Dense tall thickets stretch for kilometers. Solotcha. Solotchinskiy Monastery. About pine forest, lily-of-the-valley and strawberry glades, about pine cones and the cafe “Forest Tale. Punctuation marks for homogeneous members of a sentence with generalizing words

Solotcha is located 25 km from Ryazan. You need to leave the city along Yesenin Street. The only thing, auto travelers - be aware that the section of Yesenin Street from Theater Square is one-way. This means that instead of you going straight and quickly out of the city to Solotcha, you need to spend time detours along side and incomprehensible streets. The road to Solotchi is good.

To understand what Solotcha is, it would be good to take off and look at her from top to bottom. And see below you the blue thread of the river and the sea of ​​pine caps. This is for those who have developed spatial imagination.

Those who perceive the world more through feelings, it is better to imagine how pine trunks smell in the sun. How the rustling blows of pine cones sound on the springy mossy-grass coat of the earth or on your hair. How huge lily-of-the-valley thickets hug the feet of pine giants. Like through dry pine needles clouds of wild strawberries smile at the sun. And even better - jump on a bike and break the enveloping pine air with speed. Or just fill yourself with it from head to toe, slowly floating along the turns of stitch paths. And you can carelessly rush somewhere in the depths of countless pine rows in swimsuit shorts - there is a cool river, and even dunes, and you can see the tangled roots of pine trees growing on a high bank-cliff. In the Solotchinskiye pine forests, sanatoriums and rest houses are hiding.

For those who love facts, here is the information: Solotcha is the land of the vast forests of Meshchera. (In the word "Meshchera" the stress is on the last syllable). Since ancient times, Meshchera was divided between three principalities into Moscow, Vladimir and Ryazan. Swamps stretch for kilometers - mshary. And the forests of Meshchera are dense, dense and mysterious. They say there are places where time stops...

1

We are coming here to see the Solotchinsky convent, which, if you describe it in one word, it will be warmth. If several, then I will add - silence and joy. The monastery is located right in the center of Solotchi. Solotcha is a small pretty small town. It could be called a large village, but this is hindered by the central concrete square, still headed by Ilyich, with stunted, unkempt plantings in the flower beds. The look of the statue hollows out the monastery wall. We parked. Entered.

Solotchinsky Monastery - founded 10 years after the Battle of Kulikovo (in 1390) by Prince Oleg of Ryazan. Here he took tonsure and schema, and after another 12 years (in 1402) he found his last resting place. For some reason, I often come across discrepancies - in one place they write that the Pokrovsky Monastery (in the name of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos), in another, that it is the Nativity of the Mother of God (in the name of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Didn't find any details. Probably when it was re-consecrated.

The first temple of the monastery, erected under Prince Oleg, was indeed Pokrovsky, stood on the banks of the Oka, and later the tomb of Prince Oleg (in the schema of Joachim) and his wife, Princess Euphrosyne (in monasticism Evpraksia) was installed in it.

In the 16th century built a beautiful white stone Cathedral of the Nativity (in the center). His style is Old Russian.

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In the 17th century being completed Spiritual Church(in the name of the Holy Spirit) with the refectory(left), Holy Gates with the Gate Forerunner Church(in the name of John the Baptist) , as well as the bell tower and cells(left). Builds - Yakov Bukhvostov. Style - Naryshkin baroque. Decorates with tiles - Stepan Polubes (if not himself, then his workshop). Particularly beautiful tiled figures of the four evangelists are on the gate church.

In the 18th century the sandy shore slumped, along with a fragment (NW corner) of the monastery. The river bank was strengthened, and the princely relics were transferred to the Nativity Cathedral.

The territory of the monastery is quite large, with a minimum of asphalt paths (in my opinion, only one). Throughout the rest of the space - velvet low grass, trees and behind the fence, flower beds and beds of nuns. There is also a booth offering fresh cottage cheese and milk. The ancient Nativity Cathedral is closed. We just bypassed it. The entrance to the Spiritual Church is decorated with birch trees - they recently celebrated the Trinity. My husband stayed to photograph the tiles on the snow-white walls of the church, I climbed the wooden steps and went inside. The main feeling is comfort, Sun rays pushed apart the walls of the already large volume of internal space. The nuns went about their business without paying me any too much attention. I put the candles on and suddenly saw the image of the Virgin, from which tears almost flowed to me. She held the child's hand to her lips. Such a maternal gesture - as if kissing her. And it completely led away from the canons. First you see the mother and the baby, then only you realize that this is the Mother of God and baby Jesus. I asked the name of this icon. “Comforter,” they answered me. She is on the right. On the left, two unusual images also attracted attention. Mother of God. One snow-white, decorated with pearls - "Vladimirskaya". Nearby is a very dark face, shimmering with gold - "Iverskaya".

We walked around the church a little more. The territory of the monastery still requires and requires work. There were few tourists besides us. Then they asked an elderly nun where the monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker was located, which is a copy of the sculpture in Demre (Lycian Worlds) - the Turkish city where the saint was born. It turned out that this was not here, that is, not in the monastery. Necessary behind the square get out on the road and drive a little. This is a rural part of Solotchi. On this street on the right we saw a carved house with a mezzanine - Museum of Professor Ivan Petrovich Pozhalostin(1837-1909, aged 72) a famous copper engraver. It is a mistake to think that you do not know him - remember the classic black and white portrait of Nekrasov, http://www.artsait.ru/art/p/pojalostin/main.htm- this is the work of Pozhalostin, who was called "an outstanding master of classical engraving." With this method of engraving - on a copper plate with an obliquely sharpened steel engraver (cutter), the master cuts strokes or "creates an image by combinations of parallel and intersecting lines and points." And when printing, it fills them with ink. Rembrandt in Holland, Goya in Spain - they were also engravers. Pozhalostin created about 70 engraving portraits, "bringing to us the appearance of the best people of the 19th century." But the unequal competition of engraving with cheaper methods of artistic reproduction led to the elimination of this trend in the Imperial Academy of Arts and the artist's retirement. He left St. Petersburg for his native Solotcha. We did not go to his Museum (ul. Order, 76, http://www.museum.ru/M1593) for two reasons - because of the lack of time and because of the reviews of people who have been there, and called the exposition "very meager" . (You can read about Pozhalostin and look at his portrait here http://ryazhsk.ru/content/view/25/).

We drove a little further and stopped at a bright blue Churches in honor of the Kazan Mother of God. Here among the bright flower beds stands monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker- a figure with hands raised up on the globe. One sculpture is located in hot Turkey in the city of Demre. The second, its copy is in Russia, in Ryazan Solotcha. Placed here in 2006. The sculptor is Raisa Lysenina. To the question "Why is it here in Ryazan and why a copy?" - the answer is this: in the Turkish homeland, this monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker used to stand in the center of the city, and then, for some reason, was dismantled and moved closer to the ruins of the temple where the saint served. And without the globe, which the Turks “lost” somewhere... For some reason, Santa Claus now stands in its former place... Therefore, it was here on Ryazan land that people made such a decision - to recreate its copy and install it again...

“... The Lord speaks from the throne, opening the window beyond paradise:“ O my faithful servant, Mikola, go around the Russian land. Protect the people tormented by grief there in black troubles. Pray with him for victories and for their poor comfort. S. Yesenin

The day was approaching the middle and we wanted to satisfy not only curiosity, but also our urgent hunger. There were few options, or rather, only two roadside cafe which we saw on the way to Solotcha. One on the right, the other on the left. Preference was given to the second option, called "Forest", which was right in the pine forest. Literally. One pine even grew from the roof (apparently, they decided to leave it, not cut it, and thus built it into the room). I also want to note that the pine forest in Solotch is a wow what a forest - such a height, such a width. Ship! It is not for nothing that Solotcha is called the “gateway to Meshchera”, the Meshchera forests have always been an image of a dense, dense, impenetrable forest. So we immediately decided that we would sit in the air. We walked around the cafe on the left and chose a cozy wooden table under an umbrella. While waiting for the order, we walked a little through the forest, among the pines. Beauties! I was shocked by the huge lily-of-the-valley thickets-plantations that spread out like an even carpet under pine trunks. What blooms and smells fragrant here in the spring is probably called lily-of-the-valley paradise. The pines creaked, grumbled, the wind got stuck in their tenacious needles and, breaking out, offendedly tore round cones from pine curls and threw them down. Everything we ordered was delicious (okroshka, barbecue, salads), although the service was very slow. The main thing here is the enjoyment of pine grace.

ordinary earth

There are no special beauties and riches in the Meshchora region, except for forests, meadows and clear air. Nevertheless, this region has a great attractive force. He is very modest - just like Levitan's paintings. But in it, as in these paintings, lies all the charm and all the diversity of Russian nature, imperceptible at first glance.

What can be seen in the Meshchora region? Flowering or sloping meadows, pine forests, floodplain and forest lakes overgrown with black mounds, haystacks smelling of dry and warm hay. Hay in stacks keeps warm all winter.

I had to spend the night in stacks in October, when the grass at dawn is covered with hoarfrost, like salt. I dug a deep hole in the hay, climbed into it and slept all night in a haystack, as if in a locked room. And over the meadows there was a cold rain and the wind swooped in oblique blows.

In the Meshchora Territory, you can see pine forests, where it is so solemn and quiet that the “chatterbox” bell of a lost cow can be heard far away. almost a kilometer. But such silence stands in the forests only on windless days. In the wind, the forests rustle with the great oceanic rumble and the tops of the pines bend after the passing clouds.

In the Meshchora Territory one can see forest lakes with dark water, vast swamps covered with alder and aspen, lonely huts of foresters, charred from old age, sands, juniper, heather, schools of cranes and stars familiar to us from all latitudes.

What can be heard in the Meshchora region, except for the hum of pine forests? The cries of quails and hawks, the whistle of orioles, the fussy clatter of woodpeckers, the howl of wolves, the rustle of rain in red needles, the evening crying of the harmonica in the village, and at night - the discordant singing of roosters and the beater of the village watchman.

But so little can be seen and heard only in the first days. Then every day this region becomes richer, more diverse, dearer to the heart. And, finally, there comes a time when each willow above the dead river seems to be its own, very familiar, when amazing stories can be told about it.

I broke the custom of geographers. Almost all geographical books begin with the same phrase: "This region lies between such and such degrees of eastern longitude and northern latitude and borders on such and such an area in the south, and on such and such in the north." I will not name the latitudes and longitudes of the Meshchora region. Suffice it to say that it lies between Vladimir and Ryazan, not far from Moscow, and is one of the few surviving forest islands, the remnant of the "great belt of coniferous forests". It once stretched from Polissya to the Urals. It included forests: Chernigov, Bryansk, Kaluga, Meshchorsky, Mordovian and Kerzhensky. In these forests, ancient Rus' sat out from the Tatar raids.

First meeting

For the first time I came to the Meshchora region from the north, from Vladimir.

Behind Gus-Khrustalny, at the quiet Tuma station, I changed to a narrow-gauge train. It was a Stephenson train. The locomotive, resembling a samovar, whistled like a child's falsetto. The locomotive had an offensive nickname: "gelding". He really looked like an old gelding. At the curves, he groaned and stopped. Passengers went out to smoke. Forest silence stood around the panting "gelding". The smell of wild cloves, heated by the sun, filled the carriages.

Passengers with things sat on the platforms - things did not fit into the car. Occasionally, on the way, sacks, baskets, carpenter's saws began to fly out from the site onto the canvas, and their owner, often a rather ancient old woman, jumped out for things. Inexperienced passengers were frightened, and experienced passengers, twisting the "goat's legs" and spitting, explained that this was the most convenient way to disembark from the train closer to their village.

The narrow-gauge railway in the Mentor forests is the most leisurely Railway in the Union.

The stations are littered with resinous logs and smell of fresh felling and wild forest flowers.

At Pilevo station, a shaggy grandfather climbed into the car. He crossed himself in a corner where a round cast-iron stove rattled, sighed and complained into space.

- Just a little, now they take me by the beard - go to the city, tie up your bast shoes. And that is not in the consideration that, perhaps, their business is not worth a penny. They send me to a museum where the Soviet government collects cards, price lists, and everything else. Send with an application.

- What are you doing wrong?

- You look - here!

Grandfather pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, blew off the terrycloth from it and showed it to the neighbor woman.

“Manka, read it,” the woman said to the girl, rubbing her nose against the window. Manka put on her dress on her scratched knees, drew up her legs, and began to read in a hoarse voice:

- “It is believed that unfamiliar birds live in the lake, of huge striped growth, only three; it is not known where they flew from - they should be taken alive for the museum, and therefore send catchers.

- Here, - said the grandfather sadly, - for what business now the bones of old people are broken. And all Leshka is a Komsomol member. An ulcer is a passion! Ugh!

Grandpa spat. Baba wiped her round mouth with the end of her handkerchief and sighed. The locomotive whistled in fright, the forests hummed to the right and to the left, raging like a lake. The west wind was in charge. The train with difficulty broke through its damp streams and was hopelessly late, panting on empty half stations.

- Here it is our existence, - grandfather repeated - Summer year they drove me to the museum, today again!

- What did you find in the summer year? the grandmother asked.

- Torchak!

- Something?

- Torchak. Well, the bone is ancient. She lay in the swamp. Like a deer. Horns - from this car. Straight passion. They dug it for a whole month. In the end, the people were exhausted.

Who did he give up on? the grandmother asked.

- The guys will be taught on it.

The following was reported about this find in the "Research and Materials of the Regional Museum":

“The skeleton went deep into the bog, not giving support for the diggers. I had to undress and go down into the bog, which was extremely difficult due to the icy temperature of the spring water. Huge horns, like the skull, were intact, but extremely fragile due to the complete maceration (soaking) of the bones. The bones broke right in the hands, but as they dried, the hardness of the bones was restored.

A skeleton of a gigantic fossil Irish deer was found with a span of two and a half meters of antlers.

From this meeting with the shaggy grandfather, my acquaintance with Meshchora began. Then I heard many stories about mammoth teeth, and about treasures, and about mushrooms the size of a human head. But this first story on the train stuck in my memory especially vividly.

Meshcherskaya Side Paustovsky

vintage map

With great difficulty, I got a map of the Meshchora region. There was a note on it: "The map was compiled from old surveys made before 1870." I had to fix this map myself. River courses have changed. Where there were swamps on the map, in some places a young pine forest was already rustling; swamps appeared in place of other lakes.

But still, using this map was more reliable than asking local residents. For a long time, it has been so customary in Rus' that no one will confuse so much when explaining the way as a local resident, especially if he is a talkative person.

“You, dear man,” shouts a local resident, “do not listen to others!” They will tell you such things that you will not be happy with your life. You listen to me alone, I know these places through and through. Go to the outskirts, you will see a five-walled hut on your left hand, take from that hut on your right hand along the stitch through the sands, you will reach the Prorva and go, dear, the edge of the Prorva, go, do not hesitate, right up to the burnt willow. From it you take a little to the forest, past Muzga, and after Muzga go steeply to the hill, and beyond the hill there is a well-known road - through the mshary to the lake itself.

- And how many kilometers?

- Who knows? Maybe ten, maybe all twenty. There are kilometers, dear, unmeasured.

I tried to follow this advice, but there were always a few burnt willows, or there was no noticeable mound, and I, waving my hand at the stories of the natives, relied only on own feeling directions. It almost never fooled me.

The natives always explained the way with passion, with furious enthusiasm. At first this amused me, but somehow I myself had to explain the way to Lake Segden to the poet Simonov, and I found myself telling him about the signs of this tangled road with the same passion as the natives.

Every time you explain the way, it’s as if you are walking along it again, through all these free places, along forest lanes dotted with immortelle flowers, and again you feel lightness in your soul. This lightness always comes to us when the path is long and there are no worries in the heart.

A few words about signs

In order not to get lost in the forests, you need to know the signs. Finding signs or creating them yourself is a very exciting experience. The world will accept infinitely diverse. It is very joyful when the same sign is preserved in the forests year after year - every autumn you meet the same fiery bush of mountain ash behind Larin's pond or the same notch you made on a pine tree. With each summer, the notch becomes more and more solid golden resin.

Signs on the roads are not the main signs. The real signs are those that determine the weather and time.

There are so many that one could write a whole book about them. We do not need omens in cities. The fire rowan is replaced by an enameled blue street name plate. Time is recognized not by the height of the sun, not by the position of the constellations, and not even by cock crows, but by the clock. Weather forecasts are broadcast by radio. In cities, most of our natural instincts go dormant. But it is worth spending two or three nights in the forest, and hearing becomes sharper again, the eye becomes sharper, the sense of smell is thinner.

Signs are connected with everything: with the color of the sky, with dew and fog, with the cry of birds and the brightness of starlight.

Signs contain a lot of exact knowledge and poetry. There are simple and complex signs. The simplest sign is the smoke of a fire. Now it rises in a column to the sky, calmly flows upwards, above the highest willows, then spreads fog over the grass, then rushes around the fire. And now, to the charm of a night fire, to the bitter smell of smoke, the crackling of branches, the running of the fire and the fluffy white ash, there is also the knowledge of tomorrow's weather.

Looking at the smoke, one can definitely say whether tomorrow it will rain, wind, or again, like today, the sun will rise in deep silence, in cool blue fogs. Evening dew predicts calmness and warmth. It is so abundant that it even shines at night, reflecting the light of the stars. And the more abundant the dew, the hotter tomorrow will be.

These are all very simple clues. But there are complex and precise signs. Sometimes the sky suddenly seems very high, and the horizon shrinks, it seems close, to the horizon as if no more than a kilometer. This is a sign of future clear weather.

Sometimes on a cloudless day the fish suddenly stops taking. Rivers and lakes are dying, as if life had gone from them forever. This is a sure sign of a close and prolonged bad weather. In a day or two, the sun will rise in a crimson, ominous haze, and by noon, black clouds will almost touch the ground, a damp wind will blow, and languid, heavy rains will fall.

Return to the map

I remembered the signs and digressed from the map of the Meshchora region.

Exploring an unfamiliar land always starts with a map. This lesson is no less interesting than the study of signs. You can wander on the map just like on the ground, but then, when you get to this real land, the knowledge of the map immediately affects - you no longer wander blindly and do not waste time on trifles.

On the map of the Meshchora Territory below, in the farthest corner, in the south, a bend of a large full-flowing river is shown. This is Oka. To the north of the Oka stretches a wooded and swampy lowland, to the south - long-settled, inhabited Ryazan lands. The eye flows along the boundary of two completely different, very dissimilar spaces.

Ryazan lands are grainy, yellow from rye fields, curly from apple orchards. The outskirts of the Ryazan villages often merge with each other, the villages are densely scattered, and there is no such place where one, or even two or three still surviving bell towers are not visible on the horizon. Instead of forests, birch groves rustle along the slopes of the dens.

Ryazan land is the land of fields. Steppes are already beginning to the south of Ryazan.

But it is worth crossing the Oka by ferry, and behind a wide strip of meadows near the Oka, the Meshchora pine forests already stand like a dark wall. They go to the north and east, round lakes turn blue in them. These forests hide in their depths huge peat bogs.

In the west of the Meshchora Territory, on the so-called Borovaya side, among pine forests, eight forest lakes lie in the undergrowth. There are no roads or paths to them, and you can only get to them through the forest using a map and compass.

These lakes have one very strange property: the smaller the lake, the deeper it is. The large Mitinsky lake is only four meters deep, and the small Udemnoye lake is seventeen meters deep.

Mshara

To the east of the Borovoe lakes lie the huge Meshchora swamps - "msharas" or "omsharas". These are lakes overgrown for thousands of years. They cover an area of ​​three hundred thousand hectares. When you stand in the middle of such a swamp, the former high shore of the lake - the "mainland" - with its dense pine forest is clearly visible on the horizon. In some places, sandy mounds, overgrown with pine and fern, are visible on the mshars - former islands. locals Until now, these hillocks are called “islands”. Moose spend the night on the islands.

Somehow, at the end of September, we walked by mshars to Poganoe Lake. The lake was mysterious. The women said that along its banks grow cranberries the size of a walnut and filthy mushrooms "a little more than a calf's head." From these mushrooms the lake got its name. The women were afraid to go to Poganoe Lake - there were some “green bogs” near it.

- As soon as you set foot, - the women said, - so the whole earth under you will hoot, buzz, sway like a shaking, the alder will sway, and the water will hit from under the bast shoes, splash in your face. By God! Just such passions - it is impossible to say. And the lake itself is without a bottom, black. If any young wench looks at him, she immediately becomes stunned.

- Why do you hesitate?

- From fear. So you fear and tearing up on the back, and tearing. As if we stumbled upon Poganoe Lake, we run from it, run to the first island, and there we can only catch our breath.

The women provoked us, and we decided to definitely reach Poganoe Lake. On the way we spent the night at Black Lake. The rain pounded the tent all night. The water murmured softly in the roots. In the rain, in the impenetrable darkness, the wolves howled.

The Black Lake was filled flush with the shores. It seemed as if the wind would blow or the rain would intensify, and the water would flood the msharas and us, together with the tent, and we would never leave these low, gloomy wastelands.

All night long the msharas breathed the smell of wet moss, bark, and black snags. By morning the rain had passed. The gray sky hung low overhead. From the fact that the clouds almost touched the tops of the birches, the earth was quiet and warm. The layer of clouds was very thin - the sun shone through it.

We rolled up the tent, put on our backpacks and went. Walking was difficult. Last summer, there was a ground fire in the msharams. The roots of birches and alders were burned, the trees fell down, and every minute we had to climb over large rubble. We walked over hummocks, and between the hummocks, where the red water was sour, the roots of birches stuck out, sharp as stakes. They are called pegs in the Meshchora region.

Mshara are overgrown with sphagnum, lingonberries, gonobobel, cuckoo flax. The leg sank in green and gray mosses up to the knee.

In two hours we walked only two kilometers. An island appeared ahead. With the last of our strength, climbing over the rubble, tattered and bloodied, we reached a wooded mound and fell on warm ground, in a thicket of lilies of the valley. The lilies of the valley were already ripe, hard orange berries hung between the broad leaves. The pale sky shone through the branches of the pines.

The writer Gaidar was with us. He went around the whole "island". The “island” was small, it was surrounded on all sides by msharas, only two more “islands” were visible far on the horizon.

Gaidar shouted from afar, whistled. We reluctantly got up, went to him, and he showed us on the damp ground, where the "island" turned into mshary, huge fresh traces of an elk. The elk, obviously, was walking in big leaps.

- This is his path to the watering hole, - said Gaidar ...

We followed the moose trail. We had no water, we were thirsty. A hundred paces from the "island" footprints led us to a small "window" with a clear, cold water. The water smelled of iodoform. We got drunk and went back.

Gaidar went to look for Poganoe Lake. It lay somewhere nearby, but like most lakes in the Mshara, it was very difficult to find. The lakes are surrounded by such dense thickets and tall grass that you can walk a few steps and not notice the water.

Gaidar did not take the compass, said he would find way back the sun, and left. We lay on the moss, listened to the old ones fall from the branches Pine cones. Some beast sounded dully in the distant forests.

An hour has passed. Gaidar did not return. But the sun was still high, and we did not worry - Gaidar could not help but find his way back.

The second hour passed, then the third. The sky above the Msharas became colorless; then a gray wall like smoke crept in slowly from the east. Low clouds covered the sky. A few minutes later the sun disappeared. Only a dry haze hung over the msharas.

Without a compass in such darkness it was impossible to find a way. We remembered the stories about how on sunny days people circled in m'shars in one place for several days.

I climbed a tall pine tree and started screaming. Nobody responded. Then a voice came from far away. I listened, and an unpleasant chill ran down my back: in the mshars, just in the direction where Gaidar had gone, the wolves howled dejectedly.

What to do? The wind blew in the direction where Gaidar had gone. It was possible to kindle a fire, the smoke would be drawn into mshars, and Gaidar could return to the “island” by the smell of smoke. But this could not be done. We did not agree on this with Gaidar. There are often fires in swamps. Gaidar could have mistaken this smoke for an approaching fire and, instead of coming towards us, he would have started to leave us, fleeing from the fire.

Fires in the dried marshes are the worst thing to experience in these parts. It is difficult to escape from them - the fire goes very quickly. Yes, and where will you go when mosses dry as gunpowder lie to the horizon, and you can save yourself, and even then not for sure, only on the “island” - for some reason, the fire sometimes bypasses the wooded “islands”.

We shouted all at once, but only the wolves answered us. Then one of us went with a compass to the mshary - to where Gaidar had disappeared.

Twilight descended. Crows flew over the "island" and croaked frightened and ominously.

We shouted desperately, but then we still kindled a fire - it was getting dark quickly - and now Gaidar could go out to the fire.

But in response to our cries, no human voice was heard, and only in the dull twilight somewhere near the second "island" did the car horn suddenly hum and quack like a duck. It was absurd and wild - where could a car appear in the swamps, where a person could hardly pass?

The car was clearly approaching. It hummed insistently, and half an hour later we heard a crack in the rubble, the car grunted for the last time somewhere very close, and a smiling, wet, exhausted Gaidar got out of the mshar, followed by our comrade - the one who left with the compass.

It turns out that Gaidar heard our cries and answered all the time, but the wind blew in his direction and drove away his voice. Then Gaidar got tired of screaming, and he began to quack - to imitate a car.

Gaidar did not reach Poganoe Lake. He met a lonely pine tree, he climbed it and saw this lake in the distance. Gaidar looked at him, cursed, got down and went back.

- Why? we asked him.

- A very terrible lake, - he answered - Well, to hell with it!

He said that even from afar you can see how black, like tar, the water in Poganoe Lake. Rare diseased pines stand along the banks, leaning over the water, ready to fall from the first gust of wind. Several pine trees have already fallen into the water. There must be impassable bogs around the lake.

It was getting dark quickly, like autumn. We did not spend the night on the "island", but went by mshars towards the "mainland" - the wooded shore of the swamp. Walking through the rubble in the dark was unbearably difficult. Every ten minutes we checked the direction with the phosphorus compass, and only at midnight did we get out onto solid ground, into the forests, stumbled upon an abandoned road and, late at night, reached Lake Segden along it, where our mutual friend Kuzma Zotov lived, a meek, sick man, a fisherman and collective farmer.

I told this whole story, in which there is nothing special, only to give at least a remote idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat the Meshchora swamps - mshary are.

Peat extraction has already begun on some mshars (in Krasnoe Bog and Pilnoe Bog). The peat here is old, powerful, it will last for hundreds of years.

Yes, but we need to finish the story about Pogany Lake. The following summer, we nevertheless reached this lake. Its shores were floating - not the usual hard shores, but a dense plexus of calla, wild rosemary, grasses, roots and mosses. The banks swayed underfoot like a hammock. Bottomless water stood under the thin grass. The pole easily pierced the floating shore and went into the bog. With every step, fountains of warm water spouted from under their feet. It was impossible to stop: the legs were sucked in and the footprints were filled with water.

The water in the lake was black. Swamp gas bubbled up from the bottom.

We fished for perch on this lake. We tied long lines to wild rosemary bushes or young alder trees, and we ourselves sat on fallen pines and smoked until the wild rosemary bush began to tear and rustle, or the alder tree bent and cracked. Then we lazily got up, dragged by the fishing line and dragged fat black perches ashore. So that they would not fall asleep, we put them in our tracks, in deep pits filled with water, and the perches beat their tails in the water, splashed, but could not go anywhere.

At noon, a thunderstorm gathered over the lake. She grew before our eyes. The small storm cloud turned into an ominous anvil-like cloud. She stood still and didn't want to leave.

Lightning lashed at the m'sharas next to us, and our hearts were not feeling well.

We didn’t go to Poganoe Lake anymore, but nevertheless we earned the glory of women inveterate people, ready for anything.

- Absolutely desperate men, - they said in a singsong voice, - Well, so desperate, so desperate, there are just no words!

Forest rivers and canals

I took my eyes off the map again. To put an end to it, it must be said about the mighty tracts of forests (they fill the entire map with dull green paint), about the mysterious white spots in the depths of the forests and about two rivers - Solotcha and Pre, flowing south through forests, swamps and burnt areas.

Solotcha is a winding, shallow river. In its barrels stand under the banks of a flock of ides. The water in Solotch is red. Peasants call such water "harsh". Along the entire length of the river, only in one place does a leading road approach it, no one knows where, and by the road there is a lonely inn.

The Pra flows from the northern Meshchora lakes to the Oka. There are very few trees along the banks. In the old days, schismatics settled in Pre, in dense forests.

In the city of Spas-Klepiki, in the upper reaches of the Pra, there is an old cotton factory. She lowers cotton tows into the river, and the bottom of the Pra near Spas-Klepikov is covered with a thick layer of packed black cotton wool. This must be the only river in the Soviet Union with a cotton bottom.

In addition to rivers, there are many canals in the Meshchora region.

Even under Alexander II, General Zhilinsky decided to drain the Meshchora swamps and create a big lands for colonization. An expedition was sent to Meshchora. She worked for twenty years and drained only one and a half thousand hectares of land, but no one wanted to settle on this land - it turned out to be very scarce.

Zhilinsky spent many channels in Meshchor. Now these canals have died out and are overgrown with swamp grasses. Ducks nest in them, lazy tenches and nimble loaches live.

These channels are very picturesque. They go deep into the forests. Thickets hang over the water in dark arches. Seems like every channel leads to mysterious places. On the canals, especially in spring, you can wade in a light canoe for tens of kilometers.

The sweet smell of water lilies is mixed with the smell of resin. Sometimes high reeds block the canals with solid dams. Calla grows along the banks. Its leaves are a bit like the leaves of a lily of the valley, but on one leaf a wide white stripe is traced, and from a distance it seems that these are huge snow flowers. Ferns, brambles, horsetails and moss lean in from the banks. If you touch a tuft of moss with your hand or an oar, bright emerald dust flies out of it in a thick cloud - spores of cuckoo flax. Pink fireweed blooms with low walls. Olive swimming beetles dive in the water and attack schools of fry. Sometimes you have to drag the boat by dragging through shallow water. Then the swimmers bite their legs until they bleed.

The silence is broken only by the ringing of mosquitoes and splashes of fish.

Swimming always leads to an unknown goal - to a forest lake or a forest river that carries clear water over a cartilaginous bottom.

On the banks of these rivers, water rats live in deep holes. There are rats completely gray with old age.

If you quietly follow the hole, you can see how the rat is catching fish. She crawls out of the hole, dives very deep and comes up with a terrible noise. Yellow water lilies sway on wide circles of water. The rat holds a silver fish in its mouth and swims with it to the shore. When the fish is more rat, the fight lasts a long time, and the rat crawls out onto the shore tired, with eyes red with anger.

To make it easier to swim, water rats gnaw off a long stalk of kugi and swim holding it in their teeth. The stalk of the coogee is full of air cells. He perfectly holds on the water even not as heavy as a rat. Zhilinsky tried to drain the Meshchora swamps. Nothing came of this venture. The soil of Meshchora is peat, podzol and sands. Only potatoes will be born well on the sands. The wealth of Meshchora is not in the land, but in the forests, in peat and in flood meadows along the left bank of the Oka. Other scientists compare these meadows in terms of fertility with the floodplain of the Nile. The meadows provide excellent hay.

Forests

Meshchora is a remnant of the forest ocean. Meshchora forests are as majestic as cathedrals. Even an old professor, not at all inclined to poetry, wrote the following words in a study about the Meshchora region: “Here in the mighty pine forests it is so light that a bird flying hundreds of steps deep can be seen.”

You walk through dry pine forests like you walk on a deep, expensive carpet – for kilometers the land is covered with dry, soft moss. Sunlight lies in the gaps between the pines in oblique cuts. Flocks of birds with a whistle and a slight noise scatter to the sides. Forests rustle in the wind. The rumble passes over the tops of the pines like waves. A lone plane floating at a dizzying height appears to be a destroyer seen from the bottom of the sea.

Powerful air currents are visible to the naked eye. They rise from the earth to the sky. The clouds are melting, standing still. The dry breath of the forests and the scent of the juniper must have reached the planes as well.

In addition to pine forests, mast and ship forests, there are forests of spruce, birch and rare patches of broad-leaved lindens, elms and oaks. There are no roads in the oak copses. They are impassable and dangerous due to ants. On a hot day, it is almost impossible to pass through the oak thicket: in a minute, the whole body, from heels to head, will be covered with red angry ants with strong jaws. Harmless ant-bears roam in oak thickets. They pick open old stumps and lick ant eggs.

The forests in Meshchore are robbery, deaf. No more rest and pleasure than to walk all day through these forests, along unfamiliar roads to some distant lake.

The path in the forests is kilometers of silence, calmness. This is mushroom prel, the careful fluttering of birds. These are sticky oils covered with needles, tough grass, cold porcini mushrooms, wild strawberries, purple bells in the clearings, trembling aspen leaves, solemn light and, finally, forest twilight, when dampness pulls from the mosses and fireflies burn in the grass.

The sunset burns heavily on the crowns of the trees, gilding them with ancient gilding. Below, at the foot of the pines, it is already dark and deaf. Bats fly silently and seem to look into the face of bats. Some incomprehensible ringing is heard in the forests - the sound of the evening, the burnt out day.

And in the evening the lake will finally shine like a black, obliquely placed mirror. The night is already standing over it and looking into its dark water, a night full of stars. In the west, the dawn is still smoldering, in the thickets of wolfberries the bittern is crying, and the cranes are muttering and fussing on the mshars, disturbed by the smoke of the fire.

Throughout the night, the fire of the fire flares up, then goes out. The foliage of birches hangs without moving. Dew flows down the white trunks. And you can hear how somewhere very far away - it seems, beyond the edge of the earth - an old rooster cries hoarsely in the forester's hut.

In an extraordinary, never-heard silence dawn dawns. The sky is green in the east. Venus lights up like blue crystal at dawn. This is the best time of the day. Everyone is still sleeping. Water sleeps, water lilies sleep, sleep with their noses buried in snags, fish, birds sleep, and only owls fly around the fire slowly and silently, like clods of white fluff.

The cauldron gets angry and mumbles on the fire. For some reason, we speak in a whisper - we are afraid to frighten off the dawn. With a tin whistle, heavy ducks rush by. Fog begins to swirl over the water. We pile mountains of boughs into the fire and watch how a huge White sun- the sun of an endless summer day.

So we live in a tent on forest lakes for several days. Our hands smell of smoke and lingonberries - this smell does not disappear for weeks. We sleep two hours a day and almost never get tired. Two or three hours of sleep in the woods must be worth many hours of sleep in the stuffiness of city houses, in the stale air of asphalt streets.

Once we spent the night on the Black Lake, in high thickets, near a large pile of old brushwood.

We took a rubber inflatable boat with us and at dawn we rode it over the edge of coastal water lilies to fish. Decayed leaves lay in a thick layer at the bottom of the lake, and snags floated in the water.

Suddenly, at the very side of the boat, a huge humpbacked back of a black fish with a dorsal fin sharp as a kitchen knife emerged. The fish dived and passed under the rubber boat. The boat rocked. The fish surfaced again. It must have been a giant pike. She could hit a rubber boat with a feather and rip it open like a razor.

I hit the water with the oar. In response, the fish whipped its tail with terrible force and again passed under the very boat. We quit fishing and started rowing towards the shore, towards our bivouac. The fish always walked next to the boat.

We drove into the coastal thickets of water lilies and were preparing to land, but at that time a shrill yelping and a trembling, heart-grabbing howl were heard from the shore. Where we lowered the boat, on the shore, on the trampled grass, a she-wolf with three cubs stood with her tail between her legs and howled, raising her muzzle to the sky. She howled long and dull; the wolf cubs squealed and hid behind their mother. The black fish again passed by the very side and caught the oar with a feather.

I threw a heavy lead sinker at the she-wolf. She jumped back and trotted away from the shore. And we saw how she crawled along with the cubs into a round hole in a pile of brushwood not far from our tent.

We landed, made a fuss, drove the she-wolf out of the brushwood and moved the bivouac to another place.

Black Lake is named after the color of the water. The water is black and clear.

In Meshchore, almost all lakes have water of different colors. Most lakes with black water. In other lakes (for example, in Chernenkoe), the water resembles brilliant ink. It is difficult, without seeing, to imagine this rich, dense color. And at the same time, the water in this lake, as well as in Chernoye, is completely transparent.

This color is especially good in autumn, when yellow and red birch and aspen leaves fall on black water. They cover the water so thickly that the boat rustles through the foliage and leaves behind a shiny black road.

But this color is also good in summer, when white lilies lie on the water, as if on extraordinary glass. Black water has an excellent property of reflection: it is difficult to distinguish real shores from reflected ones, real thickets from their reflection in the water.

In Lake Urzhensky, the water is purple, in Segden it is yellowish, in the Great Lake it is tin-colored, and in the lakes beyond the Proy it is slightly bluish. In meadow lakes, the water is clear in summer, and in autumn it acquires a greenish marine color and even the smell of sea water.

But most of the lakes are still black. The old people say that the blackness is caused by the fact that the bottom of the lakes is covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves. Brown foliage gives a dark infusion. But this is not entirely true. The color is explained by the peaty bottom of the lakes - the older the peat, the darker the water.

I mentioned the Meshchora boats. They look like Polynesian pies. They are carved from a single piece of wood. Only at the bow and stern they are riveted with forged nails with large hats.

The prow is very narrow, light, agile, it is possible to pass through the smallest channels.

meadows

Between the forests and the Oka, water meadows stretch in a wide belt,

At dusk, the meadows look like the sea. As in the sea, the sun sets in the grass, and signal lights on the banks of the Oka burn like beacons. Just as in the sea, fresh winds blow over the meadows, and the high sky has turned over like a pale green cup.

In the meadows, the old channel of the Oka stretches for many kilometers. His name is Provo.

It is a dead, deep and motionless river with steep banks. The shores are overgrown with tall, old, three-girth, blackberry, hundred-year-old willows, wild roses, umbrella grasses and blackberries.

We called one stretch on this river “Fantastic Abyss”, because nowhere and none of us have seen such huge, two human height, burdocks, blue thorns, such a tall lungwort and horse sorrel and such gigantic puffball mushrooms as on this reach.

The density of grasses in other places on the Prorva is such that it is impossible to land on the shore from a boat - the grasses stand as an impenetrable elastic wall. They repel a person. Herbs are intertwined with treacherous blackberry loops, hundreds of dangerous and sharp snares.

There is often a light haze over Prorva. Its color changes with the time of day. In the morning it is a blue fog, in the afternoon it is a whitish haze, and only at dusk the air over the Prorva becomes transparent, like spring water. The foliage of the black-spotted trees barely trembles, pink from the sunset, and Prorva pikes are loudly beating in the whirlpools.

In the mornings, when you can't walk ten steps across the grass without getting wet to the skin with dew, the air on Prorva smells of bitter willow bark, grassy freshness, and sedge. It is thick, cool and healing.

Every autumn I spend on Prorva in a tent for many days. To get a glimpse of what Prorva is, at least one Prorva day should be described. I come to Prorva by boat. I have a tent, an ax, a lantern, a backpack with groceries, a sapper shovel, some dishes, tobacco, matches and fishing accessories: fishing rods, donkeys, slings, vents and, most importantly, a jar of leaf worms. I collect them in an old garden under heaps of fallen leaves.

On Prorva, I already have my favorite places, always very remote places. One of them is a sharp turn of the river, where it overflows into a small lake with very high banks overgrown with vines.

There I pitch a tent. But first of all, I carry hay. Yes, I confess, I haul hay from the nearest haystack, but I haul it very deftly, so that even the most experienced eye of the old collective farmer will not notice any flaw in the haystack. I put hay under the canvas floor of the tent. Then when I leave, I take it back.

The tent must be pulled so that it buzzes like a drum. Then it must be dug in so that during rain the water flows into the ditches on the sides of the tent and does not wet the floor.

The tent is set up. It's warm and dry. Flashlight " bat» hangs on a hook. In the evening I light it and even read in the tent, but I usually don’t read for long - there are too many interferences on Prorva: either a corncrake will start screaming behind a neighboring bush, then a pood fish will strike with a cannon roar, then a willow rod will deafeningly shoot in a fire and scatter sparks, then over a crimson glow will begin to flare up in thickets and a gloomy moon will rise over the expanses of the evening earth. And immediately the corncrakes will subside and the bittern will stop buzzing in the swamps - the moon rises in watchful silence. She appears as the owner of these dark waters, hundred-year-old willows, mysterious long nights.

Tents of black willows hang overhead. Looking at them, you begin to understand the meaning of old words. Obviously, such tents in former times were called "canopy". Under the canopy of willows... And for some reason on such nights you call the constellation of Orion Stozhary, and the word "midnight", which in the city sounds, perhaps, like a literary concept, acquires a real meaning here. This darkness under the willows, and the brilliance of the September stars, and the bitterness of the air, and the distant fire in the meadows, where the boys guard the horses driven into the night - all this is midnight. Somewhere in the distance, a watchman strikes the clock on a rural belfry. He hits for a long time, measuredly - twelve strokes. Then another dark silence. Only occasionally on the Oka will a towing steamer scream in a sleepy voice.

The night drags on slowly; it seems it will never end. Sleep on autumn nights in a tent is strong, fresh, despite the fact that you wake up every two hours and go out to look at the sky - to find out if Sirius has risen, if you can see the strip of dawn in the east.

The night is getting colder with each passing hour. By dawn the air is already burning face light frost, the tent panels, covered with a thick layer of crisp hoarfrost, sag a little, and the grass turns gray from the first matinee.

It's time to get up. In the east, dawn is already pouring with a quiet light, huge outlines of willows are already visible in the sky, the stars are already fading. I go down to the river, wash from the boat. The water is warm, it seems even slightly heated.

The sun is rising. Frost is melting. Coastal sands turn dark with dew.

I boil strong tea in a smoked tin teapot. Hard soot is similar to enamel. Willow leaves burnt in a fire float in a teapot.

I have been fishing all morning. I check from the boat the ropes that have been placed across the river since the evening. First there are empty hooks - ruffs have eaten all the bait on them. But then the cord stretches, cuts the water, and a living silver shine appears in the depths - this is a flat bream walking on a hook. Behind him is a fat and stubborn perch, then a little pike with yellow piercing eyes. The pulled fish seems to be ice cold.

Aksakov's words relate entirely to these days spent on the Prorva:

“On a green flowering shore, above the dark depths of a river or lake, in the shade of bushes, under the tent of a gigantic oskor or curly alder, quietly trembling with its leaves in a bright mirror of water, imaginary passions will subside, imaginary storms will subside, self-loving dreams will crumble, unrealizable hopes will scatter. Nature will enter into its eternal rights. Together with the fragrant, free, refreshing air, you will breathe into yourself serenity of thought, meekness of feeling, indulgence towards others and even towards yourself.

A small digression from the topic

There are many fishing incidents associated with Prorva. I will tell about one of them.

The great tribe of fishermen who lived in the village of Solotche, near Prorva, was excited. A tall old man with long silver teeth came to Solotcha from Moscow. He also fished.

The old man was fishing for spinning: an English fishing rod with a spinner - an artificial nickel fish.

We despised spinning. We watched the old man with gloating pleasure as he patiently wandered along the shores of meadow lakes and, swinging his spinning rod like a whip, invariably dragged an empty lure out of the water.

And right next to him, Lenka, the son of a shoemaker, dragged fish not on an English fishing line worth a hundred rubles, but on an ordinary rope. The old man sighed and complained:

- A cruel injustice of fate!

Even with the boys he spoke very politely, in "vy", and used old-fashioned, long-forgotten words in conversation. The old man was unlucky. We have known for a long time that all anglers are divided into deep losers and lucky ones. For the lucky ones, the fish bites even on a dead worm. In addition, there are fishermen - envious and cunning. Tricksters think they can outsmart any fish, but never in my life have I seen such an angler outsmart even the grayest ruff, let alone Roach.

It’s better not to go fishing with an envious person - he still won’t peck. In the end, having lost weight with envy, he will begin to throw his fishing rod to yours, slap the sinker on the water and scare away all the fish.

So the old man was out of luck. In one day, he broke off at least ten expensive spinners on snags, walked all over in blood and blisters from mosquitoes, but did not give up.

Once we took him with us to Lake Segden.

All night the old man dozed by the fire standing like a horse: he was afraid to sit on the damp ground. At dawn, I fried eggs with lard. The sleepy old man wanted to step over the fire to get bread from the bag, stumbled and stepped on the fried eggs with a huge foot.

He pulled out his yolk-smeared leg, shook it in the air and hit the jug of milk. The jug cracked and crumbled into small pieces. And the beautiful baked milk with a slight rustle was sucked up before our eyes into the wet earth.

- Guilty! said the old man, apologizing to the jug.

Then he went to the lake, put his foot in cold water and dangled it for a long time in order to wash the scrambled eggs off the boot. For two minutes we could not utter a word, and then we laughed in the bushes until noon.

Everyone knows that once a fisherman is unlucky, sooner or later such a good failure will happen to him that they will talk about it in the village for at least ten years. Finally such a failure happened.

We went with the old man to Prorva. The meadows have not yet been mowed. A camomile the size of a palm lashed her legs.

The old man walked and, stumbling over the grass, repeated:

“What a scent, folks!” What a delightful scent!

There was a calm over the Abyss. Even the leaves of the willows did not move and did not show the silvery underside, as happens even in a light breeze. In the heated herbs "jundel" bumblebees.

I sat on a wrecked raft, smoking and watching a feather float. I patiently waited for the float to shudder and go into the green river depth. The old man walked along the sandy shore with a spinning rod. I heard his sighs and exclamations from behind the bushes:

What a wonderful, charming morning!

Then I heard behind the bushes quacking, stomping, snuffling and sounds very similar to the lowing of a cow with a bandaged mouth. Something heavy flopped into the water, and the old man cried out in a thin voice:

- My God, what a beauty! I jumped off the raft, reached the shore in waist-deep water, and ran up to the old man. He stood behind the bushes near the water, and on the sand in front of him an old pike was breathing heavily. At first glance, it was no less than a pood.

But the old man hissed at me and, with trembling hands, took a pair of pince-nez out of his pocket. He put it on, bent over the pike and began to examine it with such delight, with which connoisseurs admire a rare painting in a museum.

The pike did not take his angry narrowed eyes from the old man.

- It looks like a crocodile! Lenka said.

The pike squinted at Lenka, and he jumped back. It seemed that the pike croaked: "Well, wait a minute, you fool, I'll tear off your ears!"

- Dove! - exclaimed the old man and bent even lower over the pike.

Then the failure happened, which is still talked about in the village.

The pike tried on, blinked his eye, and hit the old man with his tail on the cheek with all his might. Over the sleepy water there was a deafening crack of a slap in the face. The pince-nez flew into the river. The pike jumped up and flopped heavily into the water.

- Alas! the old man shouted, but it was already too late.

Lenka danced to the side and shouted in an impudent voice:

– Aha! Got! Don't catch, don't catch, don't catch when you don't know how!

On the same day, the old man wound up his spinning rods and left for Moscow. And no one else broke the silence of the channels and rivers, did not cut off the lustrous cold river lilies and did not admire aloud what is best to admire without words.

More about meadows

There are many lakes in the meadows. Their names are strange and varied: Quiet, Bull, Hotets, Ramoina, Kanava, Staritsa, Muzga, Bobrovka, Selyanskoye Lake and, finally, Langobardskoe.

At the bottom of Hotz lie black bog oaks. Silence is always calm. High banks close the lake from the winds. Beavers were once found in Bobrovka, and now they are chasing fry. Gulp - deep lake with such capricious fish that only a man with very good nerves can catch them. Bull is a mysterious, distant lake, stretching for many kilometers. In it, shallows are replaced by whirlpools, but there is little shade on the banks, and therefore we avoid it. There are amazing golden lines in the Kanava: each such line pecks for half an hour. By autumn, the banks of the Kanava are covered with purple spots, but not from autumn foliage, but from an abundance of very large rose hips.

On Staritsa along the banks there are sand dunes overgrown with Chernobyl and succession. Grass grows on the dunes, it is called tenacious. These are dense gray-green balls, similar to a tightly closed rose. If you tear such a ball out of the sand and put it with its roots up, it slowly starts tossing and turning like a beetle turned on its back, straightens the petals on one side, rests on them and turns over again with its roots to the ground.

In Muzga, the depth reaches twenty meters. Flocks of cranes rest on the banks of the Muzga during the autumn migration. The village lake is all overgrown with black mounds. Hundreds of ducks nest in it.

How names are grafted! In the meadows near Staritsa there is a small nameless lake. We named it Langobard in honor of the bearded watchman - "Langobard". He lived on the shore of the lake in a hut, guarded the cabbage gardens. And a year later, to our surprise, the name took root, but the collective farmers remade it in their own way and began to call this lake Ambarsky.

The variety of grasses in the meadows is unheard of. The unmowed meadows are so fragrant that, out of habit, the head becomes foggy and heavy. Thick, tall thickets of chamomile, chicory, clover, wild dill, carnation, coltsfoot, dandelions, gentian, plantain, bluebells, buttercups and dozens of other flowering herbs stretch for kilometers. Meadow strawberries ripen in grasses for mowing.

Old men

In the meadows - in dugouts and huts - talkative old people live. They are either watchmen in the collective farm gardens, or ferrymen, or basket-makers. Basketmakers set up huts near the coastal thickets of willows.

Acquaintance with these old people usually begins during a thunderstorm or rain, when you have to sit out in huts until the thunderstorm falls over the Oka or into the forests and a rainbow over the meadows overturns.

Acquaintance always takes place according to a custom established once and for all. First we smoke, then there is a polite and cunning conversation aimed at finding out who we are, after it - a few vague words about the weather (“it started raining” or, conversely, “finally wash the grass, otherwise everything is dry and dry "). And only after that the conversation can freely move on to any topic.

Most of all, old people like to talk about unusual things: about the new Moscow Sea, “water aeroplanes” (gliders) on the Oka, French food (“they boil frogs’ soup and sip it with silver spoons”), badger races and a collective farmer from near Pronsk, who, they say he earned so many workdays that he bought a car with music on them.

Most often, I met with a grumbling basket-maker grandfather. He lived in a hut on Muzga. His name was Stepan, and his nickname was "Beard on the poles."

Grandfather was thin, thin-legged, like an old horse. He spoke indistinctly, his beard climbed into his mouth; the wind ruffled grandfather's furry face.

Once I spent the night in Stepan's hut. I came late. There was a warm gray twilight, and hesitant rain fell. He rustled through the bushes, subsided, then began to make noise again, as if playing hide and seek with us.

“This rain is rushing about like a child,” Stepan said. - Purely a child - it will stir here, then there, or even lurk at all, listening to our conversation.

By the fire sat a girl of about twelve, light-eyed, quiet, frightened. She only spoke in whispers.

- Here, the fool from the Fence has wandered! - said grandfather affectionately. - I searched and searched for a heifer in the meadows, and even searched until dark. She ran to the fire to her grandfather. What are you going to do with her.

Stepan pulled a yellow cucumber out of his pocket and gave it to the girl:

- Eat, do not hesitate.

The girl took the cucumber, nodded her head, but did not eat. Grandfather put a pot on the fire, began to cook stew.

“Here, my dears,” said the grandfather, lighting a cigarette, “you wander, as if hired, through the meadows, through the lakes, but you don’t have the concept that there were all these meadows, and lakes, and monastery forests. From the Oka itself to Pra, read for a hundred miles, the whole forest was monastic. And now the people's, now that forest is labor.

- And why were they given such forests, grandfather? the girl asked.

- And the dog knows why! Foolish women spoke - for holiness. They prayed for our sins before the mother of God. What are our sins? We didn't have any sins. Oh, darkness, darkness!

Grandpa sighed.

“I also went to churches, it was a sin,” my grandfather muttered in embarrassment. - Yes, what's the point! Bast shoes mutilated for nothing.

Grandfather paused, crumbled black bread into a stew.

“Our life was bad,” he said, lamenting. - Neither the peasants nor the women were happy. The peasant is still back and forth - the peasant, at least, will be beaten to vodka, and the woman completely disappeared. Her children were not drunk, not full. She trampled all her life with tongs by the stove, until the worms in her eyes started. You don't laugh, you drop it! I said the right word about worms. Those worms started up in the woman's eyes from the fire.

- Terrify! the girl said quietly.

“Don’t be scared,” said the grandfather. - You won't get worms. Now the girls have found their happiness. In the early days, people thought that it lives, happiness, on warm waters, in the blue seas, but in fact it turned out that it lives here, in a shard, - the grandfather tapped his forehead with a clumsy finger. - Here, for example, Manka Malyavina. The girl was vociferous, that's all. In the old days, she would have cried her voice overnight, and now you look what happened. Every day - Malyavin has a pure holiday: the accordion plays, pies are baked. And why? Because, my dears, how can he, Vaska Malyavin, not have fun living when Manka sends him, the old devil, two hundred rubles every month!

- How far? the girl asked.

- From Moscow. She sings in the theater. Who heard, they say - heavenly singing. All the people are crying out loud. Here she is now becoming, a woman's share. She came last summer, Manka. So do you know! A thin girl brought me a present. She sang in the reading room. I’m used to everything, but I’ll say frankly, it grabbed my heart, but I don’t understand why. Where, I think, is such power given to man? And how it disappeared from us, peasants, from our stupidity for thousands of years! You’ll trample on the ground now, you’ll listen there, you’ll look here, and everything seems to die early and early - no way, dear, you won’t choose the time to die.

Grandfather removed the stew from the fire and climbed into the hut for spoons.

“We should live and live, Yegorych,” he said from the hut. We were born a little early. Didn't guess.

The girl looked into the fire with bright, shining eyes and thought about something of her own.

Home of talent

On the edge of the Meshchora forests, not far from Ryazan, lies the village of Solotcha. Solotcha is famous for its climate, dunes, rivers and pine forests. There is electricity in Solotch.

Peasant horses, driven into the meadows at night, stare wildly at the white stars of electric lamps hanging in the distant forest, and snort with fear.

For the first year I lived in Solotch with a meek old woman, an old maid and a country dressmaker, Marya Mikhailovna. She was called a century old - she spent her whole life alone, without a husband, without children.

In her cleanly washed toy hut, several clocks ticked and hung two old paintings by an unknown Italian master. I rubbed them with raw onion, and the Italian morning, full of sun and reflections of the water, filled the quiet hut. The picture was left to Marya Mikhailovna's father in payment for the room by an unknown foreign artist. He came to Solotcha to study local icon-painting skills. He was a man almost a beggar and strange. Leaving, he took the word that the picture would be sent to him in Moscow in exchange for money. The artist did not send money - in Moscow he suddenly died.

Behind the wall of the hut, the neighboring garden was noisy at night. In the garden stood a two-story house, surrounded by a blank fence. I wandered into this house looking for a room. A beautiful gray-haired old woman spoke to me. She sternly looked at Me with blue eyes and refused to rent a room. Over her shoulder, I could see the walls hung with paintings.

- Whose is this house? I asked the age-old.

- Yes, how! Academician Pozhalostin, famous engraver. He died before the revolution, and the old woman is his daughter. There are two old women living there. One is quite decrepit, hunchbacked.

I was puzzled. Engraver Pozhalostin is one of the best Russian engravers, his works are scattered everywhere: here, in France, in England, and suddenly - Solotch! But soon I ceased to be perplexed when I heard how the collective farmers, digging potatoes, argued whether the artist Arkhipov would come to Solotcha this year or not.

Pozhalostin is a former shepherd. Artists Arkhipov and Malyavin, sculptor Golubkina - all of these, Ryazan places. There is almost no hut in Solotcha where there would be no pictures. You ask: who wrote? Answer: grandfather, or father, or brother. Solotchintsy were once famous bogomazes.

The name of Pozhalostin is still pronounced with respect. He taught Solotsk to draw. They went to him secretly, carrying their canvases wrapped in a clean rag for evaluation - for praise or scolding.

For a long time I could not get used to the idea that next to me, behind the wall, in the darkish rooms of the old house, were the rarest books on art and engraved copper plates. Late at night I went to the well to drink water. Frost lay on the log house, the bucket burned his fingers, icy stars stood over the silent and black edge, and only in Pozhalostin's house the window shone dimly: his daughter read until dawn. From time to time, she probably raised her glasses to her forehead and listened - she guarded the house.

The next year I settled with the Pozhalostins. I rented an old sauna from them in the garden. The garden was dead, covered in lilacs, wild rose hips, apple and maple trees covered with lichen.

Beautiful engravings hung on the walls in the Pozhalostinsky house - portraits of people from the last century. I couldn't get rid of their looks. When I was mending my fishing rods or writing, a crowd of women and men in tightly buttoned frock coats, a crowd of the seventies, looked at me from the walls with deep attention. I raised my head, met the eyes of Turgenev or General Yermolov, and for some reason I felt embarrassed.

Solotchinskaya district is a country of talented people. Yesenin was born not far from Solotchi.

Once an old woman in a poneva came to my bathhouse - she brought sour cream to sell.

“If you still need sour cream,” she said affectionately, “so you come to me, I have it.” Ask the church where Tatyana Yesenina lives. Everyone will show you.

- Yesenin Sergey is not your relative?

- Sings? Grandma asked.

Yes, poet.

“My nephew,” the grandmother sighed and wiped her mouth with the end of her handkerchief. - He was a good poet, only painfully wonderful. So if you need sour cream, you come to me, dear.

Kuzma Zotov lives on one of the forest lakes near Solotcha. Before the revolution, Kuzma was an unrequited poor man. From poverty, he retained the habit of speaking in an undertone, imperceptibly - it’s better not to speak, but to keep quiet. But from the same poverty, from the “cockroach life”, he retained a stubborn desire to make his children “real people” at all costs.

In recent years, a lot of new things have appeared in the Zotovs' hut - radio, newspapers, books. From the old time, only a decrepit dog remained - he does not want to die in any way.

“No matter how you feed him, he still gets skinny,” says Kuzma. - Such a poor factory remained with him for the rest of his life. Those who are cleaner dressed are afraid of those who are buried under the bench. Thinks gentlemen!

Kuzma has three Komsomol sons. The fourth son is still quite a boy, Vasya.

One of the sons, Misha, is in charge of an experimental ichthyological station on Lake Velikoye, near the town of Spas-Klepiki. One summer, Misha brought home an old violin without strings - he bought it from some old woman. The violin was lying in the old woman's hut, in a chest - left over from the landowners Shcherbatovs. The violin was made in Italy, and Misha decided in the winter, when there would be little work at the experimental station, to go to Moscow to show it to connoisseurs. He did not know how to play the violin.

“If it turns out to be valuable,” he told me, “I’ll give it to one of our best violinists.”

Two years ago, an artist came to the lake from Moscow. He took Vasya as his assistant. Vasya transported the artist on a canoe to the other side of the lake, changed water for paints (the artist painted with Lefranc's French watercolors), served lead tubes from a box.

Once the artist and Vasya were caught on the shore by a thunderstorm. I remember her. It was not a thunderstorm, but a swift, treacherous hurricane. Dust, pink from lightning, swept across the ground. The forests were noisy as if the oceans had broken through dams and were flooding Meshchora. Thunder shook the earth.

The artist and Vasya barely made it home. In the hut, the artist discovered the loss of a tin box with watercolors. The colors were lost, the magnificent colors of Lefranc! The artist looked for them for several days, but did not find them and soon left for Moscow.

Two months later, in Moscow, the artist received a letter written in large clumsy letters.

“Hello,” Vasya wrote. - Write down what to do with your crashes and how to send them to you. After you left, I looked for them for two weeks, searched everything until I found it, only got a bad cold, because it was already raining, I fell ill and could not write to you earlier. I almost died, but now I walk, although still very weak. So don't get angry. Dad said that I had pneumonia in my lungs. Send me, if you have any opportunity, a book about all sorts of trees and colored pencils - I want to draw. We already had snow falling, but it only melted, and in the forest under the Christmas tree - you look - a hare is sitting! I remain Vasya Zotov.

My house

The little house where I live in Meshchore deserves a description. This former bathhouse, log hut, sheathed in gray boarding. The house stands in a dense garden, but for some reason it is fenced off from the garden by a high palisade. This palisade is a trap for village cats who love fish. Every time I return from fishing, cats of all colors - red, black, gray and white and tan - take the house under siege. They snoop around, sit on the fence, on the roofs, on the old apple trees, howl at each other and wait for the evening. All of them are staring at the kukan with fish - it is suspended from the branch of an old apple tree in such a way that it is almost impossible to get it.

In the evening, the cats carefully climb over the palisade and gather under the kukan. They rise on their hind legs, and with their front legs they make swift and deft strokes, trying to hook the kukan. From a distance it seems that the cats are playing volleyball. Then some impudent cat jumps up, clings to the hook with a death grip, hangs on it, swings and tries to tear off the fish. The rest of the cats beat each other on the mustachioed muzzles out of annoyance. It ends with me leaving the bathhouse with a lantern. Cats, taken by surprise, rush to the palisade, but do not have time to climb over it, but squeeze between the stakes and get stuck. Then they flatten their ears, close their eyes and start screaming desperately, asking for mercy.

In autumn the whole house is covered with leaves, and in two small rooms it becomes light, as in a flying garden.

Furnaces are crackling, it smells of apples, cleanly washed floors. Tits sit on branches, pour glass balls in their throats, ring, crackle and look at the windowsill, where there is a slice of black bread.

I rarely sleep at home. I spend most nights on the lakes, and when I stay at home I sleep in an old arbor at the back of the garden. It is overgrown with wild grapes. In the morning the sun hits it through the purple, purple, green and lemon foliage, and it always seems to me that I wake up inside a lit Christmas tree. Sparrows peer into the gazebo with surprise. They are mortally occupied by hours. They tick on a round table dug into the ground. Sparrows get close to them, listen to the ticking with one or the other ear, and then peck the watch strongly on the dial.

It is especially good in the gazebo on quiet autumn nights, when a leisurely sheer rain rustles in an undertone in the garden.

Cool air barely shakes the tongue of the candle. Angled shadows from grape leaves lie on the ceiling of the gazebo. A night butterfly, resembling a lump of gray raw silk, sits on an open book and leaves the finest shiny dust on the page.

It smells of rain - a gentle and at the same time pungent smell of moisture, damp garden paths.

At dawn I wake up. Fog rustles in the garden. Leaves fall in the mist. I pull a bucket of water from the well. A frog jumps out of the bucket. I douse myself with well water and listen to the shepherd's horn - he still sings far away, at the very outskirts.

I go to an empty bathhouse, boil tea. A cricket starts its song on the stove. He sings very loudly and pays no attention to my steps or the clinking of cups.

It's getting light. I take the oars and go to the river. Chained dog Marvelous sleeps at the gate. He beats his tail on the ground, but does not raise his head. Marvelous has long been accustomed to my leaving at dawn. He just yawns after me and sighs noisily.

I'm sailing in the fog. The East is rosy. The smell of the smoke of rural stoves is no longer heard. Only the silence of water, thickets, centuries-old willows remains.

Ahead is a deserted September day. Ahead - confusion in this wide world fragrant leaves, grasses, autumn wilt, calm waters, clouds, low sky. And I always feel this loss as happiness.

Unselfishness

You can write a lot more about the Meshchora region. It can be written that this region is very rich in forests and peat, hay and potatoes, milk and berries. But I don't write about it on purpose. Should we really love our land only because it is rich, that it gives abundant harvests and that its natural forces can be used for our well-being!

Not only for this we love our native places. We love them also because, even if they are not rich, they are beautiful for us. I love the Meshchora region because it is beautiful, although all its charm is not revealed immediately, but very slowly, gradually.

At first glance, this is a quiet and unwise land under a dim sky. But the more you get to know it, the more, almost to the point of pain in your heart, you begin to love this ordinary land. And if I have to defend my country, then somewhere in the depths of my heart I will know that I am also defending this piece of land, which taught me to see and understand the beautiful, no matter how unprepossessing it may be, this forest pensive land, love for who will never be forgotten, just as first love is never forgotten.

Meshcherskaya Side Paustovsky

Homogeneous members of the proposal (main and secondary), not connected by unions, are separated commas : In the study stood brown velvetarmchairs , bookcabinet (Nab.); After dinner hesat on the balcony,kept kneeling book(Boon.); Cold, emptiness, lifeless spirit meets home(Sol.); bloom aheadcherries, mountain ash, dandelions, wild rose, lilies of the valley … (Sol.); Only silence remainswater, thickets, ancient willows (Paust.); Shcherbatova toldabout my childhood, about the Dnieper, about how dried, old willows came to life in their estate in the spring(Paust.).

If the last member of the series is joined by unions and, yes, or , then no comma is placed before it: He[wind] bringscold, clarity and some emptiness of the whole body(Paust.); Dense, high thickets stretch for kilometerschamomile, chicory, clover, wild dill, cloves, coltsfoot, dandelions, gentian, plantain, bluebells, buttercups, and dozens of other flowering herbs (Paust.).

§26

Homogeneous members of the sentence, connected by repeated unions, if there are more than two ( and... and... and, yes... yes... yes, neither... neither... nor, or... or... or, whether... whether... whether, whether... or... or, either... or... or, that... that... that, not that ... not that ... not that, either ... or ... or ), separated by commas: It was sadAnd in the spring airAnd in the darkened skyAnd in the wagon(Ch.); Did not haveneither stormy words,neither passionate confessions,neither oaths(Paust.); After parting from Lermontov, she[Shcherbatova] couldn't watchneither on the steppeneither on people,neither to associated villages and cities(Paust.); You could see her every dayThat with a can,That with a bag andThat and with a bag and a can together -or in the oil refineryor On the market,or in front of the gates of the house,or on the stairs(Bulg.).

With no union And before the first of the listed members of the proposal, the rule is observed: if there are more than two homogeneous members of the proposal and the union And repeated at least twice a comma is placed between all homogeneous members (including before the first And ): They brought a bouquet of thistles and put them on the table, and here in front of mefire, and turmoil, and crimson dance lights (Ill.); And today the rhyme of the poet -caress, and a slogan, and a bayonet, and a whip (M.).

With a double repetition of the union And (if the number of homogeneous members is two) a comma is placed in the presence of a generalizing word with homogeneous members of the sentence: All reminiscent of autumnand yellow leaves and mists in the morning ; the same without a generalizing word, but in the presence of dependent words with homogeneous members: Now it was possible to hear separatelyand the sound of rain, and the sound of water (Bulg.). However, in the absence of these conditions with homogeneous members of the sentence forming a close semantic unity, the comma may not be placed: It was all aroundand light and green (T.); Day and night cat scientist all walks around the chain(P.).

With a double repetition of other unions, except And , comma is always included : Prick my eyes incessantly with gypsy lifeeither stupid or ruthless (A. Ostr.); He was ready to believe that he came here at the wrong time -or too late,or early(rasp.); ladynot that barefoot,not that in some transparent ... shoes(Bulg.); All day goes byor snow,or rain with snow. They[lamps] only highlightedThat cave walls,That most beautiful stalagmite(Sol.); Earlywhether , latewhether but I will come .

Note 1. A comma is not put in whole phraseological combinations with repeating unions and... and, neither... nor(they connect words with opposite meanings): and day and night, and old and young, and laughter and grief, and here and there, and this and that, and here and there, neither two nor one and a half, neither give nor take, neither matchmaker nor brother, neither back nor forth, neither the bottom nor the tire, neither this nor that, nor become nor sit down, neither alive nor dead, neither yes nor no, neither hearing nor spirit, nor myself nor people, neither fish nor meat, neither this way nor that, neither peahen nor crow, neither shaky nor roll, neither that nor that etc. The same with paired combinations of words, when the third is not given: and husband and wife, and earth and sky . Note 2. Unions whether ... or are not always repetitive. Yes, in the proposal And you can’t understand if Matvey Karev is laughing at his own words or at the way students look into his mouth(Fed.) union whether introduces an explanatory adnexal part, and the union or connects like members. Wed unions whether ... or as recurring: Goeswhether rain,or the sun shines - he doesn't care; Seeswhether he is,or does not see(G.).

§27

Homogeneous members of a sentence connected by single connecting or separating unions ( and yes in meaning " And »; or, or ) not separated by a comma : Motor shipgot up across the riverand gave flow turn it down, along the way(rasp.); Day and night - a day away(ate); Will support he Uzdechkinaor not support ? (Pan.).

If there is an opposing union between homogeneous members ( ah but yes in meaning " But », however, although, however, nevertheless ) and connecting ( and also, and also ) a comma is placed : The secretary stopped taking notes and surreptitiously threw a surprised look,but not on the arrested, but on the procurator (Bulg.); The child washarsh but cute (P.); A capable studentalthough lazy ; He went to the library on Fridayshowever not always ; Mokeevna had already brought a wicker basket out of the house,however stopped decided to look for apples(Shcherb.); The apartment is smallbut cozy (gas.); She knows Germanand French .

§28

When connecting homogeneous members of a sentence in pairs, a comma is placed between the pairs (conjunction And valid only within groups): Alleys planted withlilacs and lindens, elms and poplars , led to the wooden platform(Fed.); The songs were different.about joy and sorrow, the past day and the day to come (Geych.); Books on geography and tourist guides, friends and casual acquaintances told us that Ropotamo is one of the most beautiful and wild corners of Bulgaria(Sol.).

Note. In sentences with homogeneous members, it is possible to use the same unions on different grounds (between different members of the sentence or their groups). In this case, when arranging punctuation marks, different positions of unions are taken into account. For example: ... Everywhere she was greeted cheerfullyAnd friendlyAnd assured her that she was good, sweet, rare(Ch.) - in this sentence, unions And not repeating, but single, connecting pairs of two homogeneous members of the sentence ( fun and friendly; met and assured). In the example: No one else broke the silence of the channelsAnd rivers, did not cut off the lure of cold river liliesAnd did not admire aloud what is best to admire without words(Paust.) - the first And connects word dependent silence word forms streams and rivers, the second and closes the series of predicates (didn’t break, didn’t break off and didn’t admire).

Homogeneous members of the proposal, combined in pairs, may be included in other, larger groups, which in turn have unions. Commas in such groups are placed taking into account the whole complex unity as a whole, for example, the contrasting relations between groups of homogeneous members of the sentence are taken into account: Father Christopher, holding a wide-brimmed top hat, to someonebowed and smiled not softly and touchingly , As always,but respectfully and tensely (Ch.). Different levels of connecting relationships are also taken into account. For example: In them[shops] you will find both calico for shrouds and tar, and lollipops and borax for the extermination of cockroaches(M. G.) - here, on the one hand, word forms are combined calico and tar, lollipops and borax, and on the other hand, these groups, already on the rights of single members, are connected by a repeating union And . Wed option without pairwise union (with separate registration of homogeneous members): ... You will find calico for shrouds, and tar, and candy, and borax for the extermination of cockroaches .

§29

With homogeneous members of the sentence, in addition to single or repeating unions, double (comparative) unions can be used, which are divided into two parts, each located at each member of the sentence: like… so and, not only… but also, not so much… how much, how much… as much, although… but, if not… then, not that… but, not that… ah, not only not… but rather… how etc. A comma is always placed before the second part of such unions: I have an assignmentHow from the judgeSo equalsAnd from all our friends(G.); Green was Not only great landscape painter and storyteller,But It was stillAnd very subtle psychologist(Paust.); They say that in summer Sozopol is flooded with holiday-makers, that isNot really holidaymakers,A vacationers who came to spend their holidays by the Black Sea(Sol.); Mothernot that angryBut was still dissatisfied(Kav.); There are fogs in Londonif not every day,That in a day for sure(Gonch.); He wasnot so much disappointed,How many surprised by the situation(gas.); He wasquicker annoyed,how saddened(journal).

§thirty

Between homogeneous members of the proposal (or their groups) can be placed semicolon .

1. If they include introductory words: It turns out that there are subtleties. There must be a fireFirstly , smokeless;Secondly , not very hot;and thirdly , in complete silence(Sol.).

2. If homogeneous members are common (have dependent words or relative clauses of sentences): He was respectedbehind his excellent, aristocraticmanners , for rumors about his victories;for that that he dressed well and always stayed at best room the best hotel;for that that he dined well in general, and once even dined with Wellington at Louis Philippe's;for that that he carried a real silver dressing-case and a camping bath with him everywhere;for that that he smelled of some unusual, surprisingly "noble" perfume;for that that he was a master at whist and always lost...(T.)

§31

Between homogeneous members of the proposal is placed dash: a) when skipping an opposing union: Knowledge of the laws by people is not desirable - it is mandatory(gas.); A tragic voice, no longer flying, not sonorous - deep, chesty, "Mkhatov"(gas.); b) in the presence of a union to denote a sharp and unexpected transition from one action or state to another: Then Alexei clenched his teeth, screwed up his eyes, pulled the fur coat with all his strength with both hands - and immediately lost consciousness.(B.P.); ... I always wanted to live in the city - and now I end my life in the countryside(Ch.).

§32

Homogeneous members of the proposal and their various combinations when dismembering the proposal (parceling) are separated dots(see § 9): And then there were long hot months, the wind from the low mountains near Stavropol, smelling of immortals, the silver crown of the Caucasus Mountains, fights near the forest blockages with Chechens, the screech of bullets.Pyatigorsk , strangers with whom it was necessary to behave like with friends.And again fleeting Petersburg and the Caucasus , the yellow peaks of Dagestan and the same beloved and saving Pyatigorsk.short rest , broad ideas and verses, light and soaring up to the sky, like clouds over the tops of mountains.And duel (Paust.).

Punctuation marks for homogeneous members of a sentence with generalizing words

§33

If the generalizing word precedes a series of homogeneous members, then the generalizing word is followed by colon : There is an ice fishermandifferent : a retired fisherman, a fisherman - a worker and an employee, a military fisherman, a minister fisherman, so to speak, a statesman, an intelligent fisherman(Sol.); In this story you will find almosteverything I mentioned above : dry oak leaves, a gray-haired astronomer, the rumble of cannonade, Cervantes, people who unshakably believe in the victory of humanism, a mountain sheep dog, night flight and much more(Paust.).

With generalizing words, there can be clarifying words. as for example, for example, as that, namely preceded by a comma and followed by a colon. Words like for example, like that are used to explain the preceding words, the words namely – to indicate the exhaustive nature of the enumeration that follows: Many businesses and services operate around the clock,such as : connection, ambulance, hospitals; Introductory words can express an emotional assessment of what is being reported,For example : fortunately, to surprise, to joy, etc.(from the textbook); Katya ... explored the barn, finding there, in addition to the balloon and tiles, a lot of useful things,somehow : two low green benches, a garden table, a hammock, shovels, a rake(Step.); Everyone came to the meetingnamely : teachers, students and staff of the institute. After clarifying words such as (with a comparative connotation of meaning) no colon: Flowers are the first to bloom after winter.such as crocuses, tulips(gas.).

§34

The generalizing word after homogeneous members is separated from them by the sign dash : Handrails, compasses, binoculars, all sorts of devices and even high thresholds of cabins -all this it was copper(Paust.); And these trips, and our conversations with her -All it was imbued with aching, hopeless longing(Beck.).

If there is an introductory word before the generalizing word, separated from homogeneous members by means of a dash, then a comma before introductory word omitted: In the lobby, in the corridor, in the offices -word , people crowded everywhere(Pop)

§35

Dash is placed after the enumeration of homogeneous members, if the enumeration of the sentence does not end: Everywhere : in the club, on the streets, on the benches at the gates, in the houses - there were noisy conversations(Garsh.).

In the presence of two generalizing words - before homogeneous members and after them - both of the indicated punctuation marks are put: a colon (before the enumeration) and a dash (after it): All : a carriage that quickly drove down the street, a reminder of an insult, a girl's question about a dress that needs to be prepared; even worse, the word of insincere, weak participation -All painfully irritated the wound, seemed an insult(L. T.). The same with a common generalizing word: In a few minutes he could drawanything : human figure, animals, trees, buildings -All came out characteristically and lively(Beck.).

§36

Homogeneous members of a sentence that are in the middle of a sentence and have the meaning of a passing remark are highlighted dash from two sides: Anything that could muffle the sounds -carpets, curtains and upholstered furniture - Grieg removed from the house a long time ago(Paust.); Everyone -and the Motherland, and both Lychkovs, and Volodka - I remember white horses, little ponies, fireworks, a boat with lanterns(Ch.).

Note. Allowed to be used in contemporary practice printing in all positions of generalizing words dash, including - before the enumeration (in place of the traditional colon): Mass production is organized in the new workshopproducts for mechanical engineering – bushings, glasses, toothed meshes(gas.); good kayakersthere were only three - Igor, Shulyaev, Kolya Koryakin and, of course, Andrei Mikhailovich himself(Tendr.); loveAll - and dew, and fog, and ducks, all other birds and animals(Tendr.); If itsomething distinguished from others - talent, intelligence, beauty ... But Duke really didn’t have anything like that(Current.); Everything, everything I heard - and the singing of the herbs of the evening, and the speech of the water, and the dead cry of the stone(Ill.); All then his mind worried - and meadows, and fields, and forests, and groves, in "the chapel of an old storm, the noise, the old woman's wonderful legend"(Geych.); He posted it on the wallyour precious collection - knives, sabers, saber, dagger(Shcherb.). Wed the same with K. Paustovsky, B. Pasternak: After him[rain] start to climb violentlymushrooms - sticky oils yellow chanterelles, mushrooms, ruddy mushrooms, mushrooms and countless grebes(Paust.); By noon, over the dim water, a distantpiling up Baku - gray mountains, gray sky, gray houses covered with patches of bright, but also gray sunny color(Paust.); I had the opportunity and the good fortune to know many elderspoets who lived in Moscow , – Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Khodasevich, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Baltrushaitis(B. Past.).

Punctuation marks for homogeneous definitions

§37

Homogeneous definitions expressed by adjectives and participles and standing before the word being defined are separated from each other comma, heterogeneous - do not separate (for an exception, see § 41).

Note 1. The difference between homogeneous and not homogeneous definitions consists in the following: a) each of the homogeneous definitions refers directly to the word being defined; b) the first definition from a pair of heterogeneous refers to the subsequent phrase. Wed: Red, green lights changed each other(T. Tolst.) - red lights and green lights; Soon the chimneys of factories will smoke here, they will lay downstrong iron paths in place old road (Bun.) - strong → iron tracks. It is possible to insert a union between homogeneous definitions And , between inhomogeneous - is impossible. Wed: Glasses coldly play with multi-colored lights, exactlysmall precious stones(Boon.). - It's cold in the hallway, like in a senza, and it smellsraw, frozen wood bark...(Boon.). In the first case, the union cannot be inserted ( small precious stones ), in the second it is possible ( damp and frozen bark). Note 2. Often, definitions expressed by a combination of qualitative and relative adjectives act as heterogeneous: Her[siren] muffled the soundsbeautiful string orchestra(Boon.). Definitions expressed by qualitative adjectives of different semantic groups can also be perceived as heterogeneous: Here on the ground began to fallcold large drops(M. G.).

1. Homogeneous definitions denoting signs of different things : A talented student who spoke five languages ​​and feltFrench, Spanish, German literature at home, he boldly used his knowledge(Kav.).

Homogeneous definitions that express similar features of one object, i.e. characterize the object On the one side : It wasboring, tedious day(Kav.); The train was moving slowly and unevenly, supportingold, creaky railway carriage(rasp.); Heavy, damp the wall of the pine forest does not move, is silent(Lip.); Lena arranged for herspacious, empty room(Kav.); Winter at first swayed reluctantly, as last year, then burst in unexpectedly, withsharp, cold by the wind(Kav.). The similarity of signs can manifest itself on the basis of some convergence of values, for example, along the line of evaluation: And at this momentdiscreet, gentle, polite Zoshchenko suddenly said to me with irritation: “You can’t get into literature by pushing your elbows(Kav.); based on the unity of sensations conveyed by definitions (touch, taste, etc.): INclear, warm morning, at the end of May, in Obruchanovo, two horses were brought to the local blacksmith Rodion Petrov to be reforged(Ch.); Bliss wascool, fresh, delicious water gently rolling off your shoulders(Kav.).

The similarity of features may occur with adjectives used in a figurative sense: I shook the hand extended to mebig, stale hand(Shol.); Cruel, cold spring poured buds kills(Ahm.); In heartdark, stuffy hop(Ahm.). The homogeneity of definitions is emphasized by the addition of one of them with a coordinating conjunction And : In them[songs] dominatedheavy, dull and hopeless notes(M. G.); Suchmiserable, gray and deceitful siskin(M. G.); Tired, tanned and dusty faces were exactly the color of the brown rags of the moon's wing(M. G.).

2. Definitions-adjectives that characterize an object or phenomenon with various sides: Large glass the doors were wide open(Kav.) - size and material designation; Former eliseevskaya the dining room was decorated with frescoes(Kav.) - designation of a temporary sign and a sign of belonging; Thick draft the notebook in which I wrote down plans and rough sketches was placed at the bottom of the suitcase(Kav.) - designation of size and purpose; Found in my archiveyellow school cursive notebook(Kav.) - designation of color and purpose; The forests, obliquely illuminated by the sun, seemed to him heapslight copper ores(Paust.) - designation of weight and material; Our famous and most courageous traveler Karelin gave me a veryunflattering writing attestation(Paust.) - designation of assessment and form; The foreman served teaviscous cherry jam(Paust.) - designation of property and material; Enoughtall antique faience the lamp burned softly under a pink shade(Bun.) - a designation of a quantity, a temporal sign and a material.

§38

Adjective definitions can be combined with participial phrases. The setting of the comma depends in this case on the location of the participial turnover, which either acts as a homogeneous member of the sentence with an adjectival definition, or as a heterogeneous one.

If the participial phrase is after the definition-adjective and before the word being defined (that is, it breaks the direct connection between the adjective and the noun), then a comma is placed between the definitions: Evenold, covered with gray lichen the branches of the trees whispered of days gone by(M. G.); No, not only cry in a dreamelderly, gray-haired during the war years men(Shol); Small, sometimes dry in summer rivulet<…>spread over a mile(Shol.); Standing, lost in the air the smell of flowers was nailed motionless to the flowerbeds by the heat(B. Past.).

If the participial phrase comes before the adjective definition and refers to the next combination of the adjective definition and the word being defined, then a comma is not put between them: Each time appeared and again drowned in pitch darknesscrouching to the wide beams of the steppe stanitsa(Paust.); Sergei sawwhite floating in the air notebook sheets(Sparrow.).

§39

A comma is placed when combining agreed and inconsistent definitions (an inconsistent definition is placed after the agreed one): Meanwhile insquat, with brown walls in the wintering of the Klyushins, a slightly dodged seven-line lamp really burned(Bel.); She took off the tablethick, fringed tablecloth and spread another, white(P. Neil.).

However, the comma not put, if the combination of an agreed and inconsistent definition denotes a single feature: White checkered tablecloth; she hadblue polka dot skirt .

§40

Definitions after the word being defined are usually homogeneous and are therefore separated by commas: Wordgrandiloquent, false, bookish hit him hard(Boon.). Each of these definitions is directly related to the word being defined and has an independent logical stress.

§41

Inhomogeneous definitions are separated by a comma only if the second of them explains the first, revealing its content (it is possible to insert words, that is, namely): He ... carefully stepped on the shiny wire withnew, fresh a feeling of delight(Gran.) - here new Means " fresh»; without a comma, that is, when removing explanatory relations, there will be a different meaning: there was a “fresh feeling of delight” and a new one appeared (a new fresh feeling, but: a new, fresh feeling); - Shelter an orphan, - enteredthird, new voice(M. G.) - definition new clarifies the definition third; Nature has no more talented and less talented works. They can be divided into those and others only withours, human points of view(Sol.). Wed: In the holiday village appearednew brick Houses(other brick houses were added to the existing brick houses). - In the holiday village appearednew, brick Houses(before that there were no brick houses).

Punctuation marks for homogeneous applications

§42

Applications (definitions expressed by nouns), not connected by unions, can be homogeneous and heterogeneous.

Applications in front of the word being defined and denoting close features of the subject, characterizing it on the one hand, are homogeneous. They are separated by commas: Hero of Socialist Labor, People's Artist of the USSR E. N. Gogoleva- honorary titles; World Cup Winner, European Champion NN- sports titles.

Applications denoting different features of an object, characterizing it from different angles, are not homogeneous. They are not separated by commas: First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation General of the Army NN- position and military rank; chief designer design institute for construction engineering for precast concrete engineer NN- position and profession; general director of the production association candidate of technical sciences NN- position and academic degree.

When combining homogeneous and heterogeneous applications, punctuation marks are placed accordingly: Honored Master of Sports, Olympic champion, two-time winner of the World Cup, student of the Institute of Physical Education NN .

§43

Applications after the word being defined, regardless of the meaning they convey, are separated by commas and must be highlighted (see § 61): Lyudmila Pakhomova, Honored Master of Sports, Olympic champion, world champion, multiple European champion, coach; N. V. Nikitin, Doctor of Technical Sciences, laureate of the Lenin Prize and the State Prize of the USSR, author of the project for the Ostankino television tower; VV Tereshkova, cosmonaut, Hero of the Soviet Union; D. S. Likhachev, literary critic and public figure, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Hero of Socialist Labor, chairman of the board of the Russian Cultural Foundation, laureate of the State Prize; A. I. Solzhenitsyn, writer, publicist, laureate Nobel Prize .

Punctuation marks for repeating sentence members

§44

Between the repeating members of the sentence is placed busy. For example, repetition emphasizes the duration of an action: I'm going, I'm going in an open field; ding ding ding bell...(P.); Floated, floated in the blue vague depth clouds foamed by the wind(Shol.); indicates a large number of objects or phenomena: On the Smolensk road -woods, woods, woods . On the Smolensk road -poles, poles, poles (OK.); denotes a high degree of sign, quality, feeling, and each of the words repeated in this case has a logical stress: Scary, scary reluctantly among the unknown plains(P.); The sky was nowgray, gray (Sol.); What are you doing, my son?lonely, lonely ? (OK.); emphasizes the categorical statement: Now ... everything I live by iswork work … (Am.).

Note 1. For the use of a hyphen in repetitions, see "Spelling", § 118, paragraph 1. Note 2. On the repetition of prepositional combinations with forms of pronominal words ( in what in what, with whom with whom) see "Spelling", § 155, p. b. Note 3. The comma is not put if the repeating members with particles Not or So between them form a single semantic whole with the meaning of an underlined statement, agreement or express the meaning of uncertainty: NoSo No; DriveSo drive; Valeria looked at me again and said nothing: tomorrowSo Tomorrow(Sol.); Everything is at hand in our village: a forestSo forest, riverSo river(Sol.); RainNot rain, you don't understand. The same when expressing the value of the concession: TimeNot time, but you have to go . If repeated predicates with a particle So have conditional-investigative meanings with a touch of amplification, then a comma can be placed: - Well! he suddenly exclaims with an unexpected burst of energy. - Going to,So going to(Cupr.); Well, it will, thanks. made me feel betterSo comforted(Chuck.). (Compare: If we need to get together, then we will get together; If you made it easy, then with a vengeance .)

§45

Repeating members of a sentence with a union And with a sharp emphasis on their meaning, they are separated by a sign dash : Leave - and quickly leave; We need a win - and only a win. However, with a calmer intonation, a comma is also possible: You, and only you, are capable of this; We need facts, and only facts .

If union And stands between two identical verbs that act as a single predicate expressing a constantly repeating action, a comma is not put: And he is everythingwrites and writes letters to the old address .

Solotcha. Solotchinskiy Monastery. About pine forest, lily-of-the-valley and strawberry glades, about pine cones and cafes forest fairy tale».
Solotcha is located 25 km from Ryazan. You need to leave the city along Yesenin Street. The only thing, auto travelers, be aware that the section of Yesenin Street from Theater Square is one-way. This means that instead of you going straight and quickly out of the city to Solotcha, you need to spend time detours along side and incomprehensible streets. The road to Solotchi is good.
To understand what Solotcha is, it would be good to take off and look at her from top to bottom. And see below you the blue thread of the river and the sea of ​​pine caps. This is for those who have developed spatial imagination.

Those who perceive the world more through feelings, it is better to imagine how pine trunks smell in the sun. How the rustling blows of pine cones sound on the springy mossy-grass coat of the earth or on your hair. How huge lily-of-the-valley thickets hug the feet of pine giants. Like through dry pine needles clouds of strawberry flowers smile at the sun. And even better - jump on a bike and break the enveloping pine air with speed. Or just fill yourself with it from head to toe, slowly floating along the turns of stitch paths. And you can carelessly rush somewhere in the depths of countless pine rows in swimsuit shorts - there is also a cool river, and even dunes, and you can see the tangled roots of pine trees growing on a high bank-cliff. In the Solotchinskiye pine forests, sanatoriums and rest houses are hiding.

For those who love facts, here is the information: Solotcha is the land of the vast forests of Meshchera. (In the word "Meshchera" the stress is on the last syllable). Since ancient times, Meshchera was divided between three principalities into Moscow, Vladimir and Ryazan. Swamps stretch for kilometers - mshary. And the forests of Meshchera are dense, dense and mysterious. They say there are places where time stops...
We are coming here to see the Solotchinsky convent, which, if you describe it in one word, it will be warmth. If several, then I will add - silence and joy. The monastery is located right in the center of Solotchi. Solotcha is a small pretty small town. It could be called a large village, but this is hindered by the central concrete square, still headed by Ilyich, with stunted, unkempt plantings in the flower beds. The look of the statue hollows out the monastery wall. We parked. Entered.

The Solotchinsky Monastery was founded 10 years after the Battle of Kulikovo (in 1390) by Prince Oleg of Ryazan. Here he took tonsure and schema, and after another 12 years (in 1402) he found his last resting place. For some reason, I often come across discrepancies - in one place they write that the Pokrovsky Monastery (in the name of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos), in another, that it is the Nativity of the Mother of God (in the name of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Didn't find any details. Probably when it was re-consecrated.
The first temple of the monastery, erected under Prince Oleg, was indeed Pokrovsky, stood on the banks of the Oka, and later the tomb of Prince Oleg (in the schema of Joachim) and his wife, Princess Euphrosyne (in monasticism Evpraksia) was installed in it.

In the 16th century a beautiful white-stone Nativity Cathedral was built (in the center). His style is Old Russian.
In the 17th century the Holy Spirit Church (in the name of the Holy Spirit) with the Refectory (on the left), the Holy Gates with the gate Forerunner Church (in the name of John the Baptist), as well as the Bell Tower and cells (on the left) are being completed. Builds - Yakov Bukhvostov. Style - Naryshkin baroque. Decorates with tiles - Stepan Polubes (if not himself, then his workshop). Particularly beautiful tiled figures of the four evangelists are on the gate church.
In the 18th century the sandy shore slumped, along with a fragment (NW corner) of the monastery. The river bank was strengthened, and the princely relics were transferred to the Nativity Cathedral.
The territory of the monastery is quite large, with a minimum of asphalt paths (in my opinion, only one). Throughout the rest of the space - velvet low grass, trees and behind the fence, flower beds and beds of nuns. There is also a booth offering fresh cottage cheese and milk. The ancient Nativity Cathedral is closed. We just bypassed it.

The entrance to the Spiritual Church is decorated with birch trees - they recently celebrated the Trinity. My husband stayed to photograph the tiles on the snow-white walls of the church, I climbed the wooden steps and went inside. The main feeling is coziness, the sun's rays pushed the walls of the already large volume of internal space. The nuns went about their business without paying me any too much attention. I put the candles on and suddenly saw the image of the Virgin, from which tears almost flowed to me. She held the child's hand to her lips. Such a maternal gesture - as if kissing her. And it completely led away from the canons. First you see the mother and the baby, then only you realize that this is the Mother of God and baby Jesus. I asked the name of this icon. - "Comforter" - they answered me. She is on the right. On the left, two unusual images of the Mother of God also attracted attention. One snow-white, decorated with pearls - "Vladimirskaya". Nearby is a very dark face, shimmering with gold - "Iverskaya".

We drove a little further and stopped at a bright blue church in honor of Our Lady of Kazan. Here, among the bright flower beds, there is a monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker - a figure with his hands raised up on the globe. One sculpture is located in hot Turkey in the city of Demre. The second, its copy is in Russia, in Ryazan Solotcha. Posted here in 2006. Sculptor - Raisa Lysenina. To the question "Why is it here in Ryazan and why a copy?" - the answer is this: in the Turkish homeland, this monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker used to stand in the center of the city, and then for some reason it was dismantled and moved closer to the ruins of the temple where the saint served. Moreover, without the globe, which the Turks “lost” somewhere... For some reason, Santa Claus now stands in its former place... Therefore, it was here on Ryazan land that people made such a decision - to recreate its copy and install it again...
“... The Lord speaks from the throne, opening the window beyond paradise: “O my faithful servant, Mikola, go around the Russian region. Protect the people tormented by grief there in black troubles. Pray with him for victories and for their poor comfort ... ". S. Yesenin

The day was approaching the middle and we wanted to satisfy not only curiosity, but also our urgent hunger. There were few options, or rather, only two roadside cafes that we saw on the way to Solotcha. One on the right, the other on the left. Preference was given to the second option, called "Forest", which was located right in the pine forest. Literally. One pine even grew from the roof (apparently, they decided to leave it, not cut it, and thus built it into the room). I also want to note that the pine forest in Solotch is a wow what a forest - such a height, such a width. Ship! It is not for nothing that Solotcha is called the “gateway to Meshchera”, the Meshchera forests have always been an image of a dense, dense, impenetrable forest. So we immediately decided that we would sit in the air. We walked around the cafe on the left and chose a cozy wooden table under an umbrella. While waiting for the order, we walked a little through the forest, among the pines. Beauties! I was shocked by the huge lily-of-the-valley thickets-plantations that spread out like an even carpet under pine trunks. What blooms and smells fragrant here in the spring is probably called the lily-of-the-valley paradise. The pines creaked, grumbled, the wind got stuck in their tenacious needles and, breaking out, offendedly tore round cones from pine curls and threw them down. Everything we ordered was delicious (okroshka, barbecue, salads), although the service was very slow. The main thing here is the enjoyment of pine grace.

We noticed, by the way, that various cars loaded with vacationers were driving and driving along a very bumpy road into the forest. Behind him begins the river and the beach. It's a shame we didn't see it ourselves. We read later that there are very beautiful places here. We believe!
And although we were in a hurry to Staraya Ryazan, which was the next point of our program, the magnetism of the pines and the hot June day set up an invisible barrier for us. We abruptly braked along a beautiful pine wall and rushed into the forest heated by the sun. Dense verticals of smooth red trunks rippled the landscape before my eyes. Thick air filled my lungs. The thick sun beat through the pine clouds. Smooth, dry moss, dotted with thick freckles of flowering strawberries, stroked my legs. We, as true residents of the metropolis, tried to get the absolute absolute pleasure from this 15-minute gift. They lay down, rolled around, ran, left the cones, peered into the strawberry faces, were thoughtfully silent ... And we drove on.
“... The unmowed meadows are so fragrant that, out of habit, the head becomes foggy and heavy. Thick, tall thickets of chamomile, chicory, clover, wild dill, carnation, coltsfoot, dandelions, gentian, plantain, bluebells, buttercups and dozens of other flowering herbs stretch for kilometers. Meadow strawberries ripen in the grasses for mowing ... ". K. Paustovsky, "Meshcherskaya side"
It should also be noted that here in the Solotchinsk pine forests there are many sanatoriums. And yet - mass cottage construction begins here. Cunning builders lure potential buyers with picturesque quotes from Paustovsky, so they wrote off the address from one billboard: vboru.ru. The writer rented a dacha in Solotcha, and not just like that, but Pozhalostin's house. Here he wrote "Meshcherskaya Side". In my opinion, although with all due respect, this story is written by Paustovsky a little tight. And another interesting detail - look at the map - behind Solotcha through one village is the village of Laskovo. Too bad we didn't go there. There is a chapel in honor of St. Fevronia, a girl, the daughter of a forester from Laskovo, who cured Prince Peter of Murom and became his wife. July 8 - now in Russia is finally (!) Officially recognized as the day of Love - so strong that Peter and Fevronia had it.

To be continued.
(c) When using texts, a hyperlink to my site and the author's name are required.

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In Muzga, the depth reaches twenty meters. Flocks of cranes rest on the banks of the Muzga during the autumn migration. The village lake is all overgrown with black mounds. Hundreds of ducks nest in it.

How names are grafted! In the meadows near Staritsa there is a small nameless lake. We named it Langobard in honor of the bearded watchman - "Langobard". He lived on the shore of the lake in a hut, guarded the cabbage gardens. And a year later, to our surprise, the name took root, but the collective farmers transferred it in their own way and began to call this lake Ambarsky.

The variety of grasses in the meadows is unheard of. The unmowed meadows are so fragrant that, out of habit, the head becomes foggy and heavy. Thick, tall thickets of chamomile, chicory, clover, wild dill, carnation, coltsfoot, dandelions, gentian, plantain, bluebells, buttercups and dozens of other flowering herbs stretch for kilometers. Meadow strawberries ripen in grasses for mowing.

Old men

In the meadows - in dugouts and huts - talkative old people live. They are either watchmen in the collective farm gardens, or ferrymen, or basket-makers. Basketmakers set up huts near the coastal thickets of willows.

Acquaintance with these old people usually begins during a thunderstorm or rain, when you have to sit out in huts until the thunderstorm falls over the Oka or into the forests and a rainbow over the meadows overturns.

Acquaintance always takes place according to a custom established once and for all. First we smoke, then there is a polite and cunning conversation aimed at finding out who we are, after it - a few vague words about the weather ("it rained" or, conversely, "finally wash the grass, otherwise everything is dry yes dry"). And only after that the conversation can freely move on to any topic.

Most of all, old people like to talk about unusual things: about the new Moscow Sea, "water aeroplanes" (gliders) on the Oka, French food ("they cook soup from frogs and sip with silver spoons"), badger races and a collective farmer from near Pronsk, who, they say he earned so many workdays that he bought a car with music on them.

Most often, I met with a grumbling basket-maker grandfather. He lived in a hut on Muzga. His name was Stepan, and his nickname was "Beard on the poles."

Grandfather was thin, thin-legged, like an old horse. He spoke indistinctly, his beard climbed into his mouth; the wind ruffled grandfather's furry face.

Once I spent the night in Stepan's hut. I came late. There was a warm gray twilight, and hesitant rain fell. He rustled through the bushes, subsided, then began to make noise again, as if playing hide and seek with us.

“This rain is rushing about like a child,” Stepan said. - Purely a child - it will stir here, then there, or even lurk at all, listening to our conversation.

By the fire sat a girl of about twelve, light-eyed, quiet, frightened. She only spoke in whispers.

- Here, the fool from the Fence has wandered! - said grandfather affectionately. - I searched and searched for a heifer in the meadows, and even searched until dark. She ran to the fire to her grandfather. What are you going to do with her.

Stepan pulled a yellow cucumber out of his pocket and gave it to the girl:

- Eat, do not hesitate.

The girl took the cucumber, nodded her head, but did not eat.

Grandfather put a pot on the fire, began to cook stew.

“Here, my dears,” said the grandfather, lighting a cigarette, “you wander, as if hired, through the meadows, through the lakes, but you don’t have the concept that there were all these meadows, and lakes, and monastery forests. From the Oka itself to Pra, read for a hundred miles, the whole forest was monastic. And now the people's, now that forest is labor.

- And why were they given such forests, grandfather? the girl asked.

- And the dog knows why! Foolish women spoke - for holiness. They prayed for our sins before the mother of God. What are our sins? We didn't have any sins. Oh, darkness, darkness!

Grandpa sighed.

“I also went to churches, it was a sin,” my grandfather muttered in embarrassment. - Yes, what's the point! Bast shoes mutilated for nothing.

Grandfather paused, crumbled black bread into a stew.

“Our life was bad,” he said, lamenting. - Neither the peasants nor the women were happy. The peasant is still back and forth - the peasant, at least, will be beaten to vodka, and the woman completely disappeared. Her children were drunk, unsatisfied. She trampled all her life with tongs by the stove, until the worms in her eyes started. You don't laugh, you drop it! I said the right word about worms. Those worms started up in the woman's eyes from the fire.

- Terrify! The girl sighed softly.

“Don’t be scared,” said the grandfather. - You won't get worms. Now the girls have found their happiness. In the early days, people thought that it lives, happiness, on warm waters, in the blue seas, but in fact it turned out that it lives here, in a shard. Grandfather tapped his forehead with a clumsy finger. - Here, for example, Manka Malyavina. The girl was vociferous, that's all. In the old days, she would have cried her voice overnight, and now you look what happened. Every day - Malyavin has a pure holiday: the accordion plays, pies are baked. And why? Because, my dears, how can he, Vaska Malyavin, not have fun living when Manka sends him, the old devil, two hundred rubles every month!

- How far? the girl asked.

- From Moscow. She sings in the theater. Who heard, they say - heavenly singing. All the people are crying out loud. Here she is now becoming, a woman's share. She came last summer, Manka. So do you know! A thin girl brought me a present. She sang in the reading room. I’m used to everything, but I’ll say frankly, it grabbed my heart, but I don’t understand why. Where, I think, is such power given to man? And how it disappeared from us, peasants, from our stupidity for thousands of years! You’ll trample on the ground now, you’ll listen there, you’ll look here, and it seems as if it’s early and early to die - no way, dear, you won’t choose the time to die.

Grandfather removed the stew from the fire and climbed into the hut for spoons.

“We should live and live, Yegorych,” he said from the hut. We were born a little early. Didn't guess.

The girl looked into the fire with bright, shining eyes and thought about something of her own.

Home of talent

On the edge of the Meshchora forests, not far from Ryazan, lies the village of Solotcha. Solotcha is famous for its climate, dunes, rivers and pine forests. There is electricity in Solotch.

Peasant horses, driven into the meadows at night, stare wildly at the white stars of electric lamps hanging in the distant forest, and snort with fear.

For the first year I lived in Solotch with a meek old woman, an old maid and a country dressmaker, Marya Mikhailovna. She was called a century old - she spent her whole life alone, without a husband, without children.

In her cleanly washed toy hut, several clocks ticked and hung two old paintings by an unknown Italian master. I rubbed them with raw onion, and the Italian morning, full of sun and reflections of the water, filled the quiet hut. The picture was left to Marya Mikhailovna's father in payment for the room by an unknown foreign artist. He came to Solotcha to study local icon-painting skills. He was a man almost a beggar and strange. Leaving, he took the word that the picture would be sent to him in Moscow in exchange for money. The artist did not send money - in Moscow he suddenly died.

Behind the wall of the hut, the neighboring garden was noisy at night. In the garden stood a two-story house, surrounded by a blank fence. I wandered into this house looking for a room. A beautiful gray-haired old woman spoke to me. She sternly looked at me with blue eyes and refused to rent a room. Over her shoulder, I could see the walls hung with paintings.

- Whose is this house? I asked the age-old.

- Yes, how! Academician Pozhalostin, famous engraver. He died before the revolution, and the old woman is his daughter. There are two old women living there. One is quite decrepit, hunchbacked.

I was puzzled. Engraver Pozhalostin is one of the best Russian engravers, his works are scattered everywhere: here, in France, in England, and suddenly - Solotcha! But soon I ceased to be perplexed when I heard how the collective farmers, digging potatoes, argued whether the artist Arkhipov would come to Solotcha this year or not.

Pozhalostin is a former shepherd. Artists Arkhipov and Malyavin, sculptor Golubkina - all of these, Ryazan places. There is almost no hut in Solotcha where there would be no pictures. You ask: who wrote? Answer: grandfather, or father, or brother. Solotchintsy were once famous bogomazes.

The name of Pozhalostin is still pronounced with respect. He taught Solotsk to draw. They went to him secretly, carrying their canvases wrapped in a clean rag for evaluation - for praise or scolding.

For a long time I could not get used to the idea that next to me, behind the wall, in the darkish rooms of the old house, were the rarest books on art and engraved copper plates. Late at night I went to the well to drink water. Frost lay on the log house, the bucket burned his fingers, icy stars stood over the silent and black edge, and only in Pozhalostin's house the window shone dimly: his daughter read until dawn. From time to time, she probably raised her glasses to her forehead and listened - she guarded the house.

The next year I settled with the Pozhalostins. I rented an old sauna from them in the garden. The garden was dead, covered in lilacs, wild rose hips, apple and maple trees covered with lichen.

Beautiful engravings hung on the walls in the Pozhalostinsky house - portraits of people from the last century. I couldn't get rid of their looks. When I was mending my fishing rods or writing, a crowd of women and men in tightly buttoned frock coats, a crowd of the seventies, looked at me from the walls with deep attention. I raised my head, met the eyes of Turgenev or General Yermolov, and for some reason I felt embarrassed.

Solotchinskaya district is a country of talented people. Yesenin was born not far from Solotchi.

Once an old woman in a poneva came to my bathhouse - she brought sour cream to sell.