“I’ll start drawing up a business plan tomorrow.”
“Now I’ll save some money and leave here, I’m tired of digging through papers for 20 years.”
“I’ll wait another year, and then I’ll move away from my parents and finally get married at 35.”
Sound familiar? Everyone faces this.
But how do you decide to make changes in life? Quit a job you don't like, lose weight, end a destructive relationship, move to another city, start saying what you think?
Four Freedom Lagoons
Article on the topic
Bird in hand or pie in the sky? What is more important, money or spiritual comfort “Utrishan”, as the residents of the town call themselves, can be seen already at the Anapa bus station. They are distinguished from ordinary holidaymakers by their heavy backpacks with a large amount of hiking equipment and a very tired appearance. They are in a hurry to catch a minibus that will take them 27 kilometers from Anapa, to the village of Bolshoi Utrish. Next is the journey by sea taxi: if there is no storm, motorboats carry wildlife lovers from morning until late evening. Regulars and newcomers to Utrish are still on the shore deciding which of the four lagoons they should stop at. The first, the largest and closest to civilization, attracts inexperienced travelers. It’s not far from here to go to the village for provisions and drinking water. The second lagoon is for families with children. The third is a get-together of modern hippies, downshifters and yoga lovers. They rarely stop at the fourth, because there is no forest there, only rocks, a strip of beach and the sea.
Utrish is not just a resort for “savages”, but a unique meeting place for people who have decided to abandon the values of society, career and material wealth and live for themselves. AiF.ru correspondent talked to some of them to find out how their lives really changed?
Painted stones with similar inscriptions can be found on lagoons at almost every step. Photo: AiF/ Yana Toporkova
Eva: “There is no money, and I’m happy!”
Eva is 42 years old. Her hairstyle is dreadlocks. In summer, a woman wears only a loincloth. Eva says that she has already spent 17 winters on Utrish, and claims that she cannot imagine a better life for herself.
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Two people per square kilometer. How do hermits live in an abandoned village?
— I grew up in St. Petersburg. She graduated from medical university with a degree in pediatric surgeon-oncologist. She worked in a hospital and got married. My husband was a military man. He died during the second Chechen campaign. She was left alone with five children,” Eva sighs heavily, remains silent... Then she continues: “Trouble does not come alone... After her husband’s funeral, she was in a serious accident. My car was hit by a truck. She received fractures of both legs, injuries to the pelvis and spine. The doctors put me back together, one might say, piece by piece. But I didn’t want to live after the death of my husband and the health problems that appeared. She was depressed, stopped working, did not take care of the children... I knew about Utrish from stories. For some reason I was drawn here. My brother helped me get there. I was probably crazy, because I arrived in late autumn and stayed to live here. It was hard. Very soon I met an elderly woman from the village of Maly Utrish. She knew about herbs and called herself a healer. She took me to her home and treated me with some decoctions and infusions. We talked a lot with her. You could say that after that I returned to normal life. She went back to St. Petersburg and started working. But my heart still remains on Utrish. At first I came here for a while, relaxing during the summer holidays and winter holidays. And when the children finished school, as they say, she gave up on everything and went to live in the juniper forests forever.
Eve's story seems implausible. A successful medical worker, a mother of many children, and suddenly... she left everything and began to live as a “savage.” And she looks much younger than her age, speaks competently, loves children and animals.
Article on the topic
“I’m trading my tie for slippers.” Why is downshifting so popular?
“I have few clothes, no cell phone and no food supplies. There is almost never any money. But I’m happy with what I have,” says Eva. — The energy of real nature, the sea, the forest gives me more than all the benefits of the world.
As an old-timer of Utrish, Eva keeps order: she forces vacationers to remove bags of garbage, and creates serious scandals for those who dare to cut down dry branches of the “Red Book” juniper to make a fire.
“You may not believe me,” says Eva, “but I always feel acutely when the local trees are hurt.” My arms and legs ache, my lower back twists, I can get a wild headache simply because one of the vacationers has offended my forest.
Eva claims that the old juniper tree, which is called Lotus in Utrish, gives her peace of mind. Photo: AiF/ Yana Toporkova
From May to mid-October, Eva lives on the seashore. Then he moves to the mountains “for the winter” - this is the name of the huts in which the indigenous “Utrishans” spend the cold months of the year.
— In winter, there are only 10–12 of us left. We all support each other like neighbors,” says Eva. “Once a month I take a backpack, dress warmly and walk along the rocky beach to the village of Bolshoi Utrish, there I take a bus to Anapa and buy everything I need for life at the city market.
Article on the topic
“We do everything according to the sun”: Kuban residents left the noisy city for their ancestral settlement
Where Eva gets the money remains a mystery. Just like whether she communicates with her children, where they are now, what they are doing, whether they visit her. However, Eva’s words about her age and the number of years she lived in nature can also be questioned. The woman diligently pretends that she does not hear my clarifying questions, and persistently turns the conversation to her favorite juniper-pistachio forests, the deep blue sea and clean air, which made her happy.
How to start living and not existing
Hello Maria Alexandrovna!
I need expert advice, I hope you can help me...
I'm 20. All my life I've been a very shy person, I would say too shy. In the school group I practically didn’t communicate with anyone (only with one friend, we were friends since I was 4 years old), so I was even afraid to say hello to my acquaintances, classmates, not to mention participating in any conversation. Some even said that I was arrogant, but I was simply afraid to say the wrong thing, in the wrong intonation, afraid that everyone would hear my trembling voice, etc.
Having graduated from school as a “savage”, I went to college, I thought “that’s it, a new life begins and... and I will become a different person, sociable, interesting,” but that was not the case... of course, there are no problems with the fear of “greeting”, but I’m still the same he's a savage. Of course, I communicated with some, although while I was studying well, or rather, they communicated with me)) and I supported... My personal life did not exist. There were fans, but I didn’t like anyone...or I was just afraid of relationships.
After entering university, my paths with my childhood friend diverged a little; we saw each other less often, only on holidays. And then on one of the holidays a conflict occurred. Briefly:
I was accused of an action that I did not commit. My then “best friend,” one might say, turned away from me and began to communicate with the one who accused (although she had no right to do so, since it was not proven). This really hurt me. The whole month she shed tears about the betrayal of her “best friend” at that time. A month later, we finally made peace, but a bitter feeling appeared between us, awkwardness in communication...
Meanwhile, at the university there was a conflict with my classmates, even now I can’t understand why... In general, two conspiring classmates became angry with me and began to humiliate and tease me in every possible way. I don’t know how to respond to such attacks, so I was silent and endured (I hate myself for this), while becoming more and more mired in complexes...
By this time, there had been progress in my personal life, I seemed to have even blossomed, but those two classmates managed to do a mischief here too, in general, I again withdrew into myself and... that’s it!
From this period I began to completely sink to the very bottom. I stopped studying. I started going to college no more than twice a week for half a couple. I lied to my parents that I was going, and spent time in the library, of course without any benefit. I wanted to hide in a corner where no one would see... then summer, sitting at home in front of the Internet and again...
Today I am nobody and even nothing... a useless creature... I sit at home, I can’t bring myself to study, to do something useful, I spend all day on the Internet or listen to music, I constantly want to sleep, I don’t want to communicate with anyone, for me this is The test is to leave the house somewhere to go to a cafe (once every six months), and actually not with anyone. As for men, they all irritate me, lately especially and for no reason. I leave the house as if I were leaving a trench for reconnaissance. I need nothing.
I’ve been sitting at home for weeks without going out, I can’t even go out the window... It’s impossible to live like this, especially since I’m already 20. (By the way, I increasingly want to go back to a carefree time...)
Of course, I dream of a successful career, an independent, interesting life, but I don’t do anything for it. I know that a person builds his own destiny, his own life, and what I did with my life is my own fault.
I ask you for advice on how to get out of this seclusion, how to start living and not existing. And most importantly, where to start?
How to start living and not existing? (2 answers)
Anton: “I feel needed”
We met Anton on the “mainland”, or more precisely, near the village of Bolshoi Utrish, where the young man went to work.
— I myself am from the Tyumen region. I learned about Utrish six months ago. I hitchhiked here and have been living here for two months. I arrived with one backpack on my shoulders. And now I have everything I need to live on the seashore - a tent, dishes. And even some kind of work to make money.
Anton is 25 years old. He was in prison on three counts - for theft, hijacking and robbery. The guy complains that he can’t find a job on the “mainland”. He is a car mechanic by profession, but all his criminal records are directly related to cars, so he won’t be able to work in car repair shops for several more years.
“They don’t take me anywhere else,” the young man throws up his hands. - But on Utrish I help people - I collect applications every morning and go to the village for shopping, help inexperienced tourists light a fire. When I’m in the mood, I sing songs with the boys with a guitar on the village embankment. People give us money for good music.
Every day a large bonfire on the third lagoon gathers local residents. Photos from the personal archive of travelers
Anton says that no one needed him all his life. His parents did not raise him. The wife who bore him a son turned out to be a traitor and now does not allow the boy to see his father. Finding a job is difficult.
“Utrish gave me everything I needed for happiness,” says Anton, “in a few months I made friends from many cities in Russia. People are happy to have my help: they invite me to breakfast, lunch and dinner, and ask me to sing for them. I didn’t know before that somewhere in the world there was a place where I could find myself.
Article on the topic
On indefinite leave. What makes people give up their career ambitions? Anton will spend the winter in Krasnodar with friends from Utrish, and in the spring he will return to the third lagoon, as he expects, forever.
There are no wrong lives
The stories of Eva and Anton are unusual. Perhaps someone will admire the strength of their spirit, while others, on the contrary, will consider them irresponsible... Maybe they took the easiest path of abandoning the problems that ordinary people face every day? Business psychologist Sergei Fedchenko explained why one should not be skeptical of people who have abandoned traditional social values:
— There are no right or wrong lives. Eva and Anton, instead of the worries that daily beset their society, chose life on Utrish. They chose for themselves the existence that made them needed by the world, and therefore happy. Both of them went through a difficult path in life and suffered a lot of hardships and grief. I don’t consider them homeless or broken people. I see in these young men and women an interest in everything that surrounds them, a desire for harmony and a rejection of the modern pace of life.
For each of us, our choice of life path is influenced by our upbringing and circumstances. Some will build a career, start a family and raise children. Others are to meet the sunrise on the seashore, keep the forest clean and teach friends how to make fires. Everyone has their own ideas about happiness, and they are all correct.
All reviews of the film I Want Too
No matter how you feel about Alexei Balabanov, you have to admit that each of his new paintings is an intrigue. The devil knows what this dejected-looking man in a vest is capable of! Maybe it will give birth to the next national avenger, or it will lay out everything in its entirety about freaks and people, maybe it will give out an aesthetic stylization of the beginning of the 20th century, or it will scare you to death with horror films borrowed from domestic reality. The audience, of course, will be split in two: some will call what they saw a masterpiece, others - a “disgusting spectacle,” but everyone will be united by a feeling of surprise. Balabanov is Balabanov because he knows how to surprise, each time presenting something that is not expected from him. Admit it, you couldn’t even imagine that after a series of brutal postmodern opuses, like “Zhmurok” (2005), “Cargo 200” (2007) and “Stoker” (2010), the director would produce a philosophical road movie with elements of science fiction and piercing author's confession in the finale. Meanwhile, the title itself, not Balabanov’s sweeping and straightforward “I want it too,” suggests that the picture is atypical for the author.
The story told in the film, at first glance, is built in a spirit quite traditional for most of Balabanov’s works. A company of contradictory marginal characters - a killer-policeman, a prostitute-philosopher, a rock musician-righteous man and just an alcoholic - having abandoned everything, telling stories, washed down with plenty of vodka, they go in search of, no less, happiness. But at this point, Balabanov adds a seemingly long-forgotten element of light absurdity and mysticism, intermediate between the epic tale and Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Happiness, it turns out, is located where it seems to have no place at all - in a radioactive zone, in some mysterious bell tower. Of course, not everyone can achieve the favor of this bell tower, and therefore the road to happiness is paved with the corpses of the unworthy. But is there really such a force that could hold a Russian person if it promises him happiness? So the heroes of the film go ahead towards their goal, relying on chance, and not thinking at all that the journey could end sadly.
“I Want Too” gives the impression of a milestone work, drawing a line under a certain period in the director’s work, and opening up possible vectors for his further development. So, on the one hand, the picture represents the quintessence of all the best of what makes up Balaban’s unique style: biting social irony, murders as simple as twice two, abrupt dialogues built on aphorisms, a shocking, memorable leitmotif and, of course, the author’s favorite trams. symbols. Added to all this is the fantastic atmosphere of the early experimental films, “Happy Days” (1991) and “The Castle” (1994). On the other hand, if not new, then very unusual Balabanov appears in the picture - a frank, suffering, good-natured little man. For the first time since the short film “Trofim” (1995), appearing on camera, the director takes upon himself the courage to directly share his innermost thoughts and experiences with the viewer. That is why the picture resembles a kind of confession, quiet and sincere, pronounced by a skeptic, tired of his own habit of making pessimistic, bitterly ironic jokes about the unsightly structure of our lives.
Thus, the painting is the key to Balabanov’s entire work. Behind shocking gestures, provocative techniques and alarming statements, interpreted either as nationalist, or as conservative, or God knows what else, it turns out that there is hidden the universal sorrow and melancholy of man-like-everyone. It seems that the director, having not found solutions to the countless problems of Russian life, simply refuses to continue his search. And the only thing that remains for him is to childishly, naively, but sincerely admit that he also wants happiness. How to get it is not important, even if only thanks to the radioactive bell tower.
