2010, the events at the arena, history drew another parallel .. Time before the arena and after. In the light recent events, anti-Caucasian-Asian sentiments, as an Armenian from Uzbekistan, I wanted to remember one very old event that allowed me to look at the world with slightly different eyes ... 1986 Aspen Grove near Leningrad, a training regiment of the USSR Ministry of Defense ... We are 180 people from Central Asia, delivered there from Tashkent, warmed by the Autumn Sun, there under the low Baltic Sky with constantly drizzling slanting rain and slush ... They took the oath, took up guard duty ... and our hot guys were mowed down by a cold and the only place where it was possible to lie down for at least a couple of days - this is a San. Part, but it’s not rubber either .. Somehow I’m standing in line for an appointment and I think, “it still won’t work, there are too many people ..”, as a Slavic sergeant approaches me, Yes, not Slavic, but typically Russian appearance, and purely Armenian asks me - "Friend, are you Armenian?" ..I answer “No, I didn’t have to ..” and he “How so?” I say, “I’m from Uzbekistan, brother ..” he says, “What’s the difference, you’re still Armenian ..!” .. And Andryukha helped me take a break from the hardships, which I was unspeakably happy with ... But that’s not the point .. 24 years have passed, and I remember you Andrey, a Russian guy from Karabakh, I regret that I didn’t ask your last name and didn’t take your address .. But after that I know one thing Armenians and Russian Molokans are dairy brothers, I’ll even say cabbage ... The best sauerkraut in Armenia is made Molokans, they sit in all Armenian markets and communicate and trade in purely Armenian language .. very hardworking people for 200 years of development in the Caucasus, these people have perfectly comprehended the local languages and have not lost their native Russian, their faith, their customs ... I want to introduce To your attention a small sketch of the Molokan
The Molokan sect arose in the second half of the 18th century in the Tambov province. The nickname "Molokans" stuck to the sectarians, most likely because they consume milk during fasting. They call themselves "truly spiritual Christians." In the 19th century, Molokans, fleeing oppression, began to move to the outskirts of the empire, in particular to the Transcaucasus. There they live to this day, preserving the customs and faith of their ancestors.
Article: Molokans
Website: Around the World
The Molokan sect arose in the second half of the 18th century in the Tambov province. The nickname "Molokans" stuck to the sectarians, most likely because they consume milk during fasting. They call themselves "truly spiritual Christians." In the 19th century, Molokans, fleeing oppression, began to move to the outskirts of the empire, in particular to the Transcaucasus. There they live to this day, preserving the customs and faith of their ancestors.
We met Molokans, or rather Molokans, at the Yerevan market. They sell here sauerkraut. The fame of it goes all over the republic, so there is no end to buyers. We drove to the Molokan village of Fioletovo with an uneasy feeling. We heard a lot about the lack of sociability of local residents, that they do not allow themselves to be filmed. For them, photo and video cameras, TV, newspapers - everything is from the evil one. In part, it turned out to be so, and yet those who told us about them were clearly exaggerating. The first Russian settlements in Transcaucasia arose at the beginning of the 19th century. Basically, sectarians of various persuasions moved here. Today, their main representatives are spiritual Christians, better known as Molokans. The Orthodox called them so because they drink milk on fasting days.
In 1842 the Molokans founded the village of Nikitino. Previously, there were about two dozen Russian settlements in Armenia. Today there are two left, one of them is Fioletovo, the former Nikitino. Here is what an English traveler who visited Armenia in the 19th century wrote about the locals: “Their limbs are somehow badly connected at the joints. The Russians are in stark contrast to the Armenians, thanks to high growth and twisted gait. Facial features are irregular, eyes are small and facial expressions are not animated enough. The suit gives the men the look of retired soldiers. The women wear headscarves and clean dresses.” Molokans are indeed very clean. This can be seen in the state of houses and streets. There are two of them in the village - Central and Pogrebnaya.
The Molokans built the first huts together. Cattle, land - everything was public. Diligence, a sober lifestyle, conscientiousness helped the Molokans, wherever they went, to quickly get on their feet - in America, and in Mexico, and in Armenia. They have retained these qualities to this day. In pre-revolutionary times, the community was headed by 12 so-called apostles. A noticeable mark in the history of Fioletovo was left by one of these apostles, Maxim Gavrilovich Rudometkin. Molokans revere Rudometkin as a saint. Within the community, he founded a current of jumpers. During prayer they in a special way jumped up and down, bringing themselves into a state of ecstasy. Among his adherents, Rudometkin began to introduce a certain Zion language invented by him - the language of communication for future Christians. For example, hello, in Zion it will be: “parginal-assurinal-yuzgoris”. Maxim Gavrilovich ended his days in the Suzdal monastery, where he was imprisoned for life by the authorities. Today, the church is led by a pastor. He is elected general meeting. The presbyter has no privileges. Everyone in the community is equal. Its members call each other brothers and sisters. Humility, love, unity - this is the basis of a righteous life. The main precepts of the Molokans: do not envy, do not steal, do not offend your neighbor, help the weak, respect the elders. Smoking and drinking are condemned. Those Molokans who do not shave their beards live according to the laws of their ancestors. They don't go to the movies, they don't go to dances, they don't swear, they don't touch tobacco and alcohol, free time divided between God and the family. Those without a beard go to Russia to work and lead a free lifestyle.
The village has its own prophet, Ivan Vasilyevich Zadorkin. He is 72 years old. The prophet has 9 children and 25 grandchildren. Despite hard life, no one left, everyone lives in Armenia. Ivan Vasilyevich, as they say here, "walks in the spirit." From time to time he has visions, the "Holy Spirit" descends. This spirit, through Zadorkin, informed the Molokans that the two mountains between which the village lies will shelter it from the Apocalypse. The mystical abilities of the father were transferred to the daughter Galina Ivanovna, by her husband Yurtaeva. She lives in Yerevan. Vasily Ivanovich has a son, Timothy, who, unlike his father, does not adhere to the old order. Does not wear a beard, drinks, smokes. He spent six months in prison, got caught stealing copper wires. In Fioletovo, no one condemns Timofey. You can't force or force someone. Timofey is a bulldozer driver and often goes to work in Tyumen. For many Molokans, work in Russia is the main source of income. There is not enough land for a family, and the families of the Molokans are large, there are about three hectares - unless you feed yourself.
We visited Alexei Nikolaevich Novikov. His wife, Nadezhda Vasilievna, busied herself at the table. Alexey Nikolaevich complains about life. The harvested crop - cabbage, potatoes, beets - is difficult to sell: sometimes you have to feed cattle with vegetables. To recoup the cost of irrigation, you need to sell a ton of potatoes, another four tons - to pay for fertilizer. One hope for the children who live in Stavropol. Old people often visit them, but they are not going to move to Russia. Simple peasant food is on the table. Before eating - the obligatory prayer "Our Father". The Molokan prayer sounds almost the same as the Orthodox one.
Spiritual Christians celebrate almost everything Orthodox holidays. Molokan fasts last a week - any food is excluded. Everyone is starving: adults, children, even cattle are not fed. Molokans are not supposed to have a TV. Considered as idolatry. However, many families have television receivers. As long as they are hidden. The presbyter will never enter the house and will not begin to pray for the one who keeps Satan, that is, the TV set. It remains a mystery why the Molokans let us into their homes. Probably, the desire to communicate with new people took over. The house of Alexei Nikolaevich Novikov stands on Pogrebnaya Street. She leads to the cemetery. This last way any violet who died at home. Drunkards and swearers are buried according to donkey custom, that is, without a funeral service. locals they bury the dead themselves and do not put crosses on the graves. The Molokans consider the cross to be a weapon of the enemies of Jesus. Instead of a cross on the graves, there are iron tablets with the names of the dead.
The life of a Molokan village is hard. And this despite the fact that the Molokans are very hardworking. Potatoes and cabbages are staple foods, and they will not be born well. The old people here are refusing pensions, because you cannot take what is not earned by today's labor. I must say that the life of urban Molokans is not much easier. Many, especially young people, tend to leave the village. Part of the Molokans moved to Russia. Galina Ivanovna, the daughter of the prophet Ivan Vasilyevich, ended up in Yerevan after her marriage. Galina has five children, a cat with a cat Eddie and Lady. Having many children is a blessing for the family, no matter if it lives in abundance or not. There are practically no divorces among Molokans. The eldest daughters Anya and Vera do not go to school. Their business is household. We came to Galina Ivanovna's house for breakfast. Nobody puts their hands on the table. A table for a Molokan is a special subject. During prayer, it turns into an altar, on which sacred books are laid out: the Gospel, prayer books and the so-called ritualists. These books are passed down from generation to generation. Galina Ivanovna does not imagine that her daughters can marry anyone other than the Molokans. Marriages with Armenians are rare. Boys Ivan and Misha go to a Russian school, go in for sports: Misha - barbell and basketball, Vanya chose karate. Although Armenian and Russian children live peacefully. All children of Galina Ivanovna speak Armenian fluently. After breakfast, the kids go to school. Anya and Vera stay at home. There is not much to do here for them - it will not take much time to cook dinner and clean the only room. It is unlikely that the city authorities of Yerevan will find an opportunity to improve the living conditions of a large family. The very same Galya-Molokan can not earn an apartment. She is a nanny in an Armenian family. The child's parents want him to speak Russian fluently. Such is market internationalism. Many Molokans tend to leave Armenia also because every year it becomes more and more difficult to get an education in Russian in the republic. Ripped from their environment, they quickly lose their identity, forget the customs of their fathers. It will be very sad if the Molokans dissolve in the mass of the Armenian or Russian population. Be that as it may, in 2005 spiritual Christians are going to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the signing of the very royal manifesto, according to which they received the right to freely profess their faith.
Here are the things…….
This is a continuation.
In the first part, I talked about how Rubik Mangasaryan and I decided to make a joint article about the Molokans, and how nothing came of it. Now, apparently, the time has come to tell who the Molokans are and how they ended up in the Caucasus, including Armenia.
(Lermontov shoemaker. Photo by Ruben Mangasaryan)
A bit of history
In the process of preparing the first article on the Molokans, I called the Russian Consul in Armenia to talk about the Molokans. We agreed to meet, and when I arrived, it turned out that Ivan Yakovlevich Semenov was sitting with him. Molokanin, former minister, and at that time - chairman of the Fund for Assistance and Assistance to Russian Compatriots of the Republic of Armenia.
This meeting of ours was the beginning of a very warm relationship that continues to this day. Ivan Yakovlevich seems to know all the Armenian Molokans. Well, even if he doesn’t know someone or has forgotten because of the prescription of years, then they all know him - that’s for sure. I checked many times.
A little time passed after our first meeting, and Ivan Yakovlevich brought me the manuscript of his future book, The History of the Transcaucasian Molokans and Dukhobors. I don't remember taking great participation in its editing, but when it came out, I was very flattered to see thanks from the author "for helpful tips».
But, I think, the main thing in our cooperation was that the book included more than a dozen beautiful photographs of Rubik.
So, from the manuscript and from the stories of Ivan Yakovlevich, I learned a lot about the history of the Molokans. This was supported by information from other sources, and now I will try to describe it, literally, in a nutshell.
So, in Russia, around the 16th century (some researchers think that earlier), dissatisfaction with the official church and especially the church hierarchy increased so much that it gradually took shape, as they said then, into heresy, and now they would say “into a sect”. Actually, it was the direction of "spiritual Christianity", which soon split into two parts - Dukhoborism and Molokanism.
The main idea was that a church is not needed to communicate with God, priests are not needed as intermediaries between man and God. Spiritual Christians do not recognize church sacraments, do not worship icons. Actually, the Dukhobors, unlike the Molokans, do not recognize the Bible either. All researchers note the similarity of this trend with Protestantism, but which arose on Russian soil.
TO XVII century there are more and more spiritual Christians. They settled in the central provinces of Russia, engaged in peasant labor, and according to all sources it turns out that they were wonderful peasants, since their religious communities also played the role of economic organizations, and at that time it was a very advanced way of organizing labor.
And there are so many Molokans and Dukhobors in the 18th century that it begins to disturb the authorities. And at the very beginning of the 19th century, they were collected from everywhere and evicted to the Taurida province, on the banks of the Molochnaya River. But about thirty-five years pass, and they are again resettled - this time to the Caucasus - to modern Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. There were Molokan and Dukhobor villages in the Kars region, but they were empty even before the First World War.
Arriving in the Caucasus in the middle of the century before last, the Molokans settled, including in the north of modern Armenia. So, for example, the city of Sevan was the Molokan Elenovka, Hrazdan - Akhta, Tsaghkadzor - Konstantinovka, Tashir (Kalinino) - Rumyantsev, Dilijan is now on the site of the Molokan villages of Golovino and Slobodka (later Papanino), the famous Sevan Pass was once called Semenovsky, in the honor of the Molokan village of Semyonovka, located at the very top of a dizzying mountain road, and so on.
Ivan Yakovlevich Semyonov told me that back in Soviet time there were more than thirty Molokan villages in Armenia. Now there is only one left - Fioletovo, with a population of just over a thousand people. The village got its name in honor of one of the 26 Baku commissars. Her real name was Nikitino. Nearby is Lermontovo (former Voskresenka), separated from Fioletov by the Armenian Margaovit (former Amzachiman).
But Lermontovo is no longer half Molokan. Both Armenians and Kurds now live there.
These villages are located 15-20 kilometers from Vanadzor (formerly Kirovakan), the third largest city in Armenia. It is only two hours drive from Yerevan.
Semyonov said that there are now less than five thousand Molokans left in the country, and more than a thousand of them live in Fioletovo. And at the end of the eighties of the last century, there were about fifty thousand Molokans in Armenia.
Molokans have been living in Armenia for 170 years, without mixing with the local population and without losing their language. They managed to build their own little Russia in the new conditions and live in it separately, but not alone.
And the conditions were not favorable - the Molokans had to settle in highland villages, some of which are located at an altitude of over 2,000 meters above sea level, in places with a difficult climate, unfavorable for Agriculture. But the Molokans survived this test, and religion played a huge role in this.
And why, in fact, "molokans"?
The name "Molokans" is interpreted in different ways. There is a version according to which this name came from the fact that the Molokans did not adhere to the fasts adopted Orthodox Church ate in lean days fast food, mainly dairy products. By the way, Molokans do not really recognize Orthodox posts.
According to another version, the source of the name may be the Molochnaya River in the Melitopol district of the Taurida province, where the Molokans lived in exile for several decades before they were evicted to the Caucasus.
But the most accurate (as it seems to me) version was given by Tsaghkadzor Molokan Alexander Tikunov. On a frosty winter Sunday in 2001, instead of riding skiing, drank tea at his house, and he, quoting the Bible by heart, said that the name "Molokans" should be interpreted allegorically.
In the First Conciliar Epistle of the Holy Apostle Peter there is such a phrase: "... like newborn babies, love pure verbal milk." Tikunov said: "The word Holy Scripture, depending on the spiritual level of a person, produces a different effect. When a person in spiritual concept small, the word of God is like milk to him. Spiritual milk. Hence our name - Molokans.
Molokans believe that every believer should satisfy their spiritual needs, improve their behavior and their feelings. important place in their beliefs is the theory of the transmigration of the soul of Jesus Christ from the Father to the Son. Molokans reject the worship of images - icons, the cross.
“We are considered spiritual Christians,” says Tikunov, “we interpret the Bible allegorically, in other words, we perceive it spiritually.”
My knowledge of the Molokans and their philosophy was quite unexpectedly supplemented by a story
English traveler and member of the Geographical Society H.F.B. Lynch. IN late XIX century, he visited Armenia and wrote two thick volumes: “Russian Armenia” and “Turkish Armenia”. In the volume of "Russian Armenia" he perfectly describes the Molokans and Dukhobors. Here is a short excerpt from the description of the Molokans:
“God dwells in the living objects of his love… I spoke with an old man, who captivated me with his pretty voice and manner, about the religious beliefs of the Molokans. They revere Moses and the prophets and the Holy Gospel, but practice their religion in their own way. The singing of psalms seems to be the main external expression of their religious feelings. Children are not baptized, but they are brought to the chapel, a chapter from the Gospel is read in the presence of the child, and his name is publicly announced. The marriage union is consecrated by a similar ceremony.
The Molokans live in a closed community. Its members strive to put into practice their social ideals: non-violence, brotherhood, equality, economic cooperation, spiritual perfection. The spiritual leader of the community is the presbyter. He interprets the Bible and is an authority on religious matters and communal, secular matters. But in fact, many no, no, yes, and they will violate the strict prohibitions of the presbyter.
But I think that's enough about religion and history for now. It's time to return to how Rubik and I received our first experience of writing an article about the Molokans, and what came of it.
But that's already tomorrow.
The famous Russian writer Narine ABGARYAN commented on her Facebook page
and gave a link to an article from the GEO magazine about Molokans living in Armenia
“Molokans. I live for a century, I wonder for a century how it can be that in Russia they don’t know about them. But they don't know.
The most wonderful, most worthy people. Royal Russia lost a lot, having evicted them at one time to the outskirts of the empire. Part of my past, part of my soul, part of my Armenia. Molokans,” wrote N. Abgaryan. And we “followed” the link...
The author of the article, Peter Vail, did not come to Armenia by chance - his mother was from the Armenian Molokans. Bribed the inscription under one of the pictures taken talented photographer Sergey Maksimishin: “The fair-haired and blue-eyed children from the community of Russian Molokans seem like aliens in the Armenian mountains. So it is: the Molokans came here in the 1840s. They never mixed with the local population.”
... In what year Vail visited the Molokan villages of Armenia is unknown, so perhaps some of the people he mentions in the article, including representatives of the “hierarchy”, left their homes or even this mortal world, in the history of which Molokans will always remain a kind of “white spot”, unknown and completely unsolved.
“Where else are there compactly living communities
Russian people who have not been drinking for three hundred years?”
Now it seems to me that this was not the case. There cannot be such places, such people. In the 21st century, it is unthinkable full immersion sometime in the early 19th century. Here the camera is not only forbidden (and it is often forbidden), but it is not even appropriate. “It’s awkward somehow,” Sergei Maksimishin told me, “I’m not a paparazzi.” Still - always with permission - he filmed. Probably there are places even further into the depths of life - somewhere in Australia, in South America, but these are three hours away from Yerevan, in the mountains between Dilijan and Vanadzor, in the villages of Fioletovo and Lermontovo. And most importantly - in this Australia, after all, strangers. And these are theirs. My.
Mine are nowhere else. Russian Molokans in Armenia are the past of my family. I took with me a photograph of my great-grandfather Alexei Petrovich Semenov and his wife Maria Ivanovna, who lived in Armenia. He showed the Molokans, and they warmed up, even the gloomy violet presbyter Nikolai Ivanovich Sukovitsyn. Not warm enough, however, to take pictures. But he admitted to the meeting, saying: "Brothers and sisters, we have a guest, Peter, his mother from ours."
My mother really grew up in a Molokan family. Our ancestor, the Tambov landowner Ivinsky, was carried away by the ideas of the Molokans, dismissed the serfs, renounced property and joined the sect of Semyon Uklein, changing his surname to Semyonov in his honor. In the years 1830-1840, the Tambov Molokans moved to Armenia, just then occupied by Russia. There my great-grandfather lived in Yelenovka - now it is the city of Sevan near the lake of the same name. From there, his son, my grandfather Mikhail, went to Turkmenistan, where my mother was born and raised - but that's another story.
On reverse side Great-grandfather's photograph has the inscription: “In memory of relatives in Askhabad, August 8, 1894, Yelenovka. Taken October 3, 1889.” A magnificently bearded great-grandfather with a valiant mustache - in a long Siberian frock coat, great-grandmother in a scarf and a white apron. Orderly.
The Molokans, who arose in Russia in the second half of the 18th century, were something like Orthodox Protestantism. Their self-designation is Spiritual Christians. The word "Molokans", which outsiders elevate to the fact that this sect consumes milk in fasting, is from the First Epistle of the Apostle Peter: "Like newborn babies, love pure verbal milk." They themselves - without intermediaries - churchmen - read and interpret the Scriptures. The community is headed by an elected presbyter. There are no priests, no church, no icons, no cross - as not divine, but human creations. The cross, moreover, is an instrument of the enemies of Christ. That is why the Molokans do not baptize themselves, and christenings are called “kstins”. Baptism with water is denied - a reference to the words of John the Baptist: "I baptize you in water for repentance, but the One who comes after me ... will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
The Molokans have several interpretations, subspecies, and now the movement is dominated by radical jumpers, who have greatly pressed the so-called permanent, more moderate ones. Jumpers - because “entering the spirit” (into prayerful ecstasy), they jump up, raising their hands, and say something in unknown language. I saw this at meetings in Fioletovo - more on that later.
Prosperity among the Molokans has always been considered a virtue, they are incredibly hardworking and conscientious, law-abiding and peaceful (in Fioletovo they remember only one murder, and even then in a fight - it was never intentional). Finally, they don't drink. Where else are there compactly living communities of Russian people who have not been drinking for three hundred years? My mother, who went through the front as a surgeon, managed to maintain an aversion to alcohol, which is why I suffered a lot in my youth.
Nikolai Ivanovich, presbyter of jumpers - a smooth straight parting, deep-set attentive eyes - believes, however, that the current ones have become loose. “How are the youth? - But not very. They indulge. - Are they drinking? - Yes, sometimes. - Do they walk? - No, even a drunk goes to his wife. - How do they get married? Parents agree? - No, parents only give consent, and so out of love. Out of love, maybe out of love, but without the community, without the will of the presbyter, nothing serious is done here.
Without hierarchy, no organization is possible. The Molokans rejected the priests, the temple, the ecclesiastical structure - however, another structure was created instead, but also one. Even more rigid, since in ordinary Orthodoxy power is distributed between different levels, here the very vertical that the Russian leadership dreams of is being built. Everything - family, work, community affairs - is done only with the approval of the presbyter. The village head of Fioletovo, that is, the official head of the administration, Alexei Ilyich Novikov, in whose house we lived, calmly says: “I have about ten percent of the power, the rest is with Nikolai Ivanovich.”
An instrument of pressure, a method of punishment - a refusal to perform a ceremony: marriage or kstin. In fact, exclusion from the meeting. Alexey Ilyich once dared to divorce his wife. Divorces are not recognized here. As Novikov told us: "They make me a prostitute." He moved to the permanent, goes to meetings in Dilijan. His 33-year-old son Pasha is not married, we asked why, and in response we heard a story as if from some old books. Pasha had a five-year affair with local girl, but she was not given to the son of the “prostitute”, she married another. And no one in the village will give out for Pasha.
In general, Molokan morals became recent decades harsher. It's clear: modern life with its accessible temptations, it threatens to blur, destroy the old way of life, and in order to survive, you need to isolate yourself even more. Here is a cultural conflict: the higher the level of civilization, the greater the likelihood of extinction; the preservation of the unique human species is connected with the toughening of one's own and the rejection of everything alien.
Once there was a club in Fioletovo, now the concrete cube with broken glass is empty. In the old days, young people went there to the movies and even to dances. Here he got married - that's all, it's over with nonsense. Now there is nowhere to go, and the rules are stricter. TVs are not kept. Only at the “prostitute” Novikov provocatively sticks out above the roof satellite dish. You will almost never meet worldly reading. But on the table in every house of jumpers - certainly three open books. This does not mean that they are read daily, but they are in full readiness: the Old Testament, the New Testament and “Spirit and Life” - “Inspired Sayings of Maxim Gavrilovich Rudometkin, King of Spirits and Leader of the Zion People of Spiritual Christians Molokan Jumpers. Written by him in the grievous suffering of the monastic confinement in Solovetsky and Suzdal in the period 1858-1877.
Three books are interpreted symbolically: the Old Testament is the foundation of faith, the New Testament is the walls, Rudometkin is the roof. At the prayer meeting it is directly stated that Maxim Gavrilovich - component Trinity: "Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the face of our anointed and suffering."
Rudometkin's manuscripts, which he secretly handed over from imprisonment in the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery, were taken by the Tolmachev family to Los Angeles at the beginning of the 20th century, baked into bread. In the port of Poti, during the inspection, they said that they were taking native bread to the States, customs officers were moved. These are the books they read. True, when we were visiting 71-year-old Pavel Ionovich Dyakonov, he suddenly opened the bottom drawers of the chest of drawers and showed us books left over from children, now adults, living in other parts of the world. Normal motley set: Dumas, Turgenev, Irasek, "Ivanhoe", "Tales of the Titans" by Golosovker, "The Catcher in the Rye", "Daughter of Montezuma".
Today's children read only in class at school, never at home, said Alla Vasilievna Rudometkina, a teacher of Russian language and literature. She lives in Vanadzor, like most teachers - they are brought and taken away by minibus. In Fioletovo, with its population of 1,500 people, a ten-year period. In the 9th and 10th grades - six people each, in the 8th - 28, but they will continue to study, the teachers explain, no more than ten.
Teachers say that children come to school to relax: at home they do a lot of housework. When sowing or harvesting, they do not appear at all. Accordingly, the attitude to learning.
They came, did not mix, did not disappear
The expression of children's faces is really carefree. Fair-haired and bright-eyed - here, in the Armenian mountains, they seem to be aliens. So it historically is - they came, did not mix, did not disappear. Years will pass - these girls and boys will darken from the wind, sun and worries, like their mothers and fathers, but now Maksimishin pushes me every minute, exclaiming: “Look at those faces!”
While he is arranging a photo session in the corridor, the director Valery Bogdanovich Mirzabekyan shows me the school. I ask for a little. He takes me out into the yard, we go to a solid concrete house. The director opens the door with a key and admires the effect produced: this has not been seen outside of Yerevan - not a soldier’s point that is familiar everywhere in the province, but toilet bowls, snow-white tiles, nickel-plated taps. The toilet was built by the Americans, and since there is no sewage system in Fioletovo, they also built an autonomous vacuum device. And since the people are unusual, especially the children, who immediately began to disassemble the brilliant details, the turnkey house is opened for VIPs.
The restroom was arranged by American charity organisations. Gas - that is, heat - they also brought to the school, before the students went to classes with logs under their arms. The Armenians donated a computer and allocated $100 prizes to several students. The Americans also created a medical center in the administration building. They are planting forest where it was cut down in the 1990s. And what about Russia?
Whoever you ask - and you don’t need to ask, they themselves say vying with each other - this is the main insult: nothing from Russia. Many years ago, the Russian ambassador (name not specified. - Ed.) said, visiting the Molokan villages: “Russia is not Milch cow". Everyone in Violetovo remembers and quotes these words. And when asked to help with the organization of preparatory classes, the consul replied: "Your children - you pay."
It is not entirely clear against the background of the declared concern for compatriots abroad. And what compatriots! Fioletovo is entirely Russian (one and a half thousand - only eleven Armenians: they keep the only store that sells alcohol), and partly neighboring Lermontovo with a mixed population are genuine ethnographic reserves. Only not artificial, not museum, but alive. Any civilized country would send scientists here after scientists. The phenomenon of three hundred years of non-drinking alone is worth a close study.
And the language! Tanya, the daughter of Alexei Ilyich, is chatting with a friend who has looked in: “You have clearly not seen - You have seen. Pyachalny such. - For what? - I don't know. Noisy pit, it's nothing. - Well, you call me, you will know the FAQ. (“You need to call” on a mobile phone - there is no ordinary telephone connection here.) “Help”, “knit”, “flow”, “puff up”, “in your thoughts”, “went to the meeting”. But suddenly - "my son-in-law is luxurious." Record and record.
It seems that only Irina Vladimirovna Dolzhenko from Academic Institute archeology and ethnography in Yerevan, the best connoisseur Molokans. She graciously agreed to go with us, which helped invaluably: the Molokans have known and respected her for a long time. Perhaps there is not so much time to be interested in the local way of life: how long the Molokans will hold out in their uniqueness is unknown. They are slowly leaving for Yerevan, where their diligence and honesty are valued. I saw an ad on the wall there: “Malakan brigade: repairs, cleaning of apartments, etc.”. At school, for sure, it didn’t matter. Young people go to work: most of all to Krasnodar and Stavropol Territory- there are so many Molokans that it is possible to live compactly among their own. They go to Tyumen, to Surgut, and to Eastern Siberia. All this, as a rule, is temporary: those who leave for good will “tread down the traces of their ancestors”. But you can't go against the times - there are those who trample on.
And most importantly, the once prosperous Fioletovo Molokans are getting poorer before their eyes.
Ending in the next issue.
Molokans are representatives of a special branch of Christianity that arose in the Russian state in the 18th century. In Armenia, Molokan settlements appeared around the 1840s, when Molokans from the Tambov province moved there.
Molokans in Russia for a long time persecuted as dissenters and apostates from Orthodox faith. They do not venerate saints, do not worship the cross and icons, do not sign of the cross, deny hierarchical church institutions. They also treat Christian holidays in a peculiar way, for example, Easter is celebrated, but Christmas is not. In their own way, they also interpret the fast in which they freely drink milk (according to one of the versions, this is why they were called Molokans). But pork and alcohol are banned at any time.
Photo: Sergey Maksimishin for GEO magazine
Several Molokan villages exist in Armenia to this day: Lermontovo, Fioletovo and others. The Molokan community lives extremely isolated: they have little contact with the outside world, and marry only with “their own”. Thanks to this, for a century and a half Armenian Molokans did not mix with the local population and completely preserved the ethnic Slavic type (light-eyed and fair-haired) and the Russian language, however, very peculiar.
Molokans are known to be very hardworking people. They are strictly forbidden to drink alcohol, from drinks preference is given to compote and tea, which they drink according to the old Russian tradition: from a samovar, wiping sweat with special towels.
Divorce is highly condemned among Molokans. A divorced person is considered an "adulterer" and no family will want to intermarry with him. Molokan settlements are known not only for prosperity, but also for order: misdemeanors, which we call criminal offenses, are extremely rare here.
The manner of dressing has changed little since the 19th century: men wear loose shirts under their belts and long beards, women - headscarves and long skirts.
main man in the Molokan community - a presbyter, without whose approval it is impossible to solve at least some significant business. Instead of churches, there are prayer houses where they gather on Saturdays and Sundays, read prayers and sing hymns. Individual believers are able to fall into ecstasy, in this state they begin to jump and speak in unknown languages. These are called "jumpers".
Entertainment is not honored here, it is believed that they lead to promiscuity, most Molokans do not even keep a TV. Reading "secular" books is also not encouraged, they prefer spiritual ones, mainly the Old and New Testaments, as well as the works of Maxim Rudometkin, spiritual leader Molokans, written by him in the 19th century, during the years of imprisonment in monasteries.
Birthdays or name days are also not celebrated. But christenings of children and weddings are magnificently celebrated. The Molokan wedding ceremony is long and includes several stages.
Get an education from above high school also not accepted. Yes, and at school, according to teachers, children do not try too hard, but rather take a break from hard rural work.
Armenian Molokans do not maintain ties with Russia, and Russian state shows no interest in them. However, there is a group of Molokans who refuse even state pensions, not to mention humanitarian aid: they believe that money not earned by honest labor cannot be taken.
Molokans live for the most part by subsistence farming, although some goods are also made for sale. For example, cabbage, which they grow and pickle in a special way. This product can be found in Armenian markets, it is known as “molokani kahamb”.
Sometimes members of the community leave their native villages and go to work, including in the southern regions of Russia. It is considered good luck to get a team of Molokan workers: hardworking, diligent, non-drinkers. Some, tempted modern world without strict religious restrictions, leave forever. Nevertheless, the community persists and remains an invaluable source of knowledge about Russian culture and language of the century before last.
In the third report from Armenia, Petr Vail and Sergei Maksimishin talk about Russian Molokan villages.Now it seems to me that this was not the case. There cannot be such places, such people. In the 21st century, such a complete immersion somewhere in the beginning of the 19th century is unthinkable. Here the camera is not only forbidden (and it is often forbidden), but it is not even appropriate. "It's awkward somehow," Sergey Maksimishin told me, "I'm not a paparazzi." Still - always with permission - he filmed. Probably, there are places even further into the depths of life - somewhere in Australia, in South America, but these are three hours away from Yerevan, in the mountains between Dilijan and Vanadzor, in the villages of Fioletovo and Lermontovo. And most importantly - in this Australia, after all, strangers. And these are theirs. My.
Mine are nowhere else. Russian Molokans in Armenia are the past of my family. I took with me a photograph of my great-grandfather Alexei Petrovich Semenov and his wife Maria Ivanovna, who lived in Armenia. He showed the Molokans, and they warmed up, even the gloomy violet presbyter Nikolai Ivanovich Sukovitsyn. Not warm enough, however, to take pictures. But he admitted to the meeting, saying: "Brothers and sisters, we have a guest, Peter, his mother from ours."
My mother really grew up in a Molokan family. Our ancestor, the Tambov landowner Ivinsky, was carried away by the ideas of the Molokans, dismissed the serfs, renounced property and joined the sect of Semyon Uklein, changing his surname to Semyonov in his honor. In the years 1830-1840, the Tambov Molokans moved to Armenia, just then occupied by Russia. There my great-grandfather lived in Yelenovka - now it is the city of Sevan near the lake of the same name. From there, his son, my grandfather Mikhail, went to Turkmenistan, where my mother was born and raised - but that's another story.
On the reverse side of the great-grandfather's photograph there is an inscription: "In memory of relatives in Askhabad, August 8, 1894, Yelenovka. Taken on October 3, 1889." A lush-bearded great-grandfather with a valiant mustache - in a long Siberian frock coat, great-grandmother in a scarf and a white apron. Orderly.
The Molokans, who arose in Russia in the second half of the 18th century, were something like Orthodox Protestantism. Their self-designation is Spiritual Christians. The word "Molokans", which outsiders elevate to the fact that this sect consumes milk in fasting, is from the First Epistle of the Apostle Peter: "Like newborn babies, love pure verbal milk." They themselves - without intermediaries - churchmen - read and interpret the Scriptures. The community is headed by an elected presbyter. There are no priests, no church, no icons, no cross - as not divine, but human creations. The cross, moreover, is an instrument of the enemies of Christ. That is why the Molokans do not baptize themselves, and christenings are called "kstins". Baptism with water is denied - a reference to the words of John the Baptist: "I baptize you in water for repentance, but He who comes after me ... will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
The Molokans have several interpretations, subspecies, and now the movement is dominated by radical jumpers, who have greatly pressed the so-called permanent, more moderate ones. Jumpers - because "entering the spirit" (into prayerful ecstasy), they jump up, raising their hands, and pronounce something in an unknown language. I saw this at meetings in Fioletovo - more on that later.
Prosperity among the Molokans has always been considered a virtue, they are incredibly hardworking and conscientious, law-abiding and peaceful (in Fioletovo they remember only one murder: seven years ago, in a fight - there was never a deliberate one). Finally, they don't drink. Where else are there compactly living communities of Russian people who have not been drinking for three hundred years? My mother, who went through the front as a surgeon, managed to maintain an aversion to alcohol, which is why I suffered a lot in my youth.
Presbyter jumpers Nikolai Ivanovich - a smooth straight parting, deep-set attentive eyes - believes, however, that the current ones have become loose. "How are the youth? - Yes, not very much. They indulge. - Drink? - Yes, it happens. - And they walk? - No, even a drunk goes to his wife. - How do they get married? Parents agree? - No, parents only give consent, and so for love." Out of love, maybe out of love, but without the community, without the will of the presbyter, nothing serious is done here.
Without hierarchy, no organization is possible. The Molokans rejected the priests, the temple, the ecclesiastical structure - however, in return, a different, but also a structure was created. Even tougher, since in ordinary Orthodoxy power is distributed between different levels, here the very vertical that the Russian leadership dreams of is being built. Everything - family, work, community affairs - is done only with the approval of the presbyter. The village head of Fioletova, that is, the official head of the administration, Alexei Ilyich Novikov, in whose house we lived, calmly says: "I have about ten percent of the power, the rest is with Nikolai Ivanovich."
An instrument of pressure, a method of punishment - a refusal to perform a ceremony: marriage or kstin. In fact - exclusion from the meeting. Alexey Ilyich once dared to divorce his wife. Divorces are not recognized here. As Novikov told us: "They make me a prostitute." He moved to the permanent, goes to meetings in Dilijan. His 33-year-old son Pasha is not married, we asked why, and in response we heard a story as if from some old books. Pasha had a five-year affair with a local girl, but she was not married to the son of a "prostitute", she married another. And no one in the village will give out for Pasha.
In general, Molokan morals have become more severe over the past decades. This is understandable: modern life, with its accessible temptations, threatens to blur, destroy the old way of life, and in order to survive, you need to isolate yourself even more. Here is a cultural conflict: the higher the level of civilization, the greater the likelihood of extinction; the preservation of the unique human species is connected with the toughening of one's own and the rejection of everything alien.
Once there was a club in Fioletovo, now the concrete cube with broken glass is empty. In the old days, young people went there to the movies and even to dances. Here he got married - that's all, it's over with nonsense. Now there is nowhere to go, and the rules are stricter. TVs are not kept. Only at Novikov's "prostitute" a satellite dish defiantly sticks out above the roof. His wife, Sarah Abramovna, a Mordovian Molokan woman (Old Testament names are in use), watches in the evenings, she likes something, not all of them: “I don’t like this one, Tolstaya from the School of Scandal, so important.”
You will almost never meet worldly reading. But on the table in every jumpers' house there are certainly three open books. This does not mean that they are read daily, but they are in full readiness: the Old Testament, the New Testament and "Spirit and Life" - "Inspired Sayings of Maxim Gavrilovich Rudometkin, King of Spirits and Leader of the Zion People of Spiritual Christians Molokan Jumpers. Written by him in grave suffering of the monastic imprisonments in Solovetsky and Suzdal in the period 1858-1877.
Three books are interpreted symbolically: the Old Testament is the foundation of faith, the New Testament is the walls, Rudometkin is the roof. At the prayer meeting, it is directly stated that Maxim Gavrilovich is an integral part of the Trinity: "Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the face of our anointed and sufferer."
Rudometkin's manuscripts, which he secretly handed over from imprisonment in the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery, were taken by the Tolmachev family to Los Angeles at the beginning of the 20th century, baked into bread. In the port of Poti, during the inspection, they said that they were taking native bread to the States, customs officers were moved. These are the books they read. True, when we were visiting 71-year-old Pavel Ionovich Dyakonov, he suddenly opened the bottom drawers of the chest of drawers and showed us books - left over from children, now adults, living in other parts of the world. Normal colorful set: Dumas, Turgenev, Irasek, Ivanhoe, Tales of the Titans by Golosovker, The Catcher in the Rye, Montezuma's Daughter.
Today's children read only in class at school, never at home,” said Russian language and literature teacher Alla Rudometkina. She lives in Vanadzor, like most teachers, they are brought and taken away by minibus. In Fioletovo, with its population of 1,500 people - ten years. In the 9th and 10th grades - six people each, in the 8th - 28, but they will continue to study, the teachers explain, no more than ten. Now two have gathered in universities: one in Tambov, the other in Moscow. Nobody from Fioletov ever received higher education, although there are quotas for admission without exams. Now here is one young man studying in Tula, already in his second year - we'll see.
Teachers say that children come to school to relax: at home they do a lot of housework. When sowing or harvesting, they do not appear at all. Accordingly, the attitude to learning.
The expression of children's faces is really carefree. Fair-haired and bright-eyed - here, in the Armenian mountains, they seem to be aliens. So it historically is - they came, did not mix, did not disappear. Years will pass - these girls and boys will darken from the wind, sun and worries, like their mothers and fathers, but now Maximishin pushes me every minute, exclaiming: "Look at those faces!"
While he is arranging a photo session in the corridor, the director Valery Bogdanovich Mirzabekyan shows me the school. I ask for a little. He takes me out into the yard, we go to a solid concrete house. The director opens the door with a key and admires the effect produced: this has not been seen outside of Yerevan - not a soldier’s point that is familiar everywhere in the province, but toilet bowls, snow-white tiles, nickel-plated taps. The toilet was built by the Americans, and since there is no sewage system in Fioletovo, they also built an autonomous vacuum device. And since the people are unusual, especially the children, who immediately began to disassemble the brilliant details, the turnkey house is opened for VIPs.
The restroom was arranged by American charitable organizations. Gas - that is, heat - they also brought to the school, before the students went to classes with logs under their arms. The Armenians donated a computer and allocated $100 prizes to several students. The Americans also created a medical center in the administration building. They are planting forest where it was cut down in the 1990s. And what about Russia?
Whoever you ask - and you don’t even need to ask, they themselves say vying with each other - this is the main insult: nothing from Russia. Russian ambassador said, visiting the Molokan villages: "Russia is not a cash cow." Everyone in Violet remembers and quotes these words. And when asked to help with the arrangement of preparatory classes, the consul replied: "Your children - you pay."
It is not entirely clear against the background of the declared concern for compatriots abroad. And what compatriots! Violetovo, entirely Russian (one and a half thousand - only eleven Armenians: they keep the only store that sells alcohol), and partly neighboring Lermontovo with a mixed population are genuine ethnographic reserves. Only not artificial, not museum, but alive. Any civilized country would send scientists here after scientists. The phenomenon of three hundred years of non-drinking alone is worth a close study.
And the language! Tanya, the daughter of Alexei Ilyich, is chatting with a friend who has looked in: “Have you clearly not seen it? - You have seen it. He is like that. - Why? (“You need to call” on a mobile phone - there is no ordinary telephone connection here.) “Help”, “knit”, “flow”, “puff up”, “in your thoughts”, “went to the meeting”. But suddenly - "my son-in-law is luxurious." Record and record.
It seems that only Irina Vladimirovna Dolzhenko from the Academic Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in Yerevan, the best expert on the Molokans, is doing this. She graciously agreed to go with us, which helped invaluably: the Molokans have known and respected her for a long time. Perhaps there is not so much time to be interested in the local way of life: how long the Molokans will hold out in their uniqueness is unknown. They are slowly leaving for Yerevan, where their diligence and honesty are valued. I saw an ad on the wall there: "Malakan brigade: repairs, cleaning of apartments, etc." At school, for sure, it didn’t matter. Young people go to work: most of all to the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories - there are so many Molokans that it is possible to live compactly among their own. They also go to Tyumen, Surgut, and Eastern Siberia - usually for six months. Here Tanya's husband went somewhere to the Amur. All this, as a rule, is temporary: those who leave for good will trample down the traces of their ancestors. But you can't go against the times - there are those who trample on.
And most importantly, the once prosperous Fioletovo Molokans are getting poorer before their eyes.
Reduced side income. Before they kept sheep, now there is nowhere to sell wool. Cows are kept for milk and meat, for themselves: according to the Old Testament, Molokans do not eat pork. Cattle are driven to graze in the mountains: round-trip 15-20 km per day. So cows are shod in Fioletovo! Horseshoes are cut out of steel sheet. I saw something similar in Iceland: steel shoes for cows - for the same reason for the mountainous terrain.
Previously, almost every house had Azerbaijani summer residents: here are high mountains, it is cool in summer. "Azerbaijanis loved to live here, they paid 80 rubles a month for a room," says Alexei Ilyich. After the Karabakh war, there is no question of this.
At the same time, more than 60 people in Fioletovo do not take pensions - because this is not earned money. They don't accept humanitarian aid either. In the neighborhood of Novikov's house, Vasily Fedorovich Shubin is plowing with a plow harnessed to a horse with his daughter Tatyana - he is just one of these. I say: "You've been paying taxes all your life, so you honestly earned a pension." He, without stopping plowing, replies: "I entrusted this to four daughters, I fed them, let them feed me now."
However, you can live without additional. everything is more difficult without the main thing - without cabbage. In any market in Armenia, they know what it is - molokani kopusta. Once known throughout the Soviet Union. Cabbage was supplied even to Primorye. Everyone had their own market area: Novikov, for example, always drove to Astrakhan. Now customs and border fees make trade meaningless. Previously, a family could make 25,000 rubles a year from cabbage.
Two experienced workers are able to chop (here they say - "cut") a ton a day. 700–800 kg of cabbage, 40 kg of carrots, and salt are placed in an oak or larch barrel. Large volume is very important. They press down with a 50-kilogram oppression. Two or three weeks later, it's ready.
For food, they are laid out in three-liter jars - "cylinders". Previously, they tried to add apples - but the taste is still not the same, only carrots are added. Extraordinarily delicious! The secret of Molokan cabbage is that it is sweet here.
Andrei Vasilyevich Korolev, young, with a long red beard, now and then meaningfully looking up, says: "The closer to Ararat, the better. Cognac, for example, here is cabbage."
Korolyov clearly settled down to me, switches to "you", which is unusual for Molokans, looks into the open collar of his shirt: "Well done for not wearing a cross, well done, they told me that you have a mother from ours." He hastily enlightens: "Have you ever heard of Leo Tolstoy? Well, Leo Tolstoy was the Tsar's viceroy, and he transferred Maxim Gavrilovich from Solovki to Suzdal. He wrote books, Tolstoy, you look, read."
In Fioletovo, even now, 5-6 thousand tons of cabbage are harvested annually. Only now 70 percent is lost. Sow, harvest, cut, stack, throw away. They offered to supply cabbage to parts Russian army in Armenia: which, it would seem, is more reasonable - but they were refused. As the ambassador said there: "Russia is not a cash cow."
Sad historical fate. The Molokans were persecuted from the very beginning in the 18th century, then in 1805 the liberal Alexander I signed a decree on the freedom of their religion, but already under Nicholas I the persecution began again. Resettlement to the Caucasus became a way out for everyone: the authorities replaced expensive military garrisons with settlements of hard-working sober Russian people, the church got rid of the sect that confuses the minds and souls, the Molokans found a home and freedom of faith.
Elenovka (Sevan), Nikitino (Fioletovo), Voskresenka (Lermontovo) appeared in Armenia. But the then governor of the Caucasus, Prince Vorontsov, was the last representative of the central government who patronized the Molokans. In 1857, the founder of the jumping movement, Maxim Gavrilovich Rudometkin, was arrested, who died in captivity in Suzdal. Now Molokans are not persecuted in Russia, but they obviously do not like them, and Russia does not need Armenian Molokans. So they live on their own.
They die on their own. A cemetery on a hill with a breathtaking view of both ridges between which Fioletovo lies - Lambaksky and Halabsky, with snowy peaks at a three-kilometer height. There are no crosses on the graves either - on the risers there are trapezoidal iron, less often wooden, boxes with doors, like postal boxes: you open it - there is an inscription: "Here rests ..."
Where my great-grandfather and grandfather are buried is unknown. In the 1930s, the level of Sevan began to be lowered, hydroelectric power stations were built, and the Russian village of Yelenovka was unrecognizably transformed into the Armenian city of Sevan - one cannot find where Aleksey Petrovich Semenov is buried. Moreover, his son Mikhail Alekseevich: grandfather was arrested in Ashgabat in the same 1930s, and it is not known in what places they were shot. However, among the Molokans it is not customary to visit the graves, it is not customary to take care of them – died and died.
They also have their own calendar: they celebrate Easter, but Christmas is not celebrated. Old Testament Tabernacles and Judgment Day are celebrated. And so the holidays - every Saturday and Sunday: prayer meetings.
With the permission of presbyter Nikolai Ivanovich, I am going to prayer house- one-story, with three windows along the facade. In the passage there are benches and hooks for hats and outerwear. In the hall there is a table for the presbyter, assistant and patrons: this is the name of the closest circle of the presbyter (at the end of the meeting: "Patrons, stay"). Rows of shops, women separately. On the walls - embroidered towels triangle and monogram DH: "spiritual Christians". All dressed festively, elegantly. Men: ironed trousers, a jacket, often a vest, a shirt with a thin waistband is a must. Women: white kerchief, sometimes with a branch pattern, long skirt with a tulle apron, most often with a lace frill.
Texts are read from the Gospel, then from Rudometkin. They sing not only psalms, but also songs - to familiar tunes that have been rushing from loudspeakers all over the country for years, only the words are different. Something half-forgotten dawns behind the refrain "Higher, higher raise the banner!" For a cheerful "Leave, Peter, fish, / Come with Me to pray to God." Behind the mysterious "Skrozydon, skrozydon, / We'll go through the speed, we'll go through the speed. / We will exhaust all the sufferers / And soon we will all go to Zion" (we will exhaust - what is it about? Or in the sense of "bring out"?). And here is from my childhood: "If you are ready to pray for sinners, / Know that your fate is happier than others - / For the old, the sick, who have forgotten about God ... / Get on your knees, you pray for them." Lord, this is "Rulate-rula", a Finnish song transcribed into Russian by Vladimir Voinovich, which was driven from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka in the 1960s: "A place is given to everything in life, / Evil coexists with good. / If the bride leaves for another , / It is not known who was lucky." Molokans, like other sectarians, always used ready-made melodies - first folk, then popular: convenient.
After the psalms, the presbyter speaks of sins, and the women, covered with handkerchiefs, weep aloud. Loud sobs, dry eyes.
During the singing, two men and one woman straighten up and at first lightly, then more strongly, bounce in place, smoothly moving their arms raised above their heads - like at rock concerts. That's it, "walking in the spirit." There are usually no more than five to ten percent of such "actors" in the assembly. Even rarer are "prophets" - these can switch to glossolalia, to angelic languages, they are able to foresee the future. There is only one unconditional Molokan prophet in Armenia now - the blind Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov in Sevan. In Fioletovo there is a prophet, but not for everyone - Vladimir Alekseevich Zadorkin, from the Maximists. I was also in their meeting. "Maximists" - on behalf of Maxim Rudometkin, but the name is apt: they are maximalists too, even more radical than jumpers.
The meeting ends in three hours. On the table under a towel - so that it was not visible who how much - they put money for community needs. Someone from the throne announces: "Mikhail Alexandrovich Tolmachev invites you to work." I mean today's kstins. Birthdays are not celebrated here. There is no name day: there are no saints. So what remains is marriage, commemoration ("commemoration") and kstiny.
We walk along Central Street (there are only two of them, the second - Pogrebnaya - leads towards the cemetery) to the house of the Tolmachevs - the very ones whose ancestors saved Rudometkin's manuscripts. Along the fence there are already 28 samovars and 15 cast iron with welded meat broth homemade noodles, which the day before Tolmachev's women rolled together with their neighbors.
In the large room, the family kneels before the presbyter, he stretches out his hand, names the child, and after the psalms and songs, everyone goes out into the street: the solemn part of the kstin has taken place, the meal is served in the house. On the way, I look into other rooms and see the same thing as in other Molokan houses: high beds with three or four pillows one on top of the other under a tulle bedspread. Multilayer bed: mattress, mattress with sheep wool, downy feather bed, blanket, carpet on top. You can’t live without such beds, but they sleep on others, these are for splendor.
About two hundred people are seated on benches at long tables. First, samovars, sweets, and cheese are brought in. Then the noodles are served in enameled bowls. We eat four or five out of one with wooden spoons. The change of dishes is monitored by the owner who does not sit down, who says in an undertone somewhere back: "We haven't finished it yet." But here: "They leveled up" - and they carry boiled meat, which is customary to eat with their hands. Towels were handed out to everyone - to wipe sweat after tea and hands after meat. At the end - compote.
We talk with the neighbors at the table. Arranging kstins and commemorations, they explain, is relatively cheap, almost all of their own. It's expensive to get married. There are seven feasts: magarych, matchmaking, visiting the bride, a chest, a chicken, a shirt, a wedding. If you maintain the level, it will cost a thousand and a half dollars, this is not counting the cost of a dowry. And there are no alcohol costs.
No, it still seems that there can be no such places, such people. In the 21st century, such a complete immersion somewhere in the beginning of the 19th century is unthinkable. But there is. We saw.
And in general I am from there, surprisingly to myself. On some wonderful time machine I visited the peers of my great-grandfather.
The next day we leave Fioletovo, overtaking a truck in which the guys and girls go on a picnic on the occasion of Sunday. They wave affably, call with them, somewhere in the direction of Rotten Balka and Sour Water (in combination with the very name of the village of Fioletovo - a landscape; where, by the way, did the Baku commissar, Voronezh peasant Ivan Fioletov, have such a surname?). We would have moved into a truck, they have fun, and their faces are good, there are few such pure Russian faces left. Sorry - no time. There is a box of food and two samovars in the truck. In any other place, everything would be clear: in one samovar - vodka, in another - port wine. There is really tea here: it is not clear how they live.
