African travels of Nikolai Gumilyov literature. From the book “Red Spies”: The figure of the poet and military intelligence officer Nikolai Gumilev attracted the attention not only of the Cheka, but also of the emerging Soviet intelligence. Unknown pages of the life of Nikolai Gumilyov

Amateur archaeologist Konstantin Sevenard claims that Pomorie is the homeland of the Aryans, and Tajikistan is the legendary Shambhala

The secret of the mysterious Dove (Stone) book, which was allegedly seen by Mikhailo Lomonosov and Nikolai Gumilyov, was penetrated by a deputy of the State Duma of the 3rd convocation, and now a St. Petersburg businessman, Konstantin Sevenard. Using his own funds, he organized an expedition to the Russian North to study ancient man-made mounds. “The material collected this and past years can radically change the way we look at the history of the world,” Mr. Sevenard is confident. Indeed, at the press conference held to mark the end of the expedition, several sensational statements were made that ran counter to generally accepted historical knowledge.

The Stone Book is mentioned in various ancient sources, both handwritten and oral. Moreover, the sources are completely historical - such as the Apocalypse, “The Word of St. John the Theologian about the coming of the Lord", "The Life of St. Abraham of Smolensk". According to the historian Alexander Afanasyev, “among the spiritual songs preserved by the Russian people, the most important is the verse about the Dove Book, in which every line is a precious hint at the ancient mythical idea” about the world around us, the people, animals and birds inhabiting it . “The Verse about the Book of the Dove” has survived to this day in more than 20 versions, which, with some discrepancies, tell how “a strong, threatening cloud arose, the Book of the Dove fell out, and not small, not great. The length of the book is 40 fathoms: the crossbars are 20 fathoms. 40 kings and princes, 40 princes and princes, 40 priests, 40 deacons, and a lot of people came to that Divine book. No one will approach a book like that, no one will shy away from God’s book. The wise King David came to the book. He has access to God’s book, the book opens before him, all Divine Scripture is announced to him.”

The main part of the verse is the answer to the questions “why was the white light conceived among us, why was the red sun conceived, why were our bodies taken, why did we have kings in our land, which is the mother earth of the lands, which is the mother church above the churches, which is our stone to stones the father who is the beast of all beasts,” which constitute the essence of the cosmogonic ideas of ancient people.

Konstantin Sevenard is sure that the Stone (Pigeon) Book exists not only in traditions and legends. According to his assumption, this mysterious book was seen in his youth by Mikhailo Lomonosov, “which explains his legendary career and the fact that all further research was carried out in the vein of the texts of the Stone Book - two northern expeditions, financed from the royal treasury, the search for the philosopher’s stone.” Sevenard insists that the Silver Age poet Nikolai Gumilyov, traveling in the Russian North in 1904, also saw her in the area of ​​​​the city of Belomorsk in one of the deep ravines in the foggy mouth of the Indel River in the form of hieroglyphs carved into a rock slope. This is where, according to Konstantin Sevenard, its name comes from - the Stone Book. Another name of the book - Pigeon - comes from the seagulls depicted in the context of the book, which the ancient Slavs mistook for pigeons.

The report on the northern expedition and the discovered Stone Book of 18-year-old Nikolai Gumilyov was hosted by Emperor Nicholas II, who took the find with extreme seriousness, so Gumilyov’s further research, as well as his studies at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, were financed from the royal treasury. Following the texts of the Stone Book, Gumilev organizes an expedition to the Kuzovskaya archipelago, where he opens an ancient tomb, in which he finds a unique comb made of 1000-carat gold (such purity of gold has not yet been achieved). It is known that on the crest, which was called “Hyperborean,” a girl was depicted in a tight-fitting tunic, sitting on the backs of two dolphins carrying her.

According to legend, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich presented this comb at the request of Emperor Nicholas II to the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. “There is every reason to believe, following family legends, that the comb still lies in the hiding place of Kshesinskaya’s mansion in St. Petersburg,” says Konstantin Sevenard, who considers himself a descendant of Kshesinskaya. Indirect evidence is the fact that after the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks, in search of a unique comb, were one of the first to seize this particular mansion, and the American Freemasons offered Kshesinskaya herself to sell the comb for 4.5 million gold rubles. Moreover, Sevenard, having studied all the diaries and letters of the ballerina, claims that Kshesinskaya considered the “Hyperborean Crest” to be a kind of catalyst for the revolution.

The researcher of the Russian North recalls that even when he was a State Duma deputy, he became acquainted with the diary entries of Nikolai Gumilyov and with the report on that long-standing expedition, published in 1911 in a colossal circulation of 20 thousand copies. Despite such a massive publication, almost the entire circulation was subsequently destroyed, and the same happened with the diaries. But, as you know, manuscripts do not burn, and it is obvious that some copies of the brochure and the diary itself were still preserved in the depths of the special storage facility. Unfortunately, Konstantin Sevenard was so fascinated by the content of these primary sources that he did not pay attention to the presence of any archival or library ciphers on them indicating that they belonged to a state or departmental archive (a day later the researcher, however, recalled that on the flyleaf The brochure had a bookplate "Gorodetskaya Private Library"). However, he noticed that in the works of Nikolai Gumilyov there are not even poems dedicated to the Stone (Dove) Book, although in his diaries there is a mention that the cracks between the hieroglyphs with which the Stone Book is written are overgrown with flowers. The most interesting thing is that almost all the poets of the Silver Age (Nikolai Zabolotsky, Konstantin Balmont, Osip Mandelstam, Andrei Bely) have the image of a “flower book”, “written by the mighty hand of fate,” which contains “all the hidden truth of the earth.”

But in the poet’s biography, according to Sevenard, “there are so many blank spots that it seems that someone carefully and consistently cleared out information about entire periods of his life.” The researcher even associates the execution of Gumilyov in 1921 with the secret knowledge that the Stone Book endowed the poet with and to which, according to him, the ubiquitous Freemasons are very partial.

In the rock Pigeon Book, Gumilev allegedly read some revelations about the structure of the world, the physical and spiritual interaction of all life on the planet, which more than 100 thousand years ago was inhabited by representatives of a completely different civilization that died due to a grueling civil war. The conflict flared up between the Viks, who knew the secret of the philosopher's stone and had the right to eternal life, and the Aryans, deprived of this privilege. After the end of the war and the death of Queen Mob, the rebel leader Phoebus took the surviving Aryans south to the region of modern Tajikistan. Konstantin Sevenard is convinced that the term “Viking” appeared only at the beginning of the 20th century after the publication of the text of the Stone Book translated by Nikolai Gumilev.

Having studied Gumilyov's diaries and his translation of the Dove Book, Konstantin Sevenard came to the discovery that it was in Tajikistan, and not in Tibet, that the entrance to the legendary Shambhala was located, and opposite the entrance there were images of a giant sphinx, currently flooded by the reservoir of the Nurek hydroelectric station. By the way, Sevenard, being a professional hydraulic engineer, is convinced that the height of the dam was deliberately increased by several tens of meters in order to more reliably hide the mythical transition to a parallel civilization.

The traveler also lifted the veil of secrecy over the “pigeon” hieroglyphs with which the book was allegedly written. They cannot be attributed to any of the known ancient and modern writings. According to Konstantin Sevenard, it was a special artificial language that had no phonetic sound. To make it easier to read, the author of the book, Phoebus, left for his descendants a stone dictionary of symbols, in which hieroglyphs that denoted, for example, stars, the sun, a person, a seagull or a dragon, corresponded to an “explanatory” image. Allegedly, it was this dictionary that helped the young poet Gumilyov decipher the writings of Golubina’s book.

In 2003 - 2005, under the leadership of Konstantin Sevenard, who wanted to get to the bottom of the truth, a series of expeditions took place, repeating the “northern path” of Nikolai Gumilyov. The purpose of these amateur studies was to search for structures and traces associated with the events described in the Stone Book. The leader of the expedition is convinced that the Stone Book is currently located at the bottom of the reservoir of the White Sea Hydroelectric Power Station.

As a result of these expeditions, ancient man-made mounds were explored. From the texts of the Stone Book translated by Gumilyov, it follows that “Feb buried his son and daughter on an island, which according to the description coincides with the island of the German body, under two huge mounds, and, on the contrary, on an island similar to the Russian body, his wife, the queen of the Vikov empire - Mob." The tomb on the Russian island was opened by Gumilyov, and the clearing of the remaining two mounds was undertaken by Sevenard in the summer of this year. According to the expert opinion of professional archaeologist Vladimir Eremenko, as a result of the clearing, “two rows of masonry of undoubtedly artificial origin were discovered. The masonry is made of natural blocks of untreated granite measuring from 0.5 to 1.5 m in diameter. Some of the granite blocks in the masonry are placed on edge. The underlying sand under the masonry is not sea sand. When examining the outcrops on the island, no such sand was found.” From the finds in the upper layer, Sevenard’s team discovered a German helmet and an 8-mm pistol casing, which allowed him to conclude that representatives of the secret services of Nazi Germany were interested in the ancient burials of the Aryans on the Kuzovsky archipelago even during the Second World War.

Making such unusual statements at a press conference, Konstantin Sevenard complained that in order to obtain material evidence of his theory, all that is required is “to obtain permission from the Ministry of Culture to conduct full-fledged archaeological excavations on the islands of the Russian Body and the German Body and a full-scale underwater study of the bottom landscape in the place where the mouth of the Indel River was located before the flooding." He also insists on the need to carry out survey work in the former mansion of the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya in order to search for the “Hyperborean ridge” hidden by her in a certain cache.

On the cover of the recently published book “Fragile Eternity,” Konstantin Sevenard positions himself as a man who had many hobbies, from collecting candy wrappers to a passion for the history of extraterrestrial civilizations. Archeology is one of them and, perhaps, completely harmless, but not useless. If former State Duma deputy, and now public figure and businessman Konstantin Sevenard manages to defeat the Ministry of Culture and obtain permission for excavations, then perhaps soon we will receive, if not confirmation of his “Aryan theory,” then, in any case, new archaeological finds, which will shed light on at least part of the many secrets of Russian history.

Natalya Eliseeva

Karelian trace in the biography of Nikolai Gumilyov A

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov - Russian poet of the Silver Age, prose writer,

critic, translator. In the USSR, his works were banned, and rare

books published before the revolution were copied by hand and distributed in

Samizdate.

Nowadays, his name has become popular again, and the poet no longer faces oblivion,

at the same time, his unusual fate is hushed up - after all, it was she who made him

the way he became. In addition, the biography of Nikolai Gumilyov is complete

contradictions, adventures, ups and tragedies and is worthy of interest in itself

to yourself.

Let's start with the fact that the future poet was born on the night of April 15, 1886 in

Kronstadt, shaken by a storm. The old nanny, looking at the playful

storm, innocently declared that the one born “will have a stormy life.” Her words

turned out to be downright prophetic.

I will stop now at the official biography of the poet

I won’t, except to remind you of the main milestones in a nutshell. Yes,

studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, was sick and frail,

stayed for the second year - but wrote wonderful poems,

was published. Then, after school, he entered the Sorbonne,

traveled a lot: France, Greece, Italy. Türkiye,

Egypt, Abyssinia... Yes, he was married to Anna for a time

Akhmatova. Yes, in 1914 he went to the front of the First World War

(two St. George crosses, by the way!).

It was his military career that took him abroad, where he

worked as a cryptographer for the Russian Government Committee. But

the decay of the army was felt there, in the corps where he served in France

a rebellion arose, it was, of course, quickly suppressed, but Gumilyov could not do all this

accept, resigned and went back to Russia to lecture on poetry in

Institute of the Living Word - in 1918 (when everyone fled the country, he, on the contrary,

- returned to it). In 1921 he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy

against the new government and was shot.

You will find all of the above in any biographical information. But in

official There are biographies of Nikolai Gumilyovamong other things and a bunch of

white spots, all of which are associated with his works dedicated to

research of the Russian North and the discovery of the Stone Book in Karelia.

One cannot help but get the impression thatsomeone carefully and consistently

cleared out information about entire periods of his life.

It is about them, about the mysterious “white spots” that I will now talk about “my long

speeches."

Let's say, studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum -

the most elite establishment of that time. Gumilyov is not

just got there, his sponsor and patron

was Nikolai 2 himself, precisely because of his personal

how was this 18-year-old boy from a poor and

the humble family of the Russian Tsar? It's all about him

report on the results of a trip to Karelia in 1904.

Traveling through the Russian North, Gumilyov once saw at the mouth of the Indel River

flat rocks on which hieroglyphs were carved - hundreds of meters of text,

pages of a stone book.

photographs of the Indel River

He became interested in this because he was sure

that in front of him is the legendary “Stone Book”, which was repeatedly mentioned

mentioned in Russian folk tales and even monastic chronicles under

named after "Pigeon Book". Golubinaya - this means “deep”, besides

the hieroglyphs were somewhat reminiscent of bird paw prints (we are talking about Russian runes,

something really reminiscent of “pigeon” prints)

Russian runes

According to legends, the Stone Book

the primary source for the myths of practically all the peoples of Eurasia.

The one who carved the text of the book on the rock (according to the signature, his name was Phoebus),

left a hint for posterity: a dictionary of symbols, where opposite the hieroglyph

there was a picture of what it means (for example, an image

deciphered the pages of the Stone Book. Age of carved hieroglyphs,

Unfortunately, there is currently no way to find it in the public domain.

diary entries and translations of stone book texts, not even

Gumilyov's poems dedicated to her. Alas, during the years of Soviet power there was

The rock itself with the inscriptions was also destroyed. However, evidence remains

recordings of folklore expeditions, in the works of other poets of Serebryany

centuries and beyond.

And I hear a familiar legend,
How Pravda challenged Krivda to a fight,
How Krivda and the peasants prevailed
Since then they have lived, offended by fate.
Only far away on the ocean-sea,
On a white stone, in the middle of the waters,
The book is shining in a golden headdress,
Rays reaching into the sky.

That book fell out of some menacing cloud,
All the letters in it have sprouted flowers,
And it is written in it by the hand of the mighty destinies
The Whole Hidden Truth of the Earth!

Nikolay Zabolotsky

Only in general terms and from the few surviving archival documents

it is known that in the rock Pigeon book they found, among other things,

revelations about the structure of the world, the physical and spiritual interaction of everything

living on a planet that was inhabited more than 100 thousand years ago by representatives

a completely different civilization that died due to a grueling civil war

war. The conflict flared up between the wikis who learned the secret of philosophical

stone and those who had the right to eternal life, and the Aryans who were deprived of this

privilege. After the end of the war and the death of Queen Mob, the leader

The rebels Phoebus took the surviving Aryans to the south.

Mercator's map depicting Hyperborea, 16th century, and the artist saw Hyperborea

Nikolai 2 became interested in the report and assigned Gumilyov a personal

audience. After a long conversation with the young man, he gave orders for further

training a young man at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum and financing it

scientific research from the royal treasury.It connects to the process

deciphering the hieroglyphs of other specialists, in particular, translators from

Arabic and Sanskrit. With their help, Gumilyov completely succeeds

restore the meaning of what was written in the Dove Book. Of course, accuracy

translation is not ideal, but, thanks to it, in subsequent expeditions Gumilyov

finds the Kuzovsky archipelago (the legendary Buyan Island) and on Russky Island

The body opens the tomb of the queen of the Vik Empire. Then neither Gumilyov nor himself

the emperor had not yet imagined what for the country, and for them personally,

will result in an attempt to make ancient knowledge publicly available.

Kuzovsky archipelago

But let's return to the contents of the Dove Book. ANDfrom translated texts

followed about , that (quote from Gumilyov’s report,preserved in special storage) "Fab

buried on the island, which according to the description coincides with the German island

body, under two huge mounds of their son and daughter, and opposite, on

island, similar to the Russian body, his wife - the queen of the Vikov empire -

Mob." Following the instructions, Gumilyov organized a second one with the tsar’s money - already

scientific, archaeological expedition to Karelia, on the Kuzovskaya archipelago, where

they found an ancient tomb. One of the most valuable finds was

a unique comb made of 1000-carat gold (gold of such purity cannot be

achieved so far).

View of the Russian Body skeleton

This is how Gumilyov himself describes the find: “For the excavations we chose a stone

pyramid on the island, which is called Russian Body, unfortunately,

the pyramid turned out to be empty, and we were about to finish work on the island,

when I asked the workers, without expecting anything particularly, to disassemble

a small pyramid, which was located about ten meters from the first. There to

To my incredible joy, there were stones tightly fitted to each other.

The very next day we managed to open this burial. Vikings are not

buried their dead and did not build stone tombs, I did

the conclusion is that this burial belongs to a more ancient civilization. In grave

there was a skeleton of a woman, no objects except one. Near the skull

woman there was a golden comb of amazing work, on top of which

a girl in a tight-fitting tunic sat on the backs of two dolphins carrying her.”

The same tomb on Russky Kuzov Island

This unique golden comb, called "Hyperborean"

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich presented it at the request of Emperor Nicholas

The second to ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. "There is every reason to believe, following

family legends that the comb still lies in the mansion's hiding place

Kshesinskaya in St. Petersburg,” says the St. Petersburg public figure and

researcher Konstantin Sevenard, who considers himself a descendant

Kshesinskaya. Indirect evidence is the fact that after

October Revolution of 1917 Bolsheviks in search of a unique crest

was one of the first to seize this particular mansion, and the American Masons

offered to sell Kshesinskaya herself the comb for 4.5 million gold

rubles Sevenard, having studied all the diaries and letters of the ballerina, claims that

Kshesinskaya considered the “Hyperborean ridge” to be a kind of catalyst

revolution.

Kshesinskaya's mansion in St. Petersburg Matilda Kshesinskaya in her mansion

Speech by V. Lenin from the balcony of the Kshesinskaya mansion. Nowadays there is a museum in the mansion, this is the office of the Central Committee

The further fate of N. Gumilyov is also symbolic. As is known, he visited

Africa, there are documents claiming that after the revolution he led

the largest expedition in Russian history in search of the legendary country

MU, which I also read about in the Pigeon Book. The collection that he and his

nephew N.L. Sverchkov was brought from Africa, according to experts,

ranks second after the Miklouho-Maclay collection.

Konstantin Sevenard also associates the execution of Gumilyov in 1921 with secret

the knowledge that the Stone Book endowed the poet with and to which, according to him,

According to him, the Masons were very partial. But Nikolai Gumilyov refused

cooperate with them, for which he paid.

Mysterious labyrinths ("Babylons") of the Kuzovsky archipelago.

Elina Enverova

The work recreates the travel routes of Nikolai Gumilyov, reflected in his poems

Download:

Preview:

"Map of Nikolai Gumilyov's travels"

Enverova Elina Nurievna,

Nefteyugansk city, MBOU "SOKSH No. 4", 10 "k" class

In expensive chain mail Christopher,
The old prior in festive decorations,
And behind them he looks up
She whose spirit is a winged meteor,
She whose world is in holy impermanence,
Whose name is the Muse of Distant Journeys.

N.S.Gumilyov

Not only Columbus was called on his journey by the Muse of distant wanderings, but also Gumilyov himself.

Who is Nikolai Gumilev? An outstanding Russian poet? Eternal wanderer? A rider on a fiery horse, a wanderer wandering along the sleepers? You can consider the poet’s personality from different points of view: the opinions of authoritative researchers of life and creativity, the memories of contemporaries, but it seems to me that the poet’s personality is best revealed in his poems. I made it my goalmap the travels of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov and find out how travel influenced his work.

IN In my research I wanted to solve the following problems:

1. Study literary studies devoted to the life and work of N.S. Gumilyov, based on an analysis of literary sources, highlight information about the travels made by the poet.

2. Mark the poet’s main travels on a geographical map, supporting them with excerpts from the poetic works of N.S. Gumilyov, thus creating an interactive lyric-geographical map of Gumilyov’s wanderings.

For To carry out the research, I chose the following methods:

1. Theoretical analysis of literary literature about the life and work of N.S. Gumilyov.

2. Analysis of the poet’s poetic works as autobiographical evidence.

3. The method of comparative analysis when correlating biographical information about the poet’s travels and his poems.

Gumilyov was born in Kronstadt in 1886 into the family of a naval doctor. He spent his childhood in Tsarskoe Selo. He studied at the gymnasium in Tiflis (modern Tbilisi) and St. Petersburg. The first literary experiments were associated with years of study at the gymnasium, but the real poet Gumilyov appeared only at the time when Gumilyov the traveler appeared. The poet's inspiration awakened when he saw new countries, new faces. Gumilyov's first poems are dreams of wanderings, his mature poems are impressions of the wanderings he managed to visit.

From Paris, where Nikolai Gumilyov studied at the university, secretly from his family, he makes his first trips to Africa, a continent that has always attracted the poet.

From the memoirs of A.A. Gumileva, the wife of the poet’s elder brother: “The poet wrote to his father about this dream of his to go to Africa, but his father categorically stated that he would not receive either money or his blessing for such an “extravagant trip” until he graduated from university. Nevertheless, Kolya, no matter what, set out on the road in 1907, saving the necessary funds from his parents’ monthly salary. Subsequently, the poet spoke with delight about everything he had seen: how he spent the night in the hold of the ship with the pilgrims, how he shared their meager meal with them, how he was arrested... for trying to get onto the ship and ride as a “hare.” This trip was hidden from my parents, and they learned about it only after the fact. The young man wrote letters to his parents in advance, and his friends carefully sent them from Paris every ten days.”

We can speak with complete confidence about Gumilyov’s next visit to Africa. It took place in the autumn of 1908. On October 19, he sends a postcard from Cairo with an image of the pyramids to V.Ya. Bryusov: “Dear Valery Yakovlevich, I could not help but remember you, being “near the slow Nile, where Lake Murida is in the kingdom of fiery Ra.” But alas! I can't travel into the interior of the country as I dreamed of. I’ll look at the Sphinx, lie down on the stones of Memphis, and then go I don’t know where...”

These first travels are evidenced by poems from the collection “Romantic Flowers” ​​(1908), for example: “Hyena”, “Rhinoceros”, “Giraffe”, “Lake Chad”.

Today, I see, your look is especially sad

And the arms are especially thin, hugging the knees.

Listen: far, far away, on Lake Chad

An exquisite giraffe wanders.

He is given graceful harmony and bliss,

And his skin is decorated with a magical pattern,

Only the moon dares to equal him,

Crushing and swaying on the moisture of wide lakes.

In the distance it is like the colored sails of a ship,

And his run is smooth, like a joyful bird's flight.

I know that the earth sees many wonderful things,

When at sunset he hides in a marble grotto.

For many years, Abyssinia, modern Ethiopia, dominated Gumilyov’s thoughts. Gumilev traveled to this country several times, constantly feeding his inspiration there.

Between the shores of the wild Red Sea

And the Sudanese mysterious forest is visible,

Scattered among four plateaus,

The country is similar to a resting lioness.

In December 1909, N. Gumilyov sailed to Africa and invited the poet V. Ivanov with him. But he couldn't go. This is what he writes in a letter to V. Bryusov: “I almost left with Gumilyov for Africa... but I was sick, surrounded by business and poor.” Gumilev was also poor in money, but this never stopped him. In the letter we find: “I’m sitting in Cairo to finish an article for Apollo - how it torments me, if you knew - I don’t have much money... I’ll have to go in fourth class.” He was ready to hire himself to work on the construction of the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa, but to get to Ethiopia at any cost. The journey was accompanied by vivid impressions, which Gumilyov shared with friends in letters.

From a letter to Mikhail Kuzmin:

“I had a great time getting to Djibouti and tomorrow I’m going further... This is real Africa. Heat, naked blacks, tame monkeys. I am completely consoled and feel great. I greet the Academy of Verse from here.”

Here is another letter to the poet Mikhail Kuzmin:

“Dear Misha, I’m writing from Harrar. Yesterday I did 12 hours on a mule, today I have to travel another 8 hours to find leopards... Today I will have to sleep in the air, if I have to sleep at all, because leopards usually appear at night... I am in terrible shape: my dress is torn by mimosa thorns, my skin burnt and copper-red in color, her left eye is inflamed from the sun, her leg hurts because a mule that fell on a mountain pass crushed it with its body. But I gave up on everything. It seems to me that I am having two dreams at the same time: one is unpleasant and difficult for the body, the other is delightful for the eyes. I try to think only about the latter and forget about the former...I'm happy with my trip. She makes me drunk like wine."

This time, Gumilyov failed to get further than Kharar. He was completely dependent on the attitude of the local ruler (at that time he was the dejazmatch Balcha, a protege of Princess Taitu, a well-known ill-wisher of Russia). The Russian subject could not count on assistance; at best, he was tolerated condescendingly, but no one was going to make his existence easier.

The year 1910 for Gumilyov was full of serious events. Father died. On April 25, he married Anna Akhmatova. A new book of poems “Pearls” has been published. Gumilyov takes a honeymoon trip to Paris with his wife. But longing for Africa took its toll. Six months after his marriage, he leaves. The initial plans to go somewhere to the East, to China, with my wife, remained plans. Therefore, Gumilyov decides to go alone to his forever beloved Africa. Anna Akhmatova left the following lines about Gumilyov:

He loved three things in the world:

Behind the evening singing, white peacocks

And erased maps of America.

I didn't like it when children cried

Didn't like raspberry tea

And female hysteria.

And I was his wife.

Gumilyov voiced his plans for his future trip in a letter to V. Bryusov: “In ten days I’m going to go abroad again, specifically to Africa. I think we should go through Abyssinia to Lake Rodolfo, from there to Lake Victoria and through Mombaz to Europe. I’ll be there for about five months in total.”

The opinions of researchers of his life and work differ about this trip of N.S. Gumilyov. Five months of his journey were not documented: there are almost no letters from this period, no diary entries, although from all the travels before that he regularly sent letters to A. Akhmatova and friends. The route is familiar: Odessa, Constantinople, Port Said, then Djibouti. Miraculously preserved copies of letters from the wife of the Russian envoy in Abyssinia provide information that Gumilyov lived for two months in Addis Ababa and Djibouti. There were legends that Gumilev married an Ethiopian and lived happily in her tribe for three months.

Gumilyov's path can be traced through the stamps of postcards written by him during his voyage to Africa. The sea route was very eventful and was reflected in the poet’s work. Stops in Palestine, Jaffa, Beirut. In the accompanying letter to the manuscript, which Gumilyov sends to St. Petersburg, Mombaza is again indicated as the final destination of the journey, in any case, it is there that the poet asks to transfer the fee for the poem in order to have funds for returning to his homeland.

We are, of course, talking about the port and city of Mombasa, located on a coral island in the Indian Ocean and connected to the mainland by dams and a bridge (now owned by the state of Kenya). At the beginning of the 20th century, the Imperial British East Africa Company was headquartered there. It was the main port of the East African Protectorate and then the colony of Kenya. Back in 1897 - 1901, during the period of intensive development of fertile inland lands, the British built a railway connecting Mombasa with the capital of modern Kenya, Nairobi, and Lake Victoria. We also note that Mombasa is located beyond the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere. This is already a real Black Equatorial Africa, and Gumilyov’s desire to get there is quite understandable. I repeat, there is no exact information that Gumilyov from Addis Ababa went with a caravan to Mombasa. Although if we use Gumilyov’s poems dedicated to this period of his life as a guide, then researchers come across interesting evidence that the poet carried out his plans. On the presented slide you can see a reconstruction of Nikolai Gumilyov’s journey. The first part of the map is a reliably known route. The second part is supposed, probable, reconstructed from scattered documentary evidence. First of all, according to the above letter with the travel project.

Every country that Gumilyov visited, even while passing through, left its mark on his work. Reading his poems, you understand that travel and new countries attracted him so much that the poet excitedly tells his reader about it.

A property of Gumilyov’s poetry noticed by many, especially clearly manifested in the collection “Tent”, written under the influence of this journey: either describe the landscape and events through the eyes of the author (in the first person) - and then real prototypes of poetic images are necessarily found, or give a description as a dream or dream . The entirety of "The Equatorial Forest" is written in the first person, as are most of the poems in "The Tent." The poet could describe the forest on the equator only after seeing it with his own eyes. The poems of “The Tent” contain the true realities of his African travels, which his contemporaries often did not want to hear about, considering it all arbitrary fantasy. Even Akhmatova wrote in her “Notebooks”: “The Tent” is a custom-made book of geography in verse and has nothing to do with his travels...”Perhaps because his wife did not understand and did not share Gumilev’s passion for Africa, upon his arrival in St. Petersburg he published the poem “By the Fireplace.”

According to contemporaries, when Gumilyov began to tell his friends about Africa, Akhmatova defiantly left the room.

This trip to Abyssinia was not only educational. But it turned out to be very useful in a spiritual sense, since it opened the author’s horizons wide, filled his soul with new, bright images and strengthened his self-confidence. On this trip, he collected local folklore, transforming it into a series of original Abyssinian songs, included in the collection “Alien Sky”. Many Abyssinian legends and traditions were used by him in poetry. For example, the poem “Leopard” was written based on an ancient Abyssinian belief.

During his travels, the poet met many interesting people of Abyssinia. Thus he was favorably received at the court of Emperor Menelik in Addis Ababa. This meeting was also described by him in poetry.

Although Gumilyov went to Abyssinia that time without any special assignments, not like in 1913 - on an expedition, from the trip he brought not only the skins of animals killed while hunting, which is what is most often remembered for some reason. Gumilyov returned from his African trip on March 25, and on April 23, No. 18 of the Blue Magazine was published, where an entire spread was entitled “Art in Abyssinia.” The introductory article says:

“The young poet N. Gumilyov, who had just returned from a trip to Abyssinia, brought a rare collection of paintings by Abyssinian artists and provided the latter to us for reproduction on the pages of the Blue Journal.”

And here is what Gumilyov himself wrote:

But months passed, back

I swam and took away elephant tusks,

Paintings by Abyssinian masters,

Panther fur - I liked their spots -

And what was previously incomprehensible

Contempt for the world and fatigue of dreams.

On April 5, 1911, Gumilyov himself made a report on his journey to the editorial office of the Apollo magazine. They didn’t want to hear the traveler. So, for example, G.I. Chulkov wrote to his wife on April 6, 1911 that Gumilyov had read a report “on savages, animals and birds”; K.I. Chukovsky saw in the poet that day “naked sophistication, - without intelligence, a sense of reality, without observation”; M.A. Kuzmin noted in his diary that “the report was stupid, but interesting.” Perhaps, Gumilev’s friend A. Kondratiev recalled this report most fully and relatively objectively: “...I remember Gumilyov’s report at the Apollo editorial office about one of his trips to Abyssinia and about the artists of this country. The largest of the editorial rooms was filled with a large collection of paintings by dark-skinned maestros that he had brought with him (mostly on biblical themes). Nikolai Stepanovich then talked about his hunts for African animals, about an unsuccessful waylaying of a lion, about a meeting with a buffalo that threw the poet high into the thorny bushes, about clashes with the robber tribe of the Adals and other similar interesting things. Gumilev spoke about his hunting exploits very modestly, without any embellishment, apparently, most of all afraid of sounding like Tartarin. Nevertheless, his poet friends depicted his adventures in several humorous poems...” Gumilyov chose to keep silent about many things, so that, as the same A. Kondratyev wrote to Bryusov, “not to remind the hero of several of Daudet’s most successful novels...”.

In St. Petersburg, Gumilev did not find like-minded people and listeners - just like two years later, about which he frankly wrote on January 2, 1915 to Mikhail Lozinsky, he wrote something that can only be trusted by the most faithful friend: “Dear Mikhail Leonidovich, upon arrival at the regiment I received your letter; So you see and appreciate in me only a volunteer, you expect wise, soldierly words from me. I will speak frankly: I have three merits in life so far - my poems, my travels and this war. Of these, the last one, which I value least, exaggerates with annoying persistence everything that is best in St. Petersburg. I'm not talking about the poems, they're not very good, and I get more praise for them than I deserve,I'm sad for Africa. When I returned from the country of Galla a year and a half ago,no one had the patience to listen to my impressions and adventures to the end. But, it’s true, everything that I invented alone and for myself alone, the neighing of zebras at night, crossing crocodile rivers, quarrels and reconciliations with bear-shaped leaders in the middle of the desert, the majestic saint who had never seen whites in his African Vatican - all this much more significant than the sewage disposal work in Europe, which is currently occupied by millions of ordinary people, including myself. Sincerely yours N. Gumilyov.” This letter was already about the expedition to Africa in 1913. Everything happened again.

In 1912 Gumilev conceived an expedition: “to go from south to north the Danakil Desert, lying between Abyssinia and the Red Sea, to explore the lower reaches of the Gavash River, to find out the unknown tribes scattered there...” - and proposed this route to the Academy of Sciences. However, the route was rejected due to significant cost and complexity.

Later, Gumilev developed another route: Djibouti, Harar, then to the south, to the area of ​​​​Lake Zwai, across the Wabi River, to Sheikh Hussein, then to the north, to the village of Lagohardim and to the final destination Addis Ababa.

For the entire trip, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography allocated only a thousand rubles and provided free travel to Djibouti and back.

Despite the plague and cholera quarantines on the Red Sea coast, lack of money and other difficulties, N.S. Gumilyov and his companion N. Sverchkov arrived in Djibouti on the steamer Tambov

Travelers wanted to get to Dire Dawa by rail. But they only managed to get to Aisha station by train. The railway track was severely damaged during the rainy season, which made further movement of the train impossible. The dangerous section of the road was overcome on a platform for transporting stones.

Leaving their equipment in Dire Dawa, the travelers headed to Harar.

“Already from the mountain,” Gumilyov wrote, “Harar presented a majestic view with its red sandstone houses, tall European houses and sharp minarets of mosques. It is surrounded by a wall and the gate is not allowed after sunset. Inside, this is exactly the Baghdad of the times of Harun al-Rashid. Narrow streets that go up and down and down in steps, heavy wooden doors, squares full of noisy people in white clothes, a court right there in the square - all this is full of the charm of old fairy tales.”

Shelter was found “in a Greek hotel, the only one in the city where for a bad table and a bad room... they charged a price worthy of the Parisian Grand Hotel “a.”

While waiting for a pass for further travel around the country, Gumilyov decided to first go to Jijiga to get acquainted with the Somali Gabarizal tribe.

At first, Gumilev wanted to write his travel notes immediately in a literary form suitable for publication. This is confirmed by his words in letters to Akhmatova, sent while on the road: “My diary is going well, and I am writing it so that it can be printed.” For the time being this was possible. However, difficulties arose in preparing for the route, and the notes took on a completely different character - a typical field diary, which is kept from time to time.

The pass has arrived. And the travelers set off.

The crossing of the Uabi River was difficult. The current was fast and the water was infested with crocodiles.

A few days later, the travelers reached the village of Sheikh Hussein, named after a local saint. There was a cave there, from which, according to legend, a sinner could not get out:

I had to undress and crawl between the stones into a very narrow passage. If anyone got stuck, he died in terrible agony: no one dared to extend a hand to him, no one dared to give him a piece of bread or a cup of water...

Gumilyov climbed there and returned safely.

Gumilyov made a great contribution to domestic science. The trophies he brought from Africa joined the collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The poems created by Gumilyov after his travels sharply distinguished the poet from a number of other Russian wordsmiths.

About the museum, in which a collection of objects he brought from Africa was exhibited, Gumilyov wrote:

There is a museum of ethnography in this city

Over the Neva, wide as the Nile,

At the hour when I get tired of being only a poet,

I won't find anything more desirable than him.

I go there to touch savage things,

What I once brought from afar,

Smell their strange, familiar and ominous smell,

The smell of incense, animal hair and roses.

And I see how the sultry sun is burning,

The leopard, bending, crawls towards the enemy,

And how the smoky hut awaits me

For a fun hunt, my old servant.

And then there was the First World War, emigration through Norway and England to France. Returning to his homeland, working as a translator in a publishing house and poetry full of memories.

"A Sentimental Journey" was written in 1920. The poem describes the poet's usual route to Africa. The journey is a dream, which is interrupted by a sudden awakening in cold St. Petersburg.

And then in 1921 the execution.

Why did Gumilev make his travels? It seems to me that the thirst for the unknown, the unknown and the desire to talk about what he saw, to convey the emotional impressions of meeting the new world, moved Gumilyov both when he made his travels and when he talked about them in his poems.

Having analyzed various literary sources, the memoirs of contemporaries, and read and re-read Gumilyov’s poems, I came to the conclusion that if there had not been Gumilyov the traveler, there would have been no Gumilyov the poet.

Probably the fairest monument for the poet would be a geographical object named after him and located in Africa, so beloved by Gumilyov. As he himself wrote in the above poem. But a river on the dark continent was not named after Gumilyov.

But the poet’s biographer Pavel Luknitsky, who was also a traveler, discovered several peaks in the Pamir Mountains in 1932, one of which he gave the name – Tent, after the title of a collection of poems by Nikolai Gumilyov. An unusual monument to the poet appeared long before it was allowed to publish his poems.

Nikolay Gumilyov in Africa

Nikolai Gumilyov has visited Africa several times. The first time his trip was organized was back in 1909, when he traveled to Abyssinia together with Academician Radlov. The impressions received served as the basis for the poems “Mik” and “Abyssinian Songs”. A year later, N.S. Gumilyov, having returned from his honeymoon with A. Gorenko, made a second trip to Africa. On November 30, Tolstoy, Kuzmin and Potemkin escorted Gumilyov to Odessa, from where he was sent by ship to Africa.

During the trip, he wrote letters and postcards from Port Said, Jeddah, Cairo, Djibouti to the parents of A. Gorenko, his friends from Apollo - Znosko-Borovsky, Auslender, Potemkin, Kuzmin. Two postcards to Bryusov. Arrived in Odessa on December 1st. From Odessa by sea: Varna - December 3, Constantinople - December 5, Alexandria - December 8-9, Cairo - December 12. On the way, he wrote a “Letter on Russian Poetry” and sent it to Apollo. Port Said - December 16, Jeddah - December 19-20, Djibouti - December 22-23. On December 24, I left Djibouti on mules for Harar. On the road, he hunted animals and also took their curious illustrations from local residents.

From Luknitsky’s diary (undated):
From Africa in 1910 he brought two glasses made of rhinoceros horn, which were given to him. From Addis Ababa he made extensive excursions... Once he got lost in the forest (the Ashkers stayed in a tent, and he moved away from them and lost his way). Stopped on the banks of the Niger (?). On the opposite bank I saw a herd of hippopotamuses - they were swimming. I heard the shots of the Ashkers.

From a letter from Vyach. Ivanov:
Dear and dear Vyacheslav Ivanovich, until the last minute I was hoping to receive your telegram or at least a letter, but, alas, there is neither one nor the other. I had a great trip to Djibouti and will continue on tomorrow. I will try to get to Addis Ababa, organizing escapades along the way. This is the real Africa. Heat, naked blacks, tame monkeys. I am completely consoled and feel great. Greetings from here to the Academy of Verse. Now I’ll go swimming, fortunately sharks are rare here.”

The return route from Africa was as follows: Gumilyov left Djibouti on January 7. At the beginning of February I went to Kyiv for two days to visit Anna Gorenko and then immediately to St. Petersburg. On February 6, Gumilyov's father unexpectedly died. On April 16, 1910, the local publishing house "Skorshyun" published a book of poems by Gumilyov, "Pearls", with a dedication to V. Ya. Bryusov.

During his travels in Africa, Gumilyov often described in his poems the interesting picturesque places he passed by and the animals he saw:

See the monkeys rushing
With a wild cry at the vines,
That hang low, low,
Can you hear the rustling of my feet?
It means close, close
From your forest clearing
Angry rhinoceros...

In 1912, Nikolai Gumilyov, on the recommendation of Professor Zh., presented his work on Africa to the Academy of Sciences. Soon a trip (already the third) of the poet is scheduled. In the spring of 1913, on the recommendation of Academician V. Radlov, he was sent by the Academy of Sciences as the head of an African expedition to the Somali Peninsula to study the unexplored tribes of the Galla, Harrarites and others, and to compile collections of objects of East African life along the route: Djibouti - Jime Dawa - Harar - Sheikh Hussein - Ginir. Gumilyov's expedition to Africa was the first expedition equipped by the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography during its entire existence..."

Gumilyov admitted: “... I have a dream that lives on despite all the difficulties of its fulfillment. To pass from south to north the Danakil desert, lying between Abyssinia and the Red Sea, to explore the lower reaches of the Gavasha River, to recognize the unknown mysterious tribes scattered there...” But This route was recognized by the Academy of Sciences as too expensive, and the following was chosen: “Go to the port of Djibouti in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, from there by rail to Harar, then, forming a caravan, south to the area lying between the Somali Peninsula and the Rudolf Lakes , Margarita, Zvay; to capture as large a research area as possible... N. Gumilyov chose his relative N. L. Sverchkov as his assistant. The departure was planned for April 1913.

“On April 7 we left St. Petersburg, on April 9 we were in Odessa in the morning.” On the 10th, I left Odessa with my companion on the Voluntary Fleet steamship Tambov and set out to sea. On the way to the port of Djibouti, we encountered such cities as Constantinople, unfortunately, where there was cholera, Istanbul, Jidua, where the plague raged. Gumilyov and Sverchkov sailed through the Suez Canal, and in the same Constantinople they were joined by the Turkish consul, who was traveling to Harar.

During his travels, Gumilyov never parted with his briefcase.

Arriving in Djibouti, our hero had to stay there for three days waiting for the train to Dire Dawa. But due to heavy rain, the tracks were washed out, and so we had to stop halfway, at Aisha station. They promised to make the road only in eight days, and all passengers went back. Only Gumilyov, Sverchkov and the Turkish consul, with the help of handcars and then a repair train, quickly reached Dire Dawa, although they suffered blisters and burns in the process. Having equipped the caravan, Gumilyov and his friend set off for Harar. There the poet met his acquaintances, thanks to whom he was able to buy several mules cheaply and in just three days, which by city standards was quite fast. Further their path lay to lakes Margarita and Rudolf, but, unfortunately, they were prevented by some difficulties. Previously, when traveling around Abyssinia, it was necessary to have a pass with you, but for some reason Gumilyov did not have one. Even a telegram to Djibouti and a familiar Turkish consul did not help Gumilyov. In connection with these circumstances, the poet went back to Dire Dawa. It was there that N. Gumilyov collected ethnographic collections, sometimes not being afraid to ask passers-by what they were wearing. N. Sverchkov at this time was interested in insects in the river valley.

Already at the end of September, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov handed over to the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography photographs and objects of life of the peoples of the “black” continent brought from Africa. Then the poet recalled this event in his poem:

There is a Museum of Ethnography in this city,
Over the Neva, wide as the Nile,
At the hour when I get tired of being only a poet,
I won't find anything more desirable than him...

I go there to touch savage things,
What I once brought from afar...

The poet Nikolai Gumilyov has visited Africa several times. Both as a traveler and as an expedition leader. He visited Egypt, the French coast of Somalia, but his main goal was Abyssinia.

When exactly the poet Nikolai Gumilyov visited Egypt for the first time is a debatable question. Either in 1907, or in 1908. “The 1908 version” was adhered to by A. A. Akhmatova, which was the decisive argument for many researchers and biographers of Gumilyov. Gumilyov himself did not at all deny the fact of his trip to Egypt in 1907, although he did not confirm it.

The poet long dreamed of traveling to Africa, but his father was against it. He claimed that he would not give Nikolai either money or blessings for such an “extravagant trip” until he graduated from university. Since 1906, Nikolai Gumilev lived in Paris: he attended lectures on French literature at the Sorbonne. He managed to save the funds needed for the trip from the money his parents sent him.

Shortly before the trip, he proposed marriage to Anna Gorenko, who would soon become the famous poetess Anna Akhmatova, and was refused. Perhaps this refusal also influenced the decision of 21-year-old Nikolai to go to Africa - in this way he wanted to prove to his beloved that he was worthy to be with her.

There is very little information about the 1907 trip. The trip was carefully hidden from my parents. Allegedly, the prudent Nikolai wrote several letters to his family in advance, and his friends sent them to Russia every ten days.

2 Second trip. Egypt

We can speak with greater confidence about Gumilyov’s trip to Egypt in 1908. On the morning of September 10, 1908, he arrived in Odessa and on the same day, on the steamship of the Russian Society of Steamships and Trade “Russia”, went to Sinop. I spent 4 days in quarantine there. Next - to Constantinople.

On October 1, Gumilev arrived in Alexandria, on the 3rd - in Cairo. He went sightseeing, visited Ezbekiye, swam in the Nile. From Egypt, Nikolai Gumilyov wrote to V. Ya. Bryusov: “Dear Valery Yakovlevich, I could not help but remember you, being “near the slow Nile, where Lake Merida is, in the kingdom of fiery Ra.” But alas! I can't travel into the interior of the country as I dreamed of. I’ll see the Sphinx, lie down on the stones of Memphis, and then I’ll go, I don’t know where, but not to Rome. Maybe to Palestine or Asia Minor."

But the poet did not have enough money to travel to Palestine and Asia Minor. And he went home.

3 Third trip. French coast of Somalia

On November 30, 1909, Gumilyov went on a journey again. On December 1, he arrived in Odessa. From there by sea to Varna, Constantinople, and then to Alexandria. On December 12, Gumilyov was in Cairo, on December 16 - in Port Said, on December 19-20 - in Jeddah, and on December 22-23 - in Djibouti. On December 24, Gumilyov left Djibouti on mules for Harar. On the road he hunted animals.

In a letter to V.I. Ivanov, the poet wrote: “I had a great ride to Djibouti and will continue on tomorrow. I will try to get to Addis Ababa, organizing escapades along the way. This is the real Africa. Heat, naked blacks, tame monkeys. I am completely consoled and feel great. Greetings from here to the Academy of Verse. Now I’ll go swimming, fortunately sharks are rare here.”

And Gumilev wrote to Bryusov from Harar: “Yesterday I did twelve hours (70 kilometers) on a mule, today I have to travel another eight hours (50 kilometers) to find leopards. Since the Principality of Harar is located on a mountain, it is not as hot as it was in Dire Dawa, where I came from. There is only one hotel here and the prices are, of course, terrible. But tonight I will have to sleep in the open air, if I have to sleep at all, because leopards usually appear at night. There are lions and elephants here, but they are rare, like our moose, and you have to rely on your luck to find them.” Gumilyov did not reach Addis Ababa then; from Harar he set off on the return journey.

4 Fourth trip. Abyssinia

In the fall of 1910, Nikolai Gumilyov again went to Africa. On October 12 he arrived in Cairo, on October 13 in Port Said, and on October 25 in Djibouti. The day after arriving in Djibouti, Gumilev traveled along the narrow-gauge railway to Dire Dawa. From there, Gumilyov still intended to get to Addis Ababa. The railway did not go any further; it was just beginning to be built. The path again lay in Harar, again on a mule.

In Harare, days passed after days, and Gumilyov still could not find a caravan with which to go to Addis Ababa. Only at the end of November the opportunity presented itself to leave on a mule with a large caravan going to the capital of the country.

After passing the Chercher Desert, Gumilyov reached Addis Ababa. I settled in the Hotel d’Imperatrisse, then moved to the Hotel Terrasse. There he was robbed. Addis Ababa was a very young city. In the center were several European two- and three-story houses surrounded by thatch-roofed huts. The palace of the Negus rose on the hill. For days on end, Gumilyov wandered the streets, observing local life.

Gumilyov visited the Russian missionary in Abyssinia, Boris Aleksandrovich Cheremzin, and then, having become friends with him, visited him several times. Together with Cheremzin, on December 25, Gumilyov attended a ceremonial dinner at the Negus palace in honor of the heir to the Abyssinian emperor Lidzh-Yasu.

From Addis Ababa to Djibouti, Gumilyov again walked through the desert and, with the local poet Ato-Joseph, collected Abyssinian songs and household items. At the end of February 1911, from Djibouti by steamship through Alexandria, Constantinople, and Odessa, Gumilyov set off for Russia. He was sick with severe African fever.

5 Fifth trip. Abyssinia

Gumilyov's most famous trip to Africa took place in 1913. It was well organized and coordinated with the Academy of Sciences. At first, Gumilev wanted to cross the Danakil desert, study little-known tribes and try to civilize them, but the Academy rejected this route as expensive, and the poet was forced to propose a new route: “I had to go to the port of Djibouti in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, from there by railway road to Harar, then, forming a caravan, to the south, to the region lying between the Somali Peninsula and lakes Rudolph, Margaret, Zwai; cover the largest possible study area; take photographs, collect ethnographic collections, record songs and legends. In addition, I was given the right to collect zoological collections.” Together with Gumilyov, his nephew Nikolai Sverchkov went to Africa as a photographer.

First, Gumilyov went to Odessa, then to Constantinople. There he met the Turkish consul Mozar Bey, who was traveling to Harar; they continued their journey together. They headed to Egypt, and from there to Djibouti. The travelers were supposed to go inland by rail, but after 260 km the train stopped because the rains washed out the track. Most of the passengers returned, but Gumilyov, Sverchkov and Mozar Bey begged the workers for a handcar and drove 80 km of damaged track on it. From Dire Dawa the poet set off in a caravan to Harar.

Street in Djibouti. Photo from the collection of the Kunstkamera

In Harare, Gumilyov bought mules. There he also met Ras Tefari, the governor of Harar, who later became Emperor Haile Selassie I. From Harar the path lay through the little-explored Galla lands to the village of Sheikh Hussein. On the way, we had to cross the fast-water Uabi River, where Nikolai Sverchkov was almost dragged away by a crocodile. Soon problems with provisions began. Gumilev was forced to hunt for food. When the goal was achieved, the leader and spiritual mentor of Sheikh Hussein Aba Muda sent provisions to the expedition and warmly received it. Having written down the life of Sheikh Hussein, the expedition moved to the city of Ginir. Having replenished the collection and collected water in Ginir, the travelers went west, on a difficult journey to the village of Matakua.

Abyssinian church and bell tower under construction in Harare. Photo from the collection of the Kunstkamera

Then, on July 26, Gumilyov's African diary is interrupted. On August 11, the expedition reached the Dera Valley. Then Gumilyov safely reached Harar and in mid-August was already in Djibouti, but due to financial difficulties he was stuck there for three weeks. He returned to Russia on September 1.