The Uch-Kulan (Uchkulan) gorge is located in the mountains of the North Caucasus (Karachay-Cherkess Republic, not far from the border with Abkhazia). Its name is translated into Russian as “three rivers”. The fact is that it is here that the waters of the Kuban, Uchkulan and Khurzuk rivers unite.
The places here are deserted and harsh, the bare slopes of the gorge are covered with rocky talus. However, even such conditions are not an obstacle for people. Uchkulan aul is considered one of the most ancient settlements here. Thanks to archaeological excavations, a village was found here, dating back to the Koban era, that is, to the 1st millennium BC. e.
This area is covered with centuries-old legends and legends. Among other things, people are sure that a group of snowmen lives in the Uch-Kulan gorge. Here they are called ocho-kochi (ochokochi) or abnauayu (depending on the sex of the hominid). It is also said that Bigfoot females are much more numerous than males.
The legend about the daughters of the snowmen is very popular among the locals. They seem to be met quite often in the gorge, but not a single person managed to make friends with them. These mysterious creatures have the ability to control the will of a person, completely paralyzing it.
However, there are also legends here about marriages between humans and hominids. Locals are sure that a woman who spent at least one night with the Bigfoot can no longer go back, as he seems to bewitch her. Most likely, we are talking here about the same ability of local yeti to paralyze the will of a person.
Here is one of the legends about Bigfoot:
“A long time ago a blacksmith lived in one of the neighboring villages. And he had a beautiful daughter. The girl had a fiance with whom they were going to marry. Just before the wedding, the girl and her friends went to the forest for berries, and there she met the Bigfoot.
Promotional video:
The local Abnaouai liked the beauty, he kidnapped her and took her to his cave. The girlfriends were looking for a bride, and so they went home with nothing. The whole village was looking for the missing girl unsuccessfully for another two weeks. And only the groom could find her in the forest. The delighted guy wanted to take the bride home, but it didn't work. The girl flatly refused to return. She said that she lives in a forest with a Bigfoot, who is simply bewitched.
The groom, heartbroken and jealous, decided to take revenge and, after tracking down where they live, simply killed both. The boy brought the corpses of the lovers and left them on the doorstep of the girl's father. A local priest forbade the blacksmith to bury his daughter and her snow husband in the village cemetery.
He considered Abnauaia a devil, and the daughter of a blacksmith, in his opinion, sold his soul to him. The unfortunate, heartbroken father had to take the corpses back to the forest and bury them there. He buried them in one grave, and on top he placed a stone on which he made the inscription: "The daughter of a blacksmith with her husband."
Later, researchers decided to confirm or deny the old legend. A grave with a strange headstone was indeed found in the forest. When it was opened, the researchers were shocked, since the female skeleton in it was completely normal, but the male one belonged to a humanoid creature of gigantic stature.
It is known for certain that a female hominid was caught and tamed in the village of Tkhina (Abkhazia, Ochamchira region) in the 19th century. She was even given a completely human name - Zana.
The village is famous for its long-livers, many of its old-timers have passed 100 years ago, so eyewitnesses themselves could tell the story of Zana to some researchers.
The Soviet historian and sociologist B. F. Porshnev was engaged in the study of this phenomenon. And that's what he managed to find out.
It is not known exactly where and under what circumstances Zana was caught. Some argue that she was raided in the forests of Mount Zaadan, others argue that a female Bigfoot was caught near the sea coast, others are sure that before her capture Zana lived in Adjara.
One way or another, she was caught and, despite fierce resistance, tied up, and then sold as a curiosity. For some time she passed from master to master, until she got to the nobleman Edgi Genaba. He took Zana to his estate in the village of Tkhina.
At first, the female hominid lived in a pen made of upright logs. She behaved like a wild beast, and therefore no one came to her. Even food was lowered to Zane on a rope. She dug herself a big hole and slept in it. As many as 3 years passed before the female hominid began to tame.
Some time later, she was already held behind a wicker fence, under a canopy on a leash, and then they completely began to release her. Zana no longer tried to escape. However, she did not like being in a closed room, preferring to sleep in a pit under a canopy.
Zana looked like this: her skin was very dark, almost black, and her entire body, except for the face, feet and palms, was covered with reddish hair. Her head was adorned with a gigantic mane that ran down to her shoulders and back.
Zana did not know how to speak. In all her life spent among people, she never learned a single word. True, sometimes Zana muttered something, uttered inarticulate exclamations or harsh screams. However, the female Bigfoot knew her name perfectly and responded to it. She also understood simple commands.
This creature was distinguished by its high growth and powerful constitution. Zana had a very large chest, muscular legs and arms. However, her legs were clearly different in structure from human ones. The fingers on the hands were longer and much thicker than on humans, and on the legs, moreover, they had the ability to move apart.
Zana's face was broad and cheekbone with large, sharp features. The lower jaw is pushed forward, the mouth is wide, with large teeth, the nose is flat. The female's eyes, according to eyewitnesses, were reddish in color. The hair on Zana's forehead grew directly from her eyebrows. The hairy female did not know how to cry and smile, but sometimes she laughed.
It was a very hardy and strong creature. They say that she ran faster than a horse and could swim across the nearby stormy river even when it was flooded. Zana bathed in a local spring at any time of the year, which still bears her name. She knew how, albeit awkwardly, to climb trees. And her strength was such that she lifted a huge sack of flour with one hand.
At night, Zana loved to walk around the neighborhood. For the rest of her life, her enemies were dogs, from which she habitually fought back with a stick, but the horses were terrified of her. People did not succeed in finally taming the hominid. They let her into the house and sometimes even tried to sit at the table, but she only obeyed her master.
The inhabitants of the village were afraid of savages and dared to approach only if Zana was in a good mood. Otherwise, she could bite. However, Zana never touched the children, although they were frightened by her, as now the children are frightened by Baba Yaga or Babai.
The female ate everything that was given to her. But she never used any cutlery, tearing food to pieces with her hands. Sometimes she was given wine, from which Zana was always in a good mood, and soon she fell into a deep sleep.
Surprisingly, people managed to teach Zana how to make fire. She herself carved sparks on the lichen with flint and added brushwood. In addition, Zana knew how to handle a hand mill, brought firewood and water in a jug from a source, and also dragged sacks from the water mill.
To feast on grapes, she pulled a whole vine to the ground, twisted to a tall tree. I lay down with the buffaloes to cool off in the spring water. At night, she often went out to wander the surrounding hills. It was strange that she loved to do something with stones: she knocked against each other, broke them. The dress she was wearing was tore into tatters. However, she was partly accustomed to the loincloth.
It should be noted that Zana often became pregnant from local “exotic lovers” and gave birth to children. Immediately after giving birth, she bathed the baby in the icy water of the spring, apparently doing it instinctively: all the snowmen did this.
Zana probably did not realize that her children were mestizo, too gentle to be treated so harshly. They could not stand water procedures and died. Over time, the villagers began to take away the newborns from her and feed them. Thanks to this, Zana's two sons and two daughters survived.
Khvit, son of Zana and Rai, granddaughter of Zana (daughter of Khvit)
Raya (Zana's granddaughter) with her son - Zana's great-grandson (1978)
These were quite normal people, although they differed from their fellow villagers in some strange behavior. And their appearance was not quite ordinary.
The eldest son of Zana was named Janda, the eldest daughter - Kojanar. The youngest daughter of the snow woman Gamas passed away in the 1920s, and the second son Khwit passed away in 1954. All of them were married to ordinary people and had offspring.
B. F. Porshnev wrote:
“I visited two of Zana's grandchildren - the son and daughter of Khvit from his second marriage with a Russian - in 1964. Tkvarcheli, where they work at the mine. Rumor claims that the father of Hamasa and Khvit was Edgi Genaba himself. But they were recorded under a different name during the census. It is significant that Zana was buried in the ancestral cemetery of the Genaba family, that these two youngest children were raised by the wife of Edga Genaba.
Gamasa and Khwit were men of mighty build, with dark skin and some other, as it were, negroid features. But they inherited almost nothing from Zana from Neanderthal traits: the complex of human traits turned out to be dominant. Khvit, who died at the age of 65-70, was described by the villagers as a person with only slight deviations from the norm.
With dark skin and large lips, the hair, in contrast to the Negroid race, was straight, coarse. The head is small in relation to body size. Khvit beyond all measure was endowed with physical strength, intractable disposition, pugnacious, violent. As a result of clashes with fellow villagers, Khvit's right hand was cut off. However, he had enough left to mow, to cope with collective farm work, even to climb trees.
He had a high voice and sang well. He was married twice, left three children. In his old age, he moved from the countryside to Tkvarcheli, where he died, but he was buried in Tkhine, near the grave of his mother - Zana.
Gamasa, like her brother, was much stronger than ordinary people. Her skin was very dark, her body was hairy. The face was hairless, but vegetation was making its way around the mouth. Gamasa lived to be sixty.
From my first glance at Zana's grandson and granddaughter, Shalikua and Raya, I got the impression of a slight darkening of the skin, a very softened negroid appearance. Shalikua has unusually strong jaw muscles, fame behind him: he can hold a chair with a seated person in his teeth and dance at the same time. Shalikua was endowed with the gift of imitating the voices of all wild and domestic animals."
Descendants of Zana
“I was lucky to talk with the last eyewitness,” says another well-known researcher of the Snow People, Igor Burtsev. - Local long-liver Zenob Chokua buried Khvit. He also found his mother alive. At that time he was a boy, but remembers Zana well. And Khvita, who was also two meters tall, but not so woolly.
Zana's last lover, a shepherd by the name of Sabekia, “took over” it. He himself died in the 30s - immediately after the census. However, before he died, he told both his wife and his eight children, they say, there was a sin. And he is the real father of Zana's youngest child.
Only many years later, Burtsev managed to obtain permission to excavate from local authorities and relatives. He organized an expedition, opened Khvit's grave and brought his skull to Moscow. At the request of Western colleagues, he handed over samples for research to the United States and Europe.
Burtsev with the skull of Khvit
How many years Zana lived and from what she died, it is not known - she died between 1880 and 1890. But until the last days she did not change outwardly. Has not turned gray, has not lost any of the teeth - white, large and strong, retained physical strength. She never learned to speak.
“Alas, there are no living witnesses left,” Burtsev replies. - Zana's grave has not been found. While I believe in the legends that I myself have heard.
