In the 19th century it was a tenement house. For some time it was rented by Pavel Nashchokin. And Pushkin, visiting Moscow, always stayed with him. Here the poet was attracted by a quiet home life: a sofa, a pipe and long conversations. Although the doors of Nashchokin's house were open to everyone.
Nashchokin is busy with business, and his house is so stupid and jumbled that his head is spinning. From morning to evening he has different peoples: players, retired hussars, students, lawyers, gypsies, spies, especially lenders. All free entry; everyone before him needs; everyone shouts, smokes a pipe, dines, sings, dances; there is no free corner - what to do?
Nashchokin was a cheerful, wasteful and gambling man. He easily gave loans and forgot to demand the payment of a debt, helped the homeless, reconciled those who quarreled, shared the last thing he had. He then fabulously rich, then remained a beggar.
The biggest whim of Nashchokin was his glass dollhouse - a model of a two-story mansion.
The fad cost 40,000 rubles: with this money you could buy a village and 100 serfs! The house was 7 times smaller than the original. And Nashchokin ordered all the interior items for the house from the best Russian and European masters.
The accuracy of the details is amazing: an extendable table for 60 people, porcelain dishes, tablecloths, napkins, billiards, a small piano that could be played by pressing the keys with a thin stick, a miniature samovar in which tea could be brewed, a pair of tiny revolvers that fired tiny buckshot - more than six hundred items in total.
In response to Pushkin's remark that only living men were missing, Nashchokin populated the house with miniature porcelain copies of close friends, including Alexander Sergeevich. It was to him that Nashchokin wanted to bequeath his tiny house, but he laid it in "black" times. Now in Russian museums you can see only some interior items.
The prototype of Nashchokin's house was not at all a mansion in Vorotnikovsky Lane, but a two-story house of the daughters of the court adviser Ilyinsky in Gagarinsky Lane, which he rented in 1831-1832. Time did not spare the building, but it was rebuilt in the 1970s, based on the descriptions and models of Nashchokin's dollhouse.
The name of Nashchokin is best known to Pushkinists. In numerous monographs devoted to the life of Pushkin, Pavel Voinovich is mentioned as the most devoted and faithful friend and admirer of the poet. The one who lent Alexander Sergeevich a tailcoat for the wedding, who fainted when he learned about the death of the poet, and the one about whom Pushkin once said: “You all need me for some reason, but only Nashchokin loves me.”
Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin had a reputation as an eccentric - one must admit, it was well deserved. Nevertheless, his contemporaries almost unanimously called him a man of rare charm, intelligence and kindness and treated him with great respect.
Pavel Nashchokin came from an important noble family. His father, Voin Vasilievich Nashchokin, was one of the prominent figures of the Catherine era, was received at court, but after Paul I came to power, he retired. For his services, the sovereign gave Nashchokin a village in the Voronezh province, and he lived there as a gentleman. Nashchokin's mother was from the Nelidov family. The story of her acquaintance with her future husband, which has become one of the family traditions, may surprise even today, but then it was completely unthinkable. Warrior Vasilyevich, having lost his way while hunting, arrived at the Nelidovs' house. Having met the daughter of the Nelidovs, he immediately fell in love with her so much that he did not want to wait literally a single day. It took Voin Vasilievich only a day to achieve the hand and heart of Nelidova, but most importantly, to receive blessings for the marriage of her relatives. The wedding took place literally a day later, and since then the couple have been inseparable. In the notes of Pavel Nashchokin there is a mention of how the family life of his parents developed: “My father loved her, but kept her in strictness. She suffered a lot from his whims. That is, Pavel Nashchokin had someone to take an example from in a noisy, cheerful and extraordinary life. Nevertheless, Pavel received a good education at home, and in 1814 he entered the Noble Boarding School at the famous Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Here fate brought him together with Pushkin. The fact is that at the same time as him, Lev Pushkin, the brother of Alexander Sergeevich, studied at the boarding school. During one of the visits of the poet to his brother, Pushkin and Nashchokin met, which later grew into a strong friendship. It was a true kindred spirit. Probably, there was not a single significant event in the life of each of them, about which they would not have consulted with each other, whether it was marriage, the baptism of children, mutual lending, or any everyday issues.
However, Pavel Nashchokin did not complete the course in Tsarskoye Selo, having become disillusioned with the sciences, and went to serve in the army, but did not make a career there either. In 1823, Pavel Voinovich retired "due to domestic circumstances" with the rank of lieutenant and no longer served. At first, Pavel Voinovich could not be afraid of a lack of funds, so pretty soon he began to lead a lifestyle that aroused surprise and envy among his contemporaries. He treated money easily, was a philanthropist, patronized artists and artists. He willingly bought all sorts of expensive trinkets and would have liked to collect them, but no, as a rule, he gave them away to friends. At one time he cohabited with a famous gypsy singer and even had children from her. Nashchokin lived, as one of his contemporaries aptly noted, "according to the broad Russian-lordly nature." A most pleasant person, a dreamer and a merry fellow, a gourmet and a gambler, a reveler and a spender - all these epithets fully reflect the properties of Nashchokin's nature. By the end of his life, however, he settled down to some extent, having met true love in the person of Vera Alexandrovna Narskaya, his very distant relative, but he did not completely change his habits. Pavel Voinovich had a great many acquaintances in Moscow. Contemporaries said that half of Moscow was related to Nashchokin, and the other half were his closest friends. He was friends with Gogol, Zhukovsky, Denis Davydov, Baratynsky, Bryullov and many other famous people of that time.
Portrait of P. V. Nashchokin by the Swedish artist K. P. Mazer, a friend of P. V. Nashchokin
As was customary at that time among the nobles who owned estates in the countryside, Nashchokin did not have his own housing in Moscow, but rented various houses, depending on the current financial situation. Therefore, he did not have a permanent address. He was as calm about a change of scenery as he was about money, and received guests either in luxurious apartments or in the simplest rooms. Nevertheless, Pushkin, arriving after a long break in Moscow, found Nashchokin's house very easily: all the drivers knew perfectly well the next address of Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin.
There are three main Moscow addresses where Pushkin stopped for more than one day (given in chronological order by the time Pushkin visited them):
1) Gagarinsky lane, house 4, which is on Prechistenka;
2) Ostozhenka, building 18;
3) Vorotnikovsky lane, house 12, located next to Tverskaya.
The house on Ostozhenka has not survived, the houses in Gagarinsky and Vorotnikovsky lanes have survived in one form or another to this day.
Nashchokin's house in Gagarinsky Lane, 12 on Prechistenka
This house stands on the corner of Gagarinsky and Nashchokinsky Lane, not far from the Pushkin Museum on Prechistenka. You might think that the lane was named Nashchokinsky in honor of Pavel Voinovich. But it's not. The lane got its name because here, back in the early 18th century, there was a manor of the namesakes of the Nashchokin family. In Soviet times, this alley for 60 years until 1993 was called Furmanov Street in honor of the author of the novel "Chapaev" who lived in house number 14.
The house was built in the 30s of the 19th century, had a stone first and a wooden second floor and belonged in Pushkin's time to the daughters of the court adviser Ilyinsky, from whom Nashchokin rented it at that time. By the 1970s of the last century, the house was significantly dilapidated and it was rebuilt, replacing the second floor with a stone one. It was not a historical restoration in the full sense of the word, but the appearance of the new house and its layout were as close as possible to the original. Perhaps this happened, among other things, due to the fact that a full model of the house was available in one seventh of the size, which was made with Nashchokin's money. But more about this toy house below. Today, the Central Council of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIiK) is located in the Nashchokin House.
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Nashchokin's house in Gagarinsky Lane today
Memorial plaque No. 1 on Nashchokin's house in Gagarinsky Lane
Memorial plaque No. 2 on Nashchokin's house in Gagarinsky Lane
Nashchokin's house in Gagarinsky Lane in socialist times
Pushkin arrived at the house that Nashchokin rented in Gagarinsky Lane on December 6, 1831. This was Pushkin's first long departure from the family home. Pushkin left Moscow on December 24, 1831, leaving an expressive description of his friend's lifestyle in a letter to his wife: “Nashchokin is busy with business, and his house is so stupid and jumbled that his head is spinning. From morning to evening he has different peoples: players, retired hussars, students, lawyers, gypsies, spies, especially lenders. All free entry; everyone before him needs; everyone shouts, smokes a pipe, dines, sings, dances; there is no free corner - what to do? Meanwhile, he has no money, no credit ... Yesterday Nashchokin gave us a gypsy evening; I am so unaccustomed to this that my head still hurts from the cry of the guests and the singing of the gypsies. But it was Pushkin who grumbled in a friendly way at his faithful and devoted friend. Pushkin came to Moscow to, among other things, settle his huge old gambling debt, which he did while still single. He saw many of his acquaintances and friends, wanted to get a loan, but the debt remained unpaid. The debt was repaid by the Board of Trustees only after Pushkin's death.
Despite the dissolute life of Nashchokin, Pushkin trusted his friend in money matters like no one else. On February 16, 1831, for example, he informs P. A. Pletnev: “In a few days I will get married: and I will present you an economic report: I pledged my 200 souls, took 38,000 - and here is the distribution for them ... 10,000 to Nashchokin, to help him out of bad circumstances: the money is right.” Pushkin was married in Nashchokin's tailcoat, either the amount of the received pledge quickly dispersed, or there was no time to order a new tailcoat. Eyewitnesses recalled that the poet was buried in the same wedding dress after the fatal duel.
Nashchokin's life in Moscow was remarkably irrational. With this lifestyle, he quickly squandered his initial fortune. Another would have gone to the village in his place, forever remembering the bitter lesson, and would have tried to somehow feed himself from his estate. But Pavel Voinovich never lost heart and met periods of lack of money, almost poverty, with philosophical composure. Nashchokin had no doubt that the black stripe would be replaced by a white one, and an amazing thing, fate has repeatedly proved the justice of such an attitude to life. Biographers of Nashchokin calculated that during his dissolute life he was practically ruined about ten times, and then became rich again. Friends sometimes helped him. On another occasion, he won a large sum at cards. In the third, he received a large inheritance from a distant relative (remember from Eugene Onegin - "the heir to all his relatives ..."). The last time he managed to improve his affairs in 1854, but after his death, the family had a hard time: having paid off debts, the relatives were left with practically nothing.
House of Nashchokin on Ostozhenka, 18
The house was demolished in the Luzhkov era. However, the four-story house was not remarkable in terms of architecture. Today, in its place is the Moscow House of Photography. Nashchokin rented an apartment in a demolished house, where he lived for some time with the gypsy singer Olga and his son Pavel. Pushkin met with Nashchokin in this house in September 1832. He also visited this house in August 1933 before his trip to Orenburg to collect materials on the Pugachev uprising and stayed with Nashchokin after returning to Moscow in November of that year.
Nashchokin's house on Ostozhenka, 18 in pre-revolutionary times (located to the left of the corner house with a turret)
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Nashchokin's house on Ostozhenka, 18 in socialist times before its demolition (located to the left of the corner house with a turret)
Nashchokin's house in Vorotnikovsky lane, 12
At the beginning of 1834, the wedding of Nashchokin and Vera Alexandrovna Narskaya took place. The newlyweds moved into a house at 12 Vorotnikovsky Lane and lived here for more than seven years. Nashchokin introduced his future wife to Pushkin before the wedding. Pushkin talked all evening with Vera Alexandrovna, and when he was about to leave, Nashchokin jokingly asked: “Well, do you allow me to marry her?” “I don’t allow, but I order,” Pushkin replied. A few years earlier, Nashchokin approved and blessed Pushkin's marriage, was at the wedding and at the "bachelor party" preceding it. Natalya Nikolaevna also treated Pavel Voinovich well and always saw him as her friend. Nashchokin was the godfather of Pushkin's first son, also Alexander, and Pushkin baptized the daughter of the Nashchokins.
During the seven years that P. V. Nashchokin rented a house in Vorotnikovsky Lane, almost the entire high society of Moscow visited the walls of this house. Count Mikhail Yuryevich Vielgorsky was a frequent visitor to Nashchokin's house. In 1838, he took an active part in organizing a lottery, the proceeds of which were used to ransom the great Ukrainian poet T. G. Shevchenko from serfdom. The artist, painter K. P. Bryullov often visited this house. The Swedish artist Carl Peter Mather often visited Nashchokin and, at his request, in 1839 painted a portrait of A. S. Pushkin and a portrait of his wife Natalia Nikolaevna. Pavel Voinovich was friends with N.V. Gogol, who, as Nashchokin's wife recalls, "... became his own person in our house." According to the testimony of the famous Russian actor M.S. Shchepkin, another frequent guest of the house, the character of the landowner Khlobuev was written off from Nashchokin in the second volume of Dead Souls. And this is only a small part of what happened within the walls of house number 12 on Vorotnikovsky Lane in those days.
Nashchokin's house in Vorotnikovsky lane, 12. Photo from the 60s of the last century.
Nashchokin's house in Vorotnikovsky lane, 12. View of the house before it was closed for restoration.
Memorial plaque on the house in Vorotnikovsky lane, 12.
Nashchokin's house at 12 Vorotnikovsky Lane in December 2017. Currently under restoration.
A painting by the artist N. I. Podklyushnikov has been preserved, in which he carefully reproduced the atmosphere of the living room of P. V. Nashchokin. The painting depicts a large bright room, furnished with furniture of that time, a black piano, a huge handmade carpet, a bronze clock, large picturesque portraits.
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Painting by artist N. I. Podklyushnikov “Living room in the Nashchokins' house”. On the shelf on the left is a bust of Pushkin, which, after the death of the poet, under the supervision of Nashchokin, will be created by the famous sculptor I.P. Vitali.
Bust of Pushkin by I. P. Vitali, commissioned by Nashchokin
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Portrait of Pushkin by K. P. Mather, commissioned by Nashchokin
Portrait of Pushkin's wife Natalya Nikolaevna by K. P. Mazer
Pushkin was, of course, the dearest guest in Nashchokin's house in Vorotnikovsky Lane. The poet has been here more than once. On the second floor of the house, he was assigned a room, which was called "Pushkin's".
The last time Pushkin visited Nashchokin's house in Vorotnikovsky Lane was in 1936. In January 1836, Pushkin wrote to Nashchokin: “I’m thinking of visiting Moscow if I don’t die on the road. Do you have a corner for me? They would have talked, but here there is no one with anyone ... ". Pushkin lived with the Nashchokins for 18 days and left for St. Petersburg to meet his death.
Pushkin's death was a terrible blow for Nashchokin, he went to bed and spent several days in a fever. He outlived his friend by 17 years and did not come to terms with this loss until the end of his life. Nashchokin could not forgive himself that he could not prevent the duel and did not know about it. Pushkin often challenged his opponents to duels, and countless duels were called during his lifetime. And more often they were appointed because of trifles: he said something wrong, looked wrong, etc., etc. And Nashchokin repeatedly saved Pushkin from duels, as he had the ability to resolve conflicts “with honor” and could not forgive himself, that failed to do so in 1837.
Vera Alexandrovna survived her husband Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin by almost half a century. At the end of her life, she remembered her husband with great warmth and considered herself happy, although she huddled in a miserable dacha near Moscow and was forced to deny herself everything. She was remembered only during the celebration of Pushkin's centenary, brought to the solemn meeting of Moscow University, and even procured a pension. Vera Aleksandrovna left very valuable memoirs about Pushkin recorded by P. I. Bartenev, a collector of biographical materials about Pushkin. After the death of Pushkin, the future publisher of the Russian Archive, Bartenev, often met with the Nashchokins, the poet's closest friends, and tirelessly wrote down all their memories of Pushkin in a special thick notebook. In 1925, this most valuable monument of reminiscences about Pushkin was published under the title "Stories about Pushkin, recorded from the words of his friends by P. I. Bartenev."
The house on Vorotnikovsky Lane, 12 is of great historical and cultural value. This small house in the center of Moscow has preserved for us the appearance of Moscow from the time of A. S. Pushkin. At one time it was a meeting place for many famous and talented people of Russia in the 19th century, and most importantly, he remembers the great Russian poet. One cannot but rejoice at the fact that time has spared this house and it is currently under historical restoration. I would like this latest restoration to result in a museum complex in which both the exterior of the house and the interiors would be restored. The history of your country must be remembered and preserved. Today there is a unique opportunity to recreate the interiors of the Moscow estate of that time according to the interiors of Nashchokin's small doll house, which has partially survived to this day. And maybe someday there will be a reunion of the big house of Nashchokin and the small house of Nashchokin, and the famous dollhouse will return from the Northern capital to Moscow, to which it belongs by birthright.
And finally, the turn came to the description of Nashchokin's dollhouse - an exact copy of his Moscow houses. On the one hand, it was a whim of Pavel Voinovich - to make an exact copy of his house with furnishings, on the other hand, this toy turned out to be an amazing cultural artifact that only descendants appreciated. The researchers did not come to a consensus on which particular house of Nashchokin this dollhouse became a copy of. Most likely, this is a collective image of Nashchokin's houses in Gagarinsky and Vorotnikovsky lanes.
Such toys in those days were in vogue among wealthy people and especially the reigning persons of Europe, but Pavel Voinovich outdid everyone by ordering the decoration of his house not from puppeteers, but from the same masters from whom he purchased real furniture, cutlery, musical instruments - with an indispensable condition so that everything is real, only seven times reduced in size. The house measuring 2.5 by 2 meters was made of mahogany. It housed two residential floors and a semi-basement.
Here is how M. I. Pylyaev describes Nashchokin’s house in the book “Remarkable Eccentrics and Originals”: “The house was an oblong, regular quadrangle, framed by Bohemian mirror glasses and formed two compartments, upper and lower. In the upper one there was a continuous dance hall with a table in the middle, served for sixty couverts. Four tables and bronze candelabra on malachite bases were placed at the four corners of the hall, three silver chandeliers, each with fifty candles each, hung on the ceiling, molded in the Moorish style, in one corner stood a piano, in the other a harp, the first was the work of Wirth, the second - Erara, at the first, the owner's wife played small pieces, using knitting needles to strike the keys. There were card tables with cards in the hall, there were even brushes and crayons for playing cards. The whole hall was decorated with tropical plants, so skillfully made in Paris that it seemed that these plants were alive. The lower floor represented living quarters and was filled with everything that was only required for some kind of royal dwelling. When ordering this toy and pondering it for a long time, Nashchokin did not forget the slightest trifle of rich domestic life.
It was possible to boil water in a small samovar, take out a couple of pistols from a case the size of a snuffbox and exchange shots, play billiards, smoke a miniature pipe, play some piece of music on the piano, drink champagne from crystal glasses, keep track of the exact time by toy clocks - that's just it was necessary to be 7 times less than human growth.
Pushkin was delighted with this undertaking. In December 1831, he wrote to his wife: “His house (remember?) Is getting off; what candlesticks, what service! He ordered a piano on which the spider can play ... ". In another letter, Pushkin noted: "Nashchokin's house has been brought to perfection - only living little men are missing!" As if listening to the opinion of a friend, Pavel Voinovich settled in the house and little men - miniature twins of Pushkin, Gogol, himself ordered at a porcelain factory in St. Petersburg ...
This house cost Nashchokin very expensive. According to rough estimates - 40 thousand rubles, because all the miniature items were unique and made to order. For that kind of money, one could buy a real house in Moscow or an entire village with serfs, and Nashchokin always lived in rented houses, changing his address from time to time. Contemporaries were very surprised that he "had spent tens of thousands of rubles to build a two-arshin toy." And for us now this toy is a priceless monument of the Moscow life of Pushkin's times. Much later, at the beginning of the 20th century, journalist S. Yablonovsky wrote: “The more you peer into this house, into its furnishings, into its inhabitants, the more you begin to understand that this is not a toy, but magic, which at that time, when there was neither photography nor cinema, it stopped the moment and gave us a particle of the past in such fullness and with such perfection that it becomes creepy.
Initially, Nashchokin was going to bequeath his house to Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina. However, he failed to fulfill this promise: the toy mansion was laid by Nashchokin in a difficult moment of his life and was not redeemed. The house has changed several owners. Of the six hundred items that made up its furnishings, almost half were lost. Shortly before the revolution, the Historical Museum acquired the relic, and today the exhibit is in the funds of the All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin in St. Petersburg.
The alleys between the Arbat and Prechistenka, in the figurative expression of Prince Peter Kropotkin, the Saint-Germain suburb of Moscow, have always attracted creative and unusual people. Among the local inhabitants there were still many big names. The famous Moscow extravaganzas also lived here, who gave the life of old Moscow a unique and beloved style of cheerful recklessness.
Pavel Nashchokin
One of the famous Moscow madcaps, Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin, lived in Gagarinsky lane, corner of Nashchokinsky lane, house number 4. In fact, Nashchokin changed addresses several times, but this one is the most famous, since Nashchokin's great friend A.S. Pushkin often visited this hospitable house and even lived here from December 6 to 24, 1831.
Arriving in Moscow, Pushkin took a cab and said: "To Nashchokin!"; no further clarification was required - all the drivers knew where Pavel Voinovich's house was. True, the bohemian atmosphere in Nashchokin's house seemed too vain even to Alexander Sergeevich, who, as you know, was not a supporter of excessive decency and stiffness. This is how he described his impressions of Nashchokin's house in a letter to his wife: "I'm bored here; Nashchokin is busy with business, and his house is so stupid and jumbled that his head is spinning. From morning to evening he has different peoples: players, retired hussars, students, solicitors, gypsies, spies, especially lenders. Everyone has a free entrance; everyone needs him; everyone shouts, smokes a pipe, dine, sings, dances; there is no free corner - what to do? .. Yesterday Nashchokin gave us a gypsy evening; I I’ve lost the habit of this, that my head still hurts from the cry of guests and the singing of gypsies.But although Pushkin allowed himself to grumble in a friendly way at Nashchokin, they were united by the most faithful and devoted friendship. Nashchokin even became the godfather of Pushkin's eldest son. He would have baptized his second son, but due to illness he could not come to St. Petersburg for the christening.
Pushkin and Nashchokin met back in Tsarskoe Selo - Alexander Sergeevich studied at the Lyceum, and Nashchokin at the Noble Boarding School at the Lyceum, where Levushka Pushkin, the poet's younger brother, was brought up with Pavel. Subsequently, Pushkin and Nashchokin met in St. Petersburg, but really became friends in Moscow when Pushkin returned from exile.
An open, generous, sincere character, a penchant for good eccentricities attracted various people to Nashchokin. Among his friends were V.A. Zhukovsky, E.A. Baratynsky, N.V. Gogol, V.G. Belinsky, P.A. Vyazemsky, actor M.S. Shchepkin, composers M.Yu. Vilegorsky and A.N. Verstovsky, artists K.P. Bryullov and P.F. Sokolov ... Contemporaries said that half of Moscow was related to Nashchokin, and the other half were his closest friends. N.V. Gogol wrote to Nashchokin: "... You have never lost your soul, you have never betrayed its noble movements, you were able to gain the involuntary respect of worthy and intelligent people and at the same time Pushkin's most sincere friendship."
"Only Nashchokin loves me" ..., "Nashchokin is my only joy here," Pushkin wrote from Moscow in letters to his wife. "... I am talking with him," Pushkin asserted. Indeed, many remember their "endless conversations." The topics raised were very different - Pushkin read drafts of new works to Nashchokin and listened to the opinion of a friend, talked about the most hidden impressions of his life and the movements of the soul. For example, only Nashchokin could be entrusted by Pushkin with his terrible childhood impressions of the death of his brother Nikolai in 1807. (This death shocked eight-year-old Alexander. He told Nashchokin how he and his brother "quarreled, played; and when the baby fell ill, Pushkin felt sorry for him, he went to the bed with participation; the sick brother, to tease him, showed him his tongue and soon after died").
The unbridled, passionate, but at the same time artistic nature of Nashchokin pushed him on unusual adventures all the time. Once, having fallen in love with the beautiful actress Asenkova, he dressed up as a girl and joined his idol as a maid. (Pushkin used this story for the plot of "The House in Kolomna"). Nashchokin was fond of alchemy, then converged with card cheats. Having become interested in the gypsy singer Olya, he bought her for a lot of money from the gypsy choir and settled her in his house as a wife. Later, Nashchokin got married after all with another woman. He met the illegitimate daughter of a distant relative, born of a serf servant, and fell in love. Pushkin advised a friend to marry and was at his wedding.
P.V. Nashchokin with his family, 1839
Nashchokin was an outstanding storyteller. Pushkin, who considered his friend capable of writing and used the plots of his stories (for example, Nashchokin's story about the nobleman Ostrovsky suggested the plot of "Dubrovsky"), persuaded Pavel Voinovich to write at least memories of his eventful life. "What are your memoirs?" Pushkin asked his friend in a letter. "I hope you don't leave them. Write them in the form of letters to me. It will be more pleasant for me, and it will be easier for you." Pushkin was going to publish these "memories", subjecting them to literary processing. But Nashchokin's "Memoirs" were never completed, although the sheets with Pushkin's edits were preserved. But... "Hard work was sickening to him. Nothing came out of his pen."
Pushkin, getting into difficult circumstances, often turned to Nashchokin for help, and it happened that he himself helped him out in money matters. The actor N.I., who knew Nashchokin closely. Kulikov recalled that Nashchokin "was already living exactly according to the broad Russian-lordly nature, and, where necessary, did good, helping the poor, and lending money to those who asked, never demanding a return and being content only with a voluntary return." Friends were never afraid to lend to Nashchokin himself. Pushkin, being in the most difficult circumstances before his marriage, was forced to pawn 200 souls of serfs. However, from the amount received, he allocated 10,000 rubles to lend to Nashchokin. In a letter to Pletnev, talking about the distribution of his meager income for a nobleman entering into marriage, he mentions: "10,000 to Nashchokin to rescue him from bad circumstances: the money is right." The amount of the deposit received quickly dispersed, it was expensive to order a decent tailcoat for the wedding. Pushkin was married in the tailcoat of Pavel Nashchokin. Eyewitnesses mentioned that the poet was buried in the same wedding dress after the fatal duel.
"Little House" Nashchokin
The main eccentricity of Nashchokin, not understood by contemporaries, and appreciated only by descendants, is the famous "little house". Dreaming of preserving the memory of the interiors of his house, associated with the name of Pushkin and other great guests, Nashchokin ordered a model of the rooms of his mansion with all the furnishings. The house measuring 2.5 by 2 meters was made of mahogany. It housed two residential floors and a semi-basement. Exact copies of furnishings were ordered from the best factories and workshops of the time, only their proportions were greatly reduced in comparison with the originals.
Dining table and crockery from Nashchokin's house (compared to real-sized tableware)
“Assuming people in the size of the average height of children's dolls,” wrote N.I. Kulikov, “on this scale he ordered all the accessories for this house from the first masters: the general’s over the knee boots on the stocks were made by the best St. Wirth; ... furniture, a sliding dining table worked by Gumbs; tablecloths, napkins, everything that is needed for 24 couverts - everything was done in the best factories.
Dining room from Nashchokin's house
The table in the dining room was set in the most exquisite way - slender purple glasses, green tulip-shaped wine glasses, silverware, samovars. The walls of the house were decorated with paintings in gilded frames. An elegant, beaded cushion was thrown on the sofa in the living room. A bronze chandelier with crystal, a card table with cards, billiards, candlesticks with candles - everything that is necessary for life.
Little living room
Pushkin was delighted with this undertaking. In December 1831, he wrote to his wife: "His house (remember?) Is getting off; what kind of candlesticks, what kind of service! He ordered a piano on which it will be possible for a spider to play, and a ship on which only a Spanish fly will be corrected." In another letter, Pushkin remarked: "Nashchokin's house has been brought to perfection - only living little men are missing!"
Pushkin visiting Nashchokin examines items from a small house
Having listened to the opinion of a friend, Pavel Voinovich settled in the house and little men - miniature twins of Pushkin, Gogol, himself ordered at a porcelain factory in St. Petersburg ...
Figurine of Pushkin in Nashchokin's house (this is no longer the original porcelain Pushkin, but a later plaster reconstruction)
This idea cost Nashchokin very expensive. According to approximate estimates - 40 thousand rubles, because all the miniature items were unique and made to order. (For that kind of money in Moscow, you could buy a real house, and Nashchokin lived in rented mansions, changing his address from time to time). Contemporaries were surprised that he "had spent tens of thousands of rubles to build a two-arshin toy - Nashchokin's house." And for us now this toy is a priceless monument of the Moscow life of Pushkin's times. The Nashchokinsky house is on display at the All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Saint Petersburg.
Billiards in Nashchokin's house
It is a great happiness that the house survived, although its fate was dramatic. Nashchokin's financial situation, like everything in his life, flowed from one extreme to another - either he threw thousands, or he did not have a few rubles to buy firewood in winter and heated stoves with mahogany furniture. Once, "at a difficult moment in his life", he was forced to mortgage his beloved house and ... could not buy it out in time. The house disappeared for a long time, wandering through strange hands and antique shops...
Desk from Nashchokin's house (compared to real medium-sized books)
The relic was found only at the beginning of the 20th century. The artists Golyashkin brothers bought the house from the last owner. Sergei Alexandrovich Golyashkin restored it, supplemented some of the lost items, and in 1910 presented it to the public. The house was exhibited in St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. At that time, journalist S. Yablonovsky wrote: “The more you peer into this house, into its furnishings, into its inhabitants, the more you begin to understand that this is not a toy, but magic, which at a time when there was no photograph, no cinema, stopped the moment and gave us a particle of the past in such completeness and with such perfection that it becomes creepy.
An office in the Nashchokinsky house
The same office with an unfolded desk and a screen by the bed
"You are happy: you are your small house,
Keeping the custom of wisdom,
From evil worries and sluggish laziness
Insured, as from fire, "-
To which of Nashchokin's houses - real or toy - should these lines be attributed?
The new facade ("house-case") made by S.A. Golyashkin for the Nashchokinsky house in 1910
So, Nashchokin several times had to change his Moscow addresses, where he rented apartments, and one of the most famous addresses of Pavel Voinovich is the house of the Ilyinsky sisters in Gagarinsky Lane. The house at the corner of Gagarinsky and Nashchokinsky lanes is now marked with a memorial plaque. But the fate of the mansion is mysterious - some guides to Moscow and Pushkin's places claim that the house has been preserved and carefully restored, others are categorical - Nashchokin's house has not been preserved. However, in Gagarinsky Lane, at the indicated address, there is a two-story mansion, the architecture of which is clearly marked with the seal of the post-fire building of the mid-1810s ...
The fact is that the real Nashchokino mansion by the 1970s was so dilapidated that it was decided to dismantle it and build a new one, "in the model and likeness of the one that was in this place 160 years ago." (S. Romanyuk "From the history of Moscow lanes").
Mansion in the early 1970s before renovation
True, during the reconstruction, the second, wooden floor was replaced with a brick one, but in general, the restorers tried to stick to the old project and even partially restored the interior design of the rooms, guided by the surviving details and Nashchokin's "layout". The reconstructed mansion first housed the Society for the Preservation of Monuments. Now there is the Nashchokino cultural center - an exhibition and a small concert hall.
And another Arbat address, where Nashchokin lived - Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky lane, house number 5 - remained only in memory. The old mansion, where Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin's apartment used to be, no longer exists.
By the way, Nashchokinsky Lane got its name not in memory of Pavel Voinovich, but because the estate of his ancestors, the Nashchokin boyars, was once located here. In Soviet times, Nashchokinsky Lane was called Furmanov Street - the author of "Chapaev" lived here in one of the houses.
"Warm House": gypsy magic
Corner of Gagarinsky Lane, 4/2 and Nashchokinsky Lane, 2/4
Furmanova Street, where the grandmother dragged her granddaughter after every purchase of a dollhouse and its personal belongings, got its name in 1933 in memory of the writer Dmitry Furmanov, the creator of the novel Chapaev, which was based on a cult Soviet film. Prior to that, this place was called Nashchokinsky Lane, in honor of General Nashchokin, who owned houses here and lived at the end of the 18th century.
Corner of Gagarinsky and Nashchokinsky lanes, 4/2
This general came from the ancient and glorious family of the Nashchokins. Their ancestor came to Russian lands at the beginning of the XIV century from distant Italy. There he was in disgrace, and here, at the court of the Grand Duke of Tverskoy Alexander Mikhailovich, he fell into favor, because he was an experienced and courageous warrior. The nickname Nashchok, which he received either himself or one of his brave sons, also spoke of military affairs. Nashcheek (that's right, with two "e") meant the back of the head, impenetrable in combat. It can be seen that Nashchokin had a strong head. No wonder later they all became military men and distinguished themselves in battles. They got not only fame, but also huge wealth - houses and estates in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
However, the most famous in history was Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin, who also honestly went to military service, but quickly realized that the drill and the parade ground were not for him. The fact is that Pavel Voinovich was by nature more of a philosopher and connoisseur of the arts. But most importantly, he was Pushkin's closest friend, with whom the poet usually stayed when he came to Moscow. Here it is worth recalling that Pavel Voinovich himself did not have houses in Moscow, but rented them. So, in the late 1820s, he rented a house where his ancestors lived - at the corner of Nashchokinsky and Gagarinsky lanes, if you count on the first - house 2/4, on the second - 4/2. In the 19th century, these places were called in the old fashioned way - "at Sivtsev Vrazhok" (option - on Sivtsev Vrazhek), because there was a ravine (vrazhek) nearby, along which the Sivka River flowed. They called it that because the water in it was dirty (gray). She herself flowed into the legendary stream Chertory (according to legend, dug by devils), which has already been discussed. Recall that his area - Chertolye - is one of the most mysterious and mystical territories in Moscow. Now it is Prechistenka. The name comes from the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The dominant features of today's Prechistenka district are the newly erected Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka. Indeed, who can save the territory from an unclean spirit, if not the temples of Faith and Art?
But at the time when Pavel Nashchokin settled in Nashchokinsky Lane on Prechistenka, there was still neither the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, nor even the Museum of Art. But the Sivka River was already enclosed in a pipe near the Arbat, so the dirt in the area decreased. The place was quiet but cozy. Frequent guests came to the hospitable house of Pavel Voinovich. Pushkin also came here to visit a friend after he returned from exile in 1826.
They have been friends since childhood. Pavel was two years younger than Pushkin (born in 1801), he studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum together with the poet's younger brother. Unlike the Pushkins, the Nashchokin family was rich. Pavel's father is an illustrious general, treated kindly by royal favor. But the son took little from him - he was spoiled by his mother, who indulged him in everything.
No wonder Pavel received from the capital's "golden youth" the nickname of the original, or, more simply, a varmint. Strange in St. Petersburg - and as soon as he invented his own jokes ?! Moved from his mother to his rented apartments and hired a dwarf as a butler. Sent it to friends. gift bouquet. They will bring such a huge bouquet into the living room, and out of it, like a devil from a snuffbox, “Karla” will jump out in the most fantastic outfit. It's clear: the men are in shock, the ladies are in a swoon. And in 1821, Nashchokin staged a completely hooligan trick: he argued with the dashing hussar Lunin, later the famous Decembrist, that he would dare to ride a horse naked along the Nevsky. So Breter Lunin won the bet. True, right on the main avenue of the capital, they took him to the police station - naked, but happy, because the win was worth it. Of course, the scandal was hushed up, but it was then that the relatives took the fate of the dissolute varmint Nashchokin into their own hands - they assigned Pavel to the army, to the Izmailovsky regiment. However, the original Nashchokin did not stay in the privileged regiment either. In 1823, he retired and began to play tricks again. He led a stormy and reckless life. He rented a whole mezzanine in a huge house on the Fontanka, where he called his friends. Nightly card games turned into drinking parties, revelry and rides along the night Nevsky in carriages trimmed with gold.
True, spree was often replaced by poetic evenings, and senseless spending - "generous charity for the cause of art" (as contemporaries noted): Pavel helped many writers and artists. He himself did not study the arts, but he knew how to tell very colorfully. According to his stories, Pushkin wrote "Dubrovsky" and "House in Kolomna". And Gogol dedicated several chapters from the second part of Dead Souls to Nashchokin. Pavel Voinovich himself said about himself: “I am a diversely saturated person: I started good deeds, and a terrible waste and revelry.”
But, apparently, Nashchokin got tired of playing with living people, and he took up the game. dolls. He began to create a strange toy for himself - a dollhouse. Exactly - I didn't play it as a child.
The house was equipped as if it were real. Maybe because Nashchokin never had his own house - only removable ones. So I decided - even if it is small, but ITS own, at my discretion, equipped in everything. There was that tiny little house two arshins high (about 142 centimeters) with glass walls - so you could see what was inside. A real glass castle, costing, by the way, 40 thousand. For some money you could buy two real houses! Only after all, in real life, everything is arranged according to someone else's taste, but here everything will be according to him - Nashchokinsky!
However, another version of the appearance of the toy house was substantiated by a friend of Nashchokin and Pushkin - their peer, the famous romantic writer Alexander Veltman, whose fantastic fate we spoke about in the book “Mystical Moscow”. So in his "Moscow romantic story" "Not a house, but a toy!" Veltman said that the house on the corner of Gagarinsky and Nashchokinsky lanes, where Pavel Voinovich moved, actually consisted of two old houses. And in each of them lived a grandfather-browser. But when the new owner united both houses into one, the brownies began to quarrel, finding out who was now in charge. One shouted: “I!”, but the second one is the same. And then the smarter grandfather came up with the idea - to inspire the owner (that is, Nashchokin) that it would be nice to arrange a dollhouse in his house. It is not known where the brownie saw such a thing. But the smart grandfather dreamed that there would again be two houses (a large one, and a small one in it), and then each brownie would have his own place.
How he explained this to Nashchokin is unknown. But the result is obvious - Pavel Voinovich took up the arrangement of the doll house. Means, of course, did not regret. On the first floor he arranged living quarters, decorated as if in a palace: the floor was lined with mosaic parquet, the walls were either marble or upholstered with gold damask, microscopic paintings and sculptures were all around, a library with tiny books that could be pulled out, a billiards table with balls and cues. On the second floor there is a dance hall with three silver chandeliers, numerous candelabra on malachite stands. In the middle is a dining table served for 60 people, in the far corner are card tables with tiny decks of cards. There was even a tiny piano that could be played by pressing the keys with knitting needles. Pavel even took care of the wine cellar: downstairs in the basement, in open boxes, he placed tiny bottles, but with real drinks. For a long time I collected the whole situation in parts: I brought something, ordered something from all over the world - from France, Germany, Holland and even China. Not just a dollhouse for play - for life. Pavel Nashchokin's dream house. Or maybe, indeed, his brownie. After all, the size of the toy house was exactly right for him. But who would have thought that this toy would not only provoke Veltman's fairy tale story, but also influence Pavel Nashchokin's real life!..
Acquiring a real environment, the tiny house also acquired ... its own character. The ubiquitous Pushkin was the first to notice this. Even before the wedding, Alexander began to enthusiastically paint Natalie, who had enchanted his friend's toy.
“... What kind of candlesticks, what a service! - Pushkin admired, describing Nashchokin's house in a letter to his wife, - he ordered a piano on which the spider could play ... "In another letter, Pushkin exclaimed:" Nashchokin's house has been brought to perfection - only living little men are missing.
And they showed up! Pavel ordered figurines of Pushkin, Gogol, himself, and, of course, lovely ladies at the St. Petersburg Imperial Porcelain Factory. He placed everyone in the house of his dreams - let them live for happiness, does he feel sorry?
Pushkin himself, alive and well, often visited Pavel in 1831-1833, lived in a side south-east room, cozy and bright. But most importantly - very warm, with two tiled stoves, because both Pushkin and Nashchokin were thermophilic (Italian and African roots affected). “Very warm house! eyewitnesses admired. “Pushkin felt comfortable there.” No wonder the poet often said that throughout Moscow only Nashchokin really loves him. It is not surprising that on February 18, 1831, Pavel Nashchokin attended the wedding of Pushkin and Natalie Goncharova.
However, Pushkin was not the only one in love then. Pavel Voinovich met in Moscow at the famous Yar restaurant on Kuznetsky Most (house 9/10) with Olga Soldatova, the daughter of the famous gypsy singer Stesha, whom Pushkin admired. Beauty Olga Andreevna, like her legendary mother, sang in the famous Moscow gypsy choir of Ilya Sokolov. Remember -
Sokolovsky choir at "Yar"
Was once famous.
Sokolovskaya guitar
It's still ringing in my ears.
So the soul of Nashchokin was enchanted by the lovely Olga. Of course, it was impossible to get married - they were separated by social status, but the lovers healed together. They had children. The daughter was named Alexandra in honor of Pushkin. The poet even became her godfather. Yes, what a misfortune - the girl caught a cold, fell ill and died in July 1831.
Pavlush's son was also very ill. Money was required for doctors and medicines. In addition, Pavel Voinovich, wanting to somehow console the unfortunate Olga, filled her up with gifts, clothes, jewelry. Once I even bought a gilded carriage. All this, even for such a rich man as Nashchokin, made a hole in the budget.
Olga decided to help as best she could - with gypsy magic.
“I consulted with an experienced gypsy woman,” she once said. - And this is what she said to me: “Your Pavel may never worry about funds at all. He created his own world, let him create eternal wealth for himself.
Nashchokin chuckled.
What are you gypsies talking about? I don't understand at all. Even my mother threw me out of the will - she did not like my way of life. So I don't expect riches from anywhere.
But Olga pointed to a dollhouse that stood on a table in the center of the hall:
“Since you have managed to create the whole world here, so create wealth for yourself!”
Pavel was surprised:
- But how?
Olga smiled.
- So that money is not transferred, put a larger bill under the house!
Pavel snorted.
- Yes, I have only 100 rubles left, and I need to spend them!
The gypsy girl flashed her black eyes:
- Put it down, do what I say! Let them lie down for at least a day. Well, and if it becomes unbearable, and you still take the money - from the very first funds that come, you must immediately reimburse!
Pavel put the banknote under the bottom of the house and… in a couple of days he received an unexpected inheritance. Since then, it has gone on like this: as the money comes to an end, either unexpected funds appear from relatives, or friends repay an old debt, or Pavel himself wins at cards. However, luck is not always. He played cards so ruinously, and his requests turned out to be so great that even gypsy magic could not keep up with them. And then Nashchokin began to sell his rich collections - coins, paintings, porcelain, bronze, but the miracle house was saved.
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