At one time they began to forget about the most beautiful of the remote corners of the Kologriv region - the Princely Hermitage. But in the distant past, pilgrims flocked here to holy places. Now interest in this unique historical, cultural and natural territory is growing again.

By the way, in the past there were huge dense forests here, which were part of a large government dacha, where all logging was strictly prohibited. This was done because of the desert that existed here - a small monastery, which was founded by a Urom landowner who became a monk, Thomas Danilovich Tsizarev. According to legend, an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him on this holy mountain. A wooden church was built on this site in 1719.

According to local historian D.F. Belokurov, taken from the materials of the Patriarchal Order: “in the Knyazhaya Hermitage, on the Knyazhaya River, the church has existed for more than 300 years, and it was built by the diligence of Ignatius Fomich Tsizarev (son of Thomas Danilovich).” Such confusion in the dates of foundation may have occurred due to the fact that previously there was a similar desert downstream of the Knyazhaya River.

The monastery in Prince Hermitage (probably all wooden in those days) was abolished in 1762.

But the stone Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built at the expense of Anastasia Stepanovna Nikulina (descendant of the Tsizarevs) already in 1842. She, or rather what was left of her, and the remains of the wooden structure have survived to this day.

Unfortunately, I have not yet seen any photographs of the appearance of active churches and cemeteries. The only surviving photographs of the Princely Hermitage by N. M. Lebedev date back to 1951. By that time, the churches were already closed and adapted for various social facilities. The photographs clearly show that all the domes, especially the crosses, have been removed, hipped roofs have been installed, and heating is available. At this time, the Pustynsky forest site was working here. In winter, an ice road was built. The forest was carried along it by heavy-duty sleighs, three at a time. In the building of the brick church there was a dining room, a bakery, a store, and in the wooden church they showed, it seems, a movie.

The panorama of the Holy Mountain, or as it is also called Romanikhi, is approximately the same as it is now. But the churches are no longer in use and are being destroyed. Old burials in the cemetery also disappear, tombstones and monuments are lost, but there are also modern ones that are being monitored.

On the road to the Desert there were stables behind the trees on the left, and a branch led towards them. Somewhere between the churches stood (even at that time) the famous linden trees, gnawed by the teeth of pilgrims to cure toothache. One linden stump has been preserved in the local history museum.

Later, on September 17, 1955, a Soviet logging station and a logging village of the same name opened above the Knyazha River on a high cape. In 2010 he turned 55 years old. And the village of Pustyn gave orders for life long ago. Although recently, temporary visitors and even some monk lived in some of the suitable houses. On his initiative, with the help of a logging station, a gazebo-chapel was built at the Holy Spring, the same type of which was built at Efimov Spring. (unfortunately burned down in 2010)

At one time they began to forget about the most beautiful of the remote corners of the Kologriv land - the Princely Hermitage. But in the distant past, pilgrims from all over the Kostroma Trans-Volga region flocked here. Now interest in this unique historical, cultural and natural territory is growing again.

To get to the now abandoned village of Pustyn, you need to walk 7 kilometers from the village of Sovetsky. On the maps there is a road leading to it from Voimas, but in reality it is a broken logging road lost in the taiga, so it’s easier to drive through Georgievskoye and Nikola.

Knyazhaya River

In the past, these huge dense forests were part of a large government dacha, where all logging was strictly prohibited. This was done because of the holy desert - a small monastery, which was founded by the Urom landowner Foma Danilovich Tsizarev.

General view of the Princes of the Desert. Lithograph by G.A. Ladyzhensky

The story is this: a landowner, hunting in the forests, came across an icon of the Assumption hanging on a large linden tree. He had sore legs and after praying to the icon, he suddenly felt relief. And then he completely recovered. This radically changed his life. He became a mystic, became a monk under the name of Ezekiel and founded a monastery at the site of the appearance of the Virgin Mary on the linden tree. It was then that the wooden Assumption Church was built, in which the miraculous icon stood, until the monastery was closed in 1774, and the icon was moved to Kologriv.

Modern view of the wooden Assumption Church

According to local historian D.F. Belokurov, taken from the materials of the Patriarchal Order: “in the Knyazhaya Hermitage, on the Knyazhaya River, the church has existed for more than 300 years, and it was built by the diligence of Ignatius Fomich Tsizarev (son of Thomas Danilovich).” Such confusion in the dates of foundation may have occurred due to the fact that previously there was a similar desert downstream of the Knyazhaya River.

This place is somewhat similar to Krasnaya Gorka above Pinega - space, stunning views of kilometers of taiga on the opposite low-lying bank of the river.

As already mentioned, the monastery did not exist for long - already in 1762, after the death of the founder, it was abandoned by the brethren and abolished, and the church became a parish church. But the unusual place attracted people, and in 1842 a second temple was built nearby - a stone one. It also received the name Uspensky.

Stone Church. 1950s. Photo by N. M. Lebedev

During Soviet times they were closed. The only surviving photographs of the Princes of the Desert by N. M. Lebedev date back to 1951. By that time, both churches were adapted for various social and living facilities. The photographs clearly show that all the domes, especially the crosses, have been removed, hipped roofs have been installed, and heating is available. At this time, the Pustynsky forest site was working here. In winter, an ice road was built. The forest was carried along it by heavy-duty sleighs, three at a time. In the building of the brick church there was a dining room, a bakery, a store, and in the wooden church they showed, it seems, a movie.

Panorama of the Holy Mountain. 1950s. Photo by N. M. Lebedev

The panorama of the Holy Mountain, or as it is also called Romanikhi, is approximately the same as it is now. But the churches are no longer in use and are being destroyed. Old burials in the cemetery also disappear, tombstones and monuments are lost, but there are also modern ones that are being monitored.

Modern view of the brick Assumption Church

Now the stone church is kept in order, tidy, and there is a table with icons. But people, like their ancestors, do not delve too deeply into the subtleties of Christianity. As was the custom of old: if this is a holy place, then an offering must be made. In the church, near the cross, at the springs, there are ribbons tied, money, candies, and cookies lying around. People expect benefits. And it happens.

On the road to the Desert there were stables behind the trees on the left, and a branch led towards them. Somewhere between the churches there was (even at that time) the famous linden alley. The linden trunks were chewed up by the pilgrims. According to legend, their bark helped against toothache. Now these linden trees are gone. The last one collapsed somewhere in the 50s of the last century. One linden stump has been preserved in the Kologriv Museum of Local Lore.

Desert Village. Modern look.

In 1955, above the Knyazha River on a high cape, the Soviet logging station and the logging village of the same name opened. It turned 55 years old in 2010 and is still around. And the village of Pustyn gave orders for life long ago. Although recently, temporarily visiting pilgrims and even some monk lived in some of the suitable houses. On his initiative, with the help of a logging station, a gazebo-chapel was built on the Holy Stream, the same type of which was built on Efimov Klyuch. The gazebo unfortunately burned down in 2010.

There is a staircase leading up to it. It and the surrounding trees are densely hung with ribbons, scarves, napkins, and towels. The same abundance as in other holy places where priests rarely look. It seems as if hundreds of pilgrims come here every day, and yet you have to manage to get to these sources.

The stream goes around the chapel on the left. To the right of it there is one spring, and a little lower - another. According to popular beliefs, one of them is with living water, the other with dead water. Indeed, the water near the chapel is much tastier.

Photos: Kokorin D., N. Smirnov

Esotericist Nicholas Roerich, in his essay “The Heart of Asia,” spoke about one of his expeditions to the Himalayas. There he wrote: “Recently in Kostroma, an old monk who recently went to India died.”

Researcher Igor Minutko in the book “Temptation of the Teacher. Version of the life and death of Nicholas Roerich” explains that the monk mentioned by Roerich reposed in 1925. And only many years later it was possible to find out that in the mid-1880s A whole group of Kostroma Old Believers monks made a pilgrimage to India and Tibet. They visited ancient monasteries, the sacred city of Benares in India for all Buddhists, and communicated with Tibetan sages for several years. There, Kostroma residents received such extensive information about the Universe and man that is inaccessible to an ordinary person. They received steles with Tibetan ideograms (symbols) carved on them, where the ancient teaching of the Tibetan sages was expounded, it is called “Dunhor”, or “Kalachakra”.

Professor and occultist Alexander Barchenko reached out to these “initiates” in the early 1920s. In 1925, he headed a top-secret neuroenergetic (occult) laboratory at the OGPU for the study of paranormal phenomena - bioelectronics, extrasensory perception and telepathy. Kostroma historian and journalist Konstantin Vorotnoy claims: he met in Moscow with Mikhail Kruglov, a native of Yuryevets. He arrived in the capital with steles with Tibetan ideograms - written signs that conventionally depict a concept (as opposed to letters denoting sound).

Kruglov reported to the security scientist about a man who was admitted to the shrines of Tibet and India, and therefore had knowledge much more extensive than Kruglov himself. This man lived in Kostroma, his name was Elder Nikitin. In September 1924, Barchenko arrived in Kostroma and only in November met the elder in his house on Sennaya Street.

Nikitin looked with understanding

Igor Minutko describes Barchenko’s stay in Kostroma: “As soon as he appeared in the city, the scientist attracted the vigilant employees of the local OGPU with his “alien appearance.” And although all the necessary documents were presented to the guardians of revolutionary legality, the scientist was arrested “until the circumstances were clarified.” During the arrest, books on occultism and mysticism and a Smith & Wesson revolver were confiscated from the suspicious traveler. What confused the operatives most was the fact that citizen Barchenko arrived in Kostroma for no apparent reason - he was not sent by anyone.”

And the scientist is looking for some old man Nikitin, and this is very suspicious. But the arrest was short-lived; in the evening of the same day, Alexander Barchenko was released. Someone clearly helped.

The next morning there was a knock on the room of the Serp and Molot communal hotel, and a young man in a new police uniform appeared in front of the professor.

Let’s go, citizen,” he ordered.

They walked through the entire city and found themselves on the outskirts: low houses, ditches with standing water.

The policeman brought Barchenko to the rickety house. They were met on the porch by a tall, thin old man in a shabby fur coat and felt boots. On the wrinkled face, all the features seemed frozen, only the eyes looked vigilantly and with understanding.

Barchenko spent more than a month in Kostroma with the elder - in long conversations, and sometimes even arguments. His interlocutor belonged to the sect of Old Believers-runners, or rather, to a branch of this sect: “We call ourselves Golbeshniks.” In different parts of Russia they are called differently: not only golbeshniks, but also runners, hermits, skrytniki.

During their wanderings, they organized a whole network of safe houses, which, as Nikitin said, by the beginning of the 19th century stretched from the White Sea to India and Tibet. In Kostroma alone, the police discovered more than a hundred such appearances in the mid-19th century.

However, the elder did not have time to reveal all the secrets of this teaching, its practical side to the professor - in the middle of 1925, Nikitin died and was buried in one of the old Old Believer churchyards, states Konstantin Vorotnoy in the article “In Search of Belovodye.”

After meeting the Kostroma Old Believers, Barchenko developed the idea of ​​making an expedition to Tibet and India in search of secret knowledge, but due to intrigues in the leadership of the OGPU, it did not take place.

What remains in the Princes of the Desert

Kostroma Old Believers went not only “across three seas.” They, according to some Kostroma researchers, had their own interest in the north of the province, in the dense Kologriv forests. For example, in the Princes of the Desert. By the way, “desert” means a secluded place, a monastery. During the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, when the church began to reform, the Old Believers, saving their faith, settled in remote places. So the old hermit ended up in Knyazhi.

This idea was developed by Kostroma writer and journalist Vladimir Shpanchenko. His book “Journey to the Princely Hermitage” says: “In the early 90s, when journalists had relatively free access to the KGB archives in the Kostroma region, they showed me previously closed documents. This is how I learned about the transfer of German saboteurs to the territory of our region near Antropov. Among the saboteurs were former regular soldiers of the Red Army who were traitors. There were also German officers from Annenerbe (“Heritage of the Ancestors”). Where were they going? For what purpose did they appear in the vicinity of the Holy Mountain? It remains a mystery. One thing is clear that the SS scientists from the “Heritage of the Ancestors”, if they went to the Holy Mountain near the Princes of the Desert, did not do so with the goal of dragging stones to the top of the mountain, as the pilgrims did. They had some other tasks ahead of them.”

Konstantin Vorotnoy suggests what could be found there: “Kologriv stands on the spurs of the Northern ridges - the legendary Ripean (Hyperborean) mountains. It was here that the legendary country of our ancestors was located - Belovodye. Kologriv was one of the sanctuaries of Belovodye. It was only many centuries later that the geographical position of this country moved south to Tibet and India.”

It is possible that the Nazis planned to find in the Princely Hermitage at least a piece of ancient knowledge, which may still be stored inside the Holy Mountain itself. Knowledge left over from both the Hyperboreans and, perhaps, from the Kostroma elders, who were once among the Tibetan lamas.

Portal to Hyperborea

Vladimir Shpanchenko more than once said that he saw some kind of entrance in the Holy Mountain: “I went down a little. Holding onto the bushes, I took a few steps to the side - and a mossy monolith of a quadrangular shape, three meters high, grew in front of me. The impression is that this monolith blocked the entrance to the mysterious voids of the mountain. Looking at it, it’s hard to believe that it appeared naturally in a steep wall.”

The researcher was distracted, and he waved his hand at this very entrance, saying that he would find it next time. I saw it two more times later. But I couldn’t get a good look at him. Apparently not fate. Shpanchenko didn’t even think of taking a photograph of this entrance, although he never parted with the camera. And then I couldn’t find this same monolith and the entrance to the mountain. But, it seemed, he remembered: it is located not far from the wooden chapel, on the side of the old churchyard. But other people pass nearby and do not see a rectangular stone three times the height of a man. In private conversations with the author of these lines, he called the entrance to the Holy Mountain a portal of the Hyperboreans...

He also said that local residents Mikhail Krutikov and Alexander Zhiganov once, while hunting, came across a boulder on which a clear imprint of the right human foot was visible. And a native of the Princes of the Desert, Chistov, as a teenager, climbed into a deep well with his friends. In its walls the guys found two passages, between which lay a board. Apparently, there was some kind of hiding place there. Later, Chistov, wandering through the forest, suddenly saw a door in the slope of the Holy Mountain. Stone steps led up to it. It was not possible to open the door.

In 1719, a convent was opened here. Now it has not survived. They say that when his last nun was dying, she said: “People will walk through the treasure, but they will never find it.”

Old-timers said that sometimes the water in the streams of the Holy Mountain glows with some kind of sparkles. They took it for analysis, which determined the presence of crystals of some metal. Perhaps silver? However, researchers are not thinking about precious metal; they are sure that ancient knowledge is stored deep in the mountain, to which the Kostroma elders once had access (including access). Everything has its time. Perhaps one day the mystery of the Holy Mountain will be solved.

To the north-east of Kologriv, on the border of the Kologrivsky and Mezhevsky districts, among the endless taiga, on the top of a high mountain there is the Princely Hermitage, a former monastery. There is amazingly beautiful nature here, a historical place covered in legends and traditions. From a hill almost two hundred meters high, an endless distance opens up, a green sea of ​​taiga, and right under your feet at the foot of the hill flows a river with the beautiful name “Knyazhaya”, into which the slope falls from a terrible steepness.
The people have preserved a legend about the emergence of the Princes of the Desert. The founder of the monastery is Tsizarev Ignatius Fomich, either a landowner or a merchant from the city of Kologriv. While hunting in these places, over one of the aspen trees, he saw the face of the Assumption Mother of God. And Ignatius Fomich vowed to build a monastery. He kept his word. At his expense, a monastery was built in 1719. In 1762, a wooden church was built not far from the monastery. In the same year, at the request of believers, the parish of the church was legalized and the monastery was closed. Currently it is under state protection as an ancient monument.
In 1842, at the expense of Tsisarev’s relatives, a two-story stone church was built next to the wooden one in honor of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God. The construction was supervised by Anastasia Mikulina, a descendant of Tsizarev, and she was the main investor.
For centuries, pilgrims from different parts of the Russian state have sought to come here. The mountain, called the Holy Mountain, had to be climbed on foot, many pilgrims carrying heavy stones. To the left of the churches, in the ravine, there were holy springs, considered healing. Huge holy linden trees grew on the mountain, gnawed by the teeth of thousands of pilgrims - it was believed that the bark of these trees could relieve toothache.
Currently, the Princely Hermitage, as if living up to its name, is deserted and deserted. Both temples are in dilapidated condition. Their cemetery still exists today. Two cast iron slabs have been preserved near the wall of the wooden church. The path laid by believers to the “Holy Spring” is also alive. Between the churches and around them, individual trees of the linden alley have been preserved. In the Knyazhaya Pustyn tract there flows the Holy Spring - a stream emerging from three springs. The water from the middle spring is considered the best and most healing - environmentally friendly with elements of silver, it attracts those who want to try it and plunge into the font.
I would like to believe that this holy and beautiful place will definitely be reborn. In any case, every year there are more and more pilgrims and tourists. In recent years, a chapel has been built, the holy springs have been improved, a bathhouse has been built, and a guest house for pilgrims has been built. Excursions to this place of worship are conducted by employees of the Kologrivsky Forest nature reserve, employees of the regional center of culture and leisure of the Mezhevsky municipal district of the Kostroma region.

To get to the abandoned village of Pustyn on the Knyazhaya River, you need to walk 7 kilometers from the village of Sovetsky. But how to get to that Soviet one? On the map there is a road to it from Voimas (28 km), but in reality it turned out to be hopelessly damaged by timber trucks. I had to return to Kologriv, where the handsome Father Alexey from the Assumption Cathedral advised me to get there through Georgievskoye and Nikola. Further down there, the gravel road seems to be not so damaged. This was good advice. The path increased by 70 kilometers, but we still got there.

In the Desert we met a family who had come from Sovetskoye to make hay. The boy Vova volunteered to be our guide. Led to church ruins on the high bank of the Princes. There are two churches - wooden and stone. The wooden one remains from the times when the monastery was strong in this place. It arose in 1719. The landowner Tsezyrev, hunting in these places, discovered an icon of the Dormition on a linden tree. There was something wrong with his legs. Having prayed in front of the newly appeared icon, he suddenly felt relief. And after some time he completely recovered. Women's site female-happiness.com site for women This plowed the landowner: he fell into mysticism, abandoned the worldly, became a monk under the name of Ezekiel and founded a monastery on the site of the appearance of the Virgin Mary. It was then that the wooden Assumption Church was built, in which the miraculous icon stood, until the monastery was closed in 1774, and the icon was moved to Kologriv.

The stone church was built with the money of parishioners in 1842. It was closed during Soviet times. Now the altar area has been tidied up and there is a table with icons. On the table next to them are coins, cookies, candy. People don't delve too deeply into the spiritual subtleties of Christianity. They only know: since this place is holy, it means that the offering must be left. Maybe there will be some benefit. There are benefits. Once upon a time, a linden alley led to the churches of the Princes of the Desert. The trunks were chewed up by pilgrims. The bark worked wonders for toothache. Now these linden trees are gone. The last one collapsed somewhere in the 50s of the last century. One of Vovin’s relatives still remembers this huge linden tree near the stone church. The stump of her (or her neighbor) is shown in the Kologriv Museum of Local Lore.

There is an instructive story about the building in which the museum is located. When the railway from St. Petersburg to Vyatka was built in the 19th century, the line had to pass through Kologriv. And they had already built a station, which now houses a museum, but the local merchants did not want the cast iron to pass through their quiet city. They had an established timber trade in Unzha and a clear infrastructure. Why are competitors needed? They collected some money, gave it to whoever needed it, and the road went further south, through Manturovo. But the station remained. In the legend, however, something is distorted. Not all Kologriv industrialists were such dense devils as to pay for the stoppage in the development of the city. There were also people among them who were not at all alien to dreams of progress and enlightenment. Evidence of this is the gesture of the merchant Makarov, who offered his own mansion for a station that never took place. Hence the story about a city in which there is no railway, but there is a train station. The moral of it: just the desire to be ground by the millstones of progress is too little for this to come true. The spirit of a place, if it wants, will always find a way to resist civilization.

Roguishly, but not without benefit, having spent the money of the merchants, the genius of the place managed to preserve the real European taiga around Kologriv: forests in which - not that no human has ever set foot, but still nature remained untouched. With all the ensuing consequences for humans. Strange things happen there. People sometimes disappear for a long time - they wander (on the Internet there was a message about a citizen who was lost for 11 whole days), sometimes the clock suddenly stops for no reason and even goes backwards. And, of course, there is Bigfoot. In the Kologriv forests, an abnormally large man is often seen - without any clothes, but thickly covered with hair. They are trying to study it, expeditions are being sent to search for it. But, naturally, no one found anything. Because the principled position of Bigfoot and other mysterious monsters is: under no circumstances should they show themselves to enthusiasts who come after them.

The hairy big man appears only to those who don't care about him - mushroom pickers, hunters, fishermen. Always suddenly: he will come out of the forest, stand in silence for a minute or two, bring the eyewitness to panic hiccups, perhaps enjoy his trepidation and - again into the thicket. He never bullied anyone, he never even brutalized a single woman, despite all his existential loneliness. Only he kicked some stupid bug that rushed at him with a hysterical bark so that it whined in flight for a good hundred meters. Moreover, he tore the bear in half, but didn’t even try her, he threw her away. True, no one has seen this, but what other superman could do this? Only to Bigfoot. It seems like an animal, but somewhere already a humanist.

Stories about hairy people in the Kologriv region have a long tradition. Even when the local timber merchants were just collecting money to pay off the dirty, smelly cast iron, people were discovered near Kologriv, covered in hair from head to toe. Some of them later left their historical homeland and appeared in the capitals, where they were studied by doctors and seen by the public. Their names are known: Andrian Evtikhiev and Fedor Popov.

Andrian’s appearance should be very familiar to everyone, since his photo was reproduced in almost millions of copies in biology textbooks (as a vivid example of atavism). Andrian soon drank himself to death, and Fedor went on tour to America. There he had this legend: in Russia, he and his father lived peacefully in the forest until they were caught. The father (apparently Andrian) was not at all amenable to training, but the son was completely untrainable. Look: he walks on two legs, wears a civilian dress, speaks three languages ​​fluently (Russian, English, German). The hairy Fedor performed under the pseudonym Dog Face. Perhaps the echoes of this story became the basis for Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog.”

In those days, no one called hairy people snowy. And not only because the concept of “Bigfoot” did not yet exist. Even if there was such a concept, people suffering from hypertrichosis (hairiness) would not fit into it. Because they were not hiding from anyone. Bigfoot (by the very essence of this concept) should be elusive. And in this sense, he is something like a goblin, whom many have seen, but no one managed to catch or photograph. Simply because he is from the category of immaterial beings. Bigfoot too. It, in fact, is the form of existence of the devil in conditions of widespread positivism and universal secondary education. It’s somehow inconvenient to believe in old wives’ tales, but it’s not only possible, but even necessary to believe in something that science has not yet discovered, but will definitely discover soon (or prove that it doesn’t exist). That's why they began to call the ordinary goblin some kind of snowman. But feel the difference: the goblin appears to those who do not consider its phenomenon within the framework of the scientific picture of the world, and the snowman appears to those who do. Therefore, you can successfully communicate with a goblin, but you can only study a Bigfoot without success.

Just don’t imagine that since the goblin is immaterial, it means it no longer exists. The immaterial essence is immaterial to the same extent as our soul is immaterial. It is unlikely, however, that there will be a subject who would not experience an influence coming from its depths. And you can’t just get rid of this internal influence (which sometimes brings benefit and sometimes harm). When bad luck or fatal bad luck happens in your life - is it really just a chip that fell out like that? No, someone threw a chip at you like that. Spirits influence the world through us, our soul, connected to the eventful and abundantly populated immaterial world. In a sense, any person is the same goblin, but possessing flesh. But the goblin can do without it, for he is a forest spirit who can sometimes appear in human form. But it can also be in the form of a stump, an air whirlwind, a wolf, a Bigfoot, a snake.

Judging by the story about the diversion of the railway to the south, the Kologriv goblin appears to people to discourage them from walking in the forest. And many are already afraid to climb into remote places, even just to enter the forest. For example, the boy Vova did not go with us to the Holy Stream, which flows half a kilometer from the Desert. I kept thinking: who is he afraid of? Us? The bear that recently snatched their cow? The wolf his older brother went hunting this morning? The snakes that Vova kept chatting about while we were looking around the churches? I didn’t think about the devil at that moment.

There is a sign nailed above the descent to the Holy Brook: “Drinking water.” Below is something like a garden gazebo - a chapel open to all weather conditions. There is a staircase leading up to it. Its railings are thickly hung with ribbons, scarves, napkins, and towels. I (and already) have many places of power in which people leave industrial and other offerings, but no, I have never seen such an abundance. It seems as if hundreds of pilgrims come here every day, and yet you still have to manage to get to this stream. And everything is tied up so neatly, even the pillars of the gazebo are partly draped.

The stream seems to flow around the gazebo on the left. To the right of it a spring flows, and a little lower another flows in. As they explained to us, one of the springs is with living water, and the other is with dead water. Without figuring out which one had which water, I drank from both. The water near the gazebo tastes much better.

The spirit in the Hollow at Holy Brook is fresh and moist. The typical atmosphere of the sanctuary of the Great Serpent, even though there are icons and a cross nearby. It is in vain that they even put them up - they are not a hindrance for spirits. I always had the feeling on Ruchee that in some places the air was subtly thickening. It’s as if something is about to show up and doesn’t show up. It's like someone is watching you all the time. You feel the gaze and don’t know who is there. Maybe it’s just some kind of animal hiding, or maybe it’s not an animal at all. Restless. This is how my difficult visions on .

“Have you seen it?” - asked Vova, who was waiting for us at the edge of the forest. What were we supposed to see? He didn’t answer and started talking again about how many snakes there are. It was impossible to convince him that there was no need to be afraid of snakes, that they tried to avoid people. He knew for sure that snakes were evil, dangerous, and could attack. He spoke excitedly. It turns out that while we were walking to the stream, a viper bit his dog Shalun right in the face. And Vovin’s dad killed her. With a shovel. Act. The man was proud. He also muttered something about evil snakes. “Take a photo of it as a souvenir,” he suggested and began to shake the safe, dead viper, almost cut in half, with a twig. At the same time, the snake fighter’s hands were shaking, he was on edge, as if the snake was about to rush, and he would again have to engage in mortal combat.

Personally, I always remain on the side of the snake, although, I will not hide, every time I pick up a snake in my hands, I experience horror, a feeling of disgust, downright mystical disgust. This is the archetype. From the depths of the soul rushes: crush the reptile. Snakes in forests and fields suffer greatly because people recognize each of them. Every little little man is ready to take on the role of the Serpent Fighter.

Meanwhile, their wives do not kill snakes without special need (hardly anyone has even heard of such a thing), and sometimes they take them as lovers (in myths). Which is also archetypal: The Serpent lives in the damp depths of the Earth, in a hidden women’s cave. He, in fact, is the lust of the bosom of the Earth, attracting the Serpent Fighter. A snake fighter without a Snake is nonsense, an oxymoron, the same Ivan who was riding in a ditty through the forest: “it was bitterly cold, Ivan had a hard dick, just in case.” But there is also, in essence, no Snake without the Snake Fighter. For the Serpent is the one who is beaten. These exist, as such, only at the moment of the fight. Who saw the dead Serpent? Nobody. In any competent depiction of snake fighting, the Serpent is still alive. And the Serpent, dying beyond the limits of visibility, always returns to life, like lust for a fucked woman. The serpent is the beginning, the unity of Yin and Yang, arising between Adam and Eve. And the goblin is one of the many hypostases of the Serpent post coitum. About something - somehow in .

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