How strange, I went several times with my father to Moscow. I was with my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, I was in a big restaurant, and I didn’t like anything - neither Moscow, nor my grandmother, nor the restaurant. I didn’t like it as much as this wretched apartment in the village, like this dark night in winter, where dark huts sleep in a row, where there is a deaf, snowy, boring road, where the moonlight shines all year round and the dog howls in the street. What heartache, what charm in this longing, what fading, what beauty in this modest life, in black bread, occasionally in bagel, in a mug of kvass. What sadness in the hut when the lamp is shining, how I like Ignashka, Seryozhka, Kiryushka. What bosom friends. What charm in them, what friendship. How affectionate the dog is, how I like the countryside. What good aunts, strangers, undressed. I already disliked the luxury of my well-dressed aunts - the Ostapovs, aunt Alekseeva, where are these crinolines, this exquisite table, where everyone sits so decorously. What a bore. How I like the will of the meadows, the forests, the poor huts. I like to heat the stove, cut brushwood and mow grass - I already knew how, and Uncle Peter praised me, telling me: "Well done, you are also mowing." And I drank, tired, kvass from a wooden ladle. In Moscow, I will go out - stone pavements, strangers. And here I will go out - grass or snowdrifts, far away ... And people are dear, my own. Everyone is kind, no one scolds me. Everyone will pat on the head or laugh ... How strange. I will never go to the city. I will never be a student. They are all evil. They always scold everyone. No one here asks for money, and I only have a seven. And she lies with me all the time. And my father doesn't have much money. And how many there were. I remember how much my grandfather had money. The boxes were filled with gold. And now no. How good is Seryoga. There, a tailor-soldier sews a fur coat for him. So he told me ... How he got lost in the forest, how the robbers attacked and how he drowned them all ... That's how good it is to listen. And how he drove the goblin into the swamp, and tore off his tail. So he begged to be let go. And he holds the tail and says "no" and says what kind of ransom: "Take me," he says, "to Petersburg to the tsar." He sat on his neck, straight to the king and came. The king says: "Well done soldier!" And he gave him a silver rupee. He even showed the rupee... Such a big, old-fashioned steering wheel. Here are the people. Not fools. There are many interesting things in the village. Wherever you go, everyone tells you things that don't happen. What to tell, what happens, as in Moscow. In Moscow they tell everything that happens. But here - no. Here now so, and in an hour - it is not known what will happen. This is, of course, a remote village. And how good log houses are. A new hut ... oh, it smells like pine. Would never leave. But my boots are thin, I need to fix the soles. They tell me that the boots of porridge are asking, turned around. He told his father that they were asking for twenty kopecks for the repair. The father ordered to give it back: “I,” he says, “will pay.” But a week is not given. I wear felt boots. Father brought prosphora - how delicious with tea. Prosphora should not be given to a dog; Malanya said earlier that if you give prosphora to a dog, you will die right away. And I wanted. It's good that he didn't.
V. [IN THE PROVINCE. THE FIRST DIFFICULTIES AND SUCCESSES IN PAINTING]
In the village, it seemed to me that I was only now seeing winter, because in the city “what a winter. Here everything is covered with huge snowdrifts. Elk Island sleeps, turning white with frost. Quiet, solemn and creepy. Quiet in the forest, not a sound, as if enchanted. The roads were covered with snow, and our house was covered with snow right up to the windows, you could hardly get out of the porch. Valenki sink in lush snow. In the morning the stove is heated at school, comrades will come. So fun, gratifying, something of my own, native at school, necessary and interesting, always new. And another world opens up. And the globe standing on the cabinet shows some other lands, seas. I wish I could go... And I think: it must be good to go by ship on the sea. And what a sea, blue, blue, passes through the earth. I did not notice that there was a big difference in my father's means, and I did not know at all that poverty had come. I didn't understand her. I enjoyed living in the countryside so much that I couldn't have imagined better. And I completely forgot my former, rich life: toys, smart people, and they seemed to me, when I arrived in Moscow, so strange, they say everything that is not necessary. And only there - life, in this small house ... Further, among the snow and terrible nights, where the wind howls and a blizzard sweeps, where grandfather Nikanor comes chilled and brings flour and butter. How good it is to heat stoves in winter, baked bread smells especially nice. In the evening, Ignashka and Seryoga will come, we are watching kubari , which we are chasing on the ice. And on a holiday we go to church, climb the bell tower and ring. This is wonderful... We drink tea and eat prosphora at the priest's. Let's go on a holiday to the hut to the neighbors, and there are habitual, girls and boys gather. Girls sing: Ah, mushroom mushrooms,dark woods,Who will forget youWho will not remember you. Or: Ivan and Marya swam in the river.Where Ivan swam - the shore swayed,Where Marya bathed - the grass spread out ... Or: The twist gave birth to me,Grief nurturedTroubles grew.And I confessed, unfortunate,With sadness,With her, I will live forever.Happiness is not to be seen in life... They were both happy and sad. But all this was so full in the village, always an unexpected impression, some kind of simple, real, kind life. But one day my father left on business, and my mother was in Moscow, And I was left alone. In the evening, Ignashka sat with me, we made tea and talked about who would like to be who, and both of us thought that there was nothing better than to be peasants like everyone else in the village. Ignashka left late, and I went to bed. At night I was a little cowardly, without my father and mother. He locked the door on a hook, and also tied it with a sash from the handle to the crutch of the door frame. By night it is somehow creepy, and since we heard a lot about robbers, we were afraid. And I was afraid of robbers... And suddenly at night I woke up. And I hear the little dog Druzhok barking in the yard. And then I hear that in the passage behind the door something fell with a noise. The attached ladder, which went to the attic of the house, fell down. I jumped up and lit a candle, and in the corridor I saw a hand peeping through the door, which wants to remove the sash from the crutch. Where is the ax? I searched - there is no ax. I rush to the stove, there is no stove. I wanted to swing an ax at my hand - there is no ax. A window in the kitchen, the second frame was inserted on nails, but not plastered over. I grabbed it with my hands, pulled out the nails, put up the frame, opened the window<3 и босиком, в одной рубашке, выскочил в окно и побежал напротив через дорогу. В крайней избе жил знакомый садовник, и сын его Костя был мой приятель. Я изо всех сил стучал в окно. Вышла мать Кости и спрашивает - что случилось. Когда я вбежал в избу, то, задыхаясь, озябнув, едва выговорил: - Разбойники... И ноги у меня были, как немые. Мать Кости схватила снег и терла мне ноги. Мороз был отчаянный. Проснулся садовник, и я рассказал им. Но садовник не пошел никого будить и боялся выйти из избы. Изба садовника была в стороне от деревни, на краю. Меня посадили на печку греться и дали чаю. Я заснул, и к утру мне принесли одежду. Пришел Игнашка и сказал: - Воры были. На чердаке белье висело - все стащили, а у тебя - самовар, - сказал он мне. Как-то было страшно: приходили, значит, разбойники. Я с Игнашкой вернулся в дом, по лестнице залезли на чердак, с топорами. Там лежали мешки с овсом, и один мешок показался нам длинным и неуклюжим. И Игнашка, посмотрев на мешок, сказал мне тихо: - Смотри-ка на мешок... И мы, как звери, подкрались, ударили топорами по мешку, думали, что там разбойники. Но оттуда выпятились отруби... Так-то мы разбойника и не решили... Но я боялся уж к вечеру быть в доме и ушел к Игнашке. Мы и сидели с топорами, оба в страхе.Roman-newspaper for children № 11, 2011
Konstantin Korovin
My life
childhood memories
K. A. Korovin. 1890s
At grandfather's house
I was born in Moscow in 1861, on November 23, on Rogozhskaya Street, in the house of my grandfather Mikhail Emelyanovich Korovin, a Moscow merchant of the first guild. My great-grandfather, Emelyan Vasilyevich, was from the Vladimir province, Pokrovsky district, the village of Danilov, which stood on the Vladimir highway. There were no railways then, and these peasants were coachmen. It was said - "they drove the yamshchina", and they were not serfs.
When my great-grandfather was born, then, according to the custom of the villages and villages located along the Vladimir tract, at the birth of a child, the father went out onto the road and the first one who was driven into exile along this road, Vladimirka, asked for a name. This name was given to the born child. As if they did it for happiness - such was a sign. They named the one born with the name of a criminal, that is, an unfortunate one. That was the custom.
K. Korovin. Landscape with a fence. 1919
Alexei Mikhailovich Korovin. 1860s
Sergei and Konstantin Korovin. 1860s
When my great-grandfather was born, Pugachev's "Emelka" was transported along Vladimirka in a cage with a large convoy, and the great-grandfather was named Yemelyan. The son of a coachman, Emelyan Vasilyevich was later the manager on the estate of Count Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a Decembrist executed by Nicholas I. Countess Ryumin, deprived of the rights of nobility, after the execution of her husband gave birth to a son and died in childbirth, and son Mikhail was adopted by the manager of Count Ryumin Emelyan Vasilyevich. But he also had another son, also Mikhail, who was my grandfather. It was said that my grandfather's enormous wealth came to him from Count Ryumin.
My grandfather, Mikhail Emelyanovich, was of enormous stature, very handsome, and he was almost a sazhen in height. And my grandfather lived to 93 years.
I remember my grandfather's beautiful house on Rogozhskaya street. Huge mansion with a large yard; at the back of the house there was a huge garden that opened onto another street, into Durnovsky Lane. And the neighboring small wooden houses stood in spacious yards, the residents in the houses were coachmen. And in the yards there were stables and carriages of various styles, dormes, carriages, in which passengers were taken from Moscow along the roads rented from the government by the grandfather, along which he drove the coach from Moscow to Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod.
I remember a large hall in the Empire style, where at the top there were balconies and round niches that housed musicians playing at dinner parties. I remember these dinners with dignitaries, elegant women in crinolines, military men in orders. I remember a tall grandfather, dressed in a long frock coat, with medals around his neck. He was already a gray-haired old man. My grandfather loved music, and it used to be that one grandfather was sitting in a large hall, and a quartet was playing upstairs, and grandfather would only allow me to sit next to him. And when the music played, the grandfather was thoughtful and, listening to the music, wept, wiping his tears with a large handkerchief, which he took out of the pocket of his dressing gown. I sat quietly next to my grandfather and thought: "Grandfather is crying, so, then, it is necessary."
My father, Alexei Mikhailovich, was also tall, very handsome, always well dressed. And I remember he wore checkered trousers and a black tie that covered his neck high.
I rode with him in a carriage that looked like a guitar: my father sat astride this guitar, and I sat in front. My father held me when we drove. Our horse was white, it was called Smetanka, and I fed it with sugar from the palm of my hand.
I remember an evening in the summer when coachmen sang songs in the yard nearby. I liked it when the coachmen sang, and I sat with my brother Sergei and my mother on the porch, with my nanny Tanya, and listened to their songs, sometimes dull, sometimes dashing, with a whistle. They sang about lyubushka, about robbers.
Girl girls once told me
Are there any old tales...
Near the forest of pines there is a birch,
And under that birch, well done lies ...
Evening chime, evening chime
How many thoughts he brings
About the fatherland, about the native land ...
Not one path in the field ran wide ...
I remember well when late evening came and the sky was covered with darkness of night, a large beautiful comet, half the size of the moon, appeared over the garden. She had a long tail, bent down, which radiated with luminous sparks. She was red and seemed to be breathing. The comet was terrible. They said she was going to war. I loved to look at her and every evening I waited, went to look at the courtyard from the porch. And he loved to listen to what they say about this comet. And I wanted to know what it is, and where it came from to scare everyone, and why it is.
Through the large windows of the house, I saw how sometimes, drawn by four horses, a terrible cart, high, with wooden wheels, rode along Rogozhskaya Street. Scaffold. And upstairs sat two people in gray prisoner's robes, with their hands tied back. They were carrying prisoners. On the chest of each hung a large black board tied around the neck, on which was written in white: Killer Thief. My father sent with a janitor or a coachman to hand over bagels or rolls to the unfortunate. This was probably done in such a way out of mercy to the suffering. The convoy soldiers put these gifts in a bag.
They drank tea in the gazebo of the garden in summer. The guests came. My father often visited his friends: Dr. Ploskovitsky, investigator Polyakov and still a young man Latyshev, artist Lev Lvovich Kamenev and artist Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov, a very young man whom I loved very much, as he arranged for me in the hall, overturning the table and covering it tablecloths, the ship "Frigate" Pallada "". And I climbed up there and rode in my imagination across the sea, to the Cape of Good Hope. I liked it very much.
I also liked to watch when my mother had boxes of different paints on the table. Such pretty boxes and printing inks, multicolored. And she, spreading them on a plate, with a brush drew such pretty pictures in the album - winter, the sea - such that I flew somewhere to paradise. My father also drew with a pencil. Very good, everyone said - both Kamenev and Pryanishnikov. But I liked the way my mother painted more.
K. Korovin. At the tea table. 1888
My grandfather Mikhail Emelyanovich was ill. He sat by the window in the summer, and his legs were covered with a fur blanket. My brother Sergei and I also sat with him. He loved us very much and combed me with a comb. When a peddler was walking along Rogozhskaya Street, the grandfather would call him by the hand, and the peddler would come. He bought everything: gingerbread, nuts, oranges, apples, fresh fish. And the women 1) , who carried large white boxes with toys and laid them out in front of us, putting them on the floor, grandfather also bought everything. It was a joy for us. Ofeni didn't have anything! And hares with a drum, and blacksmiths, bears, horses, cows that lowed, and dolls that closed their eyes, a miller and a mill. There were toys with music. We then broke them with my brother - so we wanted to know what was inside them.
My sister Sonya fell ill with whooping cough, and my mother took me to nanny Tanya. That's where it was good... She was completely different. Small wooden house. I was sick in bed. Log walls and ceiling, icons, lamps. Tanya is near me and her sister. Wonderful, kind... Through the window you can see the garden in winter in hoarfrost. The bed is heating up. Everything is as simple as it should be. Dr. Ploskovitsky arrives. I was always glad to see him. He prescribes me drugs: pills in such pretty boxes, with pictures. Such pictures that no one will draw like that, I thought. Mother often came too. In a hat and crinoline, elegant. She brought me grapes, oranges. But she forbade me to give me a lot to eat and she herself brought only jelly soup, granular caviar. The doctor didn't tell me to feed because I had a high fever.
But when my mother left, my nanny Tanya said:
So the killer whale (it's me - killer whale) will die.
And they gave me a roast pig, a goose, cucumbers, and they also brought a long candy from the pharmacy, it was called “maiden skin”, for coughing. And I ate it all. And "girl's skin" from coughing without an account. Only Tanya didn’t tell me to tell my mother that they were feeding me a piglet, and not a gugu about “maiden skin”. And I didn't say anything. I believed Tanya and was afraid, as her sister Masha said, that if I didn’t eat, they would completely kill me. I didn't like it.
And on the boxes - pictures ... There are such mountains, Christmas trees, arbors. Tanya told me that such plants grow not far from Moscow. And I thought: as soon as I recover, I will go there to live. There is the Cape of Good Hope. How many times have I
father's strength to go! No, no luck. I'll go myself - wait. And Tanya says that the Cape of Good Hope is not far, behind the Intercession Monastery.
But suddenly the mother arrived, not in her right mind. Crying out loud. It turned out that Sonia's sister had died.
What is it: how did she die, why?
And I roared. I didn't understand how it could be. What is it: dead. So pretty, little Sonya died. It is not necessary. And I thought and got sad. But when Tanya told me that she now has wings and she flies with angels, I felt better.
When summer came, I somehow arranged with my cousin, Varya Vyazemskaya, to go to the Cape of Good Hope, and we went out through the gate and walked down the street. We go, we see - a large white wall, trees, and behind the wall below the river. Then back to the street. Shop, and in it fruit. Came in and asked for candy. They gave us, asked whose we were. We said and moved on. Some kind of market. There are ducks, chickens, piglets, fish, shopkeepers. Suddenly some fat woman looks at us and says:
Why are you alone?
I told her about the Cape of Good Hope, and she took us by the hands and said:
Come on.
And led us to some dirty yard. She took me to the porch. Her house is so bad, dirty. She seated us at the table and placed a large cardboard box in front of us, where there were threads and beads. I really liked the beads.
She brought other women, everyone was looking at us. She gave us bread for tea. The windows were already dark. Then she dressed us in warm knitted shawls, took me and my sister Varya out into the street, called a cab, put us in and went with us. We arrived at a big house, dirty, terrible, a tower-tower, and a man walks upstairs - a soldier. Very scary. The sister cried. We went up the stone stairs to this house. There are some scary people out there. Soldiers with guns, with sabers, shout, swear. A man is sitting at the table.
Seeing us, he left the table and said:
Here they are.
I was scared. And a man with a saber - wonderful, like a woman - led us outside, and the woman also went. They put us in cabs and off we went.
Look, the arrows are gone ... non-rumors, - I heard a man with a saber say to a woman.
They brought us home. Father and mother, there are many people in the house, Dr. Ploskovitsky, Pryanishnikov, many strangers. Here are my aunts, the Zanegins, the Ostapovs - everyone is glad to see us.
Where did you go, where were you?
A man with a saber drank from a glass. The woman who found us was talking a lot. When a man with a saber left, I asked my father to leave him and asked him to give me a saber, well, at least take it out and look. Oh, I would like to have such a saber! But he didn't give it to me and laughed. I heard that there was a lot of talk around in excitement, and all about us.
Well, did you see, Kostya, the Cape of Good Hope? my father asked me.
Saw. Only it's across the river, there. I haven't gotten there yet, I said.
I remember everyone was laughing.
K. Korovin. Mistress. 1896
Notes
1) Sellers-peddlers of small haberdashery goods, as well as popular prints for the people.
At home and at grandma's
Grandma Ekaterina Ivanovna's house was so good. Carpeted rooms, flowers by the windows in baskets, pot-bellied chests of drawers made of mahogany, porcelain slides, gold vases with flowers under glass. So everything is beautiful. Paintings... The cups inside are golden. Delicious Chinese apple jam. Such a garden behind a green fence. These Chinese apples grew there. The house is green on the outside, with shutters. Grandmother is tall, in a lace cape, in a black silk dress. I remember how my aunts, the Sushkins and Ostapovs, beautiful, in magnificent crinolines, and my mother played big golden harps. There were a lot of visitors. All smart guests. And at the table, the dishes were served by servants in gloves, and the women's hats were large, with elegant ribbons. And they drove away from the entrance in carriages.
K. Korovin. Flowers and fruits. 1911–1912
In the yard in our house, behind the well near the garden, there lived a dog in a dog kennel - such a small house, and in it a round loophole. There lived a big shaggy dog. And she was tied with a chain. This is what I liked. And the dog is so good, her name was Druzhok. At every dinner I left bones for her and begged for pieces of something, and then I took away and fed Druzhok. And let him off the chain. He let him into the garden and the gazebo. My friend loved me and at the meeting put his paws on my shoulders, which made me almost fall. He licked me right in the face with his tongue. My friend also loved my brother Seryozha. Druzhok always sat with us on the porch and laid his head on my knees. But as soon as someone went to the gate - Druzhok broke headlong and barked so that it was impossible to frighten everyone.
Druzhok was cold in winter. I quietly, without telling anyone, led him through the kitchen to my room, upstairs. And he slept next to my bed. But they forbade me, no matter how I asked my father, my mother - nothing came of it. They said: you can't. I told this to my friend. But I still managed to take Druzhka to my room and hid him under the bed.
My friend was very shaggy and big. And one summer my brother Seryozha and I decided to cut his hair. And they cut it off so that they made a lion out of it: they cut it off to half. My friend came out a real lion, and they began to fear him even more. The baker who came in the morning, who carried the bread, complained that it was impossible to walk, why Druzhok was being let down: after all, a pure lion rushes. I remember my father laughing - he also loved dogs and all kinds of animals.
Once he bought a bear cub and sent it to Borisovo - not far from Moscow, near Tsaritsyn, beyond the Moscow River. There was a little
my grandmother's estate, there was a summer cottage where we lived in the summer. Bear cub Verka - why was it called that? - soon grew out of me and was wonderfully kind. She played with me and my brother in a wooden ball on the meadow in front of the dacha. Somersaulted, and we are with her. And at night she slept with us and somehow especially gurgled, with some special sound that seemed to come from afar. She was very affectionate, and it seems to me that she thought of us, that we were cubs. All day and in the evening we played with her near the dacha. They played hide-and-seek, rolled head over heels down the hill near the forest. By autumn, Verka had grown taller than me, and one day my brother and I went to Tsaritsyn with her. And there she climbed a huge pine tree. Some summer residents, seeing a bear, got excited. And Verka, no matter how much I called her, did not go from the pine. Some people, bosses, came with a gun and wanted to shoot her. I burst into tears, begged not to kill Verka, called her in despair, and she climbed down from the pine tree. My brother and I took her home, to our place, and the chiefs also came to us and forbade us to keep the bear.
I remember it was my grief. I hugged Verka and wept hotly. And Verka murmured and licked my face. It is strange that Verka never got angry. But when they nailed her into a box to take her away on a cart to Moscow, Verka roared like a terrible beast and her eyes were small, bestial and evil. Verka was brought to Moscow to a house and placed in a large greenhouse in the garden. But then Druzhok completely went crazy: he barked and howled incessantly. “How can this Druzhka be reconciled with Verka?” I thought. But when my brother and I took Druzhka and led him into the garden to the greenhouse where Verka was, Verka, seeing Druzhok, was desperately frightened, rushed up on the long brick stove of the greenhouse, knocked down the pots of flowers and jumped on the window. She was beside herself. Druzhok, seeing Verka, desperately howled and squealed, throwing himself at our feet. “This is the story,” I thought. “Why are they afraid of each other?” And no matter how hard my brother and I tried to calm Verka and Druzhka, nothing came of it. Druzhok rushed to the door to get away from Verka. It was clear that they did not like each other. Verka was almost twice as big as Druzhok, but she was afraid of the dog. And this went on all the time. My friend was worried that a bear lives in the garden in the greenhouse.
One fine day, in the morning, a police officer came to my father and told him that he had received an order to arrest the bear and send it to the kennel by order of the governor. It was a desperate day for me. I came to the greenhouse, hugged, stroked Verka, kissed her muzzle and wept bitterly. Verka stared intently with animal eyes. Something thought and was worried. And in the evening the soldiers came, tied her legs, her face and took her away.
I cried all night and did not go into the garden. I was afraid to look at the greenhouse, in which Verka was no longer there.
K. Korovin. Bridge. 1890s
Outdoors
After the death of my grandfather in the house on Rogozhskaya Street, everything gradually changed.
There are few coachmen left. Their songs were no longer heard in the evening, and the stables were empty. There were huge dormes covered with dust; sad and empty were the yards of the coachmen. Bailiff Echkin was not to be seen in our house. My father was concerned. Many people came to the house. I remember how my father paid them a lot of money, and some long white pieces of paper, bills, he folded together in the evening, tied with twine and put them in a chest, locking them. Somehow he left. In the front door of the porch, my mother saw him off. Father looked thoughtfully at the window, covered with hoarfrost. Father held the key in his hands and, thinking, put the key to the glass. There formed the shape of a key. He moved it to a new place and said to his mother:
I'm broke. This house is for sale.
The Nikolaevskaya railway had already passed and was completed to Trinity-Sergius, and a road was also built to Nizhny Novgorod. So the pit was completed. Rarely did anyone ride horses along these roads: there was no need for a pit car... So, my father said: “I am ruined,” because the matter was over. The Trinity Railway was built by Mamontov and Chizhov, friends of my grandfather. Soon my mother and I moved to my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna Volkova. I really liked my grandmother. And then we moved from there to Dolgorukovskaya Street, to the mansion of the manufacturer Zbuk. It seems - I do not remember well - my father was a justice of the peace. There was a large yard near Zbuk's house and a large garden with fences, and then there were clearings. Moscow and Sushchevo were not yet well rebuilt. Factory chimneys were visible in the distance, and I remember how, on holidays, workers came out to these clearings, first young, then older, shouting to each other: “come out”, “give back ours” - and fought with each other. It was called the "wall". Until the evening, a cry was heard: these were fighting games. I have seen these fights many times.
The furniture in the Zbuk mansion was transported from our house in Rogozh, which had already been sold. But this life in Moscow was short-lived.
In the summer, with my father and mother, I quite often went near Moscow, to Petrovsky Park, to my aunt Alekseeva's dacha. She was a fat woman with a red face and dark eyes. The dacha was smart, painted with yellow paint, the fence too. The dacha was in carved trinkets; in front of the terrace there was a curtain of flowers, and in the middle a painted iron crane: with its nose up, it launched a fountain. And some two bright, bright silver balls on the pillars, in which the garden was reflected. Paths covered with yellow sand, with a curb - it all looked like a biscuit cake. It was good at my aunt's dacha, elegant, but for some reason I didn't like it. When I had to turn off the Petrovsky highway into the alley of the park, the highway seemed like a distant blue distance, and I wanted to go not to my aunt's dacha, but there, to that distant blue distance. And I thought: there must be a Cape of Good Hope ...
K. Korovin. The stream of St. Tryphon in Pechenga. 1894
And at the aunt in the country everything is painted, even the fire barrel is also yellow. I wanted to see something completely different: somewhere there are forests, mysterious valleys ... And there, in the forest, there is a hut - I would go there and begin to live alone in this hut. I would take my dog Druzhka with me there, I would live with him; there is a small window, a dense forest - I would have caught a deer, I would have milked it, and a wild cow ... Only one thing: she must butt heads. I would saw off her horns, we would live together. My father has a fishing rod - I would take it with me, put meat on the hook and throw it out of the window at night. After all, there are wolves, a wolf would come - the meat is caught. I would have dragged him to the window and said: “What - got caught? Now you won’t leave ... There’s nothing to show your teeth, give up, live with me. He's not a fool: he would have understood - would have lived together. And what about my aunt ... Well, ice cream, well, a dacha - after all, this is nonsense, wherever you go - a fence, yellow paths, nonsense. And I would like to go to a dense forest, to a hut ... That's what I wanted.
Returning from my aunt, I said to my father:
How I would like to go into the dense forest. Only my gun, of course, is not real, it shoots peas, nonsense. Buy me a real gun, please, I'll hunt.
My father listened to me, and then one morning I see: on the table next to me lies a real gun. A small one-liner. The trigger is new. I grabbed - how it smells, what kind of locks, some kind of trunks in stripes. I threw myself on my father's neck to thank him, and he says:
Kostya, this is a real gun. And here is the box of pistons. Only I won’t give you gunpowder - it’s still early. Look, the trunk is Damascus.
All day I walked around the yard with a gun. Elder grows in the yard near the fence, the fence is old, in the cracks. And on the other side lives a friend - the boy Lyovushka. I showed him the gun, he did not understand anything. He has a wheelbarrow, he carries sand, a big heavy wheel - in a word, is nonsense. No, the gun is completely different.
I have already seen how I shot, running with Druzhok, and ducks, and geese, and a peacock, and a wolf ... Oh, how to leave for a dense forest. And here - this dusty yard, cellars, yellow stables, domes of the church - what to do?
I sleep with a gun and clean it twenty times a day. Father put a candle on the table and lit it, planted the piston, raised the trigger, fired five steps into the candle - the candle went out. I shot three boxes of caps, put out a candle without a miss - it's not that. You need gunpowder and a bullet.
Wait, - said the father, - soon we will go to the village of Mytishchi, we will live there. There I will give you gunpowder and shot, you will shoot game.
K. Korovin. Village. 1902
I have been waiting for this happiness for a long time. Summer passed, winter, and then one fine day, when the birches had just blossomed, my father went with me by rail. What a beauty! What can be seen through the window - forests, fields - everything is in spring. And we arrived in Bolshie Mytishchi. There was a house on the edge - a big hut. It was shown to us by a woman and a boy, Ignatka, with her. How good it is in the hut: two wooden rooms, then a stove, a yard, two cows and a horse stand in the yard, a small dog, wonderful - barks all the time. And as you went out onto the porch, you see a big blue forest. Meadows sparkle in the sun. Forest - Elk Island, huge. That is as good as I have ever seen. The whole of Moscow is no good, such beauty ...
We moved there a week later. My father got a job somewhere in a factory nearby. But what is this Mytishchi? There is a river there - Yauza, and it goes from a large forest to Elk Island.
I made friends with the boys right away. My friend walked with me. At first I was afraid to go far, and beyond the river I could see the forest and the blue distance. That's where I'll go ... And I went. With me, Ignashka, Senka and Seryozhka are wonderful people, friends right away. Let's go hunting. My father showed me how to load a gun: I put very little gunpowder, I hung up some newspaper, made a circle and fired, and the shot fell into the circle. That is, this is not life, but paradise. River bank, grass, alder bushes. Either it is very small, shallow, or it turns into wide dark barrels of incredible depth. Fish splash on the surface. On and on we go with friends.
Look, - says Ignashka, - you see, ducks are swimming behind the bushes. It's wild.
We quietly sneak in the bushes. Swamp. And I came close to the ducks. He took aim and fired at those who were closer. Ducks soared with a cry, a whole flock, and the duck I shot at lay on the surface and beat its wings. Ignashka quickly undressed and rushed into the water, swam like saplings to the duck. The friend was barking on the shore. Ignashka grabbed the wing with his teeth and returned with the duck. Came ashore - a big duck. The head is blue with a pink tint. It was a celebration. I walked on tiptoe with delight. And let's move on. The place became more swampy, it was difficult to walk, the ground shook. But in the river you can see the whole bottom, and I saw: at the bushes, in the depths, big fish were walking and breathing through their mouths. God, what fish! Here's how to catch them. But very deep. To the side was a huge pine forest into which we came. This is the Cape of Good Hope. Moss green. Ignashka and Seryoga gathered brushwood and lit a fire. Wet, we warmed ourselves around the fire. The duck lay around. What will the father say? And beyond the bend of the river, through the pines, the distance turned blue, and there was a large reach of the river.
K. Korovin. The halt of the hunters. 1911
No, this is not the Cape of Good Hope, but it is where the blue distance is. Therefore, I will definitely go there ... there is a hut there, I will live there. Well, Moscow, that our Rogozhsky house with columns, that it stands in front of these barrels of water, in front of these flowers - purple sultans that stand by the alder ... And these green alders are reflected in the water, as in a mirror, and there is a blue sky, and above, in the distance, distant forests turn blue.
We must return home. My father told me: “Go hunting,” and my mother almost cried, saying: “How can this be, he is still a boy.” It's me. I shot the duck. And now I can swim across this river whenever you want. What is she afraid of? He says: "He will go into the cachaura." Yes, I'll get out, I'm a hunter, I shot a duck.
And I walked home proudly. And over my shoulder I carried a weighted duck.
When he came home, there was a celebration. Father said: “Well done” - and kissed me, and mother said: “She will bring this nonsense to the point that it will get lost and disappear ...”
Don't you see, - said the mother to the father, - that he is looking for the Cape of Good Hope. Eh, - she said, - where is this cape ... Can't you see that Kostya will always look for this cape. It's impossible. He does not understand life as it is, he still wants to go there, there. Is it possible! Look, he won't learn anything.
Every day I went hunting with my friends. Mainly, everything is to get away, to see new places, more and more new. And then one day we went far to the edge of a large forest. My comrades took a wicker basket with them, climbed into the river, put it to the coastal bushes in the water, clapped their feet, as if driving fish out of the bushes, lifted the basket, and small fish came across there. But once a big fish splashed up, and in the basket were two big dark burbots. It was a surprise. We took a pot that was for tea, made a fire and boiled burbots. There was an ear. “This is how one should live,” I thought. And Ignashka says to me:
Look, over there, you see, there is a small hut at the edge of the forest.
K. Korovin. Arkhangelsk. 1897
Indeed, when we approached, there was a small empty hut with a door, and a small window on the side - with glass. We walked by the hut and then pushed the door. The door opened. There was no one there. Earth floor. The hut is low, so that an adult will reach the ceiling with his head. And to us - just right. Well, what a hut, beauty. At the top there is straw, a small brick stove. Now we have lit the brushwood. Wonderful. Warm. Here is the Cape of Good Hope. This is where I'm going to live...
And before that we stoked the stove that it became unbearably hot in the hut. They opened the door. It was autumn time. It was already getting dark. Outside, everything turned blue. There were dusk. The forest next to it was huge. Silence...
And suddenly it became scary. Somehow lonely, forlorn. It is dark in the hut, and the whole month has come out on the side above the forest. I think: “My mother left for Moscow, she won’t worry. Let's get out of here for a bit." It's very good here, in the hut. Well, just wonderful. As grasshoppers crackle, there is silence all around, tall grasses and a dark forest. Huge pine trees doze in the blue sky, on which the stars have already appeared. Everything freezes. A strange sound far away by the river, as if someone is blowing into a bottle: woo, woo...
Ignashka says:
This is a lumberjack. Nothing, we'll show him.
And something is creepy... The forest is getting dark. The trunks of the pines were illuminated by the mysterious moon. The stove went out. We are afraid to go out for brushwood. The door was locked. The door handle was tied with belts from shirts to a crutch so that it was impossible to open the door, in case the forester would come. Baba Yaga is still there, it's such a disgusting thing.
We are silent and look out the small window. And suddenly we see: some huge horses with a white chest, huge heads are walking ... and they stop abruptly and look. These huge monsters with horns like tree branches were illuminated by the moon. They were so huge that we all froze in fear. And they were silent... They even walked on thin legs. Their backs were lowered down. There are eight of them.
These are moose ... - Ignashka said in a whisper.
We kept looking at them. And it never occurred to me to shoot at these monstrous beasts. Their eyes were large, and one elk came close to the window. His white chest shone like snow under the moon. Suddenly they immediately rushed and disappeared. We heard the crackle of their feet, as if cracking nuts. That's the thing...
We didn't sleep all night. And the light dawned a little, in the morning, we went home.
School. Impressions of Moscow and village life
Life in the village was a pleasure for me, a boy. It seemed that there is not and cannot be better than my life. The whole day I am in the forest, in some sandy ravines, where tall grasses and huge firs have fallen in the river. There, with my comrades, I dug out a house for myself in a precipice, behind the branches of fallen fir trees. Which house! We reinforced the yellow walls of sand, the ceiling with sticks, laid branches of fir trees, made a lair like animals, a stove, laid a pipe, caught fish, took out a frying pan, fried this fish along with the gooseberries that were stolen in the garden. The dog was no longer alone, Druzhok, but four whole. The dogs are wonderful. They guarded us, and it seemed to the dogs, as well as to us, that this is the best life that can be ... What a life! Bathing in the river; what kind of animals we saw, there are none. Pushkin said correctly: “There are traces of unseen animals on unknown paths ...” There was a badger, but we didn’t know what a badger was: some special big pig. The dogs chased him, and we ran, we wanted to catch him, teach him to live together. But they didn't catch him, he ran away. He went straight to the ground, disappeared. Wonderful life...
The summer has passed. The rains have come, autumn. The trees have fallen. But it was good in our house, which no one knew. They heated the stove - it was warm. But one day my father came with a teacher, a tall, thin man with a small beard. So dry and hard. He pointed to me: to go to school tomorrow. It was scary. School is something special. And what is scary is unknown, but scary is the unknown.
In Mytishchi, on the highway, at the very outpost, in a large stone house, it is written: "Volost government." In the left half of the house was located, in a large room, a school.
The parties are black. The students are all there.<...>We sit down at the desks.
The teacher gives us pens, pens, pencils and notebooks and a book - a wonderful book: "Native Word", with pictures.
We, already literate, are placed on one side of the desks, and the younger ones are on the other.
The first lesson starts with reading. Another teacher comes, ruddy, short, cheerful and kind, and orders to sing after him.
Oh you, will, my will,
You are my gold.
Will - the falcon of heaven,
Will is a bright dawn...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nice song. First time I heard. No one was scolded here.
The second lesson was arithmetic. I had to go to the blackboard and write the numbers and how much it would be one with the other. Wrong.
And so the teaching began every day. There was nothing scary at school, but just wonderful. And so I liked the school.
How strange, I went several times with my father to Moscow, I visited my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, I was in a big restaurant, and nothing: neither Moscow, nor my grandmother, nor the restaurant - I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it as much as this miserable apartment in the village, like this dark night in winter, where dark huts sleep in a row, where there is a deaf, snowy, boring road, where the moon shines all the time and the dog howls in the street. What heartache, what beauty in this longing, what zamira
nie, what beauty in this modest life, in black bread, occasionally in a bagel, in a mug of kvass. What sadness in the hut when the lamp is shining, how I like Ignashka, Seryozhka, Kiryushka. What bosom friends. What charm in them, what friendship. How affectionate the dog is, how I like the countryside. What good aunts, strangers, undressed. I already disliked the luxury of my well-dressed aunts - the Ostapovs, aunt Alekseeva, where are these crinolines, this exquisite table, where everyone sits so decorously. What a bore. How I like the will of the meadows, the forests, the poor huts. I like to heat the stove, cut brushwood and mow grass - I already knew how, and Uncle Peter praised me, telling me: "Well done, you are also mowing." And I drank, tired, kvass from a wooden ladle.
In Moscow, I will go out - stone pavements, strangers. And here I will go out - grass or snowdrifts, far away ... And people are dear, my own. Everyone is kind, no one scolds me. Everyone will pat on the head or laugh ... How strange. I will never go to the city.<...>How good is Seryoga. There, a tailor-soldier sews a fur coat for him. So he told me ... How he got lost in the forest, how the robbers attacked and how he drowned them all ... That's how good it is to listen. And how he drove the goblin into the swamp and tore off his tail. So he begged to be let go. And he holds by the tail and says "no", and says, what a ransom: "Take me," he says, "to Petersburg to the tsar." He sat on his neck, straight to the king and came. The king says: "Well done, soldier!" And he gave him a silver rupee. He showed the rupee .... Such a big rupee, old. Here are the people. Not fools.
There are many interesting things in the village. Wherever you go, everyone tells you things that don't happen. What to tell, what happens, as in Moscow. In Moscow they tell everything that happens. But here - no. Here now so, and in an hour - it is not known what will happen. This is, of course, a remote village. And how good log houses are! A new hut ... oh, it smells like pine. Would never leave. But my boots are thin, I need to fix the soles. They tell me that the boots of porridge are asking, turned around. He told his father that they were asking for twenty kopecks for the repair. Father ordered to give. “I,” he says, “will cry.” But a week is not given. I wear felt boots.
K. Korovin. Russia. Festive festivities. 1930s
I grew up and formed in a Russian village. Hereditary peasant. He absorbed all the basics of Russian peasant life from infancy. When a child is born in a village, his appearance is perceived not only by his immediate relatives, but by the whole village, by the whole society. The village lives like a big family, where everyone is close to each other, or a distant relative (in many cases it is). The appearance of a child is perceived as replenishment of a huge village family. And the attitude towards a small fellow villager is not built from scratch, but first for the merits of his family. The village knows what kind of person this person is, and therefore what can potentially be expected from him. And then, as they grow older, the person himself earns authority in the village.
And in general, in the village it is customary to be interested in fellow villagers, their successes, joy and sorrow. And this is not idle curiosity, but sincere participation. For every person living in the village, the life of his fellow villagers is of genuine interest. It is curious that the village is sincerely interested in a person, even a long time ago who left it. All the same, he maintains an invisible spiritual connection with her. I remember when my grandmother's sisters came to us - relatives, cousins, second cousins, other relatives. Then the talk about village life was endless! Absent for some time, these relatives, as if completing their picture of village life, filled in the gaps - who was born, who got married, who died, who works where, who does what. Often these conversations went well after midnight. What a pleasure it was to fall asleep to these conversations! It was as if the whole village history was passing before my eyes. Sometimes I put my word in too. Only now, when it is practically gone, is all this perceived as an integral part of peasant life. And then I just lived in this atmosphere and did not analyze anything.
It is interesting that today, when I come once a year in the summer to Stavropol to visit the last surviving sister of the eight sisters and brothers of my grandmother (she is already 85 years old), we begin to remember, talk about village life. And she left the village in 1941. A person has not lived in a village for almost 70 years, but spiritually continues to abide in it!
Often the villagers recall the former life, the present organically connected with it. Someone is remembered with a good memory, someone is treated very respectfully, and someone will be condemned for a bad lifestyle. And a person, knowing this, strives to live according to his conscience. He cares about “what people say”. In the village, everything is always done with an eye on fellow villagers. I remember how often my grandmother hurried me, for example, to dig potatoes. One of the arguments was that many had already begun. And if we dig out later than others, then it will be a shame, they will think that we are lazy. Always in the countryside, the personal was subordinate to the collective. No one would dare to commit an act that would offend all fellow villagers. But in recent years, apostasy has reached the village. With a feeling of deep embarrassment, I discovered in my village a house built by one of the summer residents (and summer residents, as you know, even Chekhov said it was so vulgar) - this house is not on the sunny side, so that the sun would shine in the house, these summer residents "turned" it with its back to the road, and the windows to the field. What a vivid image! They “turned their backs” on the entire 500-year history of my village! For 500 years, not a single person in the village has thought of building a house like this!
What an amazing and, I would say, archaic manifestation of catholicity - helping neighbors, fellow villagers in big, hard work: building a house, planting potatoes, chopping cabbage. An amazing thing: as soon as someone started such work, you don’t even need to call assistants - they themselves will come.
Until the very last years, how touching it is to see when we start planting potatoes with a horse, old, almost 80-year-old neighbors each come with their own bucket and help us in this matter. And then we go to help one of the neighbors. I remember one of our neighbors drying hay. It was already almost dried up, and at that time a rain cloud appeared on the edge of the sultry July sky. So, my mother and I did not hesitate for a long time - we ran to help save the hay. The stack was quickly swept away. The neighbors were very grateful.
If lonely old people live in the village, they always try to help them - to do something around the house, to bring for the holiday (Christmas, Easter), and just for no reason milk, a piece of meat. Be sure to wash them in the bath - this is a sacred duty!
Some lonely old men, old women who cannot afford to heat a bathhouse, have been washing with their neighbors for years. And it would never even occur to anyone to hint that someone owes someone.
I remember when I was a boy, with what joy I ran to the well to bring water to the weak old women - this was also a sacred duty!
If someone is sick, then many neighbors come to visit the sick person, cheer up, support. This remains today. True, when there are 15 old men and women left in the village, how bitter it is to see when they come to the sick who are dying, but some time passes and they themselves die. When my grandmother fell ill shortly before her death, one of her distant relatives came to visit her with a can of fresh goat's milk and hot, freshly baked pancakes. How touching it was!
If a fellow villager dies, then two days before the coffin with the body of the deceased is at home, the whole village comes to say goodbye to him. They sit at the coffin, remember his life, good events from his life. On the day of the funeral, many go to the cemetery. Who can not go, he says goodbye to the deceased at home. And for the wake, for 9, 40 days, for the anniversary, the whole village also gathers.
And the memory of the man lives for years in the hearts of fellow villagers. Even if many years have passed and there are no living witnesses left, the memory continues to live in stories and legends. So, in our modern everyday life, the names of some fellow villagers who were born in the middle of the 19th century appear.
Thus, the catholicity of the Russian people, Russian peasants is such an organic quality, as if innate, that even today, in the era of general spiritual decline and degradation, a person lives in its categories, sometimes without realizing it. And I think that this quality will be one of the main ones in the revival of the Russian people, about which we talk so much.
Informatics
Parents, at least mine, do not understand that today the Internet is important for every child. I had to spend a whole month without him! It was very unusual and even boring. Then I played with the dog and cats, and also with my parents in board games. But I had to fantasize and come up with different activities. And in the fantasy village there is where to roam!
Labor training
In the countryside, I realized that I wasn't very good with real men's instruments. At least the dog house was hard for me.
Photo source: personal archive of the hero
There is nothing to repair in the city, only if the bike is sometimes twisted. Here, parents began to call me for help more often: to bring water, water the cucumbers, feed the dog. I have a labor lesson, count, every day.
Biology
I concluded that we planted potatoes in vain. Next year I will tell my parents that I will no longer take part in this. It's too hard to take care of her. I am pass!
Once, while collecting striped beetles, I came up with “These bastards are Colorados!”.
But I like to watch the bed of beans, which I helped to plant. And in general it’s cool that you don’t need to go to the store - a lot of things grow right on the site.
Healthy lifestyle
This is what I realized: if the water is clean, it tastes good. Village water is delicious!
Photo source: personal archive of the hero
There is clean air here. And even more interesting than tempering in the city: you never know how cold the water is in the barrel.
Russian language
It’s difficult with Russian here: they don’t speak it here. And in Belarusian too.
For example, “mentalem” means “quickly”, and “nabIrash” is a bucket that is tied to a belt when picking berries. Very funny language. As if the Russian is not forgotten at all.
Literary reading
Once a week I visit Minsk. I try to meet some of my classmates. I always go to the library and pick up books. For the last year I have been reading detective stories for teenagers. I decided not to read the list of references for the summer. I will succeed during my studies, I read quickly.
Photo source: personal archive of the hero
Human. Society. State
There are few children in our village and they are all either small or boring. In the neighboring village, all the children hang out near the lake. And even without parents! Mine don't let me do that.
And I didn’t like the car shop at all! Prices for everything are higher than in Minsk stores! And why is there no autopharmacy, but there are a lot of elderly people in the village?
Maths
If dad goes to the city, he asks me to look after the estate. It's a responsibility, so I get paid for it. The neighbors take us to the forest and show us all the secrets of the forest. They must have liked us a lot. Other neighbors ask me to bring berries for them.
Photo source: personal archive of the hero
For money, of course.
In the city, my parents came up with all sorts of nonsense work for me or simply gave me money. And here I can make money. Of course it's cool! Counting your money is very nice, I tell you.
Geography
When they told me that we were flying to the island, I jumped for happiness! It's hard to talk about the mountains, you just have to go there. The sea is a great time to have fun.
When we went to small villages to visit relatives or friends, it was always not very long, but interesting. Therefore, when my parents began to talk about their house in the country, I gladly agreed to this idea. We traveled around Belarus and chose a site together.
Photo source: personal archive of the hero
Every trip is a little adventure. We even somehow got stuck in the snow and could not dig out for two hours. Frozen, but it was so much fun!
Astronomy
Life in the village is completely different! It's like you're on another planet! Everyone greets each other. It is necessary. It is not customary to call each other on the phone. It is believed that it is better to visit and talk.
The bike is here not just to ride, but to go on business - to the store, to the city, to the neighbor on the other side of the village. Nobody is in a hurry.
Here is such a different life that I forgot about everything and even about school. I didn't know you could have such a good time in the countryside in the summer.
asked Natalya Rachok
Do you remember summer in the village? Tell us interesting stories about it!
