Visiting the Veps: how to find the lost world in the Leningrad region
Domestic tourism is steadily gaining momentum. Traveling around your native country has long been not only fashionable, but, most importantly, interesting and convenient, since the regions are actively working to increase their own attractiveness. However, another trend has emerged. Seasoned tourists are increasingly straying away from the beaten paths in search of yet unexplored places. They tend to go to places where there are usually no good roads, decent hotels and high-quality restaurants, but where they can get a new and often unique experience. One of these protected areas is undoubtedly the northeast of the Leningrad region, the wonderful world of the Veps. Izvestia studied it in more detail as part of the Vepsian Forest Media Exploration project.
Metamorphoses of memory
"A peasant once sowed oats. Cranes began to eat his oats. What to do with cranes? One day he went, chopped aspens, made troughs and poured wine into them. The next day he went to look — all the cranes were lying. He gathered the cranes and tied them to a belt. Goes. As he walked, the cranes flew.… He untied his belt, the cranes flew away, and he fell into the swamp."
This is a fragment from a Vepsian fairy tale. No one knows how old she is. Whether it had an author or an uncomplicated story about the inextricable connection between man and nature was told from generation to generation by mothers to their children is unknown. This is often the case with the Veps, their history and culture.
The amazing people have been living in the northeast of the Leningrad region for fifteen hundred years, as well as in the adjacent territories of Karelia and Vologda region. Hardworking, open-minded, hospitable people with their own language, traditions and a special attitude to the world around them. Their ancestors once moved to Mezhozerye (to the lands between Onega, Bely and Ladoga lakes) from the Circumpolar Urals and Western Siberia. A few centuries later, they appeared in the first ancient Russian chronicle, The Tale of Bygone Years, under the name either Vesi or Chudi.
They began to be called Veps only in the twentieth century. In the early 1930s, Soviet linguists invented writing for them, but full-fledged literature in Vepsian — in fact, a variety of the Finno-Ugric language of the Uralic language group — appeared only at the end of the 1980s. At the same time, they began to actively record fairy tales, recipes, rituals and traditions that were still alive in memory. It is not known exactly how ancient all this is (after all, the oral tradition is very changeable and dynamic), but it is relevant for about three generations. Today, the Vepsian language is dying, young people hardly speak it, but old people communicate with each other. In the villages, you can still hear their melodious, smooth, slightly angular speech.
Foggy distances
In the Leningrad region, Veps historically live along the banks of the rivers Oyat and Svir. It is not very difficult to get to these places — it takes several hours by car from St. Petersburg. It seems to be very close, but the contrast is striking — you seem to be in a different reality. Half—abandoned villages - some with one or two families living all year round—leaning century-old houses that come to life only for a couple of summer months, black baths near the water, tiny chapels in the middle of an impenetrable forest, sacred trees with icons in special places, puny mobile Internet (if you're lucky enough to catch it at all), grass in the human height, voracious midges and... silence. Soft, cozy, enveloping from all sides. Many people come from the city for her. And also for the thick mists that creep along the river surface and the nearby lowlands. It was like fresh milk spilled from a jug of a village old lady.
Today, enthusiasts and volunteers are trying to breathe life into these places, which are not completely deserted yet.
— The Vepsian Region is a corner of Russia where living antiquity is still preserved. It so happened that the local villages, and there were many of them, at some point turned away from modern civilization and seemed to be preserved. It has a very simple way of life, its own rules and its own culture, so fragile that it can quickly disappear under the onslaught of omnipresent progress. We want to help preserve it by carefully placing it in a modern context," Ilya Zheltyakov, founder of the Forest and Wind tourism project, told Izvestia.
It's still possible to do this pointwise. For example, in the villages of Shondovichi, Srednaya, and Lavrovo, abandoned village houses are being bought back, not rebuilt, but carefully restored — which, by the way, is much more difficult and expensive. The Veps lived in them for generations, so each of these huts has its own family history. And they're trying to restore it, too.
Tourists can live in such huts, cook food in the oven, and sleep on the shelves. Of all the modern amenities, there is only a toilet in the house, and hot water from the boiler in the tap. Otherwise, it's the same simple peasant life, familiar to many only from books, Soviet films, and grandmother's stories — unhurried, measured, and contemplative. But this is exactly what a tired city dweller who is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown needs in order to completely reboot.
Outgoing nature
As a vanishing people, the Vepsians are incredibly sensitive to their culture. In the village of Kurba, thanks to the inexhaustible enthusiasm of Svetlana Ivanovna Ershova, a small and fragile woman, there is a Museum of Vepsian life. His remarkable ethnographic collection, gathered literally bit by bit during long-term expeditions to remote villages, will easily give a head start to another collection of regional rank today. Among the most notable exhibits are tiny children's leather boots lined with wooden nails, a homemade grater made from a piece of sheet iron, a ball woven from strips of birch bark, and antique towels with a pattern created by pulling threads out of fabric, the so—called merezhka.
Svetlana Ivanovna Ershova
Valentina Vasilyevna Lebedeva, originally from the village of Myagozero, has been collecting Vepsian folklore for many years and has written several books, including on Vepsian cuisine. Her house is a visual aid for the study of Vepsian traditions. Do you want to know why women kept scissors and matches under their pillows, how a horseshoe should hang on the doorjamb, and why a dried pike's head is needed? Valentina Vasilyevna will tell you everything without reserve. She is also an ardent propagandist of the Vepsian language, one of the very few living native speakers who not only speaks it, but composes poetry and prose.
Note: chowder with onions and blueberries is one of the most unusual dishes of the local cuisine. It is prepared very simply. Green onions should be ground with salt, blueberries crushed, add a little sugar, pour it all with water and eat with black bread.
Valentina Vasilyevna Lebedeva
Natasha Chudova from the village of Yaroslavichi does not compose poetry, but she will cook thick mutton stew in the oven and bake a gate with oatmeal, potatoes and cottage cheese. Everything is simple and delicious — you'll die. And while the happy guest is having dinner, Natasha will spin him around with a whirlwind of amazing stories about her life — how, as a young girl, she went to the crossroads at night to ask for help from the almighty spirits of the forest, how, having grown up, she did not dare to adopt secret conspiracies from her grandmother, such a burden was too heavy.…
It is said that in some places in remote villages there are still real noids - kind sorcerers who help people. But this is already a passing nature.
Natasha Chudova
To this day, the Veps are closely connected with the surrounding natural world. They create conspiracies, treat illnesses with the help of magic. They go to sacred stones and trees, communicate with spirits, know which of them to ask for what and how, and they usually do not refuse. From the outside, it all looks like pure paganism. However, the Veps themselves strongly disagree with this definition.
– We don't worship idols, we don't have any pagan cults, no sacred groves or the like. We are Christians, we believe in one God who created the whole world around us. It's just that we interact with this world in a certain way. After all, God is everywhere, You can pray to Him in the church, in the forest, and by the river. And if you do it sincerely, He will certainly hear you. My mother, for example, prayed to the Sun all her life, because she was sure that this was the Mother of God. Our faith is natural Orthodoxy. And many Veps have a magical mindset," explains Valentina Lebedeva.
In the forests, the Vepsians build small chapels — seemingly ordinary sheds, where sometimes it is impossible to stand at full height. You can't find your way to them without a guide, but it can be difficult to get there accompanied by windbreaks, tall grass, and incredibly voracious midges. "The path to God must be difficult," says Natasha Chudova. Well, you can't argue. Inside there are icons, candles, lamps and... a lot of towels in the form of offerings for asking for miraculous help in the future.
What else to look for in the Vepsian region
Even before the revolution, a special craft flourished in the villages along the banks of the Oyat River — the manufacture of painted pottery, which was famous throughout the northwest. Sometimes she was floated by whole caravans along the rivers to local fairs. By the middle of the twentieth century, they had almost stopped doing this. The tradition was dying. But in 1969, in the village of Alekhovshchina, it was picked up, revived and carefully brought to our days. Today, only five craftsmen work in the local pottery workshop, but anyone can purchase the most authentic Oyat ceramics: pitchers, plates, cups, as well as a variety of curly whistles with characteristic ornaments.
Note: master classes are held in the ceramic workshop, which is a good opportunity to make and paint an Oyat toy yourself.
Several remarkable wooden churches have been preserved on the lands of the Oyat and Svir Veps — you can build a separate route along them. In the village of Rodionovo, on the steep shore of Yuksovsky Lake, the church of St. George the Victorious, or, as it is called here, Yegoriy the Brave, stands proudly. Built in the first half of the 16th century and consecrated, probably by one of the disciples of St. Alexander Svirsky, it has never left its place — unlike many other masterpieces of wooden architecture of the Russian North.
The Temple of Yegory the Brave
The wooden chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, dating back to the 18th century, has been preserved in the village of Gomorovichi. In Soginitsy there is an elegant St. Nicholas Church, built at the end of the 17th century. In the village of Sheleyki there is the majestic church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica in 1783 with a tent belfry, and nearby there is the Gimoretsky churchyard with the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and a bell tower.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
