Aleksey Sofronov

Alexey Ivanovich Sofronov (Russian: Алексей Иванович Софронов; 1859 – 1925) was a servant and close friend of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from 1871 until his death in 1893. American researcher Roland John Wiley calls him the composer's “chief servant” and “household manager”. According to some researchers, Sofronov was Tchaikovsky's constant lover. After the death of his employer, a significant part of his estate went to Alexey Sofronov by will. After the composer's death, he took part in the creation of the Tchaikovsky Memorial Museum in Klin. 117 letters from the composer to Alexey Sofronov, written from 1875 to 1893, have been preserved. 130 letters from Alexey Sofronov to Tchaikovsky, dated 1877–1893, are kept in the archive of the composer's Klin house-museum. He is repeatedly mentioned in diary entries, letters, and memoirs of Tchaikovsky's friends and relatives as Alyosha and Lyonya. Sofronov is a character in movies about the composer and fictional literary works about his life. Alexey Sofronov became the main character in the book The House in Klin by Soviet local historian and biographer Vladimir Kholodkovsky, dedicated to the creation of the Tchaikovsky House-Museum.