Search for coins and treasures on old roads - tracts. Is such a search promising? Inns in Russia Places where the inns of the Yenisei province were located
Questions “where to go with a metal detector? how to choose a promising place to search? etc. ”, probably belongs to the category of eternal ones, throwing data for beginners is especially relevant. Experienced diggers know for sure: “prepare maps in winter…”, so they start the treasure-hunting season fully armed.The main objects of study for most diggers are tracts on the site of ancient villages, former estates, taverns, inns, i.e. places directly related to the activities and habitation of people. And that's right, where people lived, there are lost or hidden things, the richer people were, the more of these things. But there are geographical points on the map where people were also not rare, but at the same time they did not live there, but simply, let's say, actively used them. Some treasure hunters pay much less attention to such places when searching, considering them less promising, but in vain! What are these places? Ancient roads, crossroads on them, river crossings, fords, ferries, marinas, in general, other places where a fairly serious “passenger traffic” was established.
It makes no sense to tell everything at once, it will turn out to be a complete confusion, so I will try to reveal in this post the topic of searching on old roads. Search various items on old roads - a rather promising direction, especially if you approach it competently.
Which roads to choose and how?
Choosing roads is, of course, according to the principle of age - the older, the more promising. Let's just say that it makes sense to search on modern roads, but it is small, of all the finds that you come across, the most significant will be Soviet coins and a pile of metal garbage. Of course, when it will be difficult to find places to search, you can “comb” them too, but now we will try to choose something more interesting.
To do this, we need old maps that are available for your region: Mende atlas, PGM, Schubert atlas, etc. There are maps, there is a metal detector - can I start searching? Not so fast! First vintage cards must be compared with modern ones. Someone uses various computer programs for this and the method of overlaying one map on another, someone transfers the necessary designations manually, someone performs a GPS-referencing of topographic material and actively uses OziExplorer. The choice is yours, you don’t know how to do either one or the other, or the third - you have to learn.
It happens worse if there is no old cartographic material for your region at all or it is extremely scarce. In this case, you will have to find out the location of the roads on the ground. This can be done by a number of indirect signs. We leave to the place of the proposed road, look, pay attention to the following signs:
- compacted soil;
- the remains of a paved road;
- Vegetation difference. On old roads, trees do not grow for a long time, shrubs may appear, but there are no trees;
- a different surface relief, the road, as a rule, represents two well-trodden tracks;
- the surface of the old road stands out more during precipitation, in rain or on the first snow;
- certain plants that tend to settle on the outskirts of roads.
When choosing a road to search for coins and other antiquities, one should not forget that finding it along old map not so difficult. Another thing is that many popular tracts of our ancestors are still actively used. Our grandfathers and fathers were not fools, and, accordingly, they laid roads rationally, trying to keep the shortest distance from point A to point B, of course, adjusted for the relief and other natural surprises. Quite often, modern builders, without further ado, lay asphalt right on top of them, because they don’t care that someone is going to walk around with a metal detector.
What to look for and how to look?
Under the coil of a metal detector on an old road, you can get almost anything - from the aforementioned "tips" to the prince's "scales". It all depends on the age of the road, on the “passenger traffic”. People walked along the roads, rode horses and carts and always lost something, respectively, our task is to find these “lost things”. Another road in terms of the number of finds can compete with the disappeared village.
Now a little more about the search procedure itself. “Ringing” with a metal detector is worth not only the roadbed itself, but also the roadside at a distance of about 10 ... 20 meters. It would seem for what? The answer is obvious, it is now possible to get from point A to point B in a matter of hours, earlier it took much more time to overcome such a distance. The travelers got tired, settled down for the night, but still tried not to stray far from the road, the times are wild, deaf. Drunken Russians with balalaikas and bears roam everywhere. But the road is still a crowded place. Pay special attention to objects that stand out - an old tree, a large stone, or something similar. There is a high probability that some traveler could use this natural landmark for his own purposes to mark the place where the treasure is hidden. Search in these places should be carried out with particular care.
In general, you can talk about treasures on the roads for a long time. Firstly, the road itself acted as a good guide. Secondly, a wanderer who was ill or frightened by night thieves could hide the accumulated wealth in a hurry. Yes, there are many possible reasons. It is important to understand that it is not metal detectors who are primarily looking for, but people who think or ponder, analyze information.
Another place on the road that deserves attention is the intersection. Not only does it in itself carry a certain sacred (cult) meaning, it is also a good guide. “Crossroads are considered fatal and unclean; here they perform charms, conspiracies, bury suicides or found corpses, and put up crosses, chapels, for protection. At the crossroads, devils roll eggs, play pile. At the crossroads, the unclean is free in the human soul. ”© Dahl. Roadside taverns and inns were usually located at crossroads. Therefore, here the metal detector should not know peace and rest.
Finally, I would like to mention that the soil on the roads is very dense, so get ready to work with a shovel like an adult. And sometimes it's good to have a more serious tool on hand, such as a pickaxe or a crowbar.
Tags: How to find an old road in the forest
How to search for a farm without an old map, but with the help of Google map, I briefly spoke from my own experience and showed ...
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Jun 19, 2013 - Friends, tell a sucker: There used to be a road on the ground... Question: I tried to find traces of the old road in the forest, but nothing came of it.
In search of the lost villages.
In the 3rd issue of "Military Archeology" a typo was made - a paragraph was omitted in Sergei Frolov's article "In Search of the Lost Villages" from the heading "Milestones of History". To fix this error, we publish in the press livejournal full version articles.In search of the lost villages
Among the many modern human hobbies, treasure hunting rightfully occupies a special place. The ranks of adherents of this ancient and fascinating occupation are constantly replenished. Verily, the hopes of the seekers are immortal.
Metal detectors of the latest developments, only hopes are pinned on them in detecting the desired objects. In pursuit of fashion, many seekers of antiquities have acquired by no means cheap novelties. But they don't know what exactly to do with them, how to use them most effectively. Someone cannot figure out the device, they lack the necessary experience, and the majority simply do not have time to study historical literature. And here lies an ultra-modern “toy” and gathers dust on a shelf, bringing only disappointment instead of joy. What can you say to beginner treasure hunters? How to revive their determination and cooling ardor? In fact, everything is not as difficult as it seems.
The easiest and surest way to touch history and find something interesting is to explore the lost villages, farms and villages, human settlements. Over the centuries-old history of our country, rare periods of life passed in relative calm, throughout the existence of the Russian state - constant civil strife, foreign invasions, popular uprisings. That there are villages, sometimes entire cities disappeared from the face of the earth and were rebuilt anew. Many human settlements never rose from the ashes of history. The study of such places will certainly bring positive results - the earth still keeps a lot of different secrets.
In the old days, such abandoned places were called wastelands, now they are called tracts.
In a broad sense, a tract is any part of the terrain, a piece of terrain that is different from the rest of the surrounding terrain, for example, it can be a forest in the middle of a field, a swamp or something similar, as well as a piece of terrain that is a natural border between something. (Wikipedia)
On any modern map at a scale of 1:100,000 or 1:200,000, you can see mysterious names with the letters "ur." ahead. For a more accurate location of the disappeared village, you can use old maps, which are not difficult to acquire now, not like 10-15 years ago. The geographical atlases of Mende, Schubert, as well as maps General Survey. It would not be superfluous to visit the local history museum in the area where the research is supposed to be. In the museum you can learn a lot of interesting and useful information- about the passage of trade routes, important geographical and historical sites, populated areas, places of concentration of any production and places of fairs and battles ...
We compare the old map with the modern one and - full speed ahead. Rivers, streams, ravines and old roads are good helpers for orienting in the search for the missing village, which can be quite easy to find on the ground. In addition to the objects indicated on old maps, it is necessary, if possible, to examine the intersections of the largest roads, the places of fords, bridges and crossings, as well as the area at the confluence of rivers and streams and near heights and hills that stand out on the terrain.
The missing villages can be conditionally divided into two types - those that disappeared without a trace (literally leveled by machinery for sown land) and those that disappeared, but left visible traces - hillocks of foundations, pits from wells, ruins of buildings, feral fruit trees and shrubs. They were not leveled and used for farmland, except perhaps in the form of pastures for livestock.
Most of the flattened villages are still plowed up, although recently in many places "arable land has overgrown with forests", as in the period of Polish devastation. In vast fields, finding a plowed village is not easy, you have to wander. Fragments of bricks, shards from dishes, metal rustic rubbish will serve as signs of it. In our places, outside the black earth belt, the former village on arable land is distinguished by the darkest color of the soil compared to the rest of the field. Signs of a once inhabited place can be trees standing alone in the middle of the field - linden, willow, oak. Or, for example, a linden alley in the forest, or a piece of land overgrown with poplars. In the fields, it is necessary to remember about land reclamation, which was carried out everywhere in the Soviet period. It often happens that instead of a stream you can find only a small dry hollow in the field, while according to the old map there was a dam and a water mill on the river.
In the places of the oldest villages, brick fragments come across very little - in those days it was rarely used for building foundations. But in large quantities there is clay pottery. According to the composition and appearance of these shards, a knowledgeable person can accurately determine their age, that is, the age of the village. The discovery of such a village can be considered a success, there will be almost no metal debris, such as foil, aluminum wire, corks and shells. Most often, the old settlements were located on the banks of streams and rivers, and sometimes "at the wells", along the most important trade routes. The ancients preferred the sunny southern slopes of the hills, protected from the north winds by heights or forests. Only later did people begin to build houses on the very peaks of heights, open to all winds.
The unleveled village is an overgrown mound of foundations surrounded by semi-wild fruit trees and shrubs. As a rule, on the sites of former buildings, thickets of nettle, willow-herb or other grass are the most dense, so it would be advisable to use a scythe or a gas mower for work in the summer. Usually the foundation of the house is dug along the inner perimeter to a depth of homogeneous soil, especially in the corners. There, the owners sometimes, when building a house, put mortgage coins so that money could be found in the house. Often in the corners there are brass and copper folds and crosses that have fallen from a shelf during a fire or the destruction of a house. As practice shows, the largest number of coins comes along the main, front wall of the house, where the windows were located. You can determine this place on a map and a compass or on fragments of glass that come across in the ground, or simply visually - the windows usually looked at the sunny side.
The ejected soil and the excavation are periodically checked with a metal detector. The fact is that in many houses in the old days there was simply no wooden floor. Houses were sometimes built half-earth - a hole was dug out, from which a log house was subsequently raised. The floor was earthen, trampled down or covered with straw, in which it was difficult to find a randomly dropped coin or, for example, a ring. Of particular interest are the furnace pits, which are sometimes called brownies. Often, rubbish was swept into these pits - shards of dishes, small bones of animals, along with which lost coins and other interesting objects got there. When plowed up, the contents of such a house are turned up by plows to the surface and dragged across the field from year to year.
In the places of plowing the oldest villages and settlements, it is advisable to use a search probe with a tip to find house pits. First you need to note the place, a certain patch of land, where you come across the most finds - coins, crosses and other non-ferrous metal products, as well as a lot of ceramics and the soil itself is quite humus, "living", that is, black. After that, you should examine this place with a probe. In places of house pits, a characteristic dip of the probe will be felt, as well as the gnashing of the tip against ceramics. Over time, after digging several holes, you can easily learn to recognize the necessary objects, even if you had no experience with a search probe before.
It is necessary to investigate the missing village thoroughly and thoroughly, checking not only the places where the houses stood, but also the territory of vegetable gardens and outbuildings. Often, valuables were buried just away from the house. Experienced treasure hunters do not use discrimination at all, working in the "all metals" mode. First, the depth of object detection increases. And secondly, choosing all the metal garbage, they practically do not let even the smallest objects pass, for example, “scales” - a Russian medieval coin. Every beginner should know that it is not easy to find a coin next to a cast-iron pan even with an ultra-modern metal detector.
It will be useful to work with a metal detector at other historical sites indicated on the maps. These include inns, brick and other industries, trading shops, marinas, the ruins of landowners' estates, master's parks, etc. The only thing to avoid is excavations on the territory of archaeological and historical monuments that are protected by the state. Here you can get in trouble with the law.
And the last useful note: try to dig holes after your work with a shovel. Firstly, you will not attract competitors with holes, and secondly, no agronomist or head of the village administration will attribute damage to agricultural land to you.
Now it remains only to wait for the new field season and - on the road. And so that this winter does not seem so long and boring to you, use the time to study historical and local history literature, maps, and choose upcoming routes. After all, we have not proved that practice without theory is nothing, and vice versa.
Sergei Frolov
Photo by Andrey Arsentiev
Where and how to look for treasures!? - AstrakhanKlad.ru - Treasure hunters...
Aug 19, 2013 - So, how and where to look to find treasure at home? ... if you accidentally stumble upon Shaitanka while walking through the forest, you may not pay attention to her at all. .... It remains only to find the old road and comb it.
Any abandoned or simply old road is another great place to look for ancient artifacts and coins. No wonder the folk proverb says: "The road is red by riders, and lunch by pies." And the more the rider in ancient times drove along the road and along it, the more finds the search on it promises you. But let's sort it out in order.
Which roads to dig
And the first question that usually arises for beginners is how to choose and find the path we are interested in? There are usually no problems with the first part of this question. Since it is better to search with a metal detector on old roads, our task is to find one. To do this, it is enough to take two cards - one old (the older and more detailed, the better!) And one modern one and compare them. You can do this with the help of computer programs, you can do it manually, but the whole task is to ensure that the roads marked on (ideally, if these are large tracts!) Transfer to a modern map. What to do next I think is clear? It is necessary to go to the area, with the help of modern map look for a place where the road passed 100-200 years ago, and collect with the help of a metal detector to harvest in the form of coins. I warn you right away that on the old roads marked on your map, a forest could have long grown or a plowed field, or something else. Therefore, among other things, it is not bad to know and be able to apply the main signs of old forgotten roads on the ground:
- we pay attention to the vegetation, we try to find those plants that like to grow along the roadside: cinquefoil, highlander bird, nettle, etc. Vegetation is sparse and lower on older roads.;
- under certain lighting conditions, in particular, in the early morning with slanting sunlight, abandoned roads are better visible on the soil surface. This happens due to the fact that, in spite of everything, the ruts that were once located on the road overgrow for a very long time, and there is still at least a minimal difference in soil relief in the area where they pass. It’s just that with standard lighting, we cannot notice this difference with the naked eye;
- in places where abandoned roads pass, the fog spreads lower to the ground, which is explained by the temperature difference due to the difference in soil density.
Let's once again focus on how you can find roads to search. Suppose that you do not have the opportunity to download old maps, what to do in this situation? There are also options here:
- you can just go randomly into the fields and forests, find visually ordinary primers and walk on them. Believe me, at least “advice” () will definitely be among the finds, and then how lucky;
- you can use modern detailed maps. Look also for primers that have a certain designation of their own, it is desirable that they connect two settlements and check;
- use the services satellite maps(Yandex maps, Google Maps etc.).
Where and what to look for on the roads
Searching on old roads is carried out in a standard way, just like you do it in the field and in the tract. It's just that the area that you have to examine is not so wide, but at the same time elongated.
When searching old coins on abandoned and forest roads, examine not only the roadway, but also the roadside. Why exactly? Horse riders, carts, and wanderers on foot moved along the roads. In most cases, pedestrians pressed against the edge (to the side of the road), because it was necessary to periodically let the horsemen pass.
The following deserve special attention:
- large glades. In the clearings, travelers could stop to rest if the road was long, there could be a roadside tavern or something similar;
- bridges. In the old days, bridges across rivers, streams and ditches were wooden, often rotted, carts could fall through, respectively, at this moment coins could fall out of travelers' pockets. Other similar situations can be imagined;
- intersections. The crossroads at all times was considered not just the intersection of one road with another, but was a cult place. That is why the search at the crossroads should be carried out especially carefully. Where, if not here, did the superstitious village women perform their magical rites and rites of divination? Did local witches and soothsayers arrange their own rituals? Yes, and in itself the crossing of roads is a very successful and profitable place for an inn, a post station and a tavern;
- fords. Here the situation is about the same as with the bridge, but it is also worth considering that when crossing the ford, coins and other things could be lost when descending into the river and rising from it.
Separately, I would like to say about the search for ancient treasures on abandoned roads. It would seem, where do they come from? But criminals have always existed. There were also robbers and tatis in the old days, it was they who could loot treasures - coins and jewelry. But the search for robber treasures is more of a series of Indiana Jones adventures, but the search for small caches or random treasures is more than likely and possible. Imagine that you are a rich merchant and you are traveling with a convoy from one locality in another and forest robbers attacked you, what will you do first of all? Most will say hide the money. Where? In the ground, under the roots of conspicuous trees, in a hollow, under a stone ... here you have such an accidental treasure. Of course, it is not easy to find them, but it is real.
One day, a friend of mine told me the rule of searching on old roads passing through the forest, which is called the "rule of great need." Those. again, imagine the situation, a bang is riding on a cart, and suddenly he was rushed to the toilet for great need, what he does. He stops the cart and moves away from the road into the bushes, but at the same time he does not move away 500 meters from the road, but “sits down” where he is not particularly visible from the road, and he can follow his good without problems. It is at this distance from the road that the search boundary passes, i.e. moving further, you can count on coins and things that were once lost by mushroom pickers and hunters.
Questions “where to go with a metal detector? how to choose a promising place to search? etc. ”, probably belongs to the category of eternal ones, throwing data for beginners are especially relevant. Experienced diggers know for sure: “prepare maps in winter…”, so they start the treasure-hunting season fully armed.
The main objects of study for most diggers are tracts on the site of ancient villages, former estates, taverns, inns, i.e. places directly related to the activities and habitation of people. And that's right, where people lived, there are lost or hidden things, the richer people were, the more of these things. But there are geographical points on the map where people were also not rare, but at the same time they did not live there, but simply, let's say, actively used them. Some treasure hunters pay much less attention to such places when searching, considering them less promising, but in vain! What are these places? Ancient roads, crossroads on them, river crossings, fords, ferries, marinas, in general, other places where a fairly serious “passenger traffic” was established.
It makes no sense to tell everything at once, it will turn out to be a complete confusion, so I will try to reveal in this post the topic of searching on old roads. Searching for various items on ancient roads is a rather promising direction, especially if you approach it with skill.
Which roads to choose and how?
Choosing roads is, of course, according to the principle of age - the older, the more promising. Let's just say that it makes sense to search on modern roads, but it is small, of all the finds that you come across, the most significant will be Soviet coins and a pile of metal garbage. Of course, when it will be difficult to find places to search, you can “comb” them too, but now we will try to choose something more interesting.
To do this, we need old maps that are available for your region: Mende atlas, PGM, Schubert atlas, etc. There are maps, there is a metal detector - can I start searching? Not so fast! First, ancient maps must be compared with modern ones. Someone uses various computer programs for this and the method of overlaying one map on another, someone transfers the necessary designations manually, someone performs a GPS-referencing of topographic material and actively uses OziExplorer. The choice is yours, you don’t know how to do either one or the other, or the third - you have to learn.
It happens worse if there is no old cartographic material for your region at all or it is extremely scarce. In this case, you will have to find out the location of the roads on the ground. This can be done by a number of indirect signs. We leave to the place of the proposed road, look, pay attention to the following signs:
- compacted soil;
- the remains of a paved road;
- Vegetation difference. On old roads, trees do not grow for a long time, shrubs may appear, but there are no trees;
- a different surface relief, the road, as a rule, represents two well-trodden tracks;
- the surface of the old road stands out more during precipitation, in rain or on the first snow;
- certain plants that tend to settle on the outskirts of roads.
When choosing a road to search for coins and other antiquities, one should not forget that finding it on an old map is not so difficult. Another thing is that many popular tracts of our ancestors are still actively used. Our grandfathers and fathers were not fools, and, accordingly, they laid roads rationally, trying to keep the shortest distance from point A to point B, of course, adjusted for the relief and other natural surprises. Quite often, modern builders, without further ado, lay asphalt right on top of them, because they don’t care that someone is going to walk around with a metal detector.
What to look for and how to look?
Under the coil of a metal detector on an old road, you can get almost anything - from the aforementioned "tips" to princely "scales". It all depends on the age of the road, on the “passenger traffic”. People walked along the roads, rode horses and carts and always lost something, respectively, our task is to find these “lost things”. Another road in terms of the number of finds can compete with the disappeared village.
Now a little more about the search procedure itself. “Ringing” with a metal detector is worth not only the roadbed itself, but also the roadside at a distance of about 10 ... 20 meters. It would seem for what? The answer is obvious, it is now possible to get from point A to point B in a matter of hours, earlier it took much more time to overcome such a distance. The travelers got tired, settled down for the night, but still tried not to stray far from the road, the times are wild, deaf. Drunken Russians with balalaikas and bears roam everywhere. But the road is still a crowded place. Pay special attention to objects that stand out - an old tree, a large stone, or something similar. There is a high probability that some traveler could use this natural landmark for his own purposes to mark the place where the treasure is hidden. Search in these places should be carried out with particular care.
In general, you can talk about treasures on the roads for a long time. Firstly, the road itself acted as a good guide. Secondly, a wanderer who was ill or frightened by night thieves could hide the accumulated wealth in a hurry. Yes, there are many possible reasons. It is important to understand that it is not metal detectors who are primarily looking for, but people who think or ponder, analyze information.
Another place on the road that deserves attention is the intersection. Not only does it in itself carry a certain sacred (cult) meaning, it is also a good guide. “Crossroads are considered fatal and unclean; here they perform charms, conspiracies, bury suicides or found corpses, and put up crosses, chapels, for protection. At the crossroads, devils roll eggs, play pile. At the crossroads, the unclean is free in the human soul. Dal. Roadside taverns and inns were usually located at crossroads. Therefore, here the metal detector should not know peace and rest.
Finally, I would like to mention that the soil on the roads is very dense, so get ready to work with a shovel like an adult. And sometimes it's good to have a more serious tool on hand, such as a pickaxe or a crowbar.
Inns in Russia were the prototypes of modern hotels and hotels. As a rule, before the revolution, these were special rooms in which not only the travelers themselves, but also their servants, horses, could stay for the night.
The emergence of the hospitality industry
The need for inns or their prototypes appeared almost at the same time when people had a desire or need to travel. At that moment, demand created supply. Inns appeared in Russia, in Europe - taverns and taverns. In all countries and on all continents there were analogues.
Depending on the era, they met different requirements. But at all times they performed the main task - they gave people the opportunity to stay overnight.
Development of hotels since ancient times
Historians managed to establish that the first hotels on planet Earth appeared about two thousand years ago, at the very beginning of our era. These were original analogues of pre-revolutionary inns.
Like so much that we now use, they arose in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. In these states, which at that time were the most developed, they were called hospiteums. Wealthy merchants stayed in them, who went on distant voyages to establish trade relations with new partners. Itinerant artists settled in simpler establishments, who traveled with numbers from city to city, thus earning little money. Both religious pilgrims and minstrels found shelter here. Mostly they were wandering people who spent most of their lives on the road.
Inns appeared in Russia much later.
What did ancient hotels look like?
For many years appearance hotels remained virtually unchanged. These were two-story buildings with outbuildings in which horses or other animals used for transportation could be left. On the first floor there was a large and spacious room. In it, the guests rested, ate and talked. The second floor was divided into many rooms in which visitors stayed for the night.
In ancient times, hotels, in fact, were centers of cultural life. They could communicate with the most different people, including the famous minds of their time, have a drink and a snack, learn about the events taking place in the surrounding cities and distant countries where travelers came from. It was in taverns that such entertainments as cock-fights, game of darts. It is worth noting that often these were quite dangerous places. They attracted dashing people who sought to profit by robbing a merchant who was returning from a successful deal or a wealthy traveler who had drunk on alcohol.
Hotels in the Middle Ages and Modern times
In the Middle Ages, hotels moved to churches. The ministers of the church sought to shelter pilgrims going to holy places. Everything changed only in 1530, when a decree was issued prohibiting the settlement of wandering travelers near churches. It was then that there was a need to revive private hotels.
AT different countries certain requirements were imposed on such institutions. For example, in England, the owners were obliged to provide guests with a friendly atmosphere, comfortable and pleasant conditions, as well as plentiful and tasty food.
Interestingly, the modern form appeared not in Europe, but in the USA. This happened around the middle of the 19th century. It was then that they began to rent not just separate rooms with beds, but full-fledged rooms with all amenities in the form of a toilet and a bathroom.
Hotels in Russia
It is believed that in our country the hotel business appeared around the 11th-13th centuries. It was then that they began to appear. First of all, they were popular and in demand among messengers. Postal stations were born in the 15th century. It was possible not only to spend the night on them, but also to wait out bad weather or change horses if the traveler was in a hurry and did not intend to waste time on rest.
In the 18th century, the rapid construction of inns and taverns began throughout Russia. It is noteworthy that they were built on a national basis. For example, "English", "Greek" or "Armenian" courts appeared in Moscow, in Nizhny Novgorod"Dutch" and "German" were common.
Inns (hotels) in Russia were not just hotels. Active trade was constantly conducted here, shopkeepers came to them, warehouses with a wide variety of goods were formed around. Those inns were outwardly very different from modern hotels. They had gates, towers.
The real boom of the hotel business began in the 20th century with the advent of high-speed transport, which greatly simplified and accelerated the movement between cities. At the beginning of the century, there were about four and a half thousand hotels in Russia. And this is not counting taverns and other establishments for a short rest.
In the USSR, the impetus for the development of the hotel business was the organization of major all-Union social and political events. They were attended by a huge number of guests from all over the country, representatives of other states. All of them needed to be settled. Moreover, it was necessary to offer both a modest version to the engineer from the factory, and a more comfortable one for representatives of the foreign delegation. It became possible to talk about European service in Russia only after 1993. Russia has moved from a planned economy to a market economy, in these conditions hotels and hotels began to strive to meet European standards.
Number of stars
Today, there are both small private hotels and entire chains with offices in almost all countries of the world. The latter can be recognized as enterprises of the highest level of service. These include the famous hotels "Hilton", "Marriott" or "Best Western".
The division of hotels into categories appeared in the UK. From there, this fashion was adopted by all the others. There were hotels with only one star. Here the guest could be offered the most minimum set services. As a rule, they were located on the outskirts. Two stars were given to slightly larger hotels that had their own restaurants and bars. They were already moving closer to the city center.
Three-star hotels had to meet the basic requirements of service. The list of obligatory services was wider. A four-star hotel was considered a first-class establishment. Travelers could count on service highest quality and comfort. As a rule, they had restaurants with kitchens. different peoples peace.
Five-star hotels deserve the highest rating. On their territory, in addition to bars and restaurants, there were supposed to be spa centers and other entertainment. In such hotels, guests are offered the widest range of services - up to a personal butler.
Modern inn
Today, some entrepreneurs prefer to call hotels in the old fashioned way. For example, the inn "Grinn" is one of the few country hotels in the Kursk region. This is a comfortable two-story hotel complex, which has a basement and attic floors. All this gives it a special uniqueness. Nearby - a picturesque landscape area and secure spacious parking.
Although it is located outside the city, it is not far from the regional capital. Just 25 kilometers from Kursk. Moreover, this is one of the holiest places in the region - the town of Svoboda, Zolotukhinsky district. So today, as in pre-revolutionary Russia, it attracts a large number of pilgrims from all over the country. For seven hundred years, the icon of the Mother of God of Kursk has been located here, which the Orthodox consider miraculous. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad even recognizes it as its main shrine.
The hotel has standard and superior rooms, suites and junior suites, a VIP room and a presidential suite.
"The Captain's Daughter" Pushkin
Often inns were described in works of Russian literature. After all, they were the centers of social life.
For example, in the famous work of Alexander Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" the first meeting between Grinev and Pugachev takes place in the inn. It plays an important role as a kind of saving place, to which the future disturber of the masses helps the protagonist, who has fallen into a snowstorm, to get to.
It is at the inn that Grinev draws attention to the duality of Pugachev. The severity and impregnability that caught his eye during the meeting in the snowstorm faded into the background, the ferocity in the guise of a hero immediately disappeared.
Turgenev's Tale
The Russian writer even wrote a story called "Inn". It tells about an inn, which is located at the same distance from two county towns. Cab drivers, convoy men, clerks, merchants constantly stop in it.
In the story "The Inn" Turgenev was one of the first in Russia to draw attention to the fact that a new type of village kulak had developed in society. In the conditions of a serf village, real bigwigs and businessmen appeared, who were very similar to Shchedrin's characters - the Razuvaevs and Kolupaevs.
Winter is a difficult time for searchers. Many probably know the feeling when during the long New Year's "vacations" you simply do not know what to do with yourself.
So it was with me, the January vacation was coming to an end. Short daylight hours, heavy snowfalls and severe frost put an end to winter fishing.
I couldn’t sit at home anymore, so I decided to visit an old comrade who was spending his weekends in a country winter hut.
An alarming phone call the day before quickly revealed the culinary and domestic needs of the Zimogor. A hunter's menu, refined in its simplicity, was composed of chicken legs, marinated zucchini and salted porcini mushrooms.
I told my family that I was urgently leaving for a "scientific and production council on issues of peace and harmony." They let him go in peace, taking an oath to "discuss" in moderation. I gladly agreed. The saying immediately came to mind
“You need to drink in moderation,” and a measure (old Russian) is a unit of volume equal to 26.24 liters.
Arrived after dark. In an old village house, a Russian stove crackled with firewood. They were quickly brought to the table. The house was divided between two families, from the neighboring half an old resident of the village came to see us at the light.
Grandfather, 85 years old, was still cheerful, tarred home garden and with great pleasure skipped a couple of shots “for warming up”.
The conversation smoothly turned towards the abandoned local villages, and the grandfather delved into the memories of his barefoot youth. From the conversation, the mention of an old inn, once located on the outskirts of a village in the area, was deposited in my memory. An old three-trunked birch served as a sign.
I devoted the rest of the winter to studying old maps and archival materials. I knew the name of the village, but it was not listed on the maps available at that time, I had to navigate along forest roads and, knowing the approximate distance, thus narrow the search circle.
Spring came suddenly, the snow melted quickly, the earth thawed, and the grass climbed up with violent force. When I finally set out to search in the middle of May, the green carpet had already stretched out almost to the knee. BMK (combat vehicle "penny") took me almost to the very place.
“Almost” was, according to my rough calculations, 5-6 kilometers. Hiding the car in the bushes, I change my shoes into rubber boots, walkers, once again check the backpack with the device and rush on foot to meet the beautiful.
The road wound through hills and copses. In the lowlands, where the soil is saturated with meltwater, everything was mixed with loaded timber trucks and agricultural machinery. From the once rich villages, a couple of residential buildings remained. At the edge of the forest, the sounds of saws of lumberjacks were heard, climbing into this wilderness on a T-16 tractor, aptly nicknamed "top-top" by the people, apparently for the characteristic sound of the exhaust.
The road soon merged with the old tract, along which once a year pilgrims return from the procession.
Not for the first time, I was struck by the tenacity and resilience of these people. In many places, the puddles reached the edge of the boots and looked like a pool in length, and yet many pilgrims will go in light shoes and even barefoot.
A small shed at the crossroads gave a reason for a halt. After a short rest and gathering my thoughts, I read the map, consulted the navigator and realized that there was very little left to the cherished goal. After a couple of kilometers, I almost missed the right fork. Turning off the road, he went deep into the forest under the overhanging branches of an old abandoned alley. There were no people here for a long time, in two places the road was blocked by old trees blown down by the wind.
Crawling under one of them, literally nose to nose collided with a line. These early mushrooms are almost never found near the city. Deciding to take a picture of a miracle of nature, I took off my backpack, sank lower, trying to catch the focus and was stunned - mushrooms grew literally on every meter. There were a huge number of them here, and some specimens waved the size of a fist. It was possible to collect more than one basket, but I limited myself to a photo shoot. I didn’t take it with me - mushrooms are a delicate culture, and the day was coming long.
The tops of centuries-old trees appeared - here it is the cherished village! There were no traces of buildings, only house pits overgrown with weeds.
I assemble the device, take out a shovel and slowly start searching, going around the village in a circle.
The grass interfered greatly, last year's deadwood also did not add comfort to the search. There is a lot of "Soviet" garbage, the last inhabitants left their homes in the 60s of the last century. Decided to walk along the main street. I came across a button - a weight, a couple of Soviet kopecks of the Stalin era, a copper ring. I went deeper into the thicket again, among the wire-tube signals I managed to “hook” a couple more “tips”.
Traces of the existence of the inn could not be found, no broken glass or porcelain came across.
The treasured tree was also not visible. Maybe it rotted from time to time or went to firewood? It was decided to leave shurflenie until the next time. The main thing is that the place does not seem to have been visited by our brother digger, which means that there are definitely chances for good finds.
Time began to run out, I decided to once again walk along the main street. And then, on one “color” signal, an interesting object falls out of the dump. I wipe off the stuck dirt, rinse in a puddle, and in my hands is a weighty bronze seal. A beautiful thing immediately mentally transfers to that era when they wrote with goose feathers in the dim light of a crackling candle and sealed the messages with sealing wax.
Already at home, having washed the find and made a plasticine print, I read: “A.V. Onchukov.
The road home seemed shorter, but this was because he was walking through an already known area. On one section of the road, passing under the shady crowns of age-old dark fir trees, I was pretty scared by a hefty capercaillie. The pensive bird suddenly jumped out from under the feet and rushed along the road for a long time before taking off. Apparently, he was pecking at the pebbles and completely lost his caution, letting him in almost close. A large bird, having taken off, immediately glided deep into the forest and disappeared into it.
Climbing the hill, he once again stopped at the memorial cross on the site of the former village, honoring the memory of his ancestors.
From a height, the village church was visible as if in the palm of your hand. Restoration work has already begun, and I want to believe that in the near future the domes will shine, as before, with gold leaf, and the whole district will be filled with live bell ringing, gathering people to serve in the holy temple.
Life circumstances did not allow me to visit this cherished place again.
Only sometimes, at night, I dream of a fat innkeeper hiding in the back yard a weighty egg-box filled with silver shimmering under the light of the moon ...
Evgeny Zaramenskikh
