On January 24, 1956, the Kuibyshev city newspaper Volzhskaya Kommuna published a feuilleton entitled "A Wild Case". He denied the rumors that roamed the city: supposedly a girl who decided to dance on a holiday with an icon of Nicholas the Pleasant in her hands turned to stone. Today the so-called "Zoino standing" is classified as a church tradition.
Sinner and Monk
In 1955, a certain Zoya Karnaukhova allegedly lived in house No. 84 on Chkalov Street. On New Year's Eve, she decided to throw a party: she invited friends and was waiting for a groom named Nikolai. But he still did not go. Then the girl grabbed the image of Nicholas the Wonderworker, which apparently belonged to her mother, and rushed to dance with him. Her friends tried to persuade her to hang the icon in its place, but it was as if the devil possessed the girl - she answered playfully: "If there is a God, He will punish me!"
In the midst of the dancing, lightning flashed, and the sinner froze in place: her body became hard, turned into stone.
They tried to move her from her place, to take the image from her hands - it did not work. The girl was speechless, showed no signs of life, only the beat of her heart was barely audible.
Neither the police nor the doctors could do anything. The girl did not eat or drink, but she remained alive. At night she cried out some words, asked to pray for human sins. Zoya still held the icon in her hands.
A prayer service was served in the house. On the feast of the Annunciation, some old man appeared - persuaded the policemen who were guarding the house from curious onlookers to let him in to Zoya. It was the local hieromonk Seraphim Tyapochkin. He was able to pull the icon out of her hands, and then said that it would stand until Easter. And so it happened: Zoya stood motionless for 128 days. On Easter, the girl returned to her previous state - her body became soft. She died three days later.
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However, there is a version that there was no petrified girl. A woman named Claudia Bolonkina lived in the house with her son. On New Year's, he called friends. Among those invited was Zoya Karnaukhova, who the day before had met a young trainee Nikolai. He was supposed to appear at the party too, but he was late.
Indeed, one of the girls (and maybe that same Zoya) arranged a dance with the icon, and a nun passing by saw through the window and threw: "For such a sin, you will turn into a pillar of salt!" The mistress of the house later began spreading rumors that this was what happened.
Was there Zoya?
Father Roman Derzhavin, the rector of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Neronovka, Samara Region, claims that the fact of "Zoya's standing" actually took place.
“My father told me this story. The miracle happened over 50 years ago in January 1956. Zoya Karnaukhova, a pipe plant worker, celebrated the New Year holidays with friends. Her devout mother forbade her daughter to have fun during Christmas fast,”Derzhavin recalls. Further, the story of the abbot completely repeats the above version.
Believers in Kuibyshev reacted violently to rumors of a miracle. Mikhail Efremov, who in 1952-1959 held the post of first secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee of the CPSU, gave the following comment to the local press: “Yes, such a miracle happened, shameful for us communists. Some old woman walked and said: here in this house the youth danced, and one ogalnitsa began to dance with the icon and turned to stone, stiffened. And off it went, the people began to gather. A police post was immediately set up. They wanted to send priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. But the regional committee bureau consulted and decided to remove all posts, there was nothing to guard there. It was stupid: there were no dances there, an old woman lives there.
Subsequently, the archives did not reveal the names of Zoya Karnaukhova and the monk Seraphim, and house No. 84, as it turned out, really belonged to Claudia Bolonkina. True, a church-going woman allegedly lived in the city, identifying herself with a petrified girl, so she was nicknamed "stone Zoya".
Memory of "Zoya Standing"
Already in the post-perestroika years, the legend was remembered. In 2000, a 20-minute documentary film "Zoe's Standing" was released, and in 2009 - a feature film, directed by Alexander Proshkin, "Miracle". In 2015, the TV movie "Zoya" based on the play by Alexander Ignashev was released. In the same year, the publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery (Moscow) published the story of Archpriest Nikolai Agafonov "Standing".
Thanks to propaganda, Orthodox pilgrims began to flock to house No. 84 on Chkalov Street in Samara. In 2012, a monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker was erected on the lawn nearby, which was consecrated on May 22 of the same year, on the day of the transfer of the saint's relics. And on May 12, 2014 "Zoin" house burned down. According to one version, as a result of arson.
