The desire for happiness and freedom is ineradicable in a person. Kindness and beauty, tolerance and wisdom, the absence of backbreaking and joyless labor, prosperity and security for yourself and your loved ones are the age-old dream of mankind
But maybe there is such a place where such a just world order already exists? There cannot be such a wonderful country where everyone is wise and beautiful, where life is arranged according to the laws of beauty and justice!
And there is such a country! And her name is Belovodye.
Land of justice
Especially a lot of talk about Belovodye - the Promised Land - was among the schismatic Old Believers. In the middle of the 17th century, the Russian Orthodox Church split. On the side of the reformers was the state, which brutally persecuted the supporters of the old foundations. Fleeing from persecution, zealots of "ancient piety" sought refuge in the outskirts, and even abroad, of the Russian state. They fervently believed that Belovodye was a real country, the path to which the Creator would show them.
Let's accept a priori that Belovodye is not a myth, but an ancient legend about a really existing, or rather, an existed country. We know that a just state structure, wisdom and mutual kindness of population relations are the result of a long development of social relations, a culture nurtured for centuries. These are signs of a highly developed civilization that has passed a long and difficult path of development. And if so, then Belovodye should be looked for in places where once, perhaps, great civilizations existed, and about which only legends and tales remain.
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Man-made Belovodya
Agreeing that Belovodye is an echo of memories of a highly developed civilization, at the beginning I consider it necessary to mention those lands that claim to be the wonderful country of Belovodye, however, in my opinion, they cannot be, although they are beautiful in their own way.
In the Latvian City of Daugavpils there are six church churches of the Old Believers of the Pomor accord. Here, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the ancestors of today's adherents of this church found their Belovodye. By diligence, thoroughness, desire and ability to live in peace and goodness with neighbors, they built their lives, their country. Now an Old Believer cultural and educational fund has been created there, which is called "Belovodye". Yes, by their work, by their efforts, they have created their own happy country. But, alas, this is not the place that we are looking for, because, according to some sources, the legend of Belovodye came to Russia presumably in the first years of Christianization, i.e. long before the split, and before the resettlement of the adherents of the "old faith" to the Baltics.
Approximately the same situation with Altai and Sayans. The Old Believers fugitives made an invaluable contribution to the development of these fertile, but sparsely populated places at that time. And it is not surprising that they considered Altai Belovodye, a place where rivers of milk flow among the jelly (or honey?) Banks. Indeed, getting to Altai for the first time, you are surprised at the white color of the water running down from the glaciers of the Katunsky ridge. To this day, in the Russian villages located along the Katun, and especially in the Uimon depression, one can find a great abundance of milk and honey … Isn't it the embodiment of the legendary country? a free land, abundant with all everyday necessities and convenient in any places."
There, beyond the horizon …
We do not have the exact address of the magic land, but we can still make several assumptions about its location.
Solovetsky Islands. Russia has a lot to do with this fabulously beautiful place. However, recently, information has appeared that gives the right to assume that Solovki is the place that is directly related to the northern country mentioned in Ancient Greece - Hyperborea. For the Greeks, Hyperborea was a very real state, highly developed, where residents do not live in houses, but in forests and groves. Hyperboreans, the ancient Greeks argued, lead a happy life, they do not have strife and wars, they do not know the need. They are remarkable for their fairness and righteousness, and they devote most of their time to serving the gods. And they live on average for over a thousand years.
With the collapse of antiquity and the advent of Christianity, Hyperborea was forgotten, it was consigned to oblivion for almost 2000 years and disappeared into time and space. These are the assumptions and conclusions set out in the report of the Comprehensive Northern Search Expedition of the Scientific Tourism Commission of the Russian Geographical Society, which worked in 2002 on the Solovetsky Islands.
Tibet. On April 24, 1949, in the Russian newspaper Novaya Zarya, published in San Francisco, California, the Secret Legend of Belovodye was first published. An article in the newspaper said that in the last decade of the 19th century, a young nobleman, having visited the Vyshensky-Uspensky monastery located in the Tambov province, had lengthy conversations with one of the monks. This monk, having taken a vow of silence for 50 years from his listener, recounted the "Secret Legend" transmitted by the monks from mouth to mouth for many centuries.
Its essence is as follows:
A year before the baptism of Russia, a certain monk Sergius came to Prince Vladimir, who spent several years in the monasteries of Byzantium. He told Vladimir about the existence of a mysterious state far in the East - the Kingdom of White Waters, a country of justice and virtue. Vladimir, fascinated by the monk's story, equipped the embassy, hoping that in three years it would return. However, the monk Sergius showed up in Kiev only 50 years later, when Prince Vladimir was no longer alive. He told an amazing story about the journey and stay in Belovodye.
There is also other evidence of the existence of a mysterious country in the East. The famous traveler, researcher and artist Nicholas Roerich often mentions it. He claims that the Russian legend about Belovodye, and the legends about Shambhala widespread among other peoples, are legends about the same mysterious country.
Antarctica. Yes, yes, that very Antarctica, no man's land. Many scientists suggest that the emergence of many ancient civilizations almost simultaneously - Egypt, Crete, Greece, the states of Mesopotamia, the ancient states of America - have common roots: there are too many similarities in them. Therefore, some scientists believe that somewhere in the South, most likely in Antarctica, there was a powerful civilization. In Antarctica, the favorable climate of which can be judged by the imprints of fern leaves on the coal found here, there lived (according to modern estimates) 50 ml. person. About 10 thousand years ago, this country was destroyed by glaciers, and the surviving inhabitants of ancient Antarctica served as the basis or catalyst for the development of many ancient civilizations.
Concluding the topic of Antarctica, it is necessary to mention a few interesting facts or questions that are probably directly related to the topic of our article. For example: what attracted researchers from Hitler's Germany to Antarctica? What did they find there during the expeditions of 1938-1939? What did they manage to create and hide in the area that they called "New Swabia"? And what did the Americans find there, who organized an expedition to Antarctica in 1946, trying to solve the Antarctic mysteries of the "Millennium Reich"?
And the last thing: what will the scientists find in the non-freezing lake located directly under the Russian Vostok station at a depth of 4 km? And what is under the lake - isn't it the remnants of our pre-civilization?
Afterword
The desire for happiness and freedom is ineradicable in a person. And everywhere, all over the world, in every city, village, on a small farm, people dream of such a world order where there is no joyless and hard labor, where everyone is kind to each other, and where, as in a fairy tale, rivers of milk flow among the jelly banks …
Alexander Roshka. Journalist