Bear Corner: Where the Gods Still Listen

Everyone has a special place they go to when they want to be alone with their thoughts. For some, it’s a favorite armchair by the window; for others, a bench in the park, a quiet spot by the river, or a little café where nobody knows their name. We all have different ideas of what makes a place special.

Deep in the Ural forests, in the middle of nowhere, you can come across a small clearing with a wooden idol of a pagan deity — a place that seems to belong to another time. But this is no archaeological find. It’s a thoroughly modern shrine, created by people who chose to reconnect with ancient Slavic beliefs.

Thousands of years later, that urge is still there: to find a secluded place, put an idol in the forest, and talk to something older than ourselves.

^{“Bear Corner” is a literal translation of the Russian expression “медвежий угол”, meaning a remote, out-of-the-way place — roughly, “in the middle of nowhere.”}

Southern Urals, Russia.
October, 2019.
...