Ilya Ilf

(Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg)

Evgeny Petrov

(Evgeny Petrovich Kataev)

One Story America

Ilf and Petrov traveled around the United States of America and wrote a book about their journey called One-Story America. This is an excellent book. It is full of respect for the human person. In it, the work of man is majestically praised. This is a book about engineers, about the structures of technology that conquer nature. This book is noble, subtle and poetic. It extraordinarily clearly manifests that new attitude towards the world, which is characteristic of the people of our country and which can be called the Soviet spirit. This is a book about the richness of nature and the human soul. It is permeated with indignation against capitalist slavery and tenderness for the country of socialism.

Y. Olesha

Part one.

FROM THE WINDOW OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH FLOOR

Chapter first. "NORMANDY"

At nine o'clock a special train leaves Paris, taking passengers of the Normandie to Le Havre. The train goes non-stop and after three hours rolls into the building of the Havre maritime station. Passengers go out to the closed platform, go up to the upper floor of the station along the escalator, go through several halls, go along the gangways closed on all sides and find themselves in a large lobby. Here they sit in the elevators and disperse to their floors. This is the Normandy. What is her appearance- the passengers do not know, because they never saw the ship.

We entered the elevator, and a boy in a red jacket with gold buttons pressed a beautiful button with a graceful movement. The shiny new elevator rose a little, got stuck between floors and suddenly moved down, ignoring the boy who was desperately pressing the buttons. Having gone down three floors, instead of going up two, we heard a painfully familiar phrase, uttered, however, on French: "The elevator is not working."

We climbed the stairs to our cabin, which were entirely covered with a light green fireproof rubber carpet. Corridors and vestibules of the ship are covered with the same material. The step is soft and inaudible. It's nice. But you really begin to appreciate the advantages of rubber flooring during pitching: the soles seem to stick to it. This, however, does not save you from seasickness, but it prevents you from falling.

The staircase was not at all like a steamboat - wide and sloping, with flights and landings, the dimensions of which are quite acceptable for any home. The cabin was also some kind of non-ship. Spacious room with two windows, two wide wooden beds, armchairs, closets, tables, mirrors and all amenities, down to the telephone. In general, the Normandy looks like a steamship only in a storm - then it shakes at least a little. And in calm weather, it is a colossal hotel with a magnificent view of the sea, which suddenly broke off the embankment of a fashionable resort and sailed at a speed of thirty miles an hour to America.

Deep below, from the platforms of all the floors of the station, the mourners shouted out their last greetings and wishes. They shouted in French, in English, in Spanish. They also shouted in Russian. A strange man in a black naval uniform with a silver anchor and a shield of David on his sleeve, in a beret and with a sad beard was shouting something in Hebrew. Later it turned out that this was a steamship rabbi, whom the General Transatlantic Company maintains in the service to meet the spiritual needs of a certain part of the passengers. For the other part, there are Catholic and Protestant priests at the ready. Muslims, fire worshipers and Soviet engineers are deprived of spiritual service. In this respect, the General Transatlantic Company has left them to their own devices. On the Normandy there is a rather large Catholic Church, illuminated by an extremely convenient electric demi-light for prayer. The altar and religious images can be covered with special shields, and then the church automatically turns into a Protestant one. As for the rabbi with the sad beard, he is not given a separate room, and he performs his services in the children's room. For this purpose, the company gives him a tales and a special drapery, with which he closes for a while the vain images of bunnies and cats.

The ship left the harbour. There were crowds of people on the embankment and on the pier. The Normandie is still unaccustomed to, and every voyage of the transatlantic colossus attracts everyone's attention in Le Havre. The French coast disappeared in the smoke of a cloudy day. By evening, the lights of Southampton shone. For an hour and a half, the Normandy stood in the roadstead, taking passengers from England, surrounded on three sides by a distant mysterious light. unknown city. And then she went out into the ocean, where the noisy fuss of invisible waves, raised by a storm wind, was already beginning.

Everything trembled in the stern, where we were placed. The decks, the walls, the portholes, the deck chairs, the glasses over the washbasin, the washbasin itself were trembling. The vibration of the ship was so strong that even such objects from which this could not be expected began to make sounds. For the first time in our lives, we heard the sound of a towel, soap, carpet on the floor, paper on the table, curtains, a collar thrown on the bed. Everything that was in the cabin sounded and rattled. It was enough for the passenger to think for a second and weaken the muscles of his face, as his teeth began to chatter. All night long it seemed that someone was breaking at the door, knocking on the windows, laughing heavily. We counted a hundred different sounds that our cabin made.

The Normandy was making its tenth voyage between Europe and America. After the eleventh voyage, she will go to the dock, her stern will be dismantled, and the design flaws that cause vibration will be eliminated.

In the morning a sailor came and tightly closed the portholes with metal shields. The storm intensified. The small cargo steamer struggled its way to the French shores. Sometimes he disappeared behind the wave, and only the tips of his masts were visible.

For some reason, it always seemed that the ocean road between the Old and New Worlds was very busy, that every now and then merry steamships came across, with music and flags. In fact, the ocean is a majestic and deserted thing, and the steamer, which was stormy four hundred miles from Europe, was the only ship that we met in five days of travel. The Normandie rocked slowly and importantly. She walked, almost without slowing down, confidently throwing high waves that climbed on her from all sides, and only occasionally gave uniform bows to the ocean. It was not a struggle of a meager creation of human hands with a raging element. It was a fight of equals.

In the semicircular smoking hall, three famous wrestlers with squashed ears took off their jackets and played cards. Shirts protruded from under their vests. The wrestlers thought painfully. Large cigars hung from their mouths. At another table, two people were playing chess, constantly correcting the pieces moving off the board. Two more, resting their hands on their chins, watched the game. Well, who else, except for the Soviet people, will play the rejected Queen's Gambit in stormy weather! So it was. The handsome Botvinniks turned out to be Soviet engineers.

Gradually, acquaintances began to be made, companies were formed. They handed out a printed list of passengers, among which was one very funny family: Mr. Butterbrodt, Mrs. Butterbrodt and young Mr. Butterbrodt. If Marshak had been on the Normandy, he would probably have written poems for children called "Fat Mr. Sandwich".

We entered the Gulfstrom. It was raining warmly, and oil soot was deposited in the heavy greenhouse air, which was thrown out by one of the Normandy's pipes.

We went to inspect the ship. A third class passenger does not see the ship he is traveling on. He is not allowed in either the first or tourist classes. A tourist class passenger also does not see the Normandy, he is also not allowed to cross the borders. Meanwhile, the first class is the Normandie. It occupies at least nine-tenths of the entire ship. Everything is huge in first class: the promenade decks, the restaurants, the smoking lounges, the card-playing lounges, the special ladies' lounges, and the conservatory, where plump French sparrows jump on glass branches and hundreds of orchids hang from the ceiling, and a theater with four hundred seats, and a swimming pool with water,

The travel notes of Ilf and Petrov "One-storied America" ​​were published in 1937, more than seventy years ago. In the fall of 1935, Ilf and Petrov were sent to the United States as correspondents for the Pravda newspaper.

It is difficult to say what exactly the top authorities were guided by when they sent satirists into the very thick of capitalism. Most likely, they expected a vicious, destroying satire on the "country of Coca-Cola", but it turned out to be a smart, fair, benevolent book. It aroused keen interest among Soviet readers, who up to that time had not even a rough idea of ​​the North American United States.

The further history of the book cannot be called simple: it was either published, then banned, then removed from libraries, then parts of the text were cut off.

As a rule, "One-story America" ​​was included in a few collected works of Ilf and Petrov, separate editions rarely appeared ("no matter how it happened!"). There are only two editions with Ilfov's photo illustrations.

It is remarkable that the time has come when the desire to repeat the journey of Ilf and Petrov brought to life the documentary television series “One-Story America” by Vladimir Pozner (he conceived this project thirty years ago). In addition to the series, we received a book of travel notes by Posner and the American writer, radio journalist Brian Kahn, with photographs by Ivan Urgant.

In a series worthy of all praise, one feels respect for the original. Vladimir Pozner constantly refers to Ilf and Petrov, keenly noting the similarities and differences in the life of America then and now. Posner's television series is known to have aroused great interest in the United States. And I was pleased to discover that many of my compatriot acquaintances, under the influence of the series, are re-reading the old One-Story America.

Today's America is very interested in its history, including the time reflected in the book of Ilf and Petrov. More recently, exhibitions of Ilf's "American photographs" have been successfully held at several American universities. And in New York, an edition was published: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip. The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov(2007). This is a translation of the Ogonkovskaya publication of 1936, with numerous Ilfov photographs.

Good mutual interest benefits everyone.

However, modern america continues to be "one-story".

Alexandra Ilf

A number of surnames and geographical names given according to modern spelling.

Part one

From the window of the 27th floor

"Normandy"

At nine o'clock a special train leaves Paris, taking passengers of the Normandie to Le Havre. The train goes non-stop and after three hours rolls into the building of the Havre maritime station. Passengers go to the closed platform, go up to the top floor of the station via the escalator, go through several halls, go along the gangways closed on all sides and find themselves in a large lobby. Here they sit in the elevators and disperse to their floors. This is the Normandy. What her appearance is - the passengers do not know, because they never saw the ship.

We entered the elevator, and a boy in a red jacket with gold buttons pressed a beautiful button with a graceful movement. The shiny new elevator rose a little, got stuck between floors and suddenly moved down, ignoring the boy who was desperately pressing the buttons. Going down three floors, instead of going up two, we heard a painfully familiar phrase, uttered, however, in French: "The elevator does not work."

We climbed the stairs to our cabin, entirely covered with a fireproof light green rubber carpet. Corridors and vestibules of the ship are covered with the same material. The step is soft and inaudible. It's nice. But you really begin to appreciate the advantages of rubber flooring during pitching: the soles seem to stick to it. This, however, does not save you from seasickness, but it prevents you from falling.

The staircase was not at all like a steamboat - wide and sloping, with flights and landings, the dimensions of which are quite acceptable for any home.

The cabin was also some kind of non-ship. Spacious room with two windows, two wide wooden beds, armchairs, closets, tables, mirrors and all amenities, down to the telephone. In general, the Normandy looks like a steamship only in a storm - then it shakes at least a little. And in calm weather, it is a colossal hotel with a magnificent view of the sea, which suddenly broke off the embankment of a fashionable resort and sailed at a speed of thirty miles an hour to America.

Deep below, from the platforms of all the floors of the station, the mourners shouted out their last greetings and wishes. They shouted in French, in English, in Spanish. They also shouted in Russian. A strange man in a black naval uniform with a silver anchor and a shield of David on his sleeve, in a beret and with a sad beard was shouting something in Hebrew. Later it turned out that this was a steamship rabbi, whom the General Transatlantic Company maintains in the service to meet the spiritual needs of a certain part of the passengers. For the other part, there are Catholic and Protestant priests at the ready. Muslims, fire worshipers and Soviet engineers are deprived of spiritual service. In this respect, the General Transatlantic Company has left them to their own devices. There is a fairly large Catholic church on the Normandy, illuminated by an extremely convenient electric demi-light for prayer. The altar and religious images can be covered with special shields, and then the church automatically turns into a Protestant one. As for the rabbi with the sad beard, he is not given a separate room, and he performs his services in the children's room. For this purpose, the company gives him a tales and a special drapery, with which he closes for a while the vain images of bunnies and cats.

The ship left the harbour. There were crowds of people on the embankment and on the pier. The Normandie is still unaccustomed to, and every voyage of the transatlantic colossus attracts everyone's attention in Le Havre. The French coast disappeared in the smoke of a cloudy day. By evening, the lights of Southampton shone. For an hour and a half, the Normandy stood in the roadstead, taking passengers from England, surrounded on three sides by the distant mysterious light of an unfamiliar city. And then she went out into the ocean, where the noisy fuss of invisible waves, raised by a storm wind, was already beginning.

Everything trembled in the stern, where we were placed. The decks, the walls, the portholes, the deck chairs, the glasses over the washbasin, the washbasin itself were trembling. The vibration of the ship was so strong that even such objects from which this could not be expected began to make sounds. For the first time in our lives, we heard the sound of a towel, soap, carpet on the floor, paper on the table, curtains, a collar thrown on the bed. Everything that was in the cabin sounded and rattled. It was enough for the passenger to think for a second and weaken the muscles of his face, as his teeth began to chatter. All night long it seemed that someone was breaking at the door, knocking on the windows, laughing heavily. We counted a hundred different sounds that our cabin made.

The Normandy was making its tenth voyage between Europe and America. After the eleventh voyage, she will go to the dock, her stern will be dismantled, and the design flaws that cause vibration will be eliminated.

In the morning a sailor came and tightly closed the portholes with metal shields. The storm intensified. The small cargo steamer struggled its way to the French shores. Sometimes he disappeared behind the wave, and only the tips of his masts were visible.

For some reason, it always seemed that the ocean road between the Old and New Worlds was very busy, that every now and then merry steamships came across, with music and flags. In fact, the ocean is a majestic and deserted thing, and the steamer, which was stormy four hundred miles from Europe, was the only ship that we met in five days of travel. The Normandie rocked slowly and importantly. She walked, almost without slowing down, confidently throwing high waves that climbed on her from all sides, and only occasionally gave uniform bows to the ocean. It was not a struggle of a meager creation of human hands with a raging element. It was a fight of equals.

"One-Story America" ​​- travel essays by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, creators of the famous novels "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf". In the fall of 1935, satirists were sent to the United States as correspondents for the Pravda newspaper. They traveled America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back, and then, with their usual vivacity and sense of humor, told about this journey in a book. Ilf and Petrov told about the life of little and big cities, about the most beautiful landscapes: prairies, mountains and national parks, visited White House and an Indian wigwam, talked about American celebrities and filmmaking in Hollywood, about rodeo, wrestling and American football, about the creation of a light bulb, a phonograph and an electric chair, and much, much more.

01. Part I. "From the window of the twenty-seventh floor." Chapter One Normandy. (16:14)
02. Chapter two. First evening in New York. (18:52)
03. Chapter three. What can be seen from the window of the hotel. (15:08)
04. Chapter four. Appetite goes away while eating. (18:00)
05. Chapter five. We're looking for an angel without wings. (19:34)
06. Chapter six. Dad and mom. (15:09)
07. Chapter seven. Electric chair. (26:16)
08. Chapter eight. Big New York arena. (19:37)
09. Chapter nine. We buy a car and leave. (20:35)
10. Part II. "Across the Eastern States". Chapter ten. On the highway. (18:57)
11. Chapter Eleven. Small city. (18:23)
12. Chapter twelve. Big little city. (18:48)
13. Chapter thirteen. Mr. Ripley's Electric House. (21:40)
14. Chapter fourteen. America cannot be taken by surprise. (24:32)
15. Chapter fifteen. Dearborn. (18:47)
16. Chapter sixteen. Henry Ford. (24:02)
17. Chapter seventeen. Scary Chicago. (29:46)
18. Chapter eighteen. The best musicians in the world. (16:17)
19. Part III. "TO Pacific Ocean". Chapter nineteen. The birthplace of Mark Twain. (26:44)
20. Chapter Twenty. Marine Corps soldier. (16:05)
21. Chapter twenty-one. Roberts and his wife. (23:42)
22. Chapter twenty-two. Santa Fe. (15:46)
23. Chapter twenty-three. Meeting with the Indians. (23:30)
24. Chapter twenty-four. Day of misfortune. (22:14)
25. Chapter twenty-five. Desert. (20:04)
26. Chapter twenty-six. Grand Canyon. (14:44)
27. Chapter twenty-seven. Man in a red shirt. (28:14)
28. Chapter twenty-eight. Young Baptist. (15:07)
29. Chapter twenty-nine. On the crest of the dam. (19:12)
30. Part IV. "Golden State" Chapter Thirty. Mrs Adams record. (25:52)
31. Chapter thirty-one. San Francisco. (23:01)
32. Chapter thirty-two. American football. (21:18)
33. Chapter thirty-three. "Russian Hill". (15:56)
34. Chapter thirty-four. Captain X. (26:25)
35. Chapter thirty-five. four standards. (20:15)
36. Chapter thirty-six. God of bullshit. (28:28)
37. Chapter thirty-seven. Hollywood fortresses. (05:26)
38. Chapter thirty-eight. Pray, weigh and pay!. (16:26)
39. Chapter thirty-nine. God's country. (19:52)
40. Part V. "Back to the Atlantic". Chapter forty. Along the old Spanish trail. (22:12)
41. Chapter forty-one. Day in Mexico. (20:24)
42. Chapter forty-two. New Year in San Antonio. (22:13)
43. Chapter forty-three. We're moving into the southern states. (21:13)
44. Chapter forty-four. Black people. (23:34)
45. Chapter forty-five. American Democracy. (14:38)
46. ​​Chapter forty-six. Restless life. (21:05)

A Ford bought on credit in New York, in which the writers traveled all over America. Photo by Ilya Ilf

On September 19, 1935, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, as correspondents for the newspaper Pravda, set off on a four-month trip to America. On the Ford bought in New York, the writers crossed the whole country, visited the factories of Henry Ford and the birthplace of Mark Twain, in the Indian villages of Santa Fe and Taos, examined the construction of the Hoover Dam (then Boulder Dam), drove through the Colorful Desert of Arizona, visited the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, spent two weeks in Hollywood and returned through the southern states back to New York. Ilf wrote down his impressions in a diary, sent detailed long letters, short postcards, telegrams and stacks of photographs to his wife Maria every day. Returning to Moscow, the writers published their travel notes under the title "One-story America". Translated to English language, the book was a great success in the United States, and then in other countries.

Envelope of Ilya Ilf from the Normandy on the way to New York. October 4, 1935

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The first letter from Ilya Ilf from the Normandy on the way to New York. October 4, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The first letter from Ilya Ilf from the Normandy on the way to New York. October 4, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Writers sailed to New York on. Ilf's letters are written on special paper with the logo of the liner, which was in abundance in a special room for writing and sending letters. The journey in the first-class cabin was described in detail by Ilf and Petrov in the book One-Storied America.

“In general, the amenities here are enormous, if you take the vibration calmly. Our cabin is huge (because we are lucky, in Paris, when we exchanged ship cards for tickets, they gave us a cabin not a tourist one, but a first class one. They do this because the season has already ended so that the first class is not empty ugly) , sheathed in light wood, the ceiling is like in the subway, luxurious, there are two wide wooden beds, wardrobes, armchairs, a washbasin, a shower, a toilet. In general, the ship is huge and very beautiful. But in the field of art, it is clearly unfavorable here. Art Nouveau in general is a bit nasty thing, but on the Normandy it is further enhanced by gold and mediocrity.

Ilya Ilf on the deck of the Normandy. The picture was taken by radio designer Alexander Shorin on Ilf's camera From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

“A group of our engineers with the radio designer Shorin is riding on the Normandy. Everyone lay down like bones, showed up for a minute today and again hid in their cabins. I walk alone, mad admiral, insensitive to seasickness.

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from New York. October 9, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Ilf and Petrov arrived in New York on October 7, 1935, and spent almost a month there. They saw a lot of people - from Ernest Hemingway to, visited the big Van Gogh exhibition, at one of the first performances of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, saw a boxing match in Madison Square Garden and the dark corners of Sing Sing prison.

"Dear daughter Ilya Ilf addresses his wife Maria., sent you a letter yesterday. I live in the building on the back. I will be writing to you tonight. Kiss our dear Sasha Sashenka - Alexandra, daughter of Ilya Ilf and Maria.,
Your Ilya.

Ilya Ilf at the window of his room on the 27th floor of the Shelton Hotel in New York. Photo taken by Evgeny Petrov Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

“In the morning, waking up on our twenty-seventh floor and looking out the window, we saw New York in a transparent morning fog.”

"One Story America"

View from the window of the room on the 27th floor of the Shelton Hotel. Photo by Ilya Ilf Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

“It was what is called a peaceful village picture. A few white smokes rose into the sky, and an idyllic all-metal cockerel was even attached to the spire of a small twenty-story hut. The sixty-story skyscrapers that seemed so close last night were separated from us by at least a dozen red iron roofs and a hundred tall chimneys and dormer windows, among which laundry hung and ordinary cats roamed.

"One Story America"

Solomon Abramovich Throne. Photo by Ilya Ilf Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

Solomon Tron (1872-1969) - electrical engineer, often visited the Soviet Union, worked at Dneprostroy, Chelyabinsk and other places. Together with his wife Florence, the lively, energetic, curious and very sociable Solomon Throne accompanied the writers on their trip to America.

Dearborn envelope. November 14, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The main impressions of Ilf and Petrov on the way from New York to Hollywood were the factories of Henry Ford in Dearborn, Chicago and advertising, especially light advertising.

“It was Mr. Henry Ford. He has wonderful eyes, sparkling, similar, apparently, to Tolstoy's, muzhik's. A very moving person. He sat down too. He moved his feet all the time. Then he rested them on the table, then he laid them one after another, then he put them on the floor again. We said what is called “for life”. The date lasted about 15 or 20 minutes. Of course, a person like Ford no longer thinks only about making money. He said that he was serving the community and that life was more than a car. In a letter, it's a pity, it's hard to tell, my daughter. In the book One-Storied America, a separate chapter is devoted to the meeting with Henry Ford. In general, I saw a wonderful person who greatly influenced people's lives. He himself, one must think, is not very pleased with the dominance of machines over man, because he said that he wanted to make small factories where people would work and at the same time be engaged in agriculture.

An envelope from the Stevens Hotel. Chicago, November 16, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Letter from the Stevens Hotel. Chicago, November 16, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

In his diary, Ilya Ilf complained that it was impossible to shoot in Chicago:

"15th of November
<…>Brilliant car light. Embankment and slums. The Stevens Hotel has three thousand rooms. Patronage to single traveling women, and next to Gehry 30 miles from Chicago, in the city of Gary, there is a large smelter U.S. Steel.. Everything is clear with them, as in a copper basin.
It would be nice to film it, but it’s a terrible, dark day, nothing can be done, it’s a disgrace.”

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from Albuquerque. November 25, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

“Dear Marusik, if an Indian has an apartment on the third tier of a house, then he climbs these stairs from roof to roof. Dogs also walk up these stairs. Goodbye, my daughter.
Your Ilya.

Dogs walking on the roofs of Indian dwellings later appeared in One-Story America:

“The dogs ran to their homes without touching us, quickly climbed the stairs and disappeared at the door.”

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from the Navajo Bridge. November 28, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The desert made a huge impression on Ilf - he shot a lot in Arizona and sent his wife several postcards from the Grand Canyon.

“Dear Marusik, I left Grand Kenyon in the morning and drove through the mountainous desert all day. So good in this colorful desert, like nowhere else. The best I have ever seen.
Yours and Sashenkin Ilya.

The colorful desert of Arizona. Photo by Ilya IlfRussian State Archive of Literature and Art

The stamp on the envelope was cut off for Evgeny Petrov's stamp collection.

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Letter from San Francisco. December 5, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Before Hollywood, the writers stopped in San Francisco (“the city of fogs, very light and bright”) for a few days to look at the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, walk around the city, go to American football and take a break from the endless road.

“Dear, tender daughter, I’m already very bored. Neither you are gone for a very long time, nor our little Pig Nickname of Ilf's daughter Alexandra.. My children are dear, it seems to me that I will never part with you again. I'm bored without you.
Here Indians, Japanese, Dutch, anyone walk through the streets, and the Pacific Ocean is here, and the whole city is on falling slopes, on cliffs, and I already have too much, I need to see with you how our girl sleeping in bed."

Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

San Francisco. Photo by Ilya IlfRussian State Archive of Literature and Art

Descriptions of these photographs were included in the book One-Storied America:

“It is not clear how and why we ended up in the Tropical Swimming Pool, that is, the winter pool. We stood without taking off our coats in a huge, rather old wooden room, where there was a heavy orange-rhine air, some kind of bamboo poles stuck out and curtains hung, admired a young couple in bathing suits, busily playing ping-pong, and on the fat man who was floundering in a large box filled with water ... "

"One-story America" ​​by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov - perhaps too famous work to seriously review it 75 years after its publication. Nevertheless, I can't help but tell about this wonderful book in my journal after finally reading it, I also can't.
The history of the creation of the book is as follows: in the fall of 1935, correspondents from the newspaper Pravda came to America to make a road trip around this country for several months. “The plan was striking in its simplicity. We come to New York, buy a car and drive, drive, drive - until we get to California. Then we turn back and drive, drive, drive until we get to New York.”. The result of this journey, of course, should have been, if not a full-fledged book, then a series of essays about a country far and little known to Soviet people.
It is difficult to say what the party leaders were guided by when sending satirists into the thick of capitalism. On the one hand, in the mid-1930s, there was a rapprochement between the USSR and America, as a result of which many American engineers worked in the Soviet Union, helping to industrialize our country. On the other hand, as Ilya Ilf's daughter Alexandra suggests in her preface to the modern edition of the book, “most likely, they expected a vicious, destroying satire on the “country of Coca-Cola”, but it turned out to be a smart, fair, benevolent book". However, whatever the reason for the emergence of this, as they would say now, travelogue, the possibility of its creation was a great success for the authors, and even for modern readers like me, who have the opportunity to look at America in the 30s through the eyes of Soviet people, then there is, by the standards of that time, practically to fly to another planet.
Having lived for a month in New York, the city of skyscrapers, Ilf and Petrov, in the company of General Electric engineer Solomon Tron, whom they met back in the USSR, and his wife Florence Tron, presented in the book as the Adams spouses, made an automobile journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of America and back. On the way, the writers not only visited large and small cities and natural attractions, but also visited factories and film studios, met with famous people(for example, with Henry Ford), studied the lifestyle and character of ordinary Americans, as well as Indians and blacks, made observations about the pros and cons of capitalism, met with emigrants from Russia, got acquainted with national sports (American football, wrestling, Mexican bullfighting) , visited the construction site of the Golden Gate Bridge and so on. Many things and concepts that have long and firmly entered our lives, Ilf and Petrov open up for Soviet readers. On the pages of the book, they explain what service, publicity, rockets (racket), hitchhiking (hitchhiking) are. This also applies to some small everyday moments, including food. In America, for the first time, the authors come across tomato juice, which is called tomato juice, and popcorn. In general, not a book, but historical document. At the same time, it was written in a habitually lively language for Ilf and Petrov.

I note that the book is difficult to call a product Soviet propaganda. It’s not that there are no ideological moments in it at all, but, firstly, they are present only as conclusions from descriptions of American realities, and secondly, obviously, they are explained by the fact that the authors were completely sincerely influenced by the romantic moods of building socialism, which seemed to them a far fairer model than American capitalism. This, however, did not at all prevent Ilf and Petrov from honestly and benevolently pointing out the advantages of the American world order, not embarrassed to admit that Soviet Union There is a lot to learn from the USA.
The absence of "ideological heaviness" is also confirmed by the way "One-Storied America" ​​was received in the United States itself. Among the short newspaper reviews given on Wikipedia, there is not a single negative one. But there are such reviews: “Not many of our foreign guests have traveled this far from Broadway and downtown Chicago; not many people could talk about their impressions with such vivacity and humor. and “Not for one minute did the authors let themselves be fooled. Next to the main streets they saw slums, they saw poverty next to luxury, dissatisfaction with life, breaking through everywhere..

“Barely dragging our feet after these terrible adventures, we went for a walk in Santa Fe. American brick and wood are gone. Here stood Spanish houses of clay, supported by heavy buttresses, the ends of square or round ceiling beams sticking out from under the roofs. Cowboys walked the streets, tapping their high heels. A car drove up to the entrance of the cinema, an Indian with his wife got out of it. On the forehead of the Indian was a wide bright red bandage. Thick white windings were visible on the Indian woman's legs. The Indians locked the car and went to see the picture.

“There are many wonderful and attractive features in the character of the American people. These are excellent workers, golden hands. Our engineers say they really enjoy working with Americans. Americans are precise, but far from being pedantic. They are careful. They know how to keep their word and trust the word of others. They are always ready to help. These are good comrades, easy people.
But here's a wonderful feature - curiosity - the Americans are almost absent. This is especially true for young people. We did 16,000 kilometers by car on Great Danes and saw a lot of people. Almost every day we took "hitchhikers" into the car. They were all very talkative, and none of them were curious or asked who we were.”

“And here, in the desert, where for two hundred miles in a circle there is not a single settled dwelling, we found: excellent beds, electric lighting, steam heating, hot cold water - we found the same furnishings as can be found in any house in New York , Chicago or Gallop. In the canteen they put stacks of tomato juice in front of us and gave us a T-bone "steak" as beautiful as in Chicago, New York or Gallop, and charged us almost the same for all this ... This is an American standart spectacle of life (standard of living) was no less majestic than the painted desert.

“You have to look at the mountains from the bottom up. On the canyon - from top to bottom. The spectacle of the Grand Canyon is unparalleled on earth. Yes, it did not look like the ground. The landscape overturned everything, so to speak, European ideas about the globe. These may appear to the boy while reading fantasy novel Moon or Mars. We stood for a long time at the edge of this magnificent abyss. We four talkers didn't say a word. Deep below, a bird floated by, slow as a fish. Deeper still, almost engulfed in shadow, flowed the Colorado River.

“Most of these girls live with their parents, their earnings go to help their parents pay for a house bought on an installment plan, or for a refrigerator, also bought on an installment plan. And the future of the girl comes down to the fact that she will get married. Then she would buy the house herself in installments, and the husband would work tirelessly for ten years to pay the three, five or seven thousand dollars that this house cost. And for ten years, a happy husband and wife will tremble with fear that they will be fired from work and then there will be nothing to pay for this house. Oh, what a terrible life millions of American people lead in the struggle for their tiny electric happiness!

“To many people, America seems to be a country of skyscrapers, where day and night you can hear the clanging of overground and underground trains, the hellish roar of cars and the continuous desperate cry of stockbrokers who rush about among the skyscrapers, waving every second falling shares. This notion is solid, old and familiar. Of course, everything is there - skyscrapers, and elevated roads, and falling stocks. But this belongs to New York and Chicago. […] There are no skyscrapers in small towns. America is predominantly a one-story and two-story country. Most of the American population lives in small towns, where the inhabitants are three thousand people, five, ten, fifteen thousand.

“We have already said that the word "publicity" has a very broad sense. This is not only direct advertising, but also any mention of the advertised subject or person in general. When, say, they do "publicity" to some actor, then even a note in the newspaper that he recently had a successful operation and that he is on the road to recovery is also considered an advertisement. One American, with a certain envy in his voice, told us that the Lord God has a splendid "publicity" in the United States. Fifty thousand priests talk about him every day.”

“Negroes met more and more often. Sometimes for several hours we did not see the whites, but in the towns reigned a white man, and if a negro appeared at a beautiful, ivy-covered mansion in the "residential part", then always with a brush, bucket or package, indicating that here he can only be a servant. […] Negroes are almost deprived of the opportunity to develop and grow. The careers of doormen and elevator operators are open to them in the cities, but in their homeland, in the Southern states, they are laborers without rights, reduced to the state of pets - here they are slaves. […] Of course, under American law, and especially in New York, a Negro has the right to sit in any place among whites, to go to a "white" cinema or a "white" restaurant. But he will never do it himself. He knows only too well how such experiments end. He, of course, will not be beaten, as in the South, but that his closest neighbors in most cases will immediately defiantly come out - this is beyond doubt.

“America lies on the highway. When you close your eyes and try to resurrect the country in which you spent four months, you don’t imagine Washington with its gardens, columns and full assembly monuments, not New York with its skyscrapers, with its poverty and wealth, not San Francisco with its steep streets and suspension bridges, not mountains, not factories, not canyons, but the intersection of two roads and a gas station against the background of wires and advertising posters ".

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov in America
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