Golosov Gorge in Kolomenskoye
Moscow is an ancient city that has seen a lot in its lifetime. It keeps a lot of secrets, remembers a lot of chilling legends and no less creepy real events. Moscow abounds with mysterious corners, which sometimes have a very controversial reputation.
One such place is Golosov Gully, located on the territory of the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve. At the bottom there are two huge boulders of bizarre forms. Folk tradition ascribes them mystical power and healing properties, so this place is very popular with city residents.
Description
Golosov ravine runs almost in the middle of the reserve and divides the territory of Kolomenskoye into two halves. Its length is about one kilometer, the ravine has quite steep slopes. It stretches from the banks of the Moscow River to the Andropov Avenue.
The ravine passes through the wildest part of the reserve, around it there are abandoned gardens, grassy slopes and small groves. On its bank there is an outstanding monument of Old Russian architecture – the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist, built in the XVI century.
Along the bottom of the gully flows Kolomensky or Golosov brook, which is fed by numerous springs. The water in it is always cold and does not freeze even in the coldest winters.
Golosov ravine is situated above a geological fault which is considered one of the largest in Moscow. Scientists have found traces of ancient volcanic activity here. So it can really be called a “gateway to the underground kingdom”. Perhaps, this location explains many of the strangeness observed here.
Secrets of the name
The etymology of the name is still a subject of scientific debate. According to one version, it comes from the name of the Slavic god Veles, who was considered the lord of the underworld and the realm of the dead.
According to another, the name of the ravine is derived from the words “hair” and “volohaty. Our distant ancestors considered lush hair a symbol of good health, wealth and success.
Miraculous stones
The main attractions of Voice Gully are two huge sandstone boulders. They have their own names: “Goose Rock” and “Maiden”. Often they are called simply: “male” and “female.
The boulders are 50 m apart, with a path between them. One lies at the bottom of the ravine, the other rests on its slope.
The “goose-stone” has a bizarre shape, indeed something resembling a bird’s head. Its dimensions are 1.5 by 2 meters. It is considered a “male” talisman, bringing strength, valor, success in career and business endeavors.
“Maiden Stone” has a complex bubbly shape and measures about 2 by 2 m. It is believed that it cures “female” diseases, helps to solve problems in personal life, helps to marry well, and promotes conception.
Folk rumor attributes mystical abilities to the Kolomna stones, in the Internet one can read about the ancient pagan temples, which existed here even before the new era. Neo-pagans often come here to perform their strange rituals.
There are also various groups of esotericists who come here to feed on a special energy. They consider the local boulders to be its center.
The origins of the legend
The legend was started by Dmitry Chigrin, a tour guide at Kolomenskoye. As a student, he wrote a paper on a pagan sanctuary in the Voting Gully. Later Chigrin popularized such ideas among visitors to the reserve.
In 2004, Professor Toporkova studied the stones and came to the conclusion that the custom of worshipping them developed only in the 1970s. And they became widely known only at the end of the forties, probably, that’s when a legend began to form around them.
As for the origin of the boulders, they were dragged to the territory of today’s Moscow by the last glaciation.
On the other hand, a geological anomaly really affects the operation of devices, it is said that cell phones often run out here and communication is lost.
Urban legends of the Voting Gully
People say that the ravine is the place of St. George the Victorious with the dragon. The knight slayed the creeper, but before he died the serpent managed to mortally wound his horse. If the legend is to be believed, the magic stones are the remains of the noble animal, and the springs are the traces of its hooves.
Many believe that Golosov Gully is a real time portal that can play a cruel joke on the careless.
A Novgorod chronicle tells about an amazing event that happened in 1621. Ostensibly, a small army of Tatars suddenly appeared at the gates of the sovereign’s palace, and was immediately captured by streletskoy guards. During the interrogation the captives declared that they were soldiers of Khan Devlet Giray.
The discrepancy was that, at the time of the events, this khan had long died, and the raid, in which his troops tried to capture Moscow, happened in 1551, i.e., half a century earlier.
The captives told us that they descended into a ravine shrouded in a strange greenish mist. It seemed to the warriors that they had spent only a few minutes in it.
The weapons and armor of the Tatars corresponded to the middle of the 16th century. An inquiry conducted by the authorities confirmed the truthfulness of the detainees’ accounts.
The mystique did not end there. In the police reports of the 19th century there are mentions of numerous cases of disappearances of inhabitants of nearby villages. Most of the missing people were never found.
The most mysterious case happened in 1832. It even appeared in the pages of Moskovskiye Vedomosti.
Two peasants decided to shorten the way by going straight through Golosov ravine. On their way they encountered a familiar greenish fog, after which they met strange, overgrown with wool people.
When they reached their home village, they discovered that they had been away from home for nearly twenty years. The aging relatives hardly recognized them. The police had to intervene, and it was the police who reported the mystery.
In 1926, a local policeman on the outskirts of the ravine met a strange overgrown with hair man of gigantic height. Frightened, the policeman discharged his service weapon fully into the ghost, but the “savage” remained unharmed and just melted into the fog.
Then the search for the “devil” involved local residents, volunteers and even schoolchildren. The event caused quite a stir. A Moscow newspaper of the time published an article entitled “Pioneers Catch a Leshog”.
There is another legend, which, however, is only indirectly related to the ravine. According to one hypothesis, the famous library of Ivan the Terrible is hidden under the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist, near a mystical place.
Secret rooms and a time portal: mysticism in the Kolomenskoye Estate
The Kolomenskoye Museum Reserve is famous for its open-air exposition, which covers more than 250 hectares. Its symbol is the Church of the Ascension, included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
Every day about 10 thousand people come to admire the estate, and they are attracted not only by the unique architectural monuments, but also by the many secrets that are still kept by the former summer residence of the Russian tsars. Where to look for the library of Ivan the Terrible and whether it is possible to make a “jump” into the past, going down into the Golosov ravine – read the material of the online edition m24.ru.
Photo: TASS/Marina Lystseva
Golosov Gully: Temporary portal or entrance to the underworld?
Golosov Gully dividing Kolomenskoye into two parts has long been a hero of legends and fables. Written records tell a remarkable story that happened in Kolomenskoye in 1621. At that time Streltsy units were on the alert, as a detachment of horsemen appeared out of nowhere at the gates of the Grand Duke’s palace. The uninvited guests looked as if they came straight from the battlefield. Armed with curved sabers and short bows, they rode stunted horses, and their helmets were crowned with ponytails like those of the warriors of the Golden Horde.
During the interrogation, the captives said they belonged to the army of Devlet Giray Khan and decided to hide from the pursuers in a ravine, with a greenish fog at the bottom. Having decided that the pursuit had passed, the horsemen left the shelter and, eventually, unexpectedly found themselves at the palace gates, where they were seized by Streltsy. The tsar’s interrogators were confused, because the mentioned khan Devlet Giray died more than 40 years ago. How come that the soldiers of his detachment spent in Voice ravine for almost half a century, without even noticing it?
Photo: m24.ru/Alexander Avilov
According to a professional researcher of abnormal phenomena Vadim Chernobrov, you should not write off this story to the exuberant imagination of its authors. It is possible to check how the time actually passes in gully, with the help of chronometer. This device is able to fix the difference in the speed of time even in hundredths and thousandths of a second. “Measuring this gully, we did it several times, we came across several chronoanomalies, quite small,” Chernobrov reported. The deviations are so small that it is impossible to feel them. Nevertheless, according to the researcher of anomalies, it is possible that under the influence of some factors this time gap can increase.
The story with the Tatar detachment is not the only surviving account of temporal “discrepancies” in Kolomenskoye. A note about a similar case appeared in the Moscow Gazette in 1832. According to the newspaper, in 1810 two peasants, Arkhip Kuzmin and Ivan Bochkarev, were returning home late at night – from the village of Dyakovo to the village of Sadovniki. Their way lay across a ravine, and at first the tipsy peasants did not pay much attention to the fact that a greenish mist was strewn across the bottom of the ravine. Only when they returned home did they find out with amazement that they had been gone for more than 20 years.
Since ancient times mystical features were ascribed to it. So, according to guide Mikhail Yushkevich, pagan tribes, who used to live there, considered it as an entrance to the other world. Later a legend arose that it was here that St. George the Victorious had a battle with a serpent, and the ravine appeared at the place of the blow of the tail of a giant monster.
Geologists, of course, do not share the fairy tale “theory” of the ravine’s origin. According to their data, the Golosov Gorge is an altered valley of an ancient river network, that is, it was formed as a result of draining a river. The stones that lie at the bottom of the gorge, in all likelihood, arrived in the capital from afar. According to Chernobrov, they were picked up by a wave of a slow-moving glacier somewhere on the Karelian Isthmus. Whether this is true or not, but some of their boulders have already been “covered” with a thick layer of legends and beliefs.
Wonder-stones and glacier water
The stones of the Gus Gully and the Virgin Stone, both by their names and their unusual shape, attract many adherents of alternative medicine. According to folk legends, it’s enough just to sit down on them – and the diseases will recede. And those who hope for the fulfillment of the most cherished desires, tie a ribbon near the miracle-stones.
Scientists, on their part, are in no hurry to ascribe any special properties to the stones. Although they differ from local rocks both in texture and geological composition, they have no healing qualities. “Instrumental methods to date have not shown any of the known, at least to science, types of radiation coming from these stones,” said Vadim Chernobrov.
Researchers of anomalies are much more interested in the temperature of water in the stream, which originates in the ravine. Measurements showed that it is only +1.5 degrees, while the usual temperature of springs in central Russia ranges from 4 to 8 degrees above zero. What natural “glacier” is hidden in the upper reaches of the ravine, so the water in the stream becomes not just cold, but icy? The answer to this question has yet to be found.
However, the brook in Kolomenskoye does not freeze even in the harshest of cold weather. However, in spite of these unique properties, physicians do not recommend drinking this water, because it is not environmentally friendly.
Photo: m24.ru/Mikhail Sipko
Unique acoustics and bell ringing
It is a mystery where the name of Voice Gully comes from. It derives either from the pagan Slavic god Veles, or from the voices that echo through the ravine. As Vadim Chernobrov explained, the ravine perfectly conducts sound. If bells ring at the top of it, their melody will be heard even at a distance of several kilometers down the ravine.
No less famous for its excellent acoustics is the Church of John the Baptist in Dyakov. Hegumen Alexei Ivanov explains this by the presence in the domed part of the church of vocalists – clay jugs of different volumes. “It is interesting: the higher – the number of vocalisers is less, but in volume they are more. Here in the very top tier, there the vocalisers are a jug of approximately one hundred liters in volume,” the abbot noted.
Historical sources allow us to suppose that the Church of St. John the Baptist was erected in 1529. Some researchers consider it to be the prototype of the future St. Basil’s Church. Others put forward an even bolder hypothesis, stating that this is where Ivan the Terrible could hide his legendary library – Liberia.
Photo: m24.ru/Yulia Nakoshnaya
In search of Ivan the Terrible’s library
The first person to seriously search for the legendary Tsarist library on the territory of Kolomenskoye was the archaeologist Ignaty Stelletsky. In 1938 he began excavations, based on the story of the former keeper of the church in Dyakov. He claimed that he had accidentally discovered a secret staircase that led to an iron door, guarded by a decayed skeleton. During excavations at a depth of seven meters, Stellecki discovered a massive masonry structure. However, the excavations soon had to be halted at the insistence of local residents who resented the excavations in the cemetery.
The mysterious stairs came to historians’ attention again only 40 years later. In 1980, during the renovation builders stumbled upon a buried underground passage. They began to free the cache from the sand, but then decided to stop digging, walling up the passage until it was better.
What is hidden at the other end of the corridor: a secret vault of the collection of Ivan the Terrible, or the usual church basement – still excites the minds of researchers and ordinary visitors Kolomenskoye.
Photo: m24.ru/Lydia Shironina
“The Eighth Wonder of the World” of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich
The beauty of these places has not left indifferent and other Russian rulers. Thus, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a real palace-town was built on the high bank of the Moskva River.
Finishing work lasted almost 20 years, but the result surpassed all expectations. Foreign guests who were once lucky enough to cross the threshold of the royal residence could not contain their excitement: the walls of the palace were decorated with leafy gold, the floors were covered with luxurious oriental carpets, and the ceiling was hung with intricate paintings. In addition, according to Andrei Topychkanov, researcher at the Kolomenskoye Museum of Fine Arts, the throne room, where the throne was located, was decorated with mechanical figures of lions. “The 17th century is a time of worship of mechanics, and these lions must have shaken the imagination of contemporaries, foreigners or courtiers,” Topychkanov emphasized.
In the times of Alexei Mikhailovich, the lions were driven by a special hydraulic system, which shocked especially impressionable foreign envoys. For example, there is evidence that once a Polish delegation ran from the palace after hearing a roar.
With the relocation of the capital to St. Petersburg, the palace ceased to enjoy the attention of the tsars and quickly became dilapidated. In the end, Catherine II decided to disassemble it, having previously made detailed drawings and taken measurements of all the elements of architecture and decoration. It is thanks to these documents that Alexei Mikhailovich’s palace managed to be restored, so it can also be considered a kind of “traveler” in time.
To make a little excursion into the Russian Middle Ages, it is not at all necessary to go down to the ravine in Kolomenskoye and wait for the mystical green fog to appear there. Even a simple visit to the monuments and expositions of the museum-reserve will allow you to travel back in time, and then just as quickly go “back to the future”.
