Where, where? In Non-Moscow! Future Village

There are many unusual names on the map of the country: village Slut, Prole-Kasha, and last time we talked about village of DadaThis time it’s a village with the name Future. 

📍The future is just around the corner, is in the Tver region, 17 kilometers as the crow flies from the well-known Bologoye station. It's accessible from the highway via a dirt road, provided it's not snowed in. The name isn't the funniest, but it sounds magical when every one of the dozen residents says, "I'm from the Future!" The Future has three streets with no power, gas, running water, communications, schools, pharmacies, stores, good roads, public transportation, or jobs. But the Future does have a past.   

📍The village stands on the shore of Lake Svyatoe, it has existed since the mid-16th century as the estate of Svyatoe-Pole, and a little later – the village of Svyatoe. Residents were engaged They engaged in agriculture, weaving, and leather processing, and they made shoes, sheepskin coats, and short fur coats. Orders came from all over the area, and the people were considered prosperous. 

At the beginning of the 20th century, the estate was bought by an industrialist Heinrich Vollenweider, who planted an apple orchard and built a distillery. It was a brick building with cellars for wine. After the coup In 1917, the landowner fled, and the new government established a distillery in his winery, and on his lands, a collective farm named after Stalin and a state farm called "Future." They say it was after the revolution that the village was named "Future." Locals believe it was because of the distillery: if there's a distillery, there's a future. But they quickly add a caveat: during Soviet times, up to five hundred people lived in the village, but many died "from vodka."  

📍During Soviet times, Future had an elementary school, a club, and a first-aid post. All that remains are a non-functioning water pump built on the site of the estate, a wall from a distillery, and two legends. According to the first, a chapel stood in the village of Svyatoe, but one night it suddenly collapsed into the ground, and a holy spring gushed forth from its place. According to the second legend, a nobleman named Vollenweider, while escaping, drowned a barrel of gold in the lake. Once it is recovered from the lakebed, the village will experience not just a long-awaited future, but a bright one. 

Photo: Wind Project