Memoirs of Old Moscow in the years before Lenin and Stalin

Vladimir Gilyarovsky

translated and edited by Brian Murphy Michael Pursglove

Memoirs of Old Moscow in the years before Lenin and Stalin

Vladimir Gilyarovsky

translated and edited by Brian Murphy Michael Pursglove

The translators

Brian Murphy: Former Professor of Russian, University of Ulster; former UN translator; translator and editor of Mikhail Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don.

Michael Pursglove: Former Senior Lecturer in Russian, University of Exeter; translator of Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Children, Smoke and Virgin Soil (all Alma Classics), of D.V. Grigorovich's Anton and of numerous Russian short stories.

Cover Kitai-gorod from Theatre Square, photographed by Nikolai Naidenov in 1884

PREFACE

The casual reader might be surprised to learn that none of the chapters of this book, such a nostalgic evocation of old Russia, were published before 1926 and that the majority of them date from 1934 or 1935. A more careful reading will reveal references to post-1917 Russia, but these are relatively few: aeroplanes, the metro, the cleaning up of the filthy River Neglinka, the demolition of the Khitrovka slum, NEP, the opening of the House of the Peasant in what had been the Hermitage Restaurant or the workers' demonstration which ends the chapter devoted to his great friend Anton Chekhov. It is, however, surprising that a book which, for all its occasional nods of approval to the Soviet regime, contains long passages devoted to Moscow's flourishing merchant class,was allowed to be published in the 1930s. This was a time when, especially after the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in August 1934, Communist Party control over all branches of the Arts was consolidated. The policy of "Socialist Realism" was officially adopted; unofficially, as Boris Pasternak put it, many writers adopted the "genre of silence" in order to survive. By then, all traces of the merchant class, described in such detail by Gilyarovsky, had been eradicated, often violently. It is true that Gilyarovsky could justifiably claim to have been a long-time supporter of the anti-Tsarist cause. He was a friend of the left-wing writers Gleb Uspensky and Maxim Gorky, and clearly sympathised with those, students, writers, political and religious dissidents, who had fallen foul of the regime. It is also true that Gilyarovsky indulges in a degree of cautious self-censorship. For instance, he suppressed the fact that he was the son of a Tsarist police official; there is only one passing reference to Lenin and no mention at all of other Soviet leaders; he does not mention the fate, at the hands of the Soviet regime, of many of the characters described. However, at a time when many writers, even those broadly sympathetic to the regime, were silenced, imprisoned or shot, both the author and his book survived and flourished. In the final analysis, this fact can only plausibly be ascribed to the fickle and arbitrary nature of Stalin's tyrrany. In "Antosha Chekhonte" Gilyarovsky alludes to his age – eighty i.e. he is writing in 1935 and claiming, mendaciously, to have been born in 1855. These, then, are, like many, if not most memoirs, the reminiscencesof an old man who, though he lived in Moscow for more than half a century, was a provincial who viewed the city in all its aspects with the fascination of an outsider. Through his meticulous eye for detail, his vivid use of language and his instinct for a good story, the "King of reporters" has communicated this fascination to generations of Russians in general and to Muscovites in particular. They are the memoirs of a man who lived a highly colourful life himself, in an era – the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century – which saw the crumbling of the old order. His method of writing memoirs, is, on his own admission unusual:

After all, memoirs are usually something that follows through in logical sequence from day to day and from one year till the next. That sort of text works for generals in retirement, to old officials or to scholars who are no longer active ̶ that is to say for individuals who have lived through to old age in one place and one type of job.

When he moved away from journalism to memoir writing, Gilyarovsky came to regard himself primarily as a chronicler. So successful was he in this that his work, particularly Memoirs of Old Moscow (his title was Moscow and the Muscovites) has proved a rich, and often unique, source of

i material for linguists, historians and even novelists. The popular stories of the modern writer Boris Akunin owe a great deal to material supplied by Gilyarovsky. Memoirs of Old Moscow combines two works published in their final form in 1935 and 1934 respectively: Moscow and the Muscovites [Moskva I Moskvichi] (Chapters 1-31)and People and Encounters [Druz'ia i vstrechi] (Chapters 32-42). The second of these contains chapters set in Petersburg, Yalta and on the Volga; we have decided to retain these, on the grounds that they are of considerable intrinsic interest and that, for vast majority of the chapters, our title is justified. The text is based on that published by Moskovsky Rabochy in 1986. Grateful acknowledgement is due to two Russian colleagues, Felix Abramovich Litvin of Oryol University and Igor Vasilyevich Volkov of the University of Rostov-on-Don (now the Southern Federal University). With exemplary patience and precision they elucidated many of the linguistic puzzles thrown up by Gilyarovsky's sometimes elliptical and highly idiomatic, and always vivid, style. Thanks are also due to Edward Hicks, of Oxford and Harvard Universities, who first suggested the idea of translating Gilyarovsky, most of whose work remains untranslated.

ABM MP February 2016

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TABLE OF DATES

1853 (26 November/8December) Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky born in Vologda Province. Son of a minor police official. Throughout his life claims to have been born in 1855 as the son of an assistant estate steward.

1860 Family moves to the town of Vologda.

1860-71 Educated at Vologda Grammar School

1871 Fails school exams and runs away from home. Walks from Vologda to Yaroslavl.

1871-81 Leads nomadic existence. Works as a barge-hauler on the Volga, stevodore, fireman, factory worker (in a white lead factory), horse herder, circus artiste, provincial actor.

1873 Publishes poems, his first publication.

1877-78 Serves as volunteer soldier in the Russo-Turkish war.

1881 Moves to Moscow. Contemplates acting career, but soon turns to newspaper reporting.

1882 Begins to work for Moscow Sketch.

1883 Meets Anton Chekhov, who coins the nickname "Uncle Gilyai" for him.

1883-89 Works for Russian News.

1884 Marries Maria Ivanovna Murzina (1860-1953).

1885 Birth of son Alexei, who dies in infancy.

1886 Birth of daughter Nadezhda (1886-1966).

1887 Publishes short stories and sketches People of the Slums. Book is burned by the authorities.

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1889-1902 Heads the Moscow of office of the newspaper Russia.

1894 Publishes first book of poetry Forgotten Copybook.

1896 Publishes account of the disaster at Khodynka field and causes a sensation.

1901-13 Works for Russian Word.

1922 Separate, uncensored edition of long poem "Stenka Razin" published.

1926 Publication of five sketches under the title Moscow and the Muscovites.

1928 Publication of My Wanderings.

1931 Second edition of Moscow and the Muscovites, much expanded, revised and retitled Notes of a Muscovite. [Zapiski Moskvicha].

1933 Publication of Friends and Encounters (chapters 32-42 in the present translation).

1935 Moscow and the Muscovites (Memoirs of Old Moscow) published in its present form, minus "The long- distance Navigator" and "Before my Eyes", which have been included in all subsequent editions. "Palaces, Merchants and Lyapintsy" was also expanded in subsequent editions.

1935 (1 October) Death of Gilyarovsky. He is interred in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

1941 Theatre People published.

1960 Newspaper Moscow published.

2015 Opening announced of the Gilyarovsky Museum, located in Stoleshnikov Lane, where the writer lived 1886-1935.

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CONTENTS

1 In Moscow 1 2 From Lefortovo to Khamovniki 2 3 Theatre Square 5 4 Khitrovka . 7 5 The Long-distance Navigator 23 6 Sukharevka 27 7 Under the Kitai Wall 41 8 Secrets of the Neglinka Stream 48 9 Night on the Boulevard of Flowers 51 10 The Tankard with an Eagle on it 55 11 Dramatists from Dogs' Hall 60 12 Palaces, Merchants and Lyapintsy 65 13 The Artists' Wednesdays 78 14 Budding Artists 82 15 On Trubnaya Square 87 16 The Heart of Moscow 97 17 Lubyanka 105 18 Beneath the Fire Tower 113 19 Bakers and Hairdressers 124 20 Two Circles 136 21 The Hunters' Club 143 22 Lion on the Gates 148 23 Students 159 24 Naryshkin Square 165 25 The Story of Two Houses 169 26 Bathhouses 179 27 Taverns 202 28 The Pit 222 29 Olsufyevskaya Fortress 225 30 Along the Piterskaya 229 31 Before my Eyes 234 32 The People from Starogladovskaya 239 33 Antosha Chekhonte 249 34 The Book that was Burned 268 35 Singer of the City 276 36 The Rooks have Returned 283 37 Unexpected Joy 288 38 Meetings with Gorky 297 39 Fogabal 300 40 Under the Jolly Nanny Goat 310 41 Rasplyuyev's Pupil 324 42 Men with "Wolf Permits" 333 Appendices: 1. Dramatis personae 342 2.Map and list of selected Moscow sites 363 3. Publications referred to in the text 369

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1 InMoscow

Our train was half empty by the time it stopped at the dark side platform of the Yaroslavl Station and we came out onto the square, pushing past the cabmen who were shouting their heads off as they concentrated on the richer passengers. They evidently considered us not worthy of their attention. We stepped out boldly, slipping and stumbling over the bumpy, hard packed surface of the snow, seeing nothing either under our feet, or ahead of us. As there was no wind, the snow was coming down in thick flakes and we could barely see a few occasional brighter spots. It was only when I bumped into a wooden pillar that I realized that this was one of the street lights, hardly able to spread its light beyond its own panes, under their layer of thick damp snow. We were walking along, carrying our little wooden boxes on our shoulders. From time to time we were overtaken by some of the other passengers who had succeeded in hiring a cab. But they went past us and we were back on our own. Total silence and just the white snow stretching away in front of us into the unknown and unseen distance. All we knew was that our destination was Lefortovo. Our guide had been brought up in Moscow and he pronounced it "Lafortovo". "There you are now, that's the Ryazan Station," he said, pointing at the darkening shape of a long building with no lights except for one round bright light above that showed the time was now half past one. We walked past the stations, crawled over a snowdrift and started striding out again in the narrow lanes along fences interspersed with small wooden houses and gates tight shut. Here and there we could see little windows, lit with the reddish yellow glimmer of a lamp. Everything seemed to be dark and silent, as though it were fast asleep. In the distance a bell rang twice – two o'clock. "That's from Basmannaya and that one's Olkhovskaya," he explained. Then suddenly he began to crow like a cockerel: "Cock a doodle doo…" We were just amazed. What was he doing? Had he gone mad? But his voice rang out again… Suddenly the cockerels woke up to answer his call, starting in one of the yards, then in all those nearby; timidly at first, and then more viciously, the dogs, amazed by this untimely crowing, began to bark. The Olkhovskaya district came to life. Here, windows were lit up, there, in the yard, bolts rattled and doors banged back. Voices were raised in amazement: "It's just astonishing! Cocks crowing at two in the morning!" My friend Kostya Chernov started yelping like a dog; he could do that remarkably well. Next he was howling like a wolf. We supported him with our voices. You could hear dogs straining on their chains and going quite mad. By now we were striding carefree along Basmannaya Street. There was absolutely no one about and it was dark as well. Now and then we stumbled on posts that were covered in soft snow. Then there was another square. Above our heads the semblance of a window, with dark and mysterious carvings, was illuminated by a large lantern. "Here is Razgulyai. And this is the house of the wizard Bryus," Kostya explained. That was how I made my first acquaintance with Moscow in October 1873.

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2 From Lefortovo to Khamovniki

The day after I arrived in Moscow I had to go from Lefortovo to Khamovniki, to Tyoply Lane. I had hardly any money in my pockets: a couple of twenty-copeck pieces and a little loose change. And it was such filthy weather that it would tear your boots to shreds. The pavements had not been swept; they were covered in ice and there was melted snow on the huge cobblestones. Winter had not yet settled in. On the corner of Gorokhovaya Street the only cabbie was an old man wearing a peasant's heavy coat, belted up with strips of ancient cast-off reins. On his head he wearing a reddish sheepskin winter hat with a scrap of oakum sticking up like a plume… He had a fat- bellied shaggy little horse, harnessed to a wide sledge, where passengers could sit down on a low seat; in front of them there was a little board where the driver sat. The harness and reins were made of rope and there was a stout whip behind the cabby's seat. "I say, old fellow, will you take me to Khamovniki?" "Whereabouts?" "To Tyoply Lane." "That will be twenty copecks." That seemed very dear to me. "I'll give you ten." He thought that was far too cheap. I started to walk away. He moved to walk after me. "My last offer ̶ I'll take you for fifteen copecks. I'm just waiting here with no takers…" Ten steps further on he said again: "My last offer ̶ twelve copecks." "All right." Now the cabby was whipping his little horse. We were gliding along easily, sometimes over snow, then over bare wet cobbles. We could move forward easily thanks to the sledge's broad runners, which did not have iron blades. They could pass easily over the snow without cutting into it, as a town sledge would have done. But against that, our sledge kept flying off to one side on all the side slopes and dips of the hump-backed street, dragging the horse down to one side, and banging its broad side pieces banging against the wooden posts. I had to hold onto the board behind me to stop myself being thrown out of the sledge. Suddenly the cabby turned round and looked straight at me. "I hope you won't go running off on me? Some of them do that: you carry them on and on and suddenly they're off into one of the side gates." "How do you think I could get away? This is my first day in Moscow." "All right then." He started grumbling about the road: "Today I wanted to go out on my master's guitar; but over there in the Kremlin the roads are quite bare of snow "What do you mean?" I asked. "On a guitar?" "Yes, on a koliber.1 Look over there. … Like that one there." Out of a side road was coming a strange carriage with a shaggy little horse, just like ours. It really did look like some sort of guitar on wheels. At the front of it there was a seat for the driver. This "guitar" was carrying a merchant lady in a cloak with a collar of marten fur. Her face

1 More properly kaliber or kalibr i.e. calibre. So called because the police required them to be of a certain specification. The word may have also become confused with kolibri – a humming-bird. 2 and her legs were turned to the left, and facing to the right, directly towards us on our side, was an official wearing a peaked cap with a cockade and carrying a brief case. So it was like that I first saw the koliber which already had been superseded by the droshky, a high carriage with a body that would shake as it went along, the rear part of which rested on tall semi-circular springs. Later on the droshkys were on flat springs…Then they began to be called, and still are called, "fly carriages". We were going along Nemetskaya Street. My cabby felt disposed to talk: "This horse will be sent off to the country tomorrow… Yesterday at the Konnaya Square horse fair I got a Kirghiz horse from Ilyushin … A real good one. Four years old. She'll never wear out… Last week a waggon convoy came with fish from beyond the Volga. Well, dealers bought horses from them but when it comes to us we pay double. On credit, granted. We have to pay out three roubles every Monday. Do you think that's easy? That's the way all the cabbies keep stocked up. People from Siberia will bring their goods and sell off half of their horses…" We were crossing Garden Street. Suddenly there was chaos at Zemlyanoi Val. In all the streets cabbies, coachmen and carters were whipping their horses and trying to get in close to the pavements. My man stopped on the corner of the Garden Street. Harness bells were ringing in the distance. My cabbie turned round to me and whispered fearfully: "It's the government special messengers! Look at them!" The bells were ringing close at hand. We could hear hoof beats and shouts. Along Garden Street from the direction of Sukharevka there came two fine solitary reddish troika teams racing beside each other, pulling identically short new little carts. Each troika contained daredevil drivers wearing hats with peacock feathers, whistling, yelling and brandishing their whips. In each troika there were two similar passengers: on the left a gendarme in a grey greatcoat and on the right a young man in civilian clothes. The troikas went whirling by and the street reverted to its normal calm… "Who is that?" I asked my driver. "Those are gendarmes. They're taking people from Petersburg to Siberia. Their prisoners must be very important ones. The first carriage is driven by Novikov junior. That is absolutely his best troika ̶ a very speedy one. I park beside him in the yard and I've had a good look at him."

Gendarme, mustachios a-plenty, Beside him, looking somewhat pale, A gentleman of nearly twenty…2

I remembered Nekrasov's verse and was looking at a living illustration of his poetry. "They're taking them to hard labour in Siberia. Those are people who go against the Tsar," the old man explained in a low voice, turning round and leaning forward to speak to me. At the Ilyinsky Gate he pointed to the wide square. On it here were dozens of waggonettes with large and shabby horses. The ragged coachmen and the waggonette owners were bustling about, some of them haggling over the price to be charged, others taking on passengers going to Ostankino, beyond the Krestovsky Gate or to Petrovsky Park, to which the waggonettes made regular trips. One waggonette was occupied by the Synod choir … The whole square was filled with the sound of the singers shouting at each other in both bass and treble voices. "They're taking them somewhere, to a funeral or a wedding," my driver explained. "Now we'll give the horse a drink on Lubyanka Square. Give us a copeck. Drinks go onto the passenger's account."

2 From N. A.Nekrasov's "Another troika" (1867). 3

I did as he wished. "These cursed people. They don't let strangers get to the fountain with their own bucket but for the use of their bucket you've got to pay a copeck to the watchman in his hut. And he shares it out with the management." Lubyanka Square is one of the main centres of our city. On the corner of Great Lubyanka Street, facing the Mosolov building, was the cab rank for hiring the carriages of antediluvian appearance which accompanied funerals. There were also some more decent- looking carriages there. Gentlemen and business men who didn't have their own vehicles could hire them when they wanted to go visiting. Along the whole pavement from Myasnitskaya Street to Lubyanka Square, facing Gusenkovsky's cabbies' tavern, there stood a whole row of cabs for hire, with the carriages backed towards the pavement and the horses facing out into the square. The horses had feeding bags over their muzzles or there were string bags hanging on the shaft with hay sticking out of them. The horses could feed while their masters were drinking tea. Thousands of pigeons and sparrows pecked up the oats, threading their way fearlessly under the horses' hooves. Cabmen would come running out of the inn, wearing unbuttoned blue khalats and with buckets in their hands; they'd go over to the drinking fountain, pay a copeck to the man in charge, fill their dirty buckets with water and give the horses a drink. They would cluster round any passers-by to offer their services, each one praising his own horse, and would address individuals according to the way each person was dressed ̶ sometimes "Your Worship", "Your Highness", "Your Honour", or even "Your 'сency". The noise, the uproar, the abuse all poured out, mingled into a general din with thunderous outbursts from the carriages, waggons, carts and water carriers that were passing through the cobbled square. The water carriers had to wait their turn, standing in a queue round the fountain, waving their bucket-like ladles on their long poles over the bronze figures by the sculptor Vitali. They scooped up water and filled their barrels. Opposite the Prolomnye Gates dozens of carters were sitting on their saddletrees like idols. Now and then, as though under orders, they would break away and rush to encircle someone who might be there to hire them. There were shouts and cursing. At last a price was set by general agreement, although this was just for one carter to do the outward leg. But that did not settle business for the customer and he could not take on a driver who would charge a reasonable price. All the carters gathered into a ring and each of them threw a small coin into someone's hat that had been marked in some way. The customer drew out a coin to someone's "good luck" and went away with whoever owned it. While my cabbie was getting his bucket in the queue I had time to look at everything… I was amazed at the feverish activity, the noise and the chaos of that area which at that time was Moscow's busiest square. And, I might as well add, the most evil-smelling, from the horses that were standing there. We went down to Theatre Square and went round it as though we were circling on a rope. We passed along Hunters' Row and Mokhovaya Street. We went uphill along Vozdvizhenka Street. When we got to the Arbat a great carriage rumbled by, highly sprung and with a coat of arms on its doors. There was a grey-haired lady seated inside. On the box, sitting beside the coachman, was an outdoor footman with side whiskers, wearing a top hat with gold braid and a livery with big bright buttons. On the footboard at the back of the carriage stood two clean-shaven lackeys in long liveries, also wearing top hats and gold braid. Behind the carriage some sort of important dandy was riding along haughtily behind a trotting horse. He was wearing a greatcoat with a beaver collar and a cocked hat with a plume. He could barely fit his sizeable body into the narrow one-man fly, which in those days was called an egoistka…

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3 Theatre Square

There was the thunder of trams. Everything was lit up; the square now seemed to be moving forward, then stopped suddenly and thousands of human heads raised their eyes up to the sky. Squadrons of aircraft were sweeping over Moscow ̶ now in a triangle like geese, now changing their formation like the glass shapes in a kaleidoscope. Alongside me at the entrance to the Maly Theatre sat the only bronze householder in Moscow, wearing that very hareskin khalat which he had on when he wrote Wolves and sheep.3 On the wall by the entrance I read the poster for that play and I found myself carried far back into the past. A battered ancient theatre carriage had approached the entrance to the Maly Theatre, plunging over the ruts, its iron wheel rims sinking into the snow that had not been scraped away. On the box the driver was rocking to and fro, with his cheek bandaged up, wearing a faded heavy coat and a shaggy winter hat that had lost much of its stuffing. He was smacking his lips, clicking his tongue and tugging at the rope reins for the horses to go on. He had a pair of broken-down old nags with different coloured coats that had never been groomed, the sort of animals that featured in the plangent melody that was sung by Pasha Bogatyryov, a popular singer of the time:

Once long ago you were proud trotting horses Daredevil drivers you once used to have.

Back in the 1880s the virginal purity of Theatre Square had to be set aside for a short time for the following reason: The clear waters of the Neglinka river had been diverted into a pipe and, owing to our inadequate plumbing, it became a filthy sewer which was poisoning the Moscow River. Over the years the pipe had become foul and no one was cleaning it, so that after every heavy downpour the water flooded the streets and squares, and even the lower floors of houses along Neglinny Passage… Then the water level would subside, leaving a stinking residue on the street and pouring filth into the cellars. Years went by like that, before anyone guessed the cause of the trouble. There were two bends in the Neglinka, one under the corner of the Maly Theatre and the other under that fountain with the statues carved by the sculptor Vitali. It turned out that those bends were blocked by the detritus of the city. The underground swamp surrounding the square as in days of yore, also had no outlet into which it could drain. They began to rebuild the Neglinka, laying bare the tunnel it ran through. They had to drive several piles into the square. They set up three tall columns and brought in an iron pile driver weighing half a ton. They let this down on a pulley ̶ and started singing. Hundreds of people came to listen:

"Yo-ho heave ho, let the Club go…"

A team of workers raised up the pile driver and drove down on the pile. The more people who gathered there, the harder the workers went at it; like actors they loved to sing and play when there was a good crowd to watch them. The lead singer livened up ̶ whatever he saw, that's what he sang about:

3 Play (1875) by A.N. Ostrovsky.

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A good long dress has the lady Under it you can see…

And such words followed on that, in the face of the jeering and whooping, the lady would want the ground to swallow her up. And then the singer noticed a dandy in a top hat:

Dandy's shirt – it's white as snow He's not changed his pants you know.

All around people laughed and the crowd kept on growing. The team of workers were tired but their leader insisted: "Come on, boys, let's have some more!" The lead singer shook himself and added a bit:

In the yard the hound was belling But his owner scratched his belly.

The crowd roared with laughter... "Come on, boys, let's get our dinner." They were singing "Dubinushka",4 banging in the piles just at the spot where nowadays the metro passes unseen through the depths of the earth. They had spoken about the metro more than once in the City Council, but somehow or other they were not very sure about it. The city fathers had a feeling that with all the robbery and bribes it would be as disastrous as the attempt to build the Panama Canal and no amount of money would pay for it. "They'll just go stealing from us. There'll be no sense in it." And some priest or other said in his sermon: "For our sins they'll take us into the underworld." The "sinners" believed him and were afraid. Besides that it was also difficult to get very far with only "Dubinushka" instead of modern technology.

4 The original folk song (“The Club”), adopted as a work song by the Volga barge haulers. At least two other nineteenth century songs have the same title.

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4 Khitrovka

For some reason, in my imagination Khitrov Market is like London, which I have never seen. I always thought of London as the foggiest place in Europe, and Khitrov market is far and away the foggiest place in Moscow. The large square of that name lies low down near the River Yauza, in the centre of our capital city. It is surrounded by shabby stone houses and there are several lanes leading down to it. It is always smoky there, particularly towards the evening. But if it is at all foggy, or you look at it from above, when you're not used to it you will be frightened. It is as though a cloud has come down. You are going down the side street into an ever shifting pit of corruption. In the fog you can see crowds of people in tattered clothes, dotted about here and there, near little lights that seem misty, as though they were in a bath house under water. Those are women selling items of food and sitting in rows on big lumps of cast iron or on earthenware pots. They are offering tinned meat or rotten fried sausages, cooking away over iron braziers, together with the sort of soup that is commonly known as "dog's delight". The Khitrovka "gourmands" like to treat themselves to odd scraps of meat. "But, after all, you can see this was 'hazel grouse'," one of the old hands will say as he licks his lips. But others are eating more simply: fried potatoes with rancid fat, cheek meat, lung, throat and rolled- up cow's entrails with the unwashed green of the stomach contents – tripe, known here as "hazel grouse". Then all around us steam is coming out in big puffs from the doors of the shops and the taverns that are opening every minute, and merging with the general fog which, of course, is fresher and less opaque than it is inside the taverns and dosshouses, disinfected as they are only by the clouds of coarse tobacco which partially masks the smell of mouldy socks, dirty underclothes, human bodily odours and stale vodka. All the two- and three-storey buildings round the square were all taken up with dosshouses, which took up to ten thousand people for the night. These buildings used to make a huge profit for their owners. Each dosser paid five copecks per night, while a "room" would cost twenty copecks. Under the lower bunks, which were two and a quarter feet off the floor, there were two-man spaces, divided off by pieces of hanging sacking. The space between the sacking, two and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet wide, constituted a "room", where people dossed down with no bedding apart from the rags they stood up in. Groups of newly arrived workers came here straight from the station and took shelter under a huge sheet of canvas that had been specially put up for them. In the morning contractors would appear and lead gangs of hired labour off to their work. After midday the canvas was at the disposal of Khitrovka profiteers and speculators, who bought up everything they could lay hands on. Poor wretches who had sold their clothes and shoes took them off on the spot and would put on, instead of boots, bast shoes or down-at-heel footwear and, to wear, seventh-hand rags, through which you could see their bare skin… The buildings which contained the dosshouses were named after their owners: Bunin, Rumyantsev, Stepanov (subsequently Yaroshenko) and Romeiko (subsequently Kulakov). In the Rumyantsev building there were two taverns– the Transit and the Siberia, and in the Yaroshenko building there was the Penal Servitude. These names were unofficial, of course, but were widely accepted by the locals. The Transit was given over to those who had no home, to beggars and speculators. The Siberia was one step up, with real thieves, pickpockets and major "fences", who found a market for stolen goods. Then the highest of all was the Penal Servitude, a den of wild and drunken debauchery, the haunt of thieves and those on the run. The "returnee", coming back from Siberia or prison, did not pass this place by. Any visitor who was a real "wide boy" would be shown due respect. They would immediately "set him to work".

7

Police records showed that most of the criminals who had escaped from Siberia were arrested in Moscow, specifically in Khitrovka. In the last century Khitrovka presented a gloomy sight. There was no lighting in that labyrinth of corridors, passages and crooked, half-ruinous steps which led to the dosshouses on each floor. One of our own people could find his way about but strangers had no business coming here. And it was really true that no official persons would dare to venture into these gloomy depths. The whole of Khitrov Market was under the eye of two policemen, Rudnikov and Lokhmatkin. Their heavy fists were the only thing those ruffians feared, and the real "wide boys" were on friendly terms with both these representatives of the law. They were the first people to be acknowledged by anyone coming back from penal servitude or escaping from prison. Both these individuals could recognize the faces of all the criminals, since they had been watching them for the quarter century of their active service. And indeed there was no hiding from them. After all it was your own people who would tell them that so-and-so had come back to such and such an apartment. The all-powerful master of Khitrovka might be at his post, sucking his pipe when he sees some sort of figure making his way along the wall, hiding his face. "You! Runaway!" roars the policeman. The stranger approaches, pulling off his cap: "Good day to you, Fedot Ivanovich!" "Where have you come from?" "From Nerchinsk. I only got here yesterday. Forgive me, for the moment, that…" "You just watch out that you keep quiet , Seryozha, otherwise…" "We know absolutely nothing… not for the first time. We're all good friends together…" Then, when Rudnikov was asked by V.F. Keizer, the investigator for specially important cases: "Is it true that you can recognize the faces of all the runaway criminals in Khitrovka and yet you don't arrest them?" "That is why I have been standing here at my post for twenty years, otherwise you wouldn't stand for a day; they'd get you. Of course I know every one of them." And under that regime the Khitrovka villains flourished… Rudnikov was a unique figure in his own way. He was considered to be fair, even by those who had escaped from penal servitude. Thus he had not been killed, even though when he was making arrests he had been beaten up and wounded more than once, not maliciously but simply by men saving their own skins. Each individual was acting in his own fashion: one was out to make arrests and detain, while the other was hiding and escaping. That was the logic they had learnt in penal servitude. Everyone in Khitrov market was terrified of Rudnikov: "If you cross his path he will get you." "They'll give him an order and he will seek you out." Over his twenty years of service as a policeman among lowlife Rudnikov had developed a particular view of everything: "All right… he's been in penal servitude… He's been a thief, a beggar and vagabond … These people are also men… Everyone wants to live in his own way. Otherwise what am I supposed to do? I would be on my own, against all of them. Is anyone really going to catch them all? You would catch one and the others would run in to help… We all have to live somehow!" I often met Rudnikov in the course of my wanderings round the slums and my work as a reporter and I was always amazed at his ability to track people down when there seemed to be no trace of them. I can call to mind one typical meeting with him.

8

One showery evening in September I was with my friend, the actor Vasya Grigoryev, among some people I knew on Pokrovsky Boulevard. At about eleven o'clock we were preparing to leave, but at this point we discovered that Grigoryev's light coat was missing from the coat rack. When we looked into it we found that the thief had climbed in through an open window, put the coat on and gone out by the door. The old cook said: "That's are our neighbours who have been at work. They came in from Khitrovka. That quite often happens with us. We forgot to shut the window." Vasya was almost in tears ̶ he had lost a new coat. I tried to comfort him: "If they're from Khitrovka we'll track them down." We took leave of our hosts and went to Police Station № 3 in the Myasnitskaya area. Old bewhiskered Colonel Shidlovsky had the habit of sitting in the police station till midnight. We found him in and told him our trouble. "If it's our boys, we'll get your coat straight away. Call in Rudnikov, he's on duty." A huge, athletically built man came in, with grey whiskers and fists the size of a large water melon. We told him all the details of the theft of the coat. "Yes, that's our lot! We'll find it straight away. You come along with me. Just wait and see. You will recognize your coat?" Vasya stayed to wait and we went in to Khitrovka, to the Bunin house. Rudnikov summoned the porter and they talked in whispers. "Well, we're not going to get anything here. Let’s go on a bit." Darkness. Slush on the streets. Only the Penal Servitude had red lights showing through its smoky windows and steam coming out from a door that was opened from time to time. We had come into the yard of the Rumyantsev building and we went straight up to the first floor and through the first door going left from the front door. "Twenty six!"5 shouted someone and there was a general stirring among all the people in the dosshouse. They opened a window in a far corner and, one after another, three loud blows resounded as though someone had struck on a yielding iron roof. "The Penal Servitude is jumping," Rudnikov explained to me, and he shouted to the whole huge building: "Don't worry, you devils. I'm on my own. I'm not taking anyone out. I just called in on you…" "Why are you scaring us for nothing?" grumbled one hefty red-haired man who looked like a soldier, as he was preparing to jump out of the window onto the roof of one of the outbuildings. "I'll smash your face in, Styopka !" "What for, Fedot Ivanovich?" "Because I told you not to come to me in Khitrovka. You can disappear wherever you like, but don't cause me any trouble. They're looking for you… It's the second time you've run away. I won't stand for it!" "I shall go away… It was my moll here who brought me here." And he winked at the girl, who had a black eye. "Go and make yourself scarce. I don't want to see you around. And who was it jumped through the window? A dodgy dealer? Come on, runaway, answer me." There was a complete silence. "Who was it? I'm asking you! Why won't you talk? Do you think I'm a detective, or what? Come on, was it a dodgy dealer? Answer me! After all, I saw his gammy leg." The runaway remained silent. Rudnikov took a swing and landed a cruel blow on him.

5 A coded warning signal among Moscow criminals.

9

Picking himself up from the ground, the runaway said through his tears: "You should have asked that straight away. Otherwise it just gets dragged out… All right, it was a dodgy dealer." "To hell with him! Tell him that I'll take him in if he comes my way… Let him clear off from here. You devils will cause me trouble. They'll send out to look for him, but all the same it's me that will get him. If they don't ask questions, that's your good luck… You can spend the night here. I haven't come for that. Run upstairs and tell those fools that they shouldn't go jumping out of the windows. Otherwise they'll kill themselves jumping from the second floor! Now I'm going upstairs. Is he in?" "He's asleep. Come on in." We went into one of the dosshouses on the second floor. The same thing happened here: a window was opened and someone's body disappeared like a flash into thin air. They had not yet had time to warn the runaway's room-mates here. I ran over to the open window. Down below the depths of the yard were gaping open and there was some figure stealing along the wall. Rudnikov looked down. "That's got to be Styopka. He's nicknamed the Monkey because he's an expert at escaping by jumping off roofs. Is that him?" "That's Vaska Churkin's brother. His nickname's 'The Pot', not 'The Monkey'," we could hear a deep voice from under the bunks. "That's Styopka the Monkey. And is that you, Lavrov? Come on out and show yourself to the master. That's our Archdeacon," Rudnikov said, turning to me. Out from under the bunks crawled a barefooted man, wearing a short-sleeved woman's dirty blouse that showed off his mighty neck and hefty shoulders. "Many years to Fedot Ivanovich, a long life indeed", roared Lavrov, but he got a blow in the face and crawled back under the bunks again. "He was a singer in the cathedral, when he was in the seminary. And just look what he has come down to! Don't make so much noise, you devils," Rudnikov shouted, and we started to climb up a narrow wooden stairway to the loft. Down below they were roaring: "Many years of life." We came up. It was dark. We stopped at the door. Rudnikov tried it and it was locked. He banged with his great fist so that the door shook. Silence. He knocked again, even louder. The door opened just to the length of its iron chain and out came the tenant, the receiver of stolen goods. "Come on, what do you want and who are you?" Rudnikov's great fist went up. There was a shriek, and the door opened. "So what are you putting up your fist for? I am a human being." "Then if you are human, where is the coat that Sashka the Archdeacon brought you today?" "Well, why are you disturbing folk at night? No one brought me any coat." "If that's the way of it, come out here now and we'll look for it," Rudnikov said to me, and, when, behind me, the door closed, shouts were again heard. Then everything went quiet. Rudnikov came back, bringing out the coat. "Here it is. That damned man had hidden it in the bottom box and piled another five boxes on top of it." That's the sort of man Rudnikov was.

Sometimes there were police raids but they were only token raids: they would surround the block where it was most quiet. They would pick up some small fry but the big villains never got caught. And the police never put their noses into Kulakovka. This was the name not of a single block but of a row of houses in Kulakov's huge property between Khitrovka Square and

10

Svininsky Lane. The building in front, which presented a narrow frontage to the street, was called the "Iron". Behind it an extremely gloomy row of evil-smelling three-storey blocks was called the "Dry Ravine" and the whole row together was called the "Swine House". It belonged to the famous art collector Svinin.6 The street also was called after him. The inhabitants took their nicknames from these places: "The Irons" and "The Wolves of the Dry Ravine". By a sweep through the police could catch the small fry, people with no residence permit, beggars and those who had been expelled for some administrative reason. By the next day they would have them sorted out, sending those without passports to a transit prison, then on to the place they had been assigned to in neighbouring regions. These people would be back in Moscow by the next week. They would come under escort to some place like Zaraisk, be checked in by the police and set off back that same night. The beggars and street sellers would all turn out to be from Moscow or from the outlying areas round that city and the very next day they would be back in Khitrovka, up to their usual business, until they were picked up in the next sweep. After all what could they do in some wretched little town, where there would be no sort of "work" for them? Everyone would be afraid to take them in. There would be nowhere for them to stay, so they would make their way to Moscow and enjoy themselves in their own way in Khitrovka. In the capital they could steal things or make a bit by begging or robbing some unwary newcomer who had no home; luring him down into an underpass they would hit him over the head from behind and strip him naked. Only in Moscow could you live like that. Where else could you go if you had a "wolf permit"?7 You wouldn't find any "work", nor anywhere to sleep.

I spent many years getting to know the slums and I often used to go to Khitrovka market, getting to know people there. They weren't afraid of me and they called me "the newspaper man". Many of my fellow writers would ask me to take them to Khitrovka and show them the slums, but no one would venture into the "Dry Ravine" or even into the "Iron". We would go into an entrance porch, out onto a terrace, descend a few steps into a dark underground corridor ̶ and they would ask to go back. No other writer was so strongly impressed by Khitrovka as Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky. I often used to meet Gleb Ivanovich when I was working for the Russian News. We often sat together for a long time, either in company or when just the two of us would dine and spend the evening together. On one occasion Uspensky was having dinner at my place and over a glass of wine our talk turned to the subject of the slums. "Ah, how I would love to have a look at the famous Khitrovka market and those people who have crossed the 'Rubicon of life'. I would like to see them and yet I am afraid. But it would be great if you and I could go there together." Of course I was only too glad to do this for Gleb Ivanovich and at eight o'clock on an October evening we travelled over to Solyanka Street. We left our cabbie and set out on foot across the filthy square, which was shrouded in the autumn mist through which were glimmering the dark windows of taverns and the lanterns of women selling cheap food. We stopped for a moment by these women, to whom people half-dressed in rags kept coming to buy some of their stinking food, not omitting to haggle over each copeck or any additional piece of meat, and once they had eaten it, running over to the blocks where the dosshouses were. The market women, those remnants of what life had chewed over, dirty and covered in fat, were sitting on their upturned pots, warming the hot food with their bodies so it did not go

6 The surname derives from the Russian word for "pig", "swine". 7 This was the slang name for ID cards (internal passports) issued to citizens whom the authorities regarded as unreliable. They placed restrictions of all kinds on that individual (residence, work, education etc.)

11 cold, and screaming furiously: "Noodles, marvellous noodles! Fresh calves foot jelly! Beef brains! Boiled pork sweetbreads! Hey, good sir, come on now… I'll cut off half a copeck's worth of throat for you." This comes from a woman shouting, her pockmarked face showing traces of the sins of her youth. "You're talking about throat. But where is your nose?" "Nose, you say? What good is a nose to me?" And she started singing in a different voice: "Hot duck's liver! Sweetbreads!" "All right. Give me two copecks worth." The market woman gets up from the pot she has been sitting on. She opens the thick greasy lid and with her dirty hands she pulls out a bit of "sweetbreads" and puts it in her customer's hand. "Give me some brawn for a copeck." This is being demanded by a beggar, wearing a peaked cap and the remnants of a cockade. "There's real poverty for you, and no mistake," whispers Gleb Ivanovich, whose keen eyes have been taking in what's been going on, as he fearfully presses closer to me. "So now, Gleb Ivanovich, let's go to the Penal Servitude, and then the Transit and the Siberia. After that we'll go through the dosshouses." "What do you mean by the Penal Servitude?" "That's the local slang for this tavern that we're at now." We made our way past the market women and found ourselves standing in front of the low door of the tavern in the Yaroshenko house. "Should we go in?" asked Gleb Ivanovich, holding onto my arm. "Of course." I opened the door; out poured stinking air and a great hubbub. Such a din, swearing, the sound of fighting and the rattle of crockery… We made our way towards a table, but we were confronted by a woman with a bloodied face pushing towards the door. She was screaming. Behind her came a hefty man in tattered clothes. He was shouting: "I'll smash your face in, you blasted woman!" The woman managed to get out into the street. The ragged man was brought to a halt and was now lying stretched out on the floor; he had already been "calmed down". That had only taken a second. We were surrounded by a cloud of steam and no one took any notice of us. One dirty little table was empty and we sat down there. The café owner, whom I knew, came over to us; in the future he would come to own the house and be a millionaire. I told him to bring us a half bottle of vodka and two boiled eggs ̶ the only things that I ever asked for in those slums. I took a clean piece of paper to wipe the glasses, poured out the vodka, took the shell off my egg and clinked glasses with Gleb Ivanovich. His hands were trembling and he looked frightened as though he was suffering. I drank two glasses one after the other and ate my egg, but he was still sitting there and looking round him. "Come on now, drink up!" He took a drink and started coughing. "Let's get out of here… It's just terrible." I made him take the shell off his egg and we drank another glass each. "Who are those two there?" At a table in the middle of the room a young lad was embracing a girl who was half drunk. He had close-cropped hair and a broken nose and had been treating her and himself.

12

In front of him a former drunkard-cum-bouncer, with bare feet, a thick neck like an ox, a fat feminine face and wearing a chlamys-like cloak which hung loosely about him, was bellowing in a thunderous voice: "a long life to you". I explained to my companion that this was just a "villain" having a good time, but Gleb Ivanovich kept begging me: "Let's get out of here…" We paid up and went out. "Please let us through," said Gleb Ivanovich politely to a woman who was crouched in the doorway, soaked from the rain and the filth around her. "Go to hell. Look, my shoes are sodden." And that hoarse, whining woman explained her story about the shoe, peppering it with a good few swear words. She made an attempt to stand up but couldn't keep her balance and slopped down into a puddle. Gleb Ivanovich grabbed my arm and dragged me onto the square, which was now deserted and covered in puddles that reflected the light of the single street lamp. "And that is the pearl of creation ̶ woman!" Gleb Ivanovich uttered his thoughts aloud. We walked on. We were stopped by a sad-looking man in rags who put out his hand for alms. Gleb Ivanovich dug into his pocket, but I held his hand back. I took out a rouble note and said to the wretch from Khitrovka: "I have no small change. Go to the shop, buy five copecks worth of cigarettes, bring me back the change and I'll give you money for somewhere to sleep." "I'm off there straightaway," grunted the man as he splashed through the puddles in his worn-out shoes, making his way towards one of the shops, which was about fifty paces from where we were standing, and disappearing into the fog. "Make sure you bring the cigarettes here," I shouted after him. "We'll wait for you here." "All right," we heard through the fog. Gleb Ivanovich stood there, just roaring with laughter… "What's the matter?" I asked. "Ha, ha! That's how he brought back your change and the cigarettes as well. Ha, ha!" It was the first time I'd heard Gleb Ivanovich laugh like that. But he was still laughing to his heart's content when we heard footsteps splashing through the puddles. My envoy, panting, rose up before our eyes and opened his huge black hand on which the cigarettes were lying and we could see the glint of copper and silver coins. "Ninety copecks change. I took five copecks for myself. And here are ten 'Dawn' cigarettes." "Now, just wait a minute. What is this? Did you bring these?" asked Gleb Ivanovich. "And how would I not bring them? Do you think I'm going to run off with someone else's money? Do you really think that?" said the ragged man with great assurance. "All right, all right," muttered Gleb Ivanovich. I gave the ragged man all my small change, copper and silver, and wanted to take the cigarettes, but Gleb Ivanovich said: "No, no, give him the lot. Everything. For his amazing honesty. After all…" I gave the ragged man all the change, but instead of thanks he could only say in amazement: "You posh folk are a funny lot! Am I really going to steal from you after you trusted me?" "Let's go! Let's get out of here …We shan't see anything better than this anywhere else…All our thanks to you!" Gleb Ivanovich turned towards the ragged man, bowed to him and swiftly pulled me away from the square. He declined my offer to show him more dosshouses.

13

I guided many friends who were writers through the slums and always without trouble. I met with one misfortune, but of a most peculiar type. The man I am talking about was known for his bravery, with no fear of the Iron, nor of the Wolves of the Dry Ravine . He had no worry about the Penal Servitude tavern, all the more so that he had experienced Siberian penal servitude in real life. In fact this was none other than the famous P.G. Zaichnevsky, who had secretly broken out from his time in exile to spend a few days in Moscow. Just the day before Gleb Ivanovich had told him about our expedition and he was fired with enthusiasm. I too was so happy to go with such a fitting companion. It was about midnight as we were striding quickly through Svininsky Lane, aiming directly for the Iron, where the drunkenness continued after the Penal Servitude closed down at eleven o'clock. Suddenly we heard marching feet; a squad of policemen had come out from Solyanka Street. We rushed down onto the square, but every way out was blocked with squads of policemen surrounding the buildings; this was a raid to search the dosshouses. My companion's hand was shaking: "God knows … things are getting worse and worse!" "Don't worry, Pyotr Grigoryevich, just step out more briskly!" We quickly got across the square. Podkolokolny Lane was the only one where there were no police and it brought us out onto Yauzsky Boulevard. There was already a rumbling from the iron on the rooftops. That was the noise made by the "serious elements", who had come up onto the roof through the attics and now were standing round the chimneys, knowing that the police would not dare to come up here. The next day Pyotr Grigoryevich was laughing as he told our circle how he had been frightened by the masses of police. However, it had been no laughing matter: instead of the Kulakovka Penal Servitude it was the real Nerchinsk version that he risked being put back into. It is dangerous to go into Kulakovka even in the daytime ̶ the corridors are as dark as though it were night. I remember once going along an underground passage in the Dry Ravine. I struck a match and ̶ horror of horrors ̶ out of the stone wall, the bare stone wall, appeared the head of a living man. I halted in my tracks, but the head shrieked: "Put out your match, you devil. The kind of people we see about here…" My companion blew out the match I was holding and pulled me on, but the head went on muttering something behind me. Not just the police ̶ the Devil himself would not go into that concealed underground chamber. In the 1880s I witnessed a scene like that in the Romeiko House. On a summer's day about three o'clock I once went into the Penal Servitude tavern. Wild drinking was already in full flow. I was sitting with Kirin, who copied out scripts. All around of course were the "cats" (as revellers were known) with their molls. Suddenly a "cat" came flying in through the door and bellowed: "Hey, you 'green feet'!8 Twenty six!" Everyone was on their guard, ready to do a bunk but waiting for some explanation. "Someone has been bumped off in the Iron. They've gone to get the police." "Just look! They're coming this way!" The first to run out was a hefty man with brown hair. He had jammed his hat down and we could see the back of his head, where the hair on the right side was much shorter than on the left. In those days those doing penal servitude still had their heads shaved and I understood that this man had to hurry. After him about five others came out, leaving their molls to pay for the hospitality.

8 Slang for "runaways".

14

I wanted to find out what had happened and I rushed over to the Romeiko house, into the door leading off the square. In the crowd, in one of the rooms on the first floor a man was lying face down in a pool of blood. He was just wearing a shirt and highly polished boots with ruffled tops. There was a knife sticking out under his left shoulder blade, plunged right home. I had never seen a knife like that, with its odd shape and shining brass handle. The man who had been killed was one of the "cats". The killer had stabbed him in revenge for a woman. They hadn’t found him. They knew, but would not tell, just saying "he was a good man". While I was getting up the details I needed for my newspaper, the police appeared, the District Superintendent, also the local doctor, D.P.Kuvshinnikov, who was a general favourite. "A clever blow," was his verdict. "Straight into the heart." They began to write out the official report of the crime. I went up to the table and started to talk with Kuvshinnikov, to whom I had been introduced by A.P. Chekhov. "Where is the knife, where is it?" The police bustled about. "I've seen it just a minute ago. I saw it myself," shouted the Superintendent. It took only a little time to find the knife: in all the confusion someone from those present had pulled the knife out and put it down behind the bottles in the tavern next door. The Bunin house was cleaner than the other buildings. Its entrance was not off the square but from a side street. Here lived many people who spent all their lives in Khitrovka, keeping themselves going by daily casual work like splitting logs or clearing away the snow; the women went out to wash floors, clean rooms or do a day's work washing clothes. This was where the professional beggars lived and various artisans down on their luck. Mainly these were tailors, who were called "crabs" because, being without clothes, having squandered their last shirt on drink, they never came out of their dens to go anywhere. They worked day and night, altering rags for the market, always suffering from a hangover, wearing old clothes and going about barefooted. But often their earnings were good. At midnight into their "crab quarter" would come thieves carrying bundles and wake them up. "Come on, boys. Wake up get to work." This would be shouted by the tenant, who was wide awake. Out of the bundles they would take expensive fur coats, women's fox-fur "rotonde" capes and a whole heap of dresses. Straight away they would start cutting and sewing, and in the morning dealers would come in to carry off armfuls of fur hats, waistcoats, caps and trousers to the bazaar. The police would be searching for fur coats and "rotonde" capes, but these no longer existed: instead of them would be fur hats and caps. The largest share would of course go to the "tenant", because he was buying stolen goods and quite often he was the leader of the whole gang. However, the largest and most reliable income for the "tenant" came from alcohol. Each apartment was a drinking den. In the walls, under the floor, in the thick legs of tables, everywhere there were stores of wine mixed with water. These were for the lodgers and their guests. In the daytime one could get full strength vodka in taverns and drinking houses. Then at night the shlanboi9 would trade in vodka in a sealed vessel. In the depths of the Bunin house they had their own shlanboi. In those days that yard was lit only by one dim paraffin lamp. The windows were so dirty that no light came through them and only the window of the shlanboi with its white curtain was brighter than the others. Anyone

9 Dealer in illicit alcohol.

15 who needed to could come to the window and knock. The fanlight opened. From behind the curtain a hand appeared, palm up. The customer silently placed a fifty-copeck piece in the hand. It disappeared, only to come back a minute later with a bottle of Smirnov vodka, and the fanlight slammed shut. That's all that it took ̶ no words were needed. In the yard there would be complete silence. Only from the square could we hear drunken singing and shouts to fetch the police. But no one would come to help. They'd strip off your clothes and your shoes and let you go naked. Every so often, in the side streets and on the square itself people would pick up the corpses of those who have been killed and stripped bare. They used to send the dead bodies to Myasnitskaya Police Station for a judicial autopsy and sometimes onto the medical school of the university. I remember once going into the anatomy theatre, to Professor I .I. Neiding; I found him delivering a lecture to his students. On the table was lying a corpse that had been picked up from Khitrovka market. Neiding examined the body and said: "There are no signs of a violent death." Suddenly from the mass of students there emerged the old watchman of the anatomy theatre, the well known Volkov, who often helped them with their preliminary work, something he did with amazing skill. "Ivan Ivanovich," he said, "how can you say there are no signs? They've broken his ligamentum nuchae." He turned the corpse over and showed the break in the spinal chord. "No, Ivan Ivanovich, it's never happened that Khitrovka has sent us people who haven't been killed."

There were many complete orphans among those who were born in Khitrovka. Here is one scene from the 1880s. One foggy autumn night in Bunin's yard people going to see the shlanboi heard groans coming from the cesspit. They could see a woman who was giving birth to a child. In Khitrovka children were highly prized, being hired out, once they were weaned, to beggars, almost to the highest bidder. And a poor woman, covered in dirt, often bearing the marks of a terrible illness, would take the wretched child, push a sucking teat into its mouth (the teat consisted of a dirty rag filled with chewed-up bread), and drag him out into the cold street. Lying in her arms, the baby would be wet and dirty all day, poisoned by the teat and groaning from the cold, from hunger and constant pains in his belly. It would make passers-by feel sympathy for "the poor mother of the wretched orphan." There were even times when the child died in the morning as it was carried in the beggar woman's arms and she walked round begging with him till nightfall, not wanting to lose a day. Two-year-olds they would hold by the hand and three-year-olds had already learnt to beg by themselves.. In the last week of Lent a breast-fed, noisier than usual baby could make about quarter of a rouble in a day and a three-year-old could make about ten copecks. The five-year-olds ran about on their own and brought to fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts ten copecks "for thy soul's libation"… or even fifteen copecks. The older the children got, the more the parents demanded that they bring in and the less were the passers-by willing to give them. When begging, the children had to take their shoes off, give them to their minder round the corner, and hang about, barefoot in the snow, by the doors of hotels and restaurants. They had to make money by any device, so that they would not be beaten if they came home empty- handed. Besides that, the boys would stand on watch when the adults were stealing and at the same time they were learning that kind of "work" from them. It might happen that the barefoot boys who had been born in Khitrovka would live the whole of their lives in that area, disappearing at times for a spell in prison or on exile to Siberia. So much for the boys. The girls' fate was even worse. All they could do was to sell themselves to drunken debauchees. It was not rare to see drunken prostitutes only ten years old.

16

They took refuge mostly in the "little carriage". This was a tiny one-storey wing, deep in the Rumyantsev estate. In the early 1880s for a long time there lived here a beautiful woman who was called the "Princess". At times she disappeared from Khitrovka, either becoming some man's mistress because of her beauty or finding a place in a smart brothel, but each time she came back to the "little carriage" and drank up all her savings. In the Penal Servitude tavern she sang French music hall songs and danced the cachucha, a popular dance of the time. Among her boy friends was Styopka the Monkey who was a brother of the famous robber Vaska Churkin,10 who was even celebrated in the novel that bears his name. But Styopka Makhalkin was more respectable than his brother and referred to him with disdain: "Vaska, you mean? He's not worth much. A mere mugger." For some reason the police arrested Styopka and sent him to a transit prison and there they put fetters on him. The Inspector proposed to him: "If you want I can take the fetters off, only promise me that you won't run off." "It's your business to hold people but our business is to escape. I'm not going to give you my word. We keep our promises and I have already made one." Soon he escaped from the prison by climbing over the wall. And he went straight back to the "little carriage" to the "Princess" as he had promised. Then there was a real scene of jealous rage. The Monkey beat the Princess until she was half- dead. They sent her to the Pavlovskaya hospital, where she died from the beating.

In the list of Moscow householders for 1826 we can see the following entry: "Svinin, Pavel Petrovich, State Councillor, house № 24 Pevchesky Lane, Myasnitskaya district, on the corner of Solyanka." Svinin was celebrated by Pushkin: "And here's Svinin, the Russian beetle".11 Svinin was a celebrity, as a writer, a collector and the owner of a museum. Subsequently Moscow renamed Pevchesky Lane as Svininsky Lane. On the other corner of Pevchesky Lane, which came out onto empty, overgrown land with ravines running through it, called the Free Space, being a permanent den of vagabonds, stood a big house with its outbuildings, like a fortress surrounded by a stockade; it belonged to Major General Nikolai Petrovich Khitrovo. He owned the desolate Free Space right across to what today are the Yauzsky and Pokrovsky Boulevards. In those days they had just the one name "Boulevard of the White City". The same list of householders shows that the boulevard had another house, number 39, belonging to Major General Khitrovo. General Khitrovo himself lived in № 39 and in № 24 in the Free Space were the members of his household. There were situated the stables, cellars and basements. It was in that huge area that the Khitrovka Market was formed, named after the owner of that wild estate. Svinin died in 1839. His huge estate and mansion passed to the Rastorguyev merchant family who owned them right through till the October Revolution. General Khitrovo's house passed to an educational establishment as apartments for its personnel, then in the second half of the nineteenth century it went to the engineer Romeiko. The waste land, still with its population of vagabonds, was bought by the city for a market. The house needed extensive and expensive repairs. Its surroundings did not attract anyone willing to rent flats in such a dangerous area, so Romeiko let it go as dosshouses: this was profitable and involved no expense. For many years Muscovites went in fear of the frightful slums round Khitrovka.

10 The real-life Vasily Vasilyevich Churkin was the hero of a serial novel The Bandit Churkin published by Nikolai Ivanovich Pastukhov between 1882 and 1885 in the newspaper he edited, The Moscow Sketch. 11 From My collection of insects (1830) 17

For many years, the Duma and the whole administration right up to the Governor General struggled in vain to rid themselves of this den of thieves. On one side of Khitrovka was the business quarter of Solyanka with the Charity Commission; on the other side Pokrovsky Boulevard and its adjacent narrow streets were occupied by the rich mansions of merchants from Russia and abroad. Here lived Savva Morozov, the Korzinkins, the Khlebnikovs, the Olivyanishnikovs, Rastorguyevs and the Bakhrushins. The people who owned these palaces raged against their dreadful neighbours and did everything they could to get rid of them; however nothing came of all their efforts, whether speeches thundering in their favour in the Duma or costly approaches to the administration ̶ all this was a fruitless endeavour. One of the Khitrovka landlords was well in with the Duma, another had a friend in the Governor General's office, while a third was big in the world of charity. Only Soviet power was able by one decree of Moscow City Council to clear up this running sore, which was so hard to move under the old regime. In in one week in 1923 they cleaned out the whole area along with the age-old dens of vice around it and in a few months they had done up the recent slums into clean apartments holding workers and administrative personnel. They flattened the main slum, Kulakovka, with its underground dens of thieves in the Dry Ravine along Svininsky Lane and the huge Iron, and rebuilt the whole area. Just the same buildings but clean to look at from the outside. There are now no windows with bundles of paper or rags stuffed into them, or simply broken, which used to let out steam and a drunken hubbub. Take the Orlov house, for example, with flats where professional beggars and newcomers who were seeking a day's work used to spend the night. Alongside it was the huge Rumyantsev house, in which there were two taverns – the Transit and the Siberia; further on there was the Penal Servitude in the Stepanov house which once belonged to the famous harbourer of runaways and robbers Mark Afanasyev and later passed onto his sidekick, Kulakov, who built up a fortune in the place which his former boss had kept warm. Nowadays the door of the Penal Servitude that used to open, pouring out steam, wild songs, the clash of pottery and the shrieks of knife fights, no longer exists. Alongside it there are now gleaming windows in the Bunin house. There are no longer thousands of ragged people in the square, no dirty market women sitting on their earthenware pots and smelling of rotten herring, rancid soup and entrails. Today people walk about in an orderly way and there are children playing… But it is not so long since the square was filled at every hour of the day with milling crowds of ragged wretches. Towards evening drunks and their "molls" used to reel about and make such a noise. People taking "coke", both men and women of all ages were staggering about, seeing nothing in front of them. Among them one could find individuals who had been born and grown up here, both adolescent girls and the scruffbags who were their escorts. These scruffbags used to appear at the markets and rushed at the women trading there, overturning their trays or else wrecking their stalls, before snatching up their goods and scattering away to hide. One step above them were the baggage thieves. Their way of working was to grab bags and suitcases from the tops of carriages in the passages running off the boulevards or in the depths of lanes. After them came the "cat burglars", clever and adaptable young men, who could climb through a little fanlight. Beside them were the "dippers", smart-witted lads that could go through the pockets of a man whose coat was buttoned up, jostling and robbing him in the crowd. And over the whole square there were beggars and yet more beggars. At night out of the underground premises of the Dry ravine would come the "real boys" – prepared to try their luck with crowbars and revolvers. Besides them the muggers would push in, not spurning the chance to pull the cap from some passer-by or to rob one of the Khitrovka beggars of his bag with his piece of bread. Terrible at times were the nights on this square, where we could hear drunken songs blending into each other, the screams of young women being beaten up, and shouts for help. But

18 no one dared to come out to help: you would be stripped of your clothes and your shoes, sent out naked and given a good beating to teach you not to show your face where it was not wanted. During the night the police sentry box was always silent, as though it did not exist. For twenty years and more the presiding presence there was Rudnikov, of whom we have already talked. Rudnikov took absolutely no interest in these fruitless nightly shouts for help and never opened the door of his sentry box. Once, the following took place: Yepifanov, who worked on the journal Entertainment, thought to interest himself in the slums. He was stripped bare on the square. He went to the sentry box, hammered, roared and called for help, but eventually he had to go home naked. Next day, when he came into the offices of Entertainment to ask for an advance because he had been robbed, he told how his trip had ended: its huge occupant, barefooted and wearing only his underclothes, to whom he had identified himself as a nobleman, jumped out of his booth, turned him round so that his back was facing him and barked out: "Every rascal is going to make a nuisance of himself at night" and gave him such a kick ̶ it's a good thing he was barefoot ̶ that Yepifanov flew through the air and landed in a distant puddle… Rudnikov had no fear of anyone or anything. Even Kulakov himself, with all his millions, feared by the whole police force (because the Governor General had once shaken hands with Ivan Petrovich) was of no consequence for Rudnikov, who came straight in to see him on a public holiday, received a hundred roubles, and roared straight out: "Vanka, are you kidding? Or have you forgotten, eh?" Kulakov was receiving his well-wishers in his own house, in Svininsky Lane. He was dressed in full uniform with all his medals. Now he seemed to remember something. Trembling, he stammered out: "Ah. Forgive me, dear Fedot Ivanovich." And he handed him three hundred roubles.

It's a long time since Rudnikov or his sentry box existed… The blocks of Khitrovka Market were divided into apartments ̶ either one large apartment or two or three rooms, with bunks that were sometimes placed one above the other, and homeless people used to spend their nights here without regard to their sex or age. In one corner of the room was a cubby-hole divided off with thin planks or just a simple cotton curtain, sheltering the tenant and his wife. He was always some much-travelled soldier or a peasant with a clear record. If he did not have that, he would not be allowed to hire a room. The tenants were never on their own; they always came with their "wife" but never a lawfully wedded one. Those who were hiring a room had left their married wives in the country and here they had their mistresses, the real inhabitants of Khitrovka, who were quite often living without any formal permit. Each tenant had his own clientele: some had violent robbers, others had thieves, others petty criminals, still others had simply those who had to go begging. Wherever you had beggars, there were also their children, young ones who in the future would receive penal servitude. Anyone who was born in Khitrovka and was crafty enough to grow up in that frightful atmosphere would unfailingly end up in prison. There were very few exceptions. The most stable element in Khitrovka were the beggars. Many of them had been born here and grown up here. If by their wretchedness and insignificance they had not become thieves and robbers but had simply remained beggars, then there was no reason now for them to change their way of living. I am not referring to those people we see on the streets who have chanced to lose any funds to live on. These people will just about manage to scrape together enough to get a piece of bread or somewhere to sleep each night. The Khitrovka beggars are different.

19

In the Rumyantsev house, for example, was a flat for "holy wanderers". Strapping men, bloated with drink, their shaggy beards and greasy hair down to their shoulders, never having been combed or washed. These were monks from imaginary monasteries, pilgrims who spent their life walking to and fro from Khitrovka to the church porch or to the merchants' wives beyond the Moscow River. After a drunken night one of these terrible-looking old men would crawl out from the bunks, beg the tenant to give him a glass of raw vodka on tick, wrap himself up in a weird- looking cassock, sling a knapsack filled with rags over his shoulder, put a skull cap on his head then go out to beg for alms. To demonstrate his holiness, he would go barefoot even in the winter snow. And what lies would this "holy wanderer" not tell to the ill-educated wives of the merchants, what nonsense would he not put forward for saving their souls! "Here's a splinter from the Lord's tomb and here is a little piece of the stairway that our forefather Jacob saw in a dream, then here, fallen from heaven, is a linch pin from the chariot of the prophet Elijah." There were beggars who gathered in the shops, the taverns and the shopping arcades. They were "on duty" from ten in the morning until five in the evening. They were the most numerous, along with another group called the " baby group", who covered the churches. In this last group some mothers used to suckle babies, which they had hired; otherwise they would even take a log wrapped up in a piece of cloth and coo tenderly over it as if it was a real child, asking for money "for the poor little orphan". Along with them there were blind people, and some who pretended to be blind and poor. Also you could see the "aristocrats", some living in the Orlov house and some in the Bunin house. Among them there were ex-officials, officers who had been dismissed the service, and unfrocked priests. They worked collectively, splitting up the houses in Moscow into rounds between themselves. They held an address list for the whole of Moscow. The "aristocrat" among them would take, for example, the right hand side of Prechistenka with its side streets and would write about twenty pathetic letters, which went, omitting no-one, to twenty targeted houses. Having sent a letter, the next day he would turn up at these addresses, ring at the front door, wearing a hired suit and looking quite respectable. When the doorman asked, he would say: "Yesterday a letter was sent by the municipal post, so there should be a reply." A sealed envelope would be brought out, containing a rouble note or even more. In theYaroshenko house, № 27, the wing that faced onto the courtyard was called the "writing room" and it was reckoned to be the most aristocratic and modest in the whole of Khitrovka. In the 1880s here lived the "Prince and Princess", a blind old man with a toothless old wife, to whom he dictated, sometimes in French, letters to his benefactors, old acquaintances of his; he sometimes received quite large tips, which he used to feed those of his correspondents who were hungry. They would call him "Your Excellency" and show respect in their dealings with him. His surname was Lvov and according to his papers he was simply a "gentleman" with no title of "Prince". It was his correspondents who had "promoted" him and the rest of Khitrovka followed suit. He and his wife were both chronic hard drinkers, but when they were sober, they held themselves proudly and were quite presentable to look at, even though the so- called "Prince" was wearing old rags and the "Princess" had a burnous which had been mended with multi-coloured patches. Once they had visitors who came to see them from some place on the Volga, who carried them off, greatly to the regret of their correspondents and their neighbours who were beggars. Also there was a man living there who was a State Councillor and a former Justice of the Peace. He was a terrible drinker and thus people in Khitrovka, who had more than once been tried in his court, called him the "dog on the chain". They were referring to the way judges, when on official duty, wore a gold chain round the neck.

20

In the bunk beside him slept his friend Dobronravov, who had formerly given rise to high hopes that he would be a good writer. In local papers he was publishing novels and articles that were sharply critical. For one piece about factory owners he was expelled from Moscow because these same bosses insisted on it. As a memorial, Dobronravov kept with him, glued onto a file, the cutting from the newspaper, showing the piece which had been fatal for him and bore the heading "The fairground barker". He had lived for several years in some out of the way town in the far north. Then he turned up in Moscow in Khitrovka and settled for good in that flat. He was of very presentable appearance and in his sober moments spoke in a way that made you listen. These are the lines that got the author of The Fairground Barker expelled from Moscow:

"Roll up, roll up! Cunning is the merchant's policy: Not a fop nor a swell, but a millionaire as well, Likes to booze and caper, on the factory workers' labour, Looks great himself withal, with a block five storeys tall, Thousands weave and spin, to benefit just him. These are factory folk, used to any yoke Bones and skin, faces drained and thin. Lousy fare and rags to wear. Working youngster, racked with hunger

My dear readers! This is happening while the directors walk round the factory, not allowing anyone to buy food outside its walls. For example, you want an onion… send your little boy to pick it up 'on tick' in the factory shops; in them, supposedly, they add nothing to the price. It's cheap and it's rotten. And if your insides are telling you: it's not his drink you want… it's drink you must have… and the same goes for tobacco. If it’s tobacco you seek, to the factory tavern quick. If you drink the bosses' stuff, for other things you’ll have enough. It's a cunning little trick – a barrel-load on tick. In town the boss is just like a count – the fine suits him all around. There's provisions sold for gain – and you're out of pocket again. Wherever you look – extra percents – and bigger dividends. We'll never let go of our own - everywhere we'll let Burglar Bill go roam. There's nowhere better than there!"

Alongside the "writing room'" sleeping quarters was the room for the alcoholic copy clerks. In the old days the print workers made big money from these copy clerks. They even claimed that they were doing a good deed: "Where could he go, naked and barefooted! No matter what you give him - he'd drink it all!"

From the very first days of the Revolution they began to destroy the Swine House, or the Iron, and along with them all the buildings of Kulakovka. In 1917 all those who slept overnight at the Iron refused outright as one man to pay the tenants for their accommodation. Then the tenants, realising that they had no one to complain to, gave it all up and scattered back to their original villages. At that time the "dossers" first of all smashed up the rooms where the tenants had lived; pulling up the floorboards, they tracked down whole stores of vodka bottles and used the wooden partitions as fuel for their stoves. Whole institutions turned up in the hands of the dossers and everything wooden, down to the battens for the roof, was also carted off for firewood. Those houses that now had no roofs, windows or doors, still served as shelter to the most barefaced rogues. The big fish came out to try their luck at night; the small fry would

21 come out in daylight and in the half light. The big fish attacked people far away from their home base; the others robbed drunks when it was dark or solitary individuals, even some of their fellow beggars, who ventured out onto Khitrovka Square in the evening and then robbed the stalls on Old Square. This was the "hungry time" in the Civil War, when no one cared about Khitrovka any more. Even in the daytime it was risky to walk with parcels or bags along Solyanka, dangerous particularly for women. Hooligans would attack, snatching parcels from people's hands and disappearing rapidly into Svininsky Lane, where they would drop out of sight of their pursuers behind the silent heaps of bricks. The pursuers would stop in amazement and suddenly bricks would be raining down on them, God knows from where… One, two… Sometimes passers-by might see smoke curling up from behind a pile of rubbish… "Some of them in the Iron are brewing something up." In the evening one might see shadows flitting by. People would go down to the river with kettles and they would come back in silence, because they were carrying water. However, when the time came, it only took Moscow City Council a few hours to get rid of Khitrovka Market: Quite out of the blue the whole market was surrounded by police, standing in all the side streets and at the door of every house. They were letting everyone go out of the market and allowing no one to come in. The old inhabitants had been warned in advance but not one of them thought of leaving their base there. The police surrounded the houses and suggested that everyone should move out. They gave notice that people were free to leave and that no one would be detained and they allowed several hours for this, after which they would take the necessary measures. All that was left were a few crippled beggars in one wing of the Rumyantsev house.

22

5 The Long Distance Navigator

In the early 1880s Moscow had among its residents the very famous actor, N.P. Kireyev, who was also known as a translator of the French playwright Sardou. Kireyev appeared in the People's Theatre on Solyanka and in the Artistic Circle. His sister O.P Kireyeva ̶ they were both Populists ̶ worked as a midwife in the Myasnitskaya district. She was a favourite in the neighbouring slums of Khitrov Market, where everyone knew her by her forename and patronymic; she took on a great deal in those dirty dosshouses for those who would become beggars and thieves, especially if a child had the misfortune to be the offspring of a legally married mother – since in that case they could not be taken into the Foundling Hospital, which had been built especially for illegitimate children and foundlings. Like Olga Petrovna, the police doctor was also a benefactor to the poor people of Khitrovka. He was described by Chekhov in his story The Grasshopper. D. P. Kuvshinnikov had specially chosen this part of the city so that he could help the poorest people. Olga Petrovna Kireyeva knew our family and her young daughter Lyolya used to come in to see us, and my wife and I were often in her little flat on the second floor of the dank dirty yellow building, right under the Fire Tower. The doctor's large flat was directly below us; I was often there on Saturdays. Sofya Petrovna, the doctor's wife, was passionately devoted to writers and artists and used to arrange literary evenings in her apartment. People would come for their evening meal, when they might read stories and draw pictures. Anton Chekhov used to come in and also his brother, the artist Nikolai and the painter Levitan – in a word all our little circle of young people who were aspiring artists and sometimes went short of food. One afternoon I went in to Olga Petrovna's. In a basin she was washing the arm of a two-year-old that was covered in sores. He was being held up by a dirty beggar woman, aged about forty. The little boy was missing two fingers that had completely rotted away: his middle and ring fingers. He was sobbing quietly and staring wide-eyed at me: His right eye was green and the left one was brown. The woman was cursing: "Ah, you rascal, you parasite! It wouldn't be much trouble to strangle you". I went through into the next room, where the samovar was boiling. When Olga came back she told me a typical story about Khitrovka: on the rubbish dump of the dosshouse they had found a beggar-woman soldier's wife, where she had given birth to a baby boy. By the time they called Olga Petrovna the mother was already dead. The baby was quite legally born and so they would not take him into the Foundling Hospital, but he was taken over by a beggar woman from the dosshouse and she started to walk the streets with him, begging for money. At Christmas time she somehow fell asleep drunk on the street and the child lost two fingers to frostbite; they rotted slowly away , but she did nothing to treat them and anyway sensitive people gave more when they saw the frozen stumps. The little boy would hold out his frost-bitten hand to passers-by and those who felt sorry would give more… Then Sashka The Poker came up against the police. They brought her to the police station and from there she went on to Olga Petrovna (who knew her well) to have the wound properly dressed. The child was sickly and puny; up to the age of three the mother passed him off as a babe-in-arms, but then she came a cropper: in the street she asked a passing Chief Detective, one Effenbakh, to help a babe-in-arms. "A babe-in-arms, you say? He's a bit big for a babe-in-arms." The child stuck its arm out from under its rags and made what looked like the "sign of the horns" with his deformed hand. "What's that to you?" the child lisped. "Bastard. Go to hell."

23

The upshot was he was sent to the police station and thence to the dosshouse while Sashka the Poker, because of the nature of her illness, was taken to the Myasnitskaya Hospital and never seen in the dosshouse again. Soon they began to lead Koska by the hand on begging expeditions – he became a "foot beggar". Grandfather Ivan, a dosshouse veteran, took an interest in Ivan, just as he had in his mother, taking her on mushrooming trips. The mother died and, since the child was born on 22 February, Ivan named him Kasyan.12 "Kasyan the Righteous" was what the old man called him for one strange feature of his character: he never told a lie. And the old fellow was like that himself. "We have to live by the true path, we cannot survive by lying," he reproached Sashka the Poker. Then Koska listened and took it for a rule. For three winters the old man led Koska by the hand to the porches of churches. In summer he took him further away, to Sokolniki and onto Elk Island to collect mushrooms. That was the way he earned his food. It was then that Koska learnt about his mother from Ivan. In the winter she had done washing for people in the dosshouses and that was where letters came to from her husband. He was a soldier, serving somewhere beyond Tashkent… So in summertime she would gather mushrooms and bring them to Hunters' Row. When Koska was six the old man died in hospital. The boy stayed on his own in the dosshouse. He was a bright youngster and smart and, from his time in the woods, he was strong and hardy. In the night time he started begging in the restaurants "unshod" ̶ barefooted in the snow, although his mate would hold his felt boots round the corner. Later he teamed up with pickpockets, beginning to "work" Sukharevka and the horse trams. However, he himself never stole from other people's pockets; he was just the "getaway", that is to say they slipped the purse to him and he was the one who escaped. They trusted him never to take a single copeck. The thieves had already beaten him for telling the truth, but he held to his own line. Why a child stuck to the truth like this, no one knew. The late old mushroom-picker used to have his own way of explaining this feature of his favourite: "He's called Kasyan, because he simply will not tell lies. People like that are only rarely born … once every three years.13 The Kasyans are all committed to telling the truth!" Koska often heard these words and he became even more righteous. The old man died. Koska was driven out of the dosshouse and he became one of that tribe who sleep in the open, passing in gangs through the markets and dossing down on rubbish tips or in empty cellars under the Red Gate, in the towers on the Old Square and in the summer in Sokolniki Park, at times when it was warm and "every bush let you spend the night".14 Their favourite spot was near Sokolniki on the Shiryayevo Field, where whole heaps of iron pipes were now being piled up for the sewage system that Moscow was about to install. In that area lived both adult tramps and homeless children. If you looked inside the pipes in daytime you could see them filled with shavings, straw, sacking, posters torn off the street lamps and rags. All this served as bedding for those who slept there overnight. Koska and his gang lived there and then they all moved across to the Balkany district, into an old waterpipe tunnel. There the wandering band of children took shelter and managed to survive, doing some petty thieving to get enough to eat. Many of them were taken into the Rukavishnikovsky Corrective Institute, many were sent back to their place of origin, but the gangs grew larger and larger, their numbers swelled by children from the slums where poverty was rife, and added to by youngsters running away from workshops where sometimes life had become intolerable for them. And who is going to put up with a drunken shoe maker beating you over the head with a boot tree and

12 The Orthodox Church actually marks the Feast of St John Cassian on 29 or 28 February. 13 A reference to the fact that, technically, St John Cassian's day only occurs during leap years. 14 Part of a popular saying relating to June. 24 similar sorts of training which for ages had been practised in the cobblers' premises where the children were brought from their villages and apprenticed for years; that was their food taken care of! Not everyone would accept that kind of slavery and beatings, when for five years they were always hungry. Half-starved all day, barefoot or in wretched torn shoes, a young lad could see free youngsters in the street and go over to join them. Then off they ran into the slums, because they had no fear of the cold, nor of hunger, prison or beatings. And it was certainly no worse for them to spend the night in a rubbish pit or a basement than to be lying like a dog in the cold space outside their master's door. Here you could sleep to your heart's content until your belly told you that it was time to eat. Here no one was going to wake you with a kick before daylight and curse you: "Come on, you wretch, why are you dozing! Get up, you good for nothing," the master's wife would scream at you… And the ten-year-old "good for nothing" started his working day, barefoot in the snow or the mud, dragging a wash tub larger than himself to the tip. Olga Petrovna chanced to see her "patient"' once more. He was keeping watch at the horse-tram stop on Strastnoi Boulevard and waiting for his mates to hand him a purse… He saw Olga Petrovna pushing through onto the square, and his mates jostling her and making off with her midwife's bag, and her clutching it and crying out in a desperate voice… In a minute they handed the bag over to Koska and he dashed off with it; but he did not make for the agreed spot in Polyakovsky Garden on Bronnaya Street, where the boys usually divided the spoils. Instead of that, he ran off along the boulevards towards Trubnaya Square, then to Pokrovka, and from there to Myasnitskaya District, where he sat down on the side of the road, under the gates. He had hidden the bag under his rags and was waiting. Olga Petrovna came in sight, staggering slightly as she walked…Her eyes were full of tears … She went in through the gates… onto the open space … He went after her, caught up with her on the narrow stairway and hailed her: "Olga Petrovna." She stopped and asked: "What's wrong, Koska?" And she was still weeping. "Olga Petrovna, here is your bag. It's all in order Not a thing has been touched…" Later she said to me: "That was the happiest day of my life ̶ the best thing that ever happened to me." It turned out that her bag held not only medical instruments but also government funds and documents. The loss of the bag would have been a disaster for her. She would have had to go to court. Olga went on to say: "Koska pushed the bag into my hand and was gone… When I ran into the yard after him he had already reached the gates and disappeared." A year later she showed me the only letter she ever had from Koska, written as he dictated it: he had had to run away from his pickpocket mates "because I had deceived them and could not tell them the truth. I made the journey to Yaroslavl lying under a carriage, and from there I got to Astrakhan in the summer. Now I'm working in the fisheries and they've promised to take me on the crew of a steamer. I have learnt to read." That was the last news we had of Koska. Olga Petrovna died some time ago.

1923. I was on my way to the Domkom.15 In the doorway I bumped into a man wearing a black greatcoat and a sealskin cap. "I beg your pardon." "And I beg yours."

15 Acronym for the Russian for "House Committee".

25

He put up his left hand, which had been holding the door and I could see only two fingers outstretched, his index finger and his little finger, while the other two were missing. His face was kind and clean-shaven, but those missing fingers… We made our apologies and went our separate ways. The manager was at his desk. I sat down. "Have you just met that interesting man?" "Yes, he's missing two fingers, as though he was showing the sign of the horns." "Not just his fingers. He's got one green eye and one brown… and they're both laughing…" "Does he live in our place?" "Unfortunately not … He came here and declined our offer of a room. The day before yesterday I issued a warrant assigning him a room in № 6, but he's turned it down today. He's a nice man! They've sent for him to sail a ship to the Far East. He's only just come back, but they're sending for him already. He's a real sailor… He's spent his whole life at sea. In America, Japan… India. He's one of our real Russians from the 1905 Revolution, He's seen good service. Great testimonials! We're sorry to lose someone like him. We would have made him chairman straight away." "An interesting man?" I asked. "Yes, very much so. Here he has left me a souvenir. Earlier I gave him our form for filling in his CV. I read what he had written and wondered whether he was right. But he said: "It's all true. Exactly as I have written it that's how it was. I'm not able to tell lies." The manager handed over our entrance form. I read through the headings: "Kasyan Ivanovich Ivanov, age 45. Place of birth: Moscow, Romeiko house, Khitrovka.. Mother: a poverty-stricken soldier's wife. Father: unknown. And at the very top of the form, opposite the heading "Profession" was written "Long Distance Navigator".

26

6 Sukharevka

Sukharevka is a daughter of war, Smolensk Market a son of the plague. It is thirty-five years older than Sukharevka, since it came into being in the year 1777. After the plague in Moscow the authorities issued an order for second-hand goods to be sold only in Smolensk Market, and that only on Sundays, to avoid spreading the infection. After the war of 1812, as soon as Muscovites began to come back to Moscow and started to look for their property that had been stolen, Governor General Rastopchin gave an order, in which he declared that "all things, no matter from where they originated, are now the inalienable property of whoever possesses them at this moment," and that "any owner may sell them, but only once in a given week, on a Sunday, and only in one place, namely on the Square opposite Sukharevskaya Tower". Then on that very first Sunday great quantities of stolen property filled the huge Square and the whole of Moscow poured into that extraordinary market. That was the triumphant opening of our ancient Sukharevka. Sukharevskaya Tower was so named by Peter the Great in honour of Sukharev, the Strelets Colonel, who was the only officer to remain loyal, together with his regiment, to Peter at the time of the Streltsy mutiny.16 High up stood the ancient Sukharev Tower with its enormous clock. It could be seen from far away. In the upper floors stood the huge tanks, which supplied Moscow with its water. There were many legends connected with the tower: that was where the "wizard Bruce" made gold out of lead, and in its secret places was kept a black book written by the Devil. There were hundreds of legends, each more incredible than the next. On Sundays round the Tower the market was seething: the whole of Moscow went there as though going on holiday, along with peasants from nearby districts and the occasional visitor from the provinces. Against the luxuriously palatial Sheremetyev Hospital hundreds of tents were put up overnight, just to last a single day. From dawn to dusk there was a sea of heads swaying about on the square. Garden Street was at its widest here and people left narrow lanes for passers-by. There was a multitude of jostling people, each one with his own objective. In the old days it was here that Muscovites came to look for things that had been stolen from them and often they were successful because Sukharevka had long been the place where one could offload stolen goods. One thief acting on his own could bring in under his coat things he had "half-inched" and receivers of stolen goods took whole waggon loads away. Goods "acquired by chance" were sold quite cheap. Sukharevka lived by these "chance" finds, quite often with a sad history. Someone who was shopping here was usually profiting by the misfortune in some other house, where everything was dirt cheap. Either he would "rip off" someone who needed the money and did not know the real value of the object they were selling, or he would buy it direct from the dodgy "trader" with the stolen goods under his coat. Sometimes that "trader" might smell of a fire he had started, sometimes even of blood that had been spilt, but bitter tears were always involved. He'd buy for nothing and sell it off cheaply. Sukharevka's slogan: "Buy cheap". Some people were driven here by necessity. Others came for the excitement of making easy money and a third group for the sport, the motto of which was "buy cheap". One person, from dire necessity, brought in his last piece of rubbish and sold it for a trifle. The dealers would crowd round him and almost pluck it from him by force. And then before his very eyes they would sell it on for three times as much. A thief would sell his plunder to these same dealers for a trifle, merely to get rid of it. Someone who was going to buy what he really needed would

16 The Streltsy (literally: "shooters") were an elite praetorian guard. They rebelled against the Tsar in 1682 and, more notoriously, in 1698. Savage reprisals followed, supervised personally by Peter.

27 come here to spend his last rouble, for he knew that here he could buy at a knockdown price and then in most cases they would swindle him. It was all too true when they said about a dress or furniture or whatever: "Just the kind of thing you'd buy at Sukharevka!" Even rich men from Moscow have come here to "buy cheap".

For many years I spent hours walking over the Square. I used to go in to Bakastov's and other taverns where tramps and thieves cheated each other at the billiard table, playing bagatelle or roulette. I got to know that strange race of people and studied various aspects of their life. Most often I would call in to the quietest of the taverns, Grigoryev's Basement, which catered for the most modest type of people in Sukharevka. No games were played in that building, which meant that thieves didn't go there. I became friendly with Grigoryev, who was then quite young and was someone who had educated himself. His wife, a very well-read woman, stood at the cash desk, taking in the money and rattling away with the copper tokens for the tavern ̶ the currency disbursed from their "pouches" by the nimble white-shirted waiters from Yaroslavl.17 I usually took my place by the window to the right of the entrance, sitting at the same table as Grigoryev and talking with him for hours on end. From time to time his son would run over to our table; he was a boy in the first class of the high school, and he would be delighted to show us a book that he had bought on the square (he was interested in travel books). Then he would take our money and come back later with another new book. All round us, in the low, smoke-filled rooms, customers were making a great noise; even by the start of the evening they had drunk quite a lot. Traders rushed hither and thither among them with petty goods to sell. Some beggars had managed to get in round the tables and there were some nuns rattling their collecting mugs to solicit alms. A man in rags burst in, tossed back a glass of vodka and tried to run away. The waiters caught hold of him. There was quite a scene. They sent for the local policeman, who was fat and full of his own importance. When he found out what was going on, he spat and, as he went away, grumbled: "Why trouble the government over a five-copeck piece!" Occasionally detectives used to come in but there was nothing for them to do in that place. Grigoryev pointed them out to me and told me a lot about them. And a lot of what he said came in useful to me later. Grigoryev had a fine big library that he had built up just in Sukharevka. When his son was a student, he took part in the revolution of 1905 and was shot by the Tsar's troops. His body was found later in a pile of corpses in the yard of the Presnya police station. His father did not survive this blow for long and soon died. It must be siad that even before that Grigoryev was looked on as unreliable. He sometimes was openly at war with the police and he hated detectives. There were no real detectives before 1881 because it was only in that year that the detective force came into being. Before that there were only the two policemen, Zamaisky and Muravyov, who were regarded as detectives and had their own assistants, recruited from the ranks of thieves who had been pardoned for minor crimes and were expected to uncover serious crimes and catch the important criminals. Apart from those two there was just the one detective, Smolin, quite famous in his time. He was a stout old man, clean-shaven, and the most important cases were entrusted to him. Sukharevka was the centre of the area in which he operated. From

17 Waiters were issued with 25 roubles-worth of copper tokens. When they took a customer's order, the waiters deposited the value of the order in copper tokens in the kitchen. These were exchanged for cash when the customer paid his bill. The tokens were kept in a lopatochnik, a pouch worn on a silk belt.

28 there he had threads running everywhere and he was the only person who knew them all. They called him the "Governor of Sukharevka". For years and years he lived in his own two-storey house on First Meshchanskaya Street, on his own but for his old serving woman. And, apart from flies and cockroaches, there was only one living creature in his apartment, an enormous tortoise who had grown old alongside him. He used to feed the tortoise from his own hands; he would sit him on his knee and the tortoise would make up to him with its bare head and wise eyes. The man lived quite alone; everyone knew there were many precious things in his house but he was not afraid of anyone: robbers looked after him, just as he protected them, whenever that was possible. No one had been inside his house; he would receive people only in the hallway. He was on friendly terms with thieves and robbers and most of all with card sharps. He went to gambling dens, where no one was wary of him. He knew everything, saw everything ̶ and said nothing. Only now and then his bosses would call on him to investigate some daring robbery; especially if someone famous was concerned, he would investigate. The robbers themselves would tell him and betray their own mate… One curious incident happened to him: somehow people managed to steal from the Kremlin a brass cannon that weighed several hundredweight. The authorities ordered him to find the gun within three days. He got all his robbers to look out for it: "I must have this cannon! Throw it out into the weeds in the Antropov Pits.18 By tomorrow the cannon must be where I have ordered." Next day the cannon was indeed in the waste land as he had commanded. The authorities carried it back into the Kremlin and set it up in its former place by the wall. Smolin was duly thanked. Many years later it came out that they had stolen another cannon for Smolin, taken by these obedient robbers from the far end of the Kremlin wall, carried across to Antropov Pits and brought back into the Kremlin, but there was still no trace of the original gun. Smolin died at an advanced age without any children. The only creature to survive him was the tortoise. An inventory of his possessions was made, which naturally was far from complete, but they found in his bedroom two bucketfuls of gold and silver watches, watch chains and cigar cases. The burglars and pickpockets were very aggrieved: "How much good stuff we have lost… Really that all belonged to us … If only we'd known that Andrei Mikhailovich was going to die we could have taken it with our bare hands." For years and years Smolin was operating round our flats as a detective and there were many stories about him in Sukharevka. Even before the war with Turkey there was a rich old Indian man living quite alone in the Medyntsev house in Zlatoustinsky Lane. No one knew what kind of a man he was. Some said that he was buying and selling goods from the East, others that he was a bill discounter. Apparently both versions had some truth in them. He was sometimes visited by some sort of Orientals and he was enveloped in a cloak of secrecy. In general people from the East were living at that time in town houses on Ilyinka and Nikolskaya. He too was living in the sort of side street where in the daytime there would be traders but at night time you wouldn't see a single soul. What business was that of anybody's? There was an Indian living there, well what of that? As if there weren't plenty of those sort of people in Moscow. Then suddenly they found the Indian murdered in his flat. From outside everything seemed in order: there were no signs of a robbery. In one corner there was a little Buddha in pure gold, about two feet high. The locks had not been broken. The police came in to seek out the criminals…Whole chests of valuables were moved into the safe keeping of the Orphans' Court: diamonds, pearls, gold, turquoise ̶ all in great quantities. A notice was printed to find

18 Formerly an area of waste land and pits in the area of what is now Seleznyovskaya Street.

29 who were the rightful heirs to all this. Sukharevka started trading! Turquoise bought in handfuls, and pearls and diamonds. People lost track of the case of the Indian who had been strangled. They had never found who had done it. At last after about two years the rightful heir appeared ̶ he was also an Indian, but dressed in European clothes. He came with money, didn't talk about the inheritance but had only one aim ̶ to find who had killed his uncle. They put him immediately into the hands of the police and Smolin. The first thing Smolin did was to introduce him to a couple of Orientals, Pakhro and Abaz and they tried to get him on the track by dragging him round the gambling dens. They taught him to drink and to play stukolkka, which was so fashionable at that time. They thoroughly confused the young man and made his head spin. One fine day he started off to go home from a gambling den and just disappeared. People talked about that, then they put it out of mind… Many years later I mentioned the Indian when I was talking to N.I. Pastukhov, who was so well informed It turned out that he knew a great deal and was writing it up in News of our Time, but the Governor General had forbidden anyone even to mention it. "Who was that Indian?" I asked. "It's difficult to know… They say it might be some mysterious man who was head of the sect of the Thugs." "Why did the Governor General forbid anyone to write about it?" "Well, because in Zakrevsky's bedroom there was a golden statue of Buddha." "Can Zakrevsky really have been a Buddhist?" "Well of course, ever since he brought back that Buddha from Sukharevka." Small in stature, broad shouldered, with clean shaven chin and head, wearing a worn black greatcoat and a cap with a patent leather peak, stolid and measured like an average sort of butler, Smolin moved unobtrusively about Sukharevka. Thieves vanished when he appeared. If they saw him, they knew he'd already seen them – and, seizing a suitable opportunity, they would run up to him… The red-haired, foppish pickpocket Pashka Ryabchik had nicked something in the crush and wanted to make himself scarce, but the detective's gaze rested on him. Having circled round, Ryabchik was now at hand and slipped something into the pocket of Smolin's greatcoat. "The Pike's here… with his wife… He lost… He's hard at work…" "With Annushka?" "Yes, sir. Yurka's gone to Zamaisky… There are gamblers with money! They're buying from the junk dealers… Ivy… Goliath… Vatoshnik…. Kukish and The Heron himself. They're milling about over there – look…" He quickly said his piece and disappeared. Smolin transferred a silver watch to his trouser pocket. In the distance he caught sight in the crush of a tall woman wearing a gaudy headscarf, and alongside her the goatee beard of the Pike. The woman saw him and whispered something to the beard. A few seconds later the Pike was hanging round Smolin like a stranger. "Today I got taken to the cleaners… at Vaska Tyomny's. I lost!" "That doesn't matter. You'll steal more energetically!" The Pike dropped a purse into Smolin's pocket. "Did Annushka get that?" "She did. I don’t know what's in it myself…" "And what's the Heron got?" "I could weep that I didn't go to him, but went to Tyomny's instead! What a business that was! Today they took Sashka the Iron19 for six thousand."

19 Sashka evidently lives in the building in Khitrovka known as the "Iron". 30

"You got that from Sashka? But he's been sent to Siberia." "What do you mean? He's been hanging about the whole winter in Khitrovka… He was ill… Mark Afanasyevich helped to feed him, and on Thursday he got lucky. They say he and another bloke took a merchant in Guslitsy to the cleaners. He handed over six grand as though it were just a copeck. The Heron held the bank. The Archivist held the bank." Nazarov cut in: "But what about Rasplyuyev!"20 "He's over there, standing by the stall with the Heron… Andrei Mikhailovich, I let you have the first bit of luck. Let me have just one copeck for luck…" "Go on, you can get rich on that" And he gave him back the purse. "Thank you. I'll always remember your kindness. After all, a bird in the hand… I'll pay off old scores now. Yes indeed … They've reduced Sashka to his last copeck. This morning they gave him a hundred-rouble note… He went straight to catch a train to Nizhny Novgorod… But tomorrow the Heron is opening a new gambling den, a really rich one." Smolin went up to the Heron: "Congratulations on your win. When are you going to invite us to the house-warming party?" The Heron's face had fallen very sad. "This morning you took six thousand off Sashka! So, when are you going to give the party?" The old Heron was struck comprehensively dumb. "Heron! What's this stuff you have collected? Portraits of some Polish magnates … What use are they to you?" "They are just to fool people, Andrei Mikhailovich. I'll hang them up in the sitting room and they'll pass as my ancestors. So we are inviting you to come on Thursday to Boulevard of Flowers, the floor above my old apartment… I've taken the first floor there now…" "Have you seen Sashka off to the Volga?" The all-knowing detective finishes dealing with the Heron and goes onto the jewellery shops where the card sharps who have made money are turning their winnings into gold, only to lose that again in the gambling dens. Smolin will talk with each of them and amaze them with his knowledge and he gets more information out of them… "Who is that smart dressed man standing with Abaz?" "A Neva goose…What's his name?.." "Kikhibardzhi. What's he doing here?" "He's after one of the merchants. They've booked into a forty-rouble room at the Slavonic Bazaar. And Karaulov is with them…" And through that confused scene Smolin is passing like a shadow. He has seen Komar … "Now, how are your dolls?" Smolin knows everything. Not where something happened but when and where it will happen… So he knows it all and he won't say a word until the authorities squeeze it out of him!

Almost no one from the powers that be ever visited Sukharevka, except for the famous Moscow Head of Police N. I. Ogaryov. In Moscow he was the only man who had black whiskers growing down onto his chest. Sometimes on Sundays his head could be seen over the crowd round the booths of antiquarians. In their stalls he occasionally would buy some marvellous wall clocks and he always paid ready cash for them, and he was perhaps the only man from whom the

20 Rasplyuev is a central character in two famous plays by A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903): Krechinsky’s Wedding (1854) and The Death of Tarelkin (1869). He is petty criminal and came to be regarded as a Russian Everyman. The real-life "Rasplyuev" figures in Chapter 41. 31 traders never asked for more. He had a real passion for wall clocks. His flat was full of those clocks that were constantly chiming out their different notes, one after another. Besides that he used to buy up caricatures of the police in every country and one of his rooms was hung round with caricatures of that kind. It was booksellers who supplied him with these and the Censorship Committee who impounded those kind of publications. He particularly liked the following caricature, which depicted a fence and in the distance a watchtower with alarm balls hung out and a red flag, that put every unit on alert. There were some sort of coloured scraps of cloth hanging on the fence and a furious dog was standing on its hind legs but could not climb up to the scraps of cloth. The caption was: "It's a long way for Arapka to get to the scraps." (At that time the Chief of Police in Petersburg was Trepov, whose name suggested "scraps" and in Moscow Arapov). "They're idiots," said Ogaryov. But who could have guessed it? It seemed as though the joke had passed unnoticed. I had seen that number of the Alarm Clock but paid no attention to it until the police started to take that issue away from the newsvendors. They just told us everything. In those days the second-hand booksellers had about thirty stalls. You could buy everything there that you might want. If you were lacking the necessary volume of some multi- volume edition, just say the word and they'd get it by next Sunday. Even many rare books could be found only here. Those who loved books would not miss a single Sunday. And what trouble the dealers took to prepare for that day. For six days they would be hunting high and low, seeking out books in private homes, in country houses, in attic rooms. They would buy up whole libraries from those who had inherited or from bibliophiles who had gone bankrupt themselves, and their "buyers" would buy up books from everywhere and sell them onto the booksellers, who used to gather in taverns on Rozhdestvenka, Great Kiselny Lane and on Little Lyubanka. This was a regular book exchange, finishing up in Sukharevka, where every bookseller knew each customer's needs and how much he would pay. The booksellers had special respect for Professors I.Ye.Zabelin, N.S. Tikhonravov and Ye.V. Barsov. The booksellers also liked poor students and did them many kindnesses. A group of some five students would arrive and pool their resources to buy one book or some published lectures at a very cheap price, and they would all use the one book for their studies. Or they would hire a book, paying five copecks a day. The booksellers did not ask for a deposit and no books went missing. The booksellers and antique dealers (the latter were known as "junk dealers") were the aristocrats of Sukharevka. They occupied a space near the Spassky Barracks. Here there was not the same crush as there was in the market. Here the public was cleaner: collectors and people putting together libraries, who were mainly rich merchants. One such person was known to all the booksellers; every Sunday he would rummage about in the booksellers' shops and among the books laid out on sacking. He left a valuable library. He invariably paid in the following fashion: he would beat down, let us say, the price of a book, for which five roubles was being asked, by two roubles. Having squeezed the last drop out of the bookseller, he would go to his pocket and take out two purses; from one he would take out a rouble, from the other he would tip out all his loose change and hand over one rouble ninety-three copecks. "That's seven copecks short… Take it." The booksellers knew the score, knew he wouldn't pay any more, so they handed over the book. But on one occasion a bookseller said to him: "Are you not ashamed to be squeezing copecks out of our colleagues?" "You don't understand at all. How much does that add up to in a year?" The booksellers knew one other curious customer. For a long time there was a servant who went to Sukharevka carrying a foot rule and he insisted on getting books with good

32 bindings and of a certain size. He wasn't too concerned about the price. His master was an odd man who had been stricken with paralysis and could not leave his bed; in that way he was building up a library that it consoled him to look at. In this "aristocratic" part of Sukharevka among the booksellers here and there could be seen the shops of the antique dealers. Among these latter one highly esteemed customer was Pyotr Ivanovich Shchukin. He rarely came to Sukharevka himself but the goods were brought to his house. The door of his office was in a warehouse which faced onto Ilyinka; it was closed to the general public but always open for antique dealers. Secondhand dealers used to pile into the sheds with enormous sacks and they would be brought through to the study without needing any preliminary announcement. The next minute Pyotr Ivanovich was sunk into a cloud of dust as he searched through the heaps of odds and ends that had spilled out of the sacks. He would pick out the best items and all the rest would turn up in Sukharevka market, in the stalls or on sacking laid out beside them. Behind those stalls, facing onto the street, the less important secondhand dealers laid out their sacking on which were displayed all sorts of rubbish from the attic: a broken brass handle, a piece of a candlestick, a fragment of an old-fashioned candelabra, non-matching pieces of crockery, sheaths from a dagger. Enthusiasts rummaged around in these wares and always found something to buy. From time to time the owner of a bell foundry would turn up near the pieces of sacking, would go round them all and select pieces of the best bronze, which he would immediately send off to his foundry. Then he would head for the antique shops and also select scrap silver and bronze. "What are you buying?" I got to ask him. "The sound of silver!" This provided a distraction for Sukharevka. "They're casting a bell!" The whisper went round Sukharevka – and immediately through the whole market too; then the most inept rumours and loose talk went round the town. Not only were these repeated by other people, but everyone tried to spice up the story and every member of the cast gave a precise indication of the time and place of the action. "Have you heard what happened this morning? A whale was stranded on a sandbank under the Kamenny Bridge… There's lots of people there!" "A doorman's daughter has given birth to triplets in the stand at the Hippodrome and they've all got horse's heads." "The Spasskaya Tower has just collapsed. Completely! Together with the clock! You can only see the top." A newcomer would actually believe all this, but a real Muscovite will listen to it all and not give any appearance that he thinks it all a pack of lies, would not smile but would add something more precise of his own. That's what happened in the case of: "They're casting a bell." For hundreds of years the superstition was abroad that the more unlikely stories there were the more resonant would be the bell they cast. Then people meet up again. "What's this story of yours about the tower collapsing? I ran to see – it's still there!" "They're casting a big bell at Finlyandsky's foundry.21 Ha! Ha!"

Since the 1880s, when newspapers began to appear in Moscow and to be full of advertisements for bell foundries, Sukharevka stopped spreading these tall stories which, in former times, had served as publicity. But a foundryman would invariably appear in Sukharevka

21 An old-established Moscow bell foundry, owned in the nineteenth century by the Finlyandskys, father and son.

33 and buy up "the sound of silver". The junk dealers always buttered him up since he wasn't the sort seeking to "buy cheap". This was a buyer with a strictly defined aim – to buy the "sound of silver", but not cheaply. In a similar bracket to him was another single-minded buyer, who never missed a single Sunday and who bought up porcelain and crystal glass and pictures, without diddling anyone out of a copeck.

Amongst the amateur collectors were connoisseurs, especially of crystal glass, silver and porcelain, but they were few in number; the majority of buyers dreamt of buying a genuine Raphael for a "red one", that is for ten roubles, so as to sell it on for thousands, or of buying "first-hand" a stolen diamond necklace for fifty roubles… Never mind if the Raphael picture turned out to be some home-grown daub and the necklace to be made out of bottle glass, their buyer would nevertheless again go to Sukaharevka with the same dreams and to his dying day would seek to "buy cheap". He had neither education, nor knowledge, nothing but daddy's money and an innate ability to make money. Such buyers would haggle over a copeck till the cows came home and be delighted that they'd managed to buy a statue of a naked woman with one arm missing and a damaged nose; they'd assure their friends that they got it for nothing: "The niece of the Venus de Milo!" "What?" "But where's its arm? Tell me." And he would get even more offended! And would go and haggle with his cab driver over ten copecks. There were many people like that walking about in Sukharevka, but the district was also visited by some real lovers of antiques who left rich collections that later would be inherited by the state. However, some of these collections also disappeared. All that happened somehow on the quiet, in the Sukharevka way. And all these antiquarians and art lovers never talked, as though they had bought stolen goods. They would buy something, hide it away, and say nothing about it. And all this on their own, without confiding in one another. But there was one occasion when they all fell on a big prey like a hungry wolf pack, or rather a flock of frightened crows. It happened in the 1880s. It was then that the famous Moscow art lover M.M. Zaitsevsky died. For more than forty years had been collecting rare examples of fine art, manuscripts, parchments and early printed books. Everyone in Sukharevka had known about him for a long time. For decades all his great wealth had been spent on his museum. It was not open to the public, but it comprised the life, in the full sense of the word, of the old man who owned it, who would forget everything in the world for the sake of some "new little piece of antiquity" and would retreat from nothing in order to acquire it. He pursued, passionately and patiently, a certain silver lid from a mug and did not rest until he had acquired it. I was a friend of Zaitsevsky, but it was difficult to persuade him to show off the rarities he had collected. He didn't show them to anyone. He admired his treasures in solitude, carefully protecting them from outside eyes. Forty years passed and to this day there flash before my eyes the rarities of these four big rooms in his detached house on Khlebny Lane. The walls of the rooms were hung with a mass of ancient pictures. In the forefront was one depicting Saint Jerome. It was an original, by a remarkable artist. Some experts ascribed it to Luca Giordano. Alongside it were two huge pictures of the Flemish School, depicting a feast and the triumphal procession of some ruler. Next came a picture by Lesueur "Christ with the Children", a painting by Adriaen van Ostade and many other paintings from ages past.

34

In the next room was a huge collection of extremely rare icons, beginning with icons of the Stroganov school and ending with icons which had survived almost from the time of the persecution of christians. There was also a collection of crosses. Among them was a gold triptych bearing the inscription: The prayer of the Head of the Moscow Streltsy Matvei Timofeyevich Sinyagin. The third room was occupied by portraits on ivory and on metal. A portrait of Catherine II made of Gothic lettering, could only be examined under a magnifying glass. The whole history of her reign was composed of this lettering. Then came two portraits in oils of Count Orlov-Chesmensky. On one the Count was depicted on his horse Bars, in the second he was in a sledge with Svirepy in harness. On a nearby table lay Svirepy's harness, iron studded with turquoises. Next were hundreds of clocks, horns, tankards and dishes and among them a statue of Yermak Timofeyevich, whose breast consisted of a huge single pearl. It stood on an extremely rare silver dish of the XI century. It is impossible to enumerate everything that was in these rooms. Besides that, in the yard was a large storehouse crammed with all sorts of more bulky rarities. There too was his entire library. In the early printed books section was a book The Teaching of Thomas Aquinas, printed in Mainz in 1467 on the printing press of Karl Schaefer, a colleague of the inventor of printing, Gutenberg. In the manuscript section were two huge books of parchment with hundreds of illustrations in gold relief. This was a 1414 French version of Boccaccio's Decameron. After the death of the owner his heirs did not open a museum to the public, but they exhibited several things in the rooms of the Historical Museum and took them back in again, having decided to sell their museum, which was essential for dividing up the estate. The learned archaeologists who were professors looking after museums were amazed at the rarities; they valued them most highly and only regretted that the public purse could not buy them for their own archives. For three months the museum stood open for people to buy things, but they did not manage to sell anything except for a few trifles. Moscow's private archaeologists, brought up in Sukharevka's "buy cheap" tradition came flocking in and bought nothing. The Sukharevka junk dealers like "Mr Later", who spent money like water or compiled collections of things in order to show off in front of their colleagues, or bought up valuables to move their capital from one pocket to another, or simply wanted to act as middle men for those seeking to "buy cheap", were behaving themselves disgracefully. Pretending to be connoisseurs, they tried to "take possession" with their eyes, which darted about like those of thieves at a fair at the sight of treasure, raised their heads and, surveying genuinely rare and hugely valuable objects, would say casually: "H'm. Yes. But it's not especially rare! Maybe I'll take it. Let it kick about the house… I'll give you two hundred roubles for it." That was the value placed on a phinift enamel box worth seven thousand roubles. The taciturn dealers in rarities talked about this box on Sunday in Sukharevka. The one who had offered two hundred roubles sent his assistant the next day to buy it for three thousand. But Zaitsevsky's heirs did not budge. And Sukharevka, affronted that you couldn't buy anything for nothing in this museum, began to "forge bells" i.e. spread false rumours. On several Sundays the word was among the antique dealers that the best items had already been sold, that the heirs needed money and would budge for a pittance, but that did not help the Sukarevka-ites to "buy cheaply". One fine day there appeared on the door a notice announcing that the Sukharevka middle men and antique dealers from certain side streets (two were named) were requested "not to expend energy bell-ringing". I don't know the ultimate fate of the museum and its valuables. I also recall that V.M. Zaitsevsky, the son of the museum’s owner, an actor and storyteller who, in his time, had success on the stage, seemed to subsist solely on his modest

35 actor's wage and died at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was known under another name, his stage name, while his friends, to whom he was very generous in case of need, called him simply Vasya Dneprov. No one knew that his real name was Zaitsevsky. He called in on me once bringing with him a book of verse and stories which he'd performed on stage. The book was called "Half each". He didn't find me in and a day later telephoned to ask whether I’d received it. "Yes," I replied. "It's a pity you didn't catch me. Incidentally, tell me if your father's museum is intact." "Aha! You've noticed it's gone! There's only a portrait of my father left and I bought that in Sukharevka this winter." The owners of antique shops were regular visitors to Sukharevka. One of them would appear at dawn, sit down on a case and watch the items being put out. He would sit and watch and the moment he saw something interesting would snap it up before the other collectors, and then ask them to pay three times the price. They not infrequently hassled him: "Go away, will you, don't get in the way. Let the things be laid out!" "Later! Later!" he would answer, always with this same word, and he'd sit there as if frozen to the spot. That's why the traders called him "Mr Later". Vladimir Yegorovich Shmarovin also liked to come early to Sukharevka. He was considered a connoisseur of painting and of porcelain from the Popov factory. He sometimes bought silver tankards, from which we drank at his "Wednesdays" and would buy cheap ancient copper rings and bronze ear-rings. He was an expert on the ancient world and it was impossible to fool him, although here was a lot of fake porcelain, especially Popov porcelain, around. It was produced abroad, from where agents brought it in. There was one stall in Sukharevka which specialised in getting fake "Popov" from abroad. Fakes were produced in every region of Russia. Inexperienced numismatists were also often lured to the Sukharevka bait. The antique dealers had display cases, standing in a silver row and full of ancient coins. Besides that, itinerant coin dealers sold coins from glass-covered trays. They let go for three or five roubles each rare roubles of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich and huge fake oblong roubles from Muscovy and Kazan. There were fake Raphaels, Corregios, Rubens all over the place. These were specially for the most gullible "experts" seeking to "buy cheap". They weren't even shown to real connoisseurs, but trading still went on. There was one interesting case. A lady went up to the stall of one antique dealer, spent a long time looking at the pictures and lingered over one which bore the inscription: I. Repin. The label said: ten roubles. "Here's ten roubles for you. I'll take the picture. But if it's not genuine, I'll bring it back. I'll be with friends, with whom Repin is having dinner just now and I'll show it to him." The lady took the picture to her friends and showed it to Repin. He laughed, asked for pen and ink and wrote at the bottom of the picture: "This isn't Repin. I. Repin." The painting again turned up in Sukharevka and, thanks to the Repin signature, was sold for a hundred roubles. The old market at Sukharevka took up a huge area of five thousand square metres. Then round the market, apart from the Sheremetyev Hospital, all the premises were taken up by taverns, drinking dens, shops, all sorts of wholesale dealers, as well as stalls – cobblers and tailors who made ready made clothes; they used to pull in customers almost by main force. In the side streets nearby there were stores selling furniture that they would bring out on Sundays onto the main square.

36

The popular heart of Sukharevka were the tolkuchka flea market the razval second-hand market. What a pair of very apt words: the first comes from a verb meaning pushing and shoving, which people do, all day long, and they push the newcomer so hard in a particular spot that he feels it the rest of the day! The second comes from a verb meaning to lay out: They lay out their simple goods on sacking in endless rows, each one dealing in whatever he can: some in worn shoes, some in old iron, some supply keys to locks and do a bit of sawing if the key doesn't fit. Pickpockets roam the whole square with their helpers: they surround, jostle and lift. Yell "Stop thief!" and no one will listen unless perhaps they grab their pocket and lo and behold! It's empty, at which point he will start yelling: "Stop thief! I've been robbed!" The pickpockets go round in gangs and the forgers and their helpers go round in gangs. So too do the makers of cheap fakes and their dealers. It is pointless being a solo criminal in Sukharevka. But how many and how varied were the criminals! Take for instance the "gamesters": three or four of them sit down on the roadway in any convenient spot and start the three-card trick – two black and one red. You have to guess where the red one is. Or the belt game. The belt is rolled up into a ring and you have to put in a nail in such a way that the nail remains in the belt. But no one ever finds the red and the nail never stays in the belt. The sleight of hand is amazing. There are dozens of gamester gangs wandering round Sukharevka and hundreds of simpletons, wanting to make a fortune, lose their last copeck. The trays of buckwheat pancakes also have a game associated with them; it mostly provides amusement for young boys who hope to eat a tasty pancake with vegetable oil for nothing. Then there is the itinerant lottery and it too has its criminal element. There are tricksters on an even bigger scale. Let us suppose that a peasant has come in to sell his last sheepskin coat. He will immediately be surrounded by a gang of dealers. Each of them is bargaining, each names his own price. At last they agree on the price. The man who has bought it slowly puts his hand in his pocket as though to get his money and hands the coat he has bought over to the man standing next to him. Suddenly there's a great noise behind the peasant and everyone is looking back there, and the peasant looks round too. But in a flash the coat is passed from hand to hand and disappears. "What about the money now, let me have it!" "What's that?" "The money for the coat!" "What coat is that? I haven't seen anything!" All round there's noise and laughter. The sheepskin coat has disappeared, and there's no one from whom to demand payment. There may be a gang of fraudsters who will sell a watch certified as being of standard gold purity or a real diamond ring, but when the buyer has a look at home he will find that the watch is made of brass and has no working parts, and the ring is just of brass with glass on top. Let us imagine that it was made by Krechinsky.22 But Sukharevka is one up on Krechinsky. It takes no time to substitute a watch or a clasp! But as for changing a dozen pairs of trousers ̶ that is something only Sukharevka can do. Here's how it was done: the young men would go round the secondhand market carrying bundles of trousers on their shoulders, absolutely new trousers that had just been made and were carefully folded. "How much are the trousers?" "Four roubles a pair. No, just have a look at what excellent quality they are… It just happens that we got a consignment in from England. We've got thirty-six pairs of trousers. This

22 The hero of Krechinsky’s Wedding . The pawning of his gold watch is an important element of the plot.

37 young man is carrying some, and that one is carrying the rest. They've only just brought them out." The prospective purchaser looks at what the other man is carrying. "At three roubles apiece … I'll take a pair." "You're joking!" "Suppose I give you ten roubles for three pairs … Would you take that?" "Let me have four roubles for each pair… Or look, if you like, take a whole dozen pairs for thirty roubles." The buyer's eyes would light up: whoever one offers them to would buy at three, or even at four, roubles apiece. And he looks at one of them and then the other and works it out ̶ that's right, a dozen pairs. And someone alongside him would be bargaining with a third dealer. They would agree on twenty-five roubles. The purchaser would hand over the money and the salesman would tie the trousers together with a piece of string… Suddenly someone would hit the buyer on the back of the neck. He would look round. "Excuse me … I didn't recognize you… I thought you were one of my friends." The buyer gets the trousers and goes on his way. He takes the bundle home. It turns out that he has one pair of trousers on top and one below but in between it's all just rubbish. They'd changed the parcel when he looked round. He'd "bought cheap". There were fewer rogues round the women sitting in rows and trading from stinking eateries. There were just the gangs of homeless children, minor pickpockets and baggage thieves, dragging the travelling bags of passers-by out of the horse cabs. The eatery was their favourite place, their exchange. There was overripe sausage on braziers, boiled pork sweetbreads, soup, rusty-looking herrings, women sitting on pots of boiled potatoes… Suddenly ̶ a downpour of rain. Those who were in the open covered up their goods with matting. Anyone who could took refuge under the tower. Only the eatery didn't move – the women raised the back of their coats over their heads… A few minutes later, with the sky again blue, the crowd would again be jostling in the market. After rain and during rainstorms there was a specially brisk trade in shoes. They managed to drag a civil servant in a badly worn greatcoat into one of the stalls. Two traders tore him apart, one on his right hand, the other on his left. For two roubles the civil servant bought some secondhand boots, put them on and went on his way, weaving his way past the puddles, An argument broke out among the traders. "He won't make it!" "He will!" "Bet you two beers?" "How long do you give him" "Quarter of an hour." "Done." "No, he's going for a shave." The civil servant sat down on a stand near the tower. An unshaven, grubby-looking barber gave a wink to a dishevelled lad who grabbed a dirty oil jar, ran off to get some water from a puddle and gave it to the barber. Here a shave cost three copecks and a haircut five. In the mornings, when there were no clients, the boys practised their barbering skills on retired soldiers, whom they shaved for free. If the clumsy lad cut the unfortunate soldier, he sat there and bore it because his pass had written in it: "Cut your hair, shave your beard, don't just wander through the world." A week later the soldier would ask for another shave. "Well, sit down. We haven't done cutting you." With these words the Moscow Figaro would invite the soldier to the stand.

38

I loved to pause and take a long look at this cacophonous horde, and on occasion to yield to the will of the barkers. You would be going along the pavement past the shops and be seized by the coat tails. "Please, sir, you bought from us before!" They would tug and tug. Whether you wanted to or not you'd be propelled into the shop. There you'd be surrounded by other assistants: every one of them would do his job and say his spiel. They compelled you to browse and even to try on, everything: a fur coat, a greatcoat, a jacket. "But I don't need anything!" "You may not need it now. But later you will. It'll do no harm to know a bit in advance. You'll just get good use out of it. Perhaps some of your friends may need to find out. And you'll know where to buy the clothes and what they are like ̶ because your own eyes have convinced you." There would be a great deal of noise from the barker in the street. A stern looking lady would be walking by. "Madam! You have bought from us before. An overcoat for your husband, lighter coats for your children." The lady passes proudly by. The barker changes his tone. "Madam, dear lady! Would you not like something from our stock of trousers?" he shouts after her to general merriment, then goes on to catch other passers-by. And what extraordinary personalities there were! I knew one of them who took leave from his boss, went away for Shrove Tuesday and Easter to the stalls in Maidens' Field to work with the old barkers. He was nearly forty years old and from his time as a boy he had always been with the same master. He was called Yefim Makariyevich. Not Makarych but Makariyevich, to show respect. Although in his shop he seemed stately and important, in the fair you could hardly recognize him with his great grey beard clipped on. How he would shout over the whole field: "Roll up! Roll up! Let's get started! We've got the bearded lady, great niece of a monkey. Hole in her side, all in silk tied!.." And so he would go on and on… The crowd were hanging on every word. People ran in from all the stalls to hear Yushka the Comedian. We too were wide-eyed as we stood in the crush in the darkness gazing up at him. And he would shake his grey beard as he laughed at us. Suddenly he would point his finger into the mass of people and scream: "Why are you rummaging in someone else's pocket?" Then everyone turned to look round…But he had already had changed the subject: he had seen a crow and to it he said: "You are a fool, a real fool! Where is the Devil taking you? Come on, you nine-legged serving maid from the rubbish pit! Roll up! Let's get started! Let’s get started!" He tore off his beard, waved it over his head and disappeared below decks. But a minute later he jumped out again, fastening on his beard as he went. "Come on, come on… Esteemed public, half esteemed, and parts of you that will just pass muster! Start to stir yourselves. We're not going to begin without you. Don't gurn – have some concern!" Suddenly he would stop, put on a serious face, listening in carefully. The crowd would become silent. "What's that you're saying? We haven't started! Hurry up everyone." And the booth was always crowded when Yushka was holding forth. Once I was chatting with him over our tea and I remarked on how cleverly he could manage a crowd. He answered me: "What is a crowd? It's simply a flock of sheep. Wherever the goat goes they will follow. You can turn them anywhere you want. Just try it out at Sukharevka! But, when a peasant is on his own, it's like talking to a tree in the woods, and its even more difficult with a religious

39 dissenter from the steppes; try making him go into a shop or persuade him to buy something that he does not need. That, my friend, is not like working the crowd on Maidens' Field but a hundred times more difficult. All the same during the thirty years I spent in Sukharevka no one ever refused to come into my shop. And you are talking about a crowd. I could persuade a crowd to bathe in the winter."

Sukharevka was a unique world, never to be repeated anywhere else. It is all contained in this little story: One of the experts, who worked on restoring old works and used to attend Shmarovin’s "Wednesdays", came back one Sunday from his dacha. He went as usual straight from the station to Sukharevka market, where he bought a magnificent old vase, an exact pair of the one that he had at home. You can well imagine the delight of this real art lover when he acquired such a precious treasure. However, when he got home, the servants greeted him with the news that last night burglars had broken into his home. He had now bought his very own vase!

40

7 Under the Kitai Wall

The Kitai Wall divides Kitai-gorod from the White City. It was built in the mid-sixteenth century. Ivan the Terrible's mother, Yelena Glinskaya, named that part of the city Kitai-gorod in memory of her birthplace, Kitai-Gorodok in Podolia.23 In 1806, at the beginning of the last century, P.S.Valuyev wrote about the Kitai Wall: "The Kitai Walls [sic] have been misused to a shameful extent. The towers have been given over to the shops of minor officials; in other parts, alongside the walls ugly small shops have been built and elsewhere there are cellars, sheds and stables. A great deal of disfigurement is also caused by the earthen defence works, bastions and ditches that were not there in the old days. All the drains coming out of the city run through them. Filth infects the air. This abuse started after the capital was moved to Petersburg… Round the whole exterior of Kitai-gorod are shops, built in stone and wood." After that, just before the war of 1812, they put the wall in order as far as possible. They got rid of those buildings standing against the outside, but the inner face remained as it had been and, in addition, on Old Square, between the Ilyinsky and Nikolsky gates, a secondhand market was opened, which had reached the full height of its degradation by the mid-1880s. It has been excellently depicted by V.Ye Makovsky in his painting which hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery. They closed the flea market only in the 1880s, but traces of it still remain – it spawned slums right in the centre of the city that have only been abolished by Soviet Power. Those slums were little shops that were built against the wall right through to the Varvarsky Gate and on the other side there was just Lubyanka Square with its down-at-heel taverns and the famous "Shipov's Fortress". In Catherine's time there was a block standing that held N.I. Novikov's printing press where he printed his editions. That building was knocked down in the eighteenth century; then later, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a new block was put up that belonged to General Shipov, a famous rich man and a power in the capital; he was a very original person, taking no payment from his tenants for their apartments, and allowing them to bring in as many people as they wanted. He had nothing to do with the Moscow residence permit, not even keeping his own list of tenants. Faced with the General, the police did not dare to say a word and soon the building was crammed with runaway thieves and tramps who were active everywhere in Moscow and were passing the takings of their night's work onto receivers of stolen goods ̶ they also found refuge here. It was a risky business to go through Lubyanka Square at night. The people living in "Shipov's Fortress" could be divided into two categories: firstly run away serfs, petty thieves, beggars, children who had fled from parents or masters, young pupils and those on the run from a young people's prison. Alongside these were Moscow trades people and peasants from nearby villages who had no residence permit. All these people made up a carefree drunken crowd, seeking refuge from the police. The others were gloomy people, who did not say much. They didn't draw close to anyone and even in the midst of the wildest behaviour and the greatest drunkenness they would not tell you their name nor give any hint about what had happened. And of course no one near them could possibly dare to put a question like that to them. These people were experienced

23 This is only one of numerous explanations of the name Kitai-Gorod. Kitai-Gorod is in Podolia, Western Ukraine, near the town of Vinnitsa. There is no connection with China.

41 robbers, deserters and some who had fled from penal servitude. They recognize each other at first glance and silently draw closer, like those bound together by some secret bond. People from the first category realize who they are, but remain silent, overpowered by fear, and never by word or glance will they give away their secret. The first type of people disappear in daytime, as they go about their trifling concerns and at night they get drunk and sleep. The second category sleep by day but during the night they are "operating" in Moscow or its environs, going through the buildings of rich people or merchants, and the store buildings of rich peasants, passing along the byways. Their work smells of blood. In the old days they were known as "Ivans" and later as "business-like boys". Thus once, to carry out a raid, the police had surrounded a building in the middle of the night and had cut off all the escape routes; at the very same time some of the gangsters coming back with their plunder noticed there was something wrong. A gang of them gathered together, split into detachments and waited in ambush. When the policemen started to break into the building, the "Ivans" with their weapons overtook them from behind and a real melee ensued The police who had broken into the building came up against the resistance of the petty thieves from inside and the onset of the "Ivans" from outside. They ran away in shame, having been knocked about and wounded, and for a long time they forgot about making another raid. The "Ivans" appeared with stolen property in huge bundles and sometimes with a load of goods and chattels on a horse that they had stolen from some innocent rider passing by. Those robbers used to wait till the morning and then would haul their booty into the little shops on New and Old Squares that had opened as soon as it was daylight. You could not go near those shops at night, because they were guarded by huge watchdogs that were chained up there. Whole loads of stolen goods disappeared without trace into those little shops that were built up against the wall. They contained secret hiding places that it was impossible to find in the dark cellars. The small shops were gloomy even in the daytime – you could not see what they contained. To judge by what was laid out on open display each establishment had its own special basic trade. In one they might be selling cheap furs, in another old footwear that had been repaired and a third one might concentrate on wool and paper, a fourth would have rags and a fifth one scrap iron and brass. But all this was only a respectable screen for the uninitiated, behind which was hidden the real secret of what was going on. These shops would take in anything that was brought in on foot or by wagon, from a silver spoon to a samovar and from a china cup to a headstone from a grave… Somehow or other it was here that the police managed to find even a heavy brass cannon that had been stolen from the Kremlin. In the daytime the shops took all sorts of things from pickpockets and petty thieves ̶ ranging from gold watches to a handkerchief or a hat that had been snatched from someone's head, but at daybreak they would buy in the night's takings, wholesale, received by the bundle from the "Ivans", even sometimes with fresh traces of blood. When they had got their money the "Ivans" would go to celebrate in their dens, the taverns and pothouses that they loved, such as Hell on Trubnaya Square or Polyakov's. The lesser thieves and tricksters would gather in their haunts in the evening, but the "Ivans" came together by morning. Sometimes not even bothering to go into the shops along the walls, they would offload their takings, split up what they had made and pass it straight over to the tavern keeper or to specialist receivers. When "Shipov's Fortress " was working, the main den for thieves was Polyakov's near the River Yauza; it was full of little rooms, in which they could divide up what they had stolen and sell it off to receivers. It was here that the drop-outs used to gather, not afraid of anyone and not hesitating over any crime.

42

It was in one of those little rooms that, dividing up their rich haul, four robbers strangled a comrade in order to lay hands on his share… It was in that same building that a chimney sweep found in the attic two legs that had been cut off, still wearing a man's boots. After they had divided up the takings some of them might start getting drunk with women or gambling. The serious "Ivans" did not bother with drinking or with women. Gambling was their passion: roulette, pontoon and of course, card-sharping. Polyakov's went on flourishing until Shipov's "Fortress" was broken up. But it was not the police who did that: after the death of the all too kindly General Shipov authority passed to the Imperial Charitable Society and it set about the old free tenants in no fashion that could be described as charitable. All the forces of the police and the soldiers who were called out to assist them were deployed to lay siege to the impregnable fortress. It was described like this by the old men who remembered that night: "The soldiers attacked: it was pitch black ̶ the whole building was wrapped in silence and darkness… They went into the first room ̶ there was darkness, a foul smell and disorder. On the floors there were bast mats, straw, rags and logs. In the whole flat there were only two people: the owner and his son, who was just a boy." Much the same story at another flat. In a third a large bottle of wine on a table, bits of bread, cucumbers, but no sign of anyone living there. And at every exit there were soldiers. No way out. They combed through the sheds, the cellars, the storerooms – and found only a few stonily silent men. It wasn't till the first light of day that they discovered the secret when they saw the roof, completely covered with people in rags, who were either sitting or lying there. They forced them to go downstairs, not even arresting any of them, but just driving them out of the building. Then those expelled went off in crowds to the wastelands by the river Yauza and to Khitrov market where a row of dosshouses were opening up. That was where the less harmful elements from the Shipov Fortress took refuge, while the "Ivans" first of all scattered, then reappeared back in Khitrovka and moved into the cellars and secret passages of the Romeiko building in the "Dry Ravine". The Charitable Society fixed the building up more or less and let back into it the same sort of rabble, only now with residence permits, and, as before, closely tied to the second-hand market. The building filled up with tailors and cobblers, second-hand dealers and traders and receivers of stolen goods. Whole apartments were taken up by specialist "'tailors", known as "crayfish". They were at the disposal of their owners, who had authorisation from their trade organisation. They were called "crayfish" because they sat for ever in their burrows, without leaving them, "like crayfish on a sandbank", drinking away till they had sold their last shirt. The Shipov House did not change either its name, or its way of living. Formerly it had been occupied by robbers, now it was occupied by legally registered "business people", who worked indefatigably to ensure that all evidence of theft, violence or robbery had vanished. These were" business people" who derived an inexhaustible source of income from buying up and disguising stolen goods One can say quite boldly that not a single building holder could make such a large and reliable income as these hirers of apartments and receivers of stolen goods. In this huge three-storey building , except for a few shops and eating-houses, as well as a drinking-houses on the ground floor, all the other accommodation consisted of small, dirty apartments, that were crammed with women traders from the market, along with their husbands or just with men that had moved in with them. The flats were almost all leased to women and the husbands were only named as their companions: perhaps a tailor, a cobbler or a locksmith. Each flat was divided by partitions into corners and places where a bed could be fitted in… In its three to four separate partitioned spaces one such place might accommodate thirty people along with their children…

43

All the tenants are up and about from five o'clock in summer and in the winter from seven. They have a quick bite to eat, then, unwashed and in ragged clothes, the women and the others living there run out to the secondhand market to try their luck, passing bundles of cheap goods from one hand to the other hand and stuffing a purse full of change into an inner pocket. These are the people who have paid to rent the flats, who themselves work from morning to night, and the ones who have sublet space from them are just the same. Even little children run out onto the street with their elders, selling matches and loose cigarettes that they've rolled on the spot from God knows what tobacco. Once during the week the women wash and tidy their flat after a fashion; or at least they make a show of tidying it ̶ the flats are impossibly dirty and you could never get them clean. However, there are some tenants who hardly ever clean their flats – or, with rare exceptions, twice a year at best – flats which are inhabited by thieves, drunkards and prostitutes. That sort of tenants also try to sell worthless rubbish, but they go out to the market later, because towards evening they'll unfailingly get drunk with their men. The first type of women traders appear at first daylight in the market, together with their husbands and fellow residents, and straight away manage to stock up with fresh goods which they buy in directly and tricked the customers with the goods they have for sale. They cluster around any individual and thrust in front a possible purchaser whatever they have to show: a jacket or trousers or a cap or underclothes. All of this is torn, fading and liable to fall apart as soon as anyone touches it. The galoshes or boots will turn out to have been glued together and daubed over, the coat that pretended to be black will turn out to be a grey-brown- dark red colour and after the first rain a red band will appear round the hat and one side of the frock coat will turn out to be dark blue and the other side yellow, while half way up the back it is green. Underclothes will fall apart the first time they are ironed. This is all "produced" by craftsmen from the Shipov House and has been certified as "well-made" by the trade management. With the first daylight women used to appear at the market, junk dealers of the first water and receivers of stolen goods from the Shipov House and all the poorer elements of the population who had something to sell: civil servants who had lost their jobs might bring along their last pathetic winter overcoat with its collar of dog fur, a poor student would sell his frock coat so as to pay for a roof over his head, from which he might be driven out onto the street, a hungry mother might be selling the blanket and pillow of her child, while the wife of a bankrupt merchant could be timorously offering to sell the samovar in order to buy food for her husband, locked up in the debtors' prison. These people who are selling out of dire necessity are the most profitable prey for the vultures of the market. A flock of them have ringed round one of their victims, heap mockery on him, frighten him with cruel insinuations and threats until they knock all the sense out of him "How much do you want?" "Four roubles," replies the student, bewildered, as this is his first experience of the secondhand market. "Go on… You're asking for four? But would you take one rouble?" They have all closed in to stand round him, feeling the cloth of his coat and all of them insisting on one rouble. Each one puts in his sharp word: "It's hooky! It's not worth buying. We'll get nicked again!" The student is as red as a beetroot, with tears in his eyes… But they keep on harassing him. The hungry mother is weeping. "Let her cry. To hell with her" And the woman trader, all draped in dirty rags that she has just bought, contemptuously spurns the blanket and pillow, although secretly she would like to have them, and only offers a fifth of the appointed price.

44

"It must have been stolen," says an old street trader. He tries to offer the merchant's wife three roubles for the samovar which was worth fifteen roubles, but another secondhand dealer spitefully adds onto the price, as he sees that the poor woman is frozen with horror. "Perhaps we should send for a policeman…" These devices always worked: the befuddled student, the wretched mother and the merchant's wife all gave up their possessions for a fifth of their true value; only the experienced civil servant holds firm to his price quite calmly and even intervenes to defend others whom the dealers are going to fleece. In the end he sells his dog-fur collar for the proper price, which the dealers pay him to stop him "messing things up". That's how things look very early in the morning, when the second type of dealers have still not sobered up. However, they too are coming out now. The people in the Square have changed; the time for robbing the poor is replaced by the time for making money from human faults and weaknesses. The market is filled with a multitude of drunks. They have brought along their own goods and other people's just to get enough for them "to have the hair of the dog". These are people who suit the second type of dealers, and another approach is devised for them because these sellers have no tender conscience and are not afraid. There's nothing will frighten them or charm them with cunning words. For every word you say they'll have ten to answer you and plenty to say about your parents and your ancestors. Anyone hesitating whether to sell is immediately surrounded by dealers. They start by examining the object, turning it round this way and that, putting it up to the light and starting to bargain, proposing their own price: "Are you asking for two roubles? I'll give you one and a half. See for yourself ̶ it's not worth more than that." "I said two roubles… not a copeck less." "Then take one and three quarter roubles ̶ you're a right stubborn devil!" "Two is what I said," the seller cuts him short with what is clearly his last word. "All right, take your money. What can I do with you?" says the trader with apparent reluctance, hurriedly thrusting a handful of change over and snatching the object he has bought. The other man starts to count his money and finds instead of two roubles that he has only one and a half. "Give me the other half rouble! After all I told you my price was two roubles " The market woman stands imperturbably in front of him. "Let me have my thing back again!" "All right, take it , my dear. You know we're not going to take it away from you by force," says the buyer, then suddenly with a shriek of horror: "But where's it gone to? Ah, saints above, they've robbed me, robbed me in broad daylight!" And so saying she disappears into the crowd. The ones who are dying for a drop will give up the object because they'll get their money, and hence their wine, immediately. Their guts are aching for a drink. From midday on people come in quite openly without any goods to sell but, pretending that they my want to buy something, they go into the little shops which stand on Old Square against the Kitai Wall. There, with only one or two exceptions, everyone is occupied with buying up stolen goods. On the corner of New Square and the Varvarsky Gate was the shop of the Old Believer S.T.Bolshakov who traded in early printed books and pre-Nikon icons.24 Learned folk and writers often came to visit him, professors of the university and Academicians. Alongside his establishment there were two more such shops dealing in old

24 As an Old Believer, Bolshakov would not have accepted the reforms of Patriarch Nikon.

45 books. Then beyond them, until the market closed you could go into any of them with goods of dubious origin. The secondhand market took up the whole of Old Square between Ilyinka Street and Nikolskaya Street, and part of the New Square – between Ilyinka and Varvarka Streets. It had the Kitai Wall on one side and on the other a row of tall buildings that were taken up with commercial premises. On the upper floors there were offices and storerooms; then below them shops selling ready made clothes and footwear. This was all cheap stuff, mainly made in Russia: winter coats, light coats, wide trousers or overcoats and single- and double-breasted suits , made fairly loose for common folk. Besides that there was a "fashion" department with some pretensions to being smart, showing clothes made by the same tailors. Shops selling off-the-peg clothes. Just as on Sukharevka, they tried to draw in customers by main strength. Round the entrance there was always the din of a dozen touts. They would try to catch the coat tails of passers- by and drag them unfailingly into the shop, quite unconcerned with whether they did or did not want any off-the-peg clothes. "But I do not need any clothes," says some merchant or even a civil servant, trying to escape the clutches of two strapping fellows in their tight coats. "Be so kind, sir" ̶ or if he's an official – "Your Excellency ̶ just have a look at what we can offer you." And not one of them will give up, each trying to draw him his way, into their shop. If they managed to pull him in then they'd spin magic words round the unfortunate man; they'd torment him by measuring his size and try to persuade him to buy, if not for himself, then at least for his wife, his children or for his coachman. These "touts" were great masters of their trade. "As soon as he comes into my shop he may not need anything but I'll get him to buy it! I'll talk him round." That's what a good "tout"' would say. And indeed he would talk the man round. There were also "touts"' like these offering ready-made shoes in Old Square and in the corners of what used to be the Post Office on Moskvoretskaya Street. In both those places they sold specially coarse quality footwear, boots and shoes, mainly those produced in Kimry.25 In the 1870s they were still making soles for shoes out of paper, even though leather was by now comparatively cheap, but these were the mottos both for both seller and shoemaker: "buy cheap"' and "no deceit – no receipt". Of course the people who suffered most from this were the ones that had little money to spare, but thanks to the "touts" it was easy to trick them. A poor man might buy a pair of boots with the last money he had, put them on, walk through the puddles on two or three streets in showery weather, only to see that the sole had come away and, instead of leather, paper was sticking out of his boot. Back he'd go to the shop; the "touts" knew quite well why and were ready with words to meet him, calling him a rogue and saying that he had come to do them down, trying to offload any old rubbish… "You bought boots in the market and now you've come to complain to us…" "Come on now, what shop did you buy them in?" The wretched man would stand at a loss, look about ̶ there were so many shops. The signs and doors were all similar and each shop had its bunch of "touts". He would burst into tears and go off to a chorus of catcalls and jeers. Luzhin was Chief of Police in Moscow in the 1860s. He was mad about hunting and kept his own pack of hounds near the city. His chief kennel-man was tricked into buying boots with paper soles in Old Square and he complained to his boss, telling him how and where the

25 A town in the Tver region, on the River Volga, famous for shoemaking.

46 shopkeepers had got their goods from. Luzhin sent him to find out the details of that trade. The kennel-man soon came back and reported how that very day early in the morning they had brought several wagon loads of boots from Kimry to the biggest wholesale dealer in Old Square. Luzhin took a squad of police, rushed over to Old Square and quite unexpectedly surrounded the stores of footwear that had been pointed out to him. He said not a word to the local police chief to prevent him warning the trader. Luzhin arrived on the scene at the exact moment when they were tumbling the boots out of the wagons and into the stores. Everyone was arrested: those who owned the stores, and their proxies, and the dealers who had brought the goods from Kimry, and the shopkeepers who were selling the footwear. When the traders were flogged, they swore that they would never again sell goods like that and the people from Kimry, after a really severe thrashing, made a solemn pledge that not only they themselves but their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be laid under a solemn undertaking never to put paper soles onto boots or shoes. And truly the people from Kimry started to do honest work. Right up to the Turkish War of 1877-8 there was no more talk of paper soles. However, at the time of the Turkish War the children and grandchildren of the miscreants from Kimry were "pulled into a loss-making type of business" by army suppliers who gave them huge orders for ready- made boots with paper soles. Thus our soldiers had to walk through snow in the Balkans and the Caucasus wearing torn boots and died as they caught cold. Once more from that time paper soles came back in Sukharevka and the Smolensk Market and in the small shops whose motto was "buy cheap" and "no deceit – no receipt." Old Square was only cleaned up at the end of the 1880s when the secondhand market was abolished and the Shipov Building took on a comparatively respectable look. In 1926 the Department of Public Services set about bringing that relic of old Moscow, the Kitai wall, back to the way it had looked five hundred years ago, when it served as a defence against the invading enemy, and was not as later generations found it. We may call to mind Gogol's immortal words: "Alongside that defensive wall there have been piled forty wagon loads of every sort of rubbish. What a wretched town …As soon as you put up some memorial, or even just a fence, then ̶ God knows why ̶ every sort of rubbish collects against it."26 That was how the Kitai Wall looked, always in such a wretched state until it was removed in 1934. In many places it was completely destroyed, or else it had subsided some two metres, its towers made hideous by the people who had settled there and made completely free with them. "We don't need a place in the country!"

By an ancient tower Timeless walls await the ploughboy and the sower

Trees were growing out of the cracks in the walls and we could see them from the Lubyanka and Varvarka, and from Old and New Squares.

26 Act1 Scene 5 of The Government Inspector

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8 Secrets of the Neglinka Stream

Every time there was heavy rain Neglinny Passage and Trubnaya Square were flooded almost through to Kuznetsky Bridge. The flooding was so bad that it made a regular waterfall into shop doorways and into the lower floors of houses in that district. This used to happen because the underground drain of the Neglinka had never been cleaned out. That sewer ran from Samotechnaya Street under the Boulevard of Flowers, Neglinny Passage, Theatre Square, then under the Alexander Garden right down to the Moscow River and it simply could not contain the water that flooded into it in rainy weather. This was an absolute disaster but the city fathers never gave any thought to it. In former times the Neglinka Stream used to flow though this area. Even by the time of Catherine the Great it was enclosed in an underground pipe. They hammered a wooden pile into the bed of the stream and covered it over with a stone archway. They put in a wooden floor, made drains where the water could run off through pipes that they had let down and made into an underground sewer under the streets. Besides the legally recognized down pipes that were put in to take rain and other liquids from the houses, most of the richer householders constructed their own secret channels to get rid of their sewage instead of carrying it away in casks, as was done everywhere in Moscow until the underground sewage system was introduced. And all this filth used to flow out into the Moscow River. The police knew about this and so did all the house owners who were entitled to vote. They must all have thought: "We didn't put it in; it's not up to us to clear it up." I had been once below ground in Moscow, in the shaft of an artesian well, and had read Victor Hugo's description of the sewers of Paris in his novel Les Misérables. I now decided at all costs to find out about the Neglinka. This was to be a continuation of my basic work, investigating Moscow's slums. The Neglinka was linked to them, as I had already been forcibly reminded in the sinks of iniquity of Grachevka and the Boulevard of Flowers. It was not difficult for me to find two brave fellows willing to undertake this journey. One of them was a passportless pipe layer called Fedya, who survived on casual work; the other was a former concierge, a solid, reliable fellow. His job was to lower the ladder lower us into the sewer between Samoteka and Trubnaya Square and then meet us at the next manhole and lower the ladder so we could get out. Fedya's job was to accompany me underground and light the way. So it was that one hot July day opposite the Malyushin house, near Samoteka, we lifted the iron grating of a drain and lowered the ladder into it. No one paid any attention to our operation – everything was done very quickly: we lifted the grating and lowered the ladder. Foul- smelling fumes rose from the opening. Fedya the pipe layer climbed down first; the opening, damp and dirty, was narrow; the ladder was vertical and one's back scraped along the wall. One could hear the squelch of water and a sepulchral voice said: "Go on, climb down!" I pulled my hunting boots up higher, fastened every button of my leather jacket and began to descend. I caught my elbows and shoulders on the walls of the shaft. I had to cling on tight to the grimy steps of the vertically swaying ladder which, however, was being held by a workman who had stayed on the surface. With each step the foul smell grew stronger and stronger. Things got scary. Finally the sound of squelching water could be heard. I looked up. I could only see a rectangle of clear blue sky and the face of the workman who was holding the ladder. A cold, bone-chilling dampness seized me. At last I got down to the bottom step and, lowering my foot carefully, felt a stream of water swishing against the toe of my boot. "Go for it; lower yourself in. Stand – it's not deep there," said Fedya in a dull, sepulchral voice. I put my feet on the bottom and the coldness of the water penetrated my hunting boots. "I can't light the lantern, the matches are damp!" complained my companion. 48

I hadn't got any matches. Fedya climbed back out. I was left alone in this walled sepulchre and made my way on my knees about ten paces through the swirling water. I halted. All around me was darkness. Impenetrable darkness, a total absence of light. I turned my head this way and that, but my eyes could make nothing out. My head bumped against something; I raised my hand and felt a cold damp, warty stone vault, covered in slime. I instinctively withdrew my hand… I had even become terrified. It was quiet; only the gurgling of the water could be heard below me. Every second spent waiting for a worker with a light seemed to me an eternity. I moved forward a little and heard a noise like the roar of a waterfall. And indeed, right next to me was a roaring waterfall which dispersed into a million filthy splashes, barely illuminated by a pale yellow light from a manhole in the street. It turned out to be an outflow of sewage from a side opening in the wall. Because of the noise I didn't hear Fedya come up to me and prod me in the back. I turned round. He was carrying a five-sided lantern, but its beams, so bright in any other place, seemed like dull red sparks which illuminated nothing and were unable to banish a single foot of the darkness. We went forward through deep water, from time to time avoiding outflows of sewage from the streets which roared past under our feet. Suddenly a terrible crash, as of collapsing buildings, made me shudder. It was a cart passing by above us. I recalled a similar crash from my excursion down the shaft of an artesian well, but this one was incomparably louder. Above my head carriages rumbled past with ever increasing frequency. With the help of the lantern I examined the walls of the passage which were damp and covered with thick slime. We walked for a long time, in places plunging into deep sediment of clinging, liquid, foul-smelling filth, stooping in places because the banks of filth were so high that it was impossible to go in a straight line – you had to bend; even so I caught the vault with my head and shoulders. My legs sank into the filth, sometimes coming up against something solid. All this was swimming with liquid filth, so you couldn't examine what was what, nor did you want to. We made our way amid this stink to the first shaft and came up against a ladder which had been let down. I raised my head and was delighted to see blue sky. "Well, are you in one piece?" boomed a voice from above. "We'll go on a bit further. Let it down through the next manhole." "Well, all right, but one look is as good as another." I gave instructions to move the ladder two manholes further on; it slid upwards. I admired the blue sky and, a minute later, we moved on, immersed in filth and debris above our knees and crawling over street detritus. Once again there was a rectangle of clear sky above us. A few minutes later we came up against something sticking up higher beneath our feet. It was a particularly solid lump of filth and beneath it there appeared to be something piled up. We scrambled over it, illuminating it with our lantern. I prodded it with my foot and something sprang up under my boot… We stepped across the lump and went further on. In one of these blockages I managed to make out the corpse of a huge mastiff half buried in sediment. It was especially difficult to get across the next blockage before the exit on to Trubnaya Square, where the ladder was waiting for us. Here the filth was especially thick and there was something slippery under our feet the whole time. It was frightening to think about it. Nevertheless Fedya burst out: "I tell you, honest. We're walking over people." I said nothing. I looked up and through the iron grill shone the blue sky. One more manhole and an open grill leading to freedom and the open air awaited us.

My articles about Moscow’s underground sewer caused a storm. The City Council resolved to begin reconstruction of the Neglinka and the job was given to my friend the engineer N.M. Levachov, a well-known hunter with whom I had been on a number of winter wolf hunts.

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It was with him, while he was working on the reconstruction, that I went down into the Neglinka for a second time, near the Maly Theatre, where there is a bend in the channel and where its course was blocked with a variety of rubbish, over the top of which the water barely passed in a narrow tickle; this was the main cause of the flooding. At last, in 1886, the reconstruction of the Neglinka was complete. A reporter's piece had done its job. My desperado of a companion Fedya was taken on by Levachov, who arranged a passport for him and then made him his foreman.

For decades after Levachov's reconstruction the dirt and thick sewage again formed a blockage at the bend of the channel under Kitaisky Passage, near the Maly Theatre. During the war the flooding was so bad that it swamped the lower inhabited floors of the building and the trading establishments, but the somnolent city housekeeper – the City Council – took no measures to stop it. Only in 1926 that the City Soviet got to grips with the Neglinka; it was opened up from the Maly Theatre onwards and a foundation put in to half way across Sverdlov Square; the polluted channel was again cleaned out and an end put on the flooding. I was walking once along Neglinnaya Street and opposite the State Bank I saw a wooden shed, surrounded by a fence. I went in and met the engineer in charge of the works. It turned out he knew me and acceded to my request to look round the works. In the middle of the shed was a narrow yawning aperture from which there protruded the end of a ladder. I tried to go down but was hindered by my fur coat. However, I didn't want to miss the chance of putting in an interesting report to Evening Moscow, for whom I was working at that time. I threw off my coat and went down wearing just my jacket. The familiar underground corridor lit by electric light bulbs shining dimly through the mist. The whole channel was covered with wooden planking which during the thaw nevertheless flooded. The reconstruction was already almost complete; all the sediment had been taken away and the underground sewer was fully functioning. I went along as far as the Maly Theatre and, frozen, my feet soaked and, almost overcome by the stench of the sewer, I climbed out up a damp ladder. I put on my fur coat, which did nothing to warm me up and set off for the editorial office where I wrote a description of the reconstruction work and recalled my former trip into the sewer. The following day I read my article while already lying in bed with a high temperature; as a result of this influenza I became completely deaf in my left ear; it later turned out that my right ear was damaged too. This was an epilogue to my first underground expedition into the depths of the Neglinka forty years previously.

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9 Night on the Boulevard of Flowers

A hole in your pocket! What can be more ignominious than that? But it so happened that it was just that smallest hole, not noticed in time, that turned out to cause many of my adventures. In August 1883, after five months away, I returned to Moscow and devoted myself to my literary work. I wrote verses and various pieces in The Alarm Clock, Entertainment , Splinters, also articles on a variety of subjects and pieces in the Moscow newspapers about trotting racing or flat racing. Among my acquaintances of all ranks and positions at the race course were people from the humblest of professions but always smartly dressed, great ones for gambling on the Tote. I made every effort to keep up those sort of contacts and thanks to them I got interesting news for the papers; sometimes I managed to get into secret gambling dens where they were not shy of keeping me company and where I met the sort of people accepted in society, who even made up the membership of Clubs, although they really were just card sharps, swindlers, or the leaders of gangs. One could write a whole book about that world, but I shall confine myself just to my memories of one person who was always at the races, a regular dandy with fair hair and bushy whiskers, who even had his own racehorse, a trotter that used to win prizes, On the very day when I had the mishap with the hole in my pocket, he came up to me at the racecourse to get advice: should he enter his horse for the next race and did it have any chance of winning? After the races were finished, we chanced to meet again at the entrance to the racetrack. Seeing it was raining he offered to take me home in his carriage. I did not accept, saying that I was going to Samoteka and that would be out of his way, but he persuaded me and letting the coachman go he drove his own charabanc to Samoteka, where I called in to see my old friend, the artist Pavlik Yakovlev. On our way there we talked about horses the whole time – he considered me a great expert and looked up to me as such. I came out from Yakovlev's about one o'clock in the morning and was sloshing through the mud in my high boots along the central strip of the Boulevard of Flowers. As was my habit, I was clutching in my right pocket my ever-present knuckleduster, a present from Andreyev- Burlak. However, that was an unnecessary precaution: there was not a living soul about, as

A fine-dropped autumn drizzle falls Gently, gently, through the mist.27

The darkness was impenetrable. There was not a single light anywhere, because the City Council's calendar had decreed that on nights when the moon was shining there was no need for street lighting, and tonight, according to the calendar, the moon should have been shining. But in addition to all that, here was the fog, wreathing the bushes, hanging on to the trees and making them look like grey ghosts. Only on a night like this could one walk untroubled along this boulevard, with no risk of being robbed or even killed by the ever-present men of the night, coming out of the slums in the lanes round Grachevka and the Arbuzov Fortress, that huge former town house, which was situated on the boulevard. The most frightening street was Little Kolosov Lane, which ran from Grachevka to the Boulevard of Flowers and was occupied by the lowest form of cheap brothels. The main doors of these establishments were lit by the obligatory red lights and in the depth of the back yards were the dirtiest secret haunts of the prostitutes, where no lights were necessary and where the windows were curtained from inside.

27 A misquotation of a well-known folk song.

51

It was a feature of these yards that no one kept dogs. There were women living here who had lost any hope of looking like normal human beings and their "tom cats" or pimps were also there, hiding from the police, men for whom it was even dangerous to go into the dosshouses of Khitrovka. At night the pimps came out on to the Boulevard of Flowers and Samoteka where their "girls" would try to lure in drunks. Either they used to bring them into their dens or they would be undressed there and then by the pimps who were following behind their "ladies". From the dens of the latter thugs were recruited as "enforcers" to carry out crimes and the police never looked in there. However, if their superiors (mainly the Public Prosecutor's Office) insisted and they did carry out raids, the "landladies" knew about this in advance and when they made "snap" raids they never found the individual they were looking for. The landladies of these lodgings, mostly former prostitutes, were only the owners by name, but the true owners were their lovers, criminals on the run who were sought by the police, or various swindlers and thieves who happened to be there. For some card sharps, and game fixers, these establishments also contained "secret" rooms, or "mills". These were very finely appointed, intended specially for winning money off thugs and robbers, who were quite relaxed about appearing in slums like these merely to try their luck, knowing that there would not be any outsiders there. Agents of the card sharp, people who set up the game, would sniff out that such and such a thug had money after a successful job and immediately the hunt would be on for him. On a particular day they would invite him into the "mill" (as they called their gambling den) to play faro (there being no other game in the gambling dens) and by a certain time there were already gathered a tightly knit company of card sharps. They would invite someone to hold the bank, someone guaranteed certain to beat every card – and the money from the lucky thief is transferred to the company. It is specially for that purpose that the "mill" was created and apart from that, on days that are not taken up with business, every kind of petty criminal may play there; this brings in an assured income, since they take ten per cent from the bank. The smart lads were cautious enough not to go to the big "mills", which were held in swish apartments. At that time in Moscow there were a good dozen of these "mills" on the main streets.

The 1880s saw the biggest flowering of these establishments. At that time the women who kept these dens were considered the most reliable, politically speaking, and enjoyed a good deal of latitude from the police, who were handsomely rewarded by them, while the okhrana did not consider them as "subversive" and even protected them to the point where they were taken on by the secret police to monitor royal processions. At that time the police were only concerned with rooting out unreliable revolutionary elements, whom they arrested and exiled in their hundreds. And the slum world of Grachevka and the Boulevard of Flowers benefitted. I was walking along in complete silence among these ghostly figures when I suddenly felt a strange pain in my left leg near the ankle. The pain eventually became so acute that it made me stop. I was looking around to see where I could sit down to take my shoe off, but there was no bench in sight and the pain in my leg was quite unbearable. Then I leant against a tree, pulled my boot off and immediately found the cause of the trouble: it turned out that my little penknife had slipped out of my pocket and down into my boot. I pushed the knife back into my pocket and was starting to put my boot on when I heard someone sloshing through the puddles and talking in a low voice. I stayed silent behind my tree. Against a spectrum of light coming from a red light in the direction of Bezymyanka I could see a slow-moving group of three men holding on to each other. "I'm quite exhausted… Let's rest for a moment. There's not even a live dog about here." "Ah, you poor old thing. All right, let him down…" The two outside men bent over to let down carefully the one who was between them. "They're carrying a drunk," I thought.

52

I managed to see a huge figure in a long coat and alongside him a little hunchbacked man. He was waving his arm and getting his breath back. "What a hefty lump he was… He's pulled my arms out!" But the hefty lump was lying face downwards in a puddle. "Fokach, let's leave him here… Or we could put him in the bushes just there." "We are just beside a police box, you fool. Tomorrow the cops will be running through all these dens." "It would be safer to stuff him into a pipe and then we'll have covered our traces." "If we're going to do it then we must be quiet about it. Come on then, pick him up. We can carry lift him with our hands." The big man took his head, the little man caught him by the legs and they carried him off as though they were carrying a block of wood. I went after them, walking on the grass so they couldn't hear. The shower was coming to an end. Water was gurgling close at hand, flowing down the gutter beside the pavement and splashing down noisily through an iron grating into the underground Neglinka River. And it was beside that grating the "toilers" stopped and threw the body down on to the stones. "Pull up the grating!" The little man bent over and then straightened up. "It's heavy, I can't do it." "Ah, you're a useless creature!" The big man gave a tug and moved the grating. "Aha," I thought, "that's what the saying means: 'Cover your traces'." I moved in the bushes, stamped my foot and yelled out to the whole street: "Come here, lads! Get hold of them!" Out of my pocket I pulled a police whistle that I always carried with me in case it was needed as I went round the slums. I gave three long sharp blasts. Both the robbers rushed off, at first along the pavement, then across the street, where they hid among the bushes on some waste land. I ran across to the prone figure felt his face. His beard and whiskers had been shaved… He was a big, well built man. There were his shoes, trousers, waistcoat and a white patch turned out to be a starched shirt. I took his hand ̶ he moved his fingers. He was alive! I gave another triple blast on the whistle – and was immediately responded to from two directions. Hurried footsteps were heard: a concierge from a neighbouring building was running up, while from the direction of the boulevard came a policeman, probably from the police box… I hid in the bushes in order to make sure they saw the man by the grating. The concierge ran along the pavement, came across him immediately and blew his whistle. The policeman ran up… Both of them bent over the prone figure. I wanted to come out to them but again I felt the pain in my leg: the penknife had again fallen through the hole! That decided my next move: there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. I'd find out everything tomorrow. I knew that this side of the boulevard belonged to the first area of the Sretenskaya district while the opposite side, together with Bezymyanka, from where they had dragged the man's body, belonged to the second area. I got a cab in Trubnaya Square and went off home. By ten o'clock the next morning I was already under the Sretenskaya watchtower in the office of Larepland, the legal superintendent. I knew him well and several times he had given me news to publish in our newspapers. He had one weakness: as a former "cantonist"28 he had served for decades in the Moscow police, rising from constable to area inspector with the rank of

28 Underage sons on Russian conscripts who were educated in special "canton" schools. 53 collegiate assessor29 and was happy when people called him "Captain", even though he always wore the shoulder straps of a civilian official. "Captain, I have just had the news that last night they found a man who had been killed on the Boulevard of Flowers". "In the first place nobody has been killed, but they picked up a drunk who had been robbed on Grachevka. They dragged him across into my patch and abandoned him there. That is a way thieves have of behaving ̶ so that there will be less trouble both for them and for us. Who would want to go looking for anyone on another man's patch. And it is impossible to prove that he has been dragged over there. That's the first thing. But the next thing is I beg you most humbly not to write a word about this in your newspaper. I have not even written a report about it and I have closed the case down myself. I'm amazed how you got to know of it. No one knows about it apart from the policemen who were called out and the victim himself…. And it was he himself who asked that the case should be closed. So please don't go writing anything, otherwise you'll get me into trouble… I have not even reported the case to the Chief of Police." Then Larepland told me that during the night they had brought in a man that had drunk himself silly, and been stripped of all his clothes, and whom they had pulled out of a puddle in the roadway. "At first they thought that he was dead and they laid him in the chapel where the bodies of two drunks were lying. However, he gave signs of movement and began to speak. Immediately they put him in the reception room and went away and in the morning I started to talk with him. He turned out to be a rich German and his brother worked in Vogau's office.30 They sent for him straight away; he came in his carriage and took his brother away. The German had gone on a spree and fallen into a den of thieves. Girls pulled him in, slipped him a Mickey Finn, robbed him of everything and dumped him on my patch. That is the sort of thing that occasionally happens to us. Sometimes it's a gift to me, or else our boys leave drunks in the second area… Captain Kapeni there (also a cantonist) is a friend of mine and that is how we finish the business. And certainly no one gains anything from this ̶ everything goes on as usual, just a lot of trouble. It's a good thing the man stayed alive – he gave signs of life in good time! He was a fine looking young German… He had fetched up drunk in the slum area. They had made him drink beer along with the girls. All he could remember was that they were drinking out of glasses, whereas he had a cut glass goblet which had a metal lid with an eagle on it." I promised to write nothing about that adventure and of course I said nothing to the superintendent about what I had seen that night, but I decided on the spot to go on to write in detail about Grachevka, which was so like Khitrovka, Arzhenovka, Khapilovka and other slums that I had visited more than once.

29 Eighth of the fourteen ranks in the Russian Civil Service. 30 Vogau (von Wogau) and Co. was one of the biggest firms in Russia, with interests in copper, coal, sugar, textiles and cement.

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10 The tankard with an eagle on it

One evening I had free I happened to go to Grachevka. I had listened to the Hungarian choir in the Crimea tavern on Trubnaya Square and there I met the card sharps (who were always at the trotting races) besides one or two of the merchants I knew. Then I set off through the thieves' dens, not the recognized ones with their red lights outside but the ones concealed in basements in dark, dirty yards and in the dank rooms of Kolosovka or Bezymyanka as it was sometimes called. By midnight this side street, the very air of which was specifically foul, was humming with its usual noise, through which came now the strains of a broken piano, or of a violin, or of an accordion. When the doors beneath the red lights opened, drunken songs could be heard. In one of the dark, hidden yards, the light from the windows barely penetrated; across it flitted vague shadows; whispering could be heard, then a woman's shriek or dreadful cursing. In front of me was one such slum, to which drunks were lured and then cleaned out and thrown out on to the waste land. Around the entrances stood women showing "live pictures" and offering their wares to drunks who had wandered in by chance, promising them all the pleasures of life for five copecks, including cigarettes for the same price… When I crossed the yard and approached the entrance to one basement, an entrance which was deep in the depths of the yard, I heard an invitation in French, then in Russian: "Come and see us. You can have a good time with us!" A tall woman detached herself from the wall and dragged me by the sleeve down a staircase. "We have vodka and beer." We went in. A reddish light flickered before my eyes amid the smoke and soot. There was a riot of noise. Beneath the blackened vaults of a huge room stood three tables. On the wall near the door a tin lantern smoked and a stream of black smoke funnelled out beneath the vault, merging imperceptibly with the soot-blackened ceiling. On two of the tables stood the same sort of lantern and some empty bottles; bits of bread, cucumber and herring lay scattered about. At the end table, by the window, a furious game of faro was going on. A solid looking, muscular Russian was dealing; he had an imposing spade-like beard and was wearing a long coat. His rolled-up sleeves revealed huge fists which almost engulfed the pack of cards. Around him crowded pale, ragged punters with flashing eyes. "Two copecks a pip." "I've got that. Five copecks. I'll double you." "Twenty-five copecks from five!" the players could be heard exclaiming. Further on, through an open door could be seen another, similar room. It also had a table in its depths, but one with two candles, and there too a game of cards was going on… Before me, at an unlit table, sat a pale unshaven man wearing a forage cap and embracing a drunken woman who was singing, note by note, in a falsetto voice:

Tea she dra-ank and ro-olls she ate Then forgo-ot with whom she sa-at.

An emaciated youth, seemingly about seventeen years old, wearing patent leather boots, a hussar jacket and with a new cap perched on the back of his head, was banging the bottom of a vodka glass on the table and pointing something out emphatically to a small bedraggled man: "Listen, you…" "What do you mean – listen? Listen? We worked together and go halves on the loot…" 55

"So we have!...You helped while I did the pockets. You got a waiter's pouch and I got a watch… There were two ten-rouble notes in the pouch!.." "The watch'll fetch fifty; even its anchor…" "Didn't fetch much. Went for twenty-five…" "You're kidding!" "Honest! On my life!" "Where's the money?" "I've blown it all. Here are some patent-leather skates, a nightcap… Not a sausage left in my pocket!" "Oska, look what the wind's blown in!" The emaciated youth looked at me and I heard him whisper: "Is he a rozzer?" "You've got rozzers on the brain…" "We'll find out in a minute." He turned to the "lady" who had brought me in. "Well, Mrs Colonel, have you brought one of your customers?" "No, just some passing bloke." The "colonel's wife" turned her stern, plastered face to the speaker, gave a wink of her large, black, deeply sunken eyes, and shouted: "The gent wants a drink. Sit down, sit down, je vous prie!" "Take a seat. You'll be our guest. If you buy the wine, you'll be the host!" yelled the bearded banker, shuffling the cards. I sat down next to Oska. "Come on, governor, get the wine in. Give the Colonel's wife a treat," said the youth in the hussar jacket. "Certainly." "Splash out to the tune of one rouble and treat everyone. The baron there's got a terrible hangover." The man in the forage cap had boldly come up to me and gabbled: "Baron Dorfhausen… Otto Karlovich… My compliments." He shuffled a foot with an old shoe on it. "You're a baron?" I asked. "Ma parole! I give you my word. A baron and a Provincial Secretary…31 I was born in Lithuania, studied in Berlin, got blind drunk in Moscow and gambled everything away. Lend me twenty copecks. I'll go and recoup my losses… Till our next meeting." "Indeed." And a minute later his powerful voice could be heard saying: "That card wins. It's mine… It's mine…" "It's true, sir, he is a real baron," Oska whispered to me. "Now he forges certificates of poverty and does various other fake documents. And how he puts seals on smoked glass! If you want a residence permit – go straight to him. His charge is reasonable… At present poster size, excluding forms – one and a half roubles. For life – three roubles." "For life?" "Yes, a nobleman's passport or permission to retire… He'll put in ranks and medals…" "A baron… A colonel's wife," I mused. "The colonel's wife is genuine too. She's not some lieutenant-colonel’s wife. She lives with the colonel. The establishment is in her name." At this point the colonel's wife interrupted him and, larding her speech with ungrammatical French expressions, began to relate how, as a young girl, she was married off to

31 Twelfth of the fourteen Civil Service ranks.

56 an old man, the colonel commanding a garrison, how she ran away abroad with a neighbouring landowner, how he abandoned her in Paris, how, as a result, she returned home and now found herself in Bezymyanka. "Come on, you slag, you're going to wear your tongue out. Get the beer in!" yelled the banker, without looking round. "I'll get it, you swindler. Why are you hollering, you convict?" "Just my blasted luck! It's not going my way. Eh? What's that? No, you listen. I bet on the six – up it came! I choose a second card. One of them wins. I take my winnings. I stick to my original stake – and lose. I try again – and lose. I bet on the seven – and lose! Loss after loss!" "So you're out of funds?" "Completely! If you would give me one last one – I'm Croesus! I've studied how the cards are dealt – and suddenly I've lost! Lend me some more… till we next meet. The same stake…" Again I gave him twenty copecks "All right! You're a gent… Till our next meeting!.." The colonel's wife poured beer into four glasses and, for me, into a crystal-glass tankard with a maillechort lid adorned with an eagle. The baron tore himself away from the cards for a second and, raising his glass, proclaimed with a flourish: "To the ladies. Cheers!" "Why aren't you drinking? Down the hatch!" said the colonel's wife, turning to me. "I don't drink beer…" I replied curtly. At that moment the card game ended. The banker thrust the cards and money into his pocket, turned down the lamp and rose to his feet, "That's it till tomorrow! Get yourselves out of here." The players, seemingly used to obeying him, at once stood up and left. Only the baron stayed stubbornly put. The banker threw him twenty copecks. "Get knotted and scram! I'm fed up with you. Bet on a card, pips not suits! A pennyworth of ammunition, a pound's worth of ambition! Go away! Don't hang about!" The banker took the baron by the shoulders and in a trice had pitched him out of the door, which he then bolted. The baron did not even have time to curse. There remained: Oska, the pickpocket in the hussar jacket, the drunk woman, the colonel's wife and the banker. He sat down beside us. From the next room came the cries of card players. The game there must have been very serious. The colonel's wife again filled up the glasses with beer and moved my untouched tankard towards me. "Drink up and don't hurt our feelings." "But I'm not alone am I? That young man isn't drinking…" "That little thief? He can't," said Oska. "His doctor forbids it," said the colonel's wife soothingly. "But you, sir, why aren't you drinking? That’s not how we go on. Please, drink," said the bearded banker, reaching across to clink glasses with me. I refused. "I consider that an insult. You're treating us with contempt! We don't behave like that. Drink! Well? Don't make me do something bad. Drink!" "No!" "No? Oska, pour some down his gullet!"

57

The banker jumped up from his chair, seized my forehead with one hand and my chin with the other, in order to force open my mouth. Oska stood with the tankard, ready to pour beer forcibly into my mouth. That was the decisive moment. I managed to get the knuckleduster out of my pocket and bash my attacker right in the teeth. He collapsed howling on to the floor. "What's all this then?" said a voice behind me and a man in a black overcoat emerged from the doorway; behind him two men had halted on the threshold, surveying us. The man in the overcoat turned to me and we were both stunned and surprised. "It's you?" exclaimed the man in the overcoat and with one wave of his arm brushed aside the banker, who had jumped up from the floor and hurled himself at me, his beard covered in blood. He fell down again. Before me, confused and shaken, stood the racing "sportsman" who had given me a lift in his charabanc. Everyone else was petrified. From the hands of Oska, who was standing by the table, he snatched the tankard of beer and poured it out on to the floor. "Get rid of it!" he ordered the colonel's wife, who was trembling with fear. "Vladimir Alexeyevich, how did you come to be here? Let's go to my room." "To hell with you. I'm going home…" And, putting on my hat, I made for the door. The banker lay prone on the floor, groaning and spitting out teeth. "No, no, I'll go with you." Standing behind me, he took my elbow and guided me up the shattered flags of the staircase, muttering apologies. I maintained a stubborn silence. In my head the phrases revolved: "Cover your traces, Larepland, Mickey Finn. the German, the tankard with the bird on it…" "The sportsman" continued to offer me profuse apologies, saying, amongst other things: "All the same, I saved you from Samson. He could have made mincemeat of you, you know." "Well, I saved myself, because I didn't drink the Mickey Finn." "How did you know about that?" He shuddered, then suddenly collected himself and added in a quite different tone. "What Mickey Finn was that?" "The one in the tankard, that you poured on to the floor. I know all about it." "You.. you…" His teeth chattered and he couldn't get the word out. "I know everything, but I can hold my tongue." "I can see that, sir. That's why I wanted you to come to my room. There's a separate exit. Some friends have got together to play cards. I don't live here, you know." "I saw… I recognised Goliath the billiard marker." "Yes, he was sitting near you. Krechinsky was dealing. There was the Heron too… Then there was Vatoshnik and…" "Vatoshnik? Timoshka? But he's a detective!" "To some he's a detective; to us he's a friend… Once again I ask you to be magnanimous and forgive." "Remember: I know everything but I never show it. It's as if nothing had happened. Goodbye!" I shouted to him from the gate… Whenever we encountered each other, the "sportsman" did his best to avoid me, but once he caught me alone near the racetrack and whispered in a trembling voice: "You promised, Vladimir Alexeyevich, but what's this you've written in the newspaper? It's a good job no one paid any attention to it, and it's water under the bridge. Yet it's quite clear. Everyone knows Fenka is the colonel's wife and you've given the baron's name and patronymic in full, just changing his surname. Anyway the whole police force knows him – he's even got a residence permit. The main thing is that the baron…" "Calm down, I won't do it again."

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In fact I wrote a story "Into the unknown" in which I described in detail what I had seen in the gambling den, the card game, the guest poisoned with the Mickey Finn who had been dragged off to be thrown in an underground sewer, having been taken for dead. I merely changed the name of Kolosov Lane to Bezymyanny Lane. I described the milieu in detail as I did the real-life characters. Baron Dorfhausen, Otto Karlovich – that really was his name. The epigraph to my story was: "While the Neglinka channel was being cleared out, bones were discovered which resembled human bones…"

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11 Dramatists from Dog Hall

Everything originates from nothing ̶ like holes in our pocket. Right at the time that I'm writing about I had a certain conversation: "'Painted daisy!' Ah, no, you mustn't joke; it played a great part in my life. If it had not been in the world I would not be as you see me now. My patron would not have been one of the members of the Society of Playwrights and he would not have received thousands of royalties. And the 'Dog Hall'… You know what 'Dog Hall' means?" "No, I don't." "Even though you're a well known reporter you don't know about Dog Hall?" This conversation was taking place on the upper deck of a horse tram that was conveying us from Petrovsky Park to the Convent of the Passion. The man sitting beside me wore a two- piece linen suit, a hat like a Calabrian bandit and a tartan scarf, loosely tied in devil-may-care fashion. The hair round his temples had a touch of grey and he had the clean-shaven face of an actor. When I had boarded the tram and come up the spiral staircase to the upper deck he called me by my surname and moving over he offered me the seat beside him. He was smoking a huge cheap cigar. The first thing he said was: "I'm saving money. On the lower deck I'd have to pay five copecks, but in the fresh air up here it's only three… However, it's not to save money that I'm travelling up here but because of this … " He made as though to threaten me by waving the smoking cigar at me… "These cigars are the only ones I smoke… Three roubles for a tram full … One and a half roubles for the upper deck… Yessir! …Real death to all bugs these are; to call the top deck 'the imperial' is very apt as it's only there you can smoke. Do you want to become an imperialist?" He offered me a cigar. "I don't smoke." And to prove my point I showed him my snuffbox, offering him a pinch. "No, please excuse me. I do enough sneezing at home…" And later on he said those words about the painted daisy… He threw the end of his cigar at the neck of the policeman who was standing on Garden Street… He fished a new cigar out of his pocket, lit it and introduced himself: "I am Glazov, the playwright. And of course I know you." "And which are your plays?" "Mine? Well, there's…" And he reeled off some ten titles, which according to the playbills had been written by one director who was well known by the number of foreign plays that he had refashioned. I knew him well and considered him the author of those works. "But listen. You are counting the plays written by …" And I named the author. "Yes, they used to be ascribed to him, but I am their real author. Last year I wrote seventeen plays for him and I got three hundred and thirty-four roubles for them, while he is making hundreds of roubles for each play; he's considered a dramatist even though he can hardly spell 'dog'. In the old days he used to pass the curling irons to the barbers behind the scene and would shave beggars for nothing while learning his trade, but nowadays he gets money and is looked up to and people think he is talented. He even takes his seat in the Society of Writers for the Theatre…According to the catalogue more than a hundred plays are ascribed to him, translated from French, English, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Italian and so on and so forth… But they're all bogus translations!" "How did all that come about?" "Well, it was like this. About two years ago I wrote a comedy. I tried it out here and there and no one would take it. I went to see him at the theatre. I didn't catch him there, so I went to his house. He received me in his sumptuous study. He sat there, full of his own importance, sprawling in his armchair by the desk." 60

"I've written a play but they won't take it unless they have a name they know. Please don't refuse to put your name alongside mine," I suggested to him, "and we'll split the fee half and half." He took the play, began to read it, giving me a cigar and the newspaper. "You have quite a gift and you know the stage. Only it's awkward for me to put my name in alongside another name. Besides that this play also does not suit our theatre." "That's a pity!" "Of course you need money? Is that so?" "I just don't have enough to live on." "Well then, rewrite this play for me." And he gave me a French play that had been translated by quite a well-known translator who was living in Kharkov. I was looking now at a new three-act play that had just passed the censorship. "What do you mean ̶ remake it? Surely it's already been translated, hasn't it?" "That's quite simple: you've got to redo it so that the play remains the same, but just so that neither the author nor the translator would recognize it. I would do it myself, but I haven't enough time. As soon as you've done this one I'll give you another." At first it took me a long time to realize what he actually wanted, and he began to explain to me the different ways it could be done and did this so vividly that I immediately understood what I had to do. "All right then, the play is to be with me in a week's time. I'm allowing you a week just to get you started and later on it will only take you two days to refashion a play." I brought my version over in a week's time. He praised it, gave me the money and another play to refashion. And then it went on like that, on and on: two days' work on a three- act farce, and I got twenty five roubles. It was his play and signed by him but the work was all done by me. I became interested, and listened to what he was saying, but I could not understand anything at all. The tram stopped at the Convent of the Passion and as he got down from the top deck. Glazov suggested I should take a seat near the monument to Pushkin. He was carried away as he was talking and I listened carefully. "What did you refashion, and how? How could the director take on so many plays to refashion?" I asked. "Well, after all he is the director. They may send him a play to put on in the theatre, and he comes straight over to me. I go into his study secretly. He shuts the door. I can hear familiar voices in the drawing room ̶ my friends from the theatre are there and it's as though I have been smuggled in. The study doors are locked. He hands me a play that he has just received through the post and says: 'Have it done by Friday. We've got to send it back on Saturday and we can't keep it more than two days.' Once a letter turned up in a play that I had received from him. He himself was writing to the author that the play could not be put on the stage for circumstances beyond his control. Well, of course, why should he put on someone else's play when he already had his own play! In two days I had looked through that play and within a month they were acting it on the stage, while the farce with the letter I had discovered was sent back to the author on the day I received it." My companion had become quite excited. "And just think how many plays I have reworked for him! And it's all so easy! You take this quite new piece that has just come in, you read it through and the first thing you do is to give it a title that suits it. For example the author has called his play The Hands and I immediately change to The Sleeves or the author may have called his play The Fisherman and I change it to Out 61

Fishing. When you've changed the title, you set about renaming the characters. You may give them names that just swim into your head, as long as they are something like French names. You take the first word that comes into your head and immediately change it into French. You shuffle the minor characters about at your pleasure: the Italian becomes a Greek, the Englishman ̶ an American, the lackey ̶ a serving maid. And, to make sure that no one could recognize the work, you must put in an automaton or a parrot and the words they have to utter are spoken off-stage. Well then, when you've finished with the speaking parts you can change the scenery and the setting. Now you just have to change each phrase into your own way of talking and reshuffle the scenes. You think up an effective ending, you change the salt of the original for malt and the play is ready." He fell at once into a sadder tone. "I am stealing from talented authors. I finally came down to this when I was put out of my apartment. Then I got used to it. I was doing it to get a bite to eat but that man puts his own name on the plays. The fame and the riches go to him. He can scoop in the royalties as he rides round behind his trotting horses. But what about me? I have to cope with all the expenses. I get twenty roubles for a play out of which I give five to the copyists. I cure their hangover, the villains, by giving them tea to drink. Until you do, their handwriting's all over the place." He went on talking for a long time after that and made me promise faithfully that I would visit him. "I'm just on my own with my wife. She was on the stage in the provinces as a young ingénue. I've got a free day tomorrow, no commissions. So come tomorrow about one o'clock." "I promise you." Next day I was going down into Glazov's apartment in the basement of a big house beside the Moldavia Tavern on the Zhivodyorka.32 There were the doors of two flats opening onto the dark hallway and three wretched figures were standing there, dressed in rags; a fourth man, wearing a starched shirt and a waistcoat was sprinkling these unhappy wretches with some sort of powder. There was some sort of familiar smell. "Hullo, Glazov!" I shouted from the stairway. "Ah, it's you Vladimir Alexeyevich. I'll be with you in a minute. I'll just sprinkle a bit over these devils." And he started throwing handfuls of powder down the collar, the shirt and even down the trousers of his three wretched victims. The unfortunate men were shrinking, roaring with laughter and sneezing. "All right, wait there until they crawl out. But we'll go on our way. Come on through!" And in front of me he opened the door into his flat, which was relatively clean. "What is going on?" I asked. "The copyists have come," Glazov replied in a serious voice. "They've just brought an urgent commission." "So what's all this about?" "I'm scattering painted daisy over them… If I don't do that, I can't stand them…Excuse me… I'll just get dressed." He threw on his jacket. "Hélène! A friend has come to see me… He's a writer… Can you get us something to eat… And come out here." "Mille pardon… I'm not dressed yet.” Out of the bedroom came a young person with curlers in her hair, traces of make up and powder on her tired face. "My wife… Stasova-Saraiskaya . She's an ingénue actress."

32 Now Krasin Street.

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"Ah, Georges! He has to make these silly jokes," she smiled at me. "Do forgive us, all our stuff is in such a mess. Georges is busy with those wretched copyists … They sit there scratching… Forty copecks a day goes on painted daisy. Otherwise they introduce so many animals into the flat that you would have to run away…They're from 'Dog Hall'." Glazov cut in: "Yes, painted daisy is great stuff. I invented this myself… You scatter it all over them ̶ into their beard, their head and their underclothes, for those who have them … Then you keep them in the entrance hall for a short half hour and everything is in order: they write, they don't scratch and everything in the room is clean…" "So, what you're saying is that without painted daisy there would be no plays?" "No, there wouldn't. After all you couldn't let them into the flat without it. But they're literate people and they know the stage. Some of them used to be actors. We can run up a play in two days: I can do one scene, another does a second scene and yet another does a third and everything goes great guns… Hélène, can you give our guest some lunch and I'll get on with the play. In the mean time, please excuse me… We've got to give it in tomorrow morning… Sit for a while with my wife." We went into a room beside the bedroom, where there was a bottle of vodka on the table and meat was frying on the paraffin stove.

In December the damp was penetrating: the snow was melting and there were puddles; it was impossible to travel over the atrocious Moscow roads either by sledge or wheeled vehicle. It was like that on Zhivodyorka where the "Dog Hall of Jean de Gabriel" was situated. The street, inhabited by artisans, coachmen, gypsies and waiters, was extremely noisy both by day and by night. When all the drinking establishments had closed and there was nowhere for thirsty people to get revivifying fluid, they would head for this street and satisfy their desire in the "Tavern of Peter Pitta". This was what Ivan Gavrilov’s drinks shop was called in the language of the inhabitants of "Dog Hall", which was attached to the tavern. In the words of "Jean Gabriel" himself, he dispensed drinks under two codes: from seven in the morning till eleven at night under the drinkers' code, and, from eleven at night till seven in the morning, under the hangover code. In the evening, at eleven o'clock, the shop closed up, but a small room opened in the entrance hall, where stood two huge cases – one with bottles, the other with half bottles. "Grandma" dispensed them for consumption in Dog Hall. This was done through a small fanlight. The customer would stand in the back yard, knock, hand over his money in silence and receive his drink in silence. This fanlight was called a shlanboi. There were many of these in Moscow: in Grachevka, in Khitrovka and in the suburbs. If you need to get vodka at night, go straight up to a policeman and ask where you can get it; he will indicate the house. "Go through the gate and you'll find a shlanboi with a red curtain. Go in and the fanlight will be opened… Then you'll give me ten copecks or let me have a swig from the bottle." One night, as I was coming back home from Little Gruzinskaya Street, I slipped and fell in the ruts on the pavement at Zhivodyorka. Near one of the rare lights on that wild gypsy of a street someone called out my name and a minute later I saw looming up in front of me a man who was ragged and unshaven with the face of an actor that I knew. I recognized his face well, but I simply could not remember his name. He told me who he was. "I've gone astray, my friend. I've started to drink. This is my second year in the Dog Hall. I've given up the stage. I'm busy now with rewriting plays." I remembered him as a young man, quite a talented actor, starting on the stage and it was painful to see this poor man who had come down in the world: he had swollen up and was trembling, with his eyes full of tears and his jaws out of control. "Can you give me a little vodka?" He turned hesitantly towards me.

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"Come on now, it's very late Otherwise I'd stand you a drop." "No, come on now. You come along with me…It's quite close…" He caught hold of my sleeve and he set off briskly along the ice-covered pavement. At the corner of the lane there was a two-storeyed wooden house and next to it I could see, through the gates, an old wing lit up by a street light and bearing the official sign "Wine Shop". We stopped at the gate. The actor knocked on the little entrance door. "Who is there now?" came hoarse voices from the yard. "Open, sesame," answered my companion. "Who?" came a louder voice from inside. "Shlanboi." At this magic word the gate swung open; there was a nasty smell from the yard. And we went past the porter in a sheepskin coat with a huge club in his hands. We went on to the way into the wing and found ourselves in the entrance hall. "Hold onto me, otherwise you might come a cropper," my companion warned me. Our roles had been reversed: now it was me holding onto his arm. He swung the door open.There was the horrible warm sickly smell of a slum with people living in it. It was a picture worth describing: a little room and a dirty table with empty bottles, lit by a tin lamp; on the left a huge Russian stove (this building was intended to act as a kitchen) and on the floor were sleeping more than ten people, both men and women, packed so close together that there was no room to put a foot in order to reach the table. "Here we are back home," said my companion, who then bellowed in a wild voice: "Wake up, you dead creatures. Rise from your graves! We've brought vodka!" The bundles of rags were beginning to stir … We could hear angry voices and coarse language. But he went on: "We've brought vodka!" And he climbed up onto the stove. "Granny! Vodka!" "What's up with you, you midnight devils. There's no peace from you." "Arkashka, is that you?" came a voice from the stove. And they were all getting up from the floor, rubbing their eyes and grumbling: "Where is the vodka?" "Will you devils give me some water… My throat's parched!" This groan came from a woman who was half-dressed, deathly pale, with a bruise on her forehead and her hair in an unkempt tangle. "Arkashka, who have you brought in? A Dutch uncle?" "And who else besides, you silly woman… Vodka!" There slid down off the stove a wrinkled old woman and a ragged actor, striving hard to put on his eyeglass with only one lens: the other one had been broken and the man kept closing the eye where there was no glass. Arkashka introduced me: "He too is an actor and an author." I was examining the room. Above the table an indecent caricature was marked out in charcoal. It depicted a man who, judging by his face, had loved a great deal and suffered from his love; under the poster there was an inscription: "Jean de Gabriel's Dog hall." This place was where the playwrights and artists lived who were working for their illiterate masters.

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12 Palaces, merchants and Lyapintsy

In all well-ordered towns the pavements lie along both sides of the street, and sometimes in specially busy spots there are passages across the roadway for the convenience of those on foot. These may be made perhaps from flagstones or else simply from asphalt. And here on Great Dmitrovka Street the cobbled roadway is traversed by a fine pavement of granite flags on which nobody ever walks and indeed there is no reason to cross the road here, as there are no side streets nearby. This granite pavement starts from the main entrance of a modest-sized town house with plate glass windows. And it was just at this very crossing point that Great Dmitrovka was always at its noisiest about midnight. In Bogoslovsky (Petrovsky) Lane the Korsh theatre was opened in 1883. From nine o'clock in the evening cabbies used to pour in here from all around, drawing up in line on both sides of the little street, while the ones who were too late stretched out along its right hand side, because the left side was taken up by daredevil likhachi cabbies and golubchik two-horse "growler" cabs, whose drivers had paid large sums for this cab rank. The vanki, yellow-eyed maniac drivers ̶ these were the lower class cabbies and also peasants from outlying districts who came into the capital only for the winter and paid "sweeteners" to the police. The guards on duty and concierges who maintained order would go up to each cabby as he was coming in and he would hand over a ten-copeck piece that he had put by earlier. The local policeman used to walk up and down the centre of the street with a great sense of his own dignity, counting the harnesses so that he knew what was coming to him when the takings were divided. Sometimes he would go up to the likhachi and shake hands with them… He could not hope to take anything from those on the cab rank, who had paid the going rate, except that occasionally a likhach might treat him to a cigarette. During those hours when the theatre was open there were few people about on the street. Most often it would be poorly clad students running past, going back to their hostel in the backyard of a merchant's town house. The cabbies would stand about in groups round their sledges, chatting, smoking, drinking mulled wine or sometimes a tot of vodka that the street traders sold, also with the silent approval of the policeman. Even from the start of the evening several night soil carts came into the yard of the mansion, each one with a pair of horses to carry out their work, which they were only allowed to do at night. These "nocturnal Brocards", so called in honour of the well known perfume firm, would open up the cesspits, scoop out their contents with long-handled ladles and carry it out of the area. When that work was being done, students squeezed through the lines of barrels that lay round the entrance to their hostel. Suddenly the cabbies would spring into life, and line up along the pavements, posing expectantly. "Korsh is finishing." Cheerful and lively the audience from the theatre came spilling out of the side street. The cabmen rushed to meet them… "Where are you making for? Greetings, sir. Come with Ivan!" "Just a rouble. Where do you want to go?" Cabbies yelled at the top of their voices, jostling and obstructing each other and blocking the way out for the audience. "Where to? Where to?" The shout hung in the air. A policeman would come along, looking as though he were at least in command of an army and he too would do his bit of shouting. Suddenly at that moment the gates of the mansion are thrown open and we can see a pair of old nags pulling a barrel…

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"Where are you off to? Get back!" the policeman would shout in a thunderous voice. "What are you looking at, funny face? Can't you see the audience haven't gone through yet?" The concierge sitting by the gate is spurred on by a fist shaken in his face by a authority. "You're half asleep, you devil!" With both of them helping, they would get the two nags back into the yard and close the gates. But the smell had already choked the cursing public. The cabmen had dispersed and the public passed through. Private carriages were already rolling up to the grand entrance to the Merchants' Club with its gleaming globe lights, while guests took fast cabs to restaurants out of town to "have a breath of air" after their feast.

The Merchants' Club operated in a spacious house that had formerly belonged in Catherine's time to Count Saltykov, commander-in-chief, field marshal and supreme commander; after the invasion by Napoleon it passed to the Myatlev noble family. It was from them that the Moscow Merchants’ Club rented these premises in the eighteen forties. At that time Great Dmitrovka Street was only for the nobility: Dolgorukys, Dolgorukovs, Golitsyns, Urusovs. Gorchakovs, Saltykovs, Shakhovskois, Shcherbatovs, Myatlevs. It was only later that palaces of this sort came into the hands of the merchant class and round about 1900 aristocratic coats of arms disappeared from the house fronts and the walls showed the plaques of the new house owners: Solodovnikovs, Goloftveyevs, Tsyplakovs, Shelaputins, Khludovs, Obidins, Lyapins… In the old days Dmitrovka was still called Club Street. It contained three Clubs: the English Club in the Muravyov house, home also to the Noblemen's Club, which later moved to the House of the Noblemen's Assembly; then the Bailiffs' Club moved into the Muravyov House and Myatlev's house became the Merchants' Club. The noble houses were occupied by merchants and the refined French cuisine was replaced by traditional Russian dishes. Sterlet soup, sturgeon two feet long, beluga in brine, blanquette de veau, creamy-white turkey reared on walnuts, rasstegai pastries, double filled with sterlet and burbot liver, sucking pig with horseradish sauce or cooked grain. The sucking pigs for Tuesday dinners in the Merchants' Club were bought at high prices from Testov, just as he served them in his renowned tavern. He used to feed the piglets up at his dacha in special pens, with the legs of the animal fenced in a cage , so that "he wouldn't lose any fat" as Ivan Yakovlevich used to explain. Capons and poulards came from Rostov Veliky and blanquette de veau from Troitsa,33 where the calves were reared on full-cream milk. All this was served in huge quantities at the crowded, noisy "Tuesday" dinners. The Merchants' Club was famous for its wines, which was drunk by the gallon, especially its champagne and was also uniquely famous throughout Moscow for its different types of kvass and fruit cordials, the secret of whose preparation was known only to one venerable steward of the Club – Nikolai Agafonych. When he appeared in the lounge where, after coffee and liqueurs, the merchants would sit in armchairs to digest their Lucullian dinner, several voices would immediately call out: "Nikolai Agafonych!" Everyone wanted their favourite drink. Some were served with a kvass called listovka: it smells of blackcurrant buds, as if you're lying under a bush in spring; some wanted cherry- flavoured kvass – ruby coloured and tasting of ripe cherry; some wanted raspberry flavour, some white sugar kvass; some wanted sour shchi,34 a drink so fizzy that it had to be corked in champagne bottles, otherwise the bottle would explode.

33 Numerous places in Russia bear this name. The town of Udomlya (formerly Troitsa) in Tver Province is a possible candidate. 34 A drink similar to kvass. 66

"Sour shchi goes up your nose but drives away hangover blues," twenty-five-stone Lenechka, who drank this and iced champagne in equal quantities, would say. Lenechka was the inventor of the twelve-tier kulebyaka pie; each tier had its own stuffing: meat, various fish, fresh mushrooms, chicken and game of all kinds. This pie was only made in the Merchants' Club and Testov's tavern and were ordered twenty-four hours in advance. At the dinners music was provided by the Stepan Ryabov orchestra and various choirs sang: gypsy, Hungarian and most frequently of all, the Russian choir from the Yar restaurant. The latter was particularly popular, and its director, Anna Zakharovna Ivanova was revered by the merchants at leisure because she knew how to tickle a merchant's fancy and knew which female singers to recommend; they would carry out their boss's every order because their contracts put them entirely at the disposal of the choir director. Only the top members of the choir, such as, for example, the full-throated Polya or the beautiful Alexandra Nikolayevna Molas were free to love as they pleased. The remainder were slaves of Anna Zakharovna. The gypsy choirs of Fyodor Sokolov from Restaurant Yar and Khristofor from the Restaurant Strelna were less often invited, because it was less easy to get on well with the gypsy girls. You couldn't buy a gypsy girl with money. Nor did the merchants like the Hungarian girls. "What language do we talk to them in?" After dinner, while the gourmands were digesting their food and the gamblers had sat down to cards, the lovers of "cheesecake" listened to the singers, haggled with Anna Zakharovna and, when the choir had left, rushed to the Yar in fast cabs and two-horse cabs; at night the rank for these was by the Merchants' Club. No latter-day "Rape of the Sabine Women" was allowed from the Club's premises and the girls were only allowed to leave with their admirers from the Restaurant Yar. During the season both sides of the street were lined with carriages throughout the night. To the right of the entrance, up to Glineshchevsky Lane were merchants' private vehicles waiting for their owners who, not infrequently, sat up in the Club until morning. To the left, as far as Kozitsky Lane were, first, the likhachi fast cabs, then jingling their harness bells, the two-horse, three-seater tin-plated sledges, with one shaft horse and one trace horse. The shaft horse would be a thoroughbred trotter but the trace horse would be a Russian Don and not harnessed, so that when it turned left it described a circle with its nose to the ground. Both the likhachi daredevil cabbies and the two-horse sledge drivers knew their Club passengers, and vice versa; they went straight to their cab, got in and set off. Otherwise fast cabs were called to the Club from Yechkin's Hotel35 or Ukharsky's which, harness bells ringing, carried the merry parties out of town in pursuit of the choir, which had departed in two-horse brakes. Away the partying merchants went, over the bumps on Tverskaya Street; sometimes they sang. The taciturn and imposing likhachi on their thousand-rouble trotters raced the two-horse teams and the troikas. "Look out, my dears, they're robbing you!" came the coachmen's favourite refrain; it was a remnant of the days of highway robbery and sounded odd on sleepy Tverskaya Street where not only were there no robbers at night, but no passers-by either. The lovers of cheesecake, who had imbibed over dinner, hurried to the Yar, the card players made their way to the gaming halls, while, at the "food-lovers'" table in the brightly lit dining room, the gourmands continued to sit. Returning after a rest on the soft couches and armchairs of the lounge, they thought up and thought over various complex dishes for their supper. A starched chef in a white cap would make his observations and would not infrequently

35 A.K. Yechkin owned a hotel on the Arbat from 1902. 67 demolish with a single word these culinary fantasies, ignoring the fact that at the table was seated a solid phalanx of leading Moscow merchants. If some especially honoured guest was invited he could only admire in silence and keep his opinions to himself. But once at the regulars' table there appeared a guest to whom even the chef couldn't make a single observation, simply noting down in servile fashion everything he said. He ordered dishes which made the gourmands' mouths gape and kept them fed until morning. He was a lawyer, a still young, but hefty man who yielded nothing in weight to those sitting at the table. Not for nothing was he a collector of manuscript and printed culinary literature. He was the subject of these lines:

I have seen the gourmand's archive: Recipes of pure ambrosia. Gathering them he decades strived From Izhora to Caucasia.

The Tuesday dinners were especially well attended. Here rich merchants let their hair down; they usually ate sandwiches in their stores and offices, sending out to Arsentych's Tavern36 or to Trunk Row37 for cooked ham and beluga with horse radish and vinegar, or simply buying these and other snacks and pies from street vendors, of whom there were very many among the trading rows and warehouses of Ilyinka Street and Nikolskaya Street. And on Tuesdays these merchants went to gorge themselves in the Club. In the 1870s and 1880s "Khludov's table" was particularly famous, presided over by the most respectable of respectable merchants, the owner of a huge library, Alexei Ivanovich Khludov, together with his brother, nephew, and son Mikhail, a legendary figure in Moscow. In his play The Burning Heart A.N. Ostrovsky38 depicted the merchant Khlynov; he had in mind Khludov, so famous for his drinking bouts at the end of the nineteenth century. Entertainment, the fashionable illustrated journal of the time, for a whole year printed a picture of a drunken merchant as its front page picture and everyone in Moscow knew that this was Misha Khludov, son of the millionaire manufacturer Alexei Khludov, who had had a whole article dedicated to him in the Brokgauz Encyclopaedia, as the person who had collected the famous Khludov library of ancient manuscripts and books, which was described by famous scholars. This library was inherited by a museum. And old Khludov, until he grew grey-haired, used to spend every evening as though he were young consuming sumptuous feasts in the Merchants' Club, until he died suddenly in 1882 on his way to the Club. He usually wore high boots, a long black overcoat and, always, a top hat. When Khludov's carriage arrived at the Club at nine o'clock in the evening and the doorman opened its door, Khludov would be lying back on the cushions in his top hat, not giving any visible signs of life. His estate passed to his children; Misha continued his dissolute life but Alexei's brother Gerasim, a dry businessman and his complete opposite, maintained the firm's dazzling profile while keeping a low profile himself. Misha's name was on everyone's lips… He was his father's favourite. Daring and strong, he loved hunting and seeking out adventures. Even at the end of the 1860s he had gone off to Central Asia to the recently founded town of Verny.39 Misha was trying to find new markets and he settled there, engaged in hunting tigers. At that time he published in Russian News a series of fascinating articles about that part of the world, that was still so little known at that time. It was there that he became friendly with General M.G. Chernyayev. He went about always accompanied by a huge tiger, which he had trained like a dog. The soldiers were amazed at "the

36 A restaurant in Cherkassky Lane, famous for its ham and beluga. 37 One of the shop "rows" in Kitai-gorod. 38 A five-act comedy by Ostrovsky, first published in 1869. 39 Founded in 1854. Now Almaty in Kazakhstan. 68 civilian with the tiger". They loved him for his mad daring and also because he was generous in spending huge sums of money, giving them something to drink and helping any individual who turned to him for assistance. That was what eye witnesses said about Khludov. Now he turned up in Moscow and once more cut loose from any restraint. Just at that time he married the daughter of a man who let out furnished lodgings.40 He had got to know the bride at his sister's house; his sister was living with their father in a house that he had bought for her on Tverskoi Boulevard. After Misha got married he continued to live as before, only he started giving famous parties in his own little Khludov cul-de-sac; he always dressed up to come to these in various costumes, sometimes as a Caucasian, or someone from Bokhara, or half naked as a Roman gladiator with a tiger skin on his back, which particularly suited his fine muscular frame and which Moscow ladies were delighted to look at when they came to partake of his feasts. And once he painted himself black all over and appeared at the banquet as a negro. And he always had a tigress with him, very tame and gentle. She lived a long time with him like a pet dog. In 1875 things started to happen in the Balkans: Hercegovina rebelled. Chernyayev had been corresponding secretly with the Serbian government, who invited him to become their commander-in-chief. Naturally these letters were read by the Third Section; Chernyayev was put under surveillance and Petersburg refused to give him a passport for travelling abroad. Then Chernyayev came to Khludov in Moscow. In the Governor General's office Khludov arranged a passport for him and himself to go abroad and, using a fast troika and saying nothing to anyone, the two of them swept out of Moscow ̶ the order that Chernyayev was not allowed abroad had not yet reached the frontier. To put it shortly, in July 1876 Chernyayev was in Belgrade and was commander-in-chief of the Serbian army and Misha Khludov was constantly at his side. One friend of mine who had taken part in that war used to describe the following scene: "I arrived with a report to Chernyayev at Deligrad. They led me to the C.in C's tent. A fine hefty Russian came out to greet me, wearing a red shirt, a soldier's medal of St George and a Serbian decoration for bravery. He was holding a bottle of rum and a tumbler for tea. 'Do you want to see Chernyayev? Misha ?' he asked me. I answered in the affirmative. 'Well, so it all comes down to the same thing. He is Misha and I am Misha. Here you are ̶ have a drink.' He poured a glass of rum, which I refused. 'You don't drink? You must be a fool.' And with one gulp he drank down the whole glass. But Chernyayev looked out of the tent and shouted: 'Mishka, go to bed!' 'I shall obey, Your Excellency.' He waved a salute with his glass and disappeared into the next tent." Khludov came back to Moscow and got married a second time, also to a girl in modest circumstances, since he did not like middle class women, or fine ladies. He was very fond of his wife, but he went on getting drunk as he had before and giving his usual dinners.41 Even now there are still in Moscow people who remember the dinner on 17 September, his wife's first saint's day after their wedding. Everyone who was anyone came for that dinner, both those from officialdom and those from the merchant class. Before dinner the guests were invited into the main room to look at the present that the husband was giving his young wife. An enormous chest was brought in about four metres long. The workers tore off the lid. With an axe in his hand Khludov tried to help them. They tore off the lid, turned the box upside down and held it up. Out of the box fell… an enormous crocodile.

40 Mikhail Khludov's first wife was Elizaveta Alexeevna Melgunova (1855-75). 41 Mikhail Khludov's second wife was Vera Aleksandrovna Maximova (née Alexandrova). Her name day was September 17/30. 69

The last time I saw Misha Khludov was in 1885 at a dog show in the Manège. There was a huge crowd standing round a big iron cage. Inside the cage Misha was sitting on a stool wearing a frock coat and top and drinking brandy from a silver glass. There was a tigress sitting at his feet, swishing her tail against the iron bars of the cage; she had laid her head on Khludov's knees. That was his last tigress, brought recently from Central Asia already trained by him like a lap dog. Soon Khludov died in a lunatic asylum and Mashka the tigress was moved to the zoological garden, where she was shut up in a cage and soon died.

These were all people who had got through huge sums. But there were lovers of these Tuesday dinners who, out of miserliness, did not come more than once a month. Such was one of the Firsanov family.42 Because of his miserliness he was called the "bony omelette". He was a millionaire, a timber merchant, a large-scale discounter of promissory notes and a tight-fisted skinflint of the first water. None of his children were still alive and his millions were inherited by some distant relatives whom, during his lifetime, he had not wished to know. He spent the whole day in his office, a small shed next to a wood store, in an out-of-the- way spot not far from the railway goods station. Here he would receive rich men who needed money, discounting huge percentages on high-value promissory notes and doing it easily; in small matters however he was unbelievably stingy. In a moment of frankness he said: "Oh, life is hell with money. One day I'll wake up and tot up on my abacus. One hundred thousand gone in a day. Tens of thousands on this and that ̶ you don't worry about that. You know it's gone on business matters and you don't regret it. But petty cash! That's what hurts. For instance, my steward brings some products from my estate, such as butter, oats or flour… You take it from him and he stands there in front of you like a stuffed dummy, looking you in the eyes… He wants a tip, you see – it's the custom – he's waiting for it!.. Well, you get your purse out of your pocket, you find a ten-copeck piece, you contemplate giving it to him, but then the thought strikes you: I pay him a wage, don't I? Why should I give him anything over and above that? Then you think again: that's how things are done. So you'll reluctantly pay him, then at night you'll get up and agonise over why you've wasted ten copecks. So I had an idea and this is what I decided to do: give the steward three copecks and tell him: "Here's three copecks for you, add two of your own, go to the inn, order tea and drink as much as you like." In 1905 the expropriators arrived in his office. "Hands up!" they ordered the staff, then they went through to "himself" in his study, put a revolver to his temple and demanded: "Open the cupboard!" He told the story this way: "I start to open up. My hands are shaking and I'm not sorry about the money. I'm afraid they'll suddenly shoot. I open up. They took about ten and a bit thousand roubles, frisked me, took a gold watch and chain, ordered me not to leave the office for a quarter of an hour… But when they'd gone I laughed at how I'd fooled them: while they were searching my pockets, I kept ten gold roubles in my fist – I'd managed to snatch them from the table. They didn’t think to unclench my fist! That's how I fooled them! Tee-hee!" And he spluttered with mirth. As was the habit of merchants, they used to laugh at him, but he never took offence against anyone. One of the other Firsanovs was quite different, with great red whiskers standing out, stiff as a shoe brush. No one ever called him by his right name, but they had simply nicknamed him

42 Ivan Grigoryevich Firsanov (c.1818-81). The 1905 incident must relate to his brother Pyotr Grigoryevich (1824- 1914).

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"Pasha Red Whiskers", which he was quite willing to answer to. Pasha also considered himself a gourmand, even though he could not tell a hazel grouse from a partridge. On one occasion the diners had a wicked laugh at his expense and after that Pasha did not go to the Tuesday dinners for some two years. However, they talked him round and he started to attend the dinners again, forgetting what had happened in the past. Then suddenly the past came up quite unexpectedly and they lost Pasha's company for good. Among the diners on that occasion was the businessman F.A. Korsh, who often came to the Club. On this occasion he was sitting directly opposite "Red Whiskers". "Pavel Nikolayevich, why do I never see you at the theatre?" "Excuse me, Fyodor Adamovich, I do go from time to time … Just this very Sunday I have ordered a box to take our children. What shall we see there?" "On Sunday it will be The Marriage."43 "What?" "The Marriage by Gogol." "But why are you putting on that sort of tripe?" Korsh's eyes opened wide and before he could reply the whole table burst out laughing. "You're all a lot of scoundrels, you really are… You swine!" Red Whiskers screamed, jumping up from the table and running out of the Club. The laughter continued and to Korsh's amazement they took turns to explain why Red Whiskers had taken flight. At an evening meal some two years ago, when each individual was ordering a dish to his own taste, Pasha also wanted to show off his fine sensitivity. "I would like a snipe," he said to the chef who had come out to take people's orders. "Snipe? But do you know what snipe looks like?" someone asked. "Of course I know… A little bird, quite small in itself, like a hazel grouse but with great long legs and then what a beak it's got." The chef wanted to explain that there were no snipe in the winter, but the joker Korolyov44 winked at him and followed him out to the kitchen. The meal continued. Finally they brought in the snipe in a covered silver dish. "But where is its beak?" asked Pasha as he put out on his plate a tiny bird with long legs. "They cut off the snipe's head in winter… You are a great eater but fancy you didn't know that," explained Korolyov. "Is that so?" He started to eat and finally he cut off a leg. "Why is the leg sewn on with threads? And the other one as well?" Pasha asked the waiter, who spluttered and hid his mouth behind a napkin. Everyone was looking puzzled and Korolyov explained quite seriously: "Because I told them to sew a cockerel's leg onto a hazel grouse." The news about this spread all over town and everyone called Red Whiskers "Cockerel's leg". Once his friends dragged him to the Maly Theatre to see The Marriage When he heard the words "You have a cockerel's leg", he jumped up and ran out of the theatre.45 When they put up the memorial to Gogol, Pasha swore black and blue: "They're celebrating him, the old joker." One other eccentric used to attend the Tuesday dinners: Ivan Savelyev.46 He bore himself proudly, in spite of his frock coat with its long tails and his bottle-like boots. He had a bakery on Pokrovka Street where everything was done "in the most strictly military fashion" as

43 Two-act comedy by N.V.Gogol, published in 1842. 44 Probably Mikhail Leontyevich Korolyov (1807-76). 45 A misquotation from Act 2 Scene 8 of The Marriage. 46 His patronymic appears to have been Savelyevich. He opened his bakery on Pokrovka in the 1880s. 71 he would say. He called himself the "Field Marshal" and his son who ran another bakery he named the "Commandant". He designated the bakers of kalachi and rolls as the "Guard" and the bakers of bread were the "Garrison". Punishments of those at fault he never carried out personally; instead he set up formal "judicial hearings". One table was covered with a green cloth. A loaf was set out with a silver salt cellar and benches were brought in from the kitchen for those on trial. There were various sorts of punishments: penal servitude meant that one had to clean up the privies and cesspits, exile meant being transferred from the main bakery to another one. Arrest was replaced by a fine, loss of one's rights by a reduction of one's wages; and capital punishment by dismissal from the firm. All the more senior personnel bore the names of heroes and statesmen: Skobelev, Gurko, Radetzky, Alexander the Great and so on, They would answer only to these given names and their real names were forgotten. Thus in the account books their salaries were given as:

Alexander the Great, pretzel baker……..… 6 roubles Gurko, kalach baker………………. ……...6 roubles Napoleon, water carrier……………………4 roubles

All the older customers also used these names for the bakery staff. It should be noted that all the "heroes" bore themselves proudly thereby kept up the good name attached to their position. On the rare occasions when Ivan Savelyev came to the Club, those who liked good food were glad to invite him to their table because with him there was always good cheer. Never a dull moment! He could even rouse to laughter the Lyapin brothers, who were always so serious.47 The Lyapins would not miss a single dinner. They were generally called the "Inseparables". They had had another nickname ̶ "Odd and Even" ̶ but it had been forgotten and was remembered only by those who had known them in their early days. They used to appear in the Club for the midday meal and would leave after supper. They did not play cards, but spent the whole evening sitting there eating, drinking, and chatting with people they knew; alternatively, they might spend some time in the reading room, which one must admit was usually quite empty, even though the Club had a fine library, subscribing to all the Russian journals and many foreign ones. The Lyapin brothers were old men, almost the same age. The older one, Mikhail Illiodorovich, was fat and flabby, with a yellowish face and moved about very little. In the words of Arkashka Schastlivtsev,48 instead of hairs, some sort of feathers grew there. The younger brother, Nikolai, was a complete contrast, energetic and bearded. They were both bachelors and lived in a detached house with a conservatory. The Lyapins were quite prosperous and spent their wealth on charitable works… The story of the Lyapins is legendary; not for nothing had it been told to everyone by the merchants who had known them since their earliest days. By origin the Lyapins were peasants from Tambov or Saratov. In his younger days the elder brother worked for a cattle dealer and drove his herds up to Moscow. During one of his journeys, in the town of Morshansk, he happened to become acquainted with some of the castrate sect and they persuaded him to join them, offering big money if he would do that. They persuaded him to have the operation, but it happened that it was only half done and they handed over only part of the sum they had promised. They decided to finish the operation in a year's time and to pay him the remainder then. But with the money he had already received Lyapin

47 Mikhail Il(l)iodorovich Lyapin, born 1826 and Nikolai Il(l)iodorovich, born c.1830. 48 A character in Aleksander Ostrovsky's play The Forest (1871). The quotation is from Act 2 Scene 1. 72 managed to become very rich in a year's time and he turned down both the operation and the rest of the money. All the same Mikhail Illiodorovich became very fat and flabby and often fell ill. There was one simple cause for his troubles ̶ overeating.

In the mid 1880s there was a winter without snow. At Shrovetide, when the whole of Moscow was travelling by sledge, there was such a rapid thaw that the highways lost their covering of snow and, instead of sledges, carriages and carts thundered along on iron wheels over the frozen stones – rubber tyres were unheard of at the time. On Friday and Saturday of Shrovetide the street between the Merchants' Club and the Lyapin mansion was carefully strewn with straw. From underneath the straw not even the granite crossing, which the Lyapins had laid from their front porch to the Club for their own convenience, was visible. And it was at this porch that, with a swish of wheels over the straw, that a carriage halted. Out of it got the younger Lyapin, who then helped out the famous Professor Zakharyin. A minute later the professor, having passed through a series of fashionably appointed rooms, began to climb a narrow wooden staircase on the mezzanine floor and found himself in a small low-ceilinged bedroom. Here there was a smell of olive oil and turpentine. In the corner, on the pillows of a huge mahogany bed, lay the elder Lyapin, breathing stertorously. The doctor, whom the patient's brother had already told about the Tuesday dinner and about how his brother had strained himself eating pancakes – some twenty of them before the dinner ̶ looked at him angrily. "What's this?" shouted the professor, jabbing his finger into the wall above the bed. "A bedbug, sir," said Mikhailych, the Lyapins' trusted servant who sat constantly by the sick man's bed. "You live like a pig! You've crawled into a hole and next door there are empty rooms. Move your bedroom into a room with some light! Into the drawing room! Into the main hall!" The doctor felt his pulse, examined his tongue, prescribed a heroic laxative, swore again and said: "Tomorrow you can get up!" He took five hundred roubles for his visit and left. The next day the straw was removed from the street, but the brothers ignored Zakharyin's prescription and did not move their bedrooms… They each looked in their mirrors which were fixed on the outer walls so as to reflect their side of the street, then reported to one another what they had seen. "The firemen have gone down Stoleshnikov Lane." "A student has come up to the entrance porch." Nikolai used to go off in the mornings to their office on the Ilyinka, where they had a large business dealing in cloth. But the elder brother would spend the whole day sitting in a comfortable leather armchair. He would look in the mirror if he was expecting a guest, who would be shown in to him by the porter ̶ admitted directly, without any previous announcement. Mikhail Illiodorovich always carried on the conversation with visitors himself. Most of the visitors were students who came to ask for a place in the hostel. The porter knew who to admit, all the more so because anyone coming to the door could be seen first in the mirror. A poorly dressed young man came into the hall. "I would like to stay a bit at your place." "Of course you may. But who are you?" If it was a university student Lyapin would ask from what faculty, and he himself would call up the man's professors. If it was a student from the art school, he would ask in what class. 73

Life drawing? Or head and shoulders? And he would also talk about the teachers. Moreover he could name each of them by his first name and patronymic. "So then, sir! You want to live in our house?" Opening the list of residents, he would consult the comments from the hostel and if there was a place open he would give the student a note. "Take this paper, go to the hostel, ask for Mikhalych the manager and fix yourself up." In the space at the back of the Lyapins' huge spread there was a big stone building, which had once served as a store room for their goods. At the end of the 1870s they reconstructed it as a residential building and made a hostel where students could live without paying anything, whether they were University students or enrolled at the College of Painting and Sculpture. A young man could settle in and live there throughout his course and, even then, those who had finished their course sometimes stayed on in "Lyapinka" until they had found some employment. Generally only a few of those enrolled as students had anything to live on. The majority were impoverished. Both those in the University and in the College were sharply divided between the rich and the nomadic poor. They stayed wide apart, these groups, sharply differentiated by temperament and circumstance. The poor ones had no one they knew, nowhere to go and nothing to wear. They settled in odd corners and mean little rooms and went out to enjoy themselves in the very cheapest taverns. Their favourite haunt was not far from the University, a single-storey building on the corner of Ulansky Lane and Sretensky Boulevard or else the Bell Tavern on the same boulevard, a favourite meeting point for artists working in the churches. They were all living together in a friendly communal way: if anyone had a rouble to spare, then he would pay for the drinks. Many students envied the "Lyapinites" ̶ it was only the lucky ones who lived there. The hostel was always full up. You would never be able to wait your turn. The Lyapinka produced famous doctors, lawyers and artists. At one time the well-known surgeon P.I.Postnikov was living there, also the artist Korin, until he was appointed as a professor of the College, beside Petrovichev and Pyrin. That hostel saved many a one from destitution and death. There were also the "Eternal Lyapinites". These included the three artists L., B. and Kh. who stayed for ten or fifteen years in the Lyapinka, long after they had left the College. They had settled in there well and became quite idle. There were various ways to subsist: they painted pictures to sell in the Sukharevka market or they did a bit of house painting when they were sober… The Lyapins knew what they were doing, but they did not push them out: let them live here, otherwise they'd have disappeared in the Khitrovka slums. The Lyapinka spelt good fortune for many students. It quite often happened that homeless students spent their nights on the boulevards…

In the 1880s, I think in 1884, Dr Vladimirov graduated from Moscow University. He was a seminarian and came from Galich.49 In his fourth year the half-starved Vladimirov found himself homeless and spent about two weeks of May nights wandering along the Tverskoi Boulevard from the Pushkin monument to Nikitsky Gate Square. At the same time, around midnight, Police Chief Kozlov was crossing the boulevard from his official house, heading for the other side of the boulevard, where lived a tailor's wife, a well-known Moscow beauty. In the morning, about four o'clock, Kozlov returned home by the same route. Vladimirov, like other homeless persons who spent their nights on Tverskoi Boulevard, knew the secret of Kozlov's journeys. A pale youth in a broad-brimmed hat, of a type fashionable among students at the time

49 A historic town in the Kostroma district of Russia.

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(and which now are only found as theatre props for Schillerian robbers), drew Kozlov's attention. In the morning they somehow encountered one another and Kozlov, smoothing his classically military moustache, asked: "Young man, why do I meet you of a night wandering along the boulevard?" "Because not all of us have the good fortune to walk across the boulevard every night."

The Lyapinka was, of course, grubby, but the authorities were absent. In each room there were four beds, tables with drawers and chairs. The accommodation was free, but you had to pay for a table. Downstairs was the dining room, where for fifteen copecks they served a two-course dinner, with meat, cabbage soup and kasha and once a day you could have bread and tea for nothing. This dining room was like a Club. Seditious things were said here and songs were sung. Revolutionary proclamations made their first appearance in the Lyapinka and were read out quite openly. Detectives did not get in there and there were no informers or agents provocateurs. As soon as a suspicious character arrived the Lyapinites , sensing who he was, would cluster round him to make their own Lyapinite-type investigation. They put the spies off continuing their work. Nevertheless there were some searches in the hostel and young people were quite often arrested. However, for fear of a disturbance, the gendarmes tried to do this not in the building itself but in the street, and they caught people one at a time. During the student protests there were meetings here. The Lyapinka existed for many years to take in young people who were studying. Only one instance is known when the Lyapin brothers refused to admit one student from the art faculty – and they took a particularly kind view of young men coming in to study art. At one student exhibition in the College of Art everyone was struck by a painting of the Dead Sea. It was a beautiful piece of work, but it made your flesh creep: the stony desert, red from the rays of the setting sun and in the centre of the picture the lake with the colour of clotted blood. The student who had painted this picture was an untidy, clumsy little man, already getting on in years, not much to look at, with an angry expression in his eyes and a shaggy mop of hair, quite uncombed. That was the student Zhukov. He had gone to one of the Lyapins to ask for a place in the hostel, but his appearance and terribly bold speech produced such an impression on the brothers that they refused him a place. He went away, and on the street he met a coachman from his home village whom he knew and who had been a local clerk before he enrolled in the hostel. The coachman was working for a certain Princess, and when he found out that Zhukov had nowhere to live, he took him into his own room in the stables. Zhukov made another allegorical painting After the Flood and for that the Professors' Council awarded him first prize and fifty roubles. However, the money was not paid over because Zhukov was not registered as a full-time student and prizes were awarded only to them. He was at that time in Professor Savitsky's class and the professor called him the "Pearl of our School". And this "Pearl" came to grief. When they moved him out of the stables into a room in an old aristocratic mansion, the servants began to laugh at him and more than once he heard the terrible word "scrounger". Then one fatal day the servants who had come to do out his room saw his legs sticking out of the fireplace, and lying among the live embers in the hearth was the charred body of the wretched artist. The Director of the School, Prince Lvov, assigned a hundred roubles for the funeral and Zhukov's fellow students took his body to the Danilov Cemetery. Those closest to him ̶ and he did not have many friends ̶ told how he left a long poem dedicated to a girl he did not even know but for whom he had a secret love… They used to say that he suffered greatly from his uncouth appearance and was pathologically proud. All the same we might consider that if the College had thought to give him fifty roubles, we might have lived to see a great original artist ̶ that was what expected both by Savitsky and by the friends who had faith in his talent. 75

Many talents came to grief through poverty. Such was the fate of Volguzhev. A locksmith, then an art student and participant in some important exhibitions, a Lyapinite… His Volga landscapes were superb. He died of TB. He fell ill and lacked the money for treatment. He was also a proud, unyielding man… This is what happened to him. Before the completion of his course several students, the best landscape painters, were invited by the Governor General of Moscow, Prince Sergei Alexandrovich to his estate of Ilyinskoe, near Moscow, to spend a summer relaxing and painting. Among them was Volguzhev. At the students' Christmas exhibition Sergei Alexandrovich, who unfailingly attended these exhibitions, halted before a painting Volguzhev had done on the estate, praised it and enquired about the price. Volguzhev was summoned. Wearing a tatty jacket, like most students at the time, he went up to the Governor General, who was two heads taller than him, and seized him by the button of his uniform, an act which horrified the authorities. "What's the price of this painting? I like it. I would like to acquire it," said the Prince. "Five hundred roubles," said Volguzhev curtly, continuing to twist the royal button. "That's too expensive." "If that's too expensive, forget it. I don't sell cheaply!" Volguzhev stopped twisting the button and left. The price was unheard of and besides, it had been priced at one hundred by the exhibition commission. This was pointed out to Volguzhev. "I know. To anyone else – one hundred, but to him – five hundred. He's very important. Well I can do important too."

Once the portrait of a woman appeared in the exhibition, the work of a Lyapinite, a pupil of V.A.Serov. The portrait – of a young girl in a white dress on a white background – made an impression, and one young lady expressed a wish to meet the artist. The painter was introduced to her: a Lyapinite through and through. But this important lady paid no attention to his clothes and proposed that he should paint her portrait. The next day, wearing the same jacket, the only one he possessed, he presented himself at a luxurious flat opposite the Governor General's house and began to paint the lady and her daughter simultaneously. At first taciturn and cowed by the surroundings, the artist eventually became bolder and began to talk; the lady asked him many questions about the life of artists and expressed a wish to organise an evening for them in her home. "Tell your friends to come but tell me how to entertain them and what to serve them." "Vodka, herring, gherkins, salami and, please, good beer. No need for tea. How many should I invite? Is five too many?" "What do you mean! Invite as many as you like: the more the merrier." "I can bring thirty!" "So we'll cater for thirty. I'd be very glad to." On the appointed day at seven o’clock in the evening a cooperative of thirty people from Lyapinka rolled up. The horrified concierge would not admit anyone.The appearance of the hostess saved the day and the Princess's concierge took off and hung up greatcoats and short fur jackets, the like of which the vestibule had never seen. Only the spaces for galoshes remained empty. The assembled company took itself off to the dining room across the carpets and immediately sat down at a huge table laid with every conceivable hors d'oeuvre, with wine, vodka and beer. The hostess and two ladies of her acquaintance occupied the end of the table. The organiser of the evening had, with some foresight, deliberately seated among the ladies two specially invited non-Lyapinites, handsome fellows who moved in society circles, who occupied the attention of the hostess and the ladies with her; there were no other outsiders. The hostess's husband, an elderly general, made to leave, looked round and bowed but no-one even noticed him and he withdrew, carefully pulling the door to.

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With every glass of vodka the company livened up, clinked glasses, drank, poured each other drinks and generally carried on, and one of the Lyapinites, completely drunk, even began to drink to the memory of his late parents. His more sober companions persuaded him to leave, the concierge helped him on with his coat and "Atamonych" was able to wander back to Lyapinka, thanks to the fact that it was close by. Another six students were accompanied "for tactical reasons" back to Lyapinka and when everything had been eaten and drunk the guests began to leave gradually. This feast was long remembered by those who were present. The Lyapinites had their own amusements. Five days each week Korsh' s Theatre sent them free tickets to the gallery… Salamonsky's circus50 also sent twenty free tickets every day except Saturday, which was always a sell-out, which Mikhalych the manager shared out among the students, asking for some reason that each should pay one copeck. The students paid quite willingly, although no one knew where the money went. Apart from that there were no special amusements for students at Lyapinka Hostel, unless we include free entrance to art exhibitions. Besides that Lyapinites found some diversion when there were disturbances going on; they were almost always at the head of the movement. On one occasion it happened that more than half of them spent a night in the transit prison.

50 Founded by the German horse rider and gymnast Albert Salamonsky (1839-1913) in 1880 on the Boulevard of Flowers. Now called the Circus Nikulin. 77

13 The artists' Wednesdays

For many years the Society for Devotees of the Arts had their premises behind Naryshkin Square, on the corner of Little Dmitrovka, opposite the Convent of the Passion. For many years they were in an old aristocratic mansion and it was this Society which organized there the "Periodic Exhibitions" which were fashionable at that time. In these exhibitions the best pictures received monetary prizes and sold well. During the winter season the Society organized its "Fridays", when the artists used to gather in the evening; they placed life models on stands, which the artists depicted with great concentration as they sat at their desks, drinking their tea and exchanging few words among themselves. Occasionally at those times someone might be playing the piano and one of the guest singers would be singing or reading poetry. The evenings would wind up with a modest bite to eat. The only people who came to these evenings were well-known artists: the Makovskys, Polenov, Sorokin,51 Ge, Nevrev and members of the Society, the rich patrons of the arts Tretyakov, Sveshnikov and Kumanin. There was no way for young artists to join in and so the "Fridays" became tiresome and boring. Not for nothing were they dubbed "formal Fridays". One person that almost always attended was the amateur painter K.S. Shilovsky, later, as Loshivsky, an actor at the Maly Theatre, quite a live wire, talented and full of learning. He found these sessions boring and so he managed to invite one of the "Friday guests" to come to his home for a "Saturday". Thus a few artists used to gather at his flat in Pimenovsky Lane. They would paint and spent some time chatting happily round the tea table, listening to music, reading and singing. Many of them were quite young. All that would finish with an evening meal. One of those who came to the Saturdays was V.E.Shmarovin, who appreciated painting and was an art collector. At one student art exhibition he was the first person to spot Levitan and he acquired a sketch by him. That was the first work that Levitan had sold and it marked the beginning of their friendship. In general Shmarovin became friendly with the half-starved younger generation at the College of Art and used to buy their things. He would invite some of them to spend an evening at his home, when there were also several well known artists. Once it came about at one of Shilovsky's Saturdays that he invited him and all the other guests to his home on the following Wednesday and thus gradually the Friday meetings were swallowed up and people stopped going to them. Shilovsky's Saturdays, which had attracted artists at first, also did not catch on. Shilovsky was hospitable and would spend his last roubles treating his guests to supper with wines ̶ the artists started to feel embarrassed at always taking their evening meal at someone else's expense, especially in an unaccustomed lordly apartment. Shmarovin's Wednesdays were absolutely democratic. Every artist who was one of that company felt himself quite at home, like all the other guests. They were eating and drinking at their own expense, while old "Uncle Volodya", master of the house, was just the organizer and director, in overall command. At the "Wednesdays" all the artists spent the whole evening doing watercolours: Levitan – a landscape, and then the war artist Dick de Lonlay would paint a military scene, and Clodt a caricature; Shestyorkin would paint a still life, Bogatov, Yaguzhinsky and so on, each doing their own thing. On the drawing was the price the artist would receive for his watercolour ̶ from one to five roubles. These pictures were on display there in the hall for the public to view and before the evening meal they used to arrange a lottery, at ten copecks a ticket. One person might take one ticket or some pretty rich guest might buy ten or twenty tickets ̶ everyone was

51 Three Sorokin brothers were all artists: Vasily Semyonovich Sorokin (1833 -1918), Yevgraf Semyonovich Sorokin (1821 -92), Pavel Semyonovich Sorokin (1836 -86). 78 tempted by the chance to buy a Levitan for ten copecks. Pictures that were left over were sold in the shops belonging to Daziaro and Avanzo.52 From the proceeds of the lottery the artists were paid the price of their picture and any money left over went to pay for a simple supper. Besides that, on the tables there were document cases holding watercolours and the guests bought them up quite gladly. Every visitor to the Wednesdays felt that he had not been wasting his time eating and drinking. The Saturdays and Wednesdays were attended by just the same people. At the Saturdays they used to eat and drink to the sound of a tambourine and at the Wednesdays they would be drinking from the goblet of the Great Eagle to the sound of the Wednesday music, consisting of the one line "it's not badly done" to the tune of "taraboomdeyay". So it was that at one of the Wednesdays in 1886 Shilovsky turned up when conversation was in full flow and said to Shmarovin: "The eagle and the tambourine ought to be together; let them be together at your Wednesdays." The Saturdays ended – but the Wednesdays remained. The ceremonial eagle tankard was offered on Shilovsky's tambourine to every new Wednesday member and was drunk from to the accompaniment of singing of the anthem "it's not badly done" and the rattle of the tambourine… This was the initiation ceremony for membership of the circle. In the same way the Eagle was offered to honoured guests or to any of the Wednesday participants who had distinguished himself by a particularly fine speech, a successful impromptu, a well-executed drawing or caricature. The Wednesdays became merry affairs. They gathered, drew, drank and sang until morning. About this time the "Society of Art and Literature"53 was formed; many of its members were Wednesday members. In 1888 the Society organised a glittering ball. Authentic historical costumes, décor and setting, artistic make-up – all this was done by Wednesday members. Levitan, Goloushev, Bogatov, Yaguzhinsky and many others worked non-stop. The ball was a success – and the Wednesdays gained strength. In 1894 Shmarovin placed a sheet of Bristol paper on the huge table where the artists usually did their watercolours on Wednesdays; on the top he wrote with a flourish: "First Wednesday of the Year 1894".Those present soon filled it with drawings. It was the first Wednesday "set of minutes". From that time onward every Wednesday had its set of minutes… Some major names stood out under the drawings in these minutes, drawings which reflected the life of the times. In addition to the artists, there were poets who wrote their verses. M. A. Lokhvitskaya, E.A. Bulanina and V. Ya. Bryusov contributed several poems each to the minutes. By then they were already in new premises, a detached house on Great Molchanovka Street, when a hundred and more participants and guests began to meet. The meetings in Savyolovsky Lane were just the beginning of the Wednesdays. When visitors to the Wednesdays rang, Shmarovin would come out. "Well here we are, my friend…Thank you for coming. If you were not here we would really feel something was lacking. Come in and warm yourself up after the cold outside." That was the way he greeted guests. Everyone there knew each other. As he welcomed them, Shmarovin would stand before them holding in one hand silver drinking vessel that went back to the days before Peter the Great; in his other hand he might have a flagon from Catherine’s time – a "quintlein"54 as they called it at the Wednesday meetings.

52 Famous art shops on Kuznetsky Bridge, owned by Giuseppe (Iosif Ivanovich) Daziaro (1806-65) and Bartolomeo D'Avanzo (1811-84). 53 Formed by K.S. Stanislavsky and others in 1888. 54 a quintlein is a very small measure. Its use here is sarcastic. 79

The main body of the guests used to appear about ten o'clock. It was the old nurse, friends with everyone, who helped them off with their coats… Uncle Volodya himself would come out to embrace everyone. A door would open into the main hall with its columns and walls hung with pictures. In the middle stood the table, brightly lit with paraffin lamps under their shades, and there were about ten artists: some might be doing a separate drawing, while others would be filling in the minutes… The guests would be walking round the table, looking at the artists' work… All of a sudden somebody would sit down to the piano. This "somebody" was always an individual who was well known in the musical world. Then Lentovskaya would play the piano, or Asperger would pick up his cello and everything would go more happily to music. People coming in did not exchange formal greetings, so as not to interfere with what was going on, but they would pass through, either from the hall into the drawing room or turn right straight into the study decorated with pictures and knick-knacks. In here the guests would chat to each other, relaxing into the soft armchairs. There was a tambourine lying there, guitars and balalaikas. Across the corridor people went into the dining room where the samovar would be boiling… Their hostess might treat them to tea and biscuits, and from the next room they could hear the sounds of a harp, which was the master's daughter playing for some girl friends who had gathered round her. Later she would be playing in a quartet along with well-known individuals, in the main room of the large town house on Great Molchanovka. There was one more room, the "morgue". This was the most joyous room of all, lit by a dark red lamp hanging from the ceiling. Along the walls were various antiquities that had been dug out of ancient burial mounds in the steppes. There were whole sets of ancient rings for a woman's fingers or her ears, and there were weapons there, going back to the Stone Age: hauberks, helmets, pole-axes and yataghans. Along the walls were Turkish divans; in front of them stood occasional tables with matches and ashtrays on them and a hookah for those that liked it. People sat, laughed and chatted endlessly… One strummed on a balalaika, another snoozed. The room was called the "morgue" because, by morning, people who had drunk too much or had a very long journey home were usually asleep on the divans. At midnight the sound of the tambourine in the hands of Uncle Volodya rang out… That was the first signal. The artists stopped working. Ten minutes later the tambourine again sounded… Everyone would pick up their brushes and paper and their sketches that had not dried out… Paintings that had not dried could be placed on the grand piano. Everyone got up from table and scattered round the various rooms; the staff were laying for supper in the main hall, hors d'oeuvres were being laid out on many of the plates that artists had painted. Things to eat were described in the menu for the day as follows: sausages of every kind: mincemeat, Saratov, turtle meat, bear's ear, boiled walrus tusks, dog's delight, pilgrim's heels…Various types of vodka: gorilka, brykalovka, sshibalovka, tryn-travnaya and others… Alcohol and fruit juice concoctions: molchanovka-flavoured shmarovka, decadent, jack of diamonds, cockroach cocktail, mosquito cocktail…; wines: from the Wednesday's own vineyards, from the shores here, there and everywhere, rosé with blackcurrant puré for the ladies. The supper menu: (1) monster bream, (2) turkey meat on the bone; (3) labardan fish with a sauce of soft-boiled whale fin; (4) cheeses: Brie, Darya , Marya, Buben (5) sweets: ice cream "not badly done". On the table stood old- fashioned flagons – quintleins ̶ stamped with coats of arms, and little drinking vessels with handles and without handles. For many years all this had been collected by V. Ye. Shmarovin in Sukharevka Market. And in the centre of the table they used to place a cask with beer; in front of it sat Uncle Volodya himself and the Wednesday waiter would be the cup bearer and would serve out the beer to everyone. When they were drinking and eating, Uncle Volodya would rise to his feet and strike the tambourine. Everyone would go quiet. "Dear comrades, it is your turn to speak now." Then he would point to someone who had received no warning but had to speak next. And the artist Sintsov was already seated at the

80 piano, ready to wind up that speech with their anthem… If anyone said it was good, the whole table would shout: "The Eagle!" The tankard would be drunk to music and everyone would sing "It's not badly done." It is morning, and daylight is showing through the blinds. The family men and their ladies have gone away. The barrel has been emptied long ago. One can hear snoring from the "morgue". One of the artists is painting with bright colours from life: the table in front of him with the drinking vessels still not cleared away, the empty Eagle rising above the glasses that have been turned upside down and the barrel with its tap open and Uncle Volodya asleep, with his arms resting on the table. The Wednesday poet signs a drawing on the minutes of the day:

Yes, we must part by and by; The day is beginning to dawn. The drink in the barrel has gone, The Eagle-crowned tankard is dry.

It is 1922. All the same the Wednesday Club members were still meeting. Not any longer at Great Molchanovka, but in Great Nikitskaya Street, in the apartment of S.N.Lentovskaya. The Wednesdays did not always happen every week. From time to time Uncle Volodya sent out invitations that ended as follows: "On Wednesday 22 February we shall meet for our 'Wednesday tea'. The conditions are as follows 1)Samovar and tea provided by the Wednesday Club; (2) Sugar and all other comestibles each guest will bring with him in permissible quantities…"

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14 Budding artists

In old Moscow there were very few real art lovers who would take an interest in the fate of young artists. At most they restricted themselves to the purchase of paintings for their galleries – or "galderies" as they called them, haggling over every penny. Besides P.M. Tretyakov and K.T. Soldatyonkov, one person who really helped the artists was S.I.Mamontov, himself an artist, who was captivated by art and had great understanding of it. Round Mamontov gathered a group of people, some of whom were already well known, or were men who had shown from their earliest days that they would really make their mark as outstanding talents, as later turned out to be the case. Those who were poverty-stricken, proud and unsuccessful, sometimes treated their patrons with contempt. "They've become like little Mamontovs and starched their shirt collars!" That was what the poorer ones said about those lucky enough to get into Mamontov's orbit. These poverty-stricken young men found it difficult to make their way in the world. Mostly they were the children of poor parents, who were either peasants or tradesmen, and they had got into the College of Art only through their passionate feeling for painting. Many of them, when they had finished the course, half-starving, talented as they were, still had to seek some other form of employment. Many of them became church artists, working on wall paintings. These included S.I.Gribkov and also Bazhenov, both of whom had received special awards as they finished their studies and were a great hope for the College. There were many of them like that. When Gribkov had finished the College, for many years he kept a painter's workshop and also decorated churches, but despite that he persisted in showing his work in exhibitions and kept up his friendship with talented artists of that generation. Originally a petty tradesman from Kasimov and not well off, he won a prize at the end of his course for his painting How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich.55 Later he went on to win prizes for his historical paintings from the Society of Lovers of the Arts. His big studio of church painting was in a building that he had bought at the Kaluga Gate. The building was large and had two storeys. It was full of poor people: laundry women and workmen who never paid him for their room. Not only did he refrain from asking for rent, but also he himself kept the flats in order and it was his pupils painted and whitewashed them. In his big workshop there was room for everyone. Some artist might come in from the country and live there, doing nothing of course until he found work, just eating and drinking. If a painter temporarily lost his job he would still stay there for the time being, until he found work. Among his pupils there were always at least six young boys. And they would work round the house and on errands, grinding down paints and painting roofs. Every evening they had to make a drawing from life, under the guidance of Gribkov himself. Quite a few good artists came from Gribkov's pupils. From time to time he would entertain them by arranging parties on public holidays. No vodka or beer were allowed but only tea, gingerbread, nuts and dances to a guitar and accordion. He would sit in an armchair till late at night to watch these little feasts and rejoiced to see the young people enjoying themselves. Sometimes at these parties there would be sitting alongside him friends who were also artists and often came to him: Nevrev, Shmelkov, Pukirev and others; and the famous artist A.K. Savrasov lived in his house for months on end. In later years, when Savrasov had finally taken to drink, he sometimes appeared in rags in Gribkov's studio. The young artists joyfully welcomed the famous artist and brought him straight

55 Based on a short story by N.V. Gogol.

82 through into Gribkov's study. The friends embraced each other and then. Savrasov was sent off with one of Gribkov's pupils to the baths by the Crimean Bridge… He came back from there with his hair trimmed, dressed entirely in Gribkov's clothes and the process of sobering up would begin. Those were joyful days for Gribkov. He would live for a month or two and then disappear again, to hide in secret dens. In these drinking places he could make drawings for the waiters and those could pay for vodka and for something to eat. Gribkov helped everyone but when he died his friends had to pay for the funeral: not a penny could be found in the house. But in life Gribkov did not forget his friends. When the celebrated artist Pukirev was struck down by a stroke and was living in a cheap flat in one of the side streets off Prechistenka Street, Gribkov would send him fifty roubles each month via one of his pupils. Gribkov always spoke of Pukirev with delight: "He's Dubrovsky, Pushkin's Dubrovsky!56 Only he wasn't a bandit, but his whole life was like Dubrovsky's: he was good-looking, powerful and talented and his fate was the same!" A comrade and friend of Pukirev's from their earliest days, Gribkov knew the story of the Unequal Marriage57 and the whole tragedy of the artist's life: the important old official is taken from life. The bride alongside him is a portrait of Pukirev's beloved and the man standing with arms folded is a self-portrait of Pukirev himself.58 N.I. Strunnikov also began his artistic career with Gribkov, having become his pupil as a fourteen-year-old. Like everyone else he did all the odd jobs – house painting, grinding down colours, washing brushes, while in the evening he studied life drawing. Once Gribkov sent his pupil to an antique dealer beyond the Kaluga Gate to restore some old painting. At that time P.M. Tretyakov came to him to buy a portrait of the archimandrite Feofan painted by Tropinin. When he saw Tretyakov, the dealer rushed to take off his overcoat and galoshes, and when they went into the room he caught hold of Strunnikov who was working on the picture and made him bow down to the ground: "Bow down to his feet. Down on your knees before him. Do you know who this is?" Not understanding what was happening, Strunnnikov tried to resist, but Tretyakov rescued him by giving him his hand and saying: "Good day, young artist." Tretyakov bought Tropinin's painting on the spot for four hundred roubles and, when he had gone, the dealer threw himself about the room and whimpered: "Ah, I sold it too cheap, far too cheap!" As a peasant's son, Strunnikov had come into the city without a copeck in his pocket and it was not easy for him to make his way in the world. After being with Gribkov, he entered the College of Art and began by working on the restoration of pictures for Brocard, the well-known scent manufacturer in Moscow, who owned a large art gallery. Brocard did not give Strunnikov anything for his work but just paid fifty roubles for him to enrol in the College and kept him there all found. And he kept him as follows: he set aside a bunk in the gatehouse that the artist shared with a workman, so the two of them slept in the same bed; and he fed him along with his own servants in the kitchen. Strunnikov worked for a year, then came to see Brocard: "I'm leaving." Brocard silently took twenty-five roubles out of his pocket. Strunnikov refused it: "Take it back."

56 Unfinished novel by Pushkin. Written 1832, published 1841. Dubrovsky is a kind of "Robin Hood" figure. 57 Painting dating from 1862. 58 Although the picture undoubtedly contains a self-portrait of Pukirev, the notion that the theme of the painting was based on an incident in Pukirev's own life is disputed. 83

Without speaking Brocard took out his wallet again and added another fifty roubles. Still silent, Strunnikov took them, turned on his heel and went off. Life was hard for those artists who were starting without rich parents, without a supportive family, without connections or any funds to live on.

It was easier for others to get started, those who were born, as they used to say then, "with their collars already starched". People like that had connections which they were obliged to keep up and for that they had to be educated and brought up in the right way. The Zhukovs and Volguzhevs, and many others like them – their name is legion ̶ were neither. The College of Art did not provide these attributes, the programme of general education being weak and education being regarded as a trifle; it was taken for granted that artists needed only a brush and that education was of secondary importance. This mistaken idea was quite firmly entrenched and in those days there were almost no artists with a good education. "Let them copy nature or make lifelike portraits ̶ that is all we need." There was nowhere they could learn how to conduct themselves in any sort of decent way and they completely despised any kind of decent society ̶ "starched collars" ̶ and along with that they despised education. How could artists like these think about education or science when they had nowhere to lay their head nor any proper clothes, what with their toes sticking out of their boots and their trousers in such a state that they had to turn their backside to the wall? Could an artist dressed like that go into any rich man's house to paint a portrait, even if he could paint better than anyone else? Was it not these sort of conditions that led to the ruin of Zhukov and Volguzhev? And there were hundreds of others who died without any income or any support. There were only a few who managed to win their place in life. Levitan was lucky that in his early years he chanced to come into the society of Anton Chekhov. Levitan was poor, but he tried as far as possible to dress himself decently in order to stay in Chekhov's circle, where the people might be poor but gifted and cheerful. As time went by a rich old lady, Morozova, supported him, even though she did not even know him by sight. She set aside for him a comfortable, well-furnished house, where he went on to paint his best works. A.M. Korin also made his way in the world, but he did not live long ̶ his earlier life with the Lyapintsy had undermined his health. People in the College loved him greatly as a former Lyapinite who had made his way like them. They could pay tribute to the stars, but they loved him just as much as they had loved A.S. Stepanov. His studio in the College of Art was in a separate wing, to the right of the gates from Yushkov Lane. It was a huge ugly room, and cold. The stove smoked. In the middle of the room there would be some sort of animal on a stand: a goat, a sheep, a dog, a cockerel. Or else there would be a young vixen. Agile, with merry eyes, it sat there, looking all round ; perhaps she might like to lie down, but a pupil would tear himself away from the easel, poke her leg or her muzzle with a stick and pretend to threaten her, and the little vixen would sink back into her original pose. All around the students would be sketching her, and among them Stepanov himself would be making comments and pointing out some details. Stepanov's pupils had something special about them; they were modest and quiet as he was himself. And it looked as though the vixen was sitting there tame and still because all these calm eyes had a calming effect and under their influence she was submissive and, seemingly, consciously so. In Sukharevka and also in the stalls at the city gates one could find sketches made from these vixens, besides other work done in class. They came up for sale only after the professors had looked them over in separate private exhibitions, since there was nowhere to offload them and work done in class was not accepted for student exhibitions, no matter how good it was. The students might sell them very cheaply to anyone who turned up and sometimes there were very fine things among them. 84

Student exhibitions were held once a year, from 25 December to 7 January. They had already started back in the 1870s, but they became particularly popular from the beginning of the 1880s when people started to see there work by Levitan, Arkhipov, the Korovin brothers, Svyatoslavsky, Aladzhalov, Miloradovich, Matveyev, Lebedev, and Nikolai Chekhov, brother of the writer. At the exhibitions they showed what the artists had worked on over the summer. In the spring, after classes had finished in the College of Art, the students travelled away, each to his own destination, to paint their studies and pictures for that exhibition. There remained in Moscow only the ones who had nowhere special to go. They would go to make paintings in the landscape round Moscow, give lessons in how to paint or would sign on to paint the walls of churches. This last was the most profitable occupation, and over the summer months they could make enough to live on right through the winter. Those who had some money might go away to the Crimea or the Caucasus, or some could even go abroad, but there were very few who could afford that. Everyone who had not put by some little savings over the summer relied solely on selling their pictures. The pupils' exhibitions were very popular. Everyone in Moscow loved them, came to see them and wrote about them. Both the owners of galleries, such as Soldatyonkov, and also ordinary Muscovites would acquire cheap pictures, sometimes from artists who might later become famous and whose work could become extremely expansive. It was a sort of sport: to find someone well-known could be like winning two hundred thousand. There was one year (I think the exhibition of 1897) when all the best pictures were bought up by foreigners living in Moscow: Prove, Gutheil, Knoop, Catoire, Brocard, Hopper, Moritz,59 Schmidt. After the exhibition the lucky people who had managed to sell their pictures and get cash for them, changed into better clothes, paid off any rent owing to their landlord and, most important of all settled with Moiseyevna. In the yard behind the College of Art there was a small wing which contained the workshop for the sculptor Volnukhin and for many years a little canteen was situated there in two vaulted rooms; in each room there stood simple wooden tables that had been scrubbed spotless, on which were piled mountains of sliced black bread. People having dinner sat on benches round the table. The canteen was open every day except Sundays from one to three in the afternoon and it was always full. Students rushed straight in from their classrooms, just dressed at they were. They would take a plate and a metal spoon and go straight to the hotplate where the food was served by the old, half-blind Moiseyevna and her daughter. The student would sit down to table with his hot meal, then come round for his second course, pay the old lady and leave the table. Sometimes if he had no money he would ask her to wait and Moiseyevna trusted everyone. "Please be good and bring it, otherwise I may forget," she would say. A two-course dinner with a piece of beef in the soup cost seventeen copecks or eleven copecks without the beef. For the second course one might have pieces of minced meat or potatoes in one form or another, and sometimes a full plate of cranberry jelly and a glass of milk. At that time cranberries cost three copecks a pound and milk two copecks a glass. There were no cashiers and no tickets and it was very rare to find anyone who would deceive Moiseyevna; almost everyone paid hard cash or they might borrow eleven copecks off someone and pay with that. After the exhibitions everyone was sure to pay in full. There were some occasions that some well-dressed man might come up to Moiseyevna and thrust money at her. "What are you doing this for, sir?"

59 Owner of the Moritz and Palm Foundry in Moscow. 85

"I owe it to you, Moiseyevna. Take it." "And who might you possibly be?" And she would peer into his face with her half blind eyes. Her daughter would be quicker to recognize the man and would say his name. Otherwise he might say it himself. "Ah, good heavens, Sanka, so it's you and I didn't recognize you at all. You're dressed up so well! And why are you giving me so much?" "Take it, take it, Moiseyevna. I've eaten quite a few dinners for nothing in your place." "Well, thanks so much for this, my dear !"

86

15 On Trubnaya Square

"The boyars were riding along with cigarettes in their teeth. The local police were out on the street…"

In the early 1860s this was the caption under a caricature in the journal The Spark. It shows a troika in the middle of the road. In the sledge four dandies are smoking Russian cigarettes and two policemen are stopping their horses. This caricature in a satirical journal was a response to the by-law forbidding anyone to smoke on the street. Anyone guilty of that was sent to the police "notwithstanding their rank or profession." That was decreed in an order from the Chief of Police which had been published in the newspapers. This order had caused no end of scandals on the street, and no end of fires were caused by it: people who were smoking were sometimes frightened into throwing away their cigarettes without taking care where they landed. In those years the habit of smoking cigarettes was only just beginning to take over from snuff, but all the same snuff remained in fashion for a long time. "Surely it's a good thing to have a sniff! You can take snuff anywhere without spoiling the air in your house… And the main thing is that it's cheap and cheerful." Even people who hardly know each other may meet on the street, lifting their hat politely, and, if they want to prolong the acquaintance, they may take out their snuffbox. "Help yourself." "It's good. Now you have some of mine…" He knocks on the lid of the snuffbox and opens it. "But yours is better. Mine is flavoured with mint from Kostroma. It's got balsamic tansy in it – makes your eyes water." "Now, His Excellency, Prince Urusov60 ̶ I supply him with oats ̶ treated me to snuff out of the golden snuffbox that he'd been awarded. It's Khra… Khra… Yes – Khrappé." "Rapé. From Paris. I know." "So there you are… It is scented, but not very strong. I didn't like it… So I went and spoke out: 'Your Excellency, please don't take it amiss, but don't despise my snuff…' Then I offered him my birch wood snuffbox with the tail. The Prince took a good sniff up both nostrils. His eyes stood out. He took another sniff. And gave such a sneeze… He sneezed and in between sneezes asked: 'What sort of snuff is this?.. Is it Engerlish?' And I said to him: 'Yours is from France, from Khrappé, whereas mine is home grown butatre…' And I explained to him that I got mine from a policeman on Nikitsky Boulevard. Then the Prince gave up his Khrappé and went over to home-produced samtre. He became the main customer of my policeman. He used to call in there in the morning on his way to work. Then he promoted the man to local sergeant… There were various brands of snuff on sale: snuff from Yaroslavl, made by Dunayev and Vakhrameyev, from Kostroma, made by Chumakov, from Vladimir, made by the Golovkins, Voroshatinsky, Bobkovy, Aromatichesky, Suvorovsky, Pink, Zelenchuk, Mint. There were many names for different sorts of snuff in packets with official wrappers, but all the same in Moscow they sniffed mostly butatre or just samtre, themselves grinding up coarse tobacco and flavouring it to taste; each individual kept his recipe secret, claiming to have inherited it from his grandparents. The best snuff that was in fashion was called Pink. It was prepared by the sexton who lived in the yard of the Trinity-Listy church and who died as an old man aged a hundred. That snuff used to be sold through a little window in one of the tiny shops that had sunk deep into

60 Probably Aleksandr Ivanovich Urusov (1843-1900), a celebrated lawyer. 87 the ground by the church building on Sretenka. After his death there remained several bottles of snuff and a recipe which is so curious that I must set it out in full: "Buy half a sazhen of aspen wood and burn it, sifting the ash through a sieve into a vessel set aside to contain it. Take ten pounds of leaf tobacco, dry it off a little (by using a simple pot, the so-called Kolomna pot and a wooden mortar). Put the tobacco into the pot and grind it up until you have not more than a quarter of a glassful of roots that it is difficult to grind up…All the tobacco should be ground again then passed through a very fine mesh; the residue should be ground and sieved again. Sift the ash twice. Combine the ash with the tobacco in the following proportions: two glasses of tobacco and one glass of ash. Pour this into a pot, wet it with one eighth of a glass of water, not all at once but gradually and again grind. Grind all the tobacco and place in one place. Add perfume as follows: take a quarter of a pound of pine elixir, eight and a half grams, or two zolotniks of rose oil and a pound of the best rose water; mix the pine oil and one zolotnik of rose oil and add rose water, heated up but not too much. While shaking this mixture, add to each solution of tobacco and ash and sift the whole. When all the tobacco has been rubbed into the mixture sprinkle over it the remaining one zolotnik of rose oil and mix it in with your hands. Then pour it into bottles; having done that, cork and wrap in a membrane; place them on the stove for five or six days, and in the stove for one night, in a lying position. The snuff is now ready." Long before the building of the Hermitage restaurant, the three-storeyed Vnukov (now Kononov) house stood, as it does today, on the corner between Grachevka and the Boulevard of Flowers, with its broad façade facing Trubnaya Square. Nowadays it is lower because it has sunk down into the soil. Even long before the Hermitage restaurant was built, that building contained the disreputable Crimea tavern and in front of it in winter there were always troikas, fast likhachi cabs and two-horse cabs; on rainy days, however, part of Trubnaya Square simply became an impassable swamp. The water might flood over Neglinny Passage but never went as far as the Boulevard of Flowers or the Vnukov house. The disreputable Crimea took up two storeys. On the third floor of this second-rate tavern building dealers disported themselves, together with card sharps, shady businessmen and all sorts of rogues, who might be comparatively well-dressed. The public were entertained by singers and accordion players. The first floor was sharply and crudely marked off, with some pretensions to being chic. In the main rooms there was staging for an orchestra, for gypsy or Russian choirs and a loud sounding organ was played in between the choirs as the public requested, according to their various tastes. Arias from operas would be interspersed with Russian folk dances and a hymn might be followed by the beloved tune of "Luchinushka".61 It was here that entertainment was provided for petty merchants who were out to enjoy themselves and for various ones who had come in from the provinces. Below these grand rooms the lower floor was taken up with business premises; then beneath that, deep in the earth below the whole building there was an enormous underground floor that occupied all the area between Grachevka and the Boulevard of Flowers. This space was all devoted to one tavern, the most desperate haunt of robbers, where the criminal world who had come in from the slums of Grachevka and the side streets running off the Boulevard of Flowers, drank themselves senseless, while even from the Shipov Fortress itself dodgy individuals came in droves after particularly successful thieving or robbery, even coming from their den, the Polish Tavern on the Yauza. In Khitrovka the Penal Servitude tavern seemed a pension for aristocratic young ladies compared with the one called Hell.

61 A popular folk song.

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For many years, under the eyes of the already well-known Hermitage, the drunken and noisy Crimea boomed out on to the street while Hell maintained a sinister silence, and from the underground rooms not a single sound came out to the street. Even in the 1870s and 1880s it was just as before, or even perhaps worse, because over twenty years the floor and the walls had become deeply soaked in dirt and during that time the gas mantles had thoroughly blackened the ceilings, which had sunk significantly and cracked. This was particularly so in the underground way from the huge space of the large common hall, from the entrance from the Boulevard of Flowers to the exit onto Grachevka. But both the entrance and the exit had their own special features: you must not look for an architectural entrance or even a porch… they just didn't exist. A man may be sitting on a bench on the Boulevard of Flowers, looking out at the street and at the enormous Vnukov house. He sees some five people going along the pavement and suddenly ̶ there is no one there! Where have they disappeared to? He looks again – the pavement is empty … And next a drunken crowd appears… Where have they come from, making a noise and fighting? They too suddenly disappear again. Then there is a policeman hurrying along ̶ and he also disappears through the earth, but emerges from it after five minutes and is walking along the pavement with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bundle in the other… Since our man is intrigued, he gets up from the bench and walks over to the building – and the secret is revealed: below the level of the pavement there is a wide door with steps leading down to it. A woman rushes out to meet him with her face covered in blood and swearing horribly. After her comes a man in rags who throws her down on the pavement and beats her mercilessly, saying as he does so: "We live how we like." Another two men jump out, beat up the ragged man and carry off the woman downstairs again. The man who has been beaten tries to stand up. Then, groaning and cursing, he crawls on all fours, across the roadway and slumps into the grass along the edge of the boulevard… Together with the suffocating stink of coarse tobacco coming from the open door, mingled with the smell of overheated drunkenness and every odour made by man, come the most incongruous and deafening of sounds: then the general hubbub is cut through by the high note of the accompanying soloist followed by the roar of drunken voices and over that the crash of broken glass, a woman's wild shrieking and the coarse swearing of many voices. But the basses of the choir boom out in the vaults and mask the hubbub until once more the soloist's voice cuts through them, and this in its turn is pierced by the off-key note of a violin… Then once more all the sounds come together and the warm steam and the smell of gas from a burst pipe somewhere stop your breath for a moment… Hundreds of people are sitting at the rows of tables along the walls and in the middle of the enormous space of the "dining hall". Anyone who is curious may slip through over the floor with its soft covering of dirt and shavings, past the great stove where all the roasting and boiling is being done, to something resembling a buffet where the shelves have on show Yerofeyich vodka, bitter herbal vodka, pepper vodka, various fruit-flavoured liqueurs, and rum at fifty copecks a bottle, smelling of bedbugs, although that does not stop it being mixed half and half with tea to make a sort of "punch", the favourite drink of "green feet" or boldokhi , as they call people here who have escaped from Siberia or run away from prison. Everyone is drunk as can be: a cacophony of singing and swearing… Only in the left- hand corner behind the buffet it is a bit less noisy…There they are playing games of "pricking the garter" and "thimblerig"… And up to now no one has ever won against the confidence tricksters, but all the same they are so drunk that they must play again… It is all so simple. For example the thimble game consists of trying to guess which of three thimbles is placed over a little ball of bread, which the operator, in front of everyone, puts under one of the

89 thimbles. But in actual fact he has stuck it to his nail ̶ so that there is nothing under the thimble. "Pricking the garter" is very simple: a narrow leather strap is wound up with several turns and when he has done that his opponent, before the strap uncoils, has to guess where the middle is; that means he has to put his fingernail or an iron nail or a little stick when the strap unfolds so that it will be in the centre of the circle that has formed, in a loop. But the strap has been wound up in such a way that it has not formed a loop. Thus in these primitive games people lose everything that they possess: both their money, things they have stolen and their overcoat, which is still warm and has just been taken off someone on the Boulevard of Flowers. Small-time dealers go round the players and will buy on the spot any sort of trifling article, while anything sizeable and of a certain value will go to "Satan" himself ̶ that is what the boss is called, although no one has ever seen him face to face. The whole business is worked by the man running the buffet and two hefty chuckers-out ̶ they are also receivers of stolen goods. They emerged during very serious brawls, lashing out to right and left, and the regular customers always turned out to help them ̶ those boldokhi who are friendly with them, as with people that they needed, people who "did the business" of off-loading stolen goods; they could find shelter with them at times when it was dangerous to spend the night in dosshouses or their own safe houses. No police force ever dared to look in there except just the local boys from the next district, and then only with the most benevolent intentions ̶ to get a bottle of vodka. And apart from that, people did not go further than the general hall and that hall was just the respectable half of "Hell". The other half was called the "Underworld" and the only ones allowed in there were those people recognized by the buffet man and his chuckers-out, the veteran boldokhi, who were like the magnates who had sole access to the Tsar's court. And then it was these veteran boldokhi (or Ivans, as they were also known) from the Shipov Fortress, and "wolves" from the Dry Ravine, who had two ways in: a general entrance from the Boulevard and also one from Grachevka, another place where people seemed to disappear from the pavement into thin air. This second entrance was particularly useful when they had to drag in bundles which it would somehow be awkward to bring through the main room. The Underworld occupied the other, equally big, part of the lower ground floor. It consisted of corridors, with great box rooms along either side. The smaller ones were called the "Forges of Hell" and the two big ones the "Mills of the Devil". Here the cardsharps from Grachevka played faro, this being the only game that was recognized by the Ivans and boldokhi. And at this game they might lose their profits, sometimes amounting to thousands of roubles. In this part of the Underworld it was always quiet – the chuckers-out did not allow drunkenness; everyone feared their every word or silent gesture. The Mills of the Devil would be grinding away all day and all night while the game would be worth the takings. In the smaller side rooms business was going on every minute of the day: sometimes there was a "grand share- out", which meant that those taking part divided up what they had stolen; sometimes experts would execute orders for false residence permits or other legal documents concocted by experts. Some of the rooms were furnished as bedrooms (a double bed with a straw mattress), all just for honoured guests and their floozies… Sometimes shaggy students would come in, perhaps singing "Dubinushka" in the main hall and making a lot of noise, as they took advantage of the tramps and even the chuckers-out, who set aside rooms for them when there were no spare places in the hall. That was how things were in Hell during the 1860s and so it was in the 1870s too; only previously it had been simpler: they used to let in couples off the street to the Underworld and Forges of Hell and all sorts of guests simply walked from the main hall into the little side rooms, as they felt the need to be on their own. In the 1870s sometimes really honoured guests came in ̶ actors from the People's Theatre and the Artists' Club, coming to study all sorts of 90 characters. Kireyev was here, as were Poltavtsev, and Vasya Vasilyev. In those days the police did not look in here, and later, when a detective force already existed, there were no special searches, and they would not have produced any result ̶ there were underground passages under the building that had been left from the plumbing system, which dated back to the time of Empress Catherine. When they were digging sewage works at the end of the nineteenth century, they came across one of these passages under the gates of that building, when Hell had ceased to exist and when there remained only the underground works, one of which held the bedroom for the tavern staff. Even in the daytime it was lit by paraffin lamps. The Hell tavern was connected with the first attempt to assassinate Alexander II on 4 April 1866. This is where the meetings were held at which they worked out the plan of how to attack the Tsar. In Moscow in 1863 a group of young people was formed who had resolved to act decisively against the government. They were students at the University and the Agricultural Academy. In 1865, when the number of members had grown, that circle got its name of the "Organization". The conspirator at the heart of the plot was the student Ishutin who led a group that used to meet in the Ipatova house in Great Spassky Lane in Carriage Row. They were called "Ipatovites", after the name of the building. Here, unbeknown to the other members of the Organization, the idea of regicide germinated. For their conspiratorial meetings the Ipatovites chose the most convenient spot, namely the Hell tavern, where no one prevented them coming together in the secret Forges of Hell. Thus it was from the name of this meeting place that the group called itself Hell. Besides meeting at the Hell they used also to come together at Great Bronnaya Street in the dilapidated Chebyshev House, where Ishutin had fitted out a little workshop for binding books, also under the name of Hell. Several Hellites also lived there, calling themselves the "Death Men", that is to say, those already condemned to death. One of them was Karakozov, who had already tried unsuccessfully to shoot the Tsar. Moscow was terrorized by the many arrests that followed; nine Hellites were sent to penal servitude. (Karakozov was hanged). Everyone in Moscow was so frightened that no one dared to say a word about Karakozov's attempt. So it all passed into oblivion. Even in the nineteenth century people mentioned Hell's connection with Karakozov's trial, but of course it was not possible to write about it. Only in very intimate meetings was Hell referred to by the older writers N.N. Zlatovratsky, N.V. Uspensky, A.M. Dmitriyev, F.D. Nefyodov, and Pyotr Kicheyev, who still remembered Hell and the Chebyshev House, and had got some of the details from old staff members of Russian News, among whom was one of the main participants in the Hell group, who was at meetings of the Death Men in Hell and the Chebyshev House.This was P.F. Nikolayev62 who was in the first group condemned at Karakozov's trial to twelve years of hard labour. At the end of the 1880s he appeared in Moscow and became a regular correspondent of Russian News as a translator, and he also contributed to Russian Thought in Moscow. It was risky for him to live in Moscow and he used to take shelter in small towns nearby. But he made frequent visits to Moscow, where he put up with friends. In the Editor's office, apart from a few close friends, there were few people who knew about his past, but he would share his reminiscences with his friends. This last member of Karakozov's group just did not live to see the exhibition about him in 1926 in the Museum of the Revolution. The first half of the 1860s saw the start of Moscow's tremendous growth with

62 Pyotr Fedorovich Nikolayev (1844-1910). The Russian text is wrong on two counts here. It gives his first initial as N and turns an eight year sentence into one of twelve years. 91 landowners streaming in from distant corners to spend the money they had received for liberating their serfs. The men who owned the big luxury fashion shops and the best taverns were flourishing, but all the same these latter could not satisfy the refined tastes of the gentry, who had already spent some time abroad – live sturgeon and fresh caviar were not enough for them. Distinguished magnates gave feasts in their private houses in the city; they would order pâté de foie gras from Strasbourg, oysters, lobsters and fiendishly expensive wines from abroad. It was considered particularly smart to have the dinner prepared by the French chef Olivier, who was at that time still famous as the person who had invented the Olivier salad, without which no meal was a meal and the secret of which he never revealed. No matter how hard the gourmands tried, it didn't come out very well: all right, but not the real thing. At the police box on Trubnaya Square two devotees of the occupant's bergamot snuff often met up, namely Olivier and one of the Pegov brothers,63 who would come out every day from his rich house on Gnezdikovsky Lane to get his favourite bergamot mixture; he used to buy just one copeck's worth, so that it was always freshly made. It was there that Olivier and he came to an agreement by which Pegov bought from Popov all his huge expanse of wasteland, some four acres. In the place where police boxes and Afonkin's Tavern had stood, on Pegov's land Olivier's Hermitage Restaurant rose up, and the square and streets, hitherto inaccessible to wheeled traffic, were paved. In an area where the swamp used to be filled with the croaking of frogs and where we could hear shouts from the regulars of the drinking dens, who had been robbed, there shone the windows of this palace of gluttony, before which, night and day there now stood the expensive carriages of aristocrats, sometimes still carrying liveried outriders. Olivier had responded to the insistent demands of his customers by doing everything the French way. He only left one old Russian custom: in the restaurant there were no lackeys in frock coats and the customers were served by waiters from Moscow wearing bright shirts of Holland cloth and silk waistbands. Straightaway all this was amazingly successful. The nobility flocked into the new French restaurant, because, besides the general dining halls and little private rooms, there was the great white hall with its columns where one could order just the same meals as those which Olivier made for grandees in their private houses. Furthermore, for these dinners delicacies were brought in from abroad and the best drinks, with the assurance that the brandy came from the cellars of Louis the Sixteenth's palace and bore the inscription of the Trianon. It was the spoilt aristocrats who rushed to partake of these delicacies, not knowing otherwise what to do with their money. The whole business was managed by three Frenchmen. Olivier had the general oversight, Marius looked after special guests, and the kitchen was supervised by the famous man from Paris, the chef Léon Duguet, This was the first, aristocratic period of the Hermitage. Things went on like this until the start of the 1890s. Until then the old aristocracy had fought shy of upstarts from the world of business and civil servants. People from that class used to eat in separate private rooms. Then the spendthrift aristocracy began to die out. Now the first to appear in the large hall were representatives of Moscow’s foreign community – the Knoops, Vogaus, Hoppers and Marcs. They came straight from the Stock Exchange, stiff and stern, each company occupying its own table. After then came Russian merchants, who had just exchanged their traditional sibirka coats and barge-hauler boots for smart smoking jackets and now mixed with the representatives of foreign firms in the halls of the Hermitage.

63 This was Yakov Pegov, a member of the huge Pegov merchant dynasty. It seems that Gilyarovsky is mistaken in saying he lived on Gnezdikovsky Lane.

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Olivier had gone. Marius, who had been so reverential when faced with exalted gourmands, was now serving merchants as well, but he talked with them casually, even condescendingly. The cook Duguet was no longer thinking up delicacies for these merchants, and in the end he went back to France. But things were still fine as they were. On the square in front of the Hermitage the aristocratic carriages were replaced by daredevil likhachi cabdrivers with uncomfortable sledges, harnessed to champion trotting horses costing a thousand roubles. There were likhachi also on Strastnaya Square and at the Dresden Hotel, the Slavonic Bazaar, the Great Moscow Hotel and the Prague Hotel. But the best ones were at the Hermitage, as they were paying the city up to five hundred roubles a year for their right to stand there; at other cab ranks they paid up to four hundred. The likhachi, well-fed and dressed in their clumsy padded jackets of expensive cloth, girded up with silk belts, looked down proudly on the people passing by and would talk only with "exalted personages" who came out to the front entrance of the restaurant. "Your 'cency!" "Your 'cency!" In order for a Muscovite to acquire this princely title, he had merely to approach a likhach, seat himself proudly in a vehicle with pneumatic tyres and shout menacingly: "To the Yar!" Immediately he would be addressed as "Your 'cency!" These padded jackets appeared in those long forgotten times when an angry aristocrat would thump and kick the back of his serf driver. Then the jacket, hideously stuffed with cotton wool, saved the driver from mutilation; the word has survived, like the forgotten word barin (aristocrat) has with cab drivers who don't wear padded jackets and "your 'cency" with likhachi… Everybody enjoyed being a "Your 'cency!" Before the war with Japan there was a fat staff captain, who was promoted by the likhachi from Strastnaya Square to the rank of colonel, and then the likhachi from the Hermitage started calling him "Your 'cency", even though his shoulder straps still showed the four stars and one stripe for a staff captain. But up to that time the staff captain had only gone on foot or dragged himself back from the racetrack by paying five copecks for a cab. Then he got himself on to some sort of commission and started to arrange for rich people to avoid long journeys to the war or even avoid wearing a military greatcoat completely, while his clerk, a half-literate soldier, rented a dacha near Moscow for his mistress. "Your 'cency! With Ivan! Your 'cency! With Fyodor!" Those were the words that the likhachi used to greet him with at the main entrance to the Hermitage. Thin little officers in their unfashionable greatcoats used to hasten to the trotting races or flat races and they would pool their money and bet on their way back from the racetrack on foot; having lost their last ten roubles, they would try to haggle in Hunters' Row, where they bought fruit or sausages. And then suddenly … War with Japan! And we came to life! First of all people began to call in to Yeliseyev's to buy boiled sausage and apples… Then caviar… Fruit jelly and port wine number 137…In Yeliseyev's shop observant assistants could see how the military commissariat customers were getting fat, filling out and gaining in stature… They began by arriving in cabs. Then they used likhachi, then their own carriages…

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"Hey, hey… what's that? Send what's on this list to me and add in whatever you think necessary… And the bill? You know?" such customers would say in a peremptory tone, "a low profundo bass as pineapple-fashion he launched into space." 64 Then the Muscovite went on to the Hermitage, where he had become a regular customer along with dozens of "Your 'cencies", like himself, some in uniform and some in civilian clothes. But for many of them it was the Hermitage and the likhachi that had set them on their feet! The old aristocracy used to stuff themselves at the Hermitage and it was difficult for newcomer upstarts to live up to that standard, besides which their income had ceased once the war was over, even though their upper class ways remained. In order to have a likhach to take them from the Hermitage to the Yar and, after delicacies at the Hermitage, to dine with the gypsies, Hungarians and Anna Zakharovna's singers, if any of them were in the shirt business, to pay for all that one would need to half-dress about three thousand soldiers: rotten threads, cheap cloth and the shirts wouldn't fit. Anyone in the headgear business would need to make about two thousand papakha fur hats about an inch too short with linings of old tow instead of wadding. And if anyone was in the footwear business, for the price of one ride on a likhach, dozens of soldiers would wear out their feet on the march and get rheumatism for life. So the soldiers went badly half-clad in mouldering bald half coats while at the same time "their 'cencies" in the commissariat glided off on their pneumatic tyres to the Yar with their sweethearts. For the price of the half coats they sold they could buy sable rotonda jackets and sealskin coats. Besides that, "their 'cencies" in the commissariat" were eating delicacies from abroad while the army got flour with worms in it. That time has passed! Things were beginning to fade for those "'cencies" in uniform. The staff captain was demoted from being one of the "'cencies" to being just a "gentleman"… Then not only the likhachi but even the ordinary cabbies, the "yellow eyes" as they were known, or the winter seasonal cabbies with their wretched nags, stopped thinking of him as a "gentleman" ̶ it was the Hermitage which brought him down to earth along with many of his drinking companions. The likhachi knew all the ins and outs of every regular customer at the Hermitage and did not believe that "their 'cencies" had a sound future, so they preferred carousing merchants and, as a sign of their complete respect, they used to address each one of them by his first name and patronymic. The Hermitage was transferred to the ownership of a trading company. New directors replaced Olivier and Marius: Polikarpov, the furniture maker, Mochalov, the fish merchant, Dmitriyev, the restaurateur, Yudin the merchant. Astute people, typical of the new public. The first thing they did was to rebuild the Hermitage and make it even more luxurious, providing chic individual bathhouses in the same building and adding a new wing with meeting rooms. The Hermitage began to make huge profits ̶ with drunkenness and debauchery… The "distinguished" Moscow merchants and less prominent rich men used to go straight into their private rooms, where they could immediately unwind. Fresh caviar was served in silver buckets. For fish soup they brought in sturgeon over two feet long straight into the rooms where they speared them. And yet they ate asparagus straight off the knife and used their knife to cut up artichokes. Of these private rooms the red one was particularly famous; it was there that Moscow's fast set ate the clown Tanti's trained pig…

64 A slightly inaccurate quotation from a poem by Andrei Belyi "In the mountains", written in 1903 and published in 1904.

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Specially famous were the late supper meals which people who were celebrating would come to after the theatre… The rooms were filled with men in tails, dinner jackets or uniforms and ladies with décolleté dresses sparkling with diamonds. The orchestra resounded on the balcony while champagne flowed abundantly. The private rooms were crammed with people. The meeting rooms did a roaring trade! For a few hours they might be paying from five to twenty-five roubles… Anyone who was anybody was there… And everything was done in secret; the police took no interest ̶ they never knew which of their superiors they might meet! In the Hermitage the white hall with columns was quite sumptuous and it was there that they celebrated special anniversaries. In 1899 all the famous writers of the time gathered there for a dinner given to celebrate Pushkin's centenary. So usually it was here that the richest merchants' weddings were celebrated with hundreds of guests. And the "plebs" ate everything off Saxon dinner services with their hands: ducks from Rouen in France, red partridges from Switzerland, salted fish from the Mediterranean… Calville apples, each with its own coat of arms, costing five roubles apiece at the point of sale. And guests from outside Moscow hid duchess and Calville apples in the back pockets of their long-tailed frock coats to carry them away to the Taganka, into their old-fashioned houses, that smelt of lamp oil and sauerkraut. The White Hall was hired particularly often by Moscow's foreign business community for banquets in honour of their fellow countrymen who had arrived on a visit. It was here that the foreigners saw in the New Year and celebrated the German Shrovetide. It was the Orchestra Ryabov, Moscow's best, that played at all the ceremonies in that hall. In 1917 the Hermitage was closed. Some sort of Clubs went on meeting in the private rooms, but then they too were shut down. The Hermitage was a gloomy place, with not a soul about: people were afraid to walk past it. Then there were crowds again round the Hermitage… huge queues at the entrances. Dozens of hire carts were waiting for customers. Lucky people who had received parcels from the American Relief Administration65 were occupying all the dining rooms, private rooms and other premises in the Hermitage.

The New Economic Policy crept in.66 The Hermitage was showing all its bright lights again. It was surrounded alternately by tattered cabbies and tattered likhachi, but now they all were driving on pneumatic tyres. Drunken car drivers were starting to come and go. The man who used to run the restaurant managed to mimic the restaurant's past in a tawdry sort of way. The menu was showing again Escalopes à la Pompadour, Escalopes Marie Louise, Valois sauce, Olivier salad. However, the cutlets were tough, having been cooked in castor oil and the Olivier salad was made from leftovers. All the same this suited the NEPmen customers very well. In the porter's lodge were hanging sealskin coats, beaver collars, sable coats. In the main hall were those same chandeliers, white tablecloths and gleaming crockery… On the wall facing the buffet they had still kept something written by M.P. Sadovsky. He used to take his lunch here, mocking the fast set and watching the various characters. Instead of being served by waiters in white shirts, the food was now served by menials in soiled jackets, and they would run when they were called, the trimmings on their trousers gleaming like lace. The public would look askance at customers who were dressed in leather jackets.

65 Established by President Hoover, this operated to alleviate a major famine 1921-22. 66 Policy introduced by Lenin in 1921 and termed by him "State capitalism". Limited free enterprise was allowed. Those who took advantage of this were known as NEPmen. The policy was dropped in 1928. 95

Now there is a noisy table finishing their meal with champagne… One fat-bellied dandy in a dinner jacket jumps up, waves his arms about and is trying to persuade someone… There is a white-faced lady, wearing lipstick, who is smoking a cigarette and letting smoke blow into the face of a man wearing a service jacket and pouring wine into his glass. He looks ill at ease in that sort of company, but he is the centre of attention. It's towards him that the fat dandy is making persuasive gestures. On his other side a brisk fellow is pushing in and showing some papers. The man who is surrounded is pushing him away and will not look at them, but the other fellow keeps on and on at him. It's exactly like a scene from the play The Soufflé,67 which was enjoying such success in the Theatre of the Revolution. They are all so alive!… That is just the way Semyon Raks makes his gestures, and it is just like that the painted lady dancer Rita Kern shows off. The director of the bank, Ilia Koromyslov, is feeling ill at ease as Miron Zont rubs against him to ask for a subsidy for his journal… Beyond them there are secretaries (both men and women), directors, businessmen like Obrydlov and always the same Semyon Raks, self-satisfied, starting to get fat… And it is just the same at the other tables. A year later, in the buildings of The Hermitage, we saw the official opening by the Moscow City Council of The House of the Peasant.

67 Play (1925) by Boris Sergeyevich Romashov (1895-1958), satirizing NEPmen.

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16 The Heart of Moscow

Hunters' Row is the heart of Moscow. In former times Hunters' Row was built up on one side with old-fashioned residences and on the other with a long single-storey building under a single roof, despite the fact that it belonged to dozens of owners. Of all these buildings only two were occupied: the building which housed the Hotel Continental and, alongside it, Yegorov's Tavern which was famous for its pancakes. The rest were shops, all the way to Tverskaya Street. The Yegorov Tavern once belonged to Voronin,68 and on the sign was depicted a crow holding a pancake in its beak. All the shops on Hunters' Row sold either meat or fish, and below them were root cellars. The back doors of the shops opened up on to a vast courtyard – the Mint as it had been known since time immemorial. There were also single-storey shops there, selling meat, live fish and eggs, but in the middle was the two-storey Mint Tavern. At the back of the yard was a row of sheds with cellars and storehouses, which swarmed with rats. Hunters' Row got its name at a time when trade in game was permitted there, the game being brought in by hunters from outside Moscow. In front of the shops, in the square, the length of a broad pavement, stood moveable stalls; traders with baskets and sacks, filled with all manner of products, thronged them. Hunters, hung about with ducks, chickens and hares, wandered about. From the baskets of peasant women the heads of chickens and hens protruded; piglets squealed in sacks; those selling them took them out of the sacks to show customers, invariably lifting them more than head-high by their bound hind legs. On the roadway in front of the stalls was a host of pie-sellers, pancake- sellers and sellers of buckwheat biscuits cooked in vegetable oil. Sbiten-sellers ladled out the hot drink at a copeck a glass; this was a popular honey drink of the time which warmed up cabbies and assistants freezing in the cold shops. In summer the sbiten-sellers were replaced by kvass- sellers; the most popular type was pear kvass, made from boiled pears which, in marinated form, lay in pyramids on trays and were offered for sale. The kvass was scooped out of buckets in mugs. The meat shops and the fish shops consisted of two sections. In the first, meat of various sorts lay on shelves – game, poultry, geese, turkeys, piglets with singed hair for roasting and piglets in ice baths – white piglets for pork in aspic. Hanging on hooks along the walls were the carcasses of sheep and milk-reared calves, while the whole of the ceiling was taken up with hams of every conceivable dimension and type – smoked, boiled, dry cured. In the second section, which was dark and lit only by a door into the yard, dozens of sides of meet were hung. Under all the shops there were cellars. Hunters' Row was especially lively before great Church festivals. Decked out in their finery, merchants' wives would drive up to the shops in sledges drawn by expensive trotters; behind them their servants would carry out baskets and sacks filled with goods and offload them into their sledges. Then alongside the sable coat of a millionairess one could see, sticking out of a canvas sack, a ham and a hefty forty-pound frozen sturgeon in all its splendour. There was a smell of bad meat from the cellars, but there were first-class wares on the shelves. In the fish shops they sold the very best fish and in the meat shops hens, geese, turkeys and suckling piglets. Alongside the counter the assistants bustled about and ceaselessly praised and overpraised their goods. They wore dirty long-tailed coats and aprons stiff with grime. On their belts they carried a varied collection of knives that were cleaned only at the end of the day. Cleanliness was not much in fashion here.

68 The surname Voronin derives from the word for "crow".

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The most important customers were the cooks from the best restaurants and taverns; after them, the cooks for the aristocracy and the merchant class, merchant-class housewives and their cooks. All these people would push against each other, bargaining, quarrelling over every copeck, while anyone from Hunters' Row would be really eloquent in the face of a customer, remembering their sole slogan: "No deceit – no sale." Poor people bought the cheapest meat from stalls and from the trays of street sellers. They would be buying ribs, silverside, short loin, tripe and cheap mutton. They could not afford what was on sale in the better shops. That was just as Gogol said: "for those who are a bit cleaner".69 But both the tradesmen in the shops and those selling on the street gave short measure and cheated on the cost to all types of customers, making no distinction between rich and poor. That was the old custom of people trading in Hunters' Row: "No deceit – no sale." Hunters' Row in the 1880s is clearly exemplified by the report of a sanitary inspection of the time. The inspection started from the open air meat shops and the Mint. "With regard to the meat shops one might say that they appear tolerable only as regards their external appearance, but those premises which are hidden from a customer's eye are truly terrible. All the so called 'stalls' have been turned into hen houses, in which live poultry is kept and slaughtered. Beginning with the staircases which lead into these hen houses, the floors and cages are maintained in an extremely slovenly fashion; droppings are not removed and there is congealed blood everywhere; the walls of the shops are impregnated with it and have not been painted with oil-based paint, as they should have been according to the health regulations; all the corners of the floor are strewn with rubbish, feathers, bits of canvas, loofahs; chopping blocks are broken and poorly maintained, carcasses are hung from rusty unplated iron hooks; the shop assistants are dressed in soiled clothing and dirty aprons and knives are stored in untidy fashion in dirty, bloodstained holders hung from the butchers' belts; clearly they are never cleaned… In the storehouses of some shops stand tubs in which the skins of slaughtered animals are macerated; this gives off an intolerable stench." When they had examined the shops, the Commission went into the Mint. In the middle of the building there was a rubbish pit piled high with discarded parts of animals and vegetables that were rotting away. Also there were several wooden sheds instead of those pits, and these were intended to serve for all the slops and refuse from the whole of Hunters' Row. Almost up to ground level there was a great mass of stinking filth among which are floating innards and blood. Although the practice was banned by the city council, all this filth found its way into the town drain and flowed quite unfiltered out into the Moscow River. The rubbish from the backyard beggared description. Almost a half of it came officially from slaughtering the small livestock held in a large two-storey shed. The inside of the slaughter house was disgusting. The asphalt floor was covered with a thick layer of congealed blood and the unpainted walls were soaked in it. The whole, fairly spacious slaughterhouse, where small livestock was slaughtered for the whole of Hunters' Row produced a smell which no newcomer could stand. This shed had a separate little section, even more noisome, and it is here that Mokeyev lived, he being charged with cleaning up the slaughterhouse. The whole surface of that yard was covered with a thick layer of congealed blood which has found its way between the stones, and with bits of animals' innards. The walls were lined with steaming manure, animals' intestines and other stinking refuse. The yard was surrounded by cellars and closed storehouses, located in semi-ruinous buildings." "I may say that we had to insist for along time to obtain the key to the shed that belongs to the butcher Ivan Kuzmin Leonov. Out of that shed seeped a bloody liquid that came from

69 From The Government Inspector Act 2 Scene 6.

98 several hundred rotting hides that had been piled up inside. The next shed, for clearing up livestock slaughtered for the Andreyev brothers, turned out to be almost worse than the first one. Salt beef was riddled with worms and suchlike. When we opened the door, hordes of rats jumped out of the boxes that held rotting meat; they padded heavily across the floor and disappeared underground. And so it was everywhere, literally everywhere." The record of that visit became a historic document. It was read at a meeting of the City Council and led to lively debates, which as usual would have come to nothing if it hadn't been for Councillor Zhadayev. That half-literate carpenter, small in stature, with his unruly hair, perennial short coat and blacked boots, waited until the arguments had finished and asked to be allowed to speak; his sharp resounding tenor voice cut into the account being given by Doctor Popandopolo, who was depicting the horrors of Hunters' Row: miasma, bacilli, bacteria, unsanitary, ammonia …Such were the fine words the doctor was using. "It's true, absolutely true what Vasily Konstantinovich is saying! Since we deliver boxes to Hunters' Row, we've seen plenty! And such miasmas there are there and such a lot of them…You just look into the barrel … You'll see hundreds of them there. They crawl all over the salt beef… And as for the baxteria, they're simply running about under our feet ̶ red ones, taily ones. There’s so many of them you have to watch you're not treading on them." There was Homeric laughter. Zhadayev's eyes flashed and his voice rose above the noise. "What are you cackling for? Do you think I'm spinning a yarn? Is that it? That's just the way they were ̶ taily and red! They were! Dashing about here and there and getting under our feet." And he spread his arms a foot apart. Zhadayev's speech got into the papers and amused the whole of Moscow. From that day they set about clearing up Hunters' Row. The first thing they did was to order every shop to keep cats. But there already were cats in most of the shops. It became a kind of game ̶ to see who had the fattest cat. Huge well-fed cats were sitting on the counters, but the rats didn't take much notice of them. At night no one let their tomcats out to the buildings in the yard after one of them got eaten by the rats. Thus they could do nothing to counter the rats until one of the hunters named Grachov at last found a way of getting rid of these predators. And it was thanks to Zhadayev that they found a solution. L.P. Sabaneyev, editor of the journal Nature and Hunting, read the piece about Zhadayev and met Grachov; he laughed about the "taily baxteria" and presented Grachov with a rat catcher fox terrier puppy. Grachov called him "Boy" and set him loose in the shop, giving him as much meat as he wanted. Grachov's neighbours were laughing quietly to themselves. There were rats running about in packs. The little puppy grew up and got stronger. They opened up the shop one morning and found two suffocated rats. Boy was standing beside them and wagging the stump of his tail. Next day there were three rats … And after that, five … and then there was not a single rat in the shop. The dog had killed them all. That was the way Boy also cleaned up Grachov's storehouse. Neighbours started to turn to Grachov ̶ and Boy began to go on tour, hunting rats out of their shops. After Grachov other shopkeepers also brought in fox terriers, especially to guard the high quality comestibles, of which they had stored large quantities before the main festivals, when richer customers were throwing their money about on presents for the holidays and general gluttony. After the Revolution the shops on Hunters' Row were cleared; in their place there rose up the eleven-storey Hotel Moscow; all that remained of Hunters' Row were two ancient buildings on the other side of the square. These two buildings had stood for hundreds of years, covered in dirt and rubbish, until the Commission on Old Moscow drew attention to them and the Museum Section of Glavnauka70 set about restoring them.

70 Russian acronym for a State organisation which, between 1921 and 1930, concerned itself with old buildings. 99

All the sheds and storehouses were knocked down and the house built by Golitsyn,71 where previously chickens had been slaughtered and junk of all kinds stored, was cleaned up. When the plaster was removed, corbels, cornices and various pieces of decorative brickwork were revealed, and when the stinking barrels of herrings were thrown out of the cellar and the smokehouse demolished, under the floor were uncovered white marble rooms. No Muscovites had suspected that the smokehouse was located in a white marble palace. Vasily Golitsyn, the favourite of the Regent Sophia, the most accomplished man of his time, built the palace in 1686 and received there distinguished foreigners who considered it their duty to visit this "eighth wonder of the world", as it was described abroad. Alongside Golitsyn's palace a similar vast area belonged to his sworn enemy – the boyar Troyekurov, the commander of a Streltsy regiment.72 It was "for the boyar – a nuisance, an enormous annoyance" that "Vaska" Golitsyn had such a palace. It was at this time that Peter the Great entrusted his favourite Troyekurov with supervising the building of the Sukharev Tower. So, near the Tower, Troyekurov started to build his house alongside Golitsyn's, as he said "to wipe his nose for him", and he found his material ready to hand, taking it from the Sukharev Tower. Peter got to hear about this and called Troyekurov an embezzler of state goods, but even so in 1691 alongside Golitsyn's house a building rose up, also two storeys high. After that Troyekurov added on a third storey with vaults ten feet across, something never seen before nor after him. When Vasily Golitsyn, plotted against by his enemies (Troyekurov among them), was exiled and saw his property sequestrated, Peter the Great gave away his house, donating it to the heir to the throne of Georgia, whose descendants no longer lived in the house but rented it out as business premises. In 1871 the building was sold to some merchant or other. The palace turned into a slum. The same thing happened with Troyekurov's house. That family died out in the first half of the eighteenth century and the house passed to the noble Sokovin family, then to the Saltykovs, then to the Yurevs and finally in 1817 was bought by the "Moscow Tradesman’s Society"; they proceeded to deal with it in a typically commercial way, selling it off to become the London Hotel, which quite soon turned into the filthiest of drinking dens for cabbies. Until the revolution it was a haunt for card sharps, robbers, speculators and every sort of criminal type. At the same time as these two buildings, also from envy and wanting to "wipe the nose" of Vaska Golitsyn and the embezzler of public funds Troyekurov, Prince Gagarin built his own house on Tverskaya Street. He was an embezzler horse thief, perhaps worse than Troyekurov, as the song goes about him:

Gagarin, you're a lousy bitch, A cur and not a noble rich. All our produce goes to you, Everything that is our due. And using all our hard-earned cash, You've built yourself a great big house On the road which to Tver leads On Neglinka's other side; It's got a ceiling made of glass. With Moscow River water made, Fountains have been put in place And living fish their waters grace.

71 This Golitsyn (or Galitzine) – and there are many – is Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn (1643-1714). 72 Elite Guards regiments. 100

No one can say whether Matvei Gagarin's house did wipe the noses of Golitsyn and Troyekurov, but it is certainly true that Peter cut his head off. Those restored houses of Golitsyn and Troyekurov are our last memory of Hunters' Row…. And our only surviving memory, if we don't count "Pyotr Kirillov". Sometimes, when a dodgy sale is in progress, you will hear this said of this product of Hunters' Row. When someone is trying to force a sale of something, you may occasionally happen to hear: "Don't come the Pyotr Kirillov with me!" Pyotr Kirillov was a real person and it was due to him that tokens came to be used in taverns for settling a bill. He has left a permanent memory not only in Moscow but also in the provinces. Even in far-off Siberia you may quite often hear people in trade saying: "You're at it again… Don't you start trying to come the Pyotr Kirilych on me." Pyotr Kirilych was born in the 1840s in a village of the former Uglich Province. He was brought to Moscow as a boy of ten and hired as a waiter in Yegorov's tavern. He had a good look at people doing business in Hunters' Row, as they cheated on measurements, weight and practised general deceit. He then cunningly applied their ways of dealing to his own business. Food then was ordered by word of mouth. The money received from the customer used to be carried by the waiters straight into the buffet. Without going anywhere else, they paid, got change and carried it out on a plate to the customer without stopping anywhere. If the customer gave a tip, that money would be handed in to the buffet, credited to each waiter and shared out later. It looked as though it was not possible to steal anything, but Pyotr Kirilych had his cunning way. Somehow or other he managed to hide money in his sleeve, then stuffed it down into the sofa where his accomplice was going to sit. He would take that cash and carry it off, count it, and settle up later with Pyotr Kirilych. Many people guessed at the time, but they could not catch him out. He was just so clever. It could befall that a customer had given him a hundred roubles to change. He would change it in an instant, counting it out in full view of the customer, who would put it in his pocket and it seemed as though everything was in order. Then another guest would begin to count it again: "What have you put in? There's a fiver missing. There's only ninety-five here." Pyotr Kirillov would be amazed. He would count the money out himself, put it all down on the table and place a salt cellar or a plate on top of it. "You're quite right. This is a fiver short. I'll just nip off and see if I didn't drop it in the buffet." He would be back in a minute, quite radiant, and throw down five roubles. "You're quite right… I forgot it on the counter." The guest is happy and Pyotr Kirilych twice as happy. During the time they were counting the money he managed to extract a ten-rouble note and put in only five roubles. And if the guest had had a bit to drink, he would get money out of him like this: let us suppose the customer had drunk three shots of vodka and eaten three pies. That means for three glasses and three pies he should be paying the buffet sixty copecks. The customer is sitting there, picking his nose: "How much do I owe you?" "Well, sir, what you owe is like this… Just look." Pyotr Kirilych is bending his fingers down as he adds up: "One shot ̶ 10 copecks; one pie 10 copecks; 3 shots at 30 copecks = 90; 3 pies at 30 copecks and three shots at 10 copecks = 30. You didn't order cigarettes? Two roubles thirty." "How much?" "Two roubles thirty!" "How come?"

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"Well, what's wrong, sir? You had vodka, you ate the pies, you didn't ask for cigarettes or cigars?" And he bends his fingers again "Three tots at three tots a tot, three grivnas to the grivna,73 plus three pies – thirty. You didn’t have cigarettes or cigars – two roubles thirty." The customer has not understood anything, but he puts down a three-rouble note…Sometimes he doesn't even take his change. And everyone knew that Pyotr Kirilych was cheating them, but no one could work out exactly how, and the waiters with him were happy: "Isn't he a good bloke!" And they tried to learn the trick, but it didn't work out for all of them. When the taverns brought in payment by tokens, Pyotr Kirilich gave up work and retired to his richly endowed house on the Volga, somewhere beyond Uglich. And the locals said that when he went shopping there and the merchants, as was their wont, overcharged him, he would get angry and say: "Don't come the Pyotr Kirilych with me!" In addition Pyotr Kirilych left, as his legacy to posterity, his special method of cutting up pies. Besides their pancakes Yegorov’s Tavern was also renowned for its rasstegai fish pies. That meant a round pie taking up the whole dish, filled with its stuffing of fish and viziga sturgeon marrow; the middle of the pie is open and in that open part there is a slice of sturgeon with a portion of burbot liver. Along with that special pie they also served a sauceboat of fish soup without any extra charge. Cunning Pyotr Kirilych was the first to think up a way of "artistically" cutting up a pie of that sort. Holding a fork in one hand and a small knife in the other, he would make a few passes, and in a flash the dish would be turned into dozens of little thin slices radiating out from the central piece of liver to the fat reddish edges of the pie, which kept its original shape. This fashion spread right round the whole of Moscow, but there were very few people who could "artistically" cut up a fish pie, like Pyotr Kirilych ̶ perhaps just Kuzma and Ivan Semyonych at Testov's place. They were real masters of their art! Yegorov's Tavern was like something from the Old Testament and quite unique in its own way. The landlord was an Old Believer and prohibited anyone from smoking tobacco there: "Let us not have the smell of that filthy weed." The lower hall of the tavern ̶ the "Basement" ̶ had a huge stove. Here customers were served pancakes straight from the stove; the pancakes were cooked there continuously from morning to night. These Yegorov pancakes were fat, reddish and with various fillings. In this room the customers sat in their coats and quickly ate pancakes, cold beluga sturgeon or osetrina sturgeon with horseradish and red wine vinegar. In the second floor hall, which was for "better class" customers and had painted walls and a pool for sturgeon, rich people feasted on solyanka soup and various fish dishes; they were lovers of Russian cuisine – pancakes did not come into the equation. Opposite the Hunters' Row gate from Tverskaya Street there stretches the narrow Rag Lane, which becomes Obzhorny Lane which bends round to Manezh and Mokhovaya Street; the ground floors of the shabby buildings along it were occupied for the most part by "greasy spoons". This was the name given to eateries where you could get: for three copecks – a cup of cabbage soup made from grey cabbage and without meat; for five copecks – green-grey noodles from the Lower Don in flaxseed or hemp seed oil, fried or boiled potato. From dawn till midnight Obzhorny Lane was full of workers, some of them eating a less than square meal in the cheap eating houses, others gobbling their food down out on the street,

73 ten copecks.

102 where they could buy it from the women who were offering it from earthenware pots of chitterlings and rotten sausage meat. In a cheap eating house the food was that which could not be sold in the shops or even in the stalls of Hunters' Row. This was food for poor people, slightly off, "touched by the rats". Before festivals Hunters' Row used to bring loads of edible bribes to the Skvoznik- Dmukhanovskys.74 Plain cash bribes were just handed out straight in an envelope. It was only police superintendents who received bribes in cash. Policemen on local duty had to content themselves with something to go with their vodka. "Now come on, my dear, cut a bit of throat in half, please…Try to add in a bit of lung." During the war with Japan most of the taverns began to style themselves as "restaurants" and even the long-standing Testov tavern changed its sign to read: "Testov's Restaurant." All that was left of the former Testov tavern was the old-fashioned furniture in two or three of the dining rooms and as for the rest, you just would not recognize it! Even the walls had been changed. The older Moscow gourmands had stopped going to Testov. Visiting merchants, who had not been in Moscow for several years, simply did not recognize the tavern. The first thing that struck your eye would be the "decadent" painting on the opposite side of the hall. There was modernist furniture that a twenty-five stone merchant would fear to sit in. Visitors went into the second dining hall, a narrow room with wide oak chairs. They occupied their favourite table, to which they'd become accustomed, settling themselves on wide sofas. "This is Testov-style, like it used to be!" Two waiters would materialise in front of the table. The same white shirts, green sashes, but the usual pouches for money and tokens did not protrude from them. "Where are your pledges? Where are your pouches?"75 "We don't use tokens for the bill any more. We've gone over to coupons…" "And where's Kuzma? Where's Ivan Semyonych?" The waiter became flustered. He saw these were important customers. "Retired, sir. Because of their age they went off to the provinces… to their village." "And are you from Uglich?" "No, we're from the Moscow region… There's very few left from the Yaroslavl region." "Why are you standing there like a spare part? Why aren't you serving your customers? In the old days Kuzma Yegorych…" "It's not our job, sir. We have a maître d'hôtel for that now." The maître d'hôtel came up, wearing his dinner jacket and white tie. He handed out the menu and rattled away by heart: "Filet of partridge... Chaud froid, sauce provençale… Boeuf brouillė… Filet portugaise… Diplomat pudding." And then, quite unexpectedly: "Shashlyk Caucasian of English mutton." And besides this he would give the customers a menu showing the dishes from the Caucasus, signed: shashlyk specialist Georgy Sulkhanov, nephew of Prince Argutinsky- Dolgorukov.76 The customers would listen to all this and read the menu. "But after all what a famous tavern it was." This was said with a sigh by a grey-haired old man, now grown too fat. The maître d'hôtel declared portentously: "Now we have a restaurant, not just a tavern!" Music burst out in the large hall that was full of people.

74 The venal mayor in Gogol’s play The Government Inspector (1836). 75 This system of payment by token is described in Chapter 27. 76 Moisei Zakharovich Argutinsky-Dolgorukov (1797-1855), soldier of Armenian extraction. Whether Sulkhanov was his nephew is doubtful. 103

"But where is your famous machine? Where can it be…? It used to play 'Luchinushka'…77 And it would also play operas…" "There it is, over there … But we don't wind it up… Many of our guests take offence at listening to a machine… That's all out of date, they say. Nowadays we've got a Romanian orchestra." And so saying the maître d'hôtel turned on his heel and hurried off to another table. They served the rasstegai pies. "Could you really call that a rasstegai? It's a pair of galoshes and not a proper pie, which ought to be round… How are you going to cut it?" "Nowadays the guests cut it up for themselves." The old man said to his companion: "It's no use blaming the landlord. He's got to run his restaurant, but the people who come have become so difficult, not wanting the machine, the solyanka, the rasstegais... Give them Romanians and various soups made from turtles, and fillet Bordelaise… Whatever suits each customer. In Yegorov's place in the old days you weren't allowed to smoke …But now you can soot up the ceiling, as much as you want… Because everyone in Moscow who formerly counted as the common people have now become ̶ the public."

77 i.e. The Torch. A popular folk song. 104

17 Lubyanka

In the 1890s insurance companies which had flourished, whose cash desks were groaning with money, found it advantageous to put their huge capital into real estate; they began to buy up land in Moscow and build finance houses on it. So it was that on Lubyanka Square, between Great Lubyanka Street and Little Lubyanka Street, a huge building sprang up. This was the "Rossiya" Insurance Building, built on land formerly owned by N.S. Mosolov. In the 1880s Mosolov was a rich landowner, and an Academician, well known as an engraver and as someone who collected rare engravings; he occupied a separate block in this building, while the Warsaw Insurance Company took up the ground floor. In the opposite wing of this block, which abutted on to Mosolov's apartment was Mebius'78 photographic shop. Mosolov lived alone in his enormous apartment. He had some of his former serfs as servants in the house. He usually spent half his time abroad and the other six months in Moscow, where he invited almost no one. Occasionally he went out of the house on business, travelling in an expensive old-fashioned carriage drawn by a fine pair of horses; his coachman was one of his former serfs; no one knew his name, but everyone called him "Noodles". On Lubyanka Square opposite the Mosolov house there was a row of carriages for hire. When Mosolov sold his house to the Rossiya insurance company he gave away his carriage and horses to his coachman and Noodles took his place in the rank of carriages for hire. The fine carriage made it possible for him to earn well: it was considered very chic to be driving with "Noodles" as your coachman. Mosolov died in 1914. He bequeathed to a museum his valuable collection of engravings and etchings, including some that he had made himself and also from artists in other countries. Old Muscovites remember his Turgenevan figure, but it was quite rare for anyone to deign to go to his house. He used to spend whole days working away, although occasionally he would take a little time off, smoking his long cherry wood chibouk pipe, sitting by a window that looked out on to the courtyard. In the 1880s Generalov's grocery faced on to that yard. One part of the shop was a sausage shop. So as to get them more cheaply, the shopkeeper used to stock up with pigs' intestines that would lie rotting in barrels and giving off a terrible stink. There was an angry dog ranging about the yard. This was the sheepdog Yenotka , which could not stand policemen. As soon as she saw a policeman she would fly straight at him and she would tear to pieces any strange dog that strayed into "her" yard. In the next wing of the Mosolov House there was Gusenkov's tavern, while the second and third floors were taken up with furnished rooms. There were about twenty rooms on the first floor and slightly fewer upstairs. The first time I was there was in 1881 when I went to visit the actor A.D. Kazakov. "We're all friends here, from Tambov," said he. Mosolov himself was a landowner from Tambov and he had let the house as rooms to an enterprising fellow from there, who died at the end of the 1880s, but his heir continued to keep up the tradition. The rooms were all let out on a monthly basis and were occupied by permanent tenants. Among them (until the line petered out) were living the landowners from Tambov (including Mosolov). These individuals had come to Moscow in the 1870s to live out their days on the money that they had received for "liberating" their serfs. The furnished rooms were quite a sight for sore eyes! The corridors running through them were very narrow, like tunnels and had their own specific "sleeping place" smell… Servants were always running to the rooms and back with silent footsteps and in clouds of steam, carrying samovars that were smoking, since they were badly plated and needed cleaning. Those servants wore soft shoes because their master insisted on that. In the particular servile adroitness with

78 Friedrich Günther Mebius opened his photographic studio in Moscow in 1850. 105 which they moved one could still sense a survival of typical morally and physically corrupt, but servilely hardworking, faithful slaves of the former landed gentry. And indeed in 1881 there still remained people like this who had been brought from the manor houses round Tambov. In those years the people living in furnished rooms were nothing more than an steppe-land estate dying out in an urban environment. A few years later they had all gone, first of all the serfs and after them the former landowners. The person who outlasted them all was Yazykova who used to breed horses in Tambov and who, in late old age, died in these rooms, surrounded by her beloved dogs and two serving girls, faithful to their mistress, who had themselves become old… There was a retired cavalry colonel living there, who would lie on the sofa day after day, smoking his pipe and sending off begging letters to his old friends, as they sometimes used to pay for his flat. Mosolov himself gave help to some of the tenants, former landowners from Tambov, old men now, who had spent all their resources. As the former landowners died out, their rooms were taken over by people who always came in for a long stay as new tenants. The writer S.N. Filippov lived here for many years, as also Doctor Dobrov, and there were actors that had established themselves in Moscow ̶ in a word quiet-living people who were not rich but liked comfort and tranquility. Kazakov lived with his friend, the Tambov landowner Oznobishin,79 cousin of Ilya Oznobishin, the playwright and excellent amateur actor, who stayed in this room when he came to Moscow for the winter season. The apartment consisted of three rooms with a high ceiling and big windows looking out onto the Square. The floor was covered with a huge soft carpet of Persian design, such as the ones woven by expert female serfs. All the furniture was mahogany and bronze, so too the rococo trumeaux; a mahogany table with two pillars on each side, containing drawers, both large and small and in front of the table a Voltaire armchair. On the walls between the windows were valuable encrusted Boulle items and a huge English clock that struck a resounding bass note… High on the walls hung portraits of the family's ancestors and beneath them watercolours of hunting scenes, some photographs, and everything in mahogany frames…. Over the fireplace stood expensive bronze candelabra with candles and between them another clock in a mixture of porcelain and bronze. In the bedroom there was an enormous bed, also in mahogany, and above it a rug with a hunting horn, whips, daggers and pictures of borzoi hunting dogs. Across the room was a Turkish divan, above which hung an oil painting of some very beautiful Amazon in a riding habit and again more engravings and photographs. Alongside a portrait of Alexander II wearing a grey morning coat and with a dog at his feet there was a photograph of Ogaryov and Herzen; on the other side Princess Dagmar with a dog in her arms, and Garibaldi wearing his round hat. That was all that remained of the huge property belonging to the nobleman and what gave colour to the solitary old master, who had formerly lived life to the full and had now come to live out his last days in that apartment. Kazakov had people round to see him ̶ the actors Kireyev and Dalmatov and one of our literary folk. The old man was bored in his solitude… And then suddenly: "Do you know what? Have you ever seen the lackeys' theatre?" "We don't understand…" "Well, come on then, you'll see." He rang the bell. A servant came in, quite shabbily dressed, but looking extremely self- important, with grey side whiskers and a completely bald head. "Would you care for some tea from the samovar, Alexander Dmitriyevich?" "Yes please. It's very boring here…"

79 Probably Yury Aleksandrovich Oznobishin (1838-98). 106

"It's just the time of year, sir. Everyone's gone out of town.. In our whole corridor there's only Madame Yazykova … One person has gone off to the park and another is just sitting on the boulevard. They'll wake them up when it's time to go to bed, but the sun has not set yet." The old man stood there, resting his arm on the back of the chair and evidently was glad to talk. "Nikanor Markelych… I've a favour to ask of you… Here are my friends, the actors… Do the old master for us… Is Grisha here?" "He's in his own little room. He's rolling cigarettes for room eight." "Call him in and do… We'll collect a rouble apiece for you." "For goodness' sake, whatever for? I'm so glad to do it for you as things stand." "We're dying of boredom… Can't you entertain us?" "I'll go straight away and get Grisha." He took the big armchair, pushed it across to the opposite corner by the window, said "Straight away" and disappeared. In reply to our questions Kazakov just said: "You'll see. But in the meantime each of you give us a rouble." After a few minutes there was a slight knock on the door and in came an imposing looking gentleman wearing a skull cap with a tassel and a Turkish gown with red lacing. Not paying the slightest attention to us, he walked in as if there was no one else in the room, sat down in an armchair and started to drum with his fingers on the arm rest, then closed his eyes, as though he were dropping off. In the little entrance room someone coughed. The master opened his eyes, gave a great yawn and clapped his hands. "Vanka, my pipe!" Then, in a flash, a man with greying hair and clipped side whiskers ran in, bringing a pipe with a long cherry wood stem. Wearing a ragged shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other, he handed the pipe to his master and himself knelt down to strike a match against his trousers, lit a paper and brought it over to light the pipe. The master lit up and inhaled. "And where is that wretch Proshka?" "He gets the worst of everything." "Ah!" the master had another puff and took thought. "Vanka, old fellow! Bring me half a bottle of red vodka!" "But where shall I get it, sir?" "Ah, you wretch. Get it from the usual place – the cupboard." "The devil himself placed it there as usual for you…" "And what sort of champagne have we got?" "The stuff they treat you with before they beat you ." "What's that you said? I don't hear very well." "What I said was – the dog drank it." "Vanka, old fellow, you are well up in the ways of the world… Haven't you got a nice bride lined up for me?" "There's a real beauty, better than any of the others… She carries twenty pounds of manure.… When she bends down a pound of it drops off… When she strides out like a peahen, two pounds grow up in that place… She's got one leg in splints, got one eye that squints; she's pockmarked a bit but very rich with it!" "Well, that's no problem… Let her come over here… And what sort of dowry will come with her?" "Forty tubs of salted frogs, forty barns of dried cockroaches and livestock ̶ a cock and a chicken, and as for brass – a cross and a button. But what rye – from ear to ear no woman's voice do you hear!" "Vanka, old fellow! What news from my village? Are my serfs living well?"

107

"They are writing that they are gasping for breath. They have it so good, they are shovelling gold. With their tongues – shovelling dirt, without trousers or shirt! And your bailiff has brought a letter for you…" "And where is he, the old devil?" “Well by now he's in the next world boiling up tar for the gentry.” The servant takes a note out of his shoe and hands it to his master. "Ah now, you son-of-a-bitch. Why aren't you giving the master his note on a silver tray?" "Our silver is in a sad state … I would give it to him on a gold tray but the servants have all run away…" The master reads the letter aloud: "My master, the grey stallion Mikhailo Petrovich has died. We stripped off his noble skin and sold it. With the money we made by the sale we have bought a strong horse collar for your Grace – of the pig variety. That was enough for your Grace." "Vanka! You are a clot. This is an old letter." "We've smoked half of it… It was long." "In those days I had a coat of arms on my palace: a blue shield on a gold field." "But now, my master, here is what appears on a clear field". And pushing his thumb between his index finger and his middle finger the servant made a rude gesture towards his master. He turned towards us: "The show is over Apart from that, the master and I have nothing for you." We guests applauded and Kireyev jumped up delightedly and began to shake hands with the actors. It took some persuasion to get them to accept money from us. The man who had played Vanka told us that this sketch was very old and had amused the serfs during the era of serfdom; because of it they had risked being birched or sent for soldiers. Old man Kazakov confirmed this; he had been a serf actor, a fact he energetically concealed.

Alongside the Mosolov house, on land belonging to the Consistory, was the lowlife Uglich Tavern. It was a tavern for cabbies, although it did not have a yard, where horses are usually fed while their owners drink tea. But at this time the watchword was "simplicity", an idea introduced in the mid-nineties by the Police Chief Vlasovsky. Before him, however, Lubyanka Square replaced the cabbies' yard. Between the Mosolov house and the fountain was a cab rank and between the fountain and the Shipov house was a carters' rank, while all along the pavement from Myasnitskaya Street to Great Lubyanka Street, was a solid line of hire cab drivers jostling round the horses. In those days there was no requirement for cabbies to sit on their boxes. The horses stood unharnessed, with their nosebags on, feeding. On the roadway, along the line of the pavement, were scraps of leftover hay and streams of excrement. The horses fed without supervision; flocks of pigeons and sparrows darted in and out beneath their feet, but the cabbies drank tea in the tavern. On emerging from the tavern the cabbies scooped water from the fountain with grimy buckets; all around the fountain was a line of water carriers with barrels. They came up with eight barrels at a time and stood around the fountain, scooping the water from it with long-handled bucket-sized ladles and the whole square rang with their curses from early morning to late at night… Alongside the Uglich Inn on the corner of Myasnitskaya are the Myasnitsky furnished rooms, occupied by merchants that are passing through and salesmen with samples of what they

108 have for sale. The building in which they are living was built by Malyushin on ground that he rented from the Consistory. The Consistory! That word is now incomprehensible for most of our readers… The Devil fell into a net and in his terror he shouted: "Am I not in the Consistory?!" That was one of the sayings which characterized that institution. But really it was just the local Directorate, consisting of senior figures of the Church, that is to say the Council, and of the lower orders, who were headed by a Secretary, he being the main force, who also influenced the Council. The Secretary was everything. The clerks used to get a miserable salary and existed solely on bribes, which were paid out quite openly. Village priests used to deliver whole loads of bribes to the rooms where the officials were living, paying with flour or poultry, while the ones living in Moscow paid in hard cash. Bribes were given by deacons, sacristans, sextons and students who had finished their time at an academy or a seminary and would now be appointed as a priest. The Consistory took up a large piece of land on Myasnitskaya from Furkasovsky Lane to Lubyanka Square. It occupied a two-storey building that looked rather like a barracks and which had a large garden. Later on that building was knocked down and a new one was put up, № 5, which still exists, but, all the same, in the new building they went on taking bribes as they had done before. Priests used to come in here to pay their respects, it was here that those who had done wrong were tried and divorce cases were settled. These necessitated enormous bribes and buying up witnesses who would testify that one or other of the married parties had been unfaithful. That was essential for divorce under the old law and they would tell the court, which consisted of grey-haired old bishops, the most intimate details of physical unfaithfulness, as though they had been eyewitnesses. It was not enough to prove to the court that they had seen the unfaithful partner in bed. It was essential beyond that to give such physical details which no third party could have seen, but the witnesses had "seen" everything and retailed it all with such pathos that the judges relished it and did their "judging". Above the Consistory came the most Holy Synod. It was in Petersburg in a building under the Arches, just like the Governing Senate, which was also in the building under the Arches. Hence came the joke: "The most blind Synod and the most burglarious Senate live through gifts."80 Between the Consistory building and the Myasnitsky rooms there was a very ancient three-storey building, which contained rooms for the civil servants. At one time this had been a house of horrors. I still have a note written by an eyewitness who had visited that slum. He writes as follows: "I once had to visit one of the officials living in that building. His apartment was on the ground floor of that ancient three-storeyed block and he was living in very low vaulted rooms. I had a terrible impression, even though it provided quite a decent middle class domestic milieu; there was even a pair of canaries singing to each other in the deep recess of the little arched window. The arches and the walls were incredibly thick. There were some sort of stout rusty iron hooks and great iron rings of the dining room ceiling and walls. As we were sitting over our tea I was looking with amazement at the vaults, the hooks and the rings. 'What is this strange building?' I asked the official. 'It's quite interesting… Here we are sitting now in the very room which a hundred years ago was occupied by Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky, head of the secret police, and it was here that they tortured men under arrest Those hooks above our heads are the racks where they suspended the men under torture. And this little cupboard here ̶ my guide was pointing at a deep niche and at new wooden shelves which now were holding cordial and crockery of various sorts ̶ that little cupboard was no less than a bag made of stone. It was in our time that we took

80 An untranslatable pun. The word "through gifts" (podarkami), read as pod arkami means "under the arches". 109 the iron door off it and replaced it with a wooden one and now as you can see there is only innocent home-made liqueur in it, which we are just about to sample. However, in Sheshkovsky's time this was where they made criminals stand: as you can see, it's only two and a half feet deep, one and a half across and five and a bit feet high. Then beneath us and under the archive alongside us are the cellars with their locked prisons, a frightful torture chamber where they inflicted really terrible pain; even now the rings are still there to which they used to chain the criminals who had been brought in. There are even more terrifying things. There still exists one stone cavity with a door set in iron. But nowadays the cellar is filled with various sorts of rubbish. When we went on talking, the official told us the following details: "I've been living here for forty years now and in my time I could still find people who remembered Sheshkovsky and his assistants ̶ Cheredin, Agapych and others who had known even Vanka Kain himself.81 The individual that remembered better than anyone was the son of the oldest guard at that time who had lived here then and later became one of our officials. In his time torture was not so often practised. As soon as Paul I started his reign, he gave orders to release from these secret prisons all those who had been locked up by Catherine II and her predecessors. When they were brought out into the open, they no longer resembled human beings, some of them shouting, some going mad with rage and some falling down as though they were dead… When they were outside their chains were taken off and they were moved away to various locations, mostly the madhouse… Later on, under Alexander I, they broke up the rack and the torture benches and cleaned up the prisons. Cheredin still took charge of everything. He went on living here, even in my time. He used to tell everyone us how they had tortured Pugachov… My father still remembered that detail. He had even seen Saltychika82 here, in this very room here we are now sitting… Later on they took her from here to the Ivanovsky Convent to a crypt where she stayed for thirty years, right through until her death. I myself saw her once in the convent… At that time she was being kept in an underground prison. She would look out through a grating, screaming, cursing and spitting at us. They never opened her cell and they pushed in her food through up that one single little window. I was about eight then; I had gone to the convent with my mother and I can remember every detail so well…" More than twenty years have passed since that note was written. It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that I was coming back from a long trip away and going along Myasnitskaya from the Kursk Station ̶ when suddenly I saw: there was no building here now, just a heap of stone and debris… Workmen were breaking up the foundations. I jumped out of my cab and went straight over to them. Apparently they wanted to put up a new building… "Now we have started to break up the underground prison," the foreman explained to me. "And I saw it in the old days," I said. "No. What you saw was the cellar We had already broken into it, but beneath it was the most frightful cellar of all: in one section were lying potatoes and firewood, but the other half was completely sealed off. We ourselves did not realize that there was any open space there. We broke through and came on an oak door with iron fittings… We broke it down by main force and behind it found a human skeleton. When we took the door off, what a rattling there was, what a clanking of chains… They had buried bones there… The police came in and the superintendent took the chains away somewhere." We climbed into the passage, went down four steps to a stone floor; now the underground darkness was half lit from the ceiling we had broken through at the far end of the

81 Real name Ivan Osipov (1718-after 1756). Thief and occasional informer, celebrated in literature. 82 i.e. Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova (1730-1801). Notorious for murdering her serfs. 110 subterranean works. We found it difficult to breathe. My guide pulled a candle stump out of his pocket and lit it… There were vaults, rings and hooks… Further on there was more light and we put out the candle. "And it was here that we found the skeleton with chains on it." Now, with fittings of rusty iron, there was an oak door that had gone black with age… It was covered in mould and there was a little opening with quite a low stone receptacle, just like the one that the old man kept his drink in, only with some sort of deeper part like a narrow niche. On further examination it turned out there were other similar niches in the walls, also stone receptacles. "I'll come in tomorrow with a photographer. We must photograph all this and publish it in our journal." "Yes, please, do come back. Everyone ought to know how people were tortured. Certainly, do come." I came out on to the street and I was about to get into a cab when I saw my colleague in the journal, the pictorial artist N.A. Bogatov. "Nikolai Alexeyevich, have you a pencil on you?" I said, stopping him. "But of course … I don't take a step without a pencil and a sketchpad." Briefly I told him what I had seen and a few minutes later we were in the underground chambers. I spent about three hours there with Bogatov while he was making a beautiful picture and in addition the foreman gave us the exact measurements of the underground. That terrible stone receptacle where the skeleton had been discovered was about five foot in length and the same width. As for depth, in one place where there was a hollow it was some thirty-five inches and elsewhere twenty-two inches. What that niche had been made for we never did find out. They demolished the building and a new one rose in its place. In the years 1923-1924 new commercial premises were built in the area that had previously held the Myasnitsky furnished rooms. Under these new buildings they found extra- deep cellars with vaults and some sort of pillars, reminiscent of the nearby prisons of the secret police who were probably the people they were intended for. They have been filled in now, but up to the revolution they were used by the dairy product magnate Chichkin for storing milk products.

Along the other side of Myasnitskaya, in Lubyanka Passage was Romeiko's property. The back of Arsentych's tavern gave out onto a huge open area that stretched almost as far as Zlatoustinsky Lane. This area had been built up with wholesale shops, where they traded in seasonal goods: in spring ̶ cucumbers and greens, in summer ̶ berries, in autumn ̶ fruits, mainly apples, and in winter ̶ frozen fish and all the year round ̶ live crayfish, which they brought in from the Oka and the Volga and most of all from the Don, having packed them into huge plaited baskets. This wholesale trade was really for one set of customers – street vendors and hawkers. In the early 1890s this sort of trading, hitherto very widespread, stopped… Romeiko's estates were bought up by N.D. Stakheyev, a rich man from Siberia, and in place of the broken-down tavern he built a large house that he subsequently lost at cards. Behind the Shipov Fortress there was a huge empty area where in winter they sold food from wagons: frozen meat, fish and fowl, and at other times in the year vegetables, poultry and fruit. These vendors came mostly from Tver. They bought their produce mainly in that open space and walked round the whole of Moscow, right to the city limits carrying trays on their head that might hold up to 36 lb. of comestibles, which they would deliver to their regular customers. One could buy large sturgeon from them, and, for five copecks, liver for the cat. Housewives relied on these vendors particularly in spring and autumn when it was difficult to walk about

111 because of the dirt on the streets or in winter when there was a severe frost. There were few good shops in Moscow and it was a long way to get to the markets. Back in the times of serfdom it once came about that on Lubyanka Square there appeared a wooden booth with a modest menagerie and an enormous elephant which was the main attraction for the public. One spring the elephant suddenly went berserk and pulled out of the walls the beams to which it was attached by chains and which it strewed about in the ruins of the stall… Then it began to smash the menagerie, trumpeting victoriously and terrifying the crowds of people who were standing around the square. Enraged by the shouts of the crowd, the elephant tried to break out, but it was held back by the beams to which it was attached and which snagged in the remnants of the booth. The elephant managed to pull out one beam and rushed at the crowd, but by then the police had brought in a squad of soldiers, who killed the huge beast with a couple of volleys. Today the Polytechnic Museum stands on this spot.

112

18 Beneath the Fire Tower

For a hundred and fifty years there has stood on Tverskaya Street the building which now houses the Moscow City Soviet. Count Chernyshev had it built it in 1782 to the design of the celebrated architect Kazakov and from that time, right up to the Revolution, it remained the residence of the Governor General. Its façade looks out onto Soviet Square, which used to be called Skobelevskaya Square and before that Tverskaya Square. In this building there took place grand receptions and glittering balls, which Prince V.A. Dolgorukov especially loved to give in the 1880s. He governed Moscow in patriarchal style. The whole of Moscow attended his balls, and in the opulent rooms, among high society ladies dripping with diamonds and among dazzling uniforms, one could spot the boots of millionaires from the other side of the river, the poddyovka jacket of Councillor Davyd Zhadayev and the long frock coat of the moneylender Kashin. Moneylenders and even receivers of stolen goods and keepers of thieves' kitchens were at these balls, concealed beneath the uniform of charitable institutions; access to the balls was open to anyone who gave money. Many of them were even promoted or got medals and concealed their nefarious deeds with them, being immune from police prosecution. On the day of a ball a certain Vanka Kulakov, wearing the white trousers and embroidered "charity" uniform of a civilian general, drove up to the entrance of the Governor General's palace, went into the vestibule, cast off his fur coat into the hands of the doorman and, having greeted the local policeman who was on duty in the vestibule with an imperious flourish of his tricorn hat, went upstairs among a crowd of ladies and distinguished guests. The policeman, a former guards officer, had to touch his cap in response as he was a guest of the Governor General and the treasurer of a charitable society with patrons in the highest circles… After that, how could the policeman draw up a charge sheet against the owner of the Penal Servitude thieves' kitchen, a tavern in Khitrovka? It was at these balls that necessary contacts were made and various little deals done while the affable "boss of the capital", as Dolgorukov was called at the time, surrounded by a wall of officials who hid from him everything he didn't need to know, showered pleasantries on beautiful ladies. The Prince himself was an old bachelor and lived like a little Tsar, loving all sorts of ceremonies, over which he presided. On certain named days he would receive in his home people with petitions or complaints, who had of course been sifted by the officials, as they reported in advance who each one was and why they had come, and gave their own opinion of each one's character. However, anyone who knew the Prince personally had direct access to him in his study, where he would listen to them on his own and give instructions to his officials how to proceed, but soon forgot it all and his orders were not always carried out. We could remember many stories about Dolgorukov's reign in Moscow, but I will restrict myself just to one example, which relates, in fact, to the Governor General's residence, since the intention of my notes is to recall old times mainly by recollecting Moscow's old buildings and localities. Towards the end of the 1870s a gang was working in Moscow called the "Jack of Hearts, really brilliant rogues, who were later tried by the District Court, convicted and all sent away into exile, except their chief, Ataman Shpeiyer, and he just disappeared for ever, no one knew where. The most vital point came at the end of the judgement: when the sentence had been pronounced, out of the courtroom came an old man, of an eminently respectable, professorial appearance. He climbed into a likhach cab, called over a policeman, handed him an envelope addressed to the President of the Court and rode away. The envelope turned out to contain Shpeiyer's visiting card, on which he had written in pencil: "I must thank you for the show you put on today. I am well contented. Shpeiyer." And it was that very same Shpeiyer, in the guise of a rich landowner, who made his way into the balls given by V.A. Dolgorukov. At their first meeting he charmed the old man with his courtesy. Then he used to come and be admitted into the study. On one occasion he asked for 113 permission to show the Governor General's residence to someone of his acquaintance, an English lord who had come to Moscow. The Prince gave his permission. Next day Shpeiyer brought the lord and, accompanied by the official on duty, he showed him over the whole house, the yard and even the stables and the horses. The official was silent as he went round with them, since he did not understand a word of English. Some two days later, when Dolgorukov was away, a cart stopped at the main entrance to the house with suitcases and heavy chests. Behind that the lord had come in his carriage with his English secretary and given orders for his things to be carried straight into the Prince's study. I don't know all the details of this scandal; they said various things about it. All we know is that the affair finished in a secret department of the Governor General's office. The Englishman caused a lot of trouble, trying to prove that this house belonged to him, that he had bought it from the owner, Lord Shpeiyer, with all its contents for one hundred thousand roubles, and that he had come to live here. As proof he produced a deed of purchase, attested by a lawyer, showing that he had paid the money in full. This trickery of Shpeiyer's was not investigated in court; they hushed it up and how they settled up with the Englishman remained a mystery. It emerged that on Second Yamskaya Street a false lawyer’s office had been constructed for a day and it was there that they had carried out the sale of the house. After this they were only just starting on the trail to catch the Jacks of Hearts gang but they simply could not find Shpeiyer. The whole of Moscow remained silent about that. The only person who knew was Pastukhov, who wrote satirical articles for News of our Time. Dolgorukov had extracted a solemn promise from Pastukhov that he would never let on about that business. Many years later, when I was out fishing with Pastukhov, he told me in confidence about it and that was confirmed for me by N.V.Popov, a well-known card-player in his time who was quite well acquainted with all the members of the Jack of Hearts gang, and had consorted with them. He was on friendly terms with them and added a series of details which not even Pastukhov had known. From him I learned that Shpeiyer was a secondary figure in this business, whereas the main person was some count who had gone bankrupt and been sent to Siberia, not because of this case but on a number of other charges. Dolgorukov did not take bribes. He had no need of them, being an old bachelor who had got through a huge fortune and several legacies; he was not a hard drinker and never played cards, but he did enjoy giving balls and never really kept track of his money or even handled it. His right-hand man for official business was P.M. Khotinsky, who was head of the secret section of the Governor General's Office and a perpetual subject for discussion in Moscow. Through him a clever man with money could accomplish anything. His other lieutenant was someone even closer to him, his long-serving butler Grigory Ivanovich Veltishchev, a little man with a big moustache. He knew the details of the Prince's expenditure and monetary assets. "Grigory, is everything ready for the New Year ball?" "Not yet, Your Highness. They haven't sent the money yet. You'll need to borrow about twenty thousand. I think from the engraver who lives opposite. Relatives have come to see him but he's getting rid of them." "I don't understand! More fresh flowers!" "And another thing, Lazar Solomonovich Polyakov is also asking…" "Yes, he's an excellent fellow. Tell Pavel Mikhailovich what I've ordered." At the New Year ball the banker Polyakov took the floor grandly with his wife. He was wearing white trousers and the uniform of a civilian general working for a charitable cause. The following story was told about him: "Give up tying your tongue in knots trying to say 'Lazar Solomonovich, Lazar Solomonovich'. Just call him simply 'Your Excellency'. "

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Soviet Square is spread out in front of the windows of Moscow City Council. On the other side of the Square is a building enlivened all day by groups of children playing. This building contains the Marx-Engels- Lenin Institute. At the far side of the Square, opposite its main windows, where there is now a small park, in those days there rose up the fire tower of the Tverskaya District. This place was never quiet. The whole day long from early morning came the noise of wheels rattling over the cobbles. Flies for hire jangled along with a piercing din… There were flat carts rumbling along and the squealing of peasants' waggons, because this was the quickest way, via Stoleshnikov Lane, linking two areas of the city. At the end of the nineteenth century no one had any idea about traffic regulations in Moscow and they did not recognise either the left or the right; everyone just went as they thought best, tangling up their wheels and overturning. All day and all night there was a ceaseless din. That's what could be heard. There was little joy to be had in what could be from the main windows of the Governor General's Palace: at some times they were dragging along drunks and disorderly persons to the "slammer" or else taking off to the local mortuary corpses picked up in the street… And things did not smell so sweet either. When it was a moonlit night, according to the Duma calendar ̶ even though in actual fact there was no moon to be seen, they would extinguish all the street lights in Moscow. In the darkness a pungent load of night soil would toil past, some fifteen barrels of excrement being pulled along by a pair of scruffy, broken-down nags. Between the barrel and the horse a rope seat was fixed up on which there drowsed the "goldsmiths", as they called the sewage workers in Moscow. The carts would bump along the carriageway, spattering their contents onto the cobbles; their noise resounded throughout the whole district. So after midnight the line of carts, scarcely moving, stretched out along Tverskaya, past the palace… The line of carts spread out, the last barrels pulled by chronically lame horses which had dropped behind. One "goldsmith" would be sleeping, another eating a big roll that he had kept under the shaft-bow. "Ding, ding," the alarm from the fire tower would sound and the man on duty would raise two lights by means of a pulley on a high cross-beam. "What number?" shouts the fireman down below "A number three, round the Uni," answers the fireman from below, showing where the fire is and what sort of a fire has happened. "Number three" means the flames have burst out of the building. The fire engine rushes out frenetically preceded by a torchbearer, his torch scattering sparks. The horses are heavy Voronezh skewbald horses. The stones in the street shake, windows rattle and the walls of the buildings shudder. A frenzied quartet with grappling hooks rush across the square, along Tverskaya and Hunters' Row, overturning a water barrel; onwards they fly…The "goldsmith" is wallowing in a spreading pool of filth. He has raised his hand above his head and is most concerned about his kalach, it being a special delicacy. It's convenient ̶ you can hold it by the end, whereas it's not a convenient to grasp a roll with dirty hands. The firemen rush along Tverskaya Street, but the barrels are being dragged along much further up, towards the city gates. In their troikas, golubchik "growlers" and likhachi night revellers, embracing perfumed ladies, fly to meet them from the Yar (that is from the restaurant in Petrovsky Park), cutting across the square with great whoops, dashing down Tverskaya Street or going down Stoleshnikov Lane onto Petrovka. Governor Generals used to live in quite a restless area!

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Sometimes on a hot summer day along Tverskaya Street a hired fly would be going along with the top raised up in spite of the fine weather. Six legs would protrude from the fly, four of them wearing boots with spurs and two of them encased in boots with the trousers outside them. That attracted the attention of passers-by. "They are taking a political prisoner to the slammer in the Tverskaya station!" And indeed the fly turned onto the Square, into the yard of the Tverskaya station. It stopped at a dirty two-storey building, the lower floor of which was the fire station while the upper floor was a secret prison with cells for political prisoners and especially important criminals. The fly halted and out of it came two gendarmes bent double and along with them the political prisoner. They took him away to one of the cells, the little windows of which looked straight onto the Governor General's house, but which could not be looked into from the outside: on top of the iron grating the windows were screened with a fine wire mesh covered in dust. They called this prison the "bed bug house". In the main building, with its colonnade and fine façade, was the guardhouse, situated in the centre of the lower floor; its door was between columns and in front of it was a parade ground with fence painted in official colours, black and white rectangles. Beside a similarly painted watchman's box, with a bell hanging outside it, stood a watchman; he looked nervously in all directions, apparently so as not to miss any general walking or driving by for whom the guard would have to be "rung out". As soon as a general appeared from Tverskaya, or from Stoleshnikov Lane, from the Hotel Dresden or the entrance to the Governor General's residence, the watchman would strike the bell twice and the whole guard – twenty strong and headed by an officer and a drummer – would career headlong down the steps and form up alongside the watchman's box and present arms to the beat of the drum. How many times they had to turn out in haste to honour generals, not a few of which went from Tverskaya Street to Tverskaya Square per day. Many generals waved to the watchman from a distance to say that it was not necessary to "ring out" the guard, but there were enthusiasts, especially officers recently promoted general, who indulged themselves and deliberately went past the guardhouse one extra time in order to give a grand salute to the guard, drawn up in formation. So it was every day, from dawn to dusk. And drill at dawn and dusk constitute a special military ceremony, carried out by the guard at the guardhouse. A quarter of an hour before the appointed time a bugler emerged and played the dawn call or the evening call. A quarter of an hour later the whole guard forms up by the watchman's box and carries out the ceremonial to the beat of the drum. After the evening ceremony, and before the morning ceremony, the generals were denied their ceremonial salute. The soldiers dozed in the guardhouse; only the guard was changed very hour in two guard posts, in order to keep watch over the remand prisoners. One guard post was under the windows of the "bedbug house", the other under the windows of the guardhouse. These windows also gave onto the yard where arrested officers were kept in separate cells. Apart from the "bedbug house" in the yard alongside the reception area was the "cooler", where they put drunk and disorderly people. The huge yard in the fire station was covered with piles of manure that had been thrown out every day from the stables. Especially after rain, a brown foul-smelling liquid streamed from beneath those piles of dung, right across the whole yard, under the locked gates which opened onto the lane, then down the roadway to Petrovka Street . Alongside the gates stood a low stone building with no windows and with only one door. That was the morgue, which they called the

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"chapel". It was rarely empty. From time to time corpses were brought in that had been picked up off the street, or were the victims of crime. They were sent into the anatomy theatre for a post mortem examination and then given back to their relatives after their case had been examined, individuals without a home or identity documents were given a funeral service and their bodies were carried away to the cemetery on dray carts in coffins made of planks. The office for men on duty was at the right-hand end of the lower floor, with the guardroom on one side and on the other side the apartment of the police doctor. Above this was the apartment of the District Superintendent, and then over the watch house, the guardroom and the doctor's flat, were the barracks for the fire brigade, dirty and dank. Their two floors were cramped and stuffy, the firemen sleeping on rough plank beds, crammed in side by side like sardines in a tin, and round them on strings would be drying their uniforms and underclothes which had got soaked at the fire they had been fighting. Half the team, the ones on duty, never took their clothes off and slept right there, fully clothed and with their boots on. As soon as they noticed a fire from the fire tower, the man on duty pulled the cord to the alarm bell, the firemen turned out, sometimes in clothing that had not completely dried out. The fire brigade vehicles would go roaring past the Governor General's residence: the four-horse vehicles with the hooks, the three-horse vehicles with the fire engine and a series of two-horse vehicles with barrels of water. In front, blowing frantically on a brass trumpet, galloped a rider with a burning torch. The Square was a hubbub of noise by day and by night. Only the prison was silent. At various times its cells have contained some interesting people. In 1877 it housed the "Schlüsselberger" Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov. On the soot- stained wall of his cell, using a match, he wrote his first poem, which marked the beginning of his literary career:

A smothering blanket of mist, grey and dense Has covered the steppe all around; Oppressive and dark is the desert immense, And lifeless – no light to be found.

Then, to this poem others were added. In its original form the work was published in 1878 in the journal Forward and was included in the first edition of his book Songs of the Stars, for which he was imprisoned in 1912 in the fortress on the Dvina. In a reworked form this poem was subsequently published under the title The Prisoner of Schlüsselberg. In 1862 the same corner cell housed Pyotr Grigoryevich Zaichnevsky, well known for his part in the "Young Russia" affair, the manifesto of which horrified the government of the time.83 Even earlier, in 1854, A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin was held here, not in the "bedbug house" but in the officers' cells, accused of the murder of the French woman Louise-Simon Dimanche; it was here he wrote his play Krechinsky's Wedding, which is still in the repertoire.84

The Revolution swept away the prison, the guardhouse, the mortuary and the parade ground, and the Tverskaya fire brigade was transferred elsewhere; in 1923 it celebrated the centenary of its operation under the fire tower. One hundred years of self-sacrificing, dangerous work, covering several generations and seen by the whole of Moscow. Even now a good many Muscovites remember the heroic deeds

83 Zaichnevsky wrote this radical socialist manifesto in the Tverskaya police cell. 84 Sukhovo-Kobylin was under suspicion for the murder of his French mistress from 1850 until his acquittal in 1857. He was incarcerated for several months in 1854. 117 of these brave men at fires, at the Khodynka Field disaster during the coronation in 1896,85 during floods and finally, at the fire in the artillery stores on Khodynka Field in 1920. Count F.V. Rostopchin created the Moscow Fire Brigade. Previously there had been a random collection of fire engines scattered through the city and separate amateur watchmen who had to converge on a fire when the church bells rang the alarm, some with hooks, some with buckets. The fire chief would also come. From 1823 onwards the fire brigade became a municipal institution. Fire precincts were created in each of the city's districts. Gradually there appeared fire-fighting equipment, vehicles and horses. It was only in 1908 that the first mechanized fire engine appeared, in the Prechistenka fire station. It was a small engine with an extendable ladder attached to the top to rescue those in peril on upper floors, no higher, however, than the second floor. The fire chief was the first to rush to the fire on this vehicle, together with his deputy, a paramedic and a few brave souls – the firemen with axes. This engine utterly outstripped the line of firefighting vehicles which were harnessed to good horses. Telephones did not yet exist and fires were watched for by the firemen from the fire tower. At that time there weren't yet any skyscrapers and the whole of Moscow was visible as if in the palm of your hand. Night and day a watchman patrolled on the tower beneath the warning cones. It was difficult for this "highly placed personage" in bad weather, especially in frosty winter weather, but it was even more difficult in summer: the sun was baking hot and fires were more frequent in summer than in winter. So "just watch out, don't yawn! And round he went and "took in the lie of the land".

Audacious, strong, a heart to trust, The storms of life did not him touch. He occupied the highest post On the tower, keeping watch.

Suddenly a puff of smoke… a flash of fire. Frantically the watchman would tug on the firestation bell pull and the alarm on its column in the middle of the yard would sound… In those days there were no electric bells. The firemen would run out, getting dressed as they went in clothes that were not yet dry; the torchbearer, wearing a brass helmet and carrying a brass trumpet would emerge on his splendid horse. The deputy fire chief would gallop out and, throwing back his head, bawl: "Where is it? Which building?" "Hunters' Row. Number three!" the watchman replies from his lofty perch. He has already raised two cones on his crossbeam, the sign for the Tverskaya district. The Municipal district would be one cone, Pyatnitskaya – four, Myasnitskaya – three, the remainder – sometimes a cone and a cross, sometimes two cones and a cross – signs by which the amateur watchman could tell what district the fire was in. Or suddenly the watchman would give an ear-splitting yell from his lofty perch: "Number five Ilyinka. Number five!" And, in addition to the one cone which denoted the Municipal district, a red flag was hung from the other side of the crossbeam: an all-precinct alert – a life-threatening fire. And the convoys of firefighting vehicles would rumble over the cobbles on their iron tyres, making windowpanes shake and crockery cupboards take off across the floor, while people rushed to their windows to look at the fire tower.

85 During the festivities following the coronation of Nicholas II in May 1896 the crowd, anticipating the distribution of free gifts, stampeded on Khodynka Field in North-West Moscow. Over 1300 people were killed. 118

At night, instead of cones, lanterns were raised, a white one for a cone, a red one for a cross. And if the red lantern was to the side, where the red flag would be during the daytime – that meant an all-precinct alert. Three lanterns meant three district fire brigades were called out, five meant they all were. If the cry from the top of the tower was: "First!" – that meant a confined fire: smoke could be seen but no flames. Then the rider on his monster of a horse would dash to the place indicated by the watchman to check the exact location of the fire – he would fly there and sound his trumpet. The crowd would scatter in all directions but he would fly and blow, and win the hearts of the ladies. A maid would say enviously to a cook, indicating the window: "Look, it's your man…" In those far-off times firemen and soldiers in Tsar Nicholas' army still did twenty-five years compulsory service and were almost all of them unmarried. They had cooks as "steady" girl friends. In their time off from firefighting they went to visit their girl friends and were entertained in the kitchen; the house owners regarded them as part of their own household, knowing that they weren't some sort of lowlife but state employees who could be relied upon. So, when they were taken on, the cooks made it a condition that their "friends" would visit them and the house owners agreed to, and in merchant houses even approved of, this arrangement. How could they not approve when in those far-off days there was a saying: "Every woman of the merchant class has a husband by law; for her feelings – an officer; for her pleasure – a coachman". How could the cook not have a fireman friend! Every fireman was a hero, spending his whole life at war and risking his neck all the time. Particularly when he is told to climb over roofs in winter, especially during hard frosts, when water is streaming out of his tattered sleeves, when the thick cloth of his jacket and trousers becomes as stiff as bast (even when it's dry it can't be bent) and his huge clumsy boots, hobnailed for strength, become like iron. And a frozen fellow like this, wearing ice-covered boots, clambers up the ice-covered rungs of the ladder onto a burning roof and performs there the most hair-raising acrobatic exercises; sometimes, hunched on the slope of a cornice against an encroaching fire in expectation of the rescue ladder, half his body is pressed against the wall and the other half hangs above the abyss… The axe men, whose helmets shine through the clouds of black smoke, in pulling apart the iron of the roof, run the constant risk of falling into the fiery inferno. The hoseman follows the deputy fire chief, clambering into an unknown space, full of smoke and risking being suffocated or blown up by some paraffin store; he seeks out the source of the fire and douses it…It's difficult in winter but unbearable in summer, when conflagrations are frequent. I remember one unusually dry summer in the mid-1880s when there were fourteen fires in a single day, of which two were serious enough for all-precinct alerts. Zaryadye and Rogozhskaya districts were burning at the same time… And all around were lesser blazes… In the last century one of the Moscow papers published a poem entitled "The Fireman".86 It enjoyed popularity at the time and every fireman felt that it was written for him, just for him, and was proud of the fact: strength and courage!

Flames are curling, spark showers fly, Tongues of fire threaten danger, I the banner hold up high,

86 The poem is loosely based on Pushkin's famous lyric "The Devils".

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To such perils I'm no stranger. None can rest for weeks on end ̶ Stay on watch through nights and days. Rungs beneath me creak and bend, While the shaky ladder sways. Choked by smoke by day or night, Balanced underneath a cornice, Day and night, with no respite, I endure my gruelling service. Let us cherish this device "Be courageous, agile; dare." Sodden jackets turn to ice, Embers scorch and burn our hair. With bold hand the stream direct, Drag the burning roof away, Let the hose its icy jet On the blazing building play. On a tower's lofty roof I'm at home amid the fire. I against the heat am proof; All my life I've been at war!

Today there are no fire horses; they've been replaced by motor vehicles. But in the old days the firemen were proud of them. In the 1860s the Chief of Police, Ogaryov, a former cavalryman, a horseman, balletomane and passionate supporter of the fire brigades, organised a special supply of horses for them; fire brigade horses were the best in Moscow. You could not help but admire them. Ogaryov himself travelled twice a year round stud farms in Tambov and Oryol, selected horses, brought them to Moscow and distributed them among the seventeen fire precincts, personally supervising their care. He would arrive unannounced in a precinct, go through to the stables, take a cloth out of his pocket and test how well the horses had been groomed. Moscow was indebted to him for selecting horses by breed; each precinct had its own "shirt", or colour, and Muscovites could tell at a distance which brigade was hurrying to the fire. Tverskaya had palomino skewbald bityug heavy horses, Rogozhskaya's were piebald, Khamovnicheskaya's had yellow coats, black tails and huge shaggy black manes, Sretenskaya's had yellow coats and white tails and manes, Pyatnitskaya's were black with white socks and a large bald faces, Gorodskaya's were white with no markings, Yakimanskaya's were dappled grey, Taganskaya's were roan, Arbatskaya's – bay, Sushchevskaya's palomino, Myasnitskaya's – chestnut and Lefortovskaya's ̶ dark bay. Bityug heavy horses are a thing of beauty and strength! And how the firemen loved their horses! How proud they were of them! Deputy fire chief Bespalov, a former sergeant in the 1st Donskoi Regiment, spent his whole life, night and day, in the stables. After his death, the job of deputy fire chief for the Tverskaya precinct was inherited by his son, still a youth but just as brave, who had been born and reared in the stables. He perished at his post: during a fire he fell through three floors, went mad and died. Korolyov, Yushin, Simonov, Alexeyev, Koryto and Vishnevsky served as deputy fire chiefs for decades, always in the midst of fires, always, like all firemen, a hair's breadth from death! In the olden days firemen were put into all kinds of situations, apart from struggling with fires; these ranged from pulling suffocated workmen out of deep wells or fume-filled basements to carrying out the functions of paramedics. And all this without any safety precautions!

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When the fateful Khodynka disaster happened, at dawn, when the cries of those caught in the crush could still be heard, firemen from every precinct rushed there on carts, rescued survivors and transported them to hospitals. Then they removed the mutilated corpses; their carts rushed to the cemetery with the bodies at breakneck speed, in order to come back all the quicker to make further journeys… There was yet another job the firemen had to do. Not all of them, however, only those in the Sushchevskaya precinct: they used to burn books banned by the censor. "What's that smoke over the Sushchevskaya station? Is there a house fire?" "Don't worry, it's nothing. They're burning Russian Thought." There, in a storehouse at the back, stood a huge slatted iron stove, like the cage in which Pugachov was transported to execution and which is now in the Museum of the Revolution. When necessary it was dragged out of the storehouse and into the yard, sprinkled the papers and books with paraffin and burned them in the presence of higher authority. Was there nothing the authorities would not compel the firemen to do? They exploited the firemen like serfs. They used them to do work on their apartments and even hired them out. Thus in the 1870s the Moscow Police Chief Arapov allowed his friends – impresarios for private theatres – to take firemen on as extras. At this time there were two theatres in Petrovsky Park: the large wooden Petrovsky Theatre, a former State theatre where, from time to time on festival days, with Arapov's permission, A. A. Rasskazov's company performed, and the German Club Summer Theatre at the other end of the park, near the Kirgof dachas.87 One Sunday the Rasskazov company were putting on Uncle Tom's Cabin while the German Club were staging some sort of melodrama involving demons. By the Petrovsky Theatre stood fire engines with grappling hooks; the engines were harnessed to Sushchevskaya palominos. Meanwhile, by the German Club there was a quartet of palomino skewbald bityug horses from the Tverskaya precinct. It was eight o'clock. The audiences were gathering. The actors were in costume. In the Petrovsky Theatre the firemen sat right at the back, wearing striped ticking jerseys and made up as negroes: their faces, necks and arms were blackened, like boots. The orchestra had already begun to play the overture when suddenly a horseman dashed out of the German Club and headed straight for Koryto, the Sushchevskaya Deputy Fire Chief who, as the senior officer, was sitting by the entrance to the theatre in uniform and helmet. The horseman thrust a message into his hand, the same message he had given the Tverskaya Deputy Fire Chief a minute previously. Koryto leaped up and addressed the firemen: "Lads! An all-precinct call-out. There's a fire on Nikolskaya Street! Get moving, whatever state you're in!" The Tverskaya brigade was already charging along the park's avenues in clouds of dust and on into the Petrovskoye Highway. In front there galloped a horseman all in red, with a red tail and red arms, wearing a gleaming helmet and riding a huge hard-pulling skewbald… Behind him came the engines with the grappling hooks and on the engines – red devils… The public, which had dashed from the park's paths had not yet taken all this in when they saw a black devil carrying a flaming torch and riding a golden horse and behind him – long fire engines manned by black devils wearing brass helmets… The black devils scared the onlookers even more… The rumble of wheels, flames, smoke… The convoys from hell careered noisily down Tverskaya Street one behind the other, past the Governor General's residence, past the Tverskaya station over which a red flag flew – the all- precinct call-out. Behind the firemen, standing in a fly with one hand on the driver's shoulder,

87 Kirgof (or more precisely Kirkhgof – Kirchhof – was the name of a pond in Petrovsky Park. 121

Colonel Arapov raced along Tverskaya Street behind his pair of horses but could not catch up the firemen… Meanwhile on Ilyinka Street88 red and black devils were already clambering over the roof amid crimson smoke and tongues of flame. The next day the whole of Moscow was talking about nothing else but this convoy of devils. But a few days later Fire Chief Colonel Potekhin received an order which ended with the following words: "… I strictly forbid the use of firemen in theatres and other inappropriate places. Colonel Arapov".

Nowadays Moscow's fire-fighting services have been brought to perfection; the men are well educated, well regulated and equipped with everything they need. Their discipline is exemplary: they maintain their former valour and daring but it is consciously directed and technically trained and allied to physical fitness and scientific skill... The time they take to turn out is now measured in seconds. In a large barrack room on the first floor the unit on standby are in their proper dress and ready to go. In the barrack floor is a wide aperture through which can be seen thick, smooth polished poles below. The alarm sounds – and they all rush to the poles, put their arms round them and slide down to the lower storehouse and, in a few seconds, each man is in his appointed place on the fire tender: they put on their helmets and protective clothing as the tender is in full flight along the street. Suddenly: "The fire folk are coming! The fire folk are coming!" a bunch of children yells. I first heard these words at the end of the first year of the Great War, when the population of our building, especially the outbuildings, was swelled by refugees from Poland. As an old citizen of Moscow, and, more importantly, as a former fireman, I was taken aback by that word. Moscow, gazing in admiration at their famous fire convoys ̶ in the old days with their handsome horses assigned by colour to each district and later on their silent fire engines, their brass helmets resplendent ̶ used to say with pride: "The firemen". Then all of a sudden it became: "The fire folk." That was rather a disparaging name, colourless and insulting. My mind conjures up some wretched provincial town where the whole town has only three leaky barrels of water, one and a half hooks and a rusty engine with a leaking hose on wheels that sink up to the axle in the sticky mud of the unpaved side streets, and behind it trudge some dozen wretched disabled firemen. This word had been current in Moscow for a long time, but it had quite a different meaning. It was what they called a particular sort of beggars that appeared in Moscow for the winter along with their masters, who owned who owned rich properties. These landowners came into the capital to spend the income that came from their estates and were followed by their serfs, who were hoping to earn some money, part of which would go into the landlord's pocket as quit-rent. That was done as though it was a collection for the "burnt places". Whole families who had been burned out, both the genuine ones and those who were putting it on, came into Moscow by foot or on waggons. Women with little children would go round with their sledges to collect hand-outs in cash or kind. They would show a paper with a great seal, attesting that the persons presenting this document were coming to collect assistance for some hamlet or village that had burned down. Some of them had bought particular sledges with the end of the shafts blackened, and they would assure everyone that these sledges were all they had managed to save from the fire.

88 Ilyinka Street and Nikolskaya Street are adjacent. 122

People in Moscow mocked the "burnt shafts", but they gave money nevertheless. Whenever a sledge stopped at the door of a house in some out-of-the way side road, the little children used to run in and say: "Mama, the fire folk have come." Two areas supplied "fire folk" for the whole of Moscow. Those were the districts of Bogorodsk and Veryeya. The former were called "Guslyaki " and the others "Shuvalaki" The Bogorodsk Guslyaki were specially famous. If you travel through one of their villages you will see that windows in the houses are boarded up and that means the fire folk have gone off with all their family to see what they could get. But in the village there's no sign at all that there's been a fire. In the days of serfdom Count Shuvalov had huge estates in Vereya District and he was the first to let peasants go into Moscow to collect for "burnt places", justifying this by the fact that they were paying a higher quit-rent. That was most advantageous for the landlord. When they detained serfs like that and asked them: "Where have you come from?" Those detained would reply: "We are Shuvaliki." There were of course people who had genuinely suffered from a fire and the local centre would vouch for them, or sometimes policemen from the District Centre. In police records genuine cases like that were called "burned folk", whereas the others were known as "fire folk". That's the origin of this term "fire folk" which is so offensive to old firemen!

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19 Bakers and hairdressers

On Tverskaya Street, facing Leontyevsky Lane, there stands the building of the former baker Filippov, who rebuilt it at the end on the nineteenth century from a long two-storey building, that had belonged to his father, who had made his name with his kalachi and bread rolls. Filippov was so renowned that the famous Moscow poet Shumakher marked his death with four lines of verse which were known by everyone in Moscow:

The Prince has gone, the Prince of Tmutarakan,89 To Muscovites exceedingly well known, The late Filippov, of that ilk Ivan, And left a million cockroaches to mourn.

Filippov's bakery was always full of customers. There was always a crowd in the far corner round the heated iron trays munching his famous pies, filled with meat, eggs, rice, mushrooms, cottage cheese, raisins and jam. The customers spanned every class from young students to elderly officials in their frieze greatcoats and from well dressed ladies to poorly clothed working women. With its good dressing of butter and its fresh filling, the five-copeck pie was so large that two people could quite well make a dinner of it. They were first made by Ivan Filippov, the man who had founded the bakery and was famous far beyond the confines of Moscow for his kalachi and rolls and most of all for his exceptional black bread. The counters and shelves on the left hand side of the bakery had a separate entrance and they were always crammed with crowds of people buying black bread and sifted flour by the pound. "Black bread is the working man's staple diet," Ivan Filippov used to say. "Why is it that only yours is any good." "Because bread thrives on care. Baking is one thing, but the secret lies in the flour. I don't use bought flour – it's all my own. I buy top quality rye out of town; I've got my own people in the mills to see no weeds or dust gets in… Nevertheless there's different sorts of rye – you've got to be selective. I use mainly Tambov flour from near Kozlov;90 the best flour is from the mill at Rominsky. It's very simple!" he would conclude, using his favourite saying. Black bread, kalachi and rolls were sent daily to the Royal Court in Petersburg. They tried baking it on the spot but it didn't work and old Filippov sought to prove that in Petersburg such kalachi and rolls as his couldn't be produced. "But why?" "It's very simple! Neva water is no good!" Besides, in winter – at that time there were no railways – convoys of carts carried his rusks, kalachi and rolls baked on straw as far as Siberia. Taking them hot, straight from the oven, they somehow froze them by some special method, carried them a thousand miles them before they were eaten, unfroze them – also by a special method – in damp towels ̶ and sweet-smelling rolls were served piping hot at table in Barnaul or Irkutsk. Kalachi with bran, rolls backed on straw… Then suddenly there was something quite new that customers rushed to get in droves… This was saiki rolls with raisins. "How did you think of that?" "It's very simple," replied the old man. It did indeed turn out to be very simple.

89 This appears to be a play on words. Tmutarakan was an ancient Slav kingdom. The name came to mean any distant place. "T'ma tarakanov" would mean, roughly, "a gazillion cockroaches". 90 Now known as Michurinsk 124

In those times the omnipotent dictator of Moscow was Governor General Zakrevsky, before whom everyone trembled. Every morning hot saiki rolls from Filippov were served with his tea. "What's this muck? Bring the baker Filippov here!" the potentate once bawled as he took his morning tea. His servants, not understanding what the matter was, dragged the frightened Filippov before the Governor General. "What's this? A cockroach?!" He thrust a roll containing a baked cockroach at him. "What is it, eh?" "It's really very simple, Your Excellency," said the old man, holding the roll in front of him and turning it over. "Wha-at? Wha-at?.. Simple?!" "It's a raisin, sir!" And he ate the piece of roll with the cockroach in it. "You're lying, you swine! Are there such things as raisin rolls? Get out!" Filippov ran to his bakery, grabbed a sieveful of raisins and, to the horror of his bakers, poured it into the dough. An hour later Filippov was regaling Zakrevsky with raisin rolls and within a day he had no end of customers. "It's very simple! It just happens of its own accord – you just need to catch it," Filippov would say when the subject of raisin rolls was mentioned. "Take the sweets which they call 'landrins'…Who's Landrin? What's a monpensier?91 In the old days we learned from the French how to make lozenges, but they were sold in every sweetshop wrapped in paper twists… Then along came Landrin… The word sounds foreign, which is necessary for trade, and the whole thing turned out very simply." The handyman Fedya did the monpensiers for Grigory Yefimovich Yeliseyev's sweetshop. Every morning he used to take him a tray of lozenges – he made the tray specially – white and red, very colourful. Nobody could do it like him, and they were wrapped in paper. After a name day celebration, when he'd had a bit to drink, he hurried to take the goods to Yeliseyev. He saw the tray all ready and covered. He grabbed it and ran, so as not to be late. He arrived with it. Yeliseyev unwrapped the tray and yelled at him: "What have you brought? What?.." Fedya saw that he'd forgotten to wrap the sweets in paper; he seized the tray and ran. He grew tired and sat down on a bollard by a Girls' High School… Schoolgirls ran up, first one, then another… "How much are the sweets?" He did not understand." "Will you take two copecks each? Give me five." She thrust a ten-copeck piece at him… Then another girl did the same… He took the money and decided this was worthwhile. Then a crowd of girls emerged, bought up his whole tray and said: "Come to our yard tomorrow, by midday, by break time… What's your name?" "Fyodor Landrin…" He totted up his takings – it was more profitable than supplying Yeliseyev, and he had the gold wrappers as further profit. The next day he again arrived at the high school. "Landrin's here!"

91 A type of lozenge, named after a branch of the House of Bourbon.

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He began as an itinerant trader, then he stuck to certain districts and then he opened a factory. These sweets began to be called "landrins" – the word sounded French – landrin – landrine! He himself was a peasant from Novgorod who took his surname from the little River Landra on which his village stood. "Indeed it's all so simple. I didn't miss my chance…But you say 'cock-roach!'"

All the same Filippov was choosy and did not seek out every opportunity to make money. He had his own type of honesty. In circumstances where other bakers were not ashamed to make a fraudulent profit, Filippov acted differently. Bakers made huge profits before public holidays by selling off stale goods at their full price as charitable donations for prisons. For centuries back at the major festivals ̶ Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Shrovetide and also "memorial days for the dead" and "days of remembrance for the family" ̶ it was the custom to send charitable gifts to the prisons for those under arrest or, as the saying then went "for the unfortunates". Moscow really pushed the boat out on these occasions. Bakers would get orders from donors for a thousand, two thousand and sometimes more, kalachi and rolls, which would be distributed on the eve of the festivals and shared out among the prisoners. At the same time the military guards, from regiments quartered in Moscow, were never forgotten. To be on guard duty was in general considered a tiresome and risky duty, but, before big festivals, soldiers asked to be put on guard duty. For them, who had never seen a morsel of white bread, these days were red letter days. When the charitable giving was generous, they even took bread into the barracks and shared it with their comrades. The main donors were the merchants, who deemed it necessary for the salvation of their souls to donate sustenance to the "unfortunates", so they might remember the donors in their prayers; for the merchants it was a sacrosanct belief that the prayers of prisoners attain their objective more quickly. This belief was even more marked among the Old Believers who, according to their law were obliged to proffer help to those who suffered from the Anti-Christ and those "cast into prison" were considered to be such sufferers. The main centre to which donations were sent was the Central Butyrka prison. People under arrest came there from all over Russia on their way to Siberia and until the railway was built from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod they set off on foot from here along the Vladimir highway. Until 1870 the sight of the Vladimir highway was terrifying:

See the swirling Dust approaches. Tramping feet, Steady clank of iron chains, Sounds of cart and bayonet Ever louder. In the sun Rifles gleam. The prisoners go. Distant rows of prison grey. Spiteful rival, mortal foe, Stranger, kith, or kin, or friend Shuffle slowly into line. Misery unites them all; All are linked by iron chain.

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The Vladimir highway begins beyond the Rogozhskaya district of Moscow and for generations the inhabitants of that district have seen these horrible processions several times a year as they went past their houses. They saw them first as children, then, as grey-headed old men and women, they saw the same scene, heard:

Groans of pain And the clank of iron chain

Then of course they gave help whatever way they could, trying to hand over their gifts directly. In order to do that, those who wanted to help would sometimes take their food out to the prisons themselves by cart, or one solitary indigent would stand on Garden Street waiting on the prisoners' route with a couple of kalachi or a loaf they had baked at home… Then they might break through the ranks of the escort and push their hard-earned bread into the hands of the prisoners, sometimes suffering blows from the soldiers. It was terrible to see those parties of men passing through. All along Garden Street and the streets leading into it the pavements were lined with armed guards. And there would trudge past a party of people, up to a thousand strong, their fetters clanking and rattling, going from the transit prison along Garden Street, Taganka or Rogozhskaya. At their head would be men condemned to penal servitude, jangling along with fetters on their arms and legs, with bare, sometimes half-shaven heads. As they went along, they had to fight with their escorts to get some of the food that people had thrown for them. And those endless ranks would clank by with fetters on their arms and legs, wearing grey pea-jackets with a yellow ace of diamonds on their back and over the ace the Cyrillic letters S.K. which meant "exiled to penal servitude", although people translated it to mean "forced into penal servitude".92 The "filly" would move through rows of people who climbed even onto the roofs of houses and fences… Behind those condemned, wearing only leg irons, exiles to Siberia walked, bound together by a strip of iron; behind them came tramps who had no residence permit and were being deported back to where they had come from. After them came a train of heavy waggons laden with bags and bundles and carrying people who were ill and women with small children ; these were regarded with particular sympathy. While the party moved along traffic was halted on these streets. They passed Taganka. They passed through the city gate… There, beyond the city gate, on the Vladimir highway, thousands of people with carts had congregated and waited – Muscovites, peasants from nearby villages and dealers with empty sacks from the outskirts of Moscow and from the bazaars. Before that party arrived a large detachment of soldiers came in, clearing the Vladimir highway and a large area that they now surrounded. That was the first stage on their journey. The last roll call was carried out here and the group was checked over. Here gifts were taken in and shared between those under arrest and sold on the spot to profiteers who had filled their bags with kalachi and loaves, which they paid for in hard cash; money was the only thing that was prized by those under arrest. Vodka fetched even higher prices and was something the profiteers contrived to sell to the party on credit. After that there followed heartrending scenes of farewells, tears and furious quarrels. By this time many of those under arrest had time to drink, so here and there things got quite out of hand and there were drunken brawls… In the end the guards managed to get the group under control, push them into line and set out on the long road to Vladimir.

92 The words "forced" and "exiled" begin with the same letter in Russian.

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In order to do that they sometimes had to summon a stronger force of soldiers and blacksmiths with fetters to put more restraint on the unruly spirits who were causing trouble. Usually it was not the penal servitude ones who gave difficulty, not the old hands, but rough types being transferred. When the railway to Nizhny Novgorod was built, the Vladimir highway was no longer the dry land equivalent of the River Styx and it was not along that road that modern versions of Charon used their bayonets to ferry across to hell the souls of sinners. Instead of the road they had clanked along in chains:

Through the blackened fallow fields, Newly furrowed, newly ploughed Ribbon-like the highway stretches, Greener than an emerald. Everything is different now; Only birch trees in twin line Which have heard so many cries, Which so many tears have seen Are unchanged… But how wonderful Everything around them ranged Is in spring's luxuriant garb. Not by rains are these plants fed But by human tears and sweat, Which were shed in torrents then. Unconstrained, in freedom set Now they flourish once again. ……………………………… All the flowers, where tears at times Laid in former times the dust, Where the heavy waggons rumbled And down the convict highway passed.

The Vladimir highway has been closed and beyond the city boundary they have also destroyed that first stage where the last gifts used to be passed over. It was forbidden to receive gifts near the station ̶ they could only be brought to the transit prison before the party left and passed not to the prisoners themselves but to the authorities. The Old Believers from Rogozhka93 were particularly incensed about this: "And how are the unfortunates going to know who has given it to them? For whom are they going to pray?" Those people from Rogozhka flatly refused to bring their gifts to the transit point and looked to the two nearest prisons for handing them over, that is to say the one at the police station at Rogozhka or the jail at Lefortovo. And on the appointed days they piled up countless presents in those two establishments, even though everyone else in Moscow went on sending to all the prisons as they had done before. The people from Khitrovka sniffed this out and made use of it.

93 Rogozhka – more formally Rogozhskaya sloboda – was an area of Moscow originally settled by people from the town of Rogozh' (later known as Bogorodsk and Noginsk), 42 miles East of Moscow. It was an Old Believer centre and near the start of the Vladimir highway.

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To the great surprise of the authorities the prisons of Lefortovo and Rogozhka filled up with prisoners before the major religious festivals, and there were fights and scenes all round Moscow. Besides which, a disproportionate number of tramps were taken in for living in the city without the necessary residence permit. When they were arrested most of these people declared their place of residence to be Lefortovo or Rogozhka. And those were the places they were escorted to for their particulars to be checked. But, as these new prisoners came in, loads of charitable gifts appeared, which were immediately distributed among these newcomers and exchanged by them for vodka to be consumed on the spot. After the church holiday was over, all these criminals turned out to be either petty thieves or simply tramps from among the lower classes of traders and craftsmen. Once their identity was established they were released to their homes and away they went, having enjoyed good fare over the holiday at the expense of their "'benefactors". Those who had given so generously expected fervent prayers for their souls from those "unfortunates who had been penned up in prison by the servants of the Antichrist". The people who made most out of these gifts were the bakers and anyone who made bread. The only honest man was old Filippov, who had saved his great firm by pretending that a cockroach was a raisin. First, he never fulfilled an order for the prisoners with stale bread, but always sent fresh kalachi and rolls; secondly, he always kept a special account which made it clear how much profit from these orders went to charitable giving; he personally took the profits in full to the prison and spent them on improving the food for sick prisoners. And he did all this "very simply", not for any advantage to himself, nor for gaining medals and awards for charitable organisations. Many years later his son, who continued his father's work, put up, in place of the two- storey building, the large building that stands there today. He fitted it out foreign-style with the once famous "Filippov coffee house" in it, with its mirror-glass windows, marble tables and waiters in evening dress. Nevertheless this Parisian-looking institution was known as the "louse exchange". There was the same unchanging crowd as in former days standing round boxes of hot pies… But the clientele in the coffee shop was completely different: the clientele of the "louse exchange". The regulars of the "louse exchange". Few people knew them; on the other hand they knew everybody but they didn't usually give the appearance that they knew one another. Sitting side by side, they would exchange a few words; one would approach an occupied table and ask, as if of a stranger, for permission to sit there. Anywhere away from the windows and close to a dark corner. These people were shady businessmen, middlemen, brains behind robberies, nefarious operators, agents of gambling houses who inveigled gullible punters into their lairs, bar flies and card sharps. The latter, after sleepless nights spent in low dives and clubs, having woken up at midday, gathered at Filippov's to drink tea and plan for the following night. Detectives, who occasionally dropped into the coffee shop, knew this clientele as the "gamblers". On days when there were flat races or trotting races, two hours before the start the café would fill up with a very varied assortment of people, holding cards for the races. There were merchants, officials and gilded youths, all of them keen to bet on the Tote. They used to come here to see the gamblers and so-called "beetles" ̶ regulars at the racetracks… They were wanting to get tips from them on which horses might be winners. The tipsters would introduce them to the card sharps and they would set about recruiting people for the gambling dens. An hour before the start of the races the café used to empty. Everyone had gone to the racecourse except a few stray people who had wandered in. The "gamblers" would not be

129 coming back there. From the racecourse their route took them straight to the clubs and gambling dens. By then "gambler" had become a normal word and was used roughly to characterize a certain class of people, practically a guild which could almost be said to give them the right to live in Moscow. Sometimes, when the police were making arrests and asked about someone's occupation, they had to content themselves with the single word "gambler". Here are the exact words that were used in the police station when they were questioning a very respectable man about town: "What is your profession?" "I'm a gambler." "I don't understand. I'm asking you how you make your living." "A gambler is what I am! I make my living by betting on the Tote, by gambling on our Imperial races, trotting and flat, by playing cards, turned out, as you yourself know, by our Imperial education department I am playing games which are permitted by the government…" When he the police let him go, he went straight away to Filippov's to drink his morning coffee. But not everyone was allowed to go into the coffee shop. You could see brightly coloured posters on the walls: "No dogs allowed" and "No entry for the lower ranks." One event comes to mind. Not long before the war with Japan, a young lady sitting at her table in the window was accompanied by a student of the military medical school, whose shoulder straps could easily be taken for an officer's. Beside another window further along sat an old man, immersed in reading a journal. He was wearing a rubberised cloak, buttoned at the neck. Into the café, rattling his sabre, came a young hussar officer with a lady on his arm. She was wearing a hat almost the size of an aeroplane. The officer gave his overcoat to the porter, walked in and could not find a place to sit: all the tables were occupied… Suddenly his eye fell on the young medical man. The officer quickly strode across and stood in front of him. The other man stood up out of respect for a senior officer and the officer's lady sat down in his place as she felt she had every right to do. "Be so good as to leave the coffee house. Can't you see what is written there?" said the officer, indicating the notice. But the officer had not time to lower the finger that he had pointed at the notice before a loud voice suddenly burst in: "Cornet, come here!" Everyone looked round. Instead of the humble old man in a cloak they saw the majestic General Dragomirov, a professor of the Military Academy. The cornet abandoned his lady and sprang to attention before the General: "Be so good as to leave the coffee house; you should have taken that place only with my permission. And it is I who has allowed it to go to this officer of lower rank. Be off with you." In great embarrassment the cornet picked up his sabre and hastened to the way out. And the young military doctor took back his place by the great window with its mirror glass. Two years later, to be precise on 25 September 1905, that mirror glass was shattered into fragments. Moscow was astounded at what happened here on that very day. That was the first revolutionary outburst and the first rifle fire in the centre of the capital, even right by the residence of the Governor General.

From mid-September 1905 there was much unrest in Moscow and people were on strike. The workers were pressing their demands ever more persistently. On Saturday 24 September a deputation of workers came to D.I.Filippov and declared that they had decided to strike from that Sunday. About nine o'clock in the morning they were standing in groups round the gates as they always did on their day off. Everything was quiet and peaceful. About eleven o'clock, quite out

130 of the blue, a squad of police came down the great steps from Glinishchevsky Lane. They had their sabres drawn and ran quickly through the accountant's office, through the back door and out onto the yard. The workers shouted: "Police out!" A fight started, with the workers throwing bottles and bricks from their part of the building and the police were driven out. Everything calmed down. Then suddenly the Chief of Police appeared with a squad of gendarmes and Cossacks, who dismounted in Glinishchevsky Lane and quite unexpectedly fired two volleys at the upper floors of the five-storey building. Those flats looked out onto the side street and were just occupied by private tenants. The main block of the bakery was inside the yard. People had been throwing bricks from the windows and even firing from there ̶ according to the police (that was what had caused them to run away before this). Shattered glass and plaster were crashing down and the peaceful tenants were rushing here and there in terror. The chief policeman brought a squad of soldiers into the coffee house and asked for axes and crowbars to break down barricades, which in fact did not exist. Then he led the soldiers into the yard and ordered them to summon all the workers to him, warning that he would open fire if they did not appear. Police and soldiers were sent through all the workshops, driving diners out of the canteen and people who were resting out of the bedrooms. Into the yard they pushed workers, boys, yardmen and sweepers, refused to believe the assurances of senior employees that everyone had come out and gave orders to shoot at the windows on the sixth floor of the factory building. They brought out under guard some two hundred workers and took them into Gnezdnikovsky Lane, where there was a holding area and gates into the huge courtyard of the mayor's house. About four o'clock in the afternoon three young workers appeared in Filippov's office under police guard, injured and with bandaged heads. Behind them more workers began to appear and told how they had been beaten both as they were escorted here and in the mayor's courtyard. Some of the victims had even been taken off to hospital in ambulances. Scared by this untoward event, Muscovites gathered in numbers on the corner of Leontyevsky Lane, which was cordoned off from Tverskaya Street by a line of police. On the corner opposite Filippov's bakery, on the steps of the porch by the locked door of the former hairdressing salon of Léon Ambeau,94 stood a group of onlookers who had no way of escape: there was a crush in the lane, while on Tverskaya there were police and soldiers. On the top step, right by the door, a handsome brown-haired man with large greying moustaches involuntarily drew attention to himself by the complete calmness of his manner. This was Jules. At a glance you were reminded of the lines from Nekrasov's poem "Russian Women:"

The people bawled, the people yawned, It scarcely on one hundredth dawned What there was happening… Yet there was one made quiet smirks Who then a sideways look conferred, A Frenchman who had known life's quirks, A Petersburg coiffeur.

Jules, a Parisian, who remembered the battles in the Paris Commune, was the senior barber for Léon Ambeau, who was the "court hairdresser" for Prince V.A. Dolgorukov.

94 Possibly either Léon Ambeau (b.1860) or his father, also Léon Ambeau (b.1824). 131

Léon Ambeau was a modest sized Frenchman with bushy, lovingly tended whiskers; he was always smartly dressed in the latest Parisian fashion. Every day he would smooth out the Prince's wrinkles, adjust the wig on the completely bald head, would stick one hair to the next and twirl the whiskers of the old man, who pretended to eternal youth. While he was working at this, he would keep the Prince in good heart by prattling away ceaselessly about everything, giving all the latest gossip from the capital and at the same time he managed to push through various important projects, so that he was considered to be a very influential man in Moscow. If one acted through him, one could achieve much from the all- powerful master of the capital, who had a soft spot for his hairdresser.95 When Ambeau was travelling abroad he was replaced by either Orlov or Rozanov.96 They too were looked on kindly by the old prince and they too did not let the chance pass them by. Their hairdressing salon faced the house of the Governor General, close by the Dresden Hotel, and there also some of the hairdressers were French, who were fashionable at the time in Moscow. Half the best hairdressing establishments in the capital were French and these places were training places for dashing young men from the merchant class. From ancient times Western culture only caught on superficially, via hairdressers and fashionable tailors. The "little Frenchman from Bordeaux" would bow and scrape round some Lyonka or Seryonka from Taganka, put his hair into tight curls and yell: "Ze tongs, boy!" While a curly-headed boy handed over the hot tongs, Lyonka and Seryonka, drenched in eau de cologne and hair oil, would pick their nose and ask with one voice: "Style it so I look like Victor Capoul when dad's not here, but like a Russian when he is." Here, they picked up these manners and hair styles from the hairdressers and learned the proper tone so that they could go on to seduce young women from south of the river97 and show off to the songstresses from the Yar restaurant. The top salons were decked out in the manner of the best Parisian ones. Everything was done as it would be abroad out of the very best material. Perfume from London and Paris… Fashion journals by express post from Paris… In the salons for ladies there were great artists in devising hair styles, men who could create an original and imaginative head of hair, connoisseurs of every style, of psychology and conversation. In the boudoirs of fashionable ladies, beautified wives of merchants and eligible millionaire brides, they were quite often privy to secrets, which they knew to keep to themselves… They were friends with domestic servants, who supplied them with gossip about their employers… They knew all the news and trivial details about their clients and how to judge what could be said and to whom, and how to behave… They were extremely observant and very sharp. One of them (who had, like all the others, started his career handing over the curling tongs) printed his diary with a certain publisher and in it there were real pearls of wit, such as calling the "bedroom" a "bad room" and the bride a "broad". When people pointed out these mistakes, he said: "That way it will be more true to life." By the way it was that diary which described the first "electrical" ball in Moscow, an account that chanced to find its way into the editor's in-tray… The ball took place in the middle of the eighteen nineties. The first electric lighting was installed for a young merchant widow

95 The two uses of "capital" in this paragraph are confusing. The second undoubtedly refers to Moscow, which became the capital in 1918. However, at the time Dolgorukov was Governor General of Moscow, Petersburg was the capital. The first reference is entirely ambiguous. 96A.A. Orlov and Rozanov worked in the same fashionable salon. 97 This is where most merchants lived. 132 whose husband had died as a millionaire and it was in her house that they decided to hold the first ball to be lit by electricity. Coloured lamps were shining in the luxurious palace with its many rooms and every conceivable kind of cosy recess. The ballroom was the only space with its brilliant white light. There had gathered Muscovites, aristocrats and merchants, united only by their desire to taste life to the full. The author of this diary was present at that ball; naturally he wasamong his friends the servants. Before the ball he made up the lady of the house in her "bad room", preparing her for the new lighting. She was magnificent. But with all their diamonds the electric light in the ballroom made Moscow's smart ladies seem like badly painted dolls… They were accustomed to the light of gas mantles and lamps. The beautiful lady of the house was the only one with true colour in her face. Everyone went on dancing right until supper, which had been prepared by no less than the famous Marius from the Hermitage restaurant. The violet light in the dining room of tanned oak made everyone's faces seem dead and the guests tried to restore a healthy complexion by consuming large quantities of good wine. Nevertheless the supper was merry, noisy, and with plenty to drink… Then suddenly the electricity went off! Some ten minutes later it came on again… What a scene!.. Some of them were crawling under the table, others crawling out. People were illuminated in every sort of pose … And the ladies!… "To this day one of my lady friends," said the diary author, "who was not in the first flush of youth even then and now is old ̶ I fix a hair extension for her every Sunday – laughs in her 'bad room' every time she brings that evening to mind… Once I suggested to her: 'It's time now to forget about that.' 'What do you mean? It's nice to remember something good just one more time.'" It was in the 1860s that fashionable hairdressers particularly came into their own with their Parisian chic.. After serfdom had been abolished, the landowners tried by every means to spend the money they had received as payment to buy out their land and set their serfs free. Moscow was showing off with all its might… It was then that French hairdressers from Paris came swarming in and following them the Russian ones also tried to frenchify themselves… and some surgeon-barber Yelizar Baranov on Yamskaya Street had no time to change his old sign: "Surgeon-Barber. Blood-letting, shaving, haircutting by Baranov." After that he also grew a goatee beard and started to shout, as he curled up the hair on a salesman from the Nozhevaya arcade: "Ze tongs, boy! Move yourself, you devil!" And everyone was happy.

Long before this even the Parisian hairdresser Givartovsky on Mokhovaya Street stood out as the best. After him came Glazov on Prechistenka, who soon grew rich on the clients from this aristocratic part of Moscow. He got himself a dozen houses – that's why the lane became Glazovsky Lane. Agapov in Newspaper Lane, next to the Church of the Assumption, was considered the best of all. there was no-one like him before or afterwards. On the days of grand balls there was no thoroughfare in the lane by his house: carriages parked two deep while two mounted gendarmes maintained order and summoned coachmen. Agapov was a major rival to any of the French: every day nine of the very best ladies' hairdressers went round some fifteen to twenty houses and all his customers came from the highest ranks of the nobility ̶ princes and counts. In the 1860s ladies wore a chignon, an artificial piece of hair and tresses, "donations" made up out of plaited hair.

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Hairdressing began to flourish from the 1880s onwards, when coiffures made from artificial hair, wigs and hair extensions from plaited hair going right round the head came in – all made from the very best real hair. At the time Russian hair, which dyed better, was favoured, and the most expensive hair was French hair. No expense was spared. "Cutters" went round the villages buying up plaits from peasant women in exchange for ribbons, kerchiefs, beads, rings, ear rings and other cheap tat. There were various styles. The most fashionable were "Catherine II", "Louis XV" and "Louis XVI". After the assassination of Alexander II in March 1881 all the nobility of Moscow were in mourning for a year and the hairdressers were not called upon to work for them. The only people who sported aristocratic coiffures were the merchants' wives, who were not in mourning. In that time mourning ruined the hairdressers to the nobility. And from 1885 the French owners of salons, especially Théodore, who had become fashionable and had expanded his business greatly, started looking to acquire Russian hairdressers. Nevertheless, however brilliant the Frenchmen were, the Russian hairdressers Agapov and Andreyev (the latter from 1880 onwards) were the premier exponents of their art. Andreyev even received the title of Professor of Coiffure in Paris, as well as a series of awards and diplomas. The hairdresser Basile, in Newspaper Lane, was also famous. Everyone thought he was a Frenchman; in actual fact he was thoroughgoing Muscovite, Vasily Ivanovich Yakovlev.

Fashionable hairdressers made very good money at the time – they paid no tax. "They shave and cut and their pockets grow fat!" was the current joke about French hairdressers. Artyomov, who opened a large men's salon on Strastnoi Boulevard put an end to this. His poster said: "Shave – ten copecks with eau de cologne and hair oil. Our hairdressers don't take tips." The general public flocked to his establishment, where he also opened a "leech depot". Before then there had only been a single "leech depot" in Moscow, housed for more than fifty years in a little grey building adjacent to the Convent of the Passion. In the windows, to the amusement of passing children, stood large tanks with leeches of various sizes. The leeches were obtained somewhere in the south and acquired by the "depot" for use by hospitals, paramedics and out-of-the-way barber's shops where leeches were still used. The "depot" belonged to Molodtsov, from whose family came the well-known tenor of the 1860s and 1870s P.A. Molodtsov, the best Torop98 of his day. He made a successful debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in this role, but left after an argument with officialdom and transferred to the provinces, where he enjoyed great success. "Petrusha, why did you leave the Imperial theatres and exchange Moscow for Tambov?" his friends enquired. "Because of the leeches!" he used to reply. There were great experts at creating ladies' hairstyles, but the gentlemen's hairdressers were no less expert. Lipuntsov on Great Nikitskaya Street was renowned for his skill in trimming moustaches; after him came Lyagin and then his protégé the youthful Nikolai Andreyevich. Old actors always went to Lyagin and Dalmatov called him "my friend". In 1879 the theatrical coiffeur Shishkov had a pupil, a young boy called Mitya. He was a favourite of the Penza impresario V.P. Dalmatov, who allowed no-one else but him to touch his hair and taught him make-up. On one occasion Dalmatov's benefit performance was Notes of a

98 Torop or Toropka is a character in the opera Askold's Grave (1835) by A.N. Verstovsky (1799-1862).

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Madman; Mitya was instructed to make a bald wig for him. Mitya brought a damp bull's bladder to the performance and began to ram it over Dalmatov's well-groomed coiffure… Hearing the actor's cry other artistes ran to his dressing room. "You're a great artist, Vasily Pantaleimonovich, but allow me to be my own sort of artist!" the lad said in cocky self-justification to the tall Dalmatov. "Just try it on!" Eventually Dalmatov agreed – and a few minutes later the bladder had been fitted and greased here and there; Dalmatov's eyes shone with pleasure: the completely bald skull together with his black eyes and expressive make-up, produced a strong impression.

There is, still working in Moscow, an old man of eighty, clean-shaven and hale. "I've seen everything – misery and glory, but I've always worked and I'm still working, as far as my strength allows," he would say to his clients. "I was born a serf in Kaluga province. When we got our freedom in 1861 I went off to Moscow – there was nothing to eat at home. I fell in with a yardman who came from the same parts as me. He found me a job with Artyomov the barber on Sretenka Street, in the Malyushin house. I slept on the floor, wore a tattered fur coat and had a log for a pillow. In winter it was cold in the barber's shop. People came to us from Sukharevka to have their hair cut. At five in the morning the owner's wife woke us up to go and get water from the fountain in Sukharevka or on Trubnaya Square. In winter I went with a tub on a sledge but in summer with buckets on a yoke… On my feet – the boss's old boots. You'd put on the samovar… clean the boss's boots. To do the washing up you'd get water from the well in the neighbour's yard. The owners got up at seven. They were both evil. He was tubercular. The would beat you with whatever came to hand, for anything and unfairly. They tied you to a bench and birched you. Once, after a birching, I was two months in hospital – my back was suppurating. Once they threw me out of doors in winter and locked the door. I was three months in hospital with a fever… I sat down to work from ten in the morning. I was making wigs by sewing in one hair at a time. In the course of one day I had to practise fitting, do my lesson, and fit thirty hairs into three separate partings. On one occasion, when I went to sleep over my work, I tore the spot where the hairs were to go and I was given a terrible beating. They had an assistant, a drunkard who also beat me. Once I took him to the police station with a note from my boss, and they beat him according to the note. That was the law then – you could be beaten by the police on the strength of a note from your boss. I did nine years with him, got my apprentice's certificate and went to work as a contract worker with Agapov for six years. Then I opened my own salon, then I was made a professor in Paris." This was indeed Ivan Andreyevich Andreyev. In 1888 and 1900 he took part in competitions in Paris for French hairdressers. His hairstyles won him a string of awards and a nomination as a Professor of the Art of Coiffure. In 1910 he published a book with a hundred illustrations which set the standards for hairstyles for the next fifty years.

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20 Two Circles

The Moscow Artistic Circle was founded in the 1860s and ceased to exist at the beginning of the 1880s. The Circle occupied the whole of the huge mezzanine floor of the former Golitsyn palace, which was bought in the 1840s by the merchant Bronnikov. The Circle had a series of halls and lounges forming a circle, with windows onto Great Dmitrovka on one side, onto Theatre Square on the other, while the windows of the white Golitsyn Hall looked out onto Hunters' Row. The opposite part of the building was taken up with a stage and auditorium, which were significantly rebuilt after a fire at the beginning of the twentieth century. The series of luxurious interlinked halls and lounges enclosed several small windowless service rooms, which formed a small island, completely masked by walls, around which was a circular foyer. A favourite spot for the public as they walked through the foyer was always the White Hall with its soft furnishings and cosy corners. During Lent this foyer was always full to overflowing with a particular public – provincial actors who had gathered to conclude contracts with impresarios for the coming season. Over the gleaming parquet floor there would wander top celebrities in elaborate costumes and poorly dressed small-time actors and men and women of the chorus. They mingled with the leading lights of the provincial and metropolitan stage and important impresarios, with gold watch chains and signet rings, who had come to put together companies for towns great and small. There were hirsute tragedians with thunderous voices, besides comic actors who fancied they looked carefree but in reality were only comic in their own eyes, playing such parts as Arkashka Shchastlivtsev in The Forest,99 wearing their auntie's fur jacket and in boots without soles that had been worn out walking from "Vologda to Kerch and from Kerch to Vologda".100 All these people were noisy, booming, kissing each other, embracing, arguing and wailing. The great did not lord it too much; the lesser beings did not grovel. Here everyone felt at ease with one another: Hamlet with the gravedigger, Piquillo with Achilles,101 Maria Stuart102 with the locksmith's wife Poshlyopkina.103 They reminisced about past seasons in Pinsk, Minsk, Khvalynsk and Irkutsk. All the actors and actresses had free entry to the Circle. For them the Circle was essential as it was the only place for meetings with impresarios. Year in, year out, the acting profession installed itself in its favourite hotels and furnished rooms, where the owners, forewarned by letter, cleared spaces for them, although at that time that wasn't necessary; there was always a sufficiency of spare rooms, especially in such large hotels as "Chelyshi". Now on the site of the Chelyshi building looms the enormous Metropole Hotel, with its multi-coloured frescoes and Vrubel's "Princess daydream". Vrubel, together with the architect Shekhtel, helped the builder of the Metropole, S. I. Mamontov. But, at the end of the nineteenth century there stood here the old-fashioned Chelyshev building which had a large number of rooms at various prices which, during Lent, would be filled by actors gathering in Moscow. In the "Chelyshi" there stayed both celebrities, who occupied the rooms on the mezzanine, which had huge windows, carpets and heavy curtains, while lesser brethren had rooms on the upper floors, with a separate entrance from the square and dark, narrow, twisty corridors impregnated with the smell of paraffin and cooking.

99The stage directions for Act 2 indicate that he wears a jacket that is both small and tight. 100 From Act 2 Scene 1 of The Forest. 101 Characters from operetta's by Jacques Offenbach (1819-80), respectively La Perichole (1868) and La Belle Hélène (1864). 102 Title role of Schiller's play (1800). 103 Minor character in Gogol's comedy The Government Inspector (1836). 136

In the second half of Lent many transferred from the mezzanine to the upper floors – it was cheaper. The actors could find another refuge in the rooms that Golyashkin rented out and, after that, with Faltsveyn on the corner of Tverskaya Street and Newspaper Lane. Not far from them along Newspaper Lane and Dolgorukov Lane were rooms to let in the Prince and Caucasus buildings. Nowadays those buildings no longer exist; the Central Telegraph Office stands in their place. Other rooms that were equally sought after were the Chernyshi block in the Olsufyev building facing Bryusovsky Lane. There were also theatrical lodgings on Great Dmitrovka and on Petrovka; the ones next to the Kitaisky Baths and on Neglinny Passage were rather grubby, but the cheapest furnished rooms were in the Semyonovka building on Sretensky Boulevard, where, in 1896 they built the huge Rossiya Insurance building.104 They allowed residents to have dogs in the Semyonovka building. For the most part it was elderly female character actors who came here from the provinces for Lent. From the residents of "Chelyshi" to those of Semyonovka, the actors enjoyed themselves from the beginning of Lent. They had vodka, beer, samovars and there was much noisy chatter… From the beginning of the fourth week of Lent things began to quieten down. The rooms gradually emptied: some went off to the provinces, having found work there, others moved in with a friend. The paraffin stoves began to be lit: those who had previously dined in the restaurant, especially those with families, began to prepare food in their rooms. More than once a paraffin stove determined someone's fate. Let's say actress A. had a paraffin stove. Actor B., from the next-door room, had spent all his money by dining in the restaurant. A chance conversation in the corridor, permission to cook a bit of meat on the stove… Once, then a second time… "I too intend to buy a stove! They're very convenient!" says actor B. "But why bother, when I've got one!" replies actress A. Several days pass. "Well, what's the point of paying for a room. Move your stove to my place. My room's bigger!" And a happy marriage took root in "economic" soil. Actors could also meet impresarios in theatrical restaurants: the "Shcherbaki", on the corner of Kuznetsky Lane and Petrovka, the Livorno on Kuznetsky Lane and Welde's, behind the Bolshoi Theatre. For actresses, however, there was no other place but the Circle. Here they would meet impresarios, with theatre friends and could obtain a free pass and meet playwrights face to face: Ostrovsky, Chayev, Potekhin, Yuryev, and also many other writers whom they only knew from their works; they could also meet famous Moscow actors: Samarin, Shumsky, Sadovsky, Lensky, Muzil, Gorbunov, Kireyev. Provincial actors had the possibility of making their debut in plays staged by the Circle – the sole place where theatre was permitted during Lent. The Circle cunningly circumvented the law which forbade performances during Lent, on the eve of religious festivals and on Saturdays. The Circle staged – with the permission of the Governor General Prince Dolgorukov, who regarded himself as an appanage prince, not subject to Petersburg – put on performances both during Lent and on Saturdays but only by having on their posters "Scenes from the tragedy Macbeth", "Scenes from the comedy The Government Inspector or "Scenes from the operetta La Belle Hélène", although these pieces were staged in their entirety.

104 Subsequently the HQ of the secret police.

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The Literary and Artistic Circle was, quite by chance, founded in the German restaurant the Alpine Rose on Sofiika Street. Entrance to the restaurant was restricted: a carpeted staircase, decorated with tropical plants and with doormen at its foot. It was mainly Moscow Germans who came here from their offices to have lunch. After their shows actors from the Bolshoi and Maly theatres would gather here and settle in two small rooms. In one of them the singer A.I. Bartsal presided and, in the other, the writer and theatre historian V. A. Mikhailovsky ̶ both former members of the defunct Artistic Circle. By way of commemorating this institution which unified the artistic world Mikhailovsky suggested arranging artistic suppers from time to time; to get the ball rolling he proposed meeting the following Saturday at the Grand Moscow Hotel. The idea was taken upon unanimously and some two dozen actors congregated with their families.They passed the time cheerfully, singing and dancing to the accompaniment of a grand piano. They signed up there and then for the following evening, and there were so many takers that they had to hire a large hall in the same hotel… At this soirée was the flower of the Bolshoi and Maly Theatres. writers and musicians. M. N. Yermolova read, Khokhlov sang and the cellist Brandukov played. And, in the spring of 1898 an inaugural meeting was held in the Hermitage restaurant, a constitution was devised and, in 1899, the centenary of Pushkin's birth, the Literary and Artistic Circle opened its doors in the house of Countess Ignatyeva on Vozdvizhenka. Luxurious drawing rooms, soft furnishings, separate occasional tables, corners with tricuspid mirrors, fireplaces, carpets, a concert grand… Comfortable, intimate. The intimacy of the Circle was very attractive. People came here to relax, to gain strength and inspiration, to exchange impressions and relive happy moments by listening to, and contemplating, talents in this milieu, so unlike that of a Club. Here no participant knew until a minute before he performed. Under the influence of the general mood, electrified by the previous performer, one of those present would get up and read either a monologue or some verse from their table and, if he were a singer or a musician, would approach the piano. The young, modest, shy Chaliapin would make his way carefully between the tables and his velvety bass would resound:

People die for metal105

After Chaliapin, people were captivated by the delicate tenor voice of Sobinov. Then there followed other great names of that day: Skryabin, Igumnov, Koreshchenko:

Koreshchenko's music caused puppy dogs At large outside to pop their clogs.

That was someone's witticism but it did not stop any of us from delighting in the talent of the young pianist and composer. More and more people came pouring in to become members of the Club. It was the only one that also admitted women members. The great rooms in Ignatyeva's house were beginning to feel quite crowded from the influx of new members and their guests. They sought out fresh premises on Myasnitskaya, a fine house on the corner of Furkasovsky Lane. Back in the time of Peter the Great it had belonged to Kasimovsky Tsarevich then to Dolgorukov, who died in 1734 in exile in Beryozovo. After him it went to Chertkov, who donated his famous library to the town. Finally the merchant's wife Obidina bought the house from Prince Gagarin, the Chertkovs' heir, and gave it over to the Club. The premises were expensive and the building cost a great deal to keep up. However, membership of the Club was rising not daily but by the hour. For individuals who wanted full

105 Mephistopheles' aria from Act 1 Scene 3 of Gounod's opera Faust (1859). 138 membership a new term was invented "social activist". That was very honourable, very fashionable and sometimes it did away with all other considerations. On the voting form one might read: "so-and-so – social activist "… That person was certain to be elected. People could be elected as corresponding members without any period of probation. Nevertheless membership fees were not enough. The Club was forced to organize a game of "chemmy". That was illegal . Members of the Hunters' Club, elected in addition to membership of the Circle, managed to organize a game for high stakes and the penalties exacted from the chemmy players were as follows: at 2 a.m. ̶ 30 copecks, at 2.30 ̶ 90 copecks, i.e. twice the amount plus the original penalty; from 3 o'clock ̶ 2 roubles 10 copecks; from 3.30 ̶ 4 roubles 50 copecks; from 4 a.m. ̶ 9 roubles 30 copecks and from 5 in the morning ̶ 18 roubles 60 copecks, until the Club finally closed at 6 a.m. and those playing had to leave the premises. But quite often the game would go on into the afternoon and then on into in the evening… Gambling was forbidden.The police were watching the Club, and on some occasions charges were brought and the "chemmy" was closed down. Then people started agitating to get permission for gambling and they even published articles defending gambling in a club, lachrymose letters were passed to the Governor General, in which it was shown that there was no harm in gambling, and that, indeed, it was almost a blessing. Then they settled down to gamble again until another charge was lodged. The premises were overcrowded and also the card playing rooms were too open to view. It was at that time that Yeliseyev in his "palace of Bacchus" fitted out a sumptuous suite with stucco ceilings and handed it over to the Circle. It contained both comfortable, secret rooms for chemmy and also had large rooms for meetings of the Executive Council and for concerts or social evenings. The Circle had become the most fashionable club for the bourgeoisie and Yeliseyev's premises began to feel too small again. A plan was devised under which they fitted out an old- fashioned town house on Great Dmitrovka Street. On the mezzanine floor there was a huge hall with windows on both sides and this was used for meetings, anniversary celebrations, shows, formal dinner parties, supper parties and Tuesday conversazioni. When this room became free about two o'clock in the morning, the chairs in front of the stage were taken away and about ten little tables for chemmy were rolled in and gaming started up openly all around, transferred from the various dining rooms, drawing rooms and special card rooms. When the main room was full, gambling continued in various other parts of the building. Taking the whole three floors, you could hardly count how many rooms there were! There was the extra dining room, a marble dining room, a dining room with mirrors, a big hall on the upper floor, the upstairs drawing room, the lower dining room, the reading room, the library – and, be it noted, a very fine one— and the portrait gallery for the directors. Downstairs was the billiard room and then, when they felt constricted even in this building, they fitted out a separate card room ("for games of chance") in the left-hand wing. In a little shady garden there was a summer area for dining. There was a huge chestnut tree growing there, and flower beds, among which electric lights showed fanciful little arbours for those who were dining in convivial company. Along the whole length of the garden stretched a wide terrace built up against the Club building like a huge balcony. Each set of diners had their own favourite table here. Hardly anywhere in the capital could you find such a quiet, snug spot in the fresh air among the scented green of flowers, even though occasionally the silence was broken by noisy neighbours, these being the yard and the buildings of the police station on Tverskaya Street, which had only a low wall separating it from the garden. The fire tower rose up higher than the ancient chestnut tree. It was from the tower that the watchman would ring the alarm to warn of a fire. Then there would follow the noise and rumbling of the fire brigade setting out… More often one could hear the coarse swearing of the drunks who had been brought into the lock-up, and sometimes the wailing and wild shouts of

139 the most stubborn troublemakers, as they tried to beat off the policemen's attempts to interfere with their freedom… Sometimes the fragrance of the flowers was overcome by the smell that arose from the heaps of manure by the stables, the scent of the firemen's clothing which had been hung out to dry and also from the ever open windows of the morgue which so seldom lacked "unidentified bodies ". These were victims of crime that had been picked up off the streets pending post mortem examination in the medical clinic. The building of the morgue stood up against the garden wall… But everyone had become so well accustomed to it that no one paid any attention. Once, at the "social activists'" table, one of them, while selecting from the wine list, was brought up short by a portrait of Pushkin, which was printed on it, and remarked indignantly: "What's this got to do with Pushkin? This is blasphemy." "Everything's got to do with Pushkin. He was a great prophet. Remember his words, which apply to you, to me and to many of us sitting here. Did he not say about us:

And on the ruins of despotism We all shall find our names inscribed."106

A jolly neighbour added: "No matter whether they are going to write your names or not, here is one quite true thing that Pushkin did say:

And at the entrance to the grave May youth and life in play combine."107

Then with one hand he pointed to the morgue and with the other pointed to the table beside him where the card players were seated and arguing noisily. This conversation took place in August 1917, by which time clubs such as this were really "at the entrance to the grave." In a month's time the Circle was closed forever. When the new premises for gambling relinquished the great hall that had windows on both sides, on free evenings they began to bring in meals from the restaurant upstairs.They became used to eating in groups and each group had its own table. The long table that could be laid for twenty persons was a particular honour. It was called the "beer table", since beer was the members' favourite drink and a keg of beer was laid on that table. Apart from that, this table had two other names: the "professors' table" or the "directors' table". Regulars at the table came in from ten o'clock on and they would sit down to have a snack. Some of them stayed on for supper, others played vint or preference for modest stakes, while still others lost their money at chemmy, and the fines from that helped to cover some of the huge expenses of the Club. In 1905, when the temperature of revolution was rising rapidly, this was more noticeable in the Circle than anywhere else. People were now beginning to say from public platforms what they had remained silent about previously and a certain freedom of word and deed was unleashed. Everything was permitted or, it might be better to say, nothing was forbidden. As reaction set in, the public stage was silent but there was more debauchery. The government feared only revolutionaries and gave encouragement to everything apart from them,

106 From A.S. Pushkin's "To Chaadayev" (1818). 107 From A.S. Pushkin's "If I should roam down noisy streets" (1829). 140 such as card sharps, private clubs, wild behaviour, masked balls, debauched literature, ̶ so long as there was no whiff of politics about it. They allowed the most extreme games of chance in all the old clubs too. The English Club was the only one that stood out on its own and even there games of chance flourished as they had before. The authorities did not dare to show their nose there, nor did any ladies. In the Merchants' Club they dined off sizeable sturgeon. In the Hunters' Club ladies dressed up to the nines ate dainty delicacies. They might conduct intrigues at masked balls, but they were not allowed into the rooms where card games were played. In the German Club at masked balls "in the dowdy luxury of their array",108 or in their tattered dominoes, they could lure drunken guests in from the boulevard whereupon the card sharps took money off them in the gambling rooms. A huge hall with windows on each side. About ten round tables with ten or twelve players at each and they are surrounded by a ring of people standing and placing bets against the bank. There is a most assorted collection of individuals. Round the "rouble" tables there are noisy gatherings and arguments. "You have taken a rouble off me." "No, you nicked it from me." The man on duty is summoned… "Who's been stealing? Did they steal the money from you or was it you who stole it?" Seated at the "golden" tables, where the minimum stake is five roubles, there is a more "serious" public…Where there a "'pool" with banknotes at twenty-five roubles there is a more "respectable" public. Ladies are wearing diamonds… They dip into their little golden handbags and pull out bundles of banknotes… Their partners are sitting beside them, taking a passing interest in their game or waiting impatiently for their lady to lose, so that they can take her out of the Club… Many such ladies wearing diamonds appeared in the Club after the war with Japan. People called them "quartermasters' ladies". They threw away money; one blonde was a particularly big player; everyone called her the "countess". She was awash with diamonds. Somehow she quickly went downhill. First the diamonds faded away, then she herself disappeared. She was later seen on the pavement near the Sandunovsky Baths. The biggest gambling, the "hundred rouble table", where the minimum stake was a hundred roubles, took place in one of the upstairs or downstairs rooms. Sometimes, apart from chemin de fer at one hundred roubles, they also played baccarat in that room. On one occasion baccarat stakes went up to unprecedented levels. Individuals were staking five or ten thousand roubles. The game was being run by two fine-looking oriental men with quite fierce faces, wearing long Circassian coats of expensive cloth and gold belts with daggers that sparkled with large precious stones. No one knew who had introduced them in the first instance, but on their first appearance they so impressed everyone with their daring play that over the following days everyone was glad to sign in these brothers, the two Princes Shakhov. Quite willingly they held the bank at baccarat, putting into its reserve fund packs of newly printed bank notes worth tens of thousands of roubles. Shady characters buzzed around them. Every day all the gamblers waited impatiently for the princes to arrive. When they weren't there, the game would just not get going. As soon as they appeared, the table came to life They came in every day for about a week and gambled away more than a hundred thousand "without batting an eyelid" as people say. Then suddenly one evening they failed to appear (by that time it had already been decided to admit them as "corresponding members" of the Circle).

108 From N.A. Nekrasov's "Dowdy women and fashionable women" (1860).

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"Where are the Asians?" the players asked anxiously. "It's no use your waiting for them. You won't be seeing them again," announced a reporter from one of the newspapers who had come into the room. "???" There was an astonished silence. "Today they told our editor's office that they have been arrested. I went in to check up on the news; both these so called princes are not princes at all. They have turned out to be the leaders of a gang of bandits and the money they lost they had brought from their last robbery in Turkestan. They robbed the mail; a gang of them killed the escort ̶ with their own hands they stabbed the postal staff, took some valuables and three hundred thousand new rouble notes that were being sent in to the Treasury. They have both been sent to Tashkent, where the gallows awaits them.

People will say: "Why does the author of this book reveal only the bad side of the clubs and not describe their useful social and educational activity?" And the author will reply boldly: "Because our readership is more interested in that side of life which, even at the time when the clubs existed, was shrouded in secrecy which concealed the sources of the income on which the "social activity" of these clubs was based. On this so much was written then and, in all probability, will be written in the memoirs of contemporaries who only knew the up side: executive gatherings attended by celebrities, symphonic evenings, literary conversazioni, commemorative jubilees for big-name writers and painters who will be written about in time to come… In connection with them the Literary and Artistic Circle will also be mentioned, with its more than 700 members and 54875 visitors a year. There will also be found, in somebody's possession, issues of the journal Circle News and thick reports, printed on vellum with a portrait of Pushkin. In these reports, alas, there is not a word about the gamblers, how they were and how they lived, at the expense of whose risk-taking the Club existed and feasted.

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21 The Hunters' Club

The Malkiel House, where the Brenko Theatre was located, was taken over by the millionaire Spiridonov who gave it over to the Hunters' Club. The Club started its life in the basement tavern on Neglinny Passage alongside Trubnaya Square, where the dog market was held on Sunday mornings and birds were traded. Hence its name – the Dog Market Tavern. Hunters and bird fanciers filled the square and there were baskets with hens, doves, turkeys and geese. Cages hanging from frames contained every imaginable type of song birds. Also on sale were bird food, fishing gear, aquaria with cheap goldfish and every imaginable kind of dove. A large corner was taken up by the dog market. Every conceivable breed of dog was for sale: borzois, wavy-haired borzois, short-haired sight hounds and hunting dogs of all sorts, mastiffs and bulldogs; the salesmen also had puppies, every sort of shaggy or smooth-haired foxhounds tucked into their coats. There were also dog thieves working in the market. And every breed of dogs had its own followers. Round the shaggy lapdogs and the smooth-coated greyhounds that seemed to be quivering like aspen, dandies and ladies men bustled about, looking for a good present to give to the mistress of their heart. After the setters, pointers, and skewbald hunting dogs came the respectable members of rich clubs, those who hunted with their guns. Alongside the mongrels and all sorts of mixed race dogs on pieces of string with no collars came market gardeners and suburban householders who were looking for a guard on a chain. Ragged men who had just caught a dog were dragging it along to the market. Among them there were also particular specialists. Thus, for some two years in succession, every Sunday a rough looking boy led in on a piece of rope a handsome and affectionate reddish-brown dog called Caesar, a mongrel that had been living in the cabbies' tavern on Stoleshnikov Lane; the lad was trying to sell him. Next day the dog had chewed through his piece of rope, had gone home and was waiting for the following Sunday. It might happen that merchants could recognize that dog but how could they prove it? So Caesar was sold off once again. Those who favoured borzois formed quite a distinctive group as they gathered round their packs of wavy-haired borzois, short-haired sight-hounds; whippers-in wearing chekmen coats and poddyovka jackets with embossed belts, hunting horns slung over their shoulders, with whips and caps set at a jaunty tilt. Just glancing at those men, one could realize that any one of them would have no trouble stopping a horse at full gallop or leaping straight from the saddle onto a fully grown wolf which had been stopped by a dog in full flight, crushing it beneath all the weight of his body, grasping its ears in an iron grip, pressing it to the ground, holding it there until it is trussed up. They examine the dogs and argue amongst themselves.Their talk would not be understood by the uninitiated. Strange words rain down: Pazonki,109 black meats,110 vyzhlets,111 pereyarok,112 pincers, dewclaw,113 otryzh114. Here, it seems, is a word we know, "pincers", but that apparently is what they call the nose of a borzoi. In the market you could also see old men with grey whiskers, wearing expensive overcoats which they had left open and under which one could glimpse a silver belt over a chekmen coat. These were the men who hunted with borzois, Muscovites who lived in the capital in winter and on their estates in summer. There were fewer of them every year. Hunting with

109 hind legs 110 strong, narrowish hindquarters. 111 a male hunting dog. 112 a wolf aged between one and two; a whelp. 113 a dog with an extra (fifth) claw, usually on the hind legs. 114 a snarl which does not lead to a bite. 143 dogs had flourished when serfdom was the law but now it was dying out. A few places still kept kennels but there were fewer and fewer of them. In the wintertime the hunters would come into Moscow from all sides to see the dogs on show and would certainly go to Trubnaya Square. It was there that people from the provinces met up with the Muscovites. From the market they used to go to the Hermitage to have their evening meal and then, to finish the day, or more correctly the night, at the Yar, listening to gypsy choirs, following the example of their fathers. Those Muscovites who went to hunt with guns, went off in a crowded company to the Dog Market tavern, as all the hunters called it, although officially it operated under the name of its proprietor. The Dog Market tavern was not actually on the Square but close to it, on Neglinny Passage, and that counted as being on Trubnaya Square. It was a rather dirty basement tavern which contained a so-called "clean room" and that was where the hunters met every Sunday. On that day each of them could find his own table set aside for him. Hunters with dogs or with guns examined carefully the bones of each dog worthy of their scrutiny. Then they would go down into the basement and over a shot of vodka they would start to talk about hunting. From time to time dog dealers would come in with a puppy under their coat or in a basket (dealers with fully grown dogs were not allowed in the tavern). Then they would all start to look over the dogs and sometimes to buy one or two. The one-eyed dog dealer Alexander Ignatyev, well known for stealing dogs, would offer a yellow piebald pointer and say most convincingly: "He is from Lanskoi himself, on Tverskoi Boulevard. They tipped me off about him yesterday." He would raise up the puppy's head by the scruff of its neck. "Last year his mother got a gold medal at the exhibition in the Manège. Diana. Do you remember?" General Alexander Mikhailovich Lomovsky was the most highly regarded person among the hunters in Moscow. He dug his finger into the puppy's tail and formed his hand into a hook. "That's nothing, Alexander Mikhailovich. He's got a real brush of a tail, such as you'll rarely find." Lomovsky again silently made a hook with his hand "It can't really mean anything serious… After all his mother, Diana, was truly the sister of …" "To put it in a nutshell she was really the sister of that dog that you probably know." This remark came from L.P. Sabaneyev, editor of the journal Nature and Hunting, and he turned to face the man who was trying to sell the puppy: "Get away with you, Sashka, don't overstay your welcome. You've found the wrong person to try your blarney on! If you're taking a dog to Alexander Mikhailovich, at least remember about its tail, Do you understand, you rascal? You'll have to remember that." The salesman goes off in some confusion, saying: "Well, you could slay me… I didn't see anything wrong there myself! If Alexander Mikhailovich hadn't pointed out the little wiggle in the dog's tail… So how could that be? After all he's from Diana… a blood brother of that dog." The third person at that conversation was Nikolai Mikhailovich Levachov, the city engineer, well known as the man who had managed to rebuild the subterranean Negklinka River. While doing that he had paid no attention to anything ̶ he just made up his eye-watering "Levachov salad" to have with his vodka. It was the most serious Moscow hunters who came to that table. They would sit themselves down and sometimes their talk went on well into the night. It was on one such Sunday that they came to talk about the necessity of forming a Hunters' Club. The next day Sabaneyev had written out the statutes, according to which influential people, headed by Lomovsky, were enrolled and a month later these statutes were ratified by the Minister.

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Almost all the Moscow hunters, people of means, became members of that Club and it soon became quite fashionable. It started with hunters' colloquia, with the setting up of exhibitions, hunters' dinners, family evenings, and, on Saturday evenings, supper parties at which ladies were present and which were accompanied by choirs, either Russian or gypsy. But they soon overdid it. Expenditure exceeded income. A billiard room and some modest card playing for money was insufficient. They were not making a copeck from fines, which should have been the main source of funds for the Club. For that they needed to have games of chance. They were saved by M.L. Lazarev, former Secretary of the Racing Club and a passionate gambler. He got to grips with the problem immediately and in the first month the Hunters' Club funds started to swell. Nonetheless the main source of its riches was derived from Tverskaya Street in the building that had once held Brenko's Pushkin Theatre. Then the gambling got under way. On the second floor of that building, above the ballroom and dining room, there was a hidden room. It would take someone who really knew their way about to get there, through all the little staircases and complicated corridors. The only people admitted there were members of the Club prepared to play for high stakes. Play did not start till after midnight and by five a.m. the fine amounted to thirty-eight roubles. Play commenced at that late hour so that it was closer to the time for fines and there would be less idle chatter and fewer people coming in who were just curious and playing for small stakes. But such a fine was chicken feed for serious gamblers. One of these rooms contained four round tables, each seating up to twelve individuals. There were "rouble" tables and "gold" tables and next to them, in the same room, a long table covered in green baize for baccarat and two "hundred rouble" tables for chemmy, where no stake was accepted of less than one hundred roubles. Play started there not earlier than two a.m. and there had been cases when the gamblers sat on in that room right through until seven p.m., as the Club was opening for the next night's play. After they had had a rest on one of the sofas, they were again ready to start another game. The Club reached its full flowering in the house of Count Sheremetyev on Vozdvizhėnka Street that for a long time housed the City Council. The Council moved to a new building on Voskresenskaya Square and Sheremetyev's former house was taken over by the Russian Hunters' Club, which refurbished as luxury premises Sheremetyev's old rooms that had been ruined by conversion to offices. Then they started having masked balls, at which prizes were given, dinners, exhibitions and Saturday suppers which were attended by middle-class men and women who wanted to live life to the full. No other Club could possibly compete with the Russian Hunters' Club in its new premises… Later on it found a worthy rival in the Circle.

Late in the evening some fifteen people were sitting and standing at a long table, playing baccarat. Halfway down the table the bank was in the hands of an elegant young man with brown hair. His manicured hand had no rings and it trembled ever so slightly as he slid a smooth card across the green baize table cloth. From time to time he would take out a cigarette, being in no hurry to light it as he was trying to seem calm. Every so often he blinked his eyes in an odd way. But his fine face was set like a mask. In front of him there were bundles of hundred-rouble notes amounting to some five thousand, and facing him across the table his assistant had piles of smaller denomination notes and also a heap of hundreds. This assistant, prematurely bald, was a rather colourless young man in a dinner jacket, the unsuccessful offspring of a merchant family that had once been prosperous. He was acting as croupier, paying out when the bank lost and taking in its winnings. Each time it won, he sorted the notes out precisely, separating each denomination. Round the table were sitting the usual gamblers, baccarat enthusiasts. There was one with dark brown hair and the finest beard in the

145 whole of Moscow, which was much admired by the ladies and cost a high price to the wives of Moscow merchants. In front of him was a pile of miscellaneous hundred-rouble notes weighed down by a large golden snuffbox with a great shining Gallic letter N covering its whole lid. He had paid ridiculous sums of money to buy this snuffbox in Paris, because it had once belonged to the Emperor Napoleon. According to its owner, it was the cause of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, because as he was sniffing snuff he had failed to hear his aide-de-camp's message and sent his cavalry over rough ground, while the infantry were exposed on the plain. "A pinch of snuff turned the world upside down!" That was how he would end his story and he used to take out of his wallet the official document to prove to his friends that this snuffbox really did belong to Napoleon. He used to throw out bundles of money and took in his winnings quite calmly, paying no heed to his losses. Clearly all this bored him or his thoughts were far away. Perhaps he was remembering the beardless lad who chalked up the score at billiards, or maybe he foresaw the hungry days to come on the Riviera and in Monaco. Alongside him a svelte youngster, a rich man from the Volga, was just as calm as he lost and won enormous sums, smiling all over his round, ruddy face and twirling his young whiskers. He played like a child captivated by a toy that holds all his attention at that particular moment, rejoiced and did not think of anything in particular. Beside him there was a tall young man with a long face and the manners of an Englishman. He was like a statue. Not a single muscle of his face moved. It showed the calm concentration of a man who was taking on a serious task. Only his hands betrayed him. Any experienced eye could see that he was suffering a tragedy and was terrified of losing. He could keep his face under control but his hands showed his distress… He could not keep them from trembling… At the far end of the table is a smooth "racing gent", his thinning hair parted in the middle, English-fashion, a lover of "cards, women and horses" and a man completely taken up with the game. He is taking stock, watching every card, even seems to be reading the pattern on the back of each card as it is lying in the dealing box under the banker's hand and he puts up a stake, usually small money, then suddenly a large amount ̶ and almost always wins. The banker blinks and nervously shuffles the pack of cards, glimpsing the bottom card. He is waiting until he reaches the ace of diamonds. He will not deal the cards until he sees it. This millionaire is the most honest of all the gamblers, but he is tense and superstitious. His tension is expressed in the way he blinks and sometimes rolls his neck round ̶ that is a sign of extreme tension.The Club moved to the Sheremetyev house after the fire in the Spiridonov house. That happened late one night after people had left the lower floors and it was only upstairs that about ten big gamblers were playing chemin de fer in the secret room. No noise came up here from the lower floor and they could not hear the alarm through the closed shutters. As soon as there was any smoke the Club servants left the building. The only two to run to the gamblers upstairs were one young card player and after him a lackey, both with terrified faces… They shouted: "Fire!", half opened the doors and disappeared. But no one paid any attention to them. Those who stayed to play late at night had as always drunk more than was good for them. They were playing for really heavy stakes. The bank was held by Alexander Stepanovich Sarkizov (Sarkusha), a rich man and a skilled player, cool and calculating. He was winning card after card and was raking in gold and banknotes. "There's a smell of smoke. Do you smell it?" Suddenly someone who dealt in tobacco raised his face, sniffed the air, blinking his eyes out of habit. "We're getting the smell of your cigarettes," Sarkusha quipped and opened with a nine. Suddenly they heard the clatter of footsteps coming along the corridor. The porter and a fireman burst in through the door along with a cloud of smoke. "Scram you devils! You'll burn to death!" "The partition in the corridor is alight," shouted the porter.

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Some of them jumped up in fright, not understanding anything, others went on playing. Sarkusha had again played a nine and sweeping in his winnings he shouted at the fireman: "Vot iss it to you? Let us play out this hand."115 "Your coats will get burnt!" shouted the porter trying to defend himself. Sarkusha was stuffing money into his pockets. He picked up the tray of cards from the table and laughed as he threw them into the corner. The gamblers made their way with difficulty through thick smoke to the main staircase, which had not yet caught fire and went downstairs to the cloakroom where the porters were waiting anxiously for them. Those who had been through that fateful evening loved to tell all about it but Sarkusha was upset: "Vot a hand I had! They hef stopped me playing it out." A stage was rigged up in the main room of the former Sheremetyev Palace on Vozdvizhenka Street and that room was used by the Club to give masked balls, great dinners, Saturday supper parties for families with choirs of women singing, and the stage saw performances in which acted the amateurs who would later be known as the actors of the Moscow Arts Theatre. They put on shows with their audience, drawn entirely from members of the Club, who preferred fancy dress and jolly supper parties. A special favourite was The Sunken Bell,116 which featured a particularly shaggy wood demon that leapt over rocks and ruts and a terrifying water spirit in the shape of a gigantic frog that washed himself in the stream and shouted "Bre-ke-ke- keks!" The troupe of actors were experienced and played a carefully chosen repertoire. Much has been written about all this, just as the newspapers used to describe fancy dress balls and there were even announcements about the valuable prizes awarded for the best costumes. One of the best prizes went to a handsome Muscovite, who appeared in tails and a top hat, with a bright blue beard divided in two à la Skobelev. That attire stood out on its own among other merchant costumes which were decorated with precious stones, and "Prince Raoul bluebeard"117 got a golden cigar case worth five hundred roubles.

115 Sarkizov is a Russified Armenian and speaks accented Russian. 116 A play by Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), Die versunkene Glocke (1896). 117 A character in the opera Raoul Barbe-Bleue (1789) by André Grétry (1741-1813). 147

22 Lions on the Gates

As the oldest club in Moscow, the English Club still recalls the days when "the fire of Moscow roared and crackled" 118 and on burning Tverskaya Street, along which the remnants of Napoleon's army were approaching the gate of the city, one magnificent palace survived. The palace stood in an ancient park which occupied several acres between Tverskaya Street and the Goat Marsh. The park was bounded by three deep ponds, memory of which has survived only in the street name: Three Ponds Lane. The palace in question had been built in the second half of the eighteenth century by the poet M.M. Kheraskov; in the time of Catherine the Great this palace had been used for secret sessions of the first Moscow Masons' Lodge: Kheraskov, Cherkassky, Turgenev, N.M. Karamzin, Yengalychev, Kutuzov and "brother Kinovion" ̶ the Rosicrucian name of N. I. Novikov. In 1792 Novikov, his circle and many masons were arrested. After 1812 Kheraskov's palace passed into the hands of Count Razumovsky and he added two wings at the sides, which greatly enhanced that fine building on Tverskaya Street. The old palace remained completely intact, including the sumptuous rooms where the flower of the most enlightened people used to meet among the marble columns; that was where the English Club settled in 1831. In War and Peace Lev Tolstoi describes the dinner that the English Club gave in honour of Prince Bagration when he came to Moscow: "Most of those who took part were old and highly honoured men with broad self-confident faces, thick fingers, self-assured tones in their speech and in their movements and voices."119 So it was those people who had moved across to Tverskaya Street and on the gates their contemporaries still slumber ̶ the stone lions with their great pendulous jaws gaping open, as though they were petrified magnates digesting a Lucullian meal. They stare blankly at the noisy, jolly crowds of tourists streaming into the Museum of the Revolution and at the cars speeding along the street... They stare as blankly as they stared a hundred years ago at the gold coat of arms of the Razumovskys, the gilded uniforms of Club members on special nights and the troikas of drunken revellers speeding by to go to the gypsies. They used to stare just as blankly on winter nights at the coachmen in the spacious yard of the Club warming themselves round their fires. The coachmen were dressed in velvet caps, sewn round with lace and in flounces of expensive cloth. They did not know where they might fetch up tomorrow: would they be going home or off to a new master? Will their new master send them off to a "distant village or Saratov"120 and scatter their family round other estates? The fate of serfs was decided every night in the "hellfire room" of the Club where they were playing a game of chance and one card or one point might decide what happened to properties or to people… Sometimes it might even be decided by the skill of the banker if his hands moved fast enough to "offset the mistakes of fortune" as Fyodor Tolstoi the "American" put it, who spent so much time in the "hellfire room". He was the man about whom Griboyedov wrote:

Nocturnal bandit, duellist He, to Kamchatka sent, returned an Aleut A man who'll swindle you and twist.121

118 A line from a popular folk song. 119 From Book 2, Part 1, Chapter 3. 120 A slightly truncated quotation from Act 4 Scene 14 of Griboyedov’s play Woe from Wit (1824). 121 Woe from Wit Act 4 Scene 4. 148

Evidently the "American" even took pride in this and, over one of the Club dinners, he told Konstantin Aksakov that these lines had been written about him. There's a lot of him in Zagoretsky.122 Pushkin immortalized the "American" in the character of Zaretsky, calling him "The leader of a gambling gang".123 This was the Club the Famusovs, Skalozubovs, Zagoretskys, Repetilovs, Tugoukhovskys and the Chatskys.124 Of course neither Pushkin nor Griboyedov were describing actual individuals; in creating a fictional image they took raw material from daily life. In Woe from Wit Griboyedov reflected the Moscow of his time in several of his characters and life in the English Club. Herzen, in his memoirs My Past and Thoughts, wrote that the English Club was not in the slightest bit English.125 In that Club people like Sobakevich were shouting against freeing the serfs and those like Nozdryov126 were raising a great clamour for the natural and unshakeable rights of the nobles… A row of later shops hid this most beautiful building on Tverskaya Street. The October Revolution removed these later additions to the building, made in the first ten years of the twentieth century and – before our eyes was that pale red palace with its graceful white columns and the carved lions. On its façade the white coat of arms of the Republic has replaced the gilded arms of the Razumovskys. In this palace ̶ now the Museum of the Revolution ̶ everyone can now follow through the victorious progress of the Russian Revolution from the Decembrists to Lenin. And, as an introduction to the history of the Revolution, as a blood-soaked reflection of the dawn gleaming from the depths of the menacing centuries, visitors to the Museum encounter at the entrance the figures of Stenka Razin and his followers, statues made by the sculptor Konyonkov. And just above them a painting by the artist Gorelov.

The ships attacked along the Don, The blue expanse of water churning – And Razin leads his warriors bold, Their thoughts to spoils of warfare turning.

This is Stenka's first sortie on to "Mother River" Volga. And now here is his death: a huge painting by Pchelin: The execution of Stenka Razin, depicting Moscow, the Square filled with people, boyars, streltsy… and the executioner. And Stenka himself on the scaffold, with his hand raised in threat. He is taking leave of his rebellious life and foretells dark days to come:

You think the fall of this brave head Will mean the end of everything – From every drop of scarlet blood A valiant fighting man will spring.127

You go up one flight of stairs and there's the door into the Museum, into the first room, which was formerly the reception room. Now it is named "The Pugachev Era". This is a phrase first mentioned in print by Pushkin.Then further beyond that room we come into the Museum itself with a large bust of the first Russian revolutionary, Radishchev.

122 A character in Woe from Wit. 123 From Chapter 6 Verse 4 of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1828). 124 Characters from Woe from Wit. 125 From Part 4 of My Past and Thoughts. 126 Reactionary characters from Gogol’s Dead Souls (1842). 127 Both poems are by Gilyarovsky himself, but the lines do not appear in his long poem Stenka Razin. 149

In the former entrance hall of the English Club there now stands a narrow iron cage. That was what they used to transport Pugachov from the Urals to Moscow, exhibiting him on the squares and markets of towns on the route as a "shame and deterrent" to the crowds of people, who only so recently had been his followers. In that cage they brought him on to Bolotnaya Square and put him to death on 16 January 1775. In the same spot where the cage now stands a hundred years ago stood, ill at ease, the great Pushkin, the author of The History of the Pugachov Rebellion. And in the spot where nowadays hang the chains that were used to attach Pugachov to the wall, in former days a "black board" used to hang, showing the names of those who had been expelled from the Club for not paying their debts and who would not be admitted until those debts were cleared. That room used to be called the "Judgment Seat".128 We may imagine the following picture: our sad, gloomy poet leaving the Club and starting towards Nikitsky Gate Square on his way home, making for the house of the Goncharovs.129 He has started walking along Tverskaya Street going towards Strastnaya Square. He has stopped at the Tverskoi Boulevard where his monument stands today. He has stopped in the same attitude and has taken his hat off his overheated brow… It is summer and Moscow is empty… Everyone has gone away to their country estates. Pushkin's apartment is empty… He has nowhere to go… Then suddenly he sees the Club, the lions on the gates and beyond them the brightly lit drawing rooms, soft carpets, wine and cards… and his beloved "chat room". There are his friends Chaadayev, Nashchokin, Rayevsky… And the poet started off on his lonely way along the boulevard. Then, when he got back to his empty room, he wrote to his wife on 27 August 1833: "Tell Vyazemsky that his namesake has died, Prince Pyotr Dolgorukov. He had come into some inheritance and did not have time to blow it all in the English Club, which everyone here greatly regrets. I have not been to the Club from which I have almost certainly been excluded, since I forgot to renew my membership; I shall have to pay a fine of three hundred roubles and I would be glad to sell the whole English Club for two hundred." Later on Pugachov helped him to settle things with the Club and he began to go back there. On 20 January 1835 Pushkin wrote to Nashchokin: "Pugachov has become such a perfect person for paying his quit-rent… Yemelka Pugachov is my quit-rent paying peasant, my source of income… He's brought me a good deal of money, but since I've been living in debt for some two years, I've got nothing put by and everything goes on settling debts." Both Pushkin and Griboyedov knew the Club well. Woe from Wit is Moscow as Griboyedov saw it and many characters in the play could be members of the English Club. Once, I found extracts from the Club's Journal of the Elders which published the following among things to be noted: "1815: Mr Chatzky was proposed for membership by our member Sibilyov, but he did not get in. He was proposed once more for membership and again he was refused." The English Club blackballed him ̶ that was quite something, to be talked about by all the upper classes in Moscow.… Who was Chatzky and why did he not get in? But we must suppose it has something to do with Woe from Wit. At least the name of the real person Chatzky shares some letters with Griboyedov's spelling.130 Then the question arises: how could they fail to elect as a member a real person who had already been almost a year in the Club before his name was proposed as a candidate to be voted on? Most probably because of his inappropriate views, as Chatzky had already expressed them in the "chat room". The speeches and soliloquies that we read in Woe from Wit might well be spoken by a candidate member in the chat room, but such views would debar him when he was up for full membership and most likely they were glad to get rid of such a "Jacobin". Naturally people like

128 See John 19.13. 129 The family of Pushkin's wife. 130 In Russian there is a fractional difference between the spellings. 150

Famusov were not going to elect Chatsky. Of course this is just my personal opinion that there is certainly much in common between the Chatzky they were voting on in 1815 and the Chatsky of Griboyedov, who finished his play in 1822. In any case the writer for some reason remembered such an uncommon surname. "The English Club's debates present an embryonic parliament."131 Perhaps Pushkin was referring here to the arguments about politics that took place in the English Club. P. Ya Chaadayev was all too close to him, a bachelor who did not play cards but who gathered round him in the "chat room" a group of people who boldly discussed politics and the internal affairs of their country. Pushkin applied some features of Chaadayev to his Onegin, describing his bachelor life and circumstances. Even now, when I read the famous comedy again I am always sure that Griboyedov's character Chatsky was drawn from the real life person of the same name. Could it be that Famusov who "Of the English Club paid a lifelong sub"132 ̶ and they were all Famusovs there ̶ would tolerate Chatsky in his circle? How to blackball him? Why, by spreading the rumour that he was mad! And isn't the whole of Repetilov's monologue a series of portraits of English Club members?

Chatsky: In the Club, I expect Repetilov: In the English Club! We have a society, and secret meetings On Thursdays. A Union Most Secret. Chatsky: In the Club? Repetilov: Precisely… We stir things up, brother, we stir them up.133

Of course Chaadayev, who was also mentioned by Herzen in connection with the English Club in My Past and Thoughts, was a thorn in the flesh but there was no cause to expel him, even though he too had been declared mad because of his writings. Everything turned out all right in the end and Chaadayev all his life remained a member of the Club until his death on 14 April 1856. According to tradition it was in the "chat room" that he read Lermontov's poem on the death of Pushkin. He read it but those who were listening were the "insignificant descendants of fathers fabled for their baseness."134 In his letters Chaadayev mentions the English Club twice. In a letter to A.S. Pushkin from 1831: "I spend time occasionally – guess where? In the English Club! You told me that you have chanced to spend time there and I would gladly meet you in that fine building among those Greek columns, in the shade of the lovely trees." Later on, towards the end of his life Chaadayev, evidently short of money, was writing to his cousin Shcherbatova: "As the final straw my credit in the Club is now limited to fifty roubles and that sum has long been spent by your cousin…" Chaadayev was still in the Club two days before he died and was rejoicing that the War135 was over. By this time in the "chat room" they were quite boldly discussing political questions, talking about the war and about serfdom. Even the Tsar, Nicholas I, was listening attentively to those meetings in the "chat room" and with a certain anxiety he would ask those near to him:

131 A misquotation of lines from the deleted eigth stanza of Pushkin's Onegin’s Journey. 132 A misquotation from Act 1 Scene 7 of Woe from Wit. 133 An abbreviated version of lines from Act 4 Scene 7 of Woe from Wit. The abbreviation means the end rhymes are lost. 134 Another misquotation. In his Death of the Poet (1837, published 1856) Lermontov wrote "haughty" not “insignificant”. 135 The Crimean War. 151

"And what are they saying about that in Moscow, in the English Club?" In the Club even in the worst days of the reign of Nicholas they used to talk quite freely even about the Decembrists. In the same Journal of the Elders on 24 September it was noted that "a waiter at the Club, Alexei Gerasimov Sokolov entered in the morning to tidy up the room and found on the table a sealed letter with the inscription: 'To Ivan Petrovich Bibikov, Colonel of the Gendarmes: I request the elders to hand this over to him'. These elders, on being presented with the letter, proposed to invite Mr Bibikov and to burn the letter in his presence. But if Bibikov expressed a wish to see the letter, since it was assigned to him, in such a case they were to give him the option of taking that letter. However, Bibikov did not accept that solution and the letter was burned in the presence of the elders." In Semenyukov's136 1921 book The Publishing Activity of N.I. Novikov, among the publications listed is a book by V.V. Chichagov.137 That name sparks many memories in me. In the 1880s I met people who remembered the stories of an old mason who, in former years, had been a member of the English Club, who had many stories about the house of the poet M.M. Kheraskov. The house was built in the second half of the eighteenth century by the poet and his brother, Lieutenant General A.M. Kheraskov. The poet Kheraskov lived here with his family until his dying day. In his time only the central part of the palace existed. The columns, the wings and, possibly, the portico and columns and the Lion gates were put in after 1812 by Razumovsky to whom the Kheraskovs sold the estate after the death of the poet in 1807. That it survived the burning of Moscow in 1812 was probably due to its dense park land. If one goes into the attics of the annexes today, on the walls of the main building one can see the intact stucco work of the former outer side walls.

In the first half of the nineteenth century there was a "chat room" in the Razumovsky palace for those that had protests to raise and the Tsar used to pay some heed to it. Over the course of a hundred years this house of the poet Kheraskov resounded to the speeches of the masons that led to their arrest. After Chaadayev died in 1856 the "chat room" became a coffee room and in it daring speeches alternated with reading aloud articles from the Moscow News. In the armchairs one might see gourmands who had overeaten and men who had lost at cards. L.N. Tolstoi visited the Club in the 1860s and in Anna Karenina138 he called it the "temple of idleness". He too could remember the "chat room", but already quite changed from what it had been in Pushkin's time: Taking Levin into the room, Prince Gagin called it the "clever place"… Three gentlemen were talking about the latest political news. Elsewhere in his work139 Tolstoi describes the impressions of the Club of the Decembrist Volkonsky, who in the 1860s has come back from penal servitude in Siberia: "He made his way through the spacious rooms with their tables of old men playing eralash and turning in the so called 'hellfire room', where the famous Puchin had started his game 'against everyone here', having stood for a little while by one of the billiard tables, where an old man was tottering as he clutched at the edge of the table and barely managed to hit his cue ball… Then he glanced into the library where some general or other with great dignity was straining to read through his spectacles, holding the paper at arm's length and a youthful registered reader was looking through all the newspapers one after another. Then he made his way into the room in which clever people were gathering to talk things over."

136 Actually Vladimir Petrovich Semennikov (1885-1936). 137 Probably Vasily Vasilyevich Chichagov (1772-1826). 138 Part 7 Chapter 8. 139 From Chapter 2 of L.N. Tolstoi's unfinished novel The Decembrists. 152

One of the specialities of the "clever room" was that anyone going into it could get to know, whenever they wanted to, everything that was happening in the world, no matter how much it was shrouded in secrecy. In War and Peace Tolstoi describes the splendid ball that Moscow arranges for Bagration in the English Club.140 That is all that we can read in literature about this age-old Moscow nest of the gentry. There is nothing extraordinary about that… Would they really have let in an ordinary mortal, a simple journalist ? Absolutely not! If in the last century and in the present century I have succeeded in spending any time in that Club, I managed not as a journalist but as a member of those hunting and sporting societies whose members were simultaneously members of the English Club. In the late nineteenth century the house belonged not to the Razumovskys, but to Shablykin. Its luxury was most striking… There was a deathly silence, except in the "hellfire room", where games of chance for ready cash flourished. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Club began to admit rich merchants as members and wherever there are merchants there is ready cash on the table. The only part that kept its original style was the huge "portrait" room, that was long and set out with card tables, which were occupied in their entirety only on "Club days", i.e. twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In that room rich people played quite a modest game for small stakes, quietly and wordlessly. The old men were sitting in the places they had occupied for ten years. The tables had stearin candles in each of their four corners and everything was so quiet that their flames did not even flicker. From time to time those at the card table would, with a wave of the hand, summon their servants, who would emerge from somewhere noiselessly, like shadows, to stand by their master, who would make a mute gesture, which both of them understood. The shadow of the servant, who was as old as his master, would vanish and a minute later a side table would appear alongside the card table. This "portrait gallery" was jokingly called the "nursery" by the members. It was so called, not to make fun of the old people who were seated there, but because the stakes at the card tables were so trivial and the players, like clever children, maintained a silence equalled only by the uniformed portraits on the walls. The moment someone raised their voice in an argument over cards, surprised heads were raised, there was a peremptory "Shh" and everything fell silent. The way into the portrait gallery was through the entrance hall at the point where the Club started. That hall was a large room in the middle of which was a huge table. On preordained days ballot boxes were set out and on those days any member of the Club who came in was obliged to insert little balls into these boxes under the supervision of the official on duty… He had to cast his vote before he was allowed to pass through into the main Club rooms. These were the days when some individuals were to be voted in as full members. Along all the walls of the entrance hall there were amazingly comfortable soft sofas, in which Club members and guests could digest their meals wreathed in the aromatic smoke of their cigars and, in the old days, of zhukovsky tobacco, smoked in pipes with massive cherry wood bowls which were lit by their servants. Old men particularly liked to sit on the sofas and armchairs of the entrance hall, watching people coming in, or drifting off into a sweet sleep. Even as I remember it there were ancient old men, just like Prince Tugoukhovsky in Woe from Wit. They would bring such a one in, wearing high boots of chamois leather or cloth and swathed in a scarf; they would take him into the

140 Book 2 Part 1 Chapter 3 describes a dinner (not a ball) given in honour of Bagration. 153 entrance hall or the coffee room and sit him down in his own armchair. Each one had his favourite chair that no one else would dare to take when he was present. "This is Gennady Vladimirovich's chair." The old man would sit down and look around, trying at first to listen, and then he would quietly drift off to sleep. An old servant, who had worked here back in the days of serfdom and knew the old gentleman's habits would, at the appointed time, set in front of him a steaming silver bowl and carefully awaken him, looking at the clock: "Your Excellency!" At that very moment the clock would strike nine. "Your Excellency, your kasha is served." "Eh? It's nine o'clock already? I can hear it striking." He would lap up the kasha and they would take him out to his carriage. To the right of the entrance hall was the door into the "fruit room", in which stood tables with fruits and sweets. Then beyond that was the big formal dining room. The left hand door from the entrance hall led into the portrait gallery as already described. On one of my first visits to the Club I went through into the reading room and, as I passed through the "chat room", my eye was caught by an old military man and two civilians sitting on a sofa in the corner… Standing in front of them was a huge man in a black frock coat, with a greying leonine mane, and obviously full of energy… He kept adjusting his pince-nez, which was about to fall out, and cursing the servile scum sent out through the patronage of some high-up to rule the provinces. I was facing the famous wine maker Lev Golitsyn, who had formerly been a brilliant student in Moscow University. He was a favourite of Professor Nikita Krylov, and well known for his eloquence, with a great reputation for his ability to talk and a fiery debater who was always loudly proclaiming that he was "not tainted by any marks of rank or medals". The military man who was seated was A. A. Pushkin, son of the poet. The other man, fat and with greying side whiskers, was the Governor V.S Perfilyev, who was married to the daughter of Tolstoi the American. This was in the early 1880s and Lev Golitsyn was also disliked in the English Club for his sharp and, for that time, uninhibited, speech. But Lev Golitsyn was not afraid of anyone. Summer and winter he used to go about in a peasant-style loose-fitting beaver coat and his enormous figure used to attract attention on the streets. The cabmen called him the "Wild Gent". Round his home in the Caucasus the Tartars called him "Aslan Deli" ̶ Wild Lion.141 He used to throw his money about to all and sundry, never refusing anything to anyone, particularly to young people who were studying. On Tverskaya Street, at the corner with Chernyshevsky Lane, alongside the Governor General's house, he kept a little shop that sold wine from his magnificent vineyards in the Crimea, (called "New World"), selling that pure natural wine at a retail price of twenty-five copecks a bottle. "Be they workers, artisans or humble clerks, I want them to be drinking good wine," he declared. At the end of the 1890s there was some kind of political demonstration, during which the gendarmes shot and drove back with their swords a crowd of students and workers. As soon as the demonstration appeared, all the shops had naturally locked their doors. I could see several men falling and I saw the crowd rushing off to Strastnoi Boulevard. At the same time the doors of Golitsyn's shop opened and there appeared the great figure of the proprietor with his flowing grey mane, wearing a frock coat. He was shouting at the police and demanding that those injured should be brought in to him to have their wounds dressed.

141 The Russian forename Lev means "lion". 154

In a moment his shop was full of those who were seeking refuge. Golitsyn's wife and daughter were dressing people's wounds in one of the back rooms, while he himself was uncorking one bottle after another of expensive wine and treating everyone to it. When the police started to knock on the doors, he locked up the shop and shouted: "It's my name day and these people are my guests." Later on he let out through the back door everyone for whom it might be dangerous to fall into the hands of the police. In the "chat room" of the Club on the next day he waxed indignant about how the authorities had acted. Naturally such a member of the English Club was not in favour with top-ranking officials but the people in the chat room would listen to him. Once in the chat room Lev Golitsyn was trying to prove that it was essential to ban vodka so that the people should drink only pure wines made from grapes. He was thundering his message out, waving his arms about and adjusting his pince-nez every minute: "We are so rich… All the south of our country is ideal for cultivating vines!" V.N. Martynov was trying to argue with him. He was a tall handsome fair-haired man with curled whiskers and was a prominent official in the Department of Imperial Landholdings. He was also the son of the man who had killed Lermontov. In front of them stood an old man with white hair and beard. He was sharing his reminiscences with those who were standing close to him. We could hear the names of writers: Lermontov, Pushkin, Gogol… This was A.A. Stakhovich,142 a well known breeder of horses, who had written interesting memoirs, an admirer of Pushkin and a friend of Gogol. In his estate Palnya, near Yelets, he had set up a memorial to Pushkin, a bust on a granite base. There were other "characters" here as well. In the early 1880s there shone out the completely bald head of the Vice Governor, that very amusing spirit I.I. Krasovsky. He was described in a little poem, by Shumakher, I think:

Adornment of fair Muscovy And of the whole surrounding area Ivan Ivanovich Krasovsky, I only wish you somewhat hairier.

There was also the Chief Police Officer, A.A.Kozlov, who never missed any important fire. By a long established tradition people in the English Club were given news about any important fire: a specially appointed member of staff would come in, ring a bell and announce in a quiet velvety tone: "In the Gorodsky area there is a fire at number five Ilyinka Street." "In Rogozhskaya, in Bad Lane, there is fire number three." As soon as this messenger appeared Kozlov would leap to his feet, even half way through his dinner or supper and rush off in his dashing two-horse carriage, changing into a waterproof coat as he sped along, and putting on his helmet which he always kept with the horses. From the fire he would come back to the Club to finish eating his dinner or his evening meal. Sometimes in a coffee shop there would meet up P.I. Bartenev, editor of the Russian Archive and K.A. Tarnovsky, the playwright. Beyond the chat room was the large drawing room; in that room, just as in the portrait gallery, the card tables were occupied by big players gambling for seriously high stakes.

142 Gilyarovsky confuses two unrelated people with the surname Stakhovich. Mikhail Alexandrovich (1820-58) was the memoirist; Alexei Alexandrovich (1856-1919), a soldier and, subsequently, actor, who committed suicide after the Revolution, is clearly the figure referred to here. 155

Games of preference and rubbers of whist here might see tens of thousands of roubles changing hands. Beyond the large drawing room came the "gallery", a long room going through into the billiard room and into the reading room which also had a door into the garden. The billiard room had kept its old character as described by Lev Tolstoi. Even on my last visit to the Club in 1912 I saw there the "Chinese" billiard table, so well remembered by him. It was on that very table that in 1862 Lev Nikolayevich lost a thousand roubles to an officer who was passing through, which put him in a difficulty: he did not have sufficient money to settle the debt, and the Club rules were strict ̶ his name could well have finished up on the "board of shame". Nobody knows how it might have finished, but right there in the Club was M.N.Katkov, editor of the Russian Herald and Moscow News, who, when he found out about the trouble, rescued Tolstoi by lending him a thousand roubles to pay off the debt. And in the next issue of the Russian Herald appeared Tolstoi's story The Cossacks. The gallery's hall had a little door in its left-hand corner though which one could pass into the "hellfire"and "elders'" rooms, where they had extraordinary sessions of the elders in case there were any arguments or misunderstandings with guests and members of the Club. It was here that they held a court and dispensed justice over those who were guilty and whose names would be displayed outside on the "board of shame". Alongside the "elders' room" there was an internal corridor and a room that the servants called the "waiting room" and members of the Club called the "servants' hall". In that space the liveried servants of the gamblers would sit in the "hellfire" room till the morning waiting for their masters and dozing on their masters' coats, stretching themselves out on wooden divans. Beyond the "gallery" and the billiard room there was the reading room in an addition to the house which had been added by Razumovsky after 1812. That room was built by Gilardi. When you come in there's generally no one about. You may sink into a soft armchair. There's not a sound to be heard except the old clock ticking. There are green shades above the mahogany table with journals and newspapers are laid out in miraculous order since hardly anyone ever touches them. Magnificent columns with moulded cornices rise up to the decorated vaults – the work of artists of Kheraskov's time. Leather bindings are shining with gold inscriptions through the mirror glass of the cupboards. The curtains are drawn over the windows. You can see the dark sky only in the upper semi-circular part of the glass, where there are no blinds. The splendid columns with their moulded cornices give way to solid vaulting which saw the secret masonic gatherings – according to tradition, Kheraskov's study was here. Through the semi-darkness ornamentation stands out – the heads of some knightly figures. The upper semicircle of the window was illuminated by the moon as it emerged from behind a cloud, and then fell dark again. The clock struck midnight. On the twelfth stroke of this clock, another clock in a nearby room began to strike – and on its twelfth stroke, in a more distant hall, an antique English clock struck with a resonant velvety bass; it had seen the Sebastopol conversations and perhaps, Pushkin's epigrams on the tsars and Lermontov's passionate lines on the death of the poet. On days when ceremonial dinners were held, the "temple of idleness" appeared bright and brilliant. On such festivals of gourmandise the English Club would be full by six o'clock. Old men, young men, uniforms, tail coats… They stand in groups, mill about and converse. The "chat room" nearest to the large function room is crammed. But the doors to this room are locked: a huge spread of drinks and nibbles is being readied there. "We must observe the season," said the domestic elder P.I. Shablykin, a great gourmand, who sold all his houses for food. "We must observe the season, so that everything is served at

156 the right time. When it's time for Flensburg oysters, for Ostend oysters, for Crimean oysters… When it's time for salmon, when it's time for Atlantic salmon or Pacific salmon… You can't serve salted March whitefish and fresh cucumbers in August!" All these dishes were served in season at Shablykin's place. He didn't miss any of them. and when, in time for New Year, red caviar and fish was brought from the Urals –they were first tasted at the English Club. Cordials were also drunk in season: birch bud cordial, blackcurrant bud cordial, herb cordial, leaf cordial – and a variety of sparkling water – the Club's secret… Now the clocks in the different rooms strike six, one after the other. The doors of the function room open, voices fall silent and a shuffling of feet and a clinking of spurs begins… Crowds besiege the buffet. The drink is accompanied by "herring", by "fresh beluga caviar" by "sliced brain" etc. They drink and take snacks for one hour precisely. Then, from the reading room, comes the first chime of seven o'clock – and the waiter on duty drowns out the clink of glasses and the clatter of knives with a rich baritone: "Dinner is served!" A glittering array of about two hundred people moves through the "talk room", the "nursery" and the "fruit room" into the large dining room, separated from the Club by an anteroom. People occupy any place they choose. On the balcony is an orchestra. Beneath them, on a stage are choirs – a gypsy choir, or a Hungarian choir or a Russian choir from the Yar restaurant. The stage in the dining room was the only place to which women were admitted and then only when they were in the balcony. Not a single woman could ever come into the Club. Even the floors were washed by men. The gentlemen took their seats. A very old gypsy, Fyodor Sokolov, twitched his grey moustache; his eyes flashed … He stamped his foot, twanged one string of his guitar and the gypsy choir burst into their song. And on the left, near the tables set out with steaming saucepans the servants of the "temple of idleness" had frozen like statues in their white jackets and starched white hats. They all held silver ladles in their hands. Nowadays that area is used for sessions of the Museum of the Revolution. The Club also came to nothing. For most of the nobles there were no more luxurious coaches and teams of horses. Membership began to dwindle down to two hundred members instead of six hundred. Gradually they started to admit as members some of the richer merchants. There were more people coming to the Club, particularly to the card rooms, since the English Club was the only one that had the right to allow games of chance, strictly forbidden at that time in other Moscow clubs, where gambling just went on in secret. The police didn't dare to show their face in the English Club, where the Governor General was an honorary elder and the Chief of Police was an honorary member. After the 1905 Revolution, when all the clubs became free to indulge any games of chance, the affairs of the English Club again took a turn for the worse; they had to find some way to build up their income. To achieve this they elected a special commission. Those elected got the idea of using an empty courtyard by putting up a series of commercial buildings along the line of Tverskaya Street, to replace the stylish railings and the Lion gates. Some members of that commission were affronted at the idea of destroying the beauty of the old town mansions and the downfall of tradition. They offered their own opinion according to which, among other things, it was declared that "it was not fitting for the Club to engage in hazardous operations quite at odds with its traditions" and ended with the suggestion that "they should not build over the façade to the block so as not to finish up backing up onto commercial buildings".

157

The majority of new members carried the day and the fine façade of the English Club, the historic residence of the poet Kheraskov, the Razumovsky Palace found itself relegated to the back yards of commercial premises and the lions were thrown into the basement.

The Club's commercial affairs were going from bad to worse… They had different people coming to them, so that the Saturday dinners no longer ranked as exceptional and were becoming boring and poorly attended. These meals now were being served to just ten or fifteen people. The last ceremonial dinner was held in 1913 to mark three centuries of the Romanov dynasty. And then the Great War broke out. Half of the Club's premises were given over to a military hospital. To put it more accurately, the Club still disposed of the hall, the front room, the portrait gallery, the coffee room, the large drawing room, the reading room and the dining room. But all the rooms facing out onto Tverskaya Street became part of the hospital. Some rebuilding had to be undertaken. For gambling the "hellfire room" was replaced by the large drawing room, where they played baccarat; on tables set in the middle of the room they played chemin de fer and in the "nursery", as in the old days, there were games for small stakes. In that sort of fashion the Club dragged out its existence until the beginning of 1918 when the Club rooms themselves were expropriated and put into service for some sort of institution. After the Revolution the People's Commission for Education set up a body for the Preservation of Monuments of Art and Antiquity and did away with the commercial buildings that were obscuring the façade of the palace. The Revolution opened up the magnificent façade behind the iron railings; the lions were put back on the gates, and in the rooms of the former English Club the Museum of Old Moscow was organized. Finally, on 12 November 1922, in the restored rooms of the former English Club, they formally opened the magnificent exhibition Red Moscow. That was the first exhibition and marked the beginning of the Museum of the Revolution in the former Temple of Idleness. The exhibition opened at 6 p.m. on 12 November. Electric light was shining brightly in the sumptuous rooms of the English Club which had not been heated for several years and were now bitterly cold. Red flags were showing up in contrast with the chilly marble of the ancient walls. From the "portrait room" could be heard voices chattering, feet shuffling, interrupted at times by the clink of spurs… We are in the same old gallery of portraits. Only these are different pictures. On the walls are paintings and photographs of those who fought for the October Revolution in Moscow. The gallery is completely full… There are People's Commissars, representatives of various institutions and of workers' organizations… There are overcoats strewn about, jackets, leather coats and military greatcoats… For the first time in its hundred years the hall numbers women among its honoured guests. The guests are clustering in groups round the corners and the windows… Each person finds his own place, according to his own experiences. The walls have weapons hanging on them, framing pictures of the recent battles in Moscow. People have collected photographs of those who fought by their side, headed by the People's Commissars. In the photographs of the battles they can recognize each other…They are saying:

The warriors remember, with one single thought, The battles, when shoulder to shoulder they fought.143

143 The last two lines of Pushkin's Song of Oleg the Wise (1822), a poem often learned by rote by Russian children to this day.

158

23 Students

Until the atmosphere became reactionary in the eighties, Moscow lived its own life. Likewise the university. From the sixties onwards students were mostly impoverished provincial plebeians, who had nothing in common with the middle class and frequented the Latin Quarter, between Bronny Lane and Palashevsky Lane. Here the unpaved streets were full of wooden buildings containing small flats. In addition, two large abandoned mansions, flanked by wings and belonging to the Chernyshev family, on Kozikha Street and Great Bronnaya Street, were almost completely occupied by students. The first of these was called by its occupants "Chernyshev Castle", or "Chernyshi" for short; the second was called "Hell". This was a legacy of the Nechayev era. At the end of the sixties this was the home of the student Nechayevists and, even before that, of Karakozov's circle, members of the "Hell" group. Living in each poky room in the "Latin Quarter" student flats there were usually four people. Four wretched beds, chairs, a table and a shelfful of books. The student population wore whatever they could. Quite often, for every four flat- dwellers there were two pairs of boots and two sets of outdoor clothing. This made for queues; one day two of them would go to lectures while the other two stayed at home and went to the university the following day. They ate in cheap eateries or subsisted on dry rations. Instead of tea they boiled up chicory, a round quarter-pound stalk of which cost three copecks and did ten people for four days. Towards the start of the academic year on the gates of every house hung "rooms to let" notices. By mid-August these notices began to disappear little by little. In the seventies students no longer had uniforms but nevertheless they kept up with fashion; it was always possible to recognise a student both by his manner and his dress. The majority ̶ the most radical among them – were dressed in sixties fashion: the obligatory long hair, the wide-brimmed hat thrust mysteriously over the eyes and sometimes – the height of dandyism – a plaid and spectacles, which gave the young men a learned appearance. The student population dressed like this until the beginning of the eighties, the era of reaction. Having acceded to the throne, Alexander III began to crack down. The crackdown affected the university too. The new statute of 1884 abolished professorial autonomy and doubled the fees for attendance at lectures, in order to deprive the poor of higher education; in addition, a new charge was slapped on – students were required to wear dress uniform, a jacket, a greatcoat with heraldic buttons and caps with blue peaks. The statute had a major impact on the student body. There were petitions and meetings, but none of this went beyond the university walls. Moscow News, the government newspaper, a supporter of reaction, attacked the students in a series of articles defending the new statute, and the first student eruption on to the streets was caused by this newspaper. Great Dmitrovka Street, which begins at Hunters' Row, ends at the part of Strastnoi Boulevard known as Naryshkin Square. The third building along this street, which has not fallen into the hands of merchants, completes the right-hand side of Great Dmitrovka Street, before it forms the boulevard. At the end of the eighteenth century this house was built by Captain Talyzin, but in 1818 his widow sold it to Moscow University. For exactly one hundred years, from 1818 to 1918 it housed the press where for 100 years Moscow News was printed. The building which the press occupied, it must be assumed, was never repaired. Even the outside was not painted. In appearance it was invariably the dirtiest building in the capital, run- down, with peeling plaster, with windows that had never been cleaned and were begrimed from 159 the inside. The huge building was lit by paraffin lamps, hence the walls and ceiling were black, and carpenters working on the night shift, if they were fair-haired, found their hair turning brown from the soot produced by the oil lamps. The building looked onto Dmitrovka street but the detached building which housed the editorial office and the editor's flat gave on to the square. Having resolved at a meeting to punish Moscow News with a cats' chorus, crowds of students surprised the police by materialising on Naryshkin Square in front of the newspaper's windows, where they began to howl, shriek, shout and curse, while various smelly objects, such as mouldy cucumbers and rotten eggs were hurled at the editor's windows. The police appeared, a battalion of gendarmes galloped up from the neighbouring barracks and the demonstrators began to be dispersed. Then stones too began to be hurled at the office windows and there came the tinkling sound of breaking glass. In the middle of the boulevard the mounted gendarmes set about the students. From one direction they attacked with whips, from the other with sticks and stones. Riderless horses careered down the boulevard and the neighbouring streets filled with inquisitive onlookers. There were scuffles everywhere. The cossacks were called out to help the police; they surrounded the crowd and forcibly conducted them to Butyrka prison. The occupants of the Lyapinka – the student hostel of the College of Art, described above – poured out en masse onto the boulevard. While the encircled crowd of students, among whom were random members of the public who had been caught up in the demonstration, was being conducted from Strastnoi Boulevard to the Butyrka, at the head of the procession a giant merchant, hatless and wearing an unbuttoned fox-fur jacket, was particularly prominent. This was Gromov, head of a building firm. The whole of Moscow knew him as a heroic figure. In any crowd his shoulders were higher than the heads of those around him. He had just come out of the tavern and got involved in the melee quite by chance. A mounted gendarme struck him across the face with his whip. The giant responded to this by pulling the gendarme off his horse and hurling him into the snow. As a result of this His Lordship was on his way to prison. In the street, standing amid the interested onlookers on the pavement, Gromov's steward recognised him. "Sidor Martinych! What's happened?" "Agapych, run home and tell them that I'm heading for revolution with the students." "Revolution… Revolution!" came the echo from the crowd and the words reverberated throughout the whole of Moscow. But the revolution was still a long way off! This demonstration, like a series of subsequent protest, were no more than disorganised flare-ups and remained within the confines of the university. They were put down by means of arrest and exile, about which the majority of Muscovites knew nothing, since the newspapers were strictly forbidden to write about them. In 1887 when, to the student statute were added riders limiting access to universities, when inspectors and monitors, the university snoopers, exhausted the patience of students, large street demonstrations broke out, which were fired on; even this, however, went unnoticed by the general public. With each passing year the students began to take to the streets more and more frequently. As soon as scuffles developed round the university, the traffic was halted, all the side streets leading to Great Nikitskaya were cordoned off by policemen and gendarmes, as well as Mokhovaya Street, in the area of Hunters' Row and Vozdvizhenka Street. Then the doors of the Manège were opened and they began to drag students in off the street and, with them, members of the public who happened to be in those streets. The most vivid student protest in the last century was the one after which more than 150 students were forcibly conscripted into the army, and the ones which followed this, when they

160 demanded the abolition of "temporary regulations"; on the basis of these protests too students were forcibly conscripted. This measure, along with student disturbances, evoked protests from the whole of the intelligentsia and total sympathy for the students among a wide swathe of the population. But no details and no discussion were allowed in print; people talked about it sotto voce. At that time many illegal poems were circulating. Here is one of them:

SOW THE SEED!

Reason, the Good and Eternal now sow, Scatter the students to guard every rick, That the impoverished masses may know Hearts that are weary and sick. Sow, that our worthier feelings may grow, Sow, that our eyes may bathed be with tears, ̶ May through these tears words of liberty flow, Russia's blind eyes to make clear. May it be known how old habits coarse-grained Are once again all the fashion, Cynics are filling the country again, Aiming to curb education. Let all men know that in new torture chambers Victims are tortured, abused. Hangmen are venting their bestial anger On the best men we produce. Liberty's breezes across the steppes blow, Russia is awesome and wide, Everywhere seeds of the new world are sown, Bringing forth reason and light. Those who so stubbornly did not believe, Spurning new freedoms of thought, Will now accept they have cheated, deceived, Daughters and sons driven out. They, though dispersed, are not beaten withal By those who vilely them shame. You, having done this, will topple and fall And bear the stigma of blame.

And indeed the students, dispersed in army units throughout various Russian towns, were welcomed everywhere and everywhere talked of things about which there had previously been silence. This radicalised even the most remote province. Another poem, "The Perch and The Police Chief", which described the suppression of student protests in Moscow, also did not make it into print, but was widely disseminated in lithographed copies:

I have seen some awful moments, From them my head is spinning… There was a noise of restive students, Moscow's roar beginning. After every crowd, more crowds, A cheer, and whistles, whips, a cry, 161

And then gendarmes in blue ride by. In every street the scene unaltered, The crowds of people, troops in wait… The students in Manège sequestered Are roaring like a stream in spate. And after them, the soldiers drove Into Manège the frightened throng, The vocal and the silent, both, And those who simply walked along. To the Manège with them! But look! No easy victory for the soldiers… They grab and push But here's a cook, A frozen perch beneath her shoulder… The gallant troops are getting bolder, A move… Another… And they win! With swords and bayonet they rush, And in Manège they bottle in Both female cook and frozen perch.

When the cook and her perch were indeed penned up in the Manège, and a new crowd of students was pouring out of the university and on to Mokhovaya Street, people suddenly saw the Police Chief charging along, his pair of horses harnessed to a high-backed official sledge. Among the crowd of students in the middle of the street he had to rein back and drive slowly. "I request you to disperse," shouted the general, standing up in his sledge. In reply there was uproar behind the sledge, shouts, and a burst of laughter. "Down with autocracy!" More shouts and laughter. "Down with autocracy! Down with it!" The infuriated Police Chief galloped through the gates of the Manège and came face to face with the cook with her perch, who grabbed him by the sleeve and yelled: "Your Honour, let me go! The fish will go off." And she prodded him with the thawed-out perch. Meanwhile, at the entrance, to the merriment of the crowd, policemen were removing from the back of the sledge a broad strip of paper clearly marked "Down with autocracy". While the sledge was stationary, the students had managed to glue onto it one of the "Down with autocracy" banners made by the Lyapinka artists for fly-posting round the city. This slogan, which later became serious, was then still new. Moscow University. On St Tatyana's Day by the old calendar, a student festival was held there. The streets of Moscow were never more noisy than on that day every year. Crowds of students wandered round Moscow until late at night singing songs, or travelled, three or four to a cab, embracing and yelling. Unsurprisingly, in every song "Tatyana" was rhymed with the Russian word for "drunk". This was a carefree, noisy, festive day. Even the police – who had had instructions from on high – did not arrest students on that day. Informers were also told to steer clear of students. A favourite song at that time was "Dubinushka", meaning "Little Club". On the morning of 12 January there was a solemn ceremony in the university in the presence of the capital's top officials. Three quarters of the hall was filled with students who supported themselves by giving lessons; threadbare jackets, flat forage caps with once-blue peaks

162 now faded to white. But among them there gleamed well-coiffed young dandies with embroidered collars on their opulent uniforms, which were made of expensive cloth and were lined with white, and with fashionable gold hilts on their swords; these were the children of the rich. At the end of the ceremony crowds of students poured out on to Great Nikitskaya Street, singing "Gaudeamus Igitur", and moved towards Nikitsky Gate Square and Tverskoi Boulevard, and their favourite drinking places. But these were exclusively the poor students. The white-lined students put on their greatcoats with their beaver collars, harnessed their trotting- horses and departed for their family mansions. Having fortified themselves in the drinking houses, the students went down the boulevards to Trubnaya Square. They were singing, but "Gaudeamus" had already been replaced by "Dubinushka". Already several white linings had joined them. Not wishing to be outdone by their fellow students, they had jettisoned their fashionable garb at home and come out on to the boulevards wearing tatty old greatcoats. In front of the Moscow News offices they all halted, yelling and still singing

And in the landowner's forests we'll chop For the landowner's back a stout cudgel.

The crowds spilled into the luxurious vestibule of the Hermitage Restaurant, with its mirrors and statues. Their boots scraped over the marble staircase from which, as a precautionary measure for this day, the usual deep-pile carpets had been removed. Even in the 1870s the owner of the Hermitage, the Frenchman Olivier, gave his restaurant over to the students for their festivities. Traditionally, on the eve of 12 January, the huge hall of the Hermitage was transformed. The expensive silk-covered furniture disappeared, the floor was thickly strewn with sawdust, and plain wooden tables, stools and Vienna bentwood chairs were set out. Only cold food, vodka, beer and cheap wine were left in the kitchen and buffet.This was a people's festival in a bourgeois palace of gluttony. On this day, even during the period of the most violent reaction, this was the only hall in Russia where bold speeches were made legally. The Hermitage was in the power of the students and their guests – favourite professors, writers, zemstvo members and lawyers. They sang, talked, shouted, poured beer and vodka all over the floor, and all hell was let loose in the hall. Professors were lifted up on to tables. Orators succeeded one another. There are still people alive who remember St Tatyana's Day in the Hermitage when, after his speech, V. A. Goltsev was the recipient of such violent plaudits that his jacket was torn in two, and how, after Goltsev, A.I. Chuprov received an equally energetic ovation and even had his glasses broken when he was tossed ceiling-wards. They remember how, after Chuprov, a hirsute student in a red shirt and a grubby jacket leapt up on to a table and drowned the hubbub with his incredible bass voice, strongly emphasising his "o" sounds, like a seminarian. "Comrades! Comrades!" "Down with! Down with!" yelled the students, carried away by the speeches of their favourite professors. "Comrades!" boomed the steady bass. "Do-o-o-w-n with!" the hall howled, and the nearest students tried to pull the orator off the table. But the bass drowned the hubbub with renewed vigour. "Yes, down with!" he thundered, raising his arms menacingly, and the nearest students fell silent. "Down with autocracy!" he boomed once more, then jumped down into the crowd.

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Something unusual happened. A minute later the student was being tossed in the air and the hall reverberated with shouts. Then, all night, on the streets, the students interspersed their songs with cries of "Down with autocracy!" This slogan became the war cry at all student demonstrations. It resounded with special menace in Moscow in 1905, when students mingled with workers in university auditoriums which, for the first time, were opened for popular gatherings. Here the slogan flashed through long speeches and on banners, disappearing only when the autocracy disapproved. Not only did this martial slogan appear within the walls of Moscow University; the first barricades appeared in the city centre quite spontaneously on 15 October 1905 within the walls and courtyards of this venerable institution of higher education.

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24 Naryshkin Square

Naryshkin Square, the best of Moscow's boulevards,144 was formed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Nowadays it is contained between the two passages of the Strastnoi Boulevard, the Outer Passage and the Inner Passage. Earlier there was only one Passage, the inner one. Where the square is now there was a large garden that belonged to Prince Gagarin, and inside that garden was the palace, where from 1838 the Catherine Hospitalhas been located. In 1926 when they were resurfacing the Passage opposite the hospital building tree stumps a hundred years old, which were some of the remnants of that garden, were found protruding from the ground. They scattered soil over them again and paved them over. In those days the continuation of the garden as far as the Putinkovsky Passage was the grimy Hay Square and facing onto it there was a series of buildings from the Catherine Hospital to Little Dmitrovka at its far end, alongside the Convent of the Passion, was a large house that belonged to S.P.Naryshkina. In the 1860s she bought up Hay Square. She laid out a garden there and donated it to the city, which gave it the name Naryshkin Square. Alongside the Catherine Hospital there used to stand a beautiful old-fashioned town house. Right up to the October Revolution it belonged to Prince Volkonsky, who had obtained it in the 1850s from Prince Meshchersky. As we are talking about that mansion, we must mention that two houses away from it there used to stand one house that had a most romantic history. Earlier on it had belonged to Captain Krechetnikov145 and in 1849 it was bought by the Titular Councillor A.V. Sukhovo- Kobylin. This Titular Councillor was none other than the playwright, author of the play Krechinsky's Wedding, Alexander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin who lived here until 1859. In Prince Volkonsky's house for many years there lived his relative, the grandee Count Shuvalov who was crippled with paralysis. They often used to take him out on his wheelchair into Naryshkin Square. At the end of the 1890s, after the death of Shuvalov, Volkonsky rented his house to the caterer Zavyalov. A sign appeared on the opulent aristocratic mansion: "Available for weddings, balls and commemorative dinners." This was the function of the building until 1917, as it passed from hand to hand, from, from caterer to caterer: from Zavyalov to Burdin, Feoktistov and others. Sometimes the windows were ablaze all night and the building buzzed with music at weddings and balls for the merchant class; this attracted the general public from the boulevards to the windows; at other times from the building came the bass voices of archdeacons chant "Eternal Memory".146 Weddings of prosperous merchants took place here, when the building was surrounded with wonderful carriages. There were also impoverished affairs when along the boulevard stood such carriages as theatre carriages which, drawn by nags used normally to take the actors of the Imperial Theatres to shows and rehearsals. Sometimes the bottom of these carriages was falling through and the inhabitants would run along the highway beseeching salvation… However, there was no danger, as the exhausted horses barely moved… In the 1880s there was such an incident on the Petrovka which ended with a police summons. On days of wedding receptions a white wedding carriage, gilded and all made of glass, preceded everyone; it bore the bride and groom from the church to the wedding breakfast: it was

144 This apparently paradoxical statement stems from the fact that what became known as Naryshkin Square (in Russian the word denotes a small square – "Naryshkin Garden" was an alternative name for the place) was formed from Strastnoi Boulevard . 145 Probably Mikhail Ivanovich Krechetnikov who died childless in 1848. Sukhovo-Kobylin bought the house from his estate. 146 The chant which ends a funeral in the Russian Orthodox Church. 165 drawn by a pair of sturdy horses with snow-white harnesses and covered by a net of silk, blue if the bride was a blonde and pink if she was a brunette. The groom in a tail coat and white tie, the bride all in white, with, on her head, a wreath of orange blossom and a veil, were in full view of passers-by. Caterers arranged such feasts to suit all pockets – with hot and cold dishes, civilian generals and military generals, with medals or without. Military men with a vast array of medals on their chest, extending sometimes to a ribbon over their shoulder, were very highly prized and appeared for the prosperous merchants rather than for dignitaries, who had their own places for feasts and their own generals. Waiters were valued according to the importance of their appearance. There were some who, with their groomed side whiskers, might be taken for ministers, were it not for their always second-hand grubby tail coats. Waiters were hired, and wines served "with an eye to the clientele". "Wines to be bought at Desprez's: cognac № 184, port № 211 and № 113… With a pink label… Do you know it?" The order comes from a former merchant who has studied in taverns the labels of wines fashionable at the time." "Yes, sir… But at that price you'll have to go halves." "Well, all right, if we must we'll go halves. The eagle for the top table and the crow for the others…" The merchants were shrewd and the caterers even more so… The "eagle" and the "crow" – and both from Desprez!

The vodka distiller Pyotr Smirnov had two assistants – Karzin and Bogatyryov. They left his employ and opened their own wine cellar in Zlatoustinsky Lane. They began to distribute their own wines – which, of course, were ghastly. These wines did not find favour. The firm was on the point of imploding but, to their good fortune, one day a ragged man came to them and made a certain proposal. When he showed them his passport, both Karzin and Bogatyryov were delighted: in the passport was the name "tradesman Tsesar Desprez"…

Port № 211 and № 113… Cognac № 184… Cognac "fine champagne" 195… Pink label, black label, white label… Copied exactly from Desprez… Well, who would look carefully enough to see it was Ts. Desprez and not K. Desprez, who would work out that K. Desprez had an eagle on the label while Ts. Desprez had a crow without a crown? You wouldn't notice immediately. So it was that at balls, weddings and memorial dinners, where the clientele was from the Moscow merchant class, wines with the crow label were served. This went on for a long time but ended in court. It turned out that Tsezar Desprez, a partner in a firm of this name, was a real person and his passport genuine.147 The first people to come to a wedding reception from the church are the guests. They enter in pairs: stout merchant wives in silk alongside their husbands in long frock coats. Some sport medals "for diligence". Young people and ladies arm-in-arm. All arrange themselves in lines along the walls. When everyone is in place, the liveried Master of Ceremonies appears with a staff like a sceptre; behind him, arm-in-arm with the groom, comes the bride carrying a bouquet. They stand before the guests; behind them come couples: first, the groom's relatives take up their position to is right, then the bride's relatives approach and stand beside her, having first exchanged kisses with the children and with each other. Waiters bring in champagne in long thin glasses: Roederer or Veuve Cliquot for distinguished guests, Lanin champagne for lesser mortals.

147 This argument about who had the right to the Desprez name was no doubt complicated by the fact that Karl and Tsezar are Russified forms of the French names Charles and César, which begin with the same letter.

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Congratulations and toasts follow next. Occasionally there is the sound of a glass being dropped on the floor, but that is thought to be a good omen. The orchestra plays a flourish. After more congratulations everyone takes their place at table and starts drinking tea. Then some of the guests may go into the next rooms to play cards. In those days they used to play stukolka either for high stakes or for less. Other guests gather round the bar. Then people start to dance and to make merry at the wedding. When they have danced to the point of exhaustion, they go in to the wedding "breakfast", which immediately becomes noisy because the drink is already showing its effect. The invited general makes his speech of congratulations, which is followed by other toasts and speeches, each more effusive than the last. The junior generation, young ladies and their companions, flick little balls of bread across the table at each other. Then everyone starts to join in and across the tables fly herring heads, crusts of bread, sometimes even a red crayfish that had been put in to decorate a boiled sturgeon. After the newly weds have departed, the guests drink up what is left, and sometimes those who are playing cards go on with their game right through to the following day.

There was special money-making activity in the outskirts of the city. In rainy weather, particularly in the autumn, any unpaved side street would turn into a sticky morass, covered in puddles and one had to know how to tack between them, how to find the navigable channel. There were always boys watching the street, like pilots. When a rich carriage was trying to get through, that was where they would come to grief. There was one occasion when a wedding carriage, that glass conveyance showing off the bride and groom in all their finery, was trying to make its way along one of the side streets in Khapilovka. That area was particularly well known for its pirates. The bride and groom were on their way to pay a visit to a rich and miserly relative who lived on this street and they made a great impression on the local populace with their carriage, a sight seldom to be seen, with a fine pair of horses under a blue silk net. The pirates' eyes gleamed immediately as they anticipated such a rich prey. "What is the best way to get through here, boys?" "Come this way, to the left. More to the left." They had brought them over to a deep rut that was hidden by the water… The horses went in up to their bellies and the carriage turned onto its side. People came flocking in and began bargaining with them. The young marrieds paid fifty roubles for getting the carriage out and ten roubles each for them to be carried to the uncle's house. Nowadays the roadway is firm asphalt and probably no one remembers wedding carriages. During a cold winter a caterer would not heat his premises for memeorial dinners. "It will warm up with the people there. By the second course everyone will feel hot," he would comfort his customers. "Ah, come on now, our feet are frozen." "Well, don't take off your galoshes… Hey, you, porter, go and take some galoshes to His Worship…" That was what the fat caterer Feoktistov suggested to me when I was taking off my coat in his freezing hallway. After the kutia, that memorial dish consisting of cold rice and raisins, after the bliny with fresh caviar which the waiters spooned onto the plates, a continuous stamping sound became audible together with the clatter of knives. If you closed your eyes you could imagine you were in a stable with a wooden floor. It was the guests warming their feet. The sole heir, to whom the late lamented had left a large inheritance, was sitting in the place of honour, facing the clergy, assiduously dispensing wine and vodka to the "holy fathers" and he too was stamping his feet to keep them warm.

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"At the right time and when the temperature is so low, wine should greatly help our organism," boomed the archdeacon before each wine glass full of vodka as he splashed it into his enormous mouth. "The late lamented loved rowanberry vodka. Let us remember the dear departed with rowanberry vodka. Father Nikodim, let us drink a glass each," chimed in the church elder, who was a friend of the deceased. "No, I'd sooner take some Cahors wine. I'm not very keen on the rowanberry stuff. Cahors is better… it strengthens you, while the rowanberry just makes you weaker. I'd like a drop of Cahors…" "And I'll stay with the rowanberry vodka…" When the diners had a cloud of steam hanging over them and had ceased stamping their feet, almond jelly was served with almond juice. The clinking of glasses cut into the dull noise of three hundred voices that were sometimes drowned out by booming peals of laughter. Then suddenly there was a sort of animal roaring. That was the archdeacon standing up, clearing his throat. Everyone's chairs were pushed back, silence reigned, and the archdeacon roared: "To the eternal memory … eternal memory!" The great sheets of glass rattled in the windows and the glass pendants tinkled on the prince's old candelabra. The memorial dinner had finished.

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25 The story of two houses

The Merchants' Club had a shady garden where, in summer, members had lunch or dinner, and greeted the sunrise on the broad terrace, playing cards or clinking champagne glasses. The garden opened on to Kozitsky Lane, formerly called Uspensky Lane but known by its present name since the time when Catherine II's Secretary of State built a palace on Tverskaya Street for his beautiful wife, the Siberian gold magnate E.I. Kozitskaya. At that time this building was one of the biggest and best in Moscow; its façade gave onto Tverskaya Street, with a coat of arms on the pediment and two stylish balconies. After the death of Kozitskaya, the house passed to her daughter Princess A. G. Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya. In this very house was the historic Moscow salon of Beloselsky- Belozersky's daughter – Zinaida Volkonskaya.148 Here, in the 1820s

Amid a dissipated Moscow And talk of whist, chemin de fer, While others whisper ballroom gossip, Apollo's gaming you prefer. Of all the Muses, sovereign, You in your gentle hand retain The magic sceptre – inspiration, And on your contemplative brow, With twofold wreath of laurels crowned, Is genius and burning passion From me, a singer with thee smitten. My humble gift do not refuse, But smile, and to my singing listen, As Catalani, as he goes, Will listen to the gypsy maiden.149

One of Volkonskaya's guests, the poet A.N. Muravyov, accidentally damaged a statue of Apollo which stood in the salon. Embarrassed, and wishing to escape from his awkward predicament, Muravyov wrote some quatrain on the pedestal. This brought forth the following impromptu lines from Pushkin:

The arrow flies, vibrates the bow And the Python writhes, expires; Your brow with victory is aglow, Apollo Belvedere! Who was it took the Python's side? Who broke the idol of the God? T'was he who with Apollo vied. Belvedere? No – bally clot!150

The spirit of the Decembrists permeated Zinaida Volkonskaya's salon. Down its marble staircase Moscow accompanied Maria Volkonskaya to her closed sleigh; she was the wife of the Decembrist exiled to hard labour and was travelling to the place where

148 This is correct. Zinaida Volkonskaya was Anna Grigoryevna’s stepdaughter. Her father was Alexander Mikhailovich Beloselsky-Belozersky (1752-1809), her mother Varvara Yakovlevna Tatishcheva (1764-92). 149 A.S. Pushkin "To Princess Z.A. Volkonskaya" (1827) 150 Written 1827. 169

The work carries on to the clanking of fetters, And songs in a cave underground! The bodies of miners by iron are battered And hammer and pickaxe resound.151

Relatives, loved ones and friends gathered to see off Maria Volkonskaya, who had stopped here for twenty-four hours en route for Siberia. In Nekrasov’s long poem Russian Women Maria Volkonskaya, already far-off in the Siberian tundra, remembers this unforgettable evening when:

Italian singers I heard - They were at the time celebrated, Those who with my father had served Were there, by their sorrow prostrated. Also there were the exiles' next kin Going there where I soon would be, And writers much favoured by me. Odoyevsky, Vyazemsky came And one of great talent and worth, My cousin's admirer whose fame Too soon was erased from the earth.152 And Pushkin was there.153

Zinaida Volkonskaya settled permanently in Italy, where the salon of the "Northern Corinna", as she was called, attracted the best of Roman society. But in the end she was fleeced by the Catholic clergy and died in poverty. Her Moscow salon closed when she left in 1829, but the house remained in the ownership of the Beloselsky-Belozersky family, who served in the Tsar's court until the end of the 1870s, when the contractor Malkiel bought it from the princes.154 Before that all that is known of it is that at the end of the 1860s it was occupied by the Repman pension,155 a school for rich students, but the whole period between Volkonskaya's departure and Repman is a blank. From this period there has come down to us just one legend, preserved by elderly neighbours and retired police officers from the Tverskaya station, who were still alive in the 1880s and filled in details. In the middle of the nineteenth century and old princess, a relative of the owner, took up residence in the palace of the Beloselsky-Belozerskys. Together with her many servants and hangers-on, she occupied half the building, but closed the main public rooms. The palace was plunged into noiseless gloom. Just once a week, on Sundays, servants brought the old lady down the white marble staircase and placed her in a carriage drawn by six old trotting horses; it was driven by an old coachman; on the footboards were two ancient footmen in embroidered liveries and on the left-hand lead horse was precariously balanced one of the stable "lads" – also about sixty years old. After they had returned from Mass, the gates would again be locked for a whole week which, however, did not stop the outdoor servants from climbing over the fence and disappearing for nights on end. For this, cruel punishment was exacted by the German steward. He had them flogged them mercilessly. At that time it was customary for the police to carry out

151 N.A. Nekrasov "Russian Women" (1871-72) Part 6. 152 i.e. Dmitry Vladimirovich Venevitinov 153 From Chapter 4 of "Russian Women". 154 He actually acquired the building in 1870. 155 Owned by Eduard Khristianovich Repman (1829-1876). 170 floggings on Saturdays. The steward picked out the guilty parties and packed them off to the police station with a list of names and a note of how many strokes were to be administered and to whom; in addition, a letter to the constable always ended with the addendum: "herewith three roubles for birch rods". But flogging did no good and the expeditions across the fence did not cease – they were very tempting. On the other side of Tverskaya Street, behind an iron railing, stood a huge deserted house built in the time of Catherine the Great by Prozorovsky, a high official; in the 1840s it belonged to Guryev, a rich landowner, who totally neglected it. Its windows were broken, its roof had collapsed. Subsequently, in the 1880s, Brenko's Pushkin Theatre was located in this building. But at the time… devils lived there. Such rumours persisted throughout Moscow. At night passers-by heard howling coming from the house and the clanking of rusty iron; sometimes bricks flew into the street from the house, while through the broken windows many people saw a white apparition. The devils cavorted, the old princess went to Mass, the constable in charge of flogging, one of Arakcheyev's men, got his three roubles and no one paid any attention to the house with the devils. But suddenly an evil force manifested itself in the Beloselsky house! The rumour about the apparition went beyond the courtyard; from the servants' hall it migrated to the princess's female attendants. It was preceded by panic in the Guryev house. The lower floor had been rented by the owner of a menagerie, the renowned animal tamer Kreutzberg, immortalized in the verses of P. Veinberg, while the upper floor continued to have broken window panes and a collapsed roof. They began to bring in wild animals and to set out cages. That's when the panic began among the female attendants of the old princess. "The animals have frightened the evil one and it's moved in here." Finally, they also saw a white apparition on the stairs. They reported this to the old princess and the next day, along the old Kaluga road, behind the six-horse carriage and the troika of the German steward, stretched a line of carts taking the property and families of the princess's serfs. The men walked barefoot and half-dressed and more than half of them made off along the way. The Beloselsky palace was deserted once and for all. Meanwhile Kreutzberg settled into the Guryev house, in a room next to the menagerie, with a tame panther. On the first night the panther became restless. The tamer woke up and heard a terrible howling from his animals, which usually slept quietly at night. The tamer lit a candle, took a loaded pistol and went out into the menagerie. Before him an apparition dressed in white moved about and disappeared in the hallway, from where it began to climb the stairs to the first floor. Kreutzberg fired a shot at it, but the shot put his candle out and he had to go back. The next day, in the shabby rooms, he found piles of straw and matting – the sleeping berths of dozens of people. The police laid an ambush. Two ragged fellows; in one of them the constable recognised an "old friend" whom he had more than once flogged at the behest of the princess's steward. The following night the Beloselsky house was surrounded by police and firemen, and in the outbuildings a gang of bandits was detained which had come across from the Guryev house. A sheet was also found in which a postilion had played the part of the "white lady". Among those arrested were some ten victims of the constable's floggings. They admitted that the white apparition had been dreamed up to force the princess out – and especially the bestial steward – and for the whole gang to take up residence in the Beloselsky palace since they could not stay in their old hideaway next to the menagerie. The "apparitions" were cruelly flogged in the Tverskaya police station, especially the postilion who had played the part of the "white lady". Such is the current legend about these houses. Following the menagerie, on the mezzanine floor, in rooms which had not yet been finished, a dancing academy was opened.

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There are still Muscovites alive now who danced there in the dilapidated rooms, when pigeons and sparrows flew about over the heads of the dancers, and the straw and rags from birds' nests protruded from the capitals of the columns. For a long time Muscovites were afraid of these two houses and, as soon as it got dark, they would cross to the opposite pavement, first to one side, then to the other, just in case. To get away from the evil spirits. Many years passed. In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War, the millionaire Malkiel – supplier of footwear to the forces – appeared in Moscow. He bought and rebuilt these two houses; the Guryev house was bought in his name and fitted out as the Brenko "Pushkin Theatre"; the other was bought in his wife's name. In the wing of the house where the theatre was, were the offices of the journal the Alarm Clock. The Brenko Theatre folded, Malkiel's business folded and the houses were transferred to creditors. The Alarm Clock continued there and the editorial office, with its portraits of the main contributors, including the very young Anton Chekhov, was depicted by Konstantin Chichagov and printed in full-page colour in the journal in 1886. After the refitting done by Malkiel, the Beloselsky house went through the hands of many merchants. Malkiel had completely changed the facade and the house had ceased to look like an old-fashioned palace. Since Malkiel's time the whole ground floor with its mirror windows was occupied by Korpus's huge tailor's shop and the mezzanine by rich flats. The interior of the luxurious rooms was preserved. The white marble staircase also remained, as did the porch, which gave onto the main courtyard and still recalled the carriage of Maria Volkonskaya. The house was owned in turn by the merchants Nosov, Lanin and Morozov and at the end of the 1890s it was acquired by the Petersburg millionaire Yeliseyev, importer and wine merchant. He set about remodelling it. The architect brought in by Yeliseyev covered the whole building in wooden cladding, which was something new for Moscow; the result was a gigantic wooden drawer, so tightly fitted that not a chink remained. A year went by, then a second, but equally hefty scaffolding still surrounded the whole site. Long-time residents of Moscow, mindful of the fact that once upon a time devils lived here and apparitions abounded, would cautiously cross over to the other side, particularly because legend upon legend was associated with the mysterious building site. There were daring fellows who, in spite of the security and a pack of huge steppe sheepdogs, contrived to get inside, so as to tell wonderful tales afterwards. "There's an Indian pagoda going up." "A Mauritanian temple." "A pagan temple of Bacchus." This last tale turned out to be closest to the truth. At last the scaffolding was removed, the pavements cleaned and a thousand lights began to gleam in the mirror windows. The temple of Bacchus. However, this name was not official. On the day the scaffolding was removed there was a solemn dedication of the Yeliseyev shop and cellar of Russian and foreign wines.156 From early morning crowds of people blocked the street, admiring the elegant style nouveau façade with its pediment on which, instead of a princely coat of arms, there was something white and mythological, classical figures of some sort. On the pavement there was a scrum of people eagerly looking through the windows at the fanciful stocks of goods unknown in Moscow until then. Foreign fruit was heaped up; a pyramid of coconuts, each the size of a child's head, rose like a pile of cannon balls; bananas from the tropics hung in weighty bunches; multi-coloured denizens of the sea kingdom, dwellers in unfathomable ocean depths, glistened like mother-of-

156 The shop was opened on 5 February 1901. 172 pearl. Above all this shone electric stars on batteries of wine bottles, flashing and reflecting in deep-set mirrors, the tops of which were lost in a misty height. This temple of gluttony was described thus in one of my unpublished Poems about Moscow:

And on Tverskaya Street, in his luxurious palace, The countless hordes were drawn by Yeliseyev With glittering arrays of sausage, cakes and sweets And rows and rows of sides of ham, both smoked and boiled And turkeys and plucked geese with stuffing, Sausages with garlic, pepper and pistachio, Cheeses young and old, from Switzerland and Cheshire, And liquid brie and granite parmesan. Andrei Ilyich looks after the fruit counter, Exhibited in fragrant pyramids And filling baskets decked in coloured ribbons. Here is everything – Calvilles with coats of arms, And pineapples and wondrous cherries from Japan.157

The shop doors were still locked but, inside, invited guests who had come through the garden, had begun to gather. The icons which had been brought for the service stood in the middle of the shop among exotic plants. At last, towards midday, the police bestirred themselves and pushed the onlookers to the opposite side of the street. A squad of mounted gendarmes arrived and used their horses to block off the street to let important guests through. At exactly midday, as the moment approached for the opening, the shop doors opened and a huge doorman appeared in the entrance. The guests began to congregate, their medals and ribbons gleaming: military top brass, civilian generals in white trousers and plumed tricorn hats, clergy in expensive purple chasubles. They had all come here from some sort of official service in the Uspensky Cathedral. Some, however, had driven home first and had time to change. Yeliseyev skilfully exploited the big day. An elegant fair-haired man – Grigory Grigoryevich Yeliseyev – welcomed the guests in the main room. He wore a flawless frock coat and had the Order of St Vladimir round his neck and the French Légion d'honneur in his buttonhole. He had received the first honour for making some extremely large donation to charity and the second for an exhibition in Paris of wines from his cellar. Archbishop Parfeny was greeted by the Synod choir in their red cassocks with folded back sleeves, which had stationed itself round the icons, and by servers, who had chasubles for the clergy. The two-roomed interior of the shop had something fantastic about it. To achieve this Yeliseyev had combined the lower floor and the upper floor, completely doing away with the hall and drawing room of Volkonskaya's former salon, and had broken up the historic white marble staircase to make space for Yeliseyev wines. The gold and stucco reliefs on the wall and ceiling produced the effect of something strange. High in the depths of the hall could be seen a dark niche in the wall, like some sort of mysterious box in the theatre, and beside it was a rare make of English clock, the huge pendulum of which seemed motionless; the clock worked noiselessly. The hall hummed like an anthill. Preparations were being made for the service. The clergy donned their chasubles made from golden cloth. Silence. Guests in frock coats or uniform entered quietly. After them came the long frock coats of the Taganka merchants, who had missed the beginning of the service.

157 This unrhymed iambic poem is Gilyarovsky's own work. 173

Half-way through the service a massive powerful figure appeared, reminiscent at first glance of Turgenev, only taller, with a huge greying leonine mane – a veritable hero from an old epic poem. His grey jacket seemed out of place among the uniforms but the majority of the distinguished guests turned towards him and bowed in welcome. But he, because of his myopia, which even a pince-nez did not help, saw nothing and no one. Yet the dapper manager of the new shop, in his black frock coat, fussed round him. He was the dearest of guests, the premier connoisseur of wines Lev Golitsyn, creator of the State Winery and his own model "New World" vineyards in the Crimea and the Caucasus. Lunch was served in the other half of the hall. Silver and crystal gleamed on snow-white tablecloths, their facets multiplying myriads of electric light sources, like frozen spray from a waterfall, shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow. In the middle, among the crystal decanters filled with wines of various colours, stood bottles of every conceivable shape – from simple clear-glass bottles of golden Château d'Yquem with raised glass brand marks to champagne bottles full of sparkling burgundy, stoneware bottles of madeira and primitive-looking bottles of Hungarian wine. On bottles of old tokaj wine the mother-of-pearl of time merged with the foggy colour of the glass, which resembled marsh sediment. Everything was laid out on the tables at once, together with cold entrées. Exotically shaped dishes in aspic, jellies and galantines quivered, huge red lobsters, langoustines were hidden in cold sauce, as if in clouds, and gleamed red in the bright lights and sides of ham dominated everything by their sheer size. Boiled hams, with the skin peeled back, glowed with pinkish fat. Westphalian dry-cured hams, also with the skin peeled back, vied with the tablecloth for pristine whiteness. They had been sliced back with mathematical accuracy, diagonally across the ham, into leaf-thin slices, and then the slices had been put back into place in such a way that the ham appeared intact. Succulent Ostend oysters, displayed artistically on a layer of snow which covered the dishes, seemed to breathe. Athwart the broad table smoked salmon and sturgeon were pink and amber. Fine-grained black sturgeon caviar showed black in silver buckets, in a ring of transparent ice, while at the edges loomed a mound of dark ossetra caviar and coarse-grained beluga roe. Aromatic pressed March caviar from Salyan lay swollen on silver dishes; next dry, so-called Armenian or "sack" caviar – every grain could be cut in half with a sharp knife – rose up, still preserving its sack-like form, and huge blocks of the best pressed caviar in the world, with its own earthy fragrance – kuchugury from Achuyevo .̶ stood on dishes. The rows of tables formed a geometric shape. The service ended. Lunch began. The Archbishop, in a black cassock and klobuk occupied the place of honour, facing the clock and the curtained loggia. All the other guests were seated strictly according to rank and position in society. Under the loggia, on a stage, was an orchestra. Of the clergy, only the Archbishop, the old local priest and the archdeacon – an amazing bass ̶ stayed for lunch. It fell to the archdeacon to end the lunch by wishing everyone "long life". The remaining clergy, after receiving monetary "gifts" and baskets of goodies for their families, dispersed, pleased with their presents. The Archbishop was treated to the most expensive wines, but only "wet his lips" with them, making, however, appreciative comments which would have done credit to the most discerning of gourmands. To the zealously attentive Yeliseyev, intent on plying him with drink, the Archbishop would reply: "Don't ask – I won't. Some time, some place, later. But now, you see, it is unseemly for an Archbishop."

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On the other hand, the archdeacon set to with a vengeance, pouring tumbler after tumbler into his vast belly from the bottles which stood before him. He merely cleared his throat and expressed approval of them. Things got noisier. Washing down rare dishes with expensive wines, the guests let themselves go. After the toasts, which were accompanied by flourishes from the orchestra, some guest, who was well away, suddenly stood up and asked to speak. Yeliseyev looked at him, made a nervous gesture, leaned over to the Archbishop and whispered something in his ear. The Archbishop winked at the archdeacon, who was sitting at the end of the table and not taking his eyes off his superior. The banging of knife on plate, whereby the orator demanded attention had not yet finished when a leonine roar resounded through the hall: the archdeacon was clearing his throat to try his voice out. He rose mountainously and his octaves boomed through the hall, which made the crystal pendants on the chandelier start wobbling. "Many years of life to this house! Good health and good cheer!" When he got to "May you live many years" the effect was even frightening. The official part of the ceremony was over. The Archbishop stood up, bowed and, with a gesture, asked everyone to remain in their places. The host accompanied him to the exit. The thunderous octaves were still reverberating with a velvety rumble beneath the ceiling when suddenly the loggia curtain opened and from its interior, lit as if by sunlight, a boisterous song rang out:

Hey, a troika, fluffy snow, Frosty night-time all around.

The audience immediately collected itself, having caught sight of a female choir from the Yar restaurant in the loggia, all wearing white dresses. Wild applause broke out for Anna Zakharovna and she, a short, stout woman in a purple dress glittering with diamonds, bowed from her loggia and spread her arms, blowing kisses. The following day, and for many years afterwards, right up to the Revolution, the shop was crammed with customers and the pavements with poor and hungry people looking in at the windows with curiosity. "People eat well. Yes, indeed." People didn't walk to this shop; they drove to it. On both sides of the building, on both sides of the street and a long way down Gnezdnikovsky Lane stood private vehicles: some with one horse, some with a pair, carriages and barouches, each better than the next. The coachmen tried to outdo one another. A strapping moon-faced doorman in a livery with buttons that were shiny but without a coat-of-arms, accompanied by two assistants, carried out baskets and parcels behind ladies wearing chinchilla and sable, with their chevaliers in beaver-fur coats or smart Nicholas the First-style greatcoats with hoods. In a thunderous voice he would summon the coachmen, would place the purchase in the carriages and, with a flourish of his right hand, would doff his braided cap, while with his left hand he would grasp the tip he had been given. All these privileged customers knew the shop assistants and addressed the especially important ones formally, by their name and patronymic. "Ivan Fyodorovich, what are you favouring us with?" Ivan Fyodorovich knew his customers' tastes where the fish or sausage departments were concerned.

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He knew what to offer, and to whom: to some, salmon as smooth as butter, to some fresh langoustines or lobsters, gleaming magnificently red in the window; to some he offered caviar, remembering that one liked beluga, another sterlet and a third kuchugury. And Ivan Fyodorovich remembered everyone and spoke with each customer as an equal, taking account of each individual's taste. "Here, Nikolai Semyonovich, we've just got in smoked nelma from Siberia and marinated burbot liver. Very good. I've tried them myself. Yesterday Count Ribopyer came in with Karl Alexandrovich. Today they sent for a second portion. Do you want me to wrap it up?" He dealt with these customers and went to greet a tall lady to whom everyone deferred. "What can I do for you, Olga Osipovna?" "I've already had from you, Ivan Fyodorovich, a pound of butter – some sort of Finnish butter." "We have it, we have it, Olga Osipovna." "And a little round tin of marinated herrings. My husband got some yesterday." "I know, madame, yesterday Mikhail Provich took some." Olga Osipovna Sadovskaya, who visited the shop almost daily, enjoyed special esteem as a popular actress. In general, however, persons of more modest means were embarrassed to go into Yeliseyev's gilded shop. Ladies usually crowded round the display of fruit, where the tall, grey-haired, imposing salesman Alexei Ilyich presided at one counter; at the other his young, handsome assistant Alexander Ivanovich presided. They knew their lady customers and knew how to sell them their wares so that there wasn't a single blemished apple nor a single squashy grape. The whole shop was ruled over by the manager Sergei Kirillovich.158 Yeliseyev himself would only come to Moscow for a day; he was involved with arrangements for a similar Temple of Bacchus on Nevsky Prospekt in Petersburg,159 home of the main family business.160 On one such visit he was informed that some official with a briefcase and a cockade in his hat had been around wanting to speak personally "only with the head man" on a matter of importance and had asked to be announced. Yeliseyev received the modestly dressed individual in his lavishly appointed study, sitting in an armchair at his desk and not even inviting the man to be seated. "What can I do for you?" "I want to seal your shop. I could have done it yesterday, and the day before yesterday, but did not wish to do so in your absence. I am the newly appointed customs and excise officer for this area." Yeliseyev stood up, gave the man his hand and, indicating a chair in the centre of the room, said: "Take a seat please." "Allow me to sit here by the desk. It's more convenient for writing my charge sheet." And with that he sat down. "What charge sheet?" "Illegal trading in wine, which I can in no circumstances condone or be responsible for." Yeliseyev at once guessed how things stood and retorted: "A shop trading in wine is allowed by the authorities." "The authorities have given you permission but have lost sight of the fact that it is forbidden to have the entrance to an establishment trading in wine nearer than ninety-eight yards from the entrance to a church. But where are those ninety-eight yards here?"

158 His surname was Kadykov. By 1913 he was a director. 159 This opened in 1903. 160 G.I. Yeliseyev’s grandfather began as a fruiterer in Petersburg in 1813. 176

What further conversation Yeliseyev had with the customs and excise official is not known but the fact is that there was frantic activity all night: the sign advertising wine sales was moved to the other end of the building, on Kozitsky Lane, while the wine cellar got a separate entrance and was separated from the shop. Wines ordered in the shop had to be collected via the Kozitsky Lane entrance, but of course, not everyone had to do this. Wines comprised the main source of income for Yeliseyev. In the cellars were kept the most expensive wines, brought in by the owner's father in his three sailing vessels which, during the first half of the nineteenth century shuttled between the Gulf of Finland and the ports of France, Spain, Portugal and Madeira, where Yeliseyev senior had his own wine warehouses.

In mythology there was Bacchus and blind Themis, the goddess of justice, with her scales in her hands in which, unseeing herself but seen by everyone, she weighed the deeds and crimes of men. Her eyes were blindfolded to avoid any suspicion of bias. Millennia have passed since the disappearance of the gods of Olympus, but devotees of Bacchus are with us yet and his priests have raised temples to him. Temples have also been built to Themis, whose task was to weigh in the balance the sins of the devotees of Bacchus. She was depicted in temples all over the world with a blindfold over her eyes. Thus it was in Paris, London, New York, Calcutta, Tambov and Mozhaisk. But in the Moscow Kremlin, in a niche in a vestibule, she is all eyes! And no one knows when she took off the blindfold. Maybe she never had one. From the very beginning of the judicial reforms, from their introduction in 1864-1866, she had stood in the Kremlin Temple of Justice, the home of judicial decrees. The statue was such as befits her throughout the world: scales, a punitive sword and thick law tomes. Only one thing did the goddess lack – her main attribute – the blindfold over her eyes. This sighted Themis has stood for almost half a century and has perhaps survived in this form to this day as a memento of the old days. No-one paid any attention to her, but, when a newspaper reporter wrote a note about it in the liberal Russian News, it wasn't printed. "Impossible! It would bring shame on us throughout the whole of Europe!"

When Yeliseyev rented out the second floor of the building in which his shop was situated to a commercial court, the symbols of law were installed there, as they were in all law courts: the mirror with the decree of Peter I, the gilded column topped by a crown, on the subject of which two lines had circulated for a long time:

There is no law in Russia, There is a crown atop a pillar.

They also installed Themis here with a blindfold over her eyes. But in this case they must have put the blindfold on to prevent her seeing the opulence of the neighbouring Temple of Bacchus, the devotees of which, from time to time, as luck would have it, came upstairs to the Temple of Themis. The goddess of justice was out of luck: the richly carved plaster ceiling, weighing sixteen tons, collapsed and knocked off her head, together with her blindfold and shattered the mirror, the symbol of law. Fortunately, this was the commercial Themis, who did not acknowledge the need for bloodied victims and therefore did without them: the ceiling collapsed at night when the building was empty.

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The Temple of Bacchus existed until the October Revolution. Even now it is the same hall with double row of windows and decorated with stucco, but at the entrance no doorman summons cabs; the shop is always full of people buying vital groceries. And still, of an evening, the chandeliers gleam through mirror glass.

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26 Bath houses

The one place that not a single Muscovite would miss is the public bath house. Whether he be a workman, one of the mighty, rich or poor ̶ no one could exist without the public baths. In the 1880s the Military Governor General V.A. Dolgorukov, that all-powerful "master of the capital" used to go to Sandunovsky Baths, where in a smart room of the family section they gave him silver basins and tubs. And we must remember that in his palace there were marble baths, which at that time were still rarely to be found in Moscow. And, indeed, people in Moscow did not take to them right away, since they liked to carry on the old traditions of beating themselves with birch twigs, having a rest in the changing room and a doing a "bit of tongue- wagging" with old friends. Each class had their own favourite baths. Rich people, and in general those who had enough money, used to go to the "noblemen's" section. Workmen and poor people went to the "ordinary" baths for five copecks. The water, heat and steam are all the same, but the setting is different. A bath house is a bath house! A loofah costs thirteen copecks, soap is just one copeck. Many baths stand today just as they have always been and in the very same buildings as at the end of the last century, but the customers have changed and there are none of the original owners, who will soon fade from memory because there is no one to tell their story. In all our literature there is not a word about bath house culture in Moscow. In those days everyone had them before their eyes and no one was interested in writing down what everybody knows. After all who is interested in reading about baths? However, in Dal's dictionary there is still a saying: "Commercial baths wash people clean, but drowned in dirt they've always been." And I can judge for myself. For fifty years I have been working as someone who recounts what is happening every day in Moscow and describes the passing scene; I have just never thought to write a single word about the baths, even though I knew quite a lot about them and have had detailed knowledge of the special features that distinguish one bath house from another. I have met interesting people there from all sections of society, whom I have often described in other circumstances, for after all Moscow contained some sixty different bath houses, each with its own characteristic features, and moreover each one had customers who were faithful to a particular establishment and considered themselves true Muscovites. Even in my first book about Moscow and the Muscovites161 I did not say a single word about them, and would have remembered neither them nor the conditions in which the bath attendants lived if one good man had not prodded me, so to speak, and reminded me of one word that I had heard somewhere in the most remote countryside, somewhere between the former districts of Zaraisk and Kolomna; I remember only that his village was near the River Oka, where I often used to go hunting in the 1880s. In that part of the world, among the old locals, I heard one thing said more than once, namely: "We are from Moscow!" And what pride they took in saying this, as they sat on the mounds of earth which surrounded their little wooden houses. On one occasion I was approached by a complete stranger, an old man, a good hefty specimen, with grey whiskers: "I have known you for many years now and I've read all your latest books… But do please forgive me that I've taken the liberty of speaking to you." He fixed his eyes on me and smiled:

161 i.e. the first version of the book, published in 1926.

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"You owe me a certain debt." I was absolutely dumbfounded. "I have no new debts, and as for what I used to owe to moneylenders, the Revolution took care of that, thank you very much." That was what I said to him. "The fact is now that you do owe something and it's a debt that has to be paid…" "Who then do I owe anything?" "You are in debt to the whole of Moscow!.. You have written about all the city in your books, but never said a word about those who work in the public baths. But after all Moscow without bath houses would not be Moscow at all! Now you know Moscow, and it is wicked that you have not mentioned us old Muscovites. So that is why we are asking you not to forget about the bath houses." We hastened to swap reminiscences, both of us being carried away by one side of the dialogue, each knowing the subject from his own point of view. We were speaking at random, one word bringing another to mind and one detail reminding us of something else. One of us knew it all from our own experience and the other from a different point of view. Word by word, detail after detail, we depicted scenes and people in bright relief. We both had the same purpose in mind: to show a way of life we knew from every point of view. "Here I am, still fit for work. And when I have given all my strength to Moscow then I shall go back to my birthplace. In that part of the world almost all of us are Muscovites. That is why we feel so hurt that you forgot to mention us. Your readership is much more widespread than you had imagined when you planned the chapters of your book. It consists not only of those who were born in Moscow but also those who have come in from the surrounding districts ̶ waiters from the Yaroslavl area, carpenters from the Vladimir area, bakers from the Kaluga area. Three provinces have contributed people working in the bath houses, although each province has provided people from one or two districts, not drawn from all over but concentrated in certain areas. Kolomna has contributed several groups of people, but the people from there tend to work more in Petersburg. For years back Moscow has been supplied with bath house staff from the Zaraisk/Ryazan , Tula/Kashira and Venyov areas. That was the way men and women went to Moscow from one generation to another. It was thus that I was brought in as a ten-year-old boy, just as they had brought in my parents and grandparents. Before there were any railways they used to bring children to Moscow with people who were going that way on horseback. One of their kinsman who lived in Moscow would come out with a companion to spend a little time in the country, wearing a knee-length coat and a cap with a shiny peak, boots with galoshes and on his waistcoat a watch with a chain that went round his neck. All his kinsfolk and friends in the country would be delighted and would envy him as they listened to his tales about good work to be had and about life in Moscow. Any father who had a son of between ten and twelve would beg for him to be taken to his relatives in Moscow and given a job in the baths. As soon as the boy could read and write, they would fit him out with two pairs of bast shoes, a coarse cotton coat and two sets of homespun underclothes and they would manage to get him a residence permit, in which they were forced to add years to his age ̶ and that cost money. When they got to Moscow they would hand the boy over to relatives or to people who came from the same part of the world, who were serving in one of the bath houses. The first thing they did now was to cut his hair, wash him and make him look a real "townie". He had to begin by learning to find his way about. The first thing was how to go to a drinking house and get into it through the back entrance… Then they would show him where

180 the tavern was where he should run to for hot water and where the bakery was. So now the future young "Muscovite" was being introduced to his own rights and responsibilities. Apart from going out on errands, the boys had to do much the same work as adults, but they also had their own work that was special to them. On Mondays and Tuesdays, when there were no customers, the boys used to wash bottles and helped to pour out the kvass, which would be available in the baths. On "bath days" they used to prepare little birch veniki. On Saturdays or before major holidays some baths might have to prepare up to three thousand of these. They used to bring in quantities of birch twigs from faraway villages, particularly from the Gzhel area. The veniki were tied up in pairs with a strand of bast and the boys' job was to separate them out. In the bath houses boys used to work in the changing rooms, sometimes helping the barbers and also learning to cut customers' nails and to deal with corns. Their duties also included preparing loofahs, for which salt sacks were bought; these were made of good-quality bast. For connoisseurs the very best bast was obtained – baranka bast, which was soft and spongy. It was specially brought into Moscow bakeries and on it were threaded baranka rolls and rusks; this bast was three times more expensive than that obtained from salt sacks. On "non-bath days" there was even more work to be done, on domestic chores; in addition the boss would send them to clean the yard of his own house, dispose of rubbish and clear snow off the roof. Most of all the boys had work and blows inflicted on them in equal amounts by the "sidekicks". These people were half way to being bosses over the young men and young women, indeed everyone connected with running the baths, particularly those who were employed to work up steam for the customers.The conditions those staff worked under could not be compared with anyone else's. From five in the morning until twelve o'clock at night, naked and barefoot, wearing only a short apron covering them from navel to knees, and constantly wet, they worked using all the muscles of his body in a hot temperature ranging from fourteen to sixty degrees Reaumur. During those long hours they would only be allowed to dry out for half an hour at midday, when they could put on a few more clothes and some battered shoes. That was the way the steam room attendants lived. They did not get any food from the management, nor any fixed fee. As recompense for their hellish work in the heat, the steam and the damp, they were expected just to live off the tips they received from the customers. There was no fixed rate for washing and steaming. When some well washed customer might ask how much he owed they usually replied: "As much as your kindness will extend to…" There was considerable variety in the tips different customers were prepared to pay. The staff attending to them knew how much each customer would pay and they fitted their washing and steaming to the tip they expected to receive. The millionaire Solodovnikov owned the access passage, and he came to wash in the Sandunovsky Baths. He never asked how much he owed and would just say nothing and give twenty copecks, of which the attendant could keep only ten. Not only did the attendants receive no pay, they were also expected to give up half their tips to the owner or his deputy – known as his "sidekick" or "little boss". Besides that, the steam room attendants had to see to heating the furnaces and cleaning up the hot bath and the soap room. The owner's "sidekick" would watch when the attendant was getting his tip; he knew the people there and who paid what. When he got the usual ten copecks from Solodovnikov, he did not ask who it was from but just said: "From the nutcase," and swore. The "sidekick" paid rent to the owner of the bath house and it was he who hired the workers and paid them off, except for the steam room attendants. They were hired and fired directly by the owner himself.

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The "sidekicks" lived with their families in separate quarters in the baths and paid rent which ranged from twenty to a hundred roubles a month, depending on the bath house. In their turn those changing room attendants who dressed and undressed the customers were not paid by the owner. They had to pay the "sidekicks" various fees from the tips they received, depending on which sofas, corners, wall spaces or cubicles they were servicing. The "sidekicks" had to launder the sheets for the sofas, pay wages to the workers, feed them and the boys and also be responsible for keeping the baths clean and for any articles which went missing belonging to those taking a bath in the "upper class" establishments. The 1905 revolution had a considerable effect on the "sidekicks". At the time it was decreed that they should be eliminated, and that was what happened. However, two years later, as reaction set in, the "sidekicks" were back again and continued at full strength right up to 1917. The real scourge of the baths, especially the cheaper ones, was the theft, from those who were washing, of their underwear, shoes and boots, and sometimes of every item they possessed. There were gangs of thieves who had worked out their own particular system. They stole underclothes and outer clothing that had been hung out to dry in the hot room of the bath house. This was achieved by the following technique: the thieves would work on the hot stones to such a point that the bathing area was filled with hot steam; many people could not stand the heat and came out into the washing room. The thieves would make good use of their absence to pull their underclothing off the racks where it had been hung out to dry, then hide it away. Later in the afternoon they would come back to the baths and pick up the clothes they had hidden. The bath attendants had to pay for the losses out of their meagre pay. Besides that, there was another system for thieves which went into operation in "upper class" baths where the "sidekicks" had to answer for the clothes that were lost. Everyone that had came in handed in their clothes in the changing room. They would be given a metal tag on a piece of string. Sometimes they would hang this round their neck, tie it to their arm or simply attach it to the handle of the tub, then go on to wash and pass through the steam. The thief would track them down in the changing room and manage to exchange his number for the one they was carrying. Then the thief went out quickly, took over the other man's clothes and disappeared with them. The poor man who had been washing got rags and down-at-heel shoes instead of his own expensive clothing. Thieves in the baths were strong and elusive. Some of the owners, trying to keep up the reputation of their establishment, might even make a deal with them, paying an indemnity every month and the thieves who had been "bought" would themselves watch out for other thieves, so that any outsiders who fell into their hands were given a very rough time. It was no use expecting any mercy from their competitors. If they were not killed outright, at least they would be injured for life. In almost all the bath house changing rooms there were wooden columns which supported the ceiling. When a thief was apprehended, say at seven o'clock in the morning, he was tied, barefoot and half naked to such a column near the exit. Among those entering the bath house would be people who had been robbed there, and they not infrequently vented their wrath on the prisoner… At midnight, before the baths closed, the thief, by this time thoroughly beaten up, was sometimes handed over to the police, but this was rare; more often he was simply thrown out, whatever the weather or the time of year. It was in this milieu that future bath house attendants were brought up from their earliest years. There were significantly fewer escapes made by them than by other country boys who were sent for training in other professions. The ones who ran away from their beatings might work for tailors, cobblers, hairdressers, carpenters, painters, and, especially, for the owners of small businesses, who were known as "rodents"; here, apart from being taught their trade, they were used by their masters and

182 mistresses to run all sorts of errands. They would be sent, half naked and in battered footwear and in all weathers, to fetch buckets of water from the fountain; they would get up before anyone else in their quarters, would fetch firewood and put on the samovar in the dark. Worn out by beatings and impossibly difficult work, not seeing any companions of their own age nearby and not hearing a kind word, they ran away to their villages; sometimes they remained there, but if their parents returned them to the owner, they frequently ran away to Khitrovka where they fell in with bands of thieves of their own age; via the slums and the prison system they not infrequently ended up doing hard labour. This was rare among bath house attendants. They lived and worked with their neighbours and relatives, saw how hard they worked and worked equally hard themselves; occasional tips for minor services gave them the chance to relax somehow and after their own fashion. On days off, together with their relatives, they would join the popular festivities in Sokolniki, Maidens' Field or Presnya, or would go to the fair or the circus. And the main thing was that they could be inspired by their own folk in the village to remember Fedka or Styopka, young men of their own age who had come back from Moscow to get married, wearing a tight-fitting rustic coat, great boots with galoshes and who now had a watch on a chain and were, in short, real Muscovites. That's what they dreamed of becoming. Their relatives and neighbours from the village would arrange a loan for them when the time came to buy clothes and shoes. People in the village could sew linen for them from hard-wearing homespun cloth, but for holiday shirts they bought calico and chintz in Moscow. In the market the bath house attendants bought only the cheapest shoes, just those which were essential for the job: nevertheless they were shod. For work they had only basic shoes and tattered clothes, but everyone at that time had fashionable Sunday best. It was considered extremely chic to wear calfskin boots with high leather galoshes. Ordering such boots was quite a business: they cost thirteen roubles. They were worn for a long time, then toe caps were put on them and the old footwear was repaired and worn to destruction in the bath house. Their outer clothing consisted of a knee-length jacket, a waist-length kaftan, a waistcoat with the collar turned down, and in winter a sheepskin coat with ram's wool at the neck. Just like the boots, all this was worn for years and items replaced one at a time, first this and then that… Of course the boys wore old things, but over a year they might save up a sum of money with one of their "uncles" or a kindly woman at the baths to serve as an advance for the tailor or the shoemaker. Boys were learning their trade up to the age of seventeen or eighteen. By that time they knew their way about the baths, could deal with customers, clipping their nails and skilfully cutting out any corns. After he had had acquired that degree of competence, an "educated" youngster might ask his master to let him move up to the "junior" set of qualified attendants as soon as there was a vacancy on the list, so that he could go back to his village to get married, otherwise it would be awkward for him to get married while he was still a "boy": the village would laugh at him. When he was setting out to get married the young man who had just been promoted to the junior set would set off to Maroseika Street where there were scissors hanging over the door and where lived the tailor Ion Pavlov. The young man would come to Pavlov along with his uncle, his friend of old. "Ion Pavlych! Here's this young man will have to be fitted out with a knee-length coat and a sheepskin and all the other things… It's time he got married!"

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Then Ion Pavlych would fix him up with clothes to last him many years, as he had done for all the young men who worked at the baths. He worked only for the staff at the baths and they did not know any other tailor, apart from this man from their own village. All tailoring and mending was done on credit, in instalments. Small payments were made but the account was settled twice a year – at Easter and Christmas. It was the same with the cobbler. The "junior" would go with his "uncle" to Carriage Row to this cobbler from his village: "Pyotr Kirsanych, measure him up. He's going to get married!" Pyotr Kirsanych would take the measurements with a strip of paper, write something on it and ask: "With shanks?" "Get away with your shanks," the uncle would answer on the junior's behalf. "Can we have copper ones, uncle," the junior would ask. "Boots with metal shanks are more fashionable." "All right… But what’s your name?" "Petrunka." The shoemaker would scrawl something down in pencil on a measurement strip and, as he said "farewell", add: "Three Sundays from now I'll bring them." Kirsanych had already been serving three generations of staff at the baths. He did a great many repairs. From time to time people ran to him with their orders… One customer might want new soles, another one needed a low heel, this one needed new half soles, another wanted shoes patched, another needed new tips to their shoes, and, for the women bath attendants, new leather half-boots with rubber soles to withstand the damp, for the woman bonesetter boots with no heels, and repairs, repairs of every sort… All you needed was the time to do them. There was a note with each order specifying from which baths and who was the owner of the shoes. Pyotr Kirsanych took out his trusty old gelding, harnessed up to his wagon in the summertime and in the winter to his low wide sledge. He had about a dozen large sacks on which he would sit, and instead of a coachman he took out his ten-year-old grandson. "First of all lets go to the Sandunovsky Baths, then to the Kitaisky Baths and after that to the Chelyshevsky Baths." "I know, Grandpa, … I know it's just as usual." On Sundays the baths were closed to the public. The staff gathered in the changing room… Kirsanych had promised to come. Here he was, with his great sack, on which was written in chalk "Sanduny". There was a great hubbub as everyone greeted him with friendly warmth. Kirsanych carefully laid out his work and started to call out the names: "Ivan Zhostky!.. Fyodor Gorely!.. Semyon Ryumochka!.. Sasha Puzyr!.. Masha Dlinnaya!.."162 In those days they didn't use surnames among their own people but more often used all sorts of nicknames, which reflected character, appearance or habits. And whatever the nickname might be, then immediately it became the whole person. Ivan really was harsh. Fyodor was always on the edge of tears, Ryumochka did have a red nose, Masha was tall and slender, while Sasha was small, almost like a bubble. Everyone collected their orders. They settled up. Some drink appeared, with sausage and cucumbers… They drank a toast to honour and thank their countryman, Kirsanych. He was going to leave, mildly tipsy, for the Kitaisky baths… It was the same story there, calling people out by their nicknames, but no one responded to the heading "Petrunka the Unshod".

162 These are all nicknames meaning, respectively, "tough", "fiery", "wine glass", "bubble" and "long". 184

It was only when they shook out of the bag gleaming new boots with galoshes that the young man rushed to take them with his face shining with joy, and his uncle burst into a great belly laugh; "The Unshod!" Out came another bottle and more rejoicing as they went to see him off to the Chelyshevky baths… From there they continued along the preordained route. Then late in the evening they went home, but now Kirsanych was not just on his own but with some fellow called Ryumochkin. They were both completely tipsy. They slept soundly on the empty sacks. With that triumphant drinking session Kirsanych finished his working week. The Sandunovsky baths, and also the lane were so named in the last century to commemorate the actress and singer Sandunova. That's what they are called today and were so called in Pushkin's time. On the other side of the Neglinka River, in Nettle Lane, on a remote wilderness between two pools, there were also the Lamakinsky Baths. They were run by Avdotya Lamakina.163 That area was a slum area and the baths were dirty, but because there was nothing better, they were always full of people. There was also a large pool owned by Sandunova and her husband, the famous actor Sila Sandunov, whose house faced out onto the next street, Bellringers Lane. On that site Sandunova and her husband built good baths and leased them to Lamakina. She kept up the rich features of her old baths and spared no expense for the new ones. Those became the very best baths in Moscow, with Sandunov's name helping their success. The baths in Nettle Lane were still called Lamakina's and the new ones remained Sandunova's for ever. The whole of Moscow flooded there, particularly into the "noble" mixed male and female changing rooms, which had been appointed with luxuries never seen before in Moscow, such as mirrors and clean sheets spread on soft divans, and had well-trained experienced staff, both male and female. The changing room became a sort of club, with everyone finding their own circle of acquaintances. Besides that there was a buffet, selling every kind of drink from kvass to Moët and Chandon and Ai champagne. Moscow used to assemble here in the days of Pushkin and Griboyedov, the same people that foregathered in the great rooms of Zinaida Volkonskaya and in the English Club. When Pushkin's Journey to Erzurum came out, in which he so attractively describes the baths in Tiflis, Lamakina got some Tartars as bath staff to try them out, but they were working with real Muscovites, who loved a hot sweat shelf and a tangy birch venik, and did not have much success, so she stopped hiring them. In contrast our bath attendants have taken Pushkin's advice and brought in for their customers a linen bag for the soap and woollen mittens. Later on the bath houses brought in "family sections", where ladies of the highest society could come with their lap dogs and pug dogs. Maids would wash the dogs along with the ladies… That started in the Sandunovsky baths and then spread gradually into several other baths with expensive premises for nobles and merchants… They used to bring squads of soldiers from their barracks into some of the more common baths; they would charge two copecks each and provide one venik for ten men. Later on, at the beginning of the 1880s, all the baths started charging a copeck for a venik, and because of this there was a great scene in the Ustyinsky baths with the customers breaking the windows; while the fight was going on, some of the customers escaped naked. By beginning to charge one copeck per venik the owners were making a lot of money and in the cheaper baths they did nothing to make any improvements.

163 Also spelled Lomakina. Little is known about her except that she took over the running of the baths in 1814. Another member of the same merchant dynasty, Vasily Vasilyevich Lomakin, became the owner of the baths in 1860. 185

Overall the owners made use of every ruse, legal or crooked, to extract copecks and roubles from everything they were doing. In some of the baths they even stole from the municipal water supply. Thus in the Chelyshevsky Baths, to everyone's astonishment, the pool in their yard suddenly dried up, even though it had normally been full of water, and now the baths had no water supply. But next day the water appeared again – and everything went back to normal. The secret of why the water came or went was not known by the general public, nor by the authorities, but those who did know kept quiet about it for their own good reasons. It turned out to be quite simple: in Lubyanka Square there was a pool from which the carters drew their water. The water came from the Mytishchinsky water main but, as the pool filled up, the watchman closed down the taps. When they needed to fill up the pool at the Chelyshevsky Baths, the watchman did not close off the supply and the water poured along the pipes to the pool that supplied the baths. Almost all the bathing establishments had been built on the banks of the Moscow River, the Yauza, and streams such as the Chechera, the Sinichka, the Khapilovka and by pools that were fed by springs. Most of the bath houses were single-storey wooden buildings, since with their primitive water supply it was difficult to get water up to the second floor. The baths would include three sections: changing rooms, soap room and hot room. There were no amenities in the ordinary people's baths in the suburbs. In most of them even the lavatories were somewhere outside in the yard. At all times of year those who were bathing had to pass through the open air, no matter whether it was raining or blowing a wintry blizzard. There were no proper drains under the floor. Soapy water below the floor drained into special wells outside in the yards, flowing through special wooden channels, and from there it went along similar channels down to the river, only some ten metres below that part of the river where they were pumping it off for people to wash themselves… Baths like these were depicted in Rovinsky's prints which show the Serebryanichesky baths on the Yauza. The bath houses were heated by kamenka stone stoves in the hot rooms and by Dutch stoves in the changing rooms.The kamenka was considered the main adornment of the bath house. In some bath houses it heated both the hot room and the soap room. The baths were heated only by firewood brought on rafts from the upper reaches of the Moscow River, near Mozhaisk and Ruza, when the water was high. They were unloaded on Red Meadow, near Dorogomilovo. For Muscovites the arrival of those rafts marked a kind of spring holiday… Thousands of spectators scattered along the quayside and the bridge at Dorogomilovo. "The rafts have come!" The days when the baths were most used were Saturdays and Sundays and generally the days before a big Church festival; on these days the baths were really crowded and there were queues of people standing by the taps, washing themselves from light tubs of lime wood, which had now replaced the heavy oak ones. In the "noble" sections one could get pleasure from just relaxing, have a haircut or a shave, get your corns cut out, have cupping glasses applied and even have your teeth extracted, while the popular baths became, one might say without fear of contradiction, a sort of polyclinic where every kind of ailment was treated. The doctors were medical orderlies, surgeon-barbers and female bonesetters; here and there bath house attendants replaced masseuses at a time when this word was unheard of. In the ordinary suburban bath houses the "polyclinic" looked like this: Saturday. From five or six in the morning the doors of the bath houses never closed. The stream of people was incessant.

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The barber installed himself in a corner of the changing room; there he shaved and cut the hair of visitors, without any thought of hygiene. Sometimes, when he had time on his hands, he would practise medicine too: he would let blood, apply cupping glasses and leeches, and extract teeth. The soap room would be full of steam; on a bench would be lying a hot, red, fleshy body around which bustled a barber with a box of dubious cleanliness in which there were twelve cupping glasses, a connector and a glass paraffin container. A wire with a cork on the end had been sunk into the container. When he had prepared all the cupping glasses, the barber would set fire to the cork and with its help begin to apply the glasses. After two or three minutes the glasses drew the skin outwards by a centimetre and more. The barbers had a rule that they would hold the glass in place for ten minutes, so that it drew better, but in practice things were different. During this time the barber would go out for a smoke while the victim of his skill would lie still, awaiting further torments. Finally his patience would run out and he would ask those around him to summon the barber. "I'll just finish shaving this client. It's not a big job," came the answer. Finally the barber would come and light his torch. Under the cupping glass – a bump the colour of blood. He would take a dirty, rust-covered connector, press it firmly onto the swelling, break the skin, again manipulate the torch, replace the cupping glass and in three to five minutes it would be full of blood. The glass was taken away – the blood fell straight onto the floor. Then a bath house attendant poured a tub of water over the patient and he, with his new cupping "tattoo", went out into the changing room. After that there usually began a discussion about the "usefulbility" of cupping. Apart from working with cupping glasses, the surgeon-barbers also used to "open up the flow of blood". Right up into the 1880s in outlying districts of Moscow one could see signs hanging out with a notice: "Here you can get your hair cut, be shaved, have leeches applied and blood let." That sort of sign would be right over the entrance and alongside it there would generally be two long pictures demonstrating how this could be done. One of them would show a man sitting, with his chin covered in soap suds, while the other had the barber with his index and middle finger holding the patient by the nose, raising his head and bending over him, his right hand guiding the razor, half covered in soap. On the other side would be sitting the red-faced fine figure of a great hero, just wearing a shirt, with the sleeve rolled back up to his shoulder and, facing him, the barber, with his lancet covered in blood, to signify that the operation has already been carried out. From the arm of the mighty man blood spurted out, as if from a fountain, while under his arm there stood a tiny little boy with a towel over his shoulder, holding a large basin, half filled with blood. This operation was also carried out in the soap rooms, but now there was no boy holding a basin and they used to let the blood flow straight onto the floor. "Opening the blood" was a favourite operation for stevedores, carters, fat-faced likhachi, shopkeepers who were starting to get fat and Muscovite merchants. Women had their own special treatment in the baths. First of all, to keep the whiteness of your face, they would boil up some tickseed in a tub, and in the higher class baths they would wash your face with ground almonds. After that came various things to be rubbed in, right through to washing your head with paraffin to make your hair grow. Here there were female bath attendants to look after the people who were getting washed. Women bone-setters worked only in the cheaper baths and they also lent a hand in treating men.

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A man might come into the baths doubled over in pain; he would go to the supervisor and ask him to call one of the women… "My lumbago is tormenting me!" He would repeat these same words to the woman when she arrived. She would give him a phial with some sort of liquid, order him to go and get washed and, when he had had enough steaming, to rub himself over with her concoction and report to her after the bath. When he had got washed and dressed, the patient would call the woman back and be told by her to lie face down with his belly across the threshold of an open door. She would then place a dry venik down over the small of his back and make several light blows with an axe along the venik, muttering mysterious incantations. This operation was called "striking out the pain." Women played a great part in the life of the baths and it was because of them that many people came there specially. The bath house owners greatly appreciated their services, as they cured sprains, charmed away a rupture and treated bellies, male and female, by placing a pot on them. Their main speciality was to work as midwives. A pregnant woman would begin to plead several weeks before her due time: "Grandma Anisya do not forsake me!" "All right, but you must come more often to the baths. That is useful to put the baby on the right path. Whenever you need me I shall come." Still long before the time when Gonetsky refashioned the Sandunovsky Baths into a bathing palace, A.P. Chekhov liked spending some time in the old baths, which were comfortable, without any special luxury or unnecessary glittering tinsel. "Anton, let's go to the baths," his brother, the artist Nikolai, who was all covered in paint smears, would call him. "I would go… but I'm afraid … It might suddenly turn out as it did last time… Do you remember how we met Sergiyenko? I had already got dressed and was preparing to leave, as he was coming in. He caught hold of my coat and started to tell me something that seemed to go on for a whole hour… Just suppose we meet again? But I do love the Sandunovsky Baths … Only we've got such beastly air at the moment: in dry weather there's dust blowing about and whenever the rain comes it washes the filth from all the houses into the Neglinka." Chekhov got to live in one of the apartments in the new palatial baths, even though the air round it was just the same as it had been as it had been in the old baths. At that time the baths belonged to Biryukov, "King of the Baths" as they called him in Moscow. He had come to Moscow in bast shoes when he was just a boy and the Lamakins were still there. He worked for ten years, setting up a series of public baths and among them he ran the Sandunovsky Baths. But then it all went wrong: both the building and the baths were mortgaged to the millionaire firewood merchant Firsanov. And whatever came to Firsanov ̶ write it off! Firsanov was lending money at high rates of interest on good properties and he arranged things so that in the end the building became his property. Many noblemen's houses and profitable properties fell to him. At the time that Sergiyenko was buttonholing Chekhov, the Sandunovsky Baths had just been mortgaged to Firsanov, but a year later they already belonged to him… It was an enormous building which looked like a barracks from the time of Arakcheyev, with a changing room of upper class magnificence that had been created by a famous architect of the 1880s. After the death of Ivan Firsanov, his daughter Vera became the owner of the baths, of twenty-three buildings in Moscow and the estate of Srednikovo, near Moscow, which had formerly given hospitality to great writers and poets. Vera Ivanovna began to live in some style on Prechistenka, in the best of the fine aristocratic town houses that she had inherited from her father. She was now starting to entertain

188 the gilded youth and fashionable bons vivants ̶ the young lions of the capital, besides also business people, right up to lawyers and senior members of the judiciary. After the death of her father, Vera Ivanovna conducted important commercial affairs almost entirely on her own. From the ministry officials who visited her she learnt what had to be done and from time to time she managed her business affairs very skilfully. Around her there also floated fine young people, contenting themselves with those happy hours and also respectable rich men and people of a certain status and titled personages chasing after her beauty and mainly after her money. Then one fine day everyone in Moscow gasped: "Vera Ivanovna has got married!" Her husband turned out to be a lieutenant, son of the active service General Gonetsky. Before his marriage he was often in Moscow ̶ in summer for the trotting racing, in winter for balls and dinners, but he never made any move towards Vera Ivanovna, even though she was trying every way through her friends to draw him into the suite of her admirers. Among her friends to whom she had entrusted the entrapment of Gonetsky, there turned out to be his friends also. They assured "Verochka" that he was the sole heir of an old member of the Polish parliament, who was a millionaire and who would soon be showering him with money. The friends achieved their objective and Vera Ivanovna Firsanova became the wife of Gonetsky. After the wedding the young couple, trying to avoid visits, went away to Srednikovo where her husband charmed her by proposing that he should concern himself with her business affairs and work together with her. Having considered the income from Firsanov's properties, Gonetsky declared: "Just look now how the Khludovs have fitted out their Central Baths.164 Don't you feel ashamed to have the Sandunovsky Baths as a ruin that brings disgrace on the name of Firsanov? We shall have to outdo the Khludovs." Catching the merchant ambition of his wife, Gonetsky pointed out to her the huge profits that the Central Baths were bringing in. "The first thing to do is to make the Sandunovsky Baths so fine that Moscow has never seen anything like it, nor ever will see the like. Instead of these ruins we shall construct a regular palace for the baths, built with the latest technology that science makes available, and the more money we invest the more income we shall make from it and we shall eliminate the Khludovs from any possibility of competing with us. The Press will be writing about our baths and you will become a celebrity." It was decided to completely reconstruct the old baths… "We should get the Architectural Society to open a competition for designing new baths," suggested Vera Ivanovna. "What? Get Moscow architects to build the baths… But why did the Khludovs not do that? Why did they bring in a builder from Vienna… Eibushitz I think? And he was not at all one of the major architects… Over there you will find celebrities even more famous. I'm simply not going to work with architects from Moscow. We have to create something new and outstanding, to join East and West in this palace…" After travelling round baths in Europe from Turkey to Ireland, the young people held a pre-bath conference of experts in their palace on Prechistenka. The whole business was managed by Gonetsky himself and the building was done by Freidenberg, the architect who had come from Vienna. Taking advantage of the building of the baths, in the course of a few months Gonetsky had exchanged his outstanding debts for bank cheques signed by his wife, and these disappeared

164 The land on which the Central or Kitaisky Baths were built was bought by the merchant Gerasim Ivanovich Khludov (1821-85). His four daughters were responsible for building the Baths in 1891. 189 into the fire of a malachite fireplace in the study of "that retired Guards officer", who had swapped the resplendent glory of Guards' parades for a merchant's millions. Once, on the sort of hot autumn day which sometimes occur in September, among shirtsleeved children and the general public strolling around in summer clothes along the boulevard from the Tverskaya Gate, three men of short stature strode determinedly along. Their clean-shaven faces, sweaty and flushed, peered out from the fur collars of their warm overcoats. In their right hand each had a riding whip and, in their left, a small portmanteau. One, wearing a grey astrakhan hat pulled down over his eyes, had a bundle and a bath venik under his arm. He was somewhat taller and more broad-shouldered than his companions. All three were famous jockeys: the one in the astrakhan hat was Voronkov and the other two were Englishmen: Ambrose and Claydon.165 In two days the biggest prize for two-year-olds was being contested, so they had to lose weight and were returning from the "Georgian" Baths where they'd "sweated" on the shelves. Now they were stepping out briskly; they would reach All Saints Passage and disperse to their homes: Claydon lived on Bashilovka street and the others in the racecourse village, alongside their stables. The "Georgian" Baths were beloved of jockeys and gypsies who had settled in Zhivodyorka. And jockeys were the favourite customers of the bath house staff. They paid them a rouble each and, most importantly, could sometimes whisper to them which horse will be the best bet at the next race meeting. Gypsies were mad about the races and could use this information while boiling themselves alive in the seventy-degree heat of a cloud of hot steam that the bath staff worked up for their generous guests. On one occasion it happened that a certain person I knew had found out that I was studying people in Moscow and had invited me to see one of his relatives who was working in the baths. This man was living in a house out in Petrovsky Park and he owned a bath house somewhere near the Yauza River. "He has now got four saints to celebrate: his wife Sofya today and three daughters Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov,166 so that they can all celebrate their name day on the same day. The two eldest are now finishing secondary school." Their spacious ballroom was given over to the young people: university students, high school pupils, two or three relatives in blue shirts, poddyovka jackets and patent leather boots and two or three silent young ladies wearing silk dresses. There was music, singing and dancing to the playing of the piano. The intervals were filled with reading poetry aloud and singing student songs, right down to "Dubinushka in the student fashion". There was plenty of noise and youthful high spirits. Next, alongside them in the drawing room were merchant wives in all their finery and some of the less well-off relatives, sitting stiff and unmoving by the walls or pressing round the stout lady whose name day they were celebrating, decked out in all her jewellery.The servants brought round trays of dessert. The ladies were attended by men in tailcoats and polished boots or wearing dinner jackets with laced-up shoes. They went off into the next room where a large table was laid with hors d'oeuvres and drinks. They came in, tucked into the food, then went back to the ladies or into the room beyond where one table is laid for a modest game of preference and the other for a game of stukolka. Those who favoured preference were merchants of a certain age and two high-ranked civil servants, one with the order of St Anna in his buttonhole, the other the master of the house,

165 Possibly John Claydon. Originally from Burwell, Cambridgeshire. Later became a trainer. He won the Russian Derby in 1889 and 1891. Ambrose won it in 1890 and 1894. 166 The names mean Faith, Hope and Charity. Their name day is 30 September, as is that of St Sophia. 190 wearing a long-tailed frock coat and a gold medal on a ribbon round his red neck that rose above his tight-buttoned dull-blue velvet waistcoat. The younger, and less exalted, guests played stukolka. "You, Kirill Makarovich, keep your peepers off other people's cards!" Kirill Makarovich, a clerk from the police station and a churchman, replied slyly: "But what does it say in Scripture?" "What does it say?" "It says: 'Man, if thou wouldst win, first look at other people's cards, for you can always look at your own.'"167 From the stukolka game came the words: "Ace of spades… Jack of Clubs…Queen of diamonds, king of hearts…" The public listened expectantly: in the dining room came the clatter of crockery – dinner was being laid. The main course was dished out… The chinking of glasses ceased. Suddenly a silence fell – only the young people's table in the neighbouring room seethed with noisy life. Then there began such slurping from spoons, such load chomping, that even the young people's merriment was drowned out. Someone choked. His neighbour clapped him hard on the back of his neck with his fist so that the fish bones became dislodged… Snorting, chomping, red faces, glazed eyes. Two bath house attendants in blue shirts uncorked bottles; corks flew to the ceiling and cheap Lanin champagne descended on the guests in a cold shower. The Streltsov brothers, people almost in the millionaire class, were Moscow landlords and Old Believers, from the Fedoseyev sect168 I believe. Their lives were planned meticulously: their every step had been known and seen for decades. They were both bachelors and lived in a comfortable house together with their niece, who was everything to them: cook, chambermaid and manager of the entire household. The brothers' lives were reckoned in days, hours and minutes. They were practically the same age; one had brown hair and a dark spade beard, the other had fairer hair, flecked with grey. The elder lent money at huge interest rates. There was the court case involving Nikifor and Fyodor Streltsov, the latter accused first of extortion: he charged forty per cent interest! It somehow turned out that the court sentenced Fyodor to only a few months in prison. He couldn't get out of it – he had to do his time, but he declared himself ill and was sent to the prison hospital, from where, by some means or other – it was said it cost him ten thousand roubles ̶ he made it home, where he stayed indoors and snipped off interest repayment coupons… This episode passed unnoticed and their former life resumed its course, except that now Fyodor lent money not against promissory notes, but against houses. The youngest brother, Alexei Fyodorovich, while his brother was in the prison hospital, also – on just one occasion – took up money lending and lent money against a promissory note to a fellow member of the Moscow Racing Club, taking a racing stable as security. Curious to know how his horses were running, Alexei Streltsov would arrive first at the races and became interested in them. His life, hitherto bereft of talk, became full of sports talk. He began riding his horse every race day. To look after the horse, the yard man installed a young boy relative who worked in some stable or other. Alexei Fyodorovich began to head for the races in a charabanc with his Lyonka, who was both coachman and groom. From time to time he took the reins himself. learned to drive, changed his nag for a broken-down trotting horse, became a real racing fan, drove along the Petersburg Highway from

167 Not of course from the Bible, but rather a spoof scriptural quotation. 168 One of the "priestless" sects among the Old Believers. 191 the city gate to the races, to the Pereputye Tavern where, some two or three hours before the start of the meeting, middling punters like himself foregathered. They had come in similar charabancs and discussed the horses' chances in the tavern while their coachmen sat in the charabancs and waited for their masters. Before the start of the trotting races the grooms from the tavern would take their masters into the half-rouble seats in the grandstand, which was still just made of wood. Then they themselves could stand on the charabancs to watch the races through the fence. They knew every horse, could judge its chances of winning and they even used to make bets on the Tote putting twenty copecks each into a kitty ̶ in those days the Tote had a minimum stake of one rouble. Sometimes Alexei Fyodorovich used to go also to the stable of the man that had owed him money and had punctually paid the interest due. From there Fyodorov went to the paddock to see the horses parading before their race. The sport had taken over his life, although his domestic life remained as it had been. The eldest brother, Fyodor, continued to lend money and snip interest repayment coupons; during the day he went into town on business. Both brothers dined at home, eating exclusively Russian food, without any delicacies; however, neither brother drank. By eight in the evening they were already on their way to Savrasenkov's tavern on Tverskoi Boulevard, where the most variegated clintele gathered and ate cheaply. In the two back rooms were good billiard tables, where the best players in Moscow gathered, as, of course, did the card sharps. Upstairs were the "Savrasenkov Rooms" to which couples came from off the street; the card sharps organised their "mills", to which they enticed players from the billiard hall and fleeced them good and proper. When Fyodor came to the tavern he would sit down behind the counter with his friend Kuzma Yegorich and his brother Mikhail, who owned the tavern. Alexei would go into the billiard room and talk there about the races… Sometimes he would play billiards himself at a rouble per game; he always arranged the game so that he could con a loan out of the card sharps half way through. He himself rarely lost a game, even though he played with a mace169 rather than a billiard cue. Thus they would spend every evening at Savrasenkov's, up to eleven o'clock. In the morning the brothers went out of the house together at ten o'clock Fyodor to do business in town and Alexei to his Chernyshevsky Baths, where all the fittings were wooden and the benches were planed and scrubbed down. He would arrive in the changing room of the "noble" section, sit in it for a couple of hours, receive the takings from his assistant and put them in a fireproof safe. Then he would summon the barber. He had a shave every day, not least because it was free; he wasn't going to give money to his own employee. At eleven o'clock precisely his brother Fyodor would appear, take the banknotes out of the safe, leaving his brother with the silver, and leave. On the departure of his brother Alexei would set off across Bryusovsky Lane to the building opposite, a grubby cab drivers' tavern in the Kosourov house. He would spend exactly an hour there drinking tea, chatting, arguing and discussing the chances of the racehorses with the cab drivers. Daredevil likhachi and semi-daredevil drivers would come in. They, just like the racing fans' grooms, followed the contests from across a fence and knew the horses. Each one politely informed himself about the chances for Streltsov's horse in the next race. "In the last handicap you were first in the home straight but Balashov overtook you… His Volny pushed yours offline, galloped and pushed yours off line… Balashov managed to keep his to a trot and won, but yours was disqualified…"

169 an old fashioned type of cue – a stick with a square head.

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At this time Streltsov was already a member of the Racing Club. This happened unexpectedly. The owner of some horses held as security by him went bankrupt; part of the horses went to other creditors, two went to Streltsov as payment of the debt. The rider who stabled the horses suggested he keep them and ride them himself for prizes. He tried them out successfully in training. He registered one for a consolation prize and was lucky enough to come last. After a succession of losses, he was very favourably handicapped in a big race. He would have won easily had it not been for this incident which, out of sympathy, the cabbies reminded him every time. He hated Balashov from that moment on and always dreamed of overtaking him at whatever cost. Seasons went by and he continued to finish tailed off or stone last. On each occasion he would buy a ticket on the Tote – sometimes it was the only ticket on his horse. As he went down to the start the public would laugh and during the race, in a reference to his profession as a bath house owner, they would shout: "Hit him with the venik!" All the time he pinned his hopes on scooping the Tote pool with his single ticket and all the time he came in last. Even the public stopped laughing. But Streltsov filled up his life in his own fashion with this sport – it was, after all, the only pleasure in life he had! Alexei Fyodorovich did not dare tell his brother about his passion, which he regarded as a folly which was comparatively cheap and which did not disrupt the established lifestyle: money, money and money. No friendships, no revelling. The Streltsov brothers did not even read the newspapers; only in the tavern did they sometimes skim through the journals, Alexei reading only one thing – the racing reports. Only once in their lives the police gave the rich brothers two tickets for a charity show in the Bolshoi Theatre where they were showing Lermontov's Demon. Alexei took with him Lyonka the groom. When they got back home they both were cursing as they told Fyodor Fyodorovich: "And it's all a pack of lies! How he kept bellowing that Volny was Efir's son; while you, Lyonya, went on poking me in the ribs and muttering: 'He's lying!' And it's true – he was lying… Volny is the son of Lyogky and Vorozheya."170

It was getting on for nine o'clock in the morning on a non-bath day, but the half-rouble section of the Sandunovsky Baths, with its liveried doorman at the entrance from Bellringers' Lane, was as usual full of people who had come to bathe in the huge pool on the second floor of the palace. Actors from the best theatres came to swim there, among them the almost hundred-year- old actor whom Korsh had taken on in deference to his years. This was Ivan Alexeyevich Grigorovsky, who had worked in both Moscow and the provinces and who was now playing villains in old plays, which he knew by heart, having acted in them as early as the 1840s. He came punctually every day to swim in the pool before everyone else; after his swim he would take a small bottle of vodka from his pocket, knock off the cork and, after drinking half the bottle, and sometimes the entire bottle, would eat some blackcurrants.

170 The point of this rather laboured joke is that in Lermontov's long poem Demon (Part 2 Stanza 10), the Demon describes himself as "Volnyi syn efira" (A free son of the ether). The groom looks after a horse called Volny, whose parents are Lyogky and Vorozheya. He interprets the line as Volny – syn efira (Volny is the son of Efir) and assumes that Efir is a horse. See also note 241.

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Because of this bottle of vodka the famous Moscow doctor Zakharyin, who charged three or five hundred roubles to visit merchants who had gorged on pancakes during Shrovetide, nearly hit him with his walking stick. The old man, who had never had a day's illness in his life, had suddenly felt, as he put it, a "tightness in the chest." He was advised to go to see Zakharyin but, on learning that he charged twenty-five roubles for a home visit, cursed and did not go. Friends arranged an appointment for him – and Zakharyin received him. First question: "Do you drink vodka?" "What? Yes, I do!" "Rarely?" "No, every day..." "One glass? Two?" "Sometimes by the tumbler. I don't drink anything else but vodka! Yesterday I was at three name day parties. About thirty glasses, maybe forty." Zakharyin was astounded. He jumped up from his armchair, his eyes on stalks, banged his walking stick on the floor and yelled: "Wha-at! Fo-fo-forty! Have you drunk some today?" "I've just swallowed half a bottle…" And he took the bottle from his pocket and showed him. "Zakharyin struck my hand," Grigorovsky told friends, "but I held on tight." "Get out of here! Throw him out!" "On hearing the noise a servant ran in and took me out. But he was still shouting and swearing… Then he charged after me and caught me." "Have you been drinking for a long time?" "About twenty years… I'm a hundred next year" Sitting in a cubicle in the Sandunovsky Baths in which Gonetsky had started selling red wine, the old man related: "I learned to drink here, in these very baths, when Sandunova herself was still alive. I saw both her and Pushkin… He liked a really hot steam bath!" "You mean to say you actually saw Pushkin?" asked all the people who had heard him. "Yes, it was here. These cubicles were not here in those days. It was a long building, two storeys high and the room for the upper classes was also large then, with the same sort of soft divans and there was a refreshment bar. Ask anyone you like… Pushkin used to come in here. It was his friend that taught me to drink. In those days there were tables by the sofas… So, after we had a good steaming there, we would sit at a table to rest… Dmitriyev and me. We used to drinking lingonberry water.. Suddenly we saw Denis Vasilyevich Davydov, with his slight limp, coming out. The famous Davydov… His Excellency was at that time living in Tinkov's residence on Prechistenka and Tinkov's wife was my godmother.171 It was there that I got to know that famous hero. He was writing poetry and sometimes used to recite it at my godmother’s house. Denis Vasilyevich had come out from the baths, thrown a sheet over his shoulders and sat down beside me. Then Dmitriyev said to him: 'You've had a good bath, Your Excellency. Would you like some lingonberry water? It smells really good.' 'But you're not afraid of it?' he asks. 'Afraid of what?' 'Of drinking it?' Pushkin talks of it like this: 'This lingonberry drink, I fear, Will surely cost my stomach dear.'171 So that's why he drank it with arak. Denis Vasilyevich gave a wink and the bath attendant was already bringing out two bottles of lingonberry water and a bottle of arak.

171 N.Ya Tinkov, a relative of Griboyedov, actually lived at 25 Arbat. 194

And Denis Vasilyevich began to pour out the drinks for us and for himself; half a tumbler of lingonberry water, half a tumbler of arak. I tried some – it was tasty. He himself read some verses about arak.172 I don't remember how I got home. It was the first time I had got drunk. I didn't think arak was so strong. Each time I saw a Kudryavtsev173 caramel in its coloured wrapper with a twist of a tail at one end, I recall my teacher. Little slips of paper had been inserted in these sweets; each had two lines of verse on them. I remember, one I got read:

The lingonberry drink, I fear, Will surely cost my stomach dear.174

Then there was no arak and no lingonberry water! I've lived to see pocket vodka bottles! Cheap and cheerful!.." Grigorovsky liked talking about the past. He'd seen a great deal and had an amazing memory. He loved telling stories, liked talking, and everyone enjoyed listening to him. He didn't like to mention himself, but had to, because he only talked about events which he had taken part in and from which he could not exclude himself. Sometimes he referred to himself in the third person, as if he were not the subject of the story. Wherever he was talking – that was what he talked about: in the tavern he talked about old taverns, about who drank there, about how they drank and ate; in the theatre, in the company of actors, he would reminisce about actors and the theatre. There was nothing he didn't know, no one he didn't remember. "Well, Vanya, did you know Sukhovo-Kobylin?" the actor Kiselevsky asked him once in Korsh's theatre as he took off his side whiskers and makeup after a performance of Krechinsky. "No, but I saw Rasplyuyev." "How do you mean, Rasplyuyev? He's a fictional character." "Maybe, but he was a chorus member in a theatre in Yaroslavl, and a card sharp. Different surname. In my time he was thrown out of the window of the Stolby tavern for card sharping. Only I've forgotten who exactly he was: either Mishka Dokuchayev or Yegorka Bystrov!" Considering his age Grigorovsky was very fit and didn't like it when he was taxed with being old. Once, in the Livorno restaurant, Ivan Alexeyevich told his friends: "The day before, I was the guest of a young lady telegraphist. I had a splendid time… " Andreyev-Burlak laughed: "Vanya! What stories you’re telling! How could you have a good time with young women when the telegraph had not yet been invented." One morning a six-foot colonel came into the changing room, covered in soot from his moustache to his chest and his general bow was greeted from all the divans: "Hello, Nikolai Ilyich!" "I was at a fire all night in Rogozhskaya… I'll have a bath and a sleep… Nearly twenty houses burned down." This was Colonel N.I. Ogaryov who was a relative of the poet, the friend of Herzen. Everyone in Moscow liked him.

172 Probably the opening of his poem "To Burtsov: an invitation to drink punch". 173 Well known confectionary firm, founded by Fyodor Timofeyevich Kudryavtsev (b. 1859) and famous for its caramels. Some of these are illustrated at http://www.kudvic.ru/en/obertki-xix-nachala-xx- veka/kudryavczevyix.html 174 From Eugene Onegin Chapter 3 Verse 4. 195

He had been released from the Guards into the army, promoted to be a Colonel and placed at the service of the Governor General. Then they promoted him to be Chief of Police of the Second Section of Moscow. He greatly loved fires, never missing a single one, and like all firemen he loved the baths. In the 1860s he gave permission for everyone under arrest to be escorted to the baths by unarmed escorts from the police stations. These prisoners included even those who were charged with political offences and kept in secret cells at police stations. In 1862 they were keeping in such a secret cell in the Tverskaya Police Station P.G. Zaichnevsky, who was the most important political prisoner at that time and was later condemned to penal servitude. Every day Ogaryov used to admire the skewbald horses that went out with the firemen, and through a window he got to know Zaichnevsky, who also loved horses. Later on he went to his cell several times and gave permission for him to go to the baths accompanied by a soldier. On Saturdays the members of the Russian Gymnastics Society were accustomed to go after their evening classes from the Redlikh house on Strastnoi Boulevard to the nearby Sandunovsky Baths. I, however, always went to the Palashevsky Baths, alongside the Angliya furnished rooms where I lived. But the main reason was that next to the baths was the stall where the popular poet Razoryonov offered his wares – kvass and his own cucumber marinade, which was so aromatic and tasty that people preferred it even to the best bread kvass. The stall was so tiny that the huge old man Alexei Yermilovich could barely turn round in it when he had to ladle marinade from a barrel or pour a big tankard of kvass from a tap. Both of these cost one copeck. The stall closed at eleven o'clock and I always hurried from the baths so as not to be late and to find time to chat with the old man about the theatre and poetry, to hear his latest verse and to share mine with him. On the Saturday in question I nipped into the Sandunovsky Baths between nine and at ten o'clock in the evening. My priority was to get my hair cut – I didn't shave my beard or moustache once I left the stage. The barber, a mere boy, cut my hair then began to get the razors ready, but I refused. "As you wish, but you always used to shave." He addressed me by my name and patronymic. It turned out he was a pupil of a theatre barber in Penza. I told him that, since leaving the stage, the last time I had a shave was before a show in Baku. "So you were in the Caucasus? We've got a Persian in the Baths who comes from the Caucasus. If you like, I'll call him." I was very pleased. Of course I'd been in the Caucasus, during the war, in fact I'd ridden the length and breadth of the Caucasus but I'd never been to their famous baths. In truth, there was no time for bath houses during the war and the sort of people with whom I ranged through the wild auls couldn't show their faces in town. In Baku there was no time for bath houses, and we passed Tiflis without stopping. "Abdinov!" he cried. Before me a bath attendant, nimble, spare and flexible as honeysuckle, with a completely shaven head, circled and weaved, affording me a pleasure I had not experienced hitherto. I'm not minded to describe this operation, so unexpected in Moscow – I can't better Pushkin! I quote his Journey to Erzurum: "Hassan started by laying me out on the warm stone floor and after that he began to break the stiffness out of my limbs, to extend my joints forcibly and to pound me with his fist: I did not feel any pain at all, only a marvellous liberation. Bath attendants from Asia sometimes get carried away by enthusiasm… They may jump up on your shoulders, run their legs down over your hips and do a squat-dance on your spine .

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After that he spent a long time rubbing me with his mitten, splashed me with a large amount of warm water and began to wash me with a soapy air-filled linen bag. The sensation was inexplicable: you were covered in hot soap as though it were air. After that treatment Hassan lowered me into the bath and that brought the ceremony to a close." I was still sitting in the bath when, with loofahs and soap in their hands, in flew two handsome, graceful and agile fellows, the Durov brothers, who were amateur members of our gymnastic society. One of them halted on the rope matting which led to the hot room, did a salto mortale, waved a loofah in greeting and disappeared after his brother into the hot room. And now our own folk appeared… In his stately way, heeding no one, there swam in like a fish our indomitable and awesomely bewhiskered fencing master Taras Petrovich Tarasov, venik tucked under his arm. His huge athletic figure was already beginning to put on a layer of fat which added to his swelling biceps and sinewy calf muscles… Here was someone you could use as a model for Hercules! But from the next one you could also have modelled Antinous.175 He was our outstanding teacher of gymnastics, a famous dancer and skater, and was the elder brother of another fine gymnast, Pyotr Ivanovich Postnikov, now well known as the famous surgeon, who in those days was still at high school or studying in the first year at the university. He would stay under the cold shower, twisting about with his body looking like the marble statue of a real Greek demigod, showing off his sumptuous muscles of which a fine network rippled on his broad back under his slim waist. I went on sitting in the warm bath. All round me, as usual in the soap room, were the sounds of people slapping their bare, wet bodies, the hiss of water running into tubs from the taps, the splashing of water from the showers, and one could scarcely hear any human voices. As always, people were chatting in the changing rooms, keeping quiet in the soap room and laughing in the hot room. And one could hear that laughter for an instant in the soap room when the door opened from the hot room. Then suddenly there was such a roar of laughter that it boomed through the closed door from the hot room. "Just look when they beat him… I've been sitting here for a quarter of an hour… He was there already… Just like a lion roaring in the Libyan desert. He'll wear them all out!" That was said from the next bath by an old man, clean-shaven but with some grey hairs combed down over his cheeks. He was a retired member of the civil court, who for fifty years had earned a pension of three roubles a month, a bad back and a clasp in his buttonhole. "In good old Catherine's time," he grumbled, "when you had a clasp like that, you could go into the women's baths for free, and now you have to pay even to go into the men's baths." From the hot room several groups of men began to hurry out together, laughter could be heard through the open door. "Oho! Ho! Ho!.. Oho! Ho! Ho!" "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" "Splash on some more. Keep it hot!" The beating of veniki could be heard. Those who had emerged into the soap room swayed, snorted, hurried to the showers and washed themselves under the taps. "Pour it on!... My lower back!. My lower back!" boomed a thunderous bass. "Like that!.. Like that!.. Lower! Oh! Oh! Oh! Ah! Ah! That's it!.. Hit it with the twigs!.. With the twigs…" Then suddenly: "Enough!.. Ah! Ah! Ah! Oh! Oh!.."

175 This is Anton Ivanovich Postnikov. Antinous (c. 111 AD – 130) was a beautiful youth, lover of the Emperor Hadrian. He was sometimes worshipped as a god.

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From the open door steam rolled out. It grew hot in the smoke room… The first to appear was Tarasov, with a venik in his hands… Behind him there stirred some shaggy apparition with shaggy shoulder-length hair, neighing with delight. Even Tarasov seemed small compared with him. Both of them rubicund, with protuberant eyes, pressed towards the shower and the apparition again neighed and, like an elephant, rotated under the cold water. I immediately recognised him – we'd met dozens of times at various official functions and, incidentally at the trotting races and flat races, which he often attended; during the intervals between races he always hid in some remote corner for, as he put it: "It is not seemly for a clerical personage to be at a racetrack – the authorities will see you. But I'm very keen on horses." He would go up to the buffet. The attendant would pour him a tea glass full of vodka or else, if the attendant didn't know him and poured out a shot glass for him, as he did for everyone else, he would immediately boom: "What are you doing? Eh? Who are you pouring for? This is for giving communion to a sparrow and not for an archdeacon to drink." However, Archdeacon Shekhovtsov was known in every buffet; his proclaiming "may they live many years" at merchant weddings made the candles go out and the crystal pendants of the chandeliers tremble. Tarasov and I went to get dressed. We met friends in the changing room…There was the huge, hairy writer Orfanov- Mishla, almost as tall as Shekhovtsov, shaggy-haired and with a great beard… We could see that scissors had cut his hair long ago or, perhaps, never. And beside him there was Vasya Vasilyev, a tiny figure, with his little face clean-shaven for the stage and with curly hair. They were Chernyshi residents, both only semi-legal, both under surveillance and both old friends of mine. "How did you come to be here? I thought you never go to the baths? You are members of the 'Club of Unwashed Dogs', and suddenly we find you in the baths!" Back in the days when he was working with me at Brenko's, Vasya used to insist that there really was such a club in Petersburg in the 1860s, that he had been to it and that he had lived in the building in Ertelev Lane where that club held its meetings. Later on, that building and the one beside it were knocked down; on the site where they had stood and the one next door Suvorin set up the printing press for his journal New Times. Only two poets have devoted a few lines to Russian baths and each poet mirrored his own age in the lines he wrote. Both poets were inspired by the baths in Moscow. One was our all-embracing Pushkin and the other was the Moscow poet Shumakher.

His palace the young ruler enters, Behind, a bevy of retainers. The first removes his wingèd helmet, The next his forgèd armament. One takes his sword and one his shield. The iron martial vestments yield To luxury unknown in battle. But first the youthful khan they lead Towards a splendid Russian bath. Already clouds of steam invade The chamber with its tub of silver And jets of cooling water quiver; A deep-pile carpet unfurlèd lies;

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The weary khan there takes his rest. Above him clouds of white steam twist. And, lowering their luscious eyes, Surrounding him, half-naked beauties In silence carry out their duties, Tenderly the khan caress And playfully around him press. Above the khan one agitates The fronds new-gathered from the birch And fragrant warmth thus generates. Another with the rose's juice Each devastated limb refreshes And in sweet-smelling perfume drenches His raven-coloured curly hair…176

The knight besotted with delight177extols the charm of the Sandunovsky Baths in exquisite verse; he used to visit them with his friends each time he came to Moscow. The poet, young, strong, rugged, having steamed on a bench with "fronds new gathered from the birch", would jump into an ice bath, then get back on the shelf where once again "above him clouds of white steam twisted". There "in luxury unknown in battle" he rested in the lavishly appointed changing room, fitted out by a builder of Catherine's palaces, where "jets of cooling water quiver" and "a deep-pile carpet unfurlèd lies". Half a century passed. New ideals, new aspirations were born. The liberal poet of the 1860s P.V. Shumakher used to make his way from his apartment on Meshchanskaya Street to the popular Volkov baths on the Yauza River. He was very fat and suffered from gout. Ivan Turgenev used to say to him: "You and I are colleagues in literature and gout." Shumakher used the baths to treat his gout and all bath-treatable ailments. He had two of the staff to treat him, by putting him on the stove minute and minute about. He particularly liked the Sandunovsky Baths and, having been steamed there, he would take a rest, even sleeping for two hours, then would always take away the venik with him. When he was resting on the sofa at home he would put it under his head. He spent the last years of his life in Sheremetev's almshouse on Sukharevskaya Square and he had a room there. He lived in that room for the winter and in the summer he lived in Kuskovo, where Sheremetev let him have the "Dutch Cottage". Shumakher's poems were printed in journals or published separately. As he loved the baths, he was the only poet to sing their delights with relish and good taste. Here are some lines from his verse about the baths:

Bones are getting softer, all my nerves are screaming, From my aching body bucketloads come streaming; From the birch my whole back burns and stings, While a lady tells me obscure things.

Tanyushka, don't you me overtax; This bath has made me thoroughly relax. My muscles, sinews are no longer tight And all my aching joints have been put right.

176 From Canto 4 of Pushkin's mock-epic "Ruslan and Liudmila" (1820). 177 A Misquotation from Canto 6 of the same poem. 199

In bath-houses the birch is still the greatest; First dry it, then into the hot steam place it; Let the twigs be stout, let them sweet smell; May they handle flexibly and well.

To the highest of the shelves I climb, Into soft and purple, all-enveloping steam. There in clouds of heat my rest I take, And, with long and silky birch twigs, bake.

Here are some more, on the same subject:

Not a man to be on dreaming bent, Impotently angry with myself, To the Volkov Baths it was I went To steam my aching bones upon the shelf. But then – what pleasures, what delights – I my ideals' cherished paths Of Freedom, Love and Equal Rights Discovered in the public baths.

They would not allow this poem to be printed, as was the inevitable rule in those days. The verse was circulated from hand to hand and was read with great success at illegal evenings. I remembered it in the Sukonnye Baths, in the Boloto District, where there was a twenty- copeck "noble" section, very popular with the local merchants.

Once, coming back from a fire on Tatarskaya Street, I rode to the Pyatnitskaya station with the firemen, where I jumped off the wagon. Black with smoke, covered in soot, I went into the Sukonnye Baths which were nearby. I pushed into "popular"' section ̶ absolutely crammed with people even though it was only eleven o'clock in the morning. But there was enough space in the "noble" section for twenty copecks. There were about thirty people splashing about in the soap room. The attendant soaped up my head twice and was forcefully scraping soot out of my beard and my hair … In those days I had still quite a decent amount of hair. I was sitting with my eyes closed and feeling such delight. Suddenly above the general noise, the splashing of water over my bare body I heard everyone shouting loudly: "He's coming, he's here!" And at that very moment the attendant, without saying a word, slopped across the wet floor and disappeared. What on earth was going on? And there was no one I could ask… I couldn't see anything. I felt for the tub but couldn't find it; it turned out the attendant has carried it away, but my head and my face were covered in soap. Somehow I managed to rub my eyes and I could see: total confusion! The attendants had given up their customers, some of whom had their heads soaped up, while others lay on benches. The staff were rushing to fill tubs from the taps and were drawn up in two lines into the hot steam room, holding the tubs high above their heads. I couldn't understand what was happening and the soap was stinging my eyes. Now the door sprang wide open and, accompanied by two of the steam team carrying birch veniki, a mighty bearded figure advanced with his hair in a central parting and a fringe. Then the attendants, one after the other, emptied their tubs over his head with a smooth movement so that every drop went over him, adding as they did so, and with respectful joy:

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" Good health to you, Pyotr Ionych!" " Enjoy the steaming…" After a minute the attendant finished washing my head and, without even apologizing, said: "That is Pyotr Ionych … Gubonin…His house is by the Pyatnitskaya fire station. When he is in Moscow he comes to us every second day about this time and gives each of us a tip of one rouble."

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27 Taverns

"We love the tavern best of all," says Arkashka Schastlivtsev in The Forest. For many Muscovites too the tavern was "number one". It was a stock exchange for businessmen, who did countless deals over a glass, a café for the lonely, and provided hours of relaxation and friendly conversation for everyone. It was a place for business meetings and for general debauchery – for millionaires and for the down-at-heel alike. In a word, Arkashka was right and the tavern is indeed "number one" From the early nineteenth century there were three old purely Russian taverns in Moscow: The Saratov, Gurin's Tavern178 and Yegorov's.179 This latter had two separate premises: one in Yegorov's own house on Hunters' Row, the other in the house of the millionaire Patrikeyev180 at the corner of Resurrection Square and Theatre Square. Yegorov had to give up the second of these.181 In 1868 Gurin's steward, I.Ya. Testov, persuaded Patrikeyev, who dreamt only of glory, to take the tavern and make it over to him. And now, to the great pride of merchants, on the wall of the refurbished building, which was sumptuous for its time, there appeared a huge placard with letters two feet high "Patrikeyev's Great Tavern". Quite modestly below that was the sign: "I.Ya. Testov." Testov set up in business to show off Russian cuisine. Both merchants and noblemen flocked to the new tavern. There was particularly brisk trade from August onwards, when landowners from all over Russia brought their children to study in colleges in Moscow and the tradition became established of taking the children for a meal at Testov's or in the Dubrovin's Saratov tavern, where the career was launched of the famous Anna Zakharovna and her choir, who would later become famous at the Yar. After a play was finished, the audience from the theatre would be standing in a queue. Testov's fame outshone both Gurin's tavern and the Saratov tavern. In 1876 the merchant Karzinkin bought up Gurin's tavern, demolished it, built an enormous house and set up the Great Moscow Hotel Company, where he fitted out luxurious public rooms and a hotel with about a hundred magnificent rooms. The first half of the hotel opened in 1878. However, it did not stand in Testov's way, as he added to his notice board a coat of arms and his inscription "Supplier to the Royal Household." High society from Petersburg, headed by the Grand Dukes, used to come specially from the capital to eat at Testov's: sucking pig, crayfish soup with rasstegai and their famous Guryev kasha, which had nothing to do with Gurin's tavern, but supposedly had been invented by some mythical Guryev. Besides the row of private rooms, in the hotel there were two enormous halls, where well known merchants had their own tables which could not be taken by anyone else up to a certain time of day. Thus in the left hand hall the furthest table by the window was booked from four o'clock for the millionaire Ivan Vasilyevich Chizhev,182 a clean-shaven, rather fat old man of enormous size. Chizhev would take his place punctually at the table, almost always on his own. He would eat for two hours and have a quiet snooze between courses. His menu was as follows: a helping of cold beluga or sturgeon with horseradish, caviar, two helpings of crayfish soup, fish or kidney solyanka, served with two rasstegai pies, and then a roast sucking pig, followed by veal or a fish dish according to the season. In summertime he would unfailingly take cold soup with sturgeon, white salmon and cured fillet of sturgeon. To

178 I.D. Gurin's tavern stood where the Moskva Hotel now stands. 179 The tavern was established by Konstantin Yegorovich Yegorov and developed by his son Yegor. 180 Probably Pavel Vasilyevich Patrikeyev, a member of a prominent Moscow merchant family. 181 Act 2 Scene2. 182 Possibly an error for Fyodor Vasilyevich Chizhev (Chizhov) 1811-77. 202 follow that, the third course would always be a panful of Guryev's kasha. Sometimes he allowed himself to vary the dishes by replacing the pastries with baidakovsky pie ̶ a huge fish pie with twelve layers of filling in which there was everything, beginning with burbot liver and finishing with a layer of brains in black sauce. Along with this he drank red and white wine, then, having snoozed for half an hour, he would go home to have a proper sleep, so that he could be in the Merchants' Club from eight o'clock in the evening, eating to his special order, now in a large company, and could drink champagne. In the Club he always placed his orders himself and no one in his company would contradict him. "For me I'm having none of your folies jolies or fancy French fricassées… We are eating in Russian style ̶ so no tummy ache or running round the doctors and we're not going off abroad to rinse our insides out." And this gourmand lived to a ripe old age. There were plenty like him in Testov's tavern.

I have before me a bill from Testov's tavern for thirty-six roubles, with a cancelled stamp and a receipt signed by V. Dalmatov and O. Grigorovich, dated 25 May. The year isn't given but I think 1897 or 1898. En route from Petersburg, my old acting friend V.P. Dalmatov and his friend O.P. Grigorovich, a well-known engineer from Moscow, had dropped in to see me. We went to Testov's to have a real Muscovite meal. In the left-hand hall we were met by the patriarch of waiters, who had celebrated his fortieth anniversary of working there, Kuzma Pavlovich. "Please, Vladimir Alexeyevich, come and sit at Pastukhov's usual table. Nikolai Ivanovich has gone on a fishing trip to the Volga." We sat down at a central table, occupied for a decade by the editor of the Moscow Sketch. Wearing a pristine white shirt, his beard and hair no less white than his shirt, Kuzma struck an expectant pose before us, having managed to whisper something to two junior waiters. "Well then, Kuzma, good sir, we're treating a celebrated artiste! Let's start with some vodka… Don't skimp on starters." "As you say, sir." "Now tell me what you have on offer." "Smoked fillet of sturgeon from the Don. Amber-coloured. From Kuchugury. It has the fragrance of a wind from the steppe." "Right. Then dried salmon and cucumber." "Manna from heaven, not salmon. Ivan Yakovlevich himself dried it at his dacha. Fresh beluga caviar – pressed, from Achuyevo. Rolls from Chuyev's bakery.183 Sucking pig with horseradish." "I’d like a hot dish and kasha," said Dalmatov. "So no cold dish, sir?" And he winked towards the waiter. "Well, what do you propose?" "Testov's solyanka soup, of course," Grigorovich chimed in. "Solyanka – with sturgeon, sterlet – brilliant, like yellow gold, well-fed sterlet, straight from Mochalov's aquarium." "Let's have the pastries with burbot liver." "Then I would recommend plain cutlets à la jardinière. Our veal is white as snow. We get it from Alexander Grigoryevich Shcherbatov. It's something special." "I’ll have sucking pig and kasha tout pur, as Rasplyuyev puts it," said Dalmatov with a smile.184

183 On Rozhdestvenskaya Street. 184 See Act 3 Scene 2 of Krechinsky’s Wedding. 203

"Sucking pig all round… And see to it, Kuzma, that it's a pink one. Tell them to soak the outside in vodka so that it crackles." "And between the meat dishes, how about grilled salmon," Dalmatov suggested. "The salmon is brilliant. From Petersburg…Do you want me to chop the greens? The asparagus is like butter…" "Fine, Kuzma, the rest's as you see fit… You won't forget anything?" "Please – I've been here a hundred years!" He glanced round. At that moment two waiters were lugging in some huge trays. Kuzma glanced at them and disappeared into the kitchen. In a minute there appeared on the table cold Smirnov vodka on ice, English bitters, Shustov rowanberry vodka, and Leve seco № 50 port, along with a bottle of picon. Another two waiters brought through two joints of ham cut into pink, wafer-thin transparent slices. And then a tray with a pumpkin and cucumbers, roasted brains steaming on black bread and two silver jugs containing grey granular caviar and shiny black pressed Achuevo caviar. Kuzma came in silently with a plate of salmon decked out with slices of lemon. "Kuzma, you must have forgotten me." "Of course not, sir… Be good enough to look at this." On the third tray was a bottle of ale wrapped in a napkin and three glasses. "How could I possibly forget, sir!" We started first with a drink to go with the herring. "For the rhyme," as I.F.Gorbunov used to say, "vodka goes with herring."185 Then we drank, with the best pressed Achuyevo caviar, then with granular caviar and tiny pastries with burbot liver, first a glass each of cold white Smirnov vodka with ice, then a second glass with picon, then with the brains we drank the English bitters and, with olive salad, zubrovka vodka. After each glass that we put away the plates from the hors d'oeuvres were replaced by fresh ones… Kuzma was cutting into the steaming ham, while his aides were scooping out the granular caviar with silver spoons and spreading it out on our plates. The pink salmon was replaced by amber coloured cured fillet of sturgeon. We drank a glass of ale each time to wash it down. The hors d'oeuvres were gradually disappearing… In their place shone expensive porcelain and the silver of the spoons and forks, while on the next table the solyanka soup was steaming and the round pastries showed up pink. "Solyanka, sir!" And Kuzma draped a serviette across his left shoulder, took a knife and fork, moved the rasstegai pie towards him, flapped his pudgy hands like a pigeon flapping its wings and, in an instant, and soundlessly, with a series of quick flourishes, turned the pie into ten narrow slices, ranging from a complete piece of grey burbot liver in the centre to the thick crimsoned edges of the pie. "A Chinese rose, not a pie," said Dalmatov delightedly. "Begging your pardon sir, but I've been cutting for forty years," said Kuzma, as if in self- justification, as he tackled the next pie. "Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich himself praised the way I cut a pie in a rose shape." "Was he here a long time ago?" We all went on eating, while the orchestra in the big room next door struck up:

185 Ivan Fyodorovich Gorbunov (1831-95/96 by the New Calendar). Writer, actor who specialised in monologues. The reference is probably to one of these. The Russian words for "herring" and "vodka" rhyme.

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That was how in Askold's time Lived our fathers and grandfathers.186

Testov's was one of the taverns which were very fashionable in the nineteenth century and later began to call themselves "restaurants". At that time there was only one "restaurant" the Slavonic Bazaar, and the others called themselves "taverns", because most of their customers were the old Russian merchant class. And each of the restaurants in the area of Ilyinka Street and Nikolskaya Street was marked by its distinctive features, its own special dish and each one had its own traditional customers. Furthermore all these taverns were served by waiters from Yaroslavl, wearing white shirts made from expensive Holland cloth that had been washed till it shone. They were nicknamed "white shirts", "floor boys", "sixes". "Why 'sixes?'" "Because they are servants to aces, kings and queens and each 'jack', even the jack of spades, can give them orders." Thus it was explained to me by the old waiter Fedotych, who added with a smile: "Never mind, a six of trumps even beats an ace." However, a "six" has to go through a lot of trials before it becomes a trump card. In the old days waiters in the taverns were mainly from Yaroslavl, "Yaroslavl water- drinkers". Later on, when there were more taverns, waiters started to come in from villages from the provinces of Moscow, Tver, Ryazan and other neighbouring provinces. It seems they were brought to Moscow as boys to Sokolov's tavern, somewhere near the Tver Gate, where tavern keepers would come to recruit boys. Here was the exchange for future "sixes". The boys were usually brought by their parents, who would conclude a contract with the tavern keepers for their training, which lasted some five years. Conditions varied, depending on the tavern. They all had the same dream – to work at the Hermitage or at Testov's. The most nimble, sensible and educated children were taken on there and there they went through the difficult training needed to become a waiter. First, the boy would be made a dishwasher for a year. Then, if he was found to be quick on the uptake, he would be transferred to the kitchen, to learn about serving food. Here he would be taught the names of dishes. In six months the boy would hone his skills under the experienced eye of the chefs, then he would be given his white shirt. "He knows all the sauces!" would be the recommendation from the head chef. After that the boy served among the underlings for at least four years, brought dishes from the kitchen, cleared the crockery off the table, learned to take orders from the customers and at last, in the fifth year of his training, was allowed to have a pouch for tokens and a silk belt into which he tucks the pouch ̶ and now the boy would be serving in the main hall . By this time he was obliged to have half a dozen white Madapollam shirts, and anyone who could afford it also had to have shirts and trousers of Holland cloth, always of a snowy, uncrumpled brilliance. The older "floor boys" had tail coats, that is the ones who were sent out on big orders for the restaurant, but it was only in the Slavonic Bazaar that they wore tail coats when serving; they were called not "floor boys" but "waiters", but customers would summon them by shouting "My man!" Later waiters in tail coats appeared, even in the out-of-town restaurants, and bills were settled with tokens. In the morning each of the waiters received from the cash desk twenty-five roubles worth of copper tokens, worth three roubles to five copecks apiece, and when he gave in the customer's order, he would deposit them against the cost of the meal. Then later he would change the tokens for cash that he had received from the customer.

186 From the opera Askold’s Grave (1833) by Alexei Nikolayevich Verstovsky (1799-1862). Libretto by M. Zagoskin. 205

Money received as tips would be deposited in the kitchen where it was noted down and divided in equal shares. However, no one deposited all their money… They would put away part of it and sometimes even the larger part, somewhere out of reach. That sort of money was what the floor boys termed "set by for my wedding". "Why 'for my wedding?'" "That's an old-fashioned saying. It used to happen that boys in the village would hide copecks in the cottage from their parents by pushing them into cracks in the walls or stuffing them under the beams to hide them out of harm's way 'for their wedding'." That was how the old men explained it. Floor boys and waiters did not draw any wages in taverns and restaurants, and even used to pay their landlords either a fixed sum, ranging from three roubles or more a month to twenty per cent of the tips that had come into the desk. The only exception was the Saratov tavern: there the owners, neither Dubrovin to start with, nor Savostyanov later, took anything from the waiters, but, right until the tavern closed, they paid both waiters and boys three roubles a month. "The tips are their good fortune. We don't need to steal other people's good fortune, but we ought to pay for their service," Savostyanov used to say. One could not calculate how many hours the waiters worked, running through the great rooms, into the kitchen and out from the kitchen, which might sometimes be below stairs, and the main restaurant might be on the second floor. In some taverns they worked almost sixteen hours a day. It was particularly difficult to work in the "people's" taverns where tea was served for five copecks a "pair" ̶ tea and two pieces of sugar for one person ̶ and even then the customers would economize. Three people would sit down, loosen their belts and order: "Two and three!" And for ten copecks the waiter brought them two "pairs" and three place settings. They got the third place for nothing. Then he had to run out nine or ten times with the kettle to get more water. "The tea's a bit weak…Ask them to add some more," a guest would request. They would add some more ̶ then run off to get more boiling water. It was particularly difficult to work to work in taverns serving cabmen. There were a great many of them in Moscow. In the open air there would be a yard with water troughs for the horses and, inside, a food counter. Everything was there: beef cheek, catfish and pork. Cabmen coming in from the cold loved particularly fatty food, oven-roasted eggs, kalach rolls and oven-baked sitnik bread with sesame seeds, which had to be followed by pea kissel. And many millionaires in Moscow, having escaped from poverty, loved to indulge themselves here and to remember old times. And, if they didn't come themselves, they would send one of their minions. "Get some tripe for twenty copecks. And pick up a couple of sitnik loaves or a kalach." At times of fast it was "pea kissel and plenty of oil on it." And His Lordship would sit in the lavishly appointed study of his newly fitted out warehouse and revels, conjuring up the recent past. And at such times he might chat with some foreign businessman. Cabbies used the tavern both to get food and to keep themselves warm. They had no other place to relax, no other source of food. This was life without frills. Just tea and tripe with cucumbers. On very rare occasions a tot of vodka, but never enough to get drunk on. Twice a day, and, in a hard frost, thrice, they would eat and warm himself up, and in the autumn he might dry out his wet clothing, and all these little indulgencies cost him just sixteen copecks: five copecks for the tea, ten for food to fill themselves full and a copeck to the yard man for letting the horse drink and for seeing to the horse trough. The cabbies' favourite taverns were in the centre of the city: the London in Hunters' Row, the Kolomna on Neglinnaya, in Bryusovsky Lane, in Great Kiselny Lane and, most central 206 of all, in Stoleshnikov Lane, where nowadays House Number 6 looms large, and where in the old days there were flocks of hens wandering about and the large red watchdog Caesar would be sitting by the gate and keeping tramps out of the yard. Each tavern always had its own room for cabbies, where it could show off its prize food counter, and the man who had that franchise would pay a hefty sum to the landlord and try to give the very best food, wanting to attract the cabbies and hoping they would say: "Lets go to Stoleshnikov. There's no better food counter than that one." And the cabbies went to Stoleshnikov because the catfish was always rich and the sitnik loaves, made from sifted flour, always hot. But on feast days the tavern is always crammed full of drunks by the evening and there's no room. The waiter may thread his way through the tables of drunks, twisting and turning, juggling with the tray that he is holding on his palm high above his head and on the tray sometimes there are "two and seven", that means two kettles with hot water and seven place settings. And as for a tip, customers who had asked only for tea would not give anything, only occasionally perhaps just two or three copecks, and that for some special extra service: "I say, my dear fellow, run over to my place and tell herself that I shan't be coming back for dinner. I'm going into town." That's what a contractor who lives nearby orders, and the "dear fellow" dashes off across the street in his shirt sleeves, sometimes in rain and filth, sometimes in twenty degrees of frost, just covering his head or his neck with a dirty napkin; he is carrying out the order of the regular customer, who his boss specially wants to keep in with. He has no time to put on a coat – he'd get it in the neck from the barman. Or a cabby may order him: "Run out into the yard. There's a sledge there with a vobla fish under the seat. Bring it here. You know my horse is the bay with the star on his head." And, without putting on his coat, the lad runs out among hundreds of horses in the cabbies' yard to find the bay horse with the star and the fish under the seat. How many of the lads caught pneumonia! It was a really heroic feat to get money from drunken customers. A drunk might hold out for half an hour cursing and swearing before you could get sense into him. However, the experienced boys could manage it and that was how they made their income. And they knew how to get it. "Well, did you do it?" "You mean did I come the Pyotr Kirilych?187 Well, sort of… But all the same…" Nowadays there is still with us the shoemaker Pyotr Ivanovich, who remembers him very well, as I've already told you. He was a peasant from Uglich who really existed and Pyotr Ivanovich made shoes for him. Every morning he took his tea in the Obzhorka eating house, where the old waiters met up together. Moscow merchants loved to laugh at someone and they would say to him: "You, Pyotr, don't come the Pyotr Kirilych with me." However, Pyotr Kirilych knew what to reply and who to say it to and he sometimes used to reply to the merchant: "Well all the same I seem to be always on your mind, always me. That may be useful. Maybe, when you are settling your account, you will bear me in mind and make good money. And when you're writing a bill out for a customer, you won't forget me either. I should make enough then to keep me in tea." And the customer had to pay up and desist from his merchant-type jokes. Some of the waiters could make clever use of this merchant habit of laughing and mocking vulnerable individuals. They would pretend to be offended and could earn a good tip that way. Gurin had one waiter, Ivan Selyodkin, whose surname was like the Russian word for

187 See Chapter 16. 207

"herring". That was his real name but he used to swear when people called him by his surname instead of first name and patronymic. Not just when they called him by his surname but even in the event of a customer's ordering herring, he would go wild: "I'll give you herring! Do you want me to smash your face in?" They were always old customers sitting in the tavern who knew this and no one used to take offence. But once he really did get into trouble. This happened in Testov's, to which he had moved from Gurin's. General Slyozkin had been transferred to Moscow as head of the gendarmerie. He and his group occupied a table and ordered hors d'oeuvre. When he had taken the order, the waiter set off for the food, but Slyozkin shouted after him in a commanding tone: "And don't forget the herring. Herring I repeat!" By bad luck at that very moment Selyodkin was coming in through another door. He had not seen the General but just heard the word "herring". "You wretch, I’ll give you herring! And do you want me to smash your face in?" He turned round threateningly and froze on the spot. The merchants also froze. Some of them left their spoon in their mouth, some of them broke their wine glass, others choked and spluttered, fearing to give a single cough. I don't know how this scene ended. I only know that Selyodkin went on working at Testov's. Yegorov's Tavern, on Hunters' Row, was famous for its pancakes and fish cuisine, and also because you were not allowed to smoke there, as the proprietor was an Old Believer. The waiter Kozyol188 was one of the staff. The old man had an enormous grey goatee beard, besides which, he came from Tver. He had been very well named and could not bear that word, which in general most people from Tver did not like.189 The merchants from Hunters' Row used to make fun of him like this: they would occupy a table, order food and in the middle of the table they would place an unopened parcel. When the old man was setting out the food and was taking up the parcel to make room for their plates, he would take off the paper and there was a toy goat! The old man would seize the goat and throw it on the floor with a curse. However, if the toy was valuable, from a good shop, he would pick it up and run out of the room to hide it. Then the next time the merchants bought a goat again. In his old age Kozyol worked at Obukhov's Mint tavern on Hunters' Row, where the Mint was in the old days. In the Arsentych tavern there was a waiter who could not bear the word "lemon". It was said that he had once stolen a sack of lemons from a warehouse, but, when on a spree with some girls, he opened the sack – and out poured rotten potatoes instead of lemons. There were a lot of funny stories like that, but sometimes these jokes had a dark side to them. Thus one waiter in Lopashov's Tavern, who was already an old man and really hated anyone ordering sucking pig from him as a joke. It reminded him of an unhappy event in his life. When he was still young he had come back to his village to spend time with this wife, and had brought homecoming presents to her. She was living in a cottage on her own and was feeding a little piglet. As bad luck would have it, when her husband knocked, his wife was entertaining her lover. She took fright and hid her lover under the stove. She then let in her husband and did not know what to do. Then she opened the door, drove the piglet out into the porch and from the porch out on to the street and shouted to her husband: "The piglet has run off, do go out and catch him!" And she herself ran out with him. In the meantime her lover had got away, but a neighbour had seen the whole story and told the village about it. Fellow villagers brought the

188 i.e. Goat. 189 The term "Tver goat" dates from the first half of the nineteenth century and alludes to the goatskin footwear made in the area. 208 story to Moscow and used to tease the poor man right into his old age, sometimes even reducing the old fellow to tears.

One of the oldest establishments was Lopashov's tavern on the Varvarka. Originally it had belonged to Martyanov, but when he died it passed on to Lopashov. Bald, clean-shaven, with tightly clipped whiskers, always wearing his expensive black frock coat, Alexei Dmitriyevich Lopashov was highly regarded, and he unfailingly treated his customers with great courtesy, no matter who they were. On the upper floor of the inn there was a large private room that was called the "Russian Cottage",190 decked out with embroidered towels and wood carving. In the middle was a table with twelve place settings with an embroidered Russian tablecloth and embroidered towels instead of napkins. The food was served with old-fashioned crockery and silver: cups, goblets, wine cups and little glasses dating back to Peter the Great and earlier. The menu was also pre-Petrine. Here they served dinners to a limited number of distinguished foreign guests. Dishes from the French cuisine had no place here although there were French wines; these were, however, decanted into old-fashioned vessels with the inscriptions – Frankish, Falernian, Malvasian, Grecian etc. ̶ and for champagne they put out a huge twelve-litre silver jug, scooping the wine out with a silver ladle and drinking it in goblets. Only on one occasion did Alexei Dmitryevich change the menu in the Russian Cottage, even though he still kept all the accessories. All the Muscovite Siberians were regular customers at the tavern. A cook, specially brought in by Lopashov from Siberia, used to make pelmeni dumplings and stroganina frozen fish. So it was that in the 1880s the most prominent owners of Siberian goldmines would gather to have dinner Siberian-fashion at Lopashov's, in this very "cottage". The menu proclaimed "Dinner in Yermak Timofeyevich's camp" and there were just two changes in it: firstly, the hors d'oeuvre and secondly the "Siberian pelmeni." No other dishes were served, but for twelve people having dinner they would cook two thousand five hundred pelmeni: meat, fish, and fruit ones with pink champagne… And the Siberians used to sup them up with wooden spoons. In Lopashov's tavern, as in other rich taverns in town, prominent businessmen had their own favourite tables. They used to come in with their customers, mainly prominent provincial wholesalers, and the first thing they ordered would be tea. On fast days sugar would not be served, but they brought in lime-flower honey. In those days it was considered that sugar would be breaking your fast because its manufacture involved passing it through a beef bone. So now, over tea costing fifteen copecks, deals were done for hundreds and thousands of roubles. And only when they had concluded their deal did they begin to eat their midday meal or their dinner, and to continue with that they used to move into the private rooms. Such too was Arsentych's tavern in Cherkassky Lane, famous for its serving of Russian dishes: ham, osetrina and beluga, which were served as an hors d'oeuvre to go with vodka and horseradish and red wine vinegar, and nowhere did they taste better than here. At Arsentych's place there was an amazing dish of cabbage soup with pig's head, and when he came to Moscow G. I. Uspensky never missed the chance to go to Arsentych's because of it. Those rich merchants who for some reason could not go to the tavern on a given day and were compelled to lunch in their own storehouses, sent out their staff at midday with nests of saucepans to get ham, osetrina and beluga. This was the most orderly of all the taverns in Moscow; there were never any wild parties there. If one set of people indulged in a glass of vodka too many, thanks to the

190 Gilyarovsky probably errs in using the word "cottage" (Russian: izba). the room was actually called the “Russian Chamber” (palata). Lopashov's tavern was known as the Trinity (Troitsky) tavern. 209 horseradish and vinegar and the hot ham, they would move out in good time to Bubnov's private rooms or to the Slavonic Bazaar, or otherwise go straight off to the Yar. Merchants usually walked to a tavern, drove to their storehouse, but finished up at the Yar, or out of town generally. At Arsentych's place one felt oneself well-fed and "well away". It was just the same in the famous Yegorov tavern, except that here one was allowed to smoke. In the 1880s there was another bar in Cherkassky Lane, owned, I think, by Ponamaryov in the Kartashev house. That little house went long ago. Respectable people used to go there. In the second hall of that tavern, right in the front corner under a large icon with a perpetual lamp burning in front of it, an old man used to sit at a table; he was unkempt and rarely washed – almost a tramp. The people who came to his table were quite respectable, even rich individuals who were well known in Moscow. He would suggest to some of them that they might sit down. Some of them would go away from him quite joyfully, others might be in distress. But he went on sitting there, drinking his tea that had long since gone cold. At other times he would take out bunches of fifty-rouble treasury notes or bonds and cut off coupons to claim his interest. This was the owner of the house, merchant of the first guild Grigory Nikonovich Kartashev. His apartment was next to the tavern; he lived there alone and slept on bare boards, with some article of clothing for a pillow. The floors in his apartment were never scrubbed and never swept. He spent his nights in the cellars with his money, like the "covetous knight".191 He got up at ten in the morning and punctually at eleven o'clock went to the tavern. He would arrive, sit down and summon the waiter: "Is there any of our cabbage soup from yesterday left?" "There must be some left." "Tell them to heat it up… And if there's any kasha left, I'll have that too." He would eat – that was on the house – and then ask for tea, for which he paid cash. "One tea and two pieces of sugar. That's six copecks. And a copeck cigar." A borrower would appear, would come in and sit down. "I'd like some tea." "Well, order it yourself. Pay for the tea and cigar yourself." And the borrower would have to order tea, and two pieces of sugar, for himself for six copecks. If he ordered a half portion of food for thirty copecks, or ordered wine or solyanka – that terminated the conversation. "You don’t half push the boat out! Be off with you. I don't give money to spendthrifts like you." And he would chase him out. Everyone knew this, and rich merchants or aristocratic businessmen who came to see him would smoke a copeck cigar and drink six copecks-worth of tea, then borrow tens of thousands against a promissory note. Kartashev did not like lending small amounts. He charged a huge amount of interest but avoided court proceedings, and there were instances when he lost money owed to him. In the evening his yardman Kvasov would come and fetch him to take him home. For decades Kartashev maintained this way of life, visiting no one, not even his sister when she married the aged Obidin, who was also a millionaire and subsequently inherited Kartashev's millions too. Only after Kartashev's death did it become clear how he lived: in his rooms, which were covered by layers of dust, in the furniture, behind the wallpaper, in the stove outlets were found bundles of treasury notes, credit notes and promissory notes. The bulk of these were kept in a

191 One of Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies” (1830). 210 huge stove, to which had been fitted something resembling a guillotine: if a thief got in he'd get chopped in half. In the cellars were iron chests where, alongside huge sums of money, were kept the leftovers of hoarded sugar, pieces of bread removed from the tables, rolls, bits of string and dirty linen. Bundles of overdue promissory notes and interest coupons were found, as well as expensive moth-eaten sable furs; alongside them were packages containing five-rouble gold coins worth in total more than fifty thousand roubles. In another bundle were credit notes and bonds to the value of 150 thousand roubles; the whole treasure trove was worth more than 30 million. There was one other Russian tavern in the city. That was Bubnov's tavern in the building of the Kazan metochion on Vetoshny Lane. It took up two floors of a huge house, plus the mezzanine with its enfilade of sumptuously appointed rooms and comfortable private rooms. This was a tavern for wild excesses, especially the private rooms, where the merchants' wild sons and well-established merchants with beards could indulge their wild spirits for a whole week and then complain of a hangover: "Ah, how hard is the life of a merchant: spend a day with your friend, two days with a customer, three days like that then on Sunday we're allowed wine and holy oil and ̶ they've ordered us off to the Yar…" They used to come to Bubnov's from Lopashov's and Arsentych's after a business lunch, if they were overdoing things and then, from Bubnov's, they would go anywhere they liked, but not home… Then would follow a week of wild drinking. There were plenty of these revellers. One of them, for example, would be drinking his way gloomily round the taverns and drinking dens, misbehaving and saying only one word: "How much?" He would take out his wallet, pay and suddenly, and for no good reason, pick up a bottle of champagne and smash it into the mirror. There was a noise of crashing. A barman, a member of staff, would run up. But the reveller would cold-bloodedly take out his wallet and ask, in the most business-like of tones: "How much?" He paid without quibble and again started breaking things… Then again, one of the revellers from across the river, who only behaved like this at Bubnov's and didn't leave the private rooms for a couple of days, came home one night with his friend by likhach fast cab. The gates were opened for him – the porch of his ancestral home was in the yard, which was surrounded by a high wooden fence. He bawled: "I don't want to go in through the gates. Break down the fence! I won't come in!" The master's word was powerful, and so was his fist. They shut the gates, broke down the fence and His Lordship entered the courtyard like a conquering hero, and had no regrets the following day. His merchant bravado went even further. In the morning his wife started to berate him, but he went at her with his fists: "Who's in charge here? Who? If I want something, that's how it'll be!" "But, Makary Paiseyevich, you should go to the bathhouse and have a wash. It’ll make you feel better." "That's what I want. A wash!" "I'll tell them to heat up the bathhouse." "I don't want the bathhouse. Heat up the cellar!" And he got them to put a stove in the cellar and turn it into a bathhouse. Upstairs at Bubnov's was still respectable; downstairs things were rather different. "Why's your snout sideways and your eyes blind?" "That's the result of yesterday…" "So you ended up in the 'Hole'?" "By sheer chance!" Downstairs at Bubnov's was always known as the "Hole".

211

Bubnov's "Hole". Thanks to it, the upper, clean half of the tavern was also called the "Hole". Under the upper tavern was a basement, to which a staircase of more than twenty steps led. Ancient vaults of incredible thickness – and not a single window. Lit by gas. Along the sides were wooden alcoves – the "dens", dirty and in semi-darkness. In the middle was a table over which a gas mantle flickered in a haze of tobacco smoke. Around the table were four wooden chairs. In the halls were the same chairs and grubby tablecloths. The merchants from Gostiny Dvor, seeking "half a copeck's worth and more" or "more for half a copeck" began their festivities with their friends and likeminded customers here from ten in the morning onwards.There was drunkenness, noise and scandalous behaviour all day until late at night. The gas made it hot and the tobacco and the kitchen made it stuffy. Songs, laughter and cursing. All one could do was drink and yell in people's ears since, on account of the noise, conversation with the person sitting next to you was impossible. You could curse as much as you like – women weren't allowed in here. All the time new people were coming in. How could they not, when everything was so cheap here: huge portions, vodka a rouble a bottle, port, madeira, Lisbon wines made in Moscow and Lanin "champagne" at two roubles a bottle,192 about which they used to sing:

From drinking Lanin's Roederer A splitting headache will result.

They drank and ate because it was cheap, the police never looked in and scandals were hushed up there and then; most important of all for the merchants – everything was kept "under wraps". In not a single tavern were there such ructions as in Bubnov's "Hole". There were no taverns which were more interesting in the city except, perhaps, Martyanych's tavern, which grew up subsequently in the basements of the City Rows; it was advertised everywhere and did a roaring trade, imitating Bubnov's "Hole" in every respect. Only here the degree of debauchery was greater because women were allowed in, which was not the case in the "Hole". The fashionable Slavonic Bazaar with its expensive rooms was where ministers from Petersburg, Siberian gold magnates, and steppe landowners with their hundreds of thousands of acres stayed, as well as doubtful dealers and Petersburg card sharps who organised card games in twenty-rouble rooms. The way from the guest rooms led straight into the restaurant, via a corridor of private rooms. Get engaged and get married. Dinners in the restaurant were unpopular, likewise the suppers. On the other hand the lunches, from twelve to three o'clock, were as much in vogue as those at the Hermitage. Parties of merchants, after their "righteous labours" at the exchange, would appear hear after one o'clock and, having concluded deals worth millions over lunch, were gone by three. Those who remained after three ended up as "cranes". "They lunched until the cranes" was the saying. And people in the know understood that the lunch had been in the Slavonic Bazaar, where the company, having finished with champagne, coffee and liqueurs, would demand the "cranes".

192 Nikolai Petrovich Lanin (1832-95) produced a cheap and popular homegrown version of champagne. As Gilyarovsky notes, it was well below the quality of Roederer champagne.

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This was the name of a sealed crystal-glass decanter, decorated with golden cranes and containing first-class cognac costing fifty roubles. Whoever paid for the cognac got the empty decanter as a souvenir. For some time it was considered a sport to collect such empty decanters and one stud owner collected seven of them and showed off his collection with pride. The Slavonic Bazaar was built in the 1870s by A. A. Porokhovshchikov and its round hall, with its double row of windows and glass roof is very beautiful. Once upon a time two big, if shady, dealers, were sitting over lunch in the Slavonic Bazaar. One said to the other: "Do you see there, there are some sort of bars on my plate… What does it mean?" "It means you'll not avoid the lock-up! It's an omen!" The plate was reflecting the glazing bars of the glass roof. There were also restaurants outside the city, the best of them being the Yar and the Strelna, the summer section of which was called the Mauretania. The Strelna had been created by I.F.Natruskin and it was one of the chief things to see in Moscow at that time, as it had a huge winter garden with tropical trees a hundred years old, grottoes, rocks and fountains, arbours, and all around private rooms and all kinds of balconies. The Yar at that time was managed by Aksyonov, a fat clean-shaven man, who had been very aptly named the "Orange". He was very proud of his Pushkin Study with a bust of the great poet, although Pushkin had never been there, even if he did write:

To recollect the truffles and The veal they serve cold at the Yar…193

However, that was referring to the former Yar, which in Pushkin's time had been situated on the Petrovka. Besides that outside the Tverskaya Gate there had been Skalkin's Eldorado Restaurant, the Golden Anchor on Ivanovskaya Street near Sokolniki, the Prague Restaurant, where Tararykin had managed to gather all that was best from the Hermitage and Testov's, and which even excelled that last place with its open topped pasties of sterlet and sturgeon. In the Prague were the best billiard tables, where quite a respectable game was played. When these establishments were trying to catch up with fashion the taverns started to call themselves restaurants – even when Arsentych's tavern passed into other hands it started to name itself in the official guide as the Starocherkassk Restaurant, but for the general public it remained the same Arsentych Tavern. At that time there were many restaurants, large and small, in Moscow, such as the Italy, the Livorno, the Palermo and the Tatarsky in the Petrovsky Lines, which was subsequently renamed the Hotel Rossiya. They were very cheap and very nasty. However, the Peterhof on the Mokhovaya was the exception. Here Razzhivin had introduced cheap standing dishes each day, which were publicised in the newspapers. "Today, Monday – fish solyanka and rasstegai. Tuesday – Polish beef tripe… Wednesdays and Saturdays – Siberian pelmeni. Daily – shashlyk of Karachayev lamb." Razzhivin popularised shashlyk in Moscow. The first ones appeared at Avtangilov's; in the 1870s he ran the first Caucasian cellar with Kakhetian wines, in a basement on Sofiika Street. Then Avtangilov moved to Myasnitskaya Street and opened a wine shop. Shashlyks were off for a long time until, in the 1880s or 1890s, the Causasian Sulkhanov opened an unlicensed Caucasian eatery selling shashlyks in his apartment in Cherkassky Lane, right next to Arsentych's tavern; it also sold – on the quiet – Kakhetian wines specially for visiting Caucasians. Then Russians started to go there. He disseminated his visiting card through his friends and acquaintances:

193 From Pushkin’s poem "Road laments", published in 1832. 213

"K. Sulkhanov. Nephew of Prince Argutinsky-Dolgoruky"194 and gave his address. All his disciples knew why he went by this visiting card. His business had expanded but his rivals and competitors looked askance at it. It ended with a charge sheet and closure. Then Razzhivin invited him to open a kitchen in the Peterhof. Once again the visiting cards of the "nephew of Prince Argutinsky" began to be passed round, this time marked "Peterhof" and the business took off in fine fashion. He was the first shashlyk man in Moscow; hundreds of Caucasians flocked to him and shashlyks became fashionable. In addition there were German restaurants like the Alpine Rose on Sofiika, the Billo195 on Great Lubyanka Street, the Berlin on Rozhdestvenka, and Dusseau's on Neglinnaya Street, but these were not typical of Moscow, although the food was good and real Pilsner beer was served in tankards. On Kuznetsky Bridge one of the interesting little restaurants was the Venice which was in the cellar of the Tver compound. The fathers of our revolution used to meet in a separate room there with its own door which could be locked. And there could be no more suitable place than this, since the restaurant used to close at eleven p.m. and the customers go their various ways. After that friendly conversations would start in that little room with the curtains drawn. The kitchen was closed, as was the buffet and the only person serving would be the owner of the restaurant, Vasily Yakovlevich, who almost prayed for each of those who had come into the little room. Only vodka, beer and cold food were served. Sometimes they would drink through until the morning. "A restful session, complete discretion! That’s what we offer," Vasily Yakovlevich used to say. People used to come in ones and twos and leave the same way through the back door, going along the deserted Kuznetsky Bridge and Newspaper Lane (in those days the whole lane was called Newspaper Lane from Kuznetsky Bridge to Nikitskaya) and going on to Tverskaya Street to their own "Chernyshi" in the Olsufyev house, which was inhabited by people who were "on the run" and who used to come for the night, either driving in or arriving on foot. In the "little dining hall", as Vasily Yakovlevich used pompously to call asmall room with its vaults lit by a gas chandelier, there used to be sitting enormous bearded figures with full beards and great heads of hair P.F.Zaichnevsky, M.I. Orfanov-Mishla, F.D. Nefyodov, N.N. Zlatovratsky, S.A. Priklonsky. Among them was N.M. Astyrev, a puny figure with the ginger beard of an intelligent, reading at that time the proofs of his book Among our Local Scribes. After him came the tiny figure of the clean-shaven Vasya Vasilyev, who had almost been taken in for the case of the 193 but by good luck had got away. His real surname was Shvedevenger, but very few people knew that. V. A. Goltsev had been here occasionally; so too, on one occasion, during one of his escapes, German Lopatin. For some two years people used to gather here and then they all scattered, but Vasily Yakovlevich went on trading. Each of the above- mentioned thought it his duty to call in on him while in Moscow and sometimes to get a bit of money for further travelling. Vasya Vasilyev had brought № 6 of The People’s Will and they read it aloud late at night, not paying any attention to Vasily Yakovlevich. When Mishla read P.Yakubovich's poem "To Mother"196 that had been printed in that issue of the journal Vasily Yakovlevich with tears in his eyes asked him to write it out, but Vasya Vasilyev gave him that whole number of the journal. "What can I give you for it?" "As much as you like. The money will go to help political prisoners." "I'll be right back." Vasily Yakovlevich disappeared and fetched a colourful hundred-rouble note.

194 In Chapter 16 Sulkhanov's forename is given as Georgy. 195 The restaurant took its name from that of its first maître d'hôtel. 196 The poem is dated 1884. 214

"Please take this for such a great undertaking." This was the only reason that the little Venice restaurant was at all memorable; day and night it served middle-class passers-by on Kuznetsky Bridge and the staff of state institutions, but the unsteady dandyish public did not dignify the cheap little restaurant with their attention, preferring confectioners' shops or the neighbouring Alpine Rose and Billo restaurants. The Moldavia Tavern in the Gruzinskaya area of Moscow still called itself a restaurant; day and night it had an ordinary clientele which drank vodka, and from five o'clock in the morning one-horse and two-horse likhachi cabs and droshkys full of gypsies pulled up to the grimy porch of the bluish-grey building. It was a gypsy tavern. After the Yar, Strelna and Eldorado, the gypsies living in the Gruzinskaya district came here to "drink tea"; with them came their admirers. Not far from the Moldavia, on Great Gruzinskaya Street, in the Kharlamov house, the more modest tavern of Yegor Kapkov came to life at these times. At six o'clock in the morning the spotlessly clean main room of the tavern was packed full of tail-coated patrons. These were waiters from out-of-town restaurants who had finished their hard night's work and had come to relax among their own by drinking tea or vodka or eating cabbage solyanka. During the night they had seen their fill of important customers, and now it was they who put on airs and found fault with the waiters in their white shirts for every peccadillo, sometimes even imitating the customers they had been serving an hour ago; they would summon the waiters with a great air of their own importance: "My man, here's a tip for you." And the "my man" in his tail coat would give ten copecks to the "my man" in his shirt sleeves. The tail coat marked him out as someone with special status. And they used to set trials for the young waiters. They would serve tea, but the senior man serving might flick the nail of his index finger against his teeth: "Give us the iron things!" Or he would command: "Come on and hit my teeth to make smoke." Then any experienced boy would give him sugar tongs, bring cigarettes and strike a match.

In the first half of the nineteenth century there was large one-storey house on the corner of Ostozhenka and First Zachatyevsky Lane. It was all taken up by Shustrov's tavern. Shustrov lived with his family in the mezzanine, while the huge attic and other constructions on the roof were taken up with a pigeon loft, much the largest one in the whole of Moscow. Clouds of pigeons of every breed and colour were constantly circling over the surrounding area, as Shustrov's family followed a favourite Moscow sport, pigeon racing. Among those who followed that sport was the rich landlord of the inn, I.Ye Krasovsky. He had bought the tavern from Shustrov, persuading him to break up the wooden building and to put up a building in stone according to his own design, which would become the largest tavern in Moscow. That building was constructed as a stone three-storey block facing onto two streets. Down below there were shops, while the first floor was devoted to the "aristocratic" rooms of the tavern, with a mass of private rooms, and a third, popular tavern, where the main hall with its low ceiling was so large that it held more than a hundred tables, while there was a space in the middle for dancing. Down below was an orchestrion and up above was a stage for singers and accordionists. One accordionist could play while forty people were dancing. Just as before, there were clouds of pigeons swirling round the house because both Krasovsky and his sons had the same interest in them as the Shustrovs, and they too had a pigeon loft built under the roof. People called the tavern the "Pigeon Loft" and no one knew it under any other name, even though that was not its official title, and that name appeared in print

215 only on one occasion, when the Moscow papers in 1905 carried a piece under the heading "the arrest of revolutionaries in the Pigeon Loft." Even long before 1905 the little rooms in the Pigeon Loft were comfortable and safe from being spied on by the police, so they served as a meeting place for the revolutionaries of those times, and in 1905 there were large meetings there. Krasovsky had built very comfortable halls. From five o'clock in the morning the waiters, who had been serving evening meals, dinners and at weddings, used to gather here to share out what they had earned and to have a drink of vodka. Besides that, balls were held here, and "simple folk" weddings; this was also the place where the "ring" gathered, that is, where a band of buyers at auction would settle up with subordinates who had made the auctions worthless and taken away any desire among outside buyers to buy anything at auction, or they might push something worthless up to such a price that they would stop anyone from wanting to bid. In their language they would call that "putting on the iron hat". Apart from the semi-sacrosanct association of "iron hats", there were regular cock fights twice a month. On the appointed evening part of the hall would be set aside and a round arena marked out in the middle, like a circus ring, benches and chairs were arranged round the outside for spectators, who only included a select few, enthusiasts for this old Muscovite sport; there was even, as subsequently at the racetrack, a sort of totalizator, where large sums were staked on which bird would win. By the appointed time rich merchants were coming up to the Pigeon Loft, but always conspiratorially in cabs and not behind their own trotting horses; they would go to the second floor, go past a series of closed rooms behind the bar and from there, via an internal staircase, they would go through to a cordoned-off room and take their places round the arena. Behind them one by one people with suitcases went through this hall into a private room. These were the enthusiasts bringing their cockerels, fighting English gamecocks without combs or wattles and spurs sharpened to a point. A desperate fight would begin. The arena would be spattered with blood. Frenzied spectators, with burning eyes and twitching faces would freeze one minute and roar like wild beasts the next. Everyone but everyone was here: distinguished merchants, important officials, rich bazaar traders, theatre owners and "iron hats". Sometimes bets of several thousand were laid. For a long time the public's favourites were the gamecocks of the flour magnate Larionov, who had once been convicted of supplying mouldy flour to the army but who had again joined the ranks of the rich on the backs of his gamecocks; they had forgiven him his past because of his "success with the gamecocks". These cock fights in the rooms and halls of the second storey of the tavern used to end with drinking on a grand scale. Krasovsky himself was a fan of the sport, which brought considerable revenue to his tavern. But eventually, at the end of the century, Krasovsky went off the rails, spending more time in the Pigeon Loft; if he did appear in the tavern he would wander through the halls with mad eyes, intoning psalms and, of course, his finances were pilfered. The tavern, which had once been a goldmine, passed into other hands to pay debts and Krasovsky ended his life in virtual poverty. Besides the Pigeon Loft, somewhere the other side of the Moscow River was also the venue for cock fights, but there the audience was random. Ordinary Russian gamecocks fought – English ones were not allowed. This tavern was called the Mousetrap. Entrance to a cold barn was from the grimy corners and rubbish heaps of various yards; there an arena was set up where the public was even more heated and angry. The third venue for cock fights was the Wave on Garden Street; this was a complete den of vice, filled with a random crowd of mysterious dossers. Among the Moscow taverns there was just one where, once a year, during the spring floods, when rafts carrying timber and fire wood, came down from the upper reaches of the

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Moscow river, it was possible to see things rural. This tavern, vast and dirty, was in Dorogomilovo, near the Borodino Bridge, on the banks of the Moscow River. These few days of the arrival of the rafts were a time of celebration for Muscovites in Dorogomilovo, who crammed both the bridge and the embankment as they admired the daring work of the rafters who skilfully steered the rafts under the piers of the bridge, risking every minute to be smashed against them and drowned.

By Nikitsky Gate Square, in the Borgest House, was a tavern in which one of the rooms was hung with cages of nightingales; these were covered with paper. In the evenings and early in the morning people from the whole of Moscow who loved to listen to the song of the nightingale gathered here. Many taverns had songbirds in cages, such as A. Pavlovsky's tavern on Trubnaya Square and the Hunters' tavern on Neglinnaya. Here well-known Moscow hunters gathered on Sundays, coming from Trubnaya Square where dogs and birds were sold. A.T. Zveryov owned two taverns; one, the Corn Exchange was on Gavrikov Lane. Millionaire wholesalers, who controlled the whole corn business, installed themselves there and all the big deals were done over tea. It was the quietest of taverns. Not even voices could be heard. Respectable merchants did deals in whispers; just occasionally came the sound: "Payment in kind, twenty-six…" "And oats?" "Eighty." From time to time they would get telegrams from their agents in port cities concerning the price of corn. Some would frown on reading the telegram – a loss. But they were always as good as their word; there was no going back. Even if it meant ruin they kept their word… On the tables stood little sacks of grain samples. A great many sacks hung on hooks in the entrance hall… But during trading hours there was nothing on the tables except tea… Then after "clinching their deals" they had lunch and dinner. Zveryov's other tavern was at the corner of Petrovka and Rakhmanovsky Lane, in the block that belonged to Doctor A. S. Levenson. He was the father of Alexander Alexandrovich Levenson, who would later become famous for printing and hiring out advertisements for the official theatres. On days when there were auctions among the pawnbrokers and moneylenders this was where the "ring" used to meet. This was an unofficial conspiracy of dealers, known to the police but without official sanction, who would come to an auction and keep the prices down, so they could buy precious articles for nothing ̶ and they were very successful in their crooked ways. After every auction the "ring" used to come to Zveryov and one of the big rooms there presented a strange picture: on the tables there would be gold, silver, bronze and valuables, on the chairs pieces of cloth. There the "ring" would make up their accounts and would take out of their pockets, show off and resell watches, necklaces. In their turn dealers from Sukharevka would come into this market to buy up the goods from them… After some time Zveryov's tavern was closed and it was succeeded by the editorial offices of the Russian Word, which was still quite a small news sheet.

In those days people working for newspapers and journals still did not have an tavern that they went to on a regular basis. Nevertheless these "fabricators of popular books," booksellers and publishers from Nikolskaya Street used to gather in Kolgushkin's tavern on Lyubyanskaya Square and it was from there that they started to spread enlightenment to the roughspun Russian masses. This was where publishers used to gather: I. Morozov, Sharapov, Zemsky, Gubanov, Manukhin, both the Abramovs, Presnov, Stupin, Naumov, Fadeyev, Zheltov, Zhivaryov. Each of these firms was issuing ten or more titles a year, that is named publications, from pamphlets to books of six or more authors' sheets in a good binding and an imposing title, and costing upwards of one and a half roubles for a hundred copies. They printed

217 not less than six thousand copies for each print run. And here over a glass of tea the publishers used to commission writers. "Writers from Nikolskaya" is what they were called. The walls of those tavern had also seen really big names in literature, who had taken refuge with the "writers from Nikolskaya" at times when they absolutely felt in need of some cash. Most of these writers were drawn from officials who had been expelled from the service, from officers, students and young men who had not completed their course, young men from the seminaries, sons of the literary Bohemia who had been rejected by the movers and shakers of the literary world of the time. Sitting at a table by the window with two glasses of tea there might have been a publisher with one of that sort of writers. "What I need is a new Battle with the Kabardintsy."197 "That should be possible, Denis Ivanovich." "I need it as soon as possible. Can you write it within a week?" "That's possible, sir…How many printer's sheets?" "About six. I'll publish it in two parts." "All right, sir. Six roubles per sheet." "You'll get too fat on that and you'll burst. Two roubles." "Well, all right, I'll do it for five roubles." They agree on a price and in two weeks time the artist brings the book. At another table is sitting a man with his book ready. He has a good name but he's wearing a wretched pair of boots… "Look you, Ivan Andreyevich, all your competitors have The house of Ice,198 The Infidel,199 The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers200 and Yury Miloslavsky.201 But after all that does not make up the complete works of Dumas, Zagoskin, or Lazhechnikov …That's why I have sent for you now… Just you write out Taras Bulba202 for me." "But what do you mean Taras Bulba?…After all, that's by Gogol." "Well, so what? You simply write it out like Gogol's version, only change it a bit. Put everything differently and make it about a printer's sheet shorter. And everyone will be flattered to say that this is a new Bulba. The main thing, my friend, is to get the heading right and to hell with the content; they will read it anyway if they have paid good money for it. And they're not going to charge you for forgery, since after all Bulba is Bulba himself ̶ just the words are different." After that conversation Taras Bulba did really appear under the signature of a different author, since Morozov of his own free will wrote in the author's name, which he could never have expected! On the place where the Natsional Hotel stood until 1918,203 at the end of the nineteenth century there was a block dating from pre-Petrine times that belonged to Firsanov and on the ground floor was the Balaklava tavern, which belonged to Yegor Kruglov and was favoured by the Hunters' Row stallholders. "Where's himself?" they would ask the shop assistant." "He's in the cavern with a customer."

197 Popular novel (1840) by Nikolai Ilyich Zryakhov (1782-1840). 198 Historical novel (1835) by Lazhechnikov. 199 Historical novel (1838) by Lazhechnikov. 200 Historical novels by Alexandre Dumas (père), both published in 1844. 201 Historical novel (1829) by Zagoskin . 202 Historical novella by Gogol (1835). 203 The Natsional (National) Hotel stands on this spot to this day. Gilyarovsky alludes obliquely to the fact that it was used as a government building between 1918 and 1932. 218

The Balaklava consisted of two big rooms which had low ceilings and were in semi- darkness but instead of private rooms there were two caverns to right and left. These were some sort of strange huge niches, like oubliettes, which they probably once were, judging by the unusual thickness of the vaults and the large iron rings, hooks and strips that were sticking out of them instead. These caverns could only be booked by specially favoured guests. On the opposite side of the square, in a narrow lane behind the Loskutnaya Hotel there was a basement tavern, Kogtyev's eating house where pedlars and petty functionaries took tea and two or three of the most important "legal eagles from Iverskaya".204 All sorts of people used to come to ask them to write out their petitions. That was a kind of popular citizens' advice bureau. At a separate table there would sit the main lawyer, a man of high judicial status who had been expelled for drunkenness and he would be composing petitions for rich merchants. There were occasions when this Nikolai Ivanovich, a great pettifogger, was visited by the famous lawyer, F.N. Plevako. Kuznetsky Bridge connects via Petrovka with the wide entrance to the narrow Kuznetsky Lane. Half this entrance was taken up by an old wooden outbuilding, of no great size, with mezzanines and painted with ochre. Such buildings remained only on the outskirts of the capital. Here, surrounded as it was by stone buildings with mirror windows, by Tremblay's confectionery shop and by the huge Solodovnikov Passage, this building was notable for its old-fashioned appearance. For decades there was a faded sign – S.S. Shcherbakov's Tavern – above its porch, which was not a grand entrance as in the neighbouring buildings but a provincial-looking affair with four steps and a wooden handrail. The owner was a favourite among all the actors – Spiridon Stepanovich Shcherbakov, an old man with a spade beard and wearing a long frock-coat. During Lent205 "Shcherbaki" would be packed with actors and all the celebrities of the time were regulars; they treated Spiridon Stepanovich with respect and he knew them all by their name and patronymic. He was very interested in their successes and enquired about those who had not yet come to Moscow for Lent. There would be many leading lights of the theatre here: N.K. Miloslavsky, N.Kh. Rybakov, Pavel Nikitin, Poltavtsev, Grigorovsky, the Vasilyevs,206 Dyukov, Smolkov, Laukhin, Medvedev, Grigoryev, Andreyev-Burlak, Pisarev, Kireyev and celebrities from our Maly Theatre here in Moscow. There were also playwrights and writers of the time: A.N. Ostrovsky, N.A. Chayev and K.A. Tarnovsky. The brothers Kondratyev207 were also regulars at the Shcherbaki: they were young at the time and were the subject of a verse:

Of these brothers there is one Who bears the Christian name Ivan As Kondratyev he is known, Also nicknamed Ataman.

Old man Shcherbakov was a true friend of actors and when money was short, especially towards the end of Lent, instead of allowing them tick in the restaurant, he provided travelling money; no-one remained in debt to him.

204 The Iverskaya Chapel was where, by tradition, criminals and miscreants asked forgiveness. The implication is that these "lawyers" were distinctly shady. 205 Theatres were shut during Lent. This had two effects (1) provincial actors migrated to Moscow in search of rest, company and cheap food (2) with no income from acting they quickly ran out of funds. 206 Probably the brothers Vasilyev, Sergei Vasilyevich (1827-62) and Pavel Vasilyevich (1832-79). 207 Ivan Kuzmich Kondratyev (1849-1904). Actor, historian, poet. The identity of his brother cannot be established.

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The tavern was famous for its rasstegai meat pies. These covered the whole plate, were about three fingers thick and cost fifteen copecks. A bowl of bouillon was served with them and included in the price. When, towards the end of Lent, the actors' funds had dried up, they lived entirely off rasstegai pies. Spiridon Stepanovich died. Khomyakov, who owned a row of stone houses along the Petrovka, had already predeceased him. He would long since have knocked down that ugly outbuilding and replaced it with a new block, but he was sorry for the old man. The people who inherited it were quite another sort. As soon as it had come into their hands they drove out Shcherbakov and deprived the actors of their cosy nook. Khomyakov junior had come into a vast inheritance. He immediately demolished the outbuilding and had decided to put up a luxurious stone building to replace it, but the City Council would not approve his plan, as they demanded that the little side street be widened. Khomyakov persisted: "After all the land belongs to me." The City Council proposed buying that patch of land ̶ Khomyakov refused outright to sell it: "I don't want to." And, fencing the land off with an iron railing, he began to build his house. At the time he was starting to build he dug out the land behind the fence and planted poplars, white willows and an aspen. The house was taking shape and the trees were growing. The bank opened an office there, but there was no way into it from the little side street. Khomyakov had put in a pavement between the building and his grove of trees, separating the trees off from the pavement with the same iron railing. Thus in the middle of Kuznetsky Lane there was formed an irregular triangle of land, which for a long time was known as Khomyakov's Grove . No matter how they tried to persuade him, both the powers that be and good friends, Khomyakov would not give in: "That is my property." He was triumphant as he read the abusive letters that he was receiving every day. The Press made fun of his obdurate egomania. "You should act through your administration," someone advised the Head of the City Council. The Council made an appeal to the Head of Police, who proposed that the land should be cleared, threatening within 24 hours to expel Khomyakov from Moscow if he refused to comply. "You can push me out. I will go away, but it will remain my property," The young grove of trees went on rustling its leaves and probably would have survived until Soviet Power came in, but all of a sudden one fine day there were no trees there, no railing, and where they had been were now just the bare cobbles of the roadway covered with yellow sand. How? Who? What? Moscow was baffled… There were all sorts of rumours – only one of them was correct: Khomyakov had given an order to cut down the trees and pave the lane, and that very day he had gone abroad. People said that he really feared he would be expelled from Moscow; people said that his relatives asked him not to besmirch the good name of their family. And I once had a galley proof from the journal Entertainment signed by A. Pazukhin. A.M. Pazukhin wrote novels for the paper and was the author of many sketches and essays. He argued with the editor of Entertainment that he would sweep away the grove. He got a photograph of Khomyakov and, with the help of a friend, sent the galley proof on which was a caricature that depicted an ass with Khomyakov's face wandering in the grove. Earlier, before Shcherbaki, the actors' tavern was Barsov's in the Bronnikov House on the corner of Great Dmitrovka Street and Hunters' Row. This contained the famous Hall of Columns and the above mentioned actors and writers, who later frequented Shcherbaki when Barsov's was closed and the premises occupied by The Artists' Circle, used to gather there; actors who spent the day at Shcherbaki would spend the evening in the Circle. When Shcherbaki closed down the actors began to meet in the Livorno restaurant in what was then Newspaper Lane, diagonally across the road from Shcherbaki.

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From twelve to four in the afternoon during Lent the Livorno was full of people. A cloud of tobacco smoke hung in the low rooms and the racket was unimaginable. The small vestibule was hung with fur coats, overcoats and capes in the most fantastic colours and styles. At every table in the restaurant, each of which was covered with decanters and bottles sat tight circles of clean-shaven actors, all dressed colourfully and originally: of the jackets and trousers of vaudeville simpletons, terrible jabots, cravats and waistcoats, some were white, some coloured, some velvet and some of brocade. During the first half of Lent from every jacket hung sparkling watch chains with a mass of trinkets. On the tables gleamed new silver cigar cases. The owners of the watches and cigar cases would tell every newcomer for the hundredth time about the ovations they received when the public presented them with these objects. For the first three weeks the actors had a brilliant array of presents, but then they began to lose their lustre: there were no cigar cases on the tables, no watches were taken out and jackets were tightly buttoned up because the last embellishment – the chain with trinkets – followed the watch into the pawnshop. Then the wardrobe, for which they'd paid a lot of hard-earned money, went the same way. With the transfer to the Livorno from the respectable Shcherbaki the gathering of actors somehow fragmented: many of the leading lights did not go to that tavern but limited themselves to visits to the Circle of an evening or went to Welde's little German restaurant behind the Bolshoi Theatre. Grigorovsky, who migrated from Shcherbaki to Welde, said of the Livorno: "It's a kind of Greek caff. I ask for something to go with vodka as a starter and the owner suggests: 'Ze very bes starter – ze Greekish wander!' I tried it – rubbish." Actors used to gather at the Livorno until it was closed down. Then they began to meet at Rogov's Tavern in Georgiyevsky Lane, off Tverskaya Street, together with fishmongers and butchers from Hunters' Row. Upstairs in this building was the Rassokhin Library and a theatre office. Amongst the actors there were, of course, a goodly number of card players and billiards players who, during Lent, would settle in the billiards room of Savrasenkov's restaurant on Tverskaya where big money games were played. Provincial celebrities came here too. Two of them were particularly famous: Mikhail Pavlovich Dokuchayev – a tragedian, and Yegor Yegorovich Bystrov, also a fine actor who would take on any role. Yegor Bystrov was a professional gambler; he could clean out and deceive anyone you could think of: from him the verb "to Yegorise" gained currency.

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28 The Pit

From Tverskaya Street we went through the Iversky Gate and turned into the deep archway of an old building which used to house the regional administration. "Well, this is where I live. Let's go in." We crossed the courtyard, which was surrounded by a ring of similar old buildings, and entered another arch under which we found a staircase leading up to the first floor. There was a dark corridor and a recess with a door to the right leading off it. "Well here we are." The heavy door creaked open and behind it there was darkness. "Down a bit here … Give me your hand…" I descended into that darkness, holding my friend by the hand. I could see nothing round me but I took a few steps forward. Then there was the click of a switch and a brilliant electric light was throwing our shadows onto the ribs of the vaults. There were yellow streaks dancing on book bindings and on the pictures over the writing desk. I found myself in a big long room, overhung with heavy vaults, with, in a deep embrasure, a little barred window that gave the black shadow which stood out against the light on the wall. Then I imagined the chronicler sitting and writing by a table under the window:

One more account, one last account And my chronicle will reach its end.208

The words flashed in my memory… I stood there and was silent. "No, this is definitely Pimen's cell! One could not imagine a better setting," I said to myself. "I don't know whether in fact Pimen's cell was here, but this was definitely the room that held the 'pit' into which they used to put debtors… That's a fact …" "So here is that very 'pit' mentioned by Dostoyevsky209 and Ostrovsky."210 It was a frightful prison, where men were shut up not for any crime but simply for their debts. This was where they put the victims of bad luck, because they did not have the ability to manage their business or sometimes had simply thrown their money away on wild living. The "pit" was the worst example of the merchants' vengeful greed. It was still continuing until the Revolution completely abolished that relic of the old cruel times. According to the old laws in France and Germany, the debtor had to work off his debt to the creditor, or else he was subject to being fettered under arrest until the debt was paid off, while the creditor was obliged "to feed the debtor and not to cripple him." In Russia in those days the law decreed that the debtor should be flogged and surrendered to the creditor body and soul until he had cleared off the debt. From the time of Peter the Great they set up a special section for debtors in the prisons, whereas up to then they had to serve their time along with the common criminals. Later on they transferred the debtors' section to Tity on the far bank of the Moscow River, then to Presnya Police Station. Even though it was now on the second floor it was still known as the "Pit".

208 The opening lines of Pushkin's play Boris Godunov, spoken by the monk Pimen. 209 Svidrigailov speaks of the debtors' prison (without using the word "pit" in Part 6 Chapter 4 of Crime and Punishment. 210 See Act 2 Scene 8 of Ostrovsky's play Late Love (1873). 222

Once there was an old man confined there, the former millionaire Plotitsyn.211 At that time they had also brought in some merchant's wife, a woman well on in years, looking so sad that it was a real pity to see her. I can remember that I had called in there for something to do with my newspaper. When I went back downstairs I saw a middle-aged woman on the front steps. She had gone into the warden's office and soon come back. I was interested and asked the warden what had happened. "She came to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit. It was all under repairs. She'd got about seven children and she was going to be shut up here because of her husband's debts." So it turned out that in the "Pit" there was even a women's section. Corporal punishment in Russia finished much earlier for women than for men, but women did not escape being held in for debt. One old soldier who had spent many years working in the "Pit" said to me: "It's a pity. It may be according to the law, but not as our conscience prompts us. They take in a man, lock him up and take him away from his family, away from his little children. Then instead of letting him work and perhaps get back on his feet, they keep him behind bars for years to no good purpose There was a young man in here who had only just got married and they put him in the day after his wedding. But that case was a dirty trick: the rich man he owed money to had him put in prison so he could steal his wife. He tied her husband up with more and more debt and got the wife to come and live with him… One man was in prison on his own when his wife and children came to him – a little one, a littler one and the littlest. How many tears were shed!.. They asked the warden to let him out for the holiday and fell at his feet to plead with him… Of course there were times when prisoners would escape for a day or two at home but they were always caught and brought back. Creditors did have various ways of mocking those who owed them money. Perhaps the creditor would suddenly stop bringing in supplies of food. So then they used to let the prisoner out. He would go off happy and rejoicing, go back to his work and would just be beginning to set himself up, when the harsh creditor would start bringing food in again and get a terrifying document from the court called an "arrest warrant". Then the creditor's attorney would appear with the police, and the debtor, whose hopes had just started to revive, would be cast him back into the "Pit". Or it might happen that one of his competitors in business heard how his victim had got out of the debtors prison. Then he might seek him out at his house and burst into the family home, sometimes after dark, and, together with the police, take him before the eyes of his wife and children back to the debtors' prison. They caught debtors on the streets, in restaurants, out visiting their friends, even when they were coming out of church! But in this respect, as usual, some people were lucky, others were not. There were some cases where a commercial court would send an order to release a debtor. Then a month later they would send another postponement and the lucky man would live on in freedom. Then another man whose had no protection and no way of giving a bribe could not expect any sort of postponement unless the warden took pity on him and allowed him to go home for a brief day to his family. These people were all victims of petty tyranny, what they called "the natural order of things", of the way bureaucracy moved, or of the discount houses. After all most of them found themselves in the "Pit" through the petty tyranny of rich creditors who had grown angry with the debtor because he had not paid, and angry with

211 Probably the merchant Maxim Plotitsyn who was exiled to Siberia in 1869 for dissident religious activities.

223 themselves because they had been hoodwinked and lost their money. Otherwise they might be acting like this in order to get one of their competitors out of the way. The creditor would angrily sign the order and pay in the food money ̶ five roubles and eighty-five copecks a month. Indeed there were plenty of such spiteful spirits among Moscow's rich merchant class, as proven by the existence of the debtors' jail, which always contained some thirty prisoners.

224

29 Olsufyevskaya Fortress

In the eighteen seventies and early eighties on Tverskaya Street, opposite Bryusovsky Lane, almost alongside the Governor General's palace, there stood the great Olsufyev house, with its four storeys and basements, in which there were little shops and wine cellars. Both the shops and the cellar had two entrances: out onto the street and into the main yard ̶ and they sold their goods from two outlets. The cellar would buy and sell through its back door all night. In those days this unusual building was painted in a thick dark grey colour. Huge windows of the first floor, some sort of projections and, in the recesses between them, high iron staircases with a grill round them ̶ that was the way into the building. There were no formal entrances or vestibules. In the middle of the building there were blind iron gates with their side gates always on a chain. Night and day they were protected by huge strapping doormen. Seen from outside the building seemed absolutely in order, decorated as it was with the insignia of the firms that were in business there. The ground floor and first floor were bright with the great windows of richly appointed shops. Here were Orlov's fashionable hairdressing saloon, Ovcharenko's photographic shop and the tailor Vozdvizhensky. From the earliest times the upper two floors were occupied by the furnished rooms of Chernysheva and Kalinina and were therefore called "Chernyshi". Those rooms were taken by actors, minor officials, teachers, students, and the writing fraternity. However, it was not this outside block that provided the main source of income to the owners of the building. Behind the permanently locked gates there was an enormous yard. In the centre of it a collection of buildings that looked just like slums. Horror gripped you as you looked at the vaulted entrances with stairways running down to below ground level into basement floors with their windows protected by iron grilles. In the middle of the yard there was a gigantic outbuilding; it had wings either side and there was not a single fence that one could climb over. In a word there was only one way out ̶ through the side gate which was always guarded. And there were about fifteen hundred people here. It is not surprising that the building had no other name but "Olsufyev's Fortress", being called after the man who owned it. In the dank buildings above ground there were hundreds of flats and rooms, occupied by all sorts of skilled tradesmen. For five days in the week everything was quiet in the yard, but on Sundays and Mondays it was all unruly drunkenness: an accordion might be grinding out a tune and there would be songs and fights, with hundreds of half-naked schoolboys, children crying, schoolboys bawling and swearing and being beaten by the artisans for no apparent reason. When they were younger, the artisans had been mistreated in exactly the same way. From the street outside one could see nothing and hear nothing beyond the great yard, and the gates were closed. Only occasionally some tenants wearing rather cleaner clothes would try to dive through the side gate. The rest of them were perpetually languishing in the fortress. Workers had taken over the whole of that huge property and half of them were tailors. Half the tailors were homeless drunkards and they were the most profitable to exploit, being cheap and defenceless workers. In this area the bosses themselves encouraged a certain level of drunkenness, which nailed people to the spot. Where could a man go if he had no footwear and no clothes? And the porter on the gate would not let out anyone looking like that and there was no-one to complain to. Generally these people were referred to as "crayfish".

225

So these "crayfish" might sit for years in their burrows, half-dressed, barefooted, as they had only some down-at-heel shoes that they shared among themselves if they ran out onto the yard, covering their rotting shirts with any sort of rags. Each of them longed to get to a tavern where they could get drink, and the means of achieving this was the bath house. In the market they might buy a cotton shirt, nankeen trousers and the day before the holiday the Cerberus- cum-porter would let the "crayfish" out through the iron gates, right opposite Bryusovsky Lane, into the Strelnye Baths. There they would tear off their rags, steam themselves clean, then dressed in a fresh set of clothes and with a five-copeck haircut, they would to go to Kosourov's tavern alongside the baths and from there, accompanied by sober friends, they would disappear into the gates of the "fortress" before nightfall. On weekdays work would begin at six or seven in the morning and finish at ten o'clock at night. Fifty men worked in the workshop of the tailor Vozdvizhensky. The married ones lived with their families in quarters in the yard but the unmarried ones and the apprentices slept on benches and floors in the workshops, with no bedding; their pillow was a log under their head or their trousers, if they hadn't sold them for drink. By six o'clock in the morning a three-gallon samovar was boiling. It had been got ready by the apprentices, who had to get up earlier, and go to bed later, than everyone else. Each one had his mug, or else simply a jar of some sort. The boss provided the tea, but the employees had to provide bread and sugar, and not all could. In some workshops the boys got tea only twice a year – at Christmas and Easter, a mug each. "So that they didn't become spoiled!" After big festivals, when the process of drinking and sobering up went on for weeks, they would sit down at their work almost naked, having exchanged their sole shirt in the tavern for a rag, sufficient only to "mask their shame". At seven o'clock they would pour boiling water out into glasses with no saucers, setting the glasses on a ironing board and alongside them a huge brass kettle with chicory boiled up in it to protect them from cholera. The cook (in workshops she was called the "landlady") would dish out a piece of lump sugar per person and thick-sliced black bread. The boys would clear away the crockery and also serve at dinner. That was how it was throughout Moscow, both in the big workshops and in workshops belonging to the "rodents". The tailors would abandon their work and sit, as they worked, with legs crossed, on the ironing board, among the cups; if anyone couldn't find a place, they arranged themselves standing, with the boys, and took turns to scoop up some cabbage soup with big wooden spoons. They did not hurry over dinner. The "landlady" would pour out several rounds of soup then tip the sliced ham into a cup, while the senior tailor banged his spoon on the rim of his cup. Translated into human language, this meant: "Cart this lot away". After that each man quietly and deliberately would take one piece of meat onto his spoon, knowing full well that if he took two pieces the senior man would crack him on the head with his spoon. They used to eat in silence, putting their spoon down on the ironing board after each mouthful, and then, having chewed the meat and the bread, they would scoop up another mouthful. Things went more merrily as they ate their buckwheat kasha with warm fatty bacon, and on fast days, with vegetable oil; you couldn't hang around or you'd barely have had a spoonful when your spoon started clinking on the bottom of the bowl. After dinner the boys cleared away the crockery and wiped down the board, and the tailors settled straight into their work again. The masters, who had something to put on, sat for an hour over their sewing, then went to the tavern to drink tea. Later, along with the others, they took a second tea break at the boss's expense at six p.m. and after half an hour they were back sitting at their work until nine o'clock.

226

At nine they had supper or to be more precise they repeated what they had had for their dinner. "Rodents" was what they used to call the master tailors, owners of little firms that had five or six workers and a few boys with their free labour. In those places the boys found it even more difficult, carrying water, splitting logs, running to the shops for bread, for an onion worth one copeck, or for salt ̶ the whole day went on errands and looking after the master's children! You got up before anyone else and went to bed later. There was no time to go out to play or get to know the lads. All the same, because there were so many of them, the boys were happy in Olsufyevka, but, from time to time, they would escape both from there, from the "rodents". They would get to know pickpocket lads in the street, find their way into Khitrovka and become victims of the slums and of prison… Besides the master tailors, some building contractors and their workforces also lived here: carpenters, stone masons, painters, plasterers, or, as they were known in Moscow, "pesterers". There were dozens of workshops making linen garments, dozens of female tailors, dozens of knitters and laundry women. These flats were the cleanest and quietest of them all, filled up with women artisans and their female apprentices who slept crowded together in the workshops and walked around barefoot until they were promoted from being apprentices to the title of "master- craftsperson". Just as with the boys, these young women were brought in from the country to serve as apprentices for four or five years, with no pay, and were thus bound to the one master as apprentices. When they had served their apprenticeship, they became master craftsmen or craftswomen and stayed on to live with their previous master for a tiny wage. Some of them even had children. There were several generations of people living in Olsufyevka. They all knew each other and sorted themselves by speciality, by wealth and by behaviour. Drunkards (and they comprised almost a majority among the qualified workmen) were not accepted into sober family homes. The yard was always full of noisy children, until they were given away to serve under a master craftsman, (there was never any thought of sending them to school). Nobody taught them when they were small and teenagers simply had no time to study once they were serving their apprenticeship. The grown-up daughters of bosses, besides young women artisans and boys who had become masters of their trade and were already earning some income, would get married and the number of kinsfolk would grow. Relatives were very numerous in Olsufyevka. During big festivals parties were organised in family quarters. But there were few such modest entertainments among the general drunken revelry. There was usually universal drunkenness at Shrovetide and Yuletide. People in fancy dress went from dwelling to dwelling accompanied by a traditional "nanny goat" with a drum and a "bear" wearing a fur jacket turned inside out. The bear was pulled along on a chain by an old guide with a beard made of flax, while the "bear", rattling its chain, mimed boys stealing peas in the fields, the boss dancing and a landlord drinking vodka and carousing drunkenly. Of course, the "bear" was given vodka and, after the second or third party, was already staggering and falling asleep in the porch. If on the other hand he got rowdy, the doorman would put him in the cellar. For the modest, hardworking young family men and women of the "Olsufyevskaya Fortress" there was nothing for the heart, the mind or reasonable entertainment – no newspapers, no books and not a single musical instrument. The mezzanine floor of the Gagarin Palace, which looked out onto the street, with its three large aristocratic apartments, provided a striking contrast to the extreme poverty and want which reigned in the yard. The sounds of the music from glittering balls drowned out the sound of drunken revelry in the back yard on festival days. The carpenters, stonemasons and housepainters who lived in Olsufyevka had two particularly hectic festivals: the summer festival – St Peter's day and the Autumn festival – the Day of the Intercession of our Lady.

227

Hiring of labour took place between the two days, that is from 29 June to 1 October.212 On St Peter's Day tables were set out in the yard (or in the apartments if it was raining), with three-litre bottles of raw vodka, herrings, pickled cucumbers, sausages and bread. The boss would drink the first glass, and after him everyone sat down on the benches, eating and drinking, arguing about the terms of employment and then, with drink taken, they would come to a spoken agreement with their master, and the words spoken now were more solidly respected than any contract entered into at a lawyer's office. When they'd had several drops to drink, they would start bargaining and digging their heels in: "Andrei Maximov, how much will you give me per week?" says a carpenter to his boss in a drunken voice. "If you want to go on as we were, we can live with that. But if there is something you don't like, then go back to your village," says the boss, now red as a crayfish. "Come on, you can add a bit! Otherwise pay us off." "As you wish! Take your pay-off now and don't make a song and dance about it!" They are bawling, shouting , bargaining and fighting all night… And after a day the whole group of workmen remain with their boss. This is St Peter's Day – when the price of any new agreement with the bosses is settled. Tailors, knitters, cobblers, carpenters making boxes ̶ they all had their own festival: zasidki.213 That was on 8 September… The same drunkenness and spending the night in the cellar, where sometimes they locked up a man who had been tied up for his unruliness. Then the next day they would be working up to ten o'clock in the evening. After zasidki they had a light in the room. With the tailors the festival went on for two days. On 9 September they would all be sitting on the ironing boards with their legs tucked in under them with a lamp that had been lit. It was lit while it was still daylight and they would be sitting there, pretending to be sewing. They would have a big lad by the door keeping a lookout. "He's coming!" Then one of the tailors would lower the wick in the lamp until there was no light from it. In would come the master. "What's this darkness you've got here?" "The paraffin is not burning!" "Why would it suddenly go like that?" "Probably you know why yourself! After all these are your lamps…" "Is that really so? Well, here you are now. That will make it burn!" And he throws down a three-rouble note onto the vodka bottle and the nibbles. They turn up more light. An hour later the bottle of vodka has all been drunk and they turn down the light again. They sit in silence. They send a boy to the chief cutter and there is the same conversation, three- litre bottle of vodka, but the next day they're all back at work. They are sitting there with their legs tucked under them … From the cold and from sobering up, they stagger all over the place. The summer holidays have finished. After the zasidki in Olsufyevka they have started their joyless, slave's winter life, from which they have no escape, not even to the tavern!

212 i.e. July 11 and October 13 by the Western calendar in the nineteenth century. 213 A festival to mark the beginning of evening work, when lighting was necessary. 228

30 Along the Piterskaya214

As I got out of the tram on my way to he station I was stopped by a young man. "Excuse me. This is my first time in Moscow. I am a student. I would like to understand why the station in the empty square on Garden Street is called Triumphal Gates, yet this is the Tverskaya Gate, although here facing me are the Triumphal Gates in all their majesty… Then what is the meaning of these two little houses with the columns alongside them?" I explained that we were at the end of Tverskaya Street, where the gates had been set up a hundred years ago to commemorate the war of 1812, but that formerly there were wooden Triumphal Gates out on Garden Street, although they had been broken up a hundred and fifty years ago. However, the name of the place had been preserved. I explained to him that in the old days when there were no railways, those two little houses had been the gates of the city and were called guard houses because there were military personnel on duty here, with a lifting barrier between the buildings etc. The student thanked me. He said that he would write this up in their bulletin when he was reporting to their club, explaining that they were all interested in Moscow, since it was the most important city in the world. I was interested in what he was saying. Living in Moscow for some fifty years, I had passed under the gates a thousand times in a horse tram, then later in an electric tram and gone past them in horse-drawn carriages, and on foot had shuttled back and forth, thinking about all sorts of things but never about the gates. Even this magnificent equestrian ensemble and the statue holding a wreath had escaped my attention to such an extent that I had never even found out whose figure it was. I could only remember what I had heard about it: people said that there were only two sober coachmen in the whole of Moscow, one of them here and the other on the façade of the Bolshoi Theatre. However, that was not a coachman but a "peasant woman with a kalach", as they said locally. I looked up and I finally saw that this was the Goddess of Glory with a wreath. On the Bolshoi Theatre in a similar chariot there was another "coachman" ̶ with a lyre in his hands; that was Apollo. Both groups were very alike because the architect Bove had sculpted them both at the same time, in the 1820s. In the premises of the guardhouse in my time they had already placed the municipal street sweepers, then the police guard, then the honoured veterans who, in the entrance porch, beneath the Doric columns, rubbed tobacco for snuff takers. Later on one of the little houses held the outpatients' department and the other one the duty room for the medical attendant and his assistants. Round the little house on the right-hand side of the gates, under a light iron stairway which had been there since time immemorial, there were sometimes so-called "cold shoemakers" who came into Moscow from the province of Tver. They brought with them an "iron leg" on which they could repair shoes swiftly, cheaply and well. There were always about ten of them working here and their customers would be standing by the wall on one leg, lifting the other unshod one while waiting for their repair to be done. I remember this scene so clearly as I saw it every day as I was walking or driving past. And I could not help thinking what a pity not a single artist had thought of painting this memorable Moscow scene. From 1881 onwards horse trams started to pass under the gates. In earlier times there used to pass through those gates expensive teams of horses, carrying those who were consuming their substance in the daytime on horse races, either trotting

214 Russian: Piterskaya ulitsa – the unofficial name for Tverskaya Street which ultimately, beyond Tver, leads to Petersburg. Petersburg is colloquially known as "Piter".

229 races or flat races, and, at night, revellers heading for the restaurants out of town in Yechkin215 troikas, in specially fast troikas, on twin-horse sledges, jangling with a variety of harness bells, with one trace horse and one shaft horse or the "bellyless" sledges of daredevil likhachi dressed in ugly thick flounced jackets made of expensive cloth with silk belts and colourful angular velvet hats. It seems that, with the end of serfdom, padded jackets also disappeared: noblemen and landlords had to go on "shank's pony" and lost both their coachmen and their carriages. The end of serfdom also meant an end to large coaches for the masters and their boy outriders, and the disappearance of lanky footmen from the footboards. By this time the streets of Moscow had already been paved with cobbles, over which droshkys for hire bounced on their high springs; they were so named because all those in the vehicle shook as though in a fever.216 The abolition of serfdom also rid Moscow's streets of that vehicle officially known as the "funeral hearse" but in popular speech as the "fortune cart". "Get into trouble and they'll carry you on the fortune cart head first to Iverskaya." A terrible black wagon with a black post used to move out of the carriage yard and along Tverskaya Street, always harnessed to a horse that was pitch-black and without a trace of any other colour. Beneath the post was a raised bench, on which would sit the condemned criminal, with his back to the horse and fastened to the post by an iron chain. He would wear a black gown and a black peak-less cap and round his neck would be hanging a board with a large message in white chalk, showing the crime for which he had been condemned: robber, murderer, fire-raiser and so on. From the jail he would be taken along the main streets through Red Square and across the Moscow River to Konnaya Square, where in the 1860s they flogged criminals on a scaffold. But if the prisoner were a nobleman, the executioner in a red shirt would break a sword over his head, thereby stripping him of his rank, his medals and his status as a nobleman. I'm too young to have witnessed the "fortune cart", but the flounces have survived; instead of erstwhile serf-owners, there have appeared wealthy merchants, the so-called unbridled youths, who have tried to imitate the serf-owners as much as they could. And the likhachi cab drivers have started once again to stuff their flounces with cotton wool, making them twice as thick as before, because a kick in the back from a "bottle boot"217 (with high lacquered tops) feels much heavier as that of a gentleman's foreign shoes or goat-skin boots from Pirone. I remember the year 1881. As I passed by the Triumphal Gates on my to a rehearsal, I saw a great crowd. Heads thrown back, they all were making a tremendous noise. There was a man sitting on a horse with a bottle of vodka. He was bawling out songs. By the gates I could see an agitated police officer in a smart uniform with a Guards collar picked out in silver thread. He was shaking his fist upwards. "Come down, you scoundrel." But the man just called out to him: "What are you shouting about? Come up here to have a nip of vodka!" I have no clear memory of anything else connected with the Triumphal Gates. Except for the fact that I never heard anyone say the full name "Triumphal Gates". In the old days I might be hiring a cabby: "Take me to the Triumphal Gates." "To the Trukhmalny Gates.. . Which ones, the old ones or the new ones?" I too had got used to Moscow speech and unwittingly I might say: "To the Trukhmalny!"

215 A hire firm established in the 1870s by the Yechkin family. See note 35. 216 The Russian words for "droshky" and "to shake" resemble one another. They are not, in fact, connected etymologically. 217 Boots with high lacquered tops. 230

The late actor Mikhail Provych Sadovsky came from a family of Muscovites that stretched back through the ages, of which he was immensely proud. He loved to imitate Moscow speech and would speak no other way: "To the Trukhmalny. The Anglish Club"

In the 1880s, alongside the baths in Palashevsky Lane, there was a tiny vegetable shop in which worked the poet Razoryonov, who had composed popular songs. Among other songs he had composed the song "Don't sew a red sarafan for me, Mother".218 One of his friends was Surikov, and many of the Moscow poets used to visit him. A.N. Pleshcheyev and A.V.Kruglov used to come from Petersburg to see him. I lived for a time in the "Angliya" furnished rooms and saw him every day. One present I got from him was "Yevgeny Onegin continued",219 written in quite good verse. Razoryonov was an old man, immensely tall and of really heroic stature. He could recite by heart almost everything Pushkin had written, knew the whole of Onegin and loved quoting from it. He had a friend, even taller than he was, grey haired and with a silvery Cossack forelock. He had enormous physical strength. His first name was Yermolai but, for his daring, he had always been called Yermak. In those days the whole area between Sadovaya Street and the Tverskaya Gate was still known as the Yamskaya District.220 From time immemorial Yermak's ancestors had been coachmen and their house burned down on the very day when Napoleon fled from Moscow through the Tverskaya Gate. Yermak remembered that house well and when, at my request, he was talking about the past, Razoryonov immediately supplied the passage from Onegin about how Napoleon had hidden in the Petrovsky Castle and

From there, plunged deep in meditation, He watched the awful conflagration.221

And from time to time Yermak would strike up his favourite song:

How along Piterskaya,222 Along Tverskaya-Yamskaya …

So it was from my friend's stories and reminiscences that I could conjure up a picture of the Tverskaya Gate. There was a great deal of traffic, especially over the snow at the beginning of winter, when landowners came to spend the winter in Moscow. Behind the dormeuses and carts straggled whole processions of wealthy landowners and behind them came the less wealthy ones. "Do you remember how Larina…" And the old man would begin to quote Larina's journey to Moscow,223 how "a cart abandoned and forgotten" was made ready, how domestic chattels were packed in the waggon train:

With mattresses went jam in jars And feather beds and cockerels caged… and how

The yard is filled with eighteen nags.

218 This song was composed not by Razoryonov but by Nikolai Grigoryevich Tsyganov (1797-1831). 219 Published 1890. 220 The name derives from the Russian word for "coachman". 221 Yevgeny Onegin Chapter 7 Verse 37. 222 Gilyarovsky slightly misquotes the first line. 223 This is told in Chapter 7 of Eugene Onegin, from where the quotations are taken. 231

And, when I read these stories, I can imagine the queues waiting to pass under the barrier, can imagine how they finally give leave to go through to this or that traveller according to their rank and profession and how, from the front of the guardhouse, the sergeant shouts to the old soldier manning the barrier: "Up with her!" The old soldier rattles the chain of the barrier. The brightly coloured beam swings up and, once that carriage has passed by, it comes down again before the next one: "Up with her!" But now an express courier is rushing along the Piterskaya, harness bells ringing ̶ everything springs into action. They free the right-hand side for the courier or special messenger troika. The old soldier does not wait for the command "Up with her!" but raises it and stands to attention. He knows that this is either a special messenger or courier or that they are carrying someone who has committed a crime against the state… All other travellers were obliged to tie up their bells before they came to Moscow. A specially large number of troikas used to fly from Petersburg to Siberia. Yermak used to travel specially on express courier troikas. He had to endure a lot of blows from the couriers' whips and birch rods, but all the time as they were talking he kept humming as he went along:

Balconies and lion-topped gates And daws in flocks on crosses wait.224

Razoryonov gets distracted as he is describing Tverskaya, but Yermak goes on with his song:

The dashing troika rushed pêle-mêle Along the highway to Kazan… Gift from Valdai, the harness bell Beneath the shaft-bow sadly rang.225

And for a long time, until they built the Moscow-Petersburg railway, he jauntily drove the express courier troikas. After that they went along Garden Street and the Vladimir Highway to the first posting station near to the Guslitsa den of thieves.

Along Tverskaya-Yamskaya , Ringing harness bells…226

Thus it was till halfway through the nineteenth century when Tsar Nicholas built his railway. The Tsar laid his ruler on the map and his pencil drew a straight line from Moscow to Petersburg. "Let no one stray from that line or I'll hang him!" So the direct route was built and the first people to travel along it were those under arrest. Many individuals were afraid of it, both from the aristocracy and the merchant class: "The wheels are turned by some evil force…" "It's the Devil that pushes them along!" "One nostril gives out steam, the other one fire and smoke."

224 Eugene Onegin Chapter 7 Verse 38. 225 From a poem by F.N. Glinka published in 1825. 226 Again Gilyarovsky slightly misquotes the folk song. 232

At first they went on carrying exiles to Siberia along the highway from Petersburg, but later everyone started to use the railway and goods were carried in rail waggons. The guard house was closed down. There was no one shouting now: "Up with her!" Old soldiers went on peacefully rubbing their coarse tobacco in earthenware pots. Razoryonov could remember how the Yamskaya District became a town, and then how the gate was demolished and how, and, right up to the emancipation of the serfs, it was through those gates that they used to carry birch rods for beating serfs and not only them, but anyone from the "lowest class of people". They thrashed them until serfdom and corporal punishment were abolished, and after that they stopped carrying the birch rods. Until then beatings used to take place every Saturday except at Easter and Shrovetide.

The tsars used to come through these Triumphal Gates for their coronation. In 1896 to honour the coronation of Nicholas II a great public holiday was arranged on Khodynka Field, where in 1882 they had placed the famous All-Russia Art and Industrial Exhibition. But that was outside the city limits of Moscow at that time. Through the Triumphal Arch they carted the corpses of those who had died at Khodynka. "This foretells a bad future. Nothing good will come from this reign." Those were the words of an old typesetter for Russian News who was preparing to print my article about the tragedy at Khodynka. No one replied to his words. Everyone was too frightened and changed the subject to other matters.

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31 Before my eyes

From the front of the station I got into an open car. And the first thing that I saw was the great mass of the Triumphal Gates. They still had the same quartet of horses and in the chariot that same statue of Glory with her wreath held on high… It's all coming back to mind… But we are already hurtling along noisy Tverskaya Street in the midst of the rumbling and the general din… In the bright September sunlight the fine roadway is shining after a passing shower. The pavements are filled with people hastening along. Everyone is in a hurry ̶ some going to work, some to their office, or else coming back from there or perhaps going about their own business, but I don't see any sated individuals about now who are just walking in order to work up their appetite… I remember how people used to say: "Nowadays the belly runs after bread rather than bread after the belly." We are hurtling along in a stream of clanking, humming trams in the midst of the rumbling of wagons and the despondent cabbies, who are now living out their last days… Most of them have no breechband on their horses ̶ just a collar and reins. We are overtaking all the traffic, passing by lumbering buses and darting taxis. Suddenly we stop at Garden Street. The whole street has stopped. The traffic noise has died away. Pedestrians are hurrying to get across Tverskaya, dodging between the vehicles… There on a little box just in front of us a policeman is standing, silent and very elegant in his grey helmet, his hand raised. But now this living semaphore with his white gloves has let the traffic flow, and everything has rushed forward, roaring and clattering. Moscow has started thundering out its clamour… We turned onto the Garden Street. While we were stopped for three minutes I started to come to my wits, although not completely. I had lived for four months in the majestic silence of the deep forest ̶ then suddenly here I was in this boiling cauldron. We turned left onto the Garden Street. Garden Street. During the last fifty years how many thousands of times had I travelled the length and breadth of that street! I had seen quite a lot of it. Pictures of the past flash into my memory. Now we may be travelling along quite slowly, as the street is full of lorries which are overtaking each other between the continuous line of trams on the left and the cabbies who are pressing in close to the pavement. We shall have to wait and catch the moment to get past them. The first thing that brought me back into the distant past was the familiar two-storeyed house which brought 1876 to mind. But where is the fence that used to stand in front of it? New pictures replace each other every minute. My thoughts and memories cannot keep pace with them. But now, as I write, I have time to sort things out and to resurrect the past in all its details. In April 1876 I met my friend in the theatre, the singer Petrusha Molodtsov (at that time he was singing Toropka in the Bolshoi Theatre and later on he worked with me in Tambov). He dragged me along to visit his uncle in that grey house with the fence, where a goat grazed and two young schoolboys played. We had stopped at the gates and were watching their game. Hiding in the bushes, they had thrown a ten-copeck silver coin on a thread out onto the pavement and were waiting. We too waited. Here was a fat merchant coming from one side and an old beggar- woman coming along from the other. They both saw the silver coin and rushed to pick it up; the merchant pushed the old woman to one side and bent down to get hold of his prize, but the boys pulled the thread and the coin disappeared. The merchant was taken aback. 234

"That is their favourite game. It often gives us quite a laugh", explained the grey-bearded uncle after we had gone in… Now it was that fence which was missing, but it was only last year that I saw it there… The house had been painted quite recently. Now a broad asphalt pavement gleamed in front of it and the roadway was smooth instead of cobbled. Some time ago Molodtsov's uncle told me how Garden Street had looked when it was first laid out, in the 1840s: "In those days they still weren't using stone, but they laid out beams of wood across the roadway and after a heavy shower they used to swell up and stand on end, causing lengthy delays to the traffic. Rich grandees, important noblemen, went about in great high carriages, with little steps that could be let down outside the doors. Two huge liveried footmen would stand on footboards behind the carriage hanging onto straps and two boys would stand, one at each door. They were responsible for running into entrance halls to report that their master had come, and in dirty weather they would help the footmen to carry the lord and lady from the carriage across to the entrance hall of the house. The carriage would be harnessed to a team of four horses; there were six horses for specially important people. The postilion would be sitting on the left lead horse and in front of him there would be an postilion galloping along to look at the road, to see if they could get through there. All along Garden Street, beside the lattice fencing, instead of pavements there were little wooden bridges with ditches under them to let the water run away. It was particularly difficult to get across Samotechnaya and Sukharevskaya Streets as they plunged down a steep slope to the River Neglinka. Carters might wrestle with their waggons for hours on end to get up these hills. But the most terrible time of all on Garden Street was experienced by parties of men under arrest, going to Siberia on foot along the Vladimir Highway, which started outside the Rogozhskaya Gate. These parties came from the Butyrka transit prison, along Little Dmitrovka and Garden Street to Rogozhskaya. On the day a party was to go through, amounting to a thousand men or more, soldiers with their rifles would be stationed along the whole pavement. At the head of the party, as they clanked past with the fetters on their arms and legs, would be those condemned to penal servitude in their grey pea-jackets with the ace of diamonds in yellow cloth on their backs and wearing grey caps with no peak, showing half of their close-cropped head. Behind them came the exiled men with fetters on their feet, which were attached to an iron bar. If one of them fell on a rut in the street, he dragged his neighbour down with him. Next there would come a crowd of tramps and then a train of waggons, piled high with their wretched possessions and with women and children huddled on them; along with the children go prisoners who have fallen ill. The party had a particularly wretched time when the street was being washed down and stood for hours while workmen replaced the beams that had been washed out." "Year after year we saw these terrible things," old man Molodtsov told us. "Along with the clanking of their fetters, we could hear songs about their unhappy fate and about almsgiving. And there were the children crying in the heavy waggons; their mothers would start to sing, wearing their prison dress and trying to comfort them, and people in the street wept as they give rolls and kalachi to the wretched prisoners. Everyone gave what they could…" That's what Garden Street was like in the first half of the nineteenth century. I can still remember it in the 1880s when the horse tram started along it following boneshaking flies with the roof up against the rain and harnessed to a pair of clapped-out horses. In the tram would be about a score of passengers, sitting back to back. When we were starting to go up hill the driver would stop the horses and shout: "Everybody out!" So everyone would get out and proceed on foot in the rain, up to their knees in dirt and, when we got to the top of the hill, we would get into the tram again and go on to the next hill.

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I remember how people in Moscow rejoiced in 1880 when they laid down rails from Tverskaya Street to the park and launched the horse tram along them and then about two years later, they laid them along Garden Street too. Now at the hills up Samotechnaya and Sukharevskaya they no longer shouted "Everybody out!" Now they just stopped the tram and harnessed two more horses one behind the other in front of the original pair with two boys to drive them. They were called "Falators";227 they galloped up the hill, shouting at the horses and clapped their sides with their clumsy boots that would barely go into the stirrup. And there were times when the "falator" fell off the horse. Otherwise the horse might slip and fall and the rider could not extricate his big boot (or felt boot in the winter) out of the stirrup. No one had taught them how to ride and they were just taken straight from their village, put on a horse and told "Off you go!" Quite often the horses had broken legs from trying to gallop uphill over the cobblestones of the roadway; they never had enough to eat and were always tormented and malnourished. Just like the Kalmyks in the Astrakhan steppes or the steppes of the Trans-Don, the "falators" in Moscow led a life exactly like their horses and they followed the same habits: riding out at dawn from the stable yard. They would grip the reins in their left hand, while their right hand was thrown behind them: they had to hold on to a huge clumsy swingletree on the thick rope traces… This attached the horse to the shaft of the wagon … On arrival at the square they got straight to work with gallops up the hill, and later, towards midnight, they slept on the stable floor. Many of them spent the night in the stable. They watered the horses in the square by the fountain and they themselves drank out of the same bucket. They drank a great deal of water in the summer heat when the dust swirled in clouds round the streets and squares that were never swept. In winter they got frozen at the tram stops and warmed themselves up by galloping up the hill together. They were worse off than the horses during the autumn rains, when those were mixed with morning frosts. Their pea-jackets of thick prickly cloth got soaked right through. When they froze they became stiff as boards and their coat tails stuck out from their bodies like plywood instead of protecting their knees, which had frozen while they were riding uphill. When they were parked, the horses would be munching their hay and the riders feeding on cold food, from wherever they could get it, or, if they were lucky, from the women street vendors who sat on clay pots which kept the food warm. They would buy braised meat, broth, sometimes grey noodles with stock from giblets that were sold separately: for one copeck the woman would cut you some lung, for two copecks ̶ some heart, for three copecks some liver. Every falator dreamed of becoming a coachman. When it was raining, in winter cold or a thunderstorm, they might look enviously at the coachmen dozing under the roofs of their carriages or occasionally sniffing snuff so as not to fall fast asleep: the carriage was rocking, the horses would going along clip clop, the streets were empty and there was no one whom they might run over. Such a driver was the head of the rank at Strastnaya Square, Mikhail Lvovich, a regular sniffer of snuff. He always had a great store of tobacco, besides which a factory-owning friend from Yaroslavl used to send him boxes of it as a gift. The coachmen would run to him whenever they were making a stop, one with a birch wood snuff box, another one with an empty shoe polish tin. "Do pour some in, Mikhail Lvovich." And he never refused anyone. Mikhail Lvovich was still serving at Rogozhskaya Station right up to the time of the revolution. He died from typhus.

227 A mispronunciation of the Russian word for "postilion".

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So the falators might dream about life as a coachman, but it was rare that anyone achieved that happy state. Many of them got injured, and the management sent them off to their village without any pension. If the case went to court the ruling would be: "Through his own negligence". Many of them caught cold and died in the hospitals. But from six in the morning till twelve o'clock at night the falators were not relieved ̶ they might gallop up the hill, come down again and sit on their horse hoping for a tram to accompany. Sergei Semyonovich Voroshilov, the best painter after Sverchkov, showed a painting at one of his exhibitions of two falators drowsing on their wretched horses. That picture was reproduced in Russian journals and even abroad. The caption read:

They are washed by the rain And covered in dust…228

The tramcars had two decks, with the upper one fixed on top of the lower deck. It was called the "Imperial" and the upper deck passengers were "three copeck imperialists". On the lower deck passengers would be paying five copecks per stage. There was a narrow spiral stairway leading up to the "Imperial". Women were not allowed up there. In a commission of the Duma there was a heated discussion about allowing women onto the upper deck. One of the liberals was even trying to prove that this was depriving women of their rights. It was decided to put the question to a vote. One of the members of the committee who upheld the veto was a Ukrainian and at the moment when they decided to vote he said: "But they haven't got any drawers!" Amid general laughter the question was not put to the vote.

We were speeding along and I kept looking out. "But where are the fences?" On the corner of Little Dmitrovka, on the site of "Charcoal Square", where they sold vegetables, firewood and charcoal from carts, which made us call their customers "arabs", there is now marvellous square enclosed by a trellis. Alongside it there was always a grimy yard, but the building in the middle of the square had been freshly painted. That was where formerly there used to stand a tavern called the Wave, which was the haunt of card sharps, shady dealers and "wide boys". In 1905 it was occupied by revolutionaries, who were shooting firstly at the police and gendarmes, and then at the regular soldiers. For a long time they could not take it. In the end a large squad came up late at night with a field gun. They were intending to smash the building down with shells. Inside the tavern there were bright lights shining… The troops surrounded the building and were getting ready to shoot, but it turned out that the front door was not closed. After they had broken several panes of glass with a rifle, they decided to storm the building. One brave man turned up who went into the house and came back in a minute. "There's no one there". The tavern was empty. The revolutionaries had found out beforehand that they were going to take it at midnight and evacuated it in good time. There was one other happening that came to mind. For many years there was an undertaker on the lower floor. His name was connected with the "Jack of Hearts" gang who had become famous all over Moscow. I cannot remember either the name of the undertaker nor that of the gangster for whom he had obtained a sumptuous coffin, grave clothes and shroud. The deceased was lying in his own room in one of the lanes off Tverskaya Street. The priests had sung him to his eternal rest

228 A slight misquotation from Pushkin's "Song of Oleg the Wise" (1822).

237 and went to accompany him to Vagankovo. At the head of the cortège went the singers in their kaftans, next came two carriages and several young people accompanying the hearse. They came by the direct road leading to the smart Yar restaurant; facing it the road made a right turn, leading to the cemetery. They all stopped. The young people took the coffin off the hearse, and to the amazement of the mourners, instead of taking it to the cemetery, no one stopped them as they carried it through the entrance hall of the Yar into the largest room, which was full of young people. The man had risen from the coffin… They now took off the grave clothes, under which he was wearing a smart frock coat, and welcomed him with glasses of champagne. The police instituted proceedings. The undertaker paid a small sum for the coffin and the grave clothes, and next day they buried some merchant or other in that very same coffin. Then another case started. The relatives who had been done out of their inheritance decided to take the main heirs to court, and in their suit they asked to have them charged with insulting the memory of the dead man by burying him in a "second- hand" coffin. And for a long time people used to tease the undertaker by running into his premises and asking: "Have you by any chance got a second-hand coffin? Do you have any second-hand grave clothes?" Later, as the years went by, all this was forgotten and it just came back to me when I had already passed Carriage Row and was starting down Samotechnaya and Garden Street. We were speeding along downhill… But where were the fences? After all a year ago they were still here and looked very elegant with beds of expensive flowers and little paths running through them. It was only rich people who could come in there, the ones who were occupying the most expensive apartments. However, there were not many such gardens… Most of these enclosed rectangles that had taken up half the street were just deserted areas that served no good purpose, overgrown with tall weeds and thistles and they always just lay empty. The garden gates were locked to stop thieves breaking into the ground floor. In almost all of them there were tall trees growing, which had been planted there long ago by order of the authorities. It was just these very trees that were so useful nowadays. They gave cover to broad alleys for pedestrians and these were asphalted. These wide paths under a canopy of he green branches had a luxurious beauty that I had not seen before in Moscow. We were coming down Samotechnaya. After the glamour of the new street, one got a feeling of old Moscow as it used to be with people pressing along the pavements and on the Square, going to Sukharevka or coming from there, carrying various belongings. Some of them had scraps of clothing, another one a samovar or a lamp or some sort of expensive vase with a broken handle… Here a tramp was dragging a sack along, and through a hole we could glimpse some sort of bluish meat. They went sloshing through the mud in their wet clothes that had still not dried out after the rain. We could sense the rancid smell of the slums… We turned to the right… As we sped along the Boulevard of the Flowers, we overtook two trams… The boulevard still looked fresh and the trees green, but showing patches of autumn colour. I can remember this scene when empty spaces still surrounded the circus that had just been built here. In this area once "all sorts of things" happened at night. And in the daytime boys used to fly paper kites that always had rattles attached to them. The memory conjures up the sound of a rattle… And over my head three aeroplanes fly out one after another and disappear behind the House of the Peasant on Trubnaya Square. The Petrovsky Lines are paved with asphalt and so is the Petrovka, which has just been cleaned. Opposite one of the buildings the yardman is still washing down the streets with a fire hose and two other men are driving the water into the grating of a drain. We are going round the Bolshoi Theatre and Sverdlov Square, along the street leading to Theatre Square, travelling to the spotlessly clean square at Hunters' Row. Cars and trams are sweeping by and large buses are rolling past us… But where now is Hunters' Row? 238

32 The People from Starogladovskaya

On a damp morning in autumn I was being pulled along the empty side streets between Prechistenka and the Arbat in a battered droshky drawn by a tired nag and belonging to an old night cabby. It was not yet nine o'clock, and cooks were trudging back from the Smolensk market carrying their baskets crammed with provisions. Two reception class children unhurriedly entangled themselves in the skirts of their grey greatcoats which had been tailored for them to grow into. At the crossroads, opposite the vegetable shop, stood a horse and a waggon with only three wheels. The other wheel was being pushed across by an old man in a white apron, evidently the man who had grown the vegetables. The corner of the cart was being held by a thickset, bearded man wearing a threadbare coat, high boots and a round hat made of thick cloth. All the same, things were not working out properly. The fat shopkeeper, standing at the door of her shop, seemed quite indifferent to what was happening, as she chewed sunflower seeds and spat the husks out onto the narrow pavement. Potatoes which had fallen from the cart were strewn about on the ground ̶ but what did that matter to her? She just went on chewing and spitting. I jumped down from my cab, ran across and seized the axle. I moved the would-be helper in the woollen hat slightly to one side: "Let me do it, old chap, I'm a bit younger than you." I raised a corner of the cart, the vegetable grower deftly moved the wheel over to the axle and slipped in the linch pin. I jumped back into my cab and off we went. My cabman was laughing and mumbling toothlessly and pointing backwards with his whip as he drove his old horse along: "The Count tries for all he's worth." "What Count?" "You can see him over there by the cart." I looked back. Both the old men were picking up potatoes from the roadway. The shopkeeper was chewing her sunflower seeds as before. "And just what does he need? He should work with us in Dorogomilovo. Our boss Kozyol bought three hundredweight of logs, dumped them on to the street and hired us to move them into the yard and stack them up. 'Come on,' says the Count, just like that, 'I'll help you'… We drag in the logs and he stacks them up. He worked away and would take no money for it. Later on our fellows saw him in Red Meadow. There too he was stacking logs with down-and- outs from the Arzhanovka hostel." The old man went on chattering all the way, until I paid him off at the Arbat. But even when he got his money, he kept on talking: "He's got his own house in Khamovnichesky Lane ̶ a rich place it is too…He's a real Count…His name is Tolstov…" At the time I paid no attention to what the old man was saying and immediately forgot about it. Two years went by. I was working on the Russian News. It still operated from premises rented in the Metsger House at the awkward bend in the ugly Yushkov Lane between Myasnitskaya and Sretenka. The editorial section was in the building facing directly onto the street and the print room occupied a large block at the back of the yard. That was where I was heading to give my copy in for printing. It was morning when there was usually no one in the editor's office. Going towards the editor's entrance, a burly man in a worn thick cloth coat, high boots and a cloth cap pulled down over his ears in familiar fashion, preceded me. And, looking at his back, I felt his figure was well known to me… I had seen him somewhere… The man was going into the main entrance as I was going past. He turned round for a minute as he was closing the door and I caught sight of a face with a beard… Where had I seen him? I spent about five

239 minutes in the print room and then ran into the editor's office to have a look at the papers. The porter in glasses was reading the Moscow Sketch. "There's no one here yet?" "No one. Only just now Lev Nikolayevich looked in, he was trying to see Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky." "Who?" "Count Tolstoi … And how could you miss seeing him? He's only gone out this minute." Oh, so that was who I had been helping to change a wheel! I had completely forgotten about that meeting, and I simply could not imagine that the famous writer went to Dorogomilovo to stack up three hundredweight of firewood and that he dressed in such poor clothes. I had imagined that he was living on his estate at Yasnaya Polyana and I did not know when we met that he had already moved to Moscow.

I had already met Lev Nikolayevich in our own editorial office in Chernyshevsky Lane and later I quite often met him, but of course I never once reminded him about our first meeting. A couple of times I met him, always alone, on his morning walks. As he knew about my early years through my stories and sketches in the Russian News, he was always asking me about the life of the barge-haulers, about the steppes, and about hunting in the Caucasus. Once, towards the end of the 1890s, I chanced to meet Lev Nikolayevich on his customary morning walk through the Smolensk Market. We stopped to have a chat. I was on my way to the editorial office of Russian Thought, which in those days was in Sheremetyev Lane, and I told my companion about this. "I'm glad you reminded me … I have to go there too." We set off. Now we kept talking all the way about the world of slums and tramps. Lev Nikolayevich asked me about Khitrovka, about people who had escaped from Siberia, about tramps. As we were talking we hardly noticed that we had come into the editorial office, where we were met by the editors V.M. Lavrov and V.A. Goltsev. As we were going in Lev Nikolayevich said to me: "I shall only be a minute here." And it was really so; although Lavrov and Goltsev invited Tolstoi to take his coat off, he would not do so and just stood in the editors' room in his winter hat with attached hood. We only talked for two or three minutes and than we went out. There was quite a sharp frost, down to about minus twenty, and Tolstoi's beard was white with hoar frost. "I have a favour to ask of you. You know this world very well. I have even had you in mind and I'm very glad that we have met. It's like this… I recently received a most interesting manuscript from Siberia: one of the prisoners tells us about his life. It's all written in good style and a most engaging way. He wants to get it printed and of course he would like to receive some payment for it. I have read his text carefully but I cannot spend time on it. Have a look at it and find a place for it in your paper. If they can pay him ten to fifteen roubles that would be quite good." Next day the manuscript was brought to me by Tolstoi's son, Andrei Lvovich. I read it carefully. It was headed 18 October 1899, Kainsk, Tomsk Province. It began and ended with an appeal to Lev Nikolayevich and the main text was the fascinating confession of the prisoner Lizgaro. His appeal to Lev Nikolayevich finished with the words: "I agree that everything I have written may be published. If necessary the names of certain individuals may be changed. I am writing this in order to give real support to a hungry family." I read all of Lizgaro's manuscript (having previously heard of his doings from Cornet Savin, who was already a well-known figure in the world of the prisons) and next day I sent

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Lizgaro twenty-five roubles, explaining in my letter that I had received his manuscript from Lev Nikolayevich. Then I went off to tell Tolstoi and give him the receipt from the post office. "Why did you do that yourself? And what's more, you have spent so much! You would do better to get it printed. It's very interesting!" I knew something about Lizgaro and I replied to Lev Nikolayevich that there was too much fanciful material in the letter and a great deal that had been left unsaid. "All the same it is interesting. It would have found readers. But in any case I'm most grateful to you. As far as Lizgaro is concerned, I don't think he needs anything more than money." And Lev Nikolayevich turned out to be right. Soon I received a thank-you letter from prison, making it clear that he was well pleased. I told Lev Nikolayevich about this. "I was surely right about that," he said, and then he added: "But get it printed all the same."

In Moscow University in those days the Ukrainian scholar D.I. Evarnitsky was giving lectures on the history of Little Russia and often used to ask me: "You know Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoi and you go to see him. Some time can you take me along with you? It is my cherished dream to see him." So one time occasion, after he had made such a request, I suggested to Evarnitsky that we should go there immediately (it being about seven o'clock in the evening), but he refused: "We must give him a bit of notice; we can't just arrive unannounced." Nevertheless I managed to persuade Evarnitsky and half an hour later we were already in the house in Khamovnichesky Lane and going upstairs, having first sent in our visiting cards. Lev Nikolayevich stood up from his chair, raised his arms up and said with a smile: "Here they are, the Zaporozhians. Welcome!" We sat with him for over an hour. Evarnitsky caught Tolstoy's interest with his tales of the Zaporozhye.229 In his turn Lev Nikolayevich reminisced about his life with the Greben Cossacks;230 then the conversation turned to the subject of the Dukhobors231 and the Shtundists.232 Evarnitsky knew the latter very well. But I found it tedious listening to this conversation, which held absolutely no interest for me. I pulled out my snuff box, tapped it on the lid with two fingers and, without saying anything, offered it to Lev Nikolayevich. He too said nothing but took the snuff box from my hands, directed a sizeable pinch into his broad nose – first into one nostril, then immediately into the other – and at the same time inclined his head to the right, then to the left, and sneezed loudly. Evarnitsky, who must have been interrupted at the most interesting part of his narrative, looked at him in surprise, but Lev Nikolayevich had already regained control of himself; closing the snuff box, he said. "Well, it's strong!" He sneezed into his handkerchief and turned to Evarnitsky: "I only take snuff from him. It’s very good tobacco! I'm afraid I'll get used to it!" Whereupon he sneezed again, then handed the snuff box back to me, as always stroking its lid, and again turned to Evarnitsky: "Do you know, professor, if all smokers gave up smoking and switched to snuff, we'd have half as many fires and twice as many healthy people…"

229 Zaporozhye (literally: "the area beyond the rapids"). Area in present-day Ukraine beyond the rapids of the Dnieper River, settled by Cossacks. 230 Greben Cossacks: a Cossack group which settled the Northern Caucasus. 231 Dukhobors (literally "spirit-wrestlers"): religious sect much persecuted by the Tsarist authorities. Many emigrated to Canada with the help of Lev Tolstoi. 232 Shtundists:an evangelical Protestant religious sect. The name comes from the German Stunde (hour), because of the time devoted to Bible study each day. 241

Once I met Lev Nikolayevich on Mokhovaya Street. At that time the Society of Arts and Literature, which later became the Arts Theatre, was putting on Chekhov's one-act plays in the Hunters' Club. Lev Nikolayevich indicated an advertisement on a column to me: "Chekhov's Bear 233 How I would like to see his playlets, but I don't want to go to the Hunters' Club to do so." "Go to a rehearsal. His plays will be in rehearsal tomorrow. Arbatov invited me yesterday." "Yes, but I don't know anyone there. But I'd like to go…" "Will you allow me to call on you no later than seven tomorrow evening?" So I told my usual cabman Dunayev to turn out at six p.m. the next day. I should explain that I hired Vanya Dunayev on a monthly basis. The other cabmen called him Vanka the Water Carrier because of his mighty strength and I called him Berendei because he came from Pyatnitsa-Berendeyevo, a locality for cabmen near Moscow.234 I felt quite at ease when I went with him on risky journalistic assignments in various slum areas… He was a daring youngster and always sober because you could not make him drunk. He used to go with me to horse races, on the flat or trotting races. He knew all the horses and loved to talk about them. I came out and I could see: he had a new horse, a big Oryol trotting horse but well-used: his front legs were gone, he was buck-kneed and his knees trembled. "Where did you get that one?" "I bought it new. I've just got it from the Horse Market and I've harnessed him up for the first time… He's a bit skittish, but he's quick. Second to none! He's been a racehorse – there's a certificate with a coat of arms on it! Just before you and I set off, I nabbed him and off we went… I gave 120 roubles. A deposit of twenty, and the rest on Mondays." In those days Moscow dealers used to sell horses on credit to cabbies, to be paid off at five roubles every Monday and they made fifty per cent profit on that deferred payment. We came out onto Tverskoi Boulevard and rushed ahead. Vanka, huge and baggy as he was, had been transformed from being a run-of-the-mill cabby into a racing driver. Holding the horse on a short rein he was working at full stretch and shouting for everyone to get out of our way. In ten minutes we had arrived in Khamovnichesky Lane. Evidently they had been waiting for us ̶ the porter swung the gate open at once. I was taken through into the dining room where the whole family were gathered. They were all drinking tea but they had not given any to Lev Nikolayevich in case he caught cold. He was eating buckwheat porridge. Sofya Andreyevna kept urging me to drive more carefully. "Don't worry, I'll bring him back safe and sound," I reassured her. "No, don't think of coming back ̶ the children will fetch him." Everyone piled out into the hall to see us off. They began to dress Lev Nikolayevich in his winter clothes. They started with his felt-lined galoshes, then they did up the belt on his warm winter coat, turned up his collar, jammed on his warm fur hat and attached his hood. He seemed a bulky figure in the end and my sledge was quite a speedy one, narrow and without any travelling rug. I found it inconvenient to have a rug with me, as at times I had to jump off the sleigh and I was not afraid of the cold. My Berendei was the only driver in the whole of Moscow to go without a rug, even disobeying the Chief of Police Vlasovsky who had introduced a uniform type of clothing for cabbies and their conveyances and insisted among other things that there must be a travelling rug in each sledge. The police were quite ruthless in fining anyone who broke these rules. I had to go in person to Vlasovsky to prevent my Dunayev from being fined and get him permission to travel with me without a rug. Vlasovsky did order that the fine should

233 A one-act farce dating from 1888. 234 Berendei: a mythical Tsar from Russian folklore. 242 be annulled, but he simply would not allow us to go round without a rug, although he found a clever policeman's way of the difficulty: "I cannot break my own rule: the sledge absolutely must have a travelling rug. However, you don't necessarily have to use it. Just let your driver sit on it…" And Vanka was so proud that he could go without a rug; the other drivers envied him. I gave up three quarters of the seat to Lev Nikolayevich and squeezed myself in somehow, half hanging out of the sledge and with my arms firmly round the bulky winter coat. We were hurtling down a side street. Lev Nikolayevich muttered through his scarf and collar: "Only in Moscow is this propriety observed… People travel in each other's embrace. Sometimes you see a man pawing a lady as they travel along…" He had not finished speaking when we trotted out on to Maidens' Field and – straight into potholes! Bump! Crash! "Well, Lev Nikolayevich, what if I hadn't been holding on to you?" "Yes, you're right, but we're going very fast. I like to go fast – but this is too much!" "Vanya, what’s your horse called?" "Little Bird – because his mother was Birdie. It's in his pedigree document." "Well, from today, don't call him Little Bird but Strider.235 To commemorate the fact that you drove Lev Nikolayevich. He has a story of that name." Lev Nikolayevich muttered something, but I couldn't make out what he said. A few minutes later the steaming horse, its knees trembling and one of its back legs affected by stringhalt, was standing on a semi-circular mound in front of the main entrance and the Club doormen, wearing kazakin coats and tall red-topped sheepskin hats, helped the honoured guest out, escorted him inside and unwrapped him. I whispered to the clerk to tell the actors Arbatov and Luzhsky that I had brought Lev Nikolayevich. But Lev Nikolayevich squeezed my hand, tried to say something, then fixed his gaze on the doormen drawn up by the coat pegs: strapping, handsome and wearing shaggy black sheepskin hats. "What splendid fellows! Just like the lads from Starogladovskaya!" We went into the entrance hall. From the main room artists poured out and welcomed the unexpected and revered guest with delight.

Everything Tolstoi wrote after that was clearly marked by his youthful stay on the stanitsas236 of the Greben Cossacks, by the impressions engendered in their free spirit by the particular conditions of their free and warlike lives amid the dangers and patriarchal simplicity of Cossackdom. Let us remind ourselves of his works: The Cossacks, The Raid, The Woodfelling, Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment. Tolstoy's perpetual striving "to become more simple" was born in those stanitsas among these distinctive individuals. I even believe that he wanted to die there too. It is no surprise that when, sixty years later, Tolstoi went away from Yasnaya Polyana with its luxury, fame and honour, the railway ticket later found in his pocket was to Vladikavkaz; he was making for the Cossack stanitsas, evidently trying to find his last resting place in simplicity and freedom, in a tranquil wilderness. All the years until the revolution, those remote Greben stanitsas kept their old ways absolutely intact, with the Cossack way of life, just as Tolstoi had vividly described it in his splendid novel The Cossacks. I had the good luck to find someone who remembered Tolstoi when he was living in Starogladovskaya stanitsa.

235 Story begun in 1863, finally published in 1886 as Kholstomer: Story of a Horse. 236 stanitsa: a Cossack village and administrative centre. 243

And now here are this man's stories exactly as I am giving them here. This is the only person alive who could tell something about Lev Nikolayevich in the days when no one was paying any more attention to him than to any other young officer serving with his unit in the stanitsas. And the people there did not specially like soldiers, particularly in the Greben stanitsas, which had been settled by unusually strict Old Believers who kept to their own rules and beliefs. On 23 November 1853 Tolstoy wrote to his brother Count Sergei Nikolayevich. Talking about his brother Nikolai, among other things he mentions how he, Nikolai, had taken away some hunting dogs from the stanitsa, and says: "It was because of this that Yepishka and I often used to call him the 'pig'." This Yepishka, an inseparable friend of Lev Nikolayevich, was a daredevil Cossack of the old days and was the very same Yeroshka portrayed so vividly in the story The Cossacks. And this contemporary of Lev Nikolayevich of whom I'm speaking, remembered Yepishka well and told me a great deal about him. In Yessentuki in 1910 I wrote in detail about our meeting and I will set it down now in the same form as I cast it then, when my impressions were still fresh: Yessentuki 19 June. We rarely experience meetings like this… For a long time now I have been fascinated by an old man from the mountains, an officer wearing a George Medal and a Caucasus Cross. We started talking. It turned out that he was a real Greben Cossack, Kirill Grigoryevich Sinyukhayev, a native of Starogladovskaya Stanitsa. I knew that was the Novomlinskaya Stanitsa described in Tolstoy's story The Cossacks. I remember that some years ago Tolstoi used to be visited by a Greben Cossack officer, but he was a young man in 1910, whereas the man I was talking to now was the same age as Lev Nikolayevich. Although he was well over seventy, he was a hale and energetic old man, who looked much younger than his real age. I looked at him and rejoiced: his hair was as white as mountain snow but he was dry and slim as a reed. We started to talk about Lev Nikolayevich. "Of course I remember Tolstoi very well. In 1845 Old Believers from Ukraine migrated to our stanitsa and they built half a new stanitsa. So, after he had arrived, he settled first in the new part and then he came over to us. We had the Twentieth Artillery Brigade and his brother was an officer in it. However, he did not live with his brother, but put up separately with the Cossack, Sekhin. We have lots of Sekhins and Sinyukhayevs and all their relatives were jumbled up together. As for Tolstoi – at that time everyone in the stanitsa called him Tolstov—he installed himself with the rich Sekhin, and alongside lived Sekhin's other brother, Tolstoi's friend, Uncle Yepishka, a hunter and a trick rider, the sort who don't exist any more ̶ and even in the old days you couldn't find another like him. Uncle Yepishka was a distinguished Cossack. He lived on his own with his dogs and his hawks and various animals that he had tamed ̶ they just installed themselves in his house. Everyone around loved and esteemed him, not just us Cossacks but even the Chechens and Nogais… He used to go to see disaffected people in the auls and was welcomed everywhere as an honoured guest, He had the same thing to say to everyone: "We all live and then we die. People are not animals, so human beings should not fight. If you see an animal then you can kill it!" That was the way he lived: either out hunting or with his balalaika. He would dress up for any holiday, putting on a red quilted coat given to him by the disaffected Girei princes, soft leather chuvyaki and gaiters embroidered in silver. His tall papakha hat was made of wolf or fox fur, the kind of thing no one else would wear. And he was always carrying his balalaika and no weapon. He was immensely tall and had tremendous strength. That's how I remember him, when he was nearly seventy. Then sometimes he'd drink half a bucketful of young red chikhir wine and join in the round, singing and dancing. And how he could dance! 'Uncle Yepishka, more, more' they all would be asking him. 'Now then, Pig, bring a bowl of wine.' They would bring the wine, he would drink it, then go back to singing and dancing and strumming on his balalaika. That's the way Yepishka 244 was on holidays. But on a working day he'd be so serious, wouldn't say a word to anyone. He would be wearing his old cap and his goatskin trousers, bison skin shoes, his old wolf fur hat, and, over his shoulders an animal pelt with the fur on the outside, and he always carried a rifle, incised with gold. He never missed when he was aiming at any animal. In those days powder and shot cost a great deal; no one arranged shooting competitions and no one wasted a shot…" At that moment a huge, broad-shouldered Kuban Cossack was passing us. "How taller and broader Uncle Yepishka was!" said the speaker, by way of comparison. And I could indeed imagine what a heroic figure this friend of Lev Nikolayevich had been… His only interest was hunting. He too had a George Cross but he never put it on, wearing only the grubby ribbon on his old quilted coat and that in such away that people couldn't see it. He wore it for himself. He didn't like to talk about his former distinctions, but the old men talked about the wonders he had performed; he was a brilliant trick rider, but had then turned his back on war – no one knew why. He was a cheerful, malleable fellow. He never offended anyone by word or deed; he merely, on occasions, called them "Pig". He was friendly with everybody and used the familiar form of address with them. He was servant to no man but everyone liked him. The whole stanitsa gathered to hear his stories and songs. His voice was powerful and resonant. He did not attend the stanitsa assemblies and avoided public affairs. "I'm my own man. I'm a loner." He knew only his gun, hunting, his nets, drinking and making merry. He made an exception for Tolstoi alone: he loved him. They were close friends; when he went hunting he never took anyone with him except Tolstoi. Sometimes he cooked kulish millet porridge outside his house; he placed a metal cooking pot on stones. Tolstoi sat there and they cooked kulish and ate together. Or he and Tolstoi came back from the hunt together, both hung about with game, their pouches stuffed full, guns and gun-rests on their shoulders. Their step was light but were carrying about twenty-five stone! As I recall, Uncle Yepishka never went on horseback but always on foot. He spoke Kumyk and Nogai, visited the disaffected Girei princes; everyone liked him and in his presence the girls did not even veil their faces. The mountain men hunted with hawks, so Uncle Yepishka reared hawks and sold them at big prices. "Tell me, Kirill Grigoryevich, do you remember Tolstoi well?" "I can see him as if it were now." "Do you remember his story The Cossacks?" "Almost by heart. After all we all got engrossed in reading it… We used to say: 'That's our Tolstov's work'." "Who was his model for Lukashka?" "Lukashka was a cobbler here. He was a trick rider, but he wasn’t called Lukashka. I've forgotten his name… After all at that time everyone was like Lukashka – they were all such good trick riders." "And Mariana?" "She died not so long ago…" Then he launched into more reminiscences: "I remember Tolstoi had good horses in his stable ̶ a chestnut and a roan. They would take the horses out and warm them up and he would jump on them and gallop through the stanitsa… He was a daredevil trick rider. People only paid attention to Tolstoi because he was a trick rider and was friends with Yepishka, but did anyone know what he was later! I still remember him because we lived side by side. I remember that at first he lived with Glushko on New Street, then moved to live with Mikhail Petrovich Sekhin, Yepishka's brother. That was next door to us. Then, when Tolstoi was an officer, they said that he distinguished himself on raids. He went with his battery beyond Stary Yurt, so people talked about him. But if he hadn't been a trick rider, who amongst us would have paid any attention to him?" "Does anyone else in the stanitsa remember Lev Nikolayevich?" "Hardly anyone. The Yergushovs maybe. Old man Yergushov is more than eighty."

245

"A familiar name ̶ Yergushov. Lev Nikolayevich mentions it in The Cossacks." "Yes, referring to a Cossack lying drunk. He took him from real life and used his real name. Yergushov was a keen drinker… He was a relative of ours." "Tell me, Kirill Grigoryevich, did people in the stanitsa realise afterwards who the Tolstoi was living amongst them?" "Of course. A long time ago, after his first works appeared. Everyone read his books and talked about him in the schools… And my nephew Sekhin, the son of Mikhail Sekhin who was Uncle Yepishka's nephew, went to see Tolstoi at Yasnaya Polyana and got a signed portrait of him for the stanitsa, but it was stolen from him on the road." "How did that happen?" "Let Dmitry himself tell you. He's now serving in the Kizlyaro-Grebensky regiment. You could even see him tomorrow. He's stationed near Mount Yutsa, in the Pyatigorsk area. Give him my regards…" Early next morning I arrived in the camp at the foot of Mount Yutsa, about four miles from Pyatigorsk; the Yekaterinodarsky Regiment was being drilled there when I arrived. The heat was unbearable and the dust opaque. The drill was over by midday and, while the horses were being unsaddled and the men were getting ready for their midday meal, I took advantage of the break and made for Dmitry Mikhailovich Sekhin. The regiments were drawn up in line. The Greben Cossacks had already returned from their drill and I found Sekhin in his tent. I was met by a handsome Cossack with an enormous moustache, wearing blue sharovary trousers "wider than the Black Sea", a white shirt and a huge black papakha hat. He was completely covered in dust, not having had time to wash. "I'm Sekhin. Is it me you want?" he asked gruffly. "Dmitry Mikhailovich?" "Yes, that's me. What can I do for you?" "I’ve come to see you on behalf of Kirill Georgyevich." I told him my name. It turned out that Sekhin knew me as a writer. He invited me into his tent and I relayed to him my conversation with Sinyukhayev and the reason for my arrival. "Well, I'm happy to tell you everything. That meeting with the great Lev Nikolayevich was unforgettable – the best moment of my life." With his permission I took out my notebook, lines from which I reproduce here. "I arrived in Yasnaya Polyana on February 21 1908. I entered the estate. There was snow. An avenue of trees. Two men walking along. I looked – one of them was Lev Nikolayevich. I jumped out of my sledge and ran up to him, but he turned aside into the snow to let the horses past. I went up to him, bowed and said: 'Lev Nikolayevich! An unusual occurrence: fifty-five years on and a grandson pays a return visit on behalf of his grandfather.' Lev Nikolayevich did not understand and he looked at me rather sternly. I repeated my words. 'Eh! Is it Palkin?' he asked me. 'No, not Palkin but the grandson of Uncle Yeroshka.'237 Lev Nikolayevich frowned. He was standing still and looking down at the ground. 'What Yeroshka?' 'The very man you visited fifty-five years ago. You went hunting with him and described him in your story.' 'Yepishka? Well I never!' And his face lit up. 'But it can't be. Yepishka did not have any children!' 'But he did have a brother, Mikhail Petrovich. I am his son, Dmitry Mikhailovich Sekhin.' 'Sekhin! Sekhin!'

237 He is in fact Yepishka's nephew, as Tolstoi makes clear a few lines later. 246

He held his hand out and shook mine firmly. 'But what rank are you? A cavalry captain?' And he looked at my military greatcoat. 'No, I hold the Cossack rank of army captain.' 'So that means you're a lieutenant colonel.238 Now let's go.' He turned towards the house, but then said suddenly: 'You come and sit in the sledge! Go on to my place and tell Ilya Vasilyevich239 that I'll be out for another ten minutes.' I conveyed Tolstoi's words to Ilya Vasilyevich who welcomed me and installed me in a room down below. Ten minutes later he called me upstairs. Up there I found Gorbunov- Posadov, Gusev and two female clerks. Lev Nikolayevich came out with a joyful face and introduced me: 'Allow me to introduce the nephew of my Uncle Yeroshka.' Then he started to ask me about the stanitsa, remembering what he himself had seen: 'Are there still thatched roofs there?' 'There are.' 'Are there any of my generation still alive?' 'Ivan Varfolomeyevich Yergushov is still alive.' 'And is the chikhir young red wine just the same? What a splendid drink! And the Caspian shemai fish?' 'There aren't many about, and they've grown much smaller.' 'That's a shame! A real shame! But I can remember everything so clearly… Both Starogladovskaya and Stary Yurt! The mountains are so beautiful, the River Terek and the steppes! That's where there is real life! And Lukashka, Mikhail Alexeyevich's brother. Yes, I can remember it all. And how is the house I used to live in? And the Babenkovs' house where my brother Nikolai used to live? Then what of Yepishka's house?' 'It's all been rebuilt.' Lev Nikolayevich stood up and said to me: 'Here's Gusev to see you. Tell him.' He went out but came back five minutes later, sat down happily and went on with his questions about the old days. 'Of course I have a terrible memory now. But I remember everything from those days!' He stood up again and went out. But a few minutes later he called me into his study. I started to take my leave. 'Sit down, where are you rushing off to? I haven't had time to talk properly with you.' 'Now, Your Honour…' I started to say… but Lev Nikolayevich interrupted me: 'Why are you so formal?' 'How should I address you? To call you Lev Nikolayevich would be too familiar.' 'Like a Greben Cossack.' 'You remember, we address those who are older as Uncle: Uncle Yepishka.' 'So call me Uncle Lyovka. It's very respectful!' He gave a very kindly laugh. I asked Lev Nikolayevich for his portrait to give to Starogladovskaya School. He got one out and signed it: 'Happy memories to those at Starogladovskaya, Lev Tolstoi.' I went away feeling happy and well-treated. But I had bad luck on my way home: my case was stolen from me and with it went the portrait." In the Caucasus I managed to find one other old man, a general, who in his youth had served in the same battery as Lev Nikolayevich. However, I could only get one sentence out of him:

238 In 1885 the Cossack rank of army captain (voiskovoi starshina) was made equivalent to that of lieutenant colonel in the regular army. 239 Ivan Vasilyevich Denisenko (1851-1916), husband of Tolstoi's niece Yelena. 247

"Yes of course, sir. I had the honour of serving in the same battery as Tolstoi. He was a fine officer."

248

33 Antosha Chekhonte

Decades after the event I have started to write about the people I knew in my earlier days. Although they may seem far away, they come vividly back to me. There were formidable figures at those meetings. It was quite difficult to get a close look at them; besides which the whirlpool of events in which I was living at that time really made it difficult to look closely at anything, whether big or small. In those days my heroes were the sea dog Kitayev and Repka,240 the robber ataman. In their own circle they stood out, since they were also real heroes. That is why it is comparatively easy to write about them. Which would not be true about Chekhov. I found it difficult to write about him. He rose up vividly before me only on the day that I received the telegram about his death, which affected me so strongly that straight away I gave myself up entirely to my memories of him. I had got to know him when he was making contributions to small publications, writing little studies to make a bit of money and scattering them round small magazines. We both started in these publications: he was writing dramatic scenes, as I was writing verses and little plays and also doing some reporting, which in those days paid me better than his short stories, since those were still not recognized for their true worth. At the start we had fleeting encounters and then we became friends. I was very fond of Antosha, and he liked me to the end of his life, even though in his last years we saw less of each other. In those years when he was just writing little scenes, before he had brought out his book Tales of Melpomene, I already had got an assured position in Russian News and, besides daily reportage, I was writing articles and feuilletons. Russian News was considered serious journalism and Chekhov only appeared in that journal in 1893, after his writing had been published in Russian Thought in 1892 and in Northern Messenger in 1888, which brought out his The Steppe, which produced a huge impression on me. And later on that story was one of our favourite subjects of conversation. Until he published The Steppe he was for me just dear Antosha Chekhonte whose stories, scattered in newspapers and magazines, I had almost failed to read. In the exciting life of being a reporter one sometimes had more pressing concerns, besides which not all the newspapers and journals came readily to hand. I was not specially interested in Tales of Melpomene nor in Variegated Stories, which he had given to me; it all seemed so well known and not to be taken too seriously. The first piece that stayed in my mind was Kashtanka and there was a special reason for that. Once I came home from a journey and they gave me the journal New Times: "Read there about Kashtanka". The heading was different, but I had seen Chekhov's signature and I read that splendid little piece which reminded me of one of those evenings I had spent with Antosha Chekhonte… A year later The Steppe was published and I really believed in the talent of my friend… The years went by and Chekhov was acknowledged. He was invited out and people strove to be introduced to him. Round him were clustering those people who only too recently had treated him with a mixture of condescension and contempt, as a mere hack of the popular press… And then his connection with the Moscow Arts Theatre began. Chekhov and his family began to live in richer style… Gone were our suppers of "Chekhov salad" that had consisted of potato, onions and olive oil ̶ and tea with hot rolls, when we listened to the cellist Semashko and young women singing and Tyutyunik, who was still quite young, small in stature but standing

240 Both these characters appear in Giliarovsky’s My Wanderings, in chapters 1 and 2 respectively.

249 by the piano and with his great bass voice singing: "Now the eagle owl has shaken his wing" and beating time with his right hand. The Chekhovs' house was now lively and full of people. All the same, we occasionally managed to get time for a quiet chat, and when we two were together without outsiders present Chekhov would again become "my dear friend Antosha" as he had been before… It made you glad to look at him, while in company I was always sorry for him – it seemed to me somehow that he was ill at ease… It was not for nothing that he called his colleagues on Russian News "cold fish"...

"You are an express train. It will be stopping in five minutes. The buffet is open." That was what Chekhov said to me once back in those times when he was living in the "chest of drawers", that little two-storey cottage on Kudrinsky Garden Street. I used to drop in for a short visit when I got back to Moscow after going about my tasks for the paper or whirling round Moscow in my work as a journalist. Those words of Chekhov's are what come to mind when I start to write my reminiscences, which are so unlike the usual memoirs. After all, memoirs are usually something that follows through in logical sequence from day to day and from one year till the next. That sort of text works for generals in retirement, for old officials or for scholars who are no longer active ̶ that is to say for individuals who have lived through to old age in one place and one type of job. A tramp has no memoirs, just a chunk of life. One bit here, one bit there. You mustn't expect to find any sort of connection… I gave up the wandering life of my younger years for my duties as a roving correspondent and as a ubiquitous reporter in the capital. During the day you may have lunch in the Hermitage restaurant; at night, in search of new material you may be wandering through the shady parts Khitrovka Market. Today at the behest the Editor's Office you are drinking champagne at the Governor General's reception, and tomorrow you are riding out to look at animal winter quarters to the east of the River Don and the herds of horses covered in snow, and there, the smoke of a herdsman's hut. Ram's fat is bubbling in a saucepan over our fire… A ladle full of boiling fat is the only thing that protects us from freezing to death in a snowstorm, or as they call it on the Don, a shurgan. Nikolai Rubinstein is conducting in the Bolshoi Theatre; it's the hundredth performance of The Demon,241 and everyone in Moscow is there, wearing their diamonds and evening dress. I may be describing the decor of that solemn spectacle, then a week later it will be back to familiar places in the Caucasus again: the Devil's Stairway, the village of Bezengi,242 while above the clouds and even higher, under the snow-capped peak of Koshtan-Tau watchful aurochs are wandering on the steep slopes of the ice field. Then, a month later, Petersburg, with meetings in editorial offices and on Nevsky Prospekt. There I might meet Dalmatov or go to 65 Nikolayevskaya Street, or go to Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov, or, in an underground literary salon on Karavannaya Street, watch the poet Ivanov-Klassik sadly clinking glasses with golden- haired joyful Apollon Korinfsky, or listen to Kostya Fofanov, pale and emotional, declaiming his marvellous verses with his eyes closed, or perhaps visit Gleb Uspensky in his fifth-floor flat on Vasilyevsky Island and, among old populists, tell of my life nomadic as a Volga barge-hauler… After that I would go back like an express train to Moscow, so as to get my hectic last week set up in type.

So my life passed in this endless rushing about, with no pause in any one place. Everyone knew me, everyone was my friend, although I did not belong to any group or party… A reporter of those days had no firm attachments and could not have… A roving correspondent had no

241 Opera (1871), based on Lermontov’s poem, by Rubinstein's brother, Anton. 242 In Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus. Giliarovsky visited the area in 1876. 250 time to make firm friends – at that time my only firm friends, friends whose house I knew and who knew mine, were the Chekhov family, and that was before Chekhov became famous. We were very different sorts of people. For a long time I could not remember how or when our friendship began and where my first meeting with Chekhov took place. He himself reminded me; it turned out that at this first meeting I didn't even notice Chekhov. I remembered only our second meeting, in the editorial office of the Alarm Clock, where the editor, N.P. Kicheyev introduced me to an extremely pleasant young man with brushed back hair. "Antosha Chekhonte – Uncle Gilyai. Introduce yourselves." "We already have. Seletsky introduced us, do you remember?.. You almost crushed my hand." I pretended I remembered. From that day onwards we began to meet especially often at the Alarm Clock and at Vsevolod Davydov's Spectator. We became great friends. Once, over a meal at my house, in a chance conversation about the Russian Gymnastic Society, he said with a smile: "I'm also a founder member of the Gymnastic Society. Seletsky enrolled me and my brother Nikolai, to boost the numbers… That's where we got to know each other, Gilyai. Do you remember?" As there was no point in being embarrassed, I said frankly: "No, I don't." Anton Pavlovich than recounted how Seletsky, then the president of the society, had, by chance, roped him into the gym in the Redlikh building on Strastnoi Boulevard. "In the middle of a vast hall two hefty figures in iron masks, chest protectors and huge gloves were battering one another with all their might, using iron strips, over the head and sides, so hard that the sparks flew; it was a terrifying sight. I watched them with admiration and thought I was living three hundred years ago. Around on benches were a few spectators. We sat down too. Seletsky said that one of the fighters was Tarasov, the premier fighter with a two- handed sword in the whole of Russia, an instructor at the Society; the other, wearing high boots, was his permanent partner, the poet Gilyarovsky. Seletsky introduced me to both of you; you didn't look at me but gripped my hand so hard it almost brought tears to my eyes." Since then Chekhov has not been to the Gymnastic Society, but we've subsequently talked about it more than once and in the 1890s he again paid his membership subscription, wanting to do me, the president of the society, a favour. Once I brought a list of the society's members to him at Melikhovo243; his name was on it. "Well, what sort of a gymnast am I!" he said with a smile. "I'm a weak, contemporary man but you and Tarasov seem to have risen from the depths of history. Templars! Knights! How your swords used to clash! I'll never forget it. And you're including me among the gladiators!.. No, what chance have I got?.. And your clientele aren't my type," he said, running his eyes over the list of the society's members. "No, our clientele are ordinary people – office workers, shop workers, students. They are active members but these, the Morozovs, Krestovnikovs and Smirnovs – wine merchants and the like, merely pay the membership fee. "So that means we are 'dead souls'"?244 People of the current century. But the time will come – perhaps in a hundred years or so – when everyone will be strong and there'll be lots of people like you and Tarasov… That time will come!" And for several years Anton Pavlovich was numbered among the members of the society, but never went there, although he appreciated and loved strength and agility in others. Whenever I went to Melikhovo, invariably both he and his father, Pavel Yegorovich would take

243 Chekhov's estate, south of Moscow. 244 A reference to Gogol's novel of 1842, the title of which refers to serfs who only exist on paper. 251 me to the horses which were grazing in the paddock behind the yard and be very pleased when I showed them some equestrian gymnastics or trick riding. "You know, Gilyai, I've tried to describe you, but nothing came out," Antosha said to me on more than one occasion. "You don't fit, you break all the moulds. You should have been born three hundred years ago or maybe a hundred years from now. You're not of our age." We were different sorts but we loved one another. I loved him, weak and delicate as he was, loved him with a special, tender love. And how joyful our meetings were! In our younger days we saw each other very frequently. Once, in 1882, we worked together for a whole week in the district court on the Skopin bank affair – a famous trial led by the prosecutor S.S. Goncharov. Anton Pavlovich wrote some notes of the trial in the Petersburg Gazette under the pseudonym "Ruwer".

Lots of thieves there are in Skopin Goncharov soon sent them packin'.

I got married in 1884, and our families got to know each other. I remember that one Saturday I received my fee from Russian News for the week's work, about one hundred roubles. Then I went to The Alarm Clock and there I met Chekhov. He had not earned so much at the Alarm Clock and I was boasting about my money.. "Well now look, tomorrow at your place you should bake a pie and tell Maria Ivanovna that we are all going to come. And we shall bring Levitan …" Influenced by our conversations about the Crimea, Levitan found an album on my desk and, while we were chatting generally, made two beautiful sketches in pencil The Sea by Moonlight and The Willow. Straight after him, Nikolai Pavlovich Chekhov used red, black and blue pencils to draw a magnificent portrait of a woman's head. Anton Pavlovich looked for a long time at the artists and said: "Is that really the way we should be drawing? Well, it's a head. Whose head is it? That's the sea. What sea? No, one should draw so that everyone can understand what the artist is trying to express." He took the album. The drawing that he made was ready in a few minutes and was greeted with general laughter. As he gave me the album, Anton Pavlovich said: "Look after it, Gilyai. This is my sole artistic work. I have never done any drawing and I'm not going to do any more so that I shan't be taking the bread from Levitan's mouth." The drawing showed a hill and a tourist coming down, wearing a hat and carrying a stick. It showed a tower, a building labelled the "Tavern", the sea with a steamer ploughing across it and in the sky, birds. Underneath there was a caption: "A View of the Gurzuf Estate of Pyotr Ionych Gubonin"… and besides that there were explanations everywhere; "Sea", "Hill", "Tourists", "Siskins"… In their first years in Moscow the Chekhov family were quite poor. The father was working as a shop assistant in Gavrilov's haberdashery, Mikhail Pavlovich and Maria Pavlovna were still studying at the Grammar School. My wife and I were often in the Chekhovs' house ̶ at that time they were living in a little apartment in Golovin Lane, off Sretenka Street. Those were jolly evenings! Everything seemed quite modestly served, starting with the supper which almost always included the famous Taganrog potato salad, with spring onions and olives. There were never any cards or dances, but everything had a sort of warm feeling to it, cordial and joyful. Anything that one of us admired they would unfailingly wrap up in a parcel and we could not refuse it. Once on Easter Sunday the Chekhovs gave a huge Easter cake and my wife marvelled at the beauty of its form and the drawing. Then, behold, when we were getting ready to go home, they handed us a big heavy parcel, ordering us not to open it till we got home. When we got back we discovered the parcel contained a magnificent old-fashioned wooden mould for an Easter cake. 252

In those days both Anton and I were working in almost all the illustrated journals: Light and Shade, Wordly Sense, Entertainment, The Alarm Clock, Moscow, The Spectator, The Dragonfly, Splinters, The Cricket. In the evenings in the Chekhovs' house there would often be a small group of joyful people: members of his family, the young cellist Semashko, artists and my colleague on the stage Vasya Grigoryev, who had come in Lent for one of those times that actors all came together. We all loved his singing and his fascinating stories, and quite often Antosha wrote down his clever sayings, once even writing a whole story about something that happened in Tambov, when a dog got into the circus. This later became the subject for the story Kashtanka.

In 1885 and 1886 I was living with my family in the village of Kraskovo, on the road to Kazan, near Malakhovka. Nowadays this has become a heavily populated area where people have their dachas, but at that time there were only a few peasant houses, occupied by people attached to the railway. In those days Kraskovo was still reputed as a den of thieves, sharing this bad name with the next village of Kirillovka that had once belonged to the notorious Saltychika.245 Many people from both places had had been sent to Siberia for armed robbery. By a deep whirlpool quite close to Kraskovo a great old ruined mill was still standing; it served as a den "for daring young lads". There were large fish in that whirlpool and among them some enormous burbot. The only person clever enough to catch them was Nikita Pantyukhin, a lame peasant who lived nearby and was a real master at that sport. For many years his leg had some sort of constantly running sore that he was treating either by applying to it mud from the whirlpool and the pond or sprinkling it with snuff. Nikita himself used to make contrivances for catching fish and, as he had no way of paying for metal, he made sinkers from the iron nuts that he unscrewed quite calmly from points in the railway. It never seemed to occur to him that this might lead to a train crash. Anton Pavlovich was greatly taken with my stories about Kraskovo and came there twice with me. We walked around for a long time, looking at the scenery and the ponds that had become overgrown in the old park. There was a traditional tale that one pool had formed where a church had formerly been but had later sunk out of sight along with the priests and the bridal pair. Anton Pavlovich noted down that old story. And now on the bank of that same lake we met Nikita. He was catching crayfish and rubbing mud on to his frightfully sore leg. Anton Pavlovich inspected his leg and prescribed some sort of ointment. I brought it along, but Nikita refused to use the medicine and declared: "Don't pay out good money for nothing; what that ointment costs you would be better given to me. Or buy some snuff: the snuff eats the worm in my leg." I had told Chekhov how Nikita was unscrewing the nuts, and Anton Pavlovich had a long talk with him, noting down several expressions that he used. By the way, Nikita told us how he had been taken to a senior policeman because of those nuts, but everything had passed off well. Anton Pavlovich tried to explain to Nikita that he should not be unscrewing the nuts and that he might cause an accident, but Nikita simply could not understand what he meant. To answer him he just shrugged his shoulders and defended himself quite calmly: "Do you really suppose that I'm unscrewing all the nuts? I just do one here and another one there… Do you really think we don't understand what we can do and what we cannot do?" Nikita made a strong impression on Chekhov. From that meeting there arose the story He who plots evil. Into that story went Nikita's real expressions which Chekhov had noted down in his famous notebook.

245 See note 82.

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We were living in the de Ladevèze house on Second Meshchanskaya Street,246 in a small flat on the ground floor. At that time there was a big demand for a description of life in the slums, and I published sketch after sketch; for this I had to mooch about in Arzhanovka and Khitrovka. There I caught an infection: I developed erysipelas on my head and face and my temperature rose to more than 40 degrees. My eighteen-month-old son was ill with scarlet fever which I must also have brought in from the slums. Fortunately, my friend Dr A. I. Vladimirov, who had just graduated from university, took up permanent residence in our flat and helped my wife and our nanny look after the child. My erysipelas quickly went, but then our nanny Yekaterina Yakovlevna was stricken with typhoid fever. I, of course, had brought in the bug from Khitrovka market… At this very time Anton Pavlovich happened to drop in. He was horrified and began to reproach us for not having sent for him. He examined our nanny and our son, looked through our prescriptions and was happy with our treatment. Then Vladimirov returned and together we persuaded Anton Pavlovich not to visit our infected home again. The stern Vladimirov, to bolster our request, put everything on a professional footing, saying: "I'm treating them. Please don't interfere." We seemed to have persuaded him. However, not two days had passed before Anton Pavlovich again appeared; after that he began to come round and deal with things almost every day. Then we decided not to open the door to him, despite all requests. We talked to him through the chink in the door, without taking the chain off. Anton Pavlovich gave me the first lithographed copy of his play Ivanov which was staged as a benefit for N.V. Svetlov in the Korsh Theatre. This is what Antosha's brother, Ivan Pavlovich, told me about Ivanov: "I took the play to the Korsh Theatre. Then, on one occasion, I dropped in on a rehearsal and in the buffet I found the beneficiary Svetlov and Gradov-Sokolov. Svetlov was bad-mouthing the play: 'What sort of a play is this for a benefit? What use is the name – Ivanov? Who is interested in some Ivanov or other? No-one will come.' 'No, brother, you are mistaken,' Gradov-Sokolov returned. 'First, the author is a talented writer and secondly, the name is ideal for a benefit: is it IvanOV or IvANov. Every IvanOV or IvANov will be interested to know what Chekhov has written about them. And if only Ivanovs come, you're guaranteed a full house…'" And indeed, Gradov-Sokolov's prediction was true. When the audience was dispersing after the show all you could hear round the entrance to the theatre was: "Carriage for IvANov!" "Cabriolet for IvanOV!" "Fast cab from the Grand Moscow with IvANov!" "Coachman for Colonel IvanOV!" In 1886 I received from Anton Pavlovich his book Variegated Stories that had been published by Splinters. In 1884 he had given me his very first book Tales of Melpomene. Following on after Variegated Stories, that same year he published with Verner Brothers of Arbat Street a second book Innocent Speeches. We were both working for the journal The Cricket published by Verner Brothers. Chekhov advised that I too should collect and publish my sketches and stories. Thanks to my being absorbed in proper literature quite a lot of them had come out during the last two years. "Who is going to publish them for me?" "Why don't you try Mr Dog Collar?" That was what Chekhov called the younger of the Verner brothers, who liked to show off by wearing a winter coat with a collar made of some sort of grey fur.

246 Now Gilyarovsky Street. 254

But Mr Dog Collar refused to publish my book and suggested getting credit to publish it. So I went ahead and published People of the Slums. They burnt it. Only one copy survived with the pages bound together as they had been secretly given to me by the manager. This sole surviving copy of my book I presented to my wife. Close friends who wanted to read that forbidden book came to us. Chekhov came too. "Well, of course it won't pass the censor. You should have showed me what you wanted to publish. But even the title on its own has been enough to frighten the censor ̶ People of the Slums You might have got away with that in the 1860s, when the censors were trying to show how in tune with the age they were by being liberal. But now even the titles of your chapters: Man and Dog, The Condemned, Penal Servitude, The Last Blow … Can you really expect to publish that sort of thing now?" "You just think, Anton Pavlovich," (This was a favourite expression of my wife's) "you just think: how can we fail to publish this book when all the sketches in it have already appeared in print?" "Taking them separately they might pass both the titles and the sketches, but when they are all taken together one really feels that the problem is hopeless… Everything is going to rack and ruin. It's all so gloomy…" At this point Chekhov consoled us: "Come on now, we'll soon live to see the day when they'll print this book of Gilyai's and we'll see it's great success. And that will certainly happen; it certainly will coming… Everything is pointing that way."

They burned my book and, as it were, cut off my hand for writing belles lettres. I gave myself over to reporting but, from time to time, wrote poetry and short stories, but with nothing like the same enthusiasm as before, I became keen on horse racing, remembering my youth, the steppes, the herds of horses. I relaxed at the trotting races– not at the actual races but at the horses' morning work. Then I began to write for the official publication Horse Breeding and the Moscow publication Russian Sport. Later I edited Journal of Sport. Only riding horses interested me – I didn't like the merchant-owned trotting horses – and dashing about the steppes, through the herds of horses, doing something I knew. I met Chekhov more and more infrequently… The Saturdays at my flat and the Sundays with the Chekhovs were long over. Anton had begun his upward climb. Russian News, which I had almost abandoned, began to look after him. So too did Russian Thought… Then the Arts Theatre. But although our meetings became more infrequent, they were always very warm, friendly and cheerful. About seven o'clock one evening in Lent, Anton Pavlovich and I were going to my home to have some tea. We were coming from Miussky Square from the college where his brother Ivan was a teacher, and were going to my place to have some tea. We had got a desperate- looking cabbie: it was difficult to decide who was the older, him or his horse. Their combined age probably came to one hundred. It was a pretty poor sledge without a rug between us. On Tverskaya Street the snow had half melted and from time to time the runners of the sledge were scraping along the stones of the roadway, but sometimes, if that stone oasis seemed rather wide, the horse would stop and spend a long time gathering his strength, then again barely manage to move forward to the next place where he could have a breather. The cabman apparently did not hear our encouragement and his only reply was to smile with his toothless mouth and mumble something incoherent. At the corner of Tverskaya and Strastnaya Square the stone oasis turned out to be very long and we came to a stop right opposite Avdeyev's brightly lit vegetable shop. He was famous throughout Moscow for his cucumbers in pumpkins and his salted watermelons. While our horse was resting we bought a watermelon wrapped up in thick grey paper that started to go moist as soon as Chekhov took the fruit into his hands. We crawled

255 through the Square with the runners screaming on the bare stones. Chekhov was cursing, as his wet hands were freezing. I took the water melon from him. It was true that it was impossible to hold it and there was nowhere to put it down. In the end I couldn't stand it and said that I would throw away the water melon. "Why throw it away? There's a policeman standing here. Give it to him, he'll eat it up." "Let him eat it… Policeman!" I beckoned him to come over to me. As he saw my uniform cap he sprang to attention. "Here, take it, but be careful…" I hadn't finished saying: "Be careful, it's leaking…" before Chekhov cut into my words and whispered dramatic ones, picking up what I had been saying: "Be careful, it's a bomb… Take it to your police station…" I cottoned on and ordered: "We'll wait for you there… But mind you don't drop it." "I understand, Your Excellency." And his teeth were really chattering with fright. We left the policeman with his "bomb "on the corner of the Square and Tverskaya Street and went on our way to my place to drink our tea. Next day I found out all the details of what had ensued. The policeman carrying the "bomb" made his way in fright to the nearest house, called out the porter there, told him what had happened and left him on watch in his place, while he proceeded with every precaution along Tverskaya to the police station. He was accompanied by a batch of curious people who had heard from the porter about the supposed "bomb". The policeman closed the door and rushed into the main office where he so frightened all the officials that they scattered in terror and the policeman told what had happened to the people in the station. Agents appeared but did not go into the duty office. They were waiting for the officer who was supposed to deal with explosive devices and did not dare to go into the duty office without him. At that moment firemen came into the yard, having come back from an incident. They saw the crowd, found out what was going on and the senior firemaster was the Don Cossack Bespalov, who jumped off the fire engine, just as he was, all damp and still wearing his brass helmet, dashed into the police station, ignoring warnings about the danger, and made his way to the duty room. In seconds he had stripped off the rest of the damp paper from the melon, after which, paying no attention to the protests of the superintendent about preserving material evidence, he carried it off home. "It's a real fruit from the Don, with stripes on it. I have not had one like it for a long time."

The Chekhovs moved flat quite a few times, and I had occasion to visit all of them. I remember one curious event from the time when they lived on Great Yakimanka Street. I had arrived at their flat sometime towards evening and found Anton pacing from corner to corner of his study. His face was pale and haggard. "What's the matter?" "I've got stomach ache. I've wrapped it in a scarf but it doesn't help. I need a radical cure." He summoned the boy who acted as his servant: "Babakin, go to the chemist's and get some castor oil capsules." The chemist's was nearby and the boy soon brought the castor oil capsules. Chekhov opened the box and laughingly showed me two huge capsules. "What are these? Who do they take me for?" He took his pen and wrote on the box in large letters: "I am not a horse". Babakin again left for the chemist's and this time brought six capsules in a little box. The chemist had got the autograph he wanted.

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In the 1880s Anton Pavlovich bought the small property Melikhovo in the Serpukhovsky District, eight miles from Lopasnya station on the line to Kursk. Anton Pavlovich was very fond of his own quiet little corner in Melikhovo, his "cherry orchard". It was specially good to be there early in the spring. Several times I went there for Easter, when guests would travel out to Melikhovo and all Anton's father's side of the family were there in force. Anton Pavlovich had his study on the left of the hall, with bookshelves and his desk, on which a file was always open with a short story he had started on, or a longer narrative. When he had guests there he usually worked in fits and starts, but all the same he wrote every day: he would write for a while, then tear himself away from work, come out to chat to his guests, and then sit down to write some more. Sometimes, when we were at the midday meal, he would rise suddenly from table, go off to his study to put down a few lines, and then, on coming back into the dining room, he would join in whatever we were talking about. It was wonderfully easy to be a guest there. Each of us did what he wanted and no one was interfering with anyone else. Even when he was writing, we could go into his study and not be afraid that we were interrupting him. That at least is how I remember things always were at Melikhovo. The dining room was directly beside the study. Anton Pavlovich had his favourite place at the end of the table, near the door into his study. In those days he would not decline a tot of vodka or a glass of wine. He always sat me next to him and liked to pour out for me himself. His father, Pavel Yegorovich, took the place on my right, as he always made up our company, then further on, his mother Yevgeniya Yakovlevna, his sister Maria Pavlovna and his brothers. Coming from Taganrog, they all loved southern dishes and Yevgeniya Yakovlevna prepared them with great skill and loved to treat us to dishes as they were cooked along the River Don. Liqueurs and infusions and pies ̶ all that was always there, as much as you could desire. Then for anyone who was going to Moscow they would unfailingly wrap up something tasty for the journey. It's always with delight that I remember Melikhovo. That seems to have been the best time in Chekhov's life. In those days his health was comparatively good. He was enjoying life and he loved nature. In any case there was no time for brooding. He had his literary work, his household, and the garden, where he was always digging and planting things out and besides that there was perpetually a crowd of peasants, women and men, who came to see their very own "doc" with various ailments. Then always ̶ guests and more guests. When there were too many people coming to see him, particularly the "female of the species", we would make up our own company, with Anton Pavlovich leading us, and make our way to the bath house. However this was a bath house only in name. In reality there were several rooms attached to it, beautifully furnished with beds and sofas. We had a marvellous time there with a little drink and tea, talking and reading all through the night. One of Chekhov's brothers had photographic equipment which he used to take pictures of views and people. Then once, when we were walking in the garden early in spring after the snow had melted, Anton Pavlovich turned to me: "Gilyai, I'm tired. Give me a ride in the wheelbarrow!" And he sat down in the barrow. His brother Misha, still a schoolboy, sat beside him, and when I got them to the house, they wanted to have their photograph taken. Apart from us three in the group there are Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov and Anton's cousin, Alyosha Chekhov.247

I used to go quite often to Melikhovo. Sometimes Antosha sent letters to invite me. Here's one such invitation, on a postcard which has survived by chance:

247 This is actually Alexei Alexeyevich Dolzhenko (1865-1942), Anton Chekhov's cousin on his mother's side. 257

"Moscow, Stoleshnikov Lane, house of Korzinkin, to Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky. Do you want your friends to forget you? Buy an estate and settle in there. Gilyai, pull your memory by the tail and remember Chekhov, man of letters, who sends you his good wishes. Happy Easter! Yours A. Chekhov, Melikhovo P.S. The horses are now in good form. Do come." I remember how once ̶ it must have been in 1900 ̶ I published a pamphlet about the Decadents in the Artists' Circle and I made terrible fun of them. The pamphlet was headed People of the Fourth Dimension. In reply to this I received the following postcard from Chekhov: "Dear Uncle Gilyai, Your People of the Fourth Dimension is magnificent and I was laughing all the time I read it. Good old Uncle! I shall be in Moscow after he twentieth of April. Yours very sincerely, A. Chekhov. 23 March 1900." I remember that I then replied with a postcard containing the following lines:

For the pun I'm sending here I your kind indulgence crave; Plevritis you've got in Crimea, In the north we’ve just got Plehv.

When Chekhov came to Moscow I asked him whether he had received the card. It turned out he hadn't. I repeated my lines to him. "Well now, you just jot it down for me, and no doubt your postcard has been nailed to your file by Superintendent Gvozdevich…248

Once I happened to be having lunch with Anton Pavlovich in the Slavonic Bazaar. He had come to Moscow from Yalta in the winter. "Do you remember Yepifanov?" Chekhov asked me. "The one who wrote playlets…" "Yes, I remember. Seryozha… He was an alcoholic, poor man." "I came across him in the hospital in Yalta only a few days before he died there. I had brought him some presents… He was delighted with everything. He was remembering his old friends and Moscow and the taverns. When I started to talk about you, he only said a couple of words: 'We drank!'" At this point I talked about one meeting with Yepifanov, which Chekhov greatly enjoyed and made me promise that I would certainly publish it. He was now at the height of his fame and did not write slight pieces. I promised ̶ and forgot.

We were sitting in the editorial offices of the Moscow Sketch, where N.M. Pastukhov, as usual wearing slippers and an unbuttoned khalat, was at his desk going over material brought in by his reporters. Seryozha Yepifanov, a poet and author of sketches who did not lack talent, had brought in a piece about a crowd at New Year gathered on the Boulevard of Flowers round a frozen parrot lying in the snow. It was a splendid white cockatoo. Yepifanov was saying, in somewhat confused fashion, that parrots had appeared in Moscow and were living on the boulevards. Pastukhov read the sketch and said: "Won't do! Go and find out where this parrot came from and how it came to be on the boulevard ̶ then your sketch might do!" "That's not possible, Nikolai Pavlovich." "What sort of a reporter are you going to make after this? Maybe you found a dead parrot on a rubbish dump and put it there in order to write a sketch? Gilyai and Vaskhov bought "sinner" buckwheat pancakes249 for two copecks from a street seller, through them into Patriarch's Pond, collected a crowd and wrote a sketch: 'Sinners in Patriarch's

248 Mikhail Mikhailovich Gvozdevich (or Gvozdovich) (1864-1907) worked in Yalta, where Chekhov had a house. Chekhov puns on his name, which resembles the Russian word for "nail". 249 The word "greshnik" means both "buckwheat pancake" and "sinner". 258

Pond'. At least it was funny… But this? A parrot pegs out and you write a hundred-line sketch. Now go and find out how the bird found its way onto the boulevard. Oh, you martyred scribbler!" Pastukhov stood up and went out. On the corner of Petrovka and Rakhmanovsky Lane, in the Levenson House, above Zveryov's tavern in those days one would find the furnished rooms to let, called "Hope", which were taken mainly by middle class prostitutes, minor civil servants and actors. At the time when Pastukhov sent Yepifanov to look for the parrot, the best of those rooms in "Hope" was taken by a certain Kondratyev, a fine tall man with fair hair and huge whiskers that he tended with great care. He introduced himself to everyone as a retired officer, but his vocabulary was so limited that it was difficult to believe this. People only knew that he lived by playing cards and billiards and that he was a regular at Savrasenkov's tavern, near the Pushkin Monument. This billiard club took up two large rooms, with the best Freiberg billiard tables, and was the largest den in Moscow for card sharps. The game was always for money, with the gambling going on at top speed, while the spectators, squeezed onto long sofas by the walls, sometimes put large sums on the players, and losses were considerable. All the most famous gamblers of that epoch played here: Piskun, Solomon, Shulkevich, Goliaf and Malinin and, by no means the least among them, Kondratyev. The house painter Kiryusha also played there, capable of such a show that he could win games even from the card sharps. After Pastukhov had spoken his harsh words, Yepifanov and I came out very upset from the editor's office of the Moscow Sketch and I took him off to Savrasenkov's to console him with a little carafe of vodka and a decent bite to see it down. We seated ourselves on a big sofa just opposite the billiard room where a game was going on. A huge man sat down beside us. This was the gambler Goliaf, whom I had known for many years, and pointing at the gamblers, he said: "That Malinin there ̶ it was a good laugh to see how he dealt with Kondratyev yesterday." "Why? What happened?" "Don't talk about it! Kondratyev had plenty of money for the holiday, so then Vaska made up to him and won him over, and from there, this was the day before yesterday, he pushed his way in among the guests. They had a drink of tea in his room, then the two of them took some vodka and after that Malinin fixed up a game of faro with him, just the two of them. It was a clean game. They played for a long time. Towards morning Malinin had won all his money, his watch and his cigar case off him, but the other man had overreached himself and gone too far. Then Vaska said: 'Do you want to play for the parrot?' He had a white, very much beloved parrot, living in his room… 'Yes, what is it to me? Yes, all right… I agree.' Whether they played for a long time or not, Kondratyev lost the parrot as well… 'Take it ̶ it's your parrot. Shall we play for the dog? I've got a pointer, bred by Lanskoi. Quite priceless…' 'Where is he then?' 'Downstairs, in the porter's lodge … I can't keep him in my room. Do you want to play for him against three hundred roubles?' 'All right, let's play for the dog as well.' Kondratyev went out of the room to fetch the dog, but Malinin took the parrot out of its cage and threw it through the window onto the street, put on his overcoat and fled. 'Where are you off to?' 'I cannot stand it… It's time for me to go home.' And off he went. Malinin has been telling us all this just now. Kondratyev ran after him, weeping: 'Give me back the parrot. I can't live without him.' But the bird had long since died. Children on the Boulevard of Flowers were carrying its frozen corpse along." That was a great success! Yepifanov related the whole story we had been told in detail and brought it to Pastukhov. He got twenty-five roubles for that and a present of a warm overcoat.

In volume 5 of Chekhov's letters there is a letter of 25 November 1899 to Gorky from Yalta:

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"Here, in a refuge for the chronically ill, has died the poet Yepifanov, passing away solitary and neglected. Two days before he died he asked for apple fudge and when I brought it to him he suddenly came to life, sputtering and hissing joyfully with his sick throat: 'That's the right stuff… that is!' It was as though he had seen someone from his part of the world." I read this letter in the collection of correspondence that Maria Pavlovna had published. I remembered what I had promised and wrote out what I had once told Anton Pavlovich about Yepifanov. "The martins were sweeping over the road with their joyful cries and the gophers called back to them from the long grass, while somewhere far away on the left came the plaintive cry of lapwings. Frightened by our cart, a flock of partridges burst out and with their soft "trrr" sound they flew off towards the hills. Grasshoppers, crickets cicadas and locusts played their rasping monotonous music in the grass."250 Anton Pavlovich describes morning in the steppe with such love. Later he describes a hot July day:251 "How stifling and oppressive it was! The britschka moved fast and Yegorushka saw one and the same thing – the sky, the plain, the hills… The music in the grass had quietened. The martins had flown away; no partridges could be seen. Rooks hovered over the withered grass, having nothing else to do; they all resembled one another and made the steppe even more monotonous… The monotony was broken by glimpses of a whitened skull or a block of stone in the grass; a grey stone figure or a parched willow would spring up…" His first big work – The Steppe – was a huge success. It wasn't Gogol's unruly Cossack steppe with its raids by the Zaporozhians, but the quiet, peaceful steppe of his childhood and youth. Anton Pavlovich was a born steppe-dweller, like his ancestors. When The Steppe came out I had long conversations with him about the steppes, of which I myself am passionately fond. His father also took part in these conversations. From the stories told by Pavel Yegorovich and his children I learned about his family history too. Anton Pavlovich's grandfather, Yegor Mikhailovich Chekh, was a serf belonging to the celebrated Don Cossack, Count Platov. It is not known why his surname was Chekh. He lived and worked in the steppe villages of Krepkaya and Knyazhaya, earning enough money to buy his freedom, which he duly did. His children – three sons, Mikhail, Pavel and Mitrofan – were born free. The eldest, Mikhail, was given away by his father to be trained as a bookbinder in Kaluga, where he soon became well-known as the best in the business. He was not called Chekhov, but Chokhov. He sent his father a present – an extremely intricately made casket with the following inscription: "Accept, dearest parent, the fruit of my diligent labour". Anton Pavlovich valued this casket very highly. Mitrofan Yegorovich opened a grocery business in Taganrog. He left two sons: Vladimir, a schoolteacher in Taganrog and Yegor, who worked in the Russian Steamship and Trading Company. He was Anton Pavlovich's favourite; he called him Zhorzhik.252 I spent time in Yalta with Anton Pavlovich and met Yegor Mitrofanovich there. Anton Pavlovich's father, Pavel Yegorovich, began his youth doing the difficult job of cattle dealer. He drove cattle – both red Kalmyk cattle and grey Ukrainian cattle – to Moscow, Kharkov and other big cities. While travelling with the herds, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, he fetched up in Shuya, where he found a fiancée. This was Yevgenia Yakovlevna, née Morozova, the daughter of a merchant.

250 From Chapter 1 of The Steppe. 251 Also from Chapter 1 of The Steppe. 252 i.e. Georgie 260

Having got married, Pavel Yegorovich thought to change the adventurous nomadic life of a cattle dealer for a more settled life and, following his brother's example, he opened a shop selling goods from the colonies in Taganrog. Mikhail Chokhov's people were all business people. Of Pavel Yegorovich's children: the late Nikolai was a very talented artist, Anton, Alexander and Mikhail were writers, Ivan was a teacher and Maria a landscape painter. Although he had gone into commerce, Pavel Yegorovich did not lose the poetic streak which had been inculcated in him by his life as a cattle dealer on the steppes. I had many conversations with Pavel Yegorovich. The cold, calculating, practical man was disappearing and before me stood a completely different man, full of poetry when the conversation turned to the steppe, to the free life, the herds of horses and the Cossacks. Pavel Yegorovich would roll back the years and be a changed man. It was at Melikhovo too, that, when I returned to the north from my frequent journeys across the steppes of Southern Russia, during one conversation the old man listened, became animated and suggested: "Let's go, I'll show you our horses…" "Here we are ̶ sit yourself on this one and see how she goes! They've just recently brought her from the Don!" And he would start to describe the mare's good points, look back on the past and say "Ah well, back in the old days I used to be a good horseman." Besides this he had one other diversion ̶ his violin. Sometimes he would also call up some lines of Koltsov. I could see that the magic of life in the steppes, and his love for it, had put down deep roots in his youth. Although it may have rarely happened, it would still at times show through the thick carapace of practical life and the struggle with poverty, acquired over many years. He had indeed found it difficult to manage in those earlier years. His business in Taganrog was not going well and he had to find some other way of making money… So now his violin, his feeling for music and his good voice opened up another profession for Pavel Yegorovich … A.B. Dolzhenko, a friend and colleague of Pavel Yegorovich, was married to Fedosya, Yevgeniya Yakovlevna's sister, and he, Dolzhenko, had started out buying cloth and various peasant wares as he travelled round Russia. They were both in Shuya and each had married one of the sisters. Later on Dolzhenko had started up a manufacturing business in Taganrog. He had a great love of choral singing and this brought him close to Pavel Yegorovich. They started by singing in the Greek monastery, then in the palace, the parish church and the cathedral. Pavel Yegorovich accompanied the choir on his violin and was their director. This gave him a respected position in the town and people came to listen to his choir from Rostov and other towns. Chekhov's children sang in the choir, as did Alexei, the son of A. B. Dolzhenko. To this day Alexei is one of the friends of the Chekhov family, being a contemporary of the younger members. The eldest boy, Alexander Pavlovich, first sang treble, then bass; Nikolai, who was a good violinist, helped his father and took on a particularly high load of singing duties; this impacted on his health and may have been a cause of his illness; Anton sang alto. It was a very close-knit family. Anton Pavlovich was the quietest of them all. He had a very big head and they used to call him the "bomb", which used to make him angry. Anton's favourite activity was collecting insects and playing at being a businessman; furthermore, even when he was still a child, he was very skilful on the abacus. Everyone used to think that he would be a real businessman. We should be specially grateful to Anton's mother Yevgeniya Yakovlevna, for his becoming a writer, and also to the fact that his father's business affairs were going so badly in Taganrog. The older children were studying; Alexander was already in the fourth class of the high school when the time came for Anton to start school… 261

In Chekhov's story The Steppe Father Christopher is talking with the merchant Kuzmichov. Christopher stands up for learning and cites Lomonosov: "Learning, received with faith, bears fruits that are favoured by God." To which Kuzmichov replies: "Learning is useful for some people, but others just get confused. My sister is a woman who doesn't understand … She is trying to make everything seem good and wants to make Yegorka into a scholar, but she does not understand that I could make him happy forever with my own way of going about things. I'm explaining to you that if everyone sets themselves up as a scholar then there'll be no one to do any business or to sow our corn. We shall all die of hunger." "But if everyone is in trade and sowing corn then no one will manage to learn anything."253 Probably conversations like this were going on round Anton Pavlovich when he was a child. When Anton was in the fourth year and Alexander in the eighth, their father opened a new shop near the railway station, hoping for an influx of customers. And both boys spent their holidays in the shop. Their only form of relaxation was to sit on the front steps in the evening and listen to some of the distant music which floated across to them from the municipal park. Most of the customers were poor people, and the schoolboys who were serving had a kind heart, so that the shop showed a loss rather than a profit. The shop was closed. Anton found himself back at school once more. Nikolai and Alexander were sent away to the capital, Nikolai to the Moscow College of Painting and Sculpture, and Alexander to the University. For Pavel Yegorovich business was getting worse and worse. And on top of that his landlord Moiseyev put up the rent for the apartment from four hundred roubles a year to eight hundred. That was the final straw, and the Chekhovs closed up their business to move to Moscow. Here the younger children, Maria and Mikhail, started their schooling… Shortly afterwards Anton came from Taganrog, having finished at the High School there, and he started to contribute to humorous journals. I loved all the Chekhov family when they were living in their "chest of drawers". This two-storey wing of the house looked remarkably like a chest of drawers. It is just the same today, on Kudrinsky Garden Street. At that time it belonged to a countryman of Chekhov's, Doctor Korneyev, who was a Don Cossack. Upstairs was the dining room and rooms for the family, while Anton Pavlovich had his big study downstairs, into which there was an internal staircase leading directly from the dining room. In those days I was going about a great deal on various bits of business ̶ to cholera, or the plague in the waste land round Astrakhan or to various disasters, or to Cossack winter quarters and Kalmyk settlements. Then, just on a flying visit to Moscow, I would be able to see my friend and each of our meetings brought joy to both of us. One time when I came into the city I burst into Anton's study. As usual he was sitting at his desk. "Where have you come from?" he smiled, his eyes shining. "All round the world: from the Volga, the Don, the flat plains of the Kuban, from the ridges of the River Terek "How you've caught the sun. You're like a block of iron. Come on, sit down, tell me all about it!" "Here's a present for you from your native pastures: smoked goose, fatty bacon, two bottles of Tsymlyansk wine from the Don and sun-dried shemaika from the Terek."

253 From Chapter 1 of The Steppe. 262

The whole desk in front of Anton was covered with carefully sorted bundles of envelopes, still bearing a wax seal for those that had money in them. He was sorting them out from his desk onto his shelf. "I'm going through my archive," he explained to me. "This is all stuff from the editor's office. Here are Splinters, Dragonfly, Petersburg Gazette. A reminder of the riches we used to have…" Then he began to unwrap my parcel. "Ah, here's one from the Don, my own part of the steppes." I pressed his hand quietly and cautiously, and he smiled "Get on with you! Come on then, tell me all about it…" I had barely time to open my mouth when a young man ran down from upstairs, wearing a student's uniform. This was N. Ye. Efros. Then from the hall appeared Semashko with his cello and the singer Tyutyunik. They bade us good day and began to admire the presents. Almost immediately Efros took his leave and departed. We could hear Maria Pavlovna calling: "Antosha, lunch is ready!" "Put everything onto the table". Anton Pavlovich turned towards us. "Semashko, you eat the fish, goose and fatty bacon, and you… And as a singer you, Tyutyunik, should drink some wine. We are coming to eat right now". They went off upstairs. Suddenly the bell rang and the maid came in. "Anton Pavlovich, the tailor is asking for you." "Is it Glebov or Belousov?" "No, it's neither Fyodor Glebich, nor Ivan Alexeyevich but some other man, with a beard and a parcel." "Gilyai, my dear, you have a look and, if it's someone we don't know, tell him I'm not at home." I went out into the hall. A man with a beard was standing there humbly in a modest woollen overcoat. Under his arm he was carrying a parcel in a black calico wrapping, such as tailors use for bringing out clothes that have been ordered. "Vladimir Galaktionych! I didn't recognize you… Have you come from Nizhny Novgorod? Well, do take your coat off." "Yes, I got here yesterday." "Antosha, Korolenko has arrived!" I shouted. We had only just sat down in the study when we heard Yevgeniya Yakovlevna calling from the room above: "Antosha, the marrows will go cold." We had to break off our chat and go upstairs to the dining room. And it was almost always like that: no matter when you arrived there were always people at the Chekhovs' house. He was already coming into fashion. The period had started when so much was written about him, but for myself I am only describing my personal impressions, going back to that time and recalling the days when we, Gilyai and Antosha Chekhonte, were close to each other. And even though to the end of his life he remained "Antosha" for me and for him I was always "Gilyai", when Chekhov became fashionable that former closeness no longer existed – our face-to-face meetings were too infrequent. Anton Pavlovich's health was becoming worse and worse. I only saw him in Yalta from time to time. One time I came down there exhausted from quite stormy weather and the north- east wind that had lashed us as we were crossing from Novorossiisk to Yalta. Then something happened to me that I had never experienced before: I got a tic, a nervous twitch of my face and neck. "What is making you twitch like that? What sort of stupidity is that? Why are you not ashamed? You're a champion, with prizes for athletics!" Chekhov began to scold me. Again I twitched.

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"Give over. Use your common sense! Do you think it'll be better if you nod your head?" And he reproduced my movement with an angry glance. It was the first time in our lives I saw his eyes like that. "Nothing is going to get any better from your twitching. Everything will remain just as it was… Give over. Don't dare to carry on like that!" And threatening me angrily with his finger he suddenly changed his tone, pointing through the window at a scruffy-looking man who was digging over a flower bed. "That is our Babakai. Let's go into the garden and you recite to me a little verse you've made up about Babakai." I had made up four lines somehow or other, out of which I can only remember the last one now: "Some sort of Babakai". "Well now, write that on the door post." By this time we were coming down the stairs. I wrote it and Anton Pavlovich read it through. "That was me taking a doctor's fee from you because I have cured you of a stupid habit. You have realized that there is no sense in twitching… No one gets any better from that, nor worse, so just stop it." "I believe you and I shan't twitch any more." "Well then. Do you think I'm a bad doctor? The police in Moscow take me to be a doctor, not a writer so – I'm a doctor. In the All Moscow gazetteer it says: 'Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, Little Dmitrovka, Shishkov house. Practising doctor.' That's what was written: not a writer but a doctor – so you'd better believe it!" I did believe it and I haven't had another twitch to this very day. We were sitting on a bench in the garden. Babakai was digging the flower bed. I had a kodak and took several pictures of Anton, Babakai and the dacha. Maria Pavlovna came up and we took a picture of her too. Only her picture came out well. This was the only time Anton Chekhov was a photographer. Babakai came up. "Anton Pavlovich, some women in hats from the town have come. I said you weren't here." "Well done, Babakai! He calls ladies from the town 'women'. There's no respite from them," Chekhov explained. "It's clearly your fate to be surrounded by things beginning with 'bab'.254 Just think of it: you yourself say 'there's no respite from women'. You have Babakai working for you… You lived in Babkino, near New Jeruslaem and you had a boy there called Babkin… You and I bought boots from Baburin…" "Yes, I hadn't thought of that. I'm surrounded by bab, bab, bab," he laughed. "No, not quite surrounded, just by bab at the beginning. But, to come full circle, plant a baobab in that bed where Babakai is working." By way of reply Antosha laughed and took out of his purse, rooted around in it and took out a pair of cuff links. "Here's your fee for all this. In memory of the baobab… I'll definitely plant a baobab and I'll order it to come via the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb. Bab-el-mandeb!" Again he roared with laughter. "You know what, Gilyai," he concluded. "Stay her and live with me. With you around there's no time to die." And how Chekhov loved the steppes! They were a constant theme of our conversations when we were alone together and it was with these reminiscences that we both relaxed from the hustle and bustle of the capital…255 Right at the beginning of our friendship Chekhov had enjoyed listening to my as yet unpublished verses about Stenka Razin, about the Zaporozhians.

254 The word for "woman" (especially "peasant woman") which Babakai uses is "baba". 255 Writing in the Soviet era, Gilyarovsky means Moscow, which became the capital in 1918. 264

I have already spoken about the impression which The Steppe, first published in the Northern Messenger at the end of the 1880s, made on me. At our first meeting I expressed my delight to Chekhov: "It's charming! This the real, the genuine steppe! You can breathe the air of the steppe when you read it." "Reading it was tedious for you. Tell me the honest truth!" "Everything's slow. When you read it it's as if you're travelling in a waggon, slowly, ever so slowly." "That's why you find it tedious, and so you should. My steppe is not your steppe. You were born three hundred years too late… In those days you would have led wild bands of Cossacks over the steppe and would have enjoyed it… You were born too late." He laughed. Then he bethought himself, looked me in the eye and said slowly: "Your steppe will come again. And there'll be wild bands of Cossacks. Everything that has been will repeat itself… But you and I won't live to see it. But it will happen, it will happen…There will be Gontas, Gordiyenkos and Stenka Razins… There'll be everything… It will spread ever wider and more threatening. The crust will break at the top and it will pour out. Every stanitsa will have its own Stenka Razin, every village its Pugachov… It will cast off its chain and everything will follow in droves, in droves…

There was a repeat of this conversation in Yalta, several years later, when I got back from the "New World" – the famous Golitsyn winery. Anton Pavlovich was alone – there was just him and Yevgeniya Yakovlevna. The rest had dispersed. That day he felt very well; we again strolled through the garden and chatted in his study in front of an open window, looking out onto the sea. "Your heroes are all in the past, strong, powerful, impetuous; but my contemporary characters are all sourness and whinging. As you put it ̶ Chekhovism." He had a prolonged fit of coughing. "After all, we cannot decay endlessly like that… A swamp may be decaying… It decays, then dries up. So, in the depths, peat may flare up from a spark and the wood will catch fire above it. That will only happen after our time has passed. You were born at the wrong time… Either you are three hundred years too late or you've come a hundred years too soon. Do you remember, you wrote some lines of verse… I have forgotten them. How did they go?" "Allow me:"

The Cossack army comes in force… Still nearer, nearer, comes the clamour. The separate regiments are seen, The horseshoes clatter, weapons glimmer. Their bunchuki burn in the sun. One warrior a tall papakha Black-brimmed with fur of sable wears. Another wears a shirt in tatters, One velvet clad, another bare, And his moustaches only cover One half his breast…

"Yes…Yes… Those are the right words… Everything will be like that… A hundred years from now." He stretched his hand out to the window, towards the sea.

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"Just look! There are your Zaporozhians, flying on the seagulls' wings, straight to the Hotel Rossiya…There are the bands pressing down in their masses from the mountain, their axes gleaming in the sunlight… Can you hear the roar?" "Antosha, lunch is on the table." Yevgeniya Yakovlevna had come in. He fell silent at once, lowered his hand and turned towards me: "Let's go." We went out of the room, following Yevgeniya Yakovlevna . "That's right, Gilyayushka, everything shall be so, just like that. Only you and I won't see it…" His words went on ringing in my ears. The last time I saw Chekhov was just before he went abroad. I had come back from the south, and when I got home they told me that Anton Pavlovich was very ill, that he wanted to see me and that his doctors were insisting he went abroad. I changed my clothes and set off immediately to see him on the third floor of the Polyakov house, number 22 Leontyevsky Lane. I had just stretched out my hand to ring the bell when the door opened in front of me and out came Doctor Yu. R. Taube. "Well, that's splendid that you've come, Vladimir Alexeyevich. Anton Pavlovich was talking about you; he'll be glad to see you." "How is he?" "He's very weak…He's going abroad the day after tomorrow." At the sound of our voices Olga Leonardovna had come out into the hall with a very stern face, but when she saw me her face cleared immediately. "I was quite frightened. I thought it was some stranger. Come in. Antosha will be glad to see you." We went quietly towards the study. I could see Anton Pavlovich through the half-open door. He was sitting on a divan with legs. His face was haggard and waxen; his hands too were waxen… When he heard our footsteps, he looked up. Three expressions succeeded each other: stern, tired, surprised. Then his eyes were and happy. Antosha's joyous smile, which I had not seen for a long time. "Gilyai, my dear fellow, sit down on the divan!" And he moved his feet out of the way. Olga Leonardovna turned to me and said: "Vladimir Alexeyevich, you sit there for a while, and I'll leave you for half an hour or so." "Well I'm not gong to let him go! Gilyai, I’ve got some excellent port wine! Three bottles!" I took his thin hand in mine ̶ it was hot and dry "Come on now, squeeze it. Do you remember how you used to do that?.. But where is your snuff box?" "Here it is." He took it and stroked its lid, as he always did and brought it up close to his nose. "It's got sweet-clover in it. That sweet-clover smells of the steppes. Have you come from there?" "From the country beyond the Don, where they keep the herds" "And have you broken in unbroken horses?" "Yes, I've broken in unbroken horses and eaten kaimak cream and I have drunk Tsymlyansk and strong vymorozki wine…" "It's good there…Our virgin steppes, once ruled by Platov!" He took thought for a moment. "But I am going abroad… Yes… abroad." "That's all fine, but when you come back I'll take you out into the steppes, to the wild horses." "Ah, yes… The steppes, the steppes! Yes, you are a lucky man, stocking up with poetry and strength from there. You are quite tanned, not like us city palefaces. Just remember one

266 thing… You should drink vodka until you are fifty, after that don't dare to touch it… Go over to beer." I spent a long time talking to him about the herds of wild horses, about the Kalmyk temple, about the terrible work of the herdsmen in winter, their hungry times, the blizzards. Then for days on end you don't get off your horse, as you have to keep the herd with their nose into the wind… and he was still listening and listening… At first he kept on twiddling his moustache but then his hand sank down; his eyes were fixed on something in the distance, full of thought and joy… I think he had glimpsed the steppe. "Drink up the port; there are two more bottles there in the cupboard… It's good wine… Only your home-made plum brandy and cheese bake are better. Pay my respects to Maria Ivanovna and tell her that I'm certainly going to come to sample her strong drinks. You will remember then … Levitan and Nikolai, honey fungus in vinegar…" Then Anton Pavlovich closed his eyes with a blissful smile and let his head sink back onto the pillow: "I'll just rest for a minute …Don't go away, have a drink …" Then he dozed off. During all the time we had been talking he had never coughed once. I looked with affection at his dear, haggard face, so calm and quiet and thought: "No, Antosha, you'll not be drinking any more plum brandy with me, and you shan't be seeing your Don steppes, so well described by you, untouched by man, where Platov once ruled…" The whole square swayed with red flags, red kerchiefs, and red shirts. And among this rhythmically rolling sea of red we could see bright spots and stripes of green, orange and blue. The demonstration was moving along in good order to the strains of a band. Thousands of arms with taut muscles were gleaming and glinting bronze in the sunlight, sinking down and rising up again from their bright coloured shirts. Thousands of lively eyes and healthy tanned faces were looking out with joy and self- assurance.

Our step is certain, calm and firm, And rhythmically the road resounds, And human bodies tan and burn Beneath the sun like living bronze.

"All the people will be strong," Chekhov said to me once when we were talking. "All the people will be strong," I said, repeating Chekhov's words, as I watched the demonstration. I was looking with joy at those young people, so full of strength and life, at the serried ranks of suntanned youngsters stepping out with joyful and resonant rhythm behind their older comrades. All their faces were inscribed with the words: "We are strong." So now, as I am finishing these lines, my eighty-year-old heart aches for the friend of my youth and I come to think that, were he alive today, were he to see that festival of youth, he, as the author of Gloomy People, would write in its place a book to be called Joyful People.

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34 The Book that was burned

On Tverskaya Street, opposite the palace of the Governor General, stood the four-storey Olsufyev house. A series of outbuildings in the yard were an out-and-out slum, and the upper storey of the main building, looking out on to the street, was occupied by furnished rooms which the whole of Moscow knew as the "Chernyshi rooms". These were rooms with low ceilings, small windows, window ledges one foot off the floor; to look out of the window one had to bend double. The manager of this huge building was a sergeant among the former police constables who were attached to the Governor General, Prince V. A. Dolgorukov. The police trembled before him and did not dare to venture inside the Olsufyev fortress – neither into its slums nor into the Chernyshi rooms, which had been kept for years by an old woman, Chernysheva. The manager had no interest in who lived there or in how they lived, relying on "Chernyshikha", who was godmother to some ten of his children; to each of her godchildren she gave a winning hundred-rouble lottery ticket as a christening present. And the owner justified his faith: it was always quiet in the furnished rooms, no noise, no scandals; half the residents had no residence permit. In the 1870s and 1880s the fathers and grandfathers of our Revolution put up there for a long time. In those years the biggest quarters – two rooms – were occupied by M. I. Orfanov-Mishla, a former legal investigator by profession, a dedicated narodnik or Populist and Man of the Sixties and the author of Siberian Tales, which was banned from libraries. He was a huge man of heroic build, with a dark beard which reached half-way down his chest and which had evidently never seen any scissors, and a shaggy mane which he cut once or twice a year. In the room next door to him lived his friend Vasya Vasilyev, a provincial actor who was working in Moscow at the time in the theatre of A.A. Brenko and was an old friend from my acting days; he was a tiny fellow, with a face no bigger than your fist, shaven-headed in actor fashion, with thick eyebrows and black curly hair – an inherited characteristic in the family's male line. His father had attended a canton school;256 his surname was Shvedevenger; the family came from Volhynia somewhere. Under Arakcheyev they used to take Jewish boys from their parents, baptise them as Christians and train them as soldiers in the canton schools. Waggons went out round the Jewish settlements, catching young boys and taking them away from their parents for ever. When they were baptised, they got a new first name and surname, usually from their godfather, while their real parents did not even know where their son was now. Both Mishla and Vasya were registered ̶ the former by virtue of an order enforcing his resignation and Vasya by virtue of the passport of the tradesman Vasily Vasilyevich Vasilyev. Vasilyev lived under these names for all the years when the police were looking for the son of the soldier Shvedevenger, who lived in Ertelev Lane257 and was being sought in connection with the investigations into the Petersburg Commune and with another case, connected with the arrest of N.G.Chernyshevsky. Later he was arrested over the affair of the 193,258 but somehow he managed to escape and in Shvedevenger's place the actor Vasilyev emerged. In Mishla's room there were two beds and a sofa rather like the "self-sleeper" in Turgenev259 on which five people could lie, and there were times when we had to use that facility. There were also two beds in Vasya's room and a smaller sofa, and these rooms also usually had people staying in them. Those two rooms were places where narodniks could take

256 Government schools for the children of conscripts. 257 Now Chekhov Street in Petersburg. A Fourierist Commune was organised there in 1863. 258 Trial of Populists in Petersburg 1877-78. 259 See On the Eve Chapter 10. 268 refuge and stay overnight. The two rooms facing them were occupied, one by the student Yershov and the other one by the chorus girl Popova, who was an acquaintance of Grisha Ordenson who bought and sold books and who, when passing through Moscow from time to time with his "wares", would put up at her place. He usually gave some of his luggage to Vasya, and took the rest of it on with him, mainly to Voronezh where his wife had a little house. Vasya used to unpack what he was holding and distribute it as instructed in Moscow. Mainly it consisted of books and pamphlets printed on thin paper to be given out to workmen in the factories and mills, and sometimes a heavier parcel of The People's Will. Mishla and Vasya had various individuals staying overnight with them, and once in Vasya's room P.G. Zaichnevsky stayed with no trouble after he had escaped from exile. I stayed there myself more than once. One morning Mishla called in to see us, wearing only his shirt and huge rubber galoshes on his bare feet. But we had only just got up and were drinking our tea. "Come and have lunch with me today at one o'clock. There will be Nefedov, Priklonsky and Gleb Ivanovich. He arrived yesterday from Petersburg and now he's still asleep at my place. I want to read his new sketch from Siberia. So, do come. And I'll nip down to Generalov's for some bits to eat. I must warn you, there'll be no vodka , only beer. We want to do some serious reading." I arrived a bit late and when I got there, the reading had already started. Not wanting to interrupt, I made a general bow and took a seat on one side. For the first time then I saw the writers and no less than four of them. The giant Mishla was sitting on the huge sofa and reading aloud. To his right, his short legs stretched out to their full extent, little Vasya snuggled up to the back of the sofa. Head thrown back, he was watching the reader like a mouse watching a bell tower. To his left the gloomy Nefyodov had arranged himself; from his bald pate a shaggy, crudely made wig had slipped. Opposite them, on a chair, sat Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky, listening attentively. Deep in thought, he was cutting slices of cheese and washing them down with little mouthfuls of beer. S.A. Priklonsky, author of the book A Year in the North, a strapping, handsome man with a face still weather-beaten from recent polar storms in the Arctic, was chain smoking papirosa cigarettes, every now and then brushing the ash from his red curly beard. "I haven't seen tobacco for two years! I smoked moss and peat with the northerners," he would say, as if to apologise when he slipped his fingers into his neighbour's cigarette case. Everyone was listening in silence to an interesting story about life in jail. Half way through his text the reader paused: "Let me have a rest and a bite to eat. Pour me some beer." Lunch was served on the table with, instead of a tablecloth, a sheet of Russian News, just printed and smelling of printer's ink: there were half loaves of white bread, kalachi from Filippov's, a truckle of Dutch cheese and three boiled sausages in all their glory. "Well, gentlemen, let's cut it and eat it!" Then Mishla introduced me to the assembled company, using my surname. "A friend of Vasily Vasilyevich. They work together." I was received very kindly: the recommendation was sound. We set about cutting up the sausage and pouring out the beer, a battery of bottles of which stood on the table. "The sausage is excellent – still quite hot!.. We don't have anything like it in Petersburg. I always bring it as a present from Generalov's in Moscow," said Gleb Ivanovich. At this point Priklonsky burst out laughing, choked and sprayed beer over us all. "What are you guffawing about? What's got into you?" Mishla smiled. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Generalov's shop!" Priklonsky dissolved into laughter. "Well, what of it?" "What of it? I returned yesterday after two years' absence from Moscow. I was walking along Tverskaya, which was just the same as it always was… The same two-storey yellow

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Filippov house… The same golden kalach hanging over the door… Alongside it the same Hotel Shevalsyshev. From some distance all one could see were those two large signs: Photographer and Generalov. I read them just burst out laughing so the whole street could hear! People stopped in their tracks and I went on gazing at them, not able to tear myself away. I looked, and roared with laughter. I read aloud Photographer and Generalov and roared with laughter. "Good day, Sergei Alexeyevich. Have you been here for long? But what is the matter with you?" Someone offered me their hand. I looked up and saw that it was my defence lawyer Plevako. "Good day, Fyodor Nikiforovich! Just look for yourself and read it," I said, pointing to the wall in front of us. "All right…Photographer ". All right… Generalov. So?" Suddenly his lean face spread into a smile. His slanting Kirghiz eyes started to laugh and his loud laughter rang out over the whole street. "A crowd had gathered; people we knew came up and greeted Plevako. They asked what it was all about and he raised both hands, pointing with one finger at one sign and with the other finger at the other sign. Everyone was reading them and roaring with laughter, as they looked at the two large gilded pig's heads standing out in the middle of the wall right between the signs saying Photographer and Generalov." Priklonsky was roaring with laughter and we all chimed in. And after all it was only now that we remembered those heads. No one had thought of it before. Gleb Ivanovich had tears in his eyes from laughing. "Indeed every time that I go to Generalov's for sausage meat or even each time I go past his shop I see those two snub-nosed pig's heads and I never thought or could imagine that this was a photo of some generals! That is how we who live in Russia are terrified of generals. We did not read any more that day. That was my first meeting with Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky. Years went by. I was already married. I met Gleb Ivanovich again at Russian News. Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky greatly loved cabbage soup with sturgeon jowl and Moscow rasstegai pies with fish and sturgeon gristle, and so every time he came to Moscow a select band of us set off from the editor's office to go straight to Arsentych's tavern in Cherkassky Lane. That was the name of a tavern, perhaps not in the front rank, but known as a place where they served a good solid meal and renowned for its fish dishes. Later on, when we had become friends, he took dinner at my place more than once, and my wife treated him to borscht and vatrushki or to cabbage soup with ham and fish pie. We would dine as a threesome and after dinner, over a glass of wine, he would ask me to read Stenka Razin. The scene with the executioner always brought tears to his eyes, and he, being impressionable and highly strung, said to my wife at this point: "Maria Ivanovna! Why were you not afraid to marry him? He really is Stenka Razin! Only the man himself could so describe his life." On one such evening together, in my modest apartment in the Lavrova house in Khlynovsky Close over a glass of raw spirit that had been brought by my friend from the Don, I loosened my tongue and began to talk about Sorokin's white lead factory260 in Yaroslavl, which I had never before mentioned to anyone. Gleb Ivanovich showered questions on me and to answer him I brought him my sketch of working life The Condemned, which was lying in my house, written out in a fair copy version, but which I had never dreamt of publishing and had never read to anyone but my wife.

260 Established in the 1790s by Filipp Semyonovich Sorokin (c. 1759-1832). His sons and grandsons succeeded him.

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I had thrown it together back in 1874 when I was on the Volga between Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod, making my way down to Astrakhan to join the free traders. From Nizhny Novgorod I had sent my first literary effort to my father, and it was only in 1883, when I was firmly set on a literary path, that I took these sheets of paper from him, written as they were in rough pencil notes … Then later on I reworked and copied them out again. However, It still could not make up my mind to publish the sketch. So I was filled with great delight when Gleb Ivanovich listened to the whole lengthy sketch without interrupting, his eyes moist with emotion, then said to me: "But this is real gold! Why are you so scathing about your journalist notes? After all you have come out of the depths where no one else has been … You should just go on writing up your sketches of life! Expand on what you have seen…" He went on for a whole hour, making me revise many lines, expressions and scenes… He spoke in a way that I shall never forget…We listened to him with delight and I gained stature in my own eyes. "No, just think… You have really shown us a hell from which there is no escape. People come there to die so that the owner can fill his purse. Even though they know this, they come to die just the same. No one has said this before you. And this is surely going to happen … There is no other way out." We sat all evening at my place. He was asking for details, just little things and from time to time he said: "You have not set that down. You must note it down! Put it in! Write it all out today and tomorrow bring it into the Editor's office. I shall be there at four o'clock." Next day, when I came to the Editor's office of Russian News, V.M. Sobolevsky, was already waiting for me, sitting in his editor's chair, while beside him Gleb Ivanovich was already reading his proofs. That evening I did what Uspensky had requested and took him into Khitrovka. He was horrified by the whole scene and refused to go in beyond the thieves' tavern, the Penal Servitude. From Khitrovka we went together to the printing press of Russian News. I handed in my latest remarks and to my great joy I could see the proofs of The Condemned already set up in type. That meant my first large piece was ready to be published in Russian News. For a good while now I had been publishing stories and sketches in newspapers and journals, but I had not dared to give them to Russian News, whose front page dealt with such high status people. I must be grateful to Gleb Ivanovich for my first appearance in the "Professors' Paper" and I am grateful to him for much else besides: he saved me from prison, perhaps even from being sent to Siberia, and at the same time he strengthened my position in Russian News. I got together fifteen stories that had been scattered in various publications over the last few years: they made up more than ten printed sheets. I gave them a title: People of the Slums. I got them printed by the Verner brothers who had their premises on the Arbat and the result was a book of two hundred and forty pages. That was my very first book! With trepidation, almost reverence, I read the galley proofs, page proofs and printed sheets and finally, when the whole thing had been printed, I got one loose-leaved copy, while a second, bound, copy was sent to the censor. I was quite relaxed and, hoping that I would earn something for the book, I took an advance from the publisher, plus a further hundred to pay off the printer against his invoice for three hundred roubles, and then I was looking forward to seeing the book published. It was still lying there as printed sheets, locked up in the printer's storeroom. In spite of my insistent requests they refused to give me a second copy. "Wait till we get it back from the censor, then we'll start on the binding. Then you can have as many copies as you like."

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I came to the printer's next day, 17 November. Yevgeny Verner, translator, and editor of The Cricket, met me with an anxious face. "Gilyai, they've seized your book. Last night a press inspector came. He made a search of the printing press and seized literally everything down to the last sheet of your book. He carried it off and ordered the type to be broken up before his eyes. There's not a word of the galleys left. And he's taken away the original as well!" I felt myself utterly defeated. I rushed off to the Chairman of the Censorship Committee, the ancient Fyodorov. "Well, if they've seized it, there was good reason to. They don't seize books for nothing. They've already sent a copy to Petersburg for the appropriate decision to be taken." And he would not say another word. People advised me to go to Petersburg, to the main Censorship Directorate. They had already sent a copy of the book along with the censor's reasons for his conclusion. I never found out what had been in the report, for the Censorship Committee considered that to be the highest state secret. Then I was heavily in debt and completely dependent on seeing the book published. I went to Petersburg, turned up at the Censorship Committee and ran up against the Secretary V.V. Nazarevsky, to whom I described my plight. He explained delicately that I was not likely to get permission for my book to be published, and that it was already being examined in the Council of Ministers, with unfavourable comment from the main Censorship Directorate. The most likely outcome was that they would not allow it to appear. What was I to do? I was advised to put in a request to Feoktistov, Head of the Directorate. "Do that, simply to clear your conscience… There's just a chance… Tomorrow at two o'clock give it to the head man yourself." So the next day I came in at two o'clock with my request for them to reconsider the book and to allow it to be published. I asked the messenger to announce me, overcoming his objections with a rouble note. "I'll announce you right away… Only His Excellency is not in a good mood today… Wait a moment." They announced me. I went in. There was an official of some substance pacing up and down the office on his own… He saw me and came up with his head bowed. I introduced myself and gave in my petition. "What is this? A petition?" "Yes." He took the paper and looked at it. "What about the stamps? Where are the stamps, I'm asking you?" "I shall stick them on… Only please do listen to my request." "Petitions are not given in without stamps… Please affix stamps." I was standing there, silent and lost "Go on now… Affix the stamps and give your petition in at the office." I was still standing there. "Please go. I've said everything." Then, bowing his head even more, he turned his back on me. While I was sticking on stamps in the general office it emerged that Feoktistov had already left. I would have to give my petition in to his assistant Adikayevsky. He was a fearsome, dull creature, wearing his uniform. He received me very sternly, announcing that he knew my book and completely agreed with the Censorship Committee that it should be destroyed. "The slums are described there in the most gloomy way and furthermore you have brought out the military in an unseemly and insulting fashion… You write about tramps…

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There is such impenetrable gloom. Well, you should understand, young man, one must not write like that. Nothing will come of your efforts. It's all such darkness, not a single gleam of light, no justification, only an indictment of the existing order." "But it's all true," I objected. "It's just for your kind of truth that they've banned the book. You can't write that sort of truth. It was no use making all that effort and sticking stamps on your petition. Stamps cost money. Go back to your Moscow, they'll put you right there." He turned on his heel and went off. Without understanding anything I went down the wide staircase from the fourth floor where the Censorship Committee sat. The fresh air on the street brought me back to myself – and my first thought was: "Why had I not smashed in Adikayevsky's face?" I could already feel my fists heavy enough to do that. I was standing like the young man at the crossroads.261 At that very moment two friends rose up before my eyes: the mighty figure of a grey- haired old man and Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky. "What has brought you here? It's good to see you," exclaimed Gleb Ivanovich. "Hello, Gilyai," the old man hugged and kissed me. It was only then that I recognized him. This was Apollon Nikolayevich Alifatov, who was in charge of Orlov's stud. Now Gleb Ivanovich's eyes were wide with the question: "Do you two know each other? Apollon, do you know him?" "Well, of course … Our friend is a great one for the horses." While we were standing on the pavement, I told them in detail all about my trouble, and in the end I said: "Here I am, just waiting! As soon as Adikayevsky comes out I'll smash his face in and break his ribs. And tomorrow I'll beat up Feoktistov." But they both said together: "What? Have you gone out of your mind. You'll land up in prison ̶ and straight off to Siberia. Then they'll give those two a medal to console them." "All the same I'll give them what for first…" My friends took me by the arm but I resisted them: "I'm not going anywhere." Alifatov kept on trying. "He's as stubborn as an ox ̶ you won't budge him. Come on now!" They pulled me away and took me off. I gave in and went with them. "Now you just put your mind to it: for example, how you are going to beat up Feoktistov? He's already so beaten up that he can't walk properly. Here's what Minayev wrote about him:

Ostrovsky262 Feoktistov Donated horns so that With them he furiously Could errant writers butt.

"All right, to hell with him, but I'll really beat up Adikayevsky."

261 Who, in the folk story, was faced with a number of crucial choices. 262 Mikhail Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (1827-1901), brother of the playwright and a Minister, was rumoured to be having an affair with Feoktistov's wife. 273

"That too is stupid… Because of one wretch you're going to ruin both yourself and your family… Who is going to look after the family? And where is Uspensky going to eat borscht and vatrushki? Eh?" All through this Alifatov looked at me, shaking his head and repeating: "You are a fool, an absolute fool… Remember: Adikayevsky! You'll smash his face in… You'll be taken to hell in by the gendarmes and you'll be sorry for it." All three of us laughed and we went on our way. We went across Nevsky Prospekt to Alifatov's furnished rooms by the Anichkov Bridge, where I also happened to be staying as well. On the table we found caviar, cheese, sausage and a bottle of red wine. We ate some of the food and had a drink. We talked a great deal and finally Gleb Ivanovich persuaded me that I had nothing to hope for after such a reply from Adikayevsky. "After all they'll probably burn your book and that is a great honour: your first book and they've burnt it! But if you go stirring up trouble they'll put you away. They will seize you, just like Alifatov and I have dragged you here, and take you off. And the authorities are fearsome, sitting there in their blue uniforms… They've got a hefty gendarme to back them up and the authorities will tell you what's what… You just imagine that I, Gleb Uspensky, am a general and he is a gendarme." Alifatov straightened himself up, stood to attention and brought his hand up in a salute: "Just so, your Honour!.." "Put that troublemaker into a carriage and off to Siberia with him right away! You'll answer for him with your head! Clear?" "Very good, Your Honour… We'll see to him, Your Honour." Then they both put on serious faces, but suddenly we all burst out laughing and became cheerful. That evening we spent at Gleb Ivanovich's home on Vasilyevsky Island, making supper last all night and next morning Alifatov took me off by the mail train back to Moscow. From that day on Gleb Ivanovich and I were always on first-name terms.

I came back to Moscow feeling calm, and even with a certain pride that now I was the author of a book that was banned. Everyone I knew in Russian News had a certain sympathy for me and most of all the typesetters, who were my best and closest friends. All round Moscow people were talking about me and my book, which had a special interest for everyone, never having been seen. But I stubbornly refused to show it to anyone. My wife kept one copy in a good binding, which I had given to her as a present. I had a great stock of fame but not a copeck to bless myself with. My debts were crushing me. Besides my writing in Russian News I worked away under all sorts of pseudonyms, in verse, in prose and even headings for caricatures. Several tines I asked the Censorship Committee but I always got the same reply: "Absolutely forbidden." Once by chance in Testov's restaurant I happened to meet N.I.Pastukhov, editor of the tabloid Moscow Sketch. "I saw the Chief Inspector today. He was going off to his office to burn your book… Only be careful… that's a terrible secret." "How can they burn it? Why did they not inform me?" "Why they'll just burn it and you will know nothing. I said to the Inspector today that in general burning books is very stupid." "Of course it's stupid!" I said, rejoicing at such a liberal point of view from the editor of the Moscow Sketch. "It's very, very stupid! Who gains anything from this? They should not burn forbidden books but cut them up and sell them off to a factory for pulping. That would bring in some real money. The inspector thanked me and he wants to bring in that sort of plan." "But in which fire station are they going to burn my book?"

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"In Sushchevskaya. Only be careful… Don't get me into trouble." A few minutes later a likhach cab driver had carried me to the Sushchevskaya fire station. There was smoke coming up from the backyard. Round the garden there I could see a crowd of firemen and small boys. The snow all round was covered with soot and scraps of paper. The last bundle of paper was burning in the stove and there was a fireman stirring it up with a poker. There was a smell of burning and of paraffin that had soaked into the snow near the stove. There was no sign of the top brass; everyone had already left. I turned to the firemen, whom I knew and asked what they were burning. "Some kind of forbidden book. Not a proper book either, just printed sheets. That's the last of them burning up now… But what sort of a book it was ̶ nobody knows. Only one sheet survived. They took it to make cigarettes but it's not much use for that, being such thick paper." I took from the firemen that single crumpled sheet of paper, with the corner torn off for cigarettes. I could read: "Vl. Gilyarovsky. People of the Slums." In my hands there remained a total of eight pages, and I have this relic even today. I found out afterwards that the Press Inspector's plan had been accepted. He got a reward and not a single book in Moscow was burned after my work was. They sliced them up and sent them off to a paper mill. The iron stove was thrown away into the firemen's shed and only at the time of the 1905 revolution did the firemen blacksmiths bring it out and refashion it for their own purposes. And for me there remained just this one comfort: that the last book to be burned in Moscow was my book!

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35 Singer of the City

We were half way through June and already it was becoming clear which horses were likely to win the Derby, even though their owners tried to conceal the speed of their star performers on the morning gallops by letting them go quite unexpectedly, not from their normal starting point but inside the circle, somewhere over a soft track, or else by taking them out for their gallops at first light at two o'clock in the morning. June marked the real high point of the Moscow races, and from dawn up to eight or nine in the morning owners and punters were always there to see the horses go through their paces. There were no chance spectators, first of all because only their own people were allowed into the racecourse, and apart from that the jockeys were riding without their racing colours, in their ordinary jackets and peaked caps, so that it was not possible for any non-expert to guess which horse was which. The owners went inside the circle where they were exercising the horses, whispered with the trainers and gave instructions to the jockeys. Racing enthusiasts would be modestly drinking their tea sitting round marble tables at ground level. The day before big races the whole racing world was here. The sun's rays were only just sparkling on the roofs of the highest buildings when Count G.I. Ribopyer, accompanied by K.A. Petion, had already shown up on the dewy grass of the circle. Ribopyer was admiring the three-year-olds, from his stud, offspring of Eol and Astarot and discussing the chances of winning with his trainer Mitchell.263 Ribopyer, as Vice-President of the Racing Club, was wearing a hussar's uniform and Petion, really working as his manager and as a fellow officer in the Guards, was now wearing civilian clothes, but was just as proud and fine as his superior. Ribopyer was very proud of his title as a Count, even though his ancestor had been graciously awarded the title and name by Catherine II for services about which his descendant declined to elaborate. The Court hairdresser Pierre was good-looking, particularly when he laughed and Catherine often said to him: "Ris, beau Pierre"264 From this came the surname, to which was later added the title of Count. Petion kept quiet about his ancestors because at that time to be the grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the French Revolution was, of course, possible, but it was risky to talk about it.265 It was even largely because of his lineage that Petion, a Guards officer, was obliged to retire. And now two chestnut three-year-old horses galloped off to rush round the ring, wearing their saddlecloths. Petion clicked his stopwatch and all the sportsmen stood up at their tables and reached either for their binoculars or their own watch. Everyone was watching Ribopyer's stable, as they were expecting the Derby winner to come from there. General Arapov came up to Ribopyer, his horses having already galloped off… His trainer, Nikolai Churayev, had checked them over when it was barely daylight and now he was looking at their competitors… The Ilovaisky brothers,266 who had a stud farm down on the River Don, also let out their fine horses, offspring of the famous Dear Boy which they had bought from the Don horse trainer Maxim Denisov of Pyatiizbyanskaya stanitsa, he being the only direct descendant of Stenka Razin, for which he was blamed by the authorities and which affected his career. At the furthest corner of the race track the Polish horse trainer Ludwik Grabowski was standing still like a crane in the marshland… On this day Grabowski did not intend to let out his three-year-old, which he believed would win the Derby hands down, because there were too many people watching. This passionate sportsman liked the horse-racing public only on those occasions when his horse had won first prize and the public were applauding him. At those times Grabowski, coming straight from the scales, would be leading his panting horse by the rein and, as he walked in front of the stands to the applause of the public, he would wave his top hat,

263 Mitchell trained the winner of the Russian Derby in both 1898 and 1899. 264 "Laugh, my good-looking Pierre!" (French). 265 Petion's ancestor was Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1756-84), a close associate, then bitter enemy, of Robespierre. 266 Vladimir Ivanovich Ilovaisky (1879-1956) had four brothers. 276 raising it higher than the horse's head . The Ilyenko brothers267 had their stud farm in Ukraine and always raced only on their own horses, using their own jockeys who had been so well trained that they were the people most to be feared and could even beat the English in the races. Such were Voronkov and Dudak.268 The ring was becoming more and more lively. Members of the Racing Club appeared with their binoculars. They took their place in the pavilion for full members, to which casual members were not admitted. Here they were served coffee and a light cold breakfast. Here one could see the Cossack Platonov269 with his military Cross of St George, A.F. Sheremetyev, M.L. Pekhovsky, F.F. Dostoyevsky, son of the famous writer, and the Treasurer of the Club. They also carried Princess A.M. Khilkova into the pavilion here ̶ she had long since lost the use of her legs, but just could not live without horses. Today they had carried her to look at the three- year-old colt Vals, son of Laguryen, the favourite stallion in her stud. She placed great expectations on Vals and admired the fine stallion, ridden by the jockey Puchkov, as they passed swiftly along the prize ring right by the pavilion. The Derby runners jumped off. The senior riders and huntsmen set off. E.N. Zvorykin, a captain in the Sumsky Hussar Regiment, seemed to be trying out a new horse, Vervena I think, over the obstacles; he did not omit any of them. He fell several times and was taken unconscious from the ring; it was said that he's broken "seven collarbones", but he was still riding and winning prizes conscientiously. Sokolov had great success on the Irish bank when trying out some balky horse and coped boldly with that dangerous obstacle. Manich, an excellent rider, tackled the rails. He was applauded by the spectators watching from their tables, not for his riding, but for another reason: besides being a rider he was an estate agent. Some two years previously, on behalf of the factory owner Postnikov, he sold his luxury mansion on the highway, which adjoined the racecourse, to the factory owner Konshin. In the garden was a small pond with carp. When drawing up the deed of sale at the lawyer's, Manich acquired for himself the rights to the carp in the pond. Konshin agreed to this and in the deed it was stated that the carp in the pond belonged to Manich. Two years passed. Konshin needed to build stables for his trotting horses; to do this the pond had to be filled in. When work began on this Manich announced that he would not allow his fish to be touched. In the end Manich received from Konshin, in exchange for a dozen carp, twelve thousand roubles. Then the obstacles would be removed and from about seven o'clock they would begin to exercise the horses; monitoring their enthusiasm was of interest only to their owners and punters on the Tote. When the connections had gone, the general public began to gather. People who liked to spend the morning in the fresh air and admire the horses arrived. A red-faced group from a private room at the Yar rolled up. A regular at the Yar, Ivan Ivanovich, with his usual top hat and huge whiskers, was the group leader. He occupied a table, then went up to a neighbouring table at which were seated a sturdy elderly man with a red beard and another with a clipped moustache, while on a chair stood a schoolboy, observing the horses through binoculars. "Yakov Kuzmich, Fyodor Sokolov the gypsy asked me to find out whether your Euripides will win the handicap today." Ivan Ivanovich smoothed his moustache, exchanged greetings and sat down on the table. "I don't think he will… I've just been discussing it with Baranin… After all, he trains it – and says it has no chance. It would have to carry five pounds less." "Well, what about Etna? She's going for a bonus prize…" "Etna's not in the conditions race… Right, let's send them off on a gallop!" the schoolboy cut in, leaping up from his chair. He sat down, turned away and again picked up his binoculars.

267 Sergei Mikhailovich Ilyenko (1847-1918) and his brother Ivan Mikhailovich.. 268 The jockey Fatei Dudak won the Russian Derby on S.M. Ilyenko's horse in 1911. 269 Probably Ivan Andreyevich Platonov. Mortally wounded August 1915. 277

Ivan Ivanovich apologised, stood up and made his way to his party. "Etna will win quite easily today, but if we say that to Whiskers here, he'll spread it about to everyone, so that we shall only make ten copecks per rouble," the schoolboy declared as soon as Ivan Ivanovich had gone. "You, Valery, are a well-known schemer… You've got everything worked out to the last copeck," said the man with the red beard, the schoolboy's father. He didn't normally bet on the Tote, even though he took a ticket for his own horse in each race, and that not for any excitement but simply out of habit, without any forethought He used to send his son, and the boy, when he knew for certain that horse could not win, used to slip the money into his pocket and say to his father: "I'm not going to put it on a horse and I'm insuring your winnings. We must not go burning money for nothing… So I shall buy books with this money…" "Aren't you the cunning diplomat! And you do it all 'with the cold light of reason.'"270 Being well educated and well read, Yakov Kuzmich loved to show off with a quotation, particularly when he was in good company and had a glass of wine to drink. Thoroughbred horses were his great delight. "A thoroughbred is beauty and strength"… "its playfulness is the sum of its strength" ̶ when he was talking with sportsmen he often threw out these sorts of aphorisms. He never had more than two horses, Etna and Euripides, and they were second-raters. They were in the stables of the trainer Baranin, rarely won but paid for their keep and afforded great pleasure to their owner, who, like his son, the schoolboy, was a passionate devotee of racing. I got to know Bryusov's father through the Slavonic Bazaar, where he used to take his midday meal, when he had come out of his huge barn-like house. He used to buy the sporting journal that I was editing but it was his son who was the main reader. I was always meeting both of them at the races. Once his son came to my editorial office. Blushing all over and quite excited, he gave me an article on a subject that was greatly exercising sportsmen at that time. It was written with great spirit and an appropriate commentary. I printed it in our next number and the young man showed tremendous delight when he saw his first article in print. After that V. Ya. Bryusov wrote several more articles on sport and then he went over to poetry and science. Later on he sent me a book of his own verse The Russian Symbolists, dedicated and signed by the authors, Valery Bryusov and A. Miropolsky. We began to meet from time to time, but, for some reason or other, no close friendship developed. In the spring of 1900 I was travelling from Moscow along the Alexandrovskaya Railway and was in the same compartment as Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov.271 Of course we were talking about poetry, about the poets of that time, about trends in literature and people we both knew. "We are quite different," said Bryusov. "You are a man from the steppes, singing of freedom and daring, whereas we belong to the city. We have spent our strength in this city, but all the same I love it." We must note that he was saying this some three years before he was captivated by the Belgian poet Verhaeren. "Here in your Forgotten Copybook," Bryusov went on, "In your poem "City of Stones" you say:

Stones like these ruin will bring, Oh for a year out in freedom…

270 A misquotation from Lermontov's lyric "Life is boring and sad…" 271 The line west to Brest-Litovsk from Moscow. So named in 1912 (the centenary of the victory over Napoleon) in honour of Tsar Alexander I. 278

But as for us, we cannot live without the city. For us the city is everything. We fear the great expanse of the steppes." Then he read several verses that contained the words "streets seething with people, noisy with unruly crowd."… and "steps which heavenwards lead" and "the frozen huge bulk of the buildings" and "its rumbling melodious noises"… "Here is the answer to your "City of Stones". Just listen:

We breathe the air of dusty rooms Our lives in books and pictures reckoned And to our weakness dear becomes The single line, the single second."272

But I replied to him with extracts from "Stenka Razin" and "The Cossacks beyond the Rapids", including the parts the censor had banned, with songs of the sea, songs of the steppes, songs of storms in the mountains. "Ah! If only we could print all this. It is the pure spirit of Revolution." "It started on the Volga and finished on the Don." "Yes, that couldn't be a product of the city." "Yes. That's why I don't like the city," I replied. When I came back to Moscow in the autumn I found on my desk a letter from Valery Yakovlevich, in which he wrote that he was sending me a continuation of our talk in the train, and asked me to send him the complete poem "Stenka Razin", including the parts banned by the censor. The book Tertia vigilia was in a separate parcel. The heading Cities was underlined twice in pencil. And on the first page I found the following dedication:

We are pitiful and lame In a shabby universe, In a world of chimera. Still in you is the same Joy-assertive life force, Gilyarovsky Vladimir. Valery Bryusov, 1900

In later years we often used to meet in the Literary and Artistic Circle, where he was director, but these were meetings in public, not like our earlier talk in the train. Now Bryusov had completely changed. I felt as though he had stepped out of the portrait by Vrubel in a formal frock coat, buttoned up as though it encased him and with his arms folded over his chest. And even his head seemed to me just as Vrubel's percipient gaze had rendered it. Or sometimes I used to see him at Shmarovin's Wednesdays, at literary Tuesdays and at various commemorative dinners. Our meetings were brief, but when we shook hands his face lost its usual cold correctness and his whole person shed its statuesque quality and came to life. We met joyfully each time but not once at these meetings did we exchange views on this or that current in literature. I was paying attention to his literary and various other scholarly works. When I remembered his weak, almost powerless physical form, I wondered at the capacity for work shown by this man who "breathed the air of dusty rooms", for whom "the single line, the single second" mattered… In his translations of Verhaeren I found much that was familiar,

272 From an untitled poem of 1899.

279 much of what I had heard five years ago in the railway carriage between Moscow and Shchelkovskaya, had heard from the "singer of the city" who could understand:

Its rumble and its singing sound.

The years went by. Our short-lived meetings continued in the same friendly way but the "singer of the city" was becoming a different person… Within him seethed the volcano of revolution and he could see ahead:

Waves of popular emotion Battering a rotten throne.

And the city had become transformed from the time when he was writing hisTertia vigilia. Now he was praising Moscow: "And when, among blood, fire and smoke, the crowd raises its rebellious voice unsparingly, all the past it will stamp into dust and play with the tornado at blood-stained execution blocks." It was thus long before the first revolution that the future poet of October began to speak his mind. Times changed. Human relationships changed. But our relationship remained unchanged. How much we understood and liked each other is perhaps clear from the following. In 1911, towards autumn, I fell seriously ill with pneumonia. I felt that anything could happen, that my health could finally give way and I needed to think ahead. I decided to turn to the only person I knew in Moscow ̶ although I knew the whole of Moscow – Valery Yakovlevich. I phoned him from my bed and said: "Valery Yakovlevich, I've got pneumonia, my temperature's more than thirty-nine, but I must see you. Just you and no one else. It's nothing infectious. If you were…" "What do you mean. I'll be with you in one hour, one hour exactly," he interrupted and then said it again: "In an hour I'll be at your place." And with that he hung up. The clock struck six. I waited. I took my temperature. Thirty-nine. I began to have doubts. Might he not come after all? There was a ring at the door. My wife went to get it and a minute later brought in Valery Yakovlevich. The clock struck seven. "Uncle Gilyai! Can the eagle of the steppes really be ill?" He extended his hand. I didn't want to give him mine – he grabbed it and pressed it firmly. I responded. "Hey, Uncle Gilyai! You'll break my hand. We're townies, you know." "Valery Yakovlevich! I beg you to hear me out – and to give me your word that you won't interrupt me till I've finished." "I give you my word." "I'm in a very bad way. Last night I felt I'd passed away. If I don't get through this, please fulfil a huge request of mine." And I told him how I wanted to see my works published. "Well, dear Uncle Gilyai, you can see that I've fulfilled your first request. And it was a very difficult one – not to interrupt you when you, if you'll pardon me saying so, are talking rubbish. But I didn't interrupt you. Your second request is quite easy, and I give you my word, with an untroubled heart, that'll I'll fulfil it to the letter, the more so because I won't have to do it. In two weeks time we'll be drinking your favourite Kardanakhi wine in the Circle… You'll disperse any illness on the wind. But if you're crushed by a collapsing building in the city or killed

280 by an electric storm in the steppe – there's no other way you could die – then I give you my word to do everything you say." While he took tea Valery Yakovlevich scrutinized my album and wrote the following verses in it. Whether it was an impromptu or whether it was already in print, I don't know.

If I be beckoned with a smile By love, my friend of youthful years, Or if above my wavering soul A bolt of lightning blue appears;

To suffering and to jubilation I'll answer with a living verse, A fisher in the wilderness For rainbow pearls of expectation.

Valery Bryusov In fond memory of the past To V.A. Gilyarovsky 29 September 1911

The clock struck nine. Then he went. Then he enquired after me several times by phone, and two weeks later he and I were drinking Kardanakhi in the Circle.

We did not meet at all during the war with Germany. It just happened like that: when he was in Moscow I was away and vice versa. Only after the October Revolution did we start to meet more often and again just for a few minutes at a time. Once only in that hungry year did we talk at greater length at some political meeting or show in Zimin's theatre. We sat behind the scenes in the artistes' dressing room, drank tea and hungrily devoured some sort of horse-meat sandwiches. While we were at this we exchanged impromptu poems. I don't remember what I wrote to him but he took up a whole page in my notebook:

To my father's friend and mine V.A. Gilyarovsky – Uncle Gilyai

To him who fifty years recorded, Omitting not a single trait. Our brief acquaintance is rewarded If only with this slight quatrain. Valery Bryusov 20 July 1920

On the occasion of my Silver Jubilee, on 3 December 1923, Valery Yakovlevich was a friend of the chairman of the organizing committee. Not feeling in the best of health, he nevertheless came and in his remarks recalled how, as a schoolboy, he had brought his first work to me, and how happy he was when I published his first literary effort. That was the last time I saw Valery Yakovlevich, heard him or spoke to him. A month later the poet's fiftieth birthday was celebrated in the Bolshoi Theatre, but he, still not recovered from his illness, attended unseen in the depths of a dark director's box beside the stage. I was aware of the state of his health and knew that he was there, behind a transparent screen. I imagined him as tired and pale as he had been at my Silver Jubilee and, to read my

281 speech, I took up a position on the right hand side of the stage and turned to face the box. In my poem I tried to continue his speech, his recollection of youthful days. It began thus:

I recall a schoolboy came Up to me in shirt of grey.

282

The rooks have returned

On Mokhovaya Street, next door to the Rumyantsev Museum, now the Lenin Library, the cabbie stopped at the entrance to furnished rooms. Out of the sledge came my friend, the artist N. V. Nevrev. We had, so to speak, chanced to bump into each other. "Lets go to Savrasov and take him with us to have lunch at the Peterhof." I did not know Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov but I revered his talent. I had heard that he drank heavily and would sell his work for three roubles to cheap second-hand bookshops or buy vodka and a meal by decorating the walls of rooms in taverns. As we were going up to the second floor Nevrev told me that Savrasov's friends had taken charge and got an apartment for him, so that he had not been drinking for a week now and was working on studies to sell in proper shops. "I called in to see him yesterday… He is finishing a splendid work. He's painting his garden and the rooks' nests right in front of his window." The door was standing half open. We went in. There were two small windows looking out onto the old fashioned garden, where the rooks' nests showed up black against the sky in March. I remembered Levitan saying: "I am a pupil of Alexei Kondratyevich." There was no one in the room. Nevrev went behind the screen, while I stood in front of the easel, absolutely overcome with delight as I saw the fresh bright colours, showing red on the snow covered roof, which I could see through the open window, lined with a network of bare birch tree branches. Behind the screen I could hear Nevrev's loud voice: "Come on, Alyosha, get up. Let's go to the tavern. Come on now, get up." I could hear no reply. I went round behind the screen. On the bed a large man was lying on his back, with his eyes closed and his knees tucked up, since the bed was too short for his huge frame. With his grey hair and grey beard, he looked like an Old Testament prophet. That little den stank of stale alcohol, and on the table there were two empty vodka bottles and a glass for tea. There were cranberries scattered over the table and on the floor. "Alyosha," Nevrev persisted. "There aren't any," the old man croaked in his drunken voice. "None at all," he repeated and turned back to face the wall. "Let's go," Nevrev turned towards me. "There's nothing we can do… He's absolutely dead drunk. You can see, he's nibbling cranberries. That means he's been drinking for ages. I know he doesn't eat anything, just vodka and cranberries." We tried again – there was no answer. I took two twenty-copeck coins out of my purse and put them on the table next to the bottles. "He must have something to sober up on, otherwise he'll drink away his overcoat." Nevrev was entranced with the picture: "That's more like the old Alexei Kondratyevich. Yesterday morning I could see something of it but now it's almost finished. We'll have to watch out that he doesn't spoil it while he's drunk… I'll drop in to see him tomorrow morning…" That was how I first saw the famous artist, one of the founders of landscape painting in Russia. It was 25 March on a sunny day in the late 1880s. A year or two after that I called in once to the print shop "Nice" and saw the picture that I knew, the very same one that I had seen in the room on Mokhovaya Street.

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"I saw that picture at Savrasov's," I declared to the man who owned the shop. "That's not the original, just a copy. The original was sold long ago, but Alexei Kondratyevich makes copies. That's nothing like as good. The old chap had drunk himself silly… We are sorry for the poor man. If you put decent clothes on him he will drink them all away. I suggested I might rent a place for him but he sticks to his 'there aren't any', flares up with anger and goes off. Just yesterday he was painting in my place. He does this sort of repeated work and it's not bad. Last year he became friendly with some sort of drunken company at the "Balkans". I was looking for him but I couldn't find him anywhere… Sometimes he'd turn up in ragged clothing, drunk or with a hangover. But he was always kindly, affectionate and embarrassed. I would try to sober him up, sometimes keeping him at my place for a day or two, putting some decent clothes on him, and hoping he might do some painting. I would ask him to repeat the painting of The Rooks have Returned or The Rainbow. But afterwards he would run away all the same. You could suggest to him to stay, but he would keep on with his old words: "There aren't any". I saw Savrasov once more, during Lent, when he was going along Myasnitskaya from Lubyanka Square, completely drunk, along with his friend Kuzmich, who was holding onto him firmly, to stop him falling out of the sledge. Kuzmich was what they called I.K. Kondratyev, an old writer who worked for newspapers and wrote novels for publishers on Nikolskaya Street. He was always living at the Balkans in Zhivorezny Lane, and evidently that was where he was taking Savrasov, who had taken refuge in his house. The winter of that year when we met had seen heavy snowfalls right through from the autumn. Right through February one snowstorm after another made the roads difficult. Long- distance trains were late, sometimes for a whole day, and on roofs in Moscow there might be clear spaces round the chimneys, diamond plateaux in the sunshine, but there were large lips of snow overhanging the pavements. In those days people did not take much care about cleaning snow from the roofs and it was extremely hazardous work throwing the snow down. It was quite rare to see safety nets at the edge of the roof. Right from the earliest days of March we could feel a breath of spring; only from time to time damp snow might scatter down for about half an hour. "The young stuff is going after the old" was what they said. The temperature rose above freezing. The sun warmed everything up and snow began to fall off the roofs, coming down in large lumps, and there were crystal icicles hanging on the gutters. Muddy streams ran along the roadway between the pavements. As I made my way along the Petrovka I stopped on the pavement and took thought where best to have a quick lunch. Facing me in the Palermo actors' restaurant, they would serve unchewable rissoles and veal with bechamel sauce and a bad smell. In the Levenson house on the Petrovka itself there was the basement restaurant of the Trekhgornaya factory, also rubbish, even though they called it "literary", because that building had formerly housed the editorial office of Russian Word. Having thought things over I decided to go to the Rossiya, which used to be called the Tatarsky Restaurant. At first it was run by Tatars and after them it was taken over by an unusually fat Greek, Venizelos or Vlados ̶ I can't remember his name exactly. He used to move up to a customer with his huge bulk and boom out from on high, since his fatness made it impossible for him to bend over: "Pliss pike à la grik. Pliss. Meat balls with filet à la Vlados (or Venizelos, I don't remember)." Thus he declaimed the menu. I settled on meat balls but, when I lifted my eyes to look at Petrovka, I decided to go and have lunch at home. At that time the Petrovsky Lines were the cleanest street in the whole of Moscow and the only one asphalted. It reminded me about the legend of the Tower of Babel at the time when the builders ran away, after their languages were confused, and the native inhabitants rushed in

284 to pull down the scaffolding and to destroy the stone blocks which had been piled one on another. I stood there in amazement. Avalanches of snow were rumbling down. On the roofs of both houses some dozen workers, tied to the chimneys by ropes, were working with their spades to move and push down the large blocks of snow, which came away quite easily. On both sides of the streets huge ridges of snow cut the pavements off from the main traffic route of the road. There was no way for vehicles to get through and if you were on foot you would have to walk right down the middle of the roadway; to do even that involved a certain amount of risk of course. At the entrance to the restaurant two porters in caps with gold braid were working with their spades to dig a way through the ridge of snow. I was on my way home. There was a fat lady trying to make her way across Stoleshnikov Lane, sloshing through the wet snow and balancing on the slippery potholes, which was no easy task. With her right hand she was holding up the hem of her then fashionable long dress and in her outstretched left hand was holding a muff and a hat box with the inscription "Wandrag", which made for essential balance as she made the dangerous crossing. I had stopped on the corner of Stoleshnikov. In the middle of the lane the cobbles of the roadway were clear of snow, over which the runners of the hired sledges were grating as they came to a bare part and the horses' hooves rattled on the open cobbles… On both sides of the pavement there were huge piles of snow which had been thrown down from the roofs and among them we could see some grey posts. At that time these so-called tumby were still an essential feature on all our streets. These silly posts were a relic of those almost primeval times when the boardwalks which stood in for pavements were fenced off by them from horses and carriages. On the corner of Stoleshnikov Lane and further up the Petrovka, where nowadays we can see the huge block of №.15, in those days we were faced with the Rozhnov house. There were shops there, including the fashionable hat shop Wandrag, Savostyanov's bakery and Andreyev's hairdressing saloon. Also between them was the large Hotel Angliya, with a drinking parlour that started off being for the upper classes but later degenerated into a second-rate type of establishment for cabbies. The yard also contained two three-storey sets of furnished apartments to let, and a rank for the cab horses. One could enter the tavern on foot from the yard; the other way in, and the carriage entrance into the yard, came from the direction of Stoleshnikov Lane . It was there, on the pavement by these gates, that I saw a huge figure wearing a short summer coat, tattered grey trousers which failed to conceal battered rubber boots, from which damp rags protruded. On his head was a worn-out broad-brimmed hat, the sort with which provincial actors depict Italian bandits. The wind ruffled his mane of grey hair and his straggly beard. I went nearer. He was rummaging in his pocket with his right hand and tipping copecks into his left. I looked him in the eye. "But…" I recognised Savrasov, once a popular professor at the College of Art, famous for his pictures The Rooks have Returned and The Flooded Volga near Yaroslavl. I had seen many of his drawings and studies in journals – all of them on his favourite theme – the beginning of spring. "Alexei Kondratyevich, good day." "Wait…four … five…" He was counting the small change. "Good day, Alexei Kondratyevich." "Who are you?" He fixed his tired red-rimmed eyes on me. "I am Gilyarovsky. You and I used to work together in the journals Moskva and The Wave" “Ah, how do you do! With Klang?"

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"Yes, with Ivan Ivanovich Klang." "He's a good fellow… Well now…" But he was trembling and his face looked green… "Here I am getting set to sober up. I just can't get the money together; it's fallen into the lining of my jacket." "I'll tell you what, Alexei Kondratyevich, let's go to my place," I suggested. "We'll have a drink and a bite to eat…" "Where's that ?" "Just near here, in that house with the balcony." He suddenly raised his eyes, staring at something, cheered up and seemed to get instantly younger. His eyes had lit up. He nudged me in the ribs and his right hand pointed at the roof of the church opposite at the corner of the Petrovka. "Look, look!" There was a great avalanche of snow sliding off the roof, and a crow sitting on it, trying hurriedly to dig something out with his beak. The snow swept down faster and faster and a moment later the whole mass was hanging over the pavement. Part of it broke off and crashed down, frightening the passers-by, although luckily none of them were injured… On the other half, as it slid rapidly down, the crow was continuing his business. Then, as the rest of the snowy plateau crashed down, the crow took off, settled itself right on the gutter and started to watch the snow which had fallen. He was looking with one eye first and then turning his head to watch with the other eye. "How charming!" the old man enthused. The crow must have decided that everything had gone and it flew away… The old man lapsed into silence again. "Lets go," I said and took him by the arm. "We'd do better going into the tavern over there… Here, I've got some money." And he fumbled around again in his pocket. "I seem to have no money either." I took him by the arm and we sloshed our way through the melting snow on the pavement. "Look how I'm dressed… No, I'm not going!". He was trying to hang back on the staircase… "But I've got a separate room. We're not going to meet anyone." I opened the door and we went through the empty hallway, past the kitchen and into my own premises to sit him down on the sofa. I went into the lumber room to get some snow boots. As I was going through, I called in to my wife, told her a little about our guest and asked her to get him something to eat. I brought in warm socks, gave them to him and made him change his footwear. He stood out against this for a long time, but once he'd put them on he said: "That’s fine… Otherwise my feet were getting numb." He stood up, saluted, his face had cheered up and his eyes were smiling. "There you are now. I could go anywhere. And my trousers are still new." And he sat down again. At that moment my wife came in. He was terribly taken aback, but only for a minute. "Alexei Kondratyevich, let's go in and have a bite to eat," she invited him. With his trembling hand he had difficulty raising his little glass but somehow he slowly consumed its contents. Then I had prepared a slice of bread with herring and cheese in vinegar and spring onion. He pushed it straight into his mouth. "If you eat it up that will make you sober." He ate it and cheered himself up: "That's a real bite, just as it should be."

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And in the meantime my wife had prepared another piece just the same. After another tot the old man was so much younger and even ate two rissoles; his appetite had revived after the sobering tot. We started to talk, remembering journals, exhibitions and artists. He picked up a pencil off the table and asked for some paper. "I've got used to drawing something when I am talking… Otherwise my hands get in the way". I gave him an album and a pencil. Alexei Kondratyevich sat on in our house for two hours. He didn't want tea and would have liked beer, but we gave him tea all the same with a home-made addition that delighted him. I suggested to him that he could rest on the sofa and I made him put on my long hunting coat of beaver fur, which delighted him. Although it was difficult to persuade him, he did indeed put it on, and, when I was seeing the old man out, I was quite sure that he would not be cold in that jacket and his felt boots stitched round with skin, even though he was wearing his summer overcoat. I managed to slip some silver into his pocket without him noticing. As my wife was showing him out, she asked him to call in any time whenever it suited him. He gladly promised to come, but not once did he do so ̶ and I never saw him again. I merely heard that the old man had finally buried himself in the slums and never showed up anywhere. I had seen him only on three occasions, all three times at the end of March ̶ when the rooks are returning and building their nests. In my album he drew spring – a wooden house, a puddle, and rooks. And I remember this great artist, a man dear to my heart, every spring – when the rooks return.

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37 Unexpected joy273

A huge iron lock, the like of which I've never seen since, was hanging on the low door, which was heavily bound in sheet iron. This is what had brought me to that door. It was towards the end of September in the mid 1880s, when I was working for Russian News; I was coming back along Little Bronnaya from a night-time fire. I saw a little man hurrying down from the boulevard of the Patriarch's Ponds. He was taking quick steps, almost running and I saw he had a reddish beard right round his face and small piercing northern eyes that looked cheerful even though they could see nothing from under a crumpled wide-brimmed hat. He was wearing a brown razmakhaika cloak, popular at that time among the less well-off intelligentsia. "Good day to you, Yelpidifor Vasilyevich." "Ah, Bayan, how did you get that grubby face?" "I've been at the fire on Zhivodyorka." "Was it a big fire?" "Enough for fifteen lines… It was a wretched gypsy house that burnt down." "Here you are…Try some of these…" And he handed over some hot kalachi that he had been holding under his cloak. "They're good and hot… Let's go to my place to have some tea. My flat is right by here." Then he drew me into the doorway and out of his pocket he pulled a huge iron key with a carved bit and a flat openwork handle. "Have you ever seen anything like that? Last year the Prior of the Kamenny Monastery on Kubinsky Lake made me a present of this lock that dates back to the time of Peter the Great." He took some time opening the lock, which was as big as a cat and had the image of a cat carved into it. The handle was like a tail in its mouth. In the meantime the grey-haired bewhiskered porter had come up to us… He bore himself like a soldier. Leaning his brush against the wall, he stood to attention and swept his cap off in the best military manner. "What may Your Highness be pleased to command?" "There you go again. How often have I told you… When all's said and done I do have a name." "Yeldi… Yeldi …I'm blowed if I can remember it … Your Highness…" "All right. Here's a copeck for you… Run down to the tavern and get some hot water to make some tea…" The lock played some sort of tune, the door creaked and I went in with Yelpidifor Vasilyevich. He gave the porter a large brass kettle, into which he had sprinkled a pinch of tea from the tin caddy labelled "K & S Popov". The porter turned towards me. "His letters are addressed to 'His Highness'." "Well, all right… You just run along for the tea… By the pond over there you'll find a vendor selling buckwheat pancakes. Buy about ten from him."… And I gave him ten copecks and a newspaper to wrap them up. "Buckwheat pancakes and the Patriarch's Pond ! They're rarer than hens' teeth,274 I think."

Yelpidifor Vasilyevich's apartment was on the lower floor and the little windows looked out of their stout vaults as though from deep niches. The first room, where we hung up our winter coats, was the hall, crammed with bundles of manuscripts almost up to the ceiling. But, alongside the door, there hung a brass basin for handwashing which was above a three-legged

273 The name of a well-known eighteenth century icon. 274 See note 249.. 288 wooden washtub with handles. Next to it a big towel showed up bright silver, embroidered with red and dark blue; on the one side was a little red cottage with two fir trees alongside it … On the reverse there was a blue monk in a red boat and again two firs, which were also dark blue. "There you are. Have a wash!" He handed me a piece of egg-white soap and pointing to the table he said: "This summer the nuns in their convent brought me this." When I had washed and gone into the next room I found Yelpidifor Vasilyevich sorting through papers and laying them out on an adjacent table. "I'll clear up a spot for our tea… But you should go on into those rooms and look at the ancient icons on the walls." The room in which tea was served was a dining room, a reception room and a study. It was crammed with bundles and piles of bound papers. Along the walls there were shelves filled with books, some huge, some tiny, all in ancient leather bindings. On one of four tables stood an inkwell, and, surrounded by faded ancient manuscripts, lay a few sheets of work in progress. The next room was my host's bedroom. Lying on the huge mahogany couch there was a blanket of many-coloured chintz triangles. The thought occurred to me that this was probably the work of the same nuns who had embroidered the towel. On top of it all there were two pillows, also in embroidered pillowcases. From floor to ceiling the whole extent of the side walls between the bookshelves was covered with ancient icons. However, it was impossible to look at them too closely. The windows must never been washed and were thick with dust, which created a mysterious twilight world. The icons looked sightlessly out from their niches and the deep thick vaults that had grown black with the passing years. There was a slight smell of damp, dust, old paper, and something else…What that was I found out only in the next big room. In the half-light (the tall building next door never allowed the sun to peep in here) one could see just the same sort of icons, completely covering the walls, books arranged on the floor and bundles of manuscripts. In places everything was swathed in spider's webs. I realized what the smell was in that room: it all smelt of mice. You couldn't really get a good look at them… All one could see were unknown shapes under the thick, shaggy and, as it were, living dust. Yelpidifor Vasilyevich came and called me in to have some tea. "For three years now I've been trying to put things in order and I never can quite find the time to do it. All these heaps of rubbish are priceless. I keep on accumulating one layer after another… Every year I bring things down from the north… Here is one piece I've managed to get finished: ̶ Lamentations of the Northern Territory. Those are ancient heroic poems and songs. Here is a whole corner taken up with Dissenter materials. That was how life was under the tsars in ancient times. Then here is my corner about the theatre. You see, my friend, I also worked for a year or two on the theatre, the history of the Russian theatre up to the eighteenth century. .. Then over here on top, where there's no dust, The Tale of the Host of Igor…Marvellous writing! What great language… I really feel relaxed doing that work… At this very moment there is Igor lying on the table… But just a while back a friend came to see me – you know him so I shan't say his name – and said: 'You cannot live like that! Your place is not a scholar's retreat but an old clothes shop.' All the same his words made me feel even more attached to my den and my 'rubbish'. Anything you touch is pure gold. Dig around and there is a diamond. You seek out one thing and something else comes out of its own accord. I can remember everything precisely. That 'rubbish' is all in my head. I can close my eyes and my memory tells me what is lying where and just what it looks like." Tea had already been served. In one bare space on the table, alongside a pile of manuscripts about Igor, stood the large brass teapot and two glasses on little saucers. There were kalachi, hard-boiled eggs, boiled sausage, and about ten buckwheat pancakes on a sheet of the Moscow Sketch.

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"They're still warm and sprinkled with sunflower oil… A gorgeous smell. I love them so much… And here's a treat for you to go with your tea. It comes from your neck of the woods. And he pushed towards me a clay pot full of delicious-smelling Arctic raspberry and honey jam.. "It's from Beloye Ozero. Your father was from there and I'm from Cherepovetsk district. We're both descendants of the ushkuiniks. I haven't seen him for a long time. We were at school together." I knew this, and my father used to add the words to his letters: respect a man from Cherepovetsk. It was precisely because of that that my long friendship with Yelpidifor Vasilyevich began. When we'd had a bite to eat and drunk some tea, he bent down, reached under the table and produced a half-bottle of cordial and a bottle of Benedictine with its characteristic shape; this was his favourite tipple. Instead of glasses there appeared two small silver drinking vessels; on one was engraved in Old Church Slavonic: "Even monks will drink this" and on the other: "Have another one". "But you're still turning up at fires and disasters! But what proper work are you doing? Are you writing poetry? Not for nothing do I call you Bayan. You and just one other person – Leonid Grave. I remember your barge-haulers… I wept and read." "Now I'm wrestling with "Stenka Razin". I've written two chapters…" "Really? Is it possible you remember? I love Stenka. Stenka was a canny fellow. He knew what he knew!" And when I read him "The Execution", he even burst into tears and said: "That, brother, is for future generations… It won't see the light of day for a long time. Some time a future Barsov will dig out your manuscript, which will by now smell of mouse – that's when it'll see the light. Well then, do you remember anything else?" I missed what he said. "All the same we won't be able to get that printed. But I shall tell you what I have heard myself about Stenka. We must write it down, or it may get lost." Then Yelpidifor Vasilyevich told me how Nikon was dismissed by the Tsar from being head of the Church and lived on as an exiled monk in his New Jerusalem monastery, in his own stone fortified house… "The Patriarch of All Russia and particular friend of the Tsar" was about to be sent to the remote Olonetsky Monastery, when suddenly a stranger came before him and asked to be received…

"Have you, Bayan, been to see New Jerusalem? It's not far from Moscow. You absolutely must see it… The main thing is Nikon's house. Remember my words and go there." The next summer I was in New Jerusalem. In the lush monastery garden, standing under mighty trees, there is a little two-storey house that looks as though it will last for thousands of years, with its very thick walls and tiny windows, a fortress which in its time might have seemed impregnable. At the time when I was there everything was preserved as it had been. I paid particular attention to the furniture: massive stout benches, tables made of thick planks on such heavy legs that you could not move them an inch. This age-old furniture was specially intimidating in the little room upstairs where Nikon saw to his affairs and would receive one at a time only those people with whom he wanted to converse in secret. And now, in those doom-laden days for the embittered Nikon, as he paced restlessly round his fortress, Stenka Razin made a secret visit. "What I'm telling you now," explained Barsov, "I heard in New Jerusalem from an old monk who generally had little to say and was extremely careful in his choice of words. I worked for a long time in the archives of the monastery and thus became friendly with him. He spoke with great respect both of the Patriarch and of Stenka: 'The Patriarch had allowed Stepan Timofeyevich into his private room, where we are sitting now. They had a long talk with no disagreement because they both thought along the same lines. Then the Ataman of

290 the Don Cossacks told the Patriarch of All Russia that he wanted to be just to the people and to give them complete liberty… So you see in these rooms where we, little figures, are sitting now, at that time two heroes were seated. Then the Patriarch gave his blessing: 'Go forth to fight for righteousness and freedom'". "What I managed to hear I'm telling you. It'll come out right with you; without it there'll be a shortage of information. Now let's drink what the monks make." We drank a goblet each. "Now I'll show you something." Yelpidifor Vasilyevich went out into the back room. When he returned with a copybook containing his manuscript, I was completing the lines which were subsequently to adorn my "Stenka" and which I read to him on the spot:

Give me your blessing, most holy father, So I can stand for freedom.

Thus begins my book "Stenka Razin", published only in 1922. I at once read out the chapter I had written sitting at his table; it contains the words of Nikon:

You're right, Stepan, for freedom go and fight…

After the most heartfelt effusiveness, Yelpidifor Vasilyevich put before me his copybook, covered in his round, clear handwriting, and said: "Read it, Bayan!.." "For he, vatic Boyan if he wished to make a laud for one, ranged in thought like the nightingale over the tree; like the grey wolf across land; like the smoky eagle up to the clouds. For as he recalled, said he, the feuds of initial times"… A year later he so kindly dedicated his book, The Lay of Igor's Campaign, to me.

For a long time I did not see Barsov again. He was the Secretary of the Society of Russian Antiquities, never went out and his time was taken up with scholarly work and seeking out items that were held in museums. One Sunday in summer, when my family were at our dacha, I found a visiting card on my desk: "Yelpidifor Vasilyevich Barsov. At our own house on Shabolovka." On the reverse side scrawled in pencil: "My dear friend Bayan, Come at least to my house-warming. I'm always at home on Sundays and public holidays". As soon as I came out I met the novelist A.M.Pazukhin limping along Stoleshnikov Lane. I showed him the card that said "our own house." "You know absolutely everything and yet you didn't know that…Well, well!" For breakfast we went to a restaurant in the Petrovsky Lines and Pazukhin told me about something that could only happen in Moscow, where people may indulge in wild extravagance alongside parsimony where trifles are concerned. Pazukhin had partaken in just such a fascinating event. After an hour, having taken leave of Pazukhin, I was being driven up to a two-storeyed wooden house with a small façade, facing onto Shabolovka. On the gate there was a notice: "This house is the property of the Actual State Councillor Yelpidifor Vasilyevich Barsov". I opened the side gate and a little bell rang out all round the yard. I entered. There was a large courtyard and hens walking about on the green grass. Beyond the trellis at the end of the yard bushes of jasmine displayed their rich white flowers under the old lime trees and poplars and I saw the owner himself coming to meet me through a door in the trellis. He was wearing a red shirt with a silken belt and a broad brimmed straw hat. His face seemed delighted and joyful. His grey beard was well trimmed and no longer lumpy and unkempt, as it had been in his younger days.

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"My dear Bayan! How glad I am to see you! At last you are here in my house of unexpected joy, my new-found old clothes shop!" "I am admiring it all!" "But I have been married for two years now… Let's go into the garden. My wife has gone to the market to buy some strawberries for us to have with our tea and I had a bit of a snooze after dinner. On public holidays we have our main meal at twelve o'clock." In the little green summer house, with its trellis and the wild vine rambling through it, I saw a servant of military bearing, with grey side whiskers and wearing a white apron; he was bustling round the table with its pink tablecloth, which was set out with bites to eat and tea cups. He recognized me and greeted me. "He too was brought over here along with the archive from Patriarch's Ponds by Nikolai Ivanovich." I pretended that I knew absolutely nothing. "What Nikolai Ivanovich? I don't understand anything!" "Do you remember that in those days I told you I had a friend who said that I did not have an apartment but just an old clothes shop. At that time I did not tell you his name. That was Pastukhov!" I spread my hands, astounded. "But he certainly amazed me also. Look now, while my wife's not here, I'll tell you everything, Bayan, as a friend… But you go on and have something to eat. Here are pies with mushrooms from Upper Vologda. Here's white salmon from Kubinsky Lake. "Generalovskaya" sausage, marinated cloudberry and here's a little glass of wild strawberry liqueur. Eat and listen to such a story that, if Vasily Petrovich Shchegolyonok were alive, he would put together such an epic bylina that you would take it for a fairy tale." We each drank from the little silver cup and he poured me another one. "Remember what's written there." I was quite willing to obey him, as I read: "drink another one" "And here is what happened… I was sitting in my own room at Patriarch's Ponds, trying to make sense of the old documents when suddenly in comes Pastukhov. 'I hope I'm not disturbing you.' 'No, I was just rummaging about. Do sit down, Nikolai Ivanovich.' 'Put your coat on. Let's go to my place. Then later I'll take you back to your own home.' We walk outside. There’s a four-seater caleche standing there. We get in, but when we get to Vagankovo we don't pass into his yard. Walking out of the gates comes Viktor, Pastukhov's son, and Pazukhin, with their hats on. And Pastukhov says to them: 'Get in, lads. I'll give you a ride in the caleche!' And he waved to the coachman for us to start. The man knew where we were going… It turned out to be across the Stone Bridge and on to Shabolovka… We stop at the gates of this selfsame house… And he jabs his finger towards the sign… I read it and I look at it as if I were am going mad… And I feel it's a terrible insult: what a stupid joke, I think… 'House of the Actual State Councillor Ye.V.Barsov.' We walk into the courtyard. Some woman meets us at the porch, dressed modestly in a dark dress, with a kerchief on her head, and bows to us. 'Welcome, Yelpidifor Vasilyevich.' Nikolai Ivanovich and Viktor take my arms. I go on, but I'm trembling. I don't understand at all. We walk into a large room with empty bookshelves along the walls… Beyond that there is the study with a lavishly appointed desk, and again cupboards and shelves on the walls. Then on the desk is lying an expensive writing set pad and a silver blotter which is inscribed: 'To my dear friend Ye. V. Barsov from N. Pastukhov to welcome you on your moving in.' He opens up the blotter and inside it a paper shows – a deed of purchase for the house in my name! After tea I'll show you everything…"

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Quite a pretty and graceful young woman came in, carrying a basket of strawberries. She was wearing a grey summer dress and had a lace kerchief on her head. "And here is my wife… Let me introduce Bayan, who is a poet, son of my friend and my own dear friend." That was the way our talk finished on that occasion and I'll give you the rest in Pazukhin's words, from what I had already heard in the restaurant. Pastukhov saw Barsov's difficult life and decided to give his colleague a house where it would be easy for him to work. "Where he's living at present he might die at any time… There's no way he can breathe," he said and started to look for a detached house in a healthy area. He sought out a house with a garden on Shabolovka that had belonged to the widow of an accountant who had recently died. He organized the sale and brought the new owner in for a house-warming party. On that same day they transferred the whole of Barsov's archive in one of Stupin's waggons, this being done under the watchful eye of a soldier and yardman with a great moustache, who moved that very day into the new house. In the next two days everything was laid out and set in its place. In those days Pastukhov used to take him over to Testov's for dinner. It was the new yardman who set up the samovar, or else the old landlady would invite him in to drink tea. She was to move out completely on the third day and had already rented a flat for herself. In the morning Yelpidifor Vasilyevich called in to say goodbye to her. She was sitting by the tea table and weeping bitterly. When they talked, it transpired that she had got a good flat and was keeping the same cook. The only snag was that there was no cowshed. "It might seem all right… I 'm happy with everything… but here I am sitting and waiting for the butcher, as I'm selling the cow for slaughter." Her tears were flowing. "I'm so sorry for the poor cow." And she wept copiously. Barsov was sitting there, almost weeping himself as he comforted her. Then suddenly he said: "Do you know what? Come and get married to me. You know what I'm like … Let me send the matchmaker to you, as was the old custom. Then we'll have an honest feast in honour of the wedding." That was how the peasant widow became the general's wife.275 In the summer months I sometimes used to drive over to see Barsov. The most interesting visits were when I caught him on his own. On sunny days we would sit in his little garden over goblets of cordial or "fingerfuls" of Benedictine. His wife understood little of what we were talking about and went off to attend to her household concerns, so that we could hear through the trellis her bellicose shouts at the hens or the crows as they eyed the hen and her chicks. On a rainy day he would take me over the floor that was painted yellow and rubbed over with paraffin every day. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. It looked as though the books and manuscripts behind their glass screens on the shelves were missing the "old clothes shop" or the cobwebs that nevertheless trembled as the spider ran along them or a fly quivered that had flown in through the doorway from the grubby outside yard. I was specially struck by the cleanliness of the great room, where, from dawn on Saturdays, the mistress herself balanced on a folding ladder to rub over each leaf of the self-sown plants which, like the broadleaved palm trees, had grown up to the ceiling. Those palms had been planted by her when she was a little girl; her father, an elected representative of the tradesman class, had built, a year before she was born, this little house on vacant land beside the Donskoi monastery. In the window there were pots with geraniums, both the curly-headed scented ones and those which were red or pink,

275 Barsov's civilian rank equated to that of a general. 293 lilies, and agave, besides oranges and lemons grown from seed… In a word, a garden for each window. Then, on a little table, commissioned by Barsov himself and made from old-fashioned tiles, stood a fine brass kettle, that very same kettle that his bewhiskered "faithful retainer" used to carry when he ran over to the tavern to get hot water. Now it was used as a watering can. Two rooms downstairs were occupied with various valuable and bulky antiquities from the north: wooden figures of saints, carved from a whole tree, panels from carved iconostasis doors and various bishop's crosiers, among which was one with a phinift handle decorated with Slavonic lettering. Barsov had found it at some remote posting station near Archangel; no one knows to whom it belonged. "To some exiled priest," he used to say. There were still more ancient icons; both rooms were hung with them; each had its corner, its place. In the first room there was anything and everything! Here were wooden blocks into which prisoners confined in monasteries were fastened; here were beautifully carved pieces of iconostases and heavenly gates which had retained their gilding. Beside them were genuine large idols, both from the far north and from the forests of Mordovia, also hewn from ancient logs. Later, when I got to know the work of Konyonkov I remembered Barsov's idols. The thought immediately struck me: "Aha! That's where your fame came from. There's nothing new under the sun!" Looking at these figures of idols, of home-made icons from hermits' cells, of pictures from the rooms of leading religious dissidents from the north, I found later they had much in common with the art on show at exhibitions of Decadent art. Those pictures too should have had captions like this: "This is a lion and not a dog".

On the wall there were various pieces of armour that Barsov had sought out in the attics and cellars of monasteries: lances, muskets, a little bronze canon, and from excavations in old Ryazan: arrows, tall iron helmets and coats of mail. "And look here, you can see on the wall iron chains weighing thirty-six pounds. They were worn by the holy fool Fomushka who cursed Ivan the Terrible for murder, as he committed atrocities in Vologda. After having this curse laid on him, Ivan went away and left the holy fool unscathed. Later on the chains hung in a monastery in Vologda, but the new bishop Pallady gave orders for them to be taken down and thrown away. And here is the little theatre corner arranged with especial care under the middle window and on the wall beside it. "You know, my friend, I too spent a couple of years in the theatre… I was working on the history of the Russian theatre up to the eighteenth century. I crawled round all the booksellers and second-hand dealers… The books and manuscripts are up above there in cupboards, and down here you see ̶ he pointed at the wall and a glass case ̶ are the masks from various times, drawings and figurines, weapons and armour, then in the cupboard are costumes… You see, my friend, I too consider myself a man of the theatre. Who has not been attracted by it! I went away from it but even now two deacons are serving in the opera. Then later, when we were upstairs, he said over the table which was already laid: "Do you remember what a mess there used to be up at Patriarch's Ponds? Nowadays that little museum is always closed. They don't open the windows and everything is covered in muslin… But all the same it smells of mice!" "Yes, that's right… Just as it used to." "That's just why I love these rooms. Say what you will, the 'old clothes shop' had its own peculiar charm. After all, life was bustling there under the dust: draw back one screen and there was another one behind it from quite another world. And behind that another one and so on ̶ like a game of spillikins, only with living beings. One would give birth to another."

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But he himself was pouring out the next raspberry cordial and moving the little "Have another one" goblet over to me… That was our tenth tot! "That's right, Bayan!" We drank it down and he took in the bookshelves with a sweeping gesture. "And what have we here? The books are standing here like soldiers, with each one on its own little shelf, and every one of the spillikins sticks has its own number… But there, wherever you look, there is 'unexpected joy'." "Yes, you've said a very true word." "But it wasn't said by me exactly ̶ I'm just repeating someone else's words. It was Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoi who said that. In the late 1870s when he used to come to Moscow, he would call in to my place to consult about materials for his work. There were times when I had to show them and to grub through the dust of the archive in his presence. From time to time one might chance to find what was needed in a completely unlikely place. And once he said to me: 'I can understand now how one could even come to love the disorder in that sort of archive: there is 'unexpected joy' there.'" That was almost the only thing that for me remained most clearly in my memory from all his stories about Tolstoi. And he talked about him quite frequently. I can remember vaguely that he often referred to conversations with Tolstoi about the Decembrists. I can remember that Barsov mentioned the word frequently on that day and named many famous names, but I am afraid to try and recall them, even from what has remained in my memory: it is so easy make a mistake. And one cannot allow any mistakes with great names like these… Otherwise the same thing may happen as with Barsov's faithful retainer: "Yeldi… Yeldi… I can’t get it right for the life of me… Your Excellency!" I'm afraid I noted nothing down from those conversations, which is something I bitterly regret. How much he knew! I recall that only once, on returning home, did I note down a conversation; what it was, I don't remember. And now, some ten years on, when I came to write my memoir about my friend, the friend of my father and of each and everybody – I found in a file a scrap of old copybook in which was preserved the sole note of one of our conversations. Here it is in full.

"Today, 25 June 1901, I went see Barsov in his little house. As usual he was at home, wearing a red calico shirt and a straw hat. He was blissfully relaxing in his little garden. The samovar was on. Tea with wild strawberry jam, sent from Belozersk. Saffron milk cap and onion pies from Vologda and the inevitable Monakhor wine, drunk from old-fashioned silver goblets. 'It's all just the same as it was over there at Patriarch's Ponds: wild strawberry jam and marinated cloudberry and cordial.' 'Can you really compare them? It's marvellous now. We've got a clean tablecloth and a samovar.' 'I used to like it in the old days at your place. It was a nice little corner there.' 'That's what Tolstoi used to say too. He was there with me on several occasions when he came into Moscow. That was in 1878 and 1879. At that time he was writing a new novel, Peter I. He asked a great deal about the north and about the people who used to live there. But later he came to see me and said: 'For the time being I've given up writing about Peter. I can't understand anything about the great schism in the Orthodox Church.' Later on in the Russian Survey I published my article Peter and Tolstoi. That was my answer to Lev Nikolayevich. Once Tolstoy met my friend Shchegolyonkov, the byliny collector who was staying with me. I used to record these epic poems from his recitation, since the old man was completely illiterate.

295

I introduced them to each other and we all talked together. Shchegolyonkov talked a great deal about Christians who were outside the Orthodox Church. Tolstoi listened to him, then clapped me on the shoulder and said: 'That is how people should really pray to God. But are we able to do that ourselves?' On that occasion Tolstoi sat with me until late at night. He was so taken with the tales and epic poems of Shchegolyonkov that he invited him to his house, and the old man went to stay there for some three months, notwithstanding his great age ̶ he was then almost eighty years old. After that meeting at my house Tolstoi finally gave up work on his novel Peter I and ceased his literary career, devoting himself entirely to Christianity outside the Church." I wrote Barsov's story down word for word, while Yelpidifor Vasilyevich had got up from table to see to the grounds and then I even copied it out from my rough notes into a copybook.

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38 Meetings with Gorky

[1] I delighted in reading Gorky's first stories, and I was amazed to find that there was a great artist who could deal with the world that I had known so well. Anton Chekhov said to me more than once: "I really must put you in touch with Gorky. It's absolutely essential that you get to know him." And Chekhov also spoke to Gorky about me, proposing that we should meet. However we were always being kept apart because I was so often away from Moscow working for my paper. When Gorky was in Moscow, I was away and vice versa. However, we finally managed to meet, for the first time, at Chekhov's house.

In 1899 I was working for Amfiteatrov's paper Rossiya, which had recently opened, and I was also contributing to the Courier. In July I came back from a very hazardous journey through the Balkan peninsula and handed in my most recent findings to Rossiya. I had spent several days in Belgrade when it was under siege276and was absolutely exhausted, so I decided to have a few days rest on the Volga. I had stopped in Nizhny Novgorod, intending to go back the next day, but calling in to see Gorky, I at once fell under his spell and stayed there for several days. I remember that he was living in that same apartment where I stayed with V.G.Korolenko in 1882, he having been exiled to Nizhny Novgorod, just as Gorky had been.

Alexei Maximovich and Yekaterina Pavlovna welcomed me in the easiest and most friendly way. I had dinner with them, drank tea, and played with little Maxim, who was crawling all over me and climbing up onto my shoulders. Those were days I shall never forget. Once when we were walking along Pokrovka on a bright day in July, I used my kodak to photograph the whole family, but little Maxim came out better than anyone. That is the only picture I still have from those days. Alexei Maximovich and I walked together from morning till evening, round the Nizhny Novgorod bazaar, among the porters and working people, with whom his youth and mine had been so deeply entwined. There was plenty for us to remember and we understood each other from just one word. We scrambled together over the ruins of the kremlin and we photographed each other with the kodak, trying to show ourselves perched over some precipice. Alexei Mikhailovich loved these feats of daring. We admired the view as we were sitting on the slope above the point where the Oka flows into the Volga. I felt particularly impressed by that view, so like one that I had seen so recently, just a month previously. The slope at Nizhny Novgorod and the park of the Kalimegdan fortress in Belgrade repeat the same motif. In Belgrade, if you come down from the high rock, just before the town itself you can see the broad River Sava flowing into the mighty Danube. Where we have the buildings of the fair in front of us, there lies the town of Zemlin,277 and just as we now are looking at distant fields, so there lie the steppes of Hungary. And now at this point I told Alexei Maximovich the details of my flight and what had happened in Belgrade. He already knew much of this from the newspapers. Like Schiller's Roller,278 who fell from the gallows, so impressed was I by the view from the hillside that I experienced again the adventures I had been through, and chattered on without a pause… From the hillside we went through to the circus of Akim Nikitin, my long time circus friend and chanced to come in on a rehearsal. Akim was delighted to meet our guest, whom he

276 There was an attempted assassination of the ex-King of Serbia in July 1899. 277 Known today as Zemun, part of greater Belgrade. 278 A character in Schiller’s play Die Räuber (1781). 297 knew well, just as the whole of Nizhny Novgorod knew him, and he immediately invited him to come to the circus while he was staying in that town, both while the shows were on and during rehearsals, and to feel that the circus might be his second home. Alexei Maximovich took to Akim at once. He was so straightforward and pleasant. He was interested in seeing rehearsals and was always coming to the circus as someone who felt himself completely at home there. But how good it was to be in that house for dinner and tea! My nerves were on edge after my experiences and I told them so much about my adventures that even my hospitable host could not get a word in. But, when I started to give details about the student disturbances in Moscow, Alexei Maximovich livened up and started to talk, quite taken up by that burning question. At that point I remembered two poems that I had written that winter and which were circulating from hand to hand in Moscow. When I read the verses, he rose to his feet, brought some paper and a pencil and asked me to write them out. This I did, signing the poems "V. Gilyai".

[2] Next day we were strolling along the quayside. I met someone I knew from Moscow who had worked on the Volga steamers. I hailed him: "Nikolai Fyodorovich!" He was with three local men, who had also worked on the steamers. They gathered round us, we introduced ourselves and they asked us along: "Come with us. Over there a barge has been wrecked. Our ship is just by here. We can get a bite to eat there, everything just as we want it … Only let's head as far as…" And he named the place… "We'll have a look and come straight back… We'll be home in an hour." "Alexei Maximovich, let's go," I suggested. "Let's go," he said he with a smile. We got into a little tug that was making a lot of noise, turned the bows and headed downstream. We sat in the bows and started talking. It was a grey day with no wind. I felt myself completely relaxed and my mood was wild and restless, wanting to use up my renewed strength. I started to read poetry on wild and restless themes… In the end I read the whole of my poem on Stenka Razin. One could not have imagined a better setting and better audience than to have Gorky presiding. It was an absolute delight… The steamer was already turning round, so as to breast the current when it moored alongside the sunken barge. We had covered some seven miles without noticing. Alexei Maximovich said to me: "Uncle Gilyai, do send me your 'Stenka Razin'.279 The sunken barge was laden with iron. There was a skipper and two workers aboard. Round about – nothing and no-one. Us and the barge on its side. The owners had got down on to the barge, while we had been walking about on the sand for about ten minutes when they called us: "Come on now, let's have a drink." Before our very eyes three baskets had sprung up. We opened one of them… Champagne! We opened the second basket ̶ glasses, plates and crockery. We opened the last one… Lampshades wrapped in straw to protect them. Our bewilderment turned into roars of laughter. "What are we going to eat to start with?" Then Gorky pointed at the mast of the barge.

279 Long poem by Gilyarovsky, written in the 1880s but not published until 1922. See also Chapters 35 and 37.d 298

"What's that Caspian roach, that vobla, for?" They took bundles of fish off the mast, undid them and sent them up to our deck. Alexei Maximovich was the merriest of us all, when he saw how well the vobla went with champagne… They made me recite Stenka Razin once more. Half an hour later we were back at the quayside. And an hour later Yekaterina Pavlovna was treating us to dinner.

On returning to Moscow I sent Gorky my verse collection The Forgotten Copybook,280 which included two chapters of "Stenka Razin" which the censor had overlooked. "'Razin' is splendid! And beautiful!" Alexei Maximovich wrote in reply to my gift.

Later on in Moscow I used to meet Gorky at Chekhov's house and at the Arts Theatre, when he was putting on his famous play The Lower Depths. For this play I took actors of the Arts Theatre company, with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko at their head, through the shady dives round Khitrovka Market, and I took the painter Simov into the worst slum basements of Kulakovka and the secret lairs of the Dry Ravine, which Simov immortalized with his fine scenery. Then after a while, when Alexei Maximovich went abroad, he sent me his complete works signed with his own hand.

[3] I relived these impressions of 1899 once more, when the March volume of the journal New World for 1926 printed the record of Gorky's interrogation after his arrest in the spring of 1901. "Also in 1899 Maxim Gorky was visited, as he says, by Gilyarovsky, the writer, and, talking about the student disturbances, he said that the public had greatly enjoyed the poem "Sow the Seed".281 Apparently, at Gorky's request Gilyarovsky reproduced these lines on a scrap of paper, but we can't be sure we have it quite right (the verses were taken away when Gorky was searched in 1901). Under the poem there is a signature that is difficult to decipher: I. Gilya.282 The head of the gendarmerie, when he was writing to police headquarters, remarked that the poetry was written in pencil, but quite easy to read and without any erasures and that it was obvious that Gilyarovsky remembered the content of these verses quite clearly. Although, when interrogated by the gendarmerie, Gorky denied Gilyarovsky's authorship of these verses, the gendarmes were inclined to ascribe the poem to him. The authorship of Gorky was discounted in this case because the verses were not written in his hand and were signed: I. Gilya…" The poem was written in Moscow in the winter, while the riots were going on, at a lunch in the Slavonic Bazaar, on the white surface of of a bound wine list. There were four of us eating together: V.A. Goltsev, V.M. Lavrov, the editor of Russian Thought, and V.M. Sobolevsky. Goltsev used his knife to cut out the page with the verse, then hid it in his pocket, promising to send me a copy next day, as indeed he did. The poem flashed round Moscow. I myself read it so often with different sorts of people and at social evenings that I learnt it by heart. In the boiling volcano of our new life we have long since forgotten all that old world. And suddenly ̶ thanks to who else but the police record ̶ I now have both that forgotten poem and the memory of those days that I shall never forget, the time I spent with Alexei Maximovich, rising up before my eyes like a distant dream.

280 Published 1894. 281 A translation of this poem can be found in Chapter 23. 282 Gilyarovsky adds a footnote: "And often my handwriting is not very clear." 299

39 Fogabal283

It was cold. The grass had gone brown on the deserted racetrack. The remains of the old stone buildings had neither doors nor windows… Formerly the building in the yard was divided from Khodynka Field by a high fence where the jockeys were weighed in before the races and alongside it stood a little wooden house, the office of the Clerk of the Course. There was only a scrap left of the garden and from the windows of the house one could see the view over to the bare Khodynka Field and Vagankovo Cemetery. There was a family living in the house. They were hungry and cold. They would be trembling at night as many homeless tramps wandered by, but somehow no one touched them… It must have been obvious that there was nothing worth stealing. The people living in that wing had to put up with the bombardment in October,284 when shells were being fired into the Kremlin from the Khodynka barracks. Then the next year the grandstands caught fire at night, along with the living quarters and all that remained were these "iron snakes", a pile of rails and beams twisted by the heat. I came here today, walking through the park, which had been stripped bare by the autumn, and, as I came right to the centre of the circle, my memories swarmed round me, tightening into a ball, and in front of me I could visualize the colourful garlands and bright flowerbeds of the five storeys of the grandstands. On the day of the Derby the stands were filled with ladies in their summer dresses and there was a huge level space all the way along that building with its open ironwork, which could not be compared with any other building. And indeed what could be compared with the Irish bank in the middle? That was a hair-raising obstacle which only the most daring sportsmen would venture to jump. It remained just the same as it always had been: a high bank of earth coming between two wide ditches. A horse would jump across one ditch on to the top of the mound and from there would jump again to take the second ditch. The width of the two jumps altogether meant that the horse leapt over more than seven metres and also lost about one minute in getting over this obstacle. Quite often riders broke bones jumping over this obstacle, or horses were injured. Back in the old times, when the wooden summer house was still standing, on the day the most prestigious prize was at stake, the steeplechase prize was once contested, using the Irish bank. This competition had been entered by three well-known cross-country riders, all three of them Guards officers from Petersburg. The fourth participant to be declared was quite unexpectedly a very young officer, an Uhlan, the younger brother of the well-known racehorse breeders Yevgeny and Sergei Ilyenko, Ivan Ilyenko. He was riding a horse that he had bred and trained himself, both for racing and for service in the regiment. The bell sounded to start the steeplechase. Right from the beginning the lead was taken by the Cavalry Captain K. on the pre-race favourite. He had taken three green fences on the track and approached the Irish bank on the inside, five lengths ahead of the others. His three rivals were neck and neck behind him. Now we could see his white silks flash past for a second on the crest of the Irish bank, reappear immediately on the far side of the second ditch and easily draw ahead of the other riders as they were still having to pause on top of the bank before making their second jump. At this point something quite unexpected happened, all in a flash… At the very moment when K's black horse was again preparing to jump, the three rival horses had already caught up. With a terrible heave of the reins Ilyenko urged on his mount; past the white silks worn by the rider of the black horse went the white silks of a chestnut's rider; they did not stop at the top of the earth bank, but flew over like a bird into both of the ditches, found themselves five lengths ahead of the black horse and would not let him gain an inch right through to the winning post. There was quite an extraordinary commotion in the grandstand: at

283 The name derives from an Irish battle cry Faugh a Ballagh (originally Fág an Bealach), meaning "Clear the Way". The Russian version of the horse's name is spelled differently in other sources. 284 i.e. October 1905. 300 the moment he jumped a thousand voices exclaimed "Ach!" and after that applause resounded such as the old summer house had never heard. Many years later that was the way they applauded Gagarin when he took both ditches with one leap on the cross-breed Anglo-Don mare Beauty and how they cheered Willebrand on the English steeplechaser Chatterton… And this never happened again either with the "gentlemen amateurs" or the professional jockeys, even those English ones we must mention, who took strongly against the Irish bank. After that brilliant win young Ilyenko put aside his military uniform and devoted himself heart and soul to breeding racehorses. In the wintertime he worked with his brothers at the Kharkov stud; during the summer he figured as the senior member of the Moscow Racing Club; he and his brothers trained up their prizewinning stable, and in the sports papers wrote articles defending purebred horses. He, Ivan Mikhailovich Ilyenko, was one of the main individuals who built those multi-storeyed grandstands that were unique in the world at that time. Now I can see them lying here before me, like extraordinary-looking snakes, some of which are shiny and some of them just with a dull surface that does not reflect the light, with bloody spots of rust showing through here and there... Sitting down on one of the rails that had been bent and twisted by the heat of the fire, I fell to thinking. Now through the tangle of rails I could see a man coming out of an outbuilding. Leaning heavily on his stick he was making his way to the ruins of the stands. He was wearing a short half-length tunic, such as grooms wear in the cavalry, and a khaki-coloured cap with a red star. Grey spiky beard. Grey whiskers … Could this be Ilyenko? Yes, it was Ivan Mikhailovich Ilyenko. It was his family who were living here. He had remained faithful to the racecourse. During the war with Germany he gave up horse racing and went back to his old comrade, General Brusilov. He was with him in battle up to the end of the campaign, then he came back to his family in that wretched little house. When the Soviets took power, Brusilov called him back again to horse-breeding duties. His knowledge and skill were useful to the state until illness made him retire on a personal pension, and finish his life alongside the Irish bank. I came out onto the racecourse avenue and along the road to the stands, and, almost opposite the little house that for many years had been the home of N.P. Lebedev, Secretary of the Racing Club, I saw, to my amazement, a man appear wearing a long overcoat with a vent in the back, of a type that had recently been fashionable, and a top hat! I might have expected anything, but it was extraordinary to see a top hat almost four years after the Revolution; so too the long riding coat. Everything went to show that this man was just out for a walk: his quiet movements and his hands folded behind him with a little slender walking stick. There was a slight breeze ruffling his luxuriant light-coloured whiskers. When I looked at them I knew him at once: "Ivan Ivanovich!" Here was a rare type of person, that could only exist in the Moscow of the merchant class, could live only in that gladsome company and enjoy it, tasting the most recherché dishes, going to the theatre, every day listening to choirs in the best restaurants out of town, and standing at the rails on the racetracks, not missing a single day of flat racing or trotting; with all that he was the only person who would never bet a single rouble on the Tote, because he didn't like any type of gambling ̶ that was the first thing, and in the second place he hardly ever had a rouble in his pocket. But meanwhile he got his clothes from the best tailors in the capital, Sizhe and George. He would buy his top hat only from Wandrag and always one in the very latest fashion. He did not acknowledge jackets and visiting cards and without fail, summer and winter he wore a fashionable frock-coat, which sat very well on his substantial figure with its rounded embonpoint, and which was the best possible advertisement for his tailor. On top of that, summer and winter, he wore a light greatcoat and also yellow kid gloves. No matter how cruel

301 the frost was, he would not button up his coat. His face and his ears, always ruddy, did not acknowledge the existence of frost ̶ and he used to walk about like that on the open winter racetrack. In the intervals between the races people would sometimes come up to him in fox-fur coats and sable hats. They might whisper something and disappear again, going back together to their places, chewing a bite to eat and even more ruddy-faced. Ivan Ivanovich could put away an extraordinary variety of wines and sometimes was able to drink round the clock, and put several sets of carousing companions under the table, while he remained, as they say, stone-cold sober, although his face grew redder. And that was the way I used to see him for decades in Moscow, unfailingly in good health and always enjoying life. It seemed as though the years somehow left no trace on him; his light-brown head had still not a single grey hair, nor had his huge carefully tended whiskers, for which, and for his whole appearance, he was called Farlaf. "You are a right old Farlaf,285 Ivan Ivanovich." "And what is a Farlaf? Is it something you can eat?" asked a merchant from Taganka over lunch. He was the sole heir of a deceased millionaire and was dressed in fox fur. "I was as big a fool as you are, until people taught me some sense," Ivan Ivanovich said to him sternly, and immediately moderated his tone; "It's a quote from an opera." "I haven't been in the theatre since the day I was born… My dad was strict and wouldn't let me go anywhere out of the house…" "All right, let's go to the theatre today. We'll go from here to Testov's and from there on to the theatre. That's where we'll see Farlaf." "What's that? My most humble thanks. I'll go there as I want … I haven't anyone keeping watch over me now …" Thus it turned out that Ivan Ivanovich had a new pupil and from that day he made himself responsible for his education, greatly to the delight of the young man. "I’m breaking him in," was how he introduced his pupil to his close friends. Next day he brought the young merchant to Sizhe's, where he ordered a smart suit, and to Mikhailov's on Kuznetsky Bridge, where he bought an overcoat of ferret fur with a beaver collar. Then he took him to dine at the Hermitage, and in the evening they went out to hear the gypsies in the Yar. His education had started. The merchant was delighted to spend money on wild parties, but Ivan Ivanovich never once asked to borrow anything ̶ he knew that the merchant was specially afraid of that: drink and eat as much as you want, but you must not go asking anyone for money ̶ they'll say you're trying to cheat them. And Ivan Ivanovich never borrowed money from his customers. He was getting interest from Sizhe, from Mikhailov286 and Khlebnikov and also from bills in the restaurants. He used them to pay for his clothes and the rent for his flat and he lived like a bee in clover, but he never had a ten or twenty-five rouble note in his pocket for hiring a cab, with nothing to spare for a tip. At the beginning of his career there were times after a binge when some silly man from the Taganka might give three hundred to the gipsy choirs after settling a huge debt at the Yar. Then he might try to ask: "Sidor Martynovich, give me a hundred. I'm due to pay the rent on the room." "What's that? Come on, my friend, you're not going to catch me like that. Eat and drink as much as you can digest, but no cash. You'd better not even suggest that sort of thing if you want to go on seeing me." Nevertheless the merchants to see him and it was almost counted an honour to have your evening meal with Ivan Ivanovich. But the main thing was that he knew how to order food, and the proudest waiters at the Yar or Strelna would listen attentively to his orders. He had a very good knowledge of gastronomy. Sometimes, when a gathering of shrewd merchants were having a spree in their private den, Natruskin himself would appear in the Strelna or, in the Yar, the proprietor, Orange

285 One of the three knights in Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Liudmila (1842). 286 A shop opened in 1871 by the furrier Alexei Mikhailovich Mikhailov at 14 Kuznetsky Bridge. He died in 1916. 302 himself,287 so called by everyone because of his round clean shaven face, which really was almost the colour of a mandarin orange. And both these proprietors were astounded at his talent for ordering the most enticing delicacies and naming unerringly all the wines from every wine merchant without once referring to the wine list, and also the particularly expensive ones from the cellars of those restaurants. "And can I ask, Ivan Fyodorovich, whether you have any bottles left of that dry Madeira Sercial that you bought off Alexander Grigoryevich Kuznetsov from his own estates in Madeira?.. I remember that last year you amazed Golitsyn and me." "Well of course… Lev Sergeyevich paid me for three bottles and told me to leave them on his account." "Yes…yes… I think you took three hundred roubles from him." "Come on now, Ivan Ivanovich, how can you think that's too much? After all, I myself bought a dozen from the cellars of his heirs for eight hundred roubles, and I had to beg them from him. I've only two bottles left. I'm looking after them like gold." "Bring them over here. Don't just talk about them." "I'll give you one, Ivan Ivanovich. Let me just keep one." "Bring them both. I'll take one with me ̶ I'm only allowed to drink dry wine." "I am your most humble servant… And of course you are going to prepare your own salad to go with the turkey, Ivan Ivanovich?" "Please, please!" shouted the whole group of a rich sugar merchant,288 a great gourmand and one who suffered for his weakness since he had diabetes. Sometimes, however, he would risk a blow-out and always on those occasions he invited Ivan Ivanovich – a man who knew what he could do and what he couldn't. That was how there lived and prospered for many years this arbiter elegantarium of the merchants and their celebrations.. I remember him from away back in 1876. He used to come to the Artistic Circle with Seryozha Gubonin and in those times still did some business in the town rows, where, above a shop selling silk goods, a sign showed its brave message Rochefort and Yemelyanov. Rochefort was a Frenchman; Yemelyanov was a real Muscovite, and he was father to Ivan Ivanovich, who was then twenty years old and in those early days went about in a peaked cap and short jacket like a merchant; he had been three times to Paris with old Rochefort "to follow the latest fashions", but after the third visit, which had lasted about two months because Rochefort was ill for a month and had to rest for a month after his illness, instead of "little Vanya" with his cap and his beard, the father now beheld his only son as a dandy in a long overcoat, dressed in the latest fashion and with his hair combed à la Capoul, wearing yellow kid gloves and a top hat. Then, when the father took him as usual to have lunch in the Hole under Bubnov's tavern, his son suggested going upstairs to the "posh" rooms… When they got up there, he called up the head waiter and began to order such things from him that made him stare in amazement, but his father got angry and told him: "Stuff your own face" and took himself off to the Hole to lap up sturgeon soup and eat rissoles in sour cream. From that time on Ivan Ivanovich never took his top hat off, and by the time I settled in Moscow in 1888 he was not doing any more business. After his father died, Rochefort put him out of the firm, but he was not despondent and began to come into the Yar along with his friends, merchants whom he had earlier treated and who now were treating him, respecting his ability to organize feasts.

287 His real name was Fyodor Ivanov Aksyonov (1836-94). He opened the Yar in 1871. See also Chapter 27 288 The Russian text suggests the man's name was Sumsky. This is probably erroneous. The merchant concerned is likely to be Pavel Ivanovich Kharitonenko (1852-1914), a rich sugar merchant and patron of the arts, originally from the town of Sumy. 303

So now it was that very same Ivan Ivanovich who had turned round briskly and, switching his stick to his left hand, was hastening to take off his glove from his right hand as he welcomed me with a cheerful look. Clean-shaven, with his carefully trimmed huge, silken whiskers and no trace of grey, his top hat slightly askew, as it always had been, and his perpetual, so recently fashionable, frock coat, now rubbed slightly shiny but without a speck of dust, which sat on him as on a coat- hanger. There was no trace now of the Chichikov289 portly belly, nor of the full ruddy face, which had become pale but was still fresh. One would have taken him on sight for a man of forty-five or fifty. "Are you having a night out?" he smiled as he held his top hat out to the full extent of his arm. "Yes, I've done enough sitting around in the town. This is the first time in three years that I've decided to go to the park." "And you've come straight here? So it means… Unwillingly to these sad shores/ An unknown force is drawing you?"290 He finished his remarks… "But I stroll about here every day…And where I am to go… You remember how Dostoyevsky's Marmeladov says 'I've got nowhere to go'.291 But he himself went off to the drinking den… Although now there are no drinking dens… So I've absolutely nowhere to go… My aunt was on Yakimanka Street. My sole surviving relative ̶ and she has disappeared without trace… I have not been married. My old friends have been lost by drinking too much Some are no more, some distant are.292 Thanks be, the manager of the block where I have been living for thirty years over there on Bashilovka Street, has given me a wretched little room, piled high with books. I am living there and I've reread all the classics that I had no idea about before. I knew that Pushkin existed because in the Yar his bust stood in the Pushkin Room. So now I get up, then, instead of tea, I drink boiled water with a black rusk and brush up my top hat ̶ I've got three of them left now – and I shave – I shave every day to keep my morale up – and then come out here to walk about…" I listened and didn't know what to say. "I've lived right through the revolution and wondered at the stands burning all night…" "But why did they catch fire?" "Who knows? And there is no one you can ask… Ah indeed, what can one say? You see now, I'm coming up to seventy and I haven't got a single grey hair… I haven't managed to catch a cold when I drink. To add to everything my appetite is as fine as it ever was… But there's nothing to eat." While we were talking we had got to the boulevard and sat down on one bench that had survived near the former Yar. I remembered that in my pocket I had a large piece of fine Swiss cheese that I had bought furtively from someone on the bridge by the station on the way here. "Yes, indeed, Vladimir Alexeyevich, it has all come to an end… The Yar is done for, and the Mauritania, the Strelna… everything, absolutely everything… And without them I too am done for… If only we had something to remember them by, then I could die in peace. " "Well, come on now, let us remember! Do you see this, Ivan Ivanovich? Come on now, have a sniff!" I pulled out of my pocket a slightly tear-stained piece of paper with the piece of cheese, and I held it up to his nose. In his astonishment he threw his head back, almost dislodging his top hat, and exclaimed: "Swiss cheese! I've got a penknife here." He pulled out the remnants of a penknife and presented it to me. I opened up the cheese and cut off a slice.

289 Central character of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls (1842). 290 From Pushkin's poem "Rusalka" (1832). 291 See Chapter 2 of Crime and Punishment (1866). 292 A slight misquotation of from Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin, Chapter 8 Verse 51. 304

"Can you really do it like that? What are you doing?" He whipped off both his gloves, shoved them into his pocket and declared: "My hands are clean." He took the knife and the cheese from me. "It's a shame to spoil a great delicacy like that. It may well be, indeed it's probably true that I am eating this sort of thing for the last time… So, please allow me…" Then he began to cut the cheese with the blunt back of the knife, whereupon it curled into a roll, becoming tasty, light and soft, so that it seemed to melt on our tongue. "Cheese like that you don't saw, but you fold it up…" With him as the presiding genius, we ate a third of the cheese in silence. "Ah! That's better. It's a pity there's no bread." He passed a bit of cheese over to me; I cut it in half and wrapped it in paper, put one piece into my pocket and gave the other one to him. He thanked me and took the knife to cut his own cheese into two equal halves; slicing one piece up with the blade of the knife, he wrapped it up to put it into one pocket, and the rest into the other pocket. "Why did you cut it up like that?" "It will be all right… He'll eat it like that; he wouldn't understand you slicing it." "Who wouldn't?" "Fogabal. Do you remember him?" "Of course I do! Ilyenko's horse." "I’m not talking about the horse, but the schoolboy Fogabal." Yes, I remember the schoolboy Fogabal. I could picture him in his school coat and wearing an elegant suit at the races or as a ragged fellow at the Crossroads tavern. The Crossroads was a tavern, situated opposite the Yar. In the Yar rich sportsmen caroused, while on the days of flat or trotting meetings, or even the day before them, the Crossroads was always full of people placing bets. They used to come in here before a race to ask the jockeys, riders and tipsters to pronounce on the form of the favourites, would note a "nap", often successfully, but mostly would attempt to cheat. Among those tipsters I can remember a tall pale man with a mane of fair hair who was up at dawn with his eyes fixed on the course, watching the horses at their morning gallops. By the end of the races he was always drunk, but he knew the horses well and everyone believed in his tips. No one knew his real name, but he would answer to being called Fogabal. "Dear Fogabalushka, mark my card." This half-drunken tramp had played a huge part in the history of the sport: both luxurious stands had been built thanks to him. Flat races and trotting races had been going on at Khodynka since 1850. In those days the races were run on three lanes, each horse in his own lane. Only real hunters and horse lovers came, while on public holidays a few people might come out from Moscow, just to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the spectacle. Thus both classes of imperial Russian society lost their shirts, the nobles on trotting races and the merchant class on flat races. The money at stake did not amount to much and prizes were just for the honour. At the end of the 1870s M.M. Lazarev, Secretary of the Moscow Trotting Club, got to know the Totalizator in other countries and introduced it in Russia. At first the tickets were only for one rouble and horse would compete in twos, threes or, rarely, fives. The sport did not take off because there was no excitement. In every race the best horse was known to everyone; it would easily outstrip its rivals and would therefore return punters no more than ten copecks in the rouble. There was not yet any Tote forecast.

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When the famous Perkun was running , which had won a series of prizes in England and was undefeated in Russia, the return was never more than ten copecks. What's more, Perkun never lost. "He's a bank, not a horse," said the canny gamblers. Some bought tickets on him by the dozen in order to be as certain of winning two or three roubles as of receiving the rent. Ten per cent in three minutes: that's the entry money and the cost of a cab paid. The bank crashed! It was a hot sunny Sunday in the second half of August. The public in their finery embellished the miserable racecourse office. The gallery, boxes and rows of wooden benches, which rose in an amphitheatre, were occupied by merchant class Moscow and aristocratic Moscow, the trackside by sportsmen and dandies in bright costumes. Around the Tote windows there were, as usual, few people. At that time the market was weak. That day the most interesting race was the one involving the unbeaten Perkun, who had three worthy rivals ridden by the best English jockeys. Perkun was ridden by Ambrose,293 considered the top jockey of his day; this guaranteed victory for Perkun. Riding the remaining three, who had been entered with no thought of first prize but only in the hope of securing second or third prize, were Claydon,294 Coner 295 and Shelley.296 The fifth horse, which was owned and bred by I.M. Ilyenko, was ridden by the jockey Voronkov, who had only just graduated from being a stable lad. All tickets on the Tote were on Perkun. The public latched on: better ten copecks earned than a rouble spurned. There were punters too who liked to go for a long shot, that is to say, to back the other horses or, to be more precise, their English jockeys; only Fogabal and, above all, his jockey Voronkov were friendless in the market. "A little Uke from Kharkov against four Englishmen!" The starter lowered his flag. The horses raced away, led by Ambrose with a smile of certain victory on his face. Sometimes he glanced round at Claydon and Coner, who were head to head behind him. Close up galloped young Shelley, pink as a girl, and behind him, almost on his quarters, was the sinewy Voronkov on Fogabal, who was going easily, as if he were not in a race but out on the gallops. On the last bend Voronkov with a slight shake of the reins overtook Shelley and almost closed up on the two rivals, who were receiving reminders, to press Perkun. Ambrose had to resort to his whip and all three were under pressure; all the same Perkun was a length ahead. And there was Voronkov, biding his time and, in the shadow of the winning post, urging his Fogobal confidently and easily forward with hands and heels and winning by a length from Ambrose. From that day onward the nickname stuck with Voronkov – the "cunning Uke." But what an uproar there was in the summer house! And trackside, and in the boxes and the gallery ̶ everyone was roaring and verbally abusing the Englishmen… The furious public were cursing everyone and everything and demanding their money back. No one had bet on Fogabal. Apparently only at one window had there been a bet and that had been placed by some schoolboy who knew nothing about horses but had simply come up to thewindow, taken out a rouble and said "Put it on number three." Did he like that number or was he thinking of getting a pass mark three in Latin? At any rate he got a whole heap of bank notes: one thousand three hundred and nineteen roubles for

293 Possibly the American jockey Edward ("Eddie") Ambrose (1894-1994), who began his career in 1910 or the Ambrose who won the Russian Derby in 1890 and 1894. 294 Possibly Alonzo ("Lonnie") Clayton (1876-1917). African-American jockey or John Claydon. See Chapter 26. 295 Probably the American jockey Winfield ("Winnie") O'Conner (1884-1947), who rode a great deal in Europe. 296 Possibly the leading American jockey Carroll ("Cal") Shilling (1885-1950). Having been banned on frequent occasions (and for life in 1912), he may have followed the example of other American jockeys and sought work in Europe. "Shelley" is either a mishearing or a mistranscrption, or an assumed name used by Shilling to avoid further trouble with the US racing authorities. 306 the one rouble he had staked, and with his eyes wildly excited he sorted these notes out into the pockets of his old shirt and his grey greatcoat. The other punters crowded round the lucky boy throughout the whole break between races, tormenting him with various questions until they heard the bell ring for the next race. At the next interval they could not find him. No one knew who he was. The newspapers next day described Fogabal's triumph and the unknown schoolboy who for one rouble had received 1,319 roubles. The idea even caught the interest of people who never went to the races and did not know the word 'totalizator', which of course interested them not so much in the horses as in the chance of winning a thousand roubles for one. Then, a day later, at the next race meeting, even though it was a weekday, there were twice as many people, and the following Sunday the wooden stands were crammed with spectators. Gambling was hectic. The uncomprehending public began to bet on every horse, even when the favourite was indisputably unbeatable; whereupon the pay-out on favourites was fifty copecks to a rouble staked. Gambling became, for connoisseurs of horses, a real, profitable business. Stakes grew and the Tote turnover became huge. Then the Tote was introduced for trotting races too. The sole person responsible for this, the schoolboy Fogabal – he had no other name – became an ever-present at the hippodrome. He gave up school, worked for a time as a member of a choir, then went completely off the rails, became a drunkard and finished up as an itinerant runner for punters. "Yes, Ivan Ivanovich, I've seen him, the main person responsible for the Tote's success, which in its turn built the stands for flat racing and trotting racing.You bet I know. I know everything." "Not quite everything! I was the first person to be responsible for all this. I, and only I built these stands. I created the excitement and deprived a young man of his honour and career. I even deprived him of a proper human name! I turned him into a horse – Fogabal! Instead of a name he ended up with a nickname." Then Ivan Ivanovich began to pour out the sorrows of his heart, counting all those who had suffered because of the excitement he had created. His eyes were shedding tears. "I'm the only one to blame!" "Calm down, Ivan Ivanovich. Why are you going on like that?" "Well, just listen! As you know it was just at that time that they had introduced the Totalizator at horse races. As you may remember, it started with very small stakes. And then, to get people gambling, the management generously gave out complimentary tickets. They gave many of them to people from the Yar and Mauritania, mainly to gypsies and singers, hoping that they would bring their customers from the rich merchant class. They indeed did come because they were getting their tickets for nothing, even though they lost much more money than they would have paid to get in. Yes, that's the kind of people merchants are: it may make you sick but the important thing is to get it for nothing. They used to send me several complimentary tickets for each race meeting, knowing the wide extent of my acquaintances. I distributed them round and I persistently went there myself. It was even essential for me ̶ it was from there that I took guests into the Yar. So on one of those Sundays I was sent five tickets, and the day before I had promised to give three of them to an official who worked at the orphans' court. He was a close neighbour of mine at the dacha. He was paying a hundred roubles for the dacha and often used to come into the Yar for his midday meal or his supper. Even though he was Head of Department his salary was only seven roubles a month. From the time of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century officials had had to get by on seven roubles a month and made free with the orphans' money, taking enormous bribes from their guardians. Well, I took him the complimentary tickets ̶ he was just having tea with his wife and along with them was sitting an older schoolboy, who was tutor to 307 their children. He had called in to get paid for his lessons. The man was impecunious; had lost both his parents and lived with his uncle who was in the chorus at the Bolshoi Theatre. I handed over three complimentary tickets and offered the fourth one to the schoolboy who had never been to the races. He accepted it joyfully. That very same day I saw him at the races, straight after he had picked a winner. He was sitting on a bench by the Tote window, looking pale and upset. He showed me the money. I learned the whole story everything and took him home. After that he became confused, started to gamble, firstly on the Tote, then playing cards. In the end he finished up in a madhouse, spent several years there and came back here a few days ago. The day before yesterday I saw him at the racecourse in the ruins of the summer house. After the fire ̶̶ have a look for yourself, it's quite something to see ̶ there was a heap of rails, twisted by heat, and iron beams lying about. I had seen that mass of ruins more than once, but for some reason I suddenly I felt terrified. It was coming on towards evening… I was walking along when all at once from the heap of wreckage I heard a strange, cracked voice. I was frightened, yet at the same time possessed by curiosity. And now I could see, on the other side of the heap, a huge old man standing with long hair and a tangled beard. He was in tatters and not singing but bawling at the top of his voice: 'Here is the mill… it's already in ruins…' I looked more closely and I recognized my victim ̶ It was Fogabal! He came closer, madness in his eyes, his face was pale, with even a bluish tinge. 'Fogabalushka? Greetings my dear fellow.' But he raised his hands above his head and began to clap them against his sides like wings, then began to bawl: 'I am the raven of these parts.'297 Then he recognized me and burst into tears." Ivan Ivanovich took off his top hat and held out his hand to me: "Farewell. I'll take him bit of cheese… He's living down there, in a basement." Ivan Ivanovich stepped quietly across the road, without looking round even once. Only at the entrance to the racecourse avenue did he pause, take off his hat, wave to me and straight away, as he moved on, disappear from sight. That was the last top hat I ever saw. I went on sitting alone on a street bench that had remained intact, facing the Yar, that magnificent temple of debauchery, a sumptuous palace of glass and stone which had arisen from the old wooden building, along with the iron and stone stands that had replaced the wooden ones. Ivan Ivanovich had once said: "For my time the Yar and Strelna will suffice." He said this with confidence, looking at the new stone Yar, which had grown up, funded by the Totalizator. People who went to watch horse races or trotting races formed the faithful clientele for that restaurant. As though he were going to work there, Ivan Ivanovich appeared every single day in that dining room with its shining windows and crammed with its elegant public. He used to walk in, resplendent, full-bellied and proud, casting the same proud, and at the same time benevolent glance over all the tables, would walk past his usual table to the platform, bowing to right and left. "Ivan Ivanovich! Ivan Ivanovich, come and sit with us!" one could hear on every side. He would acknowledge each person's salutation, addressing each individual by their name and patronymic, and then he would sit down wherever he thought to find the best company. Everyone wanted him to sit with them. Even now I can remember the first time I saw him, and why he drew attention to himself. The circumstances under which that happened will never be repeated. They are unique,

297 An anonymous popular saying, a version of which occurs in Pushkin's "Rusalka".

308 as indeed were the people of that time. It is worth describing them, but all this happened more than fifty years ago.

309

40 Under the Jolly Nanny Goat

V.N. Andreyev-Burlak told me once, in the course of a convivial gathering, of something that happened to him at the Nizhny Novgorod fair. "I arrived from Moscow by the morning train. I was drinking coffee in the buffet. A stout man sat down next to me with a pearl ring on his index finger. On his waistcoat a gold chain jangled with pocket watches. 'Here you are then!' he said, slapping me patronizingly on the shoulder. 'How will business be for us at the fair, Vasily Nikolayevich?' 'Are you an actor too?' I asked. 'What do you mean! We've come with girls. We've brought a whole carriage load, for the establishments and for the Carousels.'" I knew the Carousels from 1874 when I found myself in Nizhny quite by chance. They had existed long before then and was closed down by the governor N.M. Baranov during the cholera epidemic of 1892. As far as I know, they have never been described. In 1874, having got out of the Sorokin white lead factory in Yaroslavl after a winter of slave labour, I found myself on the deck of a Samolyot298 steamer running downstream and found myself quite unexpectedly in Nizhny during the Fair. Nobody ever said of the Volga steamers that they "steamed", "travelled" or "went" but always that they "ran". None of the local passengers would ever say: "I steamed, I travelled…" No! They would invariably express themselves thus: "We ran there on a Samolyot and from there I ran onwards on a "Druzhina."299 And indeed, when you watched the huge revolving wheels of the steamer, slapping the water with their blades as if stepping over it, you were left with the impression that the steamer was actually "running". And so I had run on a trim little steamer of the Samolyot line, with a straight black funnel circled with a broad red stripe and with a white flag on the stern. On it, depicted in yellow, was some sort of logo – I recall two crossed brass trumpets. This denoted the fact that this was a mail boat. The trumpet logo denoted the mail because the postal workers who sat alongside the drivers of mail coaches had just such brass trumpets on which they blew furiously the whole way. "Look out," they were saying, "the post's coming." It doesn't travel. No, it comes and goes. The post has come… The post goes at seven in the morning. So I had run on the "Samolyot", having stocked up with a hunk of white bread and some vobla, having furnished myself with a third class ticket. In those days you didn't buy a ticket, you furnished yourself with one. This old-fashioned word was a remnant of the time before the advent of steamers. Now everyone simply goes up to the ticket window in the port, pays one's money, receives a ticket and that's that. Perhaps the word "furnished" arose from the link between getting a passport and getting tickets. It was not possible to get a passport, or a temporary document to replace it, straight away – you had to bustle about and got to a lot of trouble in order to "furnish" yourself with it. I was sitting aft on a coil of rope for the anchor and admiring the view: the town on its high bluff above the river, with white houses along the quayside and the boulevard in the bright life of spring sunshine; Tvoritsy300 beyond the Volga… Over there were the same piles of beams

298 A steamship company founded in 1854. 299 A steamship company founded in 1860. 300 More properly Tveritsa, a suburb of Yaroslavl stituated on the opposite (left) bank of the Volga. Now called Zavolzhsky raion. 310 that I had seen three years ago when I trudged here on foot from Vologda and first saw the barge haulers hauling Malafeyev's flat bottomed sailing barges laden with grain. At that point I had been hired for the stretch up to Rybna,301 where we went into that hostelry for vodka and then to the market to get bast shoes, and on to the sandy spit behind which the barge was moored. We spent the night on that damp sand, and then at dawn, wearing my new shoes, I harnessed myself up and set off with our party to tow the barge upstream along our Mother Volga. They had hired me into the haulers' party to replace a man who had died in harness yesterday just by Yaroslavl, and they had buried him in the sand among the thick-growing willows. Almost a quarter of our team had died as they went along. In 1871 there had been a terrible outbreak of cholera on the Volga. I had my fill of seeing cholera victims in our towing party and now here in Rybna, where I spent the summer working as a fish porter, the epidemic killed off a great many people. I looked up at our factory on the high bank of the river: dirty yellow and surrounded by a high wall, it looked like a prison. They called it the "barge haulers' cemetery" because it was rarely that anyone came out of it alive. Poisoned by the fumes of white lead, they wasted away and died. "Listen! a trumpet and little bells …" Along the quayside above our heads the fire brigade was speeding somewhere… I recognized the tall veteran fireman. Ah! How much I had been through in the last three years! I could see the ataman Repka and Kostyga as though they were alive before my eyes. And the soldier Orlov being birched… Fist fights…And ringing in my ears the voice of our singer with the barge haulers and his song about the poodle which I never heard anywhere else:

The white poodle walks on and on ……………………………………………… The black poodle walks on and on

The wide expanse of the Volga in summer; in the winter drunken howling in Budilov's drinking den, and all around are the "winter grievers"… Some of them "brown rags", sometimes seeming tearful and beaten down or else "good stout lads" who are not to be humbled, who cannot be restrained by anyone. "Winter grievers" is a local Upper Volga expression for those who come to grief in winter. And I was recently one of those beings until I escaped to freedom… And moreover I had a ticket to travel on the mail steamer Udaloi, which was at that time one of the fastest ships on the upper reaches of the river. The second whistle sounded above our heads, throwing up into the air two snowy white puffs of steam, one after the other. Like transparent silver they stood out white against the blue sky, then dispersed like transparent lace, melting without leaving any trace… From the upper Volga a swift grey ship was running down on us with a prolonged blast on its siren, showing its three-coloured flag as a trading ship, with its paddles slapping into the water… It started to turn round to swing against the current as it came alongside the quay. It made a neat turn to find its berth at the quayside, which was the same grey colour as the ship's hull and had a mast flying the same three-coloured flag. Over the paddle wheels I could read the ship's name Belisarius.

301 Colloquial form of the official name of Rybinsk. 311

"Old Tikhomir is terribly late. He got completely hammered out of spite and will take it out on everybody." Thus spoke our bewhiskered captain in a loud voice, wearing his officer's cap with its white top. "He badly needs to make up time. He missed all the passengers in Yaroslavl. We shall be picking them all up in Kostroma," answered someone I couldn't see. At that moment three whistles and three clouds of white steam billowed across the sky and slowly dispersed over our heads when the Udaloi, turning its prow to the right, began to slap the churning water, moved to the middle of the current and began to run straight downstream. Then Belisarius emitted two puffs of steam rather bigger than ours, and gave two prolonged, rather angry whistles as though the signalman's hand was trembling . Our passengers had come back from the bows onto the stern and were deriding the "blasted Tikhomirov". Those who had come from the bows to the stern from Rybinsk on the Udaloi were surprised that Belisarius had been delayed there so long, since according to the timetable she should have left ten minutes after us. People round us were talking about Tikhomirov and I heard that when he got really drunk he would "play the captain" by setting up a mad race with the Samolyot boat. And that would go on all the time the river was open ̶ except during the month of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. When that was on, the ship would be commanded by one of the most experienced river pilots, while its usual captain, from the day the flag went up on the fair until the fair closed would be drinking to excess round all the low dives, up to and including the Carousels. I was wandering about on the ship and felt, as they say, as though I were in "seventh heaven"… When it was still early morning I had dumped my old clothes in the market and changed into a completely fresh outfit: a dark blue striped shirt, a cloth poddyovka coat, boots with ruffled tops and a cap with a lacquered peak. I had dressed exactly as Dyomka when he strutted his stuff as the trick rider in the circus of Vasily Ivanovich Volf. I had been friendly with Dyomka for two years and, during the time when I was wandering round using a false name and with no official documents, I used, when necessary, to pass myself off as a circus trick rider, because that profession aroused no suspicions and the circus is always a subject people like to talk about, a feature I made use of when necessary. That was the part I intended to play from now on. I changed my clothes in a little shop near Budilov's tavern and sat down on a bollard of the ship. A grey haired Figaro who had been an old soldier took five copecks from me to cut my hair, announcing that he had cut it short, "Polish style". He guessed immediately that I had come from the white lead works and he advised me to go to the Volga and to wash my hair. I was stung by that reminder about the white lead works and I only calmed down when, in bathing, I used up half a bar of Kazan soap. As I was wandering about the ship I went up on the bridge, where only "saloon" passengers were admitted, but no one stopped me… I realized that I had now broken away from my former life and no one would think that only yesterday I had been doomed to die like the workers in the white lead works and that only yesterday I had been a "winter griever". The Udaloi was running along. Behind us we could just hear three hoots on a siren which meant that the Belisarius had cast off … He was not likely to catch us up soon. The passengers realized that there would be no great speed contest and scattered away from the stern. I went down and seated myself once more on the coiled hawser. Two sailors came out from their stuffy quarters and sitting alongside me they started to knock a vobla against the rails. "Dogs' Master requires stop!" one of them pointed out, using his teeth to scrape the skin off the amber-coloured fish.

312

Far ahead of us a boat with passengers was coming out from the high right bank, where we could see among the greenery a white house with columns sparkling in the sunlight. "Is that Dogs' Master?" I asked. "That's it." Then I remembered the tales the old barge haulers Kostyg and Ulan had told. I also remembered my nights at the white lead factory when the old hauler Suslik entertained the whole barracks through the long sleepless nights with his tall tales and stories, mentioning Dogs' Master quite often. "In that very same place," he said, "from ages back one team of haulers took over from the others; then it stopped. A master had come down from Petersburg and put up a manor house downstream from Yaroslavl. It's the white house on the hill – the one you can see. He used to come here for the summer. That was in the old days when we still had serfdom; there was a huge household and lots of dogs. Guests used to come from Petersburg – all important members of the aristocracy. The master here did not like haulers disturbing him by spending the night on the shore, boiling up kasha, singing songs and frightening the young ladies with their appearance. He began to chase our parties with dogs and, if they stopped to change over, hunters on horseback would fly at us when we were half asleep and lash us with their whips. For two years the master acted in this brutal fashion until suddenly he came up against Repka. And from Repka's band of about fifty haulers one hero was matched with another. The master planned a bit of diversion: along with drunken guests he set his hunters on the barge haulers but Repka was waiting for him. Our boys swore at the young gents and their servants in the way haulers do. The master himself came at Repka with his whip. They came to grips in a fierce struggle." Suslik used to describe this fight quite vividly and he would finish up: "The old master died and the place burnt down, only the house was left standing… There are no more barge haulers but that place is still called The Dogs' Master." Yes indeed, the barge haulers had gone and the towpath along the bank was overgrown with willow. But every day the Volga came to life again. There were three steamers coming to meet us, towing barges with grain: Samson, Gromoboi and Burlak. Besides them one Samolyot mail boat, light pink just the same as ours, with a red band round its black funnel and a gold inscription over its wheels ̶ the Lyogky. We had taken on more passengers: a peasant and a pedlar with a bast box who opened it as soon as he was on board and offered to sell his beads, combs, handkerchiefs and various trinkets ̶ rings, crucifixes, and books, among them Yeruslan Lazarevich and The Beautiful Muslim Woman Dying on her Husband’s Coffin and also Yepancha, the Tartar Horseman. These were for sale at three copecks apiece and two larger books were on offer at a higher price: Guak or Invincible Fidelity and The English Lord. I bought Guak and also a green leather notebook. There was bright sunlight and silence. Just the sound of white birds flapping lazily over the water, and our steamer exchanging whistle blast greetings with other ships as we met them. Our passengers settled on the benches, reading their books. When we left Babaiki, having picked up some passengers there, the Belisarius appeared in the distance, but it was now late. We could not see her turning in towards the quay. The sailors had eaten their vobla. We were already near Kostroma. "Full speed ahead!" the captain's command suddenly rang out. Our paddle blades smacked round more quickly. "The Belisarius is coming out," one of the sailors said with a laugh. We could see smoke behind the island and then the flag and the funnel of the Belisarius. "Let her go through! Wee would've been in Kostroma already but we got delayed a bit at the Dogs' Master." The ship waited a long time at Kostroma. I went ashore to look at the town. From the quayside I admired the bright sunlight on the river, the distant scenery stretching away on the

313 other bank, then sat down on a bench where two young men with black moustaches were talking away in Italian and loudly expressing admiration for the Volga. "Well, tell me, signori, how do you like our Volga?" I addressed them in French, which I had learned quite well from my stepmother ̶ in her family they spoke nothing but French among themselves. We got talking. These were two Italians E.F. Lucacini and M.O. Lombardo, who later came to own the well-known jewellery shop in Moscow in Solodovnikov Passage. "What are you doing here?" they asked me. "Well, nothing really. I've just got off the steamer and I'll go on downriver later, looking for work," I said telling them a sort of half-truth. "Would you like to do a bit of work with us? We need an ordinary worker while the Fair is on." They had come to the summer Fair in Kostroma with marble vases, little statues and various Italian pieces of art. "Go back on the ship and pick up your luggage." "Let the baggage stay there. There's only bread and vobla." "Vobla? What is that?" Lombardo asked, looking surprised. I explained it was a kind of fish. And that very same day there I was already employed unpacking boxes and helping to lay out their art works in a wooden stall on the Square. After that, right throughout the Fair, I acted as a sales assistant and spent my nights as a watchman in the shop. When the Fair finished, I packed away their goods, carried them onto the ship and checked them in for Nizhny Novgorod. We were sorry to be parting; so used had we got to working together that we had become friends. In the end the Italians invited me to the fair in Nizhny Novgorod. When I arrived, the Fair was not yet open. We carried the goods down, unpacked them and laid them out under the Main Building, in which Lombardo and Lucacini had taken a little shop in an annex to the right of the entrance, by the flag. Opposite was the Blok sewing machine shop; this same Blok later had a huge shop in Moscow on Myasnitskaya Street selling Fairbanks weights, bicycles and typewriters. Nowadays I do not remember whose shops were in that area. My attention was caught just by one sign that was diagonally across from us at the end of the gallery with haberdashery. In gold letters on a dark blue background we could clearly see the words Rochefort and Yemelyanov. I knew that Rochefort302 was a French revolutionary and little parts of his journal L'Intransigeant were lying alongside numbers of The Bell in the desk drawer of the exiled student Sasha Raznatovsky, who was an uncle of mine through my stepmother and with whom I shared a room in her house. Of course the word "Rochefort" caught my interest. It emerged that these were Moscow merchants from Taganka who were active in Cutlery Row. Yemelyanov's son was in their shop, a fair-haired young man about seventeen with a round puffy pink face and thick lips, that occasionally bore the traces of some sort of jam. Almost the whole time at the fair he would spend sitting on a stool in front of his little shop, always chewing something, whether it was halva or various delicacies from the Greek stall next door, or sometimes would run in to get a cake from Michel's confectionary at the exit from the Main Building. His neighbours had nicknamed him "Moon face" because of his fat face. He seemed to be no help at all in their business and had been put here by his father to keep an eye on their enterprise.

302 Henri Rochefort (1831-1913) founded L'Intransigeant in 1880. This Rochefort is Jean Rochefort, known in Russia as Yakov Petrovich, a major textile manufacturer. See also Chapter 39 314

Both father and son wore poddyovka coats, high boots and peaked caps and used to go out to a cheap eatery for their meals. They ate at the Fair as well as the richest people, mainly cold meat, and bought all sorts of delicacies from street traders. They used to make all their tea in brass kettles; boiling water would be brought from the tavern. Thus lived millionaires of the old school at the Fair, whose children, a quarter of a century later, developed to such an extent that they dazzled the whole world at the All-Russian Exhibition303 with their excessively lavish lifestyle. At the time in question, however, fathers and grandfathers came from their factories to the Fair in third-class railway carriages, did not patronize the buffets at halts along the way, instead taking out from a travelling sack a linen cloth containing bread, salt, eggs (hardboiled, naturally, so that they did not spoil) and making tea in their tea kettles there in the carriage. "Petushki Station – hot pies!" the conductor would go through the carriages and announce, receiving some free samples from the buffet car attendant for advertising the pies. Sometimes he would succeed in tempting some millionaire from the Taganka or Rogozhskaya districts of Moscow who would produce fifteen copecks from his purse and send his steward to buy three pies. "And, my dear fellow, make sure they're hot!" were the parting words of "himself". They would scrimp, cheat, deny themselves food, be ultra-thrifty, attempt to defraud, each according to his expertise: some would give false measure, others false weight, some would impose fines on their workers – anything to earn an extra copeck! They built up capital for their heirs, but their heirs did not leave the Fairground taverns, spending their times with girl singers, and breaking mirrors. And the old folk themselves sometimes went on the razzle. "Where's 'himself'?" a customer once asked an owner's agent in a warehouse. "He hasn't come out of Barbotenkov's tavern for three days." "You mean, he's being frisky?" "And how. But be so good as to put your order in... Even if he's not here, we will serve you only the best." The boss came back three days later looking as grim as thunder. His agent passed over the accounts and the money. They reported about the deals that had been put through, and "himself", even if he was hungover, could see immediately that they had tricked him. He could see it but he kept silent. However, in the end he could not stand it any more: "Well you've come the Pyotr Kirillov on me, Fedotych." "Excuse me, Mitrofan Savvich, would I really be so bold?" "All right then, just be quiet. But watch you don't let the cat out of the bag to my wife. She's getting ready to come here, but she's afraid that I may have drunk too much at the Jolly Nanny Goat. That's what she writes." "The Jolly Nanny Goat" was what they called the coat of arms of Nizhny Novgorod: a red stag with its horns tossed up high and its front leg raised up joyfully. Local artists depicted the stag in various ways and it always brought a smile to anyone seeing it: "The jo-o-lly nanny goat!" For merchants to make merry there were singers in the tavern who were in thrall to the landladies, and there were posh brothels into which from time to time they kept introducing ever more new slave girls delivered as living goods for sale. The rejects went to the Carousels. The Carousels were the haunt of such debauchery that could hardly exist at any other time or any other place than the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. The most suitable place had been chosen for it, separated from the Fair by two deep canals. One of these fell into Lake Meshcherskoye, the shore of which adjoined the Carousels; the other was bounded by a humid wasteland. The place was only separated from the Asiatic part

303 The 16th All-Russian Industrial and Artistic Exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod between June and October 1896. 315 of the Fair by two small bridges and a clapper bridge, while its fourth side gave way to a bog, overgrown with willow and head-high weeds. Officially this place was called Carousel Square and was designated for popular festivals but it was rare for a sober person to venture into this wolf's lair, which was full of rowdy drunkenness. On the other hand, the mass of humanity converging on the Fair from all points felt completely at home there. The workers from all the neighbouring river ports and warehouses along the Volga got there (they did not "walk" or "travel" but simply "got"); there was also a place for them to spend the night. Everyone came without fear because there was no police supervision of the river workers throughout this whole vast region, nor was there on the Carousel peninsula. The area with booths and carousels, known as samokaty, was surrounded by a row of stone or wooden, mainly one-storey buildings, intended to be used for drinking haunts or dens of thieves. They were all in the same style, only one might be richer and another one poorer, one more spacious, another less so. Half of the building might be taken up by a tavern and the rest by rooms to let. And they were all called samokaty. Milyutin's was the most enormous one, surrounded on three sides by a wide terrace. The rooms had doors that opened directly onto it. Strictly according to the law the area of the tavern should have been separate from the rooms to let; but in practice, after a few bribes, both these were regarded as one. One could not exist without the other, as it was simply a continuation of the first. The rooms were taken by women who were under the control of the owners. These were white slaves ̶ the most wretched beings in the world. According to a compulsory regulation, hotels had to display in obvious places boards with the names of those who were paying for each room. This regulation was very strictly observed. Here is an example of one such board: No.1 Yagorikha, No.2 Fyokla, No.3 Samovarikha, No.4 Gyokhma, No. 5 Anna, No.6 Beznosaya, No. 7 Madamikha. For each Yagorikha or Madamikha one could count several female slaves who were in thrall to them. They all had made-up names, and in any case not a single customer or anyone else ever called them by their name… They were just the individuals settled in those rooms, which were called the "Smithies". For each such room they would pay from forty to sixty roubles over the period of the Fair. The little rooms were separated by open-work screens and besides that each bed was separated from the next one by a short cotton curtain. Time in the Carousels passed every day like this: in the morning the women hung about round the Square and the taverns; exhausted, slovenly and half-drunk, they invited people walking past into their "smithies" or just asked them for money to overcome their hangover. From midday onwards introductions started in the little booths. The merry-go-rounds were swirling round, accordions struck up and from six in the evening all hell broke loose. From that time on the "girls" were in their "smithies" continuously until morning. Their doors would open just to let out one customer and let in the next one to replace him, as he had been waiting his turn outside the door… The terraces were usually crammed with these men "thirsting for love", who were sitting drunkenly on benches along the wall, waiting for their turn to come, dozing off and swearing at each other… But, as soon as noise or a scene broke out somewhere, two or three hefty great chuckers-out would appear, huge men of the most ferocious appearance, and after two or three blows everything would quieten down, while those who had caused the trouble were thrown out on their necks or carried out by the chuckers-out through the back door and deposited into the nettles on the waste land. And so it would go on today, tomorrow and right through the Fair until they boarded up the "smithies", after which the Carousels closed until next summer along with the taverns and "mills", the top one of which was considered to be that run by Kuznetsov. I used to go to the "mills", those supposedly secret gaming houses, and I have been at Milyutin's "carousel", in all those dens for thieves and robbers. I used to put on an old cap, high

316 boots and, to protect myself against any possible harm, I slid a knuckleduster into my pocket… However, usually everything went off safely, except for one case… The "mills" were the main haunt of every sort of criminal type, all possible kinds of thieves and robbers, including convicts who had escaped from Siberia. It was only here that they felt themselves to be free and on an equal footing with everyone, but they always finished up as victims of the card sharps. If they had not had the "mills", they would have felt like a fish out of the water and they stole, in effect, just so as to lose the money again. A thief, after committing a theft, would sell what he had stolen, and, without having had time to eat, would rush to the "mill". There he was free to do whatever he liked. In those days there were no patrols and there was no danger from Ludra, who was almost the only detective in the area. Robbers were not afraid of him ̶ he was just "one of them". In those times the Fair had a club and two "mills". One of them, Kuznetsov's, was open day and night, and the one in Kanavino during the day only. The club for the Fair, being a section of some sort of Nizhny club, was situated in the Caravanserai near the Carousels. On the right of the entrance one could pay an official five roubles for a season ticket to the club. Of course most of the tickets were issued without any chits or recommendations and carried the first made-up name that came into people's heads. Runaway convicts and thugs used to go into the club by showing a ticket that they had bought, and there they might meet the most respectable Muscovites who simply liked the thrill of a game of chance, as well as those Muscovites who frequented the clubs and the "mills", and the steamers as card sharps.. In the club they played mainly macao. As you went in, the clerk would change your banknotes for metal chips, each of which might be worth from one to ten roubles, and these made it easier to place your bets. Besides that, the players had in front of them piles of notes worth one hundred or twenty- five roubles. Penalty points started from one a.m. at twenty-five copecks and then mounted up so that by dawn they reached thirty-six roubles. Usually by two a.m., when the penalty started from two roubles, the tables would be deserted and there remained only two or three big tables with a turnover running into thousands. After two a.m. the public would leave the clubroom and crowd into the corridor to agree among themselves where to go on to without paying heavy fines, and in most cases they would spread themselves out round the rooms of the Caravanserai where the big Moscow card sharps were staying. Of course they fleeced everyone here and in every possible way. Big-time thieves and convicts on the run from Siberia preferred gambling in private rooms: in the club the game was macao, which they didn't understand, but here the game was shtoss – the only game they acknowledged. Shtoss was especially played at a "mill" in Kanavino, housed in a separate hall in the hotel, by the billiard room. This "mill" was hired from year to year by Moscow gamblers and it was chiefly owned by one of the regulars at the Crimea, a slum establishment on the Boulevard of Flowers in Moscow, one Alexander Ivanovich, known as Krymsky (the Crimean). No one knew his real name and moreover in these circles no one had any time for real forenames or surnames. Krymsky rarely held the bank himself, but always kept a share with each person who was acting as banker and took in ten per cent from each bank that changed hands, the so-called boss's money that went to pay for the premises and the insurance. When the Nizhny Novgorod Fair was open, the Moscow "mills" and the Grachevka dives were empty, since all the big names had come here, to what they still called the "Makaryev Fair".304 The only people that stayed were the bookies' runners and swindlers who would be playing at stukolka, faro and the three-card trick. The side streets leading to Grachevka Street, such as Sobolev Lane, or Fortepyany Lane as people called it, were also empty, since half the women living in these houses, with their glass lanterns jutting out on the first floor, had gone off to the Fair where old wares could be exchanged for new. This market in white slaves from

304 The orginal site of the Nizhny Novgorod fair was near the Makaryev monastery. It moved to Nizhny in 1816, but the original name stuck. 317

Moscow also took place in a dive of the first magnitude – Kuznetsov's dance-hall and in other slums near the Carousels. Muscovite wares were exchanged for much-used wares from the provinces, and both types of women spread infection, since there was no medical supervision of any kind or, indeed, any supervision at all. Kuznetsov's houses had a huge ballroom upstairs, and down below, cribs (known as "smithies") and the "mill". If one wanted to pass from the ballroom to the "mill" one had to go down into the yard. There had been a fire here in the 1860s and the yard had become overgrown with bushes and weeds, where formerly Kuznetsov's bear Kostolom (Bonebreaker) had been kept on a chain. In among the weeds they used to rob those who were drunk. They told stories about how they would give difficult customers over to the bear "for a bit of a wrestle". Just the mention of the word "bear" was enough to make sure that no unwanted guest ever appeared in Kuznetsov's lair. Kuznetsov's "mill" was looked after by the old soldier Selitro. He became friendly with the Moscow professional card players, who were known only by their nicknames: "Akhivarius", "Captain Zhevakin", "The Heron", "Paska", "Shalunok", "Lomonos", "Razdirshin", "The Barber", "Vasily the Dark" ̶ the so-called "Moscow Squad". They had the unusual privilege of holding the bank but "The Pike", "Fomushka", "The Deaf Man", Shalunok, and Baistryukov (who would later become a Moscow detective), along with other pickpockets and also the Asiatic stranglers, never had the right to deal and always had tribute exacted by the bankers. Some wretched thief might lose and ask the banker: "Give me three roubles till tomorrow!" "You'll manage somehow. You'd better go out stealing… You're a bad lot!" The bankers at the "mills" were living at the expense of the thieves who were staking their money. For the top professionals the main source of income were the Moscow merchants, like the discounter and passionate gambler Borisov, who lost thousands every night; he arrived with pockets full of hundred-rouble short-term bonds with the coupons cut long in advance.305 He did this out of stinginess, hoping to make three or four per cent on these coupons. He was targeted and, taking advantage of the fact that, as a result of his scrimping he had saved on paying penalties in the Club and had moved to the private rooms, where they no doubt fleeced him. But one Siberian merchant was relieved of several hundred thousand in the same Club during two fairs. Each time he was fleeced in the early hours, when the penalties were highest and only the big players were present – all of them shareholders in the bank: the Moscow squad. Sometimes the steamer captain Tikhomirov would come into the club in the early hours, but he did not stay for long. He would take out a bundle of hundred-rouble notes and, once he had lost those, would not turn to his pocket again but would go off somewhere to carouse. His system of gambling was as follows: he would approach the table: "How much is there in the bank?" "Two thousand." He would take out his wallet, full of money, and put it on the table. "That against the bank." When he lost, he paid up in silence. When he won, he took his money equally silently, and went. He never tried to recoup his losses, never bet on a second card. Naturally the bankers didn't like him because of this. Gambling for high stakes went on at the Fair. There were things there to warm the hearts of the thieving community. Apart from pickpockets, like Pockmarked Pashka, the Ryazan Pike, Baistryukov and Sonka Blüwstein, the famous "Sonka Golden Hand", card sharps and thieves congregated here not only from Moscow, Odessa and Warsaw but also from the East. One time around midnight I was going home to Kanavino from Kuznetsov's and fetched up in some sort of empty lane where there were neither guards nor dogs. There was no

305 Each coupon entitled the bearer to a premium of 2.50 roubles, paid twice yearly. Borisov hopes to make money by valuing them at three or four roubles. 318 moon that gloomy night. I sat down on the step of an empty stall to rest awhile, and I saw a man walking from the direction of the Carousels… He was humming in a carefree way:

It's to you my tale I'll tell, How the shooter took a stroll.306

Behind him two dark figures wearing pointed hats were stealing silently along with feline tread. These were exactly like the men I had seen half an hour ago at the "mill", where their daggers were flashing, as were their great dark eyes under their high, sharp-pointed sheepskin hats. I gripped the knuckleduster in my pocket and waited to see what would happen next. The tall man went on walking, humming quietly to himself. Suddenly one of the dark figures straightened up and waved one arm over his head ̶ and almost at the same moment the happy singer gave a yell and fell, measuring his great length on the ground. With two jumps both Asians leapt forward like cats pouncing on a mouse and fell to their knees beside him. In a flash I had jumped on them from behind, seized by their collars and shook them. Their hats rolled off their shaven heads. That made my task easier. They had not time to make a single movement or utter single sound before I banged their heads together and then threw the two men to the ground. They lay there quite still, possibly feigning, not making a sound, with their faces pushed into the ground. To make quite sure, I examined them again, but neither of them was moving at all. In the meantime the man they had wanted to rob or to kill had risen to his feet and begun to look around him; he was muttering something and trembling all over. I calmed him down by telling him what had happened and pointing to the robbers who were lying quite still. Only then did he come to his senses; he stood up, and, picking a sharp pointed hat off the ground, he gasped out almost inaudibly: "Those are Persian stranglers. We ought to finish them off. They’re just pretending, the swine. I know them only too well." He had taken a noose off his neck, quite a long fine lasso of hair, which he showed to me and began to thank me for saving him. He rolled up the lasso and thrust it into his pocket. Then he felt the Persians who were lying quite still and said: "It looks as though they're completely drunk. But more likely they're just pretending. We must take their daggers. Otherwise just watch out, they'll stab us in the back.” He took the dagger from one man and then the other. "We'll throw them in the canal." We were walking along beside stalls that were closed up. He leant on my arm, made as if to speak more than once, but immediately clutched his throat and was silent. We didn't meet a single person along our road. Now here was the canal, which had narrow clapper bridges across it, leading to the only building that was lit up, the caravanserai. Half way across he stopped, leant on the rails and threw a dagger into the water. I did the same. "Well, now it's all right, I’ve had time to get over it," he said in a hoarse voice. "I was coming from the 'mill'. I'd won about two thousand roubles… But these Phansigurs followed me…" And he again started thanking me. I suggested going with him to where he lived. "I'm almost home. I've taken a room here in the Caravanserai."

306 From a song popular in Moscow in the 1870s and entitled Strelok. It is mentioned three times in the works of Chekhov (who calls it Strelochek) and is apparently of Czech origin. 319

He pulled a thick wad of hundred-rouble notes out of a side pocket, opened them up and handed them to me. "Do take as many as you need. Please, don't be embarrassed. After all if it hadn't been for you…" I refused outright . At the entrance to the Caravanserai we parted as experienced individuals should, that is without even asking each other's name and patronymic. I started off along the embankment towards the Main Building, in order to get to my own apartment in Kanavino at the far side of the Fair. That area too had quite a lot of individual dens of vice, whereas the Carousels were wholesale debauchery. I was walking along and thinking: "I'm sure I must have seen him somewhere." Later on at Kuznetsov's "mill", they pointed out to me the ataman himself of a gang of stranglers while the following scene was going on: There was a large room with several tables each of which had two chairs, for the banker and his assistant, who helped him count the stakes. Around each table were the same gamblers that had been in the Kanavino "mill"; they had migrated here for the night and formed up in a solid block consisting of two or three rows. This meant that those at the back placed their bets over the heads of those in front and many of them, mainly the Asiatics, were not trusted. All you could hear were the banker's calls: "How much are you staking, Akhmet?" "Which is your card, my vizier?" "Twe' roubles. My card wins." The eight won and the banker's assistant moved twelve roubles towards Akhmet. "Why twelve? We staked twenty." A huge figure intervened in the argument. It had a hooked nose and black protuberant eyes. This was the terror of the "mill", someone known to everyone at the time, the ataman of the stranglers, Ali-Ber. He at once ended the argument with a single gesture. No one sought to contradict him. His word was law. Needless to say he always operated in favour of the banker and got his cut for so doing. Ali-Ber had been coming to the Fair with his band for many years. The police did not dare to touch him and the gaming houses paid protection money to him. The most sinister rumours circulated about him, but no one dared seize him. People were afraid of his terrifying appearance, his dagger in its gold sheath, the handle of which he grabbed, his eyes flashing, at every opportune moment. Higher authorities in general tried not to deal with the slummy side of the Fair. The person who saved the Fair from Ali-Ber and his gang was the steamer Captain Tikhomirov. One night he came into Kuznetsov's rooms where his friends the merchants were playing cards. They were playing for really high stakes. Ali-Ber appeared unexpectedly with two of his sidekicks and as usual demanded his cut. There was an argument. Ali-Ber made to draw his dagger out of its sheath and his eyes flashed menacingly. Tikhomirov, as usual not completely sober and not joining in the game, walked quite quietly over to him and, without saying a word, gave him a blow on the ear with his great heavy fist. Ali-Ber fell to the floor like a sheaf of corn. There was tremendous confusion… Everyone had jumped to their feet. The sidekicks would have rushed out of the door but the servants caught them in the corridor. In the end they were all tied up. The police appeared and when they searched them they found each one had a hair lasso in his pocket, including Ali-Ber, who by that time had come to his senses. From then on there were no more stranglers at the Fair and Tikhomirov went back to his races against the Samolyot. I got to hear about that daring Captain Tikhomirov many years later from one of my friends on the stage, the provincial actor K.V. Zagorsky.

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At the end of the 1890s he was living in Moscow with his family, in the Petrovsko- Razumovskaya District. They often came to visit me and we used to remember the old days in the theatre. Zagorsky was a Muscovite, born and bred, a friend since childhood of Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky with whom he later served in one of the courts that existed in Moscow before the reform, not exactly the Conscience Court307 nor yet the Board of Police. He also knew some of the people from whom the famous dramatist had drawn features of his characters. He once asked me: "You've seen Without a Dowry,308 of course." "I have and I haven't. Once I saw bits of it from the wings. I can't remember either the plot or the characters, except one Paratov, and that only because he was played by Dalmatov. A few words have stuck in my memory which Dalmatov positively yelled, quite beside himself, but I think Paratov was a sailor judging by those words… "Well, well, go on!" Zagorsky interrupted me. "'Stoke the boiler, stoke it up. In with fat. In with ham!' That, my dear Kostya is what I remember of Without a Dowry." "Well, now you'll understand how Alexander Nikolayevich created his lifelike characters." Once Ostrovsky took Zagorsky on a trip along the Volga. They went as far as Yaroslavl by train, where they boarded the steamer Belisarius. Zagorsky portrayed Tikhomirov very vividly – a strapping fellow of martial appearance, moustachioed, with a captain's cap with gold braid, more like either Cornet Otletayev309 or a bandit ataman, but nothing like a merchant. "Tikhomirov flew up onto the bridge, waved the captain aside, stood in his place and took over command at the very moment when the ship had just turned downriver. 'Full speed ahead !' his voice thundered. In front of us the Samolyot boat was making smoke, having only just left the quayside. I was sitting on the bridge near the pilot, along with Alexander Nikolayevich and three distinguished passengers. 'More steam!' shouted Tikhomirov. The grey-bearded Captain was wearing a poddyovka coat. Standing alongside Tikhomirov, he pulled a bottle of brandy out of his pocket and a silver tot measure of considerable proportions. He poured out a full tot and presented it to the Commander. He drank it, gave a grunt of approval and then bellowed into the voice pipe: 'Full steam ahead!' The steamer shivered and shook, as its paddle wheels drummed the blades ever faster into the water. We were getting closer and closer to the Samolyot boat. We could already read the gold lettering Lyogky over its paddle wheels… Now we could see the design on its flag and how the commander's eyes were sparkling with demented happiness. He was completely absorbed by the race between our ships. Lyogky had also picked up speed, thrashing its paddle wheels round faster and faster. 'More steam!' our captain bellowed into the voice pipe. He was paying no attention to anyone except his opponent. He spoke only these words in turn "Stoke the boiler!" and 'More steam!'. And from time to time we could see the silver goblet in his hand. All the passengers were getting anxious. I was too. Ostrovsky's eyes were gleaming with a carefree sportsman's eagerness and he kept reassuring me:

307 Established in 1775, ostensibly to implement the principles of Natural justice e.g. in cases of minors accused of crimes. 308 First staged 1878. 309 A story, published in 1856, by Grigory Vasilyevich Kugushev (1824-71).

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'He's always like this! We'll catch up in a minute and then we'll be going along at our usual speed.' People had crowded onto the bows and up to the rails of our ship. Some people were scared, and others were shouting encouragement… Most of them had a mad daring in their eyes, such as we can see at trotting races, flat races or cockfights. 'Fat!' 'himself' signalled with his eyes, and, being a former pilot disappeared below decks. 'They've used up the fat. He says there's some hams left.' The captain came back up. 'Put the hams in the boiler.' And another command down the voice pipe: 'Stoke the boiler! Faster! More steam!' After half an hour at this furious speed we had caught up with the Lyogky and we were beginning to overtake her. Her captain on the bridge was wearing his white uniform coat and was surrounded by passengers, among them some elegant ladies. He was threatening us with his fist and shouting something, no doubt abusive. Tikhomirov snatched the bottle away from the pilot, drank the rest of the brandy from its neck, threw it into the water and shouted through the loudhailer: 'Goodbye for now!' and down the voice pipe: 'Stoke the boiler!..' Then later, as our stern was passing the bows of the other ship, he bared his backside and showed it to his defeated rival. One of the old gamblers had in his youth been about the Volga and Nizhny Novgorod and knew both Ali-Ber and Tikhomirov and he told me how the latter came to his end: 'It was a long time ago. I can't say for certain what year, but I remember that it was before the war with Turkey started in 1877. In Yaroslavl three of us, all good friends, went aboard that ship, the Khrabry. In those days she was the liveliest Samolyot steamer on the upper reaches of the river. We had arranged a game of stukolka, but we just did not get around to playing. Almost at the same time as us Belisarius had cast off from the quay, and we started a race. We would not yield, nor would the other ship… What gambling there was! Everyone rushed out on deck. As always happened betting started with two of the rival tobacco bosses. Dunyayev staked money on our Khrabry and Vakhrameyev bet on Belisarius. Everyone on board was playing, some for money, others for a bottle of wine, or even for two glasses of tea. I myself staked a hundred roubles on Belisarius, which was now pressing close in our wake and therefore I was sure I would win. We had come near to Nikolo-Babaiki. There was the monastery visible in the distance. Belisarius had gained on us greatly. We could already see Tikhomirov himself. Every so often he would bend over to the voice pipe and give orders to the engine room. And our captain also was shouting to stokehold from time to time: 'Faster, faster…' Belisarius was coming much closer. Another minute and she'd be first into the quay. Everyone fell silent. Suddenly… It's terrible to remember… There was a terrible explosion… And he went on to describe the terrible scene. The central section of the ship all flew up into the air along with the captain's bridge. People started to throw themselves into the water from the fo'c'sle and the stern. They were drowning. We lowered a boat to save them. Fishing boats came out to help. According to the timetable our Samolyot boat was due to leave in half an hour." "Later on," he finished his story, "I learned that about fifty people were buried in the cemetery of the monastery, including the man who had brought about his own death and the general tragedy, the captain of the Belisarius."

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Of Ali-Ber, the ataman of the stranglers, whose activities had been curtailed by one blow from Tikhomirov, the Eastern merchants at the Fair said that, the year following the demise of the captain, fleeing from the Russian authorities, he had been publicly beheaded in the East. Thus, within one year, two colourful figures of the "Jolly Nanny Goat" dens of vice, met their end.

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41 Rasplyuyev's Pupil

In the world of Moscow card sharps, who rarely visited the theatre because they were always occupied with card playing, only one play merited attention: Krechinsky's Wedding, which was indeed very close to their heart. They had their own Krechinsky and their own Rasplyuyev. "Yesterday it was Krechinsky who held the bank." And everyone knew that they were talking about that old gambler, Popov the Dandy. "Rasplyuyev has cheated… They broke his pince-nez." And everyone knew that it was Nikolai Nazarovich Rasplyuyev who had cheated. But nobody knew who he was, where he had come from or what his real name was. Perhaps the only person who knew all that was Vasily Morozovich Tyomny, since more than once they had met, travelled a stage together to Tambov to establish their identity and had come back from there to Moscow with no trouble at all. It is well known that Vasily Morozovich Tyomny was in fact the tradesman Vasily Morozov. In the world of card sharps they worked in the Moscow gaming houses, at trade fairs, on the railways and on steamers.They only ever worked together. They made a good pair: Rasplyuyev always clean-shaven, with his moustache clipped in and his hair modishly coiffed, with his inevitable gold pince-nez, carried himself like a real aristocrat, while Tyomny, in his long frock coat, elegant polished boots and cap set at a rakish angle, looked like a rich merchant from the provinces or a kulak peasant-landowner. Taken overall he cut a bold figure, like an ataman. Both friends turned out to be card sharps of the highest class. It was said that they were bound together by some sort of secret. Vasily Morozovich in his own circle was called by the name of the character from Krechinsky’s Wedding ̶ the merchant Shchebnev, who in the play was always repeating the phrase "Pay up, sir".310 That was Tyomny's favourite phrase when he was holding the bank ̶ he never dealt without money and, when he beat a card, he would at once demand: "Pay up, sir." That was why they nicknamed him Shchebnev. I remember well how on the journey from Kozlov311 to Moscow they took twelve thousand roubles from the rich Muscovite Sergei Gubonin. Talking about this to friends in the club who were trying to prove he had fallen among card sharps, Gubonin assured them: "Excuse me, it couldn't be like that… To look at his clothes you would think he was a merchant. His name seemed well known, Shchebnev, and travelling with him there was the gentleman with the golden pince-nez. He also was out of pocket." He realized his mistake when they showed him the poster advertising Krechinsky’s Wedding, for among the dramatis personae he could see the "Merchant Shchebnev". They used to call Popov Krechinsky, but never aloud or to his face. They were afraid: "He broke Lomonosov's ribs for calling him Krechinsky." And Lomonosov was considered to be the toughest of all with his fists. The card sharps both feared and admired Popov as a great expert in his own business, as someone who was modest and always kept his word. He used to dress well, even keeping up appearances when he was visiting the filthiest gambling dens, wearing a black suit from the best tailor (Sizhe was his exclusive supplier).Tall and well-built, he never raised his voice, although he knew only too well his great physical strength. All he had to do was to raise silently his large, well-manicured hand (he even went to bed with gloves on) and all noise would cease even round a table where

310 See Act2 Scene 6 of the play. 311 Now known as Michurinsk. 324 convicts were sitting. Krechinsky's ways were those of a master, just as Kiselevsky used to play such roles in Korsh's theatre. They had been adopted by him down to the finest detail, only he was not wearing side whiskers, which would have been de rigueur for Krechinsky in any theatre, but thin, fine whiskers that were beautifully trimmed. He was the first to see through every new trick of the card sharps and had devised several tricks himself. He didn't like to appear in public and didn't play in clubs, at weddings or balls in Moscow. Instead he went off to out-of-the-way towns, where he was not known, especially in Siberia. He also gambled on steamers for old times' sake. In Moscow his speciality was holding the bank in the "mills" only in the company of card sharps and representatives of the criminal fraternity, and fleecing them through sleight of hand and innovatory trickery… And no one ever caught him. In Moscow he occupied a small comfortable apartment where he lived with his old mother and his common-law wife, a good-looking Estonian girl. Hearing that some Moscow gamblers had fleeced someone of a large sum of money, he set up an evening's gambling at his home, where no one was admitted except the finest quality card sharps, and he completely outplayed them with a new trick that he had devised specially for such an occurrence. Later the trick was rumbled and used quite widely, but none of the men outplayed by Popov took against him; indeed, once they knew the secret, these same card sharps used it themselves in their own game. "Gambling against him is like trying to lick honey off a razor!" That was what the most experienced players said; however, any time he invited them for a evening, they came to him like cockroaches swarming over bread. Popov could deal the cards so elegantly. He would deftly tear the wrapper off the pack, but it had already been switched in front of everyone without them seeing. He would begin to shuffle the cards, mixing them through and through, although they always finished in the same order as they had been in the first place. He would give the pack to someone to cut. However, cutting them did not lead to anything. A deft movement of hands and the cards would be back where he had worked out in advance. The game was ready to start. They either staked real cash or those who were permitted might mark up their stake with chalk. He would survey the table with his eagle eye, which really was as sharp as an eagle, and immediately he would take everything in: which cards had large stakes on them and which had less and whether the chalk-marked stakes were accurate. "What've you got written there? Five or three? Three? Then extend its tail to the right. From here it looked like five." "And what does this mark mean – double up or quadruple up?" "Double up." "Your chalk has split and is making two marks. It's come out as quadruple up." "The deal has started!" Mechanically, accurately and steadily the cards fell to right and left. After each deal Popov surveyed the table and quietly drew the top card. After the ace came winning hearts. One winning heart – the nine ̶ had already been played so, according to the theory of probability, the ten, lying beneath the ace, would be played. A huge bet, bundles of hundred-rouble notes, was placed on the ten… Popov removed the ace, but beneath it was not the ten but the jack… The ten which followed was a losing card. Everyone guessed that there had been a switch, but no one saw it.

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That was the Muscovite Krechinsky in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I became acquainted with Popov himself in Yaroslavl in 1874 and a year after that I saved his life at the Nizhny Novgorod fair by freeing him from men who were bent on throttling him. In the first half of the 1880s I met him in Moscow in the billiard room of the Hermitage restaurant, where sometimes they played for high stakes, but generally there were not many people there, because they would not let in every Tom, Dick and Harry. As I was passing through, I happened to look into the billiard room to watch a game. One table was standing empty, but, behind the curtains that had been let down in the next room, there was a tall dandy playing with the marker ̶ and he was playing beautifully. I sat down on the divan at the very moment when, bending low over the table, the dandy threw a quick glance at me and finished the game in the most brilliant way by sinking the last two balls with a flourish. "No, Nikolai Vasilyevich, I just cannot play with you on equal terms… Perhaps if you give me a ten points start… Otherwise it's not on." "Well, all right, Alexei, that's enough for the time being. Here's what I owe you for the game. There's change on that. The dandy threw five roubles onto the billiard table. "Leave the balls on the table … I'll pay for the table. Off you go upstairs and tell Marius to send me down some Sauternes and a vintage Brie." I looked at him and remembered that night… The empty Square … Two figures stalking a tall man … The hair noose of the stranglers. And now here he was again in front of me… Having washed his hands after the game, he came up to me. "Excuse my approaching you thus. But if you had not been there at that moment then this would not have happened. Have you recognized me? I am Popov, Nikolai Vasilyevich. Do you remember me?" "I knew you at once, Nikolai Vasilyevich. I'm very glad to see you again." "Well, as for being glad, then you ought to know… Perhaps you are glad because you don't know the full story… But I must tell you it all. Do kindly take a glass of wine with me. It is a fine drink, bought in France by Olivier himself. After all Olivier was a gambler in the old days." Just at this moment Alexei himself came in… A waiter in a white shirt brought in wine and cheese. "Another glass, Alexei! Bring it in yourself. Please do come over here," said Popov inviting me to the table. "With pleasure!" And we did drink really excellent Sauternes. Popov had already met me more than once in Moscow before this but was shy about approaching me and I simply did not recognize him, had forgotten him. He had read almost everything that I had written and was surprised it was me writing, that same fellow who in Nizhny had been walking about in high boots and a cap. He acknowledged that he had remained the same sort of professional gambler as he had been before, but was somewhat better at it. "If you get to know the gamblers, or ask Alexei here, they will tell you a great deal about me ̶ and everything they say is reliable. They will say that I am a card sharp ̶ you should believe them… That is why I don't come up to you and don't force my friendship on you. In fact I don't stay any where, except at the 'mills'. That is just why today I've been holding the bank at Vaska Pavlovsky's on Great Dmitrovka, and yesterday I was at Vyun's gambling den on Grachevka… Those are the only places I go to. Sometimes I do come here to have a game of billiards with Alexei. But I never play for money at billiards. In general I try not to make new acquaintances unless I have to… and to be seen in public as little as possible. Otherwise I would be coming into the billiard room and all around everyone would start whispering: 'Krechinsky has come in.' Well, do you understand now who I am?.."

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We were drinking the wine and he opened up his heart, thanked me for saving his life, and got me to promise not to recognize him if we chanced to meet, and not to approach him. "Just allow me to approach you sometimes… I know when it will be possible…" In the end we played a game of billiards and I, good player that I was, remained stuck on fifty points when he finished the game with a double. "You play well," he said and we parted. In the course of the next three years we met about three times. Once, at my urgent insistence, he told me the password for the smart "mill" of Orlovsky the Heron, where I saw the famous name Popov. Of course I gave no indication that we were acquainted. Then I didn't see him for ten years and even forgot he existed, so preoccupied was I with my own work and frequent excursions outside Moscow. Once, in 1912, I sat down on a bench in Naryshkin Square and, having glanced through the newspaper, was just about to get up when a tall old man with a bushy grey beard sank down on the bench beside me. He was wearing a tattered overcoat and a faded felt hat. "Vladimir Alexeyevich, I've approached you myself now. Have you recognised me? Popov. May I sit with you?" "Please, I'm glad to see you, Nikolai Vasilyevich." "Now I can see by your eyes that apparently you are glad to see me… I can see that you are sorry for me… Well, am I not right?" "You have got older, Nikolai Vasilyevich." "Yes, now I am Nikolai Vasilyevich Popov again, and now looking not so much like Krechinsky but like Rasplyuyev after he has been worked over by Dokuchayev."312 "Not to worry, that's something that can be put right," I reassured him. The old man sighed and pointed across the boulevard with his hand that was still soft and white as ever: "Do you see that little house? And the coat of arms on top of it?" "Yes, I can see it." "In former times that house used to belong to the man who invented the name Krechinsky ̶ Sukhovo-Kobylin. All our old gamblers know that. After all, for us gamblers our favourite play is still Krechinsky's Wedding. Well, I happen to have heard about its author more than once and people pointed out that house to me. There was a great deal of talk. Old man Shelye knew Sukhovo-Kobylin personally. After the killing he was with him in jug on Tverskaya Street. Shelye may have been a card sharp but he came from a good family, so, with that in view, they did not put him in a cell but in the guardhouse, in his own room. It was a warm day. The sun was scorching hot. "It's good to be in the sun. That is one pleasure I still have ̶ the sunlight. I come here every day to warm up my bones." We went on talking together. "I've been in a bad way for the last ten years or so… I've taken refuge in this little room…" I managed to persuade the old man to come in and have dinner with me. I almost had to persuade him by main force. After dinner I besought him, and had great difficulty in doing so, to take money to buy an overcoat and shoes. Then I noted down his address: the corner of the Garden Street and Carriage Row.

312 See Act 2 Scene 8. Dokuchaev never actually appears in the play.

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Two or three days later I called in to see him. He was living in a damp wing in the yard. His little room was gloomy and run down. Popov himself was smartly dressed, with his hair well cut, and was wearing a good overcoat. He was eating a kalach and drinking tea from a mug and a tin teapot. I took him off to my place to have dinner and he got on well with my folk. I passed him off as an old friend from my younger days. Some two weeks later we invited him to spend the summer at our dacha. Over the summer the old man got better, got his colour back and was pleased with everything… Everything, above all the sun. All my family came to like him. He used to take his main meal with us, but had a room to himself in a separate wing of the house. "This is the first time in my life that I have been happy, because nobody knows me here. What is best is what is best forgotten." Popov did not go into Moscow but he stayed for the winter, living on in that wing, until later, in the depths of the cold weather, he went to a house in a nearby village and stayed put there. During the summer he ate with us and in the winter I used to send him food from the city. We got on well together… When everyone was around at home we had one sort of talk, but, when just the two of us were walking in the woods or I went into his room, we talked quite differently: we were remembering the old days… "For ten years I was very poor before I came to this paradise. First of all my mother died; she remained so kind even into her old age, and after her there was my Emmochka. We were together for thirty years without getting married, her husband still being alive in Reval.313 But then without them everything went wrong: I took against life and, even more strangely, I took against games of cards ̶ that game which I had so loved before …" Nikolai Vasilyevich always had one or two packs of cards lying on the table beside him, and while he was talking they were never out of his hands. "I took against everything… I didn't even want to play cards… I was at a low ebb…" He had his own sort of professional pride in his skill as a card sharp and that used to appear sometimes when he was talking. He would become inspired. His fine dark eyes would start to shine and in his hands the cards seemed to be jumping, spinning round, crackling and soughing like the wind… "Can you really call these people card players nowadays? Toe rags, riff-raff!.. There used to be some skill in it, but what is there now? What skill is there in dealing a preprepared, doctored pack? And any fool can slip it in to ten packs of chemmy… You don't need a brain or any special skill. Any clot can deal like that. But in the old days you had to get it just right, marking, arranging, shuffling it all thoroughly." He spread the cards out in a fan, shuffled them again, and all the cards turned out in the same, but reverse, order. "Then how many ways there are of giving the bank the edge ̶ you had to know every single one. There were 'clean sweeps' for the bank and 'nine-deal' banks, the latter when nine out of thirteen cards were losers; a 'clean sweep' was when all cards were losers, one after the other." Then he would hold the whole pack in his hand and show me the most striking things, doing elusive undershuffles before my very eyes, juggling the cards so no one could notice. He shuffled the cards so they went right through and came out in the same order as they had been originally. "Look, that is a real art!" I was watching the wonders his hands could work and simply could not grasp how he did it.

313 Now Tallinn, capital of Estonia.

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"Well you see the whole winter I had nothing to do except play cards. If I didn't have cards in my hands for a week, that was it Do you remember Krechinsky's Wedding ? Mikhail Vasilyevich Krechinsky was very clever at that sort of thing, but he started meddling in something that was not his business. He went in for fraud, switched valuables for pins like the most wretched cheat and came to grief. Don't try meddling in other people's affairs!" "But that's just in a play", I objected. "No, in real life. A different name but he himself was living with us in Yaroslavl. He was known as Count Krasinsky and was treated with respect, although later it turned out that he wasn't a count at all but just a speculator from Warsaw and a card sharp, a minor Polish aristocrat, Krysiński. Apparently he had changed just one letter in his passport…" "And you knew him in Yaroslavl? " "No, at that time I was still just a boy, but the man who taught me gambling, Yelisei Antonovich, had been working with him. That was who Sukhovo-Kobylin used as a model for Rasplyuyev, and Krechinsky's character he also drew from real life, from the Count. He had been expelled from Petersburg to Yaroslavl after trying to change his passport and that was where he became friendly with Yelisei Antonovich ̶ I can't remember his surname ̶ he was either from the priesthood or a minor civil service family. That was all information that I picked many years later. They were living in Yaroslavl, and the two of them would start out to find who they could exploit, going round trade fairs, various towns and country houses, making money from the local landowners. Later on we found out that the Count was not real, but as is said in Krechinsky's Wedding, 'He had been granted the title by the King of Spades'".314 I sometimes used to listen to Popov for hours at a time, as he was engrossed in his memories. I took out my notebook and began to write it all down. "No, please don't do that," he begged. "I'd be better to do that myself. I've nothing to do in the winter, so I'll write my whole life out from my childhood on, everything that I have seen and everyone I have known… And after that you take from there, whatever you need, and print it. I have no relatives. There's no one to be offended by what I say. Print it as it stands with my full name… Perhaps you may even find someone who remembers me with kind feelings ̶ after all I have encountered all sorts of things in life." All the same I wrote down and stored in my memory much of what Nikolai Vasilyevich had said. That went on for three summers. Then the war started and after that the Revolution; the old man was still living in the village and from time to time he would send me parcels with manuscripts on sheets of graph paper that I had left for him. Finally in 1919 he himself brought me the last manuscript with the title Confessions of a Card Sharp, and a year later he died from typhus. His manuscript started like this: "Each individual has his own book of life. I too have that sort of little book which is asking to be set free as a confession. At the beginning of the book there are dark passages that I haven't the strength to remove ̶ my pride would suffer too much… For a long time I could not overcome it, but all the same I have overcome it…" From Popov's notes, and from the stories he told me when we were talking at our dacha, it was made clear how he had become a card player. Nikolai Vasilyevich's father, a tanner, died when the boy was about ten years old. Somewhere on the outskirts of Yaroslavl they had a little house with a garden and a vegetable plot. Their gates gave onto an unpaved street and above the gates hung a little board with a bucket depicted on it. The next house was just as small but had a big garden including a large orchard and fruit garden; its board had an oven fork on it. The board at the next house was just the same height and showed a mop. That meant that for any fire the house owners should appear with their designated things: Popov's mother with a bucket and the carpenter with a mop.

314 A reference to Act 2 Scene 15 of the play.

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"My mother at that time was still quite young. She had lost her husband early, but she did not marry anyone else and never left me for the rest of her life. She died as an old woman in Moscow, with me caring for her. However we lived on our own in Yaroslavl, on the crumbs left by my father and the income from the kitchen garden. My mother had no friends, only neighbours. Kudimych and his wife, both elderly but hale and hearty, often came to see us. They had no children but a certain Plakida lived with them; he owned a billiard hall in the Russian Feast, a tavern opposite the Nikolo-Mokrinskaya barracks. I learned this much later, but in the first years of my orphanhood I did not understand what on earth a billiard hall was. Kudimych's surname was Ankudinov; that's what was written under the oven fork. However, everyone called him Kudimych. Or else, behind his back, they called him "The Cow". In the winter he travelled round the fairs; in summer he travelled up and down the Volga, trading in something or other, so it was said, but in our town he did nothing. He stayed at home and occasionally went visiting. At home Kudimych always went about in old shoes and a cotton shirt but when he went out visiting, he would put on a velvet waistcoat, a long tradesman's coat and boots with ruffled tops, which, incidentally, he polished with wax so much that they shone like mirrors. He was a dandy, despite his advanced years… He and his wife were very fond of me and would give me sweets and fruit from their garden. When I grew up somewhat, Kudimych, or his wife, or sometimes Plakida, began sending me to the shop or the wine merchant's to buy wine and beer when they had guests. The most frequent of their visitors was Yelisei Antonovich. He dressed like a member of the gentry, carried a watch and wore his trousers outside his boots. He was grey-haired but dyed his whiskers and was tall, stout, stooping and imposing to look at." As he told me about him, Popov added that even now his spitting image was walking about Moscow, a man known to everyone as a liberal and a benefactor but in actual fact a card sharp and a discounter who had ruined many. "Up to the age of fourteen I was educated in a provincial school but then I dropped out of education. In Kudimych's garden there was a summer house with windows, and he often used to sit there with Yelisei Antonovich, the two of them playing cards. Sometimes Plakida also would join in with them. They would send me to get wine and nibbles. Sometimes Yelisei Antonovich would write a note to the fishmonger or the wine merchant and send me; he was held in high esteem by the shop and they would always sell him the best sturgeon and the best caviar… Then they would drink, gamble, or else practise stacking the deck. Once, when I was already fifteen years old, I dropped into the summer house and Kudimych shooed me off home: 'Buzz off, this is none of your business!' But Yelisei Antonovich stopped me and began to demonstrate various tricks and to teach me how to do them. 'Watch out, Kudimych, he's going to be a smart one all right, just look at what hands he has.' So, my fate was decided by my big white hands. When Yelisei Antonovich wasn't there, Kudimych taught me, and then Plakida would call me into his billiard room where there were various games besides billiards: such as bagatelle, wheel of fortune and roulette while next door people were cutting cards for money night and day. Yelisei Antonovich made me do all sorts of things with cards, teaching me one new trick after another and saying to Kudimych every time:: 'We will get sense out of this young man. He has skilled hands and he's not a fool.' In the billiard room at Plakida's I soon became my own master, and at the age of sixteen I could play with complete assurance, stack the deck, do sleight of hand, force cards and do all kinds of false shuffles ̶ everything the gambler, or card sharp, needs. I should thank mainly Yelisei Antonovich for my success; he was greatly superior to both Plakida and Kudimych."

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Popov's memoirs continue with a description of all a card sharp's adventures. He also describes gambling dens, gaming on river steamers and leading card sharps. However, I would have to devote a special sketch to that, but for now I'm just going to tell you about Rasplyuyev's death. He was not called Rasplyuyev by any of the gamblers, even though many people knew that Sukhovo-Kobylin based Rasplyuyev on him. Popov learned about Krechinsky's Wedding and about Krechinsky and Rasplyuyev many years after the time when, as an eighteen-year-old, he travelled with card sharps on steamers during the summer hoping to relieve passengers of their money. "As I was coming back with Kudimych from one of those trips," he told me, "we found out from Plakida that the actor Yegor Bystrov, who was in those days a well-known billiard player, had caught Yelisei Antonovich cheating and so beat him up that he was brought home more dead than alive. Plakida had been present at the time. It happened in the billiard room of the Stolby tavern. Bystrov was playing for a large stake against the well-known marker Yashka Dominik, who kept his own billiard room in Lysenkov's tavern on Sennaya Square and went to play in the Stolby tavern because the stakes were higher there. Yashka acquired the nickname Dominik because he'd worked as a marker in the Restaurant Dominik in Petersburg. He was considered the main gambler there and was sent away to Yaroslavl for cheating. Yashka was a friend of Yelisei Antonovich and besides that he knew a 'count' in Petersburg… They were in the same set. Bystrov, who was by no means inferior to Yashka at billiards, was playing against him. There was a great crowd of people. Large stakes had been laid from both sides, players supporting Yashka and the general public, including many actors, supporting their own man Bystrov. A large sum had been placed on Yashka by Yelisei Antonovich who was his partner. He was sitting by the table and having a bite to eat. Next to his place lay the piece of chalk with which the players chalked their cue. The game was coming to an end… Everything depended on the last ball, and it was hanging over the pocket so that it would fall at the slightest touch. It was Bystrov's shot. He went up to the table and Yelisei Antonovich handed him the chalk. Bystrov took it, rubbed it on his cue and took aim ̶ and suddenly the ball got a kick and he missed the shot… His cue slipped over the ball which went off to the side. There was great commotion among the audience. Yashka immediately seized the cue and immediately sank the ball that had been hanging over the pocket. Accordingly, having won the game, he immediately took out of the pocket the money that had been staked there. But Bystrov immediately collected himself and, with his eyes flashing, he realised something and smelt the end of his cue. 'It's been greased,' he shouted, rushing to the table in a rage, while Yelisei Antonovich in the meantime was covering the chalk with a napkin. That was noticed by the people standing there. Bystrov took the chalk into his hands, smelt it and showed it to everyone: 'Just smell it. The chalk has been greased!' Then he hit Yelisei Antonovich in the face with all his might, and, as Yashka ran up, hit him over the head with the cue. The actors sprang to their feet and, following Bystrov, they began to attack Yelisei Antonovich, Yashka and anyone who thought to take their side. That had happened in the autumn, but Rasplyuyev died in the winter. Yashka Dominik went blind. That was the way my 'teacher' ended his journey through this world," Nikolai Vasilyevich concluded. "That's not news to me, Nikolai Vasilyevich! Besides, you have forgotten the actual ending… How the tragedian Volgin315 threw your teacher out of the window." The old man threw up his hands in amazement. "That is true, perfectly true! Only it was not Yashka who told me about it, but other people… When the fight started, somebody opened the window and shouted: 'Police!' Bystrov’s

315 A former room-mate of Giliarovsky, who figures in Chapter 7 of Theatre People. Also known as Volgin-Krechetov. 331 friend Volgin, who up to now had been sitting at the table in a drunken stupor, came to and, learning that Bystrov had been insulted, threw himself into the fray. They pointed out to him a fat man with a grey beard who had closed with Bystrov to wrestle with him. 'Get off,' he roared They all froze in terror before the huge figure with his fists raised. 'Is that the one?' Volgin jabbed his finger towards Yelisei Antonovich and, hearing that this was so, he clasped his arms round him and threw him out of the window like a puppy." Nikolai Vasilyevich was completely amazed when I told him that I had heard the same account from my fellow actor Dokuchayev. "How can that be? You mean the one mentioned in Krechinsky’s Wedding? I've heard about him, but I never managed to meet him anywhere. Some of our gamblers have seen him but I never have." I had amused the old man by telling him that I knew about Dokuchayev.316

316 Both Bystrov and the real-life Dokuchayev (Mikhail Pavlovich) are mentioned in Chapter 26 and at the end of Chapter 27. 332

42 Men with a "wolf permits"

It was the month of July. I was travelling down the Volga to the Astrakhan steppes to write up the plague, as my editor has told me to do. On my steamer there were rather dull lot of people – there was no one to talk to. And the whole way from Yaroslavl to Nizhny Novgorod there was only one person, or rather one "former person", who interested me, about whom I shall tell you now. Our boat stopped at Kineshma and loaded up. The gangplanks were taken up and we started to cast off. While we were loading up, I had found I could not help observing just one person. He was a wiry young man, barefoot, in tattered clothes and with a knapsack on his back, out of which dangled a tin kettle. He was standing in a particularly calm way at the edge of the wharf, not showing the slightest interest in the people who were bustling round him. His haggard face was tanned quite dark, while his neck was swollen on both sides with two huge lumps running from his ears down to his shoulders. As soon as they had taken in the gangplanks and the ship started to move, still with the same totally calm face, he made a jump and landed on the steamer and a moment later he was sitting just as calmly on a bench alongside an old pilgrim woman. I sat down beside him and opened my snuffbox. "Help yourself." The young wanderer sniffed and sneezed and admired the snuffbox. "Niello. And first-class gilding inside. And what hinges! My uncle is a silversmith, that's how I know." "But what is wrong with your neck?" "It's been like that for a long time. I got cold and it's just stayed like that. But it doesn't inconvenience me" "Where are you from?" I asked. "From Rostov Veliky-Yaroslavsky." "And are you going far?" "Until they put me off the ship. Somewhere in the area of Astrakhan. I've forgotten which town. I'll just have a look." From a piece of rag he pulled out a bit of paper out, looked at it and said: "I'm going to Yenotayevsk. They dreamed up that little town. You'd break your tongue trying to pronounce it. Yenotayevsk, worse luck to the place…" So we went on and got talking. He turned out to be a type I've met before: a man with a wolf permit. "Well, that's the kind of papers they fixed me up with, saying just put up with them for the rest of your life. Just keep moving; work for a day and don't settle down anywhere. Either rob or steal or die if they won't give you something for the love of Christ. Here it is, a real wolf passport. Just have a look at it." And he handed me a printed document with a seal attached. It was a permit, but not a residence permit, being rather a document allowing him to move on every day, permission to be a tramp, a wolf permit allowing anyone who checked it to drive him out of their home, out of that area, out of that town. I copied out that document and I now can quote it to you word for word: "This travel permit, issued by Rostov Police Department, Yaroslavl Province, gives leave to the tradesman, exiled by administrative order from Petersburg, Alexei Grigoryevich Petrov, to pass freely from the town of Yenotayevsk in Astrakhan Province for a predetermined distance, but neither to settle down or stop with this document, except for overnight stays along his route, and when he arrives in the town of Yenotayevsk, he must appear at their local police headquarters and present this travel permit."

333

There followed a signature that it was impossible to read like all signatures on documents. I handed back his permission to be a tramp and asked: "Why specially to Yenotayevsk?" "Well, he slaps down Yenotayevsk, worse luck." "What do you mean? Worse luck to Yenotayevsk?" "No, I mean worse luck to the official." "Which official?" "I mean the one in Rostov. They took us out of the police cells, and lined us all up in the office. Then he went off and left them to sort us out, who was to be sent where. One to Berdichev, the next one to Vologda, the third one to Maikop, the fourth to Mariupol. Then he had forgotten which town … He asked for the list, scanned it, then glanced at me and ordered: "Send him to Yenotayevsk." "And all the others, after looking through the index, he sent to towns with stranger and stranger names… He was a joker." "Why did they throw you out of Petersburg?" "Because of the porter. For some reason or other I didn't give him his tip for a couple of beers and he promised to pay me back. And that's just what he did. There were some disturbances at our factory. I was one of the people in the crowd and I really was not making any noise, but I just got into trouble…When they were starting to arrest people, the porter remembered it was pay-back time and pointed me out. They've expelled me for eight years… I've been wandering around for four years and there are still four to go. A kind official from Kharkov Province wafted me into the Kola Peninsula. I had a lot to put up with. From Archangel I wandered over the tundra. I was given mules to put on my feet. From Kola the next leg of the march took me to Gorodishche in Penza Province, and from there to Rostov Veliky. I went via Kazan, along the Volga, through Nizhny Novgorod. I was in hospital in Kazan…" In Nizhny I stood on the deck and watched the disembarking passengers, whose tickets were being strictly checked by the captain. My tramp came up to me and complained that it was impossible to travel beyond Nizhny without paying, because there were stringent checks. And he made as if to go away. I took out five roubles and thrust them into his hand: "Buy a ticket and have a relaxed journey." He clenched his hand over the money and became embarrassed. He wanted to say something and clearly could not. Then he put his hand in his pocket, took out my snuff box shoved it into the pocket of my jacket, where I usually keep it and, without a backward glance, sprinted through the checkpoint, pushing aside a sailor, who nearly fell over… He immediately vanished… There was noise and a hullabaloo. Then everyone calmed down. He'd gone. And I can't fathom how, in the space of a minute, he had so deftly lifted my snuffbox from my pocket.

The story of my last ever wolf hunt is linked with the story of my snuffbox and this vagabond; I had loved the wolf hunt from my young days wandering through the steppe but it was something long forgotten. This hunt is for the Kalmyk and the Cossack because for it are needed a wolf, a horse and the steppe, as well as a special whip, a volchatnik. This differs from the normal Cossack whip in being half as long again and three times thicker, although, like them, it is made from thin strands of rawhide. Sometimes a piece of lead was added. That, however, was not absolutely necessary – even without the lead the blow from such a whip was fearful; when delivered from horseback, at the gallop, it could shatter the wolf's skull or break its back. For decades this whip, my old companion on hunting trips, has been kept in my possession.

334

And so, in the last year of the last century, in late autumn – I was at the animal winter quarters in the Trans-Don steppe, then I went on to the Nogai and Zelenchuk steppe, to the farm of Molokan sheep farmer and horse breeder. At his request I once helped him buy two English stallions for his herds. Once again I repeat that it was there that, by chance, it fell to my lot to go on a wolf hunt for the last time in my life and to succeed in clobbering such a big adult wolf, the like of which I had never seen before. A steppe wolf, broad and powerful, with a short-haired thick coat. The skin of this wolf lay as a carpet in my study right up to the Revolution, always as good as new. Having inspected the herds, the stallions and the foals they produced, I was intending to travel to Moscow and asked for the horses to be got ready at dawn. The evening before, as is customary for a devout Molokan family of around ten, we sat down to supper about eight in the evening and, after various starters ate noodles with turkey, roast chicken, roast lamb, salted lambs' tongue, wheat porridge with milk and, to go with it, a full plate each of vzvar, that is compote of fresh peaches, pears, apples and cherries. After supper I went to the room for honoured guests, intending to sleep until daybreak. It was a large bright room with carpets and two beds. The beds were almost as tall as a man standing upright because they had built up three layers of feather mattresses on them and put six pillows at the head. To get up on a bed like that one had to stand on a special little bench and as soon as you lay down your body was swallowed by feather mattresses – so you went to sleep immediately. And whichever side you lay down on, that was how you would wake up. One slept like a log. It still was not completely daylight but we were already drinking tea, the whole family together again, sitting round that huge table with a three-gallon samovar, eating biscuits and snacks, either cold or steaming. And there was also a whole mountain of crumpets and a dish of rams' tongues, a leg of cold mutton with steaming dishes with great slices cut from the lungs, heart and liver – then again in front of me that great assortment of drinks. And my hostess had already laid out in front of me all sorts of edible products and bottles for the journey ahead and put into a basket for the journey ahead… That would be sufficient, I thought, for five men to get to Moscow. While we were drinking our tea suddenly a shepherd ran in and lamented that during the night a wolf had made off with one of his rams and was eating it in the tall weeds near the gulley by the old storehouse, which was about a mile and a half from our farm. I turned to the old man: "Saddle up Nayada…" That was the fine half-bred, daughter of the famous Dear Boy, the horse that I had ridden when I was going round his herds. "And I'll go too," said the elder son, Fedya, who was a great horseman and hunter. Five minutes later we were coming up to the storehouse, which was surrounded by tall weeds. The shepherd ran up from behind and showed us the place. "That's where he's gone in, the lone wolf!" Then indeed the strip of tall weeds began to shake and we could see the retreating figure of the wolf. The sun was spreading its golden light on the slopes and the peaks of Elbrus. The morning was calm, marvellous and cold… The wolf broke out of the weeds and ran off across the bare steppe. We sped after him, deliberately keeping about two hundred paces behind. The steppe was bare and smooth over its great expanse; there were no bushes, nor even any tall weeds. We could see everything… The wolf was speeding on, without looking round. He could feel what was happening. His instinct told him when we were speeding up and he ran even faster… We reined in our horses, but he went on as fast as he could – until finally he looked round and slackened off… We again covered some ground and he rushed on… We toyed with him like that for a long time… He was

335 making towards the mountains which were about sixty miles away and he was making straight for them like an arrow, about three hundred yards ahead of us ̶ and we were galloping. He was getting closer and closer … He held his head on one side and we could see his tongue hanging out as. We again held our horses back a little… "My horse has gone lame, you ride on…" And my companion dismounted from his horse. I looked round. He was leading it by the rein .̶ one of its right legs had gone. He was shouting something to me and waving his arm. I couldn't pay any attention to him. I galloped on. In a minute I had forgotten everything except the wolf and was rushing after him without looking round. Moments of real excitement ensued… At one moment I would be catching up, the next I would be giving my horse a breather, but the wolf ran straight on. He knew that turning to one side or the other would only shorten the distance in favour of us, his enemy. However, he was mistaken . My wonderful Nayada had marvellous reserves of strength, for she had taken prizes over fences and she feared neither shots nor any wild animal… Besides that, she rested from time to time by going at an easier pace, whereas the wolf pounded on without a pause and was beginning to run out of breath. His tongue was hanging out almost down to the ground. In front of us we could see the dark outline of two long narrow strips of tall weeds that were growing in a shallow valley which ran into the steppe close in front of me and on our right hand side stretched far away towards the mountains. They still drive the herds in there in rainy weather… I went in there at full gallop. The wolf was about a hundred paces from me. Evidently he was exhausted, but was rushing towards the gully… Probably he knew this was where he could take refuge … I was even closer to him, about fifty paces behind… Now he was in the weeds near the gully. He just had to dive in and he would be saved. Right at the edge of the ravine he stopped for a moment, looking at me ̶ I turned my horse sharply round towards the hills and made several jumps to the right, along the ravine… The wolf dived in and was hidden. For many years, from my earliest wanderings in the Trans-Don steppes, I have known how the beast behaves… Now I was not mistaken. I turned my horse round to gallop to the left along the edge of the gully and away from the mountains and I could see the grey beast lying in the middle of the gully with his tongue hanging out. When he saw me ̶ all this happened in a few seconds ̶ he jumped to his feet, floundering and staggering towards his way out on to the steppe… I whistled and yelled, keeping him about thirty paces away from me, and could see that he was out of breath and was just about to fall… That was not in my calculations: one must not approach a wolf that is lying down or sitting down ̶ he will dash at you and get his teeth into the horse… I let him get out onto the open steppe… I urged Nayada on, and we galloped alongside the wolf, not slackening our pace. The wolf was exhausted, his tongue was hanging out helplessly… With two jumps I had caught up with him two and lashed my whip across his skull. He pressed his muzzle down into the ground… I turned the nimble Nayada quickly round in order to approach him from behind, but he was dribbling saliva and his paws were scratching the grass helplessly… I took a chance and hit him once more over the head, then I galloped off to one side… He was still lying on his belly with his back legs outstretched, his front paws jerking convulsively and his head lying on them with his tongue lolling out… I rode off to one side and circled round at a walk to let Nayada rest a bit… I looked at the wolf from a distance and enjoyed a few pinches of snuff… The wolf was not stirring. I rode round him. He didn't move… I hit him over the head once more, then hit him across his back, near his kidneys. The grey wolf was finished… I got down from Nayada and stretched my legs…

336

And all around was the empty steppe. No herds of horses, no flocks of sheep, not a single bird… Only far, far away a little spot was moving, a jerboa had folded his paws as though he were praying, but even he went off to his burrow. An eagle was soaring up high into the sky… Then another one…They were circling above my head, but didn't come down… And a third one had appeared in the distance. It looked as though they had sensed some prey close at hand… And they were not mistaken… They know what they know, what all our wisdom dare not even dream about! Far away there was a moving speck. It was a pair of horses harnessed to a light cart… It had to be Fedya hurrying along with someone… Fine horses, galloping along fast… Having nothing better to do, I sniffed up half the snuff at my disposal. Fedya was delighted. "All right, you've got the animal. And there I was shouting at you that you shouldn't let him get to the gully… My horse had put his shoulder out… I got there all the same and they had already come to fetch you… Well, good for you!" We examined the wolf… "His skull is smashed in… I think from your first blow… Good, good. You didn't let him go… If he'd got to the gully he'd have been away to the mountains…" "So that's one that didn't get away!" "Well done!" "Mitro, come on now and get him skinned." "Well he's got his whole stomach full. That means he's had a whole ram," grumbled Mitro as he took off the wolf's skin. I was riding along slowly on Nayada alongside the cart, telling all the details of the hunt to Fedya's great amazement, and I was approved by the old hunter Mitro, who couldn't restrain himself and went over to the familiar form of address to me: "You outsmarted a lone wolf. Aren't you the very devil!" "Now don't you go calling on the Devil himself and don't use bad language," Fedya remarked to him, being himself a Molokan believer. Low above the ground two eagles were flying towards us. "They're going for their dinner," the Cossack pointed out with his whip. I looked back … About ten eagles and vultures were circling round over their prey, which was quite a rare find at that time of year, while on our left Elbrus was being covered with dark clouds. "There'll be snow now," said Mitro.

After the usual dinner, just the same as yesterday's supper but with the addition of goose with apples and mountains of partridge on an enormous dish, we went round the stables and drank some tea. After tea Mitro with a splendid pair of golden Caspian horses from the Korolkov stud drove me under thick clouds to Bogoslovskaya Station. The Nogai steppe, as always at that time, was dead, lifeless, cold and silent. Occasionally one might meet a herd of sheep belonging to the Molokans, or an eagle would soar up, or a flock of partridges would come down; sometimes a Nogai warrior would speed past on his horse, a descendant of the people who used to rule these steppes. And after that all would be silent again, the deathly silence of the steppe in winter, with no one in sight and nothing to be heard. Halfway along my route a snowstorm started. We couldn't even see our horses! But then a red disk flashed into sight and far off we could hear the whistle of an engine, which seemed to carry us from the peace and silence of the steppe and plunge us into the mad bustle of Moscow, where one had to be more careful than in these wild spaces with their steppeland wolves and armed inhabitants… One word said out of place, one glass of wine too many, one careless movement and you could face death more surely than in the depths of the Nogai steppes.

337

I arrived at the railway station at the same moment as a puffing train. It was white with snow from the blizzard. Frozen as I was, and covered in snow, I rushed straight into the buffet to get thawed out at any cost. It was after one o'clock in the morning. I found out that the train was a fast train its way north, terribly late because of the violent blizzard… It was going to leave in three minutes. I had to have my evening meal and get thawed out in that train. I took supper: white bread, sausage, a bottle of vodka and two bottles of beer. I would keep this gift until Moscow – it would have been a pity to open the bottles. Mitro was dragging my luggage in after me. I rushed into the nearest first-class carriage and fell headlong into an empty compartment, I threw my case onto the rack along with the basket containing my presents and the skin of the wolf onto the floor with the fur turned outwards, and took my leave of Mitro. The conductor came in for the tickets and said: "You'd be better to move to another carriage. This is an old one; the beds are uncomfortable… It's hard and it shakes. There's a Pullman car next to us … It's empty too." "Never mind," I replied. The wheels began to squeal on the rails and rattle over the points and the train crawled off northwards. I was trying to look out of the window but it was all white with snow and ice. Persistently there flashed into my memory the few days I had unfailingly seen the peak of Elbrus on the horizon, and I somehow felt sad… Using my dagger I cut up the sausage, but a good half of it fell on the floor and rolled away towards the door where the frozen wolf skin was lying. I looked down at it, but, tired as I was, I could not be bothered to stretch out my hand. When I'd had a drink and eaten up the sausage, I tried to reach the other half that I had dropped, but there was no sign of it; it had rolled under my bed. Trying to make no unnecessary movements, I took the bottle of beer and set it upright on the floor, so I could reach it easily. I took a few swigs, lay down, and stretched out. I felt in a blissful state, such as I had not experienced for a long time. I was beginning to yield myself up to it when suddenly I saw movement in the wolf skin that was lying on the floor by the way out. Could this be the spirit of some Kabardinian or Nogai that had taken possession of the wolf? Next, the bottle of beer standing next to my bunk inclined its neck towards the window, allowing a few drops to pour out onto the floor, then disappeared. It had disappeared before my very eyes, sliding away under my bunk. I took a pinch of snuff and tried to work out what on earth was happening. Glug, glug, glug… Someone was drinking under my bunk. I rose up, getting ready to jump out of bed… Suddenly I could see the neck of the bottle coming out from the space below the bunk and then I saw someone's hand carefully trying carefully to put the bottle back where it had been, without making a noise. I jumped up immediately, thrust both hands under the bunk and dragged out the most wretched of men. Hapless, tattered and pale. He whispered: "Don't kill me!" I pulled him to his feet, gave him a good shaking to frighten him and with one heave threw him across onto the bunk opposite. "So you're caught now, you swine." He was looking at me imploringly and begging me to spare him… I stood up, checked that the door was tight shut and half-opened the lantern, thus illuminating the bunk opposite. Sitting opposite me was a tramp, shivering, his teeth chattering, wearing bast shoes and a hood clinging tight round his head.

338

He looked at the table, jabbed his finger at the snuffbox with its sparkling gold inscription G. I., and his jaw dropped in amazement. "So there it is! Which means it's really you I am seeing." He fell to his knees in front of me. "I can see who you are … It's me… Just look at my neck." He pulled off his hood and I could see the great swellings from his ears down to his shoulders. "So, it's me." Then I remembered the Volga steamer. "But at the time, in return for your kindness," he said, pointing at the snuffbox…"I whipped it out of your pocket… I thought it might pay my way to Astrakhan. It was poor return for the kindness you had shown me. You had helped me and fed me and in return… I've been tormented over this whenever I think of it." He was mumbling on in a broken disjointed way, never pausing for breath. I said nothing, and finally, as a sign of peace, I opened my snuffbox and offered a pinch to him. "To hell with you… I forgive you. Sit where you are." He cheered up at once, sniffed and had a sneeze, sat on the bunk and kept on mumbling away, piteously and disjointedly, repenting his past misdeeds… I gave him the bottle of vodka. He took a thirsty swig, followed it with bread, while I bent under the bed and looked for the sausage. "Are you trying to find the sausage? I've eaten the rest of it. I hadn't eaten anything for a long time." After that he ate up all the bread, finished the beer and started to recount his adventures, wanting to show above all that he had climbed into the carriage without any idea of robbery and murder, but only to get warm and make his way to Kavkazskaya Station… "Well are you still on a wolf's passport?" "What use is that? Could anyone live that way with winter coming on? I gave that up long ago. It's better to be called a tramp and sit it out till spring… Otherwise you'd freeze to death in the steppe just now." "And why do you have that?" I asked, pointing at the knife rolling round the floor. He was embarrassed ̶ he hadn't the courage to tell me lies. I could feel that. He stayed silent "Suppose it wasn't me but some woman travelling on her own in this compartment. Or if I'd gone to sleep. After all it's quite easy to kill someone when they're asleep…" "How can you say that? Could I really do you any harm? You know that snuffbox, as soon as I saw it then I … Then I recognized you at once by the gold lettering. Could I ever forget it when, for ever and ever..." he mumbled. "So, if the snuffbox had been standing upside down or on its side … Well to hell with it… Better tell me where you've been after Nizhny…?" "Yes indeed there's so much to tell… I went everywhere … After all it's two years and a bit since then… All right then… I went downstream on the Zeveke steamer. By winter I'd given up my transit permit. Said I was going to Pskov. I was sent to a convict assembly point… By spring I'd got out again. In Petersburg I got caught by the police again and they sent me to Yarensk… Then near Lyuban I beat it to Sister Barbara… I mooched around at her place all through the winter and in the spring I was again hanging around on the Volga. For the winter I went to my uncle the silversmith in Petersburg; from there this summer they sent me on to Perm and now I've fetched up here. I've been wandering round the farms here all summer. There was one time when I lived quite well, working with the Molokans. But things went wrong – I fell ill… But that winter I recovered with Sister Barbara, working as porter and cook… He asked me to spare him, swearing by all that's holy that he would never again. But what he would "never again" he didn't say.

339

The train rattled over the points at Kavkazskaya Station and came to a stop. "Off you go then. Here's something to get you started." I gave him another five roubles and ushered him out. As he was going he bent down to pick up the knife but I put my foot on it. "I'm not letting you have the knife. Off you go." He disappeared. The knife had a narrow blade, well sharpened, about eight inches long, and a serrated horn handle from Daghestan. I found its leather sheaf later, under the bunk. It turned out to be a simple iron knife and I still use it for cutting open the pages of books… I saw my man jump out of a door on the other side of the carriage on to an unlit section of track and run in behind a pile of firewood. That man was a legal outcast. People like him had no chance to settle in one place, but they were obliged to go on and on, without any route, with no aim in life, with no end in sight. To walk on like that until they died. Quite often in the springtime, particularly after heavy winter snows had covered the steppes of the Don and the Kuban, people found the corpses of those wretched wanderers, or sometimes just their bones that had been pulled apart by wild animals and dogs. In most cases these unfortunate people, driven out by the law, were not accustomed to local conditions so would die from cold, from hunger and the snowstorms. As the cold weather set in, many of them used to appear in the stations of the Vladikavkaz Rail Company. Exhausted, tattered, tormented, quivering in their rags from the cold, they were always besieging the stationmasters and the gendarmes, begging to be taken on to the next station. Every day many thefts from carriages and robberies near railway stations took place along the line. Even though they were not all done by "legal outcasts", it was they who were always blamed. And of course it was always so convenient: those were people without a present or a future, for whom prison was a home and fetters were just toys… People with wolf permits. "You're treated as a mad wolf: no work for you and nowhere to lay your head; just go on wandering round for ever until you die!" a man like that once explained to me quite frankly. At this point I also remember that marvellous Sister Barbara, as did my outcast. And I sought out that wonderful Sister Barbara. Indeed it is true that near Lyuban, that station on the Moscow-Petersburg Railway, Sister Barbara, living in an empty cell of her own making, had founded as a refuge for wandering people who might pass that way. This cell was a real gift from God. Sister Barbara was Ukrainian by birth, a rich aristocrat who shone in society in her time, with an excellent education and who had lived a long time abroad.317 After her husband died she gave herself up completely to looking after unhappy wandering folk. She studied the slums and understood how homeless wandering people lived, those people with wolf permits, and she created a refuge for them on their way from Petersburg into the depths of Russia. That refuge existed for several years. It consisted of a little house where Sister Barbara fed the homeless and gave them something to drink. During the dinner she read books to her ragged illegal guests, her guests with no papers, or told of something that had happened, or listened to the misfortunes of anyone who wanted to hear a word of human sympathy and encouraged them.

317 This was Varvara Alexandrovna Shklyarevich.She arrived in Lyuban in 1897 and carried on her charitable work until 1906..

340

In the autumn rain and the cold of winter they came to her, half naked, hungry and covered in dirt… She would take in dirty and evil-smelling people, shunned by everyone else, people with no papers, with dark deeds in their past, ready to commit crime again, driven away by people who feared for their own property and their life. Sister Barbara, however, would take them in as if they were her relatives, would wash them, bind their wounds and even give them a bath. This was a long time ago. Last century. Since then I have heard nothing of Sister Barbara's subsequent fate.

341

APPENDIX 1

Dramatis Personae

Numbers refer to chapters

Where the only available details of an individual are those supplied by Gilyarovsky in the course of a chapter, that indidvidual is omitted from the following list.

Abrámov, A.A. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Abrámov, Yákov Vasílyevich (1858-1906). Journalist. 27

Adikayévsky,Vasíly Semyónovich (1835-1907). Censor. 34

Aksákov, Konstantín Sergéyevich (1817-60). Writer. Slavophile. 22

Aksyónov, Fyódor Ivánovich (1836-94). Merchant who bought the Yar restaurant in 1871. 27

Aladzhálov, Manuíl Khristofórovich (1862-1934). Landscape painter. 14

Amfiteátrov, Alexander Valentínovich (1862-1938). Satirist and literary critic. 38

Andréyev-Burlák, Vasíly Nikoláyevich (1843-88). Actor. 26; 27; 40

Arakchéyev, Count Alexéi Andréyevich (1769-1834). Notoriously responsible from 1816 for a repressive system of military colonies. 25; 26; 34

Arápov, Nikolái Ustínovich (1825-84). Moscow Police Chief 1866-76. 6;18; 35

Arbátov, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1869-1926). Actor and director. 32

Arkhípov, Abrám Yefímovich (1862-1930). Painter, teacher at the Moscow College of Art. 14

Ásperger, Óskar Fyódorovich. Cellist. 13

Ástyrev, Nikolái Mikháilovich (1857-94). Writer and statistician. 27

Babakái Kalfá. Tatar contractor who worked on Chekhov's house in Yalta. 33

Babákin, Iván (Ványa) Ivánovich. Pupil at the school where Anton Chekhov's brother, Ivan, (1861-1922) Chekhov taught. 33

Bagratión, Prince Pyotr Ivánovich (1765-1812). Hero of the 1812 war. 22

Balashóv. M.S. Horse racing enthusiast. 26

Baránov, Nikolái Mikháilovich (1837-1901). Governor of Nizhny Novgorod 1882-97. 40 342

Bársov, Yelpidifór Vasílyevich (1836-1917). Philologist, ethnographer and collector. 6; 37

Barténev, Pyotr Ivánovich (1829-1912). Editor. 22

Bartsal, Antón Ivánovich (Antonin Barcal) (1847-1927). Tenor of Czech origin. 20

Bazhénov, Mikhaíl Vasílyevich (1876-1936). Painter of religious subjects. 14

Belosélskaya-Belozérskaya, Ánna Grigóryevna (1773-1846). 25

Biryukóv, Pyotr Ivánovich. Originally a bath attendant, he bought the lease of the Sandunovsky Baths for 25000 roubles and held it until 1890. 26

Bogátov, Nikolái Alexéyevich (1854-1935). Painter. 13

Bogatyryóv, Pável Ivánovich (1849-1908). Leading tenor of his day. 2

Bolshakóv, Sergéi Tíkhonovich (1842-1906). Old Believer merchant. 7

Bové, Ósip Ivánovich (1784-1834). Russian architect of Italian descent. 30

Brandukóv, Anatóly Andréyevich (1859-1930). Cellist. 20

Brenkó, Ánna Alexéyevna (1849-1934). Actress who, in 1880 founded the first private theatre in Moscow, better known as the Pushkin Theatre. Brenko was a stage name. Her maiden name was Chelishcheva and her married name Levenson. 21

Brocard, Henri (Génrikh Afanásyevich) (1839-1900). Frenchman who founded a celebrated perfume company in Moscow. 12; 14

Brónnikov, P.A. Merchant. 20

Brusílov, Alexéi Alexéyevich (1853-1926). Appointed C-inC of the Russian Army May 1917. Remained faithful to Soviet power. 39

Bryus, Yákov Vílimovich Bryus (born James Daniel Bruce) (1669-1735). Soldier, statesman and reputed practitioner of black magic. 1

Bryúsov, Valéry Yákovlevich (1873-1924). Poet. Founder of Russian Symbolism. 13; 35

Bulánina, Yeléna Alexéyevna (1876-1944). Poet. 13

Bystróv, Yegór Yegórovich. Actor and card player. 26; 27; 41

Capoul, Victor (1839-1924). French operatic tenor. 19; 39

Catoire, Andréi Lvóvich (1865-1929). Industrialist of French descent. 14

Chaadáyev, Pyotr Yákovlevich (1794-1856). Philosopher, whose criticism of Russia in his First Philosophical Letter led to his being declared insane. 22

343

Chaliapin (Shalyápin), Fyódor Ivánovich (1873-1938). Celebrated bass. 20

Cháyev, Nikolái Alexándrovich (1824-1914). Playwright. 20; 27

Chekh, Yegór Mikháilovich (1798-1879). Grandfather of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Alexander Pávlovich (1874-1949). Brother of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Antón Pávlovich (1860-1904). Doctor, playwright and short story writer. 26; 33; 38

Chékhov, Iván Pávlovich (1861-1922). Brother of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Mikhaíl Yegórovich (1821-75). Uncle of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Mikhaíl Pávlovich (1865-1936). Brother of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Mitrofán Yegórovich (1836-94). Uncle of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhov, Nikolái Pávlovich (1858-89). Artist. Brother of Anton Chekhov. 14; 26; 33

Chékhov, Pável Yegórovich (1825-98). Father of Anton Chekhov. Born a serf. 33

Chékhov, Vladímir Mitrofánovich (1874-1949). Anton Chekhov's cousin. 33

Chékhov, Yegór Mitrofánovich (Zhorzhik) (1870-1943). Anton Chekhov's cousin. 33

Chékhova, Maria Pávlovna (1863-1957). Sister of Anton Chekhov. 33

Chékhova, Yevgénia Yákovlevna (née Morózova) (1835-1919). Mother of Anton Chekhov. 33

Cherédin, Alexéi Mikháilovich. Assistant interrogator. 17

Cherkássky, Prince Alexéi Alexándrovich. Freemason. 22

Chernyáyev, Mikhaíl Grigóryevich (1828-98). Russian general who played a big part in the conquest of Central Asia under Alexander II. 12

Chernyshev, Count Grigóry Ivánovich (1762-1831) 18

Chernyshévsky, Nikolái Gavrílovich (1828-1889). Major left-wing writer. Arrested in 1862 he was sentenced to penal servitude, followed by Siberian exile. 34

Chertkóv, Alexander Dmítriyevich (1789-1858). 20

Chichágov, Konstantín Nikoláyevich (1849-1903). Illustrator. 25

Chíchkin , Alexander Vasílyevich (1862-1949). Leading purveyor of dairy products both before the Revolution and during the NEP period. Despite at one time exiling him, the Soviet government used his expertise. 17

344

Chupróv, Alexander Ivánovich (1841-1908). Professor of Political Economy and Statistics at Moscow University. 23

Churáyev, Nikolái. Racehorse trainer. 35

Clodt, Nikolái Alexándrovich (1865-1918). Painter. 13

Dagmar, Princess. Known in Russian as Maria Fyódorovna. Wife of Alexander III. 17

Dalmátov, Vasíly Pantaleimónovich (1852-1912). A Serb, he was an impressario in Penza and a major actor on the Moscow stage from 1873. 17; 19; 27; 33; 40

Davýdov, Denís Vasílyevich (1784-1839). Soldier-poet. 26 de Lonlay, Dick (Georges Hardouin) (1846-93). Painter. 13

Denísenko, Iván Vasílyevich (1851-1916). Husband of Tolstoi's niece Yelena. 32

Denísov, Maxím. Racehorse trainer. 35

Dmítryiev, Andréi Mikháilovich (1842-86). Writer. 15

Dmítriyev, Iván Ivánovich (1760-1837).Writer of fables. 26

Dobronrávov, Nikoláy Yevgényevich (1849 - after 1914). Journalist. 4

Dobróv, Filípp Alexándrovich (1869-1941). Doctor. 17

Dokucháyev, Mikhaíl Pávlovich. Tragedian and card player. 26; 27; 41

Dolgorúkov, Alexéi Grigóryevich (? – 1734). Adviser to Tsar Peter II. 20

Dolgorúkov, Prince Pyotr Mikháilovich (1784-1833). 22

Dolgorúkov, Prince Vladímir Andréyevich (1810-91). Governor General of Moscow 1865- 1891. 18; 19; 20; 34

Dolzhénko, Alexéi Borísovich. Merchant in Taganrog. Anton Chekhov's maternal uncle by marriage. 33

Dolzhénko, Fedósya Yákovlevna (née Morózova) (1829-91). Anton Chekhov's maternal aunt. 33

Doroshévich, Vlas Mikháilovich (1865-1922). Journalist, novelist, short story writer. 27

Dostoyévsky, Fyódor Fyódorovich (1871-1921). Son of the novelist. 35

Dragomírov, Mikhaíl Ivánovich (1830-1905). General. 19

Dúrov, Anatóly Leonídovich (1864-1916). Circus artiste. 26

345

Dúrov,Vladímir Leonídovich (1863-1934). Circus artiste. Brother of A.L. Durov. 26

Dyúkov, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (died 1882). Actor. 27

Éfros, Nikolái Yefímovich (1867-1923). Theatre critic. 33

Eibushítz, Semyón Semyónovich (1851-98). Architect of Austrian Jewish descent. 26

Evarnítsky, Dmítry Ivánovich (1855-1940). Ukrainian scholar. 32

Fadéyev, Iván Mikháilovich . Antiquarian bookseller. 27

Falt-Fein ( von Falz-Fein), Alexander Eduárdovich. Renter-out of rooms. 20

Feofán (1785-1852). Archimandrite. 14

Feoktístov, Yevgény Mikháilovich (1828-98). Censor. 34

Filíppov Dmítry Ivánovich (1855-1908). Baker. 19; 34

Filíppov, Iván Maxímovich (1824 or 1825-78). Baker. 19

Filíppov, Sergéi Nikítich (1863-1910). Journalist, theatre critic. 17

Firsánov Iván Grigóryevich (1817-81). Millionaire firewood merchant. 12; 26

Firsánov, Pável Nikoláyevich (1844-1904). Millionaire. His grave is in Serpukhov. 12

Firsánova, Véra Ivánovna (1862-1934). Daughter of I. G. Firsanov. 26

Fófanov, Konstantín Mikháilovich (1862-1911). Poet. 33

Fréiberg, Arnóld Ivánovich (1849-1921). Merchant, celebrated billiards player and manufactuer of billiards tables. 33

Freidenbérg (Freudenbúrg), Borís Víktorovich (originally Bernard) (1850-1925). Architect of German origin who worked exclusively in Moscow 1875-1904. 26

Fyódorov, Veniamín Yákovlevich (1828 or 1829-97). Chaired the Moscow Censorship Committee 1882-95. 34

Gagárin, Prince Dmítry Petróvich (1860-1903). Steeplechase rider. 39

Gagárin, Prince Matvéi Petróvich. Born c.1659, executed for extortion in 1721. 16

Gagárin, Prince Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1859-1918). Married to Tatyána Mikháilovna Chertkóva (d.1944). 20

Ge, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1831-94). Painter.13

346

Gilardi, Deménty (Domenico) Ivánovich (1788-1845). Architect. 22

Giordano, Luca (1634-1705). Italian painter. 6

Gógol, Nikolái Vasílyevich (1809-52). Major Russian writer. 7; 12; 16; 20; 22; 27; 33; 39

Golítsyn, Prince Lev Sergéyevich (1845-1915). Vineyard owner. 22; 25; 33; 39

Goloúshev, Sergéi Sergéyevich (1855-1920). Writer and painter. 13

Góltsev, Víktor Alexándrovich (1850-1906). Journalist and literary critic. De facto chief editor of Russian Thought from 1885. Officially chief editor from 1905. 23; 27; 32; 38

Golyáshkin, Sergéi Nikoláyevich (1829-1903). Official of merchant origin. 20

Goncharóv, Sergéi Sergéyevich (1843-1918). Lawyer. Shot by the Bolsheviks. 33

Gonétsky (Ganétsky), Alexéi Nikoláyevich (? – 1904 or 1908). Bought the Sandunovsky Baths in 1894 using the money of his wife V. I. Firsanova. 26

Gonétsky (Ganétsky), Nikolái Stepánovich (1815-1904). General of Polish descent. Father of A.N. Gonetsky. 26

Gónta, Iván (? -1768). Led Cossack rebellion against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 33

Gopper (Hopper), Yákov Vasílyevich. English-born factory owner. 14

Gorbunóv, Iván Fyódorovich (1831-96). Actor. 20

Gorbunóv-Posádov, Iván Ivánovich (1864-1940). Editor and publisher of Tolstoi’s journal The Intermediary. 32

Gordiyénko, Konstantín Gordéyevich (? – 1733). Cossack leader who rebelled against Peter I. 33

Gorélov, Gavríil Nikítich (1880-1966). Painter. 22

Górky, Maxím (Alexéi Maxímovich Peshkóv) (1868-1936). Writer. 33; 38

Grabowski, Ludwik (1809-81). Polish racehorse trainer. 35

Grádov-Sokolóv, Leoníd Ivánovich (1845-90). Actor. 33

Gráve, Leoníd Grigóryevich (1839-91). Poet and translator. 37

Gribkóv, Sergéi Ivánovich (1822-93). Landscape and icon painter. 14

Griboyédov, Alexander Sergéyevich (1795-1829). Playwright and diplomat. 22

347

Grigoróvsky, Iván Alexéyevich (1814-91). Veteran actor, although Gilyarovsky exaggerates his age. 26; 27

Grigóryev, Vasíly Grigóryevich (1857-?). Actor. 4; 27; 33

Gubánov, E.A. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Gubónin, Pyotr Iónovich (1825-94). Merchant, railway magnate and patron of the arts. 26; 33

Gubónin, Sergéi Petróvich (b. 1852). Son of P.I. Gubonin. 39; 41

Gúrko, Count Iosíf Vladímirovich (Roméiko- )(1828-1901). Russian field marshal prominent during the Russo-Turkish war. 12

Gúsev, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1882-1967). Tolstoi’s secretary 1907-1909. 32

Gutheil, Alexander (1818-82). German music publisher. 14

Herzen (Gértsen), Alexander Ivánovich (1812-70). Writer, known as the "father of Russian socialism". 17; 22

Ignátyeva, Countess Sofíya Sergéyevna (1851-1944). 20

Igúmnov, Konstantín Nikoláyevich (1873-1948). Pianist. 20

Ivánova, Ánna Zakhárovna. Director of choir at the Yar restaurant. 12; 25; 27

Ivanóv-Klássik, Alexéi Fyódorovich (1841-94). Humorous poet. 33

Ilyénko, Iván Mikháilovich. Horseman. 39

Ilyénko, Sergéi Mikháilovich (1867-1918). Horse breeder. 39

Ilyénko, Yevgény Mikháilovich (died 1896) Horse breeder. 39

Ishútin, Nikolái Andréyevich (1840-79). Revolutionary. 15

Ivanóv-Klássik, Alexéi Fyódorovich (1841-94). Poet noted for his humorous verses. 33

Karakózov, Dmítry Vladímirovich (1840-66). Would-be assassin of Alexander II. 15

Karamzín, Nikolái Mikháilovich (1766-1826). Writer, historian. 22

Kartashév, Grigóry Níkonovich (1809-79). Merchant. 27

Karzínkin, Andréi Alexándrovich (c.1823-1906). Second generation of a tea merchant dynasty. 27

Káshin, Alexander Danílovich. Moneylender. 18

348

Kasímovsky, Iván Vasílyevich (died. c.1728). Christianized Russian name of the son and heir of the last khan of a Mongol khanate. 19

Katkóv, Mikhaíl Nikíforovich (1818-87). Influential conservative journalist. 22

Kazakóv, Alexander Dmítriyevich. Actor. 17

Kazakóv, Matvéi Fyódorovich (1738-1812). Architect who rebuilt the centre of Moscow during the reign of Catherine II. 18

Kéizer, Vladímir Fyódorovich (1849- after 1917). Senior legal official. 4

Kheráskov, Alexander Matvéyevich (1730-99). Soldier. Brother of Mikhail Matveyevich. 22

Kheráskov, Mikhaíl Matvéyevich (1733-1807). Poet. 22

Khilkóva, Princess Ánna Mikháilovna (née Obolénskaya) (1837-1909). 35

Khitrovó, Nikolái Zakhárovich (1779-1827). Major-General. 4

Khlébnikov, Iván Petróvich (1819-81). Jeweller. 39

Khlúdov, Alekséi Ivánovich (1818-82). Merchant. 12

Khlúdov, Gerásim Ivánovich (1821-85). Brother of A.K. Khludov. 12

Khlúdov, Mikhaíl (Mísha, Míshka) Alexéyevich (1843-85). Son of A.K. Khludov. 12

Khlúdova, Elizavéta Alexéyevna (née Melgunova) (1855-75). First wife of M.A. Khludov.

Khokhlóv, Pável Akínfiyevich (1854-1919). Baritone. 20

Khotínsky, Pável Mikháilovich (1842-95). Aide to Governor General of Moscow. 18

Kichéyev Pyótr Ivánovich (1845-1902). Writer. 15; 33

Kiréyev, Nikolái Petróvich (1843-82). Actor and dramatist. 5; 15; 20; 27

Kírin, Dmítry Vasílyevich. Journalist. Active 1880-1900. 4

Kiselévsky, Iván Platónovich (1839-98). Actor. 26; 41

Klang, Iván Ivánovich (? -1919). Artist and writer. 36

Knípper, Ólga Leonárdovna (1868-1959). Actress whom Chekhov married in 1901. 33

Knop (Knoop), Johann Ludwig (known in Russian as Lev Gerásimovich) (1821-94) and his son Johann Andreas (Andréi Lvóvich) (1855-after 1916). Industrialists of German descent. 14

349

Koltsóv, Alexéi Vasílyevich (1809-42). Poet and former cattle dealer. 33

Kondrátyev, Iván Kuzmích (1849-1904). Actor, historian, poet. 27; 36

Kónshin, Iván Nikoláyevich (1828-98/99). Cotton manufacturer. 35

Konyónkov, Sergéi Timoféyevich (1874-1971). Sculptor. 22; 37

Koréshchenko, Arsény Nikoláyevich (1870-1921). Composer. 20

Kórin , Alexéi Mikháilovich (1865-1923). Artist. 12; 14

Korínfsky, Apollón Apollónovich (1868-1937). Poet, translator, journalist. 33

Kornéyev, Yákov Alexéyevich (1845-1911). Doctor. 33

Korolénko, Vladímir Galaktiónovich 1853-1921). Short story writer, journalist. 33; 38

Koróvin, Konstantín Alexéyevich (1861-1939). Painter. Teacher at Moscow College of Art. Brother of S.A. Korovin. 14

Koróvin, Sergéi Alexéyevich (1858-1908). Painter. Teacher at Moscow College of Art. 14

Korsh, Fyódor Adámovich (1852-1923). Lawyer, businessman, translator, founder of the Korsh Theatre in 1882. 12

Kozítskaya, Yekaterína Ivánovna (née Myásnikova) (1746-1833). 25

Kozlóv, Alexander Alexándrovich (1837-1924). Moscow Assistant Police Chief. 12; 22

Krasóvsky, Iván Ivánovich (1828-85). Vice governor of Moscow 1875-76. 22

Kreutzberg (Kreuzberg), Gottlieb Christian (1810 or 1814-74). Opened his private menagerie to the public in Moscow in 1862. 25

Kruglóv, Alexander Vasílyevich (1852-1915). Poet. 30

Krylóv, Nikíta Ivánovich (1807-79). Professor of Roman Law at Moscow University. 22

Kulakóv, Iván Petróvich (1848-1911). Merchant and patron of the arts. 4

Kumanin , Fyódor Alexándrovich (1855-96). Theatre critic, publisher and translator. 13

Kutúzov, Alexéi Mikháilovich (1746 or 1747-1797). Freemason. 22

Kuvshínnikov, Dmítry Pávlovich (?1840 -1902). Police doctor in Moscow in the 1880s and 1890s. One of the prototypes for Dymov in Chekhov's story The Grasshopper. 4;5

Kuvshínnikova, Sófya Petróvna (née Safónova). (1847-1907). Painter and sculptor. 5

350

Kuznetsóv, Alexander Grigóryevich (1856-95). Owner of a vineyard at Foros. 39

Landrín, Fyódor Matvéyevich (1817-82). P.ioneered the making and marketing of lozenges. 19

Lanskói, Alexander Andriánovich (c.1830-1915). Renowned breeder of pointers. 33

Laúkhin, D.P. Orel impressario. 27

Lavróv, Vukól Mikháilovich (1852-1912). Editor of Russian Thought from 1882. 32; 38

Lázarev, Mikhaíl Lvóvich. Secretary of Moscow Racing Club. Gambler. 39

Lazhéchnikov, Iván Ivánovich (1792-1869). Novelist. 27

Lébedev, Klávdy Vasílyevich (1852-1916). Painter. 14

Lénsky, Alexander Pávlovich (1847-1908). Actor. 20

Lentóvskaya , S.N. Music teacher, pianist and keeper of Shmarovin's archive after his death. 13

Lérmontov, Mikhaíl Yúryevich (1814-41). Major poet and novelist. 22; 26; 35

Leskóv, Nikolái Semyónovich (1831-95). Major novelist. 33

Lesueur (or Le Sueur), Eustache (1617-55). French painter of religious subjects. 6

Levachóv, Nikolái Mikháilovich. Military engineer. 8; 21

Levensón, Alexander Alexándrovich (?- after 1924). Printer and publisher. 27

Levensón, Alexander S. Doctor, Father of A.A. Levenson. 27

Levitán, Isáak Ilyích (1860-1900). Painter. 5; 14; 33

Lókhvitskaya, Mírra (1869-1905). Poet, known as the "Russian Sappho". 13

Lomóvsky, Alexander Mikháilovich (? -1893). Hunter. 21

Lopashóv, Alexéi Dmítriyevich (1841-?). Tavern owner. 27

Lopátin, Gérman Alexándrovich (1845-1918). Radical journalist. 27

Lvov, Prince Alexéi Yevgényevich (1850-1937). Director of the Moscow Art School 1896- 1917. Elder brother of the future Prime Minister. 12

Lúzhin, Iván Dmítryievich (1802-68). Moscow Assistant Police chief. 7

Lúzhsky, Vasíly Vasílyevich (1869-1931). Actor. 32

Makóvsky, Vladímir Yegórovich (1846-1920). Painter and art collector. 7; 13

351

Malkiel, Samuíl Mirónovich (born c.1836). Contractor who supplied footwear for the Russian army. 25

Malyúshin, Fyódor Ivánovich (c.1844-c.1892). Tea merchant. 17

Mámontov, Sávva Ivánovich (1841-1918). Railway magnate. Patron of the Arts. Commissioned and instigated the building of the Hotel Metropole 1899-1905. 14;20

Manúkhin, A.I. Bookseller and publisher. 27.

Martýnov, Víktor Nikoláyevich (1858-1915). His father, Nikolái Solomónovich (1815-75) killed the poet Lermontov in a duel in 1841. 22

Matvéyev, Nikolái Sergéyevich (1855-1939). Painter. 14

Medvédev, Pyotr Mikháilovich (1837-1906). Impressario. 27

Meshchérsky, Prince Vladímir Petróvich (1838-1914). 24

Mikhailóvsky, Vladímir Alexéyevich (real name: Bazárov) (1840-95) Dramatist, actor, director, author of articles about the theatre. 20

Milorádovich, Sergéi Dmítryievich (1851-1943). Historical painter. 14

Miloslávsky, Nikolái Kárlovich (1811-82). Actor. 27

Mináyev, Dmítry Dmítriyevich (1835-89). Satirical poet. 34

Miropólsky, Alexander Alexándrovich (c.1870-after 1917). Minor Symbolist poet. 35

Mólas, Alexándra Nikoláyevna (née Purgold) (1844 or 1845-1929). Mezzo-soprano. 12

Molodtsóv, Pyotr A. Tenor. 31

Morózov, Iván Andréyevich. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Morózov, Nikolái Alexándrovich (1854-1946). Revolutionary, who spent years in various prisons, including the notorious Schlüsselberg near Petersburg, built on an island in the River Dvina. 18

Morózov, Sávva Timoféyevich (1862-1905). Celebrated businessman and philanthropist. 4; 25

Morózova, María Fyódorovna (1830-1911). Mother of S. T. Morozov. 14

Mosolóv, Nikolái Semyónovich (1847-1914). Celebrated etcher. 17

Muravyóv, Andréi Nikoláyevich (1806-74). Minor poet. 25

Muravyóv, Konstantín Gavrílovich. Head of Moscow detectives 1882-86. 6

352

Múzil, Nikolái Ignátyevich (1839-1906). Actor. 20

Narýshkina, Sofía Petróvna (née Ushakóva) (1873-77). 24

Nashchókin, Pável Voinóvich (1801-54). Close friend of A.S. Pushkin. 22

Natrúskin, Iván Fyódorovich (1835-96). Merchant, restaurateur. 27; 39

Naúmov, M.D. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Nazárevsky, Vladímir Vladímirovich (1870-1919). Censorship official. 34

Nefyódov, Filípp Diomídovich (1838-1902). Writer. 15; 27; 34

Nekrásov, Nikolái Alexéyevich (1821-78). Major poet. His long poem "Russian Women" was written in 1871/72. 19; 20; 25

Néiding, Iván Ivánovich (1838-1904). Professor of forensic medicine at Moscow University. 4

Nemiróvich-Dánchenko, Vladímir Ivánovich (1858-1943). Founder of the Moscow Arts Theatre. 38

Névrev, Nikolái Vasílyevich (1830-1904). Painter. 13; 36

Nikítin, Akím Alexándrovich (1843-1917). One of three circus-owning brothers of serf origin. 38

Nikoláyev Pyótr Fyódorovich (1844-1910). Revolutionary. 15

Nikítin, Pável Alexándrovich. Actor. 27

Nósov, Vasíly Dmítriyevich (1848-1920). Merchant and Old Believer. 25

Nóvikov, Nikolái Ivánovich (1744-1830). Major Enlightenment figure. Arrested 1792. Imprisoned 1792-96. 2; 7; 22

Obídin, Sergéi Vasílyevich (1829-89). Discounter. 27

Obídina, Klávdiya Nikónovna (?-1911). 20; 27

Odóyevsky, Vladímir Fyódorovich (1804-69). Prose writer, musicologist, cookery writer, philosopher. 25

Ogaryóv, Nikolái Ilyích (1820-90). Moscow Assistant Police Chief 1856-90. 6;18

Ogaryóv, Nikolái Platónovich (1813-77). Poet, historian, close colleague of Herzen. 17

Olivier, Lucien (1838-83). Chef, originally from Belgium. 15; 23; 41

Orfánov-Míshla, Mikhaíl Ivánovich (1847-84). Populist author. 26; 27; 34

353

Orlóv-Chésmensky, Alexéi Grigóryevich (1737-1808). Soldier and statesman. He owned horses called Bars I and Svirepy (Furious). 6

Ostade, Adriaen van (1610- c.1685). Dutch painter of genre subjects. 6

Ostróvsky, Alexander Nikoláyevich (1823-86). One of Russia’s foremost playwrights and a chronicler of the Moscow merchant class. 12; 20; 27; 40

Oznobíshin, Ilyá Ivánovich. Tambov impressario. Playwright. Amateur actor. 17

Pallády (1850-1920). Bishop. 37

Parfény (1858-1922). Archbishop. 25

Pastukhóv, Nikolái Ivánovich (1831-1911). Journalist. 6; 18; 27; 33; 34; 37

Pastukhóv, Víktor Nikoláyevich (1864-1902). Son of N.I. Pastukhov. 37

Pázukhin, Alexéi Mikháilovich (1851-1919). Novelist. 27; 37

Pchélin, Vladímir Nikoláyevich (1869-1941). Painter. 22

Perfílyev,Vasíly Stepánovich (1826-90). Governor of Moscow 1878-87. 22

Peshkóv, Maxím Alexéyevich (1897-1934). Son of Maxim Gorky. 38

Peshkóva, Yekáterina Pávlovna (née Vólzhina)(1887-1965). First wife of Maxim Gorky. 38

Pétion, Karl Alexándrovich 25; 35

Petróv, Alexei Grigoryevich. Political outcast. 42

Petróvichev Pyotr Ivánovich (1874-1947). Landscape painter. 12

Písarev, Modést Ivánovich (1844-1905). Actor. 27

Plátov, Iván Matvéyevich (1795-1874)). Don Cossack soldier and landowner. 33

Pleshchéyev, Alexéi Nikoláyevich (1825-93). Radical poet. 30

Pleváko, Fyódor Nikíforovich (1842-1908). Lawyer. 27; 34

Pléve (or Pléhve), Vyácheslav Konstantínovich (1846-1904). Hardline Minister of the Interior 1902-1904. 33

Polénov, Vasíly Dmítryievich (1844-1927). Painter. 13

Poltávtsev Kornély Nikoláyevich (1823-65). Actor. 15; 27

Polyakóv, Lázar Solomónovich (1843-1914). Highly influential banker, known as the "Rothschild of Moscow". Putative father of the ballerina Anna Pavlova. 18 354

Popóv, Iván Ivánovich (1836-1910). Merchant. 15

Popóv, Nikolai Vasilyevich "Krechinsky" (died 1920). Gambler and memoirist. 40; 41

Porokhovshchikóv, Alexander Alexándrovich (1832-1918) Entrepreneur. Builder, Patron of the arts. 27

Póstnikov, Andréi Mikháilovich (1830-1901). Industrialist. His factory made objects from precious metals. 35

Póstnikov, Pyotr Ivánovich (1862-1936). Surgeon, who treated Lenin after an assassination attempt. 12.

Potékhin, Alexéi Antípovich (1829-1908). Playwright. 20

Potékhin, Sergéi Arkádyevich. Fire chief. 18

Presnov, Denís Ivánovich. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Priklónsky, Sergéi Alexéyevich (1846-86). Populist writer. 27; 34

Próve, Johann (Iván Kárlovich) (1833-1901). Son of a Prussian. Businessman, banker and patron of the arts. 14

Prozoróvsky, Alexander Alexándrovich (1733-1809). Field-Marshal, Governor General of Moscow 1790-1796. 25

Pugachóv, Yemelyán Ivánovich (c. 1742-75). Pretender to the Russian throne. 17; 18; 22

Púkirev, Vasíly Vladímirovich (1832-90). Artist. 14

Púshkin, Alexander Alexándrovich (1833-1914). Eldest son of the poet. He became a general in the cavalry. 22

Púshkin, Alexander Sergéyevich (1799-1837). Russia's premier poet. 4; 11; 12; 14; 15; 20; 22; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 31; 39

Pýrin, Mikhaíl Semyónovich (1874-1943). Artist. 12

Radetzky, Josef (1766-1858). Austrian Field Marshal. 12

Radíshchev, Alexander Nikoláyevich (1749-1802). Radical writer. 22

Rasskázov, Alexander Andréyevich (1832-1902). Leading actor at the Maly Theatre, impressario. 18

Rayévsky, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1771-1829). 22

Razoryónov, Alexéi Yermílovich (1819-91). Poet. 26; 30

Razumóvsky, Count Lev Kiríllovich (1757-1818). 22 355

Répin Ilyá Yefímovich (1844-1930). Renowned painter. 6

Ribopyér (Ribeaupierre), Count Geórgy Ivánovich (1854-1916). Member of the IOC 1900- 1916. 25; 35

Rochefort (Roshfor), Yákov Petróvich. Silk manufacturer. 39; 40

Románov, Alexéi Mikháilovich. Tsar of Russia 1645-76.

Románov, Grand Duke Sergéi Alexándrovich (1857-1905). Uncle of Nicholas II. Governor General of Moscow (since 1891) when assassinated. 12

Roméiko, Iván Alexándrovich (1822-99). Retired naval engineer, merchant. 4

Rostopchín, Fyódor Vasílyevich (1763-1826). Governor General of Moscow during the Napoleonic invasion of 1812. He is depicted in War and Peace. 6;18

Rovínsky, Dmítry Alexándrovich (1824-95). Art historian. Specialist in Russian engraving. 26

Rubinstein, Nikolái Grigóryevich (1835-81). Conductor. 33

Rybakóv, Nikolái Khrisánfovich (1811-76). Actor. 27

Ryabóv, Stepán Yákovlevich (1831-1919). Conductor and musical director. 12; 15

Sabanéyev, Leoníd Pávlovich (1844-98). Noted naturalist and zoologist. 16; 21

Sadóvskaya, Ólga Ósipovna (née Lazarévskaya) (1849-1919). Married M.P. Sadovsky in 1872. 25

Sadóvsky, Mikhaíl Próvich (1847-1910). Actor. 15; 30

Sadóvsky, Próv Mikháilovich (real name Yermílov) (1818-72). Actor. 20

Saltykóv, Iván Petróvich (1730-1805). Field marshal. 12

Samárin, Iván Vasílyevich (1817-85). Actor. 20

Sandunóv, Síla Nikoláyevich (1756-1820). Actor of Georgian origin. 26

Sandunóva, Yelizavéta Semyónovna (1772-1826). Actress and singer. 26

Sardou, Victorien (1831-1908). Prolific French dramatist. 5

Sarkízov, Alexander Stepánovich . Rich gambler. 21

Sávin, Nikolái Gerásimovich (1855-1937). Soldier sentenced to Siberian exile in 1891. He soon escaped abroad but was rearrested and exiled to Siberia 1912-17. In 1917 his friendship with Kerensky ensured his release. 32

356

Savítsky, Konstantín Apollónovich (1844-1905). Professor at Moscow Art School. 12

Savrásov, Alexéi Kondrátyevich (1830-97). Painter. 14; 36

Schmidt (Shmit), Pável Alexándrovich. Furniture manufacturer and retailer. He was born and died in Moscow.

Shchegolyónok, Vasíly Petróvich (1817-94). Peasant reciter of heroic ballads. 37

Selétsky, Ottón Ivánovich (born 1842). First President of the Russian Gymnastic Society, founded in 1884. Chekhov and Giliarovsky were founder members.

Semáshko, Marián Romuáldovich (1861-after 1925). Cellist. 33

Sergíyenko (Sergéyenko), Pyotr Alexéyevich. Writer and journalist. Born, like Anton Chekhov, in Taganrog. 26

Seróv, Valentín Alexándrovich (1865-1911). Painter. 12

Shablýkin, Pável Ivánovich (1841-95). 22

Sharápov, Sergéi Fyódorovich (1855-1911). Publisher of journals. 27

Shcherbakóv, Spiridón Stepánovich. Tavern owner. 27

Shchegolyónkov, Vasíly Petróvich (1806-1880s). Reciter. 37

Shcherbátov, Prince Alexander Grigóryevich (1850-1915). Landowner with a particular interest in agriculture. 27

Shcherbátova, Yelizavéta Dmítriyevna (1792-1885). 22

Shchúkin, Pyotr Ivánovich (1857-1912). Celebrated collector, from a rich Old Believer merchant family. 6

Shékhtel, Fyódor Ósipovich (originally Franz Albert) (1859-1926. Architect. 20

Shekovtsóv, Andréi Zakhárovich) (1847 or 1848-1901). Archdeacon of the Uspensky Cathedral in Moscow. 26

Sheremétev, Alexéi Fyódorovich. Noted steeplechase rider. 35

Sheremétev, Count Sergéi Dmítriyevich (1844-1918). Scion of an ancient family and last owner of Kuskovo. 26

Sheshkóvsky, Stepán Ivánovich (1727-94). Interrogator and torturer. 17

Shestyórkin, Mikhaíl Ivánovich (1866-1908). Painter. 13

Shilóvsky, Konstantín Stepánovich (1848-93). Actor and amateur painter. 13

357

Shípov, Sergéi Pávlovich (1789 or 1790-1876). Soldier, property owner in Moscow. 7

Shmaróvin, Vladímir Yegórovich (1850-1924). Collector and patron of the arts. 6;13

Shmaróvina, Raísa Vladímirovna (1883-c.1960). Daughter of V. Ye. Shmarovin. 13

Shmelkóv, Pyotr Mikháilovich (1819-90). Painter. 14

Shúmakher, Pyótr Vasílyevich (1817-91). Poet. 19; 22; 26

Shúmsky, Sergéi Vasílyevich (real name Chesnokóv) (1820-78). Actor. 20

Shuválov, Pyótr Andréyevich (1827-89). Statesman, counsellor to Tsar Alexander II. Such was his influence at the court of Alexander II that he was referred to as "Peter IV". 18; 24

Símov, Víktor Andréyevich (1858-1935). Artist and set designer. 38

Sintsóv, Andréi A. (1868-1910). Artist. 13

Skálkin, Ilyá Aréfovich. Restaurateur. 27

Skóbelev, Mikhaíl Dmítryievich (1843-82). Russian general famous for his conquest of Central Asia and heroism during the Russo-Turkish war 1877-78. 12; 21

Skryábin, Alexander Nikoláyevich (1872-1915). Composer. 20

Slyózkin, Lev Mikháilovich (1855- no later than 1928). Became Head of Gendarmes in Moscow in 1906. 27

Smólin, Andréi Mikháilovich. Detective. 6

Smolkóv, Fyódor Konstantínovich. Ran Nizhny Novgorod Theatre 1847-77. 27

Sobolévsky, Vasíly Mikháilovich (1846-1913). Editor of Russian News from 1876. 32; 34; 38

Sokolóv, Fyódor Ivánovich (1835-1890s). Gypsy singer. 12

Solodóvnikov Gavríla Gavrílovich (1826-1901). Millionaire. 26

Soldatyónkov, Kozmá Teréntyevich (1818-1901). Old Believer, entrepreneur, book publisher and gallery owner. 14

Sofíya Alexéyevna (1657-1704). Half-sister of Peter the Great, Regent, and de facto ruler of Russia 1682-1689. 16

Stakhéyev, Nikolái Dmítriyevich (1852-1933). Gold dealer and patron of the arts. 17

Stanislávsky, Konstantín Sergéyevich (1863-1938). Major actor and theatre director. 38

358

Stepánov, Alexéi Stepánovich (1858-1923). Painter and teacher at the Moscow College of Art. 14

Strúnnikov, Nikolái Ivánovich (1871-1945). Artist. 14

Stúpin, Alexéi Dmítryievich (1846-1915). Bookseller and publisher. 27; 37

Sukhovó-Kobýlin, Alexander Vasilyevich (1817-1903). Playwright. References to his play Krechinsky's Wedding (1850-54) abound. 6; 18; 24

Súrikov, Vasíly Ivánovich (1848-1916). Painter. 30

Sverchkóv, Nikolái Yegórovich (1817-98). Painter. 31

Svéshnikov, Iván Petróvich (1834-1910). Art collector. 13

Svetlóv, Nikolái Vladímirovich (died 1909). Actor. 33

Svyatoslávsky (usually spelt Svetoslavsky), Sergéi Ivánovich (1857-1931). Ukrainian landscape painter. 14

Talýzin, Stepán Alexándrovich (1765-1815). Soldier. 23

Tanti, Konstantín (1862-1909). Clown. 15

Táube, Yúly Románovich (1858-after 1925). Doctor. 33

Tararýkin, Semyón Petróvich. Merchant. Won the Prague Restaurant from its previous owner at billiards in 1896. 27

Tarnóvsky, Konstantín Ávgustovich (1826-92). Playwright. 22; 27

Téstov, Iván Yákovlevich (1827-after 1872). Renowned chef and restaurateur. 12; 27

Tikhonrávov, Nikolái Sávvich (1832-93). Historian of literature. 6

Tolstáya, Countess Sófya Andréyevna (1844-1919). Wife of L.N. Tolstoi. 32

Tolstói, Andréi Lvóvich (1877-1916). Son of Lev Tolstoi. 32

Tolstói, Count Fyódor Ivánovich (1782-1846). Known as "The American". Famous gambler and duellist. 22

Tolstói, Count Lev Nikoláyevich (1828-1910). Major novelist. 22; 32; 37

Tolstói, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1823-60). Brother of L.N. Tolstoi. 32

Tolstói, Sergéi Nikoláyevich (1826-1904). Brother of L.N. Tolstoi. 32

Trépov, Fyódor Fyódorovich (1809-89). Petersburg Police Chief. 6

359

Tretyakóv, Pável Mikháilovich (1832-98). Patron of the Arts and founder of the celebrated art gallery.13;14

Tropínin, Vasíly Andréyevich (1776-1857). Celebrated Romantic painter. Born a serf. 14

Troyekúrov, Prince Iván Borísovich (1633-1703). 16

Turgénev, Iván Petróvich (1752-1807). Freemason. 22

Turgénev, Iván Sergéyevich (1818-83). Celebrated novelist. 26; 34

Tyutyúnik, Vasíly Sávvich (1860-1924). Bass. 33

Uspénsky, Gleb Ivánovich (1843-1902). Prominent Populist writer. 4; 27; 33; 34

Uspénsky, Nikolái Vasílyevich (1837-89). Writer. 15

Valúyev, Pyotr Stepánovich (1743-1814). Archaeologist and statesman. 7

Vashkóv, Sergéi Ivánovich (1879-1914). Artist specializing in religious motifs. Also an architect. 33

Vasílyev, Vasíly Vasílyevich (real name Shvedevenger). Provincial actor who also worked in the Brenko (later Pushkin) Theatre in Moscow. 15; 26; 27; 34

Véinberg (Weinberg), Pyotr Isáyevich (1831-1908). Published a humorous poem in 1901 entitled "To the tamer in the menagerie". Kreutzberg is invited to tame the author’s spouse, but declares the task to be beyond him. 25

Venevítinov, Dmítry Vladímirovich (1805-27). Poet who admired Zinaida Volkonskaya, and died young. 25

Verhaeren, Emile (1855-1916). Belgian poet. 35

Vérner (Werner), Yevgény Antónovich (c.1856-c.1890). Ran his printing house with his brother Mikhaíl (born c. 1866). The brothers are credited with the first motorcycle in Russia. 33; 34

Vitali, Giovanni (known in Russian as Iván Petróvich Vitali) (1794-1855). Russian sculptor of Italian descent. 2;3

Vladímirov, Andréi Ivánovich. Doctor. 33

Vlásovsky, Alexander Alexándrovich (1842-99.) Moscow Police Chief 1891-1896. 17; 32

Volf, Vasíly Ivánovich. Circus owner. 40

Volguzhév, Iván Alexéyevich (1860 or 1862-99). Painter. 12; 14

Volkónskaya, Princess Maria Nikoláyevna (née Rayévskaya (1805-63). Famously followed her Decembrist husband into Siberian exile. 25 360

Volkónskaya, Zinaída Alexándrovna (1789-1862). Poet, composer. 25; 26

Volkónsky, Prince Sergéi Mikháilovich (1860-1937). 24

Volnúkhin, Sergéi Mikháilovich (1859-1921). Sculptor. 13

Voronkóv, Mikhail. Jockey. 26; 35; 39

Voroshílov, Sergéi Semyónovich (1865-1911). Painter. 31

Vrúbel, Mikhaíl Alexándrovich (1856-1910). Major painter. 20; 35

Vyázemsky, Prince Pyotr Andréyevich (1792-1878). Poet. 22; 25

Willebrand, Baron Reinhold Felix von (1858-1935). Finnish member of the IOC 1908-20. 39

Yaguzhínsky, Sergéi Ivánovich (1862-1947). Painter. 13

Yákovlev, Pável Filíppovich (1853-1921). Painter. 9

Yakubóvich, Pyotr Filíppovich (1860-1911). Revolutionary poet. 27

Yeliséyev, Grigóry Grigóryevich (1864-1942). Owner of high-class grocery. 25

Yeliséyev, Grigóry Petróvich (1804-92). Father of G.G. Yeliseyev. 25

Yemelyánov, Iván Ivánovich. 39; 40

Yengalýchev, Prince Konstantín Mikháilovich (died after 1797). Freemason. 22

Yepifánov, Sergéi Alexéyevich (?-1899). Humorous writer. 4; 33

Yermák Timoféyevich (Vasíly Timoféyevich Alénin) (died 1585). Cossack traditionally credited with the discovery of Siberia. 27; 30

Yermólova, María Nikoláyevna (1853-1928). Celebrated actress. 20

Yúdin, Gennády Vasílyevich (1840-1912). Merchant. 15

Yúryev, Sergéi Andréyevich (1821-88). Playwright. 20

Zabélin, Ígor Yegórovich (1820-1908)). Historian, specialist in the history of Moscow. 6

Zagórsky, Konstantín Vasílyevich (1836-98). Provincial actor. 40

Zagóskin, Mikhaíl Nikoláyevich (1789-1852). Novelist. 27

Zaichnévsky, Pyótr Grigóryevich (1842-96). Populist revolutionary. Arrested 1888, exiled to Siberia 1890. 4; 18; 26; 27; 34

361

Zaitsévsky, Mikhaíl Mikháilovich (1815-85). Collector. 6

Zaitsévsky, Vasíly Mikháilovich (pseudonym V.M. Dneprov). Actor. Son of M. M. Zaitsevsky. 6

Zákharyin, Grigory Antónovich (1829-97). Celebrated clinician. 12; 26

Zakrévsky, Arsény Andréyevich (1783-1865). Governor General of Moscow 1848-59. 6

Zamáisky, Iván Fomích (1836-91). Officer in charge of Tverskaya District Police Station. 6

Zavyálov, Fyódor Abrámovich (? – after 1917). Caterer. 24

Zveryóv, A.T. Tavern owner. 27

Zémsky, Alexander Mikháilovich. Bookseller and publisher. 27

Zevéke, Alfóns Alexándrovich (1822-87). Major operator of steamers on the Volga. 42

Zhúkov, Dmítry Yegórovich (1841-1903). Painter. 12; 14

Zhadáyev, Davýd. Member of Moscow City Council. 18

Zheltóv, Iván Mikháilovich (?-1890). Bookseller and publisher. 27

Zhivaryóv. Bookseller and publisher. His shop was "by the Vladimir Gate". 27

Zlatovrátsky, Nikolái Nikoláyevich (1845-1911). Writer. 15; 27

362

363

APPENDIX 2

Selected Moscow sites

Letters and numbers in bold refer to grid squares on the map of Moscow in 1890 (page 363) Numbers in plain type after the colon refer to chapters Asterisks denote sites specifically named on the map on page 363 Sites located beyond the limits of the map are not included.

*Alexander Garden D3/C3: 8 All Saints Passage (Vsekhsvyatsky proyezd) D3: 26 *Arbat Street D2/D3: 2; 32; 33 *Arbatskaya district C2/C3: 18 Arsentych's Tavern C4: 12; 17;27 Arzhenovka D2: 9; 32; 33 Bad Lane (Durnoi pereulok, now Tovarishchesky pereulok).D5: 22 Balkany district C5: 5 *Basmannaya district C5: 1 Bellringers' Lane (Zvonarsky pereulok) C4: 26 Bezymyanny Lane (now Pevchesky pereulok) D4: 10 *Billo Hotel/Restaurant C4: 27 Bogoslovsky (later: Petrovsky)Lane C3: 12 Bolotnaya Square D4: 22 Boloto district D4: 26 *Bolshoi Theatre C4: 20; 26; 27; 30; 31; 33; 35; 39 Borodino Bridge D1: 27 *Boulevard of the Flowers (Tsvetnoi Bulvar)B4/C4: 8; 9; 15; 31; 33; 40 Brenko Theatre (later: Pushkin Theatre) C3: 21; 25; 34 Bryusovsky Lane C3: 20; 26; 27; 29 Carriage Row (Karetny ryad) B3: 15; 26; 31; 41 *Catherine Hospital C3: 24 *Central Telegraph Office C4: 20 Charcoal Square (Ugolnaya ploshchad) B2: 31 Chelyshevsky Baths C4: 26 Cherkassky Lane C4: 27; 34 Chernyshevsky Lane B3: 22; 32 Chernyshi Rooms C3: 20; 26; 27; 29; 34 *Convent of the Passion (Strastnoi monastyr) C3: 11; 13; 19; 24 *Crimean Bridge (Krymsky most) E3: 14 Cutlery Row (Nozhovaya liniya) D4: 40 Danilov cemetery F4: 12 Dolgorukov Lane C3: 20 Dorogomilovo D1/D2: 26; 27; 32 *Dresden Hotel B3: 15; 18; 19 English Club B3: 12; 22 First Zachatyevsky Lane D3: 27 Fortepyany Lane (later: Sobolev. Now Great Golovin) C4: 40 Furkasovsky Lane C4: 17; 20 Gagarin palace C3: 29 *Garden Street (Sadovaya ulitsa; now Bolshaya Sadovaya ulitsa) C2/B4: 2; 6; 11; 19; 27; 30; 31; 41 364

Georgiyevsky Lane C4: 27 German Club Summer Theatre A2: 18 Glazovsky Lane D2: 19 Glinishchevsky Lane C3: 19 Glutton Lane (Obzhorny pereulok) C3:16 (no longer exists) Gnezdnikovsky Lane (now Bolshoi Gnezdikovsky)C3: 15; 19; 25 Goat Marsh (Kozye boloto) See Kozikha Street. 22 Gorokhovaya Street (now Kazakova) C5: 2 Gostiny Dvor D4: 27 *Governor General's Residence C3: 18 *Grachevka Street (now Trubnaya Street) B4: 8; 9; 11; 15; 40 Grand Moscow Hotel (Bolshaya Moskovskaya)C3: 20; 33 Great Bronnaya Street) C3: 5; 15; 23; 37 *Great Dmitrovka Street (formerly Club Street) B3: 12; 20; 23; 41 *Great Gruzinskaya Street C2: 27 Great Kiselny Lane C4: 6 *Great Lubyanka Street B4/C4: 17; 27 Great Molchanovka Street C2/D3: 13 Great Nikitskaya Street C3: 13; 23; 27 Great Spassky (now Karetny) Lane B3: 15 Great Yakimanka Street E3: 33; 39 Gruziny district C2: 27 Hay Square (Sennaya ploshchad) C4: 24 (no longer exists) Hermitage Restaurant (Ermitazh) C4: 15; 21; 23; 27; 33; 41 Horse Market (Konnyi rynok)E3: 32 (no longer exists) *Horse Square (Konnaya ploshchad) E3: 2; 30 Hotel Moscow C4: 16 House of the Peasant (Dom Krestyanina: formerly Hermitage Restaurant) C4: 31 Hunters' Club (Okhotnichy klub) C3: 21; 32 Hunters' Row (Okhotny Ryad) C4: 2; 15; 16; 23; 27; 31 *Ilyinka Street C4: 6; 12; 18; 22; 27 Ilyinsky Gate C4: 7 *Iverskaya (Iberian chapel) C3: 27; 30 *Kaluga Gate (zastava) F2: 14 *Kamenny (Stone) Bridge D3: 6; 37 *Khamovnicheskaya district (Khamovniki) E2: 2; 18 Khitrovka (also Khitrovka Market) E4: 4; 5; 9; 11; 12; 15;18; 26; 29; 32; 33; 34; 38 Khlynovsky Close (tupik) C3: 34 *Khodynka Field A1: 18; 30; 39 *Kitai-gorod D4: 7 Kitai Passage (now Kitaigorodsky proyezd) D4: 8 Kitai Wall D4: 7 Korsh Theatre C3: 12; 33; 41 Kozikha Street (unofficial name of Great Kozikhinsky Lane and surrounding area)C3: 23 Kozitsky Lane C3: 12; 25 *Kremlin D3: 6; 25; 39 *Krestovsky Gate (Krestovakaya zastava) A4: 2 *Kursk Station C5: 17 Kuznetsky Lane C4:27 *Kuznetsky Bridge (Most) C4:) 8; 27; 39 Leontyevsky Lane C3: 19; 33

365

Little Bronnaya Street C3: 37 *Little Dmitrovka Street B3: 33 Little Gruzinskaya Street C2: 11 Little Kolosov Lane C4: 9; 10 Little Lubyanka Street B4/C4: 6; 17 Lubyanka Passage (Lubyansky proyezd) C4: 17 *Lubyanka Square C4: 2; 7;17; 26; 27; 36 *Maidens' Field (Devichye pole) E2: 6; 26 Malkiel House C3: 21 *Maly Theatre C4: 3; 8; 13; 20 Manège D3: 12; 23 Maroseika Street C4: 26 Merchants' Club B3: 12 *Meshchanskaya Street B4: 6; 26 Metropole Hotel C4: 20 *Mokhovaya Street D3: 2;19;23;27;32;36 *Moscow River D1/C1/C2/D2/E1/F1/F2/E2/E3/D3/D4/E4/E5/F5/F4: 8; 27; 28; 30 *Moscow University C4: 23 Moskvoretskaya Street D4: 7 Museum of the Revolution C3: 18; 22 *Myasnitskaya Street C4: 2; 17; 20; 27; 32; 36; 40 *Myasnitskaya district C4: 4; 5;18 Naryshkin Square (Naryshkinsky skver) C3: 23; 24; 41 Neglinnaya Street (formerly Neglinny Passage) C4: 8; 27 Neglinka River (officially: Neglinnaya) C4/D3: 3; 8; 9; 10; 21; 26; 31 Neglinny Passage (Neglinny Proyezd) See also Neglinnaya Street. C4: 3; 8; 15; 20 Nettle Lane (Krapivinsky, now Krapivensky, pereulok) C3/C4: 26 *Newspaper Lane (Gazetny pereulok) C3: 20; 27 New Square (Novaya ploshchad)C4: 7 Nikitsky Boulevard C3: 15 Nikitsky Gate Square C3: 12; 22; 27 Nikolskaya Street C4: 6; 12; 27; 36 Nikolsky Gate C4: 7 Old Square (Staraya ploshchad)C4: 5; 7 Olsufyev House (Olsufevka; Olsufyevskaya Fortress) C3: 27; 29; 34 *Ostozhenka Street D3: 27 Palashevsky Lane (Great and Little) C3: 23; 30 Palashevsky Baths (in Little Palashёvsky Lane) C3: 26 Patriarch's Ponds district (Patriarshie Prudy) C3: 37 People's Theatre (Narodny teatr) D4: 5 *Petrovka C4: 18; 20; 24; 27; 31; 33; 36 *Petrovsky Castle (Dvorets) A1: 30 Petrovsky Lines C4: 27; 31; 36; 37 *Petrovsky Park A2: 2; 11;18; 26 Pevchesky Lane (see also Bezymyanny pereulok. Formerely Svininsky)D4: 4 Pimenovsky Lane (now Staropimenovsky) B3: 13 Podkolokolny Lane D4: 4 *Pokrovka Street C4/C5: 12; 38 Pokrovsky Boulevard C5: 4 *Polytechnic Museum C4: 17 *Prechistenka Street D2/ D3: 4; 14; 18; 19; 26; 32

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Presnya district C2: 26; 28 Pushkin Monument C3: 12; 33 *Pyatnitskaya district E4: 18 *Red Gate (Krasnyye vorota) C5: 5 *Red Square (Krasnaya Ploshchad) C4: 30 *Rogozhskaya district (Rogozhka; Rogozh) E5: 18;19;22; 40 Romeiko house E4: 4; 5; 7 Rossiya Insurance Building C4: 17; 20 *Rozhdestvenka Street C4: 6; 27 Rukavishnikovsky Corrective Institute (ispravitelny priyut) D2: 5 Rumyantsev Museum (later: Lenin Library) D3: 36 *Samotechnaya Street (Samoteka) B3/B4: 8; 9; 31 Sandunovsky Baths C4: 20; 26 Savyolovsky Lane (now Pozharny) D3: 13 Sennaya Square (Smolenskaya-Sennaya) D2: 41 *Serpukhovskaya district F4: 33 Shabolovka Street F3: 37 Sheremetyev Hospital (now Sklifosovsky) B4: 6 Sheremetyev Lane C3: 32 Shipov Fortress C4: 7;15; 17 Siberia tavern (Sibir) D4: 4 *Slavonic Bazaar Restaurant C4: 15; 27; 33; 35; 38 Smolensk Market B2: 6; 32 Sofiika Street (now Pushechnaya)C4: 20; 27 Solodovnikov Passage (Passazh Solodovnikova) C4: 27; 40. No longer exists Solyanka Street D4: 4; 5 Soviet Square (formerly Skobelevskaya. Now Tverskaya) C3: 18 Spasskaya Tower C4: 6 Spassky Barracks B4: 6 *Sretenka Street B4/C4: 15; 19; 32; 33 Sretensky Boulevard C4: 12; 20 Stoleshnikov Lane C3: 21; 27; 33; 36 *Strastnaya Square (now Pushkinskaya) C3: 22; 31 *Strastnoi Boulevard C3: 5; 19; 22; 23; 24; 26; 33 Sukharevka B4: 2 ;5; 6; 12; 19; 27; 31 Sukharevskaya (Sadovaya-Sukharevskaya) Street B4: 31 *Sukharev Tower B4: 6; 16 Sukonnye Baths D4: 26 *Sushchevskaya district B3/B4: 18; 34 Sverdlov Square (now Theatre D4: 8; 31 Taganka (Taganskaya district) D5: 18; 19; 39; 40 Tatarskaya Street E4: 26 Tatarsky Restaurant (later: Hotel Rossiya) C4: 27; 36 Tyoply Lane (now Timur Frunze Street) E2: 2 Testov's tavern D3: 12; 27; 37. No longer exists Theatre Square (Teatralnaya Ploshchad)C4: 2; 3; 27; 31 Transit tavern (Peresylny) D4: 4 Trekhgornaya factory (manufaktura) C2: 36 Tretyakov Gallery E3: 7 Trinity Troitsy-Listy) B4: 15 Triumphal Gate B2: 30; 31

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Trubnaya Square C4: 7; 8; 9; 10; 15; 19; 20; 23; 31 Trunk Row (Sunduchny ryad)D4: 12 *Tverskaya Gate (zastava) B2: 26; 27; 30 Tverskaya Square B3: 18; 26 *Tverskaya Street (unofficially: Piterskaya)B3/C3: 12; 16; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 25; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 33; 34; 41 *Tverskoi Boulevard C3: 12; 21; 22; 32 Ulansky Lane C3: 12 Uspensky Cathedral D3: 25 *Vagankovo Cemetery B1: 31; 39 *Varvarka Street D4: 7; 27 Varvarsky Gate Square D4: 7 Vetoshny Lane C4: 26 Voskresenskaya Square (now Revolution Square) C4: 21; 27 Vozdvizhenka Street D3: 2; 23 *Yakimanskaya district E3: 18 Yamskaya District B2/C2/C3: 30 *Yaroslavl Station B5: 1 *Yauza D5/C6: 4; 7; 15; 26 Yauzsky Boulevard D4: 4 Yushkov Lane (now Bobrov) C4: 14; 32 Zaryadye D4: 18 Zemlyanoi Val Street C5/D5: 2 Zhivorezny Lane C5: 36 Zlatoustinsky Lane (officially: Great Zlatoustinsky) C4: 6; 17; 24

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APPENDIX 3

Publications referred to in the text

Numbers refer to chapters

Alarm Clock (Budilnik). Weekly satirical magazine which appeared in Petersburg 1865-1871 and in Moscow 1873-1917. Gilyarovsky was a contributor to it. 6; 9; 25; 33

All Moscow (Vsya Moskva). Gazetteer published 1875-1917. 33

Bell (Kolokol). Emigré journal, edited by Alexander Herzen. Ceased publication in Russian 1867. 40

Circle News (Izvestiya Kruzhka). Journal of the Literary-Artistic Society. 20

Courier (Kuryer). Opposition newspaper published in Moscow 1897-1904. 38

Cricket (Sverchok). Humorous journal published in Moscow 1886-91. 33; 34

Dragonfly (Strekoza). Humorous journal published in Petersburg 1875-1918. 33

Entertainment (Razvlecheniye). Weekly humorous journal, published 1859-1905. 4; 9; 12; 27; 33

Evening Moscow (Vechernyaya Moskva). Newspaper first published in 1923, and still published to this day. 8

Forward (Vperyod). Revolutionary journal, five issues of which appeared 1873-77. 18

Horse Breeding (Konnozavodstvo). Official journal, published in Petersburg from 1842. 34

Journal of the Elders (Zhurnal starshin). 22

Journal of Sport (Zhurnal sporta). Founded in Moscow in 1891 as Sporting Sketch (Listok sporta). Changed its name in 1897. Dealt with horse racing and related matters. Edited by Gilyarovsky. 34

Light and Shade (Svet i ten). Weekly illustrated journal published in Moscow 1878-84. 33

Moscow (Moskva). Journal founded by E.S. Stalinsky and I.I. Klang in 1882. 10 stories by Chekhov appeared in it. Known as the Wave 1884-86. 33; 36

Moscow News (Moskovskiye vedomosti). Newspaper published 1756-1917. Closely linked with Moscow University. In the nineteenth century it appeared three times weekly. 23

Moscow Sketch (Moskovsky listok). Published 1881-1918. Founded by N. I. Pastukhov 27; 32; 33

Nature and Hunting (Priroda i okhota). Journal founded and edited by L.P. Sabaneyev. Published 1880-1912. 16; 21

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News of our Time (Sovremennyye izvestiya). Daily newspaper published in Moscow 1867-87; 6; 18

New World (Novy mir). Literary journal published monthly in Moscow since 1925. 38

New Times (Novoye vremya) Daily newspaper, generally conservative in tone, published in Petersburg 1868-1917. 27; 33

Northern Messenger (Severny vestnik). Left-leaning Petersburg journal, published 1885-98. 33

People's Will (Narodnaya volya). Organ of the eponymous revolutionary Populist organisation, published sporadically 1879-86. 34

Petersburg Gazette (Peterburgskaya gazeta). Daily newspaper published between 1867 and 1917. 33

Russia (Rossiya). Newspaper founded by A.V. Amfiteatrov and N.M. Doroshevich in 1899. Closed in 1902 for satirizing the royal family. 38

Russian Archive (Russky arkiv). Monthly journal published in Moscow 1863-1917 (bi-monthly 1880-84). 23

Russian Herald (Russky vestnik). Influential journal published 1856-1906. 22

Russsian News (Russkie vedomosti). Liberal newspaper, published in Moscow 1863-1918 . A daily from 1868. 4; 12; 15; 25; 30; 32; 33; 34; 37

Russian Sport (Russky sport). Monthly illustrated journal concerned exclusively with horse breeding. Published in Petersburg 1882-84 and in Moscow 1884-95. 34

Russian Survey (Russkoye obozreniye). Monthly journal published in Moscow 1890-98. 37

Russian Thought (Russkaya Mysl). Literary and political monthly journal published between 1880 and 1918 in Russia, and subsequently published abroad. 15; 32; 33; 34

Russian Word (Russkoye slovo). Moscow daily newspaper, published 1895-18. Not to be confused with the earlier Petersburg journal of the same name. 27

Spark (Iskra). Satirical journal. 15

Spectator (Zritel). Literary, artistic and humorous magazine published by Vsevolod Vasilyevich Davydov (1843-1919) between 1881 and 1886. 33

Splinters (Oskolki). Weekly humorous and literary journal published in Petersburg 1881-1916. 9; 33

Wave (Volna). See Moscow

Wordly Sense (Mirskoi tolk). Weekly journal published in Moscow 1879-84. 33

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