It turned out to be difficult to recreate the traditional way of life in a small village. Although three centuries ago a large community settled here, and the settlement became the unspoken center of the Old Believers in the Saratov region. But local men have not kept the covenant “Let no razor touch your beard” for a long time, while women wear trousers prohibited by the charter and put on make-up. For twenty years, the old-timers have been trying to restore the faith of their ancestors to the villagers. The correspondent of the Vzglyad-info news agency visited the village of Sosnovaya Maza, Khvalynsky district, and saw what the activists and the priest had to face.

“God endured and commanded us!”

I remove the lock from the door, go into the hallway and fall into the darkness. Immediately in the dark it is difficult to navigate and find the right door. It's always like that with the right doors. Instead of the residential part of the house, I find myself in a pantry hung with cobwebs.

"Here, here"- mistress of the house Valentina Kareva voice tries to indicate where to go. Valentina Ivanovna herself has not gone outside for a couple of years, she moves around the house in a wheelchair. Of the regular guests - a social worker yes Priest Vadim.

A smiling old woman meets me in a modestly furnished but comfortable room. In the red corner are old icons inherited from my mother, books with holy scripture, prayer books. Next to the faces of the saints hangs a ladder - an Old Believer rosary for prayer. There is practically nothing in common with the usual (accepted in the New Believers - ed.) rosary: ​​instead of beads, beans are woven into the ladder (rolled into a tight roll of paper with prayers), and in the middle - four triangles sewn on top of each other, called lapostki.

Valentina Kareva is the organizer of the Old Believer community in Sosnovaya Maza. It was to her that the neighbors went to pray, while there was no church in the village. And it was with her that he stayed in 2013. metropolitan Moscow and All Russia Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church Cornelius.

“Vladyka stood up to the icons, saw photographs of my niece's children on the wall. "Are they Old Believers?"—the lord asks. “No, my lord. But it’s good that they don’t deny the Lord, sometimes they go to church, and that’s the glory of God.” "He agreed with me"- recalls Valentina Ivanovna, showing a church calendar in which a photograph of Metropolitan Kornily and Kareva was printed.

Against the backdrop of majestic pines and picturesque snow-white hills, the gray wooden houses of Pine Maza seem especially faceless. True, on many windows the carved architraves are framed on top with turrets. And the priest of the local parish, Father Vadim, emphasizes that this is the Old Believer style: "Three turrets symbolize the Holy Trinity— Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is a life of Saint Barbara. It tells that she had a vision, after which she ordered to make three windows in her father's bath in honor of the Holy Trinity..

Indigenous people have not heard anything about the protective power of platbands. Most families generally avoided religious topics for many decades. Although the history of this village is closely connected with issues of faith.

In the 1650s - 1660s, the patriarch Nikon and the king Alexey Mikhailovich carried out church reform. Those who disagreed with the innovations began to leave for sparsely populated lands, hiding in the forests. Some families of those who continued to be baptized with two fingers settled in these parts, on the banks of the Maza River. So in 1669 the settlement of Pine Maza was formed.

“Until the beginning of the 20th century, we had four churches and parochial schools. But during the Soviet era, three churches were destroyed, the fourth was taken as a workshop, when a machine and tractor station was built in the 1930s, says Valentina Ivanovna. — my grandfather Petra Fomich, church warden, together with the priest father Vasily Makarov, with whom he was friends, like hundreds of other old men, they were taken away somewhere even before collectivization. Mom until her last days believed that the aunt was still alive.

Quite recently, the pensioner found out: her grandfather and other prisoners were taken away from the village on February 10, and on February 18 they were all shot in Volsk.

They had a chance to stay at home. So, Father Vasily was offered to renounce the priesthood and shave off his beard. To which he replied: “God endured and commanded us!”. After that, his whole family was sent to Kazakhstan. Only daughter regretted Anna Almosov, who at that time married a military man, a member of the party.

Now great-great-granddaughter of a priest Natalya Arzhanukhina heads the local House of Culture: “Anna Vasilievna was my great-grandmother. She became a church warden, neighbors went to pray to her. She also had the right to baptize people at home. My great-grandmother lived to be 96 years old, so she also baptized her great-great-grandson, my son.”.

Old-timers remember: before prayer, their parents tightly curtained the windows, and the children were sent for a walk so as not to let it slip. Or in the middle of the night they would wake everyone up to pray.

“If now that generation of old people were alive, then everyone would go to church— Valentina Kareva explains why so few villagers go to church. — Our generation is not used to this. Everyone is used to praying at home».

Most of the approximately 800 inhabitants of Sosnovaya Maza consider themselves Old Believers. But over the past ten years, there has been a “split” among them as well.

Beard, braids and education

“I’m afraid he’ll be called somewhere. They will take me away, and I will be left so old alone, without a son. God have mercy!- an eighty-year-old woman laments Agrippina Ivanovna sitting on the couch next to Gennady Anikin- the only owner of the "correct" Old Believer beard in the village.

“The neighbors joked, they say, he was going to the priests. And Valentina Ivanovna advised me not to pay attention to them,- as if reading the Old Slavonic script, Gennady draws out every word. — I go and say, I let her go for myself, not for you, and that's it. Already left me".

It is not easy to find the Old Believers on the streets of Sosnovaya Maza. Women are more likely to wear trousers than dresses. Men are not bearded, and sometimes under a degree, which is also forbidden by faith. In general, Old Believers cannot change the image given by God. Shaving and using cosmetics is considered one of the serious sins.

Teacher of labor at the Sosnovskaya school Victor Paramonov he admits that he came to the faith of his ancestors seriously when a permanent priest appeared in the village. Father Vadim (Korovin) about ten years ago, together with his family, moved to the Saratov region from near Kursk. At first they lived in "difficult Saratov", and seven years ago he was sent to the community of Sosnovaya Maza. Here the Korovins took root, although, of course, they had to endure difficulties - two years ago the priest had a house.

“Their family follows the Old Believer charter, the children, as in a monastery, follow all the rules. We look at them and learn. But I'm still working, so I can't grow a beard yet. After all, we live in the village, the rest will misunderstand", - Viktor Grigorievich justifies himself.

Vadim's father has a large family - twelve children, expecting the thirteenth. While sons are feeding domestic animals in the yard, daughters are bustling about in the narrow kitchen of a private house - together with their mother Zinovia preparing dinner. All the girls, as expected, in dresses with long sleeves, hair gathered in tight braids.

According to Father Vadim, if it is not possible to send a child to a parochial school, then more attention should be paid to home education.

“We are trying to grow up according to the rules, when they reach adolescence, of course, they begin to be clever,- says Matushka Zinovia. — There are all sorts of failures, no one is safe from this now. The eldest son shaved off his beard. I say: “Now you can’t drink or eat together with you, and you can’t go to church like that either.” But then he went to confession, the priest gave penance (punishment). Grows again. Only grandmothers remained among the bearers of the old culture, there are almost no peers of our children. True, Old Believers from the Urals came to Epiphany. Young guys with beards, and they are not shy about it".

But the school teacher of labor Paramonov admits: “Honestly, I don’t know what a beard is for. Maybe I have not yet comprehended in the faith? Here we have a man who went to church, served to people, took any part in church life. And suddenly he shaved and died. And since he violated the charter, he was not buried".

It is difficult for an outsider to understand such orders. However, in the village of Elkhovka, neighboring with Sosnovaya Maza, even more strict Old Believers live - bezpopovtsy. They don't have priests.

"We call them kulugurs,- says Natalya Arzhanukhina. — Our relatives have a grandmother from Bespopovtsy. The granddaughter specially set aside one plate, a cup and a spoon for her. She never eats from shared dishes. For our grandparents, we did not notice such oddities..

Suslov, crosses and import substitution

The roads were covered with snow, and not all the streets of Pine Maza can be driven by car. From the central one - Lenin - we move out to Kirov, and in order to find ourselves on Ogorodnaya street, where the old-timer lives Anna Smirnova, you need to go to the other side of the village. We go there on foot through the field, a narrow line of forest belts and a reservoir. We knock.

The old woman appeared at the window and waved her hands in fright: “Go away, I have nothing to say. I don't go to church. I don't go anywhere." Anna Leontyevna did not want to communicate at all, and disappeared into the depths of the house.

Although today Smirnova is almost the only one who remembers how an old man walked around the district in the 1950s and proudly told how "his grandson Misha Suslov is a big boss in the Kremlin", Father Vadim conveys the story he heard. The grandfather of one of the main ideologists of communism sold crosses of his own production to the Old Believers. Defective crosses, with unspilled ears, handed out for free. Anna Leontievna just kept them.

According to locals, such as Smirnova, there are many lonely old people in the village. They lead a solitary life, they rarely leave the house. This can be seen even by the way even untouched snowdrifts have grown near the gates.

Strangers are afraid to open doors even after a series of thefts of ancient icons. “I have an older sister, she is weaker and smaller than me, but she still washes the floors, she is so curly. So two thieves entered her house, pushed her and took St.— Agrippina Ivanovna Anikina barely holds back her tears, remembering the events of ten years ago. — The icon of the deceased husband. The sister sobbed: "Yapa, your blessing has been taken away." These are all our Mazen thieves sent. They never found them.".

"No, they didn't" Gennady repeats the last words of his mother.

The silent village is full of abandoned houses with boarded up shutters. Old people are dying, traditions are dying, and young people are leaving to work.

“My father told me that until 1929 there were one and a half thousand households in Sosnovaya Maza, and these are several thousand inhabitants, Paramonov concludes with regret. — When, after 1993, all collective farms went bankrupt, all agricultural equipment was dismantled, our village began to “leave” somewhere. There are still no jobs here. Four local farmers do not want to pay their own, it is cheaper for them to hire Uzbeks. Here are people from the village and are forced to go to work in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Siberia".

Today, 83 students come to the lessons at the school of Pine Maza. Father Vadim hopes that, perhaps, due to the country's new domestic policy aimed at import substitution and the revival of agriculture, people will be drawn to the earth, to the origins, to the roots, to the old way of life.

Alas, it is better to study the 300-year history of the Old Believer settlement in Sosnovaya Maza from the exposition in the Khvalynsk Museum of Local Lore.

In parting, Valentina Kareva recalls the words of her mother Efrosinya Petrovna, the meaning of which she understood years later: “She will sometimes sigh: “Oh, we are of little faith.” And I always objected: “What are you talking about, mom? You pray for an hour and a half in the morning and the same amount, or even more, in the evening. And little ones!” “Yes, but like Habakkuk, we won’t go to the stake for faith. That faith no longer exists in people.”.

Description

Geography

Sosnovaya Maza is located in the central part of the district, 167 kilometers from Saratov and 15 kilometers from Khvalynsk. Coordinates: +52°29"49", +47°52"51" (G |Y |W ). The nearest railway stations are Maza and Burovka, a few kilometers away. Regular buses stop in the village in the direction of Volsk and Khvalynsk. Pine Maza is part of the Khvalynsky National Park.

Story

The first people on the site of the modern village of Sosnovaya Maza lived around the 11th century BC, as evidenced by discoveries made in 1901. The weight of the Sosnovo-Mazinsky treasure was 21 kilograms, in total about 70 tools were found, including sickles and daggers, characteristic of the Transcaucasus and Iran of the late Bronze Age. Probably, the things belonged to the leader of one of the steppe tribes who camped in these parts.
After the church reform of Patriarch Nikon and the Great Moscow Cathedral of 1667, opponents of innovations hiding from persecution began to gather in the remote, sparsely populated Khvalyn forests. In 1669, the Old Believer settlement Pine (Old) Maza was formed on the Maza River. These places were safe enough, and soon began to attract ordinary runaway peasants. At the beginning of the 18th century, disgraced schismatic archers were sent here by Peter I from the Nizhny Novgorod province. The first prayer house in Sosnovaya Maza was built in 1765. The settlement, which was amnestied during the reign of Catherine II, became a state settlement, the lands were transferred to the Chudov Monastery, to which residents were required to pay taxes. In the middle of the 19th century, with the spread of the Old Believers of Belokrinitsky consent, a large number of his followers appeared in the village. The majority were still fugitives. Also in Sosnovaya Maza there was an Orthodox community and a church in honor of the Intercession of the Mother of God, according to which the village was also called Pokrovsky. At the time of the peasant reform in 1861, there were 317 households and 2236 inhabitants in the village, which formed one rural society. The road from Khvalynsk to the apartment of the 2nd camp passed through Sosnovaya Maza. The village was the center of the Sosnovo-Mazinsky volost of the Khvalynsky district of the Saratov province. In 1877, a new Orthodox church was built by the diligence of the parishioners. The building was wooden, cold, with a bell tower and a throne like an old temple. Later, a heated chapel was also organized in the name of St. Alexis. The houses for the priest and the psalmist were church houses, the neighboring village of Elkhovy Gai (Elkhovka) was also assigned to the parish. A post office, a zemstvo (in 1870) and a parochial school began to work. In 1892, a church-parish guardianship was formed, under which on August 25, 1906, a sobriety society was established. On February 7, 1910, the Beglopopov Cathedral of the Volga (Irgiz) chapels was held in the village. According to the data of 1910, 3614 people lived in Sosnovaya Maza, of which 1615 were fugitives, 611 bespopovtsy and 666 Old Believers of the Austrian persuasion. Each community had its own prayer room. The last to be laid in 1911 was the church, the construction of which was completed in a year. The wooden building with a bell tower was consecrated in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. The opening took place on May 3, 1912, on the patronal feast day. The first divine service was performed by Bishop Meletius of Saratov.
After the October Revolution, a village council was formed in Sosnovaya Maza. The Ascension Church burned down in 1922. For some time, services were held in an adapted house, then the church was moved to the village from the Cheremshansky convent, subsequently closed and dismantled for building materials for the building of the local machine and tractor station. The Orthodox Church was also abolished; on February 22, 1937, its building was transferred to the club. During the years of active collectivization, collective farms "Struggle for Peace", "Year of the Great Turn" and the name of Molotov were formed in Sosnovaya Maza. The Great Patriotic War claimed the lives of more than 200 villagers. The building of the Intercession Church was finally destroyed in the 1970s.
Today Pine Maza is the center of the municipality of the same name. About 900 people live in the village, there is a communication center and a branch of Sberbank, on the central Lenin Street there is a house of culture and a two-story secondary school. In 1995, an Old Believer church was reopened in the former mansion, the consecration of which was marked by a procession.

sights

In the center of Pine Maza there is a monument to the villagers who died on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. The composition consists of a sculpture of a warrior, four steles with the names of the dead and an eternal flame at the foot.

 /  / 52.49694; 47.88083(G) (I)Coordinates : 52°29′49″ s. sh. 47°52′51″ E d. /  52.49694° N sh. 47.88083° E d./ 52.49694; 47.88083(G) (I)

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Pine Maza- a village in the Khvalynsky district of the Saratov region. The population is about 800 people.

Story

The village was founded by archers in the early 18th century. Pine Maza has long been the center of the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky consent, "Austrian persuasion". In 1911, the Church of the Ascension of the Savior was built here, which burned down in 1922. The older Church of the Intercession built in 1877 was closed by the Bolsheviks in 1937 and subsequently destroyed. Now in the village there is an Old Believer church built on the basis of an old brick mansion. At least half of the population are Old Believers.

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An excerpt characterizing Pine Maza

Sobbing, she covered her face with a handkerchief and ran out of the room.
Prince Vasily followed the princess. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was sitting, and fell on him, covering his eyes with his hand. Pierre noticed that he was pale and that his lower jaw was jumping and shaking as if in a feverish tremor.
- Ah, my friend! he said, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was a sincerity and weakness in his voice, which Pierre had never before noticed in him. – How much do we sin, how much do we deceive, and all for what? I'm in my sixties, my friend... After all, I... Everything will end in death, everything. Death is terrible. - He cried.
Anna Mikhailovna was the last to leave. She approached Pierre with quiet, slow steps.
“Pierre!…” she said.
Pierre looked at her questioningly. She kissed the young man's forehead, wetting him with her tears. She paused.
- II n "est plus ... [He was gone ...]
Pierre looked at her through his glasses.
- Allons, je vous reconduirai. Tachez de pleurer. Rien ne soulage, comme les larmes. [Come, I will accompany you. Try to cry: nothing relieves like tears.]
She led him into a dark living room and Pierre was glad that no one there saw his face. Anna Mikhailovna left him, and when she returned, he, putting his hand under his head, was fast asleep.
The next morning Anna Mikhailovna said to Pierre:
- Oui, mon cher, c "est une grande perte pour nous tous. Je ne parle pas de vous. Mais Dieu vous soutndra, vous etes jeune et vous voila a la tete d" une immense fortune, je l "espere. Le testament n "a pas ete encore ouvert. Je vous connais assez pour savoir que cela ne vous tourienera pas la tete, mais cela vous impose des devoirs, et il faut etre homme. [Yes, my friend, this is a great loss for all of us, not to mention you. But God will support you, you are young, and now you are, I hope, the owner of great wealth. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well enough and I'm sure it won't turn your head; but it imposes obligations on you; and you have to be a man.]
We left Demkino by another road - heading for Apalikha.
The outskirts of the village were picturesque, and again I thought that I would definitely return here in late spring or summer, when nature is in bloom...

We passed, meanwhile, and a pile of mysterious dilapidated buildings, not old, judging by the appearance - but completely abandoned.
Nadezhda explained that a few years ago there was a Bohemian community here, according to which its inhabitants were called Bohemians.
What kind of Bohemians and what kind of settlement it was - I could not find out on the Internet. My companion of all knew that they were some kind of sectarians, they were looking for a connection with the Cosmos - it was here, on the outskirts of Demkino, due to some exceptional local properties, that there were people in this community who were very educated and wealthy, who considered themselves special elected, that they sold all their property, up to housing, in order to get here - and in a few months, buildings for living and a modern cowshed grew here on the funds invested by members of the community - and a certain Nadezhda Kosova ruled everything. After her death, the whole business fell apart.

While writing - once again I made a request on the Internet - and, oddly enough, I found information. From 2008.
On a site dedicated to sects and so-called author's religions...

On March 20, 1991, in the private apartment of Nadezhda Kosova, chairman of the Association of Folk Healers of the city of Balakovo, who lived with her son and elderly mother, a vision occurred. Nadezhda communicated with the "Central Mind of the Universe" for several days, which revealed to her the secret knowledge and teachings of the Religion of Bohemia. "Bohemia" is, according to the Central Mind, the first name of our planet and comes from the word "god".

N. Kosova shared her knowledge with her neighbors and began to form an organization. Nadia formulated the doctrine, developed rituals, symbols, rituals. Two years later, the doctrine described in detail was sent for examination to the Supreme Soviet of Russia. God-wise deputies and the host of experts around them came to the conclusion that the teachings of Nadia Kosova are indeed a religion. Bohemia was registered by the justice authorities, as indicated in the directories compiled by the same experts.

The religion of Bohemia is synthesized on the basis of the teachings of the Roerichs, Christianity, religious ideas of the contactees. Sacred texts - the New Testament and Agni Yoga.

The essence of the teaching. 6,000 thousand years ago, the Earth was called Bohemian and was inhabited by Bohemians - representatives of a highly organized civilization. The Bohemians were god-like creatures, life expectancy reached 1000 years. Bohemia was a "virgin" garden, no one plowed it. The Bohemians, who lived according to the law of the cosmos, had the highest spirituality and transformed energies at their own will, with the help of which they ate and dressed. Each Bohemian had a "telepathic connection with the Creator" and after death, having completed his life "in the first dimension", he passed into life "in the second dimension", which took place on other planets.

However, a certain "god-like woman" allowed Evil into her mind. Infected by the power of evil, Bohemia fell into decay. Fortunately, the Central Mind kept "contactees" on Earth - people with increased spiritual potential, who compensated for the disharmony of the Earth and did not allow it to fall apart completely. One of these contactees is N. Kosova.

Bohemia was and remains a "feminine" planet, where women have great power. A woman is a carrier of positive energies, a man is negative, and only under the influence of a woman can he approach a normal spiritual state. From the moment of visions in Kosova's apartment, the era of the Woman-Mother began on Earth.

The entire process of the revival of Bohemia is led by the "Trinity", which is understood by the Bohemians as the Trinity of the Creator, the Mother of God and Christ. "Two earthly entities", mother and son (meaning the Mother of God and Jesus) became "symbols of the humanity of the Universe." Today Nadezhda fulfills the role of the Chief Lead Teacher of the Religion of Bohemia.

Let me remind you that the text refers to 2008.

All that remains of the Bohemian community in Demkino:

Apalikha met with a large herd of well-fed cows, who were picturesquely grazing on the outskirts.
The village itself is not impressive. Normal. And what is that Apalikha to me). It was founded by runaway Old Believers and archers. It definitely existed already at the beginning of the 18th century. About the name I read 2 versions. The first is from the word opal. Those. those who were in disgrace with the sovereign settled here. The second version is the origin of the name from the word fell - i.e. a place scorched under arable land.

Saying goodbye to Nadezhda, Nikolai and I decided not to return to the old road to Khvalynsk, which goes through Alekseevka - but to drive by a hook - through several ancient Old Believer villages.

And our path lay through Belogorye, Akatnaya Maza and Pine Maza.
In bulk, I can say - the villages are modern, strong, relatively large (population 600 - 900 people), and not much different from each other.
There were no picturesque views here - as in Demkino, but along the road between the villages there were memorable sections.
Here I will present them.

Akatnaya Maza was not impressed with anything. We just passed it, and nothing interested me, turning my head in all directions ... I note that the village was founded at the beginning of the same 18th century - Peter the Great sent archers - Old Believers to these places.

But Belogornoye drew attention to two objects:
First, oddly enough - a cemetery.
According to my story about the trip, one can suspect that I am just some kind of churchyard lover ... In fact, the opposite is true. I’m afraid, I avoid, and usually I feel very depressed when I need to visit ... And only, oddly enough, on this trip I experienced other feelings ...
So - the cemetery seemed suddenly. Among the fields, along the road. In a light birch thicket. Judging by the crosses - the Old Believers. Inside was a small neat chapel. And it struck me - it was precisely the bright mood that was created here, contrary to the custom of such places.

These endless fields...
This bottomless sky...
These snow-white, transparent birches...
And for the first time the thought came to me - when my time comes - I want to find eternal peace in the same place.
How terrible are these overcrowded cemeteries of the great cities!
It's stuffy even in the graves....
Not! So I want! At will!
Under the birches...

The second object that attracted attention was a brand new temple on a hill - naturally - also built with the help of Volodin.
Here's how to turn the attention of this beneficent Volodin to Demkino ... A thought flashed through ...

Regarding the history of the village, it was founded in 1666, of course - by the Old Believers, but in the 19th century it was known as Samodurovka, and I met it in the sources of that time as the center of Pomor consent (bespopovtsy). The village was named saboteur, in fact, in honor of its inhabitants, having failed to do anything with their unshakable religious views. The current name was given to the village in 1961.

Nature behind the village fully showed the reasons for such a new name ... And the cuts of the hills and the erosion of the soil exposed a large content of chalk deposits ...

Meanwhile, we were approaching the most interesting of the villages planned to visit - Sosnovaya Maza.
This ancient village is remarkable in that from the moment of its foundation (beginning of the 18th century) to the present day, it has been, one might say, a solid stone stronghold of the Old Believers, and the most common here is Austrian consent.

The village did not stand out from the rest in any way. The houses are modern, the local flavor is not felt.
But there is an Old Believer church here, to which Nikolai, famously turning around, gave me a lift.
The temple is an old mansion with an attached small dome.

The door was open, but I hesitated to go inside.
From what?
Old Believer churches, unlike New Believers, are not open all the time, but only during services. Outsiders there in general - do not favor, and onlookers with cameras - even more so. I was also dressed in a completely inappropriate way - in jeans and without a scarf. Offending the feelings of believers, and embarrassing the people during the sacred service, was not part of my plans.

A flock of geese studied me carefully while I hesitated - also as if thinking - to pinch - or to pass by ...

Finally - one gander hissed - and there was nothing left for me - how to slip through the open door of the temple - saving myself ...
Inside - there were, as it were, a canopy - with the shoes of those who were at the service (apparently, it is customary to take off their shoes at the entrance to the prayer room), the door to the temple premises itself was covered - but chants and words of prayers were heard.
And I found a compromise solution - between my curiosity and the peculiarities of the situation - opening the door a little, I put the lens in the slot - and took a single frame. Contrary to common sense - it turned out!

The picture shows that without exception, all the icons in the temple are ancient. No traces of restoration. Again, they are all handwritten. Other Old Believers did not recognize and do not recognize.

Having left the village, we took the road to Khvalynsk, and the road led us past amazing landscapes.

11/21/13, early in the morning - when the sun had not yet risen - I left the hospitable Khvalynsk - and - by the old way, with a change in Syzran, returned to Samara.

The original purpose of the trip was half achieved - I finally saw my native village, learned its history, felt the spirit of the places where my ancestors lived, but - I did not learn anything specifically about the past of my family.
Perhaps only a visit to the Saratov archives will solve this problem...

But here is the result of the trip - perhaps the one that I returned from it is DIFFERENT.
There are few events in the world that change us drastically.
And mostly - it's tragedy and trouble. But here - unexpectedly - something else happened.
Contact with what has long been an inner desire.
With what was missing - and suddenly it was found.
A certain wholeness that appeared in the soul.
Finding something long lost.
A new look - at life, people, and yourself ...