Soviet sculptor Miklashevskaya Mukhina's student. Biography of the sculptor Vera Mukhina

"In bronze, marble, wood, the images of people of the heroic era became sculpted with a bold and strong chisel - a single image of man and the human, marked by the unique seal of great years"

Andart historian Arkin

Vera Ignatievna Mukhina was born in Riga on July 1, 1889 in a wealthy family andreceived a good education at home.Her mother was Frenchfather was a gifted amateur artistand interest in art Vera inherited from him.She did not have a relationship with music:Verochkait seemed that her father did not like the way she played, and he encouraged her daughter to draw.ChildhoodVera Mukhinawent to Feodosia, where the family was forced to move because of serious illness mother.When Vera was three years old, her mother died of tuberculosis, and her father took her daughter abroad for a year, to Germany. Upon their return, the family again settled in Feodosia. However, a few years later, my father changed his place of residence again: he moved to Kursk.

Vera Mukhina - Kursk schoolgirl

In 1904, Vera's father died. In 1906 Mukhina graduated from high schooland moved to Moscow. Atshe no longer had any doubts that she would be engaged in art.In 1909-1911 Vera was a student of a private studiofamous landscape painterYuon. During these years, for the first time, he showed interest in sculpture. In parallel with painting and drawing classes with Yuon and Dudin,Vera Mukhinavisits the studio of the self-taught sculptor Sinitsyna, located on the Arbat, where for a moderate fee you could get a place to work, a machine tool and clay. From Yuon at the end of 1911, Mukhina moved to the studio of the painter Mashkov.
Early 1912 VeraIngatievnashe was visiting relatives on an estate near Smolensk and, while sleighing down a mountain, she crashed and disfigured her nose. Homegrown doctors somehow "sewn" the face onto whichFaithafraid to look. The uncles sent Verochka to Paris for treatment. She steadfastly endured several facial plastic surgeries. But the character ... He became sharp. It is no coincidence that later many colleagues will christen her as a person of "cool disposition". Vera completed her treatment and at the same time studied with the famous sculptor Bourdelle, at the same time attended the La Palette Academy, as well as the drawing school, which was led by the famous teacher Colarossi.
In 1914 Vera Mukhina toured Italy and realized that sculpture was her true calling. Returning to Russia with the beginning of the First World War, she creates the first significant work - the sculptural group "Pieta", conceived as a variation on the themes of Renaissance sculptures and a requiem for the dead.

The war radically changed the usual way of life. Vera Ignatievna leaves sculpture classes, enters nursing courses and works in a hospital in 1915-17. Thereshe met her betrothed:Alexey Andreevich Zamkov worked as a doctor. Vera Mukhina and Alexei Zamkov met in 1914, and got married only four years later. In 1919, he was threatened with execution for participating in the Petrograd rebellion (1918). But, fortunately, he ended up in the Cheka in the office of Menzhinsky (from 1923 he headed the OGPU), whom he helped to leave Russia in 1907. “Oh, Alexei,” Menzhinsky told him, “you were with us in 1905, then you went to the whites. You can't survive here."
Subsequently, when Vera Ignatievna was asked what attracted her to her future husband, she answered in detail: "He has a very strong creativity. Internal monumentality. And at the same time a lot from the man. Inner rudeness with great spiritual subtlety. Besides, he was very handsome.”


Aleksey Andreevich Zamkov was indeed a very talented doctor, he treated unconventionally, tried folk methods. Unlike his wife Vera Ignatievna, he was a sociable, cheerful, sociable person, but at the same time very responsible, with a heightened sense of duty. These men are said to be: “With him, she is like behind a stone wall.”

After the October Revolution, Vera Ignatievna is fond of monumental sculpture and makes several compositions on revolutionary themes: “Revolution” and “Flame of Revolution”. However, her characteristic expressiveness of modeling, combined with the influence of cubism, was so innovative that few people appreciated these works. Mukhina abruptly changes her field of activity and turns to applied art.

Mukhina vases

Vera Mukhinagetting closerI am with the avant-garde artists Popova and Exter. With themMukhinamakes sketches for several productions of Tairov at the Chamber Theater and is engaged in industrial design. Vera Ignatievna designed the labelswith Lamanova, book covers, sketches of fabrics and jewelry.At the Paris Exhibition of 1925clothing collection, created according to the sketches of Mukhina,was awarded the Grand Prix.

Icarus. 1938

"If we now look back and try once again with cinematic speed to survey and compress a decade Mukhina's life, - writes P.K. Suzdalev, - past after Paris and Italy, we will face an unusually complex and turbulent period of personality formation and creative search for an outstanding artist of a new era, a woman artist, who is being formed in the fire of revolution and work, in an unstoppable striving forward and painfully overcoming the resistance of the old world. A swift and impetuous movement forward, into the unknown, against the forces of resistance, towards the wind and storm - this is the essence of Mukhina's spiritual life of the past decade, the pathos of her creative nature. "

From sketches of fantastic fountains (“Female figure with a jug”) and “fiery” costumes to Benelli’s drama “The Dinner of Jokes”, from the extreme dynamism of “Archery”, she comes to the projects of monuments to “Liberated Labor” and “Flame of the Revolution”, where this plastic idea acquires a sculptural existence, a form, though not yet fully found and resolved, but figuratively filled.This is how "Julia" is born - after the name of the ballerina Podgurskaya, who served as a constant reminder of the shapes and proportions female body, because Mukhina greatly rethought and transformed the model. “She was not so heavy,” Mukhina said. The refined elegance of the ballerina gave way in "Julia" to the fortress of deliberately weighted forms. Under the stack and chisel of the sculptor was born not just beautiful woman, but the standard of a healthy, full of energy harmoniously folded body.
Suzdalev: ““Julia”, as Mukhina called her statue, is built in a spiral: all spherical volumes - head, chest, stomach, hips, calves - everything, growing out of each other, unfolds as it goes around the figure and again twists in a spiral, giving rise to a sensation whole, flesh-filled form of the female body. Separate volumes and the entire statue decisively fills the space occupied by it, as if displacing it, elastically pushing the air away from itself “Julia” is not a ballerina, the power of her elastic, consciously weighted forms is characteristic of a woman physical labor; this is the physically mature body of a worker or peasant woman, but with all the severity of the forms, the proportions and movement of a developed figure have integrity, harmony and feminine grace.
In 1930, Mukhina's well-established life breaks down sharply: her husband is arrested on false charges, famous doctor Zamkov. After the trial, he is sent to Voronezh and Mukhina, together with her ten-year-old son, follows her husband. Only after Gorky's intervention, four years later, did she return to Moscow. Later, Mukhina created a sketch of the tomb monument to Peshkov.

Portrait of a son. 1934 Alexey Andreevich Zamkov. 1934

Returning to Moscow, Mukhina again began to design Soviet exhibitions abroad. She creates the architectural design of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. The famous sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Girl", which became Mukhina's first monumental project. Mukhina's composition shocked Europe and was recognized as a masterpiece of art of the 20th century.


IN AND. Mukhina among the second-year students of Vkhutein
From the late thirties until the end of his life, Mukhina worked mainly as a portrait sculptor. During the war years, she created a gallery of portraits of order bearers, as well as a bust of Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov (1945), which now adorns his tombstone.

Krylov's shoulders and head grow out of a golden block of elm, as if emerging from the natural outgrowths of a thick-set tree. In some places, the sculptor's chisel slides over the wood chips, emphasizing their shape. There is a free and unconstrained transition from the raw part of the ridge to the smooth plastic lines of the shoulders and the powerful volume of the head. The color of elm gives a special, lively warmth and solemn decorativeness to the composition. The head of Krylov in this sculpture is clearly associated with the images of ancient Russian art, and at the same time it is the head of an intellectual, a scientist. Old age, physical extinction is opposed by the strength of the spirit, the strong-willed energy of a person who has given his whole life to the service of thought. His life is almost lived - and he has almost completed what he had to do.

Ballerina Marina Semyonova. 1941.

In the semi-figure portrait of Semyonova, the ballerina is depictedin a state of external immobility and internal composurebefore going on stage. In this moment of "entering the image" Mukhina reveals the confidence of the artist, who is in the prime of her beautiful talent - a feeling of youth, talent and fullness of feeling.Mukhina refuses to depict the dance movement, believing that the portrait task itself disappears in it.

Partisan. 1942

“We know historical examples, - Mukhina said at an anti-fascist rally. - We know Joan of Arc, we know the mighty Russian partisan Vasilisa Kozhina. We know Nadezhda Durova ... But such a massive, gigantic manifestation of genuine heroism that we see among Soviet women on the days of the battles against fascism is significant. Our Soviet woman deliberately goes to I am not only talking about such women and heroic girls as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Elizaveta Chaikina, Anna Shubenok, Alexandra Martynovna Dreyman - a Mozhaisk partisan mother who sacrificed her son and her life to her homeland... I am also talking about thousands of unknown heroines. Isn’t it a heroine, for example, any Leningrad housewife who, during the days of the siege of her native city, gave the last crumb of bread to her husband or brother, or just a male neighbor who made shells?

After the warVera Ignatievna Mukhinaperforms two major official orders: creates a monument to Gorky in Moscow and a statue of Tchaikovsky. Both of these works are distinguished by the academic nature of the execution and rather indicate that the artist deliberately moves away from modern reality.

The project of the monument to P.I. Tchaikovsky. 1945. Left - "Shepherd" - high relief to the monument.

Vera Ignatievna also fulfilled the dream of her youth. figurinesitting girl, compressed into a ball, strikes with plasticity, melodiousness of lines. Slightly raised knees, crossed legs, outstretched arms, arched back, lowered head. Smooth, something subtly reminiscent of the "white ballet" sculpture. In glass, she became even more elegant and musical, acquired completeness.

seated figurine. Glass. 1947

http://murzim.ru/jenciklopedii/100-velikih-skulpto...479-vera-ignatevna-muhina.html

The only work, besides "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", in which Vera Ignatievna managed to embody and bring to the end her figurative, collectively symbolic vision of the world, is the tombstone of her close friend and relative, the great Russian singer Leonid Vitalyevich Sobinov. Initially, it was conceived in the form of a herm depicting the singer in the role of Orpheus. Subsequently, Vera Ignatievna settled on the image of a white swan - not only a symbol of spiritual purity, but more subtly associated with the swan-prince from "Lohengrin" and the "swan song" of the great singer. This work was a success: Sobinov's tombstone is one of the most beautiful monuments of the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

Monument to Sobinov on the Moscow Novodevichy cemetery

The bulk of Vera Mukhina's creative discoveries and ideas remained at the stage of sketches, layouts and drawings, replenishing the ranks on the shelves of her workshop and causing (albeit extremely rarely) a stream of bittertheir tears of impotence of the creator and woman.

Vera Mukhina. Portrait of the artist Mikhail Nesterov

“He chose everything himself, and the statue, and my pose, and point of view. He himself determined the exact size of the canvas. All by myself"- said Mukhina. Confessed: “I can’t stand it when they see me work. I never let myself be photographed in the studio. But Mikhail Vasilievich certainly wanted to paint me at work. I couldn't not give in to his urgent desire.

Boreas. 1938

Nesterov wrote it while sculpting "Borea": “I worked continuously while he was writing. Of course, I couldn’t start something new, but I was finalizing ... as Mikhail Vasilievich rightly put it, I took up darning ”.

Nesterov wrote willingly, with pleasure. “Something is coming out,” he reported to S.N. Durylin. The portrait he painted is amazing in terms of the beauty of the compositional solution (Boreas, falling off his pedestal, seems to be flying towards the artist), in terms of nobility colors: dark blue dressing gown, from under it a white blouse; the subtle warmth of its shade argues with the matte pallor of the plaster, which is further enhanced by the bluish-lilac reflections from the dressing gown playing on it.

For several years,Before this, Nesterov wrote to Shadr: “She and Shadr are the best and, perhaps, the only real sculptors we have,” he said. “He is more talented and warmer, she is smarter and more skilled.”This is how he tried to show her - smart and skilled. With attentive eyes, as if weighing the figure of Boreas, concentratedly knitted eyebrows, sensitive, able to calculate every movement with his hands.

Not a work blouse, but neat, even elegant clothes - how effectively the bow of the blouse is pinned with a round red brooch. His shadr is much softer, simpler, more frank. Does he care about the suit - he is at work! And yet the portrait went far beyond the framework, originally outlined by the master. Nesterov knew this and was glad of it. The portrait does not speak of clever craftsmanship - oh creative imagination, curbed by the will; about passion, holding backby the mind. About the very essence of the soul of the artist.

It is interesting to compare this portrait with photographsmade with Mukhina during work. Because, although Vera Ignatievna did not let photographers into the studio, there are such pictures - Vsevolod took them.

Photo 1949 - working on the figurine "Root as Mercutio". Drawn eyebrows, a transverse fold on the forehead and the same intense gaze as in the portrait of Nesterov. Just a little questioningly and at the same time resolutely folded lips.

The same hot power of touching the figure, the passionate desire to pour a living soul into it through the trembling of the fingers.

Another message

Vera Mukhina, who became famous for the project of the sculptural group "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" in 1937, made a great contribution to monumental propaganda. In addition, the woman has other popular works that brought her many prizes and awards.

Vera Mukhina in the workshop

Vera was born in the summer of 1889 in Riga, which at that time was part of the Livonian province Russian Empire. The girl's father, Ignaty Kuzmich, was a well-known philanthropist and businessman, her family belonged to the merchant class.

When Vera was 2 years old, her mother dies of tuberculosis. The father loved his daughter and was afraid for her health, so he moved to Feodosia, where she lived until 1904. There, the future sculptor received her first lessons in painting and drawing.

In 1904, Vera's father also dies, so the girl with her older sister transported to Kursk. There lived relatives of the family, who sheltered two orphans. They, too, were wealthy people and spared no expense, hired governesses for sisters, sent them to travel to Dresden, Tyrol and Berlin.

In Kursk, Mukhina went to school. After graduating from high school with honors, she moved to Moscow. The guardians planned to find a groom for the girl, although this was not part of the plans of Vera herself. She dreamed of learning art and someday move to Paris. In the meantime, the future sculptor began to study painting in art studios in Moscow.

Sculpture and creativity

Later, the girl went to the capital of France and there she realized that she was called to become a sculptor. Mukhina's first mentor in this area was Emile Antoine Bourdelle, a student of the legendary Auguste Rodin. She also traveled to Italy, studied the works of famous artists of the Renaissance period. In 1914 Mukhina returned to Moscow.

After the completion of the October Revolution, he developed a plan for the creation of city monuments and attracted young specialists for this. In 1918, Mukhina received an order to create a monument. The girl made a clay model and sent it for approval to the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. Vera's work was appreciated, but she never managed to finish it. Since the model was stored in a cold room in the workshop, the clay soon cracked and the work was spoiled.

Also, as part of the “Lenin Plan for Monumental Propaganda”, Mukhina created sketches for monuments to V. M. Zagorsky and the sculpture “Revolution” and “Liberated Labor”. In her youth, the character of the girl did not allow her to stop halfway, Vera carefully worked out each of her works, took into account even the smallest elements and always exceeded the expectations of others. So in the biography of a woman, the first significant works in her career appeared.

Vera's creativity was manifested not only in sculpture. In 1925, she created a collection of elegant clothes. For tailoring, she chose cheap rough materials, including coarse calico, weaving cloth and canvas, buttons were turned from wood, and hats from matting. There were no decorations either. For decoration, the sculptor came up with an original ornament, called the “rooster pattern”. With the created collection, the woman went to an exhibition in Paris. She presented clothes together with fashion designer N.P. Lamanova and received the main prize at the competition.

In the period from 1926 to 1930, Mukhina taught at the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute and the Artistic and Industrial College.

A significant work in the professional career of a woman was the sculpture "Peasant Woman". The work is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of October, even famous artist Ilya Mashkov spoke positively about her. At the exhibition, the monument took 1st place. And after the "Peasant Woman" was transported to the Venetian exhibition, the museum of the city of Trieste bought it. Today, this work complements the collection of the Vatican Museum in Rome.

Vera also made a significant contribution to the culture of the country with her work “Worker and Collective Farm Girl”. The figures of a man and a woman were installed in Paris in 1937 at the World Exhibition, and later they were transported to the author's homeland and installed at VDNKh. This monument has become a symbol of the new Moscow, the film studio "Mosfilm" used the image of the statue as an emblem.

Among other works of Vera Mukhina are monuments and. For several years, the woman worked on creating sculptures for the Moskvoretsky Bridge, but during her lifetime she managed to realize only one project - the composition "Bread". The remaining 5 monuments were created according to sketches after the death of Mukhina.

In the post-war years, Vera created a museum consisting of sculptural portraits. The gallery of the woman was replenished with images of N. Burdenko, B. Yusupov and I. Khizhnyak. Although there are no documents confirming Mukhina's attitude to the creation of the design of the famous faceted glass, many people attribute to her the authorship of this dish, which was widely used in canteens in the Soviet years.

Personal life

Vera met her first love in Paris. When the girl studied there the art of creating sculpture, she did not think about building a personal life, because she was focused on gaining knowledge. But you can't tell your heart.

The fugitive SR terrorist Alexander Vertepov became the chosen one of Mukhina. However, the couple did not last long, in 1914 the young people broke up. Vera went to visit relatives in Russia, and Alexander went to the front to fight. Living in Russia, a few years later the girl learned about the death of her lover, as well as about the beginning of the October Revolution.

Mukhina met her future husband during civil war. She worked as a nurse, helping to nurse the wounded. A young military doctor Alexei Zamkov worked with her. The young people fell in love and got married in 1918. The Internet even presents joint photos couples. At first, young people did not think about children. Together they had to go through the hungry post-war years, which only rallied the family and showed the true feelings of a man and a woman.

In marriage, Mukhina had a son, who was named Vsevolod. At the age of 4, the boy became very ill. After a leg injury, tuberculous inflammation formed in the wound. All the doctors visited by the parents refused to treat him, because the case was considered hopeless. But the father did not give up when there was no other way out, he himself operated on the child at home, which saved his son's life. When Vsevolod recovered, he unlearned and became a physicist, and later gave his parents grandchildren.

Zamkov's career went up sharply when he created the hormonal drug Gravidan, which became the world's first industrial medicine. However, only patients appreciated the development of the doctor, while this annoyed Soviet doctors. Around the same period, the commission ceased to approve all new sketches of Vera, the main motive was the "bourgeois origin of the author." Endless searches and interrogations soon brought the woman's husband to a heart attack, so the family decided to escape to Latvia.

Before reaching their destination, the family was intercepted and brought back. The fugitives are interrogated, and then exiled to Voronezh. Saved the position of the couple Maxim Gorky. The writer some time ago was treated by a man and improved his health thanks to Gravidan. The writer convinced that the country needed such a doctor, after which the family was returned to the capital and even allowed Zamkov to open his institute.

Death

Vera Mukhina died in the autumn of 1953, then she was 64 years old. The cause of death was her long-tormented angina pectoris.

The grave of the sculptor is located on the second section of the Novodevichy cemetery.

Works

• Monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" in Moscow
• Sculptures "Bread" and "Fertility" in Moscow
• Sculptures "Sea" in Moscow
• Monument to Maxim Gorky in Moscow
• Tombstones at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow
• Sculptural composition "Farkhad and Shirin" in Volgograd
• Monument to Maxim Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod
• Sculpture "Peace" in Volgograd

The amazing union of the talented doctor-discoverer Alexei Zamkov and the outstanding sculptor Vera Mukhina was an outlet for the spouses. They fought against all adversity shoulder to shoulder, steadfastly enduring the disgrace and caress of the authorities. Vera Mukhina and Alexei Zamkov were not only an example of sincere bright feelings, but also an example of dedication and dedication to their work.

Through the flames of the first world war

She was only 22 years old when she, resting with her uncle in the Smolensk region during Christmas, flew out of the sleigh and hit her face on a tree. She did not want to live after that, but she endured 7 plastic surgery and the doctors literally fashioned a new face for her. Only the eyes were familiar and recognizable. All features were masculine. These changes brought her not only disappointment in her own appearance, but also disappointment in love. Vera believed that it was impossible to love a woman with a man's face. And she decided: from now on, her happiness in her career. Studying the work of sculptors in Italy, she was inspired by the example of Michelangelo. Now she dreamed of becoming a famous sculptor whose work would inspire thousands of people.

On the fronts of the First World War, Alexei gained fame as an excellent diagnostician and clinician, and led the hospital.

The moment of meeting Vera and Alexei in the Moscow hospital is blurred by time and scattered memories. According to some, Vera saved Alexei from typhus, constantly caring for a young doctor, according to others, it was he who saved Vera. Mukhina herself shared her memories, according to which they first met in 1914.

The first meeting left only a slight memory of a young university graduate. After he was brought to the hospital in 1916, when he was practically dying of typhus. Vera was a sister of mercy in the same hospital, however, she worked not for money, but at the call of her own soul, trying to bring tangible benefits to people.

Faith and strength

They got married in 1918. Hard times tested the spouses for strength, but they were not going to lose heart. They lived by what Alexey brought from his native village of Borisov, where he conducted receptions. The villagers paid with bread and potatoes.

Son Volik was born in 1920 right in their apartment, Alexei took birth with his own hands. The situation with money was slowly getting better, but fate presented them with a new test: Volik was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis at the age of five. Doctors advised to prepare for the worst. But the parents were not going to give up so easily. Vera Mukhina first took her son for treatment to the Crimea, for the first time parting for a long time with her husband.

And then Alexei Andreevich himself operated on his son. Houses. On the dining table. The son not only survived, but two years later he stopped using crutches.

“Bypass us more than all sorrows and royal anger, and royal love ...”

Vera Mukhina and Aleksey Zamkov turned out to be in demand and favored by the authorities, each in his own field. Vera, along with other craftsmen, actively worked in the field of building new symbols and new monuments of the Soviet era. Mukhina's sculpture "Peasant Woman" in 1928 earned the Stalin Prize, and the author was given 1,000 rubles and sent to Paris for three months. True, she returned home after two, unable to bear the separation from her husband and son.

"Collective farmer

Alexey Zamkov became the creator of a new drug based on the release of a special hormone from the urine of pregnant women. The use of the drug, which Alexey Andreevich called gravidan, gave amazing results. Among Zamkov's patients were Budyonny, Gorky, Clara Zetkin.

But Dr. Zamkov soon fell out of favor. A real persecution began in the press, he was fired from the Institute of Experimental Biology. Zamkov decides to flee abroad, and Vera agrees to this adventure with him. However, they were already arrested in Kharkov. Vera and her son were released five days later, while Zamkov was tried and sent into exile in Voronezh. Thanks to high patrons, he returned to Moscow ahead of schedule and immediately after his return was appointed director of the laboratory of urogravid therapy.

They were given a huge apartment near the Red Gate. It was in this apartment that several surprisingly happy years of the family passed.

Ups and downs

Again, Zamkov and Mukhina find themselves on the wave of popularity and demand. The massive use of gravidan caused some unprecedented wave of healing, the doctor felt like a triumphant. Vera Ignatievna in 1937 became the author of the unique sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", which delighted not only the leader of all peoples, but also Pablo Picasso himself.

The famous work of Vera Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". / Photo: www.colors.life

But after the glory was followed by a new disgrace. Again the doctor was accused of quackery and ignorance. And soon the war began, Vera Ignatievna and Alexei Andreevich with their son were evacuated to the Urals. Mukhina managed to get her call to Moscow, where she began to work on heroic portraits of war veterans. Zamkov began to languish from the realization of his uselessness, he became very weak physically. But most importantly, he did not feel the strength in himself to fight for his own life.

He returned to Moscow already seriously ill. In 1942, Dr. Zamkov died after a second heart attack. Vera Ignatievna created a unique monument to her husband at the Novodevichy cemetery with the inscription "I did everything I could for people." And after the death of Vera Mukhina herself, a second inscription appeared on this monument: “Me too…”

Vera Mukhina and Alexei Zamkov had the good fortune to spend almost a quarter of a century together. preferred that his beloved woman only illuminated his life from time to time.

Mukhina Vera Ignatievna. Sculptor. Born in 1889. People's Artist of the USSR, member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, laureate of State Prizes. The author of the monuments "Flame of the Revolution", "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", monuments to T. Shevchenko, P. Tchaikovsky. Designed exhibitions and theatrical performances. She died in 1953.

Zamkov Vsevolod Alekseevich. Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. In the past, he was the head of the Department of Physics at the Leningrad Medical Institute. Has a daughter and a grandson. Lives in St. Petersburg.

Konstantin Smirnov. On the NTV channel "Big Parents" - a program in which children from famous families talk about their childhood, about their parents.

Today we are visiting Vsevolod Alekseevich Zamkov, the son of the great Russian sculptor, author of the famous sculptural composition "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" - Vera Mukhina. Vsevolod Alekseevich, your mother is widely known in the world, but who was your father?

The work of Vera Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"

Vsevolod Zamkov. My father was a doctor with a very interesting biography. He was a peasant, his grandfather brought him and gave him as a loader to the Moscow customs when he was 15 years old. Then he began to study, finished accounting courses, became an artel worker in a bank; immersed himself in revolutionary activity. In 1905, he was engaged in the supply of weapons to Presnya through the barricades. There he met Krasin, Komov.

K.S. Got into bad company?

V.Z. But then, apparently, I don’t know why, since 1906 he completely abandoned this whole company and always said that “people should not be killed, but treated.”

K.S. Why did he have such a revolution?

V.Z. He did not say anything, he was an unusually secretive person, and his documents in 1941, during his arrest, disappeared somewhere. So. After he left the Bolsheviks, he decided to pass the matriculation certificate, he failed for two years, and passed the third year and entered the University at the Faculty of Medicine. He studied with Aleksensky, who was outstanding at that time, who considered him the best student. He graduated in 1914. During the war, he volunteered for the front. In 1915, he was already the head of the hospitals of the front; he was brought in in 1916 with typhus and typhus at the same time, and he came out, it is not clear how.

As a result, he stayed in Moscow, where he met his mother, whom he cured of trichinosis, she at that time worked as a nurse in a horse breeding hospital on Arbatskaya Square. In 1918 they got married. Thus, a kind of duet was formed: a mother, who was of high European culture, and a father. Mother was a very strong-willed person, but he was much stronger than her morally.

The father was by this time one of the most famous surgeons of the time. During the First World War, he, nevertheless, was, as they say, a silversmith. For example, for many years he went every Sunday instead of resting to his native village of Borisovka, near Klin, where he treated his fellow villagers for free. This went on for many years, and he is still remembered there. Then he specialized in surgical urology. And then there was a radical change in his life, which played a big role in our entire family. Timofey Lisovsky, known for the novel "Zubr", introduced him to Academician Koltsov, "the father of our Russian genetics", his father wanted to do science, and Koltsov was looking for a surgeon who could deal with urology. He was interested in the problem of rejuvenation during organ transplantation, and his father went to Koltsov as a laboratory assistant, left private practice, which was not forbidden, and thus he stumbled upon a serious discovery that made him, on the one hand, world famous, and on the other hand, all the troubles our home originated from here.

K.S. What kind of discovery are we talking about?

V.Z. Working on rejuvenation under the guidance of Koltsov, he came across the fact that the urine of pregnant women has the strongest anti-aging stimulant of the body. I tried it on myself. He said that after the first injection, "I felt like I had drunk a bottle of champagne." As a result, through experiments, he developed a drug and began to use it widely in his private practice.

K.S. Tell me, as far as I understand, he was a doctor - an experimenter, and on whom did he experiment - on himself or ...

V.Z. No, while he had a private practice, he experimented on his patients and on himself. I had tuberculosis as a child different forms, and actually, only when he stumbled upon his discoveries, he managed to finally rid me of bone tuberculosis, and I spent 5 years on crutches, they were going to amputate my right leg. But most importantly, an institute appeared, it was called a special institute for urogravid therapy.

A pandemonium began, because he took in hopelessly sick people and usually nursed them. There were a huge number of patients. Once a courier came with a package, with wax seals on the corners. I accept the document - the King of Thailand invites Dr. Zamkov to be the president of the Academy of Medicine. And this is already 1934-35.

Then there was such an episode, after the war, in our house. The bell rings, I open it - a man with a vaguely familiar face: “Excuse me, I heard that Dr. Zamkov died, but are there any of his relatives? You can't tell me. I am Abel. His father watched before leaving. He came to find out: what, how.

Father worked hard. Everything went very well, but, as always, in a medical environment, colleagues do not like too good doctors, and persecution begins, and persecution according to a well-known scheme.

K.S. Vsevolod Alekseevich, what years are these?

V.Z. It's already 1929. Moreover, they wrote articles, feuilletons about my father, and especially there was such a dirty feuilleton on his birthday, in my opinion, in Izvestia, my father could not stand it and decided that he had to go abroad. He was in such despair, judging by the documents, that he did not see that exactly a month ago an order had been issued on the most severe punishments for leaving. My father had visas in 1929, he did not go, he was still fighting, and then waved, took me, my mother. There was a man who promised to do everything, but he turned out to be a provocateur and we were arrested right on the train.

K.S. All three?

V.Z. All three. So I have experience: 5 days at the Lubyanka at the age of ten. I have 5 days, and my father has a few months. Then a link. He and his mother were exiled, it was a liberal socialist camp in Voronezh, where Mandelstam was exiled at the same time. When the father's case was reported to Dzerzhinsky, he said that they shoot themselves from this, not that they run. As a result, we left Voronezh, and my father continued his experiments. Again there was a scandal with colleagues. In general, it ended with the fact that after a year and a half of his stay in Voronezh, his father was summoned to Moscow, brought to Moscow with an escort and straight from the train, without letting him change clothes, to go home, was taken to the Kremlin and was appointed director of the institute.

Naturally, my mother was also in Voronezh, although she was not kept in custody. She worked little, but managed to make a project for a monument to Shevchenko; and before that she had already done many of her best things - the project of a monument to Sverdlov, the flame of the Revolution, then Yuri, wooden; and, finally, a peasant woman who was sent to Venice and, at the direction of Mussolini, was sold; and where it is, I do not know, according to rumors, in the Vatican Museum.

K.S. Vsevolod Alekseevich, your mother came from a very rich family Mukhin, and married a peasant son.

V.Z. You see, father's unusually high moral principles, his great will not to suppress others, but to self-discipline, such that mother always said that she "won father like a hundred thousand on a tram ticket."

K.S. Tell me, how did she, from a family of industrialists, become involved in art?

V.Z. She always gravitated towards art, from her youth. She was completely self-taught. In 1912, a catastrophe happened to her: she, sledding from the mountains in winter, flew out of the sleigh and tore off her nose. By chance, a doctor happened to be nearby, who managed to take it all in, but her face was deformed for more than a year. After the disaster, art was an amateur for her, but she felt that this was her calling. She demanded permission from her guardians to go to Paris. Moreover, she already knew and became friends with Lyubov Popova, one of the founders of our cubism. She went to Paris, and stayed there for two winter seasons. And in the interim summer season, she and Popova and another friend traveled around Italy. As a matter of fact, her whole education consisted in the fact that she was in Paris for two years. There was such a company: Boris Nikolaevich Ternovets, then the founder of the Museum of Western Art, Popova; Vertepov, in the future - a terrorist who shot at the Peterhof governor, then fled to France, about whom they said that he was stronger than Rodin, but he died. In 1914, she returned home for the summer, to rest, and the war began. She became a nurse. She became friends with Alexandra Exter, one of the leading leftists in the arts. And Exter attracted her to work in the theater. She took up theatrical costume. First, at the request of Exter and Tairov, she made two huge masks of Apollo Dionysus, which frame the arch of the stage. So, this company gave way to Vera Ignatievna in art, it was a company of left-wing artists of that time, the most powerful, who are considered the fathers of the Russian avant-garde.

K.S. Vsevolod Alekseevich, you spent two years in exile in Voronezh, and Vera Ignatievna is known as the author of the sculpture, which is perceived as a symbol of Soviet power, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. Explain how the daughter of wealthy parents began to cooperate with this government?

V.Z. Beautiful human ideas have always impressed Vera Ignatievna. As a matter of fact, the main, most interesting, but little-known result of her work is what she called "dreams on the shelf": models, sketches of monuments, monuments; but it so happened that this sculpture became famous. Much remains only in layouts.

K.S. Mom never told how she got this idea?

V.Z. The idea was not from Vera Ignatievna, the idea was from Iofan, that is, the main composition was set. There was, of course, a squabble, because my mother demanded a reduction of one and a half meters. "Why? I asked you such and such a size? She said, "I'm not good at composition." She always put a certain ideological content into the composition. For example, she made a monument to Shevchenko. An essential detail is that Shevchenko is in a national costume. The composition was as follows: on the one hand, a group of haidamaks with a horse, on the other, a group of free workers. The monument was recognized as very good, but was not accepted. Why? — Because Shevchenko is in national costume. They said that Mukhina was playing on nationalism.

K.S. Please tell us the history of the composition "Worker and Collective Farm Girl".

V.Z. The story began with the fact that a competition was announced at the World Exhibition of 1937, and my mother's layout was the most acceptable. A madhouse began, because it all happened somewhere in May, in April of the following year it was necessary that it was already standing. So, work began on the final model. There are no viewings, my mother wrote a letter to the chief commissioner of the exhibition that if the viewing does not take place, then she refuses to work. Finally accepted, but a scandal began with a scarf. The scarf, which was the main compositional element of the sculpture, giving dynamics, could not be accepted and understood why it was needed.

She managed to persuade Molotov, then the layout was accepted. Life size model is a meter too; they made it in two and a half months, but then the increase in kind at the plant began. It was a crazy epic, everyone was so tired that one day Vera Ignatievna woke up standing on a scarf, without a fence, in the cold, 15 meters above the ground. She walked, examined and fell asleep on the go. Such was the pace of work. In March, the statue was taken to Paris, and by May 1 it was already in place.

K.S. Didn't mom go to Paris?

V.Z. Traveled, of course. Her assistant, Zinaida Grigorievna, went, I went because she was simply afraid to go alone - she asked Molotov to let me go with them. And a team of workers and engineers went under the leadership of Lvov Petr Nikolaevich, a brilliant designer in aircraft construction, he took up this work. You ask how it could happen that she took on such a job ... The fact is that Vera Ignatievna never had a confrontation with the wonderful ideas that were embedded in the ideology of communism. It was the embodiment of dynamics and movement forward in those days, during the years of the first five-year plans.

K.S. When you were in Paris, did you think of staying?

V.Z. No. First, there was a father whom his mother loved madly, she would never leave him. Secondly, France of that time lived without figurative art. For Mukhina, the main thing was the creation of an image, the embodiment of a certain spiritual essence. Her works such as "The Defense of Sevastopol", a monument to Shevchenko, a statue of the salvation of the Chelyuskinites, where the basis of everything was a huge Boreas, flying through the air in a bear's skin, as if evil spirit North, flying away from the Bolsheviks. That is, all the time there were attempts to find an artistic solution, but by no means of a communist plan.

K.S. After all, they did not live in a detached world, well-known events took place around them, obviously, someone from relatives and friends was arrested?

V.Z. I can tell such an episode. Our apartment is described, I heard phone call, hours at 3 am; father went to answer, then returned, mother asks what was the matter - “Olga, Ordzhonikidze’s sister, called, he committed suicide.” "Why?" Mom asks. Olga said that he motivated it like this: “If I don’t kill myself, I must kill the mustachioed one, and if I kill the mustachioed one, I will kill the party, I cannot allow this.” This phrase stuck in my memory. There were funny episodes related to the fact that she was forced to even sculpt a portrait of Stalin by order. She said: "I want from nature, only from nature." Stalin wrote an answer: it is a great honor for him that Vera Ignatievna wants to sculpt it, but he cannot now and asks to reschedule it to a later date, when he can, and so on and so forth. Then Zhdanov called, but she had her first heart attack, she could no longer, but she raised the question - only from nature and no photographs. The question was removed.

K.S. And yet there were talks about power in the family?

V.Z. Probably, mother and father had conversations, but father went through a harsh school, and they decided that no conversation should be carried on. There were conversations, but there was no discussion. You see, we had a kind of family, we did not have a common chatter. It was like this: my mother prepared her reports, I often looked through them, edited them. The emphasis was only on the fundamental aspects, the struggle for the concept of the image in art. The main thing in her work was that she was looking for an image, a symbol as the embodiment of a certain human spirit.

On the one hand, there is nothing unnatural or anti-Soviet in her works, but, on the other hand, they were also extra-Soviet.

K.S. That is, over political games?

V.Z. Yes, above them. She never allowed herself to bargain with the Ministry. She was called “the conscience of the Union of Artists, on the other hand, they put her on trial, that she knocks down prices for everyone, does not bargain with the Ministry.

K.S. Did others pay bribes to get orders?

V.Z. Yes. Moreover, in her suicide letter, she wrote to draw attention to bribery in the apparatus of the Ministry. That's why they didn't like her - the first artist, but you can't take anything from him. For example, in 1937, Vera Ignatievna received 25 thousand rubles for The Worker and the Collective Farm Girl. In the same year, Merkurov receives 480 thousand rubles for 3.5 meter Stalin.

K.S. 25 thousand in those days - a lot of money?

V.Z. It was average money. That is, it was money, but it is absolutely not comparable with the work itself. Monstrous, fantastic, not only creatively, but also physically.

K.S. Vera Ignatievna died in 1953, after the death of Stalin?

V.Z. Almost 6 months later. Stalin's death found her already in the hospital.

K.S. Did she die of cancer?

V.Z. No, she died of heart failure. She had 5 or 6 heart attacks. An autopsy revealed that she had a hammerhead heart. The heart could not bear the load. Now it would be released, but at that time ...

K.S. Tell me, was she conscious at the time when Stalin died, did you discuss this event?

V.Z. Yes. She even wrote a letter to the newspaper when everyone responded, but it was not published. It was interesting in that it was said that a huge historical figure. Between us, she admitted that it was a tyrant who did crazy things. There was Grotsky, the editor of Izvestia, was arrested, spent 18 years in prison, the first years his family was supported by his father. I learned a lot because after my father's death there was a notebook where he wrote his expenses - that he spent several tens of thousands.

K.S. We talked about relations with the authorities, at that time Zhdanov was the main ideologist...

V.Z. He called Vera Ignatievna twice. Once he called that Stalin agreed to pose, but my mother was lying with a heart attack, and the second time he called and persuaded her to join the party, because she was the President of the Academy of Arts.

K.S. Was she on the presidium?

V.Z. She always came in, even though it was against the wishes of the presidium, and almost against her wishes, because she would rather sit quietly and do business rather than engage in dirty ideology. She was highly respected. Moreover, with specific respect - she was needed ...

K.S. She became needed, apparently, after the "Worker and Collective Farm Girl"┘

V.Z. Yes, before that she was a lesser known artist.

K.S. Vera Ignatievna's contacts with the authorities were very serious...

V.Z. More precisely, they were not. The only fact of communication is when Khrushchev began to rebuild Kyiv in 1945 - the war had just ended, he called Vera Ignatievna to Kyiv in order to put the city in order. We stayed in Kyiv for 3 days, the regime was as follows: we were settled in a surviving hotel, in the morning they gave us a car, and we drove to Khrushchev's dacha, where he lived; usually had a tea party with him. By the way, I must say, the family was very pleasant, but he himself aroused such mystical horror in me, because his inner dullness was fantastic. For example, once we were talking about salaries. Khrushchev says: “Understand how it is possible that the newly appointed president of the Academy of Sciences, Vavilov, receives 40,000 rubles. And I'm only 8. Mom replies: “You have everything ready, the house is ready, everything, but the president of the academy has nothing” - “How dare he get more than me!”. And without any malice.

K.S. That is, she had a relationship with Khrushchev?

V.Z. No. Khrushchev answered her in a directive tone, she was offended and sent him that she could not work on Kyiv.

Mom had to do monumental things. She immediately came up with a very interesting thing. The fact is that at that time it was assumed that a new road would be laid up from the Potomsky Bridge, directly to the Sophia Cathedral, it was supposed to cross on an arch over Khreshchatyk at a height of 20 meters. And my mother came up with the following: to make it in the form of the Arch of Victory. An arch through the whole of Khreshchatyk, lined with golden Kyiv mosaics, on one side there is black Cyril and red Methodius. But of course it wasn't real.

K.S. Say the family lived well financially; did you have a house in Moscow?

V.Z. Safely. While my father was alive, even after the closure of the institute, he had a private practice, and we lived happily.

The history of our house is very simple. I was born in Moscow on the corner of Plotnikov Lane and Gagarinsky. We lived in this house until our parents were arrested, the apartment was then confiscated, we were left with one room. Then we found another room - 2 rooms at the Red Gate - Sadovo-Spasskaya, 21. This room is a dance hall, 120 meters in size and the second room - front hall 48 meters. No amenities, not even running water. And in the middle of the dance hall is a colonnade made of artificial marble. It was all redrawn: everything was fenced off, the columns were cut down, the parquets were filled with linoleum, because my mother said that she could not work on the parquet of red lemon wood. Made a workshop. There were two bedrooms in the hall. A large office - there was my father's laboratory, and under this everything was a kitchen, a bathroom, etc. 2 floors. During the war, the house was looted.

K.S. Where was the family during the war?

V.Z. We were beyond Sverdlovsk, where there was a huge aluminum plant. Mom did not want to go, but Prokofiev, the boss, called her and said: “Vera Ignatievna, I have just been to the Central Committee, everyone says that you want to stay with the Germans, leave so as not to end up in a completely different place.” We quickly collected everything we could. We had 3 suitcases, 24 boxes of the archive of the institute, which was already closed, my father saved the scientific results of many years of work.

We were decently arranged, according to evacuation concepts - they gave us a room in a cottage with almost hot water, which was fantastic in evacuation. In May 1942, my mother was requested to return to Moscow, since she was a member of the committee for the Stalin Prizes. I stayed with my father. The bosom friends began to poison the father again. Finally, my mother was able to ensure that he was able to return to Moscow, but he died on October 15, 1942, from a heart attack, the third. It was a tragic episode: they sent a bad doctor with a cardiograph; father jumped up, shouted: "Out!". And died.

K.S. Who influenced you more, your dad or your mom?

V.Z. Mom had more influence, because I was much more with her. My father was a very kind man, but very stern. I began to understand him, in fact, only after his death. There was no direct closeness with my father, there was absolute contact with my mother. Not only from my side, but also from her side.

K.S. How did the son of a doctor and sculptor go into physics?

V.Z. First, both father and mother each wanted me to follow in their footsteps. My father wanted me to continue his work, and my mother said that I was well versed, that I saw all the slightest defects, the slightest inaccuracies. And so, when my mother finished work, she called me to check whether all the bones converge, whether the skeleton is in place. But I did not choose either one or the other: I did not love people so much as to sacrifice myself, as my father sacrificed his own life. And with sculpture, despite the fact that I had an accurate look, I could sculpt or draw well, but I did not have a spiritual vision. And in our house everything went according to high moral standards. Always - both father and mother, which brought them very close. Both were spiritual maximalists.

K.S. Were they religious?

V.Z. You know mom doesn't. She was very tolerant of religion. It was more interesting with my father, he is a very religious person, he remembered the church service by heart until his old age.

He told me that there is no religion more cruel than atheism. For an atheist, if he is an honest man, he can only refer to himself, he cannot refer to God in anything. Usually, atheism leads to permissiveness. If you are a true atheist, then you are responsible for all your actions before humanity, before the world. And it's very cruel, very difficult.

K.S. Can you remember any stories from family life?

V.Z. You see, we had a very peculiar family. Very non-standard. For example, never, I emphasize this word, never did I hear a raised voice in a conversation between father and mother. Not that a quarrel, but just a sharp voice. It was absolute harmony - according to a high score, not everyday. Let's say that mom's work is disrupted, the father goes and starts kneading clay in a barrel. And he has a reception after that. In the same way, my mother was always ready to give up everything and everything, to refuse in order to help and please my father.

"Heart of a Dog" is one of the most famous works of Mikhail Bulgakov. And after the film adaptation, it became popular. the main role, superbly played by Evgeny Evstigneev, has long been disassembled into quotes. Several people are called the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky. One of them, Aleksey Andreevich Zamkov, lived in the Urals for ten months.

Evgeny Evstigneev as Professor Preobrazhensky

In search of the elixir of youth

The action of the fantastic story begins in December 1924 in Moscow. The famous surgeon Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky, studying the problem of human rejuvenation, decides to conduct an experiment: to transplant the pituitary gland and seminal glands from a human to a dog. The result of the operation was unexpected: the dog Sharik took on a human form. And then ... Then you know.

In the main character, contemporaries immediately recognized the writer's uncle and his apartment. Nikolai Mikhailovich Pokrovsky was a gynecologist, but he did not engage in experiments on rejuvenation.

However, in the 1920s and 1930s there was no shortage of such researchers. The ethical principles of the time allowed for the most dubious experiments.

Surgeon Sergei Abramovich Voronov was born in Russia and worked in Egypt and France. He has performed thousands of monkey gonadal transplants to humans. The world was delighted with the new magician. But after a few years, disappointment came: it turned out that no youth could be instilled in patients.

Biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov conducted experiments to create a hybrid of an ape and a man. To do this, he first went to Africa, and then brought the animals to the USSR, establishing the Sukhumi monkey nursery. Letters from women wishing to become pregnant by chimpanzees came from all over the country.

A.A. Castles

Doctor Aleksey Andreevich Zamkov achieved success by studying the urine of pregnant women. History remembered him as the creator of the world's first serial hormonal drug.

"From peasants, graduated from the Corps of Pages"

Alexei Zamkov was born in 1883 into a peasant family. From the age of 15 he worked in a Moscow artel. He participated in the revolution of 1905, but later moved away from politics and repeated all his life: "People should be treated, not killed." Alexey studied continuously: he graduated from accounting courses, passed the exam for the gymnasium course, graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University.

Zamkov also has another biography. According to her, he was educated in Corps of Pages(where the sons of the Russian elite studied), wore the shoulder straps of a colonel and was the head of hospitals. Apparently, he had to change his personal data in order to protect himself from the repressions of the young state of workers and peasants. But no matter what was written in the papers, the doctor from Alexei Andreevich turned out to be a good, real one. He spoke about his specialty as follows: surgeon, urologist, endocrinologist.

During World War I, in a Moscow hospital, he met Sister of Mercy Vera Ignatievna Mukhina, a wealthy merchant's daughter. In the hungry year of 1918 they got married. In 1920, the son Vsevolod was born. The father himself took delivery, and a few years later at home, on the dining table, he saved his son from bone tuberculosis by surgery.

Alexey Zamkov and Vera Mukhina

Routine medical work was not enough for Zamkov - the spirit of a discoverer lived in him, trying to find the hidden reserves of the human body.

Gravidan Recipe

Urine therapy has been known for a long time, even Hippocrates and Avicenna knew about it. In the 1920s, Zamkov studied the urine of pregnant women, which contained a large amount of hormones. The result of the research was the drug gravidan (from the Latin graviditas - pregnancy). Experiments on animals were impressive: old, weak, balding mice changed after injections: their hair began to shine, they gave healthy offspring. The old trotter, which was being prepared for slaughter, showed record speed. Then the doctor decided to test the medicine on himself and felt how it increases the overall tone of the body, creativity and sexual activity. The wife also took gravidan: he helped Vera Ignatievna work on large monuments.

There was also an entrepreneurial spirit in Zamkovo. Without waiting for the completion of clinical trials and stable results, he offers a "miraculous" drug to the highest Soviet elite. His patients are Maxim Gorky, Clara Zetkin, Ivan Michurin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Vyacheslav Molotov, Mikhail Kalinin, Semyon Budyonny, intelligence chief Yan Berzin, Stalinist security chief Karl Pauker and many others.

A.A. Castles. 1928

Zamkov's activity causes concern among his colleagues. Some consider him a charlatan, others are simply jealous. In 1930, a devastating article was published in the Izvestia newspaper. Alexei Andreevich is fired from the Institute of Experimental Biology, where he worked. Deciding that he has no prospects in the USSR, the doctor, his wife and son take a train to the south to illegally cross the border with Iran.

But the OGPU organs are not asleep: on the way, the family is arrested and returned to the capital. The wife and son were released five days later, and Zamkov was convicted. But the punishment turned out to be unexpectedly mild: 3 years of exile in Voronezh with confiscation of property.

Did high patrons help, but the link ended ahead of schedule. In 1932, Zamkov not only returned to Moscow, but also became the director of the newly created state research institute for urogravid therapy. The production of the drug and its delivery to hospitals, clinics, and sanatoriums began.

P. Kuznetsov. Portrait of A.A. Zamkov. 1932

In 1936, points of gravidanotherapy appeared in the Urals: in the city polyclinic of the city of Kabakovsk (now Serov), in the polyclinic and dermatovenerological dispensary of the Krasnoufimskaya station, the polyclinic of the Chusovskaya station, the Soviet hospital of the city of Asha, the railway hospital of Ufa.

Slava Zamkov thundered throughout the country. There are tens of thousands of patients. Gravidan tries to treat all diseases: infectious and eye, heart and mental. Production leaders report that the drug allows them to work 14-hour days and exceed the plan by 300 percent. A poem is even dedicated to Gravidan.

Vera Mukhina remained in the shadows famous husband. She is considered a sculptor, but she is almost fifty, and there is not a single erected monument. She will receive worldwide recognition only in 1937, when the world will see her "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" at an exhibition in Paris.

And clouds begin to gather over Zamkovo ... The euphoria from the "wonderful" drug has passed. Patients say that gravidan does not help them, is addictive and has side effects. Questions have accumulated from serious scientists and the authorities. It all ended in 1938: the institute of urogravid therapy was destroyed, Zamkov came down with a severe heart attack.

After recovering from his illness, Alexey Andreevich got a job at the health center of the artel "Headgear".

Cottage on the banks of the Iset

With the outbreak of the war, Zamkov rushes to the front. But he is not taken to the front and hospitals with a sick heart. He works as a supernumerary doctor at the Sklifosovsky Institute.

Vera Mukhina worked in the Construction Department of the Palace of Soviets, in the design workshop. The government decided to transfer this powerful trust to the construction of the Ural aluminum plant, and its head, Andrei Nikitich Prokofiev, became the head of Uralaluminstroy. Vera Ignatievna had to go along with everyone.

We left with the whole family, four of us (together with Vera's mother's friend, Anastasia Stepanovna Sobolevskaya, who has been living with them for a long time). Personal belongings fit into three suitcases, and 24 boxes were needed for the main cargo: Aleksey Andreevich carried the archive of the Institute of Urogravid Therapy with him. 18 days of travel in a train of 110 cars ... We got to Kamensk-Uralsky on October 30, 1941.

During the first months of the war, the population of the city almost tripled, from 50 to 140 thousand people. There is nowhere for people to live. Even for the family of Stalin Prize laureate Vera Mukhina, they were able to allocate only one room. But in good location- in apartment No. 4 of cottage No. 4 on the banks of the Iset, in a fenced and guarded area, where the heads of the plant and construction lived.

Cottage No. 4, built 80 years ago as luxury housing, will soon be demolished

“The house where we were placed is beautiful, reliable, warm, with beautiful nature all around. One wall on the ground floor is all glass with a view of the river. They say that Iset is amazing in summer beautiful river, wide and beautiful, since there is a dam below us, but now it is winter and everything is covered with snow.

Documents on the work of A.A. Castle in Kamensk-Uralsky are still kept in the city archive. Here is the order of the city health department: “He has been enrolled in the staff of the UAZ hospital since November 5, 1941 as a resident doctor in the surgical department with a salary of 400 rubles per month.” A month later, on December 11, he is transferred to the UAZ outpatient clinic for a surgical appointment with the same small salary. Next is the monthly payroll.

Home, to Moscow!

Although life seems to be arranged, Zamkov and Mukhina feel uncomfortable in Kamensk-Uralsky, they languish here. Vera Ignatievna described her feelings as follows: “I can’t find a place for myself, I’m terribly worried that I’m sitting in this damned hole, and life goes on, boils, and I don’t know anything about it.”

Fragment of a letter from Vera Mukhina with a Kamensk address

But returning home is not so easy: you cannot move freely around the country. IN AND. Mukhina writes to the Committee for the Arts: “I am too far from events. It's dim here. So don't keep me here and send a challenge soon." A.A. joins her. Zamkov: “At such a great serious moment in our Motherland, the gravidan could play a colossal role. I could again help millions of our population, and not hundreds, that's what excites me so much. Understand, Comrade People's Commissar, it is very hard to realize that I can still bring a lot of benefits and I am almost inactive.

In May 1942, Vera Ignatievna received a call to the capital. But she is the only one. Now the couple communicate by letters: “Dear, dear Verusha! The city health department is taking all possible measures to keep me out. But it doesn't scare me. I will rush to you with all my might. I am again injecting gravidan, eating rice porridge, and the forces seem to be arriving.”

The tone of the next letter is completely different: “Dear Verusha, my stay here is tantamount to death. I have become an old man who can barely support his legs. I do not believe that I will be able to revive the business with gravidan again. So much struggle, how many dirty tricks and nasty things around this case completely broke me and paralyzed my will and fettered my desire for life. Forgive me, my dear."

And finally, the last payroll in the UAZ outpatient clinic - for August 1942. Permission received. Zamkov goes to Moscow. Die.

The son Vsevolod stays the longest in Kamensk-Uralsky. He was given the task of taking the institute's archives to the capital without fail. With a large load, he can't get on the train for a long time. Passing train after train, he realizes that he will not have time to see his father ...

And Alexei Andreevich in his native Moscow seems to be getting better, life is returning to him. But then he gets a second heart attack. The creator of the "elixir of eternal youth" dies on October 25, 1942 at the age of 59.

Vera Mukhina made sure that her husband was buried at the prestigious Novodevichy cemetery. She took her place next to him 11 years later, in 1953.

Gravidan has been delisted medical preparations in 1964

read the magazineAuthor: Lyskov Anton

Graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Ural University, works as a programmer. history native land studies in archives, campaigns, conversations with interesting people. Published in the newspapers "New Compass" and "Uralskaya Magistral", the magazine "Vesi", local history collections. Lives in Kamensk-Uralsky.