Oktyabrina prays

“I can't say now. We have a collective prayer: believers from three villages gathered - we ask God for our men who drink ”

In the small village of Argun in the Irkutsk region there is neither a church, nor a church, nor a mosque. But there are many problems. Here people, as it are nowhere, understand that God is alone and it is necessary to turn to Him the whole world. Baptists and Orthodox pray about common needs together. Oktyabrina, without hesitation, says that if a person of any other religion would like to participate in the common prayer, he would be accepted. With the Internet and drinking water in a deaf Siberian village of Steter, but with tolerance everything is in order.

Countrymen do not have time to reflect on the differences in faith - last year huge flocks of locusts flew, destroyed crops, pastures and hayfields. Many now will have to score cattle for the winter. When the earthly funds are exhausted, people appeal to the heavenly forces. They ask God for different things: so that the locust is left, so that hay to grow, so that the fellow villager will undergo the operation well. Even a teacher calls from school and asks to pray for a girl who ran away from home again.

Oktyabrina photo: Anton Klimov for TD Oktyabrina goes to a neighbor photo: Anton Klimov for TD

“We pray that the men do not drink in the village. If women still hold on, then many men give up. The state farm has broken up, there is no work, there is no money. My husband worked as a tractor driver. Now he drinks, ”says Oktyabrina. - There is no need to go far for alcohol: many are trading in the village, including a neighbor across the road. I used to try to fight. In a good way, she asked the neighbor to abandon the illegal business, not to solder the villagers. When this did not help, she began to call the district police officer. The policeman arrived, said: “To prove, you need to make a purchase.” With great difficulty, they found a man who agreed to buy and testify against the seller. Think, well, who will go to make enemies? The merchant was fined 500 rubles, but they both sold and sold further. ”

Not strangers

Families of October and Seller of Alcohol unites something more than the neighborhood. In one grave are their daughters. The tragedy occurred more than thirty years ago: two friends-who were running around the village and, while the parents worked, found ammonia fertilizer. The powder was very similar to sugar. When the parents returned, the girls could no longer save. Playing "in the kitchen", both managed to swallow the deadly portion of the poison.

All people experience grief differently. Oktyabrina of those whom strong emotions make you act. “I could not find a place for myself, I was in despair. Previously, everyone wrote out the magazines “Peasant” and “Worker” - in one of the numbers I saw the address at which it was possible to contact the Committee of Soviet Women. Its chairman was then Valentina Tereshkova. In the mountain, I wrote a letter to her, complained that there was no kindergarten in the village: while parents are at work, children run around the village unattended. ”

Oktyabrina near her house photo: Anton Klimov for TD

Soon answers began to come from the Committee of Soviet Women, a year after the tragedy in the village a kindergarten appeared. It was 1986. Neither before nor after that in the area there was no such incident that the educational institution is built according to the letter of an ordinary village woman. The neighboring villages still remain without kindergartens. The only thing Oktyabrina regrets now is that she did not save the letter from Valentina Tereshkova.

The family of neighbors - the parents of another deceased girl, broke up, could not survive the loss. The neighbor Dmitry began to trade in alcohol. “We are like native people. We have daughters in the same grave. I ask you - stop. In words, he agrees with me, but does not stop trade, ”says Oktyabrina. - It is difficult to watch how every morning a string for the neighbors behind the “dose” stretches from different corners of the village. If our prayer at least one of them helps to turn away from the booze, then we will know that we were not in vain. There are many beggars in the village. When parents do not work, they drink - their children walk around the village like rabbits. We ask God that these children grow up with prosperous people, learn, stand on the wing. ”

How a subscription to newspapers saved life

Oktyabrina does not hide that once she began to sleep-she did not see a way out of her life impasse. The husband drank, there was no money, there was nothing to feed the children. After the death of the eldest daughter, Oktyabrina was the son of Fedor, and after several unsuccessful attempts, contrary to the prohibitions of doctors, she was able to give birth to her son Mikhail and daughter Tatyana.

To the hopelessness and pain of the soul added physical pain. In 1999, the woman damaged the foot, in the district hospital a fracture was incorrectly fused. Doctors had to break his leg again and insert metal rods. Oktyabrina could not move on crutches, she hung with all weights on thin crossbars - bloody corns formed in the axillary hollows. Several times the woman tried to commit suicide.

At the entrance to the village of Argun photo: Anton Klimov for TD House Oktyabrins Photo: Anton Klimov for TD

“Do you know what took me from the final step? Hyper -sprayness. So I, for example, want to hang myself, and my sable is crushed. From the lack of money, I learned to sew hats to order. So I think: I’ll hang it, Kolya (husband - TD ) will give the skins back, and then who will be able to sew a good hat on other people's blanks? The thing will be spoiled.

Once I even hanged myself. But from stress I did not understand that the loop is too long. She knocked out a stool from under her feet and with a rope on her neck fell to the floor. But I decided not to stop - from the barn I went to hang myself in the winter. And I remember: do I have other people's money in my safe? I then worked at the post office. Say, we write out newspapers how? A person wants to receive a newspaper, but he does not have a large amount at once. He gives me gradually, a little bit, and this money is stored for me until the right amount is gained. Then I give him a receipt.

Before hanging up, I decided to see if there were no money in the safe for subscriptions. I think why people should suffer because of me-newspapers will not be able to receive. I climbed into the safe. I look - there is an apple. How it turned out there, so I still do not know. Give me, I will eat it, I think they will not serve in the next world. Thoughts work clearly, generally separately from emotions. I bit the apple. And then I broke through. I thought about how my children would be left without me. Fedor, Mikhail, Tatyana - so desired, painful. I remembered how she was nursing her. Who did I want to leave her? "

There is a way out

The way out for Oktyabrina soon found - the answers came from where they did not expect. “Once I went to the next reception to the hospital, to the district center of Kachug. In the evening there was nothing to return to the village, I had to spend the night with a friend. She said that there are Baptists nearby, and offered to go to them. I tell her: “What are you! They will cut the kidneys to us. The sectarians!” It seems that I was no longer a child, but I had a prejudice. Familiar - to me: “Yes, who needs your old kidneys!”

Oktyabrina is engaged in Scandinavian walking photo: Anton Klimov for TD

And I had what I had! My artificial match in the pantry was burned by the son of Fedka. There was nothing to walk about, and the brother who works on the railway gave me his sheepskin sheepskin sheepskin coat. From above it is so brilliant, oilcloth - he did not bent in the cold, did not fasten on his stomach. On my head, a cap of sable, which I myself sewed. The image was completed by boots of 43 sizes - a friend lent them to me so that I would blame the gypsum. The hostess, I remember, in a whisper asked a friend: "Who did you bring?" And she in response: “Now she will undress and will be a normal woman.” We sat, talked. I really liked it! "

And Oktyabrina believed. For fellow villagers, this became a real shock, many were not satisfied with the fact that Oktyabrina began to attend the Baptist Church, which was founded in Kachuga by missionaries from America.

“I have nothing against the Orthodox Church. But I did not find myself there. For this, there is freedom of religion, so that everyone can find faith on their own. When I was baptized in Orthodoxy, they gave me the name Marina. They said that there is no name Oktyabrina. I’m thinking: I am, but my name is not. How is it? And they read in Church Slavonic. How can I agree, pronounce “Amen” if I don’t understand what I agree with? ”

In general, Oktyabrina asks herself a lot of questions. The husband’s niece secretly gave birth to a child in the city and soon returned to the village. Relatives would not have learned anything if it were not for complications after childbirth. Under the pressure of relatives, a young woman admitted that she gave birth to a baby right on the street (Martha was walking). I wanted to throw it into the trash, but I was afraid, threw it into a nearby hospital.

Oktyabrina milk a cow photo: Anton Klimov for TD Oktyabrina in her room photo: Anton Klimov for TD

Oktyabrina sent Gore Mamashi back to Irkutsk-to find the child and try to return him to the family. Two years later, a relative returned to the village - without a son, but with a newborn daughter. At least she did not leave her in the city. At that time, Oktyabrina has not yet recovered from injuries and diseases, only received a lifelong disability.

“I knew that I had to find Seryozha and take it from the place where it was located. But she began to doubt. I am a disabled person, all broken, with a large weight. How can I raise a child? And then she shamed himself - there the child was left alone, everyone refused him. It’s easy to judge, and you substitute the wing to this poor girl, support. If this situation happened with my daughter? And I sit and think about my legs sick, ”says Oktyabrina. “The drunken husband slipped documents for custody.” The company Seryozha was composed by Marina and Masha from the Kachug shelter.

New prayer

Seryozha is not an easy children. Due to the deviant behavior, he studied for several years at the school according to an individual program, as an adolescence he tried to commit suicide more than once-so he was experiencing even short separation from his mother Oktyabrina. When he leaves for the summer camp with the children, after a few days he demands to return him home.

“Here, I want to send him to the camp to rest. And he says: “I will be better at home. You even scold me, and then you smell the back of the head and say that I am the best with you.” He was still small - we are going in the minibus, the driver handed over the change, and one coin fell. The driver says: “Grandma there dropped the money there, raise it.” Seryozha lifted and proudly answers him: “This is not a grandmother, but my mother. She is young and beautiful!” ”

It turned out that Seryozha has abilities for music. The Baptist Church from Irkutsk gave the boy a synthesizer so that he could play. Oktyabrina expects that this will help her son cope with problems. “There are many cases when not too healthy people became brilliant musicians. Even if he does not become a genius, perhaps an interesting activity will help him to led him, ”Mom Oktyabrina hopes.

During prayer photo: Anton Klimov for TD

But to study, you need a teacher. The nearest music school is located a hundred kilometers from the village, in the district village of Kachug. You can only get there by personal transport - buses and minibuses do not go.

Oktyabrina would not be October if she had not found a solution. She organized trips to a music school for all village children who want to make music. I found the owner of a minibus from a neighboring village who, for three thousand rubles, agreed to carry the kids to Kachug twice a week. For the village, three thousand for the trip is an expensive pleasure, but they decided to divide the costs into all families whose children will study at school. In the summer, eleven village children successfully passed listening and were enrolled in music classes.

Now Oktyabrina and other believers are praying for the training of young musicians to go successfully. And so that the driver carefully brought the children to the music school and back along the Rasputin and Overseas.

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