Комаров Максим

Karelian Birch Remembers

Karelia and Petrozavodsk are the northern edge of our homeland. Here, in 1703, Emperor Peter I founded a settlement – Petrovskaya Sloboda, and later the settlement received the status of a city bearing the Tsar’s name Peter – Petrozavodsk. Many events have happened since that moment – victories and defeats in wars, great happiness and no less great grief, triumph and fall. Can anyone now boast of having seen and felt all this? I don’t think so. But who is to stop us from dreaming a bit and adding a little fantasy to this essay?
I invite you to dream a little and to reflect on who could tell us about our Karelian homeland, about this harsh but extraordinarily beautiful region of the era of Peter the Great? I know what you are thinking about – yes, they are, of course, trees. But which ones? The birch is my answer, and not just any birch but Karelian birch! The very birch that Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky wrote about in his poem:

It is standing here on the edge,
Above the wavelets of forgotten lakes,
Stretching out clumsy hands
Into the waving heat of expanse.

According to scientists, provided the conditions are favourable, some birch trees can live for more than 300 years! I am sure there is such a birch in our city. The birch that grew on the bank of the Lososinka river, not far from Lake Onego. I am sure it saw Peter’s times. It saw him; Emperor Peter pointed toward that birch saying, “There will be gun plants here, Petrovskaya Sloboda will be here!” Indeed, there used to be plants, and the manufactured guns served for the benefit of our state.
The birch remembers him standing nearby and pondering on his power. This reminds us of an excerpt from Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” that describes the meeting of Andrey Bolkonsky with an oak. Peter looked at our heroine – the birch; it was full of strength, growing gradually, like our Russia, getting stronger and stronger.
A little later, in 1719, Peter I founded Marcial Waters, the first health resort in Russia, and the birch knows about it. Peter started coming to Karelia in the last years of his life when he was already ill – the administration of a great state takes away all the vitality. Mineral springs helped him. The Karelian birch knows a lot – for example, it knows the place where the Tsar’s wooden palace was built – but it remains silent. Will the Karelian birch share its secret? I cannot say for sure. Sooner or later, the whole truth will out.
The birch saw, felt, and heard a lot more – it saw Governor Derzhavin who was walking around and drawing inspiration for his poetry while looking at our beautiful nature. It felt a cold and moist wind blowing from the large Onego Lake. It heard the bells of Kizhi churches and Valaam Monastery ringing.
Nevertheless, no matter what secrets the Karelian birch keeps, we must keep the knowledge we have about our native land – Karelia. I would like to end my essay with a quote by Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, “A nation that does not know its past has no future.”