Officially, the topic of our expedition was called quite casually: "research into the influence of magnetic storms and auroras on radio communications and power lines." In fact, we were attached to the study of problems that were directly related to space (magnetic storms affect the operation of control space systems).
EXPEDITION TO PRIONEZHYE
I can guarantee that none of the inhabitants of our city traveled on the Leningrad-Murmansk railway on a skidder. True, this tractor stood on a loading platform, and it housed a living beams in the northern version, so our expeditionary group rode in it with complete comfort, perhaps without a toilet.
At point X, far beyond Petrozavodsk, the train stopped in the middle of a dense forest, near an artificial embankment that went directly to the roadbed. Along it, our house slid to the ground on its own, and after it another one of the same, with a mobile laboratory.
After exchanging beeps with the locomotive that delivered us, we broke into the real taiga along a half-overgrown clearing. The road was paved by our beams, followed by a laboratory with delicate electronic equipment. I walked almost literally, since our speed rarely exceeded the speed of a pedestrian.
At the end of the 60s, work in this area was accompanied by increased secrecy - the Plesetsk cosmodrome was located somewhere nearby (by the way, this is just the name of a small railway station). To our natural question, where we will be, the colonel who gave instructions briefly replied: "You are not supposed to know this," but then he mercifully and pointed his finger at the map of the USSR from the school atlas: "About here." An area of at least Belgium is hidden under the finger.
All we knew was that we were not working alone - there were two more observation points located somewhere, with which we maintained radio contact to ensure synchronous measurements. What else were the guys doing there - God only knows. We could not even see our own results, since all data was recorded on a photographic film using loop oscilloscopes, which was then placed in a metal safe.
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KARELSKY SVETLOYAR
At the end of the arduous journey, we stopped at the shore of a forest lake. The driver-mechanics settled down at some distance in a tent with a stove and, out of complete idleness and the absence of the military leadership, began to actively destroy the reserves of alcohol, since their only duty was to maintain the engine that charged the working batteries. We were also mostly idle, because when the equipment is working properly, it is enough for one person to monitor it and change cassettes with tape.
It was a warm September with a prolonged Indian summer, next to a magnificent forest lake with clear water, but the nights were cold, and no one was drawn to swim. However, among us there was a "walrus" - a Siberian Nikita, a graduate student of the Polytechnic Institute.
And when, after another swim, Nikita said that the bell ringing was clearly audible under the water, we decided that this was a joke. At least on the shore, we did not hear any ringing, even when the engine fell silent.
Bell ringing was distinctly heard under the water
Offended by the general distrust, Nikita quickly built an underwater microphone from the materials at hand, threw it away from the shore using a fishing rod with a wire instead of a fishing line and connected it to an amplifier. Not immediately, but muffled low sounds, similar to bell ringing, we heard everything.
As we already knew, there was no housing around us for tens of kilometers - the absence of power lines was the main condition for our measurements. One of the driver-mechanics was a local, and he recalled that somewhere in this area, on a small island in the middle of the lake, there had once been either a monastic hermitage or a small monastery. Naturally, we did not have a modern map - the “kilometer” was then secret, but we had a “layout” of pre-revolutionary times - copies of them could be purchased, and they were in great demand among Leningrad berry and mushroom pickers. We found our lake on it, which was called either Svetozero or Svyatozero.
There was no periodicity in the ringing, it could last from ten seconds to several minutes and disappeared not suddenly, but as if fading away. Of course, having a complete set of modern radio-physical equipment at that time, we tried to catch any connection between its readings and this ringing. Alas, there was no connection. There was no connection with changes in the weather.
CITY OF THE QUEEN
When we returned home, we learned from the media that a recent British expedition to the African Lake Victoria, while diving, also recorded strange underwater sounds, similar to the sound of bells. In any case, there were no ancient cities and monasteries on the shore of the lake.
The Snowdon National Park is home to the largest lake in Wales - Llyn Bala. At its bottom, according to local legend, there is also a sunken city, and sometimes, in clear water, from a boat (but not from a boat, which muddies the water with a screw), you can see houses, towers and fortress walls. And in calm weather, you can hear the ringing of city bells.
According to the same legend, the city stood on an island in the middle of a lake.
It is even known that the ghost town was ruled by King Tegid Foel and Queen Karidwen. This family was of Roman origin. The king was not particularly famous for anything, and the queen was known as a powerful sorceress and, which is very curious, according to legend, was the grandmother of the even more famous Merlin.
Vera Begicheva, author of the book "The Silent Keepers of Secrets", believes that the city, and in fact the palace of Tegid and Karidven, stood in the middle of the lake on an artificial embankment, which was subsequently eroded.
Now let's get back to our Kitezh. Scuba divers, as we know, examined only the coastal part of the lake, because, according to legend, the city stood on the shore. But he could stand on an island in the middle of the lake. Under the additional technogenic load, the island could gradually submerge, or even simply fall into the karst cavity. Or, due to hydrological reasons, the level of the lake gradually rose and the water flooded the city, but rather a small wooden settlement. So it is worth looking for the remains of Kitezh elsewhere.
Sounds in the lake, as we can see from the example of other lakes, may not be of a bell nature at all.
And the sounds in the lake, as we see on the example of other lakes, may not be of a bell nature at all. Indeed, in fact, apart from random observations, no one seriously studied the underwater sounds in lakes.