One of the most legendary and mysterious creatures in the Urals can be called the giant of the snake world - the snake. The first information about him appeared in the second half of the 19th century, when the mining engineer Lebedinsky was in those places on business. One day he saw a huge snake crawling along the road. The engineer rushed to a nearby village and asked the locals to help him catch the monster. When they refused, Lebedinsky himself tracked down the snake and killed it with a shot in the head
Ural. First meetings
The specimen turned out to be about 16 meters long and as thick as a good log. The skin of this snake was allegedly sent to England by Lebedinsky. Struck by Lebedinsky's story about this event, the outstanding naturalist of that time, Sabaneev, began to collect eyewitness accounts of the unique snake. The scientist spent many hours wandering around the habitats of this miracle. In 1870 he wrote: “The main feature of the vicinity of Lake Sinarskoye is undoubtedly the giant snake. He first appeared here in June of this year near the village of Voskresenskoye. A multi-meter snake was discovered by a peasant plowing in a field. In horror, he rushed to the village where I was at that time. Arriving at the indicated place, we did not find the runner, probably, he crawled into the jungle of the forest. They told me a lot about this snake, including its bloodthirstiness - on the Chusovaya River, he ate one barge haule.
Later, in 1889, an article by L. Ushkov about the Ural snake was published in the journal Priroda i Okhota: “Since the beginning of spring, a snake up to ten arshins in length (arshin - 71.12 cm) has appeared in the vicinity of the village of Povarni Bobrovskaya. Then few people believed this, but at this time the fact of the existence of such a snake has been fully clarified. The back of the snake is light gray with a steel sheen, the eyes are large, protruding, as if silver rubles were inserted."
The famous Ural storyteller Pavel Bazhov wrote a lot about the giant snake: “And now the body of an enormous snake began to roll out of the ground. The head rose above the forest. Then the body bent right over the fire, stretched out along the ground, and this miracle crawled to the Ryabinovka River, and from the ground all the rings come and go. There is no end to them. In the Middle and Southern Urals, this fantastic snake is often called the Great Snake and is considered the master of not only all snakes, but also gold. For some, he facilitated access to gold, indicating places, and even brought gold to them. He drove others away, frightened or even killed."
Sacred beast
For a long time nothing was heard about this snake, and all the stories about it began to be mistaken for hunting tales. However, in the 30s of the XX century, the Great Snake crawled out of folklore legends and again reminded of himself. Researcher Valery Chernetsov, based on the stories of Mansi hunters, described the snake in detail: it lives in or near water, sleeps only on a tree.
Its length reaches 16 meters. The Mansi called him "yalpin uy", which means "sacred beast". They believed that the snake does not die, but turns into ammonite stone.
At the end of the 1950s, the Leningrad geologist G. Grodensky was in Ilmeny. There was no telephone connection between the cordons and the reserve base at that time, and a message about a rare find was delivered by a courier rider. It said that a giant snake appeared on Lake Argazi, which was well seen by local fishermen. They allegedly fled in fear and did not dare to approach the shore. Groddensky immediately set out on the road. A forester and an observer from the protection of the reserve with local fishermen were already waiting for him by the lake. They demonstrated a wide footprint in the reeds, left by an unusually large creature: "Big snake, about ten meters."
The telegraph operator of the post station Bychkov immediately told a blood-curdling story: “It was like this: two factory workers arrived at their mowing time in a remote place during a difficult time. One stayed to unharness the horse, the other went for some reason up the hill, into the forest. Suddenly a desperate cry was heard, and the remaining peasant saw a comrade running from the mountain, followed by a gigantic ball, which soon caught up with the runner. He fell. The lump, turning around, turned out to be a large snake, which quickly crawled into the thicket of the forest. The fallen worker died - either from a blow from the tail of a monster, or from a broken heart."
Who Milks My Cow?
The next meeting with the giant took place in the summer of 1961 near Lake Bolshoye Miassovo. He was discovered by a local woman. Here is what she said: "The head is larger than that of a catfish, the body is a thick tree, gray, about eight meters." Unlike other eyewitnesses, the woman was not frightened, did not run away, but began to throw stones at the monster. In the end, he crawled home.
And here is the story of the beekeeper Vasily Pilatnikov: “On the bank of the Izyaka River, we have a giant snake. In spring floods, the washed-out banks collapse, forming cracks. Our snake lived in these cracks, it had a black color, its body was flat, in the form of a ribbon, and not like other reptiles. And then one time a breathless shepherd came running and shouted: "Grandpa Vasily, let's go to the herd as soon as possible, and you will see who is milking your cow." We came running, and I see: my cow is standing aside, her legs are entwined with a black ribbon, the same ribbon is entwined with her udder. Seeing the people, the boa unhitched from the cow and quickly crawled to the river bank.
And this is a completely fresh message from Nyazepetrovsk. In the early morning, two fishermen were at a local reservoir. Suddenly the water mirror seemed to split into small pieces, and a huge sheep-like head popped up about 15 meters from the men. The eyes of the monster looked at them with some reproach. A minute later, hitting the water with a thick snake tail, it disappeared into the water.
Stories about a "huge, thick as a log" snake lying in a deep hole are also found in the folklore of the Mari. This snake with an enchanting hypnotic gaze is supposedly the queen of snakes and possesses secret knowledge. Numerous eyewitness accounts, as well as material traces of this monster, speak of the reality of its existence.