From the memories of the childhood of the late professor V.V. Bolotov

Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov is the son of the cleric of the Trinity Cathedral in the city of Ostashkov, Tver province - Vasily Timofeevich Bolotov. His mother Marya Ivanovna was the daughter of a priest in the village of Kravotyni 1. Her father, Ioann Vasilyevich Vishnyakov, died long ago, leaving her in the arms of his wife Anna Stefanovna as a little girl. Thus, Vasily Vasilyevich’s mother grew up as an orphan and lived with her mother continuously in the village of Kravotyni, in her own house, which still stands today. She married a girl on May 10, 1853, at 27 years of age, to Vasily Timofeevich Bolotov, a widower who had a son and a daughter from his first wife. A widower with children, a clerk, no doubt, could not look for a rich bride and settled on the poor Kravotynskaya orphan - a priest, who, just as she could not bring anything with her to the house of her widower’s husband, met nothing there except poverty. The late mother (she died in 1899) of Vasily Vasilyevich Marya Ivanovna said that when she arrived at the apartment after the wedding (the wedding was in Ostashkov), creditors came to her husband to demand money for the coffin of his first deceased wife. Marya Ivanovna’s family life with her widower husband was short: in the fall of the same year, 1853, she remained a widow. Usually every year, especially in the fall, when Lake Seliger, which surrounds the city of Ostashkov on three sides, freezes, and in the spring, when it opens up, many unwary people pay with their lives. It so happened that when the reserves became, i.e. the shores for a certain area were covered with light ice, and Vasily Timofeevich’s geese, carried away by the prospect of waters beyond the line of young ice, moved away from the shore, then Vasily Timofeevich, so as not to lose, perhaps, his only asset, set off in pursuit of them; but the young ice could not withstand the brave beater and he plunged into the depths of the waters (the shores of the city of Ostashkov are immediately deep), without any hope of salvation, because on young ice there is almost no way to help anyone. This happened on November 16, 1853. Vasily Timofeevich was 45 years old at the time of his death. Having lost her husband so soon, Marya Ivanovna, then already pregnant, quickly decided where to take refuge. There was nothing to stay in Ostashkov: the deceased herself said that while living with her husband in the city, they acquired nothing except debts. After the death of Vasily Timofeevich, all the more or less valuable property was sold to pay off debts; the rest was subsequently divided between the stepson, stepdaughter and then Vasily Vasilyevich, whose share was forty rubles 2. This is the capital with which the tireless worker of science subsequently entered life. Where did the young widow go? In Kravotyn lived Marya Ivanovna’s mother, Anna Stefanovna, who also had no means, at least she had her own house there, where she herself spent her whole life before her marriage, she knew the people there and the ways to better manage her difficult, bitter lot. It was here that she immediately moved after the death of her husband, where, a month and a half later, she gave birth to a boy, later a famous professor, who was recorded in the birth register on January 1, 1854. But there is a small inaccuracy, about which Vasily Vasilyevich wrote to me in his letter dated January 13, 1900: “I myself was recorded as born on January 1, 1854, but in reality I was born during the time when vespers are being celebrated in the Nile Desert 3 (a detail etched in the memory of the mother who gave birth) on December 31, 1853.” The baby's baptism took place: January 1, 1854, on the day of the angel of the newborn - St. Basil the Great. The recipients were: Fr. Kravotynsky. Deacon John Mikhailovich Kolosov and his daughter, the maiden Ekaterina Ivanovna, who is still alive today. The latter writes to me: “my father and I loved him (i.e. Vasily Vasilyevich) very much. I was so proud to have such a godson, and his death was very, very bitter for me.” What, first of all, did a young widow with a newborn baby in her arms undertake to earn a piece of daily bread? According to Vasily Vasilyevich’s godmother, “she first baked prosphora.” Probably, her mother Anna Stefanovna did this before; but this occupation must have been found to provide little support, because I, being two years older than Vasily Vasilyevich, from my earliest childhood remember that the Kravotyn mallow maker was already another widow - old woman Anastasia Parfenovna, and Marya Ivanovna, too, from early childhood I remember that she was always littered with dyed, nanka, tow, lustrine, various cheap calicoes, ribbons, frills and other accessories of village tailoring. But village tailoring is also difficult and not very profitable. I judge this from my late mother, who was also an involuntary – out of necessity – seamstress in the same Kravotyny. If you sew something by hand (at that time there could be no mention of sewing machines), it takes a long time to sew, but for what you sew you get a pittance, and then with payment at different times. And since there is generally little money in the villages, the village customers paid with milk, eggs, fish, firewood, straw, and hay - in a word, with everything they could, because the poor widows had a glaring need for all this. Marya Ivanovna was a wonderful woman! Kind, reasonable, hardworking, patient. We never heard her complain to anyone about her shortcomings, and they were constant companions in her life, like all the disadvantaged. She always used to caress us kids, caress us, ask us about this and that, and scold us if she notices some stupid prank. But it was difficult to hide from her: she was always there, and even in the hot summer season, when everyone is in the field - at work or in haymaking, she sits at home, like a permanent sentry, at her window and sews, and we were still afraid to play pranks near her house, in case we went somewhere far away. However, we did this not so much out of fear of her, but out of a childish, unconscious feeling of respect for this good, truthful working woman. Her gaze, however, was a little stern, but we were not afraid of her, because with a childish instinct we felt her kindness of heart, which shone in her stern-looking facial features and knew, or rather felt, that if she ever scolded one of the naughty people, then for the cause - that’s how it should be. I remember such an incident from my early childhood. As usual, when all our household went to the field during the summer working season, I was left alone with the day's provisions on the table, such as black bread or rye pie with porridge or onions. The outer doors were locked, and my only exit and entrance was not a casement, but a sliding kitchen window, the lower half of which could be raised to the same level as the upper, supported by a support adapted to the size of the glass. Climbing out of such a window onto the rubble of a house and climbing back in, grabbing the lower edge of the frame along the log wall (three to four crowns), was a matter of one minute. But this is where the treacherous window tricked me. Climbing out of the window and already standing on the rubble, with a careless movement of my hand I knocked out the support, and the raised half of the window, swollen from the night rain, sank so tightly that it was in no way possible to lift it again, and I found myself completely cut off from the food supplies left for me, and the day was just beginning and it was very far from twilight. Out of grief, I first ran with the boys to play pranks; but the feeling of hunger returned again to home. In such a critical situation, Marya Ivanovna probably noticed me (her house from ours is across the road, somewhat obliquely), came out, and took me to her place; and fed. There was also the following. My mother’s house burned down (I was already serving as a regimental priest at that time). Somehow they scraped together the money to buy a finished log house, transported it to the village and it was necessary to hire carpenters, who demanded grub and a special “vatera”. It was still possible to bake bread for them and make a brew somewhere, but regarding the apartment, the mother, who did not have a shelter herself, was simply in difficulty. And then Marya Ivanovna came to the rescue! In addition to the front hut, she had an old back hut (the usual apartment of a village teacher or a newly arrived member of the clergy) - on the same entryway as the first one, with a common external entrance. This time she was free and the kind Marya Ivanovna generously invited her mother to place carpenters there. And how much suffering the good woman had to endure from this unscrupulous crowd, from their unprintable words, especially on holidays - from shag, etc., and all this lasted for two weeks. For all peasant women, and even the Kravotyn clergy women, she was always a good interlocutor, a comforter and a wise adviser. Customers visited her from almost all the villages of the large Kravotynsky three-part (at that time) parish, and she, thanks to her craft and naturally excellent memory, knew all the ins and outs of village life, with all the news and issues of the day, and remembered everything. As I see now, he sews, sometimes he wears glasses and at the same time listens, or asks some woman and makes his comments, instructions and admonitions. A truthful, heartfelt word, of course, is understood instinctively by the simplest people, and to her, “to Mother Marya Ivanovna,” they came from all sides with orders, troubles and misfortunes, and she will console everyone, reassure them and give everyone kind, wise, practical advice. For this, everyone who knew her loved and respected her. Our rural clergy, especially in its female half, cannot boast of a friendly, peace-loving life, and Kravotyn in this case (at least at that time) was no exception. There were parties hostile to one another; but Marya Ivanovna, as far as I remember, always maintained neutrality in these cases, which earned her universal love and respect even among choir members. Chained by assiduous work to the house, she did not isolate herself, but became a hermit in it: she gladly accepted the invitation of members of the clergy, and even respectable peasants, to visit, on one occasion or another; received visitors, cordially treating them to what God had sent. She was very religious - she visited the church of God on holidays without fail, - she loved to often go to the Nilova hermitage (where she took Vasily Vasilyevich with her). As I remember now, as a child, her serious, stern, prayerful face, illuminated by the light from the candle in her hands on Holy Saturday Matins. She always had some kind of special respect for the priests: she never condemned any of them, and if it happened that someone was talking about the unsightly side of one of the priests, she always went to the meeting with a word of apology and justification. “Father Alexander Ignatievich”, “Father Timofey Alekseevich”, and for other young people, behind the scenes of course, “popushka” - these are her usual expressions. She always took a blessing from each priest. I vividly remember how glad she was to see me in a cassock (in 1879) when I came to Kravotyn for the first time as a young priest! Our grandmothers and mothers usually did not know how to read and write, and at that time there were almost no schools in the villages, and it would be good if someone somehow learned to read and write at home. Marya Ivanovna, without going to school, knew how to read and loved to read and write, although in her own way - semi-regularly. It used to be that she would send a letter from my mother (my mother was illiterate), and then during a meeting she would ask: “Did you make out my scribbles that I scrawled for you?” Yes, she was a worthy woman in all respects! And it’s no wonder that such a mother, naturally rich in spiritual gifts, produced such a wonderful son as the unforgettable and irreplaceable Vasily Vasilyevich! A boy was born, and naturally all the mother’s thoughts, hopes and aspirations focused on the newborn, who became her inner spiritual world. From the first days, the young widow, of course, devoted herself to the most proper care for him. The newborn received no less love from his grandmother Anna Stefanovna, who died already when Vasily Vasilyevich was studying at the Ostashkovsky Theological School. Under the most favorable conditions, the baby's physical development progressed. While other children of poor Kravotyn families in the summer, for example, the lean season, were left in the arms of some helpless old woman or a teenage nanny (almost the same as a baby), with a pacifier in their mouth made of cow's milk, often boiled with poppy seeds (so that the child would sleep longer), Marya Ivanovna, by the nature of her household activities, was constantly with her brainchild. She fed him herself, of course always on time and, like a woman of good healthy build, poured fresh healthy juices into the emerging life. With proper natural breastfeeding from the mother and with careful care and examination, the child grew up “strong”, free from various diseases characteristic of childhood. I remember now a dark-haired boy of about 2 years old, dressed in a gray cotton shirt, with a blue belt, on a hillside in the summer with his mother. (This is almost the earliest impression preserved in my childhood memory regarding Vasily Vasilyevich). And the worthy woman Marya Ivanovna did not take her eyes off her “son Vasilyushka” (that’s what she always called him, passing on something about him to acquaintances and even introducing him, already a professor, to strangers). He was of average height, but densely built, as if cast from some solid mass. This is how I knew him, both in person and on cards, until the last fateful years, which quickly changed him and just as quickly brought him to the grave. He was a little stooped, he ran around clumsily as a child and waved his arms in an ugly way, which is explained by a sedentary lifestyle (his mother was also stooped) and a lack of physical exercise. Accustomed to living face to face with his mother, a well-known homebody, he frolicked little with us children and almost never took part in our common games, such as rumbling, striva, rounders, etc. - although, due to the feeling of a hostile public, he still stuck with us, swarming somewhere nearby in the sand or chasing a moth. In general, he grew up as a savage and at first did not leave his home. He began to approach our house (across the road, somewhat obliquely) only later; but there’s a problem here: opposite my house there is a well, which is essentially completely safe for us children, because the outer frame was very high above the surface of the ground; but as soon as we enthusiastically approached the well, more interested in the puddles around it, his grandmother Anna Stefanovna, as if she would grow out of the ground, would already call: “Vasilyushka, Vasilyushka, go home!” Having become accustomed, over time, to his street and the shore of the lake, completely safe (in shallow water at a great distance) for children accustomed to water, he did not know the other streets of his Kravotyny at all - for him they were, at least before his school period, some kind of wild places where one could not go without danger for one’s life. And his mother would not have allowed her “Vasilyushka” to be carried away by the children’s company somewhere far from home: she kept a vigilant eye on us everywhere. Without taking any part in our common street games, he still could not help but succumb to some children's entertainment, which had the nature of games, single ones - at home. So, when I entered Marya Ivanovna’s house, I remember “Vasilyushka” really loved to launch a wooden top from a quickly unrolled thread and enjoy how it buzzed and spun, describing different circles on the floor. Subsequently, he had a metal top (made of painted tin) with a typewriter - probably a gift brought by some St. Petersburg resident. But most of all he was fascinated by the ringing. He had a whole series of Valdai toy bells, each smaller than the other - up to the size of a thimble. Sometimes, somewhere in the corner of the room, he would string these bells onto a stretched rope (which represented a bell tower), tie the strings to the reeds, and ring them with enthusiasm. But these children's entertainments were, so to speak, incidental to him. His main occupation was various books. His mother taught him the secret of reading very early. At the age of 7, he read perfectly and, having a naturally phenomenal memory 4, conveyed what he read with amazing accuracy. I remember in my 8th year I was sent to the rural Kravotyn school. Learning by the alphabetic method (“az, buki,” – “buki-az-ba-ba”), we, new entrants, could barely learn the art of reading Slavic in a year. Always reading the Book of Hours or the Psalter, I really wanted to have some book of the civil press so that I could try my hand at it. I persistently pestered my father about this. Finally, my wish came true: my father brought from the parish some kind of civil press book (quite thick, like supplements, translated novels to modern newspapers and magazines), without binding and, most importantly, without beginning and end. I savored the mystery of this book for a long time, but I could not understand anything, and the words in it were somehow incomprehensible, like “marquise” “marquise” (obviously brought from St. Petersburg by some peasant). So the whole matter was limited to just the process of reading Gogol’s Osip. Vasily Vasilyevich found out that I had some new book and asked me for it. Handing him this book, I was, however, perplexed as to how he, without studying at our rural school, under Dimitri Maksimovich Speransky 5 (where it seemed then that it was only possible to acquire various secrets of knowledge), took on such books? Meanwhile, Vasily Vasilyevich, either alone or together with his mother, coped with this matter perfectly. A few days later the book was returned to me, and for quite a long time he kept catching me on the street, telling me the contents of the book he had read. And so, his mother taught him to read very early; but how she could give the basic rules for such beautiful calligraphy of Vasily Vasilyevich, when she herself wrote “scribbles” all her life, is also no longer a mystery. I can’t say whether the village teacher D.M. Speransky was living in Marya Ivanovna’s apartment at that time or was just eating, but I remember well that our teacher always visited Marya Ivanovna (she was very fond of intelligent people) and, of course, supervised Vasily Vasilyevich, both in reading and writing. I even slightly remember the school copybooks on Vasily Vasilyevich’s table, from which he drew letters and words. About Vasily Vasilyevich’s childhood, during the period of his initial education at home, his godmother (Ekaterina Ivanovna Kolosova) writes to me; in April of this year: “from the very first years of his studies, he observed nature and never parted with a book. His childhood years were unlike those of other children. His games were not like everyone else's. There was a common favorite." Possessing naturally excellent talents and being already quite developed, under the guidance of his mother, Vasily Vasilyevich entered the Ostashkov Theological School fully prepared - he immediately became the favorite of the teachers and rightfully took the place of the first student, which no one dared to challenge him - neither in the school nor in the seminary. I had to hear from one teacher that in a class where Vasily Bolotov is, you need to make lists of students differently: write “Vasily Bolotov”, underline and then: 1st student is so-and-so, 2nd - and so on. Thanks to his phenomenal memory, everything was remarkably easy for him. I had to stay with him in Ostashkov for a little over two years in the same apartment; (from the bourgeois Smolnikova). For us, for example, Nikulin’s arithmetic, with its heavy syllables and incomprehensibly composed arithmetic rules, was simply gibberish, especially since, according to the teaching method of that time (no offense to the old teachers, they are not to blame for this), memorization of the rules proceeded on its own, and solving problems in its own order, as if these were two separate subjects; but for Vasily Vasilyevich all this is nonsense: once you read it and prepare for an answer; and so on in all subjects. He didn’t even put his books in the apartment’s common closet or on the common shelves, but always kept them locked in his chest and, when necessary, he would unlock it, take out one or the other, read the lesson once assigned, and put everything back in the chest until he went to class. Then everything needed was taken out and put into a backpack (the current school backpack, only he wore it not over his shoulders, but under his arm). Therefore, all his books were always clean, brand new, as if they had been bought yesterday. When Vasily Vasilyevich was still in the 2nd grade of the school, for fourth-graders, preparing lessons from the sacred history of the New Testament, which was then studied according to the Gospel, he was simply a treasure. Some, while rewriting the table of contents of the given stories, will make a mistake in the quotation, others will completely forget the note on the apartment, and you need to repeat what was assigned before the lesson - now to Vasily Vasilyevich: “Where, they say, is said in the Gospel, let’s say, about the resurrection of the Nain youth?” and Vasily Vasilyevich, without straining his memory at all, answers: “in the Evangelist Luke in chapter 17 from 11 to 17 art. If this concerned such a sacred story, which other evangelists also mention, then Vasily Vasilyevich would quote all chapters and verses without difficulty. Exercises at home or in class, whether in Latin or in Greek, he composed so carefully and correctly that, it seems, the teacher’s pen never touched anything for correction: no matter how neat the exercise was presented, that’s how he would receive it, with the usual signature - “excellenter”. Vasily Vasilyevich knew all subjects equally well, and Fr. the caretaker of the school (priest at that time of the Church of the Transfiguration) Ioann Petrovich Saltykov was especially proud of him in front of the public at the so-called “public exams.” As I remember now. Everything was already prepared for the exam: the 3rd grade, free of desks and benches, was decorated with greenery; there was a large table covered with green cloth with all the accessories for the exam; rows of chairs were arranged for honored visitors; all of them are assembled - both student singers, students from all classes intended to be called to the middle, and teachers led by Fr. caretaker. The Ostashkov postmaster (university education) arrived before everyone else. O. the caretaker, in order to keep the guest occupied before the start of the public exam, calls Vasily Vasilyevich (who was then already in the 3rd grade), recommends him as the beauty of the school and invites the postmaster to give Bolotov questions on any subject from the school course. There was silence, and we all seemed to hold our breath, anticipating the pleasure of how victoriously our Vasily Vasilyevich would “cut” to every question proposed. A wide variety of questions are asked from different subjects. As always, Vasily Vasilyevich answers everything perfectly, intelligently, correctly. The examiner, apparently, wanted to confuse (at least it seemed so to us at the time) Bolotov with something and asked him: “translate - canis ut canis.” Vasily Vasilyevich, not noticing the catch here, translates: “a dog is like a dog.” The postmaster smiled and asked: “Is there a verb with the same root in Latin?” Then Vasily Vasilyevich somewhat embarrassedly translates: “eat like a dog.” Since then, we have not fallen in love with this little postmaster with black sideburns and grey, wearing glasses (who, of course, was neither warm nor cold from this) - we have not loved him because he catches a good student in a play on words. About 2 years after Vasily Vasilyevich entered the theological school, mother took her “son Vasilyushka” from the apartment of the bourgeois Smolnikova, where he stood with me, and put him on another to the cathedral (if I’m not mistaken) cleric, old man Ivan Abramovich Dryzlov, who, no doubt, remembered Vasily Timofeevich - Vasily’s father Vasilievich. It was in this apartment that he graduated from college. The reasons for transferring Vasily Vasilyevich to another apartment were, of course, very solid. There were a lot of us at the bourgeoisie Smolnikova’s place: there were never fewer than 12 people, but there were up to 15. Our entire premises consisted of one small room downstairs with a kitchen. The reason for such crowding is the commercial calculation of the hostess. Typically, the annual fee for an apartment, table, lighting, heating, washing clothes and a bath (once every 2 weeks) is 24 rubles. per student, i.e. exactly as much as the treasury gave per year for the maintenance of an orphan pupil. Consequently, the more students the mistress collects, the more profitable it is for her, but for that it is incomparably worse for us. On warm days - spring, summer, early autumn - you could still study in the yard, in the dressing room, bathhouse, somewhere on the sloping roof of a barn, or climb onto the firewood if the owner was not looking, and in late autumn and winter it was really bad. I remember, 12-13 people sat around the table, with one tallow candle, - we sat close together - shoulder to shoulder (don’t even think about writing at this time), - they taught out loud, everyone tried to shout out their neighbor, which made it look unimaginably wild a concert that lasted until dinner, or rather until the person in charge of the apartment shouted “libri” and listened from books, who knows. With such cramped conditions, there could, of course, be no sleeping comforts: our beds were the floor, and the mattresses were felt, which covered the entire floor space from wall to wall and lay close together. Our food, in addition to cabbage soup and porridge with lard or vegetable oil (depending on the time), varied during Lent, for example, watery kvass with grated horseradish and bread crumbs for future use, which resembled a “jail,” and in early summer, when the lake is swarming with mosquitoes and bleak fish greedily catch them, throwing themselves onto the surface of the water, fish soup. But what kind of ear was that! Usually this fish (1 1/2–2 kopecks per pound) was not cleaned and, having boiled, filled a huge stove pot, or cast iron, with mosquitoes and, in almost the same form, all this was moved into a large wooden bowl at dinner. Those students who were richer drank tea with white bread from the hostess upstairs (according to the special arrangement of the parents with her). Vasily Vasilyevich was supported by this, but not every day. The mutual relations of the apartment students were not distinguished by good manners, for even our school in those days was involved in the spirit of “Pomyalovism.” In apartments, especially large ones, there were always tomboys and mischief-makers (mostly from older ages), who set the tone for the apartment through various outrages. True, such impudent people received special nicknames corresponding to their deeds, for example: “Vaska is a robber,” and these nicknames remained with them for the rest of their lives; but, nevertheless, this not only did not curb their “evil arts”, but gave them more energy. It was considered necessary to bring every newcomer (newly admitted to school) “into the baptized faith.” Usually all the traditional rough evolutions were performed on such people: they were pinched, pushed, beaten and the oil was picked. It’s good if someone had an older brother or a strong (physically) acquaintance, he was insured against wild attacks; but everyone else had to inevitably go through this difficult school. True, Vasily Vasilyevich was somewhat of an exception in this regard. In the first place, in general games, when the “mallets” were most likely to hit, he, as usual, did not take part; secondly, they were afraid to openly cause any offense to Vasily Vasilyevich: the authorities could stand up for him (and then they flogged him very painfully), and well-behaved comrades would not allow the mischievous people to offend Bolotov. But there were times when lovers of fist violence could perform wild tricks on their victims with impunity. This is when, it happened, we walked the whole apartment (and it happened that two or three more would join along the way) while it was still dark, at 4 o’clock in the morning, to the Church of the Transfiguration for the festive matins, or on November and December days even before dawn at the school. Here every now and then I heard: “Why are you fighting, why are you pushing!” and who this “you” is is unknown. Some mischievous person spotted a victim on the way, ran up from behind, pushed him and disappeared into the crowd: fortunately it was dark. In these cases, Vasily Vasilyevich did not escape the common fate - he, too, was poor because he was a novice, he always dressed not richly, but cleanly, he behaved beautifully, and for his excellent diligence and success he was a favorite as bosses and teachers alike. Mother Marya Ivanovna often came from Kravotyn to Ostashkov to see her “son Vasilyushka.” You can be positively sure that he never complained to his mother about the inconveniences of apartment life. But that nothing could escape Marya Ivanovna’s watchful gaze is also true. And so she decides to transfer him to another apartment - to the cathedral cleric, as mentioned above, Ivan Abramovich Dryzlov, who charged his students a ruble more per year (25 r. vm. 24), but he always had no more than 4 - 5 students and all the children were well-behaved - known to have good parents. Vasily Vasilyevich felt very good there: it was spacious, and calm, and clean, and well-fed, and close to the school and the Church of the Transfiguration. Ivan Abramovich, to his credit, loved his tenants - students and looked after them as if they were his own children. Vasily Vasilyevich transferred to the seminary (Tver) (in 1869) with rare marks on his certificate both in behavior and diligence, and in success. Mother herself brought him to Tver and during the entrance exams she placed him in the same apartment (Seminarskaya Street) where I lived. After 1 1/2–2 weeks, he was taken into the seminary building on full government support, where he lived until the end of the seminary course. He also studied excellently at the Tver seminary, as well as at the school; but memories of this period can and should be written by his comrades, both in the class, department, and in the dormitory. In such a large seminary as the Tver one, it is mainly the closest comrades - classmates and roommates - who remain memorable. Then, our path diverged: after completing the course, I taught for about 5 years, before accepting the priesthood, and at that time, after graduating from the seminary in 1875, he was sent to the St. Petersburg Theological Academy on public account. Only once, while teaching, I had to meet him - an academy student - in Kravotyn, on vacation. I remember that for “Ilya’s Day” (a rural patronal holiday), so many of us, both gentlemen and young ladies, gathered. It was necessary to spend time somehow more fun. We decided to organize dances with games in one free barn, and Vasily Vasilyevich was with us. I think to myself whether Vasily Vasilyevich had changed into an academic student and set off into the world, but it turned out - not at all: he simply, out of attraction to us, former comrades, wanted to be with us, because when we were preparing for the opening of the ball, he, seeing aside a pile of logs and a cart suspended on it without wheels, climbed up this steep slope, felt how stable the cart was, lay down in it on his back and surrendered to his usual thoughts, not paying the slightest attention to our entertainment. My further (now a priest) meetings with Vasily Vasilyevich were very rare. The first time in 1879 I met him on vacation in Kravotyn, when I arrived as a young military priest from Volyn, and he had already graduated from the academy and then it was already known that he had been left as an assistant professor at the academy in ancient general church history. 2nd - in 1889, in the same Kravotyn. The 3rd and subsequent ones - from the end of 1894 in St. Petersburg, where he had to stay and spend the night when he lived on Nevsky, no. 164. The lack of personal meetings was made up for by fairly frequent correspondence between us, which began with the fact that Vasily Vasilyevich, already a professor, would come on vacation to Kravotyn (and he went there every year), write something from my mother and add two or three pages of his own. From 1889 to 1900 inclusive (last letter dated January 13, 1900), regular correspondence was established between us from year to year. 6 I usually write to him by January 1 (the day of his angel) and he always answered me accurately by January 16, on the same occasion. I did not burden Vasily Vasilyevich with frequent correspondence, knowing that he had a lot of work to do, but if there was a need to turn to him for clarification of some perplexing question from pastoral practice, and this need is felt by every military priest thrown somewhere on the outskirts (among the heterodox and non-Orthodox), or to subscribe to some book, then the answer was always received by the first mail. It happened that he himself would obtain the necessary book and send it, such as, for example, a rare book by Professor I.E. Troitsky about the Armenian Church. He considered it his duty to send me every newly published book or brochure. Once, when I was serving in Volyn, the priests, passing one to another, read out the book “Origen’s Teaching on the Holy Trinity” that he had sent me. All my searches turned out to be in vain and then, creaking my heart, I write to Vasily Vasilyevich - “is it possible to send a second copy,” and it works with the first mail. As stated above, personal meetings with Vasily Vasilyevich, during his professorship, were rare, but always sincere and the most friendly. I remember in 1889 I came from the city of Kursk to Nilova Pustyn (Ostashkovo district) and found out that Vasily Vasilyevich was in Kravotyn, but today or tomorrow he was leaving for St. Petersburg. I immediately send a messenger to Kravotyn with a note to find out if I can find him in Kravotyn and when (it was on Thursday), and soon I receive an answer on business card 7: “I’m sincerely glad - after so many years! - to see you, dear Pyotr Nikiforovich, finally, not in a portrait! We are waiting for you tomorrow, leaving on Saturday. Bows to you from your mother." Friday in Kravotyn, with the permission of the local priest, I began with a funeral service for deceased relatives and friends, to which both Marya Ivanovna and Vasily Vasilyevich arrived at the church. After the service in the church and a memorial service at the graves of our relatives and friends, we went to the cordial and hospitable Marya Ivanovna (who addressed us in letters as “My relatives,” etc.) We spent almost the whole day with these good acquaintances, not noticing during the friendly conversation how time flew by. In the evening, I began to get ready to visit another of our common comrades, a certain Nevsky, but Vasily Vasilyevich, apparently, did not want to let me go until the time and with the words: “I’ll introduce him to you now,” he grabbed his cap and quickly, quickly ran along the shore (and, moreover, just as clumsily as he ran as a boy, which at that moment reminded us of our long-ago childhood) and immediately brought Nevsky. Regarding his annual summer visits to Kravotyn, Vasily Vasilyevich’s godmother writes to me: “Being already a professor, he almost every year came to visit his mother Marya Ivanovna in the summer for a month or a month and a half. He never allowed her to worry about him, even when Marya Ivanovna was still able, there is nothing to say about the last time he came (in 1898) to see his sick mother. He himself carried water for the samovar from the shore and set it up himself. I tried to disturb my mother as little as possible in everything. He visited me often and always had long, friendly conversations. He was neither proud nor inattentive: he would be the first to bow to everyone, and would not allow the peasant to be the first to bow to him as an important person.” Vasily Vasilyevich’s mother died in the last days of May (27th) last year, 1899, “having lived in the world for 74 years and 53 or 59 days.” Regarding the death of his mother, Vasily Vasilyevich writes to me, “she was born according to the metrics on March 30, 1825 - under Alexander the Blessed! - and I heard from her that she heard that she was born at Matins - on Easter itself, therefore - on March 29.” At the funeral of his dearly beloved mother, Vasily Vasilyevich did not have to attend to his business. One can imagine how much he, the most noble Vasily Vasilyevich, suffered on this occasion! At least, much later, he sadly writes to me: “You probably know that I didn’t have to be at her (mother’s) burial. Before this time, I just got stuck in one commission (I haven’t gotten my feet out of it yet) and by May 31 I had to prepare a report, which then took up 18 or 20 printed pages in folio; As I learned on May 31, I couldn’t find the 27th and the chairman of the commission to take emergency leave from him.” And Vasily Vasilyevich himself has been rapidly melting lately. At the turn of 1894 and 95, when I met him in St. Petersburg, his appearance was still tolerable, although there was a shade of some sickly whiteness on his face. In 1896, I already noticed he had a large zinc bath - his face was very yellow and his cheeks were somewhat sunken; and in the last two years he was simply not recognizable. Apparently, the incessant hard scientific works, sedentary life, unsatisfactory hygienic conditions of the apartment (No. 164 8), the windows of which faced one north-eastern side and then onto the courtyard of some neighboring house, the wall of which almost blocked the last dim light of St. Petersburg) - slowly but surely undermined the health of the tireless worker. Regarding this apartment, Vasily Vasilyevich himself writes to me: “The 14 years I lived in a St. Petersburg industrial building did their job.” His table, although usually simple, was quite nutritious. It was only noticeable: he paid so little attention to bodily food that it seems to me that if his servants, who knew well his simple tastes and the time when what should be served, had forgotten, let’s say, to set the table (serve dinner), then he himself would not have asked or would have thought later that he had already dined. Sometimes, when I had to sit down at the table with him, I would no longer start any conversations, otherwise he would start talking, get carried away and stop eating. Vasily Vasilyevich was clearly aware of his grave painful condition and, apparently, did not deceive himself about the end to which incurable illnesses lead. In a letter to me (dated January 13, 1900), Vasily Vasilyevich writes: “We live in rather capricious years in terms of climate. I spent the entire vacation in St. Petersburg, rinsing - without much success - my sick insides with Ems water. It was a bit hot. I am writing to a friend in Kyiv: Are you breathing something? Your wax is probably melting on the street, and I get the answer: it’s even very cool here; much cooler than St. Petersburg.” And further: “You have to brag except for the stomach, rheumatism announces itself with surprisingly constant music.” Saying in the letter that “the last days of his mother passed well, thanks to the care of his godmother and Marya Nikiforovna” (my sister is the married goddaughter of Marya Ivanovna, living in the village of Kravotyny), he further writes: “and I was the last of our quattro 9) to become a cut piece from Kravotyny.” And then, he attributes the wonderful lines: “For a person like me, this essentially comes down to being free from everyone, and therefore be forward to what God gives: no desires, no worries, no questions about longevity. And he wrote these lines just three months before his truly Christian death. Isn’t this a clear premonition of your imminent inevitable death! Peace to your ashes, great man of science and great man - Christian! Forgive me, dear and unforgettable Vasily Vasilyevich, if I could not portray you, starting from your earliest childhood, as I should: you yourself know that I am a bad artist. But I am sure that in everything that has been reported about you, you will not blame me for any deliberate untruth. The village of Kravotyn is 12 versts from the city of Ostashkov. This is a large village with a beautiful stone church and a dozen streets and alleys. It is located on the shore of Lake Seliger or the Kravotynsky reach (Seliger consists of many reaches connected to each other by wide isthmuses - the largest is Ostashkovskoye). The peasants of this village almost all leave in early spring to work in St. Petersburg, mainly for fishing in the seaside of the Gulf of Finland, and return home in late autumn. This money was saved by a prudent mother in a bank and given to the heir when he turned 20 years old. Nilova Hermitage - a monastery on the Stolobny island of Seliger, - 4 miles from the village of Kravotyni and the wind can hear the monastery ringing in the village. At your mother's. You. The memory was also wonderful. When I was in Kravotypi in 1889, I needed to make one certificate regarding my great-grandfather from church documents. Since our Kravotyn church clerk’s place was, as it were, hereditary through the female line, with the admission into the house of people of different surnames, and the certificate promised to be difficult - (for decades in depth), and I had little time at my disposal, I turned to Marya Ivanovna: did she know anything about our family chronicle, and Marya Ivanovna, as if from a printed book, listed for me all the ancestors from great-great-grandfather, noting the position and fate of each of them. And to this day he is a living priest in the village of Svyatoye, Ostashkovo district. I have preserved almost all of Vasily Vasilyevich’s letters. Which I still have to this day. “quattro”: 1) Vasily Vasilyevich himself, 2) Nevsky - Konstantin Aleksandrovich - the son of a Kravotyn priest - the same age as Vasily Vasilyevich, - now a teacher at a Moscow philistine school; 3) Dubakin - Dmitry Nikolaevich, - son of the Kravotyn clerk - 2 years, like me, older than V.V. Bolotova, is now an inspector at the Samara Theological Seminary and 4) I am also the son of a clerk; all fellow villagers and closest comrades since childhood.