Interesting facts about the Zhiguli Mountains. Scientific work of the Lada legend. List of used literature

Scenario for the extracurricular activity “Legends were Zhiguli”

The song “From afar the Volga River flows for a long time” sounds

Like the Mother Volga, the river-nurse-

All the ships with goods, the plows and the boats, -

And I didn’t strain myself, and I didn’t get tired:

The burden is not heavy - we have our own ships.

Swimming down the Volga,

I pass the rapids

And I look at the gentle banks on the right:

There the reeds are moving,

It breaks across -

To the right - the shore spreads,

On the left - rising.

The Volga River flows for a long time from afar. The only mountains that the Volga encounters on its way are the Zhigulevskie. Bypassing them, she makes a loop-bend. This is how the Samara Luka was formed - the Volga region miracle of the world, with a rich history, unique historical and cultural heritage, folk tales, legends and traditions in which you can find answers to eternal questions - who we are, where we are from, where we are going.

Lada, Lada!..

And - again in front of me

Raised to the clouds

Mountains forest centuries-old.

Eyes glide on horseback -
From rock to rock
Where only clouds float
Let the eagles fly.

They love the spaciousness of the Volga -
White surface,
Green mountains
Beauty is grace.

Here stands before them
Behind the mound is a mound,
Where (people talking)
"Stepan thought about the Duma"

Where is the extrajudicial judge
Razin ruled his court,
Where about the will of the native
The storms sing a song...

The song “Because of the island to the core” is playing

As it is sung in the song “Because of the Island to the Rod,” Stepan Razin captivated a beautiful princess during one of his campaigns in Persia and, going up the Volga, played a wedding here. But the next morning the ataman’s comrades grumbled, accusing their friends of betraying their free life. And then Stepan Razin ordered to throw the princess into the waters to begin a new feast, in honor of her former free life. And the brave freemen fell silent... They say that this legend is a reality, and the Dutch traveler Jan Streis witnessed this story, who reflected it in his notes.

It is also assumed that the Stenka Rakhin cliff, which is sung about in the song “There is a cliff on the Volga,” is the Molodetsky Kurgan. It is believed that here and on Mount Strelnaya there were Razin sites, and the ataman’s treasures are still kept in the caves and secret dungeons of the Zhiguli.

The song “There is a cliff on the Volga” sounds

There is such a legend:

The good fellow Ivan fell in love with the girl Grunya, the daughter of a rich merchant from the village of Usolye. Yes, only the girl’s father was against the wedding. And then Ivan went to Stenka Razin and soon received the surname Molodtsov from the ataman for his exploits. And then he sent a message to Grune in Usolye. Grunya left her father’s house, and a day later she rode to him on a black horse. But Grunya’s father led the tsar’s troops along secret mountain paths, and the Razins were defeated. Ivan climbed a high mound and saw that he was surrounded. He said goodbye to Grunya and rushed into the Volga. And here is the father with the soldiers. The girl saw them, ran up the next hill and also threw herself off the cliff. Since then, the mound has been called Molodetsky, and the small hill pressed against the mound is called Devya Mountain.

There is another version of the origin of this name. On one of the old maps, the territory of the Zhiguli Mountains is called the Amazon, and the mountains themselves were once called the Devye Mountains. Isn’t it where the warlike Amazons lived, whose fascinating myths excited the ancient Greeks?

Here the heel of the Maiden Mountain has fallen and is washed in the swell of the flood, And above, above the stone edge of the ridge, only golden eagles turn black like dots And the pine mane whispers. Music is playing. Girls perform a dance.

On the left bank of the Volga, not far from the confluence of the Sok River, stands Tsarev Kurgan, which was once quite high. How did this mound come into being?

Once upon a time, in an unknown time,
The king walked along the Volga with a countless horde;
And it happened to the horde of that ruler
Arrange your vacation at Zhiguli.

The coast was low and stuffy in the hot summer.
To see the vast camp and the river,
The king ordered his obedient horde
Bring a hat full of sand.

The mound grew noticeable from afar;
A tent was pitched on it then.
The king rested with his countless horde,
Then he left who knows where.

Centuries have passed. On the Volga to this day
That mound is intact, another example:
What power lies in human strength,
Guided by the will of one.

The song “Zhiguli Sufferings” is playing

There is a protected place in the Zhiguli Mountains called the Stone Bowl. Here is the source of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Many legends are associated with it.

That was a long time ago. In the first centuries of Christianity. Freedom-loving farmers lived in a small settlement on the site of the village of Shiryaevo. There was a Church in the village in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. A priest served in the temple and had an assistant - a boy sexton. They served well. But the Tatar horde swooped in, swept everything out of the way, destroyed churches, killed people. The priest took the most precious thing from the temple, went into the mountains with the novice and hid the liturgical vessels in a cave, and a year later they returned to the village, the Tatars seized them and began to torture them. Father died. Without giving away the secret. The boy became afraid, his foolish heart trembled, and he led the enemies to the treasured place. The Khan's leader grabbed the Chalice with unclean hands and wanted to throw it to the ground. But it was not there. The Chalice was freed from the enemy’s hands and rose high into the sky. And at this place a miraculous spring began to flow.

Green mountains!.. Here, every hillock has a special name - Deaf ravines, mountain crevices Have been keeping moss-covered legends since time immemorial. Today we told you a small part of these legends. Remember. What are these legends about our Motherland?

We often “Motherland”, meaning a large country. But there is another Motherland - with the quiet dawns of the Volga banks, with the peaks of the Zhiguli mountains in a foggy haze. A place where the Volga River flows from afar for a long time.

And it is this Motherland that is remembered in the distance, it is to it that thoughts return, it is to it that the heart is drawn.

The song “From afar - the Volga River flows for a long time” sounds

The production uses poems by Vladimir Vysotsky, Apollo of Corinth, Alexander Navrotsky, Dmitry Sadovnikov.

Located in the Middle Volga, the bend of the great Russian river, the northern part of which is occupied by the Zhiguli Mountains, is considered by ufologists around the world to be one of the points on the map of Russia, where unusual and in many ways mysterious processes manifest themselves tens of times more often than in other areas of the planet. However, among the old-timers of this region, various kinds of secrets no longer cause surprise.

Local tales and epics abound with the most incredible miracles, and it is not surprising that Samara researchers of their native language began recording them back in the 19th century. At the same time, folklorists even then noted that although some of the Zhiguli folk legends have something in common with the Ural, Bashkir, Mordovian and Tatar tales, most of them have no analogues in the oral folk art of the peoples of all European Russia.

Particularly interesting is the collective character from these legends - the so-called UNDERGROUND ELDERS. According to legends, this is a mysterious caste of hermits who live in caves unknown to the human eye and have hidden knowledge, as well as amazing abilities. Outwardly, they look like handsome gray-haired old men who can unexpectedly appear and disappear right before the eyes of a lonely traveler. There is information that legends about the same elders can be found not only in Zhiguli, but also in a number of other places in Russia, which are among the so-called “geographical points with increased anomaly.”

According to many testimonies, underground elders from different regions of our country constantly communicate with each other. This is how, for example, these mysterious underground hermits are described in the novel by P.I. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky) “In the forests”: “The Kirillov Mountains part... Leopard-shaped elders come out, bow to the navigators at the waist, ask to take their bow, kiss in absentia to the brothers of the Zhiguli Mountains...” It is worth adding that the Kirillov Mountains are located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, near the holy LAKE SVETLOYAR, which is also considered one of the most pronounced anomalous zones in Russia.

In all legends, mysterious elders act as guardians of peace in the area under their care. At the same time, hermits strive to preserve the local nature intact, and sometimes come to the aid of victims of attacks by robbers or unjustly offended people. However, it also happens that the elders go “to the people” to convey some important information, in their opinion. These are not necessarily predictions about some great and tragic events, although there is evidence that, for example, they informed people about the coming First and Second World Wars. Sometimes elders provide the world with very “ordinary” information, usually of a moral or even environmental nature.
There is one interesting fact that can also be compared with reports of underground hermits. In the guidebook of the Kuibyshev author A. Sobolev “Zhigulevskaya Around the World”, published back in 1965, there are the following lines: “In the area of the village of Perevoloki, at the end of the 19th century, caves were discovered, the entrances to which had the semblance of doors. Caves with windows, niches in the walls, and a vaulted ceiling.

Scientists from the Samara non-governmental research organization “Avesta” have been studying anomalous phenomena that are regularly observed in the vicinity of the Zhiguli Mountains for about three decades. Strange as it may seem, researchers regularly find an explanation for such phenomena in... local folklore.

How did Samara Luka come into being?

By now, Avesta scientists have already collected a lot of evidence for the original hypothesis, the essence of which is as follows. The steep bend, located in the middle reaches of the Volga and called the Samara Luka, owes its appearance to... the engineering activity of an alien intelligence.

Here is what the president of Avesta, engineer Igor Pavlovich, says about this:
– Have you ever thought about such a geographical riddle: why did the Volga River, in its middle course, suddenly need to go around the small (only about a hundred kilometers long) Zhiguli mountain range? It would seem that, in accordance with the laws of physics, river waters, instead of creating this kind of “loops,” should shorten their path and head east of the Zhiguli, along the places where the bed of the Usa River now passes. But no - this mountain range, tiny by geographical standards, composed of soft limestones and dolomites, has been demonstrating unprecedented resistance to the Volga waters flowing into it every second for millions of years now...

The Avestans suggest that in the depths of the Zhiguli Mountains, at great depths, a certain technical device, at one time created by an ancient supercivilization, has been working for many millions of years. This device creates a kind of force field around itself, which precisely prevents the flow of water flows through the mountain range. That is why the Volga, throughout all these millions of years, has been forced to go around the Zhiguli Mountains, making a strange bend in the form of a semicircle in its middle course, which is now called the Samara Luka.

Most likely, this hypothetical geomachine is a kind of cluster of force fields - electromagnetic, gravitational, biological or others not yet known to us. It is these fields that have been helping the Zhiguli limestones (which, as is known, are very susceptible to erosion by water) for more than ten million years, keep the ancient river bed in a stable position, preventing even a slight displacement.

The question arises: why does a hypothetical extraterrestrial civilization need all this? Apparently, in order for the underground energy complex to operate uninterruptedly for millions of years, feeding the extra-spatial channel connecting their world with the earth's surface. Such a channel can play the role of a kind of television camera through which a distant civilization sees everything that happens on our planet. Proof of this is the strange mirages that are regularly observed in the sky over Samara Luka, as well as over some other points on our planet.

Geological confirmation

Igor Pavlovich’s words are commented on by Sergei Markelov, associate professor of Samara Aerospace University, candidate of technical sciences, analyst of the Avesta group.

– While reading in one of the scientific collections published by Moscow State University in 1962, an article about the geological structure of the Volga-Ural region, I discovered a strange diagram in it. It depicted a cross-section of the earth's layers in the Samara Luka area, which turned out to be very similar to the contours of... a giant capacitor! Everyone can easily remember from a school physics course how this electrical device works: an electric charge accumulates between parallel metal plates, and its magnitude is limited only by the breakdown strength of the gasket between the plates.

In the earth's crust under Samarskaya Luka, the role of such plates is played by parallel electrically conductive layers, between which there are limestones and dolomites. The dimensions of this capacitor are amazing - its length is about 70 kilometers! In fact, here we see the material embodiment of the same energy geomachine that Igor Pavlovich spoke about above.

As calculations show, between the plates of the “Zhiguli capacitor” it can
an electric field with gigantic intensity parameters exists for a long time. If necessary, the electric charge can be easily used for a variety of purposes. By the way, as can be seen from the design of this gigantic “device”, not a single sensor located outside the “storage* will be able to show the presence of electricity deep in the earth’s crust in this area.

Geological data suggest that the very existence of such a colossal underground capacitor is a unique phenomenon in the crust of our planet. None of the venerable geologists has ever encountered such a structure of earth layers. One can, of course, talk about the natural origin of this unique geological object, but with equal probability one can talk about the role of an unknown mind in its emergence.

According to the hypothesis put forward, the activity of a hypothetical underground geomachine in the Zhiguli Mountains region, apparently, causes mysterious phenomena in these places - chronomirages. Local peasants observed ghostly cities, castles in the air and flying islands in the skies hundreds of years ago, and during this time numerous epics and legends were based on them. Here is one such description, from the Avesta collection:

“A certain luminous square suddenly appeared on the clouds, and inside it appeared an image of a stepped pyramid. She stood on some kind of plateau that dropped steeply down. Below the mountain there was a valley crossed by a river. In this case, the line of sight was inclined to the valley plane by approximately 15 degrees. The impression was that the valley, river and pyramid were observed from an airplane flying at an altitude of 8-10 kilometers.”

The most famous of these phenomena is the mirage of the Peaceful City, which is most often reported by tourists vacationing near the Molodetsky and Usinsky mounds. Other ghosts from the same series are the Fortress of Five Moons, the White Church, Fata Morgana and others. These anomalies are sometimes observed among the vast lake labyrinths that stretch between the villages of Mordovo and Brusyany, in the very south of Samara Luka. According to observers, here at dawn a ghostly city can suddenly appear in front of an astonished traveler, only to disappear again after a minute or two.

Traces of a Vanished People

By all indications, the hypothetical alien intelligence in its activities on our planet relied on a certain terrestrial civilization, which, in exchange for cooperation, received from the aliens technical knowledge incredible at that time and unprecedented materials, traces of which archaeologists regularly find in the most unexpected places. What exactly this cooperation was and why extraterrestrial intelligence needed it, researchers have yet to unravel.

However, the aliens, as it turns out, were not always able to help their earthly partners. Thus, from ancient legends it follows that the peninsula of Samara Luka, surrounded by water on almost all sides, several thousand years ago became the last stronghold of a certain great race of fire worshipers. Pressed by hostile tribes, these people eventually reached the Zhiguli mountain range, where they were able to reliably hide from persecution in inaccessible caves and mountain gorges. The strange underground people, references to which can be found in Zhiguli legends and traditions, apparently represented the remnants of that same great ancient race, which for thousands of years faithfully served the alien intelligence.

Information about a mysterious civilization, very developed for its time and completely unexpectedly disappeared from the face of the earth, is quite consistent with the existence in the Southern Urals, on the territory of the modern Chelyabinsk region, of the hypothetical city of Arkaim, which, apparently, was the largest cultural and economic center of this ancient people . For example, the Arkaim people knew metallurgical production well thousands of years ago, which indicates a high level of their knowledge.

According to archaeological data, in the second millennium BC, Arkaim, for a still unknown reason, literally ceased to exist in one day. Following this, the mysterious civilization that gave birth to it very quickly disappeared from the vastness of the East European Plain. It is the remnants of these fire-worshipping tribes that are believed to have taken refuge in the caves of Samarskaya Luka in order to subsequently found that same underground race here. However, this is again just a hypothesis.

Mount Strelnaya - the highest point of Zhiguli

The Volga is "boiling"

How did Samara Luka come into being?

Here is what the president of Avesta, engineer Igor Pavlovich, says about this:
- Have you ever thought about such a geographical riddle: why did the Volga River, in its middle course, suddenly need to go around the small (only about a hundred kilometers long) Zhiguli mountain range? It would seem that, in accordance with the laws of physics, river waters, instead of creating this kind of “loops,” should shorten their path and head east of the Zhiguli, along the places where the bed of the Usa River now passes. But no - this mountain range, tiny by geographical standards, composed of soft limestones and dolomites, has been demonstrating unprecedented resistance to the Volga waters flowing into it every second for millions of years now...

Geological confirmation

Igor Pavlovich’s words are commented on by Sergei Markelov, associate professor of Samara Aerospace University, candidate of technical sciences, analyst of the Avesta group.

Reading an article about the geological structure of the Volga-Ural region in one of the scientific collections published by Moscow State University in 1962, I discovered a strange diagram in it. It depicted a cross-section of the earth's layers in the Samara Luka area, which turned out to be very similar to the contours of... a giant capacitor! Everyone can easily remember from a school physics course how this electrical device works: an electric charge accumulates between parallel metal plates, and its magnitude is limited only by the breakdown strength of the gasket between the plates.

Traces of a Vanished People

The Volga is "boiling"

This most beautiful place in the middle reaches of the Volga hundreds of years ago received the name “Samarskaya Luka” - from the word “bend”. The most famous is the northern, elevated part of this Volga peninsula, which has long been called the Zhiguli Mountains. Due to the unique diversity of natural landscapes, as well as representatives of the flora and fauna living on its territory, Samarskaya Luka is now included in the UNESCO catalogs as a natural and historical monument of world significance, subject to full protection (Fig. 1-7).

Secrets of underground labyrinths

But it is less known that the Volga bend has long been included in another list of world attractions, which was compiled by international organizations that study mysterious and anomalous phenomena on Earth and beyond. Anomalists believe that Samara Luka with the Zhiguli Mountains is one of those 10-12 points on the map of Russia where unusual and in many ways mysterious processes manifest themselves tens of times more often than in other areas of the planet.

From the analysis of Zhiguli legends and traditions that Samara folklorists began collecting back in the 19th century, one can draw a very definite conclusion: local residents became closely acquainted with the local mysteries and “miracles” hundreds of years ago, when Russian people first began to settle in the Middle Volga. Coastal villages such as Shiryaevo and Usolye were founded back in the 17th century (Fig. 8-10).

By the time Catherine II ascended the throne (Fig. 11)

There were already dozens of villages on Samara Luka, including the still existing Rozhdestveno, Vypolzovo, Podgory, Shelekhmet, Sosnovy Solonets, Askuli and others. However, the free life of the local men ended quite quickly: in the middle of her reign, the All-Russian autocrat gave her favorite Grigory Orlov (Fig. 12)

The entire Samara Luka along with villages.

Over hundreds of years of communication with the wild Zhiguli nature, local peasants have more than once encountered the mysterious and incomprehensible. And since any mystery always greatly excites the human soul, the memory of such meetings was preserved in subsequent generations in the form of legends and tales. One of the very first collectors of Zhiguli folklore was Dmitry Nikolaevich Sadovnikov (1847-1883), a Russian poet, folklorist and ethnographer (Fig. 13).

He was born in Simbirsk, where he studied at the gymnasium, where he later served as a teacher. Sadovnikov became the compiler of the most complete and scientifically best collection, “Riddles of the Russian People,” which was published in St. Petersburg in 1876. Subsequently, he published a number of books about Volga folklore, including collections of his own poems based on folk texts. Sadovnikov’s most famous poetic work is considered to be a poem about Stepan Razin “Because of the Island on the Rod,” which was later set to music and quickly became a truly folk song.

After his sudden death, his unique work “Tales and Legends of the Samara Region” (1884) was published in the journal “Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society”. This was the very first printed review of the folklore of our province, in which a significant part was occupied by records of legends and myths, recorded from the words of residents of villages and hamlets lost in the Zhiguli Mountains.

Sadovnikov immediately noted that local stories and epics are replete with the most incredible miracles. Although some of the Zhiguli folk legends have something in common with the Ural, Bashkir, Mordovian and Tatar tales, most of them have no analogues in the oral folk art of the peoples of all European Russia.

Particularly interesting was the collective character from these legends - the so-called underground elders (Fig. 14).

According to legends, this is a mysterious caste of hermits who live in caves unknown to the human eye and have hidden knowledge, as well as amazing abilities. Outwardly, they look like handsome gray-haired old men who can unexpectedly appear and disappear right before the eyes of a lonely traveler. And at the same time, anomalists have information that legends about the same elders can be found not only in Zhiguli, but also in a number of other places in Russia, which are among the so-called “geographical points with increased anomaly.”

According to many testimonies, underground elders from different regions of our country constantly communicate with each other. This is, for example, how these mysterious underground hermits are described in the novel “In the Woods” by P.I. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky) (Fig. 15):

“The Kirillov Mountains are parting... Leopard-shaped elders come out, bow to the navigators at the waist, ask to take their bow, kiss in absentia to the brothers of the Zhiguli Mountains...” It is worth adding that the Kirillov Mountains are located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, near the holy lake Svetloyar, which is also considered one of the most pronounced anomalous zones of Russia.

There is one interesting fact that can also be compared with reports of underground hermits. In the guidebook of Kuibyshev local historian A.V. Sobolev (Fig. 16)

“Zhigulevskaya Around the World”, published back in 1965, contains the following lines: “In the area of the village of Perevoloki, at the end of the 19th century, caves were discovered, the entrances to which had the semblance of doors. Caves with windows, niches in the walls, a ceiling with a vault... Similar caves surrounded the neighboring village of Pecherskoe (its name comes from the word “cave”), where peasants found gravestones with Arabic inscriptions... During the excavations, stone cellars and iron chains were found... »

Of course, now the scientific world does not yet have 100% reliable information about the existence of some special human race in the dungeons of Samara Luka. But couldn’t the above legends, as well as archaeological finds, be a reason for the interest of future researchers?

The Sorcerer's Cunning Apprentice

Another local legend adds original intrigue to these epics about mysterious underground elders. According to him, in very ancient times, when there was not a single human habitation in these places, a certain magician and sorcerer - a white sorcerer - settled in the depths of the Zhiguli (Fig. 17).

He left people to find the path to eternal happiness, and in the mysterious underground silence he practiced magic, which resulted in the appearance of magical things never seen before. Among such miracles, for example, was an amazing flying boat, glowing in the dark, on which the magician more than once flew over the mountains, which greatly amazed people. Then he came up with a perpetual clock with a bell ringing, which could only be wound once every hundred years. But the most wonderful invention of the sorcerer was a magic furnace that could turn stones into gold.

The old-timers of these places, who lived by hunting, fishing and beekeeping, were at first openly afraid of the mysterious inhabitant of the Zhiguli dungeons. The sorcerer himself very rarely showed himself to people, and most often this happened during times of some difficult trials. For example, one day a multitude of steppe nomads came to the banks of the Volga, who had previously plundered and burned many Trans-Volga settlements. Peaceful fishermen and hunters fled in fear deep into the Zhiguli Mountains at the sight of the conquerors. And then the wizard, in order to save the villagers from the wild horde, at nightfall flew out to meet the aliens in his flying boat, which emitted mysterious green rays. Seeing something incomprehensible and sparkling right above them, the nomads fled in horror back to their steppe, and since then they no longer dared to enter the forested Zhiguli region.

Legends also say that with the help of his witchcraft, the underground sorcerer managed to extend his life to several thousand years, but was never able to achieve complete immortality. That is why, once he felt his last hour approaching, the sorcerer decided to interrupt his seclusion and took on a student so that he could continue the work he had begun. However, to his misfortune, this magician and wizard did not know people well, since the student he invited turned out to be envious and greedy. Of all the mysterious machines, he most liked the wonderful furnace that turned stones into gold. The student was in such a hurry to become the master of the Zhiguli dungeons that one day he could not stand it and, seizing the moment, threw not a block of stone, but his teacher into the mouth of the magic machine. But when he grabbed the gold bar that came out of the furnace, into which the unfortunate sorcerer turned, the killer unexpectedly fell ill with a strange disease, which in just a few days turned the young guy into a bald old man coughing blood, who soon died in terrible agony.

Since then, as legend says, the amazing creations of the deceased sorcerer have been hidden in the depths of the Zhiguli Mountains. Finding them is incredibly difficult, because there is only one door to the dungeon, and it opens only once every hundred years, but only to a good person. The one who finds this dungeon must wind a magic clock, and as a reward has the right to take as much treasure from the cave as he can carry. According to legend, the entrance to the mysterious temple was once found by Stenka Razin and Emelka Pugachev, and it was then, after visiting the underground kingdom, that they acquired both strength and gold in order to raise the people against the dominion of dark forces.

But if we translate all the names from the ancient legend into modern language, we will be surprised to discover that these miracles are now well known to each of us. Judge for yourself: the sorcerer's flying boat is very reminiscent of an aircraft - something like a modern helicopter. This is exactly what, according to the descriptions, some types of UFOs look like, which eyewitnesses regularly observe in the Samara Luka area. An eternal clock, which lasts for a hundred years on one winding, can be any mechanism with an isotope power source, and a furnace that turns stones into gold is, of course, a nuclear reactor, where some chemical elements are transformed into others.

As for the strange illness, from which within a few days the insidious student of the sorcerer first withered and then died in agony, it is very similar to an acute form of radiation sickness. After all, it is known that a person really dies very quickly from a powerful dose of radiation, and this, unfortunately, has been proven more than once during nuclear explosions and accidents. However, whether such miracles actually exist can only be found out after new research into the underground world of Samara Luka.

Mistress of the Zhiguli Mountains

Back in the 19th century, folklorists drew attention to the fact that most epics and legends of the Samara region converge on the same legendary character - the Mistress (or Sorceress) of the Zhiguli Mountains (Fig. 18).

According to legend, she lives in mysterious caves deep in the mountain range (Fig. 19, 20, 21),

Only sometimes appearing on the surface and showing itself to people.

If at this time she meets a good fellow, then the hostess can invite him to her underground chambers, promising fabulous riches and eternal life. However, until now, all the fellows who met the sorceress have refused these benefits, and therefore the underground mistress has been mourning her melancholy and loneliness for thousands of years. These tears flow from the rock into the Stone Bowl tract (Fig. 22, 23),

Where is the only water source of the Zhiguli Mountains.

And the legends also say that the underground sorceress was served by mysterious creatures - strange white dwarfs. In the tales they are called “underground miracles.” It is also said about them that these creatures are “so transparent that trees can be seen through them.” They could suddenly disappear in one place - and immediately appear in another. Like the elders, the dwarfs could, as if from underground, suddenly appear in front of a tired pedestrian in order to lead him straight to the house, and then, having done their good deed, before his eyes, as if disappear into thin air.

In the legend recorded in the middle of the 19th century by the already mentioned folklore collector D.N. Sadovnikov, local residents describe them as follows: “A small man, with a bony body, skin covered with scales, with huge eyes, a deadening gaze and a mysterious ability to move consciousness from body to body.” The last words apparently meant that the underground inhabitants had telepathic abilities.

The first settlers of Samara Luka were wary of the ruler of the Zhiguli dungeons, her transparent servants, and the mysterious elders, and therefore did not risk unnecessarily wandering through the forests. However, people were regularly convinced that the sorceress and her retinue had a peaceful disposition, since they never offended people.

Some other phenomena from local folklore are also associated with the Mistress of these places - in particular, the so-called “Mirage of the Peaceful City” (Fig. 24).

According to legends, sometimes an extraordinary vision appeared before the peasants of the villages of Askuly, Sosnovy Solonets, Anurovka and some others in the morning fog. According to the stories of the villagers, it looked like a fantastic city with ancient houses, towers and fortress walls, as if hanging in the air against the background of a foggy haze. Usually this performance lasted only a few minutes, and then it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Of course, popular rumor attributed the appearance of such “pictures” to the magical charms of the Mistress of the Zhiguli Mountains, who sometimes entertained herself and entertained local residents in this way.

The mirage of the “Peaceful City” was first mentioned in his book in 1636 by the Holstein traveler Adam Olearius. Another name for the same phenomenon is “Fortress of Five Moons”, “White Church”, “Fata Morgana” and so on. However, sometimes on the Volga bend you can see other mirages, which local residents call the “Temple of the Green Moon” (a ghostly structure in the form of an amazing iridescent tower), and the “Waterfall of Tears”, which popular rumor associates with the famous spring Stone Bowl, as well as disappearing lake, which is located in the Elgushi tract (Fig. 25).

Such mirages most often manifest themselves near the Molodetsky and Usinsky mounds, as well as in the area of lakes that stretch between the villages of Mordovo and Brusyany. According to many observers, here at dawn a ghostly city can suddenly appear in front of an astonished traveler, only to disappear again after a minute or two. Those who have seen this mirage say that it resembles a fairy-tale castle with a white fortress wall and turrets on which white flags flutter.

This mirage is also mentioned in the collection “Pearls of Zhiguli”, published back in Soviet times - in 1974. Here it is said about him this way: “And when the sun rises in the east over the Volga, the palaces and walls of the Peaceful City become visible above the river. And it stands as before, and waits for people to need its wealth.”

By the way, geological data suggests that in ancient times waterfalls could actually exist in a number of points in the Zhiguli Mountains. In this regard, researchers attribute the described phenomena to the group of so-called “chronomirages”. They are supposed to be reflections of the realities of the distant past projected into the present.

In the same series, we should mention such a mysterious phenomenon of the Zhiguli Mountains as “pillars of hard light” suddenly appearing in the night air (Fig. 26, 27, 28).

Outwardly, they look like luminous vertical columns up to several meters long and up to a meter in diameter, suddenly appearing in the air over certain areas of the terrain. One of the last reports of such a “pillar” came in 2005 from the area of the village of Podgory. By the way, occasionally in such places observers see not glowing, but... black columns, also hanging in the air.

This phenomenon is most often observed over the eastern part of Zhiguli, and not only in Podgory, but, for example, also in the Shiryaevsky ravine, in the area of the Kamennaya Chasha spring. The earliest story about this Zhiguli mystery in the form of a local tale is again mentioned by Dmitry Sadovnikov. This is what he wrote down from the words of old-timers of the Zhiguli village of Shiryaevo (dating from 1870 to 1875).

“The Shiryaevsky man Ivan Mukhanov went to the forest after Ilyin’s day to get firewood, but was delayed. That's when the twilight caught him. He was greedy, he loaded a lot of wood - the little horse could barely trudge. Well, Ivan doesn’t lose heart, the road is familiar. He hums a song under his breath, and makes sure that the wheel doesn’t slide into the hole. And night had already fallen over the mountains, getting darker and darker with every step. The first stars appeared. Well, Ivan thinks: “There are still seven miles to the house, no more, I’ll get there before midnight, and I’ll unload the cart tomorrow.”

Then suddenly the horse jerked and began snoring. “Are they really wolves?” - Ivan shuddered. Only suddenly he accidentally glanced to the left - fathers, the light is over the mountain! Did he really think he lost his way and drove past his village? I looked around. Although it is dark, the road is clearly visible. And the horse sensed the proximity of the house and began to almost run. You know, the village is nearby, only about three miles left.

And the light above the mountain flares up and stands like a pillar. Now he was already behind. Goosebumps ran down Ivashka’s back - the devil must be trying to lead him astray. Thank God, the horse made it down the hill in an instant. Ivan doesn’t remember how many times he was baptized; the last time he received a sign was when he entered the gate. And then I heard from the old people that this is the mistress of the Zhiguli Mountains after Ilya’s day, she goes out at night for a walk, and the light from the door of her underground room stands like a pillar over the mountain all night.”

This Zhiguli tale echoes the reports about “pillars of hard light” collected by the non-governmental research organization Avesta. This is how young scientists-enthusiasts named their group back in 1983, who decided to devote themselves to studying the age-old mysteries of the Samara region. And the guys chose this name for their organization because “Avesta” is the name of the ancient sacred book of wisdom. And although now most of the “Avesta people” are already under fifty, and many of them occupy respectable positions, these people still remain to this day the same fans of the study of Zhiguli anomalies as they were a quarter of a century ago.

For more than a quarter of a century, “Avesta people” have been studying the unofficial history of the Volga region, hidden in folk tales, legends and myths. In their opinion, legends, epics and tales are good because they, being the work of the common people, are not always pleasing to the authorities, and therefore for centuries they retain in people’s memory those facts and observations that do not fit into the official point of view and cannot be explained from the perspective of neither the dominant religion nor the dominant science.

Below are some observations of “pillars of hard light” recorded by Avesta researchers from the words of eyewitnesses.

May 1932. Early Sunday morning. In the pre-dawn twilight, an observer (his first and last name has not been preserved), located on the outskirts of Samara, saw a strange “ray of solid light” that appeared over the mountains on the opposite side of the Volga. The beam had no visible source. For some time it hung in the shape of a pillar over the mountains and over the Volga, then sharply sank down onto the water, causing clearly visible waves. After contact with water, the phenomenon disappeared.

August 1978. Summer camp “Solnechny” in the area of the village of Gavrilova Polyana (eastern outskirts of Zhiguli). At about 11 p.m., during the evening formation of children, a vertical column of light appeared in the sky, which was seen by about 200 children. For several minutes he hung motionless over the mountains, then began to fall down. Further evidence is contradictory - the vast majority of eyewitnesses simply lost sight of the object, but several people claimed that bright rays shot from the object in different directions (including in the direction of the camp). After that he disappeared from sight.

End of August 1988. Several observers on the embankment in Samara saw green spots of light over the Volga and distant Zhiguli around midnight. They appeared in the air one after another, then disappeared just as quickly. The spots looked like ellipses and vertical stripes.

This is the kind of information that Avesta collects. Its representatives travel almost every year to Samara Luka and the Volga Islands to study the mysteries of the Zhiguli. And almost every summer season the Avesta dossier is updated with descriptions of observations of some phenomena.

This is how Oleg Vladimirovich Ratnik, vice-president of Avesta, comments on reports about the Zhiguli “pillars of hard light” (Fig. 29),

Teacher at the Samara International Aerospace Lyceum.

I was able to personally observe the phenomenon described above, and it happened, as already mentioned, in August 1998. Our research group at that moment was in the Kamennaya Chasha tract in the Shiryaevsky ravine. After midnight we suddenly saw “something” appear over the mountains. We didn’t notice the object right away; it seemed to condense out of thin air, and with every minute it glowed brighter and brighter. When they noticed it, it looked like a typical “pillar of hard light” from a local legend.

By the way, residents of Zhiguli villages also simply call it “candle”. Imagine a long cylindrical shining blob hanging in the air against the backdrop of a forested mountain range at night - and you will get a rough idea of what you see. It was difficult to judge the size of the object at that time, since it was not possible to determine the exact distance to it. Still, some members of our group estimated its length from 5 to 10 meters, diameter - about half a meter. From the moment the observation began, the “column of hard light” constantly moved slowly in the direction from the mountains to the valley and after about an hour it melted into the air as slowly as it appeared.

It was here and precisely on this day that we came because it was precisely at this point in space-time that there was the greatest likelihood of encountering a mysterious phenomenon. And we calculated it based on an analysis of local legends and tales that ethnographers and folklorists have been collecting on Samarskaya Luka for about a hundred years. To be honest, we didn’t really hope that we would be able to notice anything, but, as you can see, our group was lucky that time.

At the same time, scientific data say that this phenomenon does not belong to the realm of mysticism at all, but, on the contrary, has a completely realistic, natural basis. In particular, Samara physicists believe that such a vertical glow of air can appear during its ionization, and this, in turn, usually occurs in the area of powerful electromagnetic or radiation radiation.

What exactly could be the source of such radiation in Zhiguli, experts have yet to figure out. However, the latest geological research in the Middle Volga region shows that our region is included in the zone of distribution of underground deposits of uranium and radium. In particular, in the Samarskaya Luka area, rocks with an industrial content of radioactive elements lie at depths of 400-600 meters from the surface of the earth. It is quite possible that in the Zhiguli Mountains there are “windows” through which this natural radiation periodically breaks out, after which layers of ionized luminous air appear above the mountain ranges.

Secrets of ancient ore miners

Another Zhiguli mystery turns out to be closely connected with the phenomenon of “hard light” - the legend of treasures buried here in ancient times (Fig. 30).

But to understand this connection, you first need to remember Goethe’s Faust, namely those lines where Mephistopheles gives the scientist precise instructions on the methods of searching for treasures hidden underground (Fig. 31).

Here we will read the following:

“And if your lower back aches,

And the bones ache and bruise,

Break the floorboards quickly

And dig here - there’s a treasure underneath you.”

It turns out that in a number of places in the Samara region this recommendation of Mephistopheles, on completely scientific grounds, can be used to search for rare and precious metals - for example, silver. Analyst of the Avesta organization, candidate of technical sciences Sergei Markelov knows this for sure (Fig. 32).

Small deposits of non-industrial silver in our region have been known for hundreds of years. In any case, some folk craftsmen from the Mordovian villages of Shelekhmet, Podgory, Vypolzovo and other neighboring villages, even under Count Orlov, were able to excavate silver veins in the thickness of the mountains, and then even smelt white metal from this ore. In any case, Samara ethnographers are well aware of locally produced silver jewelry.

It should be said right away that such deposits of precious metal are very rare for our region. Against this background, it is extremely surprising that the amateur miners of the past were able to recognize the right place in the earth’s crust, so that they could then dig a mine here, albeit a small one, and then extract silver ore from it.

However, if we recall the above lines from Faust, then an explanation for such insight of ancient geologists can be found quite easily. Indeed, it has now been scientifically proven that large accumulations of metals underground, as well as underground veins containing metals, significantly affect the electromagnetic field of the Earth.

In turn, such an altered field affects any living organism. This effect can be very diverse, including the way it is described by Goethe. By the way, the widely known method of dowsing is based on this effect (Fig. 33)

(now called dowsing), with the help of which ancient ore miners found metal deposits back in ancient times.

Treasures were searched for in Zhiguli and other places in Samara Luka back in the 18th century, continues Sergei Alexandrovich. - They were associated either with Stenka Razin, or with his legendary friend Atamansha Manchikha, after whom the mountain near the village of Podgory was later named. It was believed that it was in these places that Manchikha and her gang once buried a countless number of chests with treasures looted from the rich. However, despite numerous attempts at treasure hunting, local “gentlemen of fortune” have never managed to find a single chest.

But meanwhile, the laws of physics tell us that underground treasures need to be looked for precisely in those places where the above-mentioned “pillars of hard light” were noted above the mountains. As evidence from recent years shows, this phenomenon is no longer in the realm of legends - it has been reliably proven that the “pillars” actually exist.

From a physics point of view, this rare phenomenon can be explained quite easily. The “pillars of light” have a clear electromagnetic nature. They arise over those areas of the earth's crust where a polymetallic vein running at some depth or an underground water flow makes a sharp bend. It is at such break points that the structure of the earth's electromagnetic field changes sharply, leading to the ionization of the air above this area and its subsequent glow.

And in some, very rare cases, the same ionization can lead to the fact that at a given point in space, light rays will not be scattered, but absorbed. This is where not “light”, but “black” columns appear. Remember: a fluorescent lamp also has completely black areas, within which light quanta are absorbed.

All these assumptions about ancient treasure hunters and silver veins in the Zhiguli Mountains still largely remain only assumptions. But here is one very real fact confirming that silver deposits in the Samara region are far from fiction. Two kilometers from the village of Podgory, in a mountain valley, there is a deep well called Serebryany. The local population has been taking water from it for centuries, not without reason considering it very tasty, and even moreover, healing. And not so long ago, scientists from the Avesta group took water samples from this well, and then subjected them to chemical analysis. The result looks truly sensational: the silver content in this water exceeds the norm by more than 100 times!

So, in fact, somewhere in the depths of the Zhiguli underground water washes a silver vein, becoming saturated with this noble metal? Or maybe it still flows not through a silver mine, but through the treasure chests of the legendary chieftain Manchikha?

There were reports of deposits of precious metals in the Samara region during Soviet times. Here is an excerpt from an article by geologist A. Plakhov, published in the Volzhskaya Kommuna newspaper in September 1935: “... In the summer, at the mouth of the spring, all the rocks and soil were covered with white silvery mold. Soon I managed to extract 25 grams of pure mercury and some gold and silver from a piece of found pyrite (weighing 250 grams) during decomposition. Then one day I discovered small inclusions of gold in a piece of ore.”

In these lines, the researcher described an abandoned mine near the village of Trubetchina, Syzran district, Kuibyshev region, where, according to his information, precious metals were found even in pre-revolutionary times. Of course, the ore miners of that time were unable to establish their industrial production in the “Syzran Klondike,” but in a number of cases they were as lucky as Plakhov: in some pieces of ore they found inclusions of real gold and silver.

Although everyone is well aware that the territory of the Samara region is composed of sedimentary rocks, and there should supposedly be no metal deposits here, real life has already refuted these classical canons of the Earth sciences that have been established for decades. After all, the famous naturalist P.S. Pallas (Fig. 34),

Having visited the territory of the modern Samara region in 1768, in his book “Travels in different provinces of the Russian Empire” he pointed out copper deposits in the upper reaches of the Sheshma and Zay rivers, which flow through the current Klyavlinsky and Shentalinsky districts of the Samara region. The scientist wrote that in the local sandstones “there was thin copper ore, usually containing a lot of sand and clay.” And before him, even under Peter I (Fig. 35),

As follows from a report in the Vedomosti newspaper in 1703, they tried to smelt copper from the same ore on the Sok River. However, due to its poverty, the developers were never able to obtain an industrial amount of metal.

And in Zhiguli, during the quarrying of building stone, layers with such veins, consisting mainly of copper bicarbonates, which are better known under the name of the minerals malachite and azurite, were repeatedly exposed. In particular, in the 60s, while developing the Yablonevskoye deposit of limestone and dolomite, excavators discovered a powerful copper-bearing vein about 700 meters long. Gray-green malachite crystals and blue-blue azurite crystals were clearly visible in it.

In the same vein they also found minerals with a high content of iron, copper, aluminum, chromium, lead, molybdenum, nickel, and even such rare and exotic metals for the Middle Volga region as germanium, rhenium, tungsten, silver and gold. Then, over the course of several years, such strange layers, although of less thickness, were found more than once in the Zhiguli limestones. The very fact of these finds was kept secret for about fifteen years - until at the end of the 70s of the last century, geologists came to the conclusion that the Zhiguli metal veins had no industrial significance. That is why this geological phenomenon was described in a small brochure published in a tiny edition.

In the 1930s, even greater secrecy hung over the exploration of aluminum deposits on Samarskaya Luka. It turned out that the most powerful layers of this mineral lay (and still lie!) at shallow depths near the village of Ermakovo on Samarskaya Luka - where a vast dacha area now lies. And since smelting aluminum from any rock requires a lot of electricity, the proximity of a hydroelectric power station to an alunite mine promised to provide the country with fantastically cheap metal - its cost could be an order of magnitude lower than at leading foreign plants.

In 1942-1944, drilling work was carried out near the village of Ermakovo in order to determine the reserves of the mineral and the exact aluminum content in it. And then it turned out that the alunite deposits on Samarskaya Luka were very insignificant - the thickness of the layers did not exceed half a meter. In addition, they found many silicon compounds, the cost of purifying the metal from which negated the cheapness of its extraction and transportation. That is why they decided to postpone the idea of aluminum mining on the banks of the Volga. And after the discovery of huge bauxite deposits in Siberia in the 50s and the construction of aluminum industry giants here, the question of developing Middle Volga aluminum was finally removed (Fig. 36).

Nevertheless, it should be recognized that the subsoil in the Middle Volga region, including Samarskaya Luka, still remains poorly studied to this day. This means that new geological research in our region can present scientists with many more surprises.

Treasures are companions of troubled times. Hidden treasures, on the one hand, are quite material, on the other, even less perceptible than a ghost. Each of the treasures is surrounded by history, real and fictional. And definitely superstitions. The young writer Andrei Oleh marked on the map the points where you urgently need to go with a pick and shovel.

Treasure of Stepan Razin

Stepan Razin was in our area several times, but not for long. On May 31, 1670, he stormed the Samara fortress, but was unable to take it. He returned here with reinforcements on August 26, and two days later took possession of the city with a population of about 700 people. Already at the beginning of September he moved towards Simbirsk. On October 4, the Cossacks were defeated by government troops, Stepan Razin was wounded and fled down the Volga. He sailed past Samara on October 22.

When, how, and most importantly, where Stepan Razin hid the treasure, no one knows. But this, of course, does not prevent us from making numerous assumptions. There is a separate story about how Razin’s brother, Frol, in order to delay the execution, led an expedition to the Zhiguli Mountains in order to find the treasure. And at the beginning of the 20th century, documents on this case came to the engineer Pyotr Myatlev. He allegedly discovered a whole network of underground galleries under the Molodetsky Kurgan, but he never found the treasure, and then the revolution and death did not allow him to continue his search. There are also versions that the treasure is now flooded by the Zhiguli Sea, and it is impossible to get it. Another alleged location of the ataman's treasure is the “Ara Caves” near the village of Shelekhmet, which, according to stories, was blown up by the military in the late 1950s. These places are related by the inability to get to Stepan Razin’s treasure.

In fact, any of the many caves in the Zhiguli Mountains could be a place where treasures are buried. If not Stepan Razin, then any other of the bandit chieftains. Ermak and Ivan Koltso, Barbosha and Vavila, Katka Manchikha and countless nameless Volga pirates could theoretically hide treasures here.

Bulgar burial mounds

In the autumn of 1236, the army of Khan Batu invaded Volga Bulgaria and destroyed this ancient state. Archaeologists highly appreciate the culture of this people, whose cities were located on the territory of the Middle Volga from Kazan to Saratov. The burials of the Bulgars are rich, but often already ruined in former times. One of these was found in the village of Brusyany in the Samara region. Surely there are still many treasures of the disappeared people left on the territory of Samarskaya Luka.

Treasury of Tokhtamysh

Another large treasure, although not related to the Zhiguli, is not inferior in size and legend to Razin’s treasures. On June 18, 1391, one of the largest battles of the Middle Ages took place between the troops of Timur Tamerlane and the Golden Horde army of Khan Tokhtamysh on the banks of the Kondurcha River. According to various estimates, from 200 to 400 thousand people took part in it.

And despite the fact that the very fact of the battle is undeniable, its exact location is not fully known and has not been confirmed by archaeological finds. And with such a large-scale battle, they should be. According to legend, Tokhtamysh, defeated, hid his treasury in the floodplain of the Sok River. This assumption is based on numerous coins discovered in the area from the time of the Golden Horde, but the buried treasury of the khan has still not been found.

The closest “legendary” treasure in time is the royal gold reserve, brought to Samara in 1918.
They would continue to appear, but paper money is poorly stored, and at present, if anyone hides treasures, it is in foreign accounts, and there is nothing mysterious about it.

Treasures are companions of troubled times, and this can be understood not only literally. Interest in them increases in bad times and fades in well-fed years. The idea of quick and, as a rule, accidental enrichment is always attractive, and Russian folklore about treasures is unusually rich. On modern treasure hunter forums, along with discussions about historical sources and comparisons of metal detectors, there is serious talk about luck and bad luck. Treasures often speak, the souls of their previous owners live next to them, they lure people into traps, escape, and if they do get it, it’s always to the wrong person. And this, perhaps, is even good, because it is known that many treasures are cursed and do not bring happiness to those who discover them. But if the seeker is constantly haunted by failures, then perhaps, sooner or later, fate will restore justice and he will find his treasure.

Interesting facts about the Zhiguli Mountains. Scientific work of the Lada legend. List of used literature

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