Even the most advanced historians cannot answer the question of whether the famous robber Kudeyar was a real person. Perhaps the numerous stories about him are just legends, folk traditions. But be that as it may, the tales of Kudeyar and the richest treasures allegedly hidden by him and his fellow robbery still live on.
First, about the name Kudeyar. It is believed that it is of Turkic origin and is formed from two Persian words "hoodi" - "god" and "yar" - "beloved", that is, "beloved by God." It may seem unexpected, but five centuries ago the name Kudeyar was quite common in Russia.
The most famous version about the origin of Kudeyar says that he is the elder brother of Ivan the Terrible himself! It is known that Grozny's father, Vasily III, was married twice. His first wife, Princess Solomonia Saburova, was, in the opinion of healers, sterile. For a long time, Vasily sought a divorce from her. For the second time he married the Lithuanian princess Elena Glinskaya, who bore him a boy, the future Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible.
Meanwhile, the forty-year-old Solomonia, imprisoned in the Intercession Monastery in Suzdal, unexpectedly also resolved her son, who was named George. Glinskaya sent her people to the monastery to kill the baby. But Solomonia hid her son: she declared him dead and even staged a funeral. In fact, she secretly transported George to the Crimean Khanate.
In Crimea, the boy received a new name - Kudeyar. He grew up there and returned to Muscovy, hoping to take the throne. He did not succeed, and then the young man took up robbery.
Russian Robin Hood?
According to another version, Kudeyar was a Tatar and served as a baskak for the khan, that is, a tribute collector. Once, having collected a rich tribute, he did not return to the khan, fled and stood at the head of a bandit gang.
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For the sake of completeness, mention should be made of a person who really existed during the time of Ivan the Terrible, a certain Kudeyar Tishenkov, a boyar's son, who went over to the side of the Tatar khan Devlet-Girey.
It was thanks to him that in 1571 the Tatars were able to make a devastating campaign against Moscow and set it on fire.
Popular rumor draws Kudeyar as a man of enormous stature, unprecedented strength, with a black beard and a stern look. In some legends, he appears not only as the chieftain of a gang of robbers, but as a kind of Russian Robin Hood, the people's defender. But more often than not, Kudeyar was spoken of as a robber who did not care who to kill or rob.
Magic power
Stories about the adventures of Kudeyar and his incalculable riches were told in almost all southern and central provinces of Russia. It is not uncommon in the regions of Central Russia to "objects" in one way or another connected with the name of Kudeyar. In many provinces you can find the villages of Kudeyarovka, Kudeyarovy mountains and burial mounds, Kudeyarovy forests and caves.
Popular rumor endowed Kudeyar with magical abilities. “And then there was Kudeyar,” says one of the legends. - This one robbed somewhere! And in Kaluga, and in Tula, and in Ryazan, and in Smolensk - he has been everywhere, he set up his camps everywhere, and he buried many treasures in the ground, but all with curses. And what power he possessed! He will spread a sheepskin coat on the bank of a river or lake and lie down to sleep. He sleeps with one eye, and guards with the other: is there a pursuit. And when he envies where the detectives are, he jumps to his feet, throws the sheepskin coat on which he slept into the water, and that sheepskin coat becomes a boat with oars. Will sit in it, and remember what you called."
According to legends, Kudeyar and his comrades-in-arms operated in many places at once, over an extremely vast territory. This circumstance suggests that. that under the name of the legendary chieftain several gangs were plundering, other leaders also used the "authoritative" name.
Naturally, the stolen treasures had to settle in the hoards that Kudeyar hid in different parts, creating the Kudeyarov towns there.
Devil's settlement
Historians have counted at least a hundred such towns, and hence treasures. It was said that from time to time lights should flash over the stones covering the robber's treasures. Nevertheless, finding such a treasure is not an easy task.
Each district had its own story about Kudeyar's treasures - gold, silver, pearls, precious stones - and attempts to find them. In the Tula and Kaluga provinces, there were rumors about the treasures hidden in yards and wells, but the search requires storeroom records. One such record allegedly had a monk of the Optina Desert. After his death, they said, she ended up in the monastery library. Perhaps this key to the riches buried by robbers near the cities of Kozelsk and Likhvin is still kept somewhere. And considerable wealth - twelve barrels of pure gold!
Another place indicated in the named storehouse is the so-called Devil's fortified settlement, or Shutova Gora - a remote forest tract twenty kilometers from the Optina Monastery, next to the road from Kozelsk to Likhvin. The place, presumably, is not accidental: it was along this road that in the old days carts with goods were going, which were attacked by robbers.
In the Saratov province there is the village of Lokh, which stands on the banks of the river of the same name. The settlement is surrounded by hills covered with forest. One of them - Kudeyarova Gora - is famous for its cave, in which, according to Saratov ethnographers, Kudeyar and his comrades lived. According to legend, the richest treasures are hidden there.
Mysterious rings
The legend described the underground “apartments” of the robbers: “They dug passages and rooms, cleaned them up with every good thing. And so that the air in the mountain was light and it was possible to make a fire in it and hold the horses, they punched a pipe from above. Indeed, there was some kind of pipe in Kudeyarova Gora.
And what can you see here now? There are three passages inside the mysterious mountain. Now it is risky to climb into them due to possible landslides. However, many years ago, daredevils made their way along these passages for hundreds of meters and rested against impassable heaps of stones. The testimony of one of the treasure hunters, who managed to approach the rubble and make out some rings behind them, possibly attached to the doors of the treasure room, dates back to that distant time.
The search for Kudeyar's treasures began long ago, and they continue to this day. Alas, the successes achieved are more than modest. The inventory of the Saratov Museum for 1893 contains the following lines: “Two copper coins. Received on August 18, 1893 from Gabriel Petrovich Secular, found in Kudeyarova Gora. Much later, as the old-timers said, one peasant in the same places managed to find a large treasure, consisting of 12 buckets of old coins, unfortunately, also copper. However, this does not prevent today's treasure hunters from going out again and again in search of kudeyar treasures, hoping for good luck.
There is no information either about the time of birth of the chieftain, or about the day of his death. According to one of the legends, at the end of his life the robber decided to repent and began an honest life. As Nekrasov wrote: "Day and night of the Almighty / He prays: let go of sins! / Submit your body to torture, / Let me save your soul!" Kudeyar built a church with a golden iconostasis and a silver bell and began to atone for his grave sins. Whether it really was so, no one knows for sure.
Gennady CHERNENKO
"Secrets of the XX century" 2012