Zadornov's House
Nikolai Pavlovich Zadornov was a Russian writer and screenwriter, and also the father of the satirist Mikhail Zadornov.
Nikolai Pavlovich was born in Penza in 1909. The house where his parents lived at that time still stands. The house was built in 1893 and is an example of a semi-stone house, which became common at the end of the 19th century. The basement or first floor of such a house was built from stone, while the upper floor was made of wood. This increased the building's strength and fire safety. The roof of a semi-stone house was covered with iron, which indicated the owner's wealth. The iron roof was usually painted red or green.
Semi-stone houses were popular among modest merchants and prosperous townspeople. In merchant houses, the first floor and basement could house a warehouse, shop, store, or office, and also accommodate servants or distant relatives; the second floor was strictly residential. The long side of the house faced the courtyard. From the street side, the first floor had an entrance to the shop or store. In townspeople’s houses, the owners lived on the first floor, and the second floor could be rented out.
Nikolai Zadornov lived in Penza for a short time, just a little over a year, because his father, Pavel Ivanovich, who was a veterinarian, was assigned to Chita, where the family moved. Nikolai spent his childhood years in Siberia. He also graduated from secondary school there.
From childhood, Nikolai Zadornov showed an interest in literature and theater. In 1934–35, in Ufa, he was the editor of a wall newspaper at the theater, marking the beginning of his professional literary career. In Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Zadornov worked as the head of the literary department of the theater and simultaneously collaborated with the local newspaper and radio, writing correspondence, reports, and essays.
The writer’s main work is considered to be the three-volume novel "Amur-Batyushka," which tells about the life of peasant settlers in the 1860s–70s in the Amur region, their land development, and relations with the local population. Zadornov’s interest in the history of the Far East arose when the city authorities tasked him with writing the history of the village of Permskoye, on the site of which Komsomolsk was founded. The novel was written from 1941 to 1946.
In 1946, Nikolai Zadornov left the Far East with his family. Not settling in Moscow, he moved to Riga in 1948 at the suggestion of A.A. Fadeev, where he lived until the end of his life. In the Union of Writers of Latvia, Zadornov created and headed the section of Russian writers and was the first editor of the literary and publicistic magazine "Parus," which published works by Latvian authors in Russian.
In 1969, Nikolai Zadornov was recognized as an Honored Cultural Worker of the Latvian SSR, and in 1952 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, second degree.
