24 December 1917. Zinaida Gippius

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

Zinaida Gippius

Sergievskaya 83, Petrograd, Russian Republic

An astonishingly stupid and sad story happened to Shingarev. It's a tragic anecdote. A girl by the name of Kaufman, from the Constitutional Democrat Central Committee registry, managed to arrange a visit to him and decided to bring him some shortcakes.

She stopped by the registry to talk to other ladies. On her way out, she grabbed another parcel that she passed to Shingarev instead of her shortcakes. As it turns out, the parcel she handed over to Shingarev contained minutes of the Constitutional Democrat meetings, old and new ones! They were laid out on the table for another lady working at the registry, who was supposed to bring them to a safe house. She found shortcakes instead - and that's how it all became clear.

It was all so ridiculous that the Bolsheviks even decided it must have been some ploy, someone must have planted the papers! But when crying ladies came to them and started taking the blame upon themselves, telling "the whole truth," they realised it was just "pure luck." They will probably use it to "uncover" another "Constitutional Democrat conspiracy." What an idiotic tragedy!

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