The Story about the Petersburg long-liver

The Story about the Petersburg long-liver


Journalists have decided to interview the most senior resident of St. Petersburg.

Have come to him on a visit and ask: "Do you have civil sympathies and for whom?"

He has heard this question, and has fallen into confusion.

He have remembered how before opening of the Constituent Assembly a demonstrations were shot from machine guns. How Lenin looked with an irony at the gathered deputies , and sailors and soldiers were aiming from rifles in deputies  as for fun. How the sailor Zheleznyakov has closed the All-Russian forum. 

The respectable Petersburger sits and is silent.

Journalists insist: "Readers very much are interested in your opinion".

What to do? The members of the media already on a visit, have tea. When came, have given some present.

It is necessary to answer something.

Whom names to voice out?

Kadets? So those - before opening of the Assembly - many were arrested, and then many were shot.

SRs? What to tell about them?

Bolsheviks? And what about the surplus-appropriation system? About the dispossession of kulaks? And other miracles?

The respectable Petersburger was thinking and thinking. At last, he have found what to answer. "I", - says, - "sympathize with Gorky, Alexei Maximovich".

Journalists for some reason were delighted. We, they speak, graduated from the institute of his name. The Literature Institute.

On this interview has come to the end.

Journalists have gone to the media edition office to prepare an interview for the publication and a reports on the current events.


March 18, 2018 16:31

Translation from Russian into English: March 18, 2018 17:17.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский “Рассказ о петербургском долгожителе”.