Svetloyar is one of the most mysterious lakes in Russia. Researchers have been studying it for half a century and still have not come to an agreement on the origin of Svetloyar. The lake's water is also unusual - it can be stored for many years, and it will not lose its purity and taste. In the area of this reservoir and its surroundings, anomalous phenomena are observed more often than in other places. Finally, the famous legend about the city of Kitezh, which suddenly sank to the bottom of the lake, is associated with Svetloyar.
Kitezh still exists
This amazing event, according to legend, took place during the invasion of Russia by the hordes of Khan Batu. Burning cities and villages behind them, the invaders reached the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, where they were met by the Russian army under the command of Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich. In an unequal battle near the town of Small Kitezh (now Gorodets), most of the Russian warriors were killed, and the prince and the remnants of his troops retreated into the dense forests to the secluded Lake Svetloyar, where the city of Big Kitezh stood on the island.
Batu, capturing Small Kitezh, ordered to torture the captured people of the prince in order to find out where he had disappeared. One of them, by the name of Grishka Kuterma, as the chronicle says, “cannot endure the agony,” let slip and showed the path through the forest to Svetloyar. A few days later, the Tatars approached the lake.
The fight broke out again. Prince Yuri died, but the enemy did not get the city. God allegedly heeded the prayers of the townspeople and showed a miracle: Kitezh with all its temples, houses and inhabitants disappeared under water. Legend claims that it still exists in the waters of the lake. If you are lucky, you can see a wonderful vision of Kitezh at the bottom of Svetloyar, and when you sink to the ground, you can hear the iridescent ringing of church bells.
Many artists, composers and writers created works about the city of Kitezh, inspired by this legend. Poetess Anna Akhmatova during the years of Stalinist repressions called herself a Kitezhanka: “… Yak, Kitezhans, I'll be back before nightfall,” she promised the inhabitants of the invisible city in one of her poems.
However, we are now interested in something else: is not some event that actually took place at the heart of the fantastic story about the city of Kitezh?
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Over the years of research, a lot has become clear. Scientists no longer exclude that a small Russian fortification could once have gone underground as a result of the collapse of the soil in this place, and popular rumor, as often happens, embellished the event with its imagination.
But then it is necessary to look for traces of the cataclysm and find out whether a failure could have happened here. And for this it is necessary, first of all, to solve the question of the origin of Svetloyar.
Glacial or Karst?
Svetloyar is a small lake with an area of about 12 square kilometers, located in the forests of the Nizhny Novgorod region, in appearance it very much resembles the reservoirs formed 12-14 thousand years ago, at the end of the ice age. There are many such lakes in the north-west of Russia - in the Leningrad region, Karelia, on the Valdai Upland. However, the ice of the last, fourth, great glaciation did not reach Svetloyar, and the ice of the previous ones melted a very long time ago - over 200 thousand years ago. All the glacial lakes located in these places have disappeared during this time, turned into peat deposits. It turns out that Svetloyar is not a glacial lake, but a karst lake, that is, prone to sinkholes.
As a confirmation of the karst nature of Svetloyar, researchers cite one half-forgotten story. In 1903, in the vicinity of the village of Shary, not far from Svetloyar, the same thing happened that could destroy Kitezh. One of the newspapers of that time wrote:
“Recently, the inhabitants of Sharov were terribly frightened by the noise and crackling they did not understand, which seemed to emanate from the ground. Local cheremis rushed in the direction from which these menacing sounds came, and, to their surprise, saw the following: in the middle of the forest, a huge earthen hole of 300 square fathoms was formed, so deep that the tall trees that grew in that place disappeared underground without trace. It is especially surprising that water immediately emerged from the slopes of the sinkhole, and a lake was formed, the depth of which has now reached eight fathoms …"
What happened?
However, most experts reject the version of the karst nature of Svetloyar. On its shores there are no characteristic readily soluble rocks, which are deposited by groundwater, which means that there could not be karst subsidence here.
Then what happened? The main version is as follows. It is known that the foundation on which lies almost the entire center of the European part of Russia is made up of very strong rocks. In some places, this foundation is cut by faults that stretch in different directions, often crossing each other. Lake Svetloyar, as established by geologist V. I. Nikishin, is located just at the intersection of two such faults. At such an “extreme” point, a dip can occur rapidly.
For such places, according to experts on anomalous phenomena, the presence of high natural energy emanating from the depths of the planet is characteristic. This means that phenomena that seem to us now mysterious and inexplicable are possible here. The Svetloyar region is no exception. So. at dawn or after sunset, mirages sometimes appear on the lake; UFO flights and huge luminous crosses are observed in the sky (one of them was seen in 1996 by an employee of the local museum of local lore, L. N. Zhebel); often sounds similar to bells are heard, coming as if from the center of the lake or from underground.
Pagan temples at the bottom of Svetloyar
In the late 1960s, a complex scientific expedition worked on the lake. Then the scuba divers discovered that the underwater part of the coastal slope descends in ledges. Steep depressions are interspersed with horizontal sections, or terraces, located at depths of 9-10 and 18-20 meters.
This allowed us to conclude that Lake Svetloyar - very young in the scale of geological time - was created in stages: first there was one subsidence, then the second, and finally the third. The first subsidence, which formed the original basin, happened, according to calculations, about five thousand years ago. The second is 1000-1100 years ago. And the most recent - about 700-800 years ago, which exactly corresponds to the time of the invasion of Batu (1237-1238). In this case, the remains of a fortress or monastery, submerged in the waters of Svetloyar. should be located on the lowest terrace or on the bottom of a lake 36 meters deep, practically not yet explored.
It is believed that the name "Svetloyar" means "light and deep waters". However, some experts believe that it comes from the name of the pagan god Yarila. Before the baptism of Rus, the Slavic tribe of Berendeys lived in the Svetloyar region, and the center of the Yarila cult was located on the islands, which abounded in the lake at that time. For the ancient Russian princes, this place was sacred. Legend has it that at the height of the conversion of the pagans to Christianity, by the will of Christ, the bottom of the lake opened up, and the pagan temples went under the water (this happened a thousand years ago, which roughly corresponds to the time of the second sinking of the bottom). However, an island remained on the lake, where the Christian righteous and monks soon began to settle, seeking solitude in the local dense forests. This is how the city of Kitezh with a church of six golden chapters arose on the island. But he also went under water - just during the offensive of Batyev's hordes. Perhaps the proof of the existence of Kitezh is a wooden fragment found on the upper terrace, according to scientists, part of some ancient building. But so far, these are only hypotheses based on preliminary data. Science, as you know, requires precision and thorough study of the phenomenon, the disclosure of all its secrets. Therefore, commenting on the results of the expedition, academician B. A. Rybakov wrote that "until the bottom of the lake is thoroughly investigated, it seems that the existence of Kitezh should not be completely rejected." So the secret of Svetloyar is still a secret.based on preliminary data. Science, as you know, requires precision and thorough study of the phenomenon, the disclosure of all its secrets. Therefore, commenting on the results of the expedition, academician B. A. Rybakov wrote that “until the bottom of the lake is thoroughly investigated, it seems that the existence of Kitezh should not be completely rejected”. So the secret of Svetloyar is still a secret.based on preliminary data. Science, as you know, requires precision and thorough study of the phenomenon, the disclosure of all its secrets. Therefore, commenting on the results of the expedition, academician B. A. Rybakov wrote that "until the bottom of the lake is thoroughly investigated, it seems that the existence of Kitezh should not be completely rejected." So the secret of Svetloyar is still a secret.
Source: Magazine "Secrets of the XX century". Igor Valentinov