Russia (bbabo.net), - Letter from Tula region from Valentina Gorchakova. When the Druzhkov star rose, the author of the letter was a little girl.

"... You cannot find a detailed biography of Nikolai Druzhkov on the Web. He remained among the undigitized poets, on paper.

It was printed - the Prioksky publishing house published pocket books on gray paper with clichés in the form of lyres, candles and stars. I signed with a purple smearing pen on the run, generously gave.

Paper books scattered across the libraries. Soon they will be written off due to dilapidation and poor readability, if they have not already been written off. There will be a couple of lines in the encyclopedia or an anthology - there was, they say, the poet Nikolai Druzhkov in Tula.

My best childhood friend is Uncle Kolya. And the surname is consonant with childhood - Druzhkov. Sad dark eyes and the look of a kind dog. Uncle Kolya worked in the North as a miner. Big, tall, with large features and hands of a miner. It seemed to adults - awkward, but I thought: just wonderful. I remember that at poetic gatherings at home, where for seven years I hid behind the door or under the table (it’s late, it’s time to sleep), Uncle Kolya stood out from the twilight of evening feasts with a relief chopped profile worthy of the brush of Spanish masters.

Slightly shy in a rural way, although he lived for a long time in the cities, he was embarrassed that he embarrassed others. Didn't belong to any company.

In the circle of impudently active local poets, Uncle Kolya tried to be invisible, he did not promote himself anywhere. Among fellow writers, he was known as a simpleton, although he was not simple either in mind or in character. His work, like himself, was treated with disdain. No one took Kolya Druzhkov seriously.

He also found himself not at ease in the company of young adherents of literary creativity, to whom he was sincerely drawn, feeling kinship. After all, by and large he was a young, even small, insecure child. Somehow I trusted people desperately. But he trusted birds, trees and dogs more. Rather with them.

Always ready for a big smile, Uncle Kolya was my children's holiday. He often brought all sorts of gizmos. I carved wonderful staffs from hazelnuts, thinly removing the bark with a penknife for a simple ornament. He talked about animals and birds, knew them by their names and voices. He read poetry loudly, for me he chose children's, and sometimes adults, however, in terms of intonation of purity from children's, they are not very different.

Uncle Kolya lived alone and yearned. Rescued kittens and mongrels. Feeding tits and sparrows. I looked at the city sky, in which there are few stars. He yearned for his village on Mologa, somewhere near Bezhetsk.

Uncle Kolya's poems are simple and uncomplicated at first glance. No original rhymes, no bold measures - no rattling of the lyre. But the earthly he merges with the heavenly, everyday - with the mystical, so unexpected in Kolya Druzhkov, a simple village peasant, with whom some drank together, others dusted on the bus, and still others had unsightly conversations.

There is no prophet in his own country...

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Poems by Nikolai Druzhkov

Rooks

Grasses withered. Leaf strums

Over the bare curb.

And the rooks are talking

Over the grove anxiously

About the fact that the cold is near,

That autumn will soon be over.

Fly to foreign lands

I don't want to leave my native land.

The rooks were raised by free Russia,

Gave them strong wings.

I understand bird sadness

And I wave my cap after them.

1985

Granny

In the village of Elkino,

On May 9th street

A deaf-mute grandmother lives.

Grandma has

Goat Zazulya,

Sheep, lamb

And a little pig

Doggy Toshka,

Murka cat

And a red cat.

Grandma has a lot

From them worries:

put to sleep,

Then wake up

feed, drink,

Take to the meadow, get.

Help grandma a little

Doggy Toshka

And Murka the cat

A red cat

On duty at the gate, invariably,

Near the haystack

Stupid mice.

But mice are silly

The cat is not afraid

Get on horseback

And they go for a ride.

And the cat carries them,

Asks for nothing in return

Bye granny

Shepherds Zozulya,

Sheep, lamb

And a little piggy.

Here.

Coal face

I enter the coal face,

Radiant light in the hands.

Ages lie above the head,

And below me - centuries.

Thick darkness behind

And the drift is a window to the ages!

In the context of seeing the Globe of the Earth

Not everyone is given.

***

The rains are knocking with a cold,

The windows froze.

Cabbage felled head

It gets wet in the garden.

And next to the black furrow

With water - two barrels.

They sank in a star

Deep at night.

What a sad time

Came to the village.

And waiting for the ax

The trees are sad.

The winds break into the air

Yes, the cry of a crow.

And the world appears in the puddles

Otherworldly.

I am glad for the blue envelope

In memory of Ignat Korchagin

Under the weight of everyday lead

I live and do not lose my face.

Me from the homeland of Kolya Rubtsov

A letter arrived in the mail.

I am happy with the blue envelope

And the handwriting of a strong hand.

It suddenly smelled of the north wind

And the smell of coniferous taiga.

Oh, our quiet homeland,

Over the years in an anxious chest

It is not the need that grows, but the thirst

Walk all around you.

On foot with a backpack or with a knapsack

Walk a mile,

And with a simple and quiet word

To sing your beauty.

Under the weight of everyday lead

I look all adversity in the face.Me from the homeland of Kolya Rubtsov

Added strength to the letter.

1974

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