The ancient Finno-Ugric deity Zarni An has been mysterious and incomprehensible for several centuries. This idol was worshiped by the peoples who lived on both sides of the Ural Mountains, and now the face of Zarni An shines on the emblem of the Komi Republic
The search for the Golden Woman was carried out by representatives of many generations. It would seem that for four hundred years the idea should have completely discredited itself, but this did not happen. Until now, from time to time there are "absolutely reliable information" of eyewitnesses who know exactly where the Golden Woman is kept. They continue to search for her. And always, these searches were accompanied by mystical events.
Treasures of the Gulag
It turned out that the secret of finding the ancient idol could well have been kept even before the 1930s in the Komi village of Pomozdino. Albert Martynenko, the author of the recently published book "Treasures of the GULAG", pointed out the unexpected relationship of this village with Zolotoy Baba. His book was written on the basis of the diaries and notes of the doctor Alexander Afanasyevich, who was brought to the infirmaries of the Soviet camps by the political repressions of the Stalin era. He went through Solovki, Vorkuta, Norilsk … In these places, patients ended up in a hospital bed most often in a hopeless state and, dying, shared the most intimate and secret with the doctor. So Alexander Afanasyevich unwittingly recognized the burial places of seventy-five treasures on the territory of the former Soviet Union. He also heard about the secret of the Golden Woman. Alexander Afanasevich bequeathed his notes to the doctor and film director Albert Martynenko. He wrote this book.
For the first time, Alexander Afanasyevich heard about the Golden Baba in the Solovetsky special purpose camp in 1928 from one prisoner, a professor at St. Petersburg University, an archaeologist and expert on the North. As he said, in one place on the territory of the Komi Territory there was the main temple of all northern peoples. The main idol was made of pure gold and was called Zarni An. This idol was cast and very heavy. When the Komi people began to accept Christianity, the most respected Komi shamans gathered for a council and then hid the golden goddess, and so that the place would not be lost, it was decided that ten shamanic clans would become the keepers of the secret at once. They had to pass on the secret from generation to generation. Centuries passed. The golden goddess was visited from time to time by the chief shamans, and information about her was passed down among the people, becoming a source of inspiration. Under Soviet rule, almost all shamans were arrested and shot, their houses were destroyed, and their families were scattered. The broken continuity of faith led to the fact that the fate of the golden goddess became a legend.
In the 1930s-1940s, while in camps on the territory of the Komi Territory, Alexander Afanasyevich heard about Zarni An many times from local old-timers, but no one could say for sure where it was hidden. Once, soon after the war, Alexander Afanasevich was in one of the camp hospitals in Sverdlovsk. A boy who was dying of severe pneumonia was brought to him, who was worried only by one thought: he, the shaman's son, owns the secret whereabouts of Zarni Anh and swore an oath to his father to pass this secret on to his son, but now he is dying, and the place where the ancient idol is kept, will be lost forever.
To console the patient, Alexander Afanasyevich promised to pass this secret on to someone worthy. The boy said that only his younger brothers and sisters remained free. And the secret must be tried to convey to them. He gave the names of his relatives and said that his name was Mikhail Ignatov. And that he himself and all his relatives come from the village of Pomozdino.
After that, Michael told about the place where the idol is kept. But the problem was that most of the story was in the Komi language, and the entire coordinate system was based on the terms of folk astronomy. Alexander Afanasevich nodded his head, but he could neither understand nor remember anything. In addition, he was constantly distracted by other patients. The doctor decided to continue the conversation with Mikhail Ignatov the next day, but he was transferred to another hospital. Alexander Afanasyevich lost track of the boy … He had almost no chance of life.
Promotional video:
The author of the book, examining the doctor's notes, racked his brains for a long time, trying to understand something in the Komi folk astronomy and measures of length. Traces lead to the Polar Urals - that's all he could identify.
As we managed to establish, in the village of Pomozdino, a certain Mikhail Ignatov was among the repressed. However, this surname is widespread in the region. If we accept the described case as a reality (and why not?), Then you need to find in Pomozdino the relatives of the repressed Mikhail Ignatov. It is possible that he somehow gave them the secret of the ages. But, on the other hand, they still will not reveal it to the uninitiated, to those who are looking for Zarni An for the sake of glory or profit.
Along the path of Ermak
The famous idol was also tried to find by the Novgorod ushkuiniks, who, during their campaigns to Yugra, plundered pagan sanctuaries. The Cossacks of Ermak were also interested in Golden Baba. They first learned about the golden idol from the Chuvash, who fled to their camp during the siege of one of the Tatar settlements.
The Chuvash, who came to Siberia as a Tatar prisoner, spoke a little Russian, and from his words Ermak learned that in the tract besieged by him, the Ostyaks pray “to the god of gold, sits in a bowl, and is put on the table and fat is burning and smoking all around sulfur, like in the ladle. " However, the Cossacks, having taken the town by attack, could not find the precious idol. The Cossacks heard about him for the second time when they got to Belogorie on the Ob, where the temple, most revered by the Ostyaks, was located. At that time the main shrine of the Ugric peoples was also located here, but the Yermakovites did not have a chance to see it. When they approached, the inhabitants hid the "boob", like the entire treasury. The Cossacks asked the Ostyaks about the Golden Baba and found out that here, in Belogorie, "they have a prayer for the ancient goddess - a naga with her son in a chair, settling." Here, to the Belogorsk sanctuary,they brought and put at the feet of the Golden Woman the chain mail removed from the deceased Ermak - a gift from the king, according to legend, which became the cause of his death. After the arrival of Ermak, the sacred idol was carefully hidden in unknown hiding places. Three remote, inaccessible corners of Russia are traditionally called the last refuge of the Golden Baba: the lower reaches of the Ob River, the upper reaches of the Irtysh in the Kalbinsky ridge and the impassable gorges of the Putorana plateau on the Taimyr Peninsula.
In the second half of the 18th century, an expedition of the Cossacks went to the lower Ob region in search of the golden statue. About two dozen armed horsemen with removable horses and deer disappeared without a trace. In Soviet times, the secret of the Golden Woman was of interest to the Chekists. In particular, in 1933, the competent authorities received information that it was hidden by the Khanty, living on the right tributary of the Lower Ob - the Kazym River. A task force was sent to the secret temple, but the hunters killed the Chekists, after which the punitive detachment shot almost all the local men, and took the guns from the rest. The sanctuary was destroyed, but the idol was never found.
In 1961, a statue resembling the description of the Golden Baba was found in one of the storage sheds near the village of Yuilsk. The chairman of the local collective farm ordered to transfer the find to the Khanty-Mansi Museum of Local Lore. A brigade of seven people arrived from the city. They entered the storage, but found there not a golden idol, but a wooden one, trimmed with silver. It is believed that a golden statue of the goddess was actually kept in the Yuil storage, but before the arrival of the museum workers it was replaced by a wooden one. The golden statue was hidden in a safe place on an island among the swamps. There the Golden Woman rested. And then, allegedly after the construction of a hydroelectric station on the Ob, the water level rose, and that island disappeared under water.
Literature
and cinema
Golden Baba has inspired writers, artists and filmmakers many times. So, interesting information was collected by the Mansi writer Yuvan Shestalov. In the story "The Secret of Sorni-Nai" he writes that in 1936 the Mansi Daniil Surguchev invited the fish inspector Anton Kadulin to look into the "shaman barn". He said that the old men had brought the most important strong "golden idol" - Sorni-Nai ("Golden heroine" - this is the name of the Golden Baba in Mansi). But the old man was wrong. Only gifts to the Golden Baba were found in the barn. Daniel told Anton about the shamans - the priests of the Golden Woman.
He became interested and began to question Daniel's namesake - Grigory Surguchev. People said that he was one of the main keepers of the Golden Baba. But Gregory firmly said that the deity is hidden on the island among the dead swamps, and no one can find a way there. The old people of the Surguchevs died, and with them, it seemed, the secret of the unknown island where the Golden Woman was buried disappeared. But on Konda there was a schoolboy Alexei Surguchev, who wrote a letter to the editorial office of Komsomolskaya Pravda and said that his father had seen an ancient statue exactly where the road workers, the Siberian Chronicle, and Description of the Ostyatsky People by Grigory Novitsky had seen. What Alexei's father saw was a huge statue depicting a woman, apparently made of stone, which is surprising in itself - there are no such sculptures around for thousands of kilometers. Was she called the Golden Baba,or a real golden statue was hidden somewhere nearby - it is unknown, because so far none of the scientists have been able to visit these places, which are almost inaccessible: in the summer because of the wild taiga and swamps, in the winter you have to ski off-road …
To find the Golden Woman, the heroes of Vasily Dvortsov's book "Terra Obdoria" also travel. These are the adventures of young people traveling across Siberia in search of a pagan idol, their involuntary participation in a shamanic rite, hunting for a giant pike, a war with a witch and so on. The plot, like Shestalov's, includes extensive chapters on archeology, history, ethnography and ecology of Western Siberia, which makes the book not only fascinating, but also informative reading.
Almost simultaneously with the story of Yuvan Shestalov, in 1986, Viktor Kobzeev's film "The Golden Woman" appeared. The plot of the film tells about the search for an ancient idol. The landowner Kovrin dreams of taking possession of the statue of the Golden Woman, which, according to legend, brings happiness and prosperity. Kovrin sends in search of a statue of the serf Ivan. As a reward, if he gets the relic, the landowner promises the guy free time. Ivan needs freedom, because he wants to marry the beautiful Anyuta, and the girl's father does not agree to marry his daughter off as a serf. Although Ivan did not find the idol, he received freedom and his beloved Anyuta by finding a magnetic stone.
In 2003, another film appeared based on the story of the Golden Woman. Director Igor Shavlak told about her in the TV series "Treasures of the Dead". The plot of the film is as follows. In the thirties, in the remote Siberian taiga, an expedition led by Professor Zvyagintsev discovered a cave with a golden statuette - a cult idol of local tribes. A young scientist Eduard Tsaregradsky learns about this, who decides at all costs to solve the secret of the Golden Woman.
"Cosmopoisk" is looking for
Here is what Vadim Chernobrov, head of the Russian public research association “Cosmopoisk”, told MC: “The Golden Woman is both a mysterious place and a miraculous statue. Here, according to legends, is the secret knowledge of ancient civilizations. In 1987, Kosmopoisk activists made the first attempt to check several versions of the location of the relic in the Tyumen region. Alas, even then it was not possible to find old men who could tell the ancient legends about the Golden Woman. In September 1999, the researchers of "Kosmopoisk", finding themselves near the Golden Gate in the remote taiga in the very north of the Sverdlovsk region, remembered the famous "namesake" of this place. In several vertical passages of the cave, I and others managed to descend. However, a detailed study of the underground of the Golden Gate was prevented by a sudden rainfall and flooding that began for many days. In the summer of 2003, one of our amateur groups spent a lot of time searching. But there is no information on the results. In the spring of 2008, in Yekaterinburg, it was announced about the future start of an expedition to the Polar Urals, during which the search for the Golden Woman will be conducted. The Golden Baba is more and more overgrown with rumors and legends, taking its place on a par with the legends of Atlantis and Hyperborea, but rather as a part of the global legend about the “golden period” of human history.during which the search for the Golden Woman will be conducted. The Golden Baba is more and more overgrown with rumors and legends, taking its place on a par with the legends of Atlantis and Hyperborea, but rather as a part of the global legend about the “golden period” of human history.during which the search for the Golden Woman will be conducted. The Golden Baba is more and more overgrown with rumors and legends, taking its place on a par with the legends of Atlantis and Hyperborea, but rather as a part of the global legend about the “golden period” of human history.