Women of the All-Union Elder. Pas de deux at the very top: ballerinas who had affairs with those in power

The people called him the All-Union Headman. Stalin said: “All-Union goat.” And he added: “lustful.” Mikhail Ivanovich KALININ loved to communicate with milkmaids and weavers, wives of people's commissars and ballerinas. After his death, those to whom his memory was especially dear could visit the memorial office on Mokhovaya Street at any time. But the Soviet Union collapsed and the museum was closed. And after 15 years, the furnishings of his office were finally taken out of storage and placed in the branch of the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia on Delegatskaya Street. However, this small exhibition is silent about the most interesting facts of the biography of the former Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
Maria SVETLOVA

Our new exhibition is dedicated to the interiors of the 20th century, - presents the opened exhibition Lyudmila Kovaleva, head of the branch of the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia on Delegatskaya Street, we recreated Kalinin’s Reception as an example of the decoration of an bureaucratic office of those years. And they chose it mainly because of the magnificent furniture set in the Art Nouveau style of the beginning of the century.
The office of the All-Union headman is nicely furnished for life. It is clear that his owner loved simple earthly joys: drinking tea with sugar, sitting at a comfortable table and lying on a sofa made of good leather.

Fouette on the table

In the center of the office, as expected, is a huge table. The guide said that, sitting behind him, Kalinin signed decrees, including those on mass repressions. But she kept silent about the legends that surround this outstanding piece of furniture.

As soon as Mikhail Ivanovich took office as Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1922, he was assigned to oversee the work of the Bolshoi Theater. The all-Union headman shared the responsible party assignment with Avel Enukidze, Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. And immediately favors showered on the Bolshoi. Previously, the authorities exploited the theater for any reason: they were obliged to provide premises for all kinds of events, ballerinas were forced to dance for free at concerts. Kalinin and Enukidze immediately freed the temple of art from “corvee labor.” They ordered the artists to increase their salaries twice a year, assigned them to the Kremlin’s medical and sanatorium management, and included the “ballet” housing cooperative in the construction plan out of turn.
The favors were not at all explained by the passionate love of the two high-ranking Soviet officials for art - they did not distinguish pas de deux from fouetté. Both Kalinin and Enukidze liked to have fun in the company of pretty ballerinas. And since both were public and busy people, they invited dancers directly to the office. The ballerinas took off their tutus and performed fouettés naked, so much so that under the influence of the great power of art, Kalinin grunted and groaned, and the well-made table legs only creaked quietly.

The All-Union elder presented the beauties with imported lingerie, cosmetics and trinkets. He especially liked the youngest dancers. Not all the girls understood what a great honor they were receiving. 16 year old Bella Uvarova conquered Mikhail Ivanovich with her beauty, but did not reciprocate the high patron. This is what brought upon herself the wrath of the sensualist. After another call to the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the girl disappeared. And soon her disfigured body was found in a forest near Moscow. Stalin ordered the creation of a special commission to investigate the incident. Kalinin was urgently sent on leave to “get medical treatment.” And then another “spy” process began in Moscow, where the names of the parents of the missing artist appeared. They were repressed, and Kalinin returned to his duties and continued his patronage of the Bolshoi Theater.
Ballerina mentor Ekaterina Geltser Once, having learned that Michal Vanych had dishonored her young student, she threw a statuette of Mephistopheles at the old libertine. It's a pity, but this figurine is not among the museum exhibits.

The wife was responsible for the violence

Unfortunately, the exhibition does not include another memorable exhibit, which testifies to the versatility of the interests of the all-Union headman.

After all, we must give Mikhail Ivanovich his due: he loved not only ballet. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee paid no less attention to operetta. Historians could support this fact with the printed word, taking it from the collections of the Library named after. V.I. Lenin issue of the newspaper “Izvestia” for 1924 with a feuilleton Demyan Bedny“About how our elder Kalinich recaptured Tatyana Bakh from Averbakh.” For half a page, the poet painted in vivid colors the incriminating evidence against Kalinin provided to him by the NKVD, skillfully bringing down his anger at “certain old men, those in power, who are getting mixed up with young actresses from the operetta.” Mikhail Ivanovich, who at that time had an affair with a young singer Tatiana Bakh, however, did not calm down and did not stop seducing the girls. He just stopped making friends with Stalin’s opponents in the party. The leader appreciated the faithful elder for his understanding and thanked him, turning a blind eye to his fornication.
But Kalinin’s wife did not want to tolerate her husband’s adventures. In 1924, after 18 years of marriage, Ekaterina Ivanovna left for Altai, leaving her unfaithful husband and five children in Moscow. She was tired of living under the same roof with her husband's mistress - the housekeeper Alexandra Gorchakova.

Beautiful, educated, from a noble family, Gorchakova initially took care of the Kalinin children and ran the household, and then extended her influence to Mikhail Ivanovich.
However, the 50-year-old headman was gradually slowing down. The nervous work was taking its toll - more and more often the girls left him unsatisfied. But the All-Union headman was not used to giving in to difficulties. He looked for unconventional ways to restore his former strength. A friend, an artist, helped him in a noble cause Meshkov, whose workshop was located not far from the reception room of the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Kalinin often, tired of receiving walkers, ran to a painter friend for a glass of liqueur. Meshkov advised Michal Vanych an old folk method for impotence - bee stings to improve blood flow to the penis. At the artist’s dacha, the all-Union elder sat down naked on a bee hive and endured the bites of angry insects for the sake of love. However, the method had no effect. A rumor about the sexual weakness of the all-Union headman spread in a vile manner throughout Moscow. The girls began to avoid meeting with Mikhail Ivanovich. In 1938, the aging head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee took a 17-year-old young lady to her dacha and tried to rape her. Unfortunately, it turned out that the victim turned out to be a relative of the military leader Alexandra Egorova. Kalinin tried to settle the trouble by paying the victim a large sum. But Stalin really didn’t like this next big story. Rumor has it that, enraged, the leader ordered the arrest of Kalinin’s wife, allegedly because she could not keep her husband by her side. Ekaterina Ivanovna spent seven years in the camps. She was released in 1945. She did not forgive the offense and did not return to her husband. And a year later Mikhail Ivanovich passed away.

QUOTE
“After another call to the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the girl disappeared. And soon her mutilated body was found in a forest near Moscow."

P.S.
After the death of the all-Union mayor, the city of Tver was renamed Kalinin, the former Koenigsberg was named after him, until recently the city of Korolev near Moscow was Kaliningrad. In Moscow, his name was given to an avenue (now Novy Arbat) and a metro station (now Alexandrovsky Garden). None of the figures of the Soviet era received honors on such a large scale. It’s a strange coincidence, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ten years of oblivion, they remembered him, and not his party comrades, and it was his cabinet that was recreated, and not Kirov or Molotov. Perhaps this happened because Kalinin, like no one else, sincerely loved the people, a good half of which were women.

BY THE WAY
Galina Danelia, the wife of the famous director Georgy Danelia, in her youth was friends with the grandson of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, also Mikhail. According to her, he was an intelligent man with phenomenal thinking and knew the Japanese language perfectly. Galina lived with him in a 5-room apartment on the street. Alexei Tolstoy. The girl tried to seduce Mikhail. But, ironically, the descendant of a loving admirer of women adhered to a non-traditional sexual orientation. One day Galina caught him with painted lips in a lady's dress. And later Mikhail reproached that, living with him, Galina prevents him from inviting his friend Stasik to visit for intimate meetings.

The most active “walkers” in terms of ballerinas are called the Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the USSR Avel Enukidze and the “All-Union Head” Mikhail Kalinin. Since 1922, they were the “curators” of the Bolshoi Theater, after which this Soviet center of culture was showered with various kinds of preferences in the form of increasing the salaries of artists, assigning them to the Kremlin hospital, improving living conditions, etc.
They claim that as gratitude for all these benefits, the ballerinas invited “to the office” danced naked for Enukidze and Kalinin, receiving imported lingerie, cosmetics and trinkets as gifts. These stories still remain at the level of rumors, since they are not documented. Just like the sensational story with the Bolshoi Theater ballerina, sixteen-year-old Bella Uvarova, who allegedly died because she refused Kalinin intimacy.
In the memoirs of the famous Soviet opera singer Vera Davydova, published in 1993 under the loud title “Kremlin goats. Confession of Stalin’s Mistress,” tells how Kalinin pursued Uvarova, she was brought to his home. And then, two weeks after meeting the “all-Union headman,” the ballerina disappeared. Only a month later, the mutilated corpse of a girl was found in a forest near Moscow. Davydova writes that the investigation into this case was personally supervised by Stalin, he averted the threat from Kalinin, who he needed at that moment, and Bella’s parents were soon repressed on trumped-up charges.

Enukidze was the godfather of Stalin's second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. The wife of the brother of the first wife of the “Father of Nations” Maria Svanidze (repressed and shot in 1942) characterized in her diaries (they have been preserved) Enukidze as a libertine and sensualist who went so far as to seduce 9-11 year old girls. He was the only Soviet politician of this level to be charged with pedophilia. Therefore, Enukidze’s romances with ballerinas, if they actually happened, look like an innocent flirtation against such a background.

November 19 marked the 135th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Kalinin. This handsome old man in glasses, who for many years headed Central Joseph Stalin called the executive committee, and then the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, “the all-Union goat.” To this nickname he often added another biting word - “lustful”, hinting at Mikhail Ivanovich’s weakness in the female department. However, the almighty “father of nations” turned a blind eye to Kalinin’s adventures, appreciating him for his selfless devotion.

In the first years of the Soviet authorities The Bolshoi Theater did not experience much favor from the authorities. Its luxurious premises were used for various kinds of party events, and ballerinas were forced to perform in large numbers, and for free, at concerts. The salary was small and they were not given rations or other privileges. But as soon as Kalinin became chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, everything changed almost overnight. Theater artists were included among the select few who were allowed to use the services of the Kremlin’s medical and sanatorium administration. The ballet students were allowed to create their own housing cooperative and were provided with finance and construction materials without a queue. The dancers began to be provided with food rations. They began to increase their salaries twice a year.

Kalinin’s close attention to the needs of the Bolshoi Theater was explained not so much by a change in government politicians in the field of art, as much as the personal preferences of the “all-Union elder”. No, he was not at all a fine connoisseur of ballet. And he could hardly distinguish a pas de deux from a fouetté. But he really liked young ballerinas. He shared his passion with Avel Enukidze, secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Two party leaders often visited the theater. Mikhail Ivanovich dropped by at rehearsals and looked behind the scenes after performances.

From the outside it looked very touching: so tall official, and does not consider it shameful to communicate with ordinary dancers and ask them about their needs. And soon the girl she liked was called for a personal conversation with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. For their understanding and compliance, the all-Union headman and his secretary presented the young beauties with foreign cosmetics, rings and expensive beautiful lingerie. But not all young dancers agreed that providing intimate services to high-ranking government officials was a great honor. 16-year-old Bella Uvarova did not reciprocate Mikhail Ivanovich’s feelings. He hoped that the young charmer would come to her senses, and renewed his attempts several times. But having received a firm refusal, he was beside himself with anger. After another call to the “all-Union elder”, the girl did not return home. Parents raised a fuss and contacted the police. The mutilated body of a young ballerina was found in a forest near Moscow. A special commission was created to investigate the incident. Stalin himself intervened in the matter. By a strange coincidence of circumstances, the victim’s parents were declared foreign spies, her father served as a consultant in the British mission, and were soon shot. Kalinin was urgently sent on vacation. As soon as the noise died down, Mikhail Ivanovich again began to frequent the Bolshoi Theater. The dancers were no longer capricious. True, a little later Moscow quietly whispered about one incident that happened at the Bolshoi. They said that the famous ballerina Ekaterina Geltser threw a statuette of Mephistopheles at Mikhail Ivanovich. One of the young students cried to her, telling her how kind uncle Kalinin had dishonored her.

Stalin knew about his faithful servant's weakness for ballet. On his instructions, the GPU, and then the NKVD, carried out the corresponding work with the dancers. They were ordered to write detailed reports about what the sensualist was talking to them about. But Kalinin did not allow himself any political deviations. True, one day Stalin nevertheless suspected him of loyalty to some representatives of the opposition. And then Demyan Bedny’s feuilleton “About how our headman Kalinich recaptured Tatyana Bakh from Averbakh” appeared in the Izvestia newspaper. Kalinin just at that time had a period of passion for operetta. And he started an affair with the young singer Tatyana Bakh. The girl immediately turned from a second-rate singer into a prima. The Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was understanding. After the appearance of the feuilleton, he stopped welcoming draft dodgers who were disliked by Stalin and continued to carry out orders with the same zeal and sign decrees on executions. But the love fervor did not cool down.
His wife Ekaterina Ivanovna endured her husband’s affairs on the side for a long time. But her situation became completely unbearable when Mikhail Ivanovich took a mistress in his own house. It became theirs housekeeper Alexandra Gorchakova. Feeling the power of her influence, she began to command Catherine, taking her place. The unfortunate woman could not stand the humiliation and, leaving five children - three of her own and two adopted ones, she left for Altai. Kalinin came up with a plausible excuse. They say that the wife yearned for propaganda work, because she was one of the old Bolsheviks. Later, Catherine returned, hoping that her husband would come to his senses. But where is it?

In 1938 chapter The All-Russian Central Executive Committee raped a 17-year-old girl at a state dacha. The poor thing turned out to be a relative of the prominent military leader Alexander Egorov. This time Mikhail Ivanovich was very afraid. The scandal reached Stalin. But the leader brought down his anger on Kalinin’s wife: they say, it was her fault that her husband became mired in debauchery. Ekaterina Ivanovna was accused of having connections with Trotskyists and was sent to camps for 15 years. She was pardoned seven years later. Returning after serving time in March 1946, she lived with her daughter, not wanting to communicate with Kalinin. And soon Mikhail Ivanovich died.

November 19 marked the 135th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Kalinin. Joseph Stalin called this handsome old man in glasses, who for many years headed the Central Executive Committee and then the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, “the all-Union goat.” To this nickname he often added another biting word - “lustful”, hinting at Mikhail Ivanovich’s weakness in the female department. However, the almighty “father of nations” turned a blind eye to Kalinin’s adventures, appreciating him for his selfless devotion.

In the first years of Soviet power, the Bolshoi Theater did not experience much favor from the authorities. Its luxurious premises were used for various kinds of party events, and ballerinas were forced to perform in large numbers, and for free, at concerts. The salary was small and they were not given rations or other privileges. But as soon as Kalinin became chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, everything changed almost overnight. Theater artists were included among the select few who were allowed to use the services of the Kremlin’s medical and sanatorium administration. The ballet students were allowed to create their own housing cooperative and were provided with finance and construction materials without a queue. The dancers began to be provided with food rations. They began to increase their salaries twice a year.

Kalinin’s close attention to the needs of the Bolshoi Theater was explained not so much by changes in state policy in the field of art, but by the personal preferences of the “all-Union headman.” No, he was not at all a fine connoisseur of ballet. And he could hardly distinguish a pas de deux from a fouetté. But he really liked young ballerinas. He shared his passion with Avel Enukidze, secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Two party leaders often visited the theater. Mikhail Ivanovich dropped by at rehearsals and looked behind the scenes after performances.

From the outside it looked very touching: such a high official did not consider it shameful to communicate with ordinary dancers and ask them about their needs. And soon the girl she liked was called for a personal conversation with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. For their understanding and compliance, the all-Union headman and his secretary presented the young beauties with foreign cosmetics, rings and expensive beautiful lingerie. But not all young dancers agreed that providing intimate services to high-ranking government officials was a great honor. 16-year-old Bella Uvarova did not reciprocate Mikhail Ivanovich’s feelings. He hoped that the young charmer would come to her senses, and renewed his attempts several times. But having received a firm refusal, he was beside himself with anger. After another call to the “all-Union elder”, the girl did not return home. Parents raised a fuss and contacted the police. The mutilated body of a young ballerina was found in a forest near Moscow. A special commission was created to investigate the incident. Stalin himself intervened in the matter. By a strange coincidence of circumstances, the victim’s parents were declared foreign spies, her father served as a consultant in the British mission, and were soon shot. Kalinin was urgently sent on vacation. As soon as the noise died down, Mikhail Ivanovich again began to frequent the Bolshoi Theater. The dancers were no longer capricious. True, a little later Moscow quietly whispered about one incident that happened at the Bolshoi. They said that the famous ballerina Ekaterina Geltser threw a statuette of Mephistopheles at Mikhail Ivanovich. One of the young students cried to her, telling her how kind uncle Kalinin had dishonored her.

Stalin knew about his faithful servant's weakness for ballet. On his instructions, the GPU, and then the NKVD, carried out appropriate work with the dancers. They were ordered to write detailed reports about what the sensualist was talking to them about. But Kalinin did not allow himself any political deviations. True, one day Stalin nevertheless suspected him of loyalty to some representatives of the opposition. And then Demyan Bedny’s feuilleton “About how our headman Kalinich recaptured Tatyana Bakh from Averbakh” appeared in the Izvestia newspaper. Kalinin just at that time had a period of passion for operetta. And he started an affair with the young singer Tatyana Bakh. The girl immediately turned from a second-rate singer into a prima. The Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was understanding. After the appearance of the feuilleton, he stopped welcoming draft dodgers who were disliked by Stalin and continued to carry out orders with the same zeal and sign decrees on executions. But the love fervor did not cool down.
His wife Ekaterina Ivanovna endured her husband’s affairs on the side for a long time. But her situation became completely unbearable when Mikhail Ivanovich took a mistress in his own house. She became their housekeeper Alexandra Gorchakova. Feeling the power of her influence, she began to command Catherine, taking her place. The unfortunate woman could not stand the humiliation and, leaving five children - three of her own and two adopted ones, she left for Altai. Kalinin came up with a plausible excuse. They say that the wife yearned for propaganda work, because she was one of the old Bolsheviks. Later, Catherine returned, hoping that her husband would come to his senses. But where is it?

In 1938, the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee raped a 17-year-old girl at a state dacha. The poor thing turned out to be a relative of the prominent military leader Alexander Egorov. This time Mikhail Ivanovich was very afraid. The scandal reached Stalin. But the leader brought down his anger on Kalinin’s wife: they say, it was her fault that her husband became mired in debauchery. Ekaterina Ivanovna was accused of having connections with Trotskyists and was sent to camps for 15 years. She was pardoned seven years later. Returning after serving time in March 1946, she lived with her daughter, not wanting to communicate with Kalinin. And soon Mikhail Ivanovich died.

Passionate orgies, debauchery and debauchery, seduction of minors and abuse of subordinates... For many years we were told that there was no sex in Soviet Russia, hiding documents about the sexual revolution organized by the Bolsheviks in 1917 under the headings “top secret”.

ACCORDING TO ILYICH'S TEACHMENTS

The Bolsheviks, who seized power, declared a “revolt of sensuality.” Simply put, all moral norms and restrictions were abolished. Leon Trotsky wrote to Vladimir Lenin: “The family, as a bourgeois institution, has completely outlived its usefulness!” Lenin answered him: “...And not only family. All prohibitions regarding sexuality must be lifted... Even the ban on same-sex love.”

Since Ilyich himself gave the go-ahead, why not have some fun? The ruling elite reveled in permissiveness for many years. There was a feeling of intoxicating freedom: do what you want, and nothing will happen to you for it. All women, without exception, became available to the leader's associates: some went to bed for ideological reasons, others were easy to bribe, others were driven by fear for their lives - theirs and those of their loved ones. The time of executions without trial or investigation. And sexual promiscuity...

PEDOPHILE WITH UNLIMITED POWER

The fashion for sexual entertainment arose in the highest echelons of Soviet power in the early 1920s and continued to grow until 1937. They played tricks to the extent of their depravity.

One of the worst debauchees of that time, as contemporaries claim, was the secretary of the USSR Central Executive Committee, Avel Enukidze. The chief economic officer of the Kremlin was in charge of not only the distribution of food and housing among the top leadership, he, according to the recollections of many, also ensured the satisfaction of their sexual whims. For example, he organized orgies for his comrades, supplying young women to Kremlin banquets, like batches of fresh fish and caviar. He himself loved to relax... in the company of little girls.

Even his contemporaries understood that his unbridledness bordered on pathology. A relative of Stalin’s first wife, Maria Svanidze, wrote in her diary: “Abel had a tremendous influence on our life for 17 years after the revolution. Being himself depraved and voluptuous, he stinked everything around him - he took pleasure in pimping, family discord, and seducing girls. Having in his hands all the blessings of life, unattainable for everyone, especially in the first years after the revolution, he used it all for personal dirty purposes, buying women and girls. It's sickening to talk and write about this. Being erotically abnormal and, obviously, not a 100% man, every year he moved on to younger and younger ones and finally reached girls 9-11 years old, corrupting their imagination, corrupting them, if not physically, then morally...”

In 1935, Yenukidze was suddenly accused of immoral behavior and expelled from the party “for political and everyday corruption.” And in 1937 he was shot. Historian Boris Ilizarov is sure that Stalin’s close friend “supplied girls not only to the “right people” and comrades-in-arms, but also to the friend of his youth himself. It turns out that the leader removed the most important witness and protected himself from revelations on his part.

DEMONS IN THE RIB

“All-Union lustful goat” - this is what Mikhail Kalinin was called in a narrow circle of those close to him. Handsome, with a beard and glasses, grandfather Kalinin looked much older than his years - in 1917 he was only 40, but he looked like a very old man. He became famous for his irrepressible love for the theater. Or rather, to young actresses.

From the outside it looked very touching when Mikhail Ivanovich, after a performance at the Bolshoi Theater, went backstage and warmly, in a simply fatherly way, asked the young ballerinas about life. Affectionately stroking the girls, most of whom were barely 16-17 years old, on their bare arms, or even kissing their bare shoulders, the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee invited them to visit him - at the government dacha or directly in his office. The table with green cloth, at which the All-Union headman received visitors during the day, in the evening turned into a stage on which ballerinas in their mother’s clothes danced for a single spectator...

For the satisfaction of his lust, Kalinin paid with the patronage of the entire theater: the troupe’s salary was increased annually, the dancers were given rations and were allowed to relax in Kremlin sanatoriums. Most of the artists did not complain about their fate: if they pleased Kalinin, they could even get housing in the capital.

But not everyone was pliable dolls in the hands of the “affectionate grandfather.” One of the young ballerinas, Bella Uvarova, flatly refused to indulge the “benefactor.” She was brought to him more than once for a “conversation,” but the girl was unapproachable. After one such meeting, she simply did not return home. Soon she was found in a forest near Moscow. The unfortunate parents could not even immediately identify their girl - her body was so disfigured. A scandal broke out and Kalinin immediately went on sick leave. Stalin himself intervened in the investigation. And then, by a strange coincidence of circumstances, it suddenly “turned out” that Bella’s mother and father were foreign spies. They were quickly shot and the case was closed. After this incident, the girls no longer objected when Kalinin called them to him.

Over the years, the “lustful headman” weakened, but had no intention of leaving the race. They say that at the dacha he took off his pants and sat on an open beehive, believing that bee stings would increase his potency. The peak of the aging Mikhail Ivanovich’s depraved behavior was the rape of an underage relative of Marshal Egorov, for which Kalinin’s wife was immediately arrested. Ekaterina Ivanovna was accused of not being able to restrain her husband and he was mired in debauchery. And they sent me to camps for 15 years...

FROM CLOTHES - ONLY SHOES

For a long time it was believed that the prototype of Satan’s ball in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was the pompous receptions at the American embassy. However, the French historian Rene Bouvet, having rummaged through the archives, found out that Mikhail Bulgakov described receptions in the mansion of the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, which he himself attended several times. For the first time, what he saw plunged the writer into deep shock. The men, dressed in tailcoats, were decorously conducting small talk with the ladies, wearing only... shoes and feathers in their hair. At the same time, the beauties were not at all embarrassed by their nudity and flirted with might and main with their gentlemen. Witches, and nothing more!

These receptions ended, as you might guess, with noisy orgies in which the Leninist elite had a blast. Lunacharsky, an educated man who came from a noble family, loved to invite ballerinas from the Bolshoi Theater, which he personally supervised, to such spree revelries.

When the People's Commissar appeared in the box, the corps de ballet became excited: every artist dreamed of attracting Lunacharsky's attention. After all, his favor promised many benefits: gifts and trips, perfumes, stockings and silk foreign underwear, and generally a heavenly life. For example, one of his mistresses, Inna Chernetskaya, gained the opportunity to stage ballets as a director, and even received government funding for her private dance school. The People's Commissar had many passions: at one time he simultaneously had fun with two actresses at once - Rukavishnikova and Ruts. In general, no one probably knew the exact number of women “supervised” by him.

Meanwhile, Anatoly Vasilyevich was married. He adored his second wife, a mediocre artist, but, as they say, a very skillful lady in bed, Natalya Sats-Rosenel, to the point of hysterics. He got her control of the Alexander Palace, the former residence of Nicholas II. On the mezzanine floor, the People's Commissar's wife set up her chambers; on Lunacharsky's orders, all the palace furniture, the library and the wardrobe of the members of the royal family were taken there. He was ready to do anything for his wife. Which, however, did not stop him from making her own niece his mistress as well...

Lunacharsky was not alone in his love “for art.” Actresses were adored by Semyon Budyonny, Klim Voroshilov, who, by the way, was the patron of the opera, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs Lev Karakhan, and many other party officials vested with power.

SEX IS LIKE A GLASS OF WATER

Not only Bolshevik men went to great lengths - women also stood up for free love without borders. A society agitated by the decline of morals needed a female standard - a beautiful, liberated and sexually free revolutionary. The “First Lady” of the country, Nadezhda Krupskaya, was in no way suitable for this role. But Alexandra Kollontai - People's Commissar of Charity in the Soviet government - quite. Whatever they called her in Russia of those years: both “sexual revolutionary” and “eros in uniform”...

Kollontai really liked the theory about sex and a glass of water, which was fashionable at that time among Komsomol members. If you want to drink, have a drink, if you want sex, have it. No love is needed for this, all these are bourgeois prejudices. Alexandra Mikhailovna, having married her second cousin, had rather chaotic intimate relationships with party comrades and just random partners.

Kollontai turned 45 when she fell head over heels in love with the handsome young Minister of Naval Affairs Pavel Dybenko. He completely shared the theory of his bed partner, and was not averse to hitting on other beautiful representatives of the revolutionary youth. And then, as they say, the scythe found a stone, because the owner suddenly jumped into Kolontai. She did not want to give “into the wrong hands” the young, tall, handsome man. But still she lost him, terribly experiencing this tragedy all her life and trying to console herself in the arms of younger and younger lovers.

In short, the glass of water theory played a cruel joke on her...