- To be honest, the stories about ghosts that tourists met in the mountains have always seemed to me to be fantasies born of a rich imagination. Mountains are always a mystery, and where there is a mystery there is inexplicable, unknown, incredible, - says local historian and publisher from Nalchik Viktor Kotlyarov, - However, it was so until a certain moment, after which I realized that if there are spirits, then they only belong in the mountains and nowhere else.
- There are tons of ghost stories. The most famous of them (ghosts, not stories) are the Elbrus Maiden and the Black Climber. Fortunately, I had no chance to meet with either one or the other. But I communicated with people who saw them, felt their presence. And these are the people I trust. They don't have to play me, - Viktor Kotlyarov began his story.
Elbrus maiden
I first read about the Elbrus maiden, a phantom living in the snowy highlands, in Yuri Vizbor's book "Breakfast with a View of Elbrus", where, talking about the outstanding climber Joseph Kakhiani, the famous bard wrote:
“The stories about him were the most extraordinary. … As if Joseph met the Elbrus maiden herself - a well-known ghost in a white dress, with loose black hair and ice hooks instead of fingers.
But he did not close his eyes in front of her in the Elbrus blizzard, did not crash into the snow on his knees, but proudly glared at her with an eagle's eyes. When the Virgin put her iron fingers, exuding an icy grave cold, on his shoulder and quietly said: "Stay here," as if Joseph was firmly shaking his head - no, they say, I won't.
And the Virgin disappeared, and Joseph, shocked by what had happened, went where his eyes were looking, and his eyes looked in the fog from the top of Elbrus towards the endless Malkin glaciers, and Joseph almost crossed over to the other side of the mountain, which he did not intend to do at all.
According to another version, Joseph had a strict conversation with the Virgin, reproaching her - and quite rightly! - because she killed so many young climbers on her mountain. Of course, these stories were pure fiction. It is already too incredible to believe that the Elbrus maiden let go of such a handsome man as Joseph at one time."
Promotional video:
The irony, more correlated with mockery, in the context of what Yuri Vizbor wrote about Joseph Kakhiani is justified: the victory in the dispute between a man who has become a legend and a ghost born of a legend will always be behind a real person, and not one born of fantasy.
Nevertheless, with the Elbrus maiden, not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance. Too many people have seen this phantom, and most importantly, most of them did not suffer from altitude sickness. The most reliable story about this folklore character I heard from the lips of Leonid Zamyatnin, with whom I was closely connected in the last years of his life.
Zamyatnin was an extraordinary person - complex: seeking, doubting, reflective. Leonid lived in a communal apartment, where once Alexander Blok wrote the famous lines "Night, street, lamp, pharmacy …". But he lived in the city on the Neva only in winter - the second half of spring, summer and the first half of autumn he spent in the mountains, where he worked as a ski instructor in alpine camps and hotels in the Elbrus region.
Leonid was one of those people who perceive reality, but do not create it. And his story - and he put what he saw in just such a literary form - is a reality published in the book "Such High Mountains" ("Elbrus", 1985).
Zamyatnin met with the Elbrus maiden in 1972, when the hero of the story (and this is Leonid himself) worked as a carpenter on the basis of Moscow University in the Azau glade, at the very foot of Elbrus. Here, the three of them - with the senior engineer Seva and the technician Lara, built rotary shields on the slope near the Azau River to simulate avalanches. A friend of mine Lina flew in to visit Seva from Moscow, for whom he decided to organize a hike to the Shelter of the Elevens with skiing from a height of 4200 to the Azau glade.
Long preparations led to the fact that only at four o'clock in the afternoon the group ascended to Stary Krugozor in the trailer of the pendulum cable car. Then I will give the floor to Leonid:
“The walking part of our path began from here. From Staryy Krugozor to the station under construction of the second stage of the cable car, called "Mir", bulldozers broke a serpentine road in the snow, along which all-terrain vehicles were carrying loads. Our triconi got bogged down in mud mixed with wet snow. For four we carried two backpacks and two pairs of skis - for Seva and Lina. The girls walked lightly.
Very soon Lina began to lag behind - the lack of acclimatization affected. The weather was deteriorating before our eyes. Fine snow grains have already sprinkled. I was nervous: too slowly, we walked.
We reached the Mir station by eight in the evening, in the dark.
… Seva began to insist on going upstairs immediately. And I did not show due persistence. Most likely, Lara was to blame. I was afraid that she would consider me a coward. I knew the way to the Shelter well, I was confident in my abilities, I went, although I understood that I should not do this. Lina's presence probably acted on Seva. Not a trace of his usual prudence remained. He wanted to demonstrate to Lina his art in the construction of Eskimo snow huts - igloos. And I said nothing. Deep snow began immediately behind the Mir station.
There was no further way, and I began to trample the steps, falling knee-deep. This occupation was familiar to me. I loved to trample steps in the snow. The croup sprinkled again. In about twenty minutes Lina stopped. She felt sick. And then Seva invited Lara and me to pave the way to the Shelter together. They will follow our tracks as slowly as Lina can. I agreed. Lara felt good.
I decided to take her to the Shelter, leave my backpack and skis there, and return to Seva to pick up his backpack and help bring Lina. I understood that at that time he was pretty much tormented with her. But Leonid and Lara did not have everything so simple. A strange, silvery fog made it difficult to see. Three times the climbers took big black stones for the Shelter, which Leonidas had never seen before, although he had walked this path many times. In addition, a blizzard began.
And here…
“And then I saw a figure in a silver cloak descending from above. Some of the mountaineering instructors descend into the mountains. Only they have such cloaks. But why alone at such a late hour? After all, alpine camps are not working now. Yes, it seems, and not the season for climbing. A vague uneasiness came over me. And the man came down to cut me, but for some reason did not pay any attention to me. He is not blind. I moved towards. Krupa whipped her face with the wind and had to lower it down. Our paths have crossed.
We stopped three meters apart. I looked up and suddenly felt the hairs on my head begin to move. I felt a strong chill. Before me stood a woman in a silvery transparent veil that fell to her bare feet. She was completely naked and strikingly beautiful. Straight black, like a raven's wing, hair fell over the shoulders, a white slender body, small toes.
I could clearly see the brown nipples of the girlishly sharp breasts. But the most striking were her eyes - huge, black, icy. She looked me in the face, and I could not take my gaze from those piercing, hypnotizing eyes. I forgot who I am, where I am. I no longer controlled myself, feeling that I would immediately go wherever those eyes called. Suddenly, someone touched my hand. I shuddered and turned around. It was Larka.
- I'm cold. You walked so fast that I could not catch up with you. Do not leave me. I'm scared.
When I turned my head again, there was no woman in white.
- Have you seen anything?
- Not. "Damn it," I thought, "but this is the Elbrus Virgin …"
The story of the Elbrus maiden was censored in the story. In particular, the phrases about Lara, who did not see the ghost, were added by the book's editor Valentin Grigorievich Kuzmin, who knows the requirements of the press controlling authorities. Moreover, he excluded the author's references about meetings with the phantom of his comrades, arguing his position by the fact that it is not appropriate for an author, whose age was approaching fifty dollars, to act as a distributor of fables and rumors (remember, it was Soviet time!), its reputation as a professional mountain climber.
Nevertheless, Leonidas managed to leave the end of the episode with the Elbrus maiden in the text of the story. He decided to return to the place where they got lost and this is what he saw:
“Despite yesterday's blizzard, my tracks could be discerned. Fifteen minutes later I saw the Shelter right in front of me. This is the trick! I didn’t reach it yesterday some two hundred meters. But the tracks turned to the left, straight onto steep ice faults.
No one has ever walked here. That's where those damn stones come from! My trail ended three paces from the ice cliff. Oh, and I would fly if I took these three steps yesterday. I felt uneasy again. And I turned down."
So what happens - the Elbrus maiden warned Leonidas about the danger?
This is exactly what the former caretaker of the Northern Shelter Arkady Davydov thinks. His meeting with the Elbrus maiden “took place a few days after the death in May 2004 of a group of climbers from Ulyanovsk. Arkady followed a group of rescuers. It was bad weather, the wind raised clouds of snow dust in the air. Finally, we found tents, no one in them. In a blizzard, an experienced person will not dare to leave the shelter, but people have disappeared.
Then he met another group. She stayed on the rocks of Lenz, made a stop. People were clearly visible against the background of white rocks. Davydov looked a little higher - snow swirls rose up the slope with a gust of wind. Powerful, eye-catching. And suddenly a woman appeared between them, raised her hand, waved and left."
Was this woman a virgin of Elbrus? What was she warning about? Or was the vision imaginary? It is difficult for me to answer this question, since, I repeat, I have not met the Elbrus maiden. But I met another woman in the mountains. And even now, many years after that meeting, I still cannot understand whether I saw a real person or a phantom.
Victor Kotlyarov