Exactly 100 years ago, an event occurred that was rarely mentioned throughout this time.
Fedor Batov with his wife Maria Batova
In 1939, the Californian magazine New Eden published a sensational interview with a former Russian pilot-turned-Orthodox preacher and émigré Vladimir Roskovitsky, who related the following. In August 1916, a group of Russian aviators was based at a temporary airfield 25 miles from the foot of Mount Ararat. During one of the control flights from an altitude of 14 thousand feet, the pilot and his partner saw a beautiful snowy peak and an emerald-colored lake partially covered with ice. And then the shocked eyewitnesses saw on the shore short thick masts with a rounded top and a flat ledge running along the entire hull of a strange ship, the stern of which went into the water. There was also a huge doorway, but the door itself was not.
Returning to the base, Roskovitsky reported to the commander about the incredible find at the top of the mountain. The story caused laughter and ridicule from the pilots, but the commander himself did not laugh - he said that Roskovitsky and his partner, without knowing it, made the most amazing discovery of the century, because the ship found is the biblical Noah's ark, which is located on the top of Mount Ararat about 5 thousands of years, and the ice, which constantly covers the summit, saves the ship from destruction.
The report on the discovery on Ararat was sent to the king. Inclined to mysticism, Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna in the sunset year for the dynasty in 1916 perceived the news of the second coming of Noah's ark as a divine harbinger of the coming Flood. They sincerely believed that the finding of the pilots on the biblical mountain is a second outstretched divine helping hand, capable of saving them from the coming revolution. The king ordered to immediately organize an expedition of 150 people and send it to Ararat for a more thorough research. The expedition took place, all measurements of the dimensions of the vessel were made, which practically coincided with those described in the Bible. Hundreds of small compartments and several large ones with high ceilings were found inside the ark. Everything was painted with paints similar to wax. For the construction of the ship, oleander wood was used,not subject to decay. On the mountain above the ship, the remains of burnt logs and stones of a destroyed dwelling were found.
A detailed report with the attachment of diagrams, measurements, photographs, certified by the signatures of the expedition members, was sent to Nicholas II. But it was 1917, a volley of Aurora thundered, followed by fatal shots in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The documents fell into the hands of Trotsky, who had no time for the ark, and they no longer remembered the mysterious find.
More than 20 years passed before the former emigrant pilot, becoming a humble clergyman in the United States, dared to tell the world this story. And it took even more than half a century for this publication to appear in Russia in the journal Science and Religion in 1994.
Almost immediately after this interview, a letter came to the editorial office of the magazine. In it, a certain citizen Loshadkina reported that her grandfather, Fyodor Batov, was one of the participants in the ascent of Ararat, and from his words fully confirmed Roskovitsky's story.
Promotional video:
“Remember, the ark is not a myth, I saw it with my own eyes,” Batov said to his granddaughter.
However, the majority of serious scientists were rather skeptical about Roskovitsky's revelations, believing that you can tell anything, referring to documents "burnt in the fire of the revolution."
And to this day, controversy continues: is the existence of Noah's ark a scientific fact or a religious fiction? There are more than enough arguments for and against. Back in 1269, Marco Polo mentioned that "… on a distant land in the ice of a high mountain rests Noah's ark."
In 1955, French explorer F. Navarre cut out a piece of the ark from the ice, which was subsequently subjected to radiocarbon analysis. The result made it possible to determine the age of the ark - 5 thousand years, almost an exact correspondence with the biblical tradition.
There were many people who at various times climbed to the top of the biblical mountain and saw the creation of Noah with their own eyes. These are members of a Turkish scientific expedition, who announced their discovery back in 1840, and Lord Bryce, and Prince Nuri. Among the eyewitnesses are our compatriots. The writer Charles Berlitz in his book "The Lost Ship of Noah" cites the story of Georgy Khagolyan, who, at the age of 8, climbed Mount Ararat with his grandfather and saw the legendary ship.
Pictures taken in 2003. from the space satellite Quick Bird
In 1953, the Americans took a whole series of photographs from a helicopter with fairly clear contours of the ship. And in 2004, in Washington, Dr. Daniel McGivern, studying photographs taken by a space satellite, confirmed the presence of a certain anomaly on the slope of Ararat at an altitude of 4725m. The parameters of the "anomaly" almost exactly match the dimensions of the ark.
In October 2009, Chinese archaeologists who climbed Mount Ararat publicly announced that they had discovered an ark at an altitude of 4,000 meters.
We have neither the right nor grounds not to trust these people, among whom are world-renowned scientists and prominent researchers, especially since over time, more and more technical and technological possibilities are opening up to solve this mystery. But at the same time, how can one believe in our age full of pragmatism and skepticism that a ship made by human hands is capable of accommodating, in addition to 8 people, “a pair of each creature,” the number of which has exceeded hundreds of thousands? How to fit in your homemade "holds" a huge supply of food for them and people and survive in the stormy waters of the Flood, standing imperishable for 5 thousand years on the top of the mountain sacred to us?
Pragmatic minds completely rejected this legend, especially zealous in Soviet times. So, the famous mathematician Perelman in 1934, after a lot of calculations and calculations, stated that the Flood simply could not have happened, because even if all the water vapor contained in the atmosphere was condensed into water and drained to the ground, then the maximum layer on its surface would not will exceed 2.5cm. This means that only a paper boat can sail along it, but not a huge ark. However, according to scientists, in different centuries the average annual air temperature on earth changes dramatically, which affects important natural processes. Thus, over the past 80 years, it has more than doubled. This is what caused strange climatic anomalies in different parts of the globe, forest fires and flooding in huge areas, causing great damage.
James Irwin, who visited the American astronaut on the moon, six times in search of the ark that ascended to Ararat, had his own opinion on this matter: "God does not want the opening of the ark and, probably, he has serious reasons for that."
However, whatever these reasons may be, the high meaning of Noah's ark, relevant at all times, lies primarily in the moral lesson that he teaches us. You must live honestly, righteously and with dignity under any circumstances, and then God himself will take care of you.
Liana Petrosyan
