Vasily the Barefoot (, real name Vasily Filippovich Tkachenko, ; – 6 February 1933) was a Russian wanderer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He gained great popularity among his contemporaries through his charitable practice, his campaign against alcoholism and profanity, and the construction of a temple in his native village, for which he raised funds during his travels throughout the Russian Empire. He was introduced to the imperial family and corresponded for many years with representatives of the ruling dynasty about the construction of the temple. His exotic lifestyle and unusual appearance attracted the attention of the creative intelligentsia and secular society.
Sources agree that Vasily Tkachenko was led to the way of wandering by the Archimandrite of the Trinity Monastery of St. Jonas, , canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. Among Vasily's close friends were the famous adventurer and schemer Hieromonk Iliodor, the revered seer Matrona of Petersburg, and other famous people of his time.
During his lifetime, two booklets devoted to his biography were published. Photographs of the wanderer's appearance were taken by the great photographers of the time, among them Karl Bulla and the staff of the photographic studio K.E. Gan and K, working on the order of the Imperial Family. At the beginning of the 21st century, a book was published and several articles about the life and views of Vasily Barefoot appeared.
Biography
Before 1917
Vasiliy Tkachenko was born between 1856 and 1858 in the province of Chernihiv in the family of a wealthy Cossack (though Vasiliy himself pointed out that he belonged to the peasant class, and was named as a peasant in the official reference of the Economic Department of the Most Holy Synod in 1903). It is claimed that he was the youngest of the sons. At the age of 9 he became seriously ill — he had non-healing wounds on his hands and feet (according to another version, ulcers covered his whole body). When he turned 19, his parents made a vow to worship the relics of the saints. The young man was healed, but his parents never fulfilled their promise. Soon after the healing, the family moved to the village of Nadezhda in Stavropol Province. Vasily worked in his native village: he grazed pigs, plowed the land, and got a job at the post station as a coachman. In 1877 he got married. For some unknown reason, Vasily Tkachenko separated from his wife some time later and gave his only six-year-old child to his relatives for raising. His divorce from his wife was finalized only in 1890. After divorcing his wife, Tkachenko began to work as a coachman, driver, and then as a drover for the merchant Masnyankin and went with his herd to Moscow. The famous Stavropol local historian German Belikov claimed that the miraculous recovery from a serious illness affected the psyche of the impressionable young man, so on the road to Moscow he "walked barefoot and almost undressed", "testing and tempering his body and spirit".
From Moscow he came to St. Petersburg, where on June 17 1884In the 19th century, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 12 days. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the difference was 13 days. he was enlisted as a private in the Eger Life Guard Regiment. After only three months, he became seriously ill and by September 21 October 1884, he was in the Semyonovsky Alexander Military Hospital. On October 13 1884 Tkachenko was declared unfit for military service by the medical commission, and on October 21 he was discharged from the Eger Regiment.
After being discharged, Tkachenko walked to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra of the Assumption in search of a new way of life. In Kyiv he met Archimandrite of the Holy Trinity Monastery, who had strained relations with the monks of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Jonah gave Vasily Tkachenko his blessing to become a wanderer. Tkachenko first wanted to take monasticism, and for some time performed obedience, was a keleinik (assistant to the elderly monks), tailor and coachman at the monastery, but illness and the desire to raise money to build a church in his native village forced him to abandon this plan.
Another version was presented by the modern historian of the Orthodox Church Anatoly Medvedev, based on the life biography of the wanderer, published in 1903 in the Generalov printing house in St. Petersburg: Tkachenko was hired as a drover by the merchant Myasnyankin, but before reaching Moscow he took a settlement and went to Kyiv. After meeting Archimandrite Yonah, Vasily Tkachenko did not take the path of wandering, but joined the Eger regiment of life guards, but due to an impending illness he was first hospitalized and then discharged from the reserve. After his discharge from the army, he "served for some time in private positions" and only then became a wanderer. German Belikov simply mentioned Vasily Tkachenko's short military service without linking it to a specific period of his life.
It is known that for some time Vasily Barefoot's itinerant activities caused concern and misunderstanding among the church authorities. In 1894-1895 he was deported from St. Petersburg for begging, and in the reference of the Holy Synod for 1903 his activities were characterized as resulting from "religious mania". The beggars saw in Vasily a dangerous competitor, tried to drive him from the churches' parvises, and beat him several times. In 1896 the Kyiv police confiscated his staff, which was later returned to him in Peterhof.
In 1897, Vasily announced the collection of money for the construction of a new stone church in his native village (initially in honor of the Holy Coronation of the Imperial Majesties, the sign of the Blessed Virgin Mary and tsaritsa Alexandra, German Belikov wrote that Vasily Barefoot was honored with a personal invitation to the coronation). Later it was decided to dedicate the church to St. Nicholas of Myra in honor of the birth of the heir to the throne. During his travels he collected money for the construction.The Orthodox Church historian Anatoly Medvedev claimed that Basil the Barefoot visited Palestine and prayed at the holy places. The monogramist A.F.K. and the curator of the Archives of the Holy Synod, Marina Danilushkina, mentioned Basil's veneration of the Empty tomb in Jerusalem. Other studies do not contain such a report. In 1906, the foundation of the future temple was laid, its architectural design was approved,The design of the temple belonged to the Stavropol architect Vladislav Eduardovich Lobanovsky. materials for construction were collected, and bells were cast. The construction of the church was completed in 1910. The solemn consecration of the church took place on December 5, 1910. The temple was located on a hill in front of the crossroads leading to the city, with five domes and two side chapels: in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov and St. Alexis of Moscow. It was considered one of the most beautiful in Stavropol. The temple was built of stone, it had a pool for blessings and baptism with a fountain. The square next to the church was made of cast iron slabs. The church could accommodate 1.5 thousand believers at a time. At that time in the village permanently lived only 7,5 thousand souls of both men and women. Also in his village Vasily built a strange lodging house.
The correspondence of Vasily Tkachenko with the representatives of the imperial family concerning the construction of the temple has been preserved. The most frequent addressee of Vasily Tkachenko in this matter was the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna, who took an active part in obtaining the necessary permits and documents for the construction; other addressees were the Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Another form of communication were the gifts that Vasily Barefoot sent to St. Petersburg. For the meeting hall of the State Duma on his initiative was written "an icon of the saints of the Russian Church, shining from different ranks and estates" (there is a photo of the icon, made by Karl Bulla). He also ordered and presented to the heir to the throne an icon of Alexius, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Russia.
In a letter to Nicholas II about the construction of the temple Vasily gave his address — St. Petersburg, 8 company Izmailovsky regiment, house 6, apartment 1, but the monogrammist A. F. K. in the biography of Vasily reported that during his stay in this city the wanderer most often stayed in the suburbs of Kyiv and New Athos. In the capital Vasily the Barefoot, together with Matrona the Barefoot, participated in the collection of money for the construction of the church revered as the icon of Joy of All Who Sorrow with copper coins (the icon was destroyed in Soviet times).
Sergey Zhitenev, a candidate of cultural studies, defined wandering as a vow of a person who leaves his family and property and tries to achieve salvation of the soul through suffering in wandering and worship of shrines. Alexander Panin, deputy chairman of the Moscow regional branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, chairman of the board of the Fund Revival of Cultural Heritage, member of the Union of Local Historians of Russia, wrote that "the wanderer was perceived as a kind of connection between the people and its vast expanses, where lived, ascended, preached and stayed with their holy relics the greatest benefactors and saints". The monogrammist A. F. K. wrote that Vasily the Barefoot stood out among the Russian wanderers of the turn of the century, "impressing with his moral strength everyone who met him even once".
During his wanderings, Vasily prayed for the faithful, distributed the lives of the saints, books and pamphlets with saints' hagiographies, urged them to give up drinking and profanity, to turn their thoughts to God. In the fourth year of his wanderings, Vasily severely froze his feet, was hospitalized, and even baptized in anticipation of his imminent death. In 1903, Vasily participated in the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov in the Sarov desert. As a testimony to his high authority, he was "honored to greet and kiss the hands of the Sovereign Empress, the wife and mother of the Sovereign Martyr Nicholas Alexandrovich". Vasily arrived in Sarov by the court coach. When the tsar's cortege entered the city, he rode in a carriage with one of the tsar's servants. On the way back, he rode in the chamberlain's carriage. As a gift to the monastery, Vasily donated a silver gilded lamp, made according to an original drawing, worth 1,200 rubles.
In 1913, Tkachenko was present in Moscow at the celebration of the glorification of Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'. Vasily the Barefoot was personally acquainted with John of Kronstadt and the Matrona of Petersburg. In 1911, he attended her funeral and was one of the founders and leaders of the Society for the Memory of the Blessed Old Woman Matrona the Barefoot.
In Soviet historiography the opinion was expressed that after the murder of Grigory Rasputin, Vasily Barefoot was especially sought after by the secular society. In particular, this was written by the Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Diakin in the book The Bourgeoisie and Tsarism in the Years of the February Revolution. He dated his appearance after a break in the Petrograd salons to December 20, 1916 January 1917 and referred to information from the Black Hundred newspaper Russkaya Volya.
After the February Revolution of 1917