My dear readers! Thank you for your attention to my autobiographical story. I want to say that I carefully studied the records of Shaman Barakka and they became the basis for my historical stories. Now I take a short pause, but next week I want to invite you to travel with me along the paths of the Hun's tribes. Below is the traditionally full text of the Chapter 2.
Sincerely yours,
Alex Morva
Chapter 2.
When you stand at the crossroads of life, close your eyes before you step. You do not need them. Your road has already chosen you ...
Part 1
So, I decided "to return to people." I thought about my mother's motherland - Ukraine and felt within me the desire to leave my mark on it. To tell the truth, I had no idea where, to whom and why I was going.
Arriving in Kiev, I bought at the airport newsstand a map of Ukraine and poked it with a ballpoint pen with my eyes closed. The blue dot appeared on the Khmelnitsky region. It was there, in a small village of Ivashkivtsi, that my mother was born in a large family. Her name was Evdokia, Dusya. The first thing I did was to see the relatives. The last time I saw them during the summer holidays after the end of the eighth grade of the school ...
In that hot summer of 1973, my friend Yurka Redey entered the Suvorov Military School and I decided to join him. The stories about the military service of our boarding school teacher, former combat intelligence officer Vladimir Mikhailov, were painfully beautiful.
My friend was strong from the early childhood. As for me, I came to the medical checkup with a medical record, which resembled a multivolume edition. The doctor glanced at it quickly, then looked at me, asked how I had finished 8 classes. Having learned that with honors, he advised me to go on studying. He said that with such a medical record, I require strict medical control, and not a military school.
Until the end of the summer there was still a whole month and instead of returning to the boarding school, I went to my mother's brothers in the village. I helped my relatives to harvest, first kissed a girl, grazed cows. However, the thought that I was "not suitable" for the military school, bothered me and strongly affected my male pride.
I met September at a new boarding school in a neighboring city, because in the old school there were only eight steps.
The newcomer was met well only by the girls. A frail student with long eyelashes ... N-yes, it was difficult to understand them. Guys constantly dragged me into fights and I constantly lost. It had to be changed.
One day when I was rummaging through the drawers of the music room, where I went to play the guitar, I suddenly saw, instead of notes, a lonely and tattered pamphlet about the Sevastopol Higher Naval School. I understood where I will enter after the school.
Our tutor explained that it is extremely difficult to study for an aviator or a naval officer. But I could not stop. And I decided to start running. Initially, only at the stadium of the school, then along the main rural road, and later - along the mountain paths of the Carpathians, which gradually descended to our village.
I got up an hour earlier than the rest of the students. I ran in any weather: in the rain, in the wet snow and in a snowstorm. The problem was only in the leaky sports clothes, which we were given only for classes in the gym. When the physical education teacher found out about my training, he asked the director of the boarding school to give me a sports suit. I was handed to him on the school meeting.
By spring, my authority among the boys has increased. At school competitions I took the second place and was enlisted in the national team for participation in regional races in running. I graduated from the school in the rank of the winner of a number of competitions in athletics. I also tried my strength in the decathlon. The only problem was my medical record.
Since my visits to the medical office of the orphanage were frequent (mainly because of a blue-eyed nurse with a long black braid), my request to look through my medical record did not cause any suspicion. And as soon as the weighty history of my diseases was in my hands, I immediately went with it to the mountains.
Sitting by the fire and tearing page after page my frail past, I mentally said goodbye to my childhood ...
Part 2.
In order to enter the Higher Naval Engineering School in the closed military city Sevastopol, it was necessary to have an order from the local military commissariat. Thanks to this order, I was also able to buy a railway ticket (it was very difficult at that time) and a day later I saw the sea for the first time in my life. It seemed to me a huge moving monster that smelled of algae.
I liked my city for its cleanliness. The real adventure was a trip on a boat to the Bay of Holland.
And here I am at the Higher Naval Engineering School. The attentive officer who accepted the documents asked if I knew that it was a Naval School for submariners. The question surprised me. I read the brochure to the holes, but there was not a single word about any submariners. I decided to remain silent. Examinations did not frighten me, because I just finished school with honors. The problem was that I studied at the Ukrainian school. And at the exam I had to answer in Russian. It was very difficult.
Suddenly, another problem arose. In the questionnaire, I honestly pointed out the nationality of my father. He was Hungarian. The same polite captain of the first rank with alarm in his voice said that I can not pass the credentials commission.
By this time the last test was announced. It was a pressure chamber. Some had blood from the ears and nose after it. They were decided not acceptable. And I liked a pressure chamber: it was dark and quiet, like in the bedroom of our boarding school. So I fell asleep there.
I opened my eyes only when the old midshipman began to shake me by the shoulder. "Are you feeling bad?" - he asked anxiously. "Oh no, sorry, I just fell asleep" - I replied.
This event "saved" my personal data. The rumor of a newcomer asleep in the pressure chamber quickly spread through the school. At the credentials committee, when my documents were to be put in the pile "not acceptable", but someone remembered this event and under the general laughter my documents was there, where necessary. They decided, let me study, and then they'll see.
This "will see" was recalled to me in four years, when the officer of the special department of the Higher Naval Engineering School advised me to be sent down "quietly" and continue my studies at a civilian university. He said that it would be better for everyone. By the time I was a member of the national rowing school and had the title of Master of Sports. I see myself as a trainer more than as a submarine officer. After demobilization from the armed forces, the Higher Naval Engineering School gave me a recommendation for the sports university, where I was immediately taken to the third year course.
Part 3.
I did not stay long at my mother's motherland because I was eager to start working as a sports trainer. I decided to find a suitable place by the water and organize a children's sports section. Looking at the map of the Khmelnytsky region, I noticed a long water reservoir on the Dniester River. It was in the neighboring, Kamenets-Podolsky district.
The bus drove me to the village Grushka, and I had to walk about five kilometers to the goal of my trip, the village Old Ushitsa. I remember that day well. With a small suitcase and a jacket in my hand, I looked like an ordinary traveler.
As it turned out, the village was on a hill. To reach the water it was necessary to go about three kilometers, but it was worth. I was on the "peninsula". On the one hand there was the Dniester reservoir, on the other - the stream of the Studenitsa river flowing into it. My heart stopped when I looked at this beauty...
I decided to go directly to the director of a local state farm-millionaire, who was in charge of everything here. I painfully told him about the prospects that will open in connection with the creation of the sports section. The experienced director of the state farm smirked at his mustache, but as a reward for the colorful description of the iridescent perspective, I was placed in a "suite" in a working hostel.
In a couple of days, I already selected schoolchildren for the rowing section for kayaks and canoes. The true was that I had not yet neither the section, nor kayaks with canoes, as well as a place for their storage. So far, I've been conducting daily general physical trainings. The children were busy and stopped to gad around the village.
Sixty children enrolled in the sports section. I divided them into three age groups. It was strange that only seniors could swim and not everyone. Later I learned that the reason for this was the reservoir.
Many years ago on the site of the reservoir was the old settlement of the Old Ushitsa. There was an amazing microclimate there. Even the apricots blossomed there two weeks earlier than everywhere else. For centuries people have lived in this place, were born, fell in love, died.
When, on the decision of the government, a dam was built on the Dniester, many settlements were to be flooded. Residents of all flooded settlements were forced to rebury their relatives themselves. Not everyone had such an opportunity. It was a real national tragedy, which deeply wounded in the hearts of local residents. For a long time they forbade children to swim in the waters that covered hundreds of rural cemeteries.
To organize the work of the section, I was given two hectares of coastal zone. Over the summer I taught to swim all my little athletes.
There was a whole epic with the boats. According to the northern experience, I knew the system of centralized supply of sports organizations with sports equipment, so I went to Kiev to the Ministry of Sport. There in the department of water sports I managed to infect high authorities with the idea of a new provincial sports center. Holding in hand a written order for 36 brand new plastic kayaks and canoes from the Samarkand plant, I left a tall gray building. At that time, 36 pieces of "plastic" was an unprecedented wealth, even for famous trainers.
It took about four months, when from the region I was informed that a whole car of sports equipment came for me and I was expected at a freight railway station in Khmelnitsky. But the car was empty! It turned out that these most famous local trainers together with the regional authorities decided to allocate me five or six boats, and the rest to share among themselves. They decided that it was enough for a young trainer. But they did not know that their "young trainer" had spent five years alone in the deep taiga as a hunter.
In short, I walked all the sports clubs of the city and collected all my kayaks. I did not have any friends from that, but the children from my sports club "Olympus" were happy. In three years my young sportsmen really won republican competitions.
At the same time, I had the idea of creating a new kind of water sports, based on the historical past of folk cultures. At first it was rowing triathlon from running, swimming and rowing. Then I added to them running with obstacles and archery. At the same time, I spent a lot of time in the library in search of confirmation of the words of the northern shaman about the ancient chronicles and runes. It was these searches that led me in 1997 to the lands of present-day Hungary, where I fully implemented the idea of Indian Games ...
Part 4
The fact that my "northern circle" was closed in Hungary, I realized when I met the disciples of Paal Zoltan - a shaman-scribe, who died in 1982. In search of manuscripts, I somehow went to the library of a suburb of Budapest, where I met one of the volunteers of "Uncle Zoli", as he was kindly called here, which told me the life story of the Hungarian shaman.
To my surprise, it immediately came about the people of Mansi, whose northern relatives were the Selkups.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the chief shaman of the Ural Mansi, after the rite of consecration into the shamans of his grandson, told him about the people with whom they are connected by centuries-old friendship.
"This people long ago returned to their historical lands - the valley of the Carpathians. And when we lived next door and one of our leaders was married to the son of the chief shaman of the Ugrians. His name was Aladar. With the ugras we alternated the annual rite of the Bear: one year we "sat" a holiday, the next year it was organized by them. And so it went on for centuries, until they went to the West. This tradition is still valid today. Only we - Mansi - out of respect for the Hungarians, as they are now called, we miss one year."
With these words, the old man handed over to his grandson a bundle of ancient manuscripts. "Take this with you when you go down the river. A long road will lead you to the lands of the Hungarians. There you will meet Shaman Barak. The heart will tell you how to recognize him. This letter - message of generations and your mission to pass it to him."
With these words in mind, the young Shaman Tura began to gather for the journey. "Remember that Barrak must kill the bear himself " - with the last warning addressed to him grandfather.
On the big river Tura descended to Syktyvkar, where, according to the denunciation of local fishermen, he was searched by officers of the state security bodies of the USSR. Having understood that before them a young fisherman from a mountain settlement, speaking in Finno-Ugric dialect, an NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in the USSR) officer recommended that Tura enter the nearest intelligence school. There he met his future commander of the reconnaissance group - finn captain Salminen.
In 1944, the reconnaissance group was sent to the north of Hungary, to the foothills of the Tatras. During one of the sorties, the reconnaissance group stopped in an abandoned hut near the road. On the way there was a long column of workers, which German submachine gunners escorted to the nearest metallurgical plant.
There was a halt, during which there was a squabble between a young guy and a German soldier. The officer came up and began to take a pistol from his holster. But then from a small group of separately sitting old workers a man of about forty, tall and strong, rose and approached the furious officer. Everyone was quiet. A calm, but firm male voice echoed through the after-death silence of the roadside forest edge. It seemed that nature itself decided to quiet down, listening to the dispute of life and death.
The officer returned his weapon to the holster and was given the command to continue moving. "He is Barakka!" - Tura whispered and immediately asked the captain permission to intercept the captive somewhere along the way. When Barakka was in their house, his surprise was endless. "Yes, I'm not Barakka! You got it wrong. I am a steelworker, Hungarian Paal Zoltan. We work at the nearest combine. " However, Tura insisted on his own.
Part 5
In the morning the bear, attracted by the smell of food, wandered in a house with sleeping guerrillas. The steelworker reacted most quickly. He grabbed the first snatching carbine and fired at the bear almost at point blank range. The bear collapsed like a knuckle. "I tell you that you are Barrack," Tura cried with joy in his voice. "Here is a bear, here you are and here's a message from my grandfather" - did not stop the young guy ...
After a special five-day ritual over the body of the bear, Paal Zoltan began to see increasingly strange dreams. These dreams echoed the stories he heard from Tura only the next day. "What miracles?" - Every time an experienced steelmaker asked himself. However, the real miracles were yet to come. Soon Tura died in the bombing, and Barakka and his group joined the partisan detachment.
Fortunately, after the end of the war, the authorities paid no attention to the eccentricities of the former partisan. And "freaks" in the strange behavior of the new shaman- scribe were enough for three persons. He often shut himself up in his summer cottage in the suburbs of Miskolc and all day he wrote the sheet after sheet of texts that he seemed to hear.
These were texts of ancient chronicles of peoples, which are usually called Hunnic. Each sheet contained a dozen of historical names and exact dates of events, about which the steelman not only did not hear at school, but could not dream of a nightmare.
His previously clumsy handwriting began to resemble the old monastic copyists of the Bible: flowery and smooth, and the text was without a single grammatical error.
The shaman made his first note in 1954 in accordance with the age-old Hunnic tradition, namely exactly ten years after the ritual. And his death in 1982 exactly coincided with the end of the writing of the chronicles.
Even the members of his family did not know what the "crazy" father wrote all day. For this reason, after his funeral, his wife was ready to burn about three sacks of scribbled "waste paper". It is good that his daughter - a bank employee - had a specific attitude to the documents. She began to systematize the titanic work of her father.
When I was introduced to the shaman's daughter, she gave me an opportunity to get acquainted with the legacy of my father.
I read these texts and caught myself thinking that Barakka's message found its target. This message ended my own ritual, which was begun at the time of the Selkup.
Once, from the Hungarian shaman-astrologer Garkai, I heard an amazing story about an old shaman who was deceived in his last hour. Before he died, he asked the young guy to give him a hand, but he somehow became frightened and handed him the end of a broomstick. The old shaman squeezed its shaft in the palm of his hand. This broom was then thrown into the fire and she instantly flashed. "He was a strong shaman," - whispered the present. Were they afraid of what he wanted to tell? Frightened of the task? After all, the last movement of the shaman's hand meant a treaty, a silent oath to continue.
In the distant Siberian taiga Lame touched my hand and our agreement with him to "remain harmony among people" was signed. This is a long-term contract. I want to believe, that at the end of my days I'll have to look for someone's hands. Let this be the arm of the daredevil.