On the warm earth (collection). On the warm land (collection) On the native land

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I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Sixty years active creative activity in the turbulent 20th century, full of so many events and shocks - this is the result of the life of the remarkable Soviet writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.

He spent his childhood in the Smolensk region, with its sweet, truly Russian nature. In those days, the village still preserved its ancient way of life and way of life. The boy's first impressions were festive festivities and village fairs. It was then that he merged with native land y, with her immortal beauty.

When Vanya was ten years old, he was sent to a real school. Unfortunately, this institution was distinguished by bureaucratic behavior, and the teaching went poorly. In spring, the smells of awakened greenery irresistibly attracted the boy beyond the Dnieper, to its banks, covered with a gentle haze of blossoming foliage.

Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” It was impossible to go anywhere with a “wolf ticket”. The only educational institution that did not require a certificate of trustworthiness was the St. Petersburg private agricultural courses, where he was able to get into a year later, although, as the writer admitted, he did not feel a great attraction to agriculture, just as, indeed, he never felt an attraction to settledness, property, domesticity...

Boring coursework soon turned out to be not to the liking of Sokolov-Mikitov, a man with a restless, restless character. Having settled in Reval (now Tallinn) on a merchant ship, he wandered around the world for several years. I saw many cities and countries, visited European, Asian and African ports, and became close friends with working people.

The First World War found Sokolov-Mikitov in a foreign land. With great difficulty, he made it from Greece to his homeland, and then volunteered for the front, flew on the first Russian bomber “Ilya Muromets”, and served in medical units.

In Petrograd I met the October Revolution, listened with bated breath to the speech of V.I. Lenin in the Tauride Palace. At the editorial office of Novaya Zhizn I met Maxim Gorky and other writers. During these critical years for the country, Ivan Sergeevich became a professional writer.

After the revolution, he worked briefly as a teacher at a unified labor school in his native Smolensk region. By this time, Sokolov-Mikitov had already published the first stories, noticed by such masters as I.

Bunin and A. Kuprin.

“Warm Earth” - this is what the writer called one of his first books. And it would be difficult to find a more accurate, more capacious name! After all, the native Russian land is really warm, because it is warmed by the warmth of human labor and love.

The stories of Sokolov-Mikitov date back to the time of the first polar expeditions about the voyages of the flagships of the icebreaker fleet “Georgy Sedov” and “Malygin”, which marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route. On one of the islands of the Arctic Ocean, a bay was named after Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, where he found the buoy of the lost Ziegler expedition, the fate of which was unknown until that moment.

Sokolov-Mikitov spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveling through the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan Mountains, the Northern and Murmansk Territories. He wandered through the dense taiga, saw the steppe and the sultry desert, and traveled all over the Moscow region. Each such trip not only enriched him with new thoughts and experiences, but was also imprinted by him in new works.

This man of good talent gave people hundreds of stories and tales, essays and sketches. The pages of his books are illuminated with the wealth and generosity of his soul.

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is close to Aksakov’s, Turgenev’s, and Bunin’s style. However, his works have their own special world: not an outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

The encyclopedia says about Ivan Sergeevich: “Russian Soviet writer, sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer.” And although there is a full stop next, this list could be continued: teacher, revolutionary, soldier, journalist, polar explorer.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in his childhood.

In one of his autobiographical notes, he wrote: “I was born and grew up in a simple working Russian family, among the forest expanses of the Smolensk region, its wonderful and very feminine nature. The first words I heard were folk bright words, the first music I heard were folk songs, which the composer Glinka was once inspired by.”

Looking for new ones visual arts The writer, back in the twenties of the last century, turned to a unique genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he successfully dubbed epics.

To an inexperienced reader, these tales may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the fly, as a reminder of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories in L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, M. Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his epic stories comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

His tales “Red and Black”, “On Your Coffin”, “Terrible Dwarf”, “Bridegrooms” and others are characterized by extraordinary capacity and accuracy of speech. Even in his so-called hunting stories, man is in the foreground. Here he continues the best traditions of S. Aksakov and I. Turgenev.

Reading Sokolov-Mikitov’s short stories about Smolensk places (“On the Nevestnitsa River”) or about bird wintering grounds in the south of the country (“Lenkoran”), you involuntarily become imbued with sublime sensations and thoughts, the feeling of admiration for your native nature turns into something else, more noble - into feeling of patriotism.

“His creativity, having its source in a small homeland (that is, the Smolensk region), belongs to the big Motherland, our great land with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and varied beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast,” said about Sokolov-Mikitov A. Tvardovsky.

Not all people are able to feel and understand nature in organic connection with human mood, and only a few can simply and wisely paint nature. Sokolov-Mikitov had such a rare gift. He knew how to convey this love for nature and for people living in friendship with it to his very young readers. Our preschool and school children have long loved his books: “The Body”, “The House in the Forest”, “Fox Evasion”... And how picturesque are his stories about hunting: “On the Wood Grouse Current”, “Pulling”, “The First Hunt” and others. You read them, and it seems that you yourself are standing on the edge of a forest and, holding your breath, watching the majestic flight of a woodcock or in the early, pre-dawn hour listening to the mysterious and magical song of a wood grouse...

Writer Olga Forsh said: “You read Mikitov and wait: a woodpecker is about to knock overhead or a little hare is going to jump out from under the table; how great it is, how he really told it!”

Sokolov-Mikitov’s work is autobiographical, but not in the sense that he wrote only about himself, but because he always talked about everything as an eyewitness and participant in certain events. This gives his works a vivid persuasiveness and that documentary authenticity that so attracts the reader.

“I was lucky enough to become close to Ivan Sergeevich in the early years of his literary work,” recalled K. Fedin. - It was shortly after Civil War. For half a century, he devoted me so much to his life that sometimes it seems to me that it has become mine.

He never set out to write his biography in detail. But he is one of those rare artists whose life seemed to combine everything that was written by him.”

Kaleria Zhekhova

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Even in early childhood I had the opportunity to admire the sunrise. Early in the spring morning, on a holiday, my mother sometimes woke me up and carried me to the window in her arms:

- Look how the sun plays!

Behind the trunks of old linden trees, a huge flaming ball rose above the awakened earth. He seemed to swell, shine with a joyful light, play, and smile. My childish soul rejoiced. For the rest of my life I will remember my mother’s face, illuminated by the rays rising sun.

IN mature age I have watched the sunrise many times. I met him in the forest, when before dawn the pre-dawn wind passes above the tops of the heads, one after another the clear stars go out in the sky, the black peaks appear more clearly and clearly in the lightened sky. There is dew on the grass. A spider's web stretched out in the forest sparkles with many sparkles. The air is clean and transparent. On a dewy morning, the dense forest smells of resin.

I saw the sun rise over my native fields, over a green meadow covered with dew, over the silver surface of the river. The cool mirror of the water reflects the pale morning stars, the thin crescent of the month. The dawn is breaking in the east, and the water appears pink. As if in a steamy light haze, the sun rises above the earth to the singing of countless birds. Like the living breath of the earth, a light golden fog spreads over the fields, over the motionless ribbon of the river. The sun is rising higher and higher. The cool, transparent dew in the meadows shines like a diamond scattering.

I watched the sun appear on a frosty winter morning, when the deep snow shone unbearably, and light frosty frost scattered from the trees. Admired the sunrise in the high mountains of the Tien Shan and Caucasus, covered with sparkling glaciers.

The sunrise over the ocean is especially beautiful. As a sailor, standing on watch, I watched many times how the rising sun changes its color: it either swells with a flaming ball, or is obscured by fog or distant clouds. And everything around suddenly changes. The distant shores and the crests of the oncoming waves seem different. The color of the sky itself changes, covering the endless sea with a golden-blue tent. The foam on the crests of the waves seems golden. The seagulls flying astern seem golden. The masts gleam with scarlet gold, and the painted side of the ship glistens. You used to stand on watch at the bow of a steamship and your heart would be filled with unspeakable joy. A new day is born! How many meetings and adventures does it promise for the young happy sailor!

Residents of big cities rarely admire the sunrise. Tall stone hulks of city houses block the horizon. Even villagers wake up for the short hour of sunrise, the beginning of the day. But in the living world of nature, everything awakens. On the edges of the forest, over the illuminated water, nightingales sing loudly. Light larks soar from the fields into the sky, disappearing in the rays of dawn. Cuckoos crow joyfully, blackbirds whistle.

Only sailors, hunters - people closely connected with Mother Earth, know the joy of the solemn sunrise, when life awakens on earth.

My dear readers, I strongly advise you to admire the sunrise, the clear early morning glow. You will feel your heart fill with fresh joy. There is nothing more beautiful in nature than early morning, early morning dawn, when the earth breathes with maternal breath and life awakens.

Russian winter

Russian snowy winters are good and clean. Deep snowdrifts sparkle in the sun. Large and small rivers disappeared under the ice. On a frosty, quiet morning, smoke rises into the sky in pillars over the roofs of village houses. Under a snow coat, the earth is resting, gaining strength.

Quiet and bright winter nights. Showering the snow with a subtle light, the moon shines. Fields and treetops twinkle in the moonlight. The well-worn winter road is clearly visible. Dark shadows in the forest. The winter night frost is strong, the tree trunks crackle in the forest. Tall stars are scattered across the sky. The Big Dipper shines brightly with the clear Polar Star pointing north. The Milky Way stretches across the sky from edge to edge - a mysterious celestial road. IN Milky Way Cygnus, a large constellation, spread its wings.

There is something fantastic, fabulous in the lunar winter night. I remember Pushkin’s poems, Gogol’s stories, Tolstoy, Bunin. Anyone who has ever driven on a moonlit night along winter country roads will probably remember their impressions.

And how beautiful is the winter dawn, the morning dawn, when snow-covered fields and hillocks are illuminated by the golden rays of the rising sun and the dazzling whiteness sparkles! The Russian winter is extraordinary, bright winter days, moonlit nights!

Once upon a time, hungry wolves roamed the snowy fields and roads; Foxes ran, leaving thin chains of footprints in the snow, looking for mice hidden under the snow. Even during the day you could see a mouse-like fox in the field. Carrying her fluffy tail over the snow, she ran through the fields and copses, with her keen hearing sensing mice hidden under the snow.

Wonderful winter sunny days. Expanse for skiers running on light skis on slippery snow. I didn't like the trails beaten by skiers. Near such a ski track, where man after man runs in a chain, it is difficult to see an animal or a forest bird. I went alone into the forest on skis. The skis glide smoothly and almost silently over the untouched snow. IN high sky The pines raise their curly, whitened tops. White snow lies on the green thorny branches of spreading spruce trees. Under the weight of frost, young tall birch trees bent into an arc. Dark ant heaps are covered with snow. Black ants spend the winter in them.

The seemingly dead winter forest is full of life.

A woodpecker knocked on a dry tree. Carrying a cone in his beak, he flew with a colorful handkerchief to another place - to his “smithy”, built in the fork of an old stump, deftly set the cone into his workbench and began to hammer with his beak. Resinous scales flew in all directions. There are a lot of pecked cones lying around the stump. A nimble squirrel jumped from tree to tree. A large white snow cap fell from the tree and crumbled into snow dust.

At the edge of the forest you can see black grouse sitting on birch trees. In winter they feed on birch buds. Wandering in the snow, they collect black juniper berries. The surface of the snow is scrawled between the bushes with cross-shaped tracks of grouse paws. On cold winter days, black grouse, falling from birches, burrow into the snow, into deep holes. A happy skier sometimes manages to raise grouse hidden in snow holes. One after another, birds fly out of the deep snow in the diamond snow dust. You will stop and admire the wondrous spectacle.

Many miracles can be seen in the winter sleeping forest. A hazel grouse will fly noisily or a heavy capercaillie will rise up. All winter, wood grouse feed on hard needles on young pines. Fiddling around under the snow forest mice. Hedgehogs sleep under the roots of trees. Angry martens are running through the trees, chasing squirrels. A flock of red-breasted cheerful crossbills, dropping the snowy overhang, sat with a pleasant whistle on the spruce branches covered with resinous cones. You stand and admire how quickly and deftly they pull the heavy cones, extracting seeds from them. A light trail of a squirrel stretches from tree to tree. Clinging to the branches, a gnawed pine cone fell from above and fell at his feet. Raising my head, I see how the branch swayed, freed from its weight, how the nimble forest prankster jumped over and hid in the dense top. Somewhere in a dense forest, bears sleep in their dens in an almost sound sleep. The stronger the frost, the more soundly the bear sleeps. Horned elk roam in the aspen forest.

The surface of the deep snowdrifts is covered in intricate patterns of animal and bird tracks. At night, a white hare, fattening in the aspen forest, ran here and left it in the snow round nuts litter Brown hares run through the fields at night, dig up winter crops, and leave tangled tracks in the snow. No, no, yes, and he will sit on his hind legs, raising his ears, listening to the distant barking of dogs. In the morning, hares hide in the forest. They double and line up their tracks, make long runs, lie down somewhere under a bush or spruce branch, with their heads facing their tracks. It is difficult to see a hare lying in the snow: it is the first to notice a person and quickly runs away.

Near villages and ancient parks you see swollen red-throated bullfinches, and nimble, bold titmice squeaking near the houses. It happens that on a frosty day, tits fly into open windows or into the canopy of houses. I tamed the tits that flew into my small house, and they quickly settled in it.

The crows remaining for the winter fly from tree to tree. Grey-headed jackdaws call to each other with womanish voices. Just under the window, a nuthatch flew in and settled on a tree, an amazing bird that can crawl up the trunk upside down. Sometimes a nuthatch, like tits, flies into an open window. If you don’t move and don’t scare him, he’ll fly into the kitchen and pick up bread crumbs. Birds are hungry in winter. They forage in crevices of tree bark. Bullfinches feed on seeds of plants overwintered above the snow, rose hips, and stay near grain sheds.

It seems that the river is frozen and sleeping under the ice. But there are fishermen sitting on the ice near the holes. They are not afraid of frost, cold, piercing wind. Avid fishermen have cold hands, but small perches are caught on the hook. In winter, burbots spawn. They hunt dozing fish. Do skilled fishermen catch burbots in winter with spread tops and holes? spruce branches block the river. They catch burbot in winter using hooks and bait. In the Novgorod region, I knew an old fisherman who brought me live burbot every day. Burbot ear and liver are delicious. But, unfortunately, there are few burbots left in polluted rivers that love clean water.

And how beautiful in winter are the forest lakes covered with ice and snow, frozen small rivers, in which life invisible to the eye continues! Aspen trees are beautiful in winter with the finest lace of their bare branches against a dark background. spruce forest. Here and there the wintered berries on the rowan trees are turning red in the forest, and bright clusters of viburnum are hanging.

March in the forest

In the riches of the calendar of Russian nature, March is considered the first month of spring, a joyful holiday of light. The cold, snowy February – “crooked roads”, as people call it – has already ended. As the popular saying goes, “winter is still showing its teeth.” Frosts often return in early March. But the days are getting longer and earlier and earlier the bright spring sun rises above the sparkling snowy veil. Deep snowdrifts lie untouched in the forests and fields. If you go out on skis, the surroundings will sparkle with such unbearable whiteness!

The air smells like spring. Casting purple shadows on the snow, the trees stand motionless in the forest. The sky is transparent and clear tall lungs clouds. Under the dark spruce trees, the spongy snow is sprinkled with fallen pine needles. A sensitive ear catches the first familiar sounds of spring. A ringing drum trill was heard almost overhead. No, this is not the creaking of an old tree, as inexperienced urban people usually think when they find themselves in the forest early spring. Having chosen a dry, sonorous tree, the forest musician, the spotted woodpecker, drums like spring. If you listen carefully, you will certainly hear: here and there in the forest, closer and further, as if echoing, drums solemnly sound. This is how woodpecker drummers welcome the arrival of spring.

Now, warmed by the rays of the March sun, a heavy white cap fell off the top of the tree by itself and crumbled into snow dust. And, as if alive, the green branch, freed from the winter shackles, sways for a long time, as if waving its hand. A flock of crossbills, whistling cheerfully, scattered in a wide red-lingonberry necklace over the tops of spruce trees hung with cones. Only a few observant people know that these cheerful, sociable birds spend the whole winter in coniferous forests. In the most severe cold, they skillfully build warm nests in thick branches, hatch and feed the chicks. Leaning on your ski poles, you admire for a long time how nimble birds with their crooked beaks fiddle with the pine cones, choosing seeds from them, how, circling in the air, light husks quietly fall onto the snow.

At this time, the barely awakened forest lives an almost invisible and inaudible life, accessible only to a keen eye and a sensitive ear. So, having dropped the gnawed cone, a light squirrel flew up onto the tree. Jumping from twig to twig, titmouses are shading just above the snowdrift like spring. Flashing behind the tree trunks, a tawny jay flies silently and disappears. A timid hazel grouse will flutter, thunder and hide in the depths of a forest overgrown ravine.

Illuminated by the rays of the sun, bronze trunks of pine trees rise, raising their spreading tops to the very sky. The greenish branches of bare aspens are woven into the finest lace. It smells of ozone, resin, wild rosemary, the tough evergreen branches of which have already emerged from a disintegrated snowdrift near a tall stump warmed by the March sun.

Festive, clean in the illuminated forest. Bright spots of light lie on the branches, on tree trunks, on compacted dense snowdrifts. Gliding on skis, you would come out onto a sunny, sparkling clearing surrounded by a birch forest. Suddenly, almost from under your very feet, black grouse begin to burst out of their holes in the diamond snow dust. All morning they fed on spreading birch trees strewn with buds. One after another, red-browed black grouse and yellowish-gray female grouse, resting in the snow, fly out.

On clear days in the mornings you can already hear the first spring muttering of the displaying kosher whales. Their booming voices can be heard far in the frosty air. But the real spring current will not begin soon. These are just red-browed soldiers clad in black armor, trying their strength, sharpening their weapons.

"Tales of Animals"

Ants. There are a lot of ant heaps in our forest, but one anthill is especially tall, larger than my six-year-old grandson Sasha. Walking through the forest, we go to it to observe the life of the ants. A quiet, even rustling sound comes from an anthill on a fine day. Hundreds of thousands of insects swarm on the surface of its dome, dragging twigs somewhere, plugging and uncorking their numerous passages, pulling out white eggs-larvae to bask in the sun. Sasha picks off a blade of grass and puts it in the anthill. Immediately, dissatisfied, irritated ants attack her. They push out the blade of grass and, bending over, shoot it with caustic acid. If you lick the blade of grass after this, the taste of a sharp-smelling formic acid, similar to lemon acid, remains on your lips. Dozens of narrow paths run away from the ant city. Ants are busily running along them in the tall grass in a continuous stream.

One of the paths led us to the very bank of our river. There was a small tree growing over the cliff. Its branches and leaves were covered with ants. We carefully examined the tree. There were a lot of greenish aphids on it, a dense mass sitting motionless on the underside of the leaves and at the base of the cuttings. The ants tickled the aphids with their antennae and drank sweet juice, which the aphids released. It was a “milking” herd of ants. It is known how diverse the species of ants are. Large red forest ants are very different from the small black sweet-toothed ants that often climb into the sugar bowl in our forest house. Scientists count thousands of species of ants on earth. They all live in numerous societies. The largest of the ants reach a size of three centimeters. Returning home, Sasha asks to read books about ants to him. We learn about the amazing African tailor ants, which build nests from leaves glued at the edges with a special adhesive substance released by ant larvae, about wandering hunter ants, wandering in millions of armies, consisting of foraging ants, worker ants and soldier ants. We learn that there are slave-owning ants that capture other ants as slaves, there are shepherd ants that raise “milk” aphids in their nests, there are farmer ants... Some of the ants that live in hot countries sometimes cause harm by cutting tree foliage. Our forest ants are very useful. They loosen the soil, destroy forest pests and do a lot of sanitary work, removing the remains of dead animals and birds. There are probably no people who have not seen ants. But in their complex social life, not everything is still known. Scientists studying ants still do not know how the ants conspire among themselves, harmoniously dragging heavy things that are many times larger than them. own weight, objects, how they manage to maintain a constant temperature inside the level. Many secrets have not yet been revealed in the life of ant colonies. A very long time ago, when my father first began to take me hunting, such a rare incident occurred.

We were driving through the forest in a droshky. It was early morning, and abundant dew sparkled on the trees and grass. It smelled of mushrooms and pine needles. The father stopped his horse near a large tree. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a huge ant heap towering above the fern thickets. – There is “ant oil” there. Almost at the top of the heap lay a small piece of some light yellow substance, very similar to ordinary butter. We got off the droshky and began to look at the mysterious substance on which the ants were running. The surface of the “oil” was matte from many traces of ants. My father told me that he had to find such “ant oil” on ant heaps, but rarely does anyone manage to see it. We put a piece of “oil” in a mug that we took with us on a hunt, tied it with paper and hid it under a tree. On the way back we were going to take “ant oil”. In the evening we returned from hunting. The father took a mug from under the tree and removed the paper. There is very little “oil” left in the mug - it has evaporated. We brought the rest of the “ant oil” home. In a warm room it melted, became liquid and transparent. He smelled strongly of formic alcohol. The grandmother who lived with us rubbed her lower back with this “oil” and kept insisting that the forest medicine was very helpful for the “lumbago” that was tormenting her. For the whole long life I didn’t have to find the mysterious “ant oil” later. I asked experienced people and zoologists I knew, looked into books, but the “ant oil” that I saw with my own eyes as a child remained a mystery.

Spiders. One summer, I collected a small bouquet of wildflowers near our house - bells, buttercups, daisies and a simple gray porridge. I placed the bouquet on the desk. A tiny azure spider crawled out of the bouquet, very similar to a living precious stone. The spider crawled from flower to flower, and I admired it for a long time. He either hesitantly descended all the way to the table on his invisible web, then, as if frightened, he quickly rose. I put my palm up, and, touching it, the spider pressed its paws tightly together, pretended to be dead, and completely looked like a round precious pebble rolling across my palm. I planted it on a bouquet of flowers and soon forgot about the azure spider. I continued to mind my own business. The bouquet of wildflowers on my table has withered. I had to replace it with fresh flowers. The tiny spider, it turned out, remained living in my log room.

While sitting at work, I once saw a familiar azure spider descending from the ceiling on a thin, thin, invisible web, moving its greenish legs, above my desk. He either rose up like a skilled acrobat on his invisible web, then quickly descended, swaying over my manuscript. Since then I have often seen an azure spider in my room. He came down over my table, and I said to him: “Hello, buddy.” Good morning! I have always watched spiders with curiosity: I liked these hardworking forest master hunters. You used to go hunting in the early hours of a quiet summer morning and stop: such a wonderful network of cobwebs hung on the green branches, on the stems of tall grasses - all covered in diamond sparkling droplets of morning dew. You spend a long time admiring the wonderful thin lace woven by a skilled spider craftsman.

The master spider himself sits in the center of his network, patiently, like a real hunter-fisherman, waiting for prey to fall into his network: a shrill mosquito or a biting evil fly. He quickly rushes at his prey and binds it with his web. Many years ago I lived in a remote Smolensk village, among large forests that were well known to me from childhood. Then I hunted a lot, I was strong and healthy, I loved spending nights in the forest near the hunting fire. I listened to the voices of birds and animals, I knew well the places where there was a lot of game - forest and swamp. In summer and winter, he hunted wolves that lived in remote impassable swamps, in the spring he went to grouse and capercaillie currents, and in winter he tracked hares through the powder. Wandering through the forests with a gun, I looked closely at the mysterious life of the forest, little known to inexperienced city people. Every morning I saw the sun rise over the forest, listened to the happy birds greeting the sunrise in a friendly chorus. At night I looked at the high starry sky, listened to the wonderful quiet music of the early dawn. In the forest I sometimes collected strange roots that looked like fairy birds and animals, together with the hunting spoils he put them in his bag. The walls of my small country room were covered inside with spruce bark, very similar to expensive embossed leather. On the walls hung my guns, hunting accessories, strange forest finds, beautiful and neat bird nests. In late summer, when I went hunting every day, I put empty matchboxes in my pockets. In these boxes I collected the most skilled spider craftsmen I liked in the forest. Returning from hunting, I released them in my room. The spiders quickly scattered to the corners. Some of them stayed with me to live, others went somewhere else. There were wonderful, fresh silver cobwebs hanging on the ceiling and in the corners of the room. The guests who came to see me were amazed at my home and threw up their hands. My small room looked like a forest museum, a fairy-tale hut in the forest. Of course, I didn’t have a dusty, neglected cobweb. My spider tenants diligently hunted dirty flies and annoying mosquitoes. I could work calmly, sleep peacefully: my spider friends protected me. There is a lot to be said about spiders. There are master spiders and hunters. There are spiders - fleet-footed runners. There are tiny flying spiders that fly through the air on long webs released from the abdomen: like real parachutists and glider pilots, they fly over large spaces and across wide rivers. There are diving spiders. These spiders descend underwater to the bottom of shallow forest streams. Instead of a spacesuit, they carry a large bubble of air on their abdomen, which they breathe underwater. In hot countries there are also evil, poisonous spiders, whose bite is sometimes fatal. Spiders predict the weather very accurately. You used to go for mushrooms and a long viscous web would stick to your face and hands. This means that the weather has been clear and good for a long time. At the end of summer, meadows that have not yet been mown are completely covered with the finest mesh of cobwebs. A countless army of little spiders worked here. One day in early autumn I had to sail on a steamboat along the lower Volga. The shores were painted with an autumn color pattern. I remember early in the morning I went out onto the deck and gasped in surprise. Over the motionless surface of the Volga, a light web floated and floated, illuminated by the sun rising over the Volga. The entire ship was covered with a light, golden web, as if woven from thin air: white deck posts, wooden handrails, gratings, benches. The passengers had not yet woken up, and, standing on the deck of the ship, I alone admired the fabulous spectacle of a spider's web floating over the Volga, illuminated by the morning sun. Many people, especially women, are afraid and dislike spiders. They scream loudly if a spider crawls across a dress or bare arm, open their eyes wide, and wave their arms. I remember old pious grandmothers telling us this when we were children: “If you kill a cross spider, forty sins will be forgiven!” Spiders are always called cruel, evil, greedy people. Comparing unkind people with hardworking, clean craftsmen and hunters who skillfully weave their beautiful nets is unfair. Young friends! If you see a web hung by a spider in the forest, do not tear it off. Take a good look at how cleverly and diligently the hardworking spider hunter hangs his webs and learn something from him. Chipmunk.At the very end of summer, hunting on the banks of the Kama River, I lived with my friend, a forester, in a remote Prikamsky forest. Sitting by the open window, I saw how in the small forest garden, almost next to the window, the heavy color of a ripening sunflower was swaying by itself. A small beautiful animal was sitting on a sunflower. He busily pulled out ripe sunflower seeds from their nests and filled his cheek pouches with them. It was a chipmunk, an agile and dexterous animal, similar to a small squirrel. Chipmunks live under trees, in shallow burrows in the earth. In these burrows they arrange spacious pantries, where they hide abundant supplies: pine nuts, sunflowers, bread seeds. The fast chipmunk is always on the move. He runs along tree branches and piles of brushwood piled in the forest. A live, very curious animal is not difficult to catch.

I saw village kids catching chipmunks in the forest. In their hands they hold a light stick with a hair loop tied at the end. Once you whistle into a birch bark or willow pipe, a curious chipmunk runs out of its hole. It’s easy to put a light loop around his neck. In captivity, cheerful chipmunks take root quickly. They can be kept in a large cage and fed nuts and seeds. They have a lot of fun chasing each other around the cage, and their fun games and fights are a pleasure to watch. There are a lot of chipmunks in the forest fierce enemies. They are destroyed birds of prey, are caught by domestic cats, and chipmunks' storerooms are found and destroyed by bears in the forest. It makes me very happy to remember the little chipmunks. I remember deaf taiga forest, illuminated by the sun, surrounded by tall trees, green meadows and small animals, enlivening the taiga wilderness and silence. Jerzy. Have you ever heard hedgehogs talk to each other? Probably no one heard. But I heard it. I'll tell you in order. In winter and summer we live in Karacharovo on the bank of the river, in a small house, surrounded on all sides by forest. We go into the forest to watch and listen to how birds live and sing, how forest flowers bloom, insects fly and crawl. Going out on the porch at night to admire the starry sky, listen to the night sounds and voices, I often heard someone running in tall grass under the lilacs. I lit an electric torch and saw someone running away big hedgehog . We often saw hedgehogs in the evenings when the sun was setting: in search of food, they fearlessly wandered around our house, picking up crumbs and what we left for them. Often the hedgehogs approached a large cup of food from which we fed our dogs - the good-natured black Beetle and the cunning Squirrel. Usually Squirrel began to bark touchily and furiously, and her phlegmatic son Zhuk would step aside and remain patiently silent. The hedgehogs climbed with their front paws into the dog's cup and, quietly snorting, calmly ate. Several times I caught hedgehogs and brought them into the house. They were not at all afraid of people, they calmly ran around the rooms and did not try to curl up into a ball. I released them into the wild, and they continued to feed near our house, annoying the dogs. One dark summer night I was sitting in my room at my desk. The night was quiet, only occasionally light distant sounds could be heard from the river. In the complete silence of the night, very quiet unfamiliar and pleasant voices were suddenly heard under the floor. These voices were similar either to a quiet conversation, or to the whisper of chicks awakening in the nest. But what kind of chicks could there be in the underground?.. And these gentle underground voices did not resemble the squeaking of mice, the angry squealing of rats. For a long time I could not understand who was talking under my floor. After some time, I again heard the already familiar affectionate conversation in the underground. There, two mysterious creatures unfamiliar to me seemed to be talking to each other. – How do our children sleep? - said one gentle voice. “Thank you, our children are sleeping peacefully,” answered another gentle voice. And the mysterious voices fell silent. I thought for a long time, who is talking so affectionately under my desk in the underground? “Probably hedgehogs live there,” I thought. “An old hedgehog comes to his wife and asks her about little hedgehogs.” Every night I heard hedgehogs’ voices underground and smiled: the hedgehog and the hedgehog were talking so friendly! One evening, when the sun was setting across the river, my grandson called out to me through the open window. “Grandfather, grandfather,” he shouted, “come out quickly!” I went out onto the porch. My grandson showed me a whole family of hedgehogs calmly strolling along a well-trodden path. A big old hedgehog walked ahead, a hedgehog walked behind him, and tiny hedgehogs rolled in small lumps. Apparently, their parents took them out of the nest for a walk for the first time. Since then, every evening the old hedgehogs and hedgehogs went out for a walk on the path. We left milk in a saucer for them. The hedgehogs calmly drank milk together with the kitten that lived with us and grew up. This went on for several days. Then the hedgehogs went into the forest, and we rarely saw them. At night they still came to our house, drank milk and ate from a dog’s cup, but I no longer heard the hedgehogs’ gentle voices underground. Everyone has seen and knows hedgehogs. These are very quiet and gentle animals. They do not harm anyone and are not afraid of anyone. They sleep during the day and go hunting at night. They destroy harmful insects, fight with rats and mice, gnaw poisonous snakes. For the winter, they make small, comfortable dens for themselves under the roots of trees. On their spines they carry soft moss and dry leaves into their dens. Hedgehogs hibernate throughout the winter. Their small hidden dens are covered with deep snowdrifts, and the hedgehogs sleep peacefully all winter. They wake up in early spring, when the snow melts in the forest, and go out to hunt. Hedgehogs soon get used to people and become tame. A whole herd of hedgehogs has bred in a neighboring pioneer camp. Every night they come from the forest to the pioneer canteen and feast on the food that the pioneers leave for them. Where hedgehogs live, there are no mice or rats. I once had a pet hedgehog. During the day he climbed into the top of a felted old boot, and at night he went out to hunt for prey. I often woke up from the small stomping and noise that the hedgehog made at night. Two or three times I was able to watch him catch mice. With extraordinary speed, the hedgehog rushed at the mouse that appeared in the corner of the room and immediately dealt with it. Frankly, he caused me a lot of anxiety, prevented me from sleeping at night and behaved uncleanly. Despite all the troubles, we became very good friends.

My guests and I really liked some of the hedgehogs' funny tricks. Coming out of his night shelter, he diligently sniffed and examined every crack, picking up small crumbs on the floor. There was something hilariously funny in his movements, gait, in his small muzzle covered with gray hair, in his small black and intelligent eyes. Sometimes I would put it on the table and loudly slap the board with my palm. The hedgehog almost instantly curled up into a prickly gray ball. He remained motionless for a long time. Then he began to slowly, quietly unfold. From the sharp gray thorns a small funny and dissatisfied face appeared. He sniffed and looked around. The expression of the former good-natured calm appeared on the muzzle. A lot has been written and told about hedgehogs. They tell how cunning foxes hunt hedgehogs. The fox quietly rolls the hedgehog curled into a prickly ball from the steep bank into the water, where the hedgehog quickly turns around and the fox easily deals with it. Some smart dogs do the same thing with hedgehogs.

Squirrels. Which of you who has been in the forest has not seen this light and agile animal? You are walking along a forest path, picking mushrooms in a box, and suddenly you hear a sharp, loud clicking sound. These are cheerful, agile squirrels playing and frolicking in the tree. You can admire for a long time how they chase each other, rushing along the branches and along the tree trunk, sometimes upside down. Squirrels don't harm anyone. In winter and summer, squirrels live in coniferous forests. For the winter, they carefully store food in hollows. In summer and autumn, mushroom caps are dried by deftly stringing them onto bare tree branches.

More than once I have found mushroom storage for squirrels in the forest.

Sitting under a tree in a deep forest, I once saw a red squirrel jumping along the ground. In her teeth she carried a large, heavy bunch of ripe hazelnuts. Squirrels have a knack for choosing the ripest nuts. They hide them in deep hollows and in winter they unmistakably find their reserves. Common food protein – seeds coniferous trees. In the forest, on the snow under the trees in winter, you can see the husks of spruce and pine cones chewed by squirrels. Sitting high on a tree branch, holding a cone in their front paws, the squirrels quickly and quickly gnaw out the seeds from it, dropping the scales spinning in the air, and throwing the gnawed resinous core onto the snow. Depending on the harvest of pine and spruce cones, squirrels migrate long distances. On their way, they cross wide rivers and run through crowded cities and towns at night. Squirrels swimming through the water raise their fluffy tails high. They can be seen from afar. Squirrels can be easily tamed and kept in captivity. I once had a friend, an archaeologist and book lover. In his large room lived an agile, cheerful squirrel. She brought a lot of worries and troubles to her book-loving owner. She tirelessly rushed through the bookshelves, sometimes gnawing on the bindings of expensive books. I had to put the squirrel in a wire cage with a wide rotating wheel. The squirrel ran tirelessly along this wire wheel. Squirrels need constant movement, which they are accustomed to in the forest. Without this constant movement Living in captivity, squirrels get sick and die. In autumn and spring, squirrels molt.

For the summer they dress in a light red fur coat, late autumn this red fur coat becomes gray, thick and warm.

Squirrels build cozy, warm and durable nests, similar to closed houses woven from thin branches. These houses are usually built in the forks of dense and tall coniferous trees; they are difficult to see from the ground. The inside of the squirrel's house is covered with soft bedding. There the squirrels hatch and feed their little squirrels.

The squirrel's most formidable enemy is the marten. Strong and angry martens mercilessly pursue squirrels, catch them and eat them, destroy nests... Just recently, last winter, two squirrels appeared at the window of our forest house every day. We threw small pieces of black bread out the window into the snow. The squirrels picked them up and climbed onto the thick dark fir tree growing under the window. Sitting on a branch, holding a piece of bread in their front paws, they quickly ate it. Grey-headed jackdaws often quarreled with our squirrels, and every day they flew under the window of our house to enjoy the treat prepared for them. Walking along a path in the forest one day, my wife saw a familiar squirrel with a crust of bread in its mouth. She was running away from two jackdaws persistently pursuing her, trying to take away the bread. The tracks of squirrels in the forest on freshly fallen clean snow are amazingly beautiful. These traces stretch from tree to tree in a clear and light fluffy pattern. Squirrels either run from tree to tree or climb to the tops covered with heavy clusters of cones. Having fluffed their light tail, they, shaking off the snowy hanging, easily jump from branch to branch of neighboring trees. Flying squirrels are sometimes found in Siberian forests. These small forest animals have a light membrane between their front and back legs. They easily jump, as if flying from tree to tree. I only once managed to see flying squirrels in our Smolensk forests. They lived in a deep hollow of an old tree. I discovered them there by accident. Otters. Early in the morning I walked along the bank of a familiar quiet river. The sun had already risen, there was complete silent silence. On the shore of a wide and quiet creek, I stopped, lay down in the meadow and lit a pipe. Funny birds whistled and flew in the bushes. White lilies and yellow water lilies bloomed thickly throughout the creek. Wide round leaves floated on the surface of the still water. Light dragonflies flew and perched above the water lilies, and swallows circled in the sky. High, high, almost under the whitest clouds, with its wings outstretched, a buzzard hawk soared. It smelled of flowers, mown hay, and tall sedge along the banks. Suddenly something splashed once and twice in the middle of a quiet pool, and I saw the head of an otter that had emerged, swimming to the shore between motionless water lilies. With a live caught fish in its mouth, the otter swam towards the dense bushes that covered the shore. I sat motionless and saw the otter climb out of the water and disappear under the bushes. I have never seen a live, secretive otter in the wild. Sometimes only I saw traces of a cautious predator on the wet coastal sand. Otters usually live near remote and quiet forest rivers, where there is a lot of fish. They feed exclusively on fish, are very good at diving, and remain under water for a long time.

The otter is a very beautiful animal. The warm and light fur of an otter is highly prized. Once captured, a young otter can be easily tamed.

Even in early childhood, I knew a man - a forest guard who served with my father's master. This man had a tame otter. He took her hunting with him, and she ran after him like an ordinary dog. Sometimes he sent a tame otter into the water. Before our eyes, she dived and brought live caught fish ashore to the feet of her owner. Otters survived only in the most remote and untouched places. Otters live very secretively, they are difficult to see and catch.

Ermine. Who doesn’t know or hasn’t heard about this beautiful animal, which in very recent times lived almost everywhere in our country, from the Far North to the far south? ...The ermine is a very active predatory animal. During the day, the ermine is difficult to see. In winter, its paired light footprints are clearly visible on clean snow. Stoats hide in underground burrows under the roots of old trees, usually along the banks of rivers and streams, in forested ravines. It happens that stoats also live near villages, hiding under barns and residential buildings. At night, they often climb into chicken coops and carry out cruel reprisals against sleeping hens and roosters. After the war, in the vicinity of Leningrad and in the city itself, I saw many traces of stoats in the snow, hiding in potholes and deep holes, left after explosions of mines and shells, In the far north, brave stoats are almost not afraid of humans.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Lapland Nature Reserve. In early spring, I lived on the banks of the forest river Verkhnyaya Chuna, which flowed into a deep lake, still covered with thick ice. I lived completely alone in a small house, cut down by the hands of the reserve’s employees. Instead of a stove, in the corner of the house there was a wide hearth made of stones, in which I made a fire. I slept on hard log bunks, in a sleeping bag made from warm reindeer skins. At the mouth of the river where the beavers lived, a small polynya with a rapidly flowing clear water. In this opening, I caught silver grayling with a spoon, gathering in great numbers near the clean sandy bottom. With the caught fish, I returned to the house, near which there was a pile of large stones, and began to clean the fish. Each time a light and fast ermine jumped out of the pile of stones. I threw the giblets of cleaned fish onto the snow, and he quickly dragged them to his shelter under the stones. This is how I met and became friends with my neighbor, the ermine.

After some time, he himself began to come to my house, where I cooked delicious fish soup on the fire, feasted on the bones and heads of the fish I had cooked.

One night he crawled into my sleeping bag and we slept peacefully. Living in a small house, I watched spring come in the northern region, watched the beavers hibernate in their huts covered with snowdrifts, watched the robber wolverine, sometimes in search of food, approaching my window. In early spring, swans flew to the lake. Beautifully curved long necks, they swam in an open ice hole, sometimes going out onto the ice. The ermine, accustomed to me, brightened up my lonely life. Already at other times, traveling around the Taimyr Peninsula, I had often seen daring stoats. They bravely swam across the wide Taimyr Lake, where they were sometimes swallowed large fish loaches similar to salmon. Opening up the char caught in the net, we found swallowed stoats in their stomachs. The stoats very cleverly dodged our sled dogs, and even the fastest and most agile dog rarely managed to catch an ermine. As a child, I more than once observed stoats living underground and in village outbuildings. When they saw a person, they quickly and quietly disappeared.

Hare. This was many years ago. Early in the morning I was returning from a distant capercaillie current. Having barely crossed the burnt, swampy swamp, I chose a comfortable place and sat down to rest near a large green stump, very similar to an easy chair. The forest was quiet, the sun had risen. I lit a pipe and, lounging near a tree stump, putting the gun on my knees, began to listen to the sounds. You could hear the cranes rustling in the swamp and the snipes dancing in the gilded sky. Somewhere nearby, a hazel grouse thundered and whistled. I never shot hazel grouse in the spring, but I never parted with an old bone squeaker made from yellowed hare bone. I liked to whistle to the hazel grouse, to look closely at the perky cockerels that flew up to the whistle, with their wings and tails outstretched, running briskly along the logs and hummocks almost at my feet. While smoking a pipe and whistling with the flying hazel grouse, I suddenly saw behind the tree trunks a white hare quietly hobbling straight towards me. Tired, he returned to his bed after a fun night of adventures. With short jumps, he quietly hobbled along the reddish moss hummocks. On his wet thighs, scraps of faded winter wraps dangled comically. I sat motionless, without lifting a finger, merging with the tall green stump. When the hare ran up very close, almost to my knees, I moved a little and quietly said: “Aha, I got it, Oblique!” My God, what happened to the hare, how he caught himself, how his little portico and short tail flashed between the hummocks! Laughing loudly, I shouted after the hare: “Run away, Oblique, quickly!” Every hunter has many memories of unexpected encounters and incidents in the forest. Usually such hunters talk about their successful shots, about the game they shot and caught, about the work of smart dogs. In my long life as a hunter, I shot a lot of large and small game, hunted wolves and bears more than once, but - strangely - a simple meeting with a drunken hare was remembered more than the most successful and productive hunts. It’s as if I can still see the forest, the quiet morning, I hear the whistling of hazel grouse, I clearly see a white hare and its wet portages. Run away, brother Kosoy, to good health! Foxes. Last summer there was an emergency near our forest house. Early in the morning, my wife called me to the porch, alarm was heard in her voice. I walked out the door and saw a fox at the steps of the porch. She stood, calmly looked at us and seemed to be expecting a treat. I have never seen cautious, timid foxes come close to a person. Usually they hide in the forest and it is difficult for even an experienced hunter to see a live fox up close.

Our fox stood completely calm, looking at us trustingly. Her beautiful fluffy tail was extended, her graceful thin paws did not move. I looked at the unexpected guest in surprise and said to my wife: “Come on, throw her a piece of meat!” The wife brought a small piece of raw meat from the kitchen and threw it at the fox’s feet. The fox calmly took and ate the meat. Not understanding anything, I told my wife: “Try throwing her a piece of sugar.” The fox ate the white piece of sugar just as calmly. For a long time I could not understand where the extraordinary guest at our house came from, and finally I guessed. Beyond the forest, two or three kilometers away, a large pioneer camp. In the summer, pioneers visiting from Moscow relax in this camp. Once I was at a camp, reading my stories to the guys. They showed me a small corner of the young naturalist, surrounded by an iron mesh. There, tame squirrels and birds lived in small cages, and there was also a red fox, which the children fed from their hands. Apparently, while leaving for the city, the pioneers released into the wild a fox brought from the Moscow Zoo. The little fox, not accustomed to freedom, went to look for the man. Our forest house was the first on her way.

The fox lived near our house for several days. During the day she would disappear, perhaps crawling underground or hiding in an empty dog kennel near the barn. In the mornings and evenings she went free, and we fed her. She was friendly towards our ginger cat, and they often ate from the same cup. Sometimes the fox spent the night on the small terrace near my room.

One day, my wife left a pot of cold soup on the terrace table. The fox opened the lid and ate all the soup that night. Many fables and fables have been told about foxes. In folk tales, the fox is usually portrayed as a cunning beast that deceives gullible birds and animals. There is no doubt that free-living foxes often catch ungainly large birds, occasionally carry domestic ducks and chickens, and love hares - white hare and hare. Like many animals, foxes build storerooms. Foxes cannot eat a caught hare in one go and carefully bury the remaining meat in the snow. Foxes remember their storerooms and, when there is no prey, they eat the meat hidden in reserve. They destroy bird nests built on the ground and catch juvenile chicks that cannot fly well. But the most common food for foxes is forest and field mice. They feed on hares and mice in winter, when there is deep snow. Even during the day you can see a mouse-like fox in an open field. Carrying her fluffy tail over the snow, a fox runs through snow fields and snowdrifts, listening to every sound. Her hearing and sense of smell are amazing. Under a deep snowdrift, she hears the squeak of mice and unerringly hunts them... I have rarely hunted foxes, but their cunning habits are well known to me. More than once I have found fox holes in the forest. They often settle in the burrows of economic badgers, which they persistently survive. Foxes themselves dig deep holes, usually in sandy slopes covered by trees and bushes. Near residential fox holes you can always see a lot of bones of birds and animals, which adult foxes feed growing fox cubs. Hiding in the bushes, you can see teenage fox cubs playing near the hole.

Once, while visiting a water mill that stood on the bank of a forest river, every morning I saw the miller’s young dog playing in the meadow with a red fox cub coming out of the forest. There were no quarrels between them. Caught young foxes very quickly get used to humans. They can be led around the city on a chain, just like domestic dogs are led. Experienced people assured me that even in a big city, after fresh powder has fallen, among the cat and dog tracks on the boulevards you can see fox tracks. I don’t know whether such stories can be believed, but I fully admit that a free-ranging female released in the city can feed herself...

Badgers. Once upon a time there were many badgers in our Russian forests. They usually settled in remote places, near swamps, rivers, and streams. For their burrows, badgers chose high, dry, sandy places that were not flooded. spring waters. Badgers dug deep holes. Tall trees grew above their holes. There were several exits and entrances from the holes. Badgers are very neat and intelligent animals. In winter, they, like hedgehogs and bears, hibernate and emerge from their holes only in the spring. I remember when I was a child, my father took me to see residential badger holes. In the evening we hid behind tree trunks, and we were able to see how old short-legged badgers went out to hunt, how small badgers played and romped near their holes. In the forest in the mornings, I had to meet badgers more than once. I watched how a badger carefully made its way near the tree trunks, sniffing the ground, looking for insects, mice, lizards, worms and other meat and plant food. Badgers are not afraid of poisonous snakes; they catch and eat them. Badgers do not go far from the hole. They graze and hunt near their underground dwellings, not relying on their short legs. The badger walks quietly on the ground, and it is not always possible to hear his steps. The badger is a harmless and very useful animal. Unfortunately, there are almost no badgers in our forests now. It is rare that inhabited badger holes remain in the deep forest.

The badger is a smart forest animal. He doesn't harm anyone. The captive badger has a hard time getting used to it, and in zoos during the day badgers usually sleep in their dark kennels. It is very interesting, having found holes, to follow the life of their inhabitants. I have never hunted the peace-loving badgers, but sometimes I have found their forest homes. It was rare to see live badgers. It used to be that you were walking from a capercaillie current, and the sun rose over the forest. You stop to sit down on a tree stump and listen and look carefully. You will see a badger carefully making its way near the tree trunks and sniffing every inch of the ground. A badger's paws look like small, strong shovels. In case of danger, a badger can quickly bury itself in the ground. When badgers dig their holes, they scoop out the earth with their front legs and push it out with their back legs. They dig holes quickly, like machines. If you find live badger holes in the forest, do not touch them, do not destroy them, or kill useful and good-natured animals. The badger has become a very rare animal in our forests. It is not difficult to completely destroy this beast.

There were a lot of crayfish in both the pond and the river. They caught them with their hands under the bank in deep caves, under stones at the bottom of a shallow river that quickly ran along a rocky, slippery bottom. I vividly remember how, having rolled up my porticoes, I walked along the running water and, having carefully rolled away a flat stone at the bottom, in a cloud of rising light turbidity I saw a lurking tick-borne crayfish. I quietly bring my hand up, grab with my fingers the strong black back of the angrily splayed crayfish, and put it in the bag.

Dark summer nights we caught crayfish on the sandbanks in the pond. With a bunch of flaming dry birch splinters, we carefully walked around the shallows and with our hands picked up crayfish crawling towards the shore on the illuminated bottom. This night hunt gave us great and joyful pleasure.

In late autumn, when the water in the pond becomes clear and long, dark autumn nights, my father sometimes took me hunting with “lights”. With prisons in our hands, we went out on a punt boat. At the bow of the boat, in an iron horned “goat,” resinous pine firewood burned brightly. The boat glided quietly along the motionless surface of the water. A fire blazed and smoked on the bow of the boat, illuminating the branches of bushes and trees hanging over the water, and the bottom of the pond overgrown with algae. An underwater fairy-tale kingdom opened up to our eyes. Near the sandy bottom, lit by a fire, we saw long shadows of large sleeping fish. You need good judgment and an accurate eye to spear a sleeping fish in the water. The stabbed fish were shaken from the spear to the bottom of the boat. There were wide breams, long pikes, ides, and slippery burbots. I will forever remember this night hunt. The familiar pond seemed unrecognizable. After traveling all night, we returned with the loot. It was not so much the loot as the fabulous picture of the bottom lit by a fire that delighted and excited me.

I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Sixty years of active creative activity in our turbulent times, which have witnessed so many events and upheavals, is the result of the life of the remarkable Soviet writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.

He spent his childhood in the Smolensk region, with its sweet, truly Russian nature. In those days, the village still preserved its ancient way of life and way of life. The boy's first impressions were festive festivities and village fairs. It was then that he organically merged with his native land, with its immortal beauty.

When Vanya was ten years old, he was sent to a real school. Unfortunately, this institution was distinguished by bureaucratic behavior and the teaching went poorly. In spring, the smells of awakened greenery irresistibly attracted the boy beyond the Dnieper, to its banks, covered with a gentle haze of blossoming foliage.

The First World War found Sokolov-Mikitov in a foreign land. With great difficulty, he got from Greece to his homeland, and then volunteered for the front, flew on the first Russian bomber “Ilya Muromets”, and served in the medical detachments.

“Warm Earth” - that’s what the writer called one of his first books. And it would be difficult to find a more accurate, more capacious name! After all, this native Russian land is really warm, because it is warmed by the warmth of human labor and love.

His stories about the voyages of the flagships of the icebreaker fleet “Georgiy Sedov” and “Malygin”, which marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route, date back to the time of the first polar expeditions. It was then that a bay named after the writer Sokolov-Mikitov appeared on one of the islands of the Arctic Ocean. The bay was also named after Ivan Sergeevich, where he found the buoy of Ziegler’s lost expedition, the fate of which was unknown until that moment.

He spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveled through the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan Mountains, the Northern and Murmansk Territories. He wandered through the dense taiga, saw the steppe and the sultry desert, and traveled all over the Moscow region. Each such trip not only enriched him with new thoughts and experiences, but was also imprinted by him in new works.

This man of good talent gave people hundreds of stories and tales, essays and sketches. The pages of his books are illuminated with the wealth and generosity of his soul.

The famous Bolshevik, editor of the Izvestia newspaper I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov told his employees: “As soon as you receive anything from Ivan Sergeevich, forward it to me immediately. I love reading him, an excellent writer.”

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is close to Aksakov’s, Turgenev’s, and Bunin’s style. However, his works reveal their own special world: not outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in his childhood.

In one of his autobiographical notes, he wrote: “I was born and grew up in a simple working Russian family, among the forest expanses of the Smolensk region, its wonderful and very feminine nature. The first words I heard were bright folk words, the first music I heard were folk songs, which the composer Glinka was once inspired by."

In search of new visual means, back in the twenties, the writer turned to a unique genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he successfully dubbed “fiction tales.”

To an inexperienced reader, these “tales” may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the fly, as a reminder of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories in Leo Tolstoy, Bunin, Veresaev, Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his “bylitsy” comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

His “fairy tales” “Red and Black”, “On Your Coffin”, “Terrible Dwarf”, “Grooms” and others are characterized by extraordinary capacity and accuracy of speech. Even in the so-called “hunting stories” he puts people in the foreground. Here he continues the best traditions of Aksakov and Turgenev.

Reading his short stories about Smolensk places (“On the Nevestnitsa River”) or about bird wintering grounds in the south of the country (“Lenkoran”), you involuntarily become imbued with sublime sensations and thoughts that the feeling of admiration for one’s native nature turns into something else, more noble - into a feeling patriotism.

“His creativity, having its source in a small homeland (i.e., the Smolensk region), belongs to the big Motherland, the great Soviet land with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and varied beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast,” he said about Sokolov. Mikitove A. T. Tvardovsky.

Sokolov-Mikitov Iv

Naydenov Meadow (Stories)

Ivan Sergeevich SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Naydenov meadow

Stories

Compiled by Kaleria Zhekhova

Fascinating stories about Russian nature, written by the oldest Soviet writer, have long been loved by young readers. This collection is a miniature encyclopedia of the forest near Moscow, it tells about everything that lives in the forest all year round: birds and animals, flowers, herbs and trees.

The stories in the book allow us to more fully and vividly experience the diversity of life, see the beauty of the forest, unravel its secrets, better understand the beauty of our native nature, and become its friend.

The book is dedicated to the writer’s 85th birthday.

With love for living nature. Introductory article by V. Soloukhin

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Russian winter

March in the forest

Sounds of spring

Pinwheel

Russian forest

RUSSIAN FOREST

Juniper

Bird cherry

Snowdrops - coppices

Dream-grass

Swimsuit

Bells

Forget-me-nots

Lungwort

Wolf's Bast

Dandelion

Ivan-da-Marya

Night violets

cat paws

Kaluzhnitsa

Cornflowers

Northern flowers

SOUNDS OF THE EARTH

Sounds of the earth

Lark

Swallows and swifts

Cuckoo

Wagtails

Nuthatch

Kingfisher

Raven Petka

Rooks and jackdaws

Sparrow owl

BEASTS IN THE FOREST

Bear guide

Sweet tooth

Naydenov meadow

Ermine

Otters and minks

Chipmunk

The Last Rusak

STORIES OF AN OLD HUNTER

Birds of prey

woodcocks

Great snipe current

On a bear hunt

Disturbed

Fishing

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov. Kaleria Zhekhova.

________________________________________________________________

WITH LOVE FOR WILDLIFE

From childhood, from school, a person gets used to the combination of words: “love for the motherland.” He realizes this love much later, and to understand the complex feeling of love for his homeland - that is, what exactly and why he loves is given already in adulthood.

This feeling is really complicated. Here is the native culture, and native history, all the past and all the future of the people, all that the people managed to accomplish throughout their history and what they still have to do.

Without going into deep reasoning, we can say that one of the first places in the complex feeling of love for one’s homeland is love for one’s native nature.

For a person born in the mountains, nothing could be sweeter than rocks and mountain streams, snow-white peaks and steep slopes. It would seem, what to love in the tundra? A monotonous swampy land with countless glassy lakes, overgrown with lichens, but the Nenets reindeer herder would not exchange his tundra for any southern beauty.

In a word, who loves the steppe, who loves the mountains, who loves the sea coast scented with fish, and who loves the native Central Russian nature, quiet beautiful rivers with yellow water lilies and white lilies, the kind, quiet sun of Ryazan... And so that the lark sings over the field rye, and a birdhouse on a birch tree in front of the porch.

It would be pointless to list all the signs of Russian nature. But from thousands of signs and signs, that common thing is formed that we call our native nature and that we, perhaps loving both the sea and the mountains, still love more than anything else in the whole world.

All this is true. But it must be said that this feeling of love for our native nature is not spontaneous in us, it not only arose by itself, since we were born and raised among nature, but was brought up in us by literature, painting, music, by those great teachers of ours who lived before us , also loved their native land and passed on their love to us, our descendants.

Don’t we remember by heart from childhood the best lines about nature by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Alexei Tolstoy, Tyutchev, Fet? Do they leave us indifferent, don’t they teach us anything about the descriptions of nature from Turgenev, Aksakov, Leo Tolstoy, Prishvin, Leonov, Paustovsky?.. And painting? Shishkin and Levitan, Polenov and Savrasov, Nesterov and Plastov - didn’t they teach and are not teaching us to love our native nature? Among these glorious teachers, the name of the remarkable Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov occupies a worthy place.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born in 1892 on the land of Smolensk, and his childhood was spent among the most Russian nature. At that time, folk customs, rituals, holidays, way of life and the way of ancient life were still alive. Shortly before his death, Ivan Sergeevich wrote about that time and that world:

“My life began in indigenous peasant Russia. This Russia was my real homeland. I listened to peasant songs, watched how bread was baked in a Russian oven, remembered village thatched huts, women and men... I remember cheerful Christmastide, Maslenitsa, village weddings, fairs, round dances, village friends, children, our fun games, skiing from the mountains... I remember the cheerful haymaking, the village field sown with rye, narrow fields, blue cornflowers along the borders... I remember how, having changed into festive sundresses, women and girls came out to reap the ripened rye, scattered in colorful bright spots across the golden open field, as they celebrated the reaping, they trusted the most beautiful, hardworking woman to reap the first sheaf - a good, intelligent housewife... This was the world in which I was born and lived, this. there was a Russia that Pushkin knew and Tolstoy knew."*

* S o k o l o v-M i k i t o v I. S. Long-standing meetings.

Ivan Sergeevich lived a long and rich life. For several years he sailed as a sailor across all seas and oceans, served in a medical detachment in the first world war, worked as a teacher, spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveled across the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan Mountains, wandered through the dense taiga... He was a sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer. But most importantly, he was a talented and brilliant writer. Kuprin once praised Sokolov-Mikitov as a writer:

“I really appreciate your gift of writing for your vivid depiction, true knowledge of people’s life, for a living and truthful language. Most of all, I like that you have found your own exclusively your style and your form. Both of these do not allow you to be confused with anyone something, and this is the most expensive."

On the warm earth (collection). On the warm land (collection) On the native land

I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Russian winter

March in the forest

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