Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн
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A sentry stood by the right gate-post as we entered the village of Terek, in the Province of Terek.
Over under the arch the wood seemed lost in a stretch of bog. Mud, black and oozy, tempted heavy pigs from the house yards, where they are wont to wallow. Pigs are not confined to pens in Russia: they run loose like dogs and chickens. But this is Russian and not characteristically Cossack. Narrow paths edged the house fences and people passing on foot worked slowly along this less muddy marge, sometimes clinging to the fence lest a misstep land them in muck, ankle deep, or, not improbably, knee deep.
A Cossack house
Interior of the above
Our wagon clung to the narrow pathway also. A wheel once sunk in the soft, black depths of the road would be difficult to free. Turning to the right near the center of the village we approached the great square, which, so I soon learned, is invariably the heart of the villages of the Mountain Cossacks. The distance from side to side was fully two hundred yards. In the square, somewhat to one side, the church. A large, white church with domes and turrets painted green, and these surmounted by crosses of gold which caught the glint of the sun and seemed to crackle with flashes of golden light, like some heliograph left exposed, but uncontrolled. The largeness of the square in so small a village amazed me. And I wondered why so large a free space was left. There was no paving here, but the earth was hard and trampled as by the hoofs of many horses. As we drew nearer, a neat iron railing, painted green, set upon a brick foundation and encircling the church, caught my eye. A furious clanging of bells, wild, loud, disordered, proved distracting. Then the church doors seemed to belch forth people—women and girls mostly, with a few old men. The girls were bedecked with color, as bright and varied as girls in an Italian village. Gaudy yellows and deep oranges, startling reds and soft blues. Kerchiefs, scarfs, and aprons. The horses were stopped that I might watch the procession. It was a pretty sight. Twenty or more came in a party toward the street where we were halted, and I hastily made ready my camera. They passed us within a few yards and I stepped to the ground, that I might gain a better focus. As I looked into the finder, a piercing shriek from one of the girls startled me, and looking up I saw the entire group start madly down the road. Whether they mistook my camera for an infernal machine, I do not know, but their alarm was genuine. Some young Cossacks who were standing near laughed boisterously and pursued the girls and brought them back. When they had been made to understand what it all meant, they were highly pleased, and they stood round in all kinds of groups to be photographed. When I secured as many pictures as I wanted we continued across the square, and passed two high, heavy, wooden doors that barred the entrance of a yard. This was the home of my guide. A comely buxom girl of about seventeen, with red cheeks and eyes as blue as my guide’s, threw open the great doors, and we drove into a confusion of sledges and carts, broken hayricks, horses, cattle, pigs, and dogs. A more untidy yard I never saw. Cows and pigs adjusted themselves according to inclination. Mud, filth, straw, littered the whole place.