Four centuries of one family · 18th–21st · c. 1737 – 2026
TheKalaushins: four centuries of one family, 18th to 21st
A Cossack family of the Khoper and the Kuban, traced in documents since 1815: service on the Caucasian Line and in His Imperial Majesty’s Own Convoy, a saddlery workshop that became Purveyor to the Imperial Court, officers and holders of the St George insignia, a Pushkin scholar and an artist of the twentieth century.
The Kalaushins (Russian Калау́шины, stressed on the u) are a family of Khoper, later Kuban, Cossacks traced in the records since 1815, when the revision tale of Stavropolskaya stanitsa (a Cossack village) listed the progenitor, Trofim Pakhomovich, born about 1737, as head of household No. 321. From 1826–1827 the family lived in Batalpashinskaya (now Cherkessk), later also in Labinskaya (now Labinsk). Kalaushins served in the Khoper regiments and in His Majesty’s Own Convoy, the Emperor’s Cossack bodyguard, and were master saddlers: Fedot Alekseyevich is named in the 1915 List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court. The 20th century brought the Pushkin scholar Matvey Matveyevich Kalaushin, first director of the All-Union Pushkin Museum, and the artist Boris Matveyevich Kalaushin.
The chronicle does not embellish its ancestors: every statement on the site carries its source class and leads to a document, a publication or a recorded family account. The name is pronounced Kala-ú-shin, with the stress on the “u”.
◆ documented·◈ published source·◇ family testimony·△ hypothesisMore about the method
The route of the Khoper Cossacks and of the family: from Novokhopyorsk, which the Khoper Regiment left for the Caucasus in 1777, to the stanitsas where documents find the Kalaushins — Stavropolskaya (1815), Batalpashinskaya (1827) and Labinskaya. Points are placed by the coordinates of the places. [◆S047; ◆S007; ◆S009]
We claim no inherited virtues for the family. We show three traits that recur in its records — from a saddle honoured at Tiflis in 1889 to a 1965 brochure on defect-free production. Every line carries its source and the class of that source.
I
Quality
Work singled out by those who know: a jury, an inspector, a museum.
“To Matvey Kalaushin — for a saddle and saddle straps”: a bronze-level award of the Caucasus Exhibition in Tiflis (Tbilisi), the first of the awards at four exhibitions of 1889–1902 found in the award lists. [◆S036, no. 305, 17.11.1889, p. 2; ◆S044, no. 1, pp. 33, 36; ◆S035, 1899, no. 203, 24.09.1899, p. 2; ◆S035, 1902, no. 255, 28.11.1902, p. 1]
before 1917
The saddles of the Convoy’s officers, writes N.V. Galushkin, historian of the Convoy, came from “the Cossack Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa, famous throughout the Caucasus for the work of his workshop”; saddles were also bought in the Host crafts schools. Galushkin gives no first name. [◈S097, p. 143, n. 24]
before 1912
◇family testimony
The family recalls that Matvey Alekseyevich obtained Damascus steel and re-tempered it himself, and the family history records that kinzhals of “Kalaus steel” were very highly valued in the Caucasus. [◇S001, No. 71]
1914
In 1914 two officers of the family received the Order of St Stanislaus, 2nd class, both for the quality of their service: Stepan Yegorovich for completing the Cossack department of the Officer Cavalry School “with distinction”, Yefim Mikhailovich because his unit had been judged excellent at three annual inspections in succession. [◆S045, 1.09.1914, via S152; ◆S045, 3.02.1914, via S152]
1968
The Flower Fairy (1968) is in the Russian Museum; by the museums’ own records, some 120 of Boris Matveyevich’s originals are held by nine museums in Russia, and the Museum of Fine Arts of Karelia calls his works the pride of its collection for that period. [◈S165; ◈S171]
2005
The special prize “Best Test-Driving Journalist” of the tenth Golden Pen competition (results for 2004) went to “Oleg Kalaushin (Pyatoye Koleso magazine)”; the ceremony was held on 25 March 2005 in the Throne Hall of the Catherine Palace. [◆S080; ◆S081]
2019
EdCAS, the corporate-learning platform Vyacheslav Olegovich founded, won Bronze in the “Best MVP Website” category of the Tagline Awards 2019 — the verdict of a professional jury. [◆S208; ◆S209]
II
Exclusivity
Being chosen — for the Court, the Convoy, the List of Purveyors.
Uryadnik Andrey Ivanovich was appointed chamber Cossack to the Tsesarevna Maria Alexandrovna — “it is the wish of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsesarevich”; under the establishment of 1851 the Imperial Family’s personal servants included four chamber Cossacks. [◈S001, No. 6, from the file “On the appointment of Uryadnik Kalaushin as chamber Cossack”; ◈S109; ◆S012, household no. 92, via S180, topic 25557; ◆S013, ff. 178v–179v]
1892–1900
Three of the four master brothers served in the Convoy. On 31 May 1900 the Emperor handed the departing Convoy men their badges with his own hand and thanked them for their “excellent and zealous service”; seventeen days later Fedot Alekseyevich was discharged “retaining the Guards uniform and awarded the badge for service in the Convoy”. [◈S001, No. 73; ◈S033, via S180, topic 855; ◇S001, No. 74; ◆S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3]
1900
◇family testimony · confirmed by relatives
The saddle for the Shah of Persia was made in Fedot Alekseyevich’s workshop on the order of Nicholas II; the work took two months. The Emperor examined it, said it was very well made, and there and then congratulated the master on the title of Purveyor to the Court of His Imperial Majesty. [◇S001, No. 73; ◇S003]
1911–1912
◇family testimony · confirmed by relatives
The family remembers Matvey Alekseyevich’s last commission, carried out with Fedot Alekseyevich, as a complete set of parade equipment for Archduke Franz Ferdinand — harness, saddles, sabres, kinzhals; the family history records it as a “political” commission. Relatives confirm that it was completed. [◇S001, No. 71; ◇S003]
1915
The title was granted on petition; the usual conditions included years of supplying the Court and taking part in exhibitions. The List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court compiled at the beginning of 1915 has 1,340 firms and persons; the Russian purveyors were mostly in St Petersburg and Moscow, and among the examples from the provinces I.V. Zimin cites “the saddle-maker Fedot Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa”. [◈S108]
1953–1965
In 1953 the Pushkin collections of Pushkin House became the All-Union Pushkin Museum — the Lyceum, the apartment at Moika 12, Nekrasov’s apartment; Matvey Matveyevich was its first director until 1965. [◈S086, no. 102, p. 61; ◈S150]
2018–2019
EdWay, which Vyacheslav Olegovich founded, was singled out twice: in autumn 2018 it was one of six projects at Delovoy Peterburg’s Startup Exchange, and in 2019, when the paper named him as the startup’s co-owner, it was selected for the accelerator of the pre-seed fund Startup Lab. [◆S206; ◆S205; ◆S207]
III
System
Making quality repeatable: teach it, build the tool, write the method down.
The 1887 report of the crafts department of the Batalpashinskaya town school names, first of its five masters, “the saddle master and also harness-maker, the Cossack A. Kalaushin”; later the Alekseyevich brothers taught the craft at the Labinskaya and Maykop Military Crafts Schools. [◆S035, 1888, suppl. to no. 16, 16.04.1888, p. 3; ◆S035, 1899, no. 203, 24.09.1899, p. 2; ◈S153, P.N. Strelyanov, 2020; ◆S058, 1913, PDF p. 970]
1902
At the Kuban exhibition in Yekaterinodar a reviewer singled out “the invention of the master of the saddlery section, Mikhail Kalaushin — clamps for gluing the saddle tree”: both bows were glued at once, so that one master, or even a pupil, could do the work. [◆S035, 1902, no. 204, 21.09.1902, p. 2]
1936–1965
He built museums by method: guidelines for travelling popular exhibitions on Pushkin, Gorky and Shevchenko (1936–1940), a series of albums v portretakh i illyustratsiyakh (“in portraits and illustrations”), catalogues; according to a study of the founders of literary museums, he initiated and helped to organise more than 30 literary and art museums. [◈S177; ◈S178; ◈S151; ◈S004; ◈S105]
1965
The brochure Vnedreniye sistemy bezdefektnogo izgotovleniya produktsii na Ryazanskom khlebozavode No. 3 (“Introducing the system of defect-free production at Ryazan Bakery No. 3”, Moscow, 1965; 16 pp.; the Central Institute of Scientific and Technical Information for the food industry) is about putting a system into practice, not inventing one. The cover names no author; the Russian State Library and the National Library of Russia give “Kalaushin, M. P.”, and the roster lists the same work under Mikhail Pavlovich. [◈S177, record 01006288313; ◈S178, record 07NLR_LMS008617471; ◈S001, No. 117]
2000–2019
The magazine’s website credits him with 290 pieces from 2000 to 2019, 243 of them road tests; in 2003–2006 the staff page lists him in its Testing Department; he wrote instalments of the used-car series Po vintiku (“Screw by Screw”). [◆S078, publication metadata; ◆S078, “Editorial staff”, 03.09.2003, 27.10.2005, 18.10.2006, via the Wayback Machine; ◆S079, supplement, no. 4, 2001]
to 2025
The online roster Kalaushiny is dedicated to Aleksandr Borisovich, “who for more than 40 years gathered, crumb by crumb, the facts about the Kalaushins and the families related to them”: 265 entries, with extracts from archive files, the regimental history and the calendars. Yury Romanovich compiled a family tree of 363 people. [◈S001, dedication; ◈S001, introduction; ◈S084, “Kalaushin Yury Romanovich”]
2024–2026
Data Nexus, which Vyacheslav Olegovich founded, works by the rule “Define what must remain true before deciding what should change”. In Carfleet — a product he created with the Data Nexus team — one car cannot be rented to two people, nor one month billed twice: the database itself forbids it; and every night the system checks its own money records on fourteen counts. [◆S210, /, /about-us, /products/carfleet; ◆S213; ◇S003]
Not epithets but documents: orders, newspapers, award lists and clerks’ registers that carry the Kalaushin name — and every fact with its source. Dates before 1 (14) February 1918 are Old Style, with New Style in brackets.
State Archive of Astrakhan Region, f. 599, op. 2, d. 3684; scan: Yandex "Search in archives"
011777–1815◆ documented
On the record since 1815
The progenitor, Trofim Pakhomovich (b. c. 1737), a Cossack of the Khoper Regiment — the regiment that came to the Azov–Mozdok Line in 1777 and, with the dragoons, founded the Stavropol fortress — heads household No. 321 in the revision tale of Stavropolskaya stanitsa of 18 November 1815. [◆S007, household no. 321, via S181, topic 84017; ◆S047, pt 1, pp. 56–63; ◆S008, scan 1287]
The 1815 revision tale itself has not been imaged; this is the earliest scan, the confessional registers of 1822–1825.
At the wish of the Heir to the Throne, Andrey Kalaushin, an uryadnik (a Cossack non-commissioned officer) of the 2nd Khoper Regiment serving in the Convoy, was appointed chamber Cossack to the Tsesarevna Maria Alexandrovna in 1853; in 1861, receiving a Cossack deputation at Labinskaya, Alexander II asked after the chamber Cossack from Batalpashinskaya: “And do you remember Kalaushin?” [◈S001, No. 6, from the file “On the appointment of Uryadnik Kalaushin as chamber Cossack”; ◈S156, service record of 1854; ◆S013, ff. 178v–179v, via S181; ◆S034, pp. 40–41]
△ The sources know of no other chamber Cossack named Kalaushin; the man the Emperor asked after is most naturally Uryadnik Andrey Ivanovich.
The Insignia of the Military Order, 4th class — the soldier’s St George Cross — went to Uryadnik Stepan Alekseyevich (order of 22 June 1859), to Cossack Stepan Kalaushin for the action at the Psebay fortification on 19 October 1859, and to Uryadnik Yegor and Prikazny Ilya for the battle of Dayar on 9 June 1877 (printed “Koloushin” in the award list). [◆S032, p. 7; ◆S053, App. 65, p. 138; ◆S053, App. 74, pp. 231–232]
Three saddler brothers — Mikhail, Fedot and Aleksandr Alekseyevich — served as uryadniks in His Majesty’s Own Convoy, Fedot from 1892 to 1900, at Gatchina under Alexander III and in St Petersburg under Nicholas II; their first cousin, Podkhorunzhy Ivan Stepanovich, was a member of the Kuban delegation at the Convoy’s centenary in 1911. [◈S033, via S180, topic 855; ◈S001, Nos. 72–74, 77; ◈S156, comment by Andro, 01.06.2013; ◈S162, vol. “K”; ◈S132, pp. 104–105]
Scan: National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, Iverieli digital library (copy on Wikimedia Commons)
051900◆ documented
Exclusivity
The farewell review at the Alexander Palace
On 31 May (13 June) 1900, in front of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, the Emperor “honoured each of them with gracious words” and with his own hand gave the departing Convoy Cossacks the badge for service in the Convoy — the badge with which Fedot Alekseyevich was discharged by Kuban Host Order No. 60 of 17 June 1900. [◆S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3; ◆S037, 31.05.1900; ◈S001, No. 73]
Scan: National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, Iverieli digital library (copy on Wikimedia Commons)
061900◇ family testimony
ExclusivityQuality
The saddle for the Shah of Persia
◇family testimony · confirmed by relatives
The saddle for the Shah of Persia was made over two months in Fedot Alekseyevich’s workshop on the order of Nicholas II; the Emperor praised the work and there and then congratulated the master on the title of Purveyor to the Court — so the family history records, and relatives confirm it. [◇S001, No. 73; ◇S003]
Quotation: N. V. Galushkin, His Imperial Majesty's Own Convoy, 1961 (scan: Internet Archive)
071915◈ published source
Exclusivity
Purveyor to the Imperial Court
The official List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court, compiled at the beginning of 1915, names among its 1,340 firms and persons “the saddle-maker Fedot Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa”, and the Convoy’s historian N.V. Galushkin writes that the Convoy officers’ saddles came from “the Cossack of Batalpashinskaya Kalaushin, famous throughout the Caucasus for the work of his workshop”. [◈S108; ◈S097, p. 143, n. 24]
Scan: National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, Iverieli digital library
081889–1902◆ documented
Quality
Medals at four exhibitions
The award lists of four exhibitions name Kalaushin masters: Tiflis, 1889 (“To Matvey Kalaushin — for a saddle and saddle straps”); Nizhny Novgorod, 1896 (a bronze medal to Fedot and Mikhail, together with I.M. Fisenko, and an honourable mention to Matvey); Voznesenskaya, 1899 (a large silver medal to “Uryadnik Kalaushin” for a Cossack saddle); and Yekaterinodar, 1902 (silver medals to Mikhail and Fedot). [◆S036, no. 305, 17.11.1889, p. 2; ◆S044, no. 1, pp. 33, 36; ◆S035, 1899, no. 203, 24.09.1899, p. 2; ◆S035, 1902, no. 255, 28.11.1902, p. 1]
Karel Chotek; National Museum, Prague (eSbírky), CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
091890s◈ published source
The Kalaushin House, a listed heritage site
The “Kalaushin House” at 6 Krasnaya Street, Labinsk, built in the 1890s, is a cultural heritage site of regional importance, and the Labinsk museum still tells visitors about “the house and shop of the brothers Kalaushin, Purveyors to the Imperial Court”. [◈S187, “Cultural heritage of Russia / Krasnodar Krai / Labinsk District”; ◈S170, “Aleksandrovsky prospekt, 5 sentyabrya”]
A photograph of the house still awaits the rights holder’s permission (PastVu); for context — the market of Labinskaya, 1908.
On 17 September 1907 Uryadnik Fedot Kalaushin was confirmed as ataman of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa; on 25 November 1909 he was released from the post “at his own request”, and in the Civil War he was ataman of the stanitsa once more. [◈S156, database of stanitsa atamans, after KOV, 1907, no. 214; ◆S035, 1909, no. 256, 03.12.1909, p. 1; ◈S162, vol. “K”]
The last commission Matvey Alekseyevich carried out together with Fedot Alekseyevich was a complete set of parade equipment — harness, saddles, sabres, kinzhals (Caucasian daggers) — for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a “political” commission meant to help improve relations with Austria-Hungary; relatives confirm that it was completed. [◇S001, No. 71; ◇S003]
Scan: Internet Archive (archive.org); Imperial orders on military ranks
121914–1916◆ documented
Quality
Orders of St Anna, St Stanislaus, St Vladimir
In the First World War the family’s officers — Stepan Yegorovich, Nikita Ilyich, Yefim Mikhailovich and Aleksey Matveyevich — received the Orders of St Anna and St Stanislaus, and Stepan Yegorovich and Nikita Ilyich also the Order of St Vladimir, 4th class (Stepan’s with swords and bow); Yesaul Stepan Yegorovich fell in 1915. [◆S045, 17.03.1915; ◆S045, 14.02.1916; ◆S036, no. 73, 2.04.1915, p. 2; ◆S036, no. 72, 1915, p. 2; ◆S045, 17.06.1916; ◆S045, 8.12.1916; ◆S062, no. 174, 29.07.1915, via S152]
Scan: Internet Archive (archive.org); Imperial orders on military ranks
TsAMO, f. 33, op. 690306, d. 2689; *Podvig Naroda* portal (podvignaroda.ru)
131941–1945◆ documented
The Second World War: front and Siege
Kalaushins fought from Novgorod and Myskhako to Berlin and the Far East: Boris Aleksandrovich went missing near Novgorod on 15 August 1941, Matvey Matveyevich served as acting commandant of Pushkin House in the Siege winter, and the former Khoper Cossack Roman Vasilyevich ended the war in Germany with the Medal “For Combat Service”. [◆S022, f. 58, op. 818883, d. 4, via S174; ◈S129; ◆S022, f. 33, op. 690306, d. 2689, via S175; ◆S022, f. 33, op. 686196, d. 6291, via S175; ◈S110, p. 59]
National Library of Russia, Vivaldi digital library
141953–1965◈ published source
ExclusivitySystem
First director of the All-Union Pushkin Museum
Matvey Matveyevich Kalaushin (1904–1968), son of a Labinskaya master saddler, a pupil of Boris Eikhenbaum and head of the Literary Museum of Pushkin House, was the first director of the All-Union Pushkin Museum from 1953 to 1965. [◈S150; ◈S086, no. 102, p. 61; ◈S104, n. 17; ◈S086, no. 89, p. 45, n. 7]
The artist Boris Matveyevich Kalaushin (1929–1999) illustrated more than a hundred children’s books; his The Flower Fairy (1968) is in the State Russian Museum and some 120 originals are in nine Russian museums; the Encyclopaedia of St Petersburg also names the Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of the Academy of Arts among the collections holding his work. [◈S165, GRM KP-180715, ZhS-1382; ◈S171; ◈S167; ◈S204, “Kalaushin B.M.”; ◈S163]
Images of B.M. Kalaushin’s works await permission from the museums and the family.
On 25 March 2005, in the Throne Hall of the Catherine Palace, the author’s father, the motoring journalist Oleg Vyacheslavovich Kalaushin, received the special prize “Best Test-Driving Journalist” of the Golden Pen, the professional journalism competition of St Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. [◆S080; ◆S081]
Photographs of the ceremony are published only with the consent of those shown.
Trumpeters of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Convoy on horseback, 1892. Note the saddles with galloon-edged shabracks. No names are given; this is period context, not a portrait of the Kalaushins.Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF
IV
1853–1911
At Court
For half a century the Kalaushins of Batalpashinskaya served at the Imperial Court — from the Tsesarevna’s chamber Cossack Andrey Ivanovich to the Convoy uryadniks Fedot, Mikhail and Aleksandr Alekseyevich and Sub-Cornet Ivan Stepanovich, who came to the Convoy’s centenary in 1911.
1853Andrey Ivanovich becomes chamber Cossack to the Tsesarevna Maria Alexandrovna and goes to St Petersburg with his wife and daughters.[◈S001, No. 6]
1892By Order No. 156 of 7 June Fedot Alekseyevich joins the Convoy: “first at Gatchina, under Alexander III, and then… under Nicholas II”.[◈S156; ◈S001, No. 73]
190031 May — the farewell review of the departing Convoy Cossacks before the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.[◆S036, no. 150; ◆S037]
1911Sub-Cornet Ivan Stepanovich in the Kuban deputation at the Convoy’s centenary.[◈S132]
From the Khoper Cossack Trofim Pakhomovich to the author of this chronicle. A tenth, most distant generation is Pakhom, known from his son’s patronymic in the 1815 revision tale. The line is checked against the revision tale, the confessional registers and A. B. Kalaushin’s roster. [◆S007; ◆S008; ◈S001]
IXVyacheslav Olegovichtodayauthor of this chronicle and owner of kalaushin.com; founder of Data Nexus (UAE) [◇S003; ◆S210, /blog/author/viacheslav-kalaushin]
The Kalaushin saddlers: from a stanitsa workshop to the Imperial Court
Purveyor to the Imperial Court
“the saddle-maker Fedot Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa”
List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court, early 1915: 1,340 firms and persons. [◈S108]
№ 01
Saddles for the Convoy’s officers
The saddles of the Convoy’s officers, writes N.V. Galushkin, historian of the Convoy, came from “the Cossack Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa, famous throughout the Caucasus for the work of his workshop”; saddles were also bought in the Host crafts schools. Galushkin gives no first name.
The type of Convoy saddle and shabrack as it was known in Fedot Alekseyevich’s time; the maker is not named. Context, not a Kalaushin piece.National Museum of Denmark (no known rights)№ 02
Medals of four exhibitions
1889Tiflis — to Matvey: “for a saddle and saddle straps”[◆S036, no. 305]
1896Nizhny Novgorod — bronze medal to Fedot and Mikhail, honourable mention to Matvey[◆S044, pp. 33, 36]
1899Voznesenskaya — large silver medal for “a Cossack saddle of elegant workmanship”[◆S035, 1899, no. 203]
1902Yekaterinodar — silver medals to Mikhail and Fedot “for saddlery work”[◆S035, 1902, no. 255]
№ 03
Teachers of the craft
The 1887 report of the crafts department of the Batalpashinskaya town school names, first of its five masters, “the saddle master and also harness-maker, the Cossack A. Kalaushin”; later the Alekseyevich brothers taught the craft at the Labinskaya and Maykop Military Crafts Schools.
[◆S035, 1888, suppl. to no. 16, 16.04.1888, p. 3; ◆S035, 1899, no. 203, 24.09.1899, p. 2; ◈S153, P.N. Strelyanov, 2020; ◆S058, 1913, PDF p. 970]
△ “A. Kalaushin” is probably Anton Nikolayevich: the 1890 report names the saddle master Anton; the roster took him to be Aleksey Nikolayevich. [◆S035, 1891, no. 20, 18.05.1891, p. 2; ◈S001, No. 32]
№ 04
Clamps for gluing the saddle tree
At the Kuban exhibition in Yekaterinodar a reviewer singled out “the invention of the master of the saddlery section, Mikhail Kalaushin — clamps for gluing the saddle tree”: both bows were glued at once, so that one master, or even a pupil, could do the work.
The family recalls that Matvey Alekseyevich obtained Damascus steel and re-tempered it himself, and the family history records that kinzhals of “Kalaus steel” were very highly valued in the Caucasus.
△ Most likely “the Kalaushins’ steel”: in the Caucasus a blade re-tempered by a known master was called by his name — “Bazalay steel”, “Chilli buolat”. [◈S091, PDF p. 58]
A maker’s mark on the blade of a Caucasian kinzhal, c. 1818–1819. For illustration; not a Kalaushin piece.The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (CC0)№ 06
Harness goods at Labinskaya
The directory Vsya Rossiya for 1912: “Harness goods. Kalaushin M. A.” The master brothers Matvey, Mikhail and Aleksandr lived at Labinskaya; their workshops stood on today’s Khalturina Street, and that stretch was called “Kalaushin Lane” ◇.
The Kalaushins are a family of Khoper, later Kuban, Cossacks, documented since 1815. Their progenitor was the Khoper Cossack Trofim Pakhomovich (b. c. 1737). The family lived in the stanitsas of Batalpashinskaya and Labinskaya, served in the Khoper regiments and the Emperor’s Convoy, and was known for its saddlery: Fedot Alekseyevich is named in the 1915 List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court. The 20th century gave the family the Pushkin scholar M.M. Kalaushin and the artist B.M. Kalaushin. [◆S007, household no. 321; ◈S108; ◈S097, p. 143, n. 24; ◈S150; ◈S204, “Kalaushin B.M.”]
Where does the name Kalaushin come from, and how is it pronounced?
The stress falls on the u: Kalaúshin (ka-la-OO-shin), Kalaúshina; this is how the family says it. The name is rare and absent from the dictionaries of surnames we consulted, and the records also spell it “Koloushin”, “Kaloushin”, “Kolaushin”. △ Most likely it began as a nickname from a dialect word with the stem kalaush-/koloush-: kalaush, a travelling bag, or kalaushka, an earflap hat. The Kalaus River is possible but weaker; kalauz, ‘guide’, and a link with the name Goloushin are unlikely. [◇S003; ◈S188, “Kalaushin”; ◈S148, 2014 data; ◆S053, App. 74, pp. 231–232; ◈S198, no. 12, pp. 336–337; ◈S190, s.v. “kalauz”; ◈S116, pp. 188–201]
It is the family’s own name for the steel of the Kalaushin masters. As relatives tell it, Matvey Alekseyevich obtained Damascus steel through Suleymanov, father of Lyubov Geychenko, re-tempered it himself, and kinzhals “of Kalaus steel” were very highly prized in the Caucasus. △ Most likely it means kalaushinskaya, “the Kalaushins’ steel”: in the Caucasus a blade re-tempered by a well-known master was named after him — “Bazalay steel”, “Chilli buolat”. The word also echoes the Kalaus, where the Khoper Cossacks lived in 1777–1825. [◇S001, No. 71; ◈S091, PDF p. 58; ◆S047, pt 1, ch. 2]
Were the Kalaushins Purveyors to the Imperial Court?
Yes. The official List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court, compiled at the beginning of 1915, names among its 1,340 firms and persons “the saddle-maker Fedot Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa”. The family recalls that the Emperor granted the title after the saddle for the Shah of Persia, and Matvey Alekseyevich’s grave in Labinskaya bore the words “Purveyor to the Court of His Majesty”. The file on the title in RGIA (f. 472) will give the date. [◈S108; ◇S001, Nos. 71, 73]
What is known about the saddle for the Shah of Persia?
◇family testimony · confirmed by relatives
On the order of Nicholas II, the saddle for the Shah of Persia was made over two months in Fedot Alekseyevich’s workshop; the master took it to St Petersburg himself, and at a review on his last day of service the Emperor praised the work and congratulated him on the title of Purveyor to the Court. The account is recorded in the family history and confirmed by relatives. △ The most consistent dating is spring to early summer 1900, for Mozaffar ad-Din Shah’s visit of 4–10 (17–23) July 1900. [◇S001, No. 73; ◇S003; ◆S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3; ◆S037, 4–10.07.1900]
What was the parade commission for Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
◇family testimony · confirmed by relatives
The family names a complete set of parade equipment for Archduke Franz Ferdinand — harness, saddles, sabres, kinzhals — as the last commission Matvey Alekseyevich carried out together with Fedot Alekseyevich. The family history records that it was a “political” commission, meant to help improve relations with Austria-Hungary; relatives confirm that it was completed. △ The work was finished no later than 1912. Papers on the gifts may be held in the Austrian State Archives (HHStA) and the Konopiště inventories. [◇S001, No. 71; ◇S003; ◈S189, vol. 5; ◆S055, 01.02.1902, p. 3]
Yes, for more than half a century. In 1853 Uryadnik Andrey Ivanovich became chamber Cossack to the Tsesarevna Maria Alexandrovna. Mikhail, Fedot and Aleksandr Alekseyevich served as uryadniks of His Majesty’s Own Convoy, Fedot in 1892–1900, at Gatchina under Alexander III and in St Petersburg under Nicholas II. On 31 May 1900, at the Alexander Palace, the Emperor handed the departing Convoy men their service badges in person. In 1911 Ivan Stepanovich came with the Kuban delegation to the Convoy’s centenary. [◈S001, Nos. 6, 72–74, 77; ◈S156, service record of 1854; ◆S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3; ◈S132, pp. 104–105]
They held the Insignia of the Military Order, 4th class — the soldier’s St George Cross. The first went in 1859 to Uryadnik Stepan Alekseyevich, for actions on the Right Flank of the Caucasus Line, and to Cossack Stepan Kalaushin, for the fight at the Psebay fortification on 19 October. For the battle of Dayar on 9 June 1877, in the Russo-Turkish War, crosses went to Uryadnik Yegor and Prikazny Ilya. In the First World War the family’s officers received the Orders of St Anna, St Stanislaus and St Vladimir. [◆S032, p. 7; ◆S053, App. 65, p. 138; ◆S053, App. 74, pp. 231–232; ◆S045, 1915–1916]
A Pushkin scholar and museum-maker (1904–1968), son of a Labinskaya master saddler and a pupil of Boris Eikhenbaum. He worked for more than twenty years in the Literary Museum of Pushkin House, served as acting commandant of Pushkin House in the Siege winter, and on his recommendation Semyon Geychenko became director of the Pushkin Reserve in 1945. From 1953 to 1965 he was the first director of the All-Union Pushkin Museum; for his centenary its successor, the All-Russian Pushkin Museum, held the exhibition “Our First Director”. [◈S104, n. 17; ◈S107; ◈S129; ◈S100, p. 176; ◈S150; ◈S001, No. 127]
Boris Matveyevich Kalaushin (1929–1999) was a book artist and painter, son of the Pushkin scholar M.M. Kalaushin. As a boy he made hand-written booklets in besieged Leningrad; at fifteen he drew the war-ruined Mikhailovskoye; later he illustrated more than a hundred children’s books. His painting was first shown in 1987; The Flower Fairy (1968) is in the Russian Museum, and some 120 originals are in nine Russian museums. With his sister he founded the Apollon society and published books on the Russian avant-garde. [◈S204, “Kalaushin B.M.”; ◈S163; ◈S086, no. 83, p. 177; ◈S165, GRM KP-180715; ◈S115]
The first known Kalaushins lived in Stavropolskaya stanitsa (now Stavropol). In 1826–1827 the family moved to Batalpashinskaya (now Cherkessk), and later Matvey Alekseyevich’s branch settled in Labinskaya (now Labinsk). Kalaushins also lived in Bekeshevskaya, Maykop, Vladikavkaz and Sukhum; the Convoy men served at Gatchina, St Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. In the 20th century part of the family moved to Leningrad, and émigrés ended up in Harbin, Serbia and France. [◆S007, household no. 321; ◆S009, nos. 172, 181; ◈S135, p. 535; ◆S058, 1910, pt 2, col. 525; ◈S001, Nos. 71, 74, 100, 102; ◈S162, vol. “K”]
The chronicle rests on three layers: the family roster Kalaushiny, which Aleksandr Borisovich Kalaushin compiled over more than forty years (Philippov website, version 03.02 of 13 July 2025); documents of each period — revision tales, orders, newspapers, award lists; and the work of historians. In 2026 the roster was checked against the documents; the chronicle now draws on 215 sources, 398 catalogued images, 284 people and 140 events. Every reference is marked by class: ◆ documented, ◈ published source, ◇ family testimony, △ hypothesis. [◈S001, dedication, introduction]
The most important papers may be kept not in an archive but at home. Please send scans of photographs, front and back — above all the original formal portrait of Fedot Alekseyevich, where the lowest badge on his chest has not yet been identified — documents (a purveyor’s certificate, exhibition diplomas, the badge for service in the Convoy, deeds to the houses), objects bearing marks, and written accounts of the saddle for the Shah and the Archduke’s commission. Every account will appear as family testimony, in the teller’s words and, if he or she wishes, with the teller’s name; of relatives born in 1940 or later only the name and relationship are given, photographs of living people appear only with consent, and addresses and telephone numbers are never published. Write to the author, Vyacheslav Olegovich Kalaushin, through kalaushin.com.
The date of the purveyor’s title. the file on F.A. Kalaushin’s title — RGIA, f. 472 (Chancellery of the Ministry of the Imperial Court).
Papers on the saddle for the Shah. His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet (RGIA, f. 468) — gifts to the Shah in 1900 and a watch for Uryadnik Kalaushin; the Chamber-Fourier Journal for 1900 (RGIA, f. 516); the Persian Safarnameh of AH 1318 and the Golestan Palace archive.
The Archduke’s commission. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna (HA OMaA 505; Franz Ferdinand’s papers, cartons 35–40) and the Konopiště inventories of 1914 and 1921.
The workshop’s pieces. saddles, harness, kinzhals and shashkas marked “Калаушинъ”: about 40 per cent of the State Catalogue has been searched; enquiries go to the Labinsk museum, the Felitsyn Museum-Reserve, Tsarskoye Selo, the Hermitage and the State Historical Museum.
Where Trofim Pakhomovich came from. the Khoper Regiment’s revision tales of 1795 and 1811 (GASK, f. 748).
The medals of Paris and London. the jury reports of the Paris exhibition of 1900 (Group XVIII, Class 116); the Russian sections of the London exhibitions of 1862 and 1909.
“Kalaus steel”. Leonid Lavrov’s field materials; marks on surviving blades.
Fates of 1918–1920. the fate and rehabilitation of Pavel Aleksandrovich and Fedot Alekseyevich — only a relative can submit the enquiry to the FSB directorate and prosecutor’s office of Karachay-Cherkessia.
Sources for this page (76)
Full descriptions, references and links are in the list of sources. All sources →
S001 A.B. Kalaushin’s roster Kalaushiny (philippov.spb.ru, version 03.02 of 13 July 2025)
S003 Family testimony: V.O. Kalaushin, 8–9 Oct 2026
S004 N.G. Firtich, “Matvey Matveyevich Kalaushin: on the centenary of his birth” (museum.ru, N20942, 2005)
S007 Revision tale of Stavropolskaya stanitsa, 18.11.1815 (GASK, f. 748)
S008 Confessional registers of Stavropol district, 1822–1825 (GAAO, f. 599, d. 3684)
S009 Batalpashinskaya confessional register, 1827 (GAAO, f. 599, d. 7148)
S012 Batalpashinskaya confessional register (family list), 1848 (GASK, f. 135, d. 806)
S013 Batalpashinskaya parish register, 1857 (RGVIA, f. 14877, d. 2716)
Today — the chronicle’s author, Vyacheslav Olegovich, founder of Data Nexus: systems whose money rules are written “where the software cannot argue with them”. [◆S210, /about-us, /products/carfleet]
