Translated material
The fires are coming! Or the wonderful country of Ukhtubuga
Ukhtubuzh on Unzha. There's a lot of unusual stuff here. Let's start with the Ukhtubug church, which is fit to be included in the Book of Records: after all, it has been under construction for... 100 years. It happened like this: they started building it under the tsar, but when the revolution arrived, they didn’t have time to consecrate it. After a long period associated with well-known events, they decided to finish the construction, but they never raised the money. So there is a temple without a name on the outskirts of the village of Popovo (however, during the days of collective farms, a garage was built in it).
People lived here at all times rather poorly. But it's fun. So, we're talking about mummers. Most of all, people here liked to dress up as a “horse” (Which is not surprising, since the Merya had a cult of the horse). For some reason, a stuffed horse (it was worn by two people) brought terror throughout the villages, which, however, was mixed with the wild delight of the villagers. There was a lot of noise and squealing from the horse, but for some reason its guide, the “groom,” was considered even more terrible. If some daredevils still dared to jump on the horse’s back, then even the stalwart men were afraid to touch the “groom”, and the thick whip had nothing to do with it; something eerie was hidden in its very essence, although the “groom” was often played by the most ordinary village man.
Another disguise was called a “shameful wedding.” The guy, one of those smarter guys, dresses up as a priest. Putting on a “cassock” made of simple canvas, adorning his head with a birch bark basket, taking a thick book instead of the Bible, with a terrible roar he burst into the room where the “sbitni” were taking place. It must be said that such blasphemy is allowed only on Christmastide, when, according to popular beliefs, evil spirits are allowed to act strangely in this world. Everyone, of course, runs away wherever they can, and if the “priest” catches a young man and a girl, he joins their hands, puts a basket (“crown”) on their heads, leads them around the stool and sings: “Hallelujah, hallelujah, take the girl fuck you!"
The “death” disguise is absolutely creepy! A guy dressed in “death” flies into the hut dressed all in white and everything around literally begins to shake. “Death” has a mask on his head and an awl in his hand. He runs around the upper room and stabs everyone he reaches with his awl (it hurts, by the way!) - and those whom “death overtakes” squeal with the most natural squeal. But here’s what should be noted: on Epiphany night, the guy who dared to take on the “deadly” role was necessarily lowered into the ice hole of the Unzha River; I still took the sin upon myself! Sometimes, along with “death,” a “dead man” also appeared. His task is simple: lie down and not move. Everyone must go up to the “dead man” and kiss him on the forehead, and after each kiss the “dead man”... grunts.
Special, local mummery: “the zhgons are coming.” “Zhgony” are masters who rolled; they came to the village to roll felt boots to order, and with their terrible appearance (they had not washed for weeks), incomprehensible language (the secret language of Zhgon contains Meryan vocabulary), they resembled aliens from the other world. The guys dressed up as “zhgons” made a parody of the main wool-beaten instrument “luchok” (a stick with a string stretched over it). It was not the felt boots that were going to be “rolled”, but... the girls. This happens very rudely. The girl who is unlucky and caught is placed on the "wall", a guy is thrown on top of her, and, like a pancake, they are rolled into a rug. They tie it with a tourniquet and begin to roll it on the floor, periodically stopping and asking the girl: “Well, how did you roll?”
If you think that there was debauchery at the “Sbitny”, then you are mistaken. All these were funny games and, according to the Ukhtubug tradition, chastity was the responsibility of both sexes. Violating the rules of the game was considered a terrible sin, and those who had a bad reputation were not allowed access to Sbitni. The horror and at the same time joy that those who were “hunted down” experienced helped them to rest and disconnect from pressing worries. Now, unfortunately, a surrogate for normal human communication is gaining power: television.
By the way, mummering also responded to scientific progress. When technical innovations were just beginning to take hold of the villages, the “gramophone” costume appeared. They put a smaller girl in a bast box, stick a handle into it on the side, and a samovar pipe on top, and bring this “achievement of civilization” into the room. The handle (usually from a tractor) is twisted, and the samovar pipe begins to make dull sounds, very similar to those of a gramophone.
The most favorite games at Sbitnya at all times were games with kisses. Whatever you say, the Meryans love to kiss... There are a lot of such games and it would take a very long time to describe them, although, to be honest, games with kisses (for example, “baraba”, in which it was customary to “drum”, i.e., kiss in the corner, behind the stove, or “squint” - when you had to touch each other’s lips) will still be inferior in entertainment to the mummers, because in “death” or in a “horse” the result is always unpredictable, but here - what? A kiss and that's it...
By the way, some people think that those who celebrate a lot usually work little. The author's modest observations revealed the opposite pattern: those who know how to work also know how to relax. Now our agriculture is in a state close to a “coma”, and so, the agricultural production company “Zarechye”, which unites Ukhtubuga villages, has the best record in the region, and in terms of milk yield it is generally among the leaders. “Zarechye” was already heading towards decline, but a few years ago, Ukhtubu resident Nikolai Molodtsov became its leader, and he literally revived the farm. Actually, what else can you expect from a chairman with such a surname? Not one of the Ukhtubu residents, by the way, has ever complained about the current state of affairs (both in their locality and in the country as a whole), which, however, could be attributed to the festive mood.
And the celebration we attended was like this: the folklore theater was ten years old. Yes, yes, there is a theater here! And he borrowed the name from the area: “Ukhtubuzhye”. Its artists are mostly elderly people, burdened with experience, authority and grandchildren (or even great-grandchildren), but would you believe that it was they who showed almost all of the signature Ukhtubuga “gags”, including games with kisses, which the Unzha land is so rich in?
Maybe you would never have known about Ukhtubuga, about the local “sbitni” and mummers, if (oh, again in life we come across the mysterious “if”) a modest woman Nina Stryuchkova had not come here one day from the city of Manturovo. She collected folklore and was interested in what weddings were like here in the old days. Nina was brought to Kalista Ivanovna Solovyova, who, after listening to the collector’s request to “remember at least something,” sternly remarked:
- Why "something"? I remember the whole wedding...
And today, a decade later, 82-year-old Kalista Ivanovna dashingly jumps on the “horse”, with all her appearance, as if proving that old age exists only when you remember about it...
This is what happened with the Ukhtubuga wedding ceremony. Kalista Ivanovna invited several more elderly women, and together, over a bottle of homemade wine, over three evenings they remembered and wrote down everything. But what to do about it? It dawned on Nina: what if... who better than the Ukhtubu women themselves will present this very wedding?! The people here are special, open, and the women agreed...
When one day they presented a “wedding” (the groom in it was played by Nin’s son Andrey, a simple rural veterinarian) at a local club, the Ukhtubu residents were delighted! The next stage was the restoration of the ceremony of seeing off to the army. Here he was also special: the conscript boy was led through the village, while his father carried a decorated Christmas tree. After the procession, the future soldier nailed this Christmas tree to the corner of his father’s house, and, what is remarkable, this Christmas tree did not wither or crumble during the entire time of his absence. If something happened to her, her relatives knew: “something happened to our little soldier...” Maybe there was some mysticism mixed in here, but the fact is that the omen, as a rule, did not fail. (It is known that in Finnish mythology spruce is a magical tree; in our North, back in the mid-20th century, cases of communication through spruce (pine) with living but absent relatives and with deceased ancestors were witnessed)
One day, sitting on the Sbitnaya, having arranged a small feast together, the Ukhtubu residents decided: “if we, then, perform as artists, then why aren’t we a theater?” Well, off we go! They began to remember games, mummers, songs, a local dance called “Shan”...
Some “summers” will say: “elderly people, pensioners, and they’re fooling around, who the hell do they pretend to be...” But here they think differently. Take, for example, Zoya Gerasimovna Kireeva from the village of Dubshino (she has been in the theater from the very beginning). What happened in the life of this 75-year-old woman? A tragically deceased husband, six children, two of whom died, one year of education and 38 years of experience as a milkmaid... With school it turned out like this:
— I studied for one year and two months, okay. It was warm - I went to school, and then the guy didn’t weave bast shoes - I didn’t go. And my school disappeared... And I was still a milkmaid, a milkmaid... And I gave birth to three of my children on the farm; she came - the cow was calving - I was pulling the calf - and then I gave birth myself... And the last one, Sergei, I could have given birth to myself, but his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, the obstetrician took care of him. How they used to live: “skidevakha - yes nadevakha”! They lived poorly. And now they say: “they live poorly.” How bad? Look, what a table it was, we’ll always bake pies and brew beer! We recently gave a concert in the village of Karymovo.
And then two old women come up: “Aren’t you Zoya Smirnova?” (this is my maiden name) - “Yes...” - “And we are Nastya and Masha. Don’t you remember?” I take a closer look: they look like ancient ones, with sticks, all bent, wrinkled... It turned out that we met in our youth, only they were 70-71 years old, and I was 75! And I dance and everything else... That's what the theater does! Now, when I die, my grandchildren will have something to remember their grandmother: she was not only a milkmaid!
