There was a legend about Babinensk Lake and mountain. Supposedly a brigand named Lapin once had a hideout there. The place even had his name, “Lapin’s Mountain.” No one knew when he had lived there, but the peasants claimed that on moonlit nights Lapin would descend the mountain on horseback to water his gray stallion at the lake.
We went and arranged all the picnic paraphernalia by the lakeside. I got the urge to climb Lapin’s Mountain. It was very steep. The paths on it were only those of animals turning unexpectedly either left or right, crossed by other paths just like them. People said that there were roe deer and elk and wild oxen there, but I never saw any. There were bears and wolves and an occasional lynx. The animals did not alarm me. The apparition of Lapin scared me more, but they said he never appeared in the daytime. I scaled to the top. The view from there was gorgeous. Below was the bright-blue lake and distant inundated meadows to the right. On the other side of the mountain lay the half-moon Garusovo Lake, as if of red copper. A bright green serpentine valley opened to the south with a river snaking through it. Bluish pine forests stood in tiers on both its sides. It struck me that Lapin chose this mountain for a good reason.
I sat and looked for a while and then decided to descend. The way down was more difficult than the climb. I started to zigzag down the paths. Suddenly I came out into a flat meadow. Although I missed it at first, I suddenly
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noticed a moss-grown log ruin that might have been a peasant cabin. There were only four or five courses of logs standing. “Strange,” I thought, “it probably was a forester’s hut.” I walked around it and was dumbfounded. Behind it was a low, overgrown stone cross. My God, it was Lapin’s grave.
I took off downhill, stumbled, rolled, stumbled, and rolled again. Finally I made it to the forest by the lake and, all out of breath, found the others. “What’s wrong with you?” someone asked.
“Nothing, just running hard,” I answered. For some reason I did not want to tell anyone about my discovery. Later I told only Nikolai Ermolaevich [a family friend] and he believed me: “Yes, I have heard of a cross and a log cabin, but I never could find it.”
Nikolai Ermolaevich’s wife was visiting him at the time. She also was from a family of lumbermen of Viatka Province but was then in medical school in Moscow. She was a slim, beautiful woman of twenty-five with auburn, almost red hair, and was very fun-loving. We kids simply adored her. After our snack of rusks [a browned, sweetened biscuit] we all ran along the shore to a sandy beach where we plopped down to rest. It was incredibly hot. “How about going for a swim,” she said. We all undressed and dashed into the cold water. None of us were embarrassed by the fact that we were all nude. At Khmelita everyone swam in the nude, men and women together. I did notice however, without any furtive thoughts, what a beautiful figure she had. We swam for a while, then stretched out on the sand where we quickly dried out in the heat. We then dressed and went back for tea.
“Where were you?” asked one of the governesses.
“Swimming,” answered Nikolai Ermolaevich’s wife.
“Swimming! Nude!” shrieked all the governesses.
“Of course.”
The group was gripped by horror. They all began to fuss and fume. A scandal was obviously brewing. I could not understand their agitation. At first I thought that we should not have gone swimming after a snack, but then realized that all these outlanders and city folk had never swum nude and were shocked. I was not an innocent kid and knew the difference between the bodies of men and women, but none of us ever thought of nude swimming as shocking or improper. Then I recalled the horror of the governesses when they once heard that I was present at calving-time. “Do you think that a stork brings calves?” I said to myself and decided that they were all ignoramuses.
The news of the murder of Franz-Ferdinand and his duchess came while we were still at Glubokoe. I remember what a doleful effect it had on everyone, as any murder would. Murders were so rare in those “uncivilized” times that every killing was the subject of conversation for weeks. Father said that
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they were “clearly killed by anarchists or some other lowlife, but that the Aus-trians, as usual, will exaggerate this and blame the Serbian government. And the Serbs, like jerks, will get all hyper and there’ll be a crisis. It’s up to the diplomats to quiet this thing down. Don’t know why we guaranteed the independence of our ‘little brothers’ who may draw us into a war through their local intrigues.”
Nevertheless, no one thought at the time that this would lead to war. Almost everyone assumed that it was an incident of only local significance.
Chapter Seven
Vladimir Zenzinov, Coming of Age
Vladimir Zenzinov (1880–1953) is an example of a quintessential revolutionary. Born in Moscow, he graduated from gimnazium in 1899 and went to Europe. There he spent four and a half years at the universities of Berlin, Halle, and Heidelberg studying philosophy, economics, history, and law. His contacts with revolutionary émigrés in Switzerland solidified the oppositionist views formed in his gimnazium years. Upon returning to Russia as a member of the SR’s (Social Revolutionaries), he embarked on a life of active protest. He was arrested and exiled numerous times. He escaped numerous times as well. Like other revolutionaries of a moral suasion, he could not support the Bolsheviks and had to leave Russia in 1918. From then until his death he lived in Paris, Prague, Berlin and New York working and writing for numerous democratic and socialist publications. Taken from Vladimir Zenzinov, Perezhitoe [My Life’s Experiences]. New York: Izd. Imeni Chekhova, 1953.
On Saturday evenings we always had many young people at our house. Insofar as I recall, they were exclusively from Siberia, and principally university students of medicine, law, and philology. There were usually ten to fifteen of them, mostly the same ones. They respected my father very much; as to my mother, they not only respected her but they loved her. They treated her with tender attention, like their own mother. And she attended to them with a motherly gentleness. She followed their destinies and knew the personal and family lives of every student. Apparently, for many of them, our home substituted for the family from which they were torn away. Muscovites and Siberians are famed for their hospitality and our home seemed to doubly justify this reputation. Things were always joyful, lively and pleasant. Needless to say, the principal activity was drinking tea.
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Everyone gathered around the large table on which a boiling samovar stood. Without fail, mother herself poured the tea and washed the glasses. The table was filled with everything that Muscovite and Siberian hospitality could think of: jam, cheese “Danish,” nougat, black Chinese fruit jelly, sweet cakes, candies, fruit. Spirited conversations took place on anything that interested those present—news and letters from home, current events, university life, concerts, theater. Strange as it may now seem, I do not recall political discussions or debates. There were animated debates, but I don’t remember any which left a bad aftertaste. The atmosphere was almost familial, one of great sincerity. Many actually knew each other through their families in Siberia and had grown up there. After tea we went to the living room where the conversations continued or games were organized. There were happy games of forfeits, “opinions and comparisons,” “cities,” our “neighbors,” complex charades, the “ring,” and “madam sent one hundred rubles, buy what you want, don’t say what it is and don’t refer to black or white.” Someone would begin playing the piano and we would dance. There were young women as well. Some had also come from Siberia to pursue higher education for women while others were my sister’s friends who were studying at the first women’s gimnazium near Strastnoi Convent. My sister was five years older than I.
Of course, in such an atmosphere there could not but be romances and infatuations. But at that time, this was of no interest to me. I even despise
d such things. I would repeat a phrase I had heard somewhere that “in courting there is something dog-like.” But how could this not occur in the midst of joyful, lively, and boisterous youth? Only later did I find out about the “hopeless loves” which, as it turns out, were being played out before my eyes. Two students were in love with my sister (she was very attractive). One was the brilliant and handsome Mikhnovskii from Irkutsk, the other—our fat bumpkin Kolia Ocheredin, who resembled a Siberian bear. My sister rejected them both and married a doctor whom she met on the Black Sea.
Presumably, there were other romances. I recall that my sister had striking friends. One was a blonde (Davydova) with large eyes and a long braid. Another was a fiery Jewish brunette with a bright blush (Gortikova). Incidentally, I met her later while in emigration in Paris and together we recalled the distant days. She was then a mother of two adult sons and nothing remained of her former beauty. She had become a short, hunched old woman. My sister’s best friend Bibochka Bari (Anna Aleksandrovna) was enormously popular. She was the oldest daughter in the very large family of Aleksandr Veniaminovich Bari, an Americanized engineer. He owned the Moscow factory where the famous Shukhov boilers were manufactured. Bibochka was a cheerful, plump blonde who radiated health and joy. My older brother Kesha was hopelessly in love with her. But only we, his
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brothers, knew of this and teased him unmercifully. Later she married Samoilov, a professor of physiology.
Late in the evening, after the dancing, there was always supper—pirogi [deep-dish pies] with meat, pirogi with fish, pirogi with [sautéed] cabbage, pickled mushrooms, hors-d’oeuvres and, of course, tea again—many cups and glasses of tea.
We, younger children, were never sent to our rooms. We had equal rights, participated in all the games, and stayed with the guests until the end. At supper I even had my own specialty: I masterfully cut the Swiss cheese into pieces as thin as paper. Because of this expertise, the students foretold a career as surgeon for me. My mother smiled, pleased: she wanted me to be a doctor.
Besides these weekly Saturday get-togethers, two or three times a year we had real balls. Sometimes there were even masquerade balls (on Christmas or Shrovetide). In those cases a ballroom pianist was hired and the pies and kulebiakas were ordered in a pastry shop. Usually there were fifty or so guests at these balls—sometimes more, and always there were young people. We danced to exhaustion through the night until morning. We always had a large apartment, and the dances were organized in several adjoining rooms. The adroit dancers waltzed from one room into another. After the quadrille, we would organize a “gran-pon” where all the dancers, holding hands, would race down the hallways, through the bedrooms and the nursery, bumping into chairs, and maneuvering between tables. I remember that once all the [pre-Lenten Carnival] mummers were dressed up in cooks’ costumes with white chef’s caps—this was quite striking and gay. There was much noise and laughter. The cook, the dishwasher, and even the caretaker looked on admiringly from the dark vestibule and the corridor at the merry guests.
I was the youngest in our family. Besides my sister Anna, I had two older brothers. Now I am the last of the clan. My oldest brother Innokentii (Kesha) died from tuberculosis in Paris in 1935, having contracted this disease in the difficult conditions of émigré life. My other brother, Mikhail, who was two years older, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1920 simply for the fact that he had once been an officer (a second lieutenant in the reserves), doing his military service under the old regime. He was never involved in politics. For twenty years, I’ve heard nothing of my sister who remained in Russia. All my cautious attempts to find out anything about her were in vain.
It would be unfair for me, in telling of my family, not to mention our nanny because she occupied a place in it and even played a significant role. She was, of course, a member of the family as well. This occurred very frequently in Russian families. Entering a strange family, frequently at a very young age and looking after a first child, then a second, and then after all of them, the
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nanny became an organic member of that family. She became attached to its life with all her soul, frequently forgetting or rejecting her own. And if she had heart and character, she would not only leave a lifetime mark in the soul of each child but would become a valued, sometimes invaluable member of the family to which she had tied her own life and fate.
This was our Nanny precisely—and I capitalize this word because in our family this designation of a profession became a proper name. Her real name was Avdot’ia (Evdokiia) Zakharovna Gorelova. At first, we just called her Dunia, but out of respect for her, mother made us call her Niania [Nanny]. That is what we then called her for the rest of our lives. That is how she is imprinted on my soul. Nanny was twelve or thirteen when the serfs were emancipated. She remembered serfdom well and told us stories about it. It should be said, however, that she told us no horror tales—she lived under serfdom without being aware of it. (She was from Smolensk Province.)
While still a very young woman, probably in 1874, she came to Moscow from her village to earn some money. She had just given birth to her son whom she left behind in the village. (I did not know who her husband was or whether he was still alive. I only knew her brother, Gavriil Zakharovich, a Moscow cabbie who always stood on the Bol’shaia Dmitrovka in front of the merchants club. He would visit her for tea. This was a large, fat man with a very red face. He would drink innumerable glasses of tea in her room—until “the seventh sweat.” This was the primary treat his sister could give him.)
It was natural in her situation to seek work as a wet nurse in a respectable home. So she showed up at Smolensk Square in Moscow where servants were hired in those naive times. It was there that Uncle Kolia saw her. He was looking for a wet nurse for his brother’s wife, i.e., for my mother who was expecting her first child. In her youth, Nanny was a true Russian beauty if we are to judge by a photograph taken in our home which we saved. She was in a magnificent costume of a Russian wet nurse with wide tunic sleeves, decked in lace and ribbons, an embroidered shirt and several strings of beads. My oldest sister Mania, who died in childhood, was in her arms. It was said that Uncle Kolia was a great judge of female beauty, so it was natural that he would choose Nanny [as nurse] for his sister-in-law. From that moment on, until her death in 1908, Nanny lived in our family, having no other and not having one of her own. She nursed my oldest sister, then moved to Ania [Anna] and each of us in order. Later she reared my sister’s children. She took care of us, was inseparable from us, and sat at the bedside when one of us, children, was sick.
I remember her from my very first moment of recall. Remembering my childhood illnesses, I always visualize her at the head of the bed. I would twist under her rough, kind hand as she rubbed me down with butter melted
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in a spoon over a candle flame. It tickles, it makes me laugh, it’s hot and I complain and fidget. She quivers and groans as if she is ticklish too, and this makes me feel better. “Oh, oh, things are so hard for Afoniushka (she always had humorous catch-phrases from the village which seemed to be free improvisations to us) . . . there, that’s the way Volodiushka… now your little hands and feet are resting . . . soon you’ll be healthy again and running around the yard.” And one fell sweetly asleep to her stories. She knew many of them and we knew them by heart from her, but we still kept insisting that she tell them to us again. She would wake us in the morning clapping her hands: “Wake up kids, the buns are ready!”
Nanny was illiterate and all of us children, in turn, taught her reading and writing. But nothing came of this. She remembered the letters and could point out each of them in a book. She even could pronounce syllables but could not combine them into a word no matter how hard we tried. She remained illiterate until her death. But I am convinced that she had a huge influence on all of us, perhaps just a touch less than
that of mother, though perhaps equal to hers. Most of all she loved Misha, the second brother in age and likely the least fortunate of all the children. Maybe that is why she loved him more then the others. As a child, he was ill more than the rest of us and endured all the various childhood diseases. Perhaps he also reminded her of her own son Vania who grew up in the village. He was also a sickly child. Having grown up and come to Moscow, he, like Misha, was not distinguished by exemplary behavior and was “good-for-nothing,” as she called him. When Misha was in military service (“Mishutka, Mishutka, this is no joke!”) and had to go to the barracks very early in the morning before daybreak, Nanny would wake him and give him tea. At night she would clean his dress uniform, the buttons, the buckle, and the boots. And she was absolutely right when she would later say in all seriousness: “When Mishen’ka and I served in the army . . .”
As I recall all that I have lived through and reconstruct the past in my mind, I can only come to the conclusion that our family was a happy one.
I am not sure of the reasons, but in our family I developed in a way different from my brothers and sister. Our family was of the middle class not only in terms of income, but also according to its habits and its overall moral atmosphere. Nobody was absorbed in social issues, and politics were of absolutely no interest to anyone. My sister graduated from the gimnazium, attended the women’s institute where she studied history and literature, and then married a doctor. She moved to the Black Sea and began to raise her own family there. Both my brothers were enrolled in the Alexander Commercial Institute on Staraia Basmannaia [Street]. From my father’s perspective, this was perfectly natural. What else would the sons of a merchant be other than
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