The only one of its kind in the whole country: how will they celebrate the New Year in the village of Zmeevka?

The symbol of the coming 2025 is the Snake, a wise, thoughtful and cautious creature. And although Belarusians have lived side by side with these reptiles since ancient times, we managed to find only one settlement whose name contains a reference to snakes - the village of Zmeevka, Krasnoberezhsky village council, Gomel region. We went there to find out why it is called that and how the locals are preparing to celebrate the new year, 2025.
A popular place The agro-town of Krasny Bereg, where the village council is located, is known for its memorial "To Children - Victims of War" and the luxurious palace and park complex of Kozell-Poklevsky. Both points serve as a place of attraction for tens of thousands of tourists a year. So it would be a stretch to call this region the hinterland. There are about 9 kilometers between Krasny Bereg and Zmeevka. In good weather, they can easily be covered on foot or by bike, and if you have a car, the road will take a few minutes. So why Zmeevka?

The version we heard at the village council says that the village got its name from the river of the same name with a winding bed that once flowed nearby, as well as from the large number of reptiles that lived in the marshy area. Half a century ago, the area was filled with the crowing of roosters and the mooing of cows; there were more than fifty yards, a school, a club, a forge and warehouses... In the 90s, a rapid outflow of residents to the cities began, so today in Zmeyevka there are two dozen houses belonging to summer residents and 10 yards of local residents, where 13 pensioners live. Most of them are taken in by their children
and grandchildren for the winter. No one knew at what depth the bottom was. Boiler room stoker Yuri Gribovsky lived in Zmeyevka all his life. He willingly shows where the riverbed used to be, which disappeared due to land reclamation:

- There used to be an old farmstead here, and there, behind the bushes, the river flowed, Old Ola. And there was a huge lake there, and next to it - a large church, which then "disappeared".

- Where did it go?!

- Into the quagmire, - Yuri assures and points his hand towards the bushes in the distance. However, he still cannot tell what kind of church it was - stone or wooden, and when exactly the swamp swallowed it - somewhere between the 17th and 20th centuries. The eye cannot discern anything except a field, covered in bushes in places, but the swamp beyond Zmeevka is shrouded in legends. In the past, ancient pottery shards were found here during peat harvesting, although that was where it all stopped - archaeologists never got here. And we hear another story - during the Great Patriotic War, German tanks ran into swamps near Zmeevka, which were not on the maps.

- The Germans corduroyed the swamp so that equipment could pass. After the war, our villagers dismantled these corduroys to build sheds and baths, - says Yuri.

- The swamp was deep - you punch a window, tie two six-meter poles together, stick them in, and they don’t reach the bottom. Some windows didn’t freeze even in winter. In summer, you couldn’t go into the swamp, and in winter, people would go through it on sleds to get firewood. Now, after land reclamation and a new channel for the Ola, all the water is drawn into it.

The interviewee continues to share stories. On the other side of the road, according to him, there was Zmeinaya Gora. Locals say that during floods, when half the village turned into a lake, reptiles would crawl out onto it to warm themselves. But there’s no mountain in sight either. It
wasn’t just a fir tree. We drive along the curved main street of Zmeivka, and in fact, it seems that it follows the winding contours of the river. Between some of the buildings there are wide bald patches of arable land - the owners gave up their rights to the property , and the buildings were torn down. But the house of pensioner Nina Gribovskaya looks elegant, like a photograph in a tourist brochure. The owner greets us at the threshold.

- There was Snake Mountain there, that's where our village got its name, - the woman is sure. - Old people said that snakes used to live there, although there is no forest there. And on the other side of the village there is a swamp, where there was a quagmire, a small one, five to ten meters long, all covered in moss. You jump into it and you are waist-deep in water.

In recent years, Nina Mikhailovna has celebrated the New Year in her own apartment in Zhlobin, but she has kept one family tradition for her entire life.

- My father once brought three Christmas trees, all beautiful: how to choose? - says the interlocutor. - We put one in the house, the second on the veranda, the third in the yard. We decorated them with homemade bagels, apples and toys that we could get our hands on. This is how this tradition started - to put up three trees. Mom always took the New Year celebration very seriously. She died 18 years ago, at the very end of December. The neighbors found out that I was taking her, they took down all the decorations. I came: "Quickly put it back in place!" So Mom lay in the house, and next to her was a beautiful fir tree...

In Zhlobin, I still put up three trees. Are today's New Year dishes different from those prepared in previous years?

- Of course, - Nina Mikhailovna is sure. - Previously, there were baked geese with stuffing, jellied MEAT, village dishes made from meat and MILK on the table. Jellied meat was easy to make: put the cast iron in the oven overnight and take it out in the morning, but now people don't even light ovens.

Meanwhile, New Year is not the most important December holiday in Zmeevka. Sacred tradition
It so happened that we arrived in the village on December 19, when the patronal feast day is celebrated here - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker's Day. Our next stop is at the house of Anatoly Tchaikovsky, where life is also in full swing. The owner himself is no longer up, but his two daughters Tatyana and Elena are circling around the gas stove, preparing culinary delights.

- Each village has its own patronal feast, - explains Tatyana. - We have Nikola, St. Nicholas Day, in neighboring Svyatoe - May Day. Previously, the whole village celebrated Nikola for four days, and guests would come from the neighboring ones. Before Nikola, they would completely tidy up the house, set the tables, hang woven towels on the closets , walk and dance until the morning. Then it was winter like winter, they would ride in sleighs.

- Today, the three of us with dad will celebrate, - Elena joins the conversation. - And the guests will not come, because it is a working day.
- Will you celebrate New Year too?

- Of course. We will decorate the tree outside, the second one at home, set the table . We do not have any special New Year's recipes, we put out the same as in the city. The signature dish is Olivier, - smiles Elena. - I bring all the products from the city, I rarely go to the food truck. On New Year's Eve, you can buy fruit and champagne there, especially if you order in advance.

The interlocutor laughs: there is no red caviar in the mobile shop. If you want to spread it on sandwiches, you need to buy it in Krasny Bereg or Zhlobin.

We refuse the glass offered by the hostesses and go out into the yard. If only we had come to Zmeyevka fifty years earlier...
Modern New YearIt seems that the family of Anatoly Tchaikovsky and our guide Yuri Gribovsky and his wife are almost all who will be celebrating 2025 in Zmeyevka. Therefore, we ask the interlocutor about New Year's traditions.

- We always decorate the tree, set the table, - Yuri willingly tells. - We put champagne and a bottle of something stronger on the table. As for food -cutlets , kolduny, sausage pushed in with a finger , Olivier salad, oranges, tangerines, their own pickled tomatoes and cucumbers.

According to him, sometimes children come on December 31, but they don’t visit their neighbors anymore, because there’s no one left.

“We wait until midnight, watch the President’s speech, raise a glass to him,” the interviewee describes the annual tradition. “We used to gather at a club or ride horses to another village. That’s gone now. We sat in front of the TV, drank one, and went to work in the morning.

These are the traditions, but what about snakes?

“There are snakes! In the garden, during the warm season, grass snakes crawl,” the interviewee grins.

| Alexey GORBUNOV, 7 Dney newspaper. Photo by the author.

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