Ukraine, Parkhomovka, Roerich and more
Ukraine, Parkhomovka, Roerich and more
*** Instead of a preface. The desire to write about this journey arose long ago, right after arrival. But, as they say, the hands did not reach. Not even two years have passed, as they "reached". Still, what helped to write was that she made notes in hot pursuit, it remains only to finalize them. What happened is up to you to judge.
Do you love our "nenka" -Ukraine? Do you feel like a citizen of a GREAT country? I think that thanks to our “Kermanichs”, the overwhelming majority will have a very negative answer to this rhetorical question. But in vain. Because we should not give a damn about the Kermanians, because we live in a really GREAT country from the point of view that in a relatively small area there are many true pearls that we do not even suspect.
So it was with me. I found out about Parkhomovka quite by accident: I was on a business trip in Bila Tserkva and in the Rostavitsa hotel complex, out of boredom, I studied from cover to cover the folder in the room with a bunch of different information: about the cost of living, food, broken dishes, brawl, etc. d. etc. and so on and so forth. And on the last page - a small note about the wondrous beauty of the church in the nearby village. Parkhomovka, the mosaics for which were created by Roerich himself. In general, visiting this Parkhomovka and seeing everything with my own eyes has become an obsession.
And in November 2011, when, like with Marshak, “it was in the evening and there was nothing to do, ” the idea was born of itself to go to Parkhomovka on the weekend with an overnight stop in Belaya Tserkov.
We left on Friday evening. Right on the way, I found several hotels on my mobile phone via the Internet. Phoned and booked a double room. We arrived, wandered a little along the B. C. , guessed to call the hotel back, a very polite young lady from the reception (special thanks to the owners - the staff is sooo nice, we just regretted that we didn’t think to take at least some mini-souvenirs with us to thank people for such a wonderful attitude towards our brother-tourist), and so, this sweet young lady very cleverly piloted us directly to the hotel. They entered, settled in, drove the car to the parking lot (right in the courtyard, guarded, the courtyard is locked, however, there is not much space in the parking lot), settled. Hotel "Gostiny Dvor". The room is ok but nothing special. Soft corner, TV, mini-bar, set of dishes (plates, forks, cups, glasses, bottle opener, napkins), coffee table, bed. There is free WiFi. It cost something around 300 UAH. along with breakfast (I am writing much later after that, so quite naturally some of the details have already been forgotten).
The next morning was gloomy and not particularly conducive to sightseeing of any sights. But the brand new Nikon burned his hands, and therefore there was nowhere to retreat - she was waiting ahead, the Parkhomovsky Church was simply of heavenly beauty, and in the right way - the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After breakfast (one of the people writing here subtly noted that our people, as a rule, necessarily devote a significant place in describing their impressions of traveling somewhere to nutrition issues. It seems to me that this is an echo of empty store shelves in the days of the scoop, the ghost of which with inexorable ruthlessness haunts us all in a relatively well-fed independent life. On the other hand, in my opinion, there is nothing terrible in this, since the opportunity to eat normally away from home is also important, and a well-fed tourist is somehow more receptive, or something), we set off let's hit the road. Restaurant at the hotel: it is clear that various banquets and festivities often take place, green smoky walls, soft corners, small cozy tables. In a word, nothing outstanding: oatmeal, fried eggs, toast, tea.
Today, many travel companies bring sightseers to Parkhomovka "in addition" to excursions to Bila Tserkva. You can get to Parkhomovka by bus from Belaya Tserkov (23 km). The village is located to the left of the Belaya Tserkov-Volodarka highway. You can also turn off the Kyiv-Odessa highway to Parkhomovka (near the village of Gostra Mogila). This is the route we took.
As always, before any trip, the Internet helped. A common practice is to acquaint the “helmsman” with various historical information about the place where we are going on the way. So, during this trip, I was forced to read aloud the story of Fyodor Ivanovich Golubev 4 (four! ) Times, a nobleman-philanthropist, whose children, according to the will of their father, built this wonderful temple. Repeating in every way "Yes, there were people... ", having found out the direction of movement in the passing villages, we imperceptibly reached Parkhomovka.
The temple is on the main road. Its green domes are visible from afar. If one word to describe the impression that it makes - it's a shock. Among the autumn colors, against the background of the blue sky of light brick, the building with intricate brick patterns, with mosaics, with various minor details that are not conspicuous at first, but not at all meaningless - it is amazingly beautiful. I will give below all the information that I managed to “furrow” before the trip. It seems to me that she also contributed to THIS perception of the temple. It’s only a pity, when I was looking, I didn’t think that I would later post it for public review - therefore, there are no links to sites where everything was taken from, and in this regard, there is no way to somehow thank the authors. Perhaps something is duplicated, but anyway, each of the writers has his own opinion, knows his part of the story, so I post it as it was printed in my homemade guidebook, with slight cuts.
The village of Parkhomovka has been around since the 17th century. Until the middle of the 19th century, the village was like a village - away from the railway, poor and dull. The situation changed dramatically when Viktor Fedorovich Golubev acquired the local lands. This was an amazing person! He was born in Russia, in Nizhny Novgorod in 1842, in the family of a nobleman in the first generation. Trained as a railway engineer. Not only did he study, but with honors, in the Hall of Fame of the Institute of Ways, his name, among other distinguished waymen, was emblazoned on a marble plaque. Participated in the construction of various branches of Russian railways, had a "share" in several factories. He mainly specialized in the production of rails. He was a co-owner of the Petrovsky plant in Yekaterinoslavl (Dnepropetrovsk). Wrote a book about American railroads. He was an innovator and philanthropist. At one of his factories in the Bryansk region, he not only installed the latest foreign equipment, but also introduced a social program for his workers: he provided housing, drilled artesian wells, built a hospital, schools, and a club. His workers literally bowed before a reasonable and kind owner.
Having retired with the rank of court councilor in 1874, Viktor Fedorovich soon launched a stormy activity in Parkhomovka, which belonged to him. He opened two schools here: for women and men, built a free hospital and a maternity shelter, organized a reading room and even a tea room for the villagers. The rules in this "drinking" establishment were very original: not a drop of "alcohol" liquids, but to make it more fun for the peasants to drink tea, they installed a newfangled overseas miracle here: a gramophone!
The peasants often invited their beloved "master" to baptize their children. Golubev granted numerous godchildren 5 rubles each.
Viktor Fedorovich also set up agrarian experiments and was very successful - he grew rare varieties of crops in the Ukrainian village, and was engaged in selection. Golubev was an exceptionally decent man, a believer.
Even during his lifetime, he dreamed of building a church of unprecedented beauty and size in the village he loved, but he did not have time. When the body of Golubev, who died in Rome, was brought to Ukraine in 1903 according to his will, 200 villagers with carts went to meet his coffin at the railway station. Everyone so wanted to take the “gentleman-benefactor” to the place of his final resting place that a fight almost broke out at the station. Everything was decided by the world: the coffin of Viktor Fedorovich was carried in turn in their arms for 12 versts. They buried him in a small chapel, on which his sons later built a wonderful temple, which their father dreamed of. Supervised the construction of Viktor Viktorovich, the eldest son. He graduated from St. Petersburg University with a degree in mathematics, but he was more interested in the history of art. He even defended his dissertation on foreign literature. Studying various artistic trends, he became interested in the East, made friends with Nicholas Roerich and other admirers of Tibet and India.
Then the Buddhist ideas of Universal Unity and Harmony were very popular in society. Viktor Viktorovich traveled a lot in the East, carried out archaeological excavations, collected a rare art collection. At his request, Nicholas Roerich developed a project for a temple in Parkhomovka and made sketches
12 mosaics. Unfortunately, only two were brought to life: "The Savior Not Made by Hands" and "Protection of the Mother of God. " By the way, Nicholas Roerich created a mosaic "Savior" in another famous temple: in the village of Talashkino, Smolensk province, by order of the philanthropist Tenyashova.
The famous architect Vladimir Alexandrovich Pokrovsky, also a great lover of the East, brought to life the plan of the Parkhomovsky temple. The mosaic smalt was made in St. Petersburg in Frolov's workshop. The temple was built for 3 years from 1903 to 1906. And then a 50-meter bell tower of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God and the Great Martyr Victor shot up over the village. Old Russian, Oriental and Gothic motifs are whimsically and harmoniously intertwined in its architecture. It is so unusual that for two years the clergy did not dare to cover it because of its inconsistency with church canons. The parquet lay in the church and benches were installed for convenience, which was an unheard of violation. In the end, the extraordinary temple was solemnly consecrated.
The story of the extraordinary building did not end there. Under Soviet rule, at the end of the twenties, local Komsomol members decided that it was unsuitable for a class enemy to lie in such luxury, and that even dead he should be simpler (according to another version, they did not have enough money to buy musical instruments for the club). The barbarians, who may have been baptized by a philanthropist at one time, opened the crypt in the hope of profiting from the golden decorations of their uniform. But they miscalculated: Viktor Fedorovich was buried in a modest frock coat. The vandals cut off the gilded buttons, tore off the coat from the deceased, and threw the remains into a ditch. At night, the village women secretly reburied Golubev at the local cemetery. It is still not known where his grave is. The brave party leaders wanted to demolish the temple at first, but then they regretted spoiling the new large building, and it seemed troublesome. The unique work of architectural art has been used as a storage facility for chemical fertilizers for many years.
Solid bricks were slowly pulled out of the outbuildings and the temple itself until 1979, when the church was given the status of an architectural monument. In 1982, the first, rather modest restoration began. A new round of revival unexpectedly began for the temple in 1987 during the festival in India in Moscow. Then the son of Nicholas Roerich, Svyatoslav, came to Moscow. I learned that my father's mosaics were preserved and wanted to look at them. At the direction of Mikhail Gorbachev, the restoration began with lightning speed, a lot was done, but, alas, not all. Nearby, the villagers used their own money to order and erect a monument to Viktor Golubev by a local sculptor.
The Church of the Intercession of the Holy Mother of God is a kind of synthesis of Gothic, Asian architectural traditions and pagan cult forms. Pagan motifs, the ancient world, the Byzantine style, and pieces of the Middle Ages are woven into the paintings.
One of the slabs of the temple in Old Slavonic reads: "Erected in honor and memory of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Great Martyr Victor in the summer of 1903-1906. " The ashes of the inspirer of the temple, Viktor Golubev, rest here, in the chapel, in the courtyard of the church.
And if those who talk about “abstraction” even a little turned on their brains, then on the development of tourist infrastructure we would enter the European Union on a white horse. No, they don't need anything. Well, they don’t want the Turkish and Egyptian coast to stop beckoning us. Of course, a trip to Parkhomovka will not replace a vacation by the sea. But after all, abroad, we consider it necessary to see local sights. Here and in the same Parkhomovka hundreds of thousands of people could come. And then perhaps the priest's house would have been restored, and the whole complex would have taken on a more well-groomed appearance. But alas: the roads leading to Parkhomovka are in a terrible state; there is no hotel, no cafe, no parking, no gas stations; there is no opportunity to buy souvenirs and booklets.
On the other hand, the most important thing is that Parkhomovka exists. And this is our everything.
PS: The photos were taken with different cameras, in some places the quality of the pictures is not very good.
