The Workshop

A Cossack went to serve on his own horse and in his own equipment. Even a man chosen for His Majesty’s Own Convoy (the Convoy, the Emperor’s Cossack bodyguard) had to buy, at his own expense and before leaving for the capital, a new regulation Guards saddle with the bows of its tree trimmed in thin white horn [◈ S097, p. 142]. Out of this Cossack need grew the craft by which several generations of Kalaushins of Batalpashinskaya — a stanitsa, or Cossack village, now the town of Cherkessk — made their living. “All the Kalaushins — the direct line for certain, and as far as the side line of Gavrila — were saddlers,” the family history records [◇ S001, No. 74].

A family craft

Note on the roster. The roster enters Nikolay with the patronymic Alekseyevich. The parish and household lists show him as Nikolay Ivanovich, son of Ivan Trofimovich: in 1848 he is 32, with his wife Vasilisa and their children Stefan, Aleksey, Yelizaveta, Agafya and Ilya [◆ S012, no. 92, via S180, topic 25557]; in 1857 “Cossack Nikolay Ivanov Kalaushin and Vassa Andreyeva” have their son Ilya baptised [◆ S013, f. 174v]. Such lists do not record a man’s trade, so Nikolay Ivanovich’s saddlery is known to us from the family.

The crafts department at Batalpashinskaya (1887–1891)

In September 1887 the crafts department of the Batalpashinsk Town School added saddlery and harness-making; the following year it took 19 pupils for the trade — 15 saddlers and 4 harness-makers [◈ S159, Wayback copy of 13.08.2020]. The department’s report for 1887 lists five masters, the first being “the saddle master and also harness-maker, the Cossack A. Kalaushin” [◆ S035, 1888, suppl. to no. 16, 16.04.1888, p. 3]. The report for 1890 gives their names in full: Anton Kalaushin teaching saddlery and Stepan Kalaushin harness-making [◆ S035, 1891, no. 20, 18.05.1891, p. 2].

At the Caucasus Exhibition of 1889 in Tiflis the department received a diploma equivalent to a large silver medal “for articles of leather and metal needed to equip a Cossack, and for locksmith’s and joiner’s work” [◆ S036, no. 308, 20.11.1889, p. 1]; in 1896 its harness work was shown at Nizhny Novgorod [◆ S039, pt III, dept XIX, p. 135].

Note on the roster. The roster identifies this master (“A. Kalaushin”, 1887) as Aleksey Nikolayevich [◈ S001, No. 32, after KOV 1888]. In the 1890 report the department’s saddle master — unable to read and write, as in 1887 — is named as Anton [◆ S035, 1891, no. 20]. △ He was probably Anton Nikolayevich (No. 33), Aleksey Nikolayevich’s younger brother; the harness master Stepan was probably one of the Stepans Nikolayevich. △ The family’s long ties with crafts schools — first at Batalpashinskaya, later the Military Crafts Schools at Labinskaya and Maykop, where the Alekseyevich brothers taught (see below) — echo in the family’s words about the Kalaushins’ “school of applied leather crafts” [◇ S001, Nos. 71, 72].

Tiflis, 1889: a saddle and saddle straps

In the autumn of 1889 Tiflis (now Tbilisi) held the Caucasus Exhibition of Agriculture and Industry. In the list of exhibits from Kuban Oblast, under “Hides; boot-making, saddlery, harness…”, three Kalaushins from Batalpashinskaya appear [◆ S035, 1890, no. 13, 31.03.1890, p. 1]:

• Fedot — a lenchik, the wooden frame of a saddle [◈ S091, PDF p. 52], priced at 65 roubles; he was about eighteen;
• Matvey — “an archak [the frame of a Caucasian saddle] with fittings and saddle furniture of red strap with silver” (132 roubles 45 kopecks), and two more sets, in black and in white strap;
• Ilya — a saddle tree (35 roubles) and a saddle with fittings (50 roubles); △ probably Ilya Nikolayevich (No. 34), Aleksey Nikolayevich’s brother.

On 17 November 1889 the Tiflis newspaper Kavkaz printed, in its list of bronze-level awards, Department IX (cottage-industry section): “186. To Matvey Kalaushin — for a saddle and saddle straps” [◆ S036, no. 305, 17.11.1889, p. 2]. This was a bronze medal or the equivalent third-class diploma: there were not enough medals to go round, and diplomas were also given to private exhibitors [◆ S036, no. 302, 14.11.1889]. Matvey Alekseyevich (b. 1867) was then 21 or 22. It is the earliest exhibition award to a Kalaushin found so far, and the only one whose wording names a saddle outright.

The Alekseyevich brothers and the Convoy

Aleksey Nikolayevich and Anna Nikitichna had five sons and a daughter: Matvey (b. 1867), Mikhail (b. 1870), Fedot (b. 1871), Aleksandr (b. 1877 or 1878), Savva and Anna [◈ S001, Nos. 32, 71–76]. Four of the brothers — Matvey, Mikhail, Fedot and Aleksandr — became saddlers and harness-makers. Note on the roster: their entries are marked “.31”, but their patronymic and the lists of children show that their father is No. 32; △ the parent numbers in this part of the roster appear to have shifted when the manuscript was retyped.

Three of them served in the Convoy. Mikhail Alekseyevich served there as a Cossack and as an uryadnik (a Cossack non-commissioned officer) [◈ S033, via S180, topic 855]. Fedot Alekseyevich took the oath in 1891 and appears in the index of Host orders as a “saddler” [◈ S033, via S180, topic 855]; from 1892 he served in the Convoy, “first at Gatchina, under Alexander III, and then in the capital, St Petersburg, under Nicholas II”, as an uryadnik of the Life Guards 2nd Kuban Sotnia [◈ S001, No. 73]. Aleksandr Alekseyevich was an uryadnik of the Convoy in 1904–1908, and his son Boris was born in the Convoy barracks on Shpalernaya Street [◇ S001, No. 74, as told by Emiliya Fyodorovna Kalaushina]. Matvey Alekseyevich, the family recalls, was not taken into the Convoy because he was too short, and served in a Cossack regiment [◇ S001, No. 71].

At the 16th All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition at Nizhny Novgorod in 1896 the brothers won two awards in the class “Leather goods”. The bronze medal went to “Kalaushin, Fedot Alekseyevich, uryadnik, and Kalaushin, Mikhail Alekseyevich, and Fisenko, Ivan Mikhailovich, Cossacks, in St Petersburg”; an honourable mention to “Kalaushin, Matvey Alekseyevich, uryadnik, in Yekaterinodar” [◆ S044, no. 1, pp. 33, 36; ◆ S039, pt III, p. 158]. △ Their work was most likely shown in the Military Department, among the exhibits of the Cossack hosts: the official index lists there “specimens of individual parts of the Cossack saddle” and “the horse equipment of a Cossack officer”, and awards in the Military Department were entered in the lists of the departments to which the objects “most closely relate” [◆ S040, p. 378; ◆ S039, pt III, p. 149].

N.V. Galushkin, an officer of the Convoy and its historian, writes that the Convoy officers’ saddles were supplied by “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 [◈ S097, p. 143, n. 24]. Galushkin gives no first name: the master could have been Aleksey Nikolayevich or any of his sons.

The saddle for the Shah of Persia

◇ family testimony · confirmed by relatives

The saddle for the Shah of Persia was made in Fedot Alekseyevich’s workshop on the order of Emperor Nicholas II; the work took two months. Fedot Alekseyevich took the saddle to St Petersburg himself. There, at a review of the Guards on his last day before going home at the end of his service, Prince Trubetskoy reported to the Emperor that the saddle had arrived. Nicholas II examined it, said it was very well made, and there and then congratulated Kalaushin on the title of Purveyor to the Court of His Imperial Majesty; a gold watch was granted with the title. Talking with the master, the Emperor asked how long he had been in St Petersburg and, learning that Trubetskoy had held up the presentation of the saddle for so long, showed his displeasure; once the Emperor had gone, Trubetskoy turned his anger on Fedot and sent him to the guardhouse for two days for an incautious answer. The promised gold watch never reached Fedot Alekseyevich. From then on the signboard of his workshop declared that it belonged to a Purveyor to the Court of His Imperial Majesty [◇ S001, No. 73]. The account is recorded in the family history, and relatives confirm it [◇ S003].

Matching the years

A note on names

In the family account the report is made by “Prince Trubetskoy”. In 1900 the Convoy was commanded by Baron Alexander Meyendorff (1893–1906); his nephew, Prince Georgy (Yury) Ivanovich Trubetskoy, took command in 1906 and held it until 1914 [◈ S097, p. 170; ◈ S188, “Sobstvenny Yego Imperatorskogo Velichestva Konvoy”, list of commanders; ◈ S188, “Trubetskoy, Georgy Ivanovich”]. △ The family most likely kept the name of the later, better-remembered commander, under whom Fedot’s younger brother Aleksandr Alekseyevich also served in the Convoy. On the day of the review, 31 May, the departing men were led by the acting commander of the Convoy, Colonel Kireyev, and the duty aide-de-camp at the Emperor’s side was Prince Peter of Oldenburg [◆ S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3]; △ in retelling, that “prince” may have merged with the well-remembered prince of later years. Gifts of Caucasian saddles also reached the Emperor through the commander of the Convoy: on 11 December that same year Meyendorff came to Nicholas II “with a Caucasian parade saddle and shashka — an offering from some good Dagestani” [◆ S037, 11.12.1900].

The title and the watch

The title of Purveyor to the Imperial Court was granted by the Chancellery of the Ministry of the Imperial Court [◈ S108] — the ministry whose head, Baron Fredericks, stood beside the Emperor at the review of 31 May 1900. Watches were a customary imperial reward in the Convoy: the Emperor gave a gold watch bearing the State arms to his uryadnik orderly at the end of his six months’ duty at the Emperor’s side, for example, and the best marksmen received silver watches [◈ S097, pp. 151–152]; according to his descendants, the Vladikavkaz swordsmith Chilli Murtazaliyev received an inscribed gold watch from Nicholas II [◈ S091, PDF p. 58].

Where the documents may be found

• The diary of Nicholas II for 1900 (GA RF, f. 601, op. 1); the Chamber-Fourier Journal for 1900 (RGIA, f. 516, op. 1, d. 10 for 31 May; d. 11 for July).
• RGIA, f. 468 (His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet): gifts to the Shah in 1900, and the Cabinet’s registers of items received and issued for 1900–1901 (a saddle from Uryadnik Kalaushin; a watch for him); f. 472: the file on F.A. Kalaushin’s purveyor title; the Court Stables Office (fond number to be confirmed).
• AVPRI, Persian Desk: the ceremonial of the 1900 visit and the exchange of gifts.
• Convoy orders for May–June 1900 (RGVIA); GAKK, Krasnodar: the text of Kuban Host Order No. 60 of 17.06.1900; Pravitelstvenny Vestnik and Novoye Vremya for 1–3 June 1900.
• The Safarnameh of the Shah’s first European journey (AH 1318), entries on St Petersburg; the treasury of the Golestan Palace.
• Fedot Alekseyevich’s formal portrait, held by his descendants: one badge on his chest could not be identified by an awards specialist, who suggested it was oriental, perhaps Persian [◈ S179, 2017].

Purveyor to the Imperial Court

The title was granted on petition; the usual conditions included years of supplying the Court and taking part in exhibitions [◈ S108] — and Fedot Alekseyevich had exhibition awards. The List of Purveyors to the Imperial Court compiled at the beginning of 1915 names, among 1,340 firms and persons, “the saddle-maker Fedot Kalaushin of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa” [◈ S108]. Note on the roster: in retelling this passage the roster gives “40 firms and persons”; according to I.V. Zimin’s edition, the List has 1,340.

Documentary note. On its walks along the former Aleksandrovsky Prospekt, the Labinsk museum still tells the story of “the house and shop of the brothers Kalaushin, Purveyors to the Imperial Court” [◈ S170, “Aleksandrovsky prospekt, 5 sentyabrya”]. Saddles from the Batalpashinskaya master were indeed supplied to the Convoy’s officers [◈ S097, p. 143, n. 24]. The document the family calls a patent should be sought among the purveyor files (RGIA, f. 472) and in the Convoy’s orders.

Teachers of the craft

After the Convoy, Mikhail Alekseyevich taught saddlery. In 1899, at the agricultural show held at the Voznesenskaya School of Horticulture near Labinskaya (its report was printed on 24 September), “Uryadnik Kalaushin, a teacher at the Labinskaya Military Crafts School, exhibited a Cossack saddle of elegant workmanship, of the latest Caucas[ian pattern]” and won a large silver medal [◆ S035, 1899, no. 203, 24.09.1899, p. 2]; △ probably Mikhail Alekseyevich. At the Kuban exhibition in Yekaterinodar in 1902 a reviewer singled out, in the pavilion of the Labinskaya school, “the invention of the master of the saddlery section, Mikhail Kalaushin — clamps for gluing the saddle tree”, which held both bows at once so that one master, or even a pupil, could do the gluing [◆ S035, 1902, no. 204, 21.09.1902, p. 2]. At the same show Mikhail and Fedot Alekseyevich each received a silver medal of the Kuban Economic Society “for saddlery work” [◆ S035, 1902, no. 255, 28.11.1902, p. 1].

Later the brothers taught at the Maykop Military Crafts School. In the 1910 graduation photograph, with saddle trees laid out in front of the group, a collector’s caption names Mikhail and Aleksandr Alekseyevich as master-teachers of the school [◈ S153, P.N. Strelyanov, 2020]. Aleksandr Alekseyevich’s family was living in Maykop at the time: the town’s parish register for 1909 records “Uryadnik of Batalpashinskaya stanitsa Aleksandr Alekseyev Kalaushin” and his wife Yevdokiya Fyodorovna [◆ S018, d. 63, via S160]. The Caucasus Calendar for 1913 lists among the school’s craft teachers “harness[-making]: Al[eksa]ndr Alekseyev[ich] Kalaushin” [◆ S058, 1913, PDF p. 970].

Awards, and the family’s Paris and London

Documentary note. The award lists found so far record Kalaushin masters at four exhibitions: Tiflis, 1889 (Matvey, “for a saddle and saddle straps”); Nizhny Novgorod, 1896 (a bronze medal to Fedot and Mikhail with I.M. Fisenko, and an honourable mention to Matvey); Voznesenskaya, 1899 (a large silver medal for a Cossack saddle); and Yekaterinodar, 1902 (silver medals to Mikhail and Fedot). The family’s words that the workshop “more than once won prizes” are borne out by the documents. At the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 the Cossack equipment was exhibited by the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops, and the catalogue names no makers [◆ S046]. Where to look: the jury reports of the Paris exhibition of 1900 (Group XVIII, Class 116); the Russian sections of the London exhibitions of 1862 and 1909; Kubanskiye Oblastnye Vedomosti of those years.

“Kalaus steel”

Documentary note. Lyubov Geychenko’s father, Jalal, a Lak from Kazi-Kumukh, was a jeweller and swordsmith who had lived in Kutais (now Kutaisi) since before the Revolution [◈ S088, no. 10 (632), 2013]. Matvey Alekseyevich’s family also had ties to Kutais: his son Aleksey was born there in 1894 [◈ S001, No. 122]. The Kalaushins also received blades from the state works at Zlatoust: lists of unclaimed railway freight show “blades for Kalaushin” in 1903 and “steel goods” for “Koloushin” in 1910 [◆ S035, 1903, no. 213, 30.09.1903, p. 3; ◆ S035, 1910, no. 246, 13.11.1910, p. 3]. Almost every Convoy Cossack carried a shashka and kinzhal with Zlatoust blades in his own silver mounts [◈ S097, p. 143].

The last commission: Archduke Franz Ferdinand

◇ family testimony · confirmed by relatives

The family remembers the last commission that Matvey Alekseyevich carried out together with Fedot Alekseyevich as a complete set of parade equipment for Archduke Franz Ferdinand — “full parade harness, saddles, sabres, kinzhals and so on”. The family history records that it was a “political” commission, meant to help improve relations with Austria-Hungary; war came all the same in 1914, after the Archduke’s assassination [◇ S001, No. 71]. Relatives confirm that the commission was completed [◇ S003].

Matvey Alekseyevich died in 1912 [◇ S001, No. 71], so the work was finished by that year at the latest; △ if it was his last commission, probably in 1911–1912, when the workshop passed to him on Aleksey Nikolayevich’s death in 1911 [◇ S001, No. 71]. The Archduke had military ties with Russia: from 1891 he was honorary chief of the Russian 26th Bug Dragoon Regiment, later the 9th Uhlans, which bore his name [◈ S189, “Bugsky 9th Uhlan…”]. In August 1896 he met Nicholas II at the station in Vienna in the uniform of his Russian regiment, and, as the Austrian and Hungarian papers reported, “Circassians in bright red uniform” took post on either side of the door of the imperial saloon car [◆ S042, 28.08.1896, p. 2; ◆ S041, 27.08.1896, p. 11]; △ this was how the papers described Convoy Cossacks in their scarlet cherkeskas. In February 1902 he travelled to St Petersburg to present himself to Nicholas II as a General of Cavalry of the Russian army [◆ S055, 01.02.1902, p. 3].

Where the documents may be found. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna: HA OMaA 505, the 1915 inventory of the Konopiště arms collection; Franz Ferdinand’s papers, cartons 35–40 “Ehrenpreise und Geschenke” (1892–1914), especially 39–40 (1910–1914); MdÄ AR F1-69-78, the journey to St Petersburg in 1902. The Czech National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) and Konopiště Castle. RGIA, f. 468 (His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet), files on gifts.

Labinskaya: house, shop and garden

Three of the brothers — Matvey, Mikhail and Aleksandr — lived in Labinskaya [◇ S001, No. 72]. Here in 1904 Matvey Alekseyevich’s son Matvey was born, the future Pushkin scholar M.M. Kalaushin [◈ S170, “Labinsky pushkinist M.M. Kalaushin”]. In 1910 Matvey Alekseyevich chaired the stanitsa’s Second Mutual Credit Society [◆ S058, 1910, pt 2, cols 525–526]. The brothers’ trade left its trace in the directories: “Harness goods. Kalaushin M.A.” [◆ S059, col. 1412] — △ Matvey or Mikhail Alekseyevich, since both lived in Labinskaya; the Kuban Calendar for 1913 records Matvey Alekseyevich’s trade in burkas (felt cloaks), with a turnover of 700 roubles, while in the 1914 issue the same line is classed as trade in “Asian goods” [◆ S060, 1913, p. 732, no. 292; ◆ S060, 1914, p. 422, no. 292]. In Batalpashinskaya the same heading lists “Kalaushin, Fyodor Alekseyev[ich]” with a turnover of 15,000 roubles [◆ S060, 1914, p. 442, no. 96]; △ most likely Fedot Alekseyevich.

Documentary note. The “Kalaushin House”, 6 Krasnaya Street, Labinsk, built in the 1890s, is a listed heritage building of regional importance; the register does not say which brother owned it [◈ S187, “Cultural heritage of Russia / Krasnodar Krai / Labinsk District”, after the heritage register]. House No. 1 on Khalturina Street, where M.M. Kalaushin’s family lived, now carries a memorial plaque, put up at the initiative of the Labinsk local historian G.A. Vinogradova [◈ S170, “Labinskiye krayevedy: Galina Anatolyevna Vinogradova”]. Descendants of the Firsovs, an old Labinskaya family, recalled: “Father made horse harness and soles and delivered them to the Kalaushins, the owners of the saddlery and harness workshop” [◈ S170, “Vstrecha s potomkami pervoposelentsev Firsovykh”]. A cinema with its own electric motor is documented for Aleksandr Alekseyevich: in 1931 in Batalpashinsk he was deprived of his voting rights “as the owner of a cinema with its own electric motor” [◆ S020, via S157]; according to his daughter, in 1916 he had bought the Zlygosteva house in Labinskaya “together with a power station and a cinema”, where his son Boris showed films [◇ S001, No. 74]. The 1914 table of the stanitsa’s commercial and industrial establishments lists a single power station, that of G.S. Avakyants [◆ S060, 1914, p. 422, no. 321]; △ where the light in the Kalaushins’ garden came from, and what the power station at the Zlygosteva house was, may be shown by the purchase deeds for the Kalaushin houses in Labinskaya that were kept in the family [◇ S001, Nos. 32, 74].

The end of the workshop

Fedot Alekseyevich, ataman of Batalpashinskaya in 1907–1909, was ataman of the stanitsa again during the Civil War, and in 1920 he was shot in Batalpashinskaya as a hostage [◈ S001, No. 73; ◈ S162, vol. “K” — 1921].

What survives, and where to look

No saddle, kinzhal or shashka bearing the Kalaushin name has yet been identified in the museum catalogues available online; the State Catalogue of the Museum Fund has been searched only in part, and the catalogues of the Hermitage and the State Historical Museum have still to be searched. What survives is the house on Krasnaya Street in Labinsk, the documents of 1887–1915 cited in this chapter, the 1910 photograph of the Maykop school and the portraits of Fedot Alekseyevich kept by his descendants. △ The workshop’s pieces are worth looking for by a possible maker’s mark or inscription “Калаушинъ”, by the arms of a Purveyor to the Court, or by the names of the stanitsas.

Where to look (the descriptions of the items below name no maker):

• Labinsk Museum of History and Local Lore (F.I. Moiseyenko): a 19th-century “harness ring” (LM KP 30/305); photograph albums of 1905 and 1911 (LM KP 542, 541) [◈ S165].
• Krasnodar Museum-Reserve (Ye.D. Felitsyn): a “Cossack saddle with harness” and early 20th-century kinzhals “with the master’s mark” from the exhibition “The Gleam of Steel” (2020–2021) [◈ S169]; A.P. Chernov’s photograph “The pavilion of the Host workshops of Uman and Labinskaya at the third Kuban agricultural and industrial exhibition in Yekaterinodar” (September 1902, KM 7033/7) [◈ S165] — △ apparently the very pavilion in which Mikhail Kalaushin’s clamps were shown.
• Museums that inherited the court collections (Tsarskoye Selo, the Hermitage, the Moscow Kremlin Museums): the Cossack saddle and burka presented to the Tsesarevich Alexei in May 1909 on behalf of Kuban Oblast and the Armavir–Tuapse Railway Company [◆ S036, 1909, no. 106], and the saddle given on 17 May 1911, when, as the Emperor wrote, the deputations of the Kuban and Terek Hosts “presented Alexei with a little horse with a saddle, a cherkeska and arms” [◆ S037, 17.05.1911].
• Archives: RGIA, ff. 468 and 472; GAKK; the archives of the Caucasian Agricultural Society (Tbilisi), for the 1889 awards; the report of the Military Department of the 1896 exhibition (Russian State Library).

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Documents

Translated from the Russian; the surname is given as in the source.

1887. “…5 masters: the saddle master and also harness-maker, the Cossack A. Kalaushin; the locksmith, Uryadnik V. Timoshenko; the joiner A. Esmansky; the bookbinder P. Feodotov; and the blacksmith V. Rabadzhiyev…” — Report on the crafts department of the Batalpashinsk Town School for 1887 [◆ S035, 1888, suppl. to no. 16, 16.04.1888, p. 3]

1889. “186. To Matvey Kalaushin — for a saddle and saddle straps.” — List of awards of the Caucasus Exhibition, Department IX, cottage-industry section [◆ S036, no. 305, 17.11.1889, p. 2]

1900. “His Majesty the Emperor honoured each of them with gracious words, and with His Own hand presented the badges established for service in His Majesty’s Own Convoy…” — “Cossacks leaving on reserve leave”, Tsarskoye Selo, 31 May 1900 [◆ S036, no. 150, 10.06.1900, p. 3]

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