At the beginning of the 18th century in Russia, in the city of Arzamas, after a hurricane, a real winged dragon was discovered, which was sent to the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera. Unfortunately, the unique monster got lost on the road for some reason.
UNIQUE CERTIFICATE
In 1965, in the archives of the city of Arzamas, a written testimony was found about an event of an exceptional mystery that happened at the beginning of the 18th century.
It said: “Summer 1719 June 4 days. There was a great storm in the district, and there was a great tornado and hail, and many cattle and all living creatures perished … And the serpent fell from heaven with God's wrath, scorched and stinked disgustingly. And remembering the Decree of God by the grace of our All-Russian Sovereign Peter Alekseevich from the summer of 1718 about the kunshtkamor and the collection of various curiosities for it, monsters and all kinds of freaks, heavenly stones and various miracles, this serpent was thrown into a barrel with strong double wine …"
This unusual document was signed by the Zemsky Commissar Vasily Shtykov. Fortunately for modern researchers, he also made a very detailed description of the monster that fell from the sky.
Here it is: “The length of this monster from the mouth to the end of the tail, burned ten arshins and five vershoks, and the teeth in that mouth, like a pike, but, moreover, and crooked, and in front even more two inches, and the wings, like a bat has leather, and one wing from the Zmiyev ridge is as long as nine arshins and ten vershoks, and the tail is extremely long, already four arshins and five vershoks, bare paws, with claws, like an eagle and more, and four-fingered paws on the wings with claws, and his eyes are pale, but very ferocious."
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IT WAS A HUGE FLYING LIZARD
Carrying out the decree of Peter I, the "snake" was placed in a huge barrel and poured with "double wine", as vodka was called at that time. The "monster" that fell from the sky was sent to St. Petersburg with a passing train.
There is a version that the trainmen drank vodka from the barrel on the way, and the monster was simply thrown out. There is also a version that the snake was nevertheless delivered to St. Petersburg and there it was simply lost in the storage facilities of the Kunstkamera or was thrown out due to its poor condition.
If we translate the size of the monster into more familiar measures of length for us, it turns out that the length of the monster was about 7 meters 33 cm, of which the length of the tail was about 3 meters, and the largest teeth were 9 centimeters. The wingspan of the monster is about 13.6 meters.
There is no mention of feathers, on the contrary, it is indicated that the wings are "leather", like a bat. From the description of Vasily Shtykov, it becomes obvious that a typical flying lizard fell from the sky in Arzamas. Such creatures lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and, according to the generally accepted version, became extinct with the rest of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Paleontologists have already found many remains of such creatures, among them there were specimens with a wingspan of 12-15 meters. How did such a monster end up in the 18th century? This is the main mystery of the Arzamas monster. In any case, we can now treat the myths and legends about flying dragons differently. They could have a very real basis.
