Bunin loved to have his photographs taken. The first thing he purchased for his own money was a photo album, which he bought in Yelets in Torgovaya street, when he was a gymnasium student. Not far from that store there was Aneli Klimenko’s photo studio - one of the best studios in the town, where his family usually was photographed. Unfortunately, there are no photos of young Bunin in Yelets left. The first of the remained images were taken in Oryol. In the novel “ArsEniev”s Life” there is an episode about the arrival of the main character in this town.

“In OrYOl I dressed up gracelessly - smart boots, a thin black undergarment, a red silk shirt, a black noble cap with a red band - I bought an expensive cavalry saddle, which looked so great, it was creaking and smelling of leather, so when I brought it home that night, I could not sleep, because I was happy to have it lying next to me.

Bunin I.A. “Arseniev”s life”

This is a biographical episode. The archive of the Literary Museum has a photograph taken in the photo studio of B.B. Peyroche in Bolkhovskaya street in Oryol in 1889. Bunin is 19 here. When you look at the photo of a dapper young man wearing a burka and a noble cap, the playful nickname comes to your mind which was given to Bunin by Chekhov: “Messier French deputy Boucichon”.

Later, he said that he simply could not pass by the shop window displaying the things that he had long dreamed of. Bunin gave this photo two years later to his best friend Arseniy BIbikov, with the following inscription on the back: “January 26, 1891 To my dear Arsik, a friend in “Knighthood” from I.A. Bunin.’ He also gave one of the photos to his sister Masha, putting a humorous improvisation on the back:

On the photo taken at Peyroche
I look a bity like a dandy
The photo is good, and so am I -
Really handsome, sister Musya
That’s a pity, I’m not like this
Not too pleasing appearance
However, I’m your brother, I’m your blood
And one face with you.

Few of the readership knew Ivan AleksEevich as the author of humorous improvisations and comic poems, and yet he loved and knew how to compose them. Below, for example, there is a poem collectively composed by KuprIn and Bunin, written in Yalta on the tablecloth of the Easter table during a visit to VarvAra KharkEvich, the chief of the girls’ gymnasium:

“The Easter table in Mrs. Varvara”s dining room
Was really good and tasted well
Everything was there - ham, turkey, cheese and sardines -
And suddenly nothing left, at all - the table is empty!
They though it could be eaten by a crocodile
No - it was just Bunin, who came to visit Mrs. Varvara”.


“Only very clever people, those whose mind is running through all their veins, can invent and be able to say an absurdity, a good joke, ” Bunin wrote about Chekhov. He greatly appreciated this talent, the talent of making jokes, and those who quickly catch it. This talent was also a feature shared by Ivan AleksEevich himself, who was mistakenly represented as a strict and a cold-hearted person.

Znamenskaya Church was located in the village of Znamenskoye in the Oryol Governorate (today IzmAlkovsky district of the LIpetsk region), six kilometers to the west from OzYorki. The name of the village comes from the Church of the Sign of the Holy Virgin, the residents of Ozyorki were parishioners of that church. Initially, Znamensky parish consisted of four villages - Znamenskoe, Polskaya, Aleksandro-Nikolskaya and Kamenka-Chicherina, and then other settlements were successively added to it, partly at the request of the owners, and partly at the request of the peasants. According to a legend recorded in the church chronicle in 1870, the Builder of the first church was the local land owner Ksenia Alexandrovna Chicherina.

The Church was built of crude stone with a brick bell tower and covered with planks. In 1835, this Church was abolished due to its dilapidation, and the Znamensky parish was temporarily assigned to the village of VasIlievsky until the new church was built. According to the decision of the nobleman, major Mark Antonovich LogofEt, and other parishioners, as evidenced by the church charter, Bishop NikodIm in 1837 blessed the construction of a stone church in the name of the Sign of the Holy Virgin in Znamenskoye — with the aisles in the name of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Kiev and St. John the Evangelist. In 1850, the new church was finally completed due to efforts and donations of major Mark LogofEt, major VladImir KOshelev and nobleman Nikolai Ryomer together with other parishes. Numerous relatives of the BUnins are buried here in the cemetery near the church, including LyudmIla AlexAndrovna”s father AlexAnder Chubarov, her sister MarIa Alexandrovna, and her brother IvAn Alexandrovich, after whom the BUnins named their youngest son. In May 1881, the Bunin”s grandmother Anna Ivanovna Chubarova died in Ozyorki. They buried her at the cemetery in Znamenskoye.

‘20 June 1911… three days of good weather. Yesterday we went for a ride to Znamenskoe. Small hollows, a hillock, the cut down forest on a hillock, the smell of a fire. Two or three surviving trees, thin and tall; behind the foliage of one of them there is a mirror moon looking like a bean (half a bean). We rode back past the Znamensky cemetery… and in the cemetery near the Znamenskaya Church all our relatives had been buried: our grandfather, grandmother, uncle Ivan Alexandrovich, whom I showed the great resemblance to, according to my mother…’

Bunin I.A. ‘Diaries’

In the Znamenskaya Church on Elijah’s day in 1885, Bunin’s brother Eugene Bunin and Nastasya Karlovna Goldman were married. To Znamenskoe, the younger brother was riding together with the bride in a carriage drawn by a pair of powerful horses, holding in his hands the icon with which she was blessed.
‘And during the wedding, for the first time, I experienced that wonderful, antiquated feeling - something which is in church, under its poor but solemnly lit chandelier, with the village parishioners crying loudly and joyfully, with the doors open to the evening green sky, with a crowd of excited women and girls…’

Bunin I.A. ‘Arseniev”s life’

Currently, the Znamenskaya Church is in the dilapidated condition.