My village

How many multi -soundness, sincere and hidden meaning lies in the ancient names of the Pskov villages, tracts, cities, localities and villages. These peculiar business cards are of laconicism and some particular signature. Once they heard or read on road signs, they are firmly affirmed in the memory of the traveler and certainly come to mind when you remember the unique, always and alluring Pskov land to yourself.

Immediately recalled bright quiet summer evenings when we went with the rector of the Pskov-Pechersky monastery by Archimandrite Alipius and his faithful associate, the elegant beautiful father Agafangel “to drink a seagull”, as he loved to say the imperious and at the same time caring abbess, somewhere under the canopy of old trees. Be sure to leave the car left behind the outskirts of the pogost Senno, and slowly went to the marvelous Pskov temple and to the belfry especially attracting to themselves. “Here, Savva,” the unforgettable builder of the monastic being filled with his kindness began in his kindness, “would stay here until the end of the days released by God. It is proper to serve in the temple filled with silence, to know the needs and cares of every parishioner, to call the Sennov bells himself and listen to the voice of nature surrounding you. ” And then the Alipius, along with the same way as he, generously gifted with the musical rumor, Archimandrite Agafangel began to sing church prayers and hymns, forcing us to involuntarily admire their deep meaning, the subtlest symphonism and polyphony. Sometimes, in order to return us from heaven to earth, the monastery inhabitants, who were by no means alien to earthly beauty, performed the “thin mountain ash” or “evening ringing” with penetratively. Yes, they sang so gloriously, like any of the then artistic celebrity did not dream.

We repeatedly committed pilgrimages in the haul and with thin experts, zealots and persistent guardians of the Pskov antiquities by Vsevolod Petrovich Smirnov and Boris Stepanovich Skobeltsyn. The restorer and blacksmith, reminiscent of the appearance of the mighty supports of the Pskov temples, Sivolod, as one of the artisan Sevina of the restoration artel, spoke him with stingy, with their weight in valuable words, the primordiality and uniqueness of the local church. The artistic, explosive, infectious, with all his heart, the laughing descendant of the ancient Pskov family of Skobebeltsyn, complemented the story of his harsh, at first glance, was brothers with rich speculation, which turned into a peculiar reconstruction of the initial appearance of the architectural complex in Senno.

From his Pskov comrades in the craft, with whom he was student in the post -blocking Leningrad, their front -line comrade Vasily Mikhailovich Zvontsov love for the Pskov region inherited, and the village of so hotly loved the graze (naturally, after the native Mikhailovsky). Seeing for the first time the former secretary of one of the Leningrad party district committees of the artist Zvontsov in the chair of the editor -in -chief of the large publishing house Aurora, where my big album was being prepared then about Pskov art treasures, at first I was very wary of the meticulous and inquisitive interlocutor, and suddenly he was from among the regional residents of the regional department. Responsible section of propaganda of domestic culture in abroad. But when Vasily Mikhailovich, carefully holding the Pskov album’s layout in his hands, carefully examined each of his strip and obsessively recommended something to replace or add significant details, I realized that with this soft, a man, he looked fruitfully on a plush bear to cooperate and make friends.

Today, our beloved churchyard is a village man in a state, no matter how sad it is to talk about it, complete neglect and gradual fire. The time of human oblivion about the past, along with perestroika, who came to the Pskov region, brought here the destruction was no less terrible than the last war left. The indifference and naked pragmatism of the people responsible for protecting the monuments of history and culture replaced the revival and disinterested service of the Pskov culture of Archimandrite Alipia, Semyon Gamichenko, Vsevolod Smirnov, Yuri Spashalsky, Boris Skobellitsyn, Mikhail Semenov, Leonid Voyrogov, Vasily Zvintsov, Anatoly Lukin, Peter Fomin and many soldiers and children of a terrible war.

But I am convinced, not for long the indifference of this will soar over the Pskov land. The edges of the local and not saw that, and even after the most severe invasions and ruin, Pskov region got to his feet. It will rise now, stinging by God, and the penetrating ringing of the bells of the temple in Senno will again spread over the eternal local Dali, inviting contemporaries to this earthly paradise.

Savva Yamshchikov.