V. N. Voeikov
And so, looking through "Martyrology", I found in it the surname of a person of truly amazing fate, so amazing that you can actually shoot a film or write a novel about him. Few know about him today. But in tsarist Russia his name was heard, and people with a position over him even laughed and called … "a general from the Kuvakeria." We are talking about Vladimir Nikolaevich Voeikov, major general, commandant of the suite of His Imperial Majesty, statesman of Russia and … the founder of the Kuvaka water bottling plant, which still operates in the Penza region. So, for more than a hundred years now, we have been "on drink" the legacy of the Russian Empire. The country is now completely different, and [right] [/right] here "Kuwaka" flowed from the ground as well as flows. But it was just the efforts of General Voeikov that it became a commodity … Today our story will go about him.
The future general was born in 1868 on August 14 in St. Petersburg, where he spent his childhood. He belonged to an old noble family, known from the XIV century. Father - General of the cavalry Chief Chamberlain of the Court E. I. V. Voeikov N. V., had a large estate in the Penza province, and Dolgorukov V. V.'s mother was also not an ordinary one, but the daughter of the Moscow Governor-General Prince V. A. Dolgorukov. He himself, in turn, was married to the daughter of the Minister of the Imperial Court and Districts, Adjutant General Count V. B. Fredericks Evgeniya Vladimirovna Frederiks. And he was also the godfather of the holy martyr Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov.
Voeikov V. N. and Baron V. B. Fredericks.
His career was direct and traditional: 1882-1887. training in the Corps of Pages, from where he was released in the rank of a cornet into the Cavalry Regiment. In 1894, a business trip abroad followed as an orderly for the Adjutant General of Admiral O. K. Kremer, whose task was to announce the accession to the throne of Emperor Nicholas II.
From 1887 he served in the cavalry guard. But in 1897-1898. worked as a clerk for the restructuring of the regimental church in the name of Sts. righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth at the barracks of the Cavalry Regiment in St. Petersburg, for which he personally raised funds, and then was appointed as the church leader.
In 1890 he was recorded in the 6th part of the Noble Genealogy Book of the Penza province and was elected an honorary citizen of Nizhny Lomov. From July 1900 to August 1905 he commanded a squadron of the Cavalry Regiment with the rank of captain.
Guard captain V. N. Voeikov dressed as an archer of the Stremyanny order of the times of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich at a costume ball in 1903
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. took part in hostilities in Manchuria: as part of the Red Cross service, he evacuated the sick and wounded.
In 1906, already being in the rank of colonel, he was granted to the adjutant wing, and from 1907 to 1911 he commanded His Majesty's Life Guards Hussar Regiment. And he not only commanded, but actively dealt with the issues of physical education of the troops, and in 1910 he wrote the "Manual for training the troops in gymnastics."
Kutuzov Embankment (French Embankment), no. 8, where General Voeikov lived.
In 1911, he was promoted to major general. In 1912, General Voeikov heads the Russian Olympic Committee and leads the Russian delegation to the V Olympic Games in Stockholm.). Since June 1913, he … Chief Observer of the Physical Development of the Population of the Russian Empire. That is, they were engaged in tsarist Russia and this …
At his home on the estate in Kamenka with his comrades in the regiment.
On December 24, 1913, Voeikov was appointed commandant of the suite of His Imperial Majesty, that is, he received one of the most responsible government positions, led the protection of the emperor and his family, and accompanying the sovereign on all his trips across Russia, ensured their safety. At the same time, he organized the production and sale of Kuvaka mineral water on his estate near Penza. For many, this seemed strange at the time. Well, the general shouldn't have bothered about some pipes, ordering where to drill the ground, and then watch how this water is bottled. But … he himself did not pay attention to the sidelong glances and whispers behind his back, and Nikolai II, when he was reported about this, invariably replied that he was completely satisfied with the work of General Voeikov. Meanwhile, due to the development of production and agriculture in Kamenka, he literally raised the economic level of the village. As a result, his estate became one of the largest and most promising in the Penza province. He advertised his water even while abroad. Having taken a table in a Parisian restaurant and sitting at it in his general's uniform, he demanded that Kuwak water be supplied, and when it was not served, he was offended and promised that he would not come to this restaurant again. Naturally, the restaurant owners immediately ordered this water in Russia and … advertised it. Gradually I liked the water and … "went", bringing Voyikoy huge profits.
Here it is - the Penza water "Kuvaka"!
However, he did not put it in the jar. For example, with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he opened an infirmary for the wounded in Kamenka.
In 1915, he was in correspondence with the archimandrite of the Nizhny Lomovsk Kazan Monastery Leonty (Khopersky) about sending a copy of the Nizhny Lomovsk miraculous image of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God to the headquarters of Nicholas II and at the same time he was the trustee of the Intercession-Nicholas Convent at the village. Virga Nizhnelomovskiy district, which in 1916 alone was visited by more than 16 thousand pilgrims. And in 1916, for his charitable labors, he was awarded an archpastoral blessing for the improvement of this holy monastery.
The last time he visited the Nizhny Lomovsk district was in August 1916, and then he was inseparably with the sovereign-emperor until his abdication and, by the way, in every possible way dissuaded him from this step.
I saw the emperor for the last time on March 5, 1917 at the headquarters in Mogilev and wrote about this: “His Majesty, in a sincere voice in warm expressions, expressed how he appreciated my sometimes difficult service, and expressed gratitude for the constant devotion to him and the Empress. Embracing me for the last time with tears in his eyes, the sovereign left the office, leaving in me a painful feeling that this is the last meeting and that a terrible black abyss is opening up for the tsar, as well as for Russia."
Mogilev. Bid. General Voeikov and Tsarevich Alexei.
On March 7, 1917, when Voeikov went from Mogilev to his Penza estate, to Kamenka, he was arrested at the Vyazma station of the Smolensk province and sent to Moscow, where he was first interrogated, then for some reason he was transported to Petrograd to the Tauride Palace.
In March, he was imprisoned in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he learned about the defeat of his estate in Kamenka by the peasants, and where he was interrogated, and where he happened to experience both hunger and cold. But there were also pleasant moments. Thus, one day, after Easter Matins, soldiers entered his cell, breaking fast; sang three times "Christ is Risen!" and having made Christ with him, they departed.
In the fall of 1917, he managed to free himself from the Peter and Paul Fortress under the pretext of a nervous illness and get into a private clinic for the mentally and mentally ill Dr. A. G. Konasevich. But he was very much afraid of another arrest and fled from her and hid in different apartments.
He established contact with the royal family, located in Tobolsk: and together with his wife began to send them letters and parcels. Tried to flee to Finland, but could not cross the border. He returned to Petrograd, where he began to portray the insane and for a while found himself shelter in an insane asylum on the outskirts of the city. Having learned about the arrest of his wife, he decided to leave Russia. Literally miraculously made his way to Belarus, and then to Ukraine and Odessa. In 1919 he moved to Romania, then lived in Bucharest, Berlin, Danzig, Bern and Copenhagen. His wife, Eugenia Frederiks, was taken hostage and held in a Moscow concentration camp in the Ivanovsky monastery.
Upon arrival in Finland, Voeikov settled at the dacha of the doctor Botkin in Terijoki, where in August 1925 his wife Yevgenia came to him, who finally received permission to leave the USSR with her father and sister.
In 1920, he received a residence permit in Finland, where he lived until the Soviet-Finnish (Winter) War in the resort town of Terijoki on the shore of the Gulf of Finland (today Zelenogorsk).
In 1936 he wrote and published a book of memoirs about life at the Court "With the Tsar and without the Tsar."
When in November 1939 there was a threat of the capture of Vyborg by Soviet troops, Marshal K. G. Mannerheim immediately came to the aid of his comrade in the Cavalry Regiment and sent several trucks on which his family was able to move to Helsinki.
In March 1940, Voeikov moved to Sweden, to Stockholm, and then to his suburb of Jursholm. In 1947, on October 8, he died in Stockholm, but was buried in Helsinki in the grave of his father-in-law, Count V. B. Fredericksz. Voeikov's wife was later buried there. In his book, he wrote the following: "My life's cross until the end of my days will be the thought that I was powerless in the fight against the betrayal that surrounded the throne and could not save the life of the one from whom I, like all Russian people, saw only one good" * …
But what remains of his estate today … But there could be a museum, a sanatorium, finally. But no! "Peace to huts - war to palaces."
Such is the life in Russia and beyond its borders lived by the "general from the Kuvakeriya" V. N. Voeikov, who worked for her and his own good. He failed to save the king, but … but he managed to save his own wife, which at that time and in those circumstances few could. Well, and we enjoy drinking the Kuvaka water that he discovered today!
* V. N. Voeikov. With the Tsar and without the Tsar. Memories of the last palace commandant. Minsk, 2002; Penza Encyclopedia, p. 93; Local history, 2001, p. 83-94.
