Melekhov prototype. Real characters from M.A. Sholokhov's book "Quiet Don"

According to Mikhail Sholokhov, the author of the epic novel “Quiet Don,” his favorite hero in the book was Grigory Melekhov. The image of this hero, his fate and even his appearance were copied from a real person - Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov.

Sholokhov was personally acquainted with the prototype of the main character of his novel; they often met and talked in 1926, when the writer was collecting materials for his work. The author came to the village of Veshenskaya, and he and Ermakov spent long nights talking, smoking and arguing. One of the archives contains a letter in which the writer addresses Ermakov with a request to meet. Sholokhov was then very interested in the events of 1919 related to the fate of the Don Cossacks during the Veshensky uprising.

It is no coincidence that the author turned specifically to Kharlampy Ermakov. The fate of this legendary man was not easy. He was born on the Antipov farm in the Veshenskaya village, now in the Rostov region. He grew up in an ordinary Cossack family and graduated from the local parochial school. Ermakov’s childhood and youth were not distinguished by anything special; they passed like those of most of his fellow countrymen.

Kharlampiy Vasilievich Ermakov (February 7, 1891, Antipov village of the village of Vyoshenskaya Region of the Don Army (now Sholokhovsky district of the Rostov region) - June 17, 1927, Millerovo of the North Caucasus region (now Rostov region) - participant in the Civil War, one of the prototypes of Grigory Melekhov in the novel by M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Don".

Born on the Antipov farm of the village of Vyoshenskaya Region of the Don Army, in the family of a Don Cossack. At the age of two years, he was given to be raised by the family of relatives Arkhip Gerasimovich and Ekaterina Ivanovna Soldatov, who lived on the Bazki farm of the same village. The reason for this decision was his father’s loss of ability to work due to the loss of his right hand. He received his education at the Vyoshenskaya two-year parish school. At the age of 19 he married a Cossack woman, Praskovya Ilyinichna. In 1911, their daughter Pelageya was born, and in 1913 their son Joseph.

In January 1913, he was called up for active service in the Don 12th Cossack Regiment. On April 25, 1914 he graduated from the training team and was appointed platoon commander. With the outbreak of the First World War, he found himself on the Southwestern Front, where he fought until the autumn of 1916. Then he gets to the Romanian front. During 2.5 years of war he was awarded four St. George's crosses and four St. George's medals. Was wounded twice. The first time - September 21, 1915 near Kovel; and until November 26 he was treated in a hospital in the city of Sarny. On November 20, 1916, he was wounded in Romania, in the battle for height 1467. After this wound, he was sent for treatment to the Rostov hospital. Upon recovery, on January 25, 1917, he received a two-month leave to improve his health and returned to his native farm. Then, due to the expiration of the four-year period of active service, he receives a three-month “preferential” leave.

In May 1917, fellow countrymen elected Kharlampy Ermakov (by this time he had the rank of constable) as a deputy from the Vyoshenskaya village on the Big Military Circle, who elected Ataman Kaledin. In June he was again mobilized into the army, in the 2nd Don Cossack reserve regiment, located in the village of Kamenskaya. From his regiment, he is elected to the Regional Military Committee, a self-governing body of military units formed on July 14, 1917 at the regional congress of representatives of infantry and Cossack units in Novocherkassk. In the summer he completes general education courses at the Novocherkassk cadet school.

With the outbreak of the Civil War on the Don, it was supported by the Don Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by F. Podtyolkov and N. M. Golubev. He fought against Chernetsov’s detachment, was wounded near the Likhaya station, and at the end of January 1918 returned home again. Soviet power is established on the Don, and Ermakov is elected chairman of the Vyoshensky village council. He held this position until the start of the anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Upper Don District, which occurred on April 16-20. Later, the Don press called him one of the organizers of the coup. For his participation in this uprising, he receives the rank of sub-soror. With the restoration of ataman rule, Kh. Ermakov was elected ataman of the Vyoshenskaya village. However, the service of the Reds causes distrust in him - and at the village meeting held on May 14, he was re-elected as second assistant to the chieftain.

In the summer and autumn of 1918, Kh. Ermakov, as a platoon commander of the 1st Vyoshensky Regiment of the Don Army, fought against the Red Army in the Tsaritsyn and Balashov directions. When at the end of December, tired of the war and promoted by the Reds, the Cossacks abandoned the front, he returned home. A month later, fulfilling the instructions of the circular letter of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) “on decossackization” dated January 24, 1919, the Red Army began terror in the Upper Don. February 25th Art. An uprising broke out in the village of Kazanskaya. On February 26, the rebels liberated Migulinskaya, and on the 27th - Vyoshenskaya village. On the same day, the cornet Kh. Ermakov begins the formation of a rebel detachment of the right-bank farmsteads. Two days later, Ermakov’s detachment advances to the village of Karginskaya, where it defeats Likhachev’s punitive detachment and captures the Red artillery warehouses. On March 5, the old people of the Bazki farm gave him command of the Bazki hundred. A few days later, the commander of the rebel troops P. Kudinov appointed him commander of the 1st Upper Don Division instead of Yesaul Alferov. For 3 months, Ermakov’s division has been successfully fighting on the southern sector of the rebel front against units of the 9th Army of the Southern Front of the Red Army, which was advancing on Novocherkassk. In May, under pressure from new enemy reinforcements, the rebels retreat to the left bank of the Don. But a day later, General Sekretev’s group breaks through the red front and joins the rebel army. The Red Army leaves the Upper Don District.

After joining the Don Army, the rebel army is gradually disbanded, the rebel commanders are replaced by career officers of the Don Army. Kh. Ermakov remains in his previous position longer than others. He commands the 1st Verkhne-Donskaya Division (renamed the 1st Verkhne-Donskaya Brigade) until July 1 (14). On this day, Ermakov’s brigade joins the 5th Cavalry Brigade. Ermakov himself receives the post of commander of the hundred of the 20th Vyoshensky regiment. Some time later, Kh. Ermakov is appointed as an officer for assignments at the headquarters of Semiletov’s group. In August he was wounded near the village of Filonovskaya. In October, upon returning from the hospital, he was appointed assistant regiment commander for economic affairs. In December, Ataman A. Bogaevsky promoted to centurion, in January to podesaul, in February to esaul, and was transferred to the position of assistant regiment commander for combat units.

At the end of February, the Don Army retreated to Kuban. March 3 this year Art., near the village of Georgie-Afipskaya, Kh. Ermakov, together with his unit, surrendered to the Red-Greens, and on March 15 he transferred to the Red Army. Received under his command the 3rd separate cavalry. regiment of the 1st Cavalry Army, formed from Cossacks who joined the Red Army. He commanded him on the Polish front. Then he was appointed commander of the 82nd regiment and sent to the Wrangel Front. After the capture of Crimea, Ermakov was sent to the Don to fight the “gangs” of Makhno, Popov and Andreyanov. In mid-1921, he was appointed head of the Kraskomov school of the 14th Cavalry. divisions in Maykop. He was awarded a saber and a personalized watch. M. A. Sholokhov wrote in 1974 to literary critic K. I. Priyma:

In January 1923, Kh. Ermakov was dismissed from the army on indefinite leave “as a former white man.” A month later he returned home. And already on February 23, 1923 he was arrested by the GPU. Ermakov was accused of organizing the Vyoshensky uprising in 1919 under Article 58 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The investigation lasted almost a year and a half, however, it could not prove his guilt: most witnesses testified during the investigation that Ermakov was forcibly mobilized into the rebel army by P. Kudinov and other leaders of the uprising; they remembered how he saved captured Red Army soldiers from execution. The villagers drew up a collective petition in his defense. Thanks to this, on July 19, 1924, Kh. Ermakov was released on bail. The investigation lasted another 10 months, and perhaps would have continued longer, but in April a plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was held, which decided on the partial rehabilitation of the Cossacks. As a result, on May 15, 1925, the visiting session of the North Caucasus Court in the city of Millerovo decided to terminate the case “due to expediency.”

After his release, Ermakov served in the village council and cooperation. During these years, he often visited M. A. Sholokhov’s parents, who lived in Karginskaya, and made an acquaintance with him. In Ermakov’s last investigative file, a letter to him from Sholokhov dated April 6, 1926 was preserved, in which the young writer asks for some information about the Upper Don Uprising of 1919. Subsequently, many details of the biography of Kh. Ermakov were used by Sholokhov for the biography of Grigory Melekhov.

On January 20, 1927, Ermakov was arrested again. This time, the investigation found witnesses who claimed that he voluntarily took command of the rebels, personally participated in the execution of Red Army soldiers, and that he was currently conducting anti-Soviet agitation. On June 6, 1927, the judicial panel of the OGPU, having considered the case out of court under Articles 58/11 and 58/18 of the Criminal Code, decided that Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov should be “shot.” On June 17, the sentence was carried out.

For the first time, the exposition of the museum of the FSB administration in the Rostov region displays materials from the execution case of the Cossack Kharlampy Ermakov - a man who, not without reason, is considered the prototype of the main character of the novel "Quiet Don" by Grigory Melekhov.

The mystery of the open ending

Sholokhov left an open ending in his book. The reader can only guess what Gregory’s future fate was like. And there were good reasons for this. In parallel with the plot twists and turns of the novel, the OGPU was promoting the case of Kharlampy Ermakov.

Handing over the text of “The Quiet Don” to the printing house, the writer could not help but know that the end had already been set in the difficult life of the Don Cossack. The then KGB leader Genrikh Yagoda signed Ermakov’s death sentence without trial. And when at the beginning of 1928 the publication of the first two books of the famous novel began in the magazine "October", this sentence had already been carried out for six months.

Sholokhov communicated most actively with Ermakov between his two stints in prison. At the time when the writer was talking with Kharlampy in order to find out as accurately as possible the details of the civil war on the Don, the authorities were also painstakingly collecting materials. Informants swirled around Ermakov, and his every move received its own interpretation in the OGPU.

Sholokhov himself came to the attention of the security officers. His letter, in which he scheduled a meeting with Ermakov in order to obtain “some additional information regarding the era of 1919... concerning the details of the V. Donskoy uprising,” did not reach the addressee. But for many years it settled in a special OGPU folder.

Now it is no longer possible to find out whether Sholokhov was aware that his letter appears in the case as material evidence, says Alexei Kochetov, an employee of the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. - But, of course, he knew about the arrest and execution of Ermakov. Perhaps this is what forced Sholokhov to speak very carefully about the prototype of Grigory Melekhov for many years. And only after he became a famous person and a Nobel laureate, the writer began to mention Kharlampy Ermakov as a real prototype of his hero.

Saber march

Kharlampy Ermakov was from the Ermakovsky farm in the Veshenskaya village of the Don Army Region. Now this is the Antipovsky farm. His grandfather brought a Polonian wife from the Turkish campaign, who gave birth to a son, Vasily. And, as Sholokhov writes, “from that time on, Turkish blood began to interbreed with Cossack blood. That’s where the hook-nosed, wildly beautiful Cossacks came to live in the farmstead...”

Kharlampy lived in Ermakovskoye for the first two years, then his parents sent him “as children” - to be raised in the Bazki farm in the family of a childless Cossack Arkhip Soldatov.

Alexey Kochetov tried to find a photograph of Soldatov and those who still remember this man. It was not possible to find a photo, but an elderly village resident said that she remembers Arkhip Gerasimovich. “He had a windmill on a hillock away from the Don, where there are chalk mountains. There is always wind there. They were not rich. Soldiers wore karpetkas (crocheted socks) and chiriks, which served as shoes on ordinary days. He loved his adopted son like his own."

From Bazki, Kharlampy went into the tsarist service and participated in both the First World War and the Civil War. He spent about ten years traveling. According to some sources, he was wounded eight times, according to others - 14. Having barely recovered, he again found himself at the front. For his desperate courage, he was awarded four St. George crosses, four St. George medals and a personal award weapon. It would seem that the memory of the heroic fellow countryman should have been kept in the history of the Don, but the name of Ermakov was kept silent for a very long time. Kharlapy, like many Cossacks, rushed between whites and reds in search of justice. Both of them tried more than once to deal with Ermakov...

One who didn't shoot

After the revolution, Ermakov was among the front-line soldiers who joined the units of the chairman of the Don Military Revolutionary Committee, Fyodor Podtyolkov. However, he was outraged by the senseless and cruel reprisals against the Cossacks. When Podtelkov executed the captured villagers, Kharlampiy left the Red troops and took his hundred beyond the Don. So Ermakov found himself on the other side of the barricades, and after some time he witnessed the execution of Podtelkov himself. But this time, too, he did not give a single Cossack as an executioner.

The White military court sentenced Kharlampiy to death, but the Cossacks did not give up on their commander, threatened to rebel, and the command left Ermakov alone. During the famous Veshensky riot of 1919, Ermakov commanded a regiment and then a cavalry division of the rebels. Then he retreated to Kuban with the Don Army. In Novorossiysk, watching how the defeated White units were loaded onto ships under the cover of darkness, Ermakov decides to once again turn his fate around. He remained on the pier and surrendered to Budyonny's troops.

What saved him was that the Reds had heard a lot about his courage and reluctance to participate in executions. He was entrusted with commanding a squadron, then a regiment. After the defeat of Wrangel, Budyonny appointed him head of the cavalry school in Maykop. Soon Kharlampy was demobilized and returned to his native farm.

It didn't matter

Ermakov was not allowed to rest from the war. Almost immediately he was accused under the famous 58th article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - counter-revolutionary actions aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening the government. He served more than two years in the Rostov correctional home. In the summer of 1924, Kharlampy was released, and a year later his case was dismissed, with the wording being “inexpedient.” Ermakov built his defense himself, and did it competently, which helped him to be released. Although in the "education" column he wrote - inferior.

And in 1927, Ermakov’s second arrest took place. Finding himself under investigation again, Kharlampy continues to fight for his life and freedom. At the same time, he did not name the names of people who might have suffered; he only mentioned comrades who had already died or those who found themselves in exile. Here is an excerpt from his written explanation. “At first, when I was arrested, I was calm, not attaching serious importance to it, since I could not even think then that I, who had given all my strength and blood for several years to defend the revolution, could be accused of performing passive service in the troops that were contrary to my heart.

But when the DOGPU brought a serious and vile charge against me under Article 58, as having actively opposed the Soviets. authorities, I began to protest..." Kharlampiy was charged seriously. The conclusion drawn up by the senior investigator of the Donoble Court, Stackler, said: "... It was established: in 1919, at the time the Red Army went on the offensive, when the advantage in the struggle was leaning towards troops of Soviet Russia, in the area of the station. Veshenskaya, an uprising broke out in the rear of the Red Army, headed by Captain Ermakov Kharlampiy Vasilyevich..."; "Mr. Ermakov is... the commander of all White Guard rebel forces Art. Veshenskaya and its environs."

Talking Pages

The file contains documents showing how residents of the Bazki village tried to protect their fellow countryman. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the minutes of the general meeting: “Ermakov Kharlampy was not the organizer of the uprising and did not carry out any preparatory work.” There are 90 signatures under this protocol, among which there are crosses of illiterate people. People were not afraid to speak out in defense of their fellow countryman. And there are several such documents in Ermakov’s case. In one of them, the villagers clearly express their will: “We wish his release as a man needlessly imprisoned.”

It was not possible to collect evidence for prosecution, much less extract evidence from Ermakov against anyone. And yet Harlampius was sentenced. It was then that the USSR Central Executive Committee approved the Resolution of the Presidium of May 26, 1927 on the extrajudicial procedure for considering cases. It was this that allowed the investigators to decide his fate. The records of the investigation end with the words “Ermakov - shoot. The case should be archived.”

Until now, it was believed that Ermakov was shot in Millerovo, but recently museum workers received other information. Nikolai Galitsyn, a former agronomist at the Kalininsky state farm, said that he knew the old Cossack Alferov, who during the Upper Don Uprising of 1919 was a clerk in the detachment of Kharlampy Ermakov. They were both arrested in 1927 and taken to Millerovo, where they were sentenced to death. But the execution of the sentence was delayed and sent to prison in Kamensk. Alferov suggested that Ermakov kill the guard and escape, but he did not agree. He was waiting for a response to the petition that Sholokhov seemed to have sent to Budyonny asking him to release both of them.

One night Ermakov was summoned and never returned to his cell. Alferov was released.

The film adaptation of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” directed by Sergei Ursulyak brought new readers to our blog, and we also wanted to talk a little about the new version of the film adaptation of the book. For example, to draw the attention of those who believe that “Grishka is not the same in the new film, but Glebov is!” Let's talk about the prototype of Grigory Melekhov - Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov. Compare photos of Ermakov and Evgeny Tkachuk in makeup. Doesn't it look like it worked?

Sholokhov, starting from the 1920s, was constantly asked about his heroes (Gregory, Aksinya and other characters from “Quiet Don”) - whether they were copied from real people or fictitious. Many found prototypes in life and tried to get confirmation of their guesses from the author. For many years the writer answered something like this:« Don’t look around for exactly the same people, with the same first and last names, as you meet in my books. My heroes are typical people; they are several traits combined into one image.”

“Quiet Don” was received ambiguously by both critics and readers. Sholokhov was accused of counter-revolutionary propaganda. The time was difficult and alarming. I had to hide a lot so as not to harm myself or others.

However, after Mikhail Alexandrovich was awarded the Nobel Prize (which became a kind of defense against some attacks), at meetings with readers and when communicating with literary scholars, the author of “Quiet Don” began to mention the name of Kharlampy Ermakov, admitting that it was he who gave him a lot to create the image Grigory Melekhov.

About the relationship between Mikhail Sholokhov and Kharlampy Ermakov we find in Felix Kuznetsov in his book "Quiet Don": The fate and truth of the great novel» :

1. “Obviously, the main time of communication between M.A. Sholokhov and Ermakov was at the time when he [Ermakov - M.U.] came out of prison - from July 1924 to the end of 1926, since January 20, 1927 year Ermakov was arrested again.

There is also documentary evidence of this - a letter from Sholokhov to Kharlampy Ermakov, the same letter on a photocopy of which Sholokhov wrote lines about Budyonny’s attitude towards Kharlampy Ermakov. And its original is kept in that “Case”.

M.A. Sholokhov’s letter to Kharlampy Ermakov, seized during the last arrest and search of his house, is stored in the “Case” as material evidence in a special, separate package, along with documents that are especially important for the investigation: “Service List” of Kharlampy Ermakov and “ Protocol" of the administrative session of the North Caucasus Regional Court dated May 29, 1925, ending the previous "Case" of Ermakov "due to inexpediency."

We do not know whether Sholokhov knew that his letter to Ermakov fell into the hands of the OGPU and appears in the “Case” as material evidence of Ermakov’s participation in the Upper Don uprising. But he could not help but know about the arrest and execution of the prototype of his hero. It was precisely this circumstance that forced him for many years to take such a cautious position on the issue of the prototype of Grigory Melekhov.”

2. Despite all the bias, the investigation was unable to find anything serious enough for trial in addition to what was discovered in 1923-1924. Apparently, this is why the Rostov OGPU abandoned the trial of Kharlampy Ermakov and turned to Moscow for permission to decide his fate by issuing an “extrajudicial verdict,” which could only be one thing: shooting.

It took many decades for the good name of Kharlampy Ermakov, an amazing person whose phenomenal energy and tragic biography predetermined the immortal character of Grigory Melekhov, to be finally restored.

On August 18, 1989, “By the Resolution of the Presidium of the Rostov Regional Court,” the case was discontinued “due to the lack of corpus delicti in the act of Ermakov Kh.V. Ermakov Kharlampiy Vasilievich was rehabilitated posthumously.”

Despite all the difficulties and tragic circumstances of Ermakov’s life, Sholokhov was not afraid to meet with him, talk for hours, and although for a long time he kept silent about him as the prototype of Grigory Melekhov, he brought him out under his own name in his novel.

What was he like - Kharlampy Ermakov? The book by Felix Kuznetsov contains the memoirs of contemporaries, but the most valuable memory was left by the daughter of Kharlampy Vasilyevich (the prototype of Porlyushka in “Quiet Don”) - Pelageya Kharlampyevna Ermakova (Shevchenko):

Back in 1939, in a conversation with I. Lezhnev, Bazkov’s teacher Pelageya Ermakova, married to Shevchenko, recalled her father this way:

“- My father was a very violent citizen. I don’t even want to think about him!

But then, gradually perking up, she began to tell:

- He was a very good person. The Cossacks loved him. For a comrade I was ready to take off my last shirt. He was cheerful and cheerful. He was promoted not by education (he only completed three grades), but

by courage. In battle he was like a whirlwind, cutting left and right. He was tall, fit, slightly stooped< ... >

In 1912 he was called up for military service; the imperialist war in 1914 found him in the army< ... > Father returned here from the active army only in 1917, with a full bow of St. George's crosses and medals. This was before the October Revolution. Then he worked in Vyoshki with the Reds. But in 1918 the whites came. We have had no Soviet power since the spring. In 1919, my father was not the organizer of the Vyoshensky uprising. He was pulled in and ended up on the white side. They made him an officer< ... >

When the whites rolled towards the Black Sea, my father was with them. In Novorossiysk, before his eyes, the barons boarded a ship and sailed abroad. He became convinced that they were using his darkness. Then he went to serve in the Budennovsky cavalry. He obeyed, repented, he was accepted into the First Cavalry, he was a commander, received awards ... He was demobilized from Budyonny’s army only in 1924, and worked here in the Mutual Assistance Committee until 1927.

“Pelageya Kharlampyevna pulled out a chest of drawers and took out a worn-out photograph of those years, yellowed with time.

“This is all that remains of father,” she said and handed over the photograph.

Looking from her was a still young, hook-nosed, long-haired Cossack with tired squinting eyes, a man who had experienced a lot in life, who had looked death in the face more than once. Apparently, it was not easy for Ermakov to have three St. George’s crosses pinned to a soldier’s overcoat: he was wounded fourteen times and shell-shocked. On the left, at the very hilt of the checker, a stout woman covered with a woolen checkered shawl with tassels was holding him by the elbow. This is Praskovya Ilyinichna, Ermakov’s wife.”

“From the German front,” said P.Kh. Ermakova, “my father returned as a hero - with a full bow of St. George’s crosses, in the rank of cornet, to his misfortune later ... I've earned my favor. The Cossack was a risky man. He was left-handed, but he also worked with his right hand. In battle, I heard from people, he was terrible. He joined the Reds in 1918, and then the Whites lured him to their side, and was their commander. Our mother died in 1918. He arrived from the position when she had already been buried. Thin ... extremely gloomy. And not a tear in my eyes. Only melancholy ... But when I lost my horse, I cried ... I remember it was on the road, during our retreat to Veshki, his horse, Orel, was seriously wounded by a shell fragment. The horse is white-fronted, fell to the ground, raises its head and neighs terribly - screams! The father rushed to the horse and buried his head in the mane: “My eagle, little winged one!” I didn’t save you, I’m sorry, I didn’t save you!” And his tears rolled down ... My father retreated to Novorossiysk with the whites, and there he surrendered to the Red Army and served under Budyonny, as a commander. ...

< ... > After demobilization, my father lived here, in Bazki, with us. In 1926, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov - then young, long-haired, blue-eyed - often came to Bazki to visit his father. It used to be that Kharlamov’s daughter, Verochka, and I were playing or learning lessons, and Mikhail Alexandrovich would come and say to me: “Come on, dark-haired one, run after your father on one leg!” Father came to Sholokhov, and they played for a long time at the open window in front of Don - and until dawn, it happened ... And about what - you ask Mikhail Alexandrovich on occasion ... »

“Coming home, my father usually did not drive through the gate,” she recalls, “but jumped over it. As usual, when he sat down at the table, my father sat me and my brother on his knees, caressed me, and gave me gifts.”

About the relationship between Mikhail Sholokhov and Kharlampy Ermakov we find in Felix Kuznetsov in his book "Quiet Don": The fate and truth of the great novel» :

Back in 1939, in a conversation with I. Lezhnev, Bazkov’s teacher Pelageya Ermakova, married to Shevchenko, recalled her father this way:

“- My father was a very violent citizen. I don’t even want to think about him!

But then, gradually perking up, she began to tell:

- He was a very good person. The Cossacks loved him. For a comrade I was ready to take off my last shirt. He was cheerful and cheerful. He was promoted not by education (he only completed three grades), but

by courage. In battle he was like a whirlwind, cutting left and right. He was tall, fit, slightly stooped< ... >

“Pelageya Kharlampyevna pulled out a chest of drawers and took out a worn-out photograph of those years, yellowed with time.

“This is all that remains of father,” she said and handed over the photograph.

19:41 08.11.2015

A. Voznesensky. In 1967 this creature wrote about Sholokhov - " Superclassic and brother, shame on you, dear. I tore off someone else's novel - I couldn't rip off the second one".

I agree with you Ayez2015 . If all these, as you rightly noted, creatures could write novels on the level of M.A. Sholokhov, then we would now be enjoying a modern masterpiece - “The Holy Fool Gazprom”.

What texture is wasted!

During this conversation, Khamidov suggested that Validol eliminate two people for a reward. The first potential victim was the owner of Saratovstroystekla, Mikhail Lanin. He personally knew Khamidov and gave the latter and his accomplices more than 200 million rubles under promises to appoint Lanin and his son to various positions: at first it was about places in the Central Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (Mikhail is a former employee of the OBKhSS), then in Olimpstroy.

The second potential victim named by Khamidov was Mikhail Ozirny. He was an old friend of another alleged leader of the “fixers” group, Mikhail Koryak, and at one time he was an intermediary in the transfer of 4.5 million euros to “officials” by a businessman from Bashkortostan, for which he was promised the position of vice president of Transneft OJSC.

When Validol learned from Khamidov that one of the victims needed to be dealt with in the Congo, he flatly refused to go there. “I won’t return from there myself, they will either bury me or make me a slave,” said the “authority.” Therefore, to begin with, they “conspired” to eliminate only Lanin.

In March 2011, Khamidov’s personal driver brought Lanina and his common-law wife Elena Pravoslavnova plane tickets to Nice. During the trip they were supposed to inspect the official's cottage. The man and woman were met at the airport in France by several people from Chechnya, who put them in a car and drove them to the town of Villepinte. On one of the dead-end streets, one of the attackers shot Lanin and Pravoslavnova in the heads with a small-caliber pistol. The businessman died on the spot. The woman was luckier - the bullet did not penetrate the skull, the victim just lost consciousness. And the criminal decided that the second victim had also died, so he calmly left with his accomplice.

Having regained consciousness, Pravoslavnova was able to describe the attackers. Based on these data, police detained natives of Chechnya, Yazid Arsaliev and Ruslan Bersanov, who moved to France with their parents at the age of 10. They are currently being investigated.

According to the Investigative Committee, then Validol and Khamildov developed an entire operation to lure Ozirny out of Africa. They played on the fact that before leaving the Russian Federation he tried to take some position in Gazprom and paid a lot of money for it. In 2011, an acquaintance contacted Ozirny and said that the issue of appointment to a major position in the state corporation had almost been resolved. However, either the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, or one of his deputies would like to personally communicate with Ozirny. Moreover, they intend to do this in Turkey, where a number of large joint projects are being implemented and various contracts are being signed.

Ozirny fell for the trick. He arrived in Turkey in transit through the UAE. Validol's people met him there and promised to take him to a certain residence, where representatives of Gazprom were waiting for him. The businessman was taken to a mountainous area, shot dead, and the head and hands of the corpse were doused with acid. He was identified by his expensive watch and cross, and then DNA testing confirmed that the discovered body belonged to Ozirny.