Natalya Borisovna Nordman Nordman (Severova) Natalya Borisovna 1863 - 1914 Russia (USSR) Second wife and assistant to the artist I.E. Repina, photographer, vegetarian, active figure in the field of women's emancipation. Severova is her writing pseudonym. “In one of the photographs of Kuokkala from the early 1900s, reproduced on a postcard of that time, we see a monotonously smooth fence, a gate and a gate, immediately behind which some kind of building can be seen. On a small plaque attached to the fence, you can barely make out the words: “Villa Penates.” The dacha itself is not visible on the postcard, as it stood in the depths of the site. It was an ordinary low Finnish house, the walls of which, made of logs, were covered with planks. Perhaps no one, not even Repin’s close friends, knew then that the estate was acquired not by Nordman, but by the artist himself. Many years later, already a very old man, Repin revealed the circumstances of the purchase in one of his letters, explaining that Nordman was poor, so “... out of fear that, upon my death, my heirs would evict her, I transferred to her name” Penates"". Who was this woman about whom Repin cared so much and who was destined from now on to play a significant role in his life? Natalya Borisovna Nordman was born on December 2 (14), 1863 in Helsingfors (Helsinki). Her father, a nobleman of the Vyborg province, a Swede, naval officer, subsequently rose to the rank of admiral; Russian mother, from a family of landowners in the Smolensk province. Her father died when Nordman was still a girl. However, in way of life nothing has changed for the family. Despite very limited funds, almost poverty, Nordman’s mother continued to go out into the world, and instilled in her daughter a lordly disdain for any work. Nordman could only write about her youth later that she was “raised by a widowed mother, at home, without a system. I didn’t receive any education. She studied languages ​​and manners...” This was not enough for Nordman’s lively and active character, and she persuaded her mother to allow her to attend Baron Stieglitz’s school. There she briefly studied modeling and drawing, but her mother forbade her to attend classes more than twice a week, believing “that these stupid schools lead to nothing.” Nordman outlined all the misadventures of her youth with her naive dreams of heroism in the autobiographical story “The Fugitive,” published with illustrations by Repin in the spring issues of Niva magazine for 1900. The heroine of the story, an exalted girl, unable to bear life, whose goal was to fulfill social duties, ran away from home and managed to go to America. It seemed to her that it was in this country that she could fulfill her dreams of a working life that would allow her to feel like a real person who was useful. But, brought up in an atmosphere of corrupting idleness, she was neither adapted nor prepared for any kind of work. Nordman showed with complete frankness in the story the failure of her heroine, and therefore herself. Having briefly tried her hand as a maid and lived for two months on a farm, more as a guest than as a worker, this adult girl, who was already twenty-two years old, returned home like a little child who had gone astray. “My situation is the stupidest,” she concludes, “I am always and everywhere a stranger. ...Somewhere on site (services – Note by I.L. Vikentiev) they will despise me for looking for income. In my environment they will never forgive me for my independence... Is there really no application for all those forces that are still boiling inside me?!” Indeed, Nordman did not know how to find use for her strengths and abilities. The environment in which she grew up and her upbringing inevitably left an imprint of worthlessness on all her affairs. Knowing languages, Nordman took on translations, but they turned out to be unnecessary. She tried to do charity work, but it was completely ridiculous, since she had almost no funds. Nordman's greatest success came from photography, which she mastered in courses at the Russian Technical Society. Participating in one of the amateur photography competitions, she even received a silver medal. Reviewers wrote about her photographs of genre scenes: “Interesting motives and clean work make Ms. Nordman stand out from the mass of impersonal photographers. There is a noticeable artistic flair in it, its views are certainly beautiful, the types and moments are chosen with great taste, and this, together with the thoroughness of the work, seems to be all that can be asked of an amateur.” Repin met with Natalya Borisovna in the house of Princess M.K. Tenisheva, with whom he was friends in the 90s. […] When Repin met Nordman, he was able to appreciate her impulses, desire to act and be useful. She was observant and responsive. In addition, Nordman understood that Repin belongs to art, and this leaves a very special imprint on their relationship, so she saw her task as “not only not to interfere with his creativity, but with all our might to protect the sacred fire in him and everything, everything.” sacrifice to him." Gradually they became necessary to each other. Repin, paying tribute to Nordman’s natural abilities, regretted that she did not receive a solid systematic education. “What could come of you!” - he exclaimed enthusiastically and, trying to somehow help, explained: “You need correct, daily work. This requires long and persistent character training, without this a person will never get on his own feet (on his own and firmly).” Encouraged by Repin, Nordman began to study writing activity, and soon two books were published. The first, “The Fugitive,” which was published in “Niva,” was published in 1901 with a new title “Eta” (republished in 1912 with the title “Towards Ideals”), the second, the novel “The Cross of Motherhood,” appeared in 1904. Nordman took the surname Severova as a pseudonym. After the release of the first story, several reviews appeared. Critics unequivocally declared the “moderation of literary talent” of Ms. Severova, but could not help but appreciate the author’s sincerity and noted that the literary sins of the story are atoned for by the sincerity and simplicity of the story. “Mrs. Severova’s story,” wrote one of the critics, “has the advantage that it conveys ... true facts, being probably just memories.” […] In order not to interfere with Repin’s work and to organize the economy of the estate, Nordman decided in the winter of 1900 to move from St. Petersburg to Kuokkala (now the village of Repino - Note by I.L. Vikentyev).” Kirillina E.V., Repin in “Penates”, L., “Lenizdat”, 1977, p. 12-17. During the work of I.E. Repin over the painting: “Great Meeting of the State Council” in the Mariinsky Palace in St. Petersburg, he made a sketch and was able to photograph the meeting using his wife’s camera. Refusing to use animals in any way, N.B. Even in the Russian frosts, Nordman wore a suit with... hay as a lining. She fell ill with consumption... And this accelerated her death. In 1914, the will of Natalya Borisovna Nordman, the legal owner of Penaty, came into force. “The text of this document is extremely interesting. Natalya Borisovna valued every little detail in everyday life with a great artist. In “Penates” everything was done so that Repin could work and live comfortably, everything corresponded to his habits and tastes. Therefore, a plot of land with a house and outbuildings was transferred to Repin’s lifetime ownership, and after his death to the jurisdiction of the Academy of Arts. Nordman bequeathed the estate to the Academy with the condition: “... so that after the death of Ilya Efimovich Repin, a kind of museum called “I.E. House” will be established in the house... Repin." After the death of Ilya Efimovich Repin, the house should not be inhabited under any circumstances; it should be surrounded by a fence, carefully maintained, and access to visitors should be opened only during the day (to avoid fire) accompanied by a trusted person. The outbuildings attached to the house, where the kitchen and bathhouse, as well as the glacier, should be demolished after the death of Ilya Efimovich Repin... All those things that... can serve as an expression of the taste and habits of Ilya Efimovich Repin, as well as mine, should be left in I.E.'s house Repin in its place, in order to give the house the appearance of a museum and preserve in it the imprint of the artist’s personality.” This document was transferred to the Academy of Arts, and in the spring of 1915, an appointed commission was to inspect the house, inquire about the funds bequeathed for its maintenance and report on this to the Academy Council. In the summer we did it in Penaty major renovation. The previous tar roof was replaced with galvanized iron and the walls were repainted. In the fall, the commission reported on the state of affairs. Having considered all the circumstances, the Council decided to reject Nordman’s gift, since in the future the Academy would not have sufficient funds to maintain the “House of I.E. Repin" as a museum. So that the will of the testator could still be fulfilled, Repin donated thirty thousand rubles to the Academy of Arts, so that in the future the museum could still exist using interest from this money. Having accepted this gift with gratitude, the Academy of Arts was now ready to fulfill Nordman’s will.” Kirillina E.V., Repin in “Penates”, L., “Lenizdat”, 1977, p. 145-146.

Nordman-Severova N.B. (bust by Repin, 1902)

Portrait of the writer N.B.Nordman-Severova

Repin.1905

Natalya Borisovna Nordman (-Severova - writer's pseudonym) was born in 1863 in Helsingfors (Helsinki) in the family of a Russian admiral of Swedish origin and a Russian noblewoman; She was always proud of her Finnish origin and liked to call herself a “free Finnish”.She was baptized according to the Lutheran rite, and she godfather became Alexander II himself; She received an excellent education at home, knew several languages, studied music, modeling, and drawing.

In 1884, at the age of twenty, she went to the United States for a year, where she worked on a farm. After returning from America, she played on the amateur stage in Moscow. She lived with her close friend Princess M.K. Tenisheva. There she immersed herself “in the atmosphere of painting and music” and became interested in “ballet dancing, Italy, photography, dramatic art, psychophysiology and political economy.

They met when Natalya Borisovna came to Repin’s studio, accompanying Tenisheva, whose portrait was painted by Ilya Efimovich.And then, in 1898, Nordman went to accompany him to Odessa, when Repin went to Palestine. It soon turned out that Natalya Borisovna was expecting a child from him. Having lived only two months, the girl died.

She was 19 years younger than him. Not attractive, not rich, but smart and active, she had the rare ability to suddenly turn into a charming woman.

To become Repin's unmarried wife, Natalya broke up with her family. In the first year of their acquaintance, the lovers settled together in the holiday village of Kuokkala, and soon moved to the Penaty estate, bought by Repin in the name of Natalya Borisovna. Here Repin created his paintings, and Natalya Borisovna wrote books, took up photography, and organized life in the house.

Numerous friends of the Repins gathered in the workshop. Repin’s famous “Wednesdays” were held here.Natalya Nordman was a unique woman: she seated servants at a common table, guests were offered dishes of exclusively vegetarian cuisine, on the table there were dishes made from hay, cutlets from vegetables. The guests were not served at the table; no one except the owner gave them coats.

Gorky, Stasov, Repin, Nordman-Severova in Penates on August 18, 1904

Social ideas were also reflected in her linguistic habits. With her husband she was on first name terms; to men, without exception, she said “comrade,” and to all women, “sisters.”

I.E. Repin and his wife N.B. Nordman-Severova (in the center) with guests at the famous “rotating” table,
served for the reception of guests. Kuokkala.1900s. K.K.Bulla

In the Moscow hotel where the Repins stayed in December 1909, Nordman on the first day of Christmas extended her hands to all the footmen, doormen, and boys and congratulated them on the Great Holiday.

Nordman defended a woman’s right to self-realization in addition to motherhood, and dreamed of establishing by law an eight-hour working day for domestic servants who worked 18 hours.

In newspapers, the life of the Repins was described with comic horror; many people ridiculed and condemned the activities of Natalya Borisovna. And she She was overwhelmed by a passionate desire to take care of weak, unhappy people, and considered practically strangers to her family. From a young age, she was always helping someone: orphans, hungry students, unemployed teachers. As if feeling her as a savior, those who needed help of any kind revolved around her.

N.B. Nordman-Severova in the workshop of her husband, I.E. Repin. Kuokkala 1910. Bulla

The literary abilities of the young wife were encouraged by Repin himself; he saw talent in her. This is admiration famous artist extraordinary personality his own wife remained in many portraits of Natalya Borisovna: reading, writing at the table, sitting at the piano... Repin created a sculptural portrait of her, beautifully sculpted, subtly felt. For fifteen years, he never ceased to be amazed at her “feast of life,” her optimism, wealth of ideas and courage

However, both of them were people with complex characters, with original views on life, so they often tired each other. Getting irritated, they started quarrels, which usually ended in travel.

The first signs of consumption appeared in her back in 1905. Repin took his sick wife to Italy for several months for treatment. The disease subsided for a while, but then reappeared. Nordman left for Italy again, and then to Switzerland. Repin, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, parted with his wife without regret; his departure seemed to draw a line under the long-standing break.

Natalya Borisovna died in June 1914.

N.B. Nordman-Severova with her friend, artist L.B. Yavorskaya, during a walk.
Kuokkala, Penaty estate 1900s, Bulla

*TO. I. Chukovsky. Memories of Repin.

**N.B.Nordman “Intimate Pages”

Ekaterina Pavlova's program "Companions of the Great. Natalya Nordman
Part 1

Part 2

Natalya Borisovna Nordman-Repina
(1863-1914)

Repin Ilya Efimovich
Portrait of Natalya Borisovna Nordman

The daughter of Admiral Natalya Borisovna Nordman came from a Russified Swedish family. In Russian literature, she remained Natalya Severova, who wrote many pamphlets, the stories “This,” “The Cross of Motherhood,” “Intimate Pages,” and several plays.

Natalya Borisovna was always busy taking care of some orphans, helping hungry students and unemployed teachers. The artist Ilya Repin, according to Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, “spent all his free time with her.”

So Repin went to Paris, to the World Art Exhibition of 1900, where he was a member of the international jury, together with Natalya Severova. In the same year, Ilya Efimovich settled with her near St. Petersburg - in the summer cottage of Kuokkala. Now it is called Repino.

The artist’s admiration for the personality of his beloved woman remains in many portraits of Natalya Borisovna: reading, sitting at the piano, listening to Repin’s wonderful friends, writing something at a small, meticulously strict table, in the corner of which there is a vase of flowers... In 1902, Repin also created her sculpture a portrait, beautifully sculpted and subtly felt.

Repin Ilya Efimovich
Self-portrait with Natalya Borisovna Nordman

Then he depicted himself and his wife on the balcony.

The artist often regretted that his beloved did not receive a solid systematic education. “What could come of you! - he said. “You need proper, daily work.” Although, if we talk about education, it is worth mentioning that Nordman spoke six languages ​​so well that she translated foreign newspapers for Repin directly from the page!

Natalya Borisovna was left without a father early. Despite very limited funds, her mother continued to go out into the world, and instilled in her daughter, as one book says, “a lordly attitude towards all work.” Encouraged by Ilya Efimovich, Nordman began to study literature. She wrote novels, stories, essays, treatises, which appeared with illustrations by Repin. She was a wonderful photographer at a time when men rarely knew how to use a camera.

In her photographs we see how Repin walks in a spring raincoat over boulders among the pine trees, how he goes on a ski trip - in trousers, in some kind of winged jacket, a sports cap; how, standing barefoot in the ground, with his trousers rolled up, he digs a pond together with the workers...

Natalya Borisovna’s attitude towards Repin is evidenced by her entry in her diary:

“...I’m no longer afraid of him and our life together. I only wish for her and I think that she could be very happy.”

At the end of 1900, the artist settled on the Nordman estate in Finland, in the now famous Penates.

On the estate, a workshop was attached to the house, overlooking the park, which, thanks to the efforts of Natalya Borisovna, was built with ponds, bridges, terraces and gazebos. Here Severova wrote her books, collected everything published about her husband into one album, which has survived to this day; here the Repins received friends - Gorky and M.F. Andreeva, the Stasovs, Chukovskys, Leonid Andreev...

V.V. Stasov used to say about Natalya Borisovna: “she’s not a bad guy, even interesting.” Repin’s “Wednesdays” were popular among the Russian intelligentsia, where even uninvited people could appear. It was especially fun at Christmas.

“The lights of the Christmas tree were flickering, and couples were rushing, jumping and spinning around,” one of them described to a friend New Year's holidays Natalya Borisovna. “I.E. fought off the desperate thug...”
Tabloid reporters often made fun of Repin’s wife. She seated servants at the common table, insisted on vegetarian cuisine, and argued that any person is enriched by participation in amateur art.

And in Penaty, as the owners called their dacha, not only did Chaliapin sing and Maria Fedorovna Andreeva read Lermontov’s poems, but gardeners and janitors played harmonicas and balalaikas, and danced their folk dances Latvian carpenters and Finnish cooks, Christmas trees and round dances were held. Guests were not served at table; no one except the owner handed them coats.

Posters hung everywhere: “Don’t wait for the servants, there are none,” “Do everything yourself,” “Strike the gong, come in and undress in the hall,” etc. The hostess handed out her brochure to the guests entitled “I Don’t Eat Nobody!”

“You can play such a comedy just for laughs once,” says the artist’s biographer Sofya Prorokova. – But when the performance goes on all your life, it becomes boring... Servants lived in the house, all these numerous dishes made from hay and vegetable cutlets could not appear on the table at the wave of the hand of the hostess Penat, and it was not she herself who washed the dishes after the departure of the guests . All this was done by the servants, and only outwardly the matter was portrayed in such a way that they did it without outside help.”

Gorky Alexey Maksimovich, Andreeva M.F.,
Nordman N.B. and Repin Ilya Efimovich
(photograph in Repin’s workshop in Penaty, 1905)

“When A. M. Gorky lived in Kuokkala,” recalled M. K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya, the first wife of A. I. Kuprin, “Alexander Ivanovich and I first went to him for dinner, and he told us: “Eat more, eat more! You won’t get anything from Repin except hay!”

When the artist came to St. Petersburg to visit his friends Antokolsky, he happily ate a well-fried steak there, asking only not to tell Natalya Borisovna about this “fall.” She herself was also not averse to indulging in something tasty in silence.

“Nordman-Severova invited some guests, including me and Alexander Ivanovich, to her bedroom,” continues M.K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya. “Here in her night table there was a bottle of cognac and ham sandwiches. “Just please don’t spill the beans to Ilya Efimovich!” - she said."

The newspapers described the life of the Repins with comic horror, claiming that the wife ordered the elderly artist to “eat hay” and “bathe in the well.” Mistress Penat's passionate desire to care for the weak and consider practically strangers as her family for some reason aroused contempt and suspicion among journalists.

Portrait of Nadezhda Borisovna Nordman-Severova

In the winter of 1910, Nordman rented a village summer theater in the village of Ollila, which was soon purchased by Repin in her name. Chukovsky and scientists with whom the artist was friends gave lectures there. In 1911, the first kindergarten. Nordman and her assistants came five times a week to work with the children. True, Natalya Borisovna was dissatisfied with this experience.

Her hectic social activities over time, Repin began to tire, he was often irritated. And Nordman decided to leave for a while to stop the quarrels that had started. It turned out - forever...

The first signs of consumption appeared in her back in 1905. Then the artist took Natalya Borisovna to Italy, where they stayed for several months. And now the disease has come close to her, and Nordman again went to Italy for treatment, and then to Switzerland. At first, the doctors promised recovery, but then Repin’s letters to his wife returned unopened, and soon a telegram arrived with terrible news: on June 28, 1914, under the care of the family of Peter Kropotkin, Natalya Severova died in a foreign land.

Portrait of the writer Natalia Borisovna Nordman-Severova, the artist’s wife
1911
Artist: Repin Ilya Efimovich

She was buried in Orselino. Repin tried to get a Swiss visa and asked not to bury Natalya Borisovna without him, but he was still late. He went to the cemetery and sketched in a roadbook the grave of the woman with whom he lived for fifteen, generally happy, years.

Ilya Efimovich returned to Penates on the eve of his seventieth birthday. He lived for another sixteen years, surrounded by friends and admirers, his daughters moved in with him...
Repin remembered his beloved woman more and more often.

“Orphaned, I grieve very much for N.B. and increasingly regret her early departure,” he admitted. “What a genius he was and an interesting roommate!”

One day, a gray little bird flew into the estate and, after sitting on the bust of Nordman, which stood in front of the windows, flew off into the garden. “Maybe it was her soul that arrived today...” Ilya Efimovich said quietly.

The penates, according to Natalya Borisovna’s will, were transferred to the Academy of Arts after the death of the artist so that there would be a house-museum of I. Repin. He himself only asked permission to be buried in the very garden near the house where, in spite of everything, he was so happy.

After 1918, the Penates ended up on Finnish territory. The artist’s son, Yuri Ilyich Repin, lived here. Torn away from the Motherland, left in all alone and forced to live in a shelter for the elderly, he died in 1954, falling out of a window...

Portrait of the writer N.B.Nordman-Severova
1905
Artist: Repin Ilya Efimovich

Reading (Portrait of Natalia Borisovna Nordman)
1901
Artist: Repin Ilya Efimovich

On the previous pages, the name of Repin’s second wife, Natalya Borisovna, is mentioned more than once, who at the time I met him occupied a very prominent place in Penates. In those years, in 1907 - 1910, she and Repin were inseparable: the artist spent all his free time with her, wrote and drew her portraits, spoke enthusiastically about her talents and in general, as they say, doted on her. I don’t remember a time when he went to a concert or on a visit without her. She accompanied him to Yasnaya Polyana- to Tolstoy, and to Moscow - to Surikov, Ostroukhov, Vasnetsov and his other close friends.

In the memoir literature about Repin, it is customary to interpret this woman as an eccentric of bad taste, who brought a lot of noisy and petty fuss into Repin’s biography.

But I closely observed her life for several years and, although I cannot refute the verdict passed on her, I still consider it my duty, to the extent possible, to at least partially protect her memory.

Repin's first family, due to their lack of culture, showed little interest in his work, and Natalya Borisovna already from 1901 began collecting all the literature about him, compiling valuable albums with newspaper clippings about each of his paintings. In addition, he repeated more than once that he was entirely indebted to Natalya Borisovna for one of his most brilliant successes - the composition of “The State Council”: she took to heart the difficulties that he encountered while painting this picture, and helped him with her advice, and also photographs taken by her. The famous Wednesdays that she started in his house brought order into his life, giving him the opportunity to work concentratedly on all other days and not be afraid of any visitors (for Wednesdays were also timed for business meetings). In general, she introduced many useful reforms into his life, which he often mentioned with gratitude. The round table, invented by her, was quite suitable for the motley society that met on Wednesdays in the Penates: everyone sat at this table by lot, and thus eliminated the possibility of parochialism.

Repin always gravitated towards educated people, and Natalya Borisovna knew three languages, understood music, sculpture, and painting - it was not for nothing that he loved to attend all sorts of concerts, vernissages and lectures with her. She was what is called a secular woman (he met her at Princess Tenisheva’s), but she constantly declared herself a democrat, and this, too, could not help but attract Ilya Efimovich’s sympathy to her.

But all her spiritual qualities were wasted in vain due to three fatal flaws, which, in essence, destroyed her.

Firstly, in her entire mental make-up she was an ardent sectarian. She always needed to fanatically believe in some single recipe for saving people and loudly preach this recipe as a panacea for all social ills.

At one time she was a militant suffragist and made her feminism a religion. Then she began to preach “emancipation of servants.” Then - vegetarianism. Then - the cooperative organization of labor, perceived as the gospel of life. Then decoctions of fresh hay as a healthy, nutritious food. Then the so-called “magic chest”, that is, a box lined with pillows and stuffed with hay. The “magic chest” was a kind of thermos: it kept food hot throughout the day. Etc. etc. etc.

All this was ridiculous, but sincere. She firmly believed in all her innovations and was the first to become their victim. When she rebelled, for example, against coats and furs, which were, as she put it, “the privilege of the wealthy classes,” in the most severe frost she put on some kind of thin coat, lined with pine shavings, and assured that she was much warmer than us , wrapped in “animal skins”: after all, the shavings give warmth when we burn them in the stove. This “pine coat” brought her a cold, and hay soups gave her anemia. From the ruddy, dignified woman with a fresh and round face, as she had been several years before, she became so thin that she seemed the embodiment of consumption. Her vegetarianism was very strict: she did not eat eggs or drink milk.

Thus, there is no doubt that there was no shadow of guile in her sermon. But her sermon was too loud - and quite tactless. This was Natalya Borisovna’s second drawback: for all her devotion to the great man with whom her fate connected her, she did not find complete satisfaction in serving his glory. She herself had a very colorful personality, which could not be concealed, but, on the contrary, on every occasion she was eager to express herself. Natalya Borisovna did not even try to separate her name from Repin, and he became involved in all her culinary and other innovations. I heard with my own ears in the Crimea, in a sanatorium, how, having received the news that Repin had died, one professor’s widow, an old woman, said to another:

The same one who ate hay.

Having heard this monstrous description of Repin, I, of course, could not help but think that Natalya Borisovna was essentially to blame for such a reputation. The entire yellow press - "Petersburgskaya Gazeta", "Petersburg Leaflet" and "Birzhevka" - included her eccentricities among their favorite sensations, mainly because they could attach his famous name to them.

Rozanov wrote in one libel that this woman “swallowed” Repin whole.

“Many times,” says S. Prorokova in her book, “the ridiculous details of the life of the Penats (that is, the life arranged by Natalya Borisovna. - K. Ch.) were described. There were announcements and posters everywhere that urged guests to self-service, like “Don’t wait for the servants, there are none.” “Do everything yourself,” “The door is locked.”

The guest read: “Strike the gong, come in and undress in the hallway.” Having fulfilled this instruction, the guest came across the following announcement: “Go straight,” and found himself in the dining room with the famous round table, on which a circle was spinning, which, according to the hostess, replaced the service of servants. Here, various dishes were placed on special shelves, and dirty dishes were stored in drawers.

They took turns pouring soup at the table. different people on whom the lot will fall. Those who did not know how to cope with this difficult duty were fined and forced to immediately give an impromptu speech...

You can play such a comedy for laughs once. But when the performance continues throughout life, it becomes boring... Servants lived in the house; all these numerous dishes made from hay and vegetable cutlets could not have appeared on the table at the wave of the hand of the hostess of “Penatov”, and not she herself, after the departure of the guests, could have dishes All this was done by the servants, and only outwardly the matter was portrayed in such a way that they did it without outside help.”

It never occurred to Natalya Borisovna then that she was damaging Repin’s name. She was sure that she was using this name not for her own benefit, but solely for the sake of promoting beneficial ideas that should bring happiness to humanity.

But, mistaking the newspaper hype for fame, she little by little gave vent to her ambition, obviously unsatisfied in her youth. She liked being a fashionable figure, and her third flaw immediately showed up - her pompous and pretentious taste. These “temples of Isis”, “Scheherazade”, “Prometheus”, “sisters”, “tam-toms” (that was the name of the gong that replaced the bell in “Penates”), and “cooperative delights”, and “cranberry steaks” are not to such an extent were in harmony with Repin’s simple, artless style, which seemed like some kind of alien growth on Repin’s biography.

All this is true, but I must admit that, in spite of everything, I felt sorry for her strength that died so in vain. In essence, she was not an evil or stupid woman. She was always busy taking care of some orphans, always helping hungry female students, unemployed teachers, as evidenced by many of her letters to me. The best thing that can be said about it is that it often does not resemble its brochures and pamphlets. She read me excerpts from her diary, dedicated mainly to Repin and his entourage (1903–1909), and I was surprised by her talent: there was so much keen and apt humor, so much fresh female observation. And in her other writings one senses something not entirely hopeless. She did not write much, since she became a writer only in her fortieth year. In 1901, her story “This” was published with illustrations by Ilya Efimovich. In 1904 - “The Cross of Motherhood”, also with his illustrations. In 1910 - “Intimate Pages”. She also wrote plays. To stage these plays, Ilya Efimovich acquired the building of a country theater at the Ollila station - in essence, a vast wooden barn, which Natalya Borisovna called “Prometheus”. Her plays, staged in this barn, of course, did not attract attention, but they cannot be called mediocre.

In a word, as Natalya Borisovna’s closest neighbor, who observed her for several years day after day, I consider myself entitled to insist that her personality was not limited to either “magic chests” or “hay soups,” and to anyone who wants to condemn her for her quirks and pretentiousness, it would still do well to remember that she paid for them with her life.

She proved the nobility of her attitude towards Repin by the fact that, not wanting to burden him with her serious illness, she left Penaty - alone, without money, without any valuables - and retired to Switzerland, to Locarno, to a hospital for poor. There, dying on her bed, she wrote me a letter, which even now, after so many years, worries me as if I had just received it.

“What a wonderful period of suffering,” Natalya Borisovna wrote to me, “and how many revelations there are in it: when I crossed the threshold of the Penats, I seemed to have fallen into the abyss. She disappeared without a trace, as if she had never been in the world, and life, having removed me from its everyday life, still carefully, with a brush, swept up the crumbs after me and then flew on, laughing and rejoicing. I was already flying through the abyss, hit several cliffs and suddenly found myself in a vast hospital... There I realized that no one needed me in life. It was not me who left, but the Penatov affiliation. Everything around died. Not a sound from anyone."

She refused the money that Ilya Efimovich sent her. We, friends of Ilya Efimovich, tried to assure her that she should receive a fee for the first edition of Repin’s book, which was once published under her nominal editorship. But she did not accept this money either.

“...I can’t imagine,” she wrote to me from the same Locarno, “what relation I have to it (to the book - K. Ch.), what kind of book it is and what they ask me about. It’s easy for you to imagine how far I am from publishing issues and how amazed I am by such a strange phenomenon...

I wrote poems at 40 degrees “Song of Delirium”... A terrible thing that makes my spine feel cold. But it's time."

A month later, she died, in June 1914, and from the sadness that I felt when the sad news reached me, I realized that, despite all her quirks and oddities, there was a lot in her that made me love her .

Today I returned from Repino. I wandered around "Penates" - this is the museum-estate of the artist Ilya Repin, who painted "Barge Haulers on the Volga", "Cossacks", "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan" and many more paintings.

Repino is a resort village on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, 30 km from St. Petersburg. Previously, this place was called Kuokkala - a Finnish village. Repin bought a plot here in 1900 and lived happily until 1930. At first I thought: how was Repin able to manage so well that the Bolsheviks did not compact him and dispossess him? And then I remembered that the Finns in 1917 separated from Soviet Russia, and Kuokkala and Repin ended up on the territory independent state. Stalin invited Repin to Russia, but the old man invariably showed the Bolsheviks the fig. In 1940, the USSR took 11% of its territory from Finland along with Kuokkala, but Repin did not know about this; he died in 1930 and was buried in his estate.

In the photo: House-museum in Penaty of Ilya Repin. The museum is currently closed for restoration, but they promise to open in the coming days. And the wonderful Repin park is open, admission is free, there are few visitors, you can have a wonderful walk along the alleys and sit romantically on the shore of one of the ponds.

2.Entrance to Penates. Penates are the ancient Roman gods of the hearth; and in a broader sense - home, small homeland. During Repin's lifetime, Penates was a place where Russian bohemia hung out. Chaliapin, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Gorky, Kuprin, Chukovsky visited here. Repin held receptions on Wednesdays. And today the gate is open every day until 18:00. The entrance to the estate is directly from Primorskoe Highway, there is a sign about 100 meters away, you can’t miss it, there is a large parking lot.

Ilya Repin was a simple man, from the people, and he painted simple, realistic pictures. And the name of the estate is tricky, and the inside is completely exotic: Homer Square, Scheherazade’s Tower, the Temple of Osiris and Isis, the pond “What a space!”... Where did he get this from? It turns out that Repin bought the estate in the name of his second wife, Natalya Nordman, and all this exoticism is her merit. Repin, when he began to live in Kuokkala with Nordman, was 56 years old, and Natalya Borisovna was 37. I have always wondered how middle-aged and ugly, but extremely enthusiastic women manage to get their hands on a practical man who has achieved fame and money through hard work? What did they take them with? Art critic Vladimir Stasov said this about this couple: “Repin is not a step away from his Nordmansha (these are miracles: truly, no face, no skin, no beauty, no intelligence, no talent, just absolutely nothing, and it’s as if he was sewn to her skirt)”. Or there’s Chekhov, who lived his whole life as a bachelor, then suddenly married Olga Knipper. Or, for example, I had a friend, a wonderful poet and artist Arkasha P., who married a failed actress Vera M., and she was fat, ugly and much older than him. So, what is the mystery of such marriages? I think that these ladies strike some men to the very heart with their immoderate exaltation. Yeah. But they strike, but they cannot hold. Soon enough the man runs away from them. My friend Arkasha, for example, went to see a blond student art school. Chekhov passed away three years after his marriage. And Repin acted smarter than others; he sent Natalya Borisovna to Switzerland to be treated for consumption, where she died.

Natalya Nordman was a militant suffragist (in the words of Korney Chukovsky), a vegetarian and fought for the emancipation of servants. In Penates, guests were greeted by posters: “Don’t wait for the servants, there are none.” "Strike the gong. Come in. Undress in the hall." The guest was fed hay soup and lingonberry cutlets. The wife of the writer Alexander Kuprin recalled that when Maxim Gorky lived in Kuokkala, she and her husband stopped by to have lunch with him before heading to Penates. Gorky said: “Eat more, eat more. You won’t get anything from the Repins except hay.”
Contemporaries said that when Ilya Efimovich came to St. Petersburg, he gladly ate steaks with blood, although he asked not to tell Natalya Borisovna about it. Natalya Borisovna herself kept a bottle of cognac and ham sandwiches in a secluded place for especially trusted friends, which she asked not to tell Ilya Efimovich about. On the initiative of Natalya Borisovna, “Cooperative Meetings” were organized in Penates. Lectures were held in Gomera Square different topics: "From sewing boots to astronomical topics." They were lecturers "both prominent scientists, writers, and artisans, servants, local residents." Then the lecturers and listeners drank tea and danced in the clearing to the balalaika.

After the death of Natalya Borisovna, Repin abolished the rules established under her in Penety, began eating meat again and lived to be 86 years old.

4. Pond “What space!”

5.One of the wooden bridges in the park.

6. Park ponds are covered with duckweed.

7. There was once an oak tree here.

8. Tower of Scheherizade. Repin called Natalya Nordman Scheherazade. It is impossible to climb the tower; it is in poor condition.

9. Temple of Osiris and Isis. From the platform of this temple, lectures were given on the art of sewing boots or on how to deliver a baby to a sheep.

10. There are a lot of stones and a lot of fir trees in the park.

11.The park is deserted and quiet. On weekdays there are almost no visitors. Perhaps when the museum opens there will be more of them.

13.Bridges over Raphael Pond.