Moscow was built on an ancient temple

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

Andrei SINELNIKOV, a well-known writer, ethnographer and expert on secret societies of the world, agreed to tell the Riddles and Secrets publication about where the seven spiritual peaks of Moscow actually are.

- Andrey, what were the sacred places of our ancestors?

- In the era when our ancestors worshiped their ancient gods, such places were called temples. In their center, a znich burned - a ritual fire, around which a treasure and a gulbische were located. Trebishche is the place where they demanded the benefits necessary for the tribe from their gods, and the gulbische is where the people walked on holidays.

- Were there such pagan temples in Moscow? She is a relatively young city.

- According to the research of archaeologists, Moscow was literally full of ancient pagan temples. Moreover, they existed almost until the time of the Troubles and the coming to power of the Romanov dynasty. For example, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich wrote to the voivode Shuisky in 1649, complaining about the huge pagan festivities on December 22, that those celebrating glorified Kolyada, Usenya and "plow", buffoons played everywhere. Among the areas covered by the fun, he indicated: the Kremlin, China, White and Zemlyanoy cities, that is, almost the entire territory of Moscow in those years.

Such vitality of tradition was explained by the fact that Moscow was founded on a place where there were more sanctuaries than usual, it was a single sacred complex with an area of about 8 square kilometers, built as an image of the laws of world rotation.

- But what does the legendary seven hills have to do with it?

“Everyone knows that Moscow stands on seven hills. However, she is not alone. Rome, Byzantium (Constantinople, Constantinople) also stand on seven hills. Historians of many countries stubbornly search for these legendary hills, hills, or at least something similar to them, but in vain. Therefore, the theory of seven spiritual, and not physical, heights appeared. Indeed, the holy city of Rome, originally written as Rum, from the ancient name of the holy temple of ROMOV, was supposed to stand in a holy place. Tsar Grad, as you know, is the Second Rome, and Moscow is the Third. The names of these spiritual peaks are different for different peoples, but it is most likely that they are expressed in the names of the gods.

- What gods did the Slavs worship in ancient Moscow?

- Seven deities are precisely known: Rod, Veles, Kupala, Yarilo, Makosh, Perun and Troyan. While studying the books of the genealogy, I, together with my colleagues, discovered an interesting list of ancient Moscow temples dedicated to the old Slavic gods. Treating it as circumstantial evidence, we tried to prove or disprove what it said in practice.

- And what did you do? - Something coincided, something not, but we figured out the places of the temples! The fact is that the places of Power, when changing any beliefs and religions, are necessarily involved in the iconic construction of a new cult, often preserving external signs and even the changed name of the forerunner. The most demanded and revered spiritual peak for any time, of course, was military glory. The gods of war were: among the Greeks - Ares, among the Romans - Mars, among the Scandinavians - Thor, among the Slavs - Perun. There is a summit of the military spirit, a "hill" of soldiers in Moscow.

- And where is?

- In its shape, the temple of the god of warriors at that time resembled an octagon, reflecting the symbol of Perun "fireman", "kolo" - an eight-pointed star. Oriented to the cardinal points, it divided the inner space into nine sanctuaries, where worship of the light gods was performed. Eight sanctuaries were located around the ninth, dedicated to the highest spirit of the warrior - the god Perun. The altar of this temple was located in the center of the city on the Alatyr-Kamen, located on Red Square at its transition to Vasilyev (Velesov) descent. This huge glacial boulder later served as the foundation of the Trinity Church, which stood on this site. Then the system of arrangement and the appearance of the temple of Perun were used by Postnik and Barma during the construction of the nine-domed temple of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, also called the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed. This is the first sacred hill - the hill of Perun.

- Whose temple was the second most important after Perun?

- The second spiritual value revered in Russia was what we call "fate" or "share." As you know, the threads of fate are spun by divine spinners: the Greeks have moira, the Romans have parks, the Vikings have norns, and the Slavs have the main spinner Makosh. The Ma-koshi hill is a temple of the masters of their destiny, which could be called a "sacred couple". A sacred pair is usually made up of two temples: a man's and a woman's, located on opposite sides of the river. If the river makes a bend, then a high "embracing" bank and a "embracing" flood meadow are formed.

Borovitsky Hill and Zamoskvorechye perfectly fit the definition of a couple. On the hill there was a male temple Yarile - the sun god, the god of life. And beyond the river there should have been a place of veneration of the female deity - Mokos-fate. To find the place of the temple of Makosha, it is necessary to understand who replaced her cult in the Christianity that came. It's Paraskeva Friday! The name of the street Pyatnitskaya points us to a female deity, who has been worshiped here since ancient times. Indeed, on the street stood the Church of Paraskeva

Friday, which has the conditional "goodbye" status. And according to ethnographic evidence, the places of worship of Mokos were called "goodbyes". It stood in the place where the vestibule of the Novokuznetskaya metro station is now.

- So, the temple of Yarila was opposite, on Borovitsky hill. What was this deity responsible for?

- Like Ra in Egypt and Apollo in Greece, Yarilo was responsible for life among the Slavs. According to legend, a wooden church of St. John the Baptist was laid on the site of the sanctuary on Bor. The chronicler claimed that this temple was "the first church in Moscow to be". The construction of a Christian church did not change much, because Velesov stone was still nearby, to which Muscovites flocked on holidays.

In 1509, the chapel of the holy Martyr Uar was built in this church. Muscovites called him the old-fashioned Yar, meaning Yarila. But on October 2, 1846, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, being in the Kremlin, made a remark that the Church of St. Huar spoils the view from the windows of the Kremlin Palace. When the nobleman A. N. Muravyov turned to the church ruler with a request to save the temple, he replied very meaningfully: "Forgive me for worshiping icons of another shrine, and not the scattered stones of Vasily the Dark." It should be noted that Metropolitan Filaret called the stone of Veles the stone of Basil the Dark. The Temple of Huara was dismantled, and the Veles stone was removed in one night. It is obvious that the temple of Yaril was on Bor, that is, in the Kremlin, on Borovitsky hill.

- But what is life and fate without will, especially revered in Russia? What god was responsible for her?

- Yes, the deity of will, freedom and power was especially strongly revered among the northern peoples. For the Celts and Vikings, this is Freya, or Frida. The Slavic-Balts have Veles. It so happened that the location of the temple of Veles turned out to be known most accurately and, surprisingly, confirmed by archaeological excavations. This is the famous Red Hill, or, as it was also called in ancient times, Bolvanova Gora. It is noteworthy that the old name of Verkhneradishchevskaya street located in this place is Bolvanovka.

With this word, Christians called pagan idols on the temple, therefore the presence of such a toponym can be considered as a fact indicating the existence of a pagan cult in these places. As a rule, in the place where the temple was located, sacred fires were burning - chigasy. Consequently, the exact location of the temple is a church or monastery, built on the site of the temple, having the word "chigas" in its name.

And indeed, in the courtyard of a house on the Kotelnicheskaya embankment there was once a Spaso-Chigasov monastery. For the first time in the chronicle it is mentioned as a stone one in 1483. Next to it stood the church of Nikita the Pleasant, about which in the chronicle in 1533 it was said: “… a great cloud has risen … clay figurines of a horseman riding a wolf and a man with a wolf's head and a tambourine in his hands.

The figurines have no analogues and are dated by archaeologists to the XIV century, that is, at the time when the Red Hill was just beginning to be populated by the townspeople. These findings clearly indicate whose temple was in this place, because the wolf is the totem animal of the god Beles. No wonder the words "power" and "will" are phonetically consonant with the word "wolf". True, some researchers correlate Beles with an ox, but this is an erroneous comparison, since in many chronicle Slavic-Baltic sources Beles is absolutely accurately interpreted with a wolf.

- But what about the father of all Slavic gods - Rod?

- Of course, his temple also existed in Moscow. Rod is a common Slavic god, the creator of all living and being. Rod is the veneration of ancestors, an appeal to another world, to Navi. In old Moscow, there is an interesting place that has retained its originality to this day. To the west of the Kremlin stretched the Chertolye district, which included Chertolsky streets, the Chertory stream, Volkhonka, Vlasyeva Sloboda and two Vlasyevsky lanes. Sivtsev Vrazhek also belonged to Chertol. In the Moscow dialect, ravines were called mugs; in this case, it is a ravine-brook Chortoryya. Since Sivtsev Vrazhek and the other names of Chertolya listed above go back to the original elements, to the unity of all the gods, it is Rod. revered in the area. Moreover, the names of the streets of Chertolya did not come from the "devil", as you might think, but from the "line" separating Nav and Yav.

Nav is the world of ancestors, ancestors, those who keep the traditions of the Family, and Yav is the world of the living. Most likely, the pagan temple was located at the bottom of a ravine along which the Chertoriy stream flowed. Most likely, in the place where Sivtsev Vrazhek now intersects with Bolshoy and Maly Vlasyevsky lanes. Previously, there was a tract Koz'e Boloto. This name also has pagan roots, because the goat was a symbol and embodiment of the giving birth force of the earth. This is Smolenskaya Square. - Where was the temple of Kupala, who was especially beloved in Moscow?

- Kupala is always a ritual associated with water, fire and herbs. At the same time, the main part of the Kupala rituals is carried out at night. On the Kupala night, the shortest night of the year, the inhabitants of Navi come to life. The line between spirits and people disappears. Sorcerers and witches, werewolves, mermaids, sorcerers, brownies, water, goblin come to our world. On the holiday of Kupala, according to popular beliefs, water can "be friends" with fire, and their union is considered a natural force.

The symbol of such a connection is the bonfires along the banks of the rivers, which were lit on the night of Kupala. But numerous ethnographic studies say that Kupala is the later name of another ancient god - Marena. The image of Marena is associated with death, hence the seasonal agrarian rituals - in honor of the dying and resurrection of nature. The analogue of this deity among the Egyptians is Sekhmet, and among the Scandinavians - Hel. So, another point of the Chertolya can claim the role of the Marena temple - the place where the Chortoryya stream flows into the Moskva River. So to speak, the other end of the Navi ravine is Sivtseva Vrazhka.

The fate of this place, which is called the accursed one, is very remarkable - it is known for the fact that temples were built here from time immemorial, but everyone had a short and sad fate. Two monasteries that died out in antiquity, the first cathedral of Christ the Savior that was blown up, the Palace of Soviets that “floated away” on the floodplain waters, the swimming pool “Moscow” - all these objects seemed to be thrown off the “bad place”, trying to remain free … So, the temple of Kupala- Marena, the spirit of magic, was located on the site of the current Kropotkin Square.

- Who was the seventh in the pantheon of the ancient gods of the Slavs?

- This is Troyan, Triglav, or Tribog. According to the historian Gerbord, this deity rules over three worlds - heaven, earth and the underworld. Troyan, Triglav - in the mythology of the Slavs, a three-headed deity, symbolizing the trinity of everything in this world. Day - night - day. Winter - summer - year. Sun - moon - sky. Man - woman - family. Nav - Reality - Rule.

The holiday of Troyan is not strictly linked to the date of the calendar and coincides with the appearance of flowers on the oak, and this happens around May 22. Oak is a sacred tree of Troyan, and an oak grove is obligatory in the place of his temples. There was such a place in Moscow as well. This is Zaryadye, the place where the Rossiya hotel was recently located.

Interviewed by Dmitry SOKOLOV

Yarila's temple was where today is the House on Kotelnicheskaya embankment.

Temple of Mokosha on Bolshaya Ordynka.

On the site of the temple of Veles stands the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Kupala temple: Moskvoretsky bridge.