How old is Tomsk University?

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

The officially announced date of construction of the building of Tomsk University is 1885. However, judging by the features of the lower floors, this building clearly survived the flood. The article contains traces of this event, which are literally striking, but for some reason they remain unnoticed by most people.

I would like to share some observations that I made at Tomsk State University. I have been working in it for almost 20 years, but I never thought about some of the features of the building of its main building, although they caused some subconscious bewilderment. But in the turnover of work, it was quickly overlapped by everyday affairs and was forgotten. However, after reading a number of articles (mainly about the old buildings of St. Petersburg), I looked at the building of the main building of TSU with completely different eyes.

So, let's begin. This is how the building looks from the side of its main entrance, when moving towards it from Lenin Avenue:

The photo turned out not very high quality, but all the same, the windows of the basement are perfectly visible to the left and right of the main entrance. Here is a closer view of them on the south wing of the building:

and on the north one:

Does it look like anything? After all, the windows of the "basement" floors in St. Petersburg look exactly the same (described, for example, here). Once upon a time, these were normal windows of about the same height as on the second (current first) floor. In general, a certain absurdity is striking - the current first floor is somehow too high, and the basement protrudes too much from the ground. Everything falls into place, if you "lift" the building a little - then the basement will turn into a normal first floor, and the first floor will become the second. Imagine, looking at the first photo, how much more harmonious it will become then, but now it looks kind of "flattened", as it is submerged in the ground for more than half of the first (now basement) floor. This is probably how this building was originally - a three-story building with the same first and second floors.

Let's go inside now and look at the basement windows from the corridor:

We see what we expected - these are ordinary windows of normal height, laid from below. Here you should also pay attention to the too low height of the corridor, since if it was once the first floor, then it should still be higher. The last window in the row, under which there is no battery, helps to resolve this contradiction:

It can be seen that this window starts below all the others. Apparently, it retains its original height, while the rest of the windows have their bottoms completely laid in order to place batteries under them. But who starts the windows so low above the floor? Most likely, the floor level used to be much lower (at least half a meter, or even more). This means that then this floor was covered with a large layer of dirt and stood in this form for a very, very long time, since the dirt was so compressed that they could not even remove all of it and made a new floor on top of it.

Let us now take a look at one of the basement lecture halls. Here, firstly, we observe the same windows laid from below:

Second, the entire audience looks too low, as does the corridor. Here is a view towards the teaching table:

and vice versa:

The natural objection here may be: "So what, this is a basement! The rooms in the basement should be low." But there are two counter-objections here. Firstly, the same low height of the beginning of the windows from the floor, as in the corridor. And secondly, the door height is too low:

Entering this door, I almost touch the ceiling with my head, and my height is not that big (less than 175 cm). Hardly anyone would make such low doors, even in the basement. Most likely, after the original floor was covered with a thick layer of soil and a new floor was made on top of it, they simply left the opening that remained as a door, and did not disassemble the ceiling from above to increase its height.

Here is another photo from the window of this auditorium, or rather from the window, located just above the level of the outer ground:

The emergency exit is visible here, and the window above it especially attracts attention. It is obvious that the height of this window is artificially reduced (laid down below) in order to make the entrance of a normal height. And at first it was the same window as the neighboring ones. Here is a view of this exit from the inside (or rather, not this one, but the same one located similarly in the southern wing of the building):

Noteworthy is the niche in the wall on the left. So it seems that this was the entrance to the room, since the niche is located at floor level. Most likely, there used to be a floor at the place of the stairs, extending to the window, which was much higher, and now it is laid from below. There was no door in this place before, it was located lower and led directly to the basement (formerly first) floor.

A few more photos for completeness of the collection. This is a rear view of the building; from the side of the Tom river:

And this is a view of the northern end of the building:

A strange gap in the middle of the base attracts attention. It is just as wide as the door. Apparently, there used to be an entrance to the first (now basement) floor and now it is completely blocked up.

Based on the results of the observations, the conclusion suggests itself that the building was once flooded around by a powerful mudflow, which left behind a thick layer of alluvial soil. The hypothesis that the building during its existence simply "sank" into the ground does not stand up to criticism. Firstly, because the subsidence of buildings is never uniform, some parts of the building subsidence more, and some less. Even a small, almost indistinguishable by the eye, subsidence leads to the appearance of cracks and destruction of the building, as for example, here:

Well, and secondly, because there is irrefutable proof that the building of the main building of TSU has not sagged a centimeter since its alleged "construction". These are old photographs of the building (late 19th - early 20th century). There are a lot of such photos on the Internet, for example, you can give at least this:

They show that the basement windows are located exactly as they are now, and not at all higher.

And this, in turn, allows us to conclude that the building was not built at all in 1885, as it is declared in all official documents, and by this time it already existed, since it was subjected to the action of a powerful flood, about which there is no official history. information. Apparently, in 1885, a long-existing building was restored, which until then was in an extremely disrepairment condition, albeit with completely preserved walls without cracks. Those. Once it was built very solidly, and this can be seen from the enormous thickness of the walls and ceilings.

Indirect evidence of an earlier date of its construction than the officially declared one may be this photograph of the "bookmark" of the university:

On it, as if on purpose, only a small piece of terrain was left so that "God forbid" the university building already standing nearby, most likely in a dilapidated or very emergency condition, did not get into the frame. Apparently, during the foundation of the university, not construction began at all, but only the restoration of this already existing building. Who needed such conspiracy is a separate question, but given the scale of the falsification of Russian history that took place under the Romanovs, it is no longer surprising.

Added:

Suddenly, the thought occurred to me that the flood, perhaps, had nothing to do with it, and the spring floods of the Tom River were to blame for the entry of the University building, as well as other ancient buildings in the central part of Tomsk. Indeed, in those days, the dam along the Tom was not yet built, which now protects the city from floods. But if so, then it turns out that all these buildings were in an ownerless state for a very long time, since no one removed the silt remaining after the floods for many years. This silt gradually accumulated and compressed, forming a thick layer of soil (about two meters in the area of the University). Previously, the floods were much higher than now, since no one blew up the blockages on the river, and the spring was more friendly, the snow melted faster.

This means that for some time (at least several decades) there were very few people in the city and generally desolation reigned. This agrees very well with the version of some kind of cataclysm, which, firstly, destroyed all the forests (this is an established fact, since there are no trees over 200 years old in the forests) and, secondly, destroyed most of the population. Most likely it was the cataclysm of 1815-1816, which was hushed up by historians, which caused a "year without summer" (1816). Maybe then some kind of superweapon, like a nuclear one, was used (Kungurov writes everything about this). In general, White Lake looks somewhat suspicious, to me it reminds me of a huge crater from an explosion - that's what you need - a perfectly round lake on the mountain! And how was it formed there? Moreover, in the very historical center of the city right next to the Tomsk prison! But this, as they say, is a separate topic.

Returning to Tomsk University, I will add that if periodic floods of the river are to blame for its entry, then it was built much earlier than the officially announced date (1885). In any case, before the cataclysm of 1815-16, otherwise it would not have stood in desolation for so long.

Added:

As for the floods, it may be that I "got excited", since the height of the terrain in the university area above the river level is about 25 meters. True, it is difficult to imagine a flood of such a height - it really will be a flood. Then there remains only a version of some one-time (?) Powerful flood. The arguments about the long desolation of the city still remain valid, since such a flood destroyed almost everything.

Added:

Interesting news flashed that under the basement of the Anatomical building of the SIBGMU, another basement was found. Since the buildings of the anatomist and the university clearly belong to the same time of construction, then for sure there is one in TSU. Otherwise, it will turn out that the anatomist was flooded with mud, and the university was not, although they are only some 50-100 meters from each other. It just can't be!

And yet, in the article I wrote that the basement floor is so high because it was covered with a layer of dirt that was never cleaned out. However, now I think that it is not so. The fact is that there are various communications in the basement under the floor. Who among the TSU workers does not know these endless hatches in the basement, covered with iron sheets? When the sheets are pushed back, pipes are visible that go directly under the floor. All this economy, of course, requires space, which solves the "riddle" of the too low basement floor. The true floor is located just under these communications, and the floor that everyone walks on is laid on top of them later. And if there is another basement under that original floor, then this definitely means that the building was flooded with a powerful mudflow and, therefore, it was built earlier than at least 1857.

Added (2017-20-09):

Recently, passing through the University Grove, I noticed a strange structure, which is located to the right of the main building (near its northern end):

What it is, is not clear, probably, now there is some kind of warehouse of some unnecessary items, although there are different assumptions here. The main thing is that this structure clearly demonstrates the fact of the flood that occurred. On one side, facing the main building, it is literally flooded with mudflows, which left a large layer of alluvial soil. In general, I advise skeptics to take a walk in the grove near this building and try to explain how it could so "get stuck" in the ground. Here are a couple more photos:

Added:

A couple more antediluvian buildings in the University Grove. First, the tower, almost completely "sunk" into the ground:

Since we already know that no building can sink into the ground without collapsing, then the magnitude of the "subsidence" can roughly estimate the thickness of the applied soil. Since this is clearly a water tower, its height is probably about 10 meters (as, for example, at a similar tower at the Telecentre). It turns out that it is submerged quite deep - 6-7 meters. Obviously, in this place the soil drift was especially strong. And this is completely logical, since the tower is located almost in the bed of the Medicka River, which now flows in this place underground in a pipe. Mudflow masses flowed along this channel, forming a particularly thick layer of sediments in it.

Here are a closer look at the tower:

And here is the view inside (through the window):

A piece of some kind of circular floor is visible, surrounding a central hole that goes into the depth. It is clear that it is filled up with soil, so it is unlikely that it will be possible to measure its depth.

Photo of the tower from a distance:

The second strange building is located behind the main building of the TSU near the anatomical building of the SIBGMU:

What it is is, again, not clear, but it is only obvious that this is also an antediluvian structure, since it is located deep in the ground. Such a long building could not "sink" without collapsing. Another thing is striking - so many people walk by every day, and these buildings do not surprise anyone!