A gray, gloomy morning. I look at the sky with anxiety: it seems that today I have to walk in the rain. The way to Rovno, the village where I need to go, is not very long, but the owner of the house, Ivan Dmitrievich, promises to take me along an even shorter road. Now, in daylight, I can get a better look at it. He is surprisingly similar to the writer Konstantin Simonov - both in figure and face. Except that it doesn't squirm. I told him about it, he laughed: "And you know, my name is Simonov. True, I am not related to him at all."

In the morning I was able to better see the places where yesterday I heroically made my way to the Kireevsky estate. Houses in Dolbino stand on the high bank of the Vyrka River. You can see from here far away. As Ivan Dmitrievich said, it was here that the front line passed. At Vyrka our offensive stopped. For six months, Soviet and fascist troops stood against each other. Many times the Red Army tried to knock the Germans out of Retyun, but nothing worked. How many of our guys died! And Ivan Dmitrievich lost his father. His father was not a military man. He went down to the river for water, and then he was covered with mortar fire. And all this in front of his wife and children. The worst thing was that for two months they could not remove my father's body: the Nazis shot at every attempt to do this. Mom turned gray before her eyes.

Imperceptibly, during the conversation, they approached Rivne. Say goodbye. And the rain is already pouring with might and main. The village is large, but the rain is not the best time for excursions. Cursing, knee-deep in mud, I wait for me to go out on the big one. After all, most of our villages, where the central estates of collective farms and state farms are located, leave a gloomy impression. Especially in bad weather. Not yet a city, no longer a village. A chaotic accumulation of houses, dirt, slop on the roadway of the street... I put an ellipsis, and at the same time I apologize to such villages: for sure, they look better in sunny weather. And my mood is not the most elated now, and a lot depends on how you look at the object. Finally, the big one. At the bus stop there are several figures standing lonely in the rain. I already know that the bus service with Belev has been interrupted: a special commission recognized the condition of the road as dangerous for the lives of passengers. Here they are standing and catching hitchhiking: they have to go. On both sides of the road there are apple orchards. Belev is the apple capital of the Tula Territory. Local apples can feed half of Russia. But here's the trouble: there is no one to clean them. I remembered the words of my today's guide, said with bitterness: "My heart bleeds what is happening. There is no one to milk the cows, they come all the way from Ukraine, and they work for a ton of apples. But look at what kind of government they have built and how many people are wiping their asses there. Yes, in the old days, in the collective farms, the chairman and the accountant, that's all the bosses for you. Oh!" The situation, unfortunately, is typical and it would be possible not to talk about it, so much has been said about it, if not for one curious fact for me: here, in Rovno, before the revolution, there was the estate of the rich landowner Prokhorov. And they still remember him and say with respect that nothing was lost in his household. He built a factory for the production of marshmallows, sold apples. Now our children do not know what pastila is (I once heard an explanation from a big boss on the radio that for the production of marshmallow you need special components that are obtained from apples, and we buy them in Finland. And apples rot near Belev every year. I look at the apple orchards - it seemed to me that the trees were happily pulling their branches to meet the raindrops... In two hours, through the veil of rain, I could make out the outskirts of Belev, but I had to turn in the other direction.

I was going to Mishenskoye, the homeland of Zhukovsky. I walked for a long time, taking a detour - they did not advise me to go through the villages: it was muddy, I could not pass. Here, at last, is the estate. A large meadow lined with slabs, a wooden platform, apparently for performers at traditional holidays, is a monument, in my opinion, poorly conceived and executed. Next to it is the building of the club, or rather, the "Library and Club System", as it was written on the sign. I could not go deep into the nearby trees - it was raining and it would not be a pleasant pleasure. I confess that I was standing in the center of the clearing and did not feel at all that there used to be a picturesque noble estate on this place. The painful impression was complemented by the construction: trucks were "roaring", someone was cursing in the builders' trailer, and the already built houses were twins - a number of gray, monotonous buildings. And all this against the background of rain, gray and dreary in autumn. Sadly. And wet.

An hour later I approached Belev. The sky brightened, and although the sun did not shine through, it became more cheerful. Through the whole of Belev, from south to north, runs Karl Marx Street, before the revolution it was called Kozelskaya. Belev is an ancient city standing on the high bank of the Oka. So, getting to the main city street, you seem to find yourself in Belev at the beginning of the century. Of course, a lot has changed, new buildings have appeared, but most of the old houses are still standing. The woman is taking water from the pump, not without irony looking at me, plodding with a backpack, wet and dirty from bottom to top.

"Tell me, how far is it to the hotel?" - I ask.

"How to go, you won't be able to do it in an hour. Go straight ahead, at the very end of the street you will see a hotel. Such a large building. Let's assume that I got to the hotel in less than an hour, even having time to go to the local history museum. And in the evening, leaving his backpack in the room, he hurried to the place he had never been to, but which he had loved for a long time. In my youth, I once saw an engraving by an unknown artist "View of Belev from the right bank of the Oka". Immersed in greenery, the town was molded on a steep slope, and numerous domes of churches majestically towered above all this. After all, Belev used to be famous not only for marshmallows, the magnificent embroidery of its craftswomen (I assure you, in no way inferior to the Vologda one), but also for its monasteries. There were two monasteries here at once - male and female.

I found them, or rather, what was left of them, quickly. It was enough to turn left from the main street and walk for five minutes. He tried to ask passers-by about the fate of the monasteries, but found out nothing. Only one remembered that his father had told him how the monks ran to the nuns. A favorite plot of everyday atheism.

"Do you know anything else?" The passer-by just shrugged his shoulders. I reached the ruins of the monastery wall. Two goats below, having stopped pinching burdock, stared at me in surprise. Even lower, the Russian beauty Oka calmly carried its waters. And, probably, as in the days of an unknown artist who depicted Belev almost two hundred years ago, blond boys splashed in its waters, fishermen patiently waited for luck. I learned a lot. And this wall, and several churches, really. they are already without domes, and even a two-storey house, towering among many small houses - you look at them and you will not understand whether you are in Russia or in Georgia - so cleverly they clung to the slope of the ravine leading to the Oka. And yet it stretched all around, Russia, my dear Motherland. The clouds dispersed. In the blue, freshly washed opening between the cumulus clouds, the sun appeared.

June 22. Guardians of Eternity.

I left Belev to the loudspeaker thunder of military bands. Of course, the music was not playing for me. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the most terrible and greatest war in the history of our people. If such an anniversary had happened a few years ago, everything would have been much more solemn. But times are changing. Anniversaries have become more modest. And probably. This could be welcomed if you knew for sure: what is the reason for this? It is one thing to overcome our accursed craving for ostentation, pomposity, and empty talk. The other is the indifference that is emerging among many to the past of their land, their people. When a person is constantly told that he is a fool, there is no doubt that he will definitely become a fool. For several years now, there has been such a mood in society that everyone around is engaged in self-flagellation with some kind of masochistic voluptuousness. Starting small, we reached the logical end. "Country of fools" - some young man profoundly assures his listeners and everyone happily nods their heads. "Everyone must repent," the scholar is categorical, repeating the words he has heard. But neither one nor the other considers themselves fools, as well as obliged to go to repentance. On the other hand, when a famous dissident writes in a book that stains the great Russian poet: "Russia is a bitch," everyone applauds, not understanding that there are shrines, the attempt on which cannot be justified either by talent or by the insults inflicted on you in your homeland. So who, tell me, should repent? Along the main Belevskaya street, veterans are wandering, leaning on sticks. The rally is over, and they, having bought bread, hurry to the bus station. Although old age has come, there is no time to idle - you have to mow hay. How few of you are left, my dear! I stopped and looked after one elderly couple - he and she - for a long time and tried to imagine their life. They were born in the same village, got married before the war, managed to give birth to one or two children. She was lucky: he returned from the war alive. Then work on the collective farm, in his garden, hard work, without days off and vacation pay. Children were born, grew up and left for the cities. And now old age has come. Thanks to the children, they do not forget. They bring their grandchildren for the summer... What should they repent of?! For the fact that the dirt under his fingernails can never be washed off, or for the fact that they once believed the beautiful words about a beautiful life, which they never saw, for the fact that he went through half of Europe, losing his comrades in the Magyar steppes, Polish forests, German cities - do they have to repent for this? Now they say that we, Russians, are not cultured (those who write, again, do not consider themselves such), but, excuse me, who has been fooling schoolchildren and students for so many years, glorifying the "victoriously completed cultural revolution"? Thank God that these old people subscribe only to "Rural Life" and the local newspaper, otherwise they would suddenly read in a popular magazine how lazy the Russian people are... The old people dissolve in the crowd of the station, but I have to go further. I cross the bridge over the Oka. Now my path lies to the south, to the upper reaches of the Oka, there. Where Zusha and Oka merge. Villages are frequent here, they are all connected by a good paved road. I was just walking and wondering why all of them somehow moved away from the Oka, only one or two villages approached it at a distance of five to ten minutes' walk. But it was only to my advantage. Several times during the day he turned off the road, walked first through vegetable gardens, then through collective farm fields, and finally along a meadow path, and approached the Oka. Deep and fast, the river gave me its coolness. And everywhere you looked, there was not a living soul. Only mine rejoiced and sang when this mortal body swam up to (I almost wrote - a meadow, but it's still a river) water lilies, touching their elastic and long stems under water. From the oncoming streams, the water lilies swayed like yellow boats, scooping up a little water. The moisture under the rays of the sun, sparkling and golden, dazzled the eyes. In the old days, the water lily was called the overcoming grass. They dried it, put it in a bag and took it with them on a long journey, believing that the flower would help to overcome both illness and the intrigues of enemies. And suddenly, as in a good old fairy tale, a little fairy lives here, in a yellow dress with a green collar, and, invisible to me, she invites her friends to a magical round dance? In the willow thickets on the shore, some bird is singing, giving the world around an ordinary miracle - its singing. But it also subsides. And silence spreads over the world - the river, the bushes, the fields, the village visible in the distance - silence. Even the local frogs, healthy, fattened by millions of mosquitoes, do not have the courage to break this silence.

I don't want to go back to the road anymore and walk along the shore for the rest of the day. After yesterday's rainy day, the sun seems especially gentle and friendly. Everything around me is smiling at me. Probably because of this, having walked more than twenty kilometers, I do not feel tired. It will clearly not rain at night, and maybe for this reason, or for some other reason, I do not want to go to the village today and ask for a place to spend the night. And when I, following the riverbed, turned sharply to the left, it became clear where I would spend the night.

I can't believe my eyes. I have been dreaming of seeing them for a long time, I have dreamed since my university days, when I studied Old Russian history. The dream intensified when he settled in the village where a thousand years ago there was Dedoslavl, the main city of the glorious and mysterious Vyatichi tribe. Mounds of the Vyatichi! They are in front of me. They are already overgrown with forest, the ground has already settled, but they cannot be overlooked. I threw off my backpack and, unable to remember myself from unexpected joy, ran up the hill. Perhaps, "ran" is a strong word, rather, he increased his pace. And while I am climbing the slope, I will tell you everything I know about the Vyatichi. It is not known when they appeared in the places that are now called the Tula, Kaluga, Ryazan, Moscow and Oryol regions. It was a turbulent first millennium AD, from the Iberian Peninsula to China there was a noise from carts, people's voices, the rattling of weapons, the neighing of horses - peoples, looking for a better life, set off. Stronger and braver tribes were lucky. Some moved to the west, following the sun, some to the south, to warm lands. According to the chronicles, the Vyatichi went to the east; From there, the chronicler reported, where the Lyakhs, that is, the Poles, now live. According to the research of scientists, it was there, in the interfluve of the Oder and the Vistula, that the homeland of the Slavs was located, from where they scattered in all directions. The newcomers liked the new places near the Oka. The Balts who lived here before them were neither exterminated nor oppressed - they imperceptibly assimilated with the newcomers over time. The forests were rich in game, the rivers with fish. They lived along the steep banks of the rivers. They especially chose the Oka, Upa, Shivoron. They buried their dead in a peculiar way: the body was burned, the ashes were put in wooden urns, and earth was poured over the urn. The more fame the deceased Vyatich enjoyed, the higher the mound grew. And centuries later, the local population, having already forgotten about their ancestors - the depths of centuries are dark - composed their own versions of the origin of the mounds. More often they remembered the Tatars, who came here with fire and sword five or six hundred years after the appearance of the first Slavs here. They still remember it. They deliberately tried not to tear it apart, although sometimes there were rumors about treasures - after all, they were graves. They were afraid of God. And in our time, many of the burial mounds were ploughed. One tractor driver told me: "We thought to see something extraordinary. And there is only ashes."

Ash... I'm sitting by the mounds. Below the waters of the Oka roll. Birches, like epic warriors, surrounded the hill, paying homage to the departing comrade. How glorious it seems here! Thoughts run smoothly, like these waters, gliding through centuries and countries. What were they like, my distant ancestors? Probably, this is how they looked at the setting sun on summer evenings, rejoiced at a good day, were upset by bad weather, grieved and celebrated, worked and fought, honored their gods... However, my acquaintance, Hieromonk Father Tryphon, who came to the same Dedoslavl (now the village of Dedilovo) to restore the church, is convinced that the Vyatichi people accepted Christ into their hearts long before the day when Russia was baptized. Who knows, maybe he's right. For the Apostle Paul said to the Greeks: "Athenians! In all things I see that you are somehow especially pious; for as I passed through and examined your holy things, I also found an altar. On which it is written: "To the unknown God." This, Whom you worship without knowing, I preach to you." (Acts 17:22-23).