|
Three voices of Kursk - a city next to which there is a war
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.by Alexander Rokhlin [REGNUM] Nightingales do not sing in Kursk in winter. This extremely profound thought comes to me unexpectedly on the veranda of the bishop's house with windows overlooking the garden. The garden steeply descends to the river, over which there is a suspension bridge and a part of the city that Kursk residents for some reason call Venice.  To be honest, I am not a bishop, but a passing bird. I am here completely by accident. From everything that is happening, there is a feeling that I got "Venice" undeservedly, not according to my rank. That is why thoughts come to my mind that do not correspond to the situation. Nightingales don't sing in Kursk in winter. Should they? Instead of nightingale trills, the city is filled with a three-part invention throughout the day - a polyphonic work of three incompatible voices and musical themes: the ringing of bells, an air raid siren, and the barking of "Venetian" dogs beyond the Tuskar River. I am sitting on the bishop's veranda, it is already evening. I understand that the whole day has passed with these voices - the strange music of the city, next to which there is a war, inside which ordinary life goes on. And each of the voices changes the way you feel about life. Everything is clear with the bell, it always sounds unbearably, like conscience. Only conscience, in theory, speaks quietly, more often silently burning than speaking words. But the church alarm takes you by surprise: you were walking and walking, not bothering anyone, and then suddenly a dance begins in the air from sounds and colors, a slow powerful saraband, against which you are unarmed. It explodes you from within, carries you along with it, although you are standing, nailed to the spot by the sound. The bell awakens an unbearable longing for another life, a life with God as with someone very close and dear, and not terribly distant and detached. You have a vague idea of this life, an equally vague thirst - and only at times an acute need. You forget about that life constantly, but the bell reminds you, calls you to come to church at the appointed hour, as if your soul had an appointment there, but without your feet it cannot be there. And it also tells your memory that exactly the same way, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago, with the same voice and saraband, it called your ancestors for the same thing - to come to church and stand before the unknown God as before a beloved Father. And even when everything around was changing, collapsing, disappearing, and falsehood obscured the truth like a solar eclipse, his voice and main theme remained unchanged. They say that the sound of the air raid alarm in Kursk is different from the same one in Belgorod. Two sirens, two melodies. The locals claim that theirs, the Kursk one, has a richer and more velvety timbre. Gallows humor? To me, they both roar sadly and terribly, there is nothing alive in them. But this is, of course, not so, there is something. The howl of the air raid alarm spreads over the entire city and reigns, dominates the city for a few minutes, taking power over a person, his hearing and consciousness. In these few minutes you, not accustomed to such "music", are caught off guard, immediately turn into a hare under the headlights, something falls inside to the heels. "The hare under the headlights" looks at the sky, does not understand anything and expects the worst. Nothing happens, it only intensifies the badness. It is strange that an empty sky can deceive, carry such strong anxiety, awaken melancholy. And where are the promised nightingales? And of course, the siren tells your memory that 80 years ago, with a rich, velvety and eerie voice, it called your ancestors to hide, to hide in any crack. What seemed impossible, gone forever, consigned to firm and eternal oblivion since that war, has come again. It never went anywhere, it just hid until the right time. Surprisingly, fear, anxiety and melancholy, awakened by the bell and siren, disappear without a trace in one single place - when you stand in the temple and pray. Prayer turns a hare under the headlights into a man, returns to the latter hearing, consciousness, dignity and confidence in the invisible. In the temple you hold on to the sky with your hands, and with your teeth you hold on to Christ. It is not scary to die with Him, because it is impossible. The third voice that constantly sounds in the Kursk Invention is the dog's. From the bishop's veranda one can hear barking, whining and barking: languid, cheerful, interested, bored, energetic, melancholy, Chekhovian, Ostrovskyian and Fitzgeraldian - all sorts... It's strange that in the morning, in the evening and even at night it doesn't end. You suddenly wake up, and far, far away you can hear how an unknown, street-dog-dog fool is howling at the moon. The moon is not visible, and she doesn't need the moon. You look, someone across the river will respond to her, coughing hoarsely. And from that, strangely enough, my heart becomes cozy. As if I understand what one soul shared with another. What is beyond the Tuskar River? Venice, Venice - the crown of creation: it is we, people! The sound of dogs' negotiations - the same human conversations: quiet, tired, expectant, sighing, short, sad, about nothing, about everything, remembering - about life, about the house-garden-vegetable garden, about children, cursing the war... Today I listened to so many of them in the Trinity Monastery, where the Mission of the Synodal Department for Church Charity lives, where from morning till night the Kursk refugees flow with their troubles and sorrows, illnesses and spiritual cramps! They crowd in the vestibule, sit decorously on benches, wait to talk with the volunteer young ladies, who smile beyond the edge of fatigue from the amount of other people's troubles on their little heads. The people of Kursk look at me, a passing bird: what kind of fruit is this? They are curious, like sparrows: what did you bring? And you brought them one drop from the sea - some cubic meters of warm clothing. And then, so as not to waste the day, you will bring a trailer of food sets from the warehouse to the temple. To relieve them, we will all start dancing the saraband. We will stand in a stream, one after another, passing from hand to hand bags of cereal and stew, tea and sugar, butter and condensed milk. Only at these moments will we suddenly be filled with warmth. Although small, but a common cause. A few minutes of unity, taken away from trouble and cold. A visiting non-Kursk non-bird feels like the hero of the day - a non-nightingale. It is dark on the bishop's veranda, the tiles are white, and an empty diamond of broken glass gapes between the windows. The cold air from the river comes onto the veranda in a familiar way, like the bishop's cat. For the harmony to be complete, I need one more, a fourth voice. The Inventions are the Johann Sebastian Bach kindergarten. The bell is the bass. The sirens are the tenors. The Tuskar dogs are the altos. Where is the soprano? And then suddenly through the window - no, through the telephone - comes the news that a girl is being born to close people five hundred miles from here, in a city that knows the least about the war. With the quiet name Nina, with the heavenly patronymic Tikhonovna and the eternally childish surname Zaitseva. In January, nightingales do not sing in Kursk. Newborn Ninas sing for them throughout the January land. Posted by: badanov 2025-02-05 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=738702 |