“I remember about five years ago I had to come to Imatra [town in Finland] for a day with the writers Bunin and Fedorov. We were returning late at night. At about eleven o’clock the train stopped at Antrea station [annexed by Moscow in 1940], and we went out for refreshments. The long table was laden with hot dishes and cold appetizers. There was fresh salmon, fried trout, cold roast beef, some game, small, very tasty bits, and the like. It was all unusually clean, appetizing, and dressed up. And there were small plates in heaps at the edges of the table, piles of knives and forks, and baskets of bread.
Everyone came up, chose what he liked, ate as much as he liked, then went to the buffet and of his own free will paid exactly one mark (thirty-seven kopecks) for dinner. No supervision, no distrust.
Our Russian hearts, so deeply accustomed to the passport, the precinct, the compulsory care of the chief janitor, to universal fraud and suspicion, were utterly overwhelmed by this wide mutual faith.
But when we returned to the carriage, we were met with a charming picture in the true Russian genre. The fact was that two stone contractors were traveling with us.
Everyone knows this type of kulak from Meshovsky district of Kaluga province: a broad, glossy, bony red face, red hair curling from under a cartouche, a sparse beard, a devious look, five-altyn piety, fervent patriotism and contempt for everything non-Russian – in a word, a familiar true Russian face. I had to listen to how they mocked the poor Finns.
- What a bunch of fools. They’re such fools, damn it! I ate three rubles to seven hryvnias from them, the scoundrels… Oh, you bastard! They don’t beat them enough, them sons of bitches! One word – Chukhonians.
And the other picked up on it, choking with laughter: - And I… broke a glass on purpose, and then took a fish and spat in it.
- Serves them right, them bastards! They’re anathema! We must keep them in line!”
(The excerpt is from the story “A Little Bit of Finland”, that can be found in the edition: A. Kuprin. Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 6. – Moscow: GIHL, 1958. P.622-623)
‘Five-altyn piety‘ is namely ‘fifteen kopecks piety’. It is worth mentioning that ‘Altyn‘ [алтын] is the currency of the Golden Horde that stayed in Muscovy from the 14th century till the 20th, as can be seen in the story above.
In this aspect, one should be reminded of When and by Whom Moscow was made Capital >
By 2024, Russia by some 99% consists of the ‘fervent patriots’ as described by Alexander Kuprin a century ago.
“Gardariki, Ukraine” e-book has a closer look at the reason of the multiple wars Muscovy waged on Rus-Ukraine.
