Nature of the Phenomenon
Pyany Bor was founded approximately in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and is the oldest Russian settlement in the Agryzssky District.
The present-day selo of Pyany (now Krasny) Bor in Agryzssky District sits on the scenic bank of the Kama River. On the site of the settlement and in the surrounding area, nineteenth-century historian-archaeologists discovered a number of ancient dwelling sites and burial grounds dating to the first through third centuries AD. Archaeological finds from this period are known in scholarship as the "Pyanoborskaya culture." In later centuries the territory was under the dominion of the Bulgaro-Tatars.
Historical Background
Founding
Official Version
In former times this was where burlaks (barge haulers) from the Belaya River met those from the Kama. It was also the customary place where barge owners settled accounts with the haulers for the stretch of the journey completed. All too often, money earned through backbreaking toil passed from the pockets of carousing poor men into the pockets of Pyany Bor tavern keepers. Day and night during those times, the village rang with the songs of reveling laborers — sometimes mournful, filled with grief and lament over a bitter lot, sometimes, on the contrary, wild and raucous, full of drunken bravado.
According to legend, in the distant past the site of the village was covered by a dense pine forest, and anyone who entered it became intoxicated from the ozone-rich air. In the dense forest the burlaks found hollow trees filled with wild honey; upon eating it they immediately became drunk, as the honey contained alkaloid substances. It is from these legends that the village took its name: Pyany Bor — "Drunken Forest."
Unofficial Versions
The exact date of Pyany Bor's founding is unknown. The recognized authority on its history is Ivan Dmitrievich Chigvintsev, who spent many years as director of the Menzalinsk boarding school and taught the children history. He was born in this village, is approaching his seventy-fifth birthday, and remembers many of the old-timers and the legends connected with his homeland.
One of these legends was told to him by his great-great-grandfather on his mother's side — Fyodor Zinovyevich Armyaninov, born as far back as 1835, who lived to within two months of a hundred years. Fyodor Armyaninov was a figure of near-legendary status who distinguished himself in the Crimean campaign and was awarded the medal "Hero of Shipka." He himself is said to have learned how Pyany Bor came into being from his own great-grandfather.
During the campaigns of Yermak, several Cossacks fleeing pursuit took shelter in an enormous forest on the bank of a stream called the Prost. Before settling down for the night they drank their fill of medovukha (honey mead), having poured water into the hollow of an ancient linden that held wild honey. In the morning they repeated the procedure. The next day — again. Life seemed sweet as honey, and no one wanted to leave. And so the Cossacks Vokhma, Chigvinets, Sedun, Ponomar, and Golyak cleared the forest thicket and founded a settlement that came to be called Pyany Bor. At first the Cossacks raided vessels on the Kama, but later they built a river wharf and took up timber floating.
The Kama Wayfarer's Guide claims that it was wild strawberries — also abundant here — that intoxicated people. Historian V. Lepeshinsky, however, believed the intoxicating property belonged not to the forest berries but to the linden groves, "which grew in those parts and, during their flowering season, possessed the power to inebriate."
An original theory was put forward by historian Ilgiz Kayumov, who suggested that the Russian phrase "pyany bor" (drunken forest) may be a calque of the Tatar "isrek urman" (drunken forest). His reasoning: when heavy snow fell, young trees could not bear the weight and bent under it, then grew up "drunk" ever after. Such "drunken forests" are common throughout the Menzalinsk region.
Life Before the Revolution
According to the third Imperial census revision, in 1762 there were 83 males living here, classified as "palace peasants subject to a tax of 70 kopecks." By 1795 there were already 526 souls; by 1858, 1,129; by 1906, 1,662. By that time the village had acquired a wharf, a windmill, two parish schools attached to a church, two smithies, and a tannery.
From 1843 onward, annual trade fairs were held in Pyany Bor, and permanent markets operated as well. The selo gradually became one of the largest wharves in Yelabuga Uyezd; it counted more than 200 homesteads spread across 8 streets. By 1918 the population of Pyany Bor had reached 2,915.
The peasants' fields were scattered far from the village, at distances of 20 kilometers or more. During the harvest season only children remained in the village, which frequently led to accidents.
In 1896 and again in 1914, fires destroyed nearly the entire village, leaving the peasants yet more destitute and impoverished.
In 1901 the village was visited by the great Russian writer A. P. Chekhov and his wife, People's Artist of the USSR Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova. The place made a profound impression on them: "all around — boundless expanses, peace, silence."
USSR
Until 1922 the selo of Pyany Bor was the administrative center of a volost (rural district), and from 1930 to 1960 it served as the center of the Krasnoborskyy District of the Tatar ASSR.
Soviet power was met in these parts with indifference, and collectivization proceeded haltingly. In 1933, out of 292 peasant households, 80 never joined the collective farm.
In connection with the construction of the Nizhnekamsk Reservoir, a decision was made to flood the meadowland on a planned basis, and in the early 1970s this plan was carried out — some 24,000 hectares, including those belonging to the "Luguvoy" collective farm, went underwater. Despite lengthy preparations, the flooding was carried out hastily. The church in Krasny Bor — a unique structure — was not dismantled but simply demolished; burial mounds were not reinterred; brush and trees were not cleared, which has caused severe silting of the reservoir. Even now navigation across it is difficult, and one can only wonder what the situation will be in another couple of decades.
Pyanoborskaya Culture
The Pyanoborskaya culture (community) is a cultural-historical community that existed from the second century BC to the second or fourth century AD in the lower Kama region and along the Vyatka River. The Pyanoborskaya cultural-historical community developed out of the disintegrated Ananyinskaya cultural-historical community. The Pyanoborskaya culture takes its name from the burial ground near the selo of Pyany Bor, discovered in the late nineteenth century.
Pyanoborskaya sites of the second century BC to the second century AD are densely concentrated along the right bank of the Kama, opposite the mouth of the Belaya River, over a stretch of 90 kilometers, and on the adjacent territory of Bashkiria along the Belaya River and its tributaries, likewise for roughly 90 kilometers. According to the latest data, their total number reaches 175.
There are fortified settlements of two types: small refuge forts on the periphery of the culture's territory and large ones in the central district.
The population practiced a mixed economy combining livestock raising, agriculture, hunting, fishing, and beekeeping. Iron played an increasing role. Bronze was widespread.
In physical appearance, the Pyanoborskaya people, unlike the Mongoloid Ananyinskaya people, were predominantly Caucasoid.
The Pyanoborskaya community should be regarded as a community of ancient Udmurt tribes that had separated from the ancient Komi community — the Glyadenovskaya culture.
Administrative Address
The Krasnoborskoye rural settlement of Agryzssky Municipal District is located 85 kilometers from the district center, the town of Agryze.
The Krasnoborskoye rural settlement comprises 2 populated localities: the selo of Krasny Bor and the village of Zuyevo. The administrative center of the settlement is the populated locality of Krasny Bor.
Contact Information
Krasnoborskoye Rural Settlement of Agryzssky Municipal District of the Republic of Tatarstan.
422216, Republic of Tatarstan, Agryzssky District, selo Krasny Bor, ul. Markina, 35 Telephone: (85551) 3-91-72, 3-91-34
Head: Lazarev Anatoly Nikolayevich Head's office hours: Mondays, 14:00–16:00
Area, Population Size, and Composition
The territory of the municipal formation covers 11,365.9 hectares; agricultural land amounts to 3,959 hectares.
The permanent population (according to the 2002 All-Russian Population Census) is 1,679 persons, of whom: below working age — 368; of working age — 899; above working age — 412.
Population composition: Russians — 64.6%, Tatars — 24.6%, Mari — 9%, other nationalities — 1.8%.
Sights
On the bank of the Kama River stands a monument to Nikolai Grigoryevich Markin, commissar of the Volga Flotilla and hero of the Civil War, who drowned not far from the village in battle with the White Guards.
Online Reviews
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My father was born there. I remember the village — prosperous, beautiful. To this day I dream of returning. My father has already passed away, and I myself have grown up and begun to age. I will never return there now. | 
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Krasny Bor is the birthplace of my father and two uncles. Their father was named Nikifor, and their grandfather Afanasy. Their grandmother Darya was a Ponomaryova. There were only a few family names in the village — mostly Chigvintsevs, Ponomaryovs, and Gogalyovs. What a village it was! We picked berries by the bucketful, mushrooms by the cartload, fish by the boatload. In the early 1960s we children would gather there with our parents at grandmother's house and spend several days out on the meadows (called Lopatki) fishing, and on the islands picking blackberries. I will never forget the smell of fresh bread in the mornings. I remember the church (it had been turned into a club where films were shown), the school, the hospital near the forest, the cemetery on the hill. The village had its own history, its legends; the people had old-fashioned, beautiful faces. The last time I was there was with my father in the summer of 1989. The village was already in ruins, but had not yet been flooded. Greetings to all fellow villagers. |
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