Georgy Zhzhenov. “My life is a complete mistake.” Why the famous actor Georgy Zhzhenov was imprisoned For what Georgy Zhzhenov was imprisoned

Georgy Zhzhenov, having spent his entire youth in the camps, at the age of forty began new life. The films “Crew”, “The Fate of a Resident”, “Beware of the Car” made him a people's favorite. But to tell the truth - that he was in prison, dying of hunger, was beaten and tortured many times - the artist was able to tell the truth only shortly before his death, when he voluntarily went on a “raid” on places of detention.

As a child, Georgy Stepanovich was simply called Egorka. He was a “Petrograd punk,” a tomboy, who played football in the street day and night. I returned home only to quickly sip some cabbage soup - a huge saucepan always stood ready in the entryway. The mother had no time to feed a crowd of eight people! She married a widower who had “five mouths,” and he often drank and beat his mother. Only when Georgy and his older brother Boris grew up and fought back against their father did this stop.

In 1934, Sergei Kirov was killed, and Georgy Zhzhenov I didn't go to his funeral because I didn't have shoes. This was enough to get him arrested. After this, the whole family was deported to Kazakhstan, and Georgy remained in Leningrad. He was studying to be an actor, and he did not care about the threat of arrest. Georgiy believed that his brother “roared” out of stupidity.

On a summer night in 1938, when Zhzhenov was arrested, he was recorded under number 605, so many people were taken in one night... Many times, sitting in his cell, Zhzhenov reproached himself for how unfairly he treated Boris. They visited him in prison with his mother. Boris managed to hand over sheets of paper to his relatives, which described everything that was happening in prisons, the whole truth about the repressions. Zhzhenov didn’t believe it, burned the sheets, and lectured his brother: “Just work, and they’ll let you out!” Everything will be fine!" Now Zhzhenov felt firsthand everything that his brother described.

Having not slept for three days, exhausted from the beatings, he signed a slander against himself, as the investigators demanded. But the next day he came to his senses and abandoned his actions; it was not too late. No matter how much the investigators put pressure on him, there was no point.

Perhaps Zhzhenov was impressed by the suicide of his cellmate - he slandered his friends, and his conscience tormented him. After almost two years of interrogations and beatings, Zhzhenov, who never signed the slander against himself, was sentenced to five years in prison.

After changing several places, the young man ended up at the mines in the Magadan region. A remote place. There Zhzhenov was supposed to die in the first winter, because due to snowfall, transport stopped running and the mine was left without bread for many days. A real famine began. Dying from exhaustion, Georgy knew that ten kilometers from the camp a parcel was waiting for him from his mother, who had been looking for him in the camps for three years.

“I couldn’t think about anything else except about this package, I started hallucinating,” Zhzhenov later recalled in his memoirs. – I imagined mountains of sausage, cheese, butter, bread, tobacco...

Miraculously, Zhzhenov managed to persuade one of the “bosses” to take him with him to the place where the package was waiting. Ten kilometers on foot - through a blizzard, a blizzard, not a single soul around... This trip ended with unheard-of luck for Zhzhenov - a seemingly heartless “boss” took him to the place in a sled! Zhzhenov could neither forget nor comprehend this until the end of his life. And he gave the parcel, which had turned into “dry mixture,” to the guards and asked that the food be given out gradually. One day, before his eyes, a hungry man attacked the food and died immediately. Zhzhenov remembered this picture and since then has never lost his head. One day he and other prisoners were transported on a barge, they were given herring, but there was no water. The distraught people drank too much river water, and three hundred people died of dysentery. Zhzhenov remained alive because he showed restraint and did not take a sip!

When the war began, there could be no question of people like Zhzhenov going to the front. No matter how many petitions Georgy wrote to be enrolled in the penal battalion, they were not even considered. During these years, he mastered the profession of a driver, but he had to end his “career” in the camp as a grain cutter. This is a person who cuts bread into pieces for prisoners; such people were often attacked, killed, and bread distribution centers were robbed. But Zhzhenov is used to treating any work honestly.

“I didn’t steal a single gram of bread!” – he later recalled. “And it was so hard that even “up to the wind” I walked with two or three knives stuffed into my boot by the top of my boot. They tried to attack me more than once.

Zhzhenov, probably fortunately for him, fell ill with jaundice. Due to illness, the artist was released from this position. But when his term came to an end, Georgy was called to the authorities and was shown a paper that his term had been extended. He realized that this would last forever, and lost heart. The cultural brigade that arrived at the camp, consisting of prisoners, flashed like a ray of light in the dark kingdom. Zhzhenov was enlisted in the brigade, and this is how he saved his life.

Georgy Stepanovich lived to be 90 years old. Shortly before his death, he visited prisons and places where former camps. He did not complain about the past, but even tried to find in difficult situations and humor, and even some kind of camp justice.

There was only one question he could not answer: “For what?”

Reference

Georgy Zhzhenov was born in 1915. After school I studied at circus school to an acrobat, where filmmakers noticed him. In 1935 he graduated from the Leningrad College of Performing Arts. Before his arrest, Zhzhenov managed to star in several films, including Chapaev.

After his release, Zhzhenov played at the Magadan Theater. He was rehabilitated in 1955, after which he immediately began actively acting in films.

Business cards Zhzhenova – commander in “Crew”, spy Tulyev in “The Fate of a Resident”, general in the film “Hot Snow”. Georgy Stepanovich passed away in 2005. The actor's camp story was filmed documentary“Russian Cross”, and in the book “From the Capercaillie to the Firebird” the actor himself spoke about what he had to experience.

In December 1934, Kirov was killed in Leningrad. Boris Zhzhenov, like other Leningrad State University students, was supposed to take part in the funeral procession. But he refused, since he did not have proper shoes to spend several hours in the cold... This was regarded as a hostile attitude towards Soviet power. Soon Boris was expelled from the university. He was later reinstated, but in December 1936 he was again summoned to the NKVD. He never returned from there, receiving seven years for “anti-Soviet activities.”

The Zhzhenov family was evicted from Leningrad. In addition to Georgy, his fellow filmmakers and Gerasimov himself stood up for him.

In the summer of 1938, Zhzhenov, together with a group of film actors, went to film in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the train they met an American diplomat who was traveling to Vladivostok as part of a delegation. Of course, fellow travelers were talking to each other. After the trip, the NKVD received a report about “contacts with a foreigner.” This plus the reputation of a relative of the “enemy of the people” was quite enough to accuse Zhzhonov of espionage. When Georgy returned to Leningrad, they came for him.

In the famous Leningrad prison "Crosses" Zhzhenov had to go through all the circles of hell. He was interrogated with passion - tortured, beaten, deprived of sleep... Others could not stand the bullying and confessed to the most absurd things. But the athletic, trained artist flatly refused to admit the charge of espionage. As a result, he was not shot, but given five years in the camps.

This is how Zhzhenov ended up in Kolyma, where he had to endure hunger, cold, exhausting work, and the daily struggle for survival... During the war, almost no food was delivered to the Kolyma camps, and prisoners died in the hundreds.

In 1943, the head of a traveling acting propaganda team, Nikanorov, accidentally recognized a former film actor in a scab-covered goner from a penal camp at the Glukhar mine, and first achieved his transfer to his propaganda team, and then to the Magadan Musical Drama Theater, the troupe of which was almost entirely composed of prisoners.

In 1944, the actor’s prison term was coming to an end. However, he was summoned to the camp authorities and asked to sign a resolution for an additional term - another 21 months in the camps.

Georgy Stepanovich Zhzhenov (March 9 (22), 1915, Petrograd - December 8, 2005, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian actor theater and cinema. People's Artist USSR (1980).

Georgy Zhzhenov was born on March 22, 1915 in Petrograd on Vasilyevsky Island. His parents Stepan Filippovich Zhzhenov and Maria Fedorovna Shchelkina came from poor peasant families in the Tver province. Stepan Zhzhonov moved to St. Petersburg as a child, where he began working for a fellow baker. He later married, but remained a widower and married a second time to a young orphan, Maria Shchelkina. By this time, he already had five children, and then there were children together. Georgy Zhzhonov recalled that their family lived poorly, and the more severe the need became, the more the father drank, drinking away everything that was in the house, often raising his hand against his wife. Georgy Zhzhonov’s mother was a kind, wise and loving person, and for Georgy she always remained “my beautiful Mother.”

Georgy Zhzhenov clearly remembered his biography from the age of 4, at which time he returned from the village where he was taken with his brother Boris because of the revolution. The next 22 years of Georgy’s life were spent on Vasilievsky Island, where the Zhzhenov family lived on the corner of First Line and Bolshoy Prospekt. In the spring of 1930, Georgy graduated from the 7th grade of the 204th Leningrad Labor School with a physics and mathematics focus, and in order to continue his studies in the 8th grade, he had to pass exams. However, young Georgy became interested in the circus, cinema and theater, and in 1930, having borrowed documents from his older brother Boris, he entered the acrobatic department of the Leningrad Variety and Circus College under the name Boris Zhzhenov. He subsequently confessed to his crime at the technical school and was forgiven.

A year later, Georgy Zhzhenov, together with fellow student Georges Smirnov, rehearsed a cascade eccentric act called “Chinese Table”, and began performing at the Leningrad Circus “Chapiteau” as a duet “2-Georges-2” in the genre of cascade acrobatics. During one of his performances, he was noticed by employees of the film group, who were selecting artists for a new film, and invited him to film at Lenfilm, offering main role tractor driver Pashka Vetrov in the film “The Hero’s Mistake.” Many years later, Zhzhenov joked about the title of his first film: “My whole life is complete mistake: hero, resident, and so on. Here... I got into cinema, became infected with it, exchanged the healthy smell of the playpen for the smell of acetone in the film studio pavilions.”

In 1931, Zhzhenov starred in an episode of the film “A Start to Life” (uncredited). Participation in filming changed Georgy's plans, and in 1932, leaving his circus career, Georgy became a student in the film actor department of the Leningrad Theater School.
At the theater school, Zhzhonov’s teacher was director Sergei Apolinarievich Gerasimov, and even before graduating from college in 1935, Zhzhonov managed to star in the films “ Crown Prince Republic", "Golden Lights", "Komsomolsk" and "Chapaev".

After the murder of S. M. Kirov, the elder brother Boris was convicted for not going to the funeral demonstration. The family was deported to Kazakhstan, Boris died in Vorkuta. Georgy Zhzhenov showed stubbornness, refused to be deported and was arrested, but at the request of S. A. Gerasimov, he was released and sent to the Lenfilm film studio. During the filming of the film “Komsomolsk” (1938), Georgy Zhzhenov traveled by train to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the train, he met an American diplomat who was traveling to Vladivostok to meet a business delegation. This acquaintance was noticed by film workers, which served as a reason for accusing Zhzhonov of espionage activities. On July 4, 1938, he was arrested on charges of espionage and sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps. Transferred to Kolyma on November 5, 1939.

Georgy Zhzhenov met his first wife, Belarusian actress Zhenya Golynchik, while still studying. “When she was on her last date in transit in St. Petersburg, I told her: “Zhenya, don’t wait for me. More than ninety percent, I’ll die somewhere. In any case, you don’t need to make your life dependent on mine. You young. Thank you for everything, but live as you want. Let me not be the chains that remain on your conscience.” I met her when I returned from my first prison sentence. We saw that our lives had completely diverged,” Zhzhenov recalled.

Until 1943, Georgy Stepanovich was at the gold mines of Dalstroy, where he worked as a dispatcher in the garage of an excavator station. Sometimes he had to work as a driver. Soon his sentence was extended for another 21 months. On March 26, 1945, for good behavior and conscientious work, Zhzhonov was early released from the camp, and until December 1946 he worked at the Magadan Polar Drama Theater, where he met his second wife Lydia Vorontsova, who was arrested in 1935 in Leningrad “for relations with foreign sailors.” ”, and received 10 years of camps in Kolyma for this.

In June 1946, Lydia and Georgy had a daughter, Lena. Zhzhenov found work as an actor in the small town of Pavlovsk-on-Oka. Lydia was released only two years later. By then they family life upset. But the daughter Lena remained. And when Zhzhonov received a letter from the Sverdlovsk region from his wife: “I was arrested again, the child is in the distribution center orphanage", - rushed to save his daughter. He managed to transport Lenochka to her mother in Leningrad. Lena later became an artist-designer.

And soon he was arrested again. Zhzhenov spent six months in prison in Gorky, after which he was sent into exile in Norilsk. Georgy Stepanovich did not want to leave for the North, but, as it has now become known, it was Lydia Vorontsova who achieved his exile to Norilsk. So she tried to reunite the broken family. At first, Georgy and Lydia actually lived together in exile in Norilsk. But soon the actor began to live separately. Lydia Vorontsova met her second husband, Sergei Prokopievich Tayozhny. After Vorontsova’s rehabilitation, they left for Riga.

In the Norilsk ITL (Norillag), Zhzhenov worked until 1953 at the Norilsk Polar Drama Theater, where he met I.M. Smoktunovsky and was his partner on stage. At a local club he mastered the camera and became the first in Norilsk to take color photographs. An unimaginable luxury at that time. “The old Norilsk residents still have traces of my activities,” recalled Georgy Zhzhonov. “Sometimes people even send me letters and include THOSE pictures of me.”

With my third wife - Irina Makhaeva, Georgy Zhzhenov met at a meeting of the troupe at the Norilsk Polar Theater in 1950. Irina Makhaeva was a freelance actress there. Marrying a prisoner at that time meant sharing his unenviable position with him. Irochka was 10 years younger than Georgy, but was not afraid of difficulties. It was she who achieved the release of Zhzhonov. After lifting the exile and rehabilitation on December 2, 1955, Georgy and Irina returned to Leningrad, where Irina officially became Zhzhonov’s wife and took his last name. In 1956 they gave birth to daughter - Marina, who later became a teacher.

At the age of 38, Zhzhonov began his professional life from scratch. He got a job as an actor at the Leningrad Regional Drama Theater and at the Lensovet Theater. There Zhzhonov met his fourth and last wife - Lydia Petrovna Malyukova. They had a daughter, Yulia, who currently works at the Mossovet Theater and teaches at VGIK.

Soon he again became a film actor at Lenfilm and began working in films, but his acting fate was quite difficult. For a long time He starred in supporting roles and in films that did not have much success with audiences. The actor’s most notable works of those years were his roles in the films “Corrected to Believe” and “The Night Guest.” Another hobby of Zhzhenov was football. He played in the Leningrad trade union team and, they say, played well. He was even offered to take up sports professionally, offering a choice - either football or cinema. Zhzhonov chose the latter.

In 1961, the film “Planet of Storms” directed by Pavel Klushantsev was released on the screens of the USSR, and immediately became a real hit. The appearance of the film coincided with Gagarin’s flight and the craze for astronautics, the conquest of the planets was seen just around the corner, and Klushantsev offered the viewer an educational and fascinating picture of how this could begin to happen in the near future. For Georgy Zhzhonov, working on the role in “Planet of Storms” became one of the first notable film roles after returning from the camps.

Georgy Zhzhenov first became famous after a small role in Eldar Ryazanov’s comedy “Beware of the Car,” in which he played a traffic inspector in 1966. The actor got into the character so accurately that his character was immediately remembered by the audience. Another bright and memorable work was the main role in the duology “The Path to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn”.

In 1968, Georgy Stepanovich moved to Moscow and began working at the Mossovet Theater. For for many years On the stage of this theater he played more than a hundred roles. In the same year of 1968, cinema came to finest hour Zhzhenov after the release of Veniamin Dorman’s adventure film “The Resident’s Mistake.” In 1970, the second film, “The Fate of the Resident,” was released. Twelve years later, Benjamin Dorman returned to the audience’s favorite characters, and in 1982 the third film “Return of the Resident” was released, and in 1986 the fourth film of the tetralogy “The End of Operation Resident” was released.

Over the years creative activity Georgy Zhzhenov played about 70 roles in films, films with his participation enjoyed popular love and became classics of Russian cinema. Georgy Stepanovich is the author of more than 10 books of memoirs, including about camp life in Kolyma and polar Norilsk: “From the Wood Grouse to the Firebird”, “Omchag Valley”, “Lived” and others. Zhzhonov loved life, which is why he probably did not age - he never looked his age. At the age of 90, he took his wife to the dacha and swam in the sea. “Lida, you and I are young,” he told her. “Just don’t make any sudden movements.”

IN recent years Georgy Zhzhenov played the only role in the play “On the Golden Lake” at the Mossovet Theater. In the “great play about two old men,” as Zhzhenov called it, he appeared on stage with People’s Artist of Russia Irina Kartasheva. After Zhzhonov’s death, she said: “I lost not only wonderful person and an actor, but also an amazing partner. Last time We played the play on October 3rd - it went wonderfully, the audience accepted it with all their hearts. It never occurred to me that Zhzhonov would never appear on stage again. He hid his illnesses and really didn’t like it when people asked about them. Georgy Stepanovich behaved well, was an amazingly straightforward and honest person - if he didn’t like something, he sometimes spoke about it quite sharply.”

3 weeks before his death, Georgy Zhzhenov fell unsuccessfully at home, after which he was diagnosed with a fractured femoral neck. He was brought to the Pirogov National Medical and Surgical Center, where the next day doctors performed surgery on the artist and installed a French endoprosthesis. As the orthopedic doctor Anton Serebryakov, who operated on the artist, said, the operation lasted only fifty minutes. The elderly artist was not given general anesthesia, but gentle spinal anesthesia - after all, Georgy Stepanovich turned 90 years old.

Sidenko Sergey. Portrait of G. S. Zhzhenov.

While still in intensive care, Georgy Zhzhenov, with the help of doctors and his wife, began to try to walk, for which he was fitted with a special walker. The doctors had no doubt that Georgy Stepanovich would definitely get back on his feet, but on December 4, 2004, Georgy Zhzhenov was again hospitalized with inflammation of the respiratory tract. After a thorough examination, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors did not inform him of the fatal diagnosis, but insisted on surgery. Perhaps this would help defeat the insidious disease and prolong the life of a wonderful actor. Doctors hoped that the actor would cope with the injury, but his lungs could not stand it. A hemorrhage occurred in the pleural cavity, and on December 8, 2005, at the age of 91, Georgy Zhzhenov’s life was cut short.

The funeral service for the deceased took place on the morning of Saturday, December 10, in the Cathedral of the Presentation Vladimir icon Mother of God Sretensky Monastery. Farewell to Georgy Zhzhenov took place at the Mossovet Theater, after which the artist was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

In Moscow, on the house where G.S. Zhzhenov lived (Zoologicheskaya St., 12/2), a memorial plaque was installed in 2010.

In 2009, a documentary film “Georgy Zhzhonov. Agent of Hope."

He was reserved, at times he even seemed withdrawn. He was simply cautious, with strangers, with colleagues, and sometimes with loved ones. That's what life taught me. Life has taught Georgy Zhzhenov a difficult and very cruel lesson.

In his youth, Georgy believed in a bright future, in the victory of communism, and even condemned the so-called “enemies of the people.” In his old age, Georgy Stepanovich greatly regretted this. I couldn’t forgive myself for having once considered my older brother an enemy of the people...

Boris Zhzhenov was an example and assistant in everything for the younger George. Boris also helped Georgiy when the boy fell in love with the circus. The older brother, without doubting the younger brother, gave him his documents so that he, still a seventh grader, could enroll in the acrobatic department of the Leningrad Variety and Circus College. On entrance exams no one noticed the substitution, and Georgy-Boris was accepted into the circus, and from the circus - into the cinema, for his first and main role Pashki Vetrov in the movie "The Hero's Mistake." Zhzhonov was quickly noticed, young, athletic, stately - the directors offered the circus performer many roles. The career was going up, but misfortune came to the family.

Photo: www.russianlook.com / Anvar Galeev

In 1934, after the murder of Kirov, a big case was unfolding in Leningrad, and mass arrests began. Boris Zhzhonov was then studying at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. When was the day of the funeral announced? Kirov, the students were ordered by order to appear for farewell to the communist leader. Boris then, out of his naivety, decided to take time off. He approached the Komsomol organizer and explained: “Comrade, I only have shoes with holes, I have no other shoes. It’s terribly cold outside, if I stand on the icy asphalt for several hours, I’ll end up in the hospital, and Kirov won’t get any better from it, so can I skip this event?” An hour later, the denunciation against Boris Zhzhenov was already in the dean’s office. The young man was expelled from the university in disgrace and deprived of his Leningrad registration.

But Boris Zhzhonov, like his brother, still believed in bright ideals, he wrote letters, petitions, and eventually returned to Leningrad, but not for long. In 1936, Boris Zhzhenov was arrested, and in 1937 he was sentenced to hard labor for anti-Soviet activity. He was allowed one single meeting with his family before being sent along the convoy. Georgy Zhzhenov had a hard time remembering these minutes. After all, then he told his brother to try to atone for his guilt and work better in the camp. Last words which the older brother said to the younger: “Get out...”

Stills from the film "Hot Snow". Directed by Gavriil Egiazarov. 1972 Photo: www.russianlook.com

Boris gave his mother several pieces of paper on which he was able to describe what happened to him in the dungeons of the NKVD, how they mocked him, how they tortured him to extract a confession. The mother handed the leaves to George. And he, having read it, burned page after page in the oven, despite the words of his mother: “It’s in vain, maybe this would be useful to you in life.” Then, many years later, Georgy Stepanovich called this the most shameful act in his life, he was very sorry that he could not ask for forgiveness from his brother, whom he never saw again - Boris Zhzhonov died in the camp from dystrophy. But then, in 1937, Georgy could not even imagine that he would soon partly repeat the fate of his brother.

In 1938, Georgy Zhzhenov starred in the film “Komsomolsk” and, together with the entire film crew, went on a train to a film expedition to the city of Komsomolsk. Unfortunately, the actor met a naval attaché from America on the train. He doesn't think about possible consequences, easily communicated with a foreign guest. After some time, the NKVD already had denunciations against Georgy Zhzhenov, signed by the hand of one of his colleagues. In the summer of 1938, the actor was arrested and accused of espionage against the USSR. He was interrogated for days. He stood in front of the investigator for several hours. When he fell from fatigue, they lifted him up by his hair and stood him at attention again. Sentence: 5 years in Kolyma. How did you manage to survive? It's hard to say. But, as the artist recalled, he never tried to get into trouble, but he also never allowed himself to be humiliated. No one. Even to the prison authorities. Perhaps this is why he was respected. Perhaps that is why he did not die of hunger, although he could have.

Still from the film "Crew". Directed by Alexander Mitta. Mosfilm. 1979 Photo: www.russianlook.com

In his autobiographical story “Sanochki,” Georgy Stepanovich recalled that he was already close to starvation. But one day he received a notification about a parcel - his mother collected what she could and sent it to her son. I had to walk several kilometers to get the parcel. Emaciated and barely able to stand, Zhzhonov understood that he would not be able to overcome this path. But then, by a lucky coincidence, one of the operas went there to pick up parcels. Zhzhonov went with him. True, “went” is a strong word. He trudged along, barely moving his legs. In the end, his legs stopped working and he fell. And then a miracle happened. The operative put the prisoner on a sled and drove him to the parcel point. There Georgy Stepanovich warmed up, came to his senses, and received his parcel. As it turned out later, the parcel took almost three years. Sausage, chocolate - all edible supplies turned into one big frozen lump. He really wanted to eat this ice lump right away, but, realizing that he was unlikely to survive after this, Georgy Zhzhonov took this frozen stone with him, already in the camp he broke off a small piece of it and ate it.

A still from the film “Fixed to Believe.” Directed by Viktor Zhilin. Odessa terminal 1959 Photo: www.russianlook.com

Georgy Zhzhenov was released from prison only on March 26, 1945. With the “wolf ticket” there was no way back to Leningrad, much less to Moscow. He worked in provincial theaters for several years, and on June 2, 1949, he again went into exile, where he spent 4 long years. Only on December 2, 1955, the artist Georgy Zhzhenov was rehabilitated. He was given back the right to be called not a prisoner, but a person, and was allowed to move freely around the country.

He was not afraid to start life from scratch. He first got a job in Leningrad, then moved to Moscow, where he again got into cinema. Cheerful, cheerful, hopeful colleagues were not at all like him, who survived the pain and oblivion of an artist. But they loved him again, accepted him, even the authorities were favorably disposed towards Georgy Stepanovich. But he never forgot what the bureaucratic communist machine did to him.

One day, Georgy Stepanovich was invited to Georgia for a reception with high-ranking officials. He sat at the table and listened in amazement as the guests praised Joseph Stalin. In the end, someone suggested raising a glass and drinking to the leader of the peoples. Zhzhonov could not stand it. He asked those present if they were real Georgians. They nodded. Then he asked whether real Georgians forgive blood grievances. The guests shook their heads. To this, Georgy Zhzhonov told them that since they are real Georgians and do not forgive blood grievances, they will understand his reluctance to drink for Stalin, who destroyed his family, killed his brother and took away his youth. Georgy Zhzhenov was no longer afraid to tell the truth and did not believe in the bright future of communism.

Photo: www.russianlook.com / Viktor Chernov

Despite his difficult character, even during the life of Georgy Stepanovich, the authorities of Chelyabinsk approved the installation of a monument to him. Colleagues were then happy for their comrade, they said that this was recognition; he had already become a legend during his lifetime. And Georgy Stepanovich just waved his hand in response and said: “This is all awkward...”