Prince Sergei Golitsyn did not use his title, did not live on the family estate, because he had been trying to hide his origin throughout his entire conscious life. He was a simple topographer, and he also wrote wonderful books: children's, fiction, and non-fiction.
Biography
Sergey Mikhailovich Golitsyn was born in 1909 in the Tula province. Their family lived in the Buchalka family estate, which belonged to the Golitsyn family since time immemorial. His mother was also from a noble family, her name was Anna Sergeyevna Lopukhina.
In the twenties and thirties of the last century, many Golitsins were arrested, sat in camps and died there. Sergei himself, as a child, realized that you can’t talk about his title, and that all this is in the past.
Not only that - he did not have the right to get a good education and decent work, because he was a descendant of the prince. From childhood, he dreamed of becoming a writer, and he still managed to enroll in literary courses in Moscow. But he did not finish them - he was arrested when he was only seventeen years old. True, after ten days, they released him, because there was no reason for his arrest. However, a close family friend advised Sergey to leave the capital in order to be away from law enforcement agencies.
Golitsyn did just that - he left for the construction site of the Moscow-Volga Canal. He worked as a surveyor, that is, he explored the possibility of building bridges and other structures. And in his free time, he wrote stories, notes, and then books.
The first book I Want to Be a Topographer was published in 1936. Then it was reprinted several times, the book was translated into several foreign languages - it is so fascinating. In it, Golitsyn included drawings, drawings, a description of devices, conventional signs - all that a beginning topographer needs. The book is still in demand.
When the war began, the Golitsins lived in the Vladimir region. Sergei Mikhailovich was mobilized immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, but he did not get to the front, but to the construction troops. He later recalled that he had not killed a single German and was not injured himself, because he built and restored damaged bridges and roads. The family believed that the prayers of his mother helped him survive - she prayed to the Lord for her son day and night.
As a true writer, Sergey Golitsyn described all military hardships in the book Notes of a Dodger. This is a very frank book, almost documentary. And the author really was without shoulder straps - he was not entitled to any title because of his noble origin.
After the war, Golitsyn was not allowed to go home for a long time - it was necessary to restore roads in Warsaw, later in Gomel. He arrived home only at the end of 1946. After the war, there were lengthy business trips for topographic studies in front of various construction sites: he traveled to the Transcaucasus, the Volga region and Central Asia. Some business trips lasted up to a year.
And all the time Sergey Mikhailovich wrote books and somehow managed to publish them. Among the books that are still being read are such works by the writer: “The Terrible Crocosaurus and His Children”, “Town of Tomboys”, “Behind Birch Books”, “Forty Searchers”, “Notes of the Old Radul”, “Pages of the History of Our Motherland”, "Notes of the survivor."
The last book is called the most important work of Golitsyn, because it describes his whole life, the life of his family and the history of the country in the interval between his birth and death. The writer did not quite finish this work - he died when he made the last changes. This happened in November 1989.
The book "Notes of the Survivor" was published after his death and withstood several reprints.
Hiking and travel
From a young age, Golitsyn loved to go camping and go to unfamiliar places. At nineteen, he went to the Northern Lakes: together with his comrades they visited Vologda, Kirillov, Belozersk, Arkhangelsk. In the Notes of the Survivor, the writer described in detail and vividly this journey with rains, nights, mosquitoes and all sorts of adventures. They traveled by trains, steamboats, walked where there was no transport.
In 1930, friends even went to look for the city of Kitezh in the Vladimir forests on Lake Svetloyar.
And when Golitsyn retired, he took up children's tourism: he drove children around the Vladimir region. Sometimes he worked in children's recreation camps, if there was not enough staff.
At this time, Sergei Mikhailovich collected material for his books, and he taught the children to know and understand the history of their country. We can say that all his work is permeated with love for his homeland.
