Tales
Story catalog
All of Tsypin’s texts — filter by type, district, era, and people.
380
Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
ANNOTATION
The book Kharkiv in Yarns and Anecdotes gathers amusing and dramatic stories, lived tales, yarns, and historical anecdotes about Kharkiv and famous Kharkivites in the form in which memory has handed them down…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
ABOUT THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR
Saveliy Tsypin is the author of a dozen satirical books, several plays, and many stage and film sketches. Having graduated from the physics department of Kharkiv State University, which trains, as…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
FROM THE AUTHOR
Much has been written about Kharkiv and its famous sons and daughters—from weighty tomes to essays. In this book I wanted to gather remarkable stories—funny and tragic, yarns and legends in which…
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Legendsдо XVIII века · Салтовка
ECLIPSE
At 4:55 p.m., just before the crossing of the Siversky Donets, the sky darkened—a solar eclipse began. The soldiers panicked; it was hard to imagine a grimmer omen. For according to an old belief, at…
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Legendsдо XVIII века · Центр
WHERE DID KHARKIV COME FROM?
On a horse in full gear—with shield and pike, bow and arrows—sits a Cossack; behind him rise the towers and walls of a stockade. Thus an old artist portrayed the legendary founder of our city, Kharko…
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TalesXVIII век · Харьков
THREE COATS OF ARMS
In 1781 Empress Catherine II approved the design of the Kharkiv province coat of arms: "Let it be so." It showed a green field with a cornucopia, fruit, and flowers, and on…
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RumorsXVIII век · Центр
"RAKLO," "VANKO," "ZHUZHKA," AND MORE
Kharkiv speech has its own distinctive words found nowhere else. Let us recall a term almost gone from our vocabulary, yet so colorful—the "r…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
OUT INTO THE STREET—AND NO STREET
Whole studies are devoted to Kharkiv toponymy, full of curious detail. Chebotarska, Kuznechna, Rymarska, Katsarska, Stolyarny and Slesarny lanes, the Honcharivka district—all evidently took their names…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
WHERE DID NETECH GO?
"Burst if you will, Kharkiv doesn't flow"—one of our old local sayings. It bundles the names of rivers in the city center: Kharkiv, Lopan, and Netech. The first two still exist, but where did the third…
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Place-namesНОБЕЛЕВСКИЕ ЛАУРЕАТЫ · начало XX века · Центр
ILYA MECHNIKOV
At gymnasium Ilya and his classmates founded a "Union of Science." They held debates and wrote papers on scientific topics. Still a schoolboy, he first crossed the threshold of Kharkiv University…
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Talesначало XX века · Центр
SIMON KUZNETS
Semyon was born in Kharkiv in 1901 to a fur merchant's family. Business evidently fared poorly for Kuznets senior, and he decided to try his luck in America—settle there, then send for his fa…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Центр
LEV LANDAU
A researcher at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, one Mr. N., received a telegram from Moscow: the Nobel Committee would consider awarding him the Nobel Prize, and therefore…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
JUDGED BY THE CLOTHES...
Men and women, especially on holidays, wore caftans edged with gold or silver trim; men's dress differed little from women's. Only…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
MATCHMAKING IN HONCHARIVKA
"Weddings were loud affairs and cost a fortune. Matchmakers were sent to the bride's parents bearing bread and staffs. When the bride agreed, she gave the elder…
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Talesдо XVIII века · Центр
WE BOW LOW
"To the Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Russia, Autocrat. Your poor pilgrims of the sovereign Ukrainian far city of Kharkiv, the Cherkasy priest Yere, bow their foreheads…
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Anecdotesдо XVIII века · Харьков
COUNTERFEIT COIN
The police tracked down and arrested two counterfeiters nicknamed Ikonnik and Zolotar. Under investigation they confessed to their crime…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
WHO WROTE THE LETTER TO THE TURKISH SULTAN?
"You Turkish devil, brother and comrade of the accursed one and secretary to Lucifer himself—what sort of knight are you, damn it? The devil casts out, and your army devours. You shall not be fit to hold Christians under you by force, th…
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Talesдо XVIII века · Харьков
CITY UNDER SIEGE
In 1668 an enemy besieged the Kharkiv fortress—but not Tatars or the Muscovite army, rather troops of our countryman, Cossack hetman Ivan Sirko. An old account says they "Kharkiv p…
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LegendsXVIII век · Центр
THE SWEDES NEAR... KHARKIV
The saying "broken like a Swede at Poltava" might as well have been "broken like a Swede near Kharkiv." For legend has it that Peter the Great planned the decisive battle with Charles XII and his allies…
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TalesXVIII век · Центр
"ROHAN"—NOT JUST BEER
For us "Rohan" suggests beer or a new housing district, not the name Kantemir. The land of present-day Rohan, from the early eighteenth century onward, belonged…
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TalesXVIII век · Центр
A PALACE FOR ONE NIGHT
After conquering Crimea, Field Marshal Potemkin—made Prince of Taurida for it—decided to show the Empress Russia's new lands and arranged for her a journey there…
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LegendsXVIII век · Харьков
THE WORLD SOUGHT HIM
Catherine II, approaching Kharkiv from Crimea, noticed an elderly man in plain clothes, lost in thought on a hill. Asked who he was, she was told: the famous philosopher Grigory S…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
PIPE FOR A CLASSIC
A hollow in the woods. Along its bottom runs a short concrete ditch littered with brick fragments and broken bottles. From the wall juts a stub of rusty pipe trickling water. Is this an unfinished…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
AND THERE'D BE NO CITY
Once a leaflet was found on the door of the Ascension Church that towered over Ascension Square (now Feuerbach Square). It proved to be nothing less than a lampoon on His Imperial Majesty Pa…
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TalesXVIII век · Харьков
THE MUTINOUS COLONEL
In the summer of 1765 Colonel Kh. Krasnokutsky of the Kharkiv regiment was in St. Petersburg and learned news that deeply alarmed him. Catherine II had issued a manifesto on the Sloboda regiments, where…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
GOVERNOR BY CORRESPONDENCE
"I shall tell you how I rewarded Field Marshal Rumyantsev: 1) on the day peace was celebrated he received a charter detailing all his victories, conquests, and the peace itself; 2) the marshal's baton…
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RumorsXVIII век · Харьков
A ROYAL VISIT
"The next day, after his arrival, the prince was expected in the cathedral… His Highness came already after the 'It is meet' and stopped not at the seat prepared under the canopy but to the right of the pulpit, in the midst of the church…
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Place-namesXVIII век · Центр
WHERE THE GOVERNORS LIVED
Where Kharkiv's earliest rulers lived is unknown, but by 1777 they decided to build a formal residence. It was erected on University Hill by that year…
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Place-namesXVIII век · Центр
TWO CENTURIES IN ONE SPOT
Visitors to the new glass-walled café on Poetry Square little guess whose wall they lean against. It is the oldest building in the city, second in age perhaps only to the Intercession Church…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
BY STAGECOACH
Kharkivites who mailed a letter to another city might wait months for a reply. For one thing, mail left Kharkiv only twice a week: on Wednesdays along the Moscow road, on Sundays…
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Talesдо XVIII века · Харьков
QUARTERING TROOPS
"Military guests quartered in Kharkiv at the time cost the city dearly. The Duma had to provide them lodging and see to their various needs…
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TalesXVIII век · Харьков
A SCHOLAR? TO THE CORNER!
On the morning of August 28, 1781, a gentleman appeared at the Kharkiv post station. He gave his name as Vasily Zuev, adjunct of the Academy in St. Petersburg, sent to study and describe the south of Russia. He…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
FLOGGED OVER A BORROWED COAT
During the Trinity Fair a visitor asked the shopkeeper Akhmet to lend him ten kopecks, leaving his coat as pledge—worth little anyway—and promising to bring the money tomorrow and reclaim…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
THE CHANDELIER HOOK
Landowner Mordvinov once needed a sum of money. He pondered long where to get it and sold his house to the city—yet had no intention of moving out and calmly continued…
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RumorsXVIII век · Харьков
THEY STOLE THE BRIDGE
Kharkivites once found that a bridge on the Lopan… had vanished. They appealed to the City Duma, which knew nothing and asked the governor. He replied that the bridge had been ordered dismantled…
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TalesXVIII век · Центр
ONE MERCHANT BEAT TWO GOVERNORS
Merchant of the third guild Yegor Yegorovich Uryupin, elected mayor in 1799, was an awkward figure for the provincial authorities. The Duma he led declared it would act in its own…
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Place-namesXVIII век · Харьков
THE RED ROOSTER
In May 1733 a great fire destroyed three hundred yards, the Cathedral and St. Nicholas churches, and all the shops. Half a century earlier the voivode had forbidden Kharkivites of every rank…
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Place-namesXIX век · Холодная Гора
HOME BY LANTERN LIGHT
Plain folk and prosperous Kharkivites alike tried to get home before dark; in the gloom one might less often meet a robber than break a leg on unpaved streets. At last in…
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AnecdotesXVIII век · Харьков
WHAT FOR?
One night in 1745 attackers struck Captain Nazaryev's lodgings. The captain was not home. Bursting in, they broke the gate, smashed windows, beat to death…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
BALLS, DINNERS, MASQUERADES...
"Balls, masquerades, and genteel gatherings then called 'clubs' began in Kharkiv. How fine it was in that free, sincere, patriarchal age. Every Sunday, every holiday…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Харьков
THE GOLDEN SWORD
A. P. Nikitin was a career soldier—he finished cadet school while still young. Commanding artillery units, he fought bravely in the War of 1812 and was awarded a golden sword…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
UNDER THE "CAP"
Governors appointed by the tsar seemed absolute masters of their provinces and free to do as they pleased. Not so: every province also had a prosecutor…
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TalesXVIII век · Харьков
MERRY MONKS
"In 1752 at sotnyk Andrey Topchiy's wedding, St. Nicholas priest Ioann fiercely fought the town ataman Pyotr Bulgakov, calling him a godless, unbaptized infidel," thus begins…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
LAWLESS ACTS
Even in old times those sworn to keep order broke it themselves. Sub-lieutenant Yenokhin sent men at night to steal a townsman's hay and seized goods from a tavern keeper without cause…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
NOT INVITED TO THE CELEBRATION
"I seek to fill the modest vacant post of librarian. Do not refuse me! Grant me the joy of putting in order and revealing the treasures of this institution founded by me, yet…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
THE AUTHOR OF "FAUST"—FOR KHARKIV
Oddly, Kharkiv has streets named for Darwin and Shakespeare, and until recently Byron—men who never heard of our city—yet no Goethe Street, though the great thinker, writer, and scholar…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
FIRST IN UKRAINE
In 1816 our city saw the journal Kharkiv Democritus, edited by fabulist and former Kharkiv University student V. Maslovich. The magazine was humorous in tone and…
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LegendsXIX век · Центр
THE LONG ROAD
The Decembrist uprising in St. Petersburg on December 14, 1825, failed through the conspirators' hesitation. The government opened an inquiry that for those involved…
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TalesXVIII век · Харьков
ACTOR-DESERTER
Kharkiv's theater staged the Italian comedy The Prince Chimney Sweep, Chimney Sweep Prince. In the front row sat two governors—the local one and his guest from Oryol, passing through…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
NO HIGHER THAN IVAN
Approach Kharkiv from any side and you see the gilded dome of the Dormition bell tower. It stands on the high ground of University Hill. Some…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN!
The famous poet and statesman G. R. Derzhavin coined this phrase for Count V. V. Orlov-Denisov. The young officer of striking looks and talent enjoyed the emperor's favor…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
GET OUT!
Every year in late August Kharkiv is spruced up—especially with two holidays: Ukraine's Independence Day and the local anniversary of the city's liberation from the German-fascist…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
EPIPHANY SLEIGH RIDES
"In years past our Kharkiv rivaled Moscow in daring winter driving, and at the Epiphany fair on Yekaterinoslavskaya Street sleigh rides began daily from two in the afternoon. All who came to…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
GUARDSMAN AND MAIDEN
Nicholas I held a ceremonial review in Chuguyev. Tribunes rose three tiers around the vast parade ground. The crowd glittered with belles and young…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
INTO THE MUD WITH THE DECEASED!
"A sandbox in summer, an inkwell in spring and autumn"—so one could describe our city nearly to the end of the nineteenth century. Kharkiv's mud, deep and lasting, was one of the main…
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Place-namesбез даты · Холодная Гора
SWANS INSTEAD OF MANURE
Every Kharkivite noticed the round square on ruler-straight Poltava Highway near the Theater for Children and Youth. Its shape is no accident. Once there was a basin here…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
WHAT PRICE A BOW?
In the early nineteenth century the Sloboda-Ukrainian province was briefly led by Muratov, protégé of the all-powerful Count Arakcheyev. He patronized the muses and was a man of humane bent…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
FROM MUD TO PRINCE
D. Pashkov was among Kharkiv's notable governors. Under him the city was actively improved: swamps were filled, bridges and ferries built, ditches dug for drainage, stone churches raised…
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Legendsбез даты · Центр
IN A CORPSE'S EMBRACE
A laundress was returning home late with a basket of wash, accompanied by her twelve-year-old daughter. To shorten the way they crossed Myrrh-Bearers' cemetery (now on this…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Харьков
FOR THE VOTES
"To the choirmaster of the Court Chapel, travel money for three to Poltava: for him, his assistant Palagin, and Gulak-Artemovsky, a student dismissed from Kyiv seminary"—so runs a record…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
IN MANY FACES
I marvel, creator, / At our tricky age: / Actor, poet, and committeeman / Are one and the same man. This epigram, attributed to V. Karazin, appeared in the 1830s and targets G. Kv…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
LOST TALENT
G. Kvitka noticed shop signs and coats of arms painted in a distinctive hand. The artist was young Khamlo-Sokira. Finding undeniable talent in the poor youth, the writer…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
"THE INSPECTOR GENERAL"—PLAGIARISM?
A young man arrives in a provincial town; the authorities take him for an inspector, and uproar follows. Gogol's Inspector General? No—it is G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko's comedy…
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Place-namesXIX век · Основа
BELATED MEMORY
At G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko's funeral in 1843 his Russian friend, scholar I. Sreznevsky, said: "Remember, Ukraine, this grave: here lies one who, animated by love for you, your welfare, and your tong…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
AN ACTOR'S RUSE
Ivan Kotlyarevsky of Poltava, without pausing work on his poem Eneida, wrote the plays Natalka Poltavka and Moskal-charivnyk. But where to stage them? His hometown had no theater. Then…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Харьков
MOSKAL-CHARIVNYK
Mikhail Semenovich Schepkin first appeared on the Kharkiv stage in 1805 while still a serf. The first review was printed in our city in the Ukrainian Herald in 1819, noting his rare…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
A GIFT
A Kharkiv acting company came to another town for the fair hoping to earn extra money. They arranged performances—then the governor's wife took a liking to a little dog that belonged…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
PHILANTHROPIST
In the late 1830s Kharkiv province suffered several crop failures. Needing bread, the poorest folk flocked to Kharkiv and filled it with beggars. The simplest…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
KHRUSHCHEV, ZHDANOV, AND OTHERS
When finishing Kharkiv University, student Khrushchev publicly defended a thesis arguing that revolution was needed to destroy the old order and build a new…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
THE GENTLEMAN AND THE DOG
Pyotr Petrovich Gulak-Artemovsky was a well-known writer of his day. He translated from Polish and French and wrote lyric poetry, but his original fables in…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
THE HOUSE WEeps FOR THE SOLDIER
One often saw this scene: with street musicians, a procession moved through town or village. Up front—a drunken lad; behind him, men and women of all ages…
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TalesXIX век · Павлово Поле
CITIZENS IN HONOR
Imagine a merchant reporting his income to the tax office—not understating it as one might expect, but inflating it. Why? What is the point? By displaying wealth…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
HELP!
Merchant Zhyvotovsky sold hats and cap goods in Shlyapny (now Soviet) Lane. Short, pockmarked, lively and nimble—his whole look and character recalled a mac…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
THE TSAR AS MATCHMAKER
His Majesty danced the first figure of the mazurka with Miss Okonechnikova, whose beauty and wit impressed him. Approaching her father, a first-guild merchant, the sovereign said: "N…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
STRONG IN SPIRIT
Strange but true: Kharkiv butchers habitually slaughtered and cut up cattle right at their market stalls, tossing the offal… under the counter. Small wonder then…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Павлово Поле
PULL KHARKIV OUT OF THE MUD FOR ME
"Pull Kharkiv out of the mud for me," Nicholas I told S. A. Kokoshkin when appointing him governor-general. The emperor, fond of our city, was tired of seeing it sunk in impassable mire. Having received…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
CADRES DECIDE EVERYTHING
Sober and practical, S. Kokoshkin began cleaning up the city… starting with the police and bureaucracy. Then long troubling questions surfaced: where, for example, did a secretary get…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
BY THE RULER
Kokoshkin's eye could not abide crooked lines, especially in the city layout. Nothing stopped him. He turned to the main streets, above all…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
"BRIDGE" TAX
Carrying out the emperor's order to pull Kharkiv from the mud, Kokoshkin set about repairing sidewalks and paving streets. He decided to cobble them every summer without pause—not only central ones but…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
HE DID NOT DOZE
From memoirs: "Early each morning one could see Sergey Alexandrovich at the works, especially when bridges were built, accompanied by their ever-present superintendent, Captain Paly…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
KOKOSHKIN BUILDS A BRIDGE
The general long planned a new bridge over the Kharkiv River—especially since the emperor entered the city at that spot. Knowing the governor's exacting ways, local merchants were loath to take the contract…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
GUARDIAN OF MORALITY
Following his all-powerful sovereign's example, the general personally watched over his subjects' morals. He had a lackey named Martin; his wife the general's lady had a maid, Euphemia. These…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
TAKE YOUR PICK!
Merchant Bolotov's shop sold luxury goods. Kokoshkin dropped in one day. He slowly sifted through items, examining and rearranging each. He lifted one of…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
PRICE BY ORDER
In 1852 Kharkiv was hit by hailstones as large as hen's eggs. Glass shattered at the Institute for Noble Maidens, the gymnasium, government offices, and most city buildings…
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Talesбез даты · Павлово Поле
CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE GOVERNOR
At last the merchants' and rich traders' patience broke under the city's master's harsh, coercive ways. They conspired and drafted a petition to the throne. On behalf of all citizens…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
TO THE NEXT WORLD
In 1856 Kokoshkin was transferred from Kharkiv to the capital as a senator. Passing a building under construction in St. Petersburg, he entered out of curiosity and his passion for building works…
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Place-namesбез даты · Павлово Поле
WHERE THE FLUFF COMES FROM
Each spring Kharkiv is covered in white poplar fluff that triggers allergies and delights children who set it alight. The tree is hardly native to our city. In…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
AMID THE SWAMPS
"Amid vast steppes, in many places still virgin, untouched by the plow and silvered with feather grass, in a purely agricultural province without industry and thinly settled, when…
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Rumorsбез даты · Центр
DUEL VICTIM
A duel was fought in the Osnovyansky woods between a school supervisor and a geography teacher. The cause was their employer's wife, head of a boarding house on Zmiyevskaya Street (now Prospekt G…
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Legendsбез даты · Харьков
PROVISIONS FOR THE ROAD
Actor and leading organizer of Kharkiv theater in the mid-nineteenth century, L. Mlotkovsky was so devoted to his craft that a contemporary wrote: "Hardly had he appeared in Peter…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
FOR TWO
Kharkiv audiences who came to see the famous St. Petersburg actor V. Samoilov were astonished. In one scene his character was to dialogue with another role, in…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
NAKED VENUS
From time to time a circus came to Kharkiv—a motley traveling troupe of clowns, acrobats, and riders. It put up a temporary booth on Mykhailivska Square. To draw more spectat…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
HONEST MERCHANT'S WORD?
Limov, a merchant risen from clerk, first traded brocade, then fashion goods and wool, shipping large consignments to Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow his buyer was a famous cloth manufacturer…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
HALF PRICE
Odessa once had porto franco—import without duty. Among the goods were Dutch cloth, costly teas, bronze wares, lace…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
AH, MY THOROUGHBRED TEAM!..
Kharkiv had a dashing coachman, Akim Bazhenov. Unlike his fellows he was neat, well dressed, and owned his troikas. The horses were always groomed, harness hung with silvered plaques…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
CITY HEAD — «THE CHEMIST»
Merchant S. K. Kostyurin traded in wine. In his basement • there was a whole chemical laboratory. Wonders were worked there: plain wine turned into port and sherry, white — into Lafite and Chablis, red —…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
OH, MY HANDSOME!..
In a hollow overgrown with forest, a powerful icy spring gushed from a sheer cliff face. The water was deemed healing, and with Nicholas I's permission (Kochetok lay within military settlement limits) a sanatorium was built there…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
UNHAPPY LOVE
At the resort in Kochetok near Chuhuiv rested the wealthy landowner Sineshchekov. He belonged to an old family whose founder Peter the Great had known personally. On holiday his son Vladimir, who was serving…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
PATRON STROGANOV
This governor's influence on local life showed itself less in Kharkiv's public improvements than in Kharkiv manners. According to the historian D. Bagaley, under Count A. Stroganov our city…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
EMBEZZLER
Of Kharkiv Governor Nikolai Dolgorukov (of an ancient princely line) a contemporary left these memories: "A grandee in the full sense and a sybarite, yet a kind man who wished harm to no one…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
FROM LIFE
In the mid-1850s the artist V. Mechnikov appeared in Kharkiv. He stopped here en route from St. Petersburg to his wealthy parents' estate in Kherson province…
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Rumorsбез даты · Промышленный
DOUBLE BOTTOM
The fine mansion on Darwin Street (formerly Sado-Kulikovskaya), now home to the Architects' House, once belonged to the wealthy merchant Ryzhov. He was a horse breeder and founder of a rail-and-ware…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
TWO HALVES
The townspeople were split into two parts, sharply unlike each other. The first comprised people blessed with noble birth, class privileges, or wealth. They were the minority, al…
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Talesбез даты · Холодная Гора
ON A DAY OFF
"Besides suburban taverns, Kharkiv residents' favorite pastime was the Kuryazh Monastery eight versts from town and the women's Khoroshev Monastery fifteen versts away. From the very be…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
IN TWO FACES
"This gentleman is quite another sort: mild, courteous, pious, and one who tracks down peasants at investigations—without raising his voice or removing his gloves" (I. Turgenev). "A man of independent means, he indulges…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
TREATMENT ... WITH BIRCH RODS
From the police yard came groans and the swish of birch rods. — Who's that? — townspeople wondered. — The district officer is treating his maid Dashka. — With rods? The sixteen-year-old maid of the district supervisor…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
FOR FREE!
As late as the mid-nineteenth century Kharkiv had no banks where one could keep or borrow money. Individual merchants handled that, lending on credit. One…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
IT STINKS!
Early on Saturdays and Sundays residents of the outskirts and suburbs converged on Kharkiv from all sides—to the market, to sell oats, flour, poultry, vegetables, and other farm produce. A verst from town…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
VICTIMS OF FRAUD
Recruiters seek out pretty girls and invite them to perform in café-chantants and other entertainment venues. They promise high pay, fashionable clothes, cosmetics, fine food…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
BOOTS LIKE THESE!
On Sumska Street stood a wooden hut with three windows; on the gate hung a sign: "Cobbler sews boots. Puzankov." He was a sober, hardworking craftsman whose hands…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
HE CHOSE PRISON
Old Believer merchant Gvozdev served as guardian to the merchant Kozhanchikov children. He owed them thirty thousand rubles; they asked him to return at least ten thousand, promising to forgive the rest…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
TO THE UPDDU
The respected city head Kostyurin was famed for his hospitality. Anyone who entered his office or home could hardly leave sober. Kostyurin especially loved celebrating his birthday…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
FORERUNNER OF THE SOBERING-UP STATION
From ten in the evening police under a district supervisor made the nightly rounds. They walked the streets until dawn and hauled to the station everyone they found "inebriated." Yet…
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Rumorsбез даты · Холодная Гора
SHAVED NAPE
District supervisor Dudyshkin was a widower, fifty years old, with three children. Life alone wearied him and he decided to marry again. Below Kholodna Hora near Karpovsky Garden in his own…
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Rumorsбез даты · Холодная Гора
BEAR FOSTERERS
Kharkiv had rich merchants nicknamed "bear fosterers." The name came about thus. Somewhere in the Caucasus (supposedly Nakhichevan) lay a cellar guarded above by a huge bear. And…
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Place-namesбез даты · Холодная Гора
FISTFIGHTS
With little else for amusement, fistfights were a common pleasure for Kharkiv townsfolk. Beyond Mariinsky Bridge on the Netech ice, boys gathered in clusters and, as if warming themselves in…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
HE BURNED THE MANUSCRIPT
P. I. Sereda held a master's degree in history and philosophy. He owned five hundred serfs yet lived in four rooms, one occupied by a servant. His doors were always open to students…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
NO POOR STUDENTS!
Once a very wealthy landowner—also marshal of the nobility—Bakhmetiev at the start of Great Lent sent the rector of Kharkiv University five hundred rubles with a request to find three poor students…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
HONORARY CITIZEN
City historian D. I. Bagaley wrote of him: "Youth (he came to Kharkiv at thirty-one), wealth, and independent status let Durnovo be useful to people. And he was useful when…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
ON THE LOVER'S TRAIL
In the town of Bakhmut (now Artemivsk) in Donetsk region lived a couple with four children—all sons. Their tutor was Kharkiv student Pavel Zavadsky. The mother, E. S. Garshina, fell in love with the student…
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RumorsXIX век · Харьков
WITHOUT WITNESSES
1868. At an ordinary session of the Valky district court a criminal case was heard. It turned out witnesses had not been summoned. — We'll manage! — the presiding judge declared flatly…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Промышленный
SELFLESS SERVICE
From the service record of Court Counselor, nobleman A. E. Kovalev: — official of the Kharkiv Chamber of Privileges; — provincial secretary; — excise official of the Kharkiv Treasury Chamber; — official of the Dep…
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TalesXIX век · Холодная Гора
UNPRECEDENTED MONSTER
On 22 May 1869 a crowd of townspeople stirred: first a whistle, then clouds of smoke, and from them—as a reporter of the day put it—emerged an unprecedented monster. Its…
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TalesXIX век · Промышленный
BALLOON IN THE SKY
Ochakiv peasants watched fearfully as a large balloon flew straight toward them. It approached quickly, lost height, and came down in the woods. Onlookers rode up and saw a man trying to drag the balloon into…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
A TURK IN KHARKIV
I traveled several times to Bulgaria for the famous satire and humor festival in Gabrovo. Organizers arranged excursions, including to Pleven, steeped in the glory of Russian arms. Fam…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
BUSINESS AT HOME
Today one often meets scholars or artists who have turned to commerce (mostly out of necessity). Yet a similar case from a century and a half ago exists. At the university…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
FROM THE UNDERGROUND
From time to time well-wishers warned Kh. D. Alchevskaya that a search was coming, and classes paused. By order from the capital, Sunday schools in the country had been banned…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
WHO TO PRAY TO?
Entering church, parishioners crossed themselves before new icons, yet often their hand froze halfway. In the saints' faces they recognized locals, Chuhuiv residents, often noted for less than saintly…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
OUT OF HIS ELEMENT
In a shop on Pavlov Square a company sat mocking engineer Redyugin. He constantly approached wealthy merchants with schemes—to start a factory or some enterprise.…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Холодная Гора
THE NAIL'S BLOW
On his way to a fistfight at Ivanovka meadow, Zagiba met acquaintance Ulya, who pleaded: — Pavel Ilyich, don't go to the fists today! Reassuring her, he went on. At that…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
A BEQUEST TO THE CITY
I was always struck by the massive building at the start of Pushkinska, home to the Mechnikov Institute: breaking the street's straight line (small wonder—the Germans settled it!), it juts out almost…
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Place-namesXIX век · Алексеевка
ALEXANDER II: "VERY SORRY!"
Kharkiv Governor Prince Dmitry Kropotkin was returning home at night after a ball at the Institute for Noble Maidens. Near his house on Hubernatorska, behind an old giant poplar, a man lay in wait…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Харьков
A FAILED ATTEMPT
Along Zmiiv Road at the city exit a troika raced under gendarme escort. A britzka overtook it; two armed men leaped out. One ordered the driver to stop. He…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
ALL-POWERFUL
In youth M. Loris-Melikov befriended the young poet N. Nekrasov and for a time shared a room in St. Petersburg. After military training the count was sent to the Caucasus…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
CHEAP LUNCHES
Who does not know A. Lushkin's famous epigram: At the Academy of Sciences sits Prince Dunduk. They say Dunduk should not have such honor—why does he sit there? Because... he eats. The epigram's hero Prince M…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
FROM KHARKIV TO HARD LABOR
"On the morning of 10 February (1883—Author) I looked at the clock: it was eight, and I left home. I had not taken ten steps when I came face to face with Merkulov (a former member of a terrorist organization…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
BETWEEN TRAINS
"In Kharkiv, between two trains, I had time to ride into town. Passing the theater I saw Eugene Onegin announced for that evening. I longed to stay, especially as Kharkiv generally appealed to me…
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LegendsXIX век · Центр
STEAL LESS!
It happened on the morning of 17 October 1888 near Borki. On a curve a rail came loose from the wheels of a fast train. The locomotive skewed and dug into the ground; cars overturned…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
AFTER THE BITE
In childhood a peer—a courtyard friend—once invited me to his birthday. While in the living room /22
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF L. TOLSTOY
Once the writer received a letter: "It will soon be two years since I gave up government service, less from conviction than from knowing how shaky convictions are. One cannot move, let alone…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
SPRING SONG
In April 1889 a new patient arrived at Alexandrovskaya Hospital on Blagoveshchenskaya Street (now K. Marx Street)—an eighteen-year-old girl from Volhynia. The building had formerly housed the Institute for…
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TalesXIX век · Основа
UNDER THREAT OF EXPULSION
A seventh-year pupil of the Second Kharkiv Gymnasium sat in class in torment. A meeting had just forbidden gymnasium students, on pain of expulsion, to attend theaters…
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RumorsXIX век · Харьков
A TERRIBLE MINUTE
The audience gathered in Kharkiv Drama Theater on 4 November 1881 watched Ostrovsky and Gedeonov's Vasilisa Melentieva. The hall was full—the lead, a bold, clever young woman…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
OPEN HOUSE
Such a day existed in the prison—daily. From morning until eleven at night the cells stood open; inmates could talk freely and meet relatives. Among the prisoners was…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
DEVOTEES OF KIF
"In the university garden, on the left of the main alley leading to Klochkovska Street, on the children's playground a private entrepreneur set up a ca…
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Rumorsначало XX века · Центр
STARS IN THE WINDOW
A unique building in Zaikovka—a Christian church adorned with six-pointed stars. Paint-factory owner Grigory Osipovich Goldberg built it at his own expense, whence the church…
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RumorsXVIII век · Холодная Гора
MIRACLES DID NOT SAVE HER
The chief shrine of our region was the icon of the Ozeryany Mother of God. In "miracle-working" it supposedly yielded only to the empire's chief icon—the Kazan Mother of God. Its origin…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
WHAT KINDS OF TRIANGLES ARE THERE?
Another examinee entered the hall, no longer young. Pale, he tugged his gray mustache, wiped sweat from his brow, muttered—but could answer no question. To…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
CLOCKS AND TIME
The old house at today's Constitution Square and Moscow Prospect corner is known for the "tasty" shop Eastern Sweets. A bit down the prospect is the Ukrainian… shop.…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
THE FIRST WOMAN
The Russian North was long a place of exile. Slobozhansky ethnographer P. Yefimenko was sent there for politics. In Lomonosov's homeland, Kholmogory, he met a young teacher, a native of…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
HE TOOK ANOTHER PATH
Yuly Bunin lived in Moscow, studied, and led revolutionary work among students. The authorities disliked it and exiled him to Kharkiv. There, in banishment, Bunin transferred to the local university and continued…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
A LADY IN DIAMONDS
"An actress of external means that perfectly reproduce the essence and details of boudoir-and-boulevard life... Roles lack depth, creative spark, living truth"—wrote a reviewer in the press…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
A MERCHANT'S WILL
In 1894 died one of our city's wealthiest citizens, first-guild merchant V. I. Pashchenko-Tryapkin. From the village of Peresechnoye in Kharkiv province, he entered service with a Moscow merchant as a boy…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Центр
THE FIRST REEL
A railway platform. A train approaches. The locomotive, growing ever larger, moves straight at the audience. Black smoke pours from its huge stack. Viewers leap up in fright and rush for the exit…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Павлово Поле
HE SPOILED THE SONG
Chaliapin sang "Nochenka." His eyes were closed; listeners stood enchanted. Suddenly a footman entered and asked the singer something. Annoyed, he broke off, cursed the footman, and shook his fist. "Ah,…
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AnecdotesXIX век · Харьков
A MUSICAL LUNCHEON
An unusual reception took place on 15 March 1893 at the home of Kharkiv Music School director Ilya Slatin, who invited fellow teachers. The lunch honored the most distinguished guest—…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Харьков
UNDER THE CITY HEAD'S PATRONAGE
Do any Kharkiv residents today remember crowds breaking down doors for concerts? Not pop—symphonic. Yet at the century's start it happened, for instance when S. Rachmanin… visited.…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
BEHIND HIS BACK
Late in the evening a group of students burst into the medical club on Yekaterinoslavska Street, where a banquet was underway. They grabbed the guest of honor, pulled him from the table, carried him outside and…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
A CLASSIC FROM VOLCHANSK
I do not know whether the mighty pine forest near Derhachi has survived to our day. Local agricultural school students planted it at the very end of the nineteenth century. Among them was Kostya Trenev, who later became…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
CIRCUMVENTING THE AUTHORITIES
Despite the government's strict ban on erecting monuments to T. Shevchenko, one appeared in Kharkiv in 1899—in the very center of the city! The authorities could do nothing, since it stood on…
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Talesначало XX века · Центр
THE PEARL OF ZALOPAN
When you look from University Hill at the panorama of the Zalopan part of the city, what catches the eye first is the Annunciation Cathedral. It draws you with its scale and inventive architecture…
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Rumorsначало XX века · Центр
UNDER A TRAIN
On the platform of Warsaw Station in St. Petersburg stood a solid gentleman of advanced years. When the train approached, he threw himself under the wheels. The incident, which became known throughout Russia, occurred…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
A WOMAN SAVED HIM
1902. Kharkiv's Tivoli Garden (part of the site is now occupied by the new opera house). When in the evening Governor Prince I. Obolensky left the hall after a performance, he was shot at from a br…
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Legendsначало XX века · Холодная Гора
A LIFE OF STRUGGLE
Spring 1904. University Garden. Among the strolling public—a group of gentlemen. To look at them, one could never guess that these respectably conversing men were leaders of Russian revolutionary terrorists…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Центр
ATTEMPT ON... PUSHKIN
On the night of October 31 a powerful explosion rang out in the very center of Kharkiv, heard in distant parts of the city. The blast wave shattered many windowpanes and left a fairly deep…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Харьков
DUNG ON ZHANDARMSKA
Zhandarska was the old name of the square now named for the Red Militiaman, where the historic fire station with its watchtower stands on Poltavsky Shlyakh Street. Once, toward the end of the nineteenth cent…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
FIRST AND LAST ON THE FREE STAGE
Gluck's violin Melody moved the audience at the Small Theater on Kharkiv Embankment to tears. The guest from St. Petersburg, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, played Nora—the heroine of the eponymous dra…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
THE PUBLIC'S FAVORITE
Among the tenants of the multistory apartment house at Sumska 6 at the century's start stood out an impetuous young man who seemed not to live but to be intoxicated by life. He dressed with refined taste and had a solid…
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Rumorsначало XX века · Центр
TRAM OR HORSE TRAM?
The early twentieth century. Rails were laid along Pushkinska, Sumska, and other main arteries. On some lines trams clanged; on others crept cars drawn by horse power in the literal…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
AFTER THE REVOLUTION—INTO RETIREMENT
"General Peshkov's selfless activity and the willpower and tact he showed greatly helped preserve order and calm in Kharkiv province"—thus the Russian interior minister…
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Talesначало XX века · Центр
A SHOT IN THE BACK
The Kharkiv Medical Society had a country house with farm outbuildings outside the city. In October 1907 oats vanished from the barn—they fed the horses that carried the doctors. At the dacha…
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Anecdotesначало XX века · Харьков
FATEFUL BULLET
At seven in the morning in May 1908 a shot rang out in a private room of one of Kharkiv's private hospitals. Wh-
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
THE SWEET LIFE
The compiler of this collection nostalgically recalls his youth when the family's favorite (and quite affordable) treat was the Delis—a chocolate wafer cake. Such cakes were made in various sizes…
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Rumorsначало XX века · Харьков
KING OF LAUGHTER
"Having written four stories in two years, I decided I had done enough for native literature and meant to rest properly—but 1905 rolled in and, picking me up, spun me like a chip. I st…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Харьков
BLUE EYE
These words beside a symbolic eye appeared on theater notices, posters, and in the old Kharkiv papers Yuzhny krai and Utro. That was the name of a theater operating here in 1909–1911…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Центр
UNDERGROUND KHARKIV
In 1913 in the courtyard of the Commercial Club on Rymarska Street (now the regional philharmonic) one could watch a curious spectacle. A group of people followed the actions of a man with a detached air…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
YELLOW JUMPER
January 1913. Kharkiv Public Library (now named for V. G. Korolenko). An poetry evening. Guests from Moscow perform—the poets Vasily Kamensky, David Burliuk, our fellow townsman, and twenty-year-old Vladimir…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
TO ARMS!
What connection could there be between the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in Odessa in 1905 and our city? A direct one! Our fellow townsman Afanasy Matyushenko led the revolt. He spent his childhood in Derhachi. When…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
MUSIC IN STONE
Kharkiv is unimaginable without the Law Academy (former Commercial School), the motor transport college (former Land Bank), the puppet theater (former Volga-Kama Bank), the institute named for M…
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Legendsбез даты · Салтовка
THEY PICKED THE WRONG MAN
One night on the street robbers set upon a respectably dressed gentleman. After beating him soundly they began to strip him—but the moon peeked from behind a cloud and one robber cried: — Wait, brothers!…
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Anecdotesначало XX века · Центр
LIKE IN GERMANY
The unkempt Blagoveshchensky Market long vexed city head A. K. Pogorelko, and he planned to set it in order. In Germany the mayor found a solution to the prob…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
DAISY DAY
Once a year carriages and automobiles decorated with daisies rolled through Kharkiv's streets. The flower sold everywhere: Mykolaivska and Pavlovska squares, Sumska, Moskovska, Katerynoslavska…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
SAVING THE STANDARD
Kharkiv residents had to cover an army corps' retreat. The fight on the Ekau River on 12 August was especially heavy. For twenty-four hours under steady fire the regiment slowly fell back from position to position…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
FOUR AND A HALF
A platoon leader in the training detachment at Izium was a noncommissioned officer nicknamed Four and a Half. They called him that because the index finger on his right hand was half short. He often joked…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
A crowd watched the pilot seat a girl in the cockpit, then climb in himself. One needed full faith in the machine to lift one's daughter into the air—especially as the airplane was of his own design…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
A HEAD FOR ALL HEADS!
In 1918 Hetman P. Skoropadsky offered D. I. Bagaley the premiership, but he declined—by then disillusioned with politics. Yet Bagaley had administrative experience as Dmyt…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Промышленный
A DEFECT OF VISION
In October 1917 a patient was treated at Hirshman's Kharkiv eye clinic. She had damaged her sight preparing a terrorist act in Kyiv in 1906—the bomb exploded…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
AIDE-DE-CAMP TO HIS EXCELLENCY
On 24 June 1919 Volunteer Army units entered Kharkiv. They were greeted with flowers and solemn bell-ringing. A service was held in the cathedral for the "miraculous deliverance of the ancient Orthodox…
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RumorsXIX век · Промышленный
ARMORED MONSTER
The hulk near the history museum looks strange, like a huge riveted iron box. It is one of the first tanks mastered by world military industry. Its homeland…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
A WHITE GUARD'S FIND
1919. Kharkiv region was held by General Denikin's Volunteer Army. Colonel Isenberg passed through Velykyi Burluk village. He decided to look into local landowner Zadonsky's estate. It lay in ruins…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
GIVE THE HEART ITS FREEDOM...
After the revolution, peasants from neighboring villages descended on the Zatyshok farmstead in Kharkiv region, looted the manor house, and then burned it. The owner did not witness the vandalism, since before…
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TalesXIX век · Харьков
A DOCTOR IN POWER
This man studied medicine in Geneva and Zurich, where he encountered psychoanalysis; he spent the last two years of his studies in France. He completed his medical education in 1897 with a doctoral diss…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
REPRRESSED POSTHUMOUSLY
One morning, passing the small square where Hirshman, Chernyshevsky, and Artema streets meet, Kharkiv residents were surprised: the monument that had stood in the middle was gone. The official version said it had been accidentally… at night.
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
BALM FOR LENIN
On January 22, 1924, Vladimir Lenin died. Just two days later the Council of People’s Commissars decided to embalm the body. Specialists carried out the operation, yet Kharkiv professor-anatomist V.P. Vorobyov expressed…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
CITIZEN OF THE SKY
1920. A detachment of Red Army men stopped by the observatory in University Garden. They were met by the director—a young man. The commander asked to hear about astronomy and see the instruments. — Not here…
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Anecdotesсоветский Харьков · Центр
FOR THE FINGER — TO COURT!
November 7, 1924. The traditional city demonstration marking another anniversary of October. From all sides columns of marchers with portraits and banners converged on Tevelev Square (now Const…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
UNDER ANOTHER NAME
In the First World War A. Sharghei served at the front, then joined the White Army. He did not stay long and after Soviet power was established turned to peaceful work. Yet he constantly lived under the threat that White Guard…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
KHARKIV FORGED AND RAISED ME
“On the Square” was and remains the most famous poem of the Civil War years—this poetic masterpiece embodied the essence of those events. Its author was the then very young Pavlo Tych…
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TalesXIX век · Центр
FROM THE NOBILITY? REFUSE!
A girl came to the admissions committee of Kharkiv University (after the revolution it was called the Kharkiv Institute of Public Education)—among other applicants submitting documents. — Your surname?…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
RETURN
“Sadovsky returned to Ukraine from emigration. He was allowed to perform in Kharkiv only once. The Franko Theater—that is, H. Yura’s company—was staging The Inspector General. There was no publicity: an ordinary poster on…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
COMINTERN TOWER
A structure of metal shapes and strips forming a double spiral that twists swiftly upward around the inclined axis of the building. The angle of the axis matches the tilt of the earth’s axis, the spir…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
A POEM ON AN EMPTY STOMACH
One April day in 1920 the poet woke up and a poem was born right there in bed. An hour later he was already reading it to his hosts (on Rybna Street—now Kooperatyvna): In an autumnal way it screeches…
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Anecdotesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
POLUNDRA
It was early spring 1920, warm sunny weather. Townspeople celebrated Easter and unhurriedly returned from churches—there were about a dozen in the city center alone. In Theater Square…
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Talesначало XX века · Харьков
CHAIRMAN OF THE GLOBE
In May 1920 Kharkiv elected a Chairman of the Globe. The famous futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov became him, swept by the waves of civil war into the capital of Ukraine. At first he was appoint…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
SEREZHA, SORRY...
It happened during one of Sergei Yesenin’s visits to Kharkiv. Glancing into his pocket watch one day, he found his “onion” missing. Of course the guest was not pleased—and did not notice how he st…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
ONE MACHINE IS JUST A MACHINE...
“I remember Kharkiv in mid-December 1921 vividly. Vladimir Vladimirovich and I wandered through the winter city on the ice, talking as we walked about many things: streets, poets. I recall, at Univers…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
V. Mayakovsky was active in what was then the capital of Ukraine, working as a screenwriter with the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration (VUFKU), and therefore felt quite comfortable materially in our city.…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Промышленный
THE POET UNDER THE TABLE
"We opened the House of the Blue One—our writers' club, but the room set aside for billiards turned out too small for a proper table—we had to find a cabinet-sized one. Such tables, as if on purpose, were n…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
FEED ME!
The young but ambitious Kharkiv poet Mykhailo Holodny dreamed of meeting V. Mayakovsky, but nothing worked out. He was unlucky enough not to meet him even during one of Mayakovsky's visits…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
A CHARACTER OF MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
Two Red Army soldiers, aiming to raise their cultural level, received an order from their commander to go to the opera, and afterward naively describe their impressions: "And the orchestra is frying. Next—…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Павлово Поле
TO HELP THE STARVING
Alexei Pavlovich lived and worked in the North. Friends had often invited him to Kharkiv, and he finally decided, on Gorky's advice, to accept the invitation. Our city appeared before the writer gray and…
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Place-namesбез даты · Промышленный
DISCOUNT FOR OUR OWN
As I understand it, one variety of so-called discount is the following. If a client concludes a service contract with a particular firm (for example, a contract to use a system of e…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Центр
WITHOUT BRAKES
City residents witnessed a terrible scene: a tram raced down Pushkinska at full speed without stopping, and overturned at the turn toward the Korolenko library. People died, including the conduc…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
THEY CALLED HIM DUNYA
A boy appeared before the director of the Kharkiv Music College, Ilya Ilyich Slatin.
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
HELLO, THIS IS KHARK1V SPEAKING!
During one of his trips to Moscow, Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars V. Chubar met specially with V. I. Lenin to report on the development of radio engineering in Kharkiv. The leader was very interested in this issue…
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Place-namesXIX век · Харьков
GEORGE GERSHWIN'S TEACHER
The genius founder of the theory of relativity himself bowed before this man, saying that he had done in music what he, Einstein, had done in physics. They met at an experimental research…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
SURPASSING THE AUTHOR HIMSELF
The favorite composer of the famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz was Sergei Rachmaninoff, close to him in the romantic nature of his work. The nineteen-year-old performer dedicated to him his first Kharkiv c…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
AN UNLUCKY DAY
The hall was full; the famous humorist writer was greeted with a storm of applause. The audience, used to reciters performing his works, anticipated: if they read so amusingly, what would the author himself reveal…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
TOWARD "TWO FIGHTERS"
An energetic young man entered the office of Commander V. K. Blücher, who was then quartered in Kharkiv. He asked to be given a military unit along with combat equipment at his disposal. The command…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
BUTI-MUTI
Practical chemistry classes were underway at Kharkiv University (then called the Institute of Public Education). Explaining a certain chemical reaction to the students, the professor mixed ingredients in a flask…
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AnecdotesВИШНЕВ1 УСМ1ШКИ · без даты · Центр
NEITHER DOWN NOR FEATHER
A stocky man in a quilted jacket and full hunting gear walked through Blagbaz: cartridge belt, shotgun over his shoulders. His high rubber boots were smeared with marsh mud. Finding the rows where p…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
ACQUAINTED WITH TARAS BULBA
At the start of collectivization a group of Kharkiv writers came to perform in a village. A local man approached Ostap Vyshnia: "Got a light!" he demanded flatly. Pavlo Mykhailovych gave him matches and p…
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Rumorsбез даты · Харьков
TAIL ON THE GROUND
Once Ostap Vyshnia came to rest in Dvurechne in the Kharkiv region with his friends: writers Oles Dosvitny, Hryhorii Epik, Mykola Kulish, and actor Amvrosii Buchma. At dawn they set out…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
A NOTE FROM A HARE
On a fine winter day a party of hunting enthusiasts moved along fresh powder snow: Vyshnia, Buchma, Yohansen, Slesarenko, Smolych. Smolych had a brand-new shotgun and was eager to celebrate the purchase with game. P…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
AN INCIDENT IN A CARRIAGE
Once Pavlo Mykhailovych saw off a group of actor friends at the station—they were leaving Kharkiv for Sumy on tour. They said goodbye in the carriage. They talked so much they did not notice the train moving off. Then the conduct…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
HARE'S BELL
Ostap Vyshnia found preparing for the hunt no less satisfying than the hunt itself. Preparations were thorough and long in advance. The entire Writers' Union always knew about it beforehand. Often his partner…
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Talesбез даты · Промышленный
A BOMB FOR THE CONSUL
After some banquet late in the evening a company of humorist writers was returning: Ostap Vyshnia, his brother Vasyl Chechviansky, and Yurii Vukhnal. Everyone was in a merry, lively mood. They passed a house…
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Anecdotesначало XX века · Харьков
SOVIET BORSCHT
In the early 1930s, through official propaganda, the word "Ukrainian" came to be used only together with "bourgeois nationalism." The phrase "Ukrainian…" became commonplace…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
A FALSE SUMMONS
In early December 1933 Ostap Vyshnia received a telegram from a gamekeeper he knew. The man invited him to his district for a hunt, promising especially good game. Pavlo Mykhailovych was tempted by the offer and st…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
IN THE FRESH AIR
In December 1933 the GPU arrested Ostap Vyshnia. The investigator charged him with membership in the UVO—the Ukrainian Military Organization (which did not actually exist). Specifically he accused him of preparing…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
AND WHAT ARE YOU IN FOR?
Once in the camp Ostap Vyshnia chatted with one of the newcomers—a former village council chairman. "What are you in for?" he asked. "For Ostap Vyshnia." "What do you mean, for Ostap Vyshnia?" the writ…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
LET HIM MAKE THE PEOPLE LAUGH
In late summer 1943 Stalin met with the head of the Ukrainian government, Korniichuk. After discussing the restoration of the republic's industry and agriculture, the leader unexpectedly turned…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
AND YOU'RE NOT ASHAMED?
In October 1943 Ostap Vyshnia was summoned to the camp commandant. He ordered him to pack his things and, as required, take a bath first. The writer understood he was being sent somewhere. Then, under escort…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
NOW IT'S MY TURN
The early 1950s. Ostap Vyshnia came on assignment from Kyiv to Kharkiv as a correspondent for the newspaper "Radanska Ukraina"—as it was then officially called—to cover the regional exhibition of achievements…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
NOTHING BUT HUMOR
When he came to Kharkiv after the war, Ostap Vyshnia stayed at his younger sister Maria's apartment. Once she saw her brother leafing through a thick book and laughing. "What are you reading?" she asked…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
DOWN WITH SHAME!
In the early 1920s, during NEP, a liberal ideological enlightenment arose when almost everything was permitted except open counter-revolution. The works and ideas of Nietzsche, Фрейда, and theories of free…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
WHERE WAS STEEL TEMPERED?
This trial took place in 1926 in one of the wards of the Ukrainian Medical and Mechanical Institute (now the N. Sytenko Institute of Spine and Joint Pathology). Here a blind and paralyzed man as a result of inj…
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Rumorsсоветский Харьков · Центр
A BERRY OF LOVE
From the train car that arrived in Kharkiv stepped a young man, slender, high-foreheaded, in a felt hat and open gray herringbone coat, with an à la apache shirt visible beneath. This was a former secret…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
UPSIDE DOWN
"Vyshnia still lived then at the end of Sumska, in a large art nouveau house on the fifth floor. His apartment consisted of one huge room, but there was little furniture; quite a crowd burst in—twenty souls…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Центр
NO SQUEAKING!
In March 1926 a telegram arrived at the building on Artem Street from Poltava region: "Kharkiv Narcompros We urgently ask you to relay to Kuryazh that we may soon additionally fund the sowing estimate General meeting…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Центр
PARNASSUS ON END
In 1925 an unusual book appeared from the Kharkiv publisher "Kosmos." On its cover a rearing Pegasus was shown, and from it fell a bespectacled writer with a quill behind his ear. The title was a re…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
LIFE WAS BOILING...
"It was a cozy two-story mansion with a high, spacious 're-de-chaussee.' On the first floor a passage from the vestibule left led to the blue drawing room and on—to the library, reading room, director's office and his ap…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
ESCAPE FROM THE MADHOUSE
Late at night (1930) the poet was brought to Saburova Dacha—as people called the Kharkiv psychiatric hospital (after the former estate owner's surname). He was agitated, swearing, threatening. Orderlies subdued him…
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Legendsбез даты · Харьков
A KISS ON THE HAND
A group of writers came to a literary evening at the H. Skovoroda Pedagogical Institute. They went on stage. They had their own order of appearances, but the hall thundered: "Sosiura! Sosiura!.." Vladimir Mykola…
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
WHO KNOWS...
The popular Ukrainian humorist writer Oleksandr Kovinka lived in Poltava but often in the 1920s visited the then capital of the republic on literary business. And once he is walking along one of Kharkiv's…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
LICK THE BELLY
The opera house was full—many music lovers came to hear the guest artist, a famous tenor. He appeared on stage in one of his signature roles—Lensky in Eugene Onegin. And then the audience was in for a sur…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
MEETING WITH THE ATAMAN
"The lad set down his pen and looked at the man who wanted to greet him. Then this happened. For a moment the lad froze, his gaze locked on the figure of the newcomer. He stared without looking away, and it seemed…
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Place-namesначало XX века · Харьков
THE HUMAN POSTER
Once at a concert Марк Бернес began to talk about himself: "I was born in Nizhyn, I grew up in Kharkiv..." Then a man rose from the hall and said loudly: "Don't lie, you were born in Odesa!" After the concert he broke through…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
THERE WAS PLACE TO LAUGH...
In the capital Kharkiv there was plenty to do—where to go in the evening or on a day off to laugh and relax. The city had many concert venues, variety and miniature theaters, café-chantants and cabarets…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
IN "THE TWELVE CHAIRS"
"A noisy city—the center of the Ukrainian republic. After the provinces it seems as if you've gone abroad," wrote a certain traveler in cassock to his wife Kateryna Oleksandrivna while at the Kharkiv station…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
SONG IS A SHOW
"I was born and grew up in Ukraine, in the city of Kharkiv, on Volodymyrska Street, house 45, apartment 6. When my parents went visiting or to the theater and I had to stay alone, I turned on the lights in all the r…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
THEY MET AT "TIVOLI"
Autumn 1929. The summer garden "Tivoli." The popular couplet singer from Odesa Vladimir Koralli was performing. Not for the first time his attention was drawn to a girl who regularly attended his concerts and took a seat…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
AN ORGANIZED CROWD
In the still-famous Soviet silent film "Fragment of an Empire" there is a shot: a peasant who has entered a big city for the first time stares in shock at a huge concrete building. This episode was filmed…
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Rumorsначало XX века · Харьков
STALIN IN A CUBE
For all the pragmatism of his refined mind, Stalin was at the same time quite superstitious and wary of all sorts of fortune-tellers and enchanted places, especially if it could somehow concern…
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
ON BONES
I remember that long after the war the tram stop near the large grocery store on Pushkinska was still called "Kaplunovska." I did not understand why, and then learned that the building once stood where Kapluno…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
IN THE SAME LEAGUE AS ARCHIMEDES
Once in the early 1930s a schoolteacher came to the Kharkiv Institute of Mathematics with a teenager. "Sorry to bother you, but it seems to me this pupil has extraordinary abilities.…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Пятихатки
SPLITTING THE ATOM
Residents of Tchaikovsky, Lermontov, and Yuma streets were surprised—their neighborhood was somehow cordoned off by the NKVD. The cordon lasted several hours, then was lifted. About what happened…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
QUEEN OF BEASTS
Visitors to the Kharkiv circus watched the ring in admiration. Obeying the trainer, lions rode horses, walked the tightrope, jumped through burning hoops. The lion tamer laid them down…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
CROSSED OFF THE LIST
In 1934 the very first group of outstanding Soviet athletes was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sport. Among the Kharkiv residents on the list was the legendary footballer Mykola Krotov. This supported…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
NOT FUNNY
1933. The railway workers' club on Kotlov Street (formerly Bolshaya Panasovska). This building of original architecture had just been erected, and the management tried hard to draw the public there. That evening…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
THE LEADER'S LAST "WORD"
In the late 1920s and 1930s Kharkiv saw massive industrial and housing construction. Workers and employees moved from shacks and communal flats into comfortable buildings. They decided to acquire their own…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
BIRTH OF A GIANT
In October 1931 the giant of socialist industry—the Kharkiv Tractor Plant—was commissioned. It was the country's greatest event. A solemn meeting and awards for the builders took pl…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
DOWN WITH MOSCOW!
On the morning of May 13, 1933, Mykola Khvylovy gathered his closest writer friends in his apartment in the Slovo building. He treated them to tea, joked, played guitar, recited. Then he went into his study. A sh…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
ADVERTISING BY KULISH
In the second half of the 1920s Kharkiv had two powerful semi-cooperative or semi-concession trade organizations: "Larek" and "Tserabkoop" (Central Workers' Cooperative). They fiercely…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
THE SIMPLER WAY
Writers and artists managed to live only a few years in the spacious apartments of the Slovo building—in the early 1930s, accused of membership in fictitious terrorist organizations, they were forced to…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
RETURN OUR PASSPORTS!
All wives of writers arrested in 1933 were immediately dismissed from work; they received notices that within three days they and their children must leave their apartments and leave Ukraine without pa…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
SUICIDE IN GOSPROM
Having landed in prison again, Mykola began to think how to escape. He inspected his cell and came up with a plan! At the first light he climbed into the chimney and, bracing with hands, feet, and back against the walls, st…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
FAREWELL, CAPITAL!
June 9, 1934. The central Ukrainian party newspaper "Proletarian" published a report: "Comrade Постишев walks along the rows of those seeing him off. And there are many of them—along the entire platform in dense ranks st…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
KOBZAR ON HIGH
On March 24, 1935, a crowd gathered in University Garden from the Sumska side. Speeches were made, the orchestra played the "Internationale," and a combined choir with the Dumka chapel performed "Zapovit." The People's Commissar of Enlighten…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Пятихатки
MORE PRECISE THAN THE AMERICANS
In the early 1930s a group of U.S. physicists led by the future "father" of the American hydrogen bomb, E. Teller, conducted an important experiment: they determined the nuclear magnetic resonance time of dielectrics at low temper…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
THANKS FOR THE GREETING
"Shortly before the Great Patriotic War the American writer Erskine Caldwell visited Kharkiv. Four Kharkiv writers came to the station to meet the foreign guest. Among them only Yurii Ko…
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Talesбез даты · Центр
I GREW UP AT THE BIG MARKET...
He fell in love with that girl still at school. When after graduation she left for Moscow, the young man followed her. To gain a foothold in the capital he entered law school there. He wrote poetry for himself. Wh…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
WITHOUT NAMING SURNAMES
In the middle of the night writer V. Mysyk heard a knock. He opened the door. On the landing stood three men in NKVD uniforms—an officer and two soldiers. "Where is your neighbor?" the commander asked. "Which one?" "The one who lives above you." "I have no idea…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
BRANDED WITH A CURSE
In Soviet times party meetings, congresses, and similar official events had to be opened and closed with a collective performance of the party anthem "The Internationale." And not only the party anthem—in 191…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
MAY TRAVEL NORTH!
A young woman doctor glanced at the next patient—a bald man over sixty, limping badly on one leg. After a cursory look she wrote the standard phrase: "May travel…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
NIGHT RUN
In March 1940 two tanks left the gates of the Kharkiv Locomotive Works. But instead of heading for the training ground they set course for Moscow. For more than a day in bitter frost and blizzard through snow-covered…
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Legendsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
INVISIBLE TARGET
During a test flight the pilot decided to shorten the program and flew one leg fewer. When he landed, the commander reprimanded him for it. The pilot was greatly surprised: after all his machine…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
PEOPLE AND BEASTS
October 1941. At night, under cover of darkness, several trucks with dimmed headlights entered the Kharkiv zoo. A group of soldiers got out. In a secluded spot, closer to the bot…
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
DESTROY THE VERMIN!
When he came with his company on tour to Kharkiv, People's Artist of the USSR S. Mikhoels liked to visit the zoo. Of all the predators there he singled out an old lion named Solomon. The artist was drawn…
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Rumorsбез даты · Харьков
ON SCREEN AND IN THE BOOK
In Leonid Lukov's unforgettable wartime film "Two Fighters" there is an episode in which a German radio operator, in besieged Leningrad, directs his artillery and aircraft onto city targets. In this role…
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
SAVE THE LIBRARY
Given the importance of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, the occupiers sent there a special Sonder commando that included scientists. To his surprise, a German major met there his former…
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Place-namesновейшее время · Центр
OPERATION "TRAP"
Having placed their headquarters in the building of the former Kharkiv Military District staff on Rudnev Square, the Hitlerites began looking for quarters for the commander of the 68th Infantry Division, General Georg von Braun. They settled on…
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Anecdotesсоветский Харьков · Окрестности
DEATH TO THE VULTURES!
In 1943 over Kharkiv his plane was met by fascist vultures. Three of them fell victim to our ace. The first Junkers crashed over Rohan, the second over Merefa, the third over Danylivka. Our sky w…
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
A TREASURE FOR THE REICH
"Head of Control Group 'P4' Berlin 14, Sept. 1943 Prinz Louis Strasse t.16-43-61 Secret! To the Reich Minister through the head of the Main Political Directorate To the reception office Regarding the transfer…
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Rumorsбез даты · Харьков
FROM THE OTHER WORLD
Orderlies carrying the wounded noticed that a fresh grave... was breathing. They dug it up and found that their commander G. Malinko was alive. Before that the battery commander with a small group of soldiers had held out for ten days…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
ON ITS OWN GROUND
“I am now by the lake near Kharkiv, where we once used to swim. But I am not admiring the picturesque view; I look through binoculars, searching for the cursed enemy who bathed here for almost two years. He considered himself the master…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
HITLER SENTENCED HIM
That imposing voice was familiar to several generations of Soviet people. They listened to it especially closely during the Great Patriotic War, when Information Bureau reports on Kharkiv… were read over All-Union Radio.
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
I SAW KHARKIV
Soon after the liberation, the city was visited by the famous writer Alexei Tolstoy. In his diary he wrote: “I cross the Lopan River on a wooden bridge, built where the blown-up one stood, and climb up a high, wide…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
PRELUDE TO NUREMBERG
A military bus with bars on the windows pulled up to the old opera house on Rymarska Street. The crowd parted to let it through to the service entrance. The guards opened the rear doors and, one after another…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
ARCHITECTURAL CACOPHONY
Kharkiv residents and visitors who have not lost their artistic taste cannot help being struck by the architectural mishmash of buildings around Independence Square. It is as if they were built in different eras…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
FOUNTAIN
On Sumska Street, opposite the new opera house, stands a lacy gazebo with a fountain called the Mirror Stream. A structure unusual for Kharkiv’s architectural style — and indeed it was borrow…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
GADA STREET
Near the confluence of three rivers — Kharkiv, Lopan, and Netech — lay the main fish market, offering not only local catch but also imported goods. Hence the central Podil Street, like the local squa…”
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
MEAT WITHOUT BONES?
After the war, on the corner of Kuznechna and Podilsky Lane, where a private café stands today, there was a grocery known to locals as “Two Steps Down.” A butcher worked there —…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
BIG WATER
In the early 1950s, construction of an artificial lake began in the lowland of northern Kharkiv; it was named Komsomolskoe. It was called that because, formally, the regional…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
FORGIVE ME, VLADIMIR ILYICH!
The “Emka” had clearly exceeded the speed limit and was stopped by a traffic officer. “I am hurrying to a ceremonial meeting,” the driver explained. “I do not care where you are hurrying, but you must not break traffic rules!” — D…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
A “PASQUIL WRITER” KHARKIV-STYLE
1946. One Kharkiv resident unfolded a fresh issue of Pravda, the Central Committee’s main newspaper, and found there… his own surname. Next to the names of famous writers such as Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna A…”
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Rumorsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
BIRTH OF A DUET
In the Kharkiv circus (still in the old building), the famous clown Karandash (M. Rumyantsev) toured with his troupe. Many in it were his young apprentice trainees who were only just preparing…”
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Talesновейшее время · Центр
FAREWELL, BELOVED CITY
“My performances were announced at the Kharkiv Philharmonic… The hall was packed. People sat on extra chairs and stood… The Philharmonic’s management rubbed their hands — the plan was fulfilled a quarter ahead.…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
POPANDOPULO — ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
“Theatrical operators had long turned this play into a peculiar operetta divertissement whose central figure is the fixer Popandopulo with his dubious jargon of vulgar words…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
STALIN: “WELL DONE, KHARKIVITES!”
My first memories of television date to the very beginning of the 1950s, when I was still a schoolboy. The whole family gathered in the living room, and neighbors often dropped in. Everyone settled in and watched reverently…”
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
YOUR MOTHER
The leaders of the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute were not only prominent scientists but also highly unconventional people. One of them was Deputy Director Academician A. Walter. One…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
EVERYONE LIES
“All politicians lie, but it does not matter, because nobody believes them anyway” — this famous aphorism belongs to Kharkiv professor-economist E. Liberman. Yet our fellow townsman became famous for…
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
WHERE THE CHURCH STOOD
Whenever I visit the Poetry shop on the square of the same name, I see again the building that, in my memory, still stood on this spot — it was a church. For Germans settling in Kharkiv…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
WINGS
By tradition, on Victory Day veterans gather by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. When another man appeared in the square, voices from different groups called: “Captain Titarenko, come to us!” This man…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
THE COMPOSER DID NOT LOSE A MELODY
In 1954, Edita Pieha performed in Kharkiv for the first time — together with the hugely popular Leningrad vocal-instrumental ensemble Druzhba. She was only eighteen, but the success was ph…
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
A PUSH
1956. Competitions for pre-conscription youths were held at the KhTZ stadium. Among others, a very tall eighteen-year-old apprentice pattern-maker with a lush head of hair came onto the field. Having no idea about techni…”
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Rumorsсоветский Харьков · Центр
HONORED — UP THE FLUE
In 1957, the sensational feuilleton “Stilyagi” appeared in Pravda, satirizing a characteristic phenomenon of its time. Thus a new word was first recorded in print, already quite…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
BLUE HORSE
One summer day in 1958, pedestrians on Sumska Street witnessed a curious sight. From Gorky Park past the regional party committee building a motorcade sped at breakneck speed:…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
KNIGHT OF FRANCE
In the autumn of 1957, someone knocked on the door of a famous lecturer on international affairs in the apartment on 8th Congress of Soviets Street (now Chichi-Babina Street). KGB officers entered. With a search. They turned out every drawer and shook every book from…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
HELLO, IT'S ME!
I first saw Natalya Fateyeva “live” in 1960 at KhTZ, where I took part in filming the movie Battle en Route, directed by her husband, the wonderful actor and director Vladimir Basov (about the film — n…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
BATTLE EN ROUTE
That was the title of G. Nikolaeva’s well-known novel of its time, awarded the State Prize. At its center was a theme typical of the thaw: conflict between a hidebound director and a progressive m…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
A LITTLE JOKE
In the seventies, clowns T. and D. had an act in which they played savages and accordingly entered the ring in animal “skins.” They carried a prop tape recorder, “pressed the button,” and on…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
FIRST VICTIM
It was the last day of the experiment. The subject in the anechoic chamber, on the doctor’s command, removed the sensors from his body and wiped the attachment points with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol. He threw the swab into the urn…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
THAT’S NOT WHAT WE AGREED!
A restaurant in Munich. At one table — a young man in glasses who had drunk plenty of beer. Spotting a girl at the far end of the hall, he gets up and, swaying, heads toward her. He begins to pester…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
TODAY — TOMORROW
A sign at the entrance to the Taras Shevchenko Kharkiv Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre in the mid-1960s: Today — “KOMUN1ST” Tomorrow — “POV1YA.”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
THE LEADER IN THE RESTROOM
The hall fell silent — Lenin was about to appear on stage. But he did not. The orchestra played the overture again, yet Vladimir Ilyich never appeared. The assistant director and the whole company grew anxious: where had the actor gone?…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
HOT OFF THE PRESS
The books of Oles Honchar, an academician recognized in his lifetime as a classic of Ukrainian literature, were published often and in huge print runs. The new novel Cathedral also got the green light — in the series “Romani 1 pov!st1…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
FOR THE ROLE OF STETSKO
About the same time, on the “recommendation” of the regional committee, the Kharkiv Academic Drama Theatre named after T. Shevchenko removed from its repertoire the production of H. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko’s comedy Shelmenko the Orderly…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
THE PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND IT
Gesturing at the paintings, a worker in a grease-stained cap declared that this was an insult to the Soviet mother, since she was shown as a fat body on heavy legs with stump-like arms.…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
DEFEAT ON MALAYA ZEMLYA
In the late 1970s, artist Sh. conceived the epochal work of his life — a monumental canvas (about 2 by 3 meters) titled “Malaya Zemlya.” He worked on it stubbornly for several years, neglecting small trifles…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
THIRD ATTEMPT
From a Chernihiv village, an unknown force drew a young man to the theater. An attempt to enter the Kyiv Theater Institute ended in failure — literacy let him down. A year later, another try — to the same place,…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
DANGEROUS TOUR
Turn of the century. A café chantant in Kharkiv, on stage — a visiting variety troupe from Odesa: a fakir works wonders, the chorus line kicks in the cancan, gypsies follow. Meanwhile backstage the lyricist…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
BEFORE EVERYONE’S EYES
In the very center of Kharkiv, near the later-demolished mansion of the theater institute on Sumska, next to the Mirror Stream, a multi-meter banner hung — announcing a new production of the Russian dra…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
AND THAT’S THE PRICE!
One local ideological leader, when approached with requests to help this or that member of the creative intelligentsia, reacted like this (first half…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
WORK OF ART OR DAUB?
“And what is this?” the customs officer asked. “Paintings,” artist K. explained. “Where is the export permit?” “These are my own works; I painted them.” “That does not matter — they may m…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
IF YOU HAVE A COW...
On another visit to the Moscow office of Krokodil magazine, I looked in on the office where N. Monakhov sat. He ran the letters department and also wrote the popular column “You Couldn’t Make It Up,”…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
IN THE FLESH AND IN BRONZE
In the late 1950s, a student from the nearby theater institute walked past the monument to T. Shevchenko. Someone called to him. He saw his professor, People’s Artist of the USSR A…, by the monument.
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Anecdotesсоветский Харьков · Промышленный
WHERE IS IT?
Imagine an architect with his eyes bound being led into a building he had designed. There his eyes were uncovered. He saw a spacious auditorium, a large two-tier foyer… Of course, he recogni…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
FROM PREDATOR TO WINDOW
In the late 1970s, the famous trainer Walter Zapashny arrived at the Kharkiv directorate for preparing circus numbers (in the old circus building). The train came late in the evening, and since by…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
PAY FOR WHAT?
The circus hired a new chief engineer who had previously worked in a field unrelated to the arts. For a week he walked around and looked things over, then at a staff meeting declared: “What is going on here? Where t…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
SLEIGHT OF HAND
The famous trainer and illusionist L. Denisova worked there — a very striking woman. One of her acts went like this: walking along the rows past spectators, she quietly took their watches, wallets, and…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
ENCOURAGEMENT
During trainer V. Simonova’s act, a brown bear unexpectedly jumped the barrier and attacked an elderly ticket-taker. The trainer and her assistants pulled the animal away, but it had already quite…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
THERE IS ONLY THE MiG...
As is well known, “MiG” is the famous brand of high-speed jet fighters. The first were designed before the war and were actively used in combat; production of the last models…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
HE QUARRELED WITH HIS WIFE
Tragedies happen in our lives — train collisions, for example: for some reason they end up on the same track and have nowhere to go. But for airplanes to collide in what seemed an…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
PLACE OF DEATH — BAYKONUR
If you enter the old cemetery on Pushkinska Street opposite Molodizhny Park, you can immediately see three identical obelisks on the left. The birth dates differ, but the date of death is the same... October 24…”
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Place-namesсоветский Харьков · Центр
THERMOS FROM THE BALCONY
In 1963 the famous poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was driving his Moskvich from Sukhumi home to Moscow. In Kharkiv his carburetor failed. At the bus station a Kharkiv resident recognized him and offered…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
MEMORY AND FORGETFULNESS
In 1965, after an absence of nearly half a century, artist Zinaida Serebryakova came from Paris to Moscow for the opening of her personal exhibition. She came from the Lanceray–Benois family, with names…”
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
CAFÉ “GRAVE”
Showing up one morning at a construction site with crowbars and shovels, students found a hand-written poster: “Please leave us here! Cemetery old-timers.” The history of any city is its burials…”
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Legendsбез даты · Центр
MEEKNESS AND MIGHT
“During the election campaign I spoke in Kharkiv by the Pushkin monument. The square was packed, and people’s eyes held the expectation of something important that would happen in the country, together with us. Someone whispered to me…”
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Anecdotesначало XX века · Салтовка
UNDERGROUND TIME STANDARD
Until the 1960s the most precise time in the Soviet Union was kept in Kharkiv. Fifteen meters underground there was a special room equipped with high-precision electronic…”
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Place-namesначало XX века · Харьков
LIVING CORPSE
The racetrack. The stands are filled with ladies and gentlemen eagerly following which horse will finish first. Small wonder — they had placed bets! Many racing fans left their fortunes here. And vo…”
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Place-namesбез даты · Харьков
HE SHOD A FLEA
As is well known, that was the work of the Tula master Lefty — but only in N. Leskov’s story. In reality our fellow countryman Mykola Syadristy did it. And also — a lock with a tiny key that fit on a cross-section of hair, electrom…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
GODS OF OLYMPUS
The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, toured the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy in Kyiv. Yet neither livestock nor tractors caught the distinguished guest’s attention. Then in one pavilion he noticed…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
BUSINESS IS A PIPE
In the 1960s the strategic Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod gas pipeline was laid, continuing on to Western Europe. The route also crossed our region. Often the adjoining villages…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
SECOND TIME
During one visit to Kharkiv, poet Maksym Rylsky stopped for a bite at the hotel buffet. Taking a plate of sausage, he sat down, tried a piece, grimaced, and pushed the food away…”
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Place-namesбез даты · Центр
ACROSS THE ROAD
Poet M. Shapoval and the no less famous prose writer V. Dobrovolsky walked along Sumska one deep autumn day. Recall that this street divides two central districts — Dzerzhinsky and Kyivsky. In one of them…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
A PRANK
M. Shapoval and V. Kholodkov spent the summer at a writers’ retreat in Yalta. Fairly, they agreed to “rest” equally: today one buys drinks, the other snacks, tomorrow the reverse, and so…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Центр
GIVE IT BACK!
At one corner of Sumska a beggar stood in his usual spot. A group of writers passed by. M. Shapoval demonstratively took out and threw ten rubles into his hat (for comparison, the usual amount…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
A STORY WITH COSTUME CHANGES
At the VKh newspaper office a certain Sh. served as literary editor — a talented poet and kind man, but a great lover of the “green serpent.” Hence his rather shabby appearance. Once the editor summoned him…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
OPERATION “APPENDICITIS”
In 1972 the Kharkiv journal Prapor (now Berezen) published a novella by the then young Kyiv satirical writer O. Chernohuz, “Blue Appendicitis.” In fact it was the first in Ukrainian…”
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Place-namesначало XX века · Центр
FIVE FROM THE PAWNSHOP
As is well known, in December 1917 a congress in Kharkiv proclaimed Ukraine a Republic of Soviets. Half a century later, to honor the event, the city’s central square was renamed Soviet Square (now Constitution Square…”
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TalesXIX век · Промышленный
A SECRET EVERYONE KNOWS
The famous Kharkiv Locomotive Works was built in 1896 (curiously, the first locomotive was produced there just a year after construction began!). In 1957, in connection with the re…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Центр
V.V. IS PERFORMING
In May 1978 word swept through Kharkiv: Vladimir Vysotsky was coming. There were no posters, as far as I remember, yet news of his arrival spread instantly. Tickets sold under heavy demand, but for fans — and there were many…”
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Talesсоветский Харьков · Харьков
ON A STICK ACROSS THE OCEAN
Still in his youth he became a laureate of the Herbert von Karajan International Conductors’ Competition, headed the Kharkiv Philharmonic symphony orchestra, and received the title of Honored Artist of Ukraine. The maestro…”
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Place-namesXIX век · Центр
GIVE ME A WHITE MONKEY!
Academician B. I. Verkin sent off his students and colleagues with those words. It meant they were to discover something utterly unusual that had never existed before. Obviously they often succeeded, for…”
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Rumorsсоветский Харьков · Харьков
HEIST OF THE CENTURY
One morning staff arrived at the new opera house and discovered that the ancient massive bell weighing... one and a half tons was gone. It had been moved here in 1991 from the former building, where it…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
“MERRY” PRANKS
Moscow composer Nikita Vladimirovich Bogoslovsky is famous not only for his songs but also for his pranks. One of them he played on his colleague, a native of Kharkiv, songwriter Georg…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
GESTAPO: TAKE HIM AWAY!
The Gestapo chief’s office. Escorts bring in a captured partisan. Then one guard staggers and falls, his Schmeisser clattering to the floor. The Gestapo man looks questioningly at the second escort. “All…”
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Talesбез даты · Промышленный
THEY REACTED!
Every factory newspaper had satirical columns: “Barb,” “Shavings,” “From a Sharp Angle,” and so on. In one of them a note appeared titled: “Why doesn’t molder Boyarchuk have…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
NIGHT EMERGENCY
The editor of the factory paper was proofreading a freshly printed issue and froze. One item reported on another party event. At the end it said (surnames shortened): “In the r…”
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Rumorsбез даты · Лесопарк
THE THIRD HEAD OF “MOTHER”
Construction of the Glory memorial complex in Lesopark was nearing completion — for the 40th anniversary of Victory. It was taken so seriously that the city committee secretary personally oversaw the process. Then he was told:…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
IMMORTAL
A bus with Kharkiv Young Spectators’ Theater actors raced along a country road to a performance at a children’s camp. They were taking a fairy tale; not knowing local conditions, they had done their makeup still at the theater. Time before the show…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
MISTREATMENT
In the late 1960s the Komsomol regional committee youth center organized a series of meetings with famous people, usually held at the Palace of Sports. Once they invited the then-popular fashion designer Vyacheslav…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
“UNDERPANTS” IN A TREE
The company settled on a forest clearing and spread a “magic tablecloth.” They had a round of drinks, then another, and another. Only then did they remember the guest for whose sake, in fact, they had gathered…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
BY THE WAY, ABOUT BIRDS
“Stierlitz entered a flower shop on Blumenstrasse, filled with flowers and cages of birds. But the scout had no time for them: he fixed his gaze on the second floor of the house opposite — on the apartment window, in…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
A MUG OF BEER
“My partner and I came to Kharkiv to give a concert. Terrible heat, we wanted to drink. We stepped into the little square by the service entrance to smoke. We overheard this dialogue between a man and woman on a bench. He (ingratiatingly):…”
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Talesбез даты · Салтовка
WE HAVE HIS HEART
Two old men were fishing at the Saltivka reservoir. Two more got out of a car that pulled up and settled on the bank. The old man looked at one of the newcomers and nearly dropped his rod in amazement,…”
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Talesновейшее время · Холодная Гора
“INTERGIRL” FROM KHOLodNA HORA
This film once broke every box-office record. Small wonder — it was the first to touch the subject of prostitution, and foreign-currency prostitution at that. Officially it was believed not to exist in the Soviet Union, so mentions…”
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Anecdotesновейшее время · Харьков
CATAPULT
A promising young athlete was offered housing: some — an apartment in Moscow, others — in Kharkiv, and the capital’s offer was very insistent. Yet he chose to stay in his hometown. And not…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
SCIENCE IS NOT A TOY!
“Sasha, put away the toys! And stop gnawing your sandwich!” — teachers kept correcting a pupil in class. That may seem odd, since the remarks were not to a first-grader but to a sixth-grade…”
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Anecdotesсоветский Харьков · Центр
KOROTICH, GIVE THEM HELL!
Such a banner greeted Vitaly Korotich — editor-in-chief of Ogoniok magazine — at the Southern Station in March 1988 when he arrived in our city. At the time it was the sharpest, perhaps the only periodical…”
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Talesновейшее время · Харьков
KHARKIV-LATRINE
Such a curious sign hangs at one of the railroad entrances to our city. Those words fully matched reality in 1995, when a grand…”
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Talesбез даты · Центр
WITH A VIEW OF THE MORGUE
The young violinist went on playing his étude, then suddenly looked at the window, his face lengthened, the bow lost the rhythm. Small wonder — in the yard of the house opposite they were pulling a corpse from a car and carrying it into…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
THEN TWICE AS MUCH!
The audience at the Yubileiny Palace of Sports grew restless: the concert start time had long passed, yet the artist still had not appeared. To calm people, the radio announced the landing of the plane with the touring star and his transfer a…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Харьков
THEY RECOGNIZED HIM!
Late in the evening a tall brunette of about fifty with a characteristic brush mustache crossed the threshold of the Mir hotel restaurant. He was recognized at once. “Pankratov-Cherny!” a group at one table shouted. “And…”
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Talesбез даты · Харьков
WON’T THIS KEEP YOU WARM?
Once the famous stage artist, People’s Artist of Russia Klara Novikova gave a concert in Kharkiv at the opera house. During the performance someone in the gallery shouted: “From…”
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Anecdotesдо XVIII века · Харьков
PRISONERS IN... A MONASTERY
The territory of the Kuryazh correctional colony is crisscrossed with underground passages. But these were not dug by inmates trying to escape. The fact is that the correctional facility…”
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Anecdotesбез даты · Основа
KHARKIVITE OF THE CENTURY
On stage a grandfather tells his grandson and granddaughter the history of Kharkiv, commenting on photographs and newsreels on the screen. Along the way the children ask questions. At last they reached the end of the twent…”
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Talesновейшее время · Центр
SLOBOZHANSKY NATIVE LAND
The author-compiler of this book, Savely Tsypin, over 35 years of creative work took part in many merry festivals, including in Odesa, Riga, Sochi, Kleve, Moscow, Zaporizhzhia, Sorochyntsi, Bulgaria…”
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Talesначало XX века · Салтовка
SOURCES USED
1. BagalShD. I. History of Slobozhanshchyna Ukraine. — Kharkiv: Osnova, 1990. 2. Bagaley D. I., Miller D. P. History of the City of Kharkiv over 250 Years of Its Existence. — Kharkiv, 1912. 3. Diachenko V. T. Streets and Squares…”
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