The Story About Vera Kharuzina
Two water spirits, two scientists, one Grand Watershed
That summer evening in 1887, the family of village constable Fofanov went to bed late. Staying at their two-story house in Kenozero's village of Tametskaya Lakhta were two metropolitan guests– Nikolay Nikolaevich Kharuzin, a scientist specializing on folklore studies, and his sister, Vera Nikolaevna, who, given her being preoccupied with taking notes, seemed to be her brother's assistant. Who ever heard of a woman pursuing a research?
No sooner had the Kharuzins arrived and had lunch than the entire village knew they had arrived from the Vodlozero, a destination on their research expedition across North.
Over the evening tea, Nikolay and Vera were going through the notes they made while travelling in the Vodlozero area.
"This story about the water spirits is beautiful, don't you think?" Nikolai asked his sister. He re-read what he and Vera had recorded in one of the villages:
Once there lived a water spirit of Elijah and this water spirit had a daughter. His neighbors – the water spirit of Prechist and the grand water spirit of Kenozero – would often visit him as the Kenozero and the Vodlozero were once two connected lakes. One day, the two water spirits asked for his daughter's hand. The first to propose was the water spirit of Kenozero, but the water spirit of Elijah chose to give his daughter to his neighbor in Prechist. Rejected and angry, the grand water spirit of Kenozero took huge boulders and put up a ridge to separate himself from the Vodlozero, cutting off all the connecting streams.
"That's a good narrative to add to this area's geological description. The village we are in lies right along the ridge. This story about the two water spirits cutting ties is actually a story about the two lakes belonging to two different seas and oceans. I would like to know where these 'huge boulders' lie," Vera became thoughtful.
Nikolay felt admiration for his sister. What a brilliant mind she was! He regretted how bitterly unfair life was to her. Born to the family of a well-off Moscow merchant, he and his sister were equally intelligent, curious, educated, and shared interest in history, archeology, ethnography, anthropology, and languages. But unlike her, he, as a man, had access to courses at the Moscow University and could therefore pursue his passion, ethnography. Nikolay was a young promising researcher. Vera, as a woman, had to go to Germany to study and was going to enroll in Sorbonne. Her home country wasn't the right place for a woman to pursue research. Passionate as she was about ethnography, there was no chance her name could be put on the cover of the book she and her brother were writing together.
A timid voice interrupted his train of though. It was the local teacher, Pyotr Ivanovich, who had joined them for tea to use his chance to meet some of the brightest minds of Moscow.
No sooner had the Kharuzins arrived and had lunch than the entire village knew they had arrived from the Vodlozero, a destination on their research expedition across North.
Over the evening tea, Nikolay and Vera were going through the notes they made while travelling in the Vodlozero area.
"This story about the water spirits is beautiful, don't you think?" Nikolai asked his sister. He re-read what he and Vera had recorded in one of the villages:
Once there lived a water spirit of Elijah and this water spirit had a daughter. His neighbors – the water spirit of Prechist and the grand water spirit of Kenozero – would often visit him as the Kenozero and the Vodlozero were once two connected lakes. One day, the two water spirits asked for his daughter's hand. The first to propose was the water spirit of Kenozero, but the water spirit of Elijah chose to give his daughter to his neighbor in Prechist. Rejected and angry, the grand water spirit of Kenozero took huge boulders and put up a ridge to separate himself from the Vodlozero, cutting off all the connecting streams.
"That's a good narrative to add to this area's geological description. The village we are in lies right along the ridge. This story about the two water spirits cutting ties is actually a story about the two lakes belonging to two different seas and oceans. I would like to know where these 'huge boulders' lie," Vera became thoughtful.
Nikolay felt admiration for his sister. What a brilliant mind she was! He regretted how bitterly unfair life was to her. Born to the family of a well-off Moscow merchant, he and his sister were equally intelligent, curious, educated, and shared interest in history, archeology, ethnography, anthropology, and languages. But unlike her, he, as a man, had access to courses at the Moscow University and could therefore pursue his passion, ethnography. Nikolay was a young promising researcher. Vera, as a woman, had to go to Germany to study and was going to enroll in Sorbonne. Her home country wasn't the right place for a woman to pursue research. Passionate as she was about ethnography, there was no chance her name could be put on the cover of the book she and her brother were writing together.
A timid voice interrupted his train of though. It was the local teacher, Pyotr Ivanovich, who had joined them for tea to use his chance to meet some of the brightest minds of Moscow.
"The ridge you mentioned, I know where it is, Nikolai Nikolaevich. It is, indeed, a ridge between two lakes - Maselgskoe and Vilno. The area of Kenozero near the village of Maselga is home to a unique phenomenon – the esker ridge, which is a narrow strip of land and nothing less than Grand Continental Divide between the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans. This ridge is a real miracle. Imagine a sunset, a ridge shaped like a railway embankment, and yourselves standing in the middle of it, with still waters of Lake Vilno on your right and the perfectly round Maselga on your left, the former having its rivers flow into the Baltic Sea and the latter into the ice-cold White Sea. Many a generation have travelled this ridge on their way up North through forests! And there's Khizhgora Mount, the highest point along the ridge. Right on top of it stands the Church of St. Alexander of Svir with a beautiful view of lakes, fields, meadows and vastness of the Northern Russian forests. I love this place very much, Nikolai Nikolaevich. I could take you there. Why don't you and Vera Nikolaevna take a break for a couple of days? Where else will you see two oceans come together? Maselga seems to be the only place."
"The ridge you mentioned, I know where it is, Nikolai Nikolaevich. It is, indeed, a ridge between two lakes - Maselgskoe and Vilno. The area of Kenozero near the village of Maselga is home to a unique phenomenon – the esker ridge, which is a narrow strip of land and nothing less than Grand Continental Divide between the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans. This ridge is a real miracle. Imagine a sunset, a ridge shaped like a railway embankment, and yourselves standing in the middle of it, with still waters of Lake Vilno on your right and the perfectly round Maselga on your left, the former having its rivers flow into the Baltic Sea and the latter into the ice-cold White Sea. Many a generation have travelled this ridge on their way up North through forests! And there's Khizhgora Mount, the highest point along the ridge. Right on top of it stands the Church of St. Alexander of Svir with a beautiful view of lakes, fields, meadows and vastness of the Northern Russian forests. I love this place very much, Nikolai Nikolaevich. I could take you there. Why don't you and Vera Nikolaevna take a break for a couple of days? Where else will you see two oceans come together? Maselga seems to be the only place."
"It's beautiful," Vera Nikolaevna suddently felt sad inside.
It was twenty years since her beloved brother Nikolay, her pride, passed away. He died in 1900. Didn't live to see Vera enjoy her hard-won triumph after she returned from Sorbonne and Austria and became a lecturer first at the Moscow Institute of Archaeology, in 1911, and now since 1927 at Moscow University. Vera Kharuzina became the first female professor of ethnography in history.
"Our life is very much like this watershed," she thought. "Why split and sever if all waters end up in one big ocean in the end? What difference does it make who of us wrote and who edited the proceedings of that expedition? Where did our ethnographic endeavors go separate ways and where did they come together? Does it really matter now?"
Vera smiled as she remembered the story about the water spirits. She and her brother did publish it in their books.
It was twenty years since her beloved brother Nikolay, her pride, passed away. He died in 1900. Didn't live to see Vera enjoy her hard-won triumph after she returned from Sorbonne and Austria and became a lecturer first at the Moscow Institute of Archaeology, in 1911, and now since 1927 at Moscow University. Vera Kharuzina became the first female professor of ethnography in history.
"Our life is very much like this watershed," she thought. "Why split and sever if all waters end up in one big ocean in the end? What difference does it make who of us wrote and who edited the proceedings of that expedition? Where did our ethnographic endeavors go separate ways and where did they come together? Does it really matter now?"
Vera smiled as she remembered the story about the water spirits. She and her brother did publish it in their books.
"My dear brother, we should have given up the schedule and gone to see the Grand Divide near Maselga. I wish we could be there and stand between two seas, touching the two oceans. We were too young to understand how important it is sometimes to seize the moment and dare to break the rules."
