The black sea I learned thanks to two men: classics of Soviet literature Konstantin Georgiyevich Paustovsky and the Penza reporter Ilya Sergeyevich Ilyushino.
Let’s start with a classic. Once in a cheerful Sunny day, I saw in the market on book collapse satrianni edition in paperback. It is very schematically depicted a sea wave, the gull and sail. The cover read: K. Paustovsky “Black sea”.
What year was the first time I ever plunged into a wonderful travel short stories Paustovsky, I can’t remember. But in may 2003 year, when a reporter Penza Ilya Sergeyevich Ilushina going to do “the throw on the South”, I was captivated by the sea, the way he was portrayed connoisseur “Pontus euxinus” Paustovsky.
Paustovsky opened my literary sea, and Ilya Ilyushin showed the sea real, real. But before you go to sea travel, it is necessary to tell, as I Ilushina met.
When I studied at the Penza pedagogical Institute, in the same Department with me, only two courses over, studied a skinny young man. He drew my attention to many things.
For example, the wardrobe was absolutely enchanting, in the spirit of dunno. Then, he moved through the corridors of the Institute, and were worn mostly frivolous Polygalova, escaping from the cultural sector who wanted to see him in the rooms of student initiative. Finally, a student that had a face with such naive and childish eyes that completely disarmed even the harshest of professors of Slavonic and historical grammar.
It was Ilya Ilyushin. But I met with him after the Institute, in the weekly edition of with the succinct title “Life”. The newspaper had the magical character, which always characterized Elijah. That’s why I was surprised when I saw it here.
Ilyushin quickly convinced me that I absolutely need to go with him this summer at sea. I agreed, despite the fact that the money for the trip I had. Ilya reassured of the future of companion, stating that can give me a loan.
Soon Illya was attracted to future sea expeditions and reporter of the newspaper “Nasha Penza” Catherine Barabanschikova. True, and she did not have savings on the road. Ilya urged the girl not to be embarrassed about this fact, providing her with the necessary loan amount.
Given our precarious financial situation, we decided to go South at the end of may. At this time, according to Ilyushin, all in those parts were fabulously cheap.
To accompany us to the station came colleague Katie from “Nasha Penza” Natalia Again. However, we were sitting in the car, and Natalie barely managed to find us, looking into the window and shouting, “Hey, reporters!”
Our journey started. On the road I took the very worn volume of Paustovsky and a paltry sum of money I began to save up for the camera. We went to Novorossiysk. Approaching the city the train dived into the tunnel. I was lying on the top shelf and tried to imagine the sea, which had never seen before. At midnight we were in Novorossiysk.
We asked fellow passengers to the students of our College who went to work in a children’s camp in Kabardinka. Their Novorossiysk station waiting for the bus.
The bus was shaking on the steep roads of Novorossiysk, and I all peered into the dark window, trying to see the sea. Finally, during any routine stop, I got off the bus to stretch my legs and saw below him the lights of the Tsemesskaya Bay. Paustovsky once compiled a list of those ports where really smells like the Black sea. On the second place in this list is after Kerch Novorossiysk.
I don’t quite remember whether I felt then that the famous strong smell of sea water. But I felt something else, something that Paustovsky called a sense of time, which, according to him, with great severity occurs for some reason on the sea coasts.
At night we came to the camp in Kabardinka and went to sleep in the rest room for teacher. We woke up with Elijah early in the morning and immediately decided to get out of the camp to the sea.
Here I first saw the sea up close. The pitfalls uncovered Almaviva them from the water and opened the thick skin of seaweed, just like in the book Paustovsky. In Kabardinka I truly felt a familiar sharp smell of seaweed. For some reason he reminded me of an aquarium that was in my childhood.
Barabanschikova Katya woke up and we decided to walk around Kabardinka. While walking Ilya suggested here not to stop, and visit as much places on the black sea coast. On the same day we went to the seaside village of Arkhipo-Osipovka.
I must say that we three are very reminiscent of the famous Nosovsky Trinity: dunno, Sineglazka and Packull Pestrenkim. Sineglazka was, of course, Barabanschikova, Ilya – Dunno, but I Backula Pestrenkim. However, Barabanschikova called me Kustovskyj,nickname, born, obviously, by two names known to fans of the seas, Cousteau and Paustovsky.
In Arkhipo-Osipovka, while Ilyushin had catered to the whims Barabanschikova and accompanied her to a cafe, I often went away to the wild beaches, where sometimes there was not a soul. The sea here smells had time to get stronger for a long and clean heat. These were not the resort of the coast that I’m used to seeing on TV.
In Nude huge boulders evenly, assailed by countless waves. Sometimes they threw deified beach is a strange thing.
So, one day, I saw lying on the side of a huge fish, very similar to a Dolphin snout, but much shorter than the body. In the side of the fish with a gaping black hole.
And once in the evening on a trail through the boulders jumped out a huge crab. Raising his claws, he hurried to the water. But I don’t let him go and threw the crab away from the edge of the sea. Big painful bite crab claws, but I still managed to shove it in a bag and bring it into the shack we rented in the village.
There I put the crab in an old pan and put it under the bed. This morning I decided to check the crab and saw that it emits from the mouth of the dying foam, just like a human. Despite the protests Barabanschikova, a dead crab I had left it at home.
Maybe this crab was the last straw of patience Barabanschikova. Anyway, she soon goes back to Penza, leaving us with Ilushina in Arkhipo-Osipovka alone.
After leaving Barabanschikova, Ilya also decided to go from village to village in search of adventure. But before leaving we found near the village archaeological excavations. Here I am again with great severity was felt the sense of time, as then in Tsemesskaya Bay. Archaeologists have learned in the light of God mass of shards, hewn stones, broken tiles. All this was the epitome of antiquity, which here on the site, merged with a sense of eternity. I first found myself on the ground, which is called ancient.
The same feeling I experienced later, after the South, when the Penza archaeologist Belorybkin showed me a rusted arrowheads nomads.
From Arkhipo-Osipovka Ilya went to the village of novomikhaylovskiy. Here at the station we bumped into kedrovoye, fools, who, as a Shrine, worship the dolmens, the iconic structures of ancient times. Kedrovoy allowed us to put up a tent in Golden gully, where they had a tent camp. The beam was near Novomikhaylovskiy, just across the road from the famous since the Soviet era pioneer camp “Orlyonok”.
The purpose of dolmens is still not clear
In honor of kerosone had to dolmens was obviously something from the very power that drove the hand of the poet Georgy Shengeli, when he wrote about the land of the South, where, “in the clay dreaming wild Sarmatians, Scythians, Huns, wends, and boundless legends immortal tantalized”.
These “boundless legends” wearied and kadrosunu who, obviously, had hoped near the dolmens find that neuvyadaemii, about which he wrote Shengeli.
When I first came near the dolmens, there is no special posed forces are not felt. I decided that this attraction to the stones –specifically southern feature. But when a few years later I was in the far North, in the Diveyevo monastery, I noticed a huge boulder, to which the pilgrim dropped as the icon. A boulder was erected near the source. Near was set a large icon of the virgin. The worship of stones here on the North was not less vigorously than in the South.
North “analog” dolmen
Of Golden beams we Ilushina somehow raided in growing near the cherry orchard. Cherries to ripen yet, but since we have been sitting on very lean rations of food, unripe fruits seemed to us very opportunely.
One of the women kadrosunu, who was living with us in Golden gully, came here from Tuapse. When she returned home, Ilya decided to visit her house.
In Tuapse for the first time I saw the seaport. But to admire them as I don’t have time. The police stopped me due to the fact that I had the old passport of the Soviet sample, which have long had to change to a new one, Russian. However, that was quickly released.
But because of this incident I have been rather quiet at the station Tuapse, where we bought tickets home and waited for our train. Local police due to my “serpastye and molodosti” books could again detain us at the most inopportune moment, for example, before the train left.
But all went well. When we were sitting in the car, I’ve watched the retreating form of the southern mountains and thought: I wonder when I get here again? I was back in the South after only a couple of years, but, as written in the old books, that’s another story.
