Diary of Kolya Sinitsyn

The story continues a series of tales filled with good humor about two friends: elementary school students Misha and Kolya, which began after the Great Patriotic War . This is the second story from this series, the first was published a year earlier, the story " Happy Family ". As in the first story, and unlike earlier stories, the purely children's entertainments of Misha and Kolya are replaced by more serious activities that prepare children for future work, which reflects the general trends of that time. If in the first story the children gathered an incubator and raised chickens , here the heroes look after the bees in the apiary ^[1] .

The diary of Kolya Sinitsyn not only contains factual material - the basics of beekeeping , filed in an accessible form for children, but also emphasizes the joy of creation and the acquisition of knowledge that accompanies this creation. Watching the bees, Kolya Sinitsyn draws her own conclusions, often absurd and funny, after which adults delicately and without pressure correct him. Professor of Helsinki University Ben Hellman draws attention to the first three diary entries in which the boy describes the absence of events, and characterizes them as a wonderful story about the preparatory phase of the creative process ^[1] .

• Kolya Sinitsyn - the main character of the story, a pioneer, a member of the circle of young people
  Mom Kolya Sinitsyna
  Dad Kolya Sinitsyna
  Pavlik Grachev is a friend of Kolya. I went with him and Sergei to the village of Shishigino to trap bees
  Seryozha is Kolya’s friend
  Yura Kuskov - the link of the pioneer link, which included Kolya Sinitsyn
  Tolya Pesotsky is one of the members of the circle of young people. They made a hive in his barn
  Grisha Yakushkin - one of the members of the circle of young people. He offered to make a hive and breed bees there
  Fedya Ovsyannikov - one of the members of the circle of young people, who suggested collecting postage stamps as summer work. Philatelist
  Zhenya Shemyakin, Vitya Almazov - members of the circle of young people
  Uncle Alyosha is a relative of Kolya. Kolya suggested to trap the bees
  Aunt Polya is a resident of the village of Shishigino, where Kolya, Pavlik and Seryozha should have lived
  Galya - pioneer leader of the school in which Kolya studied
  Nina Sergeevna - biology teacher, head of the group of young people
  The beekeeper is a good grandfather who gave a swarm of his bees to Kolya, Seryozha and Pavlik

The main character of the story is schoolboy Kolya Sinitsyn. It is known that he is a pioneer and an excellent student (in the first record he reports that he “moved to the next class with just fives”), a member of the circle of young naturalists . The story is his diary. The first diary entry is dated May 28, the last - July 29 (that is, Kolya kept a diary for a little over two months).

During the summer holidays, Kolya Sinitsyn started a diary in which he was going to record “various interesting cases” from his life, as well as write down his thoughts ( “I’ll think about different things, and as soon as a good thought comes to my mind, I’ll write it down too” ) . A few days later at the gathering of the pioneer link, which took place after the youth group took classes, Grisha Yakushkin suggested the link “summer work” - to make a beehive and raise bees. The book goes on to describe the various adventures involved. The guys managed to get the bees, they were written about in the newspaper, and the link began to receive letters from other pioneers and schoolchildren, who also decided to breed the bees.

At the end of the book, students decide that they will raise bees when they become adults, even if their future profession will not be connected with beekeeping. Kolya himself planned to breed bees in the Arctic , where he was going to work in the future.