Mysteries of the underworld of the Arctic

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

In the legends of the Nenets, the mysterious people of Sirta are often mentioned, who lived on the Yamal Peninsula and in the Bolshezemelskaya tundra. Studies of these graphs now still confirm the fact that in the Middle Ages, in the Far North, near the Ugra, samoyady and the caves, there was a certain people, the traces of which were later lost.

In the "Tale of Bygone Years" there is an interesting passage, which tells that the Ugras were exchanging goods with a certain people whose language they did not understand. “Yugra rekosha to my youth: marvelously we find a chyudo, we haven’t heard him before these years…”, “… and they whip the mountain, even though they have carved it out; and in that mountain a little window was cut through, and they say there, and there is no understanding of their language … ". Nenets legends tell about people whose way of life was significantly different from their own, later this people “went underground”. Northern legends say that representatives of the Sirta people (Siirta, Sikhirta, Sirchi) lived in the tundra until the Nenets arrived there. The Sirte had white eyes, small stature, and they lived in sandy hills.

They came to the surface of the earth at night and into the fog, and underground they grazed mammoths, were excellent blacksmiths and good warriors. The mysterious white-eyed monster was endowed with the same characteristics, and it is very likely that the Sirta and the Chud were in fact the same people. Not relying solely on oral and written sources, scientists tried to find material evidence of the existence of Chudi Sirta, and the found archaeological sites of the north did not disappoint the researchers. For example, in the records of Academician I. Lepekhin (1805, p. 203), it is said that in the Mezen district there are a large number of abandoned dwellings of an unknown people. There are such "huts" near rivers and lakes, in the tundra, but there are also those that are made in the hills or mountains. Instead of doors, there are holes in them, and inside the room itself there is a furnace and fragments of products made of clay, copper and iron.

In 1837 A. Shrenk, making a trip to the Bolshezemelskaya tundra, found in the lower reaches of the river. Korotaikhi "chudskie caves". He also wrote down the legends of the Nenets about the Sirte, who were engaged in hunting and fishing, and then disappeared forever under our planet.

The Messenger Benjamin (1855) also mentions the Chud earthen caves, and the Samoyeds called the place where they were "Sirte-sya". In the 30s of the last century V. N. Chernetsov, being in Yamal, collected legends about the Sirta, and also found the remains of an ancient culture that most likely did not belong to the Nenets. The Nenets themselves said that the Sirtha could be found in Northern Yamal for another 5-6 generations, and the Nenets and the Sirtha even got married, and then they disappeared altogether.

Sirta worshiped their pagan gods, whose wooden faces, carved from wood, were found in the places of their settlements. Sirtea - Chud were natives of the north, and, as already mentioned, lived in this territory long before the arrival of the Nenets. However, there are still many blank spots in history, and some ancient documents, which have been kept in oblivion for a long time, radically overturn our stable ideas about the relations of different peoples in antiquity. One of these documents is the diary of the monk Polycarp, which tells about the journey to the Far North with the missionary goal of Christians. Unfortunately, the original of the diary was lost during the revolution, but a copy made by Prince A. P. Oldenburgsky, has survived.

The scroll itself with the narrative, hidden in a cyst vessel, was found in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in 1889, when earthworks were being carried out there.

In it, the monk wrote about how a detachment of Christians was sent to the north to convert the Chudi people to the true faith, after the Chud magi took the lives of women on Beloozero, suspecting them of "divination" (this case was recorded in the Initial Chronicle of 1071) … Eight military men and the monk Polycarp walked past Beloozero to the North, but on the way they were attacked by Chud soldiers, and the surviving four people, including the monk, were taken prisoner. The life of the captives was tolerable, but the Chud Magi tried to persuade the Christians to the side of their gods, convincing them of his strength. After some time, people stopped on the shore of the "great sea-okiyan".

After winter came and the water froze, three prisoners (one renounced the faith and stayed with a woman in the settlement) were taken further to the midnight land to the temple of the Dark Lord. They carried the luggage, as usual, on dogs. Among the things that the chud carried, there was one casket that Christians could not touch.

However, Polycarp writes that after a hard day of trekking, the travelers were seated next to this "ark of the unclean," and miraculously, their strength was restored, and a short time for sleep was enough to rest. What kind of cargo it was remained a mystery. People ate a mixture of fat and meat, and also chewed salted dried grass - apparently, seaweed, which saved themselves from scurvy. On the way, Polycarp and his companions saw an unusual sight for them - the northern lights, and halfway (a month later) they stopped at the hermit magi who helped those travelers who went to the Dark Lord. The Magi were engaged in fishing and hunting for sea animals (again, this suggests an analogy with Sirte, who, unlike Nenets reindeer herders, were engaged in sea fishing and hunting wild deer).

Here, another traveler of Polycarp adopted someone else's faith and stayed with the Magi. Almost two months later, the long-awaited meeting of the Chudi with the Dark Lord took place. It turned out that the Sovereign is not a person, but the name of the archipelago, and those who decided to stay on it forever lived here. Polycarpus and his companions had to descend to the island along a huge stone staircase, the steps in which were half human height. (Scientists have suggested that the huge staircase was once made by a race of giants, which is repeatedly mentioned in the ancient myths of different peoples).

Although it was possible to descend nearby (the dogs descended that way), people had to overcome all the steps. Finally, the travelers found themselves at a cave, around which images of "reptiles and fishes" were carved on the rocks, nearby there were stone trees with leaves and fruits. The people who descended into the cave were met by the Magi in white robes, they said that they came here to gain strength and wisdom, in order to then serve the Chud peoples. Nobody is forbidden to go to the surface. The Magi also told that there are fields and houses underground, and those who decide to stay here will become related to the people of the Dark Lord. The last Christian who remained with Polycarp remained on the island, while Polycarp, faithful to Christianity, set out with the Magi on the way back.

Attempts to find a strange land were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. B1889 organized a Russian expedition to the Arctic under the leadership of Baron E. Toll. Traveling for more than two years, its participants explored previously unknown lands, but the mysterious island was never found. The second expedition, which again included Toll, the astronomer-magnetologist Siebert and the Yakut industrialists, began its journey in search of the "warm earth" in 1902. Unfortunately, the expedition has disappeared. It is known that Baron Toll was inspired by the idea of finding the lost Atlantis in the north, because it could well turn out that the Dark Lord is a remnant of the ancient civilization of the Atlanteans.

Legends about a mysterious people, similar to the descriptions of the monk Polycarp, are found in the Russian North, and during the war the German "Ahnenerbe" showed surprisingly close attention to such a topic in this territory.

As for the disappeared Atlantis, it is likely that it is still buried under the ice of Antarctica. Recent studies carried out by experts from America and Europe using modern technologies have revealed the presence of three pyramids under the ice shell of the South Pole, and much more ancient than the Egyptian ones. The ice layer over these objects is about 2 km, and it is very, very difficult to get to the pyramids, but preparations for the expedition to obtain more detailed information on this discovery are still underway. One of the pyramids is more accessible to the survey, and the other two are located 16 km from the poorly viewed coast.

It is likely that these three objects are far from the only ones that are hidden by the impregnable Arctic. However, the fact that the once icy land was covered with grass and was the habitat of living creatures is evidenced by the relic remains of dinosaurs found in Antarctica. And if life was once boiling here, it is likely that the North was once inhabited by unknown peoples, who may have really escaped the cold in the bowels of the warm earth.