Tchaikovsky never played the piano in a concert hall for an audience, but he did play at home for his guests, and enjoyed playing duets on the piano with visiting musicians. His evening entertainments also usually included oral readings of literature. His writing desk, where he wrote letters every morning after breakfast, is at the end of the room. Over the desk, in the place of honor, is a picture of Anton Rubenstein, the founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music and his first teacher of instrumentation and composing. Just below the picture of Rubenstein is a picture of Beethoven. On the other walls are many photographs of his family, in particular of his father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, and his mother, Alexandra Andreyevna. Nearby are two bookcases containing his musical library and his library of Russian and foreign literature, and the bound sets of magazines to which he subscribed. The other cabinets in the room are filled with gifts to Tchaikovsky, including an ink-pot in the form of the Statue of Liberty given to him during his visit to the United States. The bedroom of the composer adjoins the reception room through a doorway covered with a curtain. He composed music in this room on a plain unpainted table overlooking the garden. The table was made of Karelian birch by village workers in Maidanovo, when he first settled in the Klin region. This was the table on which Tchaikovsky composed his 6th Symphony, the "Pathetique", the last major work before his death. In his final years, Tchaikovsky was strongly attracted to nature, country life. and his garden. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck: "The nearer I approach old age, the more lovely is my pleasure being close to nature. Never before have I reveled so much in the beauty of spring, the awakening vegetation, birds returning home – in short, everything which is brought by the Russian spring, actually the most beautiful and jovial spring on earth". He also wrote: "It is impossible to suggest a better a more suitable way of living than in the countryside. After each new trip to Moscow I come to realize more and more how city life ruins me. Each time I return here I'm completely ill, but I immediately recover in my quiet corner". His garden was not tidy and orderly, but rather like an idealized forest, with a winding path and a gazebo at the far end from the house.