Recollections of Pavlovsk (1984) - full transcript

For two centuries it has been giving people
joy and inspiration. Our Pavlovsk. The most poetic,

mesmerizing palaces of Leningrad,
set inside a pearl necklace of suburban parks.

But this exciting harmony of nature and art
could not have existed by now if Pavlovsk
didn't have so many loyal friends.

Anna Ivanovna Zelenova did not just love Pavlovsk.

She could not live without it.

"I considered it the best place on Earth." Why?

She is no longer here, and she will never
answer this question for us. So let's try to
understand it, leafing through the years of her life,

talking with her diaries, with
Pavlovsk, to which she dedicated herself.

Perhaps one who is born on the banks of the Neva River
senses the music of the beautiful in a special way,

and Anya Zelenova bent her ear to it since childhood.

Girls of the '30s were attracted by distant roads.
They did not want to be second to men in anything.



Stormed the Arctic, conquered the sky

went to the ends of the Earth

to build new cities.

She, too, was not timid. How come
the wind of travel didn't carry you away, Anya?

“I walked then while leaning on a cane.
For many years I suffered from bone tuberculosis.

“It happened after I fell off the scaffolding.
I was a technician who measures buildings.

“Certainly I didn’t dream of becoming a museum worker.

"But when I saw Pavlovsk..."

Yes, Pavlovsk is amazing.

It responds to all moods with its soul.

And Anya Zelenova was endlessly thrilled with it.

Pavlovsk

was to her a true temple of art.

While still a student, having decided to
become an art critic, she was a walking tour guide here.



Now she knew every corner of Pavlovsk.

She knew how it looked at dawn and at dusk.

In winter and summer.

In spring and autumn.

Is it true young Pushkin wandered in these alleys,
Glinka listened to the noise of the oak groves?

And Dostoevsky was seeking solitude here.

How I wanted to open this beauty to all people,

but the war broke out.

And soon,

soon it became clear that the
enemy was moving towards Leningrad.

"These days are like a bad dream: fires, bombings.

"What amazed me is that people most of all tried
to save something that was not
their own - but common property

of our history,

of memory:

books, paintings, museums.
And then for the first time I felt

fear for my Pavlovsk."

She was not yet called by her patronymic,
just Anna Zelenova, and suddenly:

she's the palace director at the Pavlovsk Museum.

The main guardian of its wealth.

Did this surprise you, Anna Ivanovna?

"All the men were drafted into the army.

"The former director of Pavlovsk also went to the front

“I don’t know why the choice fell on me, but the
orders were not discussed then. I suddenly felt much

older.

"Such an

immense responsibility.

"Evacuation was under way.

"The most precious exhibits of Pavlovsk were already
on wheels, sent deep into the rear, to Siberia.

“It seems still recently that my relationship
with Pavlovsk was so cloudless, idyllic.

"And now we're deciding what else can be saved
after all it's impossible to save it all, as we are too few.

"We pack antiques by ourselves,
we load them into cars."

But you still forgot about one case, Anna Ivanovna.

Once during the fascist aerial raids,
you threw yourself into the back of a car
that had not yet driven off,

shielding the boxes of Pavlovian porcelain,
as if you could protect them with your body.

Fortunately, nothing bad happened.

The battle has already reached the outskirts of Pavlovsk,
a 10-15 minute walk from the palace
laid the front line of the defense.

Zelenova asked at the headquarters:
"How much longer can we hold?"

Who could answer that? The soldiers fought
to the death. Not only Pavlovsk was behind them.

Leningrad.

The halls of the palace still had
a collection of antique sculptures.

Anxiety over their fate has
given us salvation.

The collections were taken to one of the distant
sections of the basement and immured,
hidden behind a fake brick wall.

The fascists never found it.

We removed all the sculptures
in the park from the pedestals,

buried them in wooden cases in the ground as if

giving them a funeral.

When the statue called Peace was buried,
someone wrote in pencil on its
marble shoulder: "We will return,

we will find you, Peace. "

Then the forester Tretyakov came running:

"Run away, run away for Christ's sake,

German motorcyclists are in the park".

I rushed to the palace, grabbed a briefcase
with the most important documents:
plans for the burial of sculptures.

Together with the museum employee Nikolai Viktorovich Weiss,
who loved Pavlovsk just like me, we were the last to leave.

It was September 17

1941.

The darkest day of my life.

The 900-day epic of Leningrad began.

The blockade.

Museum halls have become empty.

Isaac's, the famous Isaac's Cathedral, has become
the refuge for everything that has been rescued
from the suburban palaces in the very last days.

This is a special story.

It's a pity that you, Anna Ivanovna,
remember it so sparingly.

Pavlovsk's [?] is now safely hidden in the cathedral
basement, taking a burden off our hearts.

We also live right here, next to the clerical office.
A bunk..a wood block...we sleep covered with clothes.

We all decided to celebrate the
24th anniversary of the October
[revolution].

There are not many of us in this bomb shelter, but

soon there'll be less.

Far less.

A harsh blockade winter is ahead,

but we are under the protection of the
Red Army, but what about there,

in Pavlovsk?

Many years later, friends would send her from Berlin
these photographs of an old Hitler magazine.

And in a few decades she will see

how Pavlovsk looked under the fascists boot.

A painfully familiar palace,

clogged windows and

the occupiers persecuting civilians.

There is a dispatch of slaves to Germany.

Letters were sent to besieged Leningrad from everywhere
and always found Zelenova: "What do you hear about
our beloved Pavlovsk?", "How is it in Pavlovsk?"

"Architect Bartashevich is interested in the fate of Pavlovsk.

"Notify the front, by military mail,

86, 756."

This anxiety,

pain for Pavlovsk became her strength,
gave new meaning to her blockade days.

I made a rule for myself: when the day's work is
over in the Isaac's museum department

go directly to the library archives, every evening.

I must collect, study everything about Pavlovsk,
about its creators Quarenghi, Rossi,

Cameron, Voronikhin, Gonzago. If disaster strikes Pavlovsk,

these sources are indispensable.

During that first winter of war,
most oppressive was the darkness.
Darkness in the streets, darkness in the houses.

And the white nights are still so far away:
it's a pity that we see Alexey Alexeyevich
less and less often.

They made a photo together at
the very beginning of the blockade.

Alexey Alexeyevich Chernovsky, a historian, an expert
on the genealogy of Leningrad, and Anna Ivanovna.

She was much younger, and only risked confessing
her feelings later, on the last day of her life.

The most tragic weeks and months of the
siege of Leningrad were approaching.

This is how Anna Ivanovna lived during the blockade.

Let her diary tell the story.

"There was nothing left but mustard and pepper.

"They give you severe stomach aches.

"Only boiled water helps, but it has also become scarce.
Come evening I will crawl to the Public [library].

"What a paradise our pre-war library seems to me now:

warm, calm, no sirens, no alarms.

"Now the ink is getting cold,

the eyeglasses are freezing.

"It's almost impossible to read.
Today I fell thrice before arriving here.

"I continue to work on the materials about Pavlovsk.

"I saw in a dream at night

a silhouette of the park,

almost fantastical.

"I learned that The Great Waltz was playing at Nevsky again.

"My favorite pre-war film,
but of course I could not resist and went.

"After all, it has Strauss who often
gave concerts in old Pavlovsk."

How they waited for spring,
and she brought them new troubles.

Flooding in the basements of the Hermitage,
of Isaac's, and again all must be saved.

Once Zelenova was brought a notebook with pencil notes.

She opened it and shuddered - the handwriting
is that of Alexey Alexeyevich Chernovsky.

Really?

Anna Ivanovna would keep this
notebook as sacred throughout her life.

"Evening, April 27:
I am so weak that I think my end is coming soon.

The last words to Zelenova.

Dear Anna Ivanovna, in the sense of soul
and culture, Pushkin, Blok and

Memories, you remain

my only and dearest transmitter in them."
[note: if you have no idea what this means, you are not alone]

"I kiss your gentle hands.
It’s a pity to leave the world.

Chernovsky."

While dying, he thought about a new museum,
the museum of the besieged Leningrad,
even left the first exhibit for it:

an unused bread card,

the last of a daily norm.

125 grams. And you know what it cost to give up these grams

to a man dying of hunger?

And so Leningrad saw prisoners in its streets,
those who tormented it for many months with hunger,
bombing and shelling.

The enemy has been driven back from the city.

End of the blockade.

End of endless dark nights.

Light your lights, Leningrad, live!

Be merry!

The day has come, Anna Ivanovna,

liberation of beloved Pavlovsk.

"I didn't want to wait a minute more and went on foot.

"All the way I was accompanied by the cawing of crows
circling over the corpses of the Nazis.

"Finally a bus caught up with me.

"Familiar artists and writers from Leningrad were in it."

Among them was Vera Inber,

author of the famous Leningrad diary. She writes:

"Bridge over Slavyanka River

was blown up, but the woman from the Pavlovsk Museum rushed
forward so quickly that the men could barely keep up with her.

"She was so pale

that it was noticeable even in the cold."

In front of the entrance to Pavlovsk, a frightening order
was still hanging: whoever enters will be shot.

The Gestapo was located here in the palace.
What feelings did Anna Ivanovna experience in these moments?

"Pavlovsk is beautiful, but terrible.
Pompeii did not look more woeful:
the statues were tortured as if they were alive.

"Everywhere there are traces of mockery of art:
in Pushkin town, in Peterhof, in Gatchina.

"And everywhere the Nazis left their facsimile on the walls:
'When Ivan comes, everything will be empty.'

"I entered the park, my heart sank.

"Cuttings, rubble, anti-tank ditches.

"Half of the trees were dead, met a couple of wolves.

"Moving through the snow, for some reason I thought:
if I step on a mine, it might explode
not below me, but at the ski tip.

"I was lucky: afterwards sappers
defused hundreds of mines here.

"Every day I went to the palace like
to the grave of my beloved.

"Is this it?

"Is it really the end?

"Will Pavlovsk remain only a painful memory?"

She was again appointed director.

Director

of non-existent Pavlovsk.

She immediately began to gather everyone who
remembered, knew the pre-war palace,

who could help save at least what remained in the ashes.

Life was still very difficult. According to the wartime laws,

movement was limited.

Only the Director of the Pavlovsk
Museum Palace had a pass to Leningrad.

Having procured food for the museum staff in the city,
Zelenova loaded it onto sledges and
hurried home through snow-covered fields

where mines could lie waiting at every step.

One day she got caught in a blizzard,

got lost and began to freeze.

If this woman from the neighboring village
had not come across her in the snow,

Anna Ivanovna would not have seen Pavlovsk again.

The state panel has arrived.

Its findings did not give any hope.

Of the other architecture near Leningrad,

none were damaged as bad as this.

There are no footholds to the revival of the palace.

That's when

she began the battle for Pavlovsk.

"I contacted one military organization, which was
at that time engaged in the construction of airfields,
addressing engineer captain Sapgir:

'You have a tower crane,

help us erect statues or pedestals.'
-'Are you aware there are now only
2 cranes in the whole of Leningrad?'

'Then help us put the scaffolding where walls still remain.
We need to affix the falling stucco.'

'But what have we to do with it?'

I was at a loss and blurted out: 'To whom should
I complain about you, whom do you report to?'

'To the Supreme Commander.'

"I sank.

"But a few days later, Captain Sapgir
gave us people, gave us a crane.

"He personally turned up.

"It turns out that he had often
visited here before the war,

with his bride.

"And I realized that

"Pavlovsk is not alone.

"Pavlovsk will live."

But it was too early to triumph.

How many offices did you visit at that time, Anna Ivanovna?

How many times did you hear:

'the dead cannot be revived',

but a lot of the surroundings had
already been in the process.

Famous monuments and sculptures
were being returned to their places.

The palaces of Leningrad started regaining their former,

familiar appearance. And a person such as Zelenova
could not help but attract like-minded people.

After all, she never thought about herself,

only about Pavlovsk.

"First, recalled from the front was architect and artist
Oleinik, who had thoroughly studied
the palace during his student years.

"That was already something.

"Oleinik made his first drawings at night
in the attic by the light of a carbide lamp.
There was nowhere else.

"As the author of the Pavlovsk recovery project,

he was picky and implacable - everything,
absolutely everything must correspond

to the former classical appearance of the palace.

"How early was the life of Fyodor Fyodorovich interrupted!

"He never saw what he dreamt of."

Funds towards the restoration of Pavlovsk were being
released sparingly in the early post-war years,
but why be surprised? Half of the country lay in ruins.

Millions of people were homeless.

There were even shelters such as this.

Anna Ivanovna understood everything,
but that did not make it any easier.

No, if Pavlovsk is rebuilt at such a pace,
even a century will not be enough.

Taking a vacation, I went to Moscow,

deciding to seek further fund allocations.

When telling later about this trip,

Zelenova used to omit certain circumstances.

And they would say a lot, as she
barely had enough money for the trip.

Anna Ivanovna stopped at a friend's house, far away.

Even the subway was not always affordable.

She walked more often on foot through all of Moscow,

sometimes just a glass of tea

for the whole day. The blockade mettle at work.

"That winter, an artist friend shot a hare in
Pavlovsk Park and gave me her skin as a gift.

"In the new mufа, I felt almost like a fashionista,
my hands were not freezing.

"After a month of visiting the authorities,
everyone was obviously pretty tired of me,
but I still managed to interest someone in Pavlovsk.

"Once at 3 AM I was received in the Kremlin

by Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov.

"He was then in charge of the cultural
issues in the government,

listened carefully,

and a few days later he informed me
that the state considered it necessary

to allocate additional funds for the recovery

of the Pavlovsk ensemble.

"I walked across Red Square in such a shock

that at first I couldn't hear that they called me:

'Comrade Zelenova,

you forgot your muff in the waiting room.'"

Did she understand what a gigantic burden she was carrying on her shoulders,

and how many opponents will she and her

associates have, after all the upcoming work was
unprecedented either in the scale of the
restoration, or in its complexity.

Many people thought it was easier to rebuild everything

from the ground up.

Pavlovsk

will be revived in its original form,
and this aspiration has united them all, for many years:

Architects Popova-Gunich and Mozhanskaya,

curator of the Museum, Gromov,

a brilliant connoisseur of arts and crafts, Kuchumov,

artist and restorer Treskin.

A whole generation of masters

of restoration

grew up here in Pavlovsk. It was replaced
by another in order to complete this incredible,

titanic work.

The Pavlovsk Palace and Park

was being born the 2nd time,

was being born for a long time,

almost 25 years,

and that was her life.

Hundreds of thousands of talented hands have
created this truly handmade miracle,
returned Pavlovsk to us.

When Pavlovsk turned 200 in 1977,

it met its anniversary already in full glory,

and it seemed to Anna Ivanovna that she was
again leading an excursion through the hall,
her first excursion,

after all she had essentially never parted with Pavlovsk,

not for a single moment.