Kolia Frolenko

Kolia Frolenko is the Biriuchi station telegrapher whose decision to withhold information helps set the station disorder on a fatal course. A familiar figure in Meliuzeievo and a trusted operator of its communications and signaling systems, he stands at the junction of ordinary railway work and a political crisis: his attempted delay of the Cossacks cannot undo the consequences of his earlier silence.

Identity and Work

The son of a well-known clockmaker in Meliuzeievo, Kolia had been known there since childhood. As a boy, he stayed with servants at Razdolnoie and played with the Countess’s daughters, an upbringing through which he learned to understand French. Mademoiselle Fleury knew him well.

As an adult, he was a conspicuous presence on the roads around Meliuzeievo, riding a bicycle without a coat or hat and wearing canvas summer shoes in all weather. With his arms crossed over his chest, he free-wheeled while glancing up at the telegraph poles and wires, checking the state of the network. The detail captures a man accustomed to reading the infrastructure around him even as he moved through it.

His responsibilities at Biriuchi station extended beyond telegraphy. Some Meliuzeievo houses had telephone connections to the station exchange, where Kolia handled calls. He also operated the railway signals when the stationmaster, Povarikhin, was briefly absent. Telephone, telegraph, and signaling equipment shared the control room, leaving him to manage several mechanisms at once.

The Station Crisis

Kolia had developed an abrupt, obscure style of speech that let him avoid answering questions or being drawn into conversation. He was said to have abused this advantage during the disorders. His most consequential act was not an open declaration but the suppression of information: by withholding it, he frustrated Galiullin’s good intentions and, perhaps unwittingly, helped give events their fatal turn.

Galiullin called from town seeking Commissar Gints, who was at or near the station. He wanted to tell Gints that he was coming to join him and ask him to wait and take no action until he arrived. Kolia, claiming that he was occupied with signaling an approaching train, refused to call the commissar. At the same time, he did what he could to delay the train carrying the Cossacks summoned to Biriuchi. The troops arrived regardless, and Kolia did not hide his dismay.

Gints and the Failed Rescue

When Gints moved toward the station, his pride kept him from slipping away secretly; he turned openly in that direction, agitated but forcing himself to walk calmly. Soldiers with rifles followed him. As the distance between them held steady, Gints ran behind a line of derelict railway coaches, crossed the cleared tracks, and leapt onto the steep platform. The train that had brought the Cossacks had been shunted aside.

At that moment, the pursuers emerged from behind the old coaches. Povarikhin and Kolia shouted and waved for Gints to enter the station building, where they believed they could save him. Their intervention shows that Kolia’s earlier obstruction of the warning did not mean he wished Gints harm: once the danger became immediate, he joined the stationmaster in trying to shelter him. Gints nevertheless did not take the offered refuge. His inherited, city-bred sense of honor, the narrative observes, led him toward self-sacrifice and stood between him and safety; he instead prepared to appeal to the soldiers, believing that a heartfelt speech could bring them to their senses.

Narrative Role

Kolia’s part in the crisis is defined by a sharp reversal between concealment and warning. Earlier, his evasive use of the control room’s competing duties prevented Galiullin’s message from reaching Gints, even as he tried to slow the approaching Cossacks. Later, when Gints was pursued across the tracks, Kolia openly called him toward safety. These actions do not erase one another: together they make Kolia a figure caught between professional control of communications and the human consequences of choosing when to speak.

The station’s machinery gives this conflict its concrete form. Calls, telegraph messages, and signals all passed through Kolia’s crowded workplace, where a claim of being busy with one task could silence information about another. In the crisis, that small control over communication mattered; the station became both the place where a warning was withheld and the last place where Gints was urged to seek protection.