We were approaching the end of our expedition, walking past Akhalpikh through a bare, sun-scorched plateau. The sun was rising. An old Turk on horseback stopped, faced the sun and covered his face with his palms. It must be that Mohammed and his followers were exquisitely sensitive to the beauty of sunrise. Our thoughts at the rising of the sun do not go past the mundane, but here, in a small village, a mullah atop a minaret fervidly sang praise and gratitude to the Creator.
Whenever we encountered Turks, we would say, “Salaam a leikum” to them. And they would hospitably answer, “A leikum salaam.” Here, in this part of the Caucasus, we found a small corner of Turkey, or so it seemed to us. Miniature houses, almost without windows, dusty gardens and stillness. Quiet, placid people and not mean, but friendly, dogs. It was apparent that the Turks were a good people and it was a pity that we warred against them and that we sang derogatory soldiers’ songs about them.
And then we reached Borzhomi. What an empty place it seemed without anyone we knew. Of course, there was something familiar in the effervescent fizz of Borzhomi mineral water, in the green glades, in the clean, sandy garden walks. But my companions, after having looked at themselves in the mirror at the railway station, decided that the luxury and indolent bliss of this spa was not for us, woodsmen, and that we would scare the local belles to death if we appeared before them as we were. We returned by train to Tbilisi and to our previous life in the military school. We were upperclassmen now, the special class of 1899, the centennial of Pushkin’s birth.
In 1898 my family had moved to the now familiar Voznesenskii Street. There I got my own minuscule room which my mother christened a “studio.” It had its own door to the staircase and was totally separate. It was so small
Oleg Pantiukhov, A Student’s Summer
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that if one managed to shove a bed into it there would have been no room for anything else. So there was no bed, only a small desk and chair. Sometimes there was an easel and always a bookcase with the works of Aleksei K. Tolstoy, Lermontov, Pushkin, and Chekhov. These were my favorites. If you exited the room onto the landing you saw a medium-size mirror in a carved wooden frame. In the mirror there would be a reflection of a rounded, yet angular, face whose owner was quite unhappy with it, presuming that an attractive, handsome face was a guarantee of success in life just as a princely title was. But when you had neither one nor the other you were in for hard times. But, I would push out my chest, hold my head high and repeat to myself that I would be all right, I would be triumphant.
The Pushkin festivities swept through the academy. Throughout the city, in theaters and everywhere there were celebrations of the Pushkin centennial. Speeches were made and poems read at the Pushkin monument:
The poet has perished, the prisoner of honor Has fallen, calumniated by idle talk.
I could never hear these words of Lermontov, his “cry of the soul,” without exultation.
It was then that we decided to spend our Pushkin fund, about ten rubles, on a trip into the Caucasus Mountains which Pushkin had loved so well. And so we went to ancient Mtskheta where the parents of Gedevanov, our “enraged goose,” lived. We expected to come upon a “prince’s court” and “princely” hospitality, but when we saw a native house hardly different from the others, surrounded by several grazing sheep, with frightened faces of women in the semi-dark entrance, we realized our error. It was odd that Gedevanov himself was the initiator of this trip.
We quickly decided to celebrate the centennial in the lap of nature. After all Pushkin loved the grandeur of the Caucasus and he also loved its wine. He wrote about both in his “Journey to Erzerum.” We had brought a goatskin bota of wine with us. And so with a song, we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Pushkin [June 6].
Graduation day was fast approaching. It was final exam time. We had already been to the studio of Mishchenko who traditionally photographed all the graduating classes. The postcard size photographs were pasted on illustration board that had been decorated with watercolor views of Tbilisi and our school and photographed once again. The original large illustration board with a group photograph of the whole class was traditionally hung in the common hall of the First Company, the place where the names of the honor cadets appeared in gold letters cut into marble tablets. These young men were the
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Chapter Four
“luminaries” of whom our chaplain, Father Mantstvetov, loved to talk. Should there ever be a war and our graduates be made Cavaliers of the Order of St. George, their names would also be displayed on marble tablets. And so, as a friend and I joked, the possibility of myself being immortalized here was not yet lost.
But it was not a joking matter when a rumor flashed by that our group, the Pushkin graduates, would not have its class portrait hung in the hall because of our insolent behavior during the year. In truth, we did do some outrageous, scandalous things. Never through malevolence, but rather because of an excess of youthful energy and the urge to pull off the unprecedented and extraordinary. For instance, we took to “busting” the new and totally innocent class master. In the dining hall, each time that he would bring a spoon of soup to his mouth, the whole company would thunder “uugggh.”
Even worse, whenever some timid house master would do his rounds at bedtime or at night he would find the doors locked and barricaded. And when, with the help of the staff, he would break into our sleeping quarters, he would be met with unbelievable shouting and pillows flung in his direction. The director would come at night to chew us out. Grand Duke Constantine, the head of all military educational institutions, visited and spoke to us of the inad-missibility of such stunts. We ourselves understood that they were “inadmissible” and repugnant. But such judgments were risky. Maybe it seemed to some of us there was valor in such behavior. I can’t say. Personally I never would have begun such doings but when some of the big guys such as Begiev or Chelokaev would start, other daredevils would join in, and all hell would break loose. There was something infectious and elemental in this “restlessness among the people” that may have been generically related to what later occurred throughout Russia.
At this time, the end of May 1899, my head was in a spin not only from exams but from various plans for the future. The class master kept asking me which military academy I had chosen. But I had other plans. Something on the order of forestry school along with “Popka” Bekilov. Besides I recalled with pride that father had deposited 100 rubles in my name in a bank. The question was what to do with them.
Before entering an academy, it would have been nice to see the world and especially those places in Europe which we studied so thoroughly in school. For instance, to go into the mountains of Schwarzwald or the Swiss Saxon Alps. There was also the town of Freiberg with its mining institute. It would be interesting to enroll there and see if I could become a mining engineer. In any case, even if I were to lose a year, I would learn German and one or two other subjects. And finally I could always enter the Pavlov Military Academy with the help of my friend Musin-Pushkin.
Oleg Pantiukhov, A Student’s Summer
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I laid all these plans out to my parents both orally and on paper. To my delight, father hardly objected to the European trip. He was opposed to the Freiberg plan. And so I graduated from military school. The passport for traveling abroad and the hundred rubles were in my pocket. Everyone seemed to be moving that year. My older brother was getting married and moving to the Crimea with his bride. He was encouraging mother and my other brothers to go there with him. My aunt was going there as well. Only my father in Tbilisi and Vania in Artvin were to stay in place.