Shklovsky's Sentimental Journey. sentimental journey

Before the revolution, the author worked as an instructor in a reserve armored battalion. In February of the seventeenth year, he and his battalion arrived at the Tauride Palace. The revolution delivered him
like other spares, from months of exhausting and humiliating sitting in the barracks. In this, he saw (and he saw and understood everything in his own way) the main reason for the quick victory of the revolution in the capital. The democracy that reigned in the army put forward Shklovsky, a supporter of continuing the war, which he now likened to war French Revolution, to the post of Assistant Commissioner Western Front. A student of the Faculty of Philology who did not complete the course, a futurist, a curly-haired young man, in Repin's drawing reminiscent of Danton, is now in the center historical events. He sits together with the sarcastic and arrogant democrat Savinkov, expresses his opinion to the nervous,
broken Kerensky, going to the front, visits General Kornilov (society was once tormented by doubts which of them is better suited to the role of Bonaparte of the Russian revolution).
The impression from the front: the Russian army had a hernia before the revolution, and now it simply cannot walk. Despite the selfless activity of Commissar Shklovsky, which included a military feat, rewarded with the St. George Cross from the hands of Kornilov (attack on the Lomnica River, under fire in front of the regiment, wounded in the stomach through and through), it becomes clear that the Russian army is incurable without surgical intervention. After the decisive failure of the Kornilov dictatorship, the Bolshevik vivisection became inevitable. To Persia, again as a commissar of the Provisional Government in the Russian expeditionary corps. Battles with the Turks near Lake Urmia, where the Russian troops are mainly stationed, have not been fought for a long time. The Persians are in poverty and hunger, the local Kurds, Armenians and Aysors (descendants of the Assyrians) are busy slaughtering each other. Shklovsky is on the side of the Aisors, who are simple-hearted, friendly and few in number. In the end, after October 1917, the Russian army was withdrawn from Persia. The author (sitting on the roof of the car) returns to his homeland through the south of Russia, full of all kinds of nationalism by that time. In St. Petersburg, Shklovsky is interrogated by the Cheka. He, a professional storyteller, tells about Persia, and they let him go. Meanwhile, the need to fight the Bolsheviks for Russia and freedom seems obvious. Shklovsky heads the armor department of an underground organization of supporters Constituent Assembly(Socialist-Revolutionaries). However, the performance has been postponed. The continuation of the struggle is expected in the Volga region, but nothing happens in Saratov either. Underground work is not to his liking, and he goes to the fantastic Ukrainian-German Kyiv of Hetman Skoropadsky.
He does not want to fight for the Germanophile hetman against Petlyura and disables the armored cars that were entrusted to him (with an experienced hand he pours sugar into the jets). News arrives of Kolchak's arrest of members of the Constituent Assembly. The fainting that happened to Shklovsky at this news meant the end of his struggle with the Bolsheviks. There was no more strength. Nothing could be stopped. Everything rolled along the rails. He came to Moscow and capitulated. In the Cheka, he was again released as a good friend of Maxim Gorky. There was a famine in Petersburg, my sister died, the Bolsheviks shot my brother. Went south again
in Kherson, during the offensive of the Whites, he was already mobilized into the Red Army. Was a demolition specialist. One day a bomb exploded in his hands. Survived, visited relatives,
Jewish inhabitants in Elisavetgrad, returned to St. Petersburg. After they began to judge the Socialist-Revolutionaries for their past struggle with the Bolsheviks, he suddenly noticed that he was being followed. He did not return home, he went to Finland on foot. Then he came to Berlin. From 1917 to 1922, in addition to the above, he married a woman named Lyusya (this book is dedicated to her), because of another woman he fought a duel, starved a lot, worked together with Gorky in " world literature", lived in the House of Arts (in the then main writers' barracks, located in the palace of the merchant Eliseev), taught literature, published books, together with friends created a very influential scientific school. On his wanderings, he carried books with him. He again taught Russian writers to read Stern, who once (in the 18th century) was the first to write Sentimental Journey. He explained how the novel "Don Quixote" works and how many other literary and non-literary things work. With many people successfully quarreled. Lost his chestnut curls. On the portrait of the artist Yuri Annensky - an overcoat, a huge forehead, an ironic smile. He remained an optimist. Once I met a shoe shiner, an old friend of the Aisors, Lazar Zervandov, and wrote down his story about the exodus of the Aisors from Northern Persia to Mesopotamia. He placed it in his book as a fragment of a heroic epic. In St. Petersburg at that time, people of Russian culture were tragically experiencing a catastrophic change, the era was expressively defined as the time of the death of Alexander Blok.
This is also in the book, it also appears as a tragic epic. Genres have changed. But the fate of Russian culture, the fate of the Russian intelligentsia appeared with inevitable clarity. The theory was also clear. Craft constituted culture, craft determined fate. On May 20, 1922, in Finland, Shklovsky wrote: “When you fall like a stone, you don’t need to think, when you think,
you don't have to fall. I mixed two crafts.” In the same year in Berlin, he ends the book with the names of those who are worthy of their craft, those to whom their craft does not leave the opportunity to kill and do meanness.

victor shklovsky - sentimental journey

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky

Before the revolution, I worked as an instructor in a reserve armored division - I was in a privileged position as a soldier.

I will never forget the feeling of that terrible oppression that my brother and I, who served as a staff clerk, experienced.

I remember the thieves' run down the street after 8 o'clock and the three-month hopeless sitting in the barracks, and most importantly, the tram.

The city was turned into a military camp. "Semishniki" - that was the name of the soldiers of military patrols because they - they said - received two kopecks for each arrested person - they caught us, drove us into the yards, filled the commandant's office. The reason for this war was the overcrowding of tram cars by soldiers and the refusal of soldiers to pay the fare.

The authorities considered this question a matter of honor. We, the mass of soldiers, responded to them with deaf, embittered sabotage.

Maybe this is childish, but I am sure that sitting without a vacation in the barracks, where people taken away and cut off from work festered without any work on the bunk beds, the barracks melancholy, the dark languor and anger of the soldiers at the fact that they were hunted through the streets - all this revolutionized the St. Petersburg garrison more than the constant military failures and the stubborn, general talk of "treason".

A special folklore was created on tram themes, pathetic and characteristic. For example: a sister of mercy rides with the wounded, the general becomes attached to the wounded, and insults his sister; then she takes off her cloak and finds herself in a uniform Grand Duchess; so they said: "in uniform." The General kneels down and asks for forgiveness, but she does not forgive him. As you can see, folklore is still completely monarchical.

This story is attached now to Warsaw, now to St. Petersburg.

It was told about the murder of a general by a Cossack, who wanted to pull the Cossack off the tram and tore off his crosses. The murder because of the tram, it seems, really happened in St. Petersburg, but I already classify the general as an epic treatment; at that time, the generals had not yet ridden trams, with the exception of the retired poor.

There was no agitation in the units; at least I can say this about my unit, where I spent all the time with the soldiers from five or six in the morning until the evening. I'm talking about party agitation; but even in its absence, the revolution was nevertheless somehow decided - they knew that it would happen, they thought that it would break out after the war.

There was no one to agitate in the units, there were few party people, if any, among the workers, who had almost no connection with the soldiers; intelligentsia - in the most primitive sense of the word, i.e.<о>e<сть>everyone who had any education, at least two classes of a gymnasium, was promoted to officer and behaved, at least in the St. Petersburg garrison, no better, and perhaps worse than regular officers; The ensign was not popular, especially the rear one, who clung to the reserve battalion with his teeth. The soldiers sang about him:

Before rummaging in the garden,

Now, your honor.

Of these people, many are only to blame for the fact that they succumbed too easily to the superbly organized drill of military schools. Many of them subsequently were sincerely devoted to the cause of the revolution, although they succumbed to its influence just as easily as before they were easily possessed.

The Rasputin story was widely spread. I don't like this story; in the way it was told, one could see the spiritual decay of the people. national hero, something like Vanka Klyuchnik.

But due to various reasons, some of which directly scratched the nerves and created a pretext for an outbreak, while others acted from within, slowly changing the psyche of the people, the rusty, iron hoops that pulled together the mass of Russia were pulled tight.

The food of the city was deteriorating, by the standards of that time it became bad. There was a shortage of bread, tails appeared at the bread shops, the shops on the Obvodny Canal had already begun to be beaten, and those lucky ones who managed to get bread carried it home, holding it tightly in their hands, looking at it lovingly.

They bought bread from the soldiers, crusts and pieces disappeared in the barracks, which previously represented, together with the sour smell of captivity, the “local signs” of the barracks.

The cry of "bread" was heard under the windows and at the gates of the barracks, already poorly guarded by sentries and on duty, freely letting their comrades into the street.

The barracks, having lost faith in the old system, pressed by the cruel, but already uncertain hand of the authorities, wandered. By this time, a regular soldier, and indeed a soldier of 22-25 years old, was a rarity. He was brutally and stupidly killed in the war.

Regular non-commissioned officers were poured into the very first echelons as simple privates and died in Prussia, near Lvov and during the famous “great” retreat, when the Russian army paved the whole earth with their corpses. The St. Petersburg soldier of those days is a disgruntled peasant or a dissatisfied layman.

These people, not even dressed in gray greatcoats, but just hastily wrapped in them, were reduced to crowds, gangs and gangs, called reserve battalions.

In essence, the barracks became just brick pens, where more and more, green and red bills of conscription were driven herds of human flesh.

The numerical ratio of the command staff to the mass of soldiers was, in all likelihood, no higher than that of overseers to slaves on slave ships.

And behind the walls of the barracks there were rumors that "the workers were going to come out," that "the people of Kolpin wanted to go to the State Duma on February 18."

The semi-peasant, semi-petty-bourgeois mass of soldiers had few connections with the workers, but all the circumstances were such that they created the possibility of a certain detonation.

I remember the days before. Dreamy conversations of instructors-chauffeurs that it would be nice to steal an armored car, shoot at the police, and then leave the armored car somewhere behind the outpost and leave a note on it: "Deliver to the Mikhailovsky Manege." Very characteristic: car care remained. Obviously, the people still did not have the confidence that it was possible to overthrow the old system, they only wanted to make some noise. And the police have been angry for a long time, mainly because they were released from service at the front.

I remember that two weeks before the revolution, we, walking in a team (about two hundred people), hooted at a detachment of policemen and shouted: “Pharaohs, pharaohs!”

IN last days February, the people literally rushed to the police, detachments of Cossacks, sent out into the street, without touching anyone, went around, laughing good-naturedly. This greatly raised the rebellious mood of the crowd. They shot at Nevsky, killed several people, the dead horse lay for a long time not far from the corner of Liteiny. I remember her, then it was unusual.

On Znamenskaya Square, a Cossack killed a bailiff who hit a demonstrator with a saber.

There were hesitant patrols in the streets. I remember an embarrassed machine-gun team with small machine guns on wheels (Sokolov's machine), with machine-gun belts on packs of horses; obviously, some kind of pack-machine gun team. She stood on Basseynaya, the corner of Baskova Street; the machine gun, like a small animal, clung to the pavement, also embarrassed, it was surrounded by a crowd that did not attack, but somehow pressed its shoulder, armless.

On Vladimirsky there were patrols of the Semenovsky regiment - Cain's reputation.

The patrols stood hesitantly: "We are nothing, we are like others." The huge apparatus of coercion prepared by the government was stalling. During the night, the Volynians could not stand it, they conspired, at the command “to pray” they rushed to the rifles, smashed the arsenal, took cartridges, ran out into the street, joined several small teams standing around, and set up patrols in the area of ​​\u200b\u200btheir barracks - in Liteynaya part. By the way, the Volynians broke our guardhouse, located next to their barracks. The released detainees appeared in the command of the authorities; Our officers took up neutrality, they were also in a kind of opposition to the "Evening Time". The barracks was noisy and waited for them to come to drive her out into the street. Our officers said: "Do what you yourself know."

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky

sentimental journey

Memoirs 1917-1922 (Petersburg - Galicia - Persia - Saratov - Kyiv - Petersburg - Dnieper - Petersburg - Berlin)

First part

Revolution and front

Before the revolution, I worked as an instructor in a reserve armored division - I was in a privileged position as a soldier.

I will never forget the feeling of that terrible oppression that my brother and I, who served as a staff clerk, experienced.

I remember the thieves' run down the street after 8 o'clock and the three-month hopeless sitting in the barracks, and most importantly, the tram.

The city was turned into a military camp. "Semishniki" - that was the name of the soldiers of military patrols because they - they said - received two kopecks for each arrested person - they caught us, drove us into the yards, filled the commandant's office. The reason for this war was the overcrowding of tram cars by soldiers and the refusal of soldiers to pay the fare.

The authorities considered this question a matter of honor. We, the mass of soldiers, responded to them with deaf, embittered sabotage.

Maybe this is childish, but I am sure that sitting without a vacation in the barracks, where people taken away and cut off from work festered without any work on the bunk beds, the barracks melancholy, the dark languor and anger of the soldiers at the fact that they were hunted through the streets - all this revolutionized the St. Petersburg garrison more than the constant military failures and the stubborn, general talk of "treason".

A special folklore was created on tram themes, pathetic and characteristic. For example: a sister of mercy rides with the wounded, the general becomes attached to the wounded, and insults his sister; then she takes off her cloak and finds herself in the uniform of the Grand Duchess; so they said: "in uniform." The General kneels down and asks for forgiveness, but she does not forgive him. As you can see, folklore is still completely monarchical.

This story is attached now to Warsaw, now to St. Petersburg.

It was told about the murder of a general by a Cossack, who wanted to pull the Cossack off the tram and tore off his crosses. The murder because of the tram, it seems, really happened in St. Petersburg, but I already classify the general as an epic treatment; at that time, the generals had not yet ridden trams, with the exception of the retired poor.

There was no agitation in the units; at least I can say this about my unit, where I spent all the time with the soldiers from five or six in the morning until the evening. I'm talking about party agitation; but even in its absence, the revolution was nevertheless somehow decided - they knew that it would happen, they thought that it would break out after the war.

There was no one to agitate in the units, there were few party people, if any, among the workers, who had almost no connection with the soldiers; intelligentsia - in the most primitive sense of the word, i.e.<о>e<сть>everyone who had any education, at least two classes of a gymnasium, was promoted to officer and behaved, at least in the St. Petersburg garrison, no better, and perhaps worse than regular officers; The ensign was not popular, especially the rear one, who clung to the reserve battalion with his teeth. The soldiers sang about him:

Before rummaging in the garden,
Now, your honor.

Of these people, many are only to blame for the fact that they succumbed too easily to the superbly organized drill of military schools. Many of them subsequently were sincerely devoted to the cause of the revolution, although they succumbed to its influence just as easily as before they were easily possessed.

The Rasputin story was widely spread. I don't like this story; in the way it was told, one could see the spiritual decay of the people. Post-revolutionary leaflets, all these “Grishki and His Deeds” and the success of this literature showed me that for very broad masses Rasputin was a kind of national hero, something like Vanka Klyuchnik.

But due to various reasons, some of which directly scratched the nerves and created a pretext for an outbreak, while others acted from within, slowly changing the psyche of the people, the rusty, iron hoops that pulled together the mass of Russia were pulled tight.

The food of the city was deteriorating, by the standards of that time it became bad. There was a shortage of bread, tails appeared at the bread shops, the shops on the Obvodny Canal had already begun to be beaten, and those lucky ones who managed to get bread carried it home, holding it tightly in their hands, looking at it lovingly.

They bought bread from the soldiers, crusts and pieces disappeared in the barracks, which previously represented, together with the sour smell of captivity, the “local signs” of the barracks.

The cry of "bread" was heard under the windows and at the gates of the barracks, already poorly guarded by sentries and on duty, freely letting their comrades into the street.

The barracks, having lost faith in the old system, pressed by the cruel, but already uncertain hand of the authorities, wandered. By this time, a regular soldier, and indeed a soldier of 22-25 years old, was a rarity. He was brutally and stupidly killed in the war.

Regular non-commissioned officers were poured into the very first echelons as simple privates and died in Prussia, near Lvov and during the famous “great” retreat, when the Russian army paved the whole earth with their corpses. The St. Petersburg soldier of those days is a disgruntled peasant or a dissatisfied layman.

These people, not even dressed in gray greatcoats, but just hastily wrapped in them, were reduced to crowds, gangs and gangs, called reserve battalions.

In essence, the barracks became just brick pens, where more and more, green and red bills of conscription were driven herds of human flesh.

The numerical ratio of the command staff to the mass of soldiers was, in all likelihood, no higher than that of overseers to slaves on slave ships.

And behind the walls of the barracks there were rumors that "the workers were going to come out," that "the people of Kolpin wanted to go to the State Duma on February 18."

The semi-peasant, semi-petty-bourgeois mass of soldiers had few connections with the workers, but all the circumstances were such that they created the possibility of a certain detonation.

I remember the days before. Dreamy conversations of instructors-chauffeurs that it would be nice to steal an armored car, shoot at the police, and then leave the armored car somewhere behind the outpost and leave a note on it: "Deliver to the Mikhailovsky Manege." A very characteristic feature: car care remained. Obviously, the people still did not have the confidence that it was possible to overthrow the old system, they only wanted to make some noise. And the police have been angry for a long time, mainly because they were released from service at the front.

I remember that two weeks before the revolution, we, walking in a team (about two hundred people), hooted at a detachment of policemen and shouted: “Pharaohs, pharaohs!”

In the last days of February, the people literally rushed to the police, detachments of Cossacks sent out into the street, without touching anyone, went around, laughing good-naturedly. This greatly raised the rebellious mood of the crowd. They shot at Nevsky, killed several people, the dead horse lay for a long time not far from the corner of Liteiny. I remember her, then it was unusual.

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky

sentimental journey

Memoirs 1917-1922 (Petersburg - Galicia - Persia - Saratov - Kyiv - Petersburg - Dnieper - Petersburg - Berlin)

First part

Revolution and front

Before the revolution, I worked as an instructor in a reserve armored division - I was in a privileged position as a soldier.

I will never forget the feeling of that terrible oppression that my brother and I, who served as a staff clerk, experienced.

I remember the thieves' run down the street after 8 o'clock and the three-month hopeless sitting in the barracks, and most importantly, the tram.

The city was turned into a military camp. "Semishniki" - that was the name of the soldiers of military patrols because they - they said - received two kopecks for each arrested person - they caught us, drove us into the yards, filled the commandant's office. The reason for this war was the overcrowding of tram cars by soldiers and the refusal of soldiers to pay the fare.

The authorities considered this question a matter of honor. We, the mass of soldiers, responded to them with deaf, embittered sabotage.

Maybe this is childish, but I am sure that sitting without a vacation in the barracks, where people taken away and cut off from work festered without any work on the bunk beds, the barracks melancholy, the dark languor and anger of the soldiers at the fact that they were hunted through the streets - all this revolutionized the St. Petersburg garrison more than the constant military failures and the stubborn, general talk of "treason".

A special folklore was created on tram themes, pathetic and characteristic. For example: a sister of mercy rides with the wounded, the general becomes attached to the wounded, and insults his sister; then she takes off her cloak and finds herself in the uniform of the Grand Duchess; so they said: "in uniform." The General kneels down and asks for forgiveness, but she does not forgive him. As you can see, folklore is still completely monarchical.

This story is attached now to Warsaw, now to St. Petersburg.

It was told about the murder of a general by a Cossack, who wanted to pull the Cossack off the tram and tore off his crosses. The murder because of the tram, it seems, really happened in St. Petersburg, but I already classify the general as an epic treatment; at that time, the generals had not yet ridden trams, with the exception of the retired poor.

There was no agitation in the units; at least I can say this about my unit, where I spent all the time with the soldiers from five or six in the morning until the evening. I'm talking about party agitation; but even in its absence, the revolution was nevertheless somehow decided - they knew that it would happen, they thought that it would break out after the war.

There was no one to agitate in the units, there were few party people, if any, among the workers, who had almost no connection with the soldiers; intelligentsia - in the most primitive sense of the word, i.e.<о>e<сть>everyone who had any education, at least two classes of a gymnasium, was promoted to officer and behaved, at least in the St. Petersburg garrison, no better, and perhaps worse than regular officers; The ensign was not popular, especially the rear one, who clung to the reserve battalion with his teeth. The soldiers sang about him:

Before rummaging in the garden,
Now, your honor.

Of these people, many are only to blame for the fact that they succumbed too easily to the superbly organized drill of military schools. Many of them subsequently were sincerely devoted to the cause of the revolution, although they succumbed to its influence just as easily as before they were easily possessed.

The Rasputin story was widely spread. I don't like this story; in the way it was told, one could see the spiritual decay of the people. Post-revolutionary leaflets, all these “Grishki and His Deeds” and the success of this literature showed me that for very broad masses Rasputin was a kind of national hero, something like Vanka Klyuchnik.

But due to various reasons, some of which directly scratched the nerves and created a pretext for an outbreak, while others acted from within, slowly changing the psyche of the people, the rusty, iron hoops that pulled together the mass of Russia were pulled tight.

The food of the city was deteriorating, by the standards of that time it became bad. There was a shortage of bread, tails appeared at the bread shops, the shops on the Obvodny Canal had already begun to be beaten, and those lucky ones who managed to get bread carried it home, holding it tightly in their hands, looking at it lovingly.

They bought bread from the soldiers, crusts and pieces disappeared in the barracks, which previously represented, together with the sour smell of captivity, the “local signs” of the barracks.

The cry of "bread" was heard under the windows and at the gates of the barracks, already poorly guarded by sentries and on duty, freely letting their comrades into the street.

The barracks, having lost faith in the old system, pressed by the cruel, but already uncertain hand of the authorities, wandered. By this time, a regular soldier, and indeed a soldier of 22-25 years old, was a rarity. He was brutally and stupidly killed in the war.

Regular non-commissioned officers were poured into the very first echelons as simple privates and died in Prussia, near Lvov and during the famous “great” retreat, when the Russian army paved the whole earth with their corpses. The St. Petersburg soldier of those days is a disgruntled peasant or a dissatisfied layman.

These people, not even dressed in gray greatcoats, but just hastily wrapped in them, were reduced to crowds, gangs and gangs, called reserve battalions.

In essence, the barracks became just brick pens, where more and more, green and red bills of conscription were driven herds of human flesh.

The numerical ratio of the command staff to the mass of soldiers was, in all likelihood, no higher than that of overseers to slaves on slave ships.

And behind the walls of the barracks there were rumors that "the workers were going to come out," that "the people of Kolpin wanted to go to the State Duma on February 18."

The semi-peasant, semi-petty-bourgeois mass of soldiers had few connections with the workers, but all the circumstances were such that they created the possibility of a certain detonation.

I remember the days before. Dreamy conversations of instructors-chauffeurs that it would be nice to steal an armored car, shoot at the police, and then leave the armored car somewhere behind the outpost and leave a note on it: "Deliver to the Mikhailovsky Manege." A very characteristic feature: car care remained. Obviously, the people still did not have the confidence that it was possible to overthrow the old system, they only wanted to make some noise. And the police have been angry for a long time, mainly because they were released from service at the front.

I remember that two weeks before the revolution, we, walking in a team (about two hundred people), hooted at a detachment of policemen and shouted: “Pharaohs, pharaohs!”

In the last days of February, the people literally rushed to the police, detachments of Cossacks sent out into the street, without touching anyone, went around, laughing good-naturedly. This greatly raised the rebellious mood of the crowd. They shot at Nevsky, killed several people, the dead horse lay for a long time not far from the corner of Liteiny. I remember her, then it was unusual.

On Znamenskaya Square, a Cossack killed a bailiff who hit a demonstrator with a saber.

There were hesitant patrols in the streets. I remember an embarrassed machine-gun team with small machine guns on wheels (Sokolov's machine), with machine-gun belts on packs of horses; obviously, some kind of pack-machine gun team. She stood on Basseynaya, the corner of Baskova Street; the machine gun, like a small animal, clung to the pavement, also embarrassed, it was surrounded by a crowd that did not attack, but somehow pressed its shoulder, armless.

On Vladimirsky there were patrols of the Semenovsky regiment - Cain's reputation.

The patrols stood hesitantly: "We are nothing, we are like others." The huge apparatus of coercion prepared by the government was stalling. During the night, the Volynians could not stand it, they conspired, at the command “to pray” they rushed to the rifles, smashed the arsenal, took cartridges, ran out into the street, joined several small teams standing around, and set up patrols in the area of ​​\u200b\u200btheir barracks - in Liteynaya part. By the way, the Volynians broke our guardhouse, located next to their barracks. The released detainees appeared in the command of the authorities; Our officers took up neutrality, they were also in a kind of opposition to the "Evening Time". The barracks was noisy and waited for them to come to drive her out into the street. Our officers said: "Do what you yourself know."

On the streets, in my area, some people in civilian clothes were already taking away weapons from officers, jumping out of the gates in groups.

At the gate, despite single shots, there were many people, even women and children. It seemed that they were waiting for a wedding or a magnificent funeral.

Even three or four days before that, our cars were put into disrepair by order of the authorities. In our garage, the volunteer engineer Belinkin handed over the removed parts to the hands of the soldiers-workers of his garage. But the armored vehicles of our garage were transferred to the Mikhailovsky Manege. I went to the Manege, it was already full of people stealing cars. There were not enough parts on armored vehicles. It seemed to me necessary to put on its feet, first of all, the Lanchester cannon machine. Spare parts were at our school. Went to school. Alarmed on duty and sentries were on the ground. This surprised me then. Subsequently, when at the end of 1918 I raised an armored division against the hetman in Kyiv, I saw that almost all the soldiers called themselves on duty and orderly, and I was no longer surprised.