Surprising discoveries are likely to be made.
The first geographical maps of Siberia appeared only in the 16th century. Thus, we can only guess about everything that was here before. And if you look closely at the old maps, you can see mysterious cities.
Artania
It is known that in the 9th-10th centuries, Arab and Persian geographers knew about three Russian lands: Kiev, Novgorod and the third Russia, which they called Artania or simply Arta.
Some researchers identify Artania with the territory "beyond the Stone", that is, with Siberia, others with Tmutarakan, and still others with the areas of the present Ryazan region.
It is assumed that Artania was destroyed by the Tatar hordes, but the surviving descendants of the ancient Slavic people survived until the second arrival of the Russians in Siberia.
The Turks and Mongols called this area the Horde, the Normans - Ostrogard, the Germans - Ostergard, in contrast to the Gards of Novgorod-Kievan Rus. Russian historian Vasily Tatishchev explained the name "Ostergard" (Eastern Gards) by the fact that this country was located far to the east in the lands of the Yurga, Huns and Avars. Both the Huns and Avars came to Europe from Siberia, and the Yurgs (Ugrians) have always lived here.
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The Austrian diplomat Sigismund Herberstein, who twice, in 1517 and 1526, visited Moscow, drew up a map of Siberia, which showed a huge lake at the top of the Ob, which he called the Chinese. Herberstein wrote that the Ob river is up to 80 versts wide, and, apparently, believed that such a powerful river should flow out of a very large lake. The name of the lake may have been invented by him himself. And not far from this reservoir, the cartographer showed the city of Kumbalik, to the location of which we will return.
Following Herberstein, who spoke Russian but was not in Siberia, Western cartographers painted Lake China, and next to it a country called China, for almost two more centuries.
The Englishman Antonio Jenkinson showed that a large river flows into Lake China, originating in Central Asia. And he placed Tashkent in the upper reaches of the Syrdarya river. In fact, it was the Aral Sea, not China Lake.
The latter on the map of the Dutch cartographer Nikolaas Witsen was first called Lake Altyn, or Teletskoye. The book of his scientific research was based on Russian sources and was called "Northern and Eastern Tartaria", where the word "Tartaria" was synonymous with Siberia. Although more often this term was used in medieval Western European literature to designate the Great Steppe - once part of the Golden Horde, vast territories between Europe, Siberia, the Caspian and Aral Seas, the Ural Mountains and China.
Lukomoria
In his notes, Herberstein wrote that Lukomorians from the Lukomoria area, which is located "in the mountains on the other side of the Ob," live near the Chinese Lake.
The famous Altai geologist and ethnographer Mikhail Rosen, studying the early Western European maps, on which the Ob and Altai are depicted, seems to be the first of the researchers who was able to understand the term "Lukomoria". A strange name for the West Siberian Plain, as it turned out, was used in Russia not only to designate the bends of the sea coast, but also a steep arc of the elevated coast in areas located inland.
For the first time the name "Lukomoria" appeared in the book "Notes on Muscovy", published in 1549 by Sigismund Herberstein. Following him, this term was replicated in the 16th-17th centuries by Western European cartographers Gerardus Mercator, Iodoca Gondius and J. Cantelli.
Mikhail Rosen came to the conclusion that the Lukomorsk mountains are the western flank of the Siberian ridges, which are called Belogorie opposite the mouth of the Irtysh. And the Tomsk ethnographer Galina Pelikh, by the way, a native of Barnaul, believes that the bend of the Irtysh in its estuarine part was named "Lukomorye" ten generations before Ermak.
Then why Barnaul, standing on a steep bend of the Ob, is not Lukomorye ?!
Samariki
On the map of G. Cantelli south of Lucomoria, the inscription Samaricgui, or Samariegui, is made. Who or what are samariki, Galina Pelikh recently found out. She published a detailed article about the first Russian settlers, who were called Samaras and who, according to legend, came to Siberia from the Samara River, which flows into the Dnieper on the left. Galina Pelikh suggested that the departure of the Samars to the troubled 13th-14th centuries because of the Don to Siberia was caused by the fact that "terrible wars" began there. That is why the name of these people has taken root in Siberia as cheldon-chaldon (a man from the Don).
The indigenous population of Siberia clearly distinguished the post-Ermak settlers, who were considered colonizers, and the local Russians who came “for the Stone” (the Ural Mountains) much earlier than their compatriots, who did not resemble their European counterparts either in dialect or mentality. It was the Samariks-Chaldons who brought the historical memory of the legendary Siberian ancestral home - the third Russia.
Sadness
There are different points of view regarding the very fact of existence, as well as the location of the city bearing the Slavic name of Sadin.
Sigismund Herberstein emphasized in his notes that the Lukomorians from the Lukomoria locality conduct a lively trade with the inhabitants of Grestina and Serponov.
The author of an essay about Siberia, the Italian Alexandro Gvagnini, wrote in 1678: “… In the neighborhood of this region there are the sadistic and Serpon peoples from the Sadina fortress to the Chinese lake, where the aforementioned Ob River originates. Black people living near this lake, who do not speak a common language, have the custom of coming to the Sadinsky fortress, bringing with them various goods, and especially pearls and expensive stones, which the sad people and Serponians acquire from them through exchange. The tribes of the Lukomorye, as well as the saddens and the Serponians, and some others living in the Ob region and Lake China … up to the Great Ocean, as they say, pay tribute to the Moscow prince."
Iodoka Gondius placed Gustina somewhere in the upper reaches of the Ob, not in the mountains, but in the West Siberian Plain, near modern Barnaul. The location of the city is not very clear, but the inscription on the map from 1606 next to Sadina says: "Tartars and Russians live together in this cold city."
The burgomaster of Amsterdam Nikolaas Witsen inflicted a mysterious Sadness on the right side of the Katun near its mouth.
Ortelius' maps also show the town of Grustina on the Ob River, but the scale of this map does not allow us to speak of its exact location. It is worth noting that it has similar geometric dimensions to the city of Siberia, the capital of the Siberian Khanate.
Our contemporary - a member of the Altai Regional UFO Association Elena Melnikova says: “As a result of the biolocation carried out on Mount Bobyrgan and processing of cartographic and historical materials, I come to the conclusion that on the saddle of Mount Bobyrgan in the 15th-16th centuries. there was a city-fortress Sadin. Bobyrgan, let me remind you, is located on the territory of the Soviet district.
There are also assumptions (also without any proof) that the town of Grustina was located near the town of Berdsk and is more than 500 years old; or: the city could be located upstream of the Ob River beyond the Chumysh River.
Serponov
The map of Russia, which was published by Guillaume Sanson in the atlas of De Rossi in 1688 in Rome, indicates that Grustina is located on the eastern bank of the Ob, and Serponov (Serpenov) - on the Kich (Ket) river flowing into the Ob.
But, according to other data of medieval cartography, Serponov was located right at the Ob sources, at the confluence of Biysu and Ketyn (Biya and Katun).
The town of Serponov is also mentioned in the book of the Austrian ambassador to the court of Ivan the Terrible, Baron Sigismund Herberstein, "Notes on Muscovy": “This city was visited in a very large number of people who did not speak the generally accepted language, and brought with them various goods, primarily pearls and precious stones that the Artan peoples bought from them”.
On the map from the Atlas of the famous Flemish geographer Gerard Mercator, published in 1595, the city of Serpenov is shown at the top of one of the right tributaries of the Ob, and on the left bank of the Chinese (Teletskoye) lake is the town of Grustina.
However, Mikhail Rosen calls these settlements “fictional”. It is understandable, because historians are very careful about such information, since they are not confirmed by any other documents, except for maps and notes of travelers.
Katunion
At the top of the Ob, at the confluence of Biya and Katun, Nikolaas Witsen showed the city of Katunion (Katunaon).
However, according to Mikhail Rosen, "in fact, the Biekatunsky prison was built here only in 1709, but, apparently, there were Russian drawings with projects of future fortresses and names on them, which Witsen used."
And Vasily Dorogin, senior lecturer at the Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Informatics, using the method of content analysis of ancient and modern maps of similar areas, came to the conclusion that this “city of Biysk was called“Katunion”during the time of Nikolaas Witsen.
In ancient times, this place was the only convenient "floating" crossing, and our contemporaries call it Vikhorevka or "Topols".
The confluence of Biya and Katun has always been especially revered among the Siberian Slavs. This is indicated by the works of the 18th century explorer of Siberia, captured Swedish officer Johann Stralenberg, who describes the presence of the Altai idol "Golden Woman" at the origins of the Ob, which, according to the Altai themselves, belonged to the white people who lived here even before the arrival of the Turks.
Tomsk catacombs
An unnamed Spanish Franciscan monk, who in the middle of the 14th century wrote the "Book of Knowledge" about the legendary eastern state of Ardeselib, in which Presbyter John reigned, named its capital Graciona, that is, Sadina. Ardeselib, as you can easily see, has the same root ("ard" - "art") with Artania. And the localization of the capital of the Kingdom of John is not a mystery - its coordinates to a degree coincide with the coordinates of the city of Tomsk. At least, this is the opinion of the Tomsk researcher Nikolai Novgorodov.
He reports that the Russian Cossacks, who built the Tomsk fortress in 1604, did not find any city here. But the written head of Gavril Pisemsky and the boyar son Vasily Tyrkov noted the extreme disturbance of the natural landscape. Academician Pyotr Pallas, who visited Siberia in 1760, also noted the unnaturalness of the Tomsk landscape - endless "bumps and pits".
Numerous archaeological finds in the city limits and in the vicinity of Tomsk clearly indicate that a powerful Slavic settlement existed on this territory from the beginning of our era until the 17th-18th centuries.
Over the four centuries of the existence of Tomsk, signs of the former residence of people here were noted more than once. These are, firstly, refined vegetation - birch, hawthorn, hemp; secondly, ancient archaeological sites and, finally, methods of burying people. On the territory of the Cossack Tomsk fortress, 350 coffin-decks were discovered. The funeral rites and the structure of the skulls allowed S. Chugunov, the prosector of the Imperial Tomsk University, to assert that they were not Tatars at all, but not Christians either.
Kambalyk
The territory of the modern Altai Territory corresponds to that section of the Ob, where the river leaves the mountains to the West Siberian Plain. Here, Iodoka Gondius shows two cities by symbols, one of which is unnamed, and the other is called Cambalich. Below it, along the Ob, the city of Grustina is indicated. These legendary cities were first marked on the map of Sigismund Herberstein, published in 1549.
Hundreds of years before him, the Icelander Snorri Sturlusson (1179-1241), the author of the geographical treatise “The Earth's Circle”, who visited Siberia, wrote: “From north to east and to the very south stretches a part called Asia. In this part of the world, everything is beautiful and magnificent, there are possessions of earthly fruits, gold and precious stones. There is the middle of the earth. And because the earth itself is there in everything and is more beautiful and better, the people inhabiting it are also distinguished by all their gifts: wisdom and strength, beauty and all kinds of knowledge. A city was built near the middle of the earth, which won the greatest fame."
This hail in the "middle of the earth" may have been the city of Kambalyk, which Western European cartographers designated in the upper reaches of the Ob.
The famous Arab traveler Rashid ad-Din pointed out that in 1300, archival and other books for the past five thousand years were kept in Kambalyk. Consequently, in 3700 BC, this city was already so large that sofas existed in it, in modern terms - ministries.
The uncle of Pope Urban the Eighth, Raphael Barberini, who traveled to the east at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, wrote in a book published by his descendants in 1658 that “the Ob flows from one large lake Kataya (Cattajo) in the place where and the main Katai town called Combuliche."
The famous Italian traveler Marco Polo lived in Kambalyk (Khanbalyk, Shambalyk) for 17 years and described it in his famous "Book on the journey to Tatarstan and other eastern countries." He said that the city of Kambalyk had 24 miles in circumference (perimeter). For comparison: the then Constantinople had a perimeter of 18 miles. There were 12 gates in Kambalyk, each of which was guarded by a thousand guards. A thousand or more carts of silk arrived in the city every day. 25 thousand prostitutes "honestly worked" in the city (24 thousand priestesses of love lived in London with four million inhabitants in 1878).
Modern historians consider Kambalyk, in which the traveler lived, the capital of ancient China - Beijing.
Unfortunately, Marco Polo did not indicate the exact location of this city. But in his diaries it is indicated that Kambalyk stands near a coal basin (local people mine coal there for baths), not far from it there are mountains and a forest. Beijing, as you know, stands on the seashore, there are no mountains nearby, as well as no coal, and the climate is warm.
Rather, these signs are suitable for Kuzbass or Altai. And the climate described by Marco Polo with snow and frost corresponds to the Siberian one.
Then it becomes clear why the famous traveler does not mention the famous Chinese tea ceremony and does not admire the little feet of Chinese women.
In 1240-1271 Kambalyk (Khanbalik) was the capital of the Great Mongol Khan. In 1284, Khan Khibulai (whose orders were fulfilled more than once by Marco Polo) moved the capital of the khanate to the city of Ji (future Beijing), calling it Khanbalik. Many historians believe that Western European cartographers placed this city on the banks of the Ob River out of ignorance or by mistake. But you can listen to a different point of view: perhaps only the name of the city migrated, but he himself remained in Siberia and is still waiting to be discovered.
Karagaser
Novosibirsk researcher Vasily Dorogin, comparing ancient and modern maps of southern Siberia using modern methods, discovered the city of Karagaser, located between the Sur and Kitta rivers and located near Lake Teletskoye (Altin Lac).
Unfortunately, it was not possible to correlate the lexical name of the city of Karagaser with any other modern city. How to find correspondences for the Sur and Kitta-Kita rivers.
The author of the study tried to divide the word "Karagaser" into two parts: both of these words are Turkic. "Kara" literally translates as "black", but it also has other meanings: "great", "mighty", "strong". It was present in the names and titles of the representatives of the ruling class: Karaaslan, Karakhanids, Karakhan, Karamurza, Karaiskander.
Geser (Geser, Geser Khan) is a character in the Mongolian, Buryat and Tibetan epic "Geseriada". The prototype of Geser could be the Tibetan prince Gosylo, Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, and the etymology of his Tibetan name Kesar, possibly, goes back to Caesar-Caesar-king.
Thus, the meaning of the words "kara" and "gaser-geser" is given by the phrase - Great Geser.
By the way, there is a mountain Karakorum on the shores of Lake Teletskoye. A suitable place for a large number of people to live is in the mouth and in the valley of the Chulyshman River.
Vasily Dorogin suggests that the city of Karagaser, which was in the possession of the Golden Horde and located near Mount Karakorum, was named after a very influential and powerful person, possibly Genghis Khan.
Author: MURAVLYOV Anatoly