Andrey Belyaev read online. Fantast Alexander Belyaev died in the rear of the Nazis. Traveling around Europe and passion for theater

Alexander Romanovich Belyaev - was born on March 4 (16 n.s.) in Smolensk in the family of a priest. Since childhood, he read a lot, was fond of adventure literature, especially Jules Verne. Subsequently, he flew on airplanes of one of the first designs, he made gliders himself.

In 1901 he graduated from the seminary, but did not become a priest; on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. He loved painting, music, theater, played in amateur performances, took photographs, and studied technology.

He entered the legal lyceum in Yaroslavl and at the same time studied at the conservatory in the violin class. To earn money for his studies, he played in a circus orchestra, painted theatrical scenery, and was engaged in journalism. In 1906, after graduating from the Lyceum, he returned to Smolensk, worked as a barrister. Acted as music critic, theater reviewer in the newspaper "Smolensky Vestnik".

He did not stop dreaming about distant countries and, having saved up money, in 1913 he traveled to Italy, France, and Switzerland. He kept the memories of this trip for the rest of his life. Returning to Smolensk, he worked in the Smolensky Vestnik, a year later he became the editor of this publication. A serious illness - bone tuberculosis - for six years, three of which he was in a cast, chained him to bed. Not succumbing to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, reads a lot. Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, serving as a juvenile inspector. On the advice of doctors, he lives in Yalta, works as an educator in orphanage.

In 1923 he moved to Moscow, began a serious literary activity. He publishes science fiction stories, novels in the magazines Vokrug Sveta, Znanie-Sila, Vsemirnyi Pathfinder, earning the title of "Soviet Jules Verne". In 1925 he published the story "Professor Dowell's Head", which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story: he wanted to tell "what a head without a body can experience."

In the 1920s, such famous works, like "Island of Lost Ships", "Amphibian Man", "Above the Abyss", "Struggle on the Air". He writes essays about the great Russian scientists - Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Tsiolkovsky.

In 1931 he moved to Leningrad, continuing to work hard. He was especially interested in the problems of space exploration and ocean depths. In 1934, after reading Belyaev's novel The Airship, Tsiolkovsky wrote: “... wittily written and scientific enough for fantasy. Let me express my pleasure to Comrade Belyaev.”

In 1933 the book Leap into Nothing was published, 1935 - The Second Moon. In the 1930s, “Star of the KETs”, “Wonderful Eye”, “Under the Sky of the Arctic” were written.

He spent the last years of his life near Leningrad, in the city of Pushkin. War met in the hospital.

In his science fiction novels, Alexander BELYAEV anticipated the emergence of a huge number of inventions and scientific ideas: The KEC Star depicts the prototype of modern orbital stations, Amphibian Man and Professor Dowell's Head show the miracles of transplantology, Eternal Bread shows the achievements of modern biochemistry and genetics.
He had a great imagination and knew how to look far into the future, thanks to which he magnificently painted people's destinies in unusual, fantastic circumstances. Alexander Belyaev could not foresee one thing - what would be his own last days. If biographers know almost everything about the life of the writer, then the circumstances of the death of the "Soviet Jules Verne" are still mysterious.
The place of his burial is also a mystery. After all, a memorial stele at the Kazan cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo ( former Pushkin. - K.G.) is installed only on the alleged grave.

For three days in a row, the retreating units of the Red Army stretched through Pushkin in an endless file. The last truck with our soldiers passed on September 17, 1941, and by evening the Germans appeared in the city. There were so few of them that 12-year-old Sveta, looking at the enemy soldiers through the window, was even a little confused. It was incomprehensible to her why the invincible Red Army was running away from a small group of machine gunners? It seemed to the girl that they could be slammed in two counts. Then she did not yet know that in just three months the war would kill her dad, the famous Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev. And the rest of the family members will then wander around the camps and links for 15 years. However, we started our conversation with the daughter of the "Soviet Jules Verne" from a different topic.

As a child, he loved to swing devils on his leg

Svetlana Aleksandrovna, please tell us how your parents met?
- It happened in Yalta, in the late 1920s. My mother's family lived in this city for quite a long time, and my father came there in 1917 for treatment. In those years, he had already developed spinal tuberculosis, which put him in a plaster bed for three and a half years. Later, he will write that it was during this period that he managed to change his mind and re-feel everything that a “head without a body” can experience. However, the father's illness did not prevent either their acquaintance or the development of relations.

SVETLANA ALEKSANDROVNA: the pre-war years were the happiest

When the doctors made a special corset for dad, mom helped him learn to walk again. And her love finally put him on his feet. By the way, before meeting my mother, my father had another wife named Verochka. When he fell ill with severe pleurisy and lay with high temperature, Verochka left him, saying that she did not get married in order to become a nurse.
- Did your father tell you anything about his childhood?
- He is not much, but I remember most of these stories very well. I especially liked the story about the devil. Dad, after all, grew up in a family of a priest, and as a child, the nanny often scolded him for the habit of crossing his legs. "There is nothing unclean to swing!" - said the woman in the hearts. Dad always obeyed the nanny, but as soon as she left the room, he immediately crossed his legs, imagining that a cute little devil was sitting on the tip of his leg. "Let him sway until the nanny sees," he thought.
In the evening, when mother and grandmother went to breathe fresh air We stayed at home alone. And he came up with all sorts of things for me incredible stories. Let's say about tailed people who used to live on earth. Their tails did not bend, and before sitting down, they always drilled a hole in the ground for the tail. I remember I believed this for a long time. And shortly before the war, he promised me to write a children's fairy tale - about me and my friends in the yard. It's a pity that I didn't make it.

Marauders removed the suit from the deceased

From the memoirs of Svetlana Belyaeva: “Having occupied the city, the Germans began to walk around the yards, looking for Russian soldiers. When they came to our house, I answered in German that my mother and grandmother had gone to the doctor, and my father was not a soldier at all, but a famous Soviet writer , but he cannot get up, because he is very ill. This news did not make much impression on them. "
- Svetlana Aleksandrovna, why wasn't your family evacuated from Pushkin before the Germans entered the city?
“My father had been seriously ill for many years. He could move independently only in a special corset, and even then for short distances. I had enough strength to wash and sometimes eat at the table. The rest of the time, dad watched the course of life from a height ... own bed. In addition, shortly before the war, he underwent kidney surgery. He was so weak that leaving was out of the question. The Union of Writers, which at that time was engaged in the evacuation of writers' children, offered to take me out, but my parents refused this offer. In 1940, I developed tuberculosis of the knee joint, and I met the war in a cast. Mom often repeated then: "To die, so together!" However, fate was pleased to dispose of otherwise.

SVETA BELYAEVA: this is how the writer's daughter met the war

There are still quite a few versions about the death of your father. Why did he die anyway?
- From hunger. In our family, it was not customary to make some kind of stock for the winter. If you needed something, your mother or grandmother would go to the market and just buy groceries. In a word, when the Germans entered the city, we had several bags of cereals, some potatoes and a barrel of sauerkraut, which our friends gave us. The cabbage, I remember, tasted nasty, but we were still very happy. And when these supplies ran out, my grandmother had to go to work for the Germans. She asked to go into the kitchen to peel potatoes. For this, every day they gave her a pot of soup and some potato husks, from which we baked cakes. We had enough of such meager food, but for my father in his position this was not enough. He began to swell from hunger and eventually died ...
- Some researchers believe that Alexander Romanovich simply could not bear the horrors of the fascist occupation.
- I don’t know how my father experienced all this, but I was very scared. I will never forget a man hanging from a pole with a sign on his chest: "The judge is a friend of the Jews." At that time, anyone could be executed without trial or investigation. Most of all we were worried about my mother. She often went to our old apartment to pick up some things from there. If she had been caught doing this, she could easily have been hanged like a thief. Moreover, the gallows stood right under our windows, and every day my father saw how the Germans executed innocent residents. Maybe his heart really gave out...

ALEXANDER BELYAEV WITH WIFE MARGARIT AND FIRST DAUGHTER: the death of little Lyudochka was the first with great grief in a fantasy family

I heard that the Germans didn't even let you and your mother bury Alexander Romanovich...
- Dad died on January 6, 1942, but it was not possible to take him to the cemetery right away. Mom went to the city government, and there it turned out that there was only one horse left in the city and that they had to wait in line. The coffin with the father's body was placed in an empty apartment next door, and my mother went to visit him every day. A few days later, someone took off my dad's suit. So he lay in his underwear until the gravedigger took him away. At that time, many people were simply covered with earth in common ditches, but one had to pay for a separate grave. Mom took some things to the gravedigger, and he swore that he would bury his father like a human. True, he immediately said that he would not dig a grave in frozen ground. The coffin with the body was placed in the cemetery chapel and had to be buried with the onset of the first warm weather. Alas, we were not destined to wait for this: on February 5, they took me, my mother and grandmother into captivity, so they buried my father without us.

The Germans laughed at them, but the Russians hated them.

Why did you end up in a special camp where Russian "foreigners" were kept?
- I got foreign roots from my maternal grandmother. Before the war, passports were changed, and for some reason they decided to change the grandmother's nationality. As a result, she turned from a Swede into a German. And for the company, the Germans also recorded my mother, despite the Russian name and surname. I remember very well how they laughed merrily when they returned home. Who knew then that the banal mistake of a passport officer could turn into a camp term.
When the Germans came to Pushkin, they immediately registered all the Volksdeutsches. In the middle of February 1942 we ended up in one of the camps in West Prussia. They took us away from the USSR, allegedly saving us from Soviet power, and then for some reason they put us behind barbed wire. The food was so poor that very soon we even began to eat grass and dandelions. On Sundays locals They came to stare at us like animals in a zoo. It was unbearable...

MARGARITA BELYAEVA WITH DAUGHTER SVETA: together we went through fascist camps and Soviet exile

This whole nightmare should have ended for you no later than May 9, 1945.
- The last camp in which we sat was in Austria, but the troubles did not end for our family, even when the country capitulated. The head of the camp escaped. And so they entered the city soviet tanks. Many of the prisoners rushed to meet them. They shouted on the go: "Ours are coming!" Suddenly the column stopped, the commander got out of the lead car and said: “It’s a pity we didn’t get to you before the surrender, they would have sent you all to hell!” Children and old people stood as if struck by thunder, trying to understand why they did not please the soldiers-liberators so much. Soviet soldiers, apparently, they mistook us for the Germans and were ready to mix everyone with the ground.
The homeland met us with camps, where we stayed for 11 years. Later, I accidentally found out that Altai region we were sent a few months earlier than the corresponding order was signed. That is, people were imprisoned "just in case."
- How did you manage to return from exile?
- In the late 60s, a two-volume work by Alexander Belyaev was published, for which my mother was paid 170 thousand rubles. Huge money for those times, thanks to which we were able to move to Leningrad. First of all, they rushed to look for my father's grave. It turned out that the gravedigger kept his word. True, he buried his father not quite in the place that his mother agreed with him. Today, on the grave of his father, there is a white marble stele with the inscription: "Belyaev Alexander Romanovich - science fiction writer."

The last refuge is in a mass grave

The very first employee of the Kazan cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo, whom we asked to show a stele of white marble, readily responded to our request. It turned out that the monument to the science fiction writer does not stand at all on the grave of the writer, but on the site of the alleged burial. The details of his burial were found out by the former chairman of the local history section of the city of Pushkin, Evgeny Golovchiner. He once managed to find a witness who was present at the funeral of Belyaev.

ALEXANDER BELYAEV: he loved to fool around in spite of all diseases

Tatyana Ivanova was disabled from childhood and lived all her life at the Kazan cemetery - she looked after the graves and grew flowers for sale.
It was she who said that in early March 1942, when the ground had already begun to thaw a little, people began to bury people who had been lying in the local chapel since winter in the cemetery. It was at this time that the writer Belyaev was buried along with others. Why did she remember it? Yes, because Alexander Romanovich was buried in a coffin, of which there were only two left in Pushkin by that time. Tatyana Ivanova also pointed out the place where both of these coffins were buried. True, from her words it turned out that the gravedigger still did not keep his promise to bury Belyaev like a human being - he buried the writer's coffin in a common ditch instead of a separate grave.
And although to name exact location, where the ashes of Alexander Romanovich rest, no one can today, knowledgeable people they say that the "Russian Jules Verne" lies within a radius of 10 meters from the marble stele.

He was born in Smolensk, in a family Orthodox priest. The family had two more children: sister Nina died in childhood from sarcoma; brother Vasily, a student at a veterinary institute, drowned while riding a boat.

The father wished to see in his son the successor of his work and gave him in 1895 to the Smolensk Theological Seminary. In 1901, Alexander graduated from it, but did not become a priest, on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. In defiance of his father, he entered the Demidov Juridical Lyceum in Yaroslavl. Soon after the death of his father, he had to earn extra money: Alexander gave lessons, painted scenery for the theater, played the violin in the circus orchestra.

After graduating (in 1906) from the Demidov Lyceum, A. Belyaev received the position of a private attorney in Smolensk and soon gained fame as a good lawyer. He has a regular clientele. His financial resources also grew: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, collect big library. Having finished any business, he went to travel abroad: he visited France, Italy, visited Venice.

In 1914 he left law for the sake of literature and theater.

At the age of thirty-five, A. Belyaev fell ill with tuberculous pleurisy. The treatment turned out to be unsuccessful - tuberculosis of the spine developed, which was complicated by paralysis of the legs. A serious illness confined him to bed for six years, three of which he was in a cast. The young wife left him, saying that she did not get married to take care of her sick husband. In search of specialists who could help him, A. Belyaev, with his mother and old nanny, ended up in Yalta. There, in the hospital, he began to write poetry. Not giving in to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, reads a lot (Jules Verne, Herbert Wells, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky). Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, began to work. First, A. Belyaev became a teacher in an orphanage, then he got a job as an inspector of the criminal investigation department - he organized a photo laboratory there, later he had to go to the library. Life in Yalta was very difficult, and A. Belyaev, with the help of acquaintances, moved with his family to Moscow (1923), where he got a job as a legal adviser. There he began a serious literary activity. He publishes science fiction stories, stories in the magazines "Around the World", "Knowledge is Power", "World Pathfinder", earning the title of "Soviet Jules Verne". In 1925, he published the story "Professor Dowell's Head", which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story: he wanted to tell "what a head without a body can experience."

A. Belyaev lived in Moscow until 1928; during this time he wrote "The Island of Lost Ships", " Last Man from Atlantis", "Amphibian Man", "Struggle on the Air", a collection of short stories was published. The author wrote not only under his own name, but also under the pseudonyms A. Rom and Arbel.

In 1928, A. Belyaev and his family moved to Leningrad and since then he has been exclusively engaged in literature, professionally. This is how "Lord of the World", "Underwater Farmers", "The Miraculous Eye", stories from the series "Professor Wagner's Inventions" appeared. They were printed mainly in Moscow publishing houses. However, soon the disease again made itself felt, and I had to move from rainy Leningrad to sunny Kyiv.

The year 1930 turned out to be very difficult for the writer: his six-year-old daughter died of meningitis, the second one fell ill with rickets, and soon his own disease(spondylitis). As a result, in 1931 the family returned to Leningrad.

In September 1931, A. Belyaev handed over the manuscript of his novel The Earth is Burning to the editors of the Leningrad magazine Vokrug Sveta.

In 1932, he lives in Murmansk (source newspaper "Vecherny Murmansk" dated 10/10/2014). In 1934, he met with Herbert Wells, who arrived in Leningrad. In 1935, Belyaev became a permanent contributor to the Vokrug Sveta magazine. At the beginning of 1938, after eleven years of intense collaboration, Belyaev left the Vokrug Sveta magazine. In 1938, he published an article called "Cinderella" about the plight of modern science fiction.

Shortly before the war, the writer underwent another operation, so he refused the offer to evacuate when the war began. The city of Pushkin (former Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of Leningrad), where he lived in last years A. Belyaev with his family was occupied. In January 1942, the writer died of starvation. He was buried in a mass grave along with other residents of the city. From Osipova's book “Diaries and Letters”: “The writer Belyaev, who wrote science fiction novels like Amphibian Man, froze to death in his room. “Frozen from hunger” is an absolutely accurate expression. People are so weak from hunger that they are not able to get up and bring firewood. He was found already completely stiff ... "

The surviving wife of the writer and daughter Svetlana were taken prisoner by the Germans and were in various camps for displaced persons in Poland and Austria until liberated by the Red Army in May 1945. After the end of the war, the wife and daughter of Alexander Romanovich, like many other citizens of the USSR who were in German captivity, were exiled to Western Siberia. They spent 11 years in exile. The daughter did not marry.

The burial place of Alexander Belyaev is not known for certain. A memorial stele at the Kazan cemetery in the city of Pushkin was installed only on the alleged grave.

Alexander Romanovich Belyaev(March 4 (16), 1884 - January 6, 1942) - Soviet science fiction writer, one of the founders of Soviet science fiction literature. Among the most famous of his novels: "Professor Dowell's Head", "Amphibian Man", "Ariel", "Star of the CEC" and many others. Sometimes he is called the Russian "Jules Verne".

Born on March 4 (16 n.s.) in Smolensk in the family of a priest. Since childhood, he read a lot, was fond of adventure literature, especially Jules Verne. Subsequently, he flew on airplanes of one of the first designs, he made gliders himself.

In 1901 he graduated from the seminary, but did not become a priest; on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. He loved painting, music, theater, played in amateur performances, took photographs, and studied technology.

He entered the legal lyceum in Yaroslavl and at the same time studied at the conservatory in the violin class. To earn money for his studies, he played in a circus orchestra, painted theatrical scenery, and was engaged in journalism. In 1906, after graduating from the Lyceum, he returned to Smolensk, worked as a barrister. He acted as a music critic, theater reviewer in the newspaper "Smolensky Vestnik".

He did not stop dreaming about distant countries and, having saved up money, in 1913 he traveled to Italy, France, and Switzerland. He kept the memories of this trip for the rest of his life. Returning to Smolensk, he worked in the Smolensky Vestnik, a year later he became the editor of this publication. A serious illness - bone tuberculosis - for six years, three of which he was in a cast, chained him to bed. Not succumbing to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, and reads a lot. Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, serving as a juvenile inspector. On the advice of doctors, he lives in Yalta, works as a teacher in an orphanage.

In 1923 he moved to Moscow, began a serious literary activity. He publishes science fiction stories, novels in the magazines Vokrug Sveta, Znanie-Sila, Vsemirnyi Pathfinder, earning the title of "Soviet Jules Verne". In 1925 he published the story "Professor Dowell's Head", which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story: he wanted to tell "what a head without a body can experience."

In the 1920s, such well-known works as The Island of Lost Ships, Amphibian Man, Above the Abyss, and Struggle on the Air were published. He writes essays about the great Russian scientists - Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Tsiolkovsky.

In 1931 he moved to Leningrad, continuing to work hard. He was especially interested in the problems of space exploration and ocean depths. In 1934, after reading Belyaev's novel The Airship, Tsiolkovsky wrote: “... wittily written and scientific enough for fantasy. Let me express my pleasure to Comrade Belyaev.”

In 1933 the book Leap into Nothing was published, 1935 - The Second Moon. In the 1930s, “Star of the KETs”, “Wonderful Eye”, “Under the Sky of the Arctic” were written.

He spent the last years of his life near Leningrad, in the city of Pushkin. War met in the hospital.

In my early youth, I simply read the works of Alexander Belyaev. Everything was re-read more than once, not twice. Wonderful films have been shot based on his works, especially, in my opinion, "The Amphibian Man" with Korenev and Vertinskaya stands out. But still, no movie has made such an impression on me as books! But what did I know about the life of the writer, whose works gave me many wonderful moments while I enjoyed them? It turned out - nothing!

The famous Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev is called "Russian Jules Verne". Which of us didn't read Amphibian Man and Professor Dowell's Head as teenagers? Meanwhile, in the life of the writer himself there were many strange and incomprehensible things. Despite his fame, it is still not known exactly how he died and where exactly he is buried...

Belyaev was born in 1884 in the family of a priest. The father sent his son to the theological seminary, however, after graduating from it, he did not continue his religious education, but entered the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. He was going to be a lawyer. Soon Sasha's father died, the family was short of funds, and in order to continue his studies, the young man was forced to earn extra money - to give lessons, draw scenery for the theater, play the violin in the circus orchestra.

Alexander was a versatile person: he played on different musical instruments, performed in a home theater, flew an airplane. Another hobby was shooting the so-called "horrors" (of course, staged). One of the shots in this "genre" was called: "A human head on a platter in blue tones."

A significant part of life young man turned out to be associated with the theater, which he loved since childhood. He himself could act as a playwright, and a director, and an actor. The home theater of the Belyaevs in Smolensk was widely known, touring not only around the city, but also in its environs. Once, during the arrival in Smolensk of the capital's troupe under the direction of Stanislavsky, A. Belyaev managed to replace the sick artist - instead of playing in several performances. The success was complete, K. Stanislavsky even offered A. Belyaev to stay in the troupe, but for some unknown reason he refused.

As a child, Sasha lost his sister: Nina died of sarcoma. And with his brother Vasily, a student of the Veterinary Institute, a mysterious and creepy story. Once Alexander and Vasily were visiting their uncle. A group of young relatives decided to go boating. For some reason, Vasya refused to go with them. For some reason, Sasha took a piece of clay with him and, right in the boat, made it human head. Looking at her, those present were horrified: the head had the face of Vasily, only his features turned out to be somehow frozen, inanimate. Alexander with annoyance threw the craft into the water and then felt alarmed. Declaring that something happened to his brother, he demanded to turn the boat to the shore. They were met by a tearful aunt and said that Vasily drowned while swimming. It happened, as it turned out, at the very moment when Sasha threw the clay cast into the water.

After graduating from the Demidov Lyceum, A. Belyaev received the position of a private attorney in Smolensk, and soon gained fame as a good lawyer. He has a regular clientele. His material resources also grew: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, and collect a large library. Having finished any business, he went to travel abroad; traveled to France, Italy, visited Venice.

Belyaev goes headlong into journalism. Collaborates with the newspaper "Smolensky Vestnik", in which a year later he becomes an editor. He also plays the piano and violin, works in the Smolensk people's house, is a member of the Glinkin musical circle, the Smolensk Symphony Society, the Society of Fine Arts Lovers. He visited Moscow, where he auditioned for Stanislavsky.

He is thirty years old, he is married and needs to somehow be determined in life. Belyaev is seriously thinking about moving to the capital, where it will not be difficult for him to get a job. But at the end of 1915, an illness suddenly struck him. For the young and strong man crumble the world. Doctors could not determine his illness for a long time, and when they found out, it turned out that it was tuberculosis of the spine. Even during a long-standing illness with pleurisy in Yartsevo, the doctor, making a puncture, touched the eighth spine with a needle. Now it has given such a severe relapse. In addition, his wife Verochka leaves him, besides, to his colleague. Doctors, friends, all relatives considered him doomed.

His mother, Nadezhda Vasilievna, leaves the house and takes her motionless son to Yalta. For six years, from 1916 to 1922, Belyaev was bedridden, of which three long years(from 1917 to 1921) he was bound in plaster. About these years, when one power replaced another in the Crimea, Belyaev, ten years later, will write in the story “Among the feral horses”.

Belyaev's willpower survived and during his illness he studies foreign languages ​​​​(French, German and English), is interested in medicine, history, biology, technology. He could not move, but some ideas for his future novels came to his mind just then, during real estate.

In the spring of 1919, his mother, Nadezhda Vasilievna, dies of starvation, and his son, sick, in plaster, with a high temperature, cannot even see her to the cemetery. And only in 1921 he was able to take his first steps thanks not only to his willpower, but also as a result of his love for Margarita Konstantinovna Magnushevskaya, who worked in the city library. A little later, he, like Arthur Dowell, will offer her to see his bride in the mirror, whom he will marry if he receives consent. And in the summer of 1922, Belyaev managed to get to Gaspra in a rest home for scientists and writers. There they made him a celluloid corset and he was finally able to get out of bed. This orthopedic corset became his constant companion for the rest of his life. the disease, until his death, either receded, or again chained him to bed for several months.

Be that as it may, Belyaev began working in the criminal investigation department, and then in the People's Commissariat for Education, as an inspector for juvenile affairs in an orphanage seven kilometers from Yalta. The country, through the NEP, began to gradually raise its economy, and hence the welfare of the country. In the same 1922, before the Christmas fast, Alexander Belyaev got married in a church with Margarita, and on May 22, 1923, they legalized their marriage with an act of civil status in the registry office.

Then he returned to Moscow, where he got a job as a legal adviser. IN free time Belyaev wrote poetry, and in 1925 his first story, The Head of Professor Dowell, began to be published in the newspaper Gudok. For three years, "The Island of Lost Ships", "The Last Man from Atlantis", "Amphibian Man", a collection of stories were created. On March 15, 1925, their daughter Lyudmila was born.

ALEXANDER BELYAEV WITH WIFE MARGARIT AND FIRST DAUGHTER: the death of little Ludochka was the first great grief in the science fiction family

In July 1929, Belyaev's second daughter, Svetlana, was born, and in September the Belyaevs leave for Kyiv, to a warmer and drier climate.

However, soon the disease again made itself felt, and I had to move from rainy Leningrad to sunny Kyiv. Living conditions in Kyiv turned out to be better, but there were obstacles for creativity - manuscripts were accepted there only in Ukrainian, so they had to be sent to Moscow or Leningrad.

The year 1930 turned out to be very difficult for the writer: his six-year-old daughter died of meningitis, the second one fell ill with rickets, and soon his own illness (spondylitis) worsened. As a result, in 1931 the family returned to Leningrad: ignorance Ukrainian language made life in Kyiv unbearable. Constant domestic turmoil prevented writing, and yet A. Belyaev creates in these years the play "Alchemists ...", the novel "Jump into Nothing".

The year 1937 also affected the fate of Belyaev. He, unlike many of his friends and acquaintances, was not imprisoned. But they stopped printing. There was nothing to live on. He goes to Murmansk and gets a job as an accountant on a fishing trawler. Depression and unbearable pain from the corset, to the surprise of many, give the opposite result - he writes the novel "Ariel". Main character puts experiments with levitation: the young man becomes able to fly. Belyaev writes about himself, more precisely, about unfulfilled dreams own life.

The war found the family in Pushkin. Belyaev, who had recently undergone spinal surgery, refused to be evacuated, and soon the Germans occupied the city.

By official version, the science fiction writer died of starvation in January 1942. The body was transferred to the crypt at the Kazan cemetery - to wait in line for burial. The queue was supposed to come up only in March, and in February the writer's wife and daughter were taken prisoner to Poland.

Here they waited for release Soviet troops. And then they were sent into exile in the Altai, for a long 11 years.

When they were finally able to return to Pushkin, former neighbor handed over the miraculously surviving glasses of Alexander Romanovich. On the shackle Margarita found a tightly wrapped piece of paper. She carefully unfolded it. “Do not look for my footprints on this earth,” her husband wrote. - I'm waiting for you in heaven. Your Ariel.

There is a legend that the body of Belyaev was taken out of the crypt and buried by a fascist general with soldiers. Allegedly, the general read Belyaev’s works as a child and therefore decided to honorably betray his body to the ground. According to another version, the corpse was simply buried in a common grave. One way or another, the exact place of burial of the writer is unknown.

Subsequently, a memorial stele was erected at the Kazan cemetery in Pushkin. But there is no Belyaev's grave under it.

One version of the writer's death is associated with the legendary Amber Room. According to the publicist Fyodor Morozov, the last thing Belyaev worked on was devoted to this particular topic. Nobody knows what he was going to write about the famous mosaic. It is only known that even before the war, Belyaev told many people about his new novel and even quoted some passages to his acquaintances. With the arrival of the Germans in Pushkin, the Gestapo specialists also became actively interested in the Amber Room. By the way, they could not fully believe that a genuine mosaic fell into their hands. Therefore, they were actively looking for people who would have information on this matter. It is no coincidence that two Gestapo officers also went to Alexander Romanovich, trying to find out what he knew about this story. Whether the writer told them anything or not is not known. In any case, no documents have yet been found in the Gestapo archives. And here is the answer to the question whether Belyaev could have been killed because of his interest in Amber room doesn't seem all that complicated. Suffice it to recall what fate befell many researchers who tried to find a wonderful mosaic. Maybe he paid for knowing too much? Or died from torture? They also say that the corpse of the science fiction writer was charred. His death is as mysterious as his works.