In Siberia by Colin Thubron Page B

foreigner formed a wavering crescent round the water’s rim.
    The unkempt celebrant, clutching a jewelled cross, was ordered to wade in. From time to time he glanced up pathetically at Feodosy, who gave no signal for him to stop. Deeper and deeper he went, while his vestments fanned out over the surface, their mauve silk waterlogged to indigo, until he was spread below us like an outlandish bird over the pool. At last Feodosy lifted his finger. The priest floundered, gaped up at us–or at the sky–in momentary despair, recovered his balance and went motionless. Then, with a ghostly frown, he traced a trembling cross beneath the water.
    A deep, collective sigh seemed to escape the pilgrims. Again the cavalcade unfurled around the pool, while the archbishop, grasping a silver chalice, sprinkled the surface with its own water, and the wobbly cross led the way back towards the noise of the bulldozers.
    But the babushkas stayed put. As the procession glimmered and died through the darkness of the trees, and the archbishop went safely out of sight, a new excitement brewed up. They began to peel off their thick stockings and fling away their shoes. They were all ready. They tugged empty bottles labelled Fanta or Coca-Cola from their bags. Then they clambered and slid down the muddy banks and waded into the newly blessed water. At first they only scooped it from the shallows. It was mineral water, muddied and warm. They drank in deep gulps from their cupped hands, and winched themselves back to stow the bottles on shore.
    Then it all went to their heads. Six or seven old women flung off first their cardigans, then their kerchiefs and skirts, until at last, stripped down to flowery underpants and bras, they made headlong for the waters. All inhibition was lost. Their massive legs, welted in varicose veins, carried them juddering down the banks. Their thighs tapered to small, rather delicate feet. Little gold crosses were lost between their breasts. They plunged mountainously in. I stood above them in astonishment, wondering if I was meant to be here. But they were shouting and jubilant. They cradled the water in their hands and dashed it over their faces. Holiness had turned liquid, palpable. You could drink it, drown in it, bring it home like flowers for the sick.
    Two of the boldest women–cheery, barrel-chested ancients–made for the gushing silver pipe and thrust their heads under it. They sloshed its torrent exultantly over one another, then submerged in it and drank it wholesale. They shouted at their friends still on land, until one or two even of the young girls lifted their skirts and edged in. Bottle after bottle was filled and lugged to shore. But it was the young, not the old, who hesitated. The old were in high spirits. One of them shouted at me to join them, but I was caught between laughter and tears. These were women who had survived all the Stalin years, the deprivation, the institutional suffering, into a life of widowhood and breadline pensions, and their exuberance struck me dumb. Perhaps in this sacred and chaotic water-hole the world seemed finally to make sense to them, and all this aching, weary flesh at last found absolution.
    The procession, meanwhile, had reached the open fields where the bulldozers worked. All the way to the future cathedral, which would stand in the compound’s heart, the tarred pipes lay ready alongside their trenches, and the channel was blessed. I caught up with the remaining pilgrims clustered in the big meadows, beside the ghost-cathedral. Here Feodosy, above the lonely swing of a censer, blessed the site ‘where nameless thousands had laboured and died’, and we stared across fields lacquered in blue and white flowers while the incense vanished over them. Sometimes I wondered if the past were being laid too easily to sleep, forgotten. But the monastery would countermand this, said the shy priest. In future years people would ask: Why is it here? and