Our contemporaries learned well from their school days that Benckendorff was an “evil stepmother” and a negligent nanny for Pushkin. Let us ask ourselves: who was Pushkin for Benckendorff? Crossing Benckendorff's biography with Pushkin's biography is a convenient opportunity to tell more about the chief of gendarmes than is customary. And not only about him. A whole world grows behind Alexander Khristoforovich’s shoulders, events and people appear who do not seem to play a special role in the poet’s life or are considered “enemies”. It is useful for the reader to know that the circle around the poet was far from the only one and not even the central one in the Russian universe of that time. It is also useful to see a person from a different - service - world, who at that moment dominated in Russia. And hear his truth. Sign of information products 12+