The polar night and thick frosty fog, enveloping the sleigh, quickly moving away from the fort, did not allow the musher to see the wormwood formed on the ice of one of the many lakes of the Middle Kolyma. The sleigh quickly went under the water, dragging the riders along with it. Thus ended the short life of the "Russian shaman" Fyokla Berezhnova. And the legend began, which the locals still talk about.
In 1989, as part of the YSU archaeological expedition, I visited the Alazey prison. It was one of the first Russian settlements in the Far North of Yakutia. The Alazeya River carries its waters to the East Siberian Sea parallel to the Kolyma. At the mouth of the Buor-Yuryakh, which the locals often call Rassoshka, in the middle of the 17th century, the Cossacks founded a prison. It was a winter transshipment base for Russian expeditions and industrialists heading further north-east. Kochi (seaworthy sailing ships) came here from the sea for the winter, fleeing the treacherous ice of the Northern Ocean.
By the end of the 18th century, when, according to legend, Fyokla Berezhnova lived in the prison, many Cossacks partially assimilated with the local population - the Yukaghirs and Yakuts. A few kilometers from the prison there is still a village with the name Svatay - from the Russian word for "woo". It was here that the cautious Cossacks went for their wives. Probably, Thekla was born in such a mixed marriage. Legend has it that she was Russian, but with some Asian features. The girl was very beautiful, kind and had the gift of healing people. Therefore, the locals considered her a shaman and revered her according to their customs.
During archaeological excavations, we came across the remains of an old chapel. Under her, as it should be, there was a cemetery where Thekla's grave is located. We drew attention to the fact that other graves had long been overgrown, they were not spared by the numerous fires that raged in the forest-tundra more than once over the centuries. But Thekla's grave was not damaged. Rumor has it that the fire always stopped when it approached the grave of the "Russian shaman".
The grave of a Russian shamaness
Overnight stay in prison ended in a psychiatric hospital
Promotional video:
However, there is also a more prosaic version. For a long time, old man Mikhail Sleptsov lived on the territory of the former Alazey prison. He died in the mid-80s and is buried here. They say that he looked after the tomb of the legendary Thekla and, moreover, more than once met her on the banks of the Alazeya.
In 1989, from a local resident, whose last name, unfortunately, I do not remember, I heard an amazing story that forever sunk into my soul. It was in the late 60s, when the Svatai Komsomol members went on a ski campaign to Argakhtakh. According to my interlocutor, the first overnight stay was with the old man Mikhail Sleptsov. In the evening, as usual, they poured alcohol into the mugs. The Komsomol members did not lean on alcohol - in the morning they had to get up on skis, and the owner was poured without restriction. The drunken old man told them that he had seen Fyokla walking along the banks of the Alazeya more than once, but they had a tacit agreement - not to bother each other.
At night one of the participants in the campaign had a seizure. He shouted that Thekla was looking through the windows. The old man ran out into the street, drove away the invisible shamaness. Thus the night passed. In the morning, on a sledding occasion, the young man was sent to Srednekolymsk. When they reached Argakhtakh, the Komsomol members learned that their comrade had been placed in a psychiatric hospital.
Escape to eternity
Legend has it that Thekla died at a young age. The strict father wanted to marry her off as a rich Cossack, but the girl had already given her heart to the young "foreigner". The lovers fled from the prison on a sled, either a reindeer or a dog, when they did not notice the wormwood, and drowned. In the coffin, a blush appeared on Thekla's cheeks, and when her father spoke unflatteringly about her escape, the blush fell asleep. The innocent girl, about whose life little is known, became a legend after her death.
But now we can say that this legend has documentary evidence. Maria Starostina, Candidate of Historical Sciences, managed to find in the archives the birth records of the daughter of the "plowed peasant" Vasily Berezhnov - Fekla. According to them, the girl was born on February 6, 1777. Vasily Berezhnov and Ekaterina Evseyeva had 18 children - 10 sons and 8 daughters. The Berezhnovs' house stood at the very road, and passers-by often stopped in it. In 1787, among them was the deputy head of the famous northeastern expedition G. A. Sarychev, who wrote the book "Travel in the northeastern part of Siberia, the Arctic Sea and the Eastern Ocean." Among other things, in it Sarychev spoke about the happy life of the inhabitants of the Alazey prison.
According to the testimonies discovered by Maria Starostina, Fyokla drowned on December 10, 1796, that is, the girl was 19. Interestingly, next to the record about the death of Fyokla Berezhnova, there are also records about the drowning of two Yakuts from the Boydon volost of the Verkhnekolymskaya fortress - Matvey Dyachkov, 68 years old, and the newly baptized Dyachkov Mikhailo is 45 years old. Presumably they were Fyokla's companions during the escape. Mikhailo Dyachkov was the girl's fiancé. There is evidence that he died when he was much younger than recorded in the church book - errors common in those days when registering death and birth.
Thekla punished the grave diggers
And today a winter road from Svatay to Argakhty runs through the Alazey prison. Each driver, passing by the grave of the "Russian shaman", will certainly beep - otherwise, some trouble will certainly happen on the road. Therefore, it is not surprising that when, in 1975, the locals discovered Thekla's desecrated grave, and her body was thrown out of the coffin, in the Srednekolymsk region, the entire police were put on their feet. Soon three shabashniks from Argakhtakh were detained. Visiting builders heard the legend of the "Russian shaman" and decided that there must be gold in her grave. The coffin was dug up, the lid was removed, and the face of the beauty, preserved in the permafrost of the Arctic, appeared to the eyes of the grave diggers. Their prey was a copper cross on the chest and some iron trinkets, which were buried with Thekla.
They say that drunken shabashniks stripped the corpse and took pictures with a naked girl. These images were later included in the criminal case. During the investigation, the shabashniki were put in a police detention center in Srednekolymsk. One of them went mad even before the trial, and in the following years all the criminals died a terrible death. The earthly court for desecrating the grave sentenced them to suspended sentences. And Thekla herself, as the locals are sure, took revenge on them, as only shamans can do. Soon the prosecutor's office also burned down, and in it there was a criminal case against the grave-diggers, with whom the film and photographs depicting the shame of the dead girl disappeared forever.
Locals said that sometimes at night on Thekla's grave they see a strange light coming from the depths of the earth. I confess that during the month of our stay at the Alazey prison, we did not see either Thekla or the glow. But there is really a lot of mystery in these places. So, once again going to the other side of the Alazeya to get firewood (there was a tundra on our side), we encountered an amazing physical phenomenon. Going into the woods, we clearly heard the hum of a motor boat. They ran out to the shore - silence. We entered the forest again - again the roar of engines. Again it was quiet on the beach. In complete bewilderment, we collected the dead wood and returned to the camp. Later I asked the Yukaghirs what it was. They said that in this forest, the sound of the engine persists for 20-30 minutes after the boat passes. That is, we heard the roar of the engine of our own boat, which was muffled by crossing. Surely this phenomenon has a scientific explanation. But then, in the light of the legends heard and the proximity to Thekla's grave, it was somehow uncomfortable.
Once again, the story of the “Russian shamaness” made me shudder late in the evening, when in the tent in the flickering candlelight, the head of our expedition, Anatoly Nikolaevich Alekseev, now the director of the Institute for Humanitarian Research, was telling another, as it seemed to us, story about Thekla. When you are 19-20 years old - the devil himself is not a brother. In polemic fervor, I suddenly announced that I was ready to take a sleeping bag and spend the night at Thekla's grave. Then Anatoly Nikolaevich, who was an absolute authority for all of us, looked at me seriously and said: "Sergei, I don't need a gray corpse by morning." Such a reaction to my boyishness as our guru made me think hard and somewhere to believe that the legend of the “Russian shamaness” is only partly a legend.
Anatoly Alekseev, Director of the Institute for Humanitarian Research, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
- As far as I know, Fyokla did not become famous for anything special during her lifetime. She had the gift of a doctor, which made her a shaman in the eyes of local residents. Most likely, such a veneration of Thekla in Central Kolyma is explained by the special spiritual qualities of the girl whom everyone loved and who tragically died innocent. According to the Orthodox canons, the shaman should be excommunicated. But Orthodoxy in Yakutia had its own characteristics. The priests clearly did not oppose the fact that some parishioners could also observe pagan traditions. This tolerance of the church explains the fact that Thekla was buried at the chapel, and not behind the fence of the cemetery.
By the beginning of the 19th century, the Alazey prison fell into decay. They knocked out the sable, and less and less often the industrialists reached Alazeya. In addition, new lands were annexed to Russia in the east and in Transbaikalia, where the more valuable Barguzin sable was found. Unlike Yakutia, where the Russian power had already been sufficiently strengthened by the 19th century, anarchy reigned in the new lands. And this attracted industrialists. And getting to the Amur or Baikal was much easier than to the northeast of Yakutia. As a result, in the 19th century, the Alazey prison ceased to exist. But the locals still remember Fekla Berezhnova, who became the most famous resident of the prison. They remember and are afraid to disturb her memory once again.
I'll tell you one more story. Returning from Alazeya to Srednekolymsk, we stopped ZILok and asked the driver to drop our things and finds to the airport. The man readily agreed. Throwing the butor into the back, my friend and I got into the cab. The driver of about 30 years was keenly interested in what kind of group came to them in the city. And, having learned that we were digging the Alazey prison, the man's face changed. “The old woman was being disturbed,” he said barely audibly. And he never said another word. It seemed to me that his first desire was to drop us off. And only the innate northern hospitality did not allow this. I saw how the man was frightened by the fact that he was helping archaeologists from Alazeya.
I still did not understand why the locals called 19-year-old Fekla an old woman. All stories about her are accompanied by some kind of mystical fear. But it seems that over the years he still leaves the Middle Kolyma. And today, not every young person here will tell you who Fekla Berezhnova was. Meanwhile, many people with the surname Berezhnovs live in Central Kolyma. These are distant relatives of the very Thekla. But two centuries after her death, little reminds of the Russian roots of the Berezhnovs. They say we are Yakuts. There were no more shamans in their family.
Sergey SUMCHENKO, Yakutsk Vecherny