Hundreds of years ago, this beautiful place in the middle reaches of the Volga received the name "Samarskaya Luka" - from the word "bend". The most famous is the northern, elevated part of this Volga peninsula, which has long been called the Zhigulevsky mountains. Due to the unique diversity of natural landscapes, as well as representatives of flora and fauna living on its territory, Samarskaya Luka is now included in the UNESCO catalogs as a natural and historical monument of world importance, subject to comprehensive protection.
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Secrets of the underground labyrinths
But at the same time, it is less known that the Volga bend has long been included in another list of world sights, which has been compiled by international organizations researching mysterious and anomalous phenomena on Earth and beyond. Anomalous people believe that the Samarskaya Luka with the Zhigulevsky mountains is one of those 10-12 points on the map of Russia, where unusual and largely mysterious processes manifest themselves ten times more often than in other parts of the planet.
From the analysis of Zhiguli legends and legends, which Samara folklorists began to collect back in the 19th century, one can draw a quite definite conclusion: local residents became closely acquainted with the local mysteries and "miracles" hundreds of years ago, when Russian people first began to settle on the Middle Volga. Coastal villages such as Shiryaevo and Usolye were founded in the 17th century.
By the time of the accession to the throne of Catherine II.
On Samarskaya Luka, there were already dozens of villages, including the still existing Rozhdestveno, Vypolzovo, Podgory, Shelekhmet, Sosnovy Solonets, Askuly and others. However, the free life of local muzhiks ended rather quickly: in the middle of her reign, the all-Russian autocrat gave her favorite Grigory Orlov (Fig. 12) all of Samarskaya Luka, together with the villages.
For hundreds of years of communication with the wild Zhiguli nature, the local peasants have repeatedly encountered the mysterious and incomprehensible. And since any riddle always strongly excites the human soul, the memory of such meetings was preserved in subsequent generations in the form of legends and bylikas. One of the earliest collectors of Zhiguli folklore was Dmitry Nikolayevich Sadovnikov (1847-1883), a Russian poet, folklorist and ethnographer.
He was born in Simbirsk, here he studied at the gymnasium, in which he later served as a teacher. Sadovnikov became the compiler of the most complete and scientifically best collection "Mysteries of the Russian People", which was published in St. Petersburg in 1876. Subsequently, he published a number of books about the Volga folklore, including collections of his own poems based on folk texts. The most famous poetic work of Sadovnikov is considered to be a poem about Stepan Razin "From the Island to the Rod", which was later set to music and quickly became a truly folk song.
After his sudden death, his unique work “Tales and Legends of the Samara Territory” (1884) was published in the journal “Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society”. This was the very first printed review of the folklore of our province, in which a significant part was occupied by the records of legends and myths recorded from the words of the inhabitants of villages and villages lost in the Zhiguli mountains.
Sadovnikov immediately noted that local stories and epics abound in the most incredible miracles. Although some of the Zhiguli folk legends have something in common with the Ural, Bashkir, Mordovian and Tatar legends, yet most of them have no analogues in the oral folk art of the peoples of all European Russia.
Especially interesting was the collective character from these legends - the so-called underground elders.
According to legends, this is a mysterious caste of hermits living in caves unknown to the human eye and possessing hidden knowledge, as well as amazing abilities. Outwardly, they look like fine-looking gray-haired old men who can suddenly appear and disappear right in front of a lonely traveler. And at the same time, the anomalous people have information that legends about the same elders can be found not only in Zhiguli, but also in a number of other places in Russia, which are among the so-called "geographic points with increased anomalies."
According to many testimonies, underground elders from different regions of our country constantly communicate with each other. For example, this is how these mysterious underground hermits are described in the novel "In the Woods" by P. I. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky):
"The Kirillovy mountains are parting … The elders are stupid, they worship the sailors in the belt, ask them to take their bows, kissing the brothers of the Zhigulevsky mountains in absentia …" anomalous zones of Russia.
In all legends, mysterious elders act as keepers of peace in the area they patronize. At the same time, hermits strive to preserve the local nature intact, and sometimes they come to the aid of victims of attacks by robbers or unjustly offended people. However, it also happens that the elders go out “to the people” to communicate some important, in their opinion, information. These are not necessarily predictions about some great and tragic events, although there is information that they, for example, informed people about the coming first and second world wars. Sometimes the elders provide the world with very "ordinary" information, usually of a moral and ethical or even ecological nature.
There is one interesting fact that can also be compared with reports of underground hermits. In the guidebook of the Kuibyshev ethnographer A. V. Sobolev.
“Zhigulevskaya Around the World”, published back in 1965, has the following lines: “In the area of the village of Perevoloki, at the end of the 19th century, caves were discovered, the entrances to which had a kind of doors. Caves with windows, niches in the walls, a ceiling with a vault … Similar caves surrounded the neighboring village of Pecherskoye (its name comes from the word "cave"), where peasants found gravestones with Arabic inscriptions … During the excavations, stone cellars, iron chains were found …"
Of course, now the scientific world does not yet have one hundred percent reliable information about the existence of some special human race in the undergrounds of the Samara Luka. But can't the above legends, as well as archaeological finds, be a reason for the interest of future researchers?
Sorcerer's cunning apprentice
Another local legend brings an original intrigue to these epics about mysterious underground elders. According to him, in very ancient times, when there was not a single human habitation in these places yet, a certain magician and sorcerer settled in the bowels of the Zhiguli - a white sorcerer.
He left people to find a way to eternal happiness, and in the mysterious underground silence he practiced magic, the result of which was the appearance of magical things never before seen by anyone. Among such miracles, for example, there was an amazing flying boat, glowing in the dark, on which the magician flew over the mountains more than once, which greatly astonished people. Then he invented a perpetual bell-ringing clock that could be wound only once every hundred years. But the most wonderful invention of the sorcerer was the magic furnace, which could turn stones into gold.
The old-timers of these places, who hunted for hunting, fishing and bee-keeping, at first were openly afraid of the mysterious inhabitant of the Zhiguli underground. The sorcerer himself very rarely showed himself to the eyes of people, and most often this happened during times of any ordeal. For example, once the darkness of the steppe nomads came to the banks of the Volga, who before that plundered and burned many settlements beyond the Volga. Peaceful fishermen and hunters, at the sight of the conquerors, fled in fear deep into the Zhiguli mountains. And then the wizard, in order to save the villagers from the wild horde, with the onset of night, flew out to meet the aliens on his flying boat, which emitted mysterious green rays from itself. Seeing something incomprehensible and sparkling directly above them, the nomads fled in horror back to their steppe, and since then they did not dare to enter the forest Zhiguli region any more.
Legends also say that with the help of his witchcraft, the underground sorcerer managed to extend his life to several thousand years, but he could not achieve complete immortality. That is why, once feeling the approach of his last hour, the sorcerer decided to break off his seclusion and took a student for himself so that he could continue the work he had begun. However, to his misfortune, this magician and wizard did not know people well, since the student he invited turned out to be envious and greedy. Of all the mysterious machines, he most liked the wonderful furnace that turned stones into gold. The student was in such a hurry to become the master of the Zhiguli dungeons that one day he could not stand it, and, seizing the moment, threw into the muzzle of the magic machine not a stone block, but his teacher. But when he grabbed the gold ingot that had come out of the furnace, into which the unfortunate sorcerer had turned,then the killer, unexpectedly for himself, fell ill with a strange disease that, within only a few days, turned the young guy into a bald old man coughing up blood, who soon died in terrible agony.
Since then, as the legend says, in the depths of the Zhiguli mountains are hidden amazing creations of the deceased sorcerer. It is incredibly difficult to find them, because there is only one door to the dungeon, and it opens only once every hundred years, but only for a kind person. The finder of this dungeon must wind up the magic clock, and as a reward he has the right to take as much treasure from the cave as he can carry. According to legend, the entrance to the mysterious temple was once found by Stenka Razin and Emelka Pugachev, and it was then, after visiting the underworld, that they had both strength and gold in order to raise the people against the rule of dark forces.
But if we translate all the names from the ancient legend into modern language, then we will be surprised to find that these miracles are now well known to each of us. Judge for yourself: the flying boat of the sorcerer is very reminiscent of an aircraft - something like a modern helicopter. This is exactly how, according to the descriptions, some types of UFOs that eyewitnesses regularly observe in the area of Samarskaya Luka look like. Any mechanism with an isotope power source can be an eternal watch, which one winding lasts for a hundred years, and a furnace that turns stones into gold is, of course, a nuclear reactor, where some chemical elements are converted into others.
As for the strange illness, from which within a few days the insidious student of the sorcerer first decayed, and then completely died in torment, it is very similar to an acute form of radiation sickness. After all, it is known that a person really dies from a powerful dose of radiation very quickly, and this, unfortunately, has been proven more than once during nuclear explosions and accidents. However, whether such miracles really exist, it will be possible to find out only after new studies of the underworld of Samara Luke.
Mistress of the Zhigulevsky mountains
Back in the 19th century, folklorists drew attention to the fact that most of the epics and legends of the Samara Territory converge on the same legendary character - the Mistress (or Sorceress) of the Zhiguli Mountains.
According to legend, she lives in mysterious caves deep in the mountain range.
Only occasionally appearing on the surface and showing themselves to people.
If at this time she meets a good fellow, then the hostess can invite him to her, to the underground palaces, promising fabulous riches and eternal life. However, until now, all the good fellows who met the sorceress have refused these benefits, and therefore the underground mistress has been mourning her longing and loneliness for thousands of years. These tears flow from the rock into the Stone Bowl,
where the only water source of the Zhiguli mountains is located.
Legends also say that mysterious creatures - strange white dwarfs - served the underground sorceress. In bylichki they are called "underground chud". They are also said to be "so transparent that trees are visible through them." They could suddenly disappear in one place - and immediately appear in another. Like the elders, the dwarfs could, as if out of the ground, suddenly suddenly appear in front of a weary pedestrian in order to lead him straight to the house, and then, having done their good deed, before his eyes, as if disappearing into thin air.
In the legend recorded in the middle of the 19th century by the aforementioned collector of folklore D. N. Sadovnikov, local residents describe them as follows: "A man of small stature, with a bony body, with skin covered with scales, with huge eyes, a deadening gaze and a mysterious property to transfer consciousness from body to body." The last words, apparently, meant that the underground inhabitants had telepathic abilities.
The first settlers of Samara Luka were wary of the ruler of the Zhiguli dungeons herself, and her transparent servants, and the mysterious elders, and therefore did not risk unnecessarily wandering through the forests. However, people were regularly convinced that the sorceress and her entourage were distinguished by a peaceful disposition, since they never offended people.
Some other phenomena from the local folklore are also associated with the Mistress of these places - in particular, the so-called "Mirage of the Peaceful City".
According to legends, sometimes in the morning fog an extraordinary vision appeared before the peasants of the villages of Askuly, Pine Solonets, Anurovka and some others. According to the villagers, it looked like a fantastic city with old houses, towers and fortress walls, as if hanging in the air against a background of foggy haze. Usually this performance lasted only a few minutes, and then it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Of course, popular rumor attributed the appearance of such "pictures" to the magic charms of the Mistress of the Zhiguli Mountains, who sometimes entertained herself in this way and entertained local residents.
For the first time the mirage of the “Peaceful City” in 1636 was mentioned in his book by the Holstein traveler Adam Olearius. Another name for the same phenomenon is "Fortress of Five Moons", "White Church", "Fata Morgana" and so on. However, sometimes on the Volga bend you can see other mirages, which the locals call the "Temple of the Green Moon" (a ghostly structure in the form of an amazing iridescent tower), and the "Waterfall of Tears", which popular rumor attaches to the famous spring Stone Bowl, as well as a disappearing lake located in the Yelgushi tract.
Such mirages most often manifest themselves near the Molodetsky and Usinsky kurgans, as well as in the region of the lakes that stretch between the villages of Mordovo and Brusyany. According to many observers, here at dawn a ghost town may suddenly appear in front of the astonished traveler, only to disappear again in a minute or two. Those who have seen this mirage say that it resembles a fairytale castle with a white fortress wall and turrets with white flags flying.
This mirage is also mentioned in the collection "Pearls of the Zhiguli", published back in Soviet times - in 1974. Here they say about him as follows: “And when the sun rises in the east over the Volga, the palaces and walls of the Mirny city become visible over the river. And he stands in the old way, and waits for people to need his wealth."
By the way, geological data indicate that in a number of points of the Zhiguli mountains in ancient times, in fact, waterfalls could exist. In this regard, the researchers attribute the described phenomena to the group of so-called "chronomirages". It is assumed that they are reflections of the realities of the distant past, projected into the present.
In the same row, it is worth mentioning such a mysterious phenomenon of the Zhiguli Mountains as the "columns of hard light" that suddenly appear in the night air.
Outwardly, they look like luminous vertical columns up to several meters long and up to a meter in diameter, suddenly appearing in the air over certain areas of the terrain. One of the last reports of such a "pillar" came in 2005 from the area of the village of Podgora. By the way, from time to time in such places observers see not glowing, but … black columns, also hanging in the air.
This phenomenon is most often observed over the eastern part of the Zhiguli, and not only in Podgory, but, for example, also in the Shiryaevsky ravine, in the area of the Kamennaya chascha spring. The earliest story about this Zhiguli mystery in the form of a local tale is again mentioned by Dmitry Sadovnikov. This is what he wrote down from the words of the old residents of the Zhigulevsky village of Shiryaevo (dated from 1870 to 1875).
“After Ilyin’s day, Ivan Mukhanov, a man from Shiryaev, went to the forest for firewood, but he was delayed. And then the twilight caught him. He was greedy, he loaded the firewood notably - the horse could hardly trudge along. Well, Ivan does not lose heart, the road is familiar. He purrs a song under his breath, but he looks so that the wheel does not slide into the hole. And already the night had descended over the mountains, with each step darker and darker. The first stars appeared. Well, Ivan thinks: "It's still seven miles to the house, no more, I'll get there by midnight, and I'll unload the load tomorrow."
Then suddenly the horse jerked and began to snore. "Are the wolves really?" - Ivan shuddered. Only suddenly, by accident, he glanced to the left - priests, light over the mountain! Really, he thinks, he lost his way and drove past his village? Looked around. Although it is dark, the road is clear. Yes, and the horse sensed the proximity of the house, started almost at a run. Vedomo, a village nearby, only three versts left.
And the light above the mountain flares up and stands like a pillar. Now he was already behind. Goosebumps ran down Ivashka's spine - otherwise the goblin wants to knock him out of the way. Thank God, the horse rushed up the hill in an instant. How many times Ivan was baptized, he does not remember, the last time he overshadowed himself with a sign when he entered the gate. And then from the old people I heard that it was the mistress of the Zhigulevsky mountains after Ilyin's day, she went out for a walk at night, and the light from the door of her underground room all night long stood over the mountain”.
This Zhiguli story is echoed by reports about "pillars of hard light" collected by the non-governmental research organization "Avesta". This is how young scientists-enthusiasts, who decided to devote themselves to studying the age-old mysteries of the Samara region, named their group back in 1983. The guys chose this name for their organization because the ancient sacred book of wisdom is called "Avesta". And although now the majority of the "Avestovites" are already under fifty, and many of them occupy respectable positions, all the same, these people still remain the same fans of the study of Zhiguli anomalies as they were a quarter of a century ago.
For more than a quarter of a century, the "Avestans" have been studying the unofficial history of the Volga region, hidden in folk tales, legends and myths. In their opinion, legends, epics and tales are good because they, being the work of ordinary people, are far from always pleasing to the authorities, and therefore for centuries they keep in people's memory those facts and observations that do not fit into the official point of view and cannot be explained in terms of neither mainstream religion nor mainstream science.
Below are some observations of the "pillars of hard light" recorded by the researchers of the "Avesta" according to eyewitnesses.
May 1932. Early Sunday morning. In the pre-dawn semi-darkness, an observer (his name and surname was not preserved), who was on the outskirts of Samara, saw a strange "ray of solid light" that arose over the mountains on the opposite side of the Volga. The beam had no visible source. For some time it hung in the form of a pillar over the mountains and over the Volga, then sharply sank down onto the water, causing clearly visible waves. After contact with water, the phenomenon disappeared.
August 1978. Summer camp "Solnechny" near the village of Gavrilova Polyana (eastern outskirts of Zhiguli). At about 11 pm, during the evening formation of the children, a vertical column of light appeared in the sky, which was seen by about 200 children. For several minutes he hung motionless over the mountains, then began to descend. Further evidence is contradictory - the vast majority of eyewitnesses simply lost sight of the object, but several people assured that bright rays hit the object in different directions (including in the direction of the camp). After that, he disappeared from sight.
End of August 1988. Several observers who were on the embankment in Samara saw green light spots over the Volga and distant Zhiguli at about midnight. They appeared in the air one after another, then disappeared just as quickly. The spots looked like ellipses and vertical stripes.
This information is collected by "Avesta". Its representatives travel to Samarskaya Luka and the Volga Islands almost every year to study the Zhiguli mysteries. And almost every summer season he replenishes the Avesta dossier with descriptions of observations of some phenomena.
Here is how the vice-president of Avesta Oleg Vladimirovich Ratnik comments on the messages about Zhiguli "pillars of hard light"
lecturer at the Samara International Aviation and Space Lyceum.
- I was able to observe the phenomenon described above personally, and it happened, as already mentioned, in August 1998. Our research group at that moment was in the Kamennaya Chasha tract in the Shiryaevsky ravine. After midnight we suddenly saw "something" appear over the mountains. We did not notice the object right away, it seemed to thicken out of the air, and every minute it was shining brighter and brighter. When they paid attention to it, it looked like a typical “column of hard light” emerged from the local legend.
By the way, residents of Zhiguli villages also call it simply "candle". Imagine a long, cylindrical, shining clot hanging in the air against the backdrop of a night forest-covered mountain range - and you get a rough idea of what you saw. It was difficult to judge the size of the object at that time, since it was not possible to determine the exact distance to it. Nevertheless, some members of our group estimated its length from 5 to 10 meters, diameter - about half a meter. From the moment the observation began, the "column of hard light" was slowly moving all the time in the direction from the mountains to the valley, and after about an hour it melted into the air as slowly as it had appeared.
It was here and on this very day that we arrived because it was at this point in space-time that there was the greatest likelihood of meeting a mysterious phenomenon. And we calculated it on the basis of an analysis of local legends and traditions, which for about a hundred years have been collected by ethnographers and folklorists on Samarskaya Luka. To be honest, we didn’t really hope that we would be able to notice anything, but as you can see, this time our group was lucky.
At the same time, scientific data say that this phenomenon does not belong at all to the field of mysticism, but, on the contrary, has a completely realistic, natural basis. In particular, Samara physicists believe that such a vertical glow of air can appear when it is ionized, and it, in turn, usually occurs in the zone of action of powerful electromagnetic or radiation radiation.
What exactly can be the source of such radiation in Zhiguli remains to be understood by specialists. However, the latest geological studies in the Middle Volga region show that our region is included in the zone of distribution of underground uranium and radium deposits. In particular, in the region of Samarskaya Luka, rocks with an industrial content of radioactive elements lie at a depth of 400-600 meters from the earth's surface. It is quite possible that in the Zhiguli mountains there are "windows" through which this natural radiation periodically breaks out, after which layers of ionized glowing air appear over the mountain ranges.
Secrets of the ancient miners
Another Zhiguli mystery - the legend about the treasures buried here in ancient times - is closely connected with the phenomenon of "hard light".
But in order to understand this connection, one must first recall Goethe's "Faust", namely those lines where Mephistopheles gives the scientist a precise indication of the methods of searching for treasures hidden under the ground.
Here we read the following:
It turns out that in a number of places in the Samara region this recommendation of Mephistopheles can be used on quite scientific grounds to search for rare and precious metals - for example, silver. The analyst of the "Avesta" organization, candidate of technical sciences Sergey Markelov knows this for sure.
- Small deposits of silver of non-industrial value in our region have been known for hundreds of years. In any case, some folk craftsmen from the Mordovian villages of Shelekhmet, Podgory, Vypolzovo and other neighboring villages, even under Count Orlov, were able to dig silver veins in the thickness of the mountains, and then even smelt white metal from this ore. In any case, the Samara ethnographers are well aware of the local silver jewelry.
It should be said right away that such deposits of precious metals are very rare for our region. Against this background, it is extremely surprising that the amateur miners of the past were generally able to recognize the right place in the earth's crust, so that later they could dig here, even a small, but still a mine, and then extract silver ore from it.
However, if we recall the above lines from "Faust", then the explanation of such insight of ancient geologists can be found quite easily. Indeed, it has now been scientifically proven that large accumulations of metals underground, as well as underground veins containing metals, noticeably affect the electromagnetic field of the Earth.
In turn, this altered field affects any living organism. This influence can be very diverse, including the one described by Goethe. By the way, it is on this effect that the well-known dowsing method is based.
(now it is called biolocation), with the help of which the ancient miners found metal deposits in ancient times.
Treasures in Zhiguli and other places of the Samara Luka were searched for back in the 18th century, - continues Sergey Alexandrovich. - They were associated either with Stenka Razin, or with his legendary friend atamansha Manchikha, after whom the mountain near the village of Podgora was later named. It was believed that it was in these places that Manchikha and her gang once buried a myriad of chests with treasures looted from the rich. However, despite numerous attempts to search for treasure, the local "gentlemen of fortune" never managed to find a single chest.
But in the meantime, the laws of physics tell us that underground treasures should be sought exactly in those places where the above-mentioned "columns of hard light" were noted above the mountains. As the evidence of recent years shows, this phenomenon is no longer in the realm of legends - it has been reliably proven that the "pillars" actually exist.
From the point of view of physics, this rare phenomenon can be explained quite easily. The "pillars of light" are of a clear electromagnetic nature. They arise over those parts of the earth's crust where a polymetallic vein or underground water flow passing at a certain depth makes a sharp bend. It is at such break points that the structure of the earth's electromagnetic field changes sharply, leading to ionization of the air above this area and to its subsequent glow.
And in some, very rare cases, all the same ionization can lead to the fact that at a given point in space the rays of light will not be scattered, but absorbed. It is here that not "light", but "black columns" appear. Remember: a fluorescent lamp also has completely black areas inside which light quanta are absorbed.
All these assumptions about ancient treasure hunters and about silver veins in the Zhiguli mountains are still largely only assumptions. But here is one very real fact confirming that the silver deposits in the Samara region are far from fiction. Two kilometers from the village of Podgora, in a mountain valley, there is a deep well called Silver. The local population has taken water from it from time immemorial, not without reason considering it very tasty, and even more so - healing. And not so long ago, scientists from the Avesta group took water samples from this well, and then subjected them to chemical analysis. The result looks truly sensational: the silver content in this water exceeds the norm by more than 100 times!
So, in fact, somewhere in the depths of the Zhiguli, underground water washes a silver vein, saturated with this noble metal? Or maybe it does not flow through the silver deposit, but through the treasure chests of the legendary chieftain Manchikha?
Reports on the deposits of precious metals in the Samara region were received in Soviet times. Here is an excerpt from an article by the geologist A. Plakhov, published in the newspaper Volzhskaya Kommuna in September 1935: “… In the summer, at the mouth of the spring, all rocks and soil were covered with white silvery mold. Soon I managed to extract 25 grams of pure mercury and a little gold and silver from a piece of pyrite I found (weighing 250 grams) during decomposition. Then one day I discovered small inclusions of gold in a piece of ore."
In these lines, the researcher described an abandoned mine near the village of Trubetchina in the Syzran district of the Kuibyshev region, where, according to his information, precious metals were found even in pre-revolutionary times. Of course, the then miners could not establish their industrial mining in the "Syzran Klondike", but in some cases they were just as lucky as Plakhov: in some pieces of ore they found inclusions of real gold and silver.
Although everyone is well aware that the territory of the Samara region is composed of sedimentary rocks, and there seems to be no metal deposits, real life has already refuted these decades-old classical canons of earth sciences. After all, the famous naturalist P. S. Pallas,
who visited the territory of the modern Samara region in 1768, in his book "Travels in different provinces of the Russian Empire" pointed out the copper deposits in the upper reaches of the Sheshma and Zai rivers that flow through the present Klyavlinsky and Shentalinsky districts of the Samara region. The scientist wrote that in the local sandstones "there was a thin copper ore, usually containing a lot of sand and clay." And before him, even under Peter I,
As it follows from the message in the newspaper "Vedomosti" for 1703, they tried to smelt copper from the same ore on the Sok River. However, due to its poverty, the developers did not manage to get an industrial amount of metal.
And in Zhiguli, during the quarrying of building stone, layers with such veins, consisting mainly of copper bicarbonates, which are better known as the minerals malachite and azurite, were repeatedly exposed. In particular, in the 60s, during the development of the Yablonevskoe deposit of limestone and dolomite, excavators discovered a powerful copper-bearing vein about 700 meters long. Gray-green crystals of malachite and blue-blue crystals of azurite were clearly visible in it.
In the same vein, minerals with a high content of iron, copper, aluminum, chromium, lead, molybdenum, nickel and even such rare and exotic metals for the Middle Volga region as germanium, rhenium, tungsten, silver and gold were also found. Then, over the course of several years, such strange interlayers, albeit less thick, were found more than once in Zhiguli limestones. The very fact of these findings was classified for about fifteen years - until at the end of the 70s of the last century geologists came to the conclusion that the Zhiguli metal veins had no industrial significance. That is why this geological phenomenon was described in a small brochure published in a tiny edition.
Even greater secrecy in the 30s hung over the exploration of aluminum deposits in Samarskaya Luka. It turned out that the most powerful layers of this mineral lay (and still lie!) At a shallow depth near the village of Ermakovo on Samarskaya Luka - where there is now a vast dacha massif. And since smelting aluminum from any rock requires a lot of electricity, the proximity of a hydroelectric power station to an alunite mine promised to give the country fantastically cheap metal - its cost could be an order of magnitude lower than at leading foreign plants.
In 1942-1944, near the village of Ermakovo, drilling operations were carried out in order to determine the mineral reserves and the exact content of aluminum in it. And then it turned out that the alunite deposits in Samarskaya Luka are very insignificant - the thickness of the layers did not exceed half a meter. In addition, many silicon compounds were found in them, the cost of purifying the metal from which negated the cheapness of its extraction and transportation. That is why it was decided to postpone the idea of aluminum mining on the banks of the Volga. And after the discovery in the 50s of huge bauxite deposits in Siberia and the construction of giants of the aluminum industry here, the question of developing the Middle Volga aluminum was finally removed.
Nevertheless, it should be admitted that the earth's interior in the region of the Middle Volga region, including the Samarskaya Luka, is still poorly studied to this day. This means that new geological research in our region can present scientists with many more surprises.
Monsters of the Zhiguli mountains
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the then still unknown Samara engineer Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovsky
put forward a project for the construction of a hydroelectric power station in the narrowest part of the Middle Volga - in the Zhigulevsky gate.
The project caused quite a stir in Samara. At least the following fact speaks of the intensity of passions: on June 9, 1913, to the city of Sorrento, in Italy, where at that time the owner of all Zhiguli lands, Count Vladimir Petrovich Orlov-Davydov, lived,
a telegram came from Bishop Simen of Samara and Stavropol. In the dispatch, he tearfully begged the count: “… I call upon you the grace of God, I ask you to accept the archpastoral notification: on your ancestral domains, the projectors of the Samara Technical Society, together with the apostate engineer Krzhizhanovsky, are designing the construction of a dam and a large power station. Show mercy by your arrival to preserve God's peace in the Zhiguli possessions and destroy sedition at conception."
The count considered Krzhizhanovsky's idea extravagant and did not even think to return to Russia for such an insignificant reason. He only instructed his manager in Samara to give a categorical refusal for such a construction. However, at that time, Orlov, even in a nightmare, could not dream that only seven years after the project was announced, in February 1920, by the decision of the Soviet government, the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) was formed, and G. M. Krzhizhanovsky was appointed its chairman. And on December 23, 1920, he delivered his famous report on the GOELRO plan at the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets, where the project received the unconditional approval of the delegates.
But only in 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution in which the USSR State Planning Committee was instructed to "turn its face to Volgostroi, draw up a project, and identify all the possibilities of its construction." It was assumed that already on April 1, 1932, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR would approve a project of such a construction so that in 1937-1938 the most important national economic facility was put into operation.
In connection with the above, at the beginning of 1931, special exploration parties from the Institute for Water and Geotechnical Research for Volgostroi arrived in Zhigulevskie Gory, which worked here under the general supervision of engineer Alexander Sergeevich Barkov.
Teams of geologists studied the streams of underground Zhiguli waters, clarified the internal structure of mountain ranges, mapped various karst structures, primarily poorly studied cave systems, some of which, as it turned out, permeated the entire mountain mass of the Zhiguli almost through and through. The conclusion of the geologists was unambiguous: due to the huge number of such cracks, voids and cavities, almost immediately after the construction of the dam, water will begin to leak from the reservoir bypassing the hydroelectric complex.
And such a cataclysm will cause almost instant flooding not only of the entire territory of Samara, but also of many other cities located downstream of the Volga.
It is thanks to these detailed surveys of geologists from the group of A. S. Barkov, the USSR government, after the Great Patriotic War, was forced to abandon the project for the construction of a hydroelectric power station in the Zhigulevsky gate, and to move its construction 80 kilometers upstream of the Volga - to the area of the city of Stavropol. Here, as you know, the construction of the hydroelectric complex, at that time the largest in the world, began later.
During 1931-1933, the geological team surveyed the mountain valleys of the Zhiguli near the villages of Gavrilova and Lipovaya Polyany, as well as the foot of the southern spurs of the Zhiguli - Shelekhmetskiy mountains, which go out to the Volga between the villages of Vinnovka and Shelekhmet. Mining engineers were able to penetrate through the caves into the system of the undergrounds of the Samarskaya Luka, where the prospector had never set foot before.
Exploration work in the underground labyrinths, which was carried out by the geologists of Barkov, were supposed to debunk many myths and legends of Samarskaya Luka. However, in reality, everything turned out exactly the opposite. During their travels through the Zhiguli subsoil, the prospectors almost immediately encountered mysterious and inexplicable phenomena, about which they signed a subscription to the competent authorities about the non-disclosure of information. Only many decades later, geologists risked telling something about what they saw. For example, shortly before his death in 1989, one of the former employees of the Moscow Institute of Water and Engineering Geological Research for Volgostroi (no longer existing) Nikolai Sokolov handed over to the representative of the Avesta some of his manuscripts, which spoke about those unforgettable underground travel 30s. Fragments of this recording in the author's processing are offered to the attention of readers.
"The cave was filled with a bluish glow …"
“In 1931, the summer was extremely hot and dry. The Volga has become very shallow. Here and there, sandy islands rose from the water. To get to the cave, which we were going to explore, we had to maneuver between the shallows for a long time before we managed to bring the boat to the rock near the crevice.
We were lucky - due to the extremely low water level in the river, we managed to get into the cave, almost without soaking the bags and without even extinguishing the lanterns. Immediately behind the ledge, the floor of the cave dropped abruptly downward, and the ceiling went up somewhere, forming a large hall filled with water dust. Our guiding stream, having overcome a narrow place, rapidly expanded, and, breaking off a stone ledge of a rock, fell into an underground lake, swirling its waters in a small whirlpool.
The faint light of our lanterns did not allow us to see the entire hall as a whole, but it was still noticeable that the ceiling of the cave here is very uneven and unstable. Huge boulders hung over our heads, threatening to fall every minute. Moving over the stones, we easily climbed to one of the widest holes. Behind it began a dry gallery, which was four meters high and six meters wide. It ended in a narrow, irregularly shaped hole that led us into a large hall. On this part of the way, we stopped to rest and had lunch.
During lunch, a very noticeable draft was discovered in the avalanche hall. Consequently, the air in this hall not only entered, but also exited through some other hole unknown to us. The search for a new passage also took a lot of time, but in the end we still managed to find a rather narrow gap going somewhere down and into the depths of the mountain.
When moving along a narrow winding manhole, each of us somewhere in front all the time heard some kind of even incomprehensible noise. And when we all got out of the manhole, we clearly distinguished a quiet ringing, similar to a bell. At the same time, the source of the sound was not visible - after all, the light of our lanterns did not penetrate into every corner of the hall. It seemed that this ringing was born somewhere in the depths of the mountain and fills the entire cave.
Strange, but as we moved through the cave, the bell ringing gradually disappeared. It was humid in the hall - large drops of water were falling from the high ceiling, which invariably fell into the hollowed-out cracks long ago, displacing the air from them. Perhaps it was precisely such a fall of drops that gave rise to the magic bell ringing that we heard in front of this hall.
It turned out to be noticeably colder here than in the previously passed dungeons. In some places, ice even lay along the walls of the cave. The headwind increased noticeably, and in our light clothes it could hardly be borne. And then the gallery turned to the side almost at a right angle. We stopped, fascinated by the picture that opened to us. Ahead lay a huge hall filled with a strange bluish gleam. It was so bright that the entire surrounding space could be easily seen. It turned out that we were standing in front of a vast ice field of weak violet color.
Closer to the walls of the cave, the ice rose up, forming a system of regular cubes. Soon we approached one of the huge blocks of ice, illuminated by the same bluish glow. And here everyone was dumbfounded: from the depths of the ice shell … a huge bear looked at us. Standing on his hind legs, he seemed to be reaching forward, as if he was trying to reach the uninvited aliens.
When the first shock from the meeting with the frozen bear passed, we all, as if enchanted by an incredible sight, went further through the hall - from block to block. Surprisingly, none of us had any fear - perhaps from excessive fatigue. The further we went, the more frozen exhibits of this strange underground museum we came across. Here in front of us in a block of ice appeared another bear, here is some kind of huge bird, here is an elk, a deer, another bear, and some other completely incomprehensible animals … A real underground pantheon!
How did all these animals get here? How did they get frozen into these almost regular ice cubes? How long did they stand in this mysterious dungeon? We did not find answers to all these questions.
How long we walked through the cave after that is hard to say. Maybe an hour, or maybe several hours: the sense of time has somehow disappeared. But suddenly unfrozen water appeared on the floor of the cave. Then we saw a small stream, from which we drank greedily.
After resting for a few minutes, we walked along the stream to one of the side galleries. The passage gradually narrowed, and on the floor there appeared small pebbles, accumulations of clay, and, finally, dry leaves of trees. Therefore, the surface of the earth is somewhere very close! Indeed, after passing just a few turns, we saw an exit from a small cave. It turned out that this cave went out to the bottom of some unobtrusive forest ravine at the foot of a large mountain. Judging by the long shadows from the trees, the long summer day was drawing to a close. So our underground journey is over."
Ice cabinet of curiosities in the bowels of the Zhiguli
But even more surprising is the story of another employee of the special party of Volgostroi, Viktor Ageev, who during his lifetime, for obvious reasons, could not be published either. And this man got into the mysterious caves of the Zhiguli as follows.
As already mentioned, in the early 30s, geologists from a special party A. S. Barkov studied the Shiryaevsky adits in the Zhigulevsky mountains.
But in a distant little-known roadway, the group suddenly unexpectedly fell under a landslide. In the end, everyone got out except Ageev. A two-day search for his body under the rubble yielded nothing, and the geologist was about to be put on the list of the dead, when suddenly, a few days later, Ageev appeared himself, descending into Shiryaevo from the opposite slope of the Zhigulevsky mountains. But when the head of a special party A. S. Barkov heard his story about an underground journey, he advised not to tell anyone else about it. Only shortly before his death, which happened in the mid-80s, Ageev allowed one of the Kuibyshev regional historians to write down his memoirs, however, setting the condition that the notes would be published only after his death. Therefore, only now certain fragments of his story are offered to the attention of the reader.
“When a landslide happened unexpectedly, the familiar exit from the adit was blocked. I began to make my way forward along a narrow manhole, where neither myself nor any of the explorers known to me had ever walked before. Sooner or later, I still hoped to get to the surface, because with me I had a supply of canned food and crackers, as well as matches and a flashlight with a set of backup batteries.
After long wanderings underground, I finally came out into a vast hall, some corners of which were filled with ice. In the dark, this ice glowed with a faint bluish glow. And then something strange happened - my consciousness seemed to be switched off, the feelings of fear and hunger disappeared. I entered a narrow corridor, against the walls of which stood huge blocks of ice, closely pressed to each other. These were just individual blocks, not a solid ice wall.
The most amazing thing is that the core of each of these huge columns was occupied by a creature, as if frozen in ice. There were apparently many thousands of such ice crystals here, and inside each of them unseen fantastic monsters hung motionless.
It is extremely difficult to describe these creatures. I remember a big head hanging over the body, huge faceted eyes protruding, a large supra-frontal bump, small hands with three fingers pressed to the stomach. The body is something like a soft cocoon, rolled into a tube and also tucked into the stomach.
The further I walked along the corridor, the larger the ice blocks became. The monsters they contained were also getting bigger and bigger. Here I came across several crystals, the interior of which was covered with a web of fine cracks. Near such crystals, I felt an incomprehensible sadness.
So I walked through this gloomy freak show for an hour, then another, then a third. And then suddenly I saw that the ice corridor was bifurcating. In the left one, as far as the eye could see, stretched all the same monotonous cubes with big-eyed freaks. But in the right one there were ice crystals with almost the same monsters, but for some reason there was no supra-forehead bump on their heads.
Then my body, after a little hesitation, chose the right corridor. Further on, a large temporal piece simply fell out of my memory, but a vague feeling remained that I was still going somewhere forward along the same branch. The next surviving memory was a picture of a small extension of the corridor, in the center of which two sunbeams lay on the floor, superimposed on one another. Since there was no way to get around them, I stepped into the center of the glowing spot. At the same moment, something monstrous hit me in the head from full swing, and after that there was another memory lapse.
I woke up already at the top of Popova Mountain, which is about ten kilometers from Shiryaev. A fresh breeze was blowing on my face, and sunlight hit my eyes. Even at the moment of turning on my consciousness, it seemed to me that a large dog was sitting next to me, but I cannot vouch for this. Later I learned that my journey underground took five days."
What was it?
For comments, the author of these lines again turned to the president of the Samara non-governmental organization "Avesta" Igor Lvovich Pavlovich.
Here is his opinion on this matter:
- When analyzing the above texts, the question immediately arises: how reliable are they? Despite all the improbability of the described phenomena and events, let's nevertheless try to reason strictly scientifically.
The very existence of significant underground voids in the karst rocks of the Samarskaya Luka is an indisputable fact. But whether the caves described by the participants in the expeditions to the Zhiguli underground existed, and whether they exist to this day - that's the question! After all, it is known that the construction of a cascade of Volga hydroelectric power plants in the second half of the twentieth century radically changed the entire hydrological regime of the river on the territory of the Samara region. In particular, the water level near the dam of the Volzhskaya HPP named after V. I. Lenin (now the Zhigulevskaya HPP) rose by 29 meters, in the Saratov reservoir near Samara - by 5 meters, and at Syzran - by 11 meters. Without a doubt, the rising water flooded all the underground voids, and the increased water pressure probably destroyed the entire cave system described above, along with its contents.
As for the violet glow in the dungeon, the very fact of its discovery deep underground can cause a completely understandable doubt in an uninitiated person. Meanwhile, it is the violet color of the ice that indicates the presence of significant inclusions of radium in it. It is the decay of this radioactive chemical element that should cause stable ionization of the air, and, consequently, the glow of it and the surrounding rocks.
The presence of radium, uranium and other radioactive chemical elements in the bowels of our region, including in the vicinity of Samarskaya Luka, has already been confirmed by the latest geological research. It is even assumed that some uranium and radium layers, lying relatively close to the earth's surface, may be the basis for the development of this new mineral for the Samara region.
Even more mistrust is caused by the descriptions of underground travels through the mysterious ice "cabinet of curiosities". Meanwhile, something similar has already been demonstrated to us by the caves of the Kugitang mountain system in Turkmenistan, discovered by speleologists in 1984.
Then many central newspapers wrote about this find in detail. In the caves of Kugitang, the animals trapped in them were mummified - so why couldn't the local involuntary prisoners be frozen in blocks of ice in Zhiguli caves? After all, the presence of ice in the Zhiguli undergrounds scientists and local historians reported more than once. For the first time, by the way, the mention of the ice caves of the Zhiguli is found in the monastery's geographical guidebook published in 1689. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, the compilers of a detailed hypsometric map of the Zhiguli Mountains described many caves in these places, inside of which, even at the height of summer, whole ice deposits were found. In particular, the topographer M. Noinsky in 1902 noted the emergence of "an underground passage into a very deep ice cave near the village of Podgory."
As for bears, before they really were found on the territory of the Samara Luka and Zhigulevsky mountains. However, the last mentions of meeting with them in these places date back to the nineties of the XIX century. Nevertheless, already in the twentieth century, the remains of prehistoric bears were found more than once in the Zhiguli caves - in particular, in the 60s in the undergrounds near the village of Shiryaevo.
Excavations here were conducted by an expedition led by the famous Soviet archaeologist Otto Nikolaevich Bader.
The situation is more complicated with descriptions of lizard-like monsters frozen into blocks of ice. However, a modern explanation can be found for this fact. In the 70s of the last century, the Canadian paleontologist Dale Russell, studying the remains of fossil lizards from the genus Stochonychosaurus that lived in the Jurassic time (that is, about 150 million years ago), came to the conclusion that representatives of this group have the size of the brain in a very short period increased by more than ten times. It has now been established what the approximate appearance of this hypothetical monster should be. He had a large head, which had grown due to a greatly enlarged brain. He had to move on two legs, and when he walked, his body took up an upright position - just like a modern man. At the same time, his upper limbs were transformed into hands with three fingers,one of which was strongly opposed to the other two. Height - from 1.3 to 1.5 meters. In short, almost complete coincidence with the description made by a geologist lost in the dungeon. Such hypothetical intelligent dinosaurs are called serpentoids.
It is assumed that about 70 million years ago, as a result of a cosmic catastrophe (most likely, the fall of a large asteroid on our planet), dinosaurs very quickly disappeared from the face of the Earth, giving way to mammals and birds. However, it is quite possible that a few groups of these creatures were still able to survive until later times in separate secluded corners of the planet - the so-called refugia. One of such refuges could well become a cave system that developed about 15 million years ago in the depths of the Zhiguli mountains and their spurs.
How to relate to the stories of geologists of the 30s is a personal matter for each researcher. However, it is worth noting that it will hardly be possible to repeat all the trips described above through the Zhiguli dungeons. Surely most of them have already been destroyed after the water level rose in the Kuibyshev and Saratov reservoirs. Therefore, it would be very interesting for researchers to receive new confirmations regarding the information published above about the caves of Samarskaya Luka.
Fireballs over the Usoy River
Almost all local legends and traditions speak about the mysterious inhabitants of the Zhiguli dungeons and the visions associated with them. In particular, ghostly phenomena should be placed on a par with the “pillars of light”, which not only run like a “red thread” through all Zhiguli legends, but are still observed at a number of points in Samara Luka. The most famous of them is the so-called mirage of the "Peaceful City", which is mentioned in his book by the Holstein traveler Adam Olearius, who visited the Volga region in the seventeenth century. Another name for the same phenomenon is "Fortress of Five Moons", "White Church", "Fata Morgana" and so on.
There are villages on Samarskaya Luka and in the Zhiguli Hills to this day, the history of which goes back several hundred years. These are, for example, the villages of Shelekhmet, Shiryaevo, Podgory, Vali, Tornovoe, Askuly and many others.
Information about their very first inhabitants is lost somewhere in the mists of time, and therefore even the famous traveler Pyotr Pallas, who visited this region in 1768, even then called these villages "old". It is not surprising that over hundreds of years of communication with the wild Zhiguli nature, the local peasants quite often encountered something mysterious and incomprehensible, and this then remained in the memory of the people in the form of legends and bylichka.
For example, local legends say that not only in the present, but also in the past, people more than once saw some flying fireballs and other incomprehensible objects over the Samarskaya Luka, the nature of which is still unclear for scientists. In this regard, the Gremyachee tract, a mountain range in the Syzran region, which is located near the village of the same name, remains a very attractive point for anomalous people in the Samara Territory.
Here, in the Racheyskiye Mountains, on the very edge of the Zhigulevskaya station, there is the source of the Usa River, which completes the Samara Luka to an almost complete water ring. The local mountains are inferior in height only to the highest peaks of the Zhiguli, and on their slopes between the bizarre outlier rocks, many caves, karst funnels and sinkholes, from which springs gush, were formed in ancient times. It is with these places that many legends and myths are connected, leading researchers to another mysterious underground race.
According to local legends, a dwarf people have been living in the local caves for many thousands of years, which the local Chuvash call “uybede-tyuale”. This phrase can be translated as "man - hairy monkey", as well as "man-owl". They say that even in our time these strange creatures, although rare, are still met by people in the local mountains. Imagine a dwarf not taller than the navel of an average person, but with huge eyes and a face covered with either wool or feathers. It is clear that some of those who met such a "horror" called him a monkey, others - an owl. This is how the Chuvash got the name of this mysterious underground people.
Another no less mysterious phenomenon of the Zhiguli Mountains looks like this. According to local residents, over the Gremyachye tract to this day, one can sometimes see strange fireballs of about two meters in diameter and with a tail. They say that those of the villagers who have lived here for two or three decades have seen this mysterious phenomenon at least once in their lives. In Chuvash they are called "patavka-bus", which just means "fireball".
As one of the eyewitnesses of this phenomenon told the collectors of folklore, "patavka-bus" usually flies slowly and near the surface of the earth. But the most incredible part of this legend says that these balls of fire can … turn into a man! Allegedly, the villagers are aware of specific cases when such aliens embodied in male people came to the village, where they … cohabited with local women! And the children born of this strange marriage either died or quickly turned into the legendary underground men "uybede-tuale".
Another group of Zhiguli myths and legends concerns the underground world of these Volga mountains, which for scientists to this day remains a real "terra incognita". In particular, epic stories about some ghostly men who suddenly appear from the ground and also suddenly disappear are very interesting. They are said to be white dwarfs "so transparent that trees can be seen through them." In local stories, they are described as follows: "A man of small stature, with a bony body, with skin covered with scales, with huge eyes, a deadening gaze and a mysterious property to move consciousness from body to body." The last words, apparently, meant that the underground inhabitants had telepathic abilities.
Lada - the creation of aliens?
Researchers from the Samara non-governmental research organization "Avesta" have been studying anomalous phenomena for about three decades.
which are regularly celebrated in the vicinity of the Zhiguli Mountains. Strange as it may seem, they regularly find an explanation for such phenomena in local folklore.
By now, a lot of evidence has already been collected for the original hypothesis, the essence of which is as follows. A steep bend, located in the middle reaches of the Volga and called the Samara Luka, owes its origin … to the engineering activity of an alien mind. Here is what the president of Avesta, engineer I. L. Pavlovich.
- Have you ever thought about a very simple geographic riddle: why did the Volga River in its middle course suddenly need to bend around the small (only 100 kilometers long) Zhigulevskaya mountain range in a ring?
It would seem that the river waters, in accordance with the laws of physics, instead of creating such "loops" should have sharply shortened their path, and even in ancient times, head east of the Zhiguli, along those places where the Usa river bed now passes. But no - this mountain range, tiny by geographic standards, made of soft limestones and dolomites, for millions of years has been demonstrating unprecedented resistance to the Volga waters every second running into it …
Classical geological science still does not give an intelligible answer to this question. However, Samara independent researchers, among hundreds of local myths, epics and legends, discovered some rather strange ones, which speak of the mysterious undergrounds of the Zhiguli mountains. The "Avesta" suppose that in the thickness of the Zhiguli mountains at great depths for many millions of years a certain technical device, once created by the ancient supercivilization, has been working. This object creates a kind of force field around itself, which just prevents the flow of water flows through the mountain range. That is why the Volga for all these millions of years has been forced to go around the Zhigulevskie mountains, making in its middle course a strange bend in the form of a semicircle, which is now called Samara Luka.
Most likely, this hypothetical geomachine is a kind of clot of force fields - electromagnetic, gravitational, biological, or others, as yet unknown to us. It is these fields that have been helping the Zhiguli limestones, which are very susceptible to erosion by water, for more than ten million years, to keep the ancient river bed in a stable position, preventing even its slight displacement.
The question is: why is all this necessary for a hypothetical extraterrestrial civilization? Apparently, in order for the underground energy complex to work uninterruptedly for millions of years, feeding the extra-dimensional channel connecting their world with the earth's surface. Such a channel can play the role of a kind of television camera through which a distant civilization sees everything that happens on our planet. This is evidenced by strange "mirages" that are regularly observed in the sky over Samarskaya Luka, as well as over some other points of our planet.
Igor Pavlovich's words were commented on by the associate professor of the Samara Aerospace University, candidate of technical sciences, analyst of the Avesta group Sergey Aleksandrovich Markelov.
- Once studying an article on the geological structure of the Volga-Ural region in one of the scientific collections published by Moscow State University back in 1962, I unexpectedly discovered a strange scheme in it. This figure showed a section of the earth's layers in the area of Samarskaya Luka, which turned out to be very similar to the contours of … a giant condenser! Everyone will easily remember from a school physics course how this electrical device is arranged: an electric charge accumulates between parallel metal plates, and its value is limited only by the breakdown strength of the gasket between the plates.
In the earth's crust under Samarskaya Luka, the role of such plates is played by parallel electrically conductive layers, between which there are limestones and dolomites. The dimensions of this capacitor are amazing - its length is about 70 kilometers! In fact, here in this case we see the material embodiment of the very energy geomachine that Igor Pavlovich spoke about above.
Calculations show that between the plates of the "Zhiguli" capacitor, an electric field with gigantic parameters of intensity can exist for a long time. If necessary, the electric charge can be easily used for a variety of purposes. By the way, as can be seen from the device of this gigantic "device", not a single sensor located outside the "storage" will be able to show the presence of electricity in the depths of the earth's crust in this area.
Geological data suggest that the very existence of such a colossal underground condenser is a unique phenomenon in the crust of our planet. Until now, none of the venerable geologists have ever met such a structure of the earth's strata. You can, of course, talk about the natural origin of this unique geological object, but with equal probability one can talk about the role of the unknown mind in its origin.
According to the hypothesis put forward, the activity of a hypothetical underground geomachine in the area of the Zhiguli mountains, most likely, causes mysterious phenomena in these places, which the scientists of "Avesta" call chronomirages. Local peasants observed ghost towns, castles in the air and flying islands hundreds of years ago, and during this time, numerous epics and legends were formed on their basis. Here is one of such descriptions from the collection "Avesta, made" by Igor Pavlovich on November 3, 1991:
“About 21 hours 15 minutes above the Volga in the area of Krasnaya Glinka local time, a neat square hole suddenly appeared in thunderclouds. A red ray seemed to run along its perimeter, which fanned out, flashed and went out. Immediately after this, a vision appeared in the heavenly "window" - the coast of the sea bay, bounded by a ridge of low hills overgrown with forest. A chain of sand dunes ran from the hills to the water. Among these dunes, a regular pyramid was clearly visible, standing on a wide white slab. It was a bright sunny day in that distant world, and small white clouds crawled lazily across its sky. Suddenly, over the "otherworldly" hills appeared a lot of black dots. They seemed to have moved from the depths of the image towards the observer. Immediately after this, the clouds surrounding the "window" began to move,began to converge and in one second they closed a square hole in the sky."
There is another similar observation made during the expedition in the same year.
“A luminous square suddenly appeared on the clouds, and inside it a stable image of a stepped pyramid appeared. She was standing on some kind of plateau, which fell abruptly downward. A valley was observed under the mountain, crossed by a river. In this case, the line of sight was inclined to the plane of the valley by about 15 degrees. The impression was that the valley, the river and the pyramid were observed from the side of an airplane flying at an altitude of 8-10 kilometers."
In the same series of Zhiguli chronomirages, there are visions observed on Samarskaya Luka for many hundreds of years, which in folk legends are called "Fata Morgana", "Peaceful City", "Fortress of Five Moons", "White Church", and so on.
All these mirages can also be fully explained by the timeless projection of images from the past or from a parallel universe into our present world. This explanation does not contradict any known physical law.
"Gray hole" over Samara
Having studied these and other observations, as well as folk legends about "chronomirages", Markelov put forward his own hypothesis explaining this phenomenon in the late 90s. He suggested that there is a special optical communication channel of the Earth with other worlds on Samarskaya Luka. And to understand how this hypothetical channel works, you need to turn to astronomical data.
Any schoolchild now knows what a "black hole" is. With this term, scientists call a hypothetical astronomical object, into which any material body "falls through", and nothing, including light, can go out of it due to the colossal force of gravity. But few people know that, in addition to "black holes", scientists predicted the existence in the Universe of so-called "gray holes", which differ from their "black" counterparts in only one property - from them light can go out. It is assumed that some of these objects may be smaller in size than a hydrogen atom, and this helps "gray holes" to easily pass through any large celestial body that meets on their way - a star, planet, asteroid, and so on.
Markelov's hypothesis is that such a "gray hole" has been revolving around the center of the Earth, like a satellite, for several million years.
At the same time, one part of its orbit is hidden inside the earth's layers, while the other part goes out from under the earth to the outside, into the atmosphere and even beyond. And since the orbital plane of the "gray hole" seems to "swing" in space (in science this phenomenon is called orbital precession), the object each time leaves the interior into the atmosphere at a different geographic point on the earth's surface than before. And at the moment a "gray hole" appears over a particular area in the clouds, the same "magic square" with pictures of alien life is observed. Calculations show that the orbital precession period is about 2.4 years.
By the way, it is with the help of the “gray hole” hypothesis, according to the Samara scientist, that many “high-profile” plane crashes and some other incidents can be explained, the reasons for which have not been fully clarified. Among them is the very tragic incident that resulted in the death of the first cosmonaut of the planet Yuri Gagarin in 1968.
other circumstances of the case that could be related to the incident - and all to no avail.
The only real version on this score says that Gagarin's plane suddenly fell into the vortex trail of some other airborne object. For this reason, the MiG fell sharply down - and the pilots did not have only two or three seconds to level the car. But reliable information about the flights of other aircraft in this area has not yet been revealed.
By the way, in the Samara region there was a similar incomprehensible incident, which was recently declassified. We are talking about an accident during the Great Patriotic War, in November 1942, of a cargo plane near the village of Staro-Semeikino. True, the official conclusion about the causes of this disaster says that the plane, in poor visibility conditions, hooked its wing on a communications tower, which is why it crashed. But this raises the question: what made the experienced pilot in the fog drop to 70 meters from the surface of the earth - after all, the height of the tower did not exceed this value? Not otherwise, the car suddenly "fell" down, just as in the case of Gagarin, falling into a vortex trail from an unknown air object.
According to Markelov's hypothesis, the vortex wake in the atmosphere, invisible neither from the surface of the earth, nor from the side of an aircraft, is precisely created by the same "gray hole". If an aircraft gets in the way of this object, the “gray hole” due to its small size cannot significantly damage it. But in its atmospheric vortex wake, this ship may well "fall through" - as it was in the case of Gagarin. But the aliens, of course, did not want him to die: it was just an absurd accident.
Of course, this is still only a hypothesis. However, the Samara scientist believes that in the course of further work with the materials of the investigation of the tragic death of Gagarin, as well as of a number of other plane crashes, new evidence of his version of the involvement of a hypothetical "gray hole" will certainly appear.
Heavenly Guest
As for the mechanism of the origin of this hypothetical geomachine, hidden in the depths of the Zhiguli Mountains, Sergei Markelov put forward another original hypothesis on this score.
- If we look at the map of Samarskaya Luka, we will see that the villages of Vinnovka and Podgora, located at the edge of the Zhigulevsky mountains, are only 30 kilometers apart from each other in a straight line. However, the rocks on which these villages stand are separated by whole geological eras by the time of their origin. The spurs of the Zhiguli near the village of Podgory are composed of Permian limestones that arose about 300 million years ago, and the village of Vinnovka is located on mountain beds of Jurassic origin (their age is about 150 million years). All geologists agree that such a close arrangement of layers of two geological epochs is not found anywhere else on the Russian Plain. But why exactly in the Middle Volga region such an unusual underground structure appeared?
Sergey Markelov suggests the following. It is known that the so-called Ulyanovsk-Saratov depression of the earth's crust existed on the site of the present Samara Luka about 370 million years ago. According to geological science, its origin is explained by resonant effects that occur in the earth's crust in the same way as on a guitar string: in both cases, a standing wave with alternating "humps" and "hollows" is formed upon impact. It was in this way on the huge stone platform of the Great Russian Plain in time immemorial that giant waves appeared, generated by some kind of gigantic blow.
According to the scientist, the primary impetus for these vibrations of the earth's crust was the colossal impact of a giant asteroid several kilometers in diameter, which collided with the Earth about 370 million years ago. The point of contact of the planet's surface with this uninvited space visitor turned out to be the area of the present Samarskaya Luka - more precisely, its section near the modern village of Podgora. It was this asteroid that formed the aforementioned Ulyanovsk-Saratov depression in the earth's crust.
It was a tremendous disaster.
The heavenly stone entered the earth's atmosphere at an acute angle to the horizon, along a trajectory passing through the places where the modern settlements of Chapaevsk, Novokuibyshevsk and Podgory are located. As a result of its impact on the Earth, a huge crater was formed, which occupied a huge territory between the present cities of Kinel and Syzran.
The shock wave crushed the layers of the underlying rocks, and as a result, in the middle of the crater, a so-called central hill appeared, well known to astronomers from similar lunar formations. This hill turned out to be the Zhigulevsky deployment. At the same time, the asteroid ripped off younger rocks from the surface of the earth's crust, exposing old geological layers. That is why, on a tiny area between Podgory and Vinnovka, there are deposits that are sharply different from each other in age.
By the way, with a close examination of the geological map of the Samara region, this ancient crater can be easily seen even now. Despite the accumulated layers of sedimentary rocks over millions of years, the crater wall is confidently visible when constructing geological latitudinal sections, since it rises 50-100 meters above the surrounding area. This rampart encloses the Zhiguli Mountains in a giant ring (however, in three places it has already been partially destroyed). Parts of such a ring should also be considered the Kinelsk Yars in the east, the spurs of the Kamenny Syrt in the south, and areas of the Volga Upland near Syzran in the west.
The large size of the crater and the raised sides make it possible to classify it as an explosive type. According to estimates, the speed of the asteroid's movement at the time of its encounter with the earth's surface exceeded 2 kilometers per second, and therefore most of its mass upon impact immediately turned into a highly heated gas, which generated the blast wave. Consequently, after the fall of the celestial alien to Earth, only insignificant fragments could remain from it by now.
As you know, meteorites are divided into iron, stone and iron-stone by their chemical composition. The scientist suggests that in the area of Samarskaya Luka 370 million years ago, an asteroid of the third of these types fell. Its main mass, as already mentioned, turned into gas upon impact, but individual pieces and dust grains, remaining solid, subsequently settled on the earth's surface. Is it not this circumstance that explains one of the geological mysteries of the Samarskaya Luka - numerous finds in the thickness of the mountains of metal-bearing veins of unknown origin?
“From the point of view of geology, their very existence is a complete absurdity,” says Sergey Markelov. - After all, according to all the classical canons, they simply cannot arise among limestones, dolomites, chalk and other rocks of sedimentary origin. Meanwhile, during the development of the slopes of the Zhiguli Mountains, veins containing rare metals were found here more than once - not only iron, nickel and molybdenum, but also germanium, rhenium, vanadium and chromium, and even gold and silver! Meanwhile, astronomers are well aware that all these elements are often included in the composition of iron-stone meteorites falling to the Earth.
It can also be assumed that one of the parts of the hypothetical asteroid has penetrated deep into the thickness of the earth's crust on the territory of the present-day Samara Luka. Moreover: to this day it is located here, at a depth of several kilometers, representing a unique geomachine.
Initially, it was most likely a solid cone-shaped fragment, characteristic of meteorites. But by the present time, most of this formation has already collapsed, and only a central rod of finely porous material, surrounded by a melting crust, remained of it. In this material, over millions of years, a network of channels with a diameter of 0.01 millimeters arose, through which non-conductive liquid began to circulate under the influence of tidal forces.
With a range of oscillations of the column of this liquid of about 70 meters and with a total length of a solid rod of about 10 kilometers, its upper edge should now be located at a distance of 500 to 1000 meters from the surface of the earth's crust in the Zhiguli mountains.
The average speed of movement of such a liquid (for example, mineral oils arising from the local oil) is about 2.3 millimeters per second. In this case, a potential difference should appear along the channel of such a barrel and an electric current should flow. Therefore, according to calculations, its power can reach 2.3 amperes. With a potential difference along the electric field channels of 350 million volts, the average power of this giant tidal electrokinetic station will be 8.4 billion watts. During the year, it will generate 7.2 billion kWh of electricity, which is only 4 times less than the productivity of all power plants in the Samara region!
It should be noted that similar ancient craters exist in other points of the earth's crust. In particular, on the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico, under a layer of sedimentary rocks 1 kilometer thick, there is a crater with a diameter of 18 kilometers. There are similar formations in Europe, Africa, the Urals and so on. They are often associated with gravitational and magnetic anomalies. However, nowhere in the world was an underground geomachine able to create an almost complete water ring on the river flowing in its vicinity, similar to the one that now exists on the Middle Volga.
The scientist believes that the existence or absence of a hypothetical geomachine in the depths of the Zhiguli Mountains can be proved with the help of special studies. True, today our science still does not have sufficient funds for their implementation. However, it is quite possible that they will appear in the near future. One way or another, but the researchers from the "Avesta" group continue their annual expeditions on the territory of Samarskaya Luka.
Who are the "Avestans"
The non-governmental research group "Avesta" was formed in 1983 at the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute (now the Samara State Aerospace University). Then it included young scientists-enthusiasts who decided to devote themselves to the study of age-old mysteries and anomalies of the Samara region. The researchers gave the name "Avesta" to their group because this is the name of the sacred book of the followers of the prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, who founded a religion called "Zoroastrianism" and introduced the cult of fire worship into it. According to some reports, many centuries ago our region was one of the world centers of Zoroastrianism.
Over the past 30 years, the "Avestans" have been constantly studying the legends and epics of the Middle Volga region, and one of the results of the analysis of mythological material was the identification of dozens of zones with signs of anomaly in the Samara region. For many years in a row, researchers have been conducting regular observations in a number of such places, including in the Shiryaevskaya Valley and other points on the Samarskaya Luka, in the Gremyachee and Devil's Finger tracts in the Syzran region, in some parts of the Zavolzhsky historical wall, in the ravines Vavilova Valley (Pestravsky District), and so on.
One of the most famous anomalous phenomena in the Samara region, about which there is a solid dossier in the "Avesta" - the so-called mirage of the "Peaceful City", which in 1636 was mentioned in his book by the Holstein traveler Adam Olearius. Another name for the same phenomenon is "Fortress of Five Moons", "White Church", "Fata Morgana" and so on. According to folk legends, such phenomena have been observed here regularly for several hundred years. And sometimes on the Volga bend you can see other mirages, which the locals call the "Temple of the Green Moon" (a ghostly structure in the form of an amazing iridescent tower), and the "Waterfall of Tears", which popular rumor attaches to the famous Stone Chalice spring.
Having studied various legends about "chronomirages" and processed the data of modern observations, the "Avestans" put forward their own hypotheses explaining these phenomena. One of them, for example, suggests that there are special wave channels of communication with other worlds or times on Samarskaya Luka.
In the opinion of anomalous scientists, legends, epics and tales are good because they, being the work of the common people, are far from always pleasing to the authorities, and therefore for centuries they keep in the memory of people those facts and observations that do not fit into the official point of view and cannot be explained from the standpoint of either the dominant religion or the dominant science.
Author: Valery EROFEEV