Khakassia is rich in all kinds of places: mountains to you, and lakes, and the sea, and rivers, and even caves. In general, there is enough space for everyone, choose - I do not want. So it was my time to dive deep into the earth.
Many residents of Khakassia began acquaintance with the caves in childhood. Surely, everyone remembers how they were taken to the Borodino cave by their class, and indeed, only the lazy one did not visit it, that is, I. We went not just like that, but c Abakan club of cavers
The cave is located on one of the hills between the villages of Vershino-Bizhda and Tolcheya. No matter how strange it sounds, but in order to go down underground you need to climb a mountain. The descent into the cave is located there, on the right, below under the stones.
It is noteworthy that the craving for rock "painting" in a person, apparently, somewhere at the level of instincts.
The entrance to the cave is a well, wide enough, equipped with a staircase, but it is in poor condition. Now it’s spring and many places are covered with ice, you need to be careful and wear suitable shoes. I was in rubber boots - this is not the best option, they have slippery and soft soles. In general, in order to comfortably and safely go to the cave you need to wear comfortable, non-slippery and waterproof shoes, take gloves, a helmet, a good flashlight and podzhopnik, it’s also a hob. The temperature in the cave does not depend on the temperature in the street and is approximately +5, so you need to dress appropriately.
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With grief in half, overpowering ourselves, breaking one ladder and ice, we approached the second. For a person who is afraid of the dark, heights, enclosed spaces and stairs - this is a deadly combo. Gathering my will into a fist, I went down this staggering staircase and as it turned out, everything was not so scary. On the contrary, it’s interesting and unusual. Right next to the stairs we found a dead bat, which I did not photograph.
When visiting caves, you need to remember very simple rules of behavior - do not litter, do not burn torches and bonfires, do not break inland and make noise, bats wake up from the noise and die.
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Having passed very close to the entrance, we found ourselves in a large grotto, in which there was a main group of cavers who had arrived before us. To be honest, I thought that I would have a fit of panic or uncontrolled fear, but apparently because of the space in the cave and a lot of people this did not happen. Before that, I was in the cave only 1 time 10 years ago.
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The guys from the club were looking for new moves into the unexplored locations of the cave, it was fun to hear the sounds of a punch (weighed) somewhere deep in the thickness of the rock. It is amazing that in such a popular and seemingly studied place it is still possible to find something new.
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I was also very surprised by the icy "stalagmites", some of them reached my height, and I, as it were, were not at all low, 175 cm. They formed almost groves. It is very funny to light them with lanterns from the bottom or put the lamp directly on top, such light poles turn out, it looks very impressive.
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The first mention of this cave was found in 1932, it was then called Tolcheinskaya. The cave was first explored in 1951, then in 1963 it was studied and described in detail. Then, in 1966, it was called in the print media as the Stalactite, there really was a beautiful cave with magnificent sagging of various shapes. At some point, the cave was recognized as a natural monument and decided to limit access to it and take all visits under control.
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In this connection, the very wall was erected at the entrance with an iron door, which we observed at the very beginning. But because of this, the microclimate of the cave was disturbed, the ancient glacier at the entrance melted and the disastrous changes began.
As a result, it was decided to break the stupid wall, but leave the stairs, which played a cruel joke with the cave. Now the cave is accessible to absolutely everyone, a little passable car can overcome the path and here you are in the cave. Negative consequences in the form of all kinds of inscriptions and garbage follow from this.
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And the most unpleasant thing is that those stalagmites and stalactites that have been growing here for centuries simply break out and are taken out of the cave. And there is no question of any safety precautions: people here even go with flashlights on their phones. The Abakan club of cavers and caring people clean the cave from widespread srach, but it’s purely not where they clean, but where they do not litter, everyone should remember this! And in the photo below, the largest stalagmite of Siberia (according to the Internet) is the Pagoda. It reaches a height of 5 meters.
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A very impressive sight - such a small person stands and shines on such a large object created by nature.
And this is the end of the Grand Grotto, whose height reaches 46 meters. Now imagine that the height of the panel nine-story building is on average 30 meters ... The height of the grotto is 46 ... 30 ... 46 ... As many as one and a half nine-story buildings underground, somewhere deep in the rock !!! This, by the way, is its end, from there it goes into some kind of move, which we did not check without helmets and with bad lights, but we would like very much in the future.
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And here’s the “sacrificial” stone, it was sacrificed to lovers to write their name on the walls, a 3-letter word and all that. By the way, in the photo above you can see the inscription "1997" on one of the stones, 21 years have passed, and the inscription is.
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And this is the opposite side, we fotaly just from where the lights come from. These, by the way, are not just lights, they are people going upstairs. Amazing volume, as if peace in the world.
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These people came up, I really like this shot because of my mood, in my opinion it very clearly conveys the spirit of speleotourism. I'll tell you a little about taking pictures in a cave. We would have with us a wide-angle lens on the camera, a tripod and completely poor-quality flashlights, but there were cavers with us and here their flashlights created all the magic of the cave.
We removed the ice stalagmites by substituting flashlights under them or on top of them. By the way, the whole trouble with flashlights is that if they are different, then their glow temperature does not coincide and this is how it complicates the post-processing of photos. But still it turned out, it seems to me, very good. In general, the whole chip in the lens and flashlights, their multidirectionality. The more lights, the more chances to see interesting angles.
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Here is a photo of the almost ceiling of the Grand Grotto; under the ceiling there is a very interesting balcony with promising passages.
Oh, this is an indescribable feeling when you were underground, breathing in thick, moist air, that even droplets on your nose condense, and when you come to the surface you feel this vibrant, warm air. This is an indescribable feeling) Especially when you consider that before that you really pissed off to go to the cave))
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We climbed out of the cave when most cavers had already left for the camp, and went to them for a snack.
The road to the cave is quite passable, first you drive about 40 km to Vershino-Bigji, then 8 kilometers along the road to Baritovy quarry and already the most difficult dirt track for a couple of kilometers, and even then, it is difficult only in spring and autumn, when the road slopes from dampness.
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After a snack, we were invited to go to another accessible cave - the Majestic. And why not, we went together, alone. Here is a view of the hill where the Borodino cave is located. By the way, the length of the moves in it is 1800 meters.
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But behind this hillock is the second cave. The grass after winter is very funny.
The second cave is located very close to Borodino. To be honest, to find that - I don’t know what can be very difficult, especially if you basically don’t know what the entrance to the cave looks like. I freaked out and sat on a pebble, tired of rubbing myself into the unknown, but it’s good that I have a husband) He went down the hill, found a gorge, but that was not it. It is worth saying that another group left in the same cave before us. We heard their laughter and conversations, and only thus found the entrance to the Majestic. It turns out we climbed too high and were above the entrance, which is not visible from above.
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I, as the most coward, most of all said that “I won’t climb, it’s very scary, and the snow is lying, and my shoes are slippery,” and indeed, “you can go in there and see everything,” but I climbed. Puffing in search of a step, I muttered that I was afraid, but I climbed) In the photo the beginning of the descent seems to be quite low, but it seemed to me that there were tens of meters.
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We did not take a tripod with us, so the photo is only an entrance. For comparison, in this photo I almost went down, it remains only to roll off the stone by 1.5 meters.
The cave is a huge grotto; some beautiful gray birds with a white tail live in it. There are some moves to the surface, a very interesting place. Passing it, I still experienced a feeling of uncontrolled fear, which was unpleasant, but it lasted literally a second and I could not find an explanation of why it arose)
Having seen enough of all sorts of holes and holes in the cave, we got out and went back.
The cave is also on a hill, so we could observe how part of our group was already leaving home ... getting stuck in a liquid road) By the way, a car that knew all the delights of a spring road in the fields of Khakassia.
And this is a group of guys from the caver club.
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This trip was a discovery for me: I learned that going to the caves is not at all scary, but even interesting. In principle, discovering new horizons is very interesting. This excitement is to go into previously unknown, to step over your, as it turned out, insignificant fears, to experience something new. This feeling is the most pleasant when traveling - for the sake of it you need to travel!
How to get to the Borodino cave, see the map, we marked the path from the city of Chernogorsk, which is next to Abakan.
There is Mount Kosh-Kulak, in which the Kashkulak cave is located. The cave is located in the southeastern part of the mountain and is represented by two-tier corridor-grotto passages, the total length of which is more than 500 meters, and the depth of some places exceeds 50 meters.
Kashkulak cave is recognized as one of the terrifying places in the world. The indigenous population gave several more names for this cave. She was nicknamed the cave of the "white shaman", as well as the "black Devil".
A lot of people who were inside insisted that they felt inexplicable anxiety, panic, and some even saw awesome monsters and the figure of a shaman.
For the ancient Khakasses, the Kashkulak cave was a very important cult place in which various symbolic rituals and worship of pagan gods were held. The presentations were used to appease evil spirits so that they would not obstruct.
Scientists studying the Kashkulak cave found a place that was used for sacrificial offerings - a fireplace and an altar, arranged around the stalagmite.
Kashkulak cave - a karst cave in Russia, the Republic of Khakassia, Shirinsky district. In the massif of Mount Koshkulak, located in the northern spurs of the Kuznetsk Alatau.
Kashkulakskaya cave has not been used for ritual worship for quite some time, and now it is no longer possible to determine which Khakass family it originally belonged to, however, the cave is still interesting to cavers and tourists. There is an assumption that the cave is penetrated by the energy of ancient shamans and does not want to reveal their secrets, and its guests violate this energy and thereby stimulate the protective actions of the mysterious force in the cave.
It is believed that there is a ghost of a shaman in the cave. He does not always appear, but those who saw speak of his aggressiveness, which cannot but scare the visitors to the cave.
Shamans of other regions of the Republic of Khakassia do not share the newfangled interest in studying this cave as a strong and cult place of the ancient Khakasses, which can strengthen the rituals held in it and help in any undertakings. They argue that the Kashkulak cave has long lost its strength, since the Khakass people, already small in number, failed to maintain their faith due to the adoption by the country's population of a different religion.
However, shamans claim that the ruler of the underworld lives in Mount Kosh-kulak - Erlik, who should not be disturbed for nothing, and frequent visits to the cave by people only annoy him.
Contrary to warnings, for several decades now the Kashkulak cave has been visited by groups of tourists, cavers, as well as thrill seekers, spurred on by legends and beliefs. Some groups quite successfully inspect the numerous passages of the cave, but sometimes unexplained and terrible incidents happen.
In the second half of the 20th century, 20 students went to the cave of the “Black Devil” and carried out a safe descent.
A day later, only two students managed to get out of it. They were found in different places, in a completely insane state. One girl was admitted to a mental hospital. She bit, screamed and could not explain anything.
The second student was found in a nearby village completely gray-haired, wounded and not responding to anything, fanatically repeating some strange phrase. The girl was taken to the hospital, where a month later she died from a completely incomprehensible disease, since she was physically completely healthy.
A later case of an organized visit to the Kashkulak cave by a school camp, set up near it, for most children and adults ended in only a strong fright. Many saw a terrible shaman and not only him.
In speed, one boy was found hanged in his own house, and a suicide note pointed to a stone devil from a cave.
Anomalous phenomena and strange, sometimes terrible incidents remain inexplicable. What secrets does the mysterious cave keep? The answer has not yet been found.
Kashkulak cave, located in the northern part of Khakassia, is one of the most terrible places on the planet. The locals call it the Cave of the Black Devil or the Cave of the Black Shaman. Each of the names has its own explanation. (website)
The cave as a cult place of ancient Khakasses
This place was a cult among the ancient Khakasses, in particular, here they worshiped the black devil. To appease him, the pagans sacrificed animals and people. This is evidenced by the ancient campfire and altar found in the cave, which are arranged around the stalagmite in the form of a phallus, as well as animal bones and human remains. According to legend, the dark energy of ancient shamans is accumulated here, which periodically spills out to the extent of curious visitors.
In 1960, a student group of twenty people went to an ominous cave, and only two girls managed to get out of it in a day, moreover, one of them, in an irresponsible, violent state, was found by the hunters not far from the cave. She shouted something incoherent and bit. The second girl was accidentally discovered by a police outfit from the village of Shira. With gray hair, a dead face, and blood-bitten lips, she wandered along the dark street of the village. The girl was clutching in her hands some kind of stone figure, which she did not want to leave. Both students ended up in a psychiatric clinic, where they soon died of an unknown illness. Doctors were not able to make a diagnosis; according to all medical indicators, the patients were healthy.
Black shaman - the owner of the cave
Another tragedy occurred when a group of schoolchildren descended into the cave. It was led by experienced archaeologists. However, for unknown reasons, people hurriedly left this place, and later one of the boys committed an unexpected suicide. The schoolboy left a suicide note mentioning the devil in a stone hole. At the end of this strange note, it was written in someone’s childish handwriting: “... die and remember the stones.”
... In 1983, a group of cavers examined the local grottoes. They stayed in the cave for several hours and headed for the exit. A closing one, by the name of Bakulin, was already preparing for the rise, when suddenly he saw two lights shining in absolute darkness. The man felt his body as if fettered in horror. A barely noticeable human figure moved in the darkness, and the caver saw the shaman: he called Bakulin for himself with a gesture of his hand. The man did not have the strength to resist this call ... He only managed to pull the rope and thereby give a sign to be lifted. Bakulin was pulled out, and for a long time he could not recover, and after that he never again visited the Kashkulak cave ...
There were also similar stories, some of them got on the pages of newspapers. Novosibirsk experts became interested in the anomalous object and arrived to establish how the cave affects the human psyche.
Scientists examined the cave
Summarizing the information received, the researchers suggested that the hallucinations and panic unaccountable fear arising in the cave are not intrigues of evil spirits, but the result of a very real external influence.
It is known that infrasound, having a frequency of about six hertz, causes indescribable horror in people. Scientists have determined that a sound pulse of a given frequency appears steadily in the Kashkulak cave. He could be solitary, but he could go in bunches. It happened that the signal disappeared for several days, but then invariably returned. The main thing is that impulses were recorded precisely when people developed nervousness and a depressed state, turning into real horror.
Scientists had no doubt that only an artificial emitter can generate pulses of a given frequency with a constant amplitude of oscillations. However, where does he come from here in the taiga dungeon? The entire cave was thoroughly examined, experts examined its most hidden corners - all to no avail. It has been suggested that the strange source of infrasound is not in the cave itself, but under it. But who installed it there? And why?..
As for the visions, the scientists explained them by hallucinations, which may be caused by the presence in the cave air of some unusual and not yet studied chemical mixture. However, it may well be of artificial origin ...
The main question that interested everyone in connection with the new discoveries of scientists: why does the vision come to different people in the form of a shaman? Researchers could not answer it. One scientific expedition was unable to shed light on the secrets of the Kashkulak cave, this required full-scale research. Unfortunately, the perestroika that began and the subsequent collapse of the USSR posed much more acute questions. Therefore, it still keeps its gloomy secrets, attracts many tourists and no, no, but collects new victims of human curiosity and frivolity ...
MENTION of the Koshkulak cave in an interview with the "white" shaman Tatyana Kobezhikova ("AIF on the Yenisei", No. 32) interested many of our readers who live outside of Khakassia, but have already heard about the mysterious dungeon. Their request is to tell us more about him. Viktor Melnikov, a freelance reporter for AIF on the Yenisei, has long been collecting interesting observations from visitors to a mysterious cave.
This place is known all over the world. It is officially included in the top five "most terrible" places on the globe. Anomalous scientists call this mysterious void in the mountain range somewhat arrogant: the cave of the black devil. Its geographical name does not sound so formidable - Koshkulakskaya cave. The name was given to her by one of the peaks of the spurs of the Kuznetsk Alatau - Koshkulak. From the village of Shira to her - a little over 20 kilometers.
Young "old woman"
FOR THE FIRST TIME I heard about this cave about 15 years ago from my friends cavers, brothers Nikolai and Vladimir Savchenko. Having returned from the next trip to the caves of Kuznetsk Alatau, they told me terrible stories about the half-decayed human bones found in the cave, about the shadows and sounds of the shaman's tambourine, about the causeless horror that they experienced when passing a certain section of this cave. The brothers also told the story, which they, in turn, heard during the campaign: "In the 1960s, a group of 20 students climbed into this damned hole. Only two students left it. And then one hunter picked up a girl in a violent insane state not far from the cave. She bit and screamed something incoherent. She was immediately put into a "psychiatric hospital." The second student went crazy "quietly." At night she was found by a police outfit in the village of Shira. She was gray-haired, with a dead face, her lips bitten with blood, she walked along the dark streets of the village. and she was whispering something to a stone figure that she would never give away. Without stopping for a second, she whispered something very quickly and this girl was identified in a house of sorrow, where she was "burnt" for a month from a mysterious disease. Doctors could not establish the cause of death - the rapidly losing patient was insane, but absolutely healthy. Under the mattress of the young "old woman" who was breathing her last breath, the nurse found a small stone figure ... "
Fox hat with horns
I ACKNOWLEDGE - I did not believe the storytellers then. He even mocked them, accompanying their story with witty, as it seemed to me, comments: how many brothers supposedly drank before listening to such stories. However, it took about six months, and my friends again went on another trip to Koshkulak. In the group of 30 people there were mainly schoolchildren - November holidays were on. Our tourists spent near the cave for about three days. The first two expeditions under the ground went quietly. Hearing about the horrors of Koshkulak and dreaming of thrills, the students were disappointed. On the third day, before folding the camp, they begged the adults for the last time to "run through the cave." After going around all the grottoes, including the Skeleton Grotto, where usually, according to eyewitnesses, the unbelievable thing happens, the guys are about to go upstairs. At that moment, everyone suddenly felt a chilling fit of horror. Schoolchildren rushed to the door, pushing no less frightened parents and teachers ... Already in the light of the sun, when fear released, the pioneers and their guides vied with each other began to share what they had found in the depths of the cave. Each, as it turned out, horror had its own "appearance". Some saw a terrible monster with the body of a bear and a bloodied human skull instead of a head, others saw huge ravens sitting on a pile of bones, the third “appeared” (to my cavers known to me) was a disgusting old shaman in a shabby fox hat with horns, beating into a tambourine and producing intricate body movements. With gestures, he seemed to be calling to himself ... Some time after the group returned home, one of the participants in the campaign, a sixth grader, was found hanged in the attic of his own house. He left a posthumous note of very strange content. The boy wrote about some kind of stone devil, about dark burrows and madness. And at the end: "... die, but remember the stones." Parents of the deceased boy claimed that this phrase was written in a different handwriting.
Scorching gaze
STILL in the 1980s, the Koshkulak cave, scientists from the Novosibirsk Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine became interested in rumors of ghosts that lived in its bowels. Expeditions were equipped to study the phenomenon of the cave. Perhaps, then, for the first time, scientists recognized that visions are not just fantasies of frightened darkness of sightseers. In 1985, an employee of the institute Konstantin Vakulin with a group of cavers examined the grottoes. After several hours of work, people were drawn to the exit. Konstantin was the last to go. Fastened the rope to a special belt, prepared for the rise. And suddenly he felt a steady gaze on himself. The scientist was overwhelmed with heat. The first impulse is to run! But the legs did not obey. To see what was happening behind him was insanely scary. And yet, as if in a state of hypnosis, obeying someone else's will, he turned his head and saw about five meters away ... an old shaman. The same, from the stories of my cavers friends: fluttering clothes; a furry hat with horns, burning eyes and smooth, inviting movements with his hands - say, go, follow me! .. Bakunin unconsciously took several steps inland and immediately, as if having cast off the dark spell, he began to frantically pull the rope. Not succumbing to the "persuasion" of the cave shaman, he, quite possibly, escaped the fate of those who were once dead or moved by their minds. Another participant in the expedition, Nikolai Kamanov, witnessed almost the same visions.
Summarizing the evidence, scientists suggested that all these hallucinations, unaccountable, panic fear, of course, are not the machinations of dark power, but the result of a completely material external impact. It is known, for example, that infrasound with a frequency of about 6 hertz can cause a feeling of indescribable horror. In one of the grottoes of the cave of the black devil, a special laboratory was deployed. Researchers put experiments there, carried out various measurements. As a result, a geomagnetic anomaly was established. The electromagnetic field in the cave is constantly fluctuating. Even at the initial stage of the study, scientists noticed that, among other signals, a strictly defined impulse is steadily breaking through. Sometimes it was fixed as a single, it happened that he walked in "bunches." And always with the same amplitude. It happened that the signal disappeared for two or three days, or even for a week, but then invariably returned.
Mysterious lighthouse
SCIENTISTS wondered: where do these strange impulses come from? After a series of experiments, it was found that they make their way from the depths of the cave. It was decided to check whether these impulses are connected with eerie visions that are those who find themselves in a cave. The time of fixation of impulses coincided exactly with the moment of the appearance of nervousness in people, a depressed state, turning into panic horror.
Impulses, as scientists assumed, turned out to be low-frequency. The very ones that are not perceived by the human ear, but affect all living things, including the human psyche. But where are they coming from? The employees of the institute have no doubt that only an artificial emitter is capable of generating pulses with a stable amplitude of oscillations of this frequency. But where does he come from in the deep taiga, deep underground? Scientists examined the entire cave, descended into the most hidden corners - in vain. The search for an artificial radiator was unsuccessful. The mysterious lighthouse, if it only exists in nature, is even deeper.
As for hallucinations (and scientists consider creepy visions to be just harmless "glitches"), the study participants agreed on this version: the perception of non-existent objects as real can be caused by some unusual chemical mixture present in the air filling the cave. However, what this mixture is and how much it has been studied is not yet known. The following question remained open: why does the vision “come” to many in the form of a shaman? It shouldn’t seem to be like that with hallucinations - this, like dreams, is an “exclusive” phenomenon. However, one-time expeditions and probably could not dispel all myths. The perestroika that began at that time asked much more burning questions. So the clue to the secrets of the cave of the black devil is probably ahead. In the meantime, for lack of materialistic justification of what is happening in the dungeon, ancient legends are transmitted from mouth to mouth, along with heartbreaking stories.
Revenge of the shaman?
ONE of them in the previous issue of "AIF on the Yenisei" shared the "white" shaman Tatyana Kobezhikova. Once a shaman was buried near this cave. People disturbed his peace, and he punishes them with what appears to him in a dream, or even in reality in the image of a man in strange clothes, dragging him along. If you believe the local rumor, the spirit of the ancient Khakass shaman lives in the ghost of the Ghosts, which is adjacent to the Skeleton Grotto.
According to another legend, the Koshkulak cave was a cult place among the ancient Khakasses. Here the pagans worshiped not only the phallus as a symbol of procreation - around the natural stalagmite in the form of a phallus, an ancient fireplace was preserved. Here, according to legend, the ancestors of the Khakasses worshiped the black devil, made sacrifices to their gods, including human ones. In favor of this legend says the ancient altar preserved to our days. Whoever believes in this legend believes that over the centuries the cave has absorbed the dark energy of ancient shamans, which, guarding their secrets, spills out from time to time on overly curious guests of the cave.
Victor MELNIKOV, Abakan
Gold Kolchak
MYTHS associated with the Koshkulak cave, not only do not die, but are born. In the booklets for tourists with you, for example, they will share assumptions that Kolchak’s gold is hidden in one of the grottoes of the cave of the black devil, that Solovyov’s secret warehouse of weapons has been lost here. Faithful Leninists cannot be touched by such a version: the young commander of the Uzhur chonovtsy Arkasha Golikov received his legendary nickname Gaidar at the entrance to this cave.
The newspaper "Arguments of Success"
ROAD TO HELL
One of the most mysterious places in Khakassia is the Koshkulak cave. This mysterious place is located high in the mountains near the remote taiga village Topanovo of the Shirinsky district. It’s dangerous to go into the cave without an experienced caver or local guide — whether it’s a joke — an almost vertical descent of about three hundred meters. Yes, and getting to the cave is not so easy - not every car can handle a poor gravel road. Then a pawn in the taiga uphill must be drowned. And in the places of all living creatures - in bulk. You will meet the soul of the shaman or not - another question, but the brown bear - easily.
I tried to persuade some of the locals to lead to this cave - to no avail. No money needed. They say that if a black shaman drags on, he will not let go.
Koshkulak is considered a cult place. Some say that once in this cave people were sacrificed (children were killed there or young women - no one can tell for sure), and now this place has a very bad reputation. Like, souls cannot find ruined peace and take revenge alive for their joyless existence.
Not one scientific expedition visited there, some even saw this black shaman, about whom the locals speak. One researcher who did not want to be named told the following story: “Our group went down to Koshkulak to check. The cave is not the deepest, in the Shirinsky district there is a deeper and more beautiful one. But this one, indeed, is black of some kind, we didn’t find human bones there, but there are a lot of animal bones there. Maybe they come here to die. The sensations in this cave are not pleasant, but we did not notice any obvious manifestations of something special. Almost our entire group went upstairs. I was the last in the chain and for some time I was left in the cave alone. Suddenly I felt someone's gaze on me. He turned and froze: a creature separated from the wall - either a person or a beast - a body like a human, something like a black mask on his face, and twisted horns on his head. This creature looks at me and beckons with a finger. I, spellbound, reached for the rope to untie the knot. At that time, someone from above called to me, I woke up and pulled the rope with all my strength. What was it - a dream or reality? But under the impression I walked for a long time. Sometimes this shaman (that's how the locals describe the black shaman) later came to me. No, I’m not going to get into this cave anymore. ”
MYSTERY OF KOSHKULAKSKAYA CAVE
How do you feel about the stories about the Koshkulak cave? Many of her visitors have nightmare visions and, interestingly, completely different people testify to the same thing: that they supposedly saw the shaman. Scientists tried to explain this phenomenon in different ways, what will you say?
The Koshkulak cave is considered to be the tribal cave of the Chusteyevs, Kobezhikovs, Odins, Kokovs. Now they come there with noisy excursions, hence all the troubles. Once a shaman was buried near this cave. People disturbed his peace, and therefore his spirit began to appear more and more often in recent years. A cave is the entrance to the womb of the mother of the earth. And we use her power incorrectly. In the cave, you can perform a ceremony of rebirth: imagine yourself small - a small egg, and then try to "be born" another person, with those qualities that you would like to have, and leave all the negative in the "old life". Of course, this must be done alone, or better, with the help of a shaman. You cannot go into this cave with bad thoughts, fears. She will return your feelings to you: everyone sees and feels in it exactly what he himself consists of.
In the north of Khakassia there is also the Kashkulak cave ... Nastya Chusteeva, a resident of Abakan, whose childhood was spent in the Shirinsky district, recalls:
All the locals had a peculiar taboo on this cave - they never went there. Adults told us from the cradle that it was dangerous to be near this place. Daredevils to experience this danger was not even among the most desperate boys. We did not know exactly why people are afraid to be near these places - we just heard talk about the fact that spirits can carry off about the black shaman. But of course, this was enough for us, and we never violated the ban.
Yes, the locals relate to the Kashkulak cave in a special, neutral way: "You do not touch the spirits, and they will not touch." However, the legends associated with it are always awesome.
Old-timers word of mouth tell the story of how they killed a shaman in this cave, but his spirit I stayed here to take revenge on people - and since then this cave has been cursed. ” But legends are legends ... How many of them were created during the existence of mankind - not count. And seventy percent are mysterious, mystical, awesome. However, the cave has been known to scientists since the beginning of the century, and somehow no one was particularly in a hurry to study it. Only about 20 years ago, cavers began to practice here. And what? Maybe the stories and the superstitious fear surrounding the Kashkulak cave acted in this way, but many of the cavers coming down here experienced a thrill. Some said that on the lower floors of the cave they sensed someone's presence, felt behind someone's unkind look. And almost everyone noted an inexplicable sense of fear, arising spontaneously and forcing to leave this "hellish" corner as quickly as possible. All the above observations prompted scientists from the Novosibirsk Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences to organize an expedition to the Kashkulak cave. In 1985, the cave was surveyed, and what is written below is recorded in the archives of this expedition. Impressions of one of the expedition members: “And suddenly I feel uneasy, an unclear feeling of anxiety arises. Further - more, the excitement is growing. And here I am, who was never a coward, shaking all like an aspen leaf. Panic fear. And what I'm afraid of, I don’t know. ” But there were more sensational discoveries: “Having examined the grottoes at a depth of almost a hundred meters, the researchers began to climb up. The last to prepare was Konstantin Bakulin. He already fastened the belt to a common rope - a bundle. Suddenly, the scientist felt someone's heavy, piercing look on his back, overwhelmed Konstantin with heat. His legs seemed numb, and he was numb. As if obeying someone else's will, he turned his head and saw about five meters away ... a shaman. Fluttering clothes, a furry hat with roses, burning eyes and flowing, inviting movements of hands - they say, follow me. Bakulin indiscriminately took several steps after the shaman, but then, waking up from his spell, he began to frantically pull the rope that connected him with his friends who were upstairs. They immediately pulled Constantine to the surface. Bakulin was in a state close to fainting, and for a while could not utter a word. He did not descend into the cave anymore, but for a long time in a dream he saw a shaman beckoning him to follow him. .. ”Of course, all this mysticism could be attributed to a disorder of the nervous system, and visions - to eye fatigue due to a long stay in a limited light. But then it was found that the electromagnetic field in the cave is constantly fluctuating, and among other signals, an impulse steadily manifests itself, which coincides with the appearance of unpleasant sensations in the testers. Instrument evidence is no longer the emotions of an individual. And the devices showed impartially that when the electromagnetic field changes insignificantly on the day surface, a real magnetic storm is raging in the cave at this time. But even this is not enough - it turned out that the source of the appearance of impulses is located deep in the earth, and these signals have nothing to do with natural ones. Novosibirsk scientists then came to a stunning conclusion: only an artificial emitter can generate pulses of such a frequency with a stable amplitude of oscillations! There was even an opinion that this is a space alien beacon.
But on this, the study of a unique cave was suspended. And all that we have now is just versions and conjectures:
The same Konstantin Bakulin put forward a hypothesis based on the premise that not only a person has a memory, but also the entire space surrounding him. It is known that the Kashkulak cave was a ritual sanctuary in which numerous sacrifices were made, according to some legends - to the Black Devil, according to others - the phallus (on the top floor of the cave, about 100 meters from the entrance, almost in the center of the grotto, there is a stalagmite shaped like a phallus 1 meter high).
There were human sacrifices. The stone walls of the caves were captured by the events that were taking place here, and under certain heliographic conditions they can manifest themselves.
The geophysicist Oleg Schmidt, who studied the geophysical features of the rocks in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Kashkulakskaya cave and in it, expressed a quite logical version that the peculiarities of the cave’s geology seemed to increase the strength of the changing electromagnetic field. Shamans used this more than two thousand petas back (the date was set as a result of radiocarbon analysis of coal from the fire around the stalagmite). Schmidt also supports the atheistic version of the fact that the underground walls of the cave could capture the acts of shamans, and under certain geophysical conditions today they display volumetric images of paintings - visions of those times. But, I repeat, these are just versions. One thing is certain - the shamans of those distant times, no doubt chose this cave not by chance, knowing full well its exceptional impact on the human psyche. But the mystery of this cave remains unsolved, and the Black Shaman, as before, like two thousand years ago, awaits guests ...
Sali Baba Cave
The mass of sensational reports that appeared in the press after the expedition of the Novosibirsk scientists made the Kashkulak cave the most famous cave in Khakassia. People who are not afraid of either God or the hell - tickled their nerves here. Not so long ago, a tourist route was organized there, Here is how the Kashkulak cave is described in an advertising brochure: “38 kilometers of access from Malaya Sya on an all-terrain vehicle and 300 meters of walking. This is a cult cave that can be visited by everyone aged 15 to 55 years. You will see the place of the cult rite, which took place more than 2 thousand years ago, and beautiful carbonate deposits. Check yourself during the descent to the bottom by rope and climbing the track ladder. The cave is covered with legends about Visions of the spirit of a shaman and is known under the name of the cave of the Black Devil on the pages of the press. Travels all year round. ”
Tourists reached out - and after them, as often happens, people who want to get easy money from them. In fact - even Ostap Bender was trying to organize the sale of tickets for tourists near the Pyatigorsk failure. And he was meekly paid and did not pay attention - after all, union members and police visited, as we recall, the failure for free. In Khakassia, this textbook story was repeated to the smallest detail - the administration of the districts where there are natural attractions lease these lands to entrepreneurs, getting their own fat. How much “money from the air” will settle in the pockets of enterprising tenants is generally not accountable. The Kashkulak cave did not escape a sad fate - the administration of the village of Shira rented it to Grigory Artemenko, and at the moment it may well be called not the Cave of the Black Devil, but ... Cave of Sali - a woman.
Says Vasilisa Kobezhikova - student of the Faculty of Psychology, Khakass State University:
At the beginning of Augus, our group (20 people) decided to go to the Kashkulak cave. What was our surprise when in these almost virgin places we saw traces of civilization. And Hindu. A comrade in Indian clothes was sitting near the entrance to the cave and muttered various mantras with recitative; he was with him a boy of about ten and a forty-year-old man. Not far from the cave there is a pillar on which hangs a portrait of Sali, a woman, and an Orthodox cross. In general, all the sisters are earrings ... A comrade in Hindu clothing, who turned out to be the next missionary of a new religion, enlightened the tourists who arrived - Sali - the woman, it turns out, is the next son of God, and now everyone should only worship him, both Russians and Khakasses. Sali himself - a woman - a colorful, hairy Hindu man in all places - looked impassively at us from his portrait. An excursion to the Cave of the Black Devil, as his adept told us - the new "Hindu - subject", costs 135 rubles per person. When we replied that we would not pay that kind of money, and we are here by the right of the indigenous people (there was a shaman in our group), he concluded that we could not go into the cave, because, supposedly, our actions and thoughts are unclean, since we eat meat. But here it was clear to the fool - if we had the money to pay for the tour (and from 20 people - 2 thousand 700 rubles), then we would not be repaired.
Here's a story about Sali - a woman and his followers, who even squeezed the Black Shaman in the cave. Scam and fraud of pure water. “Chance” tried to find out from Nikolai Volkov (Assistant to the Chairman of the Government of the Republic of Khakassia on Religious Affairs) what kind of religion this is - Salibabism, and how to relate to it in general. As Volkov answered us, such a trend has not been registered in Khakassia, most likely it is a non-Eastern Hindu religion, but little is known about it. According to some reports, the followers of this sect communicate with the lower worlds. Salibabists did not receive any right to be near cult places in Khakassia, and district administrations also do not have the right to lease natural places of worship, archaeological sites. Moreover, only organizations of traditional Khakass beliefs have the right to conduct any rites here. At the moment, it is necessary to passportize all places of worship in Khakassia, determine the procedure for use and assign them to scientific or religious institutions.
Riddles of Kashkulak cave
In the spurs of the Kuznetsk Alatau, in Khakassia, on the southeastern slope of Nash Kulan mountain (“khos hulakh” translated from Khakass as “two ears”) there is a cave, which the locals nicknamed the Cave of the Black Devil. In some encyclopedias, it is called one of the most terrible places on earth. And there are good reasons for this.
For the first time, the anomalies of the Kashkulak cave were widely discussed after a group of Moscow geologists accidentally stumbled upon this natural object. According to the recollections of one of the participants in that expedition, Yegor Barkovsky, who organized a new expedition to Kashkulak two decades later. geologists managed to stay in a mysterious cave for no more than ten minutes. Overwhelmed by inexplicable fear, they were literally pushed out of there by some unknown force. When the expedition returned to the nearby village of Shira, local residents explained to geologists that it was the cave spirits who did not want to see people in their stone sanctuary.
Old-timers told guests that in ancient times, near the Kashkulak Mountain, the Golden Stream flowed, along which the souls of the dead sailed from the living world to the world of the dead. A powerful shaman of the Golden Stream lived next to him, accompanying for centuries the souls of his fellow tribesmen to the land of shadows. But the day came, and the shaman died. According to local legends, the shaman’s body was put on fire, and his golden robes were carried deep into the cave, in which he performed his magic rituals during his life. Since then, the gate to the other world has opened in the cave.
For this reason, in very old times, feeble old people and sick Khakass tribesmen went there in order to complete their earthly journey. Later, during the time of “endless wars” (III-VI centuries A.D.), the great priests of the Sarmatians lived in the Kashkulak cave, who sacrificed people and animals to their powerful gods ...
Legend of the Black Shaman
The legend of the Black Shaman is among the most common among local residents and guests of the Kashkulak cave. One of the Khakass legends tells that at the beginning of the 20th century, near the Cave of the Black Devil, an old shaman lived, whom the locals greatly respected and feared. It was said that this shaman was so powerful that he could revive the animals, move gigantic boulders with the power of his eyes and turn stones into gold bars. In the early 1920s, when the Civil War was going on in Eastern Siberia, a gang appeared in those places under the command of Ataman Solovyov.
Once a cruel "father" grabbed an old shaman and demanded gold from him, which, according to rumors, was stored in countless places in the secret places of the Kashkulak cave. the old shaman was thrown from a cliff into a deep abyss, and soon the ataman’s detachment was ambushed by the Uzhur Chonovites (whose future writer Arkady Gaidar served) and was completely destroyed. Since then, local legends have been telling the shaman’s cancer is always the uninvited guests of the cave, terrifying them, depriving their reason, and sometimes even life.
The fact of the existence of a ghost of a shaman is mentioned by an employee of the Novosibirsk Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine Konstantin Vakulin. who, as part of a group of researchers in 1985, visited the Kas-Local Shaman of the Kulak Cave. But suddenly, at some point, I felt someone's gaze on me. The next instant he was overwhelmed with heat, and then an inexplicable panic swept over him. Being under hypnosis, the man turned his head and about five meters away he saw a male figure in fluttering clothes and a furry hat with horns. The shaman, whose eyes burned with a bluish fire, beckoned Vakulin to his hand. The researcher took several uncertain steps, when he suddenly remembered a prayer that he had known since childhood, and began to whisper it. The shaman began to back away and soon disappeared without a trace in a stone wall ...
Mysterious repeater
Since the late 1970s, numerous expeditions of researchers have been trying to give a scientific explanation for the paranormal phenomena occurring in the Kashkulak cave. Each time, finding themselves in this mysterious place, scientists record a number of similar phenomena: a feeling of inexplicable fear and the feeling that there is someone invisible in the cave; visual mirages in the form of human figures and mythological creatures; auditory and tactile hallucinations. The first detailed description of these phenomena was made by the participants of the 1985 expedition. At the same time, researchers installed in the grotto Enthusiasts, a feature of which is the abundance of charred bones of people and animals found there, equipment that measured the electromagnetic field. To the surprise of scientists, the instruments recorded a strange pattern; as soon as a man stepped inside the grotto, a real electromagnetic storm rose there. In addition, impartial equipment caught a single signal, coming from somewhere under the ground.
Already in the early 1990s, a group led by Novosibirsk scientist Alexander Trofimov, using more sophisticated equipment, established a connection between unusual phenomena occurring in the cave and disturbances of the electromagnetic field. The researchers also made an unambiguous conclusion that strange pulses appearing at a certain frequency are clearly of artificial origin, and a certain generator located deep underground can be the source of these pulses.
In 2003, Abakan psychic Dmitry Ivanov, who had visited the Kashkulak cave three times, said that at a depth of 500 meters under Mount Kashkulak there is a repeater installed in this place about 400 thousand years ago by representatives of a highly developed extraterrestrial civilization .Nowadays, the device sends signals in the direction of the constellation Orion, in which some important information is encrypted.. Also, according to Ivanov, the Kashkulak repeater may well serve as a kind of beacon for alien creatures, with the help of which they navigate in near-Earth space.
Scary facts
Dmitry Ivanov believes that the complex energy structure of the information field of the Kashkulak cave is extremely dangerous for people who are at a low level of spiritual development, who have bad thoughts and intentions. This is evidenced by a number of facts when uninvited guests of the cave of the Black Devil went crazy. and even died under unclear circumstances.
Khakassia still remembers the story of how in 1960 a group of twenty students visited the cave. Only two frightened girls, who were picked up by local hunters, were able to get to the surface. Later, one of the survivors died in a psychiatric clinic, the fate of the second lover of underground travel remained unknown.
Already in 1996, five Kemerovo research enthusiasts disappeared without a trace in the cave. Only
the young man, who was then able to get out of the cave, muttered indistinctly about some furry monsters and a fire door in the stone floor, where he nearly fell through. The guy was exhausted, and he was placed in a hospital, where he died in a couple of weeks from an unknown disease ...
Today, the Kashkulak cave is a place of pilgrimage for followers of neopagan cults who organize ritual activities on the slopes of the mountain with sacrifices of all kinds. According to shamans practicing these days in different regions of Siberia, such behavior not only indicates the absence of a true culture among the self-proclaimed pagans, but also threatens many troubles that angry mountain spirits can bring down on their unreasonable heads.