7 August 1917. Ivan Bunin → Petr Nilus

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Ivan Bunin Petr Nilus

Vasilievskoe estate, Glotovo village, Orlovskaya guberniya, Russian Empire

Dear Peter, us smokers are having a terrible time here getting our hands on tobacco, but, I imagine, you fortunates in the south can still get as much as you want,

so I appeal to you with the most urgent of requests: if you can, buy me as quickly as possible two or three pounds, or at the very least a pound, at 15 roubles on the pound, or for 12, or for 10, or at the worst for 5 roubles (though, of course, the more expensive the better), and keep it somewhere dry for me, letting me know how much you spent on it so I can send you the money.

And please, I beg you, just do it without any fucking wisecracking.

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✍ Also today

Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

The new temporary government has been formed with Kerensky at the head. We will see if he can do any better [than Prince Lvov]. The first problem consists of the strengthening of the discipline in the army and building up its courage, and also in bringing the position of internal Russia into some sort of order. See more

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Alfred Knox

Petrograd, Russian Empire

Kerensky was still the only individual who had any hold on the mob, and the nation was evidently doomed if it failed soon to produce a bigger man. He had the theatrical qualities of a Napoleon, but none of his moral courage or useful ruthlessness.

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Elizaveta Naryshkina

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

I had a little walk in the church garden and then went into church, which is always unlocked, and prayed for Russia, for them and for us all.

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Alexander Parvus

Geneva, Switzerland

I demand an urgent, direct rejection of the deceitful messages in the Russian press, according to which I am an intermediary for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in talks with Lenin or someone else.

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Alexander Blok

57, Ofitserskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

In Russia everything is black once again and shall be blacker than before?

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Maria Feodorovna

Ai-Todor, Crimea, Russian Empire

I cannot describe the extent to which I long for my sweet little dog. It seems to have become more unbearable! It is very hot, I have not left the house at all and do not feel like doing anything.

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Alexander Zamaraev

Totma, Vologodskaya guberniya, Russian Empire

I've finished mowing the Rye fields. The weather is very hot. The cost of living is terrible. Everything has disappeared from the market. The factories aren’t working. There’s very little precipitation this year, snow in winter or rain in summer. The heat is terrible. The ground is rock solid. Everything has burned down.

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Nikolai Berdyaev

Trushevа estate, Lyubotin station, Russian Empire

It is an ugly lie to bellow that the party of “people's freedom” is bourgeois in nature, that it defends the interests of the capitalists, that it contains the seed of the counter-revolution. This party could, truly and in accordance with actual reality, be accused of a degree of academism, of an over-reliance on external constitutional forms, of an inability to attract the broader masses, of a lack of strength and will. See more

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6 August

Kerensky assumes nigh dictatorial powers

Russia awaits crop failure: "We need some rain, but it’s not coming. Very little rain this whole summer"

Trotsky complains about unfair accusations

Map of the Royal dynasties of Europe

Romanovs dangerous liaisons

1916: Year in Review.

+18

in Petrograd

+21

in Moscow