Duelling Woodpeckers

The woodpeckers are starting up. Yesterday there was one rat-tat-tatting in an oak tree in the upper field- and this morning it has been joined by a couple in the lower field- one baritone and one tenor. I think the difference in timbre must be caused by the nature of the wood they're tapping. One lets off a fusillade, the second answers, the third joins in. It's like they're in dialogue, in competition, duelling like banjo-players. I suppose it's all about territory. Do they think it's Spring?

And how do they manage not to shatter their skulls?

Feodor Kuzmich

What do we know about Feodor Kuzmick- the man who might once have been Alexander I?

Not a lot.

And most of it anecdotal.

The first record of his existence comes in 1836- 11 years after the supposed death of the tsar. A tall man, aged about 60 and riding a white horse, showed up in the Siberian village of Krasnoufimsk. The police questioned him and because he had no documentation and wouldn't tell them anything about his past- concluded he was a vagabond, flogged him- and sent his east to the town of Tomsk. There he worked in a distillery, wandered about and finally settled in the house an admirer built for him. He was an educated man, fluent in French and given to reminiscing about life in St Petersburg and the prominent people he'd once known. He received visitors, some of them VIPs, corresponded widely, lived very simply and came to be regarded as a Staretz or holy man. He died in 1864. There are two portraits of him on the internet- one a piece of folk art, showing him in his cabin, the other a sketch of him lying on his death bed. I haven't found any provenance for either of them and they might well be works of the imagination. Neither is inconsistent with portraits of Alexander I. The man in both images has fine features, a high forehead and long, flowing hair and beard.

In 1984 a synod of the Russian Orthodox Church declared him to be a saint.