Syrian village. Village witch or old woman on the edge of the village Village witch guarding the safety of... herself

Good day! Once again, after reading the stories, I decided to write my own, I started many times, but never got to the end, something didn’t work out. My mother told me this story.
To make it clearer, I’ll tell you a little about our family, my parents divorced when my brother and I were 5-6 years old (I’m the eldest), my mother found herself a man, he also has two children about our age. So we moved into his house, and he lived with his mother, the old woman was so nasty, she somehow didn’t like us, well, of course he took him with two children, at first everything went well, we seemed to have gotten used to the new housing, mother was slowly getting used to it, but Her mother-in-law was not happy with her, but she didn’t pay much attention to her...Good day! Once again, after reading the stories, I decided to write my own, I started many times, but never got to the end, something didn’t work out. My mother told me this story.
To make it clearer, I’ll tell you a little about our family, my parents divorced when my brother and I were 5-6 years old (I’m the eldest), my mother found herself a man, he also has two children about our age. So we moved into his house, and he lived with his mother, the old woman was so nasty, she somehow didn’t like us, well, of course he took him with two children, at first everything went well, we seemed to have gotten used to the new housing, mother was slowly getting used to it, but Her mother-in-law was not happy with her, but she didn’t pay much attention to her.
And then one night my stepfather was on a business trip, my mother-in-law went to visit her relatives in another region. There was a mother left at home with two children. Further from the words of the mother: \"I woke up to some rustling noises at the door (the house was private, the locks were looped), I heard the lock opening, while I got up, put on my robe, I went out, and in the kitchen an elderly woman stood and asked: \"You won't tell where does Maria live here (that’s my mother’s name)\”, without hesitation I point to the neighboring house, the namesake lives there. She shook her head and said: “No, I need the one who lives here,” and points her finger down. I told her: “There’s no one like that here.” The woman turned her back and let’s whisper something, then I turn her sharply by the shoulder, and she spits in her face, I also spat in her face in revenge.
I don’t remember how I fell asleep, I wake up because my husband came home and muttered something about the door not being closed, I ran my hand over my face, and there was saliva. I got up in shock, gathered the children, told my husband everything, he doesn’t believe it and laughs. I decided to live with my sister for now, it was all painfully creepy, but first I think I’ll throw all the salt out of the house.
In general, I came with the children to my sister, told her everything, and the next day she took me to the witch. There were a lot of people at her reception, she went out into the street and called me, I went into the house, everything was hung with icons, it was cozy and calm. I sat down on a chair and told my story, but she looked at me and was silent, and I thought they probably came in vain. Having finished the story, she began to tell me: “I did the right thing by spitting on her in revenge, she is now afraid of you, but since she took the money from your mother-in-law, she will come again, she lives next to you and you didn’t throw all the salt in the attic, look.” She won’t come alone with an assistant, don’t be afraid to drive her away, read your prayers, if you suddenly don’t remember when she comes, then curse her and she’ll leave.\”
I left there and told my sister: “Don’t ever take me to a crazy person again.” We arrived home, back and forth, and she and her son went to bed in the living room, and I and the children went to bed in the bedroom. I wake up, a girl is standing next to the bed, wearing a polka dot dress and looking at me, I immediately remembered the words of the witch, I take her hand and ask where the grandmother is, she is silent, I then squeeze my hand harder, she is still silent. Well, I think now we’ll leave the room, you’ll tell me everything, I’m trying to open the door, I can’t, I pull it even harder, we couldn’t close it because there’s no lock. I pull and with a jolt I fall to the floor, and that grandmother is on top of me. Then with all my prayers, I don’t know how I didn’t get scared and managed to cross her.
I wake up, and everyone is quietly sleeping peacefully, I wake up my sister and tell her, we see the door is open, we went to bed, it looks like it was closed. After all this, I decided to return to my husband, he arrived, I packed my things to go home, I tell the story of what happened to me, they turned onto our street and suddenly this old woman crosses the road, and my husband says it’s our neighbor just higher up lives a couple of houses.
When I arrived home, the first thing I did was climb into the attic and look, and there was a whole bag of salt standing there. I threw everything away. My mother-in-law screamed so much that the neighbors thought they were killing her, and a week later my mother-in-law neighbor came and told me that the old woman was paralyzed.
This is the story, you don’t have to believe it, but I remember this time, something exactly happened, no, but the fact that we lived with my aunt, and my mother didn’t leave the house, I remember all that.

I don’t visit Syrian villages often, and I don’t have many village photographs in my archives,

The habit of carrying a camera began with this blog.
Life in the village is not like life in the city; people in villages live poorer and have a harder time earning their bread. The rhythm of life of rural residents adapts to the life of livestock and the growth of crops in the field. In Syria, peasants are not united in any collective farms, and do not receive any salaries, with the exception of a few government employees, such as teachers (most teachers come to the village from the town every day).

In Syrian villages, clanism is much more pronounced than in cities; often village residents belong to one or several large clans, clans; it is very difficult to find a person living in a village who does not have relatives in it. The villagers simply don’t allow strangers to live with them.

The life of the peasants is very simple, the houses usually have a traditional “Arabic” (folk) interior, there are woolen carpets on the floors, along the walls around the perimeter of the room there are peculiar mattresses made of foam rubber covered with velor, and rectangular pillows in elegant embroidered pillowcases, such furniture looks quite cozy , looks like “sofas without legs”.
In special niches in the walls, hidden behind curtains, mountains of woolen mattresses, blankets and pillows are stored (and housewives do not miss the opportunity to replenish these supplies all the time). With the help of such roll-up beds, any room in the house can easily be turned into bedrooms, even the largest family does not feel cramped, and any number of guests can easily be accommodated for the night. In cities, this type of furniture is also used; it helps save a lot of space (and money).

Syrian villages almost throughout the country have running water and sewerage systems. There may be no expensive plumbing, a simple shower instead of a bathtub, and a simple floor sink instead of a toilet, but even in rural toilets there is always the most important thing - water.

Rural people differ from urban people by much greater openness and simplicity. If you are driving through a Syrian village and see a woman baking bread in a tenor oven, you can simply approach her and ask for bread, and she will definitely give you some flatbreads. The bread in the village is of a special type. It is baked from wholemeal flour, the flatbread is thicker and darker in color, but very tasty and does not go stale for a long time.

I remember one of our walks. We went for a walk with our visiting friends to the ruins of a fortress from the times of the Palmyra queen Zenubia (namely Halabie-Zalabie). My youngest was only a year old, and I forgot to take milk with me for him. Already on the way home, the child began to demand his favorite milk, no distracting maneuvers in the form of cookies and caramels helped. We stopped in a random village, near a random house, explained the situation and asked to sell us some milk. Our whole company was invited into the yard; we had to wait while the hostess milked the cow. They boiled fresh milk for us, then cooled it outside in a shallow bowl, poured it into a cup and handed it to my screamer. The whole company was given milk to drink, and while we were waiting for the milk, we were treated to homemade village bread, kefir and tea. My elders still remember that simple rural bread with kefir as a super tasty meal once in their childhood)

Some village photos.
The Euphrates Valley has very fertile land, a meter-thick layer of black soil, but its color is reddish.
Plantations are always divided by mounds or grooves to retain moisture in the right place. The fields are always watered with water from the Euphrates; they don’t expect or want rain here; rain is treated as a natural disaster.

Shepherds and flock

Rural life

"Modern" tenor stove

rural yard

Fisherman's house, in the suburbs of Deir Azzor

Rural people, their way of dressing is very different from urban ones

PS
Today, for the first time since the unrest, a demonstration took place near our house and went somewhere further into the area. There is a flurry of harsh publications on the Internet from all sides, the worst thing I have read is about the withdrawal from the truce, declared free for today, everything is still quiet, but no longer calm, it is not known what will happen next and when, rumors about the approaching day "X" when every Syrian will have to decide who he is with, we have been going for the last month, exams in the final classes should begin in three days. My friends scare me with the predictions of all sorts of soothsayers, I’m not inclined to believe them, but today an innocent message smelled of something sinister, and made me worry even more utro.ru/news/2012/05/24/1048672.shtml
I want to connect a satellite, it’s difficult to keep up with news on the Internet now, and whether the Internet will work, who knows..

In accordance with Google's requirements, we cannot post publicly available articles for people over 18+. Therefore, we have organized a closed section for users in which we write articles of this kind. The section is called - The sexiest stars, and is located in the Beauty and Style section.

As a child, my mother lived in a village where they had not even heard of television, let alone cellular communications, in the wilderness, in a word. The people there were believers, but superstitious.

There were a lot of dark rumors going around the village: a girl in a white dress appears by the road, leading to an accident, they say; then a short old man who led lost people out of the forest, and many other creepy stories.

And here is one of them, the veracity of which my mother was “lucky” to verify and even participate in.

There lived an old woman in their village; you could rarely see her on the street. She almost never left her dilapidated house. They said she was a witch. But you know how rumors spread in the village...

Everyone avoided her and did not allow their children to walk near her house. But my mother was always terribly interested, and she and her brother often played near her house. The old woman did not like the fact that they were sitting on her bench, she constantly grumbled, but did not leave the house, only looked menacingly out of the window and stomped around as if she could not get out. My grandfather, my mother's father, knew this woman; she was an old friend of his family when he was little. Therefore, the old lady was invited to family gatherings.

At one of these meetings, my mother and her sister decided to play a prank on the old woman, since they had heard stories about a witch, and stuck a needle in the door frame. According to ancient beliefs, if you stick a needle into a door frame, a real witch will not be able to get out and will mark time in agony.

And after a long feast, the old woman hobbled to the door and began to leave, when, remembering something, she started talking to one of the guests. It was clear from the expression on her face that she was not delighted with the dialogue, even though she started it herself. But she couldn’t leave, she couldn’t sneak away. And when it seemed that the conversation was over, turning to face the door, she seemed to remember something and with a dissatisfied face turned back and reluctantly started a conversation. So the old woman fidgeted and poked at the door for about forty minutes. An exhausted look, black eyes, like an abyss, bloodshot, looked as if through them with their sister. It became so creepy. And then the father came up and whispered in their ears to pull out the needle and not mock the guest. They were taken aback. How did the father find out? And if he knew why he brought this witch to our house! After all, everyone, absolutely everyone, heard that this old woman goes into the forest at night. With a wicker basket, in a long dark red dress. And in the morning, as it began to get light, a large pig came out with a torn dress wrapped around her and a basket, which she dragged behind her, scraping her hoof on the ground. The old woman lit large fires, threw some herbs and objects into them, and either danced a strange dance, or simply walked with her eyes closed, trembling and whispering something...

And so we pulled out the needle, she immediately rushed away. She hasn't been heard from since then. The children burned down that house long ago. And my mother moved from that village a long time ago. And many years later, distant relatives asked in a letter to come and gather with all their relatives and all their acquaintances. Since many had already died, and those who remained wanted to see their relatives at the end of their lives.

Mom simply could not help but come. After all, there might not be a next time.

She arrived, all the relatives gathered, all the same people who had been many years ago, sat at the table and had a heart-to-heart talk. Everyone had changed so much, grown old, only one face seemed so familiar to her that she spent the whole evening racking her brains wondering who it was. It was awkward to ask openly. When it got completely dark and people began to leave, she didn’t know where to go. Other relatives stayed overnight with relatives, and the following with friends... And only this grandmother was going home alone. Then she approached her mother and looked at her with a grin and some kind of mocking and sly look: “Let’s go to my place and spend the night?” She agreed, because she had nowhere else to go... The old woman took her hand and rushed into the distance along a country road, then turned through the forest... She, one might say, was running, which doesn’t really look like an old woman... And then panic seized my mother. She remembered that this was the same old woman! But it was already too late to do anything. The old woman’s hand squeezed my mother’s hand so tightly that it cracked. The old woman made a strange sound, laughing and wheezing, as if she was coughing. And then a house appeared! She slowed down, looked into her eyes and said: “Don’t be afraid of me.” The old woman brought the guest into the house. Oddly enough, there was nothing scary or gloomy inside; on the contrary, it was quite nice. They were greeted by a pale, short boy with disheveled hair and a barely noticeable, somehow lifeless smile. She pointed to the bedroom at the far corner of the corridor, and the boy accompanied her. And, looking into his eyes, he said: “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. She’s kind.”

She couldn't sleep all night... It was wildly uncomfortable. It's hot and cold... The bed creaked...

And suddenly the door opened slightly with a characteristic creak, and a black lump ran inside.

It was a kitten. He jumped onto the bed and, poking at the blanket from his feet, climbed inside and, scratching all his legs, crawled up, his mother took him off and put him on the floor. After all, it was wildly painful. But the black spot again jumped into her legs and began to tear towards her throat... It felt like he was trying to strangle her, plunging his claws, like blades, under the skin, tearing it, making his way higher and higher... She threw him off again!

But this creature was not going to stop, it tore the blanket and climbed again! His mother could no longer stand it and threw him on the floor. This kitten was like possessed! Crazy black lump...

No matter how much and with what force she threw him on the floor, he still continued! When he suddenly disappeared somewhere...

She fell asleep, but had nightmares all night. In the morning the old woman called her to tea.

All morning she was silent, running from corner to corner in a bustle. Suddenly she asked sarcastically: “How did you sleep?” And she immediately went out somewhere, as if she didn’t want to hear the answer. The mother, with a tortured look, told about the incident with the kitten, but the boy objected that there had never been any living creatures in the house! And it couldn’t be, since the old woman can’t stand animals. And then she was truly seized by panic, she rushed out of the house and ran as fast as she could! And she never returned to this village again. And now she sits over a cup of hot tea and tells me this truly terrible and frightening story.

Trough instead of a coffin

When we, gentle city dwellers, having not survived even two days of Moscow snowfall, are moaning about our unbearable life, it is worth going to a place where there are no roads, no directions, just untouched white virgin soil.

There, where five old women, covered in snow, live quietly.

Where is a trough instead of a coffin? Melted snow for washing clothes and washing. And the lights are never on.

Why waste expensive electricity? The stars shine for that reason.

The story about forgotten grandmothers from the deserted village of Sevryukovo, which, according to some sources, is already 13 centuries old and which, it turns out, is even older than Moscow itself, shocked the Internet.

Especially the story about how old women bury their dead, hobbling with the remains in a rusty trough through the snowdrifts.

Damn it, civilization! 21st century!

The MK special correspondent personally went to the Oryol region to check if this was true.

Who would lay expensive asphalt in the wilderness for five old women?

Moscow - Third Rome. Sevryukovo - Fourth

The further you get from Moscow, the more snow there is. We are going - he is coming. Outside the Moscow Ring Road, snowfall is perceived not as an emergency and a disaster, a nightmare and horror, but as a common natural phenomenon. Which cannot be good or bad.

"Winter! Peasant, triumphant...” Only people are good or bad.

We are going to the village of Sevryukovo, where there is so much snow that there is no room left for people.

Sevryukovo is a common geographical term. So, in any case, says Wikipedia. One Sevryukovo is a village in the Belgorod region. Another is a settlement in the Bryansk region.

Orlovskoe Sevryukovo was practically wiped off the face of the earth. Even according to the most optimistic estimates, that is, official statistics, there are less than two dozen people here. In reality, even that is not the case. Baba Nina, Baba Lida, Baba Masha, Baba Tamara, Baba Nadya... And two more bedridden old men. The youngest, Baba Nina, Nina Grigorievna Ilyukhina, will turn 72 this year.

And no one would have known that they existed - there are probably many similar lifeless villages in Rus' - if not for random curiosity.

“The fact is that I have long been interested in the history of the Sevruki people; there is information that they come from Rome, and their most ancient settlements in these parts date back to the 8th century AD,” says human rights activist Maria Bast. “Since there are several villages with this name in Russia, we decided to go to the nearest one, Orlovskaya, we even looked for a travel agency that could take us there, it seemed that it would be easy and simple to get there.”

The local administration categorically did not advise Muscovites to go to Sevryukovo for folklore, explaining that no one had lived there for a long time. That's why there is no road.

“And that if we really want it, then the head of the district club will dress up in a folklore outfit especially for us, sing and dance. But we didn't want to. We wanted to go to Sevryukovo,” Maria continues her story.

And they were sent to Sevryukovo. Forest. Or rather, a field. On foot.

After two hours of desertion in the virgin snow, now falling into snowdrifts, now climbing out onto a thin ice flooring, we finally reached the amazingly beautiful village.

Only the village was not abandoned, but quite inhabited. Old ladies.

Journalists crowded into the old UAZ like sardines in a can.

How grannies moved gas cylinders

…You feel like you’re inside a tin can filled with people, like sprat in a tomato plant. The car skids once again, and this whole screaming, moaning, spinning mass - three in the front seat, three in the back and three more squatting, with backpacks on their knees, in the luggage compartment of our UAZ...

These are journalists going to a village that was on all the strategic maps of the Nazis, but today, in peacetime, it seems to not exist at all. This is the second batch of journalists. The first one was locals. Now - from Moscow.

Snowy field. And no landmarks. Where is the sky, where is the earth? Where is the famous Sevryukovo?..

Minus twenty overboard. The ancient UAZ shakes like a plane during turbulence. Only under the plane there are 10 thousand meters of “airbag” - but here we will roll over, drown in the snow - and they will never be found again.

“Even a tractor doesn’t always get through here. Do you want a UAZ? Somehow I got stuck in a field - and that’s it, I had to spend the night,” our driver Alexander, who is also the son of Nina Grigorievna Ilyukhina, philosophically notes.

Grandma is right there. On the next seat. In crowded but not mad. Shows a road that doesn't exist.

Nina Grigorievna worked as a social worker until she was 70 years old and carried gas cylinders for her neighbors.

“Well, yes, in winter we don’t go outside. Because there is nowhere. And we don’t go out in the fall with the spring either: it’s muddy. But in the summer we have a good time,” until she was seventy years old, Nina Grigorievna, previously a farm manager and a local village deputy, also worked as a local social worker. Her duties included going to the regional center to the shops, purchasing goods for all the residents of their village, and returning alive. She sometimes went on foot, but more often on a horse and cart, and recently, when the noise arose, it turned out that according to the law, this horse also had a position, as it were, she was supposed to be given as much as 500 rubles a year for food.

“And I had a responsibility: to bring gas cylinders and bread to all the neighbors. Bread is the most important thing.”

Fifty loaves along the road of life. “But it was hard to move the gas cylinders. After all, they weigh more than 60 kilograms,” sighs the grandmother. “And how did you drag them?!” - I am horrified.

“So where sideways, and where dragged. Where can we go without gas?” - Nina Grigorievna spreads her calloused hands.

If something happens, in winter not a single ambulance will pass here. “How are we treated? “No way,” the old woman sighs again. “My blood pressure recently rose, so I went to a neighbor’s house so that I wouldn’t die alone.”

A gas cylinder lasts for a month or a little more. If you save. Usually they burn with wood. The authorities promise that the old women will be compensated for the cost of firewood. They have been silent about universal gasification for a long time. But the old women don’t even ask. We're used to it. And they even like the pension and it seems huge. After all, there is nowhere to spend it anyway. They send and help children.

The nearest real city of Mtsensk is 35 kilometers away. The regional center of Cheremoshny, where people also live, is 5 km, or an hour by truck. This has its own theory of relativity. In the off-season it rains. In winter - snow. An hour can easily stretch into three. “Last year there was so much snow that it was stuck, I had to get out on skis, put it on and ran across the field,” boasts 72-year-old Nina Grigorievna.

In winter, the water in the pump freezes, and you have to warm it up by insulating the piece of iron with polyethylene. But sometimes, if there is very severe frost, this does not help - then the old women melt the snow to wash, wash, and cook food on it. It’s good that at least the snow here is clean and ecological.

Is there a trough? So hang in there!

Due to snowfalls and sudden fame, those relatives who were able to do so finally took their grandmothers to civilization. So I didn’t manage to get around all five residents of Sevryukov. Only the most persistent remained.

81-year-old Lidiya Ivanovna Ilyukhina is one of those.

“Oh, fathers! - she groans when she sees the delegation behind the fence. - Why are there so many of you! But where should I take you? Oh, everyone go... to the hut.”

In the hut it turns out that Lydia Ivanovna knows how to tell the weather. This is relevant now. Please tell your fortune for Moscow. But the old lady refuses. “I won’t guess about your weather, but about ours, please. Tomorrow there will be snow again, but there will be no wind.”

Lidia Ivanovna: “It’s snowing today, like in 1942.”

Two cats - more precisely, the cat Ryaba and the cat Vasek, mother and son - are working at the stove while Lydia Ivanovna is getting ready to feed the chickens.

“I’m in my nineties, and I’m putting on boots and galoshes myself,” she boasts. There is a rusty trough in the yard of the barn. “Is this where you bury the dead?”

“This is my trough. The dead were not transported on it, but on the same one, so write it so that they don’t get confused,” the grandmother instructs. - And it wasn’t this year, but there was also a lot of snow, and in order to get through the snowdrifts to the highway, they put the body in a trough, everyone harnessed and dragged. And then, in the city, they transferred it to an ordinary coffin, of course...”

Grandmothers don’t keep cattle - it’s hard. They subsist on chicken eggs.

The chickens cluck in confusion, like little children, not understanding what is happening: instead of feeding them, the owner talks and talks... Everything unspoken in all her 80 years.

“Mama had three of us. I was born in 1937. And when the war began, the Germans were coming from the other side - over there,” Lydia Ivanovna waves her hand.

Punishers burned Oryol villages. No one was spared. And their home village too. “Then their tanks arrived, and the police collected our mothers to take them into the occupation. It was the winter of '42. I remember it snowed that year, just like now.”

The mother ordered the children to roar as loudly as possible, and she hid. The Germans came: where is the uterus? There is no one, only children are crying.

“And I remember it very well. And how my hands and feet froze because I ran naked in the cold. They swollen, turned black, they told my mother that I would not survive... One Finn, also a German, helped me: he cut off all the rotting skin, lubricated the wounds with fuel oil - and I recovered. She was thin!.. And my sister died. Although thicker than me and more beautiful. That's how it happens! And my brother also died later. But I live and live, I’ve outlived everyone.”

Lida's father was in captivity. And the mother is under occupation. And they had no home. They came to shoot - these were ours, as traitors - and they found no one.

“I studied well,” says the grandmother. - True, I didn’t have a briefcase, but I did have a scarf - I’ll put the books in it, tie the corners and walk 15 kilometers to school. And when Stalin died, I was in tenth grade, and everyone cried sobbing, I cried too, but I don’t know why.”

And in her profile, even in modern times, it still remained that she was from a family of unreliable people. And that was the end of Lidina’s entire studies. She was not accepted into the institute. So she became a pig farmer. And she worked until retirement and even longer. Until the collective farm collapsed. She got married here, in Sevryukovo. She lived with her husband for 34 years and gave birth to two children.

“And now why not live - after all, everything is there,” and immediately tries to give everyone gifts: three pairs of woolen socks, a bunch of porcini mushrooms and dry rose hips. Everything that was found in her house.

“It’s snowing,” I look out the dark window. “What did I tell you about fortune-telling?..” Lidia Ivanovna rejoices again. - I ask God every day so that he does not fall asleep on us and our land... And so that we can still live happily. At least a little."

Ordered to wait

And everything would be fine, but the local authorities were not at all happy about the news about the old women and Sevryukov in the regional and federal press. Why do they need this unnecessary hype?..

Therefore, they immediately announced that older women are misleading the public - either accidentally or intentionally, but they also have a way, even two - the main one and the backup one. True, they carried the dead in a trough, but they have corrected themselves: now, if someone dies, they take him to the cart on a sled, and the snowdrifts are cleaned in advance.

And that medical care in Sevryukov cannot be better. All required social services at home are provided to the recipient within the time frame specified in the individual program in accordance with current legislation, and on January 16, immediately after the holidays, doctors from the central district hospital specially visited the residents of the locality. Take the pressure. But the grandmothers themselves claim on record that no one came to them.

But they definitely sent here to check representatives of all relevant services at once - from the prosecutor's office to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, they counted the old women at the same time and punished that if someone leaves to visit their grandchildren, then warn in advance so that government services are not assigned to absent citizens.

Grandmothers, of course, are afraid that their frankness about the road will backfire on them. Although it is unlikely to be worse than it is. And all they dream about is just new asphalt... Five kilometers. Nothing more. In the Central Russian zone, not in the Far North.

But so far, the regional administration recently gave them only a cake. “Santa Claus, right?..” - Lidia Ivanovna gasped. “No,” the governor’s adviser disappointed her. - Governor. He asked me to convey that we always remember about every person.”

And this spring, during the March thaw, I’m sure they will definitely be remembered. No matter what happens, a tractor with a ballot box and ballots will break through to them.