ABSTRACT
The academic study of holy springs is flourishing in contemporary ethnography, and there is now a substantial bibliography on the topic (Panchenko; Shevarenkova; Poplavskaia; Vinogradov; Geraskin; Inikova; Ermakova, among many others). Such interest is dictated by the role springs play in popular culture: it would be no exaggeration to describe them as the most widespread natural object venerated as holy not only in Russia, but in other countries. Such an exceptional position is connected with the antiquity and universality of perceptions of the properties of water. These perceptions were characteristic of the progenitors of Europeans from the period of Indo-European unity, known in antiquity and the Middle Ages, adapted by the Christian church and, with various mutations, exist too in our times (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 675-676; Filimonova).
