This is the first photo of Alexey Maximovich Peshkov, who would go down in history as the writer Maxim Gorky. It was taken in Kazan, where Alyosha arrived at the age of 16, hoping to be accepted to university. Gorky spent four years there, and this time in Kazan became one of the most important stages of his life. Shortly before his death, Maxim Gorky confessed,

Throughout his life in Kazan, Alexey Peshkov resided at a few different addresses, lived with his friend from the gymnasium, in a poor student’s quarter, a basement, and a homeless shelter. He worked as a street sweeper, a gardener, and a bakery assistant for Andrey Derenkov. The latter would become friends with Gorky and even appear as one of the characters in the autobiography “My Universities”. Peshkov often visited his house, where they “spent nights talking about life and one’s place in it.”

Andrey Derenkov’s younger brother Ivan Stepanovich Derenkov later sent this portrait photo to the editorial office of the “Literaturnoye Nasledstvo” (Literary Legacy) magazine in Moscow to be included in the anniversary issue dedicated to Gorky, which was never published. The original photo was never returned to Kazan, so the photo on display is a copy.

Gorky started having his first serious thoughts about the revolution when he became a member of a local Narodnik educational group. The young man was inspired by the ideas of socialism and took an active part in the group’s activities. He had quite a penchant for books and began to frequently visit the library of Derenkov, where he could read banned literature. In 1888, Derenkov’s group was discovered by the police: some of its members were arrested, while others fled to Siberia.

At the same time, Alexey Peshkov learned of the death of his beloved grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, who had raised him. It was then that Gorky had to say the final farewell to his childhood and begin a new life. Later in “My Universities”, Gorky would describe parting with his grandmother in the following way:

Because of all those traumatic events, the future writer tried taking his own life by buying a revolver in a bazaar and shooting himself on the bank of the Kazanka River. Luckily, the bullet went through his left shoulder, and the guard at a local monastery, Mustafa Yunusov, arrived just in time to help and take the young man to the hospital.