My article is about Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky - a unique person, writer, engineer and geographer.
Not so often people come into our world whose life contains an entire era. We call them differently - geniuses, visionaries, visionaries. In fact, none of these definitions can contain what they did and how they changed the world around them. The most annoying thing is that most people who perceive the achievements of civilization and culture as the norm do not even suspect who made all this possible.
Such a person was Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovsky. His indomitable energy, inquisitive and sharp mind, determination during his lifetime brought him recognition in many areas from literary creativity to geographical research.
Among the great Russian travelers of the XIX century. Garin-Mikhailovsky stands apart. Unfortunately, his contribution to the field of geographical research is still not appreciated. Yes, and domestic historical and geographical literature does not indulge him with their attention. And in vain! The significance of the geographical and ethnographic studies of Nikolai Georgievich, his magnificent essays, is invaluable for Russian science. Thanks to literary talent, works written in the century before last are read with interest even today. However, written by Garin does not contain all of his extraordinary and full of adventures and accomplishments of life.
N. Garin is the literary pseudonym of Nikolai Georgievich Mikhailovsky. He was born on February 8, 1852 in St. Petersburg in the family of a military officer. He inherited his stupid character and courage from his father - Georgy Antonovich Mikhailovsky, a nobleman of the Kherson province, who served in the ulans. During the Hungarian military campaign on July 25, 1849, the lancer Mikhailovsky distinguished himself in action near Hermannstadt, attacking the Hungarians with a squadron of squares, which had two guns. Accurate buckshot shots stopped the attack of the Russian lancers, but the commander of the 2nd squadron, headquarters captain Mikhailovsky, rushed to the attack and dragged his fellow soldiers with him. The lancers cut into the square and took possession of the enemy's guns. The hero of the day was slightly wounded and was subsequently awarded the Order of St. George. After the end of the campaign, G. A. Mikhailovsky was awarded with his lancers an audience with Emperor Nicholas I, and the sovereign enlisted him in the Life Guards of the Lancers Regiment, and later was the godfather of his older children.
Garin-Mikhailovsky with engineers and railway workers on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway
Garin-Mikhailovsky's childhood and adolescence passed in the south, in Odessa, where his father moved his family, having retired with the rank of general. On the outskirts of the city, the Mikhailovskys had their own house with a large garden and a picturesque view of the sea.
In 1871, after graduating from the gymnasium, Nikolai Georgievich moved to St. Petersburg, where he studied first at the law faculty of the university, and from 1872 at the Institute of Railway Engineers. Six years later, the young engineer was sent to the active army in Bulgaria, to Burgas, where he took an active part in the construction of the port and the highway. In 1879, the industriousness and talent of the young engineer were awarded by the command of the order of the civil service "for the excellent execution of orders."
Twenty years later, the writer used his experience of serving in Burgas in the story Clotilde (published in 1899).
Fortune favored the young man. In the spring of 1879, Mikhailovsky, who had not previously had practical experience in railway construction, somehow managed to get a prestigious job on the construction of the Bendero-Galatskaya railway. Its construction was carried out by the company of the famous concessionaire Samuil Polyakov. This work of an engineer-surveyor captured Mikhailovsky. Thanks to his talent and diligence, he quickly established himself from the very best side, thanks to which he began to advance in the service and earn good money at that time, despite his young age.
From that time on, Mikhailovsky began his work as a railroad civil engineer. He devoted many years to this path, devoting himself to work with the enthusiasm and dedication characteristic of his character. Thanks to this, he was able to visit different parts of the country, observe the life and life of the common people, which he later reflects in his works of art.
In the summer of the same year, while visiting Odessa on business, Mikhailovsky met a friend of his sister Nina, Nadezhda Valerievna Charykova, whom he soon married.
In 1880, Mikhailovsky built a road to Batum, which, after the end of the Russian-Turkish war, was ceded to Russia. Then he was an assistant to the head of the section on the construction of the Batum-Samtredia railway (Poti-Tiflis railway). Service in those places was dangerous: gangs of Turkish robbers were hiding in the surrounding forests, attacking builders. Mikhailovsky recalled how five foremen at his distance "were shot and slaughtered by local Turks." I had to adapt to the situation, and the position itself was not for a timid person. Constant danger has developed a special method of movement in places convenient for an ambush - a stretched line. After the construction was completed, he was transferred to the head of the distance of the Baku section of the Transcaucasian Railway.
A few years later Mikhailovsky works in the Urals on the construction of the Ufa-Zlatoust railway, conducts road surveys in Tatarstan between Kazan and Malmyzh, in Siberia on the construction of the Great Siberian Road. It was during the period of work in Siberia that he traveled along the Irtysh to its mouth.
During his service, engineer Mikhailovsky showed the most striking features of his character, which made him stand out from those around him so much and that once subdued his future wife. He was distinguished by scrupulous honesty and painfully perceived the desire of many of his colleagues for personal enrichment (participation in contracts, bribes). At the end of 1882, he resigned - according to his own explanation, "because of the complete inability to sit between two chairs: on the one hand, state interests, on the other, personal master's."
In 1883, having bought the Gundorovka estate in the Buguruslan district of the Samara province for 75 thousand rubles, Nikolai Georgievich settled with his wife in a landowner's estate. By that time, the Mikhailovsky family already had two small children. But such was the nature of Garin-Mikhailovsky to peacefully rest as a landowner in his estate and lead a life like Chekhov's summer residents.
Thanks to the reforms of 1861, the peasant communities received part of the landowners' lands in collective possession, but the nobles remained large landowners. Former serfs were very often forced, in order to feed themselves, to work the landlords' lands as hired workers for a negligible wage. In many places the economic situation of the peasants worsened after the reform.
With a fairly significant working capital (about 40 thousand rubles), Garin-Mikhailovsky intended to create an exemplary farm in Gundorovka. The Mikhailovskys hoped to improve the well-being of local peasants: to teach them how to properly cultivate the land and raise the general level of culture. At that time, Nikolai Georgievich was under the influence of populist ideas and wanted to change the system of social relations that had developed in the countryside.
Nadezhda Valeryevna Mikhailovskaya also matched her husband: she treated local peasants, set up a school, where she herself studied with all the boys and girls of the village. After 2 years, her school had 50 students, the hostess also had "two assistants from young guys who graduated from a rural school in the nearest large village."
From an economic point of view, things were going excellently on the Mikhailovsky estate. Yes, but the peasants met with distrust and grumbling all the innovations of the good landowner. He constantly had to overcome the resistance of an inert mass. I even had to enter into an open confrontation with local kulaks, which led to a series of arsons. First, the landowner lost his mill and thresher, and then his entire crop. Nearly broke, he decided to leave the village that brought him so much disappointment and return to engineering. The estate was entrusted to a stern and tough manager.
Since 1886, Mikhailovsky has been in the service again, and once again his outstanding talent as an engineer shines. During the construction of the Ufa-Zlatoust railway (1888-1890) he carried out survey work. The result of these works was a variant that gave enormous cost savings. From January 1888, he began to implement his version of the road as the head of the 9th construction site.
“They say about me,” Nikolai Georgievich wrote to his wife, “that I do miracles, and they look at me with big eyes, but it’s funny to me. So little is needed to do all this. More conscientiousness, energy, enterprise, and these seemingly terrible mountains will part and reveal their secret, invisible passages and passages, using which you can reduce the cost and significantly shorten the line. He sincerely dreamed of the time when Russia would be covered with a network of railways, and did not see greater happiness than to work for the glory of Russia, to bring "not imaginary, but real benefits."
He considered the construction of railways as a necessary condition for the development of the economy, the prosperity and power of Russia. He showed himself not only as a talented engineer, but also as an outstanding economist. Seeing the lack of funds allocated by the state treasury, Mikhailovsky persistently advocated cheaper road construction by developing profitable options and introducing more advanced construction methods. He has a lot of innovative projects to his credit, which, by the way, saved a lot of public money and made a profit. In the Urals, this is the construction of a tunnel at the Sulei pass, which shortened the railway line by 10 km and saved 1 million rubles. His research from the Vyazovaya station to the Sadki station shortened the line by 7.5 versts and saved about 400 thousand rubles, and a new version of the line along the Yurizan River brought savings of 600 thousand rubles. Supervising the construction of a railway line from the station. Krotovka of the Samara-Zlatoust railway to Sergievsk, he removed contractors who made huge profits by robbing state funds and exploiting workers, and created an elected administration. In a special circular to employees, he categorically forbade any abuse and established the procedure for paying workers under the supervision of public controllers. They talked about him, wrote in the newspapers, he made himself an army of enemies, which did not frighten him at all. “N.G. Mikhailovsky, - wrote the Volga Bulletin on August 18, 1896, - the first of the civil engineers cast his vote as an engineer and writer against the hitherto practiced orders and the first makes an attempt to introduce new ones. At the same construction site, Nikolai Georgievich organized the first comradely court in Russia with the participation of workers and employees, including women, over an engineer who mistook rotten sleepers for a bribe. He was called the conscience of Russian railways. Sometimes I think how much we lack such talented and inflexible people today, not only in the field of railway management.
On September 8, 1890, Mikhailovsky spoke at the celebrations in Zlatoust on the occasion of the arrival of the first train here. In 1890, he was engaged in surveys at the construction of the Zlatoust-Chelyabinsk railway, and in April 1891 he was appointed head of the survey party of the West Siberian Railway. Here they were offered the most optimal railway bridge crossing over the Ob. It was he who rejected the option of building a bridge in the Tomsk region, and with his "option near the village of Krivoshchekovo" created the conditions for the emergence of Novosibirsk - one of the largest industrial centers in Russia. So N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky can undoubtedly be called one of the founders and builders of Novosibirsk.
In articles about the Siberian Railway, he enthusiastically and passionately defended the idea of economy, taking into account which the initial cost of the railway track was reduced from 100 to 40 thousand rubles per verst. He suggested publishing reports on the "rational" proposals of engineers, and put forward the idea of public discussion of technical and other projects "to avoid past mistakes." The personality of Nikolai Geogrevitch combined a romantic and a dreamer with a businesslike and pragmatic owner who knew how to calculate all losses and find a way to save money.
There is a legend that at one of the railway construction sites, engineers faced an insoluble problem: it was necessary to go around a large hill or cliff, choosing the shortest trajectory for this. The cost of each meter of the railway was very high. Mikhailovsky pondered this problem all day. Then he gave instructions to build a road along one of the foothills. When asked why he made such a decision, they were discouraged by his answer. Nikolai Georgievich replied that he had been watching the birds all day, or rather, which way they flew around the hill. He considered that the birds fly by a shorter route, saving effort, and decided to use their route. Subsequently, accurate calculations based on satellite imagery showed that Mikhailovsky's birdwatching decision was absolutely correct!
Siberian epic N.G. Mikhailovsky was only an episode of his eventful life. But objectively, it was the highest take-off, the pinnacle of his engineering career - in terms of far-sighted calculations, in principled position, in stubbornness in the struggle for the best option and in historical results. In a letter to his wife, he confesses: “I am in the heat of all sorts of things and do not lose a single moment. I lead the most favorite way of life - I roam about the villages and villages with research, I go to the cities ... I agitate my cheap way, I keep a diary. Work on the throat ... "
In the literary field N.G. Mikhailovsky spoke in 1892, publishing the story "Childhood of the Theme" and the story "Several Years in the Village". By the way, the history of his pseudonym is very interesting and indicative. He published under the pseudonym N. Garin: on behalf of his son - Georgy, or, as the family called him, Garya. The result of the literary work of Garin-Mikhailovsky was an autobiographical tetralogy: “Childhood of the Theme” (1892), “Gymnasium students” (1893), “Students” (1895), “Engineers” (publ. 1907), dedicated to the fate of the young generation of the intelligentsia of the “turning time” . At the same time, he becomes close to Gorky, who later writes his famous novel The Life of Klim Samgin, which raised the same topic.
Constant travel associated with practical exploration and construction work developed in Garin-Mikhailovsky an interest in geography and a deep feeling and understanding of nature, constant communication with workers and peasants strengthened his love for the working people. It is not surprising, therefore, that geographical and ethnographic elements, along with economic ones, occupy such a large place even in his works of art. This is especially evident in his essays written during his travels in Western Ukraine and northern European Russia.
In 1898, after the completion of the construction of a narrow-gauge branch that connected the Sergiev sulfuric waters in the Middle Volga region with the Samara-Zlatoust railway, Garin-Mikhailovsky in early July of the same year set off on a round-the-world trip through Siberia, the Far East, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and through Europe back to Petersburg.
Garin-Mikhailovsky is a pioneer by nature. Tired of engineering battles, he decides to "rest". For this purpose, he decided to go on a trip around the world. At the last moment, he received an offer from the St. Petersburg Geographical Society to join the North Korean expedition of A.I. Zvegintsev.
Korean peasants of the 19th century
Korea in the 19th century geographically studied very poorly, and its northern part, bordering with Manchuria, was generally inaccessible to European researchers for a long time. Korea was a closed country, following an isolationist policy, like its closest neighbor, Japan. Starting from the 17th century. the entire border strip was deserted and guarded by a system of fortresses and cordons to allow foreigners to communicate with the Korean population and protect the state from the penetration of foreigners. Almost until the end of the XIX century. (more precisely, before the Russian expedition of Strelbitsky in 1895-1896), even about the Pektusan volcano, the highest mountain in this part of East Asia, there was only legendary information. There was no reliable information about the sources, direction of flow and regime of the three largest rivers in this territory - Tumanganga, Amnokganga and Sungari.
Zvegintsev's expedition had as its main task the study of land and water routes along the northern border of Korea and further, along the eastern coast of the Liaodong Peninsula, to Port Arthur. Mikhailovsky agreed to take part in Zvegintsev's expedition, which became for him an integral part of his round-the-world trip. To work on the North Korean expedition, Mikhailovsky invited people known to him for their work as a survey engineer: a young technician N. E. Borminsky and an experienced foreman I. A. Pichnikov.
In the journey of Garin-Mikhailovsky around the world, three main stages can be distinguished, which are of different interest to us from the point of view of geographical science. The first of these is a journey through Siberia to the Far East, the second is a visit and geographical research in Korea and Manchuria, and the third is Garin-Mikhailovsky's journey across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to Europe.
Notes of a traveler relating to the period of transition through Siberia to the Far East are interesting for us, first of all, with descriptions of the means of communication at that time with the Far East, as well as its characteristics of the process of development of the eastern territories of Russia, especially Primorye. These are all the more interesting for the modern reader, because the author was the builder of the Siberian railway, which was of great importance in the economic development of Siberia and the Far East.
On July 9, 1898, Mikhailovsky and his companions arrived in Moscow with a St. Petersburg courier train and on the same day left Moscow with a direct Siberian train. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was still going on. Sections from Moscow to Irkutsk and from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk were built and put into operation. However, the middle links of the route between Irkutsk and Khabarovsk were not built: the Circum-Baikal line from Irkutsk to Mysovaya, on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal; Transbaikal line from Mysovaya to Sretensk; Amur line from Sretensk to Khabarovsk. On this segment of the journey, Mikhailovsky and his companions had to experience the unreliability of communications on horseback and by water. The journey from Moscow to Irkutsk, more than 5 thousand km long, took 12 days, while the section from Irkutsk to Khabarovsk, about 3.5 thousand km long, traveled on horseback and by water, took exactly a month.
Travelers were constantly faced with a lack of state-owned horses for the transport of passengers and goods, postal stations were not able to "satisfy even a third of the requirements for them." The fee for hiring "free" horses reached a fabulous price: 10-15 rubles for a run of 20 miles, that is, more than 50 times more expensive than the cost of travel by rail. There was a steamship service between Sretensk and Khabarovsk, but of the 16 days spent by travelers on the way along the Shilka and Amur, about half were spent standing aground and waiting for transfers. As a result, the entire journey from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok took 52 days (July 8 - August 29, 1898) and cost, with all the hardships of travelers, almost a thousand rubles per person, that is, it was longer, and even twice as expensive, than if you go to Vladivostok by a roundabout way by sea.
On September 3, 1898, the expedition members were delivered by steamer from Vladivostok to Posyet Bay, then they rode 12 versts to Novokievsk, which was the starting point of the North Korean expedition. Separate parties were formed here.
Garin-Mikhailovsky's trip to Korea and Manchuria had as its main task the study of land and water routes of communication along the Manchurian-Korean border and along the eastern coast of the Liaodong Peninsula to Port Arthur. In addition, he set himself the task of geographically surveying this entire route, and in particular the Pektusan region and the sources of Amnokgang and Sungari, as not yet studied by previous researchers, as well as collecting ethnographic and folklore material. To accomplish this task, his group of 20 people was divided into two parties. The first of them, which, in addition to him, included technician N. E. Borminsky, foreman Pichnikov, Chinese and Korean translators, three soldiers and two mafu drivers, was supposed to explore the mouth and upper reaches of the Tumangang River, as well as the entire Amnokgang River .
The second party, headed by Garin-Mikhailovsky's assistant, railway engineer A.N. Safonov, was to explore the middle course of the Tumangang and the shortest paths between the adjacent sections of the river channels in the bends of the Tumangang and Amnokgang. On September 13, 1898, the party of Garin-Mikhailovsky, having crossed the Tumangang near the Krasnoselskaya crossing, began to explore the mouth of this river. These studies showed the extremely unfavorable navigation conditions of the latter due to its low water, as well as a large number of wandering shoals, which changed after each flood. In his report on the work carried out, published in the Proceedings of the Autumn Expedition of 1898, Garin-Mikhailovsky, having considered three possible ways to combat sand drifts: constant clearing of the fairway, diversion of the river through a special channel to Chosanman Bay (Gashkevich) or its diversion to the former course towards the Gulf of Posyet, comes to the conclusion that all these measures, at very high costs, still would not significantly improve the navigation conditions of Tumangang. Having finished his work at the mouth of the river, he headed through the Korean cities of Kyonghyung, Hoiryong and Musan to its upper reaches, continuing his observations throughout this path. The traveled part of the territory from the mouth of the Tumangang to the village of Tyaipe, the last settlement in its upper reaches, is characterized by the traveler as a mountainous area with narrow valleys, in which individual villages sheltered. Trade relations are maintained with Manchuria, which supplies vodka and birch bark, and Russia, which supplies a small amount of manufactured goods. Part of the population goes to Russia (Siberia) to work, maintaining ties with their relatives who moved from Korea to Russian borders.
Pectusan
On September 22, the party reached the town of Musan. From here the path went along the upper reaches of the Tumangang, which here had the character of a typical mountain stream. On September 28, when the night frosts had already begun, the travelers saw the Pektusan volcano for the first time. On September 29, the source of the Tumangang was found, which "disappeared in a small ravine" near the small lake of Pong. This lake, together with the adjacent swampy area, was recognized by Garin-Mikhailovsky as the sources of the river.
The Pektusan area is the watershed of three large rivers: Tumangang, Amnokgang and Sungari. Korean guides claimed that Tumangang and Amnokgang originate in a lake located in the Pektusan crater (although they admitted that none of them personally saw these sources). On September 30, travelers reached the foot of Pektusan, divided into two groups and began research. Garin-Mikhailovsky himself, accompanied by two Koreans, an interpreter Kim and a guide, had to climb to the top of Pektusan, go around it to the supposed sources of Amnokgang and Sungari. Climbing Pektusan, Nikolai Georgievich admired the lake located in its crater for some time and witnessed an episode of the release of volcanic gases. Bypassing the crater around the perimeter, which was unsafe due to rocky steeps, he found out that the guides' story about the lake as a common source of three rivers is a legend. No water stream flowed directly from the lake located in the crater. But on the northeastern slope of the Pektusan, Garin-Mikhailovsky discovered two sources of the river (later it turned out that these were the sources of one of the tributaries of the Sungari). Later, three more sources of the Songhua tributary were found.
In the meantime, a group led by technician Borminsky completed the most difficult and dangerous part of the work: they descended into the crater to the lake with tools and a collapsible boat, filmed the outline of the lake, lowered the boat onto the lake, measured the depths, which turned out to be exceptionally large already near the shore. It was not easy to get out of the crater, the boat and heavy tools had to be abandoned. The travelers had to spend the next night at Pektusan in the open air, with a real danger to health and even to life due to a cold snap and bad weather. But the travelers were lucky and everything turned out well.
Garin-Mikhailovsky's party continued research at Pektusan until 3 October. The explorers spent the whole day in a fruitless search for the sources of the Amnokgang. In the evening, one of the Korean guides said that this river originates at the Small Pektusan mountain, which was located at a distance of five miles from the Big one.
From Pektusan, Mikhailovsky's party headed west across Chinese territory, through the region of the tributaries of the Sungari - unusually beautiful places, but also extremely dangerous because of the possibility of an attack by the Honghuzi. The local Chinese, whom the travelers met, said that a group of 40 hunghuz had been tracking Garin-Mikhailovsky's party since it left Musan.
On October 4, travelers reached the village of Chandanyon, populated mainly by Koreans. The inhabitants had never seen Europeans before. They warmly welcomed the guests and gave them the best place to stay for the night. On the night of October 5, at the beginning of the fifth hour, Garin-Mikhailovsky and his comrades woke up from the sound of shots: the village was fired upon by the hunhuzi who had settled in the forest. After waiting for dawn, the Russian researchers ran under the gunfire into a nearby ravine and returned fire. Very quickly, the shots from the forest stopped, the Honghuzi retreated. Of the Russians, no one was hurt, but a Korean, the owner of the hut, was mortally wounded, one Korean guide disappeared. Of the horses, two were killed and two were wounded. Since there were few horses left, almost all the luggage had to be abandoned.
On this day, travelers, in order to break away from possible pursuit, made a record 19-hour march, covered about 50 miles, and by 3 am on October 6, already reeling from fatigue, reached one of the tributaries of the Amnokgang. The further way was already less dangerous. On October 7, the travelers reached Amnokgang, 9 versts from the Chinese city of Maoershan (Linjiang).
Here Mikhailovsky made the final decision to abandon the continuation of the journey on horseback. A large flat-bottomed boat was hired. On October 9, the journey down the river began. Due to the onset of cold weather, rain and wind, hardships again had to be endured. Numerous rifts represented a great danger, but all of them, thanks to the skill of the Chinese helmsman, were successfully passed. On October 18, the travelers reached Uizhu, a Korean city 60 km above the mouth of the Amnokgang, and there they said goodbye to Korea.
Despite the poverty of the population and the monstrous socio-economic backwardness of the country, Mikhailovsky liked it. In his notes, he highly appreciates the intellectual and moral qualities of the Korean people. During the entire trip, there was not a single case that the Korean did not keep his word or lied. Everywhere the expedition met with the warmest and most cordial attitude.
On the evening of October 18, the last leg of the journey down the Amnokgang to the Chinese port of Sahou (now Andong) was passed. Further, the path ran along the eastern coast of the Liaodong Peninsula and was passed in a Chinese gig. The character of the area was completely different. The mountains moved to the west, and the entire coastline, about 300 versts long and 10 to 30 versts wide, was a slightly hilly plain, densely populated by Chinese peasants. On the evening of October 25, the travelers reached the first settlement on the Liaodong Peninsula, occupied by the Russians - Biziwo. Two days later they arrived in Port Arthur.
In total, about 1600 km were covered by Mikhailovsky in Korea and Manchuria, including about 900 km on horseback, up to 400 km in a boat along Amnokgang and up to 300 km in a Chinese two-wheeled cart along the Liaodong Peninsula. This journey took 45 days. On average, the expedition made 35.5 km per day. Route surveys of the area, barometric leveling, astronomical observations and other work were carried out, which served as the basis for compiling a detailed map of the route.
The last stage of the expedition passed through the USA to Europe. From Port Arthur, Garin-Mikhailovsky already continued his independent trip by steamer through Chinese ports, the Japanese islands, across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, visited the Hawaiian Islands, the United States and Western Europe. He was in China for a short time: two days in the port of Chifu on the Shandong Peninsula and five days in Shanghai. A week later, the steamer, on which Garin set off from Shanghai, entered Nagassak Bay past places that have become infamous in the history of the spread of Christianity in Japan. In the middle of the last century, during a period of strong persecution for the Christian religion banned in Japan, about 10 thousand Europeans and Japanese converted to Christianity were thrown into the sea here. The next stop in Japan is the port of Yokohama on the east coast of Honshu. The Russian traveler spent three days in Yokohama. He travels on Japanese railways, taking a keen interest in peasant fields, landscaped plantations and orchards, and visits factories and railway workshops, where he draws attention to the significant technical achievements of the Japanese.
In early December, approaching the main city of the Hawaiian Islands, Honolulu, the traveler cannot stop admiring the view of this city, which is picturesquely spread out on the ocean coast surrounded by greenery and magnificent tropical vegetation. Walking the streets of Honolulu, he carefully examines the city, gets acquainted with the city museum, visits the bamboo forest and groves of date palms in the vicinity.
San Francisco. End of the 19th century
The last in the Pacific Ocean Garin-Mikhailovsky visits San Francisco, located on the west coast of the United States. There he changes to a train and travels across North America to New York, which is located on the east coast of the country. On the way, Nikolai Georgievich makes a stop in Chicago. There he visits the famous slaughterhouses with their monstrous assembly line, which disgusts him. “So disgusting is the impression from all this, from the terrible smell, that for a long time after that you look at everything from the point of view of these slaughterhouses, this indifference, this string of moving dead white corpses, and in the center of them is a figure spreading death everywhere, all in white , calm and satisfied, with a sharp knife, ”writes a Russian traveler.
All this time, Garin-Mikhailovsky keeps a travel diary, which ends with a description of a trip to Europe. On the English steamer Louisitania, at that time the largest in the world, he crosses the Atlantic Ocean and reaches the shores of Great Britain. The voyage across the Atlantic coincided with the discussion of the Fashoda incident. England and France were on the brink of war. Nikolai Georgievich witnessed the conversations of passengers about the coming war and politics, the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons over other nations. Being heavily impressed by what he saw and heard on the ship, the Russian traveler decides not to delay in London and crosses the English Channel. In Paris, Garin-Mikhailovsky also does not stop dead and completes his round-the-world trip, returning to his homeland.
Returning to his homeland, Garin-Mikhailovsky published the scientific results of his observations and research in Korea and Manchuria, which provided valuable geographical information about little-known territories, especially about the Pektusan region. Initially, his notes were published in special editions: "Reports of the members of the autumn expedition of 1898 in North Korea" (1898) and in "Proceedings of the autumn expedition of 1898" (1901). Literary processing of the diaries was carried out in nine issues of the popular science magazine "God's World" for 1899 and then it was called "Pencil from Nature". Later, Garin-Mikhailovsky's diaries were published under two different titles: "In Korea, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula" and "In the Land of the Yellow Devil."
During the trip, Mikhailovsky wrote down up to 100 Korean fairy tales, but one notebook with notes was lost on the way, so the number of fairy tales was reduced to 64. They were first published, together with the first separate edition of the book of travel notes, in 1903. Mikhailovsky's notes turned out to be the most significant contribution to Korean folklore: previously only 2 fairy tales in Russian and seven fairy tales in English were published.
Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovsky - a brilliant surveyor engineer, builder of many railways in the vast expanses of Russia, who knew how to be a diligent and efficient economist, a talented writer and publicist, a prominent public figure, a tireless traveler and discoverer - died of heart failure at an editorial meeting of a Marxist journal "Herald of Life", in whose affairs he took part. Garin-Mikhailovsky delivered an inspirational speech, went into the next room, lay down on the sofa, and death cut short the life of this talented person. It happened on November 27 (December 10), 1906 in St. Petersburg.
Garin's grave in St. Petersburg
“The happiest country is Russia! How much interesting work in it, how many magical opportunities, the most difficult tasks! I have never envied anyone, but I envy the people of the future ... ”These words of Garin-Mikhailovsky characterize him in the best possible way. No wonder Maxim Gorky called him a cheerful righteous man. During his life (and he lived not so much - only 54 years), Garin-Mikhailovsky managed a lot. In honor of N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, the square near the railway station of Novosibirsk, and the station of the Novosibirsk metro were named. His travel diaries still read like an adventure novel. And if we talk about patriotism, so worn out and devalued in recent times, then Nikolai Georgievich is an example of a real patriot of Russia, who creates more than utters lofty and beautiful words.
(c) Igor Popov,
the article was written for a Russian geographical journal
Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovsky (born in St. Petersburg on February 8 (February 20), 1852, died there on November 27 (December 10), 1906) is a Russian writer.
The writer's father, Mikhailovsky Georgy Antonovich, came from the Kherson nobles, served in the uhlans. During the Hungarian company on July 25, 1849, he distinguished himself in the battle of Hermannstadt, attacking the square of the Hungarians with a squadron of lancers. The lancers were briefly suspended from aimed shots with buckshot, but after that they were impressed by the example of the headquarters captain and squadron commander Mikhailovsky and mastered the guns, cutting into the square. The hero of the day, who received a small wound, received the award of St. George.
At the end of the Hungarian company, Georgy Antonovich Mikhailovsky with an “exemplary team” was introduced to Emperor Nicholas I, after which the sovereign transferred him to the Ulansky regiment, to the Life Guards, and even became the successor of some of his children, among whom was Nicholas. A few years later, Mikhailovsky, with the rank of major, left military service and retired.
Garin-Mikhailovsky's mother is Mikhailovskaya Glafira Nikolaevna (surname at birth - Cvetinovich or Tsvetunovich). If you focus on the surname, then Glafira most likely came from a Serbian noble family, which at that time in Russia was not something unusual.
Nikolai Georgievich was born in 1852, his childhood passed in the city of Odessa. He studied at the Richelieu Gymnasium in Odessa.
After graduating from the Odessa gymnasium in 1871, Mikhailovsky entered the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University, but his studies here were short-lived, a year later he failed the exam, after which Nikolai decided that it was better not to be a bad lawyer, but a good craftsman.
In 1872 he left the University and was enrolled in the Institute of Communications. I must say that here, too, young Mikhailovsky did not particularly bother himself with education. Many years later, he admitted that he was one of the "false students", as they were then called, who considered the goal of training not to acquire confident theoretical knowledge, but to acquire a diploma that makes it possible to work in their specialty.
All leisure Garin-Mikhailovsky mainly consisted of friendship and love (at that time he was far from socio-political issues). For some time he tried to engage in writing, but the student's story, which the writer submitted to the editors of the magazine, was rejected without any motivation. This failure knocked the young author off his feet and for many years discouraged him from engaging in literary creativity.
In 1876, in the summer, Garin-Mikhailovsky worked in Bessarabia as a stoker on the railway (one of the options for the practice of a railway engineer student). A close acquaintance with people who worked by physical labor, performing the exhausting work of a machinist and fireman, brought great benefits to the young Mikhailovsky and contributed to the formation of his personality.
The year of graduation of the writer at the Institute of Communications fell on a great historical event, namely the Russian-Turkish war, which lasted from 1877 to 1878. He graduated and graduated as an engineer while the war was still going on. Immediately after completing his course, he was sent to Bulgaria, occupied by Russian troops, in Burgas, as a senior technician. There he took part in the construction of the highway and the port. He received one of his first civil service orders in 1879 for the excellent execution of all orders during the last war.
Twenty years later, the impressions of the service in Burgas were reflected in the story "Clotilde", published in 1899. As a young engineer, in the spring of 1879, Mikhailovsky, who had no practical experience in the construction of railways, was miraculously able to get a prestigious position on the construction of the Bendero-Galatskaya railway, which was led by the organization of the well-known concessionaire S. Polyakov. This work captured Mikhailovsky very much, the writer quickly showed himself from the best side, established himself and began to earn decent money, moving up in his career.
In the summer of 1879, while on business in the city of Odessa, Nikolai Georgievich met an acquaintance of his sister Nina, whose name was Nadezhda Valerievna Charykova, after which he married her. It was August 22, 1879.
In winter, he worked at the Ministry of Railways. Among others, engineer Mikhailovsky was distinguished by scrupulous honesty and extremely painfully perceived the orientation of many colleagues at work towards unrighteous personal enrichment (bribes, participation in contracts). Three years later, he resigned, arguing that he was unable to sit surrounded by two chairs, that is, on the one hand, state interests, on the other hand, personal master's.
Garin-Mikhailovsky in 1883 bought Gundurovka (Samara province), an estate in the Buguruslan district, for 75 thousand rubles, and settled with his wife in a landowner's estate. Nikolay and Nadezhda Garin-Mikhailovsky, who by this time already had two small children of their own, lived here for about 2.5 years.
During the reform of 186, as is known, the peasant communities acquired part of the lands of the landlords, but the nobles still remained large owners. In order to feed themselves, the former serfs were constantly forced to cultivate the lands of the landowners, playing the role of hired workers, for a meager pay. The economic condition of the peasants after the reform in many places only worsened. Having a fairly large capital in circulation (about 40 thousand rubles), Nikolai Georgievich was going to create an exemplary economy on noble lands on the estate. As a role model, he took a settlement of colonists located not far from Gundurovka, who received fabulous, according to Russian peasants, harvests. In this way, the couple wanted to improve the financial situation of local peasants: to raise the level of their culture in general and teach them how to properly cultivate the land. In addition, under the influence of populist trends, Nikolai Georgievich wanted to modify the system of social relations that had developed in the countryside. The writer's program was simple: "the destruction of the kulaks and the restoration of the community."
The share of Garin-Mikhailovsky's wife, Nadezhda Valeryevna, had a lot of work in the village: she treated the peasants who lived on their estate with all kinds of "common means", organized a school in which she herself conducted classes for all the girls and boys of the village. Two years later, her school already contained fifty students, in addition, she herself had two young assistants who themselves graduated from a rural school in a neighboring large village.
In economic terms, the writer’s affairs on the estate were going great, but the peasants accepted all the innovations of the compassionate landowner with murmuring and distrust, and he had to constantly overcome the opposition of the inert mass, and with the local kulaks he generally had to enter into a big conflict, which resulted in a whole series of arson . First he lost his thresher and mill, and then his entire crop. When Nikolai Georgievich almost went bankrupt, he decided to leave the village and return to his engineering activities. The estate itself was entrusted to a strict manager.
In subsequent years, Nikolai Georgievich appeared in his estate only on short visits and rarely stayed here for a long time, preferring Samara, a provincial city, instead of the rural wilderness. Gundurovka was transferred and mortgaged, but it still did not come to its sale, and it did not come very soon. But the biography of Garin-Mikhailovsky does not end there.
The literary debut of the writer took place in 1892. The manuscript of the work “Several Years in the Country”, which was brought to Moscow by a friend of Mikhailovsky, found its first reader in a circle of Moscow prose writers in the apartment of N. N. Zlatovratsky. I must say that the feedback from the listeners of the work was sympathetic. But especially valuable for the writer was the approval of the ideological leader of the folk writers, who was Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky, who offered to publish the manuscript of his namesake and namesake in Russkaya Mysl, a popular magazine at that time.
All sorts of trips, expeditions, research left Mikhailovsky little time for literary work, it happened that he wrote on the road, “on the irradiation”, in fits and starts. However, there was also a positive side to this. Directly close connection with everyday life inspired the writer to write literary works, giving them a certain unique originality.
The main part of the writer's literary heritage is made up of essays - an endless series of works of art from the life surrounding the author, a bright and colorful presentation of immediate feelings and emotions, often with journalistic digressions. The element of fiction is more noticeable in stories, but even here the plot is almost always based on some fact from real life.
Despite the love of Nikolai Georgievich for the so-called "small genre" of the story and essay, it was not they who brought the greatest literary popularity to the writer, but a number of autobiographical stories (according to Gorky, which constituted an entire epic). In 1893, the story "Gymnasium students" appeared - a continuation of "Tyoma's Childhood". Two years later, the third part, called "Students", was published. Starting from 1898 and until the end of his life, the author worked on the fourth story of this cycle ("Engineers").
In September 1906, upon his return from Manchuria, the writer settled in the city of St. Petersburg. He took an active part in the public and literary life of the capital. He was on the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine, which was called the "Herald of Life", he collaborated with A. V. Lunacharsky, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich and V. V. Vorovsky. He died suddenly on December 10, 1906 during a meeting of the editorial board, in which his dramatic sketch "Teenagers" was discussed and read that day.
Nikolai Georgievich was buried at the Volkovo cemetery on Literatorskie Mostki.
We draw your attention to the fact that the biography of Garin-Mikhailovsky Nikolai Georgievich presents the most basic moments from life. Some minor life events may be omitted from this biography.
Indomitable is probably the best definition of the character of an engineer and a writer. Garin-Mikhailovsky always gave his all, referring to what he was doing.
Childhood
He was born in 1852 into a wealthy noble family. Father - Georgy Antonovich Mikhailovsky in the war during the attack was wounded and awarded for bravery. After retiring, he settled in Odessa. His first-born Nika had a godfather. Mother Glafira Nikolaevna was a noblewoman of Serbian origin. The boy grew up handsome, cheerful, but very lively and nimble himself on the mountain.
He continually violated the instructions of his father, whom he loved very much, and therefore his father rashly took up the belt. The future writer Garin-Mikhailovsky studied at the Richelieu Gymnasium. All this will later be described in two parts of the tetralogy: "Tyoma's Childhood" and "Gymnasium Students". In them, almost every hero has a real prototype. Only at the age of forty did Garin-Mikhailovsky finish his first biographical story, Tyoma's Childhood. He wrote his works in passing, one might say, "on his knees", where necessary. But when you read it, you don't see it.
Youth
After graduating from the gymnasium, Garin-Mikhailovsky decided to become a lawyer and entered the university. But a year later, the command of the soul leads him to the Institute of Communications. It was a colossal success both for himself and for society. Later, Garin-Mikhailovsky would become a talented practical engineer.
In the meantime, in Bessarabia, he works as an intern-stoker. But when he finishes his studies, he receives a referral to Bulgaria, and then participates in the construction of the Bendera-Galician road. The work of a prospecting engineer greatly fascinated Nikolai Georgievich. In addition, there were decent earnings. In the same 1879, he very happily married Nadezhda Valerievna Charykova (they had eleven children and three adopted children). The wedding takes place in Odessa, and the evening train is to take the young couple to St. Petersburg. But the cheerful and noisy Mikhailovsky family changes the clock in advance, and the young people are late for the train and leave only in the morning. And how many jokes and laughter about this! In Petersburg, paperwork in the ministry did not please Mikhailovsky. Therefore, he gladly returns to practical work. Builds a section of the Batum-Samtredia railway. The work is very dangerous - gangs of robbers hide in the forests and attack the workers. Then he was transferred and appointed head of the Baku section of the Transcaucasian Railway. At the end of 1882, seeing corruption and bribes, he resigns, although he loves the work of a survey engineer very much.
Gundurovka (1883-1886)
N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky buys an estate in the Samara province, where he is going to create a farm that will help raise crops, he wants to destroy the kulaks.
The ideas of the Narodniks had already penetrated his consciousness. But three times they let the "red rooster" into his estate. The mill, thresher and, finally, the entire crop were destroyed. He was practically ruined and decided to return to the activity of an engineer. He lived in Gundurovka for two and a half years.
engineering work
In 1886 he returned to his beloved work. Conducted surveys at the Ural site "Ufa-Zlatoust". The family at this time lives in Ufa. This was the beginning. He worked as an economist, and the result was a huge savings - 60% of money for every mile. But this project had to be punched with a fight. At the same time, he continues his literary work, writes an essay on this story "Variant". Mikhailovsky introduced Stanyukovich to the first chapters of the story "Tyoma's Childhood", which was published in its finished form in 1892. In addition, documentaries about the village were printed, which were also successful. In 1893, the essay "Journey to the Moon" was published. But in his soul and in practice he remained a railway engineer.
Practical work
She tore off all the time. But it was a favorite thing. Mikhailovsky traveled all over Siberia, the Samara province, visited Korea and Manchuria to find out the possibility of building there too. The impressions were included in the essay "On Korea, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula." Traveled to China, Japan and finally through Hawaii arrived in San Francisco.
Traveled by train through all the states and returned to London, stopping on the way to Paris. In 1902, the essay "Around the World" was published.
A famous person
He became a very famous person in the capital, both as a traveler and as a writer. And as a result, he was invited to Nicholas II. He walked with timidity, and returned with bewilderment. The questions that the emperor asked were simple and uncomplicated and spoke of the limited thinking of the questioner.
literary life
He has been very active with a number of magazines. "Tyoma's Childhood", and "Gymnasium Students", and "Students" have already been printed. Work is underway on "Engineers". At the evening meeting of the "Herald of Life" he suddenly died. Such a load, which he led, could not stand the heart. He was 54 years old.
On a gloomy November morning, Petersburg saw off Garin-Mikhailovsky on his last journey to the Volkovo cemetery. There was not enough money for the funeral. I had to collect by subscription.
The book of life
The biography of the writer Garin began with "Tyoma's Childhood". He took this pseudonym from the name of his son Harry. But everyone is used to calling the author Garin-Mikhailovsky. The summary is a bright and pure spring of childhood memories. A huge manor house on the outskirts of a large southern city and the “rented yard” adjoining it, which was rented out to a barren place, where Tyoma’s childhood passes in mud and dust, in common games and pranks with poor courtyard children - nothing more than his father’s house where Nikolai Mikhailovich spent his childhood.
The childhood of Tyoma Kartashev is happy, but by no means cloudless. The father, with his misunderstanding, severely injures the tender child's soul. These sufferings of little Tyoma, the fear of a stern and strict father, echo in the reader's soul with pain. And Tyoma's mother, sensitive and noble in soul, loves her impulsive and impressionable son without memory and, as best she can, defends him from the methods of his father's upbringing - merciless flogging. The reader becomes a witness of a merciless brutal execution and horror that fills the mother's soul. The child turns into a miserable animal. His human dignity has been torn out. The successes and failures of pedagogical experience are relevant in our time, as Garin-Mikhailovsky shows them ("Tyoma's Childhood"). Summary - this is the spirit of humanity, respect for the personality of the child - the basics of democratic pedagogy. The dramatic death of his father ends and his last words will forever be remembered: "If you ever go against the king, I will curse you from the grave."
(real name Mikhailovsky, other pseudonym Garin),
(20 (08). 02. 1852, St. Petersburg - 10.12 (27.11. 1906, St. Petersburg), prose writer, publicist, travel engineer.
Born in the family of the headquarters captain of the Life Guards Ulansky Regiment. The godfather is the Russian emperor Nicholas I. Shortly after the birth of his son, his father retired, the family moved to Odessa. Mother Glafira Nikolaevna was mainly engaged in raising children. After graduating from the Richelieu gymnasium (1863-1871), he entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. After studying for two years (1871-1872), he entered the Institute of Railway Engineers, after which (1878) he was enrolled in the staff of the Ministry of Railways, worked on the construction of the largest railways, and was the head of the distance of the Baku section of the Transcaucasian road. In February 1884 he submitted his resignation and moved with his family to Samara. Having bought an estate in the Buguruslan district of the Samara province, he took up agriculture. Attempts to change the life of the peasants through economic and cultural transformations ended in failure. Since 1886, he returned to the engineering service, first at the construction of the Ufa-Zlatoust railway, in 1892 - on the Kazan-Malmyzh railway, in 1895-1897. - on the construction of the railway Krotovo - Sergievsk. During these years, he took part in the organization of the first Marxist newspaper in Russia, Samara Vestnik, which actively opposed liberal populism. Since 1895, for participation in the social democratic movement, he was under covert police surveillance. A secret police report dated July 29, 1901, about the short stay of N. Mikhailovsky in Simbirsk, has been preserved.
The writer's literary debut took place in 1892. Entering a group of Moscow writers who intended to buy the Russian Wealth magazine from the writer L. E. Obolensky, he took part in this project, managed to get funds by remortgaging his estate. On January 1, 1892, Russian Wealth passed into the hands of a new edition, the official publisher of the magazine was the wife of N. G. Mikhailovsky, Nadezhda Valerievna. In the first three issues of the updated magazine, the story "Tyoma's Childhood" was published, signed with the pseudonym "N. Garin”, favorably received by both readers and critics. No less successful was the book of essays "Several Years in the Village", published since March 1892 from issue to issue in the journal "Russian Thought". The author immediately moved into the first row of writers of his time. Despite N. Mikhailovsky's predilection for the "small genre" of essay and story, it was not they who brought him the greatest literary fame, but a cycle of autobiographical stories. Already in 1893, a continuation of "Tyoma's Childhood" appeared - the story "Gymnasium students". In 1895, the third part was published - "Students". Mikhailovsky worked on the fourth story of this cycle ("Engineers") from 1898 until the end of his days.
In 1898, N. G. Mikhailovsky went on a trip around the world, becoming, at the suggestion of the Russian Geographical Society, the head of the party in the scientific expedition of A. Zvegintsov to study the geography of North Korea. In addition to scientific research, he collected ethnographic material and recorded Korean fairy tales for the first time. His travel essays were published in The World of God (1899, No. 2-7, 10-12), later included in the book Across Korea, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula (St. Petersburg, 1904).
At the beginning of 1900, he leased land for 2 years near the village. Turgenevo, Stavropol district, at the same time, by agreement, managing the estate of his common-law wife V. A. Sadovskaya in (now the Veshkaimsky district of the Ulyanovsk region). He again took up agriculture, but the crop failure of 1902 led him to another ruin. In April 1903, he was appointed head of surveys for the construction of a railway on the southern coast of Crimea. Here he became close to A. I. Kuprin, A. P. Chekhov, L. N. Andreev, his creative communication with A. M. Gorky continued. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in April 1904, N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky left for the Far East as a military engineer and correspondent for the Moscow newspaper Novosti dniy. His correspondence compiled the book “War. (Diary of an eyewitness) ”(St. Petersburg - M., 1914). In September 1906, having returned from Manchuria, he settled in St. Petersburg. Actively participated in the literary and social life of the capital. He was a member of the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine "Herald of Life", in which he collaborated with A. V. Lunacharsky, V. V. Vorovsky, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich. He died suddenly on December 27 (10), 1906 from heart failure during a meeting of the editorial board, where his one-act play "Teenagers" was read and discussed that day. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkov cemetery.
As part of the Year of Culture and the Year of Literature in the Russian Federation, a regional project is being implemented in the Ulyanovsk Region to assign names of prominent compatriots to the libraries of the Ulyanovsk Region. On December 10, 2014, the Central Library of the Municipal State Institution of Culture "Veshkaim Inter-Settlement Library System" was named after N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky.
Bibliography:
Garin-Mikhailovsky N. G. Several years in the countryside: essays. Drama. - Cheboksary: Chuvash. book. publishing house, 1980. - 382 p. : ill.
About him:
Galyashin A. Garin-Mikhailovsky in the Samara province. - Kuibyshev: Kuibyshev. book. publishing house, 1979. - 119 p.
The author-compiler S. V. Pavlova is an employee of the Central Library of the Municipal State Institution of Culture "Veshkaym Inter-Settlement Library System" named after. N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky.
Selivanov K. A. N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky (1852-1906)// Selivanov K. A. Russian writers in Samara and the Samara province. - Kuibyshev, 1953. - S. 68-80.
***
Grigorchenko V. N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky in the Simbirsk province// Ulyanovsk truth. - 1977. - February 20.
Russian writer, publicist, engineer-surveyor and builder of railways N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky (real name and surname - Nikolai Egorovich Mikhailovsky) was born on February 8 (20), 1852 in St. Petersburg in a military family. This family belonged to an old noble family, once one of the richest and most distinguished in the Kherson province. It so happened that the tsar himself and the mother of the revolutionary baptized the boy.
The childhood and adolescence of Nikolai Mikhailovsky, which coincided with the era of reforms of the 1860s - the time of a decisive breakdown of the old foundations, passed in Odessa, where his father, Georgy Antonovich, had a small house and an estate not far from the city. According to the tradition of noble families, the boy received his initial education at home under the guidance of his mother, and then, after a short stay in a German school, he studied at the Odessa Richelieu Gymnasium (1863-1871). In 1871, after graduating from high school, N.G. Mikhailovsky entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but did not study there for long. At the end of the first year of study, he did not pass the exam in the encyclopedia of law, but the following year he brilliantly passed the entrance exam to the St. Petersburg Institute of Railways.
At the time of student practice, Mikhailovsky traveled as a stoker on a steam locomotive, and even then he realized that it was necessary to invest in labor not only the mind, physical strength, but also courage; that work and creation in his profession are linked together, give a rich knowledge of life and encourage him to look for ways to transform it. Until the end of his life, he was engaged in research and construction of roads - railway, electric, cable and others - in Moldova and Bulgaria, the Caucasus and the Crimea, the Urals and Siberia, the Far East and Korea. According to A.I. Kuprin "his business projects have always been distinguished by fiery, fabulous fantasy." He was a talented engineer, an incorruptible person who knew how to defend his point of view before any authorities.
But it will be later, and after graduating in 1878 from the institute with the title of "civil engineer of communications, with the right to carry out construction work," Mikhailovsky was sent to Bulgaria, which had just been liberated from Ottoman rule. There he built the Bendera-Galician railway, which connected Moldova with Bulgaria, as well as a port and roads in the Burgas region. Having spent 4 years in the Balkans, Mikhailovsky was one of the first Russian engineers to work in Bulgaria after its liberation. Mikhailovsky was very proud of the fact that Russian engineers were the first to come to Bulgaria not to destroy, but to create. Since then, engineer, prospector, designer and builder N.G. Mikhailovsky built tunnels, bridges, laid railways, worked in Batum, Ufa, in Kazan, Kostroma, Vyatka, Volyn provinces and in Siberia. "Specialists assure, - wrote Kuprin, - that it is difficult to imagine a better prospector and initiator - more resourceful, inventive and witty."
In the 1880s, Mikhailovsky worked as an engineer in the construction of the Batumi, Libavo-Romenskaya, Zhabinsko-Pinskaya, Samara-Ufa railways, and participated in the construction of the Batumi seaport. But in the early 1880s he became interested in populism and in 1884 he retired. Working on a private railroad showed him the impossibility of serving the interests of capital and society at the same time. Garin-Mikhailovsky decided to "sit down to the ground" and embark on the path of social reformism, practical populism, undertaking the experience of socialist reorganization of the countryside. To implement his social idea, he bought an estate in the Buguruslan district of the Samara province, where he lived with his family for three years, doing agriculture and trying to prove the vitality of "communal life". However, this management did not go smoothly. As a landowner, Garin-Mikhailovsky was connected by numerous threads with the old order. Social reformism ended in complete collapse, and he devoted himself to railway construction.
Since 1886, Garin-Mikhailovsky has been in the service again, and his outstanding talent as an engineer shines again. During the construction of the Ufa-Zlatoust railway (1888-1890) he carried out survey work. The result of these works was a variant that gave enormous savings, and from January 1888 Garin-Mikhailovsky began to implement his version of the road as the head of the 9th construction site.
Writer K.I. Chukovsky noted in it "a lively interest that never waned in the economic structure of Russia, in the Russian economy and technology." “They say about me,” Nikolai Georgievich wrote to his wife, “that I do miracles, and they look at me with big eyes, but it’s funny to me. So little is needed to do all this. More conscientiousness, energy, enterprise, and these seemingly terrible mountains they will part and discover their secret, invisible passages and passages, using which you can reduce the cost and significantly shorten the line. He sincerely dreamed of a time when Russia would be covered with a network of railways, and saw no greater happiness than to work for the glory of Russia, to bring "not imaginary, but real benefit." He considered the construction of railways as a necessary condition for the development of the economy, the prosperity and power of his country. Given the lack of funds available from the treasury, he aggressively advocated cheaper road construction through the development of profitable options and the introduction of better construction methods. On his way there were many innovative projects. In the Urals, this is the construction of a tunnel at the Sulei pass, which shortened the railway line by 10 km and saved 1 million rubles; surveys from the Vyazovaya station to the Sadki station shortened the line by 7.5 versts and saved about 400 thousand rubles; the new version of the line along the Yurizan River saved up to 600 thousand rubles. Managing the construction of a railway line from the station. Krotovka of the Samara-Zlatoust railway to Sergievsk, he removed contractors who made huge profits by robbing state funds and exploiting workers, and created an elected administration. In a special circular to employees, he categorically forbade any abuse and established the procedure for paying workers under the supervision of public controllers. "N.G. Mikhailovsky," wrote the Volzhsky Vestnik on August 18, 1896, "the first of the civil engineers gave his voice as an engineer and writer against hitherto practiced orders and the first makes an attempt to introduce new ones." At the same construction site, Nikolai Georgievich organized the first comradely court in Russia with the participation of workers and employees, including women, over an engineer who mistook rotten sleepers for a bribe. According to K.I. Chukovsky, he sort of transferred the economy "from the area of the mind to the area of the heart."
On September 8, 1890, Garin-Mikhailovsky spoke at the celebrations in Zlatoust on the occasion of the arrival of the first train here. At the end of 1890, he was engaged in surveys at the construction of the Zlatoust-Chelyabinsk railway, and in April 1891 he was appointed head of the survey party on the West Siberian Railway. Here they were offered the most optimal railway bridge crossing over the Ob. It was Mikhailovsky who rejected the option of building a bridge in the Tomsk region, and with his "option near the village of Krivoshchekovo" created the conditions for the emergence of Novosibirsk - one of the largest industrial centers of our country. So N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky can be called one of the founders and builders of Novosibirsk.
In articles about the Siberian Railway, he enthusiastically and passionately defended the idea of economy, taking into account which the initial cost of the railway track was reduced from 100 to 40 thousand rubles per verst. He suggested publishing reports on the "rational" proposals of engineers, and put forward the idea of public discussion of technical and other projects "to avoid past mistakes." The combination of a high order of soul with efficiency and economic practice was the peculiarity of the creative personality of Nikolai Georgievich. “He was a poet by nature, it was felt every time he spoke about what he loves, what he believes in. But he was a poet of labor, a person with a certain bias towards practice, towards business,” recalled A.M. Bitter.
There is a legend that at one of the railway construction sites, engineers faced the following problem: it was necessary to go around a large hill or cliff, choosing the shortest trajectory for this (after all, the cost of each meter of the railway was very high). N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky spent a day thinking and then gave instructions to build a road along one of the foothills. When asked what caused the choice, Mikhailovsky replied that he had been watching the birds all day - or rather, the way they flew around the hill. He considered that they were taking a shorter route, saving effort, and decided to use their route. Subsequently, accurate calculations based on satellite imagery showed that Garin-Mikhailovsky's birdwatching decision was correct.
Siberian epic N.G. Mikhailovsky was only an episode in his eventful life. But objectively, it was the highest take-off, the pinnacle of his engineering activity - in terms of far-sighted calculations, incontrovertibility of the principled position, in the stubbornness of the struggle for the best option and in historical results. He wrote to his wife: “I am in the heat of all sorts of things and do not lose a single moment. I lead the most favorite way of life - I roam with research in villages and villages, go to cities ... I agitate my cheap road, I keep a diary. ..."
A nobleman by birth, N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky was formed as a personality in the era of social upsurge in Russia in the 1860s-1870s. Fascination with populism was unsuccessful, the vitality of "communal life" failed to prove. He actively communicated with the people, knew their life in detail, so disappointment in populism led him to the camp of those who sympathized with Marxism. In 1896 N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky organized one of the first comradely trials in Russia over an engineer who had squandered government money. He actively collaborated in Marxist publications, and in the last years of his life he provided material assistance to the Bolsheviks. "I think that he considered himself a Marxist because he was an engineer. He was attracted by the activity of Marx's teachings. Marx's plan for the reorganization of the world delighted him with its breadth, he imagined the future as a grandiose collective work performed by the entire mass of mankind, freed from the strong fetters of class statehood ", - recalled M. Gorky, and the writer S. Elpatyevsky noted that the eyes and heart of N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky "were turned forward, towards the bright democratic future of Russia."
Since the mid-1890s, Nikolai Georgievich participated in the organization of the Marxist newspaper "Samarsky Vestnik", the magazines "Beginning" and "Life", was a member of the editorial office of the Bolshevik "Bulletin of Life". In 1891, Garin bought the right to publish the magazine "Russian wealth", until 1899 he was its editor. He more than once hid underground members on his estate, kept illegal literature, in particular Iskra. In December 1905, while in Manchuria as a war correspondent, Nikolai Georgievich distributed revolutionary propaganda publications in the army, transferred funds for the purchase of weapons to the participants in the battles on Krasnaya Presnya in Moscow. It is no coincidence that since 1896 a tacit supervision was established for him, which continued until his death.
From April 1903 N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky led an expedition to carry out design work on the construction of a railway on the southern coast of Crimea. For eight months, the expedition carried out technical and economic calculations for twenty-two options for the route, their cost ranged from 11.3 to 24 million rubles in gold. Garin-Mikhailovsky sought to implement the project thoroughly and at minimal cost. To the question "Which line of the road would be preferable?" he invariably answered: "The one that will cost less, I recommend to landowners and speculators to moderate their appetites." Contemporaries who knew the writer-engineer closely recalled how he joked that the construction of the South Coast Railway would be the best posthumous monument for him. Garin-Mikhailovsky admitted to Kuprin that he would certainly want to complete the only two things of his life to the end - the railway in the Crimea and the story "Engineers". The construction of the road was interrupted by the Russo-Japanese War, but the survey materials of Garin-Mikhailovsky were used during the construction of the Sevastopol-Yalta highway (1972). Death prevented N. Garin from finishing the story "Engineers".
In the literary field N.G. Mikhailovsky appeared in 1892 with the successful story "Childhood of the Theme" and the story "Several Years in the Village". As a writer, he acted under the pseudonym N. Garin: on behalf of his son - Georgy, or, as they called him in the family, Garya. The result of the literary work of Garin-Mikhailovsky was an autobiographical tetralogy: "Childhood of the Theme" (1892), "Gymnasium students" (1893), "Students" (1895), "Engineers" (publ. 1907), dedicated to the fate of the young generation of the intelligentsia of the "turning time" . This tetralogy - the most famous of Garin's works - is interestingly conceived, executed with talent and seriousness. "Theme's Childhood" is the best part of the tetralogy. The author has a living sense of nature, there is a memory of the heart, with the help of which he reproduces the child's psychology not from the outside, like an adult observing a child, but with all the freshness and fullness of childhood impressions. But the autobiographical element possesses him too much; he clutters up the story with episodes that violate the integrity of the artistic impression. This is most noticeable in "Students", although they also have very vividly written scenes.
Traveling in the Far East resulted in travel essays "Across Korea, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula" (1899), etc. In 1898, while in Korea, Garin-Mikhailovsky compiled the collection "Korean Tales" (ed. 1899). Gorky recalled: “I saw drafts of his books about Manchuria and Korean Tales; it was a bunch of various pieces of paper, letterheads from the Department of Traction and Traffic Service of some railway, lined pages torn from an account book, a concert poster, and even two Chinese business cards; all this is written in half-words, allusions to letters. “How do you read this?” “Ba!” he said. “Very simple, because it was written by me. that he reads not from a manuscript, but from memory.
Literary creativity brought N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky was widely known during his lifetime. He also wrote novels, short stories, plays, travel essays, fairy tales for children, and articles on various issues. N. Garin's stories were published separately under the title "Essays and Stories" (1893-1895); were also published separately: "Across Korea, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula" and "Korean Tales". The best of his works outlived the author. The collected works of Garin-Mikhailovsky were published in 8 volumes (1906-1910). Books by N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky is still reprinted today and does not linger on the shelves of bookstores and library shelves. Kindness, sincerity, knowledge of the depths of the human soul and the complexities of life, faith in the mind and conscience of a person, love for the Motherland and true democracy - all this is still close and dear to our contemporary in the best books of the writer.
However, to himself as a writer, he was distrustful and unfair. Someone praised "Tyoma's Childhood". "Nonsense," he said with a sigh. "Everyone writes well about children, it's hard to write badly about them." And, as always, he immediately dodged aside: "But it is difficult for masters of painting to paint a portrait of a child, their children are dolls. Even Van Dyck's Infanta is a doll." The talented feuilletonist S.S. Gusev once reproached that Garin-Mikhailovsky writes little. "It must be because I'm more of an engineer than a writer," Mikhailovsky answered and smiled mirthlessly. ". But he spoke beautifully about his work as a railwayman, with great fervor, like a poet.
Geologist B.K. Terletsky, his adopted son, wrote about Nikolai Georgievich: “In front of me is a slender figure with a swarthy face, with gray hair, with youthful bright eyes. You don’t believe that he is 50 years old. You won’t say that this is an aging person. Only a young man can have such a moving face, such a friendly smile. Many photographs of the writer have been preserved, but they do not fully reflect the dynamism and charm of this person. Perhaps a more vivid impression is the verbal portrait painted by A.I. Kuprin: "He had a slender, thin figure, careless, quick, precise and beautiful movements and a wonderful face, one of those faces that are never forgotten later. The most captivating thing in this face was the contrast between the premature gray hair of thick hair and the completely youthful brilliance of the living ", bold, slightly mocking eyes. He entered and within five minutes mastered the conversation and became the center of society. But it was clear that he himself did not make any effort to this. Such was the charm of his personality, his smile, his lively, fascinating speech " . He spoke as if casually, but very deftly and in peculiarly constructed phrases. He had a wonderful command of introductory sentences, which Chekhov could not stand. However, Garin-Mikhailovsky did not have the habit of admiring his eloquence. In his speeches it was always "close to words, spacious to thoughts." From the first meeting, he often evoked an impression that was not very favorable for himself. The playwright Kosorotov complained about him: "I wanted to talk with him about literature, but he treated me to a lecture on the culture of root crops, then he said something about ergot." And Leonid Andreev to the question: "how did he like Garin?" answered: “Very cute, smart, interesting! But an engineer. It’s bad when a person is an engineer. I’m afraid of an engineer, a dangerous person! "Garin tends to put people on his tracks, yes, yes! Pushy, pushing..."
In the summer of 1905, N.G. Garin brought M. Gorky money to transfer them to the party fund. Seeing a very colorful company with Gorky, he sighed and said: “How many people you have! You live interestingly! About his best works - "Tyoma's Childhood", "Gymnasium Students", "Students", "Engineers", he answered Gorky: "After all, you know that all these books could not be written. Now is not the time for books ..."
The ebullient nature of Nikolai Georgievich hated peace. He traveled all over Russia, made a round-the-world trip, and wrote his works "on the beam" - in a carriage compartment, in a steamer's cabin, in a hotel room, in the hustle and bustle of the station. And death overtook him, in the words of Gorky, "on the go." Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky - an inspired surveyor, builder of many railways in the vast expanses of Russia, a talented writer and publicist, a prominent public figure, a tireless traveler and discoverer - died of heart failure at an editorial meeting of the Marxist journal Vestnik Zhizn, in whose affairs took part. Garin-Mikhailovsky made a heated speech, went into the next room, lay down on the sofa, and death cut short the life of this talented person. It happened on November 27 (December 10), 1906 in St. Petersburg.
N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, who gave a large sum for the needs of the revolution, turned out to have nothing to bury. Collected money by subscription among the St. Petersburg workers, the intelligentsia. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery. In 1912, a tombstone with a bronze high-relief half-figure was erected on the grave of the writer and engineer (sculptor L.V. Sherwood).
"The happiest country is Russia! How much interesting work there is, how many magical opportunities, the most difficult tasks! I have never envied anyone, but I envy the people of the future..."
N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky
