Russian nanny. Her image can be found in the work and memoirs of many Russian figures. But how much is known about her?

Sometimes becoming a full-fledged member of the family, she always remains in the shadow of her pupils. Depriving herself of her own family happiness, the nanny gave all her love and affection to her wards, becoming the closest person for a child deprived of parental love due to conventions of etiquette. It was the nanny who formed the soul of her wards. Let her not be able to teach good manners, dont know foreign language, but instilled the main thing - love and respect for common man, Russian culture, word. We offer to see how Russian leaders remembered their nannies.

Arina Rodionovna

The most famous Russian nanny. Surprisingly, Pushkin never called her by name, even in letters, addressing her, he simply wrote “nanny”. But all his love and gratitude for his nanny, “the good friend of my poor youth,” poured out in his poems.

Arina Rodionovna went through all of Pushkin's work. From childhood, she instilled the poet's love for the Russian word, culture, telling fairy tales, which, as is commonly believed, subsequently formed the basis of his works. The nanny introduced Pushkin to Russian customs and rituals, showed the life of the simple Russian people. She did not leave him during his exile in Mikhailovsky, brightening up the days with her fairy tales. Arina Rodionovna was a kind of "literary nanny", becoming the prototype of Tatyana's nanny in "Eugene Onegin", the prototype female images in the novel "Arap of Peter the Great" and mother Xenia in "Boris Godunov".

Alena Frolovna

Fyodor Dostoevsky's nanny was hired from Moscow bourgeois women. She raised the whole family of the writer. Dostoevsky in his diary describes her as a forty-five-year-old woman with a clear cheerful character, telling "such glorious tales." Indeed, Alena Frolovna knew many fairy tales, games and songs. It was she who instilled in the writer a love for Russian culture. Once there was a fire in the house of the Dostoevskys, everything burned down: the huts, the barn, the barnyard, and grain reserves. Alena Frolovna, who had not taken a salary for several years, offered all her available money to the writer's family. Dostoevsky recalled that they never took the money from her.

For Goncharov, the nanny Annushka became the main source of knowledge of Russian folklore. The writer recalled how his nanny enthusiastically told him stories about the Firebird, Emel the Fool, the Bear on a wooden leg. “Story after story flowed. The nanny narrated with ardor, picturesquely, with enthusiasm, in places with inspiration, because she herself half believed the stories.

Her expressions and jokes can be seen in many of the writer's works. For example, in Oblomov's Dream, the author's personal impressions are clearly felt. “Why is it, nanny, it’s dark here, but it’s light there, but will it be light there too? Because, father, that the sun goes towards the moon and does not see it, it frowns; and already, as he sees from afar, he will brighten up. The nanny gives little Ilyusha a fabulous, mythological explanation of the world, which she herself is content with. At the same time, she develops imagination and a poetic worldview in the child. The image of the nanny went through all the work of the writer. In the essay “Russians in Japan in 1854,” Goncharov correlates the sensations from the events taking place with the impressions from the nurse’s stories: “I could not believe that all this was being done in reality. At some point it seemed to me that I was a child, that the nanny told me a wonderful tale about unheard of people, and I fell asleep in her arms and see all this in a dream.

Anna Ivanovna Katamenkova

Anna Ivanovna Katamenkova, the nanny of Nikolai Berdyaev, was ardently believing, kind and caring. She, like many nannies in Russian homes, was considered not a servant, but a member of the family. Berdyaev saw in her the embodiment of a classic Russian nanny.

“She was the classic type of Russian nanny. hot Orthodox faith, extraordinary kindness and caring, a sense of dignity that elevated her above the position of a servant and turned her into a family member. Nannies in Russia were a very special social stratum, coming out of the established social classes. For many Russians, the bar nanny was the only close connection with the people.

Katerinushka

Dmitry Likhachev's nanny was called Katerinushka. She had her own house in Ust-Izhora, but she lived for the most part in other people's families, helping them without thinking about remuneration. “Katerina went down,” they said about her, when the nanny suddenly disappeared for a month or a year, leaving for another family where they needed her help.

Likhachev in his book "Memoirs" cites a funny incident related to his nanny. “I remember that she lived on Tarasov in the same room as me, and I was then six years old, and for the first time I discovered, to my surprise, that women have legs. The skirts were so long that only the shoes were visible. And here in the mornings behind the screen, when Katerinushka got up, two legs appeared in thick stockings of different colors (the stocking is still not visible under the skirt). I looked at these multi-colored ankle stockings that appeared in front of me and was surprised.

She was tall and thin, which led to her being called "long nanny". The nanny of the Russian Seasons ballerina Tamara Karsavina, Dunyasha, raised not only the dancer, but also her brother Lyova. The ballerina in her book Theater Street recalls that Dunyasha taught her to feel uncontrollable pity for all living creatures in trouble.

The nanny disapproved of the fact that her pupil began to study ballet. Dunyasha often told a story about an acrobat she knew, who “had broken all the bones” to make him flexible. Therefore, she looked with pity at those photographs of Karsavina, where she was taken, standing on pointe shoes. During the first debut of the ballerina at the Mariinsky Theater, Dunyasha was seized by such deep grief that she began to sob loudly, because of which she had to be taken away from the theater.

The image and role of a nanny in Diaghilev's life is well illustrated by Bakst's portrait "Portrait of S. P. Diaghilev with a nanny". The devoted nanny Dunya sits in the corner, and with love and awe looks at her pupil, proudly speaking in the foreground.

The nanny of Sergei Diaghilev did not leave her pupil even after he grew up. Faithful Dunya spent her whole life next to the great impresario. After he entered the university, she moved with him to St. Petersburg and became the full mistress of his apartment. Dunya was present at all meetings of the World of Art, a magazine, one of the founders of which was Diaghilev. Everyone who was at Diaghilev's house revered Dunya, considering her "one of their own", shaking her hand. Benois recalled that Dunya was a typical village old woman, with a wrinkled face and a kind of frozen expression in her eyes of questioning anxiety.

I am French, born in Paris. My father was an engineer, a good specialist, and therefore at the end of the 30s he was invited to America to work in a large industrial company. That's how it happened that we survived the Second world war across the ocean - we were lucky that we did not see the Nazis on the streets of Paris.

In 1945, dad was offered to extend the contract in the United States, but he refused, because the war was ending and his parents dreamed of returning to France as soon as possible. We arrived in Paris in June 1945. During the war years, our Parisian apartment stood closed, and my parents found it unfit for life. They decided to take overhaul. Dad himself made the drawings, made an estimate, found workers, mom actively helped him. The question arose: what to do with me, a ten-year-old child, during the repair? It was decided to send me under the supervision of a nurse to our country estate in Bordeaux.

Mom started looking for a babysitter. She wanted to find a reliable and educated woman, but the interviews were mostly frightened refugees from of Eastern Europe, By different reasons who did not want to return to their homeland. French governesses did not agree to go to Bordeaux for two and a half months. The search dragged on.

“They are all, as one, illiterate!” Mom complained. According to her plan, the nanny was supposed to coach me in French grammar all summer. Finally, one day, when I was digging a trench in a pile of construction debris in the middle of a ruined living room, my mother called me over and introduced a young girl:
Eliza, this is your nanny. Mademoiselle Anna Polyakova.

I immediately felt some amazing honey smell from her clothes. Annie was very beautiful girl. Her eyes were especially good - not even blue, but really blue. Their gaze attracted so much that I constantly wanted to look at her face. When our train on the way to Bordeaux was checked by a military patrol, I, observant, like all ten-year-olds french girls, noticed with what admiration the young officer looked at her ...

When we arrived, we found the estate in a terrible state. During the war, some refugees took refuge there, who did not take care of their temporary shelter. We opened the rusty lock for a long time and with difficulty, and when we entered, we realized that it was not necessary to work so hard: the huge windows overlooking the garden were broken - we could safely climb through them. It was getting dark, my nanny was confused, and I almost cried at the thought that we would have to live in this terrible empty ruined house for two whole months. There was no electricity, no running water.

We sat down on the surviving chairs and silently looked at each other.

- I beg you, Ani, let's go back to Paris! I pleaded.

She answered me with a well-known Russian proverb, which I no longer remember verbatim, but its meaning was that it is better to think in the morning and not in the evening. Then she went to the neighbors, brought water, candles, we washed ourselves, got ready for bed ...

We slept in the attic, barricading the doors against the intrusion of night thieves. These details are probably of little interest to anyone, but I remember everything so well! And now it seems to me almost beautiful the smell of mice that soaked the walls of our attic - after all, it was my childhood ... My childhood ...

Annie woke me up early. Prepared breakfast. She found a glazier who had already come to fix the windows. Despite all our everyday problems On the very first day, Ani gave me a lesson in Russian literature. She read me Tolstoy's story "The Lion and the Dog". Oh, I understood him very well, because when we left America, we left our dog in the care of our neighbors, missing which I even cried sometimes. I cried in class too, imagining that our gullible Charlie would be taken to the New York Zoo, in a cage with a lion.

Annie did not console me. She looked with a smile and said that it was good that I was crying. I took offense at her. I felt terribly alone and useless. My parents don't like me, I thought. They sent me to the village! With such a cold and cruel Russian! And now they themselves are probably having dinner at a restaurant or went to the cinema ...

Now I understand how difficult it was for Ani, a young girl who left her family and friends for a piece of bread and came with someone else's capricious child to an unfamiliar area. But then I was sure that the most important difficulties fell on me.

I was capricious, refused to take a shower and demanded a hot bath, cried that there was no electricity, was unhappy that the milk smelled like a cow. In general, as I understand now, it required a lot of patience and strength from her in order to remain even, friendly, and benevolent. To warm my milk in the morning, to read books, to check dictations, to tell interesting cautionary tales, play ball with me, go for walks, entertain me in every possible way and organize my day.

Claude Monet. Japanese bridge (pond with water lilies). 1897 - 1899

* * *
I remember one day it was raining and we were talking on the terrace. Ani always listened to me seriously and attentively, no matter how stupid things I said. This time I told her that I had a friend in America who promised to write letters to me and whom I would marry when I grew up. She did not dismiss me like a mother, but immediately believed that it was possible. She asked him his name and looked with interest at his photograph, which I had brought with me. She even asked where we will live - in the USA or in Europe?

As I later found out, her fiancé, also Russian, died during the war in a concentration camp, so Ani wore mourning for him. What was amazing custom- in those days, many women, becoming widows, dressed in black. Sometimes I smelled the same pleasant honey scent from her clothes, which I caught when I saw her in Paris for the first time. Once I asked what kind of perfume it was.

“I don’t have spirits,” Ani answered.
- And what makes you smell so good?
“Those are candles,” she guessed, and took out a bunch of yellow candles from her old shabby bag. I sniffed them and agreed that it was the same smell.
- Why then did you go to the neighbors for candles on the first evening, if you had them? I was surprised.
“They can't just be burned. This church candles, they are lit in front of the icons.
- Do you believe in God?
- Yes.

And she, after a pause for a while, told me that after the death of her fiancé she was very sad. He was burned in the oven of a concentration camp, and here Ani, poor, kept imagining how he was suffocating there in the smoke. She stopped eating, going out, talking to people.

“But one day I had a dream,” she said. - Such a beautiful green, flowering space by some unfamiliar lake. And there on the shore I saw him. He sat with his back to me and did not want to turn around, did not want to talk ... And I also brought buns with chocolate and tried to feed him. And some luminous, very beautiful person- probably it was an Angel, - he explained to me that my fiancé was suffering a lot. That my longing torments him, and he cannot be calm and happy. He loves me even more than on earth, but he feels good in heaven. After this dream, I woke up comforted. And gradually I began to feel that the forces for life were returning to me.

– How did you meet him? I asked.
- With the groom? she asked a little naively. “We grew up with him. Our parents emigrated together to Paris in 1920.
- Was he handsome?
She took it out of her wallet and showed me a photo of a tall young guy standing next to her - festively dressed and cheerful.
- What was his name?
- Sergey.
“And you won’t be able to love anyone else like him?”
“No…” she answered seriously.

I listened to her prayers for the night and gradually learned to make out my own among many names - Elizabeth: she prayed for me too. In August we returned to Paris. And in the fall, Ani went to an Orthodox monastery near Paris.

Claude Monet. Lady in the Garden of Sainte-Adresse. 1867

* * *
My parents were always indifferent to religion, my husband was also an atheist. I've lived a good life. I had good family, we traveled a lot, but now the children have grown up, live separately, my husband has died. Now I have a lot of free time, and more and more often I think about what will happen to me when I die. All older people think a lot about these questions.

Maybe there is no God, and then I simply will not be. What if He exists, and all my life I did not want to know about Him? Perhaps it is foolish to think that we know everything, and do not notice many things that remind us of the existence of another life? Thinking about it, I started reading religious books and found an Orthodox church.

But the strongest evidence of the presence of God for me was the life of my nanny. How can I explain it to you? .. After the war, society seemed to have gone crazy. People wanted to forget about terrible war, about death, wounds and torment. Everyone wanted to enjoy life, to rejoice, to love. Everyone, without exception, wanted to love and be loved. For the sake of this, many were ready to transgress any commandments, to break all ties. It was hard to judge - the desire to enjoy life.

Ani was then only twenty-one years old, and she was very beautiful. Men who are in post-war times were too spoiled by female attention, looked at her with undisguised interest. But she did not want these normal human joys: love, family, children. She gave up everything that for every young girl of her age is the meaning of life. And it didn't make her unhappy or sad. She was somehow joyful from the inside. So she had even greater joy than enjoying life here. This I understood over time.

A few years ago I was baptized in Orthodox Church. I know it happened because of my nanny's prayers. Russian woman named Anna.

On the screen saver: painting by Claude Monet “Poppies”, 1873

The profession of "nanny" is gaining its former popularity not only abroad, but also in Russia.

Who is this Russian nanny today?

Many of them in the past are teachers with higher or secondary special education, with extensive work experience in a kindergarten or school, workers with children by vocation.

At some point, they decided to devote their time to raising one child. A Russian nanny is a woman who has raised her children, understanding all the responsibility that will now be on her shoulders.

The nanny must understand that from now on the upbringing of the child is her direct responsibility. Not everything is decided by genes, a lot depends on the influence of the environment, on knowledge, habits, laid down and acquired in early childhood.

A modern woman spends a lot of time at work, most often torn between career and personal life. And any mother has to sacrifice time either for the benefit of the family, or for the benefit of a career, or for the benefit of herself.

Mother's assistant in education - a nanny for a child. Babysitting services are resorted to when the baby goes to kindergarten and there is no one to pick him up in the evening if the baby is at home, if the mother needs to go to work and there is no one to leave the child with. If the grandmother and relatives are not able to help with the child for any reason.

A nanny is an assistant to a mother in raising a baby and doing household chores. The nanny can take a walk with the child and look after if the mother needs to be away for a short while, or even the nanny can take full care of the child if the parents cannot devote all their time to the baby due to health reasons, workload or other circumstances. The nanny will be able to cook meals, sometimes not only for the child, but for the whole family.

Of course, if the baby is breastfeeding and requires constant attention on the part of the nanny, it would be a mistake to dump household chores on her. But many families resort to the services of a nanny, and a nanny, in free time, when the child is sleeping or playing by himself, can cook food or do light cleaning.

The functions of a nanny in each family are individual. As individual and work schedules.

A nanny may be invited to the child for the whole day 5 days a week, or may be invited on weekends. A nanny for a baby can be a daytime one,

Nanny ... How much warmth and affection in this word ... Today it's hard to imagine perfect image a loving nanny and finding one is also quite difficult. Yes, and there is no particular need for this, because most of today's children go to kindergartens. But just over a century ago, children were brought up at home. As the famous song says:

They say that in the old days it was like this:
Many brothers and sisters had a lot of fun.
They drank milk together, ate dry food together,
There was a real kindergarten in each hut!
(Yu.Entin, A.Rybnikov)

In the old days, educators were the parents themselves, nurses or nannies. “In old age, a nanny was assigned to the girl until her marriage and kept honorary title it's forever"- wrote V.I.Dal. Nannies in Russia had a special status. They were real members of the family, they ate with the gentlemen at the same table, received salaries and clothes. Good nannies were “passed down” from children to grandchildren. Many famous Russian writers, poets and other artists spoke warmly about their nannies. And largely thanks to the efforts of the nannies, many of them took place, as creative personalities. Today we also want to recall the most famous Russian nannies.

The most famous Russian nannies.

Arina Rodionovna.

Nanny of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, perhaps the most famous nanny in the history of Russia. How many warm words the poet dedicated to her in his poems. A simple serf peasant woman, it was she who instilled little Sasha love for the word, telling Russian fairy tales and introducing folklore. In addition to pupils from the Hannibal family, Arina Rodionovna herself had four children.

At little Sasha she was a nanny until the age of 7, and then an "uncle" and a tutor were assigned to him.

Arina Rodionovna died after a short illness at the age of 70 on July 29, 1828 in St. Petersburg, in the house of Olga Pavlishcheva (Pushkina).

Annushka.

Anna Mikhailovna.

It was thanks to his nanny that another writer took place - Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov. Annushka was for little Vanya a source of knowledge of Russian folklore. The writer recalled: “Story after story flowed. The nanny narrated with ardor, picturesquely, with enthusiasm, in places with inspiration, because she herself half believed the stories. Many of her stories formed the basis of some of the author's works (Son Oblomov, Russians in Japan, etc.)

It is a pity that we can say almost nothing about this obscure Russian Simbirian woman who put her soul into her "Vanya" and so fully, albeit namelessly, participated in the creation of "Oblomov", and other Goncharov's masterpieces

Kryukova Alena (Elena) Frolovna.

[OK. 1780, Moscow - 1850s, ibid.]

Nanny of Fyodor Dostoyevsky raised not only little Fedya, but his seven brothers and sisters. Unlike the serf Arina Rodionovna, Alena Frolovna was from the bourgeois class and was hired as a nanny. “She was a woman with a clear cheerful character. She told such glorious tales! .. "- Fedor Mikhailovich recalled the nanny.

After the death of M.F. Dostoevskoy Alena Frolovna lived in Darovoe together with M.A. Dostoevsky and then was an informant of the writer's brother A.M. Dostoevsky, telling him as an eyewitness about recent months father's life and circumstances of his death.

Dunyasha.

Dunyasha - nanny of the famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina. She also raised her brother Lyova. Surprisingly, Dunyasha did not approve of her pupil's enthusiasm for ballet and was very sorry for Tamarochka. It seemed to her that ballet was very hard work (which, in general, is true). During Tamara Karsavina's debut performance at the Mariinsky Theatre, Dunyasha even burst into tears of pity!..

Katerinushka.

Ekaterina Ioakimovna.

Katerinushka - nanny of the famous Soviet philologist, culturologist and art critic Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. "My nanny's name was Katerinushka," the scientist recalls. “The only thing that survived from Katerinushka is a photograph in which she was taken with my grandmother Maria Nikolaevna Konyaeva. The photo is bad, but typical. Both laugh to tears. Katerinushka nursed my mother, nursed my brothers. We wanted her to help us with our "runches" - Verochka and Milochka, but something prevented her. She had a lot of interference, moreover, unexpected ones. She helped literally everyone and did not think about remuneration.

Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev wrote about nannies: “Nanny in Russia was a very special social stratum. The ardent Orthodox faith, extraordinary kindness and caring, a sense of dignity, elevated her above the position of a servant and turned her into a family member.

He himself was brought up by a nanny - Anna Katamenkova, whom he considered the embodiment of a classic Russian nanny.

Have you noticed how affectionately the pupils called their nannies? Annushka, Katerinushka, Dunyasha...
That is how their names have gone down in history.

Thank you dear nannies!

Russian nanny. Her image can be found in the work and memoirs of many Russian figures. But how much is known about her? Sometimes becoming a full-fledged member of the family, she always remains in the shadow of her pupils. Depriving herself of her own family happiness, the nanny gave all her love and affection to her wards, becoming the closest person for a child deprived of parental love due to conventions of etiquette. It was the nanny who formed the soul of her wards. Even though she could not teach good manners, she did not know a foreign language, but the main thing was to instill love and respect for the common man, Russian culture, and the word.

Arina Rodionovna The most famous Russian nanny. Surprisingly, Pushkin never called her by name, even in letters, addressing her, he simply wrote “nanny”. But all his love and gratitude for his nanny, “the good friend of my poor youth,” poured out in his poems.

Arina Rodionovna went through all of Pushkin's work. From childhood, she instilled the poet's love for the Russian word, culture, telling fairy tales, which, as is commonly believed, subsequently formed the basis of his works. The nanny introduced Pushkin to Russian customs and rituals, showed the life of the simple Russian people. She did not leave him during his exile in Mikhailovsky, brightening up the days with her fairy tales. Arina Rodionovna was a kind of "literary nanny", becoming the prototype of Tatyana's nanny in "Eugene Onegin", the prototype of female images in the novel "Peter the Great's Moor" and Xenia's mother in "Boris Godunov".

Alena Frolovna Fyodor Dostoevsky's nanny was hired from Moscow bourgeois women. She raised the whole family of the writer. Dostoevsky in his diary describes her as a forty-five-year-old woman with a clear cheerful character, telling "such glorious tales."

Indeed, Alena Frolovna knew many fairy tales, games and songs. It was she who instilled in the writer a love for Russian culture. Once there was a fire in the house of the Dostoevskys, everything burned down: the huts, the barn, the barnyard, and grain reserves. Alena Frolovna, who had not taken a salary for several years, offered all her available money to the writer's family. Dostoevsky recalled that they never took the money from her.

Annushka For Goncharov, the nanny Annushka became the main source of knowledge of Russian folklore. The writer recalled how the nanny enthusiastically told him stories about fire bird, Emela-fool, Bear on a wooden leg. “Story after story flowed. The nanny narrated with ardor, picturesquely, with enthusiasm, in places with inspiration, because she herself half believed the stories. Her expressions and jokes can be seen in many of the writer's works.

For example, in Oblomov's Dream, the author's personal impressions are clearly felt. “Why is it, nanny, it’s dark here, but it’s light there, but will it be light there too? Because, father, that the sun goes towards the moon and does not see it, it frowns; and already, as he sees from afar, he will brighten up. The nanny gives little Ilyusha a fabulous, mythological explanation of the world, which she herself is content with. At the same time, she develops imagination and a poetic worldview in the child. The image of the nanny went through all the work of the writer. In the essay “Russians in Japan in 1854,” Goncharov correlates the sensations from the events taking place with the impressions from the nurse’s stories: “I could not believe that all this was being done in reality. At some point it seemed to me that I was a child, that the nanny told me a wonderful tale about unheard of people, and I fell asleep in her arms and see all this in a dream.

Anna Ivanovna Katamenkova Anna Ivanovna Katamenkova, Nikolai Berdyaev's nanny, was ardently believing, kind and caring. She, like many nannies in Russian homes, was considered not a servant, but a member of the family. Berdyaev saw in her the embodiment of a classic Russian nanny. “She was the classic type of Russian nanny. An ardent Orthodox faith, extraordinary kindness and caring, a sense of dignity that elevated her above the position of a servant and turned her into a family member. Nannies in Russia were a very special social stratum, coming out of the established social classes. For many Russians, the bar nanny was the only close connection with the people.

Katerinushka Dmitry Likhachev's nanny was called Katerinushka. She had her own house in Ust-Izhora, but she lived for the most part in other people's families, helping them, not thinking about remuneration. “Katerina went down,” they said about her, when the nanny suddenly disappeared for a month or a year, leaving for another family where they needed her help. Likhachev in his book "Memoirs" cites a funny incident related to his nanny. “I remember that she lived on Tarasov in the same room as me, and I was then six years old, and for the first time I discovered, to my surprise, that women have legs. The skirts were so long that only the shoes were visible. And here in the mornings behind the screen, when Katerinushka got up, two legs appeared in thick stockings of different colors (the stocking is still not visible under the skirt). I looked at these multi-colored ankle stockings that appeared in front of me and was surprised.

Dunyasha She was tall and thin, which is why they began to call her "long nanny." The nanny of the Russian Seasons ballerina Tamara Karsavina, Dunyasha, raised not only the dancer, but also her brother Lyova. The ballerina in her book Theater Street recalls that Dunyasha taught her to feel uncontrollable pity for all living creatures in trouble. The nanny disapproved of the fact that her pupil began to study ballet. Dunyasha often told a story about an acrobat she knew, who “had broken all the bones” to make him flexible. Therefore, she looked with pity at those photographs of Karsavina, where she was taken, standing on pointe shoes. During the first debut of the ballerina at the Mariinsky Theater, Dunyasha was seized by such deep grief that she began to sob loudly, because of which she had to be taken away from the theater.

Dunya The image and role of a nanny in Diaghilev's life is well illustrated by Bakst's portrait "Portrait of S. P. Diaghilev with a nanny". The devoted nanny Dunya sits in the corner, and with love and awe looks at her pupil, proudly speaking in the foreground. The nanny of Sergei Diaghilev did not leave her pupil even after he grew up. Faithful Dunya spent her whole life next to the great impresario. After he entered the university, she moved with him to St. Petersburg and became the full mistress of his apartment. Dunya was present at all meetings of the World of Art, a magazine, one of the founders of which was Diaghilev. Everyone who was at Diaghilev's house revered Dunya, considering her "one of their own", shaking her hand. Benois recalled that Dunya was a typical village old woman, with a wrinkled face and a kind of frozen expression in her eyes of questioning anxiety.