One of the state secrets of Russia in the middle of the XVIII century - the long-term imprisonment of the Braunschweig family-is now well known. However, not only the members of this family, but also many dozens of ordinary people who guarded it, were then unwitting prisoners. They will be discussed below.

On October 17, 1740, the Empress Anna Ivanovna died. Shortly before that, his mother Anna Leopoldovna, niece of the Tsarina and wife of Anton-Ulrich Duke of Brunswick, was proclaimed ruler of Russia under the pre-announced heir to the throne, the infant Ivan Antonovich. Ivan VI did not rule for long: on November 25, 1741, Peter I's daughter Elizabeth, with the support of the guard and noble circles dissatisfied with the dominance of foreigners at court, overthrew him. Anna Leopoldovna, Duke of Brunswick, and their children Ivan and Catherine were arrested on December 12, 1741 and sent to Riga for subsequent deportation abroad .1
The childless Elizabeth Petrovna summoned her nephew, the future Emperor Peter III, from Holstein. But due to the discovery of a plot against the new Empress and the delay in the arrival of her chosen heir to the throne, the expulsion of the Brunswick abroad was delayed. In 1742, they were transferred to the Baltic fortress of Danemunde, two years later-to Ranenburg, Ryazan province, and then sent to the Solovetsky Monastery 2 .

Since the Braunschweigs arrived in the North when the navigation of ships on the Northern Dvina and in the White Sea was no longer possible, they were assigned to Kholmogory and placed in the stone two-story bishop's house 3 . There was a garden and a pond near it. The 400-by-400-step estate was surrounded by a high fence, which made it easier to keep prisoners in isolation, as well as accommodate guards and servants. The four-year-old ex-emperor was placed in a separate house under the strictest supervision. The gates were closed and sentries were posted. A deep mystery surrounded the bishop's house.

Since the autumn of 1744, the official secret correspondence between St. Petersburg, Kholmogori and Arkhangelsk has included the expression "the commission known to her Imperial Majesty", then - "The Kholmogori Secret Commission". In captivity, Anna Leopoldovna had a daughter, Elizabeth, and sons, Peter and Alexey, who became recluses like their parents .4 Year after year passed. Elizabeth Petrovna, who reigned for 20 years, was succeeded by Peter III, then Catherine II took the Russian throne. Chancellors, government offices, and favorites changed, and disgraced grandees returned from prison and exile. But in Kholmogorakh everything remained the same.

Each new ruler confirmed the order of the previous one: "Keep a close eye on the personages" and prevent any information about them from leaking outside the bishop's house. Anna died in 1746, Anton-Ulrich-in 1774, and Ivan VI at the age of 16 was secretly transported to the Shlisselburg fortress and killed there in 1764 when Lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich tried to free him .5 The rest of the Braunschweigs were only smuggled out to Denmark in 1780.

It is interesting that a fairly wide range of people were imprisoned with them for a long time: servants, guards, and the crew of the frigate Polar Star, which exported notable recluses outside of Russia. Many of them lived for decades behind the fence of the Kholmogorsky prison, and after the "secret commission" ceased to exist, for many years they did not have the right to leave Kholmogory. Up to 15 thousand rubles were allocated annually for the maintenance of the Kholmogorskaya Commission. from the salt collections of the Arkhangelsk province.

The first group of people who were in close contact with state secrets were those who directly served the Braunschweig family and lived together

1 For more information, see: Weidemeyer A. Review of the most important incidents in Russia from the death of Peter the Great to the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna. Hch. 2-3. SPb. 1848; Semevsky M. I. Ioann VI Antonovich, 1740-1764. - Otechestvennye zapiski, 1866, N 4, book 1; Shubinsky S. N. Istoricheskie ocherki i narazy. SPb. 1908, pp. 247-255.

2 Solov'ev S. M. Istoriya Rossii s drevneyshikh vremeni [History of Russia since ancient Times]. Vol.XI. Moscow, 1963, p. 391.

3 Kolybchin A. K. Kholmogory in the past and present. Arkhangelsk, 1930, p. 9.

4 Russkiy biograficheskiy slovar ' [Russian Biographical Dictionary], vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1900, pp. 178-187.

5 Bilbasov V. A. Ioann Antonovich i Mirovich. Moscow, 1908.

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with her: valets, cooks, tailors, two wet nurses of the younger children (taken from local peasant women; it is known that Anna's children spoke with a northern accent). The other group consisted of watchmen: two teams of soldiers up to 30 people each. The first was located in the same house and guarded the chambers; it was commanded for the last 12 years by Lieutenant Karikin (or Koryukin). The second, the "regular Kholmogorsky team", was located in the barracks at the gate of the prison and carried external security 6 .

Both of them were subordinated to the commandant of the "Kholmogorskaya Commission", whose duties were consistently performed by Major Guryev, Captain Vyndomsky, Major Myachkov, Lieutenant Colonel Polozov of the Life Guards. Soldiers and officers of internal and external security were forbidden to communicate with each other. Until 1756, Major Miller, who was constantly with the young Ivan Antonovich, was also located within the prison. The soldiers guarding his bedroom door were not allowed to see the recluse or know who he was. After his transfer to the Shlisselburg Fortress, Miller was appointed colonel of the Sviyazhsky regiment in Kazan 7 .

The conditions and terms of service members 'stay in the" Kholmogorskaya secret commission " were different. But, as a rule, those who got guda did not return to normal life either before their death or before the end of the commission's activities. The State Archive of the Arkhangelsk region stores petitions of its members addressed to Catherine II, drawn up in 1793-1795. It is clear from them that some of the personnel were under the Braunschweig Forces continuously for several decades. Valets Stepan Dolgoy and Anton Alekseev were assigned to the" Kholmogorsky Commission " in 1741 from among the court servants and lived together with the Braunschweig family in all the places of its imprisonment and exile .8 They were appointed to the commission as young people, and when its activities ended, both were over 60.

Prisoners were also the children of courtiers born during the years of imprisonment of the Braunschweigs. Upon reaching the age of majority, they were assigned to some position under the same commission. For example, for many years Alexander Alekseev, Yakov Mashintsev, Ivan Mikhailov, Ivan Semyonov, Semyon Mikhailov and other children of the court who entered, as they write, "the service of the Kholmogorsky Commission" in the early 70s of the XVIII century worked behind the palisade of the bishop's estate as tailors, bread makers, cooks, and tablecloth students .9
Among the clerical children there were also several side sons and daughters of the Duke of Brunswick, who had grown up in a prison with his legitimate offspring and were also restricted in their movement, even inside the manor. Princess Elizabeth, when visiting the Braunschweig family by Governor-General A. P. Melgunov in the spring of 1780, asked permission for the servants and servants who were with them, wet nurses, "to have a free exit from home" 10 . Here is what one of the second-generation servants Ulyana Koryukina, who was 52 years old in 1796, told about her life: "My father was a court rank, a major's rank, and from the beginning of the Kholmogorsky commission he was in it and left me in diapers with my mother at that commission. My mother died before she was five years old in that prison. I then continued to serve on that commission for 30 years. " 11 With the permission of Melgunov, Ulyana, after leaving the commission, married the Kholmogorsky mayor Koryukin (possibly the above-mentioned Karikin).

Some possibility of leaving the prison for a certain time was available only to the employees of the guard teams. They were sent to Arkhangelsk, St. Petersburg and Moscow for household needs. In the early years, the guards consisted of military personnel who accompanied exiles to the North. Later, instead of those who left, the teams were replenished at the expense of soldiers of the Arkhangelsk garrison and soldiers ' children, who then served without an age limit or term. Soldiers Matvey Garyasov and Ivan Golubev in 1763, in the sixth year of service, were sent to the" Kholmogorsky commission " from Ustyuzhansko-

6 Weidemeyer A. Uk. soch. Ch. 3, pp. 8-9.

7 Brickner A. G. Imperator Ioann Antonovich and his relatives (1741-1807). Moscow, 1874, pp. 27-29.

8 State Archive of the Arkhangelsk region (GAAO). f. 1, op. 2, 659, ll. 23, 231.

9 Ibid., ll. 15, 16, 21, 31, 37.

10 V. Polenov Departure of the Braunschweig family from Kholmogory to Datsky possessions. - Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Part I. St. Petersburg, 1840, p. 118.

11 GAAO, f. 1, op. 2, d. 659, l. 27.

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They were assigned to the 1st Regiment in Arkhangelsk and stayed there until the latter was disbanded, reaching the rank of non-commissioned officers 12 . Private Yefim Odintsovo turned 75 years old at the end of the Braunschweig family's prison term.

A kind of "patriarch" was Ivan Serebryakov, who was in the bishop's house from the first to the last day of imprisonment of notable persons in it. For 36 years, he rose to the rank of ensign and served as an adjutant for a long time under the commandant. Here is what he reported to Catherine II: "I was sent to Sweden from the commission's frequent dispatches to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and from your highest acting cabinet, which made me extremely weak and exhausted in my extreme health, and I was in charge of the commission's courier service for twenty years." 13 In 1794, he was 92 years old.

A special group of people were those who accompanied the children of Anna Leopoldovna and Anton Braunschweig from Arkhangelsk to Denmark. To organize this trip, Melgunov arrived in Arkhangelsk and, without revealing the essence of the matter, instructed the main commander of the port, Major General L. K. Vaxel, to urgently prepare one river and one sea vessel, to select old and honored sailors and skilled naval officers for responsible assignments. The river vessel was built, the sea vessel was selected from the existing ones-the frigate "Polar Star". Its commander was a retired captain of the first rank M. M. Arsenyev, who went around Scandinavia four times .14 The crew was manned mainly at the expense of the previous crew, and some of the sailors were sent from the Baltic 15 . Among the sailors there were quite a few people of 45-55-year-old age. There is a version that Catherine II gave the commander of the frigate an unspoken instruction to sink the ship with 16 passengers and crew, but this is unlikely. Most likely, she would not have minded if their deaths had occurred "by the will of God."

In addition to the crew of the frigate, a group of individuals assigned to accompany the princes and princesses took part in a secret voyage that lasted a year. Colonel I. Tsygler of Shlisselburg, appointed by the Tsarina herself, and Lilienfeld, widow of the Landrat of Livonia, with their two daughters, were directly responsible for their protection and maintenance on the ship .17 For direct service to the Braunschweigskys on the ship and in the first months of their stay in Denmark, Melgunov " selected three servants and four female servants, four of whom were born in the Kholmogorsky prison and grew up with the prisoners. Their surnames were identified from reports to Catherine II: Ivan Ivanov, Mikhail and Zakhar Lvovs, Ulyana Koryukina. Most of them were illegitimate children of the duke and one of the wet nurses. The wet nurse (her last name remained unknown) was also sent on a flight. Two of the attendants came from local peasant families. Several priests and a healer also went on the voyage.

Here is how the Arkhangelsk peasant women Praskovya Vasilyeva and Fedosya Alekseeva described their journey to the Danish town of Gorsenz, to the place designated for the residence of Anna Leopoldovna's children: "We, the most loyal, were requested on September 4, 1774, from the Arkhangelsk province of the Dvinsky district of the Kureysky Volost from the peasant daughters to the former Kholmogorsky secret commission, in which, with the help of well-known people, to your Imperial Majesty, persons were sent to the kameryungfer position until it was decided, and on June 27, 1780, on the 27th, going with them, while leaving the same position, across the Northern Ocean on a sea voyage on a frigate called the Polar Star, on which then were the commanders of gentlemen Brigadier Arsenyev and Colonel Cavalier Tsygler, from which in the bays of opposite the city of Bergen, we were transferred to another Danish ship, called the Mars, and on that ship we reached the very place known to your Imperial Majesty as the city, where we lived for one month, and Ottolus returning, we, the most loyal, with the rest, to Copenhagen by land, and wintered from November 8, 1780, to the 17th of March, 1781 on the same date, they were sent by His Excellency and Cavalier Baron Karl Ivanovich Saken 18 on the pink, on which the fleet commander, Lieutenant Commander Timashev, was located, to the city of Bergen, where they were transferred to the former frigate "Polar Star" and to

12 Ibid., ll. 59, 63.

13 Ibid., l. 52.

14 Russkiy biograficheskiy slovar ' [Russian Biographical Dictionary], vol. II, pp. 321-322.

15 GAAO, f. 1. op. 2, d. 659, l. 213.

16 Brickner A. G. Uk. soch., p. 47.

17 Polenov V. Uk. soch., p. 120.

18 Russian Envoy to Denmark.

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tom, who came to Archangel, having completed the journey from July 1781 to the 18th, with the receipt of your Imperial Majesty's monarch's pension salary of thirty rubles a year at our death, with eternal and inseparable residence in the city of Kholmogorakh. " 19
With the termination of the activities of the "Kholmogorsky Commission", the servitude of servants and guards also ended. But all of them, as involved in state secrets, were determined to live permanently in Kholmogorakh. In 1781, there were 137 such persons (including widows), including: 31 ranks of the guard team "under the family" (ensign, sergeant, non-commissioned officers, corporals, privates and widows); 10 court servants and widows; 61 "mariner"; 6 clerks and clerks of the city of Kholmogory; 29 as part of the Kholmogorsky full-time team. Some of them also had wives and children. Some of the older ministers received a pension, while relatively young ones were assigned to positions in Kholmogorakh with small ranks.

The pension for older soldiers and non-commissioned officers was up to 19 rubles, for courtiers-up to 50 rubles, for ensigns-up to 100 rubles a year. After 15 years, these allowances ceased to meet the minimum needs of even single people, not to mention those who had children, which caused complaints, after which the government increased their monetary allowance by 20 . The "Mariners"were also given plots of land on the former bishop's allotment with a total area of up to 90 dessiatines. near ostrog. They were allowed to leave Kholmogory only for fishing in the ocean. Over time, the Morekhodskaya settlement grew up here, and all its inhabitants, who enjoyed some privileges in comparison with the bourgeoisie, were constantly referred to as "mariners" 21 .

Many of them, who came from other places and found themselves in the position of exiles, were burdened by their situation and applied to the Government to allow them or at least their children to live in other places. Some left on their own. So, in the 90s of the XVIII century, Ivan Rusinov and Peter Usov22 were listed as fugitives . However, even 15 years after the Brzunschweigskys were sent from Russia, the government did not allow employees of the former "secret commission" to leave the Arkhangelsk province freely. In 1795, when a significant part of the "sailors" had already died, the Arkhangelsk governor I. R. Lieven suggested that the government release their children born after the abolition of the commission from Kholmogory. But permission was apparently granted no earlier than 1807, when the last of the offspring of the Braunschweig family died in Denmark .23
Despite such a strict regime, some information about the Braunschweigs still leaked to the people and the army. Even in the guards, there were sometimes disturbing rumors for Catherine II about the possible return of Ivan VI to the throne .24 In 1788, the Kremenchug merchant T. I. Kurdilov was arrested in the Baltic States, posing as Ivan VI, who was allegedly replaced by another prisoner in the Shlisselburg Fortress shortly before the murder. It turned out that Kurdilov was aware of the details related to the imprisonment of Ivan Antonovich 25 .

The main source of rumors spread was the Kholmogorskaya Commission itself. The bishop's unexpected departure from his estate, strict security, the delivery of large food supplies to the bishop's house, the rare appearance of unknown military and civilian people from outside the prison gates, couriers and mail from the capital-all this did not go unnoticed by local residents and visitors. The comparison of information about the events in the capital and Kholmogori gave them the idea of unusual prisoners. Something was told, despite the strictest prohibitions, and those who guarded them. One of the rumor mongers testified that he learned about the prisoners as a child from a soldier at a market in Kholmogori. Already in the mid-50s of the XVIII century, Colonel Manstein, a former adjutant of the first Minister of Anna Leopoldovna, H. A. Minich, became aware of the place of imprisonment of Ivan VI .

After the liquidation of the "Kholmogorsky secret Commission" on the instructions of Melgunov, the bishop's house was opened in 1781.-

19 Arkhangelsk gubernskie Vedomosti, 1875, No. 33.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 1867. N 58.

22 GAAO, f. 1, op. 2, d. 659, ll. 176-177.

23 Russkaya starina, St. Petersburg, 1873, vol. 7, No. 1, p. 70.

24 Klyuchevsky V. O. Sochineniya [Works], vol. V, part 5, Moscow, 1958, p. 35.

25 Brickner A. G. Uk. soch., p. 147.

26 Morozov A. Lomonosov, Moscow, 1965, pp. 484-485.

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that first maritime school in the North, which had 33 students 27 . Some children of the "mariners"were also enrolled in it. It existed until 1786, after which it was transferred to Arkhangelsk, and its premises were transferred in 1798 to the convent 28 . After the October Revolution, the local history Museum was located here.

27 Arkhangelsk gubernskie Vedomosti, 1898, No. 96.

28 Kolybin A. K. Uk. soch., p. 10.

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