The Solovetsky Islands in the White sea at the entrance to Onega lip; consists of 6 large and about a hundred small Islands. History of the Solovetsky Islands is not starting since the Foundation of the Solovetsky monastery in 1436, but much earlier. There are testimonials of the Saami and Karelians on the island of Anzer in the medieval (demonstarte period.
The first primitive human with traces of stone tools on the Solovetsky archipelago date back to the middle of the VI Millennium BC. On the Islands of Muksalma’s translation was found drilled stone axes and ceramic items II and I Millennium BC.
One of the mysteries of the Solovetsky Islands are the spiral stone labyrinth with a diameter of 25 meters. It is believed that this is one of the monuments of stay of ancient people on the Solovki.
Solovki are the territory of the far North, to the Arctic circle 165 kilometers. The nature of the Russian North is a harsh and parsimonious, but at the same time mysterious – especially the strange nature of Solovki.
The Solovetsky Islands area of 347 sq km The largest of the Big Solovetsky island is a territory of 246 square km, the archipelago is also included of Anzersk island (47 square kilometers), Big Muksalma’s translation (17 sq km), Malaya Muksalma’s translation (0,57 km), Big zacky the island (a 1.25 sq km), Small sacci island (1,02 sq. km). And that’s not counting more than a hundred small Islands.
It is believed that Solovki are perhaps the most suitable for human life on Earth. Increasing warming has led to what is usually a solid field of ice from the mainland to the Solovetsky Islands is not formed.
Thanks okrestnosti the sea, the climate on the Islands is temperate, but changeable. Water temperature of the White sea near the coast in the summer can reach 18-20°C.
“…here is unacceptable for such a warm climate that you can go without warm: the outside temperature is only slightly below zero and sometimes almost zero,” wrote the philosopher Pavel Florensky 22 November 1936, when he was in prison on Solovki.
On the Solovki, there are no rivers, and few streams, springs, and speed. However, fresh water on the island there are many lakes, of which more than four hundred. Solovki, the monks were connected by canals 52 lakes, there are more than 200 channels. In the lakes of the Islands are home to 20 species of freshwater mollusks.
Near the Solovki there are more than 190 species of birds. One only butterflies, there are 34 species.
Off the coast of the Solovetsky Islands are home to belugas.
In 1822, on the Big Solovetsky island, Archimandrite Macarius was founded the Botanical garden. The area occupied by the garden is 5 ha In greenhouses growing watermelons, melons, peaches.
In 1880 on Large Solovetskii island was placed biological station.
Geography the climate of the place of residence) determines not only the policy of the state, but primarily what is called “national character” – a way of life and way of thinking (mentality).
The North forced people to survive in the most inclement conditions. And because the northerners have always been strong-willed, stubborn.
The influence of the nature of the Russian North is easily seen in the scientific interests of M. V. Lomonosov Pomor by birth.
Tell that Lomonosov, when sailed the sea, returning to Russia, saw a prophetic dream. He dreamed that his father, shipwrecked, thrown dead on the shore of an uninhabited island in the White sea. The island had no name, but Lomonosov remembered him well because one day a storm washed him their ship. Returning to Petersburg, he soon learned that his father was missing. Then Lomonosov sent a letter to friends of the fishermen, which tells them where to find the corpse of his unhappy father, and begged him, finding him, to bury. The fishermen, following the advice of the University, soon found it was on this island the dead body of Vasily Dorofeevich and there buried him.
My ancestors also from the Russian North – great grandfather was a teacher in the village on the shore of lake Onega.
Russian North, the concept is not so much geographic as cultural and historical. There is a saying: “the North starts with Vologda” – an old Russian town on the river of the same name, a tributary of the overflowing of the river Sukhona.
The ancestors of my wife with the Vologda region – from the ancient village of Ust-Tolsma on the river Sukhona.
The population of the Russian North consists mainly of Finns and Russians. Farming could feed only the family worked on the land. Therefore, there was no serfdom in Central Russia. However, the wealth of fur, fish, marine animals – all this attracted people to the White sea.
What is the genius loci of the Solovki?
I think it’s remoteness from the world, disunion.
I always wondered why people ran away to live in the harsh uninhabited places.
Personally, I came to the Solovki and then to look at the world through the eyes of the beyond. It seems that the heavens here, closer than on the mainland. There is a feeling that you live in heaven, not on earth.
That is possible and it is important to understand here, where heaven is closer?
Whatever we have created in this life, all the best (and worst) pick with him in his soul. And if there is no afterlife, then everything is irrelevant.
Solovki I felt the taste of silence. Say, you need to learn to breathe out heaven, here on earth, so as not to choke when he gets to heaven.
Some hope that Solovki will become a great spiritual hospital for our people.
Does a person’s religion is worse? Definitely not.
The writer Michael Kuraev believes: “It’s such Solovetsky anomaly. Magnetic. And this magnetism is, of course, spiritual properties. Because to Solovki for profits, for earnings, for pickings people are not going. Here I saw what I was looking for soul. This is the original, simple, pure, liberated from any layers. This land, this temple is heaven and you.”
Life in this harsh place – test. It is a place of extremes of nature, where light and darkness mixed, not only in nature but in the human soul. In June the day length reaches 21.5 hours in December — about 4 hours.
To survive here, you need to trust and rely not only on themselves but also on a Higher power.
Wrong to think that before Christianity in Russia lived wild tribes of the ignorant. Ancient people believed in various spirits which are present in the animate and inanimate, and in this sense were more spiritual we – modern people.
They felt the world in unity, even more than we are now.
Ancient everywhere felt the presence of a Higher Power, although called.
Paganism is not a primitive and not cultural retardation. We still believe in spirits, goblins, celebrating pancake day and other pagan holidays.
Religion of the ancient Slavs deserves respect no less than the religion of the ancient Jews and Christianity penetrated into the land of the ancient Aryans.
The adoption of Christianity in Russia was by no means smooth. Many resisted the new foreign religion, tried to keep their beliefs and roots.
In childhood I was deeply impressed by the film “the snow MAIDEN” – tribal berendeys. And no “Norman theory” can’t deny the fact that before the emergence of the Rus state established by Rurik, the Slavic tribes had their own culture and their own faith. They worshiped the sun, believed in ghosts, felt the spirit of the earth, grass, trees, flowers and even stones.
Being the sun (God RA), these ancient tribes called themselves Russ, Rus, Russian. Country tiers became known as the Rus, ROS, Russia – that is, “country of the God RA”.
“The last Aryans – we,” he recorded in his diary the poet Alexander Blok.
There is a hypothesis that during the Indo-European (Aryan) civilization there was a single proto-language. And the old Russian language branch of the Indo-European language. Daughter graduated from the philological faculty of St. Petersburg state University, where they still study the ancient language and its history.
I recently bought the book “History of the Russian alphabet” from which I learned a lot. Ancient Russian alphabet was called the GLAGOLITIC alphabet (letter, runes, aavega). In it each letter had a meaning. All the letters in the Russian alphabet had a numeric designation (1 – one, 2 – lead, 3 – verb, 4 – good …).
The Creator of “Cyrillic” monk Cyril studied the writings rooskie”, added some Greek letters, and gave new created alphabet.
You may disagree, you can blame the rulers. But to abuse their land, their country, it is to blame yourself!
Buddhists blamed Christians for the barbaric attitude to nature. Although the purpose of and Christians, too – to make matter spiritual, and spiritual material.
Nature is not the object but the subject. We are part of nature, and must not oppose her. Only in unity with Nature, we will understand the purpose of man on Earth.
Independent guides on the Solovki guided tours on the Cape of labyrinths, talking about the history of their origin and versions of origin.
In Scandinavia, on the Baltic sea coast is over 600 stone labyrinths. On the shores of the White sea, discovered about 40 labyrinths, 35 of them on the Solovetsky Islands. In the local dialect they are called “Babels”. They are all constructed from local boulders.
The exact time of construction of mazes on the Solovetsky Islands is still unknown, but most scholars refer them to the I—II centuries BC.
The first description of Solovki labyrinths found in the description of the monastery, compiled by Archimandrite Dosifei.
Beginning research on the Solovki labyrinths laid in the 1920-ies N.N. Vinogradov.
The appointment of stone labyrinths, which are found everywhere in the North, is not known. Most archaeologists associate the maze with the cult of the dead. SATCOM on the Big island by archaeologists under some stone piles discovered burnt human bones and stone tools.
Who, and most importantly, WHY were building these stone labyrinths?
Pavel Florensky in 1935 wrote:
“Here on the Islands of the Solovetsky archipelago, there are remarkable buildings, called in archaeology labyrinths, and in the national language “vavilona”. It is made of stones, mainly of boulders, the size of the head, sometimes less, to fist, patterned carpet with a confusing course of; in some cases, the gaps between the stone tapes go directly to the center, in other cases, branch out and lead to a dead end. In the centre is commonly not immediately possible to get out of there and after some route visit the old place…”
Scientists studied the maze of different answered the question about their purpose.
The main assumption is the hypothesis that they may have symbolized the border between the living world and the spirit world, and the labyrinths were used for specific rituals to help the souls of the dead to make their journey into another world.
N. N. Vinogradov believes that “the maze is nothing like the Saivo, sacred mountains inhabited by the souls of the dead, enjoying the bliss. The ridges labyrinths already gives an idea of the ranges of stone mountains”.
Mariusz Wilk’s book, “Wolf’s notebook” claims that the Sami believed in the transmigration of souls after death to the nearby Islands — the Islands of the archipelago of the Body. According to Wiik, the maze is necessary in order that the soul could not return from the Paradise of the afterlife to the living world — in this return of the soul to get lost in the maze and return back to the Body.
The pattern of the labyrinth it is possible to distinguish between two spirals, indicating the tangle of two coiled snakes.
One of the hypotheses claims that the labyrinth is “fish traps”.
Assume that the maze is a magical tool of shamans.
Tokarev believes that the ancient labyrinth resonators living cell of man and nature. Developed on a Single Plan, the ancient people put the stone ridge of the spiral, to honor their Gods. Such patterns are called Force or Purgatory of Sorts, in the modern sense – it was the Houses of worship-Temples.
Professionals surprising given the incredible build, the deep involvement of these structures in depth ancient knowledge about the Cosmos and about Man’s place in it.
Built according to the ideas of the ancients, on the border of two worlds — the “middle” and “lower” — mazes, probably symbolized either the lower (supernatural) world inhabited by the dead and the spirits hostile to man, or wanted to tell him.
In different countries I have met similar megalithic structures: in Scandinavia, in Ireland and in France. Mazes I’ve seen in Egypt, in Greece and in Italy. Perhaps this is an indication that in these areas a very long time ago lived a unified civilization.
While in detention in Solovki, Pavel Florensky wrote:
“I think that the device of the labyrinths connected with the cult of the dead and appointed to prevent the soul of the deceased buried in the center of out — initially at least. However, these assumptions, though, and more likely — it is dark. Cromlechs, menhirs, Karki and, finally, the ancient Cretan labyrinth is probably related between themselves and with the Labyrinths of the Solovki…”
When I visited on Crete, visited Knossos Palace, known as the labyrinth of king Minos. This is known from mythology, the labyrinth had 1,100 rooms.
Historian Pliny noted that the inhabitants of Crete built a maze in one hundredth of the value of the Egyptian labyrinth. It was thought that the labyrinth with its intricate system of transitions defended the God-king in this life and the next, from enemies and even from death itself.
According to legend, in the labyrinth lived a terrible polovic half man called the Minotaur. The Greek hero Theseus, son of Aegeus, ruler of Athens, set out to kill the Minotaur. In Crete, Theseus was fascinated by the daughter of Minos Ariadne. Fell in love with the girl in front of the maze gave Theseus a ball of thread which he unwound when he was moved deeper and deeper into the maze. In a terrible battle, the hero defeats the beast, and returned to the thread of Ariadne to the exit. Back he went with Ariadna.
Michael Erton, who suggested a model of the Cretan labyrinth, writes: “every human Life is a maze in the centre of which is death, and maybe even after you die, before you finally cease to exist, man is the last labyrinth.”
According to the formula of the French scientist Lucien levy-Bruhl: “the ancient people participates in the events of the world, and not against him.”
Swedish scientist-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg believed that in the ancient world the universe the first man entered into the memory of a profound intuition of the unity of man and God.
In the past people lived as if in two worlds: the mythical and the real, and between them there was an insurmountable barrier, the worlds were close and were permeable.
Professor of philosophical faculty of St. Petersburg state University Roman Svetlov believes that the “archaic myth – a “Theophany truth.” Myth is not “constructs”, but reveals the ontological structure of the Cosmos.
Labyrinth, I was interested in the Idea. Where did the idea of the labyrinth from the South or North?
We only remember those ideas that existed and will exist before and after our birth, thought Plato.
In the broad sense of the word labyrinth can introduce a deadlock or thing, from which it is very difficult to find a way out.
Human life, and human history is more like a maze than a spiral.
In my opinion, the labyrinth is not just a spiral, it is a Mobius Strip. Many believe that the Mobius strip is the ancestor of the infinity symbol.
Model of a möbius strip can easily be done: you need to take quite a long paper strip and glue the opposite ends of the strips, the pre-turning one of them.
For the ancients, the labyrinth is a model of the universe. In the structure of labyrinths can be traced to a three-tiered picture of the Universe, where between “upper” and “lower” worlds was the world of men. This picture is different from the binary “pictures” “the world of the dead-alive”, typical for Ancient Egypt and Greece.
While travelling around Egypt, I visited the valley of the Dead. And when got into the pyramid of Cheops, I was warned that I was going in a straight line. It is known that the pyramids were built mazes. The passage in the pyramid was such that I could touch the walls.
The ancients revered the maze as the gates to the underworld.
Spirals mazes – like the thread of life, spun the ball a comprehensive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe.
The center of the labyrinth is a kind of container that contains the germ (the soul). He attributed the responsibility for all of birth and relationship of souls with the divine – when the Soul with God is said (as some argue).
Mazes were used to conduct religious rites and rituals of healing.
The ancient name of the labyrinths – suradi. This is a special device for awakening in man of certain qualities of consciousness and personal transformation.
Labyrinths were also used for initiation of initiation: entered the maze of student out – dedicated.
Christian churches used the labyrinth in order to show the life of a Christian in the framework of the canons of mythology, invented by the ancient Egyptians. And also for the staging of the campaigns of the crusaders in Jerusalem. To reach the center of the labyrinth was to reach Jerusalem and to attain salvation.
The Chinese believed that evil spirits can only fly in a straight line, so they built the entrances to the labyrinths to protect their homes and towns from evil spirits.
Some people think a labyrinth and the famous Stonehenge.
According to Professor of archeology at the University of Sheffield Mike Parker Person of Stonehenge from the very beginning of its existence to the prosperity in the third Millennium BC was considered by inhabitants of England as an area for burial of the dead.
In 1963 astronomer Gerald Hawkins called the Stonehenge Observatory and calendar calculations which allow to predict astronomical events.
Of course, Stonehenge is a temple dedicated. Moreover, Stonehenge can be seen as a coded mythological message.
We looked at the ancient stones of Stonehenge, and I had the feeling that the rocks watching us.
The rocks were watching us!
Someone even tried to talk to them…
The stones are the silent witnesses of the past. The healing power of stones known, although the nature of this is unclear. It is believed that the stones are silent. But this is only for those who are not able to talk to them. Stones – they are alive!..
According to the mythology of many Northern peoples, the stone has become epic characters, including people and animals. Ancient people believed in reincarnation and in life after death.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “In every heart there is a desire above. Link people to look beyond the farthest limit, step over the line, being born along with a full-fledged human being. If people cease to inspire attraction to the other, they will collapse and turn into afflicted with entropy dust”.
“The answer, as this world is, to know God alone. Look at the world through the eyes of the stone, and you will see yourself in it. In me and in him raging flames. He is a brother and I’m your sister.
Brother stone?
— Exactly! We are all part of a Whole, we are all relatives. If you prefer, you can call me Peter. The stone also has a soul. I see, feel, hear. And even understand! However, I’m handsome? Few notice it.
Brother stone Brother stone…
I find that hard to believe? But it’s true. I in you and you in me.
— I stone?..
— Between us there is a big difference, as it may seem at first glance. We all consist of single elements, and the diversity of the world is only the difference of the relationships between primary entities, we are all manifestation of the same basic elements, all designed on the same Principle.
Being so great that it is hardly possible to imagine. But the way everything is surprisingly simple. It’s all in the scale. There are worlds within worlds. One universe is enclosed in another like Russian nesting dolls. Difficult — only a simple hierarchically organized. And you are the microcosm, and cell of your body universe. All life. Even what seems inanimate.
We, the stones, some semblance of eternity, the seat of the gods. I am the unmanifested God. I can see, if you want, everything. I storage life. All came from me and I will return. In the end, everything becomes stone. Disappear all on this planet, there will be only me. Your whole civilization is built on me. In me you found the iron in me you found the power of the atom. I the cornerstone. You can explore the Universe, I wonder of the Cosmos, I insert heavy stars.
Look in front of you space. I have everything in order to have life, you came along. Everything in me and I in everything! I’m the same microcosm, as you are. Me too in the process, I also breathe and also unable to give birth to the whole world. I’m no worse than flower, I’m a man and a woman simultaneously. I’m what you would call God.
Once I fell on this planet and has brought to itself from space the particles of micro-organisms from which life began. Thanks to me having you people, and all life on this planet. I’m the product of the history of the Earth, I have the remains of bacteria that are millions of years. But I not only the past of the Earth, in me and her future…
The life of a mosquito and my in something similar, as well as Sun and fire. Everything in this world is something like, all a reflection of the will of the Creator. Whim It in every breath of the Universe in the rainbow and in the drizzly rain, in passion and lust for love perfect. Who will question Its beauty? It will seem strange, perhaps, but certainly that His will is hidden in everything, often imperceptibly to us, the meaning of giving the movement the most. We grieve, we cry, yearn, crave to enter into other worlds. And we do not understand the reason is simple, what motivates much of the beauty that makes to not sleep until dawn, in the dark, in the firelight, suddenly open yourself like a poet and an unknown sage”.
(from my novel-profit “wanderer” (mystery) online New Russian Literature
Briefly, the main summed up in three basic theses:
1 the Purpose of life is to learn to love, to love no matter what.
2 the Meaning – it’s everywhere
3 Love to do the need.
ALL IS LOVE!
PS Read the continuation in the next post: “the ELEPHANT Solovki”, “Solovki Monastery Exposing”, “Secrets of the Solovetsky monastery”
I invite you to watch my video review the strange NATURE of SOLOVKI.
And what you think the MYSTERY of the SOLOVETSKY ISLANDS?
© Nikolai Kofyrin – New Russian Literature – http://www.nikolaykofyrin.ru
