Smolensk
We finally made it. I hadn’t been there in twenty years. Twenty years. Two historical epochs had changed. Outside the bus window, Zubtsov, Staritsa, and Vyazma flashed by. At three in the afternoon, the familiar red walls and the same light-green cathedral suddenly rose from the ground. We arrived surprisingly fast. Hello, our ancient Smolensk! I bring you greetings from old Tver. I’ll stroll once more along your ancient streets, climb your high hills, walk along the red walls of your kremlin. You haven’t changed at all, Smolensk, perhaps just becoming a bit cleaner and more well-kept. That’s somewhat reassuring. Only the fatigue in the eyes of Smolensk’s residents is even more pronounced than twenty years ago. I’ve long noticed that the people of Smolensk are born with some strange fateful weariness, and it accompanies them even if they’ve moved far from their homeland. Where did this affliction come from? After all, we, the descendants of the Krivichs, have borne the burden of foreign civilizations not for twenty-five but only ten centuries. It seems to me that our weariness is so similar to that which Count Salina noticed among his countrymen. Apparently our historical burden is heavier, and the climate is far harsher than the Sicilian one, yet how similar are our troubles. Is that why there are so many Italian shops and restaurants in Smolensk today, and the abundance of Italian flags would make Palermo envious on the day of Sicily’s reunification with the Sardinian Kingdom? Though here too, there are ethnographic curiosities: in a good Italian eatery on Gagarin Street you can try excellent Slavic mead. However, I don’t understand why they opened a vodka museum in Smolensk. The people of Smolensk have always preferred homemade moonshine. And right in the fortress wall, no less. The Smolensk fortress was undoubtedly built with a sober mind. It’s no wonder that its chief architect, Fyodor Kon, is depicted on the monument with a compass in his hand. The man loved precision during his lifetime. He points the compass exactly at a triangle of three embrasures on the Gromovaya Tower. As I passed the monument, I got very hungry and for some reason recalled the old English tavern “The Goose and Griddle.” Fortunately, about a kilometer and a half from the monument to the great Russian architect, my wife and I found a wonderful eatery called “The Mandarin Goose.” I recommend it to everyone. The food is delicious! Well, we’ve eaten, let’s move on.
Who are those men sitting on a bench in the little park? Tvardovsky and Vasily Tyorkin can’t stop talking. Enough chatting! Oh, God be with them, let them talk. It’s safe now. Different times. On October Revolution Street (I don’t understand why it’s called a street — it’s a typical boulevard) stands another great Smolensk poet in bronze — Isakovsky. He looks like a strict Soviet schoolteacher. Too red a blood flowed in his veins.
We pass the main park, the Glinka monument, the Deer with miniature lions; on the main square, as expected, stands Lenin himself. Near Lenin is Ales in a red jacket. With revolutionary sentiments, we head to the Cathedral. We navigate the not-so-safe descent from the hills, cross the road, and climb up to the Cathedral. A beautiful building. There’s something in it reminiscent of the Uniate Cathedrals of Belarus. The impression is spoiled by the crowd of beggars on the steps. One wants to leave as soon as possible. We descend to the Dnieper and admire this ancient river from the remains of the old bridge. We’re tired. We head back to rest.
Anastasino-Kupniki-Divasy-Gneznovo
At dinner with my relatives, a conversation arose about the mysteries of local toponymy. Anastasino. This one is simple — from the personal Christian name Anastasiy. Kupniki. Ales helped out, explaining that the Belarusian “kupna” means “together.” Apparently the village was built by very sociable, friendly people. But where does Divasy come from? Ales proposed the first version, reminding us that “dievas” in Lithuanian means “god.” I supplemented this with the Slavic Div from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which is none other than “diviy” — a forest spirit in Bryansk dialect. That this place was no ordinary one, we soon saw for ourselves when we decided to go for a walk there. First, it should be said that people there constantly have very strange dreams. Also, in Kupniki grow wondrous pines that some force simply twists into a swastika shape. Moreover, they are frequently struck by lightning.
Examining one such shattered pine, I recalled what my grandfather had told me. As a boy, he had heard from Smolensk men a strange song. The words were roughly: “Perun, why did you kill the widow, leaving seven children orphaned?” He couldn’t remember more; what had struck him was the very fact of mentioning the ancient god. I told this to my companion and was even more surprised when I learned from Ales that the “widow” mentioned in the song was not simply some unfortunate woman accidentally killed by lightning. Here is implied Perun’s wife Austra (Dawn), who according to the legends of our ancestors betrayed her husband with Veles and was therefore rejected along with her seven children. Thus in a few lines was encoded the most ancient, forgotten myth.
We visited Gneznovo. It turned out to be a lovely half-day walk through a pine forest among clusters of ancient burial mounds stretching for two whole kilometers. The trees here resemble those in Kupniki. I’ve never seen so many squirrels in my life. Almost all the mounds are dug up. Time to shoot them. In the thicket, we saw something gray. We approached and looked — a huge vessel on a mound. It turned out to be a monument to one archaeological find. Here in 1949, during the excavation of a mound, a pottery piece from the 9th century was found with the inscription “GOROUSHNA,” believed to be the most ancient inscription in Cyrillic. There was another wonder in the forest. On the way back, Ales discovered a “miraculous image” of Odin — made by lightning on a pine. The pine grows right on a burial mound. At the exit from the forest, Tver reminded us of itself: near a monument to Soviet soldiers who fell here, a black goat stared at us.
The monument itself, it should be said, is rather strange. It was built recently and consists of three white pyramids of different shapes within some circle. I was reminded of Vysotsky’s lines: “No crosses are placed on mass graves, and widows don’t weep there.” Now the widows’ sons arrange everything their own way, building pyramids, planting acacias. It must be noted — it’s very clean. On the way back to Smolensk, I recall the forests of Tver. Compared to those of Smolensk, they are more gloomy and somber. We walk around the city. We visit the shops. The Smolensk land is rich in goods. The souvenir shops are bursting. As always. Among other things, there is Novotorzhsk gold embroidery. Tver simply haunts us. In the Smolensk region, the main souvenir is linen. There’s even an entire museum of linen. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it there. Next time we must visit. We see off the Belarusian guest at the station and head back to rest. Tomorrow we’re expected in another wonderful little town.
Krasny
Smolensk is behind us. Villages flash by outside the window. I study the local toponymy from road signs. Here we pass Rogaylovo. That’s something purely Lithuanian. Too bad Ales didn’t come with us. Here’s something interesting too. Merlino. Ha-ha, could the wizard Merlin be my countryman? And Emperor Trajan was from the village of Troyany. But jokes aside — here’s Krasny. What can be said about it? An unremarkable-looking town. Little changed since Soviet times. Incidentally, this year marks 845 years since its first mention in the chronicles. In those times it was called Krasen. In 1165, Smolensk prince David Rostislavovich, having captured Vitebsk, granted Krasny as an appanage to his nephew, the Vitebsk prince Roman. However, local legend attributes the town’s founding to Catherine II: she was riding in a carriage, looked out the window, said the place was very beautiful, and ordered a town to be built.
In Russian, the word “krasny,” which in ancient times meant the aesthetic beauty of an object, supplanted and almost replaced the word “chervonny” (red). Apparently by Catherine’s time, the version about the red color as the source of the name had already prevailed, which is why in the general Russian book of arms from 1780, the city’s coat of arms depicts red city gates. This coat of arms is still assigned to the city to this day. The main church of the town is also painted red. The remaining buildings are gray. Only the center has pink tones. On the corner stands a forgotten beer barrel, behind it a poster of the “United Russia” party. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in the frame. Too bad I didn’t bring a digital camera. Across the bridge stretches a yellow gas pipeline, on which is written: “I smoke hashish.” I wonder which member of Russia’s Gazprom leadership the local wit is hinting at. In the town itself, however, I saw no drunks or stoned people, only decent folk. A very good library. I didn’t even expect it. On the wall in large print is a quote from the 1667 treaty on eternal peace between the Muscovite tsardom and the Commonwealth of Two Nations, apparently because Krasny is mentioned in it. I see no other reason to display a quote from medieval chronicles on the wall of a district library. Otherwise, what does it mean — for modern democratic Russia, is this Brezhnev of the Baroque era a great authority?
However, in modern Russian historiography, Muscovy continues to be stubbornly called the “Russian state,” which supposedly fought for these lands with Poland. This stance pervades the entire exhibition of the Krasny Historical Museum and not only it. Almost the entire western Smolensk region is declared a victim of some “Polish-Lithuanian” aggression. But given the long period of Smolensk lands within the Commonwealth of Two Nations, a whole series of questions arises for modern historians. Indeed, how did Smolensk and the Smolensk Land live as part of the Lithuanian-Polish state? Was there self-governance in the city? If so, what kind? Who paid what taxes? What rights did Orthodox Smolensk residents have in a Catholic principality? Who ruled as prince? What foreign policy was pursued? How did people live there in the 14th and 15th centuries? Under what laws? What statesmen, what cultural figures emerged from the people of Smolensk during three centuries of life in Lithuania? There is nothing about this. The Smolensk Land within the Lithuanian-Polish state is mentioned only once — in connection with the Battle of Grunwald. It is stated that this battle was won mainly through the efforts of Russian regiments from Smolensk.
History of the Small Homeland: Prince Drutsky-Sokolinsky
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I deeply share the indignation of the publicist I’m quoting. A naive traveler, having examined the local museum exhibition, would leave deeply convinced that Krasny stood burned and empty during those difficult times. Incidentally, on May 6 of this year marks 385 years since the city received a royal privilege for Magdeburg Law. Practically forgotten and nowhere displayed is the ancient coat of arms granted to the city by the King of Poland and Lithuania in 1625 along with the right of self-governance: Saint George on horseback in an azure field, striking a dragon with a lance. A serious person would not grant a coat of arms and rights of self-governance to ashes after a fire, and I haven’t heard anything about King Sigismund’s madness. This means Krasny was not the last city in the Commonwealth. I wonder if there was a town hall in the city? If so, where was it located? Who was the vogt-starost here? This remains to be determined. But we need to quickly see the home villages.
Viktorovo and Surroundings
In childhood, I remembered it for its beautiful ponds and the most splendid park around the old estate. Two years ago, I came across a photo of the Viktorovo estate online. The travelers who photographed it were inquiring on a local history forum about who had owned it before the revolution, as there was no information about this anywhere, not even on the internet. I immediately recalled my great-grandmother Stepanida’s stories about the last Viktorovo prince, who in the memory of the surrounding villagers for some reason figured as “Prince Zemsky” or simply “Zemsky,” and no one remembered his real name. According to her recollections, the prince was a man of great kindness and great size, who moved with difficulty, at times terribly gasping for breath. But despite this, the prince was a very industrious man, as evidenced by a proverb that long persisted in our villages: “busy as old Zemsky.”
He owned the Viktorovo estate with its magnificent ponds and park. There, as great-grandmother Stepanida told, he also ended his days. During the revolution, the prince was found stabbed with a compass. To get ahead of myself, I’ll say right away that it was a carpenter’s compass, not a drafting one as great-grandmother claimed. No proper investigation was conducted for obvious reasons, and no one could say with certainty whether it was murder or suicide.
A school was organized in the prince’s house, then it fell into ruin. And so the old half-ruined estate with a modern extension of white brick still stands. And now, after 20 years, I’m again walking toward it through this old park. There’s still a school here, and to my great joy, thanks to the efforts of teachers and schoolchildren, a small historical museum has opened. Unfortunately, the ethnographic materials on display date from the 20th century; almost nothing from more ancient times has been preserved. On the display is a detailed exposition about the history of the Viktorovo estate and its last owner, along with a school report about him. Having examined the materials, I was astonished to see that our prince’s name had been returned from historical oblivion. To the great shame of the male half of the scientific community of my native region, this was accomplished by one “small, brave woman.” This provincial Margaret Mitchell turned out to be a modest teacher of Russian language and literature, Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kolabskaya, whose report on the life of the last Viktorovo prince is now displayed in the museum. As Svetlana Aleksandrovna later told me, it all began with one fact: a prince had lived here whose name no one remembered. Then came the collecting of recollections from local residents. Appeals to district and regional museums and archives, Moscow archives — in particular, the State Archive of Smolensk Oblast and the archive of the Moscow Noble Assembly were very helpful.
So then, thanks to Svetlana Aleksandrovna, allow me to introduce — the last prince of Viktorovo, His Highness Nikolai Nikolaevich Drutsky-Sokolinsky, illustrious scion of the Drutsky princes, of the Sokolinsky branch, a family well known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A brilliant career: from 1893 — collegiate secretary, from 1896 — collegiate assessor, from 1900 — collegiate councillor, from 1903 — state councillor;
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1887-1889 — justice of the peace for the 2nd precinct of the Krasninsky Assembly of Justices of the Peace;
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1889 — member of the Krasninsky district committee on licensing;
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1891-1908 — land captain of the 2nd precinct of the Krasninsky district assembly;
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1898 — member of the Krasninsky district committee for the guardianship of public sobriety;
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1898-1907 — elder of the Krasninsky public assembly;
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1899-1907 — member of the Krasninsky district valuation commission;
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1900-1908 — honorary member of the Krasninsky guardianship for children’s shelters;
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1901-1913 — provincial zemstvo deputy from the Krasninsky district at the provincial zemstvo assembly;
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1899-1911 — honorary patron and chairman of the council of the Zverovichi fire brigade;
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1909-1913 — Krasninsky district marshal of the nobility;
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1914-1915 — honorary justice of the peace for the Krasninsky district court.
His ancestor Yuri Yaroslavich in 1654 led the defense of Smolensk against the troops of Alexei Mikhailovich, then together with most of the gentry, having surrendered the fortress to the tsar, entered his service and accepted Orthodoxy under the name Afanasy Yaroslavich. From him descends the senior line of the Drutsky-Sokolinsky princes, who served in the 17th-18th centuries predominantly in the Smolensk gentry regiment (a militia of landowners of the former Smolensk Voivodeship was maintained until 1765).
The closest ancestors of Prince Drutsky-Sokolinsky, who lived in Viktorovo, were: Prince Timofey Yuryevich (died in 1585), marshal of Orsha; Prince Yaroslav Timofeyevich; Yaroslav Yaroslavovich, deputy voivode of Polotsk; Yezhi (Yuri, in Orthodoxy Afanasy) Yaroslavich, who defended Smolensk in 1654, mentioned above; Yakov Afanasyevich (died in 1671, killed in battle against the forces of Stepan Razin); Andrei Yakovlevich (c.1664-?), stolnik, voivode; great-great-grandfather Stepan Andreyevich (1692-?), colonel; great-grandfather Alexander Stepanovich (1774-?); grandfather Prince Grigory Alexandrovich (1780-?); Nikolai Grigorievich (1814-?), father of Nikolai Nikolaevich Drutsky-Sokolinsky.
That the correct genealogy has been found is indirectly confirmed by the recollections of history teacher Yekaterina Andreyevna Ivanova, whose father Andrei Pavlovich Vavilenkov knew the prince. According to her, the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God was built in Viktorovo in the 18th century by Stefan, the great-great-grandfather of N.N. Drutsky-Sokolinsky. The error was only in one letter: Stepan, not Stefan, for the historical record of the State Archive of Smolensk Oblast states that the church was built in 1756 by the colonel and landowner Drutsky-Sokolinsky, that is, Stepan Andreyevich (1692-?), who is indeed the great-great-grandfather of the Viktorovo prince. The Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God built by Prince Drutsky stood until the 1950s.
Just imagine — our Viktorovo prince turned out to be a direct descendant of the ancient rulers of these lands. He could well have laid claim to something greater than the Krasninsky district. Why did they kill him? How is his terrible death connected with the fate of my native region? — I pondered, gazing at the overgrown and neglected park, where the famous Viktorovo ponds are nearly invisible. This thought gave me no peace as I looked at what remained of our once-wealthy villages. Before departure, I met with Svetlana Aleksandrovna; during our conversation, many more interesting facts about these places came to light. It turned out that besides the estate with its park and the old church, Viktorovo had a family crypt of the Drutsky-Sokolinsky princes, a rich church cemetery where cholera epidemic victims, and those of the First and Second World Wars were later buried. Burials from the last war were already made on the park grounds, and these were soldiers not only of the regular Soviet and German armies. Viktorovo was contested between the Vlasov ROA and a battalion of certain locals (as I recall from great-grandmother’s stories, they were called “narodniki”), and in the surrounding forests, red partisans from Sasha Bikbaev’s detachment operated.
“We wanted to create a search party here, but without success,” Svetlana Aleksandrovna told me with great regret. “There are simply no active young people left in our villages.” It’s hard to disagree. Over the last twenty years, this region has greatly emptied. Very greatly. Here I read data for a comparative table from the research work of Glubokino schoolchildren, prepared under the guidance of Natalya Nikolaevna Smolina, now head of the Krasninsky Museum of Local History: “Population as of January 1, 2007 and as of January 1, 1958”:
| 1. Nikolaevka | Village | 198 | 64 |
| 2. Antonovichi | Village | 17 | 53 |
| 3. Boltutino | Village | 12 | 93 |
| 4. Gorbovo | Village | 0 | 73 |
| 5. Zabrodye | Village | 18 | 95 |
| 6. Koshelevo | Village | 1 | 28 |
| 7. Krasatinka | Village | 5 | 84 |
| 8. Nedvizhi | Village | 2 | 104 |
| 9. Pitkovo | Village | 0 | 28 |
| 10. Polyanki | Village | 5 | 140 |
| 11. Pyatnitskoe | Village | 4 | 35 |
| 12. Rechitsy | Village | 0 | 75 |
| 13. Selets | Village | 9 | 77 |
| 14. Sloboda | Village | 1 | 111 |
| 15. Suymishche | Village | 13 | 110 |
| 16. Troyany | Village | 3 | 64 |
| 17. Shilkovichi | Village | 7 | 27 |
| 295 | 1261 |
The population has decreased 4.3 times. Five villages have disappeared: Lazynichi, Pankovo, Gorbovo, Pitkovo, Rechitsy.
Behind dry statistics are living people; the phrase has become a cliche, but these lines cut me to the quick. Dead villages, like irreplaceable cells of the national organism. It’s like seeing lists of people you knew well who have perished. In Lazynichi, where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather lived their whole lives, now only wild boars roam and an eagle soars in the sky. In Gorbovo, where my father was born and raised, there is now a huge excavation pit. Boltutino is quietly dying. The last house in Koshelevo was disassembled and rebuilt into a hunting lodge. There’s now a large hunting estate there. The last residents are leaving Shilkovichi and Troyany; Nikolaevka still holds on, thanks to the elderly chairwoman of the local state farm.
In Viktorovo itself, half the houses stand empty. I’m afraid that soon only mushroom pickers, hunters, and ghosts will be found in these parts. I’m not joking. In our region, there have long been legends about ghosts.
If you visit Viktorovo, you will surely hear about a certain being in white that early in the morning, when it’s just barely beginning to dawn, moves slowly, smoothly through the manor house in white garments resembling a long white shirt, and then, like a cloud, dissolves into the fog. My father saw it in his youth, and also my grandmother and aunt, when they went to visit great-grandfather’s grave in the Lazynichi cemetery. It crossed their path in the morning fog, and the horse stopped dead and wouldn’t go any further. They had to get there by truck. Recently, the people of Viktorovo believe, as Svetlana Aleksandrovna also noted in her report, that the ghost in white garments is directly connected to the last Viktorovo prince and is someone who is at least indirectly linked to his death. If this is so, then it turns out that half the residents of our region — both living and deceased — are guilty of the prince’s death. To me, however, it seems that this silent ghost is a kind of image of our entire region, melting in the morning fog outside the window of a bus heading to Tver.
Alexei Veremovsky