Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov (10.02.1821–25.03.1908), the poet and co-author of the character of Kozma Prutkov, spent the last years of his life in the village of Ilyinovka, Kirsanov District, Tambov Governorate, on the estate of Mikhail Andreevich Boratynsky — the husband of his eldest daughter Olga.

Mikhail Andreevich recalled, “Aleksey Mikhailovich was 71 when I met him, but he looked young for his age — always cheerful, loving and enjoying life with gratitude. He was not in good health but led a very healthy and modest life. He liked my estate, Ilyinovka, very much for its picturesque location and enjoyed his stay with my family, which had already become his own. He already had a grandson — little Volodya, my son from my second marriage.”

In the summer, I managed to take some amateur photographs, which immortalized some episodes from our life. Here Aleksey Mikhailovich met my neighbors, my relatives the Chicherins, the Boratynskys and Baroness Delvig. The two old ladies Boratynskys and the wife of Vladimir Nikolayevich Chicherin, brother of Boris Nikolayevich Chicherin, were the nieces of the poet Evgeny Abramovich Boratynsky, and their half-sister Elizabeth Antonovna Baroness Delvig was the daughter of the poet A. A. Delvig, a friend of Pushkin. The old Boratynskys and Delvig lived 5 versts from my estate, in the Mara manor, where the poet Eugene Abramovich and his mother once lived. The Chicherins lived on their Sergievka estate, two versts from Ilyinovka. Since these neighbors belonged to the same generation as Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhurnikov, we shared friends and interests. In general, there was a feeling that Aleksey Mikhailovich was pleased and happy in our places — he was still strong enough to take long walks with us.

He particularly liked to go to the Lopatnya grove and talk to the forest guards. He loved this life in the woods among the birds and the silence, and often said that if he were a poor peasant, he would choose to be a forest ranger.”