The legends of Siberia - both ancient and modern - are mostly associated with the amazing nature of these places. Bizarre rocks, in which living creatures with their own character and mood are seen, the loving fellow Yenisei, hills in which secret lakes are hidden - everyone is looking for them, but few find them.
Kurengi and live skis
The mountains of Hongoray were once inhabited by the fabulous taiga hunters, Kurengi (literally, brown), that is, creatures of the same origin with mountain spirits. Sometimes they came to the fishermen and hunted together. The Kurengi looked like our people, but only very dark-skinned, with red eyes and hairy. Kurengi were excellent hunters. They had live skis, lined with moose skis, which were born themselves. There was no strength on earth to outrun such skis. In the old days, the Kurengi often hunted together with our hunters.
Once a hunter from Arbatov went to the taiga. In the morning he found a tired wild goat on the way. She barely moved. Our hunter shot her. A little later, a kureng approached his booth on skis. “I have tired this beast,” he said. Then, according to the law of the taiga, our hunter gave up the prey. Kureng took it, butchered the goat and ate it in one sitting.
“Let's hunt together,” says Kureng. "You will hunt during the day, and I will hunt at night." “Okay,” agreed the hunter. They began to hunt together. They built a new booth, where they warm themselves by the fire. Our hunter saw live self-propelled skis. "How do you give the command to drive?" he asks Kurenga. “As I say“yuyuk,”they are leaving,” he replied. - Do your skis run by themselves? Kureng also asked. “Yes, if you whistle, they will run,” our hunter cheated. "What are you afraid of?" he asks Kurenga.
“I am afraid of thorny bushes - wild rose and hawthorn, - he replied. "Do you have things that you are afraid of?" "Yes, - the hunter is cunning, - I am afraid of butter and cheese." "And how to understand that you are deeply asleep?" - asks Kureng. “When I snore, it means I am sound asleep,” the hunter replies. "How sound are you sleeping?" "When my eyes roll back and only squirrels are visible, then I am in a deep sleep."
At night, the hunter saw that the kureng's eyes rolled back, only squirrels were visible. Then he came out of the booth, put on skis and gave the command "yuyuk". The skis ran through the taiga themselves. Kureng woke up and found neither the hunter nor his skis. He put on the hunter's skis, but no matter how much he whistled, the skis did not move.
Promotional video:
Our hunter on self-propelled live skis quickly got home. But he forgot to ask the Kureng how to stop the skis. Already passing by his aal and unable to stop the skis, the hunter pulled out a knife and thrust into the skis lined with moose skins. They stopped, and blood flowed from the cuts. Live skis died, bleeding. If the hunter had learned from the Kureng how to stop the skis, then the live gear (live transport) would be in our hands.
Kurengs are not in the taiga now, for they were immured in the Sayan Mountains by the Supreme Creator. The memory of them in Hongorai is now the frying flowers, the red color of which is the same as the color of the eyes of the Kurengs.
Numerous images of hunters on miraculous skis are carved on the Khakass rocks. It is believed that if you put your hand to such an image, you will gain incredible strength and endurance.
Krasnoyarsk Pillars
The very origin of huge bizarre rocks that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the taiga is a mystery. Scientific version: the pillars are syenite rocks that emerged from the ground millions of years ago. And then - winds, snows, rains, seismic phenomena made them look like people, animals, birds. Hence the names - Grandfather, Grandma, Vulture, Raven, Berkut, Camel.
Ancient legends explain the appearance of the Pillars in their own way. According to one of them, the wayward king Yenisei, angry at his daughters and their lovers who disobeyed him, turned Bazaikha and Laletina into rivers, and their suitors-princes, together with the whole squad, into rocks.
There is also a version of a certain ancient city of the dead that supposedly existed in these places. And it seems that the Pillars are either its ruins, or the very inhabitants of the city of the dead, who waited in their hour and rose from the ground.
Be that as it may, everyone agrees on one thing: the pillars are a special place that influences people, enters into some kind of relationship with them, accepts or does not accept them. They say, for example, that at the end of the 19th century, the participants of the revolutionary gatherings - T-shirts - who gathered here wrote the word "Freedom" on the Second Pillar, and the guardians of the law could not get there to erase it (although the revolutionaries, of course, were not professional climbers). But modern enthusiasts update the inscription from time to time - and nothing, no obstacles on their way.
- I have heard how some stolniks say: "The rock did not take him to her, she ruined him." It concerned the most experienced person who had climbed all the rocks more than once. And suddenly on one, far from the most difficult, crashed. And at the same time I know a lot of newcomers who at random climbed into the most dangerous places, it would seem, to certain death, and everything to them is like water off a duck's back.
Leonid Averkin, ethnographer
Black Sopka
Black volcano, also the dormant volcano Kara-Dag, is the upper point (500 m) of the Torgashinsky ridge, which stretches along the right bank of the Yenisei and is actually the southern border of Krasnoyarsk. It is really black - because of the turmeric, dark scree, overgrown with dark moss.
They say that an underground lake is hidden inside Kara-Dag, formed from the tears of a noble girl, whose relatives killed her groom - a simple shepherd. They also say that this girl is still hiding there, in the mountains, but only few people are given to see her.
And they also say that after the Second World War, the captured Japanese (they were exiled to Krasnoyarsk in hundreds) made Black Hill an object of veneration. She very much reminded them of Fujiyama … If you decide to climb the Kara-Dag (and this is not an easy task), be sure to go through Yakhontovaya Polyana (it is close to the eastern slope), and there you will scratch the belly of Camel rock (also made of pillars). Then the trip in both directions will be successful.
Underground country
The search for the legendary underground country of Agharti - the spiritual center of the Universe, a perfect civilization that exists without wars, evil and violence - has not been involved in the last millennium. Priests, rulers, historians, tourists … They were looking everywhere - in India, Mongolia, the Far East. And they seem to have found it here, on the Ergaki ridge, on the territory of the Western Sayan.
- According to the version of the Polish scientist Anton Ossendoevsky, who talked with Buddhist priests, analyzed the manuscripts that mentioned various geographical names, approximate descriptions of the coordinates of an underground country, Agarty is located just on the territory of the Western Sayan, where the Ergaki ridge is. Later, his hypothesis was supported and developed by the Italian Tuelo.
Vasily Meskhiev, historian
Where are the gates to the wonderful underground land, where people hide from earthly disasters, where they do not know about the mountain, where sciences and arts flourish? It is forbidden to talk about this, as well as to talk about the miracles seen in Agartha (and they say that some people still managed to get to it). And the one who lets it slip is not good.
Bronze bowl
And this is a Tuvan legend. They say that high in the mountains, in the upper reaches of the Yenisei, in one of the most inaccessible places, there is an amazing bronze bowl. Its height is three meters, no less, it stands on a petrified platform, and incomprehensible signs and letters are applied to its walls. And it is better for no one to try to find it, because trouble happens to those who at least once accidentally saw it.
- We say that there were several hunters who inadvertently wandered into those places and saw this bowl. So, after that, who got sick and died, who went crazy, who got into an accident, who took a drink … And the last case was recently, that man is still like in intensive care - so withered. In general, it is better for no one to see this cup.
Irina Khomushku, a resident of Tuva
What is this cup and where did it come from? They say different things. If we discard completely implausible, mystical and completely otherworldly hypotheses, then this is either a former gathering place for shamans, or even a Scythian creation - such assumptions are built by local residents.
There is one more version. The bowl indicates the burial place of Genghis Khan. It seems to be completely implausible, but the grave of the great warrior has not yet been found, so why shouldn't she be in Tuva? Moreover, he came from a family that lived in these places, and his sons have been here more than once.
They also say that there were several similar bowls, only of a smaller size, in Tuva. But two of them went underground, unable to withstand the neighborhood with modern civilization.
