Forgotten stories of Artek. What terrible secrets does Artek keep?
Evgeny Belousov
from the book
"Legends of Artek"
WHY PATHWAYS
THEY WILD LIKE A SNAKE
The first pioneers arrived at the camp. It was just 1925. We met the counselor. We looked around.
How great! - They say.
And we went to see what and where in Artek. They climb from hill to hill. As they passed an olive grove, they turned their heads:
Oh look! There are oaks and pines here!
Oh look! Here . - Shall we go to the lawn?
Before they could stop admiring the park, a friend called them from the hill:
Come to me! From here you can clearly see the sea! The guys run up:
Look! The waves are like lambs!
Then we turned left. And everyone is amazed: - There is a restless squirrel jumping from branch to branch. - There's a drummer woodpecker nodding his head to us. Then they went to the right and even shrugged their shoulders: “What unprecedented trees!”
What wonderful flowers!
And so the pioneers follow each other like a snake. But it’s impossible to go straight.
Here the counselor points towards Bear Mountain and says:
Shall we go there? Shall we collect a herbarium of plants?
The stones are all different and shiny.
Let's put together a collection of minerals? - the counselor asks.
“We’ll collect them,” the pioneers answer.
So we got to the very foot of Ayu-Dag. And when they started returning home, they laughed:
As we walked here, there was no path.
And now there is.
And itself, like a snake, curls.
Let's go back along it, guys, and don't turn anywhere.
Friend after friend stood up and started singing. This is how, they say, the first Artek path appeared.
Then another and a third appeared. There are too many beauties in Artek. And every bend in the path is something special.
They wanted to somehow straighten the adult paths. Yes, they didn’t succeed. After all, there are so many miracles on the land of Artek. And every turn is a new discovery.
AND THE FIRST ARTEK SONG
This was back in 1925. The first pioneers had just arrived at the camp. At the foot of Ayu-Dag lived the Artek Song. Only for the time being no one knew about it. The song quietly wandered through the cypress alleys. Gently stroked the coastal slopes. On a quiet night it rustled along with the shiny pebbles. And she still strove to make friends with the pioneers. She knew that fate would bring her together with them for many years. She also knew that her most important Artek member would be the first to sing.
The Song had an inseparable friend - the sonorous Chorus. Where she goes, so goes he.
Said sadly Chorus:
It's a pity. But the time has not yet come for us to make friends with the Artek people!
The song cooed faintly:
How sad that we don’t know this person. His kind heart will make us happy.
Here, from Moscow, the founder of Artek, Dr. Soloviev, asks adults in a letter: - How do the pioneers live?
They answer:
The tents are strong - canvas. - We feed the guys enough.
I opened a library club and a doctor’s office, but I can’t list everything. What else do pioneers need for recreation?
The Song rejoices from good words. The cypress branches frolic and the flag flutters on the mast. He whispers something quietly and waits for what else the adults will say.
And they answer honestly:
There seems to be plenty of everything. But something is missing.
Maybe hold amateur art evenings every week?
The song flew past the boys. Take it and say: - Can we build a stage? We'll handle the work ourselves. Before leaving, we will sing and read poetry there. “It’s a good idea,” said Doctor Soloviev.
Well, we suggested it,” the Song and Chorus smiled.
So the first shift passed.
One day at dawn they played a Song with a Chorus on the Artek line. They looked and the guys were getting up from their beds and coming out of their tents.
Song says to his friend reproachfully: “It was you who woke up the pioneers.”
He won't understand what's going on. Was he really singing loudly?
The friends became quiet and listened. It turned out that they were not to blame at all. It’s just that the second-shift Artek people are village guys. We haven’t gotten used to the camp routine yet. So, out of habit, we got up at dawn. As they say, with the first roosters.
And when a little more time passed, Zinoviy Petrovich arrived at Artek. The song with the Chorus, of course, follows him relentlessly.
Look, he took a pen and paper,” says Song.
Look, he’s writing something and quietly humming,” said the Chorus.
Several days passed. But Dr. Solovyov doesn’t even think about rest. Then at the stake with the guys. He collects crabs and seahorses with the girls. Then he conducts a medical conversation.
And then one day something happened that the Song with Chorus had been waiting for so long.
How great! - Song was happy. - Zinovy Petrovich sings to me.
Our camp was organized by ROKK (Russian Red Cross Society),
Komsomol helped him.
Our "Artem", our "Artek",
I will never forget you.
The pioneers did not yawn,
They helped the Komsomol.
Our "Artem", our "Artem",
I will never forget you.
Zinovy Petrovich was surrounded by guys. They began to sing along:
Our camp became like a picture,
He is a working novelty.
Our "Artek", our "Artem",
I will never kill you.
Soon the whole camp was singing and laughing:
We will gain health
And we'll take it with us.
Our "Artek", our "Artek",
Never forget you.
The song flew over Artek. She spread her wings. The child's eyes shone with joy. How could it be otherwise! After all, the First Artek Song was born!
Hooray! - Chorus shouted in delight. He clapped his hands and instructed the surprised girls and boys:
Sing me louder! Me!
They laughed wildly and picked up the Chorus. And he proudly said:
Listen up everyone! I need to be sung very beautifully! It's clear? I never repeat it twice!
He laughed and repeated with the happy kids and the counselors again: three, then four, then five and six times:
We got tanned in the sun
It's like the blacks have turned black.
Our "Artek", our "Artek",
Never forget you.
You will be happy to join us
Dad, mom and squad.
Our "Artek", our "Artek",
Never forget you.
The song rejoiced. And life in “Artek” began to be completely fun. The first Song became a signal for everyone who is in love with Artek. A little time will pass and she will have many friends. These will be new Artek songs.
They will be composed by children and counselors, professional poets and composers, doctors and engineers. They will be composed by everyone whose heart cannot help but sing at the word “Artek”.
Years pass. But the Artek residents do not forget the words of their song friends. Even when you have your whole life behind you.
Why? - you ask.
Because they always live in the soul. And they sing these songs with their hearts!
OAK POSTMAN
Once upon a time there lived a tall oak tree. He grew up at the very top of Bear Mountain. The spreading branches gave coolness to travelers. The hollow windows looked in all directions of the world. But most importantly, Oak knew how to bring people together.
How did it start?
One day in the summer of 1925, Artek residents came to visit Oak. The local guide Osman Kazak showed the way. The guys sat, rested and sang songs. We talked about the good life in Artek. And they also said:
Let's write letters to ourselves and about Artek. - We’ll also indicate our addresses.
Leave the letters in my hollow. I will pass them on to the new Artek residents.
And the Artek people, as you know, are the kind of people that if they decide, they will definitely do it.
So here it is. The guys returned to the camp and took up hands. They wrote what they wanted to write about. The letters were sealed in homemade envelopes and taken to Oak.
He says:
Go home calmly. I'll tell you everything as it is. And in addition, I’ll tell you something good about you. The guys shook Oak's paws and branches and said goodbye.
This was the beginning of the story of Oak the Postman.
Then names came flying one after another. The old year gave way to a new one. And Oak became the best friend of the Artek people for decades.
They trusted him with their secrets.
Under its branches, they say, the counselors made dates.
They also say that letters from its hollow ended up thousands of kilometers from Artek. These letters made friends from Kyiv and Voronezh, Kharkov and Minsk, Moscow and Chisinau.
There were no boundaries for messages from Postman Oak. Mixed together were the addresses of Artek members from Bulgaria and Finland, the Soviet Union and Vietnam, Poland and Egypt, Cuba and Hungary.
And how could it be otherwise? Does friendship have boundaries?
This is how it should always be. Is it true?
It's just a sad ending to the story. Somehow a bad man came to the top. He struck a match and the letters caught fire. It happened on August 15, 1971.
So the Artek residents lost their postman friend. But this did not make the friendship any weaker.
Don't believe me?
Then count how many friends’ addresses Artek workers take away each shift.
That's it!
HOW "CRYSTAL" Arose
Once upon a time there was a kingdom of Crystal. And the young king, the Great Crystal, ruled there. He loved beauty. He loved his subjects. And he ordered the most beautiful buildings to be built from a transparent and shiny material - crystal.
But one day, from a neighboring state, the evil Khan Rubintius I attacked the kingdom of Crystal.
Let there be darkness! - he shouted in anger. - Destroy these ugly crystal houses! Build ruby vaults all around!
The flowers have withered. The trees were taken down.
The noble inhabitants of Khrustalny cried: “The sun has disappeared on our beautiful land.”
Everywhere is red, red from the ruby domes.
And then King Khrustalik the Great, together with his people, hid in the dungeon. And there was a secret passage that went out to a distant high mountain. The young king said:
We have to free the kingdom from the enemy. This is not an easy matter. Fate has prepared more than one hard day for us. But if we cope with all the trials, we will be the happiest of all happy people.
With these words they set off. The journey through the underground labyrinths was not easy. One day the scouts reported:
In the distance lies a huge glowing stone.
Approaching it, people read the inscription on the stone: “Whoever finds this stone will have magical powers. But first he must build a palace from the stone.”
We will build it! - the inhabitants of the Crystal Kingdom exclaimed.
We came out of the underground passage and looked around: “The enemy is not visible.”
The army of Rubintius I is two days' walk from here. They began to figure out where it would be more convenient to build a palace. Below is the sea. The mountain that looks like a Bear is just a stone's throw away. And on the slope there is a wonderful clearing.
“Let’s start here,” decided Khrustalik.
They didn’t straighten their backs for thirty-three days. Thirty-three nights they doused themselves with salt. And when the last stone was finally laid, a miracle happened.
Look! Our palace is shining! - people exclaimed. Suddenly there was a terrible roar. The sun's rays glowed brighter. The young king guessed: -
It was the ruby vaults that burst. This evil invader is fleeing our land.
So the power of the magic stone saved the whole country. And this palace still stands in the kingdom called “Artek”. And the palace is called “Crystal”.
90 years ago, the Artek children's camp opened in Crimea.
On June 16, the Artek children's camp in Crimea turned 90. The mysterious White Lady of Artek - almost every vacationer has heard about her. Who was she and what secret was she keeping?
Milady from "Devil's House"
As you know, every self-respecting pioneer camp should have its own White Lady - a ghost of a woman in white who wanders through the night alleys and grabs regime violators. And in the main camp of the USSR - "Artek" - this lady certainly must be something special.
So, since the times when there was no trace of any “Republic of Childhood” in this place, the White Lady of “Artek” has been the ghost of Milady. Yes, yes, the same Lady Winter from Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". Or rather, not exactly the same one, but one of several real-life women from whom the classic of adventure literature “blinded” this negative character. Officially, in all encyclopedias, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, Buckingham’s abandoned mistress, who out of grief became Richelieu’s agent, is indicated as the prototype of Milady. Only this lady, pleasant in all respects, did not carry out any scams with diamond pendants. It’s just that Dumas, in his characteristic manner of mixing eras, described a completely different episode from French history - the famous affaire du collier, the story of the disappearance of Marie Antoinette’s necklace.
Jeanne De Lamotte
The further story is revealed in at least three versions in a couple of clicks in the search engine. And you will learn about how a certain Jeanne de Luz de Saint-Rémy de Valois infiltrated the Parisian high society, how she amazed everyone with her beauty and married the Comte de Lamotte, how she became the mistress of Cardinal de Rohan and the friend of Marie Antoinette. In the role of “diamond pendants” - a necklace with diamonds, ordered by Louis XV for Countess DuBarry, at a price of 1 million 600 thousand livres (this trinket cost the same as a small French town). The king died, everything was taken away from his former favorite, and the necklace hung like a dead weight on the balance sheet of the Bemer and Bassange jewelry workshop. But then Jeanne de Lamotte appeared, who, with the help of the well-known Cagliostro, conceived and pulled off a brilliant scam. She persuaded her cardinal lover to buy a necklace, supposedly on behalf of the queen, forged her signatures on promissory notes, and simply stole the jewelry itself. The scandal was enormous; Mirabeau later called this story “a prologue to the Great Revolution,” Dumas wrote a separate novel about it, and in 2001 Hollywood made a film starring Hillary Swank.
Jeanne De Lamotte was tried and sentenced to be stripped of her nobility, branded, and life imprisoned in a prison for prostitutes. From there she fled to England, successfully blackmailed Marie Antoinette with her memoirs and, finally, either committed suicide, was killed, or faked her own death.
For 200 years now, further events have been recounted with pleasure to everyone by Crimean local historians and Artek counselors. No, she didn’t die, she fled to Russia, lived there for 12 years in St. Petersburg under the name of Countess de Gaucher, then the French ambassador accidentally identified her and demanded her extradition, and Alexander I exiled her to Crimea. There she settled at the foot of Ayu-Dag, became the “boss” of local smugglers and converted Crimean Tatars to Christianity, and at the same time, as a student of Cagliostro, she practiced witchcraft, which is why the nickname “Devil’s House” forever stuck to her home. For a long time, there was a legend among the Tatars about an old woman preacher who came to them on horseback, in a black cloak with two pistols in her belt, and spoke to them about Christ with a clear French accent. De Lamotte’s entire Crimean epic took less than two years: in 1824 she was deported, and in 1826 she had already died, and how did she manage to do everything? She bequeathed to bury herself in the same clothes in which she would meet death. But her old Armenian maid did not understand anything and a day after death she decided to wash her mistress, began to undress the body and discovered the mark of a Parisian executioner on her shoulder - “that’s how it all turned out.”
The “Devil's House” still stands in the very center of the Morskoy camp; many people have lived in it since then, including the founder of Artek, Zinovy Solovyov. In 1983, Nikolai Samvelyan published the book “Seven Mistakes, Including the Author’s Mistake,” in which he definitively proved that the mysterious Countess de Gaucher, who died in Crimea, was Jeanne de Lamotte. Pioneers tell each other terrible stories about the “Crimean Milady” every shift, the flow of people wishing to find the famous necklace has not yet dried up - in general, the legend lives and flourishes. There were even projects to turn the “Devil’s House” into a museum for Countess de Lamotte and a “scam with a necklace”...
Was everything so fabulous?
In this entire “Crimean epic” of the French swindler, there are many moments that raise well-founded questions. This always happens with popular historical legends - after a careful study of the documents, it turns out that “not 100 rubles, but 50, not in preference, but in “Fool” and did not win, but lost.”
American singer Paul Robeson in Artek, 1958. Photo: ITAR-TASS
Firstly, where did this whole story come from, where, so to speak, is the original source? Many interpreters of the version about the “Crimean Milady” referred to the book “Letters and Notes of Ommer de Gelle,” allegedly written by the famous French traveler Adele Ommer de Gelle:
“Buried in the garden of her house, this mysterious woman, about whom there were such contradictory rumors, did not have even a stone on her grave that would indicate to a foreigner or traveler that beneath it lay the Countess Lamothe, carved and branded on the Place de Greve, like a participant in a scandalous the case of the queen's necklace."
The real author of these “notes” was the famous hoaxer P.P. Vyazemsky, which was proven by Soviet scientists in the 1930s of the last century. That is, one of the pillars of the history of the “Crimean Milady” from the very beginning was a well-known fake.
Secondly, during the events that interest us, the lands in the Artek tract were not owned by Princess Potemkina, as is often written in encyclopedias, but by the Polish poet Gustav Olizar, a friend of Pushkin and Mitskevich, a future participant in one of the secret societies of the Decembrists and the uprising of 1830 year. He left behind his memoirs. And the Countess de Gaucher, imagine, is mentioned in them, but she is given a very modest place there, just one paragraph:
“But curiosity was even more aroused by the old Frenchwoman who lived with her (Golitsyn), in whom many wanted to see Mme Lamothe, who became famous in the famous trial of the necklace.”
That's all. Agree that there is a huge distance between the lengthy narrative about Countess Gwasher from Vyazemsky’s notes - “de Gelle” and Olizar’s careful phrase “in which many would like to see...”. In addition, the “Devil’s House” was located right on the territory of his Kadriatikon estate, so Olizar would have mentioned that the exiled French woman settled with him.
Let's move on. An active collector of all the legends around Artek was Margarita Solovyova, the wife of the camp founder. According to her, in 1926 she met with the writer V. Veresaev, who told her the story of the “Crimean Milady,” referring to Olizar’s memoirs. But Olizar himself, as we know, doubted the “de LaMotte” version. The circle is closed, but there is still no truth.
There were other, more meticulous researchers, for example, the Crimean historian A. Markevich, who in 1912 published the article “On the biography of Countess de Lamotte Valois-Gachet” in the journal of the Tauride Archival Commission. In it he wrote:
“Countess Gachet went to Crimea together with Countess A. S. Golitsyna, famous for her mystical worldview, who invited with her here to her estate Koreiz, in addition to Countess Gachet, and the even more famous Countess Krudener.
Having moved to the Crimea, Countess Gachet lived for some time in Koreiz with Countess Golitsyna, then alone with her servants in Artek, at the foot of Ayudag, and finally moved to the city of Old Crimea, on the advice of Baron Bode, also a French emigrant, who was the director in Sudak School of viticulture and winemaking."
Yusupov Palace in Crimea, 1994. Photo: ITAR-TASS
Now new clues have appeared. Firstly, A.S. Golitsyna - wife of chamberlain I.A. Golitsyn. She was indeed expelled from St. Petersburg in 1822 along with the great-granddaughter of Field Marshal Minich, Baroness Juliana Krudener, for attempting to persuade Alexander I to a crusade against the Ottoman Empire, as well as for spreading Pietism (one of the sects of Lutheranism). In Crimea, the ladies were going to found a Pietist colony of Germans and Greeks and begin the conversion of the Tatars. Golitsyna’s biography also mentions her very original manners for a respectable society lady:
“Riding on a horse, in a long frock coat, with a whip in her hands, with the help of which she personally dealt with not only her family, but also strangers, the despotic Golitsyna kept even the local authorities in awe. In society, she was nicknamed La vieille du rocher (“The Old Woman”) from the cliff"), she herself sometimes signed herself La vieille des monts ("The Old Woman from the Mountains"), which wits quickly changed into La vieille demon ("The Old Devil")."
This is who went to visit the Crimean Tatars “in a raincoat with two pistols,” or rather, with a whip, and preached Christianity to them. And at the same time it becomes clear what kind of “Christianity” this was, otherwise a French Catholic woman converting Muslims to Orthodoxy looks somehow ridiculous.
So, instead of de Lamotte, we see Golitsyna, and instead of mysterious smugglers, we see ordinary sectarians. Where was the “Crimean Milady” all this time?
Markevich leaves us one more clue about the mark. In the notes to his article, he refers to the memoirs of a certain Olga N, published in 1889 (Russian Messenger magazine), and writes: The Golitsyns learned that their old governess was none other than Countess de Lamotte only when by chance, through half-open door, noticed a mark on her shoulder... Wait, what kind of “Golitsyns” are they if Anna Sergeevna came to Crimea without relatives? Secondly, why did she need a governess if she had no children, and Juliana Krudener’s daughter was already married by that time?
It must be said that Olga N herself has never seen Countess de Gaucher, but she retells the story about her from the words of unknown “Crimean old-timers.” Further from the text it becomes clear that we are talking about a completely different branch of the Golitsyn family - about Vasily Sergeevich Golitsyn and his wife Elena Suvorova, née Naryshkina, a legendary beauty of her time. There is only one “but”: in 1824 this family was still celebrating their “honeymoon” in Berlin, and began to appear on their Crimean estate a few years after de Gaucher died. Apparently, some other elderly French woman lived with them, who could also have a mark. Or it could happen that one story was mixed with another for the sake of authenticity. Since legends about “milady” began to appear almost the day after her death, the Crimean nobles were inclined to see Jeanne de Lamotte in any emigrant who spoke French.
Or maybe she wasn’t in Crimea at all?
No, it was. And even in exile she remained a person so important for the Russian crown that either the Chief of the General Staff Dibich or the almighty Beckendorf ordered Governor Tauride Naryshkin: after the death of the Countess, all papers and personal belongings belonging to her should be seized and immediately delivered to St. Petersburg by courier mail! As soon as the news of de Gaucher's death reached Naryshkin, he immediately sent his official on special assignments, but not to Artek, but to the city of Old Crimea, and gave him a written order, one phrase from which finally clarifies everything:
Jeanne De Lamotte
“It is known that Countess Gachet was and died in Old Crimea, her property is described by the town hall there during the tenure of the executors appointed by Countess Gachet orally before her death: the collegiate secretary Baron Bode, the foreigner Kilius and the head of affairs of the late Feodosian 1st guild merchant Domenico Amoreti, who , by order of the local governor's government, was taken into the department of the Feodosian noble guardianship. The inventory of the property shows four boxes without indicating, however, what colors they are, but one of them, under No. 88, with a lady's device and is marked to the following Mrs. Birch. the same box that the Chief of the General Staff writes to me about."
This means that de Gachet-de Lamotte really lived and died in Crimea, but not on the South Coast, but in the east of the peninsula, in the city of Old Crimea. This version is fully confirmed by the memoirs of the daughter of the already mentioned Baron Bode, who later became the director of the School of Viticulture and Winemaking in Sudak:
“I was still a very young girl when this whole company came to my parents, but I vividly remember all of them: the dry, formidable Princess Golitsyna, and the gentle blonde Baroness Berkheim, but most of all Countess de Gachey. I learned her whole wonderful story much later; I don’t know why, she struck me then; but now I see an old woman of medium height, quite slender, in a gray cloth coat, her gray hair was covered with a black velvet beret with feathers; her face was not meek, but smart and pleasant, adorned with lively, sparkling eyes. She spoke smartly and charmingly elegant French. She was extremely kind to my parents, and mocking and harsh to her companions.<…>She wanted to buy a garden in Old Crimea that belonged to my father."
So, Baroness Maria Bode turns out to be almost the only witness (except for Olizar) who saw the mysterious Countess de Gaucher with her own eyes, in contrast to the numerous retellers of the tales of the “Crimean old-timers”. There you can also find out what this woman did at the end of her life.
Alexandre Bode wanted to get de Gachet as a companion and mentor for his daughter. He even offered to build a house for her in Sudak. But the French woman wanted to buy the garden that belonged to him, so she settled in a dugout next to the Bode estate and began to reduce the price, driving away all other buyers. Then she decided to put up with it and bequeathed almost all her property to the Bode family. And on April 23, 1826, she died. The description of the circumstances of her death leaves no room for doubt:
“Her Armenian maid only said that, feeling unwell, the countess sorted through and burned her papers all night, that she forbade her to be undressed after her death and demanded to be buried in what she was wearing. According to the decision of local authorities, due to the absence of a Catholic priest, she was buried by Russian Orthodox and Armenian Gregorian priests. The gravestone has not been touched to this day/... /Due to the fact that the countess rarely allowed anyone to visit her, she always dressed herself alone/.../her maid was little. which could satisfy everyone's curiosity. And only during the examination and ablution did she notice on the back of her mistress two clear marks from a red-hot iron. This detail confirms all previous assumptions, since it is known that Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to branding and, despite. the fact that she fought off the executioners, the mark, although unclear, was still burned out", - reported in the memoirs of Maria Bode.
Let's sum it up
The great adventurer of the 18th century, Jeanne de Lamotte, did not really die in London, but once again created a new identity for herself and began working under it for Russian “foreign intelligence” (there were no special services in the modern sense; espionage was mainly carried out by diplomats).
In gratitude for this, she was allowed to live in St. Petersburg. But even because of such a useful lady in all respects, Alexander I was not going to quarrel with the Bourbons who had restored their rights, so Jeanne was removed out of sight as soon as the French identified her.
She arrived in Crimea, apparently, along with the sectarian “mission” of A.S. Golitsyna, and then their paths separated. Golitsyna, together with Krudener, remained to preach their “Christianity” to the Tatars on the South Bank, and Jeanne de Lamotte moved to Old Crimea, where she spent the last year and a half of her life in front of the Bode family (which is not surprising, since they were her compatriots).
Some other French woman lived in the Golitsyn family from Magarach, quite possibly a runaway thief. Most likely, Olga N completely invented this story, wanting to give credibility to the legend about de Lamotte.
The White Lady from Artek is a collective image of two women who actually existed and lived in Crimea at the same time: Countess de Lamotte and A.S. Golitsyna.
The “Devil's House” in the Morskoy camp has nothing to do with all this at all. Most likely it was built already at the time when T.B. owned the Artek tract. Potemkin, famous not only for her devout piety, but also for her passion for spiritualism and other mysticism.
Such a story. Maybe, after all, it’s not worth retelling it to the current “Artek” members? Leave the legend alone, make a museum in the Devil's House, spread a rumor that Marie Antoinette's famous necklace was hidden somewhere nearby and let them search for it. After all, we tell our children in all seriousness that Santa Claus lives in the village of Jolupupki in Lapland, and Father Frost lives in Veliky Ustyug. When they grow up, as they say, they will understand. All the same, not a single pioneer camp can exist without its White Lady.
It’s much more offensive when such tales are reproduced and published by adults in all seriousness.
Alexey Baykov
The famous children's camp is not only inhabited by children and counselors
Who among the Soviet people did not know about Artek, who among the children did not dream of going there! A heavenly place not far from the Crimean Gurzuf, on the shores of a warm, gentle sea... But along with the glory of the all-Union children's health resort, Artek also had another glory - not so widespread. Creepy legends and mystical stories about “Artek” were retold to each other in a whisper, with caution.
Sanatorium for tuberculosis patients
On June 16, 1925, a children's sanatorium was opened here for children with tuberculosis. The initiator of such a sanatorium camp on the southern coast of Crimea was Zinovy Petrovich Soloviev, who at that time held the post of chairman of the Red Cross Society. The camp was named “Artek” after the nearby mountain gorge.
Reference : There is no unambiguous translation of the word “artek” into Russian. The most common options: “bear”, “buffalo”, “quail”, “bread”.
Weakened Soviet children gradually became healthier, and the number of tuberculosis patients decreased. And it was decided to turn Artek into an elite camp - for the best. Schoolchildren who especially distinguished themselves in their studies or committed some outstanding act, or young inventors were sent there... Children from other countries often came there.
Enemies of the people in Artek
The ominous year of 1937 did not spare the children's health resort. After the inspection, NKVD officers handed over a memo to the government, which described terrible things. “Enemies of the people,” it turns out, have also settled in the Artek subsidiary farm: the cows are sick with brucellosis, children are given nails and fragments as food, and the bread is “stuffed” with matches.
It was also reported that an attempt was detected to set fire to the building in which children from Spain were resting. The workers are poisoned, the work of the radio center is disrupted, the counselors beat and rape the pioneers. Children are forced to go hiking on Ayu-Dag on cold nights, as a result of which the pioneers catch colds and often get sick.
Based on these and other crazy accusations, criminal cases were opened, dozens of camp employees were fired and put on trial. If not Polina Zhemchuzhin a - wife Molotov, who realized the groundlessness of the terrible accusations and insisted that her husband look into everything, arrests and exiles of innocent people would follow.
Headless Skeletons
In the vicinity of the Artek pioneer camp. Rafail Mazelev / TASS Photo Chronicle Local residents said that in 1966, an eerie burial was found on the territory of Artek: six skeletons of adults, but without heads and hands.
When they began to examine the burial more carefully, it turned out that the hands and heads separated from the bodies were hidden in a separate box, and it rested a little deeper in the same place, under a layer of sand. And even deeper, under a new layer of sand, a completely creepy find was discovered - the remains of an infant. The mystery of this strange grave has never been solved.
Ghost Children
Already in our time, “Artek” continues to excite the imagination of impressionable people with its terrible riddles.
So, for several years in a row, the “old” shift told the “new” one about a terrible incident with two girls who got a job as nurses at the camp. They settled in a small house, the two of them in one room. And everything would be fine if not for the mysterious incidents. Every night the girls heard strange sounds, someone was throwing books and things off their bedside tables, footsteps were clearly heard in the corridor and water was pouring, and someone else was trying to enter their bedroom, persistently tugging at the locked door. The door itself often turned out to be open the next morning, although the girls carefully locked it every evening.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Artek pioneer camp. 1965 Mesnyankin Yu./TASS Photo Chronicle While the nurses spent the night together, it wasn’t so scary. But one night one of them went camping with the children. Her friend, having fallen asleep alone in the evening, had a terrible dream: children of different ages entered the bedroom one after another. Sad, they lined up around her bed and began to reach out to her, as if begging for something.
The frightened girl told a camp employee about her dream, and she answered her: it was in that building that the most “severe” little tuberculosis patients once lived and often died.
Ghost Countess
It is common knowledge that teenagers simply love scary stories. And the children who end up at Artek are no exception. More interesting than any entertainment for them is to crawl under the covers in the evening and listen to another “horror story”. Well, Artek is generous with horror stories. Even today, camp counselors love to tell their charges the story of the ghostly countess.
French adventuress, countess Jeanne de Lamotte, stole an expensive diamond necklace from the Queen Marie Antoinette. She was caught and imprisoned in a fortress. But soon the countess managed to escape - according to rumors, she headed to Crimea.
One day, while riding a horse, the Countess fell and was badly hurt - it was clear that she would not live. By that time she had managed to hide her jewelry. The dying countess ordered the servants not to remove her clothes under any circumstances after death. But they disobeyed their mistress - and discovered on her shoulder a mark in the form of a lily, which was used to mark state criminals in France.
They say that it was Jeanne de Lamotte who became the prototype of the famous Milady from the novel Dumas"The Three Musketeers". And now, after centuries of afterlife wanderings, Jeanne’s spirit still does not find peace. He wanders around the camp buildings at night and scares those who don’t want to go to bed on time. This is how the counselors end the romantic story - apparently for educational purposes.
Other horror stories
It is dangerous to go into the forest around Artek alone, without adults. There haunts the ominous ghost of a maniac who was once hanged here. Sometimes children disappear from the camp - they are allegedly caught and killed by an evil ghost.
Children here tell other scary stories - the same as in other camps, sanatoriums and boarding houses. About a black hand, a red mask and a coffin on wheels.
And the story about the missing counselor once really caused a stir both in Artek and throughout Crimea. This was in 1967. The guys swam in the sea with their counselors. Then everyone went ashore, except for one counselor - Alena. They searched, screamed, dived... No Alena. They called rescuers and the police, but they never found him. They decided that the girl swam too far and drowned.
A month passed, a new shift of guys arrived. And then Alena appeared! She worked as a counselor again. Only now she had a wedding ring on her finger. Then it turned out that on that fateful day it was simply stolen by the groom’s relatives. Like this, in broad daylight. The girls working at the camp felt uneasy for a long time afterwards - how can you remain calm if at any day you could be kidnapped from the best pioneer camp in the country!
Yuri Gagarin at Artek
A physician by profession, chairman of the Central Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society, Zinoviy Petrovich Soloviev was a great lover of Crimea. Having conceived of creating a sanatorium camp, a “medical camp”, “where doctors would deal not only with an individual child, but with an organized children’s team,” he traveled almost the entire Crimean coast in search of a suitable place: he visited Koktebel, near Feodosia, and Sudak , but didn't find anything suitable. But one day, while relaxing in the Gurzuf branch of the Crimean military resort station (now the Gurzufsky sanatorium), Zinovy Petrovich walked in the Artek tract, which satisfied him in all respects: the site gave hope that the camp would “develop into a real pioneer.”
1975 Envelope for the 50th anniversary of the camp.
Soloviev instructed his colleague Fedor Fedorovich Shishmarev, who had experience managing a children's sanatorium in Ai-Danil, to open the sanatorium camp. An excellent children's doctor and talented organizer, Fedor Fedorovich played a significant role in the life of Artek, giving 8 years of his life to the Soviet children's health resort. Under his strict leadership, the camp opened on June 16, 1925. Located in a cozy and picturesque bay, under the shadow of Mount Ayu-Dag, “Artek” was immediately filled with the hubbub of children’s voices and the sounds of a bugle, and a red flag soared above the green bushes - time began to count down...
1970s
For decades, Artek has been a real dream for children from 15 union republics, foreign schoolchildren from democratic countries, friendly countries in Africa, America and Asia. The children rested all year round, for this all conditions were created here: fun sea bathing, educational and recreational walks in the mountains and surrounding areas in the summer, in other seasons - creativity in numerous clubs, classes in sports sections, studying and expanding collections in organized one behind another museum is “Cosmos”, to which Russian cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin himself, presented many incredible “space” exhibits; Museum of Local Lore with rare collections of minerals and local flora; The Museum of the Navy with gifts from sailors: military weapons from the ships of the Black Sea Fleet during the Second World War...
View of the camp beach
The stormy pioneer life, filled with events, sports competitions, trips and fun sea swimming, lasted until the collapse of the USSR. In the 90s, difficult years for the country, and during its stay as part of Ukraine, Artek almost fell into complete decline. Now the famous international children's camp is being actively restored: the Russian Government has developed a Development Program for the legendary children's health resort for 2015 - 2020, allocating 11 billion rubles for its renovation.
Today, 9 out of 10 Artek camps are functioning, the beaches stretching 7 km along the coastline have been cleaned and put in order. On the territory of the camp there are: a secondary school, 45 children's art studios, 9 sports grounds, courts, 3 outdoor swimming pools with slides, a sports palace with 2 indoor swimming pools, gymnastics, tennis and gyms, a central stadium with 7 thousand seats, equipped according to international standards . Since 2016, Artek has opened a modern climbing wall and rope park, as well as a new camp, Almazny. By 2020, another one will be added to the 10 existing camps - “Solnechny”, in which a new, impeccably equipped modern school will begin operating. Artek residents also have two tourist centers located in the mountains: “Dubrava” (1100 m above sea level) and “Krinichka” (700 m above sea level) that accept up to 40 children in one trip.
Modern "Artek" after restoration
Since the restoration of the famous children's health resort, since 2014, 68 thousand children from all regions of Russia and around the world have already rested at Artek. By 2020, it is planned to accommodate up to 6.5 thousand children per shift in winter and 10 thousand in summer.
The history of the world-famous children's health resort can be found in the Artek Museum, where the exhibits include unique photographs and documents, a model of the first tent city and a model of the legendary children's camp, the construction of which lasted more than 20 years.
If you are in Crimea, be sure to visit the vicinity of Ayu-Dag - from there you have a stunning view of the bay and the sea, which in the summer season is an incredibly bright blue color, wander along the rocky protected paths, breathe in the clean mountain air, and you will again hear the ringing sounds of the bugle and hubbub children's voices - the call of the legendary children's camp, "Artek" ...
The school of young animators in Artek continues its work. The Artek members of the ninth shift decided not just to film already existing myths about various objects and traditions of Artek. The children came up with their own stories. Judge for yourself what their first steps in animation were. For Artek residents, touching the world of animation became a fascinating and educational experience.
For example, the film "Bear in Paradise" Valeria Bondarenko(KhMAO - Yugra) began with the appearance of a bear and a magic apple tree on the screen, and ended with the formation of Ayu-Dag. And the legend drawn Polina Maleeva(Samara) and voiced Bogdan Galagan(Moscow) and Ekaterina Balabanova(KhMAO), explained why Artek is called “quail island”. A sudden plot twist reveals the secret of the origin of the Artek people. If in the legend a giant bear can be petrified, why then can’t tiny Artek pioneers hatch from quail eggs in full uniform?
Creating a legend turned out to be a labor-intensive process for the guys. Ekaterina Balabanova(KhMAO) about the battle of the “titans” - Godzilla and the revived Ayu-Dag. The ending is obvious - our Bear Mountain wins. But the fact that Godzilla’s petrified legs are, according to the author’s idea, Adalara, could not leave the Artek viewers indifferent.
All work was done on tracing paper, in notebooks specially collected for this purpose. Then the sheets of paper are laid out on a scanner and put together on the computer. Children do voice-over work on their own. Only the editing remains on the conscience of the head of the studio for young animators, Yuri Zvegintsev. The main job of a teacher is to unleash the creative potential of children. They learn to tell stories in pictures and draw storyboards for their future cartoons. Some children claim that they are bad at drawing, but often basic skills are quite enough to release their first film.
Some films were born from a character successfully molded from plasticine. There is a main character and a story is already being invented for him in which he could show himself in the best possible way. This is what happened to the snowman Olaf, who was blinded by the girls. Alina Yaremenko(Mound), Alisa Kuzkina(Moscow region), Violetta Reshetnyak(KCR). The story about the snowman “Sudden Happiness” amused the 9th shift azure workers at the screening no less than other films.
Also during this shift, the transfer animation technique was introduced, in which they created their own cartoon Alexandra Grishantsova And Yulia Meshcheryakova from Saratov. Translation allows you to make a cartoon and tell a story in a fairly short time. And you don’t even have to be able to draw - characters can be cut out from newspapers and magazines or printed on a printer. After all, the illusion of movement is created by moving pieces of paper or cardboard. You can also use natural materials - it all depends on the plot. For example, the film “Synergy” talks about the magical power of hugs, all-conquering friendship and kindness to one’s neighbor. The girls used colored cardboard in various colors. When the material changed, the character's emotion also changed.
Still, one of the main conditions for a successful cartoon show is the humorous component. Therefore, it is important that these cartoons were made by children for children, and the humor was understandable to Artek residents. The entire Lazurny camp received the work of the multi-detachment with a storm of applause. The show was a success.
The work of Artek’s young animators can be found at the following links:
