A film about Avdeev's collection. The collection of alexander ilyin is an underground collection of rarities in the ussr. The collection of Alexander Ilyin is a national treasure

The collection of Alexander Ilyin is one of the largest private collections of works of art and old books in the USSR. And this story began in 1993, when the 72-year-old collector died of a stroke in the Ukrainian city of Kirovograd.

He was an unsociable person, lived in isolation, alone and practically did not communicate even with his only relatives - two nieces. However, it was they who had to bury him.

A few months after his death, the collector's name appeared on the pages of many newspapers and sounded on TV screens: the former electrician, who lived in a dilapidated house and always wore shabby overalls and tarpaulin boots, turned out to be the owner of a unique collection.

Fact: "According to experts, it turned out to be the most significant of all private collections in Europe."

When the local authorities had an idea of ​​the scale and value of the collection of Alexander Ilyin, doubts arose about his natural death. The body was exhumed, but the suspicions were not confirmed: the cause of death was indeed a stroke.

They learned about the unique collection by chance - books that belonged to the pensioner appeared in the "Bukinist" store. They were noticed by one of his acquaintances and raised a fuss: before the expiration of the prescribed six months after his death, someone began to sell things of the collector.

Many lovers of antiquity and collectors of rarities personally knew Alexander Ilyin. He was an excellent and versatile restorer and without higher education, he possessed encyclopedic knowledge, for which he was appreciated in scientific and museum circles. However, the fact that he was a collector was known to a narrow circle of people, since he almost did not let anyone into his house. Those who visited the house saw only individual exhibits, by which it is impossible to judge the size of the collection.

The collection of Alexander Ilyin is a national treasure

After the episode in "Bookinist" about the collection of Alexander Ilyin became known to the museum of local lore and the regional library, the leadership of which turned to the representative of the President of Ukraine.

Fears were expressed that the collection, which is a national treasure, might be lost or stolen from private collections. The pensioner did not leave his will, and his nephews they are not heirs to the law and have no right to claim the property.

In the same period it became known that soon after the death of the collector at one of the foreign auctions for half a million dollars was sold an original Bible belonging to Ivan Fedorov. It was impossible to prove whether it was from the collection of a pensioner. However, this moment pushed the authorities to solve the problem of its preservation.

The issue of transferring the collection of Alexander Ilyin to the state was decided at the level of the president. After a month of proceedings, the court decided to withdraw her. The pensioner's house was cordoned off by special forces, and within a week the commission carried out an inventory and seizure of the collection.

The collection was in a rather deplorable state, and many unique items were covered with dust and mold, and among them there were very rare and expensive exhibits:

• "Byzantine enamels" 1892 edition estimated at 100 thousand dollars;
• manuscripts of Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol;
• a complete collection of Ivan Fyodorov's "pershodruks", many of whom were considered lost;
• a four-volume book "The Grand Duke, Tsarist and Imperial Hunt in Russia" with illustrations by Benoit and Repin, each volume of which is estimated at 50 thousand dollars;
• unique manuscripts of the Gospel of the XIV century.

Fact: "In total, about 5,000 old books and about 4,000 works of art were seized."

The collection became the property of the state, part of it in the local lore m uzee, and books are in the regional library.

There is no definite answer about the origin of the collection of Alexander Ilyin, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. The most likely is the version that was formed by the investigation and art critics after a thorough study of the life path of the collector himself and his ancestors.

Versions about the origin of the collection

After the 1917 revolution, marriages between members of the nobility and commoners ceased to be something unusual. An example is the marriage of Natalya Alexandrovna Rimskaya-Korsakova (hereditary noblewoman, graduate of a classical gymnasium, fluent in four languages) and Boris Nikolaevich Ilyin (the son of a simple master with elementary education m).

The Rimsky-Korsakov family has been collecting cultural rarities since the middle of the 19th century. Part of this collection pos le revolution was saved. During the Civil War, then still single, Boris Nikolaevich participated in the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings and in the expropriation of noble estates and church property, some of which may have settled in the hands of the expropriators.

Life brought Boris Ilyin to Smolensk, where he married Natalya Alexandrovna. In the future, he made a career, rising from a simple turner to a chief engineer. He worked in Vyazma, then in Vitebsk, where his family survived the famine of 1933 largely thanks to the products purchased for precious metals from the family collection in Torgsin stores. After the Great Patriotic War, Boris Ilyin was sent to Kirovograd, where his family lived the remaining years of their life.

Boris was a man of delicate taste and treated his wife's family collection very carefully, trying to constantly replenish it.

In 1920, a son, Alexander, was born into the Ilyins' family, who grew up among unique things, and over time they became a matter of life for him. Quite quickly, he prio became famous as an excellent restorer.

In 1941, Alexander Ilyin, being a student at one of the Moscow universities, was able to avoid being drafted, allegedly having received a ticket in exchange for a rare book. In 1944 he was arrested for his part in the theft from a food warehouse. According to the laws of wartime, a distance was required for this. rel, but the case ended only in three months in prison. This gave rise to suspicions about Ilyin's collaboration with the NKVD, which needed informants among collectors. Perhaps he became a secret expert of the authorities in the search and assessment of valuables.

In 1945, Alexander was admitted as a restorer to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. There he did not take money for work, but asked for old books as payment.

Fact: “Later, Ilyin confessed to one of the collectors, with whom he was closely acquainted, that he took books out of the laurel under the hollow.”

In 1961 Alec Sandr brought two containers of books and church utensils to Kirovograd from Kiev. He said that in connection with the closure of the monastery by the authorities, the monks themselves persuaded him to take everything that they could, so that the atheists would not take away.

In Kirovograd, the collector got a job as an electrician with a salary of 100 rubles and lived rather modestly. However, he was still able to buy a supported motorcycle, which he drove around the region on official business and, along the way, bought antiques in the villages. Being an excellent restorer, he took pictures, books, icons, etc. instead of money for his services. The restorer could skillfully "age" the sheets of books or forge antiquity so that experts could not distinguish the result from the original.

Many were surprised by the passivity of the criminal world to the priceless and practically unprotected collection of Alexander Ilyin. Perhaps this was due to the close cooperation of the collector with the organs. However, one theft nevertheless happened, but it was the work of stray guest performers. They took gold and a book, which turned out to be the first edition of Gogol's Dead Souls. They sold out the gold things, but they couldn't and offered the collector himself to buy it out. He agreed and during the transfer the thieves were arrested. The collector took the book, but denied the stolen gold.

I don’t know where to start, whether with Alexander Ilyin, or with Nikita Mikhalkov. I'll start with Ilyin.
Today marks 20 years since the death of this owner of countless treasures, “the Kirovograd billionaire in a quilted jacket and kirzachs”, Plyushkin and Gobsek of the world of antiques, and versions, scandals and gossip are multiplying around his amazing collection. One of them, connected with Nikita Mikhalkov, I want to tell.

"Portrait of A. Ilyin". V. Fedorov. Kirovograd, 1950s.

On October 22, 1993, in his dilapidated house on the street of the Urozhainaya outskirts of Kirovograd, where the floors rotted and the roof was leaking, seventy-two-year-old former electrician Alexander Ilyin died. He had no family, no friends either, and his unloved nephews and several neighbors saw off the deceased's last journey, marveling at the wretchedness of housing, littered with a lot of rubbish covered with dirt, dust and mold.

Vase. China. Porcelain. _ Portrait of Catherine II in hetman's clothes. End of the 18th century _ Silver altar cross. 1786 _ Silver mug by I. Ravich at the beginning of the 17th century. (presumably made as a gift to Peter I)

And in January 1994, this house was cordoned off by the OMON of the Kirovograd GUVD, and for two weeks, day and night, ten bailiffs, in the presence of museum workers and under the supervision of SBU workers, described the property of the deceased. Which was then taken out by trucks for several days: sealed bags and boxes with old paintings and books, icons and weapons, engravings and dishes, furniture and figurines, and what was not there.
The collection even contained some kind of marigolds, hairs and bones, wrapped in signed papers. At first they did not understand what it was - then the invited priests explained that these were the relics of Orthodox martyrs (they were later transferred to the local Intercession Church).

Entire halls are reserved for the collection of Ilyin in the Kirovograd Regional Museum of Local Lore

As for the size of the collection, the information is contradictory (from "almost half a million items" to vague "several tens of thousands"). But registered in the Kirovograd Regional Museum of Local Lore, where the subject part of Ilyin's collection was transferred, there are about 4 thousand units. Not all exhibits are on display, but many of them are housed in cupboards of the 18th-19th centuries. from the same Ilyinsky house.

The book part of the Ilyin collection was transferred to the Kirovograd Universal Scientific Library named after DI. Chizhevsky, and there are slightly more than 7 thousand Ilyinsky books on her account. But only about a third of them were old books, and there are a lot of modern church publications with dedicatory inscriptions to Ilyin from the rulers of the Russian Orthodox Church who were influential in the past.
The special value of this unique collection was made up of rare books, lifetime editions of classics of Russian, Ukrainian and foreign literature and their manuscripts. I will not list all of them, I will dwell only on a few.

Gospel on parchment, 1390-1410. Frame - boards covered with leather from the end of the twentieth century. performed by Ilyin. He received it from some Moscow collector for the restoration of another rare edition - the history of France from Napoleon's personal library.
The Ostrog Bible is the first completed edition of the Bible in Church Slavonic, printed in Ostrog by the first printer Ivan Fedorov in 1581. Ilyin traded her in Odessa for several orders.

Lermontov's manuscript (poem "The Demon"), and Griboyedov's manuscript (comedy "Woe from Wit").
Ilyin exchanged them in Leningrad immediately after the break of the blockade, in exchange for flour and food.

This is where I finish about Ilyin (about him and his strange collection, and so tons of papers have been written and kilometers of film shot), and go on to Nikita Mikhalkov.
The library in the Mikhalkov family estate in Petrovsky, Yaroslavl province, was one of the largest Russian private libraries, collected primarily by Vladimir Sergeevich Mikhalkov, the great-grandfather of the anthem writer Sergei Mikhalkov. Vladimir Mikhalkov bequeathed to donate his collection to the Academy of Sciences. The transfer of the most valuable books took place, but a significant part of the library remained in Petrovsky.
The last legal owner of the Petrovskoye estate and the ancestral library was the son of Vladimir Mikhalkov, Sergei, who died in 1905, leaving no children behind. Books from the Mikhalkovs' library (about 6 thousand volumes) were donated in 1915 by the widow of the deceased Rybinsk City Public Library, which was named after S.V. Mikhalkov.

Estate of Mikhalkovs Petrovskoe

How about a hundred books from the Mikhalkov family library ended up with Ilyin remained unknown, but when in 1994 they were handed over to the Kirovograd Library. Chizhevsky, there they began to expect a visit from Nikita Mikhalkov. Moreover, there was already a precedent - the September 1995 issue of Ogonyok described in detail the story of how Sergei and Nikita Mikhalkov tried to remove five icons from Yaroslavl museums that belonged to their ancestors, the Mikhalkov nobles from Petrovsky.
Then the museum workers and the public had difficulty in handing over the icons to Mikhalkov, the Yaroslavl governor, and Kirovograd librarians, not without reason, expected a repetition of this story in their city.
But Nikita Mikhalkov did not appear in Kirovograd - he appeared in Kiev, and began to resolve this issue at a higher level. Where he was denied everything, because no one wanted an inevitable huge scandal throughout Ukraine.

.
Most of the stolen books were not unique, they belonged to the section "History of Russia", and had VS Mikhalkov's stamps with an ex-libris "From the library of the village of the Petrovsky family of Mikhalkovs." Moreover, more rare books were not stolen - the thieves were clearly interested not in their material value, but in the presence of Mikhalkov's ex-libris on them.
The performers were never found, neither were the customers, but some people are still sure that these books need to be looked for only in one place - in Mikhalkov's mansion near Moscow on Nikolina Gora.
Again, this is the version. There is also an opinion that stealing books is not a sin at all. Well, what do you say, could Nikita Mikhalkov be the customer of this unsolved theft? And if so, is it a sin? After all, these are not just books, but books that belonged to Mikhalkov's great-great-grandfather.

Ostrog Bible. XVI century

At first, the authorities, together with museum workers and librarians, did not plan to disclose their actions, but after a few hours it became impossible to hide - from the basement and attic of the house they began to take out boxes with old icons, jewelry, paintings, handwritten pages of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, more than 5 thousand old books and much more.

Silver. The beginning of the 18th century

All Ilyinsky rarities have become the property of the state and are now kept in the Kirovograd local history museum and the regional library. This story interested the workers of the Ukrainian television channel STB, who, under the leadership of Yevgeny Gorislavets and Alexei Umansky, created a documentary film entitled "The Curse of Ilyin's Collection." During the making of the film, the television crew conducted a whole investigation and found many interesting and incredible facts related to the life and collection of Ilyin.

Vase. China. Porcelain

The discovery of antiques has become a real sensation not only in Ukraine, but all over the world. It was announced by many domestic and foreign media outlets. And it is not surprising, since after calculations it turned out that the items were collected over 50 years, and their total cost is 40 billion dollars! But already in 1994, experts began to doubt such a staggering figure, they confirmed that the collection is unique, but has more scientific value than consumer value.
In fact, until today they have not agreed on the exact amount of the rare collection. According to various sources, completely different figures are given, measuring the collection either in money, then in bags, then in trucks.

Altar cross. 1786. Silver

Miroslava Egurnova, the leading custodian of the Kirovograd region funds, claims that there are now 3 thousand items on the register. But no matter what numbers are named, no one refutes the fact that this collection is one of the largest private collections in Europe, and its price ranges from $ 500 million to $ 1 billion.

Our Lady of Hodegetria. End of the 16th century

Price is a price, but the question arises, how did an ordinary citizen manage to collect in one place an unthinkable number of antiques, masterpieces of jewelry, artistic, literary art? The answer to this question became the goal of the STB documentary film. The film turned out to be more than successful thanks to a well-written script, professional acting and presenter Vyacheslav Garmash. The only thing that the journalists regret is that they could not find a common language with the collector's nephews, who refused to give any comments (after all, the state did not allocate anything to them, their legal heirs, from the entire collection). So, not all the secrets of the underground millionaire were revealed. The intrigue also lies in the fact that many of the museum and library staff, working with items from the collection, subsequently suffered serious illnesses. Some see this as a curse, while others argue that the reason for this is the dust they breathed.

Antique pottery ceramics. End of the 5th-4th centuries BC NS.

The cameramen did not manage to get inside the house of the underground millionaire, so the viewer did not see the conditions in which the rarities were kept, but the film contains interviews with collectors familiar with Ilyin. From their stories, it was possible to form an idea of ​​the character of Ilyin. It turned out that he was an unsociable person, did not invite anyone into the house. And all their visitors were divided into two types - "podrushniki" (with them he talked under a pear in the yard) and "podporozhniki" (such were honored to be invited outside the door to the kitchen).

Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos and the image of St. Paraskeva. 1752 g.

Based on the plot of the film, it turns out that the collection was collected by three generations of the Ilin family. It all started with the fact that his mother, a hereditary noblewoman Natalya Rimskaya-Korsakova, managed to preserve the family collection after the revolution thanks to the fact that she married a simple worker who was able to appreciate the unique legacy of his wife and, moreover, began to multiply it. When their son Alexander was born in 1920, his parents began to instill in him a love of antiques, and to this was added the young man's natural ability to restore. The young man's entrepreneurial spirit manifested itself when he bought an Old Believer copy of Ivan Fyodorov's Bible for a thousand tsarist gold pieces - a huge rarity in the book world.

Portrait of Catherine II in hetman's clothes. End of the 18th century

In 1941, the young man graduated from school and, in order not to get to the front, exchanged a valuable book for a medical diagnosis of blood cancer. 1944 was marked in his biography by a criminal event - he participated in a group robbery of a grocery store and received 3 years in prison for this, but served only 3 months. Why? Researchers suggest that he received the NKVD's affection for himself for becoming a secret expert in the search and examination of antiques.

A cabinet for precious dishes. Mid-19th century France

In the period from 1945 to 1961, Ilyin worked as a restorer at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and his payment for his work was books from the library of the Lavra for personal use. After the closure of the Lavra, he returned to Kirovograd and brought with him 2 containers of books and church utensils, while explaining this by the fact that the monks even persuaded him to take everything away so that the atheists would not get it.

P. Pontius. Madonna and Child with St. Anna. Mid-17th century Engraving by J. Segers.

At home, he got a job as an electrician with a salary of 100 rubles. a month and so he lived modestly, driving around on a purchased trophy motorcycle around the region and checking the meters. At the same time, he bought up antique items. He was a professional restorer and had customers from all over the Union, and the payment for his work was icons, paintings, books, etc., and so the collection was assembled.

A scene from Chinese history. Late 19th - early 20th century (Age of Qin)

Thanks to the editing with documentary chronicles of the 20-60s, the film looks interesting and exciting. But until the end, no one has solved Ilyin's secret. The ending of the picture is significant - a message about the recent sale at one of the foreign auctions for half a million dollars of the Bible by Ivan Fedorov. How she got there, nobody knows.

In October 1993 in Kirovograd in an unprepossessing house on the street. Urozhainaya, 28, at the age of 73, the former electrician of the local trust of canteens, Alexander Ilyin, died. A few months after his death, the house was cordoned off by police and SBU officers.

For almost a week, law enforcement officers, together with librarians and museum workers, took boxes with old books, icons, church utensils, jewelry, porcelain, paintings, gold coins and crosses out of the rooms, basement and attic. All these rarities became the property of the state and were transferred to the Kirovograd Museum of Local Lore and the Regional Library. Chizhevsky. Ilyin was never married, and the nephews who lived with him could not defend their rights to his uncle's collection.

This incredible story, professionally recreated by the author of the project "In Search of Truth" Yevgeny Gorislavets and director Alexei Umansky, was shown on the STB channel on February 21 at 13.45. The documentary is called The Curse of Ilyin's Collection. At one time, the message about the collection of the collector became a sensation, which was told not only by domestic, but also by foreign media.

Television people claim that the rarities of an unknown electrician, who collected them for 50 years, were worth $ 40 billion! And they can be understood: such numbers, of course, will overwhelm anyone. However, back in 1994, experts agreed that the sum of almost a billion dollars, which was cited in the newspapers, was taken from the ceiling. Ilyin's collection is unique, but its scientific value exceeds consumer value.

Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos and the image of St. Paraskeva. 1752 g.

In fact, today museum workers cannot accurately determine the value of this rare collection. Even the number of confiscated valuables, according to different sources, does not coincide. Some write about "more than 10 thousand rare and old editions", others - about "500 bags of antiques and 70 thousand volumes of rare books", the third mention about "15-20 trucks on which the collection was taken out."

A scene from Chinese history. Late 19th - early 20th century (Age of Qin)

The leading curator of the funds department of the Kirovograd Regional Museum of Local Lore, Miroslav Yegurnov, where the bulk of the rarities got to, claims that 3 thousand items are registered. However, no one doubts the fact that this collection is one of the largest private in Europe, and its price ranges from $ 500 million to $ 1 billion.Silver alone is more than 200 kg, and we are talking about products of famous jewelry companies of the second half. XIX and early XX centuries: Faberge, Collins, Khlebnikov, Alekseeva.

How did an ordinary unremarkable person manage to single-handedly collect such a fantastic number of antiques? The picture is devoted to the answer to this question. STB has already gained a hand in the production of documentaries and, when reproducing Ilyin's biography, used the services of three actors of different ages (childhood, adulthood and old age). The actors portraying his parents also played their roles well, although some scenes with their participation seemed to me too intimate.

Antique pottery ceramics. End of the 5th-4th century BC NS.

The host is the famous TV journalist Vyacheslav Garmash, who adores close-ups and, to be honest, who knows how to present himself in the most advantageous perspective, appears in the frame quite appropriately when the logic of events requires it. Grigory Reshetnik's offscreen voice successfully complements the perception.

Vyacheslav Garmash

It is a pity that the filmmakers did not manage to get Ilyin's nephews to talk (they have flatly refused to communicate with journalists for many years). Because of this, some of the secrets of the underground billionaire remained unsolved, and the operator filmed his house only from the outside. Meanwhile, the viewers would probably be interested to see the conditions in which valuable things were kept. The fact is that many museum workers who come into contact with his collection ended up in hospital beds. Some researchers see mysticism in this, they say, there is a curse on unique objects, others argue that the cause of everything is dust and mold, which people breathed in.

To some extent, the apparent lack of indoor footage has been compensated by numerous interviews with collectors who knew Alexander Ilyin well. Ivan Anastasyev, Gennady Kirkevich and Vadim Orlenko, complementing each other, talked about some of his character traits. He did not invite anyone to the house and divided the visitors into two types: "podgrushnikov" (Ilyin talked to them in the yard under a pear tree) and "podporozhniks" (he let such people outside the kitchen threshold).

For 50 years, the collector was robbed only once, and even then visiting guest performers, in search of which the entire personnel of the local police was thrown. As a result, the thieves were found, but of what they stole, Ilyin recognized only the first edition of "Dead Souls", and refused the old gold jewelry, saying that "this is not his."

In the interpretation of STB, the brainchild of Alexander Ilyin was collected by three generations. His mother, a hereditary noblewoman Natalya Rimskaya-Korsakova, after the revolution saved the family collection, thanks to the fact that she married a simple foundry worker Boris Nikolaevich, who not only appreciated the unique collection of his wife, but also multiplied it. In 1920, they had a son, Alexander, whose natural ability to restore antiques was nurtured by his father. The fact that the son turned out to be much more entrepreneurial than his parents is evidenced by the fact that he bought an old-believing copy of Ivan Fyodorov's Bible for a thousand royal chervonets, which is less common in the book world than the original. The relatives did not speak to him for several months, fearing that the seller would inform the authorities about the strange buyer.

After leaving school, he entered the Moscow Archives Institute in 1941. When the war began, in exchange for a rare book, he received a doctor's conclusion that he had blood cancer. In 1944 he was arrested for a group theft from a food warehouse, but he was not shot, but given 3 years, of which he served 3 months.

The STB film crew claims that such a strange "love" of the NKVD for the young man was explained by the fact that he became its secret expert in the search and examination of rarities. Later, the NKVD did not forget about him and used his qualifications for their own purposes, hence the "party gold" appeared.

From 1946 to 1960 there is a gap in his work book, but the television crew found that from 1945 to 1961. he worked as a restorer at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where he received books from the Lavra library for personal use as payment for his work. I even took out some publications under a hollow sweatshirt. When the monastery was closed, he came to his parents in Kirovograd. He allegedly took with him 2 containers of books and church utensils. He said that the monks themselves persuaded him to take everything away so that the atheists would not get anything.

In Kirovograd, I got a job as an electrician with a salary of 100 rubles. per month. He lived modestly, bought a trophy motorcycle, which he rode around the districts - checking the electricity meters, he bought up rare antiques left over from people. He was a restorer of the highest qualifications, and customers came to him from all over the Union. I took pictures, books, icons, etc. for work. So I put together a collection.

By the way, the filmmakers had to work hard, since only a black and white photo of the underground billionaire remained from the archival materials. This deficiency was made up for by documentary chronicles of the 1920s and 1960s: about the destruction of Russian and Ukrainian churches, shots with a silhouette of a man walking into a blaze raging on the horizon, stern men in NKVD uniforms, valuable exhibits stored in the regional library named after Chizhevsky. Thanks to dynamic editing, the picture looks like a fascinating detective story. True, I still did not understand why its creators did not say a word about the fact that in September 2001 43 books from the Ilyin collection were stolen from the library.

The film ends meaningfully - with the announcement that the Bible of Ivan Fedorov was sold at one of the foreign auctions for $ 0.5 million, and no one knows how it got there: was it from the collection of a Kirovograd restorer? The technique, of course, is not new, but in this context it is quite appropriate, since it is not possible to fully disclose Ilyin's secret, at least today.

From Polubotok to Ilyin

("Ukraine-Center", 1994 r., No. 4, 6, 7, 10)

In December, the Bible of Ivan Fedorov was sold at one of the Western auctions for half a million dollars. In this regard, in Moscow, an audit was carried out of the copies of the known Bibles of the first printer in the former Union. Someone also remembered the Kirovograd pensioner. After all, Alexander Borisovich was known not only in scientific and museum circles. He was close to the top leadership of the Orthodox Church ...

The modest electrician was also known to knowledgeable people in Kirovograd. Immediately after the collector's death (October 22), the heads of the Chizhevsky Regional Scientific Library, the Regional Museum of Local Lore, as well as the People's Deputy of Ukraine Volodymyr Panchenko, addressed (November 1) to the representative of the President in the region, Nikolai Sukhomlin, with a letter regarding the future of Ilyin's collection. On the same day, Sukhomlin gave appropriate orders to a number of officials, but ...

The situation turned out to be abnormal, and some officials considered it best not to hear these voices at all, and ignore the instructions from above. Some near-commercial structures have already become interested in the collection. One of those who dared to speak out loud about the collection was threatened with physical harm. And some of Ilyin's books have already appeared in second-hand bookstores, and the regional library had to urgently look for sponsors to buy them ...

Whether the Bible from Ilyin's collections was sold at auction, or is it a happy coincidence, it is not necessary to say. This is from the realm of guesses and fantasies.

But this event, as well as the persistence of the regional library and museum, support from the first deputy head of the regional state administration Valery Repalo, in the end, two months after the first appeals to the administration, moved the stone off the ground.

By a court decision, about half a million items were withdrawn from the legacy of Ilyin. This is seven times more in number than in the regional museum of local lore. There is no need to talk about a qualitative comparison. Incomparable! By order of the Presidential Representative in the region N. Sukhomlin on January 17, 1994, a scientific advisory commission was established to resolve issues related to the Ilyin collection. The main task of the commission is to catalog and evaluate the collection items, develop recommendations regarding its future fate. The regulation on the commission provides for collegiality of the work of the working groups describing the collection, and strict documentation. Therefore, with full compliance with the provision on the commission, the leakage of collection material during its processing is excluded.

However, if bus tickets are numbered, then the forms that the commission works with are not very strict reporting.

And publicity in the work of the commission is not enough. I think its leaders could hold a press conference on these and other issues. There is also a need to publish a catalog of Ilyin's collection.

It is worth mentioning this, since many things came to Ilyin ... from museums and libraries. But this is a topic for another conversation.

Now the question of finding several tens of millions of coupons for the primary needs of the commission is being resolved. Although this is a drop in the ocean of needs. Many antiques, books, manuscripts are affected by shashel, fungal diseases. It takes a lot of money and skillful hands just to stop their destruction. Even larger sums are needed for restoration work. But the question is complicated by the fact that the unique collection is now essentially ownerless.

The commission's voice on the future of the collection is only advisory. In addition, the commission's recommendations on the fate of Ilyin's legacy have not yet been made. So the final decision can be made either by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, or by the court. A unique collection, of course, can return to Ilyin's relatives. But this is unlikely.

***

Now let's continue talking about the collection itself.

Books must be readable. Works of art have a place in museums and galleries. This is what the initiators of the withdrawal of the Ilyin collection were guided by. A collection of such a rank can put Kirovograd on a par with Kiev, Lvov, Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk in scientific terms. Ilyin's library can be of help for the creation in Kirovograd of one of the best humanitarian universities in Ukraine. So it’s just time to think about creating a financial fund for its restoration. If we want our children and grandchildren to receive a proper education without leaving the city, it is worth to fork out to save the collection. The state, for obvious reasons, has no money. But Elisavetgrad has always been famous for its patrons. This is the millionaire Lazar Brodsky, on whose money the Zlatopol gymnasium was built, the Bracker family, which supported the best graduates of the real school, Pashutin and many others. By and large, the first Elisavetgrad tram was also built by patrons of the arts. It's time to open and make public the bank account of the Ilyin Library Rescue Fund. But this is all in the future. And now ... The inventory continues, and many more discoveries and finds await us, although today we can already say something about something.

In addition to books, Ilyin managed to collect unique works of art: paintings, for example, by French artists of the 18th century, a portrait of Catherine II by D. Levitsky. One of the largest experts in the art of N.M. Levitsky. Gershenzon-Chegodaeva wrote in 1964: "At present, the fate of most of these portraits (Catherine II - VP) is unknown." Well, the Kirovograd find may clarify something. By the way, about the value of Ilyin's legacy. For two portraits of Catherine II, the treasury paid Levitsky a thousand gold rubles in 1773. At that time, the royal chervonets contained 13.09 grams of Ch16 gold, or 12 grams of pure gold.

Ilyin's collection is not only painting, it is icons, engravings, sculptures, antique bronze and furniture, Chinese porcelain, other ancient dishes, ancient weapons, samovars, even stone axes. It took about five hundred large sacks to seal all this. No more than ten are described per day. So how many secrets can there be? For example, they unsealed one of the bags and, among other things, found the first edition of Taras Shevchenko's "Kobzar" in 1840. Circulation - less than a thousand copies, known today - no more than a dozen. How much joy there was. But alas. If you believe the statement of Ilyin's nephews, this is a fake, or simply a fake.

The theme of Ilyin's collection is one of the central ones in behind-the-scenes conversations, at collectors' meetings at the Kompaniyets Palace of Culture, although Alexander Borisovich himself did not attend them. This is not his level. However, many old collectors knew him, sometimes communicated, remember, sometimes tell some interesting details, touches to the portrait. But when I ask if it is possible to refer to them in the newspaper, they make round eyes ... Are they afraid? Whom? So far, the only one who did not want to remain anonymous and agreed to an exclusive interview is the chairman of the board of the city collectors club Yevgeny SAVCHENKO.

- I knew Ilyin for a long time. I learned a lot. The master is magnificent, - says Savchenko, - he could bring to mind any thing from any material. And if he already takes up some old book ... By the way, he also had a couple of my books "Myths of Classical Antiquity" published in 1861 by Stoll and the Gospel of the 18th century for restoration. Where are they? Who should we demand them from now? He restored things and other people ...

Ilyin's erudition was always striking. He was a walking encyclopedia. I think I would have gagged any of our associate professors-doctors in matters of history, literature, religion, art.

Now they talk about the criminal flavor of his collection. However, knowing him, I don’t believe it. In the old days, collectors were hunted down from time to time. They were caught. They attributed the purchase and sale of precious metals, which was a monopoly of the state. Although collectors paid for the product much more than the purchase and museums.

- How to explain the origin of the marks on books, dishes?

- Some of the museum relics could have become ownerless during the war. As for the books, where are the books from the six old Elisavetgrad libraries and nine book depositories, libraries of gymnasiums and schools, churches, noble houses and estates? First, all this was expropriated, then written off and destroyed. It is difficult to find in the regional library not only old books, but even the times of Stalinism, thaw, stagnation. Ilyin got a lot from what was written off, from waste paper. I don’t think that even one of the things or books he took away was wanted. So whether he saved books or ruined them is a moot point.

- Much remains. The library has a rare book room ...

- These are the remnants of the former luxury brought from all over the region ... I have been to Ilyin's house. There were no conditions for storing the collection. And in the museum? Former directors and employees of this museum plundered as best they could. Where are the squares to place what Ilyin has collected? The conversation should be about many hundreds of square meters. Therefore, Kiev may want to take part of the collection. If the collection is withdrawn, then let it be in Kirovograd. In addition, why are Ilyin's nephews excluded from compiling an inventory of it? Why didn't a single person from the city's collectors club get into this commission? Some of us by touch can distinguish a fake from an original, a rarity from a consumer goods. Why is this mystery needed when describing what was exported, this backstage? And who needed chaos during the withdrawal of the collection? After all, people do not know what they have taken out, how many sacks. And for some valuable things made of gold and silver, a pocket would be enough ...

An old legal aphorism says: any legal definition is dangerous. On the one hand, the state has been plundered, but there are no laws to bring the perpetrators to justice. On the other hand, people have lived as one family for decades and put together a collection. Look after the old man to death. They bury him. Then someone comes, starts to take something, to leave something, and at the same time they say that they are saving the priceless national treasure on a full legal basis.

The newspapers reported that Ilyin's collection had been collected for three generations. Official researchers are now scrupulously studying the seized documents, letters, trying to confirm or deny this version. We have presented it as it is embodied in family legends.

Boris Nikolaevich Ilyin, the son of a handicraftsman who died early, who had a copper casting workshop, primary education. Possibly several grammar school classes. Natalia Alexandrovich Rimskaya-Korsakova, hereditary noblewoman. She graduated from the Smolensk Mariinsky gymnasium with a gold medal, knew four languages, played and sang. In 1914 she entered the economics department of the Moscow Commercial Institute. I have in my hands her record book, student card.

The revolution made the impossible possible. In the city of Smolensk, a marriage was registered between a worker and an accountant Natalia Rimskaya-Korsakova. The former noblewoman became the wife of a worker. The new proletarian class, the move to her husband made it possible to preserve many of the family values ​​of the Rimsky-Korsakovs, to protect them from expropriation and indemnities.

A young turner, an excellent self-taught mechanic, and even with his wife, with an almost higher education in economics, quickly went up. It just so happened that he was sent to restore some small creamery in Vyazma. Then there was a larger plant in Vitebsk, then a large plant in Odessa. In Vitebsk in 1933, much of the family's gold and silver went to the tradesin for food. But the books remained and even increased. Although there was a reverse movement. Once Boris Nikolaevich got hold of bran. In 1933, it was a delicacy. Natalia traded them for a fine Belgian gun. Boris was passionate about hunting. We got a little hungry, the gun is still in use. We survived the war in Rybinsk. Three children, adopted more orphans. Natalia Alexandrovna worked as an accountant, looked after the house.

And Vitebsk, and Odessa, and Rybinsk - ancient and rich cities - fertile for collecting. Books were preferred.

Well, after the war, Boris Nikolaevich was sent to Kirovograd to build a fat plant. The director built the plant, and in the evenings he went to dismantle the ruins in the area. After all, he himself also had to build ... An unfinished outbuilding made of this brick stands on the estate to this day ...

Second generation - children.

Alexander Borisovich did not succeed in graduating from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. War interfered. I went to work as an electrician at a power plant. For health reasons, they were not taken to the army. After the war he graduated from the Kirovograd Engineering College. But I didn't chase posts. All his life he was an electrician in the housing office, the trust of canteens and restaurants. Work was not the main thing for him. From his father he took over many secrets of casting, embossing, secrets of working with metal, knew chemistry and physics very well, mastered bookbinding and restoration of books from old textbooks. Drew. He was fond of art. The meaning of his life was books, collections. He lived with her all his life: without a wife, without children.

The youngest daughter of Boris Nikolaevich, Tatiana, managed to graduate from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. There she met and married Ivan Efimovich Podtelkov, who, after being wounded, was sent to the Moscow Military Law Academy. He graduated with a gold medal. He served in Germany, in the Far East. He held high posts, he could occupy generally higher positions in the department, but, they say, there were breakdowns ...

Demobilized. He worked in court, lawyers, prosecutors. Tatyana Borisovna asked her husband to join the queue for housing, but he refused. He was then the assistant to the prosecutor of our region in the investigation. Gathering is a contagious disease. Tatyana Borisovna bought books, figurines, vases, silver things.

Third generation. Grandchildren.

Irina and Andrey continued to collect.

The family of Tatiana Borisovna and her brother Alexander Borisovich Ilyin lived in her father's house together for 40 years. Irina and Andrei buried their parents, looked after Uncle Alexander Borisovich until his death on October 20, 1993. He, as indicated in the death certificate, died of cerebral atherosclerosis.

On December 31, 1993, the judge of the Kirov People's Court, Vladimir Ivanovich Yaroshenko, decided to arrest and confiscate ownerless property, which is called Ilyin's collection and is tentatively estimated at several million dollars.

On February 21, 1994, the city prosecutor Vyacheslav Pavlovich Pilipenko recommended that Andrei Ivanovich write a statement that he did not object to the exhumation of Ilyin's body and an examination of the cause of death.

As Andrei Ivanovich says, the seized party suspects him and his sister in the murder of the old man. The nephews, they say, cannot claim the property of the deceased, since they are not his direct relatives. But the prosecutor cannot dig Ilyin's grave without their consent, as relatives. Even if someone suspects them of his death. They say this is the law.

The judgments expressed in publications are the private opinion of the author. (Comment of the editorial board "Ukraine Center").

Poor Electrician's Unusual Collection

At the end of 1993, a 72-year-old lonely old man died in a small regional center of Ukraine. He lived in isolation, communicating little even with his only relatives - two nephews, who buried him.

However, after a few months all the media started talking about him - there was probably not a single television channel, not a single newspaper that would have avoided this topic.

The still little-known city of Kirovograd, where these events took place, was frequented by journalists, and not only Ukrainian ones. Information about this event even appeared in foreign publications - the newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and Los Angeles Times.

And it is not surprising - this half-beggar-looking old man who for many years walked in a blue overalls and tarpaulin boots and lived in an old small house, the former electrician of the canteens trust, who ate in these canteens, turned out to be the owner unique collection, in determining the value of which the sum of 40 billion dollars sounded! According to experts, this collection turned out to be the largest renowned private collection in Europe.

Little was known about the collector himself, and the noise raised around his collection even led to the exhumation of the body - suspicions arose that the old man did not die of his own death. However, the suspicions were not confirmed - the second heart attack became the cause of his death.

More than 15 years have passed since the death of Alexander Ilyin - that was the name of the owner of the collection - but this story is acquiring more and more interesting details of varying degrees of plausibility.

Of course, the information that appears is sometimes contradictory, and different sources indicate different dates for the same events, but, in general, the following picture emerges.

How Ilyin's collection surfaced

Among collectors, Alexander Borisovich Ilyin was known - he was an excellent restorer, moreover, a versatile one, quite well-known among collectors of the entire USSR. Without higher education, he possessed encyclopedic knowledge. He was known in scientific and museum circles.

However, the fact that he himself is a collector was not so widely known - he let units into his house, in the literal sense of the word. The few who nevertheless visited his house saw individual exhibits, by which it was impossible to judge the actual size of his collection.

It all started with an ordinary, at first glance, event: a book that belonged to A. Ilyin appeared in the "Bukinist" store. She was seen by one of those collectors who knew that this book belonged to Ilyin, and raised a fuss. They managed to prove the fact that the book was from his collection, because a photocopy of this book with characteristic signs was kept in the local history museum.

This meant that before the expiration of the prescribed six months, someone began to sell the collection's exhibits. The leadership of the regional museum of local lore and the regional library addressed a letter to the representative of the President of Ukraine, in which they expressed concern that the collection, which is a national treasure, could be lost, because will go to private meetings.

In addition, Ilyin did not leave a will, and the nephews, according to the Law, are not heirs, but they are trying to claim the inheritance (however, not a single lawyer took up this case, despite the fabulous fee if successful).

Added fuel to the fire is the fact that soon after Ilyin's death, the Bible of Ivan Fyodorov was sold at one of the Western auctions for half a million dollars. In Moscow, they decided to revise the known copies of this book that were available within the former USSR - they also remembered Ilyin, since he was also known to the highest church leaders. It is not known whether the Bible was sold from Ilyin's collection, but this event and the persistence of the museum and library workers with the support of the regional administration pushed the authorities to resolve this issue.

The case turned out to be loud - the issue of transferring the collection to the state was decided at the level of the President.

As a result, a few months after the collector's death, the court decided to withdraw the collection, which until then had remained, one might say, ownerless. The house of A. Ilyin was cordoned off, and a special commission created for 6 days carried out the withdrawal of the collection with a simultaneous inventory of the withdrawn. The state in which the entire collection was kept horrified the commission - the unique exhibits were covered with a thick layer of dust and mold.

According to some reports, about half a million different items were seized, however, the following figures seem to be more reliable: 5 thousand old books and about 4 thousand works of art. Although, depending on how you count - one of the collectors who came into the house of Ilyin said that he saw more than half a bucket of gold coins with him. The collection includes not only unique exhibits - some of them were considered by experts to have been completely lost.

How could such a collection come from a simple electrician with an official salary of 120 Soviet rubles? - This question excited everyone. To answer it, you need to look into history.

"Who was nothing - he will become everything"

After the 1917 revolution, marriages between members of the noble family and ordinary proletarians became, if not common, then quite possible. Here is Natalya Aleksandrovna Rimskaya-Korsakova - one of those hereditary nobles who graduated from high school with a gold medal, knew 4 languages, studied at the Moscow Commercial Institute at the economic department (there is no information about graduation), married Boris Nikolayevich Ilyin, the son of an artisan with primary education.

The Rimsky Korsakov family back in the 19th century. started collecting rarities. Natalya Aleksandrovna managed to hide part of the family collection.

During the civil war, Boris Nikolayevich near Rybinsk took part in the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings, the expropriation of the property of churches and noble houses, and at the end - acquired the profession of a turner.

By the will of fate, finding himself in Smolensk, there he marries Natalya Alexandrovna, who works as an accountant.

Boris Nikolaevich managed to make a career from a worker to a chief engineer. He was engaged in the restoration and start-up of factories: first in Vyazma, then in Vitebsk (there they survived the famine of 1933, and much of the gold and silver went for food to the torgsin), then in Odessa.

After the war, which they survived in Rybinsk, Boris Nikolaevich was sent to Kirovograd, where they lived until his death.

Boris Nikolaevich turned out to be a man with a delicate taste, he treated his wife's family collection very carefully, and tried to constantly replenish it, which was facilitated by his travels around the country.

Their son Alexander, who was born in 1920, grew up among unique, rare things, and this became, albeit implicit, the work of his life. He became an excellent restorer.

After leaving school, he traveled around the country, and in 1941 entered the Moscow Institute. When the war began, according to some information, the reliability of which is not indisputable, he received a "white" ticket in exchange for a rare book - this was, perhaps, the only time when he used an exhibit of the collection for personal purposes.

In 1944 he was arrested for group theft from a food warehouse. According to the laws of wartime, he was threatened with execution for this, but he received, surprisingly, only 3 years, and served only 3 months. This gave rise to suspicion of collaboration with the NKVD, which formed a network of informants among collectors. It is assumed that he became a secret NKVD expert in the search and examination of rarities.

Experts assessed him as an excellent restorer, and one of the few in the world who knew how to do everything - there is a narrow specialization among restorers.

In 1945, the restorer A. Ilyin was hired at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. For his work, he did not take money, but asked for books from the library as payment. Later, he told one of his collectors, with whom he was closer than others, how he carried books out of the Lavra under his jacket.

When the Lavra was closed in 1961, he came to his parents in Kirovograd. With him from the Lavra, he took 2 containers of books and church utensils. He said that the monks themselves persuaded him to take everything away so that the atheists would not get anything.

In Kirovograd, he got a job as an electrician with a salary of 100 rubles a month.

He lived very modestly, only bought a trophy motorcycle, which he rode around the districts - checking the electric meters, he got access to houses, where he had the opportunity to see unique things, for the purchase of which he always carried a large amount of money with him.

In addition, he was an excellent icon restorer and bookbinder: customers came to him from all over the Union. For work, he took not money, but paintings, books, icons, etc. He knew how to "age" the sheets of books, to forge antiquity so that even experts did not always notice the fake. Sometimes, after restoration, he returned very high-quality copies of the icons to the owners, and kept the original for himself.

They say that once a week at night an inconspicuous car came to him, which only increased suspicions about his involvement in the KGB. In addition, the lack of attention from the criminal world only confirmed these suspicions - after all, his treasures were practically not guarded.

They say that his robbed the only time, moreover, they were "guest performers".

They took the gold and grabbed the book, flattered by the beautiful binding. They sold the gold things, and about the book - and this was the first edition of Dead Souls - the buyers explained that only Ilyin could buy it. And they offered Ilyin to buy this book. During the transfer, the thieves were arrested. Ilyin took the book, but refused the gold.

Another curious case was told by one historian. He traded with Ilyin the book of Grushevsky, whose works were then banned. At this deal, only two were present - he and Ilyin.

And at night, representatives of the authorities came to him and warned that he could read the book himself, and in no case was he trying to distribute it. Where did the book come from, no questions arose.

In general, this whole story has some kind of "smack": the members of the commission do not want to talk about their participation in it; and somewhere in Moscow, a video of the commission's work surfaced, although the video did not seem to have been taken; The SBU disowned its involvement in this case.

What was in the unique collection?

The exhibits of the collection were transferred to storage: books - to the Regional Scientific Library named after V.I. DI. Chizhevsky, the rest of the exhibits - in the regional museum of local lore.

Probably, no one has a complete list of exhibits in the collection, except for the commission that was engaged in its withdrawal, and there is no certainty that this is a complete list.

The exact cost of the collection was never announced - according to various estimates, it can be from 500 million to 1 billion US dollars.

The most valuable in the collection are books, of which there are about 5000, and among them:

• the book "Byzantine enamels", published in 1892 with a circulation of 200 copies. The cost of the book was 12 thousand silver rubles, which was the same price as an apartment in the center of Berlin with an area of ​​2000 sq. M. It is believed that its price has risen to at least $ 2 million;
• personal Bible of Empress Catherine;
• the manuscripts of A.S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol;
• a complete collection of Ivan Fyodorov's "pershodruks", many of whom were considered lost;
• a four-volume book "Grand-Ducal, Tsarist, Imperial Hunt in Russia", which was illustrated by Benois, Repin and other famous artists. Each volume is estimated at $ 500,000;
• unique manuscripts of the Gospel of the XIV century;
• a book with 84 engravings, each valued at $ 1,500, totaling at least $ 130,000;
• etc.

The books seem to be available to the readers of the library. In 2002, it was discovered that 43 books from the collection of A. Ilyin had disappeared from the library. Are there any? Most likely not.

Among the rest of the exhibits that got into the regional museum of local lore:

• portrait of Catherine II in the clothes of the Ukrainian hetman by Dmitry Levitsky (?), who was presumed missing;
• silver mug by the famous Ukrainian master I. Ravich (pictured). There is a version that this mug belonged or was intended for Peter I. There are only two such cups in the world;
• vases made of Venetian glass, into which gold was added (19th century);
• objects of the work of K. Faberge;
• a unique bronze figure of Buddha, included in the encyclopedia of foundry;
• the icon of the Mother of God of Okhtyrskaya (18th century);
• the temple icon of St. Praskevia;
• and many, many others.

The museum has an exposition "The Kunstkamera of Alexander Ilyin", which presents a part of his collection. Some photos from which we present here with the kind permission of the museum administration:

Watch or just listen to this video ...