Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna survived her husband by only six months. Accompanying the coffin of her husband from Taganrog to St. Petersburg, she fell ill and remained in Belev, where she soon died. It is believed that it was her ashes that were buried on June 21, 1826 next to Alexander in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
… An unknown woman who called herself Vera Alexandrovna appeared in Tikhvin in 1834. She stayed at the house of the landowner Vera Mikhailovna Kharlamova.
The sincere faith of this woman immediately attracted the attention of the residents of the city. She was often seen devoutly praying at the Theotokos monastery in front of the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God or making a pilgrimage to local monasteries and churches. Vera Alexandrovna undertook to teach local children to read and write and the Holy Scriptures. As a true Christian, she, having learned that the wife of the deacon of the Vinnitsa churchyard of the Olonets province, was seriously ill, left Tikhvin and voluntarily took care of this woman for more than a year. When she returned after her voluntary vow, she did not stay for a long time in Tikhvin: the townsfolk began to talk about her holiness - both among themselves and in person when they met, but she did not like it. Vera Alexandrovna moved to the small Valdai village of Berezovy Ryadok, where the peasant Prokopiy Trofimov built a separate hut for her. She continued to teach peasant children here, and the talent of an artist woke up in Vera - she began to paint religious paintings. The quiet, pious woman was not left alone: nine months after her move to the village, in 1838, she was arrested for lack of a passport. She was sent to the Valdai prison as without a passport, but there she refused to answer questions about her origin and only remarked to the investigator: “Judging by the heavenly, I am the dust of the earth, and if by the earthly, then I am higher than you”. The investigator continued to insist, and Vera stopped talking altogether and was silent until her death, communicating with everyone using notes or, very rarely, uttering individual words.nine months after her move to the village, in 1838, she was arrested for lack of a passport. She was sent to the Valdai prison as without a passport, but there she refused to answer questions about her origin and only remarked to the investigator: “Judging by the heavenly, I am the dust of the earth, and if by the earthly, then I am higher than you”. The investigator continued to insist, and Vera stopped talking altogether and was silent until her death, communicating with everyone using notes or, very rarely, uttering individual words.nine months after her move to the village, in 1838, she was arrested for lack of a passport. She was sent to the Valdai prison as without a passport, but there she refused to answer questions about her origin and only remarked to the investigator: “Judging by the heavenly, I am the dust of the earth, and if by the earthly, then I am higher than you”. The investigator continued to insist, and Vera stopped talking altogether and was silent until her death, communicating with everyone using notes or, very rarely, uttering individual words.then I am above you. " The investigator continued to insist, and Vera stopped talking altogether and was silent until her death, communicating with everyone using notes or, very rarely, uttering individual words.then I am above you. " The investigator continued to insist, and Vera stopped talking altogether and was silent until her death, communicating with everyone using notes or, very rarely, uttering individual words.
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The silent woman was sent to the Kolomov home for the insane, where she spent a year and a half. Subsequently, she wrote in her diary: “I felt good there; I was blissful there … I thank God that He vouchsafed me to live with the prisoners and the poor. The Lord did not yet endure sinners for us."
Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya (daughter of Aleksey Orlov) rescued her from the house of sorrow. A strong believer and even taking a secret tonsure, she spent all her enormous fortune on charity. Anna Alekseevna invited Vera to settle in the Syrkov monastery. The decree on the placement of Vera in the monastery said that here she would live at the expense of Orlova. Orlova later from among her serfs gave her a deaf cell-attendant to help her. The deafness of the cell attendant served as a guarantee of secrecy in case Vera in a dream or accidentally said something that could clarify her identity. Orlova, as she herself admitted, reported about Vera's finding in an asylum for the insane, someone from Petersburg, and she hinted to her friends that she knew who was hiding under the name of Vera the Silent. (Interesting,that the memorial for Countess Orlova-Chesmenskaya lacks the names of Emperor Alexander I and his wife, with whom she was well acquainted.)
The historian, Count M. V. Tolstoy, reported that Vera was received with hostility at the monastery, with extremely great reluctance, until the very last moment they refused such a "guest", and even the abbess herself went to St. Petersburg Metropolitan Seraphim with a request to evict the Silent from the monastery. But he replied: “Oh, you fool-woman! Yes, rather you and I will be kicked out than her; and don't you dare to think about it!"
Vera lived in a separate cell-hut, and, as it turned out after her death, the hut was an exact copy of Fyodor Kuzmich's cell. Contemporaries recalled that in 1848 Emperor Nicholas I himself visited the Silencer. For several hours he "talked" with her behind closed doors (the Silencer gave him written answers), and leaving her room, he burned the answer sheets on the lamp.
Promotional video:
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Vera the Silent died on May 6, 1861.
In her belongings they found encrypted notes of exactly the same type as Fyodor Kuzmich's, sheets with monograms "EA" and "P" written in ink and cinnabar, a gilded cross and a lock of blond hair …
The Syrkov monastery was destroyed in the 30s of the XX century, the grave of Vera the Silent was not preserved: a road was laid at the place where the monastery cemetery was. Already in our time, an old tombstone has been restored for the worship of believers, but there is no one under it.
But it is not known whether anyone's ashes lie in the grave of Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
