How aristocrats in uniform rested and entertained
The atmosphere of tough drills and honors, in which the elite regiments of the Russian army lived, could not fail to provoke a response from the guard officers. Such an answer was … revelry and debauchery!
Relax "in full"
The riotous life of the guards officers was a characteristic feature of the everyday life of Petersburg in the "Pushkin era".
Here is what they recalled about those times: “Revels and all sorts of fights took on enormous proportions. Every day in the city they talked about all sorts of scandals: about broken windows, about merchants who were scared to death by officers, about smashed inns and entertainment establishments, about kidnapped girls and so on."
Why is it in this era that the riot of guards officers takes on such a large-scale and often not entirely healthy character?
The fact is that the entire "official" part of the St. Petersburg officer's day was strictly regulated. Regular hours-long exercises, parades, parades, where it was necessary to show the wonders of balancing act, exhausted not only the soldiers, but also the officers. And the terribly inconvenient form, as if deliberately invented to mock a person, turned the service into a real nightmare. Well, how could you not “go into the lead” after the end of the “working day”? And the guards officers had a full blast …
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Guards' pranks began in the "service" time. It was considered special chic to harass the senior officer, but so that it was not considered a gross violation of the charter.
For example, the cadet of the Ulan Regiment Life Guards Korocharov and his comrades went to swim in the Gulf of Finland. They swam, naturally, naked, because there were no swimming trunks in those days. Suddenly trouble: the chief of the regiment is walking along the shore - Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Further quotation: "They all got scared, rushed into the water, only one Korocharov stretched out straight, in what his mother gave birth, and shouted:" I wish you good health, Your Highness! " Since then, the Grand Duke fell in love with him. "The officer will be brave!" - he said …"
During their stay in Paris in 1814, Guards Cossacks and soldiers shocked the French with their manner of swimming naked in the Seine.
However, here it was necessary to observe the line, otherwise it would be possible to pay dearly. So, the notorious Fyodor Tolstoy, nicknamed the American, was expelled from the Preobrazhensky regiment for "spitting on Colonel Drizen" (in the literal sense of the word).
Well, in the evening, nothing else held back the officers who wanted to "liberate themselves." The late drinking binges of the youth of the Guards, starting in one of the St. Petersburg restaurants, ended either in a "pleasure house" or in some dubious tavern.
The ability to drink at least a dozen glasses of champagne at a time was a must for the guardsman: “This was an unspoken exam for the young - I had to drink glasses in one gulp to the bottom"
Particularly popular with the guardsmen was the "Red Zucchini", which was located on the seventh verst of the Peterhof highway. It was a favorite spot for officers' revelry.
A card game and hooligan campaigns along the streets of St. Petersburg completed the picture. Each company of officers tried to shock the respectable inhabitants as much as possible.
This is how the cavalry guards, for example, had fun. On the Black River at night a black boat with a black coffin began to ride around. The rowers, wrapped in black shrouds, mournfully sang "Rest with the saints." The strange funeral procession greatly frightened the peasants and summer residents. Soon they learned that this masquerade was organized by young cavalry guards, and it was not the deceased who was carried in the coffin, but champagne.
The Life Hussars were especially dashing. According to the stories of contemporaries, they staged whole raids on women in the streets, leaving the most beautiful ones “in captivity” (naturally, we are talking about commoners - for such an act with a noblewoman, one could lose a head).
Guardsmen were regulars in brothels. It was considered unworthy of an officer not to visit them. When someone tried to refer to the fact that he was in love or married, they said to him: "But you go to a restaurant, although you have a kitchen at home?" MIKHAIL KLODT, "ENTRANCE OF ULAN INTO THE CITY"
The usurers who came to collect debts were immediately shot with pistols (only not with bullets, but with salt). They rushed along the narrow streets at full speed, crushing everything that came their way. As a result of such wild horse and sled races, dozens of passers-by died every year in the residential quarters of the capital in St. Petersburg.
Policemen in the line of fire
Policemen suffered most from such high society hooligans. The unfortunate law enforcement officers were the favorite victims of the guards' mockery. Suffice it to recall how Tolstoy's Pierre Bezukhov was "naughty" in the company of the capital's officers. Their most striking feat, as you know, was that the drunken guards seized the policeman, tied him on his back to a bear and let the animal swim along with the policeman along the Moika. And this is not a novelist's invention. There were many such stories.
In the 1830s, an officer, Konstantin Bultakov, who had tremendous physical strength, served in the guard. Once, after a binge, he was returning home with friends. Suddenly they saw a booth with a guard sleeping in it. Well, how can you pass by? Bultakov and his friends quickly knocked the booth to the ground, so much so that the door fell on the pavement. The poor guard, who was thus "walled up alive", raised a terrible cry, waking up all the surrounding janitors, who freed the guard.
The authorities turned a blind eye to all such stories. On the one hand, the commanders understood that "the guys need to let off some steam." On the other hand, the generals themselves were once the same young rakes, so they treated the pranks of their subordinates condescendingly.
In addition, the authorities knew very well that the officers of the guards regiments are often representatives of the most noble families with very influential relatives. If you start punishing such a person, then you won't end up with problems yourself.
Therefore, riotous behavior behind the scenes was considered something quite acceptable. And even necessary for a young officer.
However, for excessive or constant pranks, they nevertheless punished: the guardhouse - for minor hooligan acts, expulsion from the guard and exile to a provincial army unit - for something more serious.
To the credit of the guards, it must be said that they never shirked responsibility and did not shift their blame onto others. When complaints came to the regiment, the perpetrators immediately confessed themselves. Lying and dodging was considered shameful.
Lyricist: Denis Orlov
Main stash of the guard
The most popular place of the guards' revelry was the famous "Red Zucchini" - a tavern located outside the border of the then St. Petersburg - on the edge of the Peterhof road, near the Krasnenkaya River.
The tavern has been known since the time of Peter I. It reached its peak of popularity in the first half of the 19th century. Here on dashing trotters came companies of guards revelers to have fun, listen to the songs of gypsies, spend the night with "corrupt women." There was an inn at the inn where it was possible to rent a room with an "hourly rate".
Sometimes revels in the tavern ended in massive brawls. It happened when army and civilian companies found themselves in the same room - the guards despised the "shafirok" and constantly bullied them.
Lermontov described his adventures in The Red Zucchini in the mischievous poem Mongo.
Fyodor Tolstoy and the orangutan
For a gross insult to the commander, Fyodor Tolstoy (1782-1846) was expelled from the ranks of the officers of the Preobrazhensky regiment. To avoid being sent to a distant army garrison, in 1803 he set off on a voyage around the world on the ship of Ivan Kruzenshtern.
Fyodor Tolstoy in his youth. This is how Dolokhova was described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace.
But even there he quickly "got" everyone with his scandalous behavior. In the end, Kruzenshtern lost his patience and dropped the restless passenger along with his pet - the tame orangutan - on one of the Aleutian Islands (for this Tolstoy was later called the American). After some time, the brawler was picked up by another Russian ship, and he was able to return to St. Petersburg, where he again took up the old: drunkenness, duels, fights …
This unfortunate orangutan, with whom Tolstoy was dropped off on the island, gave rise to numerous gossip in noble circles. According to one of them, during his stay on the island, Tolstoy cohabited with a monkey, according to the second - he ate it, according to the third - he was jealous of a polar bear and killed.
A friend is known in wine
The inherent quality of any guard officer was the ability to drink a lot. It was a "must have" - what should be. No options. A low drinker in the guard has nothing to do.
The main drink of the guard was, of course, champagne. Life-hussars were distinguished by a special scale of drunkenness. Even such exotic dishes as sterlet in champagne or dried fruit compote in champagne could be found in their diet.
Lord hussars sometimes got drunk to such an extent that they began to think that they were wolves: “Everyone then stripped naked and ran out into the street … There they squatted down, raised their drunken heads to the sky and began to howl loudly. The old barman already knew what to do. He carried a large tub to the porch, poured it with vodka or champagne, and the whole flock rushed on all fours to the basin, lapped the wine with their tongue, squealed and bit."
A still from the film "The Hussar Ballad".
Soup for the king
The main thing in all the revelry and eccentricities was not to "get involved" in politics. Because the punishment could have been merciless. Moreover, everything that could be attributed to "politics" was interpreted very broadly.
So, in the 1820s, the guard officer Buturlin and his friends tore the scepter and the orb from the plywood double-headed eagle on the pharmacy signboard and marched with them through the whole city. This "prank" had a dangerous political connotation: it provided grounds for a criminal charge of "insulting the imperial majesty." The acquaintance, to whom they appeared in this form, "for a long time afterwards could not remember this night visit without fear" (he would also have gone "accomplices" if something happened).
But such pranks did not always get away with. For example, for an attempt to feed a bust of Emperor Alexander I with soup in a restaurant, severe punishment followed: Buturlin's civilian friends were exiled to the civil service in the Caucasus, and he was transferred from the guard to a provincial regiment …
Portraits and busts of sovereigns were forbidden to be placed in restaurants only at the end of the 19th century. Just in case.
