Chud Zavolochskaya- this is the ancient pre-Slavic population of Zavolochye, which to this day is in some way a historical mystery. This term was put into use by the 11th-century chronicler Nestor in The Tale of Bygone Years. Listing peoples in his work of Eastern Europe, he named this nationality among other Finno-Ugric tribes of that time: “... in Afetov, parts of Rus, Chud and all the tongues sit: Merya, Muroma, Ves, Mordva, Zavolochskaya Chud, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Ugra "
Residence map of Chudi Zavolochskaya.
Historians claim that it was a non-literate people and did not leave behind any annals or any other documents.
They did not survive as a people, they did not leave their customs or language to this day, the Chud disappeared without a trace among the Russian newcomers and neighboring nations. ABOUT Chud tribes reminiscent only of the legends and names given once to the rivers and lakes among which they lived.
We know that the people, called by the Novgorodians the miracle of Zavolotsk, lived in the basins of the Mezen and Northern Dvina rivers, along the banks of the Luza, the South, and Pushma. In terms of language and culture, the Chud belonged to the Finno-Ugric peoples. Once the Finno-Ugric peoples inhabited the entire north-east of Europe, the Urals and part of Asia.
They spoke a language close to the language of modern Veps and Karelians.
All information about the life, clothing and appearance of the Chud tribes is known only from the results archaeological sites. Archaeologists usually search in an area with some kind of "chud" name. They find either traces of a village, or a settlement, or a Chud burial ground - an ancient cemetery. Based on the finds, it can be determined whether it was a Chud, or another Finno-Ugric tribe, or Scandinavians and Slavs who came to this land later.
Chud and other Finns can be confidently distinguished from others by two types of finds: by the remains of their pottery and by decorations. Pottery is usually molded without a potter's wheel, by hand, with thick walls, often it has not a flat, but a round bottom, because the food in it was cooked not in stoves, but in hearths, on an open fire. Outside, such dishes are decorated with an ornament, squeezed out on wet clay with the help of sticks and special stamps; such an ornament is called pit-comb and is found only among the Finno-Ugric peoples.
They were people of medium and above average height, presumably fair-haired and with light eyes, in appearance most of all reminiscent of modern Karelians and Finns.
Because of appearance, there is another name for this people - White-eyed Chud.
The Chud tribes owned pottery blacksmithing, knew how to weave, process wood and bone. They were familiar with metal not so long ago: many tools made of bone and flint are found in the settlements.
They lived by hunting and fishing. They were also engaged in agriculture, grew unpretentious northern cultures: oats, rye, barley, flax. They kept domestic animals, although during excavations of settlements in Zavolochye more bones of wild animals are found than domestic ones. They hunted not only for meat, they also hunted fur-bearing animals. Furs in those days were in use on a par with money, It was also just a commodity, it was traded with Novgorod, Scandinavia, and Volga Bulgaria.
In connection with the development of trade in Zavolochye, ancient portage routes arose. Most likely, they were laid not by Russian aliens, but by the local population, and only then they were used by Novgorodians and Ustyugians.
Chud disappeared with the advent of Christianity. Their own religion was pagan.
All legends about Chud say something like this. Chud lived in the forest, in dugouts, had her own faith. When they were offered to convert to Christianity, they refused. And when they wanted to be baptized by force, they dug a large hole and made an earthen roof on the pillars, and then everyone went in there, cut down the pillars, and they were covered with earth. So the ancient Chud went underground.
In fact, the Chud of Zavolotsk shared the fate of the Finnish tribes, who dissolved among the Russian aliens and neighboring peoples: Muroms, Marys, Narovs, Meshchers, Vess. They were all once mentioned in Russian chronicles next to the Chud. Part of them, resisting the Russian invasion, was apparently exterminated; part accepted Christian faith and merged with the Russian population, gradually losing its language and almost all customs; and a considerable part united with neighboring, in many respects kindred peoples.
“Rus was lost in Mordovians and Chuds,
She has no fear…”
Sergey Yesenin.
From the Baltic Sea to Ural mountains- north European Russia stretched out a huge Finno-Ugric belt - the habitat of numerous Finnish and Ugric tribes. Some of these peoples have survived to our time, and some have mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind legends, traditions and ancient burial mounds from the Volga and Vyatka to the gray Urals!
One of these peoples is the ancient Chud, which is known from Lake Peipus in the west to the Peipus settlements and caves in the Northern Urals. There are many legends both about the miracle itself and about underground cities of this people, about their mysterious treasures, burials and riddles. Chuds are often mentioned in the legend about their departure to underworld, where they allegedly closed until other times ...
There are legends about the Chud peoples as ancient and skilled miners, somewhat similar to the dwarves who lived in the adits and mines of the European mountains. Echoes of such legends are preserved, for example, in Sarmanovo (Tatarstan), where there was an old copper mine. There are many such legends in Kirov region where burial grounds and settlements of the Chud people were discovered!
There are legends about miracles and Mari people- a legend is very common about how in ancient times the Mari themselves went into dungeons and caves and cut down the pillars holding the earth, after which the passages to the mysterious dungeons were closed forever. The Mari themselves associate these legends with their ancestors, it is likely that the ancient Chud (like the Merya) played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Mari people.
If we recall the mysterious Ovda, then in every second case - Ovda lives either in a cave or in a dugout, not tall, usually hiding from people, and then went far to the North.
The legendary Prince Chembulat also went to the rocky dungeon, as it says ancient monument and a sanctuary on the Nemda (a tributary of Pizhma and Vyatka).
A huge number of legends about Chud have been preserved in the Urals, this will be mentioned in articles about anomalous zones Bashkiria, Perm Territory, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, we will separately tell about these legends.
This article will talk about the traces of the Chud people in the Vyatka land (Kirov region). In this region (and around it) there are many references to the Chud - let us recall, for example, where, according to legend, the Chud tribe went!
After all, they are still arguing where this place is located ???
Chud goes underground (N. Roerich) 
CHUD PEOPLE
Chud is the collective name of a number of Finno-Ugric tribes and peoples. Sometimes they call it that mythological character, close in meaning to the word "goblin" (found in folklore, including among the Komi and the Saami).
Depending on the historical chronology and on the territory of use, the meaning of the word is somewhat different:
in The Tale of Bygone Years (859), Nestor reports that
"the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chud, Slovenian, Merya and Krivichi, and the Khazars - from the glades, northerners, Vyatichi, took tribute on a silver coin and a fan (on a squirrel) from smoke)"; here there is a difference between merya and chud; for the year 882, when Oleg "went on a campaign and took with him many warriors: Varangians, Chuds, Slovenes, Meryans, all and Krivichi, and came to Smolensk and took the city"; here the difference is that, including, the whole is mentioned; in 1030 Yaroslav I the Wise undertook a campaign against the Chud, "and defeated them, and set up the city of Yuryev"), here the Chud is probably the Ests;
from chronicle sources it is also known that noble representatives of the Chud lived in Novgorod (Chudintseva Street) and Kyiv (Chudin courtyard, where he moved " best husbands"from Krivichi, Vyatichi, Novgorod and Chud in 982 Vladimir the Red Sun);
The Vyatka chronicler reports that the Novgorodians on the Chepets River, along which they descended to Vyatka, found two peoples - the Chud and the Ostyaks;
V late XIX century, the historian S. M. Solovyov, at the IV archaeological congress, suggested that the miracle, which the Tale of Bygone Years mentions in the story of the calling of Rurik, should be considered the Vod - the inhabitants of the Vodskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod Land, whose descendants lived at that time in Narva district (see "Narova (nationality)"), they were then called a miracle in everyday life. Officially in Russian Empire Until 1917, Vepsians were called Chud.
the Udmurts have generic names Chudya (Shudya), Chudna;
Komi, so called their still unbaptized ancestors.
CHUD-VOD
I will seize on the phrase that the Vod people who lived to the north-west of Novgorod were called Chud. From here, a connection with Vyatka and the first newcomers to it from Novgorod is already looming. Actually, Chud-Vod was one of the components of the population of Novgorod and Vyatka. Indeed, what kind of people were they who were settled on a large territory (from Novgorod to the Ob, the center is Vyatka), but disappeared without a trace just at the time when Muscovy seized these regions? Let me remind you that archaeologists associate Chud with settlements-kars (Kar in the name), which include our Koshkar and Karino (Tatars in Vyatka). So connections with the Cossacks can be traced.
In the Komi and Udmurt languages, some researchers see an Iranian-speaking influence, which is associated with the Chud people, who lived among these peoples until the 15th century. the legendary Chud also lived in Vyatka.
NORTHERN LEGEND
On the connections of Sysola and Vyatka.
On the Sysol (a tributary of the Vychegda from the side of Vyatka) there are settlements with the names Kariel (Kara-il?), Votcha (Votka?) and Gul-Chun ("Devil's finger" in the Komi language) containing Novgorod finds of the 13th-14th century. According to legend, Chud lived in them. "Chudskoye settlement" is mentioned in the Vymsko-Vychegodsk chronicle. It turns out that Chud can be understood as the Novgorod-Vyatka population that existed before the conquest of Vyatka and adjacent territories by Moscow. People from Sysola could get nicknames-surnames Sysolyatin and Sysoev (from Sysa, Sysa).
Let me remind you that Kaygorodok is located in the upper reaches of the Sysola - the name can be translated as a city on the road (kai - portage, the road through the forest, if you remember the Mari: kai - leave). That is, in this place there was an ancient route from Vyatka to the north - Sysol, Vychegda and Dvina. Around Vyatka in all directions there are (in the past) legends about the people of Chud. Stories about Chud vary, in some they talk about Chud heroes, like those that we have on Chursha. In other "weirdos" they ridicule and generally respond disparagingly. In Vyatka they were called chuchki, hence the verb "zachuchkat" (spoil, soil). Mikulin is named Chudsky city in PSV. It turns out that Chud is the population of the Vyatka cities in the 15th century. It can be assumed, that dismissive attitude to the old population of Vyatka and its environs was deliberately grafted in the 16th century. among the newly arrived here from Muscovy and Ustyug.
TOPONYMY
(Kudymkar, Maikar, Dondykar, Idnakar, Anyushkar, etc.) cannot be deciphered in any way using the local Permian languages (Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak). According to legend, there were Chud settlements in these places, and it is here that bronze jewelry and other items are most often found, conventionally united by the name Perm animal style. And experts have always recognized the "Iranian influence" on the art of the Perm animal style itself.
In the Urals, stories about the Chud are more common in the Kama region. Traditions indicate the specific places where the Chud lived, describe their appearance (and they were mostly dark-haired and swarthy), customs, and language. From the language of the Chuds, legends even preserved some words: “Once a Chud girl appeared in the village of Vazhgort - tall, beautiful, broad-shouldered. Her hair is long, black, not braided.
Here is what one of the legends recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, tells: "... And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them, did not want to be enslaved by Christianity. They dug a big hole, and then they cut up the racks and buried themselves. This place is called the Peipus Coast."
"Traces" of Chud (actually attributable to different ethnic groups and different historical periods- from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages) can be considered - burial mounds and settlements; embankments and pits; remains of buildings, arable lands, hayfields; groves considered sacred; archaic household items; ancient burials (in particular, "Chudsky" burial grounds, which were log cabins lowered into pits with wooden ceilings)<Северные предания, 1978>. Compare: Some mounds are the burial places of the white-eyed Chud, who, frightened by the Russians, “went into the ground on her own”, “buried herself alive” (Vyat.) Kudryavtsev, 1901>. In the Shenkursky district of the Arkhangelsk province, it was said that "the local indigenous inhabitants, the Chud, desperately defending their land from the invasion of the Novgorodians, did not want to submit to the aliens for anything," they defended themselves furiously from the fortresses, fled into the forests, killed themselves, were buried alive in deep ditches (having dug a hole, they put posts in the corners, made a roof over them, laid stones and earth on the roof, went into the hole with property and, having cut the supports, died). Chud was also "buried" from Yermak.
One of the possible "traces" of Chud - considered in the XIX century. unusual, mysterious place Kholmogory spruce forest (on Kurostrov, near the city of Kholmogor). According to the mentioned II. Efimenko, according to legend, there was once a "Chudskaya idol" in the spruce forest. The idol, made of silver, "was attached to one of the most seasoned woods and held a large golden bowl in his hands." It seemed impossible to steal the idol and the treasures surrounding it: “Chud took care of her god tightly: sentries were constantly standing near him, springs were held near the idol itself. , and then you won’t go anywhere; the sentries will immediately take it away, and the damned chud will fry it in a pan and even sacrifice it to his idol "
Despite these precautions, the Russians still managed to rob the sacred place and escape unharmed. According to one version, the runaway Chud stood still, looked at the departing ships, clapped her hands and dispersed - "and from that very time she stopped gathering in the spruce forest." According to another version, the Chudins chased the Novgorodians for about ten versts to the present village of Kurya down the Dvina and fought them there, but they could not defeat the kidnappers (Arch.)<ЕФИМЕНКО),1869Г.)
LEGEND OF THE SAami
About ancient times, a white-eyed miracle came to our lands. Over the clothes, the enemies wore iron armor, on their heads - iron horned helmets. Their faces were covered with iron nets. The enemies were terrible, everyone was cut out in a row. Men, women, children, old people - they all were killed, no one was spared. They wanted to reduce our entire family so that there would be no Saami left in the world. They took all the good, they stole all the deer, they killed the dogs, there was not a single living soul left after the raid on the camp.
Chud came in autumn, on the first ice. As ice grabs the rivers, so the enemy force came running. The Saami were very afraid of enemies, they went to the mountains, hid in the ground, built underground villages. Far into the tundra, however, Chud did not go. The enemies were afraid.
One day a large detachment of Chudi came along the river in boats.
UDMURT TALE
Batyrs from the Chud tribe
When, in what distant times this happened, no one can say, but it only goes without saying that the Alangasars (giants) were no longer in the world, and the descendants of Ud settled in the forest region by different tribes, and Inmar and Kyldysin did not appear anymore to people . It was then that a tribe called the light-eyed Chud settled on the Kama River. And this tribe lived on a mountain, on a high bank. The people of this tribe loved space and freedom, and therefore they settled not chestily, did not crowd one next to the other. But they lived together: when they saw that the enemy was approaching one of them, they fired preemptive arrows at their brothers. They will take and shoot an arrow at the barrow, which is near the Belaya River, and further, to the Chegandinsky tract. As the arrow flies, so they immediately gathered all together and met the enemy.
They were very tall in stature, exorbitant in strength, and independent in character. Other tribes called them batyrs.
OLD BELIEVERS' LEDITIONS
"Once upon a time, in this fertile valley, the powerful tribe of Chudi lived and flourished. They knew how to find minerals and how to grow a rich harvest. This tribe was the most peaceful and hardworking. But then the White King came with innumerable detachments of cruel warriors. Peace-loving and hardworking Chud could not resist the violence of the conquerors and did not want to lose their freedom, they remained servants of the White Tsar. Then for the first time white birch began to grow in this area. And, according to ancient prophecies, Chud found out that the time had come for their departure. And Chud, not wishing to remain in subjection to the White Tsar, she went underground. Only sometimes you can hear the singing of holy people; now their bells are ringing in underground temples. But the glorious time of human purification will come, and in these days the Great Miracle will again appear in full glory. "
HISTORICAL DATA
The conquest of a certain Tiudi-Chudi by Germanaric can be associated with the appearance in the Kama region and Vyatka of that time of the burial places of knights of the 4th-5th centuries. - Ready and the Huns who replaced them (this was discussed above). Interest in our region can be explained not only by fur gold, to the north of the mouth of the Kama there was an important international east-west trans-Siberian railway. It is enough to take a globe and connect the north of China and central Europe with the shortest line. In the country of the ancestors of the Udmurts, there was a transshipment point, and those who owned it controlled the entire journey. The bypass route through the southern steppes was more difficult and dangerous. This is how Arsania appeared.
Chud was of two types: swarthy and light, respectively, of southern and northern origin. The southern Iranian-speaking type can be considered the original. The northerners appeared a little later. It could be Scandinavians, Russes and Balts. They competed with each other or somehow got along - probably both. It cannot be ruled out that people from the north were hired to replenish the troops, and special detachments were formed from them.
Chud was a highly developed people, good warriors. At first, her beliefs were peculiar, only in the later period part of the Chud was baptized. But their faith seems to have been different from Moscow Orthodoxy. The Chud bogatyrs lived in special fortresses - Karakh, located on high riverine hills. In the Vyatka basin, the most prominent are the Churshinskoye and Elabuga settlements.
The period of life of the Chud corresponds to a peculiar archaeological culture of the Kama region. In addition to the Finno-Ugric and Bulgar components, it includes significant Old Russian (Northern Russian and Scandinavian) material.
Excerpts from the thesis of L. D. Makarov
"Old Russian population of the Kama region of the 10th-15th centuries":
"... Thus, in the western part of the Lower Kama region,
a greater number of ancient Russian finds. There are reasons to associate
monuments of this part of Volga Bulgaria with "silver Bulgarians"
Russian chronicles - one of the possible Bulgarian tribal
associations that have in their composition a noticeable Old Russian
component. According to linguists, the Turkic name of Vyatka is "Nukrat"
- distorted from "Novgorod".
In the Bulgarian-Tatar reading, the Vyatka River was referred to as the "Novgorod River" (Akhmetzyanov M., 1991; Dobrodomov I.G., 1994).
Gradually, the original meaning of the name was forgotten and, apparently, the Bulgarians began to explain it from the consonant Arabic word "nukrat" - "silver". In this concept, the "silver Bulgarians" (in fact, "Bulgarians who lived near the Novgorod river") got into the Russian chronicles, which can be explained by the concentration
here a weighty Old Russian component.
I note that it was in the Nizhnekamsk region that the processes of integration of the ceramic traditions of the Slavs, Permian and Upper Volga Finns with the Turks were most actively going on (Vasilyeva I.N., 1988).
It is possible that after the defeat of Volga Bulgaria by Batu, part of the Old Russian population migrated to the Mari-Chuvash Volga region, to the Middle and Lower Vyatka, to the Middle Kama region, and the remaining population gradually dissolved in the prevailing Turkic-speaking environment.
So, the Chud state - this is Nukrad (Vyatka-Novgorod) Bulgaria - existed for more than 500 years. At the best of times, it extended from the possessions of Novgorod and the upper Oka to the Ob. The borders changed over time, the western outskirts fell away, but until the Mongol conquest, the central region remained - the northern shore of the lower Kama with the capital of the stone fortress of Arsa - now Kazan - where there was a powerful ruler - the Ar king of Bulgaro-Russian origin. In military service, he mainly consisted of Rus - Scandinavians, Balts and Slavs. To the south of the Kama, at about the same period, the state of Bulgars existed. Relations between them developed different, from enmity to alliance. The division took place in the 10th century. with the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgars. The Nukrat Bulgars remained in paganism, but over time they had to make a choice of faith
There is a Tatar name NUKRAT - in addition to the name of the river. Vyatka and the settlements of Karino among the Tatars, it means "small silver coin", as well as silver ingots. In Novgorod in the 15th century. they printed their own coins "Novgorodka", and until then they used ingots. In addition, the Novgorodians mined silver in Yugra. Hence the appearance among the Tatars (Bulgars) of the semantic correlation of silver with Novgorod. Russians called silver coins the word "silver".
According to the archaeological data of L. Makarov, in the Vyatka land in the 12-15 centuries there were 4 separate territories.
1. Nikulinsky volost - 4 settlements: Nikulchino-2, Rodionovo, Krivoborye on Cheptse, Vyatskoye in Kirov; and 3 settlements: Slobodskoye, Churshinskoye and Nikulchinskoye.
2. Kotelnichskaya volost - 6 settlements and 3 settlements: Kovrovskoe, Shabalinskoe, Orlovskoe.
3. Pizhemskaya volost - 8 settlements and settlement Podrelye.
4. Lebyazhsko-Urzhumsky volost - 3 settlements: Poksta-2 and others.
Settlements are the remains of ancient cities - fortified settlements, border fortresses or centers of power. Settlements - ancient settlements without noticeable traces of artificial fortifications - earthen ramparts and ditches, as well as walls and towers. Note that the settlement of the 15th century. on the site of Kotelnich, he does not attribute to the settlements.
Addition about Chudi - KIROV REGION
On the river There is a great Chudinovo (near the villages of Kuren, Shish-kari). According to legend, a "chud without a given" lived here - she did not pay taxes, perhaps she was freed from them or evaded.
http://www.tataroved.ru/publicat/fu_10.pdf 5.0 MB (p. 133, in the same place about the sacred Velikoretsky place - very interesting)
Chudnye - near the village of Shestakovo. We have surnames Chudinov, Chudinovsky.
Thus, the Chud on Vyatka lived for some time side by side with the ancestors of the modern population. Under the "Novgorodites", as we explained, according to the text of the NE who took the city of Chud, one must understand the events of 1489. population from the 17th century. a mythical understanding of history was inspired: clashes with the former Chud population were attributed to certain Novgorodians, and the Chudins themselves were given negative features. But these are, to a large extent, our ancestors, people who lived in Vyatka and around before the appearance of immigrants from Muscovy in the region. The word Chud acquired the meaning of wonderful, strange, incomprehensible, and even alien people. For ordinary peasants, the old residents of Vyatchane seemed to be such, living according to their Cossack charters, probably in a special Christian faith. Most of them left Vyatka, the rest gradually disappeared into the Russian population, joined the Old Believers. Chud seemed to have disappeared, gone underground ...
The name Chud (Zavolochskaya) is clearly of third-party origin, it was given by succession from an earlier people of Hunno-Gothic origin, who ruled the Kama region in the middle of the 1st millennium. Chudi corresponds to a kind of synthetic archaeological culture of the 9th-14th century. on Vyatka and in neighboring areas. It includes Scandinavian, Slavic and Finno-Ugric elements. It is not customary to talk about this, since according to the official. According to the doctrine, the Finno-Ugric peoples first lived with us, and then immediately behind them - the Russians. Any other interpretation is not welcome. And so they do: Finnish shards to the left, Old Russian ones to the right, the rest to the back burner. Everything is clear and understandable, without unnecessary questions.
KOMI LEDITIONS
Here is something else about Chud in the legends of Komi. The author often refers the Chud to the ancestors of the Komi people. However, the Chepetsk Udmurts, the Podchurshinskys and other residents of Vyatka have very similar legends about the heroes.
“They had more names starting with the letter K: Kocha, Kudymov, Köch, Kös. All of them were already talking then” (S.I. Buzinov, village of Maskali, Kochevsky district, K-P. national district) ...
They lived in the rye, they run around - only the rye sways" (M. Zyuleva, Pyatigory village, Gainsky district of the K-P. national district) ...
“A Chud used to live here. They had a rampart not far from here - and now they have it. They plowed up copper axes, large cast earrings, etc. The newcomer people began to attack - it merged or became obsolete. They were beaten by robbers who rode from above in large boats. They had axes, and logs were rolled down on the robbers from the high banks. (P.A. Kashin village of Gayny, Komi-Permyatsky national district.)...
There were some robbers here. Even the bullet did not take their leader: if you shoot, he will catch the bullet with his hand. They robbed here. They enter the hut, demand money, gold. The owner does not give it - they will split the stove damper, make a fire on the floor, roast the owner on the fire ... But the old ones were like that: they beat them with rods, roast them on the fire - they ask for money - but he keeps a coin in his mouth and does not give it back. The people were strong, big..." (N.A. Sidorov, village of Moskvina, Kochevsky district, KP. national district.) enemies with stones, logs, etc...
The old people told how Stepan of Perm enlightened the people along the river. Kame executed them. Cherdyn used to be called Great Perm. Cherdyn was later named as a place of execution: Cherdyn - at the ax, near the ax. Cherdyn was called after many miracles. Chud did not want to accept the Orthodox faith; they went into the forests, dug holes, brought down ceilings on themselves and perished. Miraculous things were found here: bows, arrows, axes, spears, earrings"
This type of legends closely adjoins the legends about the heroic Chud. In them, the Chud are a large, strong people who built fortresses, punishments, fortified towns with underground passages and iron gates. The bogatyrs allegedly threw axes, iron sticks, weights from car to kart. This people lived richly: they had a lot of silver and gold.
"There are many Chud places. In the direction of Vershinino, there is a Chud settlement, where the beds are still visible - they apparently planted. In the Popshotem field, behind the log, from the place of sazhen 3, they say there is a treasure - from silver, gold ...
Along the river Onolva at the bridge, on the left hand, the Chud well. They also lived on Kurogkar-Cape, they say. When plowing, their things were found. There seemed to be a cave, it had an entrance with a gate. Near the village of Chanyayb, there is a Byldög-Cape, their settlement was also there.
Kurögkar-Cape and Byldög-Cape communicated, walked on foot. They say that sticks were thrown from one cape to another (about 7 km) - such heroes were strong. Before, in general, the people were stronger.
Miracles had roads. The road was from Gain to Yurda through the forests. Here they went through Pellem, the road passed here. They, they say, have ruined themselves. We went into the pits and covered ourselves with earth" (A.I. Androv, village of Otopkova, Kochevsky district, Perm region).
There are many such legends. The stories never look like fairy tales, the narrators usually specifically point out the punishments (usually Rodanov settlements), the places of their burials and the places where their wealth is hidden, adding that they or others were looking for their treasures, etc...
Legends about the Bogatyr Chud are also most common among the Cherdyn Komi-Permyaks ...
It can be assumed that the idea of Chud among the ancient Russians, Novgorodians, arose during their clashes with Chud Zavolochskaya, whose ethnicity is still not clear.
Let's pay attention to the prevalence of Chud toponyms like "Koch". This finds an explanation if the word "Koch" or "Kosh" has the Cossack meaning "Camp".
The robbers "on large boats" who attacked the Chud, these are probably the ushkuyns. There are South Vyatka legends about the robbers, but somewhat less about the Chud, especially in the central regions. It is interesting that the Churshinskie heroes (according to the descriptions of completely similar miracles) were not called miracles. Stories about heroes here are neutral or positive. The heroes were clearly their own. The Churshinsk bogatyrs were opposed by the Nikulitskys who defeated them.
The Chepetsk Udmurts have legends about heroes who lived on local settlements-cars. They also have a plot about throwing objects. The attitude towards the heroes is twofold. Sloboda Udmurts do not remember Chud, their family is derived from a town without a name, located in the center of Kirov. Until recently, once a year, some of those killed on the Churshinskaya mountain were commemorated.
TATARSTAN
According to the legends of the southern Udmurts, their king lived in Arsk (Tatarstan), where the annual prayers of the Udmurts and other peoples and tribes were held. The ancestors of the Udmurts were allegedly expelled from the Arsk region by the Tatars more than 500 years ago. This event can be attributed to the 13th century.
In Tatarstan, near the border with the Kirov region. in the area of the settlement of the Udmurts there is a large mountain-hill called Kukmor. According to the legends recorded here, part of the Arsk Udmurts went "beyond Vyatka", probably to the region of the city of Kirov. Hence came the legend about the original place of existence of the city of Khlynov "on the Kikimorskaya mountain." Together with the Udmurts, then, it seems, the Arsk princes also moved to the north. According to Karinsky legends, they ended up in Vyatka in the 50s of the 13th century. during the retreat from the troops of Batu.
Stefan of Perm in the legends of Komi is similar to a crusader - a forced baptizer. From all that has been said, the struggle in the 14th century emerges. Novgorodians with Chud - the ancient military-trading estate of the country of Vis.
If we take into account that in the middle Vyatka there were legends about the settlement of Novgorodians here, then we must admit that the Chud had to make room. Although part of it, apparently, continued to live in the 15th - early 16th century. In my opinion, there was a mixture of the surviving Chud with northern Russians. This ethnic group became the basis of the future Russian Cossacks.
MONUMENTS AND CHUDI SETTLEMENTS
Chud - the people are largely legendary. Apparently, it was understood not as one people, but as a group of peoples and tribes that lived in the vast northern territory at different historical times before it entered Russia, but were connected by something in common. Vyatskaya Chud 14-15th century. - these are Russian Bulgars, the probable ancestors of the Cossacks of Ukraine and the Don.
On the territory of the Kama region there is also a huge number of ancient "Chudsky mines". This is understandable. Only in a sick imagination can one imagine that the ore was brought hundreds of kilometers away. Of course not. Where they melted, they dug nearby.
It turns out that often high hills on flat terrain have ore layers lying in them at a shallow depth, containing copper, tin, nickel, and iron. You cannot build a large mining complex at these deposits, and today small developments are considered unprofitable...
LEGEND ABOUT CHUDI
"... the whole country, inhabited by Permians, is full of the remains of ancient fortifications, known under the name of the Peipus settlements; and further from them to the south on both sides of the Kama, they find quite a few ancient monuments of antiquity," N. Popov wrote in the first years of the 19th century - In addition to the settlements described above in Cherdynokom district ... they are still in Sslikamsky ... In the Perm district ... In the dachas of Princess Golitsyna ... In Kungur district ... In addition to these, there are some other not so much famous settlements in different places of the Perm province on this side of the Ural ridge, not to mention those, of which several are also found on their eastern side. (N. Popov. Economic description ..., part III. 1813, pp. 63-65).
The legends told about the places where the remains of the Chud fortifications and dwellings were preserved: walls, ramparts, ditches, pits. In the legends of the XIX century. the motif of the Chud settlements, as well as in the legends of the 18th century, is rarely found separately. In most cases, it is included in stories about Chud mining (Chudsky mines), Chud burial mounds or burial grounds, Chud treasures, Chud scribes, and about the death of Chud. Archaeologist M. V. Malakhov describes the Chud settlements in 1878 as follows: they usually roamed on elevated places, on cliffs and were protected by a rampart and a moat from the side, insufficiently protected by nature.In some settlements, pits are clearly marked - the remains of Chud dwellings (near the village of Neloba).... things related to religion, weapons, decoration and domestic utensils" (M.V. Malakhov. On the Chudskoye hillfort (from travel notes in the Perm province), 1878. - Archive of the Russian Geographical Society, f. 29, op. 1, item . 60, l. 1, v., l. 2).
GROUND BURIAL GROUNDS IN THE SACRED GROVE-"BUSH" ON KOKSHENG AND SUKHON
In 1981, the author on the river. Uftyuga (left tributary of the Kokshenga River) in the village of Ignatovskaya (another name for Podkust), in the area called "Kust", a destroyed ground burial ground was discovered. Orientation of the preserved burial - head to the west (with a deviation to the north by 35R); arms folded on the chest, hands - under the chin. There were no things with the buried. Ethnic definition and dating caused difficulties. Local historian from Tarnoga A. A. Ugryumov wrote, in particular, about the "bushes" known in Koksheng, and called them ancient Chud groves. The very word "bush" was derived from the Veps "kuuz" (spruce) and the Mari "kusoto" (prayer). In 1984, during reconnaissance in the Tarnogsky district, the author examined several such "bushes". The local Koksheng name "bush" refers to traditionally protected groves. Usually these are islands of spruce or pine, sometimes mixed, mother forest. At the beginning of the 20th century, according to the information of the director of the Totma regional museum N.A. Chernitsyn, these "bushes" occupied an area of 1-3 hectares. They are usually located on a hill and are clearly visible from afar. Centuries-old trees grow in the "bushes". In the Tiunovsky "bush" the girth of the largest pine is 3.8 m. At present, the area of some of the "bushes" has significantly decreased. Yaryginsky and Dolgovitsky II "bushes" are plowed up.
Map of burial grounds and "bushes" (circles are empty):
The author refers the cemeteries to the Chud XIV-XV centuries. "We can assume that this is a Finno-Ugric or Finno-Ugric-Slavic pagan burial ground with elements of Christianization of the population." "The right hand was on the left humerus, the left hand was on the thigh of the right leg." - As you can see, some of the burials are close in ritual to those of the Cossacks from Chigirin and Nikulchino. A similar fan burial of bodies is also found in Vyatka.
Another quote: "If we recognize that the ground burials (Ignatovsky, Ramensky, Tiunovsky and Dolgovitsky) in Koksheng and Sukhona in sacred groves-"bushes" are not accidental, then we can propose the following scheme for turning pagan burial grounds and sacred groves into the concept of "bush": soil burial grounds in sacred groves belonged to the local Finno-Ugric (or to some extent mixed with Slavs) population - baptism of "bushes" through the "appearance" of the icon - construction in the "bushes" on the site of the "appearance" of the icon of the chapel. Church holidays were held in the "bushes" near the chapels once a year. The groves were guarded by tradition. Sometimes in the "bushes" there were "cherished" stumps that were gnawed from a toothache, or pieces of them were infused and the tincture was taken for stomach diseases. Sometimes there were "saints" nearby. "springs, the water of which was used for various diseases (Markushevsky and Yaryginsky "bushes"). A monastery arose on the site of the Markushevsky "bush".
"Based on the study of scientific and local history literature and field research, it can be argued that such sacred groves are distributed much wider than the Kokshenga basin. There is information about sacred groves in the space from the Sukhona almost to the White Sea and from Vychegda to Lake Onega. Information about such sacred groves is different For example: "The Zyrians of Ust'vym still preserve the tradition that the Archangel Church was founded by St. This people still trades in trade; the vast stump of this tree was left under the altar of the Arkhangelsk wooden church until the construction of the present stone church on the site of that volume, in which now this place is under the deacon's pulpit. In general, the Ustvym Zyrians of the ancestors of their idolaters still call Elniks, because they adored all sorts of trees, especially spruce trees of unusual size ". End of quotes.
Another work of the same author, archaeologist Nikitinsky I.F.
http://www.nikivan.chat.ru/russ.htm - TIUNOV SANCTUARY
It describes in detail the Chud sanctuary, which is located 3.5 km northeast of the village of Tiunovskaya, Tarnogsky district, Vologda region in the basin of the river. Kokshengi, among the local population it was known as "stone with crosses". "In our time, the sanctuary consists of two parts: the main one - a stone (about 3m) with drawings and an altar plate.
The location of the stones, each drawing of the sanctuary has its own meaning, and the relative position of the drawings on the stone also has its own meaning. A pagan understanding of the world is displayed on a quadrangular, domed stone: its three-tiered vertical structure, the World Tree, the sun at its zenith and the sun at sunset .. In addition, there is a staircase to heaven, a staircase to the ground, an entrance and a window to heaven, a heavenly ship and a pantheon of gods with stories that accompany them. In the configuration of the stone (a plan close to a square, a dome inscribed in it), in its orientation to the cardinal points, in the placement of the gods in a circle, the principle of the mandala is realized. In the center of the mandala on the dome of the stone of the sanctuary, the leader of the rituals or the one who wanted the spirit of the main god (demiurge) to descend, who was not depicted, should have been placed on him. Traces of rituals can be traced in striking the runs and plots accompanying them, as well as in the form of coal and compacted soil around the sanctuary.
MAP OF CITIES
1 - Monastery of St. Fyodor. 2 - Minsk churchyard. 3 - Ivasskoye Nikolskoye settlement. 4 - Spassky churchyard. 5 - Bogoroditskoye settlement. 6 - Druzhinina Savvatievsky desert. 7 - Dolgovitsky churchyard. 8 - Novgorod settlement. 9 - Kremlin town. 10 - Ozeretsky churchyard. 11 - Verkhnekokshengsky churchyard. 12 - Ilesian state-of-the-art. 13 - Spassky Pechenga Monastery. 14 - Londuga churchyard. 15 - Markushevsky Agapitov Monastery. 16 - Tiunovskoe Chudskoe sanctuary. 17 - Shebeng churchyard. 18 - Vaymezhskoye settlement. 19 - Romashevsky settlement. 20 - Zaborsky on-gost. 21 - Lokhotsky churchyard. 22 - Potsky churchyard. 23 - Verkhovsky churchyard. 24 - Kuloisky Pokrovsky churchyard. 25 - Brusyany Gorodok (Brusenets). 26 - Gorodishchensky in-gost. 27 - Kichmengsky town.
Vyatka legends and stories about Chud
Here is what Podosinovskie local historians write:
".... the people called by the Novgorodians the Chud of Zavolotsk lived in the basins of the Mezen and Northern Dvina rivers, along the banks of the Luza, the South, the Pushma (note that the Vyatka surnames Mezentsev, Luzyanin, Yuzhanin - borgheus). There is a village of Chudalovo in the Oparinsky district, the village of Chudinovo in the Orlovsky district, Chud - a mountain in Anikino, Luzsky district - there are a lot of examples. According to Zakharov, the population of Luzskaya Permtsa is a fragment of the Chud tribe ...
... Chud also had noisy pendants, but of a special shape, characteristic only for them. Very few archaeological remains have been found so far. On the Sukhona and its tributaries, these are Ust-Puya, Korbala, Maryinskaya, Kudrino; in the upper reaches of the Luza - Loima and Vekshor. According to archaeological finds, one can guess what the people who once lived here looked like, how they lived, what they did.
They were people of medium and above average height, presumably fair-haired and with light eyes, in appearance most of all reminiscent of modern Karelians and Finns. Little is known about men's clothing. They wore cloaks fastened with brooches, and leather belts with metal buckles, decorated with applied bronze figured plates. Women wore linen long shirts with open collars and long sleeves gathered at the wrist; oblique oblique sarafan, a hoop-type headdress with a hard lining of their birch bark. Women wore a lot of bronze jewelry - bracelets, hryvnias, temporal rings, rings, pendants, earrings, and glass beads. Some of the bronze jewelry was also worn by men. Interestingly, before the 10th c. AD women were engaged in casting from bronze: casting molds are found in female burials.
The Chud tribes owned pottery and blacksmithing, knew how to weave, process wood and bone. They lived by hunting and fishing. They were also engaged in agriculture, growing unpretentious northern crops: oats, rye, barley, flax.
Here is what the Lal historian I.S. Ponomarev about the Chud who lived in our area before the Novgorodians settled here:
“Whether the environs of Lalsk were inhabited at that time by the Chud, or the Novgorodians settled in a completely empty land, it is not known for certain, but it must be assumed that the environs of Lalsk were already inhabited at that time. The data for this are as follows:
1) Several legends have been preserved that the settlers, Novgorodians, were attacked by "Chud"; moreover, one of them adds that, in one of the raids, "Chud", near Lalsk, through the prayer of Laletyan to St. Nicholas, was stricken with blindness. This place is located on the pasture land of the city and is still called Poklonnaya Gorka.
2) The chronicler of Solvychegodsk A. Soskin writes: "it can be thought and affirmatively concluded that the population of Novgorodians and other Russian peoples in the former city of Chernigov (near Solvychegodsk) and the district of Onago was already in the place inhabited by the Chud people."
3) Among the dense forests in the volosts of Tselyakovskaya and Papulovskaya, closest to Lalsk, traces of arable land have survived to this day; but when and who lived here, no one from the local residents knows, but they heard from the old people that as if a "Chud" lived in those places, and as if, later, this "Chud" was to avoid collisions with aliens, either out of unwillingness to accept Christianity, or, finally, out of weakness, she moved further east and went to Siberia.
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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO
Team Nomads
Article Ustinov B.G.
http://samlib.ru/editors/u/ustinow_b_g/vrk6.shtml
http://paranormal.org.ru/
Wikipedia website
http://www.wowwi.orc.ru/folks/nr/nr-chud/nr-chud1.htm
http://www.ursmu.ru/
http://badelskkomi.svoiforum.ru/
Door to the kingdom of Chud
Having opened the list of languages and nationalities of the Russian Federation approved by the State Statistics Committee of Russia, you can learn a lot of interesting things. For example, the fact that people living in Russia who consider themselves to be among the mythical people of wizards is a miracle.
Most likely, this is a misunderstanding. After all, according to the legends of the north of Russia, these people went to live in the dungeons more than a thousand years ago. However, in Karelia and the Urals, one can still hear eyewitness stories about a meeting with representatives of the Chud. Aleksey Popov, a well-known ethnographer of Karelia, told us about one of such meetings.
Alexey, how plausible is the history of the existence of the Chud, this mythical people?
Of course, the Chud actually existed, and then left. But exactly where is not known. Ancient legends say that underground. Moreover, surprisingly, there is a mention of this people even in Nestor's Tale of Bygone Years: “... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chud, Slovenian, Measure and Krivichi, and the Khazars - from the meadows, northerners, Vyatichi took tribute on a silver coin and a veveritsa (squirrel) from the smoke. It is also known from the chronicles that in 1030 Yaroslav the Wise made a campaign against the Chud "and defeated them, and set up the city of Yuryev." Today it is one of the largest cities in modern Estonia - Tartu. At the same time, there are a huge number of toponymic names on the territory of Russia, reminiscent of the mysterious people who once lived here, only the people themselves do not exist, as if they never existed.
What did the monster look like?
According to most researchers, ethnographers and historians, these were creatures that outwardly strongly resembled European gnomes. They lived on the territory of Russia until the moment when the ancestors of the Slavs and Finno-Ugric peoples came here. In the modern Urals, for example, there are still legends about unexpected helpers of people - white-eyed low creatures that appear from nowhere and help travelers lost in the forests of the Perm Territory.
You said that the monster went underground...
If we summarize numerous legends, it turns out that the Chud descended into the dugouts, which she herself dug in the ground, and then filled up all the entrances. True, the dugouts could well have been the entrances to the caves. So, it was in the underground caves that this mythical people hid. At the same time, they most likely failed to completely break with the outside world. So, for example, in the north of the Komi-Permyatsky district, in the Gain region, according to the stories of researchers and hunters, one can still find unusual bottomless wells filled with water. Locals believe that these are wells of ancient people leading to the underworld. They never take water from them.
Are there any known places where the Chud went underground?
Today no one knows the exact places, only numerous versions are known, according to which such places are located in the north of Russia or in the Urals. It is interesting that the epics of the Komi and the Saami equally tell about the departure of the "small people" to the dungeons. If you believe the ancient legends, then the Chud went to live in earthen pits in the forests, hiding from the Christianization of those places. Until now, both in the north of the country and in the Urals, there are earthen hills and mounds called Chud graves. They allegedly contain treasures “sworn” by a miracle.
N. K. Roerich was very interested in the legends about the Chud. In his book “The Heart of Asia,” he directly tells how one Old Believer showed him a rocky hill with the words: “Here the Chud went underground. It was when the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, but the Chud did not want to live under the White Tsar. The Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones ... ”However, as N. K. Roerich stated in his book, the Chud should return to earth when some teachers from Belovodye come and bring great science to mankind. Allegedly, then the Chud will come out of the dungeons along with all their treasures. The great traveler even dedicated the painting “Chud went underground” to this legend.
Or maybe, by a miracle they understood some other people, whose descendants still live safely in Russia?
There is also such a version. Indeed, the legends about the Chud are most popular precisely in the places of settlement of the Finno-Ugric peoples, which include the Komi-Permyaks. But! There is one inconsistency here: the descendants of the Finno-Ugric peoples themselves always talked about the Chud as some other people.
Legends, only legends... Are there real monuments left by a miracle that you can touch with your hands?
Of course have! This, for example, is the well-known Mount Sekirnaya (local historians also call it Chudova Gora) on the Solovetsky archipelago. Its very existence is amazing, because the glacier, passing through these places, cut off, like a sharp knife, all the unevenness of the landscape - and there simply cannot be big mountains here! So the 100-meter Chudova Mountain looks on this surface as a clearly man-made object of some ancient civilization. At the beginning of the 2000s, scientists who studied the mountain confirmed that it is partly of glacial origin, and partly of artificial origin - the large boulders of which it consists are not stacked randomly, but in a certain order.
And what, the creation of this mountain is attributed just to miracles?
Archaeologists have long established that the Solovetsky archipelago belonged to local residents centuries before the monks came here. In Novgorod, they were just called a miracle, the neighbors called them "sikirtya". The word is curious, because in translation from the ancient local dialects "skhrt" is the name of a large long mound of an elongated shape. So, a haystack of an elongated shape is directly called a “stack”. It is obvious that the neighbors also called the ancient people Sikirtya for their life in "filled hills" - houses built from improvised means: moss, branches, stones. This version is also confirmed by the ancient Novgorodians - in their chronicles they note that the Sikirts live in caves and do not know iron.
You mentioned mysterious encounters with a Chud in Karelia and the Urals today. Are they real?
To be honest, I, knowing many such stories, have always treated them with a fair amount of skepticism. Until at the end of the summer of 2012, an incident occurred that made me believe in the real existence in the mountains or underground of this mythical people. Here is how it was. At the end of August, I received a letter with a photograph from an ethnographer who, during the summer months, works as a guide on a ship on the Kem-Solovki route. The information was so unexpected that I contacted him. So. The photo showed a rock, in which the outlines of a large stone door were guessed. To my question: "What is it?" The tour guide told an amazing story. It turns out that in the summer of 2012, he, along with a group of tourists, sailed past one of the islands of the Kuzov archipelago. The ship was sailing close to the shore, and people looked at the picturesque rocks with pleasure. The guide, at that time, told them stories about mysterious encounters with the mythical miracle-sikirtya. Suddenly, one of the tourists screamed heart-rendingly, pointing to the shore. The whole group immediately fixed their gaze on the rock to which the woman was pointing.
The whole action lasted a few seconds, but the tourists managed to see how a huge (three meters by one and a half) stone door closes in the rock, hiding the silhouette of a small creature behind it. The guide literally tore the camera off his neck and tried to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, the shutter of his camera clicked when only the silhouette of the stone door remained visible. A second later, he was gone. This was the first case of mass observation of the entrance to the Chud's dungeons. After this event, there is no need to doubt the reality of the existence in the rocks and underground of this legendary people!
N. K. Roerich. Chud underground
The Chud tribe is one of the most mysterious phenomena in our country. His story has long been overgrown with secrets, epics and even rumors, both quite plausible and completely fantastic. Not much is known about this tribe to judge from this information about the full history of its representatives, but quite enough to produce the most incredible stories. Scientists and researchers have tried and are trying to unearth evidence of that era, to decipher that wonderful world full of mysteries that the Chud tribe gave us.
The Chud tribe is sometimes compared to the Mayan tribe of the American Indians. Both those and others suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only memories. In official history, the term "Chud" is considered the ancient Russian name of several Finno-Ugric tribes. The very name of the tribe Chud” is also not entirely clear. It is commonly believed among the people that the representatives of these tribes were so named for their incomprehensible language, which they spoke and which other tribes did not understand. There is an assumption that the tribe was originally Germanic or Gothic, which is why they were called Chud. In those days, "Chud" and "Alien" were not only of the same root, but also had the same meaning. However, in some Finno-Ugric languages, one of the mythological characters was named Chud, which also cannot be discounted.
This tribe, which suddenly disappeared, is mentioned in "", where the chronicler directly tells: " ... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chuds, Ilmen Slovenes, Meryu and Krivichi ...". However, everything is not so simple here either. For example, the historian S.M. Solovyov made an assumption that the inhabitants of the Vodskaya valley of the fifth part of the Novgorod Land were called a miracle in the Tale of Bygone Years - Vod. Another mention dates back to 882 and refers to Oleg’s campaign: “ ... went on a campaign and took with him a lot of warriors: Varangians, Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, all the Chud and came to Smolensk and took the city ...«.
Yaroslav the Wise undertook a victorious campaign against Chud in 1030: "and defeated them, and established the city of Yuryev." Subsequently, it turned out that a number of tribes were called Chud, such as: Ests, Setu (Pskov Chud), Vod, Izhora, Korels, Zavolochye (Zavolochskaya Chud). In Novgorod, there is Chudintseva Street, where noble representatives of this tribe used to live, and in Kyiv - Chudin Dvor. It is also believed that names were formed on behalf of these tribes: the city of Chudovo, Lake Peipsi, the Chud River. In the Vologda Oblast there are villages with the names: Front Chudi, Middle Chudi and Back Chudi. Currently, the descendants of Chud live in the Penezhsky district of the Arkhangelsk region. In 2002, Chud was included in the register of independent nationalities.
Of particular interest, in addition to historical, is folklore, in which the tribe appears as Chud White-eyed. Strange epithet " white-eyed“, which the representatives of the Chud were dubbed, is also a mystery. Some believe that the white-eyed monster is from what lives underground, where there is no sunlight, while others believe that in the old days, gray-eyed or blue-eyed people were called white-eyed. The white-eyed Chud, as a mythological character, is found in the folklore of the Komi and Saami, as well as the Mansi, Siberian Tatars, Altaians and Nenets. In a nutshell, the white-eyed Chud is a lost civilization. Following these beliefs, the legendary white-eyed Chud lived in the north of the European part of Russia and the Urals. In the descriptions of this tribe, descriptions appear as about people of short stature who live in caves and deep underground. In addition, chud, choud, shud - a monster, and meant a giant, often a cannibal giant with white eyes.
One of the legends, which is recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, reads: “ And when other people began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called - Chudskoy shore". The mistress of the copper mountain, the tale of which was told to us by the Russian writer Bazhov P.P., is considered by many to be one of the very Chud.
Judging by the legends, a meeting with representatives of the White-eyed Chud, who sometimes appeared out of nowhere, came out of the caves, appeared in the fog, could bring good luck to some, and misfortune to others. They live underground, where they ride dogs, graze mammoths or earthen deer. The mythical representatives of the white-eyed Chud are considered good and skillful blacksmiths, metallurgists and excellent warriors, which can be compared with the belief of the Scandinavian tribes, who also have short stature, are good warriors and skilled blacksmiths. Chud white-eyed (they are orphaned, sihirtya) can steal a child, cause damage, scare a person. They can suddenly appear and just as suddenly disappear.
Evidence of missionaries, researchers and travelers has been preserved about Chud earthen settlements. For the first time, A. Schrenk spoke about Sirt in 1837, who discovered the Chud caves with the remains of a certain culture in the lower reaches of the Korotaikha River. Missionary Benjamin wrote: The Korotaikha River is remarkable for its abundance of fisheries and Chud earthen caves, in which, according to Samoyed legends, Chud once lived in ancient times. These caves are ten miles from the mouth, on the right bank, on a slope, which since ancient times was called Sirte-sya in Samoyedic - “Chudskaya Mountain". I. Lepekhin wrote in 1805: “ The entire Samoyed land in the Mezen district is filled with abandoned dwellings of the once ancient people. They are found in many places: near lakes, on the tundra, in forests, near rivers, made in mountains and hills like caves with openings like doors. In these caves they find furnaces and find fragments of iron, copper and clay household items.". V.N. Chernetsov, who wrote about Chud in his reports of 1935-1957, where he collected many legends. In addition, he discovered Sirtian monuments in Yamal. Thus, the existence of a tribe that actually existed in these places once is documented. The Nenets, whose ancestors witnessed the existence of a mysterious tribe in these places, claim that it went underground (into the hills), but did not disappear. And until now, you can meet people of small stature and with white eyes, and this meeting most often does not bode well.
After the Chud went underground, after other tribes came to their lands, whose descendants live here to this day, they left many treasures. These treasures are charmed and, according to legend, only the descendants of the Chud itself can find them. These treasures are guarded by Chud spirits, which appear in a variety of guises, for example, in the form of a hero on a horse, a bear, a hare, and others. Due to the fact that many would like to penetrate the secrets of underground inhabitants and take possession of untold riches, some are still taking various steps to find these caches full of gold and jewelry. There are a huge number of legends, tales and tales about daredevils who decided to search for miracle treasures. All, or most of them, end, alas, deplorably for the main characters. Some of them die, others remain crippled, others go insane, others go missing in the dungeon or caves.
He writes about the legendary miracle and Roerich in his book The Heart of Asia. There he describes his meeting with the Old Believer in Altai. This man took them to a rocky hill where the stone circles of ancient burials were located and, showing them to the Roerich family, told the following story: This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, and as the white birch blossomed in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances for yourself. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures that have been mined". A year earlier (1913) of these events, Nicholas Roerich, being an excellent artist, painted the painting “Chud went underground.” Be that as it may, the mystery of the Chud tribe still remains open. Official history in the person of archaeologists, ethnographers, local historians consider ordinary tribes as a miracle, for example Ugrians, Khanty, Mansi, who were no different and left their habitats due to the arrival of other tribes on their lands. Others consider the White-eyed Chud to be a great people who have the gift of magic and magic, who live deep in caves and underground cities, which from time to time appear on the surface to warn people, warn, punish or protect their treasures, hunters who never will decrease.
« “But somewhere, even now,” says Vasily, “the Lapps believe not in Christ, but in “chud.” There is a high mountain from where they throw deer as a sacrifice to the god. There is a mountain where a noid (sorcerer) lives, and deer are brought to him there. There they are cut with wooden knives, and the skin is hung on poles. The wind shakes her, her legs move. And if there is moss or sand below, then the deer seems to be walking. Vasily met such a deer more than once in the mountains. Just like alive! Scary to watch. And it’s even more terrible when in winter fire sparkles in the sky and the abysses of the earth open up, and miracles begin to come out of the graves.«
Lake Peipus retained in its name the memory of the tribe that participated in the Battle of the Ice, but then gradually left the historical arena.
In the Urals, and in Siberia, and in the north of Russia, and even in the Altai, many legends say that an ancient people called Chud once lived in these places. The legends about the Chud are most often told in places where the Finno-Ugric peoples live or used to live, therefore, in science it was customary to consider the Finno-Ugric Chud. But the problem is that the Finno-Ugric peoples, in particular the Komi-Permyaks, themselves tell stories about the Chud, calling the Chud a different people.
When people who live here to this day came to these places, the Chud buried herself alive in the ground. Here is what one of the legends recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, tells: “... And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them, did not want to be enslaved by Christianity. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called the Peipus Coast.
Sometimes it is also said that the Chud “went underground”, and sometimes that they went to live in other places: “We have the Vazhgort tract - the Old Village. Although we call it a village, there are no buildings there. And it is not clear that someone lived there, but the old people claim that ancient, Chud people lived there. For a long time, they say, they lived in that area, but newcomers appeared, they began to oppress the old-timers, and they decided: “We didn’t have a life, we need to move to other places.” They collected, they say, belongings, they took the guys by the handles and said. Farewell, Old Village! We won't be here - and there won't be anyone!" And they left the village. They go, they say, they part with their homeland and roar. All of them left. Now it's empty."
But, leaving, the Chud left many treasures. These treasures are conspired, “cherished”: a covenant has been imposed on them that only the descendants of the Chud people can find them. Chud spirits in different guises (sometimes in the form of a hero on a horse, sometimes a hare or a bear) guard these treasures: “Sluda and Shudyakor are Chud places. There the heroes lived, from village to village they were thrown with axes. Then they dug into the ground and took the gold with them. Ingots-pillows are hidden at the Shudyakor settlement, but no one will take them: the warriors on horseback stand guard. Grandfathers warned us: “Don’t go past this settlement late at night - horses will trample!”
In the text of another old record in the village of Zuikare, Vyatka province, it is written about the “Chudskaya treasure” in the Chudskaya Mountain on the right bank of the Kama. A huge, slightly crooked pine tree grows here, and at a distance from it, about four arshins, stands a rotten stump up to two meters in diameter. They tried to find this treasure many times, but when they approached it, such a storm arose that the pines leaned their tops to the ground, and the treasure hunters were forced to leave their enterprise. However, they say that some treasure seekers still managed to penetrate the secrets of the underground inhabitants, but it cost them very, very expensive. The sight of "eccentrics" is so terrible that some treasure hunters, having met them in the dungeons, came out completely crazy and could no longer recover for the rest of their lives. It was even worse for those who came across the bones of a “buried alive” miracle in the “chudsky graves” - the dead, guarding their treasures, suddenly came to life as soon as someone approached their treasures ...
In 1924-28, the Roerich family was on an expedition to Central Asia. In the book The Heart of Asia, Nicholas Roerich writes that in Altai, an elderly Old Believer led them to a rocky hill and, pointing to the stone circles of ancient burials, said: “Here Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, and as the white birch blossomed in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances for yourself. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures they have mined. And even earlier, in 1913, Nicholas Roerich painted the painting “The Chud went underground” on this subject.
In the Urals, stories about the Chud are more common in the Kama region. Traditions indicate the specific places where the Chud lived, describe their appearance (and they were mostly dark-haired and swarthy), customs, and language. From the language of the Chuds, legends even preserved some words: “Once a Chud girl appeared in the village of Vazhgort - tall, beautiful, broad-shouldered. Her hair is long, black, not braided. He walks around the village and beckons: “Come visit me, I cook dumplings!” There were ten people who wanted to, everyone went for the girl. They went to the Chudsky spring, and no one returned home, everyone disappeared somewhere. The same thing happened the next day. It was not because of their stupidity that people fell for the girl's bait, but because she possessed some kind of power. Hypnosis, as they say now. On the third day, the women from this village decided to take revenge on the girl. They boiled several buckets of water, and when the Miraculous girl entered the village, the women poured boiling water over her. The girl ran to the spring and wailed: “Odege! Odege! Soon, the inhabitants of Vazhgort left their village forever, went to live in other places ... "
Odege - what does this word mean? There is no such word in any of the Finno-Ugric languages. What ethnic group was this mysterious Chud?
Since ancient times, ethnographers, linguists, and local historians have tried to unravel the riddle of the Chud. There were different versions of who the Chud was. Ethnographers-local historians Fedor Alexandrovich Teploukhov and Alexander Fedorovich Teploukhov considered the Ugrians (Khanty and Mansi) a miracle, since there is documentary information about the stay of the Ugrians in the territory of the Kama region. The linguist Antonina Semyonovna Krivoshchekova-Gantman did not agree with this version, because in the Kama region there are practically no place names deciphered using the Ugric languages; she believed that the issue required further study. Kazan professor Ivan Nikolaevich Smirnov believed that the Chud were the Komi-Permians before the adoption of Christianity, since some legends say that the Chud are “our ancestors”. The last version was the most widespread, and most ethnographers adhered to this version until recently.
The discovery in the Urals in the 1970s and 80s of the ancient Aryan city of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta somewhat shook the traditional version. Versions began to appear that the Chud were the ancient Aryans (in a narrower sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, and in a broader sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans as a whole). This version has found many supporters among scientists and local historians.
If linguists have previously recognized that there are many “Iranisms” in the Finno-Ugric languages, then in recent years an opinion has appeared that the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages have a very large common lexical layer. A version has appeared that the names of the rivers Kama in the Urals and Ganges (Ganga) in India have the same origin. It is not for nothing that in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions) there are geographical names with the root "gang": Ganga (lake), Gangas (bay, hill), Gangos (mountain, lake), Gangashikha (bay). It is not for nothing that geographical names in -kar (Kudymkar, Maikar, Dondykar, Idnakar, Anyushkar, etc.) cannot be deciphered in any way using local Permian languages (Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak). According to legend, there were Chud settlements in these places, and it is here that bronze jewelry and other items are most often found, conditionally united by the name Perm animal style. And experts have always recognized the “Iranian influence” on the art of the Perm animal style itself.
Indian sages believe that the sacred river Ganges begins its journey in heaven. Perhaps in India is the ancestral home of many peoples.
It is no secret that there are parallels in the mythology of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian peoples. In the legends of the ancient Aryans, memories of, located somewhere far north of India, were preserved. The Aryans who lived in this country could observe amazing phenomena. There, seven heavenly sages-rishis move around the North Star, which the creator Brahma strengthened in the center of the universe above the World Mount Meru. Beautiful celestial dancers live there - Apsaras, shining with all the colors of the rainbow, and the sun rises and shines for six months in a row. The seven rishis are probably the constellation Ursa Major, and the apsaras are the embodiment of the northern lights, which struck the imagination of many peoples. In the myths of the Estonians, the northern lights are the heroes who fell in battles and live in the sky. In Indian mythology, only magical birds, including the messenger of the gods Garuda, can reach the sky. In Finno-Ugric mythology, the Milky Way, connecting north and south, was called the Road of Birds.
There is also a similarity directly in the names. For example, the god among the Udmurts is Inmar, among the Indo-Iranians Indra is the god of thunder, Inada is the foremother; in Komi mythology, both the first man and the swamp witch bear the name Yoma; in Indo-Iranian mythology, Yima is also the first man; the name of the god is also consonant among the Finns - Yumala, and among the Mari - Yumo. "Aryan influence" penetrated even into the ethnonyms of the Finno-Ugric peoples: the Tatars and Bashkirs of the Udmurts, their neighbors, call the ethnonym "ar".
So who was called a miracle in the Urals? If the Aryans, then the question again arises: why was there confusion with who should be considered a Chud, and why did the ethnonym Chud “stuck” precisely and only to the Finno-Ugric peoples? What is the relationship between the Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric peoples? Apparently, here we should recall the opinion of Lev Gumilyov, who believed that a new ethnos, just like a person, is born from two ethnos parents. Then it becomes clear why the legends call the Chud either “another people”, or “our ancestors”.
... And yet, what was the miracle girl screaming, doused with boiling water? Maybe the word "odege" is in the Indo-Iranian languages? If we open the Sanskrit-Russian dictionary, we will find there a word similar in sound - "udaka", meaning "water". Maybe she wanted to run to the Chudsky spring, the only place where she could escape?
Archaeological finds that are quite impressive.
A plaque in the form of a bear's head.
4th-5th centuries
Bronze, casting
8.3 x 6.5 cm
Screes of the Kyn River, Lysvensky District, Perm Region
Openwork plaque.
The composition consists of a two-headed pangolin and two human-hairs sitting on it.
7th-8th centuries
Female mask with five bird heads at the top.
VIII-IX centuries
Bronze, casting
6.1 x 5.4 cm
With. Limezh, Cherdynsky district, Perm region
Stored in Perm
Bronze, casting
6.7 x 9.7 cm
Upper Kama region
Stored in Perm
Slotted plaque with a winged goddess on a horse and an eagle.
7th-8th centuries
Bronze, casting
16.9 x 12 cm
settlement Kurgan Cherdynsky district of the Perm region
Stored in Cherdyn, Cherdyn Museum of Local Lore
Cut-out plaque.
A variant of the cosmogonic plot. The winged three-faced goddess stands on a lizard, above each face - a griffin
VIII-IX centuries
Bronze, casting
16.4 x 9 cm
Ust-Kaib, Cherdynsky district, Perm region
Stored in Perm, Perm Regional Museum of Local Lore
Various decorations of chuds of the 8th-11th centuries, among which the image of a deity - a bird is often found. Noisy pendants were very common (in the center)
Looking at this high-quality work with bronze, which, in turn, required the skill of working with stone or ceramic molds, blacksmithing, you begin to understand that the Eastern Slavs did not meet primitive tribes in their north and northeast, who could not nothing to give and nothing to teach.
On the contrary, it had its own interesting culture. So this is the question, where did the Russians get the Valdai bells, the plots of northern embroideries, the northern love for decorating dwellings, for example, woodcarving.
Where did the miracle go?
The question is reasonable. And it seems to me that it has two main answers.
Probably, part of the Chud was forced out and driven out by the Slavic population, because it is reported: “In the Shenkur district of the Arkhangelsk province they said that “the local indigenous inhabitants, the Chud, desperately defending their land from the invasion of the Novgorodians, did not want to submit to the aliens for anything,” with a frenzy defended themselves from the fortresses, fled to the forests, killed themselves, were buried alive in deep ditches (having dug a hole, they put columns in the corners, made a roof over them, laid stones and earth on the roof, went into the pit with property and, having cut the supports, died).
Then the formula "going underground" looks literally: the death of the tribe. But part of the Chud, probably nevertheless became Russified after baptism, as happened with many neighboring Finno-Ugric tribes.
That is why the question still remains what in the art and life of the Russian north comes from the Russian population, what from the Chud. And there are many skills here: wooden churches and huge northern houses, textiles and embroidery, metalwork, house decorations, including picturesque ones, ships and boats.
Let's try and test this hypothesis with at least a few of the most accessible examples, compare the products of the Perm Chud and Russian northerners:
1. A magical bird with a human face.
In general, for comparison, you need to take something rather unusual, non-ordinary. Such motifs are found in folk art. For example, the magical bird Sirin.
Figure 1. Birds with a human face.
Birds-Sirin Valance, detail. Olonets province, mid-19th century. And a pet-amulet of the Perm Chud with a mask on his chest.
2. Slavic goddess Rozhana - or a miracle mother of all living things?
Rice. 2 Rozhana's motif of Olonets and Solvychegodsk embroidery.
A detail repeated in variations of Olonets and Severodvinsk embroideries, which is interpreted as the image of the ancient Slavic goddess Rozhana, a woman in childbirth, about which she wrote
Rice. 3. Goddess of childbirth
And this is the motif of the goddess, which is constantly found in the Perm miracle.
She, judging by the variations of different creatures nearby, from elks to humans, is the “universal mother”, and the position of the next creature below is its birth. The resemblance is obvious and it is aggravated by the fact that the goddess does not stand, but lies, which is especially evident on the last amulet. In addition, the second essence of this goddess is a bird, as on numerous amulets-charms with the goddess bird, which is why the nose-beak is clearly distinguished.
Interestingly, the stylized motif of a woman in labor is found in Karelian embroideries, that is, among other Finno-Ugric peoples, and it is very similar to Kargopol embroidery.
Rice. 4 Comparison of South Karelian and Kargopol embroidery
3. Deer-Golden Antlers.
Continuing the theme of amulets, we must remember the Kargopol toy. L. Latynin believes that archaic symbols are hidden in the images of traditional toys. Like it or not, it’s hard to say from the toy itself - it is still changeable, although the main tradition should be “guarded” - that is, what was a talisman, the oldest, traditional and replicated.
For example, deer-golden horns and its changeable faces, half-man - half-deer.
In this Kargopol toy, one can compare the man-moose of the Permian Chud.
Figure 5 Kargopol deer, centaur polkan and moose man.
Rice. 6. Moose people of the Perm Chud.
4. Skate on the house, Deer and Bird.
In the north, the peasants said: "A horse on a roof is quieter in a hut," considering these images to be "amulets," good forces that protected them from any misfortune. It is interesting that in the Russian north the elk deer was often found as a talisman at home, it was placed on the okhlupen instead of the skate. Or they simply nailed deer antlers there: “On the Mezen, there is another type of decoration for okhlupnya - deer antlers. Usually this decoration was not cut out like a skate, but real deer antlers were simply attached to the end of the okhlupnya. This decor is more common in the Mezen region. In all likelihood, one can see in it traces of the veneration of the deer, the cult of which, perhaps to a lesser extent than the horse, was characteristic of individual Russian regions. In the same place there could be a bird, like a swan.
Rice. 7. Roofs of Russian houses with skates
It is difficult for us to say what the Chud house looked like. But the fact that the heads of the skates were used as amulets is obvious:
Rice. 8. Noisy pendants They are most often found by archaeologists in Chud burials, always on both sides of the skeleton.
Such an arrangement contained a certain magical meaning: the doubling of the symbol strengthened the protective effect of the amulet. It can also be assumed that the dead man, if he rose from the grave, would reveal himself by noise. So it could also be the protection of the living
It is interesting to note the crow's feet at the end of the last amulet in the row - this completes the image of the goose horse, which is also known for the Russian north.
5. Bells
Based on the previous part with noisy pendants, we can refer to the following evidence about the Chud: “One of the possible “traces” of the Chud, which was considered in the 19th century unusual, mysterious place Kholmogory spruce forest (on Kurostrov, near the city of Kholmogory). According to the mentioned II. Efimenko, according to legend, there was once a "Chudskaya idol" in the spruce forest. The idol, merged from silver, "was attached to one of the most seasoned woods and held a large golden bowl in his hands." It seemed impossible to steal the idol and the treasures surrounding it: “Chud took care of her god tightly: sentries were constantly standing near him, springs were held near the idol itself. Whoever touches the idol, even with one finger, immediately these springs will play and various bells will ring, and then you will not go anywhere; the sentries will immediately take it away, and the accursed chud will fry it in a frying pan and even sacrifice it to his idol. The Russians, of course, stole the idol, they had such a talent. The first case of opening the anti-theft device, so to speak. But the point is not in this, but in the bells of the miracle
Bells, of course, cannot be associated exclusively with the Chud culture.
Bells and bells are associated with the traditional folk culture of different peoples. But it is interesting to listen to the testimonies of the Russian inhabitants of the North about bells and bells, about their role:
P. S. Efimenko cites the following beliefs about bell ringing that existed among the peasantry in the North: “Hearing the ringing of bells, the devil runs away from a person. They also notice that if you leave the house, enter it, finish something at the very beginning of the ringing, there is a harbinger of good.
Rice. 9 Kimzhensky bells.
“In order to protect themselves from predatory animals, the Russians of the Vologda district. on Maundy Thursday they went into the forest and shouted: “Wolves, bears out of your ear; hares, foxes to our garden! At the same time, they knocked on frying pans, rang cow bells.
The wedding ceremony also draws attention. In Pinega, as in most other places in the North, a wedding train is inconceivable without bells. Bells with their ringing protect the young from "evil spirits" on the most important road - to the crown and from the crown: "Ahead of the entire ceremonial procession, made up of a huge train of betrothed and village relatives, with a lot of bells buzzing under the arcs, on the shafts and on the necks of horses, shamblers, bells, vertebrae, - they ride in sleighs, carts or on horseback carts with ribbons lowered on their sleeves.
Wedding rituals, like calendar ones, are characterized by the greatest archaism of symbols.
And so on - the bells had a magical function, both Russians and Chuds.
So, we felt the closeness of the Chud and Northern Russian objects and beliefs.
But, in fact, who were the Russians in the North - by blood and customs?
We now know that the admixture of Finno-Ugric "blood", that is, Finno-Ugric DNA markers in Pomors is significant, mainly through the female line. But there are population groups that clearly descended without much mixing from Finno-Ugric peoples, because there are markers in the male and female lines. Both those and other groups probably originated from the Chud. But at the time of the transition, they certainly did not give up their
ideas about the world.
And this commonality is revealed by the comparison of the beliefs of Pomors and Chuds, which is manifested through objects of material culture. Therefore, we can say that the Chud not only went underground, but also turned into a new people, enriching it.
S.V. Zharnikova ABOUT SOME ARCHAIC EMBROIDERY OF SOL'VYCHEGODSK KOKOSHNIKS OF SEVERODVINA TYPE
L.Latynin. "Basic plots of Russian folk art". M.: "Voice",
A.B. Permilovskaya Peasant house in the culture of the Russian North (XIX - early XX century). - Arkhangelsk, 2005.
S. Zharnikova POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE IMAGE OF THE HORSE-GOOSE AND THE HORSE-DEER IN INDO-IRANIAN (ARYAN) MYTHOLOGY
Efimenko P. S. Materials on the ethnography of the Russian population of the Arkhangelsk province, vol. 1. M., 1877
AN Davydov Bells and chimes in folk culture In the book. "Bells. History and Modernity". Comp. Yu.V. Pukhnachev, M Science 1985
M.M. Valentsova About the magical functions of the bell in the folk culture of the Slavs In the collection: “The world of sounding and silent: Semiotics of sound and speech in the traditional culture of the Slavs” / Ed. ed. CM. Tolstaya - M.: Publishing house "Indrik", 1999, p. 283-293.
Pylyaev M. Historical bells. - "Historical Bulletin", vol. HI1, 1890, p. 174. B.A.Malyarchuk, M.V.Derenko The structure of the Russian gene pool "Priroda", No. 4, 2007
