Polar Stonehenge: The Mystery Of The Megaliths On The Usa River

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Video: Polar Stonehenge: The Mystery Of The Megaliths On The Usa River

Video: Polar Stonehenge: The Mystery Of The Megaliths On The Usa River
Video: Scientists Finally Crack Stonehenge Mystery 2024, March
Polar Stonehenge: The Mystery Of The Megaliths On The Usa River
Polar Stonehenge: The Mystery Of The Megaliths On The Usa River
Anonim
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According to the numerous stories of fishermen and hunters, in the very north of the Urals, where the taiga is replaced by bare tundra, not far from the ice Usa river costs a circle of 15 huge stone pillars about 8 m high, somewhat reminiscent of the famous British Stonehenge.

It looks like a complex of megaliths on the Usa river according to hunters

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The width and thickness of each pillar is the same throughout its height and is about half a meter, the diameter of the circle along which the stones are exposed is about 10 m. Who, when and for what purposes put these huge blocks in a circle, remains a mystery to this day.

The boulders are unlikely to be of natural origin, their edges are too smooth, besides, the traces of weathering clearly indicate the antiquity of the structure, but neither the study of the legends of the northern peoples, nor the inquiries of local residents clarify how it appeared in the polar Komi.

In September 2006, in the Komi Republic, in order to search for these megaliths, she visited the team of the Russian public research association "Cosmopoisk" … The result of their expedition leader Vadim Chernobrov called it successful. After the end of the expedition, in the same 2006, he gave an interview the newspaper "Youth of the North", which we publish below.

Why did you decide that the "Russian Stonehenge" should be looked for precisely on Usa?

- Indeed, there is no written mention of the existence of megalithic structures in the Polar Urals in archaeological works. Therefore, for a specialist, such a topic will seem completely unexpected. Numerous sites of ancient tribes and sacral caves are well explored, but they all lie south-west of the upper reaches of the Usa.

Some archaeological finds were made on Usa and even in the vicinity of Vorkuta, but still not east of Vorkuta, where “our” eyewitnesses pointed out. A blank spot on archaeological maps can mean areas that were absolutely not inhabited in antiquity, and blind "holes" where expeditions simply did not have time to equip.

That is, you went at random into the "blank spot"?

- Of course not. Half of the Vorkuta ethnographers and historians are convinced that there are megaliths in the tundra. And some even indicated their approximate location. There were too many eyewitness accounts to be considered just fiction.

And what did they tell?

- Half of the hunters and mushroom pickers claimed that they saw in the tundra stones standing around, one and a half to two meters high. However, these people were unable to approach them because of the swampy terrain. Others, on the contrary, no less confidently asserted that there have never been any stones on these swampy islands and cannot be. And, finally, a third of the eyewitnesses are convinced that they saw 7-8-meter pillars sticking out of the ground.

A generalized description of the "Russian Stonehenge" is approximately the following: in the tundra, in a circle about ten meters in diameter, there are 15 stone monoliths 7-8 meters high, the size of rectangular pillars both at the base and at a height of about half a meter by half a meter, there are no inscriptions or drawings on them.

If so, then this is the only ancient structure "like Stonehenge" on the vast continental part of Eurasia. There is a scatter in the readings: someone counted not fifteen, but ten or fewer stones. About half of those who saw the "big stones" approached them. Valery Moskalev approached the "small" megaliths more than 30 years ago.

That is, there are "large" and "small" megaliths in the tundra?

- Indeed, one and a half and seven meters is too wide a spread. But, having arrived at the place, during the polls of Vorkuta residents, we found out that these are different objects. Eyewitnesses who did not know each other pointed to three places where in the tundra they saw "megaliths as tall as a man", and two places where they observed 7-8 meter pillars. Megalithic "little ones" were seen on the northern bank of the Usa in different years.

Moreover, in some years one person could see megaliths, and after a year or two other hunters passed through these places, not noticing any stones. It is possible to see human-sized megaliths on the flat surface of the tundra from a distance of a couple of kilometers. Both those who saw and those who did not see alike swore and argued that their information was worth believing. Some kind of mysticism.

Two years ago in the newspaper of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug "Nyaryana vyder" in Maria Kaneva's article "There were tundra and legends of the Nenets land" I read about the "running" stones of the tundra: "… there is a very strange place in our tundra where reindeer herders are afraid to approach … about a dozen stones of human height are located on a stone ledge

They were arranged by someone in a certain order, and when people drive past these statues, it seems that the stone giants start running from place to place. Hence the name of this complex - Surbert, which in translation from Nenets means "running". I have given this information to you. Maybe these very stones are "running" under Vorkuta too?

- Yes, I remember this message. And we took this fact into account when searching for megaliths. At first, we were in for a failure. We examined all the places indicated by eyewitnesses, and nowhere did we find any megaliths.

And only on the seventh day of the expedition, Alexander Solyony, going up to the mound that interested him, on the other side of it noticed a chain of huge stones on the horizon …

Really "those same megaliths"? But the new place was about three kilometers from the coast of Usa, while, according to eyewitnesses, it should be “somewhere here”, at a distance of 500-700 meters from the coast. The next day, the group went through the swamps in the direction of the stones.

Finally, they approached so much that the stones were already visible without binoculars. No one doubted that before us was a circle about 20 meters in diameter made of about a dozen rectangular stones, each of which was as tall as a man. They were so close that they seemed to have a couple of minutes' walk left. But it took another half hour to look for a trail in the swamps.

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And only when the quagmire began to end, it became noticeable that the "megaliths" were not quite ordinary.

What everyone took for stones from afar turned out to be huge bales on sledges, covered with a dark moisture-proof cloth.

It became clear that the bales belonged to some reindeer breeder, from them in several places stuck out deer skins, antlers, bones, skis and other simple belongings.

In a word, winter things, laid aside until the cold weather in the most inaccessible place of the tundra. For obvious reasons, the aborigines deliberately chose such a place, for sure they change the "point" of storing their goods every year.

In general, this explains the mystery of the "nomadic" objects, which every year, like ghosts, appear here and there and from afar look like stones, but not everyone can get close to them.

Well, tell me, what mushroom picker or hunter will spend several hours in the swamps for the dubious pleasure of touching "ordinary" stones ?! Perhaps those who came to the tundra for the sake of these very stones! And such an attempt, as we now know, was made for the first time … Just in case, we take pictures of the parking lot and fix its coordinates by GPS.

Was this the end of your findings?

- No. Returning to the camp, we passed the previously seen mound. With its forms, it resembled the burial mounds so widespread in the south of Russia. But it is one thing to dig the soft, pliable soil of chernozem, and quite another to hammer and drag pieces of permafrost. To resolve doubts, a geological pit was made.

At a depth of half a meter, wood ash and traces of human activity were found in the pit. That's right, mound! Here in the Arctic! Digging burials is not included in our plans - we carefully bury the pit. This secret will wait in the wings … A few more days of searching in the tundra cooling down in the autumn winds bring new finds.

In academic reference books and maps of archaeological finds of the Komi Republic, the excavation sites of the so-called sacral caves, places with traces of ancient sites are indicated, the most northeastern of them end tens of kilometers downstream of the Usa. We were fifty kilometers higher when we managed to find several small grottoes, and a little later another cave, sufficient in volume for a small tribe to live.

Well, have you found the megaliths yourself? Or is it all fiction?

- And yet there are megaliths! Not "nomadic", but ordinary. The winter cache we found had unexpected consequences. In the deserted tundra, a signal device that was invisible to the eye and inaudible to the ear seemed to have worked. The fact that strangers had visited the caches became known to the owner almost instantly. Soon he appeared on the horizon on a reindeer sled.

Meeting with the natives in the cold desert - they say that at this time of the year this is an almost impossible event, but it happened. Nenets Nikolai was surprised at the meeting no less than ours. The conversation and the reindeer ride dragged on for a long time. Kolya was surprised that we are not interested in precious stones, but in ordinary stones, so he named the places where he met such "standing stones" and people who know more.

We talked about life, Nicholas complained about the bear, which recently “tore two deer in half”! I was not surprised at the mention of chuchunu. “No,” he says, “the chuchuna lives further, across the river”.

What kind of chuchuna is this?

- This is the second goal of our expedition. "Chuchuna" is the local name for Bigfoot, the mention of which causes a skeptical smile among many. For many, but not for the Nenets … We were just in those places where the cryptozoologist Vladimir Pushkarev once disappeared under very mysterious circumstances.

In 1978, he came, as he believed, to a meeting with a chuchuna, and … no one else ever saw the researcher himself. All that the search party found was a folded tent abandoned on the river bank. Attempts to find the body have led nowhere. Pushkarev has been considered missing since then. Just where we need to go in search of the megaliths indicated by Nicholas.

According to local residents, we are making a map of "real", not "running" megaliths. Most are on the southeast coast or even closer to the mountains. The northernmost peaks of the Polar Urals are at a glance from here! How not to remember that in local legends appears "a ring thrown on the ground."

Some of the historians believe that the "ring" is the Ural ridge itself. But the ridge is a line on the map. Where, then, is the "ring"? The locals pointed out to us where the ring “lies”. A ring of stones 7-8 meters high. They have been standing for so long that everyone considers their origin to be natural.

Further, Nikolai says, there is a large rectangular stone with smooth edges. His fellow countrymen add that there are even more sacred stones-megaliths on the river with the telling name Seida (northern peoples call the sacred stones seids). Another river is also named, on the banks of which megaliths are large, but "it is better not to go there, no one has ever returned from there."

It looks like fairy tales. Why didn't you come back? And who, then, told? Is it worth believing all this?.. Something can be believed. For example, the fact that even with primitive technology, the local peoples could build a structure of rectangular stones.

Accidentally dropped one large oblong stone on top of another. And one of the stones split, leaving on the chip … a smooth long edge. At a quick glance, it seemed hand-crafted. So, making rectangles out of local stones is not difficult!

And besides, who said that they did it with the help of primitive technology? The Komi people have lived in this part of the republic for only 200 years, the Nenets have been living here for half a millennium. And before?..

So you got to the megaliths or not? Have you seen them?

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- We saw only from afar in the rain and across the river.

When there was very little left to the 7-meter “ring”, the water blocked our way. It was necessary to cross to the waist in icy water, and the mountain current could only be overcome with a rope.

And when we almost decided on this adventure, we guessed to measure the water level. It grew every hour - in the mountains that day the rains did not stop.

Had we risked crossing over to the other side, the return trip would have been cut off. And one more legend about megaliths that “don't let anyone out” would be more.

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