Zhitkov's biography is briefly the most important. Boris Zhitkov

BORIS STEPANOVICH ZHITKOV

Dates of life: August 30, 1882 – October 19, 1938
Place of Birth : Novgorod city
Russian, novelist, traveler and explorer
Famous works: “Gray Neck”, “How I Caught a Little Man”, “Sea Stories”, “Stories about Animals”

You will agree that famous poets do not dedicate poems to every person. And even more so, not every person becomes the prototype of the hero of a feature film. Both happened to the famous writer Boris Zhitkov, and from these facts alone we can say that he was an interesting and unusual person. But this is too little to characterize him. If we try to do this briefly, we can say that this was a man - an adventure, with extraordinary talents and abilities and with an extraordinary destiny.
Many in childhood read the poem “Mail” by the famous poet S. Marshak, which was written entirely about Boris Zhitkov. It contains these lines:
- Ordered from Rostov
Dfor Comrade Zhitkov!
- Custom made for Zhitkov?
Sorry, there is no such thing!
- Flew to London yesterday
At seven fourteen in the morning...
And further:
Zhitkov abroad
Rushing through the air-
The earth is green below.
And after Zhitkov
In the mail car
A registered letter is being delivered.
Boris Zhitkov became the prototype for one of the main characters of the feature film “Look Back for a Moment”, the film was staged at the Odessa Film Studio in 1984 by director Vyacheslav Kolegaev, Boris Zhitkov was played in the film by the artist Viktor Proskurin, and his friend, the famous children's writer Korney Chukovsky, was played by the famous actor Oleg Efremov.
Boris Zhitkov was born on August 30 (September 11), 1882. His father was a mathematics teacher at the Novgorod Teachers' Institute, his mother was a pianist who idolized music; in her youth she took lessons from the great Anton Rubinstein himself.
He was born near Novgorod, in a village on the banks of the Volkhov River, where his parents rented a dacha at that time. He had three sisters, so the family was quite large. Due to the “unreliability” of the father, the family was forced to travel around Russia in search of work for the father.
Finally they settled in Odessa, where their father managed to get a job as a cashier at a shipping company. In Odessa, Boris went to school for the first time: private, French, then entered the gymnasium. He was an unusual student, his hobbies knew no bounds, he seemed to be interested in everything in the world: he played the violin for hours, or studied photography. He was a very active, athletic boy; Having become interested in sports, he not only won prizes in races, but also, together with his comrades, built a real yacht. At the gymnasium, Boris Zhitkov became friends with Korney Chukovsky, and this friendship lasted throughout his life.
At the same time, he was drawn to pen and paper, he kept diaries all his life, published handwritten journals, his letters often contained entire stories, and once he even came up with a long story in letters with a continuation. In addition, he wrote poetry, of which he had already accumulated a whole notebook in his youth. He was also a great storyteller, and there was always something to tell him about, because after graduating from high school and the natural sciences department of Novorossiysk University in 1906, his life was a kaleidoscope of events and adventures, travels and a wide variety of activities, unusual professions...
He studied mathematics and chemistry at Novorossiysk University and shipbuilding at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. After university, he made a career as a sailor and mastered several other professions. He worked as a navigator on a sailing ship, was the captain of a research vessel, an ichthyologist, a metal worker, a shipbuilding engineer in the port of Odessa, a teacher of physics and drawing, the head of a technical school, and a traveler. He led an ichthyological expedition along the Yenisei and worked at factories in Copenhagen and Nikolaev. I went on sailboats to Bulgaria and Turkey. Having passed the exam for a long-distance navigator as an external student, he set off across three oceans from Odessa to Vladivostok as a navigator on a cargo ship. During the 1905 revolution, he made explosives for bombs and helped print leaflets. And during the First World War, it accepted engines for Russian aircraft in England. He worked at school, taught mathematics and drawing. He had to starve, wander, hide. In 1923, Boris Zhitkov moved to Petrograd.
One day, at the request of K.I. Chukovsky Zhitkov wrote down one of his stories. This was the beginning of his writing work. The first story of forty-two-year-old Boris Zhitkov, “Over the Sea,” was published in 1924 by the magazine “Sparrow.” In the same year, a collection of short stories, The Evil Sea, was published. Soon Zhitkov’s funny stories for children appeared in magazines: “About an Elephant”, “About a Monkey”, “Mongoose”, “Compass”, “Dime” and others.
In his stories for children, Zhitkov sought to provide children with a lot of useful information and talk about many interesting things. He wrote about friendship and camaraderie, about real bravery and courage in the most critical situations, in which his heroes often find themselves, as, for example, in the stories of the cycles “On the Water”, “Above the Water”, “Under the Water”, “The Mechanic of Salerno” and others. He wrote about different professions, but his inexhaustible source of inspiration was his love of the sea, travel and adventure.
Zhitkov’s works are always full of action; he conducts a frank, confidential conversation with his readers, figuratively and clearly showing the attractiveness of knowledge. He seemed to call the children to the ability to do a lot of things, to build, to create on their own, he could show his little reader in practice how to make a bell, a hut, a bow, a model of a sailing ship, a boat, a glider, an airplane, how to make a kite and a thousand others interesting things.
Boris Zhitkov's stories reveal the virtues and advantages of such human qualities as honesty, decency, competence, a sense of responsibility for one's work, one's business, respect for people and love for animals and nature. He wanted “his hands and brains to itch” from reading his books. The children immediately fell in love with his stories.
“Stories about Animals” by Boris Zhitkov, collected in one collection, were first published as a book in 1935. Full of vivid descriptions, the stories “About an Elephant” and “A Stray Cat” tell the reader, first of all, how important it is not just to love animals and admire them, but also to understand them, and be able to communicate with them, care for them and bear for them responsibility.
Boris Stepanovich himself had a trained wolf and a cat who knew how to “become a monkey.” In the story “The Stray Cat,” the reader immediately begins to worry whether the feral cat will get used to humans and whether she will make friends with the dog... After all, the hunter has been taming her for a long time and patiently. And one day I heard the dog barking of my Ryabchik, a dog near the house, who notified the owner that the same gray cat was walking towards the house. This time, when she saw the hunter, she did not run away as before. From that day on, she constantly came to visit the hunter... And Boris Zhitkov told his readers many such truthful and at the same time amazing and touching stories about man’s mercy towards “our little brothers”.
Many generations of Russian children have grown up truly making friends with the books of Boris Zhitkov. These books continue to open the world to young readers today.
Zhitkov created more than a hundred works for children in 15 years. By passing on truly encyclopedic knowledge to young readers and sharing life experience, the writer filled his works with high moral content. His stories are dedicated to human bravery, courage, kindness, and convey a romantic passion for business.
The question of courage, of its very nature, especially occupied Zhitkov. “I thought about him a lot. Especially in childhood. It's good to be brave: everyone respects you, but others are afraid. And most importantly, I thought, there is never this vile trembling in the soul when the legs themselves are drawn to run... And I was not so much afraid of the danger itself as of the fear itself, because of which so many mean things are done in the world. How many friends, comrades, how much of the most priceless truth has been betrayed because of cowardice: there was not enough air to say it!” This was written in 1927, and shortly before his death - in 1937 - he writes an article called “Courage”. In it, the writer relies on examples from his own life, and the reliability of what is told makes the conclusion especially convincing: cowardice is the source of all meanness. And a brave person is not the one who commits a bold act out of vanity or fear of being branded a coward, but the one who knows why he undertakes a feat, overcoming natural fear.
Already in his first story, “Squall” (another title is “On the Water”), the writer depicts a courageous man who saved the crew of a sailing ship. Sailor Kovalev barely manages to get out from under the overturned ship to the surface and finally take a deep breath. However, he makes the painful journey back to save those remaining. It is not for nothing that the girl Nastya seems to think he is “the most important” on board: with the insight typical of children, she notes a person of outstanding moral merit. This story opens Zhitkov’s book “Sea Stories”. Each of his works contains an example of human courage, overcoming fear, selfless help, and noble deeds.
Bravery is the touchstone for Zhitkov's heroes. Extreme circumstances bring out the hidden qualities of a person’s nature. Thus, an unlucky bullfighter, who was once afraid of a bull and now works as a coal miner on a ship, an unpassported tramp, behaves with dignity during the wreck and is ready to bully the captain, the culprit of this disaster. He decided for himself: “Now I don’t dare be afraid of anything for the rest of my life” (“Destruction”).
Zhitkov’s principle of depicting characters is to highlight their main features, manifested in their actions. The captain of the ship in the story “The Mechanic of Solerno” is collected and concentrated to the limit. He knows that his ship could die every minute because a fire started in the hold, and he heroically fights for the lives of people. When he manages to save everyone, it turns out that the person whose fault the disaster occurred is not among them. Mechanic Solerno had previously admitted to the captain that it was he who had placed dangerous cargo in the hold for money. And now he has disappeared, i.e. died. His confession is also a certain act of courage, and the reader already feels sorry for the mechanic.
The stories in the first collections - “The Evil Sea” and “Sea Stories” - introduce the reader to a world with which the author is well acquainted. In addition to life-like authenticity, they captivate with sharp drama and fascinating plots. After all, a person at sea is dependent on the capricious elements, extremely tense and ready to bravely face any surprise.
Zhitkov paid a lot of attention to scientific and educational literature for children. He wrote many books and essays on the history of science and technology. In the magazine “Sparrow” the writer led the departments “How People Work”, “Wandering Photographer”, “Artisan”. These publications were included in his first educational books: “Through Smoke and Flame”, “Movie in a Box”, “Telegram”. From them, children learned about how people of different professions work and how to make this or that thing themselves. Zhitkov told us what telegraph, radio, electricity are...
To captivate young readers with the very process of scientific and technical research, to show the romance of overcoming difficulties, the rise of thought - this is what inspired the writer when creating such works. “I have no doubt at all,” he said, “that you can bring guys point-blank to the most radical questions, right up to Einstein’s theory, and it’s good if this makes them dizzy...” The center of his scientific and artistic works is always stands the creator of science and technology - man. And Zhitkov forced his reader to go along with the researcher or inventor along their entire path to the unknown, showing how difficult the road to the heights of human thought is.
The writer created most of his educational books for young children. He was increasingly captivated by the idea of ​​writing a work of an encyclopedic nature for very young readers - from three to six years old. The result was the famous book What Did I See? (“Pochemuchka”), on which more than one generation of children grew up. A keen expert on child psychology, Zhitkov decided that in order to assimilate and remember various information, it is best to tell the story on behalf of a peer of the reader. Four-year-old Alyosha, called “Pochemochka,” not only talks about something, but also reports his impressions of things and events. Thanks to this, the enormous educational material does not overwhelm the child, but arouses his curiosity: after all, a peer is telling the story. “His feelings, the reasons that gave rise to them, will be closest and clearest to the little reader,” the author was sure.
To talk about unfamiliar things, Alyosha has to explain what he saw using concepts he has already mastered. Thus, in “Pochemuchka” the well-known didactic principle “from simple to complex” is implemented. “The horses were carrying a stove on wheels. She has a thin pipe. And the military man said that it was the kitchen that was coming”; “The anchor is very large and iron. And it is made of large hooks” - this is how the first “scientific” information is presented. And not only does the child gain knowledge about things from this book - he is also given lessons in communicating with people. In addition to Alyosha, there are such characters as a military uncle, mother, grandmother, and friends. Each of them is individual, each has their own actions, and the main character gradually begins to understand what exactly he needs to cultivate in himself.
Zhitkov created several dozen more short stories for young children, collected in the books “What Happened” and “About Animals.” In the first of these collections, the writer pursues the same goal as in works about sea adventures: he tests the morality and courage of his heroes in the face of danger. The plots here unfold more succinctly: they contain one event, one life situation. The attention of the little reader is held by a sudden, unexpected twist in the plot. Here, for example, is the story “Blizzard”: “My father and I were sitting on the floor. My father was repairing the tub, and I was holding it. The rivets fell apart, my father scolded me and swore: he was annoyed, but I didn’t have enough hands. Suddenly the teacher Marya Petrovna comes in - to take her to Ulyanovka: five miles, the road is good, rolling - it was for Christmastide.” Next, the boy, the hero of the work, carries the teacher and her little son, and only thanks to the hero’s ingenuity and self-control they all did not die in the snowy whirlwind. The tension is created by descriptions of the struggle with the elements, and this is conveyed through the boy’s story, through his impressions and experiences.
In general, Zhitkov often entrusted the narration to children in his works. In the story “Pud”, dramatic circumstances arise from a child’s excited retelling of them. The same technique helps the writer show how the child’s imagination begins to work, awakened by aesthetic experience. The boy Borya admires the steamboat standing on the shelf: “I’ve never seen anything like this. It was completely real, only small... And the screw in front of the steering wheel shone like a copper rose. There are two anchors on the bow. Oh, how wonderful! If only I had one like this!” (“How I caught little men”). The dreamy hero populates the boat with tiny people and, in his passionate desire to see them, ends up breaking the toy. He cries bitterly because he has a good heart, and he did not want to upset his grandmother, for whom the steamboat is dear as a memory.
In every character he creates, Zhitkov invariably emphasizes the presence or absence of kindness. For him, this quality is no less important than courage. Even when depicting an animal, the writer finds in its behavior traits that indicate manifestations of kindness, courage, and self-sacrifice in the human understanding. A thorough knowledge of the life and habits of animals helps him in this. “Our little brothers” pay a person with devotion and affection for taking care of them (“About the Wolf”, “About the Elephant”, “Stray Cat”). Sometimes the animal’s self-sacrifice even seems conscious, for example, in the story “How an Elephant Saved its Owner from a Tiger.” The elephant, despite any prodding and blows, does not go into the forest, because he knows that a tiger is hiding there.
The animal depicted by the writer is always well remembered, as it is endowed with individual features that reflect its species characteristics. Almost tame mongooses ferociously attack a snake that has crawled into a ship, because this is their natural purpose; in this case it coincided with the desire of the people (“Mongoose”). The wolf, living in the narrator’s apartment and already seemingly domesticated, suddenly howled at night: “He was sitting in the middle of the room, raising his muzzle to the ceiling. He didn’t look back at the light, but played out a note, and he brought out such forest animal melancholy in his voice to the whole house, which was eerie.” No matter how hard the narrator tries, fearing the reproaches of his neighbors, to pass off his pet as a dog, he fails: the animal remains the same as a wolf. He, for example, “knew how to look back, completely turning his head to his tail, and at the same time run forward.”
Researchers of Zhitkov’s work note the closeness of his stories about animals to the works of Leo Tolstoy about them: here there is the same respect for a living being, realism and kindness.

BORIS STEPANOVICH ZHITKOV
(1882-1938)

Remember Marshak’s famous poem about a letter that “won’t go anywhere on its own,” but thanks to postmen from different countries, it almost travels around the world and reaches its addressee? The addressee was the writer Boris Zhitkov.
He was one of the creators of new literature for children. In 1924, Zhitkov's first stories appeared in the magazine "Sparrow", which was edited by Marshak. His interesting life, full of events and adventures, travels, meetings with wonderful people - masters of their craft, rare powers of observation and unbridled imagination gave him the opportunity to create books that had not been seen in literature before him. Sometimes they are called old man's stories.
However, this is how it is: Zhitkov’s two main books, “What Happened” and “What I Saw” (“Pochemuchka”), are entirely based on true stories and his own life experience.
When you read the story “Collapse,” you believe that the author himself controls the hydraulic ram pump, which helps wash away the collapse on the road. The road is cleared, and the doctor manages in time to help the girl Valya, who has choked on a bone. Wasn’t the author himself on a plane that dropped a bag of food to people carried away on an ice floe?
Zhitkov has seen a lot. His biography is like a fascinating book itself. How many roads he traveled, how many professions he changed!
He was born in Novgorod in the family of a mathematics teacher. He graduated from high school in Odessa and studied at the natural sciences department of Novorossiysk University. During his student years, being hired on merchant ships, he sailed in the Black and Mediterranean Seas, and managed to simultaneously graduate from the navigator and receive the title of long-distance navigator. Therefore, he has many stories about brave, noble, skillful sailors, and his literary path began with them: his first two books - “The Angry Sea” (1924) and “Sea Stories” (1925). After graduating from university, Zhitkov taught chemistry and physics at evening courses for workers in St. Petersburg, and as a ship commander and ichthyologist, he went on a scientific expedition to the Yenisei.
And in 1909 he again became a student: this time at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. After graduation, he is called up for military service and goes to England to receive military equipment there. In 1917, Zhitkov returned to Odessa. He worked as a port engineer, headed technical schools, and taught at the workers' faculty. In 1923 he returned to Petrograd, and it was here that he met Marshak...
A restless, versatile personality, Zhitkov was confident that children’s curiosity must be satisfied as fully as possible, that children are able to understand the essence of the most complex phenomena, that children must be inspired with a thirst for knowledge. “I have no doubt at all that the most radical questions, including Einstein’s theory, can be taken point blank to the guys, and it’s good if this makes their heads spin,” he believed. He told the children about various natural phenomena, about science, technical achievements, inventions: about cinema and radio, about the telegraph and electricity. He talked about the history of the coin in the book "Dimensions", in the book "Homemade" - how to build an Indian ship (then, as under Columbus, the Indians were called Indians), and in the book "Stone Seal" - about the art of lithography.
In total, Boris Zhitkov wrote more than a hundred works, most of which are educational books for “why girls” of different ages, from three-year-old children to primary schoolchildren.
He also wrote about scientists: their destinies and their passion for finding answers to seemingly insoluble problems provide excellent examples to follow. Zhitkov has a small book called "Cranks. Development of Technology and Invention." In it, he vividly and infectiously talks about the beauty of scientific research.
Zhitkov wrote wonderfully about nature and animals. He endowed each character with bright features, which made them resemble a person. In his stories, animals always help people, they are smart, quick-witted, ready for self-sacrifice, and loyal to their owner. Among these stories: "A Stray Cat", "About a Monkey", "Mongoose", "About an Elephant", "About a Wolf". Zhitkov forced the child to experience strong feelings of love and pity for animals, because he knew well that no knowledge would make him a person, but only a kind heart and the ability to sympathize.

Korf, O.B. Children about writers. XX century. From A to Z /O.B. Corf.- M.: Strelets, 2006.- P.28-29., ill.

BORIS STEPANOVICH ZHITKOV
(1882-1938)

“What kind of children’s writer is this if he doesn’t even know how to drive a nail into a wall?” - said Zhitkov. The writer himself spoke only about what he saw and knew, and he knew and saw a lot. Zhitkov tried different professions, loved to travel, make crafts, became the organizer of a shadow theater and a special series of books for the illiterate, was published in children's newspapers and magazines “New Robinson”, “Chizh”, “Hedgehog”, “Young Naturalist”, wrote many stories and fairy tales for children and a novel for adults.
The wealth of life observations and inexhaustible imagination helped the writer create the unique book “What I Saw,” which became a desktop encyclopedia for many generations of children. It tells about a journey during which a four-year-old boy Alyosha - “Pochemuchka” learns a lot of different things: how the railway, metro and airport work, what animals live in the zoo, in the barnyard and what their habits are, how life is different in village from life in the city, how a kindergarten works, how to communicate correctly with peers and adults, and much, much more. The writer always puts useful knowledge into an interesting form. The language of his works is clear and beautiful, events unfold quickly and do not let the young reader get bored. Some stories from this book were later used as cartoons: “Buttons and Men”, “Why Elephants?”, “Pudya”.
Zhitkov's stories about animals are touching stories about the relationship between man and our little brothers. Using the example of such relationships, the writer talks about respect for the work of others (“About an elephant”), care “for those who have been tamed” (“About a monkey”, “Stray cat”), devotion and courage of animals (“How an elephant saved its owner from a tiger "). Sincere love for the surrounding world and interest in its mysteries, the ability to be surprised by its beauty, to awaken compassion for all living things made Zhitkov’s work about animals and nature a favorite children’s reading along with the works of V.V. Bianchi and E.I. Charushina.
The writer was sure that literature for children should under no circumstances become a simple addition to adult literature. The knowledge that children acquire from books is as valuable as real-life experience. Therefore, the book should become a textbook of life for a child, Zhitkov believed. He can be called the creator of scientific and artistic children's literature. A lot of useful and entertaining information, a simple and clear explanation of good and evil, and belief in the triumph of justice made Zhitkov’s works special in Russian children’s literature. His work seriously influenced many children's writers of the 20th century.

Russian children's writers: a set of visual aids “Great Literature” / author. project T.V. Tsvetkova.- M.: TC Sfera, 2015.- 12 p., ill.

Boris Stepanovich Zhitkov is a Russian writer and traveler. He was born on September 11, 1882 in Veliky Novgorod of the Russian Empire.

During his life he created 192 works. Among them are essays, stories, stories and articles. The prose writer preferred to write for children, although many of his works were also dedicated to adults. He managed to try almost all genres. Boris proved himself not only in literature; his hobbies were difficult to count.

Childhood and friendship with Chukovsky

Boris grew up in an intelligent family. His mother, Tatyana Pavlovna, was a pianist. She took lessons from Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein. The father of the future traveler taught mathematics at the seminary, and he also wrote textbooks. Three of Zhitkov's brothers were military sailors and received the rank of admiral. Two of them were recognized as heroes of the defense of Sevastopol. The fourth brother built lighthouses on the territory of the Black Sea, and the fifth drowned in his youth.

The boy spent his childhood in Odessa. He was interested in completely different activities: he quoted scenes from literary works, played the violin and learned to row. The future writer received several prizes for his sporting achievements. During his passion for rowing, he managed to build a small boat with a cabin, of course, with the help of friends.

At the gymnasium, the young man met Kolya Korneychukov, who later became the writer Korney Chukovsky. They didn’t manage to get to know each other for a long time, because Nikolai was extremely shy. But then the guys met by chance after school; Zhitkov was attracted by Korneychukov’s independence and audacity. They talked for a long time, Boris taught his friend maritime affairs, French and rowing.

One day the boys decided to walk from Odessa to Kyiv. Borya forced Kolya to sign a contract in which he promised to unquestioningly obey his “commander.” But Chukovsky disobeyed, making an unplanned stop. To this, Zhitkov stated that he was no longer going to talk to him. After some time, the friends met again in Kyiv. At first Boris behaved quite friendly, but then he said that he was pretending because he did not want to humiliate Nikolai in front of strangers.

Study and travel

Borya received his education at home, then he became a student at the gymnasium. After graduation, the young man entered the natural sciences department of Novorossiysk University. He initially chose to major in mathematics because of his father, but did not enjoy studying there.

Already in 1901 the student became a member of the yacht club. He even managed to drive a specific oar-sailing vehicle, which was popularly called a “thistle”. During his studies at the university, the young man managed to sail to Varna, Marseille, Jaffa and Constanta, and he successfully passed the exam to become a long-distance navigator.

In 1905, Zhitkov took part in revolutionary events. Together with the combat detachment, the student made nitroglycerin for bombs, ensuring the defense of the Jewish quarter. A year later he graduated from the university.

From 1911 to 1916, the future prose writer received a second education. This time he studied at the shipbuilding department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute.

After graduating from college, Boris began looking for work. Initially, he was sent to practice in Copenhagen, at the Atlas plant. After this, the future writer traveled around the world on a training cargo ship. He went all the way from cabin boy to ship captain, and Zhitkov was also a navigator. Since childhood, Zhitkov was an excellent storyteller, so he thought for a long time about an artistic profession.

In 1909, the traveler led an expedition that studied the fauna of the Yenisei.

In 1914, he was an employee of a shipbuilding plant located in Nikolaev. A year later, the young man moved to Arkhangelsk to check the serviceability of the ships.

In 1916, Zhitkov received English aircraft engines made specifically for Russian aircraft.

First works

The young man began publishing his stories in 1924. A year before, Boris arrived in Petrograd. He had no money, and his health left much to be desired. Because of this, the man went to his school friend Korney Chukovsky. There he entertained the writer’s children with his stories about the sea and travel, and as a result, Nikolai invited his friend to transfer these stories to paper.

In a few days, Zhitkov wrote the short story “Squall”. The novella was taken to the Vremya publishing house, and already in 1924 Zhitkov’s first book, entitled “The Evil Sea,” was published.

Chukovsky was amazed by his friend’s skill; he didn’t even have to edit the story. He admired the unmistakable sense of style and writing style of his comrade, whom he had previously considered an amateur. This is not surprising, because by 1923 Boris had several notebooks with poems and letters, and he was constantly improving.

Boris Stepanovich preferred to write about what he knew well, so his works were filled with amazing stories about travel and distant countries. The prose writer put a moral into each of his stories and sought to teach children and adults what he already knew. For example, in the Zhitkovs’ house there actually lived a tame wolf, who later became the hero of the story of the same name.

The writer skillfully trained animals, was a carpenter, sailor and hunter. He worked on the creation of fictional scientific films, wrote plays, and taught students. Boris played the violin masterfully and knew everything about ships. The prose writer often made people think about the scientific riddles he invented. He managed to achieve success in almost any business he undertook.

After the publication of the first book, Boris constantly collaborated with children's magazines and newspapers. These include such publications as “Chizh”, “Young Naturalist”, “Lenin Sparks”, “New Robinson” and many others.

Zhitkov constantly wanted to create something new, thanks to him picture magazines appeared for children who could not read. The writer dreamed of publishing a textbook, but throughout his life he never managed to do this. But Zhitkov created an encyclopedia for children 4 years old.

Boris Stepanovich had outstanding abilities for languages; he picked up pronunciation on the fly. During his life, the prose writer learned modern Greek, Arabic, Polish, Turkish and many other languages. Once in London, a salesman mistook him for his fellow countryman from Derby when Zhitkov came to him for cigarettes.

Boris was married, but almost nothing is known about his wife. They lived together for a short time and then divorced. After the separation, Zhitkov began to live with his friend Schwartz. His room was kept perfectly clean. In his free time, the prose writer brewed tinctures and liqueurs according to his own recipes.

The famous prose writer died on October 19, 1938 in Moscow. He worked until the last day of his life, although the cause of death was lung cancer, which significantly complicated the writer’s existence. The novel about the revolution “Viktor Vavich,” which Zhitkov considered his main work, was published only after his death.
 

Zhitkov is a Russian Soviet writer, the author of many stories, novellas, essays on natural science, heroic and adventure themes for children and youth, as well as for adults, a recognized master of words.

Boris Zhitkov was born on August 30 (September 11, new style) in Novgorod (now Veliky Novgorod) into an intelligent family. His father, Stepan Vasilyevich, taught at the Teachers' Institute, was a man of broad democratic views, comprehensively educated, and from an early age introduced his son to mathematics and astronomy (there was a telescope in the house). Mom, Tatyana Pavlovna, was a pianist and accompanist. From an early age, the son knew musical terminology, was fond of ballet, and learned to play the violin.

As a seven-year-old boy, Boris moved with his parents to Odessa. Childhood years on the seashore, friendship with Korney Chukovsky, and the revolutionary events of 1905 left their mark on the formation of a young man - a romantic, a truth-seeker, who confidently defended the priorities of honor, courage, goodness, and justice both in life and in his work. According to the recollections of the writer’s sister, Borya spent every day in the harbor, climbed all the ships, listened to the stories of sailors and port workers. He spent hours in the turning and locksmith workshops of the Russian Shipping and Trade Society. I learned to plan, saw, turn parts, and made models of yachts and ships. He eagerly absorbed everything new, unknown, interesting, useful for a young guy - not a sissy, not a white-handed one.

Admission to the Imperial Novorossiysk University, first in the mathematics department, and then in the natural sciences department, largely shaped the personality of the young chemist and botanist. Both departments offered the graduate of 1906 to stay and teach at the university and conduct scientific work. But by that time, B. Zhitkov’s family was again preparing to move - this time to St. Petersburg. And Boris went to the city on the Neva, where he began studying at the shipbuilding department of the Polytechnic Institute, which he successfully graduated in 1916.

The writer's further biography is full of events, both on land and at sea. A navigator who visited Bulgaria and Turkey, India and Madagascar, a researcher of fish flows on the Yenisei, and the ship on which he had to work was actually restored by him himself, with the help of Yaroslavl carpenters. Midshipman of the Naval Staff, seconded to England to obtain engines for submarines and aircraft. Shipbuilding student in Copenhagen. Immediately after the revolution, he was an engineer at the Odessa seaport, director of a rural vocational school, teacher of physics and chemistry at workers' faculty courses in Odessa.

And again St. Petersburg. January 11, 1924 is marked in the writer’s diary with a special entry “The gate has opened!” It was on this day that the editors of the almanac “Sparrow” approved B. Zhitkov’s first story for publication.

New publications revealed to the reader a wonderful, thoughtful interlocutor, possessor of extensive knowledge and skills, and an excellent storyteller. “Above the Water” and “Under the Water,” “About the Elephant,” “Maria” and “Mary” (all 1924) aroused genuine interest among the reading public. They were followed by “Dzharylgach” (1926), the fairy tale “Elchan-Kaya” (1926), “About the Monkey” (1927), “A Mug under the Christmas Tree” (1929), “Sea Stories” (1925-1937). .)

Subtle observation, knowledge of the habits of representatives of the animal world, the ability to talk about complex things in simple, understandable language - these are the hallmarks of the cycles “Stories about Animals” (1935), the story “Boa Constrictor” (1927), and the story “Mongoose” (1935).

The works “Black Sail” (1927), “On an Ice Floe” (1939), “About this Book”, “Light without Fire” (both 1927), "Steamboat" (1935).

The writer is characterized by a heightened sense of justice, the desire to exalt goodness, fearlessness, courage, and selflessness. In his youth, Boris witnessed terrible Jewish pogroms in Odessa. Since then, the heroes of his books have always been on the side of the weak, the disadvantaged, those who need protection and patronage.

Boris Zhitkov is a prominent representative of the “new” literature for children and youth emerging in the Soviet state, the foundations of which were laid by Maxim Gorky. According to the writer, children need to be talked to as equals, awakening in their souls the needs of moral self-improvement. But this is impossible without curiosity, without the desire to “touch everything with your own hands,” without the desire to “know everything and learn everything.” The writer’s views on raising children were especially evident in his remarkable encyclopedia story “What I Saw” (1938). The boy Alyosha, to the best of his knowledge and abilities, answers various questions from kids about the world around us.

The work of Boris Zhitkov, along with such luminaries as Vitaly Bianki, Korney Chukovsky, Sergei Mikhalkov, Evgeniy Charushin, is without a doubt a golden fund of children's literature.

The writer died on October 19, 1938 in Moscow. Until the last day he worked on the manuscript. Korney Chukovsky’s sister Lydia left interesting memories about him.

Please note that the biography of Zhitkov Boris Stepanovich presents the most important moments from his life. This biography may omit some minor life events.

Boris Stepanovich Zhitkov was born on August 30 (September 11), 1882, in Novgorod, in the family of a mathematics teacher. Boris's mother was a talented pianist. Her teacher was A.G. Rubinstein.

The parents of the future writer lived in Odessa. The boy entered local gymnasium classes and studied there together with K. Chukovsky.

According to the recollections of his teachers, he was a very gifted student, always seriously passionate about something. The main interest of the youth Zhitkov was the sea.

Further training

At the insistence of his parents, Zhitkov entered Novorossiysk University, where he studied chemistry and mathematics.

The summer of 1905 was marked by the beginning of the first revolution. Having witnessed the uprising on the Potemkin, Boris Zhitkov instantly became involved in revolutionary activities. Under the cover of darkness, he delivered weapons to the rebel sailors. For this, the young man was expelled from the university. Zhitkov tried to transfer to St. Petersburg, but received a categorical refusal.

Studying the content of the biography of Boris Zhitkov, you should know that in 1909 he joined the Yenisei ichthyological expedition. In 1912, he set off on a circumnavigation of the world on a dry-cargo training ship. Zhitkov joined the ship as a cabin boy. Gradually he “rose” to the position of fireman, and by the end of the trip he became the captain’s mate. During his “around the world” trip he visited Japan, China, Ceylon and India.

Literary activity

Boris Zhitkov began publishing quite late - in 1924. Before that, he wrote “on the table”. He worked on diaries, wrote letters, poems, and short children's stories.

He began writing his first works for children in 1909. The story “Serezhin the Robber” was dedicated to the writer’s nephew, Sergei.

In the period from 1924 to 1937. The collections “Stories about Animals” and “What I Saw” were published. The stories are based on the writer's experiences while traveling around the world. The works included in these collections are currently being taught in 4th grade.

Zhitkov also periodically attempted to write a children's encyclopedia. He developed several options, but none of them saw the light of day.

For fifteen years of work in children's literature, Boris Stepanovich tried himself in a variety of genres and made a significant contribution to it. He is one of the founders of the scientific and artistic genre.

Zhitkov came up with the idea of ​​​​developing a picture book for children who cannot read. Boris Stepanovich also actively developed the idea of ​​a toy book.

Zhitkov’s only “adult” work is the novel “Viktor Vavich,” dedicated to the revolutionary events of 1905. It was not published during the writer’s lifetime.

Death

The last years of the writer’s life were quite difficult. He was diagnosed with lung cancer. Boris Zhitkov passed away on October 19, 1938, in Moscow. The writer continued to work until the very last day.

Other biography options

• Boris's passion for travel awoke early - at the age of three. One day he disappeared. They found a boy on the Trade Side when he was trying to buy a ship. Three-year-old Boris prudently took the kopecks from home.
• As a high school student, Boris became interested in sports and, together with his classmates, built a small sailing board with a cabin.
• One day Zhitkov was able to persuade one of his classmates to go on a walking journey. Having briefly instructed his comrade, Boris led a small detachment and they set off for Kyiv. The travelers did not walk for long. Boris was a fairly categorical commander, and his classmate, as it turned out, had a very obstinate character.

In Siberia, in a dense forest, in the taiga, a Tungus hunter lived with his whole family in a leather tent. One day he went out of the house to break some wood and saw the tracks of a moose on the ground. The hunter was delighted, ran home, took his gun and knife and said to his wife:

Don't expect to come back soon - I'll go get the elk.

So he followed the tracks, and suddenly he saw more tracks - bear ones. And where the elk’s tracks lead, the bear’s tracks also lead.

“Hey,” the hunter thought, “I’m not the only one following the elk, a bear is chasing the elk ahead of me. I can’t catch up with them. The bear will catch the elk before me.”

Still, the hunter followed the tracks. He walked for a long time, he already ate all the stock that he took with him from home, but everything goes on and on. The tracks began to climb up the mountain, but the forest did not thin out, it was still just as dense.

The hunter is hungry, exhausted, but he keeps walking and looking at his feet so as not to lose his tracks. And along the way there are pine trees, piled up by a storm, stones overgrown with grass. The hunter is tired, stumbles, can barely drag his feet. And he keeps looking: where is the grass crushed, where is the ground crushed by a deer’s hoof?

“I’ve already climbed high,” the hunter thinks, “where is the end of this mountain.”

Suddenly he hears someone chomping. The hunter hid and crawled quietly. And I forgot that I was tired, where the strength came from. The hunter crawled and crawled and then he saw: there were very few trees, and here was the end of the mountain - it meets at an angle - there was a cliff on the right, and a cliff on the left. And in the very corner lies a huge bear, gnawing the elk, grumbling, slurping and not smelling the hunter.

“Aha,” thought the hunter, “you drove the elk here, into the very corner, and then you got him. Stop!”

The hunter stood up, sat down on his knee and began aiming at the bear.

Then the bear saw him, got scared, wanted to run, ran to the edge, and there was a cliff. The bear roared. Then the hunter fired a gun at him and killed him.

The hunter skinned the bear, cut the meat and hung it on a tree so that the wolves wouldn’t get it. The hunter ate bear meat and quickly went home.

I folded the tent and went with the whole family to where I left the bear meat.

“Here,” the hunter said to his wife, “eat, and I’ll rest.”

Hunters and dogs

It was bitterly cold, but there was no wind at all. The hunter was skiing and warmed up from walking. He felt warm.

The dogs ran ahead and chased the hares at the hunter. The hunter shot deftly and scored five pieces. Then he noticed that he had gone far.

“It’s time to go home,” the hunter thought. - My ski tracks are visible, and before it gets dark, I’ll follow the tracks home. I’ll cross the ravine, and it’s not far there.”

He went down and saw that the ravine was black and black with jackdaws. They were sitting right in the snow. The hunter realized that something was wrong.

And it’s true: he had just left the ravine when the wind blew, snow began to fall, and a blizzard began. Nothing was visible ahead; the tracks were covered with snow. The hunter whistled for the dogs.

“If the dogs don’t lead me onto the road,” he thought, “I’m lost. I don’t know where to go, I’ll get lost, I’ll be covered in snow and I’ll freeze.”

He let the dogs go ahead, but the dogs ran away five steps - and the hunter could not see where to follow them. Then he took off his belt, untied all the straps and ropes that were on it, tied the dogs by the collar and let them go forward. The dogs dragged him, and he came to his village on skis, like on a sleigh.

He gave each dog a whole hare, then took off his shoes and lay down on the stove. And I kept thinking:

“If it weren’t for the dogs, I would be lost today.”

Fire

Petya lived with his mother and sisters on the top floor, and the teacher lived on the bottom floor. One day mom went swimming with the girls. And Petya was left alone to guard the apartment.

When everyone left, Petya began to try his homemade cannon. It was made of an iron tube. Petya filled the middle with gunpowder, and at the back there was a hole to light the gunpowder. But no matter how hard Petya tried, he could not set fire to anything. Petya was very angry. He went into the kitchen. He put wood chips in the stove, poured kerosene on them, put a cannon on top and lit it. “Now it’ll probably shoot!”

The fire flared up, began to hum in the stove - and suddenly there was a shot! Yes, such that all the fire was thrown out of the stove.

Petya got scared and ran out of the house. No one was home, no one heard anything. Petya ran away. He thought that maybe everything would go out on its own. But nothing went out. And it flared up even more.

The teacher was walking home and saw smoke coming from the upper windows. He ran to the post where the button was made behind the glass. This is a call to the fire department. The teacher broke the glass and pressed the button.

The fire department's bell rang. They quickly rushed to their fire trucks and ran at full speed. They drove up to the post, and there the teacher showed them where it was burning. The firefighters had a pump on their vehicles. The pump began pumping water, and firefighters began pouring water from rubber pipes onto the fire. Firefighters placed ladders against the windows and climbed into the house to see if there were any people left in the house. There was no one in the house. The firefighters began to take things out.

Petya’s mother came running when the whole apartment was already on fire. The policeman did not let anyone get close, so as not to disturb the firefighters.

The most necessary things did not have time to burn, and the firefighters brought them to Petya’s mother.

And Petya’s mother kept crying and saying that Petya must have burned out, because he was nowhere to be seen.

But Petya was ashamed, and he was afraid to approach his mother. The boys saw him and brought him in by force.

The firefighters did such a good job of extinguishing the fire that nothing burned downstairs. The firefighters got into their cars and drove away. And the teacher allowed Petya’s mother to live with him until the house was repaired.

On an ice floe

Enough, time to go home.

But everyone began to ask to stay overnight and fish again in the morning. In the evening we ate, wrapped ourselves tightly in sheepskin coats and went to bed in the sleigh. Volodya snuggled up to his father to keep him warm and fell fast asleep.

Suddenly at night the father jumped up and shouted:

Comrades, get up! Look how windy it is! There would be no trouble!

Everyone jumped up and ran around.

Why are we shaking? - Volodya shouted.

And the father shouted:

Trouble! We were torn off and carried on an ice floe into the sea.

All the fishermen ran along the ice floe and shouted:

It's torn off, it's torn off!

And someone shouted:

Gone!

Volodya began to cry. During the day, the wind became even stronger, the waves splashed onto the ice floe, and all around was only the sea. Volodin's dad tied a mast from two poles, tied a red shirt at the end and set it up like a flag. Everyone was looking to see if there was a steamer somewhere. Out of fear, no one wanted to eat or drink. And Volodya lay in the sleigh and looked at the sky: would the sun shine. And suddenly, in a clearing between the clouds, Volodya saw a plane and shouted:

Airplane! Airplane!

Everyone started shouting and waving their hats. A bag fell from a plane. It contained food and a note: “Hold on! Help is coming!” An hour later the steamer arrived and loaded people, sleighs, horses and fish. It was the port master who learned that eight fishermen had been carried away on the ice floe. He sent a ship and a plane to help them. The pilot found the fishermen and radioed the ship's captain where to go.

Myshkin

So I’ll tell you how I took revenge, the only time in my life, and took bloody revenge, without opening my teeth, and kept the stifled spirit in my chest until I pulled the trigger.

His name was Myshkin, my deceased cat. He was all gray, without a single spot, mouse-colored, hence his name. He was not a year old. My boy brought it to me in a bag. Myshkin did not jump wildly out of the bag, he stuck out his round head and looked around carefully. He carefully, slowly got out of the bag, stepped onto the floor, shook himself off and began to tidy up his fur with his tongue. He walked around the room, writhing and worrying, and it was felt that the soft, gentle fluff would instantly, like lightning, turn into a steel spring. He looked into my face all the time and carefully, without fear, followed my movements. I very soon taught him to give his paw, to follow the whistle. I finally taught him to jump on his shoulders at the signal of the whistle - I taught him this when we walked together along the autumn shore, among tall yellow weeds, wet potholes and slimy landslides. A deserted clay cliff with no habitation for miles. Myshkin searched, disappeared in this robber weed, and this weed, damp and dead, was still waving his bare hands in the wind when everything was gone, and still did not wait for happiness. I whistled, as we had agreed, and now Myshkin is jumping through the weeds in high waves and claws at his back, and now he is on my shoulder, and I feel warm soft fur near my ear. And I rubbed my cold ear and tried to hide it deeper in the warm wool.

I walked around with a rifle, in the hope that I might be able to shoot the leporich - the French rabbit - that lived here wildly in holes. It's a hopeless task to hit a rabbit with a bullet! He won’t sit and wait for a shot, like a plywood target at a shooting range. But I knew what miracles hunger and fear can do. But there were already frosts, and fish were no longer caught on our shores. And icy rain splashed from the low clouds. The empty sea, like a muddy red wave, was uselessly landing on the shore day and night, without interruption. And I wanted to eat every day in the morning. And a sickening shiver ran through me every time I went out and the wind slammed the door behind me. I returned about three hours later without firing a single shot and put the rifle in the corner. The boy boiled the shells that he had collected during this time: they were torn off the rocks and thrown ashore by the surf.

But this is what happened then: Myshkin suddenly stretched out all the way forward on my shoulder, he was balancing on his collected paws and suddenly shot - shot himself, so that I staggered from the unexpected push. I stopped. The weeds staggered ahead, and along it I followed Myshkin’s movements. Now he has become. The weeds swayed rhythmically in the wind. And suddenly a squeak, a thin squeak, either a child or a bird. I ran forward. Myshkin crushed the rabbit with his paw, he bit into the scruff of the neck with his teeth and froze, stiffening. It seemed as if you touched it and blood would spray out of it. He looked up at me with angry eyes for a moment. The rabbit was still struggling. But then he twitched one last time and froze, stretched out. Myshkin jumped to his paws, he pretended that I was not there, he trotted anxiously with the rabbit in his teeth. But I managed to take a step and stepped on the rabbit’s paws. Myshkin grumbled, so angry! Nothing! I crouched down and unclenched his jaws with my hands. I said "tubo" while doing this. No, Myshkin didn’t scratch me. He stood at his feet and looked at his prey with fierce eyes. I quickly cut off the paw with a knife and threw it to Myshkin. He galloped off into the weeds with high jumps. I hid the rabbit in my pocket and sat down on a stone. I wanted to go home quickly and show off that we had the booty. What are your shells worth? The rabbit, however, was small! But just boil two potatoes, hey! I was about to whistle at Myshkin, but he himself came out of the weeds. He was licking his lips, his eyes were wild.

He didn't look at me. The tail swung to the sides like an uneven whip. I got up and went. Myshkin was galloping after me, I heard it.

Finally I decided to whistle. Myshkin, running like a stone, hit my back and was instantly on my shoulder. He purred and regularly fingered my overcoat with his claws. He rubbed his head against my ear, he butted my temple with his furry forehead.

Seven times I told the boy about hunting. When we went to bed, he asked for more. Myshkin was sleeping, as always, sitting on top of me on top of the blanket.

From then on things went better: we once even returned with a couple of rabbits. Myshkin got used to sharing and gave up the spoils almost without protest.

And then one day, early in the morning, I looked out the rain-stained window, at the muddy clouds, at the wet, empty little garden, and slowly smoked a cigarette from the last bit of tobacco. Suddenly a cry, a sharp cry of mortal despair. I immediately recognized that it was Myshkin. I looked around: where, where? And now the owl, having spread its wings, is gliding towards the cliff, something gray in its talons, beating.

No, not a rabbit, it's Myshkin. I didn’t remember when I grabbed the rifle on the way, but no, it went steeply down a cliff, there was nothing to shoot at. I ran to the cliff: here the wind carried gray fluff. Apparently, Myshkin didn’t give in right away. How did I miss it? After all, it was almost before our eyes, here, in front of the window, about twenty steps away? I know: she probably did to him like she did to a hare: she grabbed him by the back and shoulders with her outstretched paws, pulled sharply to break the backbone, and pecked him alive in her nest.

The next day, while dawn was still breaking, I left the house. I walked at random, almost without stepping. Be careful, sneak. The teeth were clenched, and what an evil head on his shoulders! I carefully searched the entire shore. It was almost light now, but I couldn’t go home. We didn't talk to the boy all day yesterday. He boiled shells, but I didn't eat them. He was still sleeping when I left. And I didn’t stroke my chain dog to greet him; he squealed in bitterness.

I walked towards the house with the same tense gait. I didn't know how I would enter the house. Now you can see the dog house from behind the hill, and here is the stump of the last acacia tree cut down for firewood. Wait, what's that on the stump? She! She was sitting on a stump, dull white in color, sitting opposite my chicken coop, which is under the window.

I slowed down. Now she turned her head towards me. There were sixty steps left. I quietly began to kneel down. She kept looking. I slowly, like a glass of water, began to raise the rifle. Now she will be at gunpoint. She sits motionless, like a target, and I can see her eyes perfectly. They are like daisies, with a black heart-pupil. Take it under it, just below your legs. I froze and quietly pressed the trigger.

And suddenly the owl seemed to remember that she had forgotten something at home, flapped her wings and flew low above the ground behind the house. I could barely keep my finger from pulling the trigger. I hit the butt of the gun on the ground, and the gun creaked in my evil hands. I was ready to sit here until the next morning. I know that the wind would not have chilled my anger, and then I could not even think about food.

I wandered until evening, slipping and falling on these clay mounds. I even whistled once, like I did at Myshkin, but I immediately became so angry with myself that I ran away from the place where it happened to me.

I came home when it was dark. There was no light in the room. I don't know if the boy was sleeping. Maybe I woke him up. Then he asked me in the dark: what kind of owl eggs are they? I said I'll draw it tomorrow.

And in the morning... Wow! In the morning I calculated exactly which direction to approach from. Just so that the brightening sunrise was in her eyes, and I was against the background of the cliff. I found this place. It was completely dark, and I sat motionless. I just moved the bolt a little to check if there were cartridges in the barrel. I became petrified.

Only in my head there was a motionless black flame of rage, like love, because only as a boy in love could I sit the whole night on a bench opposite her house in order to see her go to school in the morning. Love warmed me then, just as rage warmed me now.

It was getting light. I could already see the stump. There was no one on it. Or is it imagining? No, no one. I heard my dog ​​come out of the kennel, shake itself off, rattling its chain. So the rooster crowed in the chicken coop. The dawn was breaking hard. But now I see the stump clearly. It's empty. I decided to close my eyes and count to three thousand and then take a look. I couldn’t count to five hundred and opened my eyes: they were looking straight at the stump, and she was sitting on the stump. She had apparently just sat down, she was still shifting. But the rifle rose on its own. I stopped breathing. I remember this moment, the sight, the front sight and her above it. At that moment she turned her head towards me with her daisies, and the gun fired itself. I breathed like a dog and looked. I didn't know whether she flew off or fell. I jumped to my feet and ran.

She lay behind the stump, wings spread out. Her eyes were open, and she was still moving her raised paws, as if in defense. I didn’t take my eyes off for several seconds and suddenly I stomped with all my might on this head, on this beak, with the butt of my gun.

I turned around, I took a deep breath for the first time in all this time.

A boy stood in the doorway, his mouth open. He heard a shot.

Her? - He became hoarse with excitement.

Look,” and I nodded back.

This day we collected shells together.

Metro

How do they travel underground?

Mom and I looked at the firefighters and at the trams that run without rails, but straight on the asphalt.

Mom said that such trams are called trolleybuses. They have rubber wheels, like cars.

I speak:

Why no rails?

And mom says:

What is this - without rails! Trams run here and underground.

And I said:

No underground, there is earth.

And mom says:

Did you go to the cellar? And the cellar is also underground. And in Moscow they dug a big, big cellar. Long, long. And on one side there is an entrance, and on the other side there is an entrance. And in this cellar they laid rails and launched a tram. He runs from one entrance to another. People will enter at one entrance and board the tram. He will run underground and reach another entrance. And there's a staircase. People will get off the tram and go up the stairs and out into the street. Let's go now.

And I say:

Don't want.

Mom says:

Why? What nonsense!

And I say:

It's dark and earthy.

But mom didn’t listen and asked her aunt:

Tell me, where is the metro?

Aunt pointed her finger at our house, where my mother and I had a room.

And mom says:

Yes, yes, I see. Thank you!

How I rode the subway

Mom and I went and walked through the door. There is a large room and there are booths. And there are windows in the booths. And people come up and buy tickets. Mom also bought a ticket, and we went down the stairs. And all the people also went down the stairs.

I thought - now the earth will begin and there will be a cellar. Then I won’t go and start crying, and mom will still go back. And there was no land there, but there was a corridor. Only very wide and very white.

The electricity is burning, the lamps are large, and there are many, many, and the walls are shining. And the floor is stone, yellow and also very smooth. But there is no land.

And then everyone went to the stairs. And when my mother and I approached, my mother became afraid. There the floor runs forward, straight to the stairs. One uncle stepped onto this floor; As soon as he started, he left.

And one aunt came up to my mother and said:

Don't be afraid! Step right away! Once!

And she pulled her mother’s hand. Mom stepped and pulled me. And off we went.

And the floor where my mother and I were standing sank, and it turned out that we were standing on a step, and the aunt who pulled us was on another step. And the steps go down. And there are also steps ahead, and uncles and aunts and other boys are standing on them. And everyone goes down the steps. And one uncle didn’t want to just go, but ran up the steps himself.

And when we arrived, the steps became like the floor again. And we moved forward on this floor.

Then my mother grabbed me in her arms and jumped onto the real floor. He doesn't walk, but stands. We arrived at the underground station. And still there is no land there, but a very large station. Very light. People are walking. And we went out onto the platform. There is also electricity there. And a lot of people.

But there was no tram: it had not arrived yet.

On the platform to the very edge, the policeman does not allow you to walk because you might fall. There are rails down there, and you can get hurt. Suddenly it started buzzing. I saw that it was buzzing, and there was a round gate, and it was dark inside the gate. I thought there was probably a cellar there. And from there the tram jumped out - that was what made the noise - and ran up to the platform itself, a very long one. He became.

Mom and I approached, and suddenly the doors opened on their own, and it became possible to enter. There are sofas, the electricity is on, and everything shines like silver. Then the doors closed on their own. And off we went.

I looked out the window, and still there was no land, but a white wall, and all the lights were on. And then we stopped, the doors opened again, and my mother and I came out. And there is the station again. And then we went up the stairs and went out into the street.

Brave duckling

Every morning the housewife brought out a full plate of chopped eggs for the ducklings. She put the plate near the bush and left.

As soon as the ducklings ran up to the plate, suddenly a large dragonfly flew out of the garden and began to circle above them.

She chirped so terribly that the frightened ducklings ran away and hid in the grass. They were afraid that the dragonfly would bite them all.

And the evil dragonfly sat on the plate, tasted the food and then flew away. After this, the ducklings did not come to the plate for the whole day. They were afraid that the dragonfly would fly again. In the evening, the hostess removed the plate and said: “Our ducklings must be sick, for some reason they are not eating anything.” Little did she know that the ducklings went to bed hungry every night.

One day, their neighbor, the little duckling Alyosha, came to visit the ducklings. When the ducklings told him about the dragonfly, he began to laugh.

What brave men! - he said. - I alone will drive away this dragonfly. You'll see tomorrow.

“You are bragging,” said the ducklings, “tomorrow you will be the first to get scared and run.”

The next morning, the hostess, as always, put a plate of chopped eggs on the ground and left.

Well, look, - said the brave Alyosha, - now I will fight with your dragonfly.

As soon as he said this, a dragonfly began to buzz. It flew straight from above onto the plate.

The ducklings wanted to run away, but Alyosha was not afraid. Before the dragonfly had time to sit on the plate, Alyosha grabbed its wing with his beak. She forcibly escaped and flew away with a broken wing.

Since then, she never flew into the garden, and the ducklings ate their fill every day. They not only ate themselves, but also treated the brave Alyosha for saving them from the dragonfly.

Evening

The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyosha. Can't see him anywhere. Where did he go? It's time to go home.

And the calf Alyoshka ran around, got tired, and lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - Alyosha is nowhere to be seen.

The cow Masha was afraid that her son Alyoshka had disappeared, and she started mooing with all her strength:

At home, Masha was milked and a whole bucket of fresh milk was milked. They poured it into Alyosha’s bowl:

Here, drink, Alyoshka.

Alyoshka was delighted - he had been wanting milk for a long time - he drank it all to the bottom and licked the bowl with his tongue.

Alyoshka got drunk and wanted to run around the yard. As soon as he started running, suddenly a puppy jumped out of the booth and started barking at Alyoshka. Alyoshka was frightened: it must be a terrible beast if it barks so loudly. And he started to run.

Alyoshka ran away, and the puppy did not bark anymore. It became quiet all around. Alyoshka looked - no one was there, everyone had gone to bed. And I wanted to sleep myself. He lay down and fell asleep in the yard.

The cow Masha also fell asleep on the soft grass.

The puppy also fell asleep at his kennel - he was tired, he barked all day.

The boy Petya also fell asleep in his crib - he was tired, he had been running around all day.

And the bird has long since fallen asleep.

She fell asleep on a branch and hid her head under her wing to make it warmer to sleep. I'm tired too. I flew all day, catching midges.

Everyone has fallen asleep, everyone is sleeping.

Only the night wind does not sleep.

It rustles in the grass and rustles in the bushes.

Wolf

One collective farmer woke up early in the morning, looked out the window at the yard, and there was a wolf in his yard. The wolf stood near the stable and scratched the door with its paw. And there were sheep in the stable.

The collective farmer grabbed a shovel and headed into the yard. He wanted to hit the wolf on the head from behind. But the wolf instantly turned and caught the handle of the shovel with his teeth.

The collective farmer began to snatch the shovel from the wolf. Not so! The wolf grabbed it with his teeth so tightly that he couldn’t pull it out.

The collective farmer began to call for help, but at home they were sleeping and did not hear.

“Well,” the collective farmer thinks, “the wolf won’t hold the shovel forever; but when he lets go, I’ll break his head with the shovel.”

And the wolf began to finger the handle with his teeth and got closer and closer to the collective farmer...

“Should I throw a shovel?” the collective farmer thinks. “The wolf will also throw a shovel at me. I won’t even have time to escape.”

And the wolf is getting closer and closer. The collective farmer sees: things are bad - the wolf will soon grab you by the hand.

The collective farmer gathered himself with all his strength and threw the wolf along with the shovel over the fence, and quickly into the hut.

The wolf ran away. And the collective farmer woke everyone up at home.

After all,” he says, “I was almost eaten by a wolf under your window.” Eco sleep!

How, - asks the wife, - did you manage?

“And I,” says the collective farmer, “threw him over the fence.”

The wife looked, and there was a shovel behind the fence; all chewed up by wolf teeth.

Jackdaw

Once my sister began to wash herself. She took the ring off her hand, put it on the sink and lathered her face with soap. And when she rinsed the soap, she looked: where is the ring? But there is no ring.

She shouted to her brother:

Give me the ring, don't tease me! Why did you take it?

“I didn’t take anything,” the brother answered.

His sister quarreled with him and cried.

Grandma heard.

What do you have here? - speaks. - Give me glasses, now I’ll find this ring.

We rushed to look for glasses - no glasses.

“I just put them on the table,” the grandmother cries. -Where should they go? How can I thread the needle now?

And she screamed at the boy.

It's your business! Why are you teasing grandma?

The boy got offended and ran out of the house. He looks, and a jackdaw is flying above the roof, and something glitters under her beak. I took a closer look - yes, these are glasses! The boy hid behind a tree and began to watch. And the jackdaw sat on the roof, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and began pushing the glasses on the roof into the crack with her beak.

The grandmother came out onto the porch and said to the boy:

Tell me, where are my glasses?

On the roof! - said the boy.

Grandma was surprised. And the boy climbed onto the roof and pulled out his grandmother’s glasses from the crack. Then he pulled out the ring from there. And then he took out pieces of glass, and then a lot of different pieces of money.

The grandmother was delighted with the glasses, and the sister was delighted with the ring and said to her brother:

Forgive me, I was thinking about you, but this is a thief jackdaw.

And they made peace with their brother.

Grandmother said:

That's all them, jackdaws and magpies. Whatever glitters, they drag everything away.

How an elephant saved its owner from a tiger

The Hindus have tame elephants. One Hindu went with an elephant into the forest to collect firewood.

The forest was deaf and wild. The elephant trampled the owner's path and helped to cut down trees, and the owner loaded them onto the elephant.

Suddenly the elephant stopped obeying its owner, began to look around, shake its ears, and then raised its trunk and roared.

The owner also looked around, but did not notice anything.

He became angry with the elephant and hit its ears with a branch.

And the elephant bent its trunk with a hook to lift its owner onto its back. The owner thought: “I’ll sit on his neck - this way it will be even more convenient for me to rule over him.”

He sat on the elephant and began to whip the elephant on the ears with a branch. And the elephant backed away, trampled and twirled its trunk. Then he froze and became wary.

The owner raised a branch to hit the elephant with all his might, but suddenly a huge tiger jumped out of the bushes. He wanted to attack the elephant from behind and jump on its back.

But he got his paws on the firewood, and the firewood fell down. The tiger wanted to jump another time, but the elephant had already turned, grabbed the tiger across the stomach with its trunk, and squeezed it like a thick rope. The tiger opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and shook his paws.

And the elephant had already lifted him up, then slammed him to the ground and began to trample him with his feet.

And the elephant's legs are like pillars. And the elephant trampled the tiger into a cake. When the owner recovered from his fear, he said:

What a fool I was for beating an elephant! And he saved my life.

The owner took the bread he had prepared for himself from his bag and gave it all to the elephant.

Mug under the Christmas tree

He was the first to catch a blue fish. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.

The boy took a mug, a small mug made of thin glass. He scooped some water from the lake into a mug, put the fish in the mug - let it swim for now.

The fish gets angry, fights, breaks out, and the boy quickly grabs it - bang!

The boy quietly took the fish by the tail, threw it into the mug - it was completely out of sight. He ran on himself.

“Here,” he thinks, “wait, I’ll catch a fish, a big crucian carp.”

The first one to catch a fish will be a great guy. Just don’t grab it right away, don’t swallow it: there are prickly fish - ruff, for example. Bring it, show it. I myself will tell you which fish to eat and which to spit out.

The ducklings flew and swam in all directions. And one swam the farthest. He climbed out onto the shore, shook himself off and began to waddle. What if there are fish on the shore? He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. There is water in a mug. "Let me take a look."

The fish are rushing about in the water, splashing, poking, there is nowhere to get out - there is glass everywhere. The duckling came up and saw - oh, yes, fish! He took the biggest one and picked it up. And hurry to your mother.

“I’m probably the first. I was the first to catch the fish, and I’m great.”

The fish is red, white feathers, two antennae hanging from its mouth, dark stripes on the sides, and a spot on its comb like a black eye.

The duckling flapped its wings and flew along the shore - straight to its mother.

The boy sees a duck flying, flying low, right above his head, holding a fish in its beak, a red fish as long as a finger. The boy shouted at the top of his lungs:

This is my fish! Thief duck, give it back now!

He waved his arms, threw stones, and screamed so terribly that he scared away all the fish.

The duckling got scared and screamed:

Quack quack!

He shouted “quack-quack” and missed the fish.

The fish swam into the lake, into deep water, waved its feathers, and swam home.

“How can I return to my mother with an empty beak?” - thought the duckling, turned back and flew under the Christmas tree.

He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. A small mug, in the mug there is water, and in the water there are fish.

The duckling ran up and quickly grabbed the fish. A blue fish with a golden tail. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.

The duckling flew higher and closer to its mother.

“Well, now I won’t scream, I won’t open my beak. I’ve already been so open.”

Here you can see mom. It's already very close. And mom shouted:

Quack, what are you talking about?

Quack, this is a fish, blue, gold, - there is a glass mug under the Christmas tree.

So again the beak opened, and the fish splashed into the water! A blue fish with a golden tail. She shook her tail, whined and walked, walked, walked deeper.

The duckling turned back, flew under the tree, looked into the mug, and in the mug there was a very small fish, no bigger than a mosquito, you could barely see the fish. The duckling pecked into the water and flew back home with all his might.

Where's your fish? - asked the duck. - I can not see anything.

But the duckling is silent and does not open its beak. He thinks: “I’m cunning! Wow, how cunning I am! More cunning than anyone else! I’ll be silent, otherwise I’ll open my beak and miss the fish. I dropped it twice.”

And the fish in its beak beats like a thin mosquito and crawls into the throat. The duckling got scared: “Oh, I think I’m about to swallow it! Oh, I think I swallowed it!”

The brothers arrived. Everyone has a fish. Everyone swam up to mom and poked their beaks. And the duck shouts to the duckling:

Well, now show me what you brought! The duckling opened its beak, but there was no fish.

White House

We lived at sea, and my dad had a nice boat with sails. I knew how to navigate it perfectly - both oars and sails. And yet, my dad never let me into the sea alone. And I was twelve years old.

One day, my sister Nina and I found out that my father was leaving home for two days, and we decided to go on a boat to the other side; and on the other side of the bay stood a very pretty house: white, with a red roof. And a grove grew around the house. We had never been there and thought it was very good. Probably a kind old man and an old woman live. And Nina says that they certainly have a dog and a kind one too. And the old people probably eat yogurt and will be happy and give us yogurt.

So we started saving bread and water bottles. The water in the sea is salty, but what if you want to drink on the way?

My father left in the evening, and we immediately filled the bottles with water on the sly from my mother. Otherwise he will ask: why? - and then everything disappeared.

As soon as it was dawn, Nina and I quietly climbed out of the window and took our bread and bottles into the boat with us. I set the sails and we went to sea. I sat like a captain, and Nina obeyed me like a sailor.

The wind was light, and the waves were small, and Nina and I felt as if we were on a large ship, we had supplies of water and food, and we were going to another country. I headed straight for the house with the red roof. Then I told my sister to prepare breakfast. She broke some bread and uncorked a bottle of water. She was still sitting on the bottom of the boat, and then, as she stood up to give me food, and as she looked back at our shore, she screamed so loudly that I even shuddered:

Oh, our house is barely visible! - and wanted to cry.

I said:

Reva, but the old people’s house is close.

She looked ahead and screamed even worse:

And the old people’s house is far away: we didn’t get anywhere near it. And they left our house!

She began to roar, and out of spite I began to eat the bread as if nothing had happened. She roared, and I said:

If you want to go back, jump overboard and swim home, and I’m going to the old people.

Then she drank from the bottle and fell asleep. And I’m still sitting at the helm, and the wind doesn’t change and blows evenly. The boat moves smoothly, and the water murmurs behind the stern. The sun was already high.

And now I see that we are getting very close to that shore and the house is clearly visible. Now let Ninka wake up and take a look - she’ll be happy! I looked to see where the dog was. But neither the dog nor the old people were visible.

Suddenly the boat stumbled, stopped and tilted to one side. I quickly lowered the sail so as not to capsize at all. Nina jumped up. Woke up, she did not know where she was, and looked with wide eyes. I said:

They hit the sand. Ran aground. Now I'll sleep. And there's the house.

But she was not happy about the house, but was even more frightened. I undressed, jumped into the water and began to push.

I was exhausted, but the boat did not move. I tilted it to one side or the other. I lowered the sails, but nothing helped.

Nina started screaming for the old man to help us. But it was far away, and no one came out. I told Ninka to jump out, but this did not make the boat any easier: the boat was firmly dug into the sand. I tried to wade towards the shore. But it was deep in all directions, no matter where you went. And it was impossible to go anywhere. And so far away that it’s impossible to swim.

And no one left the house. I ate the bread, washed it down with water and didn’t speak to Nina. And she cried and said:

I brought it here, now no one will find us here. Stranded in the middle of the sea. Captain! Mom will go crazy. You will see. My mother told me: “If anything happens to you, I’ll go crazy.”

And I was silent. The wind has completely died down. I took it and fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was completely dark. Ninka whimpered, hiding in her very nose, under the bench. I stood up, and the boat rocked easily and freely under my feet. I purposely shook her harder. The boat is free. I was so happy! Hooray! We have refloated. It was the wind that changed, caught up with water, lifted the boat, and it went aground.

I looked around. In the distance there were sparkling lights - lots and lots of them. This is on our shore: tiny, like sparkles. I rushed to raise the sails. Nina jumped up and at first thought I was crazy. But I didn't say anything.

And when he had already pointed the boat towards the lights, he said to her:

What, roar? So we're going home. There's no point in crying.

We walked all night. In the morning the wind stopped. But we were already near the shore. We rowed home. Mom was both angry and happy at once. But we asked her not to tell her father anything.

And then we found out that no one had lived in that house for a whole year.

Smoke

Nobody believes this. And the firefighters say:

Smoke is worse than fire. A person runs away from the fire, but is not afraid of the smoke and climbs into it. And there he suffocates. And yet, you can’t see anything in the smoke. You can’t see where to run, where the doors are, where the windows are. Smoke eats your eyes, bites your throat, stings your nose.

And the firefighters put masks on their faces, and air flows into the mask through a tube. In such a mask you can be in the smoke for a long time, but you still can’t see anything.

And once the firemen were extinguishing a house. Residents ran out into the street. The senior fireman shouted:

Well, count, is that all?

One tenant was missing.

And the man shouted:

Our Petka stayed in the room!

The senior fireman sent a masked man to find Petka. A man entered the room.

There was no fire in the room yet, but it was full of smoke. The masked man searched the entire room, all the walls and shouted with all his might through the mask:

Petka, Petka! Come out, you'll burn! Give me your vote!

But no one answered. The man heard the roof falling, got scared and left.

Then the senior fireman got angry:

Where is Petka?

“I searched all the walls,” said the man.

Give me a mask! - the elder shouted.

The man began to take off his mask. The elder sees: the ceiling is already on fire. There is no time to wait.

And the elder did not wait; dipped his mitten in the bucket, stuck it in his mouth and rushed into the smoke.

He immediately threw himself on the floor and began to fumble. I came across the sofa and thought: “He probably hid there, there’s less smoke there.”

He reached under the sofa and felt his legs. The senior fireman grabbed them and pulled them out of the room.

He pulled the man onto the porch. It was Petka. And the fireman stood and staggered. So the smoke got to him.

And then the ceiling collapsed and the whole room caught fire.

Petka was carried aside and brought to his senses. He said that he hid under the sofa out of fear, covered his ears and closed his eyes. And then he doesn’t remember what happened.

And the senior fireman put the mitten in his mouth because it would be easier to breathe through the smoke through a wet rag.

After the fire, the elder told the fireman:

Why were you rummaging around the walls? He won't be waiting for you by the wall. If he is silent, it means he has suffocated and is lying on the floor. If I had searched the floor and the beds, I would have found them right away.

How the boy drowned

I walked along the shore and watched how the carpenters were building a pier. Huge logs floated in the water tightly one to one. They were taken out of the water and driven into the bottom, so that a whole fence of logs stuck out of the water. Suddenly it seemed to me that something flashed where the piles were floating. I didn’t know what, but I ran there. I kept my eyes on this place and ran as fast as I could.

And from the side I saw out of the corner of my eye: a telegraph operator was running right there. He runs as fast as he can and holds his stomach. He had a bag with telegrams on his belt, and he was afraid that they would fall out.

The telegraph operator also looked in the same place where I was looking. The earth there sloped down to the water, and piles floated on the water - densely, like a raft. The telegraph operator didn’t say a word to me, but just pointed his finger, planted his feet on the scree and extended his hand. I didn’t say a word either, but took the telegraph operator tightly by the hand, and lay down on the piles and stuck my hand between them - in the very place where we were both looking, without taking our eyes off.

I began to fumble with my hand in the water. And suddenly little fingers came across me and grabbed my hand tightly. I grabbed it too. And then the telegraph operator pulled me ashore. The piles parted, and after my hand a small hand came out, followed by a head, and we pulled out the boy. He was red-haired, about seven years old. He blinked his eyes and said nothing. The carpenters arrived. One took the boy, lifted him and shook him above the ground. The boy poured water from his mouth. They put him on his feet and asked: how did he drown? The boy said that he wanted to walk on the stilts, but they parted under his feet, and he fell headlong between them. And then they converged on him like a ceiling. And now he started crying:

Where's my hat? Where is the fishing rod! I won't go home without a hat.

Everyone started laughing: say thank you for being alive, but you’re crying about your hat.

I found his fishing rod and began looking for his hat in the water. He hooked it and pulled it out. But it was an old bast shoe. Then he caught it again, and it was a wet cap. The boy began to feel sorry for her that she was wet. I went. And when I looked back, the boy was still holding his cap and crying.

The telegraph operator waved his hand, looked to see if the telegrams were there, and hurried away.