Legends and myths about the golden woman. Past: where in Siberia to look for the "golden woman"

Golden Baba

For several decades now, scientists, adventurers and simply adventurers have been looking for traces of the legendary Golden Baba. Stories about her make many hearts beat faster and beckon to unknown lands. Some are driven to search for it by the legend that it is made of gold; others respond to the image of the Golden Mother of God, which everyone carries in their hearts. But no one knows where she came from and where she went ...

The well-known Russian historian A. Asov in his study gives several versions of its origin. Some say that the Golden Baba was brought from China, others consider Iran or India to be its homeland, others consider Ancient Rome. The last time this shrine was seen in the 1930s was in the secret sanctuary of the Kyzym khans in the Ob River basin, so some scientists believe that the Golden Baba was not brought from nowhere, but is a work of local Siberian masters.

The oldest mention of the mysterious Golden Baba is found in the Novgorod Chronicle for 1398. It was written down after the missionary activity of Stefan of Perm, who walked the Perm land: "This teach the Perm land the faith of Christ, and before that they bowed to the beast and the tree, water, fire and the Golden Baba." Archers followed Stefan and destroyed the pagan sanctuaries of the Permians, and churches were erected in their place.

Foreign scientists also wrote about the Golden Baba. In Western Europe, interest in the unknown Yugra (the country of the Ugrians) arose thanks to the writings of the Italian Julius Pomponius Let, who believed that the Ugrians - the ancestors of modern Hungarians - participated in Alaric's campaign against Rome and in the sacking of the city. “On the way back,” writes Pomponius Let, “some of them settled in Pannonia and formed a powerful state there; part returned to their homeland to the Arctic Ocean and still has some copper statues brought from Rome, which are worshiped as deities. The Italians believed that the Golden Baba was taken out of Rome by the Ugrians, who, in alliance with the Goths, destroyed the Roman Empire, and the Golden Baba was supposedly a statue of Juno.

The Pole M. Mekhovsky also wrote about the Golden Woman in his “Treatise on the Two Sarmatians”: “Beyond the region called Vyatka, on the road to Scythia, there is a large idol of the Golden Woman ... The neighboring tribes greatly honor him and worship him.” Since then, the news of the Golden Baba began to spread widely, it was placed on the maps of Muscovy by the British A. Jenkinson and A. Vid. A. Jenkinson, for example, made the following inscription on his map: “The Golden Old Woman is worshiped by obdortsy and Ugra. The priest asks this idol about what they should do and where to migrate, and the idol (amazing thing!) Gives answers to the questioners, and the predictions definitely come true.

A feature of these maps was the following circumstance: the later the map, the further to the East the Golden Baba moved. Perhaps, initially, she was worshiped only in the Permian regions, and then - in connection with the Christianization of these places - she was transferred beyond the Urals?

The drawings of the Golden Baba are different for different authors. M. Mekhovsky, for example, has a statue of a standing woman, A. Vid has a woman with a cornucopia, and S. Herberstein depicts her as the goddess Minerva with a spear in her hand. Eight years later, his Golden Baba resembles a seated Madonna with a child in her arms. The Italian Gvagnini wrote that the Golden Baba was carved out of stone and was a woman with two children, she held one child in her arms, the other stood nearby and was called her grandson.

The Golden Baba was also revered as a Slavic goddess. According to the numerous reports of the Khanty, Mansi and Russian old-timers, the Golden Baba was kept for a long time in Belogorye - an area on the Ob near the confluence of the Irtysh. This is confirmed by the Siberian Chronicle, which tells about the adventures of Bogdan Bryazgin, Yermak's closest friend and comrade-in-arms. After the capture of the Ostyak town of Samar in 1583, he visited the Ostyak prayer site in Belogorye “to the ancient goddess; Naga sitting on a chair with her son; accepting gifts from his own, and giving her the remnants in every providence, and if anyone does not give a vow, he torments and torments; and whoever brings pity to her, that fall will die before her, having God and a great congress. When they heard the arrival of Bogdan in their ears, she ordered them to hide and everyone to run; and many collections of idols are hidden to this day.

After some time, the deity, which had disappeared from Belogorye, reappeared in the basin of the Konda River. It was secretly transferred there by the Belogorsk Khanty, but then the traces of the Golden Baba are lost. Orthodox missionary Grigory Novitsky, who preached in early XVIII centuries of Christian teaching to the Ostyaks, tried to find a hidden statue and destroy it, but he failed to do this. He was able to collect only a lot of valuable information about both the idol itself and the secret sanctuary in which the Golden Baba was kept.

So what deity does the Golden Baba personify? Some scholars suggest that this could be the name of the golden (or gilded) Madonna and Child, which was brought to the Permian land, and from there she came to Western Siberia. However, M.P. Alekseev, one of the authoritative connoisseurs of the “biography” of the Golden Baba, considers even this conjecture implausible, “if only because the Russians did not have sculptural images of the Madonna; and if they had, they were cut from wood and, moreover, of course, they were hardly taken out of the churches anywhere. In his study "Siberia in the news of foreign travelers and writers" M.P. Alekseev suggested that the Golden Baba is a statue of the Bodhisattva of Mercy Avalokiteshvara, who in Chinese Buddhism acquired female image Guanyin - goddess of mercy. Guanyin was the savior of those who were in danger during sea voyages or crossing high mountains.

The iconography of Guanyin does not contradict the images of the Golden Baba on medieval maps; perhaps she had some more ancient prototype of the Hindu deity.

MP version Alekseeva seems to explain another phenomenon associated with the Golden Baba. In the heroic epic of the Yakuts, there is a legend about the Diez Emiget (Copper statue), which makes a sound “like a cricket”. Some scholars have suggested that these sounds could be caused by trumpets, but none of the known drawings show such trumpets. Others believe that the sound was made by a special whistle blown by the wind; it has even been suggested that the Golden Baba herself is a bell. If we are talking about Guanyin, then one of her statues in Tibet had a white shell, making a gentle sound of the splashing sea. When the conch sounded, Guanyin emitted a "soft glow"; Diez Emiguet also emitted a "blue color".

However, the objection of M.P. Alekseev, that the sculptural images of the Madonna "have never been taken out of churches", M. Kosarev considers unconvincing. For the simple reason that history knows the repeated raids of the Khanty and Mansi on the Permian lands, when villages and towns were ruined and household and church utensils were taken out. Thus, these tribes were familiar with the Christian God long before Yermak's campaign in Siberia. The Siberian Chronicle mentioned above testifies that the Yermakov Cossacks were surprised to learn that the Khanty often use Christian images as sacred idols.

Prince N.S. Trubetskoy, a famous Russian ethnographer, believed that the Golden Baba depicts Kaltas (Kaltash-Ekva) - the wife of the supreme Khanty-Mansi god Numi-Tarum. Mansi considered Kaltas the mother of all living things: she patronizes newborns, determines the fate and life span of each person, marking them life path on sacred tags.

Versions, hypotheses, assumptions ... There are a lot of them, but there are unambiguous answers to the questions - “What did the Golden Baba really look like? What deity did she personify and where did she disappear to? - still no.

In 1981, Perm cameraman M.A. visited places close to the sources of Northern Sosva. Zaplatin, who later spoke about meetings with local old-timers. One old Mansi told him that it was impossible to go to the mountains, because Sarni-Ekva (“Golden Woman”) was located there: “You won’t find her. Our old people dragged her somewhere, and then they killed themselves.”

But where were they taken? On North? The famous Flemish cartographer G. Mercator put on the map at the mouth of the Ob the words "Zolotaja baba". The mouth of the Ob is the southern part of the Yamal Peninsula, which is located beyond the Arctic Circle, in the permafrost zone. V. Neiman, who supports the version of M.P. Alekseeva (that the Golden Baba is a statue of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara), asks the question: “Why did the statue from Central Asia turn out to be so far from its homeland?”. He puts forward a very interesting hypothesis that the Aryans came to Central Asia 7-8 thousand years ago from the dead Arctic islands. Perhaps later one of their descendants, in search of their distant ancestral home, went back to the north and took the Golden Baba with him ... The statue, which at that time still resembled the unforgotten goddess of the inhabitants of the Arctic, and then became the shrine of the Ugrians.

So-called golden woman, an enigmatic statue serving as an indigenous cult object Western Siberia, has been the object of many-sided discussion in the science of the peoples of Siberia, in popular literature about the history of Siberia and among the sacred secrets of the culture of its peoples for many years.

Despite the fact that historians tend to discuss reliable facts, and archaeologists and ethnographers prefer to deal with specific material objects, the stories about the Golden Woman require a serious attitude, if not in terms of a possible reflection of some reality, then at least in the aspect of existence some cultural concept that changes over time.

As I.N. Ionina writes,

“The oldest mention of the mysterious Golden Baba is found in the Novgorod (what? - A.B.) chronicle for 1398. It was written down after the missionary activity of Stefan of Perm, who walked the Perm land: "This teach the Perm land the faith of Christ, and before that they bowed to the beast and the tree, water, fire and the Golden Baba." Archers followed Stefan and destroyed the pagan sanctuaries of the Permians, and churches were erected in their place.

Foreign scientists also wrote about the Golden Baba. In Western Europe, interest in the unknown Yugra (the country of the Ugric peoples) arose thanks to the writings of the Italian Julius Pomponius Let, who believed that the Ugrians - the ancestors of modern Hungarians - participated in Alaric's campaign against Rome and in the sacking of the city. “On the way back,” writes Pomponius Let, “some of them settled in Pannonia and formed a powerful state there; part returned to their homeland to the Arctic Ocean and still has some copper statues brought from Rome, which are worshiped as deities. The Italians believed that the Golden Baba was taken out of Rome by the Ugrians, who, in alliance with the Goths, destroyed the Roman Empire, and the Golden Baba was supposedly a statue of Juno.

The drawings of the Golden Baba are different for different authors. M. Mekhovsky, for example, has a statue of a standing woman, A. Vid has a woman with a cornucopia, and S. Herberstein depicts her as the goddess Minerva with a spear in her hand. Eight years later, his Golden Baba resembles a seated Madonna with a child in her arms. The Italian Gvagnini wrote that the Golden Baba was carved out of stone and was a woman with two children, she held one child in her arms, the other stood nearby and was called her grandson.

The Golden Baba was also revered as a Slavic goddess. According to numerous reports of the Khanty, Mansi and Russian old-timers. The Golden Baba was kept for a long time in Belogorye - an area on the Ob near the confluence of the Irtysh. This is confirmed by the Siberian Chronicle, which tells about the adventures of Bogdan Bryazgin (Bryazga. - A.B.), Yermak's closest friend and comrade-in-arms. After the capture of the Ostyak town of Samar in 1583, he visited the Ostyak prayer site in Belogorye “to the ancient goddess; Naga sitting on a chair with her son; accepting gifts from his own, and giving her the remnants in every providence, and if anyone does not give a vow, he torments and torments; and whoever brings pity to her, that fall will die before her, having God and a great congress. When they heard the arrival of Bogdan in their ears, she ordered them to hide and everyone to run; and many collections of idols are hidden to this day.

After some time, the deity, which had disappeared from Belogorye, reappeared in the basin of the Konda River. It was secretly transferred there by the Belogorsk Khanty, but then the traces of the Golden Baba are lost. The Orthodox missionary Grigory Novitsky, who preached the Christian doctrine to the Ostyaks at the beginning of the 18th century, tried to find the hidden statue and destroy it, but he failed to do so. He was able to collect only a lot of valuable information about both the idol itself and the secret sanctuary in which the Golden Baba was kept ”Ionina (Ionina, 2005, p. 273-275).

"The Golden Baba, that is, the Golden Old Woman, is an idol at the mouth of the Ob, in the Obdor region; it stands on the right bank. Many fortresses are scattered along the banks of the Ob and near neighboring rivers, whose owners, as you can hear, are all subject to Prince Muscovy. They say , or, more correctly, they say fabulously that this idol of the Golden Baba is a statue representing an old woman

Who holds her son in her womb, and that another child is already visible there, who, they say, is her grandson. In addition, they assure that some instruments are placed there that emit a constant sound like a trumpet. If so, then, in my opinion, this was done by the fact that the winds strongly and constantly blow into these instruments.

Russian scientists of the XVIII century. (G.F. Miller, I.I. Lepekhin) developed the idea that the Golden Woman is an ancient Komi deity, whose statue was taken to the Ob by pagans who did not want to be baptized. The Finno-Ugric Yomala, Guanyin as one of the incarnations of Avalokiteshvara, the Mansi Sorni-Ekva or Kaltash-Ekva, the image of some ancient deity - Hera (Juno) or Athena, were assumed as the personification of the Golden Woman.

In Tatar, the words "Golden woman" should have sounded like Altyn-Apa, where apa is a common Turkic term for a mother or an older relative. Known. that among the peoples of Siberia, with the help of terms of kinship for ancestors, sacred, cult, sacrificial places are called, associated with the cult of ancestors or ideas about the spirits-masters of the areas as reincarnated ancestors. As for the first part of such a naming, its understanding as the Turkic altun, altyn "gold" can be recognized as secondary and considered as a consequence of an imperfect understanding of the Tatar language.

Thus, it is quite possible that the onym Golden Woman is based on a combination of the words Al Tym-apa or Al Tyn-apa - the name of a sacred place in the lower reaches of the Tym River (the real right tributary of the Ob) or a river with a similar name - Tyn, Son, Sym and etc. Such a name, being misunderstood or incorrectly translated into Russian from Tatar, initiated first among Russians, and then among European scientists, ideas about the goddess, in which the features of the Virgin - the Virgin Mary and the images of the goddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome were synthesized.

In the very heart of the mountains of the Northern Urals there is a mysterious place - the Man-Pupu-Ner ridge. The mountain of the Small Gods is called by the Mansi reindeer herders wandering here. And this name is not accidental. Seven bizarre stone figures rise on the flat surface of the ridge. One resembles a petrified woman, the other a lion, the third a wise old man with a raised hand.

Seven Frozen Giants

Tourists from different cities of Russia rush to see the famous Pechora "doodles" and hurriedly pass by the lonely high conical peak of Mount Koip. Coyp in Vogul means drum. One of the legends of the Mansi people connects this peak with its famous neighbors. Once upon a time, seven Samoyed giants went through the mountains to Siberia to destroy the Vogul people. When they climbed the Man-Pupu-Ner ridge, their leader-shaman saw in front of him the sacred mountain of the Voguls, Yalping-ner. In horror, the shaman threw his drum, which turned into Mount Koyp, and he and his companions froze in fear and became stone blockheads.

But there is another legend that can also be heard from the Mansi, but much less often. Coyp looks like a conical mountain from the side of stone blockheads. But if you look at her from a small nameless ridge located to the west, you will clearly see a woman with sharp features lying on her back. This is a petrified shaman, punished for trying to offend one of the oldest idols, once revered by all the peoples of the north - the Golden Woman. When the golden idol was crossing the stone belt of the Ural Mountains, the shaman, who considered herself his mistress, wanted to detain the Golden Woman. scary voice the idol screamed, and all living things died of fear for many miles around, and the presumptuous shaman fell back and turned to stone.

The screams emitted by the Golden Woman are evidenced not only by Mansi legends, but also by the memories of foreigners who visited Russia. Here, for example, is what the Italian Alexander Gvagnini wrote in 1578: “They even say that in the mountains next to this idol they heard a sound and a loud roar like a trumpet”.

What is this golden idol, the appearance of which is accompanied by a terrible scream and roar? Where did he come from and where did he disappear to?

Great Biarmia

Legends about the Golden Woman hiding somewhere in the North appeared a very long time ago. They are associated with the legendary, vast country, which spread in the 9th-12th centuries in the forests covering the valleys of the Northern Dvina, Vychegda and the upper reaches of the Kama. In the Scandinavian sagas, this country was called the powerful state Biarmia or Biarmalandia. The peoples inhabiting it worshiped a huge golden idol - the Golden Woman. Her sanctuary, located somewhere near the mouth of the Northern Dvina, according to the Scandinavian sagas, was guarded by six shamans day and night. Many treasures were accumulated by the servants of the idol, who bore the name of Yumal in the sagas. Great Perm was rich in skins of valuable fur-bearing animals. Merchants from Khazaria lying in the lower reaches of the Volga and Vikings from distant Scandinavia paid for them without stint.

On the old maps In Muscovy, near the mouth of the Ob, the inscription "Golden Baba" is often found. Sometimes an inscription accompanies a drawing of a beautiful woman. She was worshiped by the inhabitants of the North. The Siberian golden idol teased the imagination, and foreigners traveling around Russia willingly put stories about him in their books.

Russian chroniclers described it like this:

“They worship idols, they bring sacrifices to them ... they come from afar, bringing gifts ... or sables, or martens, or ermines ... or foxes, or bears, or a lynx, or a squirrel ... gold, or silver, or copper , or iron, or tin".

The northern lands are rich in gold. But what about diamonds? After the recent discovery of a deposit of these precious stones near Arkhangelsk, doubts have disappeared.

But time passed and the strengthened neighbors extended their tenacious hands to this rich, but sparsely populated region.

First, the Novgorod ushkuyniki, then the squads of the Moscow Grand Duke, increasingly began to make their way into the once reserved northern forests. Fleeing from Christianity, the admirers of the Golden Woman hid their idol either in caves on the Ural Range, or in the impenetrable forest-tundra of the Ob River, or in the inaccessible gorges of the Putoran Mountains in Taimyr.

Where did such a strange deity come from in Mansi? It is so uncharacteristic of the customs of this people that it seems to have fallen to them directly from the sky. Most scientists believe that the Golden Woman is the Mansi goddess Sorni-Ekva, whose name is translated into Russian as " golden woman».

Regarding the question of where the golden statue came from on the Perm land, opinions differed. Leonid Teplov, a researcher of the history of Biarmia, suggests that the golden statue could have been carried away from the burning sacked Rome in 410 AD during the attack of the Ugrians and the Goths. Some of them returned to their homeland to the Arctic Ocean, and the ancient statue, brought from a distant southern city, became the idol of the northern people.

Other scholars lead the path of the mysterious goddess from China, believing that this is a Buddha statue, which in Chinese Buddhism merges with the image of the goddess Guanyi. There are defenders of the "Christian" origin of the Golden Woman. They suggest that this statue of the Madonna was stolen during a raid on one of the Christian temples.

Hunt for the Golden Woman

They tried to take possession of the Golden Woman for a long time.

In search of treasure, the Vikings ransacked the most remote corners of Eastern Europe. Usually they acted under the guise of merchants. Once the Vikings managed to attack the trail of the Biarmian sanctuary and rob it. It contained a wooden copy of the Golden Baba. The original remained inaccessible to the Scandinavians.

In the XI century, Biarmia was conquered by the Rus. The Rus, unlike the Germans, did not destroy other people's sanctuaries. They were satisfied with the usual tribute. The Golden Baba continued to be the main protector of the Biarms. The more Christianity grew stronger, the more intolerant it became towards foreign gods and customs.

But the idol, the Golden Woman, disappeared. Only later did it become clear that he had been taken over the Ural Mountains. In the middle of the 15th century, Moscow governors began to conquer the Northern Trans-Urals. They made the most outstanding campaign in 1499-1501. At that time, a large army of 4 thousand people, led by Semyon Kurbsky and Pyotr Ushaty, crossed winter time through the Subpolar Urals. Skiers went to the Northern Sosva basin and fought the entire Yugra land. They captured 42 fortresses and colonized 58 local princes. But the main value of the Ostyaks, the idol of the Golden Baba with temple treasures, could not be found.

The borders of Muscovite Russia moved farther and farther to the east and southeast. The Golden Baba had the same path. The later the message about it, the further from the ancient Biarmia we find it. Later, the trace of the idol was lost. Explorers in the 17th century traveled all over Siberia far and wide, but the mysterious idol is not mentioned in Russian documents of that era. At the very time when foreigners placed the Golden Baba on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, she was known much further south.

At the end of the 16th century, the Volga robbers plundered the sovereign's ship sailing to Astrakhan with "a treasury of money and gunpowder." In the battle, the royal ambassador was killed. The patience of Ivan the Terrible came to an end. The Cossacks, saving their heads, fled to the Ural outskirts of the state. They were willingly accepted by Kama merchants and salt producers, the Stroganovs. Behind the Stone Belt lay the Siberian kingdom of Khan Kuchum. This descendant of Genghis Khan kept ruining the Kama villages, taking the inhabitants into slavery. The arriving Cossacks were given the task of discouraging Kuchum from attacking.

The campaign for the Stone was led by Ermak Timofeevich Alenin. Maxim Stroganov added 300 of his warriors to his Cossack detachment of 540 soldiers. The army of the Siberian Khan many times outnumbered the aliens and even had cannons brought from Kazan. But nothing saved her from destruction. After several victories in the fall of 1582, the Russians settled in the capital city of Siberia. To the north of the city they encountered Ostyak idols. Yermak dispatched Yesaul Bogdan Bryazga to capture the Demyansk and Nazym towns. These towns lay in the lower reaches of the Irtysh and near its confluence with the Ob. The defenders of one of the fortresses put up fierce resistance. For three days the Cossacks stormed its walls and already wanted to turn back. But then they heard a story about the deposition from a local Chuvash, who had once been brought by the soldiers of Kuchum from Russia:

“They pray to the Russian God, and that Russian God of cast gold sits in the thicket”.

The news of the Russian golden idol impressed the Cossacks so much that they forgot about the retreat. The Chuvash volunteered to steal the statue and entered the fortress. We were looking forward to his return. But the scout returned empty-handed. Strong security prevented the fulfillment of his plan. When the town was captured, the idol disappeared. Having reached the Ob, Bogdan and his companions approached Belogorye, sacred to the Ostyaks. Here was "the prayer of the great goddess of the ancient." A few years before the conquest of Siberia, Poland already knew that the Golden Baba was a woman with a child in her arms. The Belogorsk idol looked the same: “naga, sitting on a chair with her son.” Later sources call him the Golden Baba.

Terrible was the Belogorsk goddess. Here's what the hikers had to say about her:

“And they give her a share of every providence. And if anyone breaks this law, he is tormented and tormented. And whoever brings it not from the heart and regretting it, he, having fallen before her, will die. It has many priests and a great community".

Bogdan was not afraid to disturb the sacred rest, he entered Belogorye. Then the mistress of the Ugrians ordered to hide her idol, and covered the huge prayer place so that the aliens could not find it. Soon after returning from the campaign, the Cossacks, along with Bryazga, were ambushed and were exterminated.

A year later, a well-armed detachment of Ivan Mansurov came out to Belogorye. At the mouth of the Irtysh, the soldiers cut down the fortress and wintered. A large Ostyak army surrounded the fortification and went on the attack all day. The next day, the besiegers brought the goddess, placed her under a tree and began a prayer service for victory. The Russians did not wait for the end of the prayer service, after which the Golden Baba was supposed to show her strength. In order not to tempt fate, they hit the assembled with cannons. One of the cores has reached the target. From the annals we learn:

“It is a tree, under it stood a Besurmen idol, broken into many parts, and crushing their idol”.

Despite the assurances of the chroniclers about the destruction of the idol, reports of the Golden Baba appeared later. At the beginning of the 18th century, Filofei and Grigory Novitsky unsuccessfully pursued her, exterminating the remnants of paganism among the Trans-Ural Ugric peoples.

In the 20th century, the struggle against paganism continued. It was 1933. The competent authorities received a signal. It turned out that the Khanty, who lived along the Kazym River (the right tributary of the Lower Ob), hide the Golden Baba and worship her. The battle with the "religious dope" was in full swing. The Kazym shaman was seized and thrown into the dungeon. After some time, experts have achieved the necessary information. It was necessary to kill two birds with one stone - to strike at religious remnants and replenish the country's budget with a product made of precious metal. A group of Chekists went to the secret temple. But then the taiga hunters rebelled and shot uninvited guests. The massacre was fast. A new detachment of atheists destroyed almost all the men of the taiga tribe. The guns were taken away from the rest, which condemned them to starvation. The sanctuary was destroyed. What happened to the Kazym idol of the Golden Baba is still a mystery.

Mistress of Copper Mountain

The supreme goddess of the Ugrians was known under different names: Golden Baba, Sorni-Ekva (literally "golden woman"), Kaltash-Ekva, Yoli and others. The supreme god Numi-Torum was her brother and husband. This progenitor of the human race endowed newborns with souls. The Ugrians believed that souls sometimes take the form of a beetle or a lizard. Their divine mistress herself could also turn into a lizard-like creature.

Bazhov's wonderful tales describe the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. The folklore of the Ural miners knows another name for her, Golden Baba. The mistress of the underground pantries of the Urals often appeared before the eyes of people in the form of a huge lizard with a retinue of multi-colored lizards. The miner's Golden Baba, like the Belogorsk goddess, did not like the greedy and crooked.

The hostess appears before us primarily as the owner of copper ores and malachite. She herself wore a malachite dress and was called Malachitnitsa. But all this means that the idol of the Golden Baba, from which the fabulous Mistress of the Copper Mountain descended, was copper. The green dress appeared because from time to time copper is covered with a green oxide film.

The ancient goddess Belogorye was a copper statue that had turned green with time. It becomes clear why the chronicler kept silent about the material of the idol and did not call him the Golden Baba.

In fairy tales we find memories of the golden Russian God. In the Urals they knew the golden Great Poloz, that is, the Great Uzh. Already lived underground and could take the form of both a snake and a man. This being had power over gold.

Among the Ugric antiquities there are many copper items. In the Urals, traces of ancient mining and metallurgical production are often found. They, for example, were dotted with the Gumeshevskoye copper deposit. Gumeshki are located near the sources of the Chusovaya River. The first miners appeared here 35 centuries ago. It was in the Gumeshek region that the main events of the Bazhov tales took place.

Russian miners associated their underground patrons with the era of the "old people", among whom were the same Ugric peoples. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the identity of the underground rulers of tales and the Ugric gods.

The fact that we are on the right track is evidenced by the testimony of Julius Leta. This 15th-century Italian historian knew about the copper statues of the Ugrians who lived near the Arctic Ocean. Leth believed that the Ugrians were part of the barbarian army of Alaric and captured the sculptures during the sack of Rome. Russian tales have given us a guiding thread that leads to another mistress of the copper mountains. Strange as it may seem, but at the same time we find ourselves in places thousands of kilometers away from the Urals.

The Yakuts living on the Lena have myths - olonkho. They speak of many gods. But Des Emeget (“copper woman”) is endowed with special power. The copper idol was the goddess of the Adyarai tribe. The epic Yakuts either fought with the Adyarais, or conducted peaceful trade with them.

The Adyarai country lay on the shores of the Arctic Ocean on the extreme western limits of the world known to the Yakuts. It was ruled by Des Emeget and the blacksmith Cuettenni. Geographical landmarks and the name of the blacksmith lead us to the Kets. The Kets were famous for blacksmithing skills rare in the North. Blacksmiths in ancient times were both miners and metallurgists. There are very few kites left now. They live in the lower reaches of the Yenisei. Previously, Ket-speaking tribes were known over vast areas.

Of all the groups of Yakuts, only one lives off the coast of the Arctic Ocean. These are the so-called Dolgans, occupying a significant part of the Taimyr Peninsula. In the past, Dolgans and Kets coexisted. It was from the Dolgans that information about the tribe of the copper idol came to the rest of the Yakuts. The Kets speak a language not similar to Ugric. But before the revolution, they were called Ostyaks, like the Ugrians. Consequently, despite the linguistic differences, the culture of both of them had a lot in common.

Judging by the names of the Norilsk rivers and lakes, both Kets and Khanty lived on their banks. The Yakuts called them all Adyarais. The interest of Adyarai blacksmiths in this area is not accidental. The richest copper-nickel deposits are concentrated here, and next to them are the reserves of coal necessary for smelting ore. Moreover, in some places, ores and coal come to the surface.

The cult of the Golden Baba was accompanied by musical instruments. The Ural Mansi Sambindalov conveyed local legends in this way: “It was scary to walk close to the mountain. Baba screamed loudly ". Mansi did not read historical writings. Meanwhile, long before him, Alexander Guagnini (1578) wrote:

“They even say that in the mountains, next to this golden idol, they heard some kind of sound and a loud roar, like a trumpet”.

Sigismund Herberstein, who twice visited Muscovy at the beginning of the 16th century, knew about these same trumpet sounds. In the Yakut olonkho, the copper idol looks like this:

spinning on your back,
twisting obsessively,
crying out
bouncing
Like a cricket, it began to ring.

Researchers of the olonkho noted that the bell ringing is clearly heard in the songs of the idol. They even identified it with a bell.

Travelers of the early 17th century saw fires in the Norilsk region and smelled sulfur, which usually accompanies the smelting of sulfide ores. At the same time, they heard the bell ringing. Consequently, there really were bells in the realm of the copper idol, and the data of the olonkho are accurate. In the Urals, the Golden Baba was accompanied by horn music, and in the Yenisei - bell chimes and the sound of a rattle.

The Kets in the North were aliens. Their ancestral home lay in southern Siberia. But the Ugrians also moved to the Ob and Eastern Europe from southern Siberia. Once both peoples were neighbors, which explains their common features. The main center of copper production in Southern Siberia lay in the Minusinsk Basin. From here the Mistress of the Copper Mountain was supposed to start her journey to the North.

Egyptian

Herberstein's story about the Golden Baba has long baffled scientists. Here it is: "The idol of the Golden Baba is a statue representing an old woman who holds her son in her womb, and that another child is already visible there, who, they say, is her grandson."

It turns out that inside the unborn child there is another child. Such an unlikely situation was clarified after the discovery in the Urals of a bronze figurine of the Ugrian goddess. An image of a man emerges from the body of the goddess, and another face peeps out of his womb. Before us is a mythological image.

It seems that the secrets of the Golden Baba have been exhausted. It was not difficult for ancient metallurgists to make a copper idol. Figurines of the Golden Baba of local production, of course, existed. But the famous idol itself was made in completely different times, far from Russia.

Several drawings and verbal portraits of the Golden Baba have been preserved. She either stands holding a spear in her hand, or sits in an armchair with a staff or a child in her arms. Sometimes, along with the baby, an older child appears near the chair. The goddess appears sometimes in clothes, sometimes without it.

The Golden Baba is the supreme Ugric deity. But historians suggest that the statue originally depicted some other goddess. Opinions on this matter are very different: the Mother of God, the Slavic Golden Maya, Buddha, Guanyin, etc.

The key to unraveling the mysterious appearance is given by Bazhov's tales. In them, the Golden Snake is a golden man with a beard twisted into such tight rings that “you can’t straighten it.” He has green eyes and a cap with "red gaps" on his head. But this is an image of the green-eyed Osiris.

The beard of the Egyptian god was removed in a narrow tight bun. The pharaohs who imitated him had the same beard. It is enough to recall the famous faces of Tutankhamun from his golden sarcophagi to understand what the rings on the beard of a golden man looked like. A hat with “red gaps” “pshent” is the white and red crown of united Egypt.

The wife and sister of Osiris was the green-eyed Isis - the goddess of fertility, water, magic, marital fidelity and love. She patronized lovers. In the same way, the Ural goddess is the goddess of the waters, closely associated with the theme of love and marital fidelity.

The image of the green-eyed Mistress of the Copper Mountain goes back to Isis. Today we can say what the copper statue of an Egyptian woman looked like.

Recall that the Golden Baba was depicted as the Madonna. The image of the Mother of God with the baby Jesus arose under the influence of the sculptures of Isis with the baby Horus. One of these idols is kept in the Hermitage. Nude Isis sits and breastfeeds her son. On the head of the goddess is a crown of snakes, a solar disk and cow horns.

Egyptian myths help to understand a lot in our tales. Here, for example, is the magic green button. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain presented it to Tanyusha Mining Plant, through the gift the girl communicated with her patroness. The Egyptian gods had a miraculous eye Wadjet ("green eye"). It also provided the owner with protection and patronage. Isis-Hathor was the keeper of the Eye and its incarnation.

Isis was known as the goddess of music. Because of this, her cult in the North was so resonant. At one time, the goddess invented the ratchet-sistrum, with which she was often depicted. The base of the sistrum was usually the figure of a cat with a human head.

Talking earthen cats were in the retinue of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. In the Ural tales, the cat of Isis appears either in the form of the cat Fiery Ears, protecting the brave Dunyasha, or the domestic Murenka, who persuaded the goat Silver Hoof to amuse the girl Darenka with gems.

In one of the tales we meet ants running along the treasured path. On their feet are golden shoes. Lapotochki increased in size as their owners moved. Before us are echoes of the Egyptian myth of the scarab beetle rolling the sun across the sky.

The Egyptians themselves called Isis Iset. Near Gumeshki, the Iset, the “river of Isis”, takes its source. Through this river, the Ural copper entered the forest Trans-Urals. The earthen cat was known in Sysert, whose name comes from the sistra. Once there was a temple in which the musical animal of the goddess was kept.

Osiris, who is also the Golden Man, in the stories of Western Europeans looks like a child standing near the Golden Baba. Consequently, his golden idol was miniature. Bazhov's tales know another miniature golden character - a female one. The golden goddess takes on them the appearance of Fire-Running, a red-haired factory girl, a blue snake, an old woman Sinyushka. This mistress of gold veins lived in the water, protected the girls and miners who were pure in soul.

Before us is Isis again, but now golden. This means that the name Golden Baba was not born from scratch. At first, this was the name of the golden figurine, and later - the copper statue of Isis and all her other images.

The fact that the Golden Baba is Isis was known by Petria (1620). But no one believed him. The appearance of Egyptian sculptures in Siberia seemed too surprising.

Siberian Slavs

The most burning secret of the Golden Baba turned out to be her Russian-sounding name. Among the Ob Ugrians there was another, and again Slavic - the Old Woman. The Belogorskaya Golden Baba was called by the Ostyaks Slovutes, that is, "Slav". Her Irtysh husband Golden Osiris was directly called the Russian God. In addition, the country of worshipers of Russian gods was called Siberia. This name was associated by medieval authors with the Slavic word "north". But then this correct explanation was considered unbelievable and others came up with it.

The clue to the appearance of Slavic names is contained in the news of Muslim writers early medieval. Al-Masudi (X century) describes three temples of the Slavs. The transcript of his story shows that one temple with the idol of "Saturn" stood in the Minusinsk Basin. The second, with a golden idol and a statue of a girl, is in the Taimyr region, the third is in the Urals.

About the veneration in the Minusinsk basin of "Saturn and Venus" wrote Abu Dulef, who visited here (X century). Ibn-Mukaffa (VIII century) called the inhabitants of this place Slavs. Under the Saturn of the Eastern authors, the god of the underworld Veles - Osiris is hiding, and under Venus - the goddess of love Morena - Isis.

The Slavs have lived in the Minusinsk Basin since the Cimmerian era. They owned the so-called Tagar archaeological culture. The Tagars were talented miners, metallurgists and blacksmiths. Under the pressure of nomadic hordes, mixed streams of Slavs, Ugric peoples and Kets left the region of the upper reaches of the Yenisei to the east and north. The divided people also divided the shrines. Golden Osiris and Copper Isis ended up in Taimyr, from there they got to the Kama region, then to Western Siberia. Golden Isis was transferred to the Urals. Copper Osiris remained in place.

The Minusinsk Slavs settled in the Irtysh basin and in the southern part of the Urals, which at that time was called the Slavic Mountains. Over time, brutal wars and mixed marriages led to the fact that Slavic speech ceased to sound in these places. Only the Golden Baba kept the secret of the disappeared people.

Traces of the presence of the Slavs on Siberian soil were felt for a very long time. Back in the 14th century, Elomari knew light and blue-eyed Siberians. He wrote: “The figures are their perfection of creation in beauty, whiteness and amazing charm; their eyes are blue."

Ermak's Cossacks, who broke through the Stone Belt, among the short and Mongoloid natives, to their surprise, sometimes met real giants, and among the natives - indescribable beauties.

Legacy of the Mother of the Gods

Travelers of the 19th century noted that in their time the Ob Ugrians no longer had ancient idols, and later copies were kept in temples. They made them very easy. The idol was buried in a mixture of sand and clay, and molten metal was poured into the resulting mold. One such Silver Baba seems to have been acquired by the Finnish scientist Karjalainen and taken to his homeland. Apparently, another similar idol fell into the hands of the Soviet Chekists and died. Are the chroniclers really right, and the cannonball destroyed Copper Isis in the 16th century? No. The core did no harm to her.

The crushing of the idol is reported only by later sources. From earlier and reliable ones, it is known that the core crushed only one nearby tree. Later this story was somewhat embellished.

Copper Isis and Golden Osiris after the fall of the kingdom of Kuchum were transferred to an ancient temple near modern Norilsk. Somewhere in the Taimyr mountains of Putorana they are hidden to this day. The trail of Golden Isis is lost near the sources of Chusovaya and Iset. The tales point to the Azov-mountain near the modern city of Polevskoy. Copper Osiris never left the Yenisei. Someday the archaeologist's spade will stumble upon sculptures made in Egypt almost 30 centuries ago.

The Golden Woman sits among her priceless treasury. Over the centuries, expensive sable and overseas fabrics have turned into dust. But the main thing survived - the memory of the Great Slav, who gave life to the family of people and gods. In her renewed appearance of the Mother of God, she tenderly looks at us from the walls of Orthodox churches.

alien footprint

Ufologists did not pass by the amazing Golden Woman, completely unlike the other idols roughly carved from wood by shamans. They knew that the Khanty and Mansi peoples worshiped the amazing idol, and even now they worship. The metal golden woman seemed to have fallen from the sky. Or maybe it really fell?

This version of the origin of the golden idol was put forward several years ago by ufologist Stanislav Ermakov. He believes that the Golden Woman is an alien robot, for some reason, maybe due to a partial malfunction, left on Earth by its owners. For some time, the Golden Woman could move, and it is with this property that the Mansi legends about the “living” golden idol are associated. Then, it seems, the robot began to gradually fail. At first he could still make sounds, and then finally turned into a golden statue.

Several stories from Mansi reindeer herders unknown to S. Ermakov confirm his hypothesis.

In the Northern Urals, there is a domed mountain Manya-Tump covered with dense forest. Until very recently, reindeer herders, driving their herds along the Ural Range in the summer, did not even come close to the mountain. Here is what the Mansi guide Peter told about her to the cameraman M. Zaplatkin, who was filming a film about the stone idols of Man-Pupu-Nera: “For a long time it was impossible to go up the mountain. Whoever walks will be sick for a long time and die. Old people say - there stood navels, Sony Ekva, Golden woman. It was scary to walk close to the mountain. Baba screamed loudly. People speak a scary voice".

A little north of Mount Manya-Tump rises another mountain, which is also associated with legends about the terrible cry of the Golden Woman - Koyp. I already talked about it at the beginning of the article. The surroundings of this mountain are surprisingly suitable for the origin of the legend of the temple of the Golden Woman. At the foot of the mountain lies a perfectly round lake. This is no longer in the Northern Urals. On its shore you can see blocks covered with lichens, in which, with a little imagination, you can guess the remains of the sanctuary.

The Mansi reindeer herders who drive their herds in summer are sure to visit this sanctuary to leave their gifts on a quadrangular granite block, as if carved by human hands.

Between the mountains Manya-Tump and Koip, near which, according to legend, the Mansi heard the cry of the Golden Woman, there is another place, also, perhaps, associated with terrible screams. Only this last event happened in our time. This place is Mount Otorten, the highest point of the Northern Urals.

Rescuers who went in search of tourists found a tent with a rugged back wall and the bodies of 9 hikers lying in deep snow. On the faces of all the dead, an expression of mortal horror froze. According to the commission that investigated this tragedy, one of the reasons that led to such a terrible death could be the impact of infrasound of great intensity.

Stanislav Ermakov made the assumption that the Golden woman-robot, abandoned by aliens, could not only speak, but also move. What and when made the robot motionless? One curious episode contained in the description of the campaign of the Viking Thorir Khund to Biarmia can answer this question: “The Vikings happily sailed at the mouth of the Dvina to the trading city of Biarmia. Everyone who had gold and goods for barter got a good profit. At the end of the bargaining with a full load of expensive fur goods, the Vikings went down the Dvina and, going out to the open sea, began to hold a council.

The temple of the highest deity of the Biarms, as the Vikings reliably knew, was located in a dense forest, not far from the mouth of the Vin (Dvina) River. It was there that they planned to make their way and, if they were lucky, take possession of the treasures collected there. Thorir Hund, thrusting his ax into the gate, with his help climbed over it. Carly did the same, and they let the comrades inside the fenced area. Approaching the mound, the Vikings collected as much money as they could carry. Put them in your dress.

They got to the very image of Yumala, which towered among the sacred fence. On the neck of the Biarmian god hung a precious gold chain. Karli was seduced by the chain and struck with an ax so hard on the neck of the idol that the head rolled off his shoulders with a terrifying crack.

Perhaps a Viking could not cut off the head of a cast statue. Another thing is if a robot stood in front of him, consisting of a metal frame covered with a thin layer of metal. The watchmen of the sanctuary came to the rescue and drove the Vikings away. Those miraculously managed to break through to the ships, leaving the treasures collected near the Golden Woman.

Where is the idol or broken robot now? As the last refuge of the Golden Woman, three remote, hard-to-reach corners of Russia are traditionally called: the lower reaches of the Ob River, the upper reaches of the Irtysh in the region. Kalbinsky Range and impassable gorges of the Putoran Mountains on the Taimyr Peninsula. But, perhaps, the idol with a terrible, deadly voice is much closer. And it hides somewhere in the triangle between the mountains Koyp, Otorten and Manya-Tump. Such an assumption is more logical if we consider that the Golden Woman "shouted" on Otorten. The hunt for her continues: some are looking for a priceless historical relic, others - gold, others - a storehouse of alien technology.

And sneak into it secretly. The amazed Vikings saw a large wooden statue with a bowl on its knees and a necklace around its neck. On the head of the idol was gold Crown, decorated with twelve different images. The bowl was filled with silver coins mixed with earth.

The descriptions of the Golden Woman idol say:

• about a statue in the form of an old woman, in the womb of which there is a son and another child is visible - a grandson (S. Herberstein);
• about an idol in the form of an old woman with a child in her arms, and next to it is another child - a grandson (A. Gvagnini);
• about a rock that looks like a woman in rags with a child in her arms (D. Fletcher).

The image of a statue with a child in her arms and the signature "Golden Woman" (Slata baba) is on some Western European maps of the Russian state of the 16th century. in the lower reaches of the Ob.

The protagonist of Alexander Bushkov's novel The Piranha Trail (1996), Kirill Mazur, in an attempt to get out of the taiga with his American partner, accidentally comes across a cave where the Golden Baba is kept. After some thought, Mazur decides to leave the legendary statue in place, however, he still almost becomes a victim of the statue's guards.

A significant part of the story revolves around the myth of the Golden Woman historical novel Alexei Ivanov "Heart of Parma". In an attempt to find and steal a cult statue, as well as in an attempt to win it back, some of the heroes of the work die and / or go crazy. For other participants, on the contrary, the oath to take possession of the idol (or protect it) grants long life, which cannot break until the promise is fulfilled.

Ernst Butin's story "The Golden Fire of Yugra" tells about the liquidation of the remnants of the kulak-Socialist-Revolutionary gang, hunting for "Sorni nai", during the struggle to establish Soviet power in Western Siberia.

In the adventure story by Yuri Kurochkin "The Legend of the Golden Woman", the author uses literary plot as a means of historical research of the legends about the Golden Woman, drawing on rich local history material.

Anna Kiryanova's novel "Hunting Sorni-Nai" gives a mystical interpretation of the death of the Dyatlov tourist group, which fell victim to the hunt of the formidable goddess.

To the cinema

In museum exhibits

In the Uvat Museum of Local Lore "Legends of the gray-haired Irtysh" (Tyumen region) there is an exposition dedicated to the legend of the Golden Woman. According to the Kungur chronicle, the famous Khanty idol was four centuries ago in the Demyansk town (the territory of the Uvat district) and mysteriously disappeared from there after the capture of the town by the Yermakov Cossacks led by the ataman Bryazga. In the center of the hall there is a reconstruction of the altar with the figure of the Golden Woman standing above it, reproduced in accordance with the drawings of the chronicler S. U. Remezov and covered with real gold.

Bibliography

Scientific literature

• Alekseev M.P. Siberia in the news of Western European travelers and writers. XIII-XVIII centuries - 2nd ed. - Irkutsk, 1941.
• Sokolova Z.P. Ardvi Sura Anahita of the Iranians and "Golden Baba" of the Finno-Ugric peoples // Soviet archeology. - . - Number 3.
• Golden Woman // Northern Encyclopedia. - M.: European editions, 2004. - S. 303-304.
• Maroshi V.V.// Literature of the Urals: history and modernity: Collection of articles. - Issue. 3. - T. 2. - Yekaterinburg: Publishing House "Union of Writers", 2007. - S. 266-278.
• Burykin A. A. Golden woman - an idol or a toponym? // Culture as a system in a historical context: the experience of the West Siberian archaeological and ethnographic conferences ... - Materials of the International West Siberian archaeological and ethnographic conference. Tomsk, May 19-21, 2010 - Tomsk: Agraf-Press, 2010. - 506 p. - S. 54-56.

Non-fiction and popular literature

• Golden Woman // Republic of Komi. Encyclopedia. - T.1. - Syktyvkar, 1997. - S. 464.
• Ionina N. A. Wanderings of the Golden Woman // Ionina N. A. 100 great treasures. - M.: Veche, 2000.
• Following the Great Goddess: The Legend of the Golden Baba: Collection. - M.: Veche, 2007.

Fiction

• Kurochkin Yuri. The Legend of the Golden Woman: A Tale / [Art. N. Kazantseva]. - 2nd ed., add. - Sverdlovsk: Middle Ural book publishing house, 1968. - 156 p. - (Ural Library: adventure, fantasy, travel). - 50000 copies.
• Shestalov Yuvan. The Secret of Sorni-nai. - M., 1976.
• Sergei Plekhanov. The Golden Woman - 1985 (novel, filmed in 1987).
• Ivanov Alexey. Heart of Parma. The novel is a legend. - M.: Palmira, 2003.
• Palaces Vasily Terra Obdoriya // Moscow. - 2005.
• Kiryanova Anna. Hunting Sorni-Nai:
  • Kiryanova Anna. // Ural. - . - No. 6.
  • Kiryanova Anna. // Ural. - . - No. 7.
  • Kiryanova Anna. // Ural. - . - No. 8.

see also

Gods Forces of nature Mythical creatures Bogatyrs Rites and holidays Animals in Komi mythology sacred plants Historical traditions Devilry Afterworld The female image and the image of the baby in mythology Perfume Folk Orthodoxy sorcerers Items in mythology

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An excerpt characterizing the Golden Woman

Near the middle of the Arbat, near Nikola Yavlenny, Murat stopped, waiting for news from the advance detachment about the situation in the city fortress "le Kremlin".
Around Murat, a small group of people from the residents who remained in Moscow gathered. Everyone looked with timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired chief adorned with feathers and gold.
- Well, is it himself, or what, their king? Nothing! quiet voices were heard.
The interpreter drove up to a bunch of people.
“Take off your hat… take off your hat,” they started talking in the crowd, addressing each other. The interpreter turned to an old janitor and asked how far it was to the Kremlin? The janitor, listening with bewilderment to the Polish accent alien to him and not recognizing the sounds of the interpreter as Russian, did not understand what was said to him and hid behind the others.
Murat moved up to the interpreter and ordered him to ask where the Russian troops were. One of the Russian people understood what was being asked of him, and several voices suddenly began to answer the interpreter. A French officer from the advance detachment rode up to Murat and reported that the gates to the fortress were sealed up and that there was probably an ambush there.
- Good, - said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen of his retinue, he ordered four light guns to be advanced and fired at the gates.
Artillery trotted out from behind the column following Murat and drove along the Arbat. Having descended to the end of Vzdvizhenka, the artillery stopped and lined up on the square. Several French officers disposed of the cannons, placing them, and looked at the Kremlin through a telescope.
In the Kremlin, the bell was heard for Vespers, and this ringing embarrassed the French. They assumed it was a call to arms. Several infantry soldiers ran to the Kutafiev Gate. Logs and plank shields lay in the gates. Two rifle shots rang out from under the gate as soon as the officer with the team began to run up to them. The general, who was standing by the guns, shouted command words to the officer, and the officer with the soldiers ran back.
Three more shots were heard from the gate.
One shot hit a French soldier in the leg, and a strange cry from a few voices was heard from behind the shields. On the faces of the French general, officers and soldiers at the same time, as if on command, the former expression of cheerfulness and calm was replaced by a stubborn, concentrated expression of readiness for struggle and suffering. For all of them, from the marshal to the last soldier, this place was not Vzdvizhenka, Mokhovaya, Kutafya and Trinity Gates, but it was a new area of ​​a new field, probably bloody battle. And everyone is ready for this battle. The screams from the gates ceased. The guns were advanced. The gunners blew off their burnt overcoats. The officer commanded "feu!" [fall!], and two whistling sounds of tin cans were heard one after another. Card-shot bullets crackled on the stone of the gate, logs and shields; and two clouds of smoke wavered in the square.
A few moments after the rolling of shots on the stone Kremlin had died down, a strange sound was heard over the heads of the French. A huge flock of jackdaws rose above the walls and, croaking and rustling with thousands of wings, circled in the air. Together with this sound, a lonely human cry was heard at the gate, and from behind the smoke appeared the figure of a man without a hat, in a caftan. Holding a gun, he aimed at the French. Feu! - repeated the artillery officer, and at the same time one rifle and two gun shots were heard. The smoke closed the gate again.
Nothing else moved behind the shields, and the French infantry soldiers with officers went to the gate. There were three wounded and four dead people in the gate. Two men in caftans ran downstairs, along the walls, towards Znamenka.
- Enlevez moi ca, [Take it away,] - said the officer, pointing to the logs and corpses; and the French, having finished off the wounded, threw the corpses down behind the fence. Who these people were, no one knew. “Enlevez moi ca” is only said about them, and they were thrown away and cleaned up afterwards so that they would not stink. One Thiers dedicated several eloquent lines to their memory: “Ces miserables avaient envahi la citadelle sacree, s "etaient empares des fusils de l" arsenal, et tiraient (ces miserables) sur les Francais. On en sabra quelques "uns et on purgea le Kremlin de leur presence. [These unfortunates filled the sacred fortress, took possession of the guns of the arsenal and fired at the French. Some of them were chopped down with sabers, and the Kremlin was cleared of their presence.]
Murat was informed that the path had been cleared. The French entered the gate and began to camp on the Senate Square. Soldiers threw chairs out of the windows of the senate into the square and laid out fires.
Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and were stationed along Maroseyka, Lubyanka, and Pokrovka. Still others were located along Vzdvizhenka, Znamenka, Nikolskaya, Tverskaya. Everywhere, not finding owners, the French were placed not like in the city in apartments, but like in a camp located in the city.
Although ragged, hungry, exhausted and reduced to 1/3 of their former strength, the French soldiers entered Moscow in orderly order. It was an exhausted, exhausted, but still fighting and formidable army. But this was an army only until the moment when the soldiers of this army dispersed to their quarters. As soon as the people of the regiments began to disperse to empty and rich houses, the army was forever destroyed and not residents and not soldiers were formed, but something in between, called marauders. When, after five weeks, the same people left Moscow, they no longer constituted an army. It was a crowd of marauders, each of whom was carrying or carrying with him a bunch of things that he thought were valuable and needed. The goal of each of these people when leaving Moscow was not, as before, to win, but only to keep what they had acquired. Like that monkey who, having put his hand into the narrow throat of a jug and seized a handful of nuts, does not open his fist so as not to lose what he has seized, and this destroys himself, the French, when leaving Moscow, obviously had to die due to the fact that they were dragging with loot, but it was as impossible for him to give up this loot as it is impossible for a monkey to unclench a handful of nuts. Ten minutes after the entry of each French regiment into some quarter of Moscow, not a single soldier and officer remained. In the windows of the houses one could see people in overcoats and boots, laughingly pacing around the rooms; in the cellars, in the cellars, the same people were in charge with provisions; in the yards, the same people unlocked or beat off the gates of sheds and stables; fires were laid out in the kitchens, with rolled up hands they baked, kneaded and boiled, frightened, made laugh and caressed women and children. And there were many of these people everywhere, both in shops and in houses; but the troops were gone.
On the same day, order after order was given by the French commanders to forbid the troops to disperse around the city, to strictly prohibit the violence of the inhabitants and looting, to make a general roll call that very evening; but no matter what measures. the people who had previously made up the army spread out over the rich, abundant in amenities and supplies, empty city. Just as a hungry herd marches in a heap across a bare field, but immediately disperses irresistibly as soon as it attacks rich pastures, so the army dispersed irresistibly throughout a rich city.
There were no inhabitants in Moscow, and the soldiers, like water into the sand, soaked into it and spread like an unstoppable star in all directions from the Kremlin, into which they entered first of all. The cavalry soldiers, entering the merchant's house left with all the goodness and finding stalls not only for their horses, but also superfluous, nevertheless went side by side to occupy another house, which seemed better to them. Many occupied several houses, writing with chalk what he was doing, and arguing and even fighting with other teams. Not having time to fit yet, the soldiers ran out into the street to inspect the city and, according to the rumor that everything was abandoned, rushed to where they could pick up valuable things for free. The commanders went to stop the soldiers and themselves were involuntarily involved in the same actions. There were shops with carriages in Karetny Ryad, and the generals crowded there, choosing carriages and carriages for themselves. The remaining residents invited the chiefs to their place, hoping that they would be protected from robbery. There was an abyss of wealth, and there was no end in sight; everywhere, around the place that the French had occupied, there were still unexplored, unoccupied places in which, as it seemed to the French, there were still more riches. And Moscow sucked them further and further into itself. Exactly as due to the fact that water is poured onto dry land, water and dry land disappear; in the same way, because a hungry army entered a plentiful, empty city, the army was destroyed, and a plentiful city was destroyed; and there was dirt, fires and looting.

GOLD BABA

(Continuation of the novel by Arkady Polshakov "Letter-lyst of the Cossacks to Empress Catherine 11")

Rice. Golden Baba

"Roads, roads,
Anxiety, anxiety,
Passion, misfortune,
Bondage in power!
Roads without end
Baba Golden,
And at the end of the reward:
"Domivka" is holy!

As you know, the first and most accurate impression of the greatness of Siberia, most likely, comes from the immensity of its vast expanses.
The most incredible thoughts visit your head with unexpected magic words when you are expressively told:
"We kindly ask you to come to Siberia (or to Magadan, Vorkuta, Kolyma, Sakhalin, Kamchatka)" ...
And immediately a chill runs down your back and opens before your inner gaze the abyss of snow-covered, mostly unexplored, unexplored expanses, inhabited mainly by "convicts", where a person feels himself an insignificance in front of this formidable nature.
Therefore, those who first came here cannot remain indifferent or indifferent in the face of this largely virgin Siberian nature.
Naturally, the Zaporizhzhya Cossack settlers could not help but feel the harsh breath of Siberia.
And the matter is not only in the severity of nature, but also in the severity and savagery, fugitive and forcibly sent here by the kings and other impudent people and people who lived here, cruelly conquering the local natives and feuding among themselves because of wealth and the desire to survive here, what it would not be.

Let's start the story of a Siberian migrant with two young people, the heroes of our story. They, having gone for berries, as often happens with beginners, got lost in the taiga, strayed from their kuren. Young people, wandering through the taiga, could not feel the full fear of this wild, peculiar Siberian nature.
But they were lucky in another way. They, wandering through the taiga, met and could see with their own eyes the main deity of Siberia, before which all the indigenous inhabitants of the country bowed - the Golden Baba.

Right now, one of the heroes we mentioned, climbed a tall pine tree that grew on a hill to look around and choose a direction for further movement.
From the height of his position, he saw the taiga, boundless and silent, with fallen trees, impenetrable windbreaks and without any signs of life.
From below, someone shouted to him in a girlish voice:
- Hey, Taras! What are you doing there (you see - Russian language)!
- Nothing! Fox, that fox!
- Houses are not visible!
- Neither! No houses, no nobles (roads)!
- Taras, what are we going to do, where are we going?
- To the pivden (south), where else!
- Todi zlaz from a tree!
- I'm pissed right now!
Descending from the tree, our heroes headed south. The direction to the south was determined quickly by the moss growing on the north side of the old pine.
Obviously, it's time now, my friends, to introduce you to the participants in this unforeseen journey for our heroes. We are already familiar with one, this is Taras the Elder, the son of Ataman Grytsk Taran. Another participant in this ill-fated journey was the daughter of Gaidamak Ivan Naida, Galya.
Naturally, dear friends, you want to know: how did these young people end up alone in the taiga?
Let's explain: as it usually happens often in an unfamiliar taiga, we went for mushrooms and berries, and got lost.
Taiga is taiga and all nearby forests are similar to each other, like twin brothers, it is difficult to determine from which forest you came out and which one you entered.
The forests in Zaporozhye, where the children were born, seemed like toys compared to this taiga forest. If there, near the Dnieper, they easily navigated and knew every beam, every berry bush in the forest, then here the forest pressed on the consciousness of people with its infinity, boundlessness, a kind of frightening taiga silence.
Having traveled a few more versts to the south, Taran again climbed a tree to look around.
Climbing to the top of the largest tree and looking around, he noticed a barely visible section of the forest road ahead.
- Bach yakus road to pivdni (south)!
- Hooray! Galya exclaimed.
- Wait a minute to rejoice, - reasonable Taras cooled her optimism, - there we can hustle for the natives or the governor's guards.
- Godi, you can use buty, - said Galya, - you need to get up on the road, you can bring us home. That's why they wrote there.

And they went in the direction of the forest road they saw. Out on the forest road and looking around, they headed west. The road was hardly traveled, obviously, not often traveled along it, in places it was already decently overgrown with grass. After three versts, the road forked sharply into two branches. In front of the fork stood a stone woman, facing them not in front, but behind. Her hands were spread out to the sides of the side roads, and her face was turned to a huge pine tree that grew a few meters from her.
Some incomprehensible hieroglyphs were carved on the back of the stone woman.
Stopping at the stone woman, Galya asked Taras:
- Tsikavo (interesting) what is written here?
- Mabut is confused, where to lead the qi of the road!
- Well, where are we going?
- I do not know! I would write livoruch ...
- Why?
- I do not know! I just said so.
- You know what, let's play it. I will take an otsyu stick in my hands and whoever, with the palm of the first grasp of an inch of it, will choose the path.
- Let's!
Galya was the first to take a stick in her fist from below, Taras followed her and, alternately wrapping her arms around the stick, they reached its top.
Galya won the choice of the road, her hand was higher than the hand of Taras. After some thought, she said:
- We are pidemo right-handed, which road is more worthy of me, (like).
Taras did not object, and they turned to the right.
The road, winding, skirting windbreaks and small lakes and swamps, went southwest. After walking several versts along it, they sat down to rest by a birch that grew on the edge of the road.
Having rested, Taras said to Galya:
- I'm climbing up a tree and I'll choke on it, maybe I'll work.
- Good, climb a tree, and I'll bud you mulberries.
Taras climbed the tallest tree and, looking around, saw smoke curling around the bend in the road.
“Galya,” he shouted, “I’m blowing the smoke of some kind of fire in front.
Galya shouted back to him from below:
- Taras, creep from the tree, let's get up, climbing up there by the hillock.
When Taras climbed down from the tree, they headed towards the smoke of the fire. But they did not walk along the road, but through the forest along it, and at the same time, trying to make as little noise as possible. The guys were already aware of the danger of the situation in which they fell. Lost in the taiga and straying through unexplored, wild places, not knowing and not knowing who they would meet on the way: an animal or a person, they were naturally frightened by all this.
Taras is not a timid guy, after all, he was the son of the chieftain himself, which left an imprint on him. He ruled among the peers of the kuren. His attitude towards Galya was complex, like many boys of his age, who were already staring at the girls. And although he was older than her, he did not dominate her, but she twisted them. The girl, with her early mature feminine instinct, felt and understood that he liked her, and this gave her more confidence in their relationship.
Galya grew up in a Haidamak family, which also could not affect her character, since her father's life in Haidamak, full of danger and adventure, made itself felt.
It is not enough to say that she was a cheerful and mischievous girl with long beautiful hair and large brown amber eyes, but she also possessed some kind of bewitching inner magical power. In her family, the grandmother was a healer and obviously Babkin's part of this witchcraft power was inherited by her granddaughter with the genes of her soul.
Although Galina did not receive a proper education, since the girls of her position in those early years were content with only the rudiments of knowledge that the monks and parents gave, nevertheless, her grandmother taught her to read and write, she knew how to read and write. Compared to other girls of her circle, she had a rare quick wit, and grasped a lot, as they say on the fly.
As for Taras, having found himself in such a difficult situation, he felt responsible to the girl, especially since he was the initiator of this morning trip for mushrooms to the taiga.
“Here I felt (heard) that the aborigines were chirping,” said Taras, turning to her. - It would be bad for them to meet (to meet) so that they would find out the way.
- Tse Bulo would be bad! Galya agreed.
The thought that there were people somewhere nearby in this wilderness excited these two participants in a forced wandering through the taiga.
They cautiously began to make their way through the thicket of the forest, trying not to step on dry branches, which sometimes cracked treacherously under their feet.
Approaching the place where, according to their calculations, the fire was burning, Taras, turning to Galya, said quietly:
- Dali I go (go) alone, I see what and yak!
Galya did not object to such caution, and Taras went on alone.
In the taiga, with its windbreaks and trees fallen from old age, it is difficult to go straight, you have to bypass fallen trees and thorny bushes. Moreover, there was a danger that behind this or that bush or fallen tree there could be an animal or an unkind person.
Why ask necessarily an unkind person, but because here the taiga and some "hunters" for someone else's good (washed gold or rich furs) are ready to shoot their neighbor, as they say, for "not smelling tobacco."
The servicemen who were in the service of the governor were especially atrocious with such robberies, they robbed everyone, especially the natives. The latter were soldered, then their furs were taken from them: beavers, noble sables, lush silver foxes and other skins of noble animals. At the same time, part was given to the governor, and the rest was left to themselves. The loot was most often drunk in a tavern, and then again they went to hunt for robbery.
Such were the mores of that colonial period.
Going out to the river, Taras saw a small fire on the bank, near which several people were sitting. It was not difficult to recognize the servicemen of the governor in them. A roe deer shot by them was roasting in a suspended state on horns on a fire.
Nearby was tied to a tree, judging by the clothes, some kind of native. All this voivodina company, chewing fried meat, cutting it off from roe deer, was talking loudly about something among themselves.
Having listened to their conversation, Taras understood from fragments of phrases that these people were hunting for the Golden Baba, and as a guide they had captured the son of a local shaman, who knows the way to this sanctuary. From his outward beaten appearance, it was not difficult to guess how they pulled out a confession from him, where the dwelling of the Golden Baba was located.
Here, at least briefly, we will tell you, dear friends, about the Golden Baba, the shrine of the local natives.
For many years, mature men, gold diggers and just adventurers have been looking for and are still looking for traces of the legendary Golden Baba. Stories about her make many hearts of such "geltenmen of fortune" beat faster. She beckons them to go on a difficult and dangerous journey to unknown lands in pursuit of the illusory riches of this fabulously rich Golden Baba.
Many are driven to search for it by greed, since, according to legend, it is made of pure gold. Some see in her a divine image and respond to this image as the image of the holy Golden Mother of God, which every person who believes in her carries in her heart. But no one knows for sure where she came from and where, with whom "she was gone ...".
The first mention of the golden idol of the North, the patroness of the Sorni-Nai tribes, is contained in the Scandinavian sagas. In 1023, the Vikings, led by the famous Thorer-Dog, made a trip to Biarmia. On the Dvina River, they managed to find out the location of the sanctuary of Yumala and secretly penetrate into it. The startled Vikings saw a large statue with a bowl on its knees and a necklace around its neck. On the head of the idol was a golden crown, decorated with twelve different images. The bowl was filled with silver coins mixed with earth.
The descriptions of other researchers of the Golden Woman speak of a statue in the form of an old woman, in the womb of which there is a son and another child is visible - a grandson (S. Herberstein); about an idol in the form of an old woman with a child in her arms, and next to it is another child - a grandson (A. Gvagnini); about a rock that looks like a woman in rags with a child in her arms (D. Fletcher). The image of a statue with a child in her arms and the signature "Golden Woman" (Slata baba) is on some Western European maps of the Russian state of the 16th century in the lower reaches of the Ob.
The oldest Slavic mention of the mysterious Golden Baba is found in the Novgorod Chronicle for 1398. It was written down after the missionary activity of Stephen of Perm, who walked the Perm land: "This teach the Perm land the faith of Christ, and before that they bowed to the beast and the tree, water, fire and the Golden Baba."
Following Stefan, the tsarist governors with archers went, and they destroyed the pagan sanctuaries of the Permians, Khanty, Ostyaks and many other nationalities to dust, and churches were erected in their place.
In the works of Russian scientists of the XVIII century. (G.F. Miller, I.I. Lepekhin) there is a message that the Golden Woman is an ancient Komi deity, whose statue was taken to the Ob by pagans who did not want to be baptized.
Traces of the presence of the Slavs on Siberian soil were felt for a very long time. Back in the 14th century, Elomari knew light and blue-eyed Siberians. He wrote:
"Their figures are the perfection of creation in beauty, whiteness and amazing charm; their eyes are blue."
Ermak's Cossacks, who broke through the Stone Belt, among the short and Mongoloid aborigines, to their surprise, sometimes met real giants, and among the aborigines - indescribable beauties. It is known that the Minusinsk Slavs settled in the Irtysh basin and in the southern part of the Urals, which at that time was called the Slavic Mountains. Over time, brutal wars and mixed marriages led to the fact that Slavic speech ceased to sound in these places. Only the Golden Baba kept the secret of the disappeared people.
The Pole M. Mekhovsky also wrote about the Golden Baba in his Treatise on the Two Sarmatians. He wrote the following:
"Beyond the region called Vyatka, on the road to Scythia, stands a large idol of the Golden Baba...
The neighboring tribes greatly honor him and worship him."
The news about the Golden Baba began to spread widely, its location was marked on the maps of the state of Muscovy by the Englishmen A. Jenkinson and A. Vid.
A. Jenkinson, for example, made the following inscription on his map:
"The Golden Old Woman is worshiped by obdortsy and yugra. The priest asks this idol about what they should do and where they should migrate, and the idol (amazing thing!) Gives answers to the questioners, and the predictions definitely come true."
The Golden Baba "Slata baba" on Herberstein's map of Muscovy (1549) is the Golden Baba (Komi Zarni an; Khant. Sorni Nai) - a legendary idol, an object of worship for the population of North-Eastern Europe, and then North-Western Siberia.
A feature of these maps was the following circumstance: the later the map, the further to the East the location of the Golden Baba was moved.
Obviously, initially she was worshiped in the western regions, and then - in connection with the Christianization of these places - she was transferred beyond the Urals and further east to Siberia ...
Some of the believers revered the Golden Baba not only as a pagan, but also as a Slavic goddess. According to numerous reports of the peoples of the Khanty, Mansi and Russian old-timers, the Golden Baba was kept for a long time in Belogorye - an area on the Ob near the confluence of the Irtysh into it.
This is confirmed by the Siberian Chronicle, which tells about the adventures of Bogdan Bryazgin, Yermak's closest friend and comrade-in-arms.
After the capture of the Ostyak town of Samar in 1583, he visited the Ostyak prayer site in Belogorye, about which he wrote: "... an ancient goddess; a naked woman with her son sitting on a chair; accepting gifts from her own, and giving her leftovers in any business, and hedgehog who by vow she will not give, she torments and torments; and whoever brings pity to her, he will die before her, having God and a great congress. ".
After some time, the deity, who had disappeared from Belogorye, reappeared in the basin of the Konda River. It was secretly transferred there by the Belogorsk Khanty, but then the traces of the Golden Baba are lost.
An Orthodox missionary, a Zaporozhian colonel exiled to Siberia, Grigory Novitsky, who preached Christian doctrine to the Ostyaks at the beginning of the 18th century, tried to find a hidden statue and destroy it, but he failed to do so. He was able to collect only quite a lot of valuable information, both about the idol itself and the secret sanctuary in which the Golden Baba was kept.

Let's ask ourselves, friends, the question: - What kind of deity does the Golden Baba personify?
Some scholars suggest that this could be the name of the golden (or gilded) Madonna and Child, which was brought to the Permian land, and from there she came to Western Siberia.
However, M.P. Alekseev, one of the authoritative connoisseurs of the "biography" of the Golden Baba, considers even this conjecture implausible, "if only because the Russians did not have sculptural images of the Madonna; and if they did, they carved her from wood and, in addition, of course, hardly where they were taken out of the churches. In his study "Siberia in the news of foreign travelers and writers" M.P. Alekseev suggested that the Golden Baba is a statue of the bodhisattva of mercy Avalokiteshvara, who in Chinese Buddhism acquired the female image of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy.
Guanyin was the savior of those who were in danger while traveling, sea voyages or crossing high mountains.
The iconography of Guanyin does not contradict the images of the Golden Baba on medieval maps; perhaps she had some more ancient prototype of the Hindu deity.
MP version Alekseeva seems to explain another phenomenon associated with the Golden Baba. In the heroic epic of the Yakuts there is a legend about Diez Emiget (about a statue) that makes a sound like a cricket.
Some scholars have suggested that these sounds could be caused by trumpets, but none of the known drawings show such trumpets. Others believe that the sound was made by a special whistle blown by the wind; it has even been suggested that the Golden Baba herself is a kind of organ sounding in the wind.
If we are talking about Guanyin, then one of her statues in Tibet had a white shell, making a gentle sound of the splashing sea. When the conch sounded, Guanyin radiated a "soft glow"; Diez Emiguet also emitted a "blue color".
The most surprising thing we found out was that many of the researchers are right in their affirmative premises. The fact is that the Golden Baba was not alone; local masters copied her from more ancient statues, introducing their own vision of holiness into it. Therefore, there was nothing surprising in the fact that some of them looked like the holy Madonna with a baby in her arms, while others looked like the Buddhist goddess of mercy - Guanyin.
Some of these statues were stolen by the greedy conquerors of Siberia and melted down into gold bars convenient for trade, only, perhaps, one survived from the barbarism of the conquerors and is now quietly stored in the basin of the mighty Siberian river Ob. But we will talk about this below.
* * *
Here we return to our story about two young people who got lost in the taiga from a Zaporizhzhya kuren exiled to Siberia under the leadership of the newly elected ataman Taran-Krymsky, who stumbled upon a gang hunting for a local shrine - the Golden Baba.

Hey you schmuck pig snout! Here, take a sip of fiery water, - the eldest of the bandits approached the bound aborigine with such words, and, thrusting a mug under his nose, added, - it is necessary that you do not die prematurely.
The prisoner began convulsively, choking to drink from a mug.
- Well, here's the good fellow, and now the lads are moving on, our guide has rested, drank and is ready to show us the way to the Golden Woman.
All this brethren quickly gathered their belongings, untied the captive from the tree, and they all in a crowd moved further along the forest road. Even the fire was not extinguished.
Realizing that with these little people he and Galya were not on the way, Taras slowly returned to the girl and told her everything that he had seen and heard by the fire. Naturally, he was worried here more about Gala than about himself.
Taras's story frightened her, she understood the danger of their situation. If they accidentally fell into their hands, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen to them and especially to her.
The fact is that the demographic situation in Siberia was such that there were significantly fewer representatives of the weaker sex than in the rest of the empire.
The establishment of arable land, cattle breeding, settled settlements required the multiplication of women in Siberia, and a predominantly male population went to the "new country - Siberia".
From the lack of women, all of Siberia was not very different in morality. In the absence of their own women, the Europeans made wives from foreigners (local women) and, according to the custom of the Bukharians (who were engaged in trading and buying furs here), they made several of them. Russian holy fathers naturally opposed polygamy, but life often took its toll.
Foreign wives were obtained by Russians either by purchase, or by capture - captivity.
Numerous riots of local natives, which were caused by unfair requisitions and oppression of yasak collectors, gave rise to numerous military campaigns in foreign camps, and imaginary disobedient people were beaten, and wives and children were taken prisoner and then sold in Siberian cities into slavery. Such were the customs of that time in Siberia.
Vodka, hunger from lack of bread and the lack of a beast often forced the local aliens themselves to sell their children into slavery.
The nomadic tribe of the Kirghiz, who occupied the southern steppes of Siberia, making raids on the neighboring Kalmyks, always returned with prisoners and captives and also sometimes sold them in the Siberian border villages and cities.
Therefore, the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks protected their women in every possible way and mostly encouraged marriages in their own circle, and not on the side, although everything happened here too ...
* * *
Taras's thoughts ran in another direction, he thought about how to prevent these robbers from destroying the sanctuary of the local natives, with whom he managed to make friends.
Most of them were harmless, simple hunters who had never met the so-called "benefits" of civilization, which completely destroyed their customs, way of life, distorted the language, destroying it. And, worst of all, it destroyed the dimensional calm taiga life, turning it into a pursuit of various junk and fun water (alcohol). The northern peoples were terribly drunk on this fiery water.
But with these thoughts about the release of the captive son of a shaman, one has to wait, Galya was with him, and he could not risk it. Now, if there was a father with the Cossacks nearby, then the matter would be completely different.
- Where are we going now? - asked Galya, alarmed by the imminent danger.
- Let's turn back to that stone woman and take the livoruch along the other road.
- And when you get out, will you bring us back to those robbers?
“Don’t, don’t go, don’t worry about the road,” Taras reassured the girl.
Galya shrugged her shoulders, and they turned back.
At a fork in the road, they stopped briefly to rest by an old, huge, gnarled pine that grew right in front of the stone woman.
- Taras, look at the pectoral of the komenny woman, there are also letters. I choke on her and my mind freezes.
- Well, I wonder what the signs are there! So what? I can’t read about what they won’t talk about. Let's pidemo like I'm a goat earlier livoruch.
- I have a trash of senses, I need shukaty of garny people, that was written for the price of tsy.
And they went along the forest road to the left of the stone woman. We walked long enough until we got tired. The road wound through forests. Coniferous, birch and mixed forests surrounded it from all sides.
Seeing a thick bush with red berries in one of the birch groves, Taras said to the girl:
- It seems like a wild cherry, let's eat some troch.
- Come on, I want to (eat) yists!
And they turned off the road into the forest, where a plantation of wild cherries grew.
- He look stilki cherries! - Galya exclaimed, pointing into the depths of the forest, where juicy berries reddened in a clearing.
And they went even further into the forest. For half an hour they savored and chewed these wild berries, exchanging separate phrases about their taste.
- Our cherries are a sweetener of chim qi, - Galya told Taras, sending another berry into her mouth.
- Yes, our savory ones, - Taras agreed.
- And remember Galya, like we stole apples and pears from Patsyuk.
- I remember, there, near the parkan, dida also grew healthy cherries. Taste the berries of the bula with yaks.
“It’s cold here in Siberia, so yours is not on the trees, but in the bushes there is a tree tree and the berries are mali here, and don’t relish it,” Taras commented on the situation.
Here he noticed a peeled birch, as if some huge beast was trying to remove the skin from the tree trunk with its claws. He did not know that this is how brown bears mark their territory.

Rice. Brown bear in a birch forest

The beast does this so that other bears and animals do not cross its bearish border. And if this happens, then a good brawl awaited the violator of such an animal border.
The guys, not suspecting the danger, continued to feast on berries.
The bear, walking around her berry places with her two cubs, smelled the smell of strangers on her territory. She felt threatened by her offspring. Therefore, the she-bear growled from a distance and rushed into the berry field, where the guys were.
Hearing the roar of the beast, Taras grabbed the knife and shouted to Galya:
- Athas! Drape Galya!
And they took off from the place, and, that there is urine, ran away in the direction of the road. The race would not last long, since the bear, despite its apparent slowness and clubfoot, can run quite fast.
He would undoubtedly have caught up with his fugitives if he had not accidentally hit with his paw in a rope loop set by hunters on the path, with large chocks at the end of the rope. The noose tightly swept over his paw and, at speed, braked him sharply, so much so that, having twisted his front paw, he plowed the ground with his snout.
There was a terrible roar of a beast caught in a noose. The angry bear did not understand what stopped him and twisted his paw. Roaring in pain, he tried to catch up with the two-legged creatures, but was unable to do so. A huge block tied to the end of a rope made it impossible for him to run. In the heat of the moment, he dragged him through the forest, clinging to trees and bushes about ten meters and, exhausted, stopped. Roaring in anger from pain and annoyance in all his bear throat that he did not catch up with his offenders.
This terrible roar spurred our fugitives even more strongly, and they quickly ran out onto the road.
Taras, looking around, not seeing an angry bear behind him, feverishly thought to himself where the beast had gone, and could not find a reasonable explanation for this. After running another hundred meters, he realized one thing, that something had happened to the bear, since he had disappeared so suddenly.
Galya, who was running beside him, gasping for breath from her quick run, said:
- That's it, Taras, I can't get bigty!
And the girl began to stop, slowing down her run.
- Galya, say. bear, having seen the sight of us! You can take a break! Let's go around the corner here.
- Let's! - the girl answered and, having run away from the forest road, fell under a birch into daisies growing by the road. Taras also perched next to her, sitting down, leaning his back against a birch. Slightly out of breath, they began talking. Galya asked:
- Taras! Where did the bear go?
- I do not know! Big, big for us, and sweat raptom disappeared.
- I chula (heard) like a trisk of gilok (branches) resounding behind my back, and then we sweat its terrible roar.
- I feel too. Ale, I don’t know why they didn’t give us wine. Maybe they will rise up for me.
- No, you're Taras! - the girl exclaimed in fright. - Such a healthy fear-man yak was chasing us, maybe you could get roses on your shmatki. You are not going anywhere! she said decisively.
Taras was pleased that Galya was afraid for him, worried about his life. Therefore, in order to show himself to the girl as a brave man, he told her:
- Don’t fight Galya for me, I have lower. I zumiya zakhisty (to protect) myself.
- No, don't go there! It’s not enough to be with you, I’ll just stay alone with this fox!
They were lucky twice, the first that none of them fell into a hunting trap, which the hunters set on the bear path and disguised it, and the second is that the bear got into the loop, and the block tied to the end of the rope loop did not give him the opportunity to catch up with them . For the guys it was a double happiness.
Having rested from a fast run, having gathered their strength, the guys went further along the road. Taras periodically climbed some tree to inspect the area ahead and the road itself. They both knew that such a precaution would not be superfluous.
Once he told Galya from above that a river was visible ahead and some people were sitting by the fire on the shore. He got down from the tree and they began to discuss what to do next to go forward or bypass people.
We decided that Taras would go ahead and find out everything well. Then, when he is convinced that everything is in order, he will call Galya.
And so they did. Taras went ahead, and not along the road, but through the forest, hiding behind the trees, while Galya remained behind to wait for him.
Climbing carefully to the place where the fire was burning, Taras saw the following picture.
On a fallen birch, judging by the clothes, most likely, some aboriginal was sitting. A man, most likely similar to a European, was bustling around the fire next to him. Judging by the clothes and equipment, they were hunters.
After observing them and making sure that there was no one else around the fire nearby, he decided to go and talk to them.
Hiding a hunting knife in his sleeve just in case of an emergency, Taras slowly began to approach the fire.
The hunters at the fire did not immediately notice the young man approaching them, as they were busy with more important business, namely food.
But when a branch cracked treacherously under Taras's foot, they turned sharply towards him and grabbed their weapons.
Taras raised his free hand and said conciliatoryly:
- Probatch, but I'm not a rogue! Allow me to speak with you.
The one who was dressed with elements of European clothing replied:
- Hello fellow countryman! Glad you bachitas! Come to the fire, come down with us!
Taras was surprised at the hunter's knowledge of his language (the ancient language of the Kievan Rus) and already fearlessly approached the fire and greeted the hunters.
A man of European stock, whose clothes were a bizarre mixture of different nationalities, both European and local, invited him to sit on a fallen tree and held out a piece of fried meat strung on a twig, saying:
- Sit down lad, you will be a guest. My name is Mikola, and my friend is Tesh. Wine is an Ostyak by nationality, and according to our pagano balakai, it’s more to speak.
Taras introduced himself and, taking the treat with words of gratitude, sat down on a fallen birch and began to gnaw the meat. The hunters also began to press the roast, not hurrying to start a conversation. They obviously thought there was a time for everything.
Seeing that the situation around the fire was normal and the hunters would probably not harm them, Taras began the conversation by asking Mikola:
- Will you be a zvidkel yourself?
- Yes, I am the same Cossack as you, my fathers from the Dnieper. The tsar sent the Tilka of my fathers here earlier than you.
- To tell the truth, it seems, without thinking here the countryman's bullshit, - Taras was delighted. - I'm not alone here, there are more maidens in the thicket. Let me peck her to the boil.
- For God's sake! Klych ei, we are not your enemies.
Taras began to shout and wave his arms so that Galya, without fear, would go towards them. And she did not keep herself waiting long, the warmth of the fire beckoned her, like an ordinary girlish curiosity.
Taras introduced Galya to the hunters.
As a hospitable host, Mykola seated new acquaintances, giving them what was left of the fried roe deer. A casual conversation ensued between them.
Taras told his new acquaintances about their adventures.
How they got lost in the taiga, how long they searched for the way back, how they found this road, turned right at the stone woman and stumbled upon a gang of gold miners who captured the son of a local shaman in order for him to show them the way to the sanctuary of the Golden Siberian woman. As they later returned to the fork in the road, and went along it to the thickets of wild cherries, they stumbled upon a bear, from which they barely managed to escape. Finally saw their fire and met with them.
Mykola (Nikolai) asked Taras:
- Where did you stumble upon a bear and it is strange that she did not catch up with you. Bears, despite their seeming clumsiness, run very fast.
- I don’t know what happened there, Galya and I ate berries, when we heard her roar and made our legs. She rushed after us, there was some crackling and a wild roar. Then the crackling intensified, as if someone was breaking through the forest, and the she-bear fell behind us. We didn't see her again.
- She, most likely, fell into the loop set by us on the path to the berry plant, where she used to feast on. You are very lucky that you did not fall into our traps.
- What other traps?
- We, here hunting for the "master of the taiga", use various tricky things, the so-called traps:
- chambers, arranged around the allotment, below the side (hive in a hollow): clinging to the edge of the chambers with its front paws and having no support under its hind legs, the bear hangs and, tired, falls on pointed stakes driven into the ground;
- hedgehog - a heavy block of wood, with top nails sticking out, hung over the entrance to the side; having reached it, the bear throws back the hedgehog, which, then, hits him and so on until the wounded and exhausted beast falls to the ground;
- a wheel attached in a similar way, grabbing which the bear hangs in the air and then falls on pointed stakes;
- traps, with anchors or chocks tied to them, which do not allow the beast to go far and leave a trail along which it is searched for and finished off;
- loops, with the same chocks at the end of the rope from which it is made;
- boards or triangles with jagged nails sticking out of them, running into which the bear gets stuck before the hunter arrives;
- crossbows from a bow or a gun, shooting when a bear touches a towline stretched across the path - simka, squeeze;
- pits, falling into which the bear falls on sharpened stakes driven into the bottom of the pit;
- Yeah! - Taras drawled, marveling at the ingenuity of local hunters. - I never thought that there are so many ways to catch this dangerous beast.
- You see, Tarasa, as they say, he is cunning for inventions!
- It's good that we didn't get in the way of a bear pit. Birr, I can't imagine or you, Taras, in it! Galya was horrified
- There is such a joke, humorous on this score: One local young hunter writes for hunting. Lost in the fox. Draw. Cold and scary.
Stand and shout:
- People ayy! Who's here?
There is a sense, htos at the back of a tovka Turning, and there is a witch, stand and feed him: - Well, I'm a mulberry! Toby, what the hell, feel better? ..
- I can imagine what happened, - Taras chuckled, - he might have "pissed off"!
- So you are lucky in this! In the taiga, moving along animal paths, one must be careful not to fall into some kind of trap, Nikolai noted. Then he added, switching to the Ukrainian-Russian "surzhik", which he had not spoken for a long time, and he really wanted to speak with his fellow countrymen in his native language:
- Tse good scho you chimed in with us, because here you grab the sacristan gangsters. At first glance, it seems that Siberia is deserted here near the foxes. But it’s not so, here you can see the hustries of the voivodeship servicemen and plowed people, Kalmyks, Kirghizs, Ostyaks, Naryn princes, there were also fishing and trading people, beagle convicts, monks, after drinking, yasak people, and now the Cossacks exiled us. We Cossacks here are no longer called Cossacks, but "Cherkasy".
- Why "Cherkasy"? - asked Galya.
- I don’t know for sure, maybe for our trousers and a sedentary head.
- And what are you doing here? - asked Galya
- We are hunters with Tesh. Here in Siberia at the same time appreciate the furs.
- Furs, not grosches? she asked
- Appreciate here a mustache and not a penny, but gold, stones, pearls, that fur. From soft junk, appreciate panne velvet and satin. Wuxi are especially chasing good black and red beavers, sables, black and red balds.
The voivode “drives” the vodka and his service people for two dances of cyei drunken hash among the natives change them for good black bald or sable.
The interpreters of the voevoda, with the help of the natives, get them drunk, and then they fool around like they want. So it’s not safe here, to kill a bald head for one black and not cross.
That's why you've been tricking us here, we'll take you to your hut ...
- Mykola, you showed that your fathers saved the Dnipro! So, what? Taras asked him.
- Sounds like that! My ancestors also took care of the Dnipro, and did not come here for the first time from the formidable Cossack Colonel Mnogreshny. Feel about this?
- Chuv about him, we in Zaporizhia knew him, we sweat his tsar's zradnyks roared and sent him to Siberia, - Taras said affirmatively.
- So, his detachment of 700 cavalry and foot warriors, debuling people and volunteers from the villagers and landowners, set out in search of the river Kan, where the rebellious Tubinians stayed, they flooded their "princes".
Potim did turned here and settled here. Therefore, we have been here for a long time and are engaged in fur trade.
- And what is there for a kamyana woman to cost at the crossroads of roads? Galya asked Mykola.
- Tse is a mystery to us. The Ostyaks seem that there is a sign, the paths to their shrines.
- Won scho wuxi here idolaters?
- Well, it’s rich here and new baptized tribes, but they gave more rich and unbaptized people into the depths of Siberia. Vaughns worship their gods and shamans. Our aboriginal people revere the Zolota Baba, similar to that kamyana, like you bachily at the crossroads of dorig, the most sacred thing among our natives.
- Golden Baba! Oh, like a cicava! Galya exclaimed. - And where is it worth it?
- You don’t know anything of ours! Rozmov's sacrilege to go, but de won to cost, in which the hooves are buried, nobody knows. Bo, even the governor of whom you don’t know. Vin caught one respectable shaman, torturing him on his hind legs, but without saying anything, only threatening that if foreign people approached her, then Zolota Baba would punish them zhorstoko.
The conversation around the fire between them did not last long. It was time to get them on the road.
At the end of the conversation, Mykola talked about something with Tesh, who, having learned about the capture of their shaman's son, became agitated and began to frantically gesticulate and ask his partner for something.
Taras asked Mykola:
- What do you want Tesh?
- Vin want schob we helped him zvilnyty son of a shaman.
Tom Tesh will tell you to be heard (leave) here, and we will catch up with the banditiv at the two, to kill the son of the shaman.
Seeing that Tesh was listening attentively to their conversation and could not understand anything, since the language of the ancient Kievorus, which they spoke, differed significantly from the language of the Muscovites, Mykola-Nikolai suggested speaking with Tesh in the language of the Muscovites, which was more understandable to him.
Taras and Galya did not object and began to speak in the presence of the hunters in the language that was increasingly used here in Siberia.
The lost boys were now most worried about the prospect of losing their new friends.
Therefore, Taras at first tried to dissuade them from this undertaking, saying:
- There are two of you, and there are a lot of bandits, they can shoot you, -
- Nothing, Taras, there are two of us, but Tesh and I are considered good shooters.
“And if we go with you,” Galya suggested unexpectedly for everyone.
- But it's dangerous! Nikolay retorted.
“No more dangerous than sitting here and waiting for you. And you don't know if you'll be back? she remarked persuasively.
- Maybe Galya is right, let's go with you. We will follow behind you, - added Taras.
- And maybe, if we are lucky, before your meeting with the bandits, we will stumble upon our own, then we will cease to be a burden to you. After all, for sure, our Cossacks are looking for us, - Galya said convincingly.
- Okay, you convinced me! Then we turn around and hit the road. We have a boat hidden here, on it we will quickly catch up with these bastards, ”said Nikolai.
Having extinguished the fire, a small detachment led by Nicholas headed to the river bank. There they found a boat hidden in the bushes, put their simple belongings into it, sat down and sailed along the river to the northwest.
I must say that the boats of the Cossacks, in contrast to the "dugouts" of the local aborigines, hollowed out from thick tree trunks, are made of tarred boards and have a flat bottom. They are equipped with benches for seating rowers and passengers, which is very convenient for transporting goods and passengers along the river. The manufacture of such boats from boards does not take as much time as in another case, when it is necessary to hollow out a thick tree trunk.
Their new acquaintances also had such a four-seater punt boat.
The owners of the boat sat on the oars, Taras sat on the bow in the front seat, and Galya sat on the rear, wider and more comfortable seat.
Rivers in Siberia tend to flow from south to north and empty into the Arctic Ocean. They differ from other rivers in that their water is cold, the banks are wooded and the rivers change their course, winding like snakes, practically turning the channel every half a mile. In this regard, next to the main channel of the Siberian rivers, many oxbows (old riverbeds) are formed, overgrown with shrubs and tall grass, which creates difficult places for people to pass.
The taiga river in this place was not very wide, it, winding, made its way to the north, where it flowed into the main channel, the water, which already reached the waters of the Arctic Ocean.
The left bank, as a rule, was low and more swampy, while the right bank was higher and steeper. Dense shrubs and trees grew along the banks, most often they were pines and birches.
With a strong current, especially in floods, the water, washing away the relatively high right bank, along with the earth, brought down trees into the river, and they posed a serious danger to navigation along the river.
In other words, this whole most beautiful northern landscape was a picturesque picture in its primeval, virgin state, not yet touched by the destructive, "clumsy influence" of man on nature.
I must say that this entire vast territory, rarely populated by various nationalities, was not completely colonized by the Muscovites and lived mainly according to its own internal laws and customs.
The main forces of the Muscovites were concentrated in separate forts and small fortresses, which they built on the borders in places convenient for the protection of settlers and migrants who arrived from the mother part of the empire, in the hope of a better lot or by forceful coercion of those in power of the empire.
Far around, right up to the tundra and the Arctic Ocean, there were no military forts, and therefore the local tribes lived, as they lived many centuries ago. ordinary life, with its way of life, customs and gods.
Only a narrow strip along the so-called "Bitter Line" was more or less inhabited by the empire, where the governors ruled, but they could not provide a peaceful, calm life for themselves, merchants, fishermen and settlers. Life in these so-called "civilized" places was dangerous and difficult.
The spirit of enmity and money-grubbing dominated these ill-inhabited regions of the empire. Enmity and rivalry in the form of a "black fox" (and not a "black cat") often ran between the Europeans themselves, as well as between them and the local "princes" and their little people. Silver foxes and sables were highly valued here in Siberia, and they were hunted mercilessly, as well as those who possessed this valuable fur.
Servants and Cossacks were rescued by the fact that they already had firearms, while the local tribes practically did not have them yet. Such was the situation at that time.
* * *
Here we will return to our heroes, sailing along the river with two of their new acquaintances. I must say that the river in this area was not so quiet and harmless, it had rifts, with stones, uprooted trees and whirlpools unsafe for boats.
Therefore, when such a roll rustled ahead, Galya anxiously asked Nikolai:
- There is water noise ahead, what is there?
- There is a rift, it will be a little scary for you, but don't be afraid, Tesh and I swam here many times.
Seeing ahead a raging river with whirlpools and boulders licked by the river protruding above the water, Galya became worried and clutched the bench with her hands. Taras began to look more often at the breakers, but did not show that he was afraid. He was more worried about Gala than about himself. You could see it in the looks he gave her and the way he spoke to her and treated her with care. The guy seemed to have a crush on her.
When the boat approached the rift, Nikolai said to Tesh:
- Uryn bo jol ketu! (Keep to the right bank!)
The boat, driven by experienced rowers, turned to the right bank at the very rapid of the rift. Here, the strong current of the river menacingly washed away the right wooded bank, and it began, as it were, to hang over them.
Galya saw how an old gnarled pine, bending over the river so as not to fall into the river, clinging to the bank with its bare roots, tried with all its might to keep its crown above the raging water. While the tree succeeded, but sooner or later, the greedy river will wash the shore and the pine tree will fall into the water, which will turn it into another underwater snag.
The crown of an old pine quickly swept over their heads without catching them with its branches. The boat went along the very core of the river, and the strengthening current carried it to the most dangerous place.
- Bzyn uryns bo jol ketu! (Steady hold to the right bank!)! - Nikolai repeated his order to his partner in the local language, and they both leaned on the oars. The boat turned even steeper to the right into a channel washed by the current of the river near the shore. Now the breakers with dangerous stones remained to her left.
Everything happened quickly and, most importantly, safely for the people in the boat, the breakers only splashed them with cold water. Galya did not see or hear anything around, except for the rapid current of the river, the roar of water raging in the whirlpools between the stones and the foam bubbling from above. Once the bottom of the boat was dashed against a pitfall and that was the end of their misfortune.
After some time, the boat was already sailing along a calmer river bed.
The passengers sitting in the boat breathed a sigh of relief, and Galya praised the rowers, saying:
- Famously you passed the roll! I thought that our boat was about to capsize, let's roll over somewhere! It was very scary!
- It's OK! Nikolai answered. - Tesh and I are used to such troubles. In such places, it is important to know the fairway of the river, where the depth allows the boat to pass the dangerous place without hindrance.
- All the same, you are great! - said, smiling, Galya.
- Only Galya, don't think that we did it to show off in front of you. I am a simple person by nature and I will tell you directly, without any frills.
We want to quickly catch up with this gang. Therefore, they did not land you on the shore, so that you walked around this dangerous area on foot, so that later you could be picked up below the rift. If we had done so, we would have lost an extra couple of hours of travel. Yes, and you would be scratched, wading through the bushes along the shore. And so we quickly overtake these marauders.
- I thought so, but you are still great!
Yes, but what's next? asked Taras, worried about Galya.
“After that turn, we will land on the beach and look for traces of these bandits.
The rowers leaned on the oars, and the boat accelerated its run on the water.
Having moored in a suitable place to the shore, where there was a small secluded bay surrounded by willow thickets, the hunters and passengers landed on the shore.
It was hard to find a better hidden boat parking area. Birch trees and dense shrubs hanging over them formed a kind of canopy of branches. A small sandy bay was safely hidden from prying eyes from the right bank of the river. One could see the boat only from the opposite swampy bank of the river, overgrown with small bushes and reeds, with thick brown rocking chairs swaying like candles in the wind. Some of the rocking chairs have already begun to crack, spreading their white fluff-seeds in the wind.
- Here we will split up, you Taras will stay with Galya to guard the boat, and Tesh and I will find out what and how. Good?
Taras, appreciating the sparing offer of Nikolai, aimed at their safety, objected:
- And what about me! That I am not a Cossack! I will go with you!
- It is necessary that someone guarded Galya! Nicholas noted. “I have no right to put her in danger.
Why protect me! Galya objected. - You go, and I'll watch the boat. I'm not such a coward as you might think at first glance.
Seeing that there would be no sense in persuasion, Nikolai agreed with Galin's proposal, saying:
- All right, Taras, come with us! But I beg you, in case of any trouble with bandits, as we say, "do not go into hell on the front of the father."
The men took guns with them, and Tesh also a bow and arrows, and they climbed up the steep bank and disappeared into the thicket of the forest. Galya stayed in the boat. Then she got ashore, she found a good stick and began to cut off the peel and knots from it with a knife left to her by Nikolai for self-defense. It turned out to be a good club, if you crack it on the head of some uninvited guest, then he will not quickly come to his senses from such a "pleasant" meeting.
Tesh, as the most experienced among them, holding a gun in his hands, made his way through the thicket of the forest ahead of the group, while carefully looking around the forest ahead and to the sides. Periodically, he stopped, froze, Taras and Nikolai, following him, also stopped, carefully listening to the noise of the surrounding forest, and then, at the sign of Tesh, the whole group followed on.
Tesh knew the area, and they soon approached the forest road through which the marauders were to pass.
Having carefully observed the road and not noticing anything, Tesh said something in his own language to Nikolai and headed towards the road.
- What did he say? - asked Nicholas Taras.
- He asked us to stay here and, in which case, cover his retreat into the forest.
Let's hide behind that snag (Nikolai showed with his hand where he should hide), and I'll lie down here. If you see something, then let me know with your hand, wave in which direction to look. Understood!
- Yes, what is not clear here! Taras said sedately.
He, like all young people, was afraid to show himself to new acquaintances as a green, slow-witted newcomer. Therefore, he behaved almost like an adult, although he lacked adult experience just at the same time. If it were the other way around, then he and Galya would not get lost in the taiga. And so his overconfidence failed them both.
By mutual agreement, Nikolai and Taras lay down by the road and began to watch how Tesh carefully walked out of the forest and began to carefully, often bending down, lifting something up, inspect the road and its surroundings.
Having examined a decent piece of the road, he returned to them, and he and Nikolai began to discuss something in the local language. Taras did not understand anything from their speech.
When they finished bazaar among themselves, he asked Nikolai:
- What were you talking about?
“Tesh says that a group of these thugs just recently followed this road. He offered to follow them to their next bivouac, and then act according to the situation.
Well, I think that's right!
- I think so too. Then we set off.
Nikolai again said something to Tesh in the local dialect, and he went first along the forest road.
A little later, Nikolai and Taras moved after him, keeping their distance at the limit of line of sight.
Taking every precaution to avoid being noticed, they walked not along the road, but along its both edges, hiding behind trees and bushes.
For two hours they walked along the road until Tesh stopped them by raising his right hand. Returning to them, he quietly announced that bandits had set up a bivouac in front of them,
After conferring with Nikolai, they decided to lie down and wait for darkness, and then try to sneak unnoticed to the captive son of the shaman and free him.
Nikolai and Taras went deep into the forest and lay down there, while Tesh remained by the forest road to watch the bandits.
And the bandits, in the meantime, not worrying much about disguise, lit a fire, butchered the roe deer that had been shot the day before, stabbed pieces of meat on a skewer, and began to fry them on a fire, pouring river water on the meat so that it would not burn.
They tied the prisoner to a young birch that grew alone near their bivouac.
They posted two sentries as guards, who guarded them with a gun at the ready. One of them periodically climbed down from a squat curved tree, where he arranged for himself a convenient observation post and then went around the bivouac, examining the surrounding area. The other was closer to the prisoner, guarding him, making sure that he did not run away.
The bandits chose the place for the night parking quite competently, since on the one hand the river went around them, and on the other hand there was an open, well-viewed area, overgrown with small shrubs and rare trees. So it was not easy to approach them secretly.
Tesh saw how the bandits, after having dinner, settled down to sleep, arranging more or less comfortable sun beds out of branches and grass.
Tesh was indignant in his heart that these uninvited aliens occupied the lands of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, behaved rather impudently on their original territory, captured the son of a shaman and wanted to steal their national shrine - the Golden Baba.
And that now they had a hearty meal of the meat of a young roe deer, settled down to sleep, and he had to sit secretly on an empty stomach and watch them.
In the dead of night, Nikolai and Taras joined him, having quietly conferred, they decided that Taras would remain here in a relatively safe place, Nikolai would crawl from the side of the river and try to free the captive, and Tesh would try to neutralize the sentries.
Taras was given the task, if they were discovered, to make more noise here in the rear, set fire to the reeds in order to divert the attention of the bandits, creating the appearance of a large number of attackers.
Tesh crawled to the place where, according to his calculation, there was a sentry sitting on a curved tree, and Nikolai began to advance towards the river in order to get close to the camp along the coast.
Taras, having prepared dry wood for arson, began to peer intently into the darkness of the night. He had to participate, like all young Cossacks, in various kinds of games when they played robber Cossacks. But now it was not a game, but a real male noble deed. He, along with new friends, is trying to free the captive son of the shaman, whom these bandits abducted from the house in order to commit another atrocity - to steal the Golden Baba, sacred to the natives.

Taras languished in anticipation for a long time, but all of a sudden, alarmed flying ducks began to bawl on the river. Screams were heard in the bandit camp, shots were heard, it is clear that something went wrong with his new friends. In this situation, as his senior comrades told him, he set fire to the dry grass prepared in advance in several places and began to shout loudly:
- Cossacks, brothers! Surround them, don't let them get away alive!
- Forward Cossacks, forward! Beat these bastards!..
The dry grass set on fire caught fire like gunpowder, and driven by the wind began to approach the bandits' bivouac like a wall. They, half-awake, not understanding what was happening, and out of fright, not seeing the attackers, began to shoot at random in the direction of the fire, and hastily folded their belongings, preparing to drape from a dangerous place. A wall of fire from burning reeds, dry grass and small shrubs quickly approaching them.
The whole idea distracted the bandit from the pursuit of Nikolai and Tesh. Soon they appeared in the rear, where Taras was sitting in the appointed place.
- What happened there? he asked first.
- I'm sorry, what! - Out of breath, said Nikolai. “Those bastard ducks ruined everything for us. Before I had time to get close to their camp along the shore, a duck fluttered out of the reeds, and all this noisy flock rose behind it. Everyone in the camp woke up and started shooting at the reeds, I almost got shot. I had to rush out of there. It's good that you distracted them from me with your screams and fire.
Tesh also told them in his broken language what and how. Since Taras did not understand anything, he asked Nikolai:
- What he says? I didn't understand a thing from what he said!
- He said that there was one less bandit. He removed one sentry before I scared the ducks.
- Where are we going now? The bandits are clearly alarmed by our attack.
- Let's go back to the boat. Go Galya there, she is worried when she hears the shots. Well, together we will think about how to proceed.

Nikolai said something to Tesh, he answered and they began to get ready for the road. The way back took a little longer, as they walked carefully, fearing to run into an ambush.
Galya, hearing the shots, was really seriously alarmed. She did not know what was happening there, and she was very worried about the departed men. The glow of the fire, which was visible from afar, indicated that terrible events were unfolding there. And although she was not a cowardly girl, she was frightened by the fear of being left alone in the taiga.
- What if they were all shot by bandits? Galya thought to herself. - What will I do then?
She had no idea what she would do if the men did not return.
- Maybe I should go there, focusing on the glow of fire, - thought Galya. - Suddenly, our wounded lie there and there is no one to help.
On the other hand, Nikolai asked her not to go anywhere from here and to wait for their return here in the boat.
- That's bad luck, what to do, how to be? The thought swirled around in her head. "I'll wait a bit and go see what's going on," she decided.
All this time, Galya sat, as if on pins and needles, in the end she could not stand it, took the knife and the planed club left for her, got out of the boat and stalked along the river bank towards the glow of the fire.
Of course, Galya could not walk secretly inaudibly through the forest, as hunters and forest animals can do, so the crackling of branches underfoot and the rustling of bushes betrayed her.
Tesh was the first to hear the rustle of her steps and, by raising his right hand, signaled to Nikolai and Taras to stop. Those who saw the warning sign "stop", stopped and froze, listening to the rustle of sneaking footsteps.
Nikolai took his gun to the ready, and Taras, drawing a knife, held it in his hand. Tesh moved quietly to the right closer to the shore and hid behind a bush there.
Spread out in a semicircle, everyone was waiting for the approach of an unknown person.
Taras was the first to see the girl and exclaimed joyfully:
- Tyu, so tsesh Galya!
Galya was delighted to meet the men and babbled in response:
- I did not know what to think when the shots rang out and the flames of the fire rose. I was scared for you and decided to see how you are alive there and not injured.
- Alive, alive! Nikolai spoke soothingly to her. - You Galya should not have left the boat. You never know what could happen to you if you didn't get in our way. I ask you not to do this again.
- I was afraid that something happened to you!
- Nothing happened to us and will not happen, we are men. Yes, and it’s not a woman’s business to fight, so I earnestly ask you again not to interfere in our purely masculine business.
- Good good! I will take this into account next time.
- That's nice, but now let's go to the boat. We urgently need to cross to the left bank, so that in the morning the bandits would not find us here. Well, after resting and refreshing there, we'll think of something to free the shaman's son.
And they all went together to the place where the boat was hidden. Sitting in a boat, their group freely crossed to the opposite bank of the river, where they allowed themselves to rest and refresh themselves. It was an anxious, sleepless night they had to endure.
I must say that getting game or catching fish for lunch in those days was not great work, especially having in the group such a hereditary hunter as Tesh, who shot a bow and a gun no worse than Robin Hood. Yes, and Nikolai was also not a blunder, living in the taiga among the natives, he learned a lot from them, and there were legends about his accuracy with a gun, with which he never parted.
In the time we are describing, and, perhaps, even now in Siberia, in comparison with the European part of Russia, there were and continue to be found everywhere (especially in remote sparsely populated places) a lot of various animals, birds and fish.
Siberia in the time we are describing, for the most part, was a deserted taiga, replete with the richest fauna characteristic of its wide climatic zones.
Those few tribes of aborigines who, before the arrival of the Muscovites, lived here at the level of subsistence farming, were engaged all year round mainly in hunting and hunting. fishing, and in the far north, in the tundra, by reindeer breeding, driving thousands of deer herds across the tundra, they could not cause noticeable damage to the flora and fauna of all Siberia.
Local residents in many respects ate, especially in autumn, better than the current generation of Siberians, and even Europeans, since then there were no seasonal or other bans on catching valuable fish species or hunting valuable fur-bearing animals or birds.
At that time, people had not yet come up with the "Red Book", and they never even thought about the fact that it would exist and that there would be bans on catching valuable fish species and shooting wild animals. Then they didn't care.
They consumed meat and fish, caviar and other products, especially in the warm season, much more in a year than we do now. Only the harsh winter was a burden to them.
Siberia abounded with a myriad of various game and fish, all kinds of mushrooms and berries, wild bees and animals, where brown bears reigned, great lovers of sweet wild honey and forest berries.
During spawning, the rivers teemed with fish swimming upstream to lay eggs for future offspring, and it was not even necessary to have fishing tackle to catch, dry, dry salmon or other valuable fish species for the winter, or prepare red or black caviar.
Not even all today's gourmets can afford to eat such fish, eat bear meat, baked capercaillie or royal swan.
Among the fish riches, a special place is occupied by chum salmon and pink salmon, which in their taste are not inferior to salmon, revered in Europe.
Innumerable flocks of migratory birds in spring and autumn covered the water surface of Siberian lakes and rivers, and it was not necessary to have a gun to get a fat goose or duck for dinner. They are very close, not afraid, let a person close to them.
Deer, roe deer, elks, bears, hares, along with other representatives of the edible fauna, replenished the food supplies of local residents. All this in some way brightened up for the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks those hardships and inconveniences that are inevitable here in Siberia, the stepmother.
Exquisite dishes, which in the European part of the empire would be considered a delicacy, a luxury, were in abundance here and were available to every local resident.
Any aborigine ate game, which would be an adornment of any holiday table European aristocrat.
The funniest thing that sometimes happens in Siberia and comes from the peculiarities of human nature is that in other places it is a delicacy, for example, red caviar, but here in places of abundance of salmon, chum salmon and pink salmon, it is so boring that this caviar sometimes you don't even want to look.
But the long Siberian winter made its own adjustments to their diet, which brought its own inconvenience to the inhabitants in the form of scurvy and other diseases, especially colds.
In this regard, the Zaporozhye Cossacks sent to Siberia and their Cossack military settlements looked somewhat better. Since the Cossack women, accustomed to greenery, planted in their gardens, and in winter on the windowsills, a variety of greens and seasonings for borscht (onions, garlic, dill, etc.), and in summer and autumn they were engaged in harvesting wild berries for compotes and jelly, they collected medicinal herbs to treat their men.
Therefore, that forest dinner of our friends passed under the sign, figuratively speaking, of continuous delicacies, which Tesh and Nikolai obtained without much difficulty.
It was wild goose stuffed with porcini mushrooms and herbal tea with wild strawberries.
At the same time, Tesh knew how to kindle a fire so that it was impossible to see him from the other side of the river, where the bandits were.
We will explain to readers that a fire should flare up well without smoke, in addition to having dry fuel, a suitable place and source of fire, you need the ability to kindle it correctly!
First, thin, dry blades of grass ignite, then - small chips, bark and small chocks, then - logs, and, finally, when the heat becomes abundant and the firebrands burnt to the ground, chilly covered with quivering, pinkish-gray ash, - the time will come to put game on the spit , periodically sprinkling it with water, gradually bringing the roast to a delicious readiness consistency!

At this time, the gang, having evaded the fire, stopped to rest in the forest near the road in a small clearing. The leader of the gang was an experienced person in such alterations, he realized that there were few attackers, but they were cunning and brave, since they decided to attack them. As the situation became more complicated, he decided to split his detachment into two groups. One was supposed to stay here and cover their rear, and the other was to move at an accelerated pace to the location of the Golden Baba, along the route that the captive shaman's son should indicate.
While Taras and Galya were sleeping during the day, Nikolai sent Tesh to the right bank to find out where the bandits were now. In the evening, he sailed back across the river in a boat and took him to the left bank of the river, where they camped.
Tesh told that the bandits broke up into two groups, one of which remained here on the right bank, and the main group with the prisoner moved further towards the mountain range, which was visible in the distance.
- What kind of shooting was, - Nikolai asked him, - when you were on the right bank?
- My little, little kill bandits, - he answered and showed his trophy (cut off ear).
- Quickly hide it and don't show such trophies again especially to Galya. Understood!
He replied:
- My understand! So that the woman does not frighten!
- Correctly think Tesh.
Taras, who for the first time saw a cut off human ear in Tesh's hands, almost vomited.
“Don’t be surprised by what you saw now,” Nikolai explained to him. - They have such a custom to cut off the ears or heads of their worst enemies, sometimes scalping them. And here, you understand, the case concerns an encroachment on their shrine - the Golden Baba, so you should not be surprised at what happened.
After conferring with Tesh, Nikolai decided, under the cover of night, to sail a dangerous area on a boat where the bandits were sitting in ambush and with such a maneuver to go to the rear of the first group in order to catch up with them at the foot of the eastern mountains, where they, apparently, headed.
When it got dark, their group plunged into the boat and, clinging to the left bank, in order to be away from the bandits who had settled on the right bank, carefully swam down the river. They swam carefully, peering into the surrounding darkness for a long time.
When, according to their calculations, a dangerous section was sailed, Nikolai quietly told Tesh to direct the boat to the right bank. Having sailed a little along the right bank of the river, they found a site convenient for landing and landed on the shore.
Having pulled the boat ashore, the men hid it in the bushes, disguising it with branches.
Then the whole group moved into the depths of the forest surrounding them. Tesh walked in front, who knew these places and confidently, despite the darkness, led the group forward, the rest followed in single file.
By morning, they came to some forest road. Here they stopped, Tesh went ahead to reconnoiter, and Nikolai, Taras and Galya settled down to rest, hiding in a forest thicket not far from the road.
Tesh was absent for a long time, apparently looking for traces of a group of bandits who had gone ahead.
When he returned, he said that the gang was in a hurry to the gorge of Spirits in a forced march and they should hurry after them. And so they did.
They were able to catch up with the gang only at the foot of the Eastern Mountains, in front of the entrance to the gorge of Spirits, where they stopped for the night. It was difficult to call these not high mountain formations mountains, they cannot be compared with Tibet or the Himalayas, but in the local dialect they were called that.
It was not difficult to guess the intentions of the robbers by their behavior. One thing was clear, that they would stop at nothing to get the Golden Baba into their greedy hands. The captive son of the shaman will most likely be finished off as soon as they find her and the treasures of the tribe of Ra - the Golden Sun hidden by the shamans.
Nikolai and Tesh decided once again that night to try to free the prisoner, young Taras also got involved in this noble cause.
The gang, having settled down at the entrance to the gorge, posted sentries, rested.
I must say that this gorge was notorious. There were legends that the spirits who lived here do not like uninvited guests. They send rockfalls to such uninvited guests, sat down in summer, and snow avalanches in winter. And rarely one of these "guests" having been here, returns home alive.
The fact is that the natives carefully guarded their treasure - the Golden Baba. She was sacred to them. They revered her as a kind of deity that protects them from various misfortunes and troubles: heals diseases, helps them in hunting, in various other crafts, gives longevity to the most revered old people, and so on and so forth.
In the gorge, where the Golden Baba was located in the underground gallery, the natives set up various deadly traps for uninvited guests. Traps in the form of rockfalls, in winter in the form of snow avalanches, in spring and autumn causing powerful mudflows.
Her guards served and guarded her, who day and night kept watch at the entrance to the cave.
Rumors and various kinds of speculation about the treasures of the Golden Baba were widely distributed among the people. They reached the gold-hungry imperial aliens. Many laid down their heads trying to find the Golden Baba.
Therefore, these treasure hunters of the Golden Baba understood that they were not welcome there with open arms. They knew they were risking their lives hunting for her. But in each such adventurer, there was a glimmer of hope that everything would be fine for him, it was for him, everything would work out and everything would be, in modern terms, “ok-kay”. They died without seeing this treasure.
All these rumors and conjectures could not but leave an imprint on the state of mind of the gang members when they settled down here to rest.
While eating by the fire, the bandits silently chewed on fried meat and only occasionally exchanged separate words and phrases.
Sensing tension among his homies, the eldest named Krechet decided to cheer up his gang.
- What lads are depressed! he exclaimed cheerfully. - Petro, get a couple of bottles of alcohol for "sugriva" from the bag.
Everyone immediately perked up when Petro, a lanky man with a scar on his face, reached into a duffel bag and took out two bottles of a hazy liquid. With a deft movement, he uncorked one of them and first poured alcohol into the elder's mug.
To him, the men sitting by the fire began to stretch out their mugs.
- Pour life-giving moisture Petro! - asked him a hefty man nicknamed Elk.
- And me! And me! - I heard the requests of the men.
He opened the stopper at the second bottle with his teeth and splashed Ivan into the mug at the bottom of the moonshine.
He winced and said:
- And it's all! So few!..
- And you thought that! I won't pour you the whole bottle. There are so many more who want to drink, - Petro gestured with his hand holding a bottle to their entire company and began to pour alcohol into their mugs.
- Splash and me! - stretched out his mug a young boy nicknamed Zeleny.
Petro poured moonshine for him too. The last he poured himself into a mug of this potion.
- Guys! the elder turned to them. - My sidekicks are fighting. Here we are at the goal, according to the explanation of this scumbag, the son of a shaman, there is only one passage left to the cave where the natives hid the Golden Baba. Everyone has enough wealth of this Baba to live comfortably until old age and not here in the wilderness, but somewhere on the shores of the azure sea with a pretty young woman.
- Nice gutarish, elder! - put in his remark Elk. - Well, that's the way it was.
Let's drink to this friends! - offered a toast to the eldest, and, raising the mug, deftly knocked over the contents into his mouth.
Wincing, he broke off a crust of not the first freshness of bread to sniff the alcohol.
Everyone rushed after him, emptying their mugs. Strong alcohol warmed their throats well, and the conversation around the fire quickened.
Everyone's mood improved, each of them in his heart hoped for a good outcome for himself, dreamed of getting his share of the Golden Baba's wealth and more or less well arranging his "fucking" life.
We won't recap all the campfire talk here, it was mostly about wealth and who would spend it on what. Because of this, the bandits fell asleep quite late at night.
All this time, Nikolai with Tesh and Tarasam lay in ambush, watching them and waiting for the moment when the bandits fell asleep and it would be possible, having removed the guards, to get close to the prisoner and free him.
Leaving Taras and Galya in a pine forest near the gorge, Nikolai and Tesh cautiously began to approach the sentries.
Their silhouettes were sometimes clearly visible against the background of the fire, this time sentries vigilantly carried out their service. Apparently, the previous incident in which they had lost their comrade had taught them caution.
Nikolai began to approach the distant sentry, who was guarding from the side of the gorge, and Tesh was to be the first to remove the sentry from their side.
Nikolai stalked on all fours, and where he began to crawl up the right slope of the gorge, going into the rear of the bandits. The gorge was rocky with sparse bushes of grass and shrubs. In one place, he accidentally touched a stretching trap, which was installed by the guards of the Golden Baba. And down to the entrance to the gorge, a rockfall fell with a roar. Nikolai was lucky in that he was at the top and somewhat to the side of the rockfall stream.
The roar of the rockfall was such that the bandits, as if scalded, jumped up and rushed out of the gorge with all their might. They were lucky in that they camped at the head of the gorge, and not at the bottom of it. Therefore, the rockfall broke the legs and knocked down not many of them.
The eldest and the main backbone of the gang were alive, having run off at a decent distance from the gorge, they began to fire their guns in the direction of the gorge for warning, until the eldest ordered to stop the useless shooting.
At this time, Tesh, hiding from the rockfall, waited until the bandits got away from the camp littered with stones, he crawled out of his hiding place and found the shaman's son with a broken skull. Seeing this, Tesh in anger killed several bandits who were still alive and lying under the stones, cutting off their ears.
He hid the shaman's son in a crevice, covering him with branches and stones. At this time, dawn began to rise in the east, and Tesh urgently needed to return to his own. Climbing the slope of the gorge, he returned to the place where Taras and Galya were hiding. Nikolai was already here, who, having heard the roar of a rockfall, realized that their idea to stealthily get close to the bandits had failed.
In the morning, the gang returned to the place where their camp was. They didn't find anyone alive.
The elder was surprised that they did not find the corpse of the shaman's son.
- Guys, look for a guide, somewhere he should be.
Soon one of the bandits stumbled upon his hidden body and called the elder:
- Senior! The conductor lies here, cold! he exclaimed.
Gyrfalcon went up to him, examined him and said:
- These bastards were here, so we will need to triple our vigilance. Otherwise, we will all be left without ears. It is clear to everyone!
- What is not clear here, tea is not fools! - answered for all Elk.
- And now let's throw stones and sand at our dead comrades so that the animals do not tear them to pieces and move on.
The bandits dragged the dead into one pit and threw stones and sand at them, sticking a stick over the grave in the place of the cross with a hat taken from one of the dead.
- Elder, where are we going now without a guide? - Asked Krechet, the youngest of the gang members named Zeleny. He was clearly frightened by the sight of his dead comrades with their ears cut off.
Green, don't be afraid! Where ours did not disappear! This foreigner claimed that, having climbed up the gorge, we would stumble upon a cave. This is the entrance to the sanctuary of this Golden idol.
So let's move forward bro! I feel with my liver that the Golden Baba is close, waiting for us!
Krechet distributed duties during the movement of the detachment along the gorge hostile to them. Now reconnaissance was ahead, led by Elk, experienced in such campaigns, Krechet himself and his comrades walked in the center and the lanky brute Petro brought up the rear of the detachment.
In this order, the gang cautiously moved further into the depths of the gorge. They knew that somewhere here there must be an entrance to the cave where the prayer house of the Golden Baba was located.
Nikolay with Tesh, Taras and Galya followed them.
The guards of the Golden Baba, having heard the sound of a rockfall, realized that uninvited guests were heading towards them and set up an ambush on the way of the bandits.
Unfortunately, they did not have firearms, and they fought, as in the time of Genghis Khan, with arrows and edged weapons.
This explains the fact that a handful of Cossacks armed with squeakers, pistols and light cannons, led by Yermak, could colonize this vast, rich land.
* * *
Our story would not be complete if we did not give a brief historical reference about how the colonization of Siberia took place.
Let us note here that if Ermak was the conqueror in the main of Western Siberia, then Khabarov advanced further and became the conqueror of the Amur; Atlasov - Kamchatka; Cossack Dezhnev, rounding the Chukchi nose - Chukotka.
The conquest of Siberia is in many respects very similar to the conquest of Mexico and Peru: just as there, a small group of people, armed with firearms (squeakers and light cannons), firing invisible bullets, catching fear on the enemy with thunderous shots, defeated thousands and thousands of local natives, who were armed with arrows and spears.
The fact is that the northern Moghuls and Tatars failed to use the invention of gunpowder, so at the end of the 16th century, and even at the beginning of the next century, they fought with weapons from the time of Genghis.
This is what it means to rest for centuries in the silence of Genghis Khan's past victories and not keep up with world progress. This is an object lesson, how not to do it, for all the winners who want to rest on the laurels of past victories. Because, having won, lagging behind life and progress, sooner or later they become defeated.
Each Cossack from Yermak's detachment went to the crowd of enemies, killed one with a deadly bullet, and with the terrible sound of his squeal dispersed twenty and thirty natives.
So in the first battle on the banks of the Tobol, in the Babasane tract, Yermak, standing in a trench, with several volleys stopped the rapid advance of ten thousand horsemen of the Mametkulovs, who rushed at full speed to trample him. A volley of rifles and cannons, hitting the riders, shocking the attackers, and ended with the victory of Yermak. Thus, he opened his way to the mouth of the Tobol, although not entirely safe: for the natives, having occupied the steep bank of the river, called the Long Yar, showered the boats of the Cossacks with arrows.
The second battle, although less important, was sixteen miles from the Irtysh, where the ulus prince Karacha ruled, on the shores of the lake and now called Karachinsky. Yermak took his Ulus and it contained rich booty, winter reserves and a lot of caddies of honey.
The third battle, on the Irtysh, hot, stubborn, cost the lives of a certain number of Yermakov's associates, proving that the independence of the fatherland was sweet to the local natives, they revealed fearlessness and perseverance, but still by the evening lost the victory to the Cossacks.
Then Yermak turned to his comrades with a speech:
- We lived for a long time in bad glory (here Yermak hinted at their past robbery life on the Volga): let's die with good! God gives victory to whomever He wants: often the weak pass over the strong, hallowed be His name!
The squad said: "Amen!" and with the first rays of the sun on October 23, she rushed to the notch, where the natives settled, exclaiming: God is with us!
The enemy rained arrows on them, smashed the Cossacks, and even in three places they themselves, having dismantled the notch, rushed into hand-to-hand combat, a battle that was not profitable for the Yermakovs of small detachments.
They cut with sabers and spears: people fell from both sides, but the Cossacks, and with them the newcomer German and Lithuanian soldiers, stood in a strong wall - they managed to charge the squeaks and the enemy crowds thinned with rapid fire, driving them back to the notch.
Ermak, Ivan Koltso courageously walked ahead of their detachments, repeating a loud exclamation: God is with us!
And the blind enemy leader Kuchum, standing on the mountain with his imams and mullahs, called Mohammed to save the faithful.
Fortunately for the Muscovites, to the horror of the enemies, their wounded commander Mametkul was forced to leave the battle because of a bullet wound. Murza, saving the wounded, took him away in a boat to the other side of the Irtysh, and the army, left without a leader, like a flock of sheep did not know what to do, it lost faith in victory and fled.
The Ostyak princes retreated to the rear; the Tatars also fled.
Hearing that Yermak's banners were already fluttering in the notch, Kuchyum also fled to the Ishim steppes, having managed to take only part of the rich treasury in his Siberian capital.
In this main battle, as the chroniclers write, 107 good Cossacks fell.
By comparison, more than 35 million people died in the last world war. That's how fast the world is changing!
This battle of the Cossacks marked the dominance of Russia on a vast territory: from the Kamenny ridge to the Ob and Tobol.
In the Kuchumov capital, the winners found great wealth, according to the chronicler: a lot of gold and silver, Asian (Bukhara) brocade, precious stones, furs, and all this was fraternally divided among the Cossacks.
These small detachments of Cossacks, gangs of former vagabonds and robbers (Ermak and his associates had previously been engaged in robbing merchants on the Volga), driven by greed and love for glory, acquired an entire kingdom for Russia, opened a second new world for it in the north and east .
The world, although sparsely populated and cold, is free for human life, where various metals, gold and gems, valuable fur-bearing animals live in the wilderness of dense forests, where you can successfully grow bread in the southern regions, engage in cattle breeding, where there are navigable rivers, fruitful flowering valleys, good fisheries on numerous rivers and lakes.
Thus, the merchants and the fugitive ataman of the Volga robbers dared, without the Tsar's command, hiding behind the name of the Moscow Tsar Ivan III, to conquer Siberia.
The tsarist governors who followed them proclaimed the name of the Moscow Tsar Ivan III on the banks of the Tavda, Irtysh, and Ob, five thousand miles from the capital.
Since then, this Muscovite tsar was called Yugorsky in his title, his son Obdorsky and Kondinsky, and his grandson Siberian, imposing tribute on this Mogul, or Tatar, Power, which was composed of the ancient Uluses of Ishim, Tyumen or Shiban, known to us since 1480 and named so, probably, by the name of Bytiev's brother, Shiban, the sole ruler of North Asia, to the east of the Aral Sea.
Ermak, Timofeev, Ivan Koltso, condemned by the Sovereign to death, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan, Matvey Meshcheryak belonged to the number of violent atamans of the Volga.
These Cossacks, famous Volga villains, were attracted to the service of the Moscow Tsar by the Stroganov merchants and sent to fight in Siberia.
Instead of robbing trade caravans on the Volga, which Yermak and his comrades did, his dashing brethren came to Siberia. It was followed by waves of emigration from the mainland, on the new land they began to conquer and subjugate local tribes and tax them with yasak from sables in favor of the Moscow sovereign, and, of course, a significant share fell to the conquerors themselves.
Tales of gold and a free life, rumors about a myriad of sables in Siberia, most likely exaggerated, that aboriginal aliens in exchange for an iron cauldron give as many sable skins as the cauldron will fit, caused increased emigration not only from serf Moscow, but also from the free population of the ancient Novgorod region.
Residents of the Olonetsk, Vologda and Arkhangelsk provinces and others, who have long been familiar with animal trades, set off to Siberia to get an expensive animal. All these emigrants, starting with the military squad of Yermak, moved to Siberia on horseback or sailed in boats, or walked.
Such a hodgepodge of various nationalities and classes poured into Siberia, together with the exiled Cossacks, outright criminals and bandits, created their own special habitat, where the tsarist governors were unable to establish their power over the entire territory for a long time, it spread more to their cities.
Outside the cities and voivodship settlements, their own laws were in force, and in the taiga the main Siberian law was in force - the law of the taiga, where power reigned more than the royal decree or the order of the governor.
It should be noted that the first parties of Russian settlers in Siberia brought with them to the new soil the primary forms public organization: Cossacks - military circle; sable industrialists - an artel, farmers - a community. Along with these forms of self-government in Siberia, a voivodeship administration was also established.
Yermak was also forced to recognize the voivodship department; he realized that without sending new people and a "fiery battle" in a word - without the support of the Muscovite state, he, with his small Cossack artel, could not hold Siberia.
Thus, two colonizations simultaneously developed in Siberia: the free people, which went ahead, and the government, led by the governors.
At first, the Cossack communities retained their self-government. They were especially independent away from the voivodeship cities, on the Siberian outskirts, where they maintained garrisons of prisons abandoned among hostile tribes. If they themselves, without a voivodship initiative, went in search of new tributaries, then the entire management of the newly occupied region was in their hands. The first Siberian cities were nothing but settled Cossack squads or artels, ruled by a "circle".
These settled Cossack artels divided yasak Siberia among themselves, and each of them had its own area for collecting yasak. Sometimes there were disputes about who should take yasak from this or that tribe, and then one Cossack city went to another war.
Tobolsk was considered the eldest among the Siberian cities, which insisted that it alone had the right to receive foreign ambassadors.
In later times, the freedom and initiative of these artels and communities have been reduced; but even in the 18th century, many cases, even criminal, remote Cossack communities decided on their own.
In the event of a mutiny or conspiracy, the garrison of a remote prison gathered a meeting, sentenced the criminals to death and executed it, then letting them know only to the nearest voivodship office. So, for example, the inhabitants of the city of Okhotsk acted with the rebellious Koryaks at the end of the 18th century. This self-government and lynching, however, gradually disappeared before the spreading voivodship power. But occasionally flashed attempts to restore Siberian antiquity.
In particular, the question of the deposition of governors in Irkutsk and Tara was resolved in this way. Traces of this struggle are preserved in the Siberian archives, however, in a small number; but in reality there were more.
By the 19th century, self-government in Siberian cities had completely collapsed. The remnants of self-government survived only in villages abandoned in the taiga, far from the main road.
The struggle took place not only militarily, but also in trade and spirituality, since the local natives believed in their idols and shamans, in addition, Mohammedanism spread here.
Having come to Siberia, the Muscovites had to endure fierce competition here with the trade-smart Turkestans, famous for the antiquity of their culture dating back to the Christian era.
This struggle continued during the XYII and XYIII centuries and partly even into the XIX century. The Tatarization of local natives continued to be carried out under Russian rule; the conversion of pagans to Islam went along with the conversion to Christianity, and some tribes, such as the Baraba Tatars, only in the half of the century before last switched from shamanism to Mohammedanism, and the voices of the Tobolsk bishops about taking measures against Muslim preaching were heard in vain.
Their calls to Russify the local population, eradicate idolatry, compare pagan shrines to the ground, and build Christian churches in their place, were not always and everywhere carried out on a voluntary basis, the local tribes did not want to change their age-old traditions, faith and language.
The struggle with the Bukharans was no less difficult in terms of trade. The Bukharans in the XYII century held in their hands all the internal trade in Siberia; True, in the 18th century only Asian trade remained in their hands.
Here is such a complex socio-political, commercial and military and spiritual situation that developed in the time we are considering in Siberia.
Now, as I hope, friends, you have a better idea of ​​what difficult time where our heroes lived.
* * *
Now we will return to the wards of Gyrfalcon, who carefully moved along the gorge to find the entrance to the cave, where the ancient aboriginal deity, the Golden Baba, is hidden. Of course, their desire to ruin this ancient deity did not come from true faith (religion), but from greed, the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of local tribes. They were attracted by gold, not by the sermons of the priests.
The elk, walking ahead of the detachment, was the first to see the entrance to the cave around the bend. Judging by its size, he knew that this was the cave they were looking for.
He hurried with this news to the elder. Krechet, after listening to him, remarked:
- It's good that we discovered the dwelling of the idol, now our main task is to smoke out the guards from the cave. According to the confession of the shaman's son, the Golden Baba is guarded by a couple of dozen guards.
- Phew! - Moose whistled. - Yes, each of us is worth ten!
- You, Elk, do not relax much. There is a good saying about this: "Don't say gop until you jump over!"
- Of course, senior, we are not going to relax! - remarked the lanky Petro. - Let's take them at gunpoint and shoot them like a crow.
- Then, guys, we need to check our squeaks and then carefully begin to move towards the entrance to the cave. You Los and Peter will go ahead, and we will follow you.
Having loaded the squeakers, pouring in fresh gunpowder, Krechet's detachment, crouching with guns at the ready, began to cautiously move along the gorge.
As they approached the cave, each of them had a feeling of fear, it seemed to them that someone was watching them, preparing some kind of trick.
And their premonitions turned out to be unfounded. When they reached the narrowest passage in the gorge, a hail of arrows rained down on them. The guards, hiding behind stones, fired accurately, aiming at the neck and heads of the attackers. Los and Petro were the first to fall from many arrows that hit unprotected parts of the body.
The elk was shot straight in the eye, and lanky Petro in the neck. Not having time to shoot at the defenders of the Golden Baba, they were already writhing in pain on the ground.
Krechet and his comrades, who followed them, opened random fire at the shooters, some of them were knocked down by their bullets. Since the range of their squeakers was higher, they would eventually shoot down all the defenders of the Golden Baba.
But Taras and Tesh, who were walking behind, having taken advantageous positions in the rear of the Gyrfalcon detachment, began to shoot at them from their squeakers, knocking out one by one his comrades in the gang.
Their confrontation lasted for more than an hour, seeing the futility of further skirmishing, Krechet asked for peace, shouting from behind the stones:
- We give up! Stop shooting!
In response, Nicholas shouted to them:
- Drop your weapons and with your hands up, come out to us!
- Guys! - Quietly said Krechet. - We go forward with our hands raised, we hide the knives behind the tops of our boots. On my command, we bring down the nearby assholes who think that we really are giving up.
So with their hands raised, they did not move up to the guards of the Golden Baba, but down to the small group of Nikolai.
By the way, when the shooting began, Nikolai did not really want the death of his compatriots. He hoped to somehow peacefully agree with them, that they would leave here for good - for health, voluntarily.
Tesh, on the contrary, wanted their death, so he shot accurately from the gun presented by Nikolai, laying down several people on the spot. Shooting lessons at one time presented to him by a friend, the Cossack Nikolai, were not in vain.
His "thunderbolt", as the natives aptly dubbed Tesha's squeaker, fired without a miss. The damage he inflicted on the gang was great.
At this time, on the top at the entrance to the cave, the priests-defenders of the Golden Baba removed the corpses of their comrades and provided first aid to the wounded. From childhood, the senior guardians of the Golden Woman taught to treat and heal them.
Nikolay, seeing that the people of Krechet were surrendering, decided to let them go. As they approached, he called out to them from his hiding place:
- Go down in peace and don't even try to come back here!
- Are you Nicholas? - asked Gyrfalcon, passing with raised hands past him. - It's not good to help unbaptized non-Christians! Your relative Demyan Mnogosinny would roll over in his grave if he knew that his distant offspring was helping non-Christians.
- Don't touch my relatives. They were never bandits. In your opinion, it is good to kill people, even if not baptized, from squeakers, robbing their shrines, taking away furs and raping their women. This is what you call Christian! Get out of here while still intact. Thank you, say that you are released in peace.
The remnants of the Krechet gang, under the guns of Tesh and Nikolai, proceeded down and disappeared around the turn of the gorge.
When Krechet with his surviving people retreated to a decent distance, he shouted from a distance:
- Mykola, we'll meet again! I don't say goodbye!
In the report, Tesh fired after the bandits. They rushed to run down the gorge, trying to escape from the aimed fire of his "thunderbolt".
All this time, Taras and Galya were nearby in the shelter, and they saw and heard all this. Thus, they began to learn the lessons of enmity between fellow tribesmen early.
Tesh asked Nicholas to wait for him here until he went up to the priests and tried to explain himself to them.
Nikolai did not mind, he understood that Tesh's compatriots did not really trust the newcomers.
While Tesh was negotiating with the priests, Taras asked Nicholas to tell about his distant relative Demyan Mnogogreshny. He heard something about him from the Cossacks. But this information was contradictory. Some considered him a hero, others a traitor.
Nicholas told him the sad fate of his ancestor. We will tell it to you in our short story.
* * *
His ancestor Demyan Ignatyevich Mnohohrishny - hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army from March 6, 1669 to 1672, successor to hetman Bryukhovetsky, was born in the city of Karp.
He came from a simple Cossack family. From 1649
military captain. He was a participant in the War of Liberation led by Khmelnitsky.
Then he became a Chernihiv colonel. In 1668, as a colonel, he, as an opponent of the Andrusovo truce of 1667 (according to which his country was divided into two parts by Russia and Poland), took part in the uprising against Russia, which began under the leadership of Bryukhovetsky.
On December 17, 1668, at the foreman's council in Novgorod-Seversky, Mnohohrishny was elected "Seversky Hetman". Negotiations between the Moscow government and the hetman ended with the conclusion of the Hlukhiv Articles of 1669 and the proclamation of Mnogohrishny on March 19, 1669 as hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine.
He concluded with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich the Glukhov Articles, which were very important for that time, the only document that, after the death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, ensured the real autonomy of his country.
After being elected hetman, he tried to pursue a policy aimed at protecting the state interests of Ukraine.
However, the perfidious policy of the tsar, based on the principles of divide and rule, led to the fact that his activities as hetman became contrary to the interests of Russia, and the tsar of Moscow treacherously overthrew him.
On the night of March 12-13, 1672, in Baturin, a Cossack foreman, with the support of the head of the Moscow garrison, arrested Mnogohrishny and handed him over to representatives of the tsarist government. The hetman was taken to Moscow, where in the middle of 1672 his trial began. He was accused of treason, subjected to severe torture, under torture he did not admit his guilt, so he was sentenced to death.
Subsequently, the execution, when his head was already lying on the chopping block under the executioner's ax on Bolotnitskaya Square in Moscow, the Tsar of Moscow, the witnesses "pardoned" and replaced the beheading with deportation to a longer prison in Siberia. He was sent into exile.
Mnogohrishny was taken with his family to Siberia and imprisoned in the Irkutsk prison. In 1696, according to the old Cossack faith, he was tonsured a monk. He died in Selenginsk in 1703.
He was buried in the cemetery of Old Selenginsk. The wildness of the Russian priests was that even after his death, the priests desecrated his grave, they dragged the slab from the grave of Demyan Mnogogreshny and used it to build the Spassky Cathedral. The tombstone was laid in the stone floor of this cathedral, and the location of the grave was razed to the ground, where it is now, no one knows.
Like this cool fate threw the Mnogogreshnykh family into Siberia.
Below we will return with you to the fate of the disgraced hetman and tell about his military exploits here in Siberia.
* * *
Then Tesh returned from the priests, they had to postpone the conversation about the former hetman Mnogogreshny for later, now there were more important matters on the agenda.
Tesch's diplomatic demarche was a success. After he told the story that his friends from the very beginning took their side, wanted to save the shaman's son and helped them protect them from robbery and desecration of the holy Golden Baba, her guardian priests invited his friends to go up to them in the cave.
What they saw there shocked them to the core. Imagine, friends, a vast grotto in a cave, illuminated through side windows cut into the rock.
From where the rays of daylight pour into the grotto. The rays fall on the Golden Goddess (in common Babu), which at the same time glows all over, radiating a divine halo around itself. At the same time, some kind of unearthly music is heard in the grotto, as if a whisper of distant stars is heard.
Everyone was amazed that even the walls of the underground temple were lined with gold and decorated with diamonds, which, under the rays of light, illuminated the entire grotto. A necklace of several pounds of gold was put on the neck of the Golden Goddess, the crown on her head was strewn with precious stones, and on her knees was a bowl of such size that four of the strongest Cossacks, like Nechipayzgluzdu, could quench their thirst from it.
The bowl was filled with silver coins and copper coinage of the royal coinage.
Worshiping local aborigines, they donated to the goddess not only gold or silver, but also gifts in the form of “soft gold”: sables, martens, ermines, foxes, bears, lynxes, squirrels ... They also gave items made of copper, iron and tin.
They gave what their land was rich in, and what seemed to them wealth, great value.
Galya, struck by this miracle, somehow automatically grabbed right hand for the fingers of Taras's left hand. He mechanically squeezed the palm of her hand, and together they felt an indelible fusion of souls and hearts. It was as if the Golden Goddess with a baby in her arms was telling them: "My children, be happy! Live in peace loving each other!"
Nikolai and Tesh also froze in surprise, they also saw this ancient deity for the first time. It fascinated them with its divine fire and majestic sounds. The goddess, as it were, spoke to them on a telepathic wave:
- All you people are born for happiness, not for enmity! Shake hands, live in peace and harmony! Enough space for everyone on earth!
But the forces of Evil did not want either peace or harmony. Gyrfalcon, when he joined his second detachment, which, as you remember, remained in the rear along the road leading to the gorge, did not rest in defeat.
Knowing the location of the Golden Baba and that it was guarded by a small group of priests with Nikolai and Tesh who joined them, he decided to take revenge for the defeat and take possession of the treasures of the Golden Baba.
He, with the rest of his comrades, secretly moved back to the gorge. The priests, reassured by the victory, noticed the enemies only when they approached the cave. A shootout ensued, while the bows and arrows of the guardians of the Golden Baba were not the most effective weapons.
While this or that priest got up from behind his shelter and aimed at the enemy with a bow, the attackers managed to shoot at him and hit him.
Therefore, the ranks of the defenders of the Golden Baba were thinning before our eyes. Only when Nikolai and Tesh joined them did the situation improve somewhat. They shot from their squeakers with exceptional accuracy. This forced the attackers to lie down and not stick out. Then Taras and Galya joined them, in their hands were the captured guns of the bandits. And they also opened indiscriminate fire on the bandits.
Seeing such a thing, Nikolai became worried, shouted to Taras:
Why did you take Galina with you?
- I have nothing to do with it, she insisted! Says her father taught her how to shoot.
Seeing that the fire from the defenders intensified, and their advance stalled, Krechet again entered into negotiations. He shouted from his hiding place:
- Nicholas, give up! I promise you and your people a free exit from the gorge in exchange for your "guns".
- Well, you are cunning Krechet! I don't believe you!
- Nicholas! Then you and your people Khan! You have nowhere to go from here, we will shoot every single one, and we will serve the girl who is with you (untranslatable Russian folklore followed here) with all the Khural. Understood! So give up!
Hearing this, Taras leaned out and fired at Gyrfalcon hiding behind a boulder. Behind him, Galya added from her gun. The bullet showered him with a scattering of stones, hitting him painfully in the face.
Gyrfalcon cursed, wiping the blood from his face, then shouted:
- Well, vigorous louse, we will shoot everyone!
Nikolai, seeing the indignant state of Taras, said:
- Take it easy Taras, Krechet is taking us to the show off. You better save your bullets for more accurate shooting.
We must stretch out the time until the priests pack their sanctuary and leave the cave.
Where will they go from there? Taras asked.
- Tesh said that they have a second hole from the cave. Through it, they will carry away the Golden Baba.
- What are we going to do?
- Cover their retreat, and then we ourselves will leave through this hole.
Seeing that some bandit was trying to climb above their cave in short dashes, Nikolai fired at him. The bandit jumped up, apparently the bullet hit him, and then crawled away behind the rock.
So they kept the defense of the cave for about an hour, then Tesh crawled up to them and said something to Nikolai in the local dialect.
After listening to him, Nikolai said to Taras:
- Taras, let's go! Take Galya and crawl into the cave. Wait for us there. We'll be back soon.
Taras and Galya crawled away, and Nikolai and Tesh opened intensive fire on the bandits, preventing them from leaning out. And then they themselves crawled away to the cave, where they joined Taras and Galya.
- Tesh, - Nikolai asked him, - where is the hole where we run!
He pointed to the depths of the cave. They followed him. Pushing a slab aside, Tesh invited Taras and Galya to crawl through the hole with a gesture of his hand. Nicholas followed him. Tesh was the last one, he closed the entrance to the hole with a slab, and then pulled some kind of lever. He creaked and the sound of water erupting from an underground lake was clearly heard.
At this time, Krechet with his bandits pursue them, entered the cave. No sooner had they reached the grotto than a seething stream of water fell upon them. The stream knocked them down and, hitting the stones, dragged them down and then rolled along the gorge.
Our fugitives in total darkness, bending down so as not to hit their heads, moved for half an hour along this manhole made by the hands of the priests, until they got into another cave and had already climbed out of it to the surface. So they ended up on the other side of the mountain.
The priests with the Golden Baba and other treasures were no longer visible, they obviously had gone far ahead.
- Well, that's all, friends! - said Nikolai. - Now it remains for you to bring to the house, to the hut!
Tesh lead us the shortest way to their kuren!
The hunter, smiling back, waving his hand in the direction to go, went forward first. The rest followed him. A few days later they arrived home safely.
The joy of meeting family and friends was indescribable. The fact is that their long unsuccessful searches left them less and less hope for a successful outcome. And then they themselves appeared, and even together with friends.
The foremen of the kuren, in joy, arranged a feast for the whole world.
As for the national food of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, it was excellent, without bacon and Ukrainian domestic "cowbass", as they say: neither here nor there.
And their dumplings with cherries (even with local cherries) can hardly be compared with anything else. It's just a meal.
And their vodka with honey and pepper, how can it be compared with the surrogate that local merchants drive from fir cones, these are incomparable things.
And young Cossacks, yes Cossacks, how they sing, what voices they have, you will hear.
So, in poetic terms:

"And I would like to be there,
Drink gorilka with honey
To flow down the mustache
And it would fall into the mouth,
With everything, moreover - not a little! .. "

* * *
As for the Golden Baba, according to the current legend, she was formidable. As local legends conveyed: "It was scary to walk close to the mountain. Baba screamed loudly." And the well-known researcher Alexander Gvagnini wrote earlier: "They even say that in the mountains, next to this golden idol, they heard some kind of sound and a loud roar, like a trumpet." In the Yakut olonkho, the idol looks somewhat different, supposedly: “On obsessively spinning, Screaming, Bouncing, Like a cricket, it began to ring. Researchers of the olonkho noted that the bell ringing is clearly heard in the songs of the idol. They even identified it with a bell.
The surviving participants in the failed campaign after her, this is what they told the bishop and governor, arguing that the aborigines: having pity, he, falling before her, will die. He has many priests and a great and rich community." And when Krechet and his accomplices were not afraid to disturb the sacred rest of the White City goddess and tried to seize her wealth, then this lady of the aborigines ordered to hide herself in a huge prayer place so that the aliens could not find him. Soon after returning from the campaign, the Cossacks, along with Krechet, were ambushed and were almost completely exterminated.
A year later, a well-armed detachment of Ivan Mansurov went to the same places to hunt for the Golden Baba. At the mouth of the Irtysh, the soldiers cut down a fortress and wintered. A large Ostyak army surrounded the fortification, and went on the attack all day. The next day, the besiegers brought the goddess, placed her under a tree and began a prayer service for victory.
Mansurov did not wait for the end of the prayer service, after which the Golden Baba was supposed to show her strength. In order not to tempt fate, at his command, the arrows hit the assembled cannons. One of the nuclei supposedly hit the target. From the annals we learn: "It is a tree, under it stood a Besurmen idol, broken into many parts, and crushing their idol."
Despite the assurances of the chroniclers about the destruction of the idol, reports of the Golden Baba appeared later. The last time this shrine was seen in the 1930s was in the secret sanctuary of the Kyzym khans in the Ob River basin. It should be noted that in the furious revolutionary XX century the struggle against paganism was continued. It was 1933. The competent authorities received a signal. It turned out that the Khanty, who lived along the Kazym River (the right tributary of the Lower Ob), hide the Golden Baba and worship her.
As is known in Soviet times, the so-called battle with "religious dope" was widespread, and here on the Ob it was in full swing. The Kazym shaman was seized and thrown into the dungeon. A group of Chekists went to the secret temple. But then the taiga hunters rebelled and shot the uninvited guests. The massacre was fast. A new detachment of rabid Chekists-atheists destroyed almost all the men of the taiga tribe. The guns were taken away from the rest, which condemned them to starvation. The sanctuary was destroyed, but the Golden Idol was not in it. What happened to the Kazym idol of the Golden Baba is unknown.
In 1981, Perm cameraman M.A. visited places close to the sources of Northern Sosva. Zaplatan, who later spoke about meetings with local old-timers. One old Mansi told him that it was impossible to go to the mountains, because there was Sar-ni-Ekva ("Golden Woman"):
- You can't find it. Our old people dragged her somewhere, and then they killed themselves ...
Mansi considered her the mother of all living things: she patronizes newborns, determines the fate and life span of each person, marking the life path of a person on her sacred tags (similar to modern miniature flash drives).
Perhaps on such "flash drives" your fate and your life are recorded, friends! And the Higher ones scroll it on their global earthly thought-computer.
However, what the hell does not cool!!

To be continued...

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