About the book: 2019 / "Stavropol had already celebrated Christmas and was now waiting for the arrival of the new year 1909. The townspeople are not yet tired of the holiday. For days they visited the Christmas fair, shops and stores on Nikolaevsky Prospekt, where they bought all kinds of products, especially not forgetting suckling pigs, without which the evening of December 31, called Vasiliev (in honor of St. Basil of Caesarea) was not an evening. It seemed that prosperity would not appear in the house in the New Year if the owner did not set a rich table and treat all the relatives and friends who came to visit. No wonder people said: “Save a pig and a boletus for Vasilyev’s evening.” Another very noticeable feature of Vasily’s Day was fortune telling. People used to say that everything predicted for the evening of December 31st would come true. And they took note of the weather. It’s not for nothing that local elders taught: “if the wind blows from the south on Vasily, the year will be rich; from the east - you will be lucky with a harvest of fruits, vegetables and berries; from the west, there will be nets full of fish, and jugs full of milk.” “There will be a blizzard - baskets full of nuts,” “if it’s warm and without snow, it will lead to crop failure and illness,” and the north wind will lead to trouble, devastation and hunger.” And the old sorceress Kuleshikha, who still remembered the times when the Cossacks fought with the highlanders at the walls of the fortress, and the city itself consisted of a Cossack village and a dozen streets, told the children that “the witches steal a month from Vasily, so that he does not illuminate their night walks with unclean spirits.” " They listened to her, crossed themselves earnestly and left without looking back, suspecting that she herself flies on a broom at night…»