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).

I don't remember how long I sat in the silence of the mound. As the great Homer wrote in the Odyssey, when he wanted to say that night had fallen: "In the meantime the sun had set, and all the roads were darkened." By the way, the translation into Russian is by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. I didn't even notice how the sun disappeared below the horizon. Dim summer stars poured out into the sky. There was a breath of freshness from the river. I went to her. There, on a wide meadow, there were freshly set haystacks. I chose the smaller one, and soon settled down for the night. Sleep quickly blinded the eyelids. Before falling asleep, he looked at the mounds again. That they, the guardians of the centuries, are only one day! They dozed, remembering those brave and strong people whose ashes have been faithfully preserved for so many years.

June 23. Clearing.

I did not sleep for long. Three minutes. From somewhere out of the darkness, from above and from all sides at the same time, hordes of mosquitoes descended on me. An invisible battle began. Having successfully destroyed another mosquito formation, I, naïve, consoled myself with the hope that the battle was over. But it was not to be, fifteen seconds later, with a squeak and a buzz, new hundreds of bloodsuckers rushed to attack. Three hours later, I changed tactics: taking in air, I climbed inside the haystack. But this was already a gesture of desperation. It was all over. I have no strength left. "Eat, you bastards!" - I said, not without dignity, and from the stove, into which the core of the haystack had turned, I climbed onto the cool top. It was already dawn. As the immortal Homer would say again: "Eos arose from the darkness young with purple fingers." But if the goddess of the morning dawn got up clearly in a good mood, the same could not be said about me. Hands are blistered from mosquito bites, hair is in the grass. I make another attempt to fall asleep. Last. And it seems that I succeed. But if you are unlucky, then you are unlucky. A few minutes later, I was woken up by some strange barking. About twenty paces from my bed, I saw a large fox barking furiously at a village in the distance. I don't know what drove him: either resentment towards people, or a desire to tease the dogs, or maybe it was some kind of distraction, but the fox was doing something incredible. He rushed forward like a fighter in a bayonet charge, then rolled back like a doll, not ceasing to bark furiously. In one of these digressions, he found himself right under my haystack. The beast did not see me, the breeze was blowing in my direction, and I could safely see it. The fox was large, with a beautiful tail. Never in my life have I seen a fox so close, except for two funny fox cubs in the Tambov wilderness, which I met in one of my travels. Apparently. Their mother went hunting and did not return, and either hunger or curiosity drove them out of the hole. And they, seeing a person for the first time, stared at me with funny eyes... But soon the temperamental fox tired me. There was no need to think about sleep anymore. It's time to get ready for the road. During a second pause in almost incessant barking, I asked: "Is there anything to be upset about, guy?" He seemed to choke on his own voice, twitched strangely on all four limbs. Only then did he look up. For a fraction of a second, the beast's eyes stared into mine. I had time to think about what a pity it was that my human tribe and his, the beasts, were at war with each other. If only we understood each other's language, you see, we would have a heart-to-heart talk. The fox came to his senses in that moment, made a decision, and soon the red dot disappeared into the bushes at the opposite end of the field. Perhaps he is right. After all, it's my fox hat... I swam before the road. But this did not give much vigor. The first kilometers I walked, with difficulty moving my legs. I was desperately sleepy. Villages, similar like sisters, replaced each other. Only the names are different: Peskovatoye, Chernogryazka, Belyaevo, Zheleznitsa...

But the higher the sun rose, the easier and more fun it was to walk. And when in Belyaevo, in one picturesque house, he bought milk, eggs, cottage cheese and there, to the talk of the hostess and to the lazy squint of the cat, he ate all this - life in general seemed a wonderful thing. Before that, for two days, my main food was oatmeal, soaked in water and seasoned with honey. A necessary thing in traveling, many times it saved me in the most difficult moments - especially if you take into account the frightening emptiness of store shelves - but somewhat monotonous. Therefore, fresh milk with a fresh egg, and the egg is homemade, large, the yolk with its bright yellowness is no match for what lives in an egg bought in the store, fills me with something divine. And there is nothing to say about cottage cheese. It is not surprising that after such a breakfast I walked another dozen kilometers, not feeling tired at all.

The usual silence of the road was broken when I entered Železnitsa. From the outermost house, a song was heard throughout the village. The singer mourned his beloved: "Putana, putana, prostitute, moth, well, who is to blame?" Either they liked the song, or they knew that it was useless to protest, but they sat silently, looking at the ground without any expression. What a strange memory a person has! I did not comprehend what I saw in my head for a second, when a picture from my childhood surfaced from the depths of my consciousness, a picture that I had not remembered before. A huge village in the Tambov steppe. I came here to visit my relatives for the summer. August evening. The heat subsides, the breeze brings the smell of wormwood, the grasshoppers slowly fall silent. Just now, to the ringing of bells and the slap of a whip on the ground, a herd of cows was chased away. The herd is huge - a cow is kept in every house. Cows know their homes and each enter their own gates. The whole family meets the wet nurse. And now a sound is heard from the barn, which cannot be confused with anything: a stream of milk beats against the bottom of the bucket. And when dinner is over, one of the elders will take out an old gramophone. There are not many records in the house, we all heard them - we heard them again. But all the same, as soon as the needle hisses, a slight crackling sound is heard, and you wait with bated breath for the first sounds. And when over the quiet, hidden in the darkness of the village, it is heard: "In the field on the outskirts, where you live..." or "Again everything froze until dawn..." - some sweet, inexplicable delight, quiet and tender, overwhelms the soul. Many years have passed since then, many things have been erased from memory, but every time I hear any post-war song, like a reflection from a distant fire, that inexplicable delight returns to my heart, sweet, quiet and tender... Other times, other songs. In Budogovishchi, the asphalt was running out. Now they had to go from village to village in field big cars. Almost immediately behind the houses, on a hill, I saw several birches and pines. The trees were tall, the breeze, rustling with might and main in the green foliage and swaying the pine paws, seemed to beckon to rest. During the hike, I gradually developed a daily regimen. I did the main way before lunch. When the sun began to burn mercilessly, he was looking for a place to rest. It was not so easy. It should be picturesque, conducive to relaxation, so that you can hide from the sun and from prying eyes. When I found such a place, I spread out my sleeping bag - it served as my bedding during the day - dined, read, and slept. Usually such a halt took four or five hours, but it was by no means a waste of time. I gained strength - when the place was chosen successfully, I literally physically felt how energy entered every cell of my body from the surrounding trees, shrubs, flowers, grass. It was given to me by the clouds, the sun's rays, as if filtering through the leaves through a sieve. I took a whole library with me on the road: the Bible, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Baratynsky, poetry of ancient Japan and China, ancient lyrics. Of course, it made my backpack a little heavier, but I didn't regret it. Rest near the village of Budogovichi, at the very border of the Belevsky district, was a success. That is why I was not surprised at my own decision when, in the evening, having arrived at Bolshie Golubochki, the preliminary final destination of my day's journey, I decided to go on while it was light. Of course. Bathing in the Ista, a clean and fast river that carries its waters to the Oka, also helped. Five kilometers from Golubochki is a small village of Polyany. It really stands as if in a clearing among the forests that protect it from the noise of the big world. We managed to find accommodation for the night quickly. The first person who saw me in the village was a young red-haired guy mowing the grass near the house. We started talking. And soon his tiny house greeted me with children's voices, cow mooing, horse neighing, barking dogs, goose cries. The collective farm calf keeper and his wife, a milkmaid, have a huge farm. I'm not talking about two dogs and three cats. And all these animals, from the rooster to the huge dog Polkan, literally tremble before two red-haired creatures of five and three years old. These are Halka and Zhenya, the master's children. Ten minutes of acquaintance was enough to conclude: these are not children, this is some kind of bundle of energy, dressed in a dress and pants. Two red whirlwinds sweep across the courtyard, sowing terror and panic all around. The mother's menacing voice, more formidable for appearances, forces both of them only to change the object of their efforts. Just now, Eugene, sitting on a dog kennel, was conducting a demonstrative fist fight with Polkan. The dog was a real stoic and behaved simply heroically, only growling from time to time. But then the future heir of this farm starts a new game with his sister, and the yard resounds with heart-rending chicken clucking, and fluff and feathers swirl in the air.

Ivan and Valentina have dinner late, when they are done with their affairs. Running around during the day, like dead, with their bodies spread out in the most unimaginable poses, children sleep. The whole house of my owners is a kitchenette and a small room. We bought for two hundred rubles an almost rotten and collapsed one, gradually renewing it. Most recently, the floors in the hall were replaced, soon it is time to start working on the roof, but there is no time at all. And tomorrow at four in the morning to get up for work. Ivan, however, will stay at home: he took two days at his own expense - otherwise you will be left without food. He will mow in the morning. I go to the attic. Ivan brings a couple of blankets and a pillow. He says that mosquitoes, of course, exist, but there are not very many of them. You can sleep. I stretch on straw with pleasure. But what is it? There was a squeak right in front of me, and he was answered in the other corner. Mouse! I know that this confession will not add to my authority, but rats and mice... Not that. So that I am panicked by them, but how can you imagine them running around you or even nearby... Brrr! What to do? My masters were already asleep, and where would they put me in their tiny room? I make a decision. Below, right under the lamppost, there is thick grass. We call it a goose, in these places it is called pig grass. I lay my blankets on it, crawl into my sleeping bag and fall asleep. Immediately, instantly. Under the bright light of the lantern, a stone's throw from the dog kennel, ten steps from the road, actually on the bare ground. I fall asleep as I haven't slept for a long time, soundly and serenely. And only sometimes, through my sleep, I heard the sound of the wind, and the dull grumbling of Polkan on the chain, who did not understand why a man should sleep on the ground in the open air.

June 24. Aunt Valya, a blind dog and a firefly in the palm of her hand.