The stories that you will read about later happened quite recently - about 15 years ago. They also caused a lot of noise, but today they are firmly forgotten. They are interesting because they took place "in the outback of the USSR" - in the Caucasus and Central Asia, where the population is not only devoid of urban European folklore, but instead has its own folklore national characteristics.
Here is an Ossetian story, as it was once retold by researchers of the issue based on materials from the local press:
“An angel on horseback was seen over the Ossetian mountain village of Digora on a clear sunny February day in 1992. The snow lying on the slopes of the mountains surrounding the village shone unbearably for the eye with its whiteness. A horse with three-meter wings appeared in the sky. The angel sat astride this white winged horse.
According to eyewitnesses, an angel on horseback hovered over the roof of the house under construction by Sergei Katskiev - was noticed by a large group of schoolchildren. The rider made a short landing on the roof and then soared up steeply. The screams of the schoolchildren attracted the attention of two men who were standing next to the wall of a house under construction - near a pile of bricks. One of them saw an angel on a horse, and the other, because of the roof that had just been laid, saw only his head, body and partly giant wings - he could not make out the body of a flying horse.
There are footprints on the snow-covered roof. They were photographed from the height of a six-meter staircase by the photojournalist of the local newspaper "Vesti Digory" Uruzhmag Karaev. An exceptionally clear, excellent quality photograph was published in the newspaper on February 15, 1992. On the snow cover lying on the roof, after the angel landed on a horse, a very long and wide strip of densely crushed snow appeared, and to the left and right of it - remarkably clearly visible prints of two giant wings. From the prints, the wings were covered in feathers.
According to numerous testimonies, immediately after the arrival of the angel on horseback, an unprecedented heavy snowfall began. However, snow fell from heaven anywhere, but not on the roof with "material evidence" - traces of planting on it. The heavy snowfall seemed to be distributed over the roof in all directions with a dome. Not a single snowflake fell on the trail of the angel's landing on horseback, leaving it for numerous pilgrims as proof of a miracle.
A couple of days later, Zaira Bazaeva-Katskieva, the wife of the owner of the house under construction, had a very strange dream.
In a dream a certain young, about twenty-two years old, ruddy and curly-haired angel with small wings appeared to her. Despite the solid build of Zaira Ilyinichna, the angel easily carried her over several courtyards of the village and placed her opposite another angel - an old man in brocade clothes. An old man in brocade robes instructed a woman to immediately organize a feast on the occasion of the arrival of an angel on horseback and personally prepare fifteen sacred pies.
Promotional video:
Thousands of people from all over North Ossetia and even from neighboring republics attended the widely publicized feast. Each of them had the opportunity to personally examine the "imprint with giant wings" on the roof of a house under construction, which did not want to disappear from it. Among others, Major General Kim Makedonovich Tsagolov with his bodyguards, one of the leaders of the mountain republic, arrived at the feast.
During the feast, many thousands of rubles were collected for the urgent construction of a large prayer house at the “holy place”.
And the taken aback owner of a private residential building under construction, Sergei Katskiev, was politely offered to start the construction of his private house anew in another place … local old men told Katskiev …"
This story is generally replete with absurdities. If people saw a flying horseman on a winged horse, then where did they get the idea that it was an angel? An angel does not need horses; angels must have their own wings. And this is not a horse: if it has wings, then it is a pegasus. Greek pagan gods flew on pegasus.
Zaira Bazaeva-Katskieva said that an angel with wings appeared to her in a dream. Which is already strange: where is his horse (that is, Pegasus)? Or did he take the wings off the horse and hang him up?
The eyewitnesses here are clearly deceived by common misconceptions about angels. Angels (like horses) have no wings. For centuries, Christians have portrayed angels in frescoes as ordinary people - both male and female. Then the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787 decided to no longer depict angels in the form of beautiful girls on icons and decided that angels should always be depicted only as men, and it was also decided to depict them with wings to distinguish angels from people. At the same time, the Church explains that this is only a convention, that in fact, angels do not have any wings - they are depicted only on frescoes for clarity of who is who.
Zaira Bazaeva-Katskieva saw in a dream not a fresco, but the angel himself. So why on earth does he have wings?
As for the pegasus, it is an ancient symbol of the Caucasus, and its image has long been placed on their coins by the Caucasian states. Perhaps this is the origin of this vision (or indeed some kind of spontaneous materialization of the images of the collective subconscious)?
