The Russian Century

sent one hundred rubles, buy what you want, don’t say what it is and don’t refer to black or white.” Someone would begin playing the piano and we would dance. There were young women as well. Some had also come from Siberia to pursue higher education for women while others were my sister’s friends who were studying at the first women’s gimnazium near Strastnoi Convent. My sister was five years older than I.

Of course, in such an atmosphere there could not but be romances and infatuations. But at that time, this was of no interest to me. I even despised such things. I would repeat a phrase I had heard somewhere that “in courting there is something dog-like.” But how could this not occur in the midst of joyful, lively, and boisterous youth? Only later did I find out about the “hopeless loves” which, as it turns out, were being played out before my eyes. Two students were in love with my sister (she was very attractive). One was the brilliant and handsome Mikhnovskii from Irkutsk, the other—our fat bumpkin Kolia Ocheredin, who resembled a Siberian bear. My sister rejected them both and married a doctor whom she met on the Black Sea.

Presumably, there were other romances. I recall that my sister had striking friends. One was a blonde (Davydova) with large eyes and a long braid. Another was a fiery Jewish brunette with a bright blush (Gortikova). Incidentally, I met her later while in emigration in Paris and together we recalled the distant days. She was then a mother of two adult sons and nothing remained of her former beauty. She had become a short, hunched old woman. My sister’s best friend Bibochka Bari (Anna Aleksandrovna) was enormously popular. She was the oldest daughter in the very large family of Aleksandr Veniaminovich Bari, an Americanized engineer. He owned the Moscow factory where the famous Shukhov boilers were manufactured. Bibochka was a cheerful, plump blonde who radiated health and joy. My older brother Kesha was hopelessly in love with her. But only we, his

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Chapter Seven

brothers, knew of this and teased him unmercifully. Later she married Samoilov, a professor of physiology.

Late in the evening, after the dancing, there was always supper—pirogi [deep-dish pies] with meat, pirogi with fish, pirogi with [sauteed] cabbage, pickled mushrooms, hors-d’oeuvres and, of course, tea again—many cups and glasses of tea.

We, younger children, were never sent to our rooms. We had equal rights, participated in all the games, and stayed with the guests until the end. At supper I even had my own specialty: I masterfully cut the Swiss cheese into pieces as thin as paper. Because of this expertise, the students foretold a career as surgeon for me. My mother smiled, pleased: she wanted me to be a doctor.

Besides these weekly Saturday get-togethers, two or three times a year we had real balls. Sometimes there were even masquerade balls (on Christmas or Shrovetide). In those cases a ballroom pianist was hired and the pies and kulebiakas were ordered in a pastry shop. Usually there were fifty or so guests at these balls—sometimes more, and always there were young people. We danced to exhaustion through the night until morning. We always had a large apartment, and the dances were organized in several adjoining rooms. The adroit dancers waltzed from one room into another. After the quadrille, we would organize a “gran-pon” where all the dancers, holding hands, would race down the hallways, through the bedrooms and the nursery, bumping into chairs, and maneuvering between tables. I remember that once all the [pre-Lenten Carnival] mummers were dressed up in cooks’ costumes with white chef’s caps—this was quite striking and gay. There was much noise and laughter. The cook, the dishwasher, and even the caretaker looked on admiringly from the dark vestibule and the corridor at the merry guests.

I was the youngest in our family. Besides my sister Anna, I had two older brothers. Now I am the last of the clan. My oldest brother Innokentii (Kesha) died from tuberculosis in Paris in 1935, having contracted this disease in the difficult conditions of emigre life. My other brother, Mikhail, who was two years older, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1920 simply for the fact that he had once been an officer (a second lieutenant in the reserves), doing his military service under the old regime. He was never involved in politics. For twenty years, I’ve heard nothing of my sister who remained in Russia. All my cautious attempts to find out anything about her were in vain.

It would be unfair for me, in telling of my family, not to mention our nanny because she occupied a place in it and even played a significant role. She was, of course, a member of the family as well. This occurred very frequently in Russian families. Entering a strange family, frequently at a very young age and looking after a first child, then a second, and then after all of them, the

Vladimir Zenzinov, Coming of Age

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nanny became an organic member of that family. She became attached to its life with all her soul, frequently forgetting or rejecting her own. And if she had heart and character, she would not only leave a lifetime mark in the soul of each child but would become a valued, sometimes invaluable member of the family to which she had tied her own life and fate.

This was our Nanny precisely—and I capitalize this word because in our family this designation of a profession became a proper name. Her real name was Avdot’ia (Evdokiia) Zakharovna Gorelova. At first, we just called her Dunia, but out of respect for her, mother made us call her Niania [Nanny]. That is what we then called her for the rest of our lives. That is how she is imprinted on my soul. Nanny was twelve or thirteen when the serfs were emancipated. She remembered serfdom well and told us stories about it. It should be said, however, that she told us no horror tales—she lived under serfdom without being aware of it. (She was from Smolensk Province.)

While still a very young woman, probably in 1874, she came to Moscow from her village to earn some money. She had just given birth to her son whom she left behind in the village. (I did not know who her husband was or whether he was still alive. I only knew her brother, Gavriil Zakharovich, a Moscow cabbie who always stood on the Bol’shaia Dmitrovka in front of the merchants club. He would visit her for tea. This was a large, fat man with a very red face. He would drink innumerable glasses of tea in her room—until “the seventh sweat.” This was the primary treat his sister could give him.)

It was natural in her situation to seek work as a wet nurse in a respectable home. So she showed up at Smolensk Square in Moscow where servants were hired in those naive times. It was there that Uncle Kolia saw her. He was looking for a wet nurse for his brother’s wife, i.e., for my mother who was expecting her first child. In her youth, Nanny was a true Russian beauty if we are to judge by a photograph taken in our home which we saved. She was in a magnificent costume of a Russian wet nurse with wide tunic sleeves, decked in lace and ribbons, an embroidered shirt and several strings of beads. My oldest sister Mania, who died in childhood, was in her arms. It was said that Uncle Kolia was a great judge of female beauty, so it was natural that he would choose Nanny [as nurse] for his sister-in-law. From that moment on, until her death in 1908, Nanny lived in our family, having no other and not having one of her own. She nursed my oldest sister, then moved to Ania [Anna] and each of us in order. Later she reared my sister’s children. She took care of us, was inseparable from us, and sat at the bedside when one of us, children, was sick.

I remember her from my very first moment of recall. Remembering my childhood illnesses, I always visualize her at the head of the bed. I would twist under her rough, kind hand as she rubbed me down with butter melted

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