TULA - CITY - HERO
The bravery and military skill of our countrymen, the generals MA Arsenyev, IS Dorokhov, DS Dohturov, who replaced the seriously injured PI Bagration in the Borodino field, glorified their names forever.
A more happy fate was worthy of such a people. But most of him, as before, lived in poverty and lack of rights. This caused indignation of the best people from the nobility, who created secret societies to fight the autocracy. The Tula nobles were also members of them. In the "Union of Prosperity" for a while S. Begichev - friend of the writer A. S. Griboedov, director of the colleges of the province S. D. Nechaev participated. December 14, 1825 on the Senate Square of St. Petersburg among the members of the "Northern Society" with weapons in the hands of officers-Tula, VA and M. A. Bodisko, I. N. Gorskin, M. M. Naryshkin, N.A. Chizhov. In "Southern Society" there were Tulacs IB Abramov, IV Kireev, VN Likharev, AI Cherkasov. The brothers NS and PS Bobrishchev-Pushkin, AA and NA Kryukov, who also belonged to him, preserved for posterity a document of immense historical significance - PI Pestel's Russkaya Pravda.
Nicholas I brutally dealt with the Decembrists. Many noble families in Tula and the provinces had to mourn relatives and friends who were doomed to a long Siberian exile and hard labor. Only many years later, having received an amnesty, those who remained alive could return to their native places.
Despite the fact that the tsarist gendarmes were vigilantly watching the thoughts and deeds of the Tula population, revolutionary ideas penetrated the city. This was facilitated by the proximity of Moscow. Arrested in 1835 and sent to penal servitude student of the Tula gymnasium M. Orlov found works in which he wrote: "The law of kings and scourge of the people - that's the food of the executioners, that's the sign of the Romanov family."
In post-reform Russia, Tula was also a very unreliable city. Here found the sheets published by the followers of Chernyshevsky under the title "Velikoruss" with the requirements to introduce a constitution. At the Chernikov estate, the police found a manuscript "The Voice of the Tula Gunsmiths" describing their plight, intended to be sent to the "Bell" by AI Herzen. During the search in the Voronov bookstore, the police seized, along with the forbidden works of KF Ryleev, AS Pushkin, AI Herzen, a proclamation calling for the destruction of the existing system and the "implementation of the great cause of socialism."