Chud language. Chud tribe

Door to the kingdom of Chudi

By opening the list of languages and nationalities of the Russian Federation approved by the State Statistics Committee of Russia, you can learn a lot of interesting things. For example, the fact that in Russia there are people who consider themselves to be among the mythical people of wizards is a miracle.

Most likely this is a misunderstanding. After all, according to the legends of the north of Russia, these people went to live underground more than a thousand years ago. However, in Karelia and the Urals, even today you can hear eyewitness accounts of a meeting with representatives of the Chud. The famous ethnographer of Karelia, Alexey Popov, told us about one of these meetings.

Alexey, how plausible is the story of the existence of the Chud, this mythical people?

Of course, the miracle really existed, and then went away. But it’s not known exactly where. Ancient legends say that underground. Moreover, surprisingly, there is a mention of this people even in Nestor’s “Tale of Bygone Years”: “... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chud, Slovenes, Merya and Krivichi, and the Khazars from the glades, northerners, and Vyatichi took tribute in silver coins and the verite (squirrel) from the smoke.” It is also known from the chronicles that in 1030 Yaroslav the Wise made a campaign against Chud “and defeated them and established the city of Yuryev.” Today it is one of the largest cities in modern Estonia - Tartu. At the same time, on the territory of Russia there is a huge number of toponymic names reminiscent of the people who once lived here. mysterious people, only the people themselves are not there, as if they never existed.

What did the chud look like?

According to most researchers, ethnographers and historians, these were creatures that looked very much like European gnomes. They lived on the territory of Russia until the ancestors of the Slavs and Finno-Ugrians came here. In the modern Urals, for example, there are still legends about unexpected helpers of people - short, white-eyed creatures that appear from nowhere and help travelers lost in the forests of the Perm region.

You said that the chud went underground...

If we summarize numerous legends, it turns out that the miracle descended into dugouts, which it itself dug in the ground, and then blocked all the entrances. True, the dugouts could well have been entrances to caves. This means that it was in the underground caves that this mythical people hid. At the same time, completely break with outside world they most likely failed. For example, in the north of the Komi-Permyak Okrug, in the Gain region, according to the stories of researchers and hunters, you can still find unusual bottomless wells filled with water. Local residents believe that these are wells of ancient people leading to underworld. They never take water from them

Are there any known places where the miracle went underground?

Today no one knows the exact places; only numerous versions are known according to which similar places are located in the north of Russia or in the Urals. It is interesting that the epics of the Komi and the Sami tell the same story about the departure of the “little people” into the dungeons. If you believe ancient legends, then the Chud went to live in earthen pits in the forests, hiding from the Christianization of those places. Until now, both in the north of the country and in the Urals, there are earthen hills and mounds called Chud graves. They supposedly contain treasures “sworn” by miracles.

N.K. Roerich was very interested in the legends of miracles. In his book “The Heart of Asia,” he directly tells how one Old Believer showed him a rocky hill with the words: “This is where the Chud went underground. This happened when the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, but the Chud did not want to live under the White Tsar. The chud went underground and blocked the passages with stones...” However, as N.K. Roerich stated in his book, the chud should return to earth when certain teachers from Belovodye come and bring great science for humanity. Allegedly, then the miracle will emerge from the dungeons along with all its treasures. The great traveler even dedicated the painting “The Miracle Has Gone Under the Ground” to this legend.

Or maybe the Chud meant some other people, whose descendants still live happily in Russia?

There is also such a version. Indeed, legends about the miracle are most popular precisely in the places of settlement of the Finno-Ugric peoples, which include the Komi-Permyaks. But! There is one inconsistency here: the descendants of the Finno-Ugric peoples themselves always spoke about the Chud as about some other people.

Legends, just legends... Are there real monuments left by the miracle that you can touch with your hands?

Of course have! This is, for example, the well-known Sekirnaya Mountain (local historians also call it Chudova Gora) on the Solovetsky archipelago. Its very existence is surprising, because the glacier, passing these places, cut off like sharp knife, all the unevenness of the landscape - and there simply cannot be large mountains here! So the 100-meter-high Miracle Mountain looks on this surface as clearly a man-made object of some ancient civilization. At the beginning of the 2000s, scientists who examined the mountain confirmed that it is partly of glacial origin, and partly of artificial origin - the large boulders of which it consists are not laid chaotically, but in a certain order.

And what, the creation of this mountain is attributed to a miracle?

You mentioned mysterious encounters with miracles in Karelia and the Urals these days. Are they real?

To be honest, knowing many similar stories, I always treated them with a fair amount of skepticism. Until, at the end of the summer of 2012, an incident occurred that made me believe in the real existence of this mythical people in the mountains or underground. Here is how it was. At the end of August, I received a letter with a photograph from an ethnographer who, in the summer months, works part-time as a tour guide on a ship on the Kem-Solovki route. The information was so unexpected that I contacted him. So. The photo showed a rock in which the outline of a large stone door could be discerned. To my question: “What is this?” - the guide told an amazing story. It turns out that in the summer of 2012, he and a group of tourists sailed past one of the islands of the Kuzov archipelago. The ship sailed close to the shore, and people looked at the picturesque rocks with pleasure. The guide at this time told them stories about mysterious encounters with the mythical miracle-sikirtya. Suddenly one of the tourists screamed heart-rendingly, pointing to the shore. The whole group immediately turned their gaze to the rock to which the woman was pointing.

The whole action lasted a few seconds, but the tourists managed to see a huge (three meters by one and a half meters) stone door closing in the rock, hiding the silhouette of a small creature behind it. The guide literally tore the camera from his neck and tried to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, the shutter of his camera clicked when only the silhouette of a stone door remained visible. A second later he disappeared too. This was the first case of mass observation of the entrance to the dungeons of the Chud. After this event, there is no need to doubt the reality of the existence of this legendary people in the rocks and underground!

Unlike Chud, Mary had a “more transparent story.” This ancient Finno-Ugric tribe once lived in the territories of modern Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Tver, Vladimir and Kostroma regions of Russia. That is, in the very center of our country. There are many references to them; merins are found in the Gothic historian Jordan, who in the 6th century called them tributaries of the Gothic king Germanaric. Like the Chud, they were in the troops of Prince Oleg when he went on campaigns against Smolensk, Kyiv and Lyubech, as recorded in the Tale of Bygone Years. True, according to some scientists, in particular Valentin Sedov, by that time ethnically they were no longer a Volga-Finnish tribe, but “half Slavs.” Final assimilation apparently occurred by the 16th century.

One of the largest peasant uprisings is associated with the name of Merya Kievan Rus 1024 years. The reason was the great famine that gripped the Suzdal land. Moreover, according to the chronicles, it was preceded by “immeasurable rains,” drought, premature frosts, and dry winds. For the Marys, most of whose representatives opposed Christianization, this obviously looked like “divine punishment.”

The rebellion was led by the priests of the “old faith” - the Magi, who tried to use the chance to return to pre-Christian cults. However, it was unsuccessful. The rebellion was defeated by Yaroslav the Wise, the instigators were executed or sent into exile.

Despite the meager data that we know about the Merya people, scientists managed to restore their ancient language, which in Russian linguistics was called “Meryan”. It was reconstructed on the basis of the dialect of the Yaroslavl-Kostroma Volga region and the Finno-Ugric languages. A number of words were recovered thanks to geographical names.

It turned out that the endings “-gda” in Central Russian toponymy: Vologda, Sudogda, Shogda are the heritage of the Meryan people.

Despite the fact that mentions of the Merya completely disappeared in sources back in the pre-Petrine era, today there are people who consider themselves to be their descendants. These are mainly residents of the Upper Volga region. They claim that the Meryans did not dissolve over the centuries, but formed the substrate (substratum) of the northern Great Russian people, switched to the Russian language, and their descendants call themselves Russians. However, there is no evidence of this.

The fate of the people is under strange name“White-eyed miracle” still remains one of the most controversial mysterious issues in our history. Despite the fact that the Chud left their traces everywhere: in the names of lakes and villages, in fairy tales and sayings, in the archaeological cultural layer, this tribe simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

Who is Chud Zavolochskaya?

According to the overwhelming majority of historians, Chud is nothing more than a collective concept, by which our ancestors meant the totality of some Finno-Ugric tribes. The language of these strangers was incomprehensible and alien to the Russians, and therefore they were dubbed Chud. Representatives of this mysterious tribe lived in territories whose population is still dominated by representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples.

Chudya Zavolochskaya was the name of the inhabitants of Zavolochye - lands lying within the boundaries of the basins of two rivers - the Northern Dvina and Onega. In ancient times, ships had to be dragged from one river to another manually - by dragging. In the same way, areas of land between two bodies of water began to be called portages. Hence Zavolochye - behind the portage.

Soviet archaeologist A.Ya. Bryusov believed that the Zavolochsk region was inhabited by the first people about 3-4 thousand years ago. This is evidenced by the remains of tools and utensils found as a result of excavations. Moreover, according to historians, all the items were made very skillfully.

Reasons for the disappearance of the miracle

Many scientists claim that the Zavolochsk miracle has not gone away. It’s just that representatives of this tribe assimilated among other nationalities: Karelians, Vepsians, Russians. Being pagans, they nevertheless accepted Christianity along with others and, uniting with the newly converted, simply dissolved among them, accepting their writing, which the Chuds did not have at all.

However, some researchers believe that the Zavolochsk Chud did not want to be baptized, since these people were ardent pagans and did not want to deviate from their faith. Even many years after the spread of the new religion in Rus', representatives of the Chuds retained an appearance that testified (for example, loose hair on women) that they never abandoned paganism.

Folklore about the location of the miracle

Especially many references to miracles can be found in fairy tales and stories of Old Believers. So, one of these stories talks about a certain White Tsar who decided to conquer mysterious tribe and gathered a huge army for this. However, the Chuds did not want to obey the king and descended deep underground, where they live to this day. They built roads and cities there. Only sometimes, in complete silence, can you hear the bells ringing in underground temples. But the day will come when the miracle will come to the surface again.

According to another legend, representatives of the Chuds actually rejected the new Christian faith, which was alien to them, and, realizing that they were doomed, they committed mass suicide. They dug a huge hole in the ground, installed pillars there, and put a roof on them, after which they went down into this hole and knocked out the supports. They were covered with fragments of the roof. None of the Chud tribe survived.

Chud white-eyed - ancient inhabitants of the Arkhangelsk region

Chud Zavolochskaya- this is the ancient pre-Slavic population of Zavolochye, which to this day is in some way a historical mystery. This term was put into use by the 11th century chronicler Nestor in The Tale of Bygone Years. Listing peoples in your work of Eastern Europe, he named this nation among other Finno-Ugric tribes of that time: “... in the Afetov part there are Rus, Chud and all the pagans: Merya, Muroma, Ves, Mordva, Zavolochskaya Chud, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Ugra”

Residence map of Chudi Zavolochskaya.

Historians claim that they were an unliterate people and did not leave behind them any chronicles or any other documents.
They did not survive as a people, they did not leave their customs or language to this day, the Chud disappeared without a trace among the Russian newcomers and neighboring peoples. Only legends and names once given to the rivers and lakes among which they lived remind us of the Chud tribes.

We know that the people, called the Chud of Zavolotsk by the Novgorodians, lived in the basins of the Mezen and northern Dvina rivers, along the banks of the Luza, South, and Pushma. In terms of language and culture, the Chud belonged to the Finno-Ugric peoples. Once upon a time, Finno-Ugric peoples inhabited the entire northeast of Europe, the Urals and part of Asia.

They spoke a language close to the language of modern Vepsians and Karelians.

All information about the life, clothing and appearance of the Chud tribes is known only from the results of archaeological excavations. Archaeologists usually search in areas with some “wonderful” name. They find either traces of a settlement, or a settlement, or a Chud burial ground - an ancient cemetery. Based on the finds, one can determine whether it was a Chud, or another Finno-Ugric tribe, or the Scandinavians and Slavs who came to this land later.

Chud and other Finns can be confidently distinguished from others by two types of finds: by the remains of their pottery and by jewelry. Clay dishes usually molded without a potter's wheel, by hand, with thick walls, often it has not a flat, but a round bottom, because food was cooked in it not in stoves, but in hearths, over an open fire. The outside of such dishes is decorated with ornaments pressed into wet clay using sticks and special stamps; such an ornament is called pit-comb and is found only among the Finno-Ugric peoples.

These were people of average and above average height, presumably fair-haired and with bright eyes, in appearance most reminiscent of modern Karelians and Finns.

Because of appearance, there is another name for this people - White-eyed Chud.
The Chud tribes were masters of pottery and blacksmithing, and knew how to weave and process wood and bone. They were familiar with metal not so long ago: many tools made of bone and flint are found in settlements.

They lived by hunting and fishing. They were also engaged in agriculture, growing unpretentious northern cultures: oats, rye, barley, flax. They kept domestic animals, although during excavations of settlements in Zavolochye they find more bones of wild animals than domestic ones. They hunted not only for meat, they also hunted fur-bearing animals. Fur in those days was in use along with money. It was also just a commodity; it was traded with Novgorod, and with Scandinavia, and with Volga Bulgaria.

In connection with the development of trade in Zavolochye, ancient portage routes arose. Most likely, they were laid not by Russian newcomers, but by the local population, and only then they were used by the people of Novgorod and Ustyug.

Chud disappeared with the advent of Christianity. Their own religion was pagan.

All the legends about the miracle say something like this. Chud lived in the forest, in dugouts, and had her own faith. When they were asked to convert to Christianity, they refused. And when they wanted to baptize them by force, they dug a large hole and made an earthen roof on the pillars, and then everyone went in there, cut down the pillars, and they were covered with earth. So the ancient miracle went underground.

Official science claims that the Chud of Zavolotsk shared the fate of the Finnish tribes, dissolved among the Russian newcomers and neighboring peoples: the Muroms, Meris, Narovs, Meshchers, Vesi. They were all once mentioned in Russian chronicles next to the miracle. Some of them that resisted the Russian invasion were apparently exterminated; some accepted the Christian faith and merged with the Russian population, gradually losing their language and almost all customs; and a considerable part united with neighboring, largely related peoples.

In the old days and in the Urals, a legend was born about the “white-eyed Chud” - a nameless people who lived in ancient times along the banks of the Ural rivers and lakes. When plowing the land, peasants often found “Chudi” things: tools, weapons, jewelry, shards of dishes. So, at the end of the last century, iron and silver daggers were found in arable land near the Kamenka River, and in 1903, the peasant P. Fedorov found a bronze knife with a copper handle in these places.

Traces of the “white-eyed miracle” were found in almost every village or hamlet. These were ancient settlements with ramparts and ditches - fortifications, like the villages of Ipatovskoye on Iset and Zyryanovskoye on Sinar, or burial mounds, like the villages of Travyanskoye, Khromtsovskoye, Kamenno-Ozernoye, near the lakes Shablish, Tygish and Bolshoi Sungul.

Ancient graves - mounds or "hillocks" in Ural - attracted the attention of people, causing them superstitious fear. There were rumors among the people about countless treasures buried in the mounds. In the 17th century, during the period of settlement of the Urals and Siberia by Russians, “bumping”, i.e., became widespread among peasants. predatory excavation of mounds in order to search for gold. Finding in the graves the skeletons of the buried and objects placed with the dead, people believed that the “hillocks” they excavated were not the graves of the ancient Urals, but dugouts, the dwellings of an unknown, wonderful people.

The legends about the “white-eyed Chudi” say that the Chudi were the people vertically challenged. These people lived in dugouts. When the Chudtsy learned that the White Tsar wanted to conquer them, they cut down the pillars of their dugouts and buried themselves.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Hyperboreans, Issedons, and Sarmatians live in the Hyperborean Mountains, as he called the Ural Mountains. Perhaps the legendary Chud belongs to these mythical peoples.

Chud tribe. Chud White-Eyed

The Chud tribe is one of the most mysterious phenomena on the territory of our country. Its history has long been overgrown with secrets, epics and even rumors, both quite plausible and completely fantastic. Not much is known about this tribe to judge from this information full history its representatives, but quite enough to give birth to the most incredible legends. Scientists and researchers have tried and are trying to unearth evidence of that era, to decipher that wonderful world full of mysteries that the Chud tribe gave us.

The Chud tribe is sometimes compared to the Maya tribe of American Indians. Both those and others suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only memories. In official history, the term “Chud” is considered Old Russian name several Finno-Ugric tribes. The very name of the tribe Chud“It’s also not entirely clear. It is popularly believed that the representatives of these tribes were named this way because of their incomprehensible language, which they spoke and which other tribes did not understand. There is an assumption that the tribe was originally Germanic or Gothic, which is why they were called Chud. In those days, “Chud” and “Alien” not only had the same root, but also had the same meaning. However, in some Finno-Ugric languages, the name Chud was used to name one of the mythological characters, which also cannot be discounted. (In addition, there is a version that CHUD is the Finnish word TUDO (people) distorted by Russians - ed.)

This tribe, which suddenly disappeared, is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, where the chronicler directly narrates: “ ...Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chud, Ilmen Slavs, Merya and Krivichi...". However, not everything is so simple here either. For example, the historian S.M. Solovyov made the assumption that in the Tale of Bygone Years the inhabitants of the Vodskaya Valley of Pyatina were called Chudya Novgorod Land- Water. Another mention dates back to 882 and refers to Oleg’s campaign: “ ... went on a campaign and took with him many warriors: Varangians, Ilmen Slavs, Krivichi, all, Chud and came to Smolensk and took the city...».

Yaroslav the Wise undertook a victorious campaign against Chud in 1030: “and defeated them and established the city of Yuryev.” Subsequently, it turned out that a number of tribes were called Chud, such as: Estonians, Seto (Chud of Pskov), Vod, Izhora, Korely, Zavolochye (Chud of Zavolochskaya). In Novgorod there is Chudintseva Street, where noble representatives of this tribe previously lived, and in Kyiv there is Chudin Dvor. It is also believed that the names were formed on behalf of these tribes: the city of Chudovo, Lake Peipsi, Chud River. In the Vologda region there are villages with the names: Front Chudi, Middle Chudi and Back Chudi. Currently, Chudi’s descendants live in the Penezhsky district of the Arkhangelsk region. In 2002, Chud was included in the register of independent nationalities.

Of particular interest, in addition to the historical, is folklore, in which the tribe appears as the White-Eyed Chud. Strange epithet " White-eyed“, which the representatives of the Chuds were dubbed, is also a mystery. Some believe that the white-eyed monster is due to the fact that it lives underground, where there is no sunlight, while others believe that in the old days, gray-eyed or blue-eyed people were called white-eyed. Chud white-eyed, as a mythological character, is found in the folklore of the Komi and Sami, as well as the Mansi, Siberian Tatars, Altaians and Nenets. To explain it in a nutshell, the White-Eyed Chud is a vanished civilization. Following these beliefs, the legendary white-eyed Chud lived in the north of the European part of Russia and the Urals. Descriptions of this tribe include descriptions of short people who live in caves and deep underground. In addition, chud, chud, shud is a monster, and meant a giant, often a cannibal giant with white eyes.

One of the legends, which was recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov region, says: “ And when other people began to appear along the Kama, this miracle did not want to communicate with them. They dug a large hole, and then cut down the pillars and buried themselves. This place is called - Peipus Coast". The mistress of the copper mountain, the tale of which was told to us by the Russian writer P.P. Bazhov, is considered by many to be one of that same Chudi.

Judging by the legends, a meeting with representatives of the white-eyed miracle, who sometimes appeared out of nowhere, came out of caves, appeared in the fog, could bring good luck to some and misfortune to others. They live underground, where they ride dogs and herd mammoths or earthen deer. The mythical representatives of the white-eyed miracle are considered to be good and skilled blacksmiths, metallurgists and excellent warriors, which can be compared with the belief of the Scandinavian tribes in gnomes, who are also short in stature, are good warriors and skilled blacksmiths. Chud white-eyed (they are also Sirtya, Sikhirtya) can steal a child, cause damage, and scare a person. They know how to suddenly appear and disappear just as suddenly.

Testimonies from missionaries, researchers and travelers have been preserved about the earthen settlements of Chud. For the first time, A. Shrenk spoke about orphans in 1837, who discovered Chud caves with the remains of a certain culture in the lower reaches of the Korotaikha River. Missionary Benjamin wrote: “ The Korotaikha River is remarkable for its abundance of fisheries and Chud earthen caves, in which, according to Samoyed legends, Chud once lived in ancient times. These caves are ten miles from the mouth, on the right bank, on a slope, which from ancient times was called Sirte-sya in Samoyed - “Mountain Peipus”. I. Lepekhin wrote in 1805: “ The entire Samoyed land in the Mezen district is filled with desolate dwellings of the once ancient people. They are found in many places: near lakes, on the tundra, in forests, near rivers, made in mountains and hills like caves with openings like doors. In these caves they find ovens and find fragments of iron, copper and clay household items.”.

V.N. was once puzzled by the same question. Chernetsov, who wrote about the miracle in his reports of 1935-1957, where he collected many legends. In addition, he discovered the Sirtya monuments in Yamal. Thus, the existence of a tribe that actually existed in these places once is documented. Nenets, whose ancestors witnessed the existence in these places mysterious tribe, they claim that it went underground (into the hills), but did not disappear. And to this day you can meet people of small stature and with white eyes, and this meeting, most often, does not bode well.

After the Chud went underground, after other tribes came to their lands, whose descendants live here to this day, they left many treasures. These treasures are enchanted and, according to legend, only the descendants of the miracle itself can find them. These treasures are guarded by miracle spirits, who appear in a variety of guises, for example, in the form of a hero on a horse, a bear, a hare and others. Due to the fact that many would like to penetrate the secrets of the underground inhabitants and take possession of untold riches, some are still taking various steps to search for these caches full of gold and jewelry. There are a huge number of legends, tales and stories about daredevils who decided to search for miracle treasures. All, or most of them, end, alas, in tears for the main characters. Some of them die, others remain crippled, others go crazy, and others go missing in a dungeon or caves.

He also writes about the legendary miracle Roerich in his book "Heart of Asia". There he describes his meeting with an Old Believer in Altai. This man took them to a rocky hill where there were stone circles of ancient burials and, showing them to the Roerich family, told the following story: “ This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight and as the white birch blossomed in our region, Chud did not want to stay under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and blocked the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances yourself. But Chud is not gone forever. When happy times return and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures obtained«.

A year earlier (1913) of these events, Nicholas Roerich, being a wonderful artist, painted the painting “The Miracle Has Gone Under the Ground.” Be that as it may, the mystery of the Chud tribe still remains open. Official story represented by archaeologists, ethnographers, and local historians, ordinary tribes, for example, Ugrians, Khanty, Mansi, who were not different in anything special, are considered miracles, and left their habitats due to the arrival of other tribes on their lands. Others consider the White-Eyed Chud to be a great people who have the gift of sorcery and magic, who live deep in caves and underground cities, who from time to time appear on the surface to warn people, warn, punish or protect their treasures, the hunters of which are never will decrease.

« “But somewhere to this day,” says Vasily, “the Lapps believe not in Christ, but in “chud.” There is a high mountain from where they throw deer as sacrifices to the god. There is a mountain where a noid (sorcerer) lives, and deer are brought there to him. There they cut them with wooden knives, and hang the skin on poles. The wind shakes her, her legs move. And if there is moss or sand below, then the deer seems to be walking. Vasily has met such a deer more than once in the mountains. Just like alive! It's scary to watch. And it can be even worse when in winter a fire sparkles in the sky and the abysses of the earth open, and monsters begin to emerge from the graves“- this is what Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin wrote in the story “Kolobok”.

URAL MIRACLE - WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

Historians and folklorists have long argued about unusual and mysterious people, so-called “White-eyed Chudi,” whose representatives, according to legends and tales, were distinguished by their special beauty, article, possessed yogic abilities and possessed extensive and deep knowledge about nature. This people, connected by mysterious ties with the Russian people, mysteriously disappears, and its traces are lost in the Altai mountains.

Below is an attempt to penetrate the secrets of this amazing people. The famous Russian artist, scientist and writer N.K. Roerich in his book “The Heart of Asia” talks about a legend widespread in Altai. The legend tells that there once lived in the coniferous forests of Altai people with dark color skin. It was called a miracle. Tall, stately, knowledgeable secret science land. But then white birch began to grow in those places, which meant ancient prediction the imminent arrival here of the white people and their king, who will establish his own order. People dug holes, set up stands, and piled stones on top. They went into the shelters, tore out the posts and covered them with stones.
This completely incomprehensible ethnographic incident of the voluntary destruction of one people before the arrival of another is somewhat clarified by another version of the legend given in the same book. Chud didn’t bury herself, but went into secret dungeons into an unknown country “only Chud didn’t leave forever, when the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come with all the treasures they have obtained.”
In the legend, writes creativity researcher N.K. Roerich artist L.R. Tsesyulevich, - there is a hint of the existence to this day somewhere, perhaps in a hidden place, of a people with high culture and knowledge. In this regard, the legend of Chudi echoes the legend of the hidden country of Belovodye and the legend of the underground city of the Agarti people, widespread in India.
Similar legends are very widespread in the Urals, which is like a connecting link between the northwestern part of our country and Altai, where legends about Chudi also existed.

It can be noted that legends associated with Chud places - mounds and fortifications, underground caves and passages - having arisen in the north-west of Rus', then moved after the Russian settlers, first to the Urals, and then to Altai. This strip crosses the Urals, mainly through the Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions.
In different variations, the legend of the Chud in the Urals says that some dark-skinned people lived here, familiar with the “secret power.” But then white birch began to grow in these places, then Chud dug caves, fixed the roof on pillars, and poured earth and stones on top. She all gathered in these dwellings with her property and, cutting down the pillars, buried herself alive underground.

Some legends even tell about real contacts of early settlers with the “messengers” of Chudi - the “Miracle Maidens”. They say that before going underground, Chud left a “girl” for observation so that she would guard treasures and jewelry, but she showed the white people everything, and then the “old people” hid all the gold and metals.
This legend surprisingly has something in common with the legend given by N.K. Roerich in the book “Heart of Asia”: “A woman came out of the dungeon. She is tall, has a stern face and is darker than ours. She walked around the people, did some help, and then went back into the dungeon. She also came from the holy country.”
The interaction of Chudi’s “envoys” with the settlers was not limited only to contacts in reality; the legend also recorded completely unusual contacts and influences through dreams. Thus, Sverdlovsk researcher A. Malakhov, in one of his articles published in the Ural Pathfinder for 1979, cites a bright and beautiful legend about the Chud woman ruler: “Once Tatishchev, the founder of Yekaterinburg, had a strange dream. A woman came to him unusual looking and wondrous beauty. Was dressed in animal skins, gold jewelry sparkled on her chest. “Listen,” the woman said to Tatishchev, “you gave the order to dig mounds in your new city. Don't touch them, my brave warriors lie there. You will have no peace in either this or this world if you disturb their ashes or take expensive armor. I am Princess Anna of Chud, I swear to you that I will destroy both the city and everything that you are building if you touch these graves.” And Tatishchev ordered not to open the burials. Only the tops of the mounds were discovered.

Along with data about Chudi’s contacts with settlers, the legends contain fairly clear and precise characteristics of the appearance and spiritual appearance of the “eccentrics”, so that the features of a real people appear before us.

In one of the first stories by P.P. Bazhov’s “Dear Little Name” - Chud or “old people” are tall, beautiful people living in the mountains, in unusually beautiful dwellings built inside the mountains, living almost unnoticed by others. These people do not know self-interest and are indifferent to gold. When people appear in their remote habitats, they leave through underground passages, “closing the mountain.”

Ural ore explorers report that almost all the ore deposits on which the Demidovs built their factories were indicated by Chud marks - overburden, and the discovery of even later deposits was also associated with such marks, which suggests a certain cultural mission of Chud in the Urals.

This idea is supported by another observation. When people come to new places, they usually find themselves in a kind of weightlessness—the absence of an oriented living space. This did not happen to the settlers in the Urals. Someone gave mountains, rivers, lakes, tracts, and mounds amazingly accurate names. They contained, as it were, a spiritual vector, which later brilliantly materialized. And it’s not for nothing that the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras believed that “everyone who wants to, but who sees the mind and essence of things, cannot form names.” Moreover, the Chud places themselves became a kind of “magnets”. On the Chud mounds stands the city of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and the city of Kurgan arose next to the huge mound. And how accurately and as if it is no coincidence that cities and villages are located where they need to be: in communication nodes, near mineral deposits, surrounded by beautiful nature. Orenburg was somewhat unlucky at first. It was placed in the places indicated by the Germans, and had to be rearranged several times.

How many centuries ago Chud lived in the Urals and where she went to her underground cities is unknown. It is possible that they lived here back in the days of the ancient Greeks. Yes, famous ancient greek myth tells about the Hyperboreans who lived somewhere beyond the Riphean (Ural) mountains. These people lived happy life: he did not know strife and disease, death came to people only from satiety with life. This is what the ancient Greek writer Lucian, who was skeptical about everything unusual, says about his meeting with one of the Hyperboreans: “I considered it completely impossible to believe them, and, however, as soon as I first saw a flying foreigner, a barbarian - he called himself a Hyperborean - I believed and was defeated, although he resisted for a long time.

And what really could I do when before my eyes during the day a man rushed through the air, walked on water and at a slow pace passed through the fire"?

Where did Chud go?

Is it not to those underground cities with which N.K. Roerich connects the lives of the wise and beautiful inhabitants of Agartha and who were told about by the Chelyabinsk writer S.K. Vlasova, Ural workers: “I recently heard in an old Ural plant that all the caves that exist in the Urals communicate with each other. It’s as if there are holes hidden between them, sometimes wide, like the Kungur pits, these earthly sinkholes, sometimes thin, like golden threads. They also say that once in ancient times it was not difficult to move from cave to cave - there was a paved road. True, who spoke it is unknown - either people, miraculously unknown, or devilry... Only in our time, people, penetrating into those caves and those passages where they can go, find many traces: where the house was set up, where the amethyst stone lies, and where the footprint of a human foot was imprinted ... "

In the Perm region there are similar legends about the Chud heroes who sleep in underground caves under Ural mountains until the appointed hour. Also, the Para-hero guards the miracle wealth. The Ural land holds many still unsolved miracle secrets, but as P.P. Bazhov predicted, the time will come when these secrets will be revealed, and, gifted with treasures hidden for the time being, people will live a bright, happy life: “There will be a time in our side when there will be no merchants, no king, not even a title left. Then people on our side will become big and healthy. One such person will approach Mount Azov and loudly say “dear little thing,” and then a miracle will come out of the ground with all human treasures.”

V.V.SOBOLEV

http://www.alpha-omega.su/index/0-389

Chud white-eyed - legends and facts

- Alexey, how plausible is the story of the existence of the Chuds, this mythical people?

Of course, the miracle really existed, and then went away. But it’s not known exactly where. Ancient legends say that underground. Moreover, surprisingly, there is a mention of this people even in Nestor’s “Tale of Bygone Years”: “... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chud, Slovenes, Merya and Krivichi, and the Khazars from the glades, northerners, and Vyatichi took tribute in silver coins and the verite (squirrel) from the smoke.” It is also known from the chronicles that in 1030 Yaroslav the Wise made a campaign against Chud “and defeated them and established the city of Yuryev.” Today it is one of the largest cities in modern Estonia - Tartu. At the same time, on the territory of Russia there is a huge number of toponymic names reminiscent of the mysterious people who once lived here, but the people themselves are not there, as if they never existed.

- What did the chud look like?

- You said that the chud went underground...

If we summarize numerous legends, it turns out that the miracle descended into dugouts, which it itself dug in the ground, and then blocked all the entrances. True, the dugouts could well have been entrances to caves. This means that it was in the underground caves that this mythical people hid. At the same time, they most likely failed to completely break with the outside world. For example, in the north of the Komi-Permyak Okrug, in the Gain region, according to the stories of researchers and hunters, you can still find unusual bottomless wells filled with water. Local residents believe that these are wells of ancient people leading to the underworld. They never take water from them.

- Are there other places where the miracle went underground?

Or maybe the Chud meant some other people, whose descendants still live happily in Russia?

- Legends, just legends... Are there real monuments left by the miracle that you can touch with your hands?

Of course have! This is, for example, the well-known Sekirnaya Mountain (local historians also call it Chudova Gora) on the Solovetsky archipelago. Its very existence is surprising, because the glacier, passing through these places, cut off, like a sharp knife, all the unevenness of the landscape - and there simply cannot be large mountains here! So the 100-meter-high Miracle Mountain looks on this surface as clearly a man-made object of some ancient civilization. At the beginning of the 2000s, scientists who examined the mountain confirmed that it is partly of glacial origin, and partly of artificial origin - the large boulders of which it consists are not laid chaotically, but in a certain order.

- So, the creation of this mountain is attributed to a miracle?

Archaeologists have long established that the Solovetsky archipelago belonged to local residents centuries before the monks came here. In Novgorod they were called Chudya; their neighbors called them “Sikirtya”. The word is curious, because translated from ancient local dialects “shrt” is the name of a large, long, elongated mound. Thus, an elongated haystack is directly called a “stack”. It is obvious that the neighbors also called the ancient people Sikirtya because of their life in “mounded hills” - houses built from improvised materials: moss, branches, stones. This version is also confirmed by the ancient Novgorodians - in their chronicles they note that the Sikirtya live in caves and do not know iron. (As one researcher believes, “CHUD is the Finnish TUDO (people) distorted by the Russians. Not all Chud became glorified. Chud was divided into white-eyed (Ests) and Zavolotskaya (behind the revolving). Now these are the Komi-Zyryans. There is also the Komi-Perm, but this tribe was called Perm, not Chud. The underground Chud is a legend about ancient population Northern Urals- sirtya" - ed.)

- You mentioned mysterious encounters with miracles in Karelia and the Urals these days. Are they real?

The whole action lasted a few seconds, but the tourists managed to see a huge (three meters by one and a half meters) stone door closing in the rock, hiding the silhouette of a small creature behind it. The guide literally tore the camera from his neck and tried to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, the shutter of his camera clicked when only the silhouette of a stone door remained visible. A second later he disappeared too. This was the first case of mass observation of the entrance to the dungeons of the Chud. After this event, there is no doubt about the reality of the existence of this legendary people in the rocks and underground!

https://www.kramola.info/vesti/neobyknovennoe/chud-beloglazaja-legendy-i-fakty

Dwellings and material remains of Chud and Sirtya

For the first time, authentic Nenets legends about the Sirtya - nomadic hunters of the tundra and sea coast, who hunted wild deer, fish and sea animals, spoke a language different from Nenets, and hid forever underground, were recorded by A. Shrenk, who made a long trip to Bolshezemelskaya tundra. During this trip, in the lower reaches of the Korotaikha River, which flows into the Barents Sea east of Varandey and west of the Yugra Peninsula and the Pai-Khoi ridge, he discovered “Chud caves” with the remains of material culture, unfortunately, irretrievably lost to science).
In the notes of the missionary Benjamin (1855) we find: " The Korotaikha River is remarkable for its abundance of fisheries and Chud earthen caves, in which, according to legend, Chud once lived in ancient times. These caves are ten miles from the mouth, on the right bank, on a slope, which since ancient times was called Sirte-sya in Samoyed - “Mountain Peipus”.
Academician I. Lepekhin, knowing the legends about the “Chud people” widespread in the European North, sought to find their real traces in the form archaeological sites. Thanks to reports from informants, I. Lepekhin was able to make the following remarkable entry in 1805: “The entire Samoyed land in the Mezen district is filled with desolate dwellings of the once ancient people. They are found in many places: near lakes, on the tundra, in forests, near rivers, made in the mountains and hills like caves with openings like doors.In these caves they find ovens and find fragments of iron, copper and clay household items".
IN Soviet time the problem of orphans was developed by V.N. Chernetsov, who, having visited Yamal, not only collected various legends about the Sirtya, but also discovered monuments of ancient culture left by the Sirtya rather than by the later Nenets. According to the legends he published, the Nenets who came to Yamal met a population there who lived on the coast in earthen houses and hunted sea animals. These were the Sirtya, who did not know reindeer herding, with whom the Nenets had to fight, and sometimes even marry. The Nenets were convinced that the last Sirtya, 4-6 generations before the present day, were found here and there in Northern Yamal, and then completely disappeared. V.N. Chernetsov twice published (1935, 1957) important archaeological material from dugouts on Cape Tiutei-sale at the confluence of the Ser-yakha and Tiutei-yakha rivers (on the western coast of Yamal at 71 ° 30 "N), which he dated VI-IX centuries and attributed Sirtya.

Unique finds of the Yamalo-Ob expedition

Further searches for evidence of Sirtya were carried out by the Yamalo-Ob expedition of the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University under the leadership of L.P. Lashuk in 1961.
An abandoned sacred place was discovered on the Kharde-sede hill ("habitable hill"), located on the eastern coast of Yamal (Nakhodka Bay). According to local residents, this hill once hidstrange "little people" , which have long since “gone” to another more distant hill, leaving in the same place only “syadeev” - images of gods and various things. Old women even now do not allow children to run along the hill: " Trample, they say, sitting down, and this is a sin"The very name of the hill indicates that there was once not only a sacrificial place on it, but also housing.
As a result of the excavations, it turned out that in addition to finds dating back to late times (bone artifacts, wooden objects, remains of vessels, etc.), some discovered objects have typological similarities with finds from the pre-10th century. dugouts on Cape Tiutei-sale, left by people of non-Samoyed origin, although involved in the formation of modern Nenets. The main finds made on the Kharde-Sede hill were attributed to the era of the developed Iron Age. On the hill, traces of metallurgical production were discovered in the form of iron slag and sand fused into a glassy mass, underlying the upper peat layer. Structural analysis showed that the slag comes from a raw iron furnace.
The study of the strata on the Kharde-sed temple clearly shows the continuity of its use from the 1st millennium AD. e. and until the early 30s of the 20th century, which could hardly have happened if there had been no genetic connection between the early inhabitants of these places (Sirtya) and the later ones (Nenets).

The Tiutei-Salinsky and Kharde-Sedeysky monuments arose in the subpolar tundra at a time when there was no hint of a reindeer herding lifestyle or any traces of a new culture brought from the southern part of the Ob-Yenisei interfluve - the most likely ancestral home of the reindeer. There is no particular reason to count the latter among the creators of the Tiutei-Sala culture of tundra wild deer hunters and seaside hunters, although, having spread over time throughout the Far North, the Samoyeds, through the mediation of the aborigines (Sirtya), became the successors of this culture.

In the same Nakhodka, the expedition of L.P. Lashuk recorded the following tales about the natives of Yamal. The Sirtya are people of very short stature, but stocky and strong, who lived a thousand years ago. In everything they differed from the Nenets: they did not keep domestic reindeer, they hunted “savage” deer, they wore different clothes: for example, yagushkas (swing women's clothing made of reindeer skin), like the Nenets, did not have, they dressed in otter skins (a hint of closed outerwear). One day appeared big water, which flooded all low-lying places in Yamal. The subsoil of the elevated hills-sed became the dwellings of the sirty.
According to another version, the Sirtya “went to the hills” because with the advent of “real people” - the Nenets - the former land turned upside down.Having become underground inhabitants, the Sirtya were henceforth afraid to go out into the daylight, which made their eyes burst. They began to consider the day as night, and the night as day, because only at night could they leave the hills, and even then when everything in the surrounding area was quiet and there were no people.Now there are few orphans left, and they come to the surface less and less often. Only a shaman can determine which hill has Sirtya and which does not.
As L.P. points out. Lashuk (1968), there is undoubtedly a realistic basis in these legends and is confirmed by scientific data, but the legends do not give a specific answer about the ethnicity of the Sirtya.

Lake Peipsi retained in its name the memory of the tribe that participated in Battle on the Ice, but then gradually disappeared from the historical arena.

In the Urals, and in Siberia, and in the north of Russia, and even in Altai, many legends say that an ancient people called “Chud” once lived in these places. Legends about the miracle are most often told in places where Finno-Ugric peoples live or previously lived, so in science it was customary to consider the Finno-Ugric people to be the miracle. But the problem is that the Finno-Ugric peoples, in particular the Komi-Permyaks, themselves tell legends about the Chud, calling the Chud another people.

When people who live here to this day came to these places, the Chud buried itself alive in the ground. This is what one of the legends, recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov region, tells: “...And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the Kama River, this miracle did not want to communicate with them, did not want to be enslaved by Christianity. They dug a large hole, and "Then they cut down the posts and buried themselves. This place is called the Peipsi Coast."

Sometimes it is also said that the Chud “went underground,” and sometimes that it went to live in other places: “We have the Vazhgort tract - the Old Village. Although we call it a village, there are no buildings there. And it is not visible that someone lived there, but the old people claim that ancient, miracle people lived there. For a long time, they say, they lived in that area, but newcomers appeared, they began to oppress the old residents, and they decided: “We have no life, we need to move to other places." They gathered their belongings, they said, took the guys by the hands and said. "Goodbye,

Old village! We won’t be here - and there won’t be anyone!" And they left the village. They go, they say, they’re leaving their homeland and they roar. Every single one of them left. Now it’s empty."

"Wonderful" secrets.

But when she left, the Chud left behind a lot of treasures. These treasures are enchanted, “cherished”: a covenant has been placed on them that only the descendants of the Chud people can find them. Chud spirits in different guises (sometimes in the guise of a hero on a horse, sometimes a hare or a bear) guard these treasures: “Sluda and Shudyakor are Chud places. The heroes lived there, were thrown from village to village with axes. Then they buried themselves in the ground and took the gold with them. they took it away. At the Shudyakorsk settlement there are ingots-pillows hidden, but no one will take them: the warriors on horseback stand guard. Our grandfathers warned us: “Don’t walk past this settlement late at night - the horses will trample you!”

In the text of another ancient entry in the village of Zuikare, Vyatka province, it is written about the “Chudskaya treasure” in the Chudskaya Mountain on the right bank of the Kama. A huge, slightly crooked pine tree grows here, and at a distance from it, about four arshins away, stands a rotten stump up to two meters in diameter. They tried to find this treasure many times, but when they approached it, such a storm arose that the pine trees bent their tops to the ground, and the treasure hunters were forced to abandon their enterprise. However, they say that some treasure hunters still managed to penetrate the secrets of the underground inhabitants, but it cost them very, very dearly. The appearance of the “eccentrics” is so terrible that some treasure hunters, having met them in the dungeons, came out completely insane and could not recover for the rest of their lives. It was even worse for those who came across the bones of a “buried alive” miracle in the Chud graves - the dead, guarding their treasures, suddenly came to life as soon as someone approached their treasures...

In 1924-28, the Roerich family was on an expedition to Central Asia. In the book “The Heart of Asia” Nicholas Roerich writes that in Altai an elderly Old Believer led them to a rocky hill and, pointing out the stone circles of ancient burials, said: “This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight and how the white birch tree bloomed in our land, Chud did not want to stay under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and blocked the passages with stones. You yourself can see their former entrances. But Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give all the people a great science, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures he has obtained." And even earlier, in 1913, Nicholas Roerich wrote a painting on this topic, “The Miracle Has Gone Under the Ground.”

Riddles and more riddles.

In the Urals, stories about miracles in to a greater extent widespread in the Kama region. Legends indicate specific places where the Chud lived, describe their appearance (and they were mostly dark-haired and dark-skinned), customs, and language. Legends have even preserved some words from the Chud language: “Once in the village of Vazhgort a Chud girl appeared - tall, beautiful, broad-shouldered. Her hair was long, black, and not braided. She walks around the village and calls: “Come visit me, I’m cooking dumplings.” !" There were about ten people willing, everyone went after the girl. They went to the Peipus spring, and no one returned home, everyone disappeared somewhere. The next day the same thing happened again. It was not because of their stupidity that people fell for the girl’s bait, but because she had some kind of power. Hypnosis, as they say now. On the third day, the women from this village decided to take revenge on the girl. They boiled several buckets of water, and when the Chud girl entered the village, the women poured boiling water on her. The girl ran to the spring and wailed: “Odege! Odege!" Soon the residents of Vazhgort left their village forever and went to live in other places..."

Odege - what does this word mean? There is no such word in any of the Finno-Ugric languages. What ethnic group was this mysterious miracle?

Since ancient times, ethnographers, linguists, and local historians have tried to solve the mystery of the miracle. There were different versions about who the Chud was. Ethnographers and local historians Fyodor Aleksandrovich Teploukhov and Alexander Fedorovich Teploukhov considered the Ugrians (Khanty and Mansi) to be a miracle, since there are documentary information about the presence of the Ugrians in the Kama region. Linguistic scientist Antonina Semenovna Krivoshchekova-Gantman did not agree with this version, because in the Kama region there are practically no geographical names, deciphered using Ugric languages; she believed that the issue required further study. Kazan professor Ivan Nikolaevich Smirnov believed that the Chud were the Komi-Permyaks before the adoption of Christianity, since some legends say that the Chud are “our ancestors.” Latest version became most widespread, and most ethnographers adhered to this version until recently.

The discovery in the Urals in the 1970-1980s of the ancient Aryan city of Arkaim and the “Land of Cities” of Sintashta somewhat shook the traditional version. Versions began to appear that the Chud were the ancient Aryans (in a narrower sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, and in a broader sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans in general). This version found many supporters among scientists and local historians.

If linguists have previously recognized that there are many “Iranianisms” in the Finno-Ugric languages, then in last years an opinion emerged that the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages have a very large common lexical layer. A version has emerged that the names of the rivers Kama in the Urals and Ganges (Ganges) in India have the same origin. It is not for nothing that in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions) there are geographical names with the root “gang”: Ganga (lake), Gangas (bay, hill), Gangos (mountain, lake), Gangasikha (bay). No wonder the geographical names are Nakar

(Kudymkar, Maykar, Dondykar, Idnakar, Anyushkar, etc.) are in no way decipherable using local Permian languages (Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak). According to legend, in these places there were Chud settlements, and it is here that bronze jewelry and other objects are most often found, conventionally united by the name Perm animal style. And the “Iranian influence” on the art of the Perm animal style itself has always been recognized by experts.

Another people.

It is no secret that there are parallels in the mythology of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian peoples. The legends of the ancient Aryans preserve memories of a semi-mythical ancestral home located somewhere far to the north of India. The Aryans who lived in this country could observe amazing phenomena. There are seven heavenly sages-rishis moving around North Star, which the creator Brahma strengthened in the center of the universe above the World Mountain Meru. Beautiful celestial dancers - apsaras - also live there, shining with all the colors of the rainbow, and the sun rises and shines for six months in a row. The seven rishis are probably the constellation Ursa Major, and the apsaras are the embodiment of the northern lights, which captured the imagination of many peoples. In Estonian myths, the northern lights are heroes who died in battle and live in the sky. In Indian mythology, only magical birds, including the messenger of the gods Garuda, can reach heaven. In Finno-Ugric mythology Milky Way, connecting north and south, was called the Bird Road.

There are similarities directly in the names. For example, the god of the Udmurts is Inmar, among the Indo-Iranians Indra is the god of thunder, Inada is the foremother; in Komi mythology, both the first man and the swamp witch bear the name Yoma; in Indo-Iranian mythology, Iima is also the first man; The name of the god is also consonant with the Finns - Yumala, and among the Mari - Yumo. “Aryan influence” even penetrated the ethnonyms of the Finno-Ugrians: the Tatars and Bashkirs of the Udmurts, their neighbors, call the ethnonym “Ar”.

So who was called a miracle in the Urals? If Aryans, then the question again arises: why was there confusion about who was considered Chud, and why did the ethnonym Chud “stick” specifically and only to the Finno-Ugric peoples? What is the relationship between the Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric peoples? Apparently, here we should remember the opinion of Lev Gumilyov, who believed that a new ethnic group, just like a person, is born from two ethnic parents. Then it becomes clear why the legends call them either “another people” or “our ancestors.”

And yet, what did the miracle girl scream, doused with boiling water? Maybe the word "odege" is in the Indo-Iranian languages? If we open the Sanskrit-Russian dictionary, we will find there a similar sounding word - “udaka”, meaning “water”. Maybe she was trying to run to the Peipus spring, the only place where could she have escaped?