- Part one -
It is curious that Roerich, having learned that the lama understood the intricacies of the political situation in Russia, asked him for advice. Roerich dreamed of returning to his homeland, but he was afraid of the persecution of the organs, and later, on the advice of Blumkin, the artist would issue official documents as a special representative of sorcerers - mahatmas, who allegedly fully approve of the actions of the Bolsheviks and agree to transfer mysterious knowledge to the Soviet government.
So Blumkin will help Roerich to return to Moscow.
Together with the expedition, Blumkin traveled all over Western China. They visited more than a hundred Tibetan sanctuaries and monasteries, collected a huge number of ancient legends and legends, overcame thirty-five mountain passes, the greatest of which, Dangla, was considered impregnable, and collected an invaluable collection of minerals and medicinal herbs. To study them, a special institute was created in 1927.
But Yakov failed to reach the mysterious land of Shambhala. Either it does not exist at all, or incomplete information was printed on the maps, or he was frightened, like many of his predecessors. At least there are no documents or evidence of Yakov Grigorievich's stay in Shambala.
Returning to Moscow, in July 1926, Blumkin finds Barchenko. Upon learning that the scientist had visited Altai, where he studied local sorcerers, Blumkin threw out on him all his irritation for the vain search for Shambhala. They quarreled.
The United Labor Brotherhood learned about Blumkin's intrigues, but somehow they failed to take revenge - Yakov was urgently sent to Palestine. An operation began, associated with the organization of Soviet residency in the Middle East under the guise of trade in ancient Jewish manuscripts.
From 1937 to 1941, all members of the secret society “United Labor Brotherhood” were arrested and shot. Gleb Bokiy died. He was summoned by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov and demanded dirt on some members of the Central Committee and high-ranking officials. Bokiy refused. Then Yezhov came up with a trump card: "This is the order of Comrade Stalin."
Promotional video:
Bokiy shrugged his shoulders: “What is Stalin to me ?! Lenin put me in this place."
Gleb Bokiy did not return to his office …
Then they shot a member of the Central Committee Moskvin and Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Stomonyakov. The turn came to Barchenko. Everyone who was in any way connected with the mysterious country of Shambhala perished.
But still, Yakov Grigorievich Blumkin was shot first …
And Soviet Russia once again - in the mid-fifties of the twentieth century - sent an expedition of scientists and security officers to Shambhala. They followed Blumkin's route, amazed at the precise topographic data left by the "Mongol Lama". Whether they reached Shambhala is unknown …
The Russian Old Believers have the concept of "Belovodye", which in all its features resembles theosophical Shambhala. At the end of the 19th century, researchers of Central Asia came across another amazing legend - about the Belovodsk kingdom, or Belovodye, the country of justice and true piety.
Being in 1877 on the shores of the "wandering" Lake Lob-nor, north of the Tarim River in Western China (Xinjiang), the famous Russian traveler Nikolai Przhevalsky recorded the story of local residents about how a party of Altai Old Believers came to these places in the late 1850s, in number more than a hundred people. The Old Believers were looking for the Belovodsk "Promised Land".
Most of the newcomers, not satisfied with the living conditions in the new place, then moved further south, beyond the Altyntag ridge, where they established their settlement. But both those and others eventually returned to their homeland, to Altai.
A story about this journey of Belovodye's seekers, recorded from the words of one of its participants Zyryanov, together with a route map of the entire journey attached to it, was subsequently published in the "Notes of the Russian Geographical Society".
Belovodye is another mystery of Central Asian history. Modern researchers believe that this is "not a definite geographical name, but a poetic image of a free land, a figurative embodiment of a dream about it."
Therefore, it is no coincidence that the Russian Old Believers were looking for this “happy peasant country” in a vast area - from Altai to Japan and the Pacific Islands and from Mongolia to India and Afghanistan.
In the second half of the 18th century, two settlements in the Bukhtarma and Uimon valleys of southeastern Altai bore the name Belovodye. The power of the "bosses" and priests, the persecutors of the Old Believers, who did not accept the church reform of Patriarch Nikon, did not reach here.
This "neutral land" between the Russian and Chinese empires was incorporated into Russia in 1791. It was then, according to Chistov, that the legend of Belovodye arose. Its appearance is closely related to the activities of the "runners" sect, which is an irreconcilable offshoot of the Old Believers.
The first information about the search by Old Believers of a reserved country dates back to 1825-1826, and in the second half of the 19th century (1850-1880), walking in Belovodye became widespread.
For us, however, the most interesting are the reports on the Central Asian routes of Belovodye seekers (Mongolia - Western China - Tibet). The similarities between Christian and Buddhist traditions later served as a reason for some authors to talk about their single "root".
Another fact is also extremely curious - the seekers of Belovodye, who have visited India and Tibet, brought from there to Russia some elements of Eastern teachings, which were later assimilated and processed by some Russian mystical sects of the Old Believer persuasion.
- Part one -