The fate of the people under the strange name Chud still remains one of the most controversial mysterious issues in our history. Despite the fact that the chud left its traces everywhere: in the names of lakes and villages, in fairy tales and sayings, in the archaeological cultural layer, this tribe simply disappeared from the face of the earth.
Who is Zavolochskaya?
In the opinion of the overwhelming majority of historians, chud is nothing more than a collective concept, by which our ancestors meant the totality of some Finno-Ugric tribes. The language of these strangers was incomprehensible to the Russians, alien, and therefore they were dubbed Chudyu. Representatives of this mysterious tribe lived in territories whose population is still dominated by representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples.
Chudya Zavolochskaya was the name of the inhabitants of Zavolochye - the lands that lie within the boundaries of the basins of two rivers - the Northern Dvina and Onega. In ancient times, it was necessary to drag ships from one river to another manually - by dragging. In exactly the same way, land plots between two bodies of water began to be called drags. Hence the Zavolochye - behind the drag.
Soviet scientist-archaeologist A. Ya. Bryusov believed that the Zavolochsky regions were inhabited by the first people about III-IV thousand years ago. This is evidenced by the remains of tools and utensils found as a result of excavations. Moreover, according to historians, all items are made very skillfully.
The reasons for the disappearance of Chudi
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Many scientists argue that the zavolochskaya chud has not gone anywhere. It's just that the representatives of this tribe assimilated among other peoples: Karelians, Vepsians, Russians. Being pagans, they nevertheless accepted Christianity on an equal basis with others and, having united with the newly converted, simply dissolved among them, adopting their writing, which Chudi did not have at all.
However, some researchers believe that the zavolochskaya chud just did not want to be baptized, since these people were ardent pagans and did not want to depart from their faith. Even many years after the spread of the new religion in Russia, the representatives of the Chudi retained their appearance, indicating (for example, the loose hair of women) that they had not abandoned paganism.
Folklore about the whereabouts of Chudi
Especially many references to Chud can be found in fairy tales and stories of Old Believers. So, in one of these stories, it is said about a certain White king who decided to conquer a mysterious tribe and gathered for this a huge army. However, the Chuds did not want to obey the king and went deep underground, where they still live. They built roads and cities there. Only sometimes, in complete silence, you can hear the bells ringing in underground churches. But the day will come when the chud will come to the surface again.
According to another legend, the representatives of the Chudi really rejected the new Christian faith alien to them, and, realizing that they were doomed, committed mass suicide. They dug a huge depression in the ground, installed pillars there, and put a roof on them, after which they went down into this pit and knocked out the supports. They were covered with debris from the roof. None of the Chud tribe survived.