dig

For a long time I was convinced to spit. persistently persuaded. Definitely since 2007. But people don’t like pressure. And I didn’t care. I was also afraid that the genetic passport would suddenly show that I was not who I thought I was.

“Don’t worry, he’s definitely a Jew,” said a poisonous fat woman from work angrily at my hesitation. She is of course an anti-Semite. In one sentence, she tried to insert two objects at once: both me and all Jews in general. They also say that fat people are kind…

But I have a familiar family, people like no other, completely devoid of arrogance, arrogance, fuss, envy, empty talk. They say the truth is born – it can very well be. And when they coincidentally told me that they had issued a genetic passport for them, the very next day I gave a saliva sample for DNA testing. A word spoken without the intention of pushing, pushing, persuading, persuading has an immediate effect.

“Good thing I got past, just find out where a quarter of the “Baltic” blood comes from, maybe from our common grandmother,” my cousin said. It is of course very exciting and enjoyable to share information about common roots.
– But do we have a common grandmother? I asked my special cousin.
– Are you completely yourself? What are you asking me now? Of course we have a common grandmother and grandfather, you and your cousin.

The grandmother we had in common was actually his grandmother and her granddaughter, but that didn’t fit the mind, neither mine nor his. There was a feeling that my grandmother was no longer her grandchild, but only mine. Strangely, she was so childish … After trolling me, my sister admitted that she barely knew the common grandmother on her own, the second grandmother is somehow closer to her. These are miracles of memory and kinship.

Our common grandmother was a unique, selfless, altruistic, penniless, reckless, abusive woman, she was born in Moscow on the Klimentovsky lane and, according to family legend, knew the time from the Kremlin bells. I never doubted this, because the image itself is strong and self-sufficient, does not allow minor doubts. Therefore, whether the bells from Klimentovsky are visible and what kind of eagle vision you need to see them – I did not check. Moreover, you can not experiment, Baltschug has grown so much since my grandmother ran barefoot on the Moscow cobblestone pavement. By the way, great-grandmother was also born in the same Klimentovsky Lane. From there her husband went to the front of the First World War. She went to the front and never came back. Wow it hurts. I mean, he’s back, but not to her. To another woman. He hasn’t seen her since, neither himself nor his two daughters. That’s all I know. Born in Klimentovsky, buried in Vagankovsky, then – the wall. Did they come to Klimentovsky directly from the Baltic? Our Soviet parents were slapped when they asked about the past, not everyone had the right background, which is necessary and kids don’t like to deal with roots. And the entire Soviet project as a whole was oriented towards the future. (Like any modernist project).

But in traditional societies everyone has to know their family up to the seventh generation…

A female anthropologist told me that Russian thought in general is more concerned with endings than beginnings. Eschatology worries him more. Russian cosmism, Russian futurism was born here…

– Is it because the Russians are not so happy with the present? I dug too deep The anthropologist wasn’t interested in my version.
In the West, by contrast, they still break spears about how the world came to be. Creationists argue with Darwinists. This question leaves us indifferent.
The fashion for DNA testing and compiling a family tree came from the West. It’s the number one hobby out there. The most progressive and imitative ones were also dragged here.

So I was taken to the past.

It’s “spring digging” time, diggers digging antiques. I was called in to “dig for treasures” by a friend of mine, who was a closed, healthy man from a neighboring area for a long time. In the evening we went to the field.
– And they say that there are such “land diggers”, can you imagine, – I said.
“So I am a land digger, and I am,” he said in an indifferent, terrifying voice…

On the one hand, it is completely legal, metal detectors are sold everywhere, on the other hand, it is illegal. So, you can dig, but not find – the usual legislative fluctuation.

In our well, where we go to get water three times a week, the ancient coins turned out to be almost on the surface, I took a copper two kopeck coin of Paul the First and a silver kopeck “scale” from the time of Ivan. Terrible. Mom!

The coins, worth 400 rubles on a good day, made the same impression as an empty box under the canned food on the cannibal of the Mumbo Yubmo tribe.
We live as if we were first earthers, as if humans did not live here before us, as if there was no life on earth before the USSR and now our horticultural partnership was formed in 1984 – it is the first homo sapiens settlement.

Tactile contact with the past produces the strongest effect. What energies are imprinted here? Who walked on water and dropped coins 250 years ago? An ordinary Russian peasant, most likely … You still have to manage to lose such a heavy coin of Paul the First … Here at night he went to the water well, drunk, of course, sang songs, slipped, fell or did not happen, there was a quarrel, people often quarreled, a coin and it fell. Then the peasant was upset, because for this penny he could buy a bun and a mug of kvass. His wife scolded him. And the “stamp” of Ivan the Terrible was thrown 470 years ago here in our field by another peasant, before plowing they always made an offer, here he turned his back on the field and threw this money on his back so that the field brings more money than it gives. It was four and a half hundred years ago. Half past four. And here, just around the corner, was Napoleon’s headquarters, after all, it lay along our way from Moscow. my god. And there are a lot of German shells here, who is lying here and firing? Images come to life instantly.

Most importantly, of course, there are the “Bukhara dirhams”, this is the cultural layer of the Soviet era. These are caps from vodka bottles, they are also heard by a metal detector, you dig and dig and there is a flattened cap, almost like a coin, but it is not. You don’t need to imagine how people throw punches but it’s a waste of time.

Of course, you will not make any money from this hobby. The price of each coin is 350-800 rubles, and to clean it you will have to pay two thousand. But when you buy a fishing rod, you do not dream of getting rich with fish. But excitement.

“The diggers are called black only in Russia, as if we were thieves,” the neighbor said. – It must have already reached the bureaucratic minds that the diggers are good, not hurt. If we didn’t find it, no one would have found it, besides, our paths do not cross with archaeologists, we check the archaeological map of Russia in order not to go to the “monument”.

I can’t say that I particularly like the diggers, and their communities in particular. He looks like a CSP to my eyes, I don’t like any community, they look suspicious to me with sectarian intellectual heresies. As the great Chernomyrdin said, no matter what organization our people unite in, the CPSU will appear. But, really, they bother them unnecessarily. For example, while Israel is very geared towards protection from diggers, it has hunted treasure hunters with drones until at least recently, banning metal detectors (at least it’s consistent here), even Israel has now softened the laws. Although Israel is of great antiquity. But now that both cops and metal detectors are allowed here, they have created an app that lets you dig and record what you find. In Great Britain the state is obligated to recover the “treasury” at full market value. The most liberal legislation in Northern Europe. Therefore, no one hides any finds there. But due to conflicting legislation, a “black police” emerges and what is of historical value disappears. Well, okay, social pathos is not close to me either.

Nevertheless, the contact with the past is an impression, especially tactile, incomparable with anything, I did not even dream of finding such a time machine in our fields. History is in the textbooks. And then suddenly, nearby. Tap history. through information. throughout the landscape. Through tactility. Energy. Priceless.

We somehow live separately, we have no contact with those who lived here before us. Of course, if you find objects belonging to Finno-Ugric tribes, Karelians, Meshchore or Vesi, it is really difficult to feel the connection. If it suddenly turns out that my grandmother is from the Baltic, I really have no connection with the locals. While it’s a silly excuse, I’m not arguing…
And by the way, maybe he listened to the ringing of bells from Klimentovsky and did not look at the dial itself?

Now I look at the app every day to see if the DNA test results are coming in. It will probably hit again. But I will not know what I did not know from my grandmother. And, of course, the world’s heaviest burden also sounds like this: “You won’t be asking anymore.”

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.