A CENTAUR OF THE RUSSIAN HINTERLAND
"I first saw it some twenty years ago in an Arkhangelsk home: a fairytale cross between a man and a horse. It was standing proudly amongst the cutglass in a sideboard, wearing a cocked blue hat. Its right hand was raised as though asking to be set free from the glass prison, and it was winking slyly with its left eye as if it were about to divulge a secret. "Where does this 'centaur' come from?" I asked. "From Kargopol, of course," was the reply. "Have you never heard anything about Kargopol?" Of course, I knew something about Kargopol. A northern township on the beautiful Onega River, it's located not far from the river's source. The settlement is believed to have been founded by people from Novgorod in the llth and 12th centuries. But why it's called Kargopol, no one knows. Inhabitants of Novgorod, who maintained close trade relations with Byzantium, could well have given it a Greek name, "Kargopolis", meaning "harbour." ...
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