Primordial Russia - a lost story or a few steps in search of truth. Primordial Russia - Lost History, or Several Steps in Search of Truth Lost History

"Lukomorye has a green oak
Golden chain on that oak ... "
A.S. Pushkin

"Find the beginning of everything,
and you will understand a lot "
Kozma Prutkov
"Take history away from the people -
and in a generation it will turn into a crowd,
and a generation later he can be managed like a herd "
Joseph Goebbels

The history of Russia is not an unplowed virgin land overgrown with weeds and grasses, but rather a dense, impenetrable, fabulous forest. Most historians are simply afraid of its thicket and do not try to go into it deeper than the marks set by the chronicler Nestor. What grandmothers whispered fears to them about this enchanted forest? And it is strange that their childish fright did not develop with age into adolescent curiosity and, later, into the mature interest of a researcher.

For example, the stories of Arina Rodionovna not only did not frighten the evil Koschei, but awakened the Russian soul in young Pushkin, which was reflected in his magnificent poetic tales.

There were fairy tales, myths, legends - still unused baggage, the historical and cultural source of our ancestors. These ancient layers of folk art made it possible to preserve the amazingly beautiful Russian language and the great culture of our people.

Where and when was Russia born? The opinions of modern scientists are divided. Some believe that Russia (and all of humanity) originated in the north, others - on the Black Sea coast, still others in the western Slavic lands, and still others - in the "Arkaimov" east.

Yes, ancient Russia left indisputable traces in different parts of the world. But it originated at a time when there was still no division into north and south, west and east. Wherever Russians live today, one cannot say about them: northern Russians, southern Russians, etc. (compare East Slavs, North Koreans).

Because historically Russians are centrists. The place where they appeared and realized themselves became the center, the starting point for the development and formation of human civilization. And only then they dispersed to different parts of the world, forming new tribes and peoples.

This work is an attempt to prove just such a historical version. Each of the steps into which this study is divided is a small discovery, a small sensation. Each step is an invitation to move, change angle or point of view. Only by going around the object, you can judge its size and shape.

If you, dear reader, consider the dense forest more a friend than an enemy, if you are ready for any surprises and iron logic, and not an imposed dogma, is the right argument for you, then I invite you on the road. On a journey through our native land, along our hills, rivers, cities and villages, to find the traces and landmarks of our great ancestors left to us, at first glance, seemingly invisible. Be attentive and curious. And then you will discover ancient, amazing, almost forgotten secrets.

And all the secret someday becomes apparent.

In my distant, still school, childhood, I became acquainted with the work of our famous fellow countryman, Alexei Maksimovich Gorky, much of which is devoted to the description of pre-revolutionary Nizhny Novgorod. A true artist helps to imagine, feel and empathize with what he describes. Reading his story "In People", a chapter where he talks about hunting for waders during a spring flood, taking place in the area of ​​modern Meshchersky Lake, a Nizhny Novgorod citizen can easily imagine a picture of this flood of the arrow of two rivers: the Oka and the Volga. If the flood described by the classic were repeated today, we would see the buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, the planetarium, the circus, filled with water up to the second floor, a completely flooded metro, electric trains and trains that sank near the railway station to the windows of the carriages.

The average water level near Nizhny Novgorod today is about 64–65 meters above sea level. Have the water levels of the Oka and Volga always been like this?

Of course not.

And it's not just the spring floods.

To begin with, we will go down the beautiful Volga to the largest lake in the world - the Caspian Sea. The absolute level of this inland sea today is -27 m, and this level falls annually. That is, the sea gradually dries up, increasing the difference between the source and the mouth of the rivers flowing into it. Thus, the Caspian Sea, as it were, sucks these rivers into itself, as a result of which they become less deep and shallow.

The picture of the shallowing of rivers in the Volga water area is observed everywhere. Streams and small rivers dry up almost completely by the end of summer, previously navigable rivers become dangerous for ships and are used by river transport only during spring floods. All this speaks about the current instability of the Aral-Caspian water area as a whole.

But how long have these processes been taking place and what did the waters of these seas look like in antiquity? Interesting is the opinion of the Moscow geologist, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor Andrei Leonidovich Chepalyga, who believes that “in ancient times the Khvalynian transgression (advance) of the Caspian Sea took place, which 10-17 thousand years ago extended to modern Cheboksary. The water level of the water area reached a height of 50 meters above sea level. At the same time, part of the water was discharged through the Manych-Kerch Strait into the Black Sea and further through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles into the Mediterranean Sea.

I will cite a paragraph from an article on a similar topic published in the journal “In the world of science” No. 5 in May 2006: “In the study of tectonically stable regions (Republic of Dagestan), it was possible to find about 10 sea terraces that appeared as a result of significant fluctuations in the water level ... As noted in studies by G.L. Rychagov (2001) and A.A. Svitoch (2000), the emergence of such terraces is associated with the recession phase of the Khvalynsky (Caspian) Sea. The maximum level was such that its waves splashed in the area of ​​the Zhiguli and the mouth of the Kama. "

Unfortunately, scientists did not continue their studies higher than the discovered sea terraces by another 40–50 m. But even the expected rise of waters to an absolute height of 50 m allowed the waters of the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas to merge.

We will now rise from the Caspian Sea up the Volga to the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Here nature has preserved ancient traces of a mighty reservoir unknown to us today.

Let's open the book of our fellow countryman, Doctor of Philology, journalist Nikolai Vasilyevich Morokhin "Our rivers, cities and villages" (Nizhny Novgorod, publishing house "Books", 2007). In the chapter "Parts of the Nizhny Novgorod Region" we find: "Ochelle is a high left-bank terrace of the Volga, located a few kilometers from the river and bordering the floodplain. The Russian name, associated with the word "chelo" - "forehead, high place", indicates the shape of the terrace. "

This terrace is observed on a large territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region from the city of Gorodets to the village of Mikhailovskoye and below in the Republic of Mari El (photo 1).

Photo 1. Left-bank ochelye near the village of Lyapunovo

The same terrace exists in the Volga right bank from the dam of the Gorkovskaya HPP to the villages of Rylovo, Zamyatino, Shurlovo and below (photo 2).

Photo 2. Right-bank ochelye in the Shurlovo area

The width of the floodplain, limited by these terraces, reaches ten to fifteen kilometers or more.

A similar situation is observed with the channels of the Oka and Klyazma rivers.

One can try to explain the presence of such wide floodplains of the Nizhny Novgorod rivers by large spring floods at a time when the water was not regulated by dams. However, to fill this floodplain with water, the level of the rivers had to rise during the spring flood by twenty to thirty meters, which seems unlikely.

And here is what the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer Dmitry Nikolaevich Smirnov writes in his book "Essays on the life and everyday life of the Nizhny Novgorod residents of the 17th-18th centuries" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka book publishing house, 1971): "The left bank of the Volga within the Nizovsky region contained" palace volosts ": Gorodetskaya, Zauzolskaya and Tolokontsevskaya. "Palace" villages - large and small - stretched in long lines along the upper terrace of the ancient bank of the river, right up to the "Sopchin Zaton".

Ancient river bank!

The most understandable and logical characteristic of this terrace, or, as it was called by the people, "ochelya".

Measurements of the tyna levels, the base of these terraces, regardless of their location: right bank, left bank, Gorodets or Ostankino regions, show stable results - 85–87 m.

Very interesting information on this topic can be found in the book of Nizhny Novgorod geologists G.S. Kulinich and B.I. Fridman under the title "Geological Travels on the Gorky Land" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1990). We read: “High ... above the floodplain terraces can be observed on the left bank of the Volga, near Gorodets ... In the section of the Gorodetsky coast, two high ground terraces are visible ... High above the floodplain terraces ... V.V. Dokuchaev (A well-known Russian naturalist, soil scientist. - Author's note) called the pine forest or the ancient coast ... Its surface (the most pronounced, third, terrace. - Author's note) is located at the level of the 90-meter (!) Mark. It was formed in the second half of the Middle Pleistocene period ... (150-100 thousand years ago). This terrace stretches in a wide strip from Gorodets to the south, and many have seen its ledge near the village. Kantaurovo, where the Gorky-Kirov highway climbs sharply. "

Further: “River terraces are found everywhere in the Volga valley. In Dzerzhinsky (Lake Pyra), Borsky (northeast of the village of Pikino), Lyskovsky districts (Lake Ardino) and in other places on the left bank, both levels of high terraces are clearly visible ”.

With the formation of the so-called third terrace, or rather, as Dokuchaev described it, the ancient coast, it is more or less clear. But what kind of reservoir did this ancient coast serve? And when did this body of water leave its ancient shore?

The answer to the first question is unambiguous: this ancient coast was the coast of the mysterious, mentioned in many Russian fairy tales, "sea-okey" or the Russian sea, which consisted of a single spilled water area of ​​the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas, which, in turn, rose the channels of the rivers flowing into them, far inland.

It was on the shores of the bays (estuaries) of this ancient, forgotten sea today that mysterious Russia was first born and settled!

The dating of events is one of the most important and most difficult questions in historical science. Today there is not a single precise method for determining them. Therefore, unfortunately, very often its academic, but far from always proven, version is called history.

The history of Russia, circulated today to a wide audience - from schoolchildren to academicians, portrays it as the history of a gray, undeveloped, wretched and wild country. However, to a caring and attentive ("one who has eyes, let him see") researcher, our Fatherland is ready to reveal many amazing secrets, the clues of which can overwhelm even the most prepared reader. The traces left to us by our ancestors, the facts about which we stumble, not wanting to notice them through our own laziness or inattention, are waiting for their time. Let's bring this time closer, let's touch it with our hand, let's breathe in its burning, tart smell.

The reservoir, traces of which geologists found near the city of Gorodets, was at a level of about +90 m from the current sea level and, apparently, occupied vast spaces. The disappearance of such a huge mass of water could not remain without a trace in the memory of people who lived on its banks or not far from it. This event was supposed to be a tragedy or a starting point for the civilization that existed at that time.

The traces of this event lead us to the times that connect the stories described in the ancient myths and legends of many peoples, as well as by a few ancient historians, that is, stories about the "flood" and "the death of Atlantis." Or, in other words, about global and tragic changes in huge water areas in the territory of modern Russia and other countries of the Aral, Caspian, Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. This time is estimated by different historians and researchers in different ways, within the X-IV century BC.

We will entrust the exact timing of the events of interest to professionals.

The main conclusion that the reader needs to make, and the proof of which, in particular, this work is devoted to is the complete identity and coincidence in time of these two most important events in the history of all human civilization - the disappearance of the Russian Sea and the global flood. And this means that all the myths, legends, and legends about these events that have survived among different peoples are just slightly different stories about the same story, about the same tragedy.

A tragedy that really happened.

A tragedy that has divided the entire history of mankind into two seemingly non-contiguous parts today - the ancient, "antediluvian" and "post-Flood", modern ones.

Tragedies, in the epicenter of which were our ancestors, the inhabitants of that "antediluvian", at that time still maritime Russia.

Let's glance briefly into that "antediluvian" world.

At that time, there were no straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and all four modern seas - the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral - merged together, formed a huge water area, which can be safely named by its geographical location, as well as in honor of its explorers, pioneering sailors Russian sea.

At the same time, the single Russian Sea, rising along the channels of rivers flowing into it, reached modern cities: Kiev along the Dniester, Voronezh along the Don, Yaroslavl and Kostroma along the Volga, Vladimir along the Klyazma, Vetluga along the Vetluga river, Alatyr along the Sura, Urzhum along the Vyatka, Sarapula along the Kama and Ufa along the Belaya river. On the coast of this sea or in its vicinity there were such modern cities as Chisinau, Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk, Cherkassy, ​​Poltava, Zaporozhye, Lugansk, Elista, Orenburg, Karakalpakia, Grozny and even Ashgabat (today Ashgabat is located at an altitude of more than 200 m, but its territorial proximity to the ancient Russian Sea is obvious). Check, all these cities (their historical centers) occupy territories located at absolute heights of about 90 m. I repeat that the image of this sea embracing vast territories of modern Russia (and, of course, not only Russia) is reflected in many old Russian fairy tales called “ sea-okiyan ", which is overcome or on which fairy-tale characters swim.

At first glance, the sea was Mediterranean, since it had no outlet to the ocean. But it is not so.

First, it is possible that on the site of the modern straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles there were small rivers or streams, thanks to which excess water could drain from the huge Russian Sea into the Mediterranean Sea and further through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean. Although the existence of these three modern straits, especially Gibraltar, was more than controversial at the time.

Secondly, on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, north of the Aral Sea, there is the so-called Turgai plateau, divided into two parts by the deep Turgai hollow, at the bottom of which there are numerous salt marshes, salt and fresh lakes, in one of which it begins its way north to To the Arctic Ocean, a tributary of the Tobol River is the Ubagan River. It will take a little more time before the Aral Sea turns into a network of the same lakes, by the location of which it will be very difficult to guess the territory of the flooding of the once powerful Russian Sea and the way of water outlet from it to the north. It is here, along the channel of the Turgai Hollow, in the old ancient times, a river, unknown to us today, flowed, connecting the great Russian Sea with the great Arctic Ocean. Thanks to this particular river (strait?), The Russian Sea remained more or less stable and was, in practice, surprisingly and strangely enough, the sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean basin.

And this means that the modern Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas are, by their origin, the seas of the Arctic Ocean!

It was this circumstance that allowed our ancestors to develop and settle in the vast northeastern territories for their future generations. Due to the stable flow of warm southern waters from the Russian Sea along the channels of the modern rivers Tobol, Irtysh and Ob, the summer sea route along the northern coast of the mainland may have been ice-free for much longer, which could also have played a role in the development of these lands in ancient times.

Traces of the ancient Russian Sea, once washing the steep shores of the modern city of Nizhny Novgorod, can be seen with the naked eye along the right bank of the Oka (from the city of Gorbatov) and the Volga. At a height of more than 85 m, numerous terraces and landslides are visible, which are the traces of the action of the waves and currents of the gone sea.

There is another way to see a small part of the Russian Sea with your own eyes and almost in its original form. To do this, you need to go on an excursion to the mysterious city on the Volga - Gorodets, in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The fact is that the Soviet hydroelectric builders chose the most suitable place from the point of view of geology for the construction of the grandiose Gorky hydroelectric power station. Here, a little higher than Gorodets, they connected by a dam two "ochelya", the left-bank and the right-bank, or, as we have already found out, two ancient banks of the same reservoir, which was once the Russian Sea. After filling the Gorky reservoir with water, the level of which today occupies 84 m of absolute height, a small "fragment" of the same "sea-okiyana" appeared on the map of our country. And let, according to the calculations below, the level of that ancient sea was more than 87 m, that is, three to five meters higher than the level of the modern Gorky reservoir, but you can see firsthand its scale and imagine its significance for our ancestors even today, swimming in its renewed waters.

And in order to understand the tragedy of the destruction of such a universal reservoir, to feel the animal fear of its unbridled energy, it would seem necessary to do the impossible - to get to the border between the past and the present.

And this journey is possible!

If you drive along the dam of the Gorkovskaya hydroelectric power station from the side of the city of Gorodets in the direction of the Volga region, then a fascinating picture of the meeting of the deep past and the present will open before the observer. On the right, an accidentally revived "shard" of the Russian "sea-okiyana" will open its majestic expanses for it, on the left you can see the remnants of the former ancient greatness, but at the same time no less stately modern beauty of the Volga.

Two different worlds separated by a thin partition. Gray-haired fabulous Russia and modern twitchy Russia.

Let us think whether such a huge abyss separates us today from our yesterday's ancestors, so as not to try to revive their history, their tragedy, their valor.

More precisely, our history!

He who does not know the past has no future.

The reason for the rise in the water level of a single ancient sea was its filling with the waters of deep rivers flowing into it, and the lack of a reliable flow into the world ocean threatened its future fate. The fact is that the northern rivers, including the Ob of interest to us, are freed from ice in the spring much later than the rivers of the modern basins of the Black and Caspian Seas. Ice jams interfere with the spring flow of northern rivers, provoking a significant rise in their water level. The same thing happened with the flow of an ancient river passing through the Turgai hollow. The clogged, ice-clogged channel of this river created a natural dam, because of which the water level in the Russian Sea could rise menacingly, and its waters were looking for new ways of flow, which may have happened one day.

The Russian Sea existed in the central part of the Eurasian continent until about the X-IV century BC. It was a huge water area, the absolute water height of which was 85–90 m above the present-day sea level. The Bosphorus Strait did not exist at that time. At the same time, four modern seas - the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral, - connected with each other by stable straits, were united into a single water area, which we called the Russian Sea.

It is the Russian Sea that is reflected in many Russian folk tales describing the life of our amazing ancestors on its shores, under the beautiful melodious name - "more-okyan".

The Russian Sea consisted of three distinct parts.

The first - the Western part - represented the overflowing Black and Azov Seas with the Black Sea Lowland and the low eastern coast of the Azov Sea flooded by them. Bounded from the west by the Carpathians and the Balkans, from the south by the Pontic mountains, the western part of the sea did not have natural restrictions from the north, which allowed the waters of this reservoir to penetrate far into the mainland along the river beds that flow into it, turning them into picturesque sea bays. These bays extended to modern cities: Rybnitsa along the Dniester River, Pervomaisk along the Yuzh River. Bug, Kiev along the Dnieper, Kharkov along the Seversky Donets, Voronezh along the Don and Voronezh rivers. The western part of the sea was separated from the second - its middle part - by the Ergeni Upland, and merged with it through the Manych-Kerch Strait south of this Upland.

The second, the Middle, part of the sea was the present-day Caspian Sea spreading far to the north. The Caspian lowland was completely flooded up to the General Syrt Upland. From the south, this part of the sea was reliably bounded by the Elburz mountains, and on the other side, the sea stretched along the valleys of rivers flowing into it far to the north. Thus, modern cities could be located on the shores of these bays: Rybinsk along the Volga River, Bui along the Kostroma River, Manturovo along the Unzha, Vladimir along the Klyazma, Sharya along the Vetluga, Khalturin along the Vyatka, Perm along the Kama, Ufa along Ufa, Orenburg along the Urals.

In the southeastern region of the modern Caspian, this part of the sea was connected by a channel that existed at that time with the third, Eastern, part of the Russian Sea. An additional proof of the existence of this full-flowing channel-strait is the mysterious valley of the legendary dried-up river Uzboy that has survived today, which left with its dry bed traces of the connection of the waters of the Caspian and Aral seas in ancient times.

The third, Eastern, part of the sea was, stretched from south to north for more than a thousand kilometers, the water area from the Kopetdag ridge to the Turgai plateau. From the west it was bounded by the Ustyurt plate, from the east by the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts.

As a result, the total water area of ​​the Russian Sea stretched within its maximum boundaries from 25 degrees in the west to 65 degrees east latitude in the east and from 37 degrees in the south to 59 degrees north in the north. The approximate area of ​​the water area is about 2 million square meters. km.

This sea was not closed or inland, despite the absence of the Bosphorus that exists today. In the north of the Eastern part of the Russian Sea, there is the Turgai hollow (valley), which, like a knife, “cuts” the Turgai plateau from south to north. Today the valley contains a large number of salt and fresh lakes and salt marshes. The Turgai and Ubagan rivers (a tributary of the Tobol) flow along the Turgai hollow. The valley connects the northern part of the Turan lowland of Kazakhstan with the West Siberian plain. Its length is about 700 km, width is 20–75 km.

It was along this hollow during the existence of the Russian Sea that the river flowed, which, flowing first into the Tobol, then into the Irtysh and further into the Ob, connected the Russian Sea with the Kara Sea. That is, the Turgai Hollow was the channel of the strait connecting the Russian Sea with the Arctic Ocean.

This fact suggests that the Russian Sea by origin and by definition was the sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean basin. And this, in turn, means that the modern seas: the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral with rivers flowing into them, are, by origin, the seas of the Arctic Ocean.

The same fact explains the dispersal of such a northern animal as a seal in the Caspian Sea.

The water outlet to Western Siberia and the coast of the Arctic Ocean made it possible, even during the existence of the Russian Sea, to begin the development of these vast uninhabited territories.

After the breakthrough of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, as well as the Gibraltar Strait, the water from the Russian Sea began to quickly leave towards the Atlantic Ocean. At first, the Northern Strait, passing through the Turgai Hollow, dried up and lost its significance forever. The Russian sea turned into the sea of ​​the Atlantic Ocean basin. After that, the Manych-Kerch Strait ceased to exist, connecting its western part with the rest of the Russian Sea. As a result, the Russian Sea split into two parts. A new closed sea appeared - the Caspian-Aral Sea. Then the strait, passing along the channel of the Uzboy river, began to dry up. The flow of water leaving through it washed the valley that still exists today. The eastern part of the Russian Sea has become the closed Aral Sea, the fate of which is a foregone conclusion.

The level of the modern Caspian Sea is constantly fluctuating and today is -27 m ... The Caspian Sea today is the largest lake on earth and is completely dependent on the flow of rivers flowing into it. The Black and Azov Seas are connected to the world's oceans and are stable. All the rivers that were once the bays of the ancient Russian Sea have acquired their modern outlines and remind of their greatness only by wide valleys overgrown with dense forests.

The disappearance of the Great Ancient Russian Sea or the global change in its water area remained in the memory of the peoples inhabiting its shores, as myths about the great flood.

So the most mysterious body of water ceased to exist, on the banks of which the very first sea state was born in ancient times - the gray-haired fairy-tale Russia.

I repeat that the tragic history of this ancient sea directly resonates with the history of the Flood and the history of the legendary Atlantis.

Here is how Diodorus of Siculus describes the flood: “The Samothrakians announce that they had a great flood before all the floods on other islands. And the first time through the Kianei mouth, and the second time through the Hellespont of the water, the striving followed. They say that the Pontus (Black Sea), being similar to a lake, was filled with so much from the rivers flowing into it that, without containing an immense multitude of waters, it emitted dust from itself into the Hellespont (Dardanelles Strait), where it flooded a great part of coastal Asia and many even places in Samothrace covered with sea waves. "

All that remains today of ancient Samothrace is the Greek island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. This means, according to the author's version, the waters broke from the side of the Black Sea, and not vice versa.

The fact is that there are numerous versions that the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits were formed as a result of the breakthrough of waters from the Mediterranean Sea, but, in my opinion, they do not stand up to criticism.

How, for example, can one explain the fact that today there are strong currents from the Black Sea to the Marmara and, further, from the Marmara to the Aegean, and in the time of the Argonauts they were even more powerful.

Here is what the writer and journalist Alexander Volkov writes about this in his book “Mysteries of Ancient Times” (Moscow, “Veche”, 2006): “Until recently, scientists were arguing about whether the legend of the Argonauts was based on a historical fact or a fiction. The straits connecting the Aegean and Black Seas - the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus - are distinguished by treacherous countercurrents.

However, already in the 15th century BC, ships could sail from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea. Only the most daring sailors or desperate pirates got involved in such adventures.

The English writer and traveler Tim Severin undertook to prove this hypothesis. According to his plans, Greek shipbuilders made a working model of the Mycenaean ship. The length of the galley was equal to sixteen meters. She was equipped with only twenty oars and a straight sail. On this new "Argo" modern "rune-seekers" rushed towards Colchis.

The most difficult thing was to enter the Dardanelles. The fragile boat was repeatedly blown to the side, until finally, straining all their forces, the rowers, thanks to the favorable wind, were unable to cope with the strong countercurrent. "

These facts indicate that today the level of the Black Sea is slightly higher than the Mediterranean sea level, and the straits between them can be considered as rivers, the currents of which are directed from the Black Sea.

There is another strong piece of evidence that proves that the level of the ancient Mediterranean Sea was significantly lower. In 1991, a French scuba diver near Marseille, at a depth of (minus) 37m, discovered an underwater cave with drawings of ancient people who lived here about 20 thousand years ago. That is, the Mediterranean Sea has reached its current level due to the waters that entered it from outside.

The most unexpected revelation on the geology of the ancient "antediluvian" world I came across in a wonderful book by the English anthropologist, culturologist, folklorist and historian of religion James George Fraser (1854-1941) entitled "Folklore in the Old Testament." Here he quotes the words of his compatriot, an excellent scientist, a member of the Royal Society of London Thomas Henry Huxley (Huxley) (1825-1895): served as a barrier several hundred feet in height, blocking the waters of the Black Sea. The vast expanses of Eastern Europe and the western part of Central Asia thus represented a huge reservoir, and the lowest part of its shores, rising probably more than 200 feet above sea level, coincided with the present southern watershed of the Ob, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. The greatest rivers of Europe - the Danube and the Volga and the then large Asian rivers - the Oaks and Yaksart (Amu Darya and Syr Darya - Author's note) with all intermediate rivers poured into this basin.

Moreover, he took in the excess waters of Lake Balkhash, which was then much larger than now, as well as the inland sea of ​​Mongolia. At the time, the Aral Sea was at least 60 feet higher than it is now. Instead of the separate present Black, Caspian and Aral seas, there was one vast Ponto-Aral Mediterranean Sea, which, apparently, had as its continuation bays and fjords in the lower reaches of the Danube, Volga (where Caspian shells are still found up to the Kama), the Urals and other rivers flowing into this sea, and the excess of its waters it probably gave to the north through the present basin of the Ob '.

How great it is to suddenly feel like not a crazy loner, but leaning on your shoulder, standing next to you even after physical death, your like-minded person. Perhaps this is happiness.

This approach appeals to me.

The breakthrough of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus was provoked by an additional and powerful rise in water, for example, a huge wave, the possible appearance of which we will talk about in the subsequent chapters of our study. The barrier was significantly widened, huge masses of water rushed from the ancient sea, pushing stones and eroding the coast for several kilometers in width. The equilibrium of the water system of the whole continent was disturbed. The ancient sea began to quickly grow shallow and recede from its usual shores. It split into several independent water areas: the Aral, Caspian, Azov and Black seas. The waters of the Azov and Black Seas, being connected with the world's oceans, after a while stabilized and took on a modern form, the waters of the Aral and Caspian Seas are not stable and are changing even today. (On quite numerous old maps, which today can be easily purchased in almost any bookstore, on paper or on electronic media, the Caspian Sea is shown merged with the Aral Sea and the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers flow into it directly. For example, the Ides map dating from 1704 , or Nicholas Witsen's map).

Instead of huge sea bays, extending their fjords far inland, modern rivers have appeared.

Thus, from the legendary mythical kingdom on the shores of the "sea-okiyan", the Russian Sea, ancient Russia turned into a mainland, roadless, lost and forgotten country by all.

By the way, I would like to note that the notorious Genoese fortress, built in the Crimea in the city of Sudak, is located not on the sea coast, but on a mountain. If it was founded as a fortress-port, then it is extremely unwise to enter it so far from the sea. It is inconvenient to trade, it is inconvenient to protect your merchant fleet and it is inconvenient to retreat into the sea in the event of an enemy attack from the shore. Any fortress, together with the safety of the people living in it, should not lose the comfort of use built inside the dwelling.

Most likely, it was founded in those ancient times, when the sea level near the Crimean coast was much higher, and the fortress was closer to the water.

If today we conduct a fantastic experiment and fill up a dam to the north of Istanbul, blocking the Bosphorus Strait, 90 m above sea level, then in some one hundred or two hundred years the Russian Sea will return to its former shores and connect with its distant "fragment", carefully flooding the road , passing along the dam of the Gorkovskaya hydroelectric power station and leaving in memory of the once grandiose construction the cranes sticking out of the water and the bridge over the sunken sluices. And in its northeastern part, it forms a runoff through the Turgai hollow, thereby connecting with its distant, but "brother" the Kara Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

I would also like to comment on the fact that inexplicable horizontal traces of the action of water on it were found on the famous Egyptian Sphinx. In my opinion, the explanation is very simple - these are traces of the waters of the ancient Russian Sea that broke through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, which for some time (possibly before the appearance of the Gibraltar Strait) significantly raised the water level of the Mediterranean Sea, leaving their presence on the mysterious sculpture Egyptians.

But back to the facts confirming the existence of the Russian Sea and the first Russian cities on its shores in the middle reaches of the modern Volga.

Gardarika is a land of cities.

“Kurgan - a hill, a slide; a mound, an ancient grave, a grave, ”we read in the“ Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language ”by our outstanding compatriot Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl.

My acquaintance with the whole system of burial mounds, seemingly unrelated to each other, began with the majestic Kolychevsky burial mound.

It got its name from the ancient village of Kolychevo, located nearby, on a noticeable elevation. And for the first time I learned about its existence from the work of the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer and writer Alexander Serafimovich Gatsisky entitled “On Sundovik, in Zhary“ on the City, on the river ”.

In the first part of his story, the author tells about the May 1887 expedition to study the aforementioned Kolychevsky mound, in which he was a participant. You can read more about this in the book of Gatsisky "The Nizhegorodsky Chronicler", published in the series "The Nizhegorodskys Were" and published by the publishing house "Nizhegorodskaya Yarmarka" in 2001. Let us dwell on some parts of the author's story about the study of the mound.

“Kolychevo is located remarkably beautifully, on a hill washed on one side (southwestern) by the Kirilka river, into the quiet waters of which luxurious willows and willows look, through which a small bridge is gracefully thrown, not far from the mill dam, and on the other (southeastern) descending into a vast meadow, almost in the center of which there is a huge hill, the so-called Kolychevsky mound, and another smaller one, to the west of the large one; the meadow is bordered on three sides by the waters of the Kirilka River and the Sundovik River; on the edge of the hill, dominating the surroundings, overlooking the hills, as if on a green luxurious dish, standing on Kirilka on the right hand, on Sundovik - in a straight line and located behind the Sundovik, when it flows into it from the opposite side of the Kirilka river, picturesquely scattered, also along the hills and hillocks, the village of Syomovo - there is a Kolychevskaya church.

All this was charming in the last rays of the setting sun. "

“It seems to us that the dark top layer (of the mound) in those places where it is especially thick, should be considered bulk or applied. It may, of course, be that its rapid thickening towards the southwestern slope of the hill ... depends partly on crumbling, but the presence of shards and coals clearly indicates the action of a human hand; the same is confirmed by the looseness of this layer and its accumulation near the western-southwestern edge of the upper platform alone. The bulk layer was subsequently covered with sod, which is why its upper horizon took on a more intense color and structure of chernozem. It should be noted that the soddy soil of the upper site is generally darker than the gray loams of the surrounding areas, which also indicates a long-standing and vigorous accumulation of organic remains in it (closeness to humans) ...

There is no doubt that the Kolychevsky hillock, now lonely rising among the meadow lowlands, was once one with the heights on which the village of Kolychevo is located; the rivers Sundovik and Kirilka washed it away from the common massif and, repeatedly changing their channel, flowing around the hillock from one side, then on the other, moving away from it and again approaching it, gave it the outline of a rounded pyramidal mound. Local residents show the old channel of the Kirilka from the northwestern side of the hill, between it and the village of Kolychev, while now the river flows from the southwestern and southern sides of the mound; in addition, in the meadow, between the Sundovik and the Kolychevsky hillock, one can see a channel, mostly dry, representing a side branch of the Sundovik. These traces of old currents provide clear evidence of the changeability of the channels of both rivers, between which the Kolychevsky Kurgan currently stands ”.

In the same note, only a little higher, Sibirtsev notes: "... and to this day the waters of the Sundovik, overflowing in the spring flood in the meadow, reach from the southeastern side to the base of the mound."

Let's return to an even more unexpected and very interesting place in the story of Gatsisky. He notes: "... and to this day the waters of the Sundovik, overflowing in the spring flood in the meadow, reach from the southeastern side to the base of the mound."

Note that only during spring floods and only up to the base of the mound. Moreover, traces of the old channel from the north-western side of the hill have been preserved. But to rise to this old channel, the water had to be over 85 meters above sea level!

In this case, the level today of the small rivers Sundovik and Kirilka should have risen during the spring flood by at least five meters from their usual state, which seems unlikely.

Further, Gatsisky writes: “... in my youth, when I was just getting attached to the study of my dear Nizhny Novgorod Volga region, I read from E.K. Ogorodnikov ("List of inhabited places", issue XXV, Nizhny Novgorod province, S.-Pb., 1863, p. XXI of the preface) that the area of ​​the Bulgarian city of Oshlyuya (Oshel, Ashel) is believed to have been located downstream of the Volga, where the river Kirilka flows into it, on which, according to the "List", there are villages: Smolino (no. 501), Kozhino (no. 3571) and Pochinok (no. 3571); this indication was entered by me, without "checking in kind" in "Nizhegorodka" (page 20 of the 1877 edition), and then, accidentally checking it for other purposes on the map, I was convinced that it was not true, since the Kirilka river flows into the Volga ... only through the confluence of the last Sundovik ... ".

Let's try to understand this "error". It appeared from the publication of the Central Statistical Committee called "List of Populated Places" edited by Evlampy Kirillovich Ogorodnikov, to whose work Gatsisky devoted an essay. Let's turn to him.

“Evlampy Kirillovich combined his statistical and geographical works with studies closely related to them in historical and geographical research ...

The largest share of the work, according to the works of Evlampy Kirillovich in the Central Statistical Committee, was assigned to him for the compilation and processing of the "List of Populated Places" - a publication that represents extremely valuable material not only on statistics, but also on ethnography and historical geography ...

Almost from the time of the foundation of the Geographical Society, it raised the idea of ​​the need to develop, along with other historical and geographical materials, a very important, well-known, but almost unexplored monument of the geographical works of our ancestors, the so-called "Book of the Big Drawing" ...

The initial intention of society was to restore the lost ancient map of Russia according to the text of the "Book of the Big Drawing" that has come down to us, in various her corrections and additions.

Giving the "Book of the Big Drawing" the meaning of the Russian geographical chronicle, which developed at different times, it is said in one of the protocols of the department of ethnography of the Geographical Society, Evlampy Kirillovich, by decomposing the text of the book on the basis of chronicle indications and data found in ancient acts, had in mind to prove the possibility of discovering signs the original text, and thus come closer to resolving the issue of the time of the appearance of the drawing ... ".

As you can see, Ogorodnikov, being an experienced researcher and an authoritative respected scientist, had the opportunity to study ancient acts, chronicles, as well as the famous "Book of the Big Drawing", from which, probably, the "error" appeared. It is possible that the "error" got into the "List of inhabited places" from some other ancient document that the scientist studied. In any case, an unknown source described the geography of the time of this document and, therefore, was no "mistake". And this document was so ancient that it described the place and time when the Kirilka river really did not flow into the Sundovik, but directly into the Volga or, more precisely, into the bay of the "sea-okiyana", leaving us with evidence that the water height of the ancient Volga was more than 85 meters above modern sea level and the Volga (Russian Sea) had a completely different water area.

The old channel of the Kirilka River, which once flowed between the village of Kolychev and the mound, mentioned in Sibirtsev's report, is the coastline of the ancient Volga (Russian Sea), which washed from all sides the mound of interest to us.

Gatsisky himself draws a similar conclusion: “... I believe that in the area of ​​the present village of Kolychev and its floodplain, on which both hills stand, when the Kirilka waters washing the Kolychevskaya mountain (on which the village stands), not to mention the waters of the Sundovik, were more abundant , when all three rivers, perhaps, flowed in their ancient banks, when not only on the surrounding hills, but also on the floodplain, at the foot of the Kolychevskaya mountain, rich forests grew (the headman says that at this foot, on the northern part of the floodplain, for so long a frequent forest grew, from which even a church was built; by the way: now the Sundovik floods with spring waters only the meadow to the south of the hill, there is no water between the hill and the Kolychev mountain), prehistoric peoples lived who, taking advantage of the huge natural hill, occupied their housing and its top, and occupying it, left behind and traces, albeit very scanty, in the form of shards, bones and coals. "

What are these prehistoric peoples? Wild, half-humans, half-monkeys, climbing the mounds out of trivial curiosity? And from the beginning of what history did they turn out to be "prehistoric"?

Or do we nevertheless admit our ignorance and realize that the traces and artifacts that have survived to this day are traces of a historical people unknown to us today, an ancient civilization unknown to us today.

And there are not so few traces.

Not far from the Kolychevsky burial mound, fifteen kilometers down the Sundovik River, on a high picturesque hill called "Olenya Gora", there is an ancient settlement. From here, from its preserved earthen ramparts, a magnificent view of the flooded meadows, of the Volga itself, the dense forests of the Volga and of the Makaryevsky monastery, famous for its former fair, similar to a huge white steamer, opens up.

Today the city on "Olenyaya Gora" is located a few kilometers from the Volga. Try to explain why the city was built so far from the navigable river? Is it because of questionable safety or because of stupidity, which forced them to keep ships three kilometers from the city and carry cargo along a dirty floodplain washed away by floods? The same Macarius was placed on the very bank of the Volga, which ensured him prosperity and wealth, and the ancient city on the "Deer Mountain" lost not only its former glory, but did not even leave its name to the descendants. Do you think that the "prehistoric" builders were more stupid than the "historical" ones?

Let me doubt it.

There is only one explanation. Both cities were founded on the banks of water bodies.

Macarius - on the banks of the modern Volga.

And the city on "Olenyaya Gora" many, many hundreds of years before it, on the shores of the ancient Russian Sea!

Above, we found out: in order for the Kirilka river to flow directly into the Volga (Russian Sea) and for the Kolychevsky mound to be washed from all sides by waters, that is, to be an island, the absolute height of the water of the reservoir washing it had to be at least 85 m.

In this case, everything falls into place. Measurements of heights confirm the unequivocal and sensational conclusion - the city on the "Olenyaya Gora" was washed by the Russian Sea on three sides, and from the rear it was guarded by a canal dug and filled with water from the same sea. It was of great strategic importance, blocking the entrance to a comfortable and long bay.

Scheme of the Russian Sea and the modern Volga in the area of ​​the settlement on Olenyaya Gora.

Even today, the ancient city on Olenyaya Gora (or rather, what is left of it) inspires respect and surprise with its grandeur, thoughtfulness and guessed by its former architectural beauty. From the north, facing the modern Volga, the city is protected by a high impregnable rampart (see photo 3).

Photo 3. Northern (overgrown with feather grass) and western ramparts of the ancient settlement on Olenyaya Gora.

This rampart served as protection not only from enemy ships, but also from the raging waves generated by the cold and evil north wind. The rampart in the east ends with the highest point of the city - a bulk tower, from where a magnificent view of the entire Trans-Volga region, the Volga itself and, going to the right of Lysaya Gora, a valley, assumed by geologists, of the Pra-Sundovika River, opens. However, this valley is washed away by a completely different, more powerful and full-flowing river. And the river that once flowed towards the Sundovik, in the opposite direction to the Volga River, that is, opposite it (opposite the ancient river Ra), bears, to this day, the name Sura. It was here that its ancient channel, sandwiched between the Olenya and Lysaya mountains, passed (see diagram). This fact further strengthened the significance of the city on Olenyaya Gora. From the west, along the entire rampart, a through channel was dug, which separated the city from the only land. It was dug below the level of the Pra-Sea water surrounding the city and turned it into an impregnable man-made island. It is this canal-ditch that can serve us for a more accurate measurement of the water level of the fabulous Russian "sea-okiyana". We proceed from the fact that the moat, in order to fulfill its defensive purpose, had to be filled with water not less than 2-3 m. In this case, horsemen or warriors in heavy armor and with heavy weapons could not overcome it. The height of the channel bottom, measured with a special device, showed its maximum value equal to 106 meters above sea level, which was located in the northern part of the channel. In the southern part of the canal, the navigator showed the height of its bottom from 79 to 89 m.In view of the slope of the entire peninsula on which the settlement is located, from north to south, it can be assumed that snow and rain waters, eroding the high steep banks of the now dry canal, gradually washed it away in the northern part. In the southern part, the water slid towards the slope towards Sundovik, gradually eroding the ancient canal and forming a kind of ravine. While walking around the perimeter of the low southern side of the settlement, the same altimeter was used to measure the heights of the tyna, the base of the ancient ramparts from the outside. The values ​​of these heights ranged from 82 to 90 m above sea level. Even these approximate measurements allow us to determine the water level of the ancient Russian Sea with an accuracy of several meters, which, as we can see, was 85–87 m. and was surrounded on all sides by the waters of the sea invisible to us today and was a defense, trade and port fortress of our ancestors. The famous Makaryevskaya fair, which later appeared and existed almost to the present day, speaks of its commercial significance, which connects Europe, India, China, the Mediterranean, and Persia. Of course, it was not for nothing and not from scratch that it was organized in a new, but already familiar location after the city on Olenyaya Gora was destroyed, and the water left its walls several kilometers to the north. The new place, practically without changing its geographical position, continued to attract merchants and travelers from all over the world, serving as a kind of bridge between west and east, between north and south, remaining a very important starting point of the annual trade cycle and water navigation of the entire ancient world civilization. Approximately in the middle of the western rampart, a land exit to the mainland was organized through a moat filled with water, possibly equipped with a drawbridge. From the south, the city seemed to descend to a calm bay that washes the city from the south, closed from northern waves and wind, from the side. Convenient berths for boats and ships were arranged here. Several deep ravines visible today on this southern bank of the city indicate that ship canals may have been dug right into the city. Probably, after the entry of the ships, the entrances to the fortress wall were closed with bars and chains. In general, the city on Olenyaya Gora hides many more unexpected secrets. Its comprehensive study will bring many important discoveries for the history of Russia. But, apparently, everything has its time. On the southeastern end of the city, you can see a preserved mound. Perhaps there was a round-the-clock guard of the moored ships. The Kolychevsky burial mound, already known to us, was clearly visible from here. As we found out earlier, it was surrounded on all sides by waters, that is, it was a small island. On it, in bad weather or at night, a fire was lit, which showed the way for merchant ships inside the bay and further to the legendary city, supposed by historians somewhere in these places, which later bore the name of Oshil among the Volga Bulgars and which was mentioned by Gatsi. From all of the above, it follows that the Kolychevsky mound is nothing more than a real navigational island lighthouse! So much for the "prehistoric peoples"! If they have no history, then it is not theirs, but our fault. There is another preserved moat and rampart on the banks of the modern and, of course, the ancient Volga. This is a fortification of an undoubtedly grandiose settlement located on the territory of the modern city of Radilov-Gorodets. Measurements of the depth of the ditch, remarkably preserved in the southeastern part of the settlement (near the village of Abrosikha), show values ​​surprisingly coinciding with the "Deer settlement". Their values ​​range from 85 to 93 m above sea level (average value is 89 m)! Of course, the height of the rampart, its impressive dimensions and the ancient solidity of the "Gorodetskaya earthen fortress", the navigable width of its ditch cannot be compared with the "Deer Mountain". But the destruction of the rampart (and, as a consequence, the shallowing of the ditch) by time and active human activity in Gorodets is more impressive than on Olenyaya Gora, which is why the difference in the considered modern ditch depths of 2-3 m is not significant. The height of the water in the ancient sea during the prosperity of both cities of our ancestors was, as we have already noted, 85–87 m above the level of the modern sea. The depths of the ditches at both settlements, located 120 km from each other in a straight line and, moreover, on different banks of the river, can coincide only if the water of its ancient water area filled the ditches, protected and washed the banks of these ancient cities. That is, both ancient cities we are considering were founded on the shores of the same mysterious reservoir - the Russian Sea. This is a fact that is difficult to dispute. And since the disappearance of the Russian Sea, as we found out earlier, is directly related to the biblical story of the Flood, these cities were founded before this tragic event. Literally speaking, these are “antediluvian” cities in the very heart of modern Russia. This somewhat changes the generally accepted history of our Motherland, doesn't it? Let me make one more remark. In the Volga water area of ​​Russia, there are quite a few ancient settlements and settlements, but none of them is located at altitudes below 85 m. No one settles or builds under water, except for water and mermaids. One more logical conclusion can be drawn from this. The first ancient ("antediluvian") cities and settlements were built and developed on the shores of an ancient reservoir, convenient for communication and rich in fish, which was the Russian "sea-okiyan". The water level of its water area was about 87 m. So the antiquity of the city, the time of its foundation, can be tentatively determined by its geological or geographical position (of course, in the river basins of the modern Black Sea, Azov, Caspian and Aral basins). If these settlements (their historical centers) are located at absolute heights of 85-90 m, then, most likely, they were founded before the disappearance of the ancient sea. If their centers are lower, then much later. Therefore, using only chronicle data as a determination of the time of the founding of a city, we deliberately distort our own history. Based on these or those chronicles, we can only learn about the emergence of relatively new cities or the revival (use of old territories) of the ancients. The very same history of these ancient ("antediluvian") cities requires urgent and comprehensive attention and study.

There are several, as can be assumed, lighthouse barrows for navigation of ships of the ancient Volga water area on the territory of the modern Nizhny Novgorod region.

A mound near the village of Mezhuyki, now closed from the eyes by a forest, was located on an island on the left bank of the ancient Volga. It also served as a lighthouse for ships and was perfectly visible from the Olenyaya Gora and from the water for many kilometers. Moreover, even today, this mound stands inside a barely noticeable, but preserved ancient settlement.

Two burial mounds, located on both banks of the Sheloksha or Staraya Kudma rivers, indicated the target for the passage of ships to settlements that were located on the shores of the convenient Volga Bay. On the left high bank of the river, a barely perceptible hill remained from the mound. But on the right bank, not only the base of the mound was preserved, but also complex earthen structures consisting of several parts of a regular rectangular shape.

These miraculously preserved to this day traces of the ancient Volga navigation system indicate a developed fleet and a well-thought-out defensive system, consisting of coastal fortified cities.

In the depths of the bays, protected from winds and uninvited guests, there were trading cities and settlements with convenient ports for loading and unloading bread, textiles, and building materials.

It is worth recalling that the traces of "prehistoric peoples", in addition to "shards, bones and coals", should also include a source of information with a "mistake" that Ogorodnikov brought from some ancient document. This document, as we have found out earlier, was created at a time when there was no "mistake", and the Kirilka river really flowed directly into the sea. And this document (most likely a map or diagram) was created by those same "prehistoric peoples".

But if there was trade, there was a fleet that allowed navigating both rivers and seas, a functioning and maintained navigation system (mapped!), Well-placed defense cities and trading settlements - it means that all this was planned and directed from one center, that is, it was united into a single state.

State of the "prehistoric people".

State of a people with a lost history!

An epic, fabulous, amazing country!

The lost country of our ancestors on the shores of the lost Russian "sea-ocean" with a short and sonorous name - Russia!

Primordial Russia!

In Europe, this country was called "Gardarika - the country of a thousand cities."

The very name "Gardarika" is very interesting in that it bears twice the root "ar", which indicates the presence of the Aryans. The same word is easily transformed into the word "tartar" - the end of the world, hell - and into the phrase "Mount Ararat" - the beginning of a new world according to the Bible.

Tsar's city.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I can't wait to test the theory of determining the time of the founding of ancient cities on the Volga using the methodology proposed in the previous chapters, that is, through a preliminary determination of the absolute height of their historical centers.

Take a city at the confluence of two great Russian rivers, the Oka and the Volga, the author's homeland - Nizhny Novgorod.

The chronicle reads: "Summer 6729 (1221) the great prince Yuri Vsevolodovich laid a city on the mouth of the Oka and named him Novgorod Nizhniy." The founder of the city is Yuri Vsevolodovich, son of Vsevolod Bolshoye Gnezdo, grandson of the founder of Moscow, Yuri Dolgoruky.

According to legend, there were some insignificant settlements of the Mordovians on this place, the same minor skirmishes and battles. But the Mordovians soon left, leaving the conquerors of the Nizhny Novgorod lands.

Everything seems to be clear and understandable.

But if you, my friend, have been to Nizhny Novgorod, if you stood at the height of a bird's-eye flight over the always charming sunset, if you peered into the endless exciting horizon, then you could not help but love forever these mountains, these rivers, and these distances. I could not help but appreciate this nagging beauty and the "prehistoric" man.

Let's try to take the trouble and look for traces of this man, especially since the height of the water of the Russian Sea, equal to 87–89 m, assumed sufficient space for the ancient builders on the Dyatlov Mountains towering over this ancient sea.

It is rather difficult to look for these traces in a developed, long lived inhabited and upset city. But they must be there. Let us, tune in to this message, once again re-read the legends, consider the maps, walk through the streets and back streets of our city that has been walked along and across thousands of times.

Maybe we don't notice something or can't see it?

How many legends have survived in Russia about invisible cities and whole countries. Some are invisible because it is difficult to get to them, some - because they went under water or underground, some - are revealed only to the worthy.

The latter seems completely unreal and fantastic.

But it is precisely this that is the main and, perhaps, the only reason for our strange myopia.

We ourselves, without much resistance, took on the role of some kind of historical inferiority. Studying the events, achievements, exploits, philosophy, religions, moral values ​​of other, sometimes completely alien peoples to us, we, at the same time, completely forget about the no less significant, worthy and, I am absolutely sure of this, the deeper and more ancient history of our great ancestors. ...

We live on the land where they lived, loved, fought for their (and our) happiness, the land where they are buried.

We have no right to forget about that.

Their story is our story. This is the foundation, the foundation on which we must rely. History is the dignity of our ancestors, our dignity, the dignity of future generations. Without this, the only possible, support we will always be shaken from side to side by any wind, any current, like a well-known object in an ice-hole.

We are an amazing people. Each of us individually is individual, talented and bright. But we are so divided and scattered that we do not feel and do not understand each other even when communicating in the same language. Only understanding our historical community, pride in our common great ancestors can unite and unite us. And only by being worthy of them, we will be able to discover the mysterious Russia with its fabulous invisible cities, and today's confused reality, and a bright happy future.

Let's return to the theory of measuring the heights of the historical part of the city.

Have you ever wondered why the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin has such a complex shape. From the central Minin Square, it descends by steps from a high inaccessible hill 80 m down, closer to the Volga, but does not reach it even at its lowest point for a good hundred meters.

At the same time, the military Kremlin loses its inaccessibility, becomes vulnerable to the cannons of enemy ships, without gaining access directly to the strategic river during the siege of the city, and, on the contrary, allows itself to be surrounded by enemy ground forces without a fleet.

The lower part of the Kremlin - the Conception Tower - has now been destroyed by a landslide; in its place there is a memorial sign stating the plans for its restoration. Try to guess at what absolute height is this sign? You can check repeatedly - 89–90 m.

The lower part of the Kremlin should have stood exactly on the shores of the Russian Sea!

And since the modern stone Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin was built much later than the time when this sea disappeared, it remains to be assumed that the Kremlin was built on the foundation of a fortification that already existed long before it and was carefully thought out by ancient builders.

And this is the third city we are examining, standing on the shore of the "sea-okiyana".

Unfortunately, the alleged artifact is now hidden under the walls of the Kremlin.

But we will not despair and continue to search for traces of "prehistoric" man.

And these traces are there.

1 - The modern Kremlin. 2 - The Lower City - a fortress defended by Abram. 3 - The Upper Town is a fortress on Ilyinskaya Hill. 4 - An ancient monastery on the site of the tomb of the fabulous Zlatogorka. 5 - Svyatogor's residence. 6 - Eastern gate of the ancient Kremlin. 7 - South gate of the Kremlin. 8 - Western gate of the Kremlin. 9 - Eastern gate of Constantinople. 10 - South gate of Constantinople. 11 - Western gate of Constantinople. Modern streets: P - Piskunova, S - Sergievskaya, BPK - Bolshaya Pecherskaya, BPok - Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, I - Ilyinskaya, PS - Pokhvalinsky congress, MYa - Malaya Yamskaya, 3Ya - 3rd Yamskaya, PLG - Gorky Square, MG - Maxima Gorky, Bel - Belinsky, K - Krasnoselskaya, R - Rodionova, G - Gagarina

In the 19th century, the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer and historian Nikolai Ivanovich Khramtsovsky wrote a work entitled "A Brief Sketch of the History and Description of Nizhny Novgorod." This invaluable and talented work is dedicated to Nizhniy Novy - a city that began its history with the arrival of Western princes on these lands. But as a historian based on real facts, Khramtsovsky could not help but tell, albeit a small, but prehistory of this city in the first chapter of his story, which is called: "Events preceding the founding of Nizhny Novgorod."

Here he cites an old legend, which somewhat lifts the veil over the unknown history of our mysterious city.

First, this legend indicates the exact size of its fortifications.

We read: “This fortification embraced from the north to the south the entire space from Korovye Vzvoz ... to the present Lykovsky Congress, and from east to west - from the Kovalikhinsky brook to the Pochayna River.

In this fortification, Abram (the elected ruler of the Mordovian people) built two gates: one on the south side of the rampart, wide, with oak sections, which he filled up with earth, others secret, in the north, near Koroviev Vzvoz itself ... (Korovy Vzvoz - a congress that existed until 1850 -x years at the end of the modern Piskunov street before the construction of the Verkhnevolzhskaya embankment (in the 1860s), walked along one of the ravines, now filled up; the name is due to the fact that the congress led to one of the pastures that were half-mountain of the modern Alexander Garden. - Approx. by N. Morokhin's book "Our rivers, cities and villages") ".

That is, the old city, which existed here before the arrival of the Orthodox military princes, occupied territories at least twice the area of ​​the modern Kremlin. The southern gate was located at the intersection of modern Piskunov and Bolshaya Pokrovskaya streets. From here began the road to the ancient capital of the Mordovians - the city of Arzamas. The northern gates (it would be more correct to call them eastern) were arranged in the area of ​​the intersection of modern Piskunov and Bolshaya Pecherskaya streets. From here the road to the east began.

Secondly, the legend says that Prince Mstislav Andreevich, the son of Andrei Bogolyubsky, came to the walls of the Abramov town with a fourteen thousand army (the princes' troops were professional and well versed in fortifications and sieges of enemy cities) against five hundred civilians who settled in the fortification. But, apparently, the walls of this fortification were so large and impregnable, and the size of the city was so impressive that Mstislav did not even try to take this fortress by attack and, moreover, could not control its perimeter, which allowed the Mordovians to bring in small reinforcements. Without waiting for the assault on the fortress, Abram withdrew his army through the southern gate and attacked the enemy outnumbered by almost three times. All the defenders perished in an unequal battle with the well-armed princely army.

All this suggests that even in the XII century, on the territory of modern Nizhny Novgorod, a huge fortification was preserved, even by today's scale, which the Mordovian ruler Abram used in defense from the enemy. The new owners of these lands could not (did not even try) to develop such a large territory. The new fortress, built by Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich, was significantly inferior in size to the former fortifications, and it was erected, as can be assumed, in its northern and western parts along the slopes of the Dyatlovy mountains on the existing foundation of an old solid fortification. It is possible that this part of the fortress was simply reconstructed, and the newly built section from Koromyslovaya to St. George's Tower only reduced the former power of the ancient city, unknown to us today, with its new wall.

Khramtsovsky himself comments on the above legend as follows: “This legend, like almost all legends, is far from the historical data in details, but in its foundation it does not contradict chroniclers and historians and confirms that on the site of present Nizhny Novgorod there was a city or a small a farm of natives, which, in all likelihood, was devastated in 1171 ... ".

So, we found out that a new smaller city was built on the site of the larger old city. This event was reflected in the name of the city - Novgorod. About the first part of the name of the city - Lower - respectively below.

Let's walk now along the walls of the ancient invisible city. Its only surviving section is a rampart along Piskunov Street from Bolshaya Pecherskaya Street to Minina Street. It may be small in size, but a significant artifact confirming the existence of an ancient city.

Here, on one side of the rampart, at the intersection of Piskunov and Bolshaya Pecherskaya streets, there was once the Eastern gate of the city (in the legend they are called the Northern, which is not entirely true). From here, along the modern streets of Bolshaya Pecherskaya, Rodionova, Kazan highway, an endless road to the east began, which could lead travelers to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

How many people have passed through it in the centuries-old history of mankind!

Even today, it is the most direct and practically the only road connecting East and West.

From the other end of the rampart that has survived today, the Cow Vzvoz began, which went along the ravine now filled up. This ravine, as one can safely assume, was a continuation of the ancient fortification and was an artificial terrace created by ancient builders. Now we will walk along Piskunov Street (do not forget that we are walking along the walls of the ancient city) towards Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street. At the intersection with Osharskaya Street, we find ourselves in an area called Black Pond. The pond is an artificial reservoir. Who dug it and why? For drinking water storage? We read in Morokhin's book “Our rivers, cities and villages”: “At this place there was a pond that connected with the river bed. Kovalikhi, which served as a resting place for the townspeople. Black is called for the dark color of water. Its other old name is Pogany. Backfilled in the 1930s. as a source of malaria, a public garden has been laid out in its place ”. Agree, the water near this pond is not very tasty.

Another version. The Black Pond was created by ancient builders at the very walls of the former fortress to accumulate water, which in turn filled the ditch dug along these walls. And this is obvious.

Another interesting fact should be noted here. The Kovalikha River, which gave the name to Kovalikhinskaya Street, flows into the Starka River. This same Stark has a double name. In its upper course, it is called the Kova, and after the confluence of the Kovalikha River - Starka. What does this name mean? Morokhin derives its name from the word "oxbow - an old river bed that has no current." Very curious, but in my opinion, not entirely accurate. That, having the configuration of a river (large length with small width), except for the oxbow, has no current?

This is the channel!

Star-ka - old ka-nal.

Measurements of the heights of the banks of this channel confirm this version. The canal, which began somewhere in the area of ​​modern Vysokovsky passage, connected with the Russian Sea near the village of Rzhavka. I believe that it was conceived for a secret retreat from the city by water, in case of blocking land roads by the enemy. It is not without reason that the nearby gates of the city are called secret in the legend.

We will continue our journey along Piskunov Street. At its intersection with Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, as the legend says, there were the main, Southern gates of the ancient city. From here began the road to Arzamas and further, to the always hectic and hot south.

Is that the end of our journey?

Let's not rush.

Piskunov Street, along which we passed, had the old name - Osypnaya. We read from Morokhin: “Osypnaya Street. The old name of the western part of Piskunov Street. The street runs along the city defensive line of the 15th century, which was an earthen rampart - talus with gates at the intersection with roads. "

Everything is correct. But where, according to the plan of the ancient builders, was the western part of this defensive line supposed to end?

Let's go over the map again.

From Minin Street to Varvarskaya Street, Piskunov Street forms an arc, and then its completely straight section begins.

Let's put a ruler and see where our street (read the defensive line) would be heading if the Pochainsky ravine had not blocked its way?

In this case, exactly on the path of the defensive line lie: the stairs to the Zelensky exit, the Lykovaya dam and ... Sergievskaya street, which with its western end practically rests on a steep ravine, in which, in turn, exactly in the direction of this street, a descent, noticeable even today, is dug and a noticeable terrace.

Here it is - a continuation of our imaginary, but once real-life fortress wall of our invisible city!

A staircase, a Lykovaya dam, and the modern Sergievskaya street itself were laid along its destroyed foundation.

From the eastern end of the modern Piskunov street, the ancient fortress descended into the Pochainsky ravine. Measurements of heights from the northern side of the dam show that the modern Pochainsky ravine was a gulf of the Russian Sea, which reached its waters exactly as far as the modern Lykova dam. That is, the ancient fortress (its southern part) passed along the coast of this bay or estuary. Then the fortress rose up, coinciding with its geometry with the modern Sergievskaya Street. At the intersection of this street and modern Ilyinskaya, as can be assumed, another one was built, the Western Gate of the city. Further, the fortress rested against a ravine, along which, turning its walls to the north, it descended to the water and, repeating the outline of the modern Rozhdestvenskaya street, only higher, in a half-mountain, returned to Pochainsky Bay.

Just imagine what a grandiose structure it was!

And it was built by our ancestors on the shore of the still existing Russian Sea, that is, in the "antediluvian" times!

There are legends according to which a small insignificant river Pochaina, flowing in a deep ravine near the city, may one day flood Nizhny Novgorod. How can a river threaten the city, carrying its waters straight to the Volga? Rather, it will be flooded by the Volga itself.

But, as we determined earlier, the Pochaina river flowed practically through the middle of the city and, since the southern city wall passed at the very mouth of the river, Pochaina could dangerously flood this wall every spring. This circumstance is preserved in the memory of people as legends.

And further. The Pochayna River divided the city into two parts - the Upper City (on Mount Ilyinsky) and the Lower City on (Clockwork Mountain).

The upper city was of great sacred importance for our ancestors. Here, in an open, picturesque place, the territory of which is a wedge, bounded on the one side by the modern Ilyinskaya Street and Pochtoviy Spusk, on the other, a church has been preserved.

It was built on the site of a former monastery, which, in turn, undoubtedly had a very ancient history. This church, like the monastery that stood there, has the name of the Dormition of the Mother of God, which is also no coincidence. We will return to this topic in other chapters of our story.

The lower city, the city on the Chasovaya Gora, was a business center. Merchants, craftsmen lived here, fairs and holidays were held. The Upper City, as we can see, has not survived, but the memory that the ancient city consisted of two parts (Upper and Lower) remained and was transformed into the name of the newly rebuilt city on the site of the old Lower City - Lower. Lower new city. Nizhny Novgorod.

But we have not yet discovered all the secrets of our amazing city. The fact is that this ancient city consisted not of two, but of three parts.

The third (rather the first) part of the city was its main part. It was she who was its administrative and cultural center. Here the supreme ruler lived, receptions were arranged, they were engaged in sciences - drawing up calendars, studying the starry sky, mathematics. It was here that the royal palace was located, the palace of the first king of people - the fabulous Svyatogor, which we will talk about later. It is from here (or here) that even more amazing and inexplicable traces of our mysterious ancestors lead.

This part of the ancient city is undeservedly lost and forgotten today.

However, finding her whereabouts is easy enough.

Take a map of the Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir regions, a ruler, a pencil, remove the weight of doubt and skepticism on the table for a while, and rise like a bird above the earth, over our amazing and so unpredictable homeland.

As you know, the roads in Russia (and not only in Russia) have never been straight. They zigzagged from one village to another, from the ford to the bridge, bypassing ravines and steep slopes.

However, there is a surprising exception.

This old tract is the road between Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod.

If you go from Nizhny towards Vladimir, then from the Nizhny Novgorod metallurgical plant begins an absolutely straight Moscow highway.

Despite repeated restructuring, reconstruction, expansion, etc., it has retained its original shape.

So, from the factory we move over a straight line, like an arrow, a road. Only after sixty kilometers near the village of Zolino, the road turns left, passes through the city of Gorokhovets and, repeating the shape of the flow of the Klyazma River, describing an arc, returns to the right to the city of Vyazniki, from where, coinciding, as if by magic, with its original direction, retains the shape of an ideal straight line to crossing in the village of Penkino with the Klyazma river.

Do you believe in magic coincidences?

Two straight sections of roads, Nizhny Novgorod - Zolino and Vyazniki - Penkino, lie on one straight line. But what does this line connect?

If you follow the path of the arrow fired from Nizhny Novgorod along the Moscow highway, then it, having previously pierced the center of the modern city of Vyazniki, will stick into Vladimir in the area of ​​the St. Constantine-Eleninsky temple ensemble, located on the high left bank of the Klyazma.

Let's take a close look at this place.

The temple ensemble itself is located at an absolute height of about 125 m.However, two roads, enveloping the complex on both sides, descend to a railway track located at an absolute height of about 90 m.The Klyazma River, as noted above, was also a gulf of the Russian Sea, and the railway near Vladimir is practically laid along the surf strip of this ancient reservoir. The fact that the area of ​​the St. Constantine-Eleninsky temple ensemble was surrounded on both sides by moats filled with water is evidenced by the remaining noticeable ravines and preserved dams. In addition, it is from the gates of the temple ensemble that the road to the second city of the Vladimir region - Suzdal begins. These facts speak in favor of the fact that the ancient ("antediluvian") center of the city of Vladimir was located exactly here, at the point of our arrow. The white-stone Vladimir Kremlin, which looks great from the city's railway station, is located much higher and further from the river bed, which indicates its relatively young age (the official year of Vladimir's founding is 990).

Now let’s shoot back an arrow from Vladimir. It will repeat the path we made in the opposite direction and, without turning to the left from the metallurgical plant, where the Moscow highway goes, it will fly straight according to the laws of physics, sticking into the high remarkable peninsula of the Dyatlovy mountains, surrounded on two sides by ravines, over the Kazan (Romodanovsky) station.

The ideal straightness of the road (most of it) between Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod is amazing and carries a certain mystery, to which we will definitely return.

Let's look at the place where our arrow fell. It is not difficult to get to the aforementioned peninsula today. It is approached from the side of Malaya Yamskaya Street by the only street, 3rd Yamskaya. If you are curious enough and walk this street to the end and a little further, you will find yourself in one of the most amazing places in our city. From here, even with the naked eye, you can see how the Moscow Highway (a rectilinear ancient glade) goes beyond the horizon. To the right and to the left of the hillock, there are two huge ravines (one of the ravines is called Yarilskiy), along the bottom of which two streams just recently rang. The outer sides of the ravines on both sides along symmetrical arcs go down to the Oka and only at the very bottom towards the observed runaway Moskovskoe highway leave a passage to the reserved place from the side of the graceful Oka.

And again, the absolute height of the bottom of this passage-channel is about 85 m, which allowed the water of the Russian Sea to approach the base and surround the peninsula we found on both sides!

This additionally proves that you are in the center of the lost and found, thanks to our arrow, the royal part of the ancient city!

Time, landslides, water and people did not spare him. Everything is distorted, pitted, wounded.

But it is worth turning on at least a little imagination, and you are already standing on the balcony of the sun-drenched royal palace. All around are magnificent houses and gardens. From somewhere, from behind, from the picturesque hills, two cheerful brook brothers run down, filling the cascades of dams descending to the sea with their waters, and the sea itself, hospitably admitted through the western sea gate into the sparkling bay, gently licks the stone pier with a silent wave.

The ships that have entered with the ambassadors-travelers are moored to the marinas. From the outside of the cascade of dams on the circular city wall, a guard is on duty. The only bridge leading from the peninsula through the southeastern gate has been lowered, and watchful guards are watching the arriving strangers.

And here - the royal palace of the epic fairytale hero, the first ruler of people, the first king - Svyatogor!

We read in the book “Our rivers, cities and villages” by Nikolai Morokhin: “CITY. The common name for the central part of Nizhny Novgorod, approximately within the boundaries of Belinsky Street, is more often used among the inhabitants of the Zarechnaya part: "I will go to the City." Etymologically: a settlement, fenced in to protect it with a wall. "

It's just that the names never appear or disappear. The old names also remain in the people's memory in the most amazing way. This means that Belinsky Street, connecting, like a canal, the modern rivers Oka and Volga, could also serve as a fortified border of our ancient city.

There is one more intractable artifact of the activity of "prehistoric" man. This is an old border line that runs (and has survived! See Photo 4) along the entire modern Volga right bank.

Photo 4. The boundary line is a ditch up to 5 m deep and up to 10 m wide. The ditch overgrown with forest stretches over fields, forests and swamps for hundreds of kilometers.

It begins in the area of ​​the mouths of the Kitmar and Sundovik rivers (practically from the settlement on Olenyaya Gora), passes in a huge arc through the modern Lyskovsky, Kstovsky, Dalnekonstantinovsky, Bogorodsky, Sosnovsky, Pavlovsky, Volodarsky and Chkalovsky districts of the Nizhny Novgorod region and ends in the area of ​​the village of Katunki.

The boundary line is a moat, from five to ten meters wide, three to five meters deep, and stretches for hundreds of kilometers. It's unlikely to meet anything like this.

It is difficult to judge its initial dimensions and characteristics, since for many years it has been exposed to various natural (rain, snow, wind) and human (construction of roads, overpasses and power lines, plowing) impacts.

Surprisingly, this ancient border line was used in the construction of a modern anti-tank ditch during the Great Patriotic War.

So, almost exactly, the tasks of the ancient border patrol and modern military engineers coincided with each other.

The goal of military engineers is to protect the city of Gorky in case of a possible breakthrough of the front by the German army.

It would be logical to assume that the goal of the ancient warriors was to protect their city, the location of which should coincide with the military Gorky.

Let's return to the straight-line segment connecting the centers of two ancient cities of Russia - Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir. She is another artifact of the activities of our ancient ancestors.

But how to explain today why our ancestors needed to build a technically very difficult clearing-road between two cities?

One thing is clear: the ancient Nizhny had a symmetrical twin brother, the ancient city of Vladimir, two hundred kilometers west of it. They both stood on the shores of the Russian Sea and had a similar architecture.

If we recall the wonderful words of the artist Ilya Efimovich Repin about Nizhny Novgorod: "This city is imperially placed over the entire east of Russia ..." ...

And let's not forget about Vyazniki. This city lies almost in the middle of a straight line connecting the two "royal cities". Its meaning for our ancestors today is also not understood.

The main mysteries that must be solved first of all are the following: what happened to the ancient civilization, why did the Russian Sea leave, what happened to the cities and settlements on its shores, where did people and the memory of them disappear?

To answer these questions, it is necessary to make a journey from the shores of the Russian Sea to the shores of another mysterious river, which today is called very shortly - Oka.

Ocean.

Let's ask ourselves a question: why is it not the sea that is mentioned in Russian fairy tales, but the "sea-okiyan"? "More" and "Okiyan" - two different reservoirs or is it one reservoir? And why does the double name of the ancient, seemingly single, water area still sound?

I didn’t think about this issue until quite by accident, on the Internet, I got material about the construction of the Kudma - Metallist (Pavlovo) railway.

It is interesting to note that it was built using the proposals of the writer Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky as a recognized expert on the Volga region.

Most of the road runs along a fairly wide valley. We read: "The Kishma River flows along it, but, as geologists say, the lowland was not worked out by it: several tens of thousands of years ago, the riverbed of the Oka itself ran along it, which once flowed into the Volga fifty kilometers below modern Nizhny Novgorod."

Geology is a serious science that is difficult to "fake". Of course, there can be mistakes. For example, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish an ancient man-made canal from a naturally formed old river bed. But even such mistakes are rare. And in order to distort historical events, it is enough to pull something out, add something, destroy something, slander someone, glorify someone. Even one person can do it. But changing geology with a pen in hand is impossible. Even with a shovel and a pickaxe, it will be hard and useless work.

We find traces of the old channel of the Oka in the same book by Morokhin. Here is what he writes about the small river Velikaya: “Velikaya is a river, the left tributary of the Kudma ... According to legend, the name is due to the fact that this small river in the past was large ... Geologist? B.? I.? Fridman notes that on in the place of the Great, indeed, in the past a significant river flowed, as evidenced by the disproportionate Great “dead valley”, along the bottom of which its bed runs ”.

The legend itself, cited in the book "Legends and traditions of the Volga River" by the same author, sounds like this: "... There was a time when the Great carried its waters from afar, from the southwest, for hundreds of miles (the length of the modern Oka is about 1500 km. - Author's note) in the direction of Nizhny Novgorod. At that time, various ships sailed along this river, and it fed the population of coastal villages and villages ... ".

Then: “And the big river decayed, it began to wither and soon dried up, and its valley turned from hundreds of miles into a five-mile one. Now only children bathe in it; there is not a single boat on it now ... ".

Without a doubt? this legend speaks of the ancient Eye. But why did she have such a strange course?

Let's take a close look at the topographic maps of the modern Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir regions. Fadeevy Gory, Dyatlovy Gory, Starodubye, Dudenevskiy Gory, Meshcherskiy Gory, Peremilovskiy Gory, Gorokhovetsky Spur.

The modern Volga River from Nizhny Novgorod flows along the high right bank, which people used to call mountains. If you look upstream of the Volga, then these mountains move away from it and go along the right bank of the Oka River. In the area of ​​the modern city of Gorbatov, the mountain system is disintegrating into two parts: the Peremilovskie Mountains, which run along the right bank of the Oka River, and the Gorokhovetsky spur, which runs along the right bank of the Klyazma River. The Meshchersky mountains, which, turning 180 degrees, flow around the Oka, having managed to take into their waters the left tributary of the Klyazma River, act as appendicitis in the area of ​​the city of Gorbatov in the direction of the Gorokhovetsky spur.

It is obvious that the Gorokhovets spur was once in a single mountain system with the high Meshchersky mountains, on which the town of Gorbatov is picturesquely stretched.

Lyrical digression.

If you draw a map of the coast of the supposed ancient sea from the modern city of Vyazniki to the modern city of Nizhny Novgorod, which almost exactly coincides with the right bank of the modern rivers: Klyazma, Oka and Volga, only with smoother, smoother shapes, then this coast will resemble a bow with a stretched bowstring in its bend (an imaginary straight line connecting these cities and coinciding on a significant part with the Moscow highway).

We read in Morokhin's book "Our rivers, towns and villages": "STARODUB'E - the area along the right bank of the Oka. In the past, it was rich in old oak forests. The name has been known since the XIV century. In the Middle Ages, there was an ancient Russian city - Starodub Vachsky. "

To find a runoff into the Russian Sea, the Oka had to overcome the divide between the modern rivers Kishma (Vorsma) and Kudma, the absolute height of which is about 130 m. This provoked the overflow of the ancient Oka for many kilometers in width. Even preliminary measurements show that the reservoir that was formed in this case was enormous. Compared to the rather narrow bay of the Russian Sea, which in the territory of the modern middle reaches of the Volga was mainly 15–20 km, the Oka was a huge lake (or a system of lakes), which ancient people associated with the Ocean.

Dmitry Kvashnin, Primordial Rus - Lost History, or Several Steps in Search of Truth // "Academy of Trinitarianism", M., El No. 77-6567, publ. 16151, 10.11.2010

Photo 2. Right-bank ochelye in the Shurlovo area

"Lukomorye has a green oak

Golden chain on that oak ... "

A.S. Pushkin

"Find the beginning of everything,

and you will understand a lot "

Kozma Prutkov

“Take history away from the people - and in a generation it will turn into a crowd, and in another generation it can be ruled like a herd”

Joseph Goebbels

Introduction

The history of Russia is not an unplowed virgin land overgrown with weeds and grasses, but rather a dense, impenetrable, fabulous forest. Most historians are simply afraid of its thicket and do not try to go into it deeper than the marks set by the chronicler Nestor. What grandmothers whispered fears to them about this enchanted forest? And it is strange that their childish fright did not develop with age into adolescent curiosity and, later, into the mature interest of a researcher.

For example, the stories of Arina Rodionovna not only did not frighten the evil Koschei, but awakened the Russian soul in young Pushkin, which was reflected in his magnificent poetic tales.

There were fairy tales, myths, legends - still unused baggage, the historical and cultural source of our ancestors. These ancient layers of folk art made it possible to preserve the amazingly beautiful Russian language and the great culture of our people.

Where and when was Russia born? The opinions of modern scientists are divided. Some believe that Russia (and all of humanity) originated in the north, others - on the Black Sea coast, still others in the western Slavic lands, and still others - in the "Arkaimov" east.

Yes, ancient Russia left indisputable traces in different parts of the world. But it originated at a time when there was still no division into north and south, west and east. Wherever Russians live today, one cannot say about them: northern Russians, southern Russians, etc. (compare East Slavs, North Koreans).

Because historically Russians are centrists. The place where they appeared and realized themselves became the center, the starting point for the development and formation of human civilization. And only then they dispersed to different parts of the world, forming new tribes and peoples.

This work is an attempt to prove just such a historical version. Each of the steps into which this study is divided is a small discovery, a small sensation. Each step is an invitation to move, change angle or point of view. Only by going around the object, you can judge its size and shape.

If you, dear reader, consider the dense forest more a friend than an enemy, if you are ready for any surprises and iron logic, and not an imposed dogma, is the right argument for you, then I invite you on the road. On a journey through our native land, along our hills, rivers, cities and villages, to find the traces and landmarks of our great ancestors left to us, at first glance, seemingly invisible. Be attentive and curious. And then you will discover ancient, amazing, almost forgotten secrets.

And all the secret someday becomes apparent.

Step 1. Russian sea

In my distant, still school, childhood, I became acquainted with the work of our famous fellow countryman, Alexei Maksimovich Gorky, much of which is devoted to the description of pre-revolutionary Nizhny Novgorod. A true artist helps to imagine, feel and empathize with what he describes. Reading his story "In People", a chapter where he talks about hunting for waders during a spring flood, taking place in the area of ​​modern Meshchersky Lake, a Nizhny Novgorod citizen can easily imagine a picture of this flood of the arrow of two rivers: the Oka and the Volga. If the flood described by the classic were repeated today, we would see the buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, the planetarium, the circus, filled with water up to the second floor, a completely flooded metro, electric trains and trains that sank near the railway station to the windows of the carriages.

The average water level near Nizhny Novgorod today is about 64–65 meters above sea level. Have the water levels of the Oka and Volga always been like this?

Of course not.

And it's not just the spring floods.

To begin with, we will go down the beautiful Volga to the largest lake in the world - the Caspian Sea. The absolute level of this inland sea today is -27 m, and this level falls annually. That is, the sea gradually dries up, increasing the difference between the source and the mouth of the rivers flowing into it. Thus, the Caspian Sea, as it were, sucks these rivers into itself, as a result of which they become less deep and shallow.

The picture of the shallowing of rivers in the Volga water area is observed everywhere. Streams and small rivers dry up almost completely by the end of summer, previously navigable rivers become dangerous for ships and are used by river transport only during spring floods. All this speaks about the current instability of the Aral-Caspian water area as a whole.

But how long have these processes been taking place and what did the waters of these seas look like in antiquity? Interesting is the opinion of the Moscow geologist, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor Andrei Leonidovich Chepalyga, who believes that “in ancient times the Khvalynian transgression (advance) of the Caspian Sea took place, which 10-17 thousand years ago extended to modern Cheboksary. The water level of the water area reached a height of 50 meters above sea level. At the same time, part of the water was discharged through the Manych-Kerch Strait into the Black Sea and further through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles into the Mediterranean Sea.

I will cite a paragraph from an article on a similar topic published in the journal "In the world of science" No. 5 in May 2006: "In the study of tectonically stable regions (Republic of Dagestan), it was possible to find about 10 sea terraces, which appeared as a result of significant fluctuations in the water level ... How noted in the studies of G.L. Rychagov (2001) and A.A. Svitoch (2000), ... the emergence of such terraces is associated with the recession phase of the Khvalynsky (Caspian) Sea. The maximum level was such that its waves splashed in the area of ​​the Zhiguli and the mouth of the Kama. "

Unfortunately, scientists did not continue their studies higher than the discovered sea terraces by another 40–50 m. But even the expected rise of waters to an absolute height of 50 m allowed the waters of the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas to merge.

We will now rise from the Caspian Sea up the Volga to the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Here nature has preserved ancient traces of a mighty reservoir unknown to us today.

Let's open the book of our fellow countryman, Doctor of Philology, journalist Nikolai Vasilyevich Morokhin "Our rivers, cities and villages" (Nizhny Novgorod, publishing house "Books", 2007). In the chapter "Parts of the Nizhny Novgorod Region" we find: "Ochelle is a high left-bank terrace of the Volga, located a few kilometers from the river and bordering the floodplain. The Russian name, associated with the word "chelo" - "forehead, high place", indicates the shape of the terrace. "

This terrace is observed on a large territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region from the city of Gorodets to the village of Mikhailovskoye and below in the Republic of Mari El (photo 1).

The same terrace exists in the Volga right bank from the dam of the Gorkovskaya HPP to the villages of Rylovo, Zamyatino, Shurlovo and below (photo 2).

The width of the floodplain, limited by these terraces, reaches ten to fifteen kilometers or more.

A similar situation is observed with the channels of the Oka and Klyazma rivers.

One can try to explain the presence of such wide floodplains of the Nizhny Novgorod rivers by large spring floods at a time when the water was not regulated by dams. However, to fill this floodplain with water, the level of the rivers had to rise during the spring flood by twenty to thirty meters, which seems unlikely.

And here is what the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer Dmitry Nikolaevich Smirnov writes in his book "Essays on the life and everyday life of the Nizhny Novgorod residents of the 17th-18th centuries" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka book publishing house, 1971): "The left bank of the Volga within the Nizovsky region contained" palace volosts ": Gorodetskaya, Zauzolskaya and Tolokontsevskaya. "Palace" villages - large and small - stretched in long lines along the upper terrace of the ancient bank of the river, right up to the "Sopchin Zaton".

Ancient river bank!

The most understandable and logical characteristic of this terrace, or, as it was called by the people, "ochelya".

Measurements of the tyna levels, the base of these terraces, regardless of their location: right bank, left bank, Gorodets or Ostankino regions, show stable results - 85–87 m.

Very interesting information on this topic can be found in the book of Nizhny Novgorod geologists G.S. Kulinich and B.I. Fridman under the title "Geological Travels on the Gorky Land" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1990). We read: “High ... terraces above the floodplain can be observed on the left bank of the Volga, near Gorodets ... In the section of the Gorodetsky coast, two high basement terraces are visible ... High terraces above the floodplain ... V.V. Dokuchaev (A well-known Russian naturalist, soil scientist. - Approx. Auth.) Called the pine forest or the ancient coast ... Its surface (the most pronounced, third, terrace. - Approx. Auth.) Is located at the level of the 90-meter (!) Mark. It was formed in the second half of the Middle Pleistocene period ... (150-100 thousand years ago). This terrace stretches in a wide strip from Gorodets to the south, and many have seen its ledge near the village. Kantaurovo, where the Gorky-Kirov highway climbs sharply. "

Further: “River terraces are found everywhere in the Volga valley. In Dzerzhinsky (Lake Pyra), Borsky (northeast of the village of Pikino), Lyskovsky districts (Lake Ardino) and in other places on the left bank, both levels of high terraces are clearly visible ”.

With the formation of the so-called third terrace, or rather, as Dokuchaev described it, the ancient coast, it is more or less clear. But what kind of reservoir did this ancient coast serve? And when did this body of water leave its ancient shore?

The answer to the first question is unambiguous: this ancient coast was the coast of the mysterious, mentioned in many Russian fairy tales, "sea-okey" or the Russian sea, which consisted of a single spilled water area of ​​the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas, which, in turn, rose the channels of the rivers flowing into them, far inland.

It was on the shores of the bays (estuaries) of this ancient, forgotten sea today that mysterious Russia was first born and settled!

The dating of events is one of the most important and most difficult questions in historical science. Today there is not a single precise method for determining them. Therefore, unfortunately, very often its academic, but far from always proven, version is called history.

The history of Russia, circulated today to a wide audience - from schoolchildren to academicians, portrays it as the history of a gray, undeveloped, wretched and wild country. However, to a caring and attentive ("one who has eyes, let him see") researcher, our Fatherland is ready to reveal many amazing secrets, the clues of which can overwhelm even the most prepared reader. The traces left to us by our ancestors, the facts about which we stumble, not wanting to notice them through our own laziness or inattention, are waiting for their time. Let's bring this time closer, let's touch it with our hand, let's breathe in its burning, tart smell.

Gardarika is a land of cities.

“Kurgan - a hill, a slide; a mound, an ancient grave, a grave ", - we read in the" Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language "of our outstanding compatriot Vladimir Ivanovich Dal.

My acquaintance with the whole system of burial mounds, seemingly unrelated to each other, began with the majestic Kolychevsky burial mound.

It got its name from the ancient village of Kolychevo, located nearby, on a noticeable elevation. And for the first time I learned about its existence from the work of the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer and writer Alexander Serafimovich Gatsisky entitled “On Sundovik, in Zhary“ on the City, on the river ”.

In the first part of his story, the author tells about the May 1887 expedition to study the aforementioned Kolychevsky mound, in which he was a participant. You can read more about this in the book of Gatsisky "The Nizhegorodsky Chronicler", published in the series "The Nizhegorodskys Were" and published by the publishing house "Nizhegorodskaya Yarmarka" in 2001. Let us dwell on some parts of the author's story about the study of the mound.

“Kolychevo is located remarkably beautifully, on a hill washed on one side (southwestern) by the Kirilka river, into the quiet waters of which luxurious willows and willows look, through which a small bridge is gracefully thrown, not far from the mill dam, and on the other (southeastern) descending into a vast meadow, almost in the center of which there is a huge hill, the so-called Kolychevsky mound, and another smaller one, to the west of the large one; the meadow is bordered on three sides by the waters of the Kirilka River and the Sundovik River; on the edge of the hill, dominating the surroundings, overlooking the hills, as if on a green luxurious dish, standing on Kirilka on the right hand, on Sundovik - in a straight line and located behind the Sundovik, when it flows into it from the opposite side of the Kirilka river, picturesquely scattered, also along the hills and hillocks, the village of Syomovo - there is a Kolychevskaya church.

All this was charming in the last rays of the setting sun. "

Subsequently, the author cites the report of his companion, professional geologist Nikolai Mikhailovich Sibirtsev:

“It seems to us that the dark top layer (of the mound) in those places where it is especially thick, should be considered bulk or applied. It may, of course, be that its rapid thickening towards the southwestern slope of the hill ... depends partly on crumbling, but the presence of shards and coals clearly indicates the action of a human hand; the same is confirmed by the looseness of this layer and its accumulation near the western-southwestern edge of the upper platform alone. The bulk layer was subsequently covered with sod, which is why its upper horizon took on a more intense color and structure of chernozem. It should be noted that the soddy soil of the upper platform is generally darker than the gray loams of the surrounding areas, which also indicates a long-standing and vigorous accumulation of organic remains in it (closeness to humans) ...

There is no doubt that the Kolychevsky hillock, now lonely rising among the meadow lowlands, was once one with the heights on which the village of Kolychevo is located; the rivers Sundovik and Kirilka washed it away from the common massif and, repeatedly changing their channel, flowing around the hillock from one side, then on the other, moving away from it and again approaching it, gave it the outline of a rounded pyramidal mound. Local residents show the old channel of the Kirilka from the northwestern side of the hill, between it and the village of Kolychev, while now the river flows from the southwestern and southern sides of the mound; in addition, in the meadow, between the Sundovik and the Kolychevsky hillock, one can see a channel, mostly dry, representing a side branch of the Sundovik. These traces of old currents provide clear evidence of the changeability of the channels of both rivers, between which the Kolychevsky Kurgan currently stands ”.

In the same note, only slightly higher, Sibirtsev notes: "... and to this day the waters of the Sundovik, overflowing in the spring flood over the meadow, reach from the southeastern side to the base of the mound."

Let's return to an even more unexpected and very interesting place in the story of Gatsisky. He notes: "... and to this day the waters of the Sundovik, overflowing in the spring flood in the meadow, reach from the southeastern side to the base of the mound."

Note that only during spring floods and only up to the base of the mound. Moreover, traces of the old channel from the north-western side of the hill have been preserved. But to rise to this old channel, the water had to be over 85 meters above sea level!

In this case, the level today of the small rivers Sundovik and Kirilka should have risen during the spring flood by at least five meters from their usual state, which seems unlikely.

Further, Gatsisky writes: “... in my youth, when I was just getting attached to the study of my dear Nizhny Novgorod Volga region, I read from E.K. Ogorodnikov ("List of inhabited places", issue XXV, Nizhny Novgorod province, S.-Pb., 1863, p. XXI of the preface) that the area of ​​the Bulgarian city of Oshlyuya (Oshel, Ashel) is believed to have been located downstream of the Volga, where the river Kirilka flows into it, on which, according to the "List", there are villages: Smolino (no. 501), Kozhino (no. 3571) and Pochinok (no. 3571); this indication was entered by me, without "checking in kind" in "Nizhegorodka" (page 20 of the 1877 edition), and then, accidentally checking it for other purposes on the map, I was convinced that it was not true, since the Kirilka river flows into the Volga ... only through the confluence of the last Sundovik ... ".

Let's try to understand this "error". It appeared from the publication of the Central Statistical Committee called "List of Populated Places" edited by Evlampy Kirillovich Ogorodnikov, to whose work Gatsisky devoted an essay. Let's turn to him.

“Evlampy Kirillovich combined his statistical and geographical works with studies closely related to them in historical and geographical research ...

The largest share of the work, according to the works of Evlampy Kirillovich in the Central Statistical Committee, was assigned to him for the compilation and processing of the "List of Populated Places" - a publication that represents extremely valuable material not only on statistics, but also on ethnography and historical geography ...

Almost from the time the Geographical Society was founded, it raised the idea of ​​the need to develop, along with other historical and geographical materials, a very important, well-known, but almost unexplored monument of the geographical works of our ancestors, the so-called "Book of the Big Drawing" ...

The initial intention of society was to restore the lost ancient map of Russia according to the text of the "Book of the Big Drawing" that has come down to us, in various her corrections and additions.

Giving the "Book of the Big Drawing" the meaning of the Russian geographical chronicle, which developed at different times, it is said in one of the protocols of the department of ethnography of the Geographical Society, Evlampy Kirillovich, by decomposing the text of the book on the basis of chronicle indications and data found in ancient acts, had in mind to prove the possibility of discovering signs the original text, and thus come closer to resolving the issue of the time of the appearance of the drawing ... ".

As you can see, Ogorodnikov, being an experienced researcher and an authoritative respected scientist, had the opportunity to study ancient acts, chronicles, as well as the famous "Book of the Big Drawing", from which, probably, the "error" appeared. It is possible that the "error" got into the "List of inhabited places" from some other ancient document that the scientist studied. In any case, an unknown source described the geography of the time of this document and, therefore, was no "mistake". And this document was so ancient that it described the place and time when the Kirilka river really did not flow into the Sundovik, but directly into the Volga or, more precisely, into the bay of the "sea-okiyana", leaving us with evidence that the water height of the ancient Volga was more than 85 meters above modern sea level and the Volga (Russian Sea) had a completely different water area.

The old channel of the Kirilka River, which once flowed between the village of Kolychev and the mound, mentioned in Sibirtsev's report, is the coastline of the ancient Volga (Russian Sea), which washed from all sides the mound of interest to us.

Gatsisky himself draws a similar conclusion: “... I believe that in the area of ​​the present village of Kolychev and its floodplain, on which both hills stand, when the Kirilka waters washing the Kolychev mountain (on which the village stands), not to mention the waters of the Sundovik, were more abundant, when all three rivers, perhaps, flowed in their ancient banks, when not only on the surrounding heights, but also on the floodplain, at the foot of the Kolychevskaya mountain, rich forests grew (the headman says that at this foot, on the northern part of the floodplain Not so long ago, a frequent forest grew, from which, even a church was built; by the way: now the Sundovik floods with spring waters only the meadow to the south of the hill, there is no water between the hill and the Kolychev mountain), prehistoric peoples lived who, taking advantage of the natural huge hill, occupied their dwelling and its summit, and occupying it, they left behind themselves traces, albeit very scanty, in the form of shards, bones and coals. "

What are these prehistoric peoples? Wild, half-humans, half-monkeys, climbing the mounds out of trivial curiosity? And from the beginning of what history did they turn out to be "prehistoric"?

Or we still admit our ignorance and realize that the traces and artifacts that have survived to this day are traces of a historical people unknown to us today, an ancient civilization unknown to us today.

And there are not so few traces.

Not far from the Kolychevsky burial mound, fifteen kilometers down the Sundovik River, on a high picturesque hill called "Olenya Gora", there is an ancient settlement. From here, from its preserved earthen ramparts, a magnificent view of the flooded meadows, of the Volga itself, the dense forests of the Volga and of the Makaryevsky monastery, famous for its former fair, similar to a huge white steamer, opens up.

Today the city on "Olenyaya Gora" is located a few kilometers from the Volga. Try to explain why the city was built so far from the navigable river? Is it because of questionable safety or because of stupidity, which forced them to keep ships three kilometers from the city and carry cargo along a dirty floodplain washed away by floods? The same Macarius was placed on the very bank of the Volga, which ensured him prosperity and wealth, and the ancient city on the "Deer Mountain" lost not only its former glory, but did not even leave its name to the descendants. Do you think that the "prehistoric" builders were more stupid than the "historical" ones?

Let me doubt it.

There is only one explanation. Both cities were founded on the banks of water bodies.

Macarius - on the banks of the modern Volga.

And the city on "Olenyaya Gora" many, many hundreds of years before it, on the shores of the ancient Russian Sea!

Above, we found out: in order for the Kirilka river to flow directly into the Volga (Russian Sea) and for the Kolychevsky mound to be washed from all sides by waters, that is, to be an island, the absolute height of the water of the reservoir washing it had to be at least 85 m.

In this case, everything falls into place. Measurements of heights confirm the unequivocal and sensational conclusion - the city on the "Olenyaya Gora" was washed from three sides by the Russian Sea, and from the rear it was guarded by a canal dug and filled with water from the same sea. It was of great strategic importance, blocking the entrance to a comfortable and long bay.

Scheme of the Russian Sea and the modern Volga in the area of ​​the settlement on Olenyaya Gora.

Even today, the ancient city on Olenyaya Gora (or rather, what is left of it) inspires respect and surprise with its grandeur, thoughtfulness and guessed by its former architectural beauty. From the north, facing the modern Volga, the city is protected by a high impregnable rampart (see photo 3).

Photo 3. Northern (overgrown with feather grass) and western ramparts of the ancient settlement on Olenyaya Gora.

This rampart served as protection not only from enemy ships, but also from the raging waves generated by the cold and evil north wind. The rampart in the east ends with the highest point of the city - a bulk tower, from where a magnificent view of the entire Trans-Volga region, the Volga itself and, going to the right of Lysaya Gora, a valley, assumed by geologists, of the Pra-Sundovika River, opens. However, this valley is washed away by a completely different, more powerful and full-flowing river. And the river that once flowed towards the Sundovik, in the opposite direction to the Volga River, that is, opposite it (opposite the ancient river Ra), bears the name Sura to this day. It was here that its ancient channel, sandwiched between the Olenya and Lysaya mountains, passed (see diagram). This fact further strengthened the significance of the city on Olenyaya Gora. From the west, along the entire rampart, a through channel was dug, which separated the city from the only land. It was dug below the level of the Pra-Sea water surrounding the city and turned it into an impregnable man-made island. It is this canal-ditch that can serve us for a more accurate measurement of the water level of the fabulous Russian "sea-okiyana". We proceed from the fact that the moat, in order to fulfill its defensive purpose, had to be filled with water by at least 2-3 m.In this case, horsemen or warriors in heavy armor and with heavy weapons could not overcome it. The height of the channel bottom, measured with a special device, showed its maximum value equal to 106 meters above sea level, which was located in the northern part of the channel. In the southern part of the canal, the navigator showed the height of its bottom from 79 to 89 m.In view of the slope of the entire peninsula on which the settlement is located, from north to south, it can be assumed that snow and rain waters, eroding the high steep banks of the now dry canal, gradually washed it away in the northern part. In the southern part, the water slid towards the slope towards Sundovik, gradually eroding the ancient canal and forming a kind of ravine. While walking around the perimeter of the low southern side of the settlement, measurements of the heights of the tyna, the base of the ancient ramparts from the outside, were made using the same altimeter. The values ​​of these heights ranged from 82 to 90 m above sea level. Even these approximate measurements allow us to determine the water level of the ancient Russian Sea with an accuracy of several meters, which, as we can see, was 85-87 m. and was surrounded on all sides by the waters of the sea invisible to us today and was a defense, trade and port fortress of our ancestors. The famous Makaryevskaya fair, which later appeared and existed almost to the present day, speaks of its commercial significance, which connects Europe, India, China, the Mediterranean, and Persia. Of course, it was not for nothing and not from scratch that it was organized in a new, but already familiar location after the city on Olenyaya Gora was destroyed, and the water left its walls several kilometers to the north. The new place, practically without changing its geographical position, continued to attract merchants and travelers from all over the world, serving as a kind of bridge between west and east, between north and south, remaining a very important starting point of the annual trade cycle and water navigation of the entire ancient world civilization. Approximately in the middle of the western rampart, a land exit to the mainland was organized through a moat filled with water, possibly equipped with a drawbridge. From the south, the city seemed to descend to a calm bay that washes the city from the south, closed from northern waves and wind, from the side. Convenient berths for boats and ships were arranged here. Several deep ravines visible today on this southern bank of the city indicate that ship canals may have been dug right into the city. Probably, after the entry of the ships, the entrances to the fortress wall were closed with bars and chains. In general, the city on Olenyaya Gora hides many more unexpected secrets. Its comprehensive study will bring many important discoveries for the history of Russia. But, apparently, everything has its time. On the southeastern end of the city, you can see a preserved mound. Perhaps there was a round-the-clock guard of the moored ships. The Kolychevsky burial mound, already known to us, was clearly visible from here. As we found out earlier, it was surrounded on all sides by waters, that is, it was a small island. On it, in bad weather or at night, a fire was lit, which showed the way for merchant ships inside the bay and further to the legendary city, supposed by historians somewhere in these places, which later bore the name Oshel among the Volga Bulgars and which was mentioned by Gatsi. From all of the above, it follows that the Kolychevsky mound is nothing more than a real navigational island lighthouse! So much for the "prehistoric peoples"! If they have no history, then it is not theirs, but our fault. There is another preserved moat and rampart on the banks of the modern and, of course, the ancient Volga. This is the fortification of an undoubtedly grandiose settlement located on the territory of the modern town of Radilov-Gorodets. Measurements of the depth of the ditch, remarkably preserved in the southeastern part of the settlement (near the village of Abrosikha), show values ​​surprisingly coinciding with the "Deer settlement". Their values ​​range from 85 to 93 m above sea level (average value is 89 m)! Of course, the height of the rampart, its impressive dimensions and the ancient solidity of the "Gorodetskaya earthen fortress", the navigable width of its ditch cannot be compared with the "Deer Mountain". But the destruction of the rampart (and, as a consequence, the shallowing of the ditch) by time and human activity in Gorodets is more impressive than on Olenya Gora, which is why the difference in the considered modern ditch depths of 2-3 m is not significant. The height of the water in the ancient sea during the prosperity of both cities of our ancestors was, as we have already noted, 85-87 m above the level of the modern sea. The depths of the ditches at both settlements, located 120 km from each other in a straight line and, moreover, on different banks of the river, can coincide only if the water of its ancient water area filled the ditches, protected and washed the banks of these ancient cities. That is, both ancient cities we are considering were based on the shores of the same mysterious reservoir - the Russian Sea. This is a fact that is difficult to dispute. And since the disappearance of the Russian Sea, as we found out earlier, is directly related to the biblical story of the Flood, these cities were founded before this tragic event. Literally speaking, these are “antediluvian” cities in the very heart of modern Russia. This somewhat changes the generally accepted history of our Motherland, doesn't it? Let me make one more remark. In the Volga water area of ​​Russia, there are quite a few ancient settlements and settlements, but none of them is located at altitudes below 85 m. No one settles or builds under water, except for water and mermaids. One more logical conclusion can be drawn from this. The first ancient ("antediluvian") cities and settlements were built and developed on the banks of an ancient reservoir, convenient for communication and rich in fish, which was the Russian "sea-okiyan". The water level of its water area was about 87 m. So the antiquity of the city, the time of its foundation, can be tentatively determined by its geological or geographical position (of course, in the river basins of the modern Black Sea, Azov, Caspian and Aral basins). If these settlements (their historical centers) are located at absolute heights of 85-90 m, then, most likely, they were founded before the disappearance of the ancient sea. If their centers are lower, then much later. Therefore, using only chronicle data as a determination of the time of the founding of a city, we deliberately distort our own history. Based on these or those chronicles, we can only learn about the emergence of relatively new cities or the revival (use of old territories) of the ancients. The very same history of these ancient ("antediluvian") cities requires urgent and comprehensive attention and study.

There are several, as can be assumed, lighthouse barrows for navigation of ships of the ancient Volga water area on the territory of the modern Nizhny Novgorod region.

A mound near the village of Mezhuyki, now closed from the eyes by a forest, was located on an island on the left bank of the ancient Volga. It also served as a lighthouse for ships and was perfectly visible from the Olenyaya Gora and from the water for many kilometers. Moreover, even today, this mound stands inside a barely noticeable, but preserved ancient settlement.

Two burial mounds, located on both banks of the Sheloksha or Staraya Kudma rivers, indicated the target for the passage of ships to settlements that were located on the shores of the convenient Volga Bay. On the left high bank of the river, a barely perceptible hill remained from the mound. But on the right bank, not only the base of the mound was preserved, but also complex earthen structures consisting of several parts of a regular rectangular shape.

These miraculously preserved to this day traces of the ancient Volga navigation system indicate a developed fleet and a well-thought-out defensive system, consisting of coastal fortified cities.

In the depths of the bays, protected from winds and uninvited guests, there were trading cities and settlements with convenient ports for loading and unloading bread, textiles, and building materials.

It is worth recalling that the traces of "prehistoric peoples", in addition to "shards, bones and coals", should also include a source of information with a "mistake" that Ogorodnikov brought from some ancient document. This document, as we have found out earlier, was created at a time when there was no "mistake", and the Kirilka river really flowed directly into the sea. And this document (most likely a map or diagram) was created by those same "prehistoric peoples".

But if there was trade, there was a fleet that allowed navigating both rivers and seas, a functioning and maintained navigation system (mapped!), Well-placed defense cities and trading settlements - it means that all this was planned and directed from one center, that is, it was united into a single state.

State of the "prehistoric people".

State of a people with a lost history!

An epic, fabulous, amazing country!

The lost country of our ancestors on the shores of the lost Russian "sea-ocean" with a short and sonorous name - Russia!

Primordial Russia!

In Europe, this country was called "Gardarika - the country of a thousand cities."

The very name "Gardarika" is very interesting in that it bears twice the root "ar", which indicates the presence of the Aryans. The same word is easily transformed into the word "tartar" - the end of the world, hell - and into the phrase "Mount Ararat" - the beginning of a new world according to the Bible.

Tsar's city.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I can't wait to test the theory of determining the time of the founding of ancient cities on the Volga using the methodology proposed in the previous chapters, that is, through a preliminary determination of the absolute height of their historical centers.

Take a city at the confluence of two great Russian rivers, the Oka and the Volga, the author's homeland - Nizhny Novgorod.

The chronicle reads: "Summer 6729 (1221) the great prince Yuri Vsevolodovich laid a city on the mouth of the Oka and named him Novgorod Nizhniy." The founder of the city is Yuri Vsevolodovich, son of Vsevolod Bolshoye Gnezdo, grandson of the founder of Moscow, Yuri Dolgoruky.

According to legend, there were some insignificant settlements of the Mordovians on this place, the same minor skirmishes and battles. But the Mordovians soon left, leaving the conquerors of the Nizhny Novgorod lands.

Everything seems to be clear and understandable.

But if you, my friend, have been to Nizhny Novgorod, if you stood at the height of a bird's-eye flight over the always charming sunset, if you peered into the endless exciting horizon, then you could not help but love forever these mountains, these rivers, and these distances. I could not help but appreciate this nagging beauty and the "prehistoric" man.

Let's try to take the trouble and look for traces of this man, especially since the height of the water of the Russian Sea, equal to 87-89 m, assumed sufficient space for the ancient builders on the Dyatlov Mountains towering over this ancient sea.

It is rather difficult to look for these traces in a developed, long lived inhabited and upset city. But they must be there. Let us, tune in to this message, once again re-read the legends, consider the maps, walk through the streets and back streets of our city that has been walked along and across thousands of times.

Maybe we don't notice something or can't see it?

How many legends have survived in Russia about invisible cities and whole countries. Some are invisible because it is difficult to get to them, some - because they went under water or underground, some - are revealed only to the worthy.

The latter seems completely unreal and fantastic.

But it is precisely this that is the main and, perhaps, the only reason for our strange myopia.

We ourselves, without much resistance, took on the role of some kind of historical inferiority. Studying the events, achievements, exploits, philosophy, religions, moral values ​​of other, sometimes completely alien peoples to us, we, at the same time, completely forget about the no less significant, worthy and, I am absolutely sure of this, the deeper and more ancient history of our great ancestors. ...

We live on the land where they lived, loved, fought for their (and our) happiness, the land where they are buried.

We have no right to forget about that.

Their story is our story. This is the foundation, the foundation on which we must rely. History is the dignity of our ancestors, our dignity, the dignity of future generations. Without this, the only possible, support we will always be shaken from side to side by any wind, any current, like a well-known object in an ice-hole.

We are an amazing people. Each of us individually is individual, talented and bright. But we are so divided and scattered that we do not feel and do not understand each other even when communicating in the same language. Only understanding our historical community, pride in our common great ancestors can unite and unite us. And only by being worthy of them, we will be able to discover the mysterious Russia with its fabulous invisible cities, and today's confused reality, and a bright happy future.

Let's return to the theory of measuring the heights of the historical part of the city.

Have you ever wondered why the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin has such a complex shape. From the central Minin Square, it descends by steps from a high inaccessible hill 80 m down, closer to the Volga, but does not reach it even at its lowest point for a good hundred meters.

At the same time, the military Kremlin loses its inaccessibility, becomes vulnerable to the cannons of enemy ships, without gaining access directly to the strategic river during the siege of the city, and, on the contrary, allows itself to be surrounded by enemy ground forces without a fleet.

The lower part of the Kremlin - the Zachatyevskaya Tower - has now been destroyed by a landslide; in its place there is a memorial sign stating the plans for its restoration. Try to guess at what absolute height is this sign? You can check repeatedly - 89-90 m.

The lower part of the Kremlin should have stood exactly on the shores of the Russian Sea!

And since the modern stone Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin was built much later than the time when this sea disappeared, it remains to be assumed that the Kremlin was built on the foundation of a fortification that already existed long before it and was carefully thought out by ancient builders.

And this is the third city we are examining, standing on the shore of the "sea-okiyana".

Unfortunately, the alleged artifact is now hidden under the walls of the Kremlin.

But we will not despair and continue to search for traces of "prehistoric" man.

And these traces are there.

1 - The modern Kremlin. 2 - The Lower City - a fortress defended by Abram. 3 - The Upper Town is a fortress on Ilyinskaya Hill. 4 - An ancient monastery on the site of the tomb of the fabulous Zlatogorka. 5 - Residence of Svyatogor. 6 - Eastern gate of the ancient Kremlin. 7 - South gate of the Kremlin. 8 - Western gate of the Kremlin. 9 - Eastern gate of Constantinople. 10 - South gate of Constantinople. 11 - Western gate of Constantinople. Modern streets: P - Piskunova, S - Sergievskaya, BPK - Bolshaya Pecherskaya, BPok - Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, I - Ilyinskaya, PS - Pokhvalinsky congress, MYa - Malaya Yamskaya, 3Ya - 3rd Yamskaya, PLG - Gorky Square, MG - Maxima Gorky, Bel - Belinsky, K - Krasnoselskaya, R - Rodionova, G - Gagarina

"New" in Nizhny "begins the publication of a unique work of the Nizhny Novgorod researcher

Photo 1. Left-bank ochelye near the village of Lyapunovo

Photo 2. Right-bank ochelye in the Shurlovo area

"Lukomorye has a green oak

Golden chain on that oak ... "

A.S. Pushkin

"Find the beginning of everything,

and you will understand a lot "

Kozma Prutkov

“Take history away from the people - and in a generation it will turn into a crowd, and in another generation it can be ruled like a herd”

Joseph Goebbels

Introduction

The history of Russia is not an unplowed virgin land overgrown with weeds and grasses, but rather a dense, impenetrable, fabulous forest. Most historians are simply afraid of its thicket and do not try to go into it deeper than the marks set by the chronicler Nestor. What grandmothers whispered fears to them about this enchanted forest? And it is strange that their childish fright did not develop with age into adolescent curiosity and, later, into the mature interest of a researcher.

For example, the stories of Arina Rodionovna not only did not frighten the evil Koschei, but awakened the Russian soul in young Pushkin, which was reflected in his magnificent poetic tales.

There were fairy tales, myths, legends - still unused baggage, the historical and cultural source of our ancestors. These ancient layers of folk art made it possible to preserve the amazingly beautiful Russian language and the great culture of our people.

Where and when was Russia born? The opinions of modern scientists are divided. Some believe that Russia (and all of humanity) originated in the north, others - on the Black Sea coast, still others in the western Slavic lands, and still others - in the "Arkaimov" east.

Yes, ancient Russia left indisputable traces in different parts of the world. But it originated at a time when there was still no division into north and south, west and east. Wherever Russians live today, one cannot say about them: northern Russians, southern Russians, etc. (compare East Slavs, North Koreans).

Because historically Russians are centrists. The place where they appeared and realized themselves became the center, the starting point for the development and formation of human civilization. And only then they dispersed to different parts of the world, forming new tribes and peoples.

This work is an attempt to prove just such a historical version. Each of the steps into which this study is divided is a small discovery, a small sensation. Each step is an invitation to move, change angle or point of view. Only by going around the object, you can judge its size and shape.

If you, dear reader, consider the dense forest more a friend than an enemy, if you are ready for any surprises and iron logic, and not an imposed dogma, is the right argument for you, then I invite you on the road. On a journey through our native land, along our hills, rivers, cities and villages, to find the traces and landmarks of our great ancestors left to us, at first glance, seemingly invisible. Be attentive and curious. And then you will discover ancient, amazing, almost forgotten secrets.

And all the secret someday becomes apparent.

Step 1. Russian sea

In my distant, still school, childhood, I became acquainted with the work of our famous fellow countryman, Alexei Maksimovich Gorky, much of which is devoted to the description of pre-revolutionary Nizhny Novgorod. A true artist helps to imagine, feel and empathize with what he describes. Reading his story "In People", a chapter where he talks about hunting for waders during a spring flood, taking place in the area of ​​modern Meshchersky Lake, a Nizhny Novgorod citizen can easily imagine a picture of this flood of the arrow of two rivers: the Oka and the Volga. If the flood described by the classic were repeated today, we would see the buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, the planetarium, the circus, filled with water up to the second floor, a completely flooded metro, electric trains and trains that sank near the railway station to the windows of the carriages.

The average water level near Nizhny Novgorod today is about 64-65 meters above sea level. Have the water levels of the Oka and Volga always been like this?

Of course not.

And it's not just the spring floods.

To begin with, we will go down the beautiful Volga to the largest lake in the world - the Caspian Sea. The absolute level of this inland sea today is -27 m, and this level falls annually. That is, the sea gradually dries up, increasing the difference between the source and the mouth of the rivers flowing into it. Thus, the Caspian Sea, as it were, sucks these rivers into itself, as a result of which they become less deep and shallow.

The picture of the shallowing of rivers in the Volga water area is observed everywhere. Streams and small rivers dry up almost completely by the end of summer, previously navigable rivers become dangerous for ships and are used by river transport only during spring floods. All this speaks about the current instability of the Aral-Caspian water area as a whole.

But how long have these processes been taking place and what did the waters of these seas look like in antiquity? Interesting is the opinion of the Moscow geologist, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor Andrei Leonidovich Chepalyga, who believes that “in ancient times the Khvalynian transgression (advance) of the Caspian Sea took place, which 10-17 thousand years ago extended to modern Cheboksary. The water level of the water area reached a height of 50 meters above sea level. At the same time, part of the water was discharged through the Manych-Kerch Strait into the Black Sea and further through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles into the Mediterranean Sea.

I will cite a paragraph from an article on a similar topic published in the journal "In the world of science" No. 5 in May 2006: "In the study of tectonically stable regions (Republic of Dagestan), it was possible to find about 10 sea terraces, which appeared as a result of significant fluctuations in the water level ... How noted in the studies of G.L. Rychagov (2001) and A.A. Svitoch (2000), ... the emergence of such terraces is associated with the recession phase of the Khvalynsky (Caspian) Sea. The maximum level was such that its waves splashed in the area of ​​the Zhiguli and the mouth of the Kama. "

Unfortunately, the scientists did not continue their studies higher than the discovered sea terraces by another 40-50 m. But even the rise of waters supposed by scientists to an absolute height of 50 m allowed the waters of the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas to merge.

We will now rise from the Caspian Sea up the Volga to the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Here nature has preserved ancient traces of a mighty reservoir unknown to us today.

Let's open the book of our fellow countryman, Doctor of Philology, journalist Nikolai Vasilyevich Morokhin "Our rivers, cities and villages" (Nizhny Novgorod, publishing house "Books", 2007). In the chapter "Parts of the Nizhny Novgorod Region" we find: "Ochele is a high left-bank terrace of the Volga, located a few kilometers from the river and bordering the floodplain. The Russian name, associated with the word "chelo" - "forehead, high place", indicates the shape of the terrace. "

This terrace is observed on a large territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region from the city of Gorodets to the village of Mikhailovskoye and below in the Republic of Mari El (photo 1).

The same terrace exists in the Volga right bank from the dam of the Gorkovskaya HPP to the villages of Rylovo, Zamyatino, Shurlovo and below (photo 2).

The width of the floodplain, limited by these terraces, reaches ten to fifteen kilometers or more.

A similar situation is observed with the channels of the Oka and Klyazma rivers.

One can try to explain the presence of such wide floodplains of the Nizhny Novgorod rivers by large spring floods at a time when the water was not regulated by dams. However, to fill this floodplain with water, the level of the rivers had to rise during the spring flood by twenty to thirty meters, which seems unlikely.

And here is what the famous Nizhny Novgorod ethnographer Dmitry Nikolaevich Smirnov writes in his book "Essays on the life and everyday life of the Nizhny Novgorod residents of the 17th-18th centuries" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka book publishing house, 1971): "The left bank of the Volga within the Nizovsky region contained" palace volosts ": Gorodetskaya, Zauzolskaya and Tolokontsevskaya. "Palace" villages - large and small - stretched in long lines along the upper terrace of the ancient bank of the river, right up to the "Sopchin Zaton".

Ancient river bank!

The most understandable and logical characteristic of this terrace, or, as it was called by the people, "ochelya".

Measurements of the levels of the tyna, the base of these terraces, regardless of their location: the right bank, the left bank, the Gorodets or Ostankino area, show stable results - 85-87 m.

Very interesting information on this topic can be found in the book of Nizhny Novgorod geologists G.S. Kulinich and B.I. Fridman under the title "Geological Travels on the Gorky Land" (Gorky, Volgo-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1990). We read: “High ... terraces above the floodplain can be observed on the left bank of the Volga, near Gorodets ... In the section of the Gorodetsky coast, two high basement terraces are visible ... High terraces above the floodplain ... V.V. Dokuchaev (A well-known Russian naturalist, soil scientist. - Approx. Auth.) Called the pine forest or the ancient coast ... Its surface (the most pronounced, third, terrace. - Approx. Auth.) Is located at the level of the 90-meter (!) Mark. It was formed in the second half of the Middle Pleistocene period ... (150-100 thousand years ago). This terrace stretches in a wide strip from Gorodets to the south, and many have seen its ledge near the village. Kantaurovo, where the Gorky-Kirov highway climbs sharply. "

Further: “River terraces are found everywhere in the Volga valley. In Dzerzhinsky (Lake Pyra), Borsky (northeast of the village of Pikino), Lyskovsky districts (Lake Ardino) and in other places on the left bank, both levels of high terraces are clearly visible ”.

With the formation of the so-called third terrace, or rather, as Dokuchaev described it, the ancient coast, it is more or less clear. But what kind of reservoir did this ancient coast serve? And when did this body of water leave its ancient shore?

The answer to the first question is unambiguous: this ancient coast was the coast of the mysterious, mentioned in many Russian fairy tales, "sea-okey" or the Russian sea, which consisted of a single spilled water area of ​​the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aral seas, which, in turn, rose the channels of the rivers flowing into them, far inland.

It was on the shores of the bays (estuaries) of this ancient, forgotten sea today that mysterious Russia was first born and settled!

The dating of events is one of the most important and most difficult questions in historical science. Today there is not a single precise method for determining them. Therefore, unfortunately, very often its academic, but far from always proven, version is called history.

The history of Russia, circulated today to a wide audience - from schoolchildren to academicians, portrays it as the history of a gray, undeveloped, wretched and wild country. However, to a caring and attentive ("one who has eyes, let him see") researcher, our Fatherland is ready to reveal many amazing secrets, the clues of which can overwhelm even the most prepared reader. The traces left to us by our ancestors, the facts about which we stumble, not wanting to notice them through our own laziness or inattention, are waiting for their time. Let's bring this time closer, let's touch it with our hand, let's breathe in its burning, tart smell.

Dmitry Kvashnin

There are many mysteries in the history of Russia. But there is one special - the secret of secrets! Who was that first Russian prince Rurik, from whom, as it is written in the annals: "... the Russian land is and has gone ..."?

Considering that 2012 is an anniversary year for this event, I want as many people as possible to learn about the recent sensational discovery made by Lydia Groth, a scientist-historian who now lives in Sweden.

However, in order to understand what the sensationalism of the discovery is, it is necessary to recall the confusion that "gradual" historians have arranged in the interpretation of our past.

I'll start very far from politics! Because no one misinterprets history as much as politicians and the "chroniclers" paid by them.

This year marks 1150 years since the year in which, according to the chronicle, Rurik and his brothers came to reign to the Eastern Slavs from across the sea, after which the state of Rus was formed. And later - Russia.

The most important event for our state!

Of course, not a very round date. But many will not wait for a more round one. In any case, I have little hope.

Overseas guests. Artist N.K. Roerich

The celebration seems to be scheduled for the fall. Even a presidential decree was issued on what should be noted. In an interview last year, he admitted how long he thought: to issue this decree or not. Then he made up his mind, published it! However, they try not to attract special attention to this event. And now even the "publisher" himself does not remember the decree.

Because they don't know how to explain to people what to celebrate. What is the meaning of this date? What toasts and health resorts to say? To be happy or sad? Until now, there is no common point of view among scientists-historians and even among politicians, from whom historians-scientists at all times have learned their "scientific" point of view.

Agree that the holiday is a success, it is desirable for the people to understand: who was Rurik, where did he come from, for what? From what sea, what kind was it? German, Swede, Norman, West Slav? A prince, a knight, a warrior, a merchant, or even a bum without a clan, without a tribe?

Let's see what is written about this event in the Laurentian Chronicle, which the monk Nestor began to write in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra at the beginning of the XII century and which is recognized by all scientists without exception as genuine.

Arrival of Rurik to Ladoga. Artist V.M. Vasnetsov

“… And race after race, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: "Let's look for a prince who would rule over us and judge by right." And they went across the sea to the Varangians, to Russia. Those Varangians were called Rus, as others are called the Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still other Gotlandians - that's how these are. Chud, Slovenia, Krivichi and the whole of Russia said: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come to reign and rule over us. " And three brothers with their families were elected, and took all Russia with them, and came, and the eldest, Rurik, sat in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, - on Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, - in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed ... "Surely Nestor, having made such a note, was sure that he had explained everything to his descendants.

But he was wrong. There were more riddles in his record, even for scholarly descendants, than guesses.

First, who are the Vikings? Maybe at the time of Nestor they knew exactly who they were ... But now they just don’t suppose about this. What people did they belong to? What does the word "Varangian" mean in general? Nationality or profession? A people or a bandit formation, such as today's Tambov, Kazan and Solntsevo groups? And what kind of clarification - not just to the Varangians they went to beg, but to the Varangians-Rus? If the state of Rus did not exist yet, where did this addition - "Rus" come from? Belonging to a caste of authorities? Or the people among the people?

For more than two hundred years, there have been two irreconcilable "parties" among scholars-historians with two points of view on this most important event. The first claims that Rurik and his brothers were Scandinavians, moreover, an unknown clan-tribe: either princes, or simply warriors-invaders, who were invited as defenders of the Slavs-tillers from the enemies, and they, the robbers, came, seized power, turned the Slavs into their slaves. They forced them to work for themselves, began to consider them their property, and since they called themselves Russians, the Slavs turned into Russians, which means belonging to the Russians. That is why the word "Russians", unlike the French, British, Americans and other names of nationalities, is not a noun, but an adjective. That is, it would be just as funny today to say not “French”, but “French”; not "English", but "English" ... And bankers in America are called American, such as belonging to American Indians. Well, then these Rus-Scandinavians have already come up with a legend: they say, the Slavs themselves called. Quite a real story even today. Americans, too, now enter all the countries of Latin America and North Africa, ostensibly by invitation, and then host.

Historian Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin

The second "party" categorically disagrees with this theory. He believes that Rurik and his brothers were a kind of Slavic, princely, since the Slavs could not invite those whom they had hated since ancient times. It’s like Doku Umarov or Kissinger’s being summoned to the Kremlin today. Although sometimes it seems to me that in our time even this is possible, since local governors and presidents are sometimes appointed from former bandits and militants. But let's not get distracted.

The Norman theory arose in the first half of the 18th century with the dominance of the Germans in Russian historical science. It was developed and substantiated with German thoroughness by academicians Gottlieb Bayer, Gerard Miller and August Schlözer. A sort of "Varangians" in science. Their theory was immediately approved by the tsarist "top". Here it should be recalled that, for example, Catherine II was a purebred ... German! How could she not like the statement that the first Grand Duke of the Slavs was a German? That he organized these incapable of numerous barbarians, savages, Slavs?

It should also be emphasized that all Russian tsars after Catherine were also Germans by blood. Naturally, the Norman theory not only took root for more than a hundred years, but very much to the liking of the Russian tsarist government. And entered all the textbooks! Even great historians such as Karamzin, Soloviev, Klyuchevsky were obliged to accept it. Otherwise, they would be treated as the Kremlin today treats those who are trying to assert that all the best that exists in today's Russia: education, military affairs, and much more - was inherited from the Soviet Union.

True, Karamzin in the History of the Russian State, as a true patriot, tried to hint that there could be another, not Norman, explanation of the word “Varangians-Rus”. But more on that later ... Whoever wants to, can read this chapter by Karamzin, dedicated to the vocation of the Varangians, himself carefully.

Normanist August Ludwig Schlözer

The second "party" of scholars who did not accept the Norman theory were called by the Normanists the "shameful" word "Slavophiles". They accused them of not being based on anything other than a false sense of patriotism. Although among the anti-Normanists there were such respected scholars as Lomonosov, Tatishchev, Shishkov and others.

This dispute was temporarily stopped by the Soviet government, which generally stigmatized all tsars, regardless of clan and tribe. Exploiters - that's all! And from whom they came, it did not matter for the proletarians. According to the tradition of all times and peoples, historians-scientists have once again been let down their new opinion: there has never been such a historical figure as Rurik! Legend, myth, fairy tale, invented by the tsars specifically to have an ideological platform for the exploitation of the Russian people.

The Normanists and Slavophiles were forced to reconcile. They told from above to reconcile - and reconciled! And they were friends! And when they met, they hugged and kissed, continuing to hate each other. However, the "official" dirt was no longer poured on top of each other. Although in the shower, with an opinion lowered from above, they probably did not agree and continued to argue in the kitchens, quietly snoring to the music of Vivaldi.

And how could one believe in this Soviet fairy tale?

But after all, all the princes, as well as the tsars - Ivan the Terrible, Fyodor Ioannovich and Vasily Shuisky - were called Rurikovich. So what happens? Did they take their "surname" from a non-existent fairytale character? Were that ignorant? Then why from the unknown? Why not from Ilya Muromets or from Alyosha Popovich? Can you imagine a real family of descendants from Sherlock Holmes, Chingachguk or from Karabas Barabas?

In general, the Soviet Union has just collapsed - disputes have flared up with new energy inherent only in released Russia.

Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev

However, the secret of secrets was not cleared up from this, but on the contrary. The reluctance of the "graduated" to listen to objections completely overshadowed their minds, and they still try to trample and destroy any evidence against the Norman theory. Or, by a majority of the "academic" votes, it can be declared a fake. Although true falsity is determined by no means a vote. We should have figured it out well for ourselves after the next elections.

In a word, politicians and rulers now have a difficult task - how to celebrate, it would seem, the most important date for the Motherland of the formation of their native state? How is the arrival of the Germans? Dangerous! The people will not rejoice. You look, again it will pour out onto Bolotnaya. And if we admit that the Varangians-Rus were of a Slavic kind, they would be accused of chauvinism in the West, they would not give loans, they would not be admitted to the Paris Club. And the Paris Club for today's gas and oil companies is more important than the history of the Fatherland - you cannot make a profit on the latter. It's better to celebrate on the sly, without hype, without fanning the problem. As with the burial of Lenin: if you bury it, half of the country will be indignant, but everyone seems to be used to it.

Okay, huh? Russia exists, but we are ashamed of the history of its formation.

The president, however, said somehow what he thinks (lately he dabbled in this several times a day), on which day to set the date for the formation of the Russian state, that is, the day of Rurik's arrival to the Slavs.

Okay, huh?

Not to study the reality, but to appoint this date from above. It is necessary to advise the president that he then inform Rurik about his decision there "upward", so that he also knows when he came with his brothers to the Slavs, and does not get confused in his testimony, if they interrogate him and our president in the Heavenly Court, arrange for them confrontation.

I was told that the churchmen even advised Medvedev to set this date for the winter and to coincide with one regular Christian holiday.

Gostomysl. Artist I.S. Glazunov

Okay, huh?

Firstly, when Rurik and his brothers began to reign in Russia, the Slavs did not yet have Christianity! Secondly, he came in the summer! How is this known? Elementary Watson! The chronicle directly says: the Varangians sailed on boats! One would like to ask: “Mr. President, did you try to sail to Ladoga in boats in winter? Or do you think that the Varangians had lodges developed in Skolkovo for nanotechnology? " Why am I writing all this?

This jubilee year is very beneficial in order to emerge from Krivda into Pravda.

Yes Yes! I will repeat this many times: we live in Krivda! Our history is not lost - it was deliberately cut off and stolen.

He who does not honor the past spits on the future!

Therefore, it would be necessary to help the future by restoring the past.

Of course, I would like to take advantage of the anniversary year and clarify something to our foolish people. Maybe some of them will “sober up” and become smart?

We need to learn from the Jews! Well done! How they cherish the history of their ancestors. And no one calls them Jewish philes, although they wrote their history as if nothing and no one existed around the world except for them for several thousand years: there were no great Greeks, no Celts, no Wends, no Crete with its first writing ... Even the Trojan War is mentioned in passing, as if a purely inter-village showdown.

Someone would try to introduce proofs into Israeli school textbooks that Moses was not a Jew, but was the illegitimate son of an Egyptian pharaoh, as anti-Semites sometimes claimed, referring to Freud.

I have always been friends with Jews and have learned a lot from them. I repeat once again: we must learn from them to respect our family! Then our children will obey their parents, as is often the case in Jewish families.

Umila is Rurik's mother. Artist I.S. Glazunov

Interestingly, our authorities have ever seriously thought about why our young people go to skinheads, to sects with chauvinistic and nationalist views? I think one of the main reasons is an inferiority complex. Natural pride in its history is replaced by pride, born of rejection of lies and Krivda. There is nothing more dangerous than the Russian people, living in pride, not knowing even the meaning of the word "rus"!

How do under-educated young people reason today? Ah, we are without family, without a tribe? Are we not capable of anything? Are we historical suck? Then we'll show you all now!

Unfortunately, the Norman theory is still winning in official history. She also "encodes" young people in school textbooks.

My assistants and I at one of the Internet forums conducted a survey of young people not under my name: "Who, in your opinion, was Rurik by nationality?"

The majority answered ... the Swede! A slightly smaller number of respondents called him Norwegian (and not even Norwegian). Three answered - Finn. Two are German. For some reason, only one believed that Rurik was an Englishman. Forty percent of the answers - "I do not know exactly, and how it matters." There are many who asked: "Who is this?" But one answer I liked especially:

- And, Rurik ... Well, this is the one who in our city covers the gas stations. But he was recently planted with Krendel.

Okay, huh? Rurik, it turns out, is Krendel's friend.

Well, how will these fellows celebrate the 1150th anniversary of the founding of Russia? What to drink for? How to say toasts? Understand. Together with the lost history, we have lost the meaning of our primordial holidays. We drink, and that's all! Well, we also have a snack. Well, that's good, that's enough. Got drunk, overeat - the holiday was a success!

Rurik is often confused with Yorick

True, lately more and more people appear in Russia who clarify our past for themselves, not wanting to live in Krivda anymore. They accept this past with its merits and demerits at the same time. Many Slavic clubs have opened in different cities of Russia. I have visited many of them and met with the guys. I know, unlike the majority in Russia, that they already know the truth. But, unfortunately, it is still not enough for us to choose worthy rulers from them, caring for the Fatherland.

To emerge from Krivda, today our history should be dealt with not by graduated academics led by politicians, but by ... investigators! A sort of modern Sherlock Holmes. Give him a clear task: "Find the stolen true story!" Collect evidence-evidence, point out the perpetrators and those who committed the forgery, and then transfer the case to a national court. But not in Basmanny.

I imagined what my beloved Livanov-Holmes would do in this case: firstly, he would sit down in a chair, light his pipe, drag on and ponder for a couple of days ... Quietly, he led the conversation with himself. One of his first very logical thoughts would probably be the following: in order to understand exactly who the first princes in Russia were, one must understand who they could not be! And for this it is necessary to interrogate witnesses. Historians, who are shaking with a shallow shiver for their prizes, pensions and grants, believe that there are no witnesses left, but in reality their darkness is dreadful: chronicles that are not customary to mention among the “graduated”; archaeological excavations of recent times, which are not customary to talk about, otherwise the lies that Lomonosov wanted to protect us from will appear ... The work, which at first would have seemed to Sherlock Holmes unusually difficult, would have turned out, to his surprise, much easier. I am sure that in a week or two he would have called his friend Watson and told him: - Watson, the first Russian princes were never Scandinavians!

- How did you come up with this, Holmes?

- Elementary Watson! I have interviewed all these witnesses. (In this case, Holmes would point to a stack of books, chronicles, chronicles, scientific works of foreign archaeologists.) The conclusion is unambiguous! The evidence is there! But let's talk about them, Watson, next time. After such hard work, I need to rest and light a new pipe. Come back in a couple of days. I will delight you. We are approaching unraveling the secrets of the secrets of Russian history.

Nestor is the chronicler. Sculpture by M. Antokolsky