Pilgrimage sites in Russia are not only the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the Great Bolgar or the Ivolginsky Datsan. There are shrines no less significant for believers, but not so widely known, attracting worshipers and curious people from all over the world.
Caves of the Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery
Surprisingly, here the temperature is the same all year round - plus seven degrees. And high humidity. The bodies of monks and laity resting in caves do not emit an odor, although they are simply put here, without being buried. There is even an interesting story about this. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who visited this place in 1994, asked the monks: "What are you smearing them with?" “Nothing,” came the answer. The surprised president did not let up in his curiosity, and then one of the monks asked him a counter question: "Boris Nikolaevich, is there anyone among your entourage who smells bad?" To the expected "no" from the head of state, the monk said: "So do you really think that in the environment of the Heavenly Father, someone will smell bad?"
The caves themselves are called "God-made", that is, not made by hands. The entrance to them, according to legend, miraculously opened in 1392 to one of the local peasants. And in 1470 the priest John and his wife Mary settled here. After some time, they built the Assumption Church, and they themselves became monks under the names Iona and Vassa. When they died, they were buried in the grave. However, soon the bodies of the monks, also miraculously, appeared on the surface of the earth - and they were simply left in the caves. Since then, it has become a tradition to bury people here without burying them in the ground.
The inhabitants of the monastery say that traces of fire are visible next to the shrine (tomb), where the relics of the Monk Vassa are kept. In 1917, when the Bolsheviks wanted to rob her, a flame blazed out from there and scorched them. As they say, in the 1960s Nikita Khrushchev became interested in this case and sent scientists to the monastery in order to show the Soviet people that this was nothing more than "fables from the priests." But they unexpectedly confirmed the authenticity of the traces of the flame, so he accused them of lying.
Shamanka rock on Olkhon island
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“One cannot drive past the Shaman Rock on wheels, but only on horseback or in a sleigh, why in summer time communication between the western and eastern parts of Olkhon is carried out only on horseback, and even then in rare cases, since the Buryats are generally reluctant to drive past the cave; in addition, in the event that there is a deceased in one of the clans, members of this clan, that is, the whole half of the island, were forbidden to pass by the cave for a certain time, "- this is how Cape Burkhan described with a shaman's rock (it is also called" rock- shaman ") the famous Russian geographer of the XX century Vladimir Obruchev.
Cape Burkhan (shaman rock) on Olkhon Island / Victoria Sherina.
Every year shamans from various regions of Siberia perform their rituals here. It is not without reason that Cape Burkhan is considered one of the main places of power among the pagans. According to legend, a long time ago, this rock consisted entirely of silver and gold. And she was guarded by a powerful shaman, who constantly sent various disasters to the earth. The most powerful heroes tried unsuccessfully to kill her, a simple hunter managed to do it. And all the gold and silver went to the benefit of people, and at the place of the death of the shaman, a rock of an unusual shape appeared.
And according to another legend, the god of Lake Baikal Olkhon lived in this rock. And before Buddhism came to these lands, sacrifices were made to him here.
Subsequently, Buddhist monks chose this place, equipped it for prayer, and the rock itself was named Burkhan, which translates as "deity." Before the revolution, hundreds of lamas from all over Transbaikalia gathered here for mass prayers.
Tombs of 40 Muslim Martyrs in Derbent
Once at the Kirkhlyar cemetery, where the graves of 40 companions of the Prophet Muhammad are located, almost all of Dagestan gathered every week. Moreover, not only Shiites and Sunnis came to pray, but even Russian merchants. And all the peoples living here considered the buried their relatives.
11 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, in 632, the Arabs reached the borders of modern Russia and without much difficulty recaptured Derbent from the Khazars. The Khazar rulers considered the newcomers completely invulnerable until one of the soldiers killed an Arab bathing in the Caspian Sea and brought his head with the words: "Look, they, like us, are made of flesh and blood." And the conquerors decided to give battle under the walls of Derbent.
At the forefront of the Muslim army was the commander Surakat bin Amr, nicknamed Zunnun, along with 40 companions - they were the ones who spread Islam in the conquered lands, because "they saw the Prophet Muhammad and believed in his teachings."
“And they fought with infidels (infidels. - Ed.) For six days. Twenty thousand kafirs deserved eternal damnation in this battle, their souls were transferred directly to the middle of the jahandam (hell. - Ed.) And forty Muslim warriors fell for the faith of the Prophet and became martyrs. They were buried at the Kyrkhlyar cemetery,”the legend says.
The entire Islamic world knows about this shrine. Moreover, the locals claim that today people of completely different religions are praying at the tomb.
Aranzhin Arya Bala stone in Buryatia
In the 1970s, they learned about the shrine quite by accident. A resident of the village of Murochi, developing a frame of a stone of an unusual shape, captured by him, saw a mysterious inscription on it. Then it turned out that this is the mantra "Om mani padme hum" in Tibetan. Buddhists believe that she performed miraculously.
The stone itself was discovered back in the 1730s by Lama Damba Dorzho Zayayev. Buddhists considered this a sign of Avalokiteshvara (Buddha of compassion) - the Buryat land became a holy place. By the way, there are only two such shrines in the whole world. Another stone with a mantra is located in Nepal.
A few kilometers from the recovered shrine, there is the first datsan in Russia - "Baldan Braibun", on the border with Mongolia. Thousands of believers from all over Russia and from neighboring countries come here every year to touch the shrine.
Anton Skripunov