If, before reaching the Narzan Valley camp site, located in the Malkins Gorge of Kabardino-Balkaria, you turn right, you will find yourself in the town of Musht. This is the tract of the same name, and a small river, and a tiny village. Gold was once mined here. Prospectors came across decent nuggets, and even gold dust was handed over in kilograms.
Missing gold
They say that the last gold was found here at the end of June 1941, shortly before the arrival of the Germans. But the iron box with the precious cargo was never delivered to Nalchik: those accompanying him were ambushed, killed, and the gold disappeared. And no matter how hard the NKVD men tried, breaking (in the literal sense) the place of the attack, the iron box fell through the ground as if through the earth.
They said that one of the miners was involved in the robbery. There were also very unusual rumors among local residents - as if an inhuman force was involved in the robbery …
Trying to understand this incident, we turned to Tatyana Dmitrievna Polyakova, an eighty-year-old woman whose life had passed in this remote settlement.
Loneliness as punishment
Promotional video:
What is Musht today? This is a couple - another unprepossessing house in which beekeepers live in summer. Local residents - one, two, and missed. There is no electricity. Bread is baked from imported flour … In summer, local residents do not feel abandoned: vacationers drive past the village to the narzan springs. In winter (and there were years when Tatyana Dmitrievna remained absolutely alone in Mushta) there is no one to expect help from.
Polyakova resigned herself to loneliness, takes him for the Lord's punishment. For what, however, sins - does not know. Like all women, he is afraid of many things, and therefore, it gets a little dark, he locks himself in his house. True, this shelter is unreliable - a flimsy door will break off its hinges if you push it a little harder. But here God had mercy - people did not offend the hermit and the animals bypassed her.
Applause in the forest
According to Tatyana Dmitrievna, one strange creature lives in these parts. And not a man, and not an animal. Polyakova even gave this wild creature a name - Palestine. Why so, it is difficult to answer: maybe she read some kind of book and she liked this word - soft, calm. In general, as it was the first time, the name stuck to the mysterious neighbor.
Once Tatyana Dmitrievna was on the first key, not far from the village - there are a dozen of them in total on the Mushta River - and suddenly she heard a strange sound: as if a man was clapping his hands. But where would people get here if no one passed through the village? She had never heard such sounds from animals …
And soon the woman began to notice that in the trees along the river someone was laying out bundles of grass, as if for drying. And as soon as the grass turns into hay, it takes it and replaces it with fresh one.
Where does the radio come from?
Polyakova is an elderly person, but over the years she has not lost her curiosity. Once it occurred to her to find out where Mushta originates. I got ready for the journey early in the morning. I took the dog with me just in case. The path along the river, without paths, along windbreaks and slopes, is not short - fifteen kilometers, no less. She walked and walked and at the fourth key suddenly saw a trace - an enormous one, almost two human. On the wet ground, a barefoot foot was clearly imprinted, with a dent from the thumb. And then a squeak was heard from somewhere in the thicket of the forest. She had heard such sounds on the radio: “pee-pee-pee”, but not ringing, but more coarse, bass, as if offended. Polyakova then thought: "Where is the radio in the forest?"
And then the dog squealed and hid under the snag. Tatyana Dmitrievna began to peer in the direction from which the sounds came, and did not see, but felt that someone was watching her from behind the trees. There was no fear - on the contrary, suddenly my soul warmed up from the fact that she was not alone in the forest. It was here that she uttered an affectionate word: "Palestine." But the answer was silence. No matter how long she waited, no one came out into the clearing …
Strangers don't go here
Since then, Polyakova began to feel someone's presence nearby. He will go to the forest for currants, and someone nearby quietly wanders. And then suddenly it will make itself felt - it will start clapping its hands or the voice will give: "Pee-pee-pee …". The woman understood: he would not harm her, but she never went far from home - you never know what this invisible person would think of.
The fact that the wild man still lives nearby was evidenced by the footprints. Every winter they appeared in the snow - large, sweeping.
About two years ago, several lovers of the unusual came to Musht on horseback, they asked everyone, looked for Almasts (as the Kabardians call Bigfoot). He, according to Tatyana Dmitrievna, decided that people had bad intentions towards him, went away. Somehow he gave a voice, but it was so rude, already goosebumps ran through the body. And then someone pulled up the horse of one of the visitors. They blamed the bear, but Tatyana Dmitrievna knows that it was Palestine who showed its displeasure in this way. He did not like it, it is clear that strangers are walking here. The guests quickly gathered and left with nothing.
Space breadwinners
Once Polyakova woke up at night because it was brightening in the room. I looked out the window and was stunned - the whole mountain behind the house was illuminated by a bright spotlight pouring from somewhere from the sky. The ray - white-white - did not stand in one place, moved, as if trying to find someone.
Tatyana Dmitrievna is sure that it was aliens who flew in. And they were not looking for anyone, namely Palestine. But, it seems, they have not found - someone in the forest is still clapping.
But in the place, which was illuminated by a mysterious beam, the woman discovered unusual shiny jars - either from food, or from something else. Why unusual? Because they did not open outward, but inward.
- Maybe they came to feed Palestine? - the woman asks naively and looks questioningly at us.
He really lives in the Caucasus
… Even the famous Herodotus wrote that forest people live in the Caucasus. The ancient Greek historian reported them as if he saw with his own eyes. He wrote, for example, that there were no old people among the forest people - they simply killed them.
Legends about Almasty are an integral part of the folklore of the peoples of the Caucasus. Moreover, in all the legends about them such specific details are reported that you involuntarily begin to believe that the Bigfoot really lives in the Caucasus Mountains.
Arsen Bishenov, a resident of the village of Kamennomostsky (Adygea), located relatively near Musht, told us that, according to his grandmother, an Almast woman once lived in their family. In Gerpegezha (Kabardino-Balkaria) one of the old men saw, and more than once, a forest man. The old people of the village of Köndelen, located on the highway leading to the Elbrus region, will also tell you about it. A researcher of the paranormal from France even came here, but the Tyzyl Gorge, where, according to rumors, they saw a wild man, only slightly revealed its secret to her, allowing her to see incredibly huge footprints, similar to human ones, on the road sagging from the rain.
Coming from parallel worlds
… An elderly woman with a red face, burnt by the mountain sun, with hands - calloused, darkened from hard work, speaks of her good friend and neighbor, a forest man, whom she gave the strange name Palestine. And you believe her unconditionally. And you involuntarily look around, peering into the greenery of Musht, listening to the ringing, drawn-out silence, confident that a primate unknown to science is about to come, according to one version - coming to us from parallel worlds and for this reason capable of instantly disappearing, will give about itself know. Or maybe he will show where he (remember the involvement of superhuman forces in the robbery?) Hid the iron box with gold.
Maria and Victor Kotlyarovs. "Secrets of the XX century" No. 14 2010