Three characters

What kid doesn't love holidays?

These days you can sleep to your heart's content, play without interference, and walk around to your heart's content.

And how can you, without adults and a calendar, distinguish an ordinary day from a holiday?

Very simple. It is worth going out into the street, and it is already clear: today is a holiday. Because flags are flying everywhere in the wind. They are not posted on weekdays. Only on holidays.

What does our flag look like?

It is tricolor and consists of three stripes: white on top, red on the bottom, and blue in the middle. White, blue and red are the colors of our flag, that is, the flag of our country - Russia.

The choice of colors is not accidental. It reflected the centuries-old ideas of people about the world around them. Our distant ancestors loved their land very much and affectionately called it red - beautiful. Red in their understanding was

the color of beauty, all that is beautiful. No wonder the main square in our ancient capital Moscow has long been called the Red Square.

Blue is, of course, the color of the sky. If the sky is clear, then everything is calm in nature. The more fine days with blue skies, the better for farmers. And agriculture was the main occupation of our ancestors.

White color is special, divine. Behind the blue sky are the white halls of God, God's kingdom. People believed that the Russian land was under the protection of the Lord himself - the Creator of the world, and the white color conveyed this idea.

It turns out that red is earthly, blue is heavenly, white is divine.

But that's not all.

For a long time in Russia, white means nobility, purity, blue - honesty, red - courage and generosity.

You see, the three stripes on our flag were not accidental. They remind us who we are, where and how long ago we came into this world, how many people and generations lived on our land before us. The colors of the Russian flag tell about our long and glorious history, or, in other words, about the past of our Motherland.

The flag is a distinctive sign, a symbol of the state. Each independent, independent country has its own flag, and how many countries in the world, so many flags. This means that if today there are more than two hundred countries on Earth, then each of them has its own flag.

In addition to the flag, every country has two more identification marks-symbols. This is the coat of arms and the anthem.

The coat of arms is the emblem of the state, and of course Russia has its own coat of arms. You probably already know that it is an image of a golden double-headed eagle on a red shield? The eagle is the king of birds, among many nations it personifies power, strength, generosity, nobility.

Our country is the largest in the world. It occupies one sixth of the earth's land and exceeds seventeen million square kilometers. She has no equal in territory. Look how wide the eagle spread its wings on the coat of arms of Russia. One of his heads is turned to the west, the other to the east. This is very symbolic. After all, Russia is located in two parts of the world at once: most of its area is in Asia, the smaller one is in Europe.

Please note that in the very center of the coat of arms, on the chest of the eagle, there is another coat of arms depicting a horseman who strikes a black serpent - a dragon with a sharp spear. Can you guess what this coat of arms means in the coat of arms? A small coat of arms with a rider-serpent fighter is the coat of arms of Moscow, the capital of our state.

Moscow is the heart of Russia. She played a very important role in history, and therefore, by right, the emblem of the great city (St. George the Victorious, smashing a snake) is present on the state emblem of the country.

And now remember: where could you see the coat of arms of Russia? On coins, seals, signs of state institutions, on the facade of the school, on official documents, signs of military uniforms. And later in Everyday life the coat of arms will always be your companion. When you turn fourteen and you, as a citizen of Russia, receive a passport, there, on the cover and inside, there is an imprint - a golden eagle on a red background.

Dozens of large and small nations have long lived together in Russia. Russians are not only Russians, but also Tatars, Bashkirs, Jews, Udmurts, Chuvashs, Yakuts, Chukchis, Adyghes, Ossetians, Buryats, Kalmyks...

The official name of our country is the Russian Federation (abbreviated as RF). What does "federation" mean? This is a voluntary association of equal territories and peoples. Twenty-one republics are part of Russia. Here are their names in alphabetical order:

Bashkiria (Bashkortostan)

Dagestan

Ingushetia

Kabardino-Balkaria

Kalmykia

Karachay-Cherkessia

Mordovia

North Ossetia Alania

Tatarstan

Tuva (Tuva)

Udmurtia

Sakha (Yakutia)

Russia is a multinational and multilingual country, but it so happened historically that Russian has become the common and state language for all its inhabitants.

Two distinctive signs of Russia - the flag and the coat of arms - are known to you, it's time to learn about the third symbol - the anthem.

Anthem is a solemn song glorifying the Motherland, Fatherland, Fatherland. When the majestic music of the anthem sounds, everyone stands up, thereby paying tribute to the Fatherland - the land of our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers.

The anthem is performed on especially important and memorable occasions. You probably heard the Russian anthem when our athletes won at the Olympics or other international competitions? And for sure, hearing the solemn music and seeing how the white-blue-red flag rises on the flagpole, you felt a sense of pride for our country!

We love our Motherland, because in Russia everything is our own, dear, everything is close and dear to us. And this feeling of love for the Fatherland, pride in its sovereign power was perfectly conveyed by the authors of the anthem - the composer Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov who wrote the music and the poet Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov who composed the words.

Russia is our sacred power,

Russia is our beloved country.

Mighty will, great glory -

Yours forever!

From the southern seas to the polar region

Our forests and fields are spread out,

You are the only one in the world! One you are -

Protected by God native land!

Hail, our free Fatherland,

Fraternal peoples age-old union,

Ancestors given the wisdom of the people!

Hail country! We are proud of you!

Wide scope for dreams and for life

The coming years open up to us.

Our loyalty to the Motherland gives us strength.

So it was, so it is, and so it will always be!

Hail, our free Fatherland,

Fraternal peoples age-old union,

Ancestors given the wisdom of the people!

Hail country! We are proud of you!

The national anthem of Russia is easy to remember. Read it once or twice, and you will be convinced that you already know the text by heart. Here's a tip for you: start with the chorus. It is repeated three times, and you can easily keep it in your memory, and then the turn will come up to three verses. And then, when the anthem is performed, you will also be able to sing along with everyone.

In addition, about the other two state symbols of Russia - the flag and the coat of arms - you are quite capable of telling a solid five. So why don't you make sure that you also know the third symbol - the anthem of the Russian Federation - perfectly well?

I. Tokmakova "George's Miracle about the Serpent"

Let's take a look at our emblem - the State Emblem of the Russian Federation. Golden double-headed eagle on a red field. Three historical crowns are depicted above the heads of the eagle, which symbolize the sovereignty2 of the country, as well as its parts - sovereign republics. In the paws of an eagle - a scepter and orb. These are symbols of state power. And on the chest of the eagle is a rider slaying a dragon with a spear. This is the victory of good over evil, the defense of the Fatherland. And the rider is St. George the Victorious.

It is about him that we will retell the old Russian story, which was translated back in the 11th century from Greek, and the last retelling that has come down to us was made in the 13th century. Of course, in order for us to read it, we have to translate the story from Old Russian into modern Russian.

But first, let's say a few words about St. George. He lived at the end of the third century from the birth of Christ in Cappadocia (Asia Minor, the territory of modern Turkey), which was then under the rule of the Roman Empire. As they say, he was the son of noble parents and joined the army at a young age. He was known as a wonderful, fearless warrior. He served in the troops of the Roman emperor Diocletian. In those centuries, pagan polytheism was the dominant religion in Rome, and Christians were attacked, thrown into prison, tortured, tortured in every possible way, demanding to renounce the Christian faith. So Saint George, who remained faithful to his Christian convictions, in his hour with patience and courage endured the tortures of his pagan persecutors and was executed in 303, only about thirty years old.

With the spread of Christianity in Byzantium, the veneration of St. George began, about a century from the 5th. Byzantine emperors considered him their intercessor. Their example was followed by the Russian princes.

And the famous prince of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise at baptism took the name George.

From about the 10th century in Russia, especially in the southern Russian lands, St. George becomes almost the most revered among Orthodox saints.

The story about one of the episodes in the life of St. George - his victory over a monstrous serpent, that is, a dragon, and about the liberation of the king's daughter from imminent death, received the greatest fame. This is what is said in the old Russian story, which has come down to us from the distant XIII century and is called "The Miracle of George about the serpent." Here is what is told in this story.

In ancient times there was a city called Ebal. It was a large, populous city. Its inhabitants were pagans, worshiped wooden pagan idols, and, as the story says, "they turned away from God, and God turned away from them." This city stood on the shore big lake. And so it happened that a huge and terrible snake settled in this lake. Every day a snake came out of the depths, attacked people with a menacing whistle and dragged them to the bottom. Horror seized the inhabitants of the city of Ebal. They went to the king for advice. But what could the king do with the terrible serpent? Here is how he answered them:

“To appease the serpent, every day we will give him one of his sons and one of his daughters. And when the turn comes to me, then I will give my daughter.

What was to be done? So in turn, both the supreme leaders and the most ordinary citizens gave the cursed snake one of their children.

Moaning and weeping stood in the city of Ebal.

And then the day came when all the inhabitants of the city gave their children to a terrible snake. Then they again went to the king and said to him:

“We all gave up our children, one by one. What would you like us to do next?

And the king answered them in great sorrow:

"I'll give you my only daughter."

And he called the servants, and called his daughter to him, and commanded, having dressed her in the best clothes, to take her to the shore of the lake. The king-father wept bitterly, all those close to the king and servants wept bitterly. But nothing can be done, they took the princess to the shore of the lake and left her there alone.

And this is what is said further in the old Russian story: “The holy and great martyr, sufferer for the faith of Christ George, a warrior honored by the Heavenly King, who lived even after death, shining with great miracles, by God’s permission, wishing to save us, perishing, and save our city from this misfortune, at the same hour he appeared on the spot in the form of a simple warrior, coming from the battle and hurrying to his native places.

St. George saw a luxuriously dressed girl standing on the shore of the lake, and asked:

- What are you doing here alone?

And the king's daughter, without explaining anything, only said to him:

“Get out of here quickly, sir, or you will perish.”

George didn't understand.

- Robbers, perhaps, are attacking here or something else?

Then she told:

- Here, in the lake, a terrible snake nests. You are young and handsome, I feel sorry for you, I beg you very much, get out of here so as not to die in the clutches of a terrible snake.

"Why don't you go and save yourself?" George asked her. He asked to tell him the whole truth and promised not to leave her in trouble.

And then the tsar's daughter told him a sad story about her native city.

“Listen, my lord. I am the daughter of the king here. As you can see, this city is large and rich, there is plenty of everything in it, and my father does not want to leave it. But a terrible and bloodthirsty snake lives here in the lake and, leaving the lake, eats many people. And together with the king, my father, people decided, in order to appease the serpent, to give him a son or daughter in turn every day. The turn came to the father. And he decided, as promised to people, to give me, his only daughter, to be eaten by a snake. And now you know everything. Get out of here as soon as possible, otherwise you may not be saved.

Hearing this, Saint George exclaimed:

- Don't be afraid, girl!

And, looking at the sky, he raised a prayer to God and asked Him to show him mercy and cast the fierce beast at his feet, so that the people of this city would believe in one God and renounce their pagan, idol polytheism.

But then the king's daughter suddenly exclaimed:

- Run away from here, I hear the terrible whistle of an evil monster!

At the same moment, the waters of the lake churned, and appeared huge snake, and opened his terrible mouth, and, uttering a deafening roar, rushed at the girl and St. George. But the mighty warrior was not afraid and cried out:

- In the name of Jesus Christ, the son of God, submit, cruel beast, and follow me.

And, as the story says, “immediately, by the power of God and the great martyr for the faith of Christ, George, the knees of the terrible snake broke.”

And George turned to the princess, saying:

“Take off your belt and reins from my horse, tie them around the head of the serpent and lead him into the city.

She obeyed. And after her obediently trudged a terrible snake. Saint George walked ahead with his horse.

And in the city at that time there were weeping and groaning, and the king and queen were killed for their only daughter. And what do they see?

There is a warrior with a horse, and then their daughter leads a terrible monster on a leash.

And great fear fell upon them, but Saint George said to them:

— Do not be afraid. Just believe in Christ and you will see your salvation.

What is your name, warrior? the king asked him.

- His name is George.

And then all the inhabitants exclaimed:

“Through you we believed in one God and his son Jesus Christ!”

And Saint George drew his sword and cut off the head of the monster. The king and queen and all the saved residents of the city approached George and bowed to him, and praised him and God, by whose mercy the great miracle worker George performed this miracle.

And the king ordered to build a church in the name of St. George and decorated this church with gold and precious stones.

And St. George, seeing their faith, performed another miracle. He sent his shield to the inhabitants of the city and ordered that it be hung in the church above the altar. And his shield hung in the air, not held back by anything, as it is said in the story: "at all times on the faith of the unbelievers."

Let us add from ourselves that the main day of memory of St. George - the day of his death - is April 23, or May 6, according to the new style.

I. Shmelev "Russian Song"

I looked forward to summer with impatience, following its approach by signs well known to me.

The earliest herald of summer was the striped sack. It was pulled out of a huge chest, saturated with the smell of camphor, and a pile of canvas jackets and trousers were thrown out of it for trying on. I had to stand in one place for a long time, take it off, put it on, take it off again and put it on again, and they turned me around, stabbed me on me, let me in and let go - “half an inch”. I was sweating and twirling, and behind the frames that had not yet been set, poplar branches swayed with buds gilded with glue, and the sky was joyfully blue.

The second and important sign of spring-summer was the appearance of a red-haired painter, who smelled of spring itself - putty and paints. The painter came to expose the frames - "to let the spring in" - to make repairs. He always appeared suddenly and spoke gloomily, swaying:

- Well, where do you have something here? ..

And with such an air he snatched out chisels from behind the ribbon of a dirty apron, as if he wanted to stab. Then he began to tear the putty and angrily purr under his breath:

I-ah and te-we-nay le-so ...

Yes, yehh and te-we-na-ay...

Ah-ehh and in the dark-on-am le ...

Yes, and in te ... we-us-mm! ..

And he sang louder and louder. And whether because he only sang about the dark forest, or because he shook his head and sighed, looking furiously from under his brows, he seemed very scary to me.

Then we got to know him well when he pulled my friend Vaska by the hair.

That was the case.

The painter worked, dined, and fell asleep on the roof of the porch, in the sun. After purring about the dark forest, where “sy-toya-la, oh yes, and so-senka,” the painter fell asleep without saying anything else. He lay on his back, and his red beard looked up at the sky. Vaska and I, so that there was more wind, also climbed onto the roof - to let the “monk”. But there was no wind on the roof. Then Vaska, having nothing to do, began to tickle the painter's bare heels with a straw. But they were covered with gray and hard skin, like putty, and the painter did not care. Then I bent to the painter's ear and in a trembling thin voice sang:

And-ah and in te-we-nom le-e...

The painter's mouth twisted, and a smile crept out from under his red mustache onto his dry lips. He must have been pleased, but he still didn't wake up. Then Vaska offered to take up the painter properly. And we got on with it.

Vaska dragged a large brush and a bucket of paint up to the roof and painted the painter's heels. The painter kicked and calmed down. Vaska made a face and continued. He circled the painter at the ankles over the green bracelet, and I carefully painted the thumbs and nails. The painter was snoring sweetly, probably from pleasure. Then Vaska drew a wide “vicious circle” around the painter, squatted down and sang a song over the very painter’s ear, which I also picked up with pleasure:

redhead asked:

- What did you do with your beard?

- I'm not paint, not putty,

I was in the sun!

I lay in the sun

He kept his beard up!

The painter stirred and yawned. We quieted down, and he turned on his side and painted himself. That's where it came from. I waved through the dormer window, and Vaska slipped and fell into the paws of the painter. The painter thrashed Vaska and threatened to dip him into a bucket, but soon became cheerful, stroking Vaska on the back and saying:

"Don't cry, you fool. The same one grows in my village. That the master's paint has exhausted, du-ra ... and even roars!

From that moment the painter became our friend. He sang to us the whole song about the dark forest, how they cut down a pine tree, like “oh, how good of a good fellow in an alien sat-it-onushka! ..”. It was a good song. And he sang it so pitifully that I thought: was it not to himself that he sang it? He also sang songs about “dark autumn night”, and about “birch tree”, and also about “clear field” ...

For the first time then, on the roof of the porch, I felt a world unknown to me until then - longing and expanse, lurking in the Russian song, unknown in the depths of its soul of my native people, tender and stern, covered with coarse clothing. Then, on the roof of the canopy, in the cooing of blue-gray doves, in the dull sounds of a painter's song, new world- and the tender and harsh nature of the Russian, in which the soul yearns and waits for something ... Then, at my early time, - for the first time, perhaps - I felt the strength and beauty of the Russian folk word, its softness, and caress , and expanse. It just came and gently fell into the soul. Then I came to know him: his strength and sweetness. And I know him...

L. Kassil. At the blackboard

They said about the teacher Ksenia Andreevna Kartashova that her hands sing. Her movements were soft, unhurried, rounded, and when she explained the lesson in the class, the guys followed every wave of the teacher's hand, and the hand sang, the hand explained everything that remained incomprehensible in the words. Ksenia Andreevna did not have to raise her voice at the students, she did not have to shout. Noise in the classroom - she will raise her light hand, lead it - and the whole class seems to be listening, it immediately becomes quiet.

- Wow, she is strict with us! The boys boasted. - He immediately notices everything ...

Ksenia Andreevna taught in the village for thirty-two years. The rural militiamen saluted her in the street and, saluting, said:

- Ksenia Andreevna, how is my Vanka doing in science? You make him stronger there.

“Nothing, nothing, he moves a little,” answered the teacher, “a good boy.” Lazy just sometimes. Well, that happened to my father too. Isn't it true?

The policeman straightened his belt in embarrassment: once he himself sat at a desk and answered Ksenia Andreevna at the blackboard and also heard to himself that he was a good fellow, but sometimes he was lazy ... And the chairman of the collective farm was once a student of Ksenia Andreevna, and the director studied at the machine and tractor station from her. Many people have gone through Xenia Andreevna's class in thirty-two years. She was a strict but fair person.

Ksenia Andreyevna's hair had long since turned white, but her eyes had not faded and were as blue and clear as in her youth. And everyone who met this even and bright look involuntarily cheered up and began to think that, honestly, he was not that kind. bad person And the world is definitely worth living. Such were the eyes of Ksenia Andreevna!

And her gait was also light and melodious. Girls from high school tried to adopt it. No one has ever seen a teacher in a hurry, in a hurry. And at the same time, any work quickly argued and also seemed to sing in her capable hands. When she wrote the terms of the problem or examples from grammar on the blackboard, the chalk did not knock, did not creak, did not crumble, and it seemed to the children that a white stream was easily and tasty squeezed out of the chalk, like from a tube, writing letters and numbers on the black smooth surface of the board. "Do not rush! Don't jump, think carefully first!" Ksenia Andreevna would say softly, when the student began to stray in a problem or a sentence, and, diligently writing and erasing what he had written with a rag, floated in clouds of chalk smoke.

Ksenia Andreevna was not in a hurry this time either. As soon as the rattle of motors was heard, the teacher looked sternly at the sky and in a familiar voice told the children that everyone should go to the trench dug in the school yard. The school stood a little away from the village, on a hillock. The windows of the classrooms overlooked the cliff above the river. Ksenia Andreevna lived at the school. There were no jobs. The front passed very close to the village. Fighting raged somewhere nearby. Parts of the Red Army withdrew across the river and fortified there. And the collective farmers gathered a partisan detachment and went into the nearby forest outside the village. Schoolchildren brought them food there, told them where and when the Germans were seen. Kostya Rozhkov - the best swimmer of the school - more than once delivered reports from the commander of the forest partisans to the other side of the Red Army. Shura Kapustina once bandaged the wounds of two partisans who had suffered in battle - this art was taught to her by Ksenia Andreevna. Even Senya Pichugin, a well-known quiet man, once spotted a German patrol outside the village and, having reconnoitered where he was going, managed to warn the detachment.

In the evening, the children gathered at the school and told the teacher about everything. So it was this time, when the engines purred very close. Fascist planes have already flown into the village more than once, throwing bombs, scouring the forest in search of partisans. Kostya Rozhkov once even had to lie in a swamp for an hour, hiding his head under wide sheets of water lilies. And very close, cut down by machine-gun bursts of the aircraft, reeds fell into the water ... And the guys were already used to the raids.

But now they are wrong. It wasn't the planes that rumbled. The guys had not yet managed to hide in the gap, when three dusty Germans ran into the schoolyard, jumping over a low palisade. Car-glasses with folded lenses glittered on their helmets. They were scouts-motorcyclists. They left their cars in the bushes. From three different sides, but all at once, they rushed to the schoolchildren and aimed their machine guns at them.

- Stop! shouted a thin, long-armed German with a short red mustache, probably the boss. - Pioneer? - he asked.

The guys were silent, involuntarily moving away from the muzzle of the pistol, which the German took turns thrusting into their faces.

But the hard, cold barrels of the other two machine guns pressed painfully from behind on the backs and necks of the schoolchildren.

— Schneller, Schneller, bistro! shouted the fascist.

Ksenia Andreevna stepped forward straight at the German and covered the guys with herself.

- What would you like? the teacher asked and looked sternly into the German's eyes. Her blue and calm look confused the involuntarily retreating fascist.

— Who is V? Answer this minute ... I can speak Russian with something.

“I understand German too,” the teacher answered quietly, “but I have nothing to talk about with you. These are my students, I am a teacher at a local school. You may lower your gun. What do you want? Why are you scaring the kids?

- Don't teach me! hissed the scout.

The other two Germans looked around anxiously. One of them said something to the boss. He got worried, looked towards the village and began to push the teacher and the children towards the school with the muzzle of a pistol.

“Well, well, hurry up,” he said, “we are in a hurry ...” He threatened with a pistol. Two little questions and everything will be all right.

The guys, along with Ksenia Andreevna, were pushed into the classroom. One of the Nazis remained on guard on the school porch. Another German and the boss drove the guys to their desks.

"Now I'm going to give you a little exam," said the chief. - Sit down!

But the children stood huddled in the aisle and looked, pale, at the teacher.

“Sit down, guys,” Ksenia Andreevna said in her quiet and ordinary voice, as if another lesson was beginning.

The boys sat down carefully. They sat in silence, not taking their eyes off the teacher. Out of habit, they sat down in their seats, as they usually did in the classroom: Senya Pichugin and Shura Kapustina in front, and Kostya Rozhkov at the back of everyone, in the last desk. And, finding themselves in their familiar places, the guys gradually calmed down.

Outside the windows of the classroom, on the glass of which protective strips were pasted, the sky was calmly blue, on the windowsill in jars and boxes were flowers grown by the children. On the glass cabinet, as always, hovered a hawk stuffed with sawdust. And the wall of the classroom was decorated with neatly pasted herbariums. The older German touched one of the pasted sheets with his shoulder, and dried daisies, fragile stems and twigs fell on the floor with a slight crunch.

It hurt the guys in the heart. Everything was wild, everything seemed contrary to the habitually established order within these walls. And the familiar class seemed so dear to the children, the desks, on the covers of which dried ink smudges were cast, like the wing of a bronze beetle.

And when one of the fascists approached the table, at which Ksenia Andreevna usually sat, and kicked him, the guys felt deeply offended.

The chief demanded that he be given a chair. None of the guys moved.

- Well! shouted the fascist.

“Here they listen only to me,” said Ksenia Andreevna. — Pichugin, please bring a chair from the corridor.

Quiet Senya Pichugin slipped inaudibly from the desk and followed the chair. He did not return for a long time.

- Pichugin, hurry up! the teacher called Senya.

He appeared a minute later, dragging a heavy chair with a seat upholstered in black oilcloth. Without waiting for him to come closer, the German snatched a chair from him, put it in front of him and sat down. Shura Kapustina raised her hand:

- Ksenia Andreevna ... can I leave the class?

- Sit down, Kapustina, sit down. - And, looking at the girl knowingly, Ksenia Andreevna added in a barely audible voice: - There is still a sentry there.

Now everyone will listen to me! the boss said.

And, mangling the words, the fascist began to tell the guys that the red partisans were hiding in the forest, and he knows this very well, and the guys also know this very well. German scouts have seen schoolchildren running back and forth into the forest more than once. And now the guys must tell the chief where the partisans hid. If the guys say where the partisans are now, naturally, everything will be fine. If the guys don’t say, naturally, everything will be very bad.

“Now I will listen to everyone,” the German finished his speech.

Here the guys understood what they wanted from them. They sat without moving, only had time to look at each other and again froze on their desks.

A tear slowly crept down Shura Kapustina's face. Kostya Rozhkov was sitting, leaning forward, resting his strong elbows on the open desk top. The short fingers of his hands were entwined. Kostya swayed slightly, staring at the desk. From the outside, it seemed that he was trying to disengage his hands, and some kind of force was preventing him from doing this.

The guys sat in silence.

The chief called his assistant and took the map from him.

“Order them,” he said in German to Xenia Andreevna, “to show me this place on a map or on a plan. Well, live! Just look at me ... - He spoke again in Russian: - I warn you that I am understandable to the Russian language and that you will tell the children ...

He went to the board, took a piece of chalk and quickly sketched out a plan of the area - a river, a village, a school, a forest ... To make it clearer, he even drew a chimney on the school roof and scratched curls of smoke.

“Perhaps you will think about it and tell me everything you need yourself?” the chief quietly asked the teacher in German, coming close to her. The children won't understand, speak German.

“I already told you that I've never been there and I don't know where it is.

Fascist, grabbing his long arms Xenia Andreevna by the shoulders, roughly shook her:

Ksenia Andreevna freed herself, took a step forward, went up to the desks, leaned both hands on the front and said:

- Guys! This man wants us to tell him where our partisans are. I don't know where they are. I have never been there. And you don't know either. Truth?

“We don’t know, we don’t know!” the guys rustled. Who knows where they are! They went into the forest and that's it.

“You are really bad students,” the German tried to joke, “he cannot answer such a simple question. Hey, hey...

He looked around the class with mock gaiety, but did not meet a single smile. The guys were strict and wary. It was quiet in the classroom, only Senya Pichugin was sniffing gloomily in the first desk.

The German approached him:

- Well, what's your name?.. You don't know either?

“I don’t know,” Senya answered quietly.

“And what is this, you know? The German jabbed the muzzle of his pistol at Senya's lowered chin.

“I know that,” Senya said. - Automatic pistol of the "Walter" system ...

“Do you know how much he can kill such bad students?”

- I do not know. Think for yourself…” Senya muttered.

— Who is! the German shouted. You said: count yourself! Very well! I'll count to three myself. And if no one tells me what I asked, I will shoot your stubborn teacher first. And then - anyone who does not say. I started counting! Once!..

He grabbed Xenia Andreevna by the arm and pulled her against the classroom wall. Ksenia Andreevna did not utter a sound, but it seemed to the guys that her soft, melodious hands groaned themselves. And the class buzzed. Another fascist immediately pointed his gun at the guys.

“Children, don’t,” Ksenia Andreevna said quietly and, out of habit, wanted to raise her hand, but the fascist hit her wrist with the barrel of a pistol, and her hand fell helplessly.

“Alzo, then, none of you know where the partisans are,” said the German. - Fine, let's count. "One" I already said, now it will be "two".

The fascist began to raise his pistol, aiming at the teacher's head. Shura Kapustina began to sob in the front desk.

“Be quiet, Shura, be quiet,” Ksenia Andreevna whispered, and her lips hardly moved. “Let everyone be silent,” she said slowly, looking around the class, “whoever is afraid, let her turn away.” You don't have to watch guys. Farewell! Learn well. And remember this lesson...

“I’m going to say three now!” the fascist interrupted her.

And suddenly Kostya Rozhkov got up at the back and raised his hand:

She really doesn't know!

- Who knows?

"I know..." Kostya said loudly and distinctly. “I went there myself and I know. She didn't, and she doesn't know.

“Well, show me,” said the chief.

Rozhkov, why are you telling lies? - said Ksenia Andreevna.

“I'm telling the truth,” Kostya said stubbornly and harshly, and looked into the teacher's eyes.

"Kostya..." Ksenia Andreevna began.

But Rozhkov interrupted her:

- Ksenia Andreevna, I myself know ...

The teacher stood, turning away from him, dropping her white head on her chest. Kostya went to the blackboard, at which he had answered the lesson so many times. He took the chalk. He stood indecisively, fingering the white, crumbling pieces. The fascist approached the blackboard and waited. Kostya raised his hand with the chalk.

“Here, look here,” he whispered, “I’ll show you.”

The German approached him and bent down to better see what the boy was showing. And suddenly Kostya hit the black surface of the board with all his might with both hands. This is done when, having written on one side, they are going to turn the board over to the other. The board turned sharply in its frame, screeched and hit the fascist in the face with a sweeping blow. He flew off to the side, and Kostya, jumping over the frame, instantly disappeared behind the board, as if behind a shield. The fascist, clutching his bloodied face, fired at the board to no avail, putting bullet after bullet into it.

In vain... For chalkboard there was a window overlooking the cliff above the river. Kostya, without hesitation, jumped through the open window, threw himself off the cliff into the river and swam to the other side.

The second fascist, pushing Ksenia Andreevna away, ran to the window and began to shoot at the boy with a pistol. The chief shoved him aside, snatched the pistol from him and took aim himself through the window. The guys jumped on the desks. They no longer thought about the danger that threatened them. Only Kostya worried them now. They wanted only one thing now - for Kostya to get to the other side, so that the Germans would miss.

At this time, having heard firing in the village, partisans stalking motorcyclists jumped out of the forest. Seeing them, the German guard on the porch fired into the air, shouted something to his comrades and rushed into the bushes where the motorcycles were hidden. But through the bushes, stitching the leaves, cutting off the branches, a machine-gun burst of the Red Army patrol, which was on the other side, whipped ...

No more than fifteen minutes passed, and the partisans brought three disarmed Germans into the classroom, where the excited children again burst into. The commander of the partisan detachment took a heavy chair, moved it to the table and wanted to sit down, but Senya Pichugin suddenly rushed forward and snatched the chair from him.

- Don't, don't! I'll bring you another one now.

And in an instant he dragged another chair from the corridor, and pushed this one behind the board. The commander of the partisan detachment sat down and called the head of the fascists to the table for interrogation. And the other two, rumpled and hushed, sat side by side on the desks of Senya Pichugin and Shura Kapustina, diligently and timidly placing their feet there.

“He almost killed Ksenia Andreevna,” Shura Kapustina whispered to the commander, pointing to the Nazi intelligence officer.

“Not quite exactly like that,” the German muttered, “that’s right, not me at all ...

— He, he! shouted the quiet Senya Pichugin. - He still had a mark ... I ... when I was dragging a chair, I accidentally knocked over the ink on the oilcloth.

The commander leaned over the table, looked and grinned: an ink stain darkened on the back of the gray trousers of the fascist ...

Ksenia Andreevna entered the class. She went ashore to find out if Kostya Rozhkov had sailed safely. The Germans, who were sitting at the front desk, looked with surprise at the commander who jumped up.

- Get up! the commander shouted at them. In our class, we are supposed to get up when the teacher comes in. That's not what you, apparently, were taught!

And the two fascists obediently got up.

- Permission to continue our lesson, Ksenia Andreevna? the commander asked.

“Sit down, sit down, Shirokov.

“No, Ksenia Andreevna, take your rightful place,” Shirokov objected, pulling up a chair, “you are our mistress in this room. And I'm here, over there at that desk, I've worked my brains out, and my daughter is here with you ... Sorry, Ksenia Andreevna, that we had to allow these slackers into our class. Well, since it happened so, here you are and ask them properly. Help us: you know their language ...

And Ksenia Andreevna took her place at the table, from which she had learned many good people in thirty-two years. And now, in front of Ksenia Andreevna's desk, next to a blackboard pierced by bullets, a long-armed, red-haired man was squirming, nervously adjusting his jacket, mumbling something and hiding his eyes from the blue, stern gaze of the old teacher.

“Stand properly,” said Ksenia Andreevna, “what are you fidgeting about?” My guys don't keep up. So... And now take the trouble to answer my questions.

And the lanky fascist, timid, stretched out in front of the teacher.

E. Shim "Spring Autumn"

I go into the forest, I look - what spring changes are taking place in it.

Grass sprouted on the dry hillocks. Blue streaks are blooming. The buds on the branches burst, and green tails appeared from them. Soon the trees will be fully dressed.

And what is this?

I went out into the clearing, and the real autumn is still hosting on it. Young oak trees stand around, from head to toe in yellow autumn leaves. And on the ground lies a rustling rug. And stands near a hemp on a thick leg mushroom russula in a red hat on one side.

Is this all a dream?

I blinked my eyes... no, everything is real. And I can't believe it. I can't believe this is happening!

Decided to figure it out, sat down on a stump. And before my eyes - red leaves on oak branches ...

An utter thought began to creep into my head: what if this glade is magical? It's like a fairytale. There is no winter here, there is no summer. Eternal autumn stands. And you can go mushroom picking here in February. And in June - to collect bouquets of crimson leaves.

It even got a little scary.

Silence permeates the clearing. Not a rustle, not a crunch, not a bird's voice.

A dry leaf fell off a nearby branch. Rocked in the air, fell.

And a tight brown bud opened in place of the leaf.

The second sheet broke off. Another bud opened up.

Ah, here's the thing!

I bent the branch and saw that hidden buds were sitting in the axil of each leaf. Probably sheltered from the winter cold. And now they are swollen and pushing out the old foliage. That's why there is a dry yellow rug on the ground ...

I pushed it away with my foot, and under it was green grass.

I tore off the russula then. She is fresh and strong. Cold alone. And then I remembered that we have russula in autumn until the very snow. Not afraid of cold. Persistent.

So why don't they appear in the spring!

Of course: this one is the very first, spring!

So it's spring in this meadow. You just don't recognize it right away. She, a mischievous girl, pretended to be in the fall.

From these historical stories, young readers will learn about the turning points in the history of the Russian land, about military deeds and civil exploits of remarkable Russians.

Vladimir Solovyov "The First Tsar"

There were probably not as many churches of God in any city as in Moscow in the 16th century. Because of the red Kremlin wall, multi-domed cathedrals with sun-drenched golden domes stretched their necks above the quaint palace turrets. Behind the trading rows, where huts were completely molded from edge to edge, in which people lived, which was poorer, among the birch and plank roofs they sparkled with white tin, they flaunted the shabby tops of the heads of modest churches, which were the majority in the huge motley city. And as the bells on thousands of Moscow belfries began to beat, their mighty music blocked all other sounds: heavy, booming beats filled the whole city, went into the ground, into the sky, resounded in every street, every square.

But at that hour, when the street singer and musician Timokha, a young man of about twenty with a thick curly beard, chose a place near the inn and, famously striking the strings of his domra, began to sing mischievously, it was unusually quiet in Moscow. Even where crowds of people usually accumulated along the trading shops and from where a constant hubbub was heard, it was not crowded, neither screams nor noise was heard.

However, Timokhi's perky domra and his effervescent song quickly attracted the curious. First one approached, then the second, and, lo and behold, twenty people had already gathered.

Only the words in his song are painfully bold. Timokha sang about the tsar himself, about Ivan Vasilyevich, and about his bad deeds. And everyone knew: with the king and the king's servants, jokes are bad. No wonder the people nicknamed the sovereign of Moscow Ivan the Terrible.

Lyut was a king, cruel and quick to punish. They have already lost count of how many people were killed and tortured to death by his evil will. Executions, torture and punishment were sometimes carried out day after day. Pogroms and bloodshed did not surprise anyone. People lived in great fear, they were afraid of being guilty, somehow inadvertently causing royal wrath. They were afraid to say an extra word: suddenly one of the tsar's earphones and tsar's earbuds would be nearby and inform. And then do not take off your head: they will seize, put you in a dungeon (prison) - and remember your name! They will beat, torture, and may deprive of life.

Even as a child, the future Tsar Ivan horrified those around him with his cruelty. He loved to torment animals, threw dogs down from the window of a high chamber and watched how they, smashed into blood, dying, plaintively whined and crawled, no longer able to stand on their paws. And then young Ivan had another fun. In winter in a sleigh, and in summer in a carriage, ordering the coachman to drive the horses at full speed, he rushed through the streets of Moscow and crushed the people, laughing loudly at how distraught people crumble into different sides, and enjoying the groans and cries of the victims.

Growing up and growing up, Ivan did everything to strengthen his power. It was not enough for him to remain the Grand Duke. He wanted more and decided, following the example of the rulers of other major powers, to be crowned, or to be married to the kingdom, and in other words, to become a king and have enormous and strong power.

The coronation took place magnificently and solemnly in the Kremlin, in the Assumption Cathedral, with a great crowd of people, in the presence of foreign ambassadors and Church Fathers.

Before Ivan Vasilyevich, there were no tsars in Russia. He became the first, and the people expected that now there would be more order in the country, less untruth and injustice, ordinary people would live better, and the tsar-priest, when necessary, would intercede for them, would not offend anyone. Yes, and the tsar himself, having entered the Red Square, full of people, promised that he would put an end to the unrest, take care of justice and protect Russians from oppressors, whoever they were.

And the first time really began to happen good changes. The king ordered to receive complaints and requests from all dissatisfied and innocent victims, to help them and severely punish their offenders. People rejoiced and hoped that it would continue like this, that not a single bad deed would be left without attention, that the tsar would find justice for every villain in Moscow.

It was clear from everything that a strong tsarist power was beneficial to Russia. The country grew richer, expanded its borders, merchants from all over the world willingly came to trade in Muscovy. Growing cities. Russian army reliably defended the state from foreign invaders and won victories over hostile neighbors that prevented the strengthening and expansion of the Russian state.

However, the people praised and praised the king for a short time. Having received unprecedented power, Ivan Vasilievich was not so afraid of anything as losing this power. He was ready to suspect everyone and everyone of malicious intent against himself, of intrigues and conspiracies. Everywhere the king imagined insidious rivals who were just waiting to deal with him, take his place, take away his throne and royal crown.

And a difficult, difficult time came in the country, when the sovereign's guards scoured the cities and villages, looking for treason, robbing and killing those who had the slightest suspicion of disrespectful attitude towards the king. Ivan the Terrible considered the main enemies to come from rich and noble families who traced their origins to the first Russian princes, starting with Rurik. Ivan had a special malice towards them, because they were not inferior to him either in “breed” or in wealth. He was sure that any of them secretly only dreams of how to end him and become king instead of him.

Many princes and boyars - descendants of ancient families - were tortured and killed in those years. But the misfortune did not pass even the ignorant people. Many of them paid with their lives for nothing. Grozny believed that his power would be strong if everyone lived in constant fear, in complete obedience, humility, afraid even to think of resistance, and even more so of another sovereign. And therefore, on Russian soil, special detachments, carefully selected from people loyal to the tsar and only subordinate to him, just like the Mongols in their time, killed and ruined civilians, burned their houses, sparing neither old nor young. These sovereign servants were dressed in all black and armed to the teeth. Their distinguishing marks were a dog's head and a broom. This meant that they, like bloodhounds, sniff out where the tsar is in danger, and are ready without hesitation to cling to the throat of the enemies and ill-wishers of Ivan the Terrible and, like rubbish, sweep away everyone who does not want to serve him faithfully.

Once the tsar accused the whole of ancient Novgorod of treason. A large and rich city was destroyed, and thousands of Novgorodians were killed - drowned in the Volkhov River.

In a whisper, the Russians passed on to each other the story of how Ivan the Terrible, in anger, killed his eldest son for daring to argue with his father. And just as secretly, burying other people's ears, they told how terribly the tsar acted with the builders of the Pokrovsky Cathedral - a marvelous

temple on Red Square, which looked like a motley, bright carpet hanging from the sky.

It was as if Ivan summoned the architects - those according to whose plans and under whose supervision the cathedral was built, and asked:

“And what, masters, can you make the temple even more beautiful and better than this?”

"Can. Just give an order, sir,” the architects answered, bowing low before the king.

And then Ivan the Terrible ordered the bright eyes of the glorious craftsmen to be gouged out, so that in no other land there would be a temple equal in beauty and grandeur to Pokrovsky in Moscow.

And the bird-man Nikita, about whose prowess, courage, intelligence and courage there were legends for a long time, the king ordered to be thrown from a great height into a deep pit, where sharp knives, lances and sabers stuck out. And, pierced through, he bled to death and died in unbearable agony, never understanding what his fault was and why he was put to death.

What did the poor man do? What made the king angry?

The cherished dream of this man was to rise into the sky and fly like a crane. And he made wings for himself, climbed to the very top of the sixty-two-meter Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, jumped from there and, in front of the astonished people, began to soar like an eagle or a falcon, and sank unharmed to the ground.

The king heard about it and said:

"Man should not fly, but walk on the ground." And ordered the execution of the brave man. So, probably, the first known aeronaut in the history of Russia, who managed to fly over the earth and experience an incomparable feeling of flight, perished.

Maybe half of what was said about Ivan the Terrible is just fiction, fairy tales, or maybe true - who knows. Only it is reliably known that by his evil will a lot of blood was shed and many lives were ruined.

It was scary, scary to listen to his songs, but people stood still, did not disperse. Some even, pushing the crowd aside, made their way forward so as not to miss anything, not to miss a word.

And Timokha would have played and sang for a long time, but then some big-eyed workman saw that the owner, the tavern keeper, slipped out of the inn, trying to remain unnoticed and hurried somewhere.

Everyone immediately rushed in all directions. After all, if you are caught for listening to such impudent songs about the tsar, you will not be alive - they will flog you to death or leave you to be torn to pieces by dogs.

“And you, dear man, run, save yourself! - already from a distance shouted the workman to the hesitant Timokha. - You'll be the first to fail. Pour, monsters, lead in the throat, and then only in the next world you will sing. Take your feet in your hands - and go!

After these words, Timokha rushed so that only his heels flashed and the dust behind him rose like a pillar. And I made it on time! As soon as he disappeared, horsemen in black galloped to the very place where he entertained the people. But Timokha has already caught a cold. Chasing him did nothing. The sovereign's servants had to return with nothing.

Oleg Tikhomirov "A word about the defense of Moscow and the feat of Minin and Pozharsky"

TERRIBLE NEWS

On a clean May day in 1591, a messenger hurried along the road to Moscow. Oh, how fast!

A messenger was in a hurry with the black news. The young Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Vasilyevich, was killed in Uglich.

The messenger had already been galloping all day, and before his eyes the crowd was buzzing, seizing the accursed murderers, and Dmitri's scarlet blood was burning on the stone slabs. Moreover, everything was heard by the messenger, how the bell groaned and tore.

The vile murderers were seized by an angry crowd. The prince was placed in the temple, and they decided to send a messenger to Moscow to report everything to Tsar Fedor. He was the brother of the murdered Dmitry.

What will happen now, what will happen? Who will reign in Russia? Tsar Fedor is sickly and "weak in mind." The boyar Boris Godunov rules all the affairs of the Moscow state, imposes his will on the tsar, cares only about his own profit. The king has no children, no heir. Therefore, in Russia they believed that Tsarevich Dmitry would get the throne. And that's how it happened!

The messenger did not reach the king. Boris Godunov placed his people on the Uglich road. They seized the messenger and brought him to Godunov.

“Submit the letter here,” Boris ordered.

“That letter was written for the king,” the messenger objected.

Godunov moved his eyebrows and threatened:

“Ali, are you tired of living, you fool?”

The messenger was frightened, took out a letter. Boris hid it from the tsar, and instead wrote another. It was reported in it that Dmitry himself inadvertently stabbed himself with a knife when he played "poking" with the little guys. The king cried and said:

- May it be the will of God!

It was not in vain that they said about him "in the mind and spirit of a baby."

And there was a rumor among the people that the murderers caught in Uglich confessed before their death: by order, they say, Tsarevich Dmitry was stabbed to death by Godunov.

Boris sent loyal people to Uglich. Two hundred Uglichans were executed, and some had their tongues cut off, some were thrown into prison, some were exiled.

The boyars did not like Godunov. But in that year, they did not dare to become contrary to his will: Boris is very strong, he has a lot of power.

The townspeople were agitated, but quieted down. There was no big uproar.

TROUBLE AFTER TROUBLE

- It's cold for me ... It's cold, - said, dying, Tsar Fyodor.

He was covered with furs, firewood was thrown into the oven.

Boyars were asked:

- To whom, sovereign, are you ordering the kingdom?

“As God wills, so be it,” he answered quietly.

Godunov was considered the first among the boyars. Although he did not sit on the throne, he was the ruler of the state anyway. Everyone understood this well - both the boyars, and the nobles, and the small townspeople.

And Boris left for the Novodevichy Convent. He wanted to beg him to become a kingdom. He knew that the time had come for him to become a sovereign. Waited!

And so they called the Zemsky Sobor (meeting). Everyone spoke with praise about Godunov, and if so, he was elected tsar. Boris was sent to inform him of this, but Godunov renounces the throne.

A crowd of people flowed to Novodevichy to ask Boris to accept the kingdom. Patriarch Job himself, the head of the Russian Church, came to Godunov to beg. The crowd was on its knees. Finally Boris agreed.

At first, the king was merciful. Even reduced taxes. Just this handout to the people! It's like a scorched field - a ladle of water.

And then the troubles set in. Since 1601 crop failures struck. Moscow had the worst of it with its merchant and artisan people. Bread prices have risen. Townspeople began to die of hunger. And it is not easier for the peasants: they ate quinoa and bark. All the grain is in the bins of the nobles and the boyars, but the peasants have something - empty, empty.

Three years lasted "great glade". Unrest boiled among the people. The peasants went to war against the landowners. The estates of noblemen were on fire. Then the tsar sent punitive detachments to Vladimir, Medyn, Kolomna and Rzhev. Look - and in Moscow itself, "the lower classes were indignant."

Further - worse. Godunov rushed to pacify the petty people - the boyars stirred. Conspiracies began to appear to the king everywhere. He began to inquire from the boyar serfs whether their masters were plotting any evil. Beatings, and torture, and executions began.

Everyone was dissatisfied with Boris, and here a new thing came along famously: a rumor spread that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive and was preparing to drive Godunov from the throne, and in Uglich, they say, not the Tsarevich was killed, but someone else.

THE FIRST FALSE MITRY

The villain impostor was ordered to catch and immediately deliver to the king.

Who is he? Where did it come from?

The former monk Grishka Otrepiev called himself Tsarevich Dmitry. He was "ready to read", and at one time Patriarch Job took him to his place for "book writing". Sometimes the patriarch brought Otrepiev to the king's palace. Grishka vigilantly looked at everything there, listened, “wound on his mustache”, entered into conversations with the boyars. Once, having drunk wine, he began to boast to the monks that, they say, he would soon be king in Moscow. They wanted to seize Otrepiev for such speeches. But kind people helped to escape.

He appeared a year later in the Polish-Lithuanian state as Tsarevich Dmitry. For some time he lived with Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, who understood well how beneficial it was for the Poles to support False Dmitry. Vishnevetsky also knew about Godunov's disagreements with the boyars, and about the peasant wars. "It's time," thought the Polish prince, "to overthrow Boris, and put his own man in Moscow as tsar."

That is why Vishnevetsky took the impostor to the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian state - to Krakow.

On the way, they stopped in Sambir at the governor Yuri Mnishek. False Dmitry was received with honor. In honor of the "prince" a dinner was arranged. It was here that Marina liked him - the beautiful daughter of the governor.

“It's a pity, eh! Grisha smiled. - Probably not from your own pocket. Not acquired by ourselves."

When the impostor returned to Sambir, an agreement was drawn up between False Dmitry and Mnishek: the “tsarevich” would become the Russian tsar - he would get Marina as his wife and give her Pskov and Novgorod, while the governor himself would get the land of Smolensk and part of Severskaya.

Troops began to gather. Hunters went to the impostor to profit from robberies and violence, ready to sell their saber to the one who pays the most.

In October, the army of False Dmitry set out.

One after another, the Russian cities surrendered to the "tsarevich" without a fight. The peasants and small service people believed in the “good” tsar and waited for Dmitry: he would save him from serfdom, he would punish the boyars-likhodeys. The governors, fearing the wrath of the people, opened the city gates in front of Otrepiev, met him with bread and salt.

Yes, and many boyars went over to the side of the impostor, although they knew that the real prince was killed. After all, for them the main thing was to throw off Godunov. No one knew about the secret deal between False Dmitry and Sigismund.

In April 1605, Boris died unexpectedly. His son Fyodor became king. He sent the governor-boyars against the impostor. But they handed over the army to the "rightful heir."

In Moscow, the boyar nobility staged a coup: Tsar Fedor and his mother were killed, and Patriarch Job, who stood for Godunov, was also overthrown.

With a magnificent retinue, surrounded by Polish military leaders, False Dmitry entered Moscow.

People waited in vain for good changes in their lives. The “good tsar” did not deliver from serf bondage, did not issue just decrees. But he himself lived happily ever after in Moscow. Music blared day and night in his palace. At the feasts, wine flowed like a river. Polyakov came to Moscow without an account. They mocked Russian customs, and if something went wrong, they pulled out a saber.

This angered the townspeople. They began to look askance at the offenders. With “bald heads” (as the Muscovites called the Poles - it was customary for the gentry to shave their heads) every now and then fights broke out on the streets.

At dawn on May 17, 1606, an alarm sounded over Moscow. The impostor, who had just celebrated his wedding with Marina Mnishek, decided that it was in his honor that the bells were ringing. But the sound was disturbing...

Having scattered the guards, the crowd rushed into the palace, shouting: “Beat him! Cut him down! Grishka jumped out the window, but was found. Here the imposter came to an end.

The body of False Dmitry was burned, and the ashes were stuffed into a cannon and shot in the direction from which he came.

TALK WITH THE KING

It was a rainy day in Krakow. The clouds hung so low that it seemed that the high spiers of the cathedrals were about to burst into them.

But that's not why King Sigismund was gloomy. He listened to the report of Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, who had returned from Moscow.

“Your Majesty,” Vishnevetsky continued after a short pause, “not only the impostor was killed that day.

— Who else?

— More than four hundred Poles.

- So much?

“All of Moscow has risen, Your Majesty.

— How did you escape?

Vasily Shuisky helped.

— Russian tsar?

He was not yet king that day.

He became one in two days.

- He was not elected. Shuisky's supporters shouted his name to the crowd in the square from Lobnoye Mesto. And that's it.

“Interesting,” Sigismund chuckled mirthlessly. - Farther?

- Shuisky helped to hide not only me, but also Yuri Mnishek and Marina.

“It’s good that he didn’t help the impostor escape,” the king allowed himself to joke.

Prince Adam Vishnevetsky forced a laugh:

- The most interesting thing, Your Majesty: Vasily Shuisky did not have time to take the throne, as the people started talking that "Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich is alive," and on many boyar gates it was written at night that "Tsar Dmitry orders to plunder the houses of traitors." Vasily Shuisky suppressed the uprising with great difficulty.

“Yes…” the king said after a pause. - In Russia, dead tsars are loved more than living ones.

“A special occasion, Your Majesty. Tsarevich Dmitry is the victim. In Russia, they pity the victims.

“They didn’t take too much pity on the impostor.

“Your Majesty, he was being too stupid.

Sigismund was not very sad - he had already thought more than once about replacing Otrepyev with a new False Dmitry.

MOSCOW UNDER SIEGE

In the summer of 1608, the army of False Dmitry II approached Moscow. The capital was well fortified. The Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod (the trading part of the center, which adjoined the Kremlin on the east side) were surrounded by powerful stone walls with loopholes. The second white-stone wall encircled Bolshoi Posad (this part of Moscow was called the White City) in a semicircle. And the settlements that were in the immediate vicinity of Moscow were protected by a third, wooden, wall "three good fathoms" thick.

Moscow also had its own Cannon Yard, which worked "with great service." Russian craftsmen supplied the army with mortars, squeakers and shotguns. Muscovites themselves made gunpowder (potion). The sovereign's court, where gunpowder was made, was located in the Uspensky ravine.

And the Russians also came up with mobile fortresses on sledges or wheels - “walk-cities” for the battle outside the city. These structures were protected by thick block shields and had holes for firing from self-propelled guns. In each "walk-city" was placed up to ten shooters.

Seeing that it was impossible to take Moscow, “like a bird by hand,” the new impostor tried to cut off the capital from other cities in order to make it difficult to bring food to it. False Dmitry II set up his camp on the Volokolamsk road near the steep bank of the Moskva River in the village of Tushino (that's why he was called the Tushinsky thief).

The main Russian army stood on the Khodynka River and occupied positions from the village of Khoroshevo to the city walls.

On the night of June 25, the Poles tried to attack the Russian camp and first pushed the Muscovites. But in the morning a large detachment under the command of Shuisky himself drove the enemy across the Khimka River.

Several months have passed. A whole city grew up in Tushino. The army of the impostor was replenished all the time. Foreign merchants brought their goods here. The camp was also supplied with plenty due to robberies. The feasts thundered one after another.

And in Moscow at that time "it was vague, and mournful, and cramped." Vasily Shuisky could not compete with the Tushinsky thief. The tsar retreated to the Presnya River, and in December he left for Moscow altogether.

And the real defenders of Moscow held firm, "the thieves fought with the Poles, and with Lithuania, and with the Russians, not sparing their belly," although in everything "they suffered need and hunger in the siege." These warriors understood that now the main enemy was foreign invaders.

The besieged Trinity-Sergius Monastery also fought back strongly. Thirty thousand Poles surrounded him, made tunnels, tried to take him by storm. Yes, they couldn't do anything. Like stones, “monastic brethren, elders, acolytes and a few military people, and a total of three thousand” have grown into the wall. Don't throw them out of there. At the end of May 1609, the enemy made a last attempt to take the monastery by storm, but was repulsed "with great loss."

At the same time, the Tushino army "rose" to Moscow. Warriors with “walking cities” came out to meet her. Troops clashed on the Khodynka River. At first, the Tushinos began to overcome, they broke through the "walk-cities". But fresh forces arrived in time, they hit the foreign cavalry from two sides, overturned it and “trampled” it all the way to Khodynka. The enemy infantry was also pretty battered. Cannons thrown by the enemy fell into the hands of the Moscow soldiers.

The siege of Moscow continued. But the defenders did not want to hear about the surrender of the capital.

SIGISMUND III GOES TO WAR

Meanwhile, since the autumn of 1608, both in the northern lands of the Russians, and in the Volga region, and in Vladimir region the people rose up against False Dmitry II and the Poles.

The king became worried in Krakow, again summoned Prince Adam Vishnevetsky to himself.

“The mob rose up in Vologda and Ustyug,” Vishnevetsky reported, “in Yuryev and Balakhna.

Sigismund looked coldly, prickly.

“We left Kostroma ...” continued the prince.

The king couldn't resist.

— And Moscow?! Sigismund glared at the prince. - A year and a half, the army sticks out in Tushino. Why is Moscow not taken?

“Moscow, Your Majesty, is an excellently defended city. In Europe, as the Russians say, look for such people in the daytime with fire. Besides...

“Fire must be burned, burned out,” interrupted the king.

- Besides, our Tush protege ...

- What? the king was worried.

“I'm afraid he won't live up to expectations, Your Majesty.

Do Russians no longer believe in the “true tsar”?

“They don't believe in an impostor, Your Majesty. His army is in disarray. If the Russians come to him to fight against Shuisky, he sends them to plunder. This is not to everyone's taste, Your Majesty. But most of all, our gentry overdid it. Otherwise, they are not called in Russia otherwise than “murderers” or “villains”.

Sigismund thought, looking at his diamond ring.

“You mean you can’t do without the royal army there?”

"Yes, Your Majesty, but...

Vishnevetsky did not finish. The king waited patiently.

—... this will be a war between two states.

"And you think we can't go for it?"

The prince considered what to say, but the king answered himself:

“The war has been going on for a long time. This is clear even to the mob in Ustyug.

In the summer of 1609, Sigismund III declared war on the Russian state. At the end of September, the royal army laid siege to Smolensk. However, this city turned out to be a tough nut to crack. The Poles were stuck here for a long time. Only after a twenty-month siege did they break through the walls of Smolensk.

Sigismund demanded that the "Tushino" Poles join his army and abandon the impostor. The Tushinsky thief, seeing that his affairs were bad, changed into a peasant dress "and secretly in a dung sleigh" fled to Kaluga. His camp fell apart.

After the flight of False Dmitry II, a handful of Tushino boyars sent ambassadors to Sigismund near Smolensk - "to ask the king of Moscow, Prince Vladislav." Sigismund, in order to ease the path to the Russian throne for his son, sent an army to Moscow under the command of one of the hetmans. The Moscow army was defeated. And Tsar Basil, who was left without an army, was overthrown by his own subjects.

BETRAYAL

A double threat hung over Moscow. “The Poles and Lithuania came” - they were already standing on the Khoroshevsky meadows near the Moscow River. And again appeared near the capital False Dmitry II, in the village of Kolomenskoye. Both the Poles and every thief wanted to take Moscow for themselves.

And among the Russian boyars, turmoil and strife were in full swing. Everyone tried to get on the royal throne himself, and push the opponent back. Death looked into the eyes of the Russian state, and they only cared about their well-being.

Boyar Sheremetev said:

“It is not from King Sigismund that we are threatened with ruin. The greatest evil is from the mob, from peasants and serfs.

Boyar Romanov said:

- Low people start troubles. Without the strength of the Polish unrest can not be suppressed.

Boyar Saltykov said:

- You need to ask for the king's son Vladislav, and then we'll see.

So, behind the backs of the people, the boyars decided the fate of the Russian state.

Boyar ambassadors met with the Polish hetman near the Novodevichy Convent. They said that they were ready to elect the prince as the Russian tsar, but at the same time ...

“So that Vladislav does not decide anything important without the advice of the boyars, without the thought of the Boyars,” began Prince Golitsyn.

- So that the ranks that were in the Muscovite state, did not change, - added Prince Mstislavsky.

“So that the princely and boyar families are not lowered in honor,” the boyar Sheremetev added.

The boyars cared about their own interests alone, they did not say a word about the people. The hetman promised to fulfill everything.

When the townspeople found out about the boyar deceit, Moscow became agitated.

"We don't want Polish masters over us!" shouted the Kalashnikov Fadey from the Arbat.

"Get out, you baldheads!" shouted the cart driver Afonya from Ordynka.

- Beat them with axes, our destroyers! shouted the cutler Grigory from Bronnaya Sloboda.

Fear fell on the boyars - they began to ask foreigners to wait a while to enter Moscow. However, a few days later, at night, the Poles quietly entered the city. The hetman himself settled in the Kremlin, in the mansions of Boris Godunov. He deployed his army in Kitay-Gorod, posted guards at the gates and walls of the White City.

The boyars realized it, but it was too late: they have neither "their own will" in the Boyar Duma, nor power.

And the common people “from the Poles and from Lithuania there was great violence and resentment,” they behaved like invaders, “all sorts of goods and edible grub” were taken by force “for no money.”

And False Dmitry II sent “vague” letters to the capital, wrote that he would come to Moscow to kill “Poles, boyars and great nobles”, and give freedom to “low” people. Lots of people liked these letters.

MOSCOW IS RISEN

And in Moscow, it was like before the explosion... But it wasn’t a barrel of gunpowder that was rolled up to the fire, but the people were driven with whips and sabers to swear an oath to the Polish prince. And what is a barrel of gunpowder compared to the wrath of the people! From the anger of that, the earth burned under the feet of the invaders. And already in fear they shouted to the Russians: “Submit!”

The Smolensk people answered Sigismund with cannon fire. The Ryazan governor Prokopiy Lyapunov fiercely fought with the Poles in his region. They were smashed by the Zaraisk voivode, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. Patriarch Hermogenes sent out secret letters - freed the Russian people from the oath to Vladislav.

In such a tense time, False Dmitry II was killed in Kaluga.

From February 1611 detachments from all sides of the Russian state reached out to Moscow. And no longer for the "good king" they went to fight, but for their native land, for their capital city. Militias marched from Murom and Nizhny Novgorod, from Suzdal and Vladimir, from Vologda and Uglich, from Kostroma and Yaroslavl, from Ryazan and Galich.

The Poles were wary: they didn’t tell anyone to carry knives, they took axes from the carpenters, set up guards at the gates of the city, and rushed to search every wagon to see if anyone was carrying weapons to the city. Small firewood was also forbidden to be sold: they were afraid that the people would make clubs. Patriarch Hermogenes was taken into custody. It was demanded of him that he stop the movement towards Moscow. But he firmly replied that he blesses "all of you to stand against you and die for the Orthodox faith."

In Moscow, here and there, “bloody clashes” broke out between the gentry and “black” people. And the closer the Russian detachments approached the capital, the more anxious the Poles became. The traitorous boyars gave them the day of the Moscow uprising - March 19.

And the Muscovites, waiting for the militia, armed themselves as best they could. Sledges with logs were prepared in the yards in order to, if necessary, block

such a sleigh of the streets - then it will be difficult for the Poles to move around the city and come to the rescue of each other.

On March 18, some detachments of the militia came very close to Moscow. In the evening, Pozharsky's detachment entered the White City through the gates of the wall, slightly brightening in the blue twilight. Warriors of other Russian governors stood in Zamoskvorechye and at the Yauza Gates.

Silence enveloped the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod, only the heavy footsteps of the guards broke it. Listening to these steps, the Polish military leaders consulted among themselves. It was decided to go out to meet the Russian militia and, until all the detachments approached, break it in parts. Only these plans were not destined to be fulfilled, because the people rebelled in Moscow itself.

It all seemed to start with a small "hack". In the morning, several carts were passing through Red Square. On one of them sat a cart driver from Ordynka - Afonya. Afonyushka's shoulders are like a slanting sazhen, Afonyushka's fists are a pood each. Afonya rode himself, did not touch anyone, and the Poles at that hour dragged cannons onto the tower. To drag a cannon is not to eat a pie, who wants to tear himself. When the Poles saw Afonyushka, they ran up:

- Get off the cart, you need to help.

- Well, you! the driver waved. - Get around.

The Poles do not lag behind, they pull Afonyushka by the hands.

- Get out! the driver got angry. - I miss it!

The Pole drew his saber:

“Oh, you dog blood!”

Afonyushka did not like this, he hit the screamer on the crown of the head with his fist - he fell dead.

The Poles rushed to Athos. And that one had a spare shaft on the cart. How Afonyushka went with her to walk on the enemy's heads! Here, the other drivers did not blunder, jumped off the carts - and with clubs to the rescue of a comrade. And the Germans, the mercenaries of Sigismundov, decided that an uprising had begun. They rushed at the common people, at merchants and artisans. They beat everyone indiscriminately "both in the square, and in the ranks, and on the streets." A bloody slash rose all around. The men grabbed the axes, the Germans grabbed the muskets. The crowd roared, volleys erupted. And then the alarm ringing shook the whole of Moscow.

In the White City, the streets were filled with logs. Muscovites fired self-propelled guns from rooftops, from windows, through fences.

Fight broke out on Nikitskaya Street, broke out on Sretenka.

The musketeers wanted to take the Cannon Yard, but the gunners, among whom was Prince Pozharsky, met them with aimed fire.

The Poles thought to break through at the Yauza Gates, but even there the Russian army held a strong defense. They did not manage to pass through Zamoskvorechye either, and at the Tver Gates, where there were streltsy settlements, the archers hit the invaders.

It became very bad for the Poles. And then one of the gentry shouted:

- Burn at home!

They set fire to the houses with burning pitch. The fire ran through the wooden buildings.

Because of the smoke and flames, the Russians had to abandon their ambushes.

At night, the invaders decided to burn the entire White City and Skorodod.

Two hours before dawn, the arsonists began their villainy. Set on fire from several sides, the city blazed.

The whole next day, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, hiding in a small prison, repulsed the attacks of the Poles. But in the evening, "exhausted from great wounds," the prince fell to the ground. So the brave warrior would have died if the other reliable ones had not taken him out of the fire and failed to deliver him to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.

King Sigismund sent another army under the command of Colonel Strus to help his garrison. Through the burned silent Moscow, Strus led the soldiers straight to the Kremlin.

Muscovites also left the capital. They went to meet the militia units.

INVADERS IN THE RING

A few more days passed. The Poles, who were keeping watch on the bell tower of Ivan the Great, suddenly noticed how a wide strip - as if a river had gushed from where - Russian troops approached the city walls.

Reported to the Polish voivode Gonsevsky. Throwing on a boyar fur coat, he himself climbed to the top platform of the bell tower. I looked for a long time.

“And here are the Russians. They're moving!..' Gonsevsky shivered shiveringly, wrapped himself deeper into his fur coat. “Oh, Virgin Mary, what do they need here, in empty Moscow, where only the wind whistles among the black firebrands?”

Not to understand that Pole, not to comprehend.

Until all the detachments approached, Gonsevsky ordered that Strus, at the head of seven hundred horsemen, went out to meet the Russians and entered into battle with them.

Seeing the cavalry, the Russians began to disperse on both sides of the road. "Miserable cowards," thought the Polish voivode, and he already felt the intoxicating sweetness of victory.

But when the riders approached, there was no running crowd in front of them, and on the road some structures on sledges suddenly appeared, looking either like a wall or a log cabin. I have never seen such a Strus.

- What is it? - he asked the experienced red-moustached captain, who had already sniffed gunpowder more than once in battles with the "Muscovites".

- Russian notion - "walk-city". Without guns, they are not easy to take. It's best to bypass.

At this time, shots rang out from the side of the wooden structures.

- Bypass! Strus commanded.

But the cavalry in several rows was surrounded by "walk-cities". Having lost up to a hundred killed, the Poles barely escaped from the encirclement and galloped back.

The next day, the Ryazan governor Prokopiy Lyapunov approached Moscow, and the atamans Trubetskoy and Zarutsky joined him with the Cossacks. They stood behind the Simonov Monastery. When Gonsevsky tried to drive them away, the militia so "boldly broke" into the ranks of the invaders and gave them such hand-to-hand combat that the Poles fled and came to their senses only in Kitay-gorod.

After that, the Russian detachments approached the White City without obstacles and settled along its walls.

And at the Yauza gates, and at the Pokrovsky, and at the Tver gates - militias were everywhere. The city was encircled.

That's how it happened: the Muscovites built the walls, tried to put them as strong as possible, and now they had to take this stronghold themselves.

Yes, that was not the problem. The militias have learned the art of war, and they do not have the courage.

But there was no unity and harmony in the ranks of the militias. Discord and turmoil arose among the governors.

The Poles took advantage of the strife. Gonsevsky ordered a fake letter signed by Lyapunov to be thrown into the Cossack camps. After the capture of Moscow, that letter called for "beating and drowning the Cossacks without mercy." In July 1611, the Cossacks called Lyapunov to their “circle”, where he was killed.

After the death of Lyapunov, a "split occurred" in the militia. Detachments of nobles, peasants and townspeople left from Moscow. All this undermined the strength of the militias.

However, although the militia could not take Moscow, they tied the hands of the invaders: the capital was still in the ring.

In September, King Sigismund III sent hetman Jan Khotkiewicz to help his garrison.

He tried several times to drive the Cossacks away from Moscow, but nothing came of it. The hetman turned back to Poland, and part of the garrison left with him, along with Gonsevsky.

Strus was appointed head of the army that remained in the Kremlin.

Militia of Minin and Pozharsky

Autumn, autumn... A leaf flew from the trees. The sky turned into clouds.

Yes, it was not from the clouds that everything around grew dim, but from black sadness, from mournful news. Smolensk fell after a long siege. The Swedes captured Novgorod. In Pskov, another "thief" Sidorka appeared, he called himself Tsarevich Dmitry. The Moscow Region militia disintegrated. Along the southern borders, the lands of the Crimean Tatars were devastated. Bad, bad in Russia!

In September at Nizhny Novgorod people flocked to the square at the ringing of the cathedral bell. It was a weekday, and people looked at each other anxiously: what did they all call for - for good or for worse? But not for the sake of what news the Nizhny Novgorod people were gathered, but a letter from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was read to them. The letter called for saving the Fatherland "from mortal death", "to be all in unity and stand together" against foreign invaders and traitors. The diploma hurried: "Let the service people hurry to Moscow without any hesitation."

The crowd buzzed, but fell silent at once: the word was taken by the zemstvo headman, the meat merchant Kuzma Minin. He respected the people of Minin, he was a reasonable man and clear in conscience.

“Good people,” Kuzma began, “you yourself know about the great ruin of the Russian land. The villains did not spare either elders or infants. If we really want to save the Muscovite state, we will not regret anything: we will sell the yards, property, we will recruit military men and we will beat with our foreheads to those who would stand up for Russia and be our boss.

Nizhny Novgorod residents began to converge in houses and on the streets, they judged, they judged how to be. Minin appeared at gatherings, talked with people, encouraged them. He was the first to set an example: he gave all his money to create an army.

Other townspeople followed suit. Another gave the last, only to not remain on the sidelines.

But, before calling the people of the military, it was necessary to choose a governor. Minin said that there is no better governor than Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky. In Pozharsky there was neither superfluous pride nor arrogance, he knew how to get along with people and did not magnify his merits before anyone. He was a skilled voivode, a reliable and honest man - only such a person could serve the Fatherland great service. Prince Pozharsky gladly responded to Minin's call. Without delay, they began to recruit an army.

Russians sent many cities to Nizhny with their money, various weapons and supplies, military men from everywhere were drawn to the militia to Minin and Pozharsky. In December 1611, an all-Russian government was created in Nizhny Novgorod - the "Council of the Whole Land".

The Poles were worried in Moscow. In early February, they ordered the boyars, who were at the same time with them, to “put pressure” on Patriarch Hermogenes, so that he would stop the Nizhny Novgorod army with his word. But Hermogenes was firm and "unyielding to temptations." It was not possible to intimidate or appease him. The old man threw these words into the face of the boyars: “May those who go to purify the Muscovite state be blessed, and you, cursed Moscow traitors, be damned!”

In the first militia, where most of the Cossacks and former "Tushins" now remained, dissensions began again. The upper hand was won by those who called to serve the new impostor.

In order to prevent the second militia, the ataman Zarutsky tried to capture Yaroslavl in March: many warriors went to Minin from the northern settlements and counties. But the Cossack ataman did not succeed in this venture. Prince Pozharsky was ahead of him, in time he led the militia to Yaroslavl.

Here, on the Volga, for four months the prince continued to gather his army, preparing for a campaign against Moscow.

King Sigismund again sent reinforcements to the rescue of the garrison settled in the Kremlin. Upon learning of this, Pozharsky immediately moved the militia to the capital.

Already not far from Moscow, in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the prince sent Cossack ambassadors to the camps, ordered to say that the warriors had no evil against the Cossacks and were not going to fight them.

“Let the Cossacks understand,” he admonished his messengers, “there is no need for us to shed blood among ourselves in vain. We now have one enemy - the invaders.

However, as soon as the first detachments of the new militia approached Moscow, Ataman Zarutsky fled from the camps. Prince Trubetskoy remained.

On August 20, Pozharsky pitched his camp at the Arbat Gate, because the main threat (Hotkevich's army) was expected from the Smolensk road. So that Strus could not leave the Kremlin and connect with Khotkevich, Pozharsky placed several detachments along the wall of the White City - from the Petrovsky Gates to the Nikitsky and Chertolsky Gates (now Kropotkinsky). The Cossacks set up camps in Zamoskvorechye. Pozharsky sent them five hundreds of horsemen to reinforce them.

THREE-DAY BATTLE

Oh, and the hetman brought a beautiful army under the walls of the Russian capital! There is something to see here. Look at the elegant clothes of the Polish gentry and the Lithuanian nobles, look at the frisky horses and the expensive harness, look at the formidable weapons, look at the battle scars of the German and Hungarian mercenaries! And the guns smelled of gunpowder! And the timpani, shining brighter than the sun!

Yes, and Jan Karl Khotkevich himself, the commander was famous; he beat such strong warriors as the Swedes more than once. “And the Russian militias are far from the Swedes!” Khotkevich thought. And his other commanders thought the same. Pan Budilo wrote to Pozharsky: “Better you, Pozharsky, let your people go to the plows.” It is true that Russian warriors were inferior to the Poles in appearance and training. And their number was smaller: the Poles - twelve thousand, the Russians - about ten.

On the morning of August 22, having crossed the Moscow River, Khotkevich led his army on the offensive to the Chertol Gates.

“Forward, eagles! .. Forward! ..” Hetman Khotkevich rejoiced. - Rewards and glory await you!

Here is the Chertolsky gate. To burst into them, to fly in with a furious wind!

Yes, it was not there! The Russians dismounted, stood near the fortified walls, prepared for hand-to-hand combat.

Even before the battle, Pozharsky said a short speech. He did not promise the warriors either an easy victory, or rich booty, or honorary titles.

“The Russian land,” said the prince, “is expecting a just cause from us. Let us stand firmly near Moscow and fight to the death.

The battle lasted seven hours. And the guns fired, and the sabers sparkled, and the warriors threw themselves at each other “in knives”. The militias had a hard time. The Poles had more strength. Meanwhile, Trubetskoy's Cossacks were watching the battle from the outside (they were not far away - at the Crimean courtyard), they did not take part. They did not let go of themselves and those horse hundreds that Pozharsky gave them.

“It’s time, prince, to go to the rescue,” the militia said to Trubetskoy.

- It will succeed.

Among the horsemen sent was Grigory, a cutler from Bronnaya Sloboda. He tried to conscience the Cossacks: there, they say, blood is shed, and you are sitting here sitting.

Shame on Gregory. Well, how rich is he! A horse was bought for him from the money that Minin collected, and Grigory himself worked the saber - that's what he is a cutler for. Grigory persuaded his comrades, and they galloped to the rescue of their own free will, without the permission of Trubetskoy.

- Stop! shouted the Cossacks. Yes, they could not restrain themselves - they also rushed into battle.

Khotkevich retreated with losses. He left a thousand dead Poles and mercenaries on the battlefield. Torn banners lay in the dust. Only the abandoned timpani still shone brightly.

Strus tried to strike at the rear of the militia from the Kremlin. But this sortie was not successful. Streltsy, standing in the White City, drove the Poles back.

At night, the hetman ordered one of the detachments to break into the Kremlin and deliver supplies to the besieged garrison. The detachment managed to pass through Zamoskvorechye and connect with the Kremlin garrison, but the Russians captured the convoy with food.

On August 23, Khotkevich moved with his entire camp to the Donskoy Monastery in order to break through to the Kremlin again through Zamoskvorechye. The hetman was aware of the disagreements between the Cossacks and the militia, and he believed that Trubetskoy would not put up staunch resistance.

But Khotkevich miscalculated. Prince Pozharsky, having learned about everything from scouts, also rearranged his troops to defend Zamoskvorechye. Now he stood on Ostozhenka, from where at any moment he could wade across the Moscow River. He transferred the forward detachments to the right bank: foot archers scattered at the moat along Zemlyanoy Val with cannons. The Cossacks, who were with Pozharsky, stood in the prison where Pyatnitskaya and Ordynka converge - at the Klimentovskaya Church. This prison guarded the road leading from

Serpukhov Gate to the Floating Bridge, which connected Zamoskvorechye with Kitay-gorod.

On August 24, the hetman, having launched all his forces into battle, occupied the fortifications of the Earthen Wall and brought four hundred wagons into the city for the besieged in the Kremlin. But the convoy reached only Ordynka: the attacks of Russian warriors did not allow it to move further. The Hungarian mercenaries still managed to capture Klimentovsky Ostrozhek, and this ended the offensive of Khotkevich's troops.

The Cossacks who held the prison, although they retreated, were not far away. They lie down, shoot, watch how the Poles lead the carts into the prison. It so happened that Sevastyan, a weaver with Kadash, found himself among the Cossacks. He tells them:

- It would be the best time to return the guards. The hour is not even, the Poles will bring up an army, but it will be bad for us.

- Let's go back. Lie down. What are you tearing up?

- My house is not far away, how not to tear.

- Which house? Everything is up on fire.

“The native place remains, but we will cut down a new hut,” Sevastyan replies. - We need to drive the Poles.

“Our house is everywhere. Where we sleep, there is a house.

- It is clear: people are free. Today you are here, and the next day you are gone. But still you are wrong. Your home is the Russian land. - And he repeated: - It is necessary to drive the Poles.

- Lie down until you are told to get up.

- What to expect? We gave up the prison ourselves, we ourselves will take it back, and we will also take the wagon train.

Raised the same Sevastyan Cossacks. They rushed to the attack, fought for a long time with both the Hungarian infantry and the Polish horsemen, but still recaptured Klimentovsky prison. The enemy retreated. One infantry left seven hundred people on the battlefield. All the carts with provisions were also abandoned.

Meanwhile, Prince Pozharsky transferred the main forces to the right bank of the Moscow River. And the battle broke out in Zamoskvorechye for long hours. The successes were variable. In addition, Trubetskoy's Cossacks either went into battle or left.

It was already getting dark when Minin rode up to Pozharsky's camp and asked for people to "hit the Poles and Lithuania."

“Take, Kuzma, whoever you want,” the prince replied to his faithful comrade-in-arms.

Taking three horse noble hundreds, Minin crossed the river and attacked from the flank the enemy companies that were near the Crimean courtyard.

This blow took the Poles by surprise. They ran, crushed their own, brought confusion. Then Pozharsky's militia also attacked the hetman's camp, the cavalry ran into it, the infantry went "tightly" (that is, together). Seeing this, Trubetskoy's Cossacks also took up arms as one. The army of Khotkevich rolled back.

In three days, Pozharsky completely defeated the famous Khotkevich. Only four hundred horsemen remained with the hetman from the entire army.

COMPLETION

All that remained now was to deal with those Poles who had settled in Kitai-Gorod and the Kremlin.

Pozharsky ordered to conduct mounted firing from mortars at the besieged. Flew through the walls "cores of stone and fire." The guns were even at the Kremlin itself from the side of the Moscow River.

The Poles sat without food and endured great "crowding" in everything: the Russians blocked all their exits. So that there would be no bloodshed in vain, Prince Pozharsky suggested that the enemy garrison surrender.

“We know,” he wrote, “that you, sitting under siege, are suffering terrible hunger and great need ... Now you yourself saw how the hetman came and with what dishonor and fear he left you, and then not all of our the troops have arrived... Don't expect a hetman. Come visit us without delay. Your heads and lives will be spared. I will take it on my soul and I will beg all the military people. Which of you wish to return to your land, they will be let in without any clue ... If some of you are unable to go from hunger, and they have nothing to ride, then when you leave the fortress, we will send such carts.

The Poles sent an insulting reply to the prince's friendly letter. They believed that the militia warriors, torn off "from the plow", could not really fight, and advised Pozharsky to disband the army: "Let the serf still cultivate the land, let the priest know the church, let the Kuzmas engage in their trade."

- Russian people, the hour of the last Moscow battle has come. Let the Poles do not believe in our military skill, then their business. The walls of Kitay-gorod are strong, and the fighting spirit of our army is even stronger. On the attack!

Calling trumpets sounded, banners fluttered in the wind. Warriors rushed to the walls of Kitay-Gorod - they climbed the ladders.

Afonyushka, the driver from Ordynka, also ran with everyone. Afonya is healthy: in his hands the sharp saber seems like child's play.

“Drop it,” his comrades shout to him, “take a saber and take a shaft, there will be more sense!”

The Russians took Kitai-Gorod. Only the Poles remained in the Kremlin. But now they immediately agreed to surrender, they only begged for mercy.

On October 26, Pozharsky signed an agreement under which he promised to keep the besieged alive. The next morning, all the Kremlin gates were open.

Russian troops solemnly entered the city. Pozharsky's regiments marched from the Arbat, Trubetskoy's Cossacks from the Pokrovsky Gates. The warriors moved with "quiet feet" with victorious chants. And all the people were "in great joy and gladness."

King Sigismund, having learned about everything, sent his army to Moscow. On the way, he tried to capture Volokolamsk, which, according to the Russians, is like a village in the "great state of Moscow." But Volokolamsk turned out to be beyond the power of the king. Sigismund lifted the siege "and went to his Poland in disgrace."

Thus, in intense battles under the walls of Moscow, the fate of all Russia was decided.

And in 1818, a monument to two glorious sons of the Russian people was erected on Red Square in Moscow. The inscription on it is: "Grateful Russia to Prince Pozharsky and citizen Minin."

And if you and I happen to be at that monument, we will also say:

- Low bow to you, heroes, from descendants.

Dmitry Glukhovsky

Stories about the Motherland

All names of heroes, organizations, companies and states in this book are fictitious, and their coincidence with the names and names of real people, organizations and states is accidental.

Mikhail Semyonovich! Wake up! There is something like that ... - the assistant shook Professor Stein by the shoulder.

The professor groaned and turned over on his other side. There could be nothing "such" in this mediocre and senseless expedition. Nothing but a bloodthirsty midge, capable, probably, of devouring a whole cow in ten minutes. Nothing but mosquitoes the size of a well-fed mongrel, nothing but sweat and vodka. Yes, more dust, dirt and stone.

Rest in old age.

Pshel, - suggested Stein to the assistant.

Mikhail Semyonovich! - He didn't give up. - Mikhail Semyonovich! The drill failed! And we found something!

The professor opened his eyes. The first rays of the rising sun seeped through the canvas of the tent. A pack of dipyrone and a faceted glass were lying at the head of the bed. Nearby lay a common notebook with his theoretical calculations. When the expedition is over, he will be able to finely chop these checkered leaves, fill them with sunflower oil and devour them. Wasted time. Because if Stein dares to present his theories at the Academy of Sciences, there scientific opponents will put this notebook in him in their own way. Rectally.

Mikhail Semyonovich! - desperately held out an assistant. - People worked all night ... They only started to wake you up at the last moment, when they realized that they had found ...

What did you find? The professor woke up at last.

We do not know!

Stein jumped up, hugged his hairy shoulders chillily, exhaled:

OK. Go there… I am now. I'll get together...

Did they find what they went on this idiotic expedition for? The expedition, because of which he had a fight with his wife. Because of which he went to the aggravation with his chronic prostatitis and osteochondrosis ... But they seem to have learned to coexist peacefully over the past twenty years! On the expedition, because of which Stein, after peaceful office work, decided to get out into the field again.

And why did he do all this?

And then, that a rather successful and fairly recognized doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences, Professor Mikhail Semenovich Stein, a Soviet and Russian scientist, was completely dissatisfied with his position. He went into science to become great. To make discoveries that could change the world. And at best, he earned only one and a half lines in the encyclopedia. And if he happens to throw back his hooves, these immortal donkeys at the Academy of Sciences will still come to trample on his grave, and then they will do everything possible so that the article in one and a half lines is not even included in the reprint! Enemy…

Lord, what is there? a girl screamed in the street.

Stein pulled on his trousers, put on his glasses - like Kissinger's - put on a mosquito net and poked his unruly legs into rubber boots. For a century he would not have seen this field romance! For some reason, when with age it becomes impossible to turn your head around, the desire to turn it also disappears. But what a wonderful and cozy office he has! It's warm there, and there are no ticks, and no midges, and the toilet is ten steps down the corridor, and to boil tea, you don't have to send anyone for water to the river ...

Meanwhile, it was in this office that he made the most important discovery: he suggested a new place for breaking the earth's crust. If he were right, in just three or four million years the territory present-day Russia will be torn between two new continents! And this is a state issue.

But, of course, for such sedition, the high priests from the Academy will immediately crucify him. Unless he can provide proof... Samples of rocks... Evidence of processes that are already underway - so far at great depths...

The next day after his anniversary - celebrated seventy-five - he nevertheless decided. He carefully calculated where the desired place should be, agreed with an old friend who, from geological exploration, went to the directors of a mining plant, knocked out a grant, quarreled with his wife, stuffed half a suitcase with medicines, tossed and turned for three days on a train, then shook three more on a "goat" off-road , and now for six months it has been sticking out in the Siberian wilderness.

And all in vain.

Professor! For God's sake, look at this!

Have you dug up a piece of mammoth? Or some kind of trilobite?

Stein threw back the flap of the tent, shuffled past the guards behind the palisade - you never know the animals in the taiga - and stopped at the entrance to the mine. Workers, geologists crowded around, a watchman stood with a double-barreled shotgun at the ready. People whispered in fright, pointing their fingers ...

What is there?! Stein pushed his way inside the circle.

In the middle lay, twitching its huge leathery wings, a disgusting creature. A puddle of black blood flowed from the smashed flat head. The gaze of green eyes with narrow horizontal pupils was motionless. But the eyelids fell and rose from time to time, and the ribs heaved in rare heavy sighs.

Nikita shot, - the assistant told Stein, nodding at the alcoholic watchman.

At first I thought - a squirrel, - Nikita hiccupped, for some reason wiping his hands on a dirty vest. - That is - everything, squirrel.

The professor stepped closer to the creature and poked it with the rubber tip of his stick.

Where did it come from? - he asked.

From the mine, - one of the workers answered.

And how, I wonder, did it get into the mine? Stein turned to the voice.

It was there ... it was, - the worker answered in a whisper. - We freed him.

Out of the question, said the professor. - At a depth of three kilometers? This is anti-science!

Suddenly, the beast shuddered and raised its head. Horizontal, like a goat's pupils, completely out of place on a disgusting mug, aimed at Stein. The mouth, dotted with sharp fangs in a shark manner, opened ...

And the creature cackled.

A monstrous, impossible sound: a mixture of laughter and deep-voiced mutton bleating, too low for a human throat.

Laughing, she threw back her head and sighed. And a few minutes later, when the sun finally came out from behind the hill, under its direct rays, the carcass suddenly smoked and disappeared.

It's unscientific, Stein repeated, looking at the brown puddle through foggy glasses.

* * *

“Russia will help Iran build a nuclear reactor,” a news line crawled across the screen. The announcer slapped something with his lips, but the sound of these TVs was not provided.

“The devil knows what's going on,” the professor shook his head. - Why do we need this? For a billion or so? Don’t they understand what can roar for the entire Middle East?”

However, thanks. At least he was distracted for a while ... Because now, in moments of forced idleness - until they were called to land, it was not at all easy for Mikhail Semenovich to fight off the disturbing thoughts that had settled on him alone.

Stein left the accursed Irkutsk airport with some fear. After the discovery of a strange creature, a terrible rock seemed to hang over the expedition. The watchman drank himself and drowned, the workers employed at the mine after the next shift fled into the taiga and disappeared there to the end, one of the geologists was suddenly struck by sleepwalking, and in a dream he tried to get into the professor's tent with an ax.

That the place is not good, one could figure out before.

For example, when it turned out that exactly at the point where Stein was going to drill, there was an old mine. Who dug here and when, it was impossible to establish. The earliest - under Yermak. Bones were found in the mine - already completely decayed, but, undoubtedly, human.

The foreman of the workers, from the locals, frowned, asked the professor for a confidential conversation and said that he did not advise drilling here, and if Stein really needed it, then his people would agree only for a double fee. The professor dropped the price by seventy percent. The brigadier managed to overcome the superstitions at a compromise price. But maybe you should listen to him...

Then - this story with a winged creature, which has not received any intelligible explanations.

And then…

And then the drill hung over the abyss.

A vast, endless void. Like a cave - if you forget that there could not be any caves at such a depth. And this discovery alone promised some immortality to the professor.

Now how can you prove it?

After the foreman went down into the mine with a box of dynamite and blew himself up there at a kilometer depth?

Now you can't prove anything to anyone.

What can we say about the discovery of the real, stunning, which was made shortly after the discovery of voids? The professor - an atheist of the Soviet coinage and a cosmopolitan by hopelessness - squeezed the icon in his hand. No, it's better not to even stutter.

Irkutsk - Moscow, landing! yelled a perhydrol habalka in an old-fashioned uniform.

Stein furtively pressed the icon to his lips.

It would be inconvenient if colleagues were caught kissing icons. Although, they say, Einstein believed - and nothing. And even if they caught it! In such a story, it doesn’t hurt to make sure before the flight ...

And what about in Moscow? Where does he go with his evidence base? What are the testimonies of geologists worth, half of which are flying home in straitjackets? And all that Stein has in his arsenal - electronic files with recorded sounds - echo sounders and a microphone were lowered into the abyss. Now, if the files don't get demagnetized and erased on the way back, he has a record of terrifying screams, extremely human-like, and growls of unknown monsters.

Not enough to turn the whole science upside down.

Not enough to substantiate Stein's discovery.

But he discovered the Underworld!

* * *

Grandpa, get on the phone! Alice spoke up.

Thank you, my bunny, I'm going!

Mikhail Semenovich reluctantly looked up from his old computer. I thought about it, printed out the page, put it in a pile and pressed down a cobblestone of selenite on top. A rather impressive pack has already been collected. His crusade to the Academy of Sciences. Let the old farts burn at the stake of the Inquisition! After all, the Inquisition will certainly be needed now ... Nothing, just a little re-profiling of one operating organization, which decently got its hand in the witch hunt.

It is not far to go - from one room, littered with mineral samples and hung with maps (there is also a de-spesh, walnut-like, Romanian bed for two), - to another, as it were, a living room (because there is a TV set and an Azerbaijani carpet is laid, but otherwise - the same minerals and maps).

Stein, Stein said.

Mikhail Semenovich, - an inanimate voice rustled in the receiver. - We recommend that you stop your work immediately.

What the heck?! - the professor was indignant. - Who's talking?

They speak from Alekseev's hospital, - the interlocutor whispered threateningly. - One of your colleagues is undergoing rehabilitation here ...

You don't scare me! Stein yelled. - Hear?! You don't scare me!

They laughed softly on the phone.

Alice, who, to the accompaniment of the TV, built from the volumes of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia the thirty-fifth year of the release of the house for her dolls, frightened stared at her grandfather with huge blue eyes.

“Moscow is categorically against the imposition of sanctions against the DPRK,” the TV filled the silence. - The people of North Korea have every right to develop peaceful nuclear energy. Pyongyang has repeatedly proved its commitment to the peace process and is a reliable and predictable partner, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Yes, what is it? Stein thought irritably. - And these people still continue here ... And ours, most importantly! Where do ours climb ... Ours, why is this?

Don't be intimidated! Stein said.

Grandpa, - Alice touched his knee, - are you all right?

I don't know... Not really.

Stein didn't even have the strength to get up from his chair by the TV.

- “The pensioner Nina Nikolaevna,” the camera panned through a spacious three-room apartment, “life is adjusted. But this month her pension will be increased by seven point and three percent, and everything will become even better, ”a ruddy and fit old woman appeared before the lens, chasing teas in a cute and cozy kitchen.

Grandfather, - Alice said seriously, - I have a question for you. Why is everything on TV so bright? And why is everyone always doing well? Does that happen?

- "This year, allocations for science will increase by seventeen percent," the box immediately promised. - Our correspondent Ivan Petrov looked into the scientific center in Korolyov and got acquainted with the latest technologies! Here, the Gagarin centrifuge is used to treat diseases of the spine ... "

And this, Alice, is because, - Stein answered absently, - that the TV is a window to another world. To the magical land of the Looking Glass. Everything is very, very similar to ours, but everything is different. There people are all happy, and everything works out for everyone. And everyone has enough money.

Unscientific, - Alice wrinkled her nose.

There are no other explanations,” the professor sighed.

Grandfather, - on reflection, the girl said, - can you somehow get into this Looking-Glass of yours? Even for a minute?

You have to study very well,” Stein lied. - Okay, bunny, I'll go work some more ...

“Meanwhile, the world's largest gas field has been discovered in Russia,” the announcer said. - Natural gas reserves of the Sakhalin-4 field, according to preliminary estimates, amount to more than one and a half trillion cubic meters. The Gazprom company stated that…”

“Here,” Stein thought grimly. - There was nothing to do with tectonics. And it was necessary to go there from geological exploration, to the gas workers. And now I wouldn’t be cuckooing in a filthy kopeck piece in Chertanovo, but living in a mansion on Rublyovka, and they would call not from Kashchenko, but from the Presidential Administration - to award orders for services to the Motherland.

There are, after all, happy people among geologists.

Only it is too late for Mikhail Semenovich to knock on those doors. Life has passed, all choices were made decades ago. It remains to fight, to defend your own. Prove. Let there be no evidence.

And Alice sat and sat with her dolls and climbed to the TV - to see what was on the device from the other side.

Suddenly - a door?

* * *

“As a result of a unique and unprecedented deep drilling experiment conducted by our scientific team, it was found that when penetrating into the earth's crust to a depth of more than three thousand meters, contrary to all existing forecasts and generally accepted opinion, neither the upper, nor the middle, nor the lower crust, composed of metamorphic and igneous rocks, was found. At the indicated depth, huge cavities are opened, inhabited by a very peculiar fauna. We have every reason to believe that our group managed to discover a place known in the mythology of various peoples as Hell.

Stein once again looked at his work, neatly put everything in a worn briefcase and looked out the window. Right at the entrance stood a modern ambulance - imported, clean, painted in beige color with orange stripes on the sides. These are not sent for mere mortals. On such, it must be, the righteous are delivered to Paradise ...

Or vice versa.

The professor began to think frantically. He stirred up sleepy Alice - fortunately, his wife went out for bread, she couldn’t interfere, - he put his granddaughter on, on her back - a school bag (soon to grade zero), in the bag - his report and photographs. Minerals stuffed into the pockets of his coat, wrapped his face in a scarf and hobbled down the stairs with the sleepy girl. Maybe they will decide that he is taking the girl to kindergarten? I'm sorry, Alice.

I got out into the light of day and immediately - to a stop.

The ambulance started up, blinked its headlights and quietly rolled after him.

They jumped into the departing minibus at the very last moment. The ambulance followed them through traffic jams. Her windshield was dark, opaque.

We got to the subway, dived into the crowd, mixed with human minced meat in a meat grinder near the escalator, somehow pushed our way into the station and boarded the first train. Stein looked around nervously. The faces of the passengers were ordinary, as if zipped up: each in himself.

Yes, everything is in order. Looks like they ran away. Now, if only to get to the Academy, to speak at the stated time, to shake off opponents, and there - burn everything with a blue flame. If only they gave a speech ... And then - take it even to hell in the middle of nowhere. If you want - in Kashchenko, if you want - in Serbian.

A cell phone suddenly beeped in my pocket. Wife!

She returned from the store, there was no one at home, he did not leave a note ... It would be nice to go to Serbsky anyway: there his wife would not get to him. Because for Alice she will drink all his blood. And, by the way, you will be right.

As soon as the phone on the subway train accepts, and even on their godforsaken line? Apparently, his wife really needs to call.

Wife, because no one else has this number.

Stein pulled a cell phone out of an inside coat pocket.

The number is not defined.

Natasha?! - fenced off by a handful from the sound of wheels, the professor shouted into the phone.

Mikhail Semenovich, - answered stranger juicy baritone, overlapping carriage cacophony. - You are disturbed by Gazprom.

What? The professor's eyes widened.

From "Gazprom", - confirmed the stranger. - We would like to offer you a job.

To me?! Why me?

We have heard about your unique experience in deep drilling and believe that you could become an indispensable consultant, the caller readily explained. - Are you interested in our offer?

I…” Stein shifted his cell phone from one ear, burned by breathing from the tube, to the other. - I'm interested, yes. Of course I'm interested!

Mikhail Semenovich, - the voice asked insinuatingly, - could you drive up to our office now? We're having a meeting right now, and we're just discussing your candidacy. On par with others. But if you managed to be here, say, in half an hour or an hour, we would not even consider other applicants for the position ...

Sorry, I can't right now! Stein shouted. - I have a very important speech.

Mikhail Semenovich, - the voice became stricter. - We'd love to talk to you. before your performance. I don't remember if I already mentioned the consultant's salary? It is about fifteen thousand conventional units per month, but for a specialist of your level ...

I can not! Stein said firmly. - First to the performance, then - to you! No other way.

it you think so,” the stranger replied.

Where did you even get this number from? - the professor suddenly woke up from the haze.

From your wife, Mikhail Semenovich, - the man chuckled. By the way, she says hello to you.

Stein felt his insides freeze.

Why the hell is cell reception so good underground? he asked himself suddenly.

After all, this is our primordial sphere of interests and influence, - as if answering an unasked question, the voice continued, as if inappropriately. - So don't be surprised at anything, Mikhail Semenovich. See you.

Is that pressure? Here in Soviet times they pressed - so they pressed!

Stories about love for the motherland, even in a foreign land there is longing and very strong sadness for the motherland.

Evgeny Permyak. Tale of the big bell

The sailor who arrived in England by ship and fell ill in the city of London has long since died, but the tale about him lives on.

There was a Russian sailor in the city of London. They put him in a good hospital. Provisions, money left:

“Get well, my friend, and wait for your ship!”

The ship's friends said so and went back to their native Russian land.

The sailor was ill for a short time. He was treated with good medicines. They did not spare the potion, powders, drops. Well, yes, she took her life. A guy of Arkhangelsk blood is a son of native Pomeranian parents. Can you break such a disease!

The sailor was discharged from the hospital. Cleaned the pea jacket, scrubbed the buttons. Well, the hot iron gave the rest of the clothes. I went to the harbor to look for fellow countrymen.

“Your countrymen are not here,” they tell him in the harbor. - Iceland has been driving fogs for the third week. Where can Russian sails come from in London?

"Don't worry," says the sailor. - I'm bright-eyed. And on your ships I will find countrymen.

He said so and set foot on an English ship. He wiped his feet on the mat, saluted the flag. Introduced himself.

The English love it. Because the order of the sea is the same everywhere.

- Look what you are! A sailor in every way. It’s just a pity that you won’t find fellow countrymen on our royal ship.

And the sailor smiles at this, says nothing, goes to the main mast.

“Why,” the sailors think, “does he need our mainmast? »

And the Russian sailor came up to her, stroked her with his hand and said:

- Hello, countrywoman, Arkhangelsk pine!

The mast woke up, came to life.

As if she had woken up from a long sleep. It rustled like a Russian mast forest, shed a tear with an amber resinous tear:

— Hello, countryman! Tell me how things are at home.

English sailors looked at each other:

- Look at you, what a big-eyed one! Found a countrywoman on our ship.

Meanwhile, the sailor is talking intimate conversations with the mainmast. What business is at home, he tells, hugs the mast:

- Oh, my dear, good! Mast you are a miracle tree. The spirit of your kind no-forest winds were not blown out. Your pride was not bent by the storm.

English sailors are watching - and the sides of the ship are smiling at the Russian sailor, the deck is spreading under his feet. And he recognizes in them a pattern that is dear to his heart, he sees his native forests and groves.

“Look, how many countrymen he has!” It's like home on a foreign ship, English sailors whisper to themselves. - And the sails fawn on him.

Linen sails caress the sailor, and hemp-ship-ropes-mooring lines at his feet writhe, as if they cling to their own.

“And why are the sails fawning over you?” the captain asks. — After all, they are woven in our city of London.

“That’s right,” the sailor replies. - Only before that, they grew as fiber flax on Pskov land. How can I not snuggle them! Yes, and take the same ropes. And after all, we have four - five-yard hemp born. That's why they complained to you.

The sailor says so, but he looks askance at the anchors, glances at the guns. In those years, our iron, our copper, our cast iron from the Ural Mountains went to many countries: to Sweden, to Norway, to England.

- Well, how did I get into a good company! the sailor rejoices.

- Oh, what a big-eyed Russian sailor you are! You can see your family everywhere. Expensive, you can see it.

- Expensive, - the sailor answered and began to tell such things about our lands that the swell on the sea subsided, the seagulls sat on the water.

The whole team listened.

And at this time, on the main London bell tower, the clock began to strike. The big bell was struck. Far away, its velvet ringing over the fields, forests, rivers floated and went over the sea.

The Russian sailor listens to this ringing, he does not hear enough. Even closed his eyes. And the ringing spreads further and further, on a low, sloping wave, it sways. There is no equal voice in all the belfries of old England. The old man will stop, he will sigh, the girl will smile, the child will be quiet when this big bell rings.

They are silent on the ship, they listen. It is pleasant for them that the ringing of their bell pleased the Russian sailor.

Here the sailors, laughing, ask the sailor:

- Didn't you recognize your fellow countryman in the bell again?

And the sailor answered them:

The English captain was surprised how this Russian sailor could not only see his native, but could also hear. He was surprised, but he didn’t say anything about the bell, although he knew for sure that this bell was cast by Russian craftsmen in Muscovy for England and Russian blacksmiths forged his own language.

The ship's captain spoke up. And for what reason he kept silent, the fairy tale is silent about that. And I will shut up.

And as for the big bell on the largest, Westminster, belfry of old England, it strikes the English clock with Russian forged tongue to this day. Velvet beats, with a Moscow accent.

Not for everyone, of course, his ringing in their hearts and ears, only now nothing can be done. Don't take off the bell!

And take it off - so he will begin to preach the gospel even louder in people's rumors.

Let it hang, as it hung, and call back with the Moscow Kremlin brothers-bells, and talk about blue sky, about still water,

about sunny days... About friendship.

Mikhail Prishvin. spring of light

At night, with electricity, snowflakes were born from nothing: the sky was starry, clear.

The powder formed on the pavement not just like snow, but an asterisk over an asterisk, without flattening one another.

It seemed that this rare powder was taken directly from nothing, and meanwhile, as I approached my dwelling in Lavrushinsky Lane, the asphalt from it was gray.

Joyful was my awakening on the sixth floor.

Moscow lay covered with starry powder, and like tigers on the ridges of mountains, cats walked everywhere on the roofs. How many clear traces, how many spring romances: in the spring of light, all the cats climb onto the roofs.

And even when I went downstairs and drove along Gorky Street, the joy of the spring of light did not leave me. With a light matinee in the rays of the sun, there was that neutral environment when the very thought smells: you think about something, and you smell it.

Sparrow descended from the roof of the Moscow City Council and drowned up to his neck in star powder.

Before our arrival, he managed to bathe well in the snow, and when he had to fly away because of us, his wings flew apart from the wind.

there are so many stars around that the circle, almost the size of a large hat, turned black on the pavement.

- Have you seen it? one boy said to three girls.

And the children, looking up at the roof of the Moscow City Council, began to wait for the second gathering of the cheerful sparrow.

The spring of light is warmed by middays.

The powder melted by noon, and my joy was dulled, but it did not disappear, no!

As soon as the puddles froze over in the evening, the smell of the evening frost again brought me back to the spring of light.

It was getting dark like that, but the blue evening stars did not appear in Moscow: the whole sky remained blue and slowly turned blue.

Against this new blue background, lamps with multicolored lampshades flared here and there in the houses; you will never see these lampshades at dusk in winter.

Near the half-frozen puddles, from the melted starry powder, a child's enthusiastic cry was heard everywhere, childish joy filled the whole air.

So children in Moscow begin spring, as sparrows begin it in the village, then rooks, larks, black grouse in the forests, ducks on the rivers and sandpipers in the swamps.

From the children's spring sounds in the city, as well as from the cries of birds in the forests, my shabby clothes with melancholy and flu suddenly fell off.

A real tramp, at the first rays of spring, indeed often leaves his rags on the road ...

Puddles quickly froze everywhere. I tried to poke one with my foot, and the glass shattered into smithereens with a special sound: dr... dr... dr...

Pointlessly to myself, as happens with poets, I began to repeat this sound, adding suitable vowels: dra, drya, dri, drian.

And suddenly, from this senseless rubbish, first my beloved goddess Driana (the soul of a tree, forest) came out, and then Dryandia, the desired country, to which I began my journey in the morning with starry powder.

I was so happy about this that several times aloud, trying for sonority, I repeated, not paying attention to anyone around:

— Dryandia.

- What did he say? one girl asked another behind me. - What did he say?

Then all the girls and boys from the other puddle rushed to catch up with me.

- Did you say something? they asked me all at once.

“Yes,” I replied, “my words were: “Where is Malaya Bronnaya?”

What disappointment, what despondency my words produced: it turned out that we were just standing on this Malaya Bronnaya.

“It seems to me,” said one little girl with roguish eyes, “you said something completely different.

“No,” I repeated, “I need Malaya Bronnaya, I’m going to my good friends at number thirty-six. Goodbye!

They remained in the circle, dissatisfied, and, probably, were now discussing this oddity among themselves: there was something like Dryandia, and it turned out - an ordinary Malaya Bronnaya!

Moving away from them at a considerable distance, I stopped at the lantern and shouted loudly to them:

— Dryandia!

Hearing this for the second time, having made sure, the children rushed with a unanimous cry:

Dryandia, Dryandia!

- What is it? they asked.

“The country of free Svans,” I answered.

— And who are they?

“These,” I began to say calmly, “are not very big people, but heavily armed.

We entered under the black, old trees of Pioneer Ponds.

Large opaque electric lanterns, like moons, were shown to us from behind the trees. The edges of the pond were covered with ice.

One girl tried to become, the ice crackled.

- Yes, you will leave with your head! I shouted.

- With the head? she laughed. - How is it - with the head?

- With the head, with the head! the boys repeated.

And, seduced by the opportunity to get away with their heads, they rushed to the ice.

When everything ended happily and no one left headlong, the children again came to me, as to their old friend, and asked me to tell more about the small, but heavily armed people of Driandia.

“These people,” I said, “always stay in twos. One is resting, and the other is carrying him on a sleigh, and therefore their time is not wasted. They help each other in everything.

Why are they heavily armed?

They must protect their homeland from enemies.

“Why are they on sleds, do they have eternal winter?”

- No, they always have, as now with us - neither summer nor winter, they always have a spring of light: the ice crunches under their feet, sometimes falls, and then the poor Svans go under the ice with their heads, others immediately save them. Blue stars do not appear in their evenings: their sky is so blue, bright, and as soon as it is evening, multi-colored light bulbs light up everywhere in the windows ...

I told them the same thing that happens in Moscow in the spring of light, as it is now, and none of them guessed that my magical Dryandia was right there in Moscow, and that so soon we would all go to war for this Dryandia.

Irina Pivovarova. We went to the theater

We went to the theatre.

We were walking in pairs, and everywhere there were puddles, puddles, puddles, because it had just rained.

And we jumped over puddles.

My new blue tights and my new red shoes are all splattered with black.

And Lyuska's tights and shoes too!

And Sima Korostyleva ran up and jumped into the very middle of the puddle, and the entire hem of her new green dress became black! Sima began to wring it out, and the dress became like a washcloth, all crumpled and wet underneath. And Valka decided to help her and began to smooth the dress with her hands, and this caused some gray stripes to form on Simin's dress, and Sima was very upset.

But we told her:

And Sima stopped paying attention and again began to jump over the puddles.

And all our link jumped - and Pavlik, and Valka, and Burakov. But the best jumper, of course, was Kolya Lykov. His trousers were wet to the knees, his boots were completely wet, but he did not lose heart.

Yes, and it was ridiculous to be discouraged by such trifles!

The whole street was wet and shone from the sun.

Steam rose from the puddles.

Sparrows crackled on the branches.

Beautiful houses, all as good as new, freshly painted in yellow, light green and pink, looked at us through clean spring windows. They joyfully showed us their black carved balconies, their white stucco decorations, their columns between the windows, their colorful tiles under the roofs, their merry dancing aunts in long robes fashioned over the porches and serious sad uncles with small horns in curly hair.

All the houses were so beautiful!

So old!

These are not like one another!

And that was the Center. Center of Moscow. Sadovaya street. And we went to the puppet theater. Went from the subway! On foot! And jumped over puddles! How I love Moscow! I'm even scared how much I love her! I even want to cry, how I love her! Everything in my stomach tightens when I look at these old houses, and how people run somewhere, run, and how cars rush, and how the sun sparkles in the windows of tall houses, and cars squeal, and sparrows yell in the trees.

And now behind all the puddles - eight large, ten medium and twenty-two small - and we are at the theater.

And then we went to the theater and watched the play. An interesting performance. We watched for two hours, we were even tired. And on the way back, everyone was already in a hurry to go home and did not want to walk, no matter how I asked, and we got on the bus and rode the bus all the way to the metro.

Stories about the Motherland, about our Russian land, about the endless expanses of our native land in the works of Russian classics by famous writers and teachers Mikhail Prishvin, Konstantin Ushinsky, Ivan Shmelev, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Bunin, Evgeny Permyak, Konstantin Paustovsky.

My homeland (From childhood memories)

Prishvin M.M.

My mother got up early, before the sun. Once I also got up before the sun, in order to place snares on quails at dawn. My mother treated me to tea with milk. This milk was boiled in an earthenware pot and was always covered with a ruddy froth on top, and under this froth it was unusually tasty, and tea from it became excellent.

This treat decided my life in good side: I started getting up before the sun to drink delicious tea with my mother. Little by little, I got so used to this morning rising that I could no longer sleep through the sunrise.

Then I got up early in the city, and now I always write early, when the whole animal and vegetable world awakens and also begins to work in its own way.

And often, often I think: what if we rose like this for our work with the sun! How much health, joy, life and happiness would then come to people!

After tea, I went hunting for quails, starlings, nightingales, grasshoppers, turtledoves, butterflies. I didn’t have a gun then, and even now a gun is not necessary in my hunting.

My hunting was then and now - in the finds. It was necessary to find in nature something that I had not yet seen, and maybe no one else had ever met with this in their life ...

My farm was large, the paths were countless.

My young friends! We are the masters of our nature, and for us it is the pantry of the sun with the great treasures of life. Not only do these treasures need to be protected - they must be opened and shown.

Fish need clean water - we will protect our reservoirs.

There are various valuable animals in the forests, steppes, mountains - we will protect our forests, steppes, mountains.

Fish - water, bird - air, beast - forest, steppe, mountains.

And a man needs a home. And to protect nature means to protect the homeland.

Our fatherland

Ushinsky K.D.

Our fatherland, our motherland - Mother Russia. We call Russia Fatherland because our fathers and grandfathers lived in it from time immemorial.

We call it Motherland because we were born in it. They speak our native language in it, and everything in it is native to us; and mother - because she fed us with her bread, watered us with her waters, learned her language, as a mother she protects and protects us from all enemies.

Great is our Motherland - Holy Russian land! It stretches from west to east for almost eleven thousand miles; and from north to south by four and a half.

Russia is spread not in one, but in two parts of the world: in Europe and in Asia...

There are many in the world, and besides Russia, all sorts of good states and lands, but a person has one own mother - he has one and his homeland.

Russian song

Ivan Shmelev

I looked forward to summer with impatience, following its approach by signs well known to me.

The earliest herald of summer was the striped sack. It was pulled out of a huge camphor-smelling chest, and a pile of canvas jackets and trousers were thrown out of it for trying on. I had to stand in one place for a long time, take it off, put it on, take it off again and put it on again, and they turned me around, stabbed me on me, let me in and let go - “half an inch”. I was sweating and twirling, and behind the frames that had not yet been set, poplar branches swayed with buds gilded with glue, and the sky was joyfully blue.

The second and important sign of spring-summer was the appearance of a red-haired painter, who smelled of spring itself - putty and paints. The painter came to put up the frames - “let the spring in” - to make repairs. He always appeared suddenly and spoke gloomily, swaying:

Well, where do you have what? ..

And with such an air he snatched out chisels from behind the ribbon of a dirty apron, as if he wanted to stab. Then he began to tear the putty and angrily purr under his breath:

I-ah and te-we-nay le-so ...

Yes, yehh and te-we-na-ay...

Ah-ehh and in the dark-on-am le ...

Yes, and in te ... we-us-mm! ..

And he sang louder and louder. And whether because he only sang about the dark forest, or because he shook his head and sighed, looking furiously from under his brows, he seemed very terrible to me.

Then we got to know him well when he pulled my friend Vaska by the hair.

That was the case.

The painter worked, dined, and fell asleep on the roof of the porch, in the sun. After purring about the dark forest, where “sy-toya-la, oh yes, and so-senka,” the painter fell asleep without saying anything else. He lay on his back, and his red beard looked up at the sky. Vaska and I, so that there was more wind, also climbed onto the roof - to let the "monk". But there was no wind on the roof. Then Vaska, having nothing to do, began to tickle the painter's bare heels with a straw. But they were covered with gray and hard skin, like putty, and the painter did not care. Then I bent to the painter's ear and in a trembling thin voice sang:

And-ah and in te-we-nom le-e...

The painter's mouth twisted, and a smile crept out from under his red mustache onto his dry lips. He must have been pleased, but he still didn't wake up. Then Vaska offered to take up the painter properly. And we got on with it.

Vaska dragged a large brush and a bucket of paint up to the roof and painted the painter's heels. The painter kicked and calmed down. Vaska made a face and continued. He circled the painter at the ankles over the green bracelet, and I carefully painted the thumbs and nails.

The painter was snoring sweetly, probably from pleasure.

Then Vaska drew a wide “vicious circle” around the painter, squatted down and sang a song over the very painter’s ear, which I also picked up with pleasure:

redhead asked:

What did you do with your beard?

I'm not paint, not putty,

I was in the sun!

I lay in the sun

He kept his beard up!

The painter stirred and yawned. We quieted down, and he turned on his side and painted himself. That's where it came from. I waved through the dormer window, and Vaska slipped and fell into the paws of the painter. The painter patted Vaska and threatened to dip him into a pail, but soon became cheerful, stroking Vaska on the back and saying:

Don't cry, fool. The same one grows in my village. That the master's paint has exhausted, fool ... and even roars!

From that moment the painter became our friend. He sang to us the whole song about the dark forest, how they cut down a pine tree, like “oh, how good of a good fellow in someone else’s distant sy-that-ronush-ku! ..”. It was a good song. And he sang it so pitifully that I thought: was it not to himself that he sang it? He also sang songs - about "dark night, autumn", and about "birch tree", and also about "clean field" ...

For the first time then, on the roof of the porch, I felt a world unknown to me until then - longing and expanse, lurking in the Russian song, unknown in the depths of my soul of my native people, tender and stern, covered with coarse clothing. Then, on the roof of the canopy, in the cooing of blue-gray doves, in the dull sounds of a painter's song, a new world opened up to me - both of the tender and harsh Russian nature, in which the soul yearns and waits for something ... Then, at my early time, - for the first time, perhaps - I felt the strength and beauty of the Russian folk word, its softness, and caress, and expanse. It just came and gently fell into the soul. Then - I knew him: his strength and sweetness. And I know him...

Village

Ivan Turgenev

The last day of the month of June; for a thousand miles around Russia - native land.

The whole sky is filled with even blue; only one cloud on it - either floating or melting. Calm, warm ... air - fresh milk!

The larks are ringing; goiter doves coo; swallows soar silently; horses snort and chew; dogs do not bark and stand quietly wagging their tails.

And it smells of smoke, and grass - and a little tar - and a little skin. The hemp growers have already entered into force and let out their heavy but pleasant spirit.

Deep but gentle ravine. On the sides in several rows are big-headed, splintered willows from top to bottom. A stream runs along the ravine; at the bottom of it, small pebbles seem to tremble through light ripples. In the distance, at the end-edge of the earth and sky - the bluish line of a large river.

Along the ravine - on one side are neat barns, cells with tightly closed doors; on the other side are five or six pine huts with plank roofs. Above each roof is a tall birdhouse pole; above each porch is a carved iron steep-maned horse. The uneven glass of the windows is cast in the colors of the rainbow. Jugs with bouquets are painted on the shutters. In front of each hut there is a serviceable shop decorously; on the mounds the cats curled up in a ball, pricking their transparent ears; behind the high thresholds, the vestibule darkens coolly.

I am lying at the very edge of the ravine on a spread blanket; all around are whole heaps of freshly mowed, to the point of exhaustion, fragrant hay. The quick-witted owners scattered the hay in front of the huts: let it dry a little more in the sun, and then into the barn! That will sleep nicely on it!

Curly baby heads protrude from every heap; crested hens are looking for midges and insects in the hay; a white-lipped puppy flounders in tangled blades of grass.

The fair-haired guys, in clean, low-belted shirts, in heavy boots with a trim, exchange glib words, leaning their chests on a harnessed cart - they scoff.

A round-faced pullet looks out of the window; laughs either at their words, or at the fuss of the guys in the heaped hay.

Another pullet is dragging a large wet bucket from the well with strong hands... The bucket trembles and swings on the rope, dropping long fiery drops.

In front of me is an old hostess in a new checkered coat, in new cats.

Large puffy beads in three rows twisted around a swarthy, thin neck; a gray-haired head is tied with a yellow scarf with red dots; he hung low over his dull eyes.

But senile eyes smile affably; smiles all wrinkled face. Tea, the old woman is living in her seventies ... and now you can still see: there was a beauty in her time!

Spreading the tanned fingers of her right hand, she holds a pot of cold, unskimmed milk, straight from the cellar; the walls of the pot are covered with dewdrops, like beads. In the palm of her left hand, the old woman brings me a large slice of still warm bread. “Eat, they say, to your health, visiting guest!”

The rooster suddenly roared and flapped its wings busily; in response to him, slowly, the locked calf grumbled.

Oh, contentment, peace, abundance of the Russian free countryside! Oh, peace and grace!

And I think: why do we need a cross on the dome of Hagia Sophia in Tsar-Grad, and everything that we city people are striving for?

Mowers

Ivan Bunin

We walked along the high road, and they mowed in a young birch forest near it - and sang.

It was a long time ago, it was an infinitely long time ago, because the life that we all lived at that time will not return forever.

They mowed and sang, and the whole birch forest, which had not yet lost its density and freshness, still full of flowers and smells, loudly responded to them.

All around us were fields, the wilderness of central, primordial Russia. It was late afternoon on a June day... The old high road, overgrown with curly ants, carved with decayed ruts, traces of the old life of our fathers and grandfathers, went ahead of us into the endless Russian distance. The sun leaned to the west, began to set in beautiful light clouds, softening the blue behind the distant slopes of the fields and throwing great pillars of light towards sunset, where the sky was already golden, as they are written in church paintings. A herd of sheep was gray in front, an old shepherd with a shepherd was sitting on the boundary, winding a whip ... It seemed that there was no, and never was, neither time, nor its division into centuries, into years in this forgotten - or blessed - by God country . And they walked and sang among its eternal field silence, simplicity and primitiveness with some kind of epic freedom and selflessness. And the birch forest accepted and picked up their song as freely and freely as they sang.

They were "distant", Ryazan. They passed in a small artel through our Oryol places, helping our hayfields and moving to the lower classes, to earn money during their working time in the steppes, even more fertile than ours. And they were carefree, friendly, as people are on a long and long journey, on vacation from all family and economic ties, they were “willing to work”, unconsciously rejoicing in its beauty and arrogance. They were somehow older and more solid than ours - in custom, in habit, in language - neat and beautiful clothes, their soft leather shoe covers, white well-knitted onuchs, clean trousers and shirts with red, kumach collars and the same gussets.

A week ago they were mowing in the forest near us, and I saw, riding on horseback, how they came to work, after noon: they drank spring water from wooden jugs - so long, so sweetly, as only animals and good, healthy Russians drink laborers, - then they crossed themselves and cheerfully ran to a place with white, shiny, pointed like a razor braids on their shoulders, on the run they entered a row, the braids let everything go at once, widely, playfully, and went, went in a free, even succession. And on the way back, I saw their dinner. They were sitting in a fresh glade near an extinct fire, dragging pieces of something pink out of cast iron with spoons.

I said:

Bread and salt, hello.

They kindly replied:

Good health, welcome!

The glade descended to the ravine, revealing the still bright west behind the green trees. And suddenly, looking closer, I saw with horror that what they ate were fly agaric mushrooms, terrible with their dope. And they just laughed.

Nothing, they are sweet, pure chicken!

Now they sang: "Forgive me, farewell, dear friend!" - moved through the birch forest, thoughtlessly depriving it of thick herbs and flowers, and sang without noticing it. And we stood and listened to them, feeling that we would never forget this evening hour and never understand, and most importantly, never fully express what is such a wondrous charm of their song.

Its beauty was in the responses, in the sonority of the birch forest. Its charm was that it was by no means itself: it was connected with everything that we and they, these Ryazan mowers, saw and felt. The charm was in that unconscious, but consanguineous relationship that was between them and us - and between them, us and this grain-growing field that surrounded us, this field air that they and we breathed from childhood, this evening time, these clouds in the already pinking west, in this snowy, young forest full of honey grasses up to the waist, innumerable wild flowers and berries, which they constantly plucked and ate, and this high road, its expanse and reserved distance. The beauty was that we were all children of our homeland and were all together and we all felt good, calm and loving without a clear understanding of our feelings, because they are not necessary, should not be understood when they are. And there was also a charm (already completely unaware of us then) that this homeland, this common home of ours was Russia, and that only her soul could sing like the mowers sang in this birch forest that responded to their every breath.

The charm was that it was as if it were not singing, but only sighs, uplifts of a young, healthy, melodious chest. One breast sang, as songs were once sung only in Russia, and with that immediacy, with that incomparable ease, naturalness, which was peculiar only to the Russian in the song. It was felt - a person is so fresh, strong, so naive in ignorance of his strengths and talents and so full of song that he only needs to sigh lightly so that the whole forest responds to that kind and affectionate, and sometimes bold and powerful sonority that these sighs filled him with. .

They moved, throwing their scythes around them without the slightest effort, exposing clearings in front of them in wide semicircles, mowing, knocking out a circle of stumps and bushes and sighing without the slightest effort, each in his own way, but in general expressing one thing, making on a whim something unified, completely integral. , extraordinarily beautiful. And those feelings that they told with their sighs and half-words along with the echoing distance, the depth of the forest, were beautiful with a completely special, purely Russian beauty.

Of course, they “said goodbye, parted” with their “dear little side”, and with their happiness, and with hopes, and with the one with whom this happiness was united:

Forgive me, my dear friend,

And, darling, oh yes, goodbye, little side! -

they said, they each sighed differently, with this or that measure of sadness and love, but with the same carefree, hopeless reproach.

Forgive me, goodbye, my dear, unfaithful,

Is it for you that the heart has become blackened with mud! -

they said, complaining and yearning in different ways, emphasizing the words in different ways, and suddenly they all merged at once in a completely unanimous feeling of almost delight before their death, young insolence before fate, and some unusual, all-forgiving generosity - as if shaking their heads and threw it all over the forest:

If you don't love, it's not nice - God is with you,

If you find better - forget it! -

and throughout the forest it responded to the friendly strength, freedom and chest sonority of their voices, died away and again, loudly rattling, picked up:

Ah, if you find a better one, you will forget it,

If you find worse - you will regret it!

What else was the charm of this song, its inescapable joy with all its supposed hopelessness? In the fact that a person still did not believe, and indeed could not believe, in his strength and incompetence, in this hopelessness. “Oh, yes, all the ways for me, well done, are ordered!” he said, mourning himself sweetly. But they do not weep sweetly and do not sing their sorrows, for whom indeed there is neither way nor road anywhere. “Forgive me, farewell, dear little side!” - the man said - and he knew that he still had no real separation from her, from his homeland, that, wherever his fate threw him, his native sky would be above him, and around him - boundless native Russia, disastrous for him, spoiled, except for their freedom, spaciousness and fabulous wealth. “The red sun set behind the dark forests, oh, all the birds fell silent, everyone sat down in their places!” My happiness has set in, he sighed, the dark night with its wilderness surrounds me, - and yet I felt: he was so close by blood with this wilderness, alive for him, virgin and full of magical powers that everywhere he has a shelter, an overnight stay, there is someone’s intercession, someone’s kind care, someone’s voice whispering: “Do not grieve, the morning is wiser than the evening, nothing is impossible for me, sleep peacefully, child!” - And from all sorts of troubles, according to his faith, the birds and animals of the forest rescued him, the beautiful, wise princesses and even Baba Yaga herself, who pitied him "in his youth." There were flying carpets for him, invisibility caps, rivers of milk flowed, treasures of gems hid, from all mortal spells there were keys of ever-living water, he knew prayers and spells, miraculous again according to his faith, flew away from dungeons, throwing himself a bright falcon , hitting the damp Mother Earth, dense jungles, black swamps, flying sands protected him from dashing neighbors and enemies, and the merciful god forgave him for all the whistling whistles, sharp, hot knives ...

One more thing, I say, was in this song - this is what we and they, these Ryazan peasants, knew well, deep down, that we were infinitely happy in those days, now infinitely distant - and irrevocable. For everything has its time - the fairy tale has passed for us too: our ancient intercessors abandoned us, roaring animals fled, prophetic birds scattered, self-assembled tablecloths curled up, prayers and spells were desecrated, Mother-Cheese-Earth dried up, life-giving springs dried up - and the end has come , the limit of God's forgiveness.

Tale-saying about the native Ural

Evgeny Permyak

In this fairy tale-saying, there is more than enough of all kinds of nonsense. In the forgotten dark times, someone's idle language gave birth to this bike and let it go around the world. Her life was so-so. Malomalskoe. In some places she huddled, in some places she lived to our age and got into my ears.

Do not disappear the same fairy tale-saying! Somewhere, no one, maybe it will do. Get accustomed - let him live. No - my business side. For what I bought, for that I sell.

Listen.

Soon, as our land hardened, as the land separated from the seas, it was inhabited by all sorts of animals, birds, from the depths of the earth, from the steppes of the Caspian Sea, the golden snake crawled out. With crystal scales, with a semi-precious tint, a fiery gut, an ore skeleton, a copper vein...

I thought of encircling the earth with myself. He conceived and crawled from the Caspian midday steppes to the midnight cold seas.

More than a thousand miles crawled like a string, and then began to wag.

In the autumn, apparently, it was something. The full night caught him. Never mind! Like in a cellar. Dawn doesn't even work.

The snake wobbled. I turned from the Mustache River to the Ob and started moving towards Yamal. Cold! After all, he somehow came out of hot, hellish places. Went to the left. And I walked some hundreds of miles, but I saw the Varangian ridges. They did not like, apparently, the snake. And he thought through the ice of the cold seas to wave directly.

He waved something, but no matter how thick the ice, can it withstand such a colossus? Did not take it. Cracked. A donkey.

Then the Serpent went to the bottom of the sea. Him that with an unreachable thickness! It crawls along the seabed with its belly, and the ridge rises above the sea. This one won't sink. Just cold.

No matter how hot the fiery blood of the Snake-Snake, no matter how boiling everything around, the sea is still not a tub of water. You won't heat up.

The crawl began to cool down. From the head. Well, if you get a cold in your head - and the body is over. He became numb, and soon completely petrified.

The fiery blood in him became oil. Meat - ores. Ribs - stone. Vertebrae, ridges became rocks. Scales - gems. And everything else - everything that is only in the depths of the earth. From salts to diamonds. From gray granite to patterned jaspers and marbles.

Years have passed, centuries have passed. The petrified giant is overgrown with a lush spruce forest, pine expanse, cedar fun, larch beauty.

And now it will never occur to anyone that the mountains were once a living snake-snake.

And the years went on and on. People settled on the slopes of the mountains. The snake was called the Stone Belt. After all, he girded our land, though not all of it. That is why they gave him a uniform name, sonorous - Ural.

Where the word came from, I cannot say. That's just what everyone calls him now. Although a short word, it absorbed a lot, like Russia ...

Collection of miracles

Konstantin Paustovsky

Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I also had such a dream - be sure to get to Borovoye Lake.

It was only twenty kilometers from the village where I lived that summer to the lake. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - and the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there was only forest, dry swamps and lingonberries. Famous painting!

Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. - What didn't you see? What a fussy, grasping people went, Lord! Everything he needs, you see, he has to snatch with his hand, look out with his own eye! What will you see there? One reservoir. And nothing more!

Have you been there?

And why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, do I? That's where they sit, all my business! Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hump!

But I still went to the lake. Two village boys, Lyonka and Vanya, followed me.

Before we had time to go beyond the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka estimated everything that he saw around in rubles.

Here, look, - he said to me in his booming voice, - the gander is coming. How much do you think he pulls?

How do I know!

Rubles for a hundred, perhaps, pulls, - Lenka said dreamily and immediately asked: - But this pine tree will pull how much? Rubles for two hundred? Or all three hundred?

Accountant! Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffled. - At the most brains on a dime pull, and to everything asks the price. My eyes would not look at him.

After that, Lenka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, of only questions and exclamations.

Whose brains are pulling a dime? My?

Probably not mine!

You look!

See for yourself!

Don't grab! They did not sew a cap for you!

Oh, how I would not push you in my own way!

And don't be afraid! Don't poke me in the nose! The fight was short but decisive.

Lyonka picked up his cap, spat, and went, offended, back to the village. I began to shame Vanya.

Of course! - Vanya said, embarrassed. - I got into a heated fight. Everyone fights with him, with Lyonka. He's kinda boring! Give him free rein, he hangs prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spike. And he will certainly bring down the whole forest, chop it for firewood. And I am most afraid of everything in the world when they bring down the forest. Passion as I fear!

Why so?

Oxygen from forests. Forests will be cut down, oxygen will become liquid, rotten. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him near him. He will fly away to where he is! - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - There will be nothing for a person to breathe. The forester explained to me.

We climbed the izvolok and entered the oak copse. Immediately, red ants began to seize us. They clung to the legs and fell from the branches by the scruff of the neck. Dozens of ant roads strewn with sand stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the knotty roots of an oak tree and again rose to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. In one direction, the ants ran empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry paws of beetles, dead wasps and a hairy caterpillar.

Bustle! Vanya said. - Like in Moscow. An old man from Moscow comes to this forest for ant eggs. Every year. Takes away in bags. This is the most bird food. And they are good for fishing. The hook needs to be tiny, tiny!

Behind the oak copse, on the edge, at the edge of the loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red, flecked with white, ladybugs crawled along the cross.

A gentle wind blew in your face from the oat fields. Oats rustled, bent, a gray wave ran over them.

Behind the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I noticed a long time ago that almost all regimental peasants differ from the neighboring inhabitants by their high growth.

Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborevskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!

In Polkovo, we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray tufts stuck out in disorder in his black shaggy hair.

When we entered the hut to Lyalin, he shouted:

Lower your heads! Heads! All of my forehead on the lintel smash! It hurts in Polkovo tall people, but slow-witted - the huts are put on a short stature.

During the conversation with Lyalin, I finally found out why the regimental peasants were so tall.

Story! Lyalin said. - Do you think we've gone up in vain? In vain, even the Kuzka-bug does not live. It also has its purpose.

Vanya laughed.

You're laughing! Lyalin noted sternly. - Still a little learned to laugh. You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Pavel? Or was not?

Was, - said Vanya. - We studied.

Was yes swam. And he made such business that we still hiccup. The gentleman was fierce. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he is now inflamed and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” That's what the king was like! Well, such a thing happened - the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “Step march in the indicated direction for a thousand miles! Campaign! And after a thousand versts to stand forever! And he shows the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and marched. What will you do! We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. Around the forest is impassable. One hell. They stopped, began to cut huts, knead clay, lay stoves, dig wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers settled down to this area, and, read it, everyone stayed here. The area, you see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. From them and our growth. If you don't believe me, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers. Everything is written in them. And you think - if they had to walk another two versts and would have come to the river, they would have stopped there. So no, they did not dare to disobey the order - they just stopped. People are still surprised. “What are you, they say, regimental, staring into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? Terrible, they say, tall, but guesswork in the head, you see, is not enough. Well, explain to them how it was, then they agree. “Against the order, they say, you can’t trample! It is a fact!"

Vasily Lyalin volunteered to accompany us to the forest, show the path to Borovoye Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest met us after the hot fields with silence and coolness. High in the sun's slanting rays, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clean puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries, heated stumps. Drops of dew, or yesterday's rain, glittered on the hazel leaves. The cones were falling.

Great forest! Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.

Then the pines gave way to birch trees, and water glistened behind them.

Borovoye? I asked.

No. Before Borovoye still walk and walk. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, look.

The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only at the shore she trembled a little - there, from under the mosses, a spring poured into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They gleamed with a faint, dark fire as the sun reached them.

Black oak, - said Lyalin. - Stained, age-old. We pulled one out, but it's hard to work with it. The saw breaks. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - so forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.

The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And above the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals, butterflies flew.

Lyalin led us to a deaf road.

Go straight ahead, - he showed, - until you run into msharas, into a dry swamp. And the path will go along the msharams to the very lake. Just go carefully - there are a lot of pegs.

He said goodbye and left. We went with Vanya along the forest road. The forest grew taller, more mysterious and darker. Gold resin froze in streams on the pines.

At first, the ruts, long overgrown with grass, were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the whole road with a dry, cheerful carpet.

The road led us to a low cliff. Msharas spread out under it - thick birch and aspen low forests warmed to the roots. Trees sprouted from deep moss. On the moss here and there were scattered small yellow flowers and lay dry branches with white lichen.

A narrow path led through the mshary. She walked around high bumps.

At the end of the path, the water shone with black blue - Borovoye Lake.

We cautiously walked along the msharams. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. The lingonberry bushes have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one that is turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink.

A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a bump and ran into the undergrowth, breaking dry wood.

We went to the lake. Grass rose above the waist along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duck jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.

The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sickly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.

Here is grace! Vanya said. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.

I agreed.

We stayed at the lake for two days.

We saw sunsets and twilight and the tangle of plants that appeared before us in the firelight. We heard the calls of wild geese and the sound of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and tinkled softly across the lake, as if stretching thin, like cobweb, trembling strings between the black sky and the water.

That's all I wanted to tell.

But since then, I will not believe anyone that there are places on our earth that are boring and do not give any food to either the eye, or hearing, or imagination, or human thought.

Only in this way, exploring some piece of our country, you can understand how good it is and how we are attached with our hearts to each of its paths, springs, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.