Peskov Komsomol truth. Excursions - County Biosphere Reserve

Today we will talk about who Vasily Peskov was. The biography of this incredibly tantalum man is given below. We are talking about a Soviet and Russian writer, journalist, photojournalist, TV presenter of the program “In the World of Animals” (from 1975 to 1990), traveler. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1964, as well as the Russian Government Media Award in 2013 (posthumously).

Biography

Vasily Peskov was born in 1930, in the village of Orlovo, now it belongs to the Novousmansky district of the Voronezh region. His parents were a machinist and a peasant woman. Finished school. Next in line was getting a vocational education. He entered the Voronezh school of projectionists. Nowadays this educational institution has the status of an industrial and humanitarian college. He worked as a driver, pioneer leader, projectionist. In my youth I became interested in photographing nature. Since 1953, he worked for a newspaper in the city of Voronezh called “Young Communard”. First he became a photographer. After the incredibly successful publication of his first essay, entitled “April in the Forest,” he became a full-time correspondent. In 1956, he sent several of his own articles to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. As a result, he is invited to Moscow. Since 1956, Vasily Peskov has been a columnist for Komsomolskaya Pravda. Regular author of a column called “Window to Nature.” The author's debut book of essays was published in 1960. In 1975-1990 he hosted the program “In the Animal World”, together with Children loved Vasily Peskov no less than adults, since in 1992 he began working in the magazine “Anthill”. There his column was called “Uncle Vasya Tells.”

About Me

The writer notes that he received his first lessons in life in his family. He was the eldest child. The mother and father loved the children, but did not spoil them. According to the author, only with the advent of years can one appreciate the wisdom of such upbringing. The love for the nature around us was brought up in the young man by his school teacher named Vasily Nikolaevich. He went to the forest with the children, showed them different birds, and talked about nature. He had a quail at home. During the lesson, he opened the window every time, and then sprinkled crumbs on the windowsill, thus feeding the birds. The teacher really wanted the children to love the village. He often recalled that it was in the village that poets grew up. According to the writer, he traveled to many countries, was able to see the beauty of nature in various places, but always had a thirst for knowledge of the unknown.

Departure

Vasily Peskov died in 2013, on August 12, in Moscow. He was 83 years old. According to the will, Vasily Mikhailovich’s body was cremated, his ashes were scattered over a field in the village of Orlovo, in the Voronezh region. This happened on September 20, when it was 40 days since the writer’s death. The described field is located at the edge of the forest, not far from the stone. During his lifetime, Vasily Mikhailovich himself brought it from Mordovia. The stone is decorated with the words of the writer.

Awards

Vasily Peskov received the Lenin Prize in 1964 for a book called “Steps on the Dew.” In 2003, he received the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, fourth degree, for his contribution to domestic journalism. In 2013 he was posthumously awarded in the field of media. In this way his contribution to the life of the media was noted.

Bibliography

Vasily Peskov published the book “Notes of a Photo Reporter” in 1960. In 1963 the work “Steps on the Dew” appeared. He also wrote the work “Visiting Sholokhov.” In 1963, the book “Wait for us, stars” was published. In 1965, “White Dreams” appeared. In 1966, the author wrote the book “He Was a Scout.” In 1967, “The Edge of the World” appears. In 1969, the work “Journey with the New Moon” was published. In 1971, the book “The Rye Song” appeared. In 1972, the work “Fatherland” was published. In collaboration with B. Strelnikov, the writer created the book “The Land Beyond the Ocean” in 1975. The work “The River of My Childhood” was published in 1978. The book “Birds on Wires” appeared in 1982. It is dedicated to ecology. It has a chapter about people who are inextricably linked with nature (Veprintsev Boris Nikolaevich, Zuev Dmitry Pavlovich, Ernest Seton-Thompson, Alfred Brem. A documentary story dedicated to the family of unusual hermits the Lykovs was published in 1983. It is called “Taiga Dead End”. The book “Away and at Home” appeared in 1985. The work “All This Happened” was published in 1986. “The House with a Rooster” was published in 1987. The book “Country Roads” was published in 1988. It was included in the “Fatherland” series. ". The work "Sister Alaska" was published in 1991. It is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the discovery of the peninsula by Russian sailors. Then, from the writer's pen, "Pay for the Shot" comes out. In 1994, the book "Alaska is more than you think" appears. In 1994 the work "Russian Trace" appears, created in collaboration with M. Zhilin. It is dedicated to Alaska, the Commander Islands, Kamchatka, and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The book "Wanderings" appears in 1991. "Window to Nature" is published in two parts in 2001. In 2010 the book “War and People” appears. In 2011, the work “Love - Photography: What, Where, Why and How I Shot” was published. Now you know everything about the writer and journalist named Vasily Peskov. Photos of this great man are attached to the material.

from the series "Famous People of the Voronezh Region"

V.M. Peskov - environmentalist writer, legend of journalism

Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov is the man who revealed to us "Window to Nature". His life is an endless book about the nature of our vast planet. This friendly and helpful man taught people to love nature, love life itself. Peskov left us a rich creative legacy, writing 42 books and thousands of essays.

Vasily Peskov was born on March 14, 1930 in the village of Orlovo Novousmansky district, Voronezh region. When the Great Patriotic War began, he was only 11 years old. Father was taken to the front and little Vasya remained the only man in the family, unchildish worries about his mother and three sisters fell on his fragile shoulders. His father returned from the war, life returned to its normal course, Vasily graduated from high school and went to work as a pioneer leader. Then he acquired his first Zenit camera, walked around the neighborhood and filmed everything. And then one day Vasily took the photograph “April in the Forest,” which determined his future fate.

The photo was published in a local newspaper and they even asked me to write a text for it. One day, an employee of the Voronezh newspaper “Young Communar” saw these pictures and invited Vasily to work. Peskov worked at Young Communar for three years, and in 1956 dared to send my photographs to the editor newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda". In response, I received an invitation to cooperate. Vasily Mikhailovich worked in the “fat one” 57 years old, until the end of his days, having received the affectionate nickname “Grandfather” from his colleagues. For many years, his column “Window to Nature” brought true pleasure to readers.

One of Peskov’s first editorial assignments in Komsomolskaya Pravda was an industrial report "Worker". It was necessary to cast a simple good guy. Vasily Mikhailovich went to the excavator plant and noticed the boy Vitya there inspecting the welding seams.

Peskov thought for a long time about what to do surprise the reader, what to shoot? And he was struck by a brilliant idea: at that time no one was taking panoramic photographs from above. But for this needed a helicopter! I went with the petition straight to the General Staff to Marshal M.V. Zakharov. And he ensured that he had helicopters from all military districts at his disposal. But still, every shot from a height of more than 3 m had to be subjected to strict censorship. Peskov was the first to photograph Red Square from above, filmed harvesters, magnets and various panoramas.

The first essay book by V. M. Peskov was published in 1960, it was called "Notes of a Photo Reporter". Three years later, “Steps on the Dew” and “Wait for Us, Stars” were published. The books “White Dreams” (1965) and “The Edge of the World” (1967) tell about the life and work of scientists studying permafrost. They were based on travel to Antarctica. Peskov wrote a lot of books and essays, leaving behind a magnificent legacy that will delight more than one generation.

In addition to working at KP, Vasily Peskov led program “In the Animal World”(since 1977 together with Nikolai Drozdov). In 1990, Peskov had to leave the program, since all his time was occupied expeditions: he wrote a book about Chukotka and Alaska.

In 1982, another fateful moment came in the creative life of Vasily Mikhailovich, when he wrote an essay in the KP column “Taiga Dead End” about family of Old Believers Lykov. The newspaper's circulation soared to 21 million, and Peskov became the country's most read author. The Lykovs are hermits who fled to the remote Sayan taiga back in the 1930s. And only in 1978 they were accidentally discovered by geologists. The Lykov family even I didn’t know there was a Great Patriotic War. Initially, the family consisted of six people: father Karp Osipovich, mother Akulina, two sons, Dmitry and Savin, and two daughters Natalya and Agafya. Akulina died back in 1961, but Dmitry, Savin and Natalya died in 1981 from contact with civilization; they had no immunity. Peskov found only Karp's father and youngest daughter Agafya alive. Having written an essay about the Lykovs in 1982, Vasily Mikhailovich regularly visited the taiga family, and after Karp’s death in 1988 he continued to visit Agafya. Published in 1990 documentary story about hermits"Taiga dead end."

April 11, 1961 V. M. Peskov was the first to interview Yuri Gagarin, escorting him from Kuibyshev to Moscow by plane. There is a whole story about this. It so happened that almost seven years later, Peskov wrote an obituary for the astronaut.

On April 27, 1970, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Victory Day, Peskov had the opportunity to do another unique interview. In a historical conversation with G.K. Zhukov is a journalist of him not only as a marshal, but also as a person. The success was colossal. This article turned out significant for Zhukov himself, he began to receive thousands of letters, feeling that people remembered and respected him. In the photo: Zhukov with his daughter Maria.

Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov visited virtually in all corners of the planet, and there are no places left unexplored on the map of the former USSR. However, the places where he grew up weremy favorite place on earth. In the village of Orlovo, where the writer was born, his fellow countrymen named a street in his honor.

And Peskov grew up in the village of Volya (Tresvyatskaya station), which five kilometers from Orlovo. Vasily Mikhailovich bequeathed to scatter his ashes precisely in these places, and even chose the forest edge. On memorial stone, brought from Mordovia, during the writer’s lifetime the inscription was made: “The main value in life is life itself” .

Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov died on August 12, 2013 after a long illness. In the same month, the Voronezh Biosphere Reserve was named after him. And this is no coincidence. After all he wrote a lot about the reserve, located near their native places. His first essay in “April in the Forest” was dedicated to spring in a reserved forest, and in his first essay for “Komsomolskaya Pravda” he depicted the life of deer in the Voronezh Nature Reserve.

On December 10, 2013, the doors opened in the Voronezh Nature Reserve Museum of V. M. Peskov. The exhibition includes personal belongings of Vasily Mikhailovich: notebooks, a voice recorder, glasses, numerous books, photographs, documents, as well as his "trademarks"– a film camera and the famous cap.

Interesting facts about V.M. Peskov:

Andrey Dyatlov (deputy editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda) recalls:

• He wore what seemed to be the same cap for decades. In fact, he simply ordered a dozen identical ones at one time, and wore them.
• In the emerging age of digital photographic equipment, until the last moment I shot with the good old mechanical Nikon, which was already gray from scratches, like Peskov himself, but did not let me down.
• There was no place for a TV in his apartment, and when he was given this device, Peskov gave it to his daughter.
• I always wrote in pencil. And then he went with the manuscripts to the stenographic bureau and personally read it to the stenographers.
• It was very funny to inscribe books for friends: he always drew himself bald and a bird carrying a worm to the nest. This was the brand name!
• It was once considered an honor in Komsomolskaya Pravda to put a signature with a name. And he always put only V. Peskov.

One from the latest pictures Vasily Mikhailovich, made on May 24, 2013, on the birthday of “KP”. Peskov read his next every Friday "Window to Nature" freshly rolled out straight from the printer.

When a specialist department observer corr. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Galina Sapozhnikova complained to Vasily Mikhailovich that she was tired of endless trips, he replied: “Galya! While you can go, go! This is happiness! And he himself traveled, traveled all over the world, giving us wonderful essays and amazing photographs!

In preparing the material, materials were used: the archive of the Komsomolskaya Pravda website (kp.ru), the website of the Voronezh Biosphere Reserve (zapovednik-vrn.ru), as well as the documentary film “The Magic World of Peskov.”

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The other day we took 3rd graders on an excursion to the Grafsky Biosphere Reserve, which in 2013 was named after the famous Voronezh naturalist V.M. Peskova.

Before I talk about the excursion, I think it’s worth mentioning the name of this legendary man, especially since I’ve already promised to do this for a long time. Finally, the time has come.
I wrote a note about Vasily Mikhailovich last year on the website of our travel agency (you can also see excursion options there). I’ll duplicate it here, because... It turned out well (in my opinion), a lot of time was spent on the material and collages, so I don’t want to redo anything and post it as is.

......V.M. Peskov - environmentalist writer, legend of journalism.....

For me, the most important task has always been
building bridges between the spiritual
the human world and nature.
V.M.Peskov

Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov is the man who opened the “Window to Nature” for us. His life is an endless book about the nature of our vast planet. This friendly and sympathetic man taught people to love nature, to love life itself. Peskov left us a rich creative legacy, writing 42 books and thousands of essays.


Vasily Peskov was born on March 14, 1930 in the village of Orlovo, Novousmansky district, Voronezh region. When the Great Patriotic War began, he was only 11 years old. His father was taken to the front and little Vasya remained the only man in the family; childish worries about his mother and three sisters fell on his fragile shoulders. His father returned from the war, life returned to its normal course, Vasily graduated from high school and went to work as a pioneer leader. Then he bought his first Zenit camera, walked around the neighborhood and took pictures of everything. And then one day Vasily took the photograph “April in the Forest,” which determined his future fate.


The photo was published in a local newspaper and they even asked me to write a text for it. One day, an employee of the Voronezh newspaper “Young Communar” saw these pictures and invited Vasily to work. Peskov worked at Young Communar for three years, and in 1956 he dared to send his photographs to the editorial office of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. In response, I received an invitation to cooperate. Vasily Mikhailovich worked in the “fat one” for 57 years, until the end of his days, receiving the affectionate nickname “Grandfather” from his colleagues. For many years, his column “Window to Nature” brought true pleasure to readers.


One of Peskov’s first editorial assignments in Komsomolskaya Pravda was the industrial report “Working Man.” It was necessary to cast a simple good guy. Vasily Mikhailovich went to the excavator plant and noticed the boy Vitya there inspecting the welding seams.


Peskov thought for a long time about how to surprise the reader, what to film? And he was struck by a brilliant idea: at that time no one was taking panoramic photographs from above. But for this you needed a helicopter! I went with the petition straight to the General Staff to Marshal M.V. Zakharov. And he ensured that he had helicopters from all military districts at his disposal. But still, every shot from a height of more than 3 m had to be subjected to strict censorship. Peskov was the first to photograph Red Square from above, filming the harvesters, magnets and various panoramas.


V. M. Peskov’s first book of essays was published in 1960, it was called “Notes of a Photo Reporter.” Three years later, “Steps on the Dew” and “Wait for Us, Stars” were published. The books “White Dreams” (1965) and “The Edge of the World” (1967) tell about the life and work of scientists studying permafrost. They are based on a trip to Antarctica. Peskov wrote a lot of books and essays, leaving behind a magnificent legacy that will delight more than one generation.


In addition to working at KP, Vasily Peskov hosted the program “In the Animal World” from 1975 to 1990 (since 1977, together with Nikolai Drozdov). In 1990, Peskov had to leave the program, since all his time was occupied by expeditions: he was writing a book about Chukotka and Alaska.


In 1982, another fateful moment came in the creative life of Vasily Mikhailovich, when he wrote an essay in the KP column “Taiga Dead End” about the Lykov family of Old Believers. The newspaper's circulation soared to 21 million, and Peskov became the country's most read author. The Lykovs are hermits who fled to the remote Sayan taiga back in the 1930s. And only in 1978 they were accidentally discovered by geologists. The Lykov family did not even know that there was a Great Patriotic War. Initially, the family consisted of six people: father Karp Osipovich, mother Akulina, two sons, Dmitry and Savin, and two daughters Natalya and Agafya. Akulina died back in 1961, but Dmitry, Savin and Natalya died in 1981 from contact with civilization; they had no immunity. Peskov found only Karp's father and youngest daughter Agafya alive. Having written an essay about the Lykovs in 1982, Vasily Mikhailovich regularly visited the taiga family, and after Karp’s death in 1988 he continued to visit Agafya. In 1990, a documentary story about hermits, “The Taiga Dead End,” was published.


On April 11, 1961, V. M. Peskov was the first to interview Yuri Gagarin, escorting him from Kuibyshev to Moscow by plane. There is a whole story about this. It so happened that almost seven years later, Peskov wrote an obituary for the astronaut.


On April 27, 1970, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Victory Day, Peskov had the opportunity to do another unique interview. In a historical conversation with G.K. Zhukov is a journalist of him not only as a marshal, but also as a person. The success was colossal. This article turned out to be significant for Zhukov himself; he began to receive thousands of letters, feeling that the people remembered and respected him. In the photo: Zhukov with his daughter Maria.


Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov visited almost all corners of the planet, and on the map of the former USSR there were no places left unexplored by him. However, the place where he grew up was his favorite place on earth. In the village of Orlovo, where the writer was born, his fellow countrymen named a street in his honor.


And Peskov grew up in the village of Volya (Tresvyatskaya station), which is five kilometers from Orlovo. Vasily Mikhailovich bequeathed his ashes to be scattered in these very places, and even chose a forest edge. On the memorial stone brought from Mordovia, during the writer’s lifetime, the inscription was made: “The main value in life is life itself.”


Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov died on August 12, 2013 after a long illness. In the same month, the Voronezh Biosphere Reserve was named after him. And this is no coincidence. After all, he wrote a lot about the reserve, located not far from his native place. His first essay in “April in the Forest” was dedicated to spring in a reserved forest, and in his first essay for “Komsomolskaya Pravda” he depicted the life of deer in the Voronezh Nature Reserve.


On December 10, 2013, the V. M. Peskov Museum opened its doors in the Voronezh Nature Reserve. The exhibition includes personal belongings of Vasily Mikhailovich: notebooks, a voice recorder, glasses, numerous books, photographs, documents, as well as his “trademarks” - a film camera and the famous cap.


Interesting facts about V.M. Peskov:
Andrey Dyatlov (deputy editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda) recalls:
* He wore what seemed to be the same cap for decades. In fact, he simply ordered a dozen identical ones at one time, and wore them.
* In the advent of the age of digital photographic equipment, I shot until the last moment with the good old mechanical Nikon, which was already gray from scratches, like Peskov himself, but did not let me down.
* There was no place for a TV in his apartment, and when he was given this device, Peskov gave it to his daughter.
* I always wrote in pencil. And then he went with the manuscripts to the stenographic bureau and personally read it to the stenographers.
* It was very funny to inscribe books for friends: he always drew himself bald and a bird carrying a worm to the nest. This was the brand name!
* In Komsomolskaya Pravda it was once considered an honor to sign with your name. And he always put only V. Peskov.
One of the last photographs of Vasily Mikhailovich, taken on May 24, 2013, on KP’s birthday. Peskov read his next “Window to Nature” every Friday on a fresh rollout straight from the printer.


When a specialist department observer corr. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Galina Sapozhnikova complained to Vasily Mikhailovich that she was tired of endless trips, he replied: “Galya! While you can go, go! This is happiness! And he himself traveled, traveled all over the world, giving us wonderful essays and amazing photographs!

In the next post I will tell you about the excursion itself.

Message quote What else is Vasenka - of course, Peskov!

V.M. Peskov wrote brilliantly and photographed just as masterfully. In this amazingly organic creative combination, he had no equal.

And Vasily Mikhailovich became the first and only journalist to receive the highest prize of the Soviet Union - the Lenin Prize, unlike his colleagues who received this award for certain achievements (for a book, for a documentary film, etc.), Peskov received it for his everyday labor in the rocky newspaper field.

...He came to the main newspaper of his life, Komsomolskaya Pravda, as it was affectionately called then, as a 23-year-old young man. And before that I managed to finish seven classes and enter a construction technical school. But he soon abandoned him. For some time I studied to become a projectionist and at the same time attended high school. Because he firmly intended to enter the Kharkov Military-Political School to become a club manager. I even collected documents there, but the KhVPU was unexpectedly closed due to relocation to Lviv. He no longer had time to decide where else to go and began to simply earn a piece of bread. Over the course of several years, he changed several professions: he was a pioneer leader, a projectionist, a driver, and a photographer in a photo studio. One day, an employee of the Voronezh newspaper “Young Communar” saw his photographs. And Peskov subsequently worked for three years in the regional youth team. And then he was noticed by Komsomolskaya Pravda. This happened in 1956. On March 20, the article “When the Blizzards Raged” appeared, which told the story of the boy Kolya, who was feeding deer in the Voronezh Nature Reserve during a frosty, snowy winter.

I was childishly surprised by the work of Vasily Mikhailovich back in 1961, immediately after Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space. Then all the information about what was happening in the world came to my village of Doroshovka, Vinnytsia region, in only two ways: through the black circle of radio points and through newspapers - television appeared in our area only seven years after man’s conquest of space. So my father subscribed to only two newspapers: Pravda, as a matter of obligation, and Komsomolskaya Pravda for the soul. And it was in it that I read about the first cosmonaut something that had not been written or made public anywhere else.

It was Peskov who became the first journalist who managed to interview Yuri Gagarin immediately after his flight, ahead of the bison professionals from Pravda, Izvestia, TASS and Krasnaya Zvezda, which was the only one of all Soviet publications that had a special department on space . The day before, Komsomolskaya Pravda editor-in-chief Yuri Voronov found out who would fly and when. Sent Peskov to Star City. There, the journalist first interviewed the cosmonaut’s wife, Valentina Gagarina. He even begged her for a family album and published some pictures from it.

And how Vasily Mikhailovich managed to gain the trust of the always suspicious military, he himself could not explain. He said he was just lucky.

Be that as it may, the great military leaders in charge of space allocated Peskov 20 minutes to communicate with the first cosmonaut. Naturally, he couldn’t ask the hero about anything like that, but he took several absolutely stunning photographs, and I still remember them. The next day, again by a miracle, such luck cannot be described in any other way, Vasily Mikhailovich managed to fly with Yuri Alekseevich to Moscow and on the way take a long, detailed interview from him. But what a miracle it is. This guy “with a watering can and a notepad” just knew how to concentrate at the right moment and direct his strength in the right direction. Which, ultimately, is the highest professionalism.

There was such an outlandish case in Peskov’s practice. Once Nikita Khrushchev was returning from his next numerous trip abroad. The country's main communist, its prime minister, has something very vaguely reminiscent of a wide-brimmed hat on his head: it is clear that he sat down awkwardly before this. Well, who will tell Nikita Sergeevich about such an embarrassment? But in those days no one had a clue about Photoshop. And then Vasya from Komsomolskaya Pravda runs up to the gangway at a trot. He takes off Khrushchev’s hat, gives it the proper appearance with his fist, and carefully puts it on the owner again. He, thank God, understood everything correctly. He said: “Thank you, young man!” And he went to kiss those greeting them. Vasily Mikhailovich said that he didn’t even have time to get scared. And I didn’t think about anything at all except to take the right photo. Somehow it all worked out naturally. Then it became scary from the possible consequences. And then he acted automatically. I heard this story in another version. Allegedly, Peskov did not touch Khrushchev’s hat, but only shouted to him: “Nikita Sergeevich, take off your hat!” That's right: legendary people should become legends.

Peskov dealt with the topic of space in Komsomolskaya Pravda for several years, until he handed it over to Yaroslav Golovanov. Together with my friend Colonel Mikhail Rebrov, he wrote a book of essays “Wait for us, stars” about the first Soviet cosmonaut pilots.

At the end of my pedagogical studies, I openly didn’t give a damn about her, but I actively worked as a freelance correspondent in the youth editorial office of Vinnitsa radio and the Komsomolske Plyamya newspaper. Then he began to consciously and deliberately take an interest in everything that came from the pen of Vasily Peskov. In my youth and stupid naivety, it seemed to me that in time I would also be able to compose as interestingly and simply as he did - what a miracle. And it seemed like that for a long time. Yes, perhaps, as before the time when he was enrolled in the staff of the daily newspaper of the Baku Air Defense District “On Guard”. Only then, with annoying and final disappointment, did I realize to myself: never in my life would I reach Peskov’s level!

This is impossible, unrealistic to learn. Basically impossible. For it is impossible, without having a tenor sound in your liver, to sing like Lemeshev and Kozlovsky.

One can only be born with such an ability to write and film, no, take it more broadly - with such a truly philosophical and at the same time deeply folk gift of capturing the world around us in a line and a snapshot.

Indeed, unlike many of us, certified specialists who received a journalistic education, Vasily Mikhailovich had only a ten-year evening education behind him. True, he graduated with honors. He said: “When I was accepted into Komsomolskaya Pravda, I, frankly speaking, was timid: I only had 10 classes. But smart people suggested: you can study without universities if you have the ability. I decidedly stopped watching TV so as not to waste time, and began to read voraciously.”

And I, while still a cadet at the Faculty of Journalism at the Lvov Political School, got myself folders with clippings of materials from the best journalists, in my opinion, idols, so to speak, and, of course, Peskov. Subsequently, I met everyone. I'm still friends with some of them. But the first was still Vasily Mikhailovich. The fact is that when I began my officer service, I began to bombard Komsomolskaya Pravda with my notes. Some of them were published under the pseudonym M. Chukov not only in the newspaper, but also in the monthly library. (At that time, military journalists categorically did not welcome the hilling of “other people’s gardens”). So in a year I “cheated” many more than half a thousand rubles - quite decent money for those times. And on his next vacation, Pilipenko appeared before the bright eyes of the then editor for the military department with a decent magarych. It cannot be said that my actions greatly upset Boris. And, realizing this, he asked: “Introduce me to Peskov” - “No question. I’m just warning you: he won’t drink with us, but the guys, you see, are already prepared.” However, I insisted, because I hid a small piano in the bushes: a plump folder with Peskov newspaper clippings and a detailed description of my own “childhood river” Bushanka, along which I walked from source to mouth, following the example of Vasily Mikhailovich. I thought that these “tricks” would work perfectly, and we would have a nice conversation. But they didn't work. Peskov remained almost indifferent to my creative servility. We talked briefly, I don’t remember what about, and parted for years.

In my last year of study at the academy, I was sent for a two-month internship in the military department of Komsomolskaya Pravda. By that time, under the main youth newspaper, for several years there had been an institute of seconded military journalists from the troops, organized by Boris Pilipenko. I probably ended the top ten of those seconded or started the next one - I don’t remember. But he was the first to fly to Afghanistan with a Komsomolskaya Pravda certificate exactly two weeks after our 40th Army was introduced there. Alas, my materials from the Limited Contingent were modestly signed “Turkestan Military District”. The words “battle”, “enemy”, “shells”, “bullets”, “wounds” were often quoted by the vigilant censorship so that “the city would think: training is underway.” Even calling the contingent “Limited” was forbidden. Nevertheless, Peskov, it turned out, read everything that I sent “from across the river” - as Afghanistan was conventionally called. When I returned from a business trip, Vasily Mikhailovich himself wanted to talk to me. He asked about everything meticulously and intently, as only he could do it. I remember that he complained about the war itself, and about the “old guys” from the Politburo who started it, and about the fact that “Drake” (editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda Gennady Nikolaevich Seleznev) did not even want to hear about him flying to Afghanistan . A child of war, scorched by its scorching breath, Peskov was painfully aware of that military conflict that lasted for a decade. I don’t know what exactly motivated the editor-in-chief who forbade Peskov “even to think about Afghanistan,” but he did the right thing. Such shots should be cherished like the apple of your eye. In general, I just thought that Vasily Mikhailovich worked at the newspaper for almost 60 years. He was hired by O. Gotsiridze. Then there were: A. Adzhubey, Yu. Voronov, D. Goryunov, B. Pankin, L. Korneshov, V. Ganichev, G. Seleznev, V. Fronin, V. Simonov, V. Mamontov, V. Sungorkin. And all of them (every single one!) always treated the main writer of Komsomolskaya Pravda with the utmost care, cherished and cherished him. Yes, he himself was a man without conflict, who never got into trouble in vain. But it’s also true that I always found such “hot” topics for myself that they would make any editor-in-chief tremble and deprive him of sleep. Consider the notes about Peskov’s journey with Boris Strelnikov (from Pravda), which were published for many weeks in two newspapers simultaneously, under the heading “On the Roads of America.” Vasily Mikhailovich himself admitted: “Strelnikov and I discovered that America that no one knew.” The travel notes were about the life of hunters and Indians, traders and students and, of course, about nature.

Thus, the documentary story about the United States truly became a discovery for the Soviet reader, accustomed to information strictly limited by censorship.

And so everything that Peskov did in journalism took on a new coloring.

Or take his material “Commander” - a huge interview, befitting the personality himself, with the disgraced Georgy Zhukov at that time. This is an epoch-making publication that no less than brought back the Marshal of Victory, as they would now say in the context of History! And this was done against the wishes of the then establishment, again if we use today’s terminology.

My next memorable meeting (fleeting, as Konstantin Simonov liked to say, “on the spot” doesn’t count) with my idol took place in the early eighties. Peskov had just published something in Komsomolskaya Pravda that made the entire huge Soviet Union literally stand on edge. He himself, years later, said: “The words “Taiga dead end” do not need explanation. Few people reading newspapers do not know that we are talking about the fate of the Lykovs. Komsomolskaya Pravda first reported on the taiga “find” of geologists in 1982. The interest in the little documentary story was enormous. Of course, we were talking about a family that had lived in isolation from people for more than thirty years. And not somewhere in the south, but in Siberia, in the taiga. Everything was interesting: the circumstances that led to the exceptional “Robinsonade”, hard work, the unity of people in the struggle for existence, resourcefulness and skill and, of course, religious faith, which served as a support for people in extraordinary, exceptional circumstances.

It was not easy in 1982 to collect information about everything that happened. Something was left unspoken, something the Lykovs simply preferred to remain silent about, not yet fully trusting people from the “world”; some things in the confused, inconsistent story were simply difficult to understand. And how to check what you hear? I had to question in detail geologists who already knew the Lykovs well, compare and contrast. It was even more difficult to publish the story: 1982, no publicity. How can you tell a youth newspaper about Old Believers hermits without falling into atheistic maxims? The only right thing was to show the drama of people, to admire their resilience, to evoke a feeling of compassion and mercy. This is how the Lykovs’ story is told.

At that time, I was a member of the bureau of the All-Russian Theater Society, and our pestering management literally tormented me: arrange a creative evening with Peskov, if you say that you personally know him. Which, in general, was not difficult to understand.

The popularity of the journalist himself and his extraordinary publication had no analogues in the Soviet media and naturally went off scale. People exchanged newspaper clippings, and letters about the Lykovs arrived in bags to the editor.

Add to this the weekly TV show “In the World of Animals,” which Peskov was hosting just then, and it becomes clear: there was no more popular journalist in the capital at that time than him. In short, I contacted my Komsomol friends, and they finally persuaded Uncle Vasya to help the serviceman. And here Mikhalych and I “finished” what we needed to do. Together we wrote the script for the creative evening, together we selected photographs for the epidiascope. Personally, I got hold of a narrow-film film installation for Vasily Mikhailovich: there was a wide-film one in the Actor’s House. The evening was a great success. Peskov was, as they say, on a roll. The audience, as they say, went wild. Then the two of us sat quietly over a glass and, I admit, rarely have I received such pleasure from the luxury of human communication. In addition, it turned out that we were both not indifferent to this type of oral folk art, like jokes. Moreover, their older comrade told them better than me, but I knew incomparably more tales, since I have been collecting them since my technical school days. Well, by profession, we had a great conversation with Vasily Mikhailovich.

“The best way to check that what you have written is correct is to read it to someone. I always do this when I read my works to the great stenographer Katya.” “Since I’ve been in journalism, I’ve kept two notebooks: the right and left pocket. In the right one I write down everything that somehow caught my interest, any noteworthy detail. On the left I record only what may be useful to me in the future for work.” “And I have not argued with those who can (have the right) to edit my materials for a long time. Firstly, I still do not have the absolute literacy that a writer should have. Secondly, a fresh eye more often sees what my blurred eye can no longer see. Thirdly, I’ll be honest: very few people take it upon themselves to rule me anymore.”

In the “antediluvian” times, when we were young, the attitude towards the journalistic profession was completely different.

Holy reverence for her, loyalty and devotion to her were symbolized by such professionals as Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov.

...Even when I was just planning this essay about the great Russian journalist, I turned to my friends: Vladimir Kiselev, Akram Murtazaev, Evgeniy Chernysh, Viktor Barants, Alexander Gamov. Each of them worked side by side with Peskov at different times for many years. Almost everyone responded. Sasha Gamow passed his letters to President Putin more often from hand to hand. This, for example:

"Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Thanks to you, the Voronezh Nature Reserve is included in a pilot project for the development of ecological tourism in Russia and this program is already in effect, for which you are especially grateful. But there is a problem in this reserve - the process of transferring the housing stock (48 residential buildings) and related infrastructure (kindergarten, first aid station and utility networks from the 50s to the 70s) into municipal ownership, which lasts for four years. The decision on this case was agreed upon by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Economic Development and the administration of the Voronezh region, but this large stone still hangs around the neck of the reserve. All for it! But the cart is still there. We must decisively correct this situation. The right step must be taken by the Duma or you, as the Chairman of the Government. But the Duma will not soon heat up and get back on track. And the matter is urgent. That's why I'm writing to you. Several other reserves are in the same situation. But Voronezh needs support first of all. Things are on the right track there. We need to take another right and urgent step.

Thank you for your constant attention! V. Peskov.”

From memories of V.M. Peskov:

* “We once flew to Severomorsk. In the evening we went to a tavern to eat. The common smoky hall was buzzing like a beehive. The delighted waitress assigned us to the small one. We sit, eat, and “grind” something. And suddenly we notice that drunken officers began to look in on us. We found out what was going on. It turned out that the waitress had established a business on Peskov. She approached the servicemen and said: “And Peskov is having dinner with me.” They didn’t believe it and bet on a bottle of cognac. I managed to win six grand while Vasily Mikhailovich and I had dinner.”

* “Somewhere in the mid-eighties, there was a fire at our station in Antarctica. The icebreaker rushed to the rescue. The only journalist on board was, of course, Peskov. He was already transmitting information via radio. Komsomolskaya Pravda acquired its own radio station. On the way back, Mikhalych forgot his “right pocket” notebook, it seems, in a hotel in Australia. About a month later, KGB officers returned his notebook to the journalist. They say we were never able to decipher what you wrote here.”

* “He took great risks more than once in his travels around planet Earth, but was not eaten by a bear, was not trampled by an elephant, did not freeze, did not drown, did not crash; he happily got out of all the difficult vicissitudes! And Fate and the Higher Powers probably helped him in this! It’s very scary, however, to read the lines where Vasily Mikhailovich says: “There is no more dangerous beast in the forest today than man!”

* “Vasily Mikhailovich started with a simple FED camera, then he took photographs with Zenit and Kiev. In Komsomolskaya Pravda he acquired a Nikon.

- Vasily Mikhailovich, let us buy you a digital device!

- No need. I’m going to die soon - there’s no point in getting used to new gadgets.”

* On his “cell” in the editorial office there was a piece of paper with the inscription: “Reserve of black and white photography. Director V. Peskov.”

* “I remember that in 2000 the editors widely and solemnly celebrated his 70th birthday. They gave me a huge TV (I gave it to my daughter but didn’t watch it), and made a lot of speeches. And he responded: “Thank you: at my age it’s time to hide matches from people, but you still give me the opportunity to publish.”

* “In the late 90s, the head of the stencil bureau Ekaterina Konstantinovna Blagodareva (the same woman Katya) said:

- Vasenka from Tashkent reports material about the earthquake, and I write it down and cry.

- What is Vasenka, Aunt Katya?

“What else - Peskov.”

* “His apartment consisted of books 90 percent of the interior. I read a lot. I worked at KP for almost 60 years without major repairs.”

* “I always wore a cap following the example of my friend, outstanding football player Vsevolod Bobrov. I often lost it, but I had about ten in stock.”

And the statements of Vasily Peskov:

* Man has defeated nature, but this is the case when reparations are paid not by the vanquished, but by the winner. The winner will have to pay a lot so that the loser does not finally give up.

* Photography is one of the best human hobbies. Photography makes staying in any place interesting, leaves a memory of it, cultivates attention and taste. Better than a gun, it brings a person into contact with nature, makes any journey interesting and brings joy even in the garden. And most importantly: photography is accessible to anyone, and if it also helps to earn their daily bread, then this is almost happiness.

* Komsomolskaya Pravda and I have a happy love marriage. We always needed each other. But there is a bitterness in this love for one of the parties. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” is always 25, and we, alas, are getting old. And so that the marriage does not fall apart, you must try to work as if you were at least over fifty. I owe everything I have in life to the newspaper. As a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, he traveled around our large country and visited many parts of the world. He wrote about many things - about interesting people, about travel, was at the cosmodrome, wrote about Gagarin, met with Marshal Zhukov and many other interesting people. But the main theme has always been nature. My first article in the Voronezh youth newspaper was about nature. The first note in “KP” is also about nature. And now I am running the page “Window to Nature”. I relate to nature not only as a zoologist and biologist. Nature for me is the knowledge of life and its laws. A story about nature not only enlightens a person, but also shapes his worldview based on knowledge.

* All my life I fought so that the little river of my childhood would become clean again. I wrote up a bunch of sheets of paper, which the typists retyped, correcting my mistakes, and I am not ashamed to say that as the son of a typist and a peasant woman, I often make mistakes. But the days have come when my river is clean again, there are fish in it, and there is silence all around. Am I happy? No. For the factories of my country have become. Her strength evaporated. And the river, which has become clean at such a price, does not make me happy. I would be glad if her strength was such that both steel and clean water. And the rocket and the strawberries.
***

At the edge of the forest in Orlovo, the native village of Vasily Mikhailovich, there is a huge stone. He himself brought and installed this boulder here. And he bequeathed his ashes to be scattered nearby. At the same forest edge...

Vasily Peskov, a journalist and writer, special correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, is well known to readers as the author of books about nature, about our Fatherland, about bright and interesting people. The works of Vasily Peskov have received many awards, including the Lenin Prize. In addition to almost all the most interesting and picturesque places on the territory of the former USSR, Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov traveled from his native Voronezh to the USA, where he visited several times, to Africa, and visited the Antarctica he described. The writer also had a chance to see a number of European countries - Hungary, Norway, Switzerland. Vasily Peskov’s circle of acquaintances is extremely wide. From the American president to the Lykov family of Old Believers from the taiga. Yuri Gagarin. Georgy Zhukov. Konstantin Simonov. And many others. The master also worked on television - for almost 15 years he was the host of the TV show “In the Animal World.”
Peskov family. Mother Tatyana Pavlovna and father Mikhail Semenovich with their children Vasya and Masha. A photo from 1937, when it was time for Vasya to go to school.
Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov is the most famous presenter of the popular television program “In the Animal World”. He was born in the Voronezh region on March 14, 1930 in the village of Orlovo.
After graduating from school, Vasily Peskov began collaborating with the regional newspaper “Young Communar” in the city of Voronezh, and it was this activity that served as the impetus for the start of the journalist’s creative activity. At the age of 26, Peskov began writing essays for Komsomolskaya Pravda; his essays were distinguished by his great love for nature and the world around him in general.
April 14, 1961. Flight to Moscow with Gagarin after the end of his legendary flight.


Peskov is one of the authors of the book of documentary essays about cosmonauts “Wait for us, stars” (1963). In 1965, the book “White Dreams” was published, telling about the harsh nature of Antarctica, about Soviet scientists and researchers of Antarctica. In 1967, the book “The Edge of the World” was published.
A collection of essays entitled “Wanderings” became widely known in 1991. In this collection, the author gives a clear picture of East Africa, Hungary, the Swiss Alps, as well as a description of their rivers and lakes. Vasily Peskov is the presenter of regular columns of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper - “Taiga Dead End” and “Window to Nature”. The essays he wrote formed the basis for books of the same name.

“Taiga Dead End” is a documentary story about the Lykov family of Old Believers. Almost all family members have now died, including due to contact with microbes unusual for their bodies. Only Agafya (born in 1945) remained alive. Since 1980, Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov still visits Agafya Lykova almost every year. Based on the results of these visits, he wrote the book “Taiga Dead End”, which became a bestseller, was reprinted several times and was translated into many foreign languages.
All works of Vasily Peskov bear the imprint of lyricism, spirituality, and poetry. On the pages of his books, the author talentedly reveals the characters and destinies of people.

Excerpt from an interview with Vasily Mikhailovich:
- Don’t take it as sycophancy, but you really won’t be given 80 years. You managed to maintain simply heroic health!
- Look how many pills I have! There are no healthy people at my age. I don’t do anything special - well, really, for about thirty years now, every morning I’ve been doing 20-minute exercises according to plan. And then the traditional breakfast - oatmeal with dried apricots. Without it, porridge is tasteless!
- In between travel and work, what do you like to do?
- I read at least three hours a day. And always lying down, even though it is harmful. I don’t watch TV at all, it was given to me as a gift for my 70th birthday, and I still have it unpacked in a box near the front door. I lean on it to make putting on my shoes more comfortable. Many people are surprised: I hosted the program “In the Animal World” for 15 years, from 1975 to 1990, and even received an award for my contribution to the development of television. But I believe that it was reading that helped me become an educated person - I just graduated from school. TV leads astray. Here are my colleagues complaining: “Young journalists come and don’t know how to do anything except drink beer and grope girls!”
- What does your camera lens capture besides flora and fauna?
- Interesting people. But not in the sense that everyone is used to. If you look at the photos in modern newspapers and magazines, it’s as if the world consists of only politicians, actors and jokers. I see Pugacheva in every newspaper, how she got married for the 12th time, and I can’t look at her anymore! Yes, naked girls often appear. But I’m also not interested in photographing naked girls.
Why doesn’t Peskov understand Drozdov?
- Do you communicate with your former co-host of the program “In the Animal World” Nikolai Drozdov?
- When this mess started on television in the 90s, I left. But Kolya stayed and decided to adapt to this brotherhood, which shares money and fame. I do not understand him and do not share this position. Why did he go to this “The Last Hero” program? Well, it's his business...
- Where will your passion for travel take you in the near future?
- I'm going to East Africa. I’m going with friends - they are not oligarchs, but hard workers who were able to earn a decent living. Everyone was going to the Canary Islands, it seemed fashionable. But I dissuaded them: there’s really no nature there, just mountains and the sea. Let's go to Africa, it's much more picturesque there!


“Our government, thinking about how to get out of the historical hole into which the country had fallen, generally decided sensibly: with the help of natural resources. The decision is not wrong; there are simply no other means. But, as they say, they threw out the baby with the bathwater, removing from the road everything that could in any way interfere with the intended process. Almost instantly, without consulting anyone, they destroyed the forestry department that had existed in Russia for 200 years - the established traditions of forest management, world-recognized Russian forest science were thrown into the wind, the forest protection system was destroyed. At the same time, the Nature Conservation Committee was liquidated, the creation of which had been fought for several years (I took part in this). The Forest Code provided for the transfer of forests to private use. The word “private” was removed. In the code, it was replaced with the word “lease” - first for 99 years, then for 49 (“as in Canada”), in order to then extend the lease. What do these 49 years mean in our current conditions? With KamAZ trucks, modern saws, cranes and greed, the forest is very quickly shaved off in order to build a castle in London or at least in some forest island near Moscow. This is drama. If we don’t improve the situation, we will be left without the most important resource for Russia.
Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov
Photos taken by V. M. Peskov during his travels

















Photo: Vasily Peskov
List of books:
Land beyond the ocean
Taiga dead end
White dreams
Wintering
Country roads
War and people
Roads and trails