The legend of the "Golden Woman" - a pagan idol, cast in pure gold and hidden somewhere in the North in Hyperbare , among endless rivers, swamps and forests, ancient times have their roots.
The Golden Woman of Hyperboreans.
Existed a thousand years legends of the innumerable treasures of Hyperborea, about impregnable Riphean mountains (Ural mountains) where in the snowy northern abyss is hidden colossal statue of the Golden woman - an idol made of pure gold , and the arimasp guarding her, living next to the Hyperboreans.
In the "History" of Herodotus, you can read that beyond Riphean (Ural) mountains, located " damn part of the world where it is snowing all the time, ”live nerves that can turn into wolves, warlike Amazons "One-eyed men -arimaspas " (Greek: Αριμασποι) owning countless treasures and « gold vultures, and even higher behind them, at the very sea - hyperborea» , not knowing death.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus learned about the Arimasp tribe from the Scythian Aristei. (IV, 27), who composed “his epic poem, which is now called by the Hellenes” « "(Herodotus IV 13, 14, 27;)
Perhaps the Arimaspas, which Herodotus spoke of 2500 years ago, were the guardians of the Golden Woman. Scythian word “Arimasp” is translated as: “arima” is a unit, and “spu” is an eye
. It can be assumed that the ancient Greeks called this Arimasp tribe (one-eyed) because the Arimaspas " slept with an open eye", That is, they were always on guard, guarding their golden treasures. 
The search for the "Golden Woman" continued in the Middle Ages. For the first time, the Golden Woman is directly mentioned in the Russian annals of 1398.
The first bishop who managed to somehow root Christianity in the northern lands became Stefan of Perm, who baptized Komi in 1379. Baptism was accompanied by quite aggressive actions christian missionaries : pagan temples destroyed, wooden idols, common everywhere - mercilessly burned. A confirmation of this is the iconic image of Stephen with an ax over the "holy birch" , hung with animal furs, the icon symbolized the struggle with the faith of "wild peoples".
After the rooting of Christianity in the administrative centers of the region, Stephen decided to strengthen Christianity in the outback, but this was hindered by the legend of existence an ancient shrine - the idol of the Golden Baba, but all attempts to get to the shrine of the pagans were in vain, the keepers securely hid their shrine in the taiga, away from the eyes of aggressive christian missionaries .
In the fourteenth century, Christians fought the idol as one of the main shrines of the Gentiles. AND in the 18th century, the tales of the mysterious “Golden Baba” appeared in Europe as a visiting card of unknown Russia.
The existence of an idol is mentioned in a number of medieval publications, and its location was mentioned by the Austrian baron Sigismund von Herberstein in the 1549 Notes on Muscovite Affairs.
Golden woman on the map of 1562
The baptism of idolaters.
The baptism of the north took place with fights - the pagans did not want to refuse to worship idols without accepting the Christian faith. The process of converting the northerners to Christianity was extremely long and, it cannot be said that it was absolutely successful, since in our time whole peoples meet in the northern expanses, worshiping idols and rejecting Christianity. It so happened that the Golden Baba became a serious obstacle to the church - the natives considered the golden idol to be their main shrine, about which legends and myths were composed.
In the Petrine era, the Christian missionary Grigory Novitsky went to the North Urals , a true believer, the most educated person, the author of the first ethnographic monograph "A brief description of the Ostyak people." The missionary decided to complete the work begun by Stefan - find and destroy the Golden Idol. However, the hunt for an idol cost the life of Gregory Novitsky, under unclear circumstances he died. What was the cause of his death is unknown, perhaps he achieved the goal and found what he was looking for, but the guardians of the idol did not allow to carry out the plan, or maybe he just fell victim to natural disasters. After Grigory Novitsky did not return, no one was officially sent for “the idol”, however, attempts to find the “golden woman” did not stop, but searches for purely religious purposes went into the category of “gold rush”. Idol became the object of desire of adventurers and treasure seekers, whom in Russia already in those days was not a little.
Eldorado of the Russian North.
The world's largest gold nugget was found in Russia on October 26, 1842. The serfs, 17-year-old orphan Nikifor Syutkin, who worked in the bowels of the Tsarsko-Aleksandrovsky mine near Miass, found a huge gold nugget at a depth of three meters in the form The Big Triangle weighing 36 kilograms 16 grams. It is known that Nikifor Syutkin received a prize in the amount of 4,390 rubles for his find, which at that time was a gigantic sum, in addition to this money he was written out “free”, which ensured his freedom. Unfortunately, Nicephorus did not become a landowner, and he did not start a new life, but drunk, losing his mind from unexpected wealth. The world's largest gold nugget "Big Triangle" x wounded in Moscow, in the Russian Diamond Fund.
With the beginning of mass colonization by Cossack units of the territories of the Urals and Siberia stories about the golden idol became a symbol of easy wealth, similar to the legend of the "Golden Man" from Eldorado, which was popular among the Spanish conquistadors who conquered South America. Ermak Timofeevich himself, the great conqueror of Siberia, having once heard the legend of the golden god of the dense Mansi, seriously interested in the idol. Once one of his main associates, the Cossack chieftain Bogdan Squabble he said that he saw with his own eyes the treasured statue, storming the Samara prison, located at the confluence of the Irtysh River in the Ob.
Semen Ulyanovich Remezov (ethnographer, cartographer) the author of a book published in the 18th century describes what the chieftain saw Bogdan Bryazgoy : « And from there, by the way to the Ob and in the form a lot of space is empty and Belogorye; they bo prayer greater goddess of ancient: naga with son nastule graying; "receiving gifts from his own, and giving her remains in every undertaking."
However, as Ermak’s army did not try to get to the treasured treasure, nothing came of it, with the approach of ill-wishers the idol mysteriously disappeared literally dissolved in air. By the way, the failure of the idol hunters, according to some sources, is due to the mystical ability of the Golden Woman to leave the hands of the pursuers.
In the book of the traveler, natural scientist Sigismund von Herberstein, one from the collectors of information about the golden idol, "Notes on Muscovite affairs" , a few lines devoted to the mysterious abilities of the Golden Woman: "Feeling the strangers the idol may either disappear from under the nose of anyone who wants to take possession of it, or make some kind of sounds compared to a wild roar, that discourages the desire to approach him, or may completely be thrown off a cliff into the Ob. ”
These romantic and mystical characteristics of the golden idol testify to nothing else about the existence of a certain circle of guardian priests protecting the golden idol, but staying in his shadow. Did the Christian missionary Novitsky die at their hands, did they help the statue disappear during the assault on the sanctuary by Ataman Bogdan Bryazgoy? And didn’t the NKVD officers later come into battle with them ...?
Finds-Arkaim
Hunter, researcher, writer Konstantin Nosilov at the beginning of the last century found out the previously unknown story about the Golden Baba from the old Mansi,radically changing the idea of \u200b\u200bthe situation around the idol. According to the stories of the old Mansi, in his youth, engaged in hunting, in the deaf, inaccessible taiga rubble of the taiga, he saw a "golden woman." The old Mansi described the idol exactly as his image of the annals conveyed. All the minor details converged in the story, except for one - the idol that the old Mansi saw was not of gold, but of silver! Apparently, the Mansi had several copies of the idol, in case the hunters nevertheless get to the goal and, having captured a precious copy, finally leave alone the golden idol - the real one.
After the collapse of the USSR, inquisitive minds had the opportunity to work in the archives with previously secret documents. In one of these documents, the writer, historian Demin V.N. found an extremely interesting note. It turned out that in the thirties of the twentieth century, the legend of a myriad treasure - Golden Babe, interested in Lubyanka . The country needed money, and the chance to replenish the treasury with free gold was not to be missed. They sent to the North Urals a special detachment of the NKVD in order to find a golden idol and transfer it into the hands of the state. And the hunt began: soon in the hands of the special squad data obtained during interrogations of local residents that in the area of \u200b\u200bKyzym Khanty in the forest sanctuary a local shaman hides a certain golden statue . The Chekists rushed to the indicated place, but when they appeared they were offered armed resistance, but the forces were not equal and the "guards" for the "golden woman" were killed every single one.
But what happened next: whether the statue was in the sanctuary or not, the researcher could not get a definite answer - the documents about the fate of that operation were not completely preserved and the thread broke just “in the most interesting place”. However, Demin believes that the special squad still took possession of the treasured statue and took it to Moscow.
Should I put an end to the search for an idol?
Most likely, the Chekists took only a copy of it, the real Golden Baba was hidden in another, more reliable place. The presence of the second idol is also confirmed by the fact that recently information about the “golden woman” reappeared, this time the journalists of one of the central newspapers went hunting for the relic. But the expedition was unsuccessful, and the team had to return to Moscow. The taiga off-road of the north has become an insurmountable obstacle to the search. However, if information about the idol comes again, then most likely the idol is still somewhere hidden.
Golden woman - made in China?
The question who created the Golden Baba has been facing historians for a long time. The hypothesis on this score has already been expressed quite a lot, someone believes that the Vogulov tribe cast the “golden woman”, by the way, the film of the same name, shot at the Sverdlovsk film studio in 1986, outplayes this version in detail and is quite convincing.
Someone sticks to the version that the golden idol went “inherited” to the northerners from the protocivilization of the Hyperboreans. Hyperborea ceased to exist, and the people who inhabited it left the inhabited lands, the northerners found a statue in one of the abandoned temples and have since worshiped the shrine. Based on the version of Hyperborean roots, many historians conclude that the deity, cast in gold, was extremely revered, and therefore the image was immortalized not in a single copy, but, as befits a cult, in the plural. Hence the copies of the idol, which eyewitnesses speak of.
A similar image of the Golden Woman can be found in the culture of China. Chinese Goddess Kuan Yin is the patroness of the family hearth, women and childbearing. She was portrayed sitting on a chair surrounded by children. The poet and prose writer Sergei Makarov was the first to express his suggestion of a possible relationship between Kuan-yin and the Golden Baba in a book on the history of the development of the north, the Earth Circle.
How could a Chinese goddess find herself in the northern Urals? Everything is quite simple, according to supporters of the Chinese trace: a golden idol was brought to Siberia by merchants from China, where it was exchanged for furs. And since the image of the goddess was close in spirit to the local tribes, honoring the divine essence of women, forgetting about Buddhism, the northerners adapted the idol to their own spiritual needs.
But, despite the laconicism, this version is not ideal and needs a serious evidence base, like the whole story of the golden idol, based only on the legends and testimonies of individual eyewitnesses. In the meantime, the story of the Golden Baba remains only a beautiful legend of the mysterious North, which excites the minds of adventurers who want to easily and quickly get rich on an ancient treasure, find the Russian Eldorado, where the "golden man" is hidden ...
Golden Baba today appears only in myths and legends. Presumably it was she who was the main idol worshiped in ancient times by the peoples of North-Eastern Europe and North-Western Siberia.
Myths of the Golden Idol
The earliest mention of a golden idol is found in the XIII century in the Scandinavian "Saga of St. Olav", which is part of Snorri Sturluson's arch "Circle of the Earth." The saga says that around 1023, the Norwegian Vikings, led by the famous Torir Dog, went on a campaign in Biarmia (Bjarmaland) - that was the name of the legendary state, spread in the IX-XII centuries in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Northern Dvina, Vychegda and the upper Kama. In Russia he was called Perm the Great. They managed to secretly penetrate the sanctuary of the Bjarmas - Yomali, guarded by six shamans. There they saw many treasures and a large gilded statue. There was a precious chain on the neck of the idol, on the head was a golden crown adorned with twelve different images. On his lap was a bowl filled with silver coins mixed with earth. The Vikings took with them as much money and treasures as they could carry. Finally, one of them, Carly, cut off the head of the idol, seduced by a chain. But on the way back the Vikings were met by the guardians of the sanctuary, and they had to flee, having abandoned all the loot.
We find information about the cult of worshiping the Golden Woman in the Sofia Chronicle for 1398 in connection with the death of Bishop Stephen of Perm. It says that Stephen sowed the faith of Christ in those lands where animals, trees, water, fire and ... the Golden Woman were worshiped before.
In the XV century, Novgorod-ushkuyniki, having visited the Ural lands with goods, brought news of “A man unknown in the East, growing small, eating each other and praying to the golden idol”.
A lot of legends about the Golden Woman walk among Komi, Khanty and Mansi. So, Mansi reindeer herders tell such a legend. The golden woman was alive and could walk independently. When she was crossing the Stone Belt, as the Ural Mountains used to be called, the local shaman tried to detain her, as she considered herself the local mistress. Then the idol cried out in a terrible voice, and all living things died many miles away from his cries. The impudent shaman fell backward and turned to stone.
The Yakut epic describes a copper statue standing in the middle of impassable swamps. When the enemies approached, she allegedly began to make a sound reminiscent of the cries of many crickets, and also radiated a blue glow into the sky.
The Nenets have a myth that once a year, when the Great Sun appears in the sky, the Solar Woman rises from beneath the frozen earth, carrying a baby in her womb.
The cult of the "golden goddess" among the Slavs
It seems that they worshiped the Golden Woman in Ancient Russia. In the pagan traditions of the Slavs, the Golden Baba Temple is mentioned, located "In the country of Obdorsk, at the mouth of the Obigo River" (probably, the Ob river is meant). She was considered the patroness of pregnant women and midwives. She was sacrificed in gold, silver and furs. Even strangers came to worship the idol. Researchers of the ancient Slavs believe that the Golden Baba was the main among the Rozhanitsy - goddesses responsible for human destiny.
According to most researchers, it was a question of the Mansi goddess Sorni-equa, whose name means “Golden Woman” in translation. Prince N.S. Trubetskoy, who was engaged in ethnography, believed that this was Kaltash-Ekva, the wife of the supreme Khanty-Mansi god Numi-Tarum, who patronizes all life and determines the fate of each person.
Where to look for the Golden woman?
It is assumed that with the advent of Christianity, pagans began to hide the statue so that it would not be destroyed. Quite detailed information about this can be found in books about Russia by European travelers of the 16th century. True, information about the whereabouts of the Golden Baba sanctuary is quite contradictory. For example, M. Mekhovsky in his “Composition of Two Sarmatians” (1517) writes that the idol is located behind Vyatka "When entering Scythia". But S. Herberstein in 1549, A. Gvagnini in 1578 and D. Fletcher in 1591 indicate that he is hidden near the mouth of the Ob.
In his notes made while traveling in Russia, the Roman envoy Sigismund Herberstein reports: “They say, but rather put it fabulously that the idol of the Golden Old Woman is a statue in the form of an old woman holding her son in her lap, and again there is already seen a child who is said to be her grandson. Moreover, as if she had put there some instruments that make a constant sound, like pipes. If this is so, then I believe that this comes from the strong and constantly blowing wind on these instruments ”.
One of the maps of the medieval cartographer G. Mercator, published in 1595, near the mouth of the Ob River, depicts a statue with a child in her arms and the signature "Golden Woman" (Slata baba).
In the Uvat museum of local lore “Legends of the gray Irtysh”, located in the Tyumen region, you can see the exposition dedicated to the Golden Woman. Among the exhibits is the Kungur Chronicle, according to which, 400 years ago, the idol was in the Demyansk town on the territory of the Uvat region, however, after the capture of the town by the Yermak Cossacks, led by Ataman Bryazga, the statue mysteriously disappeared. In the center of the museum hall is a reconstruction of the altar with a gilded figure of the goddess, reproduced from the drawings of the chronicler S.U. Remezov.
In 1961, the statue was allegedly found in the vicinity of the village of Yuilsk in the upper Kazym River, about 270 kilometers north of Khanty-Mansiysk. But it turned out to be not gold, but wooden, covered with silver from above. Therefore, there were rumors of a substitution. However, everyone who dealt with the idol died one after another. Although it is clear that the information is completely untested ... In addition, the "Jules Idol" soon disappeared.
Where is the mysterious Golden Baba now, if it really exists, is unknown. Maybe the idol is hidden in one of the hidden Ural caves, waiting in the wings ...
Golden Idol
Golden Idol is one of the most desirable types that can be found in any standard game zone. Idol Looks like a huge face made of gold. Its high cost ruined many greedy people, since this item is carefully guarded by dangerous ones, because the richest treasures always carry a risk.
You can also simply bomb the ice platform with Idol and then pick it up. But to do this is risky, due to the unpredictability of the explosion and the presence of a huge level below. Alternatively, you can line the stairs out and safely remove Idolgoing down or rising along that. It is worth considering that it is an extremely slippery place, so it’s dangerous to run around dangerously ... Especially on such a narrow platform as the trap of this Golden Idol.
Idol in
Golden Idol can be found in two completely different variations of the traps. Usually, it is located in a small room that looks empty. As soon as you lift it, the exit doors from this room will close, and the ceiling will begin to slowly lower. Escaping from such a trap is possible only with the help of (or destroying any adjacent wall). If you make a hole in the floor, the danger of being crushed will still remain, as the ceiling will continue to lower until it crashes into a heavy object. There is one trick: you can position the door in the hole to prevent the room from completely closing and then easily get out on the way back, as the door will jam. It is worth considering that they immediately kill the hero when approaching, even if they simply fly into them.Alternative trap version with Golden Idol - the sacrificial pit. At the level, a huge hollow is generated that is as high as the level itself. Inside its walls are built in, and at the bottom it boils. As soon as you lift Idol, the floor immediately crumbles, dropping
Idol in
Golden Idol can be found under a dangerous guard, somewhere in the middle of the level. In order to steal the jewel, you have to very carefully get into the epicenter of the trap, which is in constant motion. After raising Idol nothing will happen, but getting out of there will be extremely difficult, since you have to perform the same actions as at the entrance, only by reverse. Often, this is confusing and leads to stupid death. Stupid, because in does not happen ( it is not known whether this is so.) and use the money will not be possible. Therefore, there is no really clear reason to steal it, risking his life. Moreover, if you provoke an explosion next to these, then you activate the unpredictable effect of dominoes, since each of the balls is a mini version. To make matters even worse, such traps can be located simply in different parts of the levels. If one ball hooks the others, then they will begin to move, turning into a deadly tsunami.Where is the Golden Woman?
Some Siberian and especially Ural legends are full of mystical mysteries. Despite the fact that these legends sound fantastic, many still perceive them as historical facts. These stories include the legends of the Golden Baba, or Golden Goddess.
They tell that somewhere in the Urals or elsewhere in the Russian North, a golden statue of a pagan goddess is hidden. This legend has been around for centuries, but even today there are those who are trying to find a mysterious statue. What kind of goddess is this?
Sorni equa
We are talking about the supreme Finno-Ugric goddess, whom the Khanty and Mansi call Kaltas-Ekva. She is the wife of Num-Torum himself, the most important Khanty-Mansiysk deity. Sometimes she also acts as the sister of Num-Torum. This is the mother goddess, who is usually represented as a young girl or woman with long golden hair. It is also believed that it personifies the morning dawn. She has many epithets, one of which is best known - Sorni-Equa, that is, the Golden Woman. Kaltas patronizes childbirth, is associated with the emergence of a new life, while it is related to the earthly sphere, and even to the underground. There, where the Mansi arranged women's cult places, the statues of Kaltas-Ekva were necessarily present. Apparently, this is one of the reasons why it is associated with the aforementioned Golden Baba. Under her nickname Sorni-Ekva, this goddess is familiar to many other Finno-Ugric peoples - in particular, Komi and Permian Komi.
Scandinavian sagas
It is curious that the first mention of the "Golden Baba" is contained in the ancient Scandinavian sagas. Some of these stories were cited in his book The Circle of the Earth by the Icelandic writer Snorri Sturluson (13th century). One of them tells how the great Norwegian leader of the Vikings, Torir Dog, went with his squad to Biarmia, a legendary country located, in the then opinion, in the Russian North. There, near the Dvina River, they found a sanctuary in which there was a wooden statue, which had a gold crown on its head, and in its hand holding a bowl with silver coins. True, this sanctuary was dedicated to Yumala - the Karelian-Finnish deity. Later, however, the Golden Baba was mentioned by Russian annals telling about the Komi people and the biography of Stephen Permsky.
Mention foreigners
Medieval European travelers who visited Russia repeatedly wrote about the Golden Baba. This is Herberstein, and Gwanyini, and Maciej Mechowski, and a number of other famous Europeans. Each of them placed the Golden Baba in different places of the North - from the Urals to the lower reaches of the Ob. Many of them describe the statue as an image of an old woman with a child in her arms or in the womb, and another child is nearby - her grandson.
The opinion of Russian scientists
In the eighteenth century, the history and customs of the northern peoples were described by such Russian scholars as Lepokhin and Miller. They suggested that the "Golden Baba" is a pagan statue that was taken away to Ob by representatives of the Komi people who did not want to accept Christianity.
Does the Golden Baba really exist?
Researchers and enthusiasts searching for the legendary statue rely only on medieval stories and mythology of the northern peoples. The very identification of the statue with Sorni-Equa seems unconvincing, because the Khanty-Mansi goddess was a young girl, not an old woman.
Interesting evidence of the Russian scientist of the XVII - XVIII centuries Semyon Remezov, who explored Siberia and compiled a richly illustrated "Chronicle" - a historical essay on the Russian North. It tells that the Golden Baba is a Khanty idol who was in the Demian town, but mysteriously disappeared from there after the conquest of Yermak by his troops. The book also contains a drawing of this idol. Currently, in the village of Uvat (Tyumen region), in the famous museum of local lore, there is a reconstruction of the altar together with a statue, based on this drawing.