“The Washington Post”

                         November 24, 2000

        “Weekend”

   Moscow on the Potomac

 

   By Gary Lee

    Photos by Lucian Perkins

 

 



Fragment about “ Washington Museum of Russian Poetry”

 

                After reading about  Zislin’s poetry museum, I paid him a visit.

            A 70-year-old with a tuft of white hair and an impish smile. Zislin is immediately engaging. Before emigrating to Washington in 1996 to join his daughter, he organized a  club in  Moscow. Friends and colleagues met regularly there to discuss hot new composers, musicians, writers and literary giants alike. He also sang Rissuan ballads in concert.

            When Zislin settled in Rockville, he transformed the back den of the apartment he shares with his wife and mother info a Russian literary museum. It’s dedicated to five of the great Russian poets of the late 19th and early 20th century: Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelsman, Marina Tsvetaeva and Nikolai Gumilev.

            My tour of the place was a journey through contemporary Russian literary history. Zislin gave shot biographical speeches about each of the poets, pointed out letters they wrote or letters written to them. He waved his hand over hundreds of books by and about the poets and pointed out portraits or photographs of each. As the afternoon progressed, he played a cassette of Pasternak reciting his poems.

            Zislin capped the visit with a special treat. Accompanying himself on the guitar, he sang two of his own poignant ballads.

            “These were poets who never sold themselves out to propaganda, who always remained true to their words,” he said. “This museum is my way of repaying my debt for  the inspiration they brought me over the years.”