Your happiness is in someone else's happiness

On the night of December 2, in the village of Pryamukhino, Kuvshinovsky district, Tver region, a rural house burned down.

. His remains were buried in the same coffin with the remains of three children and his pregnant wife.

And in October, Father Andrei spoke on the TVC channel in the television program “Street of Your Destiny”: “It’s hard, very hard for a priest to live in the village, and especially if he has a family. Because we are rural priests there, like in war.” He spoke about hatred and poverty, about unbelief and drunkenness: “They tried to rob [the church] seven or eight times. We had to defend ourselves with weapons in our hands... No, I won’t shoot at a person, but I need to scare them.”

It is clear that the words Nikolaev said on TV are his view of the village “from the inside.”

And here is the "look from the outside".

The evidence about Pryamukhin is slightly different from the apocalyptic description of Andrei’s father, reinforced by newspapers to the point that “even logs and boards” from their houses are exchanged for moonshine. The population here has grown one and a half times since the late eighties. Summer residents are settling in - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tver. They sell alcohol like everywhere else: “This is an ordinary Russian non-Black Earth village that drinks heavily. The official and unofficial trade in alcohol is in the hands of local guys - Russians and from these villages. In Pryamukhin itself, the store owner sells both officially vodka-port-beer, and from - under the floors with disgusting moonshine. The second large point is in the village of Mytnitsa..." (blog of one of the Pryamukhin anarchists).

The priest struggled with drunkenness: “Local alcoholics really hated Father Andrei, who himself was irreconcilable towards them. He offered his flock, degenerated from alcohol, work at the church - but on the obligatory condition: to give up moonshine. Almost no one could fulfill this condition, therefore, everyone had a personal grudge against the priest" (J-l "Ogonyok").

A similar thing is described by Sergei Dovlatov in “The Reserve” - a protracted end of the world.

Pryamukhino is the “family” nest of the Bakunins (everyone has known about one of the fathers of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, since high school). On May 27, the traditional annual Bakunin holiday took place here. By the way, it was the president of the Bakunin Foundation, Georgy Tsirg, the great-grandnephew of the famous anarchist, who gave priest Nikolaev, who came here in 1997, a house in Lopatino, and the holiday began with a service in the Trinity Church, conducted by Father Andrei...

Then, to the music from the cartoon “Little Raccoon” performed by a brass band, everyone went to the rural House of Culture. There hung a portrait of Bakunin with the words: “To seek your happiness in the happiness of others, your dignity in the dignity of everyone around you, to be free in the freedom of others - that’s my whole faith.”

The speeches began. Georgy Tsirg said: “We cannot yet revive the park and the Bakunin house, but we are trying in every possible way so that the spirit of “Pryamukhin harmony” reigns here - this is how they spoke about the estate in the middle of the 19th century.

The head of the municipal Bakunin Museum said that in less than three years more than five thousand people visited here, and a guest from Brazil wrote in the guest book: “In this distant Russian village, I felt that a better world was possible.”

The museum is located in an annex to the school. The school bears the name not of Bakunin, but of another demolitionist - partisan Nikolai Goryachev...

The head of the district spoke about the need to preserve historical memory, the head of the municipality spoke about the outstanding role of Bakunin in the revolutionary movement and that the influence of the national project for the revival of the village is still weakly felt here...

Then - more concerts, speeches, reports... Some secretary of the Writers' Union read his poem and said: “It’s very nice that competitions of minds have begun to supplant competitions of glasses...”

Definitely, Dovlatov would have found a lot of material in this “reserve”.

There were six months left before Andrei's father died...

In the “informal” environment, Pryamukhino is known not only from history books. Since 1995, in the summer months, a “free artel” of anarchists gathered from all over Russia has been clearing and restoring the estate of the founder of the doctrine.

This work was started by Nikolai Muravin

, one of the leaders of the Moscow anarchist “get-together” - in the first half of the nineties, more than fifty people attended his seminars; they were called “Muravin Thursdays,” even when these “Thursdays” began to be held on Fridays and not at Muravin’s. In the mid-Yeltsin years, anarchists and the “left” part of the informals close to them seemed alive against the backdrop of general apathy and loss of guidelines. Partly because they did not abandon their roots, they studied the history of their movement - the socialists, the populists, the same Bakunin. In 1994, on the occasion of the master’s 180th birthday, Bakunin readings were held in Pryamukhino. The next year, the first summer camp was held, the “Pryamukhinskaya free artel” cleaned up the pond... And on May 2, 1996, Muravin died tragically.

The anarchist “party” remains. But something left her. “Artel” continued to exist, although not every summer - “a harmonious combination of mental and physical labor, communication with nature and brothers and sisters in the anarchist movement” (anarchist reports on their stay in the camp). “Artel people” could “get to know each other better, communicate in a pleasant and conducive environment for communication” - a property of any of the summer camps, without any ideological and social “load”, but not the main goal?

At the entrance to the estate, the “anarchs” put up a sign: “Pryamukhino. Protected from the state,” but they themselves did not interfere in the life around them.

But many noble estates in Russia were sources not only of oppression, but also of enlightenment. The Decembrists are remembered not only for their appearance on Senate Square, but also for their activities in exile. The very word “populists” comes from “going to the people,” which only later, through the repressive efforts of the government, was converted into terror. If you look further, then many dissidents constantly created a “public aura” around themselves. And - a modern example - the 36th Perm camp, the last Soviet political zone, turned into a museum, is located in the middle of nowhere - but schoolchildren from all over the Perm region are brought there by buses every day. To know and remember...

And in Pryamukhino - five thousand people in three years - five a day. Some of them are foreigners... How many schoolchildren are left? The museum could also become a source of culture for the Pryamukhin residents. Greet and bring some sense to the local “Ryumkin proletariat”. But he didn't. And in general, what do we hear from the educated class about the Pryamukhinites? Only vilification and insults. It seems that Father Andrei was the only one who did not turn away from the horror of everyday life.

High ideas, thoughts or memories about the correct structure of society as a whole do not cancel the attitude towards the environment “here and now” - in a team, in a yard, in a village, in a city.... For the heirs of the revolutionary movement, it would be natural to “join the people” .

But here are the impressions of one of the “artel workers”: “He was a kind of pop businessman with his own mind. He taught children in Sunday school. At work he talked rather boringly. They say he struggled with drunkenness, but it did not have much effect...”

Not so little - he taught children in Sunday school, fought against drunkenness... “We are village priests there, like in war...” - and died, alone in the field.

As far as I know, after the terrible death of Father Andrei, not a single member of the “free artel” expressed condolences or even regret.

“In memory of their stay in Pryamukhino, the Communards usually planted a tree - none of which, unfortunately, took root.”

This is the anarchists' final admission about themselves—in fact, about all of us: the Russian political landscape today seems like a desert. For any social and political movement, commitment to ideals is necessary, memory of the “roots” is important. But if this does not turn into work “here and now” - with those with whom you live next - then the ideals imperceptibly lose their meaning, and the tree withers.

...And we do not hear or see that the first angel sounded the trumpet, and fire descended on the Earth.