Christianity vs Paganism in Russian

These days there is kind of raise of old Slavic pagan traditions in Russia. The followers of paganism build copies of old pagan monuments of wood and stone and then gather for some rituals. According to their point of view they try to reconstruct the true religion of Russian people that was destroyed by early Russian Christian church 1000 years ago when it came to Russia and violently converted local pagan population to Christianity.
But it seems there are fundamental Christians even nowadays in Russia who don’t like the raise of pagan traditions and try to follow their earlier inquisitor predecessors destroying the pagan places. On these pictures one can see one of such modern Russian ritual place before and after the Christian followers visit.

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Horse Stone

This is a strange structure standing deep in Russian forests on the Horse Island in the middle of small lake. It’s a small Christian church on top of a very large boulder. This boulder has a history too. Long before the Christianity came to Russia, this rock was used by local tribes as an idol, thousand years ago in 1000 b.c. It was called “Horse-Stone” and the island as we mentioned was called Horse Island. They sacrificed horses to it and when first Christians came they were shocked by bloody rituals of locals, but after they cleared up the place they decided to use the stone. Probably the main reason was to have it under control in order to prevent locals continuing with their pagan procedures around it.
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