For the first time I met Vitaly Lukyants' paintings at one of the conferences. I still remember that stream of warmth, light and love emanating from his creations, which swept over me. And therefore, when several author's magazines "Svetlo-Yar" came to my hands, I took them as a gift of fate. One of them told about a place called Radul on the banks of the Dnieper, not far from Chernigov. This is how the artist recalled his meeting with this land:
In his research, Vitaly found that the distance between Stonehenge and Radul is equal to the diameter of the moon. Stonehenge coordinates: north latitude - 51 ° 10 ¢ 43², west longitude - 1 ° 49 ¢ 35². That is, Stonehenge and Radul lie at almost the same latitude and are slightly more than 30 ° apart in longitude. These are the geographical features noted by the artist. Let's continue the story of Vitaly Lukyants:
Indeed, when I saw only a reproduction of this icon in a magazine, I was struck by its unusual iconography. And that was another mystery of this land. By the way, experts from the Department of Ancient Painting of the Tretyakov Gallery could not determine the time and place of the origin of this iconography. I cannot help but join these words of Vitaly Lukyants:
Dream come true
For about ten years my desire to visit the mysterious Radul was not fulfilled. Not having the opportunity to visit there, I asked many travelers to look into these parts. But, apparently, I myself was destined to visit those places and find answers to my questions. And this happened in June 2001, when, after my next lecture at the Polytechnic Museum, I was offered to participate in a trip to Radul. I am very grateful to the people who gave me this opportunity.
So, on the eve of the summer solstice, we went by train to Chernigov. The city greeted us with good warmth and a message that the bus leaves for Radul once a day in the early morning. And where the village is located, we do not know. What to do? We find out that it is located on the banks of the Dnieper, and it is more than 50 kilometers away.
Limited in money and time, our team could not walk to the designated place. All that remained was to fork out for a taxi. Thank God, by Moscow standards it was not that expensive. And we took the risk of driving a private car to strange people, as the residents of Chernigov call Radulites.
It was strawberry time. And all the air along the road was saturated with the aroma of berries, which were abundant in various containers along the edges of the road. It was delightful and foreshadowed pleasant surprises. After a long drive along a good federal highway, we turned onto a rural unkempt road. She cut the space of bare earth to an unexpected open barrier in it, behind which, according to the driver, began the border zone between two sovereign states - Ukraine and Belarus. This is where the understanding of the portal arose - the entrance to another reality.
And this is another encounter with real unreality. A powerful cluster of trees appeared in the distance. Diving into it, we drove into a small square where there was a shop and a House of Culture. Several streets extended from the square. There was complete silence. And it struck us, but not our driver. Having wished us good luck, he left us in isolation and ignorance. We met a lonely woman with strawberries again. Having drowned out the smell of delicious berries that had haunted us earlier with its real sensation in the mouth, they began to talk about the strangeness of what was happening.
From the woman who sold us a fragrant berry, we tried to find out details about the place in which we found ourselves. But she turned out to be taciturn. And in general, there was reticence in the air, some kind of secrecy. Where to go? The uncertainty of our situation was saved by the appearance of another woman, who introduced herself as an employee of the House of Culture, Valentina Mikhailovna, and asked us for documents. We have risen. My membership book of the Russian Geographical Society turned out to be effective, and Valentina Mikhailovna's confused explanation of the reason for our appearance here satisfied.
Obviously, such stray cranks like us are not new in these parts. Our stay was limited to days. Therefore, we split up to learn as much as possible about the town that once conquered the artist Lukyants. Someone went to the head of the Radul school museum Sometimes Vladimir Viktorovich.
I went to the local library to find at least some materials on the history of the local settlement, for a certain mystery continued to hover in the air. At the same time, we noticed that everyone with whom we met directly in the village spoke the Moscow dialect, which is familiar to our ears. Another local mystery.
N riotkrytie historical veil
What did we manage to learn about the history of the Radul land from the library fund and from the local ethnographer Vladimir Viktorovich? This land is rich in archaeological sites. In particular, an expedition of the famous archaeologist B. A. Rybakov worked in these parts. In the suburb of Radul and its environs, archaeologists have discovered settlements of the Mesolithic era (more than 8 thousand years ago); three settlements of the Neolithic era (5-4 thousand BC); four settlements of the Bronze Age (2 thousand BC); fortifications of the Early Iron Age (8-3 centuries BC); Old Russian settlements of the 9th-13th centuries.
The location of ancient settlements on the Dnieper, obviously, promoted active trade even with distant countries: Roman coins were found at the excavations. The materials collected by the pathfinders of the Radul school testified that the ancient Russian settlement on the left bank was founded at the end of the XIV - the beginning of the XVII century AD and got its name from the Radul lake located here.
Once this land belonged to the Slavic tribe Radimichi and already in those distant times played the role of border with other Slavic tribes: Dregovichi, northerners and glades. It can be concluded that it bore the stamp of peculiarity since ancient times, which made it necessary to familiarize yourself with the history of this region in more detail when returning to Moscow.
Taking a break from newspapers and books provided by Valentina Mikhailovna, I was surprised to learn that we ended up in a settlement of Old Believers who came from Moscow several centuries ago during the Great Church Schism. The councils in 1666-67, which caused a split in the church, tore off a large number of families who had not renounced the old faith from their homes.
Fate scattered all those who did not recognize the innovations in divine services in the near and distant lands: to Siberia, to the Far East, to Turkey and here, to the border with former Poland. They founded about 20 settlements in these parts. The oldest schismatic settlements were founded near the Vetka River, a tributary of the Sozh River. The city of Novozybkov, also founded by them, is considered the center of the Old Believers.
“The Ukrainian sergeant major accepted the fugitives willingly, gave tax benefits, and even allowed the construction of the Ilyinsky Church in Dobryanka,” the former director of the local school, history teacher Grigory Stankevich told the newspaper. Today he teaches at the Sumy Agricultural College. He considers himself an Old Believer. "In fact, the Chernigov colonels sheltered the Old Believers from persecution by the tsarist officials."
On the lands of Hetman Mazepa, the Old Believers of the priestly sense, led by priest Kuzma and Colonel Gavrilov from the Church of Three Saints, which on Kulizhki (in Moscow, not far from Pokrovsky Boulevard), settled in the summer of 1678. They say that in Radula there are even psalters of the pre-Nikon period, and one of the ancient icons of the 16th century, kept by someone in the underground, is embroidered with beads.
People were driven into these once hermitic, impenetrable forests by the quietest Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Tsarina-regent Sophia, and later by Peter I. Until Peter I passed through these places with an army to Poltava, who discovered a lot of settlements of Old Believers in Chernigov region and in the southern part of neighboring Bryansk region, they lived very calmly.
In the TsGIA of the Ukrainian SSR, a document was discovered according to which the Old Believer settlement Radul was registered on the lands that belonged at that time to the Chernigov Colonel Pavel Polubotko, only in 1708 after the Old Believers supported Peter I in the battle against the Swedes.
According to statistics for 1900, there were over 62 thousand Old Believers in the Chernigov lands. How many of them are left today? There is no exact data. Tatyana Vasilievna Chagina, chairman of the Radul village council, said that there were very few of them left in the five villages of the council. In the village itself there are several dozen. Russian people adhering to the old church rituals were severely persecuted by the tsarist government until 1905, when the tsarist manifesto of October 17 guaranteed the right to free religious activity.
The Old Believers have always been active and enterprising. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Chernihiv Old Believer settlements achieved significant development in trade, shipping, and manufacturing. In Dobryanka, three fairs of fur and red goods from Great Russia were held annually.
In Poddobryanka in the 18th century, a wooden traveling palace was built for Catherine II when she traveled through the newly acquired Novorossiysk provinces. In the settlement of Radul, 14 merchant capitals were registered, including shipmen who were engaged in navigation on the Dnieper and its tributaries, timber merchants. Lime, resin, glass, stone, wood, salt were exported from the Radul pier.
After the newspaper research, the restraint of local residents, the amazing preservation of the Moscow dialect in such distant regions from the capital, and the anthropological Russianness of these strange people immediately became clear. The origins of the aliens are not forgotten.
Another interesting feature of this area has emerged. Now there is a border post in Radula - the opposite bank already belongs to Belarus. This land continues from antiquity to this day to be a border: the Radul customs was one of the most famous on the western border of Russia in the 18th century. Back in 1772, Emelyan Pugachev passed through Radul, who was well received by the local population and received a passport from this customs office.
This town was not ignored by the Great Patriotic War. On October 15, 1943, four divisions of Soviet troops reached the Dnieper, creating a bridgehead for the offensive in the area of the settlements of Radul-Loev, and battles began to liberate the right bank of the Dnieper from the Nazis. Many soldiers were killed then. Local residents, according to their old custom, put the cross directly at the place of the soldier's death, and did not arrange a common grave.
Meeting with real unreality
After some immersion in history, Valentina Mikhailovna took care of us, found a place to spend the night, called somewhere, asked the owners to give us tea. It turned out to be an old house, in one half of which there was a kindergarten. At that time, it was empty. We were to spend part of the night here before meeting the Dnieper. The hospitable hosts warmed the water for us. In the other half - a large room with walls along which deep cracks passed, and with spare furniture for children, we settled down.
An unusual photograph was taken in this room, which can be classified as paranormal, since in Moscow physicists could not explain the phenomenon filmed. Having a habit of taking photographs in all the places I visited, in this unremarkable room, on some instinct, I clicked the shutter of the camera.
Imagine our surprise when, after developing the film, already in Moscow, they noticed the unusualness of the shot. The camera recorded a dense layered cloud of something covering the entire ceiling of the room and pouring out into the street through the open window! Or maybe the other way around? In any case, no catch, no installation.
Later, we made several assumptions, but what it was in reality is unknown. The only thing that the scientist noted was that the phenomenon was not recorded visually because its radiation was outside the range of perception by the human eye.
Based on the experience gained in other geoactive zones (in terms of ethnography - in places of power), it can be assumed that we encountered real radiation from the fault that determined the channel of the Dnieper, and which were amplified by atmospheric disturbances accompanying the days of the summer solstice. So, it was received, albeit unscientific, but confirmation of one more feature of this land - high natural activity.
After the "snack" and discussion of the surging information, it was time to look at the surroundings of the now enchanted "urban-type settlement". According to our assumptions, this Earth, located in the middle between Stonehenge and Arkaim, should have carried something unusual. The whole area was buried in the green of powerful and beautiful trees. Here are beautiful backwaters with diving ducks and a lonely white goat.
Several buildings have survived since pre-revolutionary times, which can be considered monuments of that era. For the most part, good-quality huts are surrounded by high fences, in which understatements were made opposite the windows, which allowed households to contemplate not a blank board wall, but the street. We saw such a fence design for the first time.
On the top of an old bare trunk, storks have made a nest. One could see how the eldest of this family vigilantly surveyed the surroundings, protecting his offspring. The state of external peace, silence and peace did not leave us when we got acquainted with the surroundings.
Gradually, the road led us to the Dnieper, which spreads widely on the marshy plain of Polesye, covered with a mixed forest. From the side of the river, it can be seen that during the spring flood, the water covers the village on three sides, located on a low hill. It became immediately clear why exactly here, in this lowland, during the Patriotic War, a bridgehead was created for the offensive of our troops. Even so, the geological feature of the area affected.
Choosing a location
The anticipation of the unusual never left us. After all, the days of arrival were not chosen by chance. We were here on the solstice days, a feature of which is also noted in the ancient religion of our ancestors, which was based on a deep sense of nature. Taking into account the already accumulated materials in the anomalous zones, it was necessary to choose a place for early morning filming in the direction of all four cardinal points.
Such a place was preliminarily outlined for the following reasons: the photograph shows that the lowland is at the level of the Dnieper water. And, indeed, during the flood, the hollow is flooded with water. In the summer, a narrow stream that sometimes disappears reminds of this. But it is more convenient for water to flow through the zone of disturbance of the earth's crust. Consequently, on active days, from the point of view of geophysics, over such a place, one can record on the photographic film bursts of the Earth's energy.
The choice of the observation site paid off. After a short night nap and vigil on the banks of the Dnieper, we were rewarded. During development, the photographs showed not only the so-called clusters - white balls, presumably caused by radiation in the zones of disturbance of the earth's crust, but also …
With the first rays of the rising sun in the sky, as a harbinger of its appearance, a grandiose picture unfolded, immediately convincing me of the reality of Čiurlionis's paintings. The feeling of the greatness of nature, which arose in the predawn twilight on the banks of the Dnieper under a huge all-encompassing sky, increased a hundredfold. In the game of night and morning colors, a quarter of the sky above the horizon appeared a harsh Harbinger and Guardian of the Sun.
Dawn on the Dnieper. June 21, 2001.
It is impossible to convey the feeling of belonging to the great mystery of the universe in all temporal planes, when you feel yourself standing on the ground in a fault zone that runs from north to south, and maybe vice versa, and unites you simultaneously with Egypt, Russia and the North. And at the same time, you are practically at the same latitude, connecting two sacred regions of Europe that are significant in the history of Indo-Europeans: in the west - South England, and in the east - the South Urals. At this moment, the whole world unites in you, and you spread throughout the entire planet.
How much you managed to reproduce this phenomenon in the photograph, you can judge for yourself. But until now, only when remembering this moment, there is a feeling of the simultaneous smallness and greatness of Man, and admiration for our ancestors who know how to understand nature and live in harmony with it. And the choice of habitat became clear by the guardians of the old faith who came from Moscow. At the same time, the feeling of belonging of this now forgotten place to something more global and significant in the history of our ancestors came.
Tkachenko Olga Stepanovna