The story “Obdirikha” harmoniously combines artistic and ethnographic material within the framework of the main plot drawing. The action takes place in the early 2000s in the Russian North, in the Arkhangelsk village of Verkole. These places are famous for the monastery built in honor of the holy youth Artemy Verkolsky. The writer Fyodor Abramov (1920–1983) was born, lived and buried here. The story describes the features of life and the way of life of a Russian northern village. Along with the realistic, the plot is also formed by a mystical line, reflecting the combination of the Christian faith with ancient pagan ideas that is characteristic of the consciousness of many northerners. One of the heroes of the story, a Moscow student, violates an unwritten ban, invading the sphere of dominance of the mysterious forces of nature. What follows creates the development of a plot collision. The ideological and philosophical component of the story is based on the idea of the existence of various spiritual and mystical principles in nature and their projection onto the life of the villagers. The work reflects the problem of the moral choice of a young man who finds himself in an extreme situation.