“The wall hums from the wind of this tower - In it the sad secret is buried.” (E. Zhuravlev).
Perhaps the presence of a medieval tower in another place would not have been surprising. But for the forest-steppe zone of the Southern Urals, it is at least unexpected. The population in these parts is small, the roads are deserted. And suddenly, in the middle of a huge field - a mausoleum dating from the XIV century. Lonely, majestic, mysterious.
Nearby there is a settlement of regional significance - Varna (mind you, the name is also not very Ural!). But more on that next time. In the meantime - about the local residents. For them, the Tamerlane Tower is the main attraction, it is even depicted on the coat of arms of Varna. And legends will tell you about her here. There are several of them, but they are all about sad love.
The legend of love
The most beautiful of them tells about Kesen, the daughter of Timur Tamerlane, and a simple warrior Menhirey from his detachment. They fell in love with each other and decided to run away to the steppe from the wrath of the cruel commander. Upon learning of their disappearance, Tamerlane ordered to catch up and kill the fugitives. He sent a detachment of the best warriors in pursuit. After a long search, the riders of the lovers overtook and hacked to death Menhirey in front of the unfortunate girl. Then Kesene stabbed herself in the chest with a dagger and left the world with her beloved.
When the anger of the formidable Timur subsided, he ordered to build a mausoleum at the place of his daughter's death, such that it would stand for centuries.
In those days, bricks were considered the most durable, which were kneaded with camel or goat milk, red clay and eggs of steppe birds. It is believed that they were made and burned near the Uy River in the area of modern Troitsk. But how were the bricks delivered to the site? The straight line distance is 150 kilometers.
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And then Tamerlane ordered his army to line up in a chain. And this living chain stretched across the steppe and copses. Soldiers handed over brick by brick from hand to hand until every last brick was delivered to the place of the future tower.
Another legend says that the daughter of Tamerlane and her husband, traveling across the steppe, were torn to pieces by the tigers who then lived in those parts, and a tomb was built at the place of their death.
According to the third legend, Timur was accompanied by a harem on the campaign. One of his favorite concubines escaped with the warrior. When the fugitives were overtaken, the warrior was hacked to death, and the girl stabbed herself in the chest with a dagger and remained with him forever. The warriors of Tamerlane built a tower at the place of their death.
Scientists' versions
But these legends are spread only among the local population. Scientists claim that Timur's troops were not here - it passed to the south. These places were studied by the historian and traveler Rychkov, ethnographer Ignatiev, professor Petri, academician Pallas, archaeologist I. A. Kastanier. And none of them mentioned the legends.
The first to describe the mausoleum was the scientist Rychkov. He put forward a version of an unknown civilization that existed in the South Urals and left behind several similar brick structures. This tower was erected over the grave of the "holy king" of this people …
A hundred years after Rychkov, the ethnographer Ignatiev wrote that Kyrgyz nomads and pagans venerated her as a temple of an unknown faith and a mausoleum over the ashes of the “holy king”.
In 1889, Professor E. Yu. Petri excavated the crypt inside the tower. He discovered the burial of a young woman (buried in a splint covered with boards). She wore the remains of a silk scarf, two gold rings with arabesques, and two question-mark earrings. Such earrings were found among the ancient jewelry of nomads and forest-steppe population. It was assumed that there was a woman from the Turkic nobility in the mausoleum. In those places in the Middle Ages there lived nomadic tribes of the Kirghiz-Kaysakhs (as the Kazakhs were called before). Perhaps, when a daughter of one of the noble Kazakhs died, he erected a mausoleum over her grave.
On the basis of the found jewelry and weapons, researchers of the monument date it to the XIV century. This type of "tent" mausoleums is found in the architecture of Khorezm and Khorasan. The most similar to the one found are the mausoleums of Irki-baba (Turkmenistan), Madjara (North Caucasus), Bandabike (Bashkortostan).
But the mystery of Tamerlane's tower is that such structures are unknown in these places, although relatively close, in Kazakhstan, there is a monument to Abat-Baitak, reminiscent of a mausoleum in the vicinity of Varna.
Secrets around Tamerlane's tower remain. However, it is absolutely certain that the building in the steppe is a truly striking architectural monument of the 14th century and is the tomb of a woman from a noble family. But who she really is, and who built the tower is unknown.
I am nevertheless closer to the tale of Tamerlane's daughter. I found a map of his trips to the territory of Russia. Timur was with his army even further north, in the Bashkir lands. And one of the historically marked routes passed just a few hundred kilometers south of Tamerlane's tower. This is the famous campaign of Timur against Tokhtamysh in 1391, the path of which ran through the territories of modern Kazakhstan and the Urals to the Volga. If we take into account that the fugitives left in the direction opposite to the movement of Tamerlane's detachment, and for horses several hundred kilometers is not a very large distance, then everything is very likely …
Revival of Kesene
In the early 80s of the last century, the dilapidated building of the mausoleum was restored. The old bricks were overlaid with new ones, which were cooked and burned according to ancient technology, only without camel milk. During the restoration, it was found out that the foundation of the tower goes into the ground by three meters. Initially, its walls were two meters thick. This is one of the secrets of the tower's longevity. The restoration was completed in 1985. The monument was given the name "Kesene Mausoleum" and given the status of a republican one.
Today, the Kesene complex consists of a brick mausoleum 17 meters high, six mounds of the Bronze Age, an early Iron Age mound and 150 mounds of the late Middle Ages. During the restoration, another 700 graves were discovered around the tower. Scientists claim that this is an ancient necropolis of the early Iron Age, and the tower of Tamerlane was built here later.
There is a mausoleum on a peninsula in the middle of a swamp, which used to be Lake Bolshoye Kesene, and you can only drive up to it by a dirt road that branches off from the highway.
A stone-paved path leads to the tower. At the entrance there is an openwork lattice. Inside is one large room with stone floors and small windows. In the silence, only the hum of bees and the cooing of pigeons, which settle under the high vault, are heard. The wind picks up the colorful ribbons left by visitors on the iron bars of the door. The passage of time slows down here.
Locals believe that Tamerlane's tower has life-giving power. The person seems to be "immersed in time" and rejuvenates. The mausoleum is open to the public. The authorities of the village of Varna monitor the safety of the mausoleum, but they cannot protect it from tourists who think that if you write your name on the wall, then life will be happy.
Even the Kesene mausoleum has become a real place of pilgrimage for lovers. Newlyweds come here - they believe in the legend of Kesen and Menhirey, about love that even death did not destroy.
And the tower keeps the whole secret of their love, The people say about her, That the night will only come, the grass will sway, As if the oath of the word is heard there:
“Darling, goodbye! - hears every dawn, I will love you for thousands of years."
And, like an echo, it sounds in silence:
"And I love you too, my Kesane."
Centuries have passed. After all, the step of time is fast
But the tower still stands in those places, Like a memory of young blood shed
As a symbol of their faithful and eternal love!
(E. Zhuravlev)
Irina Petrishcheva