In Kemerovo, where Maria Golovina lived until 2015, everyone knew her. Maria is a speech therapist-defectologist, she led the “Medical Pedagogy Service”, worked with children with disabilities, was actively involved in charity and social activities. And suddenly, unexpectedly for everyone, Mary leaves for the village of Chumai - to her small homeland. But they begin to talk and write about herself and her projects even more.
- Maria, when did you have a desire to return back to the village? And the main question is why?
- We left Chumai when I was 15 years old. I didn’t want to leave; family circumstances just happened. I always had a desire to live in my native village, but it depended on two important issues: housing and work. In addition, my husband did not want to move, and I always believed that I had no choice. You have to live with a peasant in the village - I grew up on this belief.
I managed to make a decision - to live in Chumai in 2014. This happened at the peak of success in Kemerovo, when everything promised stable prospects in the city. Many years of psychotherapeutic work on myself helped me to decide. I was engaged in psychotherapy by profession, because when working with children and parents it is important to be aware of the nature of emotions and feelings that arise in relationships.
Why did I go to Chumai? I realized the dream of my childhood, this is my place of power ¬— tested for years. My uncle lives in the village, every summer we ran a garden here and made preparations. They also tried to celebrate the New Year here, gathering all their relatives.
Of course, just fulfilling your childhood dream is not "grown-up". Somewhere in 2007, I began to make plans to create a guest estate in Chumai. Friends often came to me there, tourists in Kiev rafting every summer, so I realized that our village is attractive and its location at the junction of the mountains and the valley creates a special climate and atmosphere here. In general, I went to Chumai to build the Marusino guest estate. I had 1.5 million rubles from the sale of the apartment, my profession and children's experience of living in the village. Well, a strong desire to realize your dream!
- But what about the husband?
- By the time I broke up with my husband. He believed that I should work less, spend more time at home. He had another request for the functions of his wife. I decided that self-realization is more important, and, sobbing, left.
- How did your relatives and friends react to your decision to leave the city?
“My relatives know me well, so no one began to argue - it is useless.” The children were sad, the housing question arose sharply for them - they are now renting an apartment. Although the son tried to set up his daughter-in-law for life in the village, she resisted. Mom believes that, in fact, I did the right thing.
The conditions are still difficult. Mom helps most of all, because she is retired and still full of strength, her son arrives when she is not working. He began his project on our estate - he is building a chicken coop. Daughter comes less often. Most of all, the grandson of Timur rejoices, he will be three years in the spring.He chases dogs and cats, knows their nicknames, digs snow and sand, and carries water from a column with his grandmother. He has a lot of classes here!
“Well, how did the residents of Chumai appreciate your visit?” How do they perceive the innovations that you bring to the life of the village?
- My classmate living in Chumai called me a fool. A friend who has been dreaming of leaving for the city all her life has come to terms, but is skeptical. The head of the local administration, agitating all the Chumay people who left to move to the village, was shocked - he did not succeed with anyone except me.
At first there was a lot of open distrust, some still have it. I didn’t come quietly, but right away with the Art Bays project - a place of children's creativity. State employees were afraid for their jobs, especially teachers, so they took me and the project with hostility. Although my parents worked as teachers in this school, and my mother left the village as director of the school, I was definitely not needed by the school.
Now the situation in relations has changed a lot with all budgetary institutions and with part of the population. “Art-bay” is necessary for the village, it became obvious. A very large number of children come here, and no one forces them. At the same time, none of the adults has yet come to help on subbotniks, although parents are glad that there is a home for children's creativity. Only one large family helps - Alekseenko, they arrived in the village three years ago.
In general, there is more support in words than in practice. People in the village feel “abandoned”, “second-rate”: the state-owned millionaire farm has declined, there is no work. People have no commonality, no moral guidelines. Only the past remains, as they believe, and live in it. Therefore, it is difficult for them to see something good and useful nearby. I hope the situation changes.
- Mary, with whom are you friends in the village?
“The people I communicate with every day are my neighbors.” You can live in a village and not be in close contact with your neighbors, it depends on the person, but I appreciate people. I managed to gather the creative intelligentsia into the community, we created a creative association, now we meet and sing, we read poetry, we listen to author’s songs, we invent something. So we decided to make our Chumai calendar by next year, let's call it Chumai Tales. Photographers will do our local photographs, we will compose together stories from our rural life.
- Is there a lack of communication after a very eventful life in Kemerovo?
- I don’t feel a lack of communication, another thing is that the quality of communication has changed. The Internet has become more: correspondence, skype. The seminars organized by the Timchenko Foundation for designers who won the contest "Cultural Mosaic 2015" enriched me very much. The circle of friends has grown, and people have appeared who are engaged in similar practices in other regions. We are now a "gang."
“What is your usual day like in Chumai now?”
- I get up at 6 or 7 o’clock, rarely at 8 - this is only in winter. I warm the kettle, melt the stove, feed three domestic cats, three of my dogs and one neighbor, fill the bird feeder. Then I run to the "Art Bay": there I feed two teenage kittens selected at my home, charge the stove, and in the cold I flood it in the morning. I’m running home: I bring water and firewood, have breakfast, clean the snow in the yard, if I have time before work. Then by 10 or 11 o’clock I go to the museum (since February last year I have a budget rate in the Chumay Museum of Local Lore), this is about 1.5 km along the streets. The museum has everything according to the work plan, but sometimes it is possible to work on the Internet, see mail and social networks.I go home, at best, at 15:00, more often at 16:30. I go to the store for bread for cattle, buy something for myself. And then until 19 o'clock everything is according to the morning scenario. In the evening I usually sit down at my computer, work, read it before bedtime, and fall asleep no later than 23:00. This is the daily routine if there are no events and if I do not go to Kemerovo. It happens, of course, that I score at work and just watch a movie in the evening.
- What are the main difficulties you have to face - both domestic and moral?
- The main difficulty is household - in the winter to heat the stove in two houses and in the summer to carry water for irrigation. While these processes take a lot of time and effort. I have strength, but no time. The moral difficulty is that people are inactive, "dead" for the most part. Among them are several categories. Workable and active Chumay people from 35 to 45 years old have the main concern - “how and where to earn more and send children to the city to study and live, because they themselves no longer shine, but they want to.” There are those that do not dry out. And no one raises the bar in consciousness above issues of survival.
“What then is the main advantage of living in the countryside?”
- I think that each has its own advantages, who look at life in the village. For me it is a constant joy from the fact that I am at home. I always dreamed of living in a village, having a large plot and a big house with rooms for all generations of the family, to have a river and forest nearby, to dogs in the yard and cats in the house only in winter. So that there is space and clean air, so that sunrises and sunsets in the window, so that cows and milk with sour cream on the table and so that people who care, such as Aunt Liza, a neighbor, can tell me: “Mash, did you spread your eyebrows? What horrible! You have them so black, why do you smear them. It’s better to put on your lips, otherwise you have pale ones. ”
“Maria, is there something you are sorely missing in Chumai?”
- I really miss the presence of close associates, like-minded people, a team of professionals. Alone in the field is not a warrior, they say. And here is a warrior, if people live in this field. Among people there are always "living", especially children. But I need those who stand with me shoulder to shoulder.
- What are your plans for the future? What are the hopes?
- There are enough plans and hopes. In 2017, I plan to create a non-profit organization, to build a carpentry at the Art Bay, hold a gastronomic holiday in the village for the development of gastronomic tourism in the future, and take part in the cultural mosaic - 2017 project competition. For the five-year period, I plan to create an art residence in Art Bay, a summer creative children's camp, organize the sale of workshop products, and develop gastronomic tourism in Chumai. On his estate - to finish building a house, plant a garden, dig a pond and get a bird. And celebrate the New Year with his family in a big house. Now the house does not have enough space for everyone.
And now my hopes are connected with these my plans. But there is one great hope that lives in me constantly, it is from the category of "personal". This is the hope that I will be able to overcome all my “vicious circles” and learn to love my neighbor without getting annoyed.
“You have been in Chumai for almost two years now.” Now you can tell who needed more — do you plague or does he need you?
- Chumai is the country of my childhood, here I always felt at home. I didn’t think when I moved, if I needed the Plague, I needed it! Now I see that he needs me too.
Although ... So I thought. And Kemerovo needed me, and Kemerovo I still need as a source of energy, which I do not find in Chumai today, including financial energy. But the thing, apparently, is that in Chumai I am closest to the Father's house. And for me it has become important only in recent years.
- You have a lot of difficulties, but still you live in harmony. Let us return to the very beginning of our conversation: is it possible to live “without a man” in the village?
- Of course! I live.
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