Winston Churchill said: "Russia is a puzzle wrapped in mystery, wrapped in a riddle." We can't help but agree. Russian history is full of mysteries. We have selected 24 key ones.

1. What does the word "Rus" mean?

Yes, we still do not know for sure where the word "Rus" came from. According to one version, from the toponym "Ros" (the name of the river), according to another - from the words Ruotsi, Roots, Rotsi (as the Finnish tribes called the Swedes). Lomonosov believed that the Rus were the descendants of the Sarmatians, who called themselves Roxolans or Rosomans (these words allegedly changed to the word "Rus"). The Byzantines also called the “Ross” (red, red) tribes that raided Constantinople. Ibn-Fadlan, who met the Varangians in 922, spoke of them: "They are like palm trees, ruddy, red."
There are many opinions, but there is no order in them.

2. Who was Rurik?

As for who Rurik was, historians also do not have a single opinion. Some correlate him with Rorik of Jutland, a Danish king from the Skjoldung dynasty. Other historians believe that Rurik is the Swedish king Eirik Emundarson. There is also a version that Rurik was the leader of the Obodrite Slavs (Polabian Slavs), and a version that Rurik came from the Baltic island of Ruyan, which today is called Rugen. There is an opinion that there was no Rurik at all.
Until the 15th century, none of the Russian princes called themselves "Rurik", and the dispute about the identity of Rurik began in the 18th century. So it didn't end.

3. Was there a Mongol-Tatar yoke?

Here you can start with the fact that there have never been any Monglo-Tatars. This is an artificial term coined in the 18th century. The definition of "yoke" appeared in the XV century. For the first time it is found in the Kiev synopsis, so the Polish historian Jan Dlugosh translated the Latin term jugum. Only after that they began to talk about standing on the Ugra as about liberation from the yoke. Later this term was "mastered" by Karamzin.
Historians have not yet come to a consensus about the yoke. Lev Gumilyov considered the relationship between Russia and the Horde to be a mutually beneficial alliance. The role of the Horde in the rise of Moscow is undoubted, which even Karamzin noted. Nosovsky and Fomenko, in their research, even reach the point that Russia and the Horde are one and the same. They correlate Batu with Yaroslav the Wise, Tokhtamysh with Dmitry Donskoy ... let's leave it to their conscience.

4. How did the double-headed eagle appear in Russia?

How did a double-headed eagle "fly" into Russia? It first appeared on the state seal during the reign of Ivan III, so it is believed that Sophia Paleolog "brought" it to Russia. However, it is not clear why he became a state symbol only 20 years after the wedding of Ivan III to a Byzantine woman. In addition, the double-headed eagle was not used by the Byzantines on state seals.
But it was used by the Habsburgs, half a century before the appearance of the Russian press, and was also on some coins of the Golden Horde, and was also one of the alchemical symbols. At the court of Ivan III, there was no shortage of visiting alchemist expatriates.

5. Where did the Cossacks come from?

It’s unlikely that anyone will figure it out with what question, it’s with who the Cossacks are. The homeland of the Cossacks is found in the North Caucasus, and in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, and in Western Turkestan. The genealogy of the Cossacks is traced back to the Scythians, to the Alans, to the Circassians, to the Khazars, to the Goths, to the wanderers. Supporters of all versions have their own arguments. Today, the Cossacks are a multi-ethnic community, which includes representatives of several dozen nationalities, among which there are quite unexpected ones - Moldavians, Turks, Estonians, Tajiks. The question of who the first Cossacks were still remains unresolved.

6. Did Grozny kill his son?

Did Grozny kill his son? The question is open. In 1963, when the tombs of Ivan the Terrible and his son were opened, the content of poison in the remains of the prince was incompatible with life. Long before this examination, Konstantin Pobedonostsev called what was depicted in Repin's painting a fantasy. The version of the murder was based on the stories of the papal legate Antonio Possevino, who can hardly be called a disinterested person.

7. Why did Ivan the Terrible abdicate?

In 1575, Ivan the Terrible abdicated and placed Simeon Bekbulatovich, a serving Tatar khan, on the throne. Contemporaries did not understand the meaning of the monarch's undertaking. It was said that the tsar was afraid of the predictions of the Magi that this year the Muscovite tsar would die. Do not understand the meaning of this act and modern historians. There is a version that Grozny was afraid of an uprising in the former Kazan Khanate, where, by the way, he still remained the king. For almost a year, Ivan the Terrible conducted his experiment.

8. Was False Dmitry I an impostor?

We have already come to terms with the fact that False Dmitry I is a fugitive monk Grishka Otrepiev. But the whole story looks very surreal. At first, Dmitry (with the prefix "false") was recognized by his own mother, princes, boyars in front of all honest people, and after a while - everyone suddenly saw the light.

The pathological situation is added by the fact that the prince himself was completely convinced of his naturalness, as contemporaries wrote about.
By the way, the idea that "it was easier to save than to fake Dimitri" was expressed by Nikolai Kostomarov. But it is unlikely that we will ever know the truth.

9. Why did the Zemsky Sobor elect an "impossible candidate" for the role of tsar?

When the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 elected Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom, he was 16 years old. At the same time, he was not even in Moscow during the heated disputes that flared up there. The main argument was that the allegedly deceased Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, before his death, wanted to transfer the throne to his relative Fyodor Romanov (Patriarch Filaret). And since he was in Polish captivity, the crown passed to his only son, Michael. As the historian Klyuchevsky later wrote, "they wanted to choose not the most capable, but the most convenient."

10. Why did Alexei Mikhailovich decide to reform the church?

The schism of the Russian Church was one of the most difficult turning points in Russian history. Alexei Mikhailovich, a Greekophile, wished to change the church rites "to be like the Greeks," and not whoever is into it. This "upgrade" led to the largest spiritual confrontation in the history of Russia. Scholars are still arguing about the reasons for the split. Not the last place here, apparently, was played by the ambitions of the Russian tsar for the Byzantine throne. In 1649, Patriarch Paisios, at a reception with the tsar, directly expressed his wish that Alexei Mikhailovich become tsar in Constantinople: “may you be the New Moses, may you free us from captivity.”

11. Why did Peter I Europeanize Russia?

During the years of his reign, Peter the Great changed Russia beyond recognition. After returning from the Great Embassy, ​​the tsar changed so much that the people began to talk about the fact that he had been replaced. According to one version, Peter was "put into the wall", and instead of him they sent an impostor with a similar face to Russia. According to another - "the king in the Germans was laid in a barrel and put into the sea." Fuel to the fire was added by the fact that Peter, who returned from Europe, began a large-scale destruction of "old Russian antiquities." Why? There is no single answer.

12. Was Paul the son of Peter III?

One of the main mysteries of Russian history - was Paul the son of Peter III? Was the Romanov dynasty interrupted? Catherine and Peter III had no children for a long time, the empress herself wrote that her husband suffered from phimosis. The empress also mentioned in her diaries that she was fascinated by Sergei Saltykov, the alleged father of Paul the First: "I did not give in all spring and part of the summer ...".
There is also a folk legend about the birth of Paul I: according to her, Catherine gave birth to a dead child from Peter, and he was replaced by a certain "Chukhonian" boy.

13. Was Fyodor Kuzmich Alexander I?

The son of Paul I, Alexander, also left historians with a difficult riddle. There is a legend that he left the royal throne, having faked his own death, and went to wander around Russia under the name of Fyodor Kuzmich.
There are several indirect confirmations of this legend. So, the witnesses concluded that on his deathbed, Alexander was categorically not like himself. In addition, for unclear reasons, Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, the wife of the Tsar, did not participate in the mourning ceremony. The famous Russian lawyer Anatoly Koni conducted a thorough comparative study of the handwriting of the emperor and Fyodor Kuzmich and came to the conclusion that "the letters of the emperor and the notes of the wanderer were written by the same person."

14. Where did the money from the sale of Alaska go?

Where the money from the sale of Alaska went is still unknown. Gold bars were brought from London on the barge Orkney, but it sank. Whether there was actually gold there is unknown. But a document is known that says that most of the money was spent abroad on equipment for the railways: Kursk-Kiev, Ryazan-Kozlovskaya, Moscow-Ryazanskaya, etc. Whether this is so, we are unlikely to ever know.

15. Why was the royal family shot?

Historians still do not have a common opinion about who exactly authorized the execution of the royal family and the Romanovs near Alapaevsk. The names of Sverdlov and Lenin are mentioned, but the investigator Vladimir Solovyov, who has been involved in the execution of the Romanovs since 1993, has repeatedly stated that neither Lenin gave permission for the execution. nor Sverdlov. According to the memoirs of another investigator, Nikolai Sokolov, to whom Admiral Kolchak entrusted the investigation, the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are “the product of the will of some individuals.” The question remains only in whose will it was.

16. Where did Kolchak's gold go?

The fate of "Kolchak's gold", most of the gold reserves of Tsarist Russia, is still unknown. This was approximately 490 tons of pure gold in bars and coins worth 650 million. According to one version, the Czechoslovak corps stole it, according to another, it was hidden by order of Kolchak himself. Supposed places of burial: the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei Canal, the Sikhote-Alin, Baikal, Irtysh mountains. No gold has been found anywhere. There is also a version that gold "settled" in European banks.

17. What was the Tunguska meteorite?

Whether the Tunguska meteorite was a meteorite is still unclear. Search expeditions did not find the supposed place where meteorite fragments fell, and there was no crater there either. There are many versions of what happened: the explosion of a nuclear reactor of an interplanetary spacecraft, an ice comet, a collision of the Earth with antimatter, Nikola Tesla's wave experiment. There are more than a dozen versions, but none is yet scientifically recognized.

18. Why did the Bolsheviks take power so easily?

Back in February 1917, there were 5,000 people in the Bolshevik Party, in October of that year there were already 350,000. How did it happen that the Bolsheviks, who until the last moment were not considered a serious force, came to power? It can be explained by the sum of logical factors, from German money to propaganda, but it cannot be denied that the revolution of 1917 was an unprecedented phenomenon in world history. And the irrational factor was no less important than the calculation.

19. Why did Stalin decide on repression?

There is no consensus among historians about the reasons for the Stalinist repressions. According to one version, Stalin waged a struggle with regional party bodies that prevented elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. According to another, the repressions were a means of "social engineering", a continuation of collectivization and dispossession. Finally, there is a version that Stalin was preparing the USSR for war and eliminated the "fifth column" in the country.

20. Why did Stalin return services in the church?

The sharp change in Stalin's attitude towards the church after the start of the war, historians cannot unequivocally explain. Some say that it was a pragmatic move by the leader, who needed "clamps" for mobilization. According to another version, Stalin was secretly religious, his bodyguard Yuri Solovyov recalled that Stalin prayed and even confessed, and Artem Sergeev recalled in an interview that Stalin never said anything bad about the church at home, and even scolded his son Vasily for his disrespectful attitude towards praying.

21. Why did Khrushchev condemn Stalin's personality cult?

Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Party Congress, where he condemned Stalin's personality cult, became a sensation. Why did he decide to do this? According to some, Khrushchev thereby “whitewashed” himself for participating in repressions, according to others, he was preparing a reorganization of the state apparatus. There is even a version that in this way he "avenged" Stalin for the death of his son. Given the long-term consequences of this move, some historians even see the “hand of the West” here. The decline in the prestige of the USSR after the 20th Congress was enormous. Also interesting is the lively participation in the preparation of the report by Otto Kuusinen, who, according to some reports, collaborated with the British and American intelligence services.

23. Was there a "party gold"?

There is a version that the hypothetical gold and foreign exchange funds of the Communist Party of the USSR in the early years of the 1990s “left” to European and American banks. Many public and political figures were looking for the “gold of the party”. According to the journalist Yevgeny Dodolev, the writer Yullian Semyonov was eliminated because he was able to "reveal the conclusion schemes of party millions." However, there is also an assumption that the notorious "gold of the party" is nothing more than a myth.

24. Did Gorbachev know about the conspiracy?

On August 20, 1991, Gorbachev scheduled the signing of the Union Treaty, which was to outline the new position of the Soviet republics. But the event was disrupted by the coup. Did Gorbachev know about the conspiracy? There is still no unequivocal answer to this question, but the fact that the State Emergency Committee and the putsch are a project of Gorbachev himself is a fairly common version. Back in March 1991, he gave the task to the future participants of the State Emergency Committee to develop a draft law "On the introduction of a state of emergency." Former member of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Poltoranin also claims that "the putsch of 1991 was staged by Boris Yeltsin together with Mikhail Gorbachev." The official version is this: Gorbachev knew nothing.

Winston Churchill said: "Russia is a riddle wrapped or shrouded in mysticism inside a puzzle." We can't help but agree. Russian history is full of mysteries.

History of Russia: The main mysteries

Magazine: History of the "Russian Seven" No. 3, May 2016
Category: Secrets
Text: Russian Seven

What does the word "Rus" mean?

There is no consensus on where the word "Rus" came from: from the toponym "Ros" (the name of the river) or from the words "Ruotsi", "Roots", "Rotsi" (as the Finnish tribes called the Swedes).
Lomonosov believed that the Rus were the descendants of the Sarmatians, who called themselves "Roksolans" or "Rosomans". These words allegedly changed to the word "Rus". The Byzantines also called the “Ross” (red or red) tribes that raided Constantinople. The Arab traveler and writer Ibn Fadlan, who met the Varangians in 922, made a note about them: "They are like palm trees, ruddy, red."

Who was Rurik?

As for who Rurik was, historians also do not have a single opinion. Some correlate him with Rorik of Jutland, a Danish king from the Skjoldung dynasty. Other scientists believe that Rurik is the Swedish king Eirik Emndarson. There is also a version that Rurik was the leader of the Obodrite Slavs (Polabian Slavs), and also that he came from the Baltic island of Ruyan, which today is called Rugen.
Some scientists insist that there was no Rurik at all. Until the 15th century, none of the Russian princes called themselves "Rurik", and the dispute about the identity of Rurik began in the 18th century and has not ended to this day.

Was there a Mongol-Tatar yoke?

There have never been any Mongol-Tatars. This is an artificial term coined in the 18th century. The definition of "yoke" appeared in the 15th century. The Polish historian Jan Długosz translated the Latin term "jugum" in this way. Only after that they began to talk about standing on the Ugra as about liberation from the yoke.
Lev Gumilyov considered the relationship between Russia and the Horde to be a mutually beneficial alliance. The role of the Horde in the rise of Moscow was noted by the historian and writer Nikolai Karamzin. Mathematician Gleb Nosovsky and a specialist in the field of multidimensional calculus of variations Anatoly Fomenko argue that Russia and the Horde are one and the same. They correlate Batu with Yaroslav the Wise, Tokhtamysh with Dmitry Donskoy. Let's leave it up to them.

How did the double-headed eagle appear in Russia?

For the first time, the double-headed eagle appeared on the state seal during the reign of Ivan III, therefore it is believed that it was “brought” to Russia by the Grand Duchess of Moscow Sophia Paleolog.
However, it is not clear why it became a state symbol only 20 years after the wedding of Ivan III to a Byzantine woman. The double-headed eagle was not on the Byzantine state seals, but it was used by the Habsburgs half a century before the appearance of the Russian seal, and was also on some coins of the Golden Horde and was one of the alchemical symbols.

Where did the Cossacks come from?

The homeland of the Cossacks is found in the North Caucasus, and in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, and in Western Turkestan. The genealogy of the Cossacks is traced to the Scythians, and to the Alans, and to the Circassians, and to the Khazars, and to the Goths, and to the wanderers. Supporters of each version have their own arguments.
Today, the Cossacks are a multi-ethnic community, which includes representatives of several dozen nationalities, among which there are quite unexpected ones: Moldovans, Turks, Estonians, Tajiks. The question of who the first Cossacks were still remains unresolved.

Did Grozny kill his son?

In 1963, when the tombs of Ivan the Terrible and his son were opened, the content of poison in the remains of the prince was incompatible with life. Long before this examination, Konstantin Pobedonostsev called the image in Repin's painting a fantasy.
The version of the murder was based on the stories of the papal legate Antonio Possevino, who can hardly be called a disinterested person.

Why did Ivan the Terrible abdicate?

In 1575, Ivan the Terrible abdicated in favor of the Tatar Khan Simeon Bekbulatovich. Contemporaries claimed that the tsar was afraid of the predictions of the Magi that this year the Muscovite tsar would die. There is a version that Grozny was afraid of an uprising in the former Kazan Khanate, where, by the way, he still remained the king. For almost a year, Ivan the Terrible conducted his experiment.

Was False Dmitry I an impostor?

We have already come to terms with the fact that False Dmitry I is a fugitive monk Grishka Otrepiev. But the whole story looks very surreal.
At first, Dmitry (with the prefix “false-”) was recognized by his own mother, princes, boyars in front of all honest people, and after a while, everyone suddenly began to see the light.
The idea that “it was easier to save than fake Dimitri” was expressed by the Russian public figure and publicist Nikolai Kostomarov. But it is unlikely that we will ever know the truth.

Why did the Zemsky Sobor elect an "impossible candidate"?

When the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 elected Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom, he was 16 years old. At the same time, he was not even in Moscow during the heated disputes that flared up there. The main argument was that the allegedly late Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, before his death, wanted to transfer the throne to his relative Fyodor Romanov (Patriarch Filaret). Since he was in Polish captivity, the crown passed to his only son, Michael. According to the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, "they wanted to choose not the most capable, but the most convenient."

Why did Alexei Mikhailovich decide to reform the church?

The split of the Russian church was one of the most difficult turning points in Russian history. Alexei Mikhailovich, a Greekophile, decided to change the church rites "so that it would be like the Greeks, and not whoever is into it much." This "upgrade" led to the largest spiritual confrontation in the history of Russia. Scientists are still arguing about the reasons for the split.
Not the last place here, apparently, was played by the ambitions of the Russian tsar for the Byzantine throne. In 1649, Patriarch Paisios, at a reception with the tsar, directly expressed the wish that Alexei Mikhailovich became tsar in Constantinople: “May you be the New Moses, may you free us from captivity.”

Why did Peter I Europeanize Russia?

The colossal foreign policy efforts of Russia in the 17th century led to rather modest results. Access to the Baltic and Black Seas was still closed. In order to fight on equal terms with the European powers and the Ottoman Empire, it was necessary to make the European economy and culture above traditional values.
Peter I from childhood hated the supporters of the "old times". His passionate desire was to turn Russia into a part of Europe, to make it as comfortable, rich and prosperous as Holland or England.
During the years of his reign, Peter the Great changed Russia beyond recognition. After returning from the Great Embassy, ​​the tsar himself changed so much that the people began to talk about the fact that he had been replaced.
According to one version, Peter was "put into the wall", and instead of him they sent an impostor with a similar face to Russia. According to another - "the king in the Germans was laid in a barrel and put into the sea." Fuel to the fire was added by the fact that Peter, who returned from Europe, began a large-scale destruction of "old Russian antiquities." Why? There is no single answer.

Was Paul the son of Peter III?

One of the main mysteries of Russian history - was Paul the son of Peter III? Was the Romanov dynasty interrupted? Catherine and Peter III had no children for a long time, the empress herself wrote that her husband suffered from phimosis.
The empress also mentioned in her diaries that she was fascinated by Sergei Saltykov, the alleged father of Paul the First: “I did not give in all spring and part of the summer.”
There is also a folk legend about the birth of Paul I. Allegedly, Catherine gave birth to a dead child from Peter, and he was replaced by a certain "Chukhonian" boy.

Was Fyodor Kuzmich Alexander I?

The son of Paul I, Alexander, also added another mystery to historians.
According to legend, he left the royal throne, faking his own death, and went to wander around Russia under the name of Fyodor Kuzmich. There are several indirect confirmations of this legend. Witnesses concluded that on his deathbed, Alexander was categorically not like himself. In addition, for unclear reasons, Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, the wife of the Tsar, did not participate in the mourning ceremony.
The famous Russian lawyer Anatoly Koni conducted a thorough comparative study of the handwriting of the emperor and Fyodor Kuzmich and came to the conclusion that "the letters of the emperor and the notes of the wanderer were written by the same person."

Where did the money from the sale of Alaska go?

Where the money from the sale of Alaska went is still unknown. Gold bars were brought from London on the barge Orkney, but it sank. Whether there was actually gold there is a mystery.
But a document is known that says that most of the money was spent abroad on equipment for the railways: Kursk-Kiev, Ryazan-Kozlovskaya, Moscow-Ryazan. Whether this is so, we are unlikely to ever know.

Why were the royal family shot?

Historians still do not have a common opinion about who exactly authorized the execution of the royal family and the Romanovs near Alapaevsk. The names of Sverdlov and Lenin are called. Investigator Vladimir Solovyov, who has been involved in the execution of the Romanovs since 1993, has repeatedly argued that neither Lenin nor Sverdlov gave permission for the execution. According to the memoirs of Solovyov's colleague, Nikolai Sokolov, to whom Admiral Kolchak entrusted the investigation, the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are "the product of the will of some individuals." The question remains only in whose will it was.

Where did Kolchak's Gold disappear to?

The fate of "Kolchak's gold", most of the gold reserves of Tsarist Russia, is still unknown. It was approximately 490 tons of pure gold in bars and coins, worth 650 million.
According to one version, the Czechoslovak corps stole it, according to another, it was hidden by order of Kolchak himself. Supposed places of burial: the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei Canal, the Sikhote-Alin, Baikal, Irtysh mountains. However, the gold was never found.
It is possible that gold "settled" in European banks.

Ches was the Tunguska meteorite?

Whether the Tunguska meteorite was a meteorite is still unclear. Search expeditions did not find the meteorite fragments at the supposed site of the fall. There was no crater there.
There are many versions of what happened: the explosion of a nuclear reactor of an interplanetary spacecraft, an ice comet, a collision of the Earth with antimatter, Nikola Tesla's wave experiment.
There are more than a dozen versions, but none is yet scientifically recognized.

Why did the Bolsheviks take power so easily?

Back in February 1917, there were 5 thousand people in the Bolshevik Party, in October of the same year - already 350 thousand. How did it happen that the Bolsheviks, who until the last moment were not considered a serious force, came to power? This can be explained by the sum of logical factors (from German money to propaganda), but it cannot be denied that the revolution of 1917 was an unprecedented phenomenon in world history. And the irrational factor was no less important than the calculation.

Why did Stalin decide to repress?

Historians do not have a common opinion regarding the reasons for Stalin's repressions. According to one version, Stalin fought with regional party bodies that prevented elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
According to another, the repressions were a means of "social engineering", a continuation of collectivization and dispossession.
Finally, there is a version that Stalin was preparing the USSR for war and eliminated the "fifth column" in the country.

Why did Stalin return services in the church?

The sharp change in Stalin's attitude towards the church after the start of the war, historians cannot unequivocally explain. Some say that it was a pragmatic move by the leader, who needed "clamps" for mobilization.
Other scholars claim that Stalin was secretly religious. His bodyguard Yuri Solovyov recalled that Stalin prayed and even confessed, and the leader’s adopted son Artyom Sergeyev recalled in an interview that Stalin never said anything bad about the church at home, and even scolded his son Vasily for his disrespectful attitude towards those who pray.

Why did Khrushchev condemn Stalin's personality cult?

Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Party Congress, where he condemned Stalin's personality cult, became a sensation. Why did he decide to do this?
According to some scientists, Khrushchev thus "whitewashed" himself after participating in repressions, according to others, he was preparing the reorganization of the state apparatus. There is even a version that in this way he "avenged" Stalin for the death of his son. Given the long-term consequences of this move, some historians even see the “hand of the West” here.
The decline in the prestige of the USSR after the 20th Congress was enormous. Also interesting is the lively participation in the preparation of the report by Marxist theorist Otto Kuusinen, who, according to some reports, collaborated with the British and American intelligence services.

Where did Raoul Wallenberg disappear to?

The mystery of the disappearance of diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in the USSR has not yet been solved. He, who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, was last seen on January 18, 1945. Later, evidence appeared that he had been seen in the Lefortovo prison.
According to the version described in the memoirs of KGB General Sudoplatov, Wallenberg was arrested on the personal order of Bulganin, and in 1947 he was killed on the orders of Molotov.
There is another version that Wallenberg survived. He was seen by former prisoners of the Ozerlag, Poles Tsikhotsky and Kovalsky, at one of the transit points. According to other testimonies, Raoul Wallenberg was also seen in other camps and the Vladimir Central. The Poles claimed that he was still alive in October 1959.

Was there a "gold of the party"?

There is a version that the hypothetical gold and foreign exchange funds of the Communist Party of the USSR in the early years of the 1990s “left” to European and American banks. "Party Gold" was sought by many public and political figures.
According to the journalist Yevgeny Dodolev, the writer Yullian Semenov was eliminated due to the fact that he was able to "reveal the conclusion schemes of party millions." However, there is also an assumption that the notorious "gold of the party" is nothing more than a myth.

Did Mikhail Gorbachev know about the conspiracy?

On August 20, 1991, Gorbachev scheduled the signing of the Union Treaty, which was to outline the new position of the Soviet republics. But the event was disrupted by the coup.
Did Gorbachev know about the conspiracy? There is still no clear answer to this question. But the fact that the State Emergency Committee and the putsch is a project of Gorbachev himself is a fairly common version. Back in March 1991, he gave the task to the future participants of the State Emergency Committee - to develop a draft law "On the introduction of a state of emergency." Former member of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Poltoranin also claims that "the putsch of 1991 was staged by Boris Yeltsin together with Mikhail Gorbachev." The official version is as follows: "Gorbachev knew nothing."
The pre-baptismal period in the history of Russia was a big headache for Soviet historians and ideologists, it was easier to forget about it and not mention it. The problem was that in the late 20s and early 30s of the twentieth century, Soviet scientists in the humanities were able to more or less substantiate the natural “evolutionary” nature of the newly minted communist ideology of the “brilliant” Marx and Lenin, and divided the whole history into five well-known periods :

from the primitive communal formation to the most progressive and evolutionary - communist.

But the period of Russian history before the adoption of Christianity did not fit into any “standard” template - it did not look like a primitive communal system, nor a slaveholding, nor a feudal one. But rather it looked like a socialist.

And this was the whole comedy of the situation, and a great desire not to pay scientific attention to this period. This was also the reason for the dissatisfaction with Froyanov and other Soviet scientists when they tried to understand this period of history.

In the period before the baptism of Russia, the Rus undoubtedly had their own state, and at the same time there was no class society, in particular a feudal one. And the inconvenience was that the “classical” Soviet ideology claimed that the feudal class created the state as an instrument of its political domination and suppression of the peasants. And then there was the confusion...

Moreover, judging by the military victories of the Rus over their neighbors, and that the “queen of the world” Byzantium herself paid tribute to them, it turned out that the “original” way of society and the state of our ancestors was more effective, harmonious and advantageous compared to other ways and structures that period in other nations.

“And here it should be noted that the archaeological sites of the Eastern Slavs recreate society without any clear traces of property stratification. The outstanding researcher of East Slavic antiquities I.I. Lyapushkin emphasized that among the dwellings known to us

“... in the most diverse regions of the forest-steppe belt, it is not possible to indicate those that, in their architectural appearance and in the content of the household and household equipment found in them, would be distinguished by wealth.

The internal structure of the dwellings and the inventory found in them do not yet allow dismembering the inhabitants of these latter only by occupation - into landowners and artisans.

Another well-known specialist in Slavic-Russian archeology V.V. Sedov writes:

“The emergence of economic inequality on the materials of the settlements studied by archaeologists cannot be identified. It seems that there are no distinct traces of the property differentiation of the Slavic society in the grave monuments of the 6th-8th centuries.

All this requires a different understanding of the archaeological material, ”I.Ya. Froyanov notes in his study.

That is, in this ancient Russian society, it was not the meaning of life to accumulate wealth and pass it on to children, it was not some kind of worldview or moral value, and this was clearly not welcomed and contemptuously condemned.

What was valuable? This can be seen from what the Russians swore, for they swore the most valuable - for example, in an agreement with the Greeks of 907, the Russians swore not by gold, not by their mother and not by children, but by “their weapons, and Perun, their God, and Volos, the cattle god ". Svyatoslav also swore Perun and Volos in the 971 treaty with Byzantium.

That is, they considered their connection with God, with the Gods, their veneration and their honor and freedom to be the most valuable. In one of the agreements with the Byzantine emperor there is such a fragment of the oath of Svetoslav in case of violation of the oath: “let us be golden, like this gold” (gold plate-stand of the Byzantine scribe - R.K.). Which once again shows the despicable attitude of the Rus to the golden calf.

Both now and then, the Slavs, the Rus, stood out and stand out in their overwhelming majority for their benevolence, sincerity, tolerance for other views, what foreigners call “tolerance”.

A vivid example of this is even before the baptism of Russia, at the beginning of the 10th century in Russia, when in the Christian world it was out of the question for pagan temples, sanctuaries or idols (idols) to stand on “Christian territory” (with glorious Christian love for all , patience and mercy), - in Kyiv, half a century before the adoption of Christianity, the Cathedral Church was built and a Christian community existed around it.

It is only now that the enemy ideologists and their journalists falsely screamed about the non-existent xenophobia of Russians, and they are trying to see this xenophobia with all binoculars and microscopes, and even more - to provoke.

The researcher of the history of Russians, the German scientist B. Schubart wrote with admiration:

“The Russian person possesses Christian virtues as permanent national properties. Russians were Christians even before conversion to Christianity” (B.Shubart “Europe and the Soul of the East”).
The Russians did not have slavery in the usual sense, although there were slaves from captives as a result of battles, who, of course, had a different status. I.Ya. Froyanov wrote a book on this topic “Slavery and tributary among the Eastern Slavs” (St. Petersburg, 1996), and in his last book he wrote:

“Eastern Slavic society was aware of slavery. Customary law forbade the slaves of their fellow tribesmen. Therefore, captured foreigners became slaves. They were called servants. For the Russian Slavs, servants are primarily an object of trade ...

The position of slaves was not harsh, as, say, in the ancient world. Chelyadin was a member of the related team as a junior member. Slavery was limited to a certain period, after which the slave, acquiring freedom, could return to his land or stay with his former owners, but already in the position of free.

In science, this style of relationship between slave owners and slaves has been called patriarchal slavery.”

Patriarchal is paternal. You will not find such an attitude towards slaves not among the wise Greek slave owners, not among the medieval Christian slave traders, nor among the Christian slave owners in the south of the New World - in America.

Russians lived in tribal and inter-tribal settlements, engaged in hunting, fishing, trade, agriculture, cattle breeding and handicrafts. The Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan in 928 described that the Russians built large houses in which 30-50 people lived.

Another Arab traveler Ibn-Ruste at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries described Russian baths in severe frosts as a curiosity:

“When the stones of the highest degree are heated, water is poured over them, from which steam spreads, heating the dwelling to the point that they take off their clothes.”

Our ancestors were very clean. Especially in comparison with Europe, in which, even during the Renaissance, at the courts of Paris, London, Madrid and other capitals, ladies used not only perfumes to neutralize the unpleasant “spirit”, but also special caps for catching lice on their heads, and the problem of expelling feces even at the beginning of the 19th century, the Parliament of France considered from the windows to the streets of the city.

The pre-Christian ancient Russian society was communal, veche, where the prince was accountable to the people's assembly - the veche, which could approve the transfer of the prince's power by inheritance, or could re-elect the prince for himself.

“An old Russian prince is not an emperor or even a monarch, because a veche, or a people's assembly, to which he was accountable, stood over him,” I.Ya. Froyanov noted.

The Russian prince of this period and his squad did not demonstrate feudal "hegemonic" signs. Without taking into account the opinions of the most authoritative members of society: heads of clans, wise “dids” and respected military leaders, no decision was made. A good example of this was the famous Prince Svetoslav. A.S. Ivanchenko in his study notes:

“...Let's turn to the original text of Leo the Deacon... This meeting took place on the banks of the Danube on July 23, 971, after the day before Tzimiskes asked for peace from Svetoslav and invited him to his headquarters for negotiations, but he refused to go there... Tzimiskes, having tamed his pride, to go to Svetoslav himself.

However, thinking in a Roman way, the emperor of Byzantium wished, if military force failed, then at least with the splendor of his vestments and the richness of the outfits of the retinue accompanying him ... Leo Deacon:

“The sovereign, covered with ceremonial, golden forging, armor, rode on horseback to the banks of the Istra; he was followed by numerous horsemen glittering with gold. Soon Svyatoslav also appeared, having crossed the river in a Scythian boat (this once again confirms that the Greeks called the Russes the Scythians).

He sat on the oars and rowed, like everyone else, without standing out among the others. His appearance was as follows: medium height, not very large and not very small, with thick eyebrows, blue eyes, a straight nose, a shaved head and thick long hair hanging from his upper lip. His head was completely bare, and only a tuft of hair hung from one side of it ... His clothes were white, which did not differ from the clothes of others except for noticeable cleanliness. Sitting in a boat on the rowers' bench, he talked a little with the sovereign about the conditions of peace and left ... The sovereign gladly accepted the conditions of the Rus ... ".

If Svyatoslav Igorevich had the same intentions regarding Byzantium as against the Great Khazaria, he would have destroyed this arrogant empire without much effort even during his first campaign on the Danube: four days of travel remained for him to Constantinople, when Theophilus sinkel, the closest adviser to the Byzantine patriarch, fell kneel before him, asking for peace on any terms. And indeed Tsargrad paid a huge tribute to Russia.

I emphasize an important evidence - the prince of the Rus Svetoslav, equal in status to the Byzantine emperor, was dressed like all his warriors and rowed with oars along with everyone ... That is, in Russia during this period, the communal, veche (cathedral) system was based on equality, justice and accounting interests of all its members.

Taking into account the fact that in the modern language of smart people “society” is a society, and “socialism” is a system that takes into account the interests of the whole society or its majority, we see an example of socialism in pre-Christian Russia, moreover, as a very effective way of organizing society and the principles of regulation the life of society.

History with an invitation to reign Rurik around 859-862. also shows the structure of Russian society of that period. Let's get acquainted with this story and at the same time find out who Rurik was by nationality.

Since ancient times, the Rus had two centers of development: the southern one - on the southern trade routes on the Dnieper River, the city of Kyiv and the northern one - on the northern trade routes on the Volkhov River, the city of Novgorod.

It is not known for certain when Kyiv was built, as well as much in the pre-Christian history of Russia, because numerous written documents, chronicles, including those on which the famous Christian chronicler Nestor worked, were destroyed by Christians for ideological reasons after the baptism of Russia. But it is known that Kyiv was built by the Slavs, led by a prince named Kyi and his brothers Shchek and Khoriv. They also had a sister with a beautiful name - Lybid.

The then world suddenly learned and started talking about the Kiev princes, when on June 18, 860, the Kyiv prince Askold and his governor Dir approached the Russian army to the capital of Byzantium, Tsargrad (Constantinople) from the sea on 200 large boats and presented an ultimatum, after which they attacked the capital of the world for a week.

In the end, the Byzantine emperor could not stand it and offered a huge indemnity, with which the Russians sailed away to their homeland. It is clear that only the empire could resist the main empire of the world, and it was a great developed Slavic empire in the form of a union of Slavic tribes, and not dense barbarian Slavs, who were benefited by their arrival by civilized Christians, as the authors of books write about it even in 2006-7.

In the same period, in the north of Russia in the 860s, another strong prince appeared - Rurik. Nestor wrote that "prince Rurik and his brothers arrived - with their families ... those Varangians were called Rus."

“... Russian Stargorod was located in the region of the present West German lands of Oldenburg and Macklenburg and the adjoining Baltic island of Rügen. It was there that Western Russia or Ruthenia was located. - V.N. Emelyanov explained in his book. - As for the Varangians, this is not an ethnonym, usually mistakenly associated with the Normans, but the name of the profession of warriors.

Mercenary warriors, united under the common name of the Varangians, were representatives of different clans of the Western Baltic region. The Western Russians also had their Varangians. It was from among them that the native grandson of the Novgorod prince Rostomysl, Rurik, the son of his middle daughter Umila, was called ...

He came to Northern Russia with the capital in Novgorod, since the male line of Rostomysl died out during his lifetime.

Novgorod by the time of the arrival of Rurik and his brothers Saneus and Truvor was older than Kyiv - the capital of South Russia - for centuries.

“Novugorodians: you are the people of Novgorodians - from the Varangian family ...” - wrote the famous Nestor, as we see, meaning by the Varangians all the northern Slavs. It was from there that Rurik began to rule, from Ladograd located to the north (modern Staraya Ladoga), which is recorded in the annals:

“And the oldest Rurik in Ladoza.”

According to academician V. Chudinov, the lands of today's northern Germany, on which the Slavs used to live, were called White Russia and Ruthenia, and, accordingly, the Slavs were called Rus, Rutens, Rugs. Their descendants are the Slavs-Poles, who have long lived on the Oder and the shores of the Baltic.

“... A lie aimed at castrating our history is the so-called Norman theory, according to which Rurik and his brothers have been stubbornly listed as Scandinavians for centuries, and not Western Russians ... - V.N. Emelyanov was indignant in his book. - But there is a book by the Frenchman Carmier "Letters about the North", published by him in 1840 in Paris, and then in 1841 in Brussels.

This French researcher, who, fortunately, had nothing to do with the dispute between anti-Normanists and Normanists, during his visit to Macklenburg, i.e. just in the area from which Rurik was called, he wrote down among the legends, customs and rituals of the local population also the legend of the calling to Russia of the three sons of the prince of the obodrich Slavs Godlav. Thus, as early as 1840, among the German population of Macklenburg, there was a legend about a vocation…”.

The researcher of the history of ancient Russia, Nikolai Levashov, in his book “Russia in Crooked Mirrors” (2007) writes:

“But, the most interesting thing is that they could not even make a fake without serious contradictions and gaps. According to the “official” version, the Slavic-Russian state of Kievan Rus arose in the 9th-10th centuries and arose immediately in a finished form, with a code of laws, with a rather complex state hierarchy, a system of beliefs and myths. The explanation for this in the “official” version is very simple: the “wild” Slavs-Rus invited Rurik the Varangian, supposedly a Swede, to their prince, forgetting that in Sweden itself at that time there was simply no organized state, but only squads of jarls who were engaged in armed robbery of their neighbors ...

In addition, Rurik had nothing to do with the Swedes (who, moreover, were called Vikings, not Varangians), but was a prince from the Wends and belonged to the Varangian caste of professional Warriors who studied the art of combat from childhood. Rurik was invited to reign according to the traditions existing among the Slavs at that time to choose at the Veche the most worthy Slavic prince for their rulers.

An interesting discussion unfolded in the Itogi magazine, No. 38, September 2007. between the masters of modern Russian historical science professors A. Kirpichnikov and V. Yanin on the occasion of the 1250th anniversary of Staraya Ladoga - the capital of Upper or Northern Russia. Valentin Yanin:

“It has long been inappropriate to talk about the fact that the calling of the Varangians is an anti-patriotic myth ... At the same time, one must understand that before the arrival of Rurik, we already had some statehood (the same elder Gostomysl was before Rurik), thanks to which the Varangian, in fact, was invited rule over local elites.

Novgorod land was the residence of three tribes: Krivichi, Slovenes and Finno-Ugric peoples. At first, it was owned by the Varangians, who wanted to be paid “one squirrel from each husband.”

Perhaps it was precisely because of these exorbitant appetites that they were soon driven out, and the tribes began to lead, so to speak, a sovereign way of life, which did not lead to good.

When a showdown began between the tribes, it was decided to send ambassadors to (neutral) Rurik, to those Varangians who called themselves Rus. They lived in the southern Baltic, northern Poland and northern Germany. Our ancestors called the prince from where many of them themselves were from. It can be said that they turned to distant relatives for help ...

If we proceed from the real state of affairs, then before Rurik there were already elements of statehood among the mentioned tribes. Look: the local elite ordered Rurik that he did not have the right to collect tribute from the population, only high-ranking Novgorodians themselves could do this, and he should only be given a gift for performing their duties, again I will translate into modern language, a hired manager. The entire budget was also controlled by the Novgorodians themselves ...

By the end of the 11th century, they generally created their own vertical of power - posadnichestvo, which then became the main body of the veche republic. By the way, I think it is no coincidence that Oleg, who became the prince of Novgorod after Rurik, did not want to linger here and went to Kyiv, where he already began to reign supreme.

Rurik died in 879, and his only heir Igor was still very young, so Russia was headed by his relative Oleg. In 882, Oleg decided to seize power in all of Russia, which meant the unification of the Northern and Southern parts of Russia under his rule, and moved on a military campaign to the south.

And taking Smolensk by storm, Oleg moved to Kyiv. Oleg came up with a cunning and insidious plan - he sailed along the Dnieper to Kiev with wars under the guise of a large trade caravan. And when Askold and Dir came ashore to meet the merchants, Oleg jumped out of the boats with armed wars and, making a claim to Askold that he was not from a princely dynasty, killed both. In such an insidious and bloody way, Oleg seized power in Kyiv and thus united both parts of Russia.

Thanks to Rurik and his followers, Kyiv became the center of Russia, which included numerous Slavic tribes.

“The end of the 9th and 10th centuries are characterized by the subordination of the Drevlyans, Severians, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Ulich and other tribal unions to Kiev. As a result, under the hegemony of the Polyana capital, a grandiose “union of unions”, or a super-union, was formed, covering almost all of Europe territorially.

The Kievan nobility, the glade as a whole used this new political organization as a means to receive tributes…” - noted I.Ya.Froyanov.

The Ugric-Hungarians neighboring Russia once again moved through the Slavic lands towards the former Roman Empire and on the way tried to capture Kyiv, but it did not work out and, having concluded in 898. an allied treaty with the people of Kiev, moved in search of military adventures to the west and reached the Danube, where they founded Hungary, which has survived to this day.

And Oleg, having repulsed the attack of the Ugrians-Khuns, decided to repeat Askold's famous campaign against the Byzantine Empire and began to prepare. And in 907, the famous second campaign of the Rus, led by Oleg, against Byzantium took place.

The huge Russian army moved again on boats and land to Tsargrad - Constantinople. This time, the Byzantines, taught by previous bitter experience, decided to be smarter - and managed to pull over the entrance to the bay near the capital with a huge thick chain to prevent the entry of the Russian fleet. And they interfered.

The Russians looked at this, landed on land, put the rooks on wheels (skating rinks) and, under their cover from arrows and under sails, went on the attack. Shocked by the unusual sight and frightened, the Byzantine emperor and his entourage asked for peace and offered to ransom.

Perhaps, since then, the popular expression has gone about achieving the goal by any means: “not by washing, but by skating”.

Having loaded a huge indemnity on boats and carts, the Rus demanded and bargained for themselves unimpeded access of Russian merchants to the Byzantine markets and the rarest exclusive: the duty-free right of Russian merchants to trade throughout the territory of the Byzantine Empire.

In 911, both parties confirmed this agreement and prolonged it in writing. And the next year (912) Oleg handed over the rule of prosperous Russia to Igor, who married a Pskov woman Olga, who once transported him by boat across the river near Pskov.

Igor kept Russia intact and was able to repel the dangerous raid of the Pechenegs. And judging by the fact that Igor in 941 moved the third military campaign against Byzantium, one can guess that Byzantium ceased to comply with the agreement with Oleg.

This time, the Byzantines prepared thoroughly, they did not hang chains, but thought of throwing vessels with burning oil (“Greek fire”) from throwing guns at the Russian boats. The Russians did not expect this, they were confused, and, having lost many ships, they landed on land and staged a fierce battle. Constantinople was not taken, they suffered serious damage, and then within six months the evil ones returned home with various adventures.

And then they began to prepare more thoroughly for a new campaign. And in 944 for the fourth time they moved to Byzantium. This time, the Byzantine emperor, anticipating trouble, halfway asked for peace on favorable terms for the Rus; they agreed and loaded with Byzantine gold and fabrics returned to Kyiv.

In 945, during the collection of tribute by Igor, some kind of conflict occurred among the Drevlyans. The Slavs-Drevlyans, led by Prince Mal, decided that Igor and his retinue went too far in demands and created injustice, and the Drevlyans killed Igor and killed his combatants. The widowed Olga sent a large army to the Drevlyans and retaliated fiercely. Princess Olga began to rule Russia.

From the second half of the 20th century, researchers began to receive new written sources - birch bark letters. The first birch bark letters were found in 1951 during archaeological excavations in Novgorod. About 1000 letters have already been discovered. The total volume of the birch bark dictionary is more than 3200 words. The geography of the finds covers 11 cities: Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Torzhok, Pskov, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, Tver, Moscow, Staraya Ryazan, Zvenigorod Galitsky.

The earliest charters date back to the 11th century (1020), when the area in question had not yet been Christianized. Thirty charters found in Novgorod and one in Staraya Russa belong to this period. Until the 12th century, neither Novgorod nor Staraya Russa had yet been baptized, so the names of people found in letters of the 11th century are pagan, that is, real Russians. By the beginning of the 11th century, the population of Novgorod corresponded not only with addressees located inside the city, but also with those who were far beyond its borders - in villages, in other cities. Even villagers from the most remote villages wrote household assignments and simple letters on birch bark.

That is why, the outstanding linguist and researcher of the Novgorod letters of the Academy A.A. Zaliznyak claims that “this ancient writing system was very common. This writing was distributed throughout Russia. The reading of birch-bark letters refuted the existing opinion that in Ancient Russia only noble people and the clergy were literate. Among the authors and addressees of letters there are many representatives of the lower strata of the population, in the texts found there is evidence of the practice of teaching writing - the alphabet, copybooks, numerical tables, “pen tests”.

Six-year-old children wrote - “there is one letter, where, it seems, a certain year is indicated. Written by a six year old boy. Almost all Russian women wrote - “now we know for sure that a significant part of women could both read and write. 12th century letters in general, in a variety of respects, they reflect a freer society, with a greater development, in particular, of female participation, than a society closer to our time. This fact follows from the birch bark letters quite clearly. Literacy in Russia is eloquently evidenced by the fact that “the picture of Novgorod of the 14th century. and Florence in the 14th century, according to the degree of female literacy - in favor of Novgorod.

Experts know that Cyril and Methodius invented the Glagolitic alphabet for Bulgarians and spent the rest of their lives in Bulgaria. The letter, called "Cyrillic", although it has a similar name, has nothing to do with Cyril. The name "Cyrillic" comes from the designation of the letter - the Russian "doodle", or, for example, the French "ecrire". And the tablet found during the excavations of Novgorod, on which they wrote in antiquity, is called “kera” (sera).

In The Tale of Bygone Years, a monument from the beginning of the 12th century, there is no information about the baptism of Novgorod. Consequently, the Novgorodians and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages wrote 100 years before the baptism of this city, and the Novgorodians did not get writing from Christians. Writing in Russia existed long before Christianity. The proportion of non-church texts at the very beginning of the 11th century is 95 percent of all found letters.

Nevertheless, for a long time, for academic falsifiers of history, the version that the Russian people learned to read and write from alien priests was the fundamental version. At the aliens! Remember, we have already discussed this topic: When our ancestors carved runes on a stone, the Slavs were already writing letters to each other.

But in his unique scientific work “The Craft of Ancient Russia”, published back in 1948, archaeologist academician B.A. Rybakov published the following data: “There is an ingrained opinion that the church was a monopoly in the creation and distribution of books; This opinion was strongly supported by the clergy themselves. It is only true here that monasteries and episcopal or metropolitan courts were the organizers and censors of book copying, often acting as intermediaries between the customer and the scribe, but the performers were often not monks, but people who had nothing to do with the church.

We have made a count of scribes depending on their position. For the pre-Mongol era, the result was as follows: half of the book scribes turned out to be laymen; for the 14th - 15th centuries. the calculations gave the following results: metropolitans - 1; deacons - 8; monks - 28; clerks - 19; priests - 10; "God's servants" -35; popovichi-4; parobkov-5. Priests cannot be considered in the category of churchmen, since literacy, which is almost mandatory for them (“the priest’s son cannot read and write - an outcast”), did not predetermine their spiritual career. Under vague names like “God's servant”, “sinner”, “God's dull servant”, “sinful and daring for evil, but lazy for good”, etc., without indicating belonging to the church, we should understand secular artisans. Sometimes there are more specific indications: “Wrote Eustathie, a worldly person, and his nickname is Shepel”, “Ovsei raspop”, “Thomas the scribe”. In such cases, we no longer have any doubts about the “worldly” nature of the scribes.

In total, according to our calculation, 63 laymen and 47 churchmen, i.e. 57% of artisan scribes did not belong to church organizations. The main forms in the era under study were the same as in the pre-Mongolian: work to order and work for the market; between them there were various intermediate stages that characterized the degree of development of a particular craft. Work to order is typical for some types of patrimonial craft and for industries associated with expensive raw materials, such as jewelry or bell casting.

The academician cited these figures for the 14th-15th centuries, when, according to the narrations of the church, she served, almost as a helmsman for the multimillion-strong Russian people. It would be interesting to look at a busy, single metropolitan who, together with an absolutely insignificant handful of literate deacons and monks, served the postal needs of the many millions of Russian people from several tens of thousands of Russian villages. In addition, this Metropolitan and Co. must have possessed many truly miraculous qualities: the lightning speed of writing and moving in space and time, the ability to simultaneously be in thousands of places at once, and so on.

But not a joke, but a real conclusion from the data given by B.A. Rybakov, it follows that the church has never been a place in Russia from which knowledge and enlightenment flowed. Therefore, we repeat, another academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.A. Zaliznyak states that “the picture of Novgorod of the 14th century. and Florence in the 14th century. according to the degree of female literacy - in favor of Novgorod. But the church by the 18th century led the Russian people into the bosom of illiterate darkness.

Let us consider the other side of the life of ancient Russian society before the arrival of Christians on our lands. She touches the clothes. Historians are accustomed to us to draw Russian people dressed exclusively in simple white shirts, sometimes, however, allowing themselves to say that these shirts were decorated with embroideries. Russians are presented as such beggars, hardly able to dress at all. This is another lie spread by historians about the life of our people.

To begin with, we recall that the world's first clothing was created more than 40 thousand years ago in Russia, in Kostenki. And, for example, at the Sungir site in Vladimir, already 30 thousand years ago, people wore a leather jacket made of suede trimmed with fur, a hat with earflaps, leather pants, leather boots. Everything was decorated with various items and several rows of beads. The ability to make clothes in Russia, of course, was preserved and developed to a high level. And one of the important clothing materials for the ancient Rus was silk.

Archaeological finds of silk on the territory of Ancient Russia of the 9th - 12th centuries were found in more than two hundred points. The maximum concentration of finds is in the Moscow, Vladimir, Ivanovo and Yaroslavl regions. Just in those in which at that time there was a rise in population. But these territories were not part of Kievan Rus, on the territory of which, on the contrary, finds of silk fabrics are very few. As you move away from Moscow-Vladimir-Yaroslavl, the density of silk finds in general is rapidly falling, and already in the European part they are rare.

At the end of the 1st millennium AD. Vyatichi and Krivichi lived in the Moscow region, as evidenced by groups of mounds (near the Yauza station, in Tsaritsyn, Chertanov, Konkovo, Derealevo, Zyuzin, Cheryomushki, Matveevsky, Fili, Tushino, etc.). The Vyatichi also constituted the original nucleus of the population of Moscow.

According to various sources, Prince Vladimir baptized Russia, or rather, began the baptism of Russia in 986 or 987. But Christians and Christian churches were in Russia, specifically in Kyiv, long before 986. And it was not even about the tolerance of the pagan Slavs to other religions, but about one important principle - the principle of freedom and sovereignty of the decision of each Slav, for whom there were no masters, he was a king for himself and had the right to any decision that did not contradict customs communities, so no one had the right to criticize, reproach or condemn him, if the decision or act of the Slav did not harm the community and its members. Well, then the history of Baptized Russia has already begun ...

Based on the research of our modern scientist from St. Petersburg Igor Yakovlevich Froyanov, who still in the USSR in 1974 published a monograph entitled “Kievan Rus. Essays on socio-economic history”, then many scientific articles were published and many books were published, and in 2007 his book “The Mystery of the Baptism of Russia” was published.

Why does the sovereign-emperor need such an outfit? It is not good for the Russian Autocrat to flaunt without trousers!

And when did the sovereign indulge in such weapons?

During the time of Peter 1, there were no swords in service with the army, there were sabers.

Hence the question: who armed the bronze horseman with a sword?

Does the Bucephalus stance remind you of anything?

This is how A. Macedonsky was always portrayed on a horse.

And here is the monument to Alexander the Great in Skopje

A sword, a horse, a cloak, a harness on a horse, and the rider’s clothes themselves don’t remind you of anything?

But the real Peter 1

In this form, he was supposed to sit on his beloved mare Lisette.

"The Bronze Horseman" from a different angle.

(not Pushkin, for sure)

Shining bronze over the Neva,

And the clouds of the loins are pulling,

He is full of rain water,

The land here is alien to him.

Granite fetters itch,

Far from enemy columns...

And Macedonian Sasha again

Goes to ancient Babylon.

From the notes of Buckmeister Ivan Grigorievich, bibliographer of Catherine the Great, " she already had a carved image of PETER the Great", which is still stored to this day, however, it did not satisfy the desired intention. The usual foot, on which most of these statues are approved, does not mean anything and is not capable of arousing a new reverent thought in the soul of the viewer. The monument erected by EKATERINA was supposed to correspond to dignity in the noblest and most majestic way. The chosen foot to the sculpted image of the Russian hero should be a wild and difficult to climb stone, on which he is riding a horse with outstretched right hand . A new, bold and expressive thought! The stone itself, as an adornment, should remind of the then state of the state and of the difficulties that the creator of it had to overcome when working out his intentions. How well the chosen allegory fits with its subject is proved by the fact that PETER the Great had a seal on which he was depicted as a stonecutter carving a statue of a female person out of stone, that is, Russia. The calm position of the rider depicts the fearless courage and spirit of the hero, who feels his majesty and is not horrified by any danger. The gallop of a furious horse, reaching the top of a stone mountain, will show the speed of his deeds and successful success in the changes made by his tireless work in his state. The outstretched right hand is the sign of the one who commands, blessing his faithful subjects and the welfare of his possessions of the Father of the Fatherland. "- this is a quote from the" Historical news about the sculpted equestrian image of Peter the Great, composed by a collegiate assessor and librarian Imp. Academy of Sciences by Ivan Buckmeister / Translated by Nikolai Karandashev. - St. Petersburg: Type. Schnor, 1786." The original text was in German.

What this text says, it says that the monument apparently leaned (or even fell), as they say, was in disrepair, because of which it was sent for restoration, as a result of which it was subject to a slight alteration, namely: the head and right arm were sawn off, and completely new parts, of a different shape, were soldered to it. The pedestal also needed to be restored, it was necessary to update the fallen off parts, a large piece in front and a smaller one in the back. History does not hide this: the head of Peter was sculpted by the student of the sculptor E. Falcone, Marie Ann Collot. Fyodor Gordeev fashioned the snake according to Falcone's plan. The casting of fragments of the statue was carried out under the guidance of master Emelyan Khailov and was completed in 1778. Architectural and planning decisions and general management were carried out by Yu. M. Felten ... and the signature below: The author of the monument, Etienne Falnon. Interesting, right?

Falcone, who had never before had to do such work himself, refused to finish the monument on his own and waited for the arrival of the French master B. Ersman. The caster, accompanied by three apprentices, arrived on May 11, 1772, having with him everything necessary to guarantee success: "earth, sand, clay ...". However, the long-awaited master could not fulfill the requirements of the sculptor and soon, at the insistence of Felten, was fired. Ersman simply refused to engage in the task assigned to him. From that moment on, all the preparatory work for the casting was carried out by Falcone himself. In order to assess the tension of the situation and the relations of the characters, it is necessary to cite a letter from the sculptor dated November 3, 1774 to Catherine II, appealing to her patronage: read "alterations") of the statue, although this formality seemed to me superfluous, nevertheless I immediately sent a letter from which I enclose a copy, since then I have not received a response. Without your august patronage, I am at the mercy of a man who hates me more every day, and if Your Majesty does not want to see me more, then I would have to live here worse than any stranger who finally finds a patron ... "

Here is what Falcone himself wrote about the monument: “My monument will be simple ... I will limit myself only to the statue of this hero, whom I do not interpret either as a great commander or as a winner although, of course, he was both. The personality of the creator-legislator is much higher…”. Here on account "great commander, and winner" Falcone clearly let it slip. For the authenticity of the idea, on one of the folds of the Bronze Horseman's cloak, the sculptor engraved the inscription "Sculpted and cast by Etienne Falcone, a Parisian of 1778."

These were the passions then, but the attempt to falsify the origin of the monument, thanks to Pushkin's poem of the same name, was a 100% success.

With the pedestal to the monument, everything is also not simple, I will not voice the official version of its transportation, it looks too funny from the side of mathematics. Recall the initial weight of the Thunder Stone (they don’t want to show it on Wikipedia so much), although historians have stated the weight of 1600 tons. Now just math, what is the density of granite? The density of granite is 2600 kg per cubic meter, but what is the density of wood? Let's take ship pine, its density is 520 kilograms per cubic meter at 15% moisture content .. Now consider the picture.

In the figure, the dimensions of the stone are 11X14X6 (height*length*width) which is rough. Let's estimate the weight ... it turns out 2,402.4 tons.

On average, for all types of wood, the compressive strength along the fibers is (with rounding) 450 kg/cm2. The area of ​​​​the bar under the stone barely pulls a dozen square meters, plus everything there is a point load, there are balls between the bars, which means the load is only a few square meters. Let's calculate the required tensile strength. Let's take the weight of the stone and divide by the contact area, for example 10 square meters (although the actual contact area is much smaller), and we get the strength of 2402.4 kg/cm2. This is if you fold a pyramid out of matches, and put a two-pound weight on top, historians say it should withstand, believe the historians? We figured out transportation by land, let's talk about transporting a stone by water.

What is the displacement of a wooden ship? This is on Wikipedia, but the mathematical model is even simpler, take skis, put a pood weight on them and send them sailing, Will they swim? It is also difficult to believe in the story of the transportation of the Stone Thunder because initially not a single more or less serious ship could physically approach St. Petersburg directly - it would run aground in the Marquis Puddle, as the St. Petersburg "seashore" of the swamp type was ironically called in the 19th century. And all sorts of enemy punt boats could be dealt with on the spot. Maybe that's why there have never been any fortress walls near St. Petersburg, there is simply no need for them. And historians draw such colorful pictures of the transportation of stone through the water. Not a single merchant ship could deliver goods directly to St. Petersburg, the ships reached the island of Kotlin (Kronstadt), where they were reloaded onto all sorts of boats and pontoon barges that could pass to the city. The merchants swore that the delivery of goods from some London or New York to Kronstadt costs the same as reloading and delivery from Kronstadt to St. Petersburg, but there were no options. English sailors of the early 19th century used to say: "The way from London to Kronstadt is much shorter than from Kronstadt to Vasilyevsky Island."
Here's a simple version for you: millions of millions of blocks like "Thunder-stone" are scattered almost throughout the entire territory of the European part of Russia. Especially a lot of them in Karelia. And they are especially well visible from the plane. Boulder fields in our hemisphere are limited from the south. The limit line can be drawn from the city of Perm to the middle reaches of the Don and Dnieper, and from here, beyond Russia, it runs through Northern Germany and France to the Bay of Biscay. On the American continent, all of Canada and a significant part of the United States were once covered by ice. Glacial tongues descended to Florida. And Thunder Stone lay, like those that were subsequently split into building material. Thunder stone - boulder. It, like other boulders, was moved by a giant glacier that once covered vast expanses. In Karelia, boulder fields alternate with lakes stretched from northwest to southeast. The glacier moved in this direction, rolling giant boulders. Its dimensions were such that it moved not only these, but also other, even larger blocks, like fluffs.

Illustration from the 11th Kankai Ibun scroll. The monument was drawn by a Japanese artist from the words of interrogated sailors, shipwrecked to the shores of Russia and many years later returned to Japan by the Russian embassy headed by N.P. Rezanov.

In general, the symbolism of the monument could be read as follows: On the crest of a wave, the warrior-liberator defeats the Serpent (low thoughts and actions), but this was not a city event, and not even a country event, it was a global event. Only minor fragments were left in human memory, and it was decided to falsify the event itself.

let's dream up

Somewhere I have seen such a monument

The history of stone measurements at different times is very interesting.

The damaged monument at first had a stone height of 8.23 ​​m., but in 1769. for some reason, the stone became more than 2 meters lower, and in 1778 it shrank by another 2 meters (restoration work may have begun), and ... since 1882 (after final fine-tuning) its height remains unchanged 8.20 m. Let us pay attention to the fact that the author E. Falcone himself speaks of a height of 6.10 m, and who, if not the author, knows the exact height, or was Falcone not aware of the real height of the monument?

I quote:

The letter of Alexander Fіlїppovich of Macedon at one time was known to many educated people of the Planet, who repeatedly mentioned it in their oral statements and written works. But a more complete text is given in the book: "Historiography of the beginning of the name, glory and expansion of the Slavic people, and their kings and rulers under many names, and with many kingdoms, kingdoms, and provinces." Collected from many historical books, through Mr. Mavrourbin, Archimandrite Raguzhsky. SPb. 1722. It is this text that we will try to comment on for non-specialists.

Reference: A similar text was also published:

Vaclav Haik, Iosif Pervolf (who found a copy in Latin);

Markin Velsky (Chronicles of the whole world, 1551);

there is a mention of this Diploma in:

Book of Lomonosov Mikhailo Vasilyevich (Ancient Russian History);

Documents of Catherine the Great (Notes on Russian history);

Book of St. Dmitry of Rostov (Chronicle, telling in brief from the beginning of the world to the birth of Christ).

In the encyclopedic literature, Mavro Orbini (Croatian Mavro Orbin, Italian Mauro Orbini) (? - † 1614), originally from Ragusa, now Dubrovnik, is a Croatian historian (Dubrovnik Republic), the founder of Yugoslav historical science, an exponent of the idea of ​​the unity of the Slavic world. But his book was written in Italian (read - Italian) language, which indicates that he is an Italian from the Sicilian city of Ragusa and has an indirect relationship with the Slavs. And what is the need for a Slav to describe the Slavic kingdom?

The book itself: "Historiography of the beginning of the name, glory and expansion of the Slavic people, and their kings and rulers under many names, and with many kingdoms, kingdoms, and provinces" we can find in the Russian (Rumyantsev, Lenin) State Library ">

“We are Aleks[ks] Andr Filppovich, King of Macedonia, Sovereign of the Monarchy, the illustrative founder of the Greek state, the Great Deabog, the son, through Natavan, was proclaimed the owner of August, and Brahmins, and Arbons, from Sunrise, even to the West, from Noon to the North, noble and noble Slavs, and their language, mercy to the world, and healthy from us, and from our heirs; who, in the government of the world, you will inherit after us. Because we have always been naturally in the faith of truth, in arms courageous, and our guides, and strong warriors, for this we give you, and we inform you richly, forever, the whole part of the land of the North, even to the borders of the last Noon of Italy and to the Persian mountains, such let no one dare to stay there, dwell, or wish, except yours. And if some want to sit down, may there be unwavering children and their children, may there be unwavering children of your sons.

It was given in the city of New Alexandria, which we founded on the great river Nile, in the second ten years of our reign, to the great god Iovish Mars and Pluto, and the goddess Minerva, who appeared to us. The witnesses of this deed are the noble Alceta - our chancellor, and the other ten princes, whom, after our death, without our inheritance, We leave as our heirs and the whole universe.

This letter of commendation is one from the ancients, which no other people of the universe can show, as evidence of the courage of their ancestors. It should not be strange in the foretold letter, this saying, Slavon, better than the Slavons, and glory marks the glorious, and notorious, everything is the same, as we said above: the city of Agria, existing in Dacia, was created from these Agrianov, who were between the mountains of Em and the Rhodopes of neighboring Macedonia.

And now, after reading everything, the official version of the Bronze Horseman.

The equestrian statue of Peter was modeled by the sculptor Etienne Falcone in 1768-1770. Peter's head was sculpted by his student, Marie-Anne Collot. Fyodor Gordeev fashioned the snake according to Falcone's plan. The casting of the statue was carried out under the guidance of master Yemelyan Khailov and was completed in 1778. Architectural and planning solutions and general management were carried out by Yu. M. Felten.

Here's another fix:

The whole dramatic story of the legendary Thunder Stone, which served as a pedestal for the equestrian statue of Peter I - the world famous "Bronze Horseman", was written only on the basis of the correspondence of Empress Catherine II, French philosopher D. Diderot and sculptor E. Falcone. There are no eyewitnesses, no official documents, no... no... no... only letters, and a beautiful fairy tale written by historians on the orders of the empress.

A more recent version, already in our time, was invented by G.I. Ivanov in the story "Stone Thunder", but the overland routes calculated by G.I. Ivanov according to the diary of the Office, do not fit well into the real area.

The above routes, both the first and the second, do not fit into the legend of transporting the Thunder Stone. At that time, there was neither the strength nor the means for such a project. No pier, no mention of ships, I'm not talking about the fairway in the Marquis puddle ... - WAS NOT!

Confused by another monument to Peter I, where he is in a Roman tunic and sandals with a spear cut, the cut is called a marshal's baton for some reason.

We know what the wand looks like.

The thousand-year history of mankind is replete with many mysteries. In ancient history, people are interested, for example, who built the Parthenon. Secrets in the history of Russia their. Let's talk about some of them...

Cyrillic or Clementine?

Many of us are sure that the Cyrillic alphabet - the alphabet that formed the basis of Russian - was developed by the brothers from Thessalonica Cyril and Methodius. However, many scholars claim that in fact their creation is the Glagolitic alphabet, an earlier system of Slavic writing. And the real author of the Cyrillic alphabet, created on the basis of the Greek charter letter with the addition of several letters and subsequently replacing its predecessor, some researchers call the student of Cyril Clement of Ohrid. It was he who named her after his teacher. Maybe it's time to pay tribute to the modesty of the student and restore historical justice? ..

Russian Atlantis

Tradition says that. when Batu Khan defeated the army of Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, one of the captives, Grishka Kuterma, unable to withstand the torture, showed the enemy the location of Kitezh, which stood on the shores of Lake Svetloyar. The inhabitants of the besieged city turned to the Mother of God with prayers. She took pity and hid him at the bottom of the lake until the end of time, and only the righteous and saints can see him. Unexplained phenomena (the ringing of bells, the reflection of church crosses in the water) forced scientists to go to Svetloyar with an expedition. They never found the legendary city, but nevertheless, the locals believe that the hour will come - and the sacred Kitezh will rise from the waters.

The Lost Library of Ivan the Terrible

There is historical evidence that a priceless collection of books by Byzantine emperors ended up in Russia in the 15th century. She was brought as a dowry by the second wife of Ivan III, the Byzantine princess Sophia. Later, the library, called Liberia, passed to Ivan IV the Terrible, but after the tsar moved to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, it disappeared without a trace. Skeptics believe that no library existed, and if it did, it cannot be of great scientific value, since it included only church books. Nevertheless, searches have been going on for more than one century, and perhaps somewhere in the secret Kremlin dungeons, or even in some one, someone will be able to find Grozny's library.

Fugitive monk or mishandled Cossack

In 1604 A Polish army entered Muscovy, led by a man who called himself the son of Ivan the Terrible. A heartbreaking story about a miraculous escape from the murderers sent by Boris Godunov, a difficult childhood, being tonsured a monk and fleeing abroad resonated with the people, and subsequently the impostor, though not for long, took the Russian throne. For a long time it was believed that False Dmitry I- this is a runaway monk Grishka Otrepiev. But the historian Nikolai Kostomarov was convinced of the Polish origin of the “prince”. He rode beautifully, shot accurately, danced well, had a non-Moscow accent, and applied himself to icons in a non-Orthodox way, which was rather strange for a former deacon.

The charmed riches of Stenka Razin

Another mystery of Russian history that has not yet been unraveled. There were legends about the wealth of Stenka Razin during his lifetime. After the execution of the ataman in 1671 a whole expedition went to look for his treasures, but five years later they returned with nothing - they couldn’t find the exact place, otherwise the earth suddenly collapsed, reliably covering the treasures. Rumors circulate that one of Razin's caches was accidentally discovered during the Battle of Stalingrad. The crumbling banks of the Volga exposed ancient cannons, from which pearls and gold jewelry fell, but the very next day the treasure disappeared under the earth.

Lomonosov - the son of Peter I?

The story of a simple Pomeranian guy who became an academician thanks to his brilliant abilities is known even to a schoolboy. But there is also a romantic version of the stunning success of Mikhail Vasilyevich: he was the illegitimate son of Peter the Great and Elena, the daughter of the Zemstvo head Luka Lomonosov. After the birth of the boy, the Lomonosov family began to receive "material assistance" from the treasury. On his deathbed, Peter I told Feofan Prokopovich about his secret, bequeathing him to take care of the education of his son. By the way, Peter and Lomonosov are very similar: a sharp temper, tall stature, small feet and hands - these common features are hard to miss.

Impostor Princess

There were quite a few self-proclaimed pretenders to the Russian throne, but in beauty and strength of character, none of them could compare with Princess Tarakanova. In 1772 she showed up in Europe, calling herself the daughter of Tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna and her favorite Alexei Razumovsky. She was allegedly sent to Siberia, from where she fled to Persia, where she lived and was brought up in luxury. By order of Catherine II, the adventurer was found by Alexei Orlov and taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she died of consumption. Its true origin remains unknown. Some believe that she was a Polish Jew, others a German.

Where are the trophies of the Napoleonic army hidden?

In October 1812, Napoleon left the burned-out Moscow, taking with him the stolen Kremlin treasures. Five tons of gold, weapons and precious icons went to Paris on 25 wagons. In November, the Russian army defeated the French on the Berezina River, but the stolen wealth was never found. Since then, treasure hunters have searched all the bodies of water along the route of the retreating French army - in vain. Maybe the treasure doesn't exist? However, historian Igor Grutso discovered a document containing a detailed list of the loot, down to silver spoons. He is sure that the trophies are hidden on the right bank of the Berezina, you just need to look more carefully.

Death of General Skobelev

The sudden death of the brave hero Plevna Mikhail Skobelev, nicknamed the "white general" for his unchanging white uniform and love for white horses, came as a surprise to everyone except himself. Contemporaries recall that already six months before his death, he began to sell property and made a will. Officially, the cause of death of 39-year-old Skobelev was recognized as heart paralysis. The day before he had dined at the restaurant "Anglia", someone treated the general to champagne, making a toast in his honor. Writer Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko put forward the version that Skobelev was poisoned by a member of the secret monarchical society "Holy Squad", which eliminated the general for preparing a conspiracy against Emperor Alexander III.

In search of the Tunguska meteorite

One, perhaps, of the still exciting secrets of the history of Russia. On June 30, 1908, a fireball flew over Siberia and exploded in the area of ​​the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. The shock wave knocked down 2.1 thousand square kilometers of forest, a seismic wave was recorded even in Western Europe, where white nights were observed for two days. Scientific expeditions searched, examined craters and fallen trees, but did not find the culprit of the disaster. There were many versions: a comet, an explosion of volcanic gas, and even the crash of an alien ship, but all of them could not withstand scientific criticism. In the 1990s staff Institute of Dynamics came to the conclusion that the Earth was visited by a stone meteorite, which disintegrated in the atmosphere.

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