Sparrow Lake SPARROW LAKE GRUNKAL DIK AND BLUEBERRY STAR IDE CHAGA NEIGHBORHOOD TUZIK Cloudberry PORCELAIN BELLS PANTELEEVA CAKES lapwing lapwing Rough-legged Rough-legged THREE JAYS ONE, TWO, HORSE, FOUR WHITE AND YELLOW HANGING WHOSE BRIDGE URSA-RAK ROOK HORSE IS THINKING THE ANT KING AT NIGHT ORDER Ribbons LAKE KIEV HARE BOUQUET BUFFIN AND CATS GRAY NIGHT LEAF OLD APPLE TREE SHEN-SHEN-SHEN SUMMER CAT NIGHT BUTT SNOW RIDER ICE ICE HARE TRAILS CLOUD AND JAWS ABOUT THE AUTHORS
SPARROW LAKE
A long time ago I heard stories about Sparrow Lake.
They said that they caught huge breams that wouldn’t fit into the basin, perches that wouldn’t fit into the bucket, monstrous pikes that wouldn’t fit into anything at all.
It was surprising that the pike and perch were so huge, and the lake was Sparrow.
You should go to Sparrow Lake. You will find him there, in the forests.
I searched and one day reached Sparrow Lake. Not too big, but not small either, it lay among spruce forests, and three islands cut its waters right in the middle. These islands looked like narrow-nosed ships that sailed one after another, and the sails of the ships were birch trees.
There was no boat, and I couldn’t get to the islands, so I started fishing.
I saw pike, black perch, and golden bream. True, they were all not too big, they fit in one bucket, and there was still some space left.
I put an onion in this very place, peeled the potatoes, threw in peppercorns, added water and hung the bucket over the fire.
While the soup was boiling, I looked at the island-ships, at their birch sails.
The orioles flew over green sails, which beat and fluttered in the wind, but could not move their ships. And I liked that there are ships in the world that cannot be moved.
)
Yuri Koval SPARROW LAKE
Sparrow Lake
A long time ago I heard stories about Sparrow Lake.
They said that they caught huge breams that wouldn’t fit into the basin, perches that wouldn’t fit into the bucket, monstrous pikes that wouldn’t fit into anything at all.
It was surprising that the pike and perch were so huge, and the lake was Sparrow.
You should go to Sparrow Lake. You will find him there, in the forests.
I searched and one day reached Sparrow Lake. Not too big, but not small either, it lay among spruce forests, and three islands cut its waters right in the middle. These islands looked like narrow-nosed ships that sailed one after another, and the sails of the ships were birch trees.
There was no boat, and I couldn’t get to the islands, so I started fishing.
I saw pike, black perch, and golden bream. True, they were all not too big, they fit in one bucket, and there was still some space left.
I put an onion in this very place, peeled the potatoes, threw in peppercorns, added water and hung the bucket over the fire.
While the soup was boiling, I looked at the island-ships, at their birch sails.
The orioles flew over green sails, which beat and fluttered in the wind, but could not move their ships. And I liked that there are ships in the world that cannot be moved.
Grunt
On a late spring evening, when the sun hides behind the treetops, a strange long-billed bird appears out of nowhere over the forest. It flies low over the transparent alder forest and carefully looks around all the clearings and clearings, as if looking for something.
Horch... horch... - a hoarse voice comes from above - Horch...
Previously, in the villages they said that this was not a bird at all, but rather an imp flying over the forest, looking for its horns, which it had lost.
But this, of course, is not an imp. This is a woodcock flying over the forest, looking for a bride.
Woodcock has evening eyes - large and dark. Because of its hoarse voice, the woodcock is sometimes called “grunt”, and because of its long beak – “elephant”.
In one village, I heard, they call him affectionately “valishen.” This is the name I like best.
Dick and blueberry
There is a dog living with us in the hut, whose name is Dick. He loves to watch me smoke. He sits opposite me and watches smoke pour out of my mouth.
Dick is a kind dog, but a glutton. Stuffing his belly with fish entrails and burying his head under a Christmas tree so that mosquitoes don’t bite him is what he needs!
Once in the swamp I found a blueberry meadow. I couldn’t tear myself away from blueberries, I picked and ate handful after handful.
Dick ran from one side to the other, looking into my mouth, not understanding what I was eating.
Yes, these are blueberries, Dick! - I explained. - Look how much there is.
I grabbed a handful and handed it to him. He immediately removed the berries from his palm.
Now go ahead, I said.
But Dick didn’t understand where the berries came from, he ran around, pushing me in the side with his nose so that I wouldn’t forget about him.
Then I decided to teach Dick some sense. I’m embarrassed to tell you, but I got down on all fours, winked at him and began to eat the berries straight from the bush. Dick jumped with admiration, opened his mouth - and only the bushes began to crackle.
Two days later Dick picked blueberries around the hut, and I was glad that I had not taught him to love currants and cloudberries.
Star ide
In early spring, Vitya and I went fishing to the Bridge.
The Bridge is not that far from us, but still six kilometers. They walked and walked, kneading the swamp and forest spring mud, and were tired. When they arrived at the Bridge, they immediately started a fire and started boiling tea. Vitya says:
I don’t know about you, but all my life I’ve dreamed of catching a big ide.
How big? What sizes?
No less than a boot.
What boot? Ordinary or wandering?
Well, it's you, guy, too much. An ide the size of a swamp! There are no such things. Let's catch ide with an ordinary, familiar tarpaulin boot.
We agreed and tied a secret dong for ide. I can’t tell you what the secret of this donkey is - Vitya doesn’t tell me.
And so we put about a dozen worms on a large hook and threw it all into the water.
But he doesn’t take ide. A small cluster of worms is tugging. The bell on the donk is ringing.
The sorozhonka tortured her, - Vitya says, - she overcame her. The roach is a small roach. In our North, the roach is called the roach.
By evening, at the very least, we caught some saplings, but the ide just won’t take us.
And then night came.
Over Tsypina Mountain, under the stars, geese and cranes began to fly north, woodcocks began to twinkle and gleam, and then the ide took over.
The line stretched terribly, Vitya trembled, grabbed the line with both hands, and pulled it to the shore.
And in the distance, in the darkness among the reeds, the ide that had come to the surface splashed. Silver reflections rained down across the water from the blows of his tail and starry spray flew.
And so Vitya led the ide to the shore and almost pulled it out, when suddenly the ide jerked. Vitya slipped and fell into the water next to the ide.
And so they both flounder in the black water, and star spray flies from both of them. And I realized that the ide would go away now if I didn’t come up with something.
And I came up with an idea. I also fell into the water on the other side of the ide. And now the two of us are already lying in the water and there is an ide between us.
And above us, by the way, all the night constellations, all the main spring stars, are shining and standing above us, and especially clearly, I see, Leo and Gemini are standing above us. And now it seems to me that Vitya and I are twins, and between us is a lion. Everything was somehow confused in my head.
And yet we pulled out the ide, dragged it to the shore, and it turned out to be very large. There was no time to measure the boot - it was night, but it just couldn’t fit into the bucket.
We put him in a bucket upside down and ran home through the swamp and forest spring mud, to Tsypina Mountain. The ide beat its tail in the bucket, and in each flake it was played by the main spring constellations - Leo and Gemini.
We hoped that the ide would not fall asleep until the morning, but he fell asleep.
I was very upset that the star ide fell asleep and there was no trace of it left on the earth. He took a board, put ide on it and traced it exactly along the contour with a pencil. And then he sat for a long time, cutting out the star ide. Let him at least leave his mark on my board.
And we caught the ide that you see in the picture another time. This is not an ide, but an ide. But for some reason he is also a star. I don't know why. We caught it in the morning, when the stars disappeared under the solar veil... Probably, every ide is starry...
Chaga
Above the river, above the pool in which the strange northern fish grayling hides from the kite, stands a birch tree.
The trunk of the birch is crooked, it either bends towards the river, or pulls it away from the water of the taiga, and at its steepest knee the bark burst.
A black birch mushroom, chaga, grew in this place for many years.
I cut down the chaga with an axe.
Huge, with the head of a bull, she could barely fit into the backpack.
I dried the chaga in the sun for several days, and when the mushroom was dry, I chopped the black and orange core with a knife, put it in a pot, and brewed it with boiling water.
The tea ran out and I drank chaga. It is bitter, like tea, smells of burnt mushrooms and distant spring birch sap.
Its color is thick, coffee, the color of a pool in which the northern grayling fish hides from the kite and from our eyes.
Neighborhood
I am not afraid of snakes, but I am afraid in the most serious way. In places where there are a lot of vipers, I always wear rubber boots and deliberately stomp hard so that the snakes know that I am coming.
“This guy is stomping around again,” the vipers probably think. - Just look, it will come. We must leave."
Behind our house, a family of vipers lives in the stones. On warm sunny days they crawl out to bask on the pebbles. We have been living next to each other for many years, and so far - pah, pah, pah - there has never been a chance for us to quarrel.
One day Vitya decided to take a photo of a snake. He set up a tripod in the stones and began to lie in wait.
Soon the viper crawled out, and Vitya clicked. I went to see how he was filming.
Curled up, the viper lay in the stones, lazily looking at the photographer, and behind him, at his very heels, lay the second one. Vitya didn’t notice this second one and could step on it every second. I was about to scream, when suddenly I saw a third one, crawling up to the side of the tripod.
“You’re surrounded,” I told the photographer. - Stop filming.
Now, I'll make another take. The sun will come out from behind the clouds.
The sun finally came out from behind the cloud, Vitya made a double and carefully, maneuvering between the vipers, brought out his tripod.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” I said, “it worked out.” There was also a similar case with vipers.
In our village there is an old house, very abandoned. The owner of this house rarely comes; the house remains empty all winter.
And then one spring, two girl artists came to this house. They wanted to live in the village and draw.
They went into the house and the first thing they decided to do was light the stove.
They opened the stove door, and suddenly two huge vipers crawled out.
There was a lot of screaming!
Tuzik
In the village of Vasilevo, all the dogs are Tuziki, all the cows are Zorki, and all the aunties are Aunt Mani.
You enter the village, and the first Tuzik greets you - Tuzik the greeter. He is cheerful and kind. He rubs against your leg affectionately, saying, come in, come in. You give him some crust, and he jumps with joy as if you had given him a whole cake.
You walk through the village, and from behind the fences new Tuziki are looking, thinking about the crust, and the Dawns are mooing in the barns, and Aunt Mani is all sitting on benches, sniffing lilacs.
You’ll go up to some Aunt Mana and say:
Aunt Manya, I should pour some milk or something!
You will walk through the whole village - there you will drink milk, there you will taste radishes, there you will break lilacs. And the last Tuzik will accompany you out of the outskirts. And he looks after you for a long time and loudly barks goodbye, so that you don’t forget the village of Vasilevo.
But in the village of Plutkovo, all the dogs are Dozorki, all the cows are Daughters, and all the aunties are still Aunt Mani. My dear friend Lyova Lebedev also lives there.
Cloudberry
There is moss underfoot - soft, shaggy fur.
Sunny berries, orange and yellow, scattered across the moss meadow. Cloudberry.
Yellow ones are ripe, orange ones are about to ripen.
The cloudberry is a bit like a white raspberry. It seems that these are small raspberries growing among the moss.
But cloudberries are not as sweet and fragrant as raspberries.
Still, I wouldn’t trade cloudberries for raspberries. It has a northern, taiga taste, and there is nothing to compare it with - except the taste of dew.
The cloudberry absorbed all the freshness of the damp forest, all the sweetness of the moss swamp - and there was a lot of freshness, but just a little sweetness.
But whoever needs as much as they need - some drink tea as a snack, others as a snack.
When you are tired under a bag after a long journey, when your throat is dry, cloudberries seem like honey. Moss and cool swamp honey.
Porcelain bells
Who cares, but I like the porcelain bell the most.
It grows in the depths of the forest, in the shade, and its color is strange - little sunny. Not watery, but transparent, porcelain. Its flowers are weightless and cannot be touched. Just watch and listen.
Porcelain bells ring, but the noise of the forest always drowns them out.
The fir trees are humming, the pine needles are creaking, the aspen leaves are trembling - where can you hear the light ringing of a porcelain bell?
But still I lie down on the grass and listen. And I lie there for a long time, and the spruce hum and trembling of the aspen goes away - and a distant, modest bell is heard.
Perhaps this is not so, perhaps I am making it all up, and porcelain bells are not ringing in our forests. And listen. It seems to me that they are ringing!
Panteleev flatbreads
Last night we spent the night with grandfather Pantelei. Long ago, about fifty years ago, he built a house in the taiga and lives in it alone.
We reached Panteley late at night. He was delighted to see the guests and put on the samovar.
We sat at the table for a long time, talked, sang songs.
Panteley remained silent for the most part and kept looking at what kind of city people they were. Our conversations and songs brought from the city seemed wonderful to him.
He liked one song: “It’s raining, raining outside...”
In the morning we got up early, it was dark, and grandfather was already up. I looked behind the partition to see him. There was a candle burning on the table, and by its light grandfather Panteley was kneading dough. Apparently, he was going to bake bread.
The sun has risen. We began to get ready for the trip and decided to take a photo of Pantelei as a farewell.
You, grandfather, take off your hat - why take pictures with a hat?
Why take it off? She warms her head.
Okay, then pick up the net as if you were repairing it. Panteley did not take off his hat, but took the net in his hands, shaking his head and smiling at the undertakings of the city man.
Then he went into the house and brought out something wrapped in a rag. The package was hot. I unfolded it and saw thin flatbreads made from rye flour.
Take it,” said Panteley, “for the road.”
When we crossed Mount Chuval and stopped to rest, I took Panteleev’s flatbreads out of the bag. They dried out and crumbled.
We began to eat them, soaking them in the stream.
There was no salt or sweetness in Panteleev's flatbreads. They were as fresh as water.
I wondered: what are these strange flatbreads, why do they have no taste?
Then I realized that there was a taste, but it was very simple. Such flatbreads could probably only be baked by a lonely old man living in the taiga.
Lapwing
Over the damp flooded field, in the place where there are especially many spring puddles, lapwings fly screaming all day long.
They furiously flap their wide wings, dive in the air to the right, left, and somersault. It seems that a strong wind prevents them from flying.
But there is no wind in the field. The sun is shining, reflected in smooth sparkling puddles.
The lapwing has an extraordinary, playful flight. The lapwing is playing, splashing in the air, like children splashing in the river.
When the lapwing lands on the ground, you won’t immediately believe that this is the same bird that was just tumbling over the puddles, fooling around. The sitting lapwing is strict and beautiful, and the frivolous crest on its head seems completely unexpected.
Once I saw lapwings chasing a kestrel.
The kestrel carelessly approached their nest and got into a bind. One lapwing kept tumbling in front of her nose and preventing her from flying, and the second swooped down from above and hit whatever happened.
Having chased away the predator, the lapwings sank to the ground and walked through the puddles, waving their proud crests.
Zimnyak
The shepherd Volodya shot the bird and brought it to me.
“Here,” he said, “look what I shot.” The bird was alive. The shot broke her wing.
A gray-haired bird with golden eyes looked at me angrily, clicked its beak and hissed.
“No need to hiss at me,” I said. “I didn’t shoot you, it was this idiot.” Why did you knock her down? - I asked Volodya. - Enraged, or what?
She flies, and I think: let me hit you.
You should be hit. Into the eye.
Shepherd Volodya was offended. He narrowed the eye with which he was aiming, went to the corner of the hut and squatted down.
A gray-haired bird with golden evil eyes sat on the table. As soon as I approached, she hissed and knocked with her beak, her paws and claws were sharp and terrible.
She was large, the size of a goshawk, with black speckles on her chest and tail, but the overall impression was silver, gray, winter.
What kind of bird is this? - Volodya muttered in the corner. - What is her name?
Buteo lagopus,” I answered. - Yes, you still won’t remember.
What... butya? - Volodya finally hid in a corner and now squinted his other eye, which he was not aiming at.
“Go help,” I said. - Let's try to straighten the wing.
I put on thick leather gloves and, while Volodya held the bird, I adjusted the wing as best I could.
It was a very difficult task. Buteo lagopus clicked, crackled and pecked, tearing both gloves and jacket with its claws.
I placed two splints at the site of the fracture and put a tight bandage on them so that the furious Buteo lagopus would not tear it off the wing.
Then we took the bird outside and sat it on the fence. Buteo Lagopus looked at us with hatred. His eyes were fearless and strong.
Why are you looking at me like that? - I said. - He knocked you down, what does it have to do with me?
But the wounded Buteo Lagopus did not see any difference between us - Volodya and me.
"Buteo lagopus" are Latin words. And in Russian this bird is called very simply - Buzzard.
In our area it appears very rarely, just before the harshest winter.
Three jays
When a jay calls in the forest, it seems to me that a huge fir cone is rubbing against the pine bark. But why does the pine cone rub against the bark? Is it out of stupidity?
And the jay screams for beauty. She thinks it's her singing. What a bird's delusion! And the jay looks good - a fawn head with a tuft, blue mirrors on the wings, and a voice like a rake - creaking and wheezing.
Once upon a time, three jays gathered on a rowan tree and started yelling. They screamed, they screamed, they tore at their throats - they got tired of it. I ran out of the house - they immediately scattered. I approached the rowan tree - nothing was visible under the rowan tree, and everything was in order on the branches, it was not clear why they were shouting. True, the mountain ash is not yet fully ripe, not red, not crimson, but it’s time - September.
I went into the house, and the jays again flocked to the rowan tree, screaming, tearing at the rake. I listened and thought that they were chattering with meaning.
One shouts: - It will ripen! It will ripen!
Another: - It will warm up! It'll warm up!
And the third shouts: - Trintribr!
The first one I immediately understood. It was she who shouted about the rowan, saying that the rowan would still ripen, the second - that the sun would warm the rowan, and the third could not understand.
Then I realized that Soykin’s “Thrintiber” is our September. For her voice, September is too gentle a word.
By the way, I noticed this jay. I listened to her both in October and in November, and she kept shouting: “Trintryan!”
What a fool, our whole autumn is a trinity for her.
One, two, horse, four
There were four haystacks in the field.
Every time I passed by, I looked at them with pleasure. I liked how they moved from the road to the forest, and I always counted them to myself: one, two, three, four...
One day I was walking along the road and, as usual, I began to count: one, two, three, four...
Where is the third haystack? On the count of three there was a horse. She was clearly chewing on the remains of the third haystack.
“Did she really chew up a whole haystack? - I thought. “No, the haystack was probably taken away, and the horse accidentally ended up in this place.”
A month passed, and again I found myself nearby, and the score turned out like this: lapwing, two, hare, four.
The first haystack was no longer there, and a lapwing was walking in its place, and between the second and fourth I picked up a hare.
And a month later there was no more bill. Neither lapwing nor hare were visible in the field, only one fourth stack stood covered with snow. So it stood until spring.
White and yellow
The most important butterflies are, of course, lemongrass. They appear before everyone else.
There is still snow in the ravines, and lemongrass are circling above the warm meadow. Their yellow wings argue with the old snow and laugh at it. And from the ground - white and yellow - the first flowers hurry - anemone, coltsfoot.
Spring shows us white and yellow first, and only then everything else - snowdrops, lungwort, and chocolate.
But spring can’t part with white and yellow. Either marigolds and kupava will flare up, then bird cherry will bloom.
White and yellow pass through the entire spring, and in the middle of summer white and yellow converge in one chamomile flower.
Suspension bridge
Not far from the village of Luzhki there is a suspension bridge.
It hangs over the Istra River, and when you walk along it, the bridge sways, your heart skips a beat and you think - you’re about to fly away!
And the Istra flows restlessly below and seems to be pushing: if you want to fly, fly! Then you go ashore, and your legs, like stone, are reluctant to walk; They’re unhappy that instead of flying, they’re hitting the ground again.
Once I arrived in the village of Luzhki and immediately went to the bridge.
And then the wind rose. The suspension bridge creaked and swayed. I felt dizzy and wanted to jump, and I suddenly jumped and - it seemed - took off.
I saw distant fields, great forests beyond the clearings, and the Istra River cut the forests and fields into crescent-shaped bends, drawing quick patterns across the ground. I wanted to follow the patterns to the great forests, but then I heard:
An old man was walking along the bridge with a stick in his hand.
Why are you jumping here?
I'm also a morning person! Thick Nose! Our bridge has been completely shaken, it’s about to break. Go, go, jump ashore!
And he threatened with a stick. I stepped off the bridge onto the shore.
“Okay,” I think, “it’s not all about jumping and flying for me. Sometimes you have to land.”
That day I walked for a long time along the banks of Istra and for some reason remembered my friends. I remembered Leva and Natasha, I remembered my mother and brother Borya, and I also remembered Orekhyevna.
I arrived home and there was a letter on the table. Orekhevna writes to me:
“I would fly to you on wings. I don’t have wings.”
She-bear
The Kaya Bear crawls along the wet sandy path.
In the morning, before the rain, moose passed here - an elk with five shoots on its antlers and a moose cow with a calf. Then a lonely and black boar crossed the path. And now you can still hear him tossing and turning in the ravine among the dry reeds.
The Bear does not listen to the boar and does not think about the moose that passed in the morning. She crawls slowly and only cowers if a belated drop of rain falls on her from the sky.
The she-bear doesn't even look at the sky. Then, when it becomes a butterfly, it looks at it some more and swoops in. And now she needs to crawl.
Quiet in the forest.
The sweet smell of meadowsweet along with the fog spreads over the swamp. The Kaya Bear is crawling along a wet sandy path.
Rook
The rook drowned in the grass. He fell from a tree into the grass and drowned in it, even choking a little.
The rook got scared. Sitting in the grass. His eyes are wide open, but he sees nothing but grass. He sat like that for a long time, and then he stuck his head out of the grass - wow! Forest around. The trees are shaggy and shaggy, prickly and dense.
Then the rook took it and hid in the grass again.
I sat and sat and looked out again. The forest stands still, looking at the rook. And the rook hid again.
That's how it went for them. The rook sticks his head out - the forest is standing; hides, and the forest watches, and the grass rustles around, small blades of grass squeak, and dry ones crackle.
The rook walked through the grass, pushing the stems apart with his beak, but he himself was trembling with fear.
Suddenly the grass ended, and the rook saw a field, and in the field two bulls were mooing at the rook. And both are white-fronted! What a horror - white-fronted! Both! And the rook retreated back into the grass.
And then the earth shook! There was a stomp, a roar!
The guy is galloping along the road on a mare! Uncle! In Hat!
Not only did he climb on the mare, but he also put on a hat!
The rook flapped his wings out of fear and flew away!
I flew for the first time in my life.
The horse thought
The horse thought. He stands in the meadow and thinks. And he doesn’t chew grass, doesn’t look at butterflies, doesn’t even chase flies with his tail - he thinks.
“The horse is lost in thought,” said the driver, Uncle Agathon. - Yes, and there is something to think about. Life is a complicated thing.
I don’t know what she should think about? - Kolka said, a machine operator. - I have worries - just think about it! The tractor has a lot of horsepower, but there are not enough spare parts!
Think, dear,” said Orekhyevna. - You need to think. There are only a few of you horses left in the world.
And the horse thought. Her eyes were moist and serious. She stood there for a long time, and then she waved her tail and galloped off into the field. Chasing butterflies.
Ant king
Sometimes it happens - you feel sad about something, you become sad. You sit lethargic and boring - you see nothing, you walk through the forest and, like a deaf person, you hear nothing.
And then one day - and it was early winter - lethargic and boring, sad and sorrowful, I walked through the forest.
“Everything is bad,” I thought. - My life is no good. I just don’t know what to do?”
Glue! - I suddenly heard.
What else should I glue?
Glue! Glue! - someone shouted behind the trees. Suddenly I noticed a snowy mound under the tree.
I immediately realized that this was an anthill under the snow, but for some reason there were black holes gaping in the anthill. Someone dug a hole in it!
I came closer, bent down, and then a long gray nose, black mustache and a red cap stuck out of the hole, and the cry was heard again:
Glue! Glue! Glue!
And, flapping his green wings, the Ant King flew out of the anthill.
I recoiled from surprise, and the Ant King flew low between the trees and shouted:
Glue! Glue! Glue!
“Ugh, you’re an abyss! - I thought, wiping sweat from my forehead. - Glue, he says. Why glue it? What to glue to what? What a life."
Meanwhile, the Ant King flew away not far and sank to the ground.
There was another anthill here, in which there were also black holes. The king dived into a hole and disappeared into the depths of the anthill.
Only then did I understand who the Ant King was. It was the Green Woodpecker.
Not everyone has seen a green woodpecker; they do not live in every forest. But in that forest where there are many anthills, you will definitely meet a green woodpecker.
Ants are the favorite food of green woodpeckers. Green woodpeckers are very fond of ants. But the ants don’t like green woodpeckers, they just can’t stand them.
“What should I do? - I thought. - I love both of them. What should I do? How can we figure this out?”
I went home slowly, and the Ant King shouted after me:
Glue! Glue! Glue!
Okay, okay,” I muttered in response. - I’ll glue it! Will! In short, I'll try.
I began to lay out rotten things on the floor. Posted the constellation Ursa Major.
Did I do the right thing by waking you up? - Nikolai was worried.
In the hut they glowed exactly the same as on the street. They did not illuminate anything, did not warm anything, but I wanted to look and look at them.
At night
Come on, wake up!
I woke up.
Come outside.
I thought: something happened. He grabbed the gun from the wall, put his feet into his boots, wet from the day before, and jumped out of the hut.
Look, look, you have to see this.
Nikolai stood under the canopy at the threshold. It was a dank and quiet late night. The lightest fine rain rustled in the larches.
I didn’t see and didn’t understand where to look.
“I don’t see,” I said.
Right under your feet.
I looked at my feet and saw faint glowing stars on the ground. So, it happens that the stars of heaven shine through a cloudy veil.
These are rotten things,” said Nikolai. - You see, they glow...
A luminous path stretched from the threshold to the fire. During the day we burned a rotten log and, while dragging it to the fire, sprinkled dust on the ground.
These are rotten things,” said Nikolai. - They glow. You have to see this, that's why I woke you up.
We stood side by side and looked at the ground, across which a calm and quiet, very simple light was scattered.
Soon we were chilled, collected the largest fireflies, and took them to the hut.
Order ribbons
Order Ribbons live in birch forests. I didn’t even know.
But then I went into the birch forest for boletuses, and suddenly - in flocks, in flocks - Order Ribbons began to fly up in front of me.
I wanted to chase them, but I didn’t. It’s somehow stupid to chase after Order Ribbons.
Order Ribbons - moths. During the day they hide in birches, and at night they fly freely all over the earth.
One night the Order Ribbon came to the hut. I saw her through the window.
He opened the window and put a candle on the windowsill to lure her closer. And she beckoned.
In smooth circles, hesitating and shuddering, she flew up to the hut. She sat on the windowsill.
She looked at the candle, and I thought that there could not be a better order in the world. For my hut.
Lake Kiyovo
White and white, they say, were the waters of Lake Kiyovo.
Even on windless days they stirred and moved, and suddenly - like a white wave - they soared into the sky.
Seagulls - thousands of seagulls - lived on Lake Kiyovo. From here they scattered to nearby rivers. We flew to the Moscow River, to the Klyazma, to the Yauza. All the seagulls we saw in Moscow were bred on Lake Kiyovo.
At first the lake was far from Moscow. But then it got closer and closer. The lake did not move, but a huge city and its huge suburbs grew. Houses and small houses crowded the lake and stepped on its shores. Rusty pieces of iron and bent pipes appeared on the banks.
Lake Kiyovo has dried up. Wrinkles of islands and bays split the water mirror. Many seagulls have gone to live in free places.
“Kievo” is, of course, an extraordinary word. The word still remains.
The seagulls also remained on the lake.
We were the last of the seagulls.
Hare bouquet
Hares generally do not collect bouquets. Why does a hare need a bouquet? All the wildflowers are above the ears of the hare, all the forest flowers are behind the tails of the hare. And the hare’s tail itself is called “puff” or “flower”. This is what old hunters say about the hare's tail, and they know their word.
But then, look, a hare showed up and collected a bouquet. I put everyone in the bouquet: clover, and toadgrass, and porridge, and chamomile.
Here he walks around with a bouquet and doesn’t know who to give it to. Why does a fox or a wolf need a hare bouquet? They don't care about flowers.
The bear loves flowers, but not in bouquets. He would like a raspberry bush.
And the badger? Only late at night does he get out of the hole, and if you hand him, excuse me, a bouquet on a forest path, he can hit him on the neck.
I don’t know what to do with a hare bouquet. It has been collected and must be given to someone.
Okay, let's give it to the badger and see what happens.
Bullfinches and cats
In late autumn, with the first powder, bullfinches came to us from the northern forests.
Plump and rosy, they sat on the apple trees, as if in place of fallen apples.
And our cats are right there. They also climbed the apple trees and settled on the lower branches. They say, sit down with us, bullfinches, we are also like apples.
Even though the bullfinches haven’t seen cats for a whole year, they still think. After all, cats have tails, and apples have tails.
How good are bullfinches, and especially snow maidens! Their chest is not as fiery as that of its owner, the bullfinch, but it is tender - fawn.
The bullfinches are flying away, the snow maidens are flying away. And the cats stay on the apple tree.
They lie on the branches and wag their apple-like tails.
Gray night
It began to get dark. Over the taiga, over the gloomy rocks, over the river with the splashing name Vels, a narrow fox moon rose. By dusk the ear was ripe.
Having found spoons in our backpacks, we settled around a bucket, caught pieces of grayling and put them in a separate pot so that the grayling would cool while we ate the fish soup.
Well, Kozma and Demyan, sit down with us!
With a long juniper spoon, I rummaged in the depths of the bucket - my hand went up to the elbow into steam. I caught potatoes and fish offal from the bottom - livers, caviar - then scooped up a transparent fish with green foam.
Well, Kozma and Demyan, sit down with us! - Lyosha repeated, throwing his spoon into the bucket.
Sit down with us, sit down with us, Kozma and Demyan! - we confirmed.
We built a fire on the low bank of the Vels. Our coastline is completely littered with dirty ice floes. They remained from the flood - they did not have time to thaw. Here is an ice floe that looks like a huge ear, and here is a milk mushroom.
Who are they - Kozma and Demyan? - asked Pyotr Ivanovich, who came to the Ural taiga for the first time.
Pyotr Ivanovich eats fish soup carefully and respectfully. His head is shrouded in steam, small fires are burning in his glasses.
The old fishermen taught me this,” Lyosha answered. - As if there were such Kozma and Demyan. They help catch grayling. You need to call Kozma and Demyan by ear so that they don’t get offended.
By the clock it is already midnight, but the sky has not darkened, it remains clear, twilight, and the month has added coldness and light to it.
“This is probably a white night,” said Pyotr Ivanovich thoughtfully.
The white nights will begin later,” Lyosha answered. - They should be lighter. There is no name for this night.
Maybe silver?
What a silver one! Gray night.
Having spread spruce branches on the ground, we laid out our sleeping bags and lay down. I buried my head at the foot of the tree. Its lower branches have dried up, lichen has grown on them and hangs towards the fire like tow, like bast, like a white beard.
Not far away, behind me, something rustled.
“Gray night,” Pyotr Ivanovich repeated thoughtfully.
Whether it’s gray, white or silver, it’s still time to sleep.
Something rustled behind me again.
My ear is so worn out that I’m too lazy to turn around and see what the noise is. I see the moon hanging over the taiga - young, thin, piercing.
Chipmunk! - Lyosha suddenly said.
I looked around and immediately saw that two attentive night eyes were looking at us from behind the tree.
The chipmunk only stuck out his head, and his eyes seemed very dark and large, like a gonobobel berry.
After looking at us for a bit, he hid. Apparently, he was overcome with horror: who are they sitting by the fire?!
But then the big-eyed head poked out again. Whistling lightly, the animal jumped out from behind the tree, ran along the ground and hid behind the backpack.
“This is not a chipmunk,” said Lyosha, “there are no stripes on its back.” The animal jumped onto the backpack and put its paw into the canvas pocket. There was a rope there. Hooking it with a claw, he pulled it.
Let's go! - I couldn’t stand it.
Jumping up to the tree, he grabbed the trunk and, tearing off pieces of bark with his claws, ran up the trunk into the dense branches.
Who is this? - said Pyotr Ivanovich. - Not a squirrel or a chipmunk.
“I don’t know,” said Lyosha. - It doesn’t look like a sable, nor does it look like a marten. I've probably never seen anything like this.
The gray night became brighter. The fire died down, and Lyosha got up and threw some sushi into it.
You shouldn’t have scared him away,” Pyotr Ivanovich told me. - He won't come back now.
We looked at the top of the tree. Not a single branch moved. Long sparks from the fire flew to the top and died out in the light gray sky.
Suddenly some dark lump fell from the top and opened in the air, becoming angular, quadrangular. Having crossed the sky, he flew from tree to tree, catching the moon with the edge of his tail.
Then we immediately realized who it was. It was a flying squirrel, an animal that you cannot see during the day: it hides in hollows and flies over the taiga at night.
Its wings are furry - membranes between the front and hind legs.
The flying squirrel was sitting on the very tree that grew above me. Some husks and pieces of bark fell from above - the flying squirrel descended. He was either peeking out from behind the tree or hiding, as if he wanted to sneak up unnoticed.
Suddenly he looked out very close to me, at arm's length. His eyes, dark and wide, stared at me.
“Will he catch it or not?” - I was thinking, apparently, a flying squirrel.
He sat huddled in a ball and looked at the fire.
The fire stirred and crackled.
The flying squirrel jumped to the ground and then noticed a large dark hollow. It was Pyotr Ivanovich's boot lying on the ground.
Whistling in surprise, the flying squirrel dove into the boot.
At the same instant I rushed to grab the boot, but the flying squirrel jumped out and ran, ran along the outstretched arm, along the shoulder and - jumped onto a stump.
But it was not a stump. It was Pyotr Ivanovich's knee with a large round cup.
Looking into his flaming glasses with horror, the flying squirrel coughed, jumped onto the tree and quickly climbed up.
Pyotr Ivanovich felt his knee in amazement.
“What a light one,” he said hoarsely.
Having flown to another tree, the flying squirrel descended again. Apparently, he was attracted by the dying fire of the fire, beckoning him like a lamp on a summer evening attracts a moth.
A dream came over me. Or rather, not a dream - a wolf's slumber. I closed my eyes and fell somewhere under a spruce root, then I opened them and then saw a beard of lichen hanging from the branches, and behind it a completely brightened sky and in it a flying squirrel flying from peak to peak.
With the first rays of the sun the flying squirrel disappeared.
In the morning, over tea, I kept pestering Pyotr Ivanovich, asking him to give me a boot that had been worn by a flying squirrel. And Lyosha said, finishing his second mug of tea:
Was it not Kozma and Demyan who sent him to us?
Leafbreaker
At night the leaves blew - a cold October wind. He came from the north, from the tundra, already covered with ice, from the banks of the Pechora.
The leaf blower howled in the chimney, stirred the aspen chips on the roof, beat and ruffled the trees, and you could hear how obediently they rustled, shedding their leaves.
The open window banged against the frame, creaking with rusty hinges. With gusts of wind, birch leaves growing under the window flew into the room.
By morning this birch was already wide open. Through its branches flowed and flowed cold streams of leaf, clearly marked in the gray sky by broken fluttering leaves.
The web, stretched in the fir trees by a strict cross spider, was full of birch leaves. Its owner himself had already disappeared somewhere, but it kept swelling with leaves, sagging like a net full of bream.
old apple tree
All day long a grandmother sits by the road, selling apples.
Cars, motorcycles, and tractors roar past the apples. Sometimes the car will stop, buy some apples and then continue to hum.
Here comes the truck. This guy won't buy apples, he has no time. I would buy a bus, but it has a stop three kilometers away. And this is “Zaporozhets”, if he buys it, it’ll be half a kilo.
I stopped and bought half a bucket.
“But you, a guardian, even pull the bucket,” said the grandmother.
An old woman is sitting by the road, and behind her is a rowan tree, and behind the fence there is an old apple tree, apples are ripening on it, and falling to the ground.
They work all day. The grandmother is trading, the apple tree is dropping apples. That's how they live.
Shen-shen-shen
Who knows how to lure horses? Well, everyone knows how to lure kittens and chickens.
Geese should be like this: - Tag-tag-tag...
Deer: - Myak-myak-myak...
I heard one aunt luring sheep like this: - Fables, fables, fables...
And the horses, Vitya Belov told me, need to be lured: - Shen-shen-shen...
Indeed, what a good word, quite a horse one. Horses must understand him, for sure.
So I learned a new word and went around the village to look for horses.
Of course, he took a piece of black bread, salted it, and put it in his pocket. Of course, the salt spilled a little into my pocket, but that’s not a problem.
I've had a lot of things in this pocket.
I’m walking around looking for horses.
Yes, there are no horses in sight.
The foreman gallops towards him on a bicycle and shouts:
Have you seen any horses? And I answer him:
Shen-shen-shen...
Are you crazy? - the foreman says. - The horses broke the fence and ran off into the open field.
The foreman galloped off into an open field, looking for horses through binoculars. And I went up to the river, to the place where the sedge poplars grew, and I said quietly:
Shen-shen-shen.
And then three white horses came out of the thicket, looking at me in the eyes, understanding everything.
So much for “shen-shen-shen”! I only have one piece of bread.
summer cat
Here the other day I met the Summer Cat.
Red-haired and hot, having absorbed the heat of the sun, he lazily lounged in the grass, barely moving his mustache. Hearing my steps, he raised his head and looked sternly: he said, come in, come in, don’t block the sun.
The cat lay in the sun all day. Either the right side will expose the sun, then the left, then the tail, then the mustache.
The sunset began and ended. Night fell, but for a long time something was still glowing in the garden. It was a glowing summer sunny Sunflower Cat.
Night burbot
With the first cold weather in Oka I began to fish for burbot. In the summer, burbot was lazy to swim in warm water, lay under snags and roots in pools and backwaters, and hid in holes overgrown with mucus.
Late in the evening I went to check the donks.
A thick cloak made of black rubber creaked on his shoulders, dry shells and pearl barley that littered the Oka sandy shore crackled under his boots.
Darkness is always alarming. I walked along the usual path, but I was still afraid of getting lost and anxiously looked around, looking for noticeable willow bushes.
A fire suddenly broke out on the shore and went out. Then it flared up again and went out. This fire made me anxious. Why does it flare up and go out, why doesn’t it burn longer?
I guessed that this was a village night fisherman checking his fishing rods and did not want, apparently, to recognize his good place by the flashes of the lantern.
Hey! - I shouted deliberately to scare. - Have you caught a lot of burbot?
“I caught a lot of burbots...” the echo flew off from the other shore, something gurgled in the water, and there was no more flash.
I stood there for a while, wanted to shout something else, but I didn’t dare and walked slowly to my place, trying not to creak my cloak and pearl barley.
I found my donkeys with difficulty, slipped my hand into the water and did not immediately feel the fishing line in the icy autumn water.
The line came towards me easily and freely, but suddenly it tightened a little, and not far from the shore a dark funnel appeared in the water, with a white fish belly flashing in it.
Crawling along the sand, a burbot crawled out of the water. He did not beat wildly or tremble. He slowly and tensely bent in his hand - a slippery autumn fish at night. I brought the burbot to my eyes, trying to make out the patterns on it; A small burbot eye, like a ladybug, flashed dimly.
There were also burbots on other donks.
Returning home, I spent a long time looking at the burbots by the light of a kerosene lamp. Their sides and fins were covered with dark patterns, similar to wildflowers.
All night the burbots could not sleep and moved lazily in the cage.
Snow Rider
They say that when the first snow falls, the Snow Horseman announces in the forests.
He rides on a white horse through snow-covered ravines, through pine forests, through birch groves.
Either there, behind the fir trees, or there, in the clearing, the Snow Horseman will flash, appear in front of people and rush silently further - through snow-covered ravines, through pine forests, through birch groves. No one knows why he appears in the forest and where he is going.
How does he talk to people, I asked Orekhyevna?
Why should he talk to us? What to ask? He will just look at you and immediately understand everything. As if from a book, he reads what is written in your soul.
The fortieth day has long passed since the first snow. A strong frosty winter has arrived.
But somehow, in a snow-covered ravine, I saw the Snow Horseman rushing in the distance.
Wait! - I shouted after him.
The Horseman paused, glanced at me briefly and immediately spurred his horse and galloped on. I immediately read what was in my soul. But I had nothing special in my soul except black grouse and hares. And felt boots with galoshes.
Another time, in the middle of winter, I met the Horseman. He whistled - and the Snow Rider paused, turned around and immediately read what was in my soul. And again there was nothing special in my soul. Except, of course, hot tea with honey.
The winter became more severe and deeper. The snow kept falling and falling to the ground. The forests and villages were covered in snow and snow.
In the dead of winter, I met the Horseman for the third time.
Slowly, at a pace, he rode along the clearing, through the birch grove towards me. He saw me and stopped.
I wanted to ask him how long until spring, but I was embarrassed.
The Snow Rider looked at me carefully and patiently, reading my soul from end to beginning.
And what is there, in my soul?
Ice hole
As soon as there was strong ice on the river, I cut an ice hole in it with an ice pick.
A round window appeared in the ice, and through the window, through the ice, black living water looked out.
I went to the ice hole for water - to boil tea, to heat the bathhouse - and made sure that the ice hole did not overgrow, crushed the ice that had grown overnight, and opened the living river water.
Our neighbor, Ksenya, often went to the ice hole to rinse her clothes, and Orekhevna swore at her through the glass:
Well, who rinses like that?! Punch-poke - and into the basin! No, today's women don't know how to rinse clothes. Rinse longer, don't rush. You'll be in time for the TV! I used to rinse before. My face is red from the frost, my hands are blue, and my underwear is white. And now everyone is in a hurry to watch TV. Tyrpyr - and into the basin!
One day her little daughter, Natasha, went to the river with Ksenia.
While her mother was rinsing, Natasha stood aside and was afraid to approach the ice hole.
“Come, don’t be afraid,” the mother said.
I won’t... I won’t go... there’s someone there.
Yes, there is no one... who is here?
I do not know who. But all of a sudden he jumps out and drags you under the ice.
The neighbors rinsed their sheets and shirts, went home, and Natasha kept looking back at the ice hole: would anyone crawl out?
I went up to the ice hole to see what she was afraid of there, to see if there really was anyone sitting under the ice.
He looked into the black water and saw two dull green eyes in the water.
The bottom pike approached the ice hole to breathe in the winter, ringing, free air.
Hare trails
What is this! Wherever you go, there are hare tracks everywhere.
And in the garden there are not just footprints - real paths have been trampled by white hare between the pear and apple trees.
It turned out to be eleven.
I felt offended - I slept like a log all night, but I never dreamed of hares.
I put on my felt boots and went into the forest.
And in the forest, the hare paths turned into roads, just some kind of hare highway. Apparently, at night white hare and hare were walking around here in herds, bumping heads in the dark.
And now not a single one is visible - snow, footprints, sun.
Finally I noticed one white hare. He slept in the roots of a fallen aspen, his black ear sticking out from under the snow.
I came closer and said quietly:
The black ear stuck out a little more, and behind it was another white ear.
This other ear - the white one - listened calmly, but the black one moved all the time, mistrustfully leaning in different directions. As you can see, it was the most important.
I sniffed - and the black ear jumped, and the whole hare came out from under the snow.
Without looking at me, he ran sideways to the side, and only his black ear looked around restlessly - what am I doing there? Am I standing calm? Or am I running behind?
The hare ran faster and faster and was already rushing headlong, jumping over the snowdrifts.
His black ear flashed among the birch trunks. And I laughed, watching it flash, although I could no longer make out whether it was a hare’s ear or a black stripe on a birch tree.
Cloud and Jackdaws
In the village of Tarakanovo there lives a horse, Tuchka, red as fire. Jackdaws love her.
Jackdaws do not pay attention to other horses, but when they see Tuchka, they immediately sit on her back and begin to pluck her fur.
“Her fur is warm, like a camel’s,” says the driver Agathon. - I could knit socks from that wool.
The jackdaws are jumping on the broad back, and Tuchka is snoring, she is pleased with the way the jackdaws pinch. The fur comes out on its own, and every now and then you have to scratch it against the fence. Having filled their beaks with warmth, the jackdaws fly under the roof, into the nest.
Cloud is a peaceful horse. She never kicks.
The driver Agathon is also a kind man. He looks thoughtfully at the horse's tail. If some jackdaw had landed on his head, he probably wouldn’t have blinked an eyelid.
About the authors
YURI KOVAL is the author of fascinating books that are not similar to each other: “Underdog”, “The Adventures of Vasya Kurolesov”, “Five Kidnapped Monks”, “The Lightest Boat in the World” and many others. The works of Yu. Koval have been translated into the languages of our union republics and foreign countries, they are often heard on the radio, and films are made from them.
Yu. Koval's books are the favorite reading of many thousands of young and adult readers.
GALINA MAKAVEEVA is a famous artist, illustrator of more than sixty children's books. Books by Yu. Koval, V. Berestov, R. Pogodin, N. Matveeva, I. Tokmakova with illustrations by G. Makaveeva were awarded diplomas at All-Russian and All-Union competitions. For ten years, G. Makaveeva was the main artist of the popular children's magazine “Murzilka”. G. Makaveeva’s works have been exhibited in more than 25 countries.
Yuri Koval
SPARROW LAKE
Sparrow Lake
A long time ago I heard stories about Sparrow Lake.
They said that they caught huge breams that wouldn’t fit into the basin, perches that wouldn’t fit into the bucket, monstrous pikes that wouldn’t fit into anything at all.
It was surprising that the pike and perch were so huge, and the lake was Sparrow.
You should go to Sparrow Lake. You will find him there, in the forests.
I searched and one day reached Sparrow Lake. Not too big, but not small either, it lay among spruce forests, and three islands cut its waters right in the middle. These islands looked like narrow-nosed ships that sailed one after another, and the sails of the ships were birch trees.
There was no boat, and I couldn’t get to the islands, so I started fishing.
I saw pike, black perch, and golden bream. True, they were all not too big, they fit in one bucket, and there was still some space left.
I put an onion in this very place, peeled the potatoes, threw in peppercorns, added water and hung the bucket over the fire.
While the soup was boiling, I looked at the island-ships, at their birch sails.
The orioles flew over green sails, which beat and fluttered in the wind, but could not move their ships. And I liked that there are ships in the world that cannot be moved.
Grunt
On a late spring evening, when the sun hides behind the treetops, a strange long-billed bird appears out of nowhere over the forest. It flies low over the transparent alder forest and carefully looks around all the clearings and clearings, as if looking for something.
Horch... horch... - a hoarse voice comes from above - Horch...
Previously, in the villages they said that this was not a bird at all, but rather an imp flying over the forest, looking for its horns, which it had lost.
But this, of course, is not an imp. This is a woodcock flying over the forest, looking for a bride.
Woodcock has evening eyes - large and dark. Because of its hoarse voice, the woodcock is sometimes called “grunt”, and because of its long beak – “elephant”.
In one village, I heard, they call him affectionately “valishen.” This is the name I like best.
Dick and blueberry
There is a dog living with us in the hut, whose name is Dick. He loves to watch me smoke. He sits opposite me and watches smoke pour out of my mouth.
Dick is a kind dog, but a glutton. Stuffing his belly with fish entrails and burying his head under a Christmas tree so that mosquitoes don’t bite him is what he needs!
Once in the swamp I found a blueberry meadow. I couldn’t tear myself away from blueberries, I picked and ate handful after handful.
Dick ran from one side to the other, looking into my mouth, not understanding what I was eating.
Yes, these are blueberries, Dick! - I explained. - Look how much there is.
I grabbed a handful and handed it to him. He immediately removed the berries from his palm.
Now go ahead, I said.
But Dick didn’t understand where the berries came from, he ran around, pushing me in the side with his nose so that I wouldn’t forget about him.
Then I decided to teach Dick some sense. I’m embarrassed to tell you, but I got down on all fours, winked at him and began to eat the berries straight from the bush. Dick jumped with admiration, opened his mouth - and only the bushes began to crackle.
Two days later Dick picked blueberries around the hut, and I was glad that I had not taught him to love currants and cloudberries.
Star ide
In early spring, Vitya and I went fishing to the Bridge.
The Bridge is not that far from us, but still six kilometers. They walked and walked, kneading the swamp and forest spring mud, and were tired. When they arrived at the Bridge, they immediately started a fire and started boiling tea. Vitya says:
I don’t know about you, but all my life I’ve dreamed of catching a big ide.
How big? What sizes?
No less than a boot.
What boot? Ordinary or wandering?
Well, it's you, guy, too much. An ide the size of a swamp! There are no such things. Let's catch ide with an ordinary, familiar tarpaulin boot.
We agreed and tied a secret dong for ide. I can’t tell you what the secret of this donkey is - Vitya doesn’t tell me.
And so we put about a dozen worms on a large hook and threw it all into the water.
But he doesn’t take ide. A small cluster of worms is tugging. The bell on the donk is ringing.
The sorozhonka tortured her, - Vitya says, - she overcame her. The roach is a small roach. In our North, the roach is called the roach.
By evening, at the very least, we caught some saplings, but the ide just won’t take us.
And then night came.
Over Tsypina Mountain, under the stars, geese and cranes began to fly north, woodcocks began to twinkle and gleam, and then the ide took over.
The line stretched terribly, Vitya trembled, grabbed the line with both hands, and pulled it to the shore.
And in the distance, in the darkness among the reeds, the ide that had come to the surface splashed. Silver reflections rained down across the water from the blows of his tail and starry spray flew.
And so Vitya led the ide to the shore and almost pulled it out, when suddenly the ide jerked. Vitya slipped and fell into the water next to the ide.
And so they both flounder in the black water, and star spray flies from both of them. And I realized that the ide would go away now if I didn’t come up with something.
And I came up with an idea. I also fell into the water on the other side of the ide. And now the two of us are already lying in the water and there is an ide between us.
And above us, by the way, all the night constellations, all the main spring stars, are shining and standing above us, and especially clearly, I see, Leo and Gemini are standing above us. And now it seems to me that Vitya and I are twins, and between us is a lion. Everything was somehow confused in my head.
And yet we pulled out the ide, dragged it to the shore, and it turned out to be very large. There was no time to measure the boot - it was night, but it just couldn’t fit into the bucket.
We put him in a bucket upside down and ran home through the swamp and forest spring mud, to Tsypina Mountain. The ide beat its tail in the bucket, and in each flake it was played by the main spring constellations - Leo and Gemini.
We hoped that the ide would not fall asleep until the morning, but he fell asleep.
I was very upset that the star ide fell asleep and there was no trace of it left on the earth. He took a board, put ide on it and traced it exactly along the contour with a pencil. And then he sat for a long time, cutting out the star ide. Let him at least leave his mark on my board.
And we caught the ide that you see in the picture another time. This is not an ide, but an ide. But for some reason he is also a star. I don't know why. We caught it in the morning, when the stars disappeared under the solar veil... Probably, every ide is starry...
Above the river, above the pool in which the strange northern fish grayling hides from the kite, stands a birch tree.
The trunk of the birch is crooked, it either bends towards the river, or pulls it away from the water of the taiga, and at its steepest knee the bark burst.
A black birch mushroom, chaga, grew in this place for many years.
I cut down the chaga with an axe.
Huge, with the head of a bull, she could barely fit into the backpack.
I dried the chaga in the sun for several days, and when the mushroom was dry, I chopped the black and orange core with a knife, put it in a pot, and brewed it with boiling water.
The tea ran out and I drank chaga. It is bitter, like tea, smells of burnt mushrooms and distant spring birch sap.
Its color is thick, coffee, the color of a pool in which the northern grayling fish hides from the kite and from our eyes.
Neighborhood
I am not afraid of snakes, but I am afraid in the most serious way. In places where there are a lot of vipers, I always wear rubber boots and deliberately stomp hard so that the snakes know that I am coming.
“This guy is stomping around again,” the vipers probably think. - Just look, it will come. We must leave."
Behind our house, a family of vipers lives in the stones. On warm sunny days they crawl out to bask on the pebbles. We have been living next to each other for many years, and so far - pah, pah, pah - there has never been a chance for us to quarrel.
One day Vitya decided to take a photo of a snake. He set up a tripod in the stones and began to lie in wait.
Soon the viper crawled out, and Vitya clicked. I went to see how he was filming.
Curled up, the viper lay in the stones, lazily looking at the photographer, and behind him, at his very heels, lay the second one. Vitya didn’t notice this second one and could step on it every second. I was about to scream, when suddenly I saw a third one, crawling up to the side of the tripod.
“You’re surrounded,” I told the photographer. - Stop filming.
Now, I'll make another take. The sun will come out from behind the clouds.
The sun finally came out from behind the cloud, Vitya made a double and carefully, maneuvering between the vipers, brought out his tripod.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” I said, “it worked out.” There was also a similar case with vipers.
Yuri Koval
SPARROW LAKE
Sparrow Lake
A long time ago I heard stories about Sparrow Lake.
They said that they caught huge breams that wouldn’t fit into the basin, perches that wouldn’t fit into the bucket, monstrous pikes that wouldn’t fit into anything at all.
It was surprising that the pike and perch were so huge, and the lake was Sparrow.
You should go to Sparrow Lake. You will find him there, in the forests.
I searched and one day reached Sparrow Lake. Not too big, but not small either, it lay among spruce forests, and three islands cut its waters right in the middle. These islands looked like narrow-nosed ships that sailed one after another, and the sails of the ships were birch trees.
There was no boat, and I couldn’t get to the islands, so I started fishing.
I saw pike, black perch, and golden bream. True, they were all not too big, they fit in one bucket, and there was still some space left.
I put an onion in this very place, peeled the potatoes, threw in peppercorns, added water and hung the bucket over the fire.
While the soup was boiling, I looked at the island-ships, at their birch sails.
The orioles flew over green sails, which beat and fluttered in the wind, but could not move their ships. And I liked that there are ships in the world that cannot be moved.
Grunt
On a late spring evening, when the sun hides behind the treetops, a strange long-billed bird appears out of nowhere over the forest. It flies low over the transparent alder forest and carefully looks around all the clearings and clearings, as if looking for something.
Horch... horch... - a hoarse voice comes from above - Horch...
Previously, in the villages they said that this was not a bird at all, but rather an imp flying over the forest, looking for its horns, which it had lost.
But this, of course, is not an imp. This is a woodcock flying over the forest, looking for a bride.
Woodcock has evening eyes - large and dark. Because of its hoarse voice, the woodcock is sometimes called “grunt”, and because of its long beak – “elephant”.
In one village, I heard, they call him affectionately “valishen.” This is the name I like best.
Dick and blueberry
There is a dog living with us in the hut, whose name is Dick. He loves to watch me smoke. He sits opposite me and watches smoke pour out of my mouth.
Dick is a kind dog, but a glutton. Stuffing his belly with fish entrails and burying his head under a Christmas tree so that mosquitoes don’t bite him is what he needs!
Once in the swamp I found a blueberry meadow. I couldn’t tear myself away from blueberries, I picked and ate handful after handful.
Dick ran from one side to the other, looking into my mouth, not understanding what I was eating.
Yes, these are blueberries, Dick! - I explained. - Look how much there is.
I grabbed a handful and handed it to him. He immediately removed the berries from his palm.
Now go ahead, I said.
But Dick didn’t understand where the berries came from, he ran around, pushing me in the side with his nose so that I wouldn’t forget about him.
Then I decided to teach Dick some sense. I’m embarrassed to tell you, but I got down on all fours, winked at him and began to eat the berries straight from the bush. Dick jumped with admiration, opened his mouth - and only the bushes began to crackle.
Two days later Dick picked blueberries around the hut, and I was glad that I had not taught him to love currants and cloudberries.
Star ide
In early spring, Vitya and I went fishing to the Bridge.
The Bridge is not that far from us, but still six kilometers. They walked and walked, kneading the swamp and forest spring mud, and were tired. When they arrived at the Bridge, they immediately started a fire and started boiling tea. Vitya says:
I don’t know about you, but all my life I’ve dreamed of catching a big ide.
How big? What sizes?
No less than a boot.
What boot? Ordinary or wandering?
Well, it's you, guy, too much. An ide the size of a swamp! There are no such things. Let's catch ide with an ordinary, familiar tarpaulin boot.
We agreed and tied a secret dong for ide. I can’t tell you what the secret of this donkey is - Vitya doesn’t tell me.
And so we put about a dozen worms on a large hook and threw it all into the water.
But he doesn’t take ide. A small cluster of worms is tugging. The bell on the donk is ringing.
The sorozhonka tortured her, - Vitya says, - she overcame her. The roach is a small roach. In our North, the roach is called the roach.
By evening, at the very least, we caught some saplings, but the ide just won’t take us.
And then night came.
Over Tsypina Mountain, under the stars, geese and cranes began to fly north, woodcocks began to twinkle and gleam, and then the ide took over.
The line stretched terribly, Vitya trembled, grabbed the line with both hands, and pulled it to the shore.
And in the distance, in the darkness among the reeds, the ide that had come to the surface splashed. Silver reflections rained down across the water from the blows of his tail and starry spray flew.
And so Vitya led the ide to the shore and almost pulled it out, when suddenly the ide jerked. Vitya slipped and fell into the water next to the ide.
And so they both flounder in the black water, and star spray flies from both of them. And I realized that the ide would go away now if I didn’t come up with something.
And I came up with an idea. I also fell into the water on the other side of the ide. And now the two of us are already lying in the water and there is an ide between us.
And above us, by the way, all the night constellations, all the main spring stars, are shining and standing above us, and especially clearly, I see, Leo and Gemini are standing above us. And now it seems to me that Vitya and I are twins, and between us is a lion. Everything was somehow confused in my head.
And yet we pulled out the ide, dragged it to the shore, and it turned out to be very large. There was no time to measure the boot - it was night, but it just couldn’t fit into the bucket.
We put him in a bucket upside down and ran home through the swamp and forest spring mud, to Tsypina Mountain. The ide beat its tail in the bucket, and in each flake it was played by the main spring constellations - Leo and Gemini.
We hoped that the ide would not fall asleep until the morning, but he fell asleep.
I was very upset that the star ide fell asleep and there was no trace of it left on the earth. He took a board, put ide on it and traced it exactly along the contour with a pencil. And then he sat for a long time, cutting out the star ide. Let him at least leave his mark on my board.
And we caught the ide that you see in the picture another time. This is not an ide, but an ide. But for some reason he is also a star. I don't know why. We caught it in the morning, when the stars disappeared under the solar veil... Probably, every ide is starry...
Sparrow Lake
A long time ago I heard stories about Sparrow Lake.
They said that they caught huge breams that wouldn’t fit into the basin, perches that wouldn’t fit into the bucket, monstrous pikes that wouldn’t fit into anything at all.
It was surprising that the pike and perch were so huge, and the lake was Sparrow.
You should go to Sparrow Lake. You will find him there, in the forests.
I searched and one day reached Sparrow Lake. Not too big, but not small either, it lay among spruce forests, and three islands cut its waters right in the middle. These islands looked like narrow-nosed ships that sailed one after another, and the sails of the ships were birch trees.
There was no boat, and I couldn’t get to the islands, so I started fishing.
I saw pike, black perch, and golden bream. True, they were all not too big, they fit in one bucket, and there was still some space left.
I put an onion in this very place, peeled the potatoes, threw in peppercorns, added water and hung the bucket over the fire.
While the soup was boiling, I looked at the island-ships, at their birch sails.
The orioles flew over green sails, which beat and fluttered in the wind, but could not move their ships. And I liked that there are ships in the world that cannot be moved.
Grunt
On a late spring evening, when the sun hides behind the treetops, a strange long-billed bird appears out of nowhere over the forest. It flies low over the transparent alder forest and carefully looks around all the clearings and clearings, as if looking for something.
Horch... horch... - a hoarse voice comes from above - Horch...
Previously, in the villages they said that this was not a bird at all, but rather an imp flying over the forest, looking for its horns, which it had lost.
But this, of course, is not an imp. This is a woodcock flying over the forest, looking for a bride.
Woodcock has evening eyes - large and dark. Because of its hoarse voice, the woodcock is sometimes called “grunt”, and because of its long beak – “elephant”.
In one village, I heard, they call him affectionately “valishen.” This is the name I like best.
Dick and blueberry
There is a dog living with us in the hut, whose name is Dick. He loves to watch me smoke. He sits opposite me and watches smoke pour out of my mouth.
Dick is a kind dog, but a glutton. Stuffing his belly with fish entrails and burying his head under a Christmas tree so that mosquitoes don’t bite him is what he needs!
Once in the swamp I found a blueberry meadow. I couldn’t tear myself away from blueberries, I picked and ate handful after handful.
Dick ran from one side to the other, looking into my mouth, not understanding what I was eating.
Yes, these are blueberries, Dick! - I explained. - Look how much there is.
I grabbed a handful and handed it to him. He immediately removed the berries from his palm.
Now go ahead, I said.
But Dick didn’t understand where the berries came from, he ran around, pushing me in the side with his nose so that I wouldn’t forget about him.
Then I decided to teach Dick some sense. I’m embarrassed to tell you, but I got down on all fours, winked at him and began to eat the berries straight from the bush. Dick jumped with admiration, opened his mouth - and only the bushes began to crackle.
Two days later Dick picked blueberries around the hut, and I was glad that I had not taught him to love currants and cloudberries.
Star ide
In early spring, Vitya and I went fishing to the Bridge.
The Bridge is not that far from us, but still six kilometers. They walked and walked, kneading the swamp and forest spring mud, and were tired. When they arrived at the Bridge, they immediately started a fire and started boiling tea. Vitya says:
I don’t know about you, but all my life I’ve dreamed of catching a big ide.
How big? What sizes?
No less than a boot.
What boot? Ordinary or wandering?
Well, it's you, guy, too much. An ide the size of a swamp! There are no such things. Let's catch ide with an ordinary, familiar tarpaulin boot.
We agreed and tied a secret dong for ide. I can’t tell you what the secret of this donkey is - Vitya doesn’t tell me.
And so we put about a dozen worms on a large hook and threw it all into the water.
But he doesn’t take ide. A small cluster of worms is tugging. The bell on the donk is ringing.
The sorozhonka tortured her, - Vitya says, - she overcame her. The roach is a small roach. In our North, the roach is called the roach.
By evening, at the very least, we caught some saplings, but the ide just won’t take us.
And then night came.
Over Tsypina Mountain, under the stars, geese and cranes began to fly north, woodcocks began to twinkle and gleam, and then the ide took over.
The line stretched terribly, Vitya trembled, grabbed the line with both hands, and pulled it to the shore.
And in the distance, in the darkness among the reeds, the ide that had come to the surface splashed. Silver reflections rained down across the water from the blows of his tail and starry spray flew.
And so Vitya led the ide to the shore and almost pulled it out, when suddenly the ide jerked. Vitya slipped and fell into the water next to the ide.
And so they both flounder in the black water, and star spray flies from both of them. And I realized that the ide would go away now if I didn’t come up with something.
And I came up with an idea. I also fell into the water on the other side of the ide. And now the two of us are already lying in the water and there is an ide between us.
And above us, by the way, all the night constellations, all the main spring stars, are shining and standing above us, and especially clearly, I see, Leo and Gemini are standing above us. And now it seems to me that Vitya and I are twins, and between us is a lion. Everything was somehow confused in my head.
And yet we pulled out the ide, dragged it to the shore, and it turned out to be very large. There was no time to measure the boot - it was night, but it just couldn’t fit into the bucket.
We put him in a bucket upside down and ran home through the swamp and forest spring mud, to Tsypina Mountain. The ide beat its tail in the bucket, and in each flake it was played by the main spring constellations - Leo and Gemini.
We hoped that the ide would not fall asleep until the morning, but he fell asleep.
I was very upset that the star ide fell asleep and there was no trace of it left on the earth. He took a board, put ide on it and traced it exactly along the contour with a pencil. And then he sat for a long time, cutting out the star ide. Let him at least leave his mark on my board.
And we caught the ide that you see in the picture another time. This is not an ide, but an ide. But for some reason he is also a star. I don't know why. We caught it in the morning, when the stars disappeared under the solar veil... Probably, every ide is starry...
Above the river, above the pool in which the strange northern fish grayling hides from the kite, stands a birch tree.
The trunk of the birch is crooked, it either bends towards the river, or pulls it away from the water of the taiga, and at its steepest knee the bark burst.
A black birch mushroom, chaga, grew in this place for many years.
I cut down the chaga with an axe.
Huge, with the head of a bull, she could barely fit into the backpack.
