A village with signs of life: how the masters of the taiga live. Taiga residents who asked Santa Claus for light received unexpected gifts Taiga residents

Let's go on a little trip. We leave the car in Ust-Unya, and we go up the Pechora by boat. Only some 80 kilometers of the waterway, and we are on the spot.
On Hollow
A wooden boat floats forward. Things remain farther and farther away, alarms, calls, the mobile phone falls silent for a long time. So Ust-Unya gently rolls over the horizon. After nine kilometers, dilapidated buildings, the phantom of the former village, are shown on the left bank. Here, in Garevka, people used to live, hunt and fish, grow rye and barley, keep livestock, get married, give birth to children, die. The human age is short. But the life of the settlement is a little longer. Having arisen in the middle of the XIX century, in the seventies of the last century, the village was excluded from the accounting data.
Another two dozen kilometers, and the first stop. A house on the high bank of the Pechora, to which the taiga is very close. Ladder path leading down to the river. Boat on the pier. This is not a hermit's abode in a bear's corner. This is the entry cordon of Poloy, a kind of checkpoint of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve. You can't go any further without a permit.
Aleksey Nikolaevich Voronin works here as an inspector. Works in relation to the reserved cordon - it means he lives all year round, supervises natural phenomena, registration of animals in the entrusted territory and protects it from uninvited guests.
He is a hereditary forester. In general, most cordon workers are the children of cordon workers, sorry for the tautology. Rarely someone brings here by accident. Not everyone is able to stay away from people and the benefits of civilization for years (the benefits, however, are very conditional - to each his own). Alexei's father was a forester (the same inspector), and his mother was a senior laboratory assistant at the researcher Lanina, after whom a street on the right bank of Yaksha was named. Alexei grew up on his father's stories and books, of which there were many in the house, and from childhood he saw himself only on the cordon. But he learned to be a tractor driver, and went to work as an assistant captain. In the end, seven years ago, I ended up where I wanted to be. And although in winter he sometimes remains completely alone at the cordon, he says that this does not bother him much. The inspector has enough cases at any time of the year. You don't get bored. After all, apart from official duties, you need to think about your daily bread - you don’t run to the store for groceries because of its absence. He is an economic man, he can do everything - make and build, wash and clean, cook food, cook jam. The house is in perfect order, every thing in its place. I'm not used to it otherwise. Tourists and scientists are happy to visit him for a light. And he himself is always glad to see guests. Probably, they say about such people: he will give away his last shirt.
- And if you were offered another job, highly paid, would you leave the cordon?
- Not. I like it here. Let the money pay a little, in them, perhaps, happiness?
- And in what?
- Yes, in this one, - he looks around the forest and the river.

Sobinskaya
Against the stream Sobinsky Rodnik took refuge behind the island cordon Sobinsky. At the edge of the channel, two pine trees, as if descended to admire their reflection in the mirror of the river. Grass to the waist. Several buildings are scattered on the hill. In the house, still quite strong, in a rustic way, simple and durable wooden utensils - benches, tables, shelves. The door handle is also made of wood. There are some crockery on the shelves. Shoes near the door. As if the owner is about to return.
For a quarter of a century, until this summer, Nikolai Alexandrovich Bashkinov worked at this cordon. Partners often changed, and he took a liking to this place. The first question that tourists ask the inspector of the cordon: is it boring? We were not original either. so what?
- I get bored with boring people, but not alone. Probably, I am a lone wolf, - Nikolai said by phone (now he lives in the village of Komsomolsk-on-Pechora). - Previously, we had no power plants - no light, no TV. They lived with kerosene lamps, listened to the Mayak radio. And even at the beginning of winter, when the longest nights, I liked forest life. Forests, hills, a river - all this is dear to me.
Remembering Sobinskaya, I have no doubts about his words. An extraordinarily beautiful place. There are probably many legends associated with it.

Shaitanovka.
enchanted place
The next cordon bears the mystical name of Shaitanovka. On the shore meets Valentina Nikolaevna Vysotina. Her husband Boris Afanasyevich Varankin met us earlier, back in Ust-Unya. They brought us here with Alexei Voronin. We ask about life, we praise ripening vegetables.
- Yes, we have no order now, - Valentina complains. - Almost until the end of June - frosts. It doesn’t hit at neighboring cordons, and we only manage to cover the plantings, even potatoes. They tried to heat it with a fire, but the smoke goes like a candle, it does not spread.
Here is mysticism for you - not otherwise, the shaitan is mischievous, pouring frosty breath from the mountains: come on, argue with me! A huge black cat named Cosmos is not afraid of supernatural forces, he will scare anyone he wants.
- I don’t go hunting, I still can’t see well. I have a cat. Already took a couple of grouse from him. Somehow he caught a hare, or even a mink in front of him. I don't like him, brat. And as for the harvests, it happens in different ways, about two years ago I planted eight buckets of potatoes, dug up nine and I think: who planted the ninth for me? Boris laughs.
In total, he worked at the cordons for 35 years. A year - on Shezhim, eight - on Sobinskaya, the rest - here, on Shaitanovka. He was a senior state inspector, this spring he resigned.
Valentina is a native of Yaksha. Both parents and grandparents come from these places. And she is also a third-generation meteorologist, grandfather Vladimir Alexandrovich Vysotin worked at the weather station for more than a dozen years, then his daughter, Valentina's aunt, then she herself. Perhaps the love of nature is in her blood.
- Boris brought me to Shaitanovka 15 years ago, in June 1997. I immediately felt at home, as if I had lived here all my life. She just said, where have I been? Our work is like a disease. Elsewhere, it's not the same. And here, if it’s bad, you lie down in the grass, some will cure it.
- And in winter there is no grass ...
- Yes, here only in November-December it is dreary - dark. In the morning I’ll heat the stove, cook dinner, then put on my clothes, get on my skis and make a circle around the “turban” instead of warming up. And so the day ends. It gets dark - we turn on the station. While it's working, we'll charge the batteries. That's how we live. But now I will spend the winter in Troitsk. Boris will stay here, he cannot live without the forest.
- A turban - what is it?
That's what we call the mountain. It is shaped like a turban.
Valentina - laboratory assistant phenological observations. On a 20x20 site, she needs to collect all the berries to one (the method of continuous collection), count, calculate the economic and biological yield. There are also phenological sites - 0.5x4 meters, on which early spring all buds and flowers are counted up to the stage of mature berries, it is determined how many generative organs and at what stage die, for what reason. Painstaking work.
- And what is the current harvest?
- Cloudberries bloomed for the "four", but there were no berries at all. Blueberries a little, on the "one". Blueberries in some places on the "C grade", in some places on the "two". Cranberries bloomed well, but grew to a "troika". Cowberry the same. And on Hollow and blueberries, and lingonberries for the "five".
- Bears are not naughty?
- We are used to them. And they come to us. One here everything goes, Masha we call her. Her mother used to walk beside us. Also Masha, - the hostess smiles. - Once we went with my nephew, he was seven years old, to one of the sites. I pick berries and feel: someone is watching. I raise my head - a bear is standing near my boy, I didn’t notice right away that the cubs were nearby. She crossed herself and screamed. She moved a little to the side and sat down, the cubs - to her. I say: "Dima, follow me!" And we left. Then I began to think, why did the bear come so close? My boy was in a suede jacket, she, perhaps, took him for someone else's teddy bear, and when she realized that the mistake had come out, she froze over him, confused.
- Somehow I went mushroom picking, - says Boris. - I didn’t find mushrooms, I’m going back - the bear is in front of me. He doesn't growl, he looks. I knock on the bucket, it doesn't go away. What to do? I say: "What are you, Masha?" I hear fuss behind, I turn around, and there are two bear cubs playing with my puppy. I stepped aside, I looked, my puppy was flying ahead of me, it was clear that the bear had hit him.
- We only see her with cubs. He leads them, teaches them how to get food, so we cross paths. And when one is not shown, cubs are not born every year. Once this Masha scared the scientists. They went for the "turban", soon they come back, complain, the bear, they say, growls, does not allow passage. I go to see off, I swear: Masha, such and such, stop scaring people!
- And they come right to my garden, check what has grown, - Alexey laughs. - I have a dispute with them exclusively for lingonberries - who will be the first to collect.
Not one clubfoot visits. The mink feels like a mistress - the reserve is the same! Once the men caught a few fish in their ear and left them in a bucket on the table. Five minutes later they came to pick it up - from under the lid, the black muzzle shows its teeth, but there are no fish. Took it all out and came back. Hope they add it? They kicked out the thief vzashey, but, of course, she did not say where she hid the fish. They found it themselves, in the woodpile.
Last summer, the swallows made a nest in the attic, they had four chicks. And this year they lived, raised three. Valentina photographed yellowmouths. I also managed to shoot a hazel grouse looking out the window. Masha flatly refused to pose. I tried to click it more than once, but to no avail - it is barely distinguishable in the picture.
While talking, time flies by. It's getting dark, we've got to go. We say goodbye to the hospitable hostess and drive on to the next cordon.
Elena SAVINA.

In Russia, the number of rural settlements exceeds urban ones by seventy-two times. And, despite this, every year thousands of villages and villages disappear from the map of the country. Against the backdrop of general extinction and desolation, the village of Vyezzhiy Log, located in the Mansky district Krasnoyarsk Territory like a white crow: new houses are being built here, young people are returning here, and adults still honor traditions. Correspondent of Prospekt Mir Diana Serebrennikova decided to find out how they live in a God-forsaken village and spend last days hot summer.

In the depths of the taiga

The road to Vyezzhy Log winds through the taiga. The sun slowly descends behind the tops of firs and cedars, plunging the road through the forest into twilight. We are going to Vyezzhiy Log with Igor, one of the natives of this small taiga village, to catch the last days of summer and see how the village is preparing for winter. Igor's relatives invited him to help with the mowing.

- It's good if sunny weather if it lasts for a week, then the grass in the field will quickly dry up, and we will have time to prepare hay for the winter. All you need is nothing - five large germs,- says the guy.

We left the city late, and the night finds us on the way. To Vyezzhy Log 180 kilometers along the highway through the forest. It is the middle of August, and the weather at this time is very capricious, but after a week of rainy and cloudy days, summer suddenly came to Vyezzhiy Log, and the thermometer rose to thirty degrees.

We enter the village after three hours of travel already in the dead of night, but it is light in it: the lanterns illuminate the main street, which ends at the end of the road with a bridge over the Mana River. After wriggling through the streets, we climb the hill, where Igor's relatives live. We are met by his aunt Anya. Lighting her way with a flashlight, she throws open the gate, letting us into the yard.

- I went for the cows, again by the autumn they began to spit. And you go to the house, dinner is on the table and in the bathhouse, it is already hot,- Aunt Anya admonishes and hides in the dark.

From the hill on which the house of the family that sheltered me is located, there is a view of the village at night: it stretches along the forest along the river bank. Some houses lined up at the foot of the forested hill, others "climbed" its slopes.

The houses here are well-groomed, with plastic windows, rowan bushes in the yard and large garden plots. There are several grocery stores, a pharmacy, a post office, a club, secondary school and a medical station.

Master of the taiga

At first glance, Vyezzhiy Log is an ordinary village. But this is not so: there is one “point” in history that completely changed the self-awareness of local residents. In 1968, the shooting of the film "Master of the Taiga" took place here, in which the actor and poet Vladimir Vysotsky played a role. The event that 47 years ago stirred up the measured life of fishermen, loggers and "custodians of the unique moonshine recipe" is still fresh in people's memory.

The owner of the taiga is a Soviet detective whose action takes place in a quiet taiga village. In the center of the plot is a night theft of a local store, the investigation of which is taken over by a young village policeman. The picture showed the local beauties and life of the workers' settlement, its inhabitants engaged in logging and rafting of timber along the stormy taiga river.

Walking around the village, you can see that the office building still stands in its place, near which mass filming of the scene of departure to the market took place. But the store is no longer there, they were dismantled into boards and built a "flock". And the streets don't look the same anymore. But the residents of the village, who are older, still remember how the actors stayed with them, how they participated in the filming most of the local population, and how they paid one and a half rubles a day for mass scenes for children and three for adults.

In memory of this event, on the bank of the Mana, where Vysotsky lived during filming, a stone with a memorial plaque was erected, an inscription was made on the mountain in honor of the creation of the film, and excursions and the festival of the author's song "Vysotsky and Siberia" are held annually.

- Because of this, the village is something we hear about. Sometimes you arrive in a new place, they begin to ask who you are and where you are from, but as soon as you name the village and mention the film, they immediately begin to nod in response, they say they know, - says young Inna Tsykunova, a sports instructor. She has been living in the village since birth, however, she left to study as a designer in Krasnoyarsk for three years, but somehow it didn’t work out, she returned home to rest, but she stayed that way. First, they offered me a job in the club, acting as director, then I moved to the youth center. The girl complains that earlier there was more attention to the village. But now everything has changed.

- We used to host the festival "Vysotsky and Siberia" here, and then it was moved to Narva, they say there are more places there. And people came to us because of the festival, at least some development. We even wrote posters against the postponement of the holiday, protested, but what's the point. In general, we already have a lot of tourists coming for rafting. Since the end of May, boats appear on the shore, rafts are built. From here people are melted into the upper rapids. In the lower ones it is also beautiful, but there are not such stones, as in the top.

New life

In the summer the village is quiet. Only sometimes huge orange dump trucks rush along the main street, carrying gravel to the construction site. railway. Now almost half of the male population of Vyezzhy Log is working at this construction site. The rest - either on the mowing or in the taiga, pick berries. In general, the village comes to life only on holidays: so on the night of Ivan Kupala, the boys bring the wheels up the mountain, set them on fire and lower them down. Pieces of ten at a time, flaming tires roll from a height, scattering sparks, to the squeal of women and children. It’s also fun here on Maslenitsa: a Shrovetide town appears, guys climb a pole, girls laugh, and local grandmothers organize markets, sell pancakes with moonshine. Young people dress up, ride a sleigh, pull a rope, and eventually set fire to a scarecrow of winter. But while there are no holidays, it’s boring in the village - do work, read books, watch TV. Well, or sit on the Internet, since it is here now.

With the onset of twilight, people appear here and there on the deserted streets. Hunched over, a gray-haired man meets his wife from work. He carries her heavy bag and thinks about how to insulate the house during the ambulance. cold winter so that his wife does not freeze while he goes on a long hunt in the taiga. Someone is pulling a whole cart of hay with a tractor, someone is driving a herd of cows along the main paved street ...

As in many villages, people here like to celebrate a noisy wedding, which can last a week, or a protracted meeting New Year. Get drunk and fight over nothing. But if some kind of misfortune suddenly happens, then everyone unites: together they put out a fierce fire and defend the village from the fire or leave for mowing. This is the whole village life, which can only be understood by living here for several months.

After the publication of "MK" and other media, the Buryat village began to revive

After stories and publications in the republican and federal media about the government of Buryatia took action. In Taiga, which has been living without a centralized power supply for 20 years, fuel for the generator appeared and communication with the outside world was established. But the main thing is that the issue of creating a more reliable energy supply system has moved forward. On this way - a lot of paperwork and millions of budgetary funds.

Recall that 20 years ago in the village of Taiga a forest fire damaged the power line, and the attackers stole part of the wires, which doomed people (then still a large village) to new living conditions with candles and kerosene. Only in 2002, the administration of the Selenginsky district bought a diesel generator, but it often broke down, and the authorities did not dare to build a new power line - about 40 million rubles were required. A few years later, the government of Buryatia bought a new diesel generator for the residents of Taiga. But it also works from time to time - when it is not broken or when there is diesel fuel, the deliveries of which to this remote village happen extremely irregularly. "Speechless" has changed the entire world order - has led to the closure of the usual shops, telephones and transport links. People buy goods at the Russian Post office at unimaginable prices to call from a mobile, climb the highest mountain in search of a signal. And they can't get out of the village for months.

Life began to change after publications in the media. Yevgeny Dagbaev, the manager of the administration of the Selenginsky district, told MK that at the end of December a village meeting was held here, at which the head of the Iroyskoye rural settlement, Eduard Namsaraev, realized his guilt, its measure, degree and depth regarding the fact that he did not bring information about the broken diesel installation to the "top" in the spring and autumn of last year and left the residents of Taiga without electricity for nine months. Plus, he deprived people of the car "UAZ-29892" - the only means of transportation. The Tabletka allegedly overheated the motor due to frequent patrols during the fire hazard period.

At this meeting, a protocol of 19 points was adopted. 7 of them have already been completed, the rest are in the process. Of course, the electric current did not flow in all houses without exception. But, according to the official information, on the eve of the New Year, 2 tons of diesel fuel, which should be enough until February 1. So the people of Taiga celebrated the main holiday, as they asked - with flickering Christmas trees and with the TV turned on.

Now the diesel generator set is operating normally 8 hours a day, and henceforth they promise to supply diesel fuel regularly as needed. The administration of the Selenginsky district created a headquarters for the stable supply of Taiga with electricity, and its head, Vyacheslav Tsybikzhapov, took the issue under personal control. Eduard Namsaraev, in turn, promised to create a “manager” for the maintenance and service of the diesel generator set and provide all kinds of assistance in calculating tariffs (while the villagers themselves collect fuel for the unit and for the salary of a diesel engine mechanic).

Finally earned a satellite payphone, for a long time not served by anyone. Now it provides two-way communication: "from there" you can get through with a special card, "there" - by regular phone. The Ministry of Transport of Buryatia promised to study the proposal of one of the operators - to provide telephony and broadband Internet access to remote and small settlements. To do this, about 15 subscribers of the village must conclude a service agreement and pay within 10 thousand rubles for the installation of equipment. In the future, people were asked to pay 600 rubles a month for the provision of services. The point is small - to find those who want to.

In addition, the “Tabletka” was repaired and solemnly returned to the people, and a driver, a local resident Sergey Lazarev, was assigned to it on the basis of an agreement with all rights and obligations, he was also elected the headman of the village. And very soon a competition is expected to be held for the implementation of passenger transportation along the inter-settlement routes of the Selenginsky district. By the way, the road to the village of Taezhny, built at the timber industry enterprise and covered with rubble, is planned to be rid of holes - repairs are supposed to be carried out at the expense of the road fund, and funds for this year have already been allocated. However, they also want to restore the only school here - they will soon begin to draw up an estimate.

- The Ministry of Transport of Buryatia sent a letter to IDGC of Siberia to issue a decision on connecting to the industrial network - that is, on the construction of power lines, but the company has not yet announced it, - said the deputy head of the Selenginsky district for industry, infrastructure and housing and communal services Valentin Dakich. – Therefore, we are considering an alternative option – installation solar panels. In this case, it will take about 50 thousand rubles for one house - and then to ensure the operation of the kettle, TV and refrigerator. There is a commercial proposal, details on it are being worked out. All proposals will be discussed at a meeting in the Ministry of Transport.

If it is not possible to purchase and put into operation new equipment and keep the old equipment in good condition (although, according to forecasts, it will work for another seven years), people will have to be resettled. The head of Buryatia instructed us to analyze this possibility and discuss it with the population.

At the village meeting, the sore subject of resettlement was not raised. Judging by the words of officials, residents do not want to leave their habitable places, because there is clean air, fertile land, and, therefore, good earnings: over the summer it is easy to earn up to 100 thousand rubles just selling nuts. But judging by the December conversation of the MK correspondent with the inhabitants of Taiga, on the contrary, they are ready to leave - it would be where and for what. According to Dakic, one of the ideas is to provide land plots within the boundaries of a rural settlement for the construction of new houses there. But whether it will be implemented is still a rhetorical question.

Roxana Rodionova, MK in Buryatia

I visited Khanty-Mansiysk (northern Russia) and told how the indigenous people live there.

A simple wooden hut, consisting only of a room, simple utensils. This is exactly how, according to the owners, the indigenous people of these places now live in distant settlements ...

2. The road between the two settlements again twisted along the riverbeds, from time to time diving into the taiga forest and again emerging to the next bend of the river...

3. All these roads through the forest are cut by the Khanty themselves in winter, moving on "Burans" and "Yamahas" between the yurts and taking the skins and meat they get to Ugut.
In the spring they will not be ...

4. In a small settlement where only one family of four lives, we arrived just before sunset. It was still quite light in open spaces, but almost nothing was visible in the forest.

5. Just at the moment when we arrived, the owner of the yurts was scooping fish out of the dam in the river.
The Khanty know many tricky ways of catching fish. One of them is in the photo - a large hole is cut in the ice in shallow water and such a dam is being built there - something like a cage. Something edible is thrown to the bottom, and the fish rushes to an open space with good access to oxygen, where they also feed .. From here it remains only to scoop it out once a day with a net

6. The catch cannot be called poor...

7. The sun sets over the tributary of the Great Yugan, on the banks of which the settlement is located. The owner Sashka is carrying a large bag of fish scooped out of a dam pond.

8. Cats are right there

9. A shy girl meets us at the entrance - this is Sasha's daughter

10. Sasha's wife - Oksana at this time is preparing to get freshly baked bread from the oven.

11. Khanty people traditionally bake bread in these street ovens.

12. To taste, it is very similar to the bread we are used to. It has a thick, crispy crust, but a slightly damp interior.
Bread is not baked every day. This stock will last Sasha and Oksana for a week.

13. Bread and clay oven

14. Oksana is a pretty young girl. But quite heavy natural conditions in these places a person is aging outwardly very quickly.
Sasha and Oksana have two small children - a boy and a girl.
The girl, as expected, is shy and flirtatious, the boy is curious ....

15. In the upper room. A simple wooden frame, no interior decoration. Wooden floors, a stove, a simple table...

16. An indispensable attribute of the Khanty dwellings is a kerosene lamp.

17. Children, such children... Sweets and sweets can be eaten endlessly.

18. It is getting dark and Sasha, throwing back the canopy behind the house, starts the diesel generator.

19. Let there be light...

20. By the light of a light bulb, we manage to more closely examine the house in which this family lives.
In the light, everything looks even simpler. There are no extra things here. Everything is just what is needed.
Left - female half at home, on the right - male. Among the Khanty, it is customary for a man and a woman to sleep separately.

21. Male half. A simple sofa, it is not clear how it was brought to this place, a shelf with an LCD panel, sewing machine and a potbelly stove

22. A thing that has long gone out of our everyday life - a VCR

23. Dining table, on the left over which hangs simple utensils for needlework and more.

24. Scissors, frying pan, heating pad - all together

25. On the window mobile phones in the only position, which allows you to receive at least some signal.
For a long time it was a mystery to me how mobile communications can be provided in the taiga - after all, the subscriber base is extremely small.
It turned out that the oilmen were the cause of everything. By developing deposits, they also provide penetration mobile communications to taiga places

26. Dishes

27. Grocery cabinet

28. Here you have a bathroom, a pantry, and a dining room for cats

29. Here are shoes, and a washbasin, and towels ...

30. It is still interesting to observe how the life of people leading a traditional lifestyle penetrates things from civilization - satellite dishes, mobile phones, generators, toothpaste and shaving foam ...

31. It's getting dark... outside the window it will soon start to get dark, and we are going on a long way back...

32. Sasha and his daughter come out to see us off... There are 5 hours of jogging on sledges through the night taiga ahead.
That day we arrived in the village of Ugut after midnight ...

Hut on chicken legs or visiting Yugan Khanty

The most interesting part of my spring trip to Ugra is getting to know the life and life of the Khanty, the indigenous population of this region.
Not ostentatious plagues and national clothes, designed for tourists and guests, which we saw at the bottom of a hunter, fisherman and reindeer herder in the village of Russkinskaya, but real life real people.
This was not included in the program of our blog tour, but we still managed to persuade the organizers to arrange a trip to the Khanty yurts of the Great Yugan.
Leaving Surgut at 6 am, after four hours of shaking along the winter road, we arrived in Ugut, a rural settlement and local administrative center covering a fairly large area in the south of Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous region, which is home to the largest number of indigenous peoples of the region - the Khanty.
It was from here that we further way, already on snowmobiles, to the Khanty yurts ...

2. The rural settlement Ugut unites in its jurisdiction the largest number indigenous population throughout the Surgut region. In total, about 3 thousand people live on the territory of the settlement, of which 900 people are Khanty.
The fact is that a rural settlement does not mean a specific settlement, but a huge area on which there are small settlements of the Khanty, which are called yurts.
In this context, a "yurt" is not a dwelling, but a small settlement consisting of log cabins. So these settlements have been called since the 19th century.
Andrei Nikolaevich Ogorodny, the head of the Ugutsky village council, personally took us to the distant yurts on his snowmobile, to which sleds were attached. On the second snowmobile - his assistant.

3. On the way, we had to stop by several settlements, the most separated of which is 5 hours away by snowmobile.
All winter roads are laid on the ice of the frozen Bolshoi Yugan and its tributaries. This is quite convenient, because. no need to cut roads through the forest, and locals know the river very well.
In summer, the same paths are used for boating.
The most difficult thing is in spring and autumn, when the ice comes off and becomes. Then getting to the settlements is quite difficult. In fact, this is only possible by helicopter.

4. We alexcheban on riding sleds. You can only sit with your back to the movement, because. in 20-degree frost, out of habit, it is even impossible to breathe if you turn your face in the direction of travel at speed

5. Snowmobiles fly through the snow quite quickly, but the well-packed road is rather deceptive. It is enough to leave the track a little, and the snowmobile immediately burrows into deep snow.

6. The photo clearly shows that the snow in this place is waist-deep

7. We take out the snowmobile and drive on. Periodically, the road leaves the riverbed into the forest. This is either a loop of the river being cut off, or a transition to some of its tributaries is underway.

9. Swamp under the snow

10. On the edge of the swamp, a grove of slender birches

11. An amazing thing - signs in the taiga. In fact, we just cross the winter road - the winter road that oil workers use to get to their facilities. In the summer there is no road

12. The first yurts on our way....
I will repeat once again for those who have not read the caption to the second photo.
Yurts among the Khanty are not a specific dwelling, but a small settlement. Forest Khanty live in huts. Khanty-reindeer herders - in plagues.

13. Untrodden snow and huts. The place is empty..

14. But numerous footprints and paths rolled by snowmobiles indicate that people live here.
Most likely, the Khanty left either to hunt or to Ugut to hand over prey or buy supplies.

15. Template break - satellite dishes.
Yes, yes, the Khanty in our time are also quite advanced - they have televisions, they install satellite dishes and use satellite phones in the taiga.
Electricity is obtained from generators that everyone has.
Ask about the means for all these benefits?
In fact, the Khanty are not such poor people. They have several sources of income. Firstly, these are crafts - hunting, fishing, gathering. Someone sells skins and meat to state procurement offices, someone sells them at markets or fairs. Secondly, these are compensation payments from oilmen.
The fact is that each family is assigned ancestral lands. And if the oilmen want to place their rigs or other facilities on them, they conclude an agreement with the user of these ancestral lands, according to which they annually pay the agreed amount of money.
Here everything depends on the perseverance and business streak of the Khanty. Andrey Nikolaevich says that he knows some especially successful Khanty who receive in the form of compensations of a million rubles a year and more

16. Fish is stored simply - freshly caught is brought, dumped in the snow and covered with a piece of tarpaulin or canvas. And sprinkled with snow on top. The beast will not get it from there, and frost will ensure safety.

17. This is a bread oven. Khanty bread is baked on the street (more on this in the next post)

18. We go further. Another forced stop. The reason is a steep climb to the edge of the forest along the river bank. The snowmobile cannot pull the sled through the deep snow, so we carry them out on our hands.

19. In the boxes - gifts to the Khanty. There is no vodka in the box - there is cereal and bread. Alcohol and the peoples of the north are incompatible things. The thing is that these people do not have an enzyme in the body that breaks down alcohol, so even a small dose of it can make a person dead drunk within 10 minutes.

20. The next yurts on our way are Kogonchevy yurts. There are only a few houses here, and only a family of pensioners lives here.
Another satellite dish. In addition, metal-plastic windows are striking.

21. Owner - Kogonchev Petr Stepanovich.
The settlements here are named after their inhabitants. As a rule, this is one family.

22. If there is a hut on stilts in yurts, it means that there is a storehouse here. Here is stored the most valuable for the owners. Piles are needed so that animals and rodents cannot climb here. The ladder is always removed and is placed only if you need to climb into the storehouse.

24. The main means of transportation for a hunter in the taiga are skis.

25. Khanty hunt, fish and gather berries and mushrooms. Each owner always has a rich arsenal of nets and other fishing gear

26. Toilet.. Outdoors

27. At the entrance to the residential part of the house there are two large tubs with salted perches. It is more difficult for pensioners to survive in the taiga, because hunting is more difficult than when you are young.
That's why the fish always wins.

28. Wife Anna Vasilievna.
They have lived here since birth. They have two daughters, but they no longer lead a traditional way of life and have moved to the village.
Now everything less people remain in their ancestral territories, moving into civilization

29. She hunts on a par with her husband. The other day I got a hare, the skin of which we saw in the storehouse.
Pyotr Stepanovich was a noble hunter. AT best years I harvested 80 sables during the winter.
Now, he says, the forest is not the same. Little animal...

30. Civilization also penetrates into taiga settlements....

32. Pyotr Stepanovich and Anna Vasilyevna also have mobile phone, though he only catches in some places ... base stations very far

33. Anna Vasilievna knitted socks for her husband

34. What God sent..

35. Simple furnishings at home... By the way, in the next post, pay attention to how different the situation will be from this one in the house of the family that will be discussed

36. Water is obtained by melting snow near the stove.

37. Birch bark for kindling the stove

38. Pyotr Stepanovich and Anna Vasilievna turned out to be hospitable hosts ...

Born in taiga huts, from childhood they absorb with their mother's milk for centuries the inherent skills and abilities.
FROM early age the boy, together with his father, learns to hunt the beast and fish, and the girl learns to be the mistress of the house and the harsh life of the taiga.
They do not need a school and they do their best to hide from the educators by helicopter, who come to pick them up from the boarding school.
They have huge inquisitive eyes and, just like city children, they are madly in love with sweets...
Khanty children.

2. These brother and sister, who live in the remote taiga on the Great Yugan, see strangers for almost the first time in their lives.
The first hour in their eyes was alertness, mixed with sincere curiosity.
Having received a huge bag of sweets, the children switched all their attention to it....
Until they saw a big camera in my hands.
The boy, who, shy, did not say his name, still wanted to look into the huge glass 82-mm Canon eye ....

3. Families of the Forest Khanty, as a rule, have many children - from three or more children. The fact is that the family always needs extra working hands, so children from an early age become full-fledged assistants for their parents.
The second reason for families with many children is the rather difficult climatic and natural living conditions. Taiga is taiga, and serious illnesses, injuries, and even accidents while hunting or fishing are not uncommon here. You yourself understand that children are in this respect much more larger group risk than adults...

4. Children early receive small copies of various adult items: a knife, a bow and arrows. The toys are mainly miniature copies of the clothing set of adults: for girls - a needle case, a box with sewing accessories, a cradle, for boys - a boat, a bow with arrows, deer figurines. Children's games often become full-fledged labor lessons. Toys in the full sense of the word are more of a rarity than a common occurrence.

5. A girl at two or three years old already knows how to assemble a bracelet from beads, and a boy can throw a lasso on any object that reminds him of a deer. At the age of six, a child can get a reindeer team to independently manage, collect tens of kilograms of berries in a season. From the age of twelve, the girl knows how to independently manage the household, and the boy goes hunting alone.

6. It is in the importance and usefulness of children for the family that lies a rather significant problem of the Khanty - the education of children.
The Russian state requires and forces indigenous peoples to give their children compulsory primary education.
And since many settlements are located in hard-to-reach places, moreover, remote from administrative centers where there are schools, Khanty children receive this education in special boarding schools.
Naturally, they live there for many months.
This situation contradicts the centuries-old principle of building social connections among the Khanty, when children are full-fledged helpers.
It is for this reason that indigenous people often try to avoid sending their children to boarding schools.
Someone goes to the taiga, having heard the noise of a helicopter that flies for their child (and in Ugra there is a state program, according to which a fairly decent amount is allocated annually for the delivery of children to boarding schools and from them for holidays by air transport to distant yurts), who -something just with a scandal does not give the child away.

7. The Khanty believe that their child will not receive the necessary skills for life in the forest by getting an education in a boarding school.
On the one hand, it is. On the other hand, an uneducated person is easily deceived in the most different situations- starting from trade in what is mined in the forest, ending with the conclusion of compensation agreements with oilmen.
Another factor that significantly affects parents living in the taiga is that often children, having studied on the Internet, do not really want to return to the traditional way of life.
Having tasted the joys of the life we ​​are accustomed to, having learned certain blessings of civilization, they begin to see life in the forest from a completely different perspective...

8. It's hard to say who this one will be a little boy in 15-20 years...
He will return to Bolshoi Yugan with a gun and a snowmobile to continue doing what his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did, or he will remain in Surgut, or Pyt-Yakh to work in an unskilled job, or even enter a university ...

9. In the meantime .... while he runs after his father outside to help him with freshly caught fish, leaving his only toys on the bed ....

The last ones in Taiga. Khanty. Surgut district of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

What is life spent on? ordinary person living in the world? Everything is aimed at improving life, increasing the comfort of life. Whether it's developing a new food processor or a rocket engine, it's all about the same goal. However, the paradox is that the better and easier each of us lives, the worse and more difficult conditions in which to survive modern society. Especially when it comes to Christian society.

The Providence of God, His philanthropy and concern for each of us shows us a different path for the development of man and society as a whole. This is first of all spiritual path development of civilization, when everyone consciously and without coercion chooses life with Christ for the salvation of the soul. The world now rests not on space technologies and not on the level of various services, but on the daily fervent prayer of Christians to the Lord. And the farther from civilization, the purer and more sincere prayer.

Settlement Novovilvensky Gornozavodsky district Perm Territory located just 14 km from the state nature reserve Basegi. The reserve was organized in 1982 with the aim of preserving undisturbed areas of the indigenous mountain taiga of the Cis-Urals and the Urals, a large massif of indigenous Middle Ural spruce-fir forests located in the foothills of the Basegi ridge.

The very name of the reserve and the ridge in the Ural dialect means "beautiful, wonderful." And it's really hard to find something like this anywhere else. beautiful place. The mountain range is surrounded on all sides by dense forests, clean mountain streams and rivers flow from its slopes. All of them are fish spawning grounds, and their waters feed the tributaries of the rivers. A unique mountain-tundra belt runs along the top of the ridge. Just below the tundra - amazing subalpine meadows. And all together - places of concentration of the rarest plant communities and rare species flora and fauna.

AT Soviet years in the village of Novovilvensky, the timber industry was developed, a logging plant worked. However, after the collapse Soviet Union and in all subsequent years there was a gradual drop in the level of production, and soon the plant was completely closed. The people left without work began to leave the once large urban-type settlement, few wanted to work on the land and live by their own labor. According to the population census as of January 1, 2010, the number of inhabitants of the village already amounted to no more than a thousand people, as before, but only 366.

Now, five years later, only 50 people live in the village. From the infrastructure - cellular communication at the edge, summer road, electricity. There are no schools, hospitals, shops or other institutions, so far only a post office is operating.

It was such a place that became ideal for solitude and prayer for two families of Christians of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church (ROC) - Andrey Nesterovich and Alexander Oshchepkov.

Andrei is 31 years old, and he cannot be called either a downshifter, or a hermit, or a wanderer. He went to the wilderness of the taiga for the sake of saving his soul, for the sake of living by his labor away from the noise, dirt and bustle of the city.

The difficulties of everyday life and taiga life in a remote settlement do not frighten him at all. To my question: “How is life in the taiga?”, - he answers: “Complete calmness. The nightingales sing, flooding, the mountain river rustles. The stove is heating, fresh goat's milk and bread for dinner today. I'm happy here."

The house has only the most necessary things, and even then not all. One cauldron for all types of dishes. Small oven. Well water. But this is not the main thing.

The main thing in the house of any Christian is a red corner, a goddess. Andrey installed his icons on it, brought from Novosibirsk.

Together with Alexander, who settled with his family in this place earlier, they erected a worship Cross on the top of a high mountain (600 m above sea level). Together, as families, they pray, glorifying God in their labors, and help each other in a simple household. No entertainment, no benefits and conveniences, only work and prayer. Indeed, this is how the life of a Christian should be.

I ask: “Do you regret that you abandoned civilization with its amenities, worldly work?” And in advance, the answer sounds in my head that, of course, no, especially if we remember how many worldly jobs he had to change in order to preserve the Image of God. In a world where the scrunched baby face, dress code and corporate codes of ethics are important, life is not easy for a Christian. And indeed:

You have to work for God! And for the glory of God. Work the Lord with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling ( Note. - Ps.2:12).

The ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and at all times the Lord always strengthens, instructs, teaches and does not leave His faithful servants in need. Little is required of us - to follow His commandments, to have in our hearts the fear of God and unfeigned love, not being afraid of difficulties.

Think about it, how much does a person need to live godly? Do we really need the abundance of things, objects and “goods” that a person has now surrounded himself with? Or does all this distract from the main goal of a Christian - the salvation of the soul and eternal life?

The answer, I think, is obvious. And on the example of these two taiga families, I was once again convinced of this.