An unknown cadet flung open a tall, beautiful window, and the noise of the ruined Kyiv rushed into the room: the neighing of horses, the sounds of gunfire, and Ukrainian shouts of "glory"! This was Kyiv, captured by Petlyura. Of course, it looked insane: in the midst of a civil war in Russia, trying to escape from infighting. But having left the Don, I decided to step aside and engage in agriculture near Kyiv. Now, among three thousand officers and soldiers who surrendered to Petlyura, I am under arrest in the Kyiv Pedagogical Museum.

I, a Penza native, have no relation to Ukraine. However, like all officers, I was mobilized by the hetman. We fought on the outskirts of Kyiv against the Sich Riflemen and Haidamaks; there were the dead, the wounded, and those slaughtered in their sleep by peasants supporting Petlyura. Now Petlyura has entered Khreshchatyk, and he was presented with the saber of the recently executed General Count Keller. And we, the surrendered, sit in the museum, awaiting our fate, fully aware that in a revolution, people are mass exterminated.

In the vestibule, a wheezing Russian general walks heavily, preparing to enter negotiations with the victors. Gunfire is heard from all sides. Suddenly, Asian shouts rang out, and a mottled, thick-set soldier with a Mauser slung over his shoulder burst through the museum doors, with hair sticking out from under his cap, as if embodying the revolution. Following him were others, clicking their bolts and flashing their bayonets. They were called the Black Sea Cossacks. The Russian general was shoved against the wall, bayonets aimed at him. But with a shout of "Halt!" a German lieutenant intervened, resembling a young Schiller. His squad of red-haired Bavarians prevented a massacre within the museum walls.

The weapons were surrendered. In the vestibule stood two guard posts: Petlyura's Sich Riflemen and gloomy Germans in steel helmets, who understood nothing of the Ukrainian situation but, despite their own revolution, remained loyal to military discipline.