Douglas Smith

A student speaking at his funeral captured the mood of many: “The death of Trubetskoy proves again that in Russia, great, free men can only die.”

When Pyotr Raevsky appeared in Buchalki in the first automobile—a bright cherry red contraption that terrified the locals with its noise and smoke—the pressing question at lunch was where to seat his English driver. His background, attire (dark goggles, leather helmet and jacket), and obvious skill with this new device seemed to place him above the status of the servants who ate in the kitchen, yet it did not seem quite right to seat him at the table on the veranda with the family and their guests. In the end a compromise was found: the driver ate on the veranda, but by himself at his own table

Life was thoroughly structured and ordered, and there was a familiar, comforting rhythm to the days, months, seasons of the year. The evening meal at the Golitsyns, for example, never varied from the routine. At three in the afternoon, tea was served from the samovar. At six-thirty, Gleb, the mayor’s white-liveried servant, summoned all to dinner with a bell. Around this time, Mikhail Golitsyn, Sergei’s father, returned from work and joined the other men at a small table for a little vodka (always Pyotr Smirnov, No. 21) and fish or mushrooms before taking their seats at the main table. Grandmother Sofia occupied one end; the mayor, the other. The men sat near him; the women, near her. The guest of honor always sat at the first place to Sofia’s right. A bottle of French Beaujolais stood in front of the mayor; a German Riesling, in front of Sofia. The bread was always black and always sliced into perfect rectangles. Gleb would appear with a large china soup tureen and place it before Sofia, followed by Anton, Sergei’s father’s lackey, bringing the bowls. Sofia would fill each bowl and instruct the servants whom to give it to. The children were served last. Just serving the soup took fifteen minutes. After three courses, Sergei’s father typically got up and returned to work, and the rest remained at the table while Mikhail Mironovich, the cook, stood alongside Sofia in his white cap and wrote down her wishes for the next day’s dinner menu. Finally, everyone got up and retired to the drawing room for coffee, candy, and cookies.25
So great was the respect for tradition at Petrovskoe that nothing in the house could be moved or altered. Even the furniture stayed exactly where it had been placed decades earlier.26