Circles in the Yaroslavl region. Journey Two: Circle of Water
Description of the surrounding area
If it were possible, at least for a moment, to turn the wheel of history ten, twenty thousand years ago, then we would find ourselves on the shore of the beautiful and deep Berendeev Lake. And on high mountain-the peninsula, later named Volchya, was inhabited by people - strong, free and good-natured. Lived lived...
There was a legend about Tsar Berendey, about the wise princess Marya ... The legend is long. The native Berendey people want to believe that those fabulous events took place right here, in these parts. That Tsar Berendey, who had a beard to the waist, lived on the shore of this lake, on a high mountain, in marble palace. From here, from a height, he surveyed his possessions with a regal gaze, and sometimes, with an army devoted to him, he traveled around the lands of the kingdom ... It was from this legend that the name of the kingdom was born in Ostrovsky's play "The Snow Maiden".
A long time ago ancient lake turned into a peat bog. Berendeyevo swamp is located in the south Yaroslavl region, between the village of Davydovsky and the villages of Fedosovo, Pogorelka, Chernitskaya, Rodiontsevo, Miloslavka. The rivers Kirzhach and Trubezh flow from it. One flows into the Klyazma, the other into Lake Pleshcheyevo.
Swamps, swamps from ancient times for a person were not necessary, unsuitable for life land. For people, they were also an unsolved mystery. Since ancient times, people have endowed swamps with various legends, fairy tales and traditions. Many researchers have tried to unravel the mysteries of the swamps.
For a long time there have been legends and tales about the Berendey swamp, about its innumerable riches buried in swamps. Two centuries ago, one of the descendants of the Cabinet Secretary of Peter the Great N.P. Makarov, these legends prompted him to search for treasures on the banks of the Berendeev swamp and a hill that cuts into the swamp massif as a peninsula and is called on all large-scale geographical maps That's right - Wolf. Why is it so named? Legends say that on winter and autumn nights, the eerie howls of gray predators could be heard from here. So people called this mountain Wolf .. On this hill, in the middle of a dense forest, Makarov came across well-packed sites, garbage and wooden pavements. In 1820, D.I. Khvostov, who found earthen fortifications of the ancient town here.
In April 1848, A.N. Ostrovsky, who local residents also heard many legends and fairy tales. Their characters formed the basis of the play-tale "The Snow Maiden". A.N. visited again. Ostrovsky in 1868, when a Railway and Berendeevo station.
In 1926, on the instructions of the regional newspaper Severny Rabochiy, the writer M.M. Prishvin write essays on peat mining. And he heard different legends here. Prishvin wrote about the "Berendeys" of the Soviet era in the stories "Forest drops", "Ship Grove" and "Pantry of the Sun". He liked it so much wild beauty this region, that he, being almost seventy years old, in 1941 settled in a manor-museum.
In the same place, near the Berendeev swamp, many were looking for a stone woman. Its location, according to eyewitnesses, is contradictory. Someone saw her at the foot of the Wolf Mountain, someone in the Clay Wasteland, and others in the vicinity of the village of Chernetskoye. Old-timers claim that it was exactly 60 years ago. In 1928, local historian L. Hamelman also undertook a search for a "woman". He did not find her, but he wrote down the story of a blind hundred-year-old resident of the village of Chernetsky F.P. During the construction of the Northern Railway, it was broken into pieces and they were laid in the foundations. railway bridge across the river Trubezh. And he allegedly transported these stones through the swamp.
There is a lot of information about the impressive boulders found at the foot of the Wolf Mountain. Some are shaped like sitting animals or fantasy characters. There are blue boulders in a clay quarry north of Wolf Mountain, and near the village of Chernetskoye there is a whole “cemetery” of such stones. They also report a bizarre stone with the outlines of a human face, which is located near the village of Bagrimovo. But, unfortunately, on this trip we were not able to check the information about the boulders. I hope that the Berendeyevo kingdom will still receive us as guests.
Not far from Berendeyevo, in the village of Davydovo, there is a ruined church with some preserved paintings. We decided to save you from counting domes, so we just give the coordinates, for those who are interested in this: N 56° 35.431" E 39° 05.421"
And in a clay quarry at coordinates N 56 ° 35.321 E 38 ° 59.705 "on slopes overgrown with grass and trees, mushrooms and strawberries grow.
Used information from the sites: www.dazzle.ru and www.pki.botik.ru
Cache Description
Cache contents
This stash contains a "themed" container. And this means that you don’t have to put any nonsense in them, but only the one that I wish. :-))) This container consists entirely of goodies associated with a swamp or forest:
1. Book "Who eats what"
2. A book of poems about animals
3.Notepad - frog
4.Cube for records "Frog"
5. A lizard toy growing in water.
6. Clockwork bird
7. Frog-sharpener
this is an old post from 09/22/2010
Firstly, I have joy: the camera is working again, the Sun, I am so grateful to you for your help!
On September 15, 2010, with one local historian, we went to his homeland, to the village of Volchya Gora, which is not far from Berendeev, Yaroslavl Region. From Alexandrov by train we reached the stop pl. 142 km and then walked a couple of kilometers. The weather was wonderful, calm and sunny, despite the fact that there were gray days before and after. Can't say yet what's coming Golden autumn, most likely, this is an instant "Indian summer".
Our goal was to visit the native places of my friend and, if possible, to explore the surroundings of Wolf Mountain. Passing through a small but mossy copse near the railway, we enter a field with oaks.
It was morning, it was not hot, not cold, the insects did not interfere, it was easy and familiar from an excess of feelings that he had finally got to his native place, he was talking about his life, and I listened to him and took a picture.
Wolf Mountain itself is located on the Berendey swamp. The Berendeevo swamp is an oval with a "ship" clearly visible on it - this is Volcha Gora. In the vicinity of the mountain there was a pagan temple, around it you can find boulders that sometimes resemble sitting people, sometimes different figures (depending on the imagination). Among the stones there are also "Blue stones". There are bluish-colored boulders in a clay quarry north of Wolf Mountain, and near the village of Chernetskoye there is a whole “cemetery” of such boulders. The mountain itself is a kind of "place of power", in different periods of history a lot happened in those places interesting events. And also there in 1966 Yu.A. Senkevich came, and then in the "Club of Travelers" they showed Volcha Gora. This is the view from her.
Gradually, we approached the village of the same name, which, in my opinion, gave the impression of being abandoned and forgotten. Approximately half of the houses are non-residential, some have completely collapsed or burned down. There were very few people, but my companion met 2-3 acquaintances, they recognized each other and shared memories for some time: how is he now, is this one alive and do you remember how it was then ...
Finally, we approached his house, no one lives there anyway, opened the door and got into the past. We walked around, looked at how it was now, he told me some stories from the past, how he grew up here and what this house means to him. Of course, everything is turned upside down there, but there are traces that this place was once inhabited.
The most such time of the year, when ripe apples are already falling with might and main, we picked them a little and I made the first snack. Then, we went, in fact, to the top of this mountain, where there is a round red-brick water tower.
If you shoot it from a certain angle, then it will look like something ancient oriental. It turns out that this is the high point Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya ridge- its height is 306 meters above sea level. The winds blow here and the most picturesque views of the surrounding swamps open from here. So, we approached the southern slope with a cliff and settled down for a halt. We are surrounded by the Berendeyevo swamp. From a distance, it does not look quite like a swamp, more like an overgrown plain, but in fact it is full of swampy places.
While my friend was resting, I, full of spirit, enthusiastically climbed the nearest slopes and took pictures of local beauties. Here, right below, a fragment of a narrow-gauge rail sticks out of the slope - peat was mined here and paths passed, in some places wooden sleepers are visible across the paths along embankments among the swamps. And a lot of stones of unknown origin and purpose. Who knows what else this land hides?
Having a snack, we go further, it becomes warmer, the sun is still warming. We pass by rickety fences, but there are also newly built houses, which for some reason do not want to be photographed. Hunting to shoot these old places, where everything is so saturated with history.
Having passed along the road and filming another video, we go downhill and see 2 destroyed buildings. Of particular interest are the ruins of gray stone. These are the remains of an old bathhouse, which was built in 1943 by captured Germans, employed here in peat extraction. They say that in its foundation they put an ancient pagan artifact - the Stone Baba. It is not possible to check whether this is exactly the case, but usually such legends do not arise from scratch.
On one of the former narrow-gauge railway lines, we go further south into the swamp and see how peat is smoldering in one place. There, this happens all year round and it is deadly dangerous to go off the path, not only because of falling into a swamp, but you can also fall into the inferno of smoldering peat. So we stomp along the path, it’s warm, we see how a very dark snake crawls into the grass from the path, I don’t know what kind of snake it is, but just in case we pay more attention under our feet. Along the way, two more of the same snakes come across, and if you also look around, you will see this.
In this hot summer, there were no strong fires here. Maybe because the swamp is flooded, as evidenced by ditches filled with water, which cut the entire swamp into sections. So you can move for a long time in the direction of the place that the acquaintance called as "garage", but we already decide to turn back, because there is still a lot to go, and a lot has been covered. My friend is in years, but he keeps up his good work and keeps in shape hiking in our neighborhoods. Having reached the mountain along the road and climbing it again, we turn off and go the other way through abandoned and useless orchards, and under our feet there are scatterings of apples.
By the way, while I was wandering around nearby places, I took a picture of a curious stone of an unusual shape, which my friend, a local historian, drew Special attention. Maybe the truth is also some pagan power stone or something else?
We hurried to the platform, because we didn’t know exactly what time the rare electric trains pass here, so as not to be late and not to wait until the evening. Right in the woods near the railroad, some grayish snake with a light mark on its head rushed from under the feet to the side, but it was not possible to photograph it either - it was too fast and nimble creatures. While we were waiting for the train, we rested a little and ate our supplies. The train was late, they say that they are constantly late here from Yaroslavl.
The trip was a success: a friend visited his homeland, and I got a lot of impressions from visiting such a place. Then, on the Internet, I found
On a July afternoon, near the very edge, the water heats up quickly and becomes like warm milk. It even seems like it is viscous and thick. The small lazy waves of Pleshcheyevo Lake are persistently trying to push my bare feet back onto the shore. But my determination to stay put is unwavering, and the water is slowly giving way. And after the feeling that they want to drive you away, there is a feeling that they want to wash you. I am standing ankle-deep in the ancient waters of Lake Yaroslavl, bliss is slowly spreading over my body, but, oddly enough, these lines come to mind: "I'm going to the bathroom. I'll open the faucet. And just wash this day.
Since ancient times, this has been the custom with water: a simple liquid substance, touching the skin, brings a feeling of not only physical cleanliness, but spiritual relief. Remember how mom said: “Wash and it will become easier,” and these simple words sounded like a spell. And it always worked: along with water, tears, resentment, anger, pain, and even the memory of an unpleasant, but experienced, disappeared in the funnel. However, only flowing water has this magical property, even if it flows simply between the fingers. She washes away the negativity and disappears. But there is water with a different quality, water that remembers. Lakes with heavy silty waters and a muddy bottom and swampy swamps keep many secrets of bygone times. Especially here, in the very heart of Meremaa - the land of the disappeared people, which today, by the will of man, consists of 1/9 water.
Somewhere nearby, tourists continue to take pictures on, and I begin my journey through the water expanses of the Yaroslavl lands.
Lake Pleshcheyevo
The glacial waters of Lake Pleshcheyevo are about 30 thousand years old, its pit was filled with water during the retreat to the north of the so-called Moscow glacier. The lake is considered one of the largest in the middle lane and, if viewed from a bird's eye view, has an almost regular oval shape. Like any flowing, but still glacial lake, it has a fairly thick layer of silt at the bottom, and in some places this layer reaches up to half of the entire depth, which gave rise to a huge number of legends and secrets that the locals pass on from generation to generation. And with each generation, I believe, there is less and less truth, more and more speculation. The bottom shape of the lake is really unusual, similar to giant funnel 9.5x6.5 kilometers. Near the shore it is very shallow, and then the bottom abruptly breaks off and goes to the muddy depths. And there, among the eternal darkness, according to various sources, there may be secret passages and caves in which giant fish of unknown origin and incredible taste are found, which local fishermen sometimes manage to catch. There are those who claim that an ancient lizard lives at the bottom of Lake Pleshcheyevo, but scientists believe that there is clearly not enough space for such a giant in the lake. They are looking for a second bottom among the silt, on which stands the legendary city of Kitezh - the Russian Atlantis, which is searched for in lakes not only in the Yaroslavl region.
They also say that the lake has magical powers and can send curses, both on individuals and on entire cities. During the life of the Merian people in the local lands, approximately X-XI centuries, stood on the shore of the city of Kleshchin, from whose name the lake got its name. Almost no reliable historical information has been preserved about that city, except for numerous burial mounds that archaeologists are still excavating in an attempt to understand what the city itself looked like and what kind of people lived in it. Not far from the place where I am now standing, there is a high shaft, about 3.5 meters in height, covering about 2 hectares of land in a circle and clearly outlining the border of an ancient citadel with four towers on the sides, from which only holes remain now. According to legend, the lake itself rejected the human settlement on its shores. It sent a curse after a curse on the inhabitants, until the patience of the people ended and the city was manually transferred to the current place of Pereslavl-Zalessky. Since then, lovers of near-scientific and paranormal activity keep statistics of curses that the lake continues to send to random lonely travelers, visiting tourists, lonely locals and fishermen who did not return from fishing on time. The most frequent, but quite harmless, are loss of orientation in time and a feeling of terrible horror, as well as a variety of hallucinations that eyewitnesses describe with pleasure. However, most often people come here for rich fishing, kiting and beautiful scenery, especially loved in the photographic environment.
How to get there
Pereslavl-Zalessky
Highway M8, 130 km northeast of Moscow, 124 km southwest of Yaroslavl.
There is no railway station in the city. The northern railway, built in 1868, passed 18 versts from Pereslavl. Pereslavl industrialists underestimated the importance of the railroad and even opposed the construction of the road through the city.
The nearest station to Pereslavl is Ryazantsevo. From there, a bus runs to the city, but quite rarely.
Buses to Pereslavl-Zalessky (Moscow-Yaroslavl, Moscow-Pereslavl, Moscow-Kostroma) regularly run from Moscow from the Shchelkovsky bus station.
Berendeyevo swamp
If you pass Pereslavl-Zalessky and move to the southernmost border of the Yaroslavl lands, you can get into another fairy tale that everyone has probably heard about. Whether it was a fairy tale about the girl Snow Maiden, or a true story, but according to the old encyclopedic dictionaries “in the Aleksandrovsky district, on the borders of Pereyaslavsky and Yuryevsky, the length is 10 versts, the width is 4-5 versts. There are traces of habitation; according to local legend, the city of Berendeev was here, where Tsar Berendey lived”. Now here is the famous and eerie Berendeyevo swamp, which stores countless treasures under swampy moss hummocks. They began to look for them back in the 19th century and even found some signs of existence in these places. small town. However, later the legends about Tsar Berendey, his golden palace and the carriage from historical documents migrated to the records of collectors of regional folklore and to the pages of books of famous Russian writers, because both Ostrovsky and Prishvin visited these places. Only one thing is known for certain, there was an ancient lake at this place. Stood on that lake small settlement. In the settlement that, in the middle of the ancient temple, there was a famous idol called "Stone Baba". It is said that its approximate dimensions were 2 x 2.5 x 1.5 meters. They even say that the "woman" she was blue, like the others stone artifacts these edges. And according to legend: the son drowned in that lake stone woman”And, not finding him in the cold waters, she cursed the lake with the most terrible curse. For several millennia, the lake finally became a swampy swamp, legends and rumors about its size and grandeur remained from the settlement, and they wanted to dismantle the stone woman for foundations for local churches, but it crumbled into pieces. They were worshiped by the locals for a very long time. “Village women, in order not to get lost, when they pick cranberries in the Berendey swamp, put berries in front of a stone and, turning their dress inside out, leave her behind; there are, as it were, offerings here on other occasions, so that at times you can find bread there, in addition to berries. To drive away the misfortunes of the "unclean place", every year on July 1, a big procession is made around the swamp. During the development of peat bogs in the 60-70s of the last century, several monuments of the Mesolithic era were discovered in these places, which have nothing to do with either the legends about Berendey or the Merya people. However, local residents still warn visiting tourists from hiking in that area, because in a swamp, even the most ordinary one, you can easily get lost, and even more so in a sacred one.
How to get there
Yaroslavl region, Pereslavl district
The village of Volchya Gora, about 2 km to the south, southeast.
Lake Nero
"Oh, goy thou, muddy sea,
The sea is muddy, you are a stranger,
Why do they only call you the lake?, says the old song.
In size like a small fresh sea, in depth like a large puddle, Lake Nero spilled near the walls of the city of Rostov. You can’t swim in it, its banks are so swampy that it’s difficult to even approach the water. I did not respond very respectfully about him and take my words back, because now a lake is turning blue in front of me, the age of which is even difficult to imagine - about 500 thousand years. At that time it really was a sea, but with the departure of the glaciers, it decreased in size by twenty-five times and began to rapidly shallow. First of all, because of the bottom silt deposits, and secondly, because of the vigorous human activity, but the most beautiful of the Yaroslavl lakes is gradually becoming a swamp. Already now its depth does not exceed 4 meters, and then only in rare places, but in general - no more than 1-1.5 meters. Although under sapropel, as this type of bottom sediments is scientifically called, the depth of the lake can be up to 20 meters. Which naturally gave rise to a huge number of legends about what exactly can be found at the very bottom. The most important of them is connected with the same city of Kitezh, which remains in oblivion and is securely hidden from human eyes. He hid under the waters during the invasion of Batu Khan, and the path to him is now laid along the only path that only the pure in soul can find. For a long time, this legend was considered almost scientifically substantiated for two reasons. Firstly, the annalistic time of the founding of Rostov in 862 has not been scientifically substantiated to this day. But there is confirmation that Rostov is actually much older. Secondly, that very ancient part of Rostov was swallowed up by the waters of Nero in ancient times, as evidenced by the stumps at the bottom, but the chronicles did not preserve direct evidence of the catastrophe. However, folklore has preserved favorite folk tales about pike and Emel and about Ersh Ershovich. And about the evil merman who asks for sacrifice every time he shackles the waters of the lake in ice and in the spring, when the ice breaks. Therefore, local fishermen are still especially careful when fishing during these periods of the year.
Lake Nero, it is also Rostov, it is Kuovo in ancient Meryan, and for Rostovites it is simply Lake, it keeps the memory of thousands of bygone years. Specialists of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow University have been studying the past of this region for a long time, having drilled a hole to a depth of more than 130 meters. They learned a lot about the climate of the pre-glacial period, about the nature of that time, about when the cold came to the Yaroslavl land and how the vegetation changed, about what the first settlers grew and what they ate. But the city of Kitezh is still only a legend. They say that when the sun sinks into the waters of Nero at night, you can hear subtle tunes and see the lights of the procession at the bottom. But even if you are unlucky, do not rush to consider your soul unclean, just admire the sunset, which is reflected in copper and crimson in the onion cupolas of Rostov churches over the aging lake. The lake and the city, connected by one fate, are inseparable from each other.
How to get there
Rostov
Highway M8. 200 km from Moscow to the northeast. 60 km from Yaroslavl to the south, southwest.
By train long distance and electric trains from Yaroslavl or Moscow.
Rybinsk reservoir. Mologa
Another couple is also inseparable, this time absolutely real: sad famous city Mologa and Rybinsk reservoir that engulfed him about 70 years ago. This a prime example of how ruthless new trends are to antiquity, created over the centuries. It is difficult for me to judge whether a person standing on the shore of the reservoir and not knowledgeable of history his appearance, to experience the same longing that is now spilling inside me. This is the story of destroyed destinies, the destinies of those who lived here and were forced to leave their native lands forever. And the fate of those who worked, creating new world in red colors, at the cost of his own life. Not only Mologa now rests under these still waters, several towns and villages were flooded at once, ancient estates and monastic settlements. The whole region, quiet, peaceful, fertile, hospitable, merchant, turned out to be objectionable to the new government, fell victim to grandiose projects in an attempt to subjugate nature itself. This region was the soul of the local lands, and Mologa was the same age as Moscow. You hear thousands of voices still roaring under the man-made sea - this is the largest fair in the Upper Volga region, where numerous merchants from all over the world flock. One after another, their painted ships moor to the pier: both Russian and overseas. And even on non-fair days, life is in full swing here, because Mologa was, in my opinion, an exemplary town: there was everything for a quiet worldly life- from good education to exemplary production. I would not be surprised that if the fate of this county had turned out differently, Mologa and the villages around it would certainly have become one of the pearls of the famous Golden Ring and the guides with an important air would talk about merchant Rus' precisely on its example. Today, scientists continue to argue vigorously about the need to implement this project, because it was not the exact calculations of cubic meters that ruined the wonderful town, but the indestructible communist desire to do everything faster, stronger. Some four meters high, attributed to an already calculated project, and Mologa could remain in the history of the county, an island in the new Soviet sea. But "we old world we will destroy to the ground, and then ... ".
Now the Rybinsk Reservoir is rapidly shallowing and the once conquered water recedes back into small streams and reservoirs, and the sad foundations of houses and churches, piers and pieces of paved bridges are also slowly exposed above its surface. For a long time, photographs of romantic church skeletons towering above the water surface circulated on the Internet, and horrifying facts were attributed to the history of resettlement about those who did not want to leave and move their homes and were flooded alive with them. Both of these are nothing more than inventions. All untransported buildings in Mologa were either blown up or collapsed under water long ago due to the most natural causes. What has not been destroyed by man has long been destroyed by winds and frosts. Do not fly over the local waters and the souls of innocent victims. The flooding took place over several years, and all this time the inhabitants of the city were slowly settled around the neighborhood along with their houses. Therefore, standing on the shore, one can only turn on the imagination and pick up old photographs of the early twentieth century in order to understand what Mologa was like. Another boat with tourists swept past me, the course of which clearly lies in the direction of the largest protruding fragment of the former city. Yes, there are quite a few tourists here, the desire to touch the mystery in human nature. Perhaps I will disappoint you, but even with a rich imagination, you will not find nourishment here. There are no terrifying secrets or unsolved mysteries here. Just pretty town was washed off the face of the earth by the course of history, and in its place eternal longing settled over the waters.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 1
✪ Hike to the Kubrinsky swamps.🌞 Autumn 2017🌞
Subtitles
Hydrology
It is believed that 4-4.5 thousand years ago the swamp was still a lake, although it began to overgrow.
The alternation of transgressions and regressions (for peatlands - flooding and desiccation) in the center of the Volga-Oka interfluve quite exactly corresponds to the same fluctuations noted in the peatlands of Sweden by E. Granlund, as well as the curve of humidity of the continents of the Northern Hemisphere, the rhythm of which was determined in 1850-1900 A. V. Shnitnikov.
The swamp has always been a natural accumulator of water balance large area Zalessky region. It, like a lake in ancient times, gives life to two rivers - the Small Kirzhach and the Trubezh. But due to an engineering miscalculation of the 50s, when the main flow was directed to the Maly Kirzhach River by drainage channels, the Trubezh River became irrevocably shallow, and Pleshcheyevo Lake began to shallow and overgrow.
Development
In 1918, during a period of economic and energy crisis, on Volchya Gora, they began to cut down the forest, build worker barracks and develop peat. Peat was mined by hand: knee-deep in ice water, pieces were cut with shovels and taken away on wooden wheelbarrows, then the pieces were stacked. When they reached high humidity in peat and stumpiness, they stopped mining here and moved to other places. Already in 1938, 70 thousand tons were mined using the lump method for the amount of 246,160 rubles of the 1938 ruble exchange rate. At the beginning of the 1950s, the peat enterprise began to use a more progressive method of peat extraction using electric and then diesel peat harvesters. The development of a peat bog by a milling method, when peat chips were obtained, made it possible to open large areas Berendey swamps and develop the peat deposit completely, to layers of sapropel or lake sand.
Of the dozens of peatlands surveyed in the Pereslavl region in the early years of Soviet power, the Berendeyevo swamp is the largest and the very first to undergo industrial development. According to a detailed study of "Lengiprotorf" in 1939, almost 20 years after the start of development, "reserves of raw peat were determined at 173.5 million cubic meters." The swamp was used for industrial extraction of peat to power the Yaroslavl power plants and boiler houses of some large factories. Now there is a large peat enterprise, a briquette plant, an extensive railway junction and a socialist town with several villages around them.
With the development of the milling method appears new settlement with multi-storey buildings built of cinder-block bricks, shops, a school, a cultural center, repair shops and a hospital campus. In the early 60s, in order to ensure the fire safety of the peat bog, an artificial reservoir-lake was created, a favorite place for recreation and fishing for residents Central village. And on its shore, near the village of Davydovo, a briquette plant is being built, producing peat briquettes for heating settlements Soviet Union.
The development of the peat bog by the milling method contributed to unraveling the mysteries of the Berendeev swamp. From 1964 to 1979, more than 20 archaeological sites were discovered from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age 10 - 5 millennium BC.
Flora
The following types of orchids are noted in the swamp: Dactyl-root meat-red, Dactyl-root spotted, Dactyl-root Traunsteiner, Dremlik marsh, Cache ovoid, Ofris insectiferous, Lyubka two-leaved.
A detailed and poetic description of the landscape and flora of the Berendeev swamp at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is contained in the essay by botanist A.F. Flerov.
Archeology
The Berendeevo swamp is well known in paleogeographic and archaeological literature from numerous publications, articles and references. Systematic excavations on the peat bog were not carried out until the summer of 1979, although the first finds have been known since 1954.
In the mid-60s, in the western sector of the swamp, during milling peat extraction, several Mesolithic and Neolithic monuments were simultaneously uncovered and destroyed. Some of them (Berendeevo I, II, IIa, III, IV) were partially studied, while the rest are now completely destroyed. Only a small collection remained of them, collected on peat fields by a local enthusiast A. M. Bakaev. Judging by these finds, there were about 10 ancient settlements on the paleolake, in addition, single tools and fragments of Neolithic ceramics were found at 7 points.
In 1964, Sasha Bakaev, a student of the 5th grade of the Berendey eight-year school, brought to the Pereslavl Museum a whole portfolio of objects characteristic of the Neolithic era. Together with his comrades, he found them in a swamp during the development of peat by machines. The museum found it necessary to send its researcher to Berendeyevo. He later wrote that he was surprised at the richness of the camp of people who lived here 4-5 thousand years ago:
It is located 1.5 km south of Wolf Mountain. When extracting peat at the parking lot, a layer of about 1-1.5 meters deep was removed. When the peat machines reached the sand, objects incomprehensible to the workers began to come across on the surface: bone arrows, arrowheads, daggers, ceramics, individual bones of various animals. The abundance of objects on the surface of the parking lot amazed me. In just an hour and a half, my backpack was full ...
The hydronym is close to the name of the Berenda tract in the valley of the Brovarka River. Interesting legends recorded back in the 19th century are associated with the Berendeev swamp, which directly indicate the residence in this area of a different ethnic (non-Slavic and non-Finno-Ugric population), possibly “Pereyaslav Torks” (known in the annals as black hoods or berendichi). This is mentioned by the Geographical and Statistical Dictionary Russian Empire, reporting that in that part of the Berendeevsky swamp, which belongs to the Pereyaslavsky district, a hill rises, overgrown on all sides, except for the top, pine forest; on this top there are remains of ancient settlements. According to oral local legends, on the top of the mountain was the city of Berendey, and Tsar Berendey lived in it. It was on this folklore-historical basis that the well-known Russian fairy tale about the forest king Berendey arose. Obviously, the Torks got here during the wars of Yuri Dolgoruky and Andrey Bogolyubsky at the table in Kyiv, i.e., much later than the first decades of their stay on the lands granted to them by the Russian princes.
The mountain on which the village of Berendeevo is now located was in the past a peninsula jutting into former lake. The eastern and southern slopes of this cape are steep, rising 25-40 meters above the supposed shore of the lake. But the northwestern slopes rise to the top, having an elevation angle of no more than 20-22 meters. Here you can see traces of earthen fortifications. D. I. Khvostov was the first to pay attention to this settlement in 1820. Noting that the surroundings of the Berendeev swamp were donated by Peter I to his cabinet secretary Makarov, Khvostov writes that one of his descendants, N.P. wooden pavements inside the settlement of Berendeev". Pereslavets A. A. Selivanov, who visited the settlement on October 7, 1826, wrote:
The late autumn time did not allow me to completely solve all my searches for former city Berendeevo, it seems, has already been completely wiped off the face of the earth, but with all that said, on the day I was told, I was on the Berendeevo gorodets and, when I looked at it, I found this place quite elevated, occupying no small space, overgrown with forest. On this hillfort, from the sides touching the Berendeev swamp, the existence of a high rampart is clearly noticeable, which I ordered to dig up a little, and at the bottom of it there were many stones of different kinds ... in the middle of this hillfort there is a platform on which several small hills and pits are visible. Traces of the pavement, witnessed by Mr. Makarov, I have not yet found.
Legends and traditions
One of the legends about the victory of Russian soldiers over the Poles is confirmed by chronicle reports. On November 8, 1612, a battle took place on a field located between the village of Miloslavka and the village of Davydovo, Russian militias and a detachment of Pan Sapieha. And where the Ivanovka river flows into the Berendeyevo swamp, the Pereslavl detachments under the leadership of the governor Andrey Vilyaminov defeated the Poles.
Tsar Berendey
There are several legends about Tsar Berendey, his palace, golden carriage. Basically, these are interpretations of poetic legend.
stone woman
In different interpretations: “A mother named Rogneda goes to the lake and looks for her son. Finds him drowned. He curses the lake, for which he turns into a stone woman, and the lake turns into a swamp.
The location of the stone woman, according to eyewitnesses, is contradictory. Someone saw her at the foot of the Wolf Mountain, someone in the Clay Wasteland, and others in the vicinity of the village of Chernetskoye. Old-timers claim that it was exactly 60 years ago. At the foot of Wolf Mountain, in a sand pit, there are many impressive boulders. Some are shaped like sitting animals or fantasy characters. There are blue boulders in a clay quarry north of Volchya Gora, and near the village of Chernetskoye there is a whole “cemetery” of such boulders. More recently, I was informed about a bizarre stone with the outlines of a human face, which is located near the village of Bagrimovo.
Leshev stone
A large boulder of dark red color with an imprint resembling a human palm. Disappeared during the development of the Berendey swamp. According to the stories of local residents, in the 30s and 40s, when going hunting, men left tobacco on the stone, and women, gathering berries, brought homemade pastries to the stone - otherwise “the goblin will lead into the thicket”.
In art
In 1926, on the instructions of the regional newspaper Severny Rabochy, the writer M.M. Prishvin write essays on peat mining. And he heard different legends here. Prishvin wrote about the "Berendeys" of the Soviet era in the stories "Forest drops", "Ship Grove" and "Pantry of the Sun". In the book “Springs of Berendey”, he presented an image of a swamp, which differs from our ideas about it: “I live in a swamp, where the earth sways and a person hangs over a dark abyss, resting his foot on clusters of plants, where fogs are born and heavens are created.” For the writer, the swamp is a natural and at the same time spiritual reality that connects heaven and earth, it is the sphere of the ideal that exists in reality itself, although not accessible to everyone. Swamps - the kingdom of Berendey - Prishvin even connects with the image of the Invisible City: “Berendey is a wise king because he forced himself to serve everything that people call evil: mosquitoes, horseflies, midges, and swamps, and bumps - all this protects the Berendey kingdom from the invasion of the unworthy of people. Therefore, getting into the Berendey kingdom is the same as entering the Invisible City: you need to work hard, you need to be strong and pure in heart.
Berendey swamp, Berendey and Tsar Berendey are mentioned in the poetic works of various authors.
To you, dear Zalesie,
Where everything breathes so old,
Where there are so many fairy tales, so many songs,
I'm flying to you with my dream.
Kupan, Usolye, Kukhmar, Veksa,
The ancient Kremlin in the ring of ramparts,
Where Trubezh faithfully lay down
To keep silently the past of centuries.
Noisy Pleshcheyevo playing,
Forests whisper about something
Ringing in the soul, not ceasing,
Native edge of the voice.
“You know,” Bluestone whispers.
Do you know, remember, that I am a god?
No conversation between us
Lay, slave, a sacrifice at my feet.
- Hurry, hurry, the waves are raging,
Enemies at the walls, escape in the boat!
Swim, paddle! Who but lightning
Will you get on the water?
- On the Berendeyevo swamp -
The autumn rain beats in the forest
Don't go, someone is driving there
As a "woman" you perish, you disappear.
Oh end! Oh, blue Zalesie!
Chain of emerald shores
What heart does not dream
The magical reality of your dreams!
For the blue vaults
For spring waters
Children's fairy tales of nature call me,
To the white mountain, to the snowstorm forest,
Give a bow to the old man Zymorogu.
Pine vaults, deaf passages ...
I listen to nature's secret flute
I go through slumbers, not daring to wake up,To the glades of childhood, to the country of Berendey ...
- Tryapkin N.I. Izluki: Poems. - M .: Young Guard, 1987. - S. 159.
