Theatre now stands were the favourite meeting places for Moscow's artists. 1923 At the beginning of the boulevard a statue of the scientist Kliment Timiryazev was unveiled on 4 November 1923, sculpted by Sergey Merkurov and laid out by the architect Osipov. The scholar is depicted in the gown of Cambridge University where he was awarded an honorary doctorate. The granite pedestal bears the inscription of 'the curve of plant physiology' which Timiryazev elucidated. In October 1941 the statue was overturned by a Fascist bomb, but after a few hours it was back in its place. Its lower half still bears the marks caused by bomb splinters. The site was chosen after the corner block of Tverskoy Boulevard and Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, facing the square, burnt down. The new city administration preferred to keep the open area and installed the monument to Timiryazev in 1923, which is one of the oldest extant monuments of the Soviet age. 1990s In 1995 a statue by Bichugov was put up in the centre of the boulevard in memory of Sergei Yesenin. On the left hand side at No. 11 there is a house built in the first half of the 19th century. From 1889 to 1928 it was the home of the great actress Maria Yermolova. Her father was the prompter at the Maly Theatre—she learnt to read from his prompt copies of plays. In 1862 her father enrolled her in the drama school on Neglinnaya Street. It was said of her first role, in Emilia Galotti on the stage of the Maly Theatre, that such a debut occurs only once in a hundred years. She played the lead roles in the tragedies The Maid of Orleans and Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller, and Katerina Kabanova and Larisa Ogudalova in Ostrovsky's plays. Her study was on the first floor with windows of violet glass. On 15 May 1970 the house was opened as a memorial museum. On the site of the new building of MKhAT (No.22) stood the house of A. Kologrivov, where long years ago extravagant balls were held. Praskovya Yurevna, the elderly lady of the house, was very keen on these entertainments, and she served Griboyedov as a model for his Tatyana Yurevna in Woe from Wit - Such balls she gives – none could be richer From Christmas-tide and on to Easter. In her younger days she organized performances of