This story was told to me by my grandmother, Nina Alekseevna Gorbunova. So the story will be on her behalf.
It was in the early 1980s. I lived in Vorkuta, worked as a nurse in a kindergarten. At that time, trade union organizations organized "health trains": they rented trains on the railway so that workers would go to the forest on weekends to relax and pick up mushrooms and berries.
I was given a ticket to one of these trains. We left on Friday late at night, on Saturday early in the morning we were there. The train stopped not at the station itself, but a little further away, in a dead end. Together with my company I went to pick mushrooms. There are many of them at the end of August in the north.
We went around from time to time so as not to get lost. But I got carried away, went deep into the forest, and when I began to call out to other people, no one answered me.
I went, as it seemed to me, in the opposite direction and came out to a huge swamp. Two local men came to meet me. I asked:
- How can I get to the "health train"?
One of the men replied that you need to stand with your back to the swamp and go straight, without turning anywhere. I did so. But after walking for 30 minutes, I realized that I had come to the same place, besides the swamp.
I left several times and came back here again. I felt uncomfortable, I felt that I was lost. I really didn’t want to be alone for the night in a deep forest.
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Suddenly I remembered that I had read somewhere: if you get lost in the forest, you need to change your socks from one foot to the other. I sat down, changed my socks, recited the prayer "Our Father" and asked the owner of the forest to take me to the right path.
In about five minutes I came out onto a well-trodden path and thought: “Where to go now? After all, you can go in the wrong direction."
Standing on the path, I once again read a prayer, again asked the owner of the forest to show me the right path. It was very quiet in the forest, not a single leaf swayed.
And suddenly a light breeze blew from somewhere, a dry twig broke off from the tree and fell onto the path. Its thin end, like an arrow, pointed to the right. I realized that this is a sign - the direction in which I need to go.
There were many mushrooms and young boletuses around. They seemed to be walking next to me and again wanted to lure me into the forest, but I was no longer up to them.
I walked for a long time and was already desperate - I thought that I was going wrong again. But then a man and a boy appeared on the path, they said that the train was already very close.
After walking a little more, I came out to the railway. How happy I was! My company gathered near the train. Everyone was worried. They said they called me, shouted at the top of their lungs, were about to go comb the forest.
Still, there is some kind of owner in the forest who lures people into his possessions and just doesn't let go. Maybe because people sometimes violate something in his forest kingdom?
Nikita GORBUNOV, Yoshkar-Ola