When the stones were big
Expedition to a former Sami settlement
To the native cemetery
Nina Eliseevna Afanasyeva is 84 years old. She was born in Varzino, but after leaving the boarding school where all Sami children were sent to live and study, she never returned to her native land. Nina Eliseevna is what's commonly called the "expedition leader." She compiles lists and sends them to the Northern Shipping Company so they can grant permission to disembark the group at a location where there is no official stopover. Until 2007, permission had to be obtained from border guards, but this requirement was later abolished.
They discuss the upcoming trip on the phone with another grandmother, Anisya Fedorovna.
Now I'm going alone; my family isn't coming. Volodya (my son) doesn't even know. They're all worried about how Mom will get there. Nothing will happen. If they drop us off in Drozdovka (a neighboring, quieter bay), well, I'll make it in a day somehow (laughs). But the captain promised to drop us off in Varzina Bay, and I started purring like a cat.
Sami The Sami (they ask that their name not be inflected) are a small indigenous people of the Kola Peninsula. They are a transborder people, primarily living in three other countries: Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In the 20th century, with the advent of Soviet power and the development of the Kola Peninsula, the Sami (they ask that their name not be inflected) began to be resettled, with a single location designated for them—the village of Lovozero. Those fortunate enough to be given an apartment in a new five-story building built specifically for them were unsure whether to celebrate, as there was nowhere to put their domesticated reindeer, so they remained standing outside their entrances.
For centuries, the Sami lived by migrating with their reindeer from summer to winter burial grounds (a burial ground is a settlement). Varzino, in a bay of the river of the same name on the Barents Sea coast, was the summer burial ground for several clans. In 1937, with the advent of Soviet power, they were first evicted from the winter burial ground of Semiostrovie, deep in the peninsula, and ordered to live in Varzino, where the strongest winds rage in winter and where previously they had lived only during the summer fishing season. And in 1968, they were evicted from Varzino as well. Without much explanation, they said it was necessary for the needs of the motherland (the military). Native graves and native land remained in the bay of the Varzino River. A little while longer, and time and the winds would have leveled this patch of shore, but in 2001, a group of former residents landed from a passing ship. And since then they have been coming here every year.
The Klavdiya Yelanskaya motor ship departs from Murmansk and heads to the closed administrative-territorial entity of Ostrovnoy. It can't enter the shallow Varzina Bay. People are put into lifeboats several kilometers away and then taken ashore. This year, we were lucky; the sea was almost calm and the weather was perfect. But there were 14 of us and two lifeboats, and it took almost three hours, including loading and unloading.
"Sanya, head for the cross, do you see the cross?" The first thing we see on the shore is a cross with an inscription that in 1554, two English ships under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby were forced to winter here in the Varzina River bay, and all 63 crew members perished, not surviving the winter. The cross was made in 2004 by local historian Valery Berlin, who came with the Varzina people to visit these parts. It's no coincidence that the Sami didn't live here through the harsh winters, but went inland.
Sir Hugh Willoughby (1495–1554) – English navigator. Around 1551, he became one of the founding members of the Muscovy Company, founded in London. He led the trading expedition it equipped, sent in May 1553 by decree of King Edward VI to search for a Northeast Passage from Europe to China. In September 1553, two of the expedition's ships were forced to stop for the winter. The circumstances of the deaths of more than 60 crew members that winter are not entirely clear. It is believed that the sailors suffered carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to conserve heat. Sir Willoughby's diary, which he kept until his last days, has survived:
“On the 8th of September we entered this harbor and cast anchor in 6 fathoms of water. This harbor projects into the mainland for about 2 miles, and is half a league wide. There were many seals and other large fish in it, and on the mainland we saw bears, large deer and other strange animals and birds, such as wild swans, gulls, and others unknown to us and which excited our surprise. Having remained in this harbor for about a week and seeing that the season was late and that the weather had set in badly - with frosts, snow and hail, as if it were the middle of winter, we decided to spend the winter here. Therefore, we sent three men to the south-southwest to see if they could find people; they went for three days, but did not find anyone; after this we sent four more men to the west, but they also returned without finding any people. Then we sent three men in a south-easterly direction, who returned in the same manner, finding neither people nor any kind of dwelling.”
A short climb up to the plateau, and the first thing the path leads us to is the only remaining foundation of Galina Fedorovna Zakharova's house. She also comes here every year and, as a first step, lays artificial flowers on the foundation, as if it were a grave.
They decided to go to the cemetery itself, visible just above, the next day. Everyone here is related to everyone else; it's a collective decision, and no one questions it. Only now and then someone glances over to see if their crosses are there or if they didn't survive the past year.
Our entire coastline except Teriberka (which became famous after the filming of the movie "Leviathan") is Destroyed. Everyone was evicted. The majority of Varzino's residents were relocated to Lovozero. Lovozero is that rubber sack into which everyone was thrown. They promised a better life, saying there was no need to search for firewood, the apartments were warm, there was water— The tap is turned on and it's running. They'll give you everything. But in reality, only the collective farm chairman and the accountant received a resettlement apartment. The rest huddled wherever they could. Take the Zakharov family, 14 people in one big room, basically three families together, relatives took them in. My brother, the groom— They didn't give him a single meter of housing. So what if he was alone? Wasn't he entitled to housing? He lived in a stable. It's called "promises and no fulfillment."
Nina Eliseevna spent many years collecting information about Varzino and published a book. It contains a separate chapter about each Varzino family. The fate of many displaced families is unenviable. These people, torn from their native land and their familiar way of life, were unable to settle.
Four crosses
There used to be a cowshed and a hayloft here, everything is overgrown. Savages - Burn down such a village! A millionaire collective farm. No one wanted to leave! And where were we supposed to go? Well, they settled us in Lovozero, in barns, and no one was left of our family. Oh, we need to sit down…
Anisya Fedorovna is 83 years old; she easily finds the path to the cemetery and the bridge over a small river in the thick grass, but her legs no longer obey her.
My crosses seem to be standing, although I don't see the fourth one yet. Oh, I didn't bring any tape... This is probably my last year coming, oh, please don't be offended. I'm exhausted, I'm already older than all of you, I never thought it would be so hard for me to come here... Ugh, mosquitoes! I need to smoke so they don't eat me completely... This infection stuck 50 years ago, when my mother passed away. Grandma would have kicked my ass long ago if she had known I still smoked... No, all my crosses are in place. Two of my sisters and my grandparents are buried here... Well, hello, my loved ones. Tirrv, moon koaldlash olma!.. What a shame, the crosses have become a little loose. The deer rub their antlers against them. But grandma's cross is standing up well. So why are you scolding me then, they made it sturdy. Forgive me, grandma, this is probably the last time I'm coming.
And here is my dad, — Nina Eliseevna shows the Pavlovsky row of graves: grandfather, grandmother, cousin. — Look, Vanya, there's a stone at the head of Dad's grave. My grandson and I barely found it. I remember the stone, but as a child it seemed big to me. And now, it seems, it's grown into the ground, and I couldn't recognize it.
Some of the graves are already unmarked. A couple of graves soldiers from a neighboring border unit, which was disbanded after Varzino closed. Death is common in these parts. froze.
After the cemetery, people are in no hurry to disperse, sitting on the shore of Mogilnoye Lake and reminiscing: where they did their laundry, where they met a bear, how they ran along the "cow" path to catch the helicopter, when a village boy stuck a rusty fishing hook next to his carotid artery.
Sveta, do you remember how you used to play with my brother and sister? I'd walk around the village looking for them. The grass was tall, and he'd be dragging them by the hand. I'd see a little white head appear, and it was them.
Do you remember that birch tree growing by the swimming lake, so gnarled, we used to hug it. And now it's grown so big!
Wow, Moryana!!!
A Sami flag flies over our small camp, consisting of a few tents and two kuvaks (the Sami tent). The circle represents the sun and moon, and four differently colored stripes A symbol of the Sami people's existence in four different countries. The flag always indicates the strength and direction of the wind. The next morning, the flag, along with the folded tents, showed that the wind had arrived.
What a wind! It's the seabird coming. And usually it lasts for a few days, God forbid!.. Oh, seabird, you old fool! Are you trying to show us your temper?!
Several years ago, due to a similar storm, residents of Varzin had to wait five days for a boat to come and pick them up in the neighboring Drozdovka Bay. The boat couldn't come and pick them up. Their food was almost gone. People sat hungry and frozen on the shore. Drozdovskaya Bay used to have a village of the same name, but it, too, was resettled, and later the nearby military unit was disbanded. The locals' houses were burned down as part of the fight to keep the shore clean, so they had to spend the night on the bare beach.
Previously, all the food and goods were brought to our village through Drozdovka. By steamboat. The coast here doesn't freeze, and it sailed year-round. And from Drozdovka, my brother and horse Mishka would deliver everything. They'd load it onto a cart and make several trips. Three kilometers each way. When the village was resettled, the old people were reluctant to leave, and the last to leave were Praskovya Petrovna and her godfather, by sled. The two of them stayed here. They also went to Drozdovka, got bread and some other provisions from the border guards.
Although during the collective farm era, there was everything here: a club, a library, and a school. The school was the first to close, in 1961. It was an elementary school, with students attending until the fourth grade. Then, the children were sent a hundred kilometers away to a boarding school in Gremikha (now the closed administrative-territorial entity of Ostrovnoy). Before boarding school, the children usually spoke only their native language, Sami. At boarding school, they were retrained, given a "start in life."
I believe that such small villages contributed to the preservation of the native language. We all spoke Sami here, at home, on the streets, everywhere. When, after perestroika, we began a movement to restore memory and the native language, and then there was the census, I thought that everyone who grew up in a Sami family would consider themselves Sami, but it wasn't so. And do you know why? Because we were like an outcast people, treated as second-class citizens. That was, and that's how it is. And today we say, our umbilical cord is buried here. Our graves are there. We live at home. That is our right. Although there is not a single house left here.
When the Varzin people gather, they recall Sami words and try to speak their native language. Nina Eliseevna knows the language well and is currently working on a complete version of a Russian-Sami dictionary.
I'll ask Seid
Were there seids near Varzino?
Seid A sacred place. Often, it's a special stone or an unusual arrangement of stones that the Sami deified. You might pass by a seidr and not realize it's there.
Yes, there is. Right here, nearby. I'll show you later. Tomorrow, it's already late. You can't disturb the spirits in the evening. We don't follow the rules now, but before, everything was done: for example, chopping firewood and going to the well, we did it before six o'clock in the evening. Later, only in exceptional cases, since nature is resting. After all, nature works for us all day. Even to go fishing, you have to ask nature's permission. I told Vanya to go to the seid before fishing and ask. Well, they caught a lot.
Every evening we catch salmon trout with a spinning rod and cook fish soup. Now I understand why Nina Eliseevna wasn't so worried about having enough food.
"A spinning rod is a modern invention; in the old days, it was just a stick and fishing line. You flatten a nail and make a spear. You'd walk along the bottom and feel around, and lo and behold, a flounder would start moving under your foot. We were always hungry. But we didn't eat seaweed. We didn't know it was good for humans, either. Seaweed was used to make silage, as feed for the cows. There were two silage pits here; they'd mix it with mown grass, and then we girls would walk around, stamping our feet. And in the winter, when we opened the silage, the aroma was incredible!"
In the morning, we head to the seidr. Nina Eliseevna speaks something in Sami for a long time into a crevice between the rocks. I catch only one Russian word: "kilometer."
I asked him for my own things, and for him to give us the weather, saying I couldn't walk three kilometers. I asked him to forgive me for revealing him to the world. You come and ask too. Just don't ask for bad things. Only good things, only the best should be wished.
The plan was to pick us up from the bay in ten days. But we didn't have a radio, and there was no cell phone service there. We agreed with the captain that the day before we would send messengers to Drozdovka, where the ship would disembark a detachment of archaeologists, and through them he would tell us exactly where to wait. It was three kilometers over rocks, past swamps and streams, some of which had to be forded. Everyone hoped the ship would be able to reach Varzina Bay, so the old ladies wouldn't have to walk and we wouldn't have to lug heavy backpacks. The messengers were eagerly awaited at the camp.
Well, the captain said they'll pick us up where we dropped us off. The weather forecast is favorable. The archaeologists told us the latest news. Spain beat England in the football championship.
The next day, we heard the sound of motorboats from afar. And again, the loading of lifeboats. And the search for the ship, hidden from us by thick fog. Nina Eliseevna from the lifeboat and Captain Nikolai Rapatsevich from the bridge waved greeting. Like two friends, even though they only met once a year.
On the boat, Nina Eliseevna, watching the passing shores, begins to sing a song in Sami. The melody is always the same, only the lyrics are different, because the Sami sing about what they see and feel at the moment. It's a sad melody, one that makes the heart clench and makes one want to cry. Grandma sings about how rarely she gets to visit her native land. She sings about the beautiful places around her, about the Barents Sea and the ancient Kildin Island, where the Sami once lived.
