According to legend, Divya people have long inhabited remote, inaccessible and "fabulous" areas of the world. Here is how it is said in the old Arkhangelsk chronicles: "Bachko sends through living, young water to distant lands, to the thirtieth land, beyond the white sea - to the Divya kingdom." The peasants of the Arkhangelsk province believed that "on the eastern side of the earth there is a warm side, in which, closer to us, Orthodox Christians live, behind them are the Arabs, behind those are small dwarfs and one-legged people."
Similar motives are heard in the Arkhangelsk legend about an unknown tribe living in a wonderful country located in the Cold Sea. “Many centuries ago, the people of Novgorod, sailing along the Cold Sea, saw a wonderful rich country on the shore, but due to bad weather they could not approach it. They heard that people of an unprecedented tribe knock on the mountains separating them from the world, but they cannot break through this barrier and give precious furs, pearls and fish to everyone who helps them make an extra gap."
In the Ural beliefs of the first quarter of the 20th century, the divya people living in the bowels of the mountains are “wonderfully beautiful and wise”: “They live in the Ural Mountains, they have access to the world through caves. In the Kaslyakh plant, along the Lunevskaya railway line, they come out of the mountains and walk among people, but people do not see them."
And here is the description of the outstanding collector of folklore, researcher of the spiritual culture of the Slavic peoples Alexander Afanasyev: “Divya people (miniatures, dvergs) wear clothes of gloomy and dark colors and are shown only at night; they themselves, despite their childish stature, are old and ugly: a wrinkled face, a large nose, shining eyes, disproportionate body parts, a hump on their backs … They live in wild inaccessible caves, in deep mountain gorges and in giant hills. Like mountain spirits, inhabitants of undergrounds not illuminated by the sun, the miniatures have emaciated, deathly faces, similar to those of the dead … With the removal of the miniatures (in winter or during a drought) bread will not be born; but wherever they appear, the veins will warm the earth - there the soil becomes fertile …"
According to other legends, divya people are endowed with the ability to become invisible, to foresee the future. In legends, they are sometimes attributed the role of prophets, but not everyone can hear their prediction.
It should be noted that the name "divya people" had another definition - chud. It is difficult to say if they are relatives or if they are one and the same tribe. In the Ural legends there is such a story of chudi: “… From time immemorial, old people lived in the Urals - they were called Chudi. They dug underground, boiled iron. They huddled in the dark, afraid of the sunlight. And their faces were on their chests. And then the chuds began to notice that a white tree came to their land, never before their grandfathers or great-grandfathers saw anything like that. Alarming rumors were passed from mouth to mouth: where there is a white tree, there is a white man. Earlier we heard about such people living where the sun sets. And the birches keep advancing on the black forest … "We must leave," said the young Chudi. "Let's die where our fathers and grandfathers died," objected the old and the elderly. And now the Chuds hid in their dwellings, their burrows underground; piles,who held earthen ceilings, chopped up and buried themselves alive. They were gone in the Urals. And in the place of dwellings, mounds were formed. And old-old birches grow on them”.
The first legendary "battles for faith" with Chud, with Dyim (Div), are described in the Book of Kolyada: "Dy did not come to the heart of his brother Svarog [the god of the spiritual sky]. And then the heavenly army, led by Svarog, fought with the army of Dyya - divine people and a miracle. Svarog won the victory, imprisoning divine people under the Ural Mountains. Dyi himself was turned into the Great Runner, the lord of the gold of the Ural Mountains. Since then, the kingdom of Dyya, together with all the palaces and temples, has gone underground. And only sometimes you can hear their bells ringing underground. This captivity has lasted for 27 thousand years …"
According to this legend, the god Dyi (Div) taught people the magic sciences, the ability to turn into werewolves, and told the secrets of the earth's interior. His subjects are great masters who built beautiful cities and palaces. They knew a lot about precious stones, smelted jewelry and weapons from gold and silver.
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Moreover, it turns out that Dy (Div) and his children, among whom were both the god Indra and Diva-Turk, ruled the South Urals for several millennia. The famous ethnographer N. Onchukov (beginning of the 20th century) reads that "only a select few can hear them." Divya people are capable of foreshadowing different events for “earthlings”: “At midnight a ringing is heard; only people of a good life, with a clear conscience, heard him.
As for miracles, we can also mention that underground divya people were able to … fly. Confirmation of this is the preserved figurines of bird-people found in different places of the Kama region and called the Chud antiquities. Moreover, in Slavic legends it is mentioned that Dy himself could fly. In this regard, the words of the ancient Greek writer Lucian about a meeting with one such representative of the Divine people are remarkable: “I considered it completely impossible to believe them, and, however, as soon as I first saw a flying foreigner, a barbarian … I believed and was defeated, although I resisted for a long time. And what really was there for me to do when, in front of my eyes, during the day, a man darted through the air, walked on the water and walked slowly through the fire?"
They say that it happens once a century at night when the land opens up near the Ural mountain Taganay and the city of divine people appears. On this night they organize a big celebration, and on the same night one can hear predictions of the future from them.
Today, for many of us, divi people are just characters from fairy tales or myths. However, the same N. Onuchkov wrote that these underground inhabitants are as real as the people living nearby: “In the Middle and later centuries, the Chuds were treated not only as a real people, but also wanted to be friends with them. After all, the Chud understood better than anyone the soul of metal, the nature of stone and much more. Their culture is the greatest, and the light in their mountains is no worse than the sun. Divya people are small in stature, very beautiful and with a pleasant voice. They say that the Divya people built entire underground cities, in which their representatives still live. Moreover, they possessed supernatural powers and secret knowledge. People communicated with the outside world of the Divya through numerous cave passages."
Historical sources note that contacts of the Chudi messengers with "land" people did take place. Most often it was a rather unusual relationship through dreams. The famous Russian scientist and traveler, artist and writer Nicholas Roerich also mentioned this people in the book "The Heart of Asia". Allegedly, when a white birch began to grow on their lands, meaning the imminent arrival of people who would establish their own rules here, the chud went underground, covering all the underground entrances with stones. But the chud went not just underground, but in a country known only to them. Nicholas Roerich stated: "When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give the whole people great science, then the monster will return with all the treasures that have been obtained." The same is said in the ancient Greek legend, which tells about the Hyperboreans who lived behind the Riphean (Ural) mountains. The Hyperboreans lived a happy life: they knew no wars or diseases, and they thought about death only when they were fed up with life.
It is known that new settlers, coming to the deserted uninhabited places, as a rule, felt difficulties in orientation due to the vastness of the space. This was not the case in the Urals. History testifies that ore deposits, in the area of which the Ural factories were built, and after them the cities, were marked by Chud marks. All this suggests a certain cultural mission of this people in the Urals. It was on its mounds that the cities of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk were erected, and the city of Kurgan is located next to the largest of them.
The German scientist of the 15th-16th centuries Georg Agricola, who was the first to write a book about mining, repeatedly mentioned some gnomes, most likely referring to some chud: “They are usually of two types: some are small, but strong, similar on the pygmies, while others have the appearance of decrepit, crooked old people, and all live in the mountains."
As for the Ural Mountains, their depths contain the entire periodic table, not to mention the valuable minerals. All these riches of the Urals were kept intact until the first breeders and industrialists appeared in these "wild lands". They were surprised to find in the seemingly virgin mountains both ready-made mines and traces of metallurgical production! Scientist Ivan Lepekhin wrote about this in 1768: "… The yellow-eyed chud who lived here took only the best ore, crawling underground like moles …"
However, not only ancient mines were found here, but also ancient bronze items of unprecedented beauty. But a plaque depicting gnomes riding on dragons put the scientists at a real dead end. And this, apparently, is not accidental. Among the Ural Chudi, the idea of some kind of mythical beast with a horn on its head, an elongated body and shields along its back was widespread. A few decades later, in the Kama region, the remains of an animal very similar to that depicted on the bronze plaque were discovered.
Historians and folklorists have been arguing for a long time about an unusual and mysterious people - "white-eyed chudi", whose representatives, according to legends and tales, had extensive knowledge of nature. And this people mysteriously disappears, and their traces are lost in the Altai mountains.
“In the legend,” writes the artist L. R. Tsesyulevich, “there is a hint of the existence to this day somewhere, perhaps in a hidden place, of a people with high culture and knowledge. In this respect, the legend of Chudi has something in common with the legend of the hidden country of Belovodye and with the legend of the underground city of the Agarty people, widespread in India."
Some legends tell about the real contacts of the early settlers with the messengers of the Chudi - "miracle maidens". They say that before going underground, the chud left a "girl" for observation to guard treasures and jewelry, but she revealed all this to white people, and then the "old people" hid all the gold and metals.
This legend remarkably echoes the legend cited by N. Roerich in the aforementioned book “The Heart of Asia”: “A woman came out of the dungeon. Tall in stature, stern face and darker than ours. I walked around the people - I helped create, and then went back into the dungeon. She also came from the holy country. " The interaction of the "messengers" of the Chudi with the settlers was not limited only to contacts in reality, the legend recorded completely unusual communications and influences through dreams. Thus, the Sverdlovsk researcher A. Malakhov in one of his articles published in the "Ural Pathfinder" for 1979 cites a beautiful legend about the Chud woman ruler: “Once Tatishchev, the founder of Yekaterinburg, had a strange dream. A woman of unusual appearance and wondrous beauty appeared to him. She was dressed in animal skins, and gold jewelry sparkled on her chest. “Listen,- the woman said to Tatishchev, - you gave the order to dig mounds in your new city. Don't touch them, my brave warriors lie there. You will not have peace in either this or this world if you disturb their ashes or take expensive armor. I, Princess of Chud Anna, swear to you that I will ruin both the city and everything that you build if you touch these graves.”And Tatishchev ordered not to reveal the burials. Only the tops of the mounds were dug.”
Along with the data on the contacts of the Chudi with the settlers, the legends contain rather clear and clear characteristics of the appearance and spiritual appearance of the "eccentrics", from which we can conclude that the features of a real people appear before us. In one of the first stories by Pavel Bazhov, "Dear Name", it is said that Chud, or "old people", are tall, beautiful people living in the mountains, in dwellings of unusual beauty, arranged inside the mountains, living almost imperceptibly to others. These people do not know self-interest, are indifferent to gold. When people appear in remote places of their habitation, they leave by underground passages, "closing the mountain."
How many centuries ago a chud lived and why it went into unknown dungeons is unknown. It is quite possible that its representatives lived here during the time of the ancient Greeks. And where exactly did she go? Is it not those underground cities with which Nicholas Roerich connects the life of the wise and wonderful inhabitants of Agartha?
Probably, the name of Lake Peipsi, located on the border of Estonia and the Pskov region of Russia, is also associated with the mysterious Chud. It was here that the Battle of the Ice took place in 1242. The area surrounding this huge reservoir is called Freak.
