This story was told by Vasily Stepanovich Ivanov, a resident of the village of Kremenki in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
It happened a long time ago, when Vasily, who returned from the front to his collective farm, began to work as the chairman's personal chauffeur. It was a very good position in those days. Ivanov was driving a small American "Willis". He worked on it for several years.
The snowy road foreshadowed a clear death
… It was a cold winter night when the collective farm chairman was summoned to the regional center for party affairs. In those post-war years, there was nothing extraordinary about such a trip, and Vasily took his boss to the district. When we were returning back, the chairman ordered the driver to stop by one of the farms: he wanted to take honey from the beekeeper.
However, it was not possible to get to the farm, the road was too covered with snow. Then Vasily decided not to circle, wasting gasoline in vain, but to go straight. But then the blizzard turned into a real blizzard. Outside the car windows, it was pitch black, and the road could not be seen. The chairman, freaked out, scolded this night trip, and the bad weather, and his chauffeur. Vasily drove the car in impenetrable darkness and mentally prayed, although he was a party member: "Lord, take us out, don't let us freeze in the field to be eaten by the wolves!.. I'll return the icons to the hut from the closet, I'll put a candle in the church …"
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Mysterious old man in the field
But the car stopped, it was too shallow outside. What was left to do? Gasoline was almost out, and it was doggy cold in the cabin. Suddenly the men saw an old man come out of the thick of snow - small and hunched over. The chairman and the driver looked at each other in bewilderment: where did this grandfather come from in the storm? And he, meanwhile, came up to the car and said:
- Have you lost your way? Well, nothing, follow me on the sly. Although I didn’t go to Kremenki, I’ll take you out.
The old man moved forward, and Vasily began to steer after him: across a deeply snow-covered field, along ruts - and nowhere did his "Willis" skid. It seems like it's time to run out of gasoline, but the car keeps going. So they got out, the chairman immediately cheered up, shouts:
- Look, our church!
The mysterious old man turned out to be Seraphim of Sarov
Indeed, the outskirts of their village appeared. Vasily stopped the car, got out to thank the old man. He looks - but there is no streak, as if it had never happened. Surprised, he climbed back into the cockpit. And the chairman says:
- This is a strange old man, suspicious. It should have been reported to … competent comrades.
Vasily said nothing to this, took the chairman home, and he hurried to church to fulfill his promise. I went there, but he didn’t know what to do next, he was a non-believer, not a church person. Then he approached the priest and said:
- I want to light a candle, the most expensive one, but I don't know where.
Father led Vasily to some old image. The chauffeur looked at him and was stunned: on the icon was the very old man he had met on the road that day. With excitement, Vasily will cry out:
- Why, it's him!
- Who? - the father was surprised.
- The old man, the one who brought us out of the blizzard!
And Vasily told what happened to him last night. Hearing this story, the priest fell on his knees before the icon and began to pray fervently. Vasily sat down next to him and, not knowing any prayers, just silently put crosses on himself.
In the morning the whole village was buzzing about the incident. The chairman also entered the church and, seeing the icon, went crimson spots. Some time later, the church in Kremenki was closed - not without the help of the same chairman. But he, too, did not stay in the village, he felt the people look askance at him. He was soon transferred to another collective farm.
And the driver Ivanov remained in his native village. Vasily Stepanovich did not leave the pariah, but in his hut he hung an icon on the wall from which the same night guide, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, was looking at him.
Victoria Prime