Works submitted to the competition “In the Place of Genius”
I got here in the same autumn as Alexander Kuprin once did. Silence and laziness. Instead of longboats there are yachts waiting for belated holidaymakers.
Still guarding the Chembalo tower-fortress. Nazukin embankment, the building of the former Grand Hotel and the monument to Kuprin, captured and subjugated by Balaklava. He passionately wanted to settle in a country house and certainly grow a garden. And he even bought a plot of land on the slope of the Kefalo-Vrisi gully. I dreamed of staying here, creating and reveling in the beauty, being close to the courageous and dexterous Balaklava fishermen, spending days at sea with them, drinking white wine, walking in a crowd along the embankment, singing songs, and comparing them with Homer’s Listrygonian giants.
However, the revolutionary events in Sevastopol and the essay, which displeased the command, forced him to leave the city by order of the police. Meanwhile, there were also the Ochakovo sailors he saved...
A few months later, Kuprin again comes to Balaklava without permission, but only for two hours, and then thanks to a bribe.
In the Balaklava, just in the crack,
In mid-September
I arrived quietly
But I came in vain!
Missed a piece of mullet
Swallow with tomato
How did they see me?
And instantly - fuck.
The hope of a return was unsuccessful. Alas.
Balaclava is almost a dream come true, but lost by the will of fate. His soul and memory invariably remained here.
Today, walking along the embankment, you stop at the monument to Kuprin, who directs his gaze to where his beloved city lies on the hills.
"Listrigons"
At the end of October or beginning of November, Balaklava - this most original corner of the motley Russian empire - begins to live a unique life. The days are still warm and gentle like autumn, but the nights are cold, and the earth rings loudly under your feet. The last resort guests flocked to Sevastopol with their bundles, suitcases, baskets, trunks, scrofulous children and decadent girls. As a memory of the guests, only grape skins remained, which, in view of their precious health, the patients scattered everywhere - on the embankment and along the narrow streets - in disgusting abundance, and even that paper litter in the form of cigarette butts, scraps of letters and newspapers that always remains after the summer residents.
And immediately in Balaklava it becomes spacious, fresh, cozy and homely, businesslike, as if in the rooms after the departure of sensational, smoking, messy uninvited guests. The original, ancient Greek population, who until now had been hiding in some cracks and back closets, is crawling out onto the street.
On the embankment, across its entire width, nets are spread. On the rough stones of the pavement they appear delicate and thin, like a spider's web, and the fishermen crawl along them on all fours, like large black spiders weaving a torn trap in the air. Others twist string onto beluga and flounder and to do this, with a serious, businesslike look, they run back and forth along the pavement with the rope over their shoulders, constantly twisting a ball of thread in front of them.
The captains of the longboats sharpen beluga hooks - weathered copper hooks, which, according to fishermen's belief, fish are much more willing to use than modern, English, steel ones. On the other side of the bay they caulk, tar and paint boats with their keels upside down.
Near the stone wells, where the water continuously flows and babbles in a thin stream, thin, dark-faced, big-eyed, long-nosed Greek women, so strangely and touchingly similar to the image of the Virgin Mary on ancient Byzantine icons, chatter for a long time, for hours, about their little household affairs.
And all this is done leisurely, at home, in a neighborly manner, with the age-old habitual dexterity and beauty, under the mild autumn sun on the shores of a blue, cheerful bay, under a clear autumn sky that calmly lies over the ruins of sloping bald mountains bordering the bay.
There is no mention of summer residents. They definitely weren’t there. Two or three good rains - and the last memory of them will be washed away from the streets. And all this stupid and fussy summer with brass music in the evenings, and with dust from ladies’ skirts, and with pathetic flirting, and disputes on political topics - everything becomes a distant and forgotten dream. The entire interest of the fishing village is now focused only on fish.
In the coffee houses of Ivan Yurich and Ivan Adamovich, fishermen gather in artels to the sound of dominoes; Ataman is elected. The conversation is about shares, about half shares, about nets, about hooks, about bait, about mackerel, about mullet, about mullet, about anchovy and mullet, about flounder, beluga and gurnard. At nine o'clock the whole city falls into deep sleep.
Nowhere in all of Russia - and I have traveled quite a bit in all directions - have I not listened to such deep, complete, perfect silence as in Balaklava.
You go out onto the balcony and are completely absorbed in darkness and silence. Black sky, black water in the bay, black mountains. The water is so thick, so heavy and so calm that the stars are reflected in it without rippling or blinking. The silence is not broken by any sound from human habitation. Occasionally, once a minute, you can barely hear a small wave squelching against the stone of the embankment. And this lonely, melodic sound deepens the silence even more, making it even more alarming. You can hear the blood rushing in your ears in measured tremors. The boat creaked on its rope. And again it’s quiet. You feel how night and silence merged in one black embrace.
I look to the left, to where the narrow throat of the bay disappears, narrowing between two mountains.
There lies a long, flat mountain topped with old ruins. If you look closely, you will clearly see it all, like a fairy-tale giant monster, which, leaning its chest against the bay and sticking its dark muzzle deeply into the water with an alert ear, drinks greedily and cannot get drunk.
In the place where the monster's eye should be, a customs cordon lamp glows with a tiny red dot. I know this lantern, I have walked past it hundreds of times, touched it with my hand. But in the strange silence and deep blackness of this autumn night, I see more and more clearly both the back and face of the ancient monster, and I feel that his cunning and evil little red-hot eye is watching me with a hidden feeling of hatred.
Homer’s verse about the narrow-necked Black Sea bay in which Odysseus saw the bloodthirsty Listrygonians quickly flashes through my mind. I also think about the enterprising, flexible, beautiful Genoese, who erected their colossal fortifications here, on the brow of the mountain. I also think about how, one stormy winter night, an entire English flotilla crashed on the chest of an old monster, along with the proud, dapper ship "Black Prince", which now rests on the seabed, right here, very close near me, with his millions of gold bars and hundreds of lives.
The old monster, half asleep, squints its small, sharp, red eye at me. It now seems to me like an old, old, forgotten deity, who in this black silence dreams his thousand-year-old dreams. And a feeling of strange awkwardness takes over me.
The slow, lazy steps of the night watchman are heard, and I hear not only each blow of his forged, heavy fisherman's boots on the stones of the sidewalk, but I also hear how he strikes his heels between two steps. These sounds are so clear in the silence of the night that it seems to me as if I am walking with him, although I know for sure that he is more than a mile away. But then he turned somewhere to the side, into a paved alley, or perhaps sat down on a bench: his steps fell silent. Silence. Darkness.
It's autumn. The water is getting colder. So far, only small fish are caught in nets, in these large vases made of mesh, which are dropped directly from the boat to the bottom. But then a rumor is heard that Yura Paratino equipped his longboat and sent it to a place between Cape Aya and Laspi, where his mackerel hatchery is located.
Of course, Yura Paratino is not a German emperor, not a famous bass, not a fashionable writer, not a performer of gypsy romances, but when I think about how much weight and respect his name is surrounded on the entire Black Sea coast, I remember with pleasure and pride his friendship for me.
Yura Paratino is like this: he is a short, strong, salted and tarred Greek, about forty years old. He has a bullish neck, a dark complexion, curly black hair, a mustache, a square-shaped shaved chin, with an animal curve in the middle - a chin that speaks of a terrible will and great cruelty, thin, hard lips, vigorously drooping at the corners. There is not a single person among fishermen more dexterous, cunning, stronger and braver than Yura Paratino. No one had yet been able to drink Yura too much, and no one had ever seen him drunk. No one can compare with Yura's luck - not even the famous Fedor from Oleiz himself.
In no one is more developed than in him that special sea fisherman's indifference to the unfair blows of fate, which is so highly valued by these salty people.
When Yura is told that a storm tore his gear or that his longboat, filled to the brim with expensive fish, was overwhelmed by a wave and he went to the bottom, Yura only remarks in passing:
And to hell with him! - and will immediately forget about it.
Fishermen say this about Yura:
The mackerel is just thinking about coming here from Kerch, and Yura already knows where to put the plant.
The plant is a trap made from a net, ten fathoms long and five fathoms wide. Few people are interested in the details. It is enough just to say that fish, walking along the shore in large masses at night, fall, thanks to the inclination of the net, into this trap and can no longer get out of there without the help of fishermen, who lift the plant out of the water and hatch the fish into their longboats. It is only important to notice in time the moment when the water on the surface of the plant begins to boil, like porridge in a cauldron. If you miss this moment, the fish will break through the net and leave.
And so, when a mysterious premonition notified Yura of the fish’s intentions, all of Balaklava experienced several anxious, painfully tense days. The boys on duty watch the factories from the heights of the mountains day and night, the longboats are kept at the ready. Fish buyers arrived from Sevastopol. A local cannery prepares its sheds for huge batches.
One early morning, everywhere - through houses, coffee shops, and streets, a rumor spreads like lightning:
The fish is coming, the fish is coming! The mackerel went to the factories of Ivan Yegorovich, Kota, Hristo, Spiro and Kapitanaki. And of course, to Yura Paratino.
All the artels go to sea on their longboats.
The rest of the inhabitants are all on the shore: old people, women, children, and both fat innkeepers, and the gray-haired coffee man Ivan Adamovich, and the pharmacist, a busy man who came running in a hurry for a minute, and the good-natured paramedic Evsei Markovich, and both local doctors.
Particularly important is the fact that the first longboat that comes into the bay sells its booty at the most expensive price - thus, for those waiting on the shore, interest, sport, pride, and calculation come together.
Finally, in the place where the mouth of the bay narrows behind the mountains, the first boat appears, steeply skirting the shore.
This is Yura.
No, Kolya.
Of course, this is Genali.
Fishermen have their own special chic. When the catch is especially rich, you don’t have to enter the bay, but fly straight in with the oars, and the three rowers, measuredly and often, all as one, straining their backs and arm muscles, bending their necks strongly, almost leaning back, force the boat to rush along the river in quick, short bursts. the quiet surface of the bay. The chieftain, facing us, rows standing; he directs the direction of the longboat.
Of course, this is Yura Paratino!
The boat is filled to the very sides with white, silver fish, so that the legs of the rowers lie stretched out straight on it and trample on it. Carelessly, on the move, while the rowers are barely slowing down the acceleration of the boat, Yura jumps onto the wooden pier.
Bargaining with buyers begins immediately.
Thirty! - says Yura and slams the long, bony hand of the tall Greek into the palm of his hand.
This means that he wants to give the fish at thirty rubles per thousand.
Fifteen! - the Greek shouts and, in turn, freeing his hand from underneath, slaps Yura’s palm.
Twenty eight!
Eighteen!
Clap clap...
Twenty six!
Twenty!
Twenty five! - Yura says hoarsely. - And I still have one longboat going there.
And at this time, another longboat appears from behind the throat of the bay, another, a third, two more at once. They are trying to outdo each other because fish prices are falling and falling. After half an hour, they already pay fifteen rubles per thousand, an hour later - ten, and finally five or even three rubles.
By evening, the whole of Balaklava smells unbearably of fish. In every home, mackerel is fried or marinated. The wide mouths of the bakery ovens are lined with clay tiles, on which the fish is fried in its own juices. This is called: mackerel on a scallop - the most exquisite dish of local gastronomes. And all the coffee shops and taverns are filled with smoke and the smell of fried fish.
And Yura Paratino - the broadest man in all of Balaklava - enters the coffee shop, where all the Balaklava fishermen are huddled in the tobacco smoke and fish fumes, and, covering the general din, shouts imperiously to the coffee maker:
A cup of coffee everyone!
A moment of universal silence, amazement and delight.
With or without sugar? - asks the owner of the coffee shop, huge, dark-skinned Ivan Yurich, respectfully.
Yura hesitates for one second: a cup of coffee costs three kopecks, and five with sugar... But he is alien to pettiness. Today the last shareholder on his longboat earned at least ten rubles. And he says dismissively:
With sugar. And music!..
Music appears: clarinet and tambourine. They mumble and blow monotonous, dull Tatar songs until late at night. New wine appears on the tables - rose wine, smelling of freshly crushed grapes; It makes you terribly drunk and gives you a headache the next day.
And at the pier at this time the last longboats are unloaded until late at night. Squatting in a boat, two or three Greeks quickly, with habitual dexterity, grab two fish with their right hand and three with their left hand and throw them into the basket, keeping an accurate, quick count that never stops for a second.
And the next day, longboats still arrive from the sea.
It seems that the whole Balaklava is overflowing with fish.
Lazy, fish-eaten cats with swollen bellies lie across the sidewalks, and when you push them with your foot, they reluctantly open one eye and fall asleep again. And domestic geese, also sleepy, sway in the middle of the bay, and the tails of half-eaten fish stick out of their beaks.
The strong smell of fresh fish and the smoky smell of fried fish lingers in the air for many days. And the wooden piers, and the pavement stones, and the hands and dresses of happy housewives, and the blue waters of the bay, lazily swaying under the autumn sun, are sprinkled with light, sticky fish scales.
Theft
Evening. We are sitting in Ivan Yurich's coffee shop, lit by two hanging lightning lamps. It's thickly smoky. All tables are occupied. Some play dominoes, others play cards, others drink coffee, others just sit so-so in the warmth and light, exchanging conversations and remarks. A long, lazy, cozy, pleasant evening boredom took over the entire coffee shop.
Little by little we are starting a rather strange game that all fishermen are addicted to. Despite my modesty, I must confess that the honor of inventing this game belongs to me. It consists of taking turns blindfolding each of the participants with a handkerchief, tying it tightly in a nautical knot, then throwing a jacket over his head, and then two other players, taking him by the arms, lead him around all corners of the coffee shop, turning him over several times in place around himself, take him out into the courtyard, again bring him to the coffee shop and again lead him between the tables, trying in every possible way to confuse him. When, by all accounts, the subject is sufficiently confused, he is stopped and asked:
Show me where north is?
Each person undergoes this examination three times, and the one whose ability to navigate is worse than the others gives everyone else a cup of coffee or a corresponding number of half-bottles of new wine. I must say that in most cases I lose. But Yura Paratino always points to N with the precision of a magnetic needle. Such a beast!
But suddenly I involuntarily turn back and notice that Hristo Ambarzaki is beckoning me towards him with his eyes. He is not alone, my chieftain and teacher Yani is sitting with him.
I'm coming. Hristo demands dominoes for show, and while we pretend to play, he, rattling his knuckles, says in a low voice:
Take your difans and, together with Yani, come quietly to the pier. The bay is full of mullet, like a jar of olives. It was the pigs who drove her.
Difans are very thin nets, a fathom high, sixty fathoms long. They are about three panels. The two outer ones have wide cells, the middle one has narrow cells. Small mackerel will pass through wide walls, but will become entangled in the inner ones; on the contrary, a large and large mullet or mullet, which would only hit its muzzle against the middle wall and turn back, gets entangled in the wide outer cells. I’m the only one in Balaklava who has such networks.
Slowly, avoiding meeting anyone, we bring the nets to the shore together with Yani. The night is so fast that we can hardly distinguish Christo, who is already waiting for us in the boat. Some snorting, grunting, and heavy sighs can be heard in the bay. These sounds are made by dolphins, or porpoises, as fishermen call them. They drove a huge school of fish of many thousands into a narrow bay and are now rushing around the bay, mercilessly devouring them as they go.
What we are about to do now is without a doubt a crime. According to a peculiar ancient custom, it is allowed to fish in the bay only with a fishing rod and mesh. Only once a year, and then for no more than three days, do they catch her with the whole Balaclava in public networks. This is an unwritten law, a kind of historical fishing taboo.
But the night is so black, the sighs and grunts of the dolphins so excite the passionate hunting curiosity that, suppressing an involuntary sigh of remorse, I carefully jump into the boat, and while Hristo silently rows, I help Yani put the nets in order. He fingered the lower edge, which was weighed down with large lead weights, and I quickly and simultaneously handed him the upper edge, equipped with cork floats.
But a wonderful, never-before-seen sight suddenly captivates me. Somewhere not far away, on the port side, I hear the snoring of a dolphin, and I suddenly see many sinuous silver streams, similar to the traces of melting fireworks, rushing around the boat and under the boat with terrible speed. These are hundreds and thousands of frightened fish running, fleeing the pursuit of a voracious predator. Then I notice that the whole sea is burning with lights. Blue precious stones play on the crests of small, slightly splashing waves. In those places where the oars touch the water, deep shiny stripes light up with a magical shine. I touch the water with my hand, and when I take it back, a handful of luminous diamonds falls down, and delicate bluish phosphorescent lights burn for a long time on my fingers. Today is one of those magical nights about which fishermen say:
The sea is burning!..
Another school of fish rushes under the boat with terrible speed, plowing the water with short silver arrows. And then I hear the snorting of a dolphin very close. Finally here he is! It appears on one side of the boat, disappears for a second under the keel and immediately rushes on. He walks deep under water, but with extraordinary clarity I can discern all his powerful running and his entire powerful body, silvered with the play of ciliates, outlined, as if by a billion sparkles, looking like a shining glass running skeleton.
Hristo rows completely silently, and Yani only hits the tree once with his lead weights. We have already looked through the entire network, and now we can begin.
We are approaching the opposite bank. Jani sits firmly on the bow with her legs spread wide. A large flat stone tied to a rope quietly slides from his hands, barely audibly splashes on the water and sinks to the bottom. A large cork buoy floats to the top, barely noticeable blackening the surface of the bay. Now, completely silently, we describe a semicircle with the boat the entire length of our net and again moor to the shore and throw another buoy. We are inside a closed semicircle.
If we were not engaged in poaching, but worked in an open, free place, then now we would begin to cheat, or, rather, blackmail, that is, we would force, with the noise and splash of oars, all the fish captured by our semicircle to rush into the nets set out for them, where they should get their heads and gills stuck in the cells. But our business requires secrecy, and therefore we only drive from buoy to buoy, back and forth, twice, with Christo silently boiling the water with his oar, making it boil in beautiful blue electric mounds. Then we return to the first buoy. Yani still carefully pulls out the stone that served as an anchor and lowers it to the bottom without the slightest knock. Then, standing on the bow, putting his left leg forward and leaning on it, he rhythmically raises one or the other hand, pulling the net upward. Leaning a little over the side, I see how the net runs out of the water, and every cell of it, every thread is deeply visible to me, like a delightful fiery weaving. Small, trembling lights are falling from Yani’s fingers.
And I can already hear how a large live fish splashes wetly and heavily on the bottom of the boat, how it trembles fatly, hitting the tree with its tail. We gradually approach the second buoy and, with the same precautions, pull it out of the water.
Now it's my turn to take the oars. Hristo and Yani again sort through the entire net and sprout a mullet from its cells. Hristo cannot contain himself and, with a happy, suppressed laugh, throws a large thick silver mullet over Kolya’s head at my feet.
That's fish! - he whispers to me.
Yani quietly stops him.
When their work is finished and the wet net again lies on the bow platform of the longboat, I see that the entire bottom is covered with living, still moving fish. But we need to hurry. We make another circle, again and again, although prudence has long been telling us to return to the city. Finally we come to the shore in the most remote place. Yani brings a basket, and with a delicious smacking, armfuls of large, fleshy fish fly into it, which smells so fresh and exciting.
And ten minutes later we return back to the coffee shop, one after another. Everyone invents some excuse for their absence. But our pants and jackets are wet, and Yani has fish scales tangled in her mustache and beard, and we still smell of the sea and raw fish. And Christo, who cannot cope with the recent hunting excitement, no, no, and even hints at our enterprise.
And now I was walking along the embankment... How many pigs entered the bay. Horror! and casts a sly, burning black eye at us.
Yani, who carried and hid the basket with him, sits next to me and barely audibly mutters into a cup of coffee:
Two thousand, and all the largest. I took down three dozen for you.
This is my share of the total spoils. I slowly nod my head. But now I feel a little ashamed of my recent crime. However, I catch a few quick, roguish glances from others. It seems that we were not the only ones poaching that night!
Winter is coming. One evening it began to snow, and everything became white in the middle of the night: the embankment, boats near the shore, roofs of houses, trees. Only the water in the bay remains terribly black and splashes restlessly in this quiet white frame.
All along the Crimean coast - in Anapa, Sudak, Kerch, Feodosia, Yalta, Balaklava and Sevastopol - fishermen are preparing for beluga. Fishing boots, huge thigh-high boots made of horsehide, weighing half a pound each, are being cleaned, waterproof raincoats painted with yellow oil paint and leather trousers are being renewed, sails are being darned, and sequins are being knitted.
The devout fisherman Fyodor from Oleiz, long before beluga fishing, warms wax candles and lamps with the best olive oil in his hut in front of the image of St. Nicholas, the World of Lycian wonderworker and patron of all sailors. When he goes to sea with his artel consisting of Tatars, the sea saint will be nailed at the stern as a leader and giver of happiness. All Crimean fishermen know about this, because it is repeated from year to year and also because Fedor has a reputation for being a very brave and successful fisherman.
And then one day, with the first fair wind, at the end of the night, but still in deep darkness, hundreds of boats set sail from the Crimean peninsula into the sea.
How beautiful is the moment of departure! All five of us sat down on the stern of the longboat. "God bless you! God bless you! God bless you!" The freed sail falls down and, flapping hesitantly in the air, suddenly inflates like a convex, sharp, white bird’s wing sticking out with its tip up. The boat, tilted to one side, is smoothly carried out from the mouth of the bay into the open sea. The water hisses and foams overboard and splashes inside, and on board itself, at times soaking the bottom edge of his jacket in the water, some young fisherman sits casually and with boastful nonchalance lights a twisted cigarette. Under the stern grate there is a small supply of strong vodka, some bread, a dozen smoked fish and a barrel of water.
They sail out to the open sea thirty or more miles from the shore. During this long journey, the ataman and his assistant manage to make the tackle. And the beluga tackle is like this: imagine that along the seabed, at a depth of forty fathoms, there is a strong rope a mile long, and to it, every three or four arshins, short fathom pieces of twine are tied, and at the ends of these ends there is bait small fish on hooks. Two flat stones at either end of the main rope serve as anchors to flood it, and two buoys floating on these anchors on the surface of the sea indicate their position. The buoys are round, cork (a hundred bottle caps wrapped in mesh), with red flags on top.
The assistant, with incomprehensible dexterity and speed, places the bait on the hooks, and the ataman carefully places all the tackle in a round basket, along its walls, in a regular spiral, with the bait inward. In the dark, almost by touch, it is not at all as easy to carry out this painstaking work as it seems at first glance. When the time comes to lower the tackle into the sea, one poorly placed hook can get caught in the rope and severely confuse the entire system.
At dawn they arrive at the place. Each chieftain has his own favorite happy places, and he finds them on the open sea, dozens of miles from the shore, as easily as we find a box of feathers on our desk. You just need to position yourself in such a way that the Polar Star appears just above the bell tower of the monastery of St. George, and move, without violating this direction, to the east until the Foros lighthouse opens. Each chieftain has his own secret landmarks in the form of lighthouses, houses, large coastal stones, lonely pine trees on the mountains or stars.
We decided on a place. They throw the first stone into the sea on a rope, set the depth, tie a buoy and row from it forward along the entire length of the line, which the ataman unwinds from the basket with extraordinary speed. They lower the second stone, launch the second buoy - and the job is over. They return home by oars or, if the wind allows them to maneuver, under sail. The next day or every other day they go back to sea and pull out the tackle. If God or chance wills it, there will be a beluga on the hooks that has swallowed the bait, a huge sharp-nosed fish whose weight reaches ten to twenty, and in rare cases even thirty or more pounds.
So one night Vanya Andrutsaki left the bay on his longboat. To tell the truth, no one expected any good from such an enterprise. Old Andrutsaki died last spring, and Vanya was too young, and, according to experienced fishermen, he should have spent another two years as a simple rower and another year as an assistant chieftain. But he recruited his artel from the greenest and most desperate youth, shouted sternly, like a real master, at his whining old mother, scolded the grumpy old men of his neighbors with vile obscene words and went out to sea drunk, with a drunken crew, standing at the stern with a dashingly shot down The back of his head was covered with a lambskin cap, from under which curly, black hair, like a poodle’s, protruded wildly onto his tanned forehead.
That night there was a strong coastal wind at sea and it was snowing. Some longboats, having left the bay, soon returned back, because Greek fishermen, despite their centuries of experience, are distinguished by extreme prudence, not to say cowardice. “The weather doesn’t allow it,” they said.
But Vanya Andrutsaki returned home around noon with a longboat filled with the largest beluga, and, in addition, he also towed a huge fish, a monster weighing twenty pounds, which the artel took a long time to finish off with wooden mallets and oars.
I had to suffer quite a bit with this giant. Fishermen generally say about the beluga that you just need to pull its head level with the side, and then the fish itself will jump into the boat. True, sometimes she knocks a careless catcher into the water with a mighty splash of her tail. But occasionally, when beluga fishing, there are more serious moments that threaten real danger for fishermen. This is what happened to Vanya Androutsaki.
Standing on the very bow, which either flew up onto the foamy mounds of wide waves, or quickly fell into smooth green water holes, Vanya, with measured movements of his arms and back, chose a line from the sea. Five belugas, caught from the very beginning, almost one after another, were already lying motionless at the bottom of the longboat, but then the fishing got worse: a hundred or one hundred and fifty hooks in a row turned out to be empty, with untouched bait.
The artel rowed silently, keeping an eye on the two points on the shore indicated by the chieftain. The assistant sat at Vanya’s feet, freeing the hooks from the bait and putting the rope into the basket in the right way. Suddenly one of the caught fish started convulsively.
“He’s beating his tail, waiting for his friend,” said the young fisherman Pavel, repeating an old fisherman’s sign.
And at that same second, Vanya Andrutsaki felt that a huge living weight, shuddering and resisting, was hanging on a rail stretched at an angle, in the very depths of the sea. When, later, leaning overboard, he saw under the water the entire long, silver, waving, rippling body of the monster, he could not resist and, turning back to the artel, whispered with eyes shining with delight:
Healthy!.. Like a bull!.. Forty pounds...
This really shouldn't have been done! God forbid, being at sea, you can prevent events or rejoice in success before reaching the shore. And the old mysterious omen immediately came true for Van Andrutsaki. He already saw, no more than half an arshin from the surface of the water, a sharp, fragile, bony muzzle and, holding back the violent fluttering of his heart, was already preparing to bring it to the side, when suddenly... the mighty tail of the fish splashed over the wave, and the beluga swiftly rushed down, dragging it along with rope and hooks.
Vanya was not at a loss. He shouted to the fishermen: “Taban!” - he swore badly and very longly and began to bait the line after the fleeing fish. The hooks flashed in the air from under his hands, splashing into the water. The assistant helped him, pulling the tackle out of the basket. The rowers leaned on the oars, trying to move the boat ahead of the underwater movement of the fish. It was terribly fast and precise work, which does not always end well. The assistant got several hooks tangled. He shouted to Vanya: “Stop poisoning!” and began to unravel the tackle with that speed and thoroughness that, in moments of danger, is characteristic only of sea people. In those few seconds, the line in Vanya’s hand became taut like a string, and the boat galloped like mad, from wave to wave, carried away by the terrible running of the fish and driven after it by the efforts of the rowers.
"Travi!" - the assistant finally shouted. The rope ran again with extraordinary speed from the ataman’s dexterous hands, but suddenly the boat jerked, and Vanya swore with a dull groan: the copper hook pierced the flesh of his palm under the little finger with a sweep and settled there to the full depth of the twist. And then Vanya showed himself to be a real salty fisherman. Having wrapped the cord around the fingers of his wounded hand, he delayed the running of the rope for a second, and with his other hand he took out a knife and cut the twine. The hook was held tightly in his hand by its sting, but Vanya tore it out with the meat and threw it into the sea. And although both his hands and the rope of the line were completely stained with blood and the side of the boat and the water in the longboat turned red with his blood, he still completed his work and himself delivered the first stunning blow with a mallet to the head of the stubborn fish.
His catch was the first beluga catch of the fall. The artel sold the fish at a very high price, so that each share cost almost forty rubles. On this occasion, a terrible amount of new wine was poured, and in the evening the entire crew of “George the Victorious” - that was the name of Vanin’s longboat - set off on a two-horse phaeton with music to Sevastopol. There, brave Balaklava fishermen, together with naval sailors, smashed pianos, doors, beds, chairs and windows in a brothel into small pieces, then fought among themselves and only returned home at dawn, drunk, bruised, but singing. And as soon as they got out of the carriage, they immediately fell into the boat, raised the sail and went out to sea to cast hooks.
From that very day, Vanya Andrutsaki gained fame as a real salty chieftain.
Lord's fish
Apocryphal legend
This charming ancient legend was told to me in Balaklava by the ataman of the fishing longboat Kolya Konstandi, a real salty Greek, an excellent sailor and a big drunkard.
At that time he taught me all the wise and strange things that make up the science of fishing.
He showed me how to tie sea knots and repair broken nets, how to bait hooks on a beluga, cast and wash hems, throw a basting on an anchovy, pull out a mullet from three-walled nets, fry a mullet on a fishnet, pick out petalidi with a knife, attached to a rock, and eat raw shrimp, find out the night weather from the daytime surf, set the sail, choose an anchor and measure the depth of the bottom.
He patiently explained to me the difference between the direction and properties of the winds: Levanti, Greba-Levanti, Shirocco, Tremoitan, terrible boron, favorable sea and capricious coastal.
To him I owe the knowledge of fishing customs and superstitions during fishing: you cannot whistle on a longboat; spitting is only allowed overboard; you cannot mention the devil, although you can curse in case of failure: faith, grave, coffin, soul, ancestors, eyes, liver, spleen, and so on; It’s good to leave a fish in the gear as if accidentally forgotten - it brings happiness; God forbid you throw something edible overboard while the longboat is still at sea, but the most terrible, unforgivable and harmful thing is to ask the fisherman: “Where to?” People get beaten for asking such a question.
From him I learned about the poisonous dracus fish, similar to small mackerel, and how to remove it from the hook, about the property of the sea ruffe to cause abscesses by pricking its fins, about the terrible double tail of the electric stingray and how skillfully the sea crab eats an oyster, first inserting a small pebble into its flap.
But I also heard a lot of outlandish and mysterious sea stories from Kolya, I heard them in those sweet, quiet night hours of early autumn, when our skiff gently swayed in the middle of the sea, far from the invisible shores, and we, two or three of us, in the yellow light of a hand-held lantern, We slowly sipped the young pink local wine, which smelled of freshly crushed grapes.
“In the middle of the ocean lives a sea serpent a mile long. Rarely, no more than once every ten years, it rises from the bottom to the surface and breathes. It is lonely. Before there were many of them, males and females, but they did so much harm to the small fish that God condemned them to extinction, and now only one old, thousand-year-old male snake is lonely living out his last years... Former sailors saw him - here and there - in all countries of the world and in all oceans.
The king of sea crayfish lives somewhere in the middle of the sea, on a deserted island, in a deep underwater cave. When he strikes claw against claw, a great disturbance boils on the surface of the water.
Pisces talk to each other - every fisherman knows this. They inform each other about various dangers and human pitfalls, and an inexperienced, clumsy fisherman can ruin a happy place for a long time if he lets a fish out of his nets.”
I also heard from Kolya about the Flying Dutchman, about this eternal wanderer of the seas, with black sails and a dead crew. However, this terrible legend is known and believed on all the sea coasts of Europe.
But one distant legend he told especially touched me with its naive fisherman’s simplicity.
One day at dawn, when the sun had not yet risen, but the sky was the color of orange and pink mists were wandering across the sea, Kolya and I were pulling out a net that had been set across the shore in the evening for mackerel. The catch was very bad. Tangled in the mesh of the net were about a hundred mackerel, five or six ruffs, several dozen thick golden crucian carp and a lot of gelatinous mother-of-pearl jellyfish, similar to huge colorless mushroom caps with many legs.
But I also came across one very strange fish that I had never seen before. It was oval, flat in shape and would fit comfortably in a woman's palm. Its entire contour was surrounded by frequent, small, transparent fibers. A small head, and on it are not fish eyes at all - black, with gold rims, unusually mobile. The body is even golden in color. The most striking thing about this fish were two spots, one on each side, in the middle the size of a dime, irregular in shape and extremely bright sky-blue color, which is not at the artist’s disposal.
Look,” said Kolya, “here is the Lord’s fish.” She rarely gets caught.
We first placed it in the boat's scoop, and then, returning home, I poured sea water into a large enamel basin and put the Lord's fish in it. She quickly swam around the circumference of the pelvis, touching its walls, and all in the same direction. If touched, she made a barely audible, short, snoring sound and intensified her incessant running. Her black eyes rotated, and the water quickly trembled and flowed from the flickering countless fibers.
It's not worth the effort. Still won't survive. This is such a fish. If you take her out of the sea even for a second, she will no longer live. This is the Lord's fish.
By evening she died. And at night, sitting in a skiff, far from the shore, I remembered and asked:
Kolya, why is this fish the Lord’s?
“And here’s why,” Kolya answered with deep faith. - Our old Greeks tell it like this. When Jesus Christ, our Lord, resurrected on the third day after his burial, no one wanted to believe him. They saw many miracles from him during his life, but they could not believe this miracle and were afraid.
The disciples abandoned him, the apostles abandoned him, and the myrrh-bearing women refused. Then he comes to his mother. And at that time she stood by the fireplace and fried fish in a frying pan, preparing lunch for herself and her loved ones. The Lord says to her:
Hello! Here am I, your son, risen as the Scripture said. Peace be with you.
But she trembled and exclaimed in fright:
If you are truly my son Jesus, perform a miracle so that I will believe.
The Lord smiled that she did not believe him, and said:
So I will take a fish lying on the fire, and it will come to life. Will you believe me then?
And as soon as he touched the fish with his two fingers and lifted it into the air, it fluttered and came to life.
Then the Lord’s mother believed in the miracle and joyfully bowed to her risen son. And since then, two heavenly spots have remained on this fish. These are traces of God's fingers.
This is how a simple, unwise fisherman told a naive old legend. A few days later I learned that the Lord’s fish has another name: Zeus’s fish. Who can say: to what depth of times does that apocrypha go back?
Oh, dear simple people, courageous hearts, naive primitive souls, strong bodies blown by the salty sea wind, calloused hands, keen eyes that have looked into the face of death so many times, into its very pupils!
The bora has been blowing for three days. Bora - otherwise Nord-East - is a furious mysterious wind that is born somewhere in the bald, shabby mountains near Novorossiysk, falls into a round bay and creates terrible waves throughout the Black Sea. Its strength is so great that it overturns loaded freight cars from the rails, knocks down telegraph poles, destroys newly built brick walls, and throws people walking alone to the ground. In the middle of the last century, several military ships, caught by a nor'easter, defended against it in the Novorossiysk Bay: they set up full steam and sailed towards the wind with increased speed, without leaning an inch forward, threw double anchors against the wind, and yet they were torn off from the anchors, dragged into the bay and thrown out like chips onto the coastal rocks.
This wind is terrible because of its unexpectedness: it is impossible to predict it; it is the most capricious wind on the most capricious of seas.
Old fishermen say that the only way to escape from it is to “run away into the open sea.” And there are times when the bora carries some four-row longboat or a blue Turkish felucca decorated with silver stars across the entire Black Sea, three hundred and fifty miles, to the Anatolian coast.
The bora has been blowing for three days. New moon. The new month, as always, is born with great pain and difficulty. Experienced fishermen not only do not think about going to sea, but even pulled their longboats further and more safely to the shore.
Only the desperate Fedor from Oleiz, who many days before had been lighting a candle in front of the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, decided to go out to pick up the beluga tackle.
Three times with his artel, which consisted exclusively of Tatars, he sailed from the shore and three times returned back on oars with great effort, curses and blasphemies, making no more than one tenth of a sea knot per hour. In a rage that can only be understood by a sailor, he tore off the image of Nicholas, the Myra of Lycian Wonderworker, attached to the bow, threw it to the bottom of the boat, trampled his feet and cursed vilely, while at the same time his crew scooped up the water gushing over the side with their hats and handfuls.
These days, the old cunning Balaklava listrigons sat in coffee shops, rolled homemade cigarettes, drank strong bobka coffee with grounds, played dominoes, complained that the weather was not allowing them, and in the cozy warmth, in the light of hanging lamps, recalled ancient legendary incidents, the legacy of fathers and grandfathers, about how in such and such a year the sea surf reached hundreds of fathoms upward and the splashes from it reached the very foot of the dilapidated Genoese fortress.
One longboat from Foros, on which an artel of alien Russopetes worked, went missing, along with eight blond Ivanovs who had come from somewhere, either Ilmen or the Volga, to seek their fortune on the Black Sea. In the coffee shops, no one regretted or bothered about them. They smacked their tongues, laughed and said contemptuously and simply: “Tch... tch... tch... of course, fools, is it possible in this weather? We know - Russians.” In the pre-dawn hour of the dark roaring night, they all sank like stones to the bottom in their horse boots to the waist, in leather jackets, in painted yellow waterproof raincoats.
It was a completely different matter when Vanya Andrutsaki went out to sea before the fight, disregarding all the warnings and entreaties of the old people. God knows why he did it? Most likely, out of boyish enthusiasm, out of exuberant young pride, a little under the influence of a drunken hand. Or maybe a red-lipped, black-eyed Greek woman was admiring him at that moment?
They raised the sail - and the wind was already very fresh at that time - and that was all they saw! At the speed of a good prize trotter, a boat rushed out of the bay, loomed for about five minutes with its white sail in the blue sea, and now it was impossible to make out what was white in the distance: a sail or white lambs jumping from wave to wave?
And he returned home only three days later...
Three days without sleep, without food or drink, day and night, and again day and night, and another day in a tiny shell, in the middle of a maddened sea - and around there was no shore, no sail, no lighthouse light, no steamship smoke! And Vanya Andrutsaki returned home - and it was as if he had forgotten about everything, as if nothing had happened to him, as if he had gone to the outpost to Sevastopol and bought a dozen cigarettes there.
There were, however, some details that I had difficulty squeezing out of Vanya’s memory. For example, at the end of the second day, something like a hysterical fit happened to Yura Lipiadi, when he suddenly began to cry and laugh for no reason and was about to jump overboard if Vanya Andrutsaki had not managed to hit him on the steering oar in time. head There was also a moment when the crew, frightened by the frantic speed of the boat, wanted to remove the sail, and Vanya must have had to make a lot of effort to squeeze the will of these five people into a fist and, before the breath of death, force them to obey him. I also learned something about how blood came out from under the rowers’ fingernails due to excessive work. But all this was told to me in fragments, reluctantly, in passing. Yes! Of course, in these three days of intense, convulsive struggle with death, a lot was said and done that the team of “George the Victorious” will not tell anyone, for any benefit, until the end of their days!
During these three days, not a single person slept a wink in Balaclava, except fat Petalidi, the owner of the Paris Hotel. And everyone anxiously wandered along the embankment, climbed the rocks, climbed the Genoese fortress, which rises with its two ancient battlements above the city, everyone: old people, young people, women and children. Telegrams flew to all corners of the world: to the head of the Black Sea ports, to the local bishop, to lighthouses, to life-saving stations, to the Minister of the Navy, to the Minister of Railways, to Yalta, to Sevastopol, to Constantinople and Odessa, to the Greek Patriarch, the governor and even for some reason the Russian consul in Damascus, who happened to be familiar to a Balaklava Greek aristocrat who traded in flour and cement.
An ancient, centuries-old bond between people, a bloody comradely feeling, so little noticeable on everyday days among petty calculations and everyday rubbish, awoke, the thousand-year-old voices of great-great-ancestors spoke in the souls, who long before the time of Odysseus together defended themselves from the forest on the same days and the same nights.
Nobody was sleeping. At night, a huge fire was lit on the top of the mountain, and everyone walked along the shore with lights, as if for Easter. But no one laughed or sang, and all the coffee shops were empty.
Oh, what a delightful moment it was when in the morning, around eight o’clock, Yura Paratino, standing on the top of the rock above the White Stones, squinted, bent forward, grabbed the space with his keen eyes and suddenly shouted:
Eat! They're coming!
Apart from Yura Paratino, no one would have seen the boats in this black and blue sea distance, which swayed heavily and still angrily, slowly subsiding from recent anger. But five or ten minutes passed, and any boy could already make sure that the “George the Victorious” was sailing towards the bay. There was great joy that united a hundred people into one body and one Soul!
In front of the bay, they lowered the sail and entered with oars, entered like an arrow, cheerfully straining their last strength, entered as fishermen enter the bay after an excellent catch of beluga. People were crying with happiness all around: mothers, wives, brides, sisters, brothers. Do you think that at least one fisherman from the "St. George the Victorious" artel softened, burst into tears, went to kiss or sob on someone's chest? Not at all! All six of them, still wet, hoarse and weather-beaten, burst into Yura's coffee shop, demanded wine, screamed songs, ordered music and danced like crazy, leaving puddles of water on the floor. And only late in the evening their comrades carried them, drunk and tired, home; and they slept without waking for twenty hours each. And when they woke up, they looked at their trip to the sea as if they had gone to Sevastopol for half an hour, had a little fun there and returned home.
Divers
It seems that since the Crimean campaign not a single steamship has entered Balaklava Bay, narrow-necked, winding and long, except perhaps destroyers on maneuvers. And what, to tell the truth, should steamships do in this remote fishing half-village and half-town? The only cargo - fish - is bought by resellers on the spot and taken for sale thirteen miles away, to Sevastopol; From the same Sevastopol, a few summer residents come here to a malpost for fifty kopecks. The small but desperately courageous steam boat "Hero", which runs daily between Yalta and Alupka, panting like a eager dog and fluttering like a hurricane in the lightest swell, tried to establish a passenger connection with Balaklava. But nothing good came of this attempt, repeated three or four times: only a waste of coal and time. On each voyage, the Hero arrived empty and returned empty. And the Balaklava Greeks, distant descendants of the bloodthirsty Homeric Listrigons, met and saw him off, standing on the pier with their hands in their pants pockets, with well-aimed words, ambiguous advice and caustic wishes.
But during the Siege of Sevastopol, the lovely blue bay of Balaklava accommodated almost a quarter of the entire allied flotilla. From this heroic era there are still some reliable traces left: a steep road in the Kefalo-Vrisi gully, built by English sappers, an Italian cemetery at the top of the Balaklava mountains between the vineyards, and even when planting land for grapes, from time to time they dig up short gypsum and bone pipes from which Union soldiers smoked tobacco more than half a century ago.
But the legend blooms more magnificently. To this day, the Balaklava Greeks are convinced that only thanks to the resilience of their own Balaklava battalion was Sevastopol able to hold out for so long. Yes! In the old days, Balaklava was inhabited by iron and proud people. A remarkable incident was recorded in oral tradition about their pride.
I don’t know if the late Emperor Nicholas I ever visited Balaklava. I think in every possible way that during the Crimean War, due to lack of time, he hardly visited there. However, living history confidently tells how at the review, riding up on a white horse to the glorious Balaklava battalion, the formidable sovereign, struck by the warlike appearance, fiery eyes and black mustaches of the Balaklava soldiers, exclaimed in a thunderous and joyful voice:
Hello guys!
But the battalion was silent.
The king repeated his greeting several times, in an increasingly angry tone. Same silence! Finally, completely angry, the emperor galloped up to the battalion commander and exclaimed in his terrible voice:
Why the hell don't they answer? I think I said in Russian: “Great, guys!”
“There are no guys here,” the boss answered meekly. - Here's the captain.
Then Nicholas I laughed - what else could he do? - and shouted again:
Hello captains!
And the brave Listrigons cheerfully shouted back:
Kali mera (good afternoon), your majesty!
It is difficult to judge whether this event happened this way or not, and whether it actually happened at all, in the absence of weighty and convincing historical data. But to this day, a good third of the brave Balaklava residents bear the surname Kapitanaki, and if you ever meet a Greek with the surname Kapitanaki, be sure that he himself or his immediate ancestors are from Balaklava.
But the legend about the English squadron that sank off Balaklava is decorated with the brightest and most seductive colors. On a dark winter night, several English ships were heading towards Balaklava Bay, seeking refuge from the storm. Between them was the beautiful three-masted frigate "Black Prince", carrying money to pay the salaries of the allied troops. Sixty million rubles in ringing English gold! Old people even know the figure with precision.
The same old people say that there are no more hurricanes like the one that raged on that terrible night! Huge waves, hitting the steep cliffs, splashed up to the foot of the Genoese tower twenty fathoms high! - and the old walls washed her earring. The squadron was unable to find the narrow entrance to the bay, or perhaps, having found it, was unable to enter it. She was all broken on the rocks and, together with the magnificent ship "Black Prince" and with English gold, sank near the White Stones, which even now still stick out impressively from the water where the narrow throat of the bay widens towards the sea, on the right side, if you exit from Balaclavas.
Today's steamships make their voyages far from the bay, fifteen to twenty miles away. From the Genoese fortress you can barely make out the seemingly motionless dark hull of the steamer, the long tail of gray melting haze and two masts slanted back slenderly. The keen eye of a fisherman, however, almost unmistakably distinguishes these vessels by some signs incomprehensible to our experience and vision. “Here comes a cargo ship from Evpatoria... This is the Russian Society, and this is the Russian one... this is Koshkinsky... And this one is rolling along the dead swell of the Pushkin - it’s rolling around even in calm weather...”
And then one day, quite unexpectedly, a huge, ancient-style, unusually dirty Italian steamer "Genova" ["Genoa" (It.)] entered the bay. It happened late in the evening, at that time of autumn, when almost all the resort residents had already left for the north, but the sea was still so warm that real fishing had not yet begun, when fishermen were leisurely mending nets and preparing hooks, playing dominoes in coffee shops, they drink new wine and generally indulge in a temporary light buzz.
The evening was quiet and dark, with large calm stars in the sky and in the sleeping water of the bay. Along the embankment a chain of lanterns lit up with yellow dots. The bright quadrangles of shops were closing. People slowly moved in light black silhouettes along the streets and along the sidewalk...
And so, I don’t know who, it seems, the boys who were playing upstairs, near the Genoese Tower, brought the news that some steamer had turned from the sea and was heading towards the bay.
A few minutes later the entire indigenous male population was on the embankment. It is known that a Greek is always a Greek and, therefore, first of all, he is curious. True, in the Balaklava Greeks one can feel, in addition to the admixture of later Genoese blood, also some mysterious, ancient - who knows - maybe even Scythian blood - the blood of the primitive inhabitants of this robber and fisherman's nest. Among them you will see many tall, strong and self-confident figures; you come across correct, noble faces; blondes and even blue-eyed people are often found; Balaklava residents are not greedy, not obliging, they behave with dignity, they are brave at sea, although without absurd risks, they are good comrades and firmly fulfill their word. Positively, this is a special, exceptional breed of Greeks, preserved mainly because their ancestors for almost hundreds of generations were born, lived and died in their own town, marrying only between neighbors. However, we must admit that the Greek colonialists left in their souls their most typical feature, which distinguished them even under Pericles - curiosity and passion for news.
Slowly, at first appearing only as a tiny leading light due to the steep bend of the bay, the steamer sailed into the bay. From a distance, in the thick warm darkness of the night, its outlines were not visible, but the high lights on the masts, signal lights on the bridge and a row of round luminous portholes along the side made it possible to guess its size and shape. In view of the hundreds of boats and longboats parked along the embankment, he moved barely noticeably towards the shore, with the attentive and cumbersome caution with which a large and strong man walks through a children's room filled with fragile toys.
The fishermen made guesses. Many of them had previously sailed on ships of the commercial, and more often military, fleet.
What are you going to tell me? Can't I see? Of course, - the cargo of the Russian society.
No, this is not a Russian steamship.
That's right, something went wrong in the car, I went in to get it fixed.
Perhaps a warship?
Tell me!
One Kolya Konstandi, who sailed for a long time on a gunboat in the Black and Mediterranean Seas, guessed correctly, saying that the ship was Italian. And he guessed it only when the steamer was very close, ten yards out, approached the shore and one could see its faded, peeling sides, with dirty streaks from the hatches, and the motley crew on the deck.
The end of the rope rose up from the steamer in a spiral and, unfurling like a snake in the air, flew onto the heads of the spectators. Everyone knows that deftly throwing the end from the ship and deftly catching it on the shore is considered the first condition for a kind of nautical chic. Young Apostolidi, without letting go of the cigarette from his mouth, looking as if he was doing this for the hundredth time today, caught the end in flight and immediately casually but confidently wound it around one of the two cast-iron cannons that have stood on the embankment since time immemorial, dug upright into the ground.
The boat left the ship. Three Italians jumped out of it onto the shore and fumbled around the ropes. One of them was wearing a cloth beret, another was wearing a cap with a straight quadrangular visor, and the third was wearing some kind of knitted cap. They were all small, strong men, agile, tenacious and dexterous, like monkeys. They unceremoniously pushed the crowd aside with their shoulders, chattered something in their fast, melodious and gentle Genoese dialect and shouted to the ship. All the time, their large black eyes laughed friendly and familiarly on their tanned faces and their white young teeth sparkled.
Bona sera... Italiano... marinaro! [Hello... Italians... sailors! (it.)] - Kolya said approvingly.
Oh! Buona sera, signore! [Hello, sir! (it.)] - the Italians responded cheerfully, at once.
The anchor chain rattled with a squeal. Something began to bubble and bubble inside the ship. The lights in the portholes went out. Half an hour later, the Italian sailors were lowered ashore.
The Italians - all of them short, black-faced and young - turned out to be sociable and cheerful fellows. With some kind of light, captivating abandon, they flirted that evening in beer halls and wine cellars with fishermen. But the Balaklava residents greeted them dryly and restrainedly. Perhaps they wanted to make it clear to these foreign sailors that the entry of a foreign ship into the bay was not at all uncommon for them, that this happens every day, and, therefore, there is nothing to be particularly surprised and happy about. Perhaps a little local patriotism spoke in them?
And - ah! - that evening they played a bad joke on the nice, cheerful Italians, when they, in their sweet international gullibility, poked their fingers at bread, wine, cheese and other objects and asked their names in Russian, showing their wonderful teeth affectionately. The hosts taught these words to their guests that every time later, when the Genoese tried to communicate in Russian in a store or at the market, the clerks fell on their counters with laughter, and the women rushed headlong to run anywhere, covering their heads with scarves in shame.
And that same evening - God knows how, as if through invisible electric wires - a rumor spread throughout the city that the Italians had come on purpose to raise the sunken frigate "Black Prince" along with its gold, and that their work would continue throughout the winter.
No one in Balaklava believed in the success of such an enterprise. First of all, of course, over the sea treasure lay a mysterious spell. Mossy, ancient, white, bent elders talked about how attempts had been made before to extract English gold from the bottom; the British themselves and some fantastic Americans came, squandered the abyss of money and left Balaklava with nothing. And what could any British or Americans do, if even the legendary, former, heroic Balaklava residents failed here? It goes without saying that before the weather was not the same, and the fish catches, and the longboats, and the sails, and the people were completely different from the small fry of today. There was once a mythical Spiro. He could descend to any depth and stay under water for a quarter of an hour. So this Spiro, holding a stone weighing three pounds between his legs, sank at the White Stones to a depth of forty fathoms, to the bottom where the remains of the sunken squadron rested. And Spiro saw everything: the ship and the gold, but he couldn’t take it with him... he wouldn’t let him in.
If only Sashka the Commissioner would try,” one of the listeners slyly remarked. - He is our first diver.
And everyone around laughed, and Sashka Argiridi himself, or Sashka the Commissioner, as he is called, laughed more than anyone else with his proud, beautiful mouth.
This guy - a blue-eyed handsome man with a solid, antique profile - is, in essence, the first lazy person, a rogue and a buffoon on the entire Crimean coast. He was nicknamed the commission agent because sometimes at the height of the season he would take and sew a couple of gold braids onto the headband of his cap and sit down without permission on a chair somewhere near the hotel, right on the street. It happens that some frivolous tourists will turn to him with a question, and then they just can’t get away from Sashka. He trots them through the mountains, through backyards, through vineyards, through cemeteries, lies to them with incredible impudence, runs into someone’s yard for a minute, quickly breaks a piece of an old stove pot into small pieces and then, “like elephants,” persuades the stunned travelers buy these shards on occasion - the remnant of an ancient Greek vase that was made before the birth of Christ... or he thrusts into their nose an ordinary oval and thin pebble with a hole turned at the top, the kind that fishermen use as a sinker for nets, and assures them, that not a single Greek sailor will go to sea without such a talisman, consecrated at the shrine of St. Nicholas the Pleasant and saving from the storm.
But his best performance is underwater. Taking the simple-minded audience around the bay and having heard enough of them singing “Our Sea is Unsociable” and “Down the Mother Volga,” he skillfully and imperceptibly starts talking about the sunken squadron, the fabulous Spiro and diving in general. But a quarter of an hour under water seems like a lie to even the most gullible passengers, and especially a Greek lie at that. Well, two or three minutes is all right, this can perhaps be allowed... but fifteen... Sashka is touched to the quick... Sashka is offended in his national pride... Sashka frowns... Finally, if they don’t believe him, he himself can prove, and even now, this very minute, that he, Sashka, will dive and stay under water for exactly ten minutes.
True, it’s difficult,” he says, not without gloom. - In the evening I will bleed from my ears and eyes... But I won’t let anyone say that Sashka Argiridi is a braggart.
They persuade him, restrain him, but nothing helps now, since the person is offended in his best feelings. He quickly, angrily rips off his jacket and pantaloons, instantly undresses, forcing the ladies to turn away and shield themselves with umbrellas, and - boom - with noise and splashes he flies headfirst into the water, not forgetting, however, to first calculate the distance to the nearby men's bathhouse from one corner of his eye. .
Sasha is truly an excellent swimmer and diver. Throwing himself onto one side of the boat, he immediately turns deep in the water under the keel and swims along the bottom straight into the bathing area. And while there is general anxiety on the boat, mutual reproaches, gasping and all sorts of nonsense, he sits in the bathhouse on the step and hastily finishes smoking someone’s cigarette butt. And in the same way, completely unexpectedly, Sashka jumps out of the water right next to the boat, artificially bulging his eyes and gasping for breath, to everyone’s relief and delight.
Of course, he gets some small change for these tricks. But it must be said that what guides Sashka in his pranks is not greed for money, but boyish, crazy, cheerful prankishness.
The Italians did not hide the purpose of their visit from anyone: they really came to Balaklava in order to try to explore the crash site and, if circumstances allowed, to raise all the most valuable things from the bottom, mainly, of course, the legendary gold. The entire expedition was led by the engineer Giuseppe Restucci - the inventor of a special underwater vehicle, a tall, elderly, silent man, always dressed in gray, with a long gray face and almost gray hair, with a cataract on one eye - in general, much more like an Englishman than to Italian. He settled in a hotel on the embankment and in the evenings, when someone came to sit with him, he hospitably treated him to Chianti wine and poems by his favorite poet Stechetti.
“A woman’s love is like coal, which, when it burns, burns, but when cold, it dirty!”
And although he said all this in Italian, in his sweet and melodious Genoese accent, even without translation the meaning of the verses was clear, thanks to his unusually expressive gestures: with such a look of sudden pain he pulled back his hand, burned by an imaginary fire, and with such a grimace He threw the cold coal away from him in disgust.
There was also a captain and two of his junior mates on the ship. But the most remarkable person from the crew was, of course, the diver - il palambaro, a glorious Genoese named Salvatore Trama.
On his large, round, dark bronze face, speckled with black specks as if burned by gunpowder, tense veins stood out like blue snakes. He was short in stature, but, thanks to the extraordinary volume of his chest, the width of his shoulders and the massiveness of his powerful neck, he gave the impression of an overly fat man. When, with his lazy gait, his hands in his trouser pockets and his short legs spread wide, he walked through the middle of the embankment of the street, from a distance he seemed to be exactly the same size, both in height and width.
Salvatore Trama was an affable, lazy, cheerful, trusting person, with a tendency toward apoplexy. He sometimes told strange, outlandish things about his underwater impressions.
Once, while working in the Bay of Biscay, he had to sink to the bottom, to a depth of more than twenty fathoms. Suddenly he noticed that, in the midst of the greenish underwater twilight, some huge, slowly floating shadow was approaching him from above. Then the shadow stopped. Through the round glass of his diving helmet, Salvatore saw that above him, an arshin above his head, standing, moving the edges of his round and flat body like a flounder in waves, was a gigantic electric ramp two fathoms in diameter, into this room! - as Trama said. One touch of his double tail on the body of a diver would be enough to kill the brave Trump with an electric discharge of terrible force. And these two minutes of waiting, until the monster, as if having thought about it, slowly swam further, swaying sinuously with its thin sides, Trama considers the most terrible in his entire difficult and dangerous life.
He also talked about his encounters underwater with dead sailors thrown overboard from a ship. Despite the weight attached to their legs, they, due to the decomposition of the body, inevitably fall into a strip of water of such density that they no longer go to the bottom, but also do not rise up, but, standing, wander in the water, drawn by a quiet current, with the core hanging from his feet.
Trama also reported on a mysterious incident that happened to another diver, his relative and teacher. He was an old, strong, cold-blooded and brave man who had scoured the seabed on the coasts of almost the entire globe. He loved his exceptional and dangerous craft with all his soul, as, indeed, every real diver loved it.
One day this man, while working on laying a telegraph underwater cable, had to sink to the bottom, to a relatively shallow depth. But as soon as he reached the ground with his feet and signaled this upward with a rope, the boat immediately heard his new alarm signal: “Lift up! I’m in danger!”
When they hurriedly pulled him out and quickly unscrewed the copper helmet from the spacesuit, everyone was struck by the expression of horror that distorted his pale face and made his eyes turn white.
They stripped the diver, gave him cognac to drink, and tried to calm him down. For a long time he could not utter a word, his jaws were chattering so hard against each other. Finally, coming to his senses, he said:
That's it! I'll never go down again. I have seen...
But until the end of his days, he did not tell anyone what impression or what hallucination shook his soul so much. If they started talking about it, he would angrily fall silent and immediately leave the company. And he really never went into the sea again...
There were about fifteen sailors on the Genova. They all lived on the ship, and went ashore relatively rarely. Their relations with the Balaklava fishermen remained distant and politely cold. Only occasionally Kolya Constandi threw them a good-natured greeting:
Bona Giorna, signori. Wine Rosso... [Good afternoon, gentlemen. Red wine... (it.)]
It must have been very boring in Balaklava for these young, cheerful southern fellows who had previously visited Rio Janeiro, Madagascar, Ireland, off the coast of Africa, and many noisy ports of the European continent. At sea there is constant danger and tension of all forces, and on land there is wine, women, song, dancing and a good fight - this is the life of a real sailor. And Balaklava is just a small, quiet corner, a narrow slit of a blue bay among bare rocks, covered with several dozen houses. The wine here is sour and strong, and there are no women at all to entertain the brave sailor. Balaklava wives and daughters lead a secluded and chaste lifestyle, allowing themselves only one innocent entertainment - gossiping with their neighbors at the fountain while their jugs are filled with water. Even men who are close to them somehow avoid visiting familiar families, and prefer to see each other in a coffee shop or on the pier.
One day, however, the fishermen did the Italians a small favor. At the ship "Genova" there was a small steam boat with an old, very weak engine. Several sailors, under the command of the captain's mate, once went out to the open sea on this boat. But, as often happens on the Black Sea, a sudden wind from God knows where blew from the shore and began to carry the boat out to sea with a gradually increasing speed. The Italians did not want to give up for a long time: for about an hour they fought with the wind and waves, and it was true that at that time it was scary to watch from the cliff as a small smoking shell either appeared on the white crests, or completely disappeared, as if falling between the waves. The boat could not overcome the wind, and it was carried further and further from the shore. Finally, from above, from the Genoese fortress, they noticed a white rag raised on a chimney - a signal: “I am in distress.” Immediately, the two best Balaklava longboats, “Glory to Russia” and “Svetlana,” raised their sails and came out to help the boat.
Two hours later they brought him in tow. The Italians were a little embarrassed and rather forcedly joked about their situation. The fishermen also joked, but they still looked patronizing.
Sometimes, when catching flounder or beluga, fishermen happened to pull out a sea cat on a hook - also a type of electric stingray. Previously, the fisherman, taking all precautions, unhooked this reptile from the hook and threw it overboard. But someone - probably the same connoisseur of the Italian language, Kolya - started a rumor that for Italians in general, the sea cat is the first delicacy. And since then, often, returning from fishing and passing by the ship, some fisherman shouted:
Hey Italiano Signoro! Here's a snack for you!..
And the round flat slope flew in a dark circle through the air and seemed to splash on the deck. The Italians laughed, showing their magnificent teeth, nodded their heads good-naturedly and muttered something in their own way. Who knows, maybe they themselves thought that the sea cat was considered the best local delicacy, and did not want to offend the good people of Balaklava with a refusal.
Two weeks after their arrival, the Italians assembled and launched a large ferry, on which they installed steam and blowing machines. The long crane of the winch, like a giant fishing rod, was erected obliquely above the ferry. One Sunday, Salvatore Trama went underwater in the bay for the first time. He was wearing an ordinary gray rubber diving suit, which made him even wider than usual, shoes with lead soles on his feet, an iron shirt on his chest, and a round copper ball that hid his head. For half an hour he walked along the bottom of the bay, and his path was marked by a mass of air bubbles that boiled above him on the surface of the water. And a week later, all of Balaklava learned that the next day the diver would descend right at the White Stones, to a depth of forty fathoms. And when the next day a small, pathetic boat took the ferry to the exit from the bay, almost all the fishing longboats stationed in the bay were already waiting at the White Stones.
The essence of Mr. Restucci’s invention was precisely to enable a diver to descend to such a depth at which a person in an ordinary spacesuit would be flattened by the terrible pressure of water. And, we must give justice to the Balaklava residents, they, not without excitement and, in any case, with a feeling of real courageous respect, looked at the preparations for the descent that were taking place before their eyes. First of all, the steam crane lifted and stood up a strange case, vaguely reminiscent of a human figure, without a head and without arms, a case made of thick red copper, coated on the outside with blue enamel. Then this case was opened, as one would open a giant cigarette case, into which a human body must be placed, like a cigar. Salvatore Trama, smoking a cigarette, calmly looked at these preparations, chuckled lazily, and occasionally made careless remarks. Then he threw the cigarette butt overboard, walked up to the case and squeezed sideways into it. They worked on the diver for quite a long time, installing all sorts of devices, and it must be said that when everything was finished, he was a rather terrible sight. Outside, only the hands remained free; the whole body, along with the motionless legs, was enclosed in a solid blue enamel coffin of enormous weight; a huge blue ball, with three front and two side glasses - and with an electric lantern on its forehead, hid his head; a hoisting rope, a rubber air tube, a signal rope, a telephone wire and a lighting wire seemed to entangle the entire projectile and made this dead, blue, massive mummy with living human hands even more extraordinary and creepy.
The signal of the steam engine rang out and the rattle of chains was heard. A strange blue object separated from the deck of the ferry, then smoothly, slightly twisting along a vertical axis, floated in the air and slowly, terribly slowly, began to fall overboard. Here he touched the surface of the water, sank to his knees, to his waist, to his shoulders... Then his head disappeared, finally nothing was visible except the steel rope slowly creeping down. Balaklava fishermen look at each other and silently, with a serious look, shake their heads...
Engineer Restucci is at the telephone. From time to time he gives short orders to the driver who is regulating the progress of the rope. There is complete, deep silence on the boats all around - you can only hear the whistle of the machine pumping air, the rumble of gears, the squeal of the steel cable on the block and the abrupt words of the engineer. All eyes are fixed on the place where the ugly spherical scary head recently disappeared.
The descent continues for a painfully long time. More than an hour. But then Restucci perks up, asks something into the phone several times and suddenly gives a short command:
Now all the spectators understand that the diver has reached the bottom, and everyone sighs, as if with relief. The worst thing is over...
Squeezed into a metal case, with only his hands free, Trama was deprived of the ability to move along the bottom using his own means. He only ordered over the phone to be moved forward along with the ferry, winched to the sides, lifted up and down. Without looking up from the telephone receiver, Restucci repeated his orders calmly and commandingly, and it seemed that the ferry, the winch and all the machines were set in motion by the will of an invisible, mysterious underwater man.
Twenty minutes later, Salvatore Trama gave the signal to rise. Just as slowly he was pulled to the surface, and when he hung in the air again, he gave the strange impression of some formidable and helpless blue animal, miraculously pulled out of the abyss of the sea.
The apparatus was installed on the deck. The sailors, with quick, habitual movements, took off their helmet and unpacked the case. Trama came out sweating, gasping, his face almost black from the rush of blood. It was clear that he wanted to smile, but all that came out was a pained, exhausted grimace. The fishermen in the boats were respectfully silent and only shook their heads as a sign of surprise and, according to Greek custom, smacked their tongues significantly.
An hour later, all of Balaklava knew everything that the diver had seen at the bottom of the sea, near the White Stones. Most of the ships were so covered with silt and all sorts of debris that there was no hope of raising them, and from the three-masted frigate with gold, sucked in by the bottom, only a piece of the stern sticks out with the remnant of a greenish copper inscription: “...ck Pr...”.
Trama also said that around the sunken squadron he saw many tattered fishing anchors, and this news touched the fishermen, because each of them, probably, at least once in their life had to leave their anchor here, which got stuck in the stones and debris...
But Balaklava fishermen once managed to amaze the Italians with an unusual and, in its own way, magnificent spectacle. It was January 6, the day of Epiphany, a day that is celebrated in Balaklava in a very special way.
By this time, Italian divers had already finally become convinced of the futility of further work to raise the squadron. They had only a few days left before sailing home, to dear, dear, cheerful Genoa, and they hastily put the ship in order, cleaned and washed the deck, and dismantled the cars.
The sight of a church procession, the clergy in golden vestments, banners, crosses and icons, church singing - all this attracted their attention, and they stood along the side, leaning on the railing.
The clergy ascended to the platform of the wooden pier. Women, old people and children were densely crowded behind, and young people in boats on the bay surrounded the pier in a close semicircle.
It was a sunny, clear and cold day; The snow that had fallen overnight lay gently on the streets, on the roofs and on the bald brown mountains, and the water in the bay turned blue like an amethyst, and the sky was blue, festive, smiling. The young fishermen in the boats were dressed only for decency in their underwear, while others were naked to the waist. They were all shivering from the cold, shivering, rubbing their chilled hands and chests. The singing of the choir flowed harmoniously and unusually sweetly across the motionless surface of the water.
“I am being baptized in the Jordan...” the priest sang subtly and out of tune, and the high-raised cross glittered like white metal in his hands... The most serious moment had come. The young fishermen stood each at the bow of their longboat, all scantily clad, leaning forward in impatient anticipation.
The priest sang for the second time, and the choir took up “In the Jordan” harmoniously and joyfully. Finally, for the third time, the cross rose above the crowd and suddenly, thrown by the priest’s hand, it flew, describing a brilliant arc in the air, and fell loudly into the sea.
At the same moment, from all the longboats, splashing and screaming, dozens of strong, muscular bodies rushed into the water upside down. Three or four seconds passed. The empty boats swayed, bowing. The agitated water moved back and forth... Then, one after another, dangling, snorting heads began to appear above the water, with hair falling over their eyes. Later than others, young Yani Lipiadi emerged with a cross in his hand.
The cheerful Italians could not maintain proper seriousness at the sight of this extraordinary, sanctified by hoary antiquity, half-sports, half-religious rite. They greeted the winner with such friendly applause that even the good-natured priest shook his head reproachfully:
Not good... And very bad. What is this to them - a theatrical performance?..
The snow shone dazzlingly, the water turned blue tenderly, the golden sun bathed the bay, mountains and people. And the smell of the sea was strong, thick, powerful. Fine!
Crazy wine
In Balaklava, the end of September is simply charming. The water in the bay grew colder; the days are clear, quiet, with wonderful freshness and a strong smell of the sea in the mornings, with a blue cloudless sky rising to God knows how high, with gold and purple on the trees, with silent black nights. The resort guests - noisy, sick, selfish, idle and absurd - went in all directions - to the north, to their homes. The grape season is over.
It is by this time that the mad wine ripens.
Almost every Greek, a glorious Listrygonian captain, has at least a tiny piece of a vineyard, up there in the mountains, in the vicinity of the Italian cemetery, where the graves of several hundred unknown foreign braves are crowned with a modest white monument. The vineyards were neglected, wild, overgrown, berries degenerated, crushed. Five or six owners, however, breed and maintain expensive varieties like “Chaus”, “Shashlya” or “Napoleon”, selling them as medicinal to the resort public (however, in the Crimea in the summer and autumn seasons - everything is medicinal: medicinal grapes, medicinal chickens , healing veils, healing shoes, dogwood sticks and shells, sold by wrinkled, crafty Tatars and important, bronze, dirty Persians). The remaining owners go to their vineyard, or, as they say here, “to the garden” only twice a year: at the beginning of autumn - to pick berries, and at the end - for pruning, which is done in the most barbaric manner.
Now times have changed: morals have fallen, and people have become poorer, the fish have gone somewhere to Trebizond, nature has become impoverished. Now the descendants of the brave Listrigons, the legendary robber fishermen, take children and nannies for rides around the bay and live by renting out their houses to visitors. Before the grapes were born - that's what! - the size of a child’s fist, and the clusters weighed a pound, but now there’s nothing to look at - the berries are a little larger than black currants, and they don’t have the same strength. This is how old people reason among themselves, sitting in the calm autumn twilight near their whitewashed fences, on stone benches that have grown into the ground over the centuries. But the old custom has still survived to this day. Everyone who can, individually or collectively, reaps and crushes grapes in those primitive ways, which our ancestor Noah or the cunning Ulysses, who drugged such a strong man as Polyphemus, probably resorted to. They press directly with their feet, and when the presser comes out of the vat, his bare legs above the knees seem smeared and spattered with fresh blood. And this is done in the open air in the mountains, among an ancient vineyard surrounded by almond trees and three-hundred-year-old walnuts.
Often I look at this spectacle, and an extraordinary, exciting dream seizes my soul. It was on these very mountains three, four, and maybe five thousand years ago, under the same high blue sky and under the same sweet red sun, that the magnificent festival of Bacchus was celebrated among the people, and where now the nasal tenor of a weak-chested summer resident is heard, sadly creaking:
And bring it to the grave
At least three times a day I have chrysanthemums, -
insanely joyful, divinely drunk exclamations were heard there:
Ew! Evan! Ew!
After all, just fourteen miles from Balaklava, the red-brown sharp fragments of Cape Fiolent, on which once stood the temple of a goddess who demanded human sacrifices, rise menacingly from the sea! Oh, what a strange, deep and sweet power these deserted, mutilated places have over our imagination, where people once lived so joyfully and easily, cheerful, joyful, free and wise, like animals.
But the young wine is not allowed not only to settle down, but even to simply settle.
And so little of it is mined that it’s not worth the real trouble. It hasn’t even been in the barrel for a month before it’s already bottled and carried to the city. It is still fermenting, it has not yet had time to come to its senses, as winemakers typically express it: it is cloudy and somewhat dirty in the light, with a faint pink or apple tint; but it is still easy and pleasant to drink. It smells like freshly crushed grapes and leaves a tart, sour taste on the teeth.
But it is remarkable in its consequences. Drinking in large quantities, young wine does not want to come to its senses in the stomach and continues there the mysterious fermentation process that began in the barrel. It makes people dance, jump, talk uncontrollably, roll on the ground, test strength, lift incredible weights, kiss, cry, laugh, tell monstrous tales. It also has one more amazing property, which is also inherent in Chinese hanjin vodka: if the next day after a drinking session you drink a glass of plain cold water in the morning, then the young wine again begins to ferment, bubble and play in the stomach and blood, and its extravagant effect resumes with the same strength. That is why this young wine is called “mad wine”.
Balaklava people are a cunning people and, moreover, taught by thousands of years of experience: in the morning they drink the same crazy wine instead of cold water. And the entire male indigenous population of Balaklava walks around for two weeks in a row drunk, riotous, staggering, but complacent and singing. Who will condemn them for this, glorious fishermen? Behind is a boring summer with noisy, arrogant, demanding summer residents, ahead is a harsh winter, fierce nor'easters, catching beluga thirty to forty miles from the coast, sometimes in the midst of impenetrable fog, sometimes in a storm, when death hangs overhead every minute and no one in a longboat does not know where the swell, current and wind are taking them!
Guests, as always in the conservative Balaklava, are rarely visited. They are found in coffee shops, canteens and outdoors, outside the city, where the luxurious Baydar Valley begins flat and colorful. Everyone is happy to show off their new wine, and if there is not enough of it, then how long will it take to send some homeless boy to your house for a new portion? The wife will be angry, scold, but still send two or three quarter bottles of dull yellow or dull pink translucent wine.
Having run out of supplies, they go wherever their feet take them: to the nearest farm, to the village, to the lemonade stand at the 9th or 5th verst of the Balaklava highway. They will sit in a circle among the prickly stubs of corn, the owner will bring out the wine directly in a large enamel bucket that widens at the top with an iron handle along which a wooden muff goes - and the bucket is full on top. They drink in cups, politely, with wishes and without fail - all at once. One raises the cup and says: “Stani-yaso,” and the others answer: “Si-iya.”
Then they'll start singing. Nobody knows Greek songs: maybe they have long been forgotten, maybe the secluded, silent Balaklava Bay has never been conducive to singing. They sing Russian southern fishermen's songs, singing in unison with terrible stone, wooden, and iron voices, each of which tries to out-shout the other. Faces turn red, mouths open wide, veins bulge on sweaty foreheads.
Foam boiled in the sea
There will be a change, brothers,
Brothers, change...
Ripple after ripple often follows,
My ship is about to sink,
Brothers, it won't sink...
The captain is standing on the poop deck
Senior boatswain at the waist,
Brothers, it’s on the closet.
They come up with new and new excuses for drinking again. Someone the other day bought boots, terrible fishermen's boots made of horsehide, weighing half a pound each and length to the hips. How can you not splash or wet such a new thing? And again a blue enamel bucket appears on the hook, and again they sing songs similar to the roar of a winter hurricane on the open sea.
And suddenly the touched owner of the boots exclaims with tears in his voice:
Comrades! Why do I need these boots?.. Winter is still far away... There will be time... Let's drink them away...
And then they wrap a spool of wax on the end of a thread and lower it into the round, like a sharpened hole of a tarantula hole, teasing the insect until it gets angry and grabs onto the wax and gets its paws stuck in it. Then, with a quick and deft movement, the insect is removed upward onto the grass. So they will catch two large tarantulas and bring them together, in the bottom of some broken bottle. There is nothing scarier and more exciting than the spectacle of the fight that begins between these poisonous, multi-legged, huge spiders. Severed paws fly away, white thick liquid emerges in drops from the pierced egg-shaped soft torsos. Both spiders stand on their hind legs, hugging each other with their front legs, and both try to sting the enemy with the scissors of their jaws in the eye or head. And this fight is especially terrible because it certainly ends with one enemy killing the other and instantly sucking him out, leaving a pitiful, wrinkled case on the ground. And the descendants of the bloodthirsty Listrigons lie like a star, on their stomachs, heads inward, feet outward, resting their chins on their palms, and look in silence, unless they make a bet. My God! How old is this terrible entertainment, this most cruel of all human spectacles!
And in the evening we are back in the coffee shop. Boats with Tatar music sail along the bay: tambourine and clarinet. A simple, but indescribable Asian motif sobs nasally, monotonously, endlessly sadly... The tambourine beats and flutters like mad. You can't see the boats in the dark. It is the old people who are true to ancient customs who are having fun. But in our coffee shop there is light from the lightning lamps, and two musicians: an Italian - harmony and an Italian - mandolin play and sing in sweet, hoarse voices:
O! Nino, Nino, Marianino.
I sit, weakened from the smoky fumes, from shouting, from singing, from the new wine that is being fed to me from all sides. My head is hot and seems to be swollen and buzzing. But I have a quiet tenderness in my heart. With pleasant tears in my eyes, I mentally repeat those words that you so often notice on fishermen’s chests or arm tattoos:
"God Save the Sailor."
Alexander Kuprin - Listrigons, read the text
See also Kuprin Alexander - Prose (stories, poems, novels...):
Curl
Imagine a serious, motionless face in the form of an elongated downward...
Lolly
“Mr. Charlie,” I once turned to the old rider with whom...
Test dictation on the topic: “Complex sentence”.
Night in Balaclava
At the end of October, when the days are still tender in autumn, Balaklava begins to live a unique life. The last holidaymakers, who spent the long summer here enjoying the sun and sea, leave, burdened with suitcases, and it immediately becomes spacious, fresh and homely, as if the sensational uninvited guests had left.
Fishing nets are spread across the embankment, and on the polished cobblestone pavement they seem delicate and thin. Captains of fishing longboats sharpen worn-out beluga hooks, despite the fact that stores have a large selection of fishing accessories. And at the stone wells, where the water babbles continuously in a silver stream, dark-faced women, local residents, gather to chatter in their free moments.
Descending over the sea, the sun sets, and soon the starry night, replacing the short evening dawn, envelops the earth. The whole city falls into a deep sleep, and the hour comes when not a sound comes from anywhere. Only occasionally does the water squelch against the coastal stone, and this lonely sound further emphasizes the undisturbed silence. You feel how night and silence merged in one black embrace. Nowhere, in my opinion, will you hear such perfect, such ideal silence.
(According to A. Kuprin) (161 words)
Grammar tasks.
Perform a full parsing of the NGN.
At the end of October, when the days are still tender in autumn, Balaklava begins to live a unique life.
Option 2.
And at the stone wells where the water continuously babbles like a silver trickle, dark-faced women, local residents, gather in their free moments and chatter.
AT 4. Write out the word from the text, analyze it according to its composition:
From the first paragraph: a participle formed from a perfect verb with NN in the suffix.
Option 2.
From the second paragraph: an adjective with НН, where one Н is part of the root, and the second is a suffix.
From the sentences in the second paragraph, write down the words:
with alternating unstressed vowel.
Option 2. B3
The spelling of which is determined by the rule: In prefixes ending in Z-(S-), S is written before a voiceless consonant, and Z is written before a voiced consonant.
Control dictation with grammar task
It got dark. In the west, the gaps between the trees went dark. Frosty, advancing darkness surrounded the ravine. It was quiet here, but the night wind was blowing through the tops of the pines, the forest was rustling, sometimes soothingly melodious, sometimes gusty and alarming. A snowball, no longer visible to the eye, was trailing along the ravine, quietly rustling and tingling the face.
Inexperienced in forestry matters, Alexey did not take care in advance of either lodging for the night or a fire. Caught in pitch darkness, feeling unbearable pain in his broken, overworked legs, he did not find the strength to go for fuel, climbed into the dense coniferous growth of a young pine forest and froze, greedily enjoying the ensuing peace and stillness.
He slept like a stone, not hearing the steady noise of the pines, nor the hoot of an eagle owl moaning somewhere along the road, nor the distant howl of wolves - none of those forest sounds that were full of the thick and impenetrable darkness that tightly surrounded him.
(According to B. Polevoy.)
Tasks:
1. Emphasize the grammatical basics of a complex sentence.
2. Make a diagram of homogeneous members with a repeating conjunction (optional).
3. Underline the heterogeneous definitions in one of the sentences.
4. Underline one participial and one participial phrase as part of the sentence.
Test condensed presentation of essay elements
Upon returning from distant lands, I planted my garden in the village with all sorts of varieties, primarily rowan trees and viburnums. One mountain ash, nestled on a cliff, near the side of a modern concrete road, on a steep drift was crushed by the wheels of cars, scratched, crushed. I decided to dig it up and take it to my wild garden.
It was autumn. A few dusty leaves and two crumpled rosettes of berries survived on the rowan tree. Planted in the yard, the mountain ash perked up, and in the summer it already bloomed with four rosettes. And she went and grew. And every summer, every autumn, she was decorated with one or two rosettes and became so bright, so elegant and self-confident - you couldn’t take your eyes off her!
Two years later, seedlings were brought from the city nursery, and I planted four more mountain ash in the free space. These went wide and crazy. They’ll barely finish one or two rosettes, but the greenery on them is already lush.
And my little girl has become quite grown up and cheerful. One autumn the berries grew especially bright and abundant.
And suddenly a flock of waxwings fell on top of her, and the birds began to feast on the berries in unison. And they talk to each other about what kind of rowan we found, what a tasty treat the summer has in store for us. In about ten minutes, the tufted, smart workers cleared the entire tree. The busy birds processed the wild mountain ash, but didn’t even sit on those from the nursery.
There is, there is a soul of things, there is, there is a soul of plants. The wild mountain ash with its grateful and quiet soul heard, lured and fed the whimsical gourmet birds. Yes, and I once plucked bright fruits from the rosettes. Strong, tart, reminiscent of the taiga - the tree has not forgotten where it grew, it has retained the taiga juice in its veins.
(According to V. Astafiev)
Preparing for a home essay in the essay genre
1) When the big break began, when we were all allowed out into the yard on the occasion of the cold, but dry and sunny weather, I saw my mother at the bottom of the stairs. (2) I, remembering the envelope, thought that she apparently couldn’t stand it and brought it with her.
(3) The mother, however, stood aside in her bald fur coat, in a funny bonnet, under which gray hairs hung, and with noticeable excitement, which somehow further enhanced her pitiful appearance, helplessly peered at the horde of schoolchildren running past. (4) Some of them, laughing, looked back at her and said something to each other.
(5) As I approached, I wanted to slip through unnoticed, but my mother, seeing me and immediately lighting up with a gentle, but not cheerful smile, called me. (6) Even though I was terribly ashamed in front of my comrades, I approached her.
(7) “Vadichka, boy,” she spoke in an old man’s dull voice, handing me an envelope and timidly, as if she was burning herself, touching the button of my overcoat, “you forgot the money, boy, and I think he’ll be scared, so I brought it.”
(8) Having said this, she looked at me as if she was asking for alms. (9) But, in rage for the shame caused to me, I objected in a hateful whisper that these calf tendernesses are not for us, that if she brought money, then let her pay for it herself.
(10) The mother stood quietly, listened in silence, guiltily and sadly lowering her old, affectionate eyes. (11) I, running down the already empty stairs and opening the tight door noisily sucking air, turned around and looked at my mother. (12) However, I did this not at all because I felt any pity for her, but only out of fear that she would cry in such an inappropriate place. (13) Mother still stood on the platform and, sadly bowing her head, looked after me. (14) Noticing that I was looking at her, she waved her hand and envelope at me the way they do at the station. (15) And this movement, so young and cheerful, only showed even more how old, ragged and pathetic she was.
(16) Several comrades approached me in the yard, and one asked who this pea jester in a skirt was with whom I had just talked. (17) I, laughing cheerfully, answered: “This impoverished governess came with written recommendations.”
(18) Having paid the money, the mother came out and, without looking at anyone, hunched over, as if trying to become even smaller, her worn-out, completely crooked heels clicking, walked along the asphalt path to the gate. (19) And I felt that my heart ached for her.
(20) This pain, which burned me so hotly in the first moment, did not last, however, very long.
(According to M. Ageev)
*Check out the opinions of Anton and Kirill on the role of spelling.
Help Anton prove your point.
Write an essay-discussion on the topic: “Why do you need spelling?”
When thinking about the theoretical principles of your work, read the text again
and find the necessary examples of the use of spelling rules to support your thoughts.
In an essay-reasoning, quote from the text you read two example illustrating different spelling rules.
When giving examples, indicate the numbers of the required sentences or use partial citations.
The essay must be at least 50 words.
Control testing No. 1
Ioption
A. Complex sentences can be conjunctions, complex sentences, complex sentences.
B. Simple sentences can be combined into complex ones using intonation and conjunctions or allied words.
B. Simple sentences can be combined into complex ones using intonation (without conjunctions or allied words).
2. Conjunction connecting parts of a complex sentence It was already the spring month of March, but at night the trees crackled from the cold, like in December, is...
A. subordinate
B. connecting
B. dividing
G. adversative
3. What conjunctions connect parts of a complex sentence that indicates the alternation of phenomena, the possibility of one phenomenon out of two or more?
A. and, yes(in meaning i), nor- neither, neither
B. or (or), either, then ~ that, not that - not that
B. ah, but, yes(meaning but), however, on the other hand
From the linden alley, turning and overtaking each other, yellow round leaves flew and, getting wet, lay on the wet grass of the meadow.
A. simple
B. compound
B. complex
G. non-union
A. I was completely confused, not understanding what was happening, and, standing in one place, mindlessly looked towards the retreating person.
B. I don’t want to think about anything, or thoughts and memories wander, cloudy, unclear, like a dream.
B. Gathering our last remnants of strength, we dragged ourselves to the station, but, not having reached it two hundred steps, we sat down to rest on the sleepers.
A. The smile was weak, barely noticeable, and, despite the smile, the stern expression of the eyes did not change.
B. In September the forest is thinner and lighter and the bird voices are quieter.
B. There were people ahead and, therefore, I had nothing to fear.
7. In a sentence The trees have shed their leaves, and no bird voices can be heard insert the common minor term and write down the resulting sentence.
8. Read the sentence It snowed and... Continue it twice by adding:
a) homogeneous predicate;
B) a simple sentence.
9. Write a sentence A cloud came and a strong wind blew, inserting a separate phrase after the conjunction And.
10. Join the last simple sentence to the previous one with a conjunction And. Write down the offer you received
A warm front was approaching, the clouds could not withstand its onslaught, cracked, and snow began to fall from them.
11. Indicate a sentence whose structure corresponds to the diagram (no punctuation marks):
[impersonal], And[two-part].
A. On earth, in the sky and everywhere around, it was calm and there was no sign of bad weather.
B. Each flower looked like the poppy I knew and they smelled like spring.
Q. A kiosk was opened on the square and now they sell newspapers and magazines.
12. Copy sentences using punctuation marks
A, I didn’t make him wait for a minute, I immediately mounted my horse and we rode out of the gates of the fortress.
B. It was getting dark and the river cold was blowing from the side.
B. A drawn-out cry of an unsleeping bird is heard from the forest or a vague sound similar to someone’s voice is heard.
G. Trees that have shed their summer attire, clouds floating low over the ground, cold drizzling rain, ordinary pictures of deep autumn and they are dear to my heart.
a) [two-part], And[impersonal];
b) [impersonal], [however... two-part];
c) [impersonal], And[impersonal].
Option 2
1. Which of the following statements are true?
A. Simple sentences, when combined into a complex sentence, have intonation completeness.
B. Complex sentences can be combined or non-conjunctive.
B. Conjunctive complex sentences are compound and complex.
2. Read the sentence My head ached, but my consciousness was clear and distinct. Simple sentences are combined into complex ones using...
A. subordinating conjunction
B. union word
B. coordinating conjunction
G. intonation
3. What conjunctions connect parts of a complex sentence in which one phenomenon is contrasted with another?
A. and, yes(in meaning i), nor- neither, neither
B. or (or), either, that - that, not that- not that
B. ah, but, yes(in meaning but), however, on the other hand
4. Determine the type of offer Compressed by black thickets and illuminated by a steam locomotive ahead, the road looks like an endless tunnel.
A. simple
B. compound
B. complex
G. non-union
5. Find a compound sentence among these sentences.
A. It’s funny to say, we were lost in a familiar forest for more than an hour and returned, as they say, empty-handed.
B. There were no more arguments, but on the contrary, after dinner everyone was in the best mood.
B. Polar bears seem likely to disappear soon if there were no ban on hunting them.
6. Find the sentence with a punctuation error.
A. In the hut, singing, a maiden spins, and, the winter friend of the nights, a splinter crackles in front of her.
B. But then the first wave ran through the rye and across the main field, the wind rushed and dust swirled in the air.
B. The nightingales are finishing their spring songs, there are still dandelions in quiet places and, perhaps, a lily of the valley is growing white somewhere.
7. In a sentence During the day there was a light breeze and snow falling Omit the common minor term and write down the resulting sentence.
8. Read the sentence My father filled the car with gas and... Continue it twice, adding: a) a homogeneous predicate; b) a simple sentence.
9. Indicate a sentence whose structure corresponds to the diagram (no punctuation marks):
[impersonal], and [impersonal].
A. The sky is overcast and there is no end in sight for the rain.
B. They announced the end of the lunch break and began weeding the beets.
B. It became dark and we wandered through the forest for a long time.
10. Copy the sentences using punctuation marks.
A. The boys sat at the table with their heads bowed and uttering words in a whisper, apparently doing some kind of work, and I tried not to disturb them.
B. The wind tore leaves from the trees and covered the garden paths with a multi-colored carpet.
V. It was already evening and the people were returning from the fields.
G. His kind eyes shone with a clear light and his thin face seemed beautiful.
11. Write down the sentence by inserting a separate phrase after the conjunction and.
By evening the sky cleared of clouds, and the night promised to be cold.
12. Join the last sentence to the previous one with a conjunction And. Write down the proposal you receive.
Young peals are thundering, the rain is splashing, dust is flying, rain pearls are hanging, the sun is gilding the threads.
13. Come up with and write down sentences whose structure corresponds to the diagrams:
a) [impersonal], [but... two-part];
b) [two-part], [Also... two-part];
c) [indefinite-personal], And[two-part]
2) ok..change, ist..ri, warm..warmed
3) bewitch, peasant, start
4) burnt..burnt, resigned, end..end
5. Insert the missing letters in the prefixes and distribute the words into three groups: 1) with prefixes that do not change in the letter; 2) with prefixes ending in - z, - s; 3) with the prefix s-.
Confirmed facts, without a trace and...disappearing, ...keeping your word, accurate calculation, strange occurrence, Ministry of Education, obvious pre... respect, short inter...peace, trusted person, put...at risk, p...send an application, ...park the car, get too...too...excited, .. .make a statement, be...reasonably offended,...protect the population, conduct an investigation, and...donor activities, and...an election campaign, calculate...income, emergency incident, investigate the causes of the accident, ...concise presentation, ...thicken the colors, ...sewn dress.
Presentation with a creative task
Only women did not participate in the shameful renunciation of loved ones. No one except them dared to show concern, to say a warm word about their relatives and friends, whom they shook hands with just yesterday.
The wives of those exiled to hard labor were deprived of all civil rights, abandoned their wealth and went for life to the terrible climate of Eastern Siberia, under even more terrible oppression of the local police.
I want to say more about one of these stories.
In an old house Ivashevs there lived a young French woman governess1 . Ivashev’s only son wanted to marry her. This drove all his relatives crazy: uproar, tears, requests. She was persuaded to leave St. Petersburg, and he was persuaded to postpone his intention for the time being.
Ivashev was one of the conspirators, he was sentenced to eternal hard labor. As soon as the terrible news reached the young girl in Paris, she went to St. Petersburg and asked permission to go to the Irkutsk province to see her fiancé Ivashev. The situation of wives who did not cheat on their husbands who were exiled to hard labor was explained to her. But at the same time, she personally had to understand that if wives traveling out of fidelity with their husbands deserve some leniency, then she does not have the slightest right to do so, knowingly marrying a criminal.
But she went to Siberia. And the wedding took place. A few years later, hard labor was replaced by settlement. But the energy was wasted. Wife first fell under the burden everything tested. She withered, just as the flower of the midday countries should have withered on the Siberian snow. Ivashev did not survive her, he died exactly a year later, but he, in fact, did not live after her, but died quietly, solemnly.
The Ivashevs were left with two children, without a name, without help, without rights. Only a few years later their father's name was returned to them.
Tasks:
1. Convey the content close to the text.
2. What thoughts did this text evoke in you? Write a short argument (thesis, arguments, conclusion) and title this argument.
10 Class
4 Test
Tasks for testing knowledge. Option 1
Restore what is missing in the definition of the concept.
This talk of the waters
These drops are these tears,
This fluff is not a leaf,
These mountains, these valleys,
These midges, these bees,
This noise and whistle,
These dawns without eclipse,
This sigh of the night village,
This night without sleep...
This fraction and these trills,
This is all spring.
Tasks to test skills and abilities.
For the given sentence, select a synonymous complex sentence of the same type, but with a different conjunction. Does another union require the entire proposal to be restructured? What is the difference between parallel construction (meaning, stylistic coloring)
When Taras Bulba woke up from the blow and looked at the Dniester, the Cossacks were already on their canoes and rowing with oars.
Continue the sentences by expanding them first with a minor clause and then with a subordinate clause. Determine the type of subordinate clause.
A) I like the book...
B) Take a walk in the garden...
Read the text. Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets, add the missing punctuation marks.
I appreciate the book. Without a book (n..) I can’t think about life? n...n...work. Every book that you read (not) really gives an impetus for the work of thinking... leaves a mark on the soul. Is this one of the forms of conversation with an intelligent person when new thoughts are born, very important ones that clear up some questions that you are tormenting over? myself both as a writer and as a person. (F. Abramov)
Determine the role of the conjunction in the last sentence.
Outline the last sentence.
From the third sentence, write down several phrases. Parse them.
Grade 10
Control dictation “Syntactic level of language
Autumn in Balaclava
At the end of October, when the last resort guests have already reached the station, and the days are still warm and gentle like autumn, Balaklava becomes homely, as if in the rooms after the departure of uninvited guests.
There is silence all around, undisturbed by anything. The water is so thick and heavy that the stars are reflected in it without rippling or blinking. The lazy footsteps of the night watchman are heard, and I hear not only each blow of his forged fishing boots on the stones of the sidewalk, but I also hear the click of his heels between two steps. But then he turned somewhere into a paved alley and his steps fell silent.
Along the entire Crimean coast: in Anapa, Sudak, Kerch, Balaklava, fishermen are preparing to catch beluga. Huge boots are being cleaned, waterproof raincoats painted with yellow oil paint and leather trousers are being renewed, and sails are being mended.
And now, flapping hesitantly in the air, the sail rises, like a sharp bird’s feather sticking out end up. A small supply of bread and a barrel of water are stored under the stern grate, and a young fisherman sits on the boat with boastful nonchalance.
This is none other than Yura Paratino, a short, strong, salted and tarred Greek. No one compares to Yura’s luck, and no one else shows such indifference to the unfair blows of fate, which is especially highly valued by these salty people.
(A. Kuprin)
II. Grammar task.
Graphically highlight constructions with isolated members of the sentence.
Final control dictation for the 10th grade course
If you constantly work at your desk in your office, you create your own order to which you get used. You know where and what book is on your table and where your pen and pencil are. Reach out your hand and take what you need. This is your order and cannot be changed.
This is where the magpie comes in. Anyone who has ever kept a pet magpie in their home knows what it is...
The white-sided magpie is a very beautiful bird: its tail has a reddish and greenish metallic sheen, its head is jet black, and there are white spots on its sides. She has a cheerful personality, but she has two notable characteristics: she is curious and has an irresistible passion for accumulating wealth.
Every thing, especially something shiny, attracts her attention, and she tries to hide it somewhere away. Everything: a teaspoon, a silver ring, a button - she instantly grabs it and, despite the screams, flies away, diligently hiding the stolen item somewhere .
Our magpie liked to hide things out of sight. She apparently believed that a well-hidden item would last longer, and so from time to time something would go missing from the house.
(168 words) (According to A. Komarov)
Grammar task:
1. From the 4th paragraph, write down 2 phrases with types of communication:
Option I – adjoining;
Option II – management.
2. Write out a complex sentence with several subordinate clauses, draw up a diagram of this sentence and determine the type of subordination of the subordinate clauses.
3. Write out a complex sentence that includes a one-part sentence:
Option I – definitely personal;
Option II – impersonal.
Indicate their grammatical bases
Control dictations Punctuation in a complex sentence
I
The night was dark. Although the moon had risen, it was hidden by thick clouds covering the horizon. Perfect silence reigned in the air. Not the slightest breeze rippled the smooth surface of the sleeping river, which quickly and silently rolled its waters to the sea. Here and there a light splash could be heard near the steep bank from a lump of earth that had separated and fallen into the water. Sometimes a duck flew over us, and we heard the quiet but sharp whistle of its wings. Sometimes a catfish floated to the surface of the water, stuck out its ugly head for a moment and, lashing the streams with its tail, sank into the depths. Everything is quiet again.
Suddenly a dull, drawn-out roar is heard and does not pass for a long time, as if freezing in a silent night. This deer wanders far, far away and calls for a female. The hunter’s heart trembles at this sound, and a proud bagel quietly making its way through the reeds is clearly visible before his eyes.
Meanwhile, the boat glides imperceptibly, propelled by the careful blows of the oars. The tall, motionless figure of Stepan looms vaguely on the horizon. Its long white oar moves silently back and forth and is only occasionally transferred from one side of the boat to the other. (167 words)
(According to I. Bielfeld)
II
That morning, for the first time in my life, I heard a shepherd's horn playing that amazed me.
I looked out the open window, lying in a warm bed and shivering from the chill of the dawn. The street was flooded with the pink light of the sun rising behind the houses. Then the gates of the courtyard opened, and the gray-haired shepherd owner, in a new blue coat, tar-smeared boots and a tall hat like a top hat, walked out into the middle of the still deserted street, put his hat at his feet, crossed himself, and put a long horn to his lips with both hands. , puffed out his thick pink cheeks - and I shuddered at the first sounds: the horn began to play so loudly that it even rattled in my ears.1 But that was only the case at first. Then he began to take it higher and more pitifully, and suddenly he started playing something joyful, and I felt happy. The cows mooed in the distance and began to creep up little by little, and the shepherd still stood and played. He played with his head thrown back, playing as if into the sky, as if he had forgotten about everything in the world. The shepherd caught his breath, and then admiring voices were heard on the street: “What a master! And where does he have so much spirit from?” The shepherd probably also heard this and understood how they were listening to him, and he was pleased with it. (180 words)
(According to I. Shmelev)
Autumn is walking across Russian soil...
In the spacious fields, a blue cobweb floats above the dew, and the overworked earth slowly cools. In the transparent depths of river pools, fish lazily move, barely moving their fins. The haystacks, surrounded by late green grass, had long since faded and faded from the September rains. But the emerald-gray winter stripes are dazzling, and the ruby bursts of rowan trees glow silently and brightly at the edge of the forest.
The forest is unusually quiet. Everything froze, holding its breath, as if awaiting some kind of inevitable punishment, or maybe forgiveness and rest.
Autumn blows on the forests, blowing them with a wet wind, and then a dull, dissatisfied roar spreads like waves for thousands of miles. The winds blow away the reserved blue from the bosom of countless lakes, rippling and showering the reaches of the great northern rivers with dead leaves. The breath of these winds either covers the taiga with swamp gray hair, or weaves golden, orange and silver-yellow strands into it. But the pine and spruce ridges don’t care at all, and they are still arrogantly silent, or they hum menacingly and terribly, raising their indignant manes, and then a mighty noise again rolls across the endless taiga. (158 words)
(According to V. Belov)
IV
Under the light blow of the sultry wind, the sea shuddered, and, covered with small ripples that brilliantly reflected the sun, it smiled at the blue sky with thousands of silver smiles. In the space between the sea and the sky there was a cheerful splash of waves running onto the gentle shore of the sand spit. Everything was full of living joy: the sound and shine of the sun, the wind and the salty aroma of water, the hot air and yellow sand. A narrow spit, piercing a sharp spire into the boundless desert of water sparkling with the sun, was lost somewhere in the distance. Oars, baskets and barrels lay randomly on the sand. On this day, even the seagulls are exhausted by the heat. They sit on the sand with their beaks open and their wings down, or they swing lazily on the waves.
The sun begins to descend into the sea, and the restless waves play cheerfully and noisily, splashing against the shore. The sun is setting, and a pinkish reflection of its rays falls on the yellow sand. And the pitiful willow bushes, and the mother-of-pearl clouds, and the waves running onto the shore - everything is preparing for the night's peace. Night shadows fall not only on the sea, but also on the shore. All around is an immense sea, silvered by the moon, and a blue sky strewn with stars. (165 words)
(According to M. Gorky)
Night in Balaclava
At the end of October, the days are still gentle in autumn, and Balaklava begins to live a unique life. The last holidaymakers, who spent the long summer here enjoying the sun and sea, leave, and it immediately becomes spacious, fresh and homely, businesslike, as if after the departure of sensational uninvited guests.
Fishing nets are spread across the embankment, and on the polished cobblestones they appear delicate and thin, like a spider's web. Fishermen, these workers of the sea, as they are called, crawl along the spread nets, like gray-black spiders straightening a torn veil of air. The captains of the fishing boats sharpen worn-out beluga hooks, and at the stone wells, where the water babbles in a continuous silver stream, dark-faced women - local residents - chatter, gathering here in their free moments.
Sinking into the sea, the sun sets, and soon the starry night, replacing the short evening dawn, envelops the earth. The city falls into a deep sleep and everything becomes silent. Only occasionally does the water squelch against the coastal stone, and this lonely sound further emphasizes the undisturbed silence. Night and silence merge in one black embrace. (154 words)
(According to A. Kuprin)
Warning dictations
I. Select prefixes in words. Find an adjective whose structure matches the diagram: .
We walked through two copses, rounded a clover field and entered a pine forest. Cool silence and darkness swallowed us. Only ahead were slanting pillars of sunlight shining.
We fell silent. It was scary to break this silence, this magnificent peace.
(According to E. Shim)
II. Highlight prefixes in verbs. Find an adjective whose structure matches the diagram: .
The kids suddenly screamed at once and ran. They saw something ahead. I also quickened my pace. It became clear behind the dark trunks and turned white. The pine forest suddenly ended, as if it had been cut off. And a lake opened up ahead.
(According to E. Shim)
III. Name verbs that indicate intensification of action. Select the prefixes in them.
The snow has melted. Water accumulated in the lowlands and flowed in streams along the slopes, shaking the yellow panicles of last year's grass, carrying away wood chips.
(According to E. Shim)
IV. Indicate the morphological features common to all verbs of the sentence. Which morpheme indicates this? Determine the meaning of prefixes in the first four verbs.
A strong wind began to roar overhead, the trees began to storm, large drops of rain began to knock, splash on the leaves, lightning flashed, and a thunderstorm broke out.
Letters z and s at the end of the consoles
Vocabulary dictations
I. Dusk is gathering; disappear without a trace in the darkness; snowless winter; laugh out loud; school building; squeezed his hand; did the right thing; local climate; knocked down the fire; beautiful painting; sign in the journal; countless questions; gloomy dawn.
II. Starless night; kiss grandma; blossomed under the window; consider the landscape; incoherent story; heartless person; ask your father; investigate to the end; calculate accurately; accurate calculation; indisputable answer.
Selective dictation
Distribute the words in two columns: 1) h at the end of the attachment; 2) With at the end of the attachment. Underline the first letter of the root in the words.
Scatter; flinch; crush; bend; priceless; silent; dropped; stories; ruthless; burned; stupid; to question; aimless; saw; tweeted; blow off; from afar; silent; to plow; move; useless.
Warning dictation
1) Scientists made many amazing discoveries on ancient Egyptian soil. 2) Excavations revealed the remains of stonework. 3) The scientist expected to find the remains of the pyramid. 4) It was difficult to unravel the mystery of the pyramid. 5) The limestone rock was cleared of sand and holes were cut into it. 6) From small holes above, light fell onto the marble floor of the temple. 7) The inscriptions of the pyramids praised the pharaohs. 8) Here you can see scenes of the life of ordinary people. 9) Stories about the life of the Egyptians have been preserved to this day on the stone pages of the walls. 10) The heavy trunks of the columns were thrown to the ground. 11) The building was destroyed. 12) For construction it was necessary to make accurate calculations. 13) Scientists have discovered countless marble fragments. 14) During an earthquake, the statue moved from its place and its upper part collapsed to the ground. 15) The work did not stop.
(From book )
Letters a - o in roots
-lag- - -lozh-, -rast- - - grow - - - grow-
Vocabulary dictations
I. Graphically explain the choice of vowel in roots with alternation a - o.
1) State the content; well stated; know the signs of adjectives; write a statement; addend numbers; settle down for the night; have free time.
2) Luxurious plants; the hum increases; thickets of bushes; young sprout; overgrown with grass; flowers grew; green algae; bone fusion; city of Rostov.
3) The assumptions did not come true; drops of dew; the path is overgrown; vegetable oil; assign responsibilities; change position; compose poetry; plant petals; the acorns have sprouted; save plants; the clearing is overgrown; grow hair; lay a ski track; apply a suture; offer help.
II. Underline words with an alternating vowel in the root.
Plant; grows up; bungler; dissolve; luxurious; melt; solution; increased; irrigated
III. Underline those phrases that contain words with an alternating vowel in the root.
Simple sentence; overgrown with grass; mountain vegetation; wither without water; shake the air; to have hopes; flutter in the wind; sit by the fire.
Selective dictations
Distribute the words in two columns, explaining graphically the choice of vowel a - o at the root.
1) Offer; settle down; to expound; presentation; term; position; offer; assign; attach.
2) Vegetation; have grown; grew up; seaweed; grow up; grown; overgrow; sprout; overgrown; germinate; shoot; grow; growing; industry.
3) Addition; shift; stated; position; grow; age; assume; location; grow; increased; extension; overgrown; Rostislav.
I. 1) Fog lay over the fields.(A. Pushkin) 2) Because of the winds, mountain trees often grow one-sided. 3) Flowers grew right next to the bushes. 4) The thickets of reeds darkened like a dense wall. 5) The puppy managed to grow into an intelligent dog. 6) They haven’t gone to bed yet in the house. 7) The ducks chilled in the thickets and quacked all night.(K. Paustovsky) 8) I reached the fir thicket and settled down in a tiny clearing.(V. Burlak) 9) The snow flakes grew and turned into huge white chickens.(G. Andersen) 10) Only a few plants grow in the dense shade of the spruce forest.(I. Sokolov-Mikitov)11) There were cabinets with books along the walls. 12) We expected to leave in the morning. 13) Dense bushes grew along the slopes of the ravine. 14) Briefly outline the contents of the paragraph. 15) The house was located on the edge of the village. 16) The song grew and spread.(I. Turgenev) 17) The waves threw a lot of algae ashore. 18) A mighty tree grows from a linden seed.
II. Write out words from the text whose structure corresponds to the diagrams:
Adjective,
- verb,
- noun.
Dusk was approaching, but we continued to wander through the forest. It seemed that the forest clearings were filled with thick darkness. She crawled from somewhere out of the ground, lay down at our feet, on the plants. The birds gradually fell silent. Soon it became difficult to distinguish the outlines of the branches. The trace of the familiar path began to disappear, but the rays of the sun were still visible through the dense thickets of bushes.
(According to K. Paustovsky)
III. We drove through picturesque places. Suddenly the mountains seemed to move apart. The sun took advantage of this and brightly illuminated the gorge, which stretched to the very horizon. At this point a bridge spanned the gorge. On the right side of the bridge, the continuous murmur of a stream could be heard, which suddenly disappeared into the thickets of bushes. On the left side the mountains were covered with dense vegetation. We planned to stop here.
IV. Find (using one example) words whose structure corresponds to the following diagrams:
Noun,
- verb,
- adjective.
Is the morphemic composition of the words the same? pink and white ? Prove. Find synonyms for wordsI was sad, amazing.
One of the seven wonders of the world
By order of the king of Babylon, hanging gardens were erected in honor of his wife. This is an amazing building. The gardens were located on a wide four-tiered tower. The tiers rose in ledges and were lined with pink and white slabs.
The queen longed for the coolness and shade of the mountain forests among which she grew up in her homeland. By order of the king, her favorite plants were brought to Babylon. They reminded the queen of her homeland. Luxurious flowers and magnificent palm trees grew in the gardens. The aroma of gardens, shade and coolness in treeless Babylon seemed like a miracle to people.
(From book A. Neihardt, I. Shishova “Seven Wonders of the World”)
Letters e - o after sizzling at the root.
Letters i - ы after c
Vocabulary dictations
I. Clicked in the thickets of bushes; ripe gooseberries; get out of the thicket; stale bread; black pencil; heavy backpack; thin perch; uneven seam; clear drawing; narrow gutter; yellow sand; loud whisper; tight shorts.
II. Delicious chocolate; wooden ratchet; remote slum; mysterious rustling; a skilled driver; wide highway; severe burn; burned my hand.
III. Chicken fluff; city streets; yellow acacia; pale-faced boy; distant station; black currant; curly gypsy; brown acorn; gypsy song; clock dial; warm tsigeyka; new brush; Schooling; clear step; soft fur; new situation; quote from the book; fox trace; short bangs; long compass; good diction; sister's scarf; interesting tradition.
Selective dictations
Write down the words in two columns and and s after c. Indicate the conditions for choosing a spelling.
I. Circus, compass, shell, cygeyka, figure, zinc, citrus, demonstration, acacia, station, discipline, medicine, cylinder, collection, rehearsal, circus performer, circus, circular, cyclops, operation, gypsy, chicks, tut, chicken, chicken, gypsy, products, police, expedition, editorial, alarm, reproduction, specialty, illustration; fathers, cucumbers, streets, well done, fighters, daredevils, girls, beauties, students, dancing, sisters, stairs, capitals, caterpillars, martens, birds, tits, sheep, scissors, mittens, tongs, ends, pale-faced, chubby, sisters, Lisitsyn, Ptitsyn, Kunitsyn, Pshenitsyn, on tiptoe, Tsaritsyno, diction, starlings, dark-skinned, knitting needles, grace, police, windows, fingers, villages, craftsmen, mills.
II. Circus miracle
There were many attractions in the circus show. All the birds: starlings, tits, and even clumsy hens - were well done and incredibly smart. They stood on tiptoe, cheerfully pecked cucumbers and flew from knitting needle to knitting needle. The largest chicken sat on the shell of a huge turtle. Then she started pecking at citrus fruits.
The starlings, these tireless fighters, pushed each other as if a real revolution was taking place in the circus arena.
Suddenly, completely unexpectedly, an amazingly handsome gypsy in a top hat appeared with a chicken in his hands. Following the gypsy on tiptoe was his charming assistant. The little yellow chicken received thunderous applause from the audience when he correctly squeaked into the microphone as many times as the numbers shown to him indicated.
At the end of the performance, the gypsy, to everyone's amazement, took flowers from a small cylinder: daffodils, nasturtiums - and presented them to the audience to stormy applause.
(From the newspaper “Russian Language”)
Explanatory, warning dictation
1) A rustle behind him made him look back. 2) The hedgehog came out with a shoe brush and started cleaning.(N. Kozlovsky) 3) The sleepy birch trees smiled and disheveled their silk braids.(S. Yesenin) 4) The wind whispers something to the birch trees. 5) Frost bites your nose and cheeks. 6) A heavy truck is crawling along the highway. 7) A light wind rustled grains of snow across the ice.(A. Kazantsev) 8) Just the thought of this thicket fills me with fear. 9) Suddenly, without a rustle or sound, a shadow flashed across the ice.(A. Kazantsev) 10) A round flowerbed with fuzzy yellow flowers looks like a basket with chickens. 11) Nightingales and starlings are already singing in the cozy foliage. 12) The chicks soon grew up, and one day the cheerful family flew away to the wide river shallows.(N. Sladkov) 13) Bees are buzzing over the yellow golden puffs of a flowering willow. And in the bushes on the river bank the first nightingale began to click and sing loudly.(I. Sokolov-Mikitov)14) The round-faced sunflower in the window starts a conversation with me. ( Yu. Mogutin ) 15) Evil martens are running through the trees, chasing squirrels. 16) Birds fly over wide rivers and blue lakes. 17) The circus was born in Ancient Rome. 18) The Christmas tree began to grow, and the birch tree covered it from the burns of the sun and frost.(M. Prishvin)
Schematic dictations
I. Without writing down the words, make their structural diagrams.
1) Hillocks; mushroom picker; she-wolf; giggle; straw.
2) Lesnaya; silver; rain; goose; swampy
3) It will light up; I'll fly; run across; threw; will creak.
4) Mosquito; tail; will crack; spreading; save it.
III. Write the words in columns according to their structure:
1) ; 2) ; 3) .
They rustle, clarify, lay, to the right, clean, offer, thin out, connect, left, grows, alley, I look, tremble.
IV. "Make a word."
1) Compose words according to these patterns, indicate whether these words belong to parts of speech.
2) Compose three words with these morphemes. Identify the parts of speech of the written words.
3) Make up word combinations based on these patterns.
4) Compose a word by taking the indicated morphemes from different words.
Control dictations
As an adult, I watched the sun rise many times. I met him in the forest, when before dawn the wind passes over the tops of the heads, when the black tops of the trees are clearly visible against the sky. There is dew on the grass. A spider's web stretched out in the forest sparkles with many sparkles. It smells like resin on a dewy morning. You try to make a path through the thicket of the forest to the river.
I saw the sun rise over my native fields, over the dense thickets of bushes near the river. The transparent mirror of the water reflects the pale stars, the thin crescent of the month. The sun rises to the singing of countless birds and the whisper of reeds. The cool dew in the meadows shines like diamonds. You sit on the shore and wait for the birth of a new day. (100 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
In the Pamir mountains
We are in the Pamirs. Rocky ridges rise above the pinkish clouds. There are villages in the valleys where gardens grow and people sow barley and wheat.
Along the banks of the rivers there are ruins of ancient fortresses. Now their walls and loopholes are overgrown with dense vegetation. Black jackdaws make nests in deep cracks, and snakes nest in the crevices of rocks. One of them sparkled in the sun and disappeared among the stones.
We approach the foot and settle down here to rest. With pleasure we inhale the aroma of flowering plants. Suddenly we notice drawings on the rocks. This artist many centuries ago painted animals, people, and wrote numbers. Rock art tells about the ancient Pamirs. We looked at these amazing drawings for a long time. (102 words)
Protect the forests!
Our forests often die from ruthless treatment. People unknowingly throw a match, and large areas of the forest die from its fire. A lot of forests are being cut down. It's easy to cut down a tree, but it takes decades to grow it.
A forester monitors the planting of young trees. He identifies places that were damaged by fire, outlines where it is necessary to clear the forest of windfall, allocates areas for loggers to work, and participates in the fight against forest pests. Caterpillars sometimes eat growing shoots and eat leaves. Hares and mice gnaw the roots of young trees. But the forest also has friends - birds.They are excellent assistants to foresters.
Take care of the forest, guys! This is our wealth. (98 words)
MORPHOLOGY. SPELLING
NOUN
Selective dictations
II. Arrange the nouns in three columns according to declensions.
Steppe; demonstration; bed; bed; deer; game; brochure; Gypsy; compass; terrain; bad weather; whisper; feeling; Ray; reed; station; clock face; jury; the seam; offer; poplar; police; decoration; chocolate; building.
III. Distribute the words into two columns: 1) is written b ; 2) not written b at the end of nouns after sibilants. Indicate the declension of nouns.
Dry; bream; borsch; rye; shiver; floor; brick; match; a lot of clouds; no tasks; few puddles; wasteland; from gears; after meetings; from groves; because of the clouds; hoop; game; speech; scenery; ivy; ladle; daughter; silence; reed; wilderness; from pastures.
IV. Distribute the words into two columns: 1) is written O ; 2) written e at the end of nouns after sibilants.
Beam; roll; landscape; comrade; puddles; clouds; noodles; wheat; circus performer; ball; shoulder; by land; lilies of the valley; cooler.
Vocabulary dictations
I. Swim in an ice hole; grow by the river; visit the circus; near the acacia; apples on an apple tree; on the dial; walk along the path to the river; on a lilac branch; be at an anniversary, in a building, at a lecture in a planetarium, on an expedition, in Africa, in a valley; trees covered in frost; about an amazing incident; in soft needles; turn off the alley; take care of health; about the Russian landscape; position vertically.
II. Grades in history, geography, mathematics, botany, geometry; think about Russia, about the homeland; in this territory; participate in a demonstration or competition; return from an expedition; acacia leaves; talk about a work; grow in a greenhouse.
III. Place on a square, on a station, on a line, on a line; head to the grove, to the pier, to the river; on a trip to Australia, Africa; visit India, Spain, America, northern Siberia, Yakutia; wrote in a notebook, in a notebook; grows by the road; was treated in hospital; served in the army; was at a meeting in the building.
IV. We parted in the square; walked from the platform to the square; lay in bed, in bed; hanging on a spruce, on a fir tree, on a poplar, on a birch, on a thread, on a thread; sat on the bed, on the crib; rode a horse, on a horse; be heard in silence, in silence; dedicate to Mary, Marya; Natalia, Natalia; Dasha, Daria; Ksenia, Ksyusha.
V. On the road, to the hut, in Germany, in history, at school, in Astrakhan, in Yaroslavl; apple blossoms; on a bird cherry tree, in a bathhouse, in a printing house, in a village, in a village; near the road, from the lily; in the army, to the edge of the forest, in a play, in the theater, in the area, in the azure; addressed to Maria Andreevna, in the sanatorium, along the alley, along the shallows, in the building, from straw, in the frost, on the stairs, about the discovery, in the content, in antiquity, in the decision, from village to village, in Europe, in Asia, in America ; stood in thought, on the seaside, in conscience, in danger, in radiance, in wisdom, from the top, to the road, near the tent.
Warning, explanatory dictations
I. 1) At the end of the street you can see an old house under an iron roof.(E. Shim) 2) The horse remained at the mill and patiently carried clay, manure, and poles.(K. Paustovsky) 3) The rye was just beginning to ear. 4) The nut blossoms, but its earrings do not glow with yellow pollen.(M. Prishvin) 5) The birds will catch a twig in flight, and yellow smoke will fly from the twig.(M. Prishvin) 6) On the outskirts of the village there is an old oak tree. 7) There are no rich mushroom places near our village.(E. Shim) 8) The trees are all covered in frost. 9) The bear is sleeping soundly in the den. 10) A fox ran along the edge of the forest, and a wood mouse squeaked thinly. 11) Birds set off from distant Africa. 12) Squirrel tracks stretch in the snow from spruce to spruce. 13) Fragrant strawberries are ripening in the clearing. 14) Thin threads of silvery web are stretched from birch to birch. 15) Lush clusters of flowers turn white on the bird cherry tree. 16) We walked to the village along our path. 17) The light was on in the building. 18) We visited the gallery twice. 19) Father had a good rest in the sanatorium. 20) At a lecture at the planetarium, we learned a lot of interesting things about the movement of planets in the sky, about a lunar eclipse. 21) A wide highway was built from the station to the village. 22) Birds recognize danger by this cry. 23) Resinous buds swelled on the birch tree. 24) The nightingale usually sits on a low bird cherry branch. 25) Swallows winter in distant Africa. 26) The acacia branches are covered with chicken down.
II. 1) When I approached, the dog howled and shook with small tremors. 2) We approached the pier in the evening. 3) In Kamchatka, potatoes grow best where there is volcanic ash. 4) There are twenty geysers in the valley. 5) I met these people during an expedition to the volcano. 6) Until late at night in the editorial office we listened to a story about an amazing journey on a motorcycle from Magadan to Moscow. 7) Young people are dancing at the pier. 8) He lived in Germany, Italy, Africa, Australia. 9) A letter arrived from Ryazan. 10) Then Tobolsk became the main city of Siberia. 11) Tobolsk raised the chemist Mendeleev for Russia. 12) The storyteller Ershov was taught by Mendeleev’s father at the gymnasium. 13) The museum contains many interesting things. 14) Every day, visiting people gather in the square. 15) There are many ancient wooden buildings in Karelia.
(According to V. Peskov)
Control dictations
My mother and I decided to relax in the summer in the village with my grandfather. He lives in the Bryansk region.
From the station to the village you need to go through a grove. It smells of mushrooms and fragrant strawberries.
It's good to wander around the grove! The wind moves the leaves of the trees. A ray of sun breaks through the thick foliage and illuminates the forest. A silvery web stretched from branch to branch. The spider uses it to catch insects: mosquitoes, midges, flies.
Light clouds float above the treetops in the blue sky. In an open clearing, the heads of ripe strawberries are hidden in the dense greenery, and raspberries turn red in the thickets of bushes.
We follow the path to the edge, leave the forest and go straight to the village. (97 words)
This summer my friend and I spent with my grandmother in the village. The village is located far from the station, on the bank of a narrow but deep river.
In the mornings we ran to the river to swim. You take a running start and dive from the shore straight into the water. Circles spread out in all directions and splashes fly. The ducks swim away into the reeds in fright. Here they are waiting for us to stop splashing and fiddling in the water.
If there are no clouds in the sky, we lie down on the sand and bask in the sun with pleasure. After swimming we climb into the dense raspberry thickets. They grow at the very edge of the water.
In the fall we will tell the guys about our carefree vacation. (96 words)
Ants are amazing insects. Did you guys know that they even have their own “dairy cattle”? This is an aphid. She secretes sweet juice, and the ants pick it up right from her abdomen.
If the aphids become too prolific, the ants place them on a new branch or on another plant. They will also take care of protection that will protect the aphids from enemies: ticks, ladybugs. In caring for the nurse, ants even build “cowsheds”. They can be seen on many plants: on plantain, on pine and spruce, in thickets of bushes. If someone destroys the “cowsheds,” the ants do not flee, but rush to the aid of the aphids. They pick them up and run away with them. (100 words)
(According to I. Akimushkin)
In the west of LibyaThe desert in Egypt has amazing mountains. They seem to grow out of the sand and amaze with their size and severity of outline. These mountains of stone are the tombs of the kings of Egypt. It’s hard to imagine that people put them together with their own hands.
The largest tomb is the Pyramid of Cheops. It took more than twenty years to build.
Excavations speak of the unheard-of value of the treasures that were hidden in the royal graves. They were kept in a special room. The Egyptians believed that they accompanied the king in his afterlife.
False galleries and passages were built in the pyramid so that robbers could not find treasures. A person could wander around the gallery for hours, but never reach the hall where the sarcophagus was locatedlords. But even in ancient times, almost all the pyramids were plundered. (108 words)
(From book A. Neihardt, I. Shishova “Seven Wonders of the World”)
ADJECTIVE
Vocabulary dictations
I. With good advice; hot sand; in a dense forest; from a good friend; in clear air; on a gloomy sky; on a steep bank; about fresh wind; early morning; in the evening air; about the mighty oak; behind the mighty oak tree; fizzy drink; on the creaking snow; fragrant lily of the valley; a prickly hedgehog.
II. To my best friend; with a good song; winter cold; on a summer night; on a long hike; into the blue distance; through the autumn forest; about thorny bushes; in the fresh air; fresh hay; on the hot sand; in the winter night; quiet evening.
III. The hut is good; gas is volatile; lily of the valley is fragrant; hot pepper; fizzy drink; the snow is creaky; the oak is mighty; the baby is handsome; the act is defiant; the wind is fresh; the beam is hot.
Selective dictation
Write down the adjectives in two columns: 1) is written O ; 2) written e in endings after sibilants.
1) We stopped at a small lake. 2) It smelled of fresh greenery and rotten leaves. 3) Golden beetles were circling above the scarlet flowers of the fragrant rosehip.(A. Tolstoy) 4) The boy climbed up the shaky, creaky stairs to the attic.(Yu. Nagibin) 5) The sky was surrounded by flying lightning.(F. Tyutchev) 6) The fence was painted with fresh paint.
Warning, explanatory dictations
I. 1) Soft light spreads over the village. This happens before the summer rains. 2) The morning air is damp and cool. 3) The wind blew from the left bank and barely raised light ripples. 4) The town is located on the shore of a warm sea. 5) In the silence, the rustling sounds of the old house began to be heard. 6) A deep path winds through the spruce forest, and stunted pines grow along its edges.
(According to E. Shim)
II. 1) A school was built in a neighboring village. 2) She stretched out her hands to him, and the sparrow in flight threw a small crystal bouquet into her palms.(K. Paustovsky) 3) On that stormy autumn day, a bear attacked a shepherd. 4) Cool transparent dew in the meadows shines like a diamond scattering.(I. Sokolov-Mikitov)5) In the morning he drove the sheep into a narrow valley.
III. Good, clean Russian snowy winters! Deep snowdrifts sparkle in the sun. Quiet and bright winter nights. Showering the snow with moonlight, the moon shines. Fields and treetops twinkle in the moonlight. Dark clearings in the forest. The winter night frost is strong...
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
IV. The days came cloudy, but quiet, without wind, real days of late autumn...
Nature is waiting for soft flakes of snow to cover the entire earth and dress the bare, frozen forest in a fluffy coat.
(G. Skrebitsky)
V. Suddenly an owl flew out from the next room. What a wonderful bird it was: it looked all soft and fluffy, like a lump of gray cotton wool. And the eyes are huge, like two yellow flowers. The owl flew across the room silently, only a slight vibration from his soft owl wings was felt in the air.
(According to G. Skrebitsky)
VI. It is all dark, almost black, the head is small, the beak is sharp and short, and the paws are huge, green, and the fingers are long, like those of a heron.
This is a marsh hen - a warbler.
(G. Skrebitsky)
Control dictations
On a moonlit night it is light in a birch forest. The light of the moon is reflected on the snowdrifts, and the forest looks like a huge hall with white columns. The silence of a clear winter night is full of secrets.
A bear is dozing in a den, but he is sensitively listening to the life of the winter forest. Snowflakes rustle barely audibly on the bark of old aspens, slide along slender peaks, and cling to pine needles.
The night is coming. Complete silence. And suddenly the snow crust crunched and the dry wood crackled. The bear ruffled its feathers, pricked up its ears, and flashed its eyes. Yes, these are moose! The couch potato calmed down, put his head on his front paws, and closed his eyes.
The bad weather will clear up, snow will fall in flakes, and the wind will howl in the peaks. The bear will be lulled to sleep by the lullaby of the blizzard. He is sweetly dozing in his den.
March is the last month of hibernation for the forest owner. (108 words)
(According to D. Zuev)
In April, the last snow melts in the fields, cheerful streams ring through the ravines, and rivers break the winter ice. The earth awakening from its winter sleep smells like spring. Resinous, fragrant buds are inflated from the trees in the forest.
The white-nosed rooks have already arrived. Starlings bask in the sun. With songs, vocal larks rise into the blue heavenly distance.
A special hour is coming in Russian nature. Invisible blue gates will open up to the sky, and schools of migratory birds will appear. From the warm south to the cold seas their cheerful voices will be heard.
Forest sounds are also varied. A transparent drop fell from a slender birch tree, and a thin, crystal ringing was heard. The hunter’s sensitive ear can already sense the whisper of the awakened earth. (101 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
Real spring comes from mid-March. The roofs are leaking and long icicles are hanging down. Sparrows chirp joyfully under the rays of the bright sun. On forest paths, prickly snow falls under your feet.
Gardens are already blooming in the south. An army of migratory birds is preparing to travel. From distant Africa they set off on a long journey. The first close guests are rooks. In old parks, they build their nests on tall trees and fill the surrounding area with noise and din. Soon the first larks will appear on the spring thawed patches.
The sun is getting hotter every day. Spring streams run under the snow. April will come soon. April is the noisiest month of spring water, the awakening of the earth, the rapid movement of juices. (98 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
VERB
Not with verbs
Vocabulary dictation
You don't feel tired; was not at the lecture; the hurricane raged; my father was unwell; did not participate in the competition; you won't reach the station; you won’t see it in a museum; disliked her stepdaughter; hate lies.
Spelling -tsya and -tsya in verbs
Selective dictation
Write in two columns according to the example:
1) Water flows down, but a person strives upward. 2) To be considered brave is to not be afraid of anyone. 3) To become lazy means to lose bread. 4) It’s easy to be called a man, but it’s more difficult to be a man. 5) If you don’t work, the bread won’t be born. 6) To come together - to become a river, to disperse apart - to become streams. 7) In an intelligent conversation, you gain intelligence, in a stupid conversation, you lose yourself. 8) It's easy to make friends - hard to separate.
(Proverbs)
Warning, explanatory dictations
I. 1) Suddenly a bird’s cry is heard in the silence. 2) It began to get dark. 3) You could go fishing. 4) Everything falls out of hand. 5) Will the ants be able to penetrate the hive?(V. Arsenyev) 6) Haze descends from the mountains and falls on the forest, on the river. 7) Forest mice are fiddling around under the snow.(I. Sokolov-Mikitov)8) The snow sparkles and sparkles in the sun. 9) Only daredevils are not afraid to go after a bear alone.(V. Arsenyev) 10) This cry made people shake themselves again.(V. Arsenyev)
II. 1) The stars are reflected in the transparent mirror of water. 2) Wood grouse feed on hard pine needles all winter. 3) The sun is rising higher and higher. 4) In winter, burbots hunt dozing fish. 5) Residents of big cities rarely admire the sunrise. 6) Everything around suddenly changes. 7) A new day is born. 8) The heart is filled with joy. 9) In nature, everything awakens. 10) The ringing larks soar from the fields into the sky. 11) My friends, I highly advise you to admire the sunrise. You will feel your heart fill with fresh joy.
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
III. It's getting dark. A shadow sweeps across the snow. She moves towards the pine tree. This is an owl. Hunters know how she hunts hares. It will perch on branches or on a stump and wait for prey.
(According to D. Zuev)
IV. The shiny ribbon of the road bends on rocky slopes, which are overgrown with cedar and gray sea buckthorn. It rolls into valleys and winds along river banks.
(E. Shim)
V. At dusk, a red animal sneaks along the forest edge. This gossip goes hunting. So she ran across the aspen tree, attacked the fresh tracks of a hare and rushes after him. And the scythe makes circles, confuses the trail and rushes towards the thicket. Here is salvation.
(According to D. Zuev)
Writing ь after h in an indefinite form
Vocabulary dictation
Guard the house; help a friend; bake pies; burn dry wood; get there; light a fire; protect yourself from fire; save time.
Letters e - i in the roots with alternation
Selective dictations
Write down the words in two columns: 1) is written e; 2) is also written at the root.
I. Gather; shine; gather; take away; freeze; freeze; spread out; spread out; burn out; brilliant; incendiary; erase; shine; wipe; wipe; choose; cover; froze; froze; die; die; rub; to shine; washed; I tear out; pick up; wipe; collecting; subtract; subtract; lock up; lock; tidy up; voters; combine; combination; brilliant; will flash; will tidy up; lean.
II. I'll sort it out; freeze; tears; rub out; I will collect; elect; will pick up; rub; lock; wade; get; spread out; shine; sparkled; spread out; going to; cover; grind; grind; to shine; resist; froze; I will tear it apart; brilliant.
Vocabulary dictations
I. Spread across the meadow; freeze with fear; choose a road; shine in the sun; a beam flashed; excerpt; choose a route; lay a tablecloth; make your way through the thicket; unlock the door.
II. Pack your backpack; choose a delegation; to pack; shine with cleanliness; wiped his feet; select magazines; elect a deputy; you die of boredom; shine silver; to find fault with little things; you lock it with a key; spread out with a carpet; you climb a tree.
Warning, explanatory dictations
I. 1) A useful activity is collecting books. 2) Long-term wanderings in the taiga taught me to understand tracks.(V. Arsenyev) 3) The fogs spread like tablecloths across the meadows. 4) The squirrel looks around helplessly, and the blackbirds scatter in different directions. 5) The pines froze under the deep sky. 6) Under the snow coat, the earth is gaining strength. 7) The pre-dawn wind freezes in the tops of the trees.
II. A blue sky appeared ahead. It spread wider and wider over our heads. And now the fields opened up, and the Vorya River flashed behind the nearby hill.
(According to E. Shim)
Verb endings
present and future tense
Vocabulary dictations
I. You breathe; breathe; you will see; cut; do you hear; you jump; warming up; listening; sow; melting; repent; you smell; decide; building; wear; you lay; glue; inject; chop; dozing; you praise.
II. He (she, it) rinses; soars; listens; chasing; will miss; will blow; will stick up; fights; cherishes; answers; enters; will refuel; will correct; shaves; treats; chases; depends; will start; flight.
III. We are building; drive; fight; we decide; see; let's repent; smell; depend; melt; glue; creep; straighten; they grumble; endure; will endure; breathe; spread; blow; manage; you are traveling; manage; praise; straighten out; build; lay down; dancing; look; breathe; treat; dozing; scatter; dozing; crying; bark; bubbling; hesitate; fly; tremble; sting; mean; glue; driven; see; we see; sawing; hesitate.
IV. We are building a house; glue toys; it blows cold; kick the ball; the wind is driving; you don’t hear any rustling; don't listen to radio broadcasts; you will meet your father; you meet guests; the snow doesn't melt; stabbing in the side; pest control; the flag flies; we are driving through the field; streams mutter; you won’t find it in the grass; rumbles in the sky; you will see from the steep; make the bed; you breathe in the aroma; looking for a dog; won't watch the movie; will rush out of the house.
V. We take it out of the forest; ask your father; seal the envelope; fluttering in the wind; struggles with sleep; plows in the field; mumbles in his sleep; you endure pain; don’t moan in pain; mow the grass; wasps sting; look at the sky; the sun obscures; depends on bad weather; let's go on a hike; sow rye; we hate lies; the waves splash; the stream foams; the dog doesn't bark.
VI. Enjoying the beauty of the mountains; enjoys tennis; approaching the station; unite in groups; worry in vain; sense danger; searches and finds in the thickets; We are located on the alley; hovering on a building; asking for help; we head to the edge; you will find yourself in a greenhouse; you will go down by parachute; visit Greece, Turkey; participates in a demonstration; lie in bed; you will find it in the sentence; we will see the sunrise; position yourself along the road; make a guess; count on a friend.
Explanatory dictation
1) Thin reeds sway over the water. 2) It smells like oak leaves and flowers. 3) Delicate fragrant flowers are hidden in the thick grass. 4) If you put a large bouquet of violets on the table, you will certainly wake up at midnight. 5) On a winter day you go out into the forest on skis, breathe and not get inhaled. 6) Winter snow is melting. 7) Hungry wolves howl in the swamps. 8) Light waves splash quietly. 9) The spring voices of birds are heard over the whole earth. 10) A purple bell sways in the wind. 11) It smells like the damp dampness of old leaves, the wet bark of aspen trees. 12) Under the tall spruce trees you see white oxalis flowers. 13) In winter, burbots spawn. 14) The green branch sways for a long time. 15) Sometimes sounds and voices are heard in the night forest. 16) Real spring comes in mid-March. 17) Crystal ringing is heard. 18) Wild ducks rest and feed on rivers and lakes. 19) An attentive hunter will hear various sounds and voices in the forest in the spring.
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
Spelling past tense verbs
Vocabulary dictations
I. Icicles melted; sensed danger; the rains fell; hoped for luck; the winds blew; cherished a dream; the dogs barked; completely desperate; banners fluttered; sincerely repented.
II. Heard the news; saw a gypsy; built the station building; melted in the sun; pumped out the water; offended the baby; sealed the book; went to Moscow; filled the vessel; stung a puppy; hated lies; started a fuss; cleaned the beak; dispelled the clouds; depended on the schedule.
III. Hears - heard; sees - saw; endures - endured; hates - hated; glues - glued; melts - melted; smells - smelled; builds - built; sows - sowed; hopes - hoped; depends - depended; blows - blows; barks - barked; check - checked.
Control dictations
The sky is still frowning, but a ray of sun breaks through the gaps in the clouds like a sparkling sword. Spring is picking up speed. The distances are becoming clearer. The fields are still turning white with winter color, and the pine forests are already turning green with islands.
Winter and spring meet in the forest. In the darkness of the spruce forest, the aspen trees glisten silver. From their gnarled branches, twisting blue shadows appear on the March snow. Round holes melted around the trees and stumps. Alder catkins turn red against a green background of pine needles. Talkative redpolls scurry about in its branches. The pipe sighs of the bullfinches are heard.
The snow line retreats to the north, and at its heels the birds return to their homeland. Soon the murmuring song of the lark and the hubbub of the rooks will announce the arrival of spring.
Farewell winter! Hello Spring! (105 words)
(According to D. Zuev)
Spiraea
Meadowsweet is a subshrub with large carved leaves. You cross a stream or ravine in the forest and immediately see its thickets. They sometimes reach the height of human height.
Meadowsweet chooses the quietest and most comfortable corners of the forest. The wind rustles the tops of the pines, babbles the leaves of the aspens, and in the ravines, where does it grow there is silence.
You wander through the hot forest and descend into a shady ravine. There are many bushes here: hazel, viburnum, bird cherry. Tenacious hops wrap around the trunks and form an impenetrable green web. The bottom of the ravine is densely covered with meadowsweet and nettles. Smells like wet earth. A small stream makes its way along the ravine and flows through the washed roots. Drink cold water. Green twilight stands in dense thickets. Such secluded corners are loved by forest birds: nightingales and warblers. (108 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
Evening quickly comes in the deep forest. Dark shadows lie under the trees. Old pines rise motionless, thick spruce trees turn black. The forest smells of resin, pine needles, and fallen leaves.
The evening sun has disappeared behind the distant trees, but the birds in the forest are not yet sleeping. You hear the hasty knock of a woodpecker. Nimble titmice hover around the woodpecker, picking up bugs and worms. A dark, impenetrable night will soon fall in the forest. Only at midnight will the daytime birds fall silent and fall asleep.
A dull, soundless night covers the earth. But then a mouse rustled underfoot. And again it’s quiet.
The fire crackles, and shaggy spruce branches sway over the fire. And by the fire, on a resinous bed, a hunter snores carefree. (99 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
The sun rises and the entire surrounding area is illuminated with a joyful light. It's time to hit the road. We collect our backpacks and choose a route using the map. We should reach the station by evening.
The path winds like a narrow ribbon. Young birch trees grow on its sides. From a distance we see a huge oak tree, which has spread its mighty branches wide. We approach it and settle down in its shade to rest. Grasshoppers chirp and birds sing. The wind quietly sways the oak leaves and induces sleep. Sleeps sweetly to the whisper of leaves.
But we didn’t have time to enjoy our vacation when we heard thunder. They are getting closer and closer. It is dangerous to be under tall trees during a thunderstorm. We need to quickly get to the nearest village and hide there from the rain. (108 words)
Nature was generous and gave us warm days. But autumn has already settled in the forest. The trees have shed their luxurious attire, and the forest has noticeably thinned out.
Countless leaves cover the ground. They are of different colors: yellow, orange, red. The sun will dry them, and the wind will drive them along forest paths. Only their rustle disturbs the peace of the forest kingdom.
But the forest is scary in bad weather. Under the pressure of the wind, the trees groan pitifully and bend to the ground. They no longer fight him. The rain hits the leaves and they look like miserable rags. Under the pressure of autumn rains and the first cold weather, all plants give up: flowers, herbs, bushes. Only the clusters of rowan trees turn red, and the rose hips hang like shiny Christmas balls.(102 words)
The hare lived near the village in winter. When night came, he raised one ear, listened, moved his whiskers, sniffed, and sat down in the deep snow on his hind legs. Then he jumped and looked around.
The snow lay in waves and glistened. There was frosty steam above the head of the oblique one, and bright stars could be seen through it. The hare played with his friend, dug snow with him, ate winter food and moved on.
It got lighter in the east. There were fewer stars, and the frosty steam rose above the ground even thicker.
The hare ran across the road, went to his old hole, dug up the snow, made a new hole, lay down in it, laid his ears on his back and fell asleep. (94 words)
(According to L. Tolstoy)
Final control dictations
October. The colors of the falling leaves play, and the autumn forest shines through. The birds fell silent. Only the rustle and rustle of heaps of leaves underfoot emphasize the silence of the forest.
The wind is the constant janitor of the forest. He scattered colorful leaves across the clearings and covered the paths of the thickets with noisy carpets. A golden leaf broke away from the branch and flew to the ground. He spins for a long time, as if he wants to perch on a mushroom cap. There was stagnant rainwater in it. A squirrel drinks greedily from a mushroom hole. All summer the busy girl collected supplies for the winter: nuts, acorns, mushrooms.
Mosquitoes and flies no longer get caught in the web, but only leaves hang on it. A red blizzard is blowing. (95 words)
(Based on the bookD. Zueva “Seasons”)
Oak
Oak is an amazing tree. It blooms later than other trees. The forest is green, one oak is turning black. But it does not shed its leaves in the fall longer than any other tree.
When frost sets in, the leaves on the oak tree curl into tubes. Sometimes they last all winter.
Lightning will strike it, and green leaves will still bloom on it in the spring.
In the oak grove, wild boars feed on acorns at night, an owl lives in the hollow, and a bat hibernates.
Sometimes you see young oak trees growing far from the forest. The wind could not carry heavy acorns there. It was the jay who picked them up in the fall and forgot about them, but they sprouted. (94 words)
(According to G. Snegirev)
Transport is a great invention. He helps us in life. Train drivers and bus drivers do everything to make us feel comfortable in the carriage and on the bus. And we?
Evening. The cold wind drives the drifting snow. There is a kindergarten next to the stop. There are women with children standing at the bus stop. A bus pulls up and people get off. The middle of the bus brightens and we see empty seats. Women pick up the babies and rush to the doors. In vain they try to squeeze into the car, because schoolchildren are standing at the doors of the bus. They have tightly packed the front and back areas and are not allowing entry. Mothers see the bus off with sad eyes, and the kids cry pitifully.
Who is guilty? (100 words)
(According to B. Busheleva)
A few years ago, a beautiful building went up in the center of the capital. There is an interesting clock on its façade. Every hour, black doors open on the dial, and behind them appear heroes of folk tales.
You enter the theater expecting to meet an amazing world. In the theater museum you will get acquainted with dolls from different countries. In the winter garden you will see a tree with wonderful birds. Fish are splashing in the pond.
“It’s so beautiful here!” - the guys say.
On the floor above there is an auditorium with colorful chairs: red, blue, yellow, green. This was done so that the guys would not confuse the places.
The bell rings and spectators gather in the hall. The doors close silently. The whispers die down and the performance begins. (99 words)
Russian forest is good at all times of the year: winter, summer, autumn and spring.
On a quiet winter day you go out into the forest on skis, breathe and not get inhaled. White snowdrifts spread under the trees, and above the forest paths, young birch trees bend in lacy arches under the weight of frost.
The forest is good in early and late spring, when vibrant life awakens in it. Snow is melting. The voices of birds are heard more and more in the forest. Thawed patches appear in forest clearings, and snowdrops grow like a carpet. On the hummocks you see strong lingonberry leaves.
You will hear a lot in the spring forest. At the top of a tall spruce a thrush sings. Hazel grouse squeak subtly, cranes play in the swamp. Bees buzz above the yellow willow puffs. (101 words)
(By I. Sokolov-Mikitov)
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