Prince Yuri Lubovedsky

Having gradually sold his personal belongings and clothing, he was finally compelled to exchange even the clothes he was wearing for mere rags, and thus became an outcast in the full sense of the word.

Hunger forced him to work in a fishery, and, passing from one job to another, he finally came, in the company of other outcasts, to the town of Baku. Here fate smiled on him a little; someone gave him clothes and he succeeded in becoming a telephone operator in the district of Balakhna.
The adversities of his recent past made him think and he began to work steadily. One day he met someone from Samara who, having learned who he was, that is, of what family he came, decided to help him get a better position.

As Soloviev had a fifth-class education, he was taken on in Baku as an assistant in the postal-telegraph service, but for the first few months he had to work without a salary. After this, he received a post in Kushka and worked there as a clerk. Thanks to his abstinence, he was able to dress decently and even saved a small sum of money.

When he was twenty-one he received a notice from the military authorities that he was about to be called up for military service. This obliged him to return to his native town, and on arriving in Samara he put up at a hotel and wrote to his mother. His mother, who had been receiving letters from him before this, was glad that her son had apparently turned over a new leaf, and succeeded in obtaining his father’s pardon for him.

Soloviev was again received into the house and his father, seeing that his son had come to his senses, was glad that things had turned out no worse and began to treat him well.

On reporting to the military authorities Soloviev drew a lot to serve, but being a telegraphist in the postal service he had to wait several months for his appointment, since recruits of this category were appointed to vacancies by the central administration of the army. So he lived with his parents another three or four months before being ordered to a post with the railway battalion in charge of the Transcaspian Railway, which at that time was still militarized.

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