"Weeds and birch brooms" / Morkovkino /

___ The road to #Morkovkino, which is located from #Kemerovo towards #Yashkino, lies across the Pisanaya river. Rumor has it - a fish place, also a mushroom! As in the cradle, a cozy village lay between the mountains with a fabulous forest. And birches here and green pines with firs, and along the banks of a quiet river - curly willows. The village was founded by peasants-settlers Morkovkins from the European part of Russia in 1726. In 1911, the village, which was part of the Pacha volost of the Tomsk district, had 50 households, in which 243 people lived. There was a water mill. By 1926, the settlement had doubled, there were already 106 farms, and the number was 482 people, mostly Russians. The school of the first stage functioned.

___ A long time ago, a bus went to the village itself. Now you can only leave the highway, having walked one and a half kilometers on foot. But the stop, once established here, has not lost its relevance. The students gather in it, waiting for the transport that takes them to the Pachin school. Children walking with an ax said that there are very few children in the village. If you count with kids, then no more than 20 will be typed. When asked what they have here of cultural entertainment, they laughed loudly. But I already understood that they grow like weed grass ... by themselves.

___ Confirmation of this was the over-aged child Sergei, who was drinking with Ivan Mikhailovich in the house next to his. The guy is 33 years old, despite his drunken appearance, he turned out to be completely harmless. With great pleasure, I volunteered to show the surroundings, while his adult friend rode to the other end of the village for another portion of moonshine, persuading my husband to take this adventure.

Sergei lives alone in the house where he was born. Despite the fact that women have not given birth in an open field for more than a century, preferring to do it in medical institutions, Sergei's mother gave birth to him at home, and cut his umbilical cord herself. He never finished school, as he confessed to me - "he smoked an ABC book in the third grade." Of course, Sergei also does not have any kind of professional education, and there is nowhere to work in Morkovkino. He earns his livelihood by managing the household from a well-to-do neighbor. The one when he gives a little money, when he periodically supplies him with milk and potatoes and cheap tobacco. As Seryoga said, he has enough. The only thing that worries the guy is that there are no single decent women in the village, there is no place to bring the mistress to the house. On my advice to look for a woman on the Internet, Sergei replied that there is no Internet either.

___ Ivan Mikhailovich, who arrived with moonshine in a beer poltorashka, decided to thank us by all means, giving Seryoga the task to quickly rush to the attic for brooms. Of course, we did not refuse birch brooms, but we decided to postpone the invitation to take a steam bath.

___ Maybe someday ... next time ...