On the history of the Babkinos estate Sergei Golubchikov, Candidate of Geographical Sciences, member of the Union of Journalists. Chekhov in the Babkino estate, not far from Voskresensk - Chekhov's Istra Kiselev estate

ABOUT THE OWNERS OF THE VILLAGE.

1705g. the village of Babkino was registered under Ivan Artemyev, son Voznitsyn. IN 1743 His widow sold the village to Voznitsyn’s sister Matryona, whose husband was a rear admiral Ivan Akimovich Sinyavin.

IN 1880 d. The estate was owned by a nobleman Alexey Sergeevich Kiselev . The Kiselyovs were people of great cultural interests. Mother A.S. Kiselyov Pushkin dedicated poems to A.S. Kiselyov's wife - Maria Vladimirovna was the daughter of the former director of the Moscow Imperial Theaters V.P. Begicheva . She collaborated in a number of children's magazines and A.P. helped her more than once. Subsequently, she corresponded with him, discussing some of his stories and creative plans. The Kiselevs had a good library; they subscribed to all the thick magazines and newspapers. Singers, writers, and public figures often visited Babkino. Been to Babkino Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Her father, who lived at the dacha in the summer, knew many celebrities and Chekhov loved to listen to his memories. Chekhov wrote such stories as “The Death of an Official” and “Volodya” based on what he heard from Begichev. Some circumstances from the life of the Kiselyovs in the old " noble nest"Chekhov used it in his story “At Friends' Place,” and later in his play “The Cherry Orchard.” Chekhov became friends with the Kiselyov children: 1888-1889 Seryozha lived in Moscow with the Chekhovs in the winter - “I took youth as my tenant in the form of a first-grader high school student, walking on his head, receiving units and jumping on everyone’s backs.” (A.P. Chekhov. Letter to I. L. Leontiev-Shcheglov, September 14 Complete collection works, vol. 14, p. 167) (I couldn’t find Seryozha’s photo -zlv14). The Chekhovs and their guests admired Seryozha's childish spontaneity, his wonderful sincerity, and inexhaustible cheerfulness. Sachet poems are dedicated. “Dear Babkin’s bright little star” is how Anton Pavlovich called this lively and witty girl in his album poem. Chekhov was friends with Sasha, whom he jokingly nicknamed Vasilisa, wrote poems in her album, and composed a story for her and Seryozha, “Soft-boiled Boots,” signing it with the funny pseudonym “Arkhip Indeikin.” Anton Pavlovich illustrated this parody of moralizing children's stories with pictures cut out from humorous magazines.

A.P. Chekhov lived in Istra and its environs for a long time and worked in the local hospital; his brother Ivan Pavlovich was a teacher at the local parish school.

The Chekhovs met the Kiselevs back in 1883. It all started with Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov. Mikhail Pavlovich Chekhov in his memoirs describes his acquaintance with the Kiselevs: “About twenty versts from Voskresensk, where my brother Ivan Pavlovich taught, was Pavlovskaya Sloboda, in which an artillery brigade was stationed. The battery headed by Colonel Mayevsky, which was stationed in Voskresensk, also belonged to this brigade. On some occasion, there was a brigade ball in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, at which, of course, officers from the Resurrection Battery were also supposed to be present. My brother Ivan Pavlovich also went there with them. Imagine his surprise when, at the end of the ball, the Voskresensk officers who brought him there decided to spend the night in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, and in the morning he had to open his school in Voskresensk; Moreover, it was winter, and it was impossible to go home on foot. Luckily for him, one of the invited guests came out of the officers' meeting; he was leaving for Voskresensk and three horses were immediately waiting for him. Seeing the helpless Ivan Pavlovich, this man offered him a place in his sleigh and delivered him safely to Voskresensk. It was A.S. Kiselev, who lived in Babkino, five miles from Voskresensk... Thus, having met my brother Ivan Pavlovich along the way, A.S. Kiselev invited him to be his tutor - this is how the connection between the Chekhov family and Babkin and its inhabitants began.” A little later, sister Masha, having met the owners of the Babkino estate through Ivan Pavlovich, became especially friendly with Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva, the wife of Alexander Sergeevich, and therefore stayed for a long time in Babkino. And so in the spring of 1885 it was finally decided: the Chekhovs’ summer would be in Babkino - on the Kiselevs’ estate.

Anton Pavlovich told I. Levitan: “I hope that we will have a fun life in Babkino. Its owners, Alexey Sergeevich and Maria Vladimirovna Kiselyov, are excellent people, they love literature, art, and most importantly, they are not prim, real Russian hospitable people.” Brother Ivan Pavlovich rehearses the Kiselev children - Sasha and Seryozha. Through him, our whole family met the Kiselevs. What a delight Maria Vladimirovna Kiselyova is! She sings well, writes in magazines, is a passionate, avid fisherman. Listen to her stories about Dargomyzhsky, Tchaikovsky, Rossi-Salvini - gorging. The storyteller did not slide over the top, able to convey about people and passions deeply, sharply, with taste. Cleverly, subtly, well, figuratively, warmly. She knows everyone closely. Well, it’s not for nothing that she is the granddaughter of the famous Novikov and the daughter of the famous director of the imperial theaters in Moscow Begicheva. Just a year ago, the shadow of Boleslav Markiewicz wandered through the park in Babkino. He lived there and wrote the novel “The Abyss.” Why Markevich! Maria Vladimirovna is the most interesting of all Babkin's characters. Tchaikovsky was in love with her. She would have willingly married him, but he missed marrying her. Kiselev is a cheerful, secular husband. Zemsky chief in the Voskresensky district. Nephew of the Russian ambassador in Paris, Count Kiselev.

The Russian emigrant writer B.K. Zaitsev noted in his story “Chekhov” that the prototype of Gaev in “The Cherry Orchard” was A.S. Kiselev - “a cultured and enlightened man, a liberal gentleman of the 80s, quite frivolous and attractive. Always in debt: Babkino was mortgaged and remortgaged. We had to get money, pay interest."In 1890-1898. the estate was supposed to be sold at auction for non-payment of dues to the bank.Later, Kiselev (like Gaev) in difficult times received a “place in the bank” in Kaluga.In March 1889 Seryozha Kiselev left his house on Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, as his parents moved to Moscow.

In summer 1903 , a year before his death, Chekhov again came to Istra for 2 days, trying to buy a dacha in these places he loved.Last owner Babkina was A. Kolesnikov. He arranged in the estate trade school for peasant girls, where for free taught cutting and sewing.The whole family became interested in this project - they developed it and invested money. The famous literary critic Yu. Sobolev, who visited Babkino in 1917 year:“The house is amazingly beautiful... The view from the second floor windows was one of Levitan’s best paintings. …. Near the house - above the cliff - there is a platform. A.P. Chekhov especially liked to sit here." IN 1926. was here 32nd forest school. The house burned down in 1929.

On the site of the estate, a monument to A.P. Chekhov was erected, which has not survived to this day. For a long time there was nothing, the pedestal collapsed, the place itself began to be overgrown with grass and trees.

October 15, 2008., in anticipation 150 -anniversary of the birth of A.P. Chekhovn another, new monument was left, which depicts Friends A. Chekhov and I. Levitan together. The proposal to install the monument was made by an academician Vladimir Yatsuk . A magnificent plastic composition made of artificial white stone is now installed next to the memorial stone, on which you can read: “In 1885–1887. A.P. lived in the village of Babkino. Chekhov and I.I. Levitan." It marks the entrance to the park that once existed here. Author compositions, People's Artist of Russia Sergey Kazantsev , depicted Chekhov and Levitan in one of the happiest moments of their youth. Both the writer and the artist at that time were inspired by the beauty of the surrounding landscapes and Babkinsky Park.

Used materials:

1. Istra land. Series "Encyclopedia of villages and villages of the Moscow region". M., 2004.

2. http://www.istra.ru/opus3.html

3. http://www.istranet.ru Elena Steidle. Local history society "Heritage".

4. http://apchekhov.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000018/st011.shtml

5. A.P. Chekhov. Documentation. Photos. M. Soviet Russia, 1984.

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Near Polevshchina there was the Babkino estate. In 1864, near the village of Babkin there was an estate of the state councilor Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rukin. In 1874 it came into the possession of I.I. Reper, and from 1875 to 1877 it was in the possession of F.I. Pechler.

In 1880, the estate in the village of Babkino was owned by nobleman Alexey Sergeevich Kiselev, nephew of the Minister of State Property, member of the State Council, diplomat, infantry general, adjutant general, Count P.D. Kiseleva.

The Chekhovs lived in Babkino for three summers (1885-1887). They came here on visits and at Christmas or Easter. Met with Kiselyovs first Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov.

Brother Mikhail Pavlovich described in his memoirs how this happened: “Twenty-five versts from Voskresensk, where my brother Ivan Pavlovich taught, was Pavlovskaya Sloboda, in which an artillery brigade was stationed. The battery headed by Colonel Mayevsky, which was stationed in Voskresensk, also belonged to this brigade. On some occasion, there was a brigade ball in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, at which, of course, officers from the Resurrection Battery were also supposed to be present. My brother Ivan Pavlovich also went there with them.

Imagine his surprise when, at the end of the ball, the Voskresensk officers who brought him there decided to spend the night in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, and in the morning he had to open his school in Voskresensk; Moreover, it was winter, and it was impossible to go home on foot. Luckily for him, one of the invited guests came out of the officers' meeting; he was leaving for Voskresensk and three horses were immediately waiting for him.

Seeing the helpless Ivan Pavlovich, this man offered him a place in his sleigh and delivered him safely to Voskresensk.

This was A.S. Kiselev, who lived in Babkino, five versts from Voskresensk, nephew of the Russian ambassador in Paris, Count P.D. Kiseleva. This Count Kiselev died in Nice, in his own palace, and left his three nephews large capital and all the furnishings. Part of this situation ended up in Babkin with one of his nephews, Alexei Sergeevich. This Alexey Sergeevich was married to the daughter of the then famous director of the imperial theaters in Moscow V.P. Begicheva - Maria Vladimirovna.

They had children - Sasha (a girl) and Seryozha, who are mentioned more than once in the biography of Anton Chekhov. Thus, having met my brother Ivan Pavlovich along the way, A.S. Kiselev invited him to be his tutor, and thus the connection between the Chekhov family and Babkin and its inhabitants was born. It began with the fact that our sister Masha, having met Kiselev through Ivan Pavlovich and become friends with Maria Vladimirovna, began to stay in Babkino for a long time, and then in the spring of 1885 the whole Chekhov family moved to the dacha there...

Babkino played an outstanding role in the development of Anton Chekhov's talent. Not to mention the truly charming nature, where we had at our disposal a large English park, a river, forests, and meadows, and the very people gathered in Babkino were just right. The Kiselev family was one of those rare families who knew how to reconcile! traditions with high culture. Father-in-law A.S. Kiseleva, V.P. Begichev, described by Markevich in his novel “A Quarter of a Century Ago” under the name “Ashanin,” was an unusually fascinating person, sensitive to art and literature, and we, the Chekhov brothers, sat for hours with him in his femininely furnished room and listened to , who told us about his adventures in Russia and abroad.

Anton Chekhov owes him his stories “The Death of an Official” (an incident that actually happened at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater) and “Volodya”; “Burbot” was also written from life (the action took place during the construction of a bathhouse); “Daughter of Albion” - the whole environment is Babkin’s.

Maria Vladimirovna was the granddaughter of the famous publisher, humanist writer Novikov, she herself wrote in magazines, was a passionate fisherman and spent hours standing with my brother Anton and sister Masha with a fishing rod on the shore and having literary conversations with them.

In the park, as brother Anton himself put it, “the shadow of Boleslav Markevich wandered,” who only a year before lived in Babkino and wrote his “Abyss” there.” V.P. Begichev knew Markevich well; in 1860 they wrote the vaudeville “The Chinese Rose” together.

Boleslav Mikhailovich Markevich was born in 1822 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. He spent his childhood in Kyiv and the Volyn province. Until the age of fourteen, he was raised at home under the guidance of tutors and visiting teachers; Literary inclinations were revealed early in him.

In 1835, his story “The Gold Coin”, translated from French, was published in “ Children's magazine" After his parents moved to Odessa, Boleslav Mikhailovich entered the fifth grade of the gymnasium at the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa in 1836, and in 1838 he entered the law faculty of the same lyceum. After completing a full course at the Lyceum in 1842, Markevich entered the service of the St. Petersburg Chamber of State Property and three years later was appointed an official special assignments under the same ministry.

In 1848, Markevich was transferred to the service of the Moscow military governor-general, with the official assigning him special assignments, which service he performed until 1853.

In 1849 he was promoted to the rank of cadet chamberlain, and in 1853 he was transferred to the vacancy of secretary under the chairman of the department of military affairs of the State Council. Markevich succeeded in his career thanks to wide social connections, which he owed only to himself - his beautiful appearance, dramatic talent. Markevich - Chatsky - remained in the memory of many contemporaries. He knew how to entertain society, especially ladies, “with his intelligence, witticisms, anecdotes and singing, and the gift of reading.” His talent opened the way for him not only to aristocratic salons, but also to imperial palace. At evenings with Empress Maria Alexandrovna, he successfully recited the works of writers, with many of whom - with I.S. Turgenev, A.K. Tolstoy, F.I. Tyutchev, P.A. Vyazemsky, A.N. Maykov, Ya.P. Polonsky, N.S. Leskov - maintained (often initiated) friendly or friendly relations. Boleslav Markevich moved to serve as a supernumerary official for special assignments under the Minister of Internal Affairs, and from here in 1866 to the Ministry of Public Education.

Granted the rank of chamberlain in 1866, Markevich served as an official of special assignments under the minister, and then from 1873 was a member of a special committee for the review of books published for the people, and a member of the minister’s council from 1873 to 1875. A pleasant person in society, an entertaining storyteller, an excellent reciter, organizer of home theaters and picnics, he was a typical “official of special assignments” of all trades and was accepted in aristocratic spheres.

Count S.D. Sheremetev wrote: “For the first time I saw Markevich in society in the club of rural owners who gathered in the halls of the Assembly of the Nobility... It was a talking shop in which they refined the art of speaking eloquently, which then became fashionable, and here many prepared themselves for broader activities and tried their hand... A handsome man with an important posture with a thrown back curly head with strong gray hair also spoke; he spoke calmly, smoothly, parliamentarily; not only spoke, but also stood according to all the rules of art. It was B. Markevich. Another time I remember him in the palace of V.K. Elena Pavlovna. I saw how the Emperor addressed him cordially. Markevich stood in the doorway and, again, very picturesquely. At the same time, I met him at meetings and public readings with Count A.K. Tolstoy and the Kushelevs. Finally, at one time he often visited S.M. Sheremeteva and read her his story “Marina from Scarlet Horn”. His life was stormy, he experienced many changes in fortune: I don’t consider myself in the right to judge him, but I know that reading him brought great pleasure, and his figure was; remarkable. His friendship with Katkov, his quarrel with him, all these are phases; his difficult career, which began in Moscow at the court of Count Zakrevsky."

In the 1860-1870s. social role Boleslav Markevich has changed. Proximity to the highest circles of the St. Petersburg bureaucracy marked the beginning of a new stage in his biography. A secular joker, a ladies' man, an amateur actor gave way to an influential official, experienced in behind-the-scenes secrets political struggle and gained “importance in society” thanks to his exceptional awareness, so recognized that even V.P. Meshchersky, publishing the magazine “Citizen,” turned to him “for instructions on the topics of the day.”

During these years, Markevich's position was quite difficult, often forcing him to maneuver. Constantly moving in the court circle and in the highest bureaucratic strata, B. Markevich was at the same time absolutely devoted to M. N. Katkov: he served as a conductor of his internal political course, a mediator in his conflicts with the authorities and, most importantly, his secret informant. Markevich regularly sent detailed letters to Katkov, which often formed the basis of articles, notes and even the leading Moskovskie Vedomosti, and avoided postal communications and often encrypted essential information(the most influential persons appeared under conventional names).

Markevich began his literary career in 1873, when his “Marina from Scarlet Horn” created a stir and forced the author himself to pay attention to his fictional abilities. In "Russian Messenger" Markevich began publishing his trilogy in 1878: "A Quarter of a Century Ago", "The Turning Point" (1880) and "The Abyss" (1883-1884 - not finished). Markevich's works were a great success in all strata of society. B. Markevich was the favorite writer of Emperor Alexander III; in public libraries his novels were read to the gills. Not least of all, this popularity was explained by the fact that many of his heroes were “copied from life” and, as a rule, were easily recognizable.

A contemporary wrote: “Having entered literature very late, already with gray hair, he brought with him a huge life experience, a lot of types, impressions and observations...” His novels were seen as “a true reflection of the era of Alexander II.”

Mikhail Chekhov wrote about life in Babkino: “The singer, once a famous tenor, Vladislavlev, who made famous the popular romance “Beyond the river on the mountain the green forest is rustling,” in which he maintained the upper “D” in the word “eh!” for a whole minute. .”, lived right there and sang his arias and romances. Maria Vladimirovna also sang. E. A. Efremova introduced Beethoven, Liszt and other great musicians every evening. The Kiselevs were closely acquainted with Dargomyzhsky, Tchaikovsky, and Salvini. Then composer P.I. Tchaikovsky, who had only recently performed his “Eugene Onegin,” excited Babkin’s minds; Conversations about music, composers and dramatic art were often raised.

Charming children ran around the cleared English park, exchanged jokes and witticisms with brother Anton and enlivened life. The hunter Ivan Gavrilov, an extraordinary liar, like all hunters, the gardener Vasily Ivanovich, who divided the entire plant world into “trapica” and “botany”, the carpenters who built the bathhouse, the peasants, the sick women who came to be treated, and finally, nature itself - all this gave stories to brother Anton and set him up well.

Everyone woke up very early in Babkino. At about seven in the morning, Brother Anton was already sitting at a table made from a sewing machine, looking out the large square window at the magnificent view and writing. He then worked at Oskolki and at the Petersburg Newspaper and wrote generously about Babkin’s impressions.

We also had lunch early, around one o'clock in the afternoon. Brother Anton was a passionate lover of looking for mushrooms and while walking through the forest he could more easily come up with topics.

Near the Daraganovsky forest stood the lonely Polevshchina church, which always attracted the attention of the writer. It served only once a year, on Kazan, and at night the sad sounds of the bell reached Babkin when the watchman rang the clock. This church, with its watchman's house near the post road, seems to have given Brother Anton the idea to write "The Witch" and "An Evil Deed."

Returning from the forest, we drank tea. Then Brother Anton sat down to write again, later they played croquet, and at eight o’clock in the evening they had dinner. After dinner we went to big house to the Kiselevs. These were excellent, unique evenings.

In the 1890s. estate of A.S. Kiselev was supposed to be sold at auction for non-payment of fees to the St. Petersburg-Tula Land Bank. The estate came into the possession of retired hussar colonel Pyotr Mikhailovich Kotlyarevsky.

In 1905, in Babkino - the estate of Tatyana Konstantinovna Kotlyarevskaya (nee Shilovskaya).

T.A. Aksakova wrote: “The daughter of Konstantin Stepanovich Shilovsky, Tatyana Konstantinovna “Tulya,” living with her mother in St. Petersburg...at the age of 20, she married the life hussar Pyotr Mikhailovich Kotlyarevsky. It is difficult to imagine people more different than these spouses: Tatyana Konstantinovna, tall, heavy, calm and even slow, with amazingly beautiful and expressive eyes, dark down upper lip, and a charming smile, was not beautiful in the full sense of the word, but it was accompanied by some kind of peculiar charm. When she picked up a guitar (and I can’t imagine her without a guitar), it was already “give everything, but it’s not enough!”

It seems that there was never any special unity between the Kotlyarevsky spouses, and as soon as, due to lack of money, the eternal holiday ended, the relationship began to crack. Just at this time, Tatyana Konstantinovna met Nikolai Tolstoy with us, and Kotlyarevsky, for his part, became very interested in a Hungarian woman named Ermina.

Because of all of the above, the Kotlyarevskys decided to amicably separate without screams or tears. From the remnants of his fortune, Pyotr Mikhailovich bought his wife a small estate in the Zvenigorod district near the village of Babkino (known from Chekhov’s stay there), and as soon as the divorce was over, Tyulya married Tolstoy and moved to an appanage dacha in Bykovo. The happiness was complete... The Tolstoys' life together lasted only six months and ended in disaster in 1907.

During the fire, the burning roof of the house collapsed, burying six people (Tolstoy, Shilovsky, Perfilyev, Alina Kodynets, a footman and a maid died). Tatyana Konstantinovna and Nikita Tolstoy, who slept on the lower floor, remained alive.

For a brief moment, the February Revolution seemed like a cleansing thunderstorm. But after it, the October Revolution struck Russia. Tatyana Tolstaya makes her way to the Tambov region with difficulty. There she hoped to escape from what was happening in the capitals. Near Burnak, an estate awaited her, a small house with a garden.

The train approached Burnak slowly. She peered into the faces of the soldiers and did not recognize those whom she had recently saved from death, bandaged and consoled with kind words and songs. “Now I would refuse to sneeze for them,” she will write bitterly. Everything became meaningless and unsteady. From now on, nothing can be considered yours, not even your own life. They will come and take it away, steal it, order you to surrender it under threat of prison and execution. Life seemed like a terrible mirage. And there was nowhere to run from her.

Countess Tolstaya learned to go hunting. She returned with the spoils. “If I didn’t love hunting and nature, I would have died in the village... I already have four fox skins from my hunt,” she wrote to friends in Moscow. She managed to exchange something at the Burnaksky bazaar or in the district Borisoglebsk. “The other day in Borisoglebsk,” writes Tatyana Konstantinovna, “a wine warehouse was destroyed - 64 thousand buckets of alcohol and vodka. The cellars were accidentally set on fire - more than 500 people died in the fire and alcohol. The rest were selling for a long time at a ruble per bottle and everyone was drunk all around.”

According to the message local press, “drunken revelry was accompanied by wanton shooting, robberies, murders, pogroms and theft of private estates.” And it was impossible to defend. The slogan of the day read: “For one drop of revolutionary blood, we will release tubs of blood from exploiters and enemies!” The “exploiters and enemies” included almost all of Tatyana Tolstoy’s friends, who sometimes reached her estate from neighboring estates, where they hoped to escape hunger and devastation. The Pustovalovs and Obolenskys came to her to rest their souls, remember the old things, and listen to her sing.

In 1919, Pyotr Viktorovich Ladyzhensky, a friend of Rachmaninov and Chaliapin, the husband of the gypsy Anna Alexandrova, came to her. She devotes a whole cycle of her poems to him.

Tatiana Tolstoy's garden adjoined the railway. Trains filled with bagmen and soldiers passed two steps from the fence. They, of course, greeted the woman walking in the garden in the most selective language. There was no hope of getting to Moscow again. When, two miles from her, the landowner Pustova-lova, the mother of one of her closest friends, that same veterinarian, was robbed and killed, she realized that the end was approaching. "Isn't it fun to live under sword of Damocles? - Tatyana Konstantinovna writes in one of her last letters. “I’ve already gotten used to the risk of being robbed and even killed.” She was first added to the list of hostages.

In 1921, a decree was issued on the surrender of all weapons, and for failure to surrender - execution on the spot. Once, her husband brought her a women's Browning from abroad and gave it to her. She had forgotten that the uncharged old Browning was lying somewhere in the table. When a detachment came to her estate and asked her if there were weapons, she said: “No, you can check.”

The soldiers began to rummage around in the room and found the ill-fated Browning in the table. They didn’t kill her right away; first they asked her to sing. She sang all night. But the commanders turned out to be persistent and did not succumb to the softening influence of romance music. In the morning, a friend traveling to see her met a cart loaded with the corpses of hostages. She recognized Tatyana Tolstoy by her hand, which was hanging from the cart.”

In 1929, the house burned down, and by now nothing remains of Babkin’s estate.

“Wherever we go, whatever we see, we feel - he was already here, he saw it, he caught it before us,” Ruskin writes about his favorite English artist Turner. The same feeling grips us in the vicinity of Istra.

Chekhov lived here. And when we read the pages of his intricate stories, splashing with laughter, still signed with the name “Antoshi Chekhonte”, it is as if we are again walking along the friendly Istra roads, through the endless Istra forests, again standing by the clear, icy waters of Istra. Still intact in the shallow Istra waters are the green piles of the swimming pool, the construction of which was associated with burbot fishing (“Bubot”).

The writer’s brother Mikhail Chekhov writes about this story: “Described from life.” Somewhere nearby, right there on the bank, with a fishing rod in her hands, Miss Matthews stood for hours - “The Daughter of Albion”... the governess of the guests who came to Babkino,” recalls the same Mikhail Chekhov in the article “Anton Chekhov on Vacation.” In the evenings, fogs hang over Babkin, hiding the lonely traveler in the whitish gloom. And it seems that such simple, earthly happiness goes away with him. After all, this is probably what poor “Verochka” thought, chillily wrapping herself in a damp scarf, harboring the grief of unrequited love. The testimony of the writer's brother fully confirms this. “The garden described in Verochka in the moonlight with wisps of fog crawling through it is the garden in Babkino.”

Chekhov's heroes have grown into the Istra landscapes, and we feel their presence in these places. This connection is so strong and so organic that our imagination is ready to discover any landscapes abundantly scattered in Chekhov’s works here. Connoisseur Chekhov's works Yu. Sobolev even connects the later “Chaika” with Istra places. “Near the house - above the cliff - there is a platform. Here, according to legend, Chekhov especially liked to sit. Here the idea of ​​“The Seagull” arose in his mind, he writes.

Is this heartfelt love for the beauty of the Istra places accidental in Chekhov? After all, he was not the only writer whose fate was whimsically intertwined in the history of the “out of the ordinary” town of Voskresensk - present-day Istra. His name soon contains an extensive list: V. A. Zhukovsky, M. Yu. Lermontov, A. I. Herzen, N. M. Yazykov, M. P. Pogodin, Yu. F. Samarin, P. V. Schumacher, B M. Markevich.

Only one A.P. Chekhov accepted it into the crucible of his creativity. Istra turned out to be the most fertile soil for the young Chekhov talent. He alone survived it as a writer. In a letter to N.A. Leikin (June 25, 1884), A.P. Chekhov emphasizes his purely literary attitude towards the Istra places: “The monastery is poetic. Standing at the all-night vigil in the twilight of the galleries and vaults, I come up with themes for the “sweet sounds.” There are a lot of..." It was in Istra, with which more than seven years of his writing youth were associated, that his talent was largely formed and strengthened.

Time has preserved the unique appearance of this town until tragic days autumn 1941. Walking through the quiet, friendly streets, where every turn seemed to reveal before you the intricate background of another Chekhov story, I wanted to call Istra “Chekhov’s Nature Reserve.” And therein lies the severe pain of her unrequited loss. In December 1941, the great battle for Moscow was won. The exhausted enemy, thrown further and further to the west, took revenge on monuments, gardens and dwellings in impotent anger. He blew up the unique New Jerusalem Monastery, burned Istra, cut down apple trees for fires and mined the city glorified by Chekhov. Now a new Istra, like a phoenix, is rising from the ashes. The city is being restored, and the memory of Chekhov comes to life here with renewed vigor.

In 1884, when Chekhov was already living in Istra, D. I. Mendeleev, speaking about the landscapes of Kuindzhi, argued that nature influences human characters in different ways. Istra nature turned out to be close inner world Chekhov; He, of all the writers who visited here, turned out to be the singer of these places. It is significant that other places did not evoke a creative response in him with such force as it did in Istra.

After a seven-year relationship with his beloved town, Chekhov spent the summer of 1888 in Luka, and his brother Mikhail Chekhov, already accustomed to the fact that the surrounding environment suggested themes to A.P. Chekhov, wrote down, not without bewilderment: “...Life in Ukraine why “she didn’t give him as many topics as in previous years at Babkin: he was only interested in her platonically.”

“The theme is given by chance,” writes Chekhov in one of his Istra letters. Chance led him to Istra. In 1880, his brother, Ivan Pavlovich, was appointed as a teacher at the local parish school. Lonely Ivan Pavlovich, who had just left the basement abode of the Chekhovs on Trubnaya, suddenly found himself with a spacious, furnished and designed for big family apartment. With the first days of spring, the writer’s mother, his sister and younger brother move to Voskresensk (as Istra was previously called). At first, Anton Pavlovich comes here only on short visits, but gradually Istra attracts him more and more. Among the local intelligentsia, the young writer met a sensitive, friendly and attentive environment. Here “every single thick magazine published at that time was positively subscribed to.” “As a writer, Anton Chekhov needed impressions, and he now began to draw them for his plots from the life that surrounded him in Voskresensk: he entered into it entirely. As a future doctor, he needed medical practice, and it was also here at his service.”

The hospital where Chekhov underwent medical practice left a lot of time for creative observations. Her chief physician, P. A. Arkhangelsky, recalls: “He often sat on a stool in the doctor’s office in some free corner and from there watched with his soulful eyes...”.

The doctors knew about him literary works, and one day one of them jokingly burst out: “...Probably Anton Pavlovich will earn more than one coin from us!” The aspiring writer saw a lot here. “The hospital brought him closer to the sick peasants, revealed to him the morals of them and the lower medical personnel and was reflected in those works of Anton Pavlovich in which doctors and paramedics are depicted (“Surgery”, “The Fugitive”, “Turner”). “He often spent time in the hospital from the morning until the end of the appointment,” we read in the notes of Dr. Arkhangelsky, “sometimes he was late home for lunch, and stayed with me for lunch. I remember: you used to go to the hospital at about 9 am and see how, from behind the cemetery, a bicycle with a huge front wheel was moving along a birch alley, and on it one of the Chekhov brothers, accompanied by the others; alternately sitting and falling, they finally reached the hospital; Anton Pavlovich usually stayed and went with me to the hospital, and the brothers either followed the road further or returned back.”

Doctor P. A. Arkhangelsky was far away extraordinary personality. “His fame as a general practitioner was so great that final year medical students and even young doctors came to practice with him.” “Pavel Arsenievich himself was known as a very sociable person, and medical youth always gathered around him to practice, many of whom later became medical luminaries...

Often, after a hard day, they gathered at the lonely Arkhangelsky, parties were organized at which a lot of liberal things were said and literary novelties were discussed. They talked a lot about Shchedrin, and binge-read Turgenev. Sang in chorus folk songs“Show me such an abode,” Nekrasov recited with gusto... These parties were for me a school where I received political and social education and where my convictions as a person and a citizen were firmly and forever formed,” recalls M. Chekhov.

We have the right to apply these words to Anton Pavlovich himself. Doctor Arkhangelsky, as if summing up his memories of Chekhov, characterizes his further life path: “He did not become a practicing doctor, but remained a subtle diagnostician of a person’s mental states, and a sensitive depicter of human sorrows.” The Chikin hospital in Istra not only provided a medical school for the student Chekhov, it also became a writing school, developing in him the ability to observe and analyze.

Already Chekhov’s first Chikin stories speak of the young writer’s close interest in the common people, peasants, fishermen, and hunters. Voskresensk was famous for the originality of its taverns. There's a lot of profit here for the writer. Creative zeal is here in everyone and in everything. Anton Pavlovich is a guest of these taverns, and even prefers to pick up some products here rather than in the shops. In a letter to the publisher of Oskolkov, N. A. Leikinon lists his first doctoral fees: “... he treated a young lady’s tooth, did not cure it and received 5 rubles; treated a monk for dysentery, cured him and received 1 ruble.” etc. And not without sadness he ends: “I collected all these rubles together and sent them to Bannikov’s tavern, from where I get vodka, beer and other medicines for my table!”

The center of all Resurrection life, according to M. Chekhov, was the family of Colonel Mayevsky. Anton Pavlovich was very friendly with the Mayevsky children Anya, Sonya, Alyosha, participants in long walks, and described their evenings in the story “Children”. In the Mayevsky house, Chekhov also conceived the idea of ​​the future “Three Sisters.” “My brother is here,” M.P. Chekhov tells us, “he met other officers of the battery and, in general, military life, which later served him in the creation of “Three Sisters.” The lieutenant of this battery, E.P. Egorov, was a close friend of the Chekhov brothers and was mentioned by Anton Pavlovich in his story “The Green Braid.” Subsequently, this E.P. Egorov retired with the same desire to “work, work, work” as Baron Tuzenbach in “Three Sisters.” For many years, the city has kept a legend that the idea of ​​the “Three Sisters” originated here. However, the memory of the dacha where Mayevsky lived was erased long ago, but the legendary house “ three sisters"Knows the whole city. On the eve of the war of 1914, Chekhov scholar Yuri visited Voskresensk. Sobolev, and local old-timers were able to tell him even the surname of “three sisters.” These are the Mengalev sisters. One of the sisters was the head of the gymnasium. “To our surprise,” writes Yu. Sobolev, “the coachman with whom we made our way through these places also knew about this. He took us along a crooked street and showed us a large stone white house.

This is where these three sisters lived,” he said, pointing to the façade with his whip...”

“Perhaps,” Sobolev adds on his own behalf, “those who bore the lovely names of Masha, Olga and Irina actually lived here...

Who knows...

But in the memories of our trip, the episode with the house of the “three sisters” is perhaps the most exciting...”

Across the lane from Mayevsky's house there was a parish school building, where Chekhov came to visit his brother (1881 and 1882) and where he lived in the summer months (1883 and 1884).

During the days of the Great Patriotic War I remembered with particular poignancy that here Chekhov wrote the story “The Grateful German,” which reveals all the darkness of the soul of future “supermans.” In the fall of 1941, they came to this quiet, cheerful city and burned the house where the great writer lived and worked.

Blackened bricks and stoves with crumbling tiles now stand in the place where the parish school house was. All that remained of the entire colossal estate was the entrance gate of heavy brickwork, with cast-iron rattling handles.

The parish school house was located near the city square and bordered one side of the property with the local cathedral. Bannikov's tavern also stood here on the square. When the heat subsided, Anton Pavlovich appeared on the streets.

“In the evening,” he writes in one of his letters from here, “I go to Andrei Yegorych’s post office to receive newspapers and letters, and I rummage through the correspondence and read addresses with the zeal of a curious slacker. Andrei Yegorych gave me the topic for the story “Exam for Rank.” The simplicity of morals in the city was patriarchal. Service here was a calm, homely affair. The post office did not work every day, and sending a story to the next issue of the magazine on time was not an easy task. There was no Vindavskaya (now Kalininskaya) railway then, and the nearest station - Kryukovo, (present Oktyabrskaya Railway) - it was 20 versts. Chekhov is looking for postal opportunities, reporting in a subsequent letter about his difficulties to the editor: “I had to bow to the fat praying mantis. If the praying mantis gets to the station in time for the mail train and manages to drop the letter in the proper place, then I am triumphant, but if God does not grant her the gift of serving literature, then you will receive the story with this letter.”

And yet Voskresensk did not provide Chekhov with that amount of peace and quiet that is so necessary for concentrated writing. That is why, when in 1885 the landowners Kiselevs offered to settle for the summer on their Babkin estate, about four versts from Voskresensk, captivated by the park, river, and ponds, the friendly Chekhov family migrated here with delight.

His brother Mikhail Pavlovich speaks about the exceptional significance of three years of life in Babkin for Chekhov’s work: “... in almost all the stories of that time you can see one or another picture of Babkin, one or another person from Babkin’s inhabitants or from the inhabitants who gravitated towards Babkin villages." Let us remember that the first creative success Anton Pavlovich falls precisely on these years. The main feature of Chekhov’s new friends was that “the Kiselyov family was one of those rare families who knew how to reconcile traditions with high culture.” I. Grabar, in his monograph about Levitan, gives them the following description: “The owners of the Kiselyov estate, a typical family of Londs v1yan1:5, turned life into a continuous holiday, full of witty buffoonery and some kind of reckless bohemia.”

Kiselyov's father-in-law, V.P. Begichev, was for many years associated with the largest representatives of Russian art. A.S. stayed at his Moscow apartment when coming from St. Petersburg. Dargomyzhsky, and the author of “Tarantas”, V. A. Sologub. A. N. Ostrovsky and P. I. Tchaikovsky easily visited him. B. M. Markovich, out of friendship with Begichev, lived in Babkino a year before Anton Pavlovich and wrote his “Abyss” and “Children of Life” here. For a long time, as director of the Moscow imperial theaters, Begichev stood at the center of Moscow theatrical and artistic life. And with his stories about her, he seemed to introduce the aspiring writer, the “grandson of the serf” Chekhov, so far only a “newspaper guy,” into the sanctuary of high, official art, secular salons, thick magazines, respected editorial offices. “We, the Chekhov brothers, sat with him for hours at a time,” recalls Mikhail Chekhov. The appearance of V.P. Begichev, original and fascinating, begged for the inquisitive writer’s pen. Markevich captures him as Ashanin in “A Quarter of a Century Ago,” and Anton Pavlovich, remembering him, creates the image of Count Shabelsky in his “Ivanov.” Some of the plots of the stories written in Babkino are entirely drawn from evening conversations over tea with Begichev: “To him,” writes the writer’s brother, “Anton Chekhov owes his stories “The Death of an Official” (an incident that actually happened at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater) and “Volodya” .

His daughter, Maria Vladimirovna, herself wrote in magazines and for many subsequent years maintained correspondence with Anton Pavlovich. They were also brought together by their mutual passion for fishing.

Her husband A. S. Kiselev, nephew of the once famous diplomat Count P. D. Kiselev, was the local zemstvo commander. However, his cell served more for the amusement of Babkin’s guests rather than “carrying out justice and reprisals” among the local village population, “...it happened that Levitan was tried,” recalls M. Chekhov. “Kiselev was the chairman of the court, Anton Pavlovich was the prosecutor, and he put on makeup specifically for this purpose. Both were wearing uniforms embroidered with gold. Anton Pavlovich gave an accusatory speech that made everyone die of laughter.”

In Babkin a strong friendship between Chekhov and Levitan begins. The brooding backwaters of Istra, the lyrical paths in the green thicket, the hills along which centuries-old spruce trees climb, attracted the young artist to the village of Maksimovka, about two miles from Babkin, on the other side of Istra, but Levitan did not live here long. Having chosen a separate outbuilding for him, the Chekhovs quickly dragged him to Babkino: they walked together, looked for hares and in the evenings arranged a “theater for themselves”: “...Suddenly Levitan on a donkey and in sheets, dressed as a Bedouin, rode out at sunset, into the meadow, behind the river and held evening Muslim prayers there, and Anton Pavlovich fired at him with a blank charge from behind the bushes; Levitan fell, and with the whole house we organized his funeral.”

The passion for jokes and hoaxes was not only an interesting curiosity in Chekhov’s complex biography. Sometimes this passion was, as it were, a self-test of the yet unrealized dramatic plans of the future writer. Let us remember that jokes and amusements precede Chekhov’s introduction to literature. “Almost every day,” his brother writes about the Chekhovs’ life in the house on Trubnaya, “he performed in his family, in his own improvisations. Either he gave lectures and portrayed an old professor, then he acted as a dentist, or he represented an Athonite monk. His first work, published by him in “Dragonfly” (“Letter to a learned neighbor”), is precisely one of his lectures, which he acted out in front of us.” This feature of Chekhov's character finds favorable soil here, in Babkin.

The day in Babkino began early. “At about seven in the morning, Brother Anton was already sitting at a table made from a sewing machine, looking out of the large square window at the magnificent view and writing.”

In the business routine of Babkin's days, Anton Pavlovich's talent grew stronger. Perhaps no doctor believed as much in the renewing powers of the new resort he opened as Chekhov did in “his” Babkino. There is no correspondent whom he would not invite here. Solidny N.A. He is ready to seduce Leikin with “paganism” and nature, in relation to which he promises him “something that (he) has never seen anywhere.” A.S. He promises Lazarev-Gruzinsky: “if you arrive this minute, you will get right to the center of time and space... I will send you my life coachman Alexei with a cart to the station, who charges very little for delivering comedians. You will recognize Alexei by: 1) stupidity, 2) a confused look and 3) the issue of “New Time”, which I order him to hold in his hands.” Friendly admonitions to the architect F.O. have also been preserved. Shekhtel, the future author of the Moscow Art Theater building: “Give up your architecture! We desperately need you...” “If you don’t come, then I wish you that your ribbons will be publicly untied on the street...”.

Chekhov especially valued Babkin and Voskresensk. Everything was close to him here. Therefore, when you get here, you involuntarily begin to see everything in some special, “Chekhovian” light. The seagulls flying around Babkin made Yu. Sobolev believe that the “Seagull” was born here. Even the Kiselyovsky house seemed to him..."similar to the house that is shown in Art Theater in the first act of “Ivanov”... And it seems that now the voice of the old man Begichev, described by Chekhov in the person of Count Shabelsky, will be heard from the balcony, and the melodies of a sobbing cello will flow from the house.” By the time Sobolev arrived in Babkino, it had already become a merchant property. Where once in the Kiselyovsky house there was a story about Turgenev, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt were played, there the “Alexei Kolesnikov Craft School” grew up. And “yet,” writes Sobolev, “one breathes here with the “Chekhov” mood” of that distant time when he lived here, young, so cheerful, witty.” The power of all-crushing time recedes before the blessed memory of the great writer.

A kilometer from Babkino, on the other side of Istra, behind a marshy swamp, on the high hills of Maksimovka, stands the ancient Polevshinskaya Church. Even in pre-Petrine times, an unknown builder built its strict walls, built a light bell tower, and placed an intricate gatehouse near the passage in the fence.

The Chekhovs often wandered near these places, and the loneliness of the Polevshinskaya Church constantly excited the writer’s imagination. Services were held there only once a year - “on Kazanskaya”. A lonely watchman lived in the gatehouse, occasionally showing the way to the lost troika, and calling the night hours, disturbing the fun of Babkin’s evenings with the dull ringing of bells. In thoughts about this watchman, Anton Pavlovich creates his “Witch” and “Evil Deed.”

Babkin's sunny world lived powerfully in Chekhov's soul. Even in winter, in Moscow, his memory sacredly preserves past joys. “In my poor soul,” he writes to Kiseleva, “there is still nothing but memories of fishing rods, ruffs, tops, a long green thing for worms... about camphor oil, Anfisa, the path through the swamp to the Daraganovsky forest, about lemonade , swimming pool... waking up in the morning, I ask myself the question: did I catch anything or not? This heightened joy of life, captured by Chekhov in stories, essays and humorous inscriptions under drawings, will amaze him ten years later. “Recently,” writes Anton Pavlovich in 1895, “I looked into the old “Shards,” already half forgotten, and was surprised at the enthusiasm that was then in you and me...”

The writer’s memory so lovingly cherishes the memories of Babkin that the slightest external reason is enough for it to appear before the writer’s eyes. Looking through the windows of his office in the Korneev Dam, he writes (1887): “The green trees of Sadovaya remind me of Babkino, in which I spent three unnoticed years as a hermit...”. While vacationing in Aleksin in the summer of 1891, his thoughts returned to Babkin: “... when rain clouds hung over our park... I remembered how in such weather we went to Maksimovka to see Levitan and how Levitan threatened to shoot us with a revolver.” Babkin’s events live so firmly in his memory that he uses them as an arsenal for already gloomy comparisons: “As for my own life, I can safely say the same thing that the priests said when they left you after dinner: “No health, no joys, but so, God knows what..."

It is generally accepted that, having left Babkin in August 1887, Chekhov never appeared here again. Usually, all biographies seem to draw a sharp line separating “Babkin’s” and “post-Babkin’s”. Meanwhile, over the course of another five years, in the writer’s correspondence we find references to his grandmother’s trips.

"January 6, 1888" he writes to Kiseleva: “... the return journey seemed short, because it was light and warm, but, alas! Having arrived home, I greatly regretted that this route was the other way around...” A short month later (February 15), he writes to Kiselyov himself: “About a trip to Babkino during Shrove Week, my whole gang of robbers decides to go like this!” On Christmas Day in 1890, the same theme: “The Moscow air is crackling: 24 degrees. I was hoping to go to the village tomorrow to see Coquelin the Younger...” (That was the name of Anton Pavlovich’s son of the Kiselyovs). “Tomorrow I’m going to Babkino.” “I was in the village with the Kiselyovs...” Such phrases are replete with his letters in subsequent years.

Babkino becomes synonymous with youth for A.P. Chekhov. To be here means for him to return to better and happier days. In 1896, Chekhov wrote to Kiselyov from Melikhov: “Everyone has aged, become more positive, we often sing the romances that Mikhail Petrovich (tenor Vladislavlev) and Maria Vladimirovna (Kiselyova) sang. I would like to go to you, I would even really like to..." Nice is not able to erase the memory of sunny Babkin. In 1897, Chekhov wrote from here to Kiseleva: “It’s very nice here, but nevertheless, I would still gladly spend Christmas not here, but in Babkino, which is so sweet and dear to me from my memories.”

But if trips to Babkino are difficult, then another connection with these places of creative youth may be possible. Chekhov jokingly writes to Kiselev from Melikhovo in 1892: “How would you oblige us if you ran a telephone line from Babkin to Melikhovo at your own expense...”

Time erases the once strong thread of friendship. The Kiselyovs are selling Babkino, and new service Alexei Sergeevich forces them to leave the Moscow region.

Longing for Moscow, which has become a symbol of cultural and active life, does not leave Chekhov during his stay in Yalta. In 1903, a year before his death, doctors unexpectedly recognized this “hairdressing city” as harmful to his destroyed lungs and, to the joy of Anton Pavlovich, recommended that he settle in the vicinity of his beloved Moscow. Having lived for some time near Nara on Yakunchikova’s estate, he is seriously thinking about buying an estate or even a dacha in the Moscow region: Memories of his youth draw him to Zvenigorod and Voskresensk. At one time in 1884, during a few weeks of his life in Zvenigorod, where Anton Pavlovich replaced a doctor who had gone on vacation, he gave us “The Dead Body” and “At the Autopsy.” “I came to Chikino,” recalls M. Chekhov, “and the Zvenigorod doctor S.P. Uspensky, a young man from the seminarians... spoke on “o” and addressed everyone on “you.”

Listen, Anton Pavlov,” he turned to Chekhov, “I’m going on vacation, but there’s no one to replace me.” Serve, brother, you are for me. My Pelageya will feed you. And there is a guitar...”

Sad meetings await Anton Pavlovich in Zvenigorod. He has to look for friends of his youth in cemeteries: “I saw the grave of S.P. Uspensky; The lattice is still intact, the cross has already fallen and rotted.”

With some special warmth and sadness, he writes about the town that gave so much to his work: “...it is still just as boring and pleasant.” Two days of farewell, last date Chekhov and Voskresensky, he lived on the estate of Zinaida Morozova - Pokrovsky - Rubtsov, which once belonged to the Golokhvastovs, Herzen's relatives, where the latter stayed in 1829. The three kilometers that separate him from the city were not an obstacle for Chekhov, and he visited the town dear to his soul more than once.

We have no evidence of how the heroes of Chekhov's stories met their author. Did he remain for them the same “doctor and district doctor” or did Anton Pavlovich’s all-Russian fame stand between them as an invisible but insurmountable barrier? Chekhov himself mentions this sparingly: “I saw paramedic Makarych in Voskresensk!” Who is this “paramedic Makarych”? Isn’t it one of those on whom Anton Pavlovich earned his “nickels”, from whom he copied his “surgery”? “Saw E.I. Tyshko. Older, thinner, on crutches. He was very happy to see me...” E.I. Tyshko, an officer wounded in the war of 1877-1878, a regular at the Mayevsky house, constantly wore a black silk cap. “Tyshechka in a cap” is so often found in Chekhov’s letters that it seems to acquire an independent literary existence. But not only he has aged, everything has aged. “He has grown very old,” Chekhov writes about one of those houses where he once visited.

Chekhov was chastely secretive in showing his experiences. He did not leave us even a short testimony about his meeting with the places where he writer's youth I found so much inspiration. But the opportunity to establish his shelter here again attracted him, and he seriously thought about the issue of acquiring a small property in Voskresensk. The incredible price stopped Chekhov, and he recalls, not without sadness, in a letter to his sister about his refusal to live here again: “there is one wonderful place behind the church, on a high bank, with a descent to the river, with its own bank and with a wonderful view of the monastery ... I have not bought and will not buy, since prices in Voskresensk are now extraordinary. For this piece of land of one and a half dessiatines with a house they are asking ten thousand. I would give four thousand. Very much good view, space, there is no way to build on it, and a clean place, unpolluted, and with its own shore, you can build it up...” The tiny estate that Chekhov wrote about, whimsically interspersed in one of the Istra cul-de-sacs, has survived to this day. It also stood above a steep river bank and seemed to beckon fishermen and river lovers. The December fire of 1941 destroyed it too.

The story of Chekhov's long-term friendship and his favorite sunny hills, hidden paths, ravines in raspberries, ponds covered with duckweed is over. In a calm stroller, the sick Chekhov leaves the Istra freedom forever, so that a year later he can go to die in a foreign land. And in Chikino even now nightingales sing at night, a lazy burbot occasionally stirs in the clear Istra waters, leaves whisper on the hills near Maksimovka and, slowly, Babkin’s alleys are overgrown. Everything here is kept faithfully good memory about dear Antosha Chekhont, who loved these places so much and immortalized them so much.

B. Zimenkov
(“Moscow Region”, literary places (series of publications),
State Literary Museum. Moscow, 1946.)

/ Our region - Babkino estate

The first mentions of Babkin date back to the very beginning of the 16th century. The Land Survey Act of 1504, which established the boundaries of Goretov, Surozh and Mushkov camps, lists the border villages of different owners. It says: “The land of Mushkovsky village of Prokofievsky Vasily Nefimanov and his villages Oreshnik and Babkino” (Leonid. Historical description... New Jerusalem, 1876). Further in the same document the village of Mikhailovka, which belonged to the village of Buzharov, is also mentioned. The surname of the owner of the village of Prokofievsky, Vasily Nefimanov, subsequently replaced its previous name, and “Prokofievskoye” turned into “Efimanovo”. All these villages then belonged to the Mushkov camp of the Dmitrov district. IN Time of Troubles many of them are deserted. In the Boundary Books of Andrei Zagryazhsky and Gavrila Vladimirov, dating back to 1628-1630, in the place where the boundaries of the village of Buzharovo are described, it is said: “across the road that they go to the wasteland of the Babkino Epiphany Monastery patrimony.... to the right is the land of the Osipov Monastery (i.e. e. Yosifo - Volokolamsk Monastery - S.G.) the Bolshaya Mikhailovskaya wasteland and on the left the lands of the Epiphany Monastery the Babkino wasteland "..., "... the Mikhailovskaya wasteland... and on the left the land of the Epiphany Monastery the Efimanov wasteland" (RGADA, f. 1209, op.1, book 631, sheet 574 vol.). Thus, all the villages that were at the beginning of the 16th century turned into wastelands a century later and were given over to monasteries. However, the desolation after the Time of Troubles and the Polish-Lithuanian intervention of 1606-1620. affected the entire Western Moscow region, the population of which fell by almost 10 times. In just two decades, the flourishing region has essentially turned into a dead desert, a cemetery. It is known that Polish invaders were also on the territory of the modern Istrinsky district - they then burned the villages of Telepnevo and Luchinskoye. Surely, in search of prey, they did not bypass Babkino.

The Russian land slowly rose from the ashes. Only in the second half of the 17th century did the repopulation of these wastelands begin, and the revived villages acquired new owners, who changed quite often. The empty land was also populated by people from abroad, primarily Lithuanian (prisoners, free), small gentry, and peasants. Apparently, it was at this time that “Belarusians and Lithuanians” appeared on Istra land, who went into the service of Russia, having experienced all the “delights” of Polish-Lithuanian rule. Thus, Yu. V. Gauthier (Zamoskovny region in the 17th century. M., 1937) notes, based on the Scribe books, that in the Goretovo camp, in the estate of A. Polev, it was possible in 1624-25. meet the boby Yushka Savostyanov “Mozhar lands of polynyanik” (p. 163).

IN early XVIII century Babkino is already listed as a “village,” that is, the place where the patrimony’s yard was located. Repeated changes in district boundaries led to the fact that neighboring villages found themselves simultaneously in three different districts: for example, Babkino belonged to Moscow district, Mikhailovka to Dmitrovsky district, and Efimanovo to Ruza district.

In 1724, Babkino was in the possession of naval midshipman A. A. Voznitsyn, and after his death, his widow in 1743 sold this village and two villages to Voznitsyn’s sister Matryona, whose husband was Rear Admiral Ivan Akimovich Sinyavin (Historical description.. . M., 1996), The boundary plan of the village of Babkin and the village of Efimanov was drawn up in 1769. The explication to it says that they are in the possession of “the navy captain commander Ivan Ivanov, son of Sinyavin and the widow and daughter of the Polunins... and inside That property consists of arable land 185 dessiatinas, wood timber 234 dessiatines 1954 sq. fathoms, hay meadow 19 dessiatinas 611 sq. fathoms, under the village, bean fields and hemp fields 9 dessiatines 1265 sq. fathoms... in the village of Babkin and in the village of Efimanova there are 78 males" (RGADA, f. 1354, op. 867, B-1 "s". Plan of the village of Babkin).

A separate boundary plan was drawn up for the village of Mikhailovka, which also belonged to Sinyavin (ibid., op. 867, M-39. Plan of the village of Mikhailovka). From earlier documents it is known that back in 1743 there was a “landowner’s yard”, i.e. this village was a village.

In the “Economic Notes on the General Survey Dacha Plans” of the 1780s. it is said that in Babkino there is “a wooden master’s house, with a garden with fruitful trees” (RGADA, f. 1355, op. 1, d. 755). At the same time, this area was part of the very short-lived (1781-1794) Voskresensky district, but soon went to Ruzsky. According to the late XVIII century description of the Moscow province, the village of Babkino with two villages “consists of the captain-guarantor daughter Rukina and the maiden Nadezhda Polunina” (RGVIA, VUA N 18861, part VI, N 775).

In 1815, after the death of Agrafena Polunina, by decision of the Zvenigorod district court, an inventory of the village of Babkin, which belonged to her, was compiled, which paints a picture of a completely destroyed economy. This farm was transferred to Lieutenant N.S. Sukmanov for debts (note that the French invasion of 1812 did not affect these places; the detachment of Marshal Beauharnais passed south of Voskresensk to Zvenigorod). According to the inventory of 1815, in the village of Babkino there was a dilapidated wooden manor house, covered with planks; dilapidated wooden cattle huts, covered with thatch - 2, with these huts the wicker yard is covered with straw, there are no master's livestock and poultry. Master's carriages: carriages -1. The master's utensils: 3 large saucepans, 1 samovar. The land there was arable 185 dessiatinas, wood timber 234 dessiatines, hay meadow 19 dessiatines, in general the entire estate was valued at 6,171 rubles.

At the end of the 30s. In the 19th century, the village of Babkino belonged to Mrs. Pushkina. The owners of the estate conducted exemplary agriculture, and were noted among the best in the Zvenigorod district in 1841 in the “Moscow Provincial Gazette” (N 48, p. 737). Residents of the village, in addition to agriculture, were also engaged in the manufacture of sheepskin sheepskin coats (Collection of materials on the study of Moscow and the Moscow province, Edited by N. Bocharov, M., 1864). Soon the estate was sold to A.I. Rukina for 5,800 rubles. (TsGIA Moscow, f. 98, op.1, d.107); it was in the Rukin family until about the end of the 60s of the 19th century. In the “Index of Villages and Residents of the Moscow Province” by K. Nistrem (M., 1852) it is noted that the “village of Babkino” belongs to Vladimir Alekseevich Rukin, a collegiate adviser. On the estate, “there are 10 male and 7 female servants who live on the master’s estate.” In “Extracts from descriptions of landowners’ estates”, according to data from audit commissions for 1860, we find that on the Rukiina estate in the village. Babkino at that time was inhabited by 29 courtyards on the estate and 150 serfs (in total there were 36 houses in the village), there were only 180 acres of arable land (per capita - 1.2 dessiatines) (see Voskresensky district of the Moscow province, Voskresensk, 1924 ).

In 1874, Babkino was bought by the collegiate secretary Alexey Sergeevich Kiselev for 19 thousand rubles “from some German” - as it is said in the memoirs of the sister of S.V. Kiselev’s wife, writer N.V. Golubeva (N.V. Golubeva. Memoirs about Chekhov. "Literary Heritage" No. 68. M., 1960). The increased cost of the estate was explained by the fact that Kiselev acquired it with an almost completed house, with several outbuildings and outbuildings. The completion of the house continued for almost another 12 years, but, according to the same Golubeva, “The Kiselevs received the dacha as a toy.”

A. S. Kiselev was the head of a poor family and held the position of zemstvo chief. Despite his modest income, A. S. Kiselev was the trustee of a parish school in the village of Nikulino. He was the nephew of the diplomat Kiselev, famous under Nicholas 1, and his wife Maria Vladimirovna was the daughter of the playwright V. P. Begichev, who was at that time the director of the Imperial theaters in Moscow and the granddaughter of the famous educator and freemason N.I. Novikov. She herself also worked literary creativity- mostly these were children's stories.

The Kiselevs' estate, acquired and equipped by them, was turned into a place that was eagerly visited by many figures of art and literature, and they all spoke with great respect about Babkin's owners and left many flattering memories about them. It was with the Kiselev-Begichevs that he stayed in 1885-87. A. P. Chekhov and I. I. Levitan.

The watercolors of the writer's brother Mikhail Chekhov, who came to Babkino, depict the main manor house, the kitchen attached to it, the outbuilding in which the Chekhovs lived, and the view from across the river (the album is kept in the State Literary Museum. Manuscript funds. OF-4651).

A one-story manor house with a spacious terrace and a mezzanine with its main facade facing Istra. He stood at a steep cliff, fenced with a balustrade, from where a steep staircase led to the bathhouse. Lawns, flower beds, paths and alleys were laid out around the house. The estate was most likely built in the 60s or 70s, although literary critic Yu. Sobolev (Yu. Sobolev. Anton Chekhov. M., 1916), who visited Babkino in 1915, believed that the house was built earlier, in the 40s. years of the 19th century. Sobolev noted that the house “is amazingly beautiful, stands firmly and there are no traces of time on it.”

The estate complex, in addition to the outbuilding in which the Chekhovs lived, also included a greenhouse and numerous outbuildings: barns, cellars, glaciers, etc. The estate, as an economic establishment, did not bring any income to the owners big income, and the Kiselyovs, people who were already of fairly average income, by the second half of the 90s. were on the verge of ruin. Suffice it to say that at that time only 4 people lived in the village of Babkino (A.P. Shramchenko, Reference Book of the Moscow Province, M., 1890). The Kiselevs were forced to sell the estate for debts (apparently, it had already been mortgaged). It was bought by a retired hussar - Colonel Kotlyarevsky, but he himself soon sold Babkino (TsGIA Moscow, f. 54, op. 165, d. 259).

The new owner of the estate was the merchant Kolesnikov, who decided to completely change the profile of the estate. At first, in the outbuilding, a linen workshop was set up, but soon the new owner decided to open an art and craft school for peasant girls (ibid.). For it, he decided to adapt another of the outbuildings, a project for a major reconstruction of which was developed and submitted for consideration by the construction department of the Moscow Provincial Board. The drawings for the reconstruction of the outbuilding were accompanied by a general plan of the area showing all the buildings of the estate. From this drawing it is clear that in Babkino there was an entire economic complex in the shape of an almost closed quadrangle, which included stables, a cowshed, and barns. It was located in the southern part of the estate, and a road led to it. To the east of the buildings, the plan shows a park that occupied several acres (TsGIV Moscow, f. 54, op. 166, no. 419).

Arts and Crafts free school was opened in Babkino in 1912; The Charter of its activities was drawn up, which states that they will provide knowledge on various types of embroidery and seamstress skills. In the memoirs of Yu. Sobolev it is indicated that the school was located in half of the estate house. Only two rooms at that time still retained their former, lordly furnishings.

After the revolution, Babkino was transferred to the Voskresensk district administration of Soviet farms. In 1920, the Act of its reception listed the surviving manor buildings, some of them named after their last use: a manor house with a mezzanine, an office, a manager’s apartment, a 2-story dilapidated building, a gatehouse with a greenhouse, a stone barnyard with a stable , a pigsty, carriage sheds, mills, a forge, 2 glaciers, sheds, barns. The records of the buildings indicate that the main house had 12 rooms on the ground floor and 3 rooms on the mezzanine (TsGAMO, f. 4997, op. 1, d. 599). In addition, there is an inventory of the furnishings in the rooms.

The manor house burned down in 1929 (Radchenko, Evtyukhov “Around the Istra region”, 1934). To date, only the remains of the estate park have been preserved, which is included in the list of historical and cultural monuments of the Istrinsky district, compiled by the Committee on Culture of the Administration of the Moscow Region.

Another name is connected with Babkino - the famous scientist, geographer, karst explorer, anthropogeographer A. A. Kruber (1878-1940). He was born in Voskresensk and in early childhood his parents took him to Babkino for the summer (see “Istra News” of January 20, 1994, article by S. Golubchikov “Geographer from Voskresensk”).