Array ( => Array ( => 275837 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/Irkutsk)) => iblock => 576 => 720 => 48672 => image/jpeg => iblock/395 => nar2.jpg => nar2.jpg => => => [~src] => => /upload/iblock/395/ nar2.jpg) => Array ( => 275838 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/Irkutsk)) = > iblock => 576 => 720 => 65852 => image/jpeg => iblock/4ff => nar3.jpg => nar3.jpg => => => [~src] => => /upload/iblock/ 4ff/nar3.jpg) => Array ( => 275839 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/Irkutsk) ) => iblock => 576 => 720 => 64972 => image/jpeg => iblock/875 => nar4.jpg => nar4.jpg => => => [~src] => => /upload/ iblock/875/nar4.jpg) => Array ( => 275840 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/ Irkutsk)) => iblock => 576 => 720 => 28877 => image/jpeg => iblock/3a3 => nar5.jpg => nar5.jpg => => => [~src] => => / upload/iblock/3a3/nar5.jpg) => Array ( => 275841 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/Irkutsk)) => iblock => 576 => 720 => 47245 => image/jpeg => iblock/067 => nar6.jpg => nar6.jpg => => => [~src] => = > /upload/iblock/067/nar6.jpg) => Array ( => 275842 => Bitrix\Main\Type\DateTime Object ( => DateTime Object ( => 2015-02-26 15:21:36.000000 => 3 => Asia/Irkutsk)) => iblock => 576 => 720 => 43601 => image/jpeg => iblock/925 => nar7.jpg => nar7.jpg => => => [~src] = > => /upload/iblock/925/nar7.jpg))

The hunt is over. “Misha Zakhar”, a well-known drug dealer in the criminal world, was arrested yesterday in Angarsk. Heroin worth almost 10 million rubles was seized from his accomplices.

Gosnarkokontrol. Open the door, please. Right now.

They came with a search. In this Irkutsk apartment, the drug police were met by the so-called “foremen.” These women, outraged by the number of guests, were engaged in the sale of heroin and collecting funds from drug outlets in the city.

Information about active activities in the region of a criminal community that dealt in heroin was received in 2013. They began detaining members of the group last summer. The operations were carried out in cities, holiday villages and on the Angarsk - Irkutsk highway.

What do you do?
- Nothing. Unemployed. I live in Angarsk.

Drug police note that leadership positions in the criminal community were occupied by gypsies. This man, according to operatives, is the leader of the group. He was detained in Angarsk a few days ago.

It was established that an active member of an organized criminal community called “Bratskoye” took part in this criminal community. Which included Mikhail Vasilievich Zakharchuk.

Zakharchuk Mikhail Vasilyevich is more accustomed to the nickname “Misha Zakhar”. So he is widely known in the criminal community. Angarchanin is 27 years old. He oversaw drug trafficking in major cities Baikal region. Heroin and more than 9 million rubles were confiscated from members of the group.

It has now been proven that the heroin and all funds were obtained from drug trafficking. More than 20 criminal cases have been initiated in connection with this criminal community. 15 people were brought to justice, 8 of whom were arrested, says Alexander Salnik, deputy head of the Federal Drug Control Service for the Irkutsk region.

The drug police hope that this time “Misha Zakhar” will receive a serious prison sentence. He had already been prosecuted for selling drugs, but then he was only fined 25 thousand rubles.

This poster hero remains in the memory of millions of people.
Poster for the film "Chapaev", 1934

January 28 is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. However, we still know little of the truthful prose of life about the heroic deeds and death of this legendary person. Today we will try to fill the gap in the historiography of our beloved Chapai and lift the veil of secrecy that surrounded the biography of Vasily Ivanovich himself and his family for many decades.

ON A SABER CAMPAIGN

Initially, the most legendary military hero in the history of Russia, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, honestly earned his guaranteed place in history with a saber in his hands back in the First World War. world war. In the fall of 1908, he was called up for military service, but was soon transferred to the reserve. In 1914 he was mobilized again. He took part in battles and was wounded three times. For military distinction he was awarded four St. George's crosses and a medal, and promoted to lieutenant officer. There were fewer such heroes in Russia at that time than twice Heroes Soviet Union.

Vasily Ivanovich was treated in a hospital in Saratov, then moved to Nikolaevsk (now Pugachev, Saratov region). In December 1917, he was elected commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment. In January 1918, he was appointed Commissioner of Internal Affairs of Nikolaevsky District. He formed a Red Guard detachment here, which, under his command, suppressed the kulak-SR revolts in the district. From May 1918, he commanded a brigade that took part in battles against the Ural White Cossacks and White Czechs. In the fall of 1918, he was sent to study at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. But already in January of the following year he asked to go to the front. In the spring of 1919 he was appointed head of the 25th rifle division, where he showed remarkable military leadership abilities, coupled with amazing courage and national intelligence. Chapaev made this division the best in the entire Red Army, and the division made him the first hero of the Civil War.

Vasily Ivanovich treated any diploma other than military-tactical with fierce hatred, believing that a conscientious fighter needed it like a hare needed galoshes. He mocked the academy teachers. He called them “bastard intelligentsia”, sometimes even cursed them. And the most amazing thing is that he successfully proved to those around him the correctness of his own delusion. For example, in less than a year he grew (by today's standards) from sergeant major to lieutenant general! This is the only case in the entire Civil War.

NOT ONLY THE LEGENDARY CARRIER

A fantastically daring intelligence officer in the First World War (once he single-handedly led an entire regiment out of enemy encirclement), who humped and then took the rank of officer, Chapaev, at the age of 30, was quicker than Frunze and even the refined military intellectual Tukhachevsky, who realized that it was not the horse, but the equipment that would win battles . Turning himself inside out, he equipped the troops of his division with the most modern equipment and weapons of that time. It will be difficult for someone to believe this, but, for example, in the 17th armored detachment of his rifle division, Chapaev had a 10-ton land battleship "Gasford", powerful cars of the English company "Austin", as well as several armored cars assembled especially for him in St. Petersburg . The artillery department of the legendary division commander was serviced by over 2 thousand people - much more people than in a modern full-staff artillery regiment. In all units he had excellent telegraph, telephone and courier-motorcycle communications. We didn’t even have the latter during the Great Patriotic War! Chapaev also had five airplanes. Moreover, he used aviation not so much and not only for reconnaissance purposes. He regularly dropped bombs on enemy positions.

How this man, who almost couldn’t write and read syllables, had such a military epiphany is incomprehensible to the mind!

From the application form for applicants to the accelerated course of the General Staff Academy, filled out personally by Chapaev: “Do you belong to the number of active members of the party? What was your activity? - “I belong.” Formed 7 regiments of the Red Army." “What awards do you have?” - “Georgievsky Knight of four degrees. The watch was also presented.” "Which general education got?" - “Self-taught.”

Conclusion of the certification commission: “Enroll as having revolutionary combat experience. Almost illiterate."

In those turbulent times, only such reckless, daring, courageous and daring leaders-nuggets were followed by the crazy, revolution-raised people. People have always liked leaders from their own environment, such as Pugachev, Bolotnikov, Razin, Chapaev. Fate itself decreed that he passed away young, and therefore, by and large, did not tarnish his beautiful legend in any way.

Chapaev was lucky not only with his life. If it were not for its commissioner Dmitry Furmanov, we would probably know no more about the Ural falcon than about the same Parkhomenko and Shchors. Furmanov succeeded in creating the legend of Chapaev. By this I do not at all want to say that the writer composed a complete lie. He has interesting and reliable observations. Well, at least this: “Early in March, around five or six o’clock, they knocked on my door. I go out: “I am Chapaev, hello!” In front of me stood an ordinary man, lean, of average height, apparently of little strength, with thin, almost feminine hands. Thin dark brown hair stuck to his forehead; a short, nervous, thin nose, thin eyebrows in a chain, thin lips, shiny clean teeth, a shaved chin, a lush sergeant-major mustache. Eyes... Light blue, almost green. The face is matte-clean and fresh.”

Agree, next to this almost Freudian description of Chapaev’s appearance, all the photographs of Vasily Ivanovich known to us fade away.

But in general, Furmanov wrote in his “Chapaev” (by the way, several years after the events themselves) not what actually happened to the hero, but what should have happened according to his own commissar ideas. He painted a poster of a bright symbol of the Civil War - in the colors and paints that the then strengthened party-Soviet bureaucracy demanded. Furmanov, of course, failed to achieve a deep, contradictory, even tragic personality, which is what the real Chapaev was. And it couldn’t work out. The writer was faced with a very specific ideological task, and he solved it in a communist manner on time, with the least cost, without disdaining outright lies.

Never in any of his many battles did Chapaev ride “ahead on a dashing horse,” primarily because his division was a rifle division. He couldn’t even wave his sword wildly, since his right hand was shot in the First World War. The division commander loved to drive around in a car. (And I flew to Moscow on a personal plane.) At first I rode in a confiscated bright red American Stever. Then he recaptured the powerful Pickard from Kolchak. Vasily Ivanovich had several other little-known brands of cars (he still had a whole motor squad, almost fifty cars), but the commander finally chose the Ford-T, which was hardy and fast at that time. (Chapaev fighter N.I. Ivanov was called to Moscow to drive A.I. Elizarova, Lenin’s sister, in just such a car).

STORM URAL

Meanwhile, the biography of our hero gave every reason to write a detailed one. Maybe she was even drawn to “Stormy Ural” - something similar to “Quiet Don”. In his youth, Vasily Ivanovich with his father and brothers worked as a carpenter in the Trans-Volga cities and villages. I didn't marry for love. He spent three years in the trenches of the First World War. As already mentioned, he was the best reconnaissance officer of the regiment. Comrade Pyotr Kamishertsev died in his hands in the Carpathian Mountains. Chapaev, returning from the front, divorced and married a friend’s wife. Two more girls were added to their own three children. But also in new family there was no happiness. And because Vasily Ivanovich did not care at all about his relatives, but even more, probably, because he was a great womanizer. Didn't miss a single skirt. The division commander eventually set his sights on Furmanov’s wife, Anna. Because of this adultery, the commissioner had a fight with the commander and hastily sent his wife to Moscow. His older brother Andrei was hanged during Russo-Japanese War either for desertion, or for troublemaking and incitement. The younger one, Grigory, also managed to show revolutionary daring and proletarian determination as a military commissar. He was shot and bayoneted. Vasily Ivanovich himself, it turns out, did not drown at all, but no one knows exactly how he died...

Georgy and Sergey Vasilyev went even further than Furmanov. The namesakes didn’t just transfer the book to the screen, they created their own original work “based on Furman’s material,” thanks to which they moved even further away from the harsh, cruel truth of life, but powerfully and in highest degree talentedly completed the construction of the main revolutionary legend. Now for centuries!

It is not my task to analyze all the advantages and disadvantages of the film "Chapaev", but it would probably be appropriate to say here that Soviet cinema with this film, where the main character was played by the irresistible Boris Babochkin, reached its apogee, completely, at the highest artistic level. level, strengthening and flawlessly varnishing the immortality of the legendary division commander. Pre-war cinema does not know a stronger picture than Chapaev. Even “Battleship Potemkin” will be in second place.

THEY TELL JOKES – IT MEANS THEY LOVE

Anecdotes about Chapaev (like the third round of immortality) appeared in 1934, immediately after the release of the film of the same name. The ribbon walked widely and powerfully across the country, and after it, like grasshoppers on the summer grass, folk tales jumped in a swarm - a phenomenon born exclusively on Soviet soil. That is, it is possible, of course, that literary and film characters somewhere in other countries also became heroes of oral folk art. But on such a scale, world culture does not know anything like this.

Moreover, interestingly, from the 30s to the present day, each new demonstration of the film exponentially increased the number of anecdotes about Vasily Ivanovich. Something similar, however, in much smaller quantities, was observed only with Stirlitz. What is the reason for this phenomenon?

The film “Chapaev”, as a real work of art, really had a huge reserve of ideological, psychological and, in some cases, even aesthetic and moral influence. You can't take that away from him. But it can be vulgarized. This is what Soviet propaganda did year after year with a zeal worthy of better use. There wasn't an ideological hole where she wouldn't shove a Civil War hero. And gradually she turned him not even into Ivanushka the Fool (he was just on his own mind), but into an outright fool who, like a muslin young lady, sighed and aahed at every step about the greatness of Lenin, the wisdom of the party and the communist future of the whole earth. Propaganda techniques, which were used quite deliberately by filmmakers, became outright nonsense, complete insanity in the hands and mouths of ideologists.

Could the Siberian grunt, who killed more than one in fierce battles? human life(Vasily Ivanovich actually did not disdain to personally deal with his enemies with a saber), saying something like this: “Raisa, don’t you have a portrait of Lenin?” I notice that Vasily Ivanovich is unusually excited. I show you the photo. Vasily Ivanovich looked at Lenin’s face for a long time, then said: “What a simple-looking man, but how correctly he understands everything in life!”

But this is not yet the wildest vulgarity, which everyone and everyone was putting into Chapaev’s mouth with or without reason. Including, unfortunately, his own children. There is no number of their sweet, stupefyingly loyal, enthusiastic memories. The son and daughter even wrote a “documentary” book about their father, but it would be better if they didn’t do that...

By writing anecdotes about Vasily Ivanovich, Petka and Anka, people thereby shared with characters dear to their hearts all the hardships and tribulations of a failed socialist existence. Please note that in the huge thesaurus of oral folk art about Chapaev (nobody knows the exact number of anecdotes about the division commander, but, for example, in the collection of the author of these lines there are several tens of thousands of them) there is not a single openly boorish, mockingly derogatory tale. Even in the most exaggerated versions, Vasily Ivanovich looks quite nice and attractive. Because the people loved him, love him and will love him, even though at present this love is no longer stimulated by anyone or anything.

THE MYSTERY OF DEATH

In the entire troubled biography of Vasily Ivanovich, the darkest spot is his death. There are several versions of it. According to one of them, Chapaev’s second wife allegedly became infatuated with the head of the artillery depot. Vasily Ivanovich roughly beat the traitor. Then a plan for revenge matured in Pelageya’s quarrelsome head. She found the White headquarters and told her husband's enemies where he was located, and even that most of his fighters had training rifles. Such a “domestic” turn is not excluded.

However, another version is more plausible. The obstinate divisional commander Chapaev had long caused not only irritation, but also fear among the high command of the Soviet Republic. Vasily Ivanovich was distinguished by his independence of judgment and often entered into polemics with his superiors. Therefore, he acquired a reputation as an “uncontrollable partisan.” The then powerful chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Leon Trotsky, declared a merciless fight against partisanship. And it is not surprising that he immediately disliked Chapaev. In addition, Vasily Ivanovich “was noticed” to be friendly towards the anarchist communists.

The Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of July 6–7, 1918 was supported by anarchists, and after its suppression, Lenin ordered the red troops to be cleared of Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists. Some historians agree that Chapaev was therefore “subject to elimination.” Leon Trotsky, who especially zealously carried out this Leninist directive, dealt with the division commander in a very sophisticated manner. First he presented him with a gold watch with the engraving “For bravery”, and the next day he transferred him to another division. However, at the new location… there was no connection!

Vasily Ivanovich had to form it first. Obviously, they were counting on Chapaev’s explosive character, on the fact that he would be indignant at the treachery of his superiors and spit on everything. But Vasily Ivanovich did not justify such hopes, if they existed, and formed a division in the shortest possible time. It seems that sending Chapaev to study in Moscow was aimed at removing him from command of the 25th division. But Vasily Ivanovich, as already mentioned, ensured that he was sent to the front again. As soon as the headquarters felt that Chapai was a force that could lead an entire army, they decided to get rid of him.

A secret hunt was announced for the division commander, and betrayal followed on his heels. Chapaev’s division was regularly cut off from the main forces, and so cunningly that it was “accidentally” discovered by the enemy. For the time being, Vasily Ivanovich managed to resist the enemy. But this couldn’t last long...

The White Guard command entrusted the destruction of Chapaev's headquarters to the Cossack general Nikolai Borodin. A special detachment of two thousand made its way to the village of Lbischenskaya for two nights, hiding in the reeds during the daytime. And here the most difficult question arises: how did the Whites find out about the separation of Chapaev’s headquarters from their division? Is it really only from the quarrelsome woman Pelageya the second? It is also difficult to explain why a large Cossack corps managed to pass unnoticed across the open steppe to the village of Lbischenskaya. And this despite the fact that Vasily Ivanovich always organized reconnaissance himself and in the most thorough manner. Further, on the night of the Cossacks’ attack on the Chapaev headquarters, by someone’s order, additional guard posts were removed. Historians suggest that the Whites received information about the location of Chapaev’s headquarters from the command of the Red Army.

Indeed, according to archival data, Red aviation reconnaissance, flying over the steppe, discovered a Cossack corps in the reeds. The message about this immediately reached the army headquarters, but never went beyond its walls. It is possible that there were traitors at the headquarters, perhaps from among the military experts of the tsarist army, attracted to cooperation by Lenin and Trotsky. People from Chapaev’s inner circle could have removed additional posts around the village of Lbischenskaya on the night of September 5, 1919. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the tsarist military experts who worked at Chapaev’s headquarters were not among the thousands of Red Army soldiers killed in the night battle. The following fact also makes one think: when the completely defeated White Guard troops retreated to the Caspian Sea, in Guryev many participants in this retreat were captured by the Reds, and among the prisoners were military experts from the Chapaev headquarters, already dressed in White Guard uniforms.

┘The Cossacks approached the village from three sides. From the fourth, the route to retreat was blocked by the Ural River. The assault groups gradually moved towards the center of the village, but were unable to surround the house where Chapaev was located. The Cossacks showed unheard-of cruelty - they did not take prisoners. The next morning, when the battle ended, they counted a thousand hacked Red Army soldiers. Chapaev was not among the dead. The division commander managed to escape from the village. He was killed, according to some sources, on the way to the Ural River. According to others, he was only seriously wounded in the stomach. Two Hungarians allegedly transported Chapaev on a raft from the gate to the other side. And already there he died from heavy loss of blood. The mysticism of this hero’s death is also far from accidental...

If you haven’t heard a funny story about Chapaev today, then, quite possibly, you will hear it tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a year, in a few years. For when other characters, like the very popular Stirlitz, are still heroes of a certain “situational nature,” then Vasily Ivanovich, a truly popular, without any exaggeration, epic hero, can handle any, the most complex and even insoluble human problems. In his anecdotes, Chapaev, following the unpredictable folk creative thought, moves freely in time and space, intricately connecting one to the other. He is generally a great traveler. I don’t know the country where he visited. Vasily Ivanovich spoke at the UN and in all famous world parliaments. He is on friendly terms with all the outstanding personalities of the 20th century, from the Queen of England to the domestic freeloader from the dashing Yeltsin years, Lenya Golubkov. Chapaev visited space many times. I have an anecdote in which Vasily Ivanovich communicates on equal terms with Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Nothing can be done about it: both are immortal!

Chapaev comes to God. “Comrade Lord, allow me to swim through the Urals,” “Are you afraid of drowning, Vasily Ivanovich?” - “I’m not afraid! Only there, in Russia, there is such a mess that I can’t stand it!”

MAIN CHARACTERS

Machine gunner Anka. In fact, there were only two in the division famous women: Anna Nikitichna Steshenko - Furmanov’s wife and Maria Andreevna Popova - nurse and ammunition carrier. And - not a single machine gunner with that name. It was entirely invented by the Vasiliev directors, fulfilling Stalin’s instructions. According to the leader, the film should have had four main characters. 1. Red commander, a native of the people (Chapaev); 2. Commissioner (Furmanov); 3. Ordinary soldier (Petka); 4. Female representative (Anka). So from two women’s destinies one legend turned out - Anka the machine gunner.

It remains to add that after the end of the Civil War, Maria Popova, according to some information, completed special courses and was sent together with A.M. Kollontai to Sweden. Then she worked for a long time in pre-war Germany. They say that she even personally knew Hitler, Bormann, and Himmler. In Germany, she gave birth to a daughter, Zinaida, who later also became an intelligence officer. Popova never admitted who her daughter’s father was, which gave rise to idle tongues wondering: from whom did “Anka get it” - from Bormann or Goering? If this information is even partly true, all the jokes about Chapaev and Stirlitz are pathetic mosquito squeaks...

Orderly Petka. Pyotr Semenovich Isaev was born in the village of Korneevka, Saratov region. On actual military service promoted to senior non-commissioned officer of the music team. In the spring of 1918 he joined the Chapaev detachment and in the summer he commanded a squadron. In the fall - chief of communications of the 1st brigade of the division. Then, together with Chapaev, he moved to the 2nd Nikolaev Division, where he was commander of a communications battalion and assistant chief of communications. In February 1919, Chapaev, who returned from Moscow, took Isaev with him. Pyotr Semenovich carried out any combat assignments of the division commander brilliantly. He had a beautiful wife, two children: a boy and a girl. After the release of the film “Chapaev,” a terrible and mystical tragedy befell the Isaev family. The wife, seeing her husband having an affair with a machine gunner in the film, could not bear the shame and hanged herself. The persuasion about the “artistic quality” of the film, or about the directors’ imagination, had no effect. After some time, Isaev’s daughter died suddenly. His son passionately hated everything that was connected with the name of Chapaev. There are three versions about the death of Pyotr Semenovich himself. 1st: dies along with Vasily Ivanovich on September 5, 1919. 2nd: Isaev personally strangled the traitor pilots Sladkovsky and Sadovsky, then shot himself. 3rd: a year has passed since the death of Vasily Ivanovich. On September 5, 1920, the entire division celebrated a funeral for him on the banks of the Urals. Peter got very drunk and said: “Vasily Ivanovich, my beloved commander, is gone, and I have no reason to live!” And he shot himself with a revolver right at the table...

RELATIVES

Pelageya's first wife, nee Metelina, died shortly after the death of Vasily. Having learned that he was no longer there, she decided to take the children with her. She walked across the Volga, fell into a wormwood, caught a cold, gave birth prematurely and died. Klavdiya Vasilyevna Chapaeva maintained a relationship with her daughter Valentina, born from another partner, all her life.

The second wife of Pelageya Kamishertseva had long hoped to become Chapaev’s legal wife. Did not work out. And then she cheated on him. For some reason, the new boyfriend, Zhivolozhinov, did not like Chapaev’s offspring. In the end he left his elderly partner. Kamishertseva lost her mind. She lived until 1961, periodically ending up in psychiatric hospitals.

Native children: Alexander, Claudia, Arkady. The eldest son graduated from an agricultural technical school and military academy. Fought. After the Great Patriotic War rose to the rank of deputy commander of artillery of the Moscow Military District. He retired with the rank of major general. He died in the spring of 1985. The author of these lines had the opportunity to meet Alexander Vasilyevich twice. Chapaev's eldest son was a completely adequate person, not without even some self-irony. True, he said with annoyance that it was not without reason that his father certain forces they make Ivanushka the Fool. And this was in 1984.

The middle daughter, Claudia, was orphaned for some time. In 1925, her stepmother found her to go to Furmanov and apply for a widow’s pension. At the age of 17, the girl got married, gave birth to a son and entered the construction institute. Having then met with the People's Commissar of the Food Industry Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, she transferred to the Moscow Food Institute. During the Great Patriotic War, she worked as the head of a department of the Saratov Regional Party Committee, then became a people's assessor. According to her granddaughter Evgenia Arturovna, her grandmother, having retired, worked in Soviet archives for about 20 years, researching her father’s military path. Allegedly, she simply copied open documents, and “read closed ones deliberately slowly and memorized them. Then she went to the toilet and on her knees wrote what she remembered with photographic accuracy. Thus, the grandmother collected many thousands of documents. This precious archive is kept in my family,” says Evgenia Chapaeva.

Vasily Ivanovich's youngest son, Arkady, was very handsome and talented. At the age of 18 he is a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He graduated from a flight school in Borisoglebsk. He served together with Chkalov. However, in personal life, like his father, was not happy. At the age of 27, a year before the war, Arkady died in a plane crash.

Chapaev's adopted daughters. Sisters Olimpiada and Vera Kamishertsev lived in Leningrad. Both graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute. They called themselves “ligovki”. In life they behaved far from modest and restrained, compromising the name of their adoptive father. They died within a month of each other in the early 60s.

All Chapaev's siblings, with the exception of Mikhail, died tragically. Having married a merchant’s daughter, Mikhail was cursed by his father, and then “dispossessed” by his brother Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. During Soviet times, he lived in Saratov. He refused the offer of local authorities to get a good apartment. In exchange, he asked the management to give him four kilograms of nails free of charge to build a house. And he built it. Small, unprepossessing, but its own.

Some descendants of the legendary division commander settled in the Armizonsky district of the Tyumen region. After the Civil War, two people came there cousins Chapaeva. Nikolai Alekseevich Chapaev became a gardener. In 1957, he went to an exhibition of achievements in Moscow. Died in 1968. Alexander Alekseevich established himself as a peasant on Siberian soil and raised children. One of them is the full namesake of the famous division commander and is his great-nephew. Now Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev lives in the village of Yuzhno-Dubrovnoye, works in the private cooperative “Zarya”.

And one last thing. Real name legendary hero Civil War - Chepaev. Furmanov made it Chapaev.

Once, speaking at a meeting of officer-students of the editorial department of the military-political academy with the writer Konstantin Simonov, my classmate, senior lieutenant Mikhail Zakharchuk, said: “We will never rise to Simonov.” It’s true: none of us is destined to rise to the level of the luminary of military journalism Konstantin Simonov... He was a true master of words, at the same time a deeply decent officer-journalist, writer and poet. Beautiful phrase , spoken by Misha Zakharchuk about forty years ago, was remembered now in connection with the clearly unseemly behavior of himself, his dishonesty in his work as a journalist. I will give specific examples. During his years of study at the academy, Mikhail Zakharchuk, among his classmates, was distinguished by his special, so to speak, journalistic agility. In his free time from studying, he often visited theaters, met famous artists, interviewed them, and published newspaper materials. Of course, this is a virtue desirable for every journalist. However... On the eve of one of the school days, we were all, frankly, upset by the news that Zakharchuk got into an unpleasant situation. The famous actress of the Maly Theater Elena Nikolaevna Gogoleva was indignant at the bias of the interview prepared by Zakharchuk. It got to the point that Misha was called to the “carpet” to see the head of the academy. I remember how Misha was very worried about what happened. I think there was no smoke without fire. Apparently, even then he tried to arbitrarily interpret certain facts in newspaper publications. Many years passed before today I saw with my own eyes how much journalist Mikhail Zakharchuk sometimes allows himself. In personal correspondence and in comments to Zakharchuk’s articles, I expressed words of praise addressed to him. At the same time, he gave advice and criticized. Take, for example, my response to his publication “Soviet Mozart”: “It is interestingly written, but it is very drawn out, overly detailed, sometimes you get tired of reading the same thing... Essentially this is a compilation, a huge canvas woven from individual scraps of factual material , taken from various sources. We must pay tribute to the author - over many years he has succeeded in this matter, he has become skilled, he has become adept at finding, connecting, generalizing, and analyzing facts. As they say, the writer writes, the readers read. And they praise it avidly. What else is needed? M. Zakharchuk accumulates such huge articles, along with very successful essays about outstanding people, and then introduces them into his books. What to say? Well done! After all, he set his sights not on the publication of ephemera newspaper materials, but, as he once put it, “ON THE SHELF,” that is, on the publication of collections. He is doing it successfully and has certainly already made a name for himself. Only, unfortunately, MISHA GOT SICK WITH STAR DISEASE. “He doesn’t want to acknowledge the creative steps of his fellow journalists, even though they are still modest.” Once I sent Zakharchuk my miniature “Kobzon’s Trick” and received the following assessment: “I really have nothing to do except please you. With your spontaneity, it seems to you that your knuckle represents something. .. Now, if you wrote a large canvas about Kobzon, then it would be useful.” I replied: Misha, after your tactless attacks towards me, I want to declare: my miniatures, short stories and stories have every right to exist. You can even use them to stage small plays and make short films. But your journalistic “canvases” are unlikely to be suitable for this. So think about it: what is more valuable and worthy in creativity? There are clearly not enough of your small-format works (small genres) on the bookshelves. They have a kind of relish. My commentary on M. Zakharchuk’s article “BAEARE SOUL” (About Vladimir Vysotsky): In an effort to tell readers some unknown facts about Vladimir Vysotsky, the author of the article M. Zakharchuk went to extremes. He introduced us to his father, retired Colonel of the Air Defense Forces Semyon Vladimirovich Vysotsky, as a sophisticated foul-mouthed man. What is so good about it? I personally know that Mikhail Zakharchuk is not averse to sometimes using strong words himself. I guess that much of what Vladimir Vysotsky’s father allegedly told him is the fruit of an irrepressible imagination. Here he clearly went too far, typing tedious paragraphs of verbal garbage (every line is obscene). Admit it, Mikhail Alexandrovich, did you want to be original and surprise the readers with this? YOU'RE WRONG! Curses do not work on your authority, nor, especially, on the authority of Vladimir Vysotsky. Therefore, please edit and remove non-standard language from the article. Do not allow vulgarity into the collection of your worthy works. Shorter is better, less is better. Do you think he listened to the advice? Where is it... My next sharp letter to Zakharchuk: MISHA, you continue to behave tactlessly and arrogantly. The mere fact that you are cutting off the person who called you from the conversation without allowing him to finish... How can you? Now about your words “turn on your brains”. I consider this slang phrase of yours offensive and I never use it myself. When you publish materials, you also “use your brain” and check the grammar and punctuation. Stylistics too. More than once I found mistakes in you, even if they were not numerous. You cannot remember all such cases. Let’s say, in the article “For Spite of All Deaths” (for the 70th anniversary of “Wait for Me” by K. Simonov) you wrote: “...I apologize to my dear readers for such a sharp turn in this topic, but if they have patience, they will understand , what caused this. So, in the fall of 1979, the Izvestia newspaper published on its pages a material with a photograph “Konstantin Simonov: “The war was huge, nationwide.” WHY ARE YOU, MISHA, CHEATING? This publication by General F. Stepanov appeared in IZVESTIA "May 8, 1986. I have a clipping with this publication. ***How ​​should we understand your next blunder: ". .. General Comrade Stepanov himself personally did not keep any records - we did this together with our classmate Viktor Andrusov." You know, Misha, it’s like that fable about a fly sitting on a horse: “We plowed...” But in the original version of the TASS article, sent to me in Riga, you still had the conscience to write: “... Comrade Stepanov himself personally did not keep any tape recordings - my comrade V. Andrusov did this.” On December 1, 2015, I posted an open letter on Odnoklassniki: AREN’T YOU A SHAME, MY CLASSMATE, MIKHAIL ZAKHARCHUK? ! On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of K. Simonov (November 28, 2015), officer-journalist Mikhail Zakharchuk published an article “The Main Military Writer of the USSR” in the online newspapers “Russian Heroic Calendar”, “Centuries” (under the new title “The Truth of Konstantin Simonov” - read link: http://www.stoletie.ru/kultura/pravda_konstantina_simonova_782.htm). Perhaps the article will appear in other publications, and certainly in the author’s book. The first part of the article is a compilation of other people's research and information. The second part of the article is structured in the form of an interview he made up, entitled “From that conversation with Konstantin Simonov,” in which he seems to deliberately omit questions due to lack of space. And essentially publishes a transcript of the sound recording I made of the writer’s speech. What a rogue! In the article, Zakharchuk cleverly avoided the fact that the speech of the writer K. Simonov was based on pre-prepared, collective questions from students of the academy’s editorial department, and that this speech was recorded by me alone on tape. Zakharchuk falsely claims that he specifically hired three female stenographers to help record the writer’s speech and print the material. In fact, he used a sound recording of Simonov’s speech, which I gave him as a gift in September 1989 in Riga, where he deliberately came to see me and swore that he would never violate my copyright. HOWEVER, I VIOLATED! HOW DOES THIS NOT BEAUTIFUL MIKHAIL ZAKHARCHUK, A JOURNALIST APPLYING FOR THE TITLE OF A WRITER! Now about what opinion my fellow newspapermen have about Zakharchuk. On November 14, 2015, naval journalist Sergei Turchenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian Heroic Calendar, published a review of Mikhail Zakharchuk’s book “Through the Great Millennium, or 20 years at the turn of the millennium. Diary of an eyewitness." Please note: what a long and abstruse title! You will agree that he reeks of the author's delusions of grandeur. Well, what can you do if he wants to show off his coolness? But let's delve into the content of this "extraordinary event in literary life modern Russia"(as stated in the first lines of the review). It turns out that, apart from the loud statement of the author, his philosophical reasoning in the preamble about life at the turn of the millennium, the book does not deserve to be considered unique. It consists of previously published articles about Zakharchuk’s meetings with various famous people(artists, writers, musicians, painters). We must pay tribute to the author of the review, Sergei Turchenko, he not only praised Zakharchuk, but also pointed out the shortcomings of the work. I quote: “The reader will find in the book interesting pearls of “everyday philosophy,” for example: “Our wives were given to us for our past sins. This is how God balances everything in the world, including family life. Plus, every husband deserves the wife with whom he lives. Otherwise, I would have been looking for someone else, like our mutual acquaintance Yura Belichenko. I've already changed three spouses. Not realizing that all women are the same. Only their names are different... In any case, I will not allow my daughters to remain fatherless just because their mother does not give herself the trouble to appreciate what a wonderful husband she got.” The book is densely peppered with political and other anecdotes of the times described. But... also with black humor, often bordering on blasphemy. In my opinion, the book does not benefit from overly frank details of relationships with women, including naming their real names. And there is absolutely no use for the swear words scattered throughout the text that the characters use. There is an opinion that this gives the work a documentary flavor, as it happens in life. I think that this is simply linguistic hooliganism, bordering on indecency. There are toilets in life, so why describe their contents in paint?” I will reproduce below the response to my publication from an experienced editor, poetess Tatyana Motorina (Semyonova): “Dear Victor! I read your article - everything is bubbling and seething inside me! First of all, thank you very much for your civic position, for your indifferent attitude towards the disgraceful behavior and no less disgraceful creativity of this cadre! ... Are you, an officer, a journalist, afraid to tell the truth in the face of a hypocrite, an opportunist who has turned into a boor?! You may not know that I was a little ahead of you by expressing my attitude towards Zakharchuk’s work (and I have the right to judge, since I am an editor with extensive experience). As a result, she made an enemy and was sent by him... (I won’t specify where). The incident with the Maly Theater actress Elena Gogoleva almost cost this “fruit” his career. I remember well how much noise the Zakharchuk interview you mentioned caused. At that distant time, we lived in the dormitory of the academy students on Pirogovskaya Street, in the “stable” built for the commissars at Gorky’s expense. Living together in tiny rooms located on both sides of a long and gloomy corridor taught me a lot. Here I realized that not all officers were selected for the academy carefully and exclusively positive qualities. Here I met Mikhail Zakharchuk, my husband’s classmate in the journalism department of the Lvov VVPU. From our room at 9 square meters he did not come out and behaved tactlessly. However, decades later, when we met on the Internet, I was happy for him. He boasted that his book “Oncoming Lane” had been published. He sold it by mail. I asked him to provide a copy out of old friendship. No, I didn’t highlight it, but began to selectively forward it via e-mail separate pages. I read it, and it felt like I was plunging into some kind of surrealism. So many lies. Of course, most of the people he supposedly met in his life are real, but often already dead... After all, they will not be able to refute his tales, fiery journalism, designed for simpletons. Who didn’t he drink with for brotherhood! I remember expressing to him my opinion about the many grammatical and stylistic errors, Ukrainianisms, swear words and the too often used “I”. He then restrained himself, did not send me away... Because he was a guest on “My Blog”, he admired my poems... Purely out of professional curiosity, I often read his works in the online publication “Century”, leaving objective comments there with comments . But someone’s hand on the Internet wiped them away... And the scandal that tore us apart began with the suicide of one of the actors... In my blog, I expressed bitterness over his act and remembered how he once helped me and my little son get from airport to the sea station in Murmansk, when no one met me, and there was a lot of things. Mikhail Alexandrovich allowed himself (and he allows himself everything) in “My Blog” to insult the memory of the artist, to call him a Jew... I did not respond to this attack, but interrupted correspondence with him. He bombarded me with letters for a long time, appealed to my conscience, criticized my ex-husband Volodya Verkhovod (with whom, by the way, we maintained the best relations). And then, I don’t remember exactly why, but I think on Press Day, I read his opus about journalists. He wrote about his beloved self, as a luminary, a former friend of marshals, actresses, artists, composers, and singers. . . I advised him that it would be nice to remember the military journalists who were the color of the profession. She cited the example of Valera Glezdeneva, a journalist who died in Afghanistan in a downed helicopter. After which she was sent by Zakharchuk to. . . It should be noted that a cadre like him can easily be lashed in the face with a dirty whip, no matter what. An officer who spent many years within the Garden Ring hardly knows what it’s like to serve in remote areas... ...Years have passed, the country that trained such zharchuks and gave them a well-fed life has gone into oblivion. A lot of things have changed for the worse in journalism. The time has come for boasters and upstarts, compilers and outright storytellers... THANKS TO VIKTOR ANDRUSOV FOR HIS HONEST POSITION. Victor! Do you see how much your message touched me? !! It’s not personal resentment that is boiling inside me, but resentment for those of our guys who died from bandit bullets in Afghanistan, and those who returned alive suffered in obscurity due to the indifference of officials - because they had no cronyism, no furry paws. They were unable to make their way to the ramp to lick the hand of prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, as Zakharchuk did... Victor, I am grateful to you for taking on such responsibility - to wash this lunatic. Smug, he completely lost his sense of proportion. For more than a year he bombarded me with links to his “works” in “Century”. I didn’t read everything, but what I read made me sick. The resentment remains in my soul that Zakharchuk desecrates the memory of truly deserved and even great people.” Among the colleagues who responded to this publication , Vladimir Kaushansky, my classmate at the Faculty of Journalism of LVVPU, former special correspondent for the newspaper "RED STAR", retired colonel. He sent a short letter: “Vitya, hello! I carefully read your article and sadly remembered the episodes of my collaboration with Zakharchuk in different years. After college, he came to my department of Komsomol life of the district newspaper “On Guard” of the Baku Air Defense District. In fact I was his first head of the department, except for his short stay in the aviation department, where Mikhail quarreled to death and quarreled with the boss. Of course, I have something meaningful to add to your arguments. But, you know, I don’t want to. Play a role in my attempts successful journalist Zakharchuk is simply ridiculous. I am familiar with his book opuses, which in fact turned out to be unnecessary rubbish for everyone except himself. What he is doing now, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. God will be his judge!” Following this letter, there was a response from retired colonel Boris Anushkevich, former editor of the magazine "SPORTSVOYENNOE VOENNOE OZREZNIYE" - the press organ of the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries. My classmate writes the following: “Hello, Vikander! I remember those times when you posted links on websites to Misha Zakharchuk’s works, literally forcing me to read them. I responded to some of your calls regarding Misha’s memories of meetings with famous cultural figures. He Indeed, for some time he appeared in theater and film circles, rubbed shoulders with the capital's bohemia, knew well those of its representatives with whom he met. Of course, Misha is well acquainted with this topic. But his articles and essays, for example, are difficult for me to read: they are overloaded monotonous facts, static, written in a half-dead language. And what’s most disgusting is the way Misha presents his meetings, conversations, interviews with these people: selfishness sticks out in almost every material. I remembered the opinion of our teacher at the journalism department of LVVPU Androsova about Anatoly Mariengof’s book “The Novel without lies", which after that I quickly read. Yesenin’s friend Mariengof with quite frank narcissism describes his life next to the brilliant poet, creating the impression that many talented poems during the years of their friendship were written thanks to his recommendations and comments. In the descriptions of the poet's tavern sprees, one can sense the ridicule of a friend: this is what this person, whose poems you admire, is really like... Misha presents himself a little differently: he boasts that he is on friendly terms with many celebrities, and is respected and loved by them. .. Kirill Lavrov invites him to the celebration on the occasion of the Lenin Prize and seats him next to Alexei Batalov... Lanovoy is glad to see him in his home, Pakhmutova is showered with gratitude and compliments to Misha for the article about her work... If Zakharchuk is on a business trip, then certainly in the regional committee hotel... Well, the use of your, Victor, tape recording of Simonov’s speech without an appropriate reference to this is disgusting. Etc. and so on. I don’t like Zakharchuk’s emphasis on the importance of his own person in almost every material, and that’s why I stopped reading his works. Why is he, like me, neither hot nor cold - we studied together in Lvov - and that’s all! You were waiting for my point of view on Misha Zakharchuk’s action towards you, and I provided it. He also briefly expressed his perception of his specific journalism. I agree with Volodya Kaushansky: God is the judge! This is who I trust unconditionally - Vovka Kaushansky. He has an excellent command of words, a talented journalist, an intelligent, charming interlocutor, a teacher, an honored worker of the All-Russian Musical Society." * * * * * Such an impartial conversation between colleagues arose on its own. No one initially set out to debunk the dishonest methods of Mikhail Zakharchuk’s creativity. It turned out so that he himself asked for fair comments from writing comrades with whom he once studied, collaborated, tried to be friends... Viktor Andrusov, officer-journalist.

Battle of Chashniki

On October 31, 1812, a battle took place between Russian troops under the command of Wittgenstein and French troops under the command of Marshal Victor during the Patriotic War. This clash was a failed attempt by the French to restore their northern front along the Dvina line, which was broken through after the capture of Polotsk by Wittgenstein.

Battle of Chashniki

On October 31, 1812, a battle took place between Russian troops under the command of Wittgenstein and French troops under the command of Marshal Victor during the Patriotic War. This clash was a failed attempt by the French to restore their northern front along the Dvina line, which was broken through after the capture of Polotsk by Wittgenstein.

By the time of the fall of Polotsk, the commander of the IX Corps, Victor, was stationed in the Smolensk region and represented the reserve of Napoleon's army.

By order of Napoleon, Victor with 22 thousand soldiers went against Wittgenstein in order to restore the Dvina line. Near Chashnikov, the French II Corps under the command of General Legrand, retreating from Wittgenstein, met with Victor's advanced division. Legrand decided to stop and took a defensive position. The combined forces of the French amounted to 36 thousand.

Wittgenstein left a garrison of 9 thousand soldiers in Polotsk and went to meet Victor with 30 thousand soldiers.

The battle near Chashniki was fought mainly by Wittgenstein’s vanguard under the command of Lev Yashvil and Legrand’s 2nd Corps. The Russians attacked the French. Legrand, retreating, occupied intermediate positions, but in the end he was forced out from everywhere and joined Victor’s corps. Wittgenstein, having discovered Victor's main position, ordered Yashvil to stop, and began bombarding the French positions. Victor, discouraged by the successful actions of Yashvil, decided not to continue the battle and retreated. The Russians did not pursue. French losses were 1200 against 400 Russians killed.

As a result of the victories at Polotsk and Chashniki, Wittgenstein sent Harpe's detachment to capture Vitebsk. On November 7, after a short battle, the French garrison of Vitebsk surrendered.

The fall of Vitebsk violated the plans of Napoleon, who planned to place his exhausted troops there in winter quarters. Upon learning of the defeat at Chashniki, Napoleon ordered Victor to immediately attack Wittgenstein again and throw him back to Polotsk. This led to another French defeat at Smolyan on November 14, 1812.

Death of Frunze

On October 31, 1925, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (b. 1885), a revolutionary, Soviet statesman and military leader, one of the most prominent military leaders of the Red Army during the Civil War, who mercilessly drowned the peasant uprising in blood, died in the Botkin hospital after a stomach operation. Samara region.

Death of Frunze

On October 31, 1925, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (b. 1885), a revolutionary, Soviet statesman and military leader, one of the most prominent military leaders of the Red Army during the Civil War, who mercilessly drowned in blood a peasant uprising in the Samara region, died in the Botkin hospital after a stomach operation. .

The reasons for his death still have very different interpretations among experts and historians. Officially, newspapers of that time reported that Mikhail Frunze suffered from a stomach ulcer. On October 29, 1925, he was operated on by an experienced surgeon V. N. Rozanov. According to the doctors' report, the operation was successful. But h 39 hours later, Frunze died “with symptoms of heart paralysis.” 10 minutes after his death on the night of October 31, I.V. Stalin, A.I. Rykov, A.S. Bubnov, I.S. Unshlikht, A.S. Enukidze and A.I. Mikoyan arrived at the hospital. An examination of the body was carried out. The prosector wrote down: the underdevelopment of the aorta and arteries discovered during the autopsy, as well as the preserved thymus gland, are the basis for the assumption that the body is unstable in relation to anesthesia and its poor resistance to infection. The main question - why heart failure occurred, leading to death - remained unanswered. Confusion about this was leaked to the press. The article “Comrade Frunze is recovering,” published by Rabochaya Gazeta on the very day of his death, was published. At work meetings they asked: why was the operation performed; why did Frunze agree to it if you can live with an ulcer anyway; what is the cause of death; Why was misinformation published in a popular newspaper? In this regard, doctor Grekov, assisted Rozanov, gave an interview, published with variations in different publications. According to him, the operation was necessary because the patient was in danger of sudden death; Frunze himself asked to operate on him as soon as possible; The operation was classified as relatively easy and was performed according to all the rules of surgical art, but the anesthesia was difficult. At the end of the interview, Grekov for some reason said that No one was allowed to see the patient after the operation, but when Frunze was told that Stalin had sent him a note, he asked to read the note and happily smiled. Here is her text: “My friend! Today at 5 o’clock in the evening I was at Comrade Rozanov’s (me and Mikoyan). We wanted to come to you, but we didn’t let you in, it’s an ulcer. We had to submit to the force. Don’t be bored, my darling. Hello. We We’ll come again, we’ll come again... Koba.” This ending further fueled distrust official version. All the gossip on this topic was collected by the writer Pilnyak, who later wrote “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon,” in which everyone recognized Frunze as Army Commander Gavrilov, who died during the operation. Part of the circulation of Novy Mir, where the story was published, was confiscated, thereby seeming to confirm the version of the murder. If they are so afraid, then undoubtedly Frunze was eliminated. The version of the murder was once again repeated by director Yevgeny Tsymbal in his film “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon”, in which he created a romantic and martyr image of a “real revolutionary” who aimed at unshakable dogmas.

But, apparently, the real Frunze was far from romanticism. Since February 1919, he successively led several armies operating in Eastern Front against the Supreme Ruler of Russia Admiral A.V. Kolchak. In March he became commander Southern group this front. The units subordinate to him were so carried away by the looting and robbery of the local population that they completely disintegrated, and Frunze more than once sent telegrams to the Revolutionary Military Council asking them to send him other soldiers. Desperate to get an answer, he began to recruit reinforcements for himself using the “natural method”: he took trains with bread from Samara and invited the men left without food to join the Red Army.

IN peasant uprising, which rose up against Frunze in the Samara region, more than 150 thousand people took part. The uprising was drowned in blood. Frunze's reports to the Revolutionary Military Council are replete with figures of people executed under his leadership. For example, during the first ten days of May 1919, he destroyed about one and a half thousand peasants (whom Frunze in his report calls “bandits and kulaks”). In a report to Trotsky, Frunze writes: “At least 100 people were killed here, according to incomplete information. In addition, over 600 leaders and kulaks were shot.” There were about a hundred in battle, and then all those who were considered unreliable were simply shot. “The village of Usinskoye, in which the rebels first exterminated our entire detachment of 170 people, was completely burned.” Moreover, Frunze understands perfectly well why this is happening: “The movement grew out of dissatisfaction with economic hardships and measures, and due to the ignorance of the population, it was directed and used properly.” And we will deal with the irresponsible like this - shoot potential leaders and completely burn down those villages on the territory of which the murder of the Red Army soldiers took place. Frunze in this regard was no better than Tukhachevsky, who suppressed the Tambov uprising, or Pyatakov, Bela Kun and Zemlyachka, who carried out the “Red Terror” in Crimea.

In September 1920, Frunze was appointed commander Southern Front, acting against the army of General P.N. Wrangel. He led the capture of Perekop and the occupation of Crimea. In November 1920, Frunze turned to the officers and soldiers of General Wrangel's army with a promise of complete forgiveness if they remained in Russia. After the occupation of Crimea, all these servicemen were ordered to register (refusal to register was punishable by execution). Then the soldiers and officers of the White Army who believed Frunze were arrested and shot directly according to these registration lists. In total, during the Red Terror in Crimea, 50 - 75 thousand people were shot or drowned in the Black Sea.

Of course, many then might not have known about the military “arts” of Mikhail Vasilyevich. He carefully hid the darkest sides of his biography. His handwritten commentary on the order to award Bela Kun and Zemlyachka for atrocities in Sevastopol is known. Frunze warned that the presentation of orders should be done secretly, so that the public would not know what exactly these “heroes” were being awarded for civil war" In a word, if Frunze was helped to leave for another world, then there was a reason. After all, his heart paralysis began a long time ago and not in a physiological, but in a spiritual sense.

To be honest, it often looks like Stalin’s purges (when this actually refers to the leader and is not a slander against him) primarily affected those representatives of the Leninist-Trotskyist guard who dealt with ordinary Russian people with particular cruelty: “repressed” by Stalin the same Tukhachevsky, Pyatakov, Bela Kun. It is possible that Frunze was one of the first on this list of enemies of the Russian people destroyed by Stalin. The fact is that 1925 was marked by a whole series of “accidental” disasters. First, a series of tragic incidents involving senior officials in Transcaucasia: on March 19, in Moscow, the chairman of the Union Council of the TSFSR and one of the chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, N. N. Narimanov, suddenly died “of a broken heart.” On March 22, the First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the RCP (b) A.F. Myasnikov, the Chairman of the ZakChK S.G. Mogilevsky and the authorized representative of the Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs G.A. Atarbekov, who was flying with them, were killed in a plane crash. On August 27, near New York, under unclear circumstances, E. M. Sklyansky, Trotsky’s permanent deputy during the civil war, who was removed from military activities in the spring of 1924 and appointed chairman of the board of the Mossukno trust, and chairman of the board of the Amtorg joint-stock company I. Ya. Khurgin. On August 28, at the Parovo station near Moscow, a longtime acquaintance of Frunze, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 6th Army during the Perekop operation, a member of the bureau of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk provincial party committee, and chairman of Aviatrest V. N. Pavlov, was killed under a train. Around the same time, the head of the Moscow Regional Police, F.Ya. Tsirul, who was close to People’s Commissar Frunze, died in a car accident. And Mikhail Vasilyevich himself, at the beginning of September, fell out of a car at full speed, the door of which for some reason turned out to be faulty, and miraculously survived. So the “eliminations”, apparently, have already begun.

In addition to the cannibalism shown by Frunze during the suppression of the uprising in the Samara region, there were other reasons for his elimination. An article about Frunze, “The New Russian Leader,” appeared in the English monthly “Airplane.” “In this man,” the article said, “all the constituent elements of the Russian Napoleon were united.” And these were not just words. Frunze backed them up with action.

In the summer of 1923, in a grotto not far from Kislovodsk, a canned meeting of the party elite took place under the leadership of Zinoviev and Kamenev, which was later called the “cave meeting”. It was attended by vacationers in the Caucasus and party leaders of that time invited from nearby regions. At first this was hidden from Stalin. Although the issue was discussed specifically about limiting his powers of power in connection with Lenin’s serious illness. None of the participants in this meeting (except Voroshilov, who most likely was there as the leader’s eyes and ears) died a natural death. Frunze was present there as a military component of the “putsch”.

Another fact. In 1924, on the initiative of Frunze, a complete reorganization of the Red Army was carried out. He achieved the abolition of the institution of political commissars in the army - they were replaced by assistant commanders for political affairs without the right to interfere in command decisions. In 1925, Frunze made a number of moves and appointments in the command staff, as a result of which military districts, corps and divisions were headed by military personnel selected according to the principle devotion to Trotsky. Former secretary of Stalin B.G. Bazhanov recalled: “I asked Mehlis what Stalin thought about these appointments?” - “What does Stalin think? - Mehlis asked. - Nothing good. Look at the list: all these Tukhachevskys, Korks, Uborevichis, Avksentievskys - what kind of communists they are. All this is good for the 18th Brumaire, and not for the Red Army." The question arises: what head of state would tolerate such “loyalty” from the Minister of War? Bazhanov (and not only him) believed that Stalin was forced to eliminate Frunze, in order to appoint his own man, Voroshilov, in his place (Bazhanov V.G. Memoirs former secretary Stalin. M., 1990. P. 141). They claim that during the operation exactly the anesthesia that Frunze could not bear was used due to the characteristics of the body. Of course, this version has not been proven. But, in our opinion, it is quite plausible.

Stalin's removal from the Mausoleum

On October 31, 1961, at the direction of Khrushchev, the embalmed body of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was removed from the Mausoleum. A small group of politicians and military personnel at night, secretly, hiding behind urgently installed plywood shields, took Stalin’s body out of the Mausoleum and transferred it to a hastily dug grave near the Kremlin wall.

Stalin's removal from the Mausoleum

On October 31, 1961, at the direction of Khrushchev, the embalmed body of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was removed from the Mausoleum. A small group of politicians and military personnel at night, secretly, hiding behind urgently installed plywood shields, took Stalin’s body out of the Mausoleum and transferred it to a hastily dug grave near the Kremlin wall.

The next day, visitors to the Mausoleum indignantly asked the guards: where is the leader? They answered as they were instructed: “Due to numerous requests from the workers, he was reburied.”

This was the last point of Khrushchev’s yapping at the “dead lion.” Let me remind you: On February 14-25, 1956, the 20th Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow, at which the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Khrushchev made a secret report “On the cult of personality and its consequences.” It listed numerous facts of crimes in the second half of the 1930s - early 1950s, the blame for which was placed on the recent idol (however, Khrushchev himself actively participated in the repressions, along with the then members of the Politburo). The report caused an extremely contradictory reaction in society, one might say, it split it. Some supported Khrushchev, especially party officials, while others believed that such sharp somersaults in politics could negatively affect the atmosphere in the country. There were also those who accused Khrushchev of unscrupulously distorting facts.

Subsequent events indicate that the fight against the “cult” was not a heartfelt position for Khrushchev, not a turn towards democratization, but a way to maintain personal power and keep subordinates on a short leash.

The 20th Congress created in society a feeling of confusion, disappointment, misunderstanding of what was happening, and aggravated the conflict of generations. Moreover, active protests began against Khrushchev’s debunking of Stalin, and the authorities clearly had no intention of learning to talk to opponents without violence. Already in March 1956, blood was shed profusely. Khrushchev, preparing the “exposing” report, did not think at all about how his words would resonate in Georgia. People held rallies there. Khrushchev carried out a punitive operation. And then he demanded that the conspiracy be revealed. High-ranking KGB official Philip Bobkov, sent to Georgia in March 1956, later recalled: “Many figures in the center really wanted to hear from us that there was a headquarters in Tbilisi that led the protests against the decisions of the 20th Congress. Someone threatened to take away our party cards because we were releasing riot participants - supposedly everyone, indiscriminately. But the security officers of Georgia and Moscow, who were in Tbilisi, resisted and did not undertake mass repressions. Has no one in Moscow thought about how facts exposing the crimes of the deified Stalin might be perceived in Georgia? Isn’t it clear that experienced propagandists should have been immediately sent there to clearly and convincingly explain to people what happened?”

But pro-Stalinist sentiments, apparently, did not frighten Khrushchev as much as the fact that part of society perceived de-Stalinization as the beginning of broad democratization not only of the party, but of the country as a whole. Many people naively believed that Khrushchev’s criticism of “crimes Stalin era“This is the first step towards destroying the omnipotence of the party-state bureaucracy. Although Khrushchev subjected this bureaucracy, primarily the party apparatus, to a thorough shake-up, he never thought of democratizing it the way ordinary working people wanted.

However, in the fall and winter of 1956, panic spread among party functionaries, and rumors circulated that lists were already being secretly drawn up for future reprisals against communists. And then Khrushchev decisively stopped de-Stalinization. In December 1956, the Central Committee of the CPSU distributed a closed letter: “On strengthening the political work of party organizations among the masses and suppressing attacks by anti-Soviet, hostile elements.” It said, in particular, that the creative intelligentsia and students are most susceptible to the influence of alien ideology and that “the dictatorship of the proletariat in relation to anti-Soviet elements must be merciless.” In May 1957, Khrushchev spoke at the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR with reproaches to writers for taking Stalin’s criticism “one-sidedly.” In November of the same year, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council with a report dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, Khrushchev stated that “the party has fought and will fight against everyone who will slander Stalin, who, under the guise of criticizing the cult of personality, incorrectly and perversely portrays all historical period activities of our party, when the head of the Central Committee was I.V. Stalin... As a devoted Marxist-Leninist and staunch revolutionary, Stalin will take his rightful place in history..."

This new somersault caused no less a shock than the debunking of Stalin by the 20th Congress. The creative intelligentsia and students experienced grave disappointment in Khrushchev. “People tried not to remember the 20th Congress,” recalled Ilya Ehrenburg. “They tried to intimidate young people, and students stopped talking at meetings about what they thought and said among themselves.” And then Khrushchev, playing along with the sentiments of the intelligentsia, makes a new zigzag: at the XXII Congress, a decision was made to remove Stalin’s body from the Mausoleum. Realizing that such a turn could cause unrest from outside ordinary people, the action was carried out secretly.

How the reburial took place b former head of the 9th Directorate of the KGB, General Nikolai Zakharov recalled: “The Kremlin commandant, Lieutenant General A.Ya. and I Vedenin learned about the impending decision in advance. N.S. Khrushchev called us and said: please keep in mind that today a decision on Stalin’s reburial will probably take place. The place is marked. The commandant of the Mausoleum knows where to dig the grave...

By decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a special commission of five people was created, headed by the chairman of the Party Control Commission under the CPSU Central Committee, Nikolai Shvernik. It also included Vasily Mzhavanadze - first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Javakhishvili - chairman of the Council of Ministers of Georgia, Alexander Shelepin - chairman of the KGB, Pyotr Demichev - first secretary of the Moscow city party committee and Nikolai Dygai - chairman of the executive committee of the Moscow Soviet... Shvernik suggested how to secretly organize reburial. Since there was a parade on Red Square on November 7, under the pretext of a parade rehearsal, it should have been cordoned off so that no one could get in.”

After Stalin was pulled out of the sarcophagus, Zakharov recalled, a strange “cheesy” procedure was performed on him: “N.M. Shvernik ordered to be removed from his uniform Gold Star Hero of Socialist Labor. Stalin never wore his other award - the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and therefore it was not in the sarcophagus. After this, the chairman of the commission ordered to replace the gold buttons of the uniform with brass ones. All this was carried out by the commandant of the Mausoleum Mashkov. He transferred the removed award and buttons to a special security room, where the awards of all those buried near the Kremlin wall were kept.”

Former commander of the Kremlin regiment Fyodor Konev recalls the following: “The head of Khrushchev’s personal security department, Colonel Vladimir Yakovlevich Chekalov, called me to the government building and ordered me to prepare one company for Stalin’s reburial at the Novodevichy cemetery. But when I returned to the regiment, Chekalov called me again and said that the burial would be behind the Lenin Mausoleum near the Kremlin wall. There was a fear that the Georgians might steal the coffin with the body from the Novodevichy cemetery and take it home. But you can’t steal from Red Square. ...I went down to the Mausoleum when Stalin had already been taken out of the sarcophagus. He lay in the small room next door, in a coffin lined with red cloth and half covered with a black veil. He was completely gray and lay as if alive. As if he had just fallen asleep... The deathly silence was broken by the Kremlin commandant A. Ya. Vedenin: he said that the coffin must be closed and taken out of the Mausoleum. The grave was opened at approximately 21:00. It was surrounded by sheets of plywood and illuminated with a spotlight. Ten reinforced concrete slabs measuring approximately 100x75 cm were brought up. Two slabs were placed on the bottom, two on the left and right, one each in the head and legs. And two more were going to close the coffin from above. To make a reinforced concrete sarcophagus. But Colonel V.D. Tarasov, head of the maintenance department of the Mausoleum, said to Shvernik: “Nikolai Mikhailovich, let’s not put these slabs, otherwise they might fall off...” Shvernik thought a little and agreed. At 22:15 the coffin was brought to the grave and placed on stands. And after a minute or two of silence they began to carefully lower it. Some of the officers, and I too, threw in a handful of earth. Then the soldiers began to bury the grave. When it was all over, a granite slab was placed on top, with the years of life and death engraved on it. There was no orchestra, no fireworks, no flowers. Only someone brought them the next day. And, you know, then flowers always lay on this grave.”

Contrary to expectations, society accepted this action without incident. A new wave of “thaw” swept across the country. But it ended (and finally) in June 1962. Believing that workers can achieve their rights democratically, the workers of Novocherkassk went to a rally demanding higher wages and lower prices for essential products. Khrushchev ordered army units to shoot the protesters. That’s where “de-Stalinization” ended.

Soon (in October 1964) Khrushchev was removed from office, died in September 1971 and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

And Stalin still lies at the Kremlin wall. In 1970, a monument by sculptor Nikolai Tomsky was erected at his grave. And today there are always fresh flowers on it.

In memory of Zeldin

On October 31, 2016, theater and film actor Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin died at the age of 102.

In memory of Zeldin

On October 31, 2016, theater and film actor Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin died at the age of 102.

Artist of the Central Academic Theater Russian army(1945—2016). Full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. People's Artist of the USSR (1975). Winner of the Stalin Prize (1951). Cavalier International Prize Andrew the First-Called “For Faith and Fidelity.” Receiving it, Zeldin said:
- I belong to the generation that walked the roads of the Great Patriotic War. And defeated the strongest opponent. During my life, I have seen many events, experienced many trials that befell my beloved Motherland—Russia. They have always been overcome by our people, thanks to patriotism and selfless love for the Fatherland. Today is also a difficult period in the life of Russia. The spirit of courage and perseverance, which is personified by Andrei the First-Called and the award named after him “For Faith and Loyalty,” I would like to believe will help the current generations of Russians to cope with difficulties and win.

Current page: 1 (book has 5 pages in total) [available reading passage: 1 pages]

Font:

100% +

Mikhail Alexandrovich Zakharchuk
Alexey Batalov. Life. A game. Tragedy

Cover photo: © Tatyana Balashova / Russian Look.

Photographs used in the book:

© Dmitry Donskoy, Sergey Pyatakov, Sergey Yastrzhembsky, P. Manushin / RIA Novosti;

© Zinaida Baytsurova, Boris Kavashkin, Valery Khristoforov / Photo by ITAR-TASS;

© Tatyana Balashova / Russian Look;

© Igor Gnevashev.

© Zakharchuk M., 2018

© Design. Eksmo Publishing House LLC, 2018

Instead of a preface

Just starting to work on this manuscript, I suddenly thought: surely there is a person somewhere in the country who knows absolutely nothing about Alexei Vladimirovich Batalov. And there is nothing so reprehensible or terrible about that. I have a friend who has worked all his life, as they say now, in the mass media, who wrote several books and at one time edited a magazine published by Regina Dubovitskaya. And so, when he was already editing another magazine, I brought him an essay about the outstanding, but no, brilliant ballerina Galina Ulanova. And this editor asked me with a blue eye: who is she?

Therefore, as if anticipating any possible awkwardness in this direction, I, as they say, will begin by introducing my hero to the possible reader, as much as possible, in more detail. Well, then I will describe his life and his great acting in the theater, cinema, television and his tragedy. So, Alexey Batalov was a Soviet and Russian theater and film actor, film director, screenwriter, public figure, teacher, People's Artist of the USSR. He also had highest rank former Soviet country - Hero of Socialist Labor. He was also awarded the title of laureate of the USSR State Prize and two State Prizes for his acting work. Russian Federation, prizes of the Lenin Komsomol and the President of Russia. He was awarded the Battle Prize of the Cannes International Film Festival for 1955 and one and a half dozen major domestic prizes in the field of culture, such as “Juno”, “Kinotavr”, “Nika”, “Idol”, “Triumph”, and so on, in total about one and a half dozen different awards. Congratulating Batalov on his 80th birthday, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II noted: “Your works have significantly enriched the heritage of Russian culture. With your creative self-expression, you are laying, in the words of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, “invisible steps to Christianity” and testifying that serving beauty is inseparable from mercy, care and charity. For many years you have been actively involved in the work of the International Foundation “World of Art”, providing all possible assistance to musically gifted children with health problems and disabilities. This is a truly noble cause, and it’s gratifying that it has become one of the significant ones in your life.”

If anything can be added to the words of His Holiness, it is only that the actor was also elected Honorary President of the Paris Film Club “Firebird”, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the annual award of Russian business circles for the best acting work of the year, and an honorary member of the Board of the regional charitable organization “ Moscow Association for Promotion and Assistance to Disabled Persons with Cerebral Palsy”, member of the Board of Trustees of the Marfo-Mariinsky Charitable Society. By the way, the monastery itself was restored thanks to the efforts of Batalov. Few former Soviet actors could compare with Alexei Vladimirovich in philanthropy.

As a preliminary summary of what has been said, we can say without the risk of being misunderstood: we no longer have a cultural figure of this caliber in our country. This, as the reader understands perfectly well, is not at all about the listed regalia and merits. It is very possible that someone will have more awards and titles than Alexey Vladimirovich. But at the same time, no one will be able to say after him: “When Akhmatova came to Moscow, my room was cleared for her. Therefore, I was sincerely convinced that she was my own grandmother, and I addressed her that way until I went to school. In my six-meter box, when I went to bed, I would touch the opposite wall with my feet, and Anna Andreevna looked like a queen in the nook. But what warms my soul most is that I was the first to take her to the destroyed Tsarskoye Selo after the war. It was such an incredible day! She wandered there silently, and I walked nearby, trying not to interfere. It was an amazing sight! When I returned from the army, Akhmatova, although she was not rich herself, gave me money so that I could dress up. And I used all the money to buy my first car - a Moskvich. Mandelstam, Pasternak, Zoshchenko, Bulgakov, Ilf and Petrov regularly visited our house. Olesha, one might say, nursed me. When I directed Three Fat Men, he gave me the most valuable advice. It’s a pity that Yuri Karlovich didn’t have time to see the film. And the father of my first wife, the artist Konstantin Rotov, copied Uncle Styopa from me. Very funny and it looks like it worked out. He also joked: “Your boots are size 45, and so are Uncle Styopa’s!”

Agree, reader, that this is an amazing, hard-to-imagine environment in terms of its saturation with great figures of Russian culture, in which Alexey Vladimirovich grew up, studied, created and worked from the cradle. Figuratively speaking, it grew on the kind of soil where if you stick a shaft, a tree will grow. But the most amazing thing is how powerfully he managed to absorb best features those great people whom he encountered, melt communication with them in his own broad soul and then create amazing, unique images of his contemporaries, people from the distant past. Let's remember just some of Batalov's roles: “Big Family” - Alexey Zhurbin; “The Rumyantsev Case” - Sasha Rumyantsev; “Mother” - Pavel Vlasov; “The Cranes Are Flying” - Boris Borozdin; “Lady with a Dog” - Dmitry Gurov; “Nine Days of One Year” - Dmitry Gusev; “The Light of a Distant Star” - Pyotr Lukashev; “Three Fat Men” – Tibul; "Seventh Satellite" - Commissioner; “Living Corpse” - Fedor Protasov; “Running” - Sergey Golubkov; “A Purely English Murder” - Dr. Bottwink; “The Star of Captivating Happiness” - Prince Sergei Trubetskoy; “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” – Robert Lawson; “Moscow doesn’t believe in tears” - Georgy Ivanovich (Gosha). But only films that have definitely become classics of Russian cinematography are listed.

Among other things, all of Batalov’s relatives are extremely famous people in Russian culture. Father - Vladimir Petrovich Batalov - Soviet and Russian actor and film director. In 1925 he graduated from the Second Studio of the Moscow Art Theater. He then worked at the Moscow Art Theater for almost forty years. Worked for some time in Bolshoi Theater, at the Lenin Komsomol Theater. He taught at Mosfilm and at the institute - today's GITIS. For many years he directed the People's Theater at the ZIL plant. He starred in six films and directed one film – “Women” – himself. By the way, the main role - Varvara Kladova - was played by the outstanding actress Alla Tarasova.

Batalov’s mother, Nina Antonovna Olshevskaya, is a Soviet theater and film actress, director, and teacher. She was born into the family of the son of the chief forester of the Vladimir province and a Polish aristocrat, Countess Poniatovskaya. The successor at baptism was Mikhail Frunze, a friend of her mother, a famous revolutionary, public figure and military leader in the future. At the age of 17, Nina Olshevskaya came to Moscow and entered the studio at the Art Theater. Her course was supervised by Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky. A year later she married Art Theater actor Vladimir Batalov. In 1928, Alexey was born to them. After graduating from the studio, the young actress was accepted into the troupe, which, of course, was considered a huge success. However, after working at the Khudozhestvenny Theater for several years, Nina moved to the Red Army Theater. Simply because she was given only episodic roles. On one of her tours, she met Viktor Ardov and soon married him. During the Great Patriotic War, she was evacuated with her children and worked at the Bugulma Russian Drama Theater. Then she returned to the Red Army Theater. Possessing an undoubted gift for recitation, Olshevskaya almost never spoke publicly, but she generously taught this art to others. Nina Antonovna was part of A. A. Akhmatova’s inner circle. Akhmatova lived in the Ardovs’ apartment on Bolshaya Ordynka during her visits to Moscow and considered it her “Moscow home.” Anna Andreevna inscribed her collection “The Running of Time” to Olshevskaya: “To my Nina, who knows everything about me, with love from Akhmatova.” Nina Olshevskaya starred in several films. In collaboration with director Leonid Chertok, she directed the famous film “Earring with Malaya Bronnaya”. She died at the age of 90. She was buried at the capital's Preobrazhenskoe cemetery.

Alexei Batalov’s stepfather, Viktor Efimovich Ardov, is a Russian Soviet satirist, playwright, screenwriter, publicist and cartoonist. In 1918 he graduated from the First Men's Gymnasium in Moscow. He worked as an actor and entertainer in the “Don’t Cry” cabaret. In 1925 he graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow Institute of National Economy named after G.V. Plekhanov. Since 1921, he began publishing his own cartoons with accompanying text in the magazine “Spectacles” and subsequently illustrated his satirical collections himself. He regularly published in the satirical publications “Crocodile” and “Red Pepper”. Together with L.V. Nikulin, he wrote the comedies “Squabbles” and “Article 114 of the Criminal Code”, “Cockroachism”. With V.Z. Mass - the comedy “Birthday Girl”. He wrote humorous monologues for pop artists: V. Ya. Khenkin, R. V. Zelenaya, A. I. Raikin, B. Ya. Petker and others. Since 1927, he was in charge of the literary part of the Leningrad Satire Theater. In 1942, he volunteered for the front and served with the rank of major in the newspaper “Forward to Victory!” awarded the order Red Star. Viktor Ardov is the author of more than 40 collections of humorous prose, film scripts for the films “The Shining Path” and “Happy Flight”, theoretical works on the technique of conversational genre on stage and in the circus. His book of memoirs “Studies for Portraits” about V.V. Mayakovsky, M.A. Bulgakov, A.A. Akhmatova, M.M. Zoshchenko, I.A. Ilf, E.P. Petrov, M. was published posthumously. A. Svetlov, Yu. K. Olesha, M. E. Koltsov, I. V. Ilyinsky, F. G. Ranevskaya and others (republished under the title “Great and Funny” in 2005). Viktor Ardov was friends with a number of writers and figures of Russian culture who lived for a long time in his apartment 13 in house number 17 on Bolshaya Ordynka. Among them are I. A. Brodsky, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, M. M. Zoshchenko, B. L. Pasternak, M. I. Tsvetaeva, A. A. Tarkovsky, F. G. Ranevskaya and others. A. A. Akhmatova was especially close to the Ardov family, who stayed in their house during her visits to Moscow in 1934–1966. Now a monument to Anna Akhmatova has been erected in the courtyard of the Ardov house in Moscow.

The first wife of Alexei Batalov was Irina Konstantinovna - the daughter of the artist Konstantin Pavlovich Rotov and the children's writer Ekaterina Borisovna Borisova, then the adopted daughter of the screenwriter and literary historian N. A. Kovarsky. From this marriage a daughter, Nadezhda, was born, who did not maintain a relationship with her father.

The second wife, Gitana Arkadyevna Leontenko, is a circus performer. This marriage produced a daughter, Maria, who suffered from cerebral palsy from birth. Nevertheless, Maria graduated from the screenwriting department of VGIK and is still engaged in literary work.

Alexei Batalov’s half-brother, Mikhail Viktorovich Ardov, is a writer, publicist and memoirist; cleric of the non-canonical Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, archpriest; rector of the Moscow Church of St. Royal Martyrs and New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Golovin Cemetery, Dean of the Moscow Deanery of the ROAC. Until 1993 he was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, served in the Yaroslavl and Moscow dioceses. In the summer of 1993, he left the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and moved to the Russian Church Abroad, becoming a clergyman of the Suzdal diocese. He went into schism. He opposed the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, vowing never to enter this temple. Declared his opposition to the Olympic Games and any sports competitions, as well as inadmissibility of activities physical culture and sports for Christians. I had a difficult relationship with my brother on religious grounds.

The second half-brother is Boris Viktorovich Ardov. Studied at the MXAT School-Studio on the course of A. Karev. He worked in the Sovremennik theaters and the Central Theater of the Soviet Army. He studied at the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors and taught at VGIK. He starred in several films, including “The Living and the Dead” and “Three Fat Men.”

Uncle - Nikolai Petrovich Batalov - Russian and Soviet theater and film actor, Honored Artist of the RSFSR. He studied at the Second Studio of the Moscow Art Theater. He married the famous actress Olga Androvskaya. Taught. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

Aunt – Olga Nikolaevna Androvskaya (Schultz) – an outstanding Soviet Russian theater and film actress, teacher. People's Artist of the USSR, laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree. She was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and four medals. In 1914, she graduated from the Moscow Women’s Gymnasium L. O. Vyazemskaya with a gold medal and entered the medical courses. She worked in a clinic for a year, caring for the wounded coming from the front. At the insistence of her father, in 1915 she entered the Faculty of Law at the Higher Women's Courses of V. A. Poltoratskaya. During her studies, she took part in amateur performances. In 1918 she entered the Korsch Theater, where she received her first theater lessons. At the same time she worked at the Drama Studio named after F.I. Chaliapin. In memory of her younger brother Andrei, who died in 1924 from wounds received in the Civil War, she took the pseudonym Androvskaya. Since 1924 - actress of the Moscow Art Theater. In 1938, she made her film debut – playing the role of landowner Popova in I. M. Annensky’s film “The Bear” based on A. P. Chekhov. Together with her film partner M.I. Zharov, a year later she starred in the next film by I.M. Annensky - “The Man in a Case” based on the story by A.P. Chekhov. Until her last days, O.N. Androvskaya remained creatively active. On October 6, 1970, the premiere of the play “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” based on F. M. Dostoevsky with Androvskaya in the role of General Krakhotkina took place. In September 1972, she underwent a major operation, but almost immediately after leaving the hospital, she independently began preparing the role of Turusina in A. N. Ostrovsky’s comedy “Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man,” which she had long dreamed of, but which she never had the chance to play. . Already terminally ill, she brilliantly played the role of Mrs. Conti in the famous play “Solo for a chiming clock” by O. Zahradnik, directed by O. N. Efremov. Other “old men” of the Moscow Art Theater were also involved in the performance - A. N. Gribov, V. Ya. Stanitsyn, M. I. Prudkin, M. M. Yanshin. The premiere took place on December 13, 1973. At the same time, the play was filmed. This role turned out to be her last.

Little is known about the Batalov sisters and aunts. But Zinaida Batalova was married to the Moscow Art Theater actor Mikhail Verevkin. And one of Maria’s husbands was Viktor Stanitsyn ( real name- Gese). Outstanding theater actor, luminary of the Moscow Art Theater stage, four-time winner of the Stalin Prize. He played many prominent roles in the theater and several notable roles in cinema: “Ranks and People”, “Dawns of Paris”, “The Fall of Berlin”, “War and Peace”. In addition, Viktor Yakovlevich taught at the Moscow Art Theater School for many years. Finally, it was he who led the course in which Alexey Batalov studied.

Batalov’s niece, Anna Borisovna Ardova, is a Russian theater, film and television actress, best known for her leading role in the sitcom “One for All” on the Domashny TV channel. Actress of the Theater. Mayakovsky. In 2013, she hosted the game “Fort Boyard” on Channel One. Honored Artist of Russia. She starred in fifty films.

Now, at least in a few words, I should probably outline the story of my personal acquaintance with the hero of the further story. Somewhere in the early eighties, the famous artist of the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater Kirill Lavrov was awarded the Lenin Prize for playing the role of V.I. Lenin in the play “Rereading Again...”. Kirill Yuryevich celebrated his the highest award in the small hall of the House of Actors, where I was a regular, as a member of the bureau of the All-Russian Theater Society. Having learned about this celebration, I, with a bottle of champagne at the ready, entered the room with a clear parade step into the room where the celebration of the winner of the most prestigious Soviet prize had already passed far beyond its equator, and loudly asked those gathered for three and a half (!) minutes of attention. My voice, of course, is not as strong as Richard the Lionheart, whose roar made horses crouch. But I silenced Lavrov’s well-drunk guests. And in complete ringing silence, I said a toast in honor of the laureate, who, with my rank of captain, served in aviation in the Far East.

The guests, and even the hero of the occasion himself, were frankly shocked by the appearance of the captain, and the bottle of champagne, and especially by my loud assurance about three and a half minutes. But it was during the specified time that I reported to those present the military biography of the newly-minted laureate, which I knew, if not by heart, then quite well. In those days, I served in the newspaper “Red Star” and considered all cultural figures who were directly related to the army and navy exclusively as my potential heroes. So, even before the war, Lavrov applied to the naval school, but he was not accepted due to his age. When fascist Germany attacked our country, Lavrov was sixteen years old. He again went to the military registration and enlistment office. Once again, the military commissar categorically stopped the young man’s desire to fight. And the Nazis were already approaching Leningrad. Together with his peers, Kirill had to be evacuated to Novosibirsk. There he stood at the machine and during a shift regularly produced two norms of turned parts for military equipment. But as soon as he reached conscription age, he immediately entered the Astrakhan Military Aviation School. Victory found Lavrov in the distant Kuril Islands as an aircraft technician. He served the Pe-2 dive bombers - popularly known as Peshka, and in the Finnish war - Pekka-Emelya - the most popular Soviet dive bomber. As an aviation specialist, Lavrov had to work hard. The “Pawn” was finicky not only in piloting, but also in maintenance. But all the same, pilots and technicians in the Kuril Islands lived by the rule: time for business, time for fun. Their artistic performance was at a decent level. It was there, in a soldier’s amateur performance, that Lieutenant Lavrov first played the role of Bob Morphy in K. Simonov’s “The Russian Question”.

After my final words Alexey Batalov approached Lavrov, kissed him and said feelingly: “Thank you, Kiryusha, for such an original point in our meeting today. This is really quite unusual, non-standard! Few of those present here knew that you, it turns out, are an aircraft technical officer, and even a captain. But what is especially noteworthy is that this captain, the scoundrel, finished it in exactly three and a half minutes - I timed it!”

Amazed Kirill Yuryevich began to laugh and swear ridiculously that he had never dreamed that he was seeing me for the first time in his life. And that was the absolute truth. But no one believed him. Then he came up to me, thanked me for the original joke and somehow almost guiltily suggested: “If you want, let’s come with us. Let's sit in Strela. Need I tell you, dear reader, with what joy I agreed! In three Volga cars we went to the Leningradsky station. I happened to sit in the back seat next to Batalov and Yuri Senkevich, who, as it later turned out, were Kirill Lavrov’s closest friends. We were talking drunkenly about something, but I didn’t remember it. But they exchanged phone numbers. The next day, I, who have been professing the iron rule of forging iron while it is hot all my life, called Alexei Vladimirovich and asked him to give an interview for Red Star. To my indescribable surprise, the artist refused, not so much aggressively, but almost irritably. He kind of said that it’s one thing to chat in a drunken group and quite another thing to do an interview for a famous newspaper. Moreover, a military one, which he personally never even held in his hands. Frankly, I was so dumbfounded and confused that I couldn’t even come up with an answer to Batalov’s “bang.” However, then he sat, pondered, leafed through reference books and, as they say, fully armed, again disturbed Alexey Vladimirovich on the phone.

As one would expect, Batalov began to refuse, although not as aggressively as the last time. He told me that he was an extremely distant man from the army. “I honestly admit to you: I served as a conscript in an extremely gentle regime at the Theater Soviet army where my mother worked. I only held a machine gun in my hands three or four times. And so we were engaged in security and economic work. But mostly I played on stage. True, only episodic roles.” “No, dear Alexey Vladimirovich,” I retorted, “you served in a special company at the theater from bell to bell, received the military specialty of a general driver there, and even drove the head of the Central Automotive Service, Major General, in a UAZ. Your service record includes all military insignia. If you think that this is not a reason for speaking in a military newspaper, then I will also add that you played soldier Boris in the film “The Cranes Are Flying,” a military doctor in the film “My Dear Man,” and a commissar in the film “The Seventh Satellite.” In the film “Star of Captivating Happiness” you are Guard Colonel Prince Trubetskoy. Did I miss anything? - “So those are the roles. And service, in my understanding, is something special. So don't be offended by my refusal and don't misunderstand me. It’s not right for me, a civilian to the core, to show off in a military newspaper. Then those people who actually served in the army or navy will laugh at me.”

It became clear to me that “about the bathhouse,” like that anecdotal foreman, I agreed: there would be no bathhouse. And with a fallen voice, I mumbled: “Yes, to be honest, Alexey Vladimirovich, I just wanted to talk to you, listen to you. When will such an opportunity arise again? “This time, I invite you to the filming of a TV show that is being prepared for my 55th birthday. There, willy-nilly, I will have to tell a lot about myself. We’ll chat there during breaks, since you’re so persistent.”

...The television recording lasted about four hours. Then I decided to approach Batalov and thank him for his frank and honest story about my own work, which I transcribed in detail. The artist marveled at my ability to write cursively. I asked him some other questions, although there was more than enough material for a newspaper publication. I repeat: Batalov was amazingly frank and generous with his memories. It felt like I was preparing for the recording very seriously. And during that short conversation, I became an involuntary witness to the actor’s amazing manners, which I had never seen before. “Marina,” he asked the director, “are the cameras turned off? I want to smoke so much that I no longer have the strength.” - “Alexey Vladimirovich, I didn’t know. You could smoke on camera. A lot of people do this." - “What are you talking about, smoking on camera, if it’s not a role, is as good as going out and stripping naked on the street.”

Early eighties. Nobody yet has any idea that smoking is harmful. The greatest praise for any meeting is the statement: the smoke was so thick that one could hang an ax. Another woman with a cigarette was as rare as a rural cart on Tverskaya today. But Batalov turned out to be so surprisingly demanding of himself. I was shocked! And since those distant times, my feeling of admiration for the great actor has only grown stronger. I don’t know, I’m not sure that I can convey my own love and admiration for the great, selfless activity of “the main intellectual of the Soviet Union Alexei Batalov” in this book. But, God knows, I will try my best. And may He help me...

Attention! This is an introductory fragment of the book.

If you liked the beginning of the book, then full version can be purchased from our partner - distributor of legal content, LLC liters.