In the Urals, in Siberia, in the north of Russia and even in Altai, many legends say that an ancient people called Chud once lived in these places. These legends are most often told to the east of Lake Onega, along the rivers Onega and the Northern Dvina, where the Finno-Ugric peoples lived, which historians usually consider Chudyu.
Painting by N. K. Roerich. Chud underground (Chud went underground) (fragment) 1913
True, it is not customary to take into account the fact that these peoples, in particular the Permian Komi, themselves tell legends about the Chudi, calling it a completely different tribe.
“Not long ago, our fishermen saw monsters on Novaya Zemlya. These wonderful people of fishermen will see, and they will hide. They look and dress like loparis. They didn’t have a gun, only a spear and an arrow”- the Northern Legends tells.
Such stories characterize the monsters as strangers, alien to the current inhabitants and at the same time - as unusual, wonderful people who have lived for a long time, but also continue to stay somewhere in the neighborhood. It is from the name of this ancient people that the Russian word "eccentric" comes from.
The discovery in the Urals in the 70-80s of the ancient city of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta somewhat shaken the traditional version. Versions began to appear that the Chud were the ancient Aryans (in the narrow sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, and in a broader sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans in general). This version has found many supporters among scientists and local historians.
“Popular memory inhabits this ancient population in almost the entire space of the Arkhangelsk province. According to the Pomors from the city of Kem, “the chud had a red skin and hid from the Novgorodians to Novaya Zemlya and now lives there in inaccessible places,” wrote the Russian ethnographer Pyotr Efimenko in 1869.
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In beliefs and legends, these semi-legendary first settlers of the north of Russia are endowed with unusual features and supernatural abilities. Chudins act as heroes, and as sorcerers, sorcerers. In the Arkhangelsk province, some of the families living in the 19th century considered them to be their ancestors and argued that one of the chudins was so strong that, sneezing, he killed a ram, and "members of his generation could talk to each other at a six-kilometer distance."
Not only in Russian folklore, but also among the Komi, Sami and other northern inhabitants, the white-eyed chudya was called the mythological characters close to the European dwarfs. According to legend, they knew how to extract gold and silver in the mines. Until now, in Siberia, old, abandoned mines are called the Chud mines. Chud graves and traces of settlements are found in the subpolar Urals.
There are also widespread tales that the Chuds had shamans, priests or leaders who were called pans. You can call them wizards', as they possessed secret knowledge, thanks to which they kept their people in obedience. The pans lived in fortified houses-fortresses and owned the jewelry that was mined in the mines. They hid their treasures in sacred places in the forests, under stones.
This drawing was published in 1996 by the magazine "Science and Religion". The drawing depicted the "Chud miner" and was made from a bronze statuette found 200 years ago in Siberia and poured, presumably, in the first centuries of our era somewhere in the Urals. Where the statuette itself is located is unknown.
Pans could command the wind, rain, storm. On moonless nights, they went into deep forests, where in a terrible, trumpet voice they called forest spirits, and they told the panamas about the past and future and the secrets of the universe.
The Russian population of Zavolochye has preserved the memory of the Chud people who previously lived in these places. Among the legends in Verkhokamye, common stories about the resistance to Slavic newcomers and the spread of Christianity are repeated. In particular, the forest is called the habitat of the Chud, and the dugouts are the dwelling.
In the Shenkursk district of the Arkhangelsk province, they said that “the local indigenous inhabitants, chud, desperately defending their land from the invasion of Novgorodians, never wanted to submit to the newcomers”. They fiercely defended themselves from earthen fortresses, fled into the forests, killed themselves, buried alive in deep ditches. Only a few remained in their former places of residence and became Russified after baptism, as happened with many neighboring Finno-Ugric tribes.
Vladimir Dal in his "Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" writes:
“Freaks and freaks, sib. chud (that is, strange and alien) collect. - a savage people who, according to legend, lived in Siberia and left only one memory in the mounds (mounds, graves); frightened by Ermak and the sudden appearance of a white birch tree with him, a sign of the power of the white king, chud or eccentric dug tunnels, went there with all the good, cut down the racks and died."
In 1924-1928, the Roerich family was on an expedition to Central Asia. In the book "The Heart of Asia" Nicholas Roerich writes that in Altai an elderly Old Believer led them to a rocky hill and, pointing out the stone circles of ancient burials, said:
“This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar Altai came to fight and as the white birch blossomed in our land, Chud did not want to stay under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You yourself can see their former entrances. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give the whole people great science, then the Chud will come again, with all the treasures that have been obtained."
And here is what one of the legends recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov region, tells:
“…. And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the course of the Kama, this stranger did not want to communicate with them, did not want to enslave Christianity. They dug a large hole, and then cut down the racks and buried themselves. This place is called Peipsi Coast."
There are still many such mounds in the north. Sometimes, in absolutely dark, starless nights, a blue flame winds over them, groans and lamentations are heard from under the ground in an incomprehensible language. These mounds are called in the north the graves of the pans, or punks. If you hit such a mound with an iron bar, you hear a hum.
They say that a chud sometimes comes out of the ground to take a breath of air and drink spring water. This happens once a year. The beast in the woods always anticipates the exit of a chud and runs away from the woods to open places, clinging to human habitation. Even wolves do this, because they are very afraid of underground inhabitants. Chud always hunts for wolves, since wolf meat is considered a delicacy for them, and Chud women make jewelry from wolf teeth.
Since olden times there have been daredevils who have tried to dig up the hills under which a monster is supposedly hiding. These people disappeared without a trace. Perhaps they were taken to their own land by the gentlemen for eternal service.
Where the Chuds and Pans used to live, many of their treasures remained. There are treasures in secret places - in forests, at the bottom of lakes and swamps. The caches are often marked with large boulders with signs engraved on them. Sometimes there are necklaces of wolf teeth lying nearby.
All these treasures are conspired. To take them, you need to pronounce the sacred formula - a spell in the Chudi language. There are many legends about these hoards, and even specific places are indicated. For example, in the Vologda region there is a small river Vyuzhka. There is a granite cliff on it, resembling the head of a bearded man from afar. At the bottom of Vyuzhka, under a cliff, there is supposedly a master's treasure.
There were daredevils who dived into the fast waters of Vyuzhka. Some of the divers did not find anything, explaining everything by the fact that the treasure was charmed, others drowned.
In the Vologda region there is Lake Krasnoe - small, perfectly round, as if some giant outlined its shores with a compass. The lake is very deep, and the water in it is icy even in hot summers. According to legend, the lake has a ladder that goes under the bottom. There the gentlemen left their golden treasure and "boundless placers of precious stones." Even good swimmers periodically drown in Red.
Local residents of the Komi and Komi-Permians attributed the authorship of these Perm figurines to the Chud people
In the Subpolar Urals, there is a rapids river Merzavka. On its bank is the abandoned village of Perevoznoye. At this place, even before the Russians came there, there once lived a chud. The leader of this community was the evil and powerful Pan Sahdiyar. He knew how to extract gold and silver from the earth. Large stones with incomprehensible signs carved on them are still found in the vicinity of Perevoznoye.
The stones are perhaps thousands of years old. However, there are signs on the trunks of trees: sometimes they disappear, sometimes they reappear. Who cuts them out is unknown.
In 1975, young treasure hunters, students-historians from the capital, came to the banks of the Merzavka. They dug the ground under the boulders marked with signs. Moreover, they even knew the spell with which they hoped to open the treasure. This spell was found by historians in some archive in an ancient manuscript dating back to the 15th century.
However, they found nothing, except for two silver medallions, apparently very ancient with incomprehensible signs. And one of the students, a twenty-two-year-old boy, was lifted to death by a bear. Local residents said that this was revenge of the pans, who punished people for trying to take their treasures. Since then, no one has tried to look for treasures near Perevozny.
In 2000, local hunter Oleg Konovalenko disappeared there. They thought that he drowned in a swamp, since the body was not found.
Only his dog returned to the village, a cross between a shepherd dog and a husky, named Verny. However, the character of the dog has changed since then: he used to play with the children in the village. Now he did not allow anyone to come near him, he pounced on people. They said that Verny was frightened by the pan who ruined his master.
Chronicles have been preserved according to which Stephen of Perm, a missionary enlightener in the Komi lands, communicated with a certain Pan (Pam, Pama), a priest of the pagan religion practiced by the local residents, around 1379.
According to one of the sources, in order to shake the confidence in the words of Stephen among his wards, the chief priest of Zyryan Pama invited him to go through the fire. Say, if the God glorified by Stephen exists, then he will protect him from fire. Stephen prayed and decided to walk through the fire. Only not alone, but together with Pama, so that his Gods also show their strength and protect the priest from fire. Pama was frightened by such a test and admitted his defeat.
Sometimes treasure hunters, who have been looking for Chud treasures for several centuries, find something. Most often these are skeletons and skulls in burial mounds, sometimes copper and silver coins, knives, axes, harness, and earthenware. However, no one found gold and stones.
Chud spirits in different guises (sometimes in the guise of a hero on a horse, sometimes a hare or a bear) guard the ancient treasures:
“Sluda and Shudyakor are Chud places. There the heroes lived, from village to village they were thrown with axes. Then they buried themselves in the ground and took the gold with them. At the Shudyakor settlement, ingots-pillows are hidden, but no one will take them: horse bogatyrs stand guard. Our grandfathers warned us: "Do not go past this settlement late at night - the horses will trample!"
In the text of another ancient entry in the village of Zuikar, Vyatka province, it is written about the "Chud treasure" in Peipsi Mountain on the right bank of the Kama. A huge, slightly crooked pine tree grows here, and at a distance from it, three meters away, there is a rotten stump up to 2 m in diameter. They tried to find this treasure many times, but when they approached it, such a storm arose that the pines sloped to the ground, and the treasure hunters were forced to leave their enterprise.
However, they say, some treasure seekers still managed to penetrate the secrets of underground inhabitants, but it cost them very, very dearly. The appearance of the "eccentrics" was so terrible that some treasure hunters, having met them in the dungeons, left there completely mad and could no longer come to their senses for the rest of their lives.
It was even worse for those who stumbled upon the bones of "cinders" - buried "eccentrics" in the Chud graves. The pans left them to guard their riches, and the cinders suddenly revive as soon as someone approaches the treasures …