In the Urals where the Old Believers live on a map. Terrible secrets of the Urals. The history of persecution, torture and murder of Old Believers. Old Believers and the intoxicating drink

5 little-known facts about Old Believers in the Urals

1. Former Old Believer church in Yekaterinburg

Modern Cathedral of the Holy Trinitywas built at the expense of the merchant and head of the city of Yekaterinburg Yakim Ryazanov in 1830. It was founded as a house of worship for Old Believers who were seeking reconciliation with the official church. Then they handed it over to the Russian Orthodox Church. During Soviet times, films were shown here, a factory was set up, and rock club concerts were held here.

2. Why were the Old Believers of the Urals and Siberia called Kerzhaks?

The history of this word begins in the era of PeterI.It was under Peter that it beganthe defeat of Kerzhenets - one of the largest Old Believer centers.
Kerzhenets is the name of the river in Nizhny Novgorod province. After the defeat of Kerzhenets, the Old Believers fled to the Urals, Siberia, Starodubye, Vetka and other places. People from the Kerzhen monasteries in the Urals and Siberia began to be called Kerzhaks; this term later spread to all Old Believers of the Urals and Siberia.

3. The secret school of icon painters - Old Believers.

Nevyansk icon

After the split, when many Old Believers came to the Urals and Siberia, where they settled in permanent residence, they had a great need for icons. They built secret hermitages, chapels and prayer houses, which had to be equipped and furnished with icons, so secret schools of icon painters - Old Believers - began to appear.The most famous school was Nevyansk. Although there were similarin Nizhny Tagil, Staraya Utka, Solikamsk and in a number of other cities and settlements of the Urals.

4. Old Believers and the intoxicating drink - kumyshka.

Staroutkinsk

According to legend, during the time of the Demidovs in the stones In the vicinity of the village of Staroutkinsk, the Old Believers carved out spacious cells where they hid from the Tsar’s and Demidov’s clerks. And they lived by distilling an intoxicating drink - kumyshka - from flour. And over time, a secret distillery was formed here. The sellers were tracked down by Demidov's guards, the Old Believers were caught, and their cells were covered with stones. But one of the stones for her has since received its self-explanatory name -Distillery stone.

5 . Old Believer Icarus

Big Galashki

One of the famous Old Believer settlements in the Urals is the village of Bolshie Galashki. According to legend, it was founded by a certain Galanya, a great dreamer and jack of all trades. Galanya was troubled all his life by the eternal universal dream, which destroyed him. Galanya, like Icarus, dreamed of flying. He made a light wooden frame with mobile controlled birch bark wings and jumped from a tree with it, trying to take off.

The Gornozavodskaya Urals provides an example of the successful adaptation of Old Belief to the sociocultural realities of the large metallurgical industry that was advanced for its time. The qualified and administrative-technical personnel of the factories were largely formed from Old Believers. They also produced many innovators and inventors. There are dozens of names, but we will limit ourselves to two: mechanics of the Nizhne Tagil factories, builders of steam engines and creators of the first Russian steam locomotive, Beglopopov father and son Cherepanovs.

The Mining Urals provides an example of the successful adaptation of Old Belief to the socio-cultural realities of the large metallurgical industry that was advanced for its time. The qualified and administrative-technical personnel of the factories were largely formed from Old Believers. They also produced many innovators and inventors. There are dozens of names, but we will limit ourselves to two: mechanics of the Nizhne Tagil factories, builders of steam engines and creators of the first Russian steam locomotive, Beglopopov father and son Cherepanovs. (Ill. 53). The combination of the traditional way of life and the new nature of work at metallurgical enterprises, serfdom and market relations, living in large factory settlements, often with a mixed population of many thousands, gave rise to an original worldview, the very phenomenon of artistic culture of the region. One of the manifestations of this culture was the local Old Believer iconography of the second half of the XVIII- beginning of the 20th century (Nevyansk icon). From the Nevyansk plant - the first mountain “capital” of the Demidovs and spiritual center of the Ural Old Believers - it was called the "Nevyansk school". The term is largely conventional, as is conventional, for example, the concept of “Stroganov letters,” the style of which had a nationwide distribution. (Baidin). Icon painters who painted in the “Nevyansk” manner worked in many other factories and cities, and not only in Nevyansk. (Ill. 54).

The Ural Old Believer mining icon painting during its formation was influenced by the school of the Armory Chamber of the late 17th - early 18th centuries, painting of the Volga region (Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and other centers); probably the influence of foreign Old Believer centers. (Ill. 55; cf. Il. 52). After the first “forcing” of Vetka in 1735, small but active groups of “Poles” appeared at the Ural Demidov factories. Being a zealous keeper of traditions Ancient Rus', the Nevyansk icon painting school was at the same time a developing creativity, sensitive to the context of the New Age. Hence the graphic nature of individual works (Ill. 56), realism in interiors (Ill. 57) and landscape backgrounds (Ill. 58): here are not the conventional slides and floats of old Russian icons, but picturesque landscape views of the Urals (G.V. Golynets. Nevyansk icon. pp. 210-211). The features of baroque and classicism, romantic and realistic tendencies reflected in the Nevyansk icon did not turn it into a painting, nor did they deprive it of sacred meaning. Having formed in the bosom of the Old Believers of the Beglopopovian persuasion, which later became known as the Chapel Concord, the masters of Ural icon painting worked for the co-religionist, and sometimes for the official church. The works and stylistics of the Nevyansk school spread throughout Western Siberia, right up to the Tomsk province. In addition to icon painting, the cult copper-cast plastics (Ill. 59) received great development in the Urals, fortunately there were foundry specialists and raw materials here.

In parallel with the icons, it was created book miniature Old Believer manuscripts. (Ill. 60, 61). It is obvious that there is a close relationship between the Ural Old Believer icon painting and the mining industry that arose simultaneously with it. artistic painting on wood and metal. (Ill. 62).). “Side by side with it (icon painting - Author),” wrote D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, “another branch of industry developed - painting chests, beetroot (tues), trays, etc.” (Ill. 63, 64). In the guest courtyard of the Irbit Fair in 1817 there were 7 shops “with chests, boxes, ... lacquered trays, portraits, pictures on iron and copper, iron and copper lacquered tables with paintings from the Nevyansk and Tagil factories.” (Ill. 65, 66). In the first half of the 19th century. Printed engravings served as themes for narrative painting on metal by Old Believers masters. (Ill. 67). Artistic sewing became widespread in mining factories); Local vestments for icons, made using Ural semi-precious and ornamental stones, were especially famous. From generation to generation, women in families of icon painters attached beaded vestments to icons, which were made to order in the family workshop. (Ill. 68). In the Old Believer families of hereditary icon painters and masters of painting on metal and wood, such as the Khudoyarovs, the inventors of the recipe for the famous Tagil “crystal” varnish, the genre of Ural painting on industrial themes arose. (Ill. 69). In 1858 and 1861 two cousins The Khudoyarovs entered the Academy of Arts, where they specialized in historical and portrait painting.

Contrary to fairly widespread ideas about the conservatism of the Old Believers, it was not a “closed” system. Even the limited material presented allows us to assert that the ancient Russian Orthodox cultural traditions, on which the Old Belief was oriented, in practice actively interacted with folk everyday culture. It is not surprising, but it was among the Old Believers that some pre-Christian elements of culture were best preserved. Traditionalism often contributed not to their eradication, but to the conservation of many customs, beliefs and ideas in which Christian elements were intricately intertwined with pagan ones. On the other hand, the Old Belief turned out to be quite capable of perceiving and “processing” many cultural innovations that correspond to the spirit of the times.

Some complete cultural and everyday isolation, and even then relative, was possible in remote areas. But even there, sociocultural “mechanisms” were constantly created that made it possible to reach a compromise between the principles of “leaving the world” in the name of “salvation” with the inevitability of real life in this world and the needs of farming. Thus, among the Pomeranian peasants of Verkhokamye, who also adhere to the requirements of celibacy, this was reflected in the division into “secular” and “conciliar”. Only the latter were full members of the territorial religious community - the “cathedral”, and were obliged to strictly observe the entire system of religious and everyday regulations, restrictions and prohibitions. They were “conciliar” (“consecrated”) from the age of 10-11 before marriage and in old age, after the actual end of marital relations, when a person actually could no longer help with the household and had the opportunity to minimize contacts with people of other faiths, and with the world in general. (Pozdeeva. P.42-43).

It is well known that Old Believers have food prohibitions, restrictions on clothing, communication, etc. played a significant role, being elements of self-identification. For example, the Iryumsky Cathedral of Beglopopovtsy peasants (chapels) of Trans-Urals and Siberia introduced bans on the consumption of tea and non-traditional clothing back in 1723: “Christians should not drink tea, ... do not wear foreign clothing.” These prohibitions were repeated, more specifically, by all local councils until the beginning of the 20th century. (Pokrovsky, 1999). True, then at one of the councils it was decided: “Christians should not have samovars in their homes.” There is no longer a direct ban on tea here; only samovars are prohibited.

Things were different in the mining Urals. It was the Urals, where the flow of tea from China (Irbit Fair) intersected with metal (copper) and the masters of its processing, that became, figuratively speaking, “the birthplace of the Russian samovar.” (Ill. 70). One of the leaders of the community of the same Beglopopovites at the Irginsky plant, S. Gordievsky, in 1740 responded to his opponent’s accusations that “the vile tea is acceptable and ... we drink”: this is “a custom ... not new, but, according to the announcement of the old people, ancient." The “old people” also believed that tea was generally better than the traditional “brew”, which included alcoholic drinks. In conclusion of his argument in defense of tea, Gordievsky cited references to the church fathers about the acceptability of every creation of God sanctified by prayer. At the end of the 1760s. Monk Maxim, close to the factory Old Believers-clerks and entrepreneurs, the head of the hermitage center at the Nizhny Tagil factories, answered tricky questions about the attitude towards foreign or “newly introduced” clothes and communication with non-believers in the following way: “We don’t communicate with the heretics, below we wear foreign clothes, We command anyone to wear it lower; whoever does this will give an answer to God.” The Old Believer monks, of course, did not wear “foreign” clothes, but they could not and did not try to prohibit their flock from factory settlements from doing so. (Ill. 71).

N.D. Zolnikova, who specially studied the issue of “friends” and “strangers” according to regulations Siberian Old Believers, came to the following conclusions. Although the Old Believers as a whole were characterized by a tough line of opposition to the “stranger” as an enemy and a regulatory reaction within the community of “friends” aimed at protecting its culture." However, not a single agreement could exist completely without changes, without one or another influence of reality and compromise with her."

The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church began in 1653 under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Patriarch Nikon, a tough character, introduces new rules. The Tsar cherished the dream of uniting the entire Orthodox world around Moscow and liberating Byzantium. The first step should be to bring rituals and symbols of faith to a single model so that all Orthodox Christians pray and believe the same. So the Greek Church, which essentially gave Orthodoxy to Rus', by the 17th century had whole line differences. Nikon invites Greek scientists to Moscow. They should compare Russians Orthodox books with ancient Greek. The conclusion was made that the Russian Church over the course of several centuries moved away from the true Old Byzantine canons.

I have always been surprised by the fanaticism of the Old Believers, their willingness to go to death, but not betray their faith. Violent, brutal eradication, suppression, destruction old faith from the authorities and the Nikon church. There must be some ideological principle, extremely important, for which people went to the stake and to torture. And this, of course, the main thing was not whether to cross yourself with two or three fingers and how many bows to make.

The fact is that our great Russian saint Sergius of Rajonezh reformatted Western-style Christianity into Vedic Orthodoxy. Father Sergius was a highly dedicated sorcerer. His Orthodoxy is the triumph of the laws of the Rule. He subtly incorporated Slavic Vedic laws into Christianity. But the teaching of Christ was originally Vedic; it was only then completely distorted. The Christian teaching of Sergius of Radonezh became what it should be - sunny, life-affirming, no different from the ancient Hyperborean worldview.

Then it becomes clear that the Old Believers are precisely the bearers of that very true Orthodox faith. And Nikon, together with the second Romanov (Rom-man - man of Rome), began the reverse process - the destruction of the Church of Sergius of Radonezh, the enslavement of the Russian people, the imposition of the Greek religion with its servility and submission to power.

Sergius of Radonezh clothed the Slavic-Aryan worldview in a Christian form. He didn't have any dogmas. The Vedic head of the Gods Rod turned into the Heavenly Father, and the son of Rod Svarokh - into Christ, the son of God. Lada - Slavic goddess love and harmony took on the image of the Virgin Mary. The most important thing in the teachings of Father Sergius is the stages of moral and spiritual growth of a person. Violence, violation of human dignity, and drinking alcohol were prohibited. Love for the Motherland, for the native Slavic culture, self-sacrifice, and moral qualities of a person were supported. It turned out that Rus' began to unite around Sergius of Radonezh. The Vedic Slavs and the Orthodox who were still alive began to understand each other; they had nothing to share. Both of them looked to the West as a breeding ground for evil and demonism. Under Sergius of Radonezh, ancient Vedic holidays were included in the Orthodox ones. And we still celebrate them. Maslenitsa, Christmastide, Kolyada.

The Church of the Magus Sergius denied the title “servant of God.” Under him, the Rus were the children and grandchildren of God, just as before in Vedic times. Under Ivan the Terrible, all this continued. All Western attacks failed. And only in the middle of the 17th century, the proteges of Rome, the Romanovs, were ordered to cleanse Rus' of the Orthodoxy of Sergius of Radonezh.

There was a murmur among the people that these scientists were crooks pursuing self-interest. And changes are taking place according to Latin books. The monks of the Solovetsky Monastery were the first to refuse to obey Nikon. They are ready to give armed resistance. The murmur turns into confusion.

They wait with special trepidation for the year 1666. It is not entirely clear why. After all, before the calendar reform of Peter I in 1700, chronology in Rus' was carried out from the creation of the world. 1700 AD corresponds to 7208 AD, which means 1666 AD is 7174 AD. By the way, the Old Believers still calculate chronology according to the old style, just as we did in Vedic Rus'. (In September 2012, we entered the year 7521 and the beginning of the era of the Wolf).

On June 22, 1666, something that horrified many happened solar eclipse, foretelling the end of the world as a matter of course. The Council takes place in the same year. The Council decides to observe all Nikon’s innovations as true. Defenders of the old faith are cursed and called schismatics. The Solovetsky Monastery is taken by storm. The main rebels are hanged and burned to intimidate them. The most ardent preacher of the Old Believers, Archpriest Avvakum, is executed by fire. In an earthen prison, the nun Theodora, known to us more as the noblewoman Morozova, dies of hunger. Ordinary people, frightened by the executions, ran across the expanses of Russia. First to the Kostroma and Bryansk forests, and then further to the Urals, to Siberia.

The purge began under Tsar Alexei and continued with particular fury under Peter I. Bonfires of ancient manuscripts blazed. Slavic culture was destroyed in order to break the connection of times. Mass drunkenness was encouraged. The people were turned into slaves. How many Russian people were destroyed? There is a version that it is a third. The second genocide after Vladimir the Bloody - the baptizer of Rus'.

Ural.

The first report of Old Believers appearing in the Urals dates back to 1684. About 50 people appeared in Porechye in Usolsky district. Especially many Old Believers accepted the Ural forests after the famous Streltsy revolt. The suppression of the rebellion by Tsar Peter was brutal. Those who fled are buried in the most remote corners - forests, mountains, caves. The chronicle writes: “During the resettlement, they started monastic hermitages. And they lived like monasteries, crowded with about a hundred people.” One of the settlements of the Old Believers was on the site of the present village of Kulisei. According to legend, it was from this graveyard that the Old Believers began to settle in the Urals. The forest surrounded the churchyard with such a dense wall that the narrow clearing leading out into the world was called a hole by the Old Believers. The Old Believers were divided into two factions: priests and non-priests. The name itself speaks for itself. Both of them pray only to icons painted before Patriarch Nikon. Contacts with the outside world were kept to a minimum. Those who were caught spreading the old faith were ordered to be tortured and burned in a log house. And those who maintain the faith are supposed to be mercilessly whipped and exiled. It was ordered to beat with a whip and batogs even those who provide little help to the Old Believers, give them something to eat or just drink water.

Tsar Peter I allows registered Old Believers to live openly in villages, but imposes double taxes on them, and this is ruinous. And the majority of Old Believers live unregistered, that is, illegally, for which they are tried and exiled. They are prohibited from holding any state or public position, or from being witnesses in court against Orthodox Christians, even if the latter are convicted of murder or theft. But despite everything, the Old Believers are indestructible.

Old Believers are becoming especially widespread in the Urals with the development of industry here. The Demidovs and other breeders, contrary to the supreme royal authority, encourage the Old Believers in every possible way and hide them from the authorities. They are even given high positions. After all, breeders only want profit, they don’t care about church dogma, and all Old Believers are conscientious workers. What is difficult for others is observed without difficulty. Their faith does not allow them to ruin themselves with vodka or smoke. Old Believers, in modern terms, quickly make a career, becoming craftsmen and managers. The Ural factories are becoming a stronghold of the Old Believers.

Not far from Nevyansk, the capital of the Demidovs, there is an ancient Old Believer village, Byngi (emphasis on the “and”). There is a very beautiful, even unique in its architecture, St. Nicholas Church (1789). The end of each century was marked by a thaw in relation to the Old Believers. There are heavy huts around. Yes, what kind! Just 19th century. Many huts could decorate any museum of wooden architecture. By the way, the film “Gloomy River” was filmed here.

The persecution sometimes weakens, sometimes intensifies, but never stops. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, a new wave of repression and persecution fell on the Old Believers. Dissenters are prohibited from building monasteries and calling themselves desert dwellers and monasteries. Another trap is the introduction of Edinoverie. Dilapidated Old Believer churches close, new ones cross. In Edinoverie churches, services are conducted in the old way. However, they are subordinate to the official Orthodox Church. If you cannot get rid of schismatics by destroying churches, then you can try to overcome the faith with a new schism. In the village of Byngi, near Nikolskaya, there is the Kazan Church of the same faith (1853) with rather primitive architecture.

In Nizhny Tagil they decide to convert the Trinity Chapel into a church of the same faith. Old Believers surround the chapel, blocking access to it. “We’ll die, but we won’t give it up,” they say. The angry governor comes to see the conflict. And he gives the command to storm the chapel. The chapel has been taken. The monasteries are being destroyed: Kasli, Kyshtym, Cherdyn. A permanent mission begins to operate in the Urals. Its members, Orthodox priests, travel to villages, talk with Old Believers, assuring them that their faith is nothing more than heresy. In words, the peasants agree with the missionaries, but after leaving they are often asked by the council to impose penance on them in order to atone for the sin that happened. In general, the fight against the Old Believers was waged almost throughout the entire time the Romanovs were on the throne. One can count only 60-70 years when the struggle subsided. Construction workers consider this time to be the happiest in their history.

But a new cruel and bloody 20th century, rich in shocks, was already approaching. The official church, which fought so ardently against the Old Believers, will have to drink the cup of bitter trials itself. Who knows, maybe they prepared this cup for themselves when they were chasing the old faith with the passion of the hunt. For the new Bolshevik government, issues of faith and property turned out to be extremely important. To both questions the Old Believers had the most direct relation. To begin with, the entire religion was subjected to an atheistic revision. Faith in Marx-Engels was supposed to supplant any religion. The Bolsheviks found out that among the Old Believers, old people play a huge role; they do not allow young people to break away from the faith. The fight against faith takes on the most brutal forms. Churches are closing. Priests are shot or exiled. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were almost 100 Old Believer parishes in the Perm region. After 60 years, there are two left. Most Old Believers have strong family peasant farms. They depend only on the weather and are not at all dependent on party directives. This situation of the new government must be broken. Many Old Believers are declared kulaks and exiled. The whole way of life fell apart. Throughout the entire period of Soviet power there was a struggle against religion. Poor villages pushed people into the cities.

In 1971, the official church lifted the curse that it had placed on them during the schism from the Old Believers. Thus, after three centuries, the old faith was rehabilitated. But even today there is a chill of alienation in the relations between the two churches. The last 15 years of the 20th century turned out to be the most liberal in Russia. But on the other hand, it became clear what losses the Old Believers suffered during the years of Soviet power. Now the Old Believers hope that young people will come to the faith.

We have one country, one history. They are as Russian as we are. And their perseverance despite all the trials is admirable. Today there is no more persecution. But temptations are coming, which are becoming increasingly difficult to resist. The technological age is increasingly invading their lives.

On Southern Urals Old Believers settled for a long time. These were mainly two streams: from the Volga, or rather its tributary Kerzhenets, where the Nizhny Novgorod monasteries were destroyed (probably this is where another name for the Old Believers came from - Kerzhaks) and from the Russian north, from Pomerania. It is believed that even the first breeder of Miass, I. Luginin, was an Old Believer. In 1809 there was a chapel here, and in 1895, when repressions eased, there was also a stone church, which was destroyed in the 1960s. At the end of 1999, a Old Believer Temple Holy Mother of God.

RASKOLNIK NIKON

Old Believers are the name given to Christians who left the Orthodox Church during the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. They are also called schismatics or Old Believers, and some historians call them Orthodox Protestants. All these terms refer to the same people. The concept of “schismatic” was used by supporters of the new faith and was negative character. “Old Believers” is a term coined by secular authors in the 19th century.

Old Believers still keep chronology in the old way. The year 7524 arrived in September 2015.

The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was initiated in the 1650s by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (second of the Romanov dynasty). He nurtured ambitious plans to unite the entire Orthodox world around Moscow. The initial step in this direction seemed to Alexei to be the reduction of the symbols of faith to a single model. The point is that XVII century The Greek Church, which gave Rus' Orthodoxy, began to differ from the Russian Church in some rituals.

The then Patriarch Nikon invited Greek scientists to Moscow, who were supposed to identify differences in the performance of religious rituals. Scientists have come to the conclusion that over several centuries the Russian Orthodox Church moved away from the Byzantine canons. To bring the rituals into unity, Nikon introduced a number of changes: to be baptized not with two, but with three fingers, after the prayer, bow down not 17, but 4, write the name “Jesus” with two “and”, procession swipe not across the sun, but vice versa, etc. In 1666, a Council took place, which decided that all Nikon’s innovations should be observed as true.

This caused numerous church protests, and in some cases, unrest. Among the first to refuse to obey Nikon were the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery. Rebels are publicly burned at the stake and executed by hanging. The people, who did not agree with the innovations, but were frightened by the executions, fled across Russia. At first, the “schismatics,” as Nikon’s adherents began to call them, hid in the forests near Moscow, and then went east – to the Urals, to Siberia. This is how the Old Believers arose.

The suppression of the rebellion, the cause of which was merely a formal change in religious rituals, turned out to be inappropriately cruel. Those who were caught spreading the old faith were ordered to be tortured and burned alive. Those who maintain the faith or provide any minimal assistance to the Old Believers are ordered to be identified and mercilessly flogged. Old Believers find themselves completely outside the law: they are prohibited from holding government or public office, being witnesses in court, etc.

The fight against the Old Believers was waged without interruption throughout the entire time the Romanov dynasty was on the throne. But despite everything, the Old Believers are indestructible. The persecution sometimes weakens, sometimes intensifies, but never stops. The tenacity of the Old Believers, despite all the trials, is admirable. However, any people who do not betray their beliefs to suit the circumstances of the moment deserve deep respect.

URAL FOR OLD BELIEVERS

Fugitive hermits set up their monasteries - secluded dwellings - in the remote, hard to reach places. On the territory of the Urals there are many hermitages known on islands, in impenetrable swamps, in the mountains, in forest wilds, etc. For many years, the Old Believers hid in the Merry Mountains in the Middle Urals. Movement along them is difficult due to windbreaks, rubble and extensive wetlands at the base of the mountains. The ridge has intricate orography, making orientation difficult. The places, despite the relative proximity of populated areas, are very remote. Since the 17th century here fugitive schismatic Old Believers began to secretly settle in monasteries. Over the course of 200 years, they found their own ascetics, revered by the people, and holy places - the graves of the elders. There were several dozen such graves, but four were especially revered: the schema-monks Hermon, Maximus, Gregory and Paul. The grave of Elder Pavel, one of the Old Believer preacher-mentors, is located at the foot of the Old Stone. Secret roads led to the graves of the elders from the Verkhne- and Nizhny Tagil factories, Nevyansk, Chernoistochinsk, Staroutkinsk. Only in 1905 did the persecution of schismatics stop, and shrines were “legalized.” New roads were cut, a marble monument was erected on the grave of Father Paul, the time of commemoration was determined, and the land under the graves was transferred to the eternal possession of the Verkhnetagil Old Believer Society. A mass pilgrimage of schismatics began with prayer services at the graves, the first day of which was called the Day of Joyful Meeting, and the last - the Day of Sad Parting. After 1917, not a trace remained of the graves; no roads to them could be found.

The monasteries of the Old Believers in the vast Bakhmet swamp in the Tugulym region have still been preserved. In the central part of the impassable marsh there are several dry islands covered with pine forests and heathland. Among them is Abraham Island, named after Elder Abraham (Alexey Ivanovich of Hungary, 1635–1710), the leader of the Siberian Old Believers who fled east from Nikon’s reforms and settled in the Trans-Ural swamps. To this day, the Abraham Stone is revered - a holy place for the Old Believers.

Many Old Believer sites are located on the island of Vera, which is nestled on the pristine western shore of Lake Turgoyak. These are the dugouts of the islanders, a chapel with a stone cross on the shore of the lake, and an Old Believer cemetery. Architect Filyansky, who described the island during his visit in 1909, says that around the chapel, wooden icons were hung right on the trees. Archaeologists are trying to restore the ruins of these structures.

12 YEARS OF FREEDOM

Old Believers became especially widespread in the Urals with the development of industry here. The Demidovs and other factory owners, in defiance of the supreme royal authority, encourage the Old Believers in every possible way, hide them from the authorities and even endow them with high positions. Breeders need profit, they don’t care about priestly dogmas, and all Old Believers are conscientious workers. What is difficult for others is observed without difficulty. Their faith does not allow them to ruin themselves with vodka or smoke. Old Believers easily made a career, becoming craftsmen and managers. The Ural factories are becoming a stronghold of the Old Believers.

In 1905 common sense, finally prevailed, and the Tsar’s Decree lifted the ban on “schismatics,” as they were called for almost 250 years, to hold public office and allowed the “Old Believers” - the name from the new Tsar’s Decree - to openly create their parishes and perform religious services.

“At the beginning of the twentieth century. Entire villages on Pechora are populated by Old Believers. They had their own icons (mostly copper), which were placed not in the red corner, but near the stove or behind a partition. The old faith forbade them to smoke, drink wine, swear, or wear European clothes. Each “faithful” had his own dishes - a mug, a spoon and a bowl - which he never parted with; guests were not given their own dishes. Women wore dark-colored clothes. The most fanatical Pechora schismatics did not eat potatoes or “overseas” vegetables; instead of kerosene they used splinters. The Old Believers did not have churches or houses of worship; they chose living quarters for worship. At the same time as the Old Believers, Orthodox Christians also lived in the villages. Clashes on religious grounds between them rarely happened." 1 Many note some caution, silence and mistrust on the part of the Old Believers. They are also not particularly hospitable.

In clothing, ancient types were preferred: for men - a shirt-shirt with a stand-up collar and trousers. The basis of women's clothing was a complex of a shirt with a sundress. Both men's and women's clothing had to be belted.

Until the 1950s, among the Old Believers there were prohibitions on the consumption of a number of products, including tea, potatoes, horse meat, garlic, and hare. “When Jesus Christ was crucified, his wounds were smeared with garlic to make it more painful. That’s why it’s a sin to eat garlic.” Products purchased from non-Old Believers had to be subjected to certain “purification” procedures. Flour and meat were “cleaned” during the cooking process - “passing through fire.” Butter They immersed him three times while reading the Jesus Prayer into running water.

Before the revolution of 1917, Old Believers made up 1/10 of the entire Orthodox population in Russia (and, it should be noted, far from the worst part of it). But in 1917, the “golden age” of the history of the Old Believers, which lasted 12 years, ended! Fleeing from the “godless authorities,” the first wave of Ural Old Believers again, as in Nikon’s time, moved deeper into the forests and further into Siberia.

BACK INTO THE FORESTS!

The fight against the Christian faith in general and against the Old Believers in particular after the revolution of 1917 acquired the most brutal forms. By the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Perm region alone there were almost 100 Old Believer parishes. After 60 years, there are only two of them left. The Old Believers suffered in 1922–1923. due to the massive decision, under pressure from party activists, to close houses of worship. Priests are shot or exiled. Most Old Believers have strong family peasant farms. They are autonomous, independent and do not depend on party directives, and the authorities can never come to terms with this! Old Believers are declared kulaks and are repressed. During the 1920s. The flow of Old Believers migrating to the east did not weaken. The most daring ones went into the North Ural forests.

Those escaping from repression settled along the banks of small rivers in such a way as not to be seen when moving along a large river. The schismatics of Ebeliz were hiding in the right tributaries of the Ilych, 2-4 km from their mouths. They built huts, cut down areas of forest and plowed them up for crops. Natural mountain meadows were used as feeding grounds. The main occupation of the Old Believers was fishing, hunting, livestock, and gardening. Communication with the outside world was kept to a minimum. Through reliable people, they exchanged hunting trophies for cartridges and matches.

Small villages of 3-5 houses were formed here, where the Old Believers farmed and prayed. They lived more often in family clans. This is evidenced by the spread of homogeneous surnames in these places - Mezentsevs, Popovs, Sobyanins. Later, when collectivization began, the Old Believers, not wanting to join collective farms, left their villages and went even further into the forest 2.

“Several decades ago, along the banks of Shezhima, and in many other remote areas of the Upper Pechora and its tributaries - Podcherya, Ilych and Shchugor, there were quite a few monasteries of Old Believers. In the abandoned huts, household items, hunting items and ancient handwritten books have been preserved to this day. Not long ago, researchers at the Leningrad Literary Museum discovered a library of ancient books (more than 200 books) in one of these huts. There is a legend that the rarest ancient manuscripts are hidden in deep forests in deciduous logs filled with wax” 3.

The sacred occupation of the Old Believers was rewriting books. Until the middle of the 20th century, Old Believers used goose feathers for writing, and natural paints for ornamental painting of the manuscripts they created. The most important thing scribes in the monasteries were updating and rewriting Old Believer manuscripts and printed books. Russian philological science owes much to the Russian Old Believers for the preservation ancient lists monuments of pre-Petrine literature.

A difficult fate awaited the hermits who remained in the Urals. They were identified and tried for evading socially useful labor and military service. A large group of Old Believers were “neutralized” in 1936. Several dozen hermitages were tracked down, arrested and charged under Article 58 “for activities aimed at overthrowing Soviet power.”

“Ivan Petrovich Mezentsev left Saryudin with his family. They went to Kosya, where they founded their monastery and lived. They were looking for them in the forest for a long time. They even searched by plane. After 2-3 years they found him and arrested him. They put me in prison."

Story by Anna Ivanovna Popova, born in 1927: “A mother once gave birth to twins, and among the Old Believers this was considered a great sin. She was forced to plunge into ice water several times, so she was supposed to be cleansed of sin. But after that she fell ill and soon died. Then Anna’s father took another woman from Skalyap as his wife, and she persuaded him to go into the forest, and left the children in the village. They went far to the upper reaches of Kosyu, 40 kilometers upstream, at the very foot of Ebeliz. The monastery was built there. But they were found, arrested and then shot.”

Investigation documents show that all the cases of “counter-revolutionary Old Believer organizations” in the Urals, the so-called “Groups of Militant Christians” and “Brotherhood of Russian Truth,” were invented by the NKVD investigators themselves. The investigation materials contain certain denunciations of the KGB agents that the defendants, who did not agree with the Soviet regime, were engaged in distributing leaflets, carrying out sabotage, creating a network of underground organizations, etc. Anyone to a sane person it is clear that the Old Believers, who lived in the remote and completely uninhabited mountains of the Urals, never did anything like this.

Currently, the remains of the monasteries are difficult to find. However, in the middle reaches of the Valganyol stream there are characteristic hills overgrown with weeds, and in the Kosyu valley, participants of the search expeditions of 2000-2001. discovered a preserved hut.

“We decided to try to find a person who knows where a monastery is located and will agree to take us to it. Cordon worker Ivan Sobyanin kindly agreed to be our guide. With his help, having overcome great obstacles, having walked a considerable number of kilometers, first along the Kosyu River, then away from it, we finally reached the monastery. It turned out to be a small hut, carefully cut from spruce. A hut of 10 crowns, slightly taller than a man, with a roof that was covered with large pieces of birch bark intertwined with willow twigs. A thick layer of earth up to 25 cm high was poured onto the roof for warmth. The house was built “into a cup.” On one side of the hut there was a small window, probably for the escape of smoke, since the hut was heated in a black way. The door of the hut overlooked a small lake (or rather, a karst depression) with a diameter of no more than 3 m, quite deep. Another window bigger size was located on the opposite side of the small window. He, as the guide claimed, had not been there before. It was later that the hunters cut it through. Inside the hut, everything fell apart; they found the remains of some simple household items - wooden hooks, a mortar, a shovel, a high chair, etc. Near the hut we found traces of some buildings, completely collapsed, overgrown with moss and covered with a layer of earth. They were at a distance of 10-15 steps from the hut. But what especially attracted our attention were the strange buildings located in front of the door, 3-5 steps away, between the hut and the lake. The impression was that these were tombstones - half-rotten log houses of a wooden 2-3-crowned frame, characteristic of the funeral rite on Ilych. An eight-pointed cross is placed at the feet of the grave, the top of which is crowned with a gable roof. There were three of these houses..."

REVENGE OF A REJECTED PARTY MEMBER

The remaining untouched Old Believers existed in the vast expanses of the Urals until 1952. For over 30(!) years they led an autonomous existence in harsh climatic conditions. During the war, some women and children returned to Ilych villages under the guise of settlers. Some monasteries were inhabited mainly by men. They sometimes went to the villages. Participation in haymaking was especially practiced. Men dressed in dark women's clothing, mowed the grass without arousing any suspicion.

Unfortunately for the Old Believers, that year a representative of the Troitsko-Pechora regional party committee arrived in the area on some party business. His attention was disproportionately attracted a large number of women in remote forest villages. Perhaps he would not have paid attention to it - there were few men everywhere after the war. Most likely, some village resident (or maybe several) rejected his attentions. This angered the party member, and he, finding fault with some little thing, wrote a report.

Senior lieutenant of the NKVD Kurdyumov from Troitsk-Pechorsk was sent to the investigation. It was he who later drew attention to a curious fact: at about the same time, in villages almost devoid of a male population, children were born together. This prompted the senior lieutenant to become suspicious. Under the guise of a young teacher, an agent provocateur arrived in the area, gained the trust of the local residents, and the case of the hiding Old Believers was soon solved.

There were arrests and charges under articles of evasion of labor activity (parasitism - what an irony of fate! - it is difficult to imagine more hardworking people who managed to live autonomously for years in the harsh conditions of the Northern Urals) and evasion of military duty. About one and a half dozen Ebeliz Old Believers were sentenced to various terms. After leaving, they all returned to the Pechora villages. Their descendants still live there today.

The dwellings of the arrested Old Believers were mostly abandoned, partially looted by poachers and “developed” by hunters, but, nevertheless, much of what remained in the huts was discovered in 1959 by members of the expedition of the Institute of Russian Literature. They found costumes, icons, folds, painted boards for grave crosses and - the main thing for which the expedition was equipped - handwritten books. Some manuscripts were sealed with wax in sealed birch bark tubes and hidden in leafy logs. Undoubtedly, they have survived to this day and are hiding somewhere on the slopes of Ebeliz.

In 1971, the official church lifted the curse that it had placed on them during the schism from the Old Believers. So, after 305 years, the old faith was rehabilitated.

The literature mainly deals with communities of Old Believers living in populated areas, but there is practically no information on monasteries. This is understandable, since most of them were secret and were not widely known even during the period of their existence.

1 E. Shubnitsina, Shchugor. Syktyvkar: NP “Yugyd va”, 2009. – 72 p. with ill.

2 Here and below, fragments of the essay by Elena Fedorenkova (scientific supervisor - Tatyana Kaneva) “Old Believers on Ilych (based on materials from school historical and local history expeditions in 2000 and 2001 to the Troitsko-Pechora district along the Ilych river)” are highlighted in italics. high school No. 37 Syktyvkar, 2001

3 A. Kemmerich. Northern Urals. "FiS", M., 1969.

I raised the topic of the authorities underestimating the historical and tourist features of the Middle Urals. They are developing weekend tourist routes as a panacea for entry and domestic tourism. There are tours dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory; tourists are asked to remember that Berezovsky Sverdlovsk region called the Homeland of Russian Gold, this list of places to visit includes Nizhny Tagil, Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Nevyansk, Verkhoturye (I talked about the presentation of tourism products created at the expense of the budget of the Sverdlovsk region in the post Great tourism professionals: marking time or going nowhere.. ...)...

Since I am often with different corners Sverdlovsk region, the stories of local residents revealed to me an important part of its past. If Verkhoturye, during the period of development of Siberia and the Urals in the 17th century, was an outpost of Orthodoxy and Russian statehood, then the emerging Ural industry represented a completely different cultural structure. With the beginning of the construction of the Demidov factories, centers of Old Believers appeared in the Urals. Almost all the factories that the Old Believer Demidov built were full of Old Believers. Traces of this cultural feature are borne by the capital of the Old Believers of the Urals, Nevyansk, such cities as Nizhny Tagil, Verkhniy Tagil, all of which were part of the industrial empire of the Demidovs.

The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church began in 1653 year under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Patriarch Nikon, a tough character, introduces new rules. The Tsar cherished the dream of uniting the entire Orthodox world around Moscow and liberating Byzantium. The first step should be to bring rituals and symbols of faith to a single model so that all Orthodox Christians pray and believe the same. Thus, the Greek Church, which essentially gave Orthodoxy to Rus', had a number of differences by the 17th century. Nikon invites Greek scientists to Moscow. They should compare Russian Orthodox books with ancient Greek ones. The conclusion was made that the Russian Church over the course of several centuries moved away from the true Old Byzantine canons.

Old Believers were ready to die, but not betray their faith. Furious, cruel eradication, suppression, destruction of the old faith by the authorities and Nikon’s church. There must be some kind of ideological principle here, extremely important, for which people went to the stake, to torture. And this, of course, the main thing was not whether to cross yourself with two or three fingers and how many bows to make.

One of the ideological sources of the Old Believers was the belief in the truth of the teachings of the Fathers of the Russian Church and its Saints. The great Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh reformatted Western Christianity into Vedic Orthodoxy. Father Sergius was a highly dedicated sorcerer. His Orthodoxy is the triumph of the laws of the Rule. He subtly incorporated Slavic Vedic laws into Christianity. The Christian teaching of Sergius of Radonezh was sunny, life-affirming, no different from the ancient Hyperborean worldview. The Old Believers perceived the reforms of Nikon and the Tsar as a process of destruction of the Church of Sergius of Radonezh, the enslavement of the Russian people, the imposition of the Greek religion with its servility and submission to power, which had not previously happened in Rus'...

The Church of Sergius denied the conversion "servant of God". Under him, the Rus were the children and grandchildren of God, just as before in Vedic times. Under Ivan the Terrible, all this continued. In the middle of the 17th century, Nikon and the Romanovs began to cleanse their usual way of life.

June 22, 1666 A solar eclipse that horrifies many occurs, foretelling the end of the world. The Council takes place in the same year. The Council decides to observe all Nikon’s innovations as true. Defenders of the old faith are cursed and called schismatics. The Solovetsky Monastery is taken by storm. The main rebels are hanged and burned to intimidate them. The most ardent preacher of the Old Believers, Archpriest Avvakum, is executed by fire. In an earthen prison, the nun Theodora, known to us more as the noblewoman Morozova, dies of hunger. Ordinary people, frightened by the executions, ran across the expanses of Russia. First to the Kostroma and Bryansk forests, and then further to the Urals, to Siberia.

The first report about Old Believers appearing in the Urals dates back to 1684 year. About 50 people appeared in Porechye in Usolsky district. Especially many Old Believers accepted the Ural forests after the famous Streltsy revolt. The suppression of the rebellion by Tsar Peter was brutal. Those who fled are buried in the most remote corners - forests, mountains, caves. The chronicle writes: “During the resettlement, they started monastic hermitages. And they lived like monasteries, crowded with about a hundred people.” One of the settlements of the Old Believers was on the site of the present village of Kulisei. According to legend, it was from this graveyard that the Old Believers began to settle in the Urals. The forest surrounded the churchyard with such a dense wall that the narrow clearing leading out into the world was called a hole by the Old Believers. The Old Believers were divided into two factions: priests and non-priests. The name itself speaks for itself. Both of them pray only to icons painted before Patriarch Nikon. Contacts with the outside world were kept to a minimum. Those who were caught spreading the old faith were ordered to be tortured and burned in a log house. And those who maintain the faith are supposed to be mercilessly whipped and exiled. It was ordered to beat with a whip and batogs even those who provide little help to the Old Believers, give them something to eat or just drink water.

Not far from Nevyansk, the capital of the Demidovs, there is an ancient Old Believer village, Byngi (emphasis on the “and”). There is a very beautiful, even unique in its architecture, St. Nicholas Church ( 1789 ). The end of each century was marked by a thaw in relation to the Old Believers. There are heavy huts around. Yes, what kind! Just 19th century. Many huts could decorate any museum of wooden architecture. By the way, the film “Gloomy River” was filmed here.

The persecution sometimes weakens, sometimes intensifies, but never stops. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, a new wave of repression and persecution fell on the Old Believers. Dissenters are prohibited from building monasteries and calling themselves desert dwellers and monasteries. Another trap is the introduction of Edinoverie. Dilapidated Old Believer churches are closing, new ones are being rebaptized. In Edinoverie churches, services are conducted in the old way. However, they are subordinate to the official Orthodox Church. If you cannot get rid of schismatics by destroying churches, then you can try to overcome the faith with a new schism. In the village of Byngi, near Nikolskaya, there is the Kazan Church of the same faith (1853) with rather primitive architecture.

In Nizhny Tagil they decide to convert the Trinity Chapel into a church of the same faith. Old Believers surround the chapel, blocking access to it. “We’ll die, but we won’t give it up,” they say. The angry governor comes to see the conflict. And he gives the command to storm the chapel. The chapel has been taken. The monasteries are going bankrupt: Kasli, Kyshtym, Cherdyn. A permanent mission begins to operate in the Urals. Its members, Orthodox priests, travel to villages, talk with Old Believers, assuring them that their faith is nothing more than heresy. In words, the peasants agree with the missionaries, but after leaving they are often asked by the council to impose penance on them in order to atone for the sin that happened. In general, the fight against the Old Believers was waged almost throughout the entire time the Romanovs were on the throne. One can count only 60-70 years when the struggle subsided.

Settlements of Old Believers, Edinoverie churches scattered throughout the Middle Urals. This is the village of Shartash (near Yekaterinburg), Verkhny Tagil, where ancient buildings and way of life have been preserved, but there is not a single object cultural heritage, the village of Tavatuy (Sverdlovsk region) and many others...

There are government statistics on the number of Old Believers and Pomeranians in the Ural region in 1826.

Province	Total number of Old Believers	Number of Pomeranians	Share of Pomeranians from the total number of Old Believers, %
Orenburgskaya	23198	10410	44,0
Perm	112354	10509	8,9
Tobolskaya	33084	7810	24,0

The Sverdlovsk region, at that time, belonged to the Perm province, which in terms of the number of Old Believers differs significantly from its neighbors. And the point is not only in their numbers, but in the influence they had on the development of the Middle Urals, its culture and history...

This is a historical and cultural feature of the Sverdlovsk region, which can rightfully become one of the tourist routes...

Simply, about this feature in Government of the Sverdlovsk region And State Budgetary Institution SO "Tourism Development Center of the Sverdlovsk Region" Apparently they don't know...

Materials used in this post.

1. Former Old Believer church in Yekaterinburg

2. Why were the Old Believers of the Urals and Siberia called Kerzhaks?

3. The secret school of icon painters - Old Believers.

4. Old Believers and the intoxicating drink - kumyshka.

5 . Old Believer Icarus

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