The engraving by Yegor Skotnikov “The Interior of the Kalmyk Yurt”, which is kept in the collection of the National Pushkin Museum, was based on a drawing of Yemelyan Korneyev, an academician of history painting. It is a piece of valuable ethnographic material collected during a three-year secret expedition across the Russian Empire. The expedition was led by General Sprengtporten.
In a report to Alexander I, sent from the island of
Corfu, Sprengtporten wrote,
In 1802, I received an honorable task to travel around parts of Russia and its southern borders from Kyakhta to Corfu, accompanied by several officers and one draftsman to depict picturesque objects. In the first year, I chose the route to Orenburg, then along the Irtysh in Siberia and along the Chinese border from Bukhtarma to Kyakhta. In the second year (1803) I had to follow the Caucasian line, and in the third year (1804) I went from Crimea via Constantinople to Corfu.
The expedition was to “travel around Asian and European Russia for the purpose of military and strategic inspection.”
Pushkin spent some time with the Kalmyks in a steppe kibitka, a type of dwelling. He was a guest of a Kalmyk family, who offered the poet their national dishes. Here is how he described his visit on the way to the Caucasus in 1829,
‘What’s your name? ’
— ‘***’ — ‘How old are you? ’
— ‘Ten and eight’
— ‘What
are you sewing? ’
— ‘Pant’ — ‘For whom? ’
— ‘For self’
— She handed me her pipe
and started on breakfast.
In the cauldron tea was boiling with mutton fat and
salt. She offered me her dipper. I did not want to refuse and took a sip,
trying to hold my breath. I do not think any other national cuisine could
produce anything more vile. I asked for something to follow it up. They gave me
a piece of dried mare’s meat; I was happy even for that. Kalmyk coquetry scared
me; I hastily got out of the kibitka and rode away from the Circle of the
Steppes.
According to the first
version of the text, the poet swallowed the piece of dried mare’s meat with
great pleasure. “After this feat, I thought I was entitled to some reward. But
my proud beauty struck me on the head with a musical instrument like our
balalaika — Kalmyk cordiality was beginning to pall. Here is a message to her
that will probably never reach her…” Later, Pushkin intended to cite his poem
“To a Kalmyk Girl”, written later on the road, but he did not include it in the
final text of his “Journey to Arzrum”, from where the above excerpts are taken.
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