The story about the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and the girl. Petrified Zoya ate from a plate with a blue rim

"Zoino's standing"

In 1956, when N.S. Khrushchev was in power, something happened that shocked the entire Orthodox world - the famous “Zoino’s Standing”. Let us briefly recall this miracle that occurred in Samara (then Kuibyshev).

A pipe factory worker, a certain Zoya, decided to meet with friends New Year. Her believing mother was against having fun during the Nativity Fast, but Zoya did not listen. Everyone gathered, but Zoya’s fiancé Nikolai lingered somewhere. Music played, young people danced; only Zoya didn’t have a partner. Offended by the groom, she removed the icon of St. Nicholas from the shrine and said: “If my Nicholas is not there, I will dance with St. Nicholas.” To her friend’s admonitions not to do this, she boldly replied: “If there is a God, let Him punish me!” With these words she walked in a circle. On the third circle, the room was suddenly filled with a loud noise, a whirlwind arose, a blinding light flashed like lightning, and everyone ran out in fear. Only Zoya froze with the icon of the saint pressed to her chest - petrified, cold, like marble.

They couldn’t move her; her legs seemed to have become fused to the floor. In the absence of external signs of life, Zoya was alive: her heart was beating. From that time on, she could neither drink nor eat. The doctors made every effort, but could not bring her to her senses.

The news of the miracle quickly spread throughout the city, many came to see Zoino's Standing. But after some time, the city authorities came to their senses: the approaches to the house were blocked, and a squad of police officers on duty began to guard it. And visitors and the curious were told that no miracle had happened here and had never happened.

Those on duty at that house at night heard Zoya screaming: “Mom! Pray! We are perishing in our sins! Pray!” A medical examination confirmed that the girl’s heartbeat had not stopped, despite the petrification of the tissues (they couldn’t even give an injection: the needles broke). After reading the prayers, the invited priests could not take the icon from her frozen hands. But on the feast of the Nativity of Christ, Father Seraphim (Tyapochkin, then still Father Dimitri) came and served water blessing prayer and consecrated the whole room. After that, he took the icon* from Zoya’s hands and said: “Now we must wait for a sign on the Great Day**.”

Before the Feast of the Annunciation, a certain handsome old man asked the guards to let him through. He was refused. He showed up the next day, but the other shift didn’t miss him either. The third time, on the very day of the Annunciation, the guards did not detain him. The attendants heard the old man say to Zoya: “Well, are you tired of standing?” Some time passed, the elder did not come out. When they looked into the room, they did not find him there. All witnesses to the incident are convinced that Saint Nicholas himself appeared.

Zoya stood for 4 months (128 days), until Easter, which that year was April 23 (May 6, new style). On the night of Svetloye Christ's Resurrection Zoya cried out loudly: “Pray! It’s scary, the earth is burning! The whole world is perishing in sins! Pray!” From that time on, she began to come to life, softness and vitality appeared in her muscles. They put her to bed, but she continued to cry out and ask everyone to pray for a world perishing in sins, for a land burning in iniquities.

How did you live? - they asked her. -Who fed you?

Pigeons, pigeons fed me,” Zoya answered.

Through the prayers of St. Nicholas, the Lord had mercy on her, accepted her repentance and forgave her sins.

Everything that happened so amazed the residents of Kuibyshev and its environs that many people turned to faith. They hurried to church with repentance, the unbaptized were baptized, those who did not wear a cross began to wear one - there weren’t even enough crosses for those asking.

When, years later, Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin) was asked questions about his meeting with Zoya, he always avoided answering. Archpriest Anatoly Litvinko, a clergyman of the Samara diocese, recalls: “I asked Father Seraphim: “Father, were you the one who took the icon from Zoya’s hands?” He humbly lowered his head. And from his silence I understood: he.”

Father hid this out of his humility. And the authorities could start persecuting him again due to the large influx of pilgrims who wanted to venerate the miraculous icon St. Nicholas, which was always in the church where Father Seraphim served. Over time, the authorities demanded that the icon be removed, hidden from the people, and it was moved to the altar.

Recently, the mass press has again become interested in this case. Here are excerpts from a publication in Komsomolskaya Pravda:

“Many believers in Samara know pensioner Anna Ivanovna Fedotova.
“In those days, I was near Zoya’s house twice,” says Anna Ivanovna, “I came from afar. But the house was surrounded by police. And then I decided to ask some policeman from the security about everything. Soon one of them - very young - came out gate. I followed him and stopped him: “Tell me, is it true that Zoya is standing?” He replied: “You’re asking, exactly like my wife. But I won’t say anything, it’s better to see for yourself..." He took off his cap from his head and showed his completely gray hair: "See?! This is truer than words. After all, we gave a subscription, we are forbidden to talk about it. But if you only knew how scared I was to look at this frozen girl!”

Quite recently, a person was found who told something new about the Samara miracle. He turned out to be the revered rector of the Sofia Church, priest Vitaly Kalashnikov:
“Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova, my mother’s aunt, worked in Kuibyshev as an emergency doctor in 1956. That day in the morning she came to our home and said: “You are sleeping here, but the city has been on its feet for a long time!” And told about the petrified to the girl. And she also admitted (although she gave a subscription) that she was now in that house on a call. She saw the frozen icon of St. Nicholas in her hands. She tried to give an injection to the unfortunate woman, but the needles were bent, breaking, and therefore to give an injection. It didn’t work. Everyone was shocked by her story. Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova worked as an ambulance doctor for many more years. She died in 1996. Many of those she was with on that very first day are still alive. New Year told me about what happened."***.

Valentina Nikolaevna M. (Belgorod) recalls: “I came to Father Seraphim. I stopped to spend the night in Maria Romanovna’s house, where many visitors had gathered. It was cramped to sleep, the room was stuffy. Two young men got up and went out into the courtyard for fresh air, followed by me. We started talking. It turned out that they were from Kuibyshev and were studying at the theological seminary. I began to ask them about “Zoya’s Standing.” When this happened, they were children and it was this miracle that led them to faith in God. Now they come to Father Seraphim, becoming his spiritual children. They claimed that it was Father Seraphim who took the icon from Zoya’s hands.

After the service, the head of the church, Mother Ekaterina Lucina (vested nun Seraphim), asks: “Have you venerated the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas?” I answer her: “Yes.” She doesn’t lag behind: “Which one?” I point to the large icon of St. Nicholas - against the wall. She says: “You need to venerate the one on the lectern. Our priest took it from Zoya. Just don’t tell anyone, otherwise we were forbidden to talk about it. Father could be arrested again.”

The elder’s spiritual children testified that a believing woman came from Kuibyshev and, seeing Father Seraphim, recognized him as the priest who took the icon of St. Nicholas from Zoya’s hands. And, apparently, it is no coincidence, with the blessing of Father Seraphim, in the Rakitno **** church, near the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and at the Crucifixion of the Savior (at Golgotha), unquenchable lamps have been burning for thirty-five years now.

Elizaveta Konstantinovna Fofanova, the elder’s spiritual daughter, once asked Father Seraphim: “Father, did you take the icon from Zoya?” He answered her: “Why do you need to know this? Don’t ask me about it anymore.”

A close spiritual daughter asked Father Seraphim: “Father, were you in Kuibyshev and took the icon from Zoya’s hands, performing a miracle?” The elder replied: “My child, God works miracles, but we, unworthy, receive them through our prayers.”

From the memoirs of Alexandra Ivanovna A.: “On the fifth week of Lent in 1982, I arrived in Rakitnoye. I dared to ask: “Father, where is the icon of St. Nicholas that you took from Zoya?” He looked at me sternly. There was silence. Why I remembered exactly the icon? My relatives lived in Kuibyshev - on the same street as Zoya. When all this happened, I was fourteen years old. To prevent people from gathering near the house, in the evenings Zoya’s screams horrified everyone. The young policeman standing at the post turned gray from all this. My relatives, being eyewitnesses of what was happening, became believers and began to visit the temple of “Zoya’s standing” and everything that happened to her was deeply imprinted in my consciousness.

This is what Claudia Georgievna Petrunenkova from St. Petersburg, the spiritual daughter of Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich), said.

“When Zoya’s Standing happened, I asked Vladyka if he was in Kuibyshev and if he saw Zoya. Vladyka replied: “I was there, prayed, but did not take the icon from Zoya - it was not the time yet. And Father Seraphim (then Father Dimitri) took the icon.”

Shortly before the death of Father Seraphim, I was in Rakitnoye. In the church, on a high place, to the right of the throne, I saw an icon of St. Nicholas in a frame. During a conversation with Father Seraphim in his cell, I asked: “Father, do you have an icon of St. Nicholas in your altar - the one that Zoya had?” “Yes,” he replied. We didn't talk about Zoya anymore."

Archpriest Andrei Andreevich Savin, who was at that time secretary of the Samara diocesan administration, tells about the Kuibyshev events: “It happened under Bishop Jerome. In the morning I saw a group of people standing near that house. And by the evening the crowd reached a thousand people. Patrols were set up. But at first they did not bother people - apparently, the first confusion was telling. It was only later that they began to disperse everyone. The usual pretext was: “You are disturbing the peace of the residents, the movement of vehicles.” But the crowd still grew by leaps and bounds. Many came even from the surrounding villages.

House 86 on Chkalovskaya Street in Samara, where in 1956 the petrified Zoya stood with the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

Those days were very tense. The people, naturally, expected explanations from us, but not a single priest came close to that house. They were afraid. Then we all walked on a “thin perch.” The priests were “registered” - they were approved and removed by the Commissioner for Religious Affairs - from the executive committee. At any moment, everyone could be left without work and livelihood. And here is such a great opportunity to settle scores with us!

Soon there were whispers among the believers that Zoya had been forgiven and would be resurrected on the day of Holy Easter. People waited and hoped. And detachments of Komsomol members were already walking around the city with might and main. They “exposed” Boyko, claiming that they had been in the house and had not seen anything. This all only added fuel to the fire, so that those who really did not believe in the miracle finally doubted: “Probably, the popular rumor is still right, although not in everything; and something did happen in the house on Chkalovskaya Street amazing - I have no doubt! "*****

Archbishop of Samara and Syzran Eusebius, as it were, sums up various judgments about what happened: “Many people were witnesses to this miracle. I learned about this in 1957 while studying at the seminary. There was no doubt: this is the greatest miracle! At a time when faith was subjected to persecution and reproach from godless rulers, this case of a miraculous manifestation of the power of God became a sensation and not only for the residents of Samara.

The miracle with Zoya became a lesson for many. After all, one must treat the shrine with reverence. This is a lesson for the atheists too: you may not believe, but do not touch the shrine, otherwise punishment will follow! If the unbelieving Zoya had not touched the holy icon, nothing would have happened.

Many similar miracles were performed: when the wicked touched the shrine, they were amazed. Afphonius in Jerusalem, during the burial of the Mother of God, wanted to overturn Her coffin, and in front of everyone, the Angel of the Lord cut off his hands. There are cases when a person threw a bell to the ground and flew down along with the bell.

Yes, in those days people had a great need for a miracle. But miracles appear when they are needed for the people, when the Lord determines"******.

After the icon was taken from Zoya, Father Dimitry (Tyapochkin) was slandered and a new case was fabricated against him, and Vladyka Jerome was released from the administration of the Kuibyshev diocese. This is what Abbot Herman, a resident of Optina Pustyn, said in 1989 (in the 50s he served in cathedral Kuibyshev). “What I haven’t seen, I won’t talk about, but what I know, I’ll say. The street was cordoned off, a non-disclosure agreement was taken. The rector of the cathedral was called by a commissioner and asked to announce from the pulpit on the coming Sunday that there was no miracle.

Father Superior replied: “Let me go and have a look and tell people what I saw.” The representative thought for a minute and promised to call back soon. The call came again an hour later and Fr. the abbot was told that there was no need to announce anything.
Since there was a lot of talk among the people, even local Soviet newspapers could not ignore this miracle and tried to expose it as a “deception of the priests.”
Soon after this incident, Fr. Seraphim was given three years."

He was forbidden to talk about the taking of the icon from Zoya and, after serving his sentence, he was sent to serve in a remote village of the Dnepropetrovsk diocese, and then transferred to the village of Mikhailovskoye.

Based on materials from the book
"Elder of Belgorod
Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin)",
(St. Trinity Lavra of Sergius, 1998)

* According to other sources, another clergyman took the icon from Zoya’s hands.
** Great day (Ukrainian) – Easter.
*** Komsomolskaya Pravda. 1997. September 12.
**** In the St. Nicholas Church. Father Seraphim served in Rakitnoye, Belgorod region, from 1961 until the end of his life.
***** Volzhsky Komsomol member. 1990. September 2.
****** Blagovest. Samara Christian newspaper. 1992. No. 1. P.7; No. 3. S.5.

For the first time, the story about “Zoya’s standing” was published in Vladimir Gubanov’s book “ Orthodox miracles in the 20th century", Moscow, "Trim", 1993

Documentary film "Zoya's Standing"
Part 1:

Additionally:
Photos of a unique artifact. Sheets 1956 with notes made by some unknown person at the same time about “the miracle of Zoya standing in Kuibyshev in 1956 with the icon of St. Nicholas the Pleasant in her hands.” Currently stored in the church-archaeological office of the Tula Theological Seminary.

TV show “Dark Matter” with Veniamin Smekhov.
Investigation “Stone Zoya: truth or myth?”
Part 1:

In Samara, in a small cozy church in the name of John the Warrior, a large hagiographic icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker appeared. This icon is unusual. Along its edges there are stamps telling about the miracles of the Saint. The entire bottom row is dedicated to a miracle known in Orthodox world like “Zoya’s Standing”, which took place in Kuibyshev (Samara) in 1956. People come from afar to look at this icon and venerate it. There is no such icon anywhere else. This icon encourages repentance.

Icon of St. Nicholas with stamps (additional images),
talking about "Zoya's Standing"

Brands:

Zoya removes the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from the wall and begins to dance with him.

Zoya grows to the floor and turns to stone.

Comrades call the police and ambulance,
but doctors cannot help.

Hieromonk Seraphim, who was allowed into the house, serves a water-blessing prayer service,
removes the icon from the girl’s hands and returns it to its place.

Zoya experiences terrible torment, repents and comes to faith.

Nicholas the Wonderworker himself appears to Zoya and frees her.

Film "Miracle" (2009)

Website banner: ALL ABOUT NICHOLAS THE WONDERWORKER

This extraordinary and mysterious event allegedly occurred on December 31, 1956 in house 84 on Chkalova Street. An ordinary woman, Claudia Bolonkina, lived in it, whose son decided to invite him to New Year's Eve your friends. Among the invitees was a girl, Zoya, with whom Nikolai had recently begun dating.

All the friends were with their gentlemen, but Zoya was still sitting alone, Kolya was delayed. When the dancing began, she said: “If my Nikolai is not there, I will dance with Nikola the Pleasant!” And she headed to the corner where the icons hung. The friends were horrified: “Zoe, this is a sin,” but she said: “If there is a God, let him punish me!” She took the icon and pressed it to her chest. She entered the circle of dancers and suddenly froze, as if she had grown into the floor. It was impossible to move it from its place, and the icon could not be taken out of hand - it seemed to be stuck tightly.

External signs The girl showed no sign of life. But a subtle knocking sound was heard in the area of ​​the heart.

The ambulance doctor Anna tried to revive Zoya. Sibling Anna, Nina Pavlovna Kalashnikova, is still alive, I managed to talk to her.

“She ran home excited. And although the police made her sign a non-disclosure agreement, she told everything. And how she tried to give the girl injections, but it turned out to be impossible. Zoya’s body was so hard that the syringe needles did not fit into it, they broke...

Samara law enforcement agencies immediately became aware of the incident. Since it was related to religion, the case was given emergency status, and a police squad was sent to the house to prevent onlookers from entering. There was nothing to worry about. By the third day of Zoya's stay, all the streets near the house were crowded with thousands of people. The girl was nicknamed “Stone Zoya”.

They still had to invite clergymen into the house of the “stone Zoya,” because the police were afraid to approach her holding the icon. But none of the priests managed to change anything until Hieromonk Seraphim (Poloz) came. They say that he was so bright-hearted and kind that he even had the gift of prediction. He was able to take the icon from Zoya’s frozen hands, after which he predicted that her “standing” would end on Easter Day. And so it happened. They say that Poloz was then asked by the authorities to recant his involvement in Zoya’s case, but he rejected the offer. Then they fabricated an article about sodomy and sent him to serve his sentence. After his release he did not return to Samara...

Zoya's body came to life, but her mind was no longer the same. In the first days she kept shouting: “The earth is perishing in sins! Pray, believe!” From a scientific and medical point of view, it is difficult to imagine how the body of a young girl could last 128 days without food and water. The capital's scientists, who came to Samara at that time for such a supernatural case, were unable to determine the “diagnosis,” which was initially mistaken for some kind of tetanus.

After the incident with Zoya, as her contemporaries testify, people flocked en masse to churches and temples. People bought crosses, candles, icons. Those who were not baptized were baptized...

But what really happened?

Despite the fact that decades have passed since the events described, there are still stories about the miracle of the “petrified girl Zoya”, in which reality is fancifully mixed with fables. But based on the materials collected as a result of the journalistic investigation conducted by the author, it can now be argued that in fact there was simply no so-called “miracle of stone Zoya” in January 1956 in Kuibyshev. But what happened here then? What real facts are there in the story of “Petrified Zoe”?

First fact. No one has ever disputed that in the period from January 14 to January 20, 1956 in the city of Kuibyshev, near house No. 84 on Chkalovskaya Street, an unprecedented crowd of people was actually observed (estimated from several thousand to several tens of thousands of people). All of them were attracted here by oral messages (rumors) that in the indicated house there supposedly stood a certain petrified girl who committed blasphemy by dancing with an icon in her hands. At the same time, the name Zoya was not mentioned by anyone during these events, but it appeared in relation to this story decades later. The main character's surname Karnukhov appeared only in the 90s.

As for the reasons for this pandemonium, then, according to experts, a rare, but actually and repeatedly described in the literature, socio-psychological phenomenon called “mass psychosis” occurred here. This is the name for the phenomenon when, under favorable social conditions, a careless phrase or even one word thrown into a crowd can provoke mass unrest, riots and even hallucinations. In this case, fertile ground for such psychosis was the political situation in the country that developed during the “Khrushchev Thaw” and the debunking of Stalin’s personality cult, when people felt real relaxations on the part of the state in relation to believers.

Second fact. The Samara Regional State Archive of Social and Political History (former archive of the regional committee of the CPSU) contains an unedited transcript of the 13th Kuibyshev Regional Party Conference, which took place on January 20, 1956. Here you can read how the then first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU, Mikhail Timofeevich Efremov, spoke about the “miracle”:

“In the city of Kuibyshev, rumors are widespread about an alleged miracle that occurred on Chkalovskaya Street. There were about twenty notes about this. Yes, such a miracle happened - shameful for us, communists, leaders of party bodies. Some old woman walked and said: young people were dancing in this house, and one woman began to dance with the icon and turned to stone. After that they began to say: she became petrified, numb, and so on, people began to gather because the leaders of the police authorities acted foolishly. Apparently, someone else had a hand here. A police post was immediately set up, and where the police are, there are eyes. It turned out that our police were not enough, since the people kept arriving, they sent out mounted police, and the people, if so, all went there. Some even went so far as to propose sending priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. The regional committee bureau consulted and gave instructions to remove all orders and posts, remove the guards, there is nothing to guard there. As soon as the orders and posts were removed, the people began to disperse, and now, as they reported to me, there is almost no one there. The police acted incorrectly and began to attract attention. But essentially this is pure stupidity, there were no dances, no parties in this house, an old woman lives there. Unfortunately, our police did not work here and did not find out who spread these rumors. The bureau of the regional committee recommended that this issue be considered at the bureau of the city committee, and the culprits be severely punished, and Comrade Strakhov [editor of the newspaper of the regional committee of the CPSU “Volzhskaya Kommuna” - V.E.] give explanatory material to the newspaper “Volzhskaya Kommuna” in the form of a feuilleton.”

Such an article under the heading “Wild Case” was actually published in the “Volzhskaya Kommuna” on January 24, 1956

As for the search and punishment of those responsible for this “wild incident,” they were found at the same party conference in the person of the secretaries for ideology of the regional and city committees of the CPSU. Here's what's written about it in the uncorrected transcript:

“Today Comrade Efremov told about the miracle. This is a shame for the regional party conference. Culprit No. 1 is Comrade. Derevnin [third secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee of the CPSU for ideology - V.E.], culprit No. 2 comrade. Chernykh [third secretary of the Kuibyshev city committee of the CPSU for ideology - V.E.], they did not comply with the decision of the party Central Committee on anti-religious work. After all, even in the report of the regional party committee, not a word is said about what work the regional party committee did to implement this remarkable decision of the party Central Committee. I think that Comrade Derevnin should have freed himself from many unnecessary burdens and dealt only with ideological work; ideological work only suffers. I do not reject his candidacy, but I want the third secretary to be truly engaged in ideological work, to be decisive and courageous in any issues, so that we, workers on the ideological front, do not suffer from this.”

In the end, it all ended with Comrade Derevnin being only slightly scolded at the party conference for omissions in anti-religious work - and left in his previous position, and in his response he vowed to make up for lost time.

From other sources:

Data given in the newspapers “Moskovsky Komsomolets” and “Komsomolskaya Pravda” indicate that Zoya’s story is probably a fiction of a certain Claudia Bolonkina. The first secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee of the CPSU in 1952-1959, Mikhail Efremov, tells the following about the event:

Some old woman walked and said: young people were dancing in this house - and one woman started dancing with an icon and became petrified, stiff... And off it went, people began to gather... A police post was immediately set up. Where the police are, there are eyes. They sent out mounted police, and the people, if so, all went there. They wanted to send priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. But the regional committee bureau consulted and decided to remove all the posts; there was nothing to guard there. It was stupid: there were no dances there, an old woman lives there.

House No. 84 belonged to Claudia Bolonkina, and the names of Zoya Karnaukhova and monk Seraphim were not found in the archives. According to eyewitnesses, dancing with the icon actually took place, and a passing nun said: “For such a sin, you will turn into a pillar of salt!”, and Claudia began to spread rumors that this was what happened.

The name Zoya Karnaukhova was given by a woman who believed in the legend so fanatically that she identified herself with the petrified girl. Gradually, her acquaintances began to call her “stone Zoya”, and the name became part of the legend...

Almost three decades have passed since that time, and Gorbachev’s perestroika began in the country. It was then that many “secondary” witnesses appeared around the “miracle of petrified Zoya,” that is, people who themselves were not present at the events of 1956, but heard a lot about them that never actually happened, and still have nothing to do with it. confirmed. It is their fantasies that the “yellow press” now mainly publishes, although these speculations have nothing in common with real events.

But why the crowd described above appeared at house number 84 on Chkalovskaya Street, no one could say for sure in 1956, just as no one can say now. Therefore, the most plausible in this case The above version of mass psychosis looks like, which provoked a crowd of people into mass unrest, riots and even hallucinations.

Undoubted fiction in this story includes, for example, stories constantly found in the media about ambulance doctors who allegedly tried to revive Zoya on the spot or give her injections, as well as about police officers who allegedly visited the legendary room and were instantly shocked by what they saw. graying. In the same row are the legends about a certain holy elder, who in those days seemed to come to Kuibyshev from a distant monastery and somehow communicated with the “petrified youth.” In reality there are no real evidence existence of all the people listed above, but there is only common gossip.

At the same time, it is very sad that interest in the events in Kuibyshev many years ago, before, and now, was and is shown by anyone, but not official science. It is possible that if the phenomenon of rumors about Zoya had been studied by scientists, then now there would not be so many fabrications and outright falsifications surrounding it.

It is impossible not to mention that in 2009 the film “Miracle” was shot by director Alexander Proshkin

where the author used the plot of this Kuibyshev urban legend. The film takes place in the fictional city of Grechansk, and certain mythical personalities appear in it, among which we must include the then leader of our country, Nikita Khrushchev. The character named by this name also never existed in reality, since the real Khrushchev did not come to Kuibyshev during the events described above, and, accordingly, could not see the “stone girl,” and even more so could not behave boorishly in relations with subordinates, which is also shown in Proshkin’s work.

But, however, despite all the absurdities listed above, at the very end of this fantastic film the credits float across the screen, from which it follows that the film was based on real events that occurred in 1956 in the city of Kuibyshev. It looks about the same as if the authors of the famous film fairy tale “Kashchei the Immortal” wrote in the credits that the film was based on the events that happened in Rus' in 1237. If this had happened then, the director of “Kashchei the Immortal” Alexander Rowe would simply have been laughed at

But today’s viewers take Proshkin’s film very seriously, and many even consider it almost a documentary source on Soviet history. It’s sad that in this way our master of cinematography had a hand in promoting outright obscurantism.

And in 2010, local authorities announced that another memorial sign should appear in the city - this time not historical figure, and the heroine of one of the urban legends - “stone Zoya”.

Whether he appeared or not, I don’t know, let the locals know!

sources

Among the many church myths and legends that actually happened in real life, a story called “Petrified Zoya” stands out as particularly terrifying. Believers consider the incident from Kuibyshev (now the Russian city of Samara) in 1956 to be real, but skeptics note many factors indicating the unreality of the event.

History in several versions

So let's consider different versions Samara phenomenon and let's try to answer the question for ourselves: stone Zoya - truth or myth? The most common versions are:

• Zoya was dumbfounded at home;
• the dancer turned into stone while visiting;
• the standing image of a maiden is an old woman’s invention.

Legends of old-timers and churchmen say that on December 31st a certain resident of a Soviet city Kuibysheva gathered to celebrate the arrival of the New Year 1956 with friends. Being a Komsomol member, she did not particularly listen to the instructions of her believing mother that during the days of Lent there should be no fun and dancing. The girl called her friends and waited for the arrival of her boyfriend Nikolai, whom she had met the other day.

Time passed, the hands were inexorably approaching the 12 mark on the clock, but there was still no sign of Zoya’s admirer, while all the friends came with their boyfriends. The young Komsomol member felt offended as a woman, and she decided to express her act of protest in front of God's will and, grabbing icon of St. Nicholas the Pleasant, who was standing among others on the iconostasis, began to dance with her.

Friends were frightened by such an unexpected decision of the girl and tried to stop her, but Zoya seemed to dark forces moved in, and she continued to spin in a strange dance. “My Nicholas is gone, I’ll dance with Nicholas the Wonderworker,” she said cheerfully with a hysterical laugh. Also a young Komsomol member doubted the existence of God and added that “if he exists, then let him punish her.”

We didn’t have to wait long for retribution for the great church sin; at exactly 12 o’clock at night lightning struck the girl from the ceiling and she froze. The petrified girl with the icon of the saint caused panic among the merry youth, especially since what happened was unexpected and lightning fast. The friends of the girl who was dancing with the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker tried to somehow revive her and take the holy image out of her hands, but all in vain.

There are even authentic proofs of Zoya's standing photographs from 1956. The young Komsomol member looks like a statue, tightly pressing the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker to her motionless chest. Eyewitnesses of the petrification noted that the girl’s heart was barely audible. The ambulance crew and police who were called also could not help the unfortunate woman. Zoya was not given any medical needles, and some law enforcement officers were simply afraid to approach her.

They tried to bring the frozen image back to life using the following methods:

• they tried to pierce with syringes;
• move by force;
• persuasion and prayerful reprimand.

The rumor about the standing Kuibyshev woman spread throughout the city with lightning speed, and this brought many onlookers and other curious people to the place. To avoid religious hysteria or other manifestations of vandalism, house No. 84 on Chkalov Street was cordoned off by the police, and a squad of guards stood there for several days.

The mother, who had not left the house since the incident, told the priests that her daughter seemed to wake up at night and utter incomprehensible phrases. Sometimes the woman, desperate to see Zoya alive, could discern the clear requests of the stone maiden that everyone should pray for the sins of humanity.

Having heard the story about his fellow countrywoman, Hieromonk Seraphim volunteered to help her. The priest persuaded the law enforcement officers to let him through to the frozen woman. Finding himself in the room where the careless Zoya seemed to freeze forever, the holy father calmly took the icon from her hands and predicted that the Komsomol member will come to his senses on Easter.

And so it happened, the maiden, who had turned to stone, came to her senses and began to show signs of life 128 days after her petrification. Since Zoya stood for more than four months, her body was exhausted, and she died 3 days later.

Zoino standing - version two

There is another version according to which a similar rumor about a petrified girl began. It was also New Year's Eve. In the house at the above address, young people were having fun, a nun passed by the window and, seeing what was happening, said that for such a sin, the joyful girls should turn into “pillars of salt,” as in one of the biblical legends. These words were heard by an old woman who happened to be nearby, and after a while rumors of a great miracle spread throughout the city.

Another variation on the theme “Zoykino’s Standing” says that in house number 84 on Chkalova Street lived a certain Claudia Bolonkina with her son, who threw a party in honor of the New Year. Among the invited friends was Zoya, who a few days earlier had started dating a guy named Nikolai. Further, this version repeats the already existing generally accepted variation of events.

Third or official version

During a journalistic investigation, officials confirmed the fact that a single woman named Claudia Bolonkina actually lived at 84 Chkalova Street. There is information about Zoya Karnaukhova, who worked at a local factory, however, the fact that she ever visited the address mentioned in the story remains an unconfirmed fact. It is also interesting that the wooden building where Zoya Karnaukhova supposedly stood, where there is now a vacant lot, was destroyed by fire. Fate owner of house No. 84 no one knows for certain.

The former first secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee of the CPSU, Mikhail Efremov, who had to “disentangle” the current situation, confirmed the fact that the house on Chkalov Street had been cordoned off. In office from 1952 to 1959, a communist by conviction, the man suggested that the residents of the city back in 1956 became victims of a strange mass psychosis, which is a direct disgrace for the communist committee.

In order to calm the public and besiege the feelings of believers, the Volzhskaya Kommuna newspaper published a feuilleton entitled “Wild Case” on January 24. It spoke about the event in an ironic manner and emphasized that it was truly fiction. During this period, local authorities tried as best they could to hush up the situation about the petrification of the Komsomol member.

History is not forgotten

Don't forget about this incident in modern cinema. At the beginning of the 21st century, namely in 2000, the Terra shopping and entertainment company made a short documentary film “Zoya’s Standing”. The director of the film was Dmitry Oderusov, who noted that such religious themes are very popular in modern world movie.

Nine years later, the feature film “Miracle” by director Alexander Proshin was released, in which modern popular actors from the post-Soviet space were noted. In 2015, a film called “Zoya” was released, based on the play by Alexander Ignashev. Female director Alla Korovkina worked on the film, and the viewer saw the story of many years ago from a different angle.

In September 2017, the popular show “Actually” discussed the phenomenon of Zoya Karnaukhova. An entire issue was dedicated to this issue. Some participants in the program say that this is truly a miracle, while others, as is usual in such cases, are confident that what happened in the city of Samara is unreal.

In the world of writers, many writers are interested in the topic of a petrified man, whose biography is completely unknown. Most of all, believers are puzzled by this case, which is why 3 years ago a book by Archpriest Nikolai Agafonov was published by the publishing house of one of the monasteries in Moscow. The work, under the laconic title “Standing,” according to the author, is based on actual facts that the holy father collected over many months.

The mysterious story of Zoya has not been forgotten by the church, and new believers constantly come to the scene of the incident, who themselves want to see the place where the wrath of the Lord manifested itself. In 2012, a statue of St. Nicholas the Pleasant was installed in the former front garden of house No. 84, which the clergy consecrated some time later. The ill-fated house was destroyed by an unexpected fire 2 years after the installation of the monument to the iconized saint.

No matter what anyone says about this not entirely clear story of 1956, the fact remains a fact. It is known that there is no smoke without fire, which means that something really happened in the city of Kuibyshev.

Petrified Zoe

60 years ago one of the most mystical events in the history of the USSR took place. On the outskirts of closed Kuibyshev, a young girl Zoya was petrified with an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in her hands. Zoya's arrest became an all-Union scandal: crowds of people were dispersed from Zoya's house by mounted police, party officials did everything to hide this mysterious incident.

“The whole city is buzzing like a beehive! You are sitting here, and there... The girl froze with the icon in her hands, rooted to the spot! They say God punished her!” - Doctor Anna was choking with excitement.

There are eyewitness accounts of those days and documents from party meetings that the girl was petrified.

This extraordinary and mysterious event occurred on December 31, 1956 at 84 Chkalova Street. An ordinary woman, Claudia Bolonkina, lived in it, whose son decided to invite his friends on New Year’s Eve. Among the invitees was a girl, Zoya, with whom Nikolai had recently begun dating.

All the friends were with their gentlemen, but Zoya was still sitting alone, Kolya was delayed. When the dancing began, she said: “If my Nikolai is not there, I will dance with Nikola the Pleasant!” And she headed to the corner where the icons hung. The friends were horrified: “Zoe, this is a sin,” but she said: “If there is a God, let him punish me!” She took the icon and pressed it to her chest. She entered the circle of dancers and suddenly froze, as if she had grown into the floor. It was impossible to move it from its place, and the icon could not be taken out of hand - it seemed to be stuck tightly. The girl showed no external signs of life. But a subtle knocking sound was heard in the area of ​​the heart.

The ambulance doctor Anna tried to revive Zoya. Anna’s own sister, Nina Pavlovna Kalashnikova, is still alive, I managed to talk to her.

She ran home excited. And although the police made her sign a non-disclosure agreement, she told everything. And how she tried to give the girl injections, but it turned out to be impossible. Zoya’s body was so hard that the syringe needles did not fit into it, they broke...

Samara law enforcement agencies immediately became aware of the incident. Since it was related to religion, the case was given emergency status, and a police squad was sent to the house to prevent onlookers from entering. There was nothing to worry about. By the third day of Zoya's stay, all the streets near the house were crowded with thousands of people. The girl was nicknamed “Stone Zoya”.

They still had to invite clergymen into the house of the “stone Zoya,” because the police were afraid to approach her holding the icon. But none of the priests managed to change anything until Hieromonk Seraphim (Poloz) came. They say that he was so bright-hearted and kind that he even had the gift of prediction. He was able to take the icon from Zoya’s frozen hands, after which he predicted that her “standing” would end on Easter Day. And so it happened. They say that Poloz was then asked by the authorities to recant his involvement in Zoya’s case, but he rejected the offer. Then they fabricated an article about sodomy and sent him to serve his sentence. After his release he did not return to Samara...

Zoya's body came to life, but her mind was no longer the same. In the first days she kept shouting: “The earth is perishing in sins! Pray, believe!” From a scientific and medical point of view, it is difficult to imagine how the body of a young girl could last 128 days without food and water. The capital's scientists, who came to Samara at that time for such a supernatural case, were unable to determine the “diagnosis,” which was initially mistaken for some kind of tetanus.

After the incident with Zoya, as her contemporaries testify, people flocked en masse to churches and temples. People bought crosses, candles, icons. Those who were not baptized were baptized... But it is known: from fear, a change in consciousness and heart occurs in exceptional cases. As a rule, a person becomes “good” only for a while. In order to deeply feel the essence of everything spiritual and real, to open the heart to goodness and love, the work of the soul is required. And religious, like any external attributes, have nothing to do with it.

Therefore, whether we are talking about Zoya or about some other character to whom something out of the ordinary happened, the following question arises: why do we need dramas, tragedies in order to gain faith, pay attention to ourselves, our actions, our own lives? or miracles and mysticism? Until the thunder strikes, the man will not cross himself?

In 1956, the legend of the “petrified Zoya”, allegedly punished by God for sacrilegious dancing with the icon of St. Nicholas, spread throughout the USSR. In a strange way, this story coincided with the scandal there - in Kuibyshev, when the homosexual abuse of Hieromonk Seraphim against novices was revealed.

On a cold winter morning in January 1956, when Klavdia Ivanovna Bolonkina was clearing snow from her house on Chkalovskaya Street, in Kuibyshev, she was approached by elderly woman: “What street is this? What about the house? Who is the owner of the fifth apartment? When it turned out that Claudia Ivanovna herself lived in the apartment, the old woman began to hurry her: “Well, then, daughter, let’s go quickly, show her, the unfortunate thing. Oh, what a sin!.. Oh, what a punishment!”

From the words of the old woman, Klavdia Ivanovna understood that there was supposedly a petrified young woman in her apartment. As it turned out, the old woman was told a story about a certain girl who did not get a dance partner at a party. Getting angry, she took the icon of St. Nicholas from the wall and began to spin with it to the beat of the music. Suddenly lightning flashed, thunder roared, and the girl was enveloped in smoke. When it dissipated, everyone saw that the blasphemer froze with the icon in her hands.
This is exactly how the conversation that allegedly took place on January 18, 1956 on Chkalovskaya Street was described a few days later in the Volzhskaya Kommuna newspaper. The publication tried to dispel rumors about the “petrified girl.” The toothless old woman, who was probably the first visitor to the mystical apartment, was followed by many people who wanted to see the miracle with their own eyes.

As the number of curious people grew, so did the number of versions of the story. Some dated the incident New Year's Eve; others said that all attempts to take the icon from the girl’s hands - or even knock it out with an ax - remained fruitless. Still others suggested sprinkling the frozen stone with holy water or contacting a doctor. In the following days, the crowd in front of the house grew to several hundred people. The news about the unhealthy interest of Soviet citizens soon reached even the Central Committee of the CPSU. In Kuibyshev, near that same house on Chkalovskaya Street, barriers of foot and mounted police were set up.
Police checkpoints only fueled the excitement. The news of God's instant punishment for sacrilege spread widely in church circles in the region and throughout the country, taking on the character of a legend. Today, thanks to the media, the legend about the initially nameless heroine is known as “Zoya’s Stand” - a feature film was even made based on it. Why was this rumor (or, from the point of view of the believing population, news of divine intervention) able to gain such momentum?

Why did it arise precisely in the second half of the 1950s and why is it still remembered in Samara, which has returned its name. Until now, despite the widespread dissemination of the legend, although it is mentioned in some scientific works, but the mechanisms of its occurrence (and its functions) have never been studied.

The Commissioner of the Central Committee for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church noted then that the “news of the miracle” in Kuibyshev was especially addressed to young people, urging them to respect the authority of the church, observe fasts and holidays - it was for this purpose that the legend was retold by older parishioners. During a trip to the Borsky district (120 kilometers from Kuibyshev), he recorded the following statements by collective farmers: “We don’t know exactly what happened there on Chkalovskaya Street, but we talk about it now, we support faith in this miracle and intimidate young people with this, so that they don’t hooligan, go to dances less, and go to church more.”.

Indeed, many villagers made the following conclusions during the Easter days of 1956: "On holidays and Holy Week this year there were no songs or harmonicas heard, more people began to go to church and to receive communion they walked from afar. Even the cinema was canceled during Holy Week.”

In other areas and big cities In the Kuibyshev region, the number of people attending services during Lent and on Easter holidays also increased significantly.
Later, the events in Kuibyshev were mentioned in the journal Science and Religion, founded in 1959. Such facts not only show how widespread this legend was - throughout the USSR - they also give an idea of ​​how many new versions of the legend about what happened on Chkalovskaya Street had arisen by that time. If at first the topic of conversation was only that the girl was petrified, then later questions about how long the “standing” lasted and how it ended came to the fore.

Back in June 1956, the commissioner for the Kuibyshev region wrote that “ and now there is still talk that it is worth it". An angry letter from a party member to the journal Science and Religion, published four years later, contains a new version of the story, according to which the frozen girl “I was in this state for several months, then suddenly came to life, left the Komsomol and became religious”. Two years later, in 1962, the author of a report on the poor state of anti-religious work in the Kuibyshev region reported that now the rumors about the frozen girl had this ending: “Only when the priest served a prayer service in front of the statue and sprinkled it with “holy water” did the petrified one come to life.”.
Andrei Sinyavsky, in his reflections on Russian folk piety written in emigration, recalls another version that he heard in his youth and delighted him; According to this version, Nikolai Ugodnik himself took the icon from the girl’s hands and thereby freed her. As Sinyavsky writes, the KGB and party bodies tried to stop the spread of rumors. It is curious that in all versions of the legend - both with the participation of Nikolai Ugodnik and without his intervention - the girl is eventually taken away by the “organs”.

This specific perspective, centered on the power and impotence of the Soviet authorities, clearly shows that the “story about Zoya” was convenient for different parties. Everyone who retold the legend could place emphasis in their own way. It was the opportunity to continue the story - and see it to a happy ending - that made it attractive in subsequent decades.
Rumors about the “petrified girl” not only reflected a change in the mood of believers after Stalin’s death. They strangely fit into the situation of a local church crisis that broke out in a number of cities a few weeks before the events described. Not only rumors about a miracle on Chkalovskaya Street reached the Moscow Patriarchate from the Kuibyshev diocese: in February 1956, the patriarch and members Holy Synod We got acquainted with a letter from a Kuibyshev priest, which spoke about the sexual harassment of a hieromonk against a candidate for a theological seminary, as well as the attempts of the Kuibyshev bishop to hush up this matter.

Three things stand out. Firstly, although these events, at first glance, are not connected with the story on Chkalovskaya Street, the timing coincidence is surprising: the mother of the injured seminarian immediately made public what happened - in early December 1955, a few weeks before the wave of rumors and pandemonium on Chkalovskaya Street.

Secondly, at the center of both stories are young people, but already quite mature by the standards of that time: in the story with the “petrified” woman, a factory worker of about eighteen years old, in the second story, a 17-year-old boy, who, however, unlike “Zoe” ", regularly attended church and thought about studying at a theological seminary. To prepare for his studies at the seminary, he turned to the hieromonk, the rector of his parish, who began to harass him.
Thirdly, the victim’s mother made sure that both the fact of harassment and the attempts of Hieromonk Seraphim (Poloz) to buy the victim’s silence became public knowledge. The mother not only addressed complaints to other priests, but, apparently, also to the police, since already in December 1955 a criminal case was opened against Poloz, in which priests from a number of Kuibyshev parishes testified. In church circles and among parishioners, the behavior of the bishop, who promoted the accused to church office, and the priests who testified were fired or transferred to another place.

As a result, pressure on Bishop Jerome (Zakharov) increased, and he was forced to leave the diocese at the end of May 1956. Hieromonk Seraphim (Poloz) was sentenced for “forcible sodomy” (Article 154a of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR) to 2 years in prison.

Despite his conviction (and even under such an article), Hieromonk Seraphim in March 1964 was appointed the second priest of the Holy Kazan Church, and two years later he became its rector with the rank of abbot, and served here for about 10 years. In 1976 he was transferred to the Chernigov diocese. He died in Chernigov in 1987.

This whole story puts the “wonderful” story about “Zoe” in a slightly different light. In the legend of the "standing" one can easily detect traces of the homosexual abuse scandal: both stories deal with sacrilege and (sexually connotated) sin, although with a characteristic reversal of the characters.
While the young man was the victim of the priest's harassment, in the story of "Zoe" the young woman plays the role of a sinner who, as it were, harassed (through the icon) the saint. Traditional performances the woman as a temptress and the purity of the priest are thus restored.

(On the porch of the Holy Kazan Church (Komi Republic, Syktyvkar). On the left, with a pectoral cross, is Abbot Seraphim (Poloz); on the right, with a staff, is Bishop Nikon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory (Fomichev). Late 1960s)

The emergence of this story is a true miracle for the discredited local Orthodox clergy, since the churches of Kuibyshev were not empty after the molestation scandal, as might have been expected. The spread of rumors about the petrified girl, on the contrary, led to an increase in the number of people coming to the temples.

There is a suspicion that the legend of the “petrified Zoya” was invented at the top of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to level out the homosexual scandal in the same diocese - in Kuibyshev. But the archives of both the Russian Orthodox Church itself and the KGB, which oversaw it, are still closed, and therefore these suspicions also remain a legend.

Ulrike Huhn "Sodom and Gomorrah in Kuibyshev: transformation of the Orthodox legend",