Sacral stones

В статье рассматривается проблема изучения и сохранности  деревенских часовен буферной зоны Ярославского, Костромского и Тверского Поволжья. Попытка каталогизации и систематизации часовенных сооружений данного региона выявила здесь несколько сооружений, находящихся вне общепринятой системы  типологии часовен. Сопровождающий этнографический материал позволяет отнести их к т.н. объектам народного православия.
Ключевые слова: часовня, деревенские святыни, народное православие, традиционная культура, сакральный ландшафт.

S.B. Chernetsowa
Rare types of rustic chapels in the upper Volga region.
The article touches upon the problem of exploration and preservation of rural chapels in a border area of Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Tver Volga region. The attempt of cataloguing and systematization in this region revealed some installations which are out of the common system of typology of chapels. The accompanying ethnographic material allows to refer them to so-called objects of national Orthodoxy.
Keywords: chapel, rural sacred places, national Orthodoxy, traditional culture, sacral landscape.

The complex of sacral stones of Olkhovka is usually dated to the Iron Age and to the Middle Ages. However, there are some facts indicating that the stones could be used by the Neolithic people yet. Finnish/Karelian name of Olkhovka was Lapinlahti (literally: "Sami bay"). The practice of cup stones is unknown in Sami culture, but there is the cult of noticeable stones (the cult of sieidis). The word sieidi/sejjd has no Uralic etymology, but can be explained through Hattic šail-"lord", "master". Ancient Sami had contacts with the Neolithic population of the Russian Northwest, which spoke a language that was a juncture between Yeniseian, Hattic, and Caucasian languages. Also a noteworthy fact is that almost all stones with artificially created cups resemble lying/sitting bears, and so ritual practices around these stones could be formed by the Neolithic people yet, who definitely had certain bear rites and bear myths.