Verkhinino village, Kenozersky National Park. Kenozero - a piece of the disappeared wooden Rus' Kenozero in contact
Whose photo reports we have already posted on our portal more than once, this time I visited the Kenozersky National Park, the most beautiful place included in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
June. Forbs covered the land of the Russian North with a carpet. Somewhere in the Sacred Grove, near a wooden chapel, a nightingale is filled with divine music. The wooden domes of the chapel shimmer with a soft white light under the blanket of sleepless, bright nights. Here you are standing above Kenozero on a hill, inhaling the smell of these wonderful summer herbs and feeling that you are in such a dear and close place to your soul. For those who get tired of reading my impressions and reflections, there is a small practical guide at the end of the text.
Bump by bump, bridge by bridge, and after two days of travel, a pontoon bridge cuts us off from civilization. A 50-liter can of gasoline gurgles on the potholes of the dirt road, and backpacks with photographic equipment bounce. Now we can see glimpses of Nekrasov’s “villages” with rickety huts, northern houses made of wide timber with high black roofs. Somewhere there is life, and somewhere there is withering. It's sad to see what people left behind. Nature is slowly taking over man here: nettles carpet the floors of the huts, the roofs have almost turned into turf. Soon these huts on chicken legs will be swallowed up by tall summer grass. In the meantime, we arrive at our house in Ust-Pocha. In principle, you can rent a hotel room here - there is a large choice, the park’s website Kenozero.ru will help you, but we are staying with “friends of friends”, Aunt Natasha, in a small village house of light green color. It stands near the lake, as if a small green shoot of a large dry tree had nestled next to an ancient hut. Tilted, it hangs over the little one with low ceilings. Aunt Natasha warns: “Bend over, otherwise you will bump; bow to the house." Yes, how many more bumps will we get from these shoals - we are not hobbits, and this is not Middle-earth, although it is no worse.
The village has a master plan: each house stands on a hill on the shore; There is a ladder going down to the bathhouse almost right next to the water, and under the shore there is a small pier with a boat. Lake black, northern; every time you look at it, it changes shade from the lead of clouds to a gray mirror with deep blue tints. In summer the village comes alive. Relatives, vacationers, tourists come. Parents hand over their beloved children for safekeeping to grandmothers, who are now enjoying their old age by looking after their mischievous children. And it's a long way from the Canadian border...
Bam! One more bump. We laid out our backpacks in our mansions. In the middle there is a large stove, two beds, everything you need for life. And immediately hit the road!
We arrive to the village of Vershinino along a dirt road. Above it on a hill rises a wooden chapel, the first on our way, strict, elegant, laconic. A little up the path through a field of dandelions - and we already meet the moonrise over Kenozero. A hundred meters up, onto a small hillock - and you seem to be floating above the water, above the banks, the plain and islands with tall pine trees. And the crimson rays touch the tops of invisible “mountains”. It’s amazing: a flow of feelings, some kind of lightness and freshness of thoughts in this place. It’s as if the soul is being cleansed, and somehow it becomes light and warm inside. There's just one minus - mosquitoes and midges eat it. I change the lens - here I already need a TV camera, I’ve moved far from the chapel - and the flock dives under the bayonet mount! And you have to kick out the scoundrel! I don’t remember about myself anymore, almost anesthesia. Beauty only saves, brings you back to life, and you completely forget about everything. After all, you are in Russia, in the Motherland - in its very, very heart. These places are so close that the soul sings.
The day wakes up in pink light. Or maybe he just didn’t fall asleep and it was because he was tired.
A flash of fire over the Pochozero temple, over meadows, villages, fields and bridges over the channels. It’s three in the morning - and the last day turns into a wonderful new one with such beauty around. But all good things come to an end quickly, and this dawn died out like an extinguished match, and real northern clouds hung low over the northern land. And the temple is beautiful. Light, with curves and a fence, with high spiers, it somehow reminded me of Kizhi from postcards and photographs. Only this place is hidden, secret, and is revealed to a few. And it seems that you are the only traveler with whom the temple whispers when you stand in shoulder-deep wet grass near its fence and the cold dew touches your neck and ears. And the soft breeze whispers and tells its tales in this distant kingdom, on the island of Kenozerye.
Wet feet and the chiming of mosquitoes in your hair take you away from fairy tales. Time to go home. Pleasant fatigue sets in, it's time to sleep.
Today Kenozero is brown, like peat lakes - soft, with a chocolate tint, with a thin warm crust of water and an icy heart inside. You float along it, tuck your legs up, maintain your posture, just so as not to fall on the ice below. And near the shore, near the sand, the water is like fresh milk; it has warmed up during the warm days, and the children are splashing in the water with enthusiastic squeals.
We rested, swam, took a steam bath in a Russian bathhouse - and off we went to feed the sunset mosquitoes in the village of Glazovo. Even in the afternoon, while walking around Ust-Poche, we met Misha. Such a good guy, born and raised here. We look: he is repairing the boat, the engine has become completely bad. He says his son will come, start the engine, and they’ll go fishing, and at the same time they’ll give us a lift to Glazovo. Just fill up with gasoline, he says, and that’s it - no money needed.
So, we boarded a friendly group, let's set sail! The engine is unruly: it just starts and immediately stalls. Here is the “Whirlwind” for you... But nothing: the sleight of hand of Misha’s son - and we fly through the clear waters of Kenozero, cutting through the sun’s rays in the glare of small lights of dark water, and inside each droplet is the midnight sun with islands, islands to the horizon. Birch trees and slender pines look at us from the hillock, winking with the rays of the lazy sleepy luminary that rolls from side to side on these long days.
Jump! Let's go down to " Mainland" We are in Glazovo. And again you feel a kind of puppyish delight in front of the beauty of the Russian land. The Chapel of the Descent of the Holy Spirit rises above the surface of the lake, there is silence all around, the leaves don’t even rustle. And you say to yourself: you are in Russia. You feel the breath of summer grass, the tickle of sedge and the warm light on your face from the hot pancake of the sun. You swim in the grass, drown in clearings in an abundance of flowers, from wonderful to modest, like cornflowers and dandelions. And how wonderful it is to climb up to the chapel, to the very top, under the dome, and look around from above! Here you can sit on a creaky wooden floor, lean against an ancient white tree. Among the incredible summer silence, among lakes covered with a shroud of fog, you sit, as if in a midnight slumber, intoxicated by the music of Kenozer.
But this eternity won’t get hungry, won’t want to sleep, and the midge won’t bite it, and your belly itches from the bites, so you return to reality again, open the hatch to the “Malaya Zemlya”, three flights of wooden steps - and again I’m on the fresh grass I'm waiting for Uncle Misha for water. His catch was glorious, a whole bucket of crucian carp! So satisfied and happy we arrive at our house in Ust-Pocha.
It seems like an eternity has already passed and we are still alive We have been on Kenozero all summer, so these places are deeply rooted in our hearts.
In the morning we go again to Vershinino, to the wonderful St. Nicholas Chapel. The sky shimmers kind of northern lights. If the North gives light, it does so with special generosity: red flashes stretch along the horizon for an entire hour, time stands still, and you yourself find yourself locked in somewhere in the tenth second of the beginning of the third morning. It seems that the heavy blue blanket of night will never cover the June Kenozero even up to the shoulders.
And again a whole day of rest, swimming in the lake, exploring the surrounding area. By evening the weather turned bad, and we were able to shoot little. The sky is gray, the wind is strong. We hope for the morning.
At three in the morning you wake up - you jump up and scratch your turnips: where are you this time? The low ceiling immediately reminds us that we are still on Kenozero! Hands to feet, you don’t have to go far - after all, the beautiful village of Grange is nearby, on a small island, where a rickety floating bridge leads, which you still need to manage to fish out of the channel with a long stick. The main thing is to hook it well to the shore, otherwise you can remain Robinson. And then you walk along the shore along a narrow path, next to the smooth surface of the morning water and light fog. This place has probably become my most beloved and intimate place. Here there are such tall grasses and complete isolation from the whole world that the unity with the place is absolute. It seems that this is a small fragile piece of our Motherland - its heart that lives, beats, breathes. From the hill, from the very high point you can see the lake, neat islands in the distance, a chapel against the backdrop of the Holy Grove and fields of summer flowers. I squint my eyes like a cat and just smile at the dawn. Quiet light on the face, gentle ears of grass and even annoying mosquitoes, constantly bringing us back from the clouds to the ground. And I’m not alone in this matter: on the fence in front of the chapel a sleek, contented cat sits and also squints in the sun. Kind, affectionate. It purrs when you scratch behind the ear. Wet almost to the waist, we go out onto the country road, and a slight happy fatigue carries us home along the sandy shore of Ust-Pocha, next to the silver water.
In the evening adventures awaited us. I wrote to the park management: they wanted to order a boat to the southern part of Kenozero. It turned out that this is not easy to do in a day! Local residents refused to take us, so this “fate” fell to the senior park inspector Ivan Aleksandrovich. He turned out to be a good guy, very correct - it’s clear that he works at the right job. He even forced us to get permission to take photographs so that everything was as it should be. And the park management and guides are very cool. For tourists, everything here is organized competently and well - excursions, parking, houses, and hotels. Only, they say, if you are coming to us, write in advance, book your seats and excursions. The guys there are kind and helpful.
So we loaded ourselves into the boat and set sail. There are waves on Kenozero today. The weather changes, it gets colder, and the spray of northern water sometimes gives you a cold shower. We stopped near the Sacred Grove. A giant juniper grows here and there is a small neat chapel. It smells very tasty, and the juniper trees themselves go high into the sky, like cypresses!
But it’s time to set off to the south of the lake with a stop in the village of Tyryshkino. There are two chapels hidden in the ship's forest. One of them, “Cross”, is surprisingly tiny. To pray in it, you need to squat down. They say this is one of the smallest chapels in Russia.
But the end point of our route is the village of Zekhnovo. Little has changed here since the 18th–19th centuries: there are rickety black houses on the shores of a picturesque bay of the lake. Ivan Aleksandrovich drops us off on the sandy shore, at an equipped parking lot. He waves his hand and says goodbye. And the weather completely deteriorated: the sky was leaden, the wind was so strong that the mosquitoes instantly died out. For the first time, we don’t hear the usual ringing and don’t drive them out of the camera mount, and this is the only joyful thought that comes to mind so far, because we were left to spend the night here with only a tent, and by night the temperature dropped from 20 to 4 o C.
It started to rain, and the dogs came running to bark and sniff us. They seem to be their own - their tails are already wagging. And we set sail from the parking lot to the most beautiful place in Zechnov, for which we came - to the chapel. It is somehow very special, light, reminiscent of a boat that stands above the lake and is ready to launch. Kenozer's Ark, which will save everyone.
By morning we were completely frozen in the tent. We looked out and the lake was steaming, like in winter. A strong wind tears steam and fog into shreds, carries away heat, and grinds water. At seven in the morning we waited for our inspector, but there was a thought that no one would come for us on such waves... A cold shower for an hour - and we were on land. Let's dry the feathers.
And this is the village of Karpovo not far from Vershinin, on the last day.
Last evening left on Kenozero. Of course, we spent it in our beloved Grange, enjoying the warm summer sunset, because when we were brought back home, the weather, as if by magic, became warm and summer again.
Yes, we stayed on Kenozero for only five days, but this place sank into our souls so deeply that we want to come back here more than once. I highly recommend it for clearing your head of extraneous thoughts, mental relaxation and receiving wonderful memories.
On the way from Kenozero we stopped at two villages: Arkhangelo and Morshchikhinskaya. In both, ancient churches are in the forests, in poor condition... A sad sight, of course, especially under the northern lead clouds.
In fact, the park has one main road from “civilization” in the form of Plesetsk or Kargopol, and there are no gas stations here; the closest ones are located in these cities. From each of them the drive to Vershinin is about 100–150 km. We took with us a 50-liter canister filled to the top with 92, but in fact, they say that private owners in Vershinino sell gasoline for 5 rubles more expensive than in the city.
You won’t encounter much beauty on the roads, only Vershinino and Ust-Pochu can be reached. You need to travel by boat to the most interesting distant places.
The roads in the park are good everywhere, by Russian standards, but the section from Kargopol to Onega is very bad, you need to drive along it slowly.
Where can a photographer and traveler go, walk or swim in the beautiful Kenozerye? Here is a list of places.
You can get by car to:
- Vershinina - here is the most beautiful St. Nicholas Chapel, a harbor with boats;
- Karpova (not far from Vershinin, better on foot from the turn to Karpovo) - a beautiful chapel on a hill above the lake;
- Manor is a small village with a chapel near the Sacred Grove on an island beyond Ust-Pocha (to the north); you need to drive all the way through Ust-Pocha and stop in front of the flimsy pedestrian bridge to the island;
- Filippovskaya - beautiful village with the Pochozersky temple complex, which is reached by a good dirt road. The complex has been almost restored, and the surrounding area is amazingly beautiful: on both sides there is a river and lakes, houses and summer grass.
- There is also the southern, Kargopol part of the park, there is Lekshmozero with interesting village Morshchikhinskaya.
You can get there by boat to:
- Glazov - in this article, probably, most of photos from there, it hooked me so much amazing place. Getting from Ust-Pocha is easy: talk to the locals, they will give you advice and find a boat. You can stop by Ryzhkovo - there is also a beautiful chapel opposite Glazov. Locals are especially happy when you pour your own gasoline into their engine;
- Zechnova is the south of the lake; the chapel and the place itself are amazing. If you are staying in Kenozero on a short time and want to swim somewhere - this is it. It is better to spend the night in a tent in the parking lot until dawn.
- Ask to be taken to Medvezhiy, to the juniper grove. Next is a detour to Tyryshkin, where the amazing “Cross” chapel is located, one of the smallest in Russia, and a large chapel in a dense forest in the Holy Grove.
- If you have time, you can take a boat to the village of Vedyagina and Gorbachika, but we didn’t have time to get there.
- For those who are planning to go in 2015: you can walk (8–12 km) from Gorbachikha to Porzhensky Pogost. Everyone highly recommends it, but this year temple complex is under restoration, stands in the woods. The work will be completed in 2015.
The text has undergone minimal editing.
VERSHININO (Pogost, Vershinino, Shishkina, Mountains)
Located in the northwestern corner of the Kenoretsky reach on the peninsula.
Unites four villages: Pogost, Vershinino, Shishkina, Gory (on the map Vershinino is located between the villages of Pogost and Shishkina, the village of Gory is located north of Shishkina on the shore of Kenozero).
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Office of the Plesetsk part Kenozersky Park(hotel on the 2nd floor).
Wooden chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with "heaven", late 18th - early. 19th centuries From the chapel there is a beautiful view of Kenozero.
Stone Assumption Church of the late 19th century. It is in the process of restoration.
In Vershinino, in addition to the St. Nicholas Chapel, there is another chapel of St. John the Evangelist - very small. It can be seen east of the St. Nicholas Chapel (to the left of the road when driving from Vershinino).
On the outskirts of Vershinino behind the village of Shishkina there is a “Sacred” grove associated with pagan times Ancient Rus'. In the grove there also used to be a Tikhvin Chapel (not preserved), in its place there is a memorial wooden cross. Nearby, local residents built a new Tikhvin Chapel.
Memorial to residents who died in the Great Patriotic War.
Worship cross to those killed in the war, installed in 2003.
Visitor Center of the Park.
Museum "Rukhladny Barn", opened in 2006.
Museum of the Folk Epic "In the Beginning was the Word", opened in August 2016.
Woodworking workshop, opened in 2007.
Hephaestus Compound, opened in 2009.
Kitovrasovo courtyard.
Memorial sign "Crossroads".
Cafe-bar (also known as the Postal Chase tavern) is open for groups of guests by agreement.
Hotel "Inn".
ABOUT Main houses of the National Park and objects cultural heritage in Vershinino are shown on
Layout
(from the guidebook of Kenozersky National Park)
Vershinino, of course, is not a village, but a village (or hamlet) consisting of several villages located nearby and already merged into one village. At one time, small villages, of which there were many on Kenozero, were abolished, and residents were offered to move to Vershinino, Morshchikhinskaya, Ust-Pocha or somewhere else. So the population of Vershinino increased noticeably. Vershinino stretches along the shore of Kenozero from the Sacred Grove near Shishkino to the narrow strait connecting Kenozero with Long Lake. Below is a diagram of Vershinino (from the book by Yu.S. Ushakov), on which only three villages are visible, and the fourth - Gory - is located further beyond Shishkino on the banks of Kenozero.
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The houses in the village are located so that they are protected from strong northern winds by the hills and nearby forests.
At the entrance to the village, to the left of the road on the top of the hill, there is a memorial to those killed in the Great Patriotic War, “Hill of Glory”. There are many familiar names, and how many there are on this mournful list... In 2015, for the 70th anniversary of the Victory, the memorial was renovated and its territory was landscaped.
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Village POGOST
Let's start from the farthest part of Vershinino - the village of Pogost.
The village of Pogost at the end of the 19th century. was the center of the Vershininsky volost of the Pudozh district. Mostly ministers of stone churches lived in Pogost.
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Photo by N.Z. Antonov, 1967 |
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Assumption Church. |
Assumption Church. |
For more information about the church project and its authors, see
About the Assumption Church -
more
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About the customs associated with the village of Pogost and the Assumption Church -
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In 30-50 years. XX century the church was converted into a club, and later into a warehouse. The slender bell tower, five domes, iconostasis and interior decoration were lost.
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On the 20th of January 2017, the crosses for the domes of the cathedral were consecrated before their installation on the roof of the church. In the summer of 2018, work was completed to cover the roofs of the temple part, the refectory and the altar. The chapters with drums and crosses have been restored. The next step is to repair the walls and foundation and restore the interior decoration. There is a huge amount of work ahead to recreate the bell tower.
Recently, the Assumption Church from the side of the Rukhlyadny barn looked like this (we thank O. Chepurov for the photo): Below are two photographs of the Assumption Church taken in August 2018. As you can see, the domes are already in place, the walls are being repaired, the foundations will be repaired and strengthened, and preparations will be made to recreate the bell tower. According to the message on the KNP website dated July 25, 2019, in the interests of parishioners, the church was connected to the local power supply network.
In 2005, during the renovation of the church, an altar cross with inscriptions about the initial consecration of the church was found under the floor. More about the cross -
Markets and fairs were held at the Pogost several times a year (Annunciation - March 25, Epiphany - January 6, Peter's Day - June 29 and Intercession Day - October 1), and since 1857 the Annunciation Fair was officially established on March 25-28.
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According to N.V. Izhikova , in Vershinino at the Kenozersky churchyard, the feast of the Holy Trinity (Troitsky Torzhok) and the Day of St. Apostles Peter and Paul, i.e. Peter's Day (Petropavlovsk market - June 29).
But the patronal holiday for the village of Pogost was the day of August 28 - the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Therefore in last years On the Kenozersky bank between Pogost and Vershinino, the Assumption Fair is held on the 20th of August (Sunday).
Now the village of Pogost is a fairly populated part of Vershinino. Here is the library named after. A.N. Nechaeva, store.
Village VERSHININO
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The name "Vershinino" for the village first appears no earlier than the 18th century.
Below in the center of the frame on a high hill there is a Chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, which became a symbol of the Kenozersky National Park.
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Near the hill there is the Visitor Center of the Plesetsk sector of the Park, located in the modern house of the merchant Kozhevnikov. In the 18th century, as it became known recently, there was a post office here.
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An exhibition has been created in the village of Vershinino, the administrative center of the Plesetsk sector of the Park. “Kenozerye. Chronicles of the memorable and ordinary". An exhibition dedicated to the history of Kenozerye in late XIX- the beginning of the 21st century, built on the basis of memories local residents and photographs from family archives. The 20th century is one of the most difficult and controversial periods in the history of the country. The kenozers themselves talk about this in the exhibition.
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In the Woodmaker's Workshop you can see tools for wood processing, samples of finished products, for example, platbands, options for assembling logs into a log house and much more.
In the Hephaestus Compound, samples of blacksmithing, for which local blacksmiths were famous, are exhibited.
The third barn housed the exhibition “Kitovrasovo Compound”, dedicated to pottery. The name of the museum arose from information about the potters of the village , who created figurines depicting ancient mythical whale races, half-humans, half-horses. The museum displays reconstructed vessels based on examples of pit-comb ceramics from the 3rd-4th centuries BC, figures of whale races made by the famous Kargopol master Valentin Shevelev and potter of the Kenozero National Park Elena Kalitina. Valuable exhibits of the “Kitovrasov Metochion” are a handmade pottery wheel and a model that recreates the process of making and firing archaic ceramics, dishes made by Karpov craftsmen.
Since 2013 it has been working in the village new hotel Park "Inn" (photo from the newspaper "Kenozerye", No. 3-4, 2012).
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The author of the worship cross is V.A. Titov with the participation of art critic T.M. Koltsova. The frame for the worship cross was made by S.P. Anikiev. The carving on the worship cross was made by P. Bakharev" (N.A. Makarov). museum fund Kenozersky Park. In addition to household items and local arts and crafts, you can see here painted “heaven” boards from various chapels that are in storage. There is also a pottery workshop here. See photographs of exhibits.
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A completely new tourist facility in Vershinino -
memorial sign "Crossroads", opened on August 21, 2016 on the initiative of the Branch of the Postal Service in the Arkhangelsk Region. to the 25th anniversary of the Kenozersky National Park. We don't have a decent photograph of the object yet.There was one more object to be seen in Vershinino - the photo exhibition “Protected Kenozerie”. It was placed on the artillery fence surrounding the fire and forestry station. On the open stands there are excellent park photographs taken by Igor Shpilenok, Konstantin Kokoshkin, Vadim Shtrik and other masters.
In the Holy Grove there was a wooden Tikhvin chapel of the 19th century. It looked like a forest hut and was brought here from the now defunct village of Shcheynik (according to other sources, from the village of Glushchevo). On the day of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God (July 9), residents walked around all the surrounding fields and lands in a religious procession, and performed water blessing services on the shore of the lake. |
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Tikhvin Chapel. Photo from G. Gunn's book |
Memorial cross in place |
In 2006-2007, local residents built a new Tikhvin Chapel next to the cross.
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New Tikhvin Chapel. Photo 2010 |
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And below is the new Vershinino building. In the house that recently stood on this site, as it recently turned out, at the beginning of the twentieth century. A.F. Hilferding stopped when he collected and recorded songs and epics. Here is a photograph of this house from 1927 (from the Park archives).
The Museum of Folk Epic opened on August 21, 2016, as the completion of events for the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Kenozersky National Park. The museum halls display more than 600 items from the collection of the museum fund of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Kenozersky National Park" - icons, objects of peasant life, books, manuscripts, photographs. The exhibition includes manuscripts of peasant plots, field recordings of epics by folklorists, photographs of Kenozero performers from the family archives of Kenozero residents and personal collections of researchers.
During the 2019 season, about 2,000 people visited it.
Ninth-grader Sabina Podosenov from the village of Vershinino, Plesetsk district, became the winner of the competition “ Best guide Russia" in the category "Best guide under 18 years old"
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Information about the opening of the museum - in Park press release .
Notes:
1. For other information about Vershinino, see the thematic selection
Vershinino.
2. All photographs taken in Vershinino and posted in different places on the website (not borrowed), you can see .
3. The map at the beginning of the page is from LJ vita_colotrata.
3. The page uses information from A short guide in Kenozersky Park, from the books of Yu.M. Kritsky "Kenozerye. History and Culture", N.A. Makarov "Church parishes and monasteries of Kenozerye...", from the book "Heaven and the surroundings of Kenozerye".
4. For fishing on Kenozero, see .
“There’s a Russian spirit there... it smells like Russia!” I can’t even remember the best words to describe one of the most interesting and original national parks Russia - Kenozersky. A piece of Rus'... mmm... real? I don’t know what Rus' really was like, but it seems to me that it was exactly the same as in Vershinino and other surrounding villages in this lake-forest region. An island of preserved life, untouched by the transformations of the post-Soviet nation. Living history, illuminated by Orthodox crosses on rickety wooden domes and the night flashes of ballistic missiles.
Leave your cell phone, everyone who comes here...
Getting to the Kenozersky National Park, lost in the Arkhangelsk forests, is not difficult. You just need to take the train to Arkhangelsk in Moscow or St. Petersburg and get off at Nyandoma station. Further regular buses Nyandoma - Kargopol, Kargopol - Morshchikhinskaya, or by taxi. Travel time is about 3 hours. If you have a car, then just put a dot in your navigator in the village of Vershinino and enjoy the road, like we did. You definitely won't be bored. Picturesque wooden bridges, ancient churches, pontoon crossings across Onega, like the one that awaits you in Voznesenskaya.
The bridge over the Kena River in the village of Izmailovskaya alone is worth something.
Pyatnitskaya Church of the Kenorets Churchyard. There is Rus' in every word. Did you know what the word "pogost" means? No, it's not at all what you always thought. This is an administrative-territorial unit in Rus', which was introduced by Princess Olga. The graveyard was a stopping place for the prince and his squad while collecting tribute from the Novgorodians, a kind of inn, from the word visit. Later, a churchyard began to designate a village with a parish church and a cemetery attached to it. And only after this the significance of the churchyard as a rural cemetery appeared.
A long dirt road winding through the taiga forest finally leads to civilization. The village of Vershinino is the main transit point for everyone who comes to Kenozerye.
Here you can stay in one of these guest houses. A bathhouse in the yard, water in the lake, firewood in the entryway.
The water, by the way, is brown from peat. She's all like that in the lake. The locals drink it this way. We boiled it, but the color remained the same - ready-made tea. By the way, very tasty.
In Vershinino, on a hill near the lake there is a wooden St. Nicholas Chapel.
The painting of the “heaven” of the chapel was done by the icon painter Fyodor Zakharovich Iok during the 19th-20th centuries.
In Vershinino, the most colorful performance “Kenozersk Evening” is periodically organized for guests. Songs and ditties performed by an original folk group consisting of local residents and accordion player Alexei Tryapitsyn - the main character of Andrei Konchalovsky's film "The White Nights of Postman Tryapitsyn" - completely immerse you in the atmosphere of that "terry" Rus'.
And yes, this is exactly the same Alexey Tryapitsyn, if you watched the film. A film about real life in the Russian outback, without embellishment.
"White Nights..." received the main director's prize "Silver Lion" at the 71st Venice Film Festival in 2014. Alexey Tryapitsyn still works as a postman, connecting all the villages of Kenozerye.
Many of them can only be reached by water. Some of them have practically no inhabitants left. When reading about these villages on WiKi, you will often see lines like: “According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, 0 people lived in the village of Sysova.”
The main transport of Kenozero residents is powerboat. There's nowhere here without her. The theft of a boat motor from Tryapitsyn became the main storyline film.
It doesn't matter what kind of boat you have, what matters is what kind of engine it is.
This is how a team of journalists from St. Petersburg and Moscow, united with the team of our expedition “To the North!”, moved from one village to another.
An unforgettable trip around the lake was organized for us by Anastasia Skrebtsova, Deputy Director of the Park for environmental education and tourism development. True, Nastya is currently working in another national park - the Curonian Spit :)
First stop in the village of Zekhnova.
The history of the village begins in the 16th century, when, according to one legend, the first resident, Zekh, settled here.
One of the filming locations.
In the center of the village there is the chapel of the Apostle John the Theologian, built at the end of the 18th century on the slope of a high hill - “Bui-mountain”. This is the only chapel in the Arkhangelsk region with a gallery on consoles.
Artists are frequent guests of these places.
Next to the chapel, a “holy” grove once grew, from which several old “treasured” firs and a pine tree have survived to this day, where covenants were accepted by God, i.e. requests (usually for healing).
For many centuries, the inhabitants of the village of Zekhnova lived by subsistence farming, providing themselves with everything they needed. Now there is almost no one left here - only summer residents come for the season in the summer, and a couple of grandmothers.
The main occupations are agriculture, animal husbandry, logging, and fishing.
At the end of the 19th century, at the intersection of the Bezymyanny stream and the road leading from the village of Zekhnova to the village of Spitsyno, a water mill - “verkhneboika” - was built.
To operate the mill, a flow of water was necessary, so a water supply channel, a 390-meter-long Kopanets, was dug by hand. The villagers constantly monitored the health of the mill and dam.
In the late 1970s, the mill fell into disrepair. At the end of the 1990s, its restoration began, ending in 2008.
And yet she spins.
The next village - Tyryshkino - one of most picturesque places on Kenozero. The name of the village is apparently connected with the first Russian settlers in the region. In the Novgorod region and in Zaonezhsky churchyards, “taryshki” were called in the 16th - 17th centuries. service people of middle rank - wealth, among them there were archers and serfs, peasants and sextons, bobs, artisans and scribes. Apparently the village was founded by them.
The local population of Tyryshkino worked in the fields in Pudozh district, Olonets, St. Petersburg and other cities. From there, artistic techniques for decorating houses were brought by Kenozero masters. One of these houses is located on the very high place a hill with the best view in the area. Peasant Maksimov tried to decorate his house with carvings in a special way - this is how the House with a Carved Balcony was born."
The roadside chapel, called the Cross, is so small that only one person can fit inside, and only on his knees. The chapel is considered the smallest in Russia.
The Chapel of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa is located there, not far from the Cross, hidden by the thick paws of fir trees.
There are not many places left in Russia where the cultural and natural heritage is preserved in the most complete and multifaceted way. One of such places is undoubtedly Kenozersky national park, one of the last islands of the original Russian way of life, culture, traditions, which has preserved the richness and purity of its inner world, facing the origins.
Vladimir Pastukhov, a publicist for the BBC Russian Service, once spoke about Konchalovsky’s film:
“The common belief is that Konchalovsky made a film about a Russian village. In fact, he made a film about Russia in general. Because all of Russia, in his opinion, was and remains a village in ethical and humanitarian terms, despite all its cosmodromes and rockets. Moreover, in recent decades, the village mentality has only strengthened its position in it. The Russian world according to Konchalovsky is a peasant world with all its pros and cons. That’s how it was four hundred years ago and that’s how it continues to be today.”
Wooden Rus' has not disappeared anywhere - it remains within us.
Just recently, at the end of June 2012, I was lucky enough to visit the Kenozersky National Park. A few days spent in the northern part of the park were not enough to see all the beauty of these places, but this time was enough to fall in love with this region once and for all, to feel the special character of the life of its inhabitants and the secret kept by the “holy” groves.
I’ll start my story from the village of Vershinino, the center of the northern sector of Kenozersky Park.
Vershinino is the center of the Plesetsk sector, this is where the park office is located, guest houses and shops. “Kenozero. That’s what the locals say,” the administration immediately explained, and we are trying to get used to the correct and unusual pronunciation. We immediately notice the special dialect of the local residents: their very fast speech with a slight emphasis on the letter “o”.
- The symbol of Kenozerye is the St. Nicholas Chapel located here, on the top of a high hill. Its exact age is unknown, but it is known that it existed long before 1846
- At the beginning of the 20th century, the chapel stood without a bell tower; it was added a little later, completing the slender image
- In the 80s of the last century, the St. Nicholas Chapel fell into a sad state
- After the formation of the Kenozersky National Park in 1991, the chapel was restored through the joint efforts of Russian and Norwegian restorers. Recovery took 2 years.
- In 1998, the chapel was consecrated by Bishop Tikhon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory. Since then, on certain Sundays and patronal holidays, a priest comes to Vershinino to serve in the chapel. The rest of the time, all visiting tourists, excursionists and simply relatives can enter the chapel through the Park Office, where the keys to the chapel are kept.
- No less beautiful view The chapel of St. Nicholas opens from the lake. It crowns the top of the hill, under which the houses of the village of Vershinino stand.
- The chapel offers an unforgettable view of Kenozero. In the distance you can see numerous islands and rugged shores of the lake.
- In Vershinino, almost every resident has a motorboat. The boat is the main mode of transport, since there are roads only between large villages. They use boats to fish, carry tourists, and visit each other in neighboring villages. All boats have powerful motors, so the distances on the lake are quite long (20 km one way is a normal route), and the waves and headwind seriously interfere with movement.
- On the top of the hill (you see where the name Vershinino comes from) horses graze at night. They lie, half asleep, in the tall grass, and all around is the sound of the wind and the endless expanses of the lake.
- Seeing me, the horses woke up
- Many residents have gardens where they plant potatoes.
- Local residents love to decorate their windows with geraniums
- Inside the St. Nicholas Chapel.
- In 1997, the restored skies were returned to the chapel. Heaven is a special type of ceiling covering in wooden churches of the Russian North. The paintings of the Kenozero “heaven” contain various subjects. There are heavens with images of the Archangels (Pachomius Chapel in the village of Karpovo, St. John the Evangelist in Zikhnovo, etc.), the Apostles (Vvedenskaya Chapel in the village of Ryzhkovo, the Three Saints in the village of Nemyata, etc.), there are mixed subjects.
These unique examples of monumental painting in wooden churches have been preserved here in the form of a collection that has no analogues in the world.
16 “heavens” – this is the collection of “heavens” of the Kenozersky National Park - the largest in Russia.