Balalaika musician, businessman, actor, programmer, philologist professor, fashion model, deputy assistant... 79 families moved to the deep forests of the Kaluga region to conduct subsistence farming, raise children and build their own according to their own laws...
Balalaika musician, businessman, actor, programmer, philologist professor, fashion model, assistant to a deputy... 79 families moved to the deep forests of the Kaluga region to conduct subsistence farming, raise children and, according to their own laws, build their own world on an area of \u200b\u200bone hundred hectares.
Townspeople
In the eco-village “Ark” there are no fences, a lot of free space, not a single house is similar to the neighboring one: log houses, adobe (made of clay and straw) and panel houses... The territory already occupies 80 hectares (one hectare for each family). Residents remember how surprised the officials who came here to check were: winter, snow, waist-deep snowdrifts - and a girl was pushing a stroller across an empty field, singing.
The Ark is connected to civilization only by electricity installed just two years ago. Birdhouse toilets instead of sewers, water from springs or recently dug wells, heat from stoves. Almost everyone has the Internet, but no TV: a satellite dish allows it, but why?
The city decides everything for the person,” says one of the founders of the village, Fyodor Lazutin, “they give you a warm, bright house, doctors take care of your health, and schools take care of your children’s education. You become dependent on the city. By moving to an eco-village, you regain responsibility for your life, home, children, for what you will eat and how you will live. The life that civilization offers us does not suit us. We must start with the basics: land, housing, food, children.
Former townspeople decided to return to the childhood of civilization. Almost no one had ever had to work on the land before. “I’m a northerner,” Fyodor laughs, “it was strange to me that apples grow on trees.”
The settler Oleg wanted to live on land since his youth. One day I came to my peasant grandfather: I’m staying with you, they say. “Get out of here,” the grandfather was indignant. “I didn’t bring your father into the public eye, I didn’t move you to the city so that you would return here.”
The average age of adult residents of the “Ark” is 35 years. The majority are Muscovites, half continue to earn money in the city: programmers - on the Internet, many - leaving for work, some rent out city apartments. But someone has already quit their old job, earning money by building houses and selling honey. The settlers believe that a hectare of land is enough to feed a family and even sell the excess. A vegetable garden, an apiary, surrounded by a forest with mushrooms, berries and dead wood for firewood. In the future, it will be possible to grow flax and weave clothes, have pastures and raise cows.
100 hectares per world
Don’t be afraid, my bees don’t bite, that’s the breed. Here in the neighboring area - so there are some kind of bull terriers, not bees, - quickly walking along the path between the hives, says Fyodor Lazutin, a molecular biologist and businessman in the past, director of the non-profit partnership "Ark" and author of a book on beekeeping in the present. The bees buzz around my head indignantly, clearly planning to ruin their reputation.
The Ark began with Fedor, although he denies this. Seven years ago, four families who were planning to move to the land met on the Internet (others were looking for girls there) and together they found an empty plot in the Kaluga region. There, future settlers were allocated 120 hectares of abandoned agricultural land to create a world organized according to their own rules.
The same laws apply in the village as in the country, plus a ban on alcohol, smoking, killing animals (although not everyone in the village is vegetarian), the use of chemical fertilizers and hazardous industries.
The issue of land ownership was posed as strictly as possible: everything was owned by a non-profit partnership consisting of 79 people (one from each family). If a person decides to leave, he will not be able to sell his land, but will receive money for the house built on it. This is how the settlement protects itself from strangers and bad neighbors: if a person doesn’t fit, he can be expelled, but this almost never happened. For example, one of the residents prevented everyone from using the road through the village, claiming that there was a “place of power” on it. Several people left on their own.
The main criterion for selecting new settlers for the residents of the Ark: do you want to see this person as a neighbor? Additional ones are the relationship between words and deeds (too many are ready to move only in words) and the willingness to do something for the village, nature and the world.
Ecovillage is an example of democracy. There is no single leader. We wanted individuals to come to us, they say in the Ark, and not those who need to be led. All decisions are made by a general vote of representatives of each family. For example, in order for a newcomer to be accepted into the village, 75% need to vote for him. Most of the competitions do not pass, and almost all of the sites are already filled.
People
God created man in his own image and likeness. This means that God created man as a creator,” says programmer Sergei. - The position of a person who has returned to earth is the position of God, who begins to create his world.
Sergei eco-settled (as they say here) at the same time as Fedor. Over the years, he learned to build houses, raise bees and play the harp, married a lonely eco-village, Katya, and delivered babies himself.
It is impossible to find a common denominator for the settlers. Everyone is too different: some play the balalaika and wear linen shirts, some philosophize, some sit in the lotus position. Some live in tents, others have a Jacuzzi in their house. Giving arguments in favor of rural life, some talk about biofields and connections with space, others talk about children who are sick in the city. Many came having read Vladimir Megre’s books about the taiga hermit Anastasia, who calls for natural life; some had not read them until now.
According to the settlers, the majority earned good money and had a career in their previous lives. “If a person is running from something, he will not stay here,” says Fedor. - We take those who come “to”, not “from”. If a person, explaining why he came to us, says “I don’t want...”, he will not stay: we cannot give him what he does not want.”
Oleg Malakhov, an actor at the School of Dramatic Art, and his wife Lena came to Kovcheg six years ago and received a field with four pegs. “After all our dorms, rooms, moving, we see all this space and understand: it is ours,” says Lena.
In the dressing room of the theater, Oleg often, to tease his colleagues, talks about how he digs a pond and plants potatoes. But he doesn’t invite you to visit: “My home is too big a part of me to let strangers into it.”
...The bright red-haired fashion model Anya was the face of a cosmetics brand and starred for the Channel One screensaver. After the birth of her daughter, she was given four months to get back in shape and return to work. Instead, Anya and her husband Anatoly, a former big businessman, went to the forests and gave birth to a second daughter. “A child in the city starts to get hysterical,” she explains.
...There is no door in Nina's house. On Sunday morning, in the rain, ankle-deep in the sodden ground, I wander around a log house made of thick logs, feeling the extreme absurdity of the situation.
Here! - Nina’s head appears from the hole under the house. “We haven’t cut the door yet, otherwise the logs will move.” That's how we live.
Music teacher, domrist Nina and her son live in the “Ark” permanently, her husband, balalaika player Andrei, goes to Moscow to earn money.
It’s good for me when there are friends around, when my son grows up independent, when I can do what I love not for the sake of earning money,” says Nina. - City friends ask: how do you like it in the village? Hammock, pool, flower beds? No, I say, vegetable gardens, construction and a bathhouse once every ten days. But here I can sit in the kitchen for hours, chatting, looking out the window. And it seems that everything necessary and important is happening to me. And in the city, even if I’m running errands, it always seems like time is wasted.
Sects please don't worry
Three years ago there was an empty field here, and in the Common House (the center of the village) people lived with sparkling eyes, euphoric about what they wanted to do, recalls eco-villager Sasha. - Now the emotions have subsided, people really look at things.
Over the past 20 years, several thousand settlements have been removed from the register in the Kaluga region. Only one new one appeared, for the Kitezh orphanage. If you're lucky, the Ark will be second.
For seven years, Fedor has been collecting documents so that “Kovcheg” is officially recognized as a village. The other day they were transferred to the Legislative Assembly of the Kaluga Region.
The officials are normal people and secretly hope that everything will work out for us,” says Fedor. However, the status of the settlement is not yet clear, just like many of the dozens of eco-villages throughout Russia, from the Moscow region to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, eco-villages are feared. Oleg Malakhov recalls how he got into a conversation with a new actress in his theater:
We’re sitting in the dressing room, and I’m chatting: house, construction site, garden beds. She starts asking what kind of settlement it is, who lives, how they got there. And in her eyes there is a pitiful, pitiful expression.
Lately, gurus have been frequenting the Ark. Scientologists, Hare Krishnas, Hindus, Radnovers, followers of Norbekov, Sinelnikov, Sviyash... “Well, we listen to them: our people are all polite, they won’t drive us away,” the settlers say and explain: what unites us does not lie in the sphere of religion or spiritual practices. “We don’t ask new settlers what they believe in,” says Fedor, “we simply offer them life according to principles that are different from the generally accepted ones.”
At first, relations with local residents were not easy. “A sect,” they unanimously decided when they saw how people in city clothes were coming to the “Ark.” The settlers created their own choir. They traveled around the surrounding villages singing folk songs. Somehow I had to perform in a military unit. The entrance was guarded by a soldier. He looked at the women in folk clothes, approached, and whispered fearfully:
And you are Baptists, right? We were warned.
Who are Baptists? - Oleg asked.
I don’t know,” the soldier honestly admitted, “but they told us they were bad.”
Children
In seven years, 12 children were born in the settlement (there are more than forty in total). Most are at home, without doctors. They also study in the settlement: lessons are held in the Common House all year round. Anya, originally from Volga Germans, teaches German to children, Nina teaches music, Oleg teaches acting. Schools and universities prepare people for life in the city, they say.
...One day workers arrived at the “Ark” and brought construction materials. They stopped by the road, smoked, and waited for their owners. And suddenly children begin to approach from all sides. They approach with caution, stand silently, and look. The workers also look around, nervous.
Check this out. Smoking guys,” one of the children finally exhales.
Some parents force their children to take exams in regular schools, externally. Others don't. “Children who study at home easily adapt to school,” says Nina. “For them it’s a game: sit in one place, sit down and stand up on command... They play it, but ordinary schoolchildren don’t know that it could be different.”
Settlers call their homes family estates. Whether the family will survive for at least two generations remains to be seen.
Common Home
On Saturday evening in the Common House there is a concert of Indian music: an old settler with an Orthodox beard and an Indian cap arrives in a “Victory” car, sits on the table, plays the sarod. About twenty listeners are sedately dozing on the floor. On the terrace there is a list of concerts and seminars scheduled for the whole week. “They often ask me at the theater: what are you doing there in your village? - Oleg laughs. “Well, I explain: concerts, a choir, English and German courses, I myself lead a plastic group, a children’s theater... They don’t understand!”
The common house was built first, when the settlement itself did not yet exist. They built it not only to live themselves, but so that everyone could express themselves and it would become clear who would stay. “Our people” were immediately visible: those who really wanted to live eco-villages “happily grabbed their hammers.”
The ecovillage seems like a utopia. A world created according to its own rules and only for its own. The “we” that is more familiar to dystopias sounds here completely seriously: “If in the morning we got together to build a house, in the evening we can already cover the roof.”
“Giving up everything and moving to an ordinary village is not for me,” says Nina. “And here I saw the people I was going to, and I knew that I was moving to my own.”
Many residents of the metropolis periodically have a desire to go somewhere far away: to where the air is cleaner, the sky is bluer and there are no traffic jams. A place where you don’t have to spend your entire salary on a mortgage or renting an apartment or on “looking” and “fitting in.”
Life in such places seems like paradise. And this paradise can become a reality. The main thing is to act boldly and competently organize life in the wilderness.
Personal experience
Since childhood, I have loved living in the wilderness - ever since our family rented a house on a hunting reserve for the summer. And although I was born and raised in Moscow, on the Red Gate, I always dreamed of leaving. But how will you leave? In the city you have a job, an apartment, your whole life...
I took up this project seriously in 2000. An attempt to obtain a mortgage loan ended in failure - it had not yet been issued for country houses. And I organized the simultaneous sale of an apartment and the purchase of a house 70 kilometers from the city - an action that was regarded by all relatives and friends as madness. Sell? An apartment? In Moscow?! My village life began on a sunny May day - without water, toilet or other amenities. I hired workers to dig a well, laid out pipes, installed a pump and a boiler. Now I had an independent water system and toilet, which I was endlessly proud of, like the anecdotal oligarchs are proud of their golden toilets.
The darkest (and most truthful, as experience has shown) prediction regarding my fate was made by a neighbor: “If you survive the first winter, you will live on.” Winter came, snow fell, the temperature reached minus 30, and the pipes froze. They were defrosted and insulated. They froze again. They were defrosted again. They froze for the third time. I bought a gas welding gun and... no, I didn’t shoot myself! She crawled under the floor and used a pistol to carefully warm up the pipes so as not to melt them. Electric heating was not very efficient and was too expensive, and the water in our favorite toilet froze. During the first winter I replaced three toilets.
Thirst for change
After three years of living outside the city - I still consider them the happiest of my life - I got married. Having moved to Belfast with my husband (for six months, it seemed to me, until we built a new house in the middle of nowhere), I realized that a small city has all the disadvantages of village life, while it does not have a single advantage. The village with its sunrises, sunsets, forest, Pushkin’s nanny and dreamy Tatyana is a heartfelt joy and promise of eternal happiness, but “to the village, to your aunt, to the wilderness, to Saratov” is in fact a terrible threat. Few people remember that Famusov, frightening his daughter with life in a small town, added: “You will grieve there.” Right! And it doesn’t matter where the town is - in Russia, Ireland or Ecuador - morals are the same everywhere.
I dragged my husband to London. Then we left for Finland - more precisely, I left for the winter and spring, deciding that if I survived the most rotten seasons in the new wilderness, then “I will live.” And Mark decided that if he could travel thousands of kilometers every month to a small house covered in snow, he would also “live.” Now Mark comes to our house every month for 10 days. I live here permanently.
This was the best winter: the forest outside the window, burbot pulled out from under the ice, a crackling fireplace, the smell of freshly baked bread, homemade smoked sausages and wild boar lard... And two people sitting at the table opposite each other with open laptops (no one needed to work canceled). We haven’t turned on the TV even once in five months. Living in nature encourages conversations, games, or just silence.
I read a lot (I order books via the Internet, to the address of the library, they are here in the most remote villages). Music is on my computer. I like to watch films on the big screen; there is a club with a cinema hall nearby, but Mark and I have never gotten to it - we don’t want to ride our bikes back in the dark. What remains is the DVD. But when everything around is so beautiful, you don’t even want to watch a movie. But I want to draw, shoot, write. We recently went to Helsinki for four days and went to exhibitions and museums every day. When you live outside the city, when you come to it, you rush to visit everywhere and see more. How often do Muscovites go to the Bolshoi?
Subtle calculation
When a person decides to go into the wilderness, the most sensible thing is to act against the crowd: rent a house (dacha) when few people want to do this - in winter. Or buy a house in the forest district that no one wants. Or rent out an apartment in a big city and go where it’s warm and cheap: Goa, South-West Asia or Latin America.
Leaving London is less cool and bold than leaving Moscow: City clerks do this regularly. “Having abandoned everything” and fled to the village, they pay 2-3 thousand pounds a year for a travel card and, cursing, climb into overcrowded trains every morning (which are constantly late). After a year of such life, people begin to think about returning to the bosom of the metropolis, but the high cost of urban housing, as well as the crisis, which has hit the pound exchange rate and real estate prices, make this idea impossible. These are not the most unfortunate victims of the crisis: at one time, some careerists sold apartments in London, bought houses in France, sent their wives (or husbands) with children there, and themselves flew on budget airlines to the office twice a week. Today, some of these unfortunate people are switching to remote work, while others are actually giving up everything, including their careers, and starting growing expensive organic vegetables or raising organic chickens.
The lesson from the experience of Londoners: you need to look for remote, local or seasonal work long before you “give up everything”. Remote earnings are less than office salaries, and seasonal jobs (I worked as a television producer), although paid decently, do not have the stability of a regular salary. On the other hand, to live in the wilderness, with subsistence farming and cheap heating, money, in fact, is not particularly needed. And the sensations of being close to nature cannot be calculated in any currency.
It is worth considering one more monetary nuance. While sitting in the forest, your conscience is cleared and does not torment you at all when in the city you buy everything you need and want and of the best quality. Of course, there are champions of the “spend a million in three hours” competition, but in practice there are as many of them among us as there are winners of marathon races. But it is also interesting that after several months of living in the wilderness and the “holidays” of permissiveness organized upon arrival in the city, the passion for shopping disappears. In the wilderness, a person becomes an anti-globalist.
All natural
The issue of food here takes on a completely different meaning than in the city. Firstly, you can plant a vegetable garden (or just a couple of beds with herbs). Secondly, there is no need to buy meat in trays wrapped in cellophane. It is difficult to associate chicken or pork on a supermarket shelf with a living pig or chicken, and as a result, there is no thought that before they died, they had never seen the sun and lived in terrible conditions. Anyone who has tasted free-range chicken knows how much its taste differs from that of a broiler. In the West, such chickens are called “happy”.
You can always get to the nearest village and negotiate the purchase of eggs, milk and meat during the season (pigs are usually slaughtered in late autumn). You will have to ferment the yogurt and pluck the chickens yourself. You have to buy the pigs in halves and quarters, and then salt the bacon and smoke the shanks. But this is the beauty of it: even if you do it for the first time, the final product will be tastier and cheaper than store-bought, not to mention the absence of chemical additives.
Having bought intestines from a butcher at the market, you can stuff sausages. If there are attachments and devices for this, good, if not, that’s also not bad. I make do with a sharp knife, which I use to cut the meat into small pieces, and a neck cut off from a plastic bottle: the intestine is pulled over it, and the future sausage is pushed through it into the casing. Sausages, once dried, can be smoked hot or cold: setting up a primitive smokehouse in the yard of a house in the forest is easier than in the city. I know that some “those who have given up everything”, having become proficient in harvesting and having tasted village eggs, are even thinking about having chickens, cows and other animals.
If there is a river, lake or sea nearby, the issue of fresh fish is solved. In Finland, every village house has a permit for fishing with nets. The process of fishing with nets is less exciting than with a spinning rod and fishing rod, but it gives a stable catch with less time, which is important if there is work waiting for you at home. You can install nets both in summer and winter under the ice. The main thing is to leave them in the water for a maximum of a day. If the catch is substantial, the fish can be salted and smoked.
To obtain a hunting license in Russia, you need a guarantee from two hunters who are members of a hunting society. It’s easier to get a permit to carry a hunting weapon than a car license: you don’t need to pass an exam, you just need to collect health and criminal record certificates, pass a medical examination, buy a safe for your gun and ammunition, and submit an application. Buying a gun does not mean that game will fall from the sky onto the table, but living in the forest, it is easier to become a hunter than in the city.
Everything's a head
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The most valuable product in the wilderness is bread. You can’t run to the bakery to buy it, and even if you have the opportunity to buy store-bought, it won’t be nearly as fresh as you’d like, and it’s good if it’s tasty. The solution is to bake it yourself.
Good bread consists of flour, water, yeast (wild or cultivated) and salt. And that’s all - no “improvers”, preservatives, stabilizers or other ingredients.
There are a great many bread recipes (proportions of water and flour). In Russia, the most incomprehensible of them prevails: “add as much water to the flour as it takes.” This is probably why few people bake bread - the tradition has been lost. Different flours do absorb water differently, but this is not a reason not to follow the exact proportions. The problem is that novice bakers pour little water or knead, adding a lot of flour - so that the dough does not stick. It really sticks less, but the bread from it also turns out heavy, even if you hammer in nails. A sufficient amount of water is the main condition for airy bread. One of the factors for the presence of huge beautiful holes in the crumb of Italian ciabatta is the large amount of water in the dough.
In addition to baking wheat flour, fresh yeast (dry only as a last resort), water and salt, baking bread requires an oven, hands, a bowl for rising the dough, a baking scraper or large spoon, clean thick towels or cloth, and a baking stone( aka pizza stone). It can be clean bricks, a flat piece of granite, or unglazed ceramic tiles laid on a grate. The point of the stone is to create an even, hot surface on which to bake the bread. If there is no such thing and there is nowhere to buy it, as an exception, you can strongly heat a metal baking sheet together with the oven. The main thing is not to plant bread when it’s cold!
Professional bakers weigh all ingredients, including water, so a kitchen scale is a must. For one loaf or a couple of small baguettes, divide the indicated weight of ingredients by five.
1 kg wheat flour
20 g fresh yeast
20 g salt
700 g of water (+ 10−20 g, if necessary)
To begin, rub fresh yeast into the flour as if you were making shortcrust pastry - this is a technique of French bakers. It is much more convenient than diluting it in water, but the yeast must really be fresh. Then add water and salt, mix everything with a scraper or spoon and knead without adding flour for 4-5 minutes. After this, fold the dough from the edges to the center, turn over, cover and leave for 20 minutes. Then you need to pull out the dough (during this time it will become less sticky), stretch it slightly and fold the edges towards the center several times, trying to capture more air and form a ball. Place in a bowl, cover and leave for 20 minutes. Afterwards, pull it out again (the dough will become pliable and smooth) and repeat stretching and folding. The idea is to make the crumb more airy (temporary pauses allow the formation of strong gluten strands that will support this airy structure during baking) and reduce the initial kneading time. You don’t have to be lazy and knead for 10-15 minutes from the very beginning without any folding or kneading, but I bake bread two or three times a week, and I’m lazy.
The dough needs to rise. It is placed in a cold place (8-10°C) for 4-6 hours - a slow rise in the cold improves the taste. Sometimes I stretch it and fold it again after 20 minutes. after refrigeration. The dough should double in volume. When this happens, bring it into the heat and start preheating the oven to 250 °C. The warmed dough (1) can be placed on a floured table and formed into a loaf or baguettes.
TO DO THIS YOU SHOULD:
slightly stretch the dough into a rectangle;
fold one long edge towards the center (2);
the second one is also towards the center;
fold in half lengthwise (3);
pinch and roll in flour (4);
generously sprinkle a towel or thick cloth with flour, place the loaves in it, forming high folds of fabric between the loaves, and leave them to proof for 30-50 minutes until they have increased in size by 60-70%;
Carefully transfer the proofed bread onto a baking shovel, a smooth wooden board or an inverted baking sheet sprinkled with flour.
Right before putting the bread in the oven, you need to score it so that it does not burst during baking. It is better to do this with a scalpel or a very sharp knife. You need to cut firmly, deeply (at least 1.5 cm deep), carefully and confidently. If you hesitate and move the knife back and forth (or if the knife is dull), the cuts will be shallow and unsightly, and most importantly, they will not perform their function well.
Then you need to let the bread slide off the shovel onto the stone in the oven, splash some water there (from a flower-type sprayer on the walls or from a glass down) and immediately close the door. Steam in the oven is needed to give the bread a good crust. After five minutes, reduce the temperature to 200 °C. Bake a loaf of 200 g of flour for 20-25 minutes, baguettes - from 10 to 12, until they become the color of darkening gold.
Cooling freshly baked wheat bread sometimes “sings” - the cooling (crispy) crust crackles. This singing can only be heard in complete silence.
Whose option?
Life in the wilderness is more suitable for introverts and ambiverts. However, loneliness in such places is a regulated thing: sometimes you can’t get guests to an apartment in a remote city new building, but they will willingly go to a house where they can relax and “live like a human being.” By the way, it is good to attract city guests to work: chopping wood, cleaning a fireplace or checking networks - for them an exotic vacation. In England there are farms where city dwellers come to work on the land - for shelter, food and experience. Sometimes you also have to pay for such pleasure.
First, a little information to understand what is happening.
Ringing Streams is an eco-village of eight houses in the Grodno region. Key words - natural farming, healthy lifestyle, unity with nature. Nikita and Natalya Tsekhanovich are spouses and parents of two children named Dobrynya and Radosvet.
There are many people who want to go into the wilderness. There are about 20 settlements with several houses in Belarus, more than 100 single houses. It’s easy to find like-minded people: you need to register on a special website and throw out a cry.
Masha is a model, has 35 thousand subscribers and 3 thousand “likes” for each photo in Instagram. She bats her eyelashes, cutely puts her blonde hair behind her ear, clicks her manicured fingers on the smartphone screen and thinks:
- There are bloggers who post photos every day and take them in the same color. I do not understand this. I can post photos once a week. I don't care how many subscribers I have. Once there were few of them - about 10 thousand. Then it became more and more.
I didn’t even know that we had such settlements. I know that once the first Russian millionaire gave up everything and went to live in a village and built a house there. Are these the same people?
From the road to the Tsekhanovich house it is a five-minute walk through hills and groves. Nikita has been living here for almost ten years, and eventually found a like-minded wife. Nikita once bought a small one-story house for $300. He repaired it, arranged it, furnished it - all with his own hands.
- I was born in Baranovichi, and I like the places here: hills, ravines, rivers. My being immediately said: I want to live here. I was still alone then.
The story of how lovers met is romantic. This happened in India. “We were riding a scooter, Natalya hugged me from behind, and I realized that everything...”- Nikita recalls. Natalya herself is originally from St. Petersburg, and before arriving in the settlement she “toiled in the office.”
Nikita takes off his shoes and spends the rest of the day walking barefoot through sand, mud, and thorny vegetation.
- Aren’t you afraid of hurting your leg or catching a tick? - we ask, looking at our New Balance with gratitude.
- What to be afraid of? Ticks? They are needed to vaccinate people against all sorts of nasty things. In nature, everything is wise.
Previously, the settler worked in furniture production, now he makes furniture for himself. The main profession is a stove maker.
- We call our style “affectionate brutal”- the head of the family strokes the brown and white chest of drawers. - I used to breathe formaldehyde and resins and dreamed that in the settlement I would make furniture from natural ingredients.
The owner's plans include adding a second floor. In the meantime, all four inhabitants of the house are huddled in one room.
Radushka and Dobrynya fill the room with the ultrasound of voices, laughter, and the ringing of toys and musical instruments. Guests have a magical effect on them. Masha immediately took a liking to Dobrynya - the child does not waste time and takes care of the young lady in every possible way and spends all his time only with her.
- I like to play with children, but I don’t want my own yet,- Masha easily copes with the role of a mother, entertains the children and asks the question: - Will they go to school? Are there any schools near here?
- In Korelichi there is both a Belarusian-language school and a regular one. They don’t go to kindergarten, but to school - we’ll see how the children themselves want,- says Nikita. - Dobrynya already knows how to read and write. It is believed that children who did not go to kindergarten are unsociable. But our children cannot be more sociable.
- They are little, they don’t know yet whether they want to go to school...- the girl is perplexed.
- Why? We think we are teaching them, but in reality they are teaching us. They are pure, angels. The heads are not slagged or fooled. Sometimes they say things that make you listen.
- I want to study at home!- blond Dobrynya puts everyone in their place.
Masha is disheartened by another revealing piece of information: both children were born in the settlement, without the help of doctors.
- We were told that giving birth at home is irresponsible,- Nikita explains. - How so? It is irresponsible to give a child and wife into the hands of an aunt who, perhaps, has been abandoned by her boyfriend and is in a bad mood. We prepared for childbirth for a year, read books, watched videos, talked with knowledgeable people. This is responsibility.
When the time came, we lit candles and played music. This sacrament is the birth of a person. Unforeseen cases? Where there is love, there is no place for fear. If something went wrong, into the car - and into the maternity hospital, of course.
- How did your parents react to you settling here?- Masha changes the subject.
- At first, with caution. They thought it was nonsense. My life is just like this: I didn’t graduate from several institutes, I didn’t see myself in society. They are used to me being all about searching. Then we looked at how and with what we live, got to know our neighbors and realized that it was not outcasts and marginalized people who gathered here, but people who were successful in society. Among the neighbors there are famous athletes and musicians in Belarus. They just got bored in the city and found something more interesting for themselves.
- Wow…
“Bread is something magical. I hope you feel it today."
According to Natalya, making bread is a woman’s sacred duty. Our ancestors also attached magical meaning to this product. Young people don't understand. I went to the hypermarket and bought it.
- No, of course, I don’t cook at all,- Masha watches as Natalya begins to knead the dough. - At home I only eat salads. In general, I like to eat out.
- I cook for the family,- says Natalya. - This is food that passed through my kind hands with thoughts of love. And bread is something magical. I hope, Masha, you will feel this today.
- Society imposes the idea that cooking for a woman is hard labor,- Nikita supports his wife. - The posters read: “Hurray, no need to cook, let’s go to McDonald’s with the whole family!” All this is done in order to cut cabbage.
So, remember. Knead bread dough in silence. Focus your thoughts on the process. Settlement bread is prepared with rye sourdough - flour and water are added to it. For usefulness - also honey, cereals, herbs, seasonings, nuts, raisins and basically anything else.
- This is interesting,- says Masha and crumples the sticky mass. - But for a very long time... It feels like I’ve been interfering for six months already.
- Just feel the process,- Natalya helps. - You can even close your eyes.
The kitchen idyll leads to the truth, which Nikita formulates:
- A woman is created for joy and love. Material support is a man's business. The main thing a man must do is to create happy conditions for his wife and children.
The bread is ready. Masha draws a sun on it - that’s how it should be. The round piece goes into the oven.
“We don’t eat meat. The state after eating meat is comparable to mild drug intoxication.”
A mandatory ritual before eating is to stand in a circle and read a funny poem of gratitude for food: ““Jakui” to the sky and “jakui” to the earth for everything that is on our table. And let all the people on earth have food on the table.” This confuses Masha.
- Looks wild- the girl admits later.
Nikita and Natalya, as is fashionable, do not eat meat. At all. There is always plant-based and healthy food on the table, such as potatoes, mushrooms, and herbs. Tea - with linden, thyme, raspberries and a whole list of useful plants. Protein is replaced by other components.
- We strive to provide ourselves with our products as much as possible. Your own garden, garden. We study wild plants. Dwarf is considered a weed, but in fact, nothing is tastier and healthier in the spring.
- We don’t eat meat, and the children have never eaten meat. They say it's impossible. Aren't our children active enough? The state after eating meat is comparable to mild drug intoxication. The meat is digested within almost a day and a half. In this state, children cannot be active in principle. We like to be healthy, and we are happy that our children are healthy.
- I can’t live without meat- Masha has her own position. - Although I have girlfriends and friends who are vegetarians. In general, I’m lucky by nature: I have a good metabolism - I eat everything I want and don’t gain weight.
The topic of social media addiction comes up at the table.
- I have a positive attitude towards social networks if they bring joy to a person,- Nikita points to the laptop and other gadgets in the house. - If people come to them out of hopelessness, from a lack of living friends and a person does not want to realize himself in life differently, then it’s sad... I also have a page. There are 4 thousand friends on VKontakte, and the same number in the stove group. We are talking. Social networks are just a tool that needs to be used correctly. Like an ax: if you use it to chop wood, you can do a lot of good.
- But I have no time,- Natalya enters. - I washed the dishes, tidied up, walked in the garden, planted in the vegetable garden, talked with my family... Once every few months I just go in to congratulate someone on their birthday.
“In any unclear situation, go to the forest. But now, if a person feels bad, he either gets drunk or something else.”
On the settlers' plot of 2 hectares, it seems that everything possible grows in our latitudes - from parsley and carrots to nuts, mulberries, and dogwoods. Planted so that everything blooms alternately and pleases almost all year round.
- I had a dream: children wake up and run barefoot into the garden to eat berries and fruits. I would like there to always be abundance in the garden. There are also exotic plants: magnolia, ginkgo biloba.
For children, of course, there is freedom here - they run, ride on cars, laugh.
Masha also enjoys freedom. I managed to walk the dogs...
...run along the paths, stand in the dandelions...
...wash your hands from a photogenic jug...
...play with the children...
...to “take selfies” with the children...
...just “take a selfie”...
...plant a watermelon. They are small here, of course, but they are our own. The green sprout will turn into a green berry by the end of summer.
- I liked planting more than bread. Op - and the watermelon is already in the ground,- concludes Masha.
And the girl also needs to plant a tree.
- In any unclear situation, go to the forest,- says Nikita. - But now, if a person feels bad, he either gets drunk or something else, that is, he makes himself worse. But in fact, to get out of a bad state, you need, on the contrary, to put yourself in order.
They say every man should plant a tree. I decided not to waste time on trifles and planted several thousand trees. The Masha tree will grow here for several hundred years. A person connects himself with this place in a good way. This is Amur velvet, a beautiful tree, they make corks from it.
- Including wine,- Masha notes. Now a tree named Masha grows in the settlement.
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