The Beketovs - is the old, famous family, registered in the 6^th (the most honorable) part of the genealogy book. Throughout the centuries this family gave a lot of ‘outstanding people to science, education and literature’.
    Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov - the ‘father of the Russian school of botanic’, the author of the wonderfully written scientific-popular books, he was a scientist and a public figure, the founder of the Higher

women’s courses in Russia, a member of many scientific societies. He had a good deal of friends among literature circles, was acquainted with many of the great Russian writes - F.M.Dostoevsky, L.N.Tolstoi, M.E.Saltykov-Shedrin, I.S.Turgenev. A.N.Beketov didn’t leave his studies in Shakchmatovo, too. He draw rather well, made water colors with the views of Shakchmatovo.

A.N.Beketov

    The grandmother of the poet - Elizaveta Grigoryevna Beketova was the daughter of a geographer and traveler, researcher of the Middle Asia G.S.Karelin. She contributed a lot into the Russian literature as a gifted translator. She could speak fluently several languages, and used to translate up to two hundred printer’s

sheets a year. The list of her translations is extremely vast - Bream, Goldsmith, Stanley, Thackeray, Scott, Bret-Garth, George Sand, Balzak, Hugo, Flober, Mopassain. Elizaveta Grigoryevna met N.V.Gogol, she knew F.M.Dostoyevsky, Al.Grigoryev, L.N.Tolstoi, Y.Polonsky, corresponded with A.P.Chekchov.

E.G.Beketova. Shakchmatovo. 1894.

    Three daughters of the Beketovs inherited ‘love to literature and clear understanding of its high meaning’. The oldest daughter, Ekaterina, was well known as a translator and the author of some short stories (among them - ‘Malevolent fate’, published in ‘Otechestvennye zapisky’ magazin) and poems. S.Pakchmaninov wrote a romance using one of her poem, ‘Lilac’, which she wrote in Shakchmatovo under its beauty influence. Ekaterina Andreevna draw quite well, there are some water colors with landscapes of Shakchmatovo preserved. Alexandra Beketova (the mother of the poet)

translated from French and wrote poems, but she published only her poems devoted to children. The youngest daughter, Maria, translated, wrote scientific-popular booklets - about biographies, geography, history, later she wrote a book about A.Block and his family. All the sisters used to work much in Shakchmatovo.
    The Beketovs, as A.A.Block used to say, ‘loved and understood a word’. The poet has always kept in his soul the grateful memory about the moral atmosphere of the Beketovs’ house.

    The ancestors from his father’s side, A.L.Block, came from Mecklenburg. A.Block tell only few words about his father in his autobiography: ‘His destiny was full of sharp contradictions, rather unusual and gloom’. Alexander Lvovich graduated from the Law department of St-Petersburg university, he knew at least six languages. Art occupied an important 

part in his life. But his indomitable temper brought to the divorce right after his son’s birth.

Father had left hard remembering
In the child’s soul
From his very first days.
The child had never known his father.

(A.Block From the poem ‘Retribution’)

A.L.Block. The 1900-s

A.L.Block and A.A.Beketova at a bench in the garden of Shakchmatovo. Picture was made by D.I.Mendeleev. July 1878

    Alexander Block got his education in the family of his grandfather. He was growing without a father, surrounded by adoration and tender care of his mother, grandmother and

aunts. ‘Golden childhood, a fir tree, dandling of a noble family, a nurse, Pushkin...’ and ‘balmy back country of a small estate’.

A.A.Block with Dianka dog at the stairs of the Shakchmatovo house porch. From the left to the right: A.A.Kublitskaya-Piottukch (the poet’s mother). A.N.Beketov, N.N.Beketova, M.A.Beketova. The photograph was made by V.N.Beketova. 1894.

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