The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  Hubert L’Hoste in Gorky Park

  Theater was everywhere: in kindergartens, schools, parks, and family apartments, as well as in theaters. Actors and directors from prominent Moscow theaters were objects of adoration, subjects of gossip, and constant recipients of dinner invitations from those prominent enough to hope for a response. “Going out” at night usually meant going to the Bolshoi, Maly, Art, Vakhtangov, or, less commonly, to the Chamber or New theaters. Most preferred the nineteenth-century repertoire; few cared for Meyerhold; and almost all considered it a duty, as well as pleasure, to go to the ballet (at the Bolshoi, top nomenklatura members and their families were entitled to seats in the royal box).

  On September 24, 1934, Arosev had a day off that included both Gorky Park and the ballet, among other things:

  Sent children off to Gorky Park. Dressed, washed, and played with son.

  Picked up children and took to theater (Carmen). Left children there—then went to bookstores. Bought lots of interesting books. Especially happy about Petrarch.

  Went to CPC [Council of People’s Commissars] cafeteria. Telephoned Kaganovich, but he’d already left for work. Called the Kremlin, but he hadn’t arrived yet.

  Picked up girls. Took them to CPC cafeteria. Read Al. Tolstoy’s Peter I in cafeteria library.

  Went home.

  Read some Petrarch. There’s absolutely no one who doesn’t grapple with the question of death!

  Went to ballet at Conservatory. Duncan Studio’s Maria Borisova especially good. Very impressive woman.

  Read more Petrarch.8

  At home, Arosev liked to direct his younger daughters, Olga and Elena, in home plays they produced together. (His eldest daughter, Natalia, lived with her mother and her new family in a communal apartment in a different building; Olga and Elena lived with him and their governess and maid; his son, Dima, lived with his mother in the apartment next door; Arosev split his time between his younger daughters and his new wife and son.) Feliks Kon liked to play charades with his wife and grown children; Osinsky’s wife, Ekaterina Smirnova, and her children played “literary games.”9 Literary games came in a variety of forms. Arosev’s daughters had a special bookshelf.

  He would put some books on the shelf, quite a few, and we were supposed to read them all by the end of the week. And not only that—we also had to report, either orally or in writing, on what we had read. That was to make sure we hadn’t cheated by claiming to have read something we hadn’t. But we didn’t need to be forced. We loved to read and often read into the night. We used to go to bed late because we always waited up for Dad—and he often had receptions in the evening at VOKS. We used to listen for the elevator, try to figure out which floor it was stopping on, and then, when we heard his key in the lock, quickly jump into bed and pretend to be asleep. Dad would come in thinking we were sleeping, give us a kiss, and then go over to Apartment 103 or straight to bed.10

  Most fathers closely monitored their children’s reading, which included the same books they had read themselves in prison and exile (and continued to reread), in a particular order. Osinsky, according to his daughter, Svetlana, “was very strict about it, and did not allow us to take books off the shelves without his permission. Only once, I remember, I … there was no one in his study, and he wasn’t supposed to be coming back, so I got Dante down and was looking through the Divine Comedy with those scary pictures by Doré. And just at that moment, he walked in. But instead of yelling, he said, well … when the time comes, we’ll read Dante.”11

  “We’ll read Dante” might mean either “I’ll tell you when the time comes to read Dante,” or “I’ll read Dante to you when the time comes.” Reading aloud was an old form of noble—and, later, intelligentsia—sociability, an important way of establishing and maintaining spiritual intimacy between friends and lovers and within families. It had also been a part of the Old Bolshevik prison and exile experience. Osinsky had first listened to his father reading aloud and then read aloud to his fellow reading-circle members and later to his lover, Anna Shaternikova (their relationship had continued into the 1930s). Now it was his children’s turn:

  Not too frequently, but not so infrequently either, he would read aloud to us. We had our own special ritual. We would sit down on the couch, and the three of us took turns sitting next to him. He would prepare a special drink, which we called “wine” (I think it was probably watered-down fruit syrup), and give each of us a little glass. He would open the book, and total bliss followed. Afterward, we would always beg: “Keep reading, Dad!” and Dad never ignored our pleas…. I remember reading Jules Verne. Huge, heavy atlases in leather bindings would be opened up before us so that we could trace the routes of the ships and look for the places where the Mysterious Island might be or where Captain Grant’s children had come ashore. Dad read Dickens to us. We particularly loved Great Expectations with its funny beginning, and Joe Gargery’s famous words to young Pip, “WOT LARX,” became a household saying.12

  The Osinskys also read Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Korolenko, Longfellow, Victor Hugo, Alphonse Daudet, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heine, Oscar Wilde, and Kipling, among others. Kerzhentsev, who had debated Osinsky at Moscow Gymnasium No. 7 in 1905, read Dickens, Pushkin, and Gogol to his daughter, Natalia. Arosev read Gogol’s Dead Souls to his daughters the day before taking them to see the Art Theater’s adaptation of the novel on May 30, 1935, which was a day off. The director of the Archive of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and former Soviet trade representative in Turkey, Akim Yuriev (Apt. 467), read Gibbon to his daughter.13 He may have gotten the idea from everyone’s favorite writer:

  “Bought him at a sale,” said Mr Boffin. “Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off. Do you know him?”

  “The book’s name, sir?” inquired Silas.

  “I thought you might have know’d him without it,” said Mr Boffin slightly disappointed. “His name is Decline-And-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empire.” (Mr Boffin went over these stones slowly and with much caution.)

  “Ay indeed!” said Mr Wegg, nodding his head with an air of friendly recognition.

  “You know him, Wegg?”

  “I haven’t been not to say right slap through him, very lately,” Mr Wegg made answer, “having been otherways employed, Mr Boffin. But know him? Old familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir!”14

  ■ ■ ■

  Having guests over for dinner was not common practice. Chess partners might come over in the evenings, but they tended to stay in the study. So would card (mostly Preferans) players, who were more numerous and usually stayed longer. The head of the Alcoholic Beverages Directorate, Abram Gilinsky, used to play with his deputies; the head of the Bookselling Directorate, David Shvarts, played with his brother, brother-in-law, and best friend, Aleksandr Kon (Feliks’s son). While the men were playing, the women might go off to the theater or talk in the dining room. Card playing was particularly popular among NKVD officials. On his visits to Kiev, Sergei Mironov used to play with the deputy head of the Ukrainian NKVD, Z. B. Katsnelson. Agnessa, who liked going to Kiev to shop, normally came with him.15

  We went over to Balitsky’s deputy’s house every day. Mirosha really enjoyed those visits and would sit up half the night playing cards for money. The three of them—Balitsky’s deputy, Mirosha, and another high official—played for high stakes. Balitsky didn’t take part in the game and didn’t even know about it. They would sit in the study, while we wives sat in the living room and gossiped about everyone we knew for lack of anything better to do.

  Sometimes, late in the evening, Mirosha would rush in:

  “Aga, give me some money!”

  That meant he was losing. I would give it to him—what else could I do? But I’d be furious. There went all my big shopping plans! Sometimes he’d gamble all our money away in one night. We’d leave, and I’d start in on him:

  “How could you lose
so much?!”

  But he would just chuckle:

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get it all back.”

  And, amazingly enough, I would. The next day Mirosha would bring me money—lots of money.

  It turned out that Mironov had been losing on purpose and that, soon after each loss, he would receive a special reward from Katsnelson for good service.16

  But then Ezhov became the people’s commissar of internal affairs, his friend Frinovsky became his deputy, and his friend Mironov became the head of the NKVD Directorate of West Siberia, where the local Party boss, Robert Eikhe (Roberts Eihe), was afraid of him. Neither Mironov, nor Agnessa, had to lose to anyone anymore.

  In Novosibirsk we were given the former governor-general’s mansion. A guard was posted at the gate to protect us.

  We had a huge garden with a stage, where local actors used to perform for us. There was also a separate little house for billiards, and, inside the mansion itself, a film screening room that had been built especially for us. As the first lady of the city, I got to choose from a list which film I wanted to see that day.

  I had my own “court” and was surrounded by “ladies-in-waiting”—the wives of the top brass. Who to invite and who not to invite was my decision, and they all competed for my favor. And though I might ask for their opinion, I was the one who chose the films.

  Sometimes, as we sat in the viewing room watching a film, the “toadies” would come in with fruit and cakes. Of course, you’re right, that’s not the right word. “Servants” would be more accurate, but I used to call them “toadies”—they always tried so hard to please and anticipate our every wish. They were constantly hovering around. These days they’re called the “help” (rather than “servants,” like in the old days).

  They would sometimes bring in these cakes—do you know them? They had ice cream inside and were covered in flaming alcohol, but you could eat them without getting burned. Just imagine all those little blue lights glowing in the darkened room. Of course I didn’t eat them very often myself. I was always watching my weight and mostly ate only oranges.17

  In the House of Government, such displays were physically impossible and socially unacceptable; even simple dinner parties were rare. There were some exceptions, however. The Shvarts and the Gaisters were friends and frequently invited each other for dinner. Both families, with similar lower-class Pale of Settlement roots, were large, loud, successful, and sociable. At one point, the Gaisters’ maid got tired of having to deal with so many last-minute dinner invitations and left them to work for the commander of the Soviet Air Force, Yakov (Jēkabs) Alksnis, who lived in Apt. 100, one floor above Aron Gaister’s brother, Semen (Siunia). She returned one month later, probably because she missed the Gaister children, whom she had raised. Another frequent host was Karl Radek, who was known for his eccentricity and, according to Elina Kisis, his poodle, Devil, who used to greet all the visitors to his apartment. “If the guests did not immediately remove their hats, Devil would jump up from behind and come down with a hat between his teeth. He was always given a seat at the dinner table and a plate of food that he would carefully munch on.” According to Elina Kisis, Radek’s daughter Sofia “was a glamorous girl. She had all kinds of admirers, mostly pilots. Sometimes they got drunk and threw up in the bathroom.”18

  Writers liked to stage large gatherings complete with public readings. They were also—along with famous actors and artists—in constant demand as celebrity guests at government receptions and birthday parties for nomenklatura officials. Koltsov was a regular at many of them, often several in one evening. Arosev, who could not stand Koltsov, was, too—both as a fiction writer and as head of the All-Union Society for Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries (VOKS). October 24, 1934, exactly one month after Arosev bought his volume of Petrarch, was another day off:

  Went to see Dimitrov. Raskolnikov also there. Dimitrov serious, charming, and dressed in military uniform that doesn’t suit him. He has beautiful hands, truly beautiful. Discussed Bulgarian affairs. Went home. Barbusse and Gosset already there.

  The Raskolnikovs arrived. Had warm and friendly conversation about fascist atrocities. Barbusse cited many facts. About last days of our own Russian Revolution, I took lead. Mentioned so many interesting facts, our French visitors demanded I write it all up and have it translated.

  Wouldn’t mind—except editors illiterate and have blunted sense of beauty.

  At 9 p.m., after Barbusse and Gosset left, wife and I went to Tarasov-Rodionov’s. Usual crowd there. Also Kamenev, wonderful pianist named Lugovskoy, and Comrade Chinenov (former soldier, wonderful fellow, and sensitive revolutionary—very modest), who’s leaving for Far East and came to say goodbye to me. Pianist played well. Especially Liszt piece dedicated to “Lyon Weavers’ Revolt.” I did dramatic readings of Chekhov and Zoshchenko and made such an impression that Kamenev began reciting Voloshin’s poetry (in usual monotone, but with some embellishments).19

  Dimitrov, the star of the Reichstag Fire Trial, had recently arrived to a hero’s welcome and embarked on a campaign against Piatnitsky’s “Third Period” policy of restoring sectarian purity within the Comintern. His wife had committed suicide in Moscow the year before, while he was still in prison in Berlin. Two weeks after Arosev came to see him, he was joined by Rosa Fleischmann, a Viennese journalist (originally from Moravia) whom he had met in 1927. She stayed on to become his second wife, Roza Yulievna Dimitrova (in Apt. 249 and later Apt. 235). Fedor Raskolnikov (Larisa Reisner’s first husband) had just been named Soviet ambassador to Bulgaria. The novelist Henri Barbusse was writing a biography of Stalin; the journalist Hélène Gosset was trying to get an interview with Stalin; the writer Tarasov-Rodionov had been a literary ally of Arosev’s in the 1920s (his much-debated 1922 novella, “Chocolate,” was about the emasculation of Chekists by the feminine sweetness of NEP).20

  Arosev had long wanted to be an actor, as well as a writer, and often performed in front of his friends and colleagues. On March 10, 1937, after a long day at work, he came home, signed a life insurance policy, discussed his daughter Olga’s cold with her doctor, and then walked over to Serafimovich’s apartment. Other guests included the Spanish ambassador, the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti, the painter Petr Konchalovsky, and the writer Stepan Skitalets. “We sang, danced, and performed dramatic readings. Came home at 2 a.m. Only positive thing, I think, was that I recited Maya-kovsky and Chekhov. That always makes me feel brave and honest about myself. Skitalets told me I read more expressively than a professional actor. Especially ‘The Thinker.’ My ‘Thinker’ is not funny, but frightening. ‘Chekhov himself had no idea he’d created such a devil,’ Skitalets said. ‘It’s the devil who tempts his “interlocutor.”’”21

  Aleksandr Arosev reciting Chekhov

  Serafimovich continued to run his circle for former proletarian writers and amateur singers. “I have known few people,” wrote Fedor Gladkov, “with the same passion for friendly gatherings and the same need for constant human companionship. When friends were over, he would always be the one to start singing. He sang with pleasure and abandon—and would get very annoyed if anyone sat silently off to the side. ‘Sing, by god, sing! All together now!’ he would bellow, and start waving his arms around like a conductor.” Elena Usievich, who once made common cause with Serafimovich against Leopold Averbakh, liked to host regular late-night poetry readings. One of her discoveries was Pavel Vasiliev, who was married to Gronsky’s sister-in-law and often stayed in Gronsky’s apartment, where some of the largest gatherings took place. Gronsky’s job was “to guide the work of the Soviet and foreign intelligentsia” on Stalin’s behalf. His most frequent guests were the realist (AKhRR) painters Isaak Brodsky, Boris Ioganson, Evgeny Katsman, Viktor Perelman, Vasily Svarog, and Pavel Radimov (who was also a poet) and the poets Sergei Gorodetsky, Aleksandr Zharov, and Pavel Vasiliev. Another frequent guest and one of the top Soviet officials was Valerian Kuibyshev. According to Gronsky’s wife Lydia,

  He would come
over not only to converse with artists and poets, but also just to relax. He particularly enjoyed hearing the Svarogs sing.

  The painter Vasily Semenovich Svarog and his wife Larisa were frequent guests at our place. He would bring his guitar or banjo, and they would sing Neapolitan songs. Later he presented Valerian Vladimirovich with a knee-length portrait of Larisa, beautifully painted in a broad style—with Larisa in a dark dress with a bright shawl over her shoulders. The Svarogs’ visits were like holidays for me: with singing, conversations about socialist realism, and the rejection of everything alien: formalism, naturalism, etc.22