Олег Филатов – The Unknown Tsesarevitch. Reminiscences and Considerations on V. K. Filatov’s Life and Times (страница 15)

In 1930 Doctor Derevenko V.N. was sentenced to five years of camps. Once, during the Civil war, father took a job on a ship cruising from Nizhnii Novgorod to Astrakhan and back. He did the job of a sailor, and cook’s assistant. He did everything he was told to do. (an experience on “Standart”). And, of course, any moment father could disappear and move to the North Caucasus via Astrakhan, to the Crimea via Novocherkassk, or Rostov-on-the-Don. He had fought with querulous old sailors, but he had the advantage of being comfortable, he had a place to sleep and to work. He worked both on deck and in the galley. While in port, father could obtain information from the talk on the street, about who was where, i.e., where the Reds were, where – the Whites. Besides, it was difficult to break his cover, while he was on board a ship

From 1921 he worked as a piano-tuner in Kaluga, Moscow and other cities of central Russia, as well as a shoemaker’s apprentice on hire. As a piano-tuner he, respectively, called on the families who could afford to have a piano, that is, the families of intellectuals. He could communicate with educated people who had information on the current events; many of them were military men. Besides, in his time, Nikolas II had intended to move General Headquarters to Kaluga and, of course, father had been there before the Revolution and had known many people who served under the Tsar. Also, he had been to Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Torzhok, and Tver. He was acquainted with the priests who helped him. Specifically, he had been treated in the island monastery on Lake Seliger. There were salt caves there, where he took treatments according to home remedies. Once he lived with monks in Tsar Ioann III’s house, in the forests near Moscow, near Serpukhov. In winter he longed to go south. It was warm there and the border was nearby. He lived in the mountains near Sukhumi

Our family was there in the summer of 1989 in the region of Pitsunda

Father was a man with a broad outlook and a vast circle of people who had known him while he lived. He would tell us much about some interesting facts which he knew for various reasons. For example: where the state storehouses and special repositories were located, as well as the reserve command posts of defence objectives organized before the Revolution. So, when he lived in Ekaterinburg, the Staff Military Academy was quartered there and he knew many of the officers. Part of these officers went over to the Whites, part – to the Reds, and during World War II they already held high posts. These people knew him as Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, after the tragedy, even with changing his name, he needed no proof as to who he was. Not all of them but some could have helped him. ¹

Of course, it is difficult to-day to describe all his connections because he was doomed to silence both by his origin and by the age. For some time during the Civil war he did not reveal his name and age because he could keep them concealed because of the unrest. And later, when the Soviet Republican Government declared that children are the future of the country, homeless children were gathered into orphanages, and father declared himself an orphan. At that time he was already 16—17. But one should say that he was always young-looking. He was not tall and had physical defects. Strange as it may be, the defects helped to conceal his age and origin. But he could not conceal his age completely, he could only forget who he was and when he was born, since, as he would say, he was 4 when his mother died, then his father died, too, and by 1921 none of his relatives remained alive. So, when, as a result of a round-up, he turned out to be in an orphanage, the doctor determined his age approximately from his teeth. He had not taken along any documents, let alone his birth certificate record, when crossing the front lines. He would try to keep out of sight. Some years later he made an inquiry about his birth certificate at Shadrinsk. We should dwell upon father’s style of life, his behaviour, his established habits, his special ability to adapt himself to life, and the environment where he would happen to be. With these facts left out of our account, one would not understand how he became who he was, the man we knew, and we knew only the second half of his life, i.e., beginning from 1953. Really how did he become? Who he became?

Chapter II

RELATIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE

When I was 5—6 years old, we lived in the village of Pretoria, in a large house of cut limestone, with an enormous roof. The front part of the house was occupied by our family, the Urbanovichs lived behind us. They were also teachers in our school. Across the street lived our former director of studies Yakov Yakovlevich Kliver. The Trunovs lived next door. Trunov was the music teacher in our school. I observed that father associated with him both at work and after work. Father loved music and played various instruments, both keyboard and stringed. At school the music teacher Trunov Alexander Alexandrovich had bayans. Father would often take the school bayan, play it and sing songs. He did it in the following way: he would take the bayan, run his fingers over the buttons and then start playing. Especially popular were the war-time waltzes and the war-time songs – with lingering melody, sad, about the people’s lives, even sorrowful, one might say. I tried to understand then, what the matter was with him, why he was singing them if all of us were alive. But he would sing looking into the distance and suddenly would break off the song, sigh and lay the bayan aside. You could see how sad he was

It was very interesting to see how he, pressing the buttons, derived a melody from a special mosaic of black and white buttons. I myself tried to repeat this mosaic, but it was difficult. I was little and could derive nothing but a cacophony of sounds. Father saw it and later took me to Trunov A.A. He listened to me and said that “a bear had trod on my ear”. Father took it to heart, and even though I tried to persuade him to buy me a bayan, he never did it. Though many a boy whom I knew had bayans, Petia Peters, in particular

But father would try to develop my love of music since he considered that Trunov A.A. should not have said those words in my presence. Father showed us how to chord, how to press the bass buttons to harmonize them with the melody. Father would often sing the songs about “Orenburg down kerchief”, “River Volga”, “At an Unnamed Height”, “In a dug-out”, “Song about anxious youth”, about Maria, whom he was going to come to. He also sang chastushki. He was not a professional poet, but sometimes he wrote poetry. We have in our family a greetings card wrote by him for his younger daughter on August 31, 1985

В день рождения с любовью посылаем Вам привет

Желаем счастья и здоровья, и славных трудовых побед

Мы поздравляем Вас до срока, чтоб не забыли Вы о нас

И чтоб хорошая погода стояла в городе для Вас

Чтоб всё сбылось, о чем мечтали, в годину трудную для Вас

И чтобы нас не забывали, не проклинали бы подчас

Бывает в жизни часто трудно, без этого прожить нельзя

Но закаляться в этом нужно, тогда легко пойдут дела

Here is an English version

With love on your birthday we send you best regards

And wish your health and happiness, and great labour feats

We send congratulations beforehand so you do not forget us, And wish a spell of fine weather continuing for you

Let everything you’ve dreamed about in times of stress be realized

We ask you, do remember us and do not curse us much sometimes

Life’s often difficult to people, and no one avoids his fate

But steel your will, then all the problems will be solved

While reading a book on the murder of the Tsar’s family, I discovered a poem named “Pray”

Пошли нам, Господи, терпенья

В годину буйных, мрачных дней

Сносить народные гоненья

И пытки наших палачей

Дай крепость нам, о, Боже правый

Злодейства ближнего прощать

И крест тяжелый и кровавый

С твоею кротостью встречать

И в дни мятежного волненья

Когда ограбят нас враги

Стерпеть позор и оскорбленье

Христос Спаситель, помоги

Владыка мира, Бог Вселенной

Благослови молитвой нас

И дай покой душе смиренной

В невыносимо страшный час

И у преддверия могилы

Вдохни в уста твоих рабов

Нечеловеческие силы

Молиться кротко за врагов

Holy God, give us patience to bear the persecution and tortures

By our butchers in time of trouble

Do give us, God, the ability to pardon the evil deeds of our

Neighbours and to meet meekly the heavy bloody cross

Christ, Saviour, help us endure insults and disgrace

When enemies are robbing us. God, bless us and restrain our souls at an unbearably horrible hour

And at our mortal hour give us the superhuman power

To pray for our enemies

Of course, the poems are not of equal value and have been written on different occasions. But it seems to me that even a self-trained reader will find in them a consistence in style and form of expressing oneself. I deliberately cited these poems at the beginning of the chapter, because these poems seem to explain splendidly father’s state of mind and his ability to adapt to another life, even one built by his enemies who had killed his family, and, having adapted to it, to live in a fitting manner. Forced to conceal his real origin, he had to disguise his knowledge and breeding, to make himself as inconspicuous as possible