The wanderings of the golden woman.

For many centuries, the Golden Woman has stirred the minds of explorers, travelers and adventurers. Who is she? It is likely that her origin goes back to the times of matriarchy and the cult of the Great Goddess. According to archaic information, she conceived from the Thunderer Zeus and gave birth to two children Artemis and Apollo in the Far North, within the Hyperborean limits. Her traces were searched for in the Northern Urals. According to legend, this is an ancient goddess and she is made of pure gold. The oldest mention of the Golden Baba dates back to 1398 in the Novgorod Chronicle. This is connected with St. Stephen of Perm, who converted to the faith of Christ the local aboriginal Permians, who hitherto worshiped fire, yes water, and the Golden Baba. The priests were followed by archers, who destroyed all the ancient temples - prayer places, and churches were built in their place. But despite the Christianization, the peoples of Ugra - Khanty, Mansi and others still honor their ancient goddess. It is interesting that the later the mention of her, the further to the east her traces move.

On the map of 1562, compiled by the Englishman Anthony Jenkinson, the entire territory of Russia is called Tartaria, and Russia and Muscovy are part of it. There are drawings and texts on the map, for example, the Golden Baba is depicted at the top in the form Sistine Madonna Raphael (the author apparently could not see the real statue) and the text says that this is an extraordinary deity who is worshiped in that area and who gives answers to all questions.

In the Northern Urals, next to the famous Man-pupu-ner plateau, there is a small cone-shaped mountain Koip (Drum). According to a well-known legend, when the heroes climbed the plateau and saw the sacred mountain Yalpyng-ner, they froze in horror and turned to stone. At the same time, the drum rolled back and also petrified. So this mountain Coyp Drum, if you look at it from the western side, looks like a lying woman with sharp features. Coyp also has its own legend. A female shaman lived in those places, she tried to detain the Golden Baba when she was crossing the Stone Belt. For some reason, the shaman presumptuously considered herself the mistress of the Goddess, which caused her an insult. The Golden Baba screamed so that the impudent shaman fell on her back and turned to stone.

Photo figurine "Golden woman" is stored in the Museum of Tyumen

In the XI century, the Goddess of the North is mentioned in the Scandinavian sagas. The Vikings went on a campaign and discovered the YUMALA sanctuary at the mouth of the Dvina. There they saw a wooden statue with a golden necklace and a bowl filled with coins.

The Siberian Chronicle speaks of one of Yermak's closest associates, Bogdan Bryazgin, who was sent to fight in the Nazym and Demyansk towns. From the scout, he knew that the local natives pray to the Russian God, and that God is made of pure gold and sits in the thicket.

But after the capture of the towns, the statue disappeared. In 1583, after the capture of the Ostyak (Khanty) city of Samar, this comrade visited Belogorye - a place near the confluence of the Irtysh (Iriy) river into the Ob (where the city of Asgard Iriy was located). Bryazgin visited the prayer site of the Ostyaks “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.

A page from the "History of the Russian State" by Karamzin, dedicated to Yermak's campaign: "... in this city there was a golden idol, as if taken out of ancient Russia, at the time of her christening; The Osiyaks kept it in a bowl, drank water from it, and thus strengthened their courage, because the atamans, having driven the besieged by shooting, entered the city, but could not find a precious idol in it ... " The Ostyaks are mentioned, so the Khanty were called.

Here is a page from the Brief Siberian Chronicle, which was published in St. Petersburg in 1880. Author Semyon Remezov (1642-1720).

Here in article 74 it is said about the warriors of Ermak: “And they rode horses to the mouth of the Demyanka river to the prince Demayan (that was the name of the Tatar prince) and their city is great and strong. to the fortress of the mountains ... and they asked those how they pray? One Chuvashenin was in them at Kuchum, the Russian full, said: they pray to the Russian god and that Russian god is cast gold, sits in a bowl, and in that de bowl we pour they drink water, and call him Christ, but they say de was brought from Vladimir's baptism, and for that they live boldly ... "In the illustration on the right, we really see a bowl with a certain figure sitting in it.

Then the shrine migrated to the basin of the Konda River, where it was dragged by the Belogorsk Khanty. In the 18th century, the Christianization of the Ostyaks continued and traces of the Golden Baba were lost. One of the missionaries, Grigory Novitsky, tried to find her in order to destroy her, but of course he did not succeed. But he collected information both about the shrine itself and about the secret sanctuary where it was kept.

As if she was seen in the 1930s in the Ob River basin at the sanctuary of the Kazym khans. The authorities received a report that on the Kazym River (or Kyzym?) - the right tributary of the Ob - local Khanty hide the Golden Baba and secretly worship her. At this time there was a fierce struggle with religious prejudices. The Chekists seized the local shaman and threw him into the dungeons. The detachment went to the secret temple in order to find the notorious Golden Baba. Precious metal, nevertheless, you can replenish the treasury. But the local Khanty hunters shot down all the Chekists. The massacre followed immediately. Another detachment of security officers shot all the men of this Khanty tribe and ruined the temple. But the shrine is gone...

On this old map, the Golden Woman is marked on OBI

In 1981, one Perm cameraman M.A. Zaplatin visited places near Northern Sosva (Northern Urals). He talked about a meeting with a local Mansi old man, who warned that it was impossible to go to the mountains, because. there is Sar-ni-Ekwa or the Golden Woman. "You can't find her. Our old people dragged her somewhere, and then they killed themselves," he said.

What deity does the Golden Baba represent? There have been many speculations about this. The ancient Roman goddess Juno, the ancient Egyptian Isis, the Mother of God, the bodhisattva of mercy Avalokiteshvara, Kaltash-Ekva (Kaltas) - the wife of the supreme Mansi god Numi-Tarum ... And where did she eventually disappear to? By the way, Isis, which the Egyptians called Iset, is our native river Iset, originating in Bazhov places near Gumeshki ...

Zolota Baba involuntarily brings thoughts to the Mistress of the Copper Mountain Pavel Petrovich Bazhov. After all, it is not by chance that tales about the Lady of the Ural underground riches appeared. She is always in malachite i.e. green dress. Or maybe the Golden Baba is not gold at all, but copper? And copper is known to oxidize and turn green. The ancient Ugrians who inhabited the Urals had copper statues. But still, why does she have such a Russian name? The Ob Ugrians also called the Golden Baba the Old Woman. And the Belogorsk Ostyaks (Khanty) called her Slovutes, i.e. Slav.

In ancient times, the Siberian Rus lived on the territory of Siberia - a beautiful, tall, blue-eyed people - the heirs of immigrants from Arctida. They then had their own Slavic gods. Tomsk scientist-writer-traveler, researcher of Ugra Georgy Sidorov writes about this in detail. The Golden Baba is the ancient Slavic Vedic goddess Lada. Once upon a time, her sanctuary stood on the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. In all fragments of descriptions of her appearance that have come down to us, a baby is mentioned, as it were, inside her. It turns out to be Lel - her child. With the advent of Christianity, they were gradually dragged farther and farther to the east by the guardian sorcerers. From temple to temple. Wanderings of the Golden Baba first they passed through the Permian land, then through the taiga tracts of the Voguls (Mansi) and Khanty. It turns out that the Zyryansk Yumala, the Mansi Sorni-Ekva and Sorni-Nai Khanty and the golden idol of the Ob Ugrians are all our Golden Lada. And finally, according to G. Sidorov, she arrived in the upper reaches of the Yenisei on the Putorana Plateau, more precisely, in one of its underground cities. Apparently, the Vedic library treasures also migrated there - the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, for example. Not all of them were burnt by the conquistadors of Prince Vladimir. Perhaps, with the advent of the new era of Aquarius (or the Wolf according to the Slavic-Aryan Vedas), this knowledge will somehow be revealed to people and finally we will find out the real, and not a fictional story.

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. On the flat surface of the ridge rise seven bizarre stone figures. 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 are in a hurry 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 the inscription accompanies the drawing 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 in the Arctic Ocean, and antique 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 11th 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 main value 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 early XVI In the 2nd century, Filofey 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 the 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.

About what we're on the right way, says 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 at 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. Therefore, 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 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,
screaming 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 Ugric 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. AT 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 pure in soul miners.

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 in 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 key to the appearance of Slavic names is contained in the news of Muslim writers of the early Middle Ages. 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 the nomadic hordes, mixed streams of Slavs, Ugrians 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 most high point 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 supreme deity of the Biarms, as the Vikings reliably knew, was located in dense forest, near 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 there was a robot 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 last resort Golden women are traditionally called three remote, hard-to-reach corners of Russia: 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.

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 - Ancient Rome. Last time this shrine was seen in the 1930s 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 recorded after missionary activity Stephen of Perm, who walked the Perm land: "This teach the Perm land the faith of Christ, but before 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. AT 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 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 originally she was worshiped only in Perm region, and then - in connection with the Christianization of these places - it was transferred beyond the Urals?

The drawings of the Golden Baba are different for different authors. M. Mekhovsky, for example, has a statue 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 at the beginning of the 18th century Christian doctrine Ostyaks, 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.

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 was located there (“ Golden Woman"): "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.

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 a golden 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 narrative of Alexei Ivanov's historical novel The Heart of Parma revolves around the myth of the Golden Woman. 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 a long life that cannot be cut off 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-Nay" 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 expositions

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 meetings ... - 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. Along 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 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. - 3978

Golden Baba - ancient goddess peace and quiet, home well-being. Midwives, midwives who help young women to relieve their burden, revered her as their patroness, and any woman did not neglect her advice.

The temple of the Golden Baba was, according to legend, in the Obdorskaya country, at the mouth of the Obigo River (that is, the Ob). However, the too frequent mention of this goddess proves that she was worshiped in all Slavic lands. She held one child in her arms and led the other by the hand. The inhabitants of those places called the children her grandchildren, which is why she received the name of Baba.
One of these grandchildren was, by the way, Svyatovid himself. Near the Golden Baba there always lay a lot of psaltery and other musical instruments that continuously played by themselves - sometimes softly, sometimes louder. According to their sound, the priests predicted the future, for the Golden Baba was revered as a good prophetess. The reverence for her was so great that no one dared to pass by the statue without making at least a small sacrifice, but if he didn’t have anything at all, then he pulled out a thread or hair from his head from his dress, offered it to the Golden Baba, bowed to the ground - and he hoped to appease her.

In general, sables and martens were sacrificed to her, dressed in their skins.
Even strangers who believed in other gods did not skimp on gold, silver and furs for her, for those who did not sacrifice to the Golden Baba must certainly get lost on the way.
The sign that the sacrifice has been accepted favorably by Baba is a shooting star. The Golden Baba was also the main among the Rozhanitsy - the goddesses of fate that every person has, and then the midwives who help to resolve the burden. When a child was born, the Golden Baba invisibly tied his legs, demanding a ransom from his father.
If the midwives were well rewarded (that is, they sacrificed in this way to the Women in Childbirth and the Golden Baba herself), then the child grew up healthy and happy, and if not, he could remain lame.
The Czechs called the Golden Baba Alzhbeta, and she was the goddess of the mother's womb.

The first mention of the golden idol of the North 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 amazed Vikings saw a large wooden statue with a bowl on its lap 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.

Legends of the Golden Baba

An ancient Nenets legend tells that once a year, when the Great Sun reigns in the sky, a Sun Baba rises from under the frozen and lifeless earth, carrying a baby in her womb, who is destined to become a spirit of fertility.

Another legend that exists among the Mansi people tells how a golden idol crossed the Ural stone belt, but was stopped by an old shaman who considered himself his master. The enraged golden idol roared with a thunderous voice, from which all life in the area died, and the impudent shaman himself turned into stone.

Another story related to the Yakut heroic epic, talks about a copper statue standing in the middle of impenetrable swamps, which, when enemies approached, began to make a sound similar to the chirping of many crickets and radiate a blue glow into the sky.

These legends, like dozens of other similar legends of the northern and Siberian peoples, are associated with one of the most mysterious phenomena pagan culture of the Eurasian continent - Golden Baba.

The team never returned...

The first officially surviving mention of it refers to the Sofia Chronicle of 1398. The chronicle tells about the death of the Monk Stephen of Perm, who brought the light of Orthodoxy to the peoples who lived in the northern forests and worshiped fire, stone and the Golden Baba. The next time this name appears two hundred years later. In 1595, one of the maps of the medieval cartographer G. Mercater was published, on which there is an inscription near the mouth of the Ob River, which translates as “Golden Baba”.

In the 15th century, the Novgorodians-Ushkuiniki, who were actively engaged in trade, brought to Russia information about "unknown people in the Eastern country, the growth of small ones, eating each other and praying to a golden idol."

Already in the 16th century, legends about a mysterious golden idol were well known in Muscovy. This is evidenced by the memoirs of the Austrian ambassador S. Herberstein, dated 1520, which describe rumors that behind the Urals in a stone sanctuary there is a large golden idol in the form of a pregnant woman emitting a deafening roar. In 1578, the Italian writer A. Gvagnini mentions about the stories he heard about the idol standing “behind the cold and gloomy country of Muscovy”, the roar of which, like a trumpet, can be heard among the mountains.

That is why the first Cossack detachments of Yermak, who crossed the Stone Belt in 1582, which were driven by an indestructible thirst for enrichment, in addition to developing the mysterious lands of the Trans-Urals, cherished the dream of finding the famous Golden Baba.

This is indirectly confirmed by the writer and historian of the 17th century, Yu. So, in particular, Y. Krizhanich writes that, having sailed to the Irtysh, Yermak Timofeevich equipped a detachment of twenty Cossacks, who he ordered to move to the northeast behind the “golden idol”.

This detachment never returned to its ataman, who three months later, according to the stories of the local population, learned that his messengers had disappeared without a trace in the Shaim marshes.

The two-meter Kyzym goddess, blackened from time to time, or as she is called, the Golden Woman, inspires fear in restorers, so many secrets, mysteries, and tragedies are associated with her name. Anyone who disturbed her peace should be ready to say goodbye to life and health.

According to legend, " permanent place residence" of the Kazym goddess are the neighborhood of the village of Yuilsk in the upper reaches of the Kazym River, which is about 270 kilometers north of Khanty-Mansiysk. The Khanty and Mansi believe that the Kazym goddess - sometimes called the Golden Woman or the Golden Woman - determines the fate of a person.

Since the 16th century, searches have been made for the Golden Woman, and in this village the statue was discovered only in 1961. How many misfortunes happened during the search - do not count. Cavalry detachments disappeared, bogged down in the swamp, dozens of armed people died, and locals explained mystical events the wrath of the disturbed goddess.

The researchers who discovered the statue in 1961 also had a hard time. One by one, they literally melted before our eyes, suddenly dying. However, according to legend, the brigade found not a gold, but a wooden statue covered with silver. The Yuil Idol was once again out of reach. The Khanty and Mansi are convinced that the statue was changed and the real one was hidden on a small inconspicuous island in the vicinity of Yuilsk, which after some time was completely flooded due to a sharp rise in the water level.

Like most mythical northern characters, the Kazym goddess is credited with the ability to reincarnate. It is believed that she can appear to people in the form of a hare, cat, swan, frog, crow, butterfly. But there is a description of her human appearance: "She looks like an old woman in a sable yagushka (cape), covered with a silk scarf."

In the families of the Khanty and Mansi, the cult of veneration of the Kazym goddess, or the Golden Woman, is still preserved. It is customary to hide figurines of a deity from prying eyes in hidden places. The true appearance of the goddess is unknown - the photo shows only one of her images.

Foreign scientists also mention the Golden Woman. Some say that the Golden Baba was brought from China, others consider Iran or India to be its homeland, others - Ancient Rome. There is also a version that the Golden Baba is a sculptural image of the Madonna, but here the opinions of scientists are divided: some believe that such images (which, by the way, were carved from wood, which is quite consistent with the 1961 find) have never been taken out of churches, while others adhere to the opposite opinions. Moreover, a number of researchers are convinced that the statue of the Golden Baba was not brought from nowhere, but is a work of local Siberian masters.

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 their life path on sacred tags.

Versions, hypotheses, assumptions... How many there were, and how many more there will be. Lots of questions, even more answers. However, no one has yet managed to get an unambiguous answer to the question: What is she, the Golden Woman? Why did you come into this world and where did you go? And did she leave?

To this day, the mystery of the mysterious Golden Baba has not been solved. It is quite possible that it never existed in the form in which it appears in numerous legends and traditions. However, I want to believe that the day will come, and this pagan idol will shine before us in all its original grandeur and original beauty.