The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

As if in precise confirmation of his words, the chair under me began to be pulled. There was no one behind me. Agafonov was sitting on my left, another close acquaintance on my right. They would not tease me with such foolish stunts. Furthermore, their hands were in mine. I could not but have noticed their movement. Adhering to the instructions, I got up without breaking

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the chain while continuing to hold my neighbors’ hands. After some moments the same mysterious being moved the chair back into place. Here something most strange and unpleasant occurred. I wanted to sit down but it turned out that someone was sitting in the chair and was not letting me sit down. But the chair was empty. In a few moments this strange presence seemed to melt away. The chair freed up. But no sooner did I sit down when something shaggy swept across my face, as if I was brushed with an animal’s tail.

That is all that I saw from Guzik. I treated this with a cool curiosity. But poor Mikhail Ivanovich could not part with the insane hope of corporeally seeing, hearing, and sensing his deceased wife and imagined that Guzik would somehow link him with Lida. He insistently pleaded with the impresario and reiterated sadly and incoherently:

“You say this is Wilhelm? Can’t you ask him to leave? Send someone else . . . The one we want . . .”

“We can’t today. The séance is ended. The medium is already awakening.”

Truly, one could hear how the rhythm of his breathing was changing, that Guzik was moving. During the séance he was completely motionless. The light was turned on. The medium was sitting and pale. The look of his strange eyes had become even more grim. All of this was unusual and extremely interesting for me. But why link the tinkling of the spoon and the shaggy strokes with the souls of the departed? I could not understand how Mikhail Ivanovich found solace in these disconnected phenomena. But I pitied him all the more! Involvement in spiritualism ended shortly. Tugan and I were arrested for participating in a street demonstration. He was sent out of St. Petersburg, though not for long.

Chapter Six

Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Memoirs

Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev was born in 1902 to a family of the nobility and gentry. The family lived on its estate, a productive grain and dairy farm near Viaz’ma, a city of 30,000 east of Smolensk. Young Nikolai was tutored in French and English and had in-laws who were members of the English upper classes. The choice of the three segments from his memoirs is not accidental. His ability to combine family and personal narrative with the tumultuous historical background is keenly apparent. He writes with pithiness and clarity. The evocation of life whether in the city or on the country estate carries the stamp of unforced authenticity. Rarely in memoir literature do we see a description of a city, Viaz’ma in this case, done so affectionately and informatively. Taken from Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Iunost’ot Viaz’my do Feodosii [My Youth from Viaz’ma to Theodosia]. Paris: YMCA Press, 1983.

VIAZ’MA: THE TEXTURE OF A CITY

Viaz’ma had a population of 35,000. It was the center of the linen industry and had three leather and two match factories. The streets were cobblestoned and only the rich merchants paved in front of their homes with other materials, be it asphalt or wooden blocks. The Viaz’ma merchants were exceptional. Nowhere in Russia, I believe, was there such a congregation of old merchant families. In 1478 Ivan III conquered Novgorod, but the Novgorodians did not calm down. There were many other campaigns under Vasilii III and Ivan the Terrible. After one of these campaigns, the Muscovites decided that Novgorod would never be pacified while the old merchant class remained there. So they dispatched the merchants to Viaz’ma. It was enough to look at a list

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of Viaz’ma merchants to recall ancient Novgorod—Stroganov, Kalashnikov, Liutov, Sinel’nikov, Ershov, Kolesnikov, El’chaninov, etc. These families did not sit long in Viaz’ma with their hands folded. They became rich anew trading in linen and leather with the Hansa cities.

The major Viaz’ma merchants became linen czars. This was strange because the best flax grew in the light sandy soil of the Pskov, Novgorod, and Tver provinces. Smolensk had loamy soil, and the flax was coarser. But it was brought in from everywhere, and Viaz’ma became not only a Russian, but a European linen exchange.

The leather factories stretched out one after the other on a bend of the Vi-az’ma River. They stank horribly but people were used to it and seemed not to notice. From the river one could see huge piles of sandal shavings that looked like red pyramids.