Scientists of various specialties have put forward many hypotheses explaining the origin of the legends of the Samarskaya Luka Peninsula on the Middle Volga. According to one hypothesis, this corner of the Volga region became the last stronghold of representatives of a certain race that lived on the Russian Plain several thousand years ago. Squeezed from all sides by nomadic enemies, these people came to the banks of the Volga, where they took refuge in hard-to-reach caves and mountain gorges, founding mysterious underground settlements
Samara researchers from the non-governmental organization "Avesta" have been organizing expeditions for many years to survey a number of anomalous zones associated with these ancient legends. Today the leaders of "Avesta" Igor Pavlovich and Oleg Ratnik are talking about one of these phenomena.
- During one of the expeditions, we surveyed a vast area on the border of the Krasnoyarsk and Kinelsk regions of the Samara region, where the remains of a cyclopean object, known in historical science as the Zavolzhsky historical shaft, are clearly visible. This is how Russian historians call a certain grandiose structure, which today looks like an earthen embankment, along the foot of which a well-visible ditch stretches. Now this embankment is up to five meters high and seventy meters wide, and the depth of the ditch ranges from one to three meters. But we suppose that many years ago the Zavolzhsky historical wall had much more impressive dimensions.
The remains of the aforementioned grandiose structure can be traced throughout the Russian Trans-Volga region - from the Astrakhan region to Tatarstan, after which this earthen wall turns to the east and is lost somewhere in the foothills of the Middle Urals. The dimensions of the Zavolzhsky historical shaft cannot but amaze: in total, its length is at least two and a half thousand kilometers!
Many fragments of this majestic chain are now included on the geographical maps of a number of Russian regions of the Middle Volga and South Urals. In particular, in the Samara region, the Zavolzhsky historical shaft is clearly traced on the left bank of the Volga, in the steppes near the mouth of the Chagra river, near the border with the Saratov region. Then this ridge goes through the Pestravsky, Krasnoarmeisky and Volzhsky regions. However, only some of its fragments have survived here, almost completely destroyed by time.
But in the area between Samara and Krasny Yar, in particular near the village of Vodino, the historical rampart is now most noticeable, and here it has the greatest height, and the ditch stretching at its foot is the greatest depth.
For a number of years, the Avesta expedition has examined the sections of this structure that have survived to this day, especially in those places where the body of the Zavolzhsky historic shaft was cut across as a result of road works. It was noted that in the section, the shaft has a pronounced trapezoidal shape. In addition, to this day, piles of rubble stone have been preserved here, with which ancient builders once fortified the foundation of their cyclopean structure. So far, the expedition has limited itself to inspection and sampling from these areas, although it is known that from the territory of the Krasnoyarsk region the historical shaft goes further to the north of the Samara region, and then to Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.
Who built it?
It cannot be said that until now, Russian historians, archaeologists and scientists of other specialties have not studied this gigantic structure even by its modern scale. It's just that the official science does not yet pay due attention to the Zavolzhsky historical shaft. It is believed that these are just the remnants of Russian defensive fortifications against nomads, erected under the leadership of Ivan Kirilov, Vasily Tatishchev and Pyotr Rychkov in the 17th-18th centuries. However, many archaeological materials refute this point of view. Although in the Russian archives there is indeed information about the construction of a small number of fortifications in the Trans-Volga region at that time, it should still be assumed that during the development of the steppe spaces in the 18th century, Russian settlers only reconstructed the Trans-Volga historical shaft, which already existed by that time. There are many arguments in favor of this point of view, and at least two of them can be cited as proof.
First, it has long been calculated how many hands are needed to create such an earthen embankment, as well as the ditch adjacent to it. And it turned out that even if all, without exception, the settlers who arrived in the Trans-Volga region in the 18th century, including infants and very old people, took up shovels together, it would still take them at least half a century to build a shaft of this size. And at the same time, it is not clear why neither the archives nor the legends have preserved any information about the construction of such a colossal fortification, which in size can only be compared with the Great Wall of China!
Second argument. As already mentioned, official historians believe that the historical rampart was built by the Russians to protect them from the steppe nomads. However, one has only to look at this structure, and we will see that the moat stretching along it is not on the east, but on the west side! Consequently, the people who built these fortifications were not defending themselves against the invasion of the eastern tribes (for example, the Mongol-Tatars or the Nogai), but against the invasion of some other barbarians who came from the west!
Arkaim's fate
The latest archaeological evidence suggests that the Zavolzhsky historical rampart was erected by a powerful and numerous race of fire worshipers (most likely, Zoroastrians) around the 2nd millennium BC, that is, about four thousand years ago. These data are quite consistent with the existence of the mysterious city of Arkaim in the South Urals, on the territory of the modern Chelyabinsk region, which, apparently, was the largest cultural and economic center of this ancient mysterious civilization.
Apparently, the Arkaim people knew metallurgical production well. Surely it was this very developed and numerous people who built the Zavolzhsky historical shaft thousands of years ago, which was supposed to play the role of defensive structures during raids from the west by wild European tribes, most likely Germanic and Finno-Ugric.
But for a reason unknown to us, Arkaim literally ceased to exist in one day. Very quickly, the powerful civilization that built this city disappeared from the expanses of the East European Plain. The remains of the ancient people are supposed to have taken refuge in caves on the territory of modern Samara Luka, having founded a mysterious underground race here. There are many reasons for such a version: after all, the legends about the "cave dwellers" were recorded by folklorists in these places back in the 19th century.
The fact that "cavemen" are "fragments" of some ancient civilization can be confirmed in the works of the famous astrologer Pavel Globa. Here is what he writes: “Between the Volga and the Ural mountains, Zarathustra, the wisest philosopher and reformer of antiquity, was born and lived. The most ancient earthly civilization, now forgotten, is associated with his name. However, to this day, ancient cave monks remember her, sometimes coming out to people from their dungeons”. The famous researcher of the philosophy of Zoroastrianism Mary Boyes agrees with Globa.
And one more confirmation of the incredible antiquity of some mysterious Volga civilization can be found in the works of the Kazakh explorer of Central Asia Chokan Valikhanov, who in the 19th century wrote, referring to the eastern chronicle "Jami-at-Tavarikh": "Himself, the son of the righteous biblical Noah and the legendary ancestor of the Arabs, on the banks of the Volga he found his death. His name was immortalized in the name of the Samara River. Here he is also buried."
Today we are trying to unravel the designs of this ancient, unknown world. The mysteries of the Samarskaya Luka are incredibly complex and multifaceted. The Avesta group has just started studying them, and its employees hope for interesting and unusual results.