In the 1890s Yalta – Russia’s southernmost (Black) seaside resort – was home to two famous convalescents. Both were suffering from tuberculosis and both had come to the warm south in the hope of easing their symptoms.

The more famous of the two was Anton Chekhov; in Yalta he was to write the plays The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard plus the famous short story, The Lady with the Dog. Many Russian luminaries, including Rachmaninoff, made the long pilgrimage south to visit him.

The other, lesser known, Yalta resident was a young composer, Vasily Kalinnikov; here he wrote, among other things, two fine symphonies and here he was to die, tragically young, a few days before reaching his 35th birthday.

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