The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

else had been provided a place. In this manner we arrived in the city of Gorky [Nizhnii Novgorod] and then by water reached Kazan where we were housed in the university. Finally, in a convoy composed of many academic institutions, we set off for Alma-Ata in Central Asia where the Academy Presidium had assigned us. When it turned out that Alma-Ata was filled beyond capacity, we found refuge in Tashkent.

We were quartered in the building of the Tamara Khanum school of ballet on one of the central streets of the city. In an enormous mirrored hall we spread out crates of manuscripts and articles from our Tolstoy and Pushkin museums which had been sent to Tashkent in our footsteps. We arranged the crates to form small, cell-like rooms which were quickly dubbed “caves;” used anything at hand for curtains, and began to live in them as families or in groups of two or three friends.

From time to time those of us who were stronger were sent by the city council to pick cotton; a group took part in the construction of the North-Tashkent canal, but most of us academic types were utilized as lecturers in hospitals and at the various enterprises and construction sites of the region. For this work Tashkent provided us with minimal room and board.

Most of all, I recall, we suffered from the absence of potatoes—the customary Russian potatoes without which a meal is not a meal with us. But at the Alai farmer’s market, the “belly of Tashkent,” potatoes cost eight rubles a kilo and only those who had money or had managed to bring items for barter could buy them. There were few people like that among us. Once while strolling in the market with Olga Kuznetsova and platonically admiring the colorful rows of fruits and vegetables we spotted our director, Leonid Ippoli-tovich, standing off in a corner holding his hat out with embarrassment. The poor man, he intended to sell or trade it for potatoes, but did it so ineptly that no one understood him. One could think that he was holding it out for alms. We slipped away quietly.

We all loved and sympathized with “Ippolitych,” despite the fact that in contrast to Luppol [the previous director] he was slow in his thinking, had poor relations with his subordinates, had a quick temper, and was unjust in his arbitrary likes and dislikes. But we knew that he was scrupulously honest, unselfish and totally helpless before his bosses, especially when he encountered liars, bribe takers, careerists and other slime of which we had more than enough. We considered it our duty to aid him in all the institute matters, especially in providing for those people whom we had led out of Moscow.

“We,” the morally conscious, active group of “Tamara Khanum” who had become closely knit during the wartime disasters were: Liza Glatman, assistant director in organizational matters; Lidochka Kriuchkova, executive secretary, a warm and sweet person who completed medical school while in

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Chapter Twenty-Five

Tashkent and later became an outstanding doctor at Moscow’s Botkin Hospital; Varvara Nikolaevna Lanina, the irreplaceable chairman of the [city] district committee who was in charge of distributing wearing apparel—footwear, shirts, pants, etc.—and who did so with unfailing fairness and attentiveness though the goods were few and the demand high. Emmochka Evin, from the Pushkin Museum, was also part of the activist group. She was a wonderful comrade who maintained unbroken contact with all our colleagues who were at the front. There was also Tamara Motyleva, who in her business-like manner with high expectations toward herself and others, was a successful administrator throughout the evacuation. But the soul of the group was Olga Kuznetsova, who occupied no titled position, but had a fervid, generous and selfless spirit which drew everyone to her. Soon other co-workers who had fled Moscow independently of the institute began arriving at the “Tamara Khanum.”

The institute gradually recovered and renewed its labors. The work on the history of Soviet literature continued. One of the “English” volumes was nearing completion under the leadership of A.A. Elistratova. In evacuation we began work on the first volume of The History of American Literature which was to have such a controversial, even notorious destiny. And V.M. Zhirmunskii [a noted literary critic] began a definitive study of Uzbek folklore for which he, at the age of fifty plus, had to learn the far from easy Uzbek language.