Wonderful, Edward....your are the modern version of Henry David Thoreau. I absolutely enjoy Edwards Village Institute. We gotta come visit someday soon.
The models mentioned just above as Edward predecessors are entirely apt; however, a very much more local role model comes to mind in the person of one Sergei Semenov. Born of recently liberated serfs in the late 1860s he followed many of his contemporaries to Moscow and St Pete’s for a stint among the just forming urban proletariat. He returned to his village (Andreevskoe) at age 20, married a local girl and worked his father’s farm. “I was always driven” he says “by a desire to improve the life of my village, to end its dark and backward ways” (Edward clearly fits the first half of that approach without the presumption of the second half).
At some point, he showed up unannounced at Yasnaya Polyana and won the life long friendship of Tolstoy who financed his agricultural research travels in Europe. In the late 90s he became known to Stolypin and became a local representative of his in pursuing his ambitious, but ill fated, land reforms.
The vast difference in context at a distance of 130 years is obvious but readers who have come to hang on every report from the EIVS will I think see a match in Sergei’s ardor and aims and sheer hard work.
Read more about Sergei in Orlando Figes’ “A People’s Tragedy; The Russian Revolution 1891-1924” London, 1996 p 232 ff.
Riley, you've outdone yourself here! Remarkable and moving traces left by people just like us, having to live through hard times and make a happy life of it as my parents did in the Forties. Their spirits are probably still around those places. And if I may add, much of our present world will no doubt look like this sooner than we may think. Thank you for this.
When I look into those fotos, the kiss, the black cat with gazing eyes, the magic of that time. I want to go back in time to live that epoque, even with the horror of the blood color regime, but I prefer the magic people, the angels that woun’t come back.
As you search for things with more meaning you are gradually going native and when you go truly native that is the meaning of all those things you are searching for. May you become truly native in the land of 'rus. What is the beautiful music that accompanied this lovely tour?
That is so interesting. It's just the sort of thing I'd want to do - go foraging for abandoned dwellings and try to piece together the lives that used to be lived there. The photographs are lovely.
Paradise revisited.. it speaks of a time of community spirit, togetherness, prosperity and villages full of life! Reminds me so much of when we lived in canada, where there were so many of these old houses and cabins on swamp land that had at one time been cleared by their owners for homesteading and that - in the ever expanding drive for growth - had been left by their owners and were now standing in a patch of green, gone to weeds, with the land that once sustained an entire family now purchased by the neighbor. Fewer and fewer farmers who needed more and more land to make a living and pay the interest on their loans. A whole way of life gone. Those houses told a story just like yours. Thanks Riley
I really enjoyed this adventure my friend. The pictures did indeed speak ten thousand words in and of themselves. Candy wrapper the cat, I love it.
I am now stomping around in the old steel toe boots and sweating a bit more (making a bit more dough with the tree planting season beginning) so I am happy to be able to become a paid subscriber again to offer what I can support your noble endeavors to go "tromping through the forest in search of things with more meaning." and "trekking deeper and deeper into the forest in search of lost village civilizations." :)
I would love to see some more pics of the forest some time to get a feel for the tree species distribution over there. I know you have lots of birch but I wonder what other forest treasures exist over there.
On a random side note, do you have stinging nettles over there?
Wonderful, Edward....your are the modern version of Henry David Thoreau. I absolutely enjoy Edwards Village Institute. We gotta come visit someday soon.
Henry David Thoreau said "Read not the Times. Read the the Eternities."
I like how Edward keeps resembling those old Russian peasants, or poets, more and more as time goes on. :)
going native gradually before our eyes.
The models mentioned just above as Edward predecessors are entirely apt; however, a very much more local role model comes to mind in the person of one Sergei Semenov. Born of recently liberated serfs in the late 1860s he followed many of his contemporaries to Moscow and St Pete’s for a stint among the just forming urban proletariat. He returned to his village (Andreevskoe) at age 20, married a local girl and worked his father’s farm. “I was always driven” he says “by a desire to improve the life of my village, to end its dark and backward ways” (Edward clearly fits the first half of that approach without the presumption of the second half).
At some point, he showed up unannounced at Yasnaya Polyana and won the life long friendship of Tolstoy who financed his agricultural research travels in Europe. In the late 90s he became known to Stolypin and became a local representative of his in pursuing his ambitious, but ill fated, land reforms.
The vast difference in context at a distance of 130 years is obvious but readers who have come to hang on every report from the EIVS will I think see a match in Sergei’s ardor and aims and sheer hard work.
Read more about Sergei in Orlando Figes’ “A People’s Tragedy; The Russian Revolution 1891-1924” London, 1996 p 232 ff.
Riley, you've outdone yourself here! Remarkable and moving traces left by people just like us, having to live through hard times and make a happy life of it as my parents did in the Forties. Their spirits are probably still around those places. And if I may add, much of our present world will no doubt look like this sooner than we may think. Thank you for this.
When I saw that picture of you, Riley, I had a to do double take - thought it was an old picture of Dostoevsky!
Ahhh Edward...see? THIS is worth subscribing to. 😍
Fascinating photos of real people, living real lives as we are surrounded by CGI of Katy Perry going into space 🤦♀️😒
I cried when I looked at the pictures.
When I look into those fotos, the kiss, the black cat with gazing eyes, the magic of that time. I want to go back in time to live that epoque, even with the horror of the blood color regime, but I prefer the magic people, the angels that woun’t come back.
As you search for things with more meaning you are gradually going native and when you go truly native that is the meaning of all those things you are searching for. May you become truly native in the land of 'rus. What is the beautiful music that accompanied this lovely tour?
hey! sorry for the very, very, very late reply: the music is from Philip Glass' violin concerto, 2nd movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsioM3GaAAY
Loved this. More like this!
Yes. Covered up history leaves its 'breadcrumbs'!
That is so interesting. It's just the sort of thing I'd want to do - go foraging for abandoned dwellings and try to piece together the lives that used to be lived there. The photographs are lovely.
Paradise revisited.. it speaks of a time of community spirit, togetherness, prosperity and villages full of life! Reminds me so much of when we lived in canada, where there were so many of these old houses and cabins on swamp land that had at one time been cleared by their owners for homesteading and that - in the ever expanding drive for growth - had been left by their owners and were now standing in a patch of green, gone to weeds, with the land that once sustained an entire family now purchased by the neighbor. Fewer and fewer farmers who needed more and more land to make a living and pay the interest on their loans. A whole way of life gone. Those houses told a story just like yours. Thanks Riley
Riley, I found this very moving.
You need to update you "Slavsquatter" thumbnail to include that glorious hobo beard. 👍
I really enjoyed this adventure my friend. The pictures did indeed speak ten thousand words in and of themselves. Candy wrapper the cat, I love it.
I am now stomping around in the old steel toe boots and sweating a bit more (making a bit more dough with the tree planting season beginning) so I am happy to be able to become a paid subscriber again to offer what I can support your noble endeavors to go "tromping through the forest in search of things with more meaning." and "trekking deeper and deeper into the forest in search of lost village civilizations." :)
I would love to see some more pics of the forest some time to get a feel for the tree species distribution over there. I know you have lots of birch but I wonder what other forest treasures exist over there.
On a random side note, do you have stinging nettles over there?
Happy trails buddy!
Ghosts or foretellings of the circles of living -what worked for a while in the lives of human.
A lot like the ‘hollers’ of wrinkled up West Virginia. 💕
Fabulous.