They are looking for a golden woman in Siberia everywhere: in the Ural mountains, in Yamal, on the Irtysh, in Evenkia. They are looking for local historians, museum workers, amateur historians. They argue. They study ancient legends, manuscripts … But only here, in Taimyr, people can competently speculate about the existence of this precious sculpture, for example, both at a bus stop and at a reception at the head of the Norilsk administration. And, most importantly, everyone is sure that it really exists
- Where to look for her?
- Of course, on the Putorana plateau.
How the Golden Woman looked for certain, no one knows. The photo shows one of the reconstructions.
Yermak was looking for a golden woman
According to legend, the Golden Woman is a nude woman's figure cast from pure gold, about one and a half meters high. Baba's exact origin is unknown. But they say that once she stood on the shores of Lake Ladoga. According to the most common version, it was a statue of the ancient Roman goddess Juno, which was taken out of the plundered Rome by the next barbarians. Further, as a jewel of Baba, it was passed from one winner to another, until the Vikings put a paw on it and brought it to Ladoga. But when this happened is not clear. But it is approximately clear when she began her journey to Siberia. In the X-XI centuries, Christian missionaries came to North-West Russia. To honor a naked woman, albeit made of gold, was not part of their plans. And the local priests of the Magi took away their shrine. Allegedly to fellow pagans on the banks of the Kama. In the XIII century, Christianity reached here too,to baptize Perm and Zyryan. And again the priests sent the Golden Woman away. This time to the Urals, to the Mansi tribes. And then the Cossacks came to Siberia. The idol was hidden from them in
a secret temple somewhere on the Ob. It is known that Ermak Timofeevich himself hunted for this artifact. In 1552, one of his detachments, led by ataman Ivan Bryazga, captured one of the Khanty settlements, where, as spies reported, shamans brought the Golden Woman on occasion of some local holiday. The town was burned down - Baba was not found. According to legends, the shamans managed to hide it, then to move it to the very north at the mouth of the Ob. But as Christianity spread, the artifact had to be hidden further and further east. And, according to the latest information, it is supposedly safely hidden somewhere behind the Yenisei, on Taimyr.
And Kolchak hid the treasure with us
“Taimyr is the least explored region of Russia,” says Larisa STRYUCHKOVA, general director of the Norilsk book publishing house “Apex” and a passionate collector of secrets and mysteries of her native land. - We live apart from the mainland. You can get there either by sea or by plane. And traveling with us most of the year is possible only by helicopter. Geologists have studied only 25 percent of the Taimyr territory. And then what to say about historians, archaeologists, biologists? Nobody knows what secrets our land hides.
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Riddles arise almost from scratch. For example, last year we came to one Nganasan village (Nganasans are one of the indigenous peoples of Taimyr. - Ed.). And in the village council we learn that a certain American John, an ethnographer, is visiting here. And he comes every summer almost since the beginning of the 90s. Let's go get acquainted. The American turned out to be terribly unfriendly. Our ethnographer tried to get John talking about professional topics. It turned out that John did not whip at all. And then the locals calmly issued: "So he goes here for Kolchak's gold" (part of the disappeared gold reserve of the Russian Empire, which in 1918 was captured by the troops of Admiral Kolchak. - Ed.). Like, he always stays in the same family, whose ancestors seemed to know Kolchak from his pre-revolutionary polar expeditions.
In another village, dolmens were seen, in the third - almost the bronze gates of Alexander the Great, entrances to some mysterious caves, treasures of Old Believers, secret temples, traces of some structures, like the remains of Hyperborea or Noah's ark, were found. Most of the legends probably have some kind of real basis. And a simple explanation. But getting close to them is difficult. You need to fly somewhere. An hour of renting a helicopter costs 100 thousand rubles.
But the main mystery of our Taimyr is, of course, the amazing Putorana plateau. No one has really undertaken his research yet. They say that the Golden Woman is hidden somewhere there. And the "wild" Evenks guard it.
What does "wild" mean?
- They are not taken into account anywhere, not registered anywhere. They have no and never had passports. Neither Soviet nor Russian. They lead a traditional lifestyle. There are rumors that such peoples still remain. Taiga is big, you can't count them all …
A European has never set foot here
The Putorana Plateau rises above the surrounding forest-tundra, like a writing desk in a completely empty room. This is a volcanic mountain plateau, in some places towering over the surrounding plain for 1700 meters - you can climb here only along a few inconspicuous paths. The highest waterfall in Russia is located here - 101 meters. And the water in the local lakes, of which there are 25 thousand, is one and a half times cleaner than in Baikal. On the plateau, beasts and fish are invisible. But there are no people. In addition to several employees of one of the largest reserves in Russia, Putoransky, organized here. The main old-timer of them is the director Vladimir LARIN: he has been working here since the creation of the reserve, since 1988.
- The area is really completely unexplored. Territory - two million hectares, 2/3 of France. Plus one and a half million hectares of buffer protection zone. There are still places where a European has never gone before.
- For some reason I want to compare this land with the "lost world" of Conan Doyle. Maybe here you can also find animals that are considered extinct, for example, a mammoth?
- Alas, not alive. But if they are ever cloned, and this, I hope, will happen in the near future, then there is no better place for them than the Putorana plateau. And smaller animals … Two species of pikas have been discovered (small mammals from the order of Lagomorphs). Personally, I was lucky to add a class of amphibians to the fauna of the plateau - the Siberian salamander.
- Have you heard about the Golden Woman? They say that many are looking for her here …
- They are looking. But not many. It's incredibly difficult to get here. Whether they will find it, I don’t know. This would be a good archaeological expedition. People used to live here. They say that once upon a time local families fought for these places: Evenks, Nganasans, Yakuts with Dolgans. We constantly find something: ancient temples, traces of sites, ancient wooden idols - here is a paradise for archaeologists. The situation on Putorana is exactly the same as in pre-Petrine times, when Siberia had not yet been properly studied. I have no doubt that the Putorana will surprise us more than once. And they will amaze the entire XXI century.
- Why don't people settle down now? Is this a forbidden place for indigenous peoples?
- No, they are moving away from their former way of life, they do not wander. They have not entered the reserve itself for a long time. Only in the buffer zone two communal clan farms remained. However, sometimes some old people with a small argish (a herd of deer - Ed.) Wander around. Why - I don't know. They live a little and disappear again. I think they pass through "places of military glory". They remember their former life …
“Wild” Evenks are hiding for a reason
Vladimir Larin has not heard anything about the nomadic clans of the "wild" Evenks. But a lot of information about them was collected by the Norilsk writer and traveler, the author of the book "Unknown Norilsk" Vadim DENISOV:
- In the heart of the Putorana plateau and on its southern outskirts, as old-timers say, it is quite possible to meet mythical “wild” Evenks, not assigned to any village, not known to any procurement organization or passport office. According to rumors, they have lived for decades without coming into contact with civilization. And meeting with them in the depths of the Putorana spurs is extremely undesirable.
There is a record of a 1981 conversation with an old Evenk Pakhom Kapitonovich Elagir, who told about the caves located in one of the gorges of the plateau. Like, some "wild people" lived there. However, in the Putorana mountains there are no caves, not that structure, rather it is about grottoes. But it's still interesting, since the legends about the Golden Woman say that she is supposedly hidden in a cave.
And the last case on this topic seems to have occurred in the same 1981. This is rarely spoken about, but it does happen. A certain young hunter out of mischief began to shoot at the flying plane from a gun and even got hit. The pilots complained where necessary. And the prosecutor's office demanded to arrest the violator. But the culprit of the incident has sunk into the water. Then people said that he went to the "wild".
- Still, why should people, if they are clean before the law, hide from civilization? After all, it still carries some benefits?
- Local tribes often fought among themselves. The winners drove the vanquished from their favorite pastures. Whole families hid in the taiga or tundra from the raids of the warlike Yakuts, and then from the Russian Cossacks. And the last flight of tribes, I think, is associated with the uprisings of the 30s of the last century during the organization of collective farms and during the period of dispossession. And, of course, the resettlement associated with nuclear explosions on Novaya Zemlya. The radioactive fallout flew towards Taimyr, and their trajectory, possibly, passed over the Evenk villages. According to rumors, part of one tribe, sent to a new place of residence in the village of Essey, did not reach their destination, disappearing in Putorany.
- Is it really “wild”, if they do exist, so difficult to find?
- In Putorany, in the middle and southern part, especially in the southern foothills, you can safely hide several motorized rifle divisions - and no one will notice. And who will look for them? State? Rumors of "wild" have been around for a very long time. And some of them are associated with certain Evenks who went into voluntary exile with a cult purpose - to keep the Golden Woman.
There is one riddle here, which I can only give my own guess.
In the legends of the northern peoples, a description of how a strong military detachment of the Khanty marched from the Ob to the Yenisei in the 17th century was preserved. There were only men in the army. But they did not fight, did not pay attention to the local residents, and moved forward with some unknown purpose. And after crossing the Yenisei just in the Putorana area, they stopped and stayed to live, recruiting women from local tribes. If we assume that it was they, the Khanty, who saved the Golden Woman from the Cossacks, then they also contrived to hide the relic somewhere in the secluded corners of the plateau. But how could they do this without having mountain experience, without knowing the territory? A stranger, by the way - the Evenks ruled here. This could only be done in tandem. Only the Evenks could be guides, helpers and prompts. Modern Norilsk researchers of this issue, which is partly taboo in our country, considerthat now it is the Evenks, not even realizing the importance of the relic, that they keep the Golden Woman in the strictest confidence in the very heart of the plateau. “Wild” Evenks. They themselves doomed themselves to voluntary exile.