My Wanderings

9 hrs. 0 min.

Language Russian

Author Vladimir Gilyarovsky

Narrator Vadim Maksimov

Description

Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky (1853–1935) was a Russian writer, journalist, and recorder of everyday life in Moscow. Even while he was alive, he became a legendary figure. His adventures and captivating personality helped: for about 10 years he wandered across Russia, working as a barge-hauler, hook-puller, factory worker, horse-herder, firefighter, and a provincial actor; he was also a soldier. A famous reporter of his time and a poet, he left behind remarkable books of memoirs that long ago became classics of the memoir genre. All of reading Russia knew “Uncle Gilyay.”

“My Wanderings”—a “tale of a vagabond life,” as Gilyarovsky called it—he said was the book “most beloved of all that I have written.” With extraordinary vividness and directness, it describes the young years of the future writer. He put himself into this work, telling about a man who had seen much in his life. He paints bright pictures of childhood, gymnasium life, the political exile of Vologda in the 1860s, the fates of the last barge-haulers on the Volga, the hard labor of dock workers and workers of a bleachers’ plant, the exhausting service of soldiers and the wanderings of provincial actors, the war events in the Caucasus, and the everyday life of the capital. The main character is an active witness to the wandering of many ordinary people like him. He captured the escaped sailor Kitaev, the barge-hauler Kostyga, the ataman Repka, the soldier Orlov, poor actors, poor newspaper hawkers—each of them has their own fate and their own path in life.