Count Nikolai Demidov from 1815 almost constantly lived in Florence. Far from his homeland, he still showed concern for his compatriots: he donated 10 thousand rubles for the disabled; for distribution to the poorest residents affected by the flood in St. Petersburg — 50 thousand; donated his own house and 100 thousand rubles for the «House of Diligence». In 1871, grateful Florentines for the orphanage and school he founded erected a monument to Demidov.
When I accidentally stumbled upon this fact, the grateful Florentines blew my mind. Why are we so unlike them, why are we forgetful, why is gratitude so rarely visited us? And then I remembered with shame about another «our» foreigner. I found his grave at the Vvedensky (German) cemetery, where I had never been before. The grave is intact, and the inscription has been preserved — his words «Hurry to do good.» Shackle chains hang on the fence as the main signs, and someone even left flowers. And now the question is: which of the Muscovites does this name mean something, who remembers Dr. Haaz?
He lived for forty years in Russia, where his name was Fedor Petrovich. German, Catholic, doctor. Member of the Moscow Prison Committee and chief doctor of Moscow prisons, who devoted his life to saving those sentenced to hard labor and alleviating their plight. It was said that one day in 1830, the Moscow governor Senyavin, having arrived on business, found him walking to the accompaniment of some kind of clanging and ringing back and forth with an extremely tired look. It turned out that the doctor ordered to put himself in his «lightweight» shackles and walked around the room in them a distance equal to the first stage passage to Bogordsk, in order to know what it was like for convicts to walk in such shackles.
They buried the «holy doctor» at public expense, since he had no savings, he spent everything on the destitute. 20 people followed his coffin — and this was in 000, when Moscow was, in fact, a small city. Why forgot?
Well, a lot can be attributed to the Soviet ban on mercy. But there is a “folk memory”, so the folk trail does not overgrow to the Holy Matronushka of Moscow (1885 — 1952). People go for a miracle: adults, often educated people, stand in a huge queue to kiss, pray (I would like to add — to forget), ask Matronushka to help them get a job or find a husband, for example.
The amazing life of Dr. Haas did not turn him into a legend, there is no queue to his grave. Everything he did was so ordinary, so understandable, so unbearably difficult. No predictions and visions (although, they say, he loved to look at the stars through a telescope). He didn’t wear Verigi, he just experienced shackles on himself. And the fact that he stood up for criminals and treated them, even today not everyone would support him …
“The surest way to happiness is not in the desire to be happy. It’s about making others happy.» And again — the same: «Hurry to do good.» Simple advice. Holy Doctor. Not often, but there is such a gift.