Life in the taiga. A village abandoned in Siberia is being revived by Old Believers

Photographer and traveler Oleg Smoliy searches for and photographs everything good and beautiful that our country is rich in. He combined these shots into the “Unforgotten Russia” project, part of which were the photographs of Old Believer Siberian villages published below. And they are accompanied by the author’s heartfelt story about the people living there.

Having passed remote villages on the banks of the Small Yenisei - Erzhey, Upper Shivey, Choduraalyg and Ok-Chara - I met five large families of Old Believers. Always persecuted, the owners of the taiga do not immediately make contact with strangers, especially with a photographer. However, two weeks of living next to them, helping them with their daily hard work - harvesting hay, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, preparing firewood and brushwood, collecting moss and building a house - step by step helped to overcome the veil of mistrust. And strong and independent, good-natured and hardworking people emerged, whose happiness lies in the love of God, their children and nature.

The liturgical reform undertaken by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in the 17th century led to a large-scale schism in the Russian Church. The brutal persecution of the tsarist and religious authorities, who wanted to bring the people to unanimity and submission, forced millions of Russian people to leave their homes. The Old Believers who kept their faith fled to the White Sea, to the Olonets region and Nizhny Novgorod forests. Time passed, the hands of power reached the Old Believers in new places, and the seekers of independence went even further, into the remote taiga of Siberia. In the 19th century, Russian people came to the inaccessible region of the Small Yenisei, the Kaa-Khemsky kozhuun of Tuva. New settlements were founded on lands suitable for farming in the river valley, higher and higher upstream. Here, in the upper reaches of the Small Yenisei, the life and traditions of Russian Old Believers have been preserved in their original form.

We gathered on the road with a small team of photographing travelers, five of us. Quite far from Moscow. By plane to Abakan, then ten hours by car through Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tyva, to Saryg-Sep, the regional center, there we change to a UAZ “loaf” and for another couple of hours we travel along forest roads to a point on the bank of the Small Yenisei. We cross to the other side of the river, to the Erzhey camp site, by boat. The owner of the base, Nikolai Siorpas, brought us in his UAZ. He will be lucky further, into the depths of the taiga, but you need to wait a day or two until the road at the pass, washed out by long rains, dries out.

Erzhey, next to which the base is located, is a large village with a population of up to one and a half thousand inhabitants, with electricity and a boarding school, where Old Believers from villages higher up the Kaa-Khem, as the Small Yenisei is called in Tuvan, bring their children. In the old faith, not everyone here is a villager. Some of the locals are close to her, but they are not part of the community; there is not enough strictness. There are also representatives of the new Orthodox faith. There are even complete non-believers.

It was not far to go see the village and buy food, less than a kilometer from the base. Siorpas, seeing him off, joked: “You can tell the Old Believers: men with beards, around the yard there are a dozen or so little kids, women in scarves and skirts down to their toes, in a year or two with a belly.”

Here is the first acquaintance: Maria, a young woman with a stroller. They said hello and asked where to buy bread and cottage cheese. She was wary of strangers at first, but did not refuse help, and even surprised them with her responsiveness. She took her all over Erzhey, showing who had the best milk and where the salted milk mushrooms were good.

Here, in villages remote from civilization, the harsh taiga nature has imposed its own characteristics on the way of farming. Summer in these places is short, and winter comes with severe frosts. Arable land is conquered with great difficulty from the forest, in the valleys along the banks of the river. Locals grow bread and plant vegetable gardens. Due to frost, perennial crops do not take root, but annuals, even small watermelons, grow. Taiga is feeding. Only ungulates are killed; the meat is eaten wild. They collect pine nuts, mushrooms, and berries for jam. The river gives fish. There are a lot of grayling here, and taimen are often released - they have become scarce in recent years.

Old Believers do not get drunk, they do not drink “kazenka” at all, and on holidays they drink a glass or two of weak homemade wine made with taiga berries, blueberries or boneberries.

After resting at the Siorpas base for a couple of days, we waited for dry weather and moved to the first settlement of the Old Believers - Upper Shivei, forty kilometers from Erzhey, with a difficult pass over the hills.

All the way to Shivey, Nikolai Siorpas, under the strained hum of the engine, convinced us to be super respectful and behave more than modestly, not to push people with our huge photo guns. He himself is not an Old Believer, but Nikolai developed good relations with the taiga residents, for which he reasonably feared. It seems that during these two days at the base he was not only waiting for the weather, but also taking a closer look at us and thinking whether it was possible to take us further.

We met the hard-working people of Upper Shivei long before the village, in a mowing meadow. They asked to help, throw cut hay into the tall haystacks.

We rolled up our sleeves, tried our best and still fell behind. The science of lifting large armfuls with long three-pronged wooden forks was not easy. While working together we got to know each other and struck up conversations.

Mown and dried grass is collected into buds - this is what the whole of Siberia calls haystacks. Laying them is a responsible matter: the hay must lie evenly and tightly so that it does not get scattered by the wind or become soured by the rain. Upper Shivei

Peter and Ekaterina Sasin arrived at the Upper Shivey estate, then empty, about fifteen years ago. The farm was raised from scratch, and at first they lived and wintered in a shed. Year after year they built, strengthened, and raised three daughters. Then other relatives came to settle, and now several families live here. The daughters grew up, moved to the city, and now their restless grandchildren - two girls and two boys - come to Peter and Ekaterina for the summer.

The Sasins’ grandchildren are completely worldly; they come for the whole summer. For them, Pyotr Grigorievich keeps solar panels with a battery and a converter, from which he turns on a small TV and a disc player - to watch cartoons. Upper Shivei

The children who brought fresh milk and sour cream woke up our tent city with a cheerful noise. The second day, throwing hay on the crops is more difficult - all the muscles of the townspeople ache because they are not used to it. But the hosts’ faces are also warmer, with smiles, laughter and approval. “Tomorrow is the Transfiguration, come! Try homemade wine,” the villagers call.

The house is simple, no frills, but clean and well built. The spacious vestibule dividing the house in half, the rooms with whitewashed walls, large stoves in the middle, and iron spring beds reminded me of a Carpathian village, which has also largely preserved its way of life. “One at a time!” - says Pyotr Grigorievich, and we try the delicious drink. Blueberry juice is infused for a year without sugar and yeast, and the result is a wine with a barely noticeable degree. It's easy to drink and doesn't get you drunk, but it lifts your mood and enhances talkativeness. Joke after joke, story after story, song after song - we had a good time. “Would you like to see my horses?” - Peter calls.

The stable is located on the outskirts, there are two dozen horses, there are even pacers. And everyone's favorite. Petr Grigorievich can talk about each foal for hours.

We parted with the Sasins like old friends. And again we hit the road, by boat up the Small Yenisei.

It’s a half-hour motorboat ride up the river to the next stop. We found Choduraalyg on a fairly high bank with a spacious, cornice-like valley, the outermost houses standing directly above the river. The opposite shore is an almost vertical mountain covered with taiga.

The place here is convenient for farming, growing bread, and raising livestock. There are fields for arable land. River, nurse and transport artery. In winter, you can get to Kyzyl on ice. And the taiga - here it is, begins with hills on the edge of the village.

We sailed, threw our backpacks ashore and went to look for a convenient place to pitch our tents so as not to disturb anyone and at the same time have a good view of everything around. We met Grandfather Eliferiy, who treated him to freshly baked delicious bread and advised him to go to Baba Marfa: “Marfutka will accept and help.”

Marfa Sergeevna, thin, small and agile, about seventy years old, gave us a place for tents next to her small house with a beautiful view of both the river and the village. Allowed to use the stove and kitchen utensils. For Old Believers, this is a difficult question - sin comes from dishes that were taken by worldly people. Marfa Sergeevna took care of us all the time. We also helped her - picking berries, carrying brushwood, chopping wood.

Her youngest son, Dmitry, was in the taiga on business. The eldest daughter, Ekaterina, got married and lives in Germany, sometimes her mother comes to visit.

I had a satellite phone, and I suggested that Marfa Sergeevna call her daughter. “This is all demonic,” Grandma Martha refused. A couple of days later Dmitry returned, and we dialed his sister’s number, turning up the volume. Hearing her daughter’s voice, forgetting about the demons and throwing away her bow, Marfa Sergeevna ran across the clearing to Dima and me. It’s a pity, then she didn’t allow herself to be photographed yet, otherwise it would have turned out to be an interesting photo: a cute little village grandmother in ancient clothes stands against the backdrop of the taiga, beaming with a smile, and talking to her daughter in distant Germany on a satellite phone.

Next door to Marfa Sergeevna, further from the coast, lives the large family of Panfil Petenev. The eldest of twelve offspring, Grigory, 23 years old, called us to the place of children's games - a clearing in the forest outside the village. On Sundays, children from all nearby villages, dressed up, come running and coming on horses, bicycles and motorcycles to socialize and play together. The guys weren’t shy for long, and ten minutes later we were playing ball with them, answering a sea of ​​curious questions and listening to stories about life in the villages, pampering bears these days, and a strict grandfather who drives all the children away for being naughty. They made us laugh with stories, were interested in technology, and even tried to take pictures with our cameras, posing tensely for each other. And we ourselves listened with pleasure to Russian speech as clear as a stream and enjoyed taking pictures of the bright Slavic faces.

For children of Old Believers, a horse is not a problem. By helping with housework, they early learn to communicate with pets.

It turns out that Choduraalyg, where we stayed, is called Big, and not far away, the road runs right past the playing field, there is also Small Choduraalyg. The children volunteered to show this second one, out of several courtyards deep in the forest. They drove us joyfully, on two motorcycles, along paths and paths, through puddles and bridges. The escort was dashingly accompanied by teenage girls on fine horses.

For a teenager in an Old Believers village, a motorcycle is a source of pride, passion and necessity. As befits boys, with the dexterity of circus performers, they demonstrated to the visiting photographer all the skill of controlling a two-wheeled motor miracle. Choduraalyg

In order to get to know each other better, start communicating and achieve the necessary level of trust that would allow us to photograph people, we boldly became involved in the daily work of Old Believer families. They have no time to chat idly on a weekday, but in business, talking makes work more fun. Therefore, we simply came to the Petenevs in the morning and offered Panfil help. Son Grigory decided to get married, he is building a house, so he found a job - caulk the ceiling. Nothing complicated, but painstaking. First, go to the other side of the river, along the mountains between the thickets, collect moss, put it in bags and throw it down the steep slope. Then we take them by boat to the construction site. Now go upstairs, and here you also need to bring the clay in buckets and drive the moss into the cracks between the logs, covering it with clay on top. We work briskly, the team is large: five eldest children of the Petenevs and three of us travelers. And younger kids are around, watching and trying to help and participate. We communicate at work, we recognize them, they recognize us. Children are curious, they are interested in everything: how they grow potatoes in big cities, where we get milk at home, whether all the children study in boarding schools, how far away we live. Question after question, some are difficult to answer, and this is understandable: our worlds are so different. After all, for children Saryg-Sep, the regional center, is another planet. And for us, city dwellers, the taiga is an unknown land with its subtleties of nature hidden from the unknowing eye.

We met Pavel Bzhitskikh, who invited us to visit, in Maly Choduraalyg, where we went with the children on Sunday. The path to it on Ok-Chary is not short - nine kilometers along the rocky, forested bank of the Small Yenisei. The estate of two courtyards impresses with its strength and thriftiness. The high rise from the river did not create any difficulties with water - here and there many springs gush out right in the courtyards, and clear water is supplied to the vegetable gardens through wooden gutters. It's cold and delicious.

The inside of the house surprised me: two rooms, a prayer room and a kitchenette retained the appearance and decoration of the monastic community that was once here. Whitewashed walls, wicker rugs, linen curtains, homemade furniture, pottery - all the nuns' household was natural, they did not communicate with the world and did not take anything from outside. Pavel collected and saved household items from the community and now shows them to guests. Extreme tourists raft along Kaa-Khem, sometimes they stop by here, Pavel even built a separate house and bathhouse so that people could stay with him and relax along the route.

He told us about the life and rules of the Old Believers monks. About prohibitions and sins. About envy and anger. The latter is an insidious sin, anger multiplies and accumulates in the sinner’s soul, and it is difficult to fight it, because even slight annoyance is also anger. Envy is not a simple sin; envy breeds pride, anger, and deception. Paul talked about the importance of praying and repenting. And take on fasting, whether calendar or secret, so that nothing prevents the soul from praying and realizing its sin more deeply.

Not only severity reigns in the souls of Old Believers. Paul also spoke about forgiveness, about peacefulness towards other religions, about freedom of choice for his children and grandchildren: “When they grow up, they will go to study, whoever wants to. They will go out into the world. God willing, our ancient Orthodox faith will not be forgotten. Someone will come back, with age they think more often about the soul.”

From ordinary community members, not monks, the outside world is not prohibited; they take the Old Believers and the achievements of civilization, which help in work. They use motors and guns. I saw they had a tractor, even solar panels. To buy, they earn money by selling the products of their labor to the laity.

Paul read to us selected chapters of John Chrysostom, translating from Old Church Slavonic. He chose them so well that you listen with bated breath. I remembered the seal of the Antichrist. Pavel explained in his own way that, for example, all official documents registering a person are his seal. This is how the Antichrist wants to take control of us all: “In America, they are already going to sew some kind of electrical chips under the skin of every person so that he cannot hide from the Antichrist anywhere.”

From the “museum” he took us to the summer kitchen, treated us to honey mushrooms, smoked taimen, fresh bread and a special homemade wine made with birch sap instead of water. When we left, we bought a young turkey from Pavel and plucked it until late at night, laughing at our ineptitude.

We met the Popov children from Maly Choduraalyg on the day of their arrival at the playground. Curiosity led them to the tents every morning. They chirped happily and asked questions non-stop. Communication with these smiling children gave a charge of warmth and joy for the whole day. And one morning the children came running and invited us to visit on behalf of their parents.

On the way to the Popovs, there is fun - the younger three have found the blackest puddle with liquid mud, they are enthusiastically jumping in it and looking for something. Laughing mother Anna greets us: “Have you seen such grimy ones? It’s okay, I’ve heated up the water, we’ll wash it off!”

The Popovs not only love their children, now seven, they understand them. The house is bright with smiles, and Afanasy began to build a new one - more space for the children. They teach the children themselves, they don’t want to send them to a distant boarding school where there will be no parental warmth.

Over the course of the meal, we quickly began talking, as if some invisible wave began to play in harmony and gave birth to lightness and trust between us.

The Popovs work a lot, the older children help. The economy is strong. They themselves carry food to sell in the region. We used the money we earned to buy a tractor and a Japanese outboard motor. A good engine is important here: on the Small Yenisei there are dangerous rapids, and if an unreliable old one were to stall, you could die. And the river feeds and waters, it is also a means of communication with other villages. In the summer they go by boat, and in the winter they drive tractors and UAZs on the ice.

Here, in a distant village, people are not alone - they communicate and correspond with Old Believers from all over Russia, and receive a newspaper of the old faith from Nizhny Novgorod.

But they try to minimize communication with the state; they refused pensions, benefits and benefits. But contact with the authorities cannot be completely avoided - you need a license for a boat and a tractor, all sorts of technical inspections, permits for guns. At least once a year, you have to go get the papers.

The Popovs treat everything responsibly. Afanasy had an incident in his youth. He served in the army in the early 1980s in Afghanistan as an armored personnel carrier driver. Suddenly, disaster struck: the brakes of a heavy vehicle failed, and an officer died. At first the situation was determined to be an accident, but then high officials exaggerated it and the guy was given three years in a general regime colony. The commanders, regimental and battalion, trusted Afanasy and sent him to Tashkent without an escort. Imagine: a young guy comes to the prison gate, knocks and asks to be allowed to serve his sentence. Later, the same commanders achieved his transfer to a colony in Tuva, closer to home.

We talked with Anna and Afanasy. About life here and in the world. About the connection between Old Believer communities in Russia. About relations with the world and the state. About the future of children. They left late, with a good light in their souls.

The next morning we headed home - the short trip was ending. We warmly said goodbye to Marfa Sergeevna: “Come, next time I’ll settle in the house, I’ll make room, because we’ve become like family.”

For many hours on the way home, in boats, cars, and planes, I thought, trying to comprehend what I saw and heard: what did not coincide with initial expectations? Once in the 1980s, I read in Komsomolskaya Pravda fascinating essays by Vasily Peskov from the series “Taiga Dead End” about an amazing family of Old Believers who left people deep in the Siberian taiga. The articles were good, as were other stories by Vasily Mikhailovich. But the impression of the taiga hermits remains as of people who are poorly educated and wild, who shun modern man and are afraid of any manifestations of civilization.

The novel “Hop” by Alexei Cherkasov, read recently, increased fears that it would be difficult to meet people and communicate, and that taking photographs would be completely impossible. But hope lived in me, and I decided to go on a trip.

That’s why it was so unexpected to see simple people with inner dignity. Carefully preserving their traditions and history, living in harmony with themselves and nature. Hardworking and rational. Peace-loving and independent. They gave me warmth and joy of communication.

I accepted something from them, learned something, thought about something.

The current Orthodox young generation, perhaps, perceives the concept of Old Believers, Old Believers with surprise, and even more so does not delve into what the difference is between Old Believers and Orthodox believers.

Fans of a healthy lifestyle study the life of modern hermits, using the example of the Lykov family, who lived 50 years away from civilization until geologists discovered them in the late 70s of the last century. Why did Orthodoxy not please the Old Believers?

Old Believers - who are they?

Let us immediately make a reservation that the Old Believers are people who adhere to the Christian faith of pre-Nikon times, and the Old Believers worship pagan gods that existed in the folk religion before the advent of Christianity. The canons of the Orthodox Church changed somewhat as civilization developed. The 17th century caused a split in Orthodoxy after the introduction of innovations by Patriarch Nikon.

According to the decree of the Church, rituals and traditions changed, all those who disagreed were anathematized, and persecution of fans of the old faith began. Adherents of the Donikon traditions began to be called Old Believers, but there was no unity among them either.

Old Believers are adherents of the Orthodox movement in Russia

Persecuted by the official church, believers began to settle in Siberia, the Volga region and even on the territory of other states, such as Turkey, Poland, Romania, China, Bolivia and Australia.

The current life of the Old Believers and their traditions

The discovery of a settlement of Old Believers in 1978 excited the entire space of the then existing Soviet Union. Millions of people literally “stuck” to their televisions to see the way of life of the hermits, which has practically not changed since the times of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

Currently, there are several hundred settlements of Old Believers in Russia. Old Believers themselves teach their children; old people and parents are especially revered. The entire settlement works hard, all vegetables and fruits are grown by the family for food, responsibilities are distributed very strictly.

A random visiting guest will be received with goodwill, but he will eat and drink from separate dishes, so as not to desecrate the members of the community. Cleaning the house, doing laundry and washing dishes is carried out only with well or spring running water.

Sacrament of Baptism

Old Believers try to carry out the rite of baptism of infants during the first 10 days; before this, they very carefully choose the name of the newborn, it must be in the calendar. All items for baptism are cleaned in running water for several days before the sacrament. Parents are not present at the christening.

By the way, the bathhouse of hermits is an unclean place, so the cross received at baptism is removed and put on only after washing with clean water.

Wedding and funeral

The Old Believer Church prohibits young people from marrying who are related to the eighth generation or are related by a “cross.” Weddings take place on any day except Tuesday and Thursday.

Wedding at the Old Believers

Married women do not leave the house without a hat.

Funerals are not a special event; Old Believers do not mourn. The body of the deceased is washed by people of the same sex, specially selected in the community. Wood shavings are poured into the knocked together coffin, the body is placed on it and covered with a sheet. The coffin has no lid. After the funeral there is no wake; all the belongings of the deceased are distributed in the village as alms.

Old Believer cross and sign of the cross

Church rituals and services take place around the eight-pointed cross.

On a note! Unlike Orthodox traditions, there is no image of the crucified Jesus.

In addition to the large crossbar to which the Savior’s hands were nailed, there are two more. The top crossbar symbolizes a tablet; the sin for which the condemned person was crucified was usually written on it. The lower small board is a symbol of scales for weighing human sins.

Old Believers use an eight-pointed cross

Important! The current Orthodox Church recognizes the right to exist of Old Believer churches, as well as crosses without the Crucifixion, as signs of Christianity.

Orthodox believers make the sign of the cross with three fingers, which signify the unity of the Holy Trinity. It was this tradition that formed the basis of the conflict between the Old Believers and the new Nikon movement; the Old Believer Christians refused to overshadow themselves, in their words, with a fig. Old Believers still cross themselves with two fingers, index and middle, while saying “Hallelujah” twice.

Hermits treat worship with special reverence. Men must wear clean shirts, and women must wear sundresses and scarves. During the service, everyone present in the temple stands with their arms crossed over their chests, demonstrating humility and submission.

The Old Believer churches do not recognize the modern Bible, but only the pre-Nikon Scripture, which is carefully studied by all members of the settlement.

Main differences from Orthodoxy

In addition to non-recognition of the traditions and rituals of the modern Orthodox Church and the above differences, Old Believers:

• make only prostrations;
• they do not recognize rosaries made of 33 beads, using ladders with 109 knots;
• baptism is performed by immersing the head in water three times, while sprinkling is accepted in Orthodoxy;
• the name Jesus is written Isus;
• Only icons made of wood and copper are recognized.

Many Old Believers currently accept the traditions of the Old Believer Orthodox churches, which has been encouraged in the official Church.

Who are the Old Believers?

Well, many Krasnoyarsk residents were waiting for the performance of the choir of Old Believer parishes of Siberia under the direction of Alexander Nikolaevich Emelyanov.

This performance took place in the building of the Krasnoyarsk Organ Hall on October 2. And before that, many who wished were able to attend even a prayer service at the site of the construction of the Old Believer church in the name of the Vladimir Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is now under construction, and, with God’s help, in a year Christians of Krasnoyarsk can begin to pray here.

Krasnoyarsk residents have long loved these Days of Russian Spiritual Culture. After all, here you can not only enjoy ancient Russian spiritual singing, but also join in yourself by attending a workshop of znamenny (hook) singing, conducted by specialist kliroshans of the Old Believer communities of the Altai Territory, Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo regions.

This year, the events were attended by as many as two Siberian Old Believer bishops - Bishop of Novosibirsk and All Siberia Siluyan (Kilin), long familiar to Krasnoyarsk residents, and Bishop of the Tomsk Old Believer diocese recreated two years ago Grigory (Korobeinikov).

Well, on October 4, a concert of Russian spiritual chants took place in the village of Karatuzskoye, in the south of the region.

This area, like other southern territories of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, is notable for the fact that ancient Orthodox Christians, persecuted throughout Russia, settled in the foothills of the Sayan Mountains from ancient times.

The village of Karatuzskoye itself arose first as a Cossack border outpost of Shadatsky, protecting the Russian lands of Siberia from aggressive nomadic neighbors from the south - “Chinese Mungals and Soyuts” (Mongols and Soyots, as the Tuvans were called in the old days) - who traditionally traded in robbery and cattle rustling.

Memorial stone to the Cossacks of the Shadat outpost
© Pavel Glazunov/Reedus

From the Shadat guard grew the Cossack village of Karatuzskaya, which stood on fertile lands rich in black soil.

Very soon, both Karatuz and the surrounding lands were populated by peasants, a significant part of whom were Old Orthodox Christians fleeing persecution, refusing to accept the new things and betray the faith of Christ. And no matter how the dominant church fought against the “schismatics,” it had no chance.

Now Karatuzskoye is a regional center. Alas, in the ancient village, whose history goes back at least 250 years, there are practically no historical buildings left.

Only perhaps the Petro-Paul Church, founded in the middle of the 19th century... Karatuz is a fairly modern and not at all depressive village. There is even a Kolos stadium, preserved from Soviet times, with a field for football, mini-football, a hockey rink, and a running track.

And here, as always and in everything over the last twenty years, as elsewhere in our country, there is nowhere without a national leader.

The host party put together a cultural and educational program for the guests so as to introduce them to the history and sights of the area in a few hours, without tiring them before the upcoming evening performance.

The first point of the excursion around the area was the spring, which is famous among the local population as healing and covered with various legends, located in the taiga near the village of Verkhniy Kuzhebar.

The administration provided a yellow school bus and a UAZ “tablet” for the trip.

However, we had to walk about a kilometer and a half to the source itself, because the school cart could not pass along the road washed out by the rain.

This spring, located a few kilometers from Upper Kuzhebar, is popularly known as not only healing, but also “holy.”

There are many legends around it associated with the Tikhvin Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to one of the legends told by Vladislav (a district administration employee responsible for working with youth - he accompanied us to the source), the spring was discovered by a prospector who was going home to Upper Kuzhebar. He saw the icon, picked it up, and a spring began to flow from under it.

The prospector drank water, and the fatigue lifted from him. He took the icon and, bringing it home, hid it in a chest. Once he told his friends about the find and took them to show the image.

But there was no icon in the chest. Then the prospector, ridiculed by his friends, returned to the very place where the disappeared image of the Virgin Mary ended up. Since that time, the spring has been revered as a saint.

Another legend was told by the history teacher of the Upper Kuzhebar school, and also by the local poet Alexei Morshnev.

In general, Alexey Mikhailovich Morshnev is a true patriot of his small homeland. He doesn’t just love - he adores the history of his village and seems to know everything about it. At least that's all that could be known.

“The Karatuz land is literally soaked in blood,” Alexey Mikhailovich told us. - Especially a lot of it was shed when gold was found on Amyla. Who hasn't rushed into our taiga? Passionaires stopped at nothing in pursuit of wealth. Here, upstream, for example, there is a place called Robbery. Either because the boats are fighting there, or because there was a lot of robbery there.”

Morshnev’s story about the appearance of the source is connected with one of these cases.

A certain local resident was sailing along the river in a boat, rafting from the upper reaches of the Amyl. A family called him from the shore and asked him to float them to Tuba. The man put them in a boat, but no one saw the family again. Then many prospectors disappeared in the taiga - some became the victim of an angry bear, and some fell at the hands of a dashing man who coveted the mined gold.

So this local resident, whose name history has not preserved, killed a man and a woman, drowning their bodies in Amyla. He took all the gold washed up by his victims, but was never able to use it - his conscience tormented him. He confessed to the priest, who told him to give half of the loot to the needs of the church, and distribute the rest to the poor. The robber did so, and then went into the forest and in prayer mourned his crime in front of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God. And at the place of his prayer this very source began to flow.

One way or another, the sign at the source says that it was discovered in 1908 and since then has been revered by local residents. Now his fame goes far beyond the borders of the Karatuz region. Even foreigners come here to wash in the font built by enthusiasts and drink from the well they themselves have equipped. With what pride they told us that “even in Israel they know about our source!”

Well, after visiting the source, the guests were shown the local museum, equipped in the history room of the Verkhnekuzhebarsk secondary school named after Viktor Astafiev.

Alexander Mikhailovich admitted that he did not fully believe in the success of the idea of ​​​​creating a village museum at the school. But it was clear how much he loved his brainchild and his students.

Once in the vicinity of this village, it is simply criminal not to visit the school, not go up to the second floor, not go to the history room and not see the museum.

No, it is not at all remarkable for the uniqueness of the exhibits. And the atmosphere that the guest will touch.

“There’s a Russian spirit here, it smells like Russia!” - I just want to say after the poet, having talked with local history enthusiasts.

But our interest turned out to be not at all the formal attitude of the guest towards his hosts. We were all very interested in everything that Alexander Morshnev said or showed.

There were few Old Believers in Upper Kuzhebar; mostly Nikonians lived here. And how could Christians get along among the robbery and the great number of taverns open throughout the village?

It is known that Old Believers do not abuse alcohol, and robbery is completely alien to them. Therefore, as Upper Kuzhebar developed, turning it into a mining center for the entire region, the Old Orthodox Christians left the village, moving to other taiga villages, where there were no missionaries from the dominant church, no taverns, and dashing people bypassed the Kerzhak places completely. So there were no Christian rarities in the school museum. Alas.

Sincerely, thanking Alexander Mikhailovich from the bottom of my heart, the guests left Upper Kuzhebar. The next stop was the shore of Amyla.

The Amyl River, flowing peacefully from the Sayan Mountains, is the main waterway of the Karatuz region.

Rich in fish, with the purest water, it, connecting with the Kazyr running in the neighboring Kuraginsky district, forms the Tuba River - the largest tributary of the Yenisei after Abakan in its southern part. It's funny, but even at the beginning of October the water was such that some of the Old Believers guests could not stand it and threw themselves into the water.

Needless to say, the attendants were a little shocked? Amyl, of course, to Kazyr, which is famous for its icy and crystal clear water, but still the month of October. But what will Christians gain from such fun?

It is unlikely that this trip would have been so exciting if the deputy head of the Karatuz district, Andrei Alekseevich Savin, had not taken part in organizing it. Many thanks to him from all participants of this trip.

After lunch at the Bagheera cafe, the guests visited the regional museum of local lore, located in the former school building at the Church of Peter and Paul, the only church in the village, around which many scandals have raged over the past one and a half to two years. But it’s not worth talking about them here.

Frankly speaking, the local history museum made little impression on me personally. Yes, there are exhibits even from the legendary Burundat monastery. A wonderful girl, Nadya, gave a wonderful tour, talking about the area and its history in the way that only a person who loves this land can speak.

I won’t say, of course, that I was disappointed by the exhibits of this museum. Still, I was hoping to see more rarities related to Christians and the Civil War. In Southern Siberia, the fratricidal war lasted until 1924, when Ivan Solovyov was killed in Achinsk district.

At the same time, the last white partisans left the Minusinsk district for the Uryankhai region and further through Mongolia to Manchuria, whose detachments included both Yenisei Cossacks and peasants, Old Believers, Minusinsk townspeople, soldiers and officers of the Russian imperial army, former students and high school students. In general, these are Russian people who are sincere in their thoughts, who did not betray Russia and did not accept Soviet power.

And among those who remained was, in particular, my priestless great-grandfather Timofey Stepanovich, who never worked a single day for the Soviet regime, was not a member of any collective farms, did not pay a single penny of tax to the budget of the Soviet state, and with all reason considered the Soviet regime Antichrist. And, as far as I understand, he fought against it as best he could even after the end of the Civil War.

And at six o’clock the evening of spiritual chants began for several dozen Karatuz residents who came to the concert. This was the first such event in the area.

Here they are accustomed to performances by all kinds of Protestants, mostly charismatic Pentecostals, surprising the villagers with fits accompanied by “speaking in different languages.”

Therefore, the arrival of the Christian choir was treated with caution and distrust. This is how the organizers explained the small number of spectators. But the singers were ready for this. For them, it doesn’t matter much whether to speak in front of five dozen or three hundred listeners. The performers carried the Word of God.

When the spiritual verse “The Child” was sung, many in the audience began to cry. And indeed, it is difficult to contain emotions when hearing those words and that performance. The kliroshan gave their best, as always.

To this day, one can hear and read many words of slander against the Old Orthodox Christians. And in order for people to see for themselves the falsity of all kinds of slander from the dominant church, repeating the same lies from Dmitry Tuptalo’s “Wanted,” such meetings are needed. So that people can look Christians in the eyes, ask them questions, listen to spiritual singing.

And each performance is accompanied by short stories. Alexander Emelyanov, for example, always makes a short excursion into the history of Znamenny singing.

Often, viewers are shown short documentaries about the history of the Church of Christ in Rus', and not only about the period of its formation or about the persecution of Christians after the schism, but also about everyday life today. Sometimes the audience is especially lucky and, like this time, they can hear the word of our bishops.

Bishop of Novosibirsk and all Siberia Siluyan (Kilin). From the hosts of the evening, the audience learned that the bishop had been serving as a priest for more than 50 years, of which twenty-five had already been a bishop.

He is the first bishop of the Siberian diocese, newly restored in 1992. The Bishop talked with the residents of Karatuz about pressing spiritual issues, and as easily and naturally as he could.

And after him, Bishop Gregory, Bishop of Tomsk, spoke. The Tomsk diocese was re-established in 2015. It included the Tomsk and Kemerovo regions, the Republics of Khakassia and Tuva and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

When, preceding Bishop Gregory’s speech, Natalya Nikolaevna Vinnik announced that the bishop had ten children, unanimous applause rang out in the hall.

The Bishop said that our diocese is bringing to the Consecrated Council this year the issue of renaming the Tomsk diocese to the Tomsk-Yenisei diocese. He told about the life of our diocese. In particular, he told how, after one of these performances by the choir of Siberian parishes in Novokuznetsk, a man who built a beautiful wooden church, in which Father Igor Mylnikov serves, joined the Church of Christ out of lack of priesthood.

Natalya Vinnik, chairman of the Union for the Spiritual Revival of the Fatherland, without whom all these Days of Russian Spiritual Culture simply would not have happened, presented Alexander Nikolaevich Emelyanov, headman from Novosibirsk, with a letter of gratitude from the head of the public relations department of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory “for his great contribution to the preservation of ancient Russian musical culture , the traditional way of life of the Russian population of Siberia and many years of fruitful cooperation within the framework of the project Days of Russian Spiritual Culture in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.”

At the end of the evening, local residents approached the Christians, shared their impressions of what they heard and saw, and invited them to the next performances...

On the morning of October 5, on the way back, we couldn’t resist stopping at the art gallery in the village of Taskino. Once upon a time, having appeared around the middle of the 19th century, the village of Taskino was inhabited by Old Believers of three consents - Pomeranians (from whom part of the village is still called Pomortsy), Beglopopovtsy, who later became “Austrians”, and chapels. There were Pomeranians in the majority. They also had their own temple in Taskino.

Iraida Kirillovna Kosmynina met the travelers. An amazing person, through whose work a gallery lives, which simply cannot exist in a village with six hundred people!

The gallery features works by local artists, and it's amazing!

How, tell me, can a small village give the world as many talents as the village of Taskino? Four artists are of a fairly high level, and this is in a village of not even a thousand people.

Mostly the paintings in the Taskino gallery are portraits of residents of Taskino and surrounding villages - Tayatov, Kuryat and others.

But how these portraits are made! This gallery is another attraction that you cannot pass by when you find yourself in the Karatuzsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

“We have the best village in the world!” - says Iraida Kirillovna. She is a very interesting person. Her mother was a Pomeranian, her father was Belokrinitsky (“of the Austrian Church,” as they said here). She was neither an October student nor a pioneer, and was not a member of the Komsomol. “I found a way to talk myself out of joining the Komsomol,” says Iraida Kirillovna. - I have always been an active social activist, and they pestered me with this Komsomol. And I answered them that, they say, I still do not consider myself a worthy builder of communism. So in the end they left me behind.”

I am very glad to meet this bright and enthusiastic person. I will definitely come to Taskino, but for the purpose of a further trip to the Old Believer villages of the region - Tayaty, Kuryat and others.

What else has become clear... The Karatuzsky district in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory has always consistently been the first in labor productivity in agriculture.

Throughout the region - consistently fourth. An area inhabited by people such as Alexander Mikhailovich Morshnev, Iraida Kirillovna Kosmynina, farmer and head of the DRSU Nikolai Vasilyevich Dimitrov, like other Karatuz and Upper Kuzhebar residents we met on this short trip, Taskinians and Kuryats, who sincerely and with all their souls love their land, their villages, their small homeland, attached to them with all their hearts - such an area cannot become depressed, poor, or fall into ruin.

These people are the real patriots of the Russian land. This is exactly what patriotism is.

Unfortunately, all travels come to an end and the time comes to return home. But memories remain, captured not only in memory, but also in the photo archive. There are also new interesting people to meet and new stories to tell.

I want to share some memories with others. Perhaps someone will look at the photo, think, and not fly to Turkey, Egypt or Thailand, but will plan to fly to Southern Siberia, where there is a unique and new world for many.

The organizers of the Days of Russian Culture are both official authorities (the department of public relations of the regional governor, the Ministry of Culture and Education of the region, the main department of culture of the Krasnoyarsk administration, the administration of the Karatuz district), and the regional public organization "Union of Spiritual Revival of the Fatherland", as well as the Old Believer community of the city Krasnoyarsk.

In Buryatia, perhaps the most unusual Old Believers, the Semeiskie, have been living for the third century. A RIA Novosti correspondent visited their main village of Tarbagatai and found out how they managed to preserve their unique culture even during the years of especially cruel persecution by the Soviet regime.

Not just cedar

An elderly man, limping, slowly makes his way to a wooden house with painted shutters. Everyone in Tarbagatai knows Gennady Gudkov as Parfenych. “What have I been here? A teacher, a businessman, a tractor driver, and so on,” he says with a smile.

Parfenych picks up a chopping block - a wooden hammer with a long handle - and shows how to collect pine nuts: two people approach the tree and hit the cedar with all their strength with the chopping block. During his story, the pensioner holds the weighty structure with one hand.

“The hammer has already dried up - it hasn’t been used for a long time, so it’s light, 35 kilograms in total. And when the wood is wet, it’s somewhere around 80. Hell of a job - go and drag the mallet!” - he notes.

Resident of the Semey village of Old Believers Tarbagatai in Buryatia Gennady Gudkov

But it’s worth it: collecting pine nuts, which usually starts on August 20, is a profitable business. They buy them, says Gudkov, for exorbitant amounts of money. “There is little cedar in the vicinity of Tarbagatai, but in a good year you can collect a bag a day. In 15 days I earned enough money for a UAZ,” he recalls.

Today, collecting nuts and cultivating their plots are almost the only activities of Semey Old Believers. They settled in Transbaikalia more than 250 years ago. In 1762, Catherine II issued a decree according to which “all Russian schismatics living abroad” (primarily meaning Polish Old Believers) were ordered to move to the lands of Siberia and Kazakhstan. But they did not listen, and three years later they were resettled by force - to provide bread for the Cossacks guarding the eastern borders of the state. "Russian schismatics" were deported as whole families - 15-20 people each. Hence the name "semeyskie".

“The Old Believers actively developed the Trans-Baikal lands. The tea route from China went through us, and we traded flour. No one else sowed here - there might be a harvest one year, but not the next. There were few livestock, and even then mostly Buryats My ancestors said: “There is no better gift than onions and garlic for the Buryats in winter,” says Old Believer priest Sergius Paliy, rector of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Tarbagatai.

Priest Sergius Paliy in the Semey village of Tarbagatai in Buryatia

Buryatia has the most compact population of Old Believers in the world. But semeis from different villages do not always understand each other. The fact is that Old Believers were sent to Buryatia from completely different regions. “Here, in Tarbagatai, there are Moscow Old Believers, who first fled to Poland. And in the village of Kuitun, to the south, there are Arkhangelsk Old Believers - they have their own dialect,” explains the priest.

"Tiny Life"

Father Sergius shows a museum dedicated to the culture of Semey Old Believers. In 2001, UNESCO included their traditions on the list of intangible heritage.

“When the Soviet government came, they immediately began to destroy priests and executors, the main carriers of culture. In total, more than 40 percent of the family members were destroyed. All of their ancestors included people who were shot and imprisoned,” says the priest. Father Sergius’s great-grandfather, Alexy Nikolaevich, “ran from the Bolsheviks” in Kazakhstan in the 1930s and lived there until he was 104 years old - he was lucky.

Before the revolution, Tarbagatai was the center of all East Siberian Old Believers; the bishop's see was located here. But the last of them, Bishop Afanasy, was shot in 1937. By that time, all the Semey temples were either destroyed or rebuilt.

Street in the Semey village of Tarbagatai in Buryatia

The same applies to villages - they were literally reduced. “They destroyed entire streets, which usually stretched for three to four kilometers (the Old Believer village of Bichura in the south of Buryatia, says Father Sergius, is the longest in the world, 18 kilometers). The adult population averaged six thousand people. But in each family then there were 10-15 children each,” says the priest.

Now there are about two hundred thousand Semey Old Believers in the world, and about half are from Transbaikal. Many still live in villages, in the houses of their ancestors. They were built not on a stone foundation, but on larch logs, which are only harder from moisture. The inside of the house was decorated with various patterns, even the stove was painted with bright colors. The Semey family's calling card is multi-colored carved shutters, just like in children's books. And the village of Desyatnikovo, neighboring Tarbagatai, recently joined the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of Russia.

“Life was grey. So we tried to decorate it in every possible way,” explains Father Sergius.

Secrets of the attics

The period of dispossession was especially difficult for the Semeyskie. Most had not just houses - 20 windows each - but entire estates with many buildings.

“The Bolsheviks committed lawlessness and atrocities. All summer they robbed us, organizing drinking parties in the evenings. And when winter came, the supplies ran out - they ate them. Again they went home, taking the last thing. And they killed. There is a barn next to the temple, they drove the owner there in the cold, grandmother - and they locked him up,” says Father Sergius.

In the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross there is an icon that the Bolsheviks hunted for a long time.

“They wanted to destroy absolutely everything connected with religion. One of the local grannies hid this icon in the attic. She brought it here only three years ago. And the icon was painted back in the early 17th century. It is so rare that even specialists from the Moscow Kremlin Museums came to look at her,” the priest assures.

Opposite are large images that were once part of the iconostasis. The Bolsheviks used them as material for benches. But one day, late at night, one of the residents of Tarbagatai, risking her life, saved these icons and kept them in the strictest confidence for many years.

Strangers - out!

In general, Semeysk Old Believers are rather closed people. In the villages the streets are deserted. And if someone does meet, the local will carefully examine the stranger before speaking. Previously, strangers were not welcome at all, recalls Nikolai Popov, a resident of the village of Desyatnikovo.
“My grandmother told me that there were always separate dishes for guests. And no one would serve water to a passerby,” he says.

Priest Sergiy Popkov (Paliy) from the Semey village of Tarbagatai in Buryatia demonstrates an ancient religious book

Father Sergius adds: “The Semey children were open to innovations and quickly absorbed them. But in terms of communication, they were very closed.” By the way, the windows in the houses of the Semey Old Believers are located higher than, say, in the huts in Central Russia. This is to prevent strangers from looking in.

However, all this is in the past. Today, family youth are moving to big cities, so the Old Believers are trying to show their culture to the whole world - maybe this will at least keep their children. In the summer season, many tourists come to Tarbagatai from Europe, the USA, Japan, China, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. “Italians usually shout “Bravo!” when they leave, they are so impressed by it all. And our tourists say that the Semeis are some atypical Old Believers,” says Tarbagatay resident Irina Kalashnikova.

Semeyskie really don’t look the way you usually imagine Old Believers. Each woman has 12 colored dresses made of Chinese silk (according to the number of major church holidays). Everything is richly embroidered, because every detail, Semeys believe, is a talisman against infertility, and the more children, the higher the status of the family. In addition, women wear large amber beads made in Poland three hundred years ago - they are passed down from generation to generation.

Follow us

In October we again had the opportunity to visit the Old Believers in Dersu. This time the trip was of a charitable nature. To the Murachev family, who we visited last time, we gave one hundred laying hens and 5 bags of feed for them. The sponsors of this trip were: the Sladva group of companies, the founder of the Shintop chain and the President of the Rus Foundation for Civil Initiatives, Dmitry Tsarev, the Ussuriysk Poultry Farm, as well as the parents of the junior group of the Moryachok kindergarten. From myself personally, from my colleague Vadim Shkodin, who wrote heartfelt texts about the life of the Old Believers, as well as from the family of Ivan and Alexandra Murachev, we express our deep gratitude to everyone for their help and concern!

Seven bags of children's things collected by the parents of the Moryachok kindergarten were loaded into the back of our small truck. Next, our path lay to the Ussuriysk Poultry Farm, where 100 laying hens and 5 bags of feed for them were waiting for us. Having loaded the live cargo into the back, we moved on, all the way to Dersu, or rather to the crossing, where Ivan Murachev with his sons and help were supposed to be waiting for us at the appointed time.

The small truck carried us further and further from our home. The cramped cabin could barely accommodate the driver and two passengers. My long-suffering knees rested against the air vent grilles, the gear shift knob dug into my side, but all these hardships of the trip faded into the background, because... my head was filled with one thought: “If only all the chickens lived to see the end of the trip.” And we had to travel for a good 14 hours.

Throughout the entire journey, I could not take my eyes off the changing landscapes. Golden autumn painted the flora of Primorye in all possible colors: golden corn and wheat fields stretched far beyond the horizon, trees, shedding their rainbow foliage, covered passing cars with soft shadows, the air was clear and fresh. The further we made our way to the north, the surrounding views became more gloomy. But there was still little hope that the village of Dersu would be surrounded by a riot of colors of nature. By the middle of the journey, nature seemed to have turned upside down: the trees were almost bald, but the road was covered with a colorful carpet of fallen leaves rustling under the wheels of our truck, carrying valuable, occasionally cackling, cargo.

The day slowly turned into evening, and we still drove and drove. It seemed that our road had no end, that we would forever carry this living cargo to the Old Believers. It was already long after dark when we arrived in the village of Roshchino, where Fyodor Vladimirovich, a geologist, social activist and local historian, was waiting for us. Many people know him as the former director of the Udege Legend national park. He decided to go on this trip with us at the request of the chief researcher at the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yulia Viktorovna Argudyaeva, who is writing a book about the life and history of the settlement of Old Believers in Primorye, but for health reasons she was unable to do so herself. go to the place. Fyodor Vladimirovich, armed with a notepad with questions from Yulia Viktorovna, was waiting for us at the store “with two lions.” Of average height, strong build, dressed in a sand-colored jacket, on his head a black cap with a headlamp, an old canvas hiking backpack slung over his shoulder, where, as it turned out later, there was only a notebook with questions to the Old Believers, which Yulia Viktorovna gave to Fyodor Vladimirovich.

- Hello! Why did you travel so long? - opening the door of the truck, Fyodor Viktorovich immediately blurted out - Where am I going to sit here?
- So we don’t have any room. We thought you would go in your own car.
- Well, why didn’t you tell me right away? - Fyodor Viktorovich slammed the door and hurried somewhere to private houses - Okay, go, I’ll catch up with you.

From Roshchino we drove out onto a dirt road, on both sides of which stood the lifeless skeletons of once green trees. This road connects Roshchino with Plastun. Dozens of logging trucks break up the already bad road every day. Because of this, the speed of our truck did not exceed 30 km/h. We were thrown from side to side. “Poor chickens! What is it like for them there?” I couldn’t get out of my head. The dark road stretched far ahead, the light from the headlights was lost somewhere in the darkness. Occasionally, those same trucks, filled to capacity with cut timber, came towards us. It seems that in just a little while there will be nothing to cut, there will be only one lifeless desert with many stumps. Closer to the middle of the way to the crossing, Fyodor Vladimirovich caught up with us. A growling Subaru Forester overtook us and showed us the way further (there were many forks ahead, there was a chance to turn the wrong way). We reached the crossing, where Ivan Murachev and his sons were already waiting for us, only at 22.00 in the evening. Seeing the cars approaching, the distant lights from flashlights shining on the other side of the river began to fuss, flicker, and run around. It was as if fireflies, caught by a current of air, spread their wings and glide. Two fireflies were approaching us on a suspended bridge. It was Savely and Nikon who hurried towards us to help unload the back of our truck. Having warmly greeted each other and exchanged a few words, we hastily began to unload the car. The truck driver was nervous and kept wailing: “If I knew that I would have to go so far, I wouldn’t have gone!”, “Why did I agree?!”, “I need to be in the city tomorrow, but it’s late!” It got on my nerves. An elderly man, waiting for the ferry in his minibus, swore very loudly, either at us or at Savely and Nikon.

- Where are you taking these chickens? Old Believers, perhaps? - he went broke - What did they do to deserve this? Why didn’t they bring anything to me or some grandmother from Far Kut? Why do they all? All to them!

There are plenty of such people all over Russia. Usually those who are indignant are those who do not want to do anything, but only expect help from someone: from the state, from local authorities, from strangers, from everyone, but not from themselves.

Having loaded all our things onto the ferry and said goodbye to Vadim (he had to go back to Vladivostok), we began to cross to the opposite shore. A man who drove onto the barge in his minibus, leaning out of the window, kept wailing about the injustice of life, about how everyone in the village had a bad life, that there was nowhere to work, and only the Old Believers were being helped.

- These Old Believers are real gypsies! - he still did not let up - Look how much land they grabbed for themselves and still want. Everything is not enough for them! They bought themselves tractors, they even have a combine harvester! Why don’t they come with their own equipment and plow the gardens in our village? No, only for myself. All for yourself! Gypsies.

I, the ferryman and his assistant entered into a long debate with the angry man, Savely and Nikon were humbly silent. The crossing took a little over 10 minutes. This time was enough for the dissatisfied man, whose eyes exuded only black envy and malice, to express everything he thought about the Old Believers, about the current government and all the injustice that had been haunting him, as it seemed to me, his entire life.

There is an ambiguous attitude towards the Old Believers in these places: some praise them for their hard work, for the rise of the village and the lands where they live, for their love for the Motherland, ancestors, history and culture; but there are also those, by the way, the majority of them, who scold the workers, calling them, as you have already read, gypsies who seized these lands. I think that these people who are dissatisfied are driven by simple Russian bitterness and envy, simple envy of their hard work. Instead of pulling themselves together, they pick up a glass and become an alcoholic, become an alcoholic because of their bile and bitterness, blaming everyone for their troubles, but not themselves, the saints and the righteous.

“We are accustomed to this attitude,” Ivan Murachev will later tell me, “Those who want to live well, feed their family, cultivate the land, and keep livestock, will work.” He will wake up at 6 and even 5 in the morning, if necessary, and not lie drunk until lunch, and then, waking up, take up the glass again. It’s all the devil, it was he who knocked them down and sent them down this path. They are just lazy people, quitters. They would have everything if they really wanted it. True, desire alone will not be enough here, you need to take it and do it.

On the opposite bank, where our so-called “ferry” arrived, they were already waiting for us. Ivan Murachev in his old Datsun, and a man, also an Old Believers, in a hired truck. After long and warm greetings, everyone, even that same grumbling man from the minibus, helped unload boxes of chickens, bags of food and bags of baby clothes from the ferry. In the process, Ivan quickly and loudly, gesturing with his hands, told the latest news from the village: who is going to move where, who, on the contrary, has arrived, who is going to get married, who will be expected for a visit. He thanked them very warmly for the chickens they brought, for the food and, especially, for the children’s things, which they would never have been able to buy.

- We have nine children. You go into a store and the prices are there! – Ivan throws up his hands – It’s very difficult, but we’re trying to cope!

While we were loading the gifts into the truck, the ferry managed to transport Fyodor Vladimirovich with his fast transport. With him I already reached Dersu. On the way, he talked for a long time about the Old Believers, about Ivan, about his problems with moving, about how he and his family had to live almost in a barn until people were found who helped him build a house. I told him about my plans too. For the project I needed portraits of these people who refused to be photographed last time. Well, as you understand from the title photo, Fyodor Vladimirovich was still able to help me with this issue. For which we thank him so much!

This time the journey took a little less than half an hour - the bridges were repaired, we didn’t have to stop in front of them every time and straighten the boards. As Ivan later said, the new head of the Dalnekutsk settlement knocked out the equipment, and now they will build the road. More precisely, they will go over it with a grader, which is already good.

“Everything should get better soon,” said Ivan. “God willing!” God willing! And how could it be otherwise?!

But in reality, how could it be otherwise?! Good people should do well. It’s all like in Russian fairy tales – good always triumphs over evil. And it was defeated a long time ago, because the main evil for the Old Believers is laziness. But, whatever you say, they simply have no time to be lazy. They have too big a farm, and you can’t feed such a large family with laziness alone. No, laziness is not about them.

We arrived at the village close to midnight. There is darkness and silence all around. Even the dogs don't bark. Only rare lights from the windows indicate that there is life in the village, that people live here. At this time the Murachevs were already unloading the cars. The chickens were unloaded into a former barn, now a chicken coop. The once utility room where the Murachevs kept all their agricultural equipment was quickly converted into a spacious chicken coop with light and a platform. All that remains is to insulate it for winter. In order for the chicken to lay eggs in the cold season, the room temperature must be at least +15. The children's things and bags of food were taken into the house, where we were invited. After a long conversation and dinner, we went to bed. There was a lot of work to be done over the next day.

During our journey from Vladivostok to Dersu, the chickens laid 9 eggs.

Morning in the house of the Old Believers begins at night (in our opinion, at night). The adults always get up first, the father will be with the children, the mother is busy in the kitchen. A hearty breakfast is essential to maintain strength throughout the day. Everyone has to work very hard. There is a job for everyone, even for those who, by our standards, should still be in kindergarten or primary school. Gradually, the house begins to come to life: someone is getting dressed, someone is rattling dishes in the kitchen, Olya, the youngest child in the family, is whining in her room, apparently she doesn’t like getting up so early. Cats rush from side to side in the hope of finding a secluded corner so that they can curl up and lie down to watch their striped-whiskered dreams.

After breakfast, I asked, while everyone was still full of strength and joy, to take photographs of all family members. True, by this time the guys, Nikon, Savely and Evstafiy, had gone to help with the housework. Therefore, only the female half of the family was able to be photographed.

In accordance with established canons, a woman must have as many children “as God wills,” and preventing pregnancy is considered a sin.

Ivan, his wife Alexandra and little Olga.

After a short photo session, the children began to gather for church. Entrance is closed to a stranger, or rather not an Old Believer. I stayed in the house, where Ivan began answering Fyodor Vladimirovich’s questions, Alexandra began drawing patterns for a new kosovorotka, and little Olga plunged headlong into studying a new toy.

“Every girl should be able to sew and embroider,” says Alexandra, continuing to carefully draw bell flowers on a piece of fabric. “We’ve been teaching since the age of 10.” She gets married, and she should already be able to do everything: embroider sundresses, shirts, milk a cow, cook, and in general she should be able to do everything. And if she doesn’t know how, then who needs such a wife?

“First they train on dolls,” continues Alexandra, dipping a brush into a jar of green paint. “These will be leaves.” Green. So here it is. While the boys, and then the boys, the grooms help with the housework, the girls have to patch up worn-out clothes, sweep the floor, cook food, work out with the children, and generally a lot of work. There's enough for everyone. Very rarely can we afford to just sit idle. “You’ve arrived now, so Ivan can at least rest at home,” he glances sideways at his husband, smiling (he was at that time telling Fyodor Vladimirovich about the history of his family’s travels). “If they hadn’t come, they would have been fiddling around with something somewhere.” Yes, there is enough work for everyone.

Do you pass on the ability to embroider and decorate clothes to your children, so to speak, from generation to generation?

Whoever can do this passes it on. And there are those who don’t know how to sew, who don’t know how to draw,” Alexandra complains, putting down her brush. “Nobody taught us to draw, somehow we all do it ourselves.” Now I can draw. I can teach my children. And those who don’t know how, carry it for us. Sometimes they bring, say, pants, they stick it in, they say, neighbor, help me out, sew up the hole. How can that be? Do not know how! How so? Along with this inability, all our traditions are lost. It's a pity. Very sorry.

Meanwhile, Ivan told Fyodor Vladimirovich about life in Bolivia:

- In Bolivia we were allowed to buy land! It's not possible here. Everything is very difficult in Russia with this. You want to start farming, you want to cultivate the land, but they don’t give it to you,” Ivan is indignant. - If you want to work there, please do so. Buy and work for your health. In those days when we lived there, a hectare of land with forest could be bought for 30 dollars, without forest for 300. Now prices have risen greatly - with forest 600 dollars, and without forest it reaches 2000. It depends on the place.

Did people own a lot of land? - Fyodor Vladimirovich wrote everything down in his notebook.

There were families that had 1000 hectares of land,” Ivan answers proudly, “They could buy a lot of equipment for themselves.” By the way, many people made money by renting out this equipment.

The door of the house opened and Nikon, out of breath, flew into the room: “Sasha, let’s go! We’re going to milk the cow now. Take a picture! You wanted to.”

I had to get ready in a hurry and miss an interesting interview with Ivan. What Fyodor Vladimirovich talked about next with the Old Believer will remain a mystery to me, and therefore to my readers. After milking the first bucket, Alexandra and Salomania came up to us.

- So, quickly to the chicken coop! The platform needs to be completed. Here we can manage on our own - they “excommunicated” us from the cow by order.

After taking one shot in the chicken coop, I went for a walk around the village. Savely, the youngest son of the Murachevs, volunteered to give me a short tour of the surrounding area and also try to help me establish contacts with the locals. Photographing one family was not enough for me. Much more portraits were needed.

I stayed in Dersu one more day. During this time, I managed to agree on filming with another family, the rest were categorically against it.

The second family who agreed to be photographed. This is Yakov Murachev. He and his family are moving to Samarga in the near future. He swapped houses with one of the Old Believers there.

In total, their family has two children. The family is young. The second child is a girl. She was sleeping at that time.

Some of the Old Believers of Bolivia and Uruguay (almost all are descendants of Primorye Old Believers) arrived in Primorye under the regional target program “On providing assistance to the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad to the Russian Federation.” Designed for 6 years, it has been implemented in the Primorsky Territory since 2007. The main goal of the program is to stabilize the demographic situation in the region, which is characterized by a decrease in the total population due to natural decline and migration outflow.

Initially, the program identified six resettlement territories: four urban districts (Artemovsky, Dalnegorsky, Nakhodkinsky, Ussuriysky), Pogranichny municipal district and the Vostok village of Krasnoarmeysky district, but later a new version of the resettlement program was developed for the period until the end of 2012, which provided for an increase (from six to 16) settlement territories, the number of participants and the amount of funding were adjusted, the possibility of compact settlement of religious communities for agricultural activities was provided.

The gifts of technical progress have long come into use among the Old Believers. Modern technology is widely used in household and family life. Almost every home has refrigerators, washing machines and other electrical appliances.

Only “demonic technology” is strictly prohibited - televisions and computers, which, according to Old Believers, corrupt people. Old Believers do not read secular literature and do not use the Internet. Almost every family has a cell phone, but it is used only far outside the village (there is no mobile connection in Dersu), and only in case of emergency.

They eat mainly products from natural agriculture. But some things - salt, sugar, vegetable oil - have to be bought in stores, the closest of which is in Far Kut.

The Old Believers very strictly protect the foundations of spiritual life from external influence. The Old Believers of Dersu belong to one of the most conservative movements in the Old Believers - the so-called “chapels” (transitional between “priests” and “bespopovtsy”). Among the chapels, the functions of spiritual leaders are performed by competent mentors chosen from among the laity.

Prayer occupies a huge place in the life of Old Believers - they wake up and fall asleep with it, they begin and end meals, the beginning and end of work.

The Old Believers have many of their own traditional holidays, rooted in the deep past. Each holiday is celebrated in strict accordance with established canons. Despite the fact that Old Believers do not sing secular songs, trying to maintain piety, they celebrate holidays very solemnly, with songs and dances that do not contradict their religious beliefs.

Smoking tobacco is strictly prohibited, but drinking alcohol is prohibited only from Monday to Saturday. On Sunday, which is a mandatory day off from work, Old Believers can drink a little, but even here they are original - they drink only home-made mash.

The morning of the next day greeted me with a frosty, golden dawn. Without thinking twice, without even having breakfast, to Ivan’s surprise, I ran out into the street and took pictures. I photographed the haze, grazing cows, frost-covered houses and plants. It was a wonderful morning. At lunchtime I left for Roshchino. After spending the night at the hotel, my journey continued - this time I decided not to go far and visited the village of Krutoy Yar (material in preparation). I was very warmly received at school, in kindergarten (they even fed me there), at a local club and a locksmith workshop, where children from school use machines to turn various kitchen utensils out of wood. But the local residents turned out to be not so hospitable; almost everyone refused to give me an interview. Only one woman briefly and dryly answered a few questions. It's a pity. It's a pity.