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Federal Lezgin national-cultural autonomy. Ruslan Kurbanov: Azerbaijan tests the strength of the Russian state Ruslan Kurbanov who is by nationality
Made the experts talk again about the fact that episodic outbursts of violence and terrorist attacks in different areas North Caucasus testify to the growing systemic problems in this region, with which the Russian authorities are currently unable to cope. Ruslan Kurbanov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyzes the situation at the request of Radio Liberty:
- This terrorist attack completely fits into the outline of events that are unfolding throughout the North Caucasus. The militants are increasing the number of attacks on government officials. The number of young people who join the militants is growing. This is a very disturbing picture.
Some experts link the terrorist attack with the process of reconciliation between representatives of various Muslim communities in Dagestan, but, in my opinion, these events are in no way connected. The militants have their own logic. They have long ceased to focus on the political calendar, on political events. As soon as their resources allow them, they immediately deal painful blows to the authorities, to law enforcement agencies. We must now think about how to reverse the trend of growing sympathy for the militants on the part of young people.
- This is, first of all, political problem or social?
- It is difficult to identify any specific factor that causes the radicalization of young people. Some experts focus on socio-economic causes - unemployment, social insecurity, etc. Russian society and politic system turned out to be unprepared for a rapid intrusion into the public, social and political field of the resurgent and activating Islam. So far, there is no niche in Russian society in which the followers of this form of Islam could feel comfortable, realize their social aspirations, perhaps even political goals. And as long as there is no such niche, the radicalized youth will break this system in order to find their own place under the sun in Russia.
It is clear that the system will never talk to those who have already committed murder, put themselves outside the law. But I'm talking about those people who have not yet joined the militants, but also believe that the system needs to be reformed so that this (Islamic - RS) political force can find its own niche. In Britain, which was trying to resolve the Irish conflict, it seemed intractable until the British government began to speak with the Irish separatists in the language of politics. Today in Dagestan, as well as in the entire Caucasus, it is necessary to talk with those forces that have not yet embarked on the path of violence, which retain their desire for political dialogue. These forces still exist, and our state needs to use this chance.
- It seems to me that one of the aspects of the problem is that the North Caucasian topic is not part of the public discussion in Russia today, unlike the situation 15 years ago or the situation in the early 2000s, when this topic was actively discussed in the media. Now the situation has changed.
- I absolutely agree with you. What about the Caucasus? What model of existence to find? How to use and unlock the potential of the Caucasus to strengthen Russian society? All these issues are now pushed to the periphery of public and political discussion. The Caucasus is being diligently marginalized by Russia's political, informational and intellectual elites. Why? Because today in Russia the trend to gradually get rid of the Caucasus has prevailed, that is, the 200-year-old demand for greater integration of the Caucasus into Russia is fading away. Before our eyes, a reverse request is being born - for ever greater squeezing of the Caucasus out of the Russian political, social and cultural field. This request is voiced by influential figures such as Zhirinovsky, Yurgens and Gontmakher, who, on the basis of INSOR (Institute modern development -
RS) were preparing a report on the future development of Russia and have already recognized that the option of separating the Caucasus is quite acceptable for Russia.
The theme of the Caucasus in the public and intellectual information field is interpreted as follows: as long as we have the Caucasus, we will never be able to become Europe, for this we need to get rid of this ballast. Offered different variants, which give rise to both nationalist projects for the separation of the Caucasus, and liberal ones - for the transformation of the Caucasus into Russian Palestine. Boris Nemtsov spoke about this, in particular, when he proposed to separate from the Caucasus by a wall.
- Maybe this is a natural process, an objective one?
- I think that certain forces are simply ordering the promotion of just such an agenda.
- Somehow it sounds too conspiratorial - "certain forces." Do they have names and surnames, these forces?
- These names are well known. Take any governor of the 90s or any owner of a large business in Russia - oil, metallurgical. For all of them, the advancing wave of Caucasians, who mastered business structures, the political elite, the public field, was a very strong competitor. I am convinced that the order for the marginalization of Caucasians, squeezing them out of all social, economic and other niches is connected with the fear that Caucasians will recapture spheres of influence.
Caucasians have already ceased to be taken into the army, at least in Dagestan and Chechnya, the conscription of children of non-Slavic nationality for military service has been stopped. That is, this social elevator, through which the Caucasian guys could reach some heights, has already been closed. In Moscow, various departments, including state ones, are gradually squeezing out Caucasians from their positions - this is unofficial information, but it is being discussed in Caucasian communities. Each environment discusses its own version of the development of the situation. And this is the most monstrous scenario for Russia, because it is already working to fragment it. He is already working on its weakening and disintegration.
“Are the Muslims of Russia ready for the liberation of al-Aqsa? Will Moscow and Tel Aviv let them? Under this heading, the Onkavkaz resource published on July 23 an article by a certain Daniyala Isaeva. Apparently, this name hides the founder and Chief Editor"Oncaucasus" Ruslan Kurbanov, who in the mentioned material, abundantly pumped up with anti-Israeli emotions, gave a large-scale speech to one of his colleagues - the editor-in-chief of the Islamist resource "Truly" Ruslan Aisin.
“Another crime of the Zionist regime against the Muslims of Palestine and the whole world is unfolding, and most of the progressive humanity condemns these actions,” Aisin said in particular. - Unfortunately, protests are not yet visible in Russia. Because any political activity in our country, especially street activity, is under the strict supervision of the authorities, who are afraid of any activity. We must say that Palestine is not just Holy place for Muslims, but also about the fact that this is a place that connects Russia with the Christian umbilical cord with the rest of the Christian world. The only chance for Russia to break into the vanguard of this world is to become an ally of the Islamic street, Palestine, Palestinian Christians. And fight together against the dominance of the Israeli lobby inside Russia.”
Based on the foregoing, it can be assumed that Aisin reproaches the vast majority of Russian Muslims for working and performing five prayers at home, and not fighting with weapons in their hands in the ranks of another intifada against Israel that is now brewing in Palestine. And at the same time, Aisin, following the template adopted by experts of this level, “travelled” along the Russian authorities who “sold out to Israel”, noting in the spirit of the Heydar Jemal tradition that the Muslims of Russia suffer the same oppression in their homeland as their brothers in Israel.
The lines outlined by Aisin boil down to one call: the Russian faithful must fight in Palestine, in order to later transfer the fire of the intifada to Russia and organize an Islamic revolution in their homeland similar to the “Arab spring”. In a similar spirit, a colleague and “spiritual sister” Aisina, a journalist, responded in her commentary for the material on Onkavkaz Nadezhda Kevorkova. In addition, the article on Onkavkaz successfully fit into the context of a similar appeal made by the President of Turkey on July 25 Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The provocative publication of Onkavkaz is a characteristic example of the work of Ruslan Kurbanov, a well-known person in the media sphere. He is a regular talk show host. Vladimir Solovyov and broadcasts on "Echo of Moscow", where he acts as an expert on Islam and interethnic relations, the owner of many regalia: researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies (OS) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, vice-president of the Federal Lezgi National Cultural Autonomy (FLNKA), etc. In communication the person is very pleasant. But there are moments in his biography that are in conflict with the carefully formed public image.
Lezgin by nationality, Ruslan Kurbanov used to like to emphasize that he was connected with Dagestan only by his origin, he spent his whole life in Moscow and in the homeland of his ancestors he only happens as a guest. However, as evidenced by his biography on the Ansar.Ru website, a significant part of Ruslan Kurbanov's life path was connected precisely with Dagestan, where he was born and graduated from the local state university with a degree in World Economy. While still a very young man, in the mid-nineties Kurbanov organized a Salafi circle in his native Makhachkala, where he drew young Lezgin intellectuals. The defeat of the Wahhabi enclaves in Dagestan in 1999 put an end to these experiments, but after the Salafi circle was “covered” and its members “followed the article”, Kurbanov managed to get off with a “light fright” - the criminal case brought against him was closed. According to one version, great family ties played a certain role: allegedly, my uncle, a security official, helped.
One way or another, in the detailed and quite apologetic biographies of Kurbanov published on the Internet, this episode is silent. However, it is known that, in addition to secular education at the DSU, and then in the graduate school of St. Petersburg State University, he received a basic education in Islam in Syria, at the Abu-Nur Damascus Institute. Therefore, it is not surprising that when several years ago the need to teach Russian youth Islam inside Russia was discussed in the expert community, so that they would not be imbued with jihadism abroad, Kurbanov opposed this idea. Without adding, however, that many of his fellow Syrian students ended up very badly, scattered throughout the jihadist underground in the North Caucasus and beyond, where they ended their days in clashes with the security forces.
A typical example of this "career trajectory" is a friend and colleague of the young Kurbanov at work on Dagestan television, a young Arabist Makhach (Yasin) Rasulov. Having changed his editorial office to a rookery in the "forest", the former journalist Rasulov from March to August 2005 carried out 9 (!) terrorist attacks in Makhachkala. The terrorist-journalist was eliminated on April 10, 2006, during a skirmish with security forces on Engels Street in Makhachkala, where Rasulov barricaded himself in a residential building, exposing its inhabitants as a human shield. Such a "glorious" death was preceded by Rasulov's lectures in the notorious mosque on Kotrova Street, where he taught the parishioners "correct Islam."
However, for Kurbanov, the terrorist Rasulov is not a killer of civilians, but "a Dagestan intellectual who has gone on the warpath" (quote from Kurbanov's article "The Evolution of the Forest", published in 2010 in Russkiy Zhurnal). “Which “forest” is more beneficial for Russia itself, or rather, for Russia's political elite? - Kurbanov wrote two weeks after the terrorist attack at the Moscow metro stations Park Kultury and Lubyanka. - "Forest" as an emerging political competitor, but refraining from bloody strikes against civilians? Or "forest", like a bloody predator, delivering unexpected blows to the very heart of a huge power, but finally discredited as a political competitor?
At the same time, during the mourning for the victims of the terrorist attack in Moscow, Kurbanov spoke even more frankly on the Russia.Ru channel: “Young Muslims go into the ranks of militants because they are in modern world, in modern Russia cannot find an opportunity for themselves to realize themselves as a Muslim, while maintaining self-respect for themselves as a person following the religion of pure monotheism. To preserve Muslim and human honor, Kurbanov argues, young Caucasians are not allowed by “corrupt regional authorities”, “rudely acting law enforcement who do not distinguish between moderate and radical Muslims", as well as "mossy clergy who do not accept the renewal of their ranks."
With a similar stamp, Ruslan Kurbanov will explain the genesis of the “Arab Spring” a little later, civil war in Syria and the emergence of DAISH (ISIS), banned in the Russian Federation. “Muslim youth are looking for new channels of self-realization. And, faced with the fact that she has no place in this world, whether in the authoritarian Muslim countries in the Middle East or in the cynical postmodern societies of Europe that protect the rights of dogs and sexual minorities, but do not protect the rights of religious minorities, she naturally chooses the path of armed resistance, ”Kurbanov said in 2015 on the air of the Public Television of Russia.
Of course, such an interpretation has the right to exist, but further Kurbanov admits that DAISH is nurtured by the Americans, and in general militants Al Baghdadi The guys are not very friendly. And from this a logical conclusion already suggests itself: isn't it better for Russia to meet DAISH halfway? For example, to break with Bashar al-Assad and Israel. And at the same time curtail the persecution of jihadists inside Russia, giving the “forest” a ticket to secular and spiritual power. According to reports, it is these thoughts that Kurbanov, in particular, likes to share within the framework of the FLNCA with younger colleagues in the Lezgi autonomy. With his talent as a born storyteller, Kurbanov says that he personally knew many famous Caucasian Wahhabis - Makhach Rasulov, Anzora Astemirova and others, and these terrorists are not so bad people as they are portrayed by the federal media at the suggestion of the security forces.
At the same time, Kurbanov, not without success, plays on the prejudice characteristic of the Lezgins against the Sufi muftiate of Dagestan, which has been headed by the Avars for more than 20 years. No less deftly, he uses friction between the Lezgins and the Azerbaijani authorities - suffice it to recall that Kurbanov worked in the press service of the chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia Ravil Gaynutdin who has a difficult relationship with the head of the Muslims of Azerbaijan Allahshukur Pashazade. True, in Dagestan, Kurbanov's zeal for the fate of the Lezghin people divided by the Russian-Azerbaijani border is far from being unambiguously assessed - for example, his PR on the problems of compatriots was ridiculed four years ago in the article "Penguin of the Lezgi Renaissance", where Kurbanov was directly called a militant Wahhabi.
But Ruslan Vyacheslavovich does not close himself in the Caucasus and the Middle East. Five years ago, he gave his vision to the sensational terrorist attack in Kazan - the murder of a theologian Valiulla Yakupov and the explosion of the car of the mufti of Tatarstan Ildus Faizov- in a comment to the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Regnum news agency Konstantin Kazenin. Quite predictably, Kurbanov laid the blame for the tragedy on "officials and security officials" who "do not want and do not know how to establish normal interaction, work for the future, work with youth and Islamic leaders." At the same time, Kurbanov said: “Tatarstan risks taking the path of Dagestan in 1999 - but even there, in the end, the leaders of the Muslim community sat down at the negotiating table. But how much blood was shed before it happened! Does Tatarstan need to follow the same path? Behind this cunning passage lies a message: Faizov and Yakupov suffered because they did not agree with the Tatarstan Wahhabis, but were in conflict with them. Therefore, the victims of the terrorist attack themselves are to blame for what happened. In other comments on the Kazan events of July 2012, Kurbanov reduced the terrorist attack in Kazan to a financial component, which was, in fact, equivalent to the wording: only they themselves were guilty of what happened to Faizov and Yakupov. However, here, too, Ruslan Kurbanov's constructions provoked a rebuff: a number of Kazan experts openly said that behind each speech of this expert one should see the pushing of the interests of extremists.
Najmudin Aliyev, specially for
A meeting of a political scientist with the Dagestan youth of the capital took place in Moscow
This month, Ruslan Kurbanov, Vice-President of the FLNKA, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Researcher at the University of Brussels, met with the Dagestan youth of the capital at the Moscow House of Nationalities.
The meeting was organized by the Youth Association of Dagestan with the assistance of the Altair Foundation. On the day of the meeting, the hall of the Moscow House of Nationalities was overflowing with those wishing to listen and ask questions to the political scientist.
At the same time, not only Dagestanis came to the meeting, but also representatives of other republics of the North Caucasus - Chechnya, Ingushetia, Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and even the republics of Central Asia.
Taking the floor for greetings, Ruslan Kurbanov expressed his sincere gratitude to the Dagestani youth for the invitation to this meeting, as well as for all that social work with their fellow countrymen in the Russian capital.
Highlander's life path
In the initial part of the meeting, the young participants asked Ruslan Kurbanov to tell a little about himself, about his small homeland and about the cost of moving up the professional ladder.
Young Caucasians were interested in what difficulties the political scientist and journalist who became famous throughout the Caucasus, who was born in a mountainous Lezgi village, had to face when trying to break through in his life.
Since almost the entire meeting with young people was recorded on video, we invite our reader to get acquainted with Ruslan Kurbanov's narrations and answers to questions from the audience in order to be able to feel the energy of the meeting and the protracted conversation between young people and the guest.
Clan struggle in Dagestan
Huge interest on the part of young people was shown in the tense clan struggle, which is going on almost non-stop in their native republic between key national-political groups.
In the opinion of Ruslan Kurbanov, representatives of political clans that formed in the dashing 90s have been in power for too long in the republic. That does not give any possibility of self-realization within the republic of Dagestan youth.
According to him, a large number of young people have to leave Dagestan for the cities of Central Russia in order to receive a quality education and grow professionally. However, their knowledge and skills cannot be realized in today's Dagestan due to the rigid clan system of personnel selection.
Middle East and Syria
For obvious reasons, Dagestani and Caucasian youth were interested in the true causes of protracted political instability, military incursions and civil war in the Middle East.
Because thousands of their young fellow countrymen and even relatives were involved in the bloody maelstrom of civil war in this unstable region. That is why the guest dwelled in detail on exactly what causes blew up the Muslim world.
The assassination of Dagestani presidential press officer Garun Kurbanov during a major economic forum, which authorities in both Makhachkala and Moscow say is key to Dagestan's development prospects, is causing experts to ponder the federal center's policy in the North Caucasus.
Radio Liberty's questions were answered by a senior researcher at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies Ruslan Kurbanov:
- The situation in Dagestan is complicated when compared with other republics of the Caucasus. And it will not be possible to stabilize it by any economic forums or large economic investment projects that are being implemented today by the government of Dagestan, the apparatus of the North Caucasian Federal District or the government of Russia. In order to solve problems in Dagestan, completely different methods are needed. The authorities, after a series of monstrous mistakes that they made in the republic, also made a completely wrong diagnosis of the state in which the society fell. By creating problems, making the wrong diagnosis, and using the wrong methods of treatment, the situation cannot be corrected. First, the authorities need to admit their own mistakes.
What mistakes are you talking about?
– The most important one is that Dagestan is not only the most multinational region of the Caucasus and Russia. But each nationality has its own experience of political life and political history. Part of the peoples of Dagestan lived under the rule of khans and princes, part - free republics, not recognizing anyone's power. Therefore, among the militants today we have a large number of people from those areas that have never been subject to the power of the khans, where people are used to solving their problems themselves.
There has never been one dominant version of Islam in Dagestan. At the time of the October Revolution, there were at least four different versions of Islam - Sufism, Salafism, the school of Shafi jurists and Islamic reformism. All these four versions of Islam were traditional for the republic. But after the crash Soviet Union the government has staked on only one of the directions of Islam and has given the followers of this version of Islam the opportunity to accuse all other groups and communities of extremism and radicalism. Moreover, the bet was made on a very specific, narrow version. The fact is that each people of Dagestan has its own understanding of Sufism and its leader. In this extremely complex society, it was by no means possible to give state support only one community, and in no case was it possible for the state to enter into religious, theological discussions and with all the weight of the law enforcement system to tumble into this very subtle, specific theological dispute. In fact, punitive measures were taken against anyone who did not agree with the position of the official religious authorities.
- Does this mean that in order to try to change the situation in Dagestan, it is necessary to conduct a more differentiated and more subtle policy, with a different toolkit?
– Power must completely withdraw from the field of theological discussion. It should stop pointing out to believers which version of Islam is traditional for Dagestan and which is not. The authorities themselves must now contribute to the fact that the theological discussion goes in a legal legal field. If it has broken the woods, then now it is necessary to find courage in order to create optimal conditions under which the religious and political discussion could move from the plane of conflict into the plane of negotiation and discussion. This is the first and main step that the authorities must take.
- Do you think the new North Caucasian authorities - the apparatus of Plenipotentiary Alexander Khloponin - understand the depth of the tasks facing them?
- Alexander Khloponin - absolutely new person in a region that thinks in completely different categories. He is a manager, manager. For him, only topics related to the investment of funds, with the profitable management of some assets, have real meaning. But when it comes to subtle religious matters - the establishment of relations between different ethnic groups, the search for various models of national reconciliation, then for him these are phrases from a completely different area. This is a person who did not have time to fully understand the complex ethno-political situation in the Caucasus, the role of Islam, the complex history of the Caucasus itself. Attempts to simply flood the Caucasus with financial injections cannot lead to a solution to the most complex tangle of problems in the region.
, RSFSR, USSR) - Russian public and political figure, political scientist, journalist, expert on the North Caucasus and Islam, specialist in training personal and professional growth of employees public organizations and media. Director of the Foundation for the Support of Humanitarian Initiatives "Altair", Senior Research Fellow.
Biography
Born in 1976 in with. Kurakh, Kurakhsky district (modern Russia). Graduated from Dagestan State University with a degree in World Economy, defended his thesis in political science at St. Petersburg State University.
He taught a course on adapting them to returning home for more effective and correct spiritual enlightenment for Russian students in Syria. He also worked as an expert, lecturer, teacher in the US and UK.
Supervises the work of the Altair Foundation for the Support of Humanitarian Initiatives. In 2011, Ruslan founded the School of Muslim Journalism in Moscow.
He improved his qualifications at the Russian Academy of Civil Service with a degree in Security of Interfaith and Interethnic Relations.
In 2014, Ruslan Kurbanov was nominated for a competition for the selection of members of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation from all-Russian public associations and other non-profit organizations. 5 hours before the end of the Internet voting, Ruslan Kurbanov (about 30 thousand votes) and Aliy Totorkulov (about 40 thousand votes), who were in the lead at that time, were removed from the elections. The official reason for the removal of candidates from the finish line of the race is "vote cheating by bots." Kurbanov was nominated in the direction of "Development of the information society, media and mass communications» .
Participates as an expert on the Middle East in television programs of Russian television.
Until October 2015, he served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Russian Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus.
Ruslana Kurbanov is one of the leaders Expert Council at the Council of Muftis of Russia, as well as a member of the working group on interfaith relations under the Government of Moscow. Editor of the policy department of the magazine "Sense". Representative of the public wing of the Council of Muftis of Russia, editor-in-chief of the portal "Caucasian Politics", chief researcher of the Center for the Study Central Asia, Caucasus and Ural-Volga region.
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- . Institute of Oriental Studies RAS. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
An excerpt characterizing Kurbanov, Ruslan Vyacheslavovich
While the father was explaining himself to his son, an equally important explanation was taking place between the mother and her daughter. Natasha, excited, ran to her mother.- Mom! ... Mom! ... he made me ...
- What did you do?
- Made an offer. Mother! Mother! she shouted. The Countess could not believe her ears. Denisov made an offer. To whom? This tiny girl Natasha, who until recently played with dolls and now still took lessons.
- Natasha, full of nonsense! she said, still hoping it was a joke.
- Well, nonsense! “I’m talking to you,” Natasha said angrily. - I came to ask what to do, and you tell me: "nonsense" ...
The countess shrugged.
- If it is true that Monsieur Denisov proposed to you, then tell him that he is a fool, that's all.
“No, he’s not a fool,” Natasha said offendedly and seriously.
- Well, what do you want? You are all in love these days. Well, in love, so marry him! said the Countess, laughing angrily. - With God!
“No, mother, I am not in love with him, I must not be in love with him.
“Well, just tell him that.
- Mom, are you angry? Don't be angry, my dear, what am I to blame for?
“No, what is it, my friend? If you want, I'll go and tell him, - said the countess, smiling.
- No, I myself, just teach. Everything is easy for you,” she added, answering her smile. “And if you saw how he told me this!” After all, I know that he did not want to say this, but he accidentally said it.
- Well, you still have to refuse.
- No, you don't have to. I feel so sorry for him! He is so cute.
Well, take the offer. And then it’s time to get married, ”the mother said angrily and mockingly.
“No, Mom, I feel so sorry for him. I don't know how I will say.
“Yes, you don’t have anything to say, I’ll say it myself,” said the countess, indignant at the fact that they dared to look at this little Natasha as if they were big.
“No, no way, I’m on my own, and you listen at the door,” and Natasha ran through the living room into the hall, where Denisov was sitting on the same chair, at the clavichord, covering his face with his hands. He jumped up at the sound of her light footsteps.
- Natalie, - he said, approaching her with quick steps, - decide my fate. She is in your hands!
"Vasily Dmitritch, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you're so nice... but don't... it's... but I'll always love you like that."
Denisov bent over her hand, and she heard strange sounds, incomprehensible to her. She kissed him on his black, matted, curly head. At that moment, the hasty noise of the countess's dress was heard. She approached them.
“Vasily Dmitritch, I thank you for the honor,” said the countess in an embarrassed voice, but which seemed strict to Denisov, “but my daughter is so young, and I thought that you, as a friend of my son, would first turn to me. In that case, you would not put me in the need for a refusal.
“Mr. Athena,” Denisov said with downcast eyes and a guilty look, he wanted to say something else and stumbled.
Natasha could not calmly see him so miserable. She began to sob loudly.
“Mr. Athena, I am guilty before you,” Denisov continued in a broken voice, “but know that I idolize your daughter and your entire family so much that I will give two lives ...” He looked at the countess and, noticing her stern face ... “Well, goodbye, Mrs. Athena,” he said, kissed her hand and, without looking at Natasha, left the room with quick, decisive steps.
The next day, Rostov saw off Denisov, who did not want to stay in Moscow for another day. Denisov was seen off at the gypsies by all his Moscow friends, and he did not remember how he was put into the sledge and how the first three stations were taken.
After Denisov's departure, Rostov, waiting for the money that the old count could not suddenly collect, spent another two weeks in Moscow, without leaving home, and mainly in the young ladies' room.
Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than before. She seemed to want to show him that his loss was a feat for which she now loves him all the more; but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of her.
He filled the girls' albums with poems and notes, and without saying goodbye to any of his acquaintances, finally sending all 43 thousand and receiving Dolokhov's receipt, he left at the end of November to catch up with the regiment, which was already in Poland.
After his explanation with his wife, Pierre went to Petersburg. There were no horses at the station in Torzhok, or the caretaker did not want them. Pierre had to wait. Without undressing, he lay down on a leather sofa in front of round table, put his big feet in warm boots on this table and thought.
- Will you order the suitcases to be brought in? Make a bed, would you like some tea? the valet asked.
Pierre did not answer, because he did not hear or see anything. He had been thinking at the last station and still kept thinking about the same thing - about such an important thing that he did not pay any attention to what was going on around him. He was not only not interested in the fact that he would arrive later or earlier in Petersburg, or whether he would or would not have a place to rest at this station, but all the same, in comparison with the thoughts that occupied him now, whether he would stay for a few hours or a lifetime at that station.
The caretaker, caretaker, valet, a woman with Torzhkov sewing came into the room, offering their services. Pierre, without changing his position of his raised legs, looked at them through his glasses, and did not understand what they might need and how they could all live without resolving the issues that occupied him. And he was occupied with the same questions from the very day he returned from Sokolniki after the duel and spent the first, painful, sleepless night; only now, in the solitude of the journey, they took possession of it with particular force. Whatever he began to think about, he returned to the same questions that he could not solve, and could not stop asking himself. It was as if the main screw on which his whole life rested was curled up in his head. The screw did not go further in, did not go out, but spun, without grabbing anything, all on the same groove, and it was impossible to stop turning it.
