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KUOKKALA From Reminiscences of Prof. Dmitry Likhachev Likhachev D. Remarks and observations: From note-books of various years (In Russian). The Soviet Writer: Leningrad 1989, 48-61
... What a surprising thing is the connection between epochs! How could I know, when taking a seat on "Imperial" in a horse tramway together with my nanny for a drive to Colomna [a region of Sanct-Peterbourg between the English avenue, the river Mya, Catharinehof avenue and Theatres Square], how could I know then that it was possible to cast a glance through the windows of the flat of Benois inside it at the stop against St. Nicolas' Cathedral. Or that I should learn in the higher preparatory form of the gymnasium-school of the Philanthropic Society, where Alexandre Benois had learned too. Or that afterwards I should take my remove to K. May's Gymnasium and Real School on Hirvisaari, where Alexandre Benois had taken his remove long before me. Or that my mostly pleasing place in Peterhof would be a sea terrace at Monplaisir, considered to be the most beautiful place by the same Alexandre Benois before me. Or that after many years I should long and persistently insist on publishing his Reminiscences in the series "Literary Monuments" and correspond with his daughter Anna. This is not all. A. Benois stayed in London at the Boarding Place on Montague Street in 1899, but this was possibly the same place where I stayed in 1967. Could I know this, quite different should have been my attitude to my Old English inn with the Bible and detective novels on a small shelf over the bed and with a hearth, although modernised with gas. This was the inn, in which Vladimir Solovyov stayed too with all probability, when he came to work at the British Museum. Everything is so near, in the same place. This is true even for the space of history. Did not A. Benois but see in his childhood a small hundred-years old man, once a page of Catharine II, who lived in one of the service buildings of the Peterhof Palace? These connections are slight, they are faint, but they exist and are surprising. ________ A five-rooms flat cost half of my father's salary. In spring we went to a country-house (datcha) early. Then we gave up the flat to rent another one in the same surroundings of Maria Theatre in autumn. This was the way our family saved money. Usually we spent summers in Kuokkala beyond the border with Finland [the border does not exist since the Soviet aggression of 1939 - editor]. The cottages were cheap there and many intellectuals of Sanct-Peterbourg made use of this. Therefore my childhood is connected to Kuokkala which is called Repino today. The Bay of Kuokkala is situated in the North of Finnish Gulf, outside the so called Marquis's Puddle - part between Sanct-Peterbourg and Kronstadt. This was Marquis de Traverset who used to arrange navy training there in the beginning of the 19th c. The following is said about Kuokkala in Vade Mecum "Finland" by C.Granhagen: Kuokkala (42 km from SPb). The railway station is placed in 1 verst from the Gulf. The site is densely occupied by guests during the summer season. Beside satisfactory conditions for the holiday relaxation, there is a serious shortcoming there. This is a concentration of houses and lack of good ways. Ways are especially bad to the North of the railway. The sandy site with a pine forest is suitable for a health-resort. There are shops, a drugstore and even a theatre there. The best cottages are placed along the sea shore line and are expensive. Cheaper cottages are to the North of the railway station. Many of them are occupied in the winter season too. There is an Orthodox church there. In last years of the Russian revolution (the author has in mind the revolution of the year 1905) there were sheltered emigrants persecuted by the Russian Government. Nevertheless the Finnish administration arrested them and transported to Sanct-Peterbourg according to the law of 1826, after a bomb factory had been revealed in Haapala not far from Kuokkala. Known but not rich intellectuals spent summers in Kuokkala. 2 cottages were occupied by the noble family of Annenkov (an outstanding painter Yuri Annenkov originated of this family). One cottage on the shore against the Bay of Kuokkala belonged to Alberto Puni, who was a cellist of the Maria Theatre and son of a composer of the ballet music. Alberto was also owner of a tenancy in Sanct-Peterbourg - a big house at the crossing of Gatchina street and the Great avenue of the Petrograd side. His son became a painter in France. Up to the end of his life he liked to paint beaches which reminded him of his childhood. We are waiting for our dad. I am waiting looking into the distance. Finally a small humonoid appears: a paunchy with a big head and in a skirt. He is smoking. He is a steam-engine. The boiler is a paunch. The smoking chimney is a head. The widening downwards protective screen is a skirt (the steam-engine is a lord and therefore a man, of course). Having neared, it hisses in a foreign mode (the Russian steam-engines drone deeply like steamships). Finally it drives up working with its wheels (a favourable amusement of children of my, five-years, age is to imitate a steam-engine, moving the elbows like pistons). The carriages are following one after another, the blue, the green, the red ones. I do not remember their meaning today but it was another than of the Russian carriages. It seems to me that the blue carriages were of the first class. The Finnish guards in black are the first to alight from the blue carriages. They stand by the stairs helping the passengers to alight. Daddy appears, he kisses mama and tells with whom he has travelled. Once Baron Meyerhold was shown to me in a window of a carriage. He went further to Terijoki. It seems to me that I memorised him namely as a baron. As a baron he was known also to other people. Of them there were engineers, officers, painters. The latter seemed to me to be of special sort, i.e. Italians, dark-haired, leaders in various amusements. Finally all of them disperse on Finnish two-wheeled coaches in different directions. If there are several passengers, the owner Finn stands on the axle and drives with the dexterity of a circus actor. Speed is the main thing. There were the Penates of Ilia Repin on the boundary of Ollila (Soviet Solnechnoe). It was Korney Chukovsky who built a house with the help of Repin near the Penates. Many famous persons I met on the main street of Kuokkala and in the beautiful park of sisters Ridinger, not mentioned by the author of Vade Mecum. In the evenings we walked along the sea-shore by wave-tamped wet sand or by a concrete path along fences of the cottages on the other side of the beach. These fences were wooden, each a different, each a variegated. There stood Russian hawkers, Finnish trade-people with milk products. The Gypsies drummed cauldrons crying "Tinning! Soldering!" and something else I have already forgotten. Their workshops were in camp over the boundary of the settlement. The weather being windless, especially in the morning, on the bank one could hear as if deep droning u-u-u, u-u-u, u-u-u! This was the voice of the biggest bell of Isaac Cathedral in Sanct-Peterbourg. All the bells sounded, but only the biggest bell, the biggest in the Town, may be heard on the beach of Kuokkala. Therefore, at special time, when the beach was not full with the people, we ran to listen to St. Isaac. But the beach buzzed in heat of the day, it buzzed as a beehive with children's voices, naughty and joyful, or frightened by dipping in water, but always muffled by the sea and therefore dispersed and indistinct. I hear and love this music up today. Kuokkala was a realm of children. People went to the sea for the whole day, taking milk and breakfast with them, missing out usual dinnertime at 1 p.m. Toys, oars, life belts, parasols, bathing suits - all this was kept in special cabins on the sea-shore, sometimes in 2 or even 3 rows. Every family had its own cabin and usually its own boat too. Footbridges led from the beach to the water, it was a big pleasure to jump from them down. These footbridges were private as well as public, for money. On Sundays an orchestra played somewhere on the beach. This meant a charitable performance. The performances took place in the theatre of Kuokkala too. A small orchestra of four dismissed German soldiers walked in the streets of Kuokkala, stopped at any cottage and began from Oira, a popular Finnish song. If it was negatively waved to them, they stopped, but often we asked them to put down, when they should come to a birthday to play during dancing, when the children gathered from all around. On children's birthdays and name-days there had to be illumination with Chinese lanterns in the garden. The fireworks were also indispensable. These were bought under the Town Duma on the Neva avenue in Sanct-Peterbourg. In Kuokkala one could see children running in the street and selling charity badges. These were for the sake of the consumptives on the Day of Camomile, for the sake of wounded during the war of 1914. The interests and amusements of the children prevailed and adults willingly participated in children games. The naughty spirit appeared in the local theatre, where teenagers staged farces. Far walks together with adults took place. Once in the summer all went to Sestroretsk (Systerbäck) health-resort to listen to music (the starting time was early in the morning). More frequently a mill on the river Syster was visited. Young people bicycled there. "The Mill" seemed to me to be the most beautiful place on earth. In this atmosphere the naughty painting and naughty literature flourished. One cannot understand the works of Chukovsky, Repin, Puni and Annenkov without this. Even more: Kuokkala was motherland of the European avantgardism, but this is a deeper theme. All kinds of nationalities were represented in Kuokkala. Finnish peasants rented cheap cottages, their boys played with us hide-and-seek and other noisy games. Peterbourg Germans and Frenchmen, Finnish Swedes, the Italian family of Puni were present, old Alberto being initiator of various arguments in which he always appeared as the greatest Russian patriot. Almost all, except newcomers, were acquainted with each other, went on a visit one to another. Charitable dues were collected, public kindergartens were created. Adults and children played together croquet, cerceau, gorodki. This joyful life of Kuokkala gained disturbing nuances in August 1914. A German descent was awaited in September. Finnish policemen boarded up towers of the cottages (the cottages often had towers to look at the sea). Sounds of the firing practice were heard from Kronstadt - the sea gave to them the character of gurgling, as if the bottles of champagne were opened. We saw barges towing targets before the forts. Polish refugees appeared in Kuokkala in summer 1915. We, the boys, teased them with the words tso to bendze "What will happen!", frequently heard in their anxious conversations. Once a beautiful Polish woman addressed us with a smile and said gently "Oh yes, boys, co to będzie for you and for us in this war!". We were ashamed and ceased to tease the Poles. |
