190 years ago, on the night of October 14-15, according to the new style, in Moscow, in a now non-existent house, somewhere near the current three train stations, the Komsomolskaya metro station and the Stalinist high-rise Ministry of Railways, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born. By whom...

190 years ago, on the night of October 14-15, according to the new style, in Moscow, in a now non-existent house, somewhere near the current three train stations, the Komsomolskaya metro station and the Stalinist high-rise Ministry of Railways, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born.

Who was this man in relation to the Grigory Pechorin he invented? Mirror image? Antipode? Perceptive critics of the century before last urged us to abandon such “straightenings.” And the author himself: “Some were terribly offended, and not jokingly, that they were given as an example such an immoral person as the Hero of Our Time; others very subtly noticed that the writer painted his portrait and portraits of his friends... But, apparently, Rus' was created in such a way that everything in it is renewed, except for such absurdities. The most magical of fairy tales can hardly escape the reproach of attempted personal insult!”

But here's the problem. No matter how much teachers repeat about the image of a “superfluous person,” referring to such authoritative evidence, no matter how many school essays are written on this routine topic, for some reason an image different from the textbooks always takes shape in students’ heads. Truly a hero. Truly worthy of emulation. And at the same time inseparable from Lermontov himself.

Naturally, this happens if the heads and the young brains equipped in them are not yet completely distorted by today's virtual computer and television space. Otherwise, something completely different happens. Well, for example: “Grushnitsky wanted Princess Mary, and Princess Mary wanted Pechorin, but Pechorin himself didn’t want anyone, since he was an extra hero of our time.”

Yes, Lermontov is not easily reconciled with our virtual public time. Although, of course, attempts are being made to “adapt” his lines to the “topic of the day.” Remember? On the eve of Yeltsin’s first tank march to Chechnya, lines from Lermontov’s “Cossack Lullaby” flashed in various printed publications:

An angry Chechen crawls to the shore,

Sharpening his dagger.

Someone then took care of annoyingly hammering them into the public consciousness. But these lines sound completely different in the context of the entire “Song”. Not to mention the context of Lermontov’s entire work, where “A Hero of Our Time” opens with “Belaya,” filled to the brim with the author’s respect for the characters and human dignity of those very highlanders who are now pejoratively called “persons of Caucasian nationality.”

He has a poem “Valerik” that is stunning in its independence from the stereotypes of its century, in its visionary view of future interethnic collisions. As an officer in the Russian army, Lermontov fought bravely in the battle of Valerik - the River of Death - against the Chechens. But here’s what crystallizes later in his memory and poetry:

And there, in the distance, along a discordant ridge,

But forever proud and calm,

The mountains stretched - and Kazbek

The pointed head sparkled.

And with secret and heartfelt sadness

I thought: “Pitiful man!

What does he want!.. the sky is clear,

There is plenty of room for everyone under the sky,

But incessantly and in vain

He’s the only one who’s at enmity—why?”

Here Lermontov is the head of Kazbek above those who are trying to adapt him to their current momentary politicking. Many are surprised: how could he, in “The Demon,” see the world through the eyes of a man flying over the Caucasus on a modern airliner? How could this very young man, whose life was cut short at the age of 26, grasp the Earth with an inner gaze, more typical of the philosophers of Russian cosmism at the end of the 19th century, anticipating the planetary, biosphere vision of Vernadsky and Tsiolkovsky? And this is truly amazing.

But something else is much more striking. How could he anticipate that keen attention to the unpredictability and unknowability of the human universe, the individual, which is rightfully associated with the names of Dostoevsky, Freud, Kafka, with the achievements of psychoanalysis in our 21st century?

In general, it is clear why Pechorin, from the first reading, becomes the idol of many young hearts and minds, whose attitude to the world is more a look inward than around oneself.

The internal code of honor of a person living his secret spiritual life, which others do not care about, which he carefully protects from other people’s interference, from transferring the rights to this inner world to another person, be it a beloved woman or a friend - this is what has been magnetizing for more than a century and a half more than one generation is at the end of its adolescence.

And yet, this Pechorin-like content, even if the subtext of “A Hero of Our Time” had been limited to it, would never have given Lermontov’s novel that deeply folk current that carries it into the ocean of world classics. This trend arises from a real discrepancy between the personality of Pechorin and the personality of Lermontov himself.

Although there are many biographical intersections between them, nevertheless, the author’s worldview also includes the moral judgment of Pechorin from the heights of that Russia, which is represented in his work by Maxim Maksimych.

The moral pinnacle, perhaps, of everything written by Lermontov was the scene of the farewell of Maxim Maksimych and Pechorin: “For a long time, neither the ringing of a bell nor the sound of wheels on the flint road was heard,” and the poor old man was still standing in the same place in deep thought.

Yes,” he said finally, trying to assume an indifferent look, although a tear of annoyance sparkled from time to time on his eyelashes, “of course, we were friends - well, what are friends in this century!.. I’ve always said that there’s no use in the one who forgets old friends!

The fact of the matter is that Pechorin does not forget his old friends. He remains himself here too. It’s just that in this concept - “old friend” - he and Maxim Maksimych put a different, mutually rejected meaning that does not have a common measure. And Lermontov, accepting Pechorin’s personal fate, nevertheless embodies the moral criteria attached to this fate precisely in the simple everyday rules of partnership, professed ingenuously and unprotected by thousands, millions of Russian Maksimov Maksimychs.

All this - “Hero of Our Time”, “Motherland”, “I Go Out Alone on the Road” - is tied into one knot of the tragic two-year period of 1840-1841. This is truly the pinnacle of his understanding of the key concepts of existence: personality, people, fatherland. And that’s all, in the words of another poet of the 20th century: “How it was! How did it coincide..." The flinty road along which Pechorin leaves Maxim Maksimych forever, towards his death, having offended him painfully, coincided with the farewell lines of Lermontov himself: "I go out alone onto the road; through the fog the flinty path shines.” This is the same flint path! And the image of Maxim Maksimych subtly, not literally, but still coincides with the poet’s state of mind in “Motherland”:

The chronology of Russian literature has many magical, even mystical numbers and dates, strange connections, as Pushkin would say. So the years of Lermontov’s birth and death mirror each other: 14-41 (1814-1841). And in this mirror image, it is no longer his, but the next century that is tragically predetermined.

I go out alone on the road;
Through the fog the flinty path shines;
The night is quiet. The desert listens to God,
And star speaks to star.
M.Yu.Lermontov

Manifold

It’s a fascinating activity to wander along the pebble spit after the rain. Wet pebbles glisten merrily - white, gray, greenish, reddish... And some have a different appearance. They, like candies, glow from within and seem to beckon. And the desire to find another such pebble, and another...

This - chalcedony, quite widespread in nature cryptocrystalline silica minerals 1. They often fill voids from gas bubbles in solidified lavas, and therefore are common in areas where volcanoes once, or perhaps more recently, erupted - for Kamchatka or Central Siberia, for the Crimean Karadag or American Montana. The rocks are destroyed over time, and the tonsils that spilled out of the cracked basalt are picked up by the riverbed flow and roll along with other fragments, turning into pebbles - natural unevenness is smoothed out, weak, cracked pieces are chipped away and the strongest and most valuable part is revealed. The river, apparently, does not entirely agree with the “logic” of the volcano, and it alters its product in its own way (but the memory of the first, “hot” stage of life remains and is manifested in the whimsical design of the stone interior).

It is more convenient (and, perhaps, more pleasant) for a person to deal with river processed products. Since ancient times, these pebbles have been valued as stone-colored raw materials; It was in riverbed sediments, and not in basalt rocks, that they were searched for and mined. “There are rivers here where jasper and chalcedony are found, they carry them to China, and a lot of profit comes from them” 2.

Jewelers call gray, greenish and bluish stones chalcedony; honey, orange, red, brownish - carnelians, sardines, carnelians. Even in the times of the pharaohs, scarabs were turned out of them, brooches and earrings were made. An invincible charm lies in the light milky haze that covers the translucent interior of the stone. Especially if it is all drawn with a clear network of concentric stripes. Mysterious agate stone. The stone is not rare, but always charming. In the ancient world, seals, gems, and cups were cut from it, and its price at times rose very high.

No less famous quartz – crystalline form of silica. It is ubiquitous and has many faces: milky blocks in rock ruins, white pebbles in river beds, light sands on beaches and amazing water-transparent crystals with shiny edges. Rock crystal is the embodiment of purity and perfection.

During my school years, I was lucky enough to visit Teberda, and there, in the local museum, I first saw a druse of rock crystal, brought here by climbers from a snowy peak. The extraordinary purity and transparency of these crystals captivate you immediately and forever. The ancient Greeks identified ice crystallos with crystal (hence the name). And in the Middle Ages it was believed that rock crystal was the unmelting ice of mountain peaks. This idea was strengthened by the fact that crystals were mined high in the mountains, at the edge of the eternal snow, from the so-called “Alpine-type veins.” By the way, it was in Switzerland that the term “crystal cellar” arose - inflating a quartz vein with crystals. In the 17th century, R. Boyle, having identified the difference between the density of ice and quartz, showed that these are different substances. This was later confirmed when the chemical composition was determined. True, in the 30s of the last century, Bernal and Fowler came to the conclusion that water molecules have a quartz-like structure. So their closeness may be closer than thought a hundred or two hundred years ago, and the ancients were right about something. Now we can confidently say that just as water is a unique liquid, silica is unique as a solid.

Silica may also be amorphous. This - opal 3 – solid hydrogel 4 silicic acids.

In the 80s, I came across an abandoned mine in Central Kazakhstan, where fire opal was once mined. I climbed the crumbling walls and rummaged through the dumps. Mostly, they came across light pink, brownish and yellowish, plastic-like, cloudy nodules and veins. They didn’t make much of an impression, but I picked up two or three handfuls and threw them into a puddle near the spring in the camp to loosen the stuck clay and debris. In the morning, when I came to wash myself, I found completely different stones: blazing orange and several golden ones with a slight milky bluish tint and a sparkle inside. Having collected water, they acquired the pristine purity of color and the unique “opal” play that made up the glory of this gem. Having dried, they began to fade again and some even cracked and crumbled. The rapid absorption of moisture in some opals is usually accompanied by its rapid loss in the air, which leads to the destruction of the stone. To avoid this, opals are kept in the ground or in a damp cloth for several years, slowly getting the stone “accustomed” to the alien environment.

Flints look much more modest. Flint- This mixture opal, chalcedony, microcrystalline quartz. It is inconspicuous, but it is the strongest stone among the widely used ones, - this is how V. Dahl characterizes it. This is a symbol of strength, solidity, reliability. “Flint,” we say about an unbending person. The Kremlin stronghold, according to some assumptions, is also made of flint.

I remember how, as schoolchildren, we collected sparkling creams from the ravines and tried to strike a spark from them. Some did it well; they somehow felt the necessary impact force and the angle of contact of the flints. This is not an easy matter and, apparently, talent is needed. It is much easier to strike a spark with a flint - an old file or a special iron block, or a hammer. By the way, cut out fire - one root with resurrect. And if a person is an “ancient walled-up fire” 5, then flint, apparently, is also 6.

Photo: light2shine/Flickr.com

Arrow and talisman

Perhaps the first mineral raw materials that man learned to process and use were siliceous rocks - flints, hornfels, obsidians, jaspers... Man needed solid and accessible material to satisfy his most pressing needs, and this, of the most common ones, is the strongest. In addition, when flints are chipped, a sharp cutting edge is formed. Therefore, for thousands of years they were used to make stone tools.

In the West, there is a common English term for all these materials - flynt, applied to the remains of the material culture of ancient man. Flint comes from the Old English flyht, flight, in reference to its use for arrowheads. And of course, they were made not only in good old England. “At the door of his Wigwam the arrow-maker was working. He sharpened jasper for arrows, he sharpened brilliant chalcedony” 7. And besides the tips, they made cutters, scrapers, knife blades, axes and some smaller things from silica minerals.

One hot July day we stopped at the Panoliksky rapids on Podkamennaya Tunguska, and while the kettle was boiling, I went to wander along the shore. The threshold here is formed by a powerful vein-like body of basalt, blocking the channel. Two hundred million years ago, hot lava broke through the sedimentary layer, and the contact rocks “hardened” and turned into hornfels - a strong siliceous formation. Among the blocks and fragments of sandstone, basalt, and hornfels, my attention was attracted by unusual stones approximately the size of a fist, in shape close to multifaceted pyramids. Already in Moscow, I learned that these were cores, pieces of flint from which flakes were pressed - plates for making stone tools. Apparently here, near the flint deposit, in ancient times there was a workshop for its processing. And two cores were very small (about the size of a knuckle): one was made of bright yellow flint, the other was made of carnelian. The grooves are thin, even, neat. What flakes there were!

The making of tools made it possible to satisfy the most pressing human needs. With their help, he crashed more aggressively into the dense surrounding world, merging more closely with it and providing himself with a more confident and reliable existence. He hit a deer with a spear, skinned it with a knife, flayed the skin with a scraper, and processed wood with a chopper. The guns provided him with food, clothing and shelter. Where did these small and elegant plates of colored flint go? Not on an ax, and you can’t even attach it to a spearhead. Most likely, these were decorations. Is decorating really as important as getting food or protecting yourself from the cold?

Thousands of years have passed and flowed over this land. Little has changed over the years. Just as today the wave in the threshold glowed greenishly, the taiga smelled just as drunkenly—of turpentine and wild rosemary—and the yellow tree screamed just as wildly and sadly on the dry larch top. All this also worried and tormented the soul of our ancient ancestor, and instead of the usual dull, gray hornfels, a colored and transparent stone was chosen, and it was processed more carefully than usual... Well, of course! This was not “decoration” in our today’s understanding. The shrine was decorated, and the stone was thereby introduced into a new state - it had a “reflection” of holiness on it. Now another similar stone was no longer “just a stone,” but became a sacred object and could be used as an amulet. Moreover, ordinary tools - the same tips - were no longer “just tools.” This entire sphere of life was sacralized, and the stone ax became an object of culture, for from now on the reflection of a cult rested on it.

And there were no separate periods - “technological” and “sacral”. We mentally tear apart the living historical fabric into separate logical pieces and place them in time, in accordance with a logical sequence. But, in fact, man has existed from eternity as a cultural being. Sacred action is not a “twist” on a technological process, but rather the real, deep meaning of economic, and even logical-conceptual, interaction between man and the world. “Culture cannot but be sacred, and the germ of culture lies in the depths of the individual, without it a person is not a person. This was given to him in a hidden way” 8.

Amethyst. Photo: OliBac/Flickr.com

Beautiful stones attract us. We admire them, bring them home, put them on a shelf or under the mirror; We even try to process it to the best of our abilities and capabilities. They bring a feeling of festivity, solemnity into our life and seem to remind us of something. And what touches the soul more strongly is not the deaf ones - the colored ones, but the transparent ones - the gems. Apparently, this is somehow connected with our craving for light. Feeling it inside us, we rush to its manifestations, and the luminous stone we find is a symbol of this internal movement.

Lost in the wilds of the Colombian jungle is a small tribe - the Desana, which has preserved the archaic culture of its ancestors to this day. The basic element of their cult is the eternally existing “Father Sun”. This Sun is not exactly a celestial luminary. Rather, it is a creative beginning. Being invisible, it is known through the beneficial effects of the light emanating from it. For the Desana tribe, the soul is a luminous element, which has the ability, in turn, to emit the light bestowed by the Sun at the birth of a human being. When the soul is in danger from magical forces, a shaman comes to its aid, whose knowledge is part of the sunlight 9. This plot clearly shows the features of many solar myths belonging to humanity. But at the same time, there is one peculiarity in the ritual - each shaman wears a yellow or white quartz crystal around his neck, symbolizing creative forces in this mythology.

In fact, silica minerals are not one of the most precious gems (not diamond, not ruby, not emerald and not sapphire), but they have always taken their place of honor among them. First of all, these are opals, amethysts, citrines (purple and yellow crystals), the price of which at times rose unheard of. Senator Nonius, who owned a unique opal, chose to flee Rome, abandoning all his property, but saving the stone, which unfortunately attracted Anthony. The most famous stones received their own names and, decorating thrones, crowns, miters, became visible signs of spiritual and temporal power. They are part of history. The most famous amethyst crowns the crown of British kings. And in the crown of Queen Irina Godunova there were very large, dense purple amethysts.

Of course, the larger, more transparent, and brighter the gem, the more expensive and “more important” it is. But a strange thing is natural stone. About thirty years ago, at an exhibition in Manezh, a small set caught my eye - a pendant and earrings. It was called “Autumn”. The stone chosen was completely unsightly - a brush of gray-blue amethyst, and even with yellow spots of rust, and it was set in a light metal with a bluish tarnish and a brown patina. The feeling of autumn evening, autumn sadness that came from the decoration was alive to the point of chills. The artist’s merit here is obvious, but this stone, this concrete one, inconspicuous at first glance, played its role in the creation of the masterpiece. There is something in the very material of the stone that seems to burst out of it, and can be caught by the oncoming movement of a person.

Silica minerals have been used throughout history as a magical agent - to destroy harmful spells, protecting their bearer from the evil eye and damage, bringing good luck and assisting in various endeavors.

Amethyst, in Ancient Greece dedicated to Bacchus (A-methysios - intoxicated), is still a symbol of piety and sobriety. It is preferred to be worn by clergy. Moreover, a ring with a purple amethyst is one of the mandatory attributes of a cardinal's vestment. Agate is placed at the head of the sleeping person - for insight in dreams. With the help of crystal, symbolizing a pure mind and perfect knowledge, many tried to guess the future or even control magical forces.

A deep interest in the magical properties of stones can be traced throughout history, but since ancient times there has been a persistent desire to somehow rationalize this area, to explain things in the language of positive knowledge that may be tangible, but difficult to formulate.

And science often succeeds in solving such problems. Since time immemorial, silica minerals have been used as medicine - infused and drunk for various ailments. Currently, the nature of their biological activity has received a completely rational justification. It has been established that crystalline quartz is always covered with a film of amorphous silica, which collects water on its surface, which is not externally visible. Such a surface is capable of sorbing polymers, including proteins. Bacteria settle on the protein substrate. Their metabolic products, enzymes, can have a depressing effect on viruses. So the pharmaceutical properties of flints are a particular manifestation of the antiviral activity of the bacteria that inhabit them. It is worth adding that ingestion of small amounts of amorphous silica is harmless. But when silica is introduced into the body not through the esophagus, otherwise poisoning is inevitable. Silicosis is caused by inhalation of silica dust. Silica that gets into open wounds is also extremely harmful. Its particles, absorbed by macrophages, active cleaners of the body, kill macrophage cells; silica accumulates where it is not needed at all, which leads to damage to vital organs.

Such a clear scientific explanation of the effects of silica minerals on human health is not always obtained. A striking example is carnelian therapy. Carnelian expels fever, heals wounds, strengthens teeth - it is stated in ancient lapidariums (books about the healing properties of stones). Treatment with carnelians sometimes gives very impressive results, but a scientific explanation for them has not yet been obtained. Attempts to explain them by the natural radioactivity of the stones failed, since verification studies did not detect radioactivity. Yes, and other assumptions have not yet been confirmed, but the phenomenon nevertheless exists, and we are still using it.

There are even less clear ways to use these stones.

Many transparent, polished balls, carved from whole rock crystals, have been preserved - magic crystals, peering into which, people tried to discern unclear images of the future.

The quartz skulls that came to European museums from Central America and the Apennines look even more mysterious. The most famous was discovered in Yucatan, on the ruins of an ancient Mayan city in 1927. It exactly replicates the dimensions of the human skull. His deep eye sockets shine at the slightest light, and his lower jaw, fixed on sensitive hinges, moves with the slightest movement of air. Recently, reports have appeared in which the Yucatan skulls are declared to be fakes. These statements, of course, require careful verification, but the very possibility of such a forgery indicates the presence of keen interest in the existence of such artifacts. The skull as a symbol of death appears in almost all human cultures, but in Central American cultures it has a particularly “capacious” role. In the myths of the Quiche people, who lived in the forests of mountainous Guatemala, the skull, like a kind of matrix, preserves and transmits the images of the gods, ultimately helping them to overcome the powerful demonic forces of the underworld 10.

And, of course, quartz.

Before him, in the sad darkness, / A crystal coffin sways, / And in that crystal coffin / The princess sleeps in eternal sleep. We feel in this image the icy mirroriness not even of death, but of a certain lethargic state that can not so much “immobilize” a living organism, but rather somehow preserve and preserve its form. Indeed, silica has the strange ability to “seal” the fleeting appearances of long-vanished creatures. It is difficult to even roughly estimate how many ancient forms of life have reached us only because short-lived bone tissue, chitin, and wood were replaced by “eternal” silica many millions of years ago.

In the early fifties, many Moscow alleys were still paved with cobblestones. Once, as a second-grader, walking to school, I saw a spiral of a large shell on the surface of a cobblestone. I already knew that fossils existed, but, of course, I didn’t count on being so lucky. After lessons, alone, returning to the treasured cobblestone, I picked out the surrounding soil with a nail, and, in the end, extracted it. The feeling of happiness was so strong that this incident was remembered. Remembering it now, I think that this silicified ammonite was, perhaps, the first material sign of future fate.

For a long time, people have been using this “preservative” property of the stone in their own way, sealing important documents and letters with carved carnelian, chalcedony and agate seals, the contents of which they would like to keep secret. And sometimes such an object was used as a talisman, preserving not the message, but the wearer himself.

Dear friend! From crime
From new heart wounds,
From betrayal, from oblivion
Will save my talisman!

These words are brought to life by the carnelian signet ring donated by A.S. Pushkin E.K. Vorontsova. The poet, without taking it off, wore it all his life and bequeathed it to V.A. on his deathbed. Zhukovsky. The ring was carefully preserved for eighty years, but in crazy spring Petrograd on the seventeenth it mysteriously and disappeared without a trace.

Will he show up again? God knows. Somewhere in the dark depths of the unconscious hides the yet undiscovered knowledge about these stones. Its material background is hidden in the deep depths of the planet.

flint way

If you look at the globe, the first thing we see is the green-brown spots of the continents and the blue spots of the oceans; land and water. The difference goes deeper: within the continents and oceans there is a different crust. The earth's crust, an extremely heterogeneous layer lying above the mysterious mantle, consists of two parts: “thick” continental and “thin” oceanic. The crust seems to float on the surface of the mantle. Continents are icebergs, protruding above the surface for the first few kilometers, and submerged for 30-50 km, and oceans are ice floes, with a total thickness (together with ocean waters) of up to 10 km. The continental crust consists of two layers: the lower – “heavy”, basaltic, and the upper – “light”, granite. The upper continental crust is called "granite" because its average composition roughly corresponds to that of these rocks.

“Strong”, according to the apt expression of Academician N.V. Belov (with a large charge at small sizes), cations of tetravalent silicon, tend to be away from each other and therefore “inflate” the glass-like network of magma; “cavities and channels” are created in it, strengthened by metal ions, primarily calcium and sodium, that are most “suitable” for their size. Therefore, both silicon and oxygen “try” to contact metals, and only when they are no longer enough do they form their own compounds. Granites with all their numerous “relatives” are the main igneous rocks containing large quantities of quartz.

Earth is the only planet in the solar system with a developed continental crust. Therefore, despite the wide distribution of silicon and oxygen in the Universe, silica minerals outside the Earth are rare. Quartz, so common to us, is practically absent in lunar soil and meteorite matter (except, perhaps, for the mysterious tektites). Truly, the flinty path is our path, the path of earthlings. The upper continental crust with all the features of its composition is the formation on which the most significant stages of the evolution of earthly life took place. Here, on the continents, birds, mammals, and humans appeared. And granites are, of course, a kind of symbol of the upper continental crust.

The most ancient granites are believed to have arisen as a result of melting at mantle depths and the “floating up” of lighter matter. Subsequently, they served as the main source of developing sedimentary rocks. Destroyed granites, transported by water flows and redeposited in seas and lakes, were transformed into sand and clayey strata. During the intracrustal melting of these sediments, granites were formed again. And this “plot”, with some variations, has been repeated many times in geological history. As a result, a great variety of different-aged and varied granitoid rocks arose on Earth. But, despite the diversity, reflected in many dozens of proper names, all of these are granites.

Granites-granites. What wonderful breeds these are! Brought to the surface of the Earth and freed from enormous stress, they are covered with cracks, emphasizing in a very expressive way the internal structure of the massif that has matured in the depths of the massif.

The rocks are a little rough, but surprisingly pleasant to the touch, and walking on them is simply a pleasure - the surface is hard, smooth, elastic. The leveled, gently sloping platforms are a manifestation of the mattress-like isolation typical of granite massifs... You jump on these “mattresses” in the vain hope of coming across a miraculously preserved pegmatite nest with black morion crystals and you won’t notice how it starts to get dark. You look around and the lights of the village are lit and sparkling far below. The evening chill has already gripped the valley, but here, above, it is warm and spacious. The rocks, heated during the day, are in no hurry to give off heat, the light breeze is saturated with the smell of thyme, and the stone mattress is very cozy.

Satellites crawl across the sky. The stars, without blinking, flare up in the heights.

The eyelids are getting heavy. The stars suddenly come to life, move, grow. And already in the power of the first dream, a mysterious descent into some dungeons takes place, and here piles of wonderful sparkling crystal crystals, not found in reality, are discovered.

“Here, in the womb of the earth, the stellar currents, thickened into precious stones, gather. It is here, under the cave vaults of the heart, that the Morning Star will shine.” 11

flint way

Pyatigorsk View of Mount Mashuk

The past surrounds us on all sides. Ancient mansions and bathroom buildings, old parks and boulevards help to plunge into bygone times, although not so long ago. But to look into the most distant ones, when the city was just being born, you need to go to the Goryachevodsk Valley. Behind the bulk of the Operetta Theater, in the gap between the buildings, you can see the road leading to Mount Goryachaya. Here she can safely be considered a witness to the first years of the existence of the resort at the foot of Mashuk. Today it is covered with asphalt, overgrown with trees and bushes, and surrounded by buildings of more recent construction. But this is the same road that was built by captured Poles from Napoleon’s army at a time when only Kalmyk tents and temporary booths stood in the Goryachevodsk Valley. Having set out to walk along this road, let’s forget about the signs of the present day. Let's try to see only the white limestone rocks on the left and imagine that the road itself was once just as rocky.

In Russian, the word “stony” has a poetic synonym - “siliceous”. So it is quite possible to say about this road - “the flint road”. And this expression, well known to lovers of poetry, is quite appropriate here. After all, along the road cut by the captured Poles, little Misha Lermontov walked, accompanied by his governess, in the summer of 1825, when he was eleven years old, and maybe even earlier, when he was six years old, in 1820. This road was the shortest route from the house where he lived with his grandmother to the springs of Goryachaya Mountain, which helped heal his childhood ailments. Perhaps he did not yet know the word “siliceous,” which he could later encounter in Pushkin’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” but he felt its meaning well with his little legs. And the keen eye of the future poet noticed how the white stones of the road glowed in the rays of the midday sun.

Researchers of the poem “I Go Out Alone on the Road” believe that the poet noticed the shine of the flint path as an adult, during lonely night walks along the roads at the foot of Mashuk. Well, it’s quite possible - he walked many miles around the outskirts of the city. And yet he took his first steps along the rocky roads of Pyatigorye, climbing Mount Goryachaya.

The word “siliceous” has other meanings recorded in dictionaries - “solid”, “unyielding”. And sometimes it is associated with the word “difficult,” which is very suitable for a poet. After all, his life’s path was very, very difficult. And it is no coincidence that in the same poem, written here, at the foot of Mashuk, he exclaims: “Why is it so painful and so difficult for me...”

But Pyatigorsk brought more than pain to the poet. Here he experienced many joyful moments. He was delighted by the amazing Caucasian nature and the clean, brand new town running up the slopes of Mashuk. And the picturesque landscapes around, uniting a chain of snowy peaks on the horizon, the bizarre outlines of the nearest mountains and huge white rocks hanging right above the streets. He was pleased to meet friends, interesting people, beautiful women. He drew inspiration from everything for his best creations. Inspiration that visited him more than once in these blessed places.

For Pyatigorsk and Pyatigorsk residents, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov is not just a representative of Russian literature, albeit a genius, but textbook exalted to unattainable heights. No, it is an indispensable part of the existence of the city and its inhabitants. Everything here is correlated with his name, breathes his presence, is connected with his works, where the past of the resort town is vividly and vividly presented. The memory of the poet still lives today on the old streets, in the green coolness of parks and squares. And in the white rocks near the old road to Mount Hot, which with its midday glow anticipated for young Michel the mysterious shine of the flinty path of later night walks.

What do you think Mikhail Yuryevich meant by the words “flint path”? and got the best answer

Answer from Nikolay Kruzhkov[guru]
Siliceous is light: silver. On a moonlit night, any path is flinty. Lermontov is a romantic. And romantics especially loved moonlit nights. Remember Hoffmann, Byron, Beethoven (“Moonlight Sonata”). And Innokenty Annensky:
Is it really true, my God?
I loved here, I was young here...
And nowhere else? Home
Have I come to this lunar cold?

Answer from Ekaterina Vorobyova[guru]
Ushakov's explanatory dictionary interprets this expression as “strewn with pieces of stone.”

Answer from Angelina Golovina[guru]
Not an easy path to the cream of the KREMlin))

Answer from Hormozilla[guru]
but it seems to me that he simply confused it with the expression “thorny path”

Answer from *CLIMA* . RE[guru]
Siliceous - strewn with pieces of stone, rocky.
It's a difficult road...

Answer from Maria[guru]
According to dictionaries, SILICIOUS and STONEY are the same thing. In my understanding, the SILICON path looks something like this

Answer from Ari Sha[guru]
What we call the Milky Way

Answer from ALEksANDROID[guru]
sand - silicon dioxide
SiO2

Answer from Ksenia Vladimirova[guru]
In the mountains a man was walking along a rocky path.

Answer from Irina Kochetkova[active]
According to the text, the matter takes place in the desert, and there is sand all around, which means the path is siliceous, i.e. sandy (as we noted earlier, sand is a silicon compound).

Answer from Yatyana Kachura[guru]
I haven’t confused him with any thorny ones, but he served in the Caucasus - walk around Pyatigorsk and the Elbrus region and look at your feet.

Answer from Oriy Mikhailovich Tashkinov[guru]
If according to the text, in a sandy desert (sand-silicon oxide).
In meaning, SILICONY is thorny, i.e. heavy, not easy, difficult, long. And he, who knows what’s coming, is lazy, the poor fellow, he wants to go into the shade (again the motif of the boring DESERT), under an oak tree
What's the problem? And the fact is that a young, healthy, full of energy young man has become brain-dead!! ! That’s why he disappeared without becoming a man.

Answer from Maxsimka[guru]
difficult life road

Answer from Artiom A.[master]
Probably something to do with the stone (silicon)

Answer from Mikhail Barmin[guru]
Silicon is the main ELEMENT of ROCKS, just as carbon is the basis of LIFE!!

Answer from Andrey Zhukovsky[guru]
Heavy..

Answer from Fish[active]
At school, the literature teacher said that he meant the Milky Way. 100 years ago I saw the Milky Way in the sky in winter - it really resembles a sparkling rocky path.

Answer from Gala[guru]
An ordinary rocky road, and nothing more.

Answer from Olga Kirpaneva[newbie]
It is not for nothing that Lermontov is called a seer; he predicted many things intuitively and brilliantly. He could not then know that silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth's crust after oxygen, but he called the road siliceous