You start typing a message in a messenger — and the helpful program immediately suggests a similar word. Or brazenly replaces your rare one with a common one. And yet even an electronic message can become an artifact. Not to mention the letters of the last century from a family archive!
Letter 1. Izhevsk plant. Girls' gymnasium. To Antonina Sozonova.
Beautiful handwriting, rounded, with flourishes. “Gymnasium” spelled with an i, “to the pupil, Tonya” with a yat at the end. Yes, at the beginning of the last century letters to young women from friends were sent not to their home address but to the place of study. The factory settlement had not yet been granted city status. The girls' gymnasium was housed in the former home of General Berezin on Beregovaya Street. The postman delivered letters to the doorkeeper, who handed them to the schoolgirls after lessons (it was customary to say “after classes”). Here she is — young lady Tonya in an old photograph, in the center, together with her schoolmates. The family of gunsmith Alexey Petrovich Sozonov lived in the Upper part of the town on Naberezhnaya Street. His wife, Iustinia Dmitrievna, née Zhulanova, also came from a gunsmith’s family. It is possible that her husband had been a colleague of her father, Dmitriy Ivanovich Zhulanov, in the stock workshop. Seven children were born in the family — Agrippina (1887), Olga (1890), Pyotr (1892), Zakhar (1894), Antonina (1896), Mikhail (1899) and Ksenia (1891). Their fates turned out differently. Zakhar and Ksenia did not live a year. The eldest daughter Agrippina died of illness at 17. After finishing the gymnasium in 1916, Tonya left with her older sister Olga, already married, for Irkutsk and worked as a servant in the Kolybikhin family. Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kolybikhin served as a member of the admissions committee of the Izhevsk Arms and Steelmaking Plant and was transferred to serve in the Irkutsk Military District.
Tonya Sozonova, 1916.
O.A. Derishcheva with daughters Ksenia and Klavdiya, brother Mikhail and sister Antonina, 1913.
Letter 2. Irkutsk. House of A.A. Kolybikhin. To be delivered to O. Sozonova.
Both Sozonov brothers worked at the Izhevsk Arms Factory after finishing the gymnasium. The elder Pyotr worked in the repair shop, the younger Misha as a turner in the tool shop. Here he is — Mikhail Sozonov, on a “card” photo. In a kosovorotka shirt and a jacket. After the February events Misha would witness the jubilation in the streets and write to his sister in Irkutsk: “Yes Olya shout ‘ura’ to our government and long live the republic!” This is his letter from March 22, 1917. The handwriting is quick, a little jumpy, but legible. The sisters returned home at the beginning of summer. Misha would be killed during the Izhevsk workers’ uprising against Soviet power. Olya’s husband would die; an elderly mother and little daughters would remain: Klavdiya (1910) and Ksenia (1912). Pyotr and Antonina left with the Izhevsk Volunteer Division and made it to Harbin. She would work on the Chinese Eastern Railway, he in a battalion for the protection and defense of railways of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far East. Later they would cross the map of the new country once more, in the opposite direction. And once again the Arms Factory would bring the whole family together. In the 1920s–30s Olga would work in the stock workshop and marry a second time. In Olga Alekseevna Lokhova’s passport book, in ornate (clearly pre-revolutionary, without lifting the pen) handwriting, it is indicated that she is a Citizen and Married. Pyotr would work as a turner at Izhmash. In his free time he would take up gardening. He would become well known in the town as a breeder of fruit trees and travel to the Moscow agricultural exhibition. In 1957, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Arms Factory, Pyotr Alekseevich Sozonov would be awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.
Misha Sozonov (2nd from left in the fourth row) among students and teachers of the Izhevsk male gymnasium, 1914.
Pyotr Sozonov. Khabarovsk, 1921.
Letter 3. Izhevsk, Naberezhnaya St., 26. To Comrade Derishcheva.
A sheet with typewritten text. The letters are blue. That means this is the second copy, made with carbon paper. The form of address, characteristic in the 1920s even in personal relations: “Comrade Klavdiya!” And here is the addressee herself in the photograph — a coquettish hat, a jacket, a blouse and the fashionable women’s tie of the time. In 1929 Klava Derishcheva graduated from a two-level school and draughtswoman courses. She also attended literacy eradication courses. And she became passionate about cinema. She collected photographs of film actors. In a little album sewn from old drawings she copied portraits of actresses. Here, for example, a pencil portrait of the German silent film star Ossi Oswald. Out of her love for cinema arose the correspondence of an 18-year-old provincial girl with assistant director Vladimir Pirozhinsky of the Leningrad studio “Sovkino.” You hardly need to scrutinize his photograph. Everything about him is clear from this typed message. A mix of Onegin and Khlestakov. After all, there was then no yellow press or social networks. So the assistant director recounts the latest news about film actors and hints that he is on intimate terms with them. “I am sending you a card I found quite by chance. Here Boronikhin was shot before his illness. Now he is still sick and in hospital. There is no hope for his recovery, and he looks completely different from before… Podvalny appeared in ‘The Fisherman’s Son,’ the film is being edited. When I see Podvalny I will ask him for a photo… Now about myself. We finished the film ‘War Horses,’ we are editing. We are expecting the film ‘The Fleeing Island’ about the Old Believer way of life. We will go to shoot nature in your area, maybe we will meet there. I remain your acquaintance…” A crafty seducer of a Komsomol heart! And he doesn’t lie: the handsome Evgeny Boronikhin, who played Arbenin in “Masquerade,” would die in 1929, and the dapper Pyotr Roshchin-Podvalny did indeed appear in 1928 in a film about Lomonosov in the role of Count Shuvalov. “We” is actually not about Pirozhinsky, but about his boss, the well-known director Aleksandr Razumny. The author of two film masterpieces: “Mother” (1919) and “Timur and His Team” (1940). Where they filmed the outdoor scenes for the film about the Old Believers is unknown. The film has not survived. The correspondence was interrupted. Six months later Klava Derishcheva would enter the drafting workshop of the technical department of the Izhevsk Arms Factory. A year later she would work in the design bureau of the chief mechanic’s department. In October 1930 she would move to the stock workshop where Olga Alekseevna Sozonova (Derishcheva) worked. Here is a page from Klava’s diary: “This morning I went to work with my mother. We walked along Kurennaia as I used to go to school… Mother saw me off to the office almost across the whole workshop. Three of its windows overlooked the square.” The diary lines on unruled paper are straight, flourishes at the tops and bottoms of letters — neat. The handwriting attests to the calm and solid character of a girl from the third generation of Izhevsk gunsmiths. Klava would also finish economist courses. In 1932 she would marry Pavel Loginov.
Left an orphan, Pavel labored as a hired hand, then came to Izhevsk. In 1921 he got a job as a grinder at the arms factory, where he worked until he was drafted into the army in 1927. After service in the Red Army Pavel Kondratievich returned to the plant and worked as a foreman, a shift supervisor in various shops. He met Klava at the plant. Thus a new family appeared in the old house on Naberezhnaya — now called Rodnikova Street. Soon a daughter Lyudmila (1932) was born to the Loginovs. In 1936 tragedy struck — Lucy died of scarlet fever. Klavdiya grieved the loss of the child very much. But a year later a son Stasik (1937) was born, followed by Lyudvig (1939), and family life settled down. In 1940 her mother Olga Alekseevna was buried. And in June 1941 the war began. Uncle Petya was no longer of draft age, he continued to work as a turner at the plant. Pavel, as they used to say, had a “deferment,” but he too was drafted at the beginning of 1942.
V.P. Pirozhinsky. Leningrad, 1930.
K.M. Loginova. Izhevsk, 1929.
Letter 4. Military unit…, to Lieutenant P.K. Loginov.
Technician-Lieutenant of the 94th Tank Battalion Loginov with the 4th Ukrainian Front reached Berlin. Klavdiya Maksimovna wrote to her husband at the front often and in detail. She tried to cheer and calm him, tried not to complain about difficulties. She told how the children were growing and what they were doing. Here are lines from her letter begun on May 8, 1945:
“I dug over the yard and sowed carrots. So Berlin is taken. Even the children are so captivated by the events at the front right now, it's simply amazing. Yesterday, for example, Lyusik expressed this view on events. He had already undressed for bed, sits in his crib and says: ‘If only all the boys were grown up, if only everyone went to the front, then the Germans would immediately run away. And at home would stay only mothers and girls.’ Just think. I never expected such reasoning from him. I just kissed him all over. Sometimes they don’t listen and I get angry with them, but now they support me so much. Sometimes I feel sad, and they blurt something out or cuddle me, and you involuntarily smile, and it becomes easier in your soul. I sent you their pictures. Write when you receive them. Pavlik, my dear, how funny you are when you write me that I wrongly see you in my dreams. I think of you by day, so at night you appear. And in waking life, of course, I wait, especially now, when everyone expects that the war will end soon. I wait too, and our little ones wait, we are all waiting very much. Kisses, kisses to you. Yours, Klava, Stasik and Lyusik.
P.S. I wrote you a letter yesterday, and today — what news! What news! Victory! Pavlik, my joy! I embrace you tight-tight in honor of Victory and our future meeting! Now we only need to wait for a letter from you dated 9/V and then the joy will be complete!”
A postscript — in pencil, the letters scrawled, joy spilling onto the paper!
Pavel and Klavdiya Loginov with daughter Lucy. Izhevsk, 1935.
Pavel and Klavdiya Loginov with sons Lev and Stasik. Izhevsk, 1945.
Letter 5. Izhevsk, Rodnikova St., 26. To K.M. Loginova.
“Klava, my incomparable gold, my beloved, my dear! Just look at the date at the end of this letter — on what day I am writing this to you, my dear? Klava, isn’t this day one of nationwide great joy and jubilation, eh? After all, Klava, for you there this day also became a great holiday. I feel it. Klava, last night here they began firing almost from midnight and now it’s already 12 noon, and they are still firing literally from all kinds of weapons… this is from joy… from our complete and once-and-for-all victory over Hitler’s Germany… the end of the war. Just imagine what that is, eh? This, Klava, is the strongest, mightiest, boundless joy… I share this joy with you. Well, that’s all, my dears. Goodbye. Kissing you and the sons tight-tight. Pavel. 9.5.45.”
Pavel Kondratievich would finish the war in Manchuria. On his dress uniform would shine the Order of the Red Star, the medals “For the Victory over Germany” and “For the Victory over Japan.” Klavdiya Maksimovna and the sons would meet him only at the end of the victorious year. And in June 1947 twins Irina and Sveta Loginova would be born. A sure sign of peaceful times — girls are born!
From 1943 to 1947 Klavdiya Maksimovna worked as a planner and accountant at the Azinsky regional industrial combine and was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War.” After demobilization Pavel Kondratievich Loginov returned to the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant, where he worked until retirement.
In five letters — the fates of three generations of one family, the town and the plant, the whole country. The family archive of the Sozonovs-Derishchevs-Loginovs is stored in the collections of the Kalashnikov Museum of Small Arms. Part of it was presented at the temporary exhibition “Izhevsk Arms Factory: from the Flintlock to the Kalashnikov.” Visitors expect to see only specimens of weaponry under glass, but they are confronted with a hard, interesting, authentic human story!
