In search of Hyperborea, a secret expedition of the NKVD

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1922, the first expedition headed by Barchenko and Kondiain went to the Seydozero and Lovozero areas of the Murmansk region. The idea to send specialists there was personally supported by Felix Dzerzhinsky. Now it is difficult to establish what goals were set for the expedition. Hardly only scientific: later, large reserves of rare earth elements were discovered here. Upon his return, the materials of the expedition were studied at the Lubyanka. At the same time, its leaders were kept under lock and key.

Alexander Vasilyevich Barchenko (1881, Yelets - April 25, 1938, Moscow) - occultist, writer, researcher of telepathy. In the early 1920s, he headed an expedition to the center of the Kola Peninsula, to the Lovozero and Seydozero regions. The aim was to study the phenomenon of "weeping", similar to mass hypnosis. After a reporting speech by Barchenko at the Institute of the Brain about his research, he was hired by the Glavnauka on October 27, 1923 to work as a scientific consultant.

As for the Kola (Lapland) expedition of Barchenko, it is known that it was officially equipped in August 1922 by the Murmansk Gubekoso (Provincial Economic Conference). Together with Barchenko, three of his companions took part in it, as well as A. A. Condiayn and reporter Semyonov. (E. M. Kondiain this time could not follow her husband, because she had a newborn in her arms - her son Oleg, who was born in the fall of 1921). forced to refuse in connection with the planned overseas business trip.

Alexander Vasilievich Barchenko (1881-1938)

The main task of the expedition was an economic survey of the area adjacent to the Lovozero graveyard, inhabited by Lapps or Sami. Here was the center of Russian Lapland, an area almost unexplored by scientists. Once upon a time, according to ancient legends, this land was inhabited by the Chud tribe - "the chud that went into the land." Barchenko heard about chudi again on the way to Lovozero, from a young Lappish "sorceress" - shamaness Anna Vasilievna. “Long ago, the Lapps fought the Chud. We won and drove away. Chud went underground, and their two chiefs rode off on horses. The horses jumped over Seid Lake and hit the rocks and stayed there on the rocks forever. Lopari call them "Old Men".

An amazing story is connected with this shaman, which happened at the very beginning of the journey. “When in the evening they (members of the expedition - AA) reached Anna Vasilievna's plague, U A. B. Barchenko had a severe heart attack. Anna Vasilievna undertook to cure him. He was lying on the ground. She stood at his feet, covered herself with a long towel, whispered something, did some kind of dagger manipulation. Then, with a sharp movement, she pointed the dagger at A. B.'s heart. Barchenko. He felt a terrible pain in his heart. He had the feeling that he was dying, but he did not die, but fell asleep. He slept all night, and the next morning he got up vigorous, loaded up his two-pound backpack and continued his bonds. Later (according to E. M. Kondiain), Barchenko's heart attacks did not recur.

The miraculous cure of A. V. Barchenko made a huge impression on everyone. It must be said that at that time there was rather scant information about the Lapps or the Sami due to their extremely isolated existence. The origin of the Lappish people, who have lived in this harsh circumpolar region since time immemorial, is lost in the darkness of centuries or even millennia. Already at the very beginning of the expedition, during the passage to Lovozero, its participants came across a rather strange monument in the taiga - a massive rectangular granite stone. Everyone was struck by the geometrically correct shape of the stone, and the compass also showed that it was oriented to the cardinal points. Later, Barchenko and Kondiainu managed to establish that, although the Lapps all profess the Orthodox faith and perform all church rituals with extraordinary zeal, at the same time they secretly worship the sun god and bring bloodless sacrifices to stone blocks-menhirs, in Lappish “seids”.

Having crossed Lovozero by sailing boat, the expedition moved on towards the nearby Seid Lake, which was considered sacred. A straight clearing cut through the taiga thicket, overgrown with moss and small bushes, led to it. At the top of the clearing, from where a view of Lovozero and Seid Lake opened simultaneously, there was another rectangular stone.

“From this place one can see on one side of Lovozero an island - the Horn Island, on which only Lappish sorcerers could step. There were antlers there. If the sorcerer moves his horns, a storm will rise on the lake. On the other side, the opposite steep rocky shore of Seyd-Lake is visible, but on these rocks a huge figure, from St. Isaac's Cathedral, is quite clearly visible. Its contours are dark, as if carved in stone. Figure in the "padmaasana" pose. In the photograph taken from this coast, it could be easily distinguished."

Lapland expedition A. V. Barchenko (1922). From left to right: Lapp Guide, A. V. Barchenko, N. Barchenko, L. N. Shishelova-Markova, Yu. V. Strutinskaya, A. A. Kondiain, unknown person, Semenov (Izvestia correspondent). Condiine Family Archive

The figure on the rock, reminiscent of E. M. Condiain of a Hindu yogi, this is the "Old Man" ("Old Man", or Kuiva, according to another version) from the Lappish legend: However, the modern researcher V. N. Demin saw in her something else - a man with arms outstretched in a cruciform manner.

The members of the expedition spent the night on the shore of Seid Lake in one of the Lapp tents. The next morning they decided to swim to the cliff edge in order to better see the mysterious figure, but the Lapps flatly refused to give the boat. In total, the travelers spent about a week at Seid Lake. During this time, they became friends with the Lapps, and they showed them one of the underground passages. However, it was not possible to penetrate the dungeon, since the entrance to it, again lined with mysterious rectangular stones, turned out to be thoroughly covered with earth. The expedition discovered several other monuments of Lappish antiquity in the vicinity of the “holy lake”, including the stone “pyramid” that intrigued everyone.

In the family archive of the Kondiains, several pages from Alexander Alexandrovich's "Astronomical Diary" were miraculously preserved with a story about one day of the expedition, which deserves to be brought here:

"10 / IX. "Old men". Against a white, as it were, a cleared background, reminiscent of a cleared place on a rock, a giant figure stands out in Motovskaya Bay, resembling a human in its dark contours. Motovskaya lip is strikingly grandiosely beautiful. One must imagine a narrow corridor 2-3 versts wide, bounded on the right and left by giant sheer cliffs, up to 1 verst high. The isthmus between these mountains, which ends in the lip, is overgrown with a wonderful forest, spruce - luxurious, slender, high up to 5 - b fathoms, dense, like a taiga spruce. All around the mountains. Autumn has decorated the slopes interspersed with larch trees with spots of gray-green color, bright bushes of birches, aspens, alder; in the distance, like a fabulous amphitheater, there are gorges, among which there is Seid Lake. In one of the gorges, we saw a mysterious thing - next to the sketes, here and there in spots lying on the slopes of the gorge, we could see a yellowish-white column like a giant candle, and next to it a cube stone. On the other side of the mountain, from N, you can see a giant cave, 200 yards, and next to it is something like a walled up crypt.

One of the finds is an altar stone. Condiine Family Archive

The sun illuminated a vivid picture of the northern fall. On the shore there were 2 vezhi, in which the Lapps live, who are moving out to fish from the churchyard. There are a total of them, both on Lovozero and on Seid Lake, approx. 15 people. We, as always, were warmly received, treated with dry and boiled fish. After the meal, an interesting conversation ensued. By all indications, we are in the liveliest environment of gray-haired life. Lopari are quite children of nature. Wonderfully combine in themselves

Christian faith and beliefs of antiquity. The legends we heard among them live a bright life. They fear and respect the "old man". They are afraid to talk about antlers. Women shouldn't even go to the island - they don't like horns. In general, they are afraid to give away their secrets and speak with great reluctance about their shrines, excuse themselves with ignorance. An old witch lives here, the wife of a sorcerer who died 15 years ago, whose brother is still a very old man, sings and shamanizes at Umb Lake. Old man Danilov is spoken of with respect and fear that he could heal diseases, send damage, let the weather go, but he himself once took a deposit from the Swedes (or rather, Chudi) for reindeer, cheated buyers, that is, he turned out to be - apparently a stronger sorcerer, sending madness on them.

Today's Lapps are of a slightly different type. One of them has a little Aztec trait, the other is Mongolian. Women with prominent cheekbones, a slightly flattened nose and wide-set eyes. Children differ little from the Russian type. The local Lapps live much poorer than the Undins.

Both Russians and Izhemtsy offend them a lot. Almost all of them are illiterate. Gentleness of character, honesty, hospitality, a purely childish soul - this is what distinguishes the Lapps.

In the evening, after a short rest, I went to Lake Seid. Unfortunately, we arrived there after sunset. The gigantic gorges were covered with blue haze. The outlines of the Old Man stand out against the white plafond of the mountain. A luxurious trail leads to the lake through taibolu. Everywhere there is a wide carriageway, it even seems that it is paved. There is a small rise at the end of the road. Everything speaks to the fact that in ancient times this grove was reserved and the elevation at the end of the road served as an altar-altar in front of the Old Man.

The weather was changing, the wind was getting stronger, the clouds were gathering. A storm should have been expected. At about 11 o'clock I returned to the shore. The noise of the wind and the rapids of the river merged into a general noise amid the approaching dark night. The moon was rising over the lake. The mountains are dressed in an enchanting wild night. Approaching the vest, I frightened our mistress. She mistook me for the Old Man and let out a terrible cry and stopped rooted to the spot. Violently calmed her down. After supper, we went to bed as usual. Luxurious northern lights illuminated the mountains, vying with the moon."

From right to left: conductor, A. V. Barchenko, N. Barchenko, L. N. Shishelova-Markova, Yu. V. Strutinskaya. Condiine Family Archive

On the way back, Barchenko and his companions tried again to make an excursion to the "forbidden" Horn Island in Lovozero - the first attempt was made by them in the very

the beginning of the journey - however, this time too, they failed. As soon as they sailed from the coast, the sky was suddenly covered with black clouds. A hurricane came, which instantly broke the mast and nearly overturned the boat. In the end, the travelers were nailed to a tiny, completely bare island, where, shivering from the cold, they spent the night. And in the morning, already on the oars, we somehow dragged ourselves to Lovozersk. The Horn Island really turned out to be "enchanted"!

(…)

Barchenko made his report at the Bekhterev Institute sometime in early 1923.(We do not know the exact date.) Judging by the certificate issued to him by the institute in the same year, this report, devoted mainly to the results of a survey of the Lappish Emerians, aroused great interest among the audience. At the same time, it is known that on November 29, 1922 A. A. Kondiain spoke at a meeting of the geographical section of the Society for World Studies with his own report on the Lapland expedition, which was called "In the land of fairy tales and sorcerers." In it, he talked about the amazing finds made by the expedition, which, in his opinion, testify to the fact that the local Lapps originate "from some more ancient cultural race." The photographs and transparencies shown by him made a great impression on the audience.

Barchenko's expedition received some coverage in the Petrograd press. Thus, on February 19, 1923, Krasnaya Gazeta published a short report on the sensational discovery on its pages: “Prof. Barchenko discovered the remains of ancient cultures dating back to a period older than the era of the birth of Egyptian civilization. Such an unfounded statement angered Barchenko, and he just sent a refutation to the newspaper's editorial office, along with a small report on the trip. Ten days later, Krasnaya Gazeta published this story by Barchenko under the catchy headline “At the Cradle,” which we reproduce below.

“Returning to Petrograd, the head of the Kola expedition of the Murmansk Gubekoso prof. A. V. Barchenko, in a conversation with our employee, shared the following information about his discoveries in the depths of Lapland.

The main goal of the expedition was to survey the economic significance of the area adjacent to the Lovozersky churchyard, the capital of Russian Lapland. This is an area of reindeer husbandry and animal hunting, huge forests are concentrated here, which have excellent rafting to the sea. But this entire area is completely cut off from the administrative and economic centers of the region. Communication with the area is possible only in winter, because until now there is not even a walking path from the railway. roads to Lovozero. A detachment of the expedition made a detailed route survey of the area, and it turned out that it was possible to connect the area with a summer road without special costs. For the first time, it would be enough to build a walking path. This work can be done by 10 workers in 10 months.

Along the way, it was possible to collect important ethnographic material, especially regarding the oldest inhabitants of Lapland - the Lapps. In the area we surveyed, there are no more than 400 Lapps, and the entire Murmansk province now accounts for, perhaps, no more than 1000. Lapps live completely apart, with their own customs and beliefs dating back hundreds and thousands of years. According to religion, the Lapps are considered Orthodox, and according to the reviews of the local priest, they are very zealous in performing religious rituals. Meanwhile, to the question of whom you pray to, in the depths of the island, you can invariably get the answer: "to the sun god." With detailed questioning, the Lapps immediately begin to assure that this God is Jesus Christ, that they were taught this way, and so on. and so on.

Incidentally, it turned out that the Lapps still bring bloodless sacrifices in the form of food, tobacco and so on, both to the aforementioned remains of the statues, and

to the sacred hill on the 5 versts from Seid Lake Lovozero - the sacred island - "Island of Glory", Kyitsuel.

Lopari are extremely superstitious, and sorcerers and healers still play a huge role in their life. Among these characters, who in the mass are typical hysterics, or even just hoaxers, there are many, however, very interesting keepers of ancient legends, ancient superstitions, sometimes clothed in a curious poetic form.

Until now, the Lapps of Russian Lapland honor the remains of prehistoric religious centers and monuments that have survived in the corners of the region inaccessible to culture. For example, one and a half versts from the railway and 50 versts from the Lovozero churchyard, the expedition managed to find the remains of one of such religious centers - the sacred Lake Seid - a lake with the remains of colossal sacred images, prehistoric glades in virgin taibol (more often), with half-collapsed underground passages - trenches that protected the approaches to the sacred lake. Local Lapps are extremely unfriendly to attempts to examine interesting monuments more thoroughly. They refused the expedition in the boat, warned that approaching the statues would entail all sorts of misfortunes on our heads and theirs, etc.

A number of authoritative ethnographers and anthropologists have indications that the Lapps are the oldest ancestors of the peoples who subsequently left the northern latitudes. Recently, the theory has also been consolidated, according to which the Lapps, in parallel with the dwarf tribes of all parts of the world, seem to be the most ancient progenitors of the now much taller white race.

That is why the study and research of this cradle of humanity, lost in the impenetrable thickets and wilds of our North, is of the highest scientific interest."

The interest in the discoveries made by the Lapland expedition was so great that on April 18, at the request of world scientists, Kondiain had to repeat his report. Barchenko, who was invited by the society, also took part in a heated discussion among scientists that ensued. His arguments and eloquence, however, could not convince the skeptics. The outcome of the discussion was summed up by the secretary of the geographic section V. Shibaev: “A long exchange of views, a speech by the head of the detachment A. V. Barchenko and a number of transparencies from the places visited did not dispel the prevailing opinion of many of those present about the low objectivity of the speaker in describing his observations and discoveries, since the photographs presented make it possible to draw very opposite conclusions."

In the summer of 1923, one of the doubters, a certain Arnold Kolbanovsky, having found Barchenko's guide Mikhail Rasputin, organized his own expedition to the Lovozero-Seydozersky region in order to see firsthand the existence of monuments of an ancient civilization. Together with Kolbanovsky, a group of “objective observers” - the chairman of the Lovozersky Volost Executive Committee, his secretary and a volost policeman - went to the protected Lapp places. First of all, Kolbanovsky tried to get to the "enchanted" Horny Island, where it was allegedly possible to see the "shadows of idols."

In the evening of July 3, a detachment of brave and, most importantly, non-superstitious travelers, despite their witchcraft spells, swam across Lovozero and landed on the Horn Island. An hour and a half survey of its territory, however, did not give any results. “On the island - trees felled by storms, wildly, there are no idols - clouds of mosquitoes. They tried to find the enchanted antlers, which, according to Lappish legends, had sunk the advancing Swedes for a long time. These horns send "weather" to anyone who tries to approach the island with ill intentions (as well as for the purpose of examination), especially women. " Whether Kolbanovsky managed to find these relics, the report on his trip does not say anything.

The next day, or rather, at night - obviously, so as not to attract attention to itself - the detachment moved to the neighboring Seid Lake. They examined the mysterious "statue" of the Old Man - it turned out that it was "nothing more than weathered dark layers in a sheer rock, from a distance resembling a semblance of a human figure in its form." The figure of the "cook" on one of the peaks of the Seydozero rocks turned out to be the same illusion. But there was still a stone "pyramid" that served as one of the main arguments in favor of the existence of an ancient civilization. To this "wonderful monument of antiquity", visible from a distance - from the southern bank of the Motka - Guba, Kolbanovsky, following Rasputin, and then went. And again failure: “We came close. An ordinary stone swelling on a mountain top presented itself to the eyes."

Kolbanovsky's conclusions, which debunked all Barchenko's discoveries, were published immediately after the end of his own expedition by the Murmansk "Polyarnaya Pravda" ("Act on the traces of the so-called" ancient civilization in Lapland "): At the same time, the editorial staff of the newspaper, in its commentary, rather caustically characterized Barchenko's messages and his "groups" as "hallucinations, brought under the guise of a new Atlantis into the minds of the gullible citizens of the mountains. Petrograd "- an obvious allusion to the discussion by world scientists of the results of the Lapland expedition.

Therefore, publishing the report on Kondiain's repeated speech, the editorial board of the ROLM Journal considered it necessary to provide it with a detailed note, which contained a reference to the results of Kolbanovsky's survey and, more importantly, noted that the expedition of A. E. Fersman (in the summer of the same 1922) also "did not find anything archaeological in them." All this only strengthened the position of Barchenko's opponents among St. Petersburg scientists.

(…)

Let me quote in this connection the opinion of another scientist - Ariadna Gottfridovna Kondiain (daughter-in-law of AA Kondiain), a geologist by profession.

“In 1946, I worked on a geological expedition in the area of Mount Aluive, which rises above Seid Lake. I was then married for the first year to Oleg Alexandrovich and still did not know anything about the work of his father and A. V. Barchenko. I did not go down to the lake, although it was surrounded by an aura of mystery. Indeed, the members of our expedition, after my departure to Leningrad, twice set out on boat trips on this lake, and both times it ended in tragedy - 8 people died. In addition, several people died in a landslide in the gorge leading to Lake Seid. The area of Lovozero and Seid Lake is very interesting from a geological point of view. In particular, it is characterized by an anomalous intense heat flow from the bowels of the Earth and the spread of unusual rocks. It is interesting both in geomorphological and climatic terms. Many legends are associated with it, as well as information that Seid Lake and its surroundings are dangerous for inexperienced visitors."

A. G. Kondiain expresses doubt that the "stone formations" discovered by the expedition of A. V. Barchenko on the Kola Peninsula are certainly "the remains of an ancient culture."

“There is no certainty about this, and therefore it is necessary that these remains were carefully studied by a highly qualified specialist who, on the one hand, is familiar with glossy geology, geomorphology, permafrost, etc., on the other hand, with the petrology and physical properties of rocks, as well as a … To get acquainted with the geological structure of the central part of the Kola Peninsula deeply enough”.