Arkady Petrovich Gaidar’s book “The Blue Cup” was published by Detyzdat publishing house of the Komsomol Central Committee in 1936.

In January 1935, Arkady Gaidar came to Arzamas and stayed there until autumn. He rented a room in a collective farmer’s house and immediately upon arrival went to his childhood friends, the Pokhvalinskys. Dmitry Vladimirovich, or Mitya, met him and invited him to stay at his place. In the past, they studied together at the Arzamas Real School, and were close during the Civil War.

To his friend, the writer Ruvim Isaevich Fraerman, Arkady Petrovich wrote,

In another letter he wrote,

During his first weeks back in his hometown, the writer spent time with friends. He came up with various activities: building snow fortresses, organizing battles, and going fishing.

Sometimes he would lock himself in his room and not come out for a whole week. We would bring his meals to him there. And after a week or two of secluded work, he would suddenly abandon it and wander through the wide meadows, enjoying the fragrance of the grasses.

In the village, he was affectionately called “Gaidar Petrovich.” There, he led folk dances with the youth, composed ditties and sang them, and sometimes gathered children and took them for walks in the woods, fields, or by the river.

Once Arkady Petrovich brought his first wife to Arzamas. The wounded regiment commander Arkady Petrovich Golikov, the future Gaidar, met with 16-year-old nurse Maria Nikolayevna Plaksina at the hospital. The marriage lasted only two years, but Gaidar often mentioned her name in his works.