Journalists of pre-revolutionary Tomsk often reproached the townsfolk for being extremely superstitious. Tomsk residents believed in devils, in brownies and in evil eyes, went to healers for treatment and told each other rumors about enchanted treasures.
We offer you to get acquainted with some of these legends and superstitions that were widespread in Tomsk in the 19th - early 20th centuries.
Legends about the treasures located in the Tomsk province
An article with this title appeared in 1896 in the Sibirskiy Vestnik newspaper. Its author, N. Gureev, decided to share with the readers some of the legends he knows about the treasures located within the Tomsk province.
“These legends became known to me in the following way. In 1880, the former headquarters of Western Siberia, busy with the development of measures for monitoring the excavation of numerous Siberian mounds, demanded, among other things, from the Tomsk governor information about the historical importance of the mounds existing in the Tomsk province, about the reasons for counting on the discovery in them antiquities, etc. This information was instructed to collect on the ground, the police and the village authorities. These individuals collected a mass of material, of course, raw, haphazard, often completely irrelevant to the case. From this mass of fragmentary information, incoherent stories of old-timers and somehow written down legends and traditions, I was able to extract the following legends about the Tomsk treasures”.
On the net you can find such an image of the internal structure of the mound.
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Rogue Sorcerer's Hoard
“Among the population of the village of Mitrofanova, Tutilskaya volost, Tomsk district, there is a stubborn belief that in a rather vast mound, located about one verst from the village, beyond the river. Tomyu, countless riches are buried. On this occasion, there is the following legend.
In times gone by, soon after the settlement of the region by Russians, robbers appeared in this area. 12 robbers, under the leadership of Ataman Tyumenev, settled on a mound, near the village of Mitrofanova. According to legend, the top of this mound served as a dwelling place for the chieftain, who buried there in a special room covered with a stone slab, a lot of gold and silver. For a long time robbers robbed and ruined the surrounding peasants with impunity, until the latter, having lost all patience, gathered in large numbers and, surrounding the mound, attacked the robbers with guns in their hands. But the peasants' shots did no harm to them.
Then one of the peasants loaded a gun with a conspiratorial bullet and killed the chieftain with it, after whom they were drowned in the river. Tom or killed and all the other robbers. Despite all the efforts, it was not possible to open the treasures buried by the robbers, which is why the people were convinced that the treasure was bewitched by the ataman. The people stubbornly believe this legend, and there are old people and old women who claim that in the old days, in the very place where the treasure was kept, at night you could see a burning wax candle”.
Vengeful Guardian Treasure
“In the Ket volost, the same Tomsk district, two versts from the village of Ketskoye and a few dozen fathoms from the Kurino settlement, there is a cone-shaped mound, in which, according to legend, a treasure is also buried. The surrounding residents are confirmed in this conviction by the fact that if you hit the top of the mound with something heavy, you can judge by the sound that there is emptiness inside it. Ostyak foreigners wandering around the surrounding area claim that this mound has existed for a very long time: it existed even before the Russians came to this area. Foreigners are convinced that a rich treasure is hidden in the mound, which is guarded by an enchanted hero. About 40-50 years ago, local peasants, wishing to get the treasure, began to dig out the mound, but, as they are convinced, for this attempt they were punished by the fact that all their bread was knocked out by hail. Since then, none of the local residents have dared to start excavating the mound again."
Instead of a treasure - a set of skeletons
“In the Nikolaev volost, Tomsk district, seven versts from the village of Elbacheva, there is a long mound, one edge adjacent to a river with rather steep banks. Here, according to the stories of old-timers, in the past there lived a gang of robbers who buried a myriad of gold, silver and various jewels in the mound. About 25 years ago, some of the local residents tried to find a treasure and dug the earth in different places, but, of course, they did not find any jewelry, only a separation, at a depth of 5-6 arshins, a significant amount of horse and human bones and various harnesses with numerous decorations from yellow copper and some kind of white metal."
The Tomsk museums keep the remains of another mysterious people with their own culture - Kulaytsev.
Enchanted treasures
“In the Barnaul district, according to popular legend, a large treasure is hidden in a burial mound, rising from a vast swamp, about one verst from the village of Maslyashinskaya, Burlinskaya volost. Local old-timers tell the following about this mound: in times past, some unknown people lived in this area, who had their main headquarters on this mound and hid all their jewelry in it.
When this people left here, they did not take their treasures with them, but in order to preserve them, they imposed a conspiracy on them, so that it is impossible to get them without knowledge of magical enchantments. Inhabitants of the village Maslyashinskaya long ago excavated the burial mound in order to find treasures, even dug up to the iron doors - but it seemed impossible to go further, since water was shown in large quantities and threatened to flood the daring seekers of the enchanted treasure.
“In the materials I have analyzed,” wrote N. Guriev, “there was an exact indication of the existence of treasures, according to local legends, only in the mounds described. But the locals are sure that in most of the Siberian mounds one can profit from something, since under these mounds the people of an unknown tribe who once lived here are buried, with all their belongings and treasures, and only superstitious fear prevents the complete looting of the mounds.
There is the following legend, more or less widespread not only in the Tomsk province, but also in many other areas of Siberia."
Game Odintsov "Chud". Right side of the triptych "Stefan the Great-Perm".
Legend of the White Tsar
“In times past, in the area now occupied by the Tomsk province, there lived a certain people“Chud”. Shortly before the appearance of Russians in Siberia, this people noticed that small birch groves began to appear in the places inhabited by them, which were not there before. The "chud" was surprised at this unprecedented phenomenon and began to argue, for well-being or for worse? They all gathered at the prince Bogolar, invited 124 shamans and made them shaman in order to find out what the appearance of a birch forest portends for them. After a long ritual, the shamans announced to Bogolara and "Chudi" that the appearance of a white forest portends a great misfortune. “A White Tsar will be born, who will be fiercer than a lion, and his people will be more predatory for play. He will take over our place, he will steal our wealth and animals and devour us alive."
This prediction horrified the entire population; They began to consult on how to avoid the misfortune predicted by the shamans, and after a long discussion, they came to the conclusion that one should not surrender into the hands of the White Tsar, but rather die, lay hands on oneself. We decided to bury ourselves in the ground with all our belongings and all the treasures, so that nothing would fall into the hands of the White Tsar and his people. The first showed the example of Bogolar. He built a canopy on strong pillars and applied a huge amount of earth, stones, clay, etc. to the roof. In that canopy he gathered his whole family, drove cattle, demolished all his property and his treasures, and then chopped up tables and buried everything under the mass that was on the roof of the earth. All the others followed the example of their prince, and thus the whole tribe buried itself with all its property.
This tradition is still alive in many regions of Siberia. The peasants are convinced that the property of the unfortunate "chud" is still preserved in the mounds, and if they do not dare to profit from it, then thanks to superstition, reinforced by the stories of old people about various terrible visions, about a whirlwind, fire or water, who drove away and even devoured the daredevils who decided to try their luck and get to the bottom of the Chud treasures.
Superstition in this case, according to the proverb "every cloud has a silver lining," serves its purpose, and if the ignorant population does not dare to ravage the kurgans out of superstitious fear in search of imaginary treasures, then this may be the most precious scientific treasures that are contained in numerous Siberian mounds, waiting, in most cases, for their researchers”(Siberian Bulletin. 1896. № 176).
In pre-revolutionary Nizhny Novgorod, a whole series of postcards “Types of Gypsies” were published.
A magical way to cure binge drinking
Newspapers often wrote about other superstitions of Tomsk citizens.
“How much superstition is still widespread among our people and how various healers and healers know how to use it, is shown by the innocent story of a peasant woman in the Nikolaev region, Olga Bubnova, which we heard the other day.
“I drink heavily; about three years ago I got so drunk that I had only one shirt left on, and that was old. My husband did not accept me, everyone thought that I was lost. I would have died, but for my luck I got along with a gypsy woman - as I remember her, I pray to God for her too. She gave me something to drink, as if she had taken it off with her hand. After that I didn’t drink vodka for three years, and then, two months ago, they forced me to drink a glass of vodka, but something must have been served, and I went back to the old thing: I dragged everything off myself in taverns. I came to my senses a little and I see - the matter is amiss; began to ask her husband to go again to that gypsy woman, but unfortunately the old one was not found, another one was caught. They took me to the ditch, to the house of Lekotarchukova, to the gypsy woman Matryona Ivanova. First of all, Ivanova poured water into a cup, took my new apron and covered the cup, began to whisper.
"Here, he says, if the water in the bowl turns red, then you can heal." Indeed, as she took off her apron, the water in the cup turned red like blood. She told me to bring me three rubles, a dress, a bottle of vodka and a wax candle. In the morning we delivered all this to her. First, Ivanova took vodka and poured it into a cup, covered it with my dress, whispered, had fun for me and my husband to roll it over a wax ball and throw it into a cup, then took off her dress, demanded 3 rubles, covered a cup with them and began to whisper.
“Now look at the cup, everything is going well, the devils agree to save you from the binge,” she said. Instead of balls, there was a figurine of a man in the cup. I drank vodka from a cup at Ivanova's order. She told me to leave money, an apron and a dress until tomorrow, she tied the money in my dress for 1 p. 50 k. In each sleeve. When we arrived the next morning, Ivanova said that the money and dress should stay with her for 15 days. The money was not ours and my husband did not agree to leave it, but I persuaded him, and Ivanova told him to come in the evening: “I, she says, will consult on the distance (at the crossroads) with the devils, maybe I will give it even earlier”. In the evening I came again. “Today I didn't have time to go,” said the gypsy, “come tomorrow at dawn”. I came at dawn. Then Ivanova told me that the devils were angry for her husband's stubbornness, they took all my things with them and did not want to treat me. I never saw Ivanova anymore …"
The case was not without complaints - Bubnova filed a complaint against the gypsy. They say that now she does not drink yet, in spite of the devils' refusal to treat her, it seems, more because she has absolutely nothing, since she is wearing some kind of rags”(Sibirskiy Vestnik. 1887, no. 35).
Sick women in Tomsk were awaited by university clinics, which were a serious competitor to traditional healers.
Removing the devil
The newspaper "Siberian Life" in 1904 ironically described the following case:
“It turns out that in Tomsk, with the existence of the medical faculty of the university and the mass of doctors, quackery is held in high esteem among the ailing inhabitants. So, for example, the wife of a coachman who works for a medical assistant, having fallen ill with some kind of female disease and wanting to avoid the operation, which the professors of the university clinic found necessary to make her, found some healer, and now the original treatment began with some wonderful passes and ingestion of unknown potions.
When the patient asked what her disease was, the healer authoritatively explained that “a devil has wound up in her womb,” which growls there, and that she will be able to expel him. It is not known how this treatment would have ended if the sanitary paramedic had not accidentally seen the healer while she was performing "medical" manipulations on a sick woman. The latter was at that time without feelings - as if in a state of hypnosis or close to it. The matter ended with the patient agreeing to the operation, as was suggested to her in the clinic”(Siberian Life. 1904, No. 38).
Pre-revolutionary photographs show both urban and rural weddings.
Natalia Zhilyakova
