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Video: Amazing places in Russia that were considered sacred in the old days
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In the vastness of our vast country, there are many places that have been considered special since ancient times. Ancient temples, sanctuaries or just natural objects of strange shapes - these centers still attract a huge number of people. Some go to them out of curiosity, others try to solve ancient riddles or, believing ancient legends, hope to “recharge” with energy or find harmony.
Manpupuner (Mansi blockheads)
The creator of the unusual "statues" from the Komi Republic is nature itself. Scientists believe that mountains rose on this place 200 million years ago. They gradually collapsed, but the hard sericite-quartzite schists, of which the pillars are composed, withstood the rain and wind, so today we can see these unusual tall stones, which in geology are called outliers. There are only seven of them on the Manpupuner plateau, each with a height of 30 to 42 m, that is, about a ten-story building. This unique natural monument is considered one of the seven wonders of Russia.
Of course, local legends associate numerous legends with these giants. The Mansi people in past centuries deified them, considering them frozen giants. Shamans worshiped amazing rocks, but climbing a plateau and disturbing the sleep of stone giants was considered the greatest sin. Even today, the flow of tourists has not yet reached these places, since it is not so easy to reach the plateau - it is located in a hard-to-reach area and only physically prepared people are capable of this. However, every year there are more and more daredevils.
Arkaim
The South Ural steppes turned out to be a real treasure for archaeologists. Here, on the territory of about 350 thousand square kilometers, there are numerous settlements, very similar in structure and layout. The age of the settlements is about 4-2 thousand years BC. Scientists named this place "Country of Cities". Arkaim is one of the largest and most researched today.
This ancient settlement was discovered by archaeologists in 1987. The study of the area was carried out for a specific purpose - the site was subject to flooding during the construction of the reservoir, but after the start of excavations, the construction of the facility was suspended, and then completely canceled. Today, the amazing ancient city, built on a radial scheme, has been approximately half cleared by scientists, and research continues on it. It is interesting that this historical monument became a place of pilgrimage and an object of worship not in ancient times, but in the early 90s. The leaders of numerous pseudoscientific movements dubbed Arkaim "the place of power", the "ancestral home" of the Slavs or Aryans, and the "cradle of human civilization." Scientists refute such theories, but this does not stop numerous seekers of centers of sacral power, and the ancient settlement does not go unnoticed.
Whale alley
This Eskimo sanctuary, located on the Chukchi island of Itygran, was discovered by scientists in 1976. Rows of symmetrically located huge bones and skulls led scientists to the idea that this place is not just an old camp of hunters with the remains of their prey, but a religious site. The alley dates back to the XIV-XVI centuries. Scientists have not found any analogues to this complex. Local residents' inquiries about the purpose of the Whale Alley also gave nothing. Archaeologists were so deadlocked that they began to call this monument “an equation with many unknowns,” but there is no doubt that the object had a religious significance.
In addition to the spectacularly installed huge bones, scientists found on the territory of the ancient sanctuary stone storage pits, giant rings laid out of cobblestones, hearths with ash and a man-made road 50 meters long. The scale of the Whale Alley and the nature of the buildings erected on it indicate that, most likely, it was the central sanctuary for the inhabitants of numerous Eskimo villages. According to the researchers, a variety of rituals were performed here, and even, possibly, sports competitions were held. Why these festivals-conventions ceased to be held and the sacred place was forgotten is unknown today.
Solovetsky labyrinths
The Solovetsky Islands are famous not only for monasteries. Judging by the archaeological finds, people have lived in these places since the 11th millennium BC. The very unusual objects found here date back to the Neolithic era. On Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, ancient people built spiral stone labyrinths. The diameter of these low structures reaches 25 meters. Scientists are still arguing about the appointment of strange paths made of stones. According to one version, labyrinths are important sacred objects associated with rituals of transition between the worlds of the dead and the living. True, there is also a more down-to-earth version that they served as a model for building complex traps for fishing. In total, there are 35 such structures on the Solovetsky Islands. Locals call them "Babylon".
Shaman-rock
This place is one of the main ancient sanctuaries on Lake Baikal. At the beginning of the 20th century, a cape in the middle part of the western coast of Olkhon Island caused superstitious horror among the local population. In this place, the Baikal Buryats for many centuries made sacrifices, took vows and resolved disputes in front of the faces of the gods. The well-known Russian scientist V. A. Obruchev, who studied Baikal, wrote about this:
In addition, the entrance to the sanctuary and even being in its vicinity was strictly forbidden to women. Interestingly, in addition to local shamans, this place bears the traces of Buddhists. Previously, there was a prayer house here, and according to the stories of local residents recorded by ethnographers, at the beginning of the 20th century, hundreds of lamas from the datsans of Transbaikalia came to the Shaman Rock. Nowadays, the amazing two-headed rock has become a real symbol of Lake Baikal.
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