Monte Verità (Hill of Truth) is a hill in Ascona, Swiss canton of Ticino. Monte Verità has served as the site of many different Utopian and cultural events and communities since the beginning of the twentieth century.
In 1900 Henry Oedenkoven and Ida Hofmann purchased a hill in Ascona which had been known as "Monescia" and established a "Co-operative vegetarian colony Monte Verità".
Artists and other famous people attracted to this colony included: Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Erich Maria Remarque, Hugo Ball, Else Lasker-Schüler, Stefan George, Isadora Duncan, Carl Eugen Keel, Paul Klee, Carlo Mense, Arnold Ehret, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Wigman, Max Picard, Ernst Toller, Henry van de Velde, Fanny zu Reventlow, Rudolf Laban, Frieda and Else von Richthofen, Otto Gross, Erich Mühsam, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, Walter Segal, Max Weber, Gustav Stresemann and Gustav Nagel.
Historians estimated that more than 10 % of all inhabitants of a colony came from Russia. There’s evidence that colony was visited by artists Marianna Verevkina and Alexey Javlensky, Tolstoy’s biographer Pavel Biryukov. The building “Casa dei Russi” was built for Russian colonists, “Casa dei Russi” has been preserved till nowadays.
“Casa dei Russi”, “Russian House” became “the crystallization core” for the community of artists, writers and researchers. The project "Russian house on Monte Verita" was launched in August, 2012 upon approval by administration of the Monte Verita museum.
Coordinator of project is: Vsevolod Bernstein
