I'M BUILDING"
Elena E. Khorinskaya-the oldest writer in the Urals, a delegate to the first Congress of Writers of the USSR. The author of four dozen books of poetry for children and adults, two books of prose, including memoirs "Our Bazhov", on the eve of her 90th birthday, met in the living room of Orientir with Colonel A. Kerdan, the magazine's senior permanent correspondent for the Ural Military District, and answered his questions.

- Elena Yevgenyevna, you are a person of unusual destiny. Readers of the magazine will be interested to know the main milestones of your biography...

- I was born in 1909 in the village of Bichura, which is located in a picturesque corner of Transbaikalia. In Ulan-Ude, she graduated from the unified labor school. I started working at the age of 16. She was a liquidator of illiteracy, a teacher in rural schools. In 1931, the first book of my prose "For hundredweight" was published. At the same time, I published my first poems in the literary almanac. In 1934, she was elected a delegate to the first Congress of writers of Buryatia, and then to the Congress of Writers of the USSR...

- What did you remember most about it?

- National love and respect for writers. The whole of Moscow literally lived in the congress at that time. It was held in the Pillared Hall of the House of Unions, the entrance of which was littered every morning with flowers brought by ordinary Muscovites. Each delegate had a personal car at their disposal. Tickets to any theater are welcome. The half-month that the congress lasted remained in my memory a real holiday. And, of course, all the speeches of A.M. Gorky are memorable. He performed a lot then. In communication, he was an absolutely accessible person. I remember that they brought him from Irkutsk, from us, the book "Base of Snubnoses" - stories of pioneers of Transbaikalia, which were collected by pioneer leader Galya Kozhevnikova. Alexey Maksimovich took it to heart, even burst into tears and invited our entire delegation to visit him at his dacha. My friends went, but I was too shy to stay in Moscow. I thought: where am I, an aspiring writer, but to visit Gorky himself?..

- And how did you end up in the Urals?

- After graduating from the Literary Institute, I worked in the newspaper "Na Stroike". And then my mother and I were invited to live in Yekaterinburg by my brother Maxim. I have been living in the Urals since 1935. It was only later that I realized that this move, in fact, saved my life. Years of repression began, which did not pass by all my friends, writers of Buryatia, delegates of the first congress.

- The Ural period of your life is connected with meetings with Pavel Petrovich Bazhov, well-known to the whole world today, with whom you had a good friendship...

- I really was friends not only with Pavel Petrovich himself, but also with his family: his wife Valentina Alexandrovna, daughters Olga, Elena and Ariadna, who later became the wife of Timur Gaidar. I often visited their hospitable home, which today houses the P. P. Bazhov Museum. We met before the war. In 1940, Pavel Petrovich was elected executive secretary of our writers ' organization. I must say that the pre-war years were not easy for him. Bazhov was always under threat of arrest. He was even expelled from the party. They accused him of being close to the Social Revolutionaries, and wrote the book "Formation on the Move" about his Civil War-era divisional commander, who had already been repressed. By the way, one of our colleagues in the writing department informed on Bazhov at that time. He is no longer alive today, so I will not mention his last name... For Pavel Petrovich, thank God, everything went well at that time... And in 1939, when The Malachite Box was published - and two sumptuous copies bound in malachite were sent to the Kremlin and to the international exhibition in Paris - Bazhov's disgrace was slowly removed...

So, when Pavel Petrovich was the head of the writers ' organization, we became friends. I must say, he was not an easy man. He didn't make contact quickly, although he seemed very open. What brought us closer was that we lived in the same neighborhood and always came back together after writers ' meetings. Pavel Petrovich liked to talk about the buildings we passed. I think he knew thoroughly the history of all the old houses in Yekaterinburg. Still, these walks of ours were official, until one day the following happened. Bazhov was unable to attend one of the writers ' conventions due to illness. A certain Samsonov, who was listed as his deputy (and in fact he represented the competent authorities in the organization), and I went there. At the congress, Samsonov made a very unsuccessful speech, carried nonsense from the rostrum. On our return, I told Pavel Petrovich about it in what they call colors and colors on our next walk. And then he looked at me with different eyes, began to trust me, talk more openly. And such a relationship we have with him remained until the last days of his life.

- You witnessed Bazhov's friendship with another remarkable man - Marshal G. K. Zhukov, who at that time commanded the Ural Military District. Tell us about it.

- Pavel Petrovich and the famous commander worked together in the Supreme Soviet of the country. Both of them were deputies, went to Moscow. And in the hall of the Supreme Soviet we sat side by side. The museum has preserved a picture in which these two famous people are engaged in a passionate conversation. Obviously, they were humanly attracted to each other. Pavel Petrovich's wife told me that Zhukov often went to the Bazhovs ' ogonyok on his way back from exercises in remote garrisons and stayed up late. "An epic figure" - this is how Pavel Petrovich described the marshal in one of our conversations. Of course, Bazhov was deeply concerned about the fate of the unfairly offended national hero. Whether it was him, who had repeatedly been in disgrace, who had twice survived expulsion from the party, who had spent more than one night waiting for the "black raven", it was impossible to understand this man. Zhukov returned Bazhov's love. When Pavel Petrovich died, he was one of the first to see his friend off on his last journey. At the funeral meeting, I happened to read poems dedicated to the bright memory of the great storyteller, in which there were such lines: :

But they will live for centuries In the wonderful malachite lines, And the Magic Stone Flower will not wither on the grave.

I say this because I later learned from Valentina Alexandrovna Bazhova that Georgy was a very good friend of mine.

Konstantinovich liked my poems and even asked her about me... Zhukov also attended a memorial service at the writer's house. With the passing of Bazhov, Georgy Konstantinovich's friendship with his family did not end. After all, it was not by chance that fate decreed that the marshal and the writer are now and for centuries as if together again: the monument to Zhukov and the bas-relief of Bazhov met at the intersection of two streets near the headquarters of the Ural Military District in Yekaterinburg...

- Did your relations with the Bazhov family continue after Pavel Petrovich's death?

- After Pavel Petrovich's death, my friendship with his family became even stronger. I helped Valentina Alexandrovna sort out her late husband's archive, and had a lot of contact with his daughters, especially Ariadna Pavlovna. Thanks to me, she met Timur Arkadyevich Gaidar.

- Elena Yevgenyevna, tell us about your meetings with the First President of Russia.

- Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, when he was the first secretary of the regional party committee, paid a lot of attention to writers. He was friends with our then director, the poet Lev Sorokin, and held an annual reception for all writers living in the region. At one of them, Yeltsin surprised me by approaching each of them, quoting an excerpt from his work or saying the names of these works that had recently been published. It was felt that Boris Nikolaevich was interested in literature and read a lot. When he came up to me, he said: "Elena Yevgenyevna Khorinskaya. You wrote that, didn't you?" And he quoted:.

Let it be an old truth - I don't pass it off as a new one - Such is the poet's share:

Always be in the ranks of soldiers!

- Elena Yevgenyevna, where did you, a civilian, get such heartfelt "soldier" lines?

- I would not rush to define "civilian". Since the thirties, from Transbaikalia, I have been an active "bayonet" in military-patriotic work... And here, in the Urals, I toured all the units and garrisons. By the way, I traveled a lot with Bazhov and other famous writers. I have certificates for this work from both Marshal Malinovsky and Marshal Grechko... My husband, Ivan Pantelei - Monovich Pominov, worked all his life as a design engineer at a defense plant... So I consider myself a" soldier " of literature and I am very worried that the army is in such a difficult situation today. Taking this opportunity, I wish everyone who wears shoulder straps courage, perseverance and understanding that difficult times are passing, but Russia is, was and will be!

Permanent link to this publication: