This year is the anniversary of two Arctic expeditions at once and the 160th anniversary of the birth of the legendary polar explorer Baron Eduard Toll. These expeditions are associated with Yakutia, with its Arctic zone.
The Second Kamchatka (Great Northern) Expedition - the largest Russian expedition of the 18th century, lasted from 1733 to 1743. It took place under the command of Vitus Bering. Its goals were a comprehensive study of Siberia, clarification of state borders in the East of Russia, study of the possibilities of navigation in the Arctic Ocean, solution of the question of the existence of a strait between North Asia and America, search for routes to Japan and the shores of North-West America. These tasks were mainly solved by the Marine detachments of the expedition under the leadership of V. Valton, V.V. Pronchishchev, A.I. Chirikov, M.P. Shpanberg, brothers Khariton and Dmitriev Laptev and others.
The expedition also included the Academic Detachment, which was engaged in a comprehensive natural-scientific and historical-geographical description of Siberia and its peoples. The Academic detachment included professors - historians G.F. Miller and I.E. Fisher, natural scientists I.G. Gmelin and G.V. Steller, astronomer L Delisle de la Croyer, translators, students, including Stepan Krasheninnikov, subsequently the first Russian professor of natural history and botany at the Academy of Sciences.
The Great Northern Expedition for the first time carried out an inventory of individual sections of the coast of the Arctic Ocean, confirmed the presence of a strait between Asia and America, discovered and mapped the South Kuril Islands, surveyed the coast of Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk and some parts of the coast of Japan.
Many species of flora and fauna were described and sketched, among them there are now extinct, of which the most famous is the "Steller's cow".
According to the results of the expedition, the world-famous works of G.F. Miller were published - "History of Siberia", "Description of the Siberian kingdom and all things that happened in it from the beginning, and especially from the conquest of it by the Russian state to this day", "Description of the Tomsk district of the Tobolsk province in Siberia in its current position, in October 1734 " and other works.
Published studies by IG Gmelin - "Siberian flora", "Travel in Siberia from 1741 to 1743", SP Krasheninnikov - "Description of the land of Kamchatka".
75th anniversary of the start of the work of the First Kolyma geological exploration expedition.
On July 4, 1928, the first Kolyma exploration expedition landed on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, not far from the village of Ola. It was headed by engineer-geologist Yuri Bilibin. The result of the expedition of Yu.A. Bilibin in 1928-1929 was the discovery of industrial gold-bearing areas in the regions of the Utina River, the Kholodny and Yubileiny springs, which became the main objects of gold mining in Kolyma until 1933. Gold was found in other valleys as well, some patterns of its distribution and the geological structure of the region began to become clear. Bilibin put forward a hypothesis about the existence of a gold-bearing zone here with a length of hundreds of kilometers.
The third anniversary date is associated with the name of Baron Eduard Toll - a famous polar explorer, zoologist and geologist, a man with a mysterious fate. The 160th anniversary of the birth of this scientist and traveler is celebrated. Today we will pay our attention to this particular researcher.
The mysterious disappearance of Eduard Toll in the ice of the Arctic is still a mystery for two centuries ... Eduard Toll devoted his whole life to the search for the legendary Sannikov Land.
The merchant and collector of mammoth bones Yakov Sannikov from Yakutia was the first to see this unknown, uncharted land. It happened in 1810 during the first Russian expedition to the New Siberian Islands. From the northern tip of Kotelny Island, Sannikov clearly saw high stone mountains located at a distance of 70 versts.
And it was not a hallucination or a mirage. First, the fact of the "vision" was officially attested by the head of the expedition, the collegiate registrar Matvey Gedenshtrom. Secondly, Sannikov was an experienced person, able to distinguish a mirage from a real picture. It was he who discovered the three islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago - Stolbovoy, Faddevsky, Bunge Land.
Ten years later, with the specific purpose of exploring the Sannikov Land, an expedition was equipped under the command of Fleet Lieutenant Pyotr Fedorovich Anzhu. But Anjou did not find any land, although he was armed with excellent optical tubes. After wandering with the guides on dog sleds in the area where Gedenshtrom had drawn "Sannikov's Land" with a dotted line, he returned to St. Petersburg with nothing.
However, they did not stop looking for Sannikov Land, although it was believed that there was no land to the north of the New Siberian Islands. And suddenly, in 1881, the American George De Long discovered an archipelago of small islands, located far north of the dotted line drawn by Gedenstrom.
A new round of searches for a land that could conceal priceless treasures began. These included, first of all, the tusks of mammoths.
There was a number of evidence that Sannikov Land could have unique natural and climatic characteristics. For example, in autumn, polar geese flew from the northern coast not to the south, but to the north, approximately in the direction of Sannikov Land. And with the onset of the warm period, they returned with their offspring. Do not discount the mythology of the indigenous peoples. According to ancient legends, there was a “continent of mammoths” far to the north, where they freely grazed in green meadows. However, evil underground forces intervened in this happiness, destroying the idyll.
De Long's discovery spurred American industrialists, who began to create a joint-stock company to develop northern resources. Naturally, Russia could not but react to this.
In 1885, a research expedition was sent to distant shores under the leadership of a physician of the Baltic Fleet Alexander Bunge. Zoologist and geologist Baron Eduard Vasilievich Toll was appointed his assistant. Russia was in a hurry to formalize its right to the legendary Land.
On August 13, 1886, Toll, standing on the same shore of the same island as Sannikov, saw the same mountains and literally fell ill with the thought of searching for an unknown land. He saw these massifs quite clearly, determined the distance to them (about 160 kilometers), and did not even allow the thought that there, in the distance, there were only ice blocks. For many years, Baron Toll has been building a theoretical proof of his theory.
The next expedition, headed by Toll, took place in 1893. And finally, on July 4, 1900, Eduard Vasilyevich left Kronstadt on the Zarya whaling ship to put an end to the protracted dispute about the existence of Sannikov Land. He was absolutely sure of her reality.
The expedition was perfectly prepared, which was facilitated by 150 thousand rubles in gold allocated by the Ministry of Finance. Young scientists were recruited - energetic enthusiasts for the study of the High North. The most advanced equipment and equipment were purchased. The stock of provisions allowed an autonomous existence of up to three years.
Toll, considered one of the leading experts in the field of practical exploration of the circumpolar territories, was perfectly suited to the role of expedition leader. He was looking with great interest for a solution to the secrets of the recent geological past: did the continent exist in the area of the modern New Siberian Islands, when and why did it disintegrate, why did mammoths become extinct?
The voyage of Toll's expedition lasted three years. Toll was sure that the land seen by Sannikov really exists. But Eduard Vasilyevich could not fulfill his dream.
Remaining to spend the winter on one of the islands, he planned to resume his searches in the spring. Toll's group, not waiting for the schooner "Zarya", decided to independently move south towards the continent, but further traces of these four people have not yet been found.
In 1903, a search expedition led by Admiral Alexander Kolchak discovered Toll's camp on Bennett's Island, his diaries and other materials.
In his diary, Toll announced his departure. Since then, no one has seen either him or the people who were with him. Many mystics associate the mysterious disappearance of Eduard Toll and three other scientists with the mysterious Sannikov Land.
Toll's diary, according to the will, was passed on to his widow. Emmeline Toll published her husband's diary in 1909 in Berlin. In the USSR, in a heavily truncated form, it was translated from German in 1959.
Another scientist was fascinated by the idea of finding the mysterious land of Sannikov. It was Vladimir Obruchev - a prominent scientist, holder of the Orders of St. Vladimir, 4th degree, Lenin and the Red Banner of Labor, academician, geologist, paleontologist and geographer, explorer of Siberia and Central Asia, author of numerous scientific works and textbooks on geology, which remained relevant until our days.
The northern Yakuts have a myth about a mysterious warm land, lost somewhere far away in the Arctic Ocean. Every year birds fly there to winter and the Onkilons left there - a semi-legendary people who allegedly lived in Chukotka, and then expelled by other tribes to the islands of the Arctic Ocean. Obruchev combined this beautiful fairy tale with reports about Sannikov Land and the really unresolved issue of migratory birds that return after wintering with their offspring.
At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Obruchev worked on a geological and geographical expedition in Yakutia. From local residents, Vladimir Afanasyevich heard a mysterious legend about a blooming land located among the endless expanses of the Arctic Ocean. It was said that the presence of a warm oasis in the coldest ocean was indicated by flocks of migratory birds that flew at a certain time each year to the north towards the snow-covered and deserted expanses of the Arctic. It was in that direction, according to local residents, that the Onkilon tribe once left.
Since Obruchev was primarily a scientist, he had to present the legend so as not to contradict scientific data. As a result, his Sannikov Land remained warm and fertile due to the fact that it was formed by volcanic activity, and this volcano has not cooled down yet. Together with the Onkilons, there live Wampu - people from the Paleolithic - and fossil animals led by mammoths. This is how the novel "The Land of Sannikov, or the Last Onkilons" appeared.
In 1924, Obruchev completed work on the novel The Land of Sannikov, or The Last Onkilons. But it was just a novel - a fantasy of a talented writer. But the plot was nevertheless built on real events. The prototype of the protagonist may have been a scientist, Arctic explorer, talented geologist Eduard Vasilyevich Toll.
But what did Sannikov and Toll see? Mirage? A pile of ice floes? The most popular theory now is that they actually saw an island of fossil ice that melted before it was discovered. This is confirmed by the fate of two other islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago - Vasilievsky and Semyonovsky. They were discovered at the beginning of the 19th century and completely disappeared by the 30-50s of the 20th century.
The search for Sannikov Land did not stop in the 20th century either. There are modern legends about this amazing Earth, exciting the fantasies of researchers and our time. At various times, non-explainable notes began to appear in the press. Whether there is some truth in them or is it fiction, we will not judge, just consider these myths of our days.
In the middle of the 20th century, military specialists are trying to get to Sannikov Land. For their hikes, they use the northern form of transport - reindeer and dog sleds. There were several such attempts. All members of the expeditions claim that they have seen this unexplored land from afar. But each time on their way there was an insurmountable obstacle in the form of a huge hole. Until now, this mythical land remains inaccessible to researchers.
There are stories among sailors that confirm the legends of an inhabited island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Only this can explain the finds of various objects floating from the Pole. And this at a time when there was not a single expedition to the area. Polar travelers unanimously repeat about the fact that the temperature rises when moving to the Pole. Another amazing phenomenon: huge open spaces of water, completely free of ice cover, suddenly appear among the solid ice.
Of course, modern space technology makes it possible to take a very good picture of any territory on the Earth's surface. There are such photographs and Poles. Strange shadows are visible on them. The Americans assumed that these were Russian military installations. Surprisingly, it was not possible to find these "shadows", but they are visible from space.
The search for "Sannikov Land" was carried out not only by Russian researchers. So, in the twentieth century, the British Admiralty received an amazing report. British sailors have landed on one of the Scottish Islands. Unusual events happened to them. Suddenly, people appeared who did not look like the British. Quite strange things began to happen to the minds and eyes of the sailors. They managed to return safely to the ship, but they were completely demoralized.
In addition, according to the testimony of a famous pilot who flew over the Pole in the 30s, he saw a large green oasis among the polar ice. Nobody believed his story, it was assumed that the pilot saw a mirage.
The members of the American expedition, having found the ruins of an ancient city on one of the Arctic islands, believed that they had found traces of the mythical Atlantis or the so-called Arctida - the island where an ancient highly developed civilization lived. In their report, the travelers described the structures they found. Among them are houses, temples, palaces and cultural objects. Although most of the buildings are under a layer of eternal ice and only the tops of the buildings are visible, scientists believe that they were built several millennia ago. In the Arctic, it is very difficult to carry out excavations, but, according to experts, the architectural style of the city resembles that of ancient Greek. Perhaps this city was built at a time when there was a subtropical climate and was a heavenly place.
Recently, scientists have found that often a so-called confluence band occurs on the mainland and large islands. According to observations, such a confluence band often occurs in the Laptev Sea, not far from Tiksi. Such an optical phenomenon occurs in three places: off the coast of the mainland, near the New Siberian Islands and north of the Archipelago. That is, exactly where the merchant Sannikov first saw the new Earth, later called the Sannikov Land. Given this discovery, we can say with a high degree of probability that Sannikov Land does not exist.
There is also a Tibetan legend about the White Island. It says that this island is the only territory that will escape the fate of all continents. It cannot be destroyed by fire or water - this is the Eternal Earth.
It is possible that it was about this land that the merchant and Christian writer Kozma Indikoplovt spoke about this land in the sixth century after the Nativity of Christ in the theological and cosmographic treatise "Christian Topography". He argued that in the North there is a land where human life originated.
Helena Blavatsky believed that the land of Sannikov is that polar country, inhabited by creatures that have lived for ten thousand years. There are no diseases here, and the people living on this earth are perfect.
It is surprising that many travelers saw Sannikov Land, but no one was able to set foot on its shore. And what do the prophets say about this?
Nostradamus wrote that a select few would live beyond the Arctic Circle, the rest near the Equator. There will be no politics in the lives of these people.
Medieval prophet, astrologer Ragno Nero in his manuscript of predictions "The Eternal Book" wrote that the time will come and the ice will melt in the North and a blooming land will appear there. Or maybe Sannikov Land is this mysterious land?
This mysterious Earth still excites the imagination of many.
In connection with these significant dates, within the framework of the "Days of the Arctic in Neryungri", the department of local history literature of the Neryungri Library held an event "Arctic. Autograph on the map ", where the readers got acquainted with the history of the development of the northern lands and met with representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic in the person of the students of ESH" Arctic ", heard the ancient speech of the peoples of the North, bewitching songs and legends of distant times.
Varvara KORYAKINA, leading librarian of the department of local history literature of the Neryungri city library.
The Nenets Autonomous Okrug has its own legends and myths. One of the most famous is the story of a small people - Sikhirta or Siirta. According to legend, he lived in the polar tundra before the Nenets ("real people") appeared there. Sikhirta representatives are described as stocky and sturdy people. They were allegedly very short, with white eyes. Sikhirta came to the polar tundra from across the sea.
The way of life that they led was different from the Nenets way of life. They did not raise deer, preferring hunting and fishing for wild animals. Sikhirtya are sometimes described as guardians of silver and gold; in some legends they are called blacksmiths, after which "pieces of iron" remain on the ground and underground.
During the development of the North, the Russians called the local population by the collective name Chud, while highlighting the White-eyed Chud, who was engaged in the mining of gold and silver in the mountains. The ancient mines in Siberia, where gold, silver and copper were mined, were popularly called the Chud mines. It is believed that Sikhirta inhabited vast areas from the Kola Peninsula to the Gydan Peninsula. As for short stature (scientifically "dwarfism"), according to the modern views of scientists, dwarfism is an adaptation to various environmental factors, including low temperatures. Sikhirta lived in large peat-sod houses, shaped like a hill. It is assumed that they were sedentary. The entrance to the houses was located at the top. Probably for this reason, the Nenets, who first saw sikhirta, had the impression that they were hiding, going underground.
Legends about dwarfs living in caves or underground existed among all Finnish peoples, of which the Laplanders are the most ancient inhabitants of the North. The latter were nomads. Having spread the dwelling in a convenient place, they sometimes heard dim voices and the clink of iron from under the ground. Then the yurt was moved to another place, since it closed the entrance to the Uldr underground dwelling.
Legends about underground inhabitants who knew how to process iron and possessed supernatural abilities have survived among all the peoples of the North of Russia. According to legend, miracles were magicians and could see the future. An echo of the legends about sikhirta among Russians is a wise and good-natured old man in fairy tales, who helped Ivan Tsarevich with the help of a magic ball find his way to the beauty kidnapped by Kashchei.
The reason for the departure of the Sikhirt underground is the invasion of the Nenets reindeer herders. It is believed that interethnic conflicts erupted between them. At the same time, there was an exchange of goods between peoples, marriages were concluded. The languages of the Nenets and Sikhirta were related. According to one version, sikhirta lived among people until the 20th century.
For example, the article “Blond Sikhirta: The Lost People of the Arctic” published by the resource “Krasnoyarsk Time” describes the recollections of one of the inhabitants of the North. “Some of my classmates themselves descended from sikhirta - but for some reason they all had roots in the female line (sikhirta was a grandmother or great-grandmother, but I never met any mention of sikhirta-grandfather). As a rule, these guys and girls differed from the rest in their short stature and roundness of facial features, especially pleasant for girls - such, you know, a cardioid - i.e. the face is heart-shaped. All this was taken for granted by me. "
Unlike modern local residents of the tundra, who roam behind reindeer herds and live in tents, ancient people lived in semi-dugouts, the area of which sometimes reached 150 square meters. This suggests that they were sedentary. Sikhirt's companions were a dog. Sikhirta settled in families and had strictly limited land, such a management system did not facilitate communication between residents.
There were many legends about sikhirta. On one of them, once the Nenets drove past the hill, who decided to make a halt and give the reindeer a break. They went into the hill, finding there a sleeping girl of small stature. She was very beautiful and dressed in clothes decorated with painted buttons. Near the girl lay a cloud - a sewing bag, decorated with beads and beads sparkling in the sun. Bronze tracery pendants emitted a subtle melodic ringing. When the girl woke up and saw the strangers, she jumped up and instantly disappeared into the nearby bushes. The search for the stranger was unsuccessful. People decided to take a cloud-bag with them. They continued on their way and after a while they put the plague in a new place. And closer to night, a woman's plaintive cry began to be heard: "Where is my cloud?" "Where is my cloud?" They say that the cry was heard until morning, but no one dared to take a sewing bag to the tundra. The family that took the pouch died soon after. And the relatives kept this precious find anyway. The pouch has become a sacred attribute. During a person's illness, relatives hung this cloud on a troche, until the patient recovered.
It is not known for certain whether the Sikhirta lived in our area, but small legends about a mysterious people are passed down from generation to generation.
(The collection includes myths, legends, tales, legends of the peoples of the North and the Far East, collected by folklorists and writers on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, in the Kolyma tundra, on Novaya Zemlya, in the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei.)
Sami folklore
1. How an old Sami man outwitted his enemies (read)
4. The tale of a woman and a wild deer (read)
Nenets folklore
1. Why owls can't see sunlight (read)
4. About the adventures of the younger Khanty (read)
Enets folklore
Mansi folklore
Myths "Where did the earth begin"
10. How the sun and the moon got out, how birds and animals appeared on earth (read)
V. Chernetsov wrote down and translated the Mansi myths in the 1920s-1930s.
This collection is the result of many years of efforts to bring together the best examples of small epic oral genres of all twenty-six peoples of the North and the Far East... The compiler sought to select and present in the book works of various forms and genres: everyday and fairy tales, fairy tales about animals, legends, traditions, myths, good wishes, telling about the harsh living conditions of the peoples of this region, about their ideas and traditions, about the peculiarities of the worldview.
The compiler and the publishing house were faced with the task of releasing a collection that would be interesting not only for specialists collecting and studying the folklore of the peoples of the North and the Far East, but also for the general reader. That is why the collection includes texts that not only accurately convey the specifics of a particular work, but also those to the literary processing of which famous writers were involved at different times.
A number of works included in the collection are published for the first time. Their texts were specially prepared for this edition.
More than two hundred years ago, the famous explorer and explorer of Kamchatka S.P. Krasheninnikov, having familiarized himself with the folklore of the Koryaks and Itelmens, said: "Kamchadals are as masters of fairy tales as the ancient Greeks." We can only add that the Sami, Selkup, Nivkh, Chukchi, Khanty, Nanai, Udege, Eskimos and other small peoples are “the same masters”.
The composition of the collection is due to the kinship of certain nationalities in terms of linguistic, ethnographic characteristics; territorial proximity.
Check out the news about Max Polyakov at this pageSimilar legends were also known to the Finno-Ugric peoples of North-Eastern Europe and the Trans-Urals, whose distant ancestors were neighbors of the Scythians (and earlier, as noted, the Aryan tribes already in the Indo-Iranian period).
"Winged" or "Heavenly Kars" is the name of a fantastic bird in the legends of the Khanty and Mansi. Here is how S. Patkanov describes it, who studied at the end of the 19th century. folklore of the Trans-Ural Khanty: a gigantic bird with a humanoid head and a large beak; behind the arms, equipped with long and sharp claws, two powerful wings grow; “Winged Kara” is able to speak in a human way; possessing extraordinary strength, he can carry a person on his back.
In the legends of the Mansi, Kara sometimes appears as a monster destroying houses and villages or, on the contrary, helping the hero. It can carry it on itself to distant countries, even to the Northern Ocean: “... sit down to me between the shoulder blades ... - He took off. Carries. They flew to the Arctic Sea. Descended ”(from the Mansi legends, written down by VN Chernetsov).
The image of a fantastic bird in the mythology of the Uralic peoples is quite consistent with the Iranian Simurg and the Indian Garuda. It cannot, of course, be said that such an image already existed in the mythology of the Indo-Iranian tribes and their neighbors in the general Aryan era. The idea of the special appearance of this legendary bird, as it is described in the traditions of India, Iran and the Trans-Urals, could have formed as a result of independent development, appeared in connection with later contacts, and be an element of widespread "wandering plots."
After all, similar features of a fantastic bird can be found in the legends of various peoples, for example, in the Arab (Rukh bird) and Russian (Firebird) fairy tales. And nevertheless, it can be assumed that the images of all these wonderful birds basically go back to a single and very ancient source.
Archaeological and ethnographic materials show that the huge miracle bird was part of the circle of mythological images that have long existed among the Finno-Ugric tribes of North-Eastern Europe and the Urals. Already in the XIX century. scientists drew attention to a large number of metallic images of real and especially fantastic animals, birds and bird-like creatures found in these areas. Many of these items up to the 18th-19th centuries. served as amulets, idols and sacrificial offerings to the gods in specially designated places of worship.
Such items from the Kama region, the upper Pechora and the eastern slopes of the Urals at the end of the 19th century. were studied by the Perm regional historian F.A. Teploukhov. The scientist identified a number of types in the depiction of these "fabulous creatures" and showed that they are popular images of myths and legends of the Permian and Ugric peoples. The most common are images of fantastic creatures with features of a bird and a beast of prey, as well as another type - bird-like creatures with an image of a human face on their chest; often on the body of a bird is the figure of a person standing in height.
Similar items were found in the Kama and Trans-Urals and during excavations of monuments of archaeological cultures. This provided scientists with material for dating such finds (works by A.V. Zbrueva, A.P. Smirnov, V.N. Chernetsov). Metal figures, including those depicting birds with human faces on their chests and a man in height on the body of a bird, have been attested in these territories for archaeological cultures since the second half of the 1st millennium BC. NS.
Along with the figures of mythical winged monsters among the ancient tribes of the Kama and Trans-Urals, ritual images of real birds were widespread - a hawk, a raven, a falcon, etc. birds. Birds were also associated with specific shamanistic ideas that once existed among these peoples; in the form of birds, shamanic spirits and souls of shamans were conceived.
The beliefs of northern shamanism were characterized by the idea of various zoomorphic, including bird-like, creatures - deities-spirits, the "ancestors" of shamans, the shamans themselves, "wandering" in the form of a bird. A similar role could be played by a "bird" capable of carrying a person. Thus, the legends of the Evenk people tell about a bird that transports a person to the land of “eternal day”. In one of the legends recorded by S. Patkanov among the Khanty, “Winged Kars” takes the hero to the “upper world”. Similar ideas, as already noted, existed in the Indian and Iranian traditions.
However, in the religious beliefs of northern shamanism, in comparison with the religions of the Indo-Iranians, such features fit much more organically into the system of general mythological views and religious rites. The "repertoire" of animals itself is more extensive - real and supernatural, directly related to shamanistic beliefs: mixed breed animals, bird-like creatures, birds.
Among the cult objects from the Kama region, images of a bird-beast attract attention - usually a bird with the head of a wolf or a dog. Images of animal-like birds and fantastic winged predators "vultures" in the Urals were archaeologically attested from the materials of the Ananyino culture (VII-III centuries BC). The population of the Kama region at that time maintained lively contacts with the tribes of the Scythian world, as evidenced by numerous finds of Scythian products proper, as well as items of Middle Eastern and Greek origin. Traits of the "animal style" are also characteristic of the art of the Ananyin tribes.
Here, undoubtedly, the influence of Scythian art was felt. But there was, apparently, and the opposite effect. Some items from the Scythian burial mounds reflected the idea of the “dog's” nature of the fantastic bird-beast. And Aeschylus describes the Zascythian vultures as sacred "dogs".
The "canine" or "wolf" essence of vultures could be associated with the mythological ideas that existed among the tribes of the Urals in a very distant era, probably even before the formation of the Scythian art proper and its "animal style". It is clear that in the ancient mythological views of the Urals tribes, the fantastic beast was drawn in the image of a canine predator, well known in those regions.
Apparently, the religious and mythological ideas of the northern tribes also influenced the composition of the images of those characters of the Scythian epic, whom the Greeks compared with the Forkids and Gorgons, making them "inhabitants" of the distant northern regions beyond Scythia. During excavations in the Urals of the monuments of the end of the 1st millennium BC. archaeologists have discovered metal plates depicting winged creatures (sometimes three-headed) with "jellyfish" female faces on their chests.
In the image of these fantastic creatures, apparently, local ideas and iconographic features, perceived through the Scythians from the Greek tradition, merged together. As rightly noted by A.P. Smirnov, the inhabitants of the forest regions took from foreign art only those elements that corresponded to their own views and aesthetic tastes.
Another mythological plot of the Scythian epic associated with the legends of the peoples of the North is the mighty North Wind. The Ugric peoples of the Trans-Urals had a widespread belief about the existence of two personified winds - the South and the North; the latter, corresponding to the "Scythian Boreus", was called Louis-Vot Oyka - "the old man of the North Wind." The word "vot" or "vat" - "wind", included in this name (as well as in the name of the South wind), is of Aryan origin: "vata" - wind, Vata - the deity of the wind. In the Iranian tradition, the idea of different personified winds and the opposition of the North Wind to the South one are attested.
The examples given show how deep and close were the interconnections of the ancient Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric tribes, which was reflected in their mythological and religious views. The long process of Aryan-Finno-Ugric cultural contacts influenced the formation of the northern cycle of the mythology of the Aryans. So, one of the main motives of this cycle - inaccessible northern mountains reaching the sky - finds parallels in the ancient ideas of the Ugric peoples of the Urals.
It is interesting, in particular, the message of the Russian chronicle under 1096: people from Novgorod went to Pechora, and from there they reached the country of Yugra (this name is associated with the ethnonym “Ugrians”); there they were told about the highest mountains to the heavens, about the impassable path to those mountains - "the essence of a mountain in the bow of the sea, and its height is as high as heaven ... there is a way to those mountains that is impassable with precipices, snow and forest."
At the beginning of the 18th century. the Khanty of the Trans-Urals was visited by Grigory Novitsky, the author of the "Brief Description of the Ostyak People". His work is one of the first ethnographic works in the world literature. Novitsky, in particular, reports that, according to the stories of the Khanty, there is a mountain - "the highest stone, like a wall, and a fraction of heights, like ... reaching the clouds of heaven." Such legends combine purely mythological motives with real ideas about the Ural Mountains.
In Russia, the Ural ridge was called differently (the very name "Ural" began to be used in Russia only in the second half of the 18th century): "Stone", "Big Stone", "Pillar", "Earth Belt". Even in the geographical atlas published by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1807, the Ural Mountains are referred to as the "Earth Stone Belt". The names mentioned are related; apparently, with the ancient cosmological views of the Ugric tribes: the Ural ridge is the belt of the supreme god, thrown by him from the sky during the creation of the world; since then, the "belt" extends over the entire earth, making up its support, and the great mountains (Ural) - "the middle of the earth."
This again brings us back to the ancient legends of the Indo-Iranian peoples: the great sacred mountains arose during the creation of the earth, embrace it with their roots and, as it were, constitute its "center". The Indians, Iranians, Scythians called these mountains golden and said that golden streams flow there, and there are golden lakes on the peaks. The Ural mountains were also called golden; in a song about the sacred Urals, recorded by the Mansi at the beginning of the XX century. Finnish scientist A. Kannisto, it is said about gold and a lake with golden shores on a mountain peak.
Similar legends were apparently connected with the Northern Urals, on both sides of which the Ugric tribes lived; It was the Northern Ural that was called the "Earth belt" (the name "Ural" was initially used only for the Southern Urals). If in the Ugric legends about the highest mountains, along with a specific geographical basis, there are many mythological motives, then in the folklore tradition of the neighbors of the Ugric tribes, legendary features are especially pronounced.
Finally, in the legends recorded by ethnographers among the Ugric peoples of the Trans-Urals, one can also find a correspondence with the "blessed" Indian, Iranian and Scythian legends. Very interesting information has been preserved in the "Brief Description ..." by G. Novitsky. According to the Khanty, he reports that “in the far north near the ocean and ice” there is a special wind blowing from the north: whom he “finds, encompasses everything with his cruelty, strikes and kills” (this is the “old man North Wind” of the Khanty and Mansi traditions, obviously corresponding to the North Wind of the Scythian traditions - the Zascythian Boreas of the Greek authors; behind the abode of the North Wind was "the land of the blessed" of the Scythian epic - "Hyperboreans").
And further to the north, Novitsky continues, there is, according to stories, a country whose inhabitants are famous for beauty and intelligence. There is a belief that you can see that "created human beauty", but you can neither hear those people, nor talk with them. Novitsky himself considered such stories to be completely unreliable and wrote that in the northern regions across the ocean, naturally, no people can live. More than 2,000 years before Novitsky, Herodotus also doubted the existence of a "land of the blessed" near the distant North Sea.
Both scientists - the ancient historian and the ethnographer of the era of Peter the Great - were, of course, right in their assessments of the reality of ideas about the country of the "blessed" in the Northern Ocean. The legendary nature of such plots is not in doubt, but science now has data that make it possible to identify the origin of such mythological ideas. Thanks to the research of scientists, primarily ethnographers and folklorists of the Russian school, valuable material has been collected: legends and folk tales have been recorded, beliefs and cosmological ideas that existed among various peoples of the North in the 19th - early 20th centuries have been studied. This makes it possible not only to take a fresh look at the "northern cycle" of the Indo-Iranian tradition we are investigating as a whole, but also to reveal the origins of some of its other motives and plots.
Many peoples of the north of Europe and Siberia had legends that in the far north there were supposedly countries inaccessible to earthly people, the place of gods and spirits, the afterlife of the souls of the dead. In the legends of the Khanty and Mansi, this area was located in the lower reaches of the Ob or on an island in the Arctic Ocean. It was believed that life on the island was similar to that of the earth: there they hunt animals, live in villages, and only the sun and the moon are only half (according to the materials of V.N. Chernetsov).
The Mansi believed that the souls of the dead on the back of a bird went north to the cold sea. Among the early Evenk ideas about the world, the plot about the "upper land" is interesting. In this heavenly abode, a mild climate and a happy life, beautiful pastures, lush grasses, rivers that are convenient for movement, rich in fish, the sun shines all year round and is always warm.
The entrance to the "upper earth" is the Pole Star: only shamans can get to its inhabitants, but even then during "special" rituals; if earthly people still manage to get there in some unusual way, then they remain invisible to the inhabitants of the "monastery", and the shamans offer the "aliens" to return back to earth (based on materials by G.M. Vasilevich).
In some versions of this myth, it is said that people from the earth got to the happy abode on birds, most often on a huge fantastic bird. For a long time such an "air travel" to the country of "eternal day" was drawn. One of the legends of the Evenks tells about the hero's desire to get to the "upper land". The mighty bird agreed to deliver him there, but warned: "This path is a great torment." When the hero nevertheless flew on a bird to the blessed abode, he saw there a happy land, without dust and clay, lush herbs, but he did not even find a trace of an earthly man there. It was believed that the main spirit and teacher of shamans lived in this monastery.
In the ancient legends of the Evenks and some other peoples of Northern Europe and Siberia, the concepts of the heavenly and the afterlife are similar in many details. The souls of the dead or shamans enter the afterlife; if any of the living people accidentally enters there, then the "inhabitants of the lower earth" do not see him, and the shaman also drives him back. According to the ideas prevalent among the Kets, the afterlife is supposedly located in the Arctic Ocean. The Ob Khanty had a belief about the kingdom of the "lower world" far to the north, beyond the mouth of the Ob, in the cold ocean or even beyond it, where it is always dark, but rivers flow and people live.
According to the legends of the Evenks, the "lower world" is located in the far north; the main shamanic river flows there from the "upper world", everything there was reliably guarded by a whole host of "warrior spirits" in the guise of terrible monsters. Traveling along the sacred river, the shaman could get into both the "upper" and the "lower" worlds.
Passing through the lands of the upper monastery and approaching the sun, he languished from the heat, and if he passed through the snow clouds, he suffered from the cold; when the shaman went to the "lower" world, he entered the area of the gloomy polar night, so dark and terrible that he himself did not move further, but sent his helper spirits in the guise of birds (based on the materials of A.F. Anisimov and G.M. Vasilevich).
The described legends and tales reflected mythological ideas associated with very ancient religious beliefs that arose at a time when there was no clear opposition between the "upper" and "lower" worlds. And only later, as Academician A.P. Okladnikov noted, shamanic religious casuistry reconciled both cycles of ideas about the afterlife.
But all these "worlds" of spirits, blessed and dead in ancient legends and beliefs of the peoples of Siberia and Northern Europe, are usually associated with the far north, often directly with the Arctic Ocean, in the traditions of a number of peoples of the Urals and Northeastern Europe - with real or mythical mountains.
It was there - to the north, where the highest mountains and the abode of happiness, were made "flights" by shamans, sorcerers, wizards.
Behind the distant chain of wild mountains
Dwellings of winds, explosive storms,
Where and witches bold gaze
He is afraid to penetrate into the late hour,
The wonderful valley lurks
And there are two springs in that valley ...
Everything is quiet around, the winds are sleeping ...
A couple of spirits from the beginning of the world,
Silent in the bosom of the world
The dense coast guards ...
These lines are taken from the poem by Alexander Pushkin "Ruslan and Lyudmila". It was there, in this wonderful valley, that the "prophetic Finn" was transferred from his hermit's abode to get the sacred water and revive the dead Ruslan with it.
Leaning down, he plunges
Vessels in virgin waves;
Filled it up, disappeared in the air,
And I found myself in two moments
In the valley where Ruslan lay ...
Reading these lines, one involuntarily compares the "instant" flight of the Finn with the "heavenly wanderings" of shamans, Iranian and Indian holy men, ascetics, rishis. Let us recall, for example, the wise Narada: "Go, Narada, do not hesitate ... and hastened, strong ..." ...
Such ideas existed, of course, among different peoples of the world, which was reflected in their folklore. Pushkin, as you know, already in "Ruslan and Lyudmila" used various folklore motives, primarily Russian; folk tales and epics. However, it is noteworthy that in the poem Ruslan's wizard-patron and healer is a Finn ("natural Finn"). He comprehended the teachings of sorcerers, because in his homeland near the "Finnish shores":
Between the desert fishermen
Wondrous science lurks.
Under the roof of eternal silence
Among the forests, in the backwoods of the distant
Gray-haired sorcerers live;
To the subjects of high wisdom
All their thoughts are directed ...
Researchers of Pushkin's work have repeatedly noted that the choice of a Finn as a wizard is not accidental. At the same time, they referred to the words of N. M. Karamzin that "not only in Scandinavia, but also in Russia, the Finns and Chud were famous for magic." Karamzin also based on the evidence of ancient Russian sources about sorcerers, soothsayers, sorcerers from among the Finno-Ugric tribes who lived in the north of Russia. Indeed, the first volumes of the "History of the Russian State" at the time of writing "Ruslan and Lyudmila" were already known to Pushkin. But the poet may have had other folklore sources as well.
The legends and beliefs of Western Finnish peoples (Finns, Karelians, Estonians) and Laplanders (Sami) of Northern Scandinavia, studied by modern ethnographers and folklorists, reflect many of the motives of the cycle we are considering, including “flights” to a fairytale abode beyond the sacred mountains. The legends also talked about the "lower" world, in Finnish legends it is often called Tuonela.
In this "world of the dead" life is similar to earthly, the sun is constantly shining, the earth is rich in generous fields and abundant meadows. But the gloomy Tuoni (Duodna of the Laplanders) master of the “kingdom of the dead” reliably guards the entrances and exits from the “country”. The same peoples had a belief about "sacred mountains", where good spirits live and the souls of the dead lead a happy life; joy and merriment, harmony and justice reign there.
A shaman helps to "get" into this mountain abode. Laplanders believed that when a shaman lies motionless during a ritual, his soul visits the “sacred mountains” (based on materials collected in the 18th - early 20th centuries by Scandinavian scientists K. Viklund, J. Kvigstad, K. Leem, E. Reutersköld and etc.).
According to the early beliefs of the Western Finnish peoples, terrible trials awaited the soul on the way to the "land of the dead": she could meet snakes, monsters, evil spirits, she had to overcome stormy streams and dark rapids before approaching the "bridge" leading to the desired goal ... In the ancient magic songs of the Finns, it was told how the entrance to the "lower world" was guarded by its mistress. Behind the "bridge", according to the ancient beliefs of the Karelians, a monastery of bliss opened with luscious herbs, wide fields and trees with fruits sweet as honey. Wizards, sorcerers, shamans "gathered" there.
Finnish legends called the land of the dead the "Northern House" and placed it "below and in the north." In the folklore tradition of the peoples of Northern Scandinavia and Karelia, there is also a more precise indication: this "country" was allegedly in the Arctic Ocean or in the "sea" - "Sarayas". Linguists have established that "sarayas" is one of those words of the Finnish languages that find correspondences in the Indo-Iranian languages. By origin "sarayas" is the same word as the ancient Indian "jrayas" - "current", "vast space", "wide space" and the Iranian "zraya" - "large water basin", "sea".
However, one cannot but think about the fact that in the territories where contacts between the Finno-Ugric and Aryan tribes could have taken place, there are no seas and significant expanses of water. The famous Finnish scientist J. Toivonen believed that the ancestors of the West Finnish peoples took the word "sarayas" together with "the cosmological myths of the Iranians." Indeed, in the Iranian tradition, the word "zraya" was used to define the mythical body of water, Vurukash, located near the great northern mountains (Khara Berezaiti). It is noteworthy that the Finnish "sarayas" is not a designation of a real sea, but a mythical body of water in the far north.
The noted coincidences, thus, again return us to the "northern cycle" of Aryan mythology and once again confirm its connection with the cosmology and religion of the Finno-Ugric tribes. According to the Avesta, the soul of the deceased makes a "journey" to the Chin-wat bridge. Here she is awaited by a certain divine person who transfers some souls across the bridge to the heavenly abode of bliss, and casts others into the dark abyss lying under the ferry. “Beautiful” and “dexterous”, as “Avesta” calls her, the mistress of the bridge is obviously a close relative of that “mistress of the lower world” of northern mythology, who “meets” the souls of the dead at the crossing.
A similar "crossing" over the underground river of the underworld is described in the Indian epic. “Everyone comes to her, but the burdened one does not achieve happiness without hindrance ... the people who have committed evil here burn, here they crowd at the crossing”. And who is worthy “reaches the end of joy and suffering; here the sun ... drinks the sacred drink and, having reached the country of Vasishtha (i.e. Ursa Major), releases winter again ... Here in the halls of the rishis-singers, in the heavenly groves of the Mandara Mountain, the Gandharvas sing chants that delight the heart and mind. .. Your path runs through it, Galava "(from the" story "of the bird Garuda," Mahabharata ").
Sirte in memory remained only in the form of figurines made of walrus bone
Works of oral creativity: fairy tales, songs, legends, legends, myths - every nation has. They arise at the dawn of the life of the people and live, passing from generation to generation.
In the myths, the Nenets people reflected their ideas about the origin of the earth and the phenomena of the surrounding nature, about the origin of the spirits with which the people endowed the surrounding nature. But, unfortunately, today very few people are familiar with the myths and mythological stories of the Nenets.
One of the most famous myths is a legend about a small people - Sikhirta or Sirta, who lived in the polar tundra before the arrival of the Nenets - "real people".
Sikhirta are described as stocky and sturdy people of very short stature, with white eyes. According to legends, in time immemorial sikhirta came to the polar tundra from across the sea.
Their way of life was significantly different from that of the Nenets. Sirte did not raise deer, but instead hunted wild ones. This little people dressed in beautiful clothes with metal pendants. In some legends, sikhirta are described as keepers of silver and gold or as blacksmiths, after whom "pieces of iron" remain on the ground and underground, their houses-hills seemed to be attached to the permafrost with iron ropes.
One day the Sirte moved to the hills and became underground inhabitants, emerging on the surface of the tundra at night or in fog. In their underworld, they own herds of mammoths ("I-khora" - "earthen deer").
Meeting with sirtya brought grief to some, happiness to others. There are known cases of Nenets marrying Sirta women. At the same time, sirtyas could steal children (if they continued playing outside the chum until late), send damage to a person or scare him.
There are also mentions of military clashes between the Nenets and Sikhirta, while the latter were distinguished not so much by military valor as by the ability to unexpectedly hide and suddenly reappear.
THE LEGEND OF THE SIKHIRT TRIBE
They say that a long time ago, small people - sikhirta lived in our northern lands. They lived, according to legend, underground, in caves, under high hills. Quite scanty information about this small people has reached our days. Legends say that Sikhirta had a developed culture. Outwardly, they looked like Russians: blond, light-eyed, only very short. Sikhirta fished, hunted, and so they lived. Oddly enough, the people of this tribe slept during the day. Life began to boil with them at night. They also say that sikhirtya possessed supernatural powers. According to legend, ordinary people who saw sikhirta soon died.
In ancient times, my fellow tribesmen found shards of beautiful pottery, bronze women's jewelry and other painted household items near the cliffs or crumbling mounds.
According to one legend, an argish was driving past a high hill. And it was in the summer. Passing by the hill, people decided to make a halt, to give the reindeer a break. We decided to explore the hill. Suddenly, a small sleeping girl was found near the grassy hummock. The girl was very beautiful. She was wearing clothes decorated with painted buttons and silver plaques. Near the girl lay a cloud - a sewing bag. The newcomers have never seen such unprecedented beauty. The bag was decorated with shiny beads sparkling in the sun. Bronze tracery pendants emitted a subtle melodic ringing. Then the girl woke up, jumped to her feet and instantly disappeared into the nearby bushes. They only saw her. The search for the wonderful stranger did not yield any results. Like it fell through the ground. People turned back and forth. There is no it and that's all.
We decided to take a cloud-bag with us. They started off and rolled on. By the end of the day, we arrived at the place, set the plague. And closer to the night a woman's plaintive cry began to be heard: "Where is my cloud?" "Where is my cloud?" They say that screams rang out until morning. No one dared to come out of the chum and take a sewing bag somewhere in the tundra, as you might have guessed, the sikhirta girls. The family that had this beautiful handbag died soon after. And the relatives kept this precious find anyway. (They say that this cloud is still in the sacred sled of one inhabitant of the Nakhodka tundra).
As I said, the sikhirtyas had supernatural powers. This bag has also become a sacred attribute. During a person's illness, relatives hung this cloud on a troche, until the patient recovered.
We do not know whether such small people really lived in our area. But from generation to generation, small legends about the mysterious people, the Sikhirta, are passed down. Perhaps they lived here, since the song called "The Cry of the Sikhirta Girl" has survived to our times. After all, legends are often based on real ground.
