Sveshnikov, Nikolai Ivanovich. Memories of a Lost Man

There have never been any fires on this farm; over the decades, beautiful forests of almost all Far Eastern species have grown. The castle house, deer park, horses, ginseng, and fishing constantly attracted the attention of nature lovers and scientists. Sidemi's guests included the future President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Komarov, the poet Balmont, the writer Arsenyev, and the naturalists Dybovsky, Moltrecht, and Desulavi. The governors made it a rule to demonstrate the Yankovsky Peninsula to all distinguished guests of Vladivostok. The economy flourished...

However, by the summer of 1922, political clouds gathered over the region. Walked towards the end Civil War, the white armies retreated to Manchuria, Korea, and China. Yuri Mikhailovich understood what awaited him as a landowner. And he decided to emigrate to Korea. Fortunately, I visited there in my youth and had many friends from among former employees estates. Thanks to his grandfather, the Yankovsky surname was very popular in the Land of Morning Cool. So, in the fall of the 22nd, all household members, workers and employees who wished to leave crossed the border river Tumangan, some on horseback, some on the icebreaker boat “Ghost”.

The first years of emigration in the Korean city of Seishin (Chongjin) were very difficult. To provide for each refugee, my father was forced to sell everything that he managed to grab from the peninsula in a hurry: horses, cows, a boat, a car, and many other property. They lived meagerly, earning a living as best they could. One of the sources of income was hunting.

Only a few years later, Yuri Mikhailovich managed to acquire a plot of land near the Ompo hot springs, 50 kilometers south of Seisin. He created a farm there and suburban village, which was named Novina. This resort welcomed summer residents and tourists from Harbin, Seoul, Tianjin, Shanghai and even from Europe in the summer. They raised sika deer caught in the forest, grew a garden, and started an apiary and dairy cows. We purchased two cars.

The most popular and favorite pastime of the male half of the Yankovsky family has always been hunting. For pheasants and geese, for goats, wild boars, bears, antlers, deer and red deer, for predators. But the number one trophy was always the tiger.

My father grew up in those years when tigers were the implacable enemies of livestock farmers. They crushed not only horses and deer, but also cows, pigs, and dogs. A fifteen-year-old boy, Yuri and his brother Alexander, killed a tigress who had dragged their beloved “uncle,” the hero Platon Fedorov, off his horse and tore in the snow. All this undoubtedly gave rise to a special passion for hunting tigers. In the end, the father himself fell into the clutches of an angry tigress. But in last moment his son Yuri saved him.

In 1944, my father’s book “Half a Century of Tiger Hunting” was published in Harbin, which included a series of non-fictional stories.

The life of Yuri Mikhailovich ended tragically. After the war with Japan, he was arrested, sentenced to 10 years and transported to Siberia. Our last meeting took place in a camp on the First River in Vladivostok in May 1947. We couldn't even hug. I was sitting in the ZUR - a high-security zone, and we were only able to shake hands through the cells of the wire fence. And later, by an inscrutable convict fate, my father met in a Siberian prison camp and sat next to him on a bunk for two days. youngest son Yuri, who was being taken to Kazakhstan. The “smallest” son who, several years earlier, shot the tigress who had crushed his father. They managed to remember a lot from the life of our once large friendly family in these two days...

My wife and I, having freed ourselves, corresponded with my father and waited for him in Magadan. In Taishet, having just served his ten-year sentence, his niece, the daughter of a terrorist killed in Shanghai, was waiting to go with him. younger brother Pavel. My father’s letters from the camp have been preserved, very calm, philosophical letters.

He reported that for the last five years he had been working in the “zone” as a janitor, writing his memoirs about Primorye, Korea, and America. He receives five rubles a month for his work, but that’s enough for paper and pencils. I transferred him three hundred rubles. He thanked him and said that he was now “rich as Croesus”...

My father did not live to see his release for some weeks, maybe days. He caught a cold and died in the camp in May 1956. His last address on the envelopes: “ Irkutsk region, Chunsky district, p/o Sosnovka, p/o 90/2–237.” This is somewhere on the Taishet - Bratsk road.

I did not have the opportunity to bow to his grave. Camp cemeteries, as a rule, were razed to the ground long ago.

Unfortunately, I remember my grandfather only from the stories of my elders. Our only meeting took place when I was less than two years old. Then my grandfather bequeathed to me a wonderful Sauer three-barreled shotgun.

My parents told me: when setting off on his last trip to Sochi, already saying goodbye, my grandfather picked me up, brought me to the wall of the office and, forcing me to touch the gun hanging there with my hand, said:

When you grow up, it will be yours!

It was an excellent hunting weapon, made in Germany according to his drawings. Two upper smooth barrels of 16 gauge, the lower one rifled, chambered for a strong live cartridge of the Russian three-line caliber. Of course, it also has a trigger mechanism: the left trigger, when the lever was moved, worked on the bullet barrel.

But for a long time my father did not allow me to use my grandfather’s gift.

You should start hunting with a ramrod, like me, only then will you become a real, seasoned shooter and hunter. From modern, and even rapid-fire ones, you will have time to learn how to fire...

Looking back, I cannot but agree with his views: a ramrod from childhood is a great and serious school for a hunter for life. It teaches you to sneak closer and only hit with certainty with the first shot - there’s nothing else to count on. And then this decision seemed very unfair to me.

But now I’m already thirteen, I received the right to own my grandfather’s gun after five years of “ramrod” training...

During spring break, my father promised to take my brother, who was only ten years old at that time, to the mountains to hunt wild boars.

We need to get the hams by Easter. Get ready, we're leaving tomorrow...

On Far East under the fortieth parallel by the sea in March it is almost spring, but in high mountains There is still a lot of snow, and there are barely passable snowdrifts on the ridges. It's frosty in the shade, melts in the sun. The sunny slopes are already all yellow, and it’s winter in the seashores.

Having arrived by train at the very pass of the Stanovoy ridge, we went several kilometers from the small taiga station and stopped in a familiar blue fanza, clinging alone at the foot of one of the spurs of the powerful Stanovoy. This Korean hut was plastered extraordinary color clay, which is why it really looked completely blue.

We were greeted especially cordially, like old acquaintances. The hunters who helped fight the robbers of the already poor arable lands - wild boars - were blood allies and enjoyed great respect and care. We were assigned u-pan - the “upper” room, intended for the eldest in the house or for guests. Fanza is one-story after all... We sat comfortably on the clean mats of the warm, heated floor - kana. In winter this is a special pleasure.

The door, covered with special “silk” paper, opens directly onto the open porch. There is a tiny piece of glass the size of a matchbox embedded in the middle of the door. A dog barked on the street, the old man put his eye to the glass - he could see everything...

On the first morning, dad went alone, giving us complete freedom of action. I remember we left after Maslenitsa, and they gave us pancakes for the road. My brother and I didn’t have backpacks yet; We put pancakes, salt and matches into small white flour bags, tucked them into our belts and set off. I had my grandfather’s famous three-barreled shotgun and a folding knife on a string in my pocket. My brother only has a penknife. Who were we looking for? Probably hazel grouse or hares, dreaming, of course, of a wild boar. But we climbed mainly in the steep sunshine in oak forests, on very rustling fallen leaves, and until lunchtime we found nothing. The sun was already warming up well, the pancakes gave us no rest, and a little after noon we sat down in the middle of the southern slope in an old wild boar, pulled out our bags...

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In the province of Hamgyong-gdo, in the city of Gilju, about twenty years ago there was a society of tiger hunters. The members of the society were all very rich people. One poor young man tried in vain to penetrate this society and become a member of it.
-Where are you going? - the chairman told him. “Don’t you know that the poor man is not a man?” Go away.
But nevertheless, this young man, denying himself everything, made for himself the same beautiful steel spear, and maybe even better, that all the other hunters had. And when they once went to the mountains to hunt for tigers, he went too.
At a halt near a ravine, he approached them and once again asked them to accept him.
But they were having fun, and had nothing to do with the poor man; They laughed again and drove him away.
“Well, then,” said the young man, “you drink here and have fun, and I’ll go alone.”
“Go, crazy,” they told him, “if you want to be torn apart by tigers.”
“Death from a tiger is better than being hurt by you.”
And he went into the forest. When he climbed into the thicket, he saw a huge striped tiger. The tiger, like a cat, played with him: now he jumped closer to him, now he jumped further away, lay down and, looking at him, cheerfully swung his huge tail from side to side.
All this continued until the hunter, as usual, shouted contemptuously to the tiger:
- Yes tshan podar (accept my spear)!
And at the same instant the tiger rushed at the hunter and, meeting the spear, clamped it in his teeth. But then, with superhuman strength, the hunter thrust a spear into his throat, and the tiger fell dead to the ground.
It was a tigress, and the tiger, her husband, was already rushing to her aid.
He no longer needed to shout: “Take the spear!” - He himself, with a terrible leap, as soon as he saw the hunter, rushed at him.
The hunter managed to offer his spear to him and, in turn, thrust it into his throat.
He dragged two dead tigers into the bushes and left their tails on the road.
And then he returned to the feasting hunters.
- Well? Did you stuff a lot of tigers?
“I found two, but I couldn’t cope with them and came to ask for your help.”
- This is another matter: lead and show.
They abandoned the feast and went after the hunter. On the way they laughed at him:
- What, I didn’t want to die, he came for us...
“Go quietly,” ordered the poor hunter, “the tigers are close.”
They had to shut up. Now he was already the eldest among them.
“Here are the tigers,” the hunter pointed to the tigers’ tails.
Then everyone lined up and shouted:
- Take my spear!
But the dead tigers did not move.
Then the poor hunter said:
“They have already accepted one spear, and now they just need to drag them to the city; take them for yourself and carry them.

Author, traveling bookseller second half of the 19th century V., who has seen and experienced a lot, talks about his unique and rich in impressions life: communication with the criminal world (flophouses, brothels, taverns, prisons), acquaintances with famous writers (N. S. Leskov, G. I. Uspensky, A. P. Chekhov), etc. First published in 1896, Sveshnikov’s memoirs were republished in 1930 and have long become a bibliographic rarity. The proposed re-edition also includes published and unpublished memories of folk books (market second-hand book dealers, street peddlers).

Memories of a Lost Man

N. I. Sveshnikov - bookseller, memoirist, drunkard

There is always a certain hierarchy in culture. In Russian society of the second half of the 19th century, for example, the prestige of noble culture and, at the end of the century, the culture of the intelligentsia. Traditional peasant culture (perceived as fundamentally different and assessed as folk, authentic, primordial) aroused a certain interest and respect. But the culture of the urban lower classes (philistines, petty officials, artisans, servants, etc.) was either not noticed or was regarded extremely low - as vulgar, defective, dirty. Therefore, there are very few ethnographic descriptions and memoirs left about her. Memories of the life and everyday life of the urban common people can be counted on one hand. The book of N.I. Sveshnikov is one of them. It is distinguished by its panoramic coverage (capitals, provincial cities, villages), a wide range of class composition of the “heroes” (from the inhabitants of the shelters to the king), the accuracy and expressiveness of the descriptions. The author of this book is deeply original and at the same time typical.

Reminiscent of a Spanish hero picaresque novel, he constantly moves from place to place, changes occupations, does not disdain fraud and theft. In his circle of acquaintances there are “nihilists” and “masurians”, and N. S. Leskov, A. P. Chekhov, G. I. Uspensky .

Sveshnikov's life was ruined by a purely Russian disease - drunkenness. There were drunkards like him in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. there were quite a few in Russia. Peasants and commoners, cut off from their homeland, who had not found a stable place in life and were offended by it, faced with the impossibility of overcoming their social inferiority, drowned out their despair with wine. Many literary commoners also drank: F. M. Reshetnikov, N. G. Pomyalovsky, A. I. Levitov, N. V. Uspensky, A. A. Shklyarevsky, I. K. Kondratyev, etc. But tell in detail about the emergence and the consequences of this habit were addressed by a few, and among them - Sveshnikov. Russian literature knows stunning descriptions of the psychology of binge drunks, for example, Marmeladov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. But even against this background, Sveshnikov’s memoirs and correspondence are by no means inferior, shocking with their authenticity, sincerity and hopelessness.

Sveshnikov completed work on the main part of the memoirs in the late 1880s. In the spring of 1889, he left 8 notebooks with memories for acquaintance and possible publication with G.I. Uspensky. On April 22, 1889, A.P. Chekhov wrote to St. Petersburg to A.S. Suvorin, who was well known to him: “Today I visited a former second-hand book dealer, Sveshnikov. He is ragged and in bast shoes. His eyes are clear, his face is smart. He is walking to St. Petersburg, where he wants to study business as usual. He stopped drinking. I had his memories, which you saw. Remember?" Having received this letter. Suvorin asked S.N. Shubinsky, editor of the Historical Bulletin magazine he published, to familiarize himself with his manuscript. However, Sveshnikov did not find Shubinsky in St. Petersburg and turned to N. S. Leskov, whom he knew well. On June 2, 1889, Leskov wrote to Moscow to the publishers of the magazine “Russian Thought”: “My court supplier rare books, second-hand bookstore Nikolai Ivanovich Sveshnikov, two years ago he became a drunkard, expired his passport, disappeared from view, and finally, these days, returned and appeared half-naked with a manuscript about the misadventures he had suffered, now practiced on a huge scale by “deportation to his homeland.” The manuscript is, of course, unskillful, but with very vital content. I made an essay out of it, presenting a new phenomenon and not described anywhere by anyone. And no one else can compose it except a man who himself saw and endured everything stated there on his own skin.” The essay, called “Spiridon’s Turns” by Leskov, was published in “Russian Thought”, aroused general interest and received praise from critics. This fact, along with Chekhov’s recommendation, played a role in Shubinsky’s decision to print the memoirs (Sveshnikov in October 1889 handed them over to Suvorin, and he, with reference to positive feedback Chekhov, - Shubinsky). However, work on them was not yet completed, and Sveshnikov continued his work. He considered working on his memories to be his moral duty. In letters to Shubinsky, he formulated the purpose of his work as follows: “... I have only one desire, to bring a full and sincere confession and, at least, to provide some benefit,” “it was hard for me to write some pages, but, having given myself the word to write one truth, in my notes I presented myself - as best I could - as what I am." Sveshnikov made his principles the utmost documentation and factual accuracy. He wrote to the same addressee: “In my descriptions, I do not go into either writings or research, but I bring only what I see and hear from the life of the people I encountered, or I write down their true stories.”

Working on his memoirs, from 1890 Sveshnikov handed them over in parts (notebooks) to Shubinsky, begging for money (usually in magazines payment was made after publication) and, as a rule, immediately drinking them away. He wrote some sections while in the famous St. Petersburg slum - the Vyazemsky House, often having drunk his clothes and not having anything to go out with. He was also tormented by illness. Having published in 1892 in Suvorin’s “New Time” a description of the life and customs of the Vyazemsky house, he incurred the wrath of its inhabitants.

Finally, in 1896, Sveshnikov’s work was completed, edited by Shubinsky and published in the Historical Bulletin. With the assistance of Chekhov, Sveshnikov tried to negotiate with I. D. Sytin about separate publication, but this venture was not successful. IN next year in the same “Historical Bulletin” the extremely valuable memoirs prepared by him “Petersburg Apraksin booksellers and second-hand book dealers” appeared

However, drunkenness dragged him deeper and deeper. He confessed to A.P. Chekhov’s brother Alexander: “If I get two kopecks, I’ll drink it; if I get a ruble, I’ll drink it too.” The Vyazemsky house became his permanent refuge; own struggle with this vice." However, there was no longer any support, Shubinsky stopped responding to letters for help, and at the end of June 1899 Sveshnikov died in the hospital. In his obituary he was called "a representative of those real second-hand book dealers who loved books and knew the book business as Few booksellers know him. These second-hand book bibliographers were indispensable assistants to writers and scientists in finding necessary and often rare books."