Abode of Dawn
The history of the development of the spiritual movement of the Unifying Faith (the Last Testament) began in 1991. Through this Teaching of Light, Vissarion calls to unite into a single People all those who strive for Love, Good, Truth and Joy - irrespective of denomination, nationallity and language.
Since 1992, the followers of Vissarion and His Teaching started to gather in Minussinsk. And there began the gradual settling of the people eastwards of Minussinsk - to the villages, situated by the river Kazir - up to the Tiberkul lake.
In the second half of 1994, the initial group of the followers of Vissarion came to the taiga, near Tiberkul lake. They had the proposal to organize there an econoospherical settlement which would demonstrate in practice the ecological-noospherical way of development of society where a reasonable activity of people wouldn't desturb ecological balance on the Earth.
For making an ecopolis in the taiga, a plot with an area of 250 hectares was used. The settlement has a three-level structure - the Town itself, the Heavenly Abode, and the Temple Peak.
On April 23, 1995, at the foot of the mountain Sukhaja (Dry), above the lake of Tiberkul (Kuraginskij region of the Krasnojarskij krai) the foundation for the prospective town was laid and sanctified. It is connected with the adjoining villages by means of the walk/horse path and the "zimnik", which is the lower path that can be used by cross-country vehicles only in winter. In the past, the Town was called by different names: New Jerusalem, Town of Sun, Town of Masters or simply Town, or Town on the Mountain. On August 14, 1998, the Vetche (the highest self-governmental organ, it is the name of the regular meetings of the settlement's inhabitants) made a decision to call their town the "Abode of Dawn".
In the centre of the Town, on January 7, 1998, there was placed and sanctified by Vissarion the Symbol of Faith: a group of sculpture made of cedar by Igor Mokhov. The figures of two angels are crowned with the cross in a circle on which the model of the planet Earth is placed, which symbolizes that from now on the world will stand upon faith. The liturgies, masses and holidays are held around the Symbol. The bells under the angel's wings glorify the Lord three times a day. |
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In the tent, there are two storeys of wooden planking with four mattresses on every storey. So 8 people can live there. When 2 more women came into our camp, I went to the cold summer tent. There was only one woman, so I was the second.
Here is our tent camp. I stood with my back to the women's tent and I took this photo. At the left behind a birch tree, there is the summer tent. And the long awning to the right is a kitchen and dining room. I helped two women to cook on the big brick oven there. Cooks’ day began at 4 a.m. We baked flat cakes, cooked different types of kasha (hot cereals), boiled sweet-scented herbal tea. |
Three men helped us. They brought water from a stream, chopped firewood, stoked ovens (also the ovens in tents) and did other hard work. For the first two days, it was rainy and cold.People came into the camp wet to the skin. They needed to dry out their clothes. That's why the ovens in tents were always heated properly before they came.
Life in the tent camp
In our tent camp, there are brothers and sisters from United Families of different villages. All of them came from different cities and countries. Some of them came not long ago to live in Siberia, others have lived here for 3-5 or more years. And I’m only a Muscovite on vacation. Even one German man and a Bulgarian man live in our tent camp. They work on the construction of the temple, and they communicate with each other in Russian. (Maybe, it’s true that soon all people will study Russian?) :-)
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Liturgy began at 6:45 a.m., and at 7 a.m. there was a circle of inhabitants of the town, in which they distributed work for the present day. During the liturgy, the priest, Andrew, said heartfelt words of thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father, and to Mother-Earth. Then he began a psalm and we joined. We were standing face to face with the Symbol of Faith, and the rising sun in the east. The house of Vissarion was to the left of us, on the Mountain. (Some time ago, I translated into Russian an article from "The Guardian" newspaper in the U.K., in which it was written that people glorify Father while appealing to Vissarion and looking at his house. It’s not right. As I said already, the house of the Teacher is more to the north, on the Mountain. Also Vissarion is not Father God.) You can see in my photo which I took there, that the angel (Symbol of Faith) stands a little sideways to the Mountain, on which you may see the Teacher’s house. |
You may think that the whole week from early mornings till evenings I did nothing but cook food and wash up dishes and cooking utensils in the kitchen. But it’s not right. I was at Tibercul lake, at a discotheque (they have a dance every Friday), in the Heavenly Abode and at the Temple Peak. For me, every day there was full of new revelations, meetings and amazing gifts. Perhaps, the reason for it is that I didn’t go there to judge, but to know, to open a new world for me. It turned out that I opened up so much in myself, that I could even manage with some of my weaknesses and get rid of some of my fears. For example, I was panicky about ticks, but when I was there, it was a time with an unusually numerous quantity of ticks. I was afraid to the point of feeling faint, I was scared that I wouldn’t feel a tick bite into my skin, that I won’t be able to extract it, that my hand or leg will become paralysed and so on, etc. With my worrying, I amused very much the camp veterans there. If anybody found a tick on himself, I ran to my tent to examine myself. But it so happened that I learned to feel ticks before they were going to bite. At the end of the week, I calmly took them away from myself and from other people.
One beautiful morning when we baked flat cakes, I said wistfully: "Eh, what if we had some honey for our cakes!.." -- "Yes…" -- my friends said. 15 or 20 minutes passed. Suddenly, one of the brothers came into our camp. He had finished his work earlier than the others. He came to us with the words: "Sisters! I brought a little honey for you, treat yourself." A little coffee-tin was in his hands. When I looked into it, I saw that its bottom was just slightly covered with 2 or 3 teaspoons of honey, not more. I decided that it wasn’t enough for all who were in the kitchen. So I said that I didn’t want it just yet and suggested my friends eat first. Lyudmila ate a couple of teaspoons of honey, then Vera had 2 or 3. Then we treated the brother who helped us in the kitchen. Somebody came to us, so we treated him, too. Then somebody else. So it happened that only I didn’t have any, so then they gave me the tin. You will laugh, but I ate 3 teaspoons, and honey still remained there. I gave the tin to Vera and she ate up the remains. Who spoke about miracles with multiplying loaves? :-) I saw with my own eyes that the bottom of the tin was just slightly covered at the beginning.
Once when we again cooked dinner, we began to talk about music which each of us liked. I said: "Yes, psalms are great, of course, they’re wonderful. But to say the truth, I’m bored with this. I’d like so much to hear something else, simple music – it doesn’t matter what!" Only the sisters and nature around us heard my words. 10 or 15 minutes passed. Then one brother walked by us and asked: "Girls, do you want to hear music?" I stared with surprise: "How? There is no electricity here!" -- "Solar batteries are charged already," was the answer. And this whole day and the next one, too, a tape recorder twirled cassettes of modern records for us.
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