Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 376 018 Pushkin's debut was a hit

During the days of reorganizing the Mariupol Hussar Regiment, with the arrival of spring, many Moscow nobles also moved to St. Petersburg. In summer, the new capital of Russia was more suitable for people to live in, while Moscow in the inland hinterland was not so suitable.

Speaking of which, this place is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Although there are always hotter and colder places, if conditions permit, people still prefer to come to the Baltic Sea coast, where the climate is cooler. Some people also prefer to go to Crimea and Odessa, which has become popular recently.

You have to know that on this side of the Kerch Strait, opposite Kerch and Mithridates Mountain, the fortress of Anapa was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire and it was still a slave market. In the Circassian territory, the Ottoman Bayi masters still captured slaves in the Caucasus, although this trade has now declined on a large scale.

Having said that, the Russian nobles, whether they were Baltic Germans who originally lived here or those who moved here from all over the place, still loved this place very much.

Those who are richer, if it weren't for the war, might prefer to live in France, the Netherlands and Italy, and Germany would not be their first choice.

What's more, the illegal organization has now entered the countdown.

At this time, the owner of the Mikhailovskoye estate in the Pskov area also came here to live earlier than usual.

The matter was very clear. Alexander and Louisa's idea was to build a school in Tsarskoye Selo, from a preparatory primary school to a high school. This order had been conveyed to many nobles in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Moreover, based on the homework that Nicholas was currently writing, which was giving him a headache, and the fact that her brother-in-law's grades had been steadily improving, Louisa also gave him an admissions brochure.

Quartermaster General Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, eighth class, was not very famous in his life, although his surname was really too famous, the reason was his eldest son Alexander.

His service in the Guards was not outstanding, and he was just diligent when he was a quartermaster in Moscow. Fortunately, because of his wealthy family, as a respectable master, he did not disdain to embezzle the silver rubles that the quartermaster could control in such a position that hereditary nobles could often hold. This was already quite different. Perhaps there was another problem, that is, Master Sergei Pushkin had not mastered this method.
However, there was a problem, that was the high expenses. In addition, his wife was too fertile and had been giving birth to four children in ten years of marriage. In addition, he had to take into account that sometimes he was not at home due to his work as a quartermaster, so when he came back he had to work hard to have children.

Therefore, hiring a French tutor would be a considerable expense.

Moreover, the eldest son Alexander was so naughty that when he just learned to walk at the Peterhof Summer Palace, he broke the roses at the door of Tsar Paul's house without being afraid of getting his hands pricked. In other words, the late Emperor Paul had always been tolerant and liked children. If they were naughty, he would just pat them on the cheek and give them a simple scolding.

As for the future, it was even more chaotic. The child's grandmother sometimes felt embarrassed because the boy was too naughty. He was smart but a poor student, which made the tutor feel embarrassed.

The child was smart from a young age, but he was disobedient, which was indeed a headache. This difficult problem, of course, also troubled Master Sergei.

"Master, do you really want to send the young master to that place?"

"So what?"

Sergei Pushkin just said this after hearing the question from his loyal servant Nikita Kozlov.

"Nikita, you must take good care of my son. When you send him to boarding school, you must visit him often, from the old house to the Tsarskoye Selo. Well, if he asks for anything, we can give it to him if we have it at home. If not, even though you are a servant, you must remember to discipline him well."

"My Lord, this is not good."

"There's nothing wrong with this. Our Pushkin family's ancestor was Ladislav, a servant of the Grand Duke of Kiev. Ladislav was ruthless when collecting taxes from the lords in the city." This meant that Nikita should discipline his son well.

"That's not good either. I don't want to be driven away."

Although Ladislav was loyal, his heavy taxes and plunder caused resistance from the citizens of Kiev, and they finally fled to Novgorod. His descendants split into many families over the course of more than 600 years.

Among the relatively prosperous families in the early 19th century alone, there were three families: Pushkin, Tolstoy and Kamensky, and their family tree can all be traced back to him.

Although the above may be partly fabricated, Pushkin mentioned this distant ancestor in his later poems. The earliest famous person in their family who could be found was Grigory Alexandrovich Pushka, a boyar and artillery commander of the Principality of Moscow.

The artillery is a branch of the military that is truly full of talented people, and you never know when a talented person might show up.

"No, Nikita, this family can't be without you."

This Kozlov is Pushkin's servant Uncle Nikita, whom he had known since childhood. Naturally, they had a good relationship. Kozlov would accompany Pushkin throughout his life, until his unfortunate duel and death.

Servants of this level are also serfs, but their treatment may be better. Some of them can also learn skills or serve as the master's trusted butlers. In a literal sense, they can also be "family members."

"Okay, Master, since you said so, I will always accompany you, Master."

"When Sasha reaches adulthood, you will stay with him. My friend, I only trust you. No one else can take care of my son."

"Master, don't worry about this. But the two young masters in the family, don't be like Master Sasha."

Nikita's words made Sergei Pushkin a little embarrassed.

"Ah, Nikita, forget about that, take Sasha to boarding school."

However, before arriving at the boarding school, these children had to be received by the Queen.

As for Alexander himself not attending the event, it was because he had a meeting to attend. This time it was really serious work and was related to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Luisa had also looked at the list of children enrolled in school. As the queen, her status in the court was not as high as that of the queen mother. Moreover, many public affairs and relevant departments, such as education, were still under the jurisdiction of Queen Mother Maria, so her presence was weak.

But this time, to build such a school in Tsarskoye Selo, Alexander felt that only his wife could do it.

But his starting point was very strange. He already had five daughters, and it was not necessarily the case that all of them would be married abroad.

Since the girls' school selects maids from the palace, it would cost a lot for the children of the nobles to set up a school.
Louisa would also get a headache thinking about his abstract train of thought.

The children sent here were all of appropriate age between 1797 and 1800, and many of them were descendants of boyars from the Principality of Moscow and various principalities.

In terms of family background, there is no problem. A few of them are descendants of new nobles. However, these new nobles started from the time of Peter the Great. Some of them are nobles who came from foreign countries and were recognized by successive tsars.

Alexander probably noticed that his sisters would eventually marry far away, even his favorite fourth sister Catherine. This was the consideration for the next generation. Before the Royal Village School officially opened, the selected children, the outstanding students would directly become students of the Royal Village School, and those who could not reach this level would be left in the boarding school.

Although it was not very historically correct and put the cart before the horse, reversing the order of the establishment of the Tsarskoye Selo High School and the Tsarskoye Selo Preparatory School, this plan was still agreed to by Alexander himself.

As for the children sent here, their future prospects will not be too bad. However, graduates of Imperial Village Middle School, if they do not continue their studies in university, will generally be awarded the ninth or tenth level of civil service. As for those in the boarding school, if they cannot continue their studies smoothly and stay in the school, then the more outstanding graduates among them will be able to obtain the tenth level of civil service when they graduate.

Although they are all nobles, here they are also classified according to their degree of effort.

This request was made by Luisa herself. After all, she also saw the importance of determining students' grades when Solovyov or other teachers of Nikolai and Mikhail came to visit their homes.

So, the preparatory school appeared first, and as for the Tsarskoye Selo High School, it had to be put on hold until room was vacated in the Catherine Palace.

Every child who entered school was very polite when they came to her, and it was obvious that they were well brought up at home.

Coincidentally, these forty noble children also included the first thirty students of the Imperial Village Middle School.

As they came over one by one to shake hands, Louisa looked at them and was very satisfied, except when it came to Alexander Pushkin.

The child magically pulled out a rose from his arms and paid tribute to the queen.

Compared with other children, he was very good at handling things. He kissed the back of Louisa's hand directly, a standard French kiss, and then said: "Des roses pour Sa Majesté la Reine, mon muse." (Roses are dedicated to Her Majesty the Queen, my muse.)
This child was so irresistible that Louisa stroked the little boy's cheek in front of her and was almost stumped by him.

"Come closer, Sasha. This is a reward for you."

As for the reward, it was not that Louisa would kiss the forehead of the children she liked when she met them in the palace, but she would take out a gold coin and put it in his pocket.

"You are a good talker. You will either become an excellent diplomat or a great poet who writes beautiful poems."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

Behind Louisa are the court maids on duty today and the ladies of state who hold public office. These aunts or older sisters all like this kind of child with a sweet mouth and who is smart and clever.

As for little Natalia standing behind Louisa, she did not realize that when she got married in the future, one of her daughters would be the wife of this child.

It was a historic early meeting between the mother-in-law and the son-in-law, but many people were not aware of it.

Of course, in his eyes, little Alexander Pushkin also saw the queen as a beautiful "sister", but he couldn't say that.

Even though he always likes to do extraordinary things, he still knows the rules. Even if he is a child, he is still smart and knows a lot of things.

He has suddenly become famous, but that is enough for now.

As for the children standing together, Louisa did not speak to them, but just welcomed them to school and expressed her hope.

Not much was said, but the children did introduce themselves before going to their dormitories.

Pushkin also had a relative, Ivan, who was a student in the same batch. When the two were still in the manor, they met each other as relatives, and since they were familiar with each other, they quickly became friends.

As for the other children, seeing him being so eloquent, they liked and envied him, and a little jealous, after all, he had received a reward from Her Majesty the Queen.

One of the boys, who was wearing glasses, introduced himself. He behaved politely but seemed a little embarrassed.

"I'm Alexander Gorchakov, and you're amazing."

"Ah, if you read more books, you can write touching sentences. Sasha, we should be able to be friends."

"Aren't there two Sashas then?"

When cousin Ivan said this, Pushkin also laughed. The friendship between children is still relatively pure, and it would be even better if it could accompany them throughout their lives.

Gorchakov would be the last of his classmates to die. As the last Imperial Chancellor and Foreign Minister, he would be the last of the two. When he was a student, he received a poem from Pushkin. At that time, they were all formal students of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

It is just a transcript, which is only released to each student and their parents, and it also avoids the embarrassment of announcing admission scores.

Gorchakov's entrance exam results were excellent. Although he was only an 8-year-old boy wearing a pair of small glasses, he was quite smart.

As for Pushkin, this kid could have achieved much better results.

However, he probably had this problem since he was a child, because he couldn't concentrate and completed the entrance examination in a hurry.

The answers were filled in, but there were still many errors, especially spelling and grammatical errors.

But even so, the 7-year-old Alexander Pushkin passed
By looking at how these children performed when they entered school, Louisa could imagine what her husband was like when he was a child.

Otherwise, it would not have happened that General Langzdov and Mishka led a group of teachers to strictly discipline Nicholas and Mikhail. The Queen Mother did not think they were harsh, but instead wanted to increase the intensity.

This is the result of an education that seemed strict in the past but actually let the sheep go in the end, which made the doting mother-in-law finally make up her mind.

As for the opening of the Tsarskoye Selo Middle School in the future, thirty students will be selected from these students to study with Nicholas and Mikhail.

(End of this chapter)