Native spaces
Native spaces
Russia is the most unusual and amazing country in the world. This is not a formula of official patriotism, this is the absolute truth. Unusual, because infinitely diverse. Amazing because it is always unpredictable. The tender and gentle spring sun sinks in a deadly snowstorm in ten minutes, and a bright triple rainbow shines after the flying black cloud. Tundras are combined with desert dunes, swampy taiga gives way to monsoon forests, and boundless plains smoothly turn into equally boundless mountain ranges. The greatest rivers of Eurasia carry their waters through Russia - in no other country in the world is there such an abundance of great flowing waters. , Ob, Irtysh, Yenisei, Amur ... And the largest lakes in the world - the salty Caspian and fresh. And the longest steppes in the world - from the banks of the Donets to the Amur region. To match the geographical abundance - the diversity of peoples, their customs, religions, cultures. Nenets reindeer herders set up their chums next to well-maintained high-rise buildings. Tuvans and Buryats roam with herds and yurts along federal highways. In the Kazan Kremlin, a large new mosque is adjacent to an old Orthodox cathedral; in the city of Kyzyl, a Buddhist suburgan turns white against the background of a golden-domed church, and not far from them, the breeze flutters colorful ribbons at the entrance to the shaman's yurt...
Russia is a country where you won't get bored. Everything is full of surprises. A beautiful asphalt highway is suddenly replaced by a broken primer, and it goes into an impassable swamp. To overcome the last 30 kilometers of the path, it sometimes takes three times as long as the previous ten thousand. And the most unexpected thing in this mysterious country is the people. Those who know how to live in the most difficult, even impossible natural conditions: in the mosquito taiga, in the waterless steppe, in the highlands and in flooded valleys, with 50-degree heat and 60-degree frost ... Having learned to survive, I note, by the way, under the yoke of various authorities , none of which has ever been merciful to them ... They created a unique culture in these swamps, forests, steppes and mountains, or rather, many unique cultures. They created the great history of the Russian state - a history also consisting of countless great, heroic and tragic stories.
Living witnesses of the historical past, the work of well-known, and in the vast majority of cases, unknown Russians - architectural monuments. The architectural wealth of Russia is great and diverse. It reveals the beauty of the Russian land, and the ingenuity of the mind of its people, and sovereign power, but most importantly, the greatness of the human spirit. Russia was built over a thousand years under the most difficult conditions imaginable. Among the harsh and meager nature, in continuous external wars and internal struggles. Everything great that was erected on Russian soil was erected by the power of faith - faith in the truth, in a bright future, in God. Therefore, in architectural monuments, with all their constructive, functional and ideological diversity, there is a common beginning - the desire from earth to sky, from darkness to light.
It is simply impossible to tell in one book about all the wonderful places in Russia - natural, historical, poetic, industrial, memorial. Twenty such books would not have been enough for this. The publishers and I decided: I will write only about those places where I myself have been, which I have seen with my own eyes. Therefore, in our publication, Klyuchevskaya Sopka does not smoke, the islands of the Kuril ridge do not rise from the Pacific waters, the white cover does not sparkle ... I have not been to these and many other places, I dream of visiting and writing about them. Many remarkable monuments of history and culture were not included in the book. St. George's Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky and St. Sophia's Cathedral in Vologda, the Kremlins of Tula and Kolomna, the estates of Vorobyevo in Kaluga and Maryino in the Kursk region, the buildings of the local history museum in Irkutsk and the Drama Theater in Samara, the Saratov Conservatory and the City House in Khabarovsk ... List endless.
In addition, we decided not to get carried away with the story of big cities, about millions of megacities (limiting ourselves to a selective review of the architectural riches of Moscow and St. Petersburg), but to give preference to distant Russia, living away from wide highways and from the noise of business and industrial centers.
Located in the Bay of Kotor, the small town of Prcanj is famous for its enviable geographical position and breathtaking views, but this historic city also offers a great opportunity to plunge into the mythical past of Montenegro. The cobbled streets of Prčanj, surrounded by buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries, will take you through a city rich in history, with stone villas, orchards and olive orchards that dominate the waterfront for the most part.
The construction of the Church of the Mother of God is perhaps the most impressive sight in Prcanj. This magnificent masterpiece of architecture took 120 years to build, and the walls are covered with numerous paintings and sculptures, including works by Piazetta, Tiepolo and Balestra.
One of the most famous places in Prcanj is the "Tre Sorelle" palace, which translates as the Palace of the Three Sisters. Built in the 15th century, this famous mansion was built and owned by the aristocratic Buka family. 
Legend has it that three sisters who lived here fell in love with the same sailor. And when he went out to sea, they stood at the windows waiting for him to return. As the legend goes, for many years these sisters waited for their sailor, who never returned. As the years passed and the sisters began to die one by one, their windows were boarded up - all the windows were boarded up except the window of the last sister, who had no one to board up her window, and thus this window remains unboarded to this day, with the exception of from the rest.
Prcanj is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Bay of Kotor and visitors to the city can not only visit the Tre Sorelle Palace, but also easily explore the surroundings, as well as the historical city of Kotor, which is just a few minutes walk from the palace.
In Ashtarak, the city where I live now, there is not much interesting, in fact ... But the churches are the most beautiful :) The four churches in the photos below are part of the local Ashtarak legend about three sisters who fell in love with one young prince ... The older two sisters decided to commit suicide, in the name of the happiness of the younger sister... They jumped off the cliff into the gorge... Upon learning of this, the third sister also rushed into the gorge out of grief... The young prince, learning that three innocent girls committed suicide because of him, became a hermit... And on the edge of the gorge, in the places where the girls jumped down and died, three churches were built ... And another church, the church of St. Sargis, was erected on the other side of the gorge, in honor of the hermit prince ...
In the photo below: the Church of St. Sargis. It was built in the 13th century, but was destroyed and later rebuilt.
The names of the three churches, allegedly built in memory of the girls, come from the color of the dress that each of the girls wore. Namely, dresses of red, white and apricot-orange colors. The church in the photo below is called Karmravor, which can be translated as "reddish". Built in the 7th century.
The remaining two churches, unfortunately, were not preserved. Today only ruins remain of them. The photo below shows the ruins of the only basilica in the city. It was erected in the 5th century, 2 centuries after the adoption of Christianity by Armenia. It is called Tsiranavor, which can be translated as "apricot-orange color".
Well, the last church is Spitakavor. According to legend, it was erected in honor of the youngest of three sisters. Upon learning that her two older sisters had passed away, she put on a white dress and also committed suicide. Spitakavor is translated as "white". Built in the 5th-6th centuries.
We intend to name six new values that will be included in the list of the country's cultural heritage.
According to Anastasia Miranovich, director of the department for the protection of cultural property, this year the list may include: Montenegrin oro (crnogorsko oro), the legend of the emergence of Kotor, the legend of the tragic love of Perastchanka Katica Kalfich and the French soldier, the Dobrotsky cake recipe, the legend of three sisters from Prcanj and the legend of Pava and Ahmet Pasha.
The Intangible Heritage List has been maintained since 2013. It already includes: Perast Fashinada, Perast lace making skills, Bokel night, the cult of St. Vladimir (Duklja prince - the first Montenegrin saint, who is revered in other Balkan countries, buried in Albania), Bokel fleet and the secret of making punts on Skadar Lake.
Montenegrin oro
Oro is a traditional Montenegrin dance. Women and men stand in a circle, begin to sing and dance. In the dance, a whole performance is played out, in the center of which are a guy and a girl.
The guy portrays an eagle, and the crowd walks around singing, cheering him on or, on the contrary, laughing. At the end, the guys make the second two-story circle, standing on each other's shoulders.
The legend of the origin of Kotor
One king, having a lot of wealth, ships and time to travel, once entered the bay, which struck him with its beauty. He decided that a city should be founded here, and high in the mountains.
When work began, the fairy Alchema appeared to the king (she lived in a cave above Kotor) and said that it was best to build a city on the seashore, since “without the sea there is no life”: “neither a berth for a ship, nor a stall for a horse.”
The king listened to the fairy, built a city and began to boast to everyone that he had built the best city in the world, while forgetting to mention the fairy, which she immediately informed him about. Out of anger, the king hit the fairy, and she ordered all sources of fresh water to become salty.
After that, I had to urgently make peace with the fairy, and fresh water returned to the city. According to legend, Dushan or Stefan killed the king, there is no agreement among historians on this issue.
It is worth noting that in Kotor, sometimes salty water comes out of the tap, this is due to the peculiarities of local sources.
The legend of a Perast woman and a soldier of the French army
This story is also called the legend of Perast Romeo and Juliet. Events unfolded in 1813, when Boca was conquered by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte.
On the island of St. George (opposite Perast), where the Benedictine abbey and cemetery were built, there was an artillery fortification, and officer Ante Slovic, a Dalmatian from the island of Cres, served there.
One evening he met a girl in Perast - Katitsa Kalfich. Young people fell in love at first sight and planned to get married, only waiting for the war to end.
Soon there was an uprising in Perast against the French army. The French opened fire from the island of St. George on Perast. Ante Slovic had no choice and sent the first projectile to Perast. The rebels immediately surrendered.
Joyful that the war ended so soon, he sailed to Perast to his beloved. But it turned out that the only shell he fired at the city killed her.
The girl was taken to the island to be buried. On the same day, Ante took off his uniform and decided to stay on that island to keep her grave. He took the vows as a monk, and began to be called Brother Francis.
Brother Francis lived to an old age on this island, only sometimes he came by boat to the city. He planted cypress trees on the island and asked the Perast authorities to keep the cemetery on the island.
One day he was found dead on the grave of his beloved with a note in his hand asking to be buried next to Katica. The people of Perast fulfilled his wish.
Dobrotsky cake
Dobrotsky cake or Perast cake (dobrotska, peraska torta) is a specialty of Boka Kotorska. It is prepared only in this region and is very proud of the recipe.
The cake is a lemon-almond biscuit. You can try it in the confectioneries of Kotor.
The legend of the three sisters from Prcanj
The Palace of the Three Sisters has survived to this day in the village of Prcanj in Boka Kotorska. The legend says that three sisters fell in love with one sailor, and he loved only one of them.
For the sake of sisterly love, they all made a sacrifice and stayed forever in this palace in rooms with windows overlooking the sea. And the sailor left those parts forever. When the first sister died, the other two walled up her window.
When the second died, the third zoomed in on the window of her room. When the third died, there was no one to board up the window. It has remained open.
Pava and Ahmet Pasha
The love story of Pava and Ahmet Pasha goes back three centuries. Pava was the daughter of the Vranac prince Milikich. A Muslim Akhmet-Pasha Khasanbegovich fell in love with her.
He asked for the girl's hand in marriage, and she agreed to marry him on the condition that she keep her Orthodox faith. Sons born in marriage had to become Muslims, and daughters - Orthodox.
Ahmed Pasha accepted this condition. As a dowry, Pava received a large piece of land (a field). Their marriage produced three triplets and one daughter.
The sons later became the ancestors of three Muslim clans - Mushovich, Khasanbegovich and Dautovich. They loved their mother very much and accompanied her to church every Sunday. While there was a service, they were waiting for her at the gate.
Pava died during her second birth. She gave birth to a girl. Before her death, she asked not to forget her name, and that she retained the Orthodox faith until the end of her life. She was buried in her field, which is now called Pavino Field. Soon the little daughter also died - she was buried according to the Orthodox custom next to her mother.
Ahmet Pasha also wanted to be buried next to his wife, and now there are two slabs on the field: one with an Orthodox cross, the other with a Muslim crescent.
A cradle was carved on their daughter's headstone, but it has not been preserved, as it was destroyed during the Second World War. Pavino field is located near the highway Pljevlja - Belo Pole
Now they say that this story shows that people in Montenegro from time immemorial could live in peace and love, despite religious differences.
