"Why are you sitting in the dark?" - I decided to meet the unknown person without lying down. "I came home and realized: the man probably won't lie down. I brought you something. "Something" turned out to be a cup of aspic, five eggs, cottage cheese, a can of milk, almost a whole loaf of bread. In fact, all this came in handy. While I was eating, never tiring of praising the next food she was eating, she told me a little about her native village, about her family. They live with her husband, the house is huge, the farm is large, and the daughter lives in the city, huddles in dormitories, and does not want to return to the village. On the other hand, where to return? The radiation here, they say, is great. Tamara Ilyinichna is not very versed in numbers, but that there is a lot of radiation - that's for sure. In the afternoon, as soon as some kind of lethargy and fatigue rolls in, I have no strength, I want to lie down so much. If you don't lie down, you'll be sick all day. And if you sleep for an hour, it seems to be nothing. Maybe it's because of the heat, I ask her. No, this happens in winter, young and old, healthy and sick. I was already finishing my last sip of milk and could think melancholically about what dose I had grabbed today, how much I would add in the next three days, while I had to walk through the contaminated area. Dust in the field, water in the Watermelon Pond, this delicious food - all this is literally saturated with radiation. Anyway, I'll get out of here. And what about this kind woman, these people living in this steppe? Why do they need all this? Tamara Ilyinichna somehow tiredly waved her hand after my words: "What can you do!" The gloomy corridor, the rat holes in the floor - all this seemed so childish and harmless in comparison with the invisible and terrible enemy that settled in these godforsaken steppes.

June 26. The roads that choose us.

All human life is standing at a fork in the road. So the hero once stood, reading prophetic words on a stone. It is both more difficult and easier for us than for the epic Ilya Muromets. It is more difficult, because, having made a choice, we go into the unknown. Easier - for the same reason. After all, we left with the hope that we had chosen the very path that would lead us to a place where we would be "healthy", and cheerful, and rich. Where with an honest feast and for a wedding. Where a "bony" woman with a scythe will never find us in her life... I like it when there are forks in the road, when there is no one to ask where to go next. For me, the fork in the road is a philosophical explanation of human fate. There is a free choice, you choose which way to go, but, nevertheless, we will come to where we were supposed to come.

From Merkulov my path lies in the direction of the village of Luchki, but some force stops me. I don't understand what could tempt me with the road leading to the district center? Patched and patched, and still thin asphalt, a dull plain all around, and the path becomes almost twice as long. However, I turn onto the Arseniev road. And after walking under the scorching sun for an hour, I remember that my friend, a friend from the institute, was born in the village of Arsenyevo. Life scattered us. I haven't really heard anything about him. And a year ago, the news of his death reached me. The old mother buried her only son in her homeland. Except for Andrey, she had no one in her life. It was said that the loss of her son simply killed her. She slowly died of an incurable disease, spending all her time on an expensive grave. But Arsenyev is still far away, and the road splits again. On the sign, I read that two kilometers from this place is the estate where the composer A.S. Dargomyzhsky was born. Here is a God-forsaken steppe for you! Zhukovsky, Kireevsky, Turgenev, Dargomyzhsky. And fifty kilometers from here Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana, the same number, but in the other direction - Bunin, Uspensky. What an amazingly generous land with talents! The village of Dorogomyzhka is still in good health, but nothing remains of the estate. However, not exactly. There are trees, a spring with amazingly tasty water.

Probably, the meadow through which the tiny river runs, as the composer saw it, remained the same. Most importantly, decades later, in the homeland of Dargomyzhsky, they remembered who was their countryman. On the place where the house stood, there is a modest pedestal. There are benches in the park: the craftsmen have done their best, and now it is a pleasure to approach the spring. Of course, you cannot return the past, you cannot return what has been lost. And yet, and yet. The population of the Arsenyevsky district is small, no more than five thousand people live in the village itself. There are no rich enterprises, millionaire collective farms, and therefore there is no money. But the road to the estate was still made, a monument to the composer was erected in the village. Again, and this is not the main thing. I saw lemonade labels and candy wrappers in the grass. I guess that recently celebrations dedicated to Alexander Sergeevich were held here. And people rushed here from all the surrounding villages. I know, not only to drink beer or buy something delicious. And what is a holiday without it? We came to talk, listen to folk music. After all, as they all lack in our difficult, I don't want to choose another word, time, communication. It doesn't matter that most people have never heard the opera "Rusalka". But the people I met on the way spoke with pride about Dargomyzhsky, they said that he was their countryman. And this means that their children will definitely listen to this opera. They will listen and admire, and come here again, on this bank, where it seems that there, behind the willows, there must be an old mill. It doesn't matter that she has never been here. Childhood memories are the strongest, the most unforgettable. Native places, as soon as you visit them, make our hearts beat with renewed vigor, forgotten smells and sounds come to life again. Without a doubt, while composing his immortal opera, Dargomyzhsky mentally returned to his native penates, again heard the songs heard on these shores.

But how strange are sometimes the associations evoked by our thoughts! I love "Rusalka" very much, but at that moment I caught myself humming the melody of a completely different composer. I hum unconsciously, without thinking that I am actually "purring". Yes, this is a duet from "The Queen of Spades" by Tchaikovsky.

It's already evening. The edges of the clouds have faded,

The last ray of dawn on the towers dies,

The last brilliant stream in the river

With the extinguished sky, it fades away.

A little later, the answer came. The association turned out to be really complicated.

I came to Arsenyevo only in the evening. Frankly speaking, the village is unremarkable. Although, no. Next to the district committee, along with the traditional monument to Ilyich, there is a monument to Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. By the way, it is the only one in the country. However, we are an amazing people. I don't want to offend the founder of the USSR at all, but the fact remains: whatever regional center, even the most run-down one, Lenin is always everywhere. Poor sculptors, they no longer know what pose to give to the leader. But only one monument to the great Russian composer was erected in his native country. Not in the capital, but in a village of five thousand people. In the meantime, lights were lit in the houses. There was no hotel in the village. He did not dare to go to Andrei's mother - why open the old woman's wounds? I remembered that a classmate of my sister lives in Arsenyevo. The advantage of a small town is that everyone knows each other. Fifteen minutes later, I was hospitably greeted by a large friendly family. They gasped, oohed, fed, watered, treated with strawberries of the first harvest, put to bed. But sleep did not come. In the kitchen, ours, Soviet, where one was spacious, three were cramped, and two were just right, my grandmother was sitting. The youngest grandson, everyone's favorite, but also a decent tomboy, has finally fallen asleep, the eldest granddaughter is in the room preparing for exams, what to interfere with her. It's time to have a heart-to-heart talk.

- Tell me, have you ever visited Kuzmenki? - she turns to me.

- From Belev to Arsenyevo this is the most direct way.