On October 1, 1935, the 80-year-old writer and journalist Vladimir Gilyarovsky died in his Moscow flat. Following Chekhov’s example, he drank some champagne and passed away peacefully.
Interestingly, Gilyarovsky had a life that was anything but peaceful. It was, in fact, a life patterned on his personality. His ancestors were rebellious Cossacks – a fact he always stressed with pride. Gilyarovsky was born in 1853 (some sources say 1855) into a wealthy family, but his mother died when he was just eight. The family moved to Vologda and Vladimir was sent to a good gymnasium and was supposed to go on to university. But, in 1871, before he had even finished his studies at the gymnasium, he decided to change his life radically. He did not want to acquire “manners,” to study Latin or Greek and get a good job. His wish was to be free – and to know “real life.” So he ran away from home and for a decade worked in a variety of menial jobs. He was especially proud later in life that he worked as a burlak – a man who towed boats up the Volga while strapped to a long rope. This work required immense physical strength, which Gilyarovsky had. He also worked as a cabbie and an artist; he was a soldier and a fisherman, a woodcutter and a fireman.
Life showed Gilyarovsky its hard edges, but he managed to make his own way while remaining as kind and caring as he was in his childhood. The most important thing in his life was a constant thirst for adventure. And, after much searching, he at last found an occupation which wonderfully sated this thirst while thriving off his charismatic personality. He became a journalist. But not just any journalist. He was a muckraker who wrote what others dared not.
When a certain Berg announced that he would fly a hot air balloon – Gilyarovsky flew with him and wrote about their flight. While investigating a train crash that authorities wanted to hush up, he found a way to get to the site of the accident along with the officials… by hiding in the train’s bathroom. He wanted to explore Neglinka – an underground river in Moscow and a reputed criminal hangout. So he became the first journalist who dared descend into the Neglinka, where he found incredible quantities of dirt... and dead bodies. His account forced city authorities to clean up the river.
Gilyarovsky’s main goal was to write about common people. But he did it in such a colorful, exotic way that Moscow readers felt they were reading a thrilling novel. At the same time, his journalism was distinguished by its factual clarity and matter-of-factness. He was called the “King of Reporters,” and it was commonly joked about him that “he knew what would happen the night before it went down.”
It was Gilyarovsky who first told people about Khitrov market – one of the most criminal places in Moscow. He described repulsive scenes: of people being robbed and left naked in the streets; of beatings of women; of policemen cooperating with local criminals. He was the first to write about children born at the market:
Children brought a high price at Khitrovka. The poor sold them from their mothers’ breasts, in something resembling an auction. And a dirty old woman, often in the grip of some horrible ailment, would take the unlucky child and drag it away down the cold street. The child, wet and dirty all day, lay in her arms, to give passersby the impression of a “poor mother and her unfortunate orphan.” There were cases when the child died in the poverty-stricken woman’s arms in the morning, and she, not wanting to lose a day’s earnings, carried him about until nightfall, seeking handouts.
Gilyarovsky knew everyone at Khitrov market and the outlaws both knew and respected him. He entered taverns no other decent person dared enter; he talked to locals as human beings. They revered him as “Uncle Gilyai” and often saved him from himself: in his frequent trips in and about the criminal underworld, he was never careful nor reserved. The result was priceless information and fantastic stories, all of them true:
There was a famous detective, Smolin. And he had this curious case. Somehow, someone stole a cannon from the Kremlin, one that weighed dozens of puds. And Smolin’s bosses ordered him to find the cannon within three days. So Smolin threatened all the thieves.
“Get me a cannon somehow! Dump it in the weeds on Antropov pits... in order that the cannon can be found and put back where it belongs.”
The next day, the cannon did in fact show up in the designated wasteland. Smolin’s bosses moved it to the Kremlin and dragged it to its previous location on the wall.
It was not until many years later when it was discovered that someone had stolen the cannon for Smolin from the other end of the Kremlin walls, moved it to the Antropov pits, from where it was returned to the Kremlin. The first cannon simply disappeared.
Gilyarovsky was fascinated by all kinds of “unusual” people, by those who, like he, lived not as they were supposed to, but as they wanted. He found many exotic personalities among Moscow’s merchants. One gave his wife a huge crocodile as a birthday present. Another lived for years in poverty, surrounded by millions of rubles, hidden in his home:
Only after Kartashev’s death did it become clear how he had lived. In his rooms, covered with layers of dust, inside the furniture, behind the wallpaper, in the air vents... they found bundles of money. Most of his capital was kept in a huge stove, against which was something like a guillotine: if a thief tried to take the money, he would be sliced in half.
There were iron chests in the basement in which, in addition to huge sums of money, there were piles of saved, bitten-off bits of sugar, pieces of bread left over from dinner, rolls, string and dirty laundry. In all, there were 30 million rubles.
Thanks to Gilyarovsky, everyone knew how the famous baker Filippov invented his special cake: when Moscow’s governor found a cockroach in his bread, the quick-witted Filipov claimed it was a raisin and, in order to prove it, ate the insect. So was a popular recipe begun.
Gilyarovsky introduced his readers to the world of beggars and criminals, of firemen and poor actors, of devious waiters and unknown painters. He became a kind of chronicler of Moscow, providing people with entertaining and unusual stories – no matter whether happy or sad – about their city.
But what was most important is that, even though he described so many awful scenes of human degradation, Gilyarovsky never lost faith in the human soul.
Showing Khitrov market to a disgusted friend, Gilyarovsky met a tramp who was begging for money. To his friend’s amazement, the journalist gave the beggar a ruble – a significant sum of money – and asked him to bring him some cigarettes and the change.
Five minutes later, the beggar returned, with the cigarettes and 95 kopeks change. “Did you not think I would run away with your money?” the beggar asked proudly. Gilyarovsky did not. He knew he could trust people, and that was what made his work so compelling.
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