What kind of tales and legends the wild imagination of our talented people did not give birth to in dreams of a better life! One of the most remarkable is the legend of Belovodye, the legendary land of freedom, where you can get by wandering for a sufficient amount of time through the labyrinths of the Zmeinogorsk mines
The mines were founded in the first quarter of the 18th century by the famous Ural industrialist A. Demidov and until the beginning of the 19th century served as the main source (up to 60%!) Of silver for the Russian Empire. They were located in the south of the Altai district of the Tomsk province.
However, according to the famous researcher of Western Siberia M. F. Rosen, the discoverer of the Zmeinogorsk deposits did not belong to A. Demidov's clerks and miners. Already at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, the first Russian settlers knew about the numerous ancient workings on Zmeinaya Gora, who cautiously bypassed these places, dotted with pagan temples, as if guarding ore-bearing veins.
The ancient people, who were called by the Russians "the unknowable chud", left many mysterious legends about themselves associated with the sacred Serpent Mountain. So, the first miners
knew the legend about the Great Snake, who lives in the bowels of the mountain and protects countless treasures. As if to confirm the legend, in the 18th century, mountain tunnellers more than once found human skeletons inside the mountain, which they took for victims of an unknown creature, and came across mysterious round-shaped underground passages that went far down. From them sometimes it was as if sounds were heard, similar to hiss and dull growls.
According to another legend, Mother Mountain - the so-called Serpent Mountain in ancient times - must go underground at some point: "The earthly firmament will shake, the sun will darken and many people and animal creatures will die." After only the righteous remain alive, a huge lake with living water, surrounded by gold and silver stones, will appear on the site of the Serpent Mountain. This water will replace food for people, and they will live forever.
When in 1786 an earthquake struck in those parts that destroyed several mines, as well as an old fortress, the local population again remembered this ancient legend. According to the chronicles of the mining industry, that year from Zmeinogorsk - a settlement that arose near the ore mines - many people fled, who reasonably feared for their lives.
Strug Ermak Timofeevich
According to local historian Dmitry Khvostov, the legend that a large lake will one day appear on the site of the Serpent Mountain is in some way connected with the legend of Yermak Timofeevich's plow, filled to the brim with red gold. The plow seems to be still floating inside one of the hills of the Snake Mountain - Karaulnaya. Even today, some in Zmeinogorsk believe that Karaulnaya hill is hollow, and there is an underground lake in it. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the fact that springs with the purest spring water, containing abundant silver impurities, gush out from under the hill.
Many researchers associate the emergence of the legend about the plow of the Cossack - the conqueror of Siberia - with one old document, the report of the engineer of the Zmeinogorsk mine, Kozma Frolov, to the manager of the Barnaul mining district.
This document of the early 80s of the 18th century reported an accident at one of the mines of the mine. A few days later, one of the registered workers, buried in the mountain under the rubble, managed to independently get to the surface. The worker said that he seemed to have fallen into a huge cave filled with water, and in the middle of a mysterious reservoir he saw a large wooden plow with jewels, on the nose of which a man stood and beckoned the poor fellow to him. The frightened worker rushed away into the stone crevice and managed to get out of the mountain through the discovered passage.
Rumors of this mysterious vision spread very quickly among the mining workers, who made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to find a lake hidden in the mountain and an old ship with jewelry during the 18th-19th centuries.
Entrance to Belovodye
Legends about the mysterious Belovodye circulated widely in medieval Russia. When the active development of Siberia began in the 17th century, hundreds of seekers for a better life moved to the East, beyond the Stone Belt, in search of an unknown country. Many of them later settled in the vast territory of Western Siberia, some of the settlers were assigned to the mountain district as miners. It was in their midst that the legends were born that in one of the Zmeinogorsk mines - the oldest, Catherine's - there is an entrance leading to the country of Belovodye.
Legends have preserved the name of the person who is believed to have opened this entrance. In 1732, a certain Ivan Kudyasov, while working to expand the mine, hit a low vault with a pickaxe, after which the wall collapsed, and he saw a tunnel, on the walls of which were depicted colorful pictures of an unknown world. The worker saw a blinding light ahead, to which he went. At some point, the mysterious light went out, and Kudyasov rested against a gray stone wall …
According to the legend about the Ziminogorsk entrance to Belovodye, only a person with a bright soul and pure thoughts could find it. It was in front of such a traveler that the wall opened, letting in, and he never returned to our mortal and full of burdens world. Therefore, if a person who went in search of an entrance remained in the mine, the locals believed that he had ended up in Belovodye.
When the Altai Mine Rescue Service was created in the 50s of the last century, which was looking for people who got lost in the multi-tiered workings of the Zmeinogorsk mines, its employees over the course of several years regularly came across the skeletal bodies and mummified corpses of people who found their last refuge here. years ago. It is quite possible that many of them tried unsuccessfully to get into the mysterious country, the search for which continued even in the second half of the 20th century. And in 1956, an event took place that deprived enthusiasts of their last hope of finding the desired entrance. One day, an explosion occurred in the central adit for unknown reasons, which filled up most of the drifts and labyrinths.
Golden Knight
The names of a whole galaxy of talented Russian inventors are associated with the Zmeinogorsk mines: I. Polzunov, M. Laulin, K. and P. Frolov. For the needs of the mines, they created the first cast-iron railroad in Russia, built the most advanced hydraulic power plants for that time, one of the first drainage canals in Siberia. A lot of technical finds made while working at the mines were later used by I. Polzunov to create his famous steam engine.
The legend about the golden knight is connected with the reservoir and the dam, created by the mining engineer K. Frolov. According to legend, after the construction of the complex of hydraulic structures was completed, the engineer-inventor dreamed of a knight in golden armor, standing in the middle of a pond and pointing down. At first, K. Frolov did not attach any importance to this dream. However, soon the mechanisms of the dam began to break down for unknown reasons, and after a while a strong fire broke out, which destroyed many wooden buildings. When the engineer again dreamed of the golden knight, K. Frolov ordered to drain the water from the pond, and then sent the workers to dig the bottom. Soon in the ground at a depth of half a meter, they discovered a human skeleton, dressed in copper armor with gold overlays. On behalf of the engineer, the found remains were reburied at the local cemetery,and the armor was sent with the next train to Petersburg. After that, breakdowns at Zmeinogorsk and other hydraulic structures of K. Frolov never happened again …
Today Zmeinogorsk is one of the historical and cultural centers of the Altai Territory. The city is visited by many guests every year. Special attention of tourists is attracted by the complex of old mines on Mount Zmeinaya, towering in the center of the city and serving as a vivid reminder of the former industrial power of the Russian state.