Moscow – 1909. Once upon a time, we lived, ate, drank… Yes, I recognize this funny boy in a long apron
Now, 1896. Here is the cinema, it is the “Magic World”, in one of the cities of Russia. New entertainment for people from all classes. On a white canvas with a dazzling beam of light, pictures of another life are projected. Let’s try to feel the colorful time, to be embodied in the past, go inside, meet someone, and get tickets for a session… Already this night
Nizhny Novgorod, presumably 1909. A scene from the life, a fistfight in front of the windows of a doss house. Behaving quietly turns out not always with us. By and large, there is no other kind of entertainment among the people, besides the cinema mentioned above – “The Magic World”. Society constrained caste system. Merchants, aristocracy, industrialists are not available even for the simplest of communication. If you try to say something, say hello, you will get a cold answer like a dog’s nose. Learn to be embodied in the past, friends – please tell everything in detail. It is very difficult to invent something, to open a business, to get rich – what is usually fun in Europe and America, for the “common man”. Among other things, even the word “rich” in Russia still has a clear negative connotation. The song, which you will surely hear from the fighters who have made peace under the windows of the hotel, on a deaf night – “There were happy days” (in our time – “Golden Ring”, listen) …Бывали дни веселые, Золотое кольцо, слушать
One of the villages of the Novgorod province of Tsarist Russia. The peasants organized a wooden spoons production association. Open-air production is a place for easy communication and creation of folklore works (songs, fairy tales, ditties). Hut, at least sometimes sagging, seem to be sturdy and roomy. Go beyond the ordinary mind. What if you go around the corner of the house? Songs that are sung here in the evenings, if you wish, you will now find them by keywords and hear them. “According to the wild steppes of Transbaikalia” (known since the 1890s), let the performer in our case be Jeanne Bichevskaya. She will perform for us “My dear little one” (1911). “The Glorious Sea – Sacred Baikal” (from the 1850s), the choir of trade unions in the city of Oryol, “A cook merchant rode from the fair” (1859). …“По диким степям Забайкалья”, “Миленький ты мой”, Жанна Бичевская, “Когда б имел златые горы”, Надежда Кадышева …слушать
Vagrancy alone or in groups, from one eminent church to another, in search of a miracle, interesting conversations and food – an integral part of the pre-revolutionary Russia. Quite a few Russian writers of the new century, such as Maxim Gorky (Peshkov), have passed this way. Sometimes the church is a bottomless world that reveals your secrets. More often the temple is just such a building.
The Minister of Finance under Alexander the Third and Nicholas II – Sergey Yulievich Vitte. In a photograph taken in 1905, during negotiations with the Japanese delegation, he is third right in a row of representatives of the Russian Empire. Witte’s main idea is an economic “big leap” by any means. In 1897, Russian industrialists and merchants were deprived of protectionism by the state. Moreover, at the suggestion of the Dutchman Witte, it is foreign owners who now enjoy the benefits of doing business. The country is flooded with foreign capital. As a result, 90% of the country’s industrial enterprises are transferred into the hands of foreign owners. In the eyes of the original inhabitants of Russia, the state loses as much as the image of the majestic patriarchal family formed by Alexander the Third.
However, the industrialization of the country really has a place to be. The symbol of industrial growth (first place in the world in terms of development rates) is the railways. In a year, across the country, exactly where it is necessary, 2 thousand kilometers of railways are laid. The maximum achievement of the communist period, in the early 1950s, is one and a half thousand kilometers. Useless tracks like Salekhard-Igarka highway does not count. And, in the first case, the construction is carried out by the forces of self-confident, civilian workers, without false slogans, executions and torture. The photograph shows the locomotive “G”, which was produced for the Petersburg-Moscow railway in 1845—1849. abroad In 1860, this machine is upgraded. Since 1901, Russia begins to produce its own, quite high-quality steam locomotives.
Nikolay Romanov, at the age of twenty, the future emperor of the Russian land. His favorite occupation is quite up to, probably a mature age – playing hide and seek with royal relatives. According to the characteristics of S. Witte “An insignificant, and therefore insensitive emperor. Loud phrases, honesty and generosity exist only for show, so to speak, for the royal exits, and within the soul is petty cunning, childish cunning, fearful deceit.” General Wrangel, the last head of the White Army: “The king had neither precisely defined vices, nor clearly defined qualities. He was indifferent. He did not love anyone or anyone.” The post of the leader of a nation, the emperor, the tsar is not so much a central element of the organization as an example for general imitation. Consciously, or unconsciously, society adopts the subtlest features of the image of a ruler. Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century is a fairly well-established technical state. But there is an acute lack of living water of love and understanding in it. When the level of this life-giving fluid reaches a critical lower point, people no longer sympathize with each other. The fire of war of all against all breaks out
Putilov defense plant, St. Petersburg, the beginning of the twentieth century. Employees of defense enterprises earn up to 160 rubles a month, with an average salary in the country of 27 rubles. The length of the working day at state-owned enterprises is 12 hours, for a private trader, depending on his ideas about humanism, 12—16 hours. The pay of librarians, primary school teachers is 20 rubles, qualified mechanics, turners 50, doctors 80, officers, depending on rank, 80—500, governors 1,000 rubles. Military spending, reaching 30% of the budget, exsanguinates the country. They also become a source of a real internal threat. The price for renting a modest room is 3—5 rubles per month. Lunch, pancakes with caviar in a tavern, to the dump – 1 ruble, 0.5 liters of vodka 15—17 kopecks, potatoes 5 kopecks. kg., loaf of bread 4 kopecks., beef 25 kopecks, cheese 70 kopecks, black caviar 3 rubles 20 kopecks per kilogram. You can live. A cow, a horse, depending on the success of bargaining 40—80 rubles. Further, a shirt is 3 rubles, men’s boots are 7 rubles, a short fur coat is 15 rubles. If you want to attract beautiful women and live luxuriously: