... Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention the boys, of course, has his own secret and a little funny dream. I also had such a dream - to definitely get to Borovoye Lake.
The village where I lived that summer was only twenty kilometers from the lake. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - and the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, there was only a forest around, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - Semyon the garden watchman was angry. - Didn't you see what? What a fussy, grasping people went, Lord! You see, he has to claw everything with his hand, spy out with his own eye! What are you looking for there? One body of water. And nothing more!
Have you been there?
Why did he give up to me, this lake! I have no other business, or what? Here they are sitting, all my business! - Semyon tapped his fist on his brown neck. - On the hump!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys joined me, Lyonka and Vanya. No sooner had we left the outskirts than the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka, everything that he saw around, thought for rubles.
Here, look, - he said to me in his googly voice, - the gander is coming. How much do you think he pulls?
How do I know!
It’s probably worth a hundred rubles, ”Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked:“ But how much will this pine tree pull? Two hundred rubles? Or all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - At the very brains on a dime, and ask the price of everything. My eyes would not be looking at him.
After that Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a familiar conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they pulling for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, no matter how I pushed you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke my nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village ...
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention the boys, of course, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I also had such a dream - to definitely get to Borovoye Lake.
The village where I lived that summer was only twenty kilometers from the lake. Everyone discouraged me from going - and the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, there was only a forest all around, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
- Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - Semyon the garden watchman was angry. - Didn't you see what? What a fussy, grasping people went, Lord! You see, he has to claw everything with his hand, spy out with his own eye! What are you looking for there? One body of water. And nothing more!
- Have you been there?
- And why did he surrender to me, this lake! I have no other business, or what? Here they are sitting, all my business! - Semyon tapped his fist on his brown neck. - On the hump!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys got along with me, Lyonka and Vanya. No sooner had we left the outskirts than the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka, everything that he saw around, thought for rubles.
- Look, - he said to me in his googly voice, - the gander is coming. How much do you think he pulls?
- How do I know!
“It’s a hundred rubles, perhaps,” Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree pull? Two hundred rubles? Or all three hundred?
- Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - At the very brains on a dime, and ask the price of everything. My eyes would not be looking at him.
After that Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a familiar conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
- Whose brains are they pulling for a dime? My?
- Probably not mine!
- Look!
- Look for yourself!
- Don't grab! The cap was not sewn for you!
- Oh, no matter how I pushed you in my own way!
- Don't scare me! Don't poke my nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
- Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a hot fight. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he hangs all the prices, as in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly bring down the whole forest, chop it down for firewood. And I am more afraid than anything else when a forest is being cut down. How I fear passion!
- Why so?
- Oxygen from forests. The forests will be chopped down, the oxygen will become liquid, dry. And the earth will no longer be able to attract it, keep it close to itself. He will fly away to where! - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - There will be nothing for a person to breathe. The forester explained to me.
We climbed the path and entered an oak forest. Immediately, red ants began to seize us. They clung to their legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of sandy ant roads ran between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and again rose to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads went on continuously. In one direction, the ants ran empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry paws of beetles, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
- Vanity! - said Vanya. - As in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to get ant eggs. Every year. Takes away in sacks. This is the most bird food. And it's good to fish with them. The hook you need is tiny, tiny!
Behind an oak grove, at the edge, at the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Along the cross were crawling red, speckled white ladybugs. A quiet wind blew in the face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, a gray wave ran over them.
For the oat field, we went through the village of Polkovo. I noticed long ago that almost all regimental peasants differ from the neighboring inhabitants by their tall stature.
- A stately people in Polkov! - our Zaborievskys spoke with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkov, we went to rest in the hut to Vasily Lyalin - a tall handsome old man with a piebald beard. Tufts of gray stuck out in disarray in his shaggy black hair.
When we entered the hut to Lyalin, he shouted:
- Bend your heads! Heads! They all smash my forehead against the lintel! It hurts tall people in Polkov, but they are slow-witted - the huts are put on low stature.
During a conversation with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
- History! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we were in vain swung high? In vain, even the bugs-bug does not live. It also has its own purpose.
Vanya laughed.
- You wait to laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - Still not learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a wicked tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or was it not?
- I was, - said Vanya. - We studied.
- Was and swam. And the business man made those that we still hiccup. The master was a fierce one. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he is now inflamed and begins to rattle: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods! " What a king he was! Well, it happened - the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “Walk a step in the indicated direction for a thousand miles! Hike! And after a thousand miles to stand for an eternal stand! " And shows the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What can you do! Chagalls walked for three months and walked to this place. All around the forest is impassable. One wild. They stopped, began to cut huts, crush clay, lay stoves, dig wells. They built a village and named it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, but the soldiers settled down to this area, and, read it, everyone stayed here. The area, you see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth is from them. If you don’t believe, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is written in them. And just think - if only they had to walk two miles and come out to the river, there they would have stood there. So no, they didn't dare to disobey the order - they stopped as if. The people are still surprised. “Why are you, they say, the regiments, stared into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They are terrifying, they say, brutes, but guessing in the head, it seems, is not enough. " Well, you explain to them how it was, then they agree. “They say you can't argue against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to accompany us to the forest, to show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we went through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. A pine forest greeted us after the hot fields with silence and coolness. High in the sun's slanting rays, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of wild strawberries, heated stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday's rain glittered on the leaves of the hazel. Bumps fell loudly.
- Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines were replaced by birches, and behind them the water gleamed.
- Borovoe? I asked.
- No. Until Borovoe one more step and step. This is the Larino lake. Come on, look into the water, look at it.
The water in the Larin lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only at the shore did it shudder a little, - there a spring flowed into the lake from under the mosses. Several large dark trunks lay at the bottom. They gleamed with a faint and dark fire when the sun reached them.
- Black oak, - said Lyalin. - Stained, age-old. We pulled out one, but it's hard to work with him. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - so forever! Heavy tree, drowning in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Under it lay ancient oaks, as if cast from black steel. Butterflies were flying over the water, reflected in it yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin took us to a back road.
“Go straight ahead,” he showed, “until you run into a dry swamp. And the trail will go along the mountains to the lake itself. Just walk carefully - there are many pegs.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I went along the forest road. The forest grew higher, more mysterious and darker. Golden tar froze in streams on the pines.
At first, the ruts were still visible, long ago overgrown with grass, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the whole road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Under it lay the moss - dense and warmed up to the roots birch and aspen woodlands. The trees were growing out of deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered over the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichens were scattered about.
A narrow path led through the moshary. She walked around high bumps. At the end of the trail, the water shone black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked cautiously across the balls. From under the moss sticking sharp, like spears, pegs - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets began. One cheek on each berry - the one facing south - was completely red, while the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood above the waist along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and, with a desperate squeak, ran across the water.
The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sickly. The fish struck, and the lilies swayed.
- Here is grace! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed. We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants emerging in front of us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of the night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly tinkled along the lake, as if stretching between the black sky and the water thin, like a cobweb, trembling strings.
That's all I wanted to tell you. But since then, I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, hearing, imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, exploring a piece of our country, you can understand how good it is and how our hearts are tied to each of its paths, springs and even to the timid squeak of a forest bird.
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention the boys, of course, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I also had such a dream - to definitely get to Borovoye Lake.
The village where I lived that summer was only twenty kilometers from the lake. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - and the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, there was only a forest around, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. - Didn't you see what? What a fussy, grasping people went, Lord! You see, he needs to claw everything with his hand, spy out with his own eye! What are you looking for there? One body of water. And nothing more!
Have you been there?
Why did he give up to me, this lake! I have no other business, or what? Here they are sitting, all my business! - Semyon tapped his fist on his brown neck. - On the hump!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys joined me - Lyonka and Vanya.
No sooner had we left the outskirts than immediately revealed the complete hostility of the characters of Lyonka and Vanya. Lyonka, everything that he saw around, figured out for rubles.
Here, look, - he said to me in his googly voice, - the gander is coming. How much do you think he pulls?
How do I know!
It’s probably worth a hundred rubles, ”Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked:“ But how much will this pine tree pull? Two hundred rubles? Or all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - At the very brains on a dime, and ask the price of everything. My eyes would not be looking at him.
After that Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a familiar conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they pulling for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, no matter how I pushed you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke my nose! The fight was short but decisive.
Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village. I began to shame Vanya.
Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a hot fight. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he hangs all the prices, as in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly bring down the whole forest, chop it for firewood. And I am more afraid than anything else when a forest is being cut down. How I fear passion!
Why so?
Oxygen from the forests. The forests will be chopped down, the oxygen will become liquid, dry. And the earth will no longer be able to attract it, keep it close to itself. He will fly away to where! - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - There will be nothing for a person to breathe. The forester explained to me.
We climbed the path and entered an oak forest. Immediately, red ants began to seize us. They clung to their legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of sandy ant roads ran between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and again rose to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads went on continuously. In one direction, the ants ran empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry paws of beetles, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
Vanity! - said Vanya. - As in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to get ant eggs. Every year. Takes away in sacks. This is the most bird food. And it's good to fish with them. You need a tiny hook, a tiny one!
Behind an oak grove, at the edge, at the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Along the cross were crawling red, speckled white ladybugs.
A quiet wind blew in the face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, a gray wave ran over them.
For the oat field, we went through the village of Polkovo. I noticed long ago that almost all regimental peasants differ from the neighboring inhabitants by their tall stature.
A stately people in Polkov! - our Zaborievskys spoke with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkov we went to rest in the hut to Vasily Lyalin, a tall handsome old man with a piebald beard. Tufts of gray stuck out in disarray in his shaggy black hair.
When we entered the hut to Lyalin, he shouted:
Bend your heads! Heads! They all smash my forehead against the lintel! It hurts tall people in Polkov, but they are slow-witted - the huts are put on low stature.
During a conversation with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
History! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we were in vain swung high? In vain, even a bugs-bug does not live. It also has its own purpose.
Vanya laughed.
You wait to laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - Still a little learned to laugh. You listen. Was there such a wicked tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or was it not?
I was, - said Vanya. - We studied.
Was and swam. And the business man made those that we still hiccup. The master was a fierce one. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he is now inflamed and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods! " What a king he was! Well, it happened - the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “Take a step march in the indicated direction for a thousand miles! Hike! And after a thousand miles to become an eternal stand! " And shows the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What can you do! Chagalls walked for three months and walked to this place. All around the forest is impassable. One wild. They stopped, began to cut huts, crush clay, lay stoves, dig wells. They built a village and named it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, but the soldiers settled down to this area, and, read it, everyone stayed here. The area, you see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth is from them. If you don’t believe, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is written in them. And you just think - if only they would have walked two miles and went to the river, there they would have stood there. So no, they didn't dare to disobey the order - they stopped as if. The people are still surprised. “Why are you, they say, the regiments, stared into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They are terrifying, they say, brutes, but guessing in the head, it seems, is not enough. " Well, you explain to them how it was, then they agree. “They say you can't argue against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to accompany us to the forest, to show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we went through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. A pine forest greeted us after the hot fields with silence and coolness. High in the sun's slanting rays, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of wild strawberries, heated stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday's rain glittered on the leaves of the hazel. Bumps fell loudly.
Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines were replaced by birches, and water gleamed behind them.
Borovoe? I asked.
No. Until Borovoe still walk and walk. This is the Larino lake. Come on, look into the water, look at it.
The water in the Larin lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore did it shudder a little, - there a spring flowed into the lake from under the mosses. Several large dark trunks lay at the bottom. They gleamed with a faint and dark fire when the sun reached them.
Black oak, - said Lyalin. - Stained, age-old. We pulled out one, but it's hard to work with him. Breaks saws. But if you do a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - so forever! Heavy tree, drowning in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Under it lay ancient oaks, as if cast from black steel. Butterflies were flying over the water, reflected in it by yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin took us to a back road.
Go straight ahead, - he showed, - until you run into a dry swamp. And the trail will go along the mountains to the lake itself. Just walk carefully - there are many pegs.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I went along the forest road. The forest grew higher, more mysterious and darker. Golden tar froze in streams on the pines.
At first, the ruts were still visible, long overgrown with grass, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the whole road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Under it were spread out the moss - dense and warmed to the roots birch and aspen woodlands. The trees were growing out of deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered over the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichens were scattered.
A narrow path led through the moshary. She walked around high bumps.
At the end of the trail, the water glowed with a black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked cautiously across the balls. From under the moss sticking out sharp, like spears, pegs - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets began. One cheek on each berry - the one facing south - was completely red, while the other was just beginning to turn pink.
A heavy wood grouse jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the undergrowth, breaking the dry forest.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood above the waist along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran with a desperate squeak on the water.
The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sickly. The fish struck, and the lilies swayed.
Here is grace! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed.
We stayed at the lake for two days.
We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants emerging in front of us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of the night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly tinkled along the lake, as if stretching between the black sky and the water thin, like a cobweb, trembling strings.
That's all I wanted to tell you.
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention the boys, of course, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I also had such a dream - to definitely get to Borovoye Lake.
The village where I lived that summer was only twenty kilometers from the lake. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - and the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, there was only a forest around, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - Semyon the garden watchman was angry. - Didn't you see what? What a fussy, grasping people went, Lord! You see, he has to claw everything with his hand, spy out with his own eye! What are you looking for there? One body of water. And nothing more!
Have you been there?
Why did he give up to me, this lake! I have no other business, or what? Here they are sitting, all my business! - Semyon tapped his fist on his brown neck. - On the hump!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys joined me, Lyonka and Vanya. No sooner had we left the outskirts than the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka, everything that he saw around, thought for rubles.
Here, look, - he said to me in his googly voice, - the gander is coming. How much do you think he pulls?
How do I know!
It’s probably worth a hundred rubles, ”Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked:“ But how much will this pine tree pull? Two hundred rubles? Or all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - At the very brains on a dime, and ask the price of everything. My eyes would not be looking at him.
After that Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a familiar conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they pulling for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, no matter how I pushed you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke my nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a hot fight. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he hangs all the prices, as in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly bring down the whole forest, chop it down for firewood. And I am more afraid than anything else when a forest is being cut down. How I fear passion!
Why so?
Oxygen from the forests. The forests will be chopped down, the oxygen will become liquid, dry. And the earth will no longer be able to attract it, keep it close to itself. He will fly away to where! - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - There will be nothing for a person to breathe. The forester explained to me.
We climbed the path and entered an oak forest. Immediately, red ants began to seize us. They clung to their legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of sandy ant roads ran between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and again rose to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads went on continuously. In one direction, the ants ran empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry paws of beetles, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
Vanity! - said Vanya. - As in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to get ant eggs. Every year. Takes away in sacks. This is the most bird food. And it's good to fish with them. The hook you need is tiny, tiny!
Behind an oak grove, at the edge, at the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Along the cross were crawling red, speckled white ladybugs. A quiet wind blew in the face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, a gray wave ran over them.
For the oat field, we went through the village of Polkovo. I noticed long ago that almost all regimental peasants differ from the neighboring inhabitants by their tall stature.
A stately people in Polkov! - our Zaborievskys spoke with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkov we went to rest in the hut to Vasily Lyalin, a tall handsome old man with a piebald beard. Tufts of gray stuck out in disarray in his shaggy black hair.
When we entered the hut to Lyalin, he shouted:
Bend your heads! Heads! They all smash my forehead against the lintel! It hurts tall people in Polkov, but they are slow-witted - the huts are put on low stature.
During a conversation with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
History! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we were in vain swung high? In vain, even the bugs-bug does not live. It also has its own purpose.
Vanya laughed.
You wait to laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - Still not learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a wicked tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or was it not?
I was, - said Vanya. - We studied.
Was and swam. And the business man made such that we still hiccup. Ferocious was the master. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he is now inflamed and begins to rattle: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods! " What a king he was! Well, it happened - the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “Walk a step in the indicated direction for a thousand miles! Hike! And after a thousand miles to stand for an eternal stand! " And shows the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What can you do! Chagalls walked for three months and walked to this place. All around the forest is impassable. One wild. They stopped, began to chop huts, crush clay, lay stoves, and dig wells. They built a village and named it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, but the soldiers settled down to this area, and, read it, everyone stayed here. The area, you see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth is from them. If you don’t believe, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is written in them. And just think - if only they had to walk two miles and come out to the river, there they would have stood there. So no, they didn't dare to disobey the order - they stopped as if. The people are still surprised. “Why are you, they say, the regiment's, stared into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They are terrifying, they say, brutes, but guessing in the head, it seems, is not enough. " Well, you explain to them how it was, then they agree. “They say you can't argue against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to accompany us to the forest, to show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we went through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. A pine forest greeted us after the hot fields with silence and coolness. High in the sun's slanting rays, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of wild strawberries, heated stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday's rain glittered on the leaves of the hazel. Bumps fell loudly.
Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines were replaced by birches, and behind them the water gleamed.
Borovoe? I asked.
No. Until Borovoe one more step and step. This is Lake Larino. Come on, look into the water, look at it.
The water in the Larin lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore did it shudder a little, - there a spring flowed into the lake from under the mosses. Several large dark trunks lay at the bottom. They gleamed with a faint and dark fire when the sun reached them.
Black oak, - said Lyalin. - Stained, age-old. We pulled out one, but it's hard to work with him. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - so forever! Heavy tree, drowning in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Under it lay ancient oaks, as if cast from black steel. Butterflies were flying over the water, reflected in it yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin took us to a back road.
Go straight ahead, ”he showed,“ until you run into a dry swamp. And the trail will go along the mountains to the lake itself. Just walk carefully - there are many pegs.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I went along the forest road. The forest grew higher, more mysterious and darker. Golden tar froze in streams on the pines.
At first, the ruts were still visible, long ago overgrown with grass, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the whole road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Under it lay the moss - dense and warmed to the roots birch and aspen woodlands. The trees were growing out of deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered over the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichens were scattered about.
A narrow path led through the moshary. She walked around high bumps. At the end of the trail, the water shone black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked cautiously across the balls. From under the moss sticks sharp, like spears, pegs - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets began. One cheek on each berry - the one facing south - was completely red, while the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy wood grouse jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the undergrowth, breaking the dry forest.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood above the waist along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and, with a desperate squeak, ran across the water.
The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sickly. The fish struck, and the lilies swayed.
Here is grace! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed. We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants emerging in front of us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of the night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly tinkled along the lake, as if stretching between the black sky and the water thin, like a cobweb, trembling strings.
That's all I wanted to tell you. But since then, I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, hearing, imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, exploring a piece of our country, you can understand how good it is and how our hearts are tied to each of its paths, springs and even to the timid squeak of a forest bird.
Paustovsky about nature
In the story of K.G. Paustovsky, the hero sets off on a journey to Lake Borovoe together with the village boy Vanya, an ardent defender of the forest. Their path lies through the field and the village of Polkovo with surprisingly tall peasants, grenadiers, through a mossy forest, through a swamp and pegs. Locals do not see anything special in this lake and discourage them from going to it, they are used to local boring places and do not see any miracles in them.
Only those who are truly attached to its beauty and see beauty in every corner of their country can see the wonders in nature. The old secret boyish dream of our hero is coming true - to get to Borovoe Lake.
Picture or drawing of a collection of miracles
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