Wholesale of Caucasian fruits kalandadze. The museum is an underground printing house of the RSDRP on the forest. Museum in Literature

03.02.2022

Our friends ask us if we can talk about some unusual museum. Yes we can!
I suggest you go and see the real underground printing house of the times of the first Russian revolution 1905-1906 years. This museum is a branch of the State Central Museum of Modern History of Russia. This printing house is one of the few that were not discovered by the tsarist police. The museum was founded in 1924, and it is one of the first museums created by the Soviet government. The people who directly worked in this printing house helped to create the exposition.

Showcase of the store where the underground printing house was located.

And now go ahead, join the art of illegal work during the tsarist regime. The creation of the printing house was led by Leonid Krasin, the future people's commissar for foreign trade.

For the purpose of maximum secrecy, a group of Georgian underground workers was transferred to Moscow. On Lesnaya Street, in the profitable house of the merchant Kuzma Kolupaev, they rented a room for a trading shop and adjacent living rooms, as well as a basement. Since the Georgian diaspora lived in the region, this did not arouse suspicion. The owner also had a certificate of trustworthiness, and a favorable regime for police officers was created in the store. Corruption has always been an assistant in illegal work.

Trustworthiness information.

Shop interior.

Accounts, money, cash register.

The store as a retail outlet was unprofitable, so party money flowed here like a river to create the impression of a successful enterprise.
A well was dug in the basement to collect soil water, through which there was a passage to a small room where the printing house itself was located. The entrance was closed with a box, which did not allow the police to find a secret hole during the search.

Descent to the basement.

Under the bars you see a well for water, from which there was a secret hole. In the depths of the basement is a window made to view the exposition in the printing house.
The printing house employed two people, a compositor and a printer operator (I don't know the correct name for this profession). Since there was no ventilation, continuous work was carried out for no more than one hour. The extinguished candle indicated the absence of oxygen, and the shift was terminated.

Printing press "American".

Set fonts.

Newspaper "Worker"

Exposition of boxes and fruits that hid underground literature.

All family members, as well as servants, were experienced underground workers, which made it possible to maintain secrecy. A sewing machine was also used as background sound. And the alarm was the process of ironing clothes, but not with an iron, but with a chopper and a roller. The sound from this process can turn the whole house upside down, in the museum everyone can demonstrate this.

General view of the kitchen.

From it, the whole shop and both sides of the street were perfectly visible.

General view of the master's room.

Rubel and roller. Underground alarm.

During the revolutionary events, one of the barricades joined the store, but the employees of the printing house, by decision of the Central Committee, participated in the events only at night. The printing press was much more important than the armed struggle on the streets of Moscow.

Barricade on Lesnaya Street. December 1905

As you understand, Soviet cinema did not pass by such a story. In 1928, L. Isakiy's film "The American" was shot, and in 1980, "House on Lesnaya". Both of these films can be viewed at the museum on weekends (at 12:00 and 15:00). Employees are advised to come to the session on Saturday, so as not to overlap with other museum events.
Fortunately, the film "House on Lesnaya" is on the Internet.

Photo: Museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906"

Photo and description

Museum "Underground Printing House 1905 - 1906" is a branch of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. The museum was opened in Moscow in 1924 and is located on the first floor, in the left wing of a three-story building. The house was built at the end of the 19th century and belonged to the merchant Kolupaev.

An illegal, clandestine printing house was located here during the 1905 revolution. The printing house was organized to publish illegal literature, newspapers and leaflets. The initiators were the leaders of the RSDLP - Krasin and Yenukidze. For this purpose, they found a house on the outskirts of Moscow, near the Georgian settlement. To cover the printing house, a store was opened in the house that sold Caucasian fruits and cheese. The printing house was in a room dug under a warehouse. There was a small American printing press here.

The printing house was well hidden and operated successfully, although the Butyrka police station and the Butyrka prison castle were located nearby. Nevertheless, the underground members successfully distributed the newspaper Rabochy. In 1906, the underground printing house was mothballed. The machine was moved to Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, to a new building.

The museum was opened in 1924 at the suggestion of Sokolov, known under the party nickname "Miron". The creators of the museum were former underground workers who worked in this printing house.

The museum includes: a store room, a store basement, two living rooms and a kitchen. The furnishings of the premises have been completely restored and are typical of the life of the Moscow bourgeois class. The Russian stove is well preserved. Furniture, dishes and household utensils of that time were used in interior design. There are numerous photographs on the walls.

The basement, under which the printing house was located, is designed as a warehouse: boxes of fruit, barrels of cheese. Illegal leaflets and newspapers are laid at the bottom. The printing house itself is located below the basement level. It can be seen through a special viewing window in the wall. It has a genuine printing press. In the museum you can see photocopies of documents and get acquainted with a detailed description of the history of the printing house and the activities of the underground.

Museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906" is one of the branches of the State Opening of the institution took place on the territory of Moscow in 1924. An ordinary residential building with three floors was chosen as a place for the creation of the museum, the museum is located on the ground floor.

The history of the creation of the museum

On the territory of the modern museum in 1905, an illegal printing house was established, the purpose of which was to publish social democratic newspapers and leaflets. The opening of the printing house took place on the outskirts of Moscow in a residential building owned by a merchant and carriage master K.M. Kolupaev. To cover the activities of the printing house, a small shop was created in the house, which attracted buyers with a sign about the wholesale trade in Caucasian fruits. While the upper part of the house was a place to sell fruit, a small "cave" was dug in the basement in which they placed a portable printing press.

Marian Kalandadze, a port loader, who had extensive trading experience, but far from a clean reputation, was officially recognized as the owner of the store. On behalf of Kalandadze, Silovan Kobidze, who was a revolutionary and an active participant in all kinds of strikes, was engaged in trade in a hidden printing house. He lived on the grounds of the store with his wife and young daughter.

To hide their activities, the underground had to buy additional fruit from other suppliers, as a result of which the store brought only one loss. But the activity of the printing house was very successful, although it was directly associated with great risks, since there was a police station next to the building of the store and the printing house, and law enforcement agencies patrolled the street every day.

When the government found out about the existence of this printing house, a huge number of police officers were allocated to search for it. But it was not possible to reveal the location of the institution, a year later it was decided to close the printing house, and transport the printing press to a new building.

In 1922, the former location of the printing house was remembered by V.N. Sokolov, who previously held the position of head of the Transport Technical Bureau of the RSDLP, who introduced the idea to create a museum on the site of the former printing organization. Within 2 years, the building was being restored, and already in 1924 the first museum dedicated to the political history of Russia during the first Russian revolution was opened. An interesting fact is that the initiators of the opening of the museum were precisely those people who previously worked in it.

Components of the museum

Since the opening of the museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906" included the restored shop premises, the basement and the printing house itself. At the same time, all visitors of that time unanimously argued that it was necessary to evict the tenants (the rest of the building remained residential) and increase the number of rooms in the museum, but the museum leaders decided not to make such drastic decisions.

In the 50s of the twentieth century. The room and the kitchen, which previously belonged to Silovan Kobidze, passed into the possession of the museum.

Museum exposition

The underground museum is presented in the form of a series of rooms facing the street, among which there is a basement, an entrance hall, a living room, a kitchen. A special role is played by the original showcase of the former store, which was reconstructed in 1927 by the hands of N. D. Vinogradov. The interior of the rooms is fully consistent with the living conditions of Moscow citizens and includes elements of Georgian life.

Inside the museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906" there is a typical Russian stove and numerous kitchen utensils.

The basement, where the printing house was previously located, is a warehouse with boxes and barrels that are filled with fruits and cheese, and at the bottom of these barrels are leaflets and newspapers produced here. In turn, the printing house, in which the printing press is located, is located in a well designed to drain water. People are not allowed into that room, but the interior present there can be seen through a window created in the basement wall.

At the box office, where tickets to the museum are now sold, you can see a number of photographs, as well as documents that describe in detail the history of the creation of the printing house, and then the museum.

Modern activities of the museum

To date, the museum still continues its activities, you can get to it using the metro, getting off at the Belorusskaya or Mendeleevskaya station. Then you can walk on foot to Lesnaya Street, 55. This is the address of the museum.

The museum has two tours:

The same name with the museum. During the tour, visitors are told about the history of the appearance of the printing house, the features of its activities.
A shop with a secret. A theatrical tour that gives you the opportunity to fully plunge into the times of revolutionary Russia and imagine yourself as a resident of the early 20th century.

You can get to the museum of the underground printing house (the nearest metro station is Belorusskaya or Mendeleevskaya station) from the courtyard on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm, and on Thursday and Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm. Monday is a holiday here.

In addition, the museum "Underground Printing House of 1905-1906" (Lesnaya, 55) hosts all kinds of exhibitions and meetings dedicated to writers of our time.

The cost of visiting the museum

The price of a ticket to the museum depends on age:

an adult ticket costs one hundred and fifty rubles;
for students and pensioners - seventy rubles;
for the disabled and children under 16 years of age admission is free.

Excursions in the museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906" paid.

Museum building in films

Throughout its existence, the building of the museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906." several times fell into various films, here are the main ones:

"American" is a feature film shot by Leonard Isakiy in 1930 on the territory of the USSR. The building fell into the frame during Lenin's speech on Lesnaya Street.
"Underground printing house of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Moscow" - a documentary film telling about the history of the creation of this printing house, was released on the territory of the USSR in 1975.
"House on Lesnaya" - a film shot in an artistic style about the history of the creation of the first underground printing house.

The first and last films are shown in the museum, and visitors have the opportunity to watch them.

Museum in Literature

They did not ignore the underground printing house, and, accordingly, the modern museum and representatives of literature.

N.N. Popov, who publishes under a pseudonym Deer Foggy, in 1928 he published an adventure novel called "The Secret of the Old House", which told in great detail about the history of the creation of the printing house and its activities.

In his story "Love for Electricity" V.P. Aksyonov also mentioned an underground Moscow printing house, but he devoted only one chapter to it, entitled "A Quiet Evening in the Georgians."

The underground printing house has even been mentioned in fantasy works, for example, in 1992, in a science fiction novel called "Reserve for Academicians" tells about an alternative reality.

Using typography history in quests

The popularity of the underground printing house is so great that in 2015 the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia launched the Virtual Museum project. The history of the former printing house formed the basis of the quest game "Get it out of the ground", which includes three storylines.

Underground printing house in Perm

Despite the great popularity of the underground printing house located on the territory of Moscow, in no case should one forget about another similar organization operating on the territory of the city of Perm. printing house" the address is as follows: Monastyrskaya street, 142.

Today, there is also a museum on the territory of the printing house, which looks like an inconspicuous residential building. In contrast to the Moscow printing house, which was located in the merchant's dwelling, in Perm, the house of ordinary workers was chosen to house the printing house.

The owner of the dwelling was the steamboat engineer Tiunov. The man practically did not visit the house due to constant business trips, therefore, in order to maintain him in a residential condition, he rented the house to tenants. Once again renting out his housing, Tiunov could not even imagine that it was here that underground activity would boil.

The initiator of the creation of an underground printing house in 1906 was Ya.M. Sverdlov. The members of the underground managed to produce a huge number of leaflets until the location of the printing house was discovered in June of that year. The members of the underground took a big risk by renting a room to create leaflets two blocks from the police station, and this risk turned out to be unjustified - all the members of the underground were arrested.

Printing house "(Monastyrskaya, 142) is located in a small house made of wood, adjacent to it is an equally small plot of land. The house consists of three small rooms.

After examining the vestibule, you can go to the kitchen-entrance hall, and then to the room, which is decorated in exactly the same way when the machine for printing leaflets and newspapers was placed here.

Today, the museum provides its visitors with the opportunity to see a printing press, several types of fonts, rollers, corners for typesetting and leaflets.

Features of the Perm Museum

Today, the underground printing house museum, located in Perm, also functions.

It operates five days a week except Sunday and Monday.

It can be reached by the following means of transport:

trams - No. 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;
trolleybuses - No. 5, 7;
buses - No. 14, 15, 68. You need to get off at the Plekhanova stop.

Entrance to the museum of underground printing is paid.

There were several more underground printing houses on the territory of the country, which today have not yet become museum buildings.

A visit to the aforementioned historical monuments gives visitors the opportunity not only to plunge into the atmosphere of the early 20th century, but also to see a lot of interesting things.

K: Museums founded in 1924

Museum "Underground Printing House 1905-1906"- Historical Museum in Moscow, a branch of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. Opened in 1924. It is a rare monument of the political history of Russia during the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, dedicated mainly to the illegal activities of the RSDLP party in these years.

History of the museum

The museum is located in the old district of Moscow in an ordinary three-story apartment building of the late 19th century, which belonged to the merchant Kuzma Kolupaev. The museum occupies the first floor of the left wing of the building, where a clandestine illegal printing house was located during the First Russian Revolution.

The printing house was organized in 1905 by members of the RSDLP for the illegal publication of social democratic leaflets and newspapers. At the suggestion of one of the leaders of the party L. B. Krasin and an experienced organizer of illegal printing houses T. T. Yenukidze, a printing house was opened on the outskirts of the city, not far from the so-called "Georgian settlement", in a typical tenement house owned by a merchant - carriage master - K M. Kolupaev. As a cover for the underground printing house, a small shop was organized under the sign "Wholesale trade in Kalandadze Caucasian fruits." Officially, the store sold small wholesale shipments of Caucasian fruits and suluguni cheese. In the basement of the house, under the warehouse of the store, a tiny “cave” was dug, additionally disguised with the help of a groundwater well, through which access was made to it. The "cave" housed a portable "American" printing press.

The store was opened in the name of Mirian Kalandadze, a port loader from Batumi, who had experience in trade and a “clean” reputation. For the purposes of conspiracy, the owner himself did not officially live at the store. On his behalf, the "manager" - Silovan Kobidze, a revolutionary, an active participant in strikes, traded. He officially lived at the store with his family - his wife and six-month-old daughter. To help the mistress of the house, a servant was hired - M. F. Ikryanistova - an experienced underground worker, a member of the Ivano-Voznesensk Council of Workers' Deputies. The store's employees were part-time employees of the printing house. Among them was G.F. Sturua, later - a major public and statesman.

Again this place was remembered in 1922 by V.N. Sokolov (party nickname - "Miron"), in the past - the head of the Transport Technical Bureau of the RSDLP. His initiative to restore the printing house on Lesnaya as a museum was supported by K.P. Zlinchenko, a revolutionary, one of the founders of the Moscow Historical and Revolutionary Museum. After the restoration of 1922-1923, in the premises of a former store, in 1924, a museum was opened, which became one of the first museums dedicated to the political history of Russia during the First Russian Revolution. Interestingly, the organizers of the museum, for the most part, were the same underground workers who twenty years earlier created an underground printing house and worked in it.

Initially, the museum consisted of the restored premises of the store, the basement and the printing house itself. In the archives of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, there are review books with entries from the 1920s and 1930s. Visitors to the museum have repeatedly offered to "evict the tenants" (the former apartment building remained residential) from the residential premises adjacent to the museum and restore the "apartment in its original form." The memorial premises of Silovan Kobidze's apartment and the kitchen were transferred to the museum in the mid-1950s, and were restored with the participation of the last surviving "witness" of the printing house by that time - Maria Fedorovna Nagovitsyna-Ikryanistova, who worked at the printing house under the guise of a "master's servant", and subsequently twice awarded the Order of Lenin and became a personal pensioner of the USSR. She repeatedly took part in the cultural events of the museum. In 1958, the thematic filmstrip “House on Lesnaya” was released, based on the memories of the “maid Masha”.

exposition

Basically, the museum is a museum-like storefront with a basement, entrance hall, living room and kitchen. A special place is occupied by a genuine shop window, reconstructed in 1927 by N. D. Vinogradov. The interiors of the premises have been completely restored and, in addition to their political past, are an example of the living conditions and life of Moscow philistines and middle-class citizens of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with elements of Georgian life. In particular, the Russian stove and numerous household utensils have been preserved in the interior - dishes, furniture, a sewing machine, embroidered napkins and tablecloths, a samovar, family photographs and other typical household items of that time.

The interior of the basement, where, in fact, the printing house was located, imitates a warehouse of fruit boxes and barrels of cheese, at the bottom of which stacks of illegal newspapers and leaflets are stacked. The very same printing house with a genuine printing press is located somewhat below the level of the basement, in a well for draining groundwater, and can be viewed through a specially made window in the basement wall.

In the ticket office there are several stands with photographs, photocopies of documents and detailed descriptions of the history of the printing house and the activities of the underground.

Museum activities and opening hours

The museum is focused mainly on the effect of "living history" - the opportunity to feel the spirit of that time, to imagine the conditions and environment in which the underground workers worked. A general description of the historical and socio-political situation of 1905-1906, the security structure of the Russian Empire, the methods and tactics of its counteraction to the revolutionaries are given. Particular attention is paid to the disclosure of the socio-psychological portrait of the Russian revolutionary of that time, the social moods that dominated at that time are described, and the details of the work of the underground are told.

The museum hosts a sightseeing tour "Underground Printing House 1905-1906", which tells about the history of the creation and activities of an illegal printing house, as well as a theatrical tour "Shop with a Secret", which conveys the true atmosphere of revolutionary Russia and allows you to make a fascinating historical journey to the beginning of the 20th century.

The entrance to the museum is from the courtyard of the building. The museum is open daily, except Monday, from 10:00 to 18:00. Thursday and Saturday from 11:00 to 19:00.

The price of an entrance ticket for adults is 150 rubles; for full-time students of educational institutions, pensioners - 70 rubles; disabled persons of all categories and persons under 16 years of age - free of charge. Guided visits are paid.

The museum hosts interchangeable thematic exhibitions dedicated to outstanding figures and memorable dates in Russian history. The exhibitions present unique items from the stock collections of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

Museum in cinema

Feature film "American" (USSR, 1930). Directed by Leonard Isakia. The script is based on documentary facts. Filming was carried out in Moscow on Lesnaya Street. The film presents authentic footage of V.I. Lenin during a meeting of workers.
Documentary film "Underground printing house of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Moscow" (USSR, 1975).
Feature film "House on Lesnaya" (film studio "Georgia-Film", 1980). Director: Nikolai Sanishvili Cast: Amiran Kadeishvili, Edisher Giorgobiani, Levan Uchaneishvili and others. The film tells about the history of the creation of the first underground printing house in Moscow, which was organized by Georgian revolutionaries. The Bolshevik printing house, which printed several issues of the Rabochy newspaper, leaflets and proclamations, operated under the guise of a fruit wholesale store.

The films "American" and "House on Lesnaya" are periodically shown in the museum.

Museum in Fiction

In 1928, the writer N.N. Panov (1903-1973), under the pseudonym Dir Tumanny, published an adventure novel "The Secret of the Old House", dedicated to the organization and work of the underground printing house of the RSDLP party in Moscow on Tikhaya Street. The main characters were the detective Ferapont Ivanovich Filkin and the merchant from Georgia Sandro Vachnadze with his wife Olga. The latter was actually the wife of Nikolai, one of the workers in the printing house. The novel very accurately depicts the elements of the conspiracy of the printing house, the cover - a shop of oriental and Caucasian goods, as well as the disguise of the underground in the basement.

In the story of V.P. Aksenov (1932-2009) "Love for electricity", published in 1969 - about the revolutionary activities of a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP L.B. Krasin, an underground printing house on Lesnaya Street is mentioned in Chapter IV "Quiet Evening in Georgians" .

In 1992, Kir Bulychev's fantasy novel (real name - I. V. Mozheiko) (1934-2003) "Reserve for Academicians" was published. The book describes an alternative reality of the second half of the 1930s. According to the plot, I. V. Stalin remembered the underground printing house on Lesnaya, but in its place "... there was some kind of office." Stalin refused the proposal of G. Yagoda to create a museum on the site of the printing house, officially - not to remind the younger generation that the Bolsheviks "... lurked in holes." He wanted to restore the printing press in the event that he had to return to the underground struggle again.

Virtual Museum

In 2015, the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia launched the Virtual Museum project. The history of the underground printing house of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, which worked in 1905-1906. in Moscow on Lesnaya Street, became the basis for the game-quest "Get it out from under the ground", which includes three story levels. The role of the policeman was played by the People's Artist of Russia D. Yu. Nazarov.

Write a review on the article "Underground Printing House 1905-1906."

Notes

An excerpt characterizing the underground printing house of 1905-1906.

Passing through Khamovniki (one of the few unburned quarters of Moscow) past the church, the entire crowd of prisoners suddenly huddled to one side, and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.
- Look, you bastards! That is not Christ! Yes, dead, dead and there ... They smeared it with something.
Pierre also moved towards the church, which had something that caused exclamations, and vaguely saw something leaning against the fence of the church. From the words of his comrades, who saw him better, he learned that it was something like the corpse of a man, standing upright by the fence and smeared with soot in his face ...
– Marchez, sacre nom… Filez… trente mille diables… [Go! go! Damn! Devils!] - the convoys cursed, and the French soldiers, with renewed anger, dispersed the crowd of prisoners who were looking at the dead man with cleavers.

Along the lanes of Khamovniki, the prisoners walked alone with their escort and the wagons and wagons that belonged to the escorts and rode behind; but, having gone out to the grocery stores, they found themselves in the middle of a huge, closely moving artillery convoy, mixed with private wagons.
At the very bridge, everyone stopped, waiting for those who were riding in front to advance. From the bridge, the prisoners opened behind and in front of endless rows of other moving convoys. To the right, where the Kaluga road curved past Neskuchny, disappearing into the distance, stretched endless ranks of troops and convoys. These were the troops of the Beauharnais corps that had come out first; Behind, along the embankment and across the Stone Bridge, Ney's troops and wagon trains stretched.
Davout's troops, to which the prisoners belonged, went through the Crimean ford and already partly entered Kaluga Street. But the carts were so stretched out that the last trains of Beauharnais had not yet left Moscow for Kaluzhskaya Street, and the head of Ney's troops was already leaving Bolshaya Ordynka.
Having passed the Crimean ford, the prisoners moved several steps and stopped, and again moved, and on all sides the carriages and people became more and more embarrassed. After walking for more than an hour those several hundred steps that separate the bridge from Kaluzhskaya Street, and having reached the square where Zamoskvoretsky Streets converge with Kaluzhskaya Street, the prisoners, squeezed into a heap, stopped and stood for several hours at this intersection. From all sides was heard the incessant, like the sound of the sea, the rumble of wheels, and the tramp of feet, and incessant angry cries and curses. Pierre stood pressed against the wall of the charred house, listening to this sound, which in his imagination merged with the sounds of the drum.
Several captured officers, in order to see better, climbed the wall of the burnt house, near which Pierre was standing.
- To the people! Eka to the people! .. And they piled on the guns! Look: furs ... - they said. “Look, you bastards, they robbed him… There, behind him, on a cart… After all, this is from an icon, by God!.. It must be the Germans. And our muzhik, by God!.. Ah, scoundrels! Here they are, the droshky - and they captured! .. Look, he sat down on the chests. Fathers! .. Fight! ..
- So it's in the face then, in the face! So you can't wait until evening. Look, look ... and this, of course, is Napoleon himself. You see, what horses! in monograms with a crown. This is a folding house. Dropped the bag, can't see. They fought again ... A woman with a child, and not bad. Yes, well, they will let you through... Look, there is no end. Russian girls, by God, girls! In the carriages, after all, how calmly they sat down!
Again, a wave of general curiosity, as near the church in Khamovniki, pushed all the prisoners to the road, and Pierre, thanks to his growth over the heads of others, saw what had so attracted the curiosity of the prisoners. In three carriages, intermingled between the charging boxes, they rode, sitting closely on top of each other, discharged, in bright colors, rouged, something screaming with squeaky voices of a woman.
From the moment Pierre realized the appearance of a mysterious force, nothing seemed strange or scary to him: neither a corpse smeared with soot for fun, nor these women hurrying somewhere, nor the conflagration of Moscow. Everything that Pierre now saw made almost no impression on him - as if his soul, preparing for a difficult struggle, refused to accept impressions that could weaken it.
The train of women has passed. Behind him again trailed carts, soldiers, wagons, soldiers, decks, carriages, soldiers, boxes, soldiers, occasionally women.
Pierre did not see people separately, but saw their movement.
All these people, the horses seemed to be driven by some invisible force. All of them, during the hour during which Pierre watched them, floated out of different streets with the same desire to pass quickly; they all the same, colliding with others, began to get angry, fight; white teeth bared, eyebrows frowned, the same curses were thrown over and over, and on all faces there was the same youthfully resolute and cruelly cold expression, which struck Pierre in the morning at the sound of a drum on the corporal's face.
Already before evening, the escort commander gathered his team and, shouting and arguing, squeezed into the carts, and the prisoners, surrounded on all sides, went out onto the Kaluga road.
They walked very quickly, without resting, and stopped only when the sun had already begun to set. The carts moved one on top of the other, and people began to prepare for the night. Everyone seemed angry and unhappy. For a long time, curses, angry cries and fights were heard from different sides. The carriage, which was riding behind the escorts, advanced on the escorts' wagon and pierced it with a drawbar. Several soldiers from different directions ran to the wagon; some beat on the heads of the horses harnessed to the carriage, turning them, others fought among themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was seriously wounded in the head with a cleaver.
It seemed that all these people now experienced, when they stopped in the middle of the field in the cold twilight of an autumn evening, the same feeling of unpleasant awakening from the haste that seized everyone upon leaving and the impetuous movement somewhere. Stopping, everyone seemed to understand that it was still unknown where they were going, and that this movement would be a lot of hard and difficult.
The escorts treated the prisoners at this halt even worse than when they set out. At this halt, for the first time, the meat food of the captives was issued with horse meat.
From the officers to the last soldier, it was noticeable in everyone, as if personal bitterness against each of the prisoners, so unexpectedly replacing the previously friendly relations.
This exasperation intensified even more when, when counting the prisoners, it turned out that during the bustle, leaving Moscow, one Russian soldier, pretending to be sick from his stomach, fled. Pierre saw how a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier because he moved far from the road, and heard how the captain, his friend, reprimanded the non-commissioned officer for the escape of a Russian soldier and threatened him with a court. To the excuse of the non-commissioned officer that the soldier was sick and could not walk, the officer said that he was ordered to shoot those who would fall behind. Pierre felt that the fatal force that crushed him during the execution and which was invisible during captivity now again took possession of his existence. He was scared; but he felt how, in proportion to the efforts made by the fatal force to crush him, a force of life independent of it grew and grew stronger in his soul.
Pierre dined on rye flour soup with horse meat and talked with his comrades.
Neither Pierre nor any of his comrades spoke about what they saw in Moscow, nor about the rudeness of the treatment of the French, nor about the order to shoot, which was announced to them: everyone was, as if in rebuff to the deteriorating situation, especially lively and cheerful . They talked about personal memories, about funny scenes seen during the campaign, and hushed up conversations about the present situation.
The sun has long since set. Bright stars lit up somewhere in the sky; the red, fire-like glow of the rising full moon spread over the edge of the sky, and the huge red ball oscillated surprisingly in the grayish haze. It became light. The evening was already over, but the night had not yet begun. Pierre got up from his new comrades and went between the fires to the other side of the road, where, he was told, the captured soldiers were standing. He wanted to talk to them. On the road, a French sentry stopped him and ordered him to turn back.
Pierre returned, but not to the fire, to his comrades, but to the unharnessed wagon, which had no one. He crossed his legs and lowered his head, sat down on the cold ground at the wheel of the wagon, and sat motionless for a long time, thinking. More than an hour has passed. Nobody bothered Pierre. Suddenly he burst out laughing with his thick, good-natured laugh so loudly that people from different directions looked around in surprise at this strange, obviously lonely laugh.
– Ha, ha, ha! Pierre laughed. And he said aloud to himself: “The soldier didn’t let me in.” Caught me, locked me up. I am being held captive. Who me? Me! Me, my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha! .. Ha, ha, ha! .. - he laughed with tears in his eyes.
Some man got up and came up to see what this strange big man alone was laughing about. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, moved away from the curious and looked around him.
Previously, loudly noisy with the crackling of fires and the talk of people, the huge, endless bivouac subsided; the red fires of the fires went out and grew pale. High in the bright sky stood a full moon. Forests and fields, previously invisible outside the camp, now opened up in the distance. And even farther than these forests and fields could be seen a bright, oscillating, inviting endless distance. Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the departing, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me! thought Pierre. “And they caught all this and put it in a booth, fenced off with boards!” He smiled and went to bed with his comrades.

In the first days of October, another truce came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon and an offer of peace, deceptively signified from Moscow, while Napoleon was already not far ahead of Kutuzov, on the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov answered this letter in the same way as the first one sent from Lauriston: he said that there could be no talk of peace.
Soon after this, a report was received from the partisan detachment of Dorokhov, who was walking to the left of Tarutin, that troops had appeared in Fominsky, that these troops consisted of Brusier's division, and that this division, separated from other troops, could easily be exterminated. Soldiers and officers again demanded activity. Staff generals, excited by the memory of the ease of victory at Tarutin, insisted on Kutuzov's execution of Dorokhov's proposal. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary. The average came out, that which was to be accomplished; a small detachment was sent to Fominsky, which was supposed to attack Brussier.
By a strange chance, this appointment - the most difficult and most important, as it turned out later - was received by Dokhturov; that same modest, little Dokhturov, whom no one described to us as making battle plans, flying in front of regiments, throwing crosses at batteries, etc., who was considered and called indecisive and impenetrable, but the same Dokhturov, whom during all the Russian wars with the French, from Austerlitz and up to the thirteenth year, we find commanders wherever only the situation is difficult. In Austerlitz, he remains the last at the Augusta dam, gathering regiments, saving what is possible when everything is running and dying and not a single general is in the rearguard. He, sick with a fever, goes to Smolensk with twenty thousand to defend the city against the entire Napoleonic army. In Smolensk, he had barely dozed off at the Molokhov Gates, in a paroxysm of fever, he was awakened by the cannonade across Smolensk, and Smolensk held out all day. On Borodino day, when Bagration was killed and the troops of our left flank were killed in the ratio of 9 to 1 and the entire force of the French artillery was sent there, no one else was sent, namely the indecisive and impenetrable Dokhturov, and Kutuzov was in a hurry to correct his mistake when he sent there another. And the small, quiet Dokhturov goes there, and Borodino is the best glory of the Russian army. And many heroes are described to us in verse and prose, but almost not a word about Dokhturov.
Again Dokhturov is sent there to Fominsky and from there to Maly Yaroslavets, to the place where the last battle with the French took place, and to the place from which, obviously, the death of the French already begins, and again many geniuses and heroes describe to us during this period of the campaign , but not a word about Dokhturov, or very little, or doubtful. This silence about Dokhturov most obviously proves his merits.
Naturally, for a person who does not understand the movement of the machine, at the sight of its operation, it seems that the most important part of this machine is that chip that accidentally fell into it and, interfering with its movement, is rattling in it. A person who does not know the structure of the machine cannot understand that not this spoiling and interfering chip, but that small transmission gear that turns inaudibly, is one of the most essential parts of the machine.