Probably many of you, when you were little, were taken on vacation to your grandmother in the village. I was no exception. My sister and I were taken to my grandmother in the village of Kultuk, Irkutsk region. It was a holiday for us. Everything is new, unusual, and life is completely different - not like in the city.
Grandmother told us many stories from her life and all sorts of village tales. I especially remember that in every bathhouse there is a so-called Banna (apparently the female version of Bannik). As a brownie in every house, so the banna is the owner of the bath.
We, of course, were scared and interesting. When we went to wash, my grandmother helped us - she would pour hot water from the tank, then she would bring kvass. And all the time we were waiting for the mysterious banna to appear. However, our expectations were not met. Banna was evidently afraid of our granny.
Many years have passed since then. It so happened that I, a city dweller, married a man from the village. Not long before that, my then-future husband invited me to visit, showed me his house, his vegetable garden, boasted of a recently built bathhouse.
Examining her, for some reason I remembered my grandmother's story about the banna. That you need to ask her for permission to use the bath, leave her a fresh broom and a gang of clean water.
As soon as after the wedding I moved to live with my husband, I did just that. Of course, she didn't tell her beloved anything about this: he would just laugh at me. I have been living in the village for more than 10 years - I washed and washed in this bathhouse, and I have not seen or heard any baths there. But one day this is what happened.
In December 2016, as usual on Saturday, I went to the bathhouse to wash. I took with me all sorts of jars with masks, scrubs and other women's gadgets, because in winter there are less chores than in summer, and it's time to take care of yourself.
The bathhouse was very hot, I left my personal belongings on the table in the dressing room, and I went to steam. Warmed up, steamed up with a birch broom, crushed everything. I am sitting on a shelf, I have no strength to move. And suddenly I hear a knock in the dressing room - something fell to the floor, and I'm still sitting, too lazy to go and see what fell there.
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A minute later the knock was repeated. This time it became clear to me: something fell and broke. At this point I could not resist, opened the door from the steam room to the dressing room. And I immediately smelled of smoke, so sharply, my eyes stung.
I darted to the stove. And there the wood, lying near the oven door, has already begun to burn. I quickly poured a bucket of water on them, since at least fill it up in the bath. She opened the door to the street to ventilate.
When the smoke cleared, I saw that the latch on the stove door broke off and it opened. Burning embers fell out of the stove directly onto the wood. And next to the table on the floor were my jars of cosmetics. They fell somehow. I picked up the pieces from the floor, propped up the stove door with a heavy poker and went into the house.
I told everything to my husband and, of course, I mentioned my grandmother's stories about the banna. My husband laughed at me and said that the stove valve had broken off for natural reasons, after all, she was already decent years old …
But someone dropped my jars from the table, someone else made me go out to this sound and saw the starting fire! So thanks to the banna for saving me and preventing the fire from happening.
Elena ORLOVA, Kultuk village, Irkutsk region