tribes, and a troublesome Turkoman Kyrgyz-Kaisak Khanate that lay farther southeast. Anna was against the relocation but conceded when Andrei presentedit this way: either this, a safe garrison option, or they would keep sending him to the front line.
I thought the dilemma was false but kept my opinion to myself.
• • •
In March 1772 my brother and his family reached Orenburg. The rumors about troubles on the Yayeek were already circulating by then. Yayeek is a river, or rather, the river used to be called Yayeek, before Empress Ekaterine punished it by renaming it Ural—just a few years after the turmoil we were about to live through. Yayeek harbored a population of very disgruntled Cossacks.
A Cossack, it may be said, is what one gets when the institution of knighthood is transplanted onto Russian soil. By tradition, they are professional cavalrymen, they live on their land lots, and have rights and privileges. They are not serfs, yet they are more peasants than knights. Always have been. And when they grumble, it is not because they have no liberties. They know their own weight in gold, and know when and how to bargain for more. In 1771 it took the form of an uprising.
Orenburg was about a hundred fifty miles up the Yayeek from the epicenter of the unrest.
I would have liked to point a finger at my brother— You brought it upon yourself —but that would have been the old me. The new me wrote to Anna with gentle concern.
She replied, yes, there had been rumbles downriver, but life in Orenburg went about its way unchanged. Nothing to worry about.
So I didn’t. Almost a year slipped by. Anna miscarried their second child. I won back the good graces of Paul Svetogorov. The command promoted us to captain rank and we moved to the top floor of the Leib Company House next to the Winter Palace. And then came the summer and fall of 1773.
• • •
At first it was a hazy apparition. Anna wrote,
In Yayeek-town, they say Cossacks received a new leader who claims to be [the next two words were crossed out—self-censorship—after all, she wanted this letter to reach St. Petersburg] what he is certainly not, and they say he stirs up serfs and Tatars wherever he drifts. The day before yesterday, Collegiate Secretary Ivanov returned from a business trip to the city of Kazan and he tells me he ran into a disorderly crowd on the New Moscow road. They refused to let his coach through, and when he became intemperate with them, they threatened him with the “true Father-Ruler who will come and straighten him out, and those like him, on the gallows tree.” Andrei is confident this upset will pass the way the previous one did. I agree with him in my head, but my heart is troubled. The doctor attributes my low spirits to my miscarriage, and I find his opinion rather believable. So please do not worry about us; one melancholy woman’s premonitions cannot possibly be more right than the wisdom of a military officer and his commanders.
I made inquiries the same day. Since 1770 we had had a kinsman as a governor of St. Petersburg—my once- or twice-removed uncle and namesake, field marshal Alexander M. Velitzyn—and I was able to extract some information from him. He told me there was nothing to worry about: no one had heard of any popular new leader in the Yayeek region. Only a few minor criminals were active in the area, but that was nothing new.
In September I wrote to Anna with everything I’d learned, and suggested that she should consider visiting home, for a rehabilitation of her delicate state.
In early October she wrote, and I received the letter at the end of October.
Dear Alexander,
I should like so very much to receive a letter from you. These days I am in need of your support more than ever.
After dinner in our home, officers were whispering among themselves and I overheard. Some were saying that all forts between here and the Cossack capital on the Yayeek are taken, and others said it was not true,
I thought the dilemma was false but kept my opinion to myself.
• • •
In March 1772 my brother and his family reached Orenburg. The rumors about troubles on the Yayeek were already circulating by then. Yayeek is a river, or rather, the river used to be called Yayeek, before Empress Ekaterine punished it by renaming it Ural—just a few years after the turmoil we were about to live through. Yayeek harbored a population of very disgruntled Cossacks.
A Cossack, it may be said, is what one gets when the institution of knighthood is transplanted onto Russian soil. By tradition, they are professional cavalrymen, they live on their land lots, and have rights and privileges. They are not serfs, yet they are more peasants than knights. Always have been. And when they grumble, it is not because they have no liberties. They know their own weight in gold, and know when and how to bargain for more. In 1771 it took the form of an uprising.
Orenburg was about a hundred fifty miles up the Yayeek from the epicenter of the unrest.
I would have liked to point a finger at my brother— You brought it upon yourself —but that would have been the old me. The new me wrote to Anna with gentle concern.
She replied, yes, there had been rumbles downriver, but life in Orenburg went about its way unchanged. Nothing to worry about.
So I didn’t. Almost a year slipped by. Anna miscarried their second child. I won back the good graces of Paul Svetogorov. The command promoted us to captain rank and we moved to the top floor of the Leib Company House next to the Winter Palace. And then came the summer and fall of 1773.
• • •
At first it was a hazy apparition. Anna wrote,
In Yayeek-town, they say Cossacks received a new leader who claims to be [the next two words were crossed out—self-censorship—after all, she wanted this letter to reach St. Petersburg] what he is certainly not, and they say he stirs up serfs and Tatars wherever he drifts. The day before yesterday, Collegiate Secretary Ivanov returned from a business trip to the city of Kazan and he tells me he ran into a disorderly crowd on the New Moscow road. They refused to let his coach through, and when he became intemperate with them, they threatened him with the “true Father-Ruler who will come and straighten him out, and those like him, on the gallows tree.” Andrei is confident this upset will pass the way the previous one did. I agree with him in my head, but my heart is troubled. The doctor attributes my low spirits to my miscarriage, and I find his opinion rather believable. So please do not worry about us; one melancholy woman’s premonitions cannot possibly be more right than the wisdom of a military officer and his commanders.
I made inquiries the same day. Since 1770 we had had a kinsman as a governor of St. Petersburg—my once- or twice-removed uncle and namesake, field marshal Alexander M. Velitzyn—and I was able to extract some information from him. He told me there was nothing to worry about: no one had heard of any popular new leader in the Yayeek region. Only a few minor criminals were active in the area, but that was nothing new.
In September I wrote to Anna with everything I’d learned, and suggested that she should consider visiting home, for a rehabilitation of her delicate state.
In early October she wrote, and I received the letter at the end of October.
Dear Alexander,
I should like so very much to receive a letter from you. These days I am in need of your support more than ever.
After dinner in our home, officers were whispering among themselves and I overheard. Some were saying that all forts between here and the Cossack capital on the Yayeek are taken, and others said it was not true,
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