Ancestral settlement Karelian forest. Ecosettlement zalesye, karelia Family estates in karelia

Our settlement is located in the South of Karelia. 100 km from Petrozavodsk and 6 km from Lake Onega.

On the territory of the settlement there are remnants of 3 villages, according to the name of one of which the settlement was named "Zalesye" (for some reason the emphasis on the first syllable). Nobody hibernates in the villages, and summer residents come to visit. Therefore, there are roads, electricity and even a telephone line.

To the settlement from the highway you need to drive 8 km along a dirt road, 2 km of which are not cleaned by local authorities in winter.

The nearest school and shop (more precisely 4 grocery stores, 2 household stores and one canteen) are located 8 km away by car. And on foot in a straight line for about 4 km.
About neighbors

We have no restrictions on accepting new neighbors. The desire of the person himself is enough. We are glad to any person who has a desire to save a piece of the planet, create a space of love on it, equip a family estate.

And there are enough "filters" to enter the settlement even without us. The Karelian land itself is the main filter. To stay to live in Karelia, you need to love this region with its powerful nature, thousands of lakes and vast spaces.

You need to be able to see this land and your life on it in 10-20 years in order to understand how wonderful they will be.

Another filter is that we do not provide a formalized plot of land to anyone who wants to settle nearby. You need to arrange the land you need yourself.

We register the land for a peasant farm. This is the most comfortable form in our region. It can be completed in about a year and can be built immediately.

The areas are very different in terms of landscape and vegetation. There are areas completely overgrown with pines and birches. There are plots in the field, on the slopes of hills, almost in the forest, on the banks of streams. There is a small lake 500 meters from the main road of the settlement. Around the forest and beaver dams.

Today (January 2011) the settlement is inhabited by permanent settlers in 6 estates. 3 more houses have been built, but the owners come only for the summer.

You can get acquainted with future neighbors through the section "Settlers".
About projects

About commercial projects that we are already implementing.

* We organize practical construction workshops where participants build houses with their own hands.
* We shoot and sell films based on these seminars.
* We build houses for future neighbors.
* We sell shungite. This is a healing stone, the deposit of which is in Karelia.
* We sell bee colonies and honey products.
* We accept tourists.
* We develop our own mass media - distribution on the Internet: "On the way to the Family Home". It is read by 280,000 of our associates.

What else? We have a measured, unhurried settlement.

Distances to the nearest settlements:

from. Gornoe Sheltozero (several residents; no shops) - 2 km
from. Sheltozero (5 shops; two-storey school; unlimited internet) - 8 km by car and 4 km on foot.
Petrozavodsk (capital of Karelia) - 100 km

"Not a collective farm, not a sect, not a seasonal get-together" is the principle of one of the oldest ecovillages in Russia, Nevo-Ekovil. What, in this case, unites 11 families who settled on forty hectares near Sortavala, the correspondents of the "Russian Planet" found out.

Story from Ivan

The only sign to "Nevo-Ekovil" is the handwritten sign "Saplings for your home" in the Ladoga village of Reskula. All curious people who have reached this place will be sent to the founding father of the settlement, Ivan Goncharov. And he will say:

- No ecovillages. This, my dears, is all bullshit in vegetable oil.

We expected to see a guru, but Ivan looks more like a merchant. Imposing, with a beard. He invites to a table in the courtyard of his house. Under the hands are pot-bellied, like the owner, teapots and a sugar bowl, painted under Khokhloma. Mug after mug Ivan is drinking tea, eating thick circles of cool-sugar lemon.

- Oh ... Well, tell me then what is it.

- We need to make a preface. It will explain how the Russian “Ekovil” differs from the European one. And ekovil (eco-village. - "RP") is it at all ... However, I will return to this topic later, but in the later chapters of this novel. The novel is about what. The life of a small society has its own laws and stages of development. Whether you want it or not, you will go through these stages. We have a lot of experience here. Not because we are so cool, but it just so happened that we rushed into it earlier. Four years ago I collected this experience and systematized it ...

Ivan Goncharov is a very solid person. He tells the story of the settlement from Adam and Eve. Or he builds a story from the foundation, because he is an architect by profession.

- In every culture there is an archetype of paradise - a righteous land, a righteous being. And if in Orthodoxy the construction of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is impossible by definition, then in the communist tradition it is possible. And we, Lord, were all Octobrists-pioneers. This is the first, basic idea of \u200b\u200bthis kind. And then ... If you ask the Russian intelligentsia how they would like to live, you will hear: their own house, and that by the lake-by the river, a bathhouse, a garden, that means, with a vegetable garden - without fanaticism, and an apiary. Perhaps goats or birds - also without fanaticism. And how do we, that is, this intelligentsia, see ourselves? In linen shirts, barefoot, on the grass, at sunrise ... Treat, teach ... Ninety percent of the sets will be from this figurative palette. Further, there are layers, as in Napoleon, different traditions. For us, this is the eastern wave with a small admixture of the western wave as theosophy and anthroposophy, western occultism. We read all this, and even in the eighties, when it was just beginning: amateur yogis, all sorts of revelations of the Orion constellation - such a crap went on. And we didn't just read, we all practiced: going out to the astrals, contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations, everything in full, - Ivan looks to see if the youth understands the seriousness of their previous experiences and his current irony. - I wanted to get away from this sinful world, it is illusory, it is disgusting and defiles the soul. We dreamed of building a new world, in a clean place, away from this ... And so we, the architects, gathered and said: "We are sitting in the kitchen, talking, talking ... Damn, why don't we build this world?" Plus, the everyday situation put pressure on me ... I had two small children, and I lived in my wife's family.

- That is, with the mother-in-law ...

- Yes! - Ivan laughs. - In 1986, our group withdrew from St. Petersburg, several families.

- And how did your relatives react to this?

- In different ways: some have microinfarctions, some have microstrokes. Everyone chose their own form of lectures for our departure. What was it like to be discharged from St. Petersburg in 1986? When the registration was tight, like the chain of this watchdog. Almost never come back. All were chopped off to be honest. Apartments were not rented out, they did not live on it, as it is now fashionable. We decided not to jump, excuse the expression, with a pillow under your butt, when this pillow can prevent you from jumping. We decided to jump light as high as possible. And they jumped from a run ...

Ivan pauses and subtly says:

- Didn't fly.

Having got rid of the Leningrad registration, the architects found a remote place. The nearest village is ten kilometers away. No electricity, no road. Ivan got a job as a labor teacher. Over time, they planned to create their own art school. But the main thing was to equip the community, or, as they called it, an ashram. A common house was designed: cruciform, in the center is an observatory with a dome. In the meantime, I had to live in a house from the state farm - decommissioned, still Finnish. Three couples of adults with five children from two to seven years old withstood a fierce winter with frosts up to 42 degrees.

- Master, good afternoon! - one of the neighbors looks into the yard.

- Oh, Igor. You see, I am sitting on a perch, telling a heroic epic. Kantele also lacks a suit. It's time to get some decent chlamyda. Will you scrape a seagull?

- Nope. Where is your mistress?

- The hostess in the garden, all in work. I'm afraid to even touch her, she will get a hoe in the head. I even sat down so that I could not be seen.

Between Goncharov and the garden there really is smoke from the fire.

- I will not tell, - Ivan, smacking his lips, eats a sugared lemon, - about all the heroism shown by the participants of the first project. He is worthy, - the owner sips his tea, - a separate story. The image and reality always scatter to one degree or another, depending on the clarity of the image and the power of the implementers. Both were not enough. Yes, even now it is not enough everywhere, if we speak, in all honesty ... We withstood the year. We thought they were cool, and overstrained. Yes, friends helped us. There was no internet, so it was a little harder to feel compassion. Compassion back then was usually face-to-face rather than online. But we have taken on too much. For example, they felled a forest, trampled it. From midnight to four in the morning, the state farm gave us a sawmill. We sawed, rolled the logs, and the girls cut the boards on machines. We returned home, we got oklemivatsya until eight, and then to work. Well, how long can you stand like that? Plus living in a small house, a shared kitchen, the sharing of resources - all in one pot. The tension within the team began to build up. And she was torn apart. They parted as friends, until now the relationship is like between relatives, but together we could no longer be, could not agree on the simplest things.

- Separated by families, or within families too ...

- Families also fell down. In all these social experiments, the ultimate burden fell on families. The family received all the returns from the failed experiment within themselves. This is the first currency you pay. A woman, as a rule, follows her husband and sees him as a support. If she loses this support, a complete discouragement begins. And men periodically weaken, especially during periods of this molt. I myself am so arranged that my family has always held on to the unquestioning male decision-making. And responsibility, of course. That is, the structure of my family is quite patriarchal ...

We are carried away, and do not notice how a woman appears behind our back, making some signs. But Ivan noticed. His intonation changes to sugary:

- Natasha, sunshine, would you like some tea? .. These are guests, neighbors on the planet ... Sunny, I share my experience ... It would be better if you shared there, I understood, - he says, as if on the phone, in complete silence. - I will by all means. I just get oklematsya - and run to make a kakalnik right away. No, no, Natasha, I really will run to work like you. I can still, I'm useful.

We are curious:

- Is this your second wife?

- Sure. My wife looks so good: could she really give birth to five children and survive like that? Here ... you need to understand that all these experiments can be very expensive. We are ready to pay such a price - you are welcome. Not ready - guys, better in the auditorium.

(We did visit the auditorium - the boy Martin gave us a concert)

Making ourselves comfortable, because the story is just beginning.

- And so. Just at that moment, friends said that you can work on Valaam: there are not enough hands, they are giving housing. I came to Valaam killed. Why, the world you were building collapsed. What's left inside you? Nothing. The funnel is like this: mmm! - Ivan smacks relishly, - deep, black. This is one of the mistakes of life magic. You can not in any way become attached to the model of a bright future that you have created. The more vulnerable you are when it collapses, and it will collapse and change completely. And it changes, and you change. Ten years ago you are one, twenty years ago you are different. Now we were tough yogis, then we were Taoists, then, you know, Orthodox, then we became pagans, then, excuse me for the expression ... ahem ... who. There were people on Valaam in those days, 1987. There was no monastery yet. The guys weren't all good friends. Our people, astronauts! And since no one took the soldering iron out of one place in my life, as soon as the voltage was given again, I began to fidget. I think: "Shouldn't we build an island of the sun, shouldn't we make a community within the island, our own borders, a whole country?" For two years digging, it didn't work out.

The new idea was not to flee from civilization, but to use existing social institutions. Thanks to Gorbachev's law on the election of the leadership, Ivan's comrades wanted to take the posts of chairman of the village council, directors of the forestry and restoration workshops on Valaam. The elections were lost.

- And what new idea did the soldering iron spark?

- The third idea - well, they don't let us land anywhere as a community, and okay. When we were building the house, we actually perceived it as a community. Let's build a house - that will be the community. But we already had a community, here in this small house, where the floor is at ground level, where the toilet is on the street, where stalactites of manure rose in winter ... We had to preserve this community, this snail, not the shell. The house is the shell, the outer form. It seems to us that we are cool guys, we will be able to live with each other in love and harmony, we just need to build a house in the right place and at the right time. This creates a trap from which it is very difficult to get out. Even more difficult than at the start. Localized paradise should not be the goal. Then the next question arises: why bother with a place? Let's make a nomadic community like the hippies in their day. We have already registered a restoration cooperative. We take a skete for restoration, move into it, restore it for eight years - and the next skete. We had a smithy, a ceramic workshop, landscape painters, and I had a design team. But then the monastery came and began to curtail all secular projects. We began to resist, but writing against the wind is more expensive for us. They gave us a kick, and we jumped to the mainland. Then we tried to go over the old schemes: a communal house, back and forth. These options quickly worked out as non-working. In 1994 we started to take the first land here, near the village of Réuskula.

Live broth

What happened here, we'll see and ask others. And Ivan has a few questions to ask.

- Many townspeople react negatively to the idea of \u200b\u200becovillages. We assumed that apart from the stated reasons, there is also a fear of spending all the time with your family. Is it hard compared to the urban lifestyle?

- You are on the right track, but you only groped a puzzle in a picture, and then - so, on the periphery. First, the natural environment is stressful for an urban person. He doesn't know how to live in it. Here something rustles, something grows, something croaks, moves underfoot, bangs with a hoe ... and you yourself must become a part of this giant living broth. Secondly, the social aspect. In the city we have a lot of guises that give us the ability to adapt to different environments. Often people do not behave the way they behave on their own, but how they behave. And where among these masks actually you are is unknown. It's like the consciousness of a modern person, which, unfortunately, is comic. An urban lifestyle is the life of a comic book hero. There, if you are not successful in one environment, you can leave it, change the environment. And here you will not leave your neighbors in the subway. Thirdly, not only you personally, but also your family is the hero of the comic. Take it away, be alone with your family - and the internal structures on which your family is built will begin to pop. With a change in lifestyle, you will pay with your family. Further, the question of professional implementation. Now the trend is the professional self-realization of women. We say: guys, so family is a realization for a woman! How much higher than being realized as a mother? This is actually an apprentice of God! There is, I believe, a satanic scheme for the desecration of these information codes. As if a viral program changes a righteous program.

- That is, on earth, people naturally return to the patriarchal way of life. But you talk about family all the time. The units you operate with are families. Can a lonely person move to an ecovillage?

- A lonely person has nothing to do on earth. As soon as you return to earth, to the living, the family program is activated, or something. Homo Sapiens is both male and female. Humanity as a species manifests itself only in the family. When this scrap of humanity comes to an ecovillage, it starts looking for the other half. It's even more difficult with women. If a man is a seeker by nature, then a lonely woman with such ideas is a complete cosmonautics, it is better to blame her away from her.

- So often any eco-settlers are treated as "cosmonauts", sectarians, from whom it is better to stay away. In Russia, the most famous ecovillages are those of the Vissarionites, who live with their prophet on Lake Tiberkul, and the Anastasievites, who believe in a taiga hermit and a ringing cedar.

- Unfortunately, we do not have the correct image of the village. As there is no image of the future of Russia. Earlier I talked about the minuses, about the fact that you can't get attached to images, but there are also pluses. They provide very powerful motivation. There is no image, but it is in demand, and now such surrogate images appear, as in Megre (the founder of the cult of Anastasia - "RP"). This is a light bulb that insects fly at. Sad and sad.

- So, does your settlement have some common ideology?

- We took the ideology beyond the perimeter of the settlement project. Each family has its own. The earring, for example, is an Old Believer, but at the same time he has been doing yoga for twenty years. Nothing, this is the Russian version, it passes. I - it is not clear what, also the usual Russian vinaigrette. Lenka and Andryukha we had tough yogis, practiced qigong. Now Lenka is terribly Orthodox. We have communists - Vovka Berezin, who grows seedlings. He is an atheist, but when the service is in our chapel, the first one stands with a candle. We have Dimka the blacksmith - he was generally a tough Orthodox, from the Cossacks. But recently he began to study Slavic traditions, embroidery, costumes, and got stuck there. I feel that his Orthodoxy is crawling, for another year or two, and it will slip.

(Orthodox chapel in the ecovillage)

- Is it possible for people with such different views to coexist without conflicts?

- If I come to Seryozhka, Seryozhka comes to me, Dimka comes, we want to interact with each other - thank God. And who is he - a Buddhist, nudist, communist, I don't give a damn. The main thing is that the person is good. We had a family of the same Anastasievites, they couldn't do that. They immediately begin to preach. If you think that you are the most correct, well, build your world, show that it is really brighter and more beautiful than mine. If so, I will take a look and I will probably be your follower. We with these Anastasievites, as with children, said: “Didn't the squirrel come? Didn't you bring a nut? And the bear did not bring honey ... Did you hold a cedar seed in your mouth? Didn't it come up? Listen, I slobber badly ... ". We have had many such cosmonauts, we know that today he is radical as a teenager, and tomorrow he is a normal, adapted person. Or even a cynical man in the street.

- What else, besides the imposition of your views, is unacceptable in Ekovil?

- Idleness. If you have a lot of income and you live here with your legs dangling. Then you are in the auditorium, you are not our man. Sit, for God's sake, but you will never be yours. They will never come to you, and you will not come to anyone, because you are not welcome. When you come here as a guest, they will warm you up, feed you. But as soon as you come here just like everyone else, the situation changes. When such people are caught by the seeming comfort of the environment, but when they come here they do not get it, they lose interest, sell these plots and leave.

Ivan's closest neighbor is Sergey. He breeds birds and rabbits, and a homemade sign "Homemade Quail Egg" leads to his house. Sergei also takes out the teapot into the yard. Previously, there was a village dump, now - a pond, a shop, lilies.

- How did you get here?

- From Balaam. They wanted to save the world, they were young.

- And what is your goal now, if not to save the world?

- This is Ivan beautifully tells ... If you speak loudly, this is how you live your life in order to be holy. And the potatoes are good here, - Sergey smiles. - Everyone wants to live in a good society and with good people. So that I have a good neighbor to the left, right, front and back. This is how builders from Ukraine came to me, they say: “Your geese walk freely, the bike is standing, the braid is hanging. And we cannot leave anything at all. I just turned away - the bucket was pulled out from under the rear. " We don't like that. You come to Finland, everyone lives there. Degradation…

- Does the proximity of the village bother you?

- Sometimes they stole. But still, many people live here all the time, here is a bearish corner.

- Do you have any entertainment in the bear's corner?

- For example, a bathhouse, our political club. Common holidays. In general, it is important that they are. You just can't get yourself together. Going to the other end of the village is incredible. You need to tear off an hour, two, and all the time in the park. We urgently need to dry the hay today, there is no rain. I went to mow, dry and stir quickly. You come running, you have to weed. Then you have to go to the city. And so it is constantly. It's cool, of course, to sit with a good guy, but he also has no time.

On the other side of the Goncharovs' house, without any sign, there is a stylish building with floor-to-ceiling windows.

This is “Ekovil-Hall”, where local holidays are held: Christmas, Maslenitsa, Easter, Victory Day, Ivan Kupala, Oseniny. Now there is no one inside, but the door is open.

You can also enter the neighboring house. There is equipment for the preparation of leaf and granulated willow tea.

You yourself are a summer resident!

The house closest to the club is under construction. We spoke to the hostess:

- Are you also from the ecovillage?

- Yes, people here still cannot decide whether it is a village or an ecovillage. We believe that we are just living in the village. We have 2 hectares of land to cultivate. To do this, you need to line up and move. So far there is only a vegetable garden. The husband is engaged in carpentry work, makes log cabins. I work as a coach in the city.

- But do you contact those who consider themselves part of the ecovillage?

- We are all in contact here, we are still a community. But I believe that an ecovillage is when people live on the land, work and eat from it. And here half of them live like summer residents. And Vanya Goncharov does not winter here. What is it, this Nevo-Ecoville of his? Essentially a different name for the same village club.

Nikolay and Olga come out onto the porch of the neighboring house:

- Everywhere there must be a leader. What is the difference between a commissioner and a political officer? The commissar says "do as I do", and the political officer - "do as I said." We have a political officer, but no commissioner. We live here recently, but this is one of the first impressions.

- Do you consider yourself an ecovillage?

- Probably, the ecovillage is those who immediately came with Goncharov. Yes, we know these people, we contact them, we participate in common events. Although among the old-timers, the vectors went in different directions. An eco-settlement should be distinguished by an organization, a written idea, for the sake of which people came to this settlement. And here is a group of like-minded people, but like-minded people only that they have chosen this place.

In a forest near Lake Varanen, the house of Alexei and Oksana is hidden.

- I can hardly say anything about the settlement. Ivan now has his own tasks, at the federal level, something. I believe that you can only change the world inside your family. Therefore, I can only say about our family. We are familiar with a Finnish woman who lived on this lake. She was six years old when they were asked from here. Una, as her name is, talked about life here. Here, in fact, lived a clan, a large family. The child did not grow up alone with his mother. And we live as pioneers, as pioneers of this way of life. Not entirely harmonious, frankly. Therefore, we have chosen this model for ourselves: we live here most of the year, from spring to winter. Not quite like summer residents. Workshops, carpentry Leshkina and mine ceramic, we have both here and in Sortavala. There is also a house there, with outbuildings.

Oksana is glad that they live on the outskirts, and doubts the need for ecotourism. She points to a path going up the mountain, which should lead us to the traces of the last seminar of lovers of Karelian nature. We arrived at the "place of power" and started a fire. The entire ecovillage was extinguished.

Old-timers

There are always a lot of people visiting the old residents of the settlement, Andrey and Elena Obruchei. Petersburg resident Yegor is here not for the first time.

- Aren't you thinking of moving closer to nature yourself?

- My wife is not very ... earthy. Loves apartments. To shower every day, all that. So she's not particularly eager to get over.

Yegor has two sons. The youngest eats strawberries from the garden for the first time and swims in the lake. We are also offered to swim, and on the way to pick currants. Immediately they tell about the quirks of guests from the city, who refused to eat unwashed both garden and forest berries. The children ran ahead, and we go with the owners. Elena used to do yoga, now she has a bracelet with icons on her arm. Going into the water, she is baptized. There is no beach with sand - the coast is rocky. Jumping from boulders has homegrown names: "Bomb", "Drunkard", "Pike", "Screw", "Rybka", "Kolobok".

“Daddy makes the Bomb, that's all. We have to work, clean the guest house, collect the grasses.

But on the way to the house, you still can't pass the playground:

The Hoop family ceases to be large. There were five of our own and three adopted, but the elders are already studying at the institutes, the son goes to the army - Polyana and Peresvet remain (by the way, the neighbors' children are named Martha, Martin and Ragnar). The younger ones are taken to the city school, although at one time their parents were staunch supporters of home schooling and other ideas. For ideological reasons, the Hoops even had to leave another ecovillage, Kitezh, about 20 years ago:

- We were so frantic then - about vaccinations, and vegetarians ... Now I think that it was more about us than about them, - says Elena. - There is still an organization, foster children. It was necessary to obey more than to download their rights.

Polyana is late for dinner today - she is with the guys in the city, buying food for a kayak trip across Ladoga. Having run into the kitchen, first of all he climbs into the refrigerator for sausage. Mom doesn't allow it. The girl plays out on borscht, thickly pouring mayonnaise on it. Between the stove and the curtained passage to the next room, a monitor with Elena's VKontakte page is lit. We were assigned the beds upstairs. Andrey is lying on the mattress by the stairs with a laptop on his chest, in the room the boys are watching a movie on the computer, someone’s tablet is right there. We cannot sleep for a long time on homemade wooden beds. By midnight, the house calms down, and only from under Peresvet's blanket the phone flickers for a long time.

Perspectives

The settlement has existed for 20 years, but the grown children have not yet returned here. In this respect, Ekovil is no different from the surrounding villages. Some parents say that it is difficult to find a job, others say that the half, willing to move to the village. And Ivan Goncharov, speaking about children, even forgets about the patriarchal way of life:

- We are building the world for ourselves, for children this world is different. We came from there, from the outside world, and they need to go there from here.

Nevertheless, the ecovillage continues to be replenished with urban romantics.

- Go also to Zhenya and Liza. They are from St. Petersburg, absolutely urban people, programmer and designer. They thought it was so with them, self-indulgence. And now they are here year-round. They live alone on the farm.

- How far to go to them?

- Far away ... five minutes have to go.

The hosts will be surprised by our visit. They are rarely visited by anyone, even Ivan Goncharov has never been. And in vain. A beautiful two-story house is built on a rock, it is surrounded by a terrace that looks more like a deck: tanned children climb the beams and a rope, not afraid of heights, and below there is a green sea of \u200b\u200bmeadows. We are, of course, noticed from afar. The girl runs away to put on a dress on a swimsuit. Upon meeting, it turns out that Lisa already has four children. All were born at home, and the youngest was right here, even without a midwife. Domestic birth is practiced at Ekovil, although some settlers are opposed to it.

- Why did you move here?

- We went here for a long time, almost ten years, - Zhenya begins. - We learned through Obruchei that there is an ecovillage here. The first time we arrived, we went kayaking, we lived in a tent. We loved this place. When the second child was born, we felt cramped in a two-room apartment. When we had a third, we got down to it in earnest, sold the apartment.

- I was then on the eighth month, then another two and a half years ordeal in rented apartments.

- And I ordered a log house, a roof, came here and began to finish everything. I still do it. For a year I sat on all sorts of Internet construction forums, studied how all this is done. When we got to the finish, I realized that it was impossible to entrust the builders with it. Now this is my main occupation, there is no time to engage in agriculture. And I make money by making graphics for toys. Of course, this is not a city, but we deliberately exchanged earnings for a good life. In my opinion, this is a good exchange.

- Was there any philosophical background for such an exchange?

- This is Ivan, Andrey - they have ideas, articles on this topic. But when faced with ordinary life, all this is leveled, and it turns out ... ordinary life. We just live, we just feel good.

But Ivan Goncharov is not the kind of person who will calm down on "we just feel good":

- For ten years we were in quiet stagnation, the village mostly sat in its little worlds. And then something kicked. We got together with the men. As expected, poured into a glass. I say: “Let's keep the advice. Everyone is sitting in their hole now, we do not have a model of our future. Let's be honest. Either we get the banners of our dreams out of the mothballs, or we honestly hand them over to scrap. "

There was no free land to which new settlers could come. But recently the local state farm went bankrupt, and now the surrounding fields will be used for development. Until a summer cottage hell with two-meter fences was built there, Goncharov is trying to negotiate with the authorities. The Promised Land in its grandiose new plan is called the "Model Territory for Sustainable Innovative Development", and even the neighboring island is called an "ecotechnopark" and "generator of information resources." It remains to find ideological followers.

Roman and Daria Nuriev,

This weekend we finally went to the Zalesye ecovillage (they say that the stress should be on the first syllable). The most important and best experience is the people! Stunning, simple, discovery, down to earth (in every sense) and with a GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR! :)

The eco-settlement is located in Karelia on the territory of a former village (3-4 houses are still quite old there), 100 km from Petrozavodsk and only 5 km from Lake Onega. The way there took about 550 km from St. Petersburg. The road to there is normal in general (Murmansk federal highway). But in Len. the region's roads are worse than anywhere else (after 100 km from the city) :)

Well, back to the people. There are 5 houses permanently living on the territory of the settlement (not always one house is one family), in the summer there are about 10-12 houses. People live different - a teacher, there is a pediatrician, there is one sailor in the past, one fireman, a builder, a stove-maker, a beekeeper and so on. In general, a very different audience with several children living permanently. They go to school - 6 km one way. to the nearest school on foot in summer and 5 km in winter on skis. Hence we can conclude that according to physical. preparation, children will give anyone a head start (and not only in physical form) :)

By the way, when the first settlers came, there were (and still are) several houses on these lands with local (village) summer residents who came for the summer from Petrozavodsk. For the locals, the arrival of strangers who do not smoke, do not drink and generally lead the "wrong" lifestyle was a serious shock. Someone began to use this and stole some things from the settlers (no one locks the house here with a key), but after a while someone stopped drinking alcohol. In general, different people and different destinies. Very soon there will be a gathering of all residents and the administration, which, by the way, is on the side of eco-settlers (they will solve current issues).

Children walk by themselves from early morning until late at night (they've already swam in a local pond and lake!). In general, complete freedom and discord! For parents, this is safety and freedom, which is necessary for the development of their children, probably this is the main factor for which they moved here to live.

Residents are engaged in the fact that they are slowly equipping their plots, building houses (by the way, everyone has more than 1-2 hiktars of land and the neighborhood is very pleasant in such conditions, since everyone lives on their own land). They make honey for sale, conduct construction seminars, rent out guest houses to tourists, some are actively engaged in permalculture according to Sepp Holzer, but there are still no serious results, including commercial ones. But this is not particularly important, since many live on their own household, some buy food in the city (when they go there for their own business). One person admitted that 1,500 rubles a month (!) Was enough for him, his daughter and wife, but now they spend about 3,000 rubles on average. I have found only one family who eats meat products, the rest tend to prefer plant foods. This is largely due to the fact that, due to the unstable power grid, many refrigerators cannot withstand; voltage stabilizers (both expensive and cheap) cannot withstand more than a year.
Some houses and plots are connected to electricity, but many specially take plots without electricity.

Judge for yourself:

5-6 liters of bezin are needed for a chainsaw to prepare firewood for 1 year (!)
1 gas cylinder is used for 1 year for cooking (refueling costs about 400 rubles)
mobile charging (here MTS and Megafon catches) is carried out through neighbors (who have electricity), or through solar panels
solar batteries are also used to illuminate houses (in winter they say practically no sense from them)
turn on the generator - in winter and as needed (mainly for power tools) (consumption 0.6 liters per hour)

In general, not so many resources are actually needed, as it seems at first glance to an ordinary man in the street. And in general, a person needs little for happiness - here on Karelian land you understand this well, but only personally, only if he himself came here.

By the way, there are no statutes and rules in the settlement itself (the main and natural filter is "Karelian land"). There are big plans for the development of ecovillages (but what about without them?), But for their implementation more settlers are needed (more hands - less difficulties). Although the foundation of a common house has already been laid (aka a school). But no one is in a hurry (and there is no need!) Because life in any ecovillage is what people choose, so that their life flows calmly and measuredly (like a river).

A video about the settlement can be viewed here:
http://rodoposelenia.ru/video3.html

If you decide to come, then you can (and should!) Stop here:
http://www.rodoposelenia.ru/tovary_romanova.html - guest houses are very comfortable!

The settlement has its own website, mailing list and even twitter (!) :)))
http://rodoposelenia.ru/zalesie.html
P.S.
There are mosquitoes there, but less than in the Leningrad region, and for some reason they mostly bite only visitors. I think the point is in the clogged pores on the skin of a city person, which mosquitoes are thus cleaning us in good service) So the tick decided to cure me)) I went to the infectious disease specialist - to find out the results of the study. Good day everyone!

August 26th - arrival in the morning. We kindly ask you to take tickets for the earliest trains possible in order to start early. On the first day, we will have the most close thing - to skip this, which means to sit like a bean for the other three days.

Hours at 15:00 - lunch: pilaf cooked over a fire. We will eat right there in the circle of the fire all together, looking closely at each other :-)

• Rope course

After lunch - Rope Course.Type these two words in Yandex to understand how interesting it is for any person! We invited a master with all the necessary equipment.

I heard only positive reviews for the course. We will have fun until dinner! I am sure that as a result we will vote to postpone dinner until later :-)

• So supper!

• Healing Impulse

On August 27th, I recommend starting with the Goltis Healing Impulse. I have been studying this system for several years. I gave up many times, but started over again as many times. I have never been able to create the same load on the body with other practices.

And it's not about the load! And the fact that the purpose of this load is to cleanse the body!

Before breakfast, I will teach everyone a set of exercises for the first day.

• Breakfast
• Christmas trees

It is obvious to everyone that working together brings people together. But since you come to the meeting of the halves not for work, but for rapprochement, and not artificial, but natural, we have chosen the simplest thing that can be done together.

We will plant Christmas trees!

Why and why Christmas trees?

In winter we go skiing and snowmobiling, so sweeping is critical for us, so sweeping is critical for us when the road is covered with snow where it passes through an open field.

If we each plant a hundred different Christmas trees, then in 10 years, once a well-trodden road, it will hold on for a long time under any winds.

Therefore, after breakfast, we will go together to plant pre-prepared Christmas trees and at the same time communicate freely.

• Dive into the topic

Before lunch, we suggest breaking up into groups and each group with a discussion / immersion topic. The task is to come to unanimity and come up with a non-trivial solution to a given problem.

If you have never participated in a veche, then you have no idea how difficult it is to come to unanimity. But if you already had an unsuccessful family, then you guess :-)

In a joint search for truth, a person is seen as well as in joint work.

• Tasty dinner

In order not to waste time, we suggest discussing and reflecting right during a delicious lunch and for a while after, until the body is ready for active games :-)

• Reports

If each group makes a report and issues a non-trivial solution on a given topic, then everyone will be enriched.

• Vepsian dating games

Vepsians are the indigenous population of the region of Karelia where we are creating a settlement. In the library I came across a book with the Vepsian games for acquaintance. More precisely, games, like games, are fun. But it is clear that the idea is to unobtrusively bring the players closer together :-)

• Baths + bonfire + dance evening

Baths will be 2-3 - regular and mobile. At the same time, there will be a bonfire for those who are waiting for their turn or already from the bathhouse.

And when everyone gets over, Andrey will hold an evening of dancing in the spirit of those years when it was allowed once a year and was expected by everyone with trepidation :-)

Alexey Romanov and Elena will also show the mastery of classical dance and teach us a thing or two.

Resurrection

• Healing Impulse
• Breakfast
• Hike

You also know that hiking also brings you closer together. Timofey promises to lead everyone along the path, which was once a direct road between our settlement and the nearest large village.

We will offer the men to take axes so that they go a little ahead and clear the way for women and children.

At the end of the journey, the bravest swim in Lake Onega. And then we will go to the Vepsian Museum, where we will be treated to a Karelian national dish - gates. I was in this museum - once it is worth seeing for a complete picture of the world.

Let's go back by cars.

• And again dinner, bonfire, baths.

Monday

• AI + breakfast
• Alley of Love

Now that we have the correct condition, we can plant the Love Alley. Purely symbolic. We will dig small maples in the forest and each will plant a seedling from his heart. He will be waiting for you until your next visit.

• Orange

This is such a calm and kind game, which is possible only on the day of departure, when everyone became friends :-)

• Departure

Karelia loves the strong - this is what the locals say, and they are right. Karelia is an amazing land with powerful nature, thousands of lakes and vast spaces, fascinating with their beauty and purity. It is here - in general, just 100 km from Petrozavodsk - that one of the oldest eco-settlements with the beautiful name "Zalesye" is located (pronouncing this name, for some reason the locals emphasize the first syllable).

The name of the eco-settlement is somewhat historical - there used to be a village of the same name, but then the residents abandoned their houses, moved to ... It was here, on the tract, which includes, in addition to the territory of the former "Zalesye", also the territory of two other villages, that the settlement was located. If earlier the villagers wanted to go to the city, now the situation has changed dramatically - not only Petersburgers, but also residents of St. Petersburg, Muscovites, and residents of other large cities and even residents of Europe and the CIS countries are ready to give up the bustle of the metropolis, quit high-paying jobs and move here closer to nature. However, there are those who keep a balance: they come only for the summer, and spend the cold season in the city.




"Zalesye" fascinates from the first minutes: there is a traditional Karelian pine forest, where in summer and autumn you can visit for mushrooms and berries, and lakes full of fish, and amazing air! And the proximity to the city gives its comfort - there are roads, electricity and a telephone line! In relative proximity (only 8 kilometers by car or 4 kilometers through the forest) there are shops (food and household). They built their school here!


Local residents are always glad to new neighbors - they say that the most important thing for moving to Zalesye is a person's desire to save a piece of the planet, to create a space of love on it, to equip a family estate. But there are also plenty of original “filters” for newcomers here: the main one is Karelian itself, because in order to stay in Karelia, you need to truly love this land, you need to be able to see this land and your life on it in 10-20 years, to understand how wonderful life can be here!


The territory of "Zalesye" is not small! Those who dream of living in the forest can choose for themselves a plot completely overgrown with pines and birches, for those who love space and the smell of flowering herbs - there are plots in the field. You can sit on the side of a hill or at the edge of the forest! You can choose a site with a stream flowing through it or on the shore of a lake, with a small rivulet blocked by beaver dams.


Before moving here for permanent residence, you can rent a guest room from local old-timers, or just come to visit the one who invited you! Local residents say that it is simply impossible to remain indifferent to the beauty of Karelian nature!
Here, each family equips its ancestral estate, and people are driven by the ideas described in the books of Vladimir Megre. All people here are creative! Films are made about Zalesye, seminars are held here, telling how to build a house with your own hands, helping new neighbors with construction! There is a wonderful apiary and amazingly tasty honey, and its sale and work with bees is one of the income items of the inhabitants of the eco-settlement. Even in "Zalesye" they like to work with stone - they make crafts and implement works from shungite - this is a healing stone, the deposit of which is in Karelia. Local residents are developing their own mass media - a newsletter on the Internet: "On the Way to the Family Home", which is read by 280,000 like-minded people and a constantly updated group in contact.


- We have a measured, unhurried settlement, we strive for a calm life in harmony with nature, enjoy harmony with the surrounding world and equip our land. We breed cattle, horses, sheep! - say the locals.


All of them are happy and smiling people, satisfied with life, smiling and ready even to go to the nearest village for groceries on a sleigh with a horse. Those who meet them on the way are no longer surprised - almost all the surrounding people have already visited the residents of "Zalesye". And they are glad - talented people and those who love nature are always welcome here!