The factory has a museum where embroidery traditions are preserved and new ornaments and technologies are created.

Find yourself in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, Staraya Russa town could be called ‘the salt cellar of Russia’. That’s because salt making was the main trade here up to the 19th century. A few years ago, the old craft was brought back to life, and construction of salt works began. Later, an interactive museum was launched based on the results of archaeological findings.

This museum recreates a typical medieval manor of Staraya Russa of the 12th century with living rooms, a bathhouse, workshops, a livestock pen and traditional peasant household items. In this museum, you can also buy salt which is made in the same way as 1000 years ago.

See the place where Suvorov started his Italian campaign

Alexander Suvorov’s manor in the Konchanskoe village, which has now become the museum of the great commander, was originally the place of his exile. Suvovor openly disagreed with the reform of Russian’s army based on the Prussian model, and Emperor Paul the First didn’t appreciate such behaviour. He first fired Suvorov and then sent him away to his family estate.

However, the exile lasted for only two years. The great commander started the military campaign straight from his house in the Konchanskoe. During this legendary expedition, he crossed the Alps and defeated the French army.

Become a real hiker

If you dream of having a hike in the Novgorod region, but at the same time you are afraid that a tourist’s life may be too hard, you should try the Big Valday trail. This is a five-day 59-kilometer walking route. Its central part goes right through the Valday National Park’s territory.

You won’t have to cope with difficulties and inconveniences of camping life here. The route is marked with signs, and there are camping sites where you can find everything you need for an overnight stay from shelters and places for a fire to toilets. The trail finishes at the Dunayevshchina village where you can take a bus back to Valday. To take the trail, you have to fill out a special form and register on the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation website.

Russian Post has launched a limited series of products dedicated to the cultural heritage of the Novgorod region.

In autumn 2020, Russian Post announced an open contest to create the design for its limited series dedicated to Novgorod region. The project was supported by the Government of the Novgorod region, ‘Russ Novgorodskaya’ (Novgorod Russia) project, the State Novgorod Museum-reservation and Yandex.

Stamps and envelopes are traditionally used to spread information about historic dates and figures and famous landmarks. Now we can also use parcel boxes, packaging tape and postcards. The limited series products will travel around the world, introducing the most popular Russian attractions to six million Russian Post clients daily.

The participants were to create the design for the limited series featuring three iconic attractions of the Novgorod region, the Novgorod Kremlin, the Millennium Of Russia Monument and the Belelyubsky Bridge in Borovichi. Moscow designers and graduates of the Higher School of Economics’ Art and Design School Alena Akmatova and Svetlana Ilyushina won the contest. Their project was chosen via an open vote and by the expert jury.

• Tourist Attractions
• Tourist Attractions in Russia
• Novgorod Oblast Tourist Attractions

Veliky Novgorod

The whole city of Veliky Novgorod is a big museum; there are many well-preserved monuments dating back to the 11th century and later centuries.

Veliky Novgorod attractions

Novgorod kremlin, trade side and yaroslav’s courtyard, st. george's monastery, vitoslavlitsy museum of wooden architecture.

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Discover historical attractions of Veliky Novgorod

• Private trip from St. Petersburg
• Visit Novgorod Kremlin and the Cathedral of St. Sophia
• Explore Yaroslav’s Court with its medieval churches
• Pick-up and drop-off at your hotel

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