The ancient Christian city of Feodosia, sometimes called Theodosia, in today’s Simferopol and Crimean dioceses is a resort town in present-day southern Ukraine, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Feodosia, in Crimean Tatar: Kefe, is located on the Black Sea coast, 80 km. west of Kerch. It was the center during the Middle Ages of the principality of Theodore (or Gothia, Greek: Γοτθία) – a small principality in the southwestern part of the Crimean peninsula with the capital city of Mangup, which existed from 12 to 15 century. Under the name Kefe, the city became one of the main Ottoman ports in the Black Sea, remaining under Ottoman rule until 1783, when Crimea was conquered by the Russian Empire. In 1802 it was officially renamed Feodosia, a Russian adaptation of the Greek name Theodosia.

One of the oldest streets in the city is Gramatikovskaya – Voykova – Ukrainska. Emanuil Emanuilovich Gramatikov once lived there – a famous Theodosian businessman and the ancestor of the Crimean noble family Gramatikovi. He owned a fish processing plant, many lands, gardens, even post offices, housing and hotel buildings. In Dec. In 1829 the entrepreneur died of the plague. Because he had no children, he bequeathed all his property worth about 5 million rubles to Theodosia. During Emanuil Emanuilovich’s lifetime, the street on which he lived was nameless. But at the end of the 19th century, grateful Theodosians named it after the patron. With the advent of Soviet rule, Gramatikovskaya Street was renamed after the Russian revolutionary from Kerch, Peter Lazarovich Voikov, who died in 1927 from a White Guard bullet. The street kept this name for more than eighty years, but in the autumn of 2003 it changed its name to “Ukrainian”. On the same street was the home of the marine artist I.K. Aivazovski, who in his work, along with the landscape, repeatedly turned to the genre of portraiture. This side of the artist’s work is little studied and poorly described. The portraits of IK Aivazovski in their picturesque dignity are significantly inferior to the marine works of the maestro, but are undoubtedly of historical and memorial interest. In different years the artist painted self-portraits, portraits of relatives and friends, friends and acquaintances, sometimes by special order from certain institutes, organizations and societies, but most often for his own and his family’s memory. These works, mainly concentrated in the collection of the city art gallery, present us strict and businesslike male portraits, such as: “Portrait of A.I. Kaznacheev” 1847 (canvas, oil, 56×46), senator, leader of the nobility in the Tauride province; “Portrait of the poet-fable writer I.A. Krylov” 1894 (canvas, oil, 71×62); “Male Portrait” 1899 (canvas, oil, 47×47), “Portrait of the Artist’s Son-in-Law” 1894 (canvas, oil, 61×48), as well as a group portrait “I.K. Aivazovsky in a friendly circle” 1893 (canvas, oil, 56×81). The latter depicts sitting at the table: I.K. Aivazovsky (with his back to the viewer), to his left G.A. Durante, I.S. Gramatikov, M.H. Lampsi. Stands from left to right: I.V. Durante, K.P. Zioni, A.S. Gramatikov, N.S. Gramatikov. The portrayed are united by a common situation. Some biographical information about those depicted in this portrait can be found in the library of rarities (unique) “Tavrika” in Simferopol. Who were these neighbors of Aivazovsky, so he painted three of them in his unique group portrait?

An excerpt from an article by V. Geiman from the book “Theodosia in the Past”, published in 1918 on the Grammatikovi Charitable Capital, reads as follows: Theodosia, it is appropriate to remember these bright benefactors, because of the carelessly drawn up will, on which swords are now sharpened, spears are broken, and most often endless complaints, petitions and protocols are drawn. We mean Emanuil Gramatikov and his wife Smaragda, who left for charity all their property worth not less than five million rubles. The Gramatikovi family played the role of the leading family in Theodosia throughout the nineteenth century, and only in recent years has this family begun to disappear from the public arena in our city. ”

The ancestor of this family in Russia (in Theodosia) was Emanuil Emanuilovich Gramatikov, author of the said will.

His ancestors once moved to Thessaloniki from Serbia, but is of Bulgarian origin, because a branch of the genus, living until the 20s of the 20th century in Edirne and Aegean Thrace (present-day Northern Greece), due to his Bulgarian identity moved to the Kingdom of Bulgaria (to this day on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria) with the biggest wave of refugees after the Mollov-Kafandaris agreement, and in some documents preserved in the Theodosian Quarantine Archive, Emanuil Gramatikov is called not “Greek”, not even “Serb”, but “Slav”.

He arrived in Russia in 1795, responding to an invitation to the inhabitants of what was then Ottoman Greece to colonize the southern Russian coast. Gramatikov arrives in Akhtiar (Sevastopol), where he begins heavy preparations for naval service. From Sevastopol he moved to Theodosia, where he served until 1809 as a translator at the customs, and then as a clerk in the office of the central quarantine office.

The quarantine cases also contain evidence that Gramatikov was accused of opening a fish processing plant, but apparently without significant consequences, because after the plague epidemic of 1811-1812 his cases were extremely successful and he established strong ties. in the field of supply for the fleet. Emanuil Gramatikov brought from Greece his two brothers, Stavro and Georgi, together with whom he expanded his business. , abandoning in droughts their possessions even at the whim of fate.

Gramatikov died suddenly, of the plague – his death on December 14. 1829 in Simferopol, where he was buried in the Greek church. His wife, Smaragda Dmitrievna, who according to the will was a lifelong user of all property, died in Theodosia on August 19, 1870 and was buried in the Christian cemetery. Her grave was searched several years ago and a massive marble monument has been erected there today. Here it is proposed to transfer the ashes of her husband, a petition for which was presented to His Eminence Dmitry, Archbishop of Tauride and Simferopol.

Representatives of the Gramatikovi family, as already mentioned, have been, for almost 90 years, taking the most active part in the public life of Theodosia. There are no children left after Emmanuel and Emerald. Georgi’s heirs by daughter adopted other surnames, and this name is maintained only by the descendants of Stavro. His sons, Alexander and Ivan, have long held a leading position in the family of Theodosia.

Ivan Stavrovich was the first justice of the peace of the Theodosian District, and was also elected to the First National Assembly on February 18. 1869 and until the dismissal, ie. until 1892, he was twice elected chairman of the World Congress.

Alexander Stavrovich was a member of the Zemstvo, and later from 1884 to 1910, and its permanent chairman, being the main inspirer of the zemstvo and county public life in general for 25 years. His memory is honored by the zemstvo by assigning his name to the zemstvo hospital in the village of Sedem Kladentsi (Sem – Kolodezei), placing his portrait in the hall of the zemstvo assembly, etc. For more than 20 years he was also the trustee of the Grammar Charitable Capital , running it along with another local veteran, Il. Paul. Tamara, also a descendant of a Greek settler and former mayor of Theodosia, Ivan Tamara (former mayor, 1820-1825). The last years of the rule of A. Gramatikov and I. Tamara provoked the beginning of this movement, which is reminded of in 1918 by the incessant newspaper columns, court offices and district administrations and other institutions.

The fertile ground for the creation of all sorts of lawsuits and lawsuits was prepared, unfortunately, by the testators themselves, who incompletely formulated their thoughts on the details of the management of their millions of capital, although this testament is a model of true Christian feat and testifies to the noble designs of these remarkable benefactors.

The will was drawn up in 1825, and was presented in court in 1830 and came into force for the implementation of the charitable plans of the Grammatikovi in 1870.

Thus, by handing over all their property, amounting to 18,000 tenths of land in Theodosia County, including homes and estates in Theodosia, post offices, etc., the testators admitted a significant ambiguity, which provoked later endless disputes.

As can be seen from the text of the will, the supreme supervision of capital affairs was entrusted to the “Greek honorary society”, namely, the rights and obligations of capital management and control of the actions of the two trustees, one of the Grammatikov’s family, the other, a church trustee (epitrope), both elected by the aforementioned society.

The complete impossibility of establishing the content of this term gives fertile ground for all kinds of discord. It is believed that the term “honorary society” was introduced from the Greek islands, where there was once a circular guarantee for the payment of taxes. In addition, at the time of drafting the will, 1825, such a term may have had its meaning, but since then, major reforms have been carried out in the Russian Empire, the liberation from serfdom, the introduction of urban institutions, courts, amended the whole system of public life. “Honorary Society” with today’s date will not be found in any nation, and even if the word was taken in its literal sense, we can hardly consider the same concepts given to this word in 1825 and today. Repeated attempts have been made to interpret this concept, which have not led to a successful result. The county and provincial zemstvos brought the case to the senate, pointing out the absence of an honorary society as a legal entity, the danger of homelessness of the bequeathed property, etc., and asked for the capital to be handed over to him. However, the Senate recognized the zemstvo as an ancillary institution, and the claim was dismissed. Recently, the zemstvo has taken steps before the Ministry to initiate a petition to the Supreme Authority to amend the corresponding item in the spiritual will for the order of capital management. And this petition was left unsatisfied.

Another character is the overall direction of the case with the issuance on August 4, 1915 of the Supreme Order for the transfer of all property to the Greek Church of the Assumption (Holy Introduction to the Virgin). The attempt of the trustees to take possession of the story / clergy was not supported by the notary and judicial institutions, which consider that the said order (order) does not give the right to establish property rights, but refers only to use, according to the conditions clarified in the will. ”, Ie with the help of the honorary society in question.

As a result of all the controversy, in the end, the prevailing view is that an honorary society should be understood as the parish community, which also elects the second trustee from among the church trustees. The controversy continued for some time, during which a group of parishioners found that only censors could participate in the affairs of capital, ie. people with qualifications – enjoying the right to participate in city elections.

Others have explained this controversial paragraph 7 of the instruction on ecclesiastical epitrops in the sense that urban elections should be understood not only as elections in the field of urban self-government, but also as professional, for example, guild urban elections. In previous times, disputes and doubts were resolved by the administration itself, with the ministry recognizing the right to participate only to censors and the provincial government recognizing all parishioners. On August 4, 1915, the administration resigned from its supervisory functions and the most direct supervision over the activities of the parish municipality passed to the diocesan authority in the province. At the same time, the district court, and then the chamber and the senate, recognized as lawful the decree of the society composed of all parishioners of the Greek Vvedenskaya church. Of course, in Soviet times all the capital bequeathed to Christian charity by the Gramatikovi family of Bulgarian origin was expropriated with the rest of the church property. Nowadays, the local population pays tribute to the Grammars philanthropists, because the good should not remain anonymous, but should be popularized for the sole purpose of serving as an example and initiating followers in the exercise of Christian love for God and neighbor.

Another extremely interesting thing is that the wife of Alexander Sergeyevich Gramatikov was Dagmar, niece of General, Bonch-Bruevich, brother of the manager of the affairs of the Sovnarkom V.D. Bonch-Bruevich. Dagmar provided her accommodation for Sydney Reilly’s “work.” During the Civil War, Alexander (Elena Gramatikova’s brother) and Aivazovsky’s son-in-law, Prince Mikeladze Iveriko Davidovich, together bought the schooner Salomet and for some time supplied weapons to Turkey from Wrangel’s Crimean troops from Turkey, exchanging them for grain with smugglers. on the Turkish coast.

Even more unusual is the fate of Alexander Nikolaevich Gramatikov, brother of Ekaterina Nikolaevna Gramatikova, who in her first marriage was married to Aivazovsky’s grandson – Mikhail Latry. His life is intertwined with Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin and Sidney Riley, the British spy who inspired Fleming to create the literary image of James Bond, Agent 007.

Soviet researchers and archivists made considerable efforts to search for, categorize, and publish letters and documents of VI Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Party and the first leader of the Soviet state. The fifth edition of his collected works contains more than 3,700 letters and telegrams, and the documents found after the publication of this edition are published in Lenin’s collection. The still undiscovered letters of Lenin, whose existence researchers know about, as well as Lenin’s documents stored in the former archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, but unpublished for various reasons, are scrupulously listed in the twelve-volume Biographical Chronicle. Several previously unknown letters have been found by Western scholars in European archives. Due to the above, the new Lenin document, not included in the catalogs, complements the characteristics of the Bolshevik leader. In July 1908, Lenin sent the following letter of recommendation: Gramatikov (“Black”) belongs to the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party and has worked in the ranks of party organizations. Geneva, July 7, 1908.”

The original of this two-page letter is kept in the Public Archives of Canada in the Andrei Zhuk Foundation (early 1968 in the Austrian capital), established in 1978. In the first decade of the 20th century, A. Zhuk was active. member of the Revolutionary Party of Ukraine (RPU) and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (URSDRP). During the First World War, he was associated with the Austrian-based Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SOU). After the revolution, Zhuk lived in Vienna and Lviv. He retained his interest in Ukrainian socialism and the cooperative movement. In the period between the two world wars he did an incredible amount to preserve the archives of the high school and the materials about Ukraine.

But who is Gramatikov, whose political credibility Lenin attests to in his letter? His name, as well as the leader’s letter, are not mentioned in any of the editions of Lenin’s Collected Works or in the Biographical Chronicle. It is not mentioned in the multi-volume History of the CPSU, in the seven editions of the Soviet Encyclopedia, in the various publications with letters from the Mensheviks, or in Soviet or Western research on the pre-revolutionary history of the Social Democratic Party. However, the name Gramatikov appears in the reports of the Paris branch of the “Ohranka” – the tsarist political police, whose archives are kept at the Hoover Institute for War, Peace and Revolution.

According to the report of the “Ohranka”, written 4 months before the writing of Lenin’s recommendation, Alexander Nikolayevich Gramatikov, “of the nobles”, was born in Sevastopol in 1871. In 1896, while studying at Moscow University, he was arrested for political activity . For two years he was forbidden to live in the two capitals, as well as in any university city. In 1899, Gramatikov was arrested again in Tver, after which he was released into his mother’s care due to an unrecorded “nervous disorder”. After some time he moved to Kharkov, where he resumed his studies at the university, as well as his political activities. According to police, in 1905 he was associated with the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, was a member of the party committee in Kharkov and its military organization, actively distributed leaflets in connection with the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. From February 1902 to March 1906 he was detained four times, but each time he was soon released. It is quite probable that Zhuk, who at the same time was connected with the RUP and the USDRP in Kharkov, knew about Gramatikov’s work in the local Bolshevik organization. As in most revolutionary groups, agents of the tsarist political police also infiltrated the Kharkiv Social Democrats. The problem with which Gramatikov, despite frequent arrests, escaped punishment has aroused certain suspicions in Zhuk and other Ukrainian socialists. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, when Gramatikov, Zhuk, and a number of other Russian intellectuals emigrated, these suspicions probably prompted the Social Democrats to warn Lenin about Gramatikov. Vladimir Ilyich, in his letter of July 7, 1908, stated that he had no reason to doubt the loyalty of his Bolshevik ally.

During this time Gramatikov lived in Brussels. On March 2, 1908, SE Visarionov, director of the political Police Department, asked the Paris branch of the “Ohranka” to confirm the agent’s report that Gramatikov (known as “Black”, “Ivan Petrovich”) lives in Belgium, where he studies the production and application of explosives. As far as no answer was concerned, similar notes were sent on October 25 and December 6, 1911. The last time the Gramatikov family appeared in the archives of the “Ohranka” was in December 1911, when its Paris branch informed Visarionov that the socialist-revolutionary Gushtin is currently living in Paris with Gramatikov. Gushtin, whose real name was NI Metalnikov, was handed over to an agent of the Russian police. Apparently he also gave the information that the party comrades were concerned about the fact that Gramatikov had abandoned revolutionary activity to study philosophy. It is possible that, as a result of their neighborhood, Gramatikov’s personal ties with the SRs and the police have been strengthened. In 1912 or 1913 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he entered the role of a lawyer with a good career and excellent contacts. He dined at the most luxurious restaurants and helped establish the Aviators’ Club, which organized the first air races in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Among his closest friends were Boris Suvorin, the son of the publisher of the conservative newspaper Novo Vreme, and Sidney Rzli, who stole from the St. Petersburg Naval Shipyard where he worked, and apparently not without his help, drawings of German warships for the British intelligence. Riley considered Gramatikov “not only a scientist and thinker, but also a man of character, whose loyalty was beyond suspicion.” According to other sources, Reilly was for some time an agent of the “Ohranka”, as well as Gramatikov himself. This connection would explain the ease with which Gramatikov escaped prison, despite his frequent arrests until 1907 and the metamorphosis of his life after 1911. The change of direction – from the party to the police – as a result of blackmail by the “Ohranka” did not was an unusual phenomenon in the last decade of tsarist Russia.

Gramatikov and Riley crossed paths again in the autumn of 1918, when the great British spy returned to Russia, trying to ignite resistance there against the new regime. Gramatikov, who believed that the government “is in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill released from a mental hospital”, used his previous connections, organized an interview with Riley with General M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, from whom he made his niece Dagmar , a ballerina at the Moscow Art Theater, to allow his friend to use her apartment as a “safe place” where he kept large sums of cash in various currencies. Dagmar introduced him to two charming ladies – actress Elisaveta Otten and CEC secretary Olga Strizhevska, who fell in love with Riley and provided him with passes and secret documents, as Inna Svechenovskaya writes in her book Sex and Soviet Espionage (p. 281). Gramatikov, with the help of Vyacheslav Orlovsky (Vladimir Orlov), who had previously been associated with the pre-revolutionary “security guard” and became a member of the Extraordinary Commission (EC), provided Riley with false documents in the name of Sidney Georgievich Relinsky, allowing him to travel freely. The Soviet side under the guise of a Chekist, as reported by Sayers Michael in his book The Secret War against Soviet Russia, p. 28. Penetrating the Kremlin and the General Staff of the Red Army, Riley was aware of all the activities of the Soviet government. The English spy boasted that the sealed orders to the Red Army “became known in London before they were read in Moscow.”

It is very likely that he connected Riley with the anti-Bolshevik elements in the SR party. Riley, in turn, nominates Gramatikov for the post of interior minister to head the police and finance in the supposed new Provisional Government, in which Boris Savinkov is to become prime minister and General Yudenich the military minister. Schubersky, head of one of Russia’s largest trading companies, was to become Minister of Roads and Communications. Yudenich, Shubersky and Gramatikov – the future interim government had to overcome the anarchy, almost inevitable after such a coup. The above is also supported by the modern English researcher Philip Knightley (Knightley F. Spies of the XX century / Translated with English, M., 1994. p. 62), who describes the main collaborators of the SIS in Russia: Sidney Riley, George Hill, Somerset Maugham, who also worked for the Americans, Paul Dukes, and Robert Bruce Lockhart, an agent of the British Diplomatic Service in Moscow, who, although not a SIS officer, took an active part in espionage in Russia.

Gramatikov and Riley apparently played no part in the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach and in the SR uprisings in the provincial towns in July 1918. But in August they were at the center of the so-called Lockhart conspiracy against the Bolshevik regime. . With money received from the unofficial representative of the British mission Bruce Lockhart, Riley bribed some Latvian red units to help him capture during a scheduled meeting in Moscow of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the establishment of a military dictatorship of Savinkov. Residents of foreign intelligence services rightly judged that the fate of any conspiracy against the Soviets would largely depend on the position of the Latvians, who at the time were the most capable Red Army unit responsible for guarding the Kremlin. Two young Latvian commanders, who had arrived from Moscow, were brought to Petrograd. They contacted the naval attache at the British Embassy (which had not yet moved to Moscow), Captain Francis Alan Cromy. Their first meeting took place in the restaurant of the French Hotel. The commanders convinced Cromi that there was serious dissatisfaction among the Latvian riflemen with the authorities, that they were ready to go against the government if they had the support of army units. The commander of the 1st Division of the Latvian Riflemen, Eduard Berzin, was also involved in the operation. Lockhart gave them letters of recommendation to the commander of the British troops in Arkhangelsk, General Poole, and accompanying documents on British mission forms with stamps and his signature. (It was assumed that after the arrest of the Soviet government, the Latvian archers through Arkhangelsk on English ships would return to their homeland.)

The meeting of the Bolshevik leadership of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow was postponed, and on August 28 Riley arrived in Petrograd to consult with Gramatikov on the implementation of the plans for an uprising in the former capital. But, as Gramatikov himself put it; “The fools struck too early.” On August 30, terrorists unrelated to the Reilly network killed M.S. Uritsky in Petrograd and seriously wounded Lenin in Moscow. Felix Dzerzhinsky, whose agents infiltrated Riley’s organization back in June and knew of his odious plans, quickly took advantage of these events as a pretext for Lockhart’s arrest, the search of the British mission in Petrograd and the beginning of the Red Terror. Most surprisingly, Riley and Gramatikov were able to burn their documents and flee the country.

The two conspirators last met in September 1925 in Paris, where Gramatikov spent his second emigration. This man, whom Lenin considered a loyal Bolshevik, again conspired against the Soviet government. Reilly, along with Gramatikov, White General A.P. Kutepov, expert on exposing provocateurs Vladimir Burtsev and British intelligence officer Ernst Boyce, are discussing the possibility of establishing contact with the alleged monarchical, anti-Bolshevik Moscow organization Trust. It was decided that Riley should go to Finland to investigate with the leaders of the Trust the possibility of another uprising. They did not know that the monarchical group had long been arrested by the OGPU. Riley was tricked into entering Soviet territory, and this time the “king of espionage” failed to return.

The fact that Lenin believed and supported a man like Gramatikov, who could really be associated with the tsarist “Ohranka” in pre-revolutionary times, and after 1917 developed a remarkable anti-Soviet career in alliance with his political opponents – the left, like Savinkov , to the right-wing monarchists, may surprise many. Subsequently, Lenin repeatedly proved to be a poor connoisseur of the human soul and the political leanings of his entourage, supporting Roman Malinowski in the Bolshevik Central Committee and defending him when obvious evidence of his affiliation with the “Ohranka”, and then praising that “wonderful Georgian” who became his successor.

Photo: cityscape painting of Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky “Old Feodosia”, oil, canvas, 1839.