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Chud white-eyed overeating. "White-eyed Chud" or "Zavolochskaya Chud": the mystery of the disappearance of a mysterious tribe! (Video)

Door to the kingdom of Chud

Having opened 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 people living in Russia 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 in the dungeons more than a thousand years ago. However, in Karelia and the Urals, one can still hear eyewitness stories about a meeting with representatives of the Chud. Aleksey Popov, a well-known ethnographer of Karelia, told us about one of such meetings.

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

Of course, the Chud actually existed, and then left. But exactly where is not known. 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, Slovenian, Measure and Krivichi, and the Khazars - from the meadows, northerners, Vyatichi took tribute on a silver coin and a veveritsa (squirrel) from the smoke. It is also known from the chronicles that in 1030 Yaroslav the Wise made a campaign against the Chud "and defeated them, and set up the city of Yuryev." Today it is one of largest cities 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, only the people themselves do not exist, as if they never existed.

What did the monster look like?

According to most researchers, ethnographers and historians, these were creatures that outwardly strongly resembled European gnomes. They lived on the territory of Russia until the moment when the ancestors of the Slavs and Finno-Ugric peoples came here. On modern Urals, for example, there are still legends about unexpected helpers of people - white-eyed low creatures that appear from nowhere and help travelers lost in the forests of the Perm Territory.

You said that the monster went underground...

If we summarize numerous legends, it turns out that the Chud descended into the dugouts, which she herself dug in the ground, and then filled up all the entrances. True, the dugouts could well have been the entrances to the caves. So, it was in the underground caves that this mythical people hid. At the same time, completely break with outside world they most likely failed. So, for example, in the north of the Komi-Permyatsky district, in the Gain region, according to the stories of researchers and hunters, one can still find unusual bottomless wells filled with water. Locals believe that these are wells of ancient people leading to the underworld. They never take water from them.

Are there any known places where the Chud went underground?

Today no one knows the exact places, only numerous versions are known, according to which such places are located in the north of Russia or in the Urals. It is interesting that the epics of the Komi and the Saami equally tell about the departure of the "small people" to the dungeons. If you believe the 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 allegedly contain treasures “sworn” by a miracle.

N. K. Roerich was very interested in the legends about the Chud. In his book “The Heart of Asia,” he directly tells how one Old Believer showed him a rocky hill with the words: “Here the Chud went underground. It was 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 filled up the passages with stones ... ”However, as N. K. Roerich stated in his book, the Chud should return to earth when some teachers from Belovodye come and bring great science to mankind. Allegedly, then the Chud will come out of the dungeons along with all their treasures. The great traveler even dedicated the painting “Chud went underground” to this legend.

Or maybe, by a miracle they understood some other people, whose descendants still live safely in Russia?

There is also such a version. Indeed, the legends about the Chud 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 talked about the Chud as some other people.

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

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

And what, the creation of this mountain is attributed just to miracles?

Archaeologists have long established that the Solovetsky archipelago, centuries before the monks came here, belonged to local residents. In Novgorod, they were just called a miracle, the neighbors called them "sikirtya". The word is curious, because in the translation from the ancient local dialects "skhrt" is the name of a large long mound of an elongated shape. So, a haystack of an elongated shape is directly called a “stack”. It is obvious that the neighbors also called the ancient people Sikirtya for their life in "filled hills" - houses built from improvised means: moss, branches, stones. This version is also confirmed by the ancient Novgorodians - in their chronicles they note that the Sikirts live in caves and do not know iron.

You mentioned mysterious encounters with a Chud in Karelia and the Urals today. Are they real?

To be honest, I, knowing many such stories, have always treated them with a fair amount of skepticism. Until, late in the summer of 2012, an incident occurred that made me believe in real existence in the mountains or underground of this mythical people. Here is how it was. At the end of August, I received a letter with a photograph from an ethnographer who, during the summer months, works as a 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 outlines of a large stone door were guessed. To my question: "What is it?" The tour guide told an amazing story. It turns out that in the summer of 2012, he, along with a group of tourists, sailed past one of the islands of the Kuzov archipelago. The ship was sailing close to the shore, and people looked at the picturesque rocks with pleasure. The guide, at that 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 fixed their gaze on the rock to which the woman was pointing.

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

N. K. Roerich. Chud underground

The Chud tribe is one of the most mysterious phenomena in our country. His story 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 about the full history of its representatives, but quite enough to produce the most incredible stories. Scientists and researchers have tried and are trying to unearth the evidence of that era, to decipher that wonderful world, full of mysteries, which the Chud tribe gave us.

The Chud tribe is sometimes compared to the Mayan tribe. 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 the ancient Russian name of several Finno-Ugric tribes. The very name of the tribe Chud' is also not entirely clear. It is commonly believed among the people that the representatives of these tribes were so named for 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" were not only of the same root, but also had the same meaning. However, in some Finno-Ugric languages, one of the mythological characters was named Chud, which also cannot be discounted.

This tribe, which suddenly disappeared, is mentioned in "", where the chronicler directly tells: " ... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chuds, Ilmen Slovenes, Merya and Krivichi ...". However, everything is not so simple here either. For example, the historian S.M. Solovyov made an assumption that the inhabitants of the Vodskaya valley of the fifth part of the Novgorod Land were called a miracle in the Tale of Bygone Years - Vod. Another mention dates back to 882 and refers to Oleg’s campaign: “ ... went on a campaign and took with him a lot of warriors: Varangians, Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, all the 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 they called a miracle whole line tribes, such as: Ests, Setu (Pskov Chud), Vod, Izhora, Korels, Zavolochye (Zavolochskaya Chud). In Novgorod, there is Chudintseva Street, where noble representatives of this tribe used to live, and in Kyiv - Chudin Dvor. It is also believed that names were formed on behalf of these tribes: the city of Chudovo, Lake Peipsi, the Chud River. In the Vologda Oblast there are villages with the names: Front Chudi, Middle Chudi and Back Chudi. Currently, the descendants of Chud 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 historical, is folklore, in which the tribe appears as Chud White-eyed. Strange epithet " white-eyed“, which the representatives of the Chud were dubbed, is also a mystery. Some believe that the white-eyed monster is from what lives underground, where there is no sunlight, while others believe that in old days gray-eyed or blue-eyed people were called white-eyed. The white-eyed Chud, as a mythological character, is found in the folklore of the Komi and Saami, as well as the Mansi, Siberian Tatars, Altaians and Nenets. In a nutshell, the white-eyed Chud is a lost civilization. Following these beliefs, the legendary white-eyed Chud lived in the north of the European part of Russia and the Urals. In the descriptions of this tribe, descriptions appear as about people of short stature who live in caves and deep underground. In addition, chud, choud, shud - a monster, and meant a giant, often a cannibal giant with white eyes.

One of the legends, which is recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, reads: “ And when other people began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called - Chudskoy shore". The mistress of the copper mountain, the tale of which was told to us by the Russian writer Bazhov P.P., is considered by many to be one of the very Chud.

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

Evidence of missionaries, researchers and travelers has been preserved about Chud earthen settlements. For the first time, A. Schrenk spoke about Sirt in 1837, who discovered the 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 the slope, which since ancient times in Samoyed was called Sirte-sya - “Chudskaya Mountain". I. Lepekhin wrote in 1805: “ The entire Samoyed land in the Mezen district is filled with deserted dwellings 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 furnaces and find fragments of iron, copper and clay household items.". V.N. Chernetsov, who wrote about Chud in his reports of 1935-1957, where he collected many legends. In addition, he discovered Sirtian monuments in Yamal. Thus, the existence of a tribe that actually existed in these places once is documented. The Nenets, whose ancestors witnessed the existence of a mysterious tribe in these places, claim that it went underground (into the hills), but did not disappear. And until now, 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 charmed and, according to legend, only the descendants of the Chud itself can find them. These treasures are guarded by Chud spirits, which 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 find these caches, full of gold and jewels. There are a huge number of legends, tales and tales about daredevils who decided to search for miracle treasures. All, or most of them, end, alas, deplorably for the main characters. Some of them die, others remain crippled, others go crazy, and others go missing in the dungeon or caves.

He writes about the legendary miracle and Roerich in his book The Heart of Asia. There he describes his meeting with the Old Believer in Altai. This man took them to a rocky hill where the stone circles of ancient burials were located 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 how it bloomed White birch in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances for yourself. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures they have obtained". A year earlier (1913) of these events, Nicholas Roerich, being an excellent artist, painted the painting “Chud went underground.” Be that as it may, the mystery of the Chud tribe still remains open. official history in the person of archaeologists, ethnographers, local historians, ordinary tribes are considered a miracle, for example, Ugrians, Khanty, Mansi, who did not differ in anything special and left their habitats due to the arrival of other tribes on their lands. Others consider the Chud White-Eyed - a great people who have the gift of magic and magic, who live deep in caves and underground cities, which from time to time appear on the surface to warn people, warn, punish or protect their treasures, hunters who never will decrease.

« “But somewhere, even now,” says Vasily, “the Lapps believe not in Christ, but in “chud.” There is a high mountain from where they throw deer as a sacrifice to the god. There is a mountain where a noid (sorcerer) lives, and deer are brought to him there. There they are cut with wooden knives, and the skin is hung 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 met such a deer more than once in the mountains. Just like alive! Scary to watch. And it’s even more terrible when in winter fire sparkles in the sky and the abysses of the earth open up, and miracles begin to come out of the graves.«

Article by A.V. Schmidt from the Notes of WOLLE, 1927

Every inhabitant of the Ural region knows about Chudi-white-eyed. The population has firmly strengthened the view that the Chud is a tribe that lived in the Urals and in the Kama region before the arrival of the Russians. When the Russians arrived, the Chud hid in the pits, cut down the pillars on which the covering of these pits was strengthened, and thus buried herself alive. Various gizmos that often come across in the ground are the remains of the property of this Chud.

That's what the masses say. Many educated Uralians, even teachers, take this story as a legend about a real fact and consider the Chud tribe to be the ancient inhabitants of the Urals, who tragically disappeared from the face of the earth when the Russians appeared. This is all the more surprising because most of the stories about Chud are clearly fantastic in nature and are repeated in exactly the same form in areas that are far from each other at a great distance. It is strange that at least these circumstances did not force one to take a more critical view of the legends about Chud. Meanwhile, at present there is an opportunity to prove that not only the legends about the Ural Chud are a folk fiction, but even a people with the name Chud never existed in the Urals. Everything related to Chud may be very interesting for a student of Russian folk literature, but for a historian and archaeologist it has absolutely no meaning.

As a result of this, of course, questions such as whether the Ural Chud are Finns, or Ugrians, or some other people, completely disappear.

I will start my work with the name Chud. Chud is not a Finnish word: it does not occur in any of the modern Finnish languages. As repeatedly pointed out by many prominent linguists, including, for example, the late Academician A.A. Shakhmatov, this name comes from one of Germanic languages, namely Gothic. "Chud" represents the Slavic pronunciation of the Gothic tjuda, which means "people". Of course, this word was often used by the Goths in conversation, which is why the Slavs called the Goths tjuda - Chud, which probably happened in the II-IV centuries AD, when the Goths sat in present-day Ukraine, and the Slavs lived on cf. Vistula, in present-day Poland, were their neighbors. Many of the Finnish tribes, who at that time inhabited large areas of European Russia north of Kyiv, were subordinate to the Goths. It is believed that the Slavs indifferently called both the Goths and the Finns subject to them a miracle, just as not so long ago the Russians equally called Germans both real Germans and Latvians and Estonians subject to them.

In the 5th century along the R. Khr., under the pressure of the ferocious hordes of Hun riders, the Goths moved west, first to Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula, then to Spain and Italy. Thus they left the neighborhood of the Slavs. The Finns remained where they were; the Slavs retained the name Chudi behind them.

By the way, from this word Chud come such Russian words as wonderful, miracle, etc.

Since the 6th-7th centuries, the Slavs have been penetrating the Russian plain and pushing the Finns to the north and northeast. In the VIII-IX centuries, one of the East Slavic tribes, the so-called Ilmen Slavs, landed on the ground in the area where Novgorod the Great was soon founded. The word "Chud" continues to be preserved in their language; Novgorodians call so their neighbors the Finns of the Baltic States, Finland, the shores of Lake Ladoga and Onega, and partly the Northern Dvina basin. These peoples belong to the group of the Finnish tribe, which in science is called the Western Finns. Other Finnish tribes, for example, Meryu, who lived in the 9th century. in the region of Yaroslavl and Vladimir, the neighboring Slavs never called a miracle.

Thus, only the Western Finns were called Chud by the Slavs. This name, judging by the chronicle, was firmly held in the era of the pre-Tatar invasion, i.e. in the X-XIII centuries.

Western Finns never penetrated into the Urals. The northern part of the Perm Kama region, part of the river basin. Vyatka and the river basin. The Vychegdy have been inhabited, at least since the 14th century, and very likely earlier, by Votyaks, Permyaks and Zyryans, belonging to the so-called Germanic group of the Finnish tribe; closer to the Ural Range and in the Kama region south of Chusovaya lived, at least since the 15th century, and possibly earlier, Voguls and Ostyaks belonging to Ugric tribe. Therefore, it remains to be clarified whether the peoples of Perm or Ugric groups. It has already been said that not a single Finnish tribe called itself this word used by the Slavs. But maybe the Russians gave this name to one of the East Finnish tribes mentioned? Let's look in historical documents. Eastern Finnish peoples have been mentioned since the 11th century. In the annals, in various charters, Novgorod, princely, royal, in the life of St. Stephen and some other monuments there are only Ugra, Perm, or simply Perm, Vogulichi, Ostyaks, Votyaks and Zyryans. The last three names appear only in later monuments. There are no other names. Thus, the Russians, when they appeared in the Urals, did not meet any Chud and did not call any of the peoples living at that time by this name.

It turns out, therefore, a definite conclusion: never in the Urals lived a people bearing the name Chud. Where did this word come from in the Urals? From Novgorod. How? We already know that it was applied by the Novgorodians to the Western Finns. Novgorodians in the 9th-10th centuries, in the era of the beginning of Rus', of course, still remembered that the Finns-Chud not long before that were sitting on the plains and hills occupied by the Slavs in the vicinity of Lake Ilmen. Therefore, they, in part quite correctly, attributed to the Chud various copper ornaments and other objects that came across in the ground during arable land. Indeed, many of these gizmos belonged to the Finns. When the Novgorod settlers got into the basin of the river. Dvins, out of old habit, they continued to attribute objects found in the ground to Chud.

Since the 16th century, settlers from the river basin. The Dvins, from Vologda, Totma, Ustyug, Solvychegodsk and other places, began to penetrate into Verkhokamye, to Cherdyn and Solikamsk. In the Kama region, the plow also quite often found various objects. The finders naturally had a question, what people did these things belong to? From their grandfathers, the settlers also firmly learned the habit of considering as miracles any handicrafts of human hands that come across in the ground. It is not surprising that when they got to the Kama River, they also began to call such gizmos Chud, although the people with that name never lived on the Kama, as we already know. The memory of Chud, which was an actual legend on the banks of the Volkhov, has become pure legend on the banks of the Kama. Something similar happened in Germany, where the word "Hunengraber" "graves of the Huns" - the broad masses call the barrows and in places where the Huns never existed.

The attribution of finds in the land to the people of Chud spread beyond the Urals. The settlers from the Kama and Dvina, who were the first Russians who came to Tura and Iset, transferred this name there as well. Then it penetrated into Western Siberia, and then further, up to Baikal. Even in Transbaikalia, finds in the ground are considered Chud. The same in Altai and Southern Urals, up to the Kirghiz steppe.

By the way, such a wide distribution of this name in itself speaks of its legendary character. After all, it would not seriously occur to anyone that from Baltic Sea before the Amur there once lived one people.

Thus, the name Chud penetrated the Urals (and beyond) thanks to emigration from the Novgorod land. The habit of attributing to Chud all sorts of finds in the earth is brought from there. In the belief about the existence of Chud, there is no recollection of the real past of the Urals or Siberia.

Not Chud sat in the Urals and Kama in prehistoric times, but various peoples; of these, the Permyaks, Voguls and Ostyaks, as well as the Bashkirs, were the immediate predecessors of the Russians, while we can only guess about the others, and then with a very small degree of certainty.

The prehistoric antiquities of the Urals and adjacent regions belong to epochs that in their totality lasted about four thousand years. There can be no doubt that such for a long time many peoples have changed in this territory. The presence of a number of prehistoric cultures and the sharp difference between them definitely speak in favor of this. Therefore, I can in no way agree with the conclusion of A.F. Teploukhov, who, in his very interesting and informative work (“Notes of Uole”, vol. XXXIX, 1924), seems to want to consider all Permian prehistoric things to be Ugric. Among these objects there are Ugric ones - in this I completely agree with A.F.T. - but along with them, there are undoubtedly ancient Permyak ones. In general, the question of the belonging of certain antiquities to certain peoples is very complicated. IN present work I will confine myself to indicating that objects of the XI-XIV centuries. from b. Solikamsk, Cherdyn and the northern part of the Perm counties, apparently, ancient Permyak; things of the 6th-8th centuries from the same territory are probably Ugric; it is still difficult to say about the belonging of objects of the 9th-10th centuries. Then there can be no doubt that many cultural remains belong to peoples completely unknown to us (for example, the remains of the Bronze Age).

Now it remains to analyze individual legends about Chud. There are very few of them; three of them are repeated with languid uniformity throughout the Pre- and Trans-Urals.

The first legend describes Chud as a small people. Eccentrics seemed to be much smaller in height modern people. This story is explained very simply: various iron and bronze prehistoric axes, knives, and other objects are often much smaller in size than they correspond to modern ones. One peasant woman in the village of Vakina b. Timinsky volost b. Solikamsk district, she definitely told me that Chud axes, knives, and other small tools were often found on the arable land near Vakina. “It is clear that Chud was a small people,” she concluded her story.

Another legend tells of throwing copper and iron axes from one mountain to another. This story is confined to very many hills, sometimes separated from one another by a distance of up to ten miles. Chud, according to this legend, had only one hatchet for all the Chudins who lived in different mountains. If necessary, this single ax moved from one hill to another.

The basis for this legend is the finds of axes (or other items: sometimes they talk about throwing copper spoons, etc.) in various neighboring elevated places, as I was able to verify, for example, in relation to the villages of Galkina and Turbina (on the Kama, to north of Perm), about which there is also a similar legend. This legend is of such interest to the archaeologist that he can sometimes determine the places of finds of prehistoric objects from it.

Now it remains for us to analyze the most famous legend, namely the legend of the death of Chud. It is repeated in almost the same form both in the Urals and in the Trans-Urals, and has been recorded countless times. I will repeat its detailed content.

Once a Jew in the region, the people of Chud. When the Russians first appeared and the bells rang, Chud was worried. She did not want to accept Orthodoxy, to live under Russian rule. Then she, with all her property, retired to the forests and dug underground shelters for herself, the covering of which was strengthened on poles. When the Russians penetrated deep into the forests, Chud cut down the poles. The roof, covered with earth from above, collapsed and buried Chud and all her goodness, also carried away to the dugout. According to the peasant masses, various items that come across in the ground, and are the remnants of this good.

How was this legend created? To explain this, I think, is not so difficult. Obviously, the story was formed under the influence of some finds that allowed the possibility of the stated interpretation. There is nothing suitable in the Kama region. The same is true in parts of the Trans-Urals immediately adjacent to the ridge. More interesting for us are the plains Western Siberia. They abound in mounds. Starting from the lower reaches of the Iset and Tobol, endless groups of mounds stretch far to the east. Many of these mounds were built in the following way. Thick pillars placed in a semicircle or quadrangle are strengthened on the surface of the earth. The pillars support the rolling of logs or poles. In the center there is sometimes the same post for better support of the cover. The deceased is placed on the surface of the earth. Grave inventory, sometimes very rich, is placed next to it. From above, the entire structure is covered with earth. Mounds of this type were discovered, for example, by the Finnish scientist Geykel in the Tyumen-Yalutorovsk region.

In the second half of the 17th century, Russian settlers began to intensively dig out these mounds, locally called “hillocks”. The diggers, as the diggers were called, were looking for precious metals in the mounds, products from which were found quite often in them. These excavations began from the mounds of the lower Iset and Tobol, and then they spread to the Ishim-Tara-Omsk region.

The picture of the skeleton with rich decorations, pillars, and rolling, which often collapsed from the weight of the thrown earth, obviously, created the well-known legend about self-burial.

Not understanding what is unusual for them funeral rite, leaving whole wealth along with the deceased, Russian diggers explained in their own way the burial mounds.

The legend could have arisen only in the Tobol-Irtysh basin, because burials of this type are not found either in the Kama basin, or in general in central or northern Russia.

True, similar or similar burials are known in Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, in the Kirghiz steppe, but these areas are too far from the Urals. In addition, Russian settlers, at least some of them penetrated only in the XVIII century and even later. Therefore, it is not surprising if we meet one of the first mentions of the legend of Chud's self-burial in a work compiled in Western Siberia, namely in the work of the monk Gr. Novitsky " Short description about the Ostyak people”, written in 1715 in Tobolsk.

Once created, the legend was, of course, associated with the Chud, to which, as we know, all the finds in general were attributed - the products of human hands, and began to spread everywhere. It penetrated the Urals, the Kama, even the Dvina, following the same Siberian-Moscow route, through Verkhoturye - Solikamsk - Ustyug - Vologda, along which the settlers moved and in general all communications went on.

This is how this dramatic legend appears to me. I would also like to say a few words about the stories of certain natives, Permyaks and Votyaks, about their origin from Chud.

First of all, these are rather rare stories. Most likely, they do not belong to the natives themselves at all, but simply arose as a result of some thoughtlessness of researchers who did not know the native languages. Let us suppose, however, that they are recorded from the words of the natives. But even in this case, there is no reason to consider them as primordial native traditions. The legends about Chud penetrated to the natives from the Russians in the same way as fragments of Christian ideas and legends, as the Slavic pagan idea of the creature Poleznitsa - Poludnitsa, living in rye, which is told, for example, by the Zyryans, and like many other elements of Russian spiritual culture. In these stories we have best case the same processing of Russian folk tales, as, for example, in some Vogul myths told by N.L. Gondatti.

Let me summarize my findings:

1) The people of Chud never lived in the Urals.

2) The word Chud was absent from the Finns at the time of their contact with the Slavs. Among the latter, it has been known for a long time and borrowed from the Goths.

3) Ideas about Chud penetrated the Urals along with settlers from the Novgorod region.

4) Chud in the Urals is a legendary people to whom the antiquities of all eras found in the earth are attributed.

5) The legend of self-burial was created on the Tobol, or in general in Western Siberia, in the second half of the 17th century.

6) The prehistoric antiquities of the Urals belong to various peoples who have succeeded each other for many millennia.

Historians and folklorists have long argued about the unusual and mysterious people, "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 bonds with the Russian people, mysteriously disappears, and its traces are lost in the Altai mountains.

The following is an attempt to penetrate the mystery of this amazing people. The famous Russian artist, scientist and writer N.K. Roerich in the book "The Heart of Asia" tells about a legend widespread in Altai. The legend tells that once lived in the coniferous forests of Altai, the people were called Chud. Tall, stately, knowing the secret science of the earth. But then a birch began to grow in those places, which meant , according to an ancient prediction, the swarthy people and their kagan will soon come here, who will establish their own order. People dug holes, put up racks, piled stones on top. They went into shelters, tore out the racks and covered themselves 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 did not dig in, but went through secret dungeons to an unknown country. "Only Chud did not 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 hidden treasures."

“In the legend,” writes artist L.R. Tsesyulevich, researcher of N.K. In this regard, the legend of Chudi echoes the legend of the hidden country of Belovodie and the legend of the underground city of the Agharti people, common in India.

Such legends are also very widespread in the Urals, which is, as it were, a link between the northwestern part of our country and Altai, where legends about Chud also existed.

It can be seen that the legends associated with the places of Chud - mounds and settlements, underground caves and passages - having arisen in the north-west of Rus', then moved, following the Russian settlers, first to the Urals, and then to the Altai. This strip crosses the Urals, mainly through the Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions.

In different variations, the legend of Chud in the Urals tells that some people lived here, familiar with the "secret power". But then a swarthy birch began to grow in these places, then Chud dug caves, fixed the roof on pillars, poured earth and stones on top. All gathered in these dwellings with property and, having cut down the pillars, buried herself alive underground.

Some legends even tell about the real contacts of the early settlers with the "messengers" of Chud - the "Wonder Maidens". They say that before going underground, Chud left a “girl” for observation, so that she would guard treasures and jewelry, but she showed everything to dark-skinned people, and then the “old people” hid all the gold and metals.

This legend surprisingly resonates with the legend cited by Nicholas Roerich in the book “The Heart of Asia”: “A woman came out of the dungeon. Tall in height, slender in body, she walked among the people - she created help, and then went back to the dungeon. She also came from a holy country.”

The interaction of the "messengers" of Chud with the settlers was not limited only to waking contacts, the legend also recorded completely unusual contacts and influences through dreams. So the Sverdlovsk researcher A. Malakhov, in one of his articles, published in the "Ural Pathfinder" for 1979, cites a bright and beautiful legend about the miraculous woman ruler: “Once Tatishchev, the founder of Yekaterinburg, dreamed a strange dream. A woman of unusual appearance and marvelous beauty appeared to him. She was dressed in a linen dress, 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 won’t rest in either this or this world if you disturb their ashes or take expensive armor. I, Princess Anna of Chudskaya, 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 burial. Only the tops of the barrows were unearthed...

Along with data on Chud's contacts with settlers, the legends contain quite clear and distinct characteristics. appearance and the spiritual appearance of "eccentrics", so that the features of a real people appear before us.

In one of the first stories by P.P. Bazhov, "Dear Name", Chud - or "old people" - this is a tall beautiful people living in the mountains, in unusually beautiful dwellings built inside the mountains, living almost imperceptibly to others. These people do not know self-interest, they are indifferent to gold. When people appear in the deaf places of their habitat, they leave by underground passages, "closing the mountain."

Ural ore miners report that almost all the ore deposits on which the Demidovs built their factories were indicated by Chud overburden marks, 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. People, coming to new places, usually find themselves in a kind of weightlessness - the absence of an oriented living space. This did not happen with the settlers in the Urals. Someone gave the mountains, rivers, lakes, tracts, mounds amazingly accurate names. It was as if a spiritual vector was laid in them, which later materialized brilliantly. And it was not for nothing that the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras believed that “anyone who wants to, but who sees the mind and essence of things, cannot form names.” Moreover, the Chud places themselves have become a kind of “magnets”. near the huge barrow, the city of Kurgan arose. And how exactly, and no matter how accidentally, cities and villages stand where they need to: at communication nodes, near mineral deposits, surrounded by beautiful nature. Here, Orenburg was somewhat unlucky at first. put in the places indicated by the Germans, had to be rearranged several times.

How many centuries ago Chud lived in the Urals and where did she go to her underground cities- unknown. It is possible that they lived here as early as the time of the ancient Greeks. So famous ancient greek myth tells about the Hyperboreans, who lived somewhere beyond the Riphean (Ural) mountains. This people lived happy life: he did not know strife and disease, death came to people only from satiety with life. Here is what the ancient Greek writer Lucian, who was skeptical of everything unusual, tells about a 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 he was defeated, although he resisted for a long time. And what, in fact, was I to do when, before my eyes, during the day, a man was rushing through the air, treading on the water, and slowly walking through the fire?

Where did Chud go? Not in those underground cities with which N.K. Roerich connects the life of the wise and beautiful inhabitants of Agarta, and about whom the Ural workers told the Chelyabinsk writer S.K. It is as if manholes lurk between them, sometimes wide, like the Kungur pits, these earthly failures, sometimes thin, like golden threads. They also say that once in ancient times it was not difficult to go from cave to cave - there was a tortuous road. True, it is not known who tormented her - whether people, strangely unknown, or devilry... Only in our time, people, penetrating into those caves and those passages where you can go, find many traces: where the house is set, where the amethyst stone lies, and where the footprint of a human is imprinted ... "

In the Perm region, there are similar legends about the Chud heroes who sleep in underground caves under Ural mountains before the appointed hour. Likewise, the Para-bogatyr guards the Chud riches. The Ural land keeps many still unsolved miraculous secrets, but, as Bazhov P.P. predicted, the time will come when these secrets will be revealed, and, gifted with hidden treasures for the time being, people will live a bright, happy life: "There will be such a time in our side when there are no merchants, not even a tsar, even the rank remains. Then, in our side, people will become big and healthy. One such person will come to Azov-mountain and loudly say "dear little name" like that, and then a miracle will come out of the ground with all the treasures human."

Chudovin m. weirdo and. and weirdo, weirdo and. a strange, peculiar person, doing everything not like a human being, but in his own way, contrary to general opinion and custom. Eccentrics do not look at what people say, but do what they consider useful. Eccentric dead man: died on Tuesday, buried on Wednesday - and he looks out the window(and he went to harrow)!

|| Eccentric and eccentrics, sib. chud (i.e. strange and alien) and. collected a savage people who, according to legend, lived in Siberia, and left behind only one memory in mounds (barrows, graves); frightened by Yermak and the white birch that suddenly appeared with him, a sign of the power of the white tsar, the weirdos or eccentrics dug digs, went there with all the good, cut down the racks and died.

|| Chud is generally a wonderful, Finnish tribe, especially eastern (strangers), and is often spoken abusively. Wonder white-eyed! The monster has gone to the ground. Chud buried alive, Chud disappeared underground.

from Dahl's dictionary

Legend of Chud

In the Urals, they say that there is nothing older than barrow birches. And their story is like this.

From time immemorial, old people lived in the Urals - they were called a miracle. They dug underground, smelted iron. They huddled in the dark, they were afraid of sunlight. And their faces were on their chests. And then the miracles began to notice that a white tree had come to their land, neither their grandfathers nor great-grandfathers had ever seen anything like this. Disturbing rumors were passed from mouth to mouth: where there is a white tree, there a white man. We used to hear about such people living where the sun sets. And the birch trees keep advancing and advancing on the black forest ... “You need to leave,” the young monsters said.

“We will die where our fathers and grandfathers died,” objected the old and the elderly.

And so the miracles hid in their dwellings, underground burrows; the piles that held up the earthen ceilings were cut and buried alive. They were gone in the Urals. And on the site of dwellings mounds were formed. And old, old birch trees grow on them.

Alexander Lazarev

Legendary "fights for faith" with a miracle

“The first, legendary “fights for faith” with a miracle, with Dyy / Div, are described in the “Kolyada Book”. Well, I didn’t have to Dy / Div to my heart brother Svarog (spiritual god, like the sky). And then the heavenly army, led by Svarog, fought with the army of Dy - "divine people" and a miracle. Svarog won the victory by imprisoning the "divine people" under the Ural Mountains. Dyy himself was turned into the Great Poloz, the lord of the gold of the Ural Mountains. Since then, the kingdom of Dyya, along with all the palaces and temples, has gone underground. And only sometimes you can hear their bells ringing underground. This captivity has been going on for 27 thousand years...

... “They say that once a century there is a night when the earth opens up not far from Mount Taganay and the city of “divine people” appears. On this night, the "Divya people" arrange a big holiday, and on the same night you can hear predictions of the future from them, because they are great astrologers and they can predict a lot.

O.R. Hoffman “Russian Atlanta. Russia - the cradle of civilizations?

Chud white-eyed

Historians and folklorists have long argued about an unusual and mysterious people, the 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 bonds with the Russian people, mysteriously disappears, and its traces are lost in the Altai mountains.

Below is an attempt to penetrate the secret of this amazing people. The famous Russian artist, scientist and writer N.K. Roerich in the book "Heart of Asia" tells about the legend, widespread in Altai. The legend tells that once lived in the coniferous forests of Altai people from dark color skin. It was called a miracle. Tall, stately, knowing the secret science of the earth. But then a white birch began to grow in those places, which, according to an ancient prediction, meant the imminent arrival of the white people and their king, who would establish his own order. People dug holes, put up racks, piled stones on top. We went into shelters, pulled out racks and covered ourselves 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 dig in, but went through secret dungeons to 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 that have been mined.”

In the legend, - writes artist L.R. Tsesyulevich, researcher of N.K. In this regard, the legend of Chudi echoes the legend of the hidden country Belovodie and the legend of the underground city of the Agharti people, common in India.

Such legends are also very widespread in the Urals, which is, as it were, a link between the northwestern part of our country and Altai, where legends about Chud also existed.

In different variations, the legend of the Chud in the Urals tells that some dark-skinned people lived here, familiar with the "secret power". But then a white birch began to grow in these places, then Chud dug caves, fixed the roof on pillars, poured earth and stones on top. All gathered in these dwellings with property and, having cut down the pillars, buried herself alive underground.

Some legends even tell about the real contacts of the early settlers with the "messengers" of Chud - the "Wonder 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 resonates with the legend cited by Nicholas Roerich in the book “The Heart of Asia”: “A woman came out of the dungeon. She is tall, her face is strict and darker than ours. She walked among the people - she created help, and then she went back to the dungeon. She also came from a holy country.”

The interaction of the "messengers" of Chud with the settlers was not limited only to waking contacts, the legend also recorded completely unusual contacts and influences through dreams. Thus, the Sverdlovsk researcher A. Malakhov, in one of his articles published in the Ural Pathfinder in 1979, cites a vivid and beautiful legend about a Chud woman ruler: “Once Tatishchev, the founder of Yekaterinburg, had a strange dream. A woman of unusual appearance and marvelous beauty appeared to him. She 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 not rest in either this or this world if you disturb their ashes or take expensive armor. I am Princess Anna of Chudskaya, 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 burial. Only the tops of the barrows were unearthed...

Along with data on Chud's contacts with settlers, the legends contain quite clear and clear 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 "Dear name" - Chud or "old people" is a tall beautiful people living in the mountains, in unusually beautiful dwellings built inside the mountains, living almost imperceptibly to others. These people do not know self-interest, they are indifferent to gold. When people appear in the deaf places of their habitat, they leave by underground passages, "closing the mountain."

The Ural ore miners 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. People, coming to new places, usually find themselves in a kind of weightlessness - the absence of an oriented living space. This did not happen with the settlers in the Urals. Someone gave the mountains, rivers, lakes, tracts, mounds amazingly accurate names. It was as if a spiritual vector was laid in them, which later materialized brilliantly. And it was not for nothing that the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras believed that “anyone who wants to, but who sees the mind and essence of things, cannot form names.” Moreover, the Chud places themselves have become a kind of “magnets”. The city of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk stands on the Chud mounds, the city of Kurgan arose next to the huge mound. And how exactly and no matter how accidentally cities and villages stand, where they need to be: at 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, 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 as early as the time of the ancient Greeks. So, the famous ancient Greek myth tells about the Hyperboreans, who lived somewhere beyond the Riphean (Ural) mountains. This people lived a happy life: they did not know strife and disease, death came to people only from satiety with life. Here is what the ancient Greek writer Lucian, who was skeptical of everything unusual, tells about a 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 was left for me to do when, in front of my eyes during the day, a person rushed through the air, stepped on the water and slowly walked through the fire?

Where did Chud go? Not in those underground cities with which N.K. Roerich connects the life of the wise and beautiful inhabitants of Agarta and about whom the Ural workers told the Chelyabinsk writer S.K. It is as if manholes lurk between them, sometimes wide, like the Kungur pits, these earthly failures, sometimes thin, like golden threads. They also say that once in ancient times it was not difficult to go from cave to cave - there was a tortuous road. True, who tore it is unknown - whether a man, an unknown miracle, or an evil spirit ... Only in our time, people, penetrating into those caves and those passages where you can go, find many traces: where the house is set, where the amethyst stone lies , and where the footprint of a human was imprinted ... "

In the Perm region, there are similar legends about the Chud heroes who sleep in underground caves under the Ural Mountains until the appointed hour. Likewise, the Para-bogatyr guards the Chud riches. The Ural land keeps many still unsolved miraculous secrets, but as Bazhov P.P. predicted, the time will come when these secrets will be revealed, and, gifted with hidden treasures for the time being, people will live a bright happy life: “There will be such a time in our side when no merchants, no king, even the title will not remain. That's when people in our side will become big and healthy. One such person will come to the Azov-mountain and loudly say “dear name”, and then a miracle will come out of the ground with all human treasures.

V.V. Sobolev