July 13. Meshchora.

Six o'clock in the morning. Alexander had already prayed, but did not wake the others yet. Apparently, he regretted it. His sonorous voice was heard only when there were three or four people asleep. The rest were already on their feet. The coming morning brought its worries. I caught myself in a bitter thought: only I, sinful and idle, walk idly on earth. How many people, very different, I met on my way. But in one thing they were all similar. A new day meant new work for them. I went on the road, taking with me the kindest feelings about these people. And what did they think of me, looking after me? Andrey and Alexander approached. They explained to me how to get to the ferry across the Oka, the guys say goodbye. Andrei tells me the words that no one has ever said to me in my life: "May your guardian angel always be there." "God bless you," adds Alexander.

To be honest, I was so emotional that I didn't notice how I made it to the ferry. The ferryman had just landed. He brought a small herd of horses and two teenage drivers to our side. There were only two people on the other side of the hunters - me, and a short man in a canvas raincoat and tarpaulin boots. When I asked the ferryman how I could get along this meadow to Solotcha, he, for some reason, laughed, pointed to the peasant: "And he is going there. With him you will get there." In the same way, my Charon laughed when I handed him the coppers: "Hide it and don't make me laugh." And now we are walking very soon on the grass wet with dew. I will never know the name of my fellow traveler. One thing is certain: if it were not for him, I would not have reached Solotcha soon. He chose paths that, by all my standards, led in the opposite direction. But soon it turned out that we were bypassing another channel. And supposedly convenient paths rested on impassable reservoirs. Soon I realized that the person walking next to me belongs to the type of people about whom we in Russia speak very simply: "Eccentrics". Their eccentricities, small and large, are visible in everything they do. Every minute, after a long muttering under his breath, my fellow traveler suddenly blurted out: "I undoubtedly correspond to life and life's work." As I could understand, at this point in his life, his main concern was to repair the half of the house he inherited from his mother as soon as possible. He described it lovingly and in detail three or four times. With such a cheerful conversation, kilometers were covered quickly. And then he finished me off completely. I don't remember exactly what it was about. The peasant suddenly made a fierce face, somehow leaned forward, and in one breath gave out a quote either from an encyclopedia or from a popular brochure concerning our conversation. I jumped in surprise. However, everything turned out to be simple. My new acquaintance had an excellent memory, and since due to the lack of smoking, he, like many of his fellow villagers, began to use makhorka, paper was needed. Old newspapers and brochures were used. And since he smoked a lot, it took him about two hours a day to read the scraps from which the pipes were rolled. The range of his knowledge was unusually large: from agro-industrial issues to socialist realism. His weakness lay in the fragmentation of this same knowledge. Literally. The quote was often cut off in mid-sentence. "Then it was torn," he explained to me sincerely. Already in Solotcha, my strange fellow traveler unexpectedly turned into the nearest alley without saying a word. I didn't have time to thank him and ask him where to go next. However. There was no need for this. Solotcha is a small, one-story village. A real summer place. Strangely, this is how I imagined the place of residence of Timur and his friends, dad and his daughter from "The Blue Cup" and other works of Arkady Gaidar as a child. Although why should we be surprised? It is known that Gaidar repeatedly rested in Solotcha. However, Solotcha is better known as one of the favorite places of the no less famous writer - Paustovsky. Many of its residents will tell you about the writer, his habits, affections, hobbies. Quiet, green village. Important cats sit on the windows, tanned children splash in an amazingly beautiful river, dignified old women on benches. There is a feeling that everything here, from people to sparrows and cats, lives in its own special rhythm. Slow, as if a man was running, running, but suddenly he was too lazy to move on, but he had to move. In a corner of paradise, even the air was saturated with the aroma of enchanting laziness. There was a strong desire to knock on one of these cozy houses and ask to live for a week or two. Eat cherries, swim in the river, wander along the quiet streets, which, perhaps, remember Sergei Yesenin, who came here on foot from Konstantinov to Anna Snegina. But it was necessary to go further.

The village imperceptibly moved to the village of Zaborye. All. I was entering the Meshchera region, as ancient as the Russian land. A land of impenetrable forests, mighty pines, villages hidden in thickets, endless swamps, clear rivers. The next village, Laskovo, was all located in the forest. A village is like a village. Neither small nor large. I had almost passed it when the thought came to mind of where I could have heard the name of the village before. Affectionately, affectionately. I definitely heard it somewhere. Maybe he did? Is it?! Exactly, it was here. "Peter heard that there were many doctors in the Ryazan land, and ordered to take himself there - because of a serious illness he himself could not sit on a horse. And when they brought him to the Ryazan land, he sent all his retinue to look for doctors. One of the princely youths wandered into a village called Leskovo. He came to the gate of a house and saw no one. And he went into the house, but no one came out to meet him. Then he entered the upper room and saw an amazing sight: a girl was sitting at a loom and weaving linen, and a hare was jumping in front of her."

Here, in Laskovo, lived a wise Russian girl Fevronia, who became the wife of the Murom prince Peter. The Old Russian story tells with amazing warmth about these extraordinary people, about their love, loyalty, life and death. About the fact that neither during his lifetime, nor after death, evil fate and unkind people could not separate Peter and Fevronia. On July 8, the Orthodox Church celebrates the day of remembrance of the right-believing princes Peter and Fevronia of Murom.

In Laskovo there is a chapel built in honor of the famous native of these places. I was told that on July 8, many people from all over Russia came here. People remember the right-believing princess, they need her help and prayers. In the Meshchera surrounding villages and villages, I heard many stories about a Laskovskaya peasant woman who became a princess. Real apocrypha, born among the people hundreds of years after the writing of her life. By the way, in these places it is called Havronya or Hebronya. I remember one of these legends. I'm writing it down as I heard.

Hebronya, in the simplicity of her heart, told her friends that she would marry the prince of Murom. And that the prince's ambassadors would come for her, and she would ride in a sleigh through deep snow. They laughed at Hebronya. And when the winter passed, they did not give her a pass at all. Where is your prince, they shout. Where is the sleigh in which you will go? And she smiled at them, don't be in a hurry, they say, let's see who will laugh last. And what do you think? In the summer, just at this time, ambassadors from the prince come to her. And as soon as we were going to leave, it started snowing. For three days there was a snowstorm of chalk. They had to get to Murom on a sleigh. And at parting, Hebronya said to the affectionate people: "I do not hold a grudge against you, but I will teach you a little for mockery and disbelief. This is what our village is now, it will always remain so. There will be no more, but there will be less too." And so it happened. How many years have passed since then, and Laskovo stands within those boundaries. The man who told me this story, after a short pause, added, not without embarrassment: "True, this was the case until recently. And somewhere since that summer, Laskovo has had an increase. Summer residents from Moscow began to be built. But they, as you know, do not fear God."

A few kilometers from Laskovo I noticed a huge anthill by the road. The anthill was huge, apparently it was cared for and protected. And in general, people in this region seemed to me kinder and simpler than in other places. This applied even to such a seemingly small thing as caring for our traveling brother. I lost count of the parking lots for rest, comfortable and beautiful. It was felt that the forest was well-groomed with love. But I was struck by something else at that moment. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of ants in an endless, non-stop stream, scurried in a solid red mass. Only now did I fully understand what a wonderful comparison - a crowded city with an anthill - was once invented.

An hour later I met completely different ants - large, black, with huge jaws. It was my first stop in the Meshchera forest. I settle in a Christmas tree, in addition to the already traditional things, I get a mosquito repellent. If this bastard bothered me so much in the steppe, then what would they do to me here, in the great forest? However, a minute passes, then two, and the mosquitoes are not heard or seen. Here I only pay attention to the fact that there is sand and moss under my feet. The air is surprisingly dry and clean. The road was far away, so only occasionally the faint noise of passing cars could be heard. Ants did not take long to appear. They showed interest not in me, but in the contents of the backpack. It remained to rejoice at my foresight: all the products were wrapped in cellophane. Leaving the ants alone, I lie down for a little nap. The path ahead was not close, and therefore I decided to just take a little nap, and then move on. It seemed to me that I slept quite slightly. True, for some reason it became somehow darker in the forest. Is it really going to rain? I look at my watch and calm down. The most impudent ant, apparently desperate to get to the food, got to my forehead. As I gently pick him up with my hands, he desperately begins to flap his jaws. A formidable man! All I have to do is leave some bread for my black friends and move on. I look at my watch again... They are still the same at fifteen to five. Stand! And no rain is expected, just the sun is already setting. I almost ran to the nearest village, where I found out that it was already ten o'clock. It turns out that I slept for more than six hours! Fatigue, fresh spruce air, the absence of mosquitoes did their job. And everything would be fine, but the village of Kriushi, where I am going to spend the night, is still eight kilometers away. And in the villages, they go to bed early. Kind people in Kielce offered me to stay. But then tomorrow I will have to walk almost forty kilometers to Klepiki. There is another reason to go to Kriushi. Yesterday, just before Poshchupov, the driver of a passing Volga offered me a ride. I saw him again when I was returning from the bath. It turned out that Vasily Andreevich, that was the name of the owner of the car, had a summer cottage in Poshchupovo. He proudly pointed to the ready-made foundation, a shed in which the tool could be stored. When he found out where I was going tomorrow, he somehow very unexpectedly perked up. It was then that I found out that his father, a former forester, Andrei Timofeyevich, lived in Kriushi.

"You will definitely come to him," Vasily Andreevich told me. - We recently buried his mother, he is very sad. And I still have no time to come to the old man with this construction. And say hello from me. Dark. I walked very fast. According to my calculations, Kriushi should begin nearby, but where is it: a road, a road, and an endless forest all around. The most interesting thing is that somewhere to the side I heard the crowing of roosters, the barking of dogs, the mooing of cows. I try to follow the sounds, but the forest greets me with a dark impassable wall. A ghost village? A sand path went a little to the right of the big one. Owls fly overhead, a little more and the darkness will hide the path from me. Suddenly the forest parted, and I came to the shore of a very picturesque lake. On the shore there is a wooden table. Three guys at a table set with appetizers - sausage, fresh cucumbers, potatoes. Two bottles of vodka. One is already empty. The guys explained everything to me. Kriushi are indeed on the road, but on the old one. Now they have laid a ring road, and you walked along it for four kilometers. And the forester Trofimitch really lives here, and lives nearby. You didn't reach his house about a hundred meters. It is best to return to the road you walked. The third house is on the edge. That's what panic means. I return to the road. And indeed, she was turning sharply to the outskirts of the village. It was no longer difficult to find the forester's house.

The door was opened by a short elderly man. He did not listen to me, immediately grabbed my hand and said in a tone that brooked no objections: "Why talk on the porch? I have guests. You probably came to visit too. Come in." Yes, the feast was in full swing in the room. With difficulty I explain the purpose of my late visit, I say hello. I get acquainted with those present. Actually. I exaggerated a little: the holiday was over, the guests were finishing their tea and getting ready to rest. They were the children of Andrei Trofimitch. They greeted me as warmly and cordially as their father. And at night, when the Big Dipper lit up its stars over the forest, Andrey Trofimovich drew me into the garden, to a bench, where we had a leisurely conversation. I didn't want to sleep at all. The old man slept little, and after the death of his wife, he was generally tormented by insomnia, but I slept well today. "What a day I have today, what a day I have today. What happiness," he repeated, stroking a cute shaggy dog. "And tomorrow she and I will be alone again. My children will leave, you will leave." I learned a lot that night. And first of all, he learned that a kind, sweet man Andrey Trofimitch lived in a lost Meshchera village. In simple words, he told me about his life, almost all spent in Meshchera. He was only absent for the war.

- Vasily is from my first wife. And these four whom you saw, they are not my relatives. I got together with their mother after the war. What a woman! She didn't want to break up the family, but it just happened: I came to her once and said: don't drive me away. And I have never abandoned my own children. And they are all dear to me... I buried her recently completely. I was sick for a long time. She was silently ill, as if she was shy. And why should I live without her? Believe me, we have never quarreled with her in forty years. If I get mad, I scream, he will look at me in such a way that I feel ashamed of myself. Yes. I don't want to live. Every time I see her in my dreams, I beg you: take me to you, mother..." Andrey Trofimitch began to cry.

His daughter came out on the porch.

"Dad, why don't you let a man sleep?" The old man fussed.