A bookcase, a desk and a sofa are part of the furniture set that was once located at the office of the newspaper “Gudok” (“Signal”). The set was created in the 1930s–1940s and was not used by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. However, it is directly associated with the writer.

In the first half of the 1920s, Mikhail Bulgakov became one of the most prominent authors of “Gudok”. It was a newspaper of railway workers. Although in his diary the writer complained about the need to go to work and compose hateful feuilletons, Bulgakov’s texts were witty and fun.

Bulgakov based the image of the newspaper “The Shipping Gazette” in his “Notes of a Dead Man” (“Theatrical Novel”) on “Gudok”. “Two weeks had passed and there was still no news from the theater. My wounded feelings had gradually healed and the only unbearable thought was the possibility of going back to the ‘Shipping Gazette’ and having to write articles again, ” mused Sergei Leontievich Maksudov, the main character of the novel.

During his time at “Gudok”, Mikhail Bulgakov wrote over 100 texts under a variety of pseudonyms: Gerasim Petrovich Ukhov, M.B., F. S-ov, G.P. Ukhov, M., M. All-Wright, Emma B. and others.

The feuilletons were published on the so-called “Fourth Page”. Along with Bulgakov, Valentin Petrovich Kataev, Konstantin Georgiyevich Paustovsky, Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf and others wrote for the “Fourth Page”.

While working at the editorial office of “Gudok”, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov met and became friends with another writer, Yury Karlovich Olesha, the future author of the famous tale “The Three Fat Men” and the novel “Envy”. Yury Olesha worked at the newspaper in 1922.