The Diaries of St. Nicholas of Japan, Entry 9
September 17, 1879 - Monday - St. Petersburg
17 сентября 1879.
Понедельник
September 17, 1879.
Monday
Утром, в лаврской пролетке, отправился на Васил. [Васильевский] остров, к М. Ф. Цивилькову; чрезвычайно приятно было увидеться с старыми Хакодатскими друзьями. Взяв от него сведения, когда и с кем увидеться в Министерстве ин. [иностранных] дел, заехал к Ив. Ив. Демкину и, не застав его дома, нашел записку с адресами; по указанию записки отправился к Ив. Ив. Суздальцеву. Что за милое семейство! Обласкали точно родного и оставили завтракать, после чего отправился на квартиру к Мих. Ник. [Михаилу Николаевичу] Никонову поблагодарить его за выдачу мне курьерских из Японии,— болен он; я оставил карточку. Отсюда заехал в Азиатский департамент и явился Вице-директору Мельникову, он представлен Управляющим за министра Жомини; отсюда поднялся в Департамент личного состава и увидался с Алферьевым, который доложил обо мне Гамбургеру и ввел к нему; повидался с Крушевским; сделал визит барону Остен-Сакену, директору Депар. [Департамента] внутренних сношений. Все принимают дело Миссии очень сочувственно, особенно Мельников и барон О. Сакен; только все говорят, что деньгами Министерство помочь не может, а нужно просить из Государств, казначейства, причем барон Сакен выражается, что «деньги должны найтись — миллионы тратятся на пустое, а на это дело „мировое" (как он выражается), как не найтись!» Гамбургер настаивал, «чтобы рельефно представлена была польза от связи с Японией; тогда Государст. Совет не постоит».
In the morning, I went to Vasil. [Vasilyevsky] Island in the cab provided by Lavra, to M. F. Tsivilkov; it was extremely pleasant to see old Hakodate friends. By his information, I knew when and with whom I should speak in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I went to Ivan Demkin first and, not finding him there, found a note with his address; at the direction of the note, I went to Ivan Suzdaltsev. What a lovely family! They welcomed me just like one of their own. We left them to have breakfast, after which we went to my apartment. I should thank Nick. [Mikhail Nikolaevich] Nikonov for giving me courier cards from Japan, — but he was ill; I left a card.
From there, I went to the Asian Department and appeared before Vice-Director Melnikov; he was introduced by the Manager for Minister Jomini; from there, I went up to the Personnel Department and saw Alferyev, who reported me to Hamburger [apparently that’s the correct name?] and introduced me to him. I saw Krushevsky and visited Baron Osten-Saken, director of the Department of Internal Relations.
Everyone accepts the Mission's work very sympathetically, especially Melnikov and Baron O. Saken; only everyone says that the Ministry cannot help with money, but it is necessary to ask from the States, the Treasury, and Baron Saken expresses that "money must be found — millions are spent on nothing, but on this business that impacts the entire world (as he puts it), how could money not be found?"
Hamburger insisted "that the benefits of the connection with Japan should be clearly presented; then the State Council will not stand against it."
Виделся еще в Азиат, депар. [Азиатском департаменте] сгенер. [генералом] Воеводским; как же он постарел! Совершенный кощей! А в Департ. личного состава со священником Образцовым из Стокгольма, женатым на дочери бывшего кафедр, [кафедрального] протоиерея Смол. [Смольного] Жданова. Из Министерства заехал к графине Ламберт поблагодарить за пожертвование; застал у нее жену Товарища Министра Внутр. Дел Мартынова, с которой графиня и познакомила меня; обе с интересом слушали об Японии. Графиня сказала, чтобы я, в видах пользы для дела, побыл у Мартынова, и указала время — утром. Говорила еще, что получила письмо от Черкасовой, в котором ни слова обо мне, из чего графиня заключила, что она не спокойна и имеет нечто против меня (хотя графиня, выражаясь весьма мягко, не сказала именно так).
I saw him back in the Asian Department by General Voivodsky [check and make sure this is a person]; how he has aged! The perfect koshchei! And in the Department of the Staff [check] with Fr. Obraztsov from Stockholm, who is married to the daughter of the former department, [cathedral] Archpriest of Smol. [Smolny] Zhdanov. [Fix this. Who is married to whom?]
From the Ministry, I stopped by to thank Countess Lambert for the donation; I found the wife of a Comrade Minister of the Interior at her place. Del Martynova, whom the Countess introduced me to, listened intently about Japan.
The Countess told me to stay with Martynov for the benefit of the case [check] and indicated the time in the morning. She also said that she had received a letter from Cherkasova, in which there was not a word about me, from which the countess concluded that she was not calm and had something against me (although the Countess, to put it very mildly, did not say exactly that).
Вернувшись в Лавру, познакомился с соседом, Архиманд. [Архимандритом] Арсением, настоятелем Новоезерского монастыря Новгородской губ. [губернии], живущим здесь по тяжебному делу,— так как от монастыря мошенническим образом отняты три озера. Рассказывал он много об упадке нравов нынешнего времени. В 8 часов отправился к товарищу по Академии, очередному архимандриту Анастасию. Запросто и весьма приятно провели вечер во взаимных рассказах. Из него вышел замеча тельный проповедник, к сожалению, весьма мало пишущий. От него вызывали к цензору Иосифу, у которого сидел и хотел меня видеть Пермский протоиерей о. Евгений Попов, трудившийся тоже по миссионерству между местными язычниками; он писал раз ко мне в Японию; очень хочет иметь Японскую Библию для подарка кому-то. Я обещался прислать, когда будет ехать сюда о. Анатолий, наши переводные христианские книги.
After returning to the Lavra, I met my neighbor, Archimand. [Archimandrite] Arseny, rector of the Novoezersky Monastery of the Novgorod province, who is here about a lawsuit, since three lakes were fraudulently taken away from the monastery. He talked a lot about the decline of the morals of the present time.
At 8 o'clock, I went to see a fellow member of the Academy, another Archimandrite Anastasius. We easily and very pleasantly spent the evening swapping mutual stories. He turned out to be a wonderful preacher, but unfortunately, writes very little. [Find any extant writings of his and link them]
He was summoned from him to the censor Joseph, with whom Archpriest Fr. of Perm [check name] was sitting and wanted to see me.
Evgeny Popov, who also worked as a missionary among local pagans, wrote to me once in Japan; he really wanted to have a Japanese Bible as a gift to someone. I promised to send it when he comes here from Fr. Anatoly, out of our translated Christian books. [check]
Housekeeping:
‘Why do you put the Russian text in here?’ To aid our translators and also to encourage Russians to read the text. All future illustrations, annotations, and links will also be applied to the Russian text, making this the first (that I know of) illustrated and fully hyperlinked version of the Diaries. I have instructed my wife also to find sources and credit for the images, if possible, so that one day, a beautiful printed edition might be made of this.
All books and articles referenced in the work will also be located and translated (if needed), so we are bringing not only the Diaries of St. Nicholas of Japan to the entire world but also a bunch of other related works that are likely out of print and haven’t been read in many years. Pray for us!
We now have a translation team!
I am pleased to welcome my wife, Elena, who will work on finding illustrations and photographs and hyperlinking everything.
Also, Gleb, a good friend of ours, who works as a linguist and knows six languages. He will help with the translation and also hopefully help explain the Russian text to me.
Share this post with your friends! The more people we get to read the Diaries, the more people will know of what he did in Japan. Perhaps we can encourage people to become missionaries—the missions work he started in Japan is not completed!
Donations are needed! We need to start a proper website. I don’t mind hosting this on Substack, but I want to move the Diaries and all collected materials to a proper, central website and make it easily replicable through Git or some other means so that it cannot disappear.
To donate, subscribe to Substack, Patreon, or send donations to nikolai.shores@gmail.com via PayPal. Contact me for other means of donating: stephen_SSTA on Telegram
Reflections:
Today I found out what a koshchei was…fascinating!
If you’re wondering how to tame your schedule in a wonderful way, try praying the akathist to your patron saint every day, first thing in the morning. The Akathist to St. Nicholas of Japan [alternate link] is available in English, and I also need to find the Church Slavonic/Russian copy I have on a hard drive or on the cloud somewhere. My schedule has been insane since I came to Russia—completely nonstop—and I needed help fitting things into my day. St. Nikolai has helped me with this!
Some good articles about my patron saint:
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/mission-notes-saint-nicholas-of-japan.html
https://www.acrod.org/orthodox-christianity/articles/saints/st-nicholas-of-japan
https://orthochristian.com/150860.html
https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2019/02/the-mission-notes-of-saint-nicholas-of-japan