An Anufrievo resident takes a swim in the town's lake.

It is Elijah's Day, the big summer festival. Alexei's sister arrived this morning along with her son, Volodya, and her grandson, Yuri. Women clean and cook and men go outside to work in the front yard. We will be sleeping seven people in the one-room house tonight.

Yuri is 19 and got back in May from his year and a half of military service. He looks like such a boy. His dimpled face is plump and soft, without a hint of a beard. But now he has the mannerisms and speech of a man; he chain smokes, his eyes dart nervously and lately he has taken up drinking and can't find work. He had been wearing a simple blue work shirt, but for the party, he changed into a lively floral one and went out to fish with his father. Later in the day we sat and talked for a while. I asked about the army and he replied to my questions in a low voice, hinting that the goal of his year and a half was simply to survive.

Apparently he spent a lot of time in the hospital while serving. His grandmother said he won't tell anyone why, but she heard that lots of the boys were hospitalized after having been badly beaten by other soldiers. Ludmila told me that the beatings are severe and that this hazing process can include rape.

I am at a loss for what to write. These boys come out of a brutal rite of passage and then reinforce brutality onto each other. And if that weren't enough, they are then unleashed on Russian society at large or on "the enemy." Half the boys in Yuri's group were sent to Chechnya.

August 28, 1995

Cat and potatoes, Anufrievo.

So they've started digging up the potatoes! And it's only the end of August -- they usually don't start before mid-September. As far as I understand it, Alexander Gavrilovich was the first to get started -- his daughter was hereto help and the weather was good...

Now the whole of Anufrievo seems to be in the fields, geared up and buzzing. I ask Igor, "What's going on? Why is everyone out there so soon?"

"I don't know," he says. "Everyone just started."

Later in the day, I put on my work clothes and head out to the fields with Ludmila to get started on the harvest. On my way to our plot, Yuri Mikhailovich sees me and smilingly invites me to help his family with their digging and I say, "Nope, I've already got somewhere to go." Then Valentina Mikhailovna says, "Here! Here! Come help us!" and I politely decline again. I feel a sort of coziness seeing everyone there working together. Later, I ask Ludmila if it used to be like this when they all worked on the collective farm and she says that it was. Alexei adds that the difference was that in the collective farm they were all working together on one field and here they each have their own. That doesn't seem to stop them from making ad hoc collective decisions about the crucial problem of when to harvest. If the potatoes are harvested too early, they can be small; too late and they can rot. It's a complex guessing game and apparently no one wants to guess alone.

Alexei Gromov at work in the fields.

Today's weather was perfect for hard work -- misty and cool and dry enough for digging to be possible. Once again, Ludmila amazed me with her strength and persistence. She plows through the work like a person with a mission and no one can keep up with her.

December 7, 1995

Anna Ivanovna Pavlova popped by again this morning. Her first comments were directed at me: "You mean they haven't married you off yet?" she asked with her three-toothed grin. "Probably no one would take you!" I don't take such editorials to heart -- other times she has read my fortune in the cards and predicted all kinds of suitors and adventures.

She had come specifically to chat with Alexei, but he was preparing to leave for one of the nearby villages and talk about this month's parliamentary election. Explaining the electoral process to the people is one of his duties as a "culture worker." He has been reading up on the candidates and trying to make some sort of mental order out of the multitude of choices. Once in a while he loses his temper with the whole thing -- "How in the world can they expect us to deal with this?" -- but his conscientiousness generally wins out over his annoyance. He knows that for decisions to be informed, someone has to do research, and he places that burden on himself. In rural areas like ours, nearly everyone votes be cause the ballots are collected house by house and then village by village.

A spokesman for one of the candidates had come to Anufrievo, and Alexei brought out this man's campaign pamphlet and showed it to Anna Ivanovna. After briefly eyeing it, she announced that a woman from one of the neighboring villages had, in fact, told her which candidate she was supposed to vote for.

"Zhirinovsky?" asked Alexei.

"No."

"Communists?"

"No, some other guy."

She slowly looked up at Alexei, the pamphlet shaking in her hands, and asked flatly, "How am I supposed to figure this out?" Indeed.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist candidate, was on TV last night. His bellow rings through the whole house and is recognizable even from the kitchen. I watch people watch him. Alexei comments, as he has in the past, that Zhrinovsky's ideas are correct, but their implementation is impossible and would mean civil war. I can see how people are slowly transfixed by him, how he plays on their darkest fears and insecurities, their sense of offense and bitterness. He raises his voice at the moment when the veins in people's necks are already stirring. I am afraid of this like I am afraid of everything here that is full of blind, feral energy.

In the parliamentary elections, the region of Belozersk voted for Zhirinovsky's party. Gennady Zyuganov's Communists came in second. Later, in the presidential election of mid-1996, the region voted for Boris Yeltsin by a narrow margin over Zyuganov.

August 2, 1996

I am back for a brief stay and it is Elijah's Day again, a day of dress-up, guests, special meals, toasts, music and wild dancing. It should be a party to celebrate the last day of the hay harvest, but with the cold, wet weather this year that won't be the case. For weeks, Ludmila and Alexei have been tense because of the poor weather -- the cold and rain in July made hay-drying impossible and August cannot be counted on for sun or heat. Rogov called this summer the worst in 20 years.

While we are eating dinner, dressed up and ready for the festivities, I look out the window and see a car pull up with a wedding party in it. Given that it's news around here when someone goes for water, one can imagine the effect of a young married couple -- long white dress, black suit and all -- emerging from a crepe-decorated car. They are here to visit the groom's relations. Children and adults pour into the street to cheer the young couple and gaze admiringly at their beautiful clothes. Then the music begins. From her sick bed, Alexandra Mikhailovna comes out to join the crowd, and with her soft belly hanging low, she sways to the screeching accordion music of her husband. Her voice, hauntingly young and strong, accompanies the ancient whine of the music. In the fresh evening air, she sings the clever rhymes that she learned as a girl. In her day, Alexandra Mikhailovna had been swept away on a horse by her groom, and now here they both are, greeting a new union. We all laugh and applaud. Others take their turn to sing and dance. The moment feels charmed -- lovely blue skies and yellow sunlight and softly lengthening evening shadows.

Villagers dancing on Troitsa, a Russian Orthodox holiday.

A woman turns to me and says, "Today is a good day." I feel almost like crying for this measure of genuine joy when life is so thick and hard, for the momentary lightness of the clouds and the lightness of step of an old woman whose belly has fallen but whose voice is clear and pure as she sings to a young bride.

Margaret Paxson is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Montreal. She is writing her dissertation about the ways rural Russians imagine their own history.
Lucian Perkins is a staff photographer for The Post. .