BLESSED BY THE TIME

By Semen Ustinov

In search for fallen cones, I am walking through the bushes of wild rosemary and suddenly see a piece of white stone under the roots of a big birch-tree. I bend over, move the bushes, thick layer of moss and what I see - a scull! A skeleton of a tall man is laying before me on thick, rotten, crude boards. There is a small axe, a pike and a harpoon put near the remains. On the same place there is a headdress made of some durable material and a small leather bag with a rotten tinder and a stone inside. There is also a strip of metal - a steel and a small round red bead. This bead has impressed me greatly - whose good luck charm for long journey, whose talisman, whose parting words was this unknown Russian man carrying with him in this faraway Evenks land. And he was buried by Evenks rite, not in a grave.

SACRED STONES

I am at the Kourminsky cape, standing and experiencing well-known feeling of admiration towards the expanse of beloved Baikal nature. Everyone who looks into the distance from high mountains knows this feeling. But what is it, where the steep rocky slope ends? Narrow, almost even space borders on the forest. It is completely piled high with stones, but flat blocks, many of which are put on the edge, fence it off.
This is obviously made by man! The first assumption - it is a structure of defensive purpose. A tribe was taking shelter there when enemies attacked, and it is the best place to defend oneself - while the enemy is climbing the steep slope, he can be shot with an arrow. There is only one entrance here and there are impassable mountains behind.
There are some craters on the fenced area and space with narrow entrance under a huge slab - everything is mysterious, puzzling.
However, archeologist Artur Kharinsky stated a theory that it was a ritual site of ancient settlement, pagan rituals took place here. There is possibility that there was an ancient settlement somewhere on the coast of Maloe sea.
We climb the Ankhaloy mountain which is at the Rytiy cape. I am at almost flat surface... edged by a familiar bank of vertically installed stones! Same spirit of ancient times as it was at the site of settlement of the Kourminsky cape, same stillness as it was thousands of years ago. Oh, how inhabited was our land in the ancient times! It seems to me that deep, clear feelings penetrate into the soul from the contact with antiquity.
Later on, I found out that native Buriats consider the Ankhaloy mountain sacred, and since the older times prayer services took place there... It is the best place in these parts to make contact with eternity, because it is blessed by the time.

THE MEMORY OF NATURE

I was making field researches of Altai wapiti and bear on the Primorsky range, at the Maloe sea of Baikal. In twilight before the dawn, I was returning to the place where I was spending the night. From near Baikal a thin fog came and was moving rapidly through the forest. I froze - a big black pangolin was coming through the fog at the brim of the forest! My common sense was telling me it cannot be true, we just do not have such beasts here, but he was there, his eyes sparkling. The fog gone away soon, the pangolin stood still, and I approached him with my heart in the boots... How whimsically a thick piece of wood could burn out in old forest fire! Even the eyes - burned holes of snags with glittering coals. The movement of the fog created illusion of movement of the pangolin.

TRAILS OF AN ALIEN

In Kachugskiy region there is a taiga lake Toulon. Once I have spent a whole spring there. The lake, covered up with snow, is covered with lines of deer tracks. In one place the ice cover is bend in, and yellow water can be seen. Deers like it much, they come to eat snow saturated with this water. Warm days came, the snow started to melt, the ice was covered with water, and small columns pressed under deer's tracks spread in different directions. Large circles appeared - marks of unknown colossus. A person unacquainted with their source would think that these are the trails of an alien from outer space. Everything in nature has its explanation, seek for it and you will find it.

Based on publications from "Wanderings time"