Old Belief, or Old Believers, is a unique phenomenon. Both spiritually and culturally. Economists note that Old Believer communities abroad are often more successful than the local population.
1. The Old Believers themselves admit that it is their faith that is Orthodox, and the Russian Orthodox Church is called New Believers or Nikonians.
2. Until the first half of the 19th century, the term "Old Believer" was not used in spiritual literature.
3. There are three main "wings" of the Old Believers: priests, bespopovtsy and co-religionists.
4. In the Old Believers, there are several dozen interpretations and even more agreements. There is even a saying "Whatever a man is good, whatever a woman is consent."
5. On the pectoral cross, the Old Believers do not have an image of Christ, since this cross symbolizes a person’s own cross, the ability of a person to a feat for faith. The cross with the image of Christ is considered an icon, it is not supposed to be worn.
6. The largest place in Latin America where Russian Old Believers-chapels live compactly is Colonia-Russa or Massa-Pe. About 60 families, or about 400-450 people, live here, there are three cathedrals with three separate prayer rooms.
7. The Old Believers retain monodic, hook singing (znamenny and demestvennaya). It got its name from the way the melody is recorded with special signs - “banners” or “hooks”.
8. From the point of view of the Old Believers, Patriarch Nikon and his supporters left the church, and not vice versa.
9. Among the Old Believers, the procession takes place according to the sun. The sun in this case symbolizes Christ (giving life and light). During the reform, the decree to make a procession against the Sun was perceived as heretical.
10. At first, after the schism, there was a habit of writing down as “Old Believers” in general all the sects that arose at that time (mainly of the “spiritual-Christian” direction, like “eunuchs”) and heretical movements, which subsequently created a certain confusion.
eleven . For a long time among the Old Believers, hack work was considered a sin. It must be admitted that this affected the financial situation of the Old Believers in the most favorable way.
12. Old Believers - "beglopopovtsy" recognize the priesthood of the new church as "active". The priest from the new church, who had gone over to the Old Believers-fugitives, retained his rank. Some of them restored their own priesthood, forming "priestly" agreements.
13. Old Believers-bespriests consider the priesthood completely lost. The priest who went over to the Old Believers-bespriests from the new church becomes a simple layman
14. According to the old tradition, there is only a part of the sacraments that only priests or bishops can perform - everything else is available to ordinary laity
15. A sacrament accessible only to priests is marriage. Despite this, marriage is still practiced in the Pomeranian agreement. Also, in some Pomor communities, another inaccessible sacrament is sometimes performed - the sacrament, although its effectiveness is being questioned.
16. Unlike the Pomortsy, in the Fedoseevsky agreement, marriage is considered lost, along with the priesthood. Nevertheless, families start, but they believe that they live in fornication all their lives.
17. The Old Believers are supposed to pronounce either a triple "Hallelujah" in honor of the Holy Trinity, or two "Hallelujahs" in honor of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and "Glory to you God!" in honor of Christ. When in the reformed church they began to say three "Hallelujahs" and "Glory to you God!" the Old Believers considered that the extra "Hallelujah" is pronounced in honor of the devil.
18. Among the Old Believers, icons on paper are not welcome (as well as any other material that can easily be damaged). On the contrary, cast metal icons became widespread.
19 . The Old Believers make the sign of the cross with two fingers. Two fingers - a symbol of the two Hypostases of the Savior (true God and true man).
20. Old Believers write the name of the Lord as "Jesus". The tradition of writing the name was changed during the Nikon reform. The doubled sound “and” began to convey the duration, the “stretching” sound of the first sound, which in Greek is indicated by a special sign, which has no analogy in the Slavic language. However, the Old Believer version is closer to the Greek source.
21. The Old Believers are not supposed to pray on their knees (bows to the ground are not considered as such), and it is also allowed to stand during prayer with arms folded on the chest (right over left).
22. The Old Believers, bespopovtsy dyrniks, deny icons, pray strictly to the east, for which they cut holes in the wall of the house to pray in winter.
23. On the tablet of the crucifixion, the Old Believers usually write not I.N.Ts.I., but “King of Glory”.
24. In the Old Believers of almost all consents, a ladder is actively used - a rosary in the form of a ribbon with 109 "beans" ("steps"), divided into unequal groups. Lestovka symbolically means a ladder from earth to heaven. Lestovka.
25. Old Believers accept baptism only by full triple immersion, while in Orthodox churches baptism by dousing and partial immersion is allowed.
26. In tsarist Russia, there were periods when only marriage (with all the ensuing consequences, including inheritance rights, etc.) entered into by the official church was considered legal. Under these conditions, many Old Believers often resorted to a trick, formally accepting the new faith at the time of the wedding. However, not only the Old Believers resorted to such tricks at that time.
27. The largest Old Believer association in modern Russia - the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church - belongs to the priests.
28. The Old Believers had a very ambiguous attitude towards the kings: while some strove to write down the next persecutor king as Antichrist, others, on the contrary, shielded the kings in every possible way. Nikon, according to the ideas of the Old Believers, bewitched Alexei Mikhailovich, and in the Old Believer versions of the legends about the substitution of Tsar Peter, the true Tsar Peter returned to the old faith and died a martyr's death at the hands of the supporters of the impostor.
29. According to economist Danil Raskov, Old Believers abroad are somewhat more successful than natives, because they are more hardworking, capable of performing monotonous and complex work, more oriented towards projects that take time, are not afraid to invest, and have stronger families. One example is the village of Pokrovka in Moldova, which, contrary to general trends, has even grown somewhat, as young people stay in the village.
30. Old Believers, or Old Believers, despite the name, are very modern. They are usually successful in their work and united. Old Believer books can be read and downloaded on the Internet, and large movements, for example, the Old Orthodox Church, have their own websites.
freedom
SIN LIFE IN ALASKA
Nikolaevsk is not a city. Nikolaevsk is not a very large village in Alaska, so the name was clearly given to it for growth. Russian Old Believers live here.
My friend, who lived in the States for three years, said that America is such a country, such a country! .. Extraordinary steepness. She has long been living in the XXX century. Everything here is so unusual, technologically advanced and progressive that you just need to go and see it. Probably confused with Japan.
It had been foggy in the morning, and the old American plane, probably riveted by the Wright brothers, was not equipped with an all-weather flight system. Or maybe it was equipped, but the airport in the city of Homer, where we were heading, was not and could not accept our plane because of the fog. So we—myself and the photojournalists—sat on plastic chairs in the Anchorage airport lounge, waiting for the fog to clear in Homer.
Then they finally announced the landing. Citizens boarded the plane, sat down, after which the pilot turned around and announced that now, of course, we would take off, but if upon arrival at Homer it turns out that there is fog or low cloud cover, we will return back to Anchorage. Fortunately, there was a break in the clouds at the airport of arrival, and we safely landed on the blessed land of Homer - an insignificant American town, about which the world would never have heard if there had not been a Russian village of Nikolaevsk nearby.
I have long wanted to see how the Old Believers live. I read a lot about them, but I never wrote, and this is a mess: the writer must write, and the reader must read. The division of labor is the basis of our civilization... From newspapers and books, I learned a lot of interesting things about the Old Believers - that they do not eat from public utensils, so they eat only at home, so as not to be defiled. They don't watch TV because it's a big sin. Unsociable. Non-contact. They do not recognize civilization.
According to a preliminary telephone agreement, the Old Believer Ivan was supposed to meet us. But for some reason did not meet. Maybe he changed his mind? Indeed, why should he sin with the dissolute? Calling Ivan home from the airport of arrival, just in case, we learned from his wife that Ivan had already left "there" for a long time.
Where are "there"?
There. to meet you.
Here it is, unhurried provincial life, incomparable with the bustle of Moscow! An hour earlier, an hour later ... Well, at least our plane was late, otherwise we would have been exhausted waiting.
After some time, Ivan taxied, loaded us into his machinery and took us to Nikolaevsk. We talked along the way. It turned out that Ivan was originally "from China", he had never been in Russia, although he speaks Russian (like all Old Believers) without an accent. But what is most surprising is that Ivan really looked a little... no, not like a Chinese, although a Chinese too, of course... but more like Ho Chi Minh, who was, as you know, a full-blooded Vietnamese.
A characteristic mustache with a thin beard played this cruel joke with Vanya.
Kolo Harbin we lived there. Closer to the Mongolian side there. But we have in this ... uh ... Khabarovsk - uncles, brothers. We dispersed after the revolution.
The life of Ivan the Old Believer and his compatriots cannot be said to be easy, but full of adventure. From China, the entire Old Believer village moved to Brazil, then lived a little in Italy, then moved in swarms and moved to Oregon, a state on the Pacific coast of the United States, and after Oregon they were brought to Alaska by a difficult one. But the Old Believers feel that they will soon have to move somewhere from here: it becomes painfully crowded. Civilization comes from all sides, does not allow to live, as the ancestors bequeathed.
This is what I noticed myself. The car we were driving was full of music CDs and had a decent player.
Isn't it a sin to listen to CDs? I asked.
This is my son's car, - Ivan answered with a sigh. It's a sin, of course. All sin...
Is it a sin to drive a car?
Sin.
Why are you driving?
Well, how?
On a horse. Jump-jump...
On a horse, I would have followed you all day to the airport ...
And what brand of car is a lesser sin to drive, and what is a greater one?
Well, we have more Chevrolet pickups. Any machine, of course, is a sin. But the Chevrolet is more comfortable.
Understand. If we sin, then with convenience ... Do you have a TV at home?
Nope. We can not.
And you have a telephone at home... Is it a sin?
Sin.
And the sewer?
All sin...
The asphalt is over, the primer has gone. In Russia, such roads are called graders. But in America, I don't know. Shaking. It was dusty... Where are you, the famous American highways, do you exist in the world?..
And how do the children, Vanya, do not depart from their father's faith, do not run to the cities?
It turned out they were running. Vanya is sad... By the way, the Old Believers have many children, 8-15 in each family. And all because they are not protected, as I found out. It's a sin to protect yourself! Ivan, by the age of forty-six, has amassed 9 children and, it seems, is not going to finish this fascinating process ... So, grown-up children are fleeing from Old Believer villages. To the big cities, to the "lower" states. Not all, but run. I would run away too. "Garun ran faster than a fallow deer..." And those children who haven't run away yet sin, dogs, in a terrible way: they watch TV, listen to all sorts of music. Ugh! .. That's why the Old Believers are now planning to break loose again in a swarm from their place and fly away somewhere into the wilderness. Some villages have already taken off and flew to Bolivia.
Why to Bolivia, Wan?
There are few people here, it's cramped. Everything is very expensive, the mulberries do not scatter very much: step somewhere on the ground to buy a piece! Nothing to see, but don't buy! Expensive! Here is such a small place - see, the building is standing? - twenty-five thousand dollars, ditch! .. And taxes greatly crush you here. Let's say I'm engaged in fishing, sometimes it's not profitable. It's easier to work somewhere on an hourly job.
Somewhere I've heard this before, about taxes... Well, why Bolivia in particular?
And tama land isho can be obtained free of charge. Just process. Understood?
Well Duc ... TV, then you do not watch. Do you fly on planes?
Yes. We have to ... We, of course, have lost a lot, but we are trying to save as much as possible, not to use it, without which we can do without. Next will be chizhalo. All this is coming at us. First TVs, then computers. Then ribbons.
What tapes?
This ponography...
Do you already have computers at home?
There is not.
But surely children at school have a computer class? Their American government certainly teaches computer literacy?
You see, again, Ms., as I explained, sho, as far as possible of our forces, we try. And how impossible... You won't fight the government. They installed computers at school, so they installed them.
Do they teach sex education?
There is such...
Those who sin unnecessarily are punished. Interesting punishment, by the way. The fact is that the Old Believers are divided into priests and bespopovtsy. Priests have a priest, non-priests have no priest - everything is simple. Priests live in Nikolaevsk, nearby is a village of Bespopovtsy. Our Ivan comes from the village of Bespopovtsy. Bespopovtsy themselves choose one of the brethren for the position of priest. He takes confession. Every Old Believer must come to confession "three times a summer." And those who have sinned are excommunicated from confession.
Hmm, it turns out that it's not so tiring to be an Old Believer. But it's terribly unprofitable! Because their strange faith forbids the Old Believers from contacting the government. Old Believers-bespopovtsy are not hired to work in state institutions, and they do not even receive unemployment benefits. Out of principle.
The Old Believers are trying to escape to such places on the planet where they can live by simple labor - agriculture. The only exception is Alaska, in the northern climate of which horticultural crops do not ripen very well.
Here, acres of potatoes, cabbages, carrots, nothing else grows. Corn doesn’t grow either,” Ivan says quietly, turning the power steering wheel back and forth. He almost does not work with his legs: an American automatic transmission works for him.
In general, since nothing grows here, acres of potatoes, the Old Believers took up fishing, and when this occupation ceased to bring sufficient profit (try to argue with huge seiners!), They started ... building boats. They glue them out of fiberglass and sell them to the Americans.
However, in critical cases, the Old Believers can turn to the government. For example, if someone had an accident, but there is no money for treatment. And in such cases, they agree to a blood transfusion. Although a sin, of course, what to say ...
Old Believers even prefer not to go to the store once again. Here Ivan went hunting, koked a musa (moose) and stuffed a huge (and sinful, of course) freezer with meat. And the freezer in the refrigerator filled with meat too.
And in the store we take only the most necessary - butter, sugar, salt, flour, with which we bake bread. Again, we take purchased dishes, and then we keep them at home.
We also try not to throw away the dishes... Do you vote in the presidential elections?
Yes.
Whom the Americans ask for, we will vote for. We are all the same, no difference. I don't see any good in either.
Nikolaevsk met us with rain. He scribbled vilely from above on the American village, something subtly reminiscent of a Russian village. I don’t even know why ... It seems that the houses are tailored in the American style, and the cars around are American, but come on ...
Especially a lot of cars stood at the house of the local priest. After all, priests live in Nikolaevsk, that is, such Old Believers who believe that there should be a special priest in the village for religious worship. There, by the way, and he, the priest, - throws a pile of gravel around the yard with a shovel - went out to exercise. Although the priest, by the way, has a personal excavator in the yard.
The villagers turned out to be very talkative citizens of America. I had not gone even two steps when I met Alla Mametyeva, an elderly woman. She immediately told me that she came to the brothers in the faith in America several years ago, married her grandfather alone here and now lives with him. The grandfather was good, only the sons of the grandfather (they are all adults and live in the city) did not like that the grandfather married an aunt from Russia and now her grandfather's inheritance will go to her. They began to solder grandfather, forced him to sell the house, took the money for themselves. Now he and his grandfather are forced to rent housing. My grandfather also had a daughter, kind, but her husband killed her. And all drunk.
This is how Nikolaevsk reminded me of a Russian village. With your spirit...
Baba Alla's grandfather receives a pension of 1,200 dollars, of which 400 they pay for renting a house. Plus electricity, phone, food and so on. In general, grandmother Alla is forced to work.
What are you doing, baba Allah?
Babysitter.
And do they pay a lot?
One dollar an hour. Because it is so small that I have not received citizenship yet. And for large Americans, the state of Alaska pays an allowance so that they can hire a babysitter. They hired me. And my brother writes to me from Russia: you are there, you American bastard, you are fattening, and we are dying here. They are there, in Russia, they think that in America dollars are growing on a bush ... And when my grandfather dies, what will I do? I will stay...
Then Alla Mametyeva said that very interesting people live nearby - grandmother Marya and grandfather Feopent, and you should definitely go to them: they know a lot about life. Baba Alla also gave out a terrible secret to correspondents from Moscow - the bespopovtsy from the neighboring village, it turns out, also have televisions! Only unlike priests who keep TV open, bespopovtsy keep them in wardrobes so that the neighbors do not see. And they look lurking in the evenings.
What else can I tell you about the wonderful inhabitants of the Russian province, located in America by a strange coincidence? .. Here lives the tireless Nina Konstantinovna. She caught the flying brigade "Spark" on the top of the hill, where our photographers were filming a general view of Nikolaevsk. Nina Konstantinovna cheerfully climbed the hill and said that, in fact, she didn’t want to leave the house today, because she was “on sick leave,” but kind people reported that guests had arrived from Moscow. And Nina Konstantinovna hurried. It is a sin to miss such an opportunity to send worn clothes and a black bra for my sister to relatives in Moscow. Sister nun, she's got everything black...
Be sure to send photos! - strictly ordered Nadezhda Konstantinovna after her Russian flavor was captured against the backdrop of American landscapes.
Nina Konstantinovna is not only an Old Believer, but also a businesswoman. She runs a Russian souvenir shop in Nikolaevsk. And at the same time he is a teacher of the Russian language at a local school. Nina Konstantinovna produces manuals for learning the language herself. He takes children's books from his counter, reads them with an expression on audio cassettes. Benefits are obtained, which she sells in her shop.
Occasionally, American tourists come here to buy nesting dolls and books in Russian. However, the store, according to the owner, is unprofitable, and it would be necessary to close it, but the hand does not rise. But the Russian restaurant, which was also unprofitable, Nina Konstantinovna closed a long time ago.
To support the declining business, we bought for $20 a photocopied brochure about the Old Believers "How we fled from Russia" and, most importantly, a book by the "Children's Literature" publishing house called "Poems about the Soviet Army" (Moscow, 1988).
Oh you have taste! Do you know what is the best book to buy, - said Nina Konstantinovna, packing her purchases into a bag. - She has been lying with me for many years, no one takes it.
Here are the verses from this wonderful book, which for some reason did not covet foreigners:
"Birds fell asleep on the branches,
The stars in the sky do not burn.
Lurked at the border
Border guard detachment..."
"Peoples live as one big family,
The Country of Soviets is strong, like granite.
On guard of peace, happiness and freedom
A soldier of the Soviet army is standing.
What pictures are in this book? The airplane is flying. Grandpa in an overcoat. A border guard with a dog and a Kalashnikov assault rifle walks through the night forest, a huge owl hoots on a branch above him. A sailor on the deck of a cruiser put on his shoulder a boy who had come from nowhere with a red flag in his hand, wrapped in a warm coat and earflaps, and ice floes were floating around ... In my opinion, foreigners lost a lot by not buying this informative book ...
In general, it's a pity that few guests come here, because there are a lot of interesting things in Nina Konstantinovna's "Russian Gifts"! And colored nesting dolls, and painted shirts, and different hats! Russian metal money is stacked in a separate box. One ruble is worth one dollar. This, I believe, is a fair course.
The photojournalists and I immediately scooped out all the Russian change from our wallets and put it into the compartments of the box in accordance with the face value. I also took out some old torn checks from the shops from my purse and presented them to Nina Konstantinovna, which made the hostess unspeakably happy. She will photocopy the checks and sell them as Russian souvenirs, because the checks say "THANK YOU FOR THE PURCHASE" in Russian.
Here are some other scarves I have here from Zhapan, - the hostess pointed to the counter.
Why are they assholes? Very good scarves. Pure Russians are...
Because from Japan, made in Jopan. I sell them cheap...
Despite the fact that the store, as it is, is unprofitable, Nina Konstantinovna sends a lot of dollars to Russia to her brothers in faith - for the construction of temples. "I can't," he says, "I can't eat crabs here while people are starving and can't build a temple."
An hour had already passed after we crossed the threshold of the store, but we still could not manage to leave the hospitable Nina Konstantinovna. She made us dress up in Russian painted shirts and take pictures in various poses inside and out. It all ended with the handing over to me of a bag of worn clothes for poor Moscow relatives.
We left the kind Russian people with the warmest feelings. One of the Old Believers gave me personally baked cakes of a rather terrible appearance. I brought them to Anchorage and put them in my room at the Hilton. Here, probably, in the morning the cleaning lady was surprised to see these products! I suppose I thought: a wild Russian has baked himself in the bathroom, he will come in the evening, he will eat. Or maybe, on the contrary, she thought that America is a great country in whose shops you can buy anything you like - even such strange, crooked bakery products of a very unappetizing look ...
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Old Believer Petr Kharin has been living in the remote taiga for 19 years
The shores of the full-flowing Biryusa, far from the hard labor tract, hundreds of years ago were chosen by the Old Believers. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the civil war drove them further and further into the taiga. But they kept together, married fellow believers, sending matchmakers to other villages. In winter, the men went fishing - to get elk or beat a squirrel. Sometimes there were no hunters in the village for three weeks. Such desperate men were treated with respect, because the taiga does not forgive people for weakness. Missing people in these places are not uncommon. Therefore, the news that a hermit settled at the confluence of the Biryusa and Khainda rivers quickly spread throughout the taiga. Old Believer Pyotr Kharin built a hut far from the nearest village 19 years ago. Impenetrable rocks and impenetrable taiga protect the dwelling of Pyotr Abramovich from prying eyes.
Intermarried with tigers
The whole life of Peter Kharin was spent in the taiga. Fished, hunted - beat a squirrel in the eye. Peter was sent to serve in the Novosibirsk region, in a construction battalion. The handwriting of the Old Believer turned out to be beautiful, and for four years he repaid his debt to the Motherland as a clerk. After demobilization in 1956 he married Stepanida.
Betrothed Petra was born in China near Harbin. Her parents, also Old Believers, emigrated to Primorye in the 1920s to escape the Bolsheviks. In northern China, they made a living by hunting tigers. But when the Celestial Empire became restless and smelled of red terror, the family returned to Russia. They found out where the Old Believers live, and settled in the village of Burny. It was there that Peter met Stepanida, and there he got married. And then, together with his new relatives, he left for the Khabarovsk Territory. But the seaside forest and tiger hunting did not fall on the soul of Peter. He missed the Siberian taiga and its owner - the bear. Peter and Stepanida returned to Siberia. Here seven children were born to the Kharins one after another: Antonina, Alexander, Yermolai, Fedor, Peter, Irina and Leonty.
(Today, seventy-four-year-old Peter has 32 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren!)
Kharins lived hard. Petr Abramovich worked at the air base as a fireman, put out forest fires, then got a job as a forester. The taiga and the fish Biryusa helped to raise a large horde. Without subsidiary farming and meat, which was handed over to the procurement office, the children would have nothing to buy not only a coat, but also socks. Petr jokingly calls his children the descendants of tiger catchers and is proud that his Stepanida's passport has the place of birth recorded: Colombo, China.
He knows how to listen to silence
When the youngest son Leonty came from the army, Peter took a walk at his wedding and left for the taiga - for good. The wife died, the children grew up, started their own household, and they didn’t seem to need their father.
From Shivera, Peter sailed down the Biryusa on a makeshift raft, with a gun and simple belongings, to the place where impregnable rocks stood like a fortress wall in the path of the river. There he set up a log house, uprooted a plot for a vegetable garden, and made a home-made smokehouse. On the "household" plot, the hermit grows not only potatoes and onions. He spread a plantation of strawberries and sowed poppies for beauty. For fifteen years Kharin has been living as a hermit on Khainda. Since then, I have never attended any elections, but I was pleased to learn that Vladimir Putin was re-elected President of Russia.
I built six hunting huts on Biryus, - says Pyotr Abramovich, - it's boring to sit in one place. And so you move from one place to another, as if you are celebrating a housewarming party. I'm already used to loneliness, I like it. I learned to listen to silence.
Harin not only listens to silence. Taseevsky hunter Maxim Kazakov said that on winter nights the hermit Peter writes poetry. Sometimes he reads them to fellow fishermen and hunters.
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The inhabitants of the village of Old Believers in Moldova live exactly the same as their ancestors in the XVIII century
You don't have to invent a time machine to travel back in time. It is enough to come to Moldova and get to the village of Kunicha. Russian Old Believers have been living there for about 300 years. On the banks of the Dniester, fleeing persecution, they began to move back in the time of Peter I. And gradually turned the Moldavian hinterland into one of the centers of the Old Believers. The inhabitants of the village carefully preserve their traditions, language and religion.
The feeling of unreality does not leave every visitor. Not a modern Moldovan village, but a Russian settlement of the 18th-19th centuries. Not only have they not forgotten their native speech here, but they also remember turns of phrase that have not been used in Russia for 200 years.
Tilisnut on murzalam or zyabry - an expression meaning to give in the face, but it sounds soft. They do not plow, but yell, and are no longer offended by the nickname katsapy. So they are also called here in Moldova, and in neighboring Ukraine, hinting at beards, tsap is a goat in Russian.
Arkhip Kornienko: "Katsap - this one had a tsap, and that's how things went."
Russians came to Kunichi almost 3 centuries ago. The Old Believers-schismatics hid on the banks of the Dniester from the authorities and the official church. During this time, little has changed. Men still wear beards and shirts, intercepted by a belt. They are baptized with 2 fingers and earn a living by weaving brooms, growing walnuts and fruits.
The local priest Ivan Andronnikov is about 90. He has baptized, married and buried the villagers since the 60s. The oak church, built without a single nail, survived both the German-Romanian occupation and the period of Soviet atheism.
Ivan Andronnikov, rector of the church: "Well, there were assassination attempts. There were, and more than once, they broke and the icons were taken away once - 30 icons."
There are almost no lonely people in the village, and most families have many children. Planned children are, of course, not for the Old Believers. Everyone gives birth and how many God will send.
Ivan Andronnikov, rector of the church: "- How many children do you have? - I don't remember. Many."
The Andronnikovs never had a TV in the house, but mother Anna, the wife of a village priest, understands who a secretary-referent is. So they called her in Kunichi. The head of an 85-year-old woman is like a computer. Knows everyone in the village, where there are several thousand inhabitants. Before the father marries someone, he asks the mother if everything is pure in the pedigree of the bride and groom? Relatives up to the 7th generation are not allowed to marry.
Anna Andronnikova, the wife of a priest: “We don’t take up to the 7th knee. So that you are a stranger. So she baptized you, her daughter or her son is not taken with you, and cousins and second cousins are not taken. - But what about love? - Well, the unmarried lived like that."
The former Afghan Vissarion Makarov has an eldest daughter of marriageable age. The strict father insists that the groom should not be looked for at the disco.
Vissarion Makarov: "It is more reliable to find a groom in the church, the Lord will send. I always tell her, yours will not leave you. If you are very good, the Lord will give you."
Young people observe traditions, but the Internet and TV are no longer considered a hindrance to a true believer.
Artem Turygin: "Maybe for Agafya Lykova this is inaccessible, because it identifies the Old Believers with the taiga dead end. Well, it was such a policy, maybe in Soviet times, to present religious people as some kind of dark."
Semyon Pridorozhny is called a correspondent behind his back in the village. He was a journalist under Brezhnev, writes novels about the life of the great Old Believers and is going to publish a dictionary of local speech patterns. On the shelf with the classics of literature is a bust of Lenin.
Photographer and traveler Oleg Smoliy is looking for and taking pictures of everything good and beautiful that our country is rich in. He combined these shots into the Unforgotten Russia project, part of which are the photographs of the Old Believer Siberian villages published below. And they are accompanied by a heartfelt story of the author 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 in their daily hard work - harvesting hay, catching fish, picking berries and mushrooms, preparing firewood and brushwood, collecting moss and building a house - step by step helped to overcome the veil of distrust. And strong and independent, good-natured and hardworking people were revealed, whose happiness lies in love for 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 humility, 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 the 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 remote area of the Small Yenisei, the Kaa-Khemsky kozhuun of Tuva. New settlements were laid 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 the Russian Old Believers have been preserved in their original form.
On the road, we gathered a small team of photographing travelers, five of us. Very far from Moscow. By plane to Abakan, then about ten hours by car through Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tuva, to Saryg-Sep, the regional center, there we transfer to the UAZ-"loaf" and for a couple of hours we reach the point on the banks of the Small Yenisei by forest roads. On the other side of the river, to the camp site "Erzhey", we cross by boat. The owner of the base, Nikolay Siorpas, brought us in his UAZ. He will be lucky further, to the depths of the taiga, but you have to wait a day or two until the road washed out by long rains at the pass dries up.
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 the Old Believers bring their children from the huts up the Kaa-Khem, as the Small Yenisei is called in Tuvan. In the old faith, not all villagers are here. Some of the locals are close to it, but they are not included in the community, there is not enough rigor. There are also representatives of the new Orthodox faith. There are even non-believers.
It was not far to go to see the village and buy groceries, less than a kilometer from the base. Siorpas, seeing him off, joked: “You can distinguish the Old Believers: men with beards, there are a dozen children in the yard, less or less, women in headscarves and skirts to the heels, in a year or two with a tummy.”
Here is the first acquaintance: Maria, a young woman with a stroller. We greeted each other and asked where to buy bread and cottage cheese. At first, she was wary of strangers, but she did not refuse help, she even surprised me with her responsiveness. She took her around Erzhei, showing who had the tastier milk, 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 managing. Summer in these places is short, and winter comes with hard frosts. Arable land is reclaimed with great difficulty from the forest, in the valleys along the banks of the river. The locals grow bread and plant vegetable gardens. Due to frost, perennial crops do not take root, but annuals grow, even small watermelons. Taiga feeds. They beat only hoofed animals, they eat wild meat. Collect pine nuts, mushrooms, berries for jam. The river gives fish. There is a lot of grayling here, and taimen is often released - it has become scarce in recent years.
The Old Believers do not drink, they don’t drink “kazenka” at all, and on holidays they eat a cup or two of weak homemade wine on taiga berries, blueberries or stone fruits.
Having rested at the base of Siorpas for a couple of days, we waited for dry weather and moved to the first lodge of the Old Believers - Upper Shivei, forty kilometers from Erzhei, with a difficult pass through the hills.
All the way to Shivei, Nikolai Siorpas, under the strained hum of the engine, urged us to be overly respectful and behave more than modestly, not to push people with their 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 these two days at the base he not only waited for the weather, but also looked at us, and thought whether it was possible to take us further.
We met the working people of Upper Shivei long before the settlement, on a mowing meadow. They asked for help, throwing mowed hay into high stacks - germs.
We rolled up our sleeves, tried our best and still fell behind. It was not easy to learn how to lift large armfuls with long three-pronged wooden pitchforks. Working together, they got to know each other, struck up conversations.
Mowed and dried grass is collected into germs - this is how the whole of Siberia calls haystacks. Laying them is a responsible matter: the hay should lie evenly and tightly so that it does not disperse in the wind and does not ferment in the rain. Upper Shiwei
Petr and Ekaterina Sasins arrived at the Upper Shivei lodge, then empty, about fifteen years ago. The economy was raised from scratch, they lived and wintered at first in a shed. Year after year they built, strengthened, raised three daughters. Then other relatives came to settle, now several families live here. The daughters grew up, moved to the city, and now restless grandchildren come to Peter and Ekaterina for the summer - two girls and two boys.
The Sasins' grandchildren are completely worldly, they come for the whole summer. For them, Petr Grigorievich keeps solar batteries with a battery and a converter, from which he turns on a small TV and a disc player - to watch cartoons. Upper Shiwei
With a cheerful noise, our tent camp was awakened by the kids, who brought fresh milk and sour cream. The second day, throwing hay at the plants is more difficult - all the muscles hurt from the unaccustomedness of the townspeople. But the faces of the owners, smiles, laughter and approval are already warmer. “Tomorrow is the Transfiguration, come! You will try homemade wine, ”the villagers call.
The house is simple, no frills, but clean and sound. Spacious vestibules dividing the house in half, whitewashed walls in the rooms, large stoves in the middle, iron spring beds reminded me of a Carpathian village, which also largely retained its way of life. "One at a time!" - says Petr Grigorievich, and we try a delicious drink. Blueberry juice is infused for a year without sugar and yeast, and a wine with a barely noticeable degree is obtained. It is easy to drink and does not intoxicate, but it lifts the mood and enhances talkativeness. Joke after joke, story after story, song after song - we had a good time. "Do you want to see my horses?" calls Peter.
The stable is located on the outskirts, there are two dozen horses, there are even pacers. And all loved ones. Petr Grigoryevich can talk about each foal for hours.
We parted with the Sasins like old friends. And again on the road, on a boat up the Small Yenisei.
Before the next zaimka up the river for half an hour to sail on a motorboat. We found Choduraalyg on a fairly high bank with a spacious, cornice-like valley, the outermost houses stand directly above the river. The opposite shore is an almost sheer mountain overgrown with taiga.
The place here is convenient for farming, growing bread, raising livestock. There are arable fields. River, nurse and transport artery. In winter, you can get to Kyzyl on the ice. And the taiga - here it is, begins with the hills on the edge of the zaimka.
We sailed, threw our backpacks ashore and went to look for where it would be convenient to set up tents so as not to interfere with anyone and at the same time to see everything around well. We met grandfather Eliferiy, who treated him to freshly baked delicious bread and advised me to go to Baba Marfa: “Marfutka will accept and help.”
Marfa Sergeevna, thin, small and active, about seventy, 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 the Old Believers, this is a difficult question - there is sin from the dishes that worldly people took. All the time Marfa Sergeevna took care of us. We also helped her - we picked berries, carried brushwood, chopped firewood.
Her younger son, Dmitry, was on business in the taiga. 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. "It's all demonic," grandmother Marfa refused. Dmitry returned a couple of days later, and we dialed his sister's number, turning up the volume. Hearing her daughter's voice, forgetting about the demons and throwing down her bow, Marfa Sergeevna ran across the clearing to Dima and me. It’s a pity that she didn’t allow herself to be photographed then, otherwise it would have turned out to be an interesting picture: a pretty 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.
In the neighborhood of Marfa Sergeevna, further from the coast, lives a large family of Panfil Petenev. The eldest of the twelve offspring, Gregory, aged 23, called us to the place of children's games - a clearing in the forest outside the village. On Sundays, smartly dressed children from all nearby villages run and come on horseback, bicycles and motorcycles to chat and play enough together. The guys were not shy for long, and after about ten minutes we were playing ball with them, answering a sea of curious questions and listening to stories about life in the villages, bears pampering now and a strict grandfather who chases all children for mischief. They made us laugh with stories, were interested in technology and even tried to take pictures with our cameras, posing intensely for each other. And we ourselves listened with pleasure to pure, like a stream, Russian speech and enjoyed shooting bright Slavic faces.
For the children of the Old Believers, the horse is not a problem. Helping with the housework, they learn early to communicate with pets.
It turns out that Choduraalyg, where we stopped, is called Big, and not far away, the road runs just past the playground, there is also Small Choduraalyg. The children volunteered to show this second, from several yards in the depths of the forest, a zaimka. They drove us cheerfully, on two motorcycles, along trails and paths, through puddles and bridges. Escort dashingly rushed teenage girls on fine horses.
A motorcycle for a teenager in the village of Old Believers is a matter of pride, passion and necessity. As befits the boys, with the dexterity of circus performers, they demonstrated to the visiting photographer all the skills of driving a two-wheeled motor miracle. Choduraalyg
In order to get to know each other better, start communication and achieve the necessary level of trust that would allow us to photograph people, we boldly joined the daily work of Old Believer families. They have no time to chat idly on a weekday, but in business, talking is more fun. Therefore, we simply came to the Petenevs in the morning and offered Panfil help. Son Gregory planned to marry, he was building a house, and so the work was found - to caulk the ceiling. Nothing difficult, but painstaking. First, on the other side of the river, along the mountains between the thickets, collect moss, put it in bags and throw it down a steep slope. Then we take them by boat to the construction site. Now upstairs, and here clay must be fed in buckets and moss is hammered into the cracks between the logs, covering the top with clay. We work briskly, the brigade is large: the five older children of the Petenevs and three of us, travelers. And younger kids are around, watching and trying to help-participate. We communicate at work, we get to know them, they get to know us. Children are curious, they are interested in everything: how potatoes are grown in big cities, and where we get milk at home, whether all the guys study in boarding schools, how far we live. Question after question, some you find it difficult to answer, and this is understandable: our worlds are so different. Indeed, 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 ignorant gaze.
With Pavel Bzhitskikh, who invited us to visit, we met in Maly Choduraalyg, where we went with the children on Sunday. The path to it on Ok-Chara is not close - nine kilometers along the rocky, forested shore of the Small Yenisei. Zaimka of two courtyards impresses with its fortress and economy. The high rise from the river did not create difficulties with water - here and there, right in the yards, a lot of springs hit, transparent water is supplied to the gardens through wooden gutters. She's cold and delicious.
Inside, the house surprised: two rooms, a prayer room and a kitchenette have preserved the appearance and decoration of the monastic community that was once here. Whitewashed walls, wicker rugs, linen curtains, home-made furniture, earthenware - all the nuns' household was natural, they did not communicate with the world and did not take anything from outside. Pavel collected and saved the household items of the community, and now he shows them to the guests. Extreme tourists float along Kaa-Khem, sometimes they drop in here, Pavel even built a separate house and a bathhouse so that people could stay with him and relax on the route.
He told us about the life and charter of the Old Believer monks. About prohibitions and sins. About envy and anger. The latter is an insidious sin, anger multiplies with anger and accumulates in the soul of a sinner, and it is difficult to fight it, because even slight annoyance is also anger. Envy is not a simple sin, from envy and pride, and anger, and deception breed. Paul spoke about the importance of reading prayers and repenting. And to take on a fast, both calendar and secretly taken, so that nothing would prevent the soul from praying and becoming more deeply aware of its sin.
Not only severity reigns in the souls of the 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 to the world. God willing, our ancient Orthodox faith will not be forgotten. Someone will return, with age, more often they think about the soul. ”
From ordinary community members, not monks, the outside world is not forbidden, they take the Old Believers and the achievements of civilization, which help in work. Motors are used, guns. I saw their 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. I chose them so that you listen with bated breath. I remember 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 all of us: “In America, every person is already going to have some kind of electric chips sewn under the skin so that he cannot hide from the Antichrist anywhere.”
From the "museum" he led us to the summer kitchen, treated us to mushrooms, smoked taimen, fresh bread and special homemade wine made with birch sap instead of water. When we left, we bought a young turkey from Pavel and plucked him until late at night, laughing at our incompetence.
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 merrily, asking 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, on behalf of their parents, invited us to visit.
On the approach to the Popovs, fun - the younger three found the blackest puddle with liquid mud, enthusiastically jumping in it and looking for something. Laughing mother Anna meets us: “Have you seen such grimy ones? Nothing, I’ve heated the water, we’ll wash it!”
Children, already seven, the Popovs do not just love, they understand them. The house is bright from smiles, and Athanasius began to build a new one - more space for the guys. Children themselves are taught, they do not want to send them to a distant boarding school, where there will be no parental warmth.
Over the treat, we quickly got into a conversation, as if some invisible wave began to play with consonance 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 products to sell in the area. With the money earned, they bought a tractor and a Japanese outboard motor. A good motor is important here: on the Small Yenisei, dangerous rapids, if an unreliable old one fails, you can die. And the river both feeds and waters, it is also a way of communication with other villages. In summer, they ride on a boat, and in winter they ride tractors and UAZs on ice.
Here, in a distant village, people are not alone - they communicate and correspond with Old Believers from all over Russia, they receive a newspaper of the old faith from Nizhny Novgorod.
But they are trying to minimize communication with the state, they refused pensions, benefits and benefits. But contact with the authorities cannot be completely avoided - you need rights to a boat and a tractor, all sorts of technical inspections, permits for guns. At least once a year, but you have to go for papers.
The Popovs treat everything responsibly. Athanasius had a case in his youth. He served in the army in the early 1980s in Afghanistan as an armored personnel carrier driver. Suddenly, trouble struck: the brakes of a heavy car failed, an officer died. At first, the situation was defined as an accident, but then high officials inflated it and the guy was given three years in a penal colony. The commanders, regimental and battalion, trusted Athanasius and sent him to Tashkent without an escort. Imagine: a young guy comes to the gates of the prison, knocks and asks to let him serve his term. Later, the same commanders secured his transfer to a colony in Tuva, closer to home.
We talked with Anna and Athanasius. About life here and in the world. On the connection between the Old Believer communities in Russia. About relations with the world and the state. About the future of children. We left late, with a good light in our souls.
The next morning we were heading home - the short trip was coming to an end. Warmly said goodbye to Marfa Sergeevna: "Come, another time I will settle in the house, I will make room, because they have become like relatives."
For many hours on the way home, in boats, cars, planes, I thought, trying to comprehend what I saw and heard: what did not coincide with the initial expectations? Sometime in the 1980s, I read Vasily Peskov's fascinating essays from the Taiga Dead End series in Komsomolskaya Pravda about an amazing family of Old Believers who had gone deep into the Siberian taiga from people. The articles were kind, as were other stories by Vasily Mikhailovich. But the impression of the taiga recluses remained as of poorly educated and wild people, shunning modern man and afraid of any manifestations of civilization.
The novel "Hop" by Alexei Cherkasov, read recently, increased the fear that it would be difficult to get to know each other and communicate, and it would be impossible to take pictures at all. But hope lived in me, and I decided to go.
That is why it turned out to be 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. Peaceful and independent. They gave me warmth and joy of communication.
I took something from them, learned something, thought about something.
In May this year, I was lucky enough to live for several days in a closed community of Old Believers, which is located a thousand kilometers from Khabarovsk and 300 kilometers from Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The most beautiful places! Nature is harsh, but fertile and generous.
My friend Nikolai and I arrived in a village he had known for a long time, to a friendly family of Old Believers who moved here 23 years ago to an empty place. We were received by Uncle Vanya's family.
Uncle Vanya is a hospitable bearded man in a Russian kosovorotka shirt with piercing blue eyes, kind as a puppy's. He is about 60 years old, his wife Annushka is about 55. Annushka at first sight has her charm, behind which strength and wisdom are intuitively felt. They have a spacious one with a stove, surrounded by an apiary and vegetable gardens.
The way of life of the Old Believers has remained virtually unchanged for more than 400 years. Uncle Vanya says: "The Old Believers' Cathedral passed, and they decided: do not drink vodka, do not wear worldly clothes, a woman braids two braids, does not cut her hair, covers it with a scarf, a man does not shave or trim his beard ..." And this is only a small part .
The solidity and resilience of these people is amazing. Take away their cars or electricity now - they will not regret much: after all, there is a stove, there is firewood, there is water from a well, there is a generous forest, a river with tons of fish, food supplies for the year ahead and experienced workers.
I was lucky enough to attend a feast on the occasion of the arrival of my daughter. Oil painting. The table is breaking, there is everything that is not available in city supermarkets. I have seen this only in pictures in history books: bearded men in shirts with tied belts are sitting, joking, laughing at the top of their voices, often you don’t even understand what they are joking about (you still have to get used to the Old Believer dialect), but joyfully from one mood at the table. And this despite the fact that I'm a non-drinker. Old Russian feast in all its glory.
Despite the fact that they live on the land, their earnings exceed those of the townspeople. "City people there are much more tense than I am here," Uncle Vanya says. "I work for my own pleasure." In the settlement, almost every Old Believer has a Toyota Land Cruiser in the yard, a spacious wooden house, from 150 square meters for each adult family member, vegetable gardens, equipment, livestock, harvesting and supplies ... They argue in categories of millions - "in the apiary alone I raised 2.5 million rubles," Uncle Vanya confesses. “We don’t need anything, we’ll buy everything we need. But how much do we need here? It’s in the city that everything we earn goes to food, and here they grow on their own.”
"Niece's family from Bolivia came here, they sold equipment and land there, they brought 1.5 million dollars with them. They are farmers. They bought 800 hectares of plowed land in Primorsky Krai. Now they live there. Everyone is happy, everyone lives in abundance," Uncle Vanya continues. After that, you think: is our urban civilization so advanced?
There was no centralized government in the community. “In the community, no one can tell me what to do. Our agreement is called “chapel”. We unite, live in settlements and gather for service together. But if I don’t like it, then I won’t go and that’s it. I’ll pray at home,” - says Uncle Vanya. The community meets on holidays, which are held according to the charter: 12 main holidays in the year.
“We don’t have a church, we have a prayer house. There is an elected elder there. He is elected according to his talents. He organizes the service, birth, baptism, funeral, funeral service. In addition, not every father can explain to his son why one thing can be done, and another "You can't. This person should also have such knowledge: the ability to convince, the ability to explain," Uncle Vanya notes.
Faith is the formative basis of the community. The community meets regularly not in a shop or a pub, but at prayer. Festive, Easter service, for example, lasts from 12 am to 9 am. Uncle Vanya, who came in the morning from the Paschal prayer, says: "It hurts, of course, it is difficult to stand all night. But now there is such grace in the soul, so much strength ... cannot be conveyed." His blue eyes sparkle and burn with life.
I imagined myself after such an event and realized that I would have fallen and slept for another three days. And Uncle Vanya has the following service today: from two to nine in the morning. A regular service is one that lasts from three to nine in the morning. It is held regularly, every week.
"Without a priest," as Uncle Vanya says. “We all participate: everyone reads and sings,” Annushka adds.
“What is the difference from the modern church, to put it briefly: there the government of the people is centralized, even at the spiritual level (that the tsar and the patriarch decided - it will reach the very bottom of the people). And here everyone expresses his opinion. And no one will force me. This should convince me, I should need it. Any issues are resolved collectively, and not centrally. All other differences are trifles and particulars that distract and deceive the people, "Ivan notes.
Here's how. Whatever I read about the Old Believers, there really is practically nothing said about it. Modestly silent about the main thing: people make decisions themselves, and not the church - for them. That is their main difference!
Family is the foundation of life. And here you understand it 100%. The average family size is eight children. Uncle Vanya has a small family - only five children: Leonid, Victor, Alexander, Irina and Katerina. The oldest is 33, the youngest is 14. And just an uncountable number of grandchildren are swarming around. "There are more than 100 children for 34 houses in our settlement. Just young families, they will give birth to even more children," says Uncle Vanya.
Children are brought up by the whole family, they help in the household from an early age. Large families here do not burden, as in a cramped city apartment, but provide an opportunity for support, help for parents and development for the whole family. Relying on family and clan, these people solve all the issues of life: "We always have a relative in every Old Believer settlement."
A relative is a very voluminous concept for an Old Believer: it is at least a group of settlements, including several villages. And more often - and much more. Indeed, so that the blood does not mix, young Old Believers have to look for a mate in the most remote corners of our world.
There are Old Believer settlements all over the world: in America, Canada, China, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Australia, New Zealand and even Alaska. For hundreds of years, the Old Believers escaped persecution and dispossession. "They tore off the crosses. They made us leave everything. And ours were abandoned. Grandfathers had to move from place to place three or four times a year. They take icons, dishes, children and leave," says Uncle Vanya. no one oppressed. They lived like Russians: they wore their clothes, their language, their culture, their work... And the Old Believers grow to the ground with roots. How can I take everything to leave and leave - I have no idea. Our grandfathers were strong."
Now the Old Believers travel around the world to visit each other, introduce children, share clean seeds for the garden, news and experience. Where the Old Believers are, the land begins to bear fruit, which the locals considered infertile, the economy develops, reservoirs are stocked with fish. These people do not complain about life, but take and do their job day by day, little by little. Those who are far from Russia yearn for their homeland, some return, some do not.
The Old Believers are freedom-loving: “They will start to oppress, tell me how to live, I just gathered the children and drove away from here. If necessary, they help us to recover with all our relatives, both Russians and Americans are our relatives from America. 20 years is all we need to restore our way of life." By the way, it is in America that the Old Believers still have a unique dialect of the 30s of the last century. Life beat and beat these people, and at the same time, the love of life and cordiality with which they meet life and us, worldly people, is striking.
Hard work from the heart. The Old Believers work from five in the morning until late at night. At the same time, no one looks tortured or tired. Rather, they look satisfied after another day lived.
Everything that these people are rich in, they created, raised, made literally with their own hands. In food stores, for example, sugar is bought. Although they do not have much need for it: there is honey.
“Here, men live without education or a prestigious profession, but they earn enough, they drive Kruzaks. And they made money on the river, on berries, on mushrooms ... That’s all. He’s just not lazy,” says Uncle Vanya . If something does not work and does not serve development, then it is not for the life of the Old Believer. Everything is vital and simple.
Helping each other is the norm of the Old Believer's life. "During the construction of a house, the men can gather with the whole village to help at the initial stage. And then, in the evening, I organized a table to sit. Or for a lonely woman who does not have a husband, the men will gather and mow hay. There was a fire - we all run to help Everything is simple here: I won’t come today - they won’t come to me tomorrow, ”Uncle Vanya shares.
Parenting. Children are brought up in daily natural work. Already from the age of three, the daughter begins to help her mother at the stove, wash the floors. And the son helps his father in the yard, in construction. "Son, bring me a hammer," Uncle Vanya said to his three-year-old son, and he happily ran to fulfill his father's request. This happens easily and naturally: without coercion or special developing urban methods. In infancy, such children learn about life and enjoy it more than any urban toy.
In schools, the children of the Old Believers study among "worldly" children. They do not go to institutes, although boys are required to serve in the army.
A wedding is once and for all life. Returning from the army, the son begins to think about his family. It happens at the behest of the heart. “So Annushka entered the house where we were preparing for the holiday, and I immediately realized that this was mine,” says Uncle Vanya. I can't imagine life without her. I feel calm and good when I know that my wife is always with me."
Once having chosen a wife or husband, the Old Believers associate themselves with them for life. There can be no talk of divorce. “A wife is given according to karma, as they say,” Uncle Vanya laughs. They do not choose each other for a long time, do not compare, do not live in a civil marriage, their hearts with centuries of experience help them determine the "only one" for life.
The Old Believer's table is rich every day. In our perception, this is a festive table. According to them, this is the norm of life. At this table, it seemed to me that I remembered the taste of bread, milk, cottage cheese, soup, pickles, pies and jam. This taste cannot be compared with what we buy in stores.
Nature gives them everything in abundance, often - even close to home. Vodka is not recognized, if people drink, then kvass or tincture. “All the dishes are illuminated by the mentor, we wash them with prayer, and each person from the side is given worldly dishes, from which we do not eat,” says Uncle Vanya. Old Believers honor prosperity and purity.
There are no medicines. There is no medicine. There are no diseases. You need to start with the fact that these people are healthy from birth. Vaccinations for children are as bad as vaccinations for adults.
"Genetics," they say, looking at the portly lad with a soldier's bearing in the family photo. "What are you doing?" I ask Annushka. "I don't even know," she says. “The same bath, the same rubbing with honey,” adds Uncle Vanya. “My grandfather treated a sore throat with pepper and honey: he makes a boat out of paper and boils honey over a candle in this paper. The paper does not burn, this is a miracle! Which enhances the effect medicines," he smiles. "Grandfather lived for 94 years, he was never treated with medicines at all. He knew how to treat himself: he rubbed a beetroot somewhere, ate something..."
Fashionable - everything is short-lived. Can not argue. You can't call these people "village" in any way. Everything is neat, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing. They wear dresses or shirts that I like. “My wife sews shirts for me, my daughter sews them. Dresses and a sundress for women are also sewn by themselves. The family budget does not suffer so much,” says Uncle Vanya. “Grandfather gave me his chrome boots, they were 40 years old, they looked like This was the attitude towards things: he did not change them every year, sometimes long, sometimes narrow, sometimes blunt ... he sewed them himself and carried them all his life.
No "language of the Russian village" - mat. Communication is cordial and simple, starting with the first words "you live great!". So they naturally greet each other.
Maybe we were lucky, but walking around the settlement, we did not hear a swear word. On the contrary, everyone will say hello or nod to you, passing by in a car. Young guys, stopping on a motorcycle, will ask: "Who will you be?", shake hands and go on. Young girls will bow to the ground. This strikes me as a person who has lived since the age of 12 in a "classical" Russian village. "Where is everything and why has it gone?" - I ask a rhetorical question.
Old Believers don't watch TV. Generally. He does not have them, it is forbidden by the way, like computers. At the same time, the level of their awareness, awareness and political views is often higher than mine, a person living in Moscow. How do people get information? Word of mouth works better than cell phones.
Information about the wedding of Uncle Vanya's daughter reached neighboring villages faster than he managed to get there by car. News about the life of the country and the world is quickly heard from the city, because some Old Believers cooperate with the townspeople.
Old Believers do not allow themselves to be filmed. Several attempts and persuasion to shoot at least something ended with kind phrases: "Yes, it's useless ..." One of the Old Believer principles is "simplicity in everything": home, nature, family, spiritual principles. This way of life is so natural, but so forgotten by us.
Creating in the Moscow region, we often recall this simple life and deep experience. If you like the pursuit of natural life, health and spiritual principles, we will be glad to have you in our community.
ALEXANDER BABKIN
