08
oct
2012
Immersion in darkness (Oleg Volkov)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 96kbps
Oleg Volkov
Release year: 2011
Genre: Biographies and Memoirs
Publisher: You can't buy anywhere
Executor: Erisanova Irina
Duration: 20:04:55
Description: This main book of the oldest Russian writer Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov is his story about twenty-eight years spent in Soviet prisons, camps and exiles. The authenticity of the events described makes the book a document of recent history on a par with AI Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. At the same time, this is a novel of such artistic power, such linguistic spring purity, which Russian literature has not known for a long time.
First of all, "Immersion in Darkness" is a book about the preservation of human dignity in inhuman conditions, about the victory of the human spirit over the forces of evil. This book is about the true New Martyrs for the Faith, who are spoken of here with great love. The book was published by the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky Monastery. It was written by Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov, born in 1900. A nobleman, a pupil of pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia, a famous Russian writer of an extraordinary spirit. A man who miraculously survived the Bolshevik meat grinder. He had to go through the circles of hell in order to see the light and gain inner freedom. 27 years of prisons, camps and exile. In perfect clarity of mind, he lived to be 97 years old. Became a legend of the 21st century. After his death, they wrote about him like this - “His death, despite his advanced age, is amazing. The fortress that protected us fell. Now we have to do it ourselves…”
Read by edition: M. Soviet writer 1989
Digitized by: alkoshmarik
Cleaned: makys
Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov (1900-1996) - Russian prose writer, publicist, memoirist. He published under the pseudonym Osugin, which in a number of sources (including Wolfgang Kazak) is named as a real surname.
His father was the director of the board of the Russian-Baltic Plants, his mother was from the Lazarev family (granddaughter of Admiral Lazarev). He grew up in St. Petersburg and on his father's estate in the Tver province. He attended the Tenishevsky School, where he combined teaching sciences and crafts (he was a classmate of Vladimir Nabokov). In 1917 he entered Petrograd University, but did not become a student. In 1917–1919 he lived on the family estate (Nikolskaya volost, Novotorzhsky district, Tver province). In 1922-28 he worked as an interpreter in the Nansen mission, with an Associated Press correspondent, with concessionaires, in the Greek embassy.
In February 1928 he was arrested, refused to become an informer, was sentenced to 3 years in a camp on charges of counter-revolutionary agitation and sent to the SLON. In April 1929, the camp term was replaced by deportation to the Tula region, where he worked as a translator of technical literature. In March 1931 he was again arrested and sentenced to 5 years in a camp on charges of counter-revolutionary agitation. Again he was sent to SLON. In 1936, the remaining term was replaced by a link to Arkhangelsk, where Volkov worked in a branch of the Research Institute for the Electrification of the Forest Industry. On June 8, 1936, he was again arrested, sentenced to 5 years in prison as a "socially dangerous element" and sent to UkhtPechLag. In 1941 he was released and began working as a geologist in the Komi ASSR.
In March 1942, he was again arrested and sentenced to 4 years in a camp on charges of counter-revolutionary agitation. In April 1944, he was released due to disability and moved to Kirovabad, where he worked as a teacher of foreign languages, in 1946-50 he lived in Maloyaroslavets and Kaluga, worked as a translator in Moscow publishing houses. In 1950, he was arrested for the fifth time and was exiled to the village of Yartsevo (Krasnoyarsk Territory), where he worked as a carpenter and then as a trapper. In 1955 he was released from exile and came to Moscow.
Volkov became a writer and in 1957, on the recommendation of S. Mikhalkov, a member of the USSR Writers' Union. He published over a dozen books (novels, stories and essays), and also translated the works of Balzac, Zola and other French writers, A. Bonnard's Greek Civilization. He attached particular importance to the struggle for the preservation of nature and ancient monuments; he is considered one of the founders of the Soviet environmental movement.
His main autobiographical work, Plunging into Darkness, written in the early 1960s and not published by A. Tvardovsky in the Novy Mir magazine, was first published in Paris in 1987.
01
May
2015
Star revenge 3. Dive into darkness (Yuri Petukhov)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 192kbps
Author: Petukhov Yuri
Release year: 2015
Genre fiction
Artist: BIGBAG
Duration: 16:21:52
Description: Returning from the Shelter, Ivan realizes that the Earth is ruled not by legally elected rulers, but by several mega-concerns (Syndicate, Eighth Heaven), and thousands of Black Good sects have already entangled the globe. Ivan tries to enlist the support of his old friends and find Goog Chlodrik the Rampant. But this is not easy to do, since for several years he has been spending his days in the underwater penal servitude of the dead planet Girgea. In this pitch...
29
aug
2010
Full immersion (Tatiana Korsakova)
Release year: 2010
Genre: love story
Publisher: You can't buy anywhere
Author: Tatyana Korsakova
Artist: Tatyana Telegina
Duration: 11:53:00
Format: Mp3, 128 kbps
Description: The heroine of the book has a difficult fate. From her father, a runaway Cuban student, she inherited a flamboyant exotic appearance and the name Simona, which she equally shy and tries to hide. Tropical beauty is masked by dull and shapeless clothes, and the name is reduced to a simple Sim. Because of her strong resemblance to her father, whom she has never seen, she is disliked by her mother. For her, Sima is a mistake of youth, which follows with ...
16
aug
2018
Dive into the Sun (Bryn David)
Author: Bryn David
Release year: 2018
Genre: Science fiction
Publisher: do-it-yourself audiobook
Artist: Orobchuk Sergey
Proofreading help: : Elensule
Duration: 11:26:02
Description: Every species in the universe gained consciousness by going through the Ascension, receiving sentience from their alien mentors, their race of patrons. Everyone except people. People rushed to the stars on their own, having gone through their own evolution. Or did some mysterious civilization nevertheless begin the process of Ascension on Earth many millennia ago? And if so, why did she leave the human ...
25
Feb
2010
Immersion. Third project (Maxim Kalashnikov, Sergey Kugushev)
Release year: 2007
Genre: political bestseller
Publisher: Audiobook
Artist: Rodion Prikhodko
Duration: 26:05:15
Description: Why did Russia fall - the USSR, and not the USA, although the chances of death were almost the same? Why are we the only one of all the civilizations of the Earth who lost the 20th century outright? Why did our elite make the collapse of the state the meaning of their activity? For what reasons did history take a trajectory that was disastrous for Russians? And who actually killed us? West? USA? Or is there some other power besides these well-known players? And most importantly...
27
sep
2009
Maxim Kalashnikov, Sergey Kugushev Third project: Immersion
Release year: 2007
Author: Maxim Kalashnikov, Sergey Kugushev
Artist: Rodion Prikhodko
Genre: political bestseller
Publisher: Audiobook
Duration: 28:00:00
Description: At the beginning of the third millennium, the great and mighty Soviet Union - "USSR Incorporated" is revered as the main force in the world. Moscow keeps the whole world dependent on its oil. More and more robotic, environmentally friendly enterprises are coming into operation. Russian dominance in the air and near space is undeniable. Western scientists willingly go to work in Soviet institutes. Only at...
15
mar
2013
Doors in the Dark (Andrei Cruz, Maria Cruz)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 128kbps
Author: Andrey Cruz, Maria Cruz
Release year: 2013
Genre fiction
Publisher: Audioportal Andrey Kravets
Artist: Andrey Kravets
Duration: 15:52:38
Description: What do people go to in order to achieve their goal? What are you ready to do to escape from the gloomy and dangerous world in which you find yourself? What will you do to stay with the woman you love? What would you sacrifice for her? Why, in spite of everything, man remains the most terrible enemy of man? And how can one still remain a person where it is difficult for them to remain? Cycle "On the threshold of darkness" ...
29
july
2016
In the time of Nefertiti (M.E. Mathieu)
Format: PDF, Scanned pages
Author: M.E. Mathieu
Released: 1965
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Art
Russian language
Number of pages: 180
Description: The book of the classic of Egyptology M. Mathieu is dedicated to Egyptian art during the reign of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. It tells about the excavations of ancient Egyptian cities, the famous tomb of Tutankhamen, about the architecture, sculpture and painting of the Egyptians. Designed for everyone who is interested in the culture and art of Ancient Egypt. Screenshots
20
but I
2015
Duel in the dark (Tatiana Shubina)
ISBN: 5-94538-081-4-1
Format: FB2, eBook (originally computer)
Author: Tatyana Shubina
Release year: 2002
Genre: Urban fantasy
Publisher: Veche
Russian language
Number of pages: 256
Description: Naughty life is interesting, but sometimes very troublesome. Galya did not obey and landed in a frenzied space. And there ... Furious witches, werewolves, goblins and even a serial killer. Well, why did Dimka get it? He had no idea about his powerful enemies and patrons too… And the duel between Darkness and Light began. Who has won? Only those who read this book will know about it. ...
11
oct
2010
In the name of rating (Sergey Musanif)
Format: 128kb/s MP3
Release year: 2010
Genre fiction
Publisher: Do-it-yourself audiobook
Author: Sergey Musanif
Artist: Gennady Korshunov
Duration: 12:10:58
Description: Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil ... They wrote a lot of words about the Trojan War, but at the end of the twenty-first century, human technology has stepped so far forward that viewers can see the events of bygone days with their own eyes. The mighty Hector, the invulnerable Achilles, the cunning Odysseus, the power-hungry Agamemnon, the unfortunate Menelaus, the beautiful Helena, the loving Paris, the Greater and Lesser Ajaxes, Aeneas the Founder...
26
Feb
2013
Month in France (Viktor Nekrasov)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 96kbps
Author: Viktor Nekrasov
Release year: 2013
Genre: Modern prose
Publisher: You can't buy anywhere
Composer: Petrov Kirill
Duration: 04:40:56
Description: V. Nekrasov came to literature by no means as a writer - he came as a soldier who had seen the everyday life of the war and aspired only to tell the truth about them ... ”, critics wrote about him. And this was true, and very unpleasant ... In 1954, his story “In the Hometown” was published in the Znamya magazine, for the publication of which Nekrasov was subjected to “severe party criticism”, and the editor of the magazine Vs. ...
11
Apr
2013
In the power of a woman (Erlend Lou)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 96kbps
Author: Erlend Lu
Release year: 2013
Genre: Romance
Publisher: You can't buy anywhere
Artist: Vyacheslav Gerasimov
Duration: 05:50:46
Description: Debut novel by the author of "The Best Country in the World" and "Naive. Super"; it is in this book that the influence of the writer whom Lou called his teacher, Richard Brautigan, is most clearly seen. The protagonist falls under the power of a determined young woman and narrates in a self-ironic manner characteristic of Lu's heroes about his joys and ordeals, losses and gains, internal evolution and attempts to remain himself. Add. inf...
Add. information: Read from the edition: M., Olma-Press, 1997
Digitized: knigofil
Cleaned up by: sky4all
03
May
2011
Kiss in Time (Alex Flynn)
ISBN: 978-5-699-48116-3
Format: RTF, OCR without errors
Author: Alex Flynn
Release year: 2011
Genre: fantasy, romance
Publisher: Eksmo, Domino
Russian language
Number of pages: 480
Description: In the new book by Alex Flynn, an original modern interpretation of the classic fairy tale, Thalia, a princess from the kingdom of Ephrasia, who has slept for three hundred years, is awakened by a kiss from an ordinary American youth. Freedom-loving Thalia does not want to stay in the castle, where her parents kept her locked up, fearing a new curse from the evil sorceress. The princess goes with her savior Jack to a new world for her...
21
Feb
2017
Kings in the Dark (Michael Moorcock)
Format: audiobook, MP3, 128kbps
Author: Michael Moorcock
Release year: 2017
Genre: Heroic fantasy
Publisher: Do-it-yourself audiobook
Artist: Orobchuk Sergey
Duration: 01:11:50
Description: Fleeing from the chase, Elric of Melnibony and Munglam find themselves in the terrible Troos forest, where they meet the beautiful Zarinia of Karlaak. The desire to take revenge on the ogres almost ends tragically for Elric and his friends, they find themselves in the tomb of the king from under the Hill.
09
dec
2017
Beam in the darkness (Chernyak S.Ya.)
Format: DjVu, Scanned pages
Author: Chernyak S.Ya.
Released: 1965
Genre: Documentary, History
Publisher: Politizdat
Series: Tales of the Affairs and People of the Party
Russian language
Number of pages: 161
Description: "Ray in the Darkness" - a documentary story about the unknown exploits of the Kiev underground during the Great Patriotic War. Led by the former secretary of the party organization of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the Ukrainian SSR, Grigory Kochubey, who escaped from the prisoner of war camp, the daredevils created a widely branched party organization "Death to the German occupiers!". Its combat groups operated in a number of cities ...
Oleg Vasilievich Volkov
Dive into darkness
White Paper of Russia
Oleg Volkov's autobiographical narrative covers the period from 1917 to the seventies. The book recreates the circumstances of the life of a man who was subjected to illegal persecution, but who managed to maintain a sense of human and civic dignity, love for the Motherland, who worked hard in the field of national culture.
A few introductory touches. (Instead of a preface)
Chapter first. The start of a long journey
Chapter two. I wander
Chapter three. In Noah's Ark
Chapter Four. Garrotte
Chapter five. In the land of fearless birds
Chapter six. At the crossroads
Chapter seven. Another sixty months of life
Chapter eight. And behold, a pale horse
Chapter nine. And the winds return to their circles
Chapter ten. On the road of the Decembrists
Afterword
E.F. Volodin. Afterword
I got up late, and on the road I was caught at night in Rome.
F. I. Tyutchev. Cicero.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse and on it a rider whose name is death, and hell followed him ...
Revelation of St. John (ch. 6, verse 8)
Olga, my daughter, I dedicate
A FEW INTRODUCTION STROKE
(instead of preface)
Bare whitewashed walls. Bare window square. Deaf door, with a peephole. Hanging from the high ceiling is a bright, never fading little lamp. In its blinding light, the cell is especially empty and sterile; everything is tight and clear. Even the folds of the blanket on the flat bed seemed to stiffen.
This light is an obsession. Source of unconscious anxiety. You can't get away from him, you can't get away. Whether you walk like a pendulum with turns in five steps or, spinning, you sit on a stool, your eyes, tired of the familiar streaks of paint on the bucket, the cracks in the plaster, the cracks between the floorboards, from the heads of the bolts in the door counted a hundred times, involuntarily turn upward to here same, blinded, rush to the corners. And even after the evening verification, when you are allowed to lie down and plunge into a languid nightly oblivion, through the passing half-memories-half-dreams you feel yourself in a cell, you do not free yourself from the oppressive impossibility to leave, to get rid of this light hitting your eyes. Soulless, persistent, penetrating everywhere. Filled with endless weariness...
This nakedness of objects under constant strong illumination gives rise to sharpened representations. Reason throws away the shading, softening veils, and for short moments you see everything around and your fate with hopelessly sober eyes. This is the beam of a spotlight, with which the border guards will suddenly pull out of the darkness dark coastal stones or a sandy spit that has sunk into the sea with grey-winged, taken by surprise seabirds that have sat down on it.
I remember that it was in this solitary confinement of the Arkhangelsk prison, where I was kept for about a year, in one of the endless hours of vigil with a relentlessly guarding light bulb that erased the boundaries between day and night, it was especially mercilessly and nakedly revealed to me how great and formidable the “flaming world” that surrounds us is. abyss..." How irresistible are the forces of evil that has flooded the world! And all attempts to fend off him with barriers of faith and myths about the divine beginning of life seemed miserable, untenable.
Thought, like a merciless ray, ran through the pictures of the past years, filled with memories of cruel persecutions and reprisals. No no! It would be impossible for them to have such unrestrained revelry, such exposing to shame and ridicule of the moral foundations of life, if the supreme good power guides the world. The concepts of love, compassion, mercy are burned out of everyday life with a red-hot iron - but the heavens did not open...
In the mid-thirties, during the dress rehearsals of the bloody mysteries of the thirty-seventh, I managed to go through the circles of two investigations and subsequent imprisonment in the Solovetsky camp. Now, being on the threshold of the third term, I felt with my whole being, with my skin, the complete impunity of violence. And if before this sudden insight - or obscuration? - having cut off the wings of hope, with a passion, intensified by persecution, I resorted to secret consoling prayer, stubbornly held on to the faith of my fathers and was sacrificially disposed, then after him it became impossible for me even to force myself to cross myself ... And secret services were already torn away from me, committed in the Solovetsky camp by a priest who died later.
That was the period when the clergy were dressed in camp jackets, forcibly sheared and shaved. For sending any requirements they were shot. For the laity who resorted to the help of religion, an extension of the term was introduced - a five-year "appendage". And yet, Father John, no longer the former handsome priest in a cassock and beard, but a round-shouldered, weak and humiliated convict in a dirty, patched uniform, with ugly short hair - he was cut and shaved tied - occasionally managed to get out of the zone: someone then he got him a pass through the gates of the monastery fence. And he went into the forest.
There, in a small clearing covered with young pines, a group of believers gathered. Antimins, kept with great apprehension by reliable and fearless people, and utensils necessary for the service were brought. Father John put on the stole and phelonion, wrinkled and worn, and began in an undertone. He proclaimed and the soft singing of our timid choir was carried away to the empty northern sky; they were swallowed up by the thicket surrounding the msharin...
It was dreadful to fall into an ambush, the Vokhrovites were imagining jumping out from behind the trees - and we tried to leave with all our thoughts to the mountain intercessors. And, it happened, it was possible to get rid of oppressive worries. Then the heart was filled with blissful peace, and in each person a "brother in Christ" was seen. Pleasant, enlightened moments! Love and faith were seen as a weapon against the hatred tearing people apart. And legends familiar from childhood about the first centuries of Christianity were resurrected.
There seemed to be some connection between this handful of hunted prisoners, with faith and hope listening to every word of Father John, and the saints and martyrs born of persecution. Maybe two thousand years ago, the apostles, with the same weak and cold voice, instilled courage and hope in the doomed, frightened by the murmur of the crowd on the benches of the circus and the roar of predators in vivariums, with which this persecuted Russian now so simply and sincerely admonishes us approaching the cross. priest Humble, obscure and great...
We parted one by one so as not to attract attention.
Three-tiered bunks under the echoing vaults of the ruined cathedral, packed with motley people, marked by fear, ready to do anything to survive, with their strife, ferocity, abuse and squalor, very soon absorbed the vision of a swampy meadow turned into a temple, pure as a legend about Orthodox saints. But they weren't forgotten...
After all, it was not the secularized church that overcame evil, but simple words of love and forgiveness, gospel covenants that seemed to answer people's eternal craving for goodness and justice. If at different times the right of the church to power in the world and the persecution of dissent was disputed, then no state institutions, social reforms and theories have ever encroached on the original Christian virtues. Religion and the clergy were abolished and the gospel truths were crucified and remained unshakable. That is why the faK was stunned and frightened by the openly proclaimed principles of the proletarian "morality", which rejected the irrelevant concepts of love and goodness.
Over the expanses of Russia with its churches and bell towers, from century to century reminded by the radiance of crosses and the voices of bells about high spiritual truths, calling to "lift up the eyes of grief" and think about the soul, about good deeds, awakening the voice of conscience in the most hardened hearts, fiercely and mercilessly winds were played out, spreading the seeds of cruelty, turning away from spiritual quests and demanding renunciation of Christian morality, of their fathers and traditions.
Class hatred and inflexibility were preached. Denunciation and betrayal were encouraged. The "good ones" were ridiculed. Tolerance for other people's opinions, human sympathy and kindness were outlawed. A plunge into the abyss of lack of spirituality, undermining and destruction of the moral foundations of society began. They had to be replaced by the norms and laws of the class struggle, which opened the way for misanthropic theories that gave rise to fascism, the tares of zoological nationalism, racist slogans that covered the pages of the history of the 20th century with blood.
Volkov Oleg Vasilievich
Dive into darkness
Oleg Vasilievich Volkov
Dive into darkness
White Paper of Russia
Oleg Volkov's autobiographical narrative covers the period from 1917 to the seventies. The book recreates the circumstances of the life of a man who was subjected to illegal persecution, but who managed to maintain a sense of human and civic dignity, love for the Motherland, who worked hard in the field of national culture.
A few introductory touches. (Instead of a preface)
Chapter first. The start of a long journey
Chapter two. I wander
Chapter three. In Noah's Ark
Chapter Four. Garrotte
Chapter five. In the land of fearless birds
Chapter six. At the crossroads
Chapter seven. Another sixty months of life
Chapter eight. And behold, a pale horse
Chapter nine. And the winds return to their circles
Chapter ten. On the road of the Decembrists
Afterword
E.F. Volodin. Afterword
I got up late, and on the road I was caught at night in Rome.
F. I. Tyutchev. Cicero.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse and on it a rider whose name is death, and hell followed him ...
Revelation of St. John (ch. 6, verse 8)
Olga, my daughter, I dedicate
A FEW INTRODUCTION STROKE
(instead of preface)
Bare whitewashed walls. Bare window square. Deaf door, with a peephole. Hanging from the high ceiling is a bright, never fading little lamp. In its blinding light, the cell is especially empty and sterile; everything is tight and clear. Even the folds of the blanket on the flat bed seemed to stiffen.
This light is an obsession. Source of unconscious anxiety. You can't get away from him, you can't get away. Whether you walk like a pendulum with turns in five steps or, spinning, you sit on a stool, your eyes, tired of the familiar streaks of paint on the bucket, the cracks in the plaster, the cracks between the floorboards, from the heads of the bolts in the door counted a hundred times, involuntarily turn upward to here same, blinded, rush to the corners. And even after the evening verification, when you are allowed to lie down and plunge into a languid nightly oblivion, through the passing half-memories-half-dreams you feel yourself in a cell, you do not free yourself from the oppressive impossibility to leave, to get rid of this light hitting your eyes. Soulless, persistent, penetrating everywhere. Filled with endless weariness...
This nakedness of objects under constant strong illumination gives rise to sharpened representations. Reason throws away the shading, softening veils, and for short moments you see everything around and your fate with hopelessly sober eyes. This is the beam of a spotlight, with which the border guards will suddenly pull out of the darkness dark coastal stones or a sandy spit that has sunk into the sea with grey-winged, taken by surprise seabirds that have sat down on it.
I remember that it was in this solitary confinement of the Arkhangelsk prison, where I was kept for about a year, in one of the endless hours of vigil with a relentlessly guarding light bulb that erased the boundaries between day and night, it was especially mercilessly and nakedly revealed to me how great and formidable the “flaming world” that surrounds us is. abyss..." How irresistible are the forces of evil that has flooded the world! And all attempts to fend off him with barriers of faith and myths about the divine beginning of life seemed miserable, untenable.
Thought, like a merciless ray, ran through the pictures of the past years, filled with memories of cruel persecutions and reprisals. No no! It would be impossible for them to have such unrestrained revelry, such exposing to shame and ridicule of the moral foundations of life, if the supreme good power guides the world. The concepts of love, compassion, mercy are burned out of everyday life with a red-hot iron - but the heavens did not open...
In the mid-thirties, during the dress rehearsals of the bloody mysteries of the thirty-seventh, I managed to go through the circles of two investigations and subsequent imprisonment in the Solovetsky camp. Now, being on the threshold of the third term, I felt with my whole being, with my skin, the complete impunity of violence. And if before this sudden insight - or obscuration? - having cut off the wings of hope, with a passion, intensified by persecution, I resorted to secret consoling prayer, stubbornly held on to the faith of my fathers and was sacrificially disposed, then after him it became impossible for me even to force myself to cross myself ... And secret services were already torn away from me, committed in the Solovetsky camp by a priest who died later.
... I got up late, and on the road I was caught at night in Rome.
F. I. Tyutchev. Cicero.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse and on it a rider whose name is death, and hell followed him ...
Revelation of St. John (ch. 6, verse 8)
Olga, my daughter, I dedicate
A few introductory touches
(instead of preface)
... Bare whitewashed walls. Bare window square. Deaf door, with a peephole. Hanging from the high ceiling is a bright light bulb that never goes out. In its blinding light, the cell is especially empty and sterile; everything is tight and clear. Even the folds of the blanket on the flat bed seemed to stiffen.
This light is an obsession. Source of unconscious anxiety. You can't get away from him, you can't get away. Whether you walk like a pendulum with turns in five steps or, spinning, you sit on a stool, your eyes, tired of the familiar streaks of paint on the bucket, the cracks in the plaster, the cracks between the floorboards, from the heads of the bolts in the door counted a hundred times, involuntarily turn upward to here same, blinded, rush to the corners. And even after the evening verification, when you are allowed to lie down and plunge into a languid nightly oblivion, through the passing half-memories-half-dreams you feel yourself in a cell, you do not free yourself from the oppressive impossibility to leave, to get rid of this light hitting your eyes. Soulless, persistent, penetrating everywhere. Filling with endless weariness...
This nakedness of objects under constant strong illumination gives rise to sharpened representations. Reason throws away the shading, softening veils, and for short moments you see everything around and your fate with hopelessly sober eyes. This is the beam of a searchlight, with which the border guards suddenly pull out of the darkness dark coastal stones or a sandy spit that has sunk into the sea with grey-winged, taken by surprise seabirds that have sat down on it.
I remember that it was in this solitary confinement of the Arkhangelsk prison, where I was kept for about a year, in one of the endless hours of vigil with a relentlessly guarding light bulb that erased the boundaries between day and night, I was especially mercilessly and nakedly revealed how great and formidable the “flaming world” that surrounds us is. abyss…” How irresistible are the forces of evil that has flooded the world! And all attempts to fence themselves off from it with barriers of faith and myths about the divine beginning of life seemed miserable, untenable.
Thought, like a merciless ray, ran through the pictures of the past years, filled with memories of cruel persecutions and reprisals. No no! It would be impossible for them to have such unrestrained revelry, such exposing to shame and ridicule of the moral foundations of life, if the supreme good power guides the world. The concepts of love, compassion, mercy are burned out of everyday life with a red-hot iron - but the heavens did not open up ...
In the mid-thirties, during the dress rehearsals of the bloody mysteries of the thirty-seventh, I managed to go through the circles of two investigations and subsequent imprisonment in the Solovetsky camp. Now, being on the threshold of the third term, I felt with my whole being, with my skin, the complete impunity of violence. And if before this sudden insight - or obscuration? - having cut off the wings of hope, with a passion, intensified by persecution, I resorted to secret prayer of consolation, stubbornly held on to the faith of the fathers and was sacrificially disposed, then after him it became impossible for me even to force myself to cross myself ... Solovetsky camp by a priest who died later.
That was the period when the clergy were dressed in camp jackets, forcibly sheared and shaved. For sending any requirements they were shot. For the laity who resorted to the help of religion, an extension of the term was introduced - a five-year "appendage". And yet, Father John, no longer the former handsome priest in a cassock and beard, but a round-shouldered, weak and humiliated convict in a dirty, patched uniform, with ugly short hair - he was cut and shaved tied - occasionally managed to get out of the zone: someone then he got him a pass through the gates of the monastery fence. And he went into the forest.
There, in a small clearing covered with young pines, a group of believers gathered. Antimins, kept with great apprehension by reliable and fearless people, and utensils necessary for the service were brought. Father John put on the stole and phelonion, wrinkled and worn, and began in an undertone. He proclaimed and the soft singing of our timid choir was carried away to the empty northern sky; they were swallowed up by the thicket that surrounded the msharin ...
It was dreadful to fall into an ambush, the Vokhrovites were imagining jumping out from behind the trees - and we tried to leave with all our thoughts to the mountain intercessors. And, it happened, it was possible to get rid of oppressive worries. Then the heart was filled with blissful peace, and in each person a “brother in Christ” was seen. Pleasant, enlightened moments! Love and faith were seen as a weapon against the hatred tearing people apart. And legends familiar from childhood about the first centuries of Christianity were resurrected.
There seemed to be some connection between this handful of hunted prisoners, with faith and hope listening to every word of Father John, and the saints and martyrs born of persecution. Maybe two thousand years ago, the apostles, with the same weak and cold voice, instilled courage and hope in the doomed, frightened by the murmur of the crowd on the benches of the circus and the roar of predators in vivariums, with which this persecuted Russian now so simply and sincerely admonishes us approaching the cross. priest Humble, obscure and great…
We parted one by one so as not to attract attention.
Three-tiered bunks under the echoing vaults of the ruined cathedral, packed with motley people, marked by fear, ready to do anything to survive, with their strife, ferocity, abuse and squalor, very soon absorbed the vision of a swampy meadow turned into a temple, pure as a legend about Orthodox saints. But they weren't forgotten...
After all, it was not the impoverished church that overcame evil, but simple words of love and forgiveness, gospel covenants that seemed to answer people's eternal craving for goodness and justice. If at different times the right of the church to power in the world and the persecution of dissent was disputed, then no state institutions, social reforms and theories have ever encroached on the original Christian virtues. Religion and the clergy were abolished and the gospel truths were crucified and remained unshakable. That is why the openly proclaimed principles of proletarian "morality", which rejected the irrelevant concepts of love and goodness, so stunned and frightened.
Over the expanses of Russia with its churches and bell towers, from century to century, reminded by the radiance of crosses and the voices of bells about high spiritual truths, calling to “lift up the eyes of grief” and think about the soul, about good deeds, awakening the voice of conscience in the most hardened hearts, fiercely and mercilessly winds were played out, spreading the seeds of cruelty, turning away from spiritual quests and demanding renunciation of Christian morality, of their fathers and traditions.
Class hatred and inflexibility were preached. Denunciation and betrayal were encouraged. The "kind ones" were ridiculed. Tolerance for other people's opinions, human sympathy and kindness were outlawed. A plunge into the abyss of lack of spirituality, undermining and destruction of the moral foundations of society began. They had to be replaced by the norms and laws of the class struggle, which opened the way for misanthropic theories that gave rise to fascism, the tares of zoological nationalism, racist slogans that covered the pages of the history of the 20th century with blood.
How few years it took to eradicate in people the habit or need to look at the sky, to exterminate or put out of the way truth-seekers in order to turn Russia into a spiritual desert! The strongest new order was firmly based - on fear and demagogic slogans, on real privileges and benefits for the triumphant and the Janissaries. Poets and writers, musicians, artists, academicians demanded the death penalty for people called by the authorities "enemies of the people." They were echoed by obedient choirs of general meetings. And it rushed through the country: “Crucify him, crucify him!” Because everyone had to become an accomplice in the massacre or its victim.