On the outskirts of the Shilovskaya land, among the burly woods, there is an unusual forest, where each pine tree curves its trunk to the north. Researchers of anomalous phenomena are not guilty of anything.
For the trunks twisted as if in loops, visiting tourists gave the forest a predominant name. Even on the Curonian Spit in the Kaliningrad region, a similar anomaly was called the dancing forest, while the Ryazan pines were nicknamed drunk. Apparently, not least also because a prosperous city dweller is unlikely to find the Drunken Forest without a guide.
Ryazan ethnographer Andrei Gavrilov knows the right way to the place: we leave Shilovo in the direction of Kasimov, pass through Borok, Inyakino, Seltso-Sergievka and turn left at the sign to Dubrovka, on the outskirts of which we turn south. The road cuts through a forest, on the right hand in which an amazing picture appears. The pines, as if cut down by their trunks, spread along the ground, bend in an arc and, as if on command, one and a half meters from the surface, rush upward.
Gavrilov said that this planting appeared here not so long ago - pines and birches were planted 50 years ago. The forest became drunk in three areas, and, according to the local historian, the locals came up with a simple and most popular explanation for this - the incredible strength of the 1971 whirlwind. Only why the hurricane bent, and did not break the unfortunate trees, the villagers keep quiet. The metropolitan seekers of the paranormal also learned about the wonderful forest.
Gavrilov remembers how the Moscow guests uncovered the equipment and busily took out an electronic compass. Exhaust, as befits a TV crew, was another sensation - as if soberly assessing the mysteries of the Drunken Forest, visiting psychics ordered to clean the energy of this dead place, because here both the equipment refuses to work and the head. Having collected the cream of history in a plot-hype, the capital's journalists never came a step closer to solving the mystery.
Meanwhile, the forest continues its curve growth, as if not noticing the arrival of messengers for sensations. But to grow such a forest two thousand years ago, would not be left without attention. In those days, the Ryazan land was inhabited by pagan tribes of the Finno-Ugric peoples. They left us a legacy of the tenacious names of rivers and lakes, and today, like a spell, we pronounce Oka, Pra, Yermish, Moksha, Unzha, not understanding a single word.
These peoples conducted their conversation with the forest, hanging ribbons-knots on the branches of age-old birches. Local historian Gavrilov speaks for the ancient Finno-Ugrians today.
Promotional video:
“The trunks of trees in the Drunken Forest bend under the influence of well-known reasons - we both know that Bura-Yaga was jumping in it,” a specialist in forest spirits, head of the Shilov ethnocultural center “Zaryana” smiles slyly.
In the Ryazan epic Bura-Yaga (not to be confused with Baba-Yaga) was preserved as an evil and extremely dangerous old woman who sowed death, mercilessly devouring the unfortunate alive. She appeared on a fire-breathing horse, whose jumps generated a fiery whirlwind. Rumor has it that there is a direct connection between the words "Bura" and "storm".
According to the historian Darkevich, the ancient inhabitant of Pryazanshchina was afraid of forests and, if possible, chopped them down, clearing bright glades in the place of dull thickets. They said that in a birch forest it was good to have fun, in a pine forest - to pray, and in a spruce forest - to hang yourself. The forest presented people with firewood and building materials, but at the same time concealed many dangers. The Slavs counted witchcraft forces in the forest: they say, the Nightingale the robber took refuge in it, the wolves prowled, the clubfoot ruled.
The Slavs believed that hostile forces were hiding in the dense forests. They fancied quite unkind things in the thickets, among the twisted roots. The historian Vasily Klyuchevsky argued that the Russian man “never loved his forest”: “Unaccountable timidity took possession of him when he stepped under its gloomy shadow.
The sleepy, deep silence of the forest frightened him; there was something sinister in the dull, soundless noise of its age-old peaks; every minute expectation of an unexpected, unforeseen danger strained the nerves, excited the imagination. And the ancient Russian man inhabited the forest with all kinds of fears. The forest is the dark kingdom of the one-eyed Leshy, an evil spirit-mischievous spirit who loves to fool a traveler who has wandered into his domain."
And only skilled hunters, lumberjacks and coal burners knew the approach to the forest. They lived in the forest, they walked in the forest: a hostile wilderness turned for knowledgeable people into a living complex organism. The centuries-old war ended with the victory of people for a clear advantage. It is proved that during the times of Kievan Rus, the flooded meadows of the Oka were covered with an impenetrable oak forest, in the place of which today is an endless field. You can see it all the way from Ryazan to Polyany.
The forest was cut mercilessly: pine for the hut, birch for firewood, linden for bast and spoons, oak for furniture, wood was burned into ash - potash, and tar was driven from the butt, which in the era before the discovery of oil served as the ancestor of machine oil. They smeared the wheel hubs of the cart with tar, rubbed the leather boots and smeared the wounds.
In the modern age of fine chemistry and synthetic medicines, traditional medicine still penetrates the official one - the fetid tar gives a special aroma of Vishnevsky's ointment. One way or another, but tar and potash completed the process of total deforestation.
In the XX century, a grandiose project to straighten the Pra river appeared: it was proposed to dig a single canal in order to smooth timber rafting. And if this plan were implemented, the amazing river with water of the color of strong tea would be destroyed forever.
After many centuries of attacks and persecution, the Ryazan forest has noticeably thinned and rejuvenated. In 1388, Metropolitan Pimen described the area in the west of the Ryazan region as a deserted forest, where "there are many animals - elks, wolves, bears, swans, beavers." In their place today are completely plowed fields.
Modern science has not ignored the drunken forest. Scientists-geographers of the Yesenin Ryazan State University undertook to reflect and came closer to solving the mystery of the Shilovsky crooked forest. To understand the essence of the phenomenon, you need to get to know the pine better. The pine tree does not hide its age, and there is no need to saw it for this. It is enough to count the number of whorls, that is, places on the trunk, from where branches grow in all directions. Each year, a pine tree grows a straight section of the trunk with whorls of branches at the top.
If you have an artificial "Christmas tree" at home, you can theoretically calculate its age as well - it is equal to the total number of levels of branches. As a rule, there are from four to seven of them. True, an artificial tree has all the spans on the trunk of the same length, which, of course, does not happen in nature. In the natural environment, the length of each section of the trunk between the branches is different and strictly depends on the quality of the conditions of a particular year.
So, having looked closely at the pines of the crooked forest, the specialists of the Department of Physical Geography of the Russian State University noticed that from a height of two and a half meters, the bent trunks of pine trees straighten out together, giving out a series of thirty-five whorls.
From this, scientists conclude that since about 1980, a period of sobriety has begun in the life of the Drunken Forest. The lower curved part of the trunk contains a record of five or six unusual years in the life of the forest, when incredible power caused the young trees to grow with their tips to the west.
Another fact seemed suspicious: the oldest trees in a crooked forest have healthy, regular, straight trunks. Does this mean that the disaster affected only young trees under five years old? This is the suspicion that scientists are voicing. Geographers raised data on the climate of the late 1970s and the results of geological drilling in the Dubrovka area. And then doubts disappeared. A few years before the Moscow Olympics, the weather created several abnormally wet years, alternating snowy winters with rainy summers.
The drunken forest at that time was a young planting of pines with short roots that were not able to withstand the elements. Under the feet of the pines lies a thick layer of sand, and beneath it are water-impervious clay. A series of wet years soaked the sand with water, and at one point the sliding began.
A patch of forest with an area the size of a football field began to move and began to slowly slide, taking breaks during the dry season. The trunks of young pines bent to the west. The process was repeated several times. During short periods of rest, the tops of the pine trees managed to direct the trunk upward. So, according to scientists, the Drunken Forest arose.
The drunken forest is considered today as a candidate for inclusion in the list of natural heritage sites of the Ryazan region with the status of a natural monument. Lumberjacks do not really bury themselves on winding trunks, from which neither huts nor slabs can be cut. True, this forest can simply be cut down, and a new one can be planted in the clearing, as straight as possible.
Therefore, scientists have attended to the issue of protecting the bent pine forest, which with crooked trunks captured information about climate change in the 20th century. If the mysterious forest is endowed with the status of a natural monument, then there will certainly be no need to worry that the Drunken Forest on the Shilov land will one day end up in firewood.
The version of scientists, of course, is convincing, but it does not fully explain why some in a drunken forest charge hopelessly dead phones, the headache passes, the sense of time is lost, and the best shots from the camera disappear. Maybe because the first time you find yourself among the pine trees bent into a glass, you become a little absent-minded, or maybe there really is something. Goblin knows him.
