Chapter Text
Art
The lacquerware of Kitezh is justly famed. There are two styles: the folk style, which is in bright colours, red fruit and gold fish against a black ground, and the ‘high’ style, with delicately drawn scenes in subtle colours.
Nature
The best times to visit Kitezh are at dawn and at sunset, when the golden domes beneath the waves catch the light, and glint up through the dark waters. Two birds sing at either end of the lake at sunrise and sunset set, the Alkanost and the Sirin.
Food
Black bread and sweet curd cheese is the traditional breakfast, and also the traditional greeting for travellers and guests. Apples are also common, as they are said to be blessed, bringing health and long life, although wary and well-travelled visitors may be suspicious of apples with potentially magical properties. Certainly the widespread saying in Kitezh that once you have tasted the fruit of its orchards you will never again leave has caused more than one guest to prefer prudent rudeness to too-trusting good manners (for as is common in these parts, refusing hospitably offered food is a great insult).
Curiously, although bread and salt is the traditional greeting offered to travellers the entire length of the Volga, here in Kitezh no salt is ever offered, or used in any way. Visitors will also note that the food, although good and sufficient, is simple, and not offered in excess.
Trade
Embroidered cloth in a wide variety of designs in the predominant export - with a rich tradition of stylised, symbolic figures, the meaning of which is, in many cases, a well guarded secret. There is an endless choice of decoration, and rumours that the secret of virtue and immortality, the means by which Kitezh became blessed above all other cities, favoured by the gods, is encoded in these designs has not lessened their popularity - only a cynic would think the meanings are kept secret (if there is any meaning in the first place) for precisely this reason.
Small handbells are a popular trinket, often sold in tuned sets, so they can be used to play simple melodies. According to local tradition, these bells have no particular purpose or meaning, and are a creation of the metal-workers guild, who noted that underwater cities are often linked in folklore with bells, and set about creating a suitable souvenir. There is an old legend, not from Kitezh, that the owls around Lake Svetloyar sing a song of unearthly beauty, tempting men to follow them, wading out heedlessly into the lake as the birds drift low across the water, their drowned bodies floating back eventually to shore, carrion for those same birds. According to this legend, a wise man carries a loud bell with him at all times, to drown out such songs. This story is the subject of much mockery in Kitezh, where it is said to be a foolish superstition sprung up from the tall tales of the sellers of souvenirs.
Key Sights
The golden roofs of the many fine churches and mosques are best admired from the shore, where they are below you. The parks with their decorative fountains however are best explored in person, laid out as they are to present a new surprise at every turn, it would be a shame to see them laid out at your feet like a map, all mystery lost.
Festivals
The feast of apples marks the start of autumn, and is the one exception to the rather ascetic lifestyle predominant in Kitezh - as summer is transfigured into winter, creating the fruits of autumn, so apples are said to be transfigured, or more prosaically made into a potent cider. The local people say it is impossible to suffer a hangover, owing to the blessed nature of the fruit, which has been sung dirges by the Sirin and wedding songs by the Alkonost. Visitors are advised that while this may indeed be the case for residents, for foreigners it is quite otherwise.
Notable Visitors
Kurbat Ivanov is credited with the first map of the area. The well known white lake-horses (excellent workers but dangerous, given to drowning their owners), are commonly said to have been bred from foreign horses brought and traded by Afanasy Nikitin.
History
The mongol armies of Batu Khan fell on the defenceless city of Kitezh, on the shore of Lake Svetloyar; the citizens of Kitezh preferred to pray rather than to take arms, but far from the bloody slaughter the Khan expected, the lake itself rose to drive him back, before wrapping itself protectively around the city, which it invited into its depths, the citizens remaining undefiled and pure, eschewing violence. Although in some versions of the story, the Khan's army drowned to a man.