Journalist and local historian spoke about giant man-eating spiders

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

This interesting article was sent by the writer, journalist and ethnographer from Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkarian Republic) Viktor Nikolaevich Kotlyarov.

What is told below will be unambiguously perceived by the majority as an invention, a fairy tale horror story, a folk tale. Probably ironic comments, hints of inadequacy of perception, reproaches of the narrator in the desire to attract attention to himself by not entirely correct methods.

The fact that the majority will not believe in this story, I know for sure. Moreover, I myself did not believe long enough.

And even now, to be honest, I doubt what I heard. Therefore, I will try to dissect it from all sides, to look at this episode from the standpoint of the possible. However, what does possible mean? This is impossible, for the simple reason that it is impossible - said to me a specialist directly related to the study of data from representatives of the world of fauna.

Well, if so, it remains for us to state only the facts. Consider this whole story a fiction, but a fiction based not only and even not so much on the legends of distant years, as on the impressions of eyewitnesses.

We are talking about giant arthropods - spiders that once lived in our area. I already addressed this topic in the article "Tyzyl spiders and the legendary Madzhar" ("Unknown Kabardino-Balkaria", 2013) and was sure that this topic was closed.

Let me remind you that it was about the fact that Madzhar (in its place is now notorious in modern history Budennovsk) - the famous Golden Horde city, which in the XIII-XVI centuries was the center of the intersection of trade routes from the Transcaucasia to the Northern Black Sea region and the Volga region, according to legend, was literally attacked giant spiders.

The largest scientist of the 18th century, Peter-Simon Pallas, wrote about this in his work "Notes on a journey to the southern governorates of the Russian state in 1793-1794":, according to tradition, the name of the river Bivalla originates. In Tatar, bi means "tarantula", and walla means "bad" or "bad". I have never considered this country to be the birthplace of the named insects; moreover, despite all my efforts, I could not find even an ordinary tarantula here."

Later, in 1828, the French naturalist Charles Godet visited Madzhare, who already expounded in more detail the legend of the destruction of the city by giant spiders.

Reflecting in my material on how exactly the spiders were able to take possession of the whole city, I, holding the opinion that the inhabitants left Majar because of the incredible abundance of tarantulas, which turned people's lives into a nightmare, nevertheless, remembered about one legend that was reflected in the Nart epic.

The legend is amazing, moreover, unique - it is not found among any of the peoples, carriers of the Nart epic, with the exception of the Balkars and Karachais. It was published in the book "Narts" (Moscow, "Vostochnaya Literatura", 1994) in the section "Sosuruk / Sosurka" at number 45 and is called "How the Nart Sosuruk exterminated man-eating spiders."

But I brought it up in the material "Tyzyl Spiders and the Legendary Majar" as a certain kind of proof that giant spiders could exist, at least in the human imagination. And if there were a lot of them, and if they caused people trouble and suffering, they could eventually, in retellings through generations, increase in size, turning into giants.

It is also clear that the Tyzyl spiders could not have ended up in Madzhara, located more than one and a half hundred kilometers (in a straight line) from our places. It was just an exotic version, intended to give the material some kind of mystical intrigue. But it turned out that there was no need to attach it - Madjar is far away and on its own, and the Tyzyl spiders are a completely different story. And most importantly, it turns out that it is by no means mythical.

Moreover, in the seventies of the last century, I heard its echo, but being very skeptical of the local residents' habars (during the years of my journalistic work I had to hear this, which would have been enough for a whole collection of fairy tales), then I just laughed.

But let's start with the primary source, namely the original text. This is a record of a resident of the village of Bedik Harun Otarov, made by the famous Balkar educator Said Shakhmurzaev in 1973 (the narrator was 78 years old at that time) and is now stored in the archives of the Kabardino-Balkarian Institute for Humanitarian Research.

Let's give it in full:

“In the days of the Narts, there were large spiders [the size] of a basket. They lived in the land of Tyzyl, in an area called Kerdeyuklu. There is the Shauppopot Rise. On both sides of this steep rise, there were deep gorges.

There, at the crossroads, in the gorge [and] lived spiders [the size of] a basket. They weaved a cobweb [thick] with a lasso, lured [into it] passing travelers and, entangling them, sucked the blood out of them. In these deep gorges around Shaushupot, the bones and skulls of people who were devoured by these spiders still lie.

The nart counselor Satanai heard that here and there spiders [the size of] a basket block the roads of people, lure them into [their] cobwebs and suck blood out of them. Hearing this, she told Sosuruku about everything.

Sosuruk, together with [his] Nart army, went to the place where the spiders were. When we got there, we saw [nets] and [their] cobwebs in a deep gorge. The spiders, noticing [the sleds], rushed [at them]. Some of the sledges died. However, the sleds were victorious and exterminated [all] the spiders. Nart Sosuruk sent to Satanai [a messenger] with the message that they had defeated the spiders. Satanai came [there] and saw the killed strange spiders [size] as big as a basket.

[At the behest of] Satanai collected the web of these spiders, loaded them on horses and brought them to the Nart country. From this web canvases were woven, [sewn] clothes for the Nart army. Clothes made from these spider webs did not get wet. It was [very] strong, in the cold [it] was warm, in the heat it was cool. [Narts, dressed] in these clothes, did not take either arrows or swords. These spider webs shone dazzlingly.

Once, when the Nart army set out on a campaign, on the way it met a large group of Emegens. The Emegens, seeing [the Narts], decided to fight them. However, the shiny clothes [on the sledges] illuminated the gorges, the roads, blinded [the Emegens], and they could not stand it, got scared and rushed to run.

[The Narts] began to chase the Emegens and drove them into the Shaushyugut gorge, where they exterminated the spiders. The stupid Emegens, [getting hungry], ate the spiders killed by the sleds [and all] died. Since that day, no one has seen the Emegens. "This is how the Emegens disappeared on earth," my father Nannak told me in childhood when he talked about the sledges."

So, before us is a fairy tale, legend, tradition. This kind of folk art should be treated like that, if …

The first echo of the spider story reached me in the stagnant and calm seventies of the last century. The editorial staff of the newspaper "Soviet Youth", in which I then worked, one of the August days left for the Tyzyl Gorge - at the "Tyzyl" tourist center, owned by the Nalchik semiconductor device plant, they promised to give us shelter on Saturday and Sunday at full board.

Such an agreement in those years was the norm: the NZPP thundered throughout the republic, the newspaper devoted materials to it more than once, and it is quite natural that the Komsomol organization of the plant decided to hold a meeting of the youth activists with the newspaper staff in an informal, so to speak, atmosphere.

They drove up to Gundelen (then he was called that) in the editorial "Volga" - in the back seat of us, I remember, there were six of us: four close to each other, two - a trainee from the Rostov Department of Journalism and the head of the propaganda department, a very representative woman - on our knees. I don’t remember how we got there, and it doesn’t matter in this case. At the Hundelen's turn, the factory "UAZ", the so-called "tablet", was waiting for us, in which we settled with great comfort.

Behind the wheel was a man of about fifty years old - for me, who was in his early twenties - a real old man, of no interest whatsoever. And, no doubt, not remembered, if not for the following. Somewhere right after the branch leading to another gorge, the driver stopped the car and got out of it. To be honest, I thought he needed a small business. But out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the man stopped at a box lying on the side of the road.

Apparently, it was a box for transporting apples. The driver lifted it up, brought it almost to his eyes, carefully examining something, and then threw it aside. It was evident that he was very indignant or upset about something. This was evident in his response to the remark of the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the plant accompanying us, which he made to the driver. He tried to explain something, but what he muttered, no one understood in the noise of the engine.

I reproduce all the driver's actions described above with such accuracy because he and I ended up at the same table in the dining room adjoining the dormitory building of the tourist base - very good both in terms of external design and in terms of prepared dishes. The driver (unfortunately, I didn’t even ask about his name then) had already managed to take it on his chest by this moment, and apparently a considerable dose, and therefore wanted to speak out and be heard. Since we were alone at the table with him (there were not enough seats at the common place, where the journalists and the factory Komsomol organizer sat, and I, as the youngest, had to sit down nearby), I was his only interlocutor.

What I heard I took as drunken chatter, but by and large did not take it at all. And how could you react to the rubbish that the driver was carrying.

He said that the other day he went to Nalchik for food for the canteen, was traveling light, not counting empty apple crates, and therefore rushed fast enough, although the road did not have such a speed. Therefore, I did not pay attention to the strange creature crawling along the road. Nevertheless, he unconsciously turned the steering wheel to the right, and, not understanding why, decided to stop.

He slowed down, got out of the car, walked a few meters and froze in bewilderment. On the side of the road was something in all its appearance resembling a spider. Only incredibly huge - almost knee-deep. I remember the sharp triangles of numerous legs sticking out from all sides, a huge shell resembling a turtle in the middle, and eyes - shiny beads. The spider was alive, but did not move, apparently, he, having received a blow from the machine, was in prostration.

Not knowing what to do and at the same time experiencing unconscious fear - the man had never seen such monsters before, he remembered about the apple boxes in the car and took out one of them. The spider still loomed motionless on the side of the road. The man slowly, for some reason sideways, walked over to him and covered him with a box.

And then the insect seemed to wake up. A yellow mass, hissing and terribly smelly, instantly splashed out of the hole; then the box, thrown by incredible force, flew into the air and the spider, as if doubled in size, moved towards the man.

One could only guess how the driver took off and then drove the car. Since then, he has already passed through this place twice, but decided to stop only today - the presence of a large number of people gave courage.

How did I take this story? How would you take it? Thrillers about giant insects that did not even enter the heads of Hollywood scriptwriters at that time were filmed decades later. Materialistic education denied any possibility of the presence of such monsters in our then reality.

Therefore, he took it as he should - did not believe a single word of his interlocutor. Moreover, later, when at night we gathered in an impromptu smoking room next to the main building, cruelly, with the maximalism inherent in youth, he ridiculed the driver, conveying his story in faces. They laughed for a long time, everyone laughed.

And it was gone from memory. Gone forever. I did not even include this episode in the material "Giant Spiders and the Legendary Majar" so as not to be ridiculed. And the Internet is already full of replicas that the writer of these lines is not a local historian, but a storyteller.

I would not remember this episode today, if … But more on that below. In the meantime, let us return to the text itself, published in the epic "Narta". Let's talk about the toponymy of the places where the described events take place. In the Karachai-Balkarian nartiad, in contrast to the epics of other peoples, in most legends there is a clear reference to the area. In this case, the Tyzyl region is the Tyzyl Gorge. The Kerdeyuklyu locality corresponds to the one located in the Tyzyl gorge right in front of the water pumping station - today it is called Kukurtlu, starting from the meaning of this word (kukurt means hydrogen sulphide).

Here, indeed, a source with a characteristic smell of hydrogen sulfide gushed out of the ground. But it was not possible to find out where the Shaushyugut Upland is. The Balkarian scientist Makhti Dzhurtubaev (see his work "The Karachay-Balkarian heroic epic". M., "Pomatur", 2004, p. 152) believes that this is one of the ridges close to Kendelen, although in the final paragraphs of the legend this name already denotes the gorge in which the sleds exterminated the spiders.

In my opinion, the look of a person who is in love with Tyzyl, who has been there several times, we can talk about the Urda gorge - an area amazing, mysterious and gloomy, still poorly studied.

And one more thing that attracts attention in the story of the spiders. In the described battle, the sleds, despite the death of many of them, won the victory, exterminating all the arthropods. They collected their cobwebs, took them to the Nart country, where from it (cobwebs) they weaved canvases and sewed clothes.

Difficult, say, clothes: firstly, it did not get wet, secondly, it was warm in the cold, and cool in the heat, and, thirdly, most importantly, “they didn’t take swords.

It is worth recalling that only in our time have scientists learned about the amazing properties of the web. Its thread is superior in strength to steel of the same thickness; if we weave a thread 7 millimeters thick, then it can stop the latest aircraft flying at full speed. These threads are capable of collecting water droplets thousands of times larger than them.

The web so effectively dissipates the impact energy that “if a body armor was made of it, it would be practically impenetrable, moreover, waterproof, unusually light and comfortable - it would warm in winter and cool in summer”. That is, he would have all the qualities that are spoken of in the epic.

A natural question arises: how did the narrator know about the unique properties of the web? Let me remind you that, in addition to everything else, she "shone dazzlingly", which helped the Narts in the battle with the Emegens. Emegens are folklore characters, the main opponents of the Narts, creatures of enormous stature, incredible strength, while spiteful and narrow-minded.

This is how Yevgeny Baranov, a native of Nalchik, a well-known folklorist (we published a book of his works "Living Echo of the Past"), characterized them:

“… Under this name are known one-eyed giants who hid in caves and were engaged in breeding goats. Angry and cruel, they were distinguished by their extraordinary gluttony and especially loved to feast on human meat: therefore, in order to protect themselves from their attack, people had to wage a constant struggle with them.

Not being distinguished by a special mind, the Emegens easily succumbed to the deception of a person who, thanks to his cunning, often defeated them. Emegens ranged from one-headed to a thousand-headed. Their severed heads tended to grow to the body at once; the rest of their bodies had exactly the same property. Therefore, in order to take the life of an emegen, the severed part of his body should be immediately burned ….

But in the case of spiders, we are only interested in one hypostasis of the Emegens - their incredible gluttony. Let's remember: "The stupid Emegens ate the spiders killed by the sledges and died." Consequently, the spiders were poisonous, and in this context, the driver's story about the spider splashing out a yellow mass - hissing and smelly - is filled with special meaning. Fizzing means, without a doubt, acidic: hydrochloric acid, as you know, in certain cases fizzes and foams. I must say, our driver was lucky that the substance spat out by the spider did not get on his body …

The Tyzyl spiders, apparently, were of great scientific interest. If they were, of course. Makhti Dzhurtubaev, already mentioned above, commenting on the plot about arthropods, concludes: “It is difficult to say whether the legend is based on some real events, for example, a clash with a tribe, the self-name of which reminded the ancestors of the Balkars and Karachais of the word“lip”- a spider, i.e. e. it came about as a result of a false etymology.

The old men - Balkars and Karachais - talk about these spiders as about real creatures that lived in distant times in the Caucasus mountains. Fleeing from them, people built their homes on the flat tops of the mountains - the spiders did not know how to climb the slopes. People did not dare to descend into the valleys. (p. 152-153).

But it seems to me that the Gubu tribe in this case has nothing to do with it. Moreover: shower me with stones of your irony, drown me in the waterfall of your wit, but I believe: individual individuals of giant spiders, destroyed by sledges in time immemorial (it is believed that the epic as such was created in the VIII-VII centuries BC, and in the XIII –XIV individual legends were combined into cycles) survived to this day.

Moreover, there is a man who has seen giant man-eating spiders with his own eyes. I saw it relatively recently, and I know that he is not lying. Not that I know - I'm sure.

This is how it was. A January call from Tyrnyauz from a friend of mine, my peer, with whom I have been on more than one expedition, about whom I have written more than once. But the speech in this case is not about him, but about his acquaintance - an accomplished person, known in his circle, not inclined to exaggeration and tales. Due to his position and position, he is a little embarrassed that they may not believe him, misunderstand, and therefore, by mutual agreement, today I do not mention his name.

Here is the story. 2008 year. Our namerek goes to Tyrnyauz and outside the village of Bedyk, about two and a half kilometers from it, sees something on the road. Here are his impressions:

“I noticed from afar that something was moving across the road. He stopped five or six meters from this creature, put the car on the handbrake, opened the door, but did not go out. And only then I realized that a huge (at least 35-40 centimeters high) spider was crawling across the track. It was much larger than a bucket in size. I was crawling slowly, his legs (it seemed to me that there were at least eight of them) moved in sync.

Honestly, at the sight of him, I, a person who had seen a lot due to his professional duties, took my breath away - it was a real monster, created by nature in order to bring death. I waited until he hid in the roadside thickets, and then rushed off at such a speed that in some fifteen minutes I ended up in Tyrnyauz.

There is no need for me to invent and dissemble, I can, if necessary, confirm the veracity of my story on a polygraph, especially since I have already been tested on it a couple of times. You say that in the epic "Narta" there is a legend about such spiders, but I, to my shame, did not read it - the work leaves no time for reading.

And I haven't heard anything like it from old people. And if he did, he would take the narrator for a dreamer. We have a lot of such people - they invent, especially for a drunken head, in order to attract attention to themselves, show off, increase the price. I'm not one of them. And I did not tell anyone about this episode then, and I didn’t intend to even now, if I didn’t know that you are planning a trip to these places.

It seems to me that this monster lives somewhere nearby - maybe in the caves on the right, if we go up, the sides of the Baksan gorge. After all, as I understood from our conversation with you, the narrator, from whose words the legend reproduced in the "Narts" was recorded, was also from Bedyk. Most likely this is not accidental, and it is here, or in Tyzyl, beyond the ridge, that he lives. He or they.

On the other hand, you are arguing that spiders cannot climb slopes. But maybe they didn't know how before, but have learned this over the past centuries? It is also strange that no one saw them during this time. But I saw it. I saw how I see you, they are real."

Does it mean they exist? So, these relics of bygone eras somehow incredibly survived to this day? A shiver runs through the body from the mere thought that we could have encountered one of the representatives of this fossil species - a predator, in the diet of which not only insects or other small animals, but also people. Brr …

Science unequivocally says: this is impossible, but life, as evidenced by the two described cases, it turns out, convinces of the opposite? But let's not rush, because, by and large, we have no evidence, and the eyewitness testimony, even if it is confirmed by a polygraph, in this case does not mean anything: maybe he saw it, or maybe he saw it.

And the necessary postscript. Almasty, forest people, whose existence has not been confirmed by science to this day, have been seen in Kabardino-Balkaria in hundreds, if not thousands. Not only legends live, but numerous testimonies have been collected (in particular, by the famous expedition of the Frenchwoman Jeanne Kofman, who had been based in the village of Kamennomostskoye for many years).

Why did we remember Almasty? One of the versions why they have not yet been found is based on the fact that Almasts do not live in our world, but, let's say, in another - parallel, paraworld. And due to some circumstances, they find themselves at some point in ours. And if something similar happens to giant spiders? Can this be allowed? Why not?

Therefore, one must seek. Shall we search, as the hero of one famous movie said? Will seek! This spring we are going to the headwaters of the Bedyk, the Tyzyl and Urda lying behind them - the very same (remember the line from the legend “How the Nart Sosuruk exterminated man-eating spiders”) “deep gorges, where the bones and skulls of people who were devoured by these spiders still lie.