For several decades now, interest in the problem of the so-called "Yakut Nessies" - unknown monsters that allegedly live in the Labynkyr, Vorota and Khayr (Pestsovoye) lakes, has not waned.
One of the first reports about the mysterious monsters of the North appeared on December 14, 1958 in the Komsomol newspaper "Youth of Yakutia".
“There is a large lake Labynkyr in the Oymyakonsky district,” the newspaper wrote. - Its length is 14 km, and the depth is 60 m. The nearest settlement is the settlement of Tompor, located 120 km away. Its inhabitants have long been telling about a monstrous large animal living in this lake. They call him the devil.
Once this devil chased a Yakut fisherman. The animal had a dark gray color, a huge mouth, and the distance between the eyes was greater than the width of a raft of ten logs (!). There was a time when he swallowed a dog following the ducklings. Collective farmer Pyotr Vinokurov says that on the northern shore of the lake he found an animal's jaw with teeth. It had such dimensions that if it was put upright, then a rider could pass under this peculiar arch. Another, no less interesting detail has become a mystery. In winter, holes with smooth edges are formed on the ice of this lake. They are called "damn windows" here."
Somewhat later, the journal Vokrug Sveta (1961, No. 2) published the diaries of Viktor Ivanovich Tverdokhlebov, head of the geological party of the East Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where the existence of a creature unknown to science was also confirmed. True, he said that he saw him together with geologist B. Bashkatov not in Labynkyr, but 20 km away, in Lake Vorota, which is 4 kilometers long and 60 meters deep.
Here is an excerpt from his entry, taken on July 30, 1953, on the Sordonnoch Plateau:
“The subject floated and rather quickly. It was something alive, some kind of animal. It moved in an arc: first along the lake, then straight towards us. As it approached, a strange numbness, from which it grows cold inside, seized me. A dark gray oval carcass rose slightly above the water … two symmetrical light spots, similar to the eyes of an animal, were clearly visible, and something like a stick was sticking out of the body …
We saw only a small part of the animal, but a huge massive body was guessed under the water. One could guess about this, seeing how the monster was moving: with a heavy throw, slightly rising out of the water, it rushed forward, and then completely submerged in the water. At the same time, waves were coming from his head, born somewhere under the water. "He claps his mouth, catches fish", - a guess flashed …
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Before us was a predator, no doubt one of the strongest predators in the world: such an indomitable, merciless, some kind of meaningful ferocity was felt in his every movement, in all his appearance … there was no doubt: we saw the devil - the legendary monster of these places."
The stories of V. I. Tverdokhlebov about the existence of giant animals in the lakes of the Sordonnoh plateau were picked up by amateurs of sensations and served as a pretext for organizing a number of amateur expeditions specially looking for the "northern Nessies". Their reports were published in the magazines "Nature" and "Chemistry and Life", in the newspapers "Pionerskaya Pravda", "Volzhsky Komsomolets" (Kuibyshev), "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and others.
Lake Khayyr
By the way, the last report of the expedition on the search for "Russian Nessie" in the Yakut lake Labynkyr was published in "Komsomolskaya Pravda" on September 15, 2000.
All these trips to unravel the mystery ended in failure: their participants never had to see northern Nessie at least from afar, despite truly heroic attempts to find the mysterious creature.
Confirmed myth
In this regard, the question began to arise more and more often; maybe the Yakut monsters are a myth? However, unexpectedly, the existence of an unknown monster on the Sordonnoch plateau was indirectly confirmed.
On the pages of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" on November 21, 1964, a sensational message appeared under the intriguing title "The Mystery of Lake Khayr." In it, the deputy head of the North-Eastern Expedition of Moscow State University, G. N. Rukosuev, told the readers that some mysterious animal with a long snake neck lives in the depths of the tundra Lake Khayyr in Yakutia, beyond the Arctic Circle. The text was accompanied by a drawing. Here is what one of the members of the biological detachment of the Yakut branch of the Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences N. F. Gladkikh told about the meeting with the mysterious creature.
“Two days ago at 7 am I took the buckets and went to the lake for water to boil tea. Earlier I heard about the existence of a “devil” in the lake, but I don’t believe in either evil spirits or devils, so I walked to the lake without fear, looking at my feet in order to stumble. Before reaching the lake about 15-20 meters, I heard something like a splash. When I raised my head, I saw that an animal unknown to me until then had crawled out of the water. His body was 4-4.5 meters long, 1.5-2 m high, his neck was long - perhaps one and a half meters, and a flat small head, like a snake. Its color is dark blue with a shimmer, the skin is smooth.
It seemed to me that it was eating grass. My heart began to pound, my legs were immediately taken away, buckets involuntarily fell out of my hands. And when the buckets rattled, the monster turned its snake head in my direction. I don't remember much of what happened next, because I was very excited. I only remember that I shouted loudly, calling for help, and, turning, ran headlong to our camp, but, unfortunately, the detachment staff were not in the camp at that time. When I looked at the lake, I saw that waves were spreading over it, although there was no wind, the weather was calm."
This message, just like the previous ones, did not go unnoticed. A year later, a group of Moscow submariners and Voronezh tourists travel to Khayyr to try to unravel the mystery of the lake. This is what the participants of this fascinating expedition said on the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda on November 27, 1965.
“We did not find any traces of the monster. Taking turns in turns, several people did not take their eyes off the surface of the lake all day and night. 2 km from the lake is the village of Khayr. Maybe the locals know something about the monster? Indeed, among the Yakuts of this, and many other villages of Yakutia, there is a legend about a bull pike that lives in lakes and is capable of swallowing a fisherman along with a boat. The legend has a basis: pike are not eaten here (there is better fish), and the locals throw them away when they accidentally fall into the nets.
Therefore, there are many of them in the lakes, and large specimens may come across. The Yakuts are not at all afraid and do not avoid Lake Khayr, they often visited us and told us that some residents of the village saw a large pike in the lake. None of them have seen a monster similar to the published drawing.
On the highest shore of the lake there is an abandoned fur farm, in the house of which for the third year from spring to late autumn the microbiological team of the Yakutsk branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences has been working. Last year, the detachment consisted of 3 people: the head of the detachment - Kolesnikov, the biologist Mezhenny and the minder Gladkikh. These are the three who, according to the author of the note, saw the monster. Nikolai Gladkikh is the "main" eyewitness and author of the drawing, this sensation was born from his light hand.
We met Andrei Aleksandrovich Mezhenny on the lake, and he told us that neither he nor Kolesnikov saw anything and that this fact was pure fiction. The only eyewitness - Nikolai Gladkikh - left after the end of the season for his homeland. Later, after the article appeared in the newspaper, Gladkikh wrote to Mezhenny that he had invented the story with the monster."
From all that has been said, it is quite obvious that there are no monsters in Lake Khayyr, every meter of the bottom of which is currently explored by scuba divers. However, until now, along with the Vorota and Labynkyr lakes, for some reason it appears in the reports of hunters for living fossils as deserving of attention. Therefore, again and again, enthusiasts of the search for the unknown are attracted to the "mystery" of Khayyr …
Lake Labynkyr
Is it possible the existence of living fossils in the lakes of Yakutia? This question has already been raised more than once in the pages of the press, and we will not touch on it now. Consider another, no less interesting and mysterious - what real creature could give rise to the legend of the "northern dinosaurs"?
According to A. N. Tolstov, a researcher at the Institute of Permafrost of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, who has worked in the Yakut ASSR many times, the mysterious animal of Lake Labynkyr is a giant catfish. Indeed, this huge monster, whose weight reached 300 kg, and the length - 5 m, may seem like a nightmarish monster to anyone. There are known cases of attacks of such giants on land animals and even on humans. Perhaps VA Tverdo-Khlebov overestimated the size of the mysterious creature, because fear has large eyes.
Meanwhile, as it turned out, such an assumption does not hold water. Here is what the senior researcher of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, candidate of biological sciences S. K. Klumov wrote about this in the journal "Priroda":
“… catfish do not live in the basin of the Arctic Ocean”, this “has been established long ago and has been repeatedly (until very recently) confirmed. Conditions for this species of fish in Labynkyr are completely inappropriate: the lake is covered with ice for 8 months a year. Its temperature regime also does not correspond to the catfish habitual for life and reproduction. For 4 months, this fish could not complete the breeding cycle and accumulate strength for such a long (8 months) wintering. Thus, the hypothesis of A. N. Tolstov contradicts the facts about the distribution and life of catfish that we know."
Pike from Lake Labynkyr. Could larger specimens be found there? Without a doubt
By the pike's command
Then the prototype of the monster, perhaps, was the well-known freshwater predator - the pike? One of the authors (A. V. Potapov) in 1970 in Lake Khayyr almost mistook her for a dinosaur. In the article "The Devil of Lake Pestsovoye", published in the magazine "Knowledge is Power" (No. 6, 1983), this episode is described as follows:
“The first meeting with a mysterious creature took place under the following circumstances. That morning I closely watched the calm surface of the lake. A duck landed on the water 50 m from the shore and suddenly screamed desperately and, flapping its wings, disappeared into the depths of the lake. Apparently, someone grabbed her and carried her under the water. All this happened literally in 2-3 seconds, but I managed to clearly see the long semicircular, beak-like jaws of the animal. After this incident, I had great difficulty forcing myself to get into an inflatable boat when I was fishing. For the next eleven days, everything was calm.
The second meeting took place in the same area, but under different circumstances. I was sailing in a boat and at the very surface of the water, at a depth of no more than half a meter, I saw a shadow, along its contours resembling a long giant cigar. She accompanied me 10 m from the port side, and then slowly went into depth. The length of the cigar by eye is at least 2.5-3 m, but I could not see any distinguishing features, since the surface of the lake was a little ruffled.
And finally, the last meeting, which largely disappointed me. Now, for self-defense, I took a loaded speargun and always kept it ready. In the evening I sailed in my fragile little boat, carefully working with paddles, and at the very shore at a shallow depth I again noticed a large object. True, it was smaller than the previous time. “Probably a cub,” flashed through my head. Carefully approaching him, I made up my mind … The creature remained completely motionless. Taking the gun, I carefully aimed at the alleged head and pulled the trigger.
The harpoon is firmly stuck in the body. I sensed this by the force with which the nylon line pulled, and if it was not tied to my belt, the gun would fly out of my hands. I lay down on the bottom of the boat, and she, towed by the animal, slid along the surface, changing direction. This went on for about half an hour. Then the tench slackened. Looking up, I saw that I was at the very shore. Having brought the boat close to him, I carefully began to select a thick nylon cord.
Imagine my surprise when my eyes saw not an unknown monster, but … a huge pike. Its length was just over 2 m! With great difficulty I dragged her ashore. She weighed at least 35 kg! The spear pierced her bony head through and through. I have never seen such a large specimen of this formidable freshwater predator. The length from the tip of the nose to the tail was 2 m 2 cm! (Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this whopper. I was caught in a pouring rain, and all the films were damaged by water.)
This event greatly shaken my confidence that a "plesiosaur" lives in the lake. However, the very existence of pikes of this size is at least unusual. Even the fish I killed could easily swallow almost any waterfowl. Apparently, there are even larger individuals, which gave rise to the legend of the existence of the "devil"."
A. Pankov also writes in his book Oymyakonsky Meridian that the legend of the Labynkyr line owes its origin also to a giant pike:
“It is no coincidence that the village near which the mountain rivers merge to form Indigirka is called Shchuchye (in Yakut - Sordonnoh). There are legends that such jaws of a pike were found on the shore of the neighboring Lake Gates, that if they were put on the ground, a rider on a deer could ride under them like a gate (isn't this the name of the lake?) … In the lower reaches of the Indigirka, a bulldozer driver told me how he shot a pike. I saw a terrible face in the sea, fired, the fish belly up. The length of the pike was about 4 m. All mossy, green-brown, flabby like cotton wool. No joke: maybe she lived for a hundred years, or even two hundred …"
In "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated September 15, 2000, a report of the expedition about the search for the "Russian Nessie" in the Yakut lake Labynkyr was published. Despite truly heroic attempts made to find the monster, the participants failed to catch it. They saw only signs that testified to its existence, and that was all.
A. V. Potapov, from the book "Phenomena, Secrets, Hypotheses"