They were beaten with towels and raped: how escort women of the last century lived

Even in the book of the famous modern escort Nastya Rybka, who is satisfied with her way of life, sometimes such details flash as you understand: such a "job" is terrible and dangerous. And how did the women who chose the fate of kept women and escorts live in the last century?

Ivan Ivanovich Priklonsky, the author of a scholarly essay on prostitution in Russia published in 1903, divided women involved in the sale of the body into two categories. The former worked officially - on the basis of yellow tickets, the latter acted secretly and alone. And the most expensive among them were camellias.

Who were the camellias?

The term "camellia" itself appeared in the middle of the 19th century: the name of an exotic flower seemed to journalists suitable for describing brightly dressed women who tried to live as luxuriously as possible with the money of the owners. Along with it, the word "phryne" was also used - that was the name of the famous Athenian hetera, who lived in the 4th century BC.

Camellias were given to themselves by richer Muscovites who disdained one-time visits to brothels and preferred constant mistresses. According to observers of Moscow life, it was easy to distinguish camellias from decent ladies. Both of them dressed in the same fashion, but camellias chose fabrics of provocative colors for their dresses and used cosmetics much more actively than husbands' wives.

The matter was not limited to lipsticks and toilets: according to Priklonsky, “the dead, but cute creatures, whom chance gave the opportunity to move out of the crowd through debauchery,” tried to bring as much glitter and chic into their lives as possible. For this, girls often had several lovers - of course, hiding them from each other. However, sometimes the third turned out to be the gigolo, who became for the woman not a source of income, but of expenses.

The life of kept women attracted the attention of not only researchers like Priklonsky. Writers did not leave them with attention either. For example, Dmitry Bohemsky describes the life of a camellia in his novel “Moscow Geisha”: “The old man spent crazy money on her, gave her a house on Sretenka Street and was completely at peace in his soul, unaware, of course, that the lovely Zoya had another patron and that his caresses she also lavishes beautiful young people with no specific occupation."

How did they become camellias?

Priklonsky writes that in Moscow, among the camellias, one can find women of all nations and classes: they are mostly German or Polish, but there are French women, Russians and others among them. Most often, the camellia is a former girl from the "institution" who managed to find a patron for herself. But it also happened that governesses, actresses and even paramedics fell into the kept women.

The stories of the fall of camellias are most often tragic. It all starts with the loss of innocence before marriage, and this is rarely the choice of the woman herself. Usually it was about coercion or deception: for example, during the traditional spring convention of actors, entrepreneurs practiced the so-called "haymaking": girls who entered actresses were forced to have sex for promising a good contract, or they were simply raped by luring them into a hotel room.

Girls who rose to camellias from ordinary brothel workers ended up in brothels thanks to a whole recruiting network. For example, there was a channel for the traffic of women from Poland to Moscow: a stolen polka cost from 20 to 300 rubles. They also supplied Muscovites to brothel houses: there was a network of merchants in the city: men were called Maccabees, women - nannies.

They acted in different ways. One of the techniques is the publication of advertisements in newspapers. The girls were offered the positions of maids, bonnets, barmaids and promised a well-paid job. However, having appeared at the indicated address, the women ended up in a brothel.

Those who spent their last money on the road to the capital had nowhere to go in an unfamiliar city, and the keepers of brothels knew perfectly well how to persuade them to stay. After waiting for the victim to survive the first shock, the hostess of the establishment brought jewelry and fashionable dresses and promised: "You will have those too." The girls were also convinced that they could leave on their own in a month or two, earning money for a return ticket.

There was one more reception, which was called "Just Sit and See": a woman was persuaded to go to the common room. However, as soon as she got there, she was attacked by professional seducers working in the living room. Compliments, an invitation to dance, one glass of champagne after another - it all ended in deprivation of virginity.

The obstinate, with whom the tricks did not work, could simply be locked up and forced to work. They were tied up and beaten with bundles of wet towels: the back after such an execution turned into a continuous bruise. It happened that their relatives followed the girls, but even this did not guarantee that the victim would be able to leave the brothel.

Vladimir Okorokov, author of The Return to Honest Labor of Fallen Girls in 1988, tells about a case described by eyewitnesses: a mother found her daughter Dunya in a brothel and tried to take her away from there. At first, the girl was not given her clothes: she is the owner's and therefore does not belong to her. One of the companions took pity on Dunya and gave her her long coat (for which she was later punished). Dunya and the old woman went to the entrance, but the girl was detained in the entryway and beaten, and her mother was pushed down the stairs, so much so that she flew down and hit her head on the sidewalk curbstone.

Camellia life: from luxury to poverty

Compared to living in an ordinary brothel, the life of camellias was more pleasant and easy. The point is that the work of kept women was not burdensome: in brothels, all the juices were squeezed out of women. But the phren also had a hard time, despite the luxury that surrounded them.

Bohemsky in his novel describes the thirty-year-old camellia Zoya Glembotskaya as a woman who “looked like a perfect old woman in the morning”: eternal revelry, alcohol and lack of sleep affected. A lively, energetic girl quickly turned into a hysterical woman: Zoya was constantly nervous - she was afraid that one patron would find out about another, maneuvered between them, always thinking over new ways to receive gifts and money from men.

Glembotskaya managed to accumulate a small capital, and she even thought about leaving for her homeland in Vyatka, but the cunning patron left her at a broken trough. The cunning merchant, under the pretext of protection from thieves, suggested that she put everything she had acquired in the safes of his office. When "daddy" found out about Zoe's betrayal, he simply refused to return the contents of the safes to her. The girl did not succeed in proving the ownership: Zoya did not even think of compiling a notarized inventory of things. Then the patron canceled the bill of sale for the house - and now only a few outfits and trinkets remained of the usual luxury.

Zoya Glembotskaya is a fictional character, but it is easy to assume that she had a real prototype. And the cunning of the merchant, who protects his investments, also looks quite real. So cheated camellias were probably common.

The fate of the camellia, which had lost its patron and did not find a new one, was unenviable: a journey to the very bottom of prostitution awaited her. And the first step was the transition to tolerance.

Way down: tolerant

In 1902, the Moscow chief of police received alarming news: a group of women of "decent origin" who were behaving strangely was found in the capital. They rented apartments, however, they entered fictitious names on the boards at the entrances to the lists of tenants. It soon became clear that the girls were not connected with revolutionaries or spies. But they were widely known among the procurers, looking for an escort for the rich.

Explaining their behavior in the police, the girls admitted that they earn money by having dinner in the company of men. There was nothing to blame them for: going to restaurants was not drawn to prostitution. Despite the interest of the chief police chief, the "cheerful tenants" continued to lead their usual way of life. In 1914, one of the reporters of the capital's newspaper said that wealthy visitors prefer apartments with a hostess to hotels - luxuriously furnished apartments with a telephone. It was convenient: the police could come to the hotel with a raid to check the observance of the rules of public morality, but the apartment was no longer.

The term “tolerant women” came from France: there brothels were called not houses of tolerance, as in Russia, but houses of tolerance. Tolerants differed from camellias in less freedom: the Phrens themselves chose their gentlemen, the tolerants obeyed the procurers.

Men meeting tolerant people believed that they were buying not only the body, but also the love of women. This was also facilitated by the "advertising" that the "mothers" gave to their "wards". The girl could be imagined as an honest widow who cannot do without a man, an unsatisfied kept woman of a rich old man, or a family lady who wants to diversify her insipid life.

Married women among tolerant women did meet. For example, in the memoirs of an entrepreneur and engineer Nikolai Varentsov, a case is described when a Moscow manufacturer Kuznetsov in a visiting house asked him to bring him not an accessible woman, but "a good, not spoiled and family". As a result, his wife came to Kuznetsov's room. Seeing her husband, the woman was not at a loss and began to slap him in the face, shouting: “I caught you, bastard! This is where you spend your time! " As a result, the unlucky manufacturer on his knees had to apologize.

It is unlikely that Kuznetsov's wife tried to bring variety to life. Most likely, it was about money: the husband was desperately jealous of the young woman, kept him locked up and limited his expenses.

The work of the tolerant women was organized simply: a man came to the visiting house, looked at catalogs or listened to oral recommendations, after which the selected woman was called to him by phone. There were also "attendants": several women were waiting for clients in the rooms. Often, tolerants, having met a man, began to meet with him directly, refusing the services of a pimp.

The apartments, where the tolerants met with clients, soon began to be controlled by the police. There were many rules for their design: for example, a mandatory separate entrance and blackout curtains, curtains all day. Only one or two girls could live in the apartment, they were given special medical forms for visiting doctors. The owners of houses and apartments were obliged to report everything that was happening in their institutions, and to ensure that "passportless, suspicious persons and fugitive criminals did not settle there."

Student tolerants: girlfriends or kept women?

Student tolerance stood out against the general background of the loners. They settled in houses where students rented rooms: there they often arranged general dinners and entertainment, smoothly flowing into drinking until the morning. Student tolerants chose a couple for themselves among young people and sometimes behaved with their roommates like wives: for example, on the eve of exams, they sat them down to study without giving them a drink. When one student left after graduation, another took his place. Has not canceled the constant partner and work in the visiting houses.

It happened that tolerant women became wives. But the majority awaited an unenviable fate: losing their attractiveness, they ended up in taverns. There was no scent of luxury there, and girls were rarely paid more than 50 kopecks. The women, both old women and twelve-year-old girls, drank constantly. Madera was considered a luxury; usually, melancholy was suppressed with simpler alcohol.

“In these brothels,” wrote Priklonsky, “almost all the prostitutes greedily drink vodka, otherwise they will not continue their disgusting craft for a year, since here a prostitute sometimes has to accept ten men in the evening. You can also be sure that if you have a little money, you will be robbed here, unless you are a regular guest."

Fight against prostitution

In 1908, in Moscow, the post of mayor was taken by Alexander Adrianov, who set a course for the destruction of brothels. In January 1910, the penultimate of them was closed, where 16 women were selling themselves. In October of the same year, the latter ceased to exist: the authorities simply did not renew the permit for its work.

They began to change yellow tickets for passports. True, not just like that: the petitioner had to prove that she was now honest - she got married or got a job. In 1909, 102 out of 108 petitions were granted. However, this does not mean that in 1910 only six girls in the capital were engaged in prostitution: according to researchers, about 20 thousand women were involved in it.

And in 1917 a revolution broke out, which changed the life of not only camellias and tolerants, but all other people. But that's a completely different story.