Well, now that's really it. God bless you!

Victor Likhachev.

Biography

Viktor Vasilyevich Likhachev. He was born in 1957 in the city of Kireevsk, Tula Region, in a family of teachers. Historian, journalist, writer, playwright. Member of the Union of Writers of Russia. He is the author of the novel "Who Will Hear the Linnet?", the story "The Diary of a Traveler", the play "... And their mother Sophia", stories. He currently lives in Dubna near Moscow.

Traveler's Diary

Everyone who lives on earth is a traveler. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

June 18, 1991. Blessing of St. Ambrose.

"Here is the grace of God," a voice behind my back brought me back to reality. At first I nodded in agreement, and only then turned around. The voice belonged to a short, tightly built guy, whose face, snub-nosed, freckled and large-mouthed, could be called simple, if not for his eyes - attentive and serious. As if to make me feel all the grace of this place, he inhaled the air with a noise and exhaled just as noisily, closing his eyes. And we were standing with him in the Optina Skete, near a small house. Low, neatly whitewashed, with a cozy front garden, the house seems to have descended from early Gogol's stories. But from here to Dikanka - "as to Kiev on foot". A great Russian man of prayer, the holy elder Ambrose, lived here in the last century. Thousands of people came to these walls - for blessing, help, hope, consolation. Orthodox Russia was coming, and everyone left with what they were looking for...

We started talking. It turned out that my interlocutor had arrived at the Optina Hermitage a week ago. He himself is from Altai, but for the last year he lived in St. Petersburg. I have wandered a lot in my lifetime, I have seen a lot of things, but I have never seen a better place than here. How long will he stay here? And God knows. Maybe it will remain forever. For the time being, he was assigned to guard the monastery hotel. It's in the back, pilgrims live there now, but it needs to be repaired. He saw me from the window and went out to say that if I was embarrassed to enter, then it was in vain. Everyone is allowed into the cell to see the priest. After thanking him, I was about to open the gate, but apparently he was bored and wanted to talk more.

"And how long are you coming here?"

- For one day.

"What's so soon?" Wait. It's wonderful here.

- I want to walk around Russia. On foot, as people walked in the old days. And where to start if not from Optina?

- Why do you need this? He was already looking at me with interest. - You can't run away from yourself anyway, and if you want to understand Russia, then there is no better place for this than Optina.