Ilya Ilf

(Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg)

Evgeny Petrov

(Evgeny Petrovich Kataev)

One-story America

Ilf and Petrov traveled to the United States of America and wrote a book about their trip called "One-Story America". This is an excellent book. She is full of respect for the human person. It solemnly praises human labor. This is a book about engineers, about constructions of technology that conquer nature. This is a noble, subtle and poetic book. It is unusually vividly manifested that new attitude to the world, which is characteristic of the people of our country and which can be called the Soviet spirit. This is a book about the wealth of nature and the human soul. It is permeated with indignation against capitalist slavery and tenderness for the country of socialism.

Yu. Olesha

Part one.

FROM THE TWENTY-SEVENTH FLOOR WINDOW

Chapter one. "NORMANDY"

At nine o'clock a special train leaves Paris, taking passengers of the Normandy to Le Havre. The train runs non-stop and after three hours it rolls into the building of the Le Havre sea station. Passengers go out onto the closed platform, go up to the top floor of the station along the escalator, pass through several halls, walk along the gangways closed on all sides and find themselves in a large lobby. Here they get into the elevators and go to their floors. This is the Normandy. What its appearance is - the passengers do not know, because they never saw the steamer.

We entered the elevator, and a boy in a red jacket with gold buttons, with a graceful movement, pressed a beautiful button. A shiny new elevator went up a little, got stuck between floors and suddenly moved down, ignoring the boy who was desperately pressing buttons. Going down three floors, instead of going up two, we heard a painfully familiar phrase, spoken, however, in French: "The elevator does not work."

We climbed up to our cabin a staircase covered with a light green fireproof rubber carpet. The corridors and lobbies of the steamer are covered with the same material. The step is made soft and inaudible. It's nice. But you really start to appreciate the advantages of rubber flooring when rolling: the soles seem to stick to it. This, however, does not save you from seasickness, but it prevents you from falling.

The staircase was not at all a steamship type - wide and flat, with flights and platforms, the dimensions of which are quite acceptable for any home. The cabin was also not a steamship one. A spacious room with two windows, two wide wooden beds, armchairs, closets, tables, mirrors and all the amenities, right down to the telephone. In general, the "Normandy" looks like a steamer only in a storm - then it shakes at least a little. And in calm weather - this colossal hotel with a magnificent view of the sea, which suddenly broke off the embankment of the fashionable resort and sailed to America at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

Deep below, from the platforms of all floors of the station, the mourners shouted their last greetings and wishes. They shouted in French, in English, in Spanish. They shouted in Russian too. A strange man in a black naval uniform with a silver anchor and David's shield on his sleeve, in a beret and with a sad beard, was shouting something in Hebrew. Then it turned out that this is a steamship rabbi, whom the General Transatlantic Company maintains in the service to meet the spiritual needs of some of the passengers. For the other part, there are Catholic and Protestant priests at the ready. Muslims, fire worshipers and Soviet engineers are deprived of spiritual service. In this respect, the Transatlantic General Company has left them on their own. The Normandy has a fairly large Catholic church, illuminated by an extremely convenient electric semi-light for prayer. The altar and religious images can be covered with special shields, and then the church automatically turns into a Protestant one. As for a rabbi with a sad beard, he is not assigned a separate room, and he performs his services in the children's room. For this purpose, the company gives him a tale and a special drapery, with which he covers for a while vain images of bunnies and cats.

The steamer left the harbor. Crowds of people stood on the embankment and on the pier. They are not yet accustomed to the Normandy, and every voyage of the transatlantic colossus attracts everyone's attention in Le Havre. The French coast disappeared into the smoke of a cloudy day. Towards evening the lights of Southampton began to shine. For an hour and a half, the Normandy stood in the roadstead, accepting passengers from England, surrounded on three sides by the distant mysterious light of an unfamiliar city. And then she went out into the ocean, where the noisy fuss of invisible waves, raised by the storm wind, was already beginning.

Everything trembled in the stern where we were accommodated. Decks, walls, portholes, sun loungers, glasses over the washbasin, the washbasin itself trembled. The vibration of the steamer was so strong that even such objects began to emit sounds from which this could not be expected. For the first time in our life, we heard the sound of a towel, soap, carpet on the floor, paper on the table, curtains, collar thrown on the bed. Everything in the cabin sounded and thundered. It was enough for the passenger to think for a second and to loosen the muscles of his face, as his teeth began to chatter. All night long it seemed that someone was pounding on doors, knocking on windows, laughing heavily. We counted a hundred different sounds our cabin made.

The Normandy was making its tenth voyage between Europe and America. After the eleventh voyage, she will go to the dock, her stern will be disassembled, and design flaws that cause vibration will be eliminated.

In the morning a sailor came and tightly closed the windows with metal shields. The storm was getting worse. A small cargo steamer made its way to the French coast with difficulty. Sometimes he disappeared behind a wave, and only the tips of his masts were visible.

For some reason it always seemed that the ocean road between the Old and New Worlds was very busy, that every now and then one came across merry steamers with music and flags. In fact, the ocean is a majestic and deserted thing, and the steamer that storms four hundred miles from Europe was the only ship that we met in five days' journey. The Normandy rocked slowly and gravely. She walked, almost without reducing her speed, confidently scattering high waves that climbed on her from all sides, and only sometimes made uniform bows to the ocean. It was not a struggle of a meager creation of human hands with a raging element. It was a fight of equal and equal.

In a semicircular smoking room, three famous wrestlers with flattened ears, taking off their jackets, played cards. Shirts protruded from under their vests. The fighters thought painfully. Large cigars hung from their mouths. At another table, two people were playing chess, constantly adjusting the pieces moving off the board. Two more, resting their palms on their chins, watched the game. Well, who else, besides the Soviet people, will play the refused Queen's Gambit in stormy weather! And so it was. The handsome Botvinniks turned out to be Soviet engineers.

Gradually, acquaintances began to form, companies were formed. A printed list of passengers was handed out, among whom there was one very funny family: Mr. Sandwich, Mrs. Sandwich and young Mr. Sandwich. If Marshak had been on the Normandy, he probably would have written a poem for children called Fat Mr. Sandwich.

We entered the Golfstrem. It was raining warm, and in the heavy greenhouse air, oil soot precipitated from one of the Normandy's chimneys.

We went to inspect the ship. The third class passenger does not see the ship he is traveling on. He is not allowed into either the first or the tourist classes. The tourist class passenger also does not see the Normandy, he is also not allowed to cross the borders. Meanwhile, the first class is "Normandy". It occupies at least nine-tenths of the entire steamer. Everything is huge in first class: promenade decks, restaurants, smoking lounges, card game parlors, special ladies' salons, and a greenhouse where plump French sparrows jump on glass branches and hundreds of orchids hang from the ceiling, and theater for four hundred seats, and a swimming pool - with water,

Ilf and Petrov's travel notes "One-Story America" ​​were published in 1937, more than seventy years ago. In the fall of 1935, Ilf and Petrov were sent to the United States as correspondents for the Pravda newspaper.

It is difficult to say what exactly the top bosses were guided by when they sent satirists into the thick of capitalism. Most likely, they were expected to be spiteful, destroying satire on the "country of Coca-Cola", but it turned out to be an intelligent, fair, benevolent book. It aroused keen interest among Soviet readers, who until then did not have even a rough idea of ​​the North American United States.

The further history of the book cannot be called simple: it was either published, then banned, then removed from libraries, then parts of the text were cropped.

As a rule, "One-Storied America" ​​was included in a few collected works of Ilf and Petrov, individual editions rarely appeared ("as if something did not come out!"). There are only two editions with Ilf's photographic illustrations.

It is remarkable that the time has come when the desire to repeat the journey of Ilf and Petrov brought to life the documentary television series "One-Story America" ​​by Vladimir Pozner (he conceived this project thirty years ago). In addition to the series, we received a book of travel notes by Posner and the American writer and radio journalist Brian Kahn, with photographs of Ivan Urgant.

In a series worthy of all praise, there is a sense of respect for the original. Vladimir Pozner constantly refers to Ilf and Petrov, vigilantly noticing the similarities and differences in the life of America then and now. Posner's television series is known to have sparked a lot of interest in the United States. And I was pleased to find that many of my compatriot acquaintances, under the influence of the series, re-read the old One-Story America.

Today's America is very interested in its history, including the time that was reflected in the book of Ilf and Petrov. Recently, several American universities have successfully held exhibitions of Ilf's "American photographs". And in New York, a publication was published: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip. The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov(2007). This is a translation of the 1936 publication of Ogornok, with numerous Ilfov photographs.

Good mutual interest is beneficial to all.

However, modern America continues to be "one-story".

...

A number of surnames and place names are given in accordance with the modern spelling.

Part one
From the 27th floor window

Chapter 1
"Normandy"

At nine o'clock a special train leaves Paris, taking passengers of the Normandy to Le Havre. The train runs non-stop and after three hours it rolls into the building of the Le Havre sea station. Passengers go out onto the closed platform, go up to the upper floor of the railway station along the escalator, pass several halls, walk along the gangways closed on all sides, and find themselves in a large lobby. Here they get into the elevators and go to their floors. This is the Normandy. What its appearance is - the passengers do not know, because they never saw the steamer.

We entered the elevator, and a boy in a red jacket with gold buttons, with a graceful movement, pressed a beautiful button. A shiny new elevator went up a little, got stuck between floors and suddenly moved down, ignoring the boy who was desperately pressing buttons. Going down three floors, instead of going up two, we heard a painfully familiar phrase, spoken, however, in French: "The elevator does not work."

We climbed up to our cabin a staircase covered with a light green fireproof rubber carpet. The corridors and lobbies of the steamer are covered with the same material. The step is made soft and inaudible. It's nice. But you really start to appreciate the advantages of rubber flooring when rolling: the soles seem to stick to it. This, however, does not save you from seasickness, but it prevents you from falling.

The staircase was not at all a steamship type - wide and flat, with flights and platforms, the dimensions of which are quite acceptable for any home.

The cabin was also not a steamship one. A spacious room with two windows, two wide wooden beds, armchairs, closets, tables, mirrors and all the amenities, right down to the telephone. In general, the "Normandy" looks like a steamer only in a storm - then it shakes at least a little. And in calm weather - this colossal hotel with a magnificent view of the sea, which suddenly broke off the embankment of the fashionable resort and sailed to America at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

Deep below, from the platforms of all floors of the station, the mourners shouted their last greetings and wishes. They shouted in French, in English, in Spanish. They shouted in Russian too. A strange man in a black naval uniform with a silver anchor and David's shield on his sleeve, in a beret and with a sad beard, was shouting something in Hebrew. Then it turned out that this is a steamship rabbi, whom the General Transatlantic Company maintains in the service to meet the spiritual needs of some of the passengers. For the other part, there are Catholic and Protestant priests at the ready. Muslims, fire worshipers and Soviet engineers are deprived of spiritual service. In this respect, the Transatlantic General Company has left them on their own. The Normandy has a fairly large Catholic church, illuminated by an extremely convenient electric semi-light for prayer. The altar and religious images can be covered with special shields, and then the church automatically turns into a Protestant one. As for a rabbi with a sad beard, he is not assigned a separate room, and he performs his services in the children's room. For this purpose, the company gives him a tale and a special drapery, with which he covers for a while vain images of bunnies and cats.

Ilf and Petrov's travel notes "One-Story America" ​​were published in 1937, more than seventy years ago. In the fall of 1935, Ilf and Petrov were sent to the United States as correspondents for the Pravda newspaper.

It is difficult to say what exactly the top bosses were guided by when they sent satirists into the thick of capitalism. Most likely, they were expected to be spiteful, destroying satire on the "country of Coca-Cola", but it turned out to be an intelligent, fair, benevolent book. It aroused keen interest among Soviet readers, who until then did not have even a rough idea of ​​the North American United States.

The further history of the book cannot be called simple: it was either published, then banned, then removed from libraries, then parts of the text were cropped.

As a rule, "One-Storied America" ​​was included in a few collected works of Ilf and Petrov, individual editions rarely appeared ("as if something did not come out!"). There are only two editions with Ilf's photographic illustrations.

It is remarkable that the time has come when the desire to repeat the journey of Ilf and Petrov brought to life the documentary television series "One-Story America" ​​by Vladimir Pozner (he conceived this project thirty years ago). In addition to the series, we received a book of travel notes by Posner and the American writer and radio journalist Brian Kahn, with photographs of Ivan Urgant.

In a series worthy of all praise, there is a sense of respect for the original. Vladimir Pozner constantly refers to Ilf and Petrov, vigilantly noticing the similarities and differences in the life of America then and now. Posner's television series is known to have sparked a lot of interest in the United States. And I was pleased to find that many of my compatriot acquaintances, under the influence of the series, re-read the old One-Story America.

Today's America is very interested in its history, including the time that was reflected in the book of Ilf and Petrov. Recently, several American universities have successfully held exhibitions of Ilf's "American photographs". And in New York, a publication was published: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip. The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov(2007). This is a translation of the 1936 publication of Ogornok, with numerous Ilfov photographs.

Good mutual interest is beneficial to all.

However, modern America continues to be "one-story".

Alexandra Ilf

A number of surnames and place names are given in accordance with the modern spelling.

Part one

From the 27th floor window

"Normandy"

At nine o'clock a special train leaves Paris, taking passengers of the Normandy to Le Havre. The train runs non-stop and after three hours it rolls into the building of the Le Havre sea station. Passengers go out onto the closed platform, go up to the upper floor of the railway station along the escalator, pass several halls, walk along the gangways closed on all sides, and find themselves in a large lobby. Here they get into the elevators and go to their floors. This is the Normandy. What its appearance is - the passengers do not know, because they never saw the steamer.

We entered the elevator, and a boy in a red jacket with gold buttons, with a graceful movement, pressed a beautiful button. A shiny new elevator went up a little, got stuck between floors and suddenly moved down, ignoring the boy who was desperately pressing buttons. Going down three floors, instead of going up two, we heard a painfully familiar phrase, spoken, however, in French: "The elevator does not work."

We climbed up to our cabin a staircase covered with a light green fireproof rubber carpet. The corridors and lobbies of the steamer are covered with the same material. The step is made soft and inaudible. It's nice. But you really start to appreciate the advantages of rubber flooring when rolling: the soles seem to stick to it. This, however, does not save you from seasickness, but it prevents you from falling.

The staircase was not at all a steamship type - wide and flat, with flights and platforms, the dimensions of which are quite acceptable for any home.

The cabin was also not a steamship one. A spacious room with two windows, two wide wooden beds, armchairs, closets, tables, mirrors and all the amenities, right down to the telephone. In general, the "Normandy" looks like a steamer only in a storm - then it shakes at least a little. And in calm weather - this colossal hotel with a magnificent view of the sea, which suddenly broke off the embankment of the fashionable resort and sailed to America at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

Deep below, from the platforms of all floors of the station, the mourners shouted their last greetings and wishes. They shouted in French, in English, in Spanish. They shouted in Russian too. A strange man in a black naval uniform with a silver anchor and David's shield on his sleeve, in a beret and with a sad beard, was shouting something in Hebrew. Then it turned out that this is a steamship rabbi, whom the General Transatlantic Company maintains in the service to meet the spiritual needs of some of the passengers. For the other part, there are Catholic and Protestant priests at the ready. Muslims, fire worshipers and Soviet engineers are deprived of spiritual service. In this respect, the Transatlantic General Company has left them on their own. The Normandy has a fairly large Catholic church, illuminated by an extremely convenient electric semi-light for prayer. The altar and religious images can be covered with special shields, and then the church automatically turns into a Protestant one. As for a rabbi with a sad beard, he is not assigned a separate room, and he performs his services in the children's room. For this purpose, the company gives him a tale and a special drapery, with which he covers for a while vain images of bunnies and cats.

The steamer left the harbor. Crowds of people stood on the embankment and on the pier. They are not yet accustomed to the Normandy, and every voyage of the transatlantic colossus attracts everyone's attention in Le Havre. The French coast disappeared into the smoke of a cloudy day. Towards evening the lights of Southampton began to shine. For an hour and a half, the Normandy stood in the roadstead, accepting passengers from England, surrounded on three sides by the distant mysterious light of an unfamiliar city. And then she went out into the ocean, where the noisy fuss of invisible waves, raised by the storm wind, was already beginning.

Everything trembled in the stern where we were accommodated. Decks, walls, portholes, sun loungers, glasses over the washbasin, the washbasin itself trembled. The vibration of the steamer was so strong that even such objects began to emit sounds from which this could not be expected. For the first time in our life, we heard the sound of a towel, soap, carpet on the floor, paper on the table, curtains, collar thrown on the bed. Everything in the cabin sounded and thundered. It was enough for the passenger to think for a second and to loosen the muscles of his face, as his teeth began to chatter. All night long it seemed that someone was pounding on doors, knocking on windows, laughing heavily. We counted a hundred different sounds our cabin made.

The Normandy was making its tenth voyage between Europe and America. After the eleventh voyage, she will go to the dock, her stern will be disassembled, and design flaws that cause vibration will be eliminated.

In the morning a sailor came and tightly closed the windows with metal shields. The storm was getting worse. A small cargo steamer made its way to the French coast with difficulty. Sometimes he disappeared behind a wave, and only the tips of his masts were visible.

For some reason it always seemed that the ocean road between the Old and New Worlds was very busy, that every now and then one came across merry steamers with music and flags. In fact, the ocean is a majestic and deserted thing, and the steamer that storms four hundred miles from Europe was the only ship that we met in five days' journey. The Normandy rocked slowly and gravely. She walked, almost without reducing her speed, confidently scattering high waves that climbed on her from all sides, and only sometimes made uniform bows to the ocean. It was not a struggle of a meager creation of human hands with a raging element. It was a fight of equal and equal.

"One-Story America" ​​by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov is perhaps too well-known work to seriously review it 75 years after its publication. Nevertheless, I also cannot refrain from telling about this wonderful book in my journal after finally reading it.
The history of the creation of the book is as follows: in the fall of 1935, the correspondents of the newspaper "Pravda" came to America in order to make an automobile trip across this country for several months. “The plan was striking in its simplicity. We come to New York, buy a car and drive, drive, drive - until we arrive in California. Then we turn back and drive, drive, drive until we arrive in New York "... The result of this journey, naturally, should have been, if not a full-fledged book, then a series of essays about a distant and little-known country to Soviet people.
It is difficult to say what the party leaders were guided by when they sent satirists into the thick of capitalism. On the one hand, in the mid-1930s, there was a rapprochement between the USSR and America, as a result of which many American engineers worked in the Soviet Union who helped to industrialize our country. On the other hand, as suggested by the daughter of Ilya Ilf, Alexandra, in her preface to the modern edition of the book, “Most likely, they were expected to be vicious, destroying satire on the" country of Coca-Cola ", but it turned out to be an intelligent, fair, benevolent book". However, whatever the reason for the appearance of this, as they would say now, a travelogue, the possibility of its creation was a great success for the authors, and even for modern readers like me, who have the opportunity to look at America of the 30s through the eyes of Soviet people, then there is, by the standards of that time, practically to make a flight to another planet.
After living for a month in New York, the city of skyscrapers, Ilf and Petrov in the company of General Electric engineer Solomon Tron, whom they met in the USSR, and his wife Florence Tron, presented in the book as the Adams spouses, made a road trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of America and back. On the way, the writers not only examined cities and towns and natural attractions, but also visited factories and film studios, met famous people (for example, Henry Ford), studied the way of life and character of ordinary Americans, as well as Indians and blacks, made observations about the pros and cons of capitalism, met with emigrants from Russia, got acquainted with national sports (American football, wrestling, Mexican bullfight), visited the construction site of the Golden Gate Bridge, and so on. Many things and concepts that have long and firmly entered our life, Ilf and Petrov open for Soviet readers. On the pages of the book, they explain what service, publicity, rockets (racketeering), hitchhiking (hitchhiking) are. This also applies to some small everyday moments, including food. In America, for the first time, authors come across tomato juice, which is called tomato juice, and popcorn. In general, not a book, but a historical document. At the same time, it is written in a language that is habitually living for Ilf and Petrov.

Note that the book can hardly be called a product of Soviet propaganda. Not that there are absolutely no ideological moments in it, but, firstly, they are present only as conclusions from the descriptions of American realities, and secondly, they are obviously explained by the fact that the authors were completely sincerely influenced by the romantic moods of building socialism, which they saw as a much fairer model than American capitalism. This, however, did not at all prevent Ilf and Petrov from honestly and benevolently noting the advantages of the American world order, not hesitating to admit that the Soviet Union has a lot to learn from the United States.
The lack of "ideological severity" is also confirmed by the way in which "One-Story America" ​​was received in the United States itself. Among the brief newspaper reviews provided on Wikipedia, there is not a single negative one. But there are such reviews: “Not many of our foreign guests were this distance from Broadway and the main streets of Chicago; not many could tell about their impressions with such liveliness and humor " and “The authors did not allow themselves to be fooled for one minute. Near the central streets, they saw slums, they saw poverty next to luxury, dissatisfaction with life, breaking through everywhere ".

“Barely dragging our feet after these terrible adventures, we went for a walk in Santa Fe. American brick and wood are gone. Here stood Spanish houses made of clay, supported by heavy buttresses, the ends of square or round ceiling beams protruded from under the roofs. Cowboys walked the streets, tapping high heels. A car drove up to the entrance of the cinema, an Indian and his wife got out of it. The Indian wore a wide, bright red bandage on his forehead. Thick white windings were visible on the feet of the Indian woman. The Indians locked the car and went to see the picture. "

“There are many wonderful and attractive traits in the character of the American people. They are excellent workers, golden hands. Our engineers say they really enjoy working with Americans. Americans are accurate, but far from pedantry. They are neat. They know how to keep their word and trust the word of others. They are always ready to help. They are good comrades, easy people.
But here's a beautiful trait - curiosity - almost nonexistent among Americans. This is especially true for young people. We made sixteen thousand kilometers by car according to the American dogs and saw many people. Almost every day we took hitchhikers into the car. They were all very talkative, and none of them was curious and did not ask who we were. "

“And here, in the desert, where for two hundred miles in circumference there is not a single settled dwelling, we found: excellent beds, electric lighting, steam heating, hot cold water - we found the same environment that can be found in any house in New York , Chicago or Gallop. In the dining room in front of us, they put tomato juice in glasses and gave us a "steak" with a bone in the shape of the letter T, as beautiful as in Chicago, New York or Gallop, and they charged us almost the same amount for all this ... This is a spectacle of the American standart of life was no less majestic than the painted desert. "

“You have to look at the mountains from the bottom up. To the canyon - from top to bottom. The spectacle of the Grand Canyon is unmatched on earth. It didn't even look like earth. The landscape upset everything, so to speak, European ideas about the globe. Such a boy can imagine himself while reading a science fiction novel, the Moon or Mars. We stood for a long time at the edge of this magnificent abyss. We four chatterboxes did not say a word. A bird swam deep below, slowly like a fish. Deeper still, almost engulfed in shadow, the Colorado River flowed.

“Most of these girls live with their parents, their earnings are used to help their parents pay for a house bought in installments, or for a refrigerator, also bought in installments. And the girl's future boils down to the fact that she will get married. Then she herself will buy the house in installments, and the husband will work tirelessly for ten years to pay the three, five or seven thousand dollars that this house cost. And for ten years a happy husband and wife will tremble with fear that they will be kicked out of their jobs and then there will be nothing to pay for this house. Oh, what a terrible life millions of American people lead in the struggle for their tiny electrical happiness! "

“To many people, America seems to be a country of skyscrapers, where day and night one can hear the clang of elevated and underground trains, the hellish roar of cars and the continuous desperate cry of stock brokers who rush among the skyscrapers, waving every second falling stocks. This view is solid, old and familiar. Of course, everything is there - skyscrapers, elevated roads, and falling stocks. But this belongs to New York and Chicago. […] There are no skyscrapers in small towns. America is primarily a one-story and two-story country. Most of the American population lives in small towns with three thousand inhabitants, five, ten, fifteen thousand. "

“We have already said that the word“ publicity ”has a very broad meaning. This is not only direct advertising, but also any mention of the advertised item or person in general. When, say, a "publicity" is made to an actor, even a newspaper article that he recently had a successful operation and that he is on the way to recovery is also considered an advertisement. One American, with a certain amount of envy in his voice, told us that God has a great "publicity" in the United States. Fifty thousand priests talk about him every day. "

“Blacks were meeting more and more often. Sometimes for several hours we did not see whites, but a white man reigned in the towns, and if a Negro appeared at a beautiful, ivy-covered mansion in the "residence-desks", then always with a brush, a bucket or a bag indicating that he could be to be only a servant. […] The opportunity to develop and grow is almost taken away from blacks. Before them in the cities, the careers of only doormen and elevators are open, and at home, in the Southern States, they are powerless laborers, humiliated to the state of domestic animals - here they are slaves. […] Of course, according to American law, and especially in New York, a black man has the right to sit in any seat among whites, to go to a "white" cinema or a "white" restaurant. But he would never do it himself. He knows all too well how such experiments end. He, of course, will not be beaten, as in the South, but that his closest neighbors in most cases will immediately defiantly leave, is beyond doubt. "

“America lies on the highway. When you close your eyes and try to revive in your memory the country in which you have been for four months, you imagine not Washington with its gardens, columns and a complete collection of monuments, not New York with its skyscrapers, with its poverty and wealth, not San Francisco with its steep streets and suspension bridges, not mountains, not factories, not canyons, but the intersection of two roads and a gasoline station against the background of wires and advertising posters. "

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov in America
9

A Ford, bought on credit in New York, in which the writers traveled all over America. Photo by Ilya Ilf

On September 19, 1935, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, as correspondents of the Pravda newspaper, set off on a four-month journey across America. In a Ford bought in New York, the writers traveled all over the country, visited the factories of Henry Ford and the homeland of Mark Twain, the Indian villages of Santa Fe and Taos, inspected the construction of the Hoover Dam (then - Boulder Dam), drove through the Colorful Desert of Arizona, visited the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, spent two weeks in Hollywood and returned through the southern states to New York. Ilf wrote down his impressions in his diary, daily sent detailed long letters, short postcards, telegrams and packs of photographs to his wife Maria. Returning to Moscow, the writers published their travel notes under the title "One-Storied America". Translated into English, the book was a great success in the United States, and then in other countries.

Ilya Ilf's envelope from the Normandy en route to New York. October 4, 1935

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Ilya Ilf's first letter from the Normandy on the way to New York. October 4, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Ilya Ilf's first letter from the Normandy on the way to New York. October 4, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Writers sailed to New York. Ilf's letters are written on special paper with the liner logo, which was abundantly available in a special room for writing and sending letters. Ilf and Petrov described the journey in a first-class cabin in detail in the book "One-Story America".

“In general, the conveniences here are enormous, if you treat vibration calmly. We have a huge cabin (since we are lucky, in Paris, when we changed ship cards for tickets, they gave us not a tourist, but a first class cabin. They do this because the season has already ended so that the first class is not empty ugly) , sheathed in light wood, the ceiling is like in the subway, luxurious, there are two wide wooden beds, wardrobes, armchairs, a washbasin, a shower, and a toilet. In general, the steamer is huge and very beautiful. But in the field of art, it is clearly unfavorable. Modernity is generally a bit nasty thing, but on the Normandy it is further enhanced by gold and mediocrity. "

Ilya Ilf on the deck of the Normandy. The photo was taken by radio designer Alexander Shorin with Ilf's camera From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

“A group of our engineers with a radio designer Shorin is traveling to the Normandy. All lay down with bones, showed themselves today for a minute and again took refuge in their cabins. I walk alone, mad admiral, insensitive to seasickness. "

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from New York. October 9, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Ilf and Petrov arrived in New York on October 7, 1935 and spent almost a month there. They saw many people - from Ernest Hemingway to, visited a large exhibition of Van Gogh, one of the first performances of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, saw a boxing match in Madison Square Garden and the dark corners of Sing Sing Prison.

"Dear daughter Ilya Ilf addresses his wife Maria., yesterday sent you a letter. I live in the building on the back. I will write to you again tonight. Kiss our sweet Sasha Sasha - Alexandra, daughter of Ilya Ilf and Maria.,
Your Ilya. "

Ilya Ilf at the window of his room on the 27th floor of the Shelton Hotel in New York. Photo taken by Evgeny Petrov Russian State Archives of Literature and Art

"In the morning, waking up on our twenty-seventh floor and looking out the window, we saw New York in the transparent morning fog."

"One-story America"

View from the window of the room on the 27th floor of the Shelton Hotel. Photo by Ilya Ilf Russian State Archives of Literature and Art

“It was, as they say, a peaceful village picture. Several white hazes rose into the sky, and an idyllic all-metal cockerel was even attached to the spire of a small twenty-story hut. Sixty-story skyscrapers, which seemed so close last night, were separated from us by at least a dozen red iron roofs and a hundred tall chimneys and hearing windows, among which were hanging linen and ordinary cats wandering around. "

"One-story America"

Solomon Abramovich Throne. Photo by Ilya Ilf Russian State Archives of Literature and Art

Solomon Tron (1872-1969) - electrical engineer, often visited the Soviet Union, worked at Dneprostroy, Chelyabinsk and other places. Together with his wife Florence, the lively, energetic, curious and very sociable Solomon Tron accompanied the writers on their trip to America.

An envelope from Dearborn. November 14, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The main impressions of Ilf and Petrov on the way from New York to Gaully Wood were Henry Ford's factories in Dearborn, Chicago and advertising, especially lighting.

“It was Mr. Henry Ford. He has wonderful eyes, sparkling, similar, as you can see, to Tolstoy's, peasant. A very mobile person. He sat down too. He moved his legs all the time. Now he put them on the table, then he laid them one after another, then he put them back on the floor. We spoke, as they say, “for life”. The meeting lasted 15 or 20 minutes. Of course, a man like Ford no longer thinks only about earnings. He said that he serves society and that life is a broader thing than a car. In a letter, it's a pity, it's difficult to tell, my daughter. In the book One-Story America, a separate chapter is devoted to meeting with Henry Ford. In general, I saw a wonderful person who greatly influenced the lives of people. He himself, one must think, is not very pleased with the domination of machines over man, because he said that he wants to make small factories, where people will work and at the same time be engaged in agriculture. "

Envelope from the Stevens Hotel. Chicago, November 16, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Letter from the Stevens Hotel. Chicago, November 16, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

In his diary, Ilya Ilf complained that it was impossible to shoot in Chicago:

"15th of November
<…>Brilliant light of cars. Embankment and slums. The Stevens Hotel has three thousand rooms. Patronage of lonely traveling women, and next to Gehry 30 miles from Chicago, in the city of Gary, there is a large U.S. steel mill. Steel.... Everything is clear with them, as in a copper basin.
It would be nice to shoot, but the day is awful, dark, nothing can be done, a disgrace. "

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from Albuquerque. November 25, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

“Dear Marusik, if an Indian has an apartment on the third tier of a house, then he climbs these stairs from roof to roof. Dogs walk these stairs too. Goodbye, my daughter.
Your Ilya. "

Dogs walking on the roofs of Indian dwellings then appeared in "One-Story America":

"The dogs ran to their homes, without touching us, quickly climbed the stairs and disappeared in the doorway."

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Postcard from the Navajo Bridge. November 28, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

The desert made a huge impression on Ilf - he shot a lot in Arizona and sent his wife several postcards from the Grand Canyon.

“Dear Marusik, I left Grand Kenyon in the morning and drove through the mountainous desert all day. It's so good in this colorful desert like nowhere else. I have never seen the best.
Yours and Ilya Sashenkin. "

The colorful desert of Arizona. Photo by Ilya IlfRussian State Archives of Literature and Art

The stamp on the envelope was cut for the stamp collection of Evgeny Petrov.

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Letter from San Francisco. December 5, 1935From the family archive of Ilya Ilf

Before Hollywood, the writers stopped in San Francisco for a few days ("the city of fogs, very light and bright") - to look at the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, take a walk around the city, go to American football and take a break from the endless road.

“Dear, gentle daughter, I am already very bored. Neither you have been gone for a very long time, nor our little Pig The nickname of Ilf's daughter Alexandra.... My dear children, it seems to me that I will never part with you again. I'm bored without you.
Here are Indians, Japanese, Dutch, whoever walk the streets, and the Pacific Ocean is here, and the whole city is on the falling slopes, on the cliffs, and I already have too many, I need to see with you how our girl sleeps in bed. "

Russian State Archives of Literature and Art

San Francisco. Photo by Ilya IlfRussian State Archives of Literature and Art

Descriptions of these photographs ended up in the book "One-Story America":

“It is not clear how and why we got to the Tropical Swimming Pool, that is, the winter pool. We stood, without taking off our coats, in a huge, rather old wooden room, where there was a heavy orange air, some bamboo poles sticking out and hanging porches, we admired a young couple in bathing suits, busily playing ping-pong, and a fat man who was floundering in a large box filled with water ... "