The chain of watches and city suit seemed like a masquerade to those who knew his character. Solzhenitsyn writes in the poem "Dorozhenka": "Grandfather began life with a shepherd's herding in scorched Tavrida, among thousands of flocks." A simple shepherd from Tavria, as the locals called Crimea, tended other people's sheep and calves from childhood, completed one and a half grades of church school, where he read the Bible and lives of saints, could count well but wrote poorly. In 1874, as a teenager, he set off with a shepherd's staff to Kuma, where he started from scratch: he worked as a laborer, tended sheep, and worked for food. After ten years, the owner gave him ten sheep, a heifer, and piglets, and Zakhary began to rise on the rented lands of Prikumye.

His wealth, as Zakhary Fyodorovich said, was earned through hard work. On Mokry Karamyka, near Holy Cross (now Budyonnovsk), he built a mud house, where his family life began with his wife Yevdokiya and their children were born. Later, this house was replaced by a real home with a fruit garden. By the end of the century, he bought six thousand desyatinas of land in St. Petersburg from the Grabbes, of which he owned a third. Two thousand desyatinas of Kuban black soil and twenty thousand sheep, a significant fortune. On the outskirts of Novokubanskaya stanitsa lay his estate.

In 1905, Zakhary Fyodorovich began constructing a large brick mansion. An architect from Austria helped with the planning. The owner was pleased: shutters on the windows, plumbing, a diesel power station. He loved high ceilings, which he first saw in Rostov.

Around the house, a park was laid out, like in ancient estates. Himalayan firs were brought from a Crimean garden, lanterns were placed along the alleys, greenhouses were established, and a pond was dug. Arbors, lawns in the English style, all this distinguished the park from the farms.

Behind the park, a garden with fruit trees and a vineyard was planted. On the side of the railway, poplars were planted, forming an alley. Trains stopped at the Kubanskaya station, which was not far from the house. Zakhary Fyodorovich paid for this service to the railway. By 1908, all the buildings were completed, and by 1914, the estate stood in its entirety.

Zakhary Shcherbak was proud that his wealth was earned through hard work and the ability to get along with people. He was a self-made man, whose business acumen worked wonders. He was called the "peasant Stolypin," for thanks to people like him, Russia was able to catch up with Europe.

Dozens of people worked for Shcherbak, and he understood the breadth of his service and spared nothing for the cause. He was a generous host, and the workers voluntarily fed him after the revolution.

At fifty, he produced more grain and wool than many state farms. His success was in the steppe, with machines, with sheep flocks. He bought equipment in Rostov, where new products appeared. He learned a lot from the German colonists, respecting their agricultural skills.

Yevdokiya Grigoryevna Shcherbak, the daughter of a blacksmith, was not used to her new position. She remembered the mud house and could not believe in their prosperity. Before the revolution, they lost six children to scarlet fever; only the eldest and the youngest survived.

Grandfather and grandmother spoke Ukrainian, later Solzhenitsyn would reproduce their speech. Zakhary returned from Yekaterinodar, Yevdokiya was baptized: "The Mother of God heard my prayers." "No, the Mother of God is from this region. I just oiled it a bit so it wouldn't creak," Zakhary replied.

Solzhenitsyn's maternal family was wealthy in Kuban. Grandfather Zakhary owned a vast estate, which he managed modernly. In his childhood, he was a shepherd in Tavria, and later became a successful landowner. Grandfather provided his daughter Taisia with a good education; she studied in Moscow. Taisia's brother squandered money, bought a "Rolls-Royce."

Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk in 1918, six months after his father's death. His maternal grandfather hid with former workers who provided him shelter and food until his death.

In 1924, Taisia Solzhenitsyna settled in Rostov-on-Don with her son, where her father came for agricultural machinery.