Stone zoe. Zoe's mysterious "standing" What happened to the petrified Zoe
On the morning of that day, my mother came home and immediately woke us all up. Here you are all sleeping, - he says, - and the whole city is already on your ears! On Chkalov Street, a girl turned to stone! Standing right with the icon in his hands - and not moving, I saw it myself! And then the mother told us how she tried to give her an injection, but only broke all the needles, ”Nina Mikhailovna, the daughter of the doctor Kalashnikova, told the Russian Reporter.
Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova in 1956 was an emergency doctor in Kuibyshev (now Samara) and it was she who tried to provide first aid to a girl who was petrified with an icon in her hands. The girl who was later named Zoya Karnaukhova.
This year, the history known to all Orthodox in our country, which received the name "Zoya standing", is 60 years old.
In honor of this considerable anniversary, let's try to figure out calmly and without twitching what happened then in quiet Samara.
So, we have already mentioned a witness who clearly spoke about the fact that the girl was and that her condition did not allow her to be injected.
Another person speaks about Anna Pavlovna and her words.
This is the rector of the Sophia Church, priest Vitaly Kalashnikov, who is very respected in Samara:
“Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova, my mother’s aunt, worked in Kuibyshev as an ambulance doctor in 1956. That day in the morning she came to our house and said: “You are sleeping here, and the city has long been on its feet!” And she spoke about the petrified girl. And she also admitted (although she gave a subscription) that she was now in that house on a call. She saw the frozen Zoya. She saw the icon of St. Nicholas in her hands. She tried to give the unfortunate injection, but the needles bent, broke, and therefore Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova worked as an ambulance doctor for many more years. She died in 1996. I managed to consecrate her shortly before her death. Many of those whom she received on that very first day are still alive new year told about what happened. "
What happened at the end of December 1956? Why did this event agitate the whole city and forced the party authorities to raise this issue even at the 13th regional party conference (January 20, 1957), when the first secretary of the regional committee, Mikhail Efremov, said: “In Kuibyshev, there are rumors about an alleged miracle that happened on Chkalovskaya Street. Notes about 20 pieces on this occasion. Yes, such a miracle happened, shameful for us, the communists ... Some old woman walked and said: youth was dancing in this house - and one stunner began to dance with the icon and turned to stone, stiffened ... And off we go, people began to gather ... They immediately set up a police post. Where the police are, there are eyes. They put up mounted police, and the people, if so, they all go there. They wanted to send priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. But the bureau of the regional committee consulted and decided to remove all the posts, there is nothing to guard there. It was stupid: there were no dances there, an old woman lives there.”
This is what the secretary of the regional committee told about the incident. And so the people:
The city of Kuibyshev (now Samara), Chkalova street, January 1956, New Year's holidays.
There was a party in the house: people gathered to celebrate the holiday. Among others at the table was Zoya Karnaukhova. She did not share the general fun, and she had reasons for that. The day before, at the pipe factory where she worked, Zoya met a young trainee named Nikolai, and he promised to come to the holiday. But time passed, but Nikolai was not there. Friends and girlfriends have been dancing for a long time, some of them began to tease Zoya: “Why don’t you dance? Forget about him, he won’t come, come to us!” - "Will not come?! - flashed Karnaukhova. - Well, since my Nicholas is not there, then I will dance with Nicholas the Wonderworker! She grabbed the icon and began to spin in the dance.
For such sacrilege, the girl immediately suffered a terrible punishment: she turned to stone and stood without signs of life for 128 days, until Easter.
The rumor about the "stone girl" shook the whole city. The people rushed to the house, the iron gates were demolished, a double cordon was placed around the house, they did not let anyone in.
Panic grew, rumors multiplied, people fled en masse to the church, carried and led small children there, bought up all the crosses, dragged holy water home. And this was during Khrushchev's persecution of the church! The fear of God's wrath turned out to be stronger than the fear of the party leadership. Yes, and the authorities themselves were in fright: what to do now?
At first, it was decided to involve priests in order to extinguish the popular unrest with their help - the people would believe the priests!
Here is what hegumen German, a resident of Optina Hermitage, said in 1989 (in the 1950s he served in the Kuibyshev Cathedral): “I won’t talk about what I didn’t see, but I’ll say what I know. The rector of the cathedral was called by a commissioner and asked to announce from the pulpit next Sunday that there was no miracle.
The father rector answered: "Let me go and see and tell people what I saw." The commissioner thought for a minute and promised to call back soon. Another call came an hour later and Fr. The abbot was told that there was no need to announce anything."
Other witnesses claim that some priests were nevertheless allowed into the house where the unfortunate woman was standing.
Claudia Georgievna Petrunenkova from St. Petersburg is the spiritual daughter of Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich): “When the “Standing of Zoya” happened, I asked Vladyka if he had been to Kuibyshev and had he seen Zoya. Vladyka replied: “I was there, praying, but I didn’t take the icon from Zoya – it wasn’t time yet. And Father Seraphim (then Father Demetrius) took the icon.”
The testimony about Father Seraphim (Tyapochkin) is one of the most controversial. On the one hand, many argue that the elder indirectly confirmed that it was he who was able to take the icon from the petrified hands. On the other hand, there are still no direct words from the priest that everything was so.
Father Seraphim
From the memoirs of Alexandra Ivanovna A.: "On the fifth week of Great Lent, 1982, I arrived in Rakitnoe. I dared to ask: "Father, where is the icon of St. Nicholas, which you took from Zoya?" He looked at me sternly. There was silence. Why I remembered exactly about the icon? My relatives lived in Kuibyshev - on the same street as Zoya. When all this happened, I was fourteen years old. So that people would not gather near the house, the lights were turned off in the evenings. Zoya's screams horrified everyone. The young policeman, who was on duty, turned gray from all this. My relatives, being eyewitnesses of what was happening, became believers and began to visit the temple. The miracle of "Zoya's standing" and everything that happened to her was deeply imprinted in my mind.
After the stern glance of Father Seraphim, the thought pierced me: "Oh, woe to me, woe!" Suddenly the priest said: "The icon was lying in the church on a lectern, and now it is in the altar. There were times when they ordered it to be removed."
Here is what Claudia Georgievna Petrunenkova from St. Petersburg said:
“Shortly before the death of Father Seraphim, I was in Rakitnoye. In the temple, on a mountainous place, to the right of the throne, I saw the icon of St. Nicholas in salary. During a conversation with Father Seraphim in his cell, I asked: “Father, you have an icon of St. Nicholas - the one that Zoya had?" "Yes," he replied. We didn't talk about Zoya anymore."
As we can see, in the stories of women, we are clearly talking about one icon.
Archpriest Andrei Andreevich Savin, who at that time was the secretary of the Samara diocesan administration, also 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 posted. But at first they didn’t touch people - apparently, the first confusion affected. The usual pretext: "You are disturbing the peace of the inhabitants, the movement of vehicles. " But the crowd still grew by leaps and bounds. Many even came 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 stressful. The people, of course, expected clarifications from us, but not a single priest even came close to that house. They were afraid. Then we all walked along the "thin perch". Priests were "on registration" - they were approved and dismissed 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 reason to settle scores with us!
Soon there was a whisper among the believers that Zoya had been forgiven and would be resurrected on Holy Pascha. People were waiting, hoping. And the Komsomol detachments were already pacing around the city with might and main. Boyko was "exposed", assuring that they were in the house and did not see anything. All this only added fuel to the fire, so that even those who really did not believe in a miracle doubted in the end: “Probably, the popular rumor is still right, although not in everything; and something happened in the house on Chkalovskaya Street. amazing, no doubt about it!"
After taking the icon from Zoya, Father Dimitry (later Seraphim) was slandered and a criminal case fabricated against him, and Vladyka Jerome was released from the administration of the Kuibyshev diocese.
Since there was a lot of talk among the people, even the local Soviet newspapers could not pass over this miracle in silence and tried to present it as a "deception of the priests."
The house remained standing, and people constantly lived in it. Here is a relatively recent interview with the residents of the house where it all happened, this is a young couple with children:
“We have been living for two years - absolutely nothing. Not to say that we are strongly believers, but this whole story still affects us slowly. When we settled here, we lived in a civil marriage, and now we got married and even got married. Our son was recently born - They also named Nikolai, in honor of the saint. Well, we are thinking about this topic more and more often, - Nikolai bent down and patted the floor with his palm.
In the very center of the room, the width of human feet, the floorboards are fresher and narrower, the rest are ramshackle and twice as thick.
- For some reason, the cat likes to sit here very much, - Natalya smiles. “We tried to drive it away, but it still comes back.”
Now back to the name of the heroine. Zoya Karnaukhova. The name "Zoya" does not appear in any of the documents. It was first heard in the press as much as four years after the sensational events.
Zoya Karnaukhova? - asked 60-year-old Alexander Pavlovich Karnaukhov. - Yes, it was my aunt, my father's sister. She used to live in Samara. I was a kid when it all happened, and didn't really believe in the legend. But Aunt Zoya, as a religious person, talked so much about the miracle that she was completely obsessed with it. And already she began to identify herself with that sinner. And the neighbors began to laugh at her - they called her “stone Zoya”. But everyone saw at the same time that not everything was in order with the aunt's head, although she was not registered in a psychiatric clinic. Since then, our surname has become "famous" undeservedly throughout the city. And my aunt, in her old age, moved to the village of Samarsk and died there from the heart. I didn’t have any photos of her, and I don’t need to write about it ... - this is an excerpt from a journalistic investigation of the MK.
Now it is clear where the name came from and it is clear that it had nothing to do with the petrified girl. It turns out that it was not Zoya's standing, but whose ?!
Or was there no girl at all, and we are dealing with mass psychosis? But then why didn't the authorities do anything to stop the hysteria?! After all, it was as easy as shelling pears: to let people into the house, to show that there was nothing and there never was. Why a multi-day cordon, intimidation?!
It is not clear what happened to "Zoya" in the future. The last hope to find the key to this story burned down in 1997, along with documents, during a fire in the Kuibyshev police archive.
Or are other witnesses and eyewitnesses still alive? One thing is clear: it is too early to put an end to this story.
What does not happen in the world! It is enough to open any site and read a whole bunch of mystical and mysterious stories - romantic or scary, funny or instructive...
All these stories are good, but it's hard to believe in them, because there is no evidence. But one day, 61 years ago, a truly heartbreaking mystical event happened, which was reflected in newspapers and on TV. It even got a name: Zoya's standing. Was it really or not, let everyone decide for himself ...
The story began on December 31, 1955 in Kuibyshev (now Samara). Even the exact address at which this more than mysterious and completely inexplicable from the point of view of physiology story happened is known: Chkalov Street, 84.
An ordinary family lived in this house: mother - Claudia Bolonkina, and her son. True, at that time he was serving his sentence in places not so remote. According to another version, he was already free and decided to have a party. Among the guests was a young worker of the pipe plant, Komsomol member Zoya Karnaukhova.
Bolonkina asked her son not to celebrate - after all, the New Year falls on the Advent, and it is a sin to have fun these days. But the son did not listen to his mother; the same went to church in the evening.
Some time before this, Zoya met a young intern, Nikolai, who she really liked. Whether they just met, or even were the bride and groom - different sources say differently. Nikolai was also invited, but for some reason he was delayed.
When, after the feast, dancing began and all Zoya's girlfriends danced with the guys, she sat alone - waiting for Nikolai. After some time, Zoya got tired of this, she went to the Red Corner, where the icons hung, took the image of Nicholas the Wonderworker and said: "Since there is no my Nicholas, I will dance with it!"
And although the Komsomol in those days should not pay attention to all sorts of religious prejudices, several people still told her: "Zoya, you can't do that! It's a sin!"
But Zoya was already knee-deep in the sea and she exclaimed: "Sin? Well, if there is a God, let him punish me!" She took the icon, pressed it to her chest and entered the circle of dancers.
Further eyewitnesses of events tell a little differently. Some say that something incredible happened - like thunder and lightning, others - that absolutely nothing happened, but Zoya, as she entered the circle of dancers, turned to stone with an icon in her hand.
Zoya stood as if rooted to the floor. It was impossible to move her, to the touch she instantly became cold and hard, like a stone. The hands held the icon so tightly that there was no way to unclench them.
The girl showed no signs of life, did not even breathe. Only the heart was barely audible. The guests were in shock, who immediately hurried home, who tried to bring Zoya to her senses, who ran for the doctor.
The story quickly spread around the city, and the police arrived at the Bolonkins' house, which, by the way, was afraid to approach the immobilized girl, and the ambulance. Doctors shrugged, not knowing how to help her. They tried to give Zoya some kind of injection, but the needles broke - they did not enter into the skin, hard as a stone.
They tried to take the girl to the hospital for observation, but they still couldn't move her. They couldn’t even just lift it - it seemed like it was glued to the floor. And she didn't react to anything. Needless to say, she couldn't eat or drink either.
In the early days, the house was surrounded by a lot of people: believers, doctors, clerics, just curious people came and came from afar. But soon, by order of the authorities, the building was closed to visitors: the approaches to the house were blocked, and a squad of policemen began to guard it. And visitors and curious people were told that there was no miracle here and never was.
One of the clergy reported the incredible incident to the patriarch himself and asked him to pray for Zoya. The patriarch replied: "Whoever punished, he will have mercy." Zoya's mother went to the priests and asked them to do at least something.
Priests came and tried to take the icon from Zoya's petrified hands. But even after reading numerous prayers, they could not do it. 
On Christmas Day Fr. Seraphim (in the world Dmitry Tyapochkin, since 1970 - archimandrite of the Russian Orthodox Church), served a prayer service for the blessing of water and blessed the whole room.
After that, he managed to take the icon from Zoya's hands. When asked when Zoya would come to her senses, Fr. Seraphim answered: "Now we must wait for a sign on the Great Day (that is, on Easter)! If it does not follow, the end of the world is not far off." 
Later, Metropolitan Nikolai of Krutitsy and Kolomna also visited Zoya, who also served a prayer service and said that a new sign should be expected on the Great Day (that is, again on Easter), repeating the words of the pious hieromonk.
They say that before the feast of the Annunciation (April 7), a certain handsome old man approached the guards, who continued to stand around the house, and asked to be let through. He was refused.
The elder came the next day, but the other shift did not 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 old man did not come out. When they looked into the room, they did not find him there. All witnesses of the incident are convinced that it was Nicholas the Wonderworker himself.
As predicted, Zoya stayed until Easter itself, i.e. 128 days. On the night of Easter, she cried out loudly: "Pray! It's terrible, the earth is burning! The whole world is perishing in sins! Pray!"
From that time on, she began to revive. They managed to 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. When asked how she survived these days without food and who fed her, she answered that pigeons.
The story may seem like a complete fiction, especially since on January 24, 1956, in the feuilleton "Wild Case", published in the Kuibyshev city newspaper "Volzhskaya Kommuna", it was described in colors how the whole city believed in a fable that was invented by a certain woman, that very Claudia Bolonkin.
Rector of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Neronovka, Samara Region, Fr. Roman Derzhavin claims: "Zoya's standing" is a fact that actually took place. My father told me this story." Further, Fr. Roman describes the story that we have already cited.
This story made a noise not only at the time when it happened - its echoes are still heard. In 2008, the well-known newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, which had an excellent reputation during perestroika and before it, and then suddenly turned yellow, burst into a revealing article under the quite characteristic title for the newspaper: "The Secret of Zoya's Apartment."
The article says that there was no petrified Zoe, that no miracle happened in Kuibyshev on the eve of the new year 1956, that all these are inventions of a drinking old woman Claudia, who allegedly took a dozen for looking at a petrified girl.
But if there was no "standing", for what spectacle did Claudia Bolonkina take ten?!
In another article, also revealing, it was explained why. To show those who wish that no one is standing in the house. This is how crowds of people are presented, paying ten (this is in those days when a glass of beer cost 28 kopecks) to make sure that there is no petrified girl in the house.
Further, the journalist agreed that the historicity of Fr. Seraphim (Tyapochkin) is questionable. Like, it has not been proven that such a person existed at all! Although his biography is well known, there are photographs of him, dates of birth and death, and even a monument unveiled to him in the village of Rakitnoye, where he served for 21 years. And a bunch of solid sources that describe his life and ministry.
By the way, the Soviet press of those years can also serve as a source of information about "Zoya's standing." Responding to letters to the editor, a certain scientist confirmed that the event with Zoya was indeed not a fiction, but it was a case of tetanus, not yet known to science.
But, firstly, with tetanus there is no such stone rigidity and doctors can always give an injection to the patient; secondly, with tetanus, you can carry the patient from place to place and he lies, but Zoya stood, and stood for as long as even a healthy person could not stand, and besides, they could not budge her.
And, thirdly, tetanus in itself does not turn a person to God and does not give revelations from above, and thanks to Zoya's standing, thousands of people turned to faith. It is clear that tetanus was not the cause.
When, years later, Archimandrite Seraphim was asked questions about his meeting with Zoya, he always evaded answering. Here is what Archpriest Anatoly Litvinko, a cleric of the Samara diocese, recalls.
“I asked Father Seraphim: “Father, did you take the icon from Zoya’s hands?” He humbly lowered his head.
Yes, and the authorities could again start persecuting him (in 1940-1950, Father Seraphim served time for illegal worship at home, and then spent another 5 years in exile) due to the large influx of pilgrims who wanted to venerate the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas , which was always in the church where Fr. Seraphim. Over time, the authorities demanded that the icon be removed, hidden from the people, and it was transferred to the altar.
An ambulance doctor was also found who tried to give Zoya an injection: Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova. She confirmed that the whole story is pure truth. And although she died in 1996, there were still quite a few people to whom she managed to tell about what had happened on that very first day of the new 1956.
What happened to Zoya? There is no reliable information here. According to some data, mobility returned to her, but her mind did not, and she ended her days in a psychiatric clinic.
According to others, she became a devout believer and urged those around her to turn to God and pray for peace. She ended her days in a monastery and was secretly buried in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
Still others claim that Zoya died on the third day after she came to from standing.
Based on this story, in 2001 the creative team "35 mm" made a documentary film "Zoya's Standing". In 2009, a feature film directed by Alexander Proshkin "Miracle" was shot. It starred Konstantin Khabensky, Sergey Makovetsky and Polina Kutepova. Frames from this film illustrated this article.
In 2015, the publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery (Moscow) published the story of Archpriest Nikolai Agafonov "Standing", entirely dedicated to Zoya's standing. The story, according to the author, is written on the most reliable historical material, which he has been collecting for a long time.
And what happened to house number 84 on Chkalov Street? It actually belonged to Claudia Bolonkina and after the incident became a place of pilgrimage for the Orthodox. In 2009, the diocese asked the city authorities to install a memorial sign in honor of the Samara miracle.
In 2012, a monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker was erected on Chkalova Street. It was installed in front of house number 86, behind which, in the depths of the block, was the house of the Bolonkin family.
On May 12, 2014, the house burned down. In many Samara media, versions of arson were expressed.
Was there such a story or not? Now around her unfolded excitement no less than the one that was in January 1956. There are witnesses who say that nothing like this happened, for example, Irina Nikolaevna Lazareva, head of the department of modern history of the Samara Local History Museum named after P.V. Alabina. True, she precedes her story about "what was not," with the following phrase: "At the time of the events that took place in January 1956 in Kuibyshev around house number 84 on Chkalovskaya Street, I was two years and one month old. So personally I don’t remember any of these events, and I know about them only from the stories of my mother, father and grandmother.
There is another witness, the record of the conversation with which the journalist allegedly has. True, it is sadly reported that the witness died, but also allegedly claimed that all this was not true. Approximately the same words with a museum worker. That allegedly someone started a rumor about Kuibyshev in January 1956, the rumor grew to the scale of mass psychosis, and as a result, we have what we have.
One can, of course, assume that this whole story is stories of priests: to attract believers. In one of the temples in Samara there is even an icon inspired by Zoya's standing.
In principle, everything can be expected from the profit-hungry "holy fathers", but in this case, where to put the witnesses who saw this phenomenon with their own eyes? ..
A pipe factory worker, a certain Zoya, decided to celebrate the New Year with her friends. Her believing mother was against the fun in the Advent, but Zoya did not listen. Everyone gathered, but Zoya's fiancé Nikolai stayed somewhere. Music played, young people danced, only Zoya did not have a partner. Offended by the groom, she took off the icon of St. Nicholas and said: "If there is no my Nicholas, I will dance with St. Nicholas." To her friend’s exhortations 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 lap, a loud noise suddenly filled the room, a whirlwind rose, a blinding light flashed like lightning, everyone ran out in fear. Only Zoya froze with the icon of the Saint pressed to her chest, petrified, cold as marble. She could not be moved, her legs seemed to have grown together with the floor. In the absence of external signs of life, Zoya was alive: her heart was beating. Since then, she has not been able to drink or eat. The doctors made every possible effort and diligence, but could not bring her to her senses. The news of the miracle quickly spread throughout the city, many came to see Zoya 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 curious people were told that there was no miracle here and never happened. Those on duty at Zoya’s post at night heard Zoya screaming: “Mom! Pray! We perish in sins! Pray! A medical examination confirmed that the girl's heartbeat did not stop, despite the fossilization of the tissues (they could not even give an injection - the needles broke). The invited priests, after praying, could not take the icon from her frozen hands. But on the feast of the Nativity of Christ, Father Dimitry Tyapochkin (the future Hieromonk Seraphim) came, served a prayer service and consecrated the whole room. After that, he took the icon from Zoya's hands and said: "Now we have to wait for a sign on the Great Day (that is, on Easter)." Before the feast of the Annunciation, a handsome old man asked the guards to let him through. He was refused. He appeared the next day, but the other shift did not 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 old man did not come out. When they looked into the room, they did not find him there (all the witnesses of the incident are convinced that St. Nicholas himself appeared).
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Through the prayers of St. Nicholas, the Lord had mercy on her, accepted her repentance and forgave her sins... Everything that happened so impressed the inhabitants of Kuibyshev and its environs that many people converted to faith. Many hurried to church with repentance, the unbaptized were baptized, those who did not wear the cross began to wear it (there were not even enough crosses for those who asked).
Father Demetrius was forbidden to talk about taking the icon from Zoya and was sent to serve in a remote village. But, despite this, people were drawn to Father Dimitri, which did not suit the authorities.
On October 26, 1960, in the village of Sokolovka, Bishop Leonid of Kursk and Belgorod tonsured Archpriest Dimitri as a monk with the name Seraphim.
From October 14, 1961, until the end of his days, Father Seraphim was rector of the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Rakitnoye, Belgorod Region. Father Seraphim gave all of himself to his neighbors so that save at least some(1 Cor. 9:22), who will hear the voice of the Church and repent of their sins.
A girl from Kuibyshev (now Samara) got angry at her fiancé and started dancing with the icon. After that ... it froze, like a block of ice, in place and stood like that for 128 days. Stories of this divine retribution have been passed down by word of mouth for forty years.
On January 14, 1956, on the day of the old New Year, a young factory worker Zoya decided to have a party. The youth divided into pairs and began to dance. And Zoya herself sat in sad loneliness, waiting for her fiancé Nikolai. Then her gaze fell on the goddess, and, out of annoyance, she grabbed the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and shouted to her friends: “Since my Nicholas did not come, I will take this Nicholas.”
To the exhortations of her friends not to commit sin, she replied: "If there is a God, let him punish me." And she began to dance with the icon in her hands. Suddenly, an unimaginable noise was heard in the room, a whirlwind, lightning flashed ... Everyone rushed out in horror. And when they came to their senses, they saw Zoya frozen in the middle of the room - cold, like marble, petrified.
Video: Standing Zoe - Petrified Girl
Arriving doctors tried to give her a tetanus injection, but the needles could not pierce the skin - they bent and broke. Zoya herself, however, was alive: her heart was beating, her pulse could be felt. Zoe's mother, who returned, lost consciousness from what she saw and almost lost her mind. Upon learning of what had happened, crowds of people began to gather near the ill-fated house, so that the authorities put up a police cordon at the door.
Often in the stories about Zoya, Hieromonk Seraphim from the Glinskaya Hermitage appears, who, having arrived around Christmas, served a prayer service near the girl and consecrated the room. After that, he was able to take the icon from her hands and predicted the day when she would be granted forgiveness.
Popular rumor claims that after standing for 128 days, Zoya woke up, her muscles softened, she was put to bed. After that, she repented, called everyone to repentance, and peacefully departed to the Lord.
PANIC IN THE REGIONAL COMMISSION
From the transcript of the 13th Kuibyshev Regional Conference dated January 20, 1956. Comrade Efremov, First Secretary of the Kuibyshev Regional Committee of the CPSU, answers the questions of the delegates:
“There were about twenty notes on this subject. Yes, such a miracle happened, a shameful phenomenon for us communists. Some old woman walked and said: in this house young people were dancing, and one stunner began to dance with the icon and turned to stone. The people began to gather because the leaders of the militia acted clumsily. Apparently, someone else had a hand in this. A police post was set up right there. And where the police, there and the eyes. It turned out that there were few militia ... they put up a mounted police. And the people - if so, all there ...
Some even thought of sending priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. The bureau of the regional committee recommended that the bureau of the city committee punish the perpetrators severely, and Comrade Strakhov (editor of the regional party newspaper Volzhskaya Kommuna. - Ed.) Give explanatory material to the newspaper in the form of a feuilleton.
The scandal in the regional committee had something to break out from. Everything that happened so impressed the residents of Kuibyshev and the region that crowds of people were drawn into the church. To perform the rite of baptism, the priests did not have enough pectoral crosses ...
Video: The Great Miracle - Zoe's Standing in 1956 Samara
NEIGHBORHOOD: NICHOLAI BECAME A RECIPIENT
As it turned out, it was not Zoya and her mother who lived in the house at 84 Chkalovskaya in 1956, but her fiancé Nikolai and his mother Claudia Petrovna Bolonkina. After those events, according to Klavdia Petrovna's acquaintances, she became withdrawn. A few years later she moved to Zhigulevsk, where she died 20 years ago.
Young Nikolai got drunk and went down a slippery path. He was in prison several times, once he escaped, and the police ambushed him in that very house. In the end, Nikolai, as an incorrigible alcoholic and recidivist, was sent to the countryside, where he soon died.
KGB: IT WAS A RUMOR
With the help of the press center of the regional department of the FSB, it was possible to find an eyewitness to those events from the KGB.
Mikhail Egorovich Bakanov says:
“At that time I was a senior KGB officer. The authorities sent me to look into the same house on Chkalovskaya. There I saw cunning people who, for a gold piece, promised to lead those who wished into the house and show the petrified maiden. Yes, no one prevented them from entering. I myself led several groups of curious people into the house, who confirmed that they had not seen anything. But people didn't leave. And this mess continued for a week. I don't remember if I talked to Zoya herself or not. So many years have passed."
Another eyewitness, Valery Borisovich Kotlyarov, an employee of the Samara Labor Inspectorate, considers all this an invention of the “churchmen”: “I was a boy then. We boys were not allowed into the house. And the adult militia wound up 10 people. When they came out, they said: "There is no one there." But the people did not disperse ... I saw a truck with pipes driving along the street and crippled several people when turning with a load. And the pilgrims gossiped: "This is God's punishment ..."
CHURCH: THE PRIEST WAS NOT ALLOWED TO ZOYA
The headman of the Ascension Cathedral Andrei Andreevich Savin shares his memories:
“At that time I was the secretary of the diocesan administration. Alekseev, the Commissioner for Religious Affairs, calls our Bishop Jerohim and says: “We must announce to the people in the church from the pulpit that nothing has happened on Chkalovskaya.” In response, the bishop asked to be allowed into the house of the rector of the Intercession Cathedral, so that he would be convinced of everything himself. The commissioner said, "I'll call you back in two hours." And he called only two days later and said that he did not need our services. So none of the clergy were allowed there. Talk about the fact that Hieromonk Seraphim visited Zoya is not true ...
And the crowd was shown a small empty room and said: "You see, there is no one there." People asked to see a big room. “Yes, their things are dumped there, there is nothing to see,” the authorities assured. These days, brigades of Komsomol members worked in city trams, who convinced people that they were in the house and did not see any frozen girl.
PRAYERS: POLICEMAN TURNED GRAY WITH FEAR
Many believers in Samara know the pensioner A.I. Fedotova.
“In those days, I was twice near Zoya’s house,” says Anna Ivanovna, “I came from afar. But the house was surrounded by police. And then I decided to ask some policeman from the guards about everything. Soon one of them - very young - came out of the gate. I followed him, stopped him: “Tell me, is it true that Zoya is standing?” He replied, “You are asking exactly like my wife. But I won’t say anything, but it’s better to see for yourself ... ”He took off his cap and showed completely gray hair:“ See ?! This is more true than words ... After all, we gave a subscription, we are forbidden to talk about it ... But if you only knew how terrible it was for me to look at this frozen girl!
DOCTORS: "NEEDLES BREAKED"
A man was also found who told something new about the Samara miracle. It turned out to be the rector of the St. Sophia Church, respected in Samara, priest Vitaly Kalashnikov:
“Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova, my mother's aunt, worked in Kuibyshev as an ambulance doctor in 1956. On that day in the morning, she came to our house and said: “You are sleeping here, and the city has long been on its feet!” And she told about the petrified girl. And she also admitted (although she gave a subscription) that she was now in that house on a call. I saw frozen Zoya. I saw the icon of St. Nicholas in her hands. She tried to give the unfortunate injection, but the needles bent, broke, and therefore the injection failed.
Everyone was shocked by her story… Anna Pavlovna Kalashnikova worked as an ambulance doctor for many more years. She died in 1996. I managed to consecrate her shortly before my death. Many of those to whom she told about what happened on that very first winter day are still alive.
RELATIVES: "IS ZOYA ALIVE?"
In 1989, the Volzhsky Komsomolets newspaper published an article by journalist Anton Zhogolev entitled "The Miracle of Zoya." Soon an elderly man came to Anton, claiming that in the late 50s he worked in a mirror shop located opposite the house on Chkalovskaya. And his workmates were the first to run to the cries of young people for help even before the police outfit. According to their stories, the face of the frozen girl, pale as a candle, seemed creepy ...
And then Zhogolev called ... a relative of the petrified Zoya and said that ... Zoya is still alive. She spent many years in a mental hospital. Then her relatives took her to Kinel, where she lives under their supervision. Very afraid to remember those terrible days. Yes, and relatives do not allow anyone to her - so as not to worry.
“I immediately went to Kinel,” says Zhogolev. - But relatives met me with hostility. They confirmed that their ward had ended up in a psychiatric hospital in 1956, but they denied any involvement in the Samara miracle and put me out the door.
So I still don’t know: is this Zoya and how true is the story itself ... ”- Anton Evgenievich concluded in bewilderment.
Well, we will also put the dots in the story of the Samara miracle. After all, any miracle is based more on faith than on evidence.
Movie: Standing Zoe
This extraordinary and mysterious event allegedly took place 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 the girl Zoya, with whom Nikolai had begun dating shortly before.
All her friends are with gentlemen, but Zoya was still sitting alone, Kolya lingered. When the dancing began, she declared: “If there is no my Nicholas, I will dance with Nicholas the Pleasant!” And she went to the corner where the icons hung. Friends were horrified: “Zoya, this is a sin,” but she said: “If there is a God, let him punish me!” She took the icon, 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, and the icon could not be taken from the hands - it seemed to be glued tightly.
The girl showed no outward signs of life. But in the region of the heart, a barely perceptible knock was heard.
The ambulance doctor Anna tried to revive Zoya. Anna's sister, Nina Pavlovna Kalashnikova, is still alive, I managed to talk to her.
She ran home excited. And although the police took a non-disclosure agreement from her, she told everything. And about how she tried to give the girl injections, but it turned out to be impossible. Zoya's body was so hard that the needles of the syringes did not enter it, they broke ...
The law enforcement agencies of Samara immediately became aware of the incident. Since it was connected with religion, the case was given the status of an emergency, a police squad was sent to the house in order not to let onlookers inside. There was something to worry about. By the third day of Zoya's standing, all the streets near the house were crowded with thousands of people. The girl was nicknamed "Zoya stone."
Nevertheless, the clergy had to be invited to the house of the “stone Zoya”, because the policemen 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 in soul and kind that he even had the gift of divination. 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 refuse involvement in Zoya's case, but he rejected the offer. Then they fabricated an article about sodomy and sent him to serve time. After his release to Samara, he did not return ...
Zoya's body came to life, but her mind was no longer the same. In the early days, she kept shouting: “In sins, the earth perishes! Pray, believe!" From a scientific and medical point of view, it is difficult to imagine how a young girl's body could survive 128 days without food and water. The metropolitan scientists, who came to Samara at that time for the sake of such a supernatural case, could not determine the “diagnosis”, which at first was mistaken for some kind of tetanus.
After the incident with Zoya, as her contemporaries testify, the people massively reached out to churches and temples. People bought up crosses, candles, icons. Who was not baptized, baptized ...
But what really happened?
Despite the fact that decades have already passed since the events described, there are still stories about the miracle of the “petrified maiden Zoe”, in which reality is fancifully mixed with fables. But on the basis of 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 Zoe” in Kuibyshev in January 1956. But then what happened here? What are the real facts in the story of "petrified Zoe"?
First fact. No one has ever disputed that in the period from January 14 to 20, 1956, in the city of Kuibyshev, near house No. 84 on Chkalovskaya Street, there was indeed an unprecedented crowd of people (according to estimates, from several thousand to several tens of thousands of people). All of them were attracted here by oral reports (rumors) that in the said house there was allegedly a certain petrified girl who committed blasphemy while dancing with an icon in her hands. At the same time, the name Zoya was not called by anyone during these events, but it appeared in relation to this story decades later. The surname Karnukhova of the main character did not appear at all until 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 of the phenomenon when, under favorable social conditions, a careless phrase or even a single word thrown into the crowd can provoke mass unrest, riots and even hallucinations. In this case, however, the political situation in the country, which developed under the conditions of the “Khrushchev thaw” and the debunking of Stalin’s personality cult, became fertile ground for such a psychosis, when people felt real indulgence from the state in relation to believers.
Second fact. The Samara Regional State Archive of Socio-Political History (the former archive of the Regional Committee of the CPSU) contains an uncorrected 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 happened on Chkalovskaya Street. About twenty notes came in about this. Yes, such a miracle happened - shameful for us, the Communists, the leaders of the party organs. Some old woman walked and said: in this house young people were dancing, and one stunner began to dance with the icon and turned to stone. After that they began to say: petrified, stiffened, and it went, people began to gather because the leaders of the police agencies acted stupidly. Apparently, someone else had a hand here. A police post was immediately set up, and where the police are, there are eyes. Our militia turned out to be not enough, since the people kept arriving, they put up mounted police, and the people, if so, they all went there. Some have even thought of making a proposal to send priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. The bureau of the regional committee consulted and instructed to remove all outfits and posts, remove the guards, there is nothing to guard there. As soon as the outfits and posts were removed, the people began to disperse, and now, as they reported to me, there is almost no one. Militia bodies acted incorrectly, and began to attract attention. But in essence, this is real stupidity, there were no dances, no parties in this house, there was an old woman living there. Unfortunately, our police agencies 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 perpetrators 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 indeed published in the "Volga Commune" dated January 24, 1956.
As for the search for and punishment of the perpetrators of this "wild case", 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 is what is written about it in the uncorrected transcript:
“Today Comrade. Efremov told about a miracle. This is a disgrace to the regional party conference. The culprit number 1 is comrade. Derevnin [third secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee of the CPSU for ideology - V.E.], the 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 Central Committee of the party on anti-religious work. Indeed, even in the report of the Regional Party Committee, not a word is said about what work the Regional Committee of the Party has done to implement this remarkable decision of the Central Committee of the Party. 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 resolute and courageous in all matters, so that we, the workers of the ideological front, do not suffer from this.
As a result, it all ended with Comrade Derevnin at the party conference being only slightly reprimanded for omissions in anti-religious work - and left in his former position, while in his reply he swore an oath to make up for lost time.
From other sources:
The data given in the newspapers "Moskovsky Komsomolets" and "Komsomolskaya Pravda" indicate that, probably, the story of Zoya is 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: youth was dancing in this house - and one stunner began to dance with the icon and turned to stone, became stiff ... And off it went, people began to gather ... Immediately they set up a police post. Where the police, there and the eyes. They put up a mounted police, and the people, if so, are all there. They wanted to send priests there to eliminate this shameful phenomenon. But the bureau of the regional committee consulted and decided to remove all the posts, there was nothing to guard there. Stupidity came out: there were no dances there, an old woman lives there.
House number 84 belonged to Claudia Bolonkina, and the names of Zoya Karnaukhova and the monk Seraphim were not found in the archives. According to eyewitnesses, dancing with the icon really took place, and a passing nun threw: “For such a sin you will turn into a pillar of salt!”, And Claudia began to spread a rumor that this had 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, acquaintances began to call her "stone Zoya", and the name became part of the legend...
Nearly three decades have passed since then, and Gorbachev's perestroika began in the country. It was then that a lot of “secondary” witnesses appeared around the “miracle of the petrified Zoe”, that is, people who themselves were not present during the events of 1956, but heard a lot about them that actually never happened, and still nothing is confirmed. It is their fantasies that are now mainly printed by the “yellow press”, although these speculations have nothing to do with real events.
But why the crowd described above appeared at house No. 84 on Chkalovskaya Street, no one could say for sure in 1956, just as he cannot say now. Therefore, the most plausible in this case is the above version of mass psychosis, which provoked a crowd of people to mass unrest, riots, and even hallucinations.
Unconditional fictions in this story include, for example, stories constantly found in the media about emergency doctors who allegedly tried to revive Zoya on the spot or give her injections, as well as about policemen who allegedly visited the legendary room and from what they saw instantly greyed. 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 maiden”. In fact, there is no real evidence of the 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, both before and now, was and is being shown by anyone, but not official science. It is possible that if scientists had investigated the phenomenon of rumors about Zoya, then now there would not be so many fictions and outright falsifications around him.
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 some mythical figures 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 the creation of Proshkin.
But, however, despite all the absurdities listed above, at the very end of this fantastic film, credits float across the screen, from which it follows that the film was shot 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 fairy tale "Kashchei the Immortal" wrote in the credits to it that the film was based on the events that took place in Russia in 1237. If this happened then, then the director of "Kashchei the Immortal" Alexander Rowe would simply be ridiculed
But today's viewers take Proshkin's film with all seriousness, and many even consider it almost a documentary source on Soviet history. It is sad that in this way our master of cinematography had a hand in promoting outright obscurantism.
And in 2010, local authorities reported that another memorial sign should appear in the city - this time not to a historical figure, but to the heroine of one of the urban legends - “stone Zoe”.
Whether he appeared or not, I don’t know who the locals will tell!
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