Crimean Alexander Georgievich Paraskevidi has a tooth at home (alas, it was not possible to find his photo) of some sea monster. About 6 cm long, red-brown in color, it was found sticking out of a piece of wood on the beach near the village of Stary Mayak. The Turkish ichthyologist Arif Hakim, after examining and analyzing the strange find, considered that the tooth belongs to an animal unknown to science.
A DEEP COMMITMENT TO THE OLD
Official science does not recognize the existence of the Black Sea snake. It is believed that such a large creature cannot live there, since a hydrogen sulfide layer begins at a depth of 100-150 m. But the chronicles testify that the serpent in the Black Sea lived several hundred and even thousands of years ago. Even the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that a mysterious monster lives in the waters of the Pontus Euxine (Black Sea).
According to his descriptions, the creature was dark, almost black in color, had a mane, clawed paws, a terrible mouth with huge teeth and burning red eyes. It moved along the surface of the water much faster than ancient Greek ships. In the 16th-17th centuries, the captains of Turkish warships and merchant ships reported on meetings with the Black Sea dragon. Sometimes the monster even chased small boats. The Don Cossacks and officers who served under Admiral Ushakov who went on long sea voyages also met with him.
In 1828, the Yevpatoria police chief reported to the higher authorities about the appearance of a huge sea snake in the Karadag region. Emperor Nicholas I, known for his curiosity, having learned about the Black Sea monster, sent scientists to the Crimea.
The members of the expedition never found the snake, but they found an egg weighing 12 kg, in which there was an embryo that looked like a fairy dragon with a comb on its head. Nearby, they found the skeleton of a giant tail with an armored structure. Then, in the scientific community, disputes even arose: can a sea snake throw off its tail like a lizard?
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In 1855, the officers of the brig "Mercury" saw in the water a dark gray creature over 20 m long, which, making wave-like movements, was moving in the direction of Cape Meganom, located in the southeastern part of the Crimea between Feodosia and Sudak. As soon as the brig approached the monster, it disappeared under the water.
During the First World War, Chief Lieutenant Gunther Prufner, the commander of the Kaiser's submarine, cruising on the surface off the coast of the Crimea, saw a strange, huge creature, silently cutting through the waves. The officer took a good look at the monster through binoculars. His first thought was to torpedo the monster or shoot it with a cannon, but then he made another decision and, fearing a collision with a giant reptile, gave the command for an urgent dive.
FANTASY OR REALITY?
On May 17, 1952, the Soviet writer Vsevolod Ivanov observed the unknown monster for forty minutes in Serdolikovaya Bay. Watching dolphins hunting mullet, he saw a large, about ten meters in circumference, stone, overgrown with brown algae.
The writer had previously visited this place several times, but this was the first time he saw this stone. Looking closely, the writer noted that the "stone" moves slowly. Assuming it was algae, he continued his observation. After a while, the "ball of algae" turned around and stretched out.
“The creature swam in undulating movements to the place where the dolphins were, that is, to the left side of the bay,” Ivanov described this phenomenon. - Everything was still quiet. Naturally, it immediately occurred to me: is this not a hallucination? I took out my watch. It was 12:18 pm. The reality of what I saw was hampered by the distance, the shine of the sun on the water, but since the water was transparent, I even saw the bodies of dolphins, which swam twice as far from me as the monster.
It was large, very large, 25-30 meters, and as thick as the desk top if turned sideways. It was under water and I think it was flat. The lower part is white, as far as the blue of the water made it possible, and the upper part is dark brown, which made me mistake it for algae. The monster, wriggling in the same way as swimming snakes, swam towards the dolphins. They immediately disappeared."
The writer Stanislav Slavich also described something similar: “Eyewitnesses talk about a meeting with a huge snake on Kazantip. The shepherd noticed something shiny under a bush of thorns, like a ram's skull polished by rains and winds, and just like that, out of nothing to do, he hit with a gerlyga (a long staff with a wooden hook at the end) on this skull.
And then the incredible happened: a cloud of dust rose up, pieces of earth flew in all directions. The shepherd became numb and numb, no longer understood what was with him and where he was.
He saw only this cloud of dust, and in it his own, as if mad, shepherd dogs and something huge, wriggling with monstrous strength and speed. When the shepherd came to his senses, one dog was killed, and two survivors furiously tore the body of some huge reptile. What seemed to the shepherd as a ram's skull was the head of a huge snake. Soon after, the shepherd, they say, died."
MONSTERS ATTACK
In 1961, another shocking encounter with a sea serpent took place in Crimea. Once the local fisherman MI Kondratyev, the director of the Krymskoe Primorye sanatorium A. Mozhaisky and the chief accountant of this enterprise, V. Vostokov, went fishing on a boat in the morning.
They moved some 300 meters away from the pier of the Karadag biological station in the direction of the Golden Gate, when they suddenly saw an incomprehensible brown spot under the water some fifty meters away. When trying to get closer to it, the stain began to disappear. When they managed to catch up with him, it became clear that there was something eerie and very impressive in size under the water.
Two or three meters under the water, the head of a huge snake was quite clearly visible, about a meter in size, all covered with brown hairs, resembling algae in appearance. Behind the head on the torso of the monster were horny plates. A shaggy mane swayed in the water at the top of his head and dark brown back. The monster's belly was lighter - gray.
When people saw the small eyes of the monster, they were literally numb with horror. Mikhail Kondratyev nevertheless managed to quickly recover, and, having turned the boat around, rushed to the shore at full speed. Amazingly, the monster chased after them. Its speed was very high, and it stopped chasing only near the coast, after which it headed into the open sea.
On August 12, 1992, a similar story happened to an employee of the Feodosia City Council V. M. Belsky. He swam in the sea, dived about 30 meters from the shore, and at some point, emerging, he saw a huge snake head almost next to him.
Terrified, Belsky rushed to the shore, jumped out of the water and hid among the stones. Looking out from behind the stone, he saw that where he had just swam, the head of a monster appeared, from whose mane water was flowing. Belsky even managed to make out the skin and gray horny plates on the head and neck. The sea monster's eyes were small and the body was dark gray with a lighter underside. It is curious that a year earlier, in the same place, a young man, a master of sports in swimming, died of a heart attack.
NESSY BLACK SEA
The Black Sea snake has been stirring the human imagination for several thousand years. Nowadays, some enthusiasts spend their days on the coast, armed with video equipment, with the onset of warmth. They hope to become famous by being the first to capture the mysterious sea dragon on film.
In October 2009, the Gusarenko spouses seem to have succeeded, and quite by accident. The video recording is not of good quality, since it was made from a long distance, but you can still see a huge serpentine body moving rapidly in the water.
In the early 1990s, Crimean fishermen found dead dolphins with huge lacerations. In one of the dolphins, the stomach was literally ripped out along with the entrails. The size of the bite along the arc was about a meter, and the depth reached the spine. Along the edge of the arch, the dolphin's skin showed the marks of sixteen large teeth.
Several years ago, a dolphin, bitten in half by some monster, was also removed from the water by the neighbors in the region - Turkish fishermen. Scientists at Istanbul University concluded that the marks on the body were left by the teeth of a very large animal.
Victor BUMAGIN