Nikolai Georgievich Mikhailovsky was a Russian writer and essayist, locating engineer and railroad constructor. As a writer, he published under the pseudonym N. Garin, and since his death has been commonly referred to as the hyphenated Garin-Mikhailovsky.
Background
Nikolai Georgievich Mikhailovsky was born on February 8, 1852, in Saint Petersburg City, Russian Federation. He was born in the family of the lieutenant of the guard of the Ulan Regiment. Soon after the birth of his son, his father retired, and the family moved to Odessa. Nikolai's mother was responsible for the upbringing of the children. Her maiden name was Tsvetinovich and judging by the surname, she came from a noble family of Serbian descent.
Education
Nikolai Georgievich graduated from the Richelieu Grammar School (1863-1871). He studied at the Law Faculty of Saint Petersburg University (1871-1872), then entered the Institute of Railway Engineering (now St. Petersburg State Transport University). For some time he tried writing, but the story from his student life, submitted to the editor of one of the magazines, was rejected without any explanation. This failure discouraged him and for many years discouraged his desire for literary work.
By the graduation from the Institute of Railway Engineering (now St. Petersburg State Transport University) in 1878, Nikolai Georgievich was enlisted in the state of the Ministry of Railways and immediately seconded to the army in Bulgaria, after the cessation of hostilities he was transferred to Bessarabia for the reconstruction of the Bendero-Galatsky railway (1879).
In winter 1879-1880 served at the Ministry of Railways, then received an assignment for the construction of railway road from Batum to Samtredia; in the same year, he transferred to the Baku section of the Transcaucasian Road as the head of the distance. In February 1884 he resigned, moved with his family to Samara, and took up farming. Since 1886, GarinMinistry of Railways came back to the engineering service. He worked at the construction of the Ufa-Zlatoust railway.
Ministry of Railways started his literary work at the end of the 1880s. From early works, an autobiographical story Variant is known. At the same time, an essay Neskolko dnei v derevne was written. In the spring of 1891, he was appointed head of the survey party of the West Siberian Railway.
His publishing activity began in 1892. He bought the magazine Russkoe bogatstvo (Garin's wife was a publisher, actual editor - N.K. Mikhailovsky). In 1895 he had a conflict with the populist edition and left the magazine in 1899.
In the summer of 1892, Nikolai Georgievich was appointed to the position of the head of research on the Kazan-Malmyzhskaya railway. He appeared in the newspapers Novoe vremya, Volzhsky vestnik and also made reports about the need for a wide range of cheap roads in the country. Some engineers took his remarks sharply negatively, and the minister suggested that he immediately voluntarily resign. In 1892-1895 his essays and stories appeared in newspapers and magazines: Gimnazisty, Studenty, Ocherki i rasskazy.
In 1895-1897, after the change of ministers, Nikolai Georgievich returned again to engineering work on the construction of railway Krotovo - Sergievsk. During these years he took part in organizing the first in Russia Marxist newspaper Samarsky Vestnik, which actively opposed liberal populism, and he also published in it.
In 1898, Nikolai Georgievich went on a round-the-world voyage. At the suggestion of the Russian Geographical Society, he became a party leader in the scientific expedition of A. Zvegintsov to study the geography of North Korea. After walking more than 1,600 km, he outlined possible directions for future railroads, outlined the outputs of coal, gold-bearing places.
In 1900-1902, when Nikolai Georgievich came back from his voyage, he started farming again, but a bad harvest in 1902 led to devastation. In April 1903 he was appointed Head of Railway Construction Surveys on the South Coast of Crimea. With the outbreak of the Russian-Japanese War, in April 1904, Nikolai Georgievich went to the Far East as a military engineer and proofreader of the Moscow newspaper Novosti dnya.
In autumn 1879 Nikolai Georgievich married Nadezhda Valerievna Charykova, a daughter of Minsk governor. They had six children. In 1895 Nikolai Georgievich met Vera Alexandrovna Sadovskaya which became his common-law wife; they had 4 children (what is more, there were adopted children in both families). With his first wife he managed to save good and warm relations, she stayed his friend, assistant, and adviser; in 1906 they again together.