As soon as Alexander Pushkin turned twelve years old, his father Sergey Lvovich decides to take him to St. Petersburg and send him to study at the Jesuit College. However, rumors that Tsar Alexander I plans to open the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, which will train officials of high rank and statesmen, seriously interested him. The children of the nobility were provided with the patronage of the tsar, free education and a brilliant career in state, diplomatic and military positions. The Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum accepted only thirty pupils, and there were many noblemen. And yet, in July Pushkin successfully passes the exams and becomes a lyceum student.
Grand opening of the Lyceum
A four-story beautiful building, connected by an arch with the Catherine Palace, so that the tsar personally oversaw the education of students - this was seen by the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum Pushkin. Here, in modesty Room number 14, on the 4th floor, he will spend his happy lyceum years, will find true friends whose names will go down in the history of Russian culture.
October 19, 1811, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was solemnly opened. 10-14-year-old boys were dressed in new, ceremonial blue uniforms with a red collar and silver trim, white trousers and black high boots, opposite were their teachers, lyceum professors and invited officials. With fascination and with aspiration they listened to the decree of the tsar about the opening of the Lyceum.
The school that brought up Pushkin and Delvig, Pushchina and Kuchelbecker
The course lasted six years, the first three years - Initial separation, the second three - the final. Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was considered a closed institution, and the whole life of its pupils proceeded strictly according to the regulations. The boys had no right to leave his territory throughout the school year and even during the holidays. At the same time, unlike other educational institutions, the lyceum rules were very democratic. For example, the Lyceum Charter forbade the application of various corporal punishment to pupils , which was absolutely new in those years when all schoolchildren in other institutions mercilessly whipped with rods. The training program included A set of sciences: verbal, moral, physico-mathematical, historical and fine arts. Students were taught the law of God, ethics, horse riding, dancing, fencing, swimming, drawing and calligraphy. Lyceum students were to become highly educated people, prepared for the service of the Fatherland. The graduates of the Lyceum received higher education and throughout their studies the professors treated them as adults, giving them freedom of choice and complete independence, to attend lectures and to skip them they could at their discretion. Pushkin adored Russian and French literature, history and with zeal engaged only in those disciplines that were to his liking. Of the 29 graduates, the twenty-sixth on the list of academic achievements was Pushkin. Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum forever remembered how passionately and selflessly he read "Memories of the Tsar's Village" in a public examination before the already elderly Derzhavin.
The information has been preserved that the lyceum students have introduced their tradition to smash the lyceum bell right after the final exams, so that everyone can take a piece of memory, because for 6 years it was he who gathered them together for classes. The then director of the Lyceum - Yegor Antonovich Engelhardt - made to order from the fragments of the bell for his first issue of cast-iron rings in the form of hands bound in a handshake.