From the Presidential Library collections: the figures of M. Rodzianko's and P. Stolypin's income-expenditure books reveal the secrets of the owners

The Presidential Library posted on the portal the digitized "Parish and Expenditure Book of M. Rodzianko for 1888-1889". Let us recall that previously it was digitized and posted "Notebook by P. A. Stolypin for recording personal expenses": (1895). According to these evidences of the everyday life of the large state figures of Russia, many political, ethical and socio-economic characteristics of the background of events and personal characteristics of each of the two owners of the "ledgers" chosen for consideration are traced.

Opera or ballet, a ticket in a box or in the tenth row of the stalls, 20 pounds of salt for the janitor (it turns out that sprinkling salt on ice during the ice was not started today, only before the owners or tenants themselves provided the housing services with "reagents") or buying charity tickets lotteries in favor of the hungry, the number of contributions to the funds of shelters and colonies - from these diverse "bricks" little by little you can add a real picture of the life of that period and the role of our characters in it. For meager numbers sometimes fatal days and events are hidden.

Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko: for a long time the name of the chairman of the State Duma of the third and fourth convocations was deleted from the pages of the history of the Dnieper, Ukraine and Russia. If sometimes it was remembered, then with the imposition of ideological labels like "the leader of the bourgeois-landlord party of the “Octobrists”. And what other party could he belong to if the exemplary Rodzianko estate under the eloquent name "Otrada" in Popasnoe village of Novomoskovsk district of Yekaterinoslav province prospered, and the father of the Duma tribune sent money to St. Petersburg monthly, evidently to pamper his grandchildren. In the income-book of Mikhail Rodzianko, the count was almost monthly present: "100 rubles from his father", Vladimir Mikhailovich Rodzianko, who once served in the prestigious aristocratic Cavalry Regiment. Rodzianko's expenses in Petersburg, however, were considerable: "The carts and horses - 136". "1000 cigarettes - 10. Tailor Prosper - 161".  

But Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin’s money flowed in the opposite direction: "To father - 500", - he writes in his income-expenditure book in September 1895. This is despite the fact that the amounts of the "receipt" column from Rodzianko exceed the sums of a similar graph in Stolypin: in May 1888 the first receives more than 14 thousand rubles, and, say, the "parish" for Stolypin in February 1895 - 808 rubles. In December of the outgoing year, the future prime minister calculated the average annual expenditure: 12,317 rubles a month. The income did not cover him much. But that was before he became governor of Saratov (1903-1906).

May 12, 1888 in the column "expense" from Rodzianko recorded: a midwife - 20 rubles. Behind this brief message stands the grandiose news for the families of Rodzianko and Golitsyn: Mikhail Vladimirovich and Anna Nikolayevna, born Golitsyna, gave birth to son Nikolai. Hence the unusually high expenditure on telegrams: 40 rubles.

In October 1906, in Stolypin's book, after a move to St. Petersburg, we read a somewhat perplexed entry: "Dr. Pavlov - 700". And more: "Doctors for Natasha’s care" - 3080". It's very big money. The Russian ruble was secured by gold, the economic situation in Russia was stable, the reforms conducted by the minister and then by Prime Minister Stolypin, although they met resistance, but nevertheless provided the country with development. For what such considerable money have been given to doctors?

As you know, on Stolypin, dating back to the time of his governorship in Saratov, 11 attempts were made; the last one - in Kiev (September 1, 1911 according to the old style) - became lethal. Revolutionary terrorist organizations grew like mushrooms after the rain. And the "old man" Gregory strong independent prime minister categorically was not liked; however, it was mutual, Stolypin could not hide at the first meeting of his disgust with respect to Rasputin. At that time, such an openly negative reaction to the "friend" of Alexandra Feodorovna, who was included in the imperial chambers, could also be a verdict.

By the way, in this matter the prime minister and the chairman of the State Duma were like-minded people. In M. Rodzianko's book "Behind the Scenes of Tsarist Power" (1926), which can be opened on the portal of the Presidential Library, he expresses his utter dislike to Rasputin without any discernment. Rodzianko did everything possible to neutralize the actions of the "old man", to expel him from the capital, to prevent his interference in important state affairs and personnel appointments. The Empress was greatly irritated by this, demanding that her crowned wife dissolve the State Duma. The first unexpected meeting between Mikhail Vladimirovich and Grigory Rasputin in the Kazan Cathedral grew into an acute dispute, which almost ended with the clarification of relations in a more radical way.

Like Stolypin, Rodzianko was pursued by his ideological opponents: the Black Hundreds already managed to accuse the "Octobrist" Rodzianko of "revolutionism" in emigration, in assisting the "overthrow of the tsar". The latter actually took place, which can be read in the documentary evidence of the eyewitnesses of this event "Renunciation of Nicholas II" (1927), which entered the electronic collections of the Presidential Library.

August 12, 1906 at the summer residence of the Prime Minister on the Aptekarsky Island, the bombsmen dressed as gendarmes threw a powerful bomb on the veranda of the ground floor -it demolished a third of the building. People died. Stolypin, who was on the second floor, survived. Long sought his children, Natasha and three-year-old Adu (Arcady) - they were seriously injured. Natasha was killed by wreckage of the boards of her leg, and if it were not for the unyielding will of her father, the teenage girl could lose them ... But her long period was treated by the best doctors, both in St. Petersburg and in the Crimean clinics. In Petr Arkadievich's income-expenditure book we read: "1908. Resorts for Natasha - 500 each". All this can be found in A. Izgoyev's book "P. A. Stolypin: a sketch of life and activity" (1912), included in the large-scale collection of the Presidential Library "P. A. Stolypin (1862-1911)".

Included in it small "pocket" income-expenditure book, if you carefully read it, has become one more weighty evidence of life and political activity of one of the pillars of Russian statehood.