Went down in history

Who and why dances Polonaise on Pokrovsky, shoots at Tver, and extinguishing a rat in Yauzsky?

“At first we were engaged in the XI - XII centuries of Central Rus', because we ourselves, respectively, do Vyatichi,” Max who settled in a wooden hut on Gogol Boulevard told me. From under the elbow of the linen shirt of Max, the linen tattoo tattoo rolled to the elbow. -But sooner or later you will collect the whole set: there is a helmet, two or three pants are sewn. And somehow boring, because the same festivals, the same faces. Therefore, part of the people began to engage in the Roman legion, part passed to the 17th century.

In XVII, Max lived today - an apprentice behind the counter with leather products. I decided to start with the first site of the festival “Times and the era”, which captured Moscow for almost two weeks: 30 sites - from the Stone Age to the Soviet thaw, 300 clubs of historical reconstruction from around the world.

“I trudged chain mail, but quickly tired of it - a very tedious process,” he continued, nodding at the next request for a selfie with a shoe. - Plus, we must walk around museums, analyze the sources. Therefore, a lot is bought from other reconstructors, and this is expensive - we earn money in the main works. I am on an expedition on the territory of the Novodevichy Monastery.

Help "New"
Historical reconstruction is the reconstruction of the material or spiritual culture of a particular historical era, or the reproduction of a certain historical event. An important condition is thorough work with a variety of scientific sources. One of the main tasks of reconstructors is the preservation of traditions, customs and culture.

The reconstrued movement in Russia originated in the 70-80s of the XX century, at the moment hundreds of clubs of various topics participate in it. The most popular periods for reconstruction are the Patriotic War of 1812, the Second World War, the Russian and European Middle Ages. More than a hundred events are held annually. Including such large -scale ones as the reconstruction of the Battle of Kulikovo and Borodino. Reconstructors recreate the ordinary life of past centuries, for example, simultaneously imitating the life of a military camp.

A castle was built in Nikitsky nearby today. And I went to dance Polonaz - on Pokrovsky, to the "Great Embassy of Peter the Great." I didn’t get men in a triangle or at least in a wig.

- Stop! Go! Stop! Walking! -shouted a strict lady-spokesman, persistently shinging the master in the red bridges in the back of the master. Juan from Barcelona obediently seeded with large copper buckles. Crinolines and triangles swayed, diluted with jeans and frivolous dresses above the knees.

“Tomorrow evening, a big ball in the palace, come,” Juan Javier, after his first polonaise in life, gave me hope again. Once the musician Javier was looking for old notes in the library-he turned on a slippery path of reconstruction.

Javier did not speak the name of the palace.

- And what is it for you tomorrow for the ball? - I asked a girl immersed in a smartphone, who introduced myself as "one of the organizers."

“Ball, hmmm ...” he began to pick up words. - In short, they have a Burgundian king there, they beautifully drink champagne, enter the hall and begin to dance. Many foreigners - about 35 people. You can look from the balcony - this is the only event that is open only for reconstructors in the authent. They try to be completely in the atmosphere of the past.

The next day I did not go to Tsaritsyno - not “in the authent”, but from the balcony - insulting. I decided - to the hussars.

- That's what the life -giving champagne does in the morning! - rolled out about fifty ahead, and I realized that almost in place. The French and Russians “in the authent” of the 1812th by the ceremonial parade walked by the Boulevard. Behind the French, hungry, the boys fled. At the hussar tables were women in bids, champagne was bubbled on the tables in glasses.

“The questions from the public are the most incredible: for example, what they wore under mentik and pants, or how many lovers had a hussar, a Christmas tree,” the curator of the hussar community, Colonel in reserve Fedor Grigoryevich, grinned into the gray mustache. - We are engaged in alternating reconstruction, so we can explain everything. Here we have no centimeter heels, but we sew the verm and uniforms and uniforms, we wash and dry according to that technology. Washing - only in cold water, with vinegar and household soap. Then you hang it like that, water flows, put on wet and walk for 8 hours so that the uniform takes the shape of the body. And Lesha generally lost weight for the uniform ... So, a 15-minute readiness. Now we’ll cut champagne, then romances and duel, ”Fedor Grigoryevich shouted at the hussar. To shut up - this is about the demonstration cut of the neck of the saber.

In parting, the hussar curator explained to me that the origins of the traction for reconstruction were in those soldiers and dolls in which men and women did not play enough in childhood.

“And also - the desire to understand how everything was really,” added Alexei. - We are not mummers. The guys make crossings to feel the severity of the satchel, the difficulty of caring for the horse. The knowledge of the graduate of the historical faculty can be compared with the peel of the apple, ours are like an injection with a needle - not extensive, but deep. History can only be judged by reliable data, and not fantasize.

The state should popularize the glorious past of our country, but not films such as Kolovrat - nonsense nonsense.

I understand - commerce, but the younger generation is more expensive than these grandmas, ”the school teacher of history sighed. - You ask a teenager: could you stand up for a lady? And he: “Why? Today I am with her, but there is no tomorrow. ” People fought on duels, because it was a generation for which the word "honor" was not empty.

And the hussars went to reconstruct a duel of Pushkin with Dantes - a whole crowd gathered. In the neighborhood, they yelled in the corral of the geese, young Muscovites were synchronously blew with the goat, the mustache in the Barber of the French, beless men, twisted in the hands of a bloody granny, a grandmother at the field of the field hospital. And I went to Yauzsky, there was a rather intriguing stretch for several days for several days: "The Confederative States of America."

- Girl, this is a smoking tobacco, but okay - sniff out. He raised it myself! - For a second, a red -haired soldier of the South Army at a table with objects of army life was distracted and returned to me again: - There are separate elements that are trying to tie a political dispute, but we will immediately distance them from them because we are engaged in history ...

-But such a question-in the 61st almost under Washington they stood, right? -I got out of my back a modest man with glasses.

- So you ate sushi? Did you ride Mitsubishi? -Still, another “southerner” could not stand it, in the world worker Alexei. I nodded. -According to some, you sponsor our enemies, because since the 41st year we have not signed a peace treaty with Japan. Some say that the sanctions are, and you are with their flags. And they themselves go to Ford, and not on Lada Kalina. Yesterday, one American was slowing down on a bike - so delighted that we study history, no matter what. They also reconstruct the Second World War - they saw a Negro run in a pea jacket in Stalingrad, on a TV set.

- South? Ah, you mean Raci-i-Istes? - the woman pulled nearby.

- The northerners are even greater racists! - the redhead was worried. - We read propaganda and offend us! There were white slaves in the north.

Then he began to explain to another man that the civil war is the largest in the territory, and therefore interesting.

“I have a civilian - optional,” I told me a little later for the neighboring counter with the conservatory “Severyanin” and an ambulance doctor Cyril. - The main thing is the First World War and Napoleonik. They have not yet been pestering me with politics, on the contrary-for people there is some kind of romance of romance, “lost by the wind” recall. Plus there is less bore than in the first and second world: “But I saw on TV, but there’s there at Mikhalkov ...” Ugh. And for me personally, access to the field is a psychological experiment. To see yourself from the side, to understand how little you need for happiness. When you have nothing from the modern one when you cook coffee at the stake ... Today, Comrade Comrade Nutria prepared us, ”he nodded to the neighboring field kitchen. - Just finished.

- Oh, the boys invited us to the nutria! - I remembered half an hour later one of the crinoline girls in the “city” of Wilson, which through the pedestrian crossing on the boulevard. The other-a beauty with cornflowers-was already dancing with passers-by-borodachom and taught him to throw an imaginary lasso into a crowd of Moscow women.

“They already ate your nutria,” I handed over to the boys. Lasso flew to me.

Then I still stood in line for a skirt and a hat for a photo shoot, listened to the history of canned food and “serious women of easy behavior”, went to school, the bank and to the Indians.

- The boys are fighting, the girls enjoy life! - the beauty reminded me of goodbye, playing with a rope with a loop.

At canned food, Cyril explained to his grandmother that reconstructors are people who are fond of history, and the organizers invited them to the festival, and the Moscow government hired them. The grandmother was sure that the soldier was driven here by ordering - "like in the CPSU." And in general it was out of spirit, because she came to look at the "real Americans."

“Here, many ask the question - why do you popularize the Americans, but this is not the propaganda of America, this is the propaganda of history,” the organizer of the site Denis Minakov told me. He is Dr. Dan. He is also the head of the association of reconstruction clubs of the Civil War in the United States. He is a pilot in the First World War and a doctor in the 41st. - We like this period, few people do it in Russia, from the strength of 100 “soldiers” and 50 “civilians” will be gained. Reconstructors and fascist form are worn, because - with whom then to fight the Russians? With ghostly troops? You can somehow replay history, but the fact is that history was.

The story will be in Moscow until August 22.