Mezmay is a unique place that attracts you. People from all over Russia come here forever. Some people feel cosmic energy here, because it’s not for nothing that psychics come here, calling Mezmay an “anomalous zone” and even “Russian Shambhala.” Others are fascinated by beautiful nature; creative people draw inspiration here. Dozens of interesting tourist routes pass through Mezmay. I'll tell you about one of them.
Mezmay is translated from Adyghe as “forest of wild apples.” Initially founded as a village of lumberjacks and gold miners. Currently it is a mountain tourist village in the Apsheronsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. Once upon a time there was a narrow-gauge railway connecting the village with the rest of the world. Now the operating section of the narrow-gauge railway remains in the neighboring village of Guamka. Until recently, there was a bad road leading to Mezmay, but now the asphalt has been paved to the end and it has become easier to arrive. The village is located 180 km from Krasnodar.
Despite the fact that many tourists from all over Russia constantly come to Mezmay, a regular bus still does not go here. They say that Kamaz only drives once a day, and even then not every day. Therefore, the easiest way to get here is by your car.
In the vicinity of Mezmay there is a very interesting Mount Matuk, the story will be about her. Its height is almost 2000 m and is located only 14 km from the village. The good thing is that the road leading here is well-trodden and wide, and you can even climb the mountain in a good SUV. But we are not jeepers, so we walked to the top. Climbing the mountain is difficult for one day, so we took two days. On the first day we settled in Ivanova Polyana, where there is a spring and beautiful views, we also ran to Mount Zauda, but there is nothing to do there in the summer, because... The panorama cannot be seen from the tall grass; it is better to do this in May.
Matuk is part of the Lagonaki Range and borders the Caucasian Nature Reserve, so you don’t need to buy a ticket to the reserve, and there are no checkpoints. At the very top they saw a herd of horses and a shepherd, but it is possible that rangers could walk here and collect payment.
2. The road to Mount Matuk is not difficult, even children can handle it, but you need to understand that a 14 km hike up the mountain is equal to 28 km on a regular flat road. 
3. There are many mountain flowers at the top of the mountain. There are almost no trees, just endless green meadows. 
4. Picture from Windows. 
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8. From Ivanova Polyana to Mount Matuk it’s a 8 km walk, actually we got there quickly. The first peak we saw, Mount Nagoy-Chuk (2467 m), is already in the reserve. 
9. This is what the Lagonaki ridge on which our mountain is located looks like. 
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11. We were there at the end of July, the weather was fine. 
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18. These rocks are called "Two-story". 
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20. From Mount Matuk there are beautiful panoramas of the Lago-Naki plateau, you can see the Oshten, Pshekha-Su, Nagoy-Chuk mountains, the Tsitsa River gorge and others. 
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23. From here you can clearly see Mount Oshten (2800 m). 
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A secret land into which only the worthy can be admitted.
Kingdom of God on earth
In Russian legends, Belovodye was called the Land of Justice and Prosperity, the Forbidden Land, the Land of White Waters and High Mountains, the Land of Light Spirits, the Land of Living Fire and was invariably compared to an earthly paradise.
According to one version, it was located in the Far North, in Pomorie, “and the passage was from Zosima and Savvaty by Solovetsky ships through the Ledskoe Sea” - this legend was spread by Solovetsky rebels who fled to the Pomorie forests at the end of the 27th century and were known as “runners”, or "wanderers".
According to the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, Belovodye is the same island of Buyan, which was once located on the site of modern Eastern Siberia.
In the East, on behalf of Grand Duke Vladimir, the Red Sun was looking for a wonderful country and the Kiev monk Father Sergius. He spent 56 years wandering, and when he returned to Kyiv in 1043 as an old man, he told an amazing story about his journey to Belovodye. According to his story, many people who came from many different countries tried unsuccessfully to enter this area. But there was a strict law according to which only seven people per century were allowed to visit it. Six of them must return to the outside world after receiving secret knowledge, the seventh remained in the abode of the sages, without aging, since time ceased to exist for him. This story was preserved in the chronicle from the Vyshensky Assumption Monastery in the Tambov region.
The Oponya kingdom (another name for Belovodye in the 18th century) was also located at the easternmost point of the world. The legend “The Journey of the Monk Mark to the Oponya Kingdom” is given by the Russian writer-ethnographer P.I. Melnikov (pseudonym - Andrey Pechersky). “From Moscow to Kazan, from Kazan to Yekaterinburg and to Tyumen, to Kamenogorsk, to the Vybskaya village, to Izbensk, up the Katun River, to the village of Ustyuba, there to ask the stranger Peter Kirillov. There are many secret caves near them, and not far from them the snow mountains extend for three hundred miles, and the snow on these mountains never melts. Behind these mountains is the village of Ummensk (according to another list - Ustmensk), and in it there is a chapel; monk, schema-monk Joseph. From them there is a passage by the Chinese state, a 44-day journey; through Guban (Gobi?), then to the Opon state. There the inhabitants have a stay within the Okiyana-sea, called Belovodye. There are no troops or the state itself on the island. Here everyone lives exclusively according to the “divine law” - this is how the path to the Forbidden Land is described in the legend recorded by Melnikov.
Read the continuation in the June issue (No. 6, 2012) of the magazine “Miracles and Adventures”.
The belief about the “Belovodsk Kingdom” was common among Russian Old Believers of the so-called “worthless” persuasion. It is known that the “useless people”, who did not recognize the priesthood of the Greek Catholic Church and did not join any of the “priestly” Old Believer agreements, more than once went to Belovodye, hoping to find pre-Nikon Orthodoxy there “in all its purity and grace.” In 1903, the Russian Geographical Society published the brochure “The Journey of the Ural Cossacks to the Belovodsk Kingdom.” It was written by the Ural Cossack G. T. Khokhlov, who in 1898, together with two comrades, made a long journey to Palestine, Ceylon, Indochina and Japan in search of Belovodye. In the preface to this brochure, the writer V. G. Korolenko noted that the legend of Belovodye “is not new and has long been shaking simple hearts with its tempting and dreamy charm.” According to his information, throughout the last century, “there were known cases when people from the villages of the Altai district (Bukhtarma volost) went abroad ... to find “Belovodye.” Further, V.G. Korolenko writes: “Some of the statisticians who studied the Altai district have already informed the writer of these lines in recent years that even now there are still known cases of these attempts to penetrate into Belovodya through the mysterious ridges and deserts of Central Asia. Some of these seekers return after suffering all sorts of calamities, others do not return at all. There is no doubt that these “others” are dying somewhere in China or in harsh Tibet, inhospitable for a European. But naive rumor explains this disappearance differently... In her opinion, these missing people remain in the happy Belovodsk kingdom. And this circumstance attracts more and more dreamers to danger and death.”
Dream of goodness
Now let's summarize some results. From all that has been said, it becomes clear that the legends about Shambhala are an interweaving of completely earthly, real ideas (for example, about the same “oases” among mountain peaks) with fantastic stories that have emerged from the depths of Eastern mythologies. In Shambhala there is supposedly a “medicine of truth”, by taking which a person cleanses the soul of lies and henceforth speaks only the truth. Feeling the approach of old age, the inhabitants of Shambhala fast for a while, then drink a wonderful drink from the spring of eternal youth and become young again. Tibetan rumor tells about the “eagle stones” of Shambhala, which correct vision, can emit heat and cold, illuminate and plunge the surroundings into darkness.
Perhaps, after all, let us once again remember the ancient aphorism that has already become banal: that the new is the well-forgotten old. Children of the 20th century, who have acquired fantastic technology, sometimes speak with a fair amount of condescension about their distant ancestors, considering them primitive creatures with stone axes in their hands. Meanwhile, these “primitives” created literary and philosophical masterpieces that amaze our contemporary with the depth of penetration into the mysteries of existence. Here is a fragment of one of the cosmogonic hymns of the Rig Veda:
“Then there was neither the existing nor the non-existent;
there was no air
space, no sky above it.
What was in motion? Where? Under whose cover?
What were the waters
impenetrable, deep?
There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no difference between night and day."
The ideas of the authors of this hymn about the formation of the universe fit into our views today. Meanwhile, the brilliant creators of the Rig Veda, who so “modernly” expound the origin of the universe, lived, as some vedologists claim, in the fifth or even sixth millennium BC. As for the lamas initiated into the secret of Shambhala, to this day they talk in detail about the geological disasters that in ancient times destroyed the now unknown continents in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans...
How this information was preserved and how true it is is unknown. But such a memory of “deeds of bygone days” serves primarily as a warning against new cataclysms in the future. And what could be worse than the cataclysm that threatens our world with the accumulation of stockpiles of deadly thermonuclear weapons?! Thus, the symbolism of Shambhala is quite modern in this sense.
Let's merge together the myths and legends about Shambhala - and we get that their main essence is the dream of delivering humanity from the nightmare of superstitions, social injustice and violence, the dream of the great destiny prepared for “wise man” on our Earth, of goodness and the eradication of the greatest evil that civilizations have ever known - wars. Ultimately, the dream is to preserve for ourselves and for our descendants the wonderful blue planet on which we live.
But for us, people of the 20th century, such a dream has ceased to be an unattainable ideal; it is a task that requires an immediate solution.
Reality and legend
The legend of Shambhala, Belovodye, White Island, about the mysterious promised land, full of miracles, has been living and not dying in the vastness of Asia for many centuries. It attracted the unflagging attention of Russian travelers and scientists. N. M. Przhevalsky wrote in one of his works: “Another very interesting story we heard... was a prediction about Shambhalyn... the promised land of the Buddhists... The above-mentioned country is an island lying somewhere far away in the North Sea. There is a lot of gold in it, the bread will be born of extraordinary size, there are no poor people at all.”
The famous Russian artist, prominent scientist and traveler N.K. Roerich, during his Central Asian expedition, which lasted from 1923 to 1928, collected a lot of material about this mysterious country. Having carefully analyzed it, he came to the conclusion about the typological commonality of the legends about Belovodye, Shambhala, and the White Island. The various names of the country mentioned in the legends only indicate the diversity and vastness of the regions in which this legend was spread: India, Tibet, Altai... Doctor of Historical Sciences N. N. Pokrovsky, in a report he read in 1976, reported that archaeographic expeditions conducted by the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, recorded the legend of Belovodye in Eastern Kazakhstan, as well as in the valleys of the upper Yenisei. In this regard, Academician A.P. Okladnikov drew attention to the legend about the land of “bearded people”, widespread in eastern Siberia. Such a wide geography of the legend puts it on par with the legend of the flood, the reality of which has been confirmed by archaeological research.
It is definitely impossible to consider the legend of Shambhala, or Belovodye. It is extremely multi-layered, which indicates its considerable age. At the dawn of what historical era did it appear? This is difficult to answer. We only know, as S. Bulantsev correctly reports, that there are mentions of it in pre-Buddhist sources in Tibet. There are many variants of this legend; there are a significant number of details of a very different nature associated with it. But the main outline can be found in any variant.
N.K. Roerich revealed in the legend of Shambhala one of its most ancient layers, associated with the era of migration of peoples. The scientist was prompted to this idea by numerous legends about underground passages and caves, into which entire tribes and peoples supposedly went and disappeared forever. Thus, the reserved country turned into an underground kingdom, where these tribes and peoples rushed. “Every entrance to the cave,” wrote N.K. Roerich in this regard, “suggests that someone has already entered there. Every stream—especially underground streams—invites fantasies of underground passages.” Continuing his thought, Roerich notes: “The people define these problems much more simply: for them, everything that disappeared went underground.”
The movement of nomadic peoples in distant times, their disappearances from the places of initial settlement, their sudden appearances in unexpected areas fed folk fantasy and clothed the real facts of the past in legendary form.
The legend of Belovodye, in my opinion, is a later layer of the main legend. Several centuries ago, the Old Believer movement began in Russia.
And the ancient legend about the reserved land of happiness and justice received a new life. Russian peasants, escaping the persecution of the official church and feudal tyranny, dreamed of a country where their troubles and suffering would end and where they would peacefully engage in agricultural work. They went to remote areas of Siberia and began to settle in Altai. The legend of the protected country continued to live among the Old Believers two centuries later. It acquired new details, real and fantastic, and carried within itself a charge of some strange effectiveness. People tirelessly sought to find a wonderful country. They set out on a difficult, unknown path alone, in groups, and sometimes in entire “societies.” The largest Russian travelers N.M. Przhevalsky and P.K. Kozlov followed these movements with close attention. “The best results,” wrote Przhevalsky, “led to inquiries regarding the long stay of the Russian Old Believers on Lop Nor. People who saw with their own eyes the aliens who came to this wilderness of Asia, probably to look for the promised land of Belovodye, told us about them.” Kozlov, during his expedition to Mongolia and Kam in 18S9, talked with the Old Believer Rakhmanov, who himself went to Lop Nor in search of Belovodye.
Travels in search of Belovodye, stories about the wonders of the protected country are reflected even in Russian fiction. Korolenko, Melnikov-Pechersky, Shishkov on the pages of their works captured the stories of wanderers who awakened the imagination of more than one generation of Russian peasants. “But we still got to Belovodye. There is a deep lake there, and a big one, just like some kind of sea, and that lake is called Loponsky and the Belovodye River flows into it from the west. There are large islands on that lake, and Russian people of the old faith live on those islands,” says one of the heroes of Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel “In the Woods.” Russian Old Believers called Belovodye many places where, as it seemed to them, the Promised Land began.
Reality and legend walked side by side, often unnoticeably replacing each other. And therefore reality was similar to the legend, and the legend to reality. This relationship between legend and reality was keenly noticed by N.K. Roerich: “In these protected and preserved legends you can recognize the reality of the past. In every spark of folklore there is a drop of Truth, embellished or distorted.”
So far, unfortunately, a number of information related to the legend of Shambhala cannot be satisfactorily deciphered, such as data about the contact of Shambhala with space civilizations and legends about sunken continents and lost cultures.
S. Bulantsev's essay, written on the basis of numerous sources, gives us reason to assert that in the legend of Shambhala, along with fantastic moments, there are real or reflections of such. But the reader should have a natural question: did the mysterious country of Shambhala, Belovodye, and Tebu really exist or not?
A number of rare features of the legend itself and its unusual historical fate force us to take it seriously and continue to study it. There is nothing easier than denial or a tendentious selection of evidence to refute this or that legend that came to us from antiquity. It is much more difficult to comprehend these legends, analyze them, reveal their time layer and be able to see the reality behind them. Only such a path can be fruitful.
L. Shaposhnikova, Candidate of Historical Sciences, laureate of the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize
"Site VokrugSveta.ru (VokrugSveta.ru)
On a winter day, a bus painted yellow and brown to match the surrounding area carried a large group of Indian and foreign journalists to a northern Indian city. A day ago, an armed border conflict broke out, and the Indian government organized a trip for journalists, including me, to the combat area. We arrived at the hotel at dusk and, exhausted from hours of travel, dreamed of a hot shower and a warm camel blanket. While going up to the room on the second floor, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a motionless figure on the stone floor of the open veranda.
Early in the morning, going down to the restaurant for breakfast, I saw this figure again and could now take a good look at it. Sitting on a jute mat, muttering some prayers, was a middle-aged Buddhist monk, wearing a bright saffron toga, with half-closed eyes and a detached face.
Soon jeeps drove up to the hotel, and we moved towards the border. The day was extremely eventful: we were taken to the front line, we talked with Indian soldiers and officers, and visited a field hospital. The impression of everything I saw was very heavy, and I completely forgot about the motionless figure on the hotel veranda. Imagine my surprise when in the evening I found the monk in the same place and in the same position. It seemed that he did not even get up from the floor to change his position or stretch his stiff legs. I came closer and made out the words of the Buddhist prayer “om mani padme hum” and the repeated word “shambhala”.
“He prays that the wise inhabitants of Shambhala will stop the bloodshed,” an Indian journalist I know answered my question.
Pilgrims to the Valley of the Immortals
There is a beautiful valley in the mountains, protected from cold winds. For one who enters this valley, the wheel of death stops, he achieves nirvana and becomes immortal. The inhabitants of the Valley of the Immortals are wise and beautiful in appearance. They are able to travel throughout the universe and live on the most distant stars. The ruler of this valley - the god of mercy Chen-re-zi - closely monitors everything that happens in the world... So says the Tibetan legend.
The Kunlun Mountains are the habitat of immortals. It was there, according to Eastern tradition, that Nu and Kua - the Asian Adam and Eve - were born. In one of the picturesque mountain valleys stands the nine-story palace of Queen Xi Wang Mu, built entirely of jade. The palace is surrounded by a magnificent garden in which the peach Tree of Immortality grows. Only people of the highest virtue are awarded the right to taste the wonderful fruit, after which they become forever young and immortal. There is music in the air, although there are no singers or musicians anywhere to be seen. The most worthy quench their thirst with the elixir of youth from a spring that flows near the palace.
Tebu is the most beautiful country in the world, lost in Tibet, says Taoist belief. Snow-capped mountain peaks surround wonderful valleys with rivers and waterfalls. The inhabitants of these valleys have achieved physical perfection, have high wisdom and live a full spiritual life.
The ancient Indian epic “Mahabharata” reads: “In the north of the Sea of Milk there is a large island known as Shveta-dvipa (White Island)... Men live there, removed from all evil, indifferent to honor and dishonor, marvelous in appearance, full of life. by force..." Another ancient Indian source of the Purana describes the island of Shambhala, which is located in the center of the lake of nectar: palaces rise there and sacred groves are fragrant... You can reach it on the back of a divine golden bird.
In many Tibetan manuscripts, the mysterious country is also called Shambhala.
“There is such a strange country in the world, it’s called Belovodye. And it is sung about in songs and told in fairy tales. She is in Siberia, beyond Siberia, or somewhere else. You have to go through the steppes, mountains, the eternal taiga, all towards the sunrise, towards the sun, set your path and, if happiness was given to you from birth, you will see Belovodye in person. The lands in it are rich, the rains are warm, the sun is fertile, wheat grows by itself all year round - no plowing, no sowing - apples, watermelons, grapes, and in the flowery grass, endlessly, countless herds graze - take it, own it. And this country does not belong to anyone, all the will, all the truth lives in it from time immemorial, this country is outlandish.
Grandmother Afimya was grinding - the armless soldier, when receiving medals, supposedly told her: “Belovodye lives under the Indian king.” Grandma Afimya is lying, the soldier is lying: Belovodye is nobody’s, Belovodye is God’s.”
This is how the famous V. Ya. Shishkov described Old Believer beliefs about a certain mysterious country.
Beautiful stories, aren't they? Let us wait, however, to attribute them entirely to the folklore epic, to the poetic expression of the eternal dream of every people about wise rulers and a perfect state structure.
The Portuguese missionary Stefan Casella, who lived in Tibet for 23 years and died there in 1650, wrote about the existence of the mysterious Shambhala. The Tibetan lamas had such deep respect for him that they even offered him a trip to this forbidden country. The Hungarian philosopher Csoma de Keres spent four years in one of the Buddhist monasteries of Tibet, from 1827 to 1830, and became so ardently convinced of the real existence of Shambhala that he even indicated its geographical coordinates: from 45 to 50 degrees north latitude, north Syrdarya river.
Some Shambhala researchers believe that the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, the author of the famous treatise “Tao Te Ching”, which sets out the doctrine of Tao - the absolute, indefinable, underlying the world, wrote his work under the influence of a pilgrimage to Shambhala. It is also believed that in his declining years Lao Tzu again went to the Valley of the Immortals. Some of the biographers of the New Pythagorean philosopher of the 1st century AD Apollonius of Tyana express the opinion that he also visited Shambhala. There is similar information about some other famous personalities of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Let's stop there for now...
"Oh, the treasure in the lotus"
More recently, in the 1960s, Tibetan refugees fleeing persecution by Chinese authorities published several books in India on the ancient Tibetan religion of Bon. One of these books, the Tibetan-Shangshun Dictionary, contained a certain mysterious map. Soviet researcher B. Kuznetsov found the key to it. It turned out that the map depicts countries of extreme antiquity - the state of Elam, the Country of the Saks, Bactria, Babylon, Jerusalem, Egypt, as well as the coast of the Caspian Sea. In addition, the country of Shambhala is indicated on the map.
I happened to get hold of a reproduction of a Tibetan panel depicting the city of Shambhala. It is located behind a double ring of snow-capped mountains, and between the rings there are castles and buildings in picturesque groves, and in the very center is the palace of the ruler of Shambhala. This picture is strikingly reminiscent of a blooming lotus, and at the first glance I had an association with the Buddhist mantra - a magic spell - “om mani padme hum”, which roughly translated means “oh, the treasure in the lotus”. Whether this prayer is dedicated to Shambhala - I don’t presume to judge, but the coincidence that was revealed to me remained forever in my memory.
Altai Old Believers described the path to Belovodye to the famous artist and scientist Nicholas Roerich, who visited Altai during the Central Asian expedition: “Through the Kokushi Mountains. Through Ergor along a special route. And whoever does not know the way will disappear in the lakes or in the hungry steppe. It happens that Belovodsk people also come out. On horseback along special passages along Ergor. Or it was that the Belovodsk woman left a long time ago. Tall. The waist is thin. The face is darker than ours. Dressed in a long shirt, like a sundress...”
Time has brought to us the legend of Huang Di, the “son of heaven,” who carried out a civilizing mission in the Yellow River valley. In the third millennium BC, according to the ancient monuments of Chinese writing, Huang Di and his associates, supposedly having flown to Earth from the constellation Ursa Major, built a palace in the Kunlun Mountains, from where they made expeditions to the Yellow River Valley on amazing self-propelled carriages and shared their knowledge with local residents.
An ancient legend especially notes that the palace in the Kunlun Mountains is absolutely inaccessible to outsiders, and among Tibetans there is still an opinion that it is incredibly difficult to get to Shambhala.
Many European travelers cited cases where guides from the local population were ready to die rather than lead an expedition along the intended route if even part of it ended up in some forbidden territory. If a reckless traveler nevertheless goes forward, an avalanche will block his path. As soon as he overcomes the obstacle, a landslide or rockfall occurs. If the daredevil does not turn back here, then he will discover a bottomless abyss ahead, which will force him to abandon further travel, because not a single unwanted guest can get to Shambhala.
“There are many caves at the foot of the Himalayas, and it is said that underground passages extend far from these caves. Some even saw a stone door that never opened because the time had not yet come. Deep passages lead to a magnificent valley,” wrote N.K. Roerich in the book “The Himalayas - the Abode of Light.” All the legends about Shambhala have a common detail: the inhabitants of a wonderful country communicate with the outside world, but to do this they do not have to make grueling treks through the mountains; they use an extensive system of underground roads. The beliefs of the Old Believers say that the kingdom of the righteous is protected by snow-capped ridges, and you can get into it “through special passages.”
But let it be given to a person to enter Shambhala, then after a long, exhausting journey a beautiful valley will open to his gaze. Forgetting for a while about legends, let’s ask ourselves: is something like this in principle conceivable in harsh high-mountain regions? And again the testimony of N.K. Roerich. He wrote that during his trip to Tibet, his expedition more than once came across picturesque valleys in areas where it seemed completely impossible to find them. In these oases, lost among colossal snow massifs, hot springs gush out, thanks to which a variety of vegetation flourishes. And there is only ice and rocks around.
Nicholas Roerich devoted a lot of time and energy to studying folk legends about Shambhala. In his opinion, the legend about Belovodye among Russian Old Believers and the Eastern belief about the valley or island of Shambhala are siblings. Roerich believed that the “news of Belovodye” came from the Kalmyks and Mongols, that is, from the Buddhist world. What is interesting, however, is this: the legend about the land of sages in the mountains existed not only in the Buddhist tradition.
Expedition of Father Sergius
This interesting story was recorded in Russian chronicles kept in the ancient Vyshensko-Uspensky Monastery in the Tambov region.
During the time of the Kyiv prince Vladimir, a certain Russian monk Sergius spent several years in Byzantine monasteries. When Sergius returned to Kyiv, he told his master a legend about a mysterious state in the East - the Kingdom of White Waters, a land of justice and virtue. Prince Vladimir was so fascinated by this legend that in 987 he equipped a large detachment to search for Belovodye, led by Father Sergius - he was then about 30 years old. The prince hoped that the Russian mission to the Kingdom of the White Waters would return to Kyiv in three years. However, neither three years nor ten years later the detachment returned. In Kyiv they decided that in distant lands the expedition had suffered an evil fate, and over time they forgot about it.
But in 1043, a very old man appeared in Kyiv, who declared himself... monk Sergius - the same one whom the late Prince Vladimir once sent in search of a wonderful eastern country. And the stranger told the amazed listeners an amazing story about his long journey to Belovodye.
Father Sergius said that by the end of the second year of the journey, many members of the expedition died from disease or died, or the animals died. In some vast desert, travelers came across many skeletons of people, horses, camels, and donkeys. Perhaps it was precisely this ominous desert that Academician V. A. Obruchev described more than nine hundred years after the journey of Father Sergius: “The fantastic shapes of the rocks along which the road ran, twisting and crossing hollows, really gave the impression of something supernatural, and those that came across occasionally individual bones, skulls of camels and other animals and their entire skeletons, polished with grains of sand to a shine, enhanced the gloomy appearance of the area, devoid of any vegetation.”
In the end, the expedition members were so frightened by these terrible landscapes that they flatly refused to go further. Only two - the most courageous and resilient - agreed to continue the journey with Father Sergius.
By the end of the third year of the grueling journey, these two - barely alive from deprivation and illness - had to be left in some village in the care of local residents. Father Sergius himself was on the verge of complete exhaustion, nevertheless, he cut off the way back for himself: either reach the goal or die - there was no third option.
After another three months, the monk reached the borders of Belovodye - a lake with shores white from salt. Here the guide refused to go further, inexplicably frightened by something. Father Sergius was left completely alone and... nevertheless moved deeper into the forbidden territory.
After a few days of travel, two people suddenly appeared in front of the exhausted Sergius. The monk understood what they wanted from him, although he did not know the language the strangers spoke. They took Sergius to the village, where after some rest he got a job. After a while, he was transferred to another village, the inhabitants of which accepted Sergius as a brother. Months and years passed, the Russian monk acquired more and more knowledge...
As Sergius told the people of Kiev, a huge number of people from different countries persistently tried to penetrate Belovodye, but their attempts were extremely rarely successful.
The Kiev monk was not the only Russian who went in search of the fabulous Belovodye. The belief about the “Belovodsk Kingdom” was common among Russian Old Believers of the so-called “worthless” persuasion. It is known that the “useless people”, who did not recognize the priesthood of the Greek Catholic Church and did not join any of the “priestly” Old Believer agreements, more than once went to Belovodye, hoping to find pre-Nikon Orthodoxy there “in all its purity and grace.” In 1903, the Russian Geographical Society published the brochure “The Journey of the Ural Cossacks to the Belovodsk Kingdom.” It was written by the Ural Cossack G. T. Khokhlov, who in 1898, together with two comrades, made a long journey to Palestine, Ceylon, Indochina and Japan in search of Belovodye. In the preface to this brochure, the writer V. G. Korolenko noted that the legend of Belovodye “is not new and has long been shaking simple hearts with its tempting and dreamy charm.” According to his information, throughout the last century, “there were known cases when people from the villages of the Altai district (Bukhtarma volost) went abroad ... to find “Belovodye.” Further, V.G. Korolenko writes: “Some of the statisticians who studied the Altai district have already informed the writer of these lines in recent years that even now there are still known cases of these attempts to penetrate into Belovodya through the mysterious ridges and deserts of Central Asia. Some of these seekers return after suffering all sorts of calamities, others do not return at all. There is no doubt that these “others” are dying somewhere in China or in harsh Tibet, inhospitable for a European. But naive rumor explains this disappearance differently... In her opinion, these missing people remain in the happy Belovodsk kingdom. And this circumstance attracts more and more dreamers to danger and death.”
Dream of goodness
Now let's summarize some results. From all that has been said, it becomes clear that the legends about Shambhala are an interweaving of completely earthly, real ideas (for example, about the same “oases” among mountain peaks) with fantastic stories that have emerged from the depths of Eastern mythologies. In Shambhala there is supposedly a “medicine of truth”, by taking which a person cleanses the soul of lies and henceforth speaks only the truth. Feeling the approach of old age, the inhabitants of Shambhala fast for a while, then drink a wonderful drink from the spring of eternal youth and become young again. Tibetan rumor tells about the “eagle stones” of Shambhala, which correct vision, can emit heat and cold, illuminate and plunge the surroundings into darkness.
Perhaps, after all, let us once again remember the ancient aphorism that has already become banal: that the new is the well-forgotten old. Children of the 20th century, who have acquired fantastic technology, sometimes speak with a fair amount of condescension about their distant ancestors, considering them primitive creatures with stone axes in their hands. Meanwhile, these “primitives” created literary and philosophical masterpieces that amaze our contemporary with the depth of penetration into the mysteries of existence. Here is a fragment of one of the cosmogonic hymns of the Rig Veda:
“Then there was neither the existing nor the non-existent;
there was no air
space, no sky above it.
What was in motion? Where? Under whose cover?
What were the waters
impenetrable, deep?
There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no difference between night and day."
The ideas of the authors of this hymn about the formation of the universe fit into our views today. Meanwhile, the brilliant creators of the Rig Veda, who so “modernly” expound the origin of the universe, lived, as some vedologists claim, in the fifth or even sixth millennium BC. As for the lamas initiated into the secret of Shambhala, to this day they talk in detail about the geological disasters that in ancient times destroyed the now unknown continents in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans...
How this information was preserved and how true it is is unknown. But such a memory of “deeds of bygone days” serves primarily as a warning against new cataclysms in the future. And what could be worse than the cataclysm that threatens our world with the accumulation of stockpiles of deadly thermonuclear weapons?! Thus, the symbolism of Shambhala is quite modern in this sense.
Let's merge together the myths and legends about Shambhala - and we get that their main essence is the dream of delivering humanity from the nightmare of superstition, social injustice and violence, the dream of the great destiny prepared for “a reasonable man” on our Earth, of goodness and the eradication of the greatest evil that civilizations have ever known - wars. Ultimately, the dream is to preserve for ourselves and for our descendants the wonderful blue planet on which we live.
But for us, people of the 20th century, such a dream has ceased to be an unattainable ideal; it is a task that requires an immediate solution.
Sergey Bulantsev
Reality and legend
The legend of Shambhala, Belovodye, White Island, about the mysterious promised land, full of miracles, has been living and not dying in the vastness of Asia for many centuries. It attracted the unflagging attention of Russian travelers and scientists. N. M. Przhevalsky wrote in one of his works: “Another very interesting story we heard... was a prediction about Shambhalyn... the promised land of the Buddhists... The above-mentioned country is an island lying somewhere far away in the North Sea. There is a lot of gold in it, the bread will be born of extraordinary size, there are no poor people at all.”
The famous Russian artist, prominent scientist and traveler N.K. Roerich, during his Central Asian expedition, which lasted from 1923 to 1928, collected a lot of material about this mysterious country. Having carefully analyzed it, he came to the conclusion about the typological commonality of the legends about Belovodye, Shambhala, and the White Island. The various names of the country mentioned in the legends only testify to the diversity and vastness of the regions in which this legend is spread: India, Tibet, Altai... Doctor of Historical Sciences N.N. Pokrovsky, in a report he read in 1976, reported that archaeographic expeditions conducted by the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences recorded the legend of Belovodye in Eastern Kazakhstan, as well as in the valleys of the upper Yenisei. In this regard, Academician A.P. Okladnikov drew attention to the legend about the land of “bearded people”, widespread in eastern Siberia. Such a wide geography of the legend puts it on par with the legend of the flood, the reality of which has been confirmed by archaeological research.
It is definitely impossible to consider the legend of Shambhala, or Belovodye. It is extremely multi-layered, which indicates its considerable age. At the dawn of what historical era did it appear? This is difficult to answer. We only know, as S. Bulantsev correctly reports, that there are mentions of it in pre-Buddhist sources in Tibet. There are many variants of this legend; there are a significant number of details of a very different nature associated with it. But the main outline can be found in any variant.
N.K. Roerich revealed in the legend of Shambhala one of its most ancient layers, associated with the era of migration of peoples. The scientist was prompted to this idea by numerous legends about underground passages and caves, into which entire tribes and peoples supposedly went and disappeared forever. Thus, the reserved country turned into an underground kingdom, where these tribes and peoples rushed. “Every entrance to the cave,” wrote N.K. Roerich in this regard, “suggests that someone has already entered there. Every stream - especially underground streams - invites fantasies of underground passages." Continuing his thought, Roerich notes: “The people define these problems much more simply: for them, everything that disappeared went underground.”
The movement of nomadic peoples in distant times, their disappearances from the places of initial settlement, their sudden appearances in unexpected areas fed folk fantasy and clothed the real facts of the past in legendary form.
The legend of Belovodye, in my opinion, is a later layer of the main legend. Several centuries ago, the Old Believer movement began in Russia.
And the ancient legend about the reserved land of happiness and justice received a new life. Russian peasants, escaping the persecution of the official church and feudal tyranny, dreamed of a country where their troubles and suffering would end and where they would peacefully engage in agricultural work. They went to remote areas of Siberia and began to settle in Altai. The legend of the protected country continued to live among the Old Believers two centuries later. It acquired new details, real and fantastic, and carried within itself a charge of some strange effectiveness. People tirelessly sought to find a wonderful country. They set out on a difficult, unknown path alone, in groups, and sometimes in entire “societies.” The largest Russian travelers N.M. Przhevalsky and P.K. Kozlov followed these movements with close attention. “The best results,” Przhevalsky wrote, “led to inquiries regarding the long stay of the Russian Old Believers on Lop Nor. People who saw with their own eyes the aliens who came to this wilderness of Asia, probably to look for the promised land of Belovodye, told us about them.” Kozlov, during his expedition to Mongolia and Kam in 18S9, talked with the Old Believer Rakhmanov, who himself went to Lop Nor in search of Belovodye.
Travels in search of Belovodye, stories about the wonders of the protected country are reflected even in Russian fiction. Korolenko, Melnikov-Pechersky, Shishkov on the pages of their works captured the stories of wanderers who awakened the imagination of more than one generation of Russian peasants. “But we still got to Belovodye. There is a deep lake there, and a big one, just like some kind of sea, and that lake is called Loponsky and the Belovodye River flows into it from the west. There are large islands on that lake, and Russian people of the old faith live on those islands,” says one of the characters in Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel “In the Woods.” Russian Old Believers called Belovodye many places where, as it seemed to them, the Promised Land began.
Reality and legend walked side by side, often unnoticeably replacing each other. And therefore reality was similar to the legend, and the legend to reality. This relationship between legend and reality was keenly noticed by N.K. Roerich: “In these protected and preserved legends you can recognize the reality of the past. In every spark of folklore there is a drop of Truth, embellished or distorted.”
So far, unfortunately, a number of information related to the legend of Shambhala cannot be satisfactorily deciphered, such as data on the contact of Shambhala with space civilizations and legends about sunken continents and lost cultures.
S. Bulantsev's essay, written on the basis of numerous sources, gives us reason to assert that in the legend of Shambhala, along with fantastic moments, there are real or reflections of such. But the reader should have a natural question: did the mysterious country of Shambhala, Belovodye, and Tebu really exist or not?
A number of rare features of the legend itself and its unusual historical fate force us to take it seriously and continue to study it. There is nothing easier than denial or a tendentious selection of evidence to refute this or that legend that came to us from antiquity. It is much more difficult to comprehend these legends, analyze them, reveal their time layer and be able to see the reality behind them. Only such a path can be fruitful.
L. Shaposhnikova, Candidate of Historical Sciences, laureate of the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize
Fenugreek.
Since time immemorial, people have believed in the existence of a promised land, a land of happiness, where universal harmony and prosperity reign. Legends and traditions of different peoples did not always indicate its location in the same way, but most often placed it in the Himalayas. IN The existence of the mysterious country of Shambhala was unconditionally believed by the magnificent expert on the East, Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich. He collected many ancient tales and legends about it, wrote a lot about Shambhala in his diaries “Altai - Himalayas” and “Heart of Asia”. But the debate - whether it really exists or is just a beautiful fiction - has not subsided to this day. The example of Troy excavated by Schliemann suggests that myths can also have a real basis. And Shambhala is spoken of in the epics of many nations. And regardless of its name, and they were different, this country was most often placed in Central Asia: in the Kun-Lun Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas, the Gobi Desert (“flowing sands”). The French traveler Alexandra Niil lived in Tibet for a long time at the beginning of the century. In his book “Mystics and Magicians of Tibet” Niil mentions a protected country called Tushita, where pilgrims went: It was located somewhere on the territory of the Land of Snows, as Tibet was called in ancient times. H. P. Blavatsky, who left us texts from lost ancient sources, writes about an island surrounded by the terrible Gobi Desert. There was once a vast sea there. Representatives of the Third Race lived on the island. These people could equally easily live in water, air or fire, for they had unlimited control over the elements. Communication with this island took place not by sea, but through underground caves. In the surviving Tibetan books, the legend of this island is alive to this day. But the island is no more, what remains is an oasis country, lost among the mountains. The death of the sea is associated with a great cataclysm that occurred in the distant past in Central Asia and the Himalayas. On the slopes of the Himalayas, modern scientists are finding geological evidence that the rocks of these enormous peaks were once part of the ocean floor. But the most amazing thing is: there is evidence of the existence of such a country in a historical era relatively close to ours. In the West, the first mention of Shambhala was made by two monks of the Jesuit order - Stefan Casella and John Cabral. During their trip to Bhutan, they heard that somewhere in the north there was a kingdom of Shambhala. In 1627, they travel to Tibet, intending to find their way to a mysterious country. But the attempt ended unsuccessfully; they were unable to penetrate further than the city of Shigatse.
The Vatican archives contain messages from Catholic missionaries collected over the past 150 years. They mention mysterious deputations that were allegedly sent by the Chinese emperors to the sages who lived in the mountains of Nan Shan and KunLun. During the Middle Ages, when the Crusades began and the West collided with the East, the legend of the so-called “Brotherhood of the Grail” appeared. According to one legend, it was located in Spain or in the south of France, according to another - in the country of the ancient Celts, in Ireland, according to a third - far in the East. Legend has it that on a high, inaccessible mountain there is a castle where the highest brotherhood lives. At the foot of the mountain is either a large lake or a fast, irresistible river. Around the Grail Castle there is a wild, mountainous, dry desert. This mysterious place can only be penetrated by those whom the Grail itself calls to itself, who has a pure heart and honest intentions. Therefore, for ordinary mortals, the Grail Castle is invisible.
Many modern Soviet and Western scientists recognize the historical existence of the country of Shambhala, since any stable legend has a real basis. There is also a Russian version of the legendary country of Shambhala - the mysterious Belovodye. In Russia, among the Old Believers who lived in Siberia, there was a legend about Belovodye - a reserved land of happiness and justice. Alone and in groups, they went in search of this country from the persecution of the official church. Legends are wonderfully intertwined with factual material in N.K. Roerich’s travel diaries. “During the expedition,” he writes, “the lama, the guide of the caravan, covers his mouth and nose with a scarf. Why? After all, the day is not cold. He explains: “Now some precautions are necessary, we are approaching the protected areas of Shambhala. Soon we will meet "sur", a poisonous gas that guards the border of Shambhala." Our Tibetan, Konchok, gallops towards us and says in a whisper: "Not far from here, when the Dalai Lama was traveling from Tibet to Mongolia, all the people and all the animals of the caravan began to tremble, but the Dalai Lama explained that one should not be afraid, because the caravan had touched the protected border of Shambhala."
Another entry in the diary: “It’s a sunny, cloudless morning, the clear blue sky is sparkling. A huge dark kite is rapidly rushing through our camp. Our Mongols and we are watching it. But then one of the Buryat lamas raises his hand to the blue sky: “What is it there? White balloon? Airplane?"
And we notice: at a high altitude, something shiny is moving in a direction from north to south. Three strong binoculars were brought from the tents. We observe a voluminous spheroidal body sparkling in the sun, clearly visible among the blue sky. It moves very quickly. Then we see it change direction more to the southwest and disappear behind the Humboldt snow chain. The entire camp is watching the unusual phenomenon, and the lamas whisper: “The sign of Shambhala.” “The radiance over the peaks of the Himalayas is from Shambhala,” say the lamas. “No one will reach this protected place without a call, without a guide.” The guides refuse to go in some directions, having discovered the border of Shambhala. And they would rather allow themselves to be killed, writes Roerich, than be led forward. By the way, Przhevalsky also wrote about this, when the guides deliberately took the caravan to hard-to-reach places, just so as not to get close to unauthorized areas. Moreover, they were not frightened even by the threat of execution. Roerich describes a large number of caves in the mountains and mountain shelters, where some lamas go from time to time and from where not all come back. Due to their inaccessibility, these areas always remain insufficiently explored.
Ancient legends speak of deep underground passages and caves that lead to underground cities where there are laboratories and magnificent libraries. It is believed that everything there has been preserved from the beginning of the world... In the article “Underground Inhabitants” Roerich writes: “... while crossing the Karakoram, my companion, a Ladakh, asked me: “Do you know why there is such a strange hill here? Do you know that in the underground caves are hidden many treasures and that in them lives a wonderful tribe who abhor the vices of the earth?" And then, when we reached Khotan, under the hooves of our horses it sounded quite as if we were passing under the caves and voids. Our caravan leaders took notice of this, saying: “Do you hear, we are crossing the voids of underground passages? Through these passages, people familiar with them reached distant countries." So, maybe it was possible to get to this legendary country of Shambhala from different places? After all, according to legends, caves lead to underground cities and flowering valleys, closely connected by underground passages . There are also many entrances, and they are located in different places. These entrances are known only to those who can be admitted to Shambhala. For others, these entrances and the milestones marking them will not mean anything and will go unnoticed. Among the Tibetan people it has been preserved the belief that the kingdom of Shambhala is hidden in a secluded valley in the Himalayas. There are also many Buddhist texts that give detailed but at the same time unclear instructions on how to reach Shambhala. But all the texts agree that the treasured country must be sought in the heart main mountain ranges of Central Asia. Roerich has a painting called “Lake of the Great Nagas.” This is the sacred Lake Manasarovar, from which the Brahmaputra, the sacred Indian river, originates. Nagas are a legendary genus of snakes with very beautiful human faces and the ability to fly. They communicate only with wise people. Nagas live in vast caves illuminated by precious stones. The caves are connected by galleries running under the mountain ranges. Nagas were associated with the mysterious country of Shambhala. According to legend, one of them passed on knowledge to Nagaradze (the great philosopher), on the basis of which he transformed the teachings of the Buddha. Roerich captured this event. Yuri Roerich, the son of the artist, a world-famous orientalist, believes that European scientists downplay the meaning of the concept of “Shambhala”. But those who are well acquainted with the East know what a huge influence it has on the peoples of highland Asia. Throughout history, this word has not only inspired religious movements, but also moved armies whose war cry was the word "Shambhala."
The soldiers of the national hero Sukhbaatar, who expelled the army of the Chinese invader General Xu and his army from Mongolia in 1919 and brought freedom to their free country, composed a song that began with the words “Chang Shambhala Dain” or “War of Northern Shambhala” and called on the Mongolian warriors to climb the sacred a war for the liberation of one’s country from enemy hordes. There is another beautiful legend associated with Shambhala. This is the existence of the wonderful Chintamani stone. Its appearance on Earth is associated with the constellation Orion. According to legends, the stone was brought by the winged horse Lung-ta, who is able to cross the universe. N. Przhevalsky in his book “Mongolia and the Country of the Tanguts” wrote that for those who can be admitted to the promised land of the Buddhists, Shambhala, there is a special horse that stands constantly saddled and carries its master in one night from Tibet to the promised land and back ". Isn’t this winged horse a symbol of a spaceship? And isn’t that why the lamas, seeing a spheroidal body over the peaks of the Himalayas, whispered: “The sign of Shambhala.” According to the legends of the East, the main part of this stone is located in Shambhala, and the remaining pieces wander around the world . Various countries and historical figures are mentioned who temporarily owned fragments of the stone. One of them was the legendary King Solomon, into whose ring a piece of the all-powerful mineral was inserted. With its help, the king acquired the ability to speak with animals. Famous Russian traveler and ethnographer G. N. Potanin During an expedition to Central Mongolia, he wrote down a legend: “In the yurt of Geser Khan (the hero of the Mongol epic) at night, with the doors locked, it was as bright as day, it was illuminated by a magic stone that glowed like fire.” In the East, this stone is endowed with all sorts of properties. It shows signs that appear and then go deeper. According to legends, the stone warns its temporary owner about all sorts of significant events. On special occasions it makes a crackling noise and sometimes begins to glow.
The horse carrying this stone on its back - the Treasure of the World - is called the Horse of Happiness. He was often depicted on stupas or suburgans erected in the East in honor of some particularly important events.
According to legend, the stone has internal heat, emits radiance and has a strong psychic effect. Isn't this related to the phenomena of radiation and radioactivity? It can be argued that the legend of Shambhala did not arise out of nowhere. In very distant times, in the areas of the high mountains of Kun-Lun and the Himalayas, some phenomena occurred that were reflected in myths and legends. These phenomena could be of a global cosmic nature, or the nature of cataclysms associated with changes in the surrounding landscape: the formation of mountains, volcanic activity, etc. They could also lead to the death of an ancient civilization, if it existed in these places. It is suggested that in the distant past the Gobi Desert was a prosperous land, but some cataclysm turned it into a dead desert. Tektites were allegedly discovered there - a glassy mass formed at very high temperatures, possibly during a nuclear explosion. And in India, a human skeleton was found whose radioactivity was 60 times higher than normal. And to this day these places remain troubled. Roerich's expedition in the highlands of the Himalayas observed unusual phenomena: multi-day continuous thunderstorms and all kinds of lightning, pinkish-purple flames in the tent, escaping from under the hands, but not causing a burn, without sound or smell. Ball lightning was detected nearby twice. The expedition passed through valleys with hot and cold mineral springs, geysers, and the most unexpected vegetation. High inaccessible mountains, caves, volcanoes, geysers; increased radioactivity and other physical phenomena of unknown origin make these places even more inaccessible and mysterious. People don’t create legends about small, insignificant things. Just like he doesn’t suck them out of his finger. And the further into the depths of centuries we move, the more materials we find about Shambap as a real country. There is even a map of the state of Shambhala. Could Shambhala survive to this day? It is very possible that wise yogis and hermits still live in oases, lost in the heart of the mountain labyrinths of Central Asia. In Tibet, the expedition of Roerich, as well as the French explorer Niil, met such yogis, locally called “resps,” completely naked, sitting on an ice crust. A light stream of steam rose up from their bodies. By the power of self-suggestion of intensely radiated heat, they are able to make snow melt. The search for Shambhala does not stop today. In 1980, E. Birnbaum wrote the book “The Path to Shambhala,” in which he describes the jasper palace of the king of Shambhala and the golden throne. The king, sitting on the throne, holds a precious stone in his hand. The inhabitants of the country live in contentment, they are dressed all in white, speak Sanskrit and are distinguished by the highest virtue. Allegedly, in a conversation with the Dalai Lama, Birnbaum was told that Shambhala exists materially in this world. And some European travelers believe that Shambhala is not a country, but a secret brotherhood of “Kellans”. It is attached to the Panchen Lama, and the description of Shambhala represents the encrypted structure of this organization. Other researchers claim that Shambhala disappeared from the face of the earth many centuries ago. One day, the entire society inhabiting the country became enlightened. The kingdom disappeared, passing into another, more sublime sphere of existence. According to these legends, the kings of Shambhala, or Rigden, continue to oversee the affairs of mankind and will someday return to Earth to save it from destruction. Chogyam Trungpa, who left Tibet due to its occupation by China, is the author of the book “Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior” , writes that among many teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, a good tradition has existed for a long time and continues to exist - to consider the concept of Shambhala not as a geographical place, but as the basis or root of awakening and mental health that exists within every person... Deep human wisdom is able to solve world problems. This wisdom does not belong to any one culture or religion, it does not come only from the West or the East. This is a tradition of the human warrior that has existed throughout history in many cultures at different times, a tradition of human courage and fearlessness. The teachings of Shambhala say that in the face of the world's problems we can be both heroic and kind. The vision of Shambhala is the opposite of egoism. It concerns one and all. Without violating their own individuality, each inhabitant of the Earth and everyone together must finally think about how we can help this world. If we don't help him, no one will help him. Of the numerous scientists who wrote about the mysterious country, N.K. Roerich left us the most complete and capacious idea of Shambhala, of the great Mahatmas and Teachers of mankind associated with this protected area, of the Teachers included in the Great White Brotherhood. Summarizing the scattered teachings about Shambhala, he says that the teaching about Shambhala is a holistic teaching about life. It involves the high art of mastering the highest forces hidden in man and connecting this power with the Cosmos. Roerich lists many material structures included in the concept of Shambhala, which are carriers of the subtlest cosmic energies. To these he includes the Great Mahatmas and Rishas, Azar and the army of Rigden Dzhapo, the underground cities of Agarti and Belovodye of Altai, the black stone and the Grail of the West, underwater Kitezh and Agni Yoga and much more - everything that is connected with human hopes for the promised country that exists on the same Earth where you and I live.” Country of people, country of gods” Inna Shevaleva.
Belovodye . “If you want to understand Asia and enter as a welcome guest, you must greet your host with the most sacred word - Shambhala.”N. K. Roerich "There is such a strange country in the world, it is called Belovodye. And it is sung about in songs, and in fairy tales. It is in Siberia, beyond Siberia, or somewhere else. Through the steppes, mountains, eternal taiga, everything is in the sunrise, towards the sun, you need to set your path and, if happiness was given to you from birth, you will see Belovodye in person. The lands in it are rich, the rains are warm, the sun is gracious, the wheat grows by itself all year round - no plowing, no sowing - apples , watermelons, grapes, and in the flowery large grass herds graze endlessly, without counting - take it, own it... And this country does not belong to anyone, all the will, all the truth lives in it from time immemorial, this country is outlandish.
Grandmother Afimya was grinding - the armless soldier, when receiving medals, seemed to say to her: “Belovodye lives under the Indian king.” Grandmother Afimya is lying, the soldier is lying: Belovodye is no one’s, Belovodye is God’s.” This is how the Russian writer V. Ya. Shishkov described Old Believer beliefs about a certain mysterious country. Beautiful tales, aren’t they? Let’s wait, however, to attribute them entirely to the folklore epic, to the poetic expression of the eternal dream of every people about wise rulers and a perfect state structure.Let us wait a while to declare the legends about the Valley of the Immortals, Shambhala and Belovodye a pure eastern utopia like Campanella’s “Sunny City”.
Altai Old Believers described the path to Belovodye to the famous artist and scientist Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, who visited Altai during a Central Asian expedition: “Through the Kokushi Mountains. Through Ergor along a special path. And whoever does not know the path will perish in the lakes or in the hungry steppe. It happens that Belovodsk people also come out. On horses in special passages along the Epropy. Or it happened that a Belovodsk woman came out a long time ago. Tall in stature. Slim in stature. Darker in face than ours. Dressed in a long shirt, as if in a sundress. Dates for everyone is special."
Nicholas Roerich devoted a lot of time and energy to studying folk legends about Shambhala. In his opinion, the legend of Belovodye among Russian Old Believers and the Eastern belief about the valley or island of Shambhala are siblings, and they are based on the idea of a mysterious Tibetan state inhabited by great-wise inhabitants. One very old man told a scientist in Altai that his two grandfathers decided to find Belovodye. They returned three years later and told about the miracles that they had seen in the monastery of the sages. Their story largely coincides with Buddhist legends about Shambhala. Perhaps this is why Roerich believed that the “news of Belovodye” came from the Kalmyks and Mongols, that is, from the Buddhist world. It is interesting, however, this: the legend about the land of sages in the Himalayas existed not only in the Buddhist tradition.
An interesting story about the expedition of Father Sergius was recorded in Russian chronicles kept in the ancient Vyshensko-Uspensky Monastery in the Tambov region.
During the time of the Kyiv prince Vladimir, a certain Russian monk Sergius spent several years in Byzantine monasteries. When Sergius returned to Kyiv, he told his master a legend about a mysterious state in the East - the Kingdom of White Waters, a land of justice and virtue. Prince Vladimir was so fascinated by this legend that in 987 he equipped a large detachment to search for Belovodye, led by Father Sergius - he was then about 30 years old. The prince hoped that the Russian mission from the Kingdom of White Waters would return to Kyiv in three years. However, neither three nor ten years later the detachment returned. It could only be assumed that misfortune befell the expedition in distant lands, and over time it was forgotten.
But in 1043, a very old man appeared in Kyiv, who declared himself monk Sergius - the same one whom the late Prince Vladimir once sent in search of a wonderful eastern country. And the stranger told the amazed listeners an amazing story about his long journey to Belovodye. Father Sergius said that by the end of the second year of the journey, many members of the expedition died from disease or died, and many animals died. In some vast desert, the travelers came across many skeletons of people, horses, camels, and donkeys. Perhaps it was precisely this ominous desert that Academician V. A. Obruchev described more than nine hundred years after the journey of Father Sergius: “The fantastic shapes of the rocks along which the road ran, twisting and crossing hollows, really gave the impression of something supernatural, and those that came across occasionally individual bones, skulls of camels and other animals and their entire skeletons, polished with grains of sand to a shine, enhanced the gloomy appearance of the area, devoid of any vegetation." In the end, the participants in the hike were so frightened by these terrible landscapes that they flatly refused to go further. Only two - the most courageous and resilient - agreed to continue the journey with Father Sergius. By the end of the third year of the grueling journey, these two, barely alive from deprivation and illness, had to be left in some village in the care of local residents. Father Sergius himself was on the verge of complete exhaustion, nevertheless, he cut off the way back for himself: either reach the goal or die - there was no third option. The inhabitants of the desert places through which the possessed monk walked told him about a wonderful country called the Land of White Waters, the Land of Shining Souls, the Land of Living Fire, the Land of Wonders, the Sacred Kingdom, the Forbidden Land. These enchanting speeches supported Father Sergius’ determination to get to Belovodye, and he and his dark-faced guide persistently strove into the unknown. After another three months, the monk reached the borders of Belovodye - a lake with shores white from salt. Here the guide refused to go further, inexplicably frightened by something. Father Sergius was left completely alone and... nevertheless moved deeper into the forbidden territory. After a few days of travel, two people suddenly appeared in front of the exhausted Sergius. The monk understood what they wanted from him, although he did not know the language the strangers spoke. They took Sergius to the village, where after some rest he got a job.
After a while, he was transferred to another village, the inhabitants of which accepted Sergius as a brother. Months and years passed, the Russian monk acquired more and more new knowledge. He was immensely happy that he had found well-behaved, selfless sages who worked for the prosperity of mankind. According to him, the sages had the miraculous ability to see everything that happened far beyond the boundaries of their monastery. Father Sergius told the people of Kiev that a huge number of people from different countries persistently tried to penetrate Belovodye, but their attempts were extremely rarely successful. Since ancient times, in the brotherhood of sages there was a law according to which only seven people per century could enter their country. Six of them subsequently returned to their native lands, carrying secret knowledge with them, and one remained to live in Belovodye and became immortal. The Kiev monk Sergius was not the only Russian who went in search of the fabulous Belovodye. The belief about the “Belovodsk Kingdom” was common among Russian Old Believers of the so-called “worthless” persuasion. It is known that the “useless people”, who did not recognize the priesthood of the Greek-Russian Church and did not join any of the Old Believer agreements, more than once went to Belovodye, hoping there to find pre-Nikon Orthodoxy “in all its purity and grace.”
In 1903, the Russian Geographical Society published a brochure “The Journey of the Ural Cossacks to the “Belovodskoe Kingdom.” It was written by the Ural Cossack G. T. Khokhlov, who, in search of Belovodskoye in 1898, together with two comrades, made a long journey to Palestine, Ceylon, and Indochina and Japan. In the preface to the brochure, the writer V. G. Korolenko argued that the legend of Belovodye “is not new and has long been shaking simple hearts with its tempting and dreamy charm.” According to his information, throughout the last century “there were known cases when from the villages of the Altai district (Bukhtarminskaya volost) people went abroad... to find "Belovodye". Further, V.G. Korolenko writes: “Some of the statisticians who studied the Altai district have already informed the writer of these lines in recent years that even now there are still known cases of these attempts to penetrate into Belovodye through the mysterious ridges and deserts of Central Asia. Some of these seekers return back after enduring all sorts of disasters, others do not return at all. There is no doubt that these “others" perish somewhere in China or in harsh, inhospitable and inaccessible to Europeans Tibet. But naive rumor explains this disappearance differently... In her opinion - "These missing people remain in the happy kingdom of Belovodsk. And this circumstance attracts more and more dreamers to danger and death." Is the idea of the existence of Belovodye really so fantastic? Heinrich Schliemann was ridiculed when, having read Homer, he began to look for Troy. And Schliemann believed the blind genius and excavated the legendary city. The legend of the flood, which exists among almost all peoples of the world, was for a long time considered a biblical tale, until archaeologists discovered traces of a giant flood in Mesopotamia. Maybe Belovodye is also waiting for its Schliemann?
“Belovodye” Sergey Bulantsev.
