The story of "Krasnodar monastery" inspired one of the trips to Crimea.
It was somewhere in 2008-2010, I don't remember exactly.(Oh, a glorious time of peace!)
We moved by car from Brest and directly through Ukraine. With navigators at the time was somehow not very, often misled.
Somewhere near Zhytomyr decided to shorten the road, well, and turned, as it turned out, not there. The road was first asphalted, then smoothly moved into the gravian, and the terrain became more and more deaf... Then we were in the forest, and this forest became more and more drizzle and drizzle. It seemed that the dew branches would soon climb over the car.
However, we did not want to go back, on the contrary, it was interesting where it would take us.
Here on the very edge of the forest on the road appeared an old woman with a claw. Just like in the fairy tale, there was only a bump on the fucking legs! The old lady said nothing, only flegmatically guided us by the gaze.
The forest retreated, and a real Ukrainian village opened to our eyes. Alive, without signs of desolation and some sort of hopelessness, which is not counted in the Russian depths.
It was all there: and picturesque houses with white walls and painted windows, and a herd of cows, very impressive, relentlessly moving along the main street to the midday bar. Next to the club was the youth, there was a day off, so the evening was dancing. There was the most beautiful lake.
How good it was there! It’s hard to describe, it needs to be felt...some kind of tranquility. It seemed that it was here when Gogol wrote his "Evenings on the Houthor near Dykanka".
And somehow quite naturally came to my mind the thought: “Maybe we’ll stay here? At least for a day. The sea will wait.”
We stayed in this village, rested, walked, and further on the way.Again, we wanted to travel around Zhytomyr, but it turned out that we travelled through the whole city, and in the center there was some celebration, a orchestra played. Such a dress-up and celebration remained in the memory of Zhytomyr.
And then there were fields, endless yellow-optimistic fields of sunflower, spaces, steppes. We arrived in Crimea and rested. There were friendly and hospitable people everywhere.
To discover the country, it is not necessary to go to the capital or to some open resort. It is there, in the depths, in the village her soul, it is there she is real.There the Ukrainian village near Zhytomyr I remembered for my whole life.And I know, I feel, in Ukraine it is good! It was...
I hope, and will...