Pos Solotcha. Solotcha village

North of Ryazan, about 20 km along the road to Kasimov and Vladimir, is the resort village of Solotcha. This favorite place rest of the majority of Ryazan residents. The thing is that this place has everything you need to breathe clean air and improve your health: a relict pine forest, turning in places into a mixed forest.

Solotcha is located almost on the banks of the Staritsa (that’s the name of the river flowing here). In fact, Staritsa is one of the boundaries separating two different natural massifs - on one bank of the river there is the Meshchera forest, and on the other the Oka floodplain, and then beyond the Oka there will be mostly fields, the forest will only be found in islands, there will no longer be a large continuous massif. In addition, there are many lakes in relative proximity to the village.

They say that the convenience and beauty of Solotcha was appreciated by the great Ryazan prince Oleg. In any case, the founding of the local monastery, which you will definitely see, since it is located on the main and only square of the village, is attributed to him. This, by the way, is one of the few attractions of the village. Still, people go to Solotcha for clean air and beautiful nature, and not for architectural beauties.

Where to relax in Solotch

Everyone chooses their own way of relaxation. Personally, in spring and autumn I simply go to Staritsa, lakes or the forest, depending on the weather, mood, presence or absence of mushrooms. In the summer I rent a dacha in one of the villages that make up the village. It's called Davydovo. For those who are looking for where to rent a summer cottage for the summer, I recommend this particular place, since it is located a short distance from the central highway, the forest begins behind the houses, and the river is 15-20 minutes away at a leisurely stroll through the forest.

You can rent a house or a room in Solotcha itself. But in the village, for the most part, houses are rented on Poryadok and Vladimirskaya streets, and many cars pass through them. Not entirely pleasant. It is better to look for a house away from these streets.

For those who are used to organized holidays and three meals a day, there will also be a place to rest, and at the same time receive treatment. There are three large sanatoriums: Sosnovy Bor, Solotcha ( prices and reviews here) and "Old Woman".

“Sosnovy Bor” is located at the entrance to the village, about a couple of kilometers from the highway. The sanatorium is located on the outskirts of the main residential area, which is generally good in terms of recreation - there are relatively few people. The sanatorium has its own beach.

"Solotcha" - almost at main square, next to the monastery. There is no private beach, you have to go to the city one, which is about half a kilometer along a forest path along the shore. On the other hand, the path is very beautiful, you can take a walk. In addition, there is a spring along the road that is considered “holy”.

“Staritsa” is located at the exit from the village, between Solotcha and Zaborie. The sanatorium itself is located in a clearing near the river and has its own small beach. Experts believe that this particular sanatorium is the best of the three. There is one thing - active construction is underway not far from the Staritsa.

In addition, in the forest around the village there are many departmental holiday homes, as well as pioneer camps. There will be an opportunity to relax in them - don’t miss it, it will be useful. There are also guest houses and hotels. The Land House in Davydovo is good. On weekends, all rooms are usually full.

All holiday options with online booking are here.

What to see in Solotch

Mostly people go to Solotcha for nature. The holiday homes, of course, have restaurants, billiards, table tennis, spas and baths. But first of all, people still come here for the clean water in the river and lakes and the air of the pine forest, which clears all the lungs.

You will see the sights in a day. You should definitely go to the monastery. Access is open, just remember that men should not wear shorts and women should not wear trousers. Otherwise you will not be allowed further than the gate.

The monastery is surrounded by an impressive wall, and inside there are two churches. The one on the left is interesting. On its outer walls there are small multi-colored frescoes-icons.

They were preserved, despite the fact that for some time there was nothing on the territory of the monastery - neither a museum, nor religious institutions.

If you walk further along Poryadok and Vladimirskaya Street, you will reach the house-museum of I.P. I'm sorry. There was such a famous engraver who lived in Solotch. Its beautifully carved wooden house and outbuildings have been carefully preserved.

This place is also interesting because K.G. stayed there. Paustovsky. It was about this house and gazebo that he wrote in his “Meshcherskaya Side”. The museum contains the things of the famous writer, in which he went fishing in local reservoirs. They say he was an avid fisherman. One can appreciate the frankly spartan conditions in which the winner of many awards rested. By the way, Paustovsky got to Solotcha through Tuma. So in the 30-50s it was more convenient from Moscow, because the large (“Solotchinsky”) bridge across the Oka appeared only in the seventies. And from Tuma to Shumashi there was a narrow-gauge train. At that time it was the main transport route in the forested areas.

Actually, that's all. You can still walk to the main active church. In addition, across the road, not far from the Pozhalostin Museum, there is a Kooperator store. Go there and ask if there is bread from the Zaborievo bakery. If you have it, you should definitely buy it. It’s not clear what they do with it, but you probably haven’t eaten tastier bread. They work very well.

The rest of the time you will spend walking along the river and through the forest. Fortunately there is a lot of this goodness here. You will definitely like it!

In the suburbs of Ryazan there is a very cozy and beautiful Solotcha village. Regardless of the time of year, here you can relax and improve your health.

This wonderful corner of nature is surrounded by Meshchersky national park. This is just on the border of two climatic zones - the flooded meadows of the Oka region and the fresh pine forest. That is why the clean air of Solotcha has such healing properties and has a beneficial effect on human health. Considering the variety of balneological factors of this health resort, Solotchi is often compared to the southern Russian resorts. Solotcha Ryazan is in some cases even better than any resort.

On the territory of this village there are several sanatoriums at once - these are “Solotcha”, “Sosnovy Bor”, “Staritsa”, the recreation center “Druzhba”, as well as the sanatorium-preventorium of the municipal unitary enterprise “URT” and children’s health camps.
Also in Solotchi there is a museum of I.P. Please, the last master of the classical engraving school. It is located in a large beautiful wooden house. This museum displays many personal belongings and instruments of the academician, which many tourists come to see. This house is also famous for the fact that the writer K.G. lived there for quite a long time. Paustovsky. It was he who wrote a lot about these places, who wrote a lot about these places. Today there is still a map hanging on the wall called “Paustovsky’s Trail.”

One of the most interesting attractions of the village is Solotchinsky convent Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This monastery was built in the 14th century, founded by the Ryazan prince Oleg Ivanovich. If speak about architectural monuments, then on the territory of the monastery there are several of them - the Church of the Nativity of Christ, the refectory and the Church of the Baptist, which is decorated with four large beautiful figures of the evangelists. There are many old wooden houses in Solotch with charming carved porches and stained glass windows. There is something to see. On one of the streets there is a house that is late XIX century belonged to the famous artist-engraver Academician I.P. Pozhalostin. It also contains different time K. G. Paustovsky, A. P. Gaidar, A. I. Solzhenitsyn and others lived and worked.
Once upon a time a narrow-gauge railway passed through Solotcha Railway, the embankment of which is still preserved. The Solotcha sanatorium always welcomes guests with pleasure and has a positive influence on them.

The town of Solotcha administratively belongs to the Sovetsky district of Ryazan. This fact is especially emphasized by the residents of Solotchi themselves - they say that we do not live in a village, but in the capital of the region. We are not villagers, but city dwellers.

However, Ryazan and Solotcha are separated by 20 km of the M-5 highway, and Solotcha looks exactly like a village. There are no apartment buildings here, only private ones. Even a normally asphalted street is only one. Not because of poverty, but because Solotcha is in a specially protected natural area. Multi-storey construction and other urbanization are prohibited here, and no one needs them. After all, Ryazan Solotcha is local resort, and extremely popular. Ryazan residents are proud that they have their own “Switzerland” in the city: in the winter they come to Solotcha to ski, in the summer they send their offspring here to children’s camps, and the local sanatoriums generally operate all year round.

Solotcha has a rather impressive resort history - as a health resort for residents Ryazan region it was adapted almost immediately after the war. Firstly, there is clean, healthy air here: Solotcha is densely surrounded by pine forests. Secondly, clean rivers flow nearby, Solotcha and Staritsa, seven kilometers away is the Oka. There are places to swim and sunbathe in summer. Thirdly, Solotcha is conveniently located, at least from the point of view of Ryazan residents. Solotcha is called the “gate to Meshchera”, and Meshchera is one of the most popular holiday destinations in central Russia. Meshchersky forests and rivers are so valuable that for their sake, Meshchersky was formed in 1992 national park.

In addition, Solotcha has its own mountain with the simple name Lysaya. So, in addition to cross-country skiing, which is incredibly popular in Solotch (in winter, the entire surrounding area is dotted with lines of ski routes, there are rentals on every corner), vacationers have the opportunity to slide down an equipped slope. They even built a ski jumping ramp here, although in the 2012/2013 season it was full of holes and had no stairs to the top.

But not only adherents of healthy leisure travel to Solotcha. The village is considered a kind of cultural satellite of Ryazan. First of all, because of the house-museum of Ivan Petrovich Pozhalostin (1837-1909), the famous Russian engraving master, located here. The same one whose name is given to the Ryazan Art Museum.

The Pozhalostin House Museum definitely deserves attention - it seems that this is the only museum in Russia dedicated to the engraver. In addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum operates an exhibition center, where very high-quality exhibitions are organized monthly, which bring together artists and other creative personalities from all over Russia. Of course, the museum tries to support modern engravers - you can count them on one hand throughout the country. And regular exhibitions of engravings are organized only in two places - in Solotch and Yekaterinburg.

During the Soviet years, Solotcha was made a resort and cultural resort, although before the revolution it was better known as a spiritual center. The heart of Solotchi - historically and geographically - the Monastery of the Nativity Holy Mother of God, founded in 1390 by Grand Duke Oleg of Ryazan, canonized (his relics are kept in the monastery to this day). For centuries, the Solotchinsky monastery was one of the richest and most influential in Russia, now the monastery is gradually coming to life and being restored through the efforts of nuns - it is a women’s monastery, functioning. Its doors are always open for both pilgrims and ordinary curious people. Those who are curious will be interested to know that the Solotchinsky Monastery is the largest monument of the Naryshkin Baroque in the Ryazan region. This snow-white ensemble transforms the rural resort into a place with an ancient and significant history.

The entire preserved history of Solotcha can be seen on a single historical street - the further you go from it, the more Solotcha resembles an ordinary overgrown holiday village. On this historical street there are a monastery, and the central square (as usual, Lenin), and the house-museum of Pozhalostin, and another church - Kazan, 18th century. This street is the only clear and straight highway, like in the city. It's funny that it's called Order Street. True, they say in Solotch, the whole point is that the houses along it are in order.

On Poryadok Street there are preserved houses from the 19th century, mostly wooden with attics and carved platbands. True, they were quite diluted by Soviet country houses and state-owned houses like hotels and empty general stores. This piece of historical Solotcha is supported on all sides by modern estates, some, according to available data, even have underground courts. Owning real estate in Solotch is fashionable not only among wealthy Ryazan residents, but also among the ubiquitous Muscovites. Firstly, the status of a resort helps, and secondly, in this way Ryazan residents solve the problem of traffic jams. It is faster to travel by car from Solotcha to the center of Ryazan on a weekday than from one district of the city to another. If you put the old houses in order and invest in infrastructure, Solotcha could turn out not to be a rural, but an almost European mini-resort, pleasant in all respects.

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The Solotcha sanatorium is located in the village of the same name near Ryazan. The complex features a swimming pool, free Wi-Fi and parking.

The room capacity is represented by comfortable rooms, which are located in buildings. Each room has a private bathroom and appliances. Some have a kitchen corner and all the necessary utensils.

Three meals a day are included in your stay. Upon request, it is possible to create a menu taking into account the doctor’s recommendations or individual wishes. There is a restaurant just a step away, where new visitors are always welcome.

Information services are available at the front desk 24 hours a day. The boarding house provides health and entertainment services, and is also an excellent option for both adults and children.

The area is perfect for active species sports, walks in the fresh air. At a distance of 300 meters there are grocery stores and a supermarket where everyone can buy groceries.

Sanatorium and resort services

Services included in the price of the trip under the "Climatotherapy" program:

• accommodation in a room of the selected category
• three meals a day according to the " Buffet"
• wireless internet access Wi-Fi
• animation program on weekends and holidays, organized walking tours according to Solotcha
• use of the children's playroom under the supervision of a teacher (opening hours of the children's playroom all days except Sunday and Monday), use of the skating rink, children's playgrounds, outdoor swimming pool (in accordance with the opening hours).

Treatment procedures included in the cost of the trip according to the "Main Program":

• examination by a general practitioner
• baths
• physiotherapy: electro-phototherapy (UFO, KUFO, laser: ICL and GIL, color therapy), pulsed currents, ICHPEMP, ultrasound and phonophoresis, EP UHF, UHF, UHF fields, VIMT, electrosleep, transcerebral electroanalgesia, TENS
• heat treatment (paraffin-ozokerite)
• manual massage 1 zone
• inhalation
• treatment room
• Russian bath, Turkish bath (hammam), Finnish sauna
• SPA pool with cascade and countercurrent
• low pressure souls (needle, ascending)
• high pressure impact shower (Charcot)
• medium pressure showers (circular, Swiss)
• contrast (Scottish) shower
• vibration back massage with heat
• mineral water 1.5l/3 days
• consultation with a physiotherapist
• nordic walking
• consultation with a neurologist
• massage using the NUGA-BEST couch
• consultation with a cardiologist;
• Exercise therapy (physical therapy)
• aeroionotherapy

Types of procedures, number, sequence, methods are formed individually for each patient depending on the state of his health, taking into account indications and contraindications.

Wellness programs:

• Healthy child
• Healthy heart
• Let's lose weight with pleasure
• Liver cleansing
• Main program
• Antistress - Relax
• Infertility treatment
• New in infertility treatment
• The forces of nature against arthrosis
• Back without pain
• Take care of your health from a young age
• Correct posture, healthy feet
• Healthy joints
• No to diabetes!!!
• Light foot
• My head is clear
• Pain healer (DENS)
• Live a healthy life... without cigarettes!

Directions to the sanatorium

Directions from the railway station to the sanatorium:

bus No. 71, 110 to the Monastyr stop.

Other ways to get to the resort.

The evergreen essence of the Solotchinsky forest lures crowds of locals in order to curb the need for leisure. Traditional summer barbecues, winter skiing in Monastyrsky Bor, sledding from Bald Mountain, spring and autumn contemplation of unobtrusive living creatures - for Ryazan residents they are almost within walking distance, if you think in terms of personal vehicles. Because here they are - the gate to Meshchera, only twenty kilometers from Ryazan. The resort theme is relevant for both capital and provincial cities. Peredelkino in the Moscow region, the village of Chertovitskoye near Voronezh, Krivets near Lipetsk, as well as Solotcha near the residents of Ryazan - perhaps these are places that for many evoke an irresistible desire to have a house here at any cost, and for others - envy that someone already has a house like this. Geographically, Solotcha is the Ryazan district, although administratively resort village is an external part of Ryazan and is formally included in its Sovetsky district.

Here, under the canopy of gigantic pines or among fragrant hayfields, you can look for the way to your personal nirvana. This is a historical place in all available senses of the word, where Grand Duke Oleg Ryazansky found his rest within the walls of the Solotchinsky Monastery. Here, in Central Russia, in the land of long-destroyed forests, for unknown reasons, an untouched island of nature has survived, where the pine trees are more than two hundred years old.

Narrow gauge railway

Not so long ago, Ryazan and Solotcha were connected by a railway with closely spaced rails. The narrow-gauge railway was the only means of reliable delivery of tourists and free-walkers to the Meshchera Lowland. The writer Konstantin Paustovsky called the narrow-gauge railway in the Meshchera forests the slowest railway in the Soviet Union. “The Train of Stephenson's Time” reminded him of a samovar that “whistled in a child’s falsetto” when he first met him. The locomotive, as it turned out, already had an offensive nickname - “gelding”. The little train was also called the “cuckoo”.

They began construction of the railway in 1892 - the country demanded timber and lumber. The idea of ​​straightening the Pra riverbed for timber rafting remained on paper. Only the railway could provide a reliable supply of the required volumes of wood. It was laid from the Oka coast to the Penkino cordon on the outskirts of Solotcha. Within a year they managed it and began to operate it. Four years later, the Moscow Association of Access Roads acquired permission to extend the railways from Solotcha through Spas-Klepiki to Tuma and allow the transport of not only timber, but also people. Temporary traffic to Klepikov was opened in December 1897, and on October 31, 1899, trains from Ryazan to Tuma were officially launched. While the Tuma part was being built, they also took care of extending the tracks - so, by the beginning of the 20th century, it became possible to leave Ryazan for Vladimir. A little later, the Vladimir part was converted into a wide one, but the narrow one worked stably for the benefit of transporting wood. Moving slowly, the locomotives hauled timber, peat and cotton wool.

1972 was the first blow for the Ryazan narrow-gauge railway - a road bridge was built across the Oka. A decade was enough to completely abandon the leisurely train, exchanging the piece of iron for asphalt. The remains of the rails were dismantled back in the 1990s for metal; only a sandy embankment remained, which stretches to the right of the asphalt in the section from Davydovo to Solotcha. And yet, a small fragment of the Meshchera highway survived: when laying a road to bypass Solotchi, ten meters of iron sheet were rolled into asphalt. Over time, the wheels of the cars have worn down the stone and every motorist, choosing a right turn at the Solotchinsky intersection, slows down, and then hears a characteristic “boom-boom” under the wheels.

Solodcha

Another modern thing that we have received for reflection and searching for truths is the very origin of the name of the village. We know him as Solotcha. Only and railroad station, And locality on maps of Mende compiled in the mid-19th century, they are called Solodcha. Either the cartographers overlooked it, or for the sake of ease of pronunciation, the voiced one was replaced by a voiceless and completely unpronounceable one. They also tried to unravel the mystery through salt: supposedly historical documents mention salt springs in the area. But geologists have proven that there are no salts in the local sands. So toponymic research is just guesswork.

From older villagers I heard a legend from the times of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. As if Batu, having defeated Ryazan and moving up the Oka, noticed a blue forest in the distance. The Horde, ready for battle, sent their horses there: “The Tatar horses ran for a long time until they were stopped by the banks of an unfamiliar river. An immense expanse stretched all around, and beyond the river rose a steep, steep bank, overgrown with copper-trunked pine trees. And this forest was so beautiful in its winter attire that even the Tatars could not restrain themselves from involuntarily bursting out screams of delight. The centurion, who led the detachment, expressing the general opinion, exclaimed: “Oh, solodcha!”, which in Tatar supposedly meant a wonderful, beautiful place.”

Solotchinsky Monastery

Be that as it may, the high steep bank, from where the Oka floodplain is clearly visible, prompted the founding of a fortress. This fortress became the Solotchinsky Monastery, built at the end of the 14th century. The monastery was founded by the Ryazan prince Oleg Ivanovich. It is not known exactly, of course, but according to legend, Oleg and his wife Euphrosyne once found themselves at the Solotchi River. They talked on the other side with two hermits Vasily and Efimy, who inspired the prince with the idea of ​​​​a monastery. Oleg founded it in 1390, perhaps intending it as a country residence. During that period, after the Battle of Kulikovo, relations between Ryazan and Moscow sharply worsened. Probably, Prince Oleg sought to hide behind the monastery walls from possible retribution from the Moscow princes, who considered him a traitor for his non-participation in the battle on the Kulikovo Field. There is a legend that a certain underground passage led from the monastery to the Palace of Prince Oleg in the Kremlin of Pereyaslavl-Ryazan. Perhaps the monastery more than once rescued the prince, who accepted the schema under the name Iokima, and ruled the Ryazan region in the monastic rank for another 12 years. Probably, having not survived the imprisonment of his son Rodoslav by the Lithuanians at the beginning of 1402, on July 5 of that year, a funeral service was held in the Solotchinsky Monastery for the schema-monk Jokim - in the world of the Grand Duke Oleg Ivanovich of Ryazan. His wife did not survive him much either. The prince and princess were buried in the Church of the Intercession, which stood at the very slope.

In subsequent years, the monastery was involved in some important historical events. In 1552, the troops of Ivan the Terrible were in a hurry to take Kazan: the monastery army also did not stand aside and took part in the campaign. In memory of that event, the tented Alekseevskaya Church was built in Solotch. The monastery experienced a complete restructuring of its economy under Archimandrite Ignatius. He became abbot in 1688: through his efforts, the appearance of the Solotchinsky monastery was created as we see it today. Then the Church of the Holy Spirit and the refectory were erected. In 1768, under Empress Catherine II, a natural disaster occurred in Solotch. The unstable slope stretching from the Solotchinsky Monastery to Bald Mountain, apparently, after a snowy winter and high floods, set off. A powerful landslide brought down the wall of the monastery and carried the Intercession Church into the abyss, where the relics of probably the most far-sighted and successful of the Ryazan rulers of the ancient era rested. It is known that while clearing out the rubble, the people of Ryazan found the relics of Prince Oleg and his wife and carefully moved them to a new place. Today they rest in the cathedral church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Solotchinsk monastery.

Before the October Revolution of 1917, a special relic was kept in the Solotchinsky Monastery - the chain mail of Oleg Ryazansky. It is woven from iron rings and weighs almost half a pound. Oleg wore this armor for 12 years under his clothes instead of chains. After the death of the prince, the armor began to serve other people - believers flocked to the relics. Putting the chain mail on themselves, the sick asked for help from epilepsy, and drunkards - from drunkenness. Nowadays the chain mail is in the Ryazan Kremlin.

The monastery itself was closed after the revolution, and soon a colony for juvenile delinquents was located within its walls, a warehouse was located in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, and a club with a cinema hall was located in the Church of the Holy Spirit. And only in 1993 the Solotchinsky monastery was revived, but as a women’s monastery. And Lenin Square in the center of Solotchi was renamed Monastyrskaya. The monastery is always full of parishioners and tourists. The patronal holiday - the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - is celebrated on September 21. Here you can always buy monastery bread and honey, and go down to the base of the Oka slope and move a kilometer to the south, taking on the left hand from the spreading ancient willow, and collect spring water from a source at the groundwater discharge site on the banks of the Staritsa. Continuing the path to the south along the base of the slope, after another half a kilometer the foot of Bald Mountain will appear.

Bald Mountain

The steep slope of Bald Mountain is a mute witness to the disturbance of the ancient slope of the Oka valley, which was destroyed by a landslide ancient temple. According to geologists, the sand that makes up the loose body of Bald Mountain was once brought by a glacier, and then repeatedly washed and redeposited by Praoka streams. The water washed away particles of dust and clay and carried them downstream, leaving heavier sand in place. And where today, on a canopy along the cliff of Bald Mountain, Ryazan residents grill kebabs, there once was the bottom of the harbinger of the modern Oka. That was more than 100 thousand years ago. And then the river, gnawing into its sediments, eroding the sands, went down, creating the steep sides of the trough of its valley. The steep left side is the very place over which the St. John the Theologian Monastery rises in Poshchupovo, the steep right side is Bald Mountain. And her bald spot was caused by the poor sand, on which nothing but pine grows, and also by the love of the Ryazan people for winter holidays. Over the years, sleds and sleds have done their job, creating a sandy bald patch.



The slope is steep and currently continues to bare its teeth. The steep coast maintains its dangerous degree of steepness due to the flow of water and the action of the wind. It is retreating parallel to itself at a rate of up to two meters per century, as evidenced by the bare roots of centuries-old pines hanging over the edge of the steep slope. Collapses sometimes take unexpected turns. In April 2012, melt water washed out a deep ravine on the right side of Bald Mountain for two weeks. By now, its sheer slopes had barely risen. Today, for many Ryazan residents, Bald Mountain near Solotcha is the largest natural hill on Ryazan soil.

Kazan Church

To the north of the monastery, almost on the border of Solotcha and Zaborye, there is a sky-blue temple. In the park near the temple there is a figure of St. Nicholas. Under the feet of Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra - Earth prohibitively small in size. At this place, at one time, the wife of Oleg Ryazansky founded the Conception Convent, which served for no more than two hundred years. The reason for the closure was the same slope of the Oka, washed away by the river. The nuns were transferred to Agrafenina Pustyn (now Agro-Pustyn), and the Conception Church remained on the site of the monastery, which subsequently fell into disrepair. In its place, in 1843, a stone church was built in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. In Soviet times, a wooden extension to an abandoned church was a local high school No. 32, which moved to a new standard building in 1982. In the temple there was a warehouse and a diesel engine, which heated the school. The church was restored at the beginning of the two thousandth.



Now it is closely adjacent to an overgrown cemetery, on the site of which thirty years ago there was a full-fledged schoolyard, where lines were held, and local children played lapta and gorodki.

Monastery Forest

The resort village lies on the outskirts of a sandy plateau, which, with a twenty-meter ledge, abruptly drops to the water meadows of the Oka River. Solotcha, like a horseshoe, covers the monastery pine forest, perhaps the oldest forest on Ryazan soil. The local pines celebrated their bicentennial anniversary in 2011-2012 - they grew from seeds that sprouted in the year of the Battle of Borodino. It is noteworthy that in the Ryazan forests individual trees may be older, but there is a whole forest of two-hundred-year-old giants - this can only be found in Solotch. Perhaps the monastery forest is much older, and it was never completely cut down, which means that it has existed not for two hundred, but maybe for five hundred or even a thousand years. Perhaps individual trunks were cut down for construction, but the entire forest as an ecosystem was never completely destroyed. Monastyrsky Bor today is the first candidate on the list of expanding the nature protection zone in the Ryazan region.



By the way, as for the Oka Biosphere Reserve, let us recall that it was created in 1935 to protect the muskrat that lives on the Pre and in its floodplain oxbow lakes. In the pre-war years, according to eyewitnesses, the entire area of ​​the reserve from the hills near Brykina Bor to the north was a vast clearing, so that one could see the domes of the church in the distant village of Lubyaniki. Therefore, the forest of the Oksky Reserve is much younger than the forests of Solotchi. Biologists have established that the ancient pine forest, growing for centuries on poor river sands, gradually enriched the soil, bringing valuable minerals from deep layers to the surface. And today, on this sand, under the canopy of two-century-old pines, a carpet of soil-demanding lily of the valley spreads, and oaks are even trying to grow.

There is no power in their appearance, but rather the stamp of a long struggle for life with an attempt to grow on sands barely enriched with pine trees is felt. In the gnarled and bent squat trunks of crooked Solotchino oaks, hollows are multiplying to the delight of those species of birds that do not know how to build hanging nests. And also colonies of bats. Due to the unusually high flow of tourists, the vegetation cover of the monastery forest is cut by crossroads of paths and trampled down to bare ground. The decrepit pines are in big trouble. Tourists break up the soil and destroy the undergrowth, depriving the forest of a chance for normal growth.

It is not difficult to see the monastery forest. It starts from the stop public transport“Davydovo” and stretches through the central square of Solotchi to the north to Grachina Roshcha. From the road, the landscape of the same type that Shishkin captured on the canvas with three bears is especially clearly visible. The pines soar 35 meters into the air, their trunks are devoid of branches, and only on the tops, bent under the influence of the prevailing wind direction, are the shocks of living branches covered with pine needles preserved. But if Shishkin’s ship timber fell under the ax long ago, Solotchi’s forest is still holding out.

The condition of the monastery forest causes concern among both foresters and scientists. Heavy winds in summer and snowstorms in winter knock down multi-ton tree trunks. At the department physical geography The Ryazan State University named after Yesenin keeps a hefty pancake - a felled pine tree that fell in 2010. In the intricacy of tree rings, which, as if in the archives of the Hydrometeorological Center, contains a record of the climate of the hot and dry years of the pre-war era, 1936-1940, the great drought of 1891, the ring of the year of the abolition of serfdom and the capture of Paris by Russian troops in 1814.

Paustovsky

Many people know Konstantin Paustovsky as a writer who visited the area around Solotcha and left a series of stories, which were later compiled into the story “The Meshcherskaya Side”. He was really here in the second half of the 1930s of the 20th century. He fished in the Oka channels and oxbow lakes, and together with the writer Arkady Gaidar - the author of “Timur and His Team” - wandered in the forests in search of Poganoe Lake, caught golden tench, made friends with village children, one of whom managed to catch the legendary red-haired thief - cat, captured the story of his grandfather, nicknamed “Ten Percent.”

The writer's artistic works today serve as the subject of scientific research. Thus, in the story “Hare's Paws,” the Nobel Prize nominee (who lost the fight for the title to the author of “Quiet Don”) reflected the details of the events of 1936, the hot and dry summer of which resulted in fires in the Red Swamp. According to the book, grandfather Larion went into the forest to hunt and almost burned out when caught in a barrage of forest fire. Getting out of the thicket, the grandfather tried to run after the hare, believing that the forest dweller would lead him to the lake. And so it happened. Later, the old man will take the hare with burnt paws to Ryazan to the children's doctor on Pochtovaya Street, and will beg the retired doctor to cure the hare as his savior. The story about the Solotchinsky hare will reach Moscow, and the capital’s journalist will want to buy the long-eared poor fellow, to which Larion Malyavin will answer: “The hare is not for sale, a living soul, let him live against his will.”

In Paustovsky's stories, Solotcha and its inhabitants are a whole world. Here is a boy who comes from a neighboring village to look through the magazines “Around the World” and look at pictures of strange countries. Here are the girls in the haymaking of the Oka fields, diligently making fun of the unlucky fishermen. And the same grandfather, nicknamed “Ten Percent,” who was mauled almost to death by a pig, subsequently killed by an explosive bullet (“the other one didn’t take it”), suddenly appears as the keeper of village wisdom. According to the old man, the birch tree brought to the hut dropped its leaves after its forest companions only because friendship is not given only to people. “And with what eyes will she look into the eyes of her friends in the spring, who have been freezing on the street all winter, and she was warming herself by the stove?”

Paustovsky noticed the subtleties of Solotchin toponymy. Especially in the names of rivers and lakes. He writes that Meshchera is “the remnant of the forest ocean”, that the forests here are “majestic, like cathedrals" I noticed that each body of water has its own nature. In Lake Tish there is “always a calm”, in Bobrovka there were once beavers, “Promoina - deep lake with such capricious fish that only a person with very good nerves can catch it,” in the Kanava “there are amazing golden tenches: each such tench bites for half an hour.” And Paustovsky also writes about Solotch as the birthplace of talents: “In Solotch there is almost no hut where there are no paintings,” “Pozhalostin, one of the best Russian engravers, was born here, whose works received a worthy assessment from the lips of residents spoiled by art Western Europe" It is believed that Paustovsky lived in the house of Ivan Pozhalostin, located on Revolution Street (now Poryadok Street), where his writing friends Arkady Gaidar and Reuben Fraerman came to visit the writers, who actively used the small courtyard bathhouse for relaxation and creativity. In the last Soviet years, the Pozhalostin estate was a collapsed, burned-out building with an abandoned cherry orchard - here the surrounding children loved to hide from their annoying parents. But the authentic bathhouse lived longer than the house, since it went to the neighbor’s property, although it was not used for its intended purpose, but as a barn. The current museum-estate of Pozhalostin is a complete reconstruction, completed in the recent post-Soviet years.



In Paustovsky's stories, Meshchera appears in the long-forgotten appearance of the era before the start of drainage reclamation. The laying of canals began under Alexander II, but large-scale work was carried out only in the post-war years. The writer, in his works of 1936-1939, reflected the moment when the forests and marshes in the vicinity of Solotcha had not yet undergone large-scale drainage. And today, landscape geographers use the texts of “The Meshchera Side” as a guide to identify changes in nature. And it turns out that Paustovsky’s Meshchera is not at all what it is now. There was an impenetrable forest around the Black Lake, and on its shores wolves were raising wolf cubs. And the path to Black Lake was woven from trials, where only an experienced guide, jumping from bump to bump, could lead the traveler through the quagmire.

Paustovsky's stories - good guide and for the modern tourist. Today, modern tents can be set up in just a few minutes. In the pre-war years, the writer, apparently not even suspecting how terrible the time was coming for the country, spent every autumn on the Prorva, the former channel of the Oka. At a sharp turn he set up a heavy canvas tent. I pulled it so tight that it hummed like a drum, otherwise it would get wet in the rain. I dug around the ring with a shovel and tightened the loops tighter to keep mosquitoes away. And here I fished. Exactly the way the locals do it now when driving to the Oka meadows. Here I cursed the boys who could stand behind me all day long, looking at the treacherously motionless float. And here I learned a cruel lesson from fate, when an expensive English fishing line without the proper skill and luck in the pursuit of a pike can miserably lose to an ordinary rope with an iron hook at the end.

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The unique nature of the surroundings of Solotchi requires full protection, which formed the basis for the project to create a new specially protected area - Solotchinsky natural park. The project was developed at the Yesenin Russian State University in 2009 by order of the government of the Ryazan region. If the idea can be realized, then the old-growth pine forest, mossy swamps, oxbow lakes and water meadows of the Oka will be forever removed from trade in favor of nature conservation and tourism development.