The traditional Orthodox prayer rope is a loop of coarse black wool woven into knots (often 33 or 100) and closed with a cruciform tassel. It is most commonly used to count the number of times you have recited the Jesus Prayer (or similar alternative).
However, for some neurodivergent people those knots can become instruments of torture. If you are hypersensitive to textures, counting off those knots can feel like rubbing your fingers along a sheet of sandpaper. In addition to finding the sensation of the knots very uncomfortable, I find that it masks my awareness of the distinction between one knot and the next. So counting with a traditional wool prayer rope is virtually impossible.
Fortunately, I have found a Russian Orthodox alternative – the lestovka. Instead of wool knots, it consists of strips of leather wound round a core (usually small pieces twig wrapped in scrolls with the Jesus Prayer) to form ‘rungs’. The smooth leather rungs give a very different (much more pleasant) tactile experience and are not so tightly packed as the knots, making it much easier to use for counting. It occurs to me that, in addition to its use for prayer, the lestovka is an easily pocketable and discreet stimming aid.
The lestovka has come to be associated with the Russian Old Believers and Eastern Catholics. But their use was once much more widespread in Russian Orthodoxy (see e.g. some icons of St Sergius of Radonezh or St Seraphim of Sarov) and they are once more becoming more popular.
They can be found (sometimes at ridiculously high prices) on sites like Etsy. I got my fairly simply 50-rung lestovka from the Convent of St Elisabeth the New Martyr, Minsk.
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