A huge unknown animal lives at the bottom of Lake Labynkyr
There are about a million lakes on the territory of Yakutia. No wonder they say that almost every inhabitant of the republic has a separate lake. However, of the total number of reservoirs, only the legendary Labynkyr Lake is distinguished. According to the legend, which has been passed down for decades, a certain huge animal, better known as the "Labynkyr devil", lives here. What keeps local residents in awe, haunts scientists and is found in the most mysterious lake of Yakutia - in the material of IA YakutiaMedia.
Photo: Sergey Karpukhin
Legend of Lake Labynkyr
Lake Labynkyr is located in the Oymyakonsky region in the east of Yakutia. For hundreds of years, local Yakuts from generation to generation pass on the legend about the existence of a certain huge animal in the lake, called the "Labynkyr Devil". It is worth noting that people rarely appear in the area of this lake, the nearest village is 150 km away. No road leads here, and the lake itself can only be reached by all-terrain vehicles, horses or a helicopter.
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Photo: gdehorosho.ru
Old-timers believe that the animal has lived in the lake since time immemorial and behaves extremely aggressively. Once, for example, it was chasing a Yakut fisherman, another time it swallowed a dog swimming after a shot game. But deer were most often hunted.
The monster is always described as a huge, dark gray, with such a large head that the distance between its eyes is more than a meter.
Photo: screenshot IA YakutiaMedia
In addition, the locals talked about this creature long before there was talk about the famous Loch Ness monster from Scotland. One cannot but take into account the location of the area: that is, news, especially in the last century, came with a delay. Nevertheless, Sakha and Evenki themselves sincerely believe in this creature.
According to eyewitness accounts
The descriptions of the "devil" are similar to each other, in them the creature is described as "huge, dark gray in color, with such a large head that the distance between its eyes is less than the traditional local rafts of 10 logs."
Photo: Vadim Chernobrov
All eyewitness stories have been scientifically documented. Here are just three of a dozen such stories:
“A family of Evenk nomads moved to summer lands. The evening found them on the bank of Labynkyr. While the elders were preparing for the night, the boy played on the bank of a stream that flows into the lake. Suddenly he screamed. The adults who turned around saw that the child was in the water and the current carried him to the middle of the lake. The adults rushed to the rescue, but suddenly some dark creature five or six arshins long (3.55-4.26 meters) appeared from the depths, grabbed the boy with a mouth similar to a bird's beak with many teeth, and dragged him under the water.
The grandfather of the deceased boy filled a leather bag with reindeer wool, rags, dry grass and pine needles, and put a smoldering torch into it. He tied the bag to a lasso and threw it into the lake, and fixed the lasso on a large boulder on the shore. In the morning, the waves threw a dying monster ashore - about 10 yards long (about 7 meters), with a huge, one-third of its height, beak-mouth, with small paws-flippers. The grandfather cut open the belly of the creature, took out the body of his grandson - and the family left the lake. The boy was buried on the bank of the stream, and since then this stream is called the Child's Stream. And the jaw of the monster stood for a long time at Labynkyr, and under it, as they say, a rider could pass. Since the local horses are stunted, the expedition members believe that the jaw length could be 2.1-2.5 meters. Nobody knows where the jaw itself has gone."
Here's another recorded story:
“One winter a Sakha family was driving along Labynkyr. Suddenly, a few meters from the shore, they saw a horn about a meter long sticking out of the ice. Having stopped, people came up to him. Suddenly the ice cracked, and the old people who remained on the shore saw that a hole had formed, into which deer and several people fell. And then a creature appeared, dragging people and deer under the water."
“Two friends were fishing in the very middle of this lake from a large ten-meter long boat. It was late autumn. The lake was calm. And suddenly the boat tilted sharply, and its bow rose strongly above the water. The fishermen were speechless and froze, clutching the sides. And after a while the boat sank into the water. Someone raised a heavy launch above the water. Only a large animal can do this. But they saw nothing - no head, no mouth, nothing at all."
According to locals, a certain Alams became the only inhabitant on the shores of the lake for a long time. He was a local blessed, this half-crazy exile who served his term and did not want to return "to the mainland." Alams caught fish, exchanged it with rare helicopter pilots for food and vodka, and then, while drunk, he told stories that made even the experienced ones droop their jaws.
According to him, "devil" almost every full moon devoured the tribute that he offered him. The only time Alyams was torn away from the lake in 1993, when he fell seriously ill, and visiting fishermen took him to the hospital. Recovering himself, Alyams shouted that he could not be taken away from Labynkyr, that now he would definitely die. He died - as soon as he was returned to the shore after urgent requests.
Research
The search for the monster in the lake began after authoritative testimonies of the head of the geological party of the East Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences Viktor Tverdokhlebov and geologist Boris Bashkatov, who left the following record in their diaries on July 30, 1953, when observing from the Sordonnoh plateau:
"… The object was floating, and quite close. 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 A dark gray 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 The monster moves with a heavy throw: having raised itself a little from the water, it rushed forward, and then completely plunged into the water. At the same time, waves emerging from its head were born under the water. "It slaps its mouth, catches a fish" - a guess flashed."
"There was no doubt: we saw the 'devil' - the legendary monster of these places."
In the 60s and 70s, several expeditions and tourist groups visited Labynkyr. However, nobody managed to find the "Labynkyr devil" or its traces. Interest in the lake monster died down for a long time. For 30 years no researcher has set foot on the shores of the lake.
It is worth noting that during these years, at least twice, divers sank into the lake - and both times “someone” was seen in the clear waters.
Researchers have discovered under the surface of the lake underwater - underground formations of a mine type. They pass both in vertical and horizontal planes and, possibly, connect Labynkyr with other local lakes. Perhaps that is why the monster was not found during the search. On the other hand, the appearance of a giant animal has also been repeatedly observed in Lake Gates, adjacent to Labynkyr. However, later an expedition to Lake Gate was able to prove that there were no monsters in it.
Photo: lin.irk.ru
In the period from October 15 to November 3, 1999, an expedition was carried out to find unknown giant animals in several lakes at once: Dead, Labynkyr, Krasnoe. Its only result was the traceless disappearance of the husky, tied near the polynya.
According to the researcher Vadim Chernobrov, on the bank of Labynkyr, incomprehensible traces and ice growths were found - stalagmites - traces of water flowing down from a body that crawled onto the shore: “Judging by the width of the strip of stalagmites, we can conclude that the width of the alleged body from which the water flowed, about 1-1.5 meters. Something, but rather someone, crawled out of the water ashore and crawled back. Judging by the size of the stalagmites, it was on the shore for at least a minute."
Vadim Chernobrov
It was near these tracks that a husky dog disappeared without a trace on the night of October 26-27. She voluntarily lay down to guard the boat on the shore and disappeared the next morning. There were no dog or other tracks from the boat. The husky could only move away without a trace towards the water. The catch is that she was afraid to approach the water in panic. The members of the expedition lured the hungry dog with fat, but it did not come closer than 1.5 meters to the calm water surface without waves, despite the fact that already 2-3 meters from the water it calmly pounced on the fat. “Something the day before she was terribly frightened and she could not overcome the fear and this, let me remind you, is a husky that can not be afraid of a bear! Why now she went to the water? Or was she dragged into the water? Why didn't we hear anything?”- he recalls.
In 2005, the TV program "Searchers" organized an expedition to the lake, during which they carried out a number of studies and measurements. In particular, with the help of the echo sounder, an abnormal crack at the bottom of the lake was revealed, and with the help of a deep-sea telezone, the remains of the jaws and vertebrae of animals were found at the bottom.
In February 2013, a dive was made to the bottom of the lake, the air temperature at the surface was 46 degrees Celsius, the water temperature was +2 degrees. The organizer was the Russian Federation of Underwater Sports and the Russian Geographical Society, the expedition was named "Pole of Cold". They never met the Labynkyr devil, but they were able to prove that it is possible to work in conditions of a sharp temperature drop without special equipment and equipment.
Photo: Russian Geographical Society
Lake anomalies
The lake itself is located at an altitude of 1020 meters above sea level, stretched from north to south for 14 km. The width of a rectangular reservoir is almost the same everywhere - 4 km, depth - up to 60 meters. The average water temperature in the lake is +9 degrees, in the bottom layers +1 - +1.5 degrees. However, despite such a low temperature, the lake freezes abnormally slowly.
Labynkyr is located in the coldest zone of the continental part of the mainland, one hundred kilometers from the village of Tomtor - the world famous cold pole. It is here that Academician Obruchev once recorded a record low temperature on earth - minus 71.2 degrees Celsius. Nevertheless, if Labynkyr freezes, it is much later than all other local water bodies, and even in the most severe winters the ice is relatively thin here. But more often than not, a noticeable part of the lake does not freeze, and local residents are forced to go around it along the shore, although all other reservoirs are crossed on ice. Why the lake has such a feature is still unknown to science. Nobody found here warm keys or any other circumstances explaining this phenomenon.
Photo: Google.map
From the expedition of Vadim Chernobrov: “Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be more complicated. All the lakes really stood up, but … not Labynkyr and the Gate. This fact, which we later told in Moscow, greatly surprised all experienced taiga inhabitants, and, probably, it can only be attributed to the amazing microclimate prevailing around or inside these two lakes. One way or another, but our plans had to be changed right on the spot, instead of locating through the holes, we had to pick up a boat lying on the shore and locate directly from it."
Who lives in Labynkyr lake?
Some researchers believe that it may be a mammoth. This version is not as surprising as it seems at first glance. When switching to semi-aquatic, like seals, mammoths could easily survive local frosts down to -60 degrees. And the ice holes that do not freeze in any frosts on the surface of the lake allow him to breathe air. The only thing that confuses this version is that eyewitnesses describe the animal as a predator.
Other researchers believe that this is a huge relict pike. Here, the amphibian lifestyle of the Labynkyr Devil, confirmed by witnesses, or a surviving prehistoric lizard, is questionable. If we take the lizard version as a basis, then this is a plesiosaur, or a closely related creature.
Almost all stories testify that the Labynkyr miracle is seen in late autumn or early winter. In the descriptions, its dimensions coincide: the length is about nine to ten meters, the width is twenty meters - fifty meters. The body is slightly flattened above and below. A bone horn, about a meter and a half long, protrudes from the body. All the storytellers note a huge mouth, up to a third of the body's length, similar to a long beak, but with many small teeth. Ice stalactites are often seen on the shore, which can form from the water flowing down from the sides of the lying animal. All meetings take place either in Labynkyr, or in the neighboring, much smaller Lake Vorota, and the locals are convinced that these lakes are connected by a long cave.
Similar cases
Perhaps the most famous "relative" of the Labynkyr devil is Nessie - the monster of Loch Ness in Scotland. A monument has even been erected to this animal, the existence of which causes a lot of controversy. In Russia, in addition to Lake Labynkyr, there are also lakes in which, according to some eyewitnesses, their monsters live.
Lake Shaitan. The name of the lake speaks for itself, it translates as "devil". The reservoir is located on the territory of the Urzhumsky district of the Kirov region. Locals have believed for a long time that an evil spirit or a sea monster lives at the bottom of the lake. It is the fact that this monster is angry that they explain the rare natural phenomena occurring on the lake. Among them are arbitrary emissions of water on the surface of the lake, floating islands and more.
Seydozero is located on the territory of the Lovozero tundra of the Kola Peninsula. Since the territory is considered an anomalous zone, there are many legends and stories about Bigfoot living on the shores, as well as about a sea monster, allegedly sometimes rising from the bottom of the lake. The local people, the Sami, have a legend that the afterlife is located at the bottom of the lake. And the monster inhabiting Seydozero must guard the borders between our world (the world of the living) and the world of the dead. The existence of some creatures living in the lake and on its shores has not been proven.
Lake Brosno is located in the Tver region of Russia. The lake area is quite extensive - about 7.5 km. But the lake became known thanks to people who allegedly saw a emerging creature on its surface, which they called the Broken monster.
Lake Chany is located in the Novosibirsk region. For a long time, mysterious cases of disappearance of fishermen on the lake were discussed on the Web, various hypotheses were put forward, among which was the theory of the existence of an ancient lizard in the lake.