Why did the famous cartoonist puzzle his heirs? There is hardly a clear answer to this
The subject of the trial is a three-room apartment on Maurice Thorez Avenue, left after the artist’s death. He decided to bequeath his living space to his nephew, but about a year and a half before his death, he unexpectedly changed his mind and wrote it off to the person with whom he had become close in recent years life. In addition, it is known that Victor Travin could well have written a third will, which would have further complicated the matter - in favor of the nurse hired by the relatives.
What made him do this? This question is difficult to answer, just as it is difficult to treat this story indifferently - as an ordinary, everyday story. And at the same time, it contains many sad signs of the times, in which there is no place for helpless old age...
Three lives of Viktor Travin
It's sad to think how far this probate case is from the lifelong work of the cartoonist who died just over a year ago. Viktor Anatolyevich Travin was once a member of the famous creative community of the “Combat Pencil” and, like all young people, was cheerful... until he reached old age.
“We, the Travins and our extended family, are connected by time,” says Victor’s brother Evgeniy Travin. - If you explain this, you will have to start from afar. “Our father, Anatoly Travin, who was arrested on October 25, 1938, took a sip. As evidenced by archival information, during his arrest his main valuables were: a leather wallet (1 pc.) and a cigarette holder (1 pc.). This paper says: “Unfoundedly accused of allegedly being a member of an anti-Soviet organization whose goal was the overthrow of Soviet power and the restoration of capitalism in Russia. - On instructions from the leaders of this organization, he carried out sabotage work aimed at disrupting the government program of Tesovostroy, creating discontent among the workers Soviet power... Composition of A. V. Travin’s family at the time of arrest: Agafya Ivanovna Uskova, 38 years old, son Victor, 12 years old, son Evgeniy - 6 years old...” (now in court Evgeniy Anatolyevich has to prove his relationship with his brother).
During the war, Victor went to the front - he was not yet eighteen; was wounded in knee joint(The doctors managed to save his leg, but he limped all his life, although he was able and loved to take long walks).”
According to Evgeny Travin, Victor always had three parallel lives: own creativity, the inner circle - the family and circle of artists, as well as other people with whom he communicated friendly and professionally. The brother was successful, did not need financially, his work was in demand, his wife was a kind and talented person nearby (she died when he was already about eighty), they had no children. Psychologically and physically he was broken when old age and loneliness came...
A nightmare in reality
Travin's niece, daughter of his older brother Nikolai Travin, an artist who died in 1942 besieged Leningrad, calls the court regarding the apartment of Viktor Anatolyevich Travin bad dream. “It is necessary to prove, by attracting witnesses, the obvious things: that Evgeniy Anatolyevich and Viktor Anatolyevich are siblings (for some reason this fact raises doubts among our opponents), that the nephews are the natural children of the brother and sister of Viktor Travin, a gullible elderly man who wrote a second will , according to which the apartment and all property are transferred into the ownership of Vladimir Nikolaevich Semerenko. By doing this, he obviously hoped for support and help from him...
This decision was unexpected for the testator’s relatives - especially for Andrei Vladimirovich Ivanov, in whose name the first will was drawn up (the nephew of Victor Travin’s wife, Maria Mikolonas), and did not raise any doubts among the other relatives who knew Andrei well. Moreover, Viktor Anatolyevich did not inform any of his relatives about the change in his will; he did it secretly - apparently, he himself was not entirely sure of the correctness of his step. Meanwhile, relations between relatives have always been friendly, constant, and conflict-free. Good relationship Vladimir Nikolaevich and my uncle arose relatively recently. Viktor Anatolyevich helped Semerenko join the Union of Artists, introduced him to the circle of our friends, hoped that he would sincerely help him in case of illness... His nephew Andrei did not forget him, he came until his wife fell ill (oncological disease) . After she died, he himself fell ill - he underwent a complex heart operation... When the second will was discovered, Andrei, naturally, was indignant and expressed this to Semerenko, who came to me and, in the presence of Viktor Anatolyevich Travin, gave the will with the words: “ I won’t be able to use this.” But, as it turned out later, he did not inform the notary about this. Then, at the request of Viktor Anatolyevich, he returned all his works and almost stopped visiting him.
Then events developed, unfortunately, quickly. Victor's condition worsened. There was a need for constant care. I invited him to live in Pushkin (there is a hotel at the house of veteran architects), and if he liked it, he could move there: the apartment in this case, as when moving into a social home, had to be transferred to the veterans’ house, this is the practice. There are excellent living conditions in individual apartments with full provision and care. He lived there from January 2 to January 18, 2009. But he could not firmly decide the issue of moving. Some inadequacy of his behavior was confirmed by the service staff. Upon his return, his condition did not improve. Brother Eugene came to see him morning and evening every day. His niece Marina Stanovaya also visited him. Unfortunately, I could not help physically - after the operations I moved only with the help of crutches, but I called almost every day, we talked for a long time.
In May, my uncle was admitted to the hospital. There, for his own safety, he was in a room locked with a key, since his inadequacy caused alarm among the staff...
After the hospital, going outside, he fell, broke his hip and became completely helpless... recent months during the life of Viktor Anatolyevich, no one from the Semerenko family was near him. And when it turned out that the documents for the apartment had disappeared, it became obvious that there was no selflessness on Semerenko’s part. Therefore, leaving an apartment to people who are essentially complete strangers is unfair. I think that Evgeniy Travin, a lonely man with a Group II disability, a former prisoner of fascist concentration camps, who took upon himself all the worries of daily care for his brother during his serious illness and remained with him until last minutes life... And the Semerenko family didn’t even ask where Viktor Anatolyevich was buried.”
Rewritten again
The conversation with the hero of Viktor Travin’s second (and last) will, Vladimir Semerenko, turned out to be difficult. Having learned about the reason for the interest in the will matter, he became excited and first of all suggested asking the artist’s relatives if they were interested in the old man after the death of his wife. He said that he met Travin about nine years ago - on a recommendation famous person: writer, artist and actor Leonid Kaminsky.
“I had an interest in Viktor Anatolyevich Travin, I needed him as a professional,” he admits. — We went to visit each other, talked about life and creativity, discussed old and new works. I was interested in him. His wife was still alive then - she died when about six months had passed from the beginning of our acquaintance. I tried to somehow distract him from difficult thoughts, but he often called, cried, and said that he was terribly lonely. Relatives rarely visited him. I remember how they tried to place him outside the city, in the house of veteran architects, to settle him so that he would live there permanently, and to sell the apartment (Travin’s relatives insist that they did not intend to sell the apartment, that, having moved, Viktor Anatolyevich would have received social housing in exchange for square meters belonging to him. - Author's note). Until I ended up in the hospital, I helped as best I could: I had to do laundry, cook (for my care, he jokingly called me dad). It seems to me that Travin’s relatives were only happy about this at that time. When I got sick and he was also in bad condition, they hired a woman - I think for 500 rubles a day...
In 2007, he offered to rewrite the will in my name, explaining that four years ago he annulled what was written in his nephew’s name.
At first I had no plans for this living space, for a long time I knew nothing at all about the first paper, and when the will was rewritten in my name, I once tried to return it to my relatives...
Travin died on August 7, 2009, two days before his 85th birthday. I am sure that he was of sound mind until the very end, and now his relatives are proving in court that this man was insane in order to invalidate the will in my favor... Now my wife is participating in the trial by proxy, it’s hard for me myself - the consequences of an illness that did not allow me to be with Viktor Anatolyevich in his last days, to come to the funeral..."
The severity is incredible
The artist's health was finally undermined by the death of a dog named Druzhok - the only creature, by the way, incapable of laying claim to anything.
"I'm a killer! First, his beloved wife, then his beloved dog,” wrote Viktor Anatolyevich Travin shortly after the incident, on January 20, 2008. The death of the dog was a real tragedy for him. “I’m not a fanatic or a killer at all, but a more dangerous, unpredictable psychopath who sincerely suffers about what he did.” This non-judicial case is gradually killing the performer himself, that is, me!.. Forget it, they say those with an enviable psyche - but, unfortunately, this is not for me! The heaviness on my soul is incredible! After all, they could still live, but I am absolutely alone, alone... The only remaining thread, my friend, and I broke that one...”
The note indicates severe depression. Your favorite thing, fame, recognition from others is behind you. Present: despair, old age, anticipation of death...
Nurses: paid, and later free, helped, but did not brighten up the hours of loneliness too much. Nevertheless, he almost wrote a third will, to the one who came for the money - Irina. In any case, he promised to do this if she continued to take care of him, but it didn’t work out. At some point, Irina went to her mother in Belarus, and when she returned, there was no talk about it anymore...
The artist’s funeral was mostly handled by his brother, Evgeniy Anatolyevich. The military registration and enlistment office gave money for the monument, but a lot of money was still needed for its installation. For a year, until August 7, 2010, the urn with ashes was in the disputed apartment...
It is unlikely that anyone can take the trouble to fully understand the secrets and intricacies of fate big family- not necessarily the Travins, or anyone else. And even more so, to imagine what he would have done if he had found himself in the situation in which a helpless, old, psychologically broken 84-year-old man found himself.
I see, now last word will remain in court. And yet, this story makes us think that in the Fatherland, including St. Petersburg, there is no systematic approach to the problems of the elderly. The institute of free caregivers is developing slowly, and the need for such services in our elderly city (almost a third of the population are pensioners) is enormous. The prices for the labor of paid nurses are prohibitive...
As for the square meters that Viktor Travin owned during his lifetime, it seems that a fair solution would be to open a museum in the apartment. But things have gone so far and the attractive power of square meters is so great that this is not discussed. Although it is worth noting: the arrangement of a museum-apartment is most often the prerogative of a person’s close relatives, creative heritage which can become the property of many. By the way, some of Travin’s works, with his consent, were donated to various museums (including the Russian Museum), but many remain with loved ones along with personal notes and photographs.
- 12.02.2020 Continuation of our material in the “Tips for Beginning Collectors” section. Today we will talk about how the culture of collecting was created in Europe over the centuries - and in what form it arrived at the beginning of the 20th century
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- 05.02.2020 In the “Theory of Misconceptions” section, from now on we will eradicate myths that are successfully presented as facts and negatively affect the development of the art market and the investment climate. First on the “operating table” is Mei & Moses All Art Index
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- 04.02.2020 The first material in the “Art and Technology” column gives our reader a historical retrospective and brief assessment current situation on the ArtTech market
- 27.01.2020 In the halls of the Vellum gallery in Gostiny Dvor opens new exposition
- 24.01.2020 The exhibition of the pioneer of Russian constructivism will be held at the Tate St Ives gallery and will be dedicated to the 100th anniversary of his “Realist Manifesto”
- 25.12.2019 In the coming year, many museums around the world have prepared real blockbuster exhibitions. In order not to get confused in all the variety of first names and not to miss something interesting, it’s time to start compiling a calendar of future events
- 17.12.2019 The exhibition, opening on December 19 in the main building of the museum, on Petrovka, 25, is an attempt to take a fresh look at the extensive museum collection Russian art: 20 became curators of the project famous figures from various professional fields
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"...A children's book is handmade, requiring great spiritual dedication. In addition, preliminary work is required - to feel the text, the material, to enter the era, to sit in the library, to delve into the archive. It is important not to get the details wrong. But the most important thing is a real artist must first of all dissolve in creativity, and then think about money." Nikolai Ustinov
Truly folk artist, famous book illustrator, an amazing landscape painter.
Born in Ryazan. Graduated from Moscow art school(MSHSH), then, in 1961, - the graphic department of the Moscow Art Institute. Surikov. He began his career as a cartoonist, published in the satirical magazine "Crocodile" and even imagined his future as working in a "funny" book.
Soon Ustinov realized that caricature was not his business, and began to work on “lyrical books”: he illustrated literature about the countryside, nature, and animals. For several years, Ustinov painted animals in the zoo, and in 1967, with his family, he bought a village hut near Pereslavl-Zalessky. They were born there wonderful illustrations to the classics - I.S. Turgenev and L.N. Tolstoy, stories by M.M. Prishvina, G.Ya. Snegireva, I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov, to Russian fairy tales, poems about nature by Tyutchev and Fet, Lermontov and Nekrasov, Maykov and Bunin, Blok and Yesenin... For several generations of children, his works became a bridge to understanding great poetry.
While still studying at the institute, Ustinov began drawing for Detgiz and the Murzilka magazine. Illustrated more than 300 works. Books with his illustrations are published all over the world. Received many awards, including gold medal Russian Academy arts
Nikolai Alexandrovich often speaks to children's audiences at exhibitions and in libraries. As soon as he appears, small children immediately surround him. They ruffle his beard, climb onto his knees and shoulders, as if feeling that this is unusual sincere person amazingly all the poems and fairy tales that have been written in Russian since the creation of the world fit in.
Books with illustrations by the artist
Efim EFIMOVSKY
LIVING-BEING
VIKTOR TRAVIN
Victor Travin was left alone. His faithful friend Manya died. His close friends passed away - artists Boris Ivanov, Leonid Kaminsky, Lev Khodorkovsky. Vitya and Manya never had children. As Khodorkovsky’s wife told me, many men who were at the front lost their ability to bear children after being shell-shocked. When Victor fell and broke his leg last year, I never found the time to come to him. He kept postponing his visit, could not understand or come to terms with the fact that he was dying. I thought I was about to arrive. And I didn’t have time.
Village Rogavka
Once, Travin and I drove his Zaporozhets on business to Novgorod.
“Let’s go to my village,” Victor suggested, “it’s not far from here.”
- Which one is yours? - I didn’t understand. - You were born in Leningrad.
- I’m originally from St. Petersburg, but I spent my childhood and youth in the village of Rogavka. My father was sent there with his family even before the war.
It turned out,
Travin’s father was arrested for no reason in 1930 and served a year in Kresty. Six-year-old Vitya went with his mother on a date with his father. Soon he was sent to the village of Rogavka. The family also moved there. My father worked in his specialty - he built houses and barracks. He even set up a village club.
In 1937, the elder Travin was again arrested and taken to Leningrad, to Big house, from where he still came out alive, but without his front teeth. During this time, Victor's pioneer tie was torn off in front of the formation - like the son of an enemy of the people.
Captain Rudy
In September 1941, the Germans occupied Rogavka. Chief rural club became captain Rudi Georgent. At his request, Victor wrote on plywood in large in Latin letters"CLUB". “Du bist mahler!” - the captain exclaimed and handed him pencils and paper. Soon Victor brought his sketches, which made a strong impression on the officer - after all, the young man was once taught to draw by his older half-brother Nikolai, a professional painter. Delighted Rudy gave Victor an album German artist and promised that after the war he would take him to Germany - to receive art education. Everything turned out differently. Six months later, the Red Army liberated Rogavka. The elder Travin was arrested for helping the Germans build something, and no one has seen him since then. Victor himself was sent to a penal battalion to cut down forest.
stray fragment
Two years later, Viktor Travin found himself at the front. One day he and a friend were sent to restore telephone communication. We walked two kilometers on skis through deep snow. We arrived at the place and found a cliff. Suddenly a howl, a whistle, and explosions were heard. They fired from a six-barreled German mortar. Victor was cut in the leg by a stray shrapnel. Having repaired the break, the friend dragged the wounded man to the medical battalion.
In the medical battalion, the surgeon took pity on the guy - he removed only the kneecap, leaving his leg. Victor was treated at the Nizhny Tagil military hospital. There he became friends with his roommate, the elderly soldier Kuzma. Kuzma offered to go to him in Leningrad, where he lived with his wife in a separate apartment. He hoped to adopt Victor, because funerals came for his sons from the front.
Freeloader
Kuzma’s wife did not greet Victor very kindly: “Freeloader!” He could not get a job: questions about his parents and temporary residence in the occupied territory forced him to squeeze his head into his shoulders. For a long time I was afraid of arrest - the war was still going on, and martial law was in force. But somehow they had to earn their bread, and they lived by speculation - during the day Kuzma bought packs of cigarettes in stores, and in the evening Victor sold cigarettes individually at cinemas and drinking establishments. He was taken to the police station several times. Having taken away the cigarettes and money, they were released.
Then suddenly it turned up real work. A friend asked if Victor could update the numbers on the chairs in the cinema where she worked as an usher overnight? He happily agreed. He gave the money he received for his work to the owner. For the first time, she looked at him affectionately: “Thank you, son.”
Corner behind the closet
The victorious May of 1945 arrived. The sons unexpectedly returned home after being seriously wounded. The joy of father and mother knew no bounds. Victor moved into a friend's room. Then he moved to stepsister to the room where she lived with her husband and three children. I slept on the floor there for several months. There, he lost the same German album that he had never parted with. Travin was offended and began to look for new housing. He changed a dozen more addresses, renting “the corner behind the closet” from kind old ladies.
Soon Victor's mother was found. It turns out that throughout the war she was with youngest son lived in Latvia, where the Germans took them away. Miraculously, they survived. But it was impossible for the wife of an enemy of the people to return to Leningrad.
Everything was not easy for him - he lacked education. Once at the Main Post Office, where he worked part-time as a designer, he was asked to make a design for the location of workplaces. Victor did a good job, but the director returned the drawing, crossing out the title “Iskiz” with a red pencil.
In 1947, Travin entered the Mukhinsky School in the department of artistic textiles. His classmate recalled: “The girls in the textile department are mastering the batik technique in a spacious workshop.” Beautifully painted scarves are steamed. The guys in the workshop where their Jacquard machines are located have a roar like in a factory. Master Basko walks around the machines with his sleeves rolled up, holding a wrench in his hand. He unscrews and screws some nuts... Vitka Travin looks at the adjustable wrench with disgust and horror, like a heretic at the pincers of an inquisitor. One day he dropped a wrench from above almost onto the foreman’s bald head. Basko looked at him angrily, but didn’t say anything, he probably thought: “Cross-handed fool!” Vitka’s hands easily and happily take pencils and brushes, but they don’t want to get involved with keys and nuts.”
Our man
Travin completed his pre-graduation internship at a publishing house - he wrote titles for posters by hand. The head of the “Combat Pencil”, Ivan Stepanovich Astapov, entered the room where Victor was working. He just glanced at the poster and exclaimed:
-
And you are our man! Come to us!
And Victor went without hesitation.
At the same time, Travin met his future wife, the kindest Manya, a corps de ballet dancer. He stopped huddling in strange corners and moved to Gogol Street, where he settled in the same room with his wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law and their nephew. So it began new life Viktor Travin is a family man and the artist of the “Combat Pencil”.
My friend Victor Travin
In 1974 I was accepted into Karandash. The artist Lenya Kaminsky led me to a short, thin man with glasses, a goatee, and a slightly upturned tip of his nose and introduced me:
- My friend Victor Travin!
And the very voice of my new acquaintance - calm, slightly hoarse, and his gaze a little absent-minded, but with cunning, betrayed him as smart and kind person, but in everyday matters, like many creative people, naive to the point of horror.
“Vitya is lazy to come up with headlines,” said Kaminsky, “and you could work together.”
Indeed, Travin gravitated more towards a genre picture, a multi-frame poster, where the text and title played an important role. And the text based on literary game, pun, I was just making up:
Blacksmith Malashkin was fired
for his obvious interest in vodka.
Finding him in the field the next morning,
The collective farm "Progress" was taken home.
And we came to our senses, we regretted,
without a blacksmith we have a collapse:
- Let him drink, but once a week
he forged wonderfully!
We sit and pour salt on the wounds,
and suddenly the agronomist rushed over:
- “Progress” fired Malashkin!
We'll bring it by tonight.
Listen,” I called Victor, “there’s an idea for a poster about bureaucratic bosses who don’t give a damn about people!” They play chess, and behind the glass door there is a huge line of pensioners, housewives and others.
- What's the title?
- Reply from one boss to another: “Go! Yours queue»!
- Good idea!
We made over a hundred posters together. My teacher, the poet Lev Gavrilov, said: “You work at Karandash for ten years and you will remain in the history of Soviet satirical posters.”
Reply word
Travin's character was playful and lively. He loved all kinds of practical jokes. At one of his birthdays, he accepted congratulations while standing in a black tuxedo. They gave him posters and cartoons. I congratulated him with verses:
People in Russia are drinking less,
It's not all about stealing!
They cheated less, lied less -
Vitya is to blame for this!
Travina deserves credit for this:
Vitya awakened his conscience.
And the drunkard quit!
Don't be impudent, impudent!
Vitya made a response. For some reason it was read from a piece of paper, like a speech from the rostrum of a party congress: “ Dear comrades! I am sincerely touched by your attention. Allow me to express my deep satisfaction and thank all my workmates... Sorry, it's hot here!” The flushed hero of the day took off his jacket. And then it turned out that there was nothing under the jacket. Travin's bare arms, stomach and back were covered with obscene inscriptions. Everyone burst out laughing.
Who is the Storyteller today?
Looking at the old posters of the “Combat Pencil” today, you see that this is just a game of satire, and that such a game continues almost always in Russia, that it is all native, ours, purely Russian phenomenon. When the world invented by ourselves or our rulers becomes real for all the people. And we are with it fairy world We get used to it, we live in it. And in it, in this imaginary world, we fall in love, get married, have children. These children grow up and begin to laugh at the world in which we, their fathers, lived, and point fingers at us. But they themselves do not notice that they live in the same Russian fairy tale, where their fate also depends little on them, but only on the one who is now in given time Storyteller. We wait for fairy tales, and these fairy tales are told to us. Fairy tales are scary and bloody, but people still expect a happy ending. And, thank God, they won’t wait. Because the end of the fairy tale is the end of our state. No, I misspoke, of course, not about the state, but about that very Rus', which actually produced heroes and martyrs, great poets and composers...
The well-fed, well-groomed, well-maintained Rus' that we are striving for may have the same name, but it will be a different country. And its inhabitants will never understand why people were at times so happy in that former Russia.
Perfect plan
The book about St. Petersburg never worked out for me. And it was necessary to make a poetic tour of the city. The director of the publishing house was apparently told that it was impossible to write such a thing in poetry. He called me and Travin to his place.
“I like your drawings,” the director said to the artist.
Travin nodded.
“And you,” he turned to me, “turned out to be unable to create anything worthwhile.” That's why I'm taking the book from you and passing it on to other authors. We'll add prose here.
On the way, Travin consoled me:
- Well, maybe they are right, and this topic is beyond the capabilities of one person.
“So what should I do?” I asked him. - Surrender?
I wasn't going to give up. Then the director sent a courier to pick up the original drawings from Travin in order to order another text for them. Victor reached for the folder, but then the voice of his wife Manya was heard:
- What are you doing, Vitya? Don't you understand that they want to deceive you and give the book to another author!
I got a break for two weeks and poured over the book. It was accepted for publication. However, on book exhibition the vindictive director said to everyone who picked up our publication:
- This is an album. Travin's drawings are good, but his poems are not very good.
Years have passed. In many schools, this book has become a tool for studying our city. I periodically receive grateful feedback from librarians.
Montferrand asked God for one thing:
See your plan perfect.
All life is in the cathedral! And having built it,
Montferrand lived only a month.
The last years of Victor's life were lonely and tragic. But his posters recently ended up in the City History Museum. This means that the artist Viktor Anatolyevich Travin (1924-2009) will still remain in the chronicles of St. Petersburg. And this is the main thing.
Efim Efimovsky- poet, prose writer, author of the books “Trace of the Chariot”, “Journey to St. Petersburg”, “Latin Studies” and many others, member of the Union of Writers of Russia.
“...In conversation he often makes a sound like “hm-hm” and
sprinkles his speech with phrases like “so to speak” and “of course.”
Here is a sample of his conversation.
Imagine what it characterizes
fourth assistant - artist:
- Hm-hm! He, so to speak, draws.
Drink little, eat little - draw.
Love to draw. Nothing more. Hate everyone who doesn't draw. Be angry.
Hate everyone who draws better. Hate everyone. Hate those who don't
think, the whole world is for drawing... Get angry. Hm. Everything means nothing...
just draw... He likes you, of course.
New thing to draw. Freak - weird. Yes?…"
Illustrations by N.A. Travin
The First Men in the Moon is a science fiction novel by the famous English writer H.G. Wells, published in 1901.
The novel tells the story of a journey to the Moon made by two earthlings on a spaceship made of the fantastic anti-gravity material “cavorite” (so named by one of the main characters of the novel - Mr. Cavor - by own surname). It turned out that there is a civilization of “Selenites” on the Moon (that’s what earthlings called these creatures). The novel describes the adventures of the heroes on the Moon and the return of one of them to Earth.
Mr. Bedford is a poor businessman experiencing financial problems. He decided to rent a house in the quiet countryside and write a play to earn some money. However, his neighbor pesters him with noise. Soon they meet and it turns out that this is an eccentric scientist, Dr. Cavor, who is busy developing a new material - “cavorite”.
The main property of the material is that it can shield gravity. During the test, the heroes discover that the air above the cavorite screen begins to flow like a fountain from the earth’s atmosphere into Space. Cavorite is subsequently used to create a small spherical spaceship, on which two earthlings travel from Earth to the Moon.
On the Moon, the heroes first discover a desert landscape around them. But as soon as the Sun rises, the Moon's atmosphere, frozen overnight, begins to melt and evaporate. On the surface of the Moon, strange plants begin to grow rapidly, creating an impenetrable jungle. Bedford and Cavor leave the capsule and immediately get lost in lush thickets, where they encounter unusual creatures. Their growing hunger drives them to try a couple of specimens of the local flora, which they identify as "mushrooms." Soon after this, the heroes become euphoric and begin to hallucinate.
Earthlings are captured by the insect-like people of the Moon, further called “Selenites” (named after the Moon goddess). The latter formed a society with a complex society and division of labor. Selenites live in underground (“sublunar” caves), and use radio for communication.
After some time, Bedford and Cavor managed to escape. They killed several Selenites (among their captors) due to their superior strength. The heroes rise to the surface of the Moon and develop a plan to find their spaceship. They have to split up. Bedford finds the ship and returns to Earth, while Cavor is wounded and taken prisoner again by the Selenites. Bedford took with him a certain amount of gold, which is freely distributed on the Moon.
Bedford lands a ship in England. It happens that he did not keep track of the spaceship, and the neighbor's boy, having climbed into it, ends up flying into space. Meanwhile, Cavor took advantage of the period of relative freedom in the Lunar Society and was even able to give lessons to the Selenites English language. He also managed to gain access to a radio transmitter to transmit to earthlings (using Morse code) the story of his life inside the Moon. Bedford on Earth publishes in the Strand Magazine details of the story of their journey, including some additional materials, received from Cavor by radio from the Moon.
Cavor tells intermittently everything that happened to him after he was captured again. But some parts of his story are not clearly conveyed (probably they tried to stop him by interfering with radio communications). From these messages, Bedford learns of Cavor's meeting with the Great Lunarius, the ruler of the Selenites. During this meeting, Cavor portrays humanity on Earth as a community of predatory creatures enjoying war and alien moral values. As an example, he describes the Battle of Colenso. In response to this, the Great Lunarius decides to cut off all contacts with Earth. IN last transmission Cavor admits that he made some mistake by telling the Great Lunar about something. Cavor's broadcasts are cut off mid-sentence when he is about to reveal to the earthlings the secret of making Cavorite (“Cavorite is made like this: take ...”; “... useful”). Bedford imagines Cavor rushing towards the transmitter at this moment, desperately fighting off the Selenites who are dragging him away into the darkness.