Eltyubyu and the city of the dead in the valley of the Chegem River. El-tyubyu burial grounds in the Chegem gorge Dead city in the cbr

The mysterious ancient Balkar village of El-Tubyu is the center of the history of the whole Balkaria. Ancient watchtowers, the remains of Greek temples and anomalous phenomena attract adventurers and connoisseurs of beauty here. This is the birthplace of the great Balkar poet and sage Kaisyn Kuliev.

The nature of the Verkhnechegemskaya basin is extraordinarily beautiful. In the south, the peaks of the Lateral Range (Kurmytau and others), more than four kilometers high, sparkle with eternal snow. Magnificent and impregnable as a citadel, Mount Karakaya (“black rock” - Balk.; 3646 meters), the highest in the Rocky Range, rises in the east. In its spur, in the Kyzla-Kyuygenkaya mountain range (from the Balkar “Rock of Burnt Girls”), there is the Kala-Tubyu grotto - an ancient human site (13 - 15 thousand years old). Not far from the grotto is the ancient settlement "Lygyt", which dates back to the VIII-X centuries. AD, with underground wooden plumbing.

The Chegem Gorge somehow miraculously combines the beauty of nature and the mysteries of history. This is probably what inspired the filmmakers to shoot the feature film "Sannikov Land" here. In the upper reaches of the Chegem - near the village of El-Tubyu, the Chegem waterfalls, the Adai-Su waterfall, a significant part of the film's action takes place. In the gorge, including at the waterfalls, episodes of the film by S. Rostotsky "A Hero of Our Time" (1965-1966) were filmed. In 1975, in the village of El-Tyubu, the film "The Horseman with Lightning in His Hand" was filmed.

The village of El-Tubyu resembles a museum under open sky. When this village appeared, now no one knows. In a literal translation, "El-Tyubu" means "foundation of the village." Its name suggests that it was founded on the site of some even older locality. When the current village was founded, there were already collapsed foundations of some more ancient buildings. The spirit of antiquity reigns everywhere here. Stone houses that are hundreds of years old have been preserved. In the center of the village we can see ancient tower, which, at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century, was built by invited Svan masters. This tower belonged to the local princes Balkarukov, who were related to the Tarkovsky shamkhals and in the 18th century. This tower is also called the "Tower of Love". According to legend, Akhtugan Balkarukov built it to defend himself from relatives, the beauty Kerime, a Kumyk woman, stolen by him in Dagestan. One of the sacred relics of the family was a 14th-century Koran brought from Dagestan. At the end of the XIX century. a mosque with a minaret was built in the village (unfortunately, it has not been preserved), and it had a school where local children studied the Koran. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The Balkarukovs owned the only cheese factory in the gorge.

Right there, near the bridge, there is a “stone of shame” with a hole made in it (according to legend, criminals were tied to it in the Middle Ages. There is also a stone Avsoltu, who used to be worshiped, seeing in it the patron saint of hunting Afsati; and the “sacred” stone Bayram-tashi , and a stone of strongmen weighing three hundred kilograms (the winner in the competition was the one who tore it off the ground) ...

Near the village, on a rocky wall, two ancient defensive Greek staircases go up, leading to a cave in which, according to legend, ancient Christian relics were buried, which are still being sought.

In ancient times, when the enemy attacked, people went up the stairs to the mountains, and the warriors took up defense above the stairs to bring down stones and arrows on the enemy. Climbing stairs today, in peacetime, you understand how hard it was for the attackers.

In the center of the village, near the bridge, there is a monument to K. Kuliyev in the form of a bust. Not far from here you can see ancient stone huts with flat sod roofs. Due to the lack of arable land, barley and oats used to be grown on these roofs, and after a meager harvest, goats were released to graze. These old buildings of the village became natural scenery when A. Balabanov's feature film "War" (2002) was filmed here.

At the foot of another interesting natural object- the volcanic massif of Kum-Tyube (“sandy hill” - balk.) with a height of more than 3500 m. The “City of the Dead” is located. This array was included in the list of anomalous places in Russia as anomalous zone"Alpha". Above its summit in the 1980s, mysterious night glows were observed.

So the "Town of the Dead" - a monument of history and culture - is located a few hundred meters from the village of El-Tubyu. Here, the "houses of the dead" or "keshene" of the early Middle Ages (X-XII centuries) and later - Muslim mausoleums of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries have been preserved. The ancient "keshene" are called "Christian", although they undoubtedly represent the result of the layering of a wide variety of cultural influences. Similar tetrahedral houses of the dead with gable roofs and a small window on the front facade are found in the mountains of Ossetia, Ingushetia, in the Cherek Gorge of Kabardino-Balkaria, and even in the upper reaches of the Kuban River near the Karachay village of Kart-Dzhurt. There is an opinion that the custom of burying the dead in such "houses of the dead" is one of the remnants of Zoroastrianism, which gained some distribution among the population of Caucasian Alania in the early Middle Ages. According to Zoroastrian rites, a dead body was not supposed to defile the sacred element of the earth, so it was forbidden to bury it in the ground. Cremation was also ruled out, since fire is also sacred. Likewise with water. So I had to isolate the body with the help of special facilities. In Persia, these were "towers of silence", and in the Caucasus - dry caves, burials in ossuaries (special vessels for collecting bones) and "houses of the dead". When Zoroastrianism was supplanted by Christianity, and then paganism revived with renewed vigor (due to the decrease in the influence of Byzantium), traditions continued to be preserved for a long time.

On one of the mausoleums of El-Tubyu, a stone “knob” has been preserved, which indicates that the men of the clan to which this mausoleum belongs are still alive, although no one has been buried in this mausoleum for a long time.

Here is what, in particular, L. I. Lavrov writes: “An external examination of the Verkhnechegemsky burial ground makes it possible to distinguish seven types of graves in it: 1) an earthen mound lined with stones along the edges; 2) stone embankment; 3) a stone box made of smoothly fitted stones and covered with stones inside. That is, the same stone embankment, but with fortified walls; 4) a stone cemented box with a steep gable roof; the inside of the box is filled with stones; this grave differs from the previous one only in that it is better protected from destruction; 5) a grave with the same box as the previous one, differing from it in that, firstly, it is empty inside and, secondly, “it has a small square window on the eastern side. That is, this is a small crypt, as if repeating the external forms of a stone cemented embankment; 6) a large quadrangular crypt (keshene) with a high gable roof and a window on the east side; "7) a large octagonal crypt with a pyramidal (also octagonal) high roof, turning into a cone at the top."

Further: “Already one simple list of seven encountered types suggests that the crypts of the North Caucasus do not repeat the architectural tradition of certain, in the past, more cultured peoples that influenced the highlanders. The crypts are organically linked with the local "architecture" of mountain graves. We see how each type is only a complication of the previous one.

Recall that the scientist visited here in the summer of 1936, and 20 years later Timur Shakhanov found only eight of the eleven crypts. And here is what he writes about the crypt located behind the village: “... at a distance of a kilometer, in the area of ​​​​Syugyulchu ichi, on the mountainside there is a lonely crypt (keshene). This crypt is hexahedral, the only keshene we have encountered that has not eight, but six faces. It is possible that this is an accidental error of the builder. The height of this crypt is 4.5 m, the inside dimensions are 240 x 110 cm, it looks like an irregular oval, it narrows upwards, the window is 50 x 40 cm, it is oriented to the north-west, the wall thickness is 65 cm. There is a burial ground next to the crypt.”

Scientists date the construction of the mausoleums in different ways, but in general it is generally accepted that they began to be built no earlier than the 13th century and were erected until the 18th century.

The "City of the Dead", as these burials are also called, is a favorite stopover for tourists coming to the Chegem Gorge. Most of them are sure that many legends, mysterious stories, unusual facts are connected with this place. And they are right. What is worth at least this one: during the excavations that were carried out from the outside of the crypts, skeletons of sizes unprecedented for those times were found - two meters or even more. The question is: who, even after death, were guarded by those giants?

ELTYUBYU "OUT OF TIME"

And about one more publication of the Russian tabloid "Life"1 - that "in the mysterious Kabardino-Balkar village, the clock shows different times." It turns out that the tiny village of Eltyubi was examined by specialists from the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and found out that "this place is a unique chronal zone ... all processes here are slower than on the plain." Moreover, according to the correspondent, “the special course of time in Eltyubi is felt in everything. Houses built fifty years ago, despite the harsh climatic conditions to this day they do not even need cosmetic repairs. Refrigerators locals not used even in the summer heat. No need. Products here do not spoil at all. People do not get sick and live very long. Time is known here only with the help of television. Because in each yard the clock shows a different time. As a rule, it is always less than the real one.

Why is this happening? The answer of scientists and esotericists - mathematical sciences Vladislav Lugovenko and the founders of the club "Aura" O. and B. Kolchenko is simple: Mountain peaks. The central point in this foundation turned out to be lonely standing house family M. There, according to the property of the pyramids, which has long been familiar to scientists, the chronal effect should be maximum. Acquaintance with the owners of the house fully confirmed the guesses of the researchers. Confirmation was that the owner of the house became a father at a rather advanced age, and, in addition, in his old age he started ... a woman on the side, to whom he regularly traveled on a donkey to a neighboring village. Everything, no more and no less - no other evidence is given in the article.

So, finally, a geopathic zone has been discovered, in which time slows down. But where is this very Eltyubi located? The place called Eltyubyu is known - it is also indicated on the maps, translated from Balkar as “village at the bottom of the valley”, where el is a village, and tyubyu is a floor, a bottom. Ask any inhabitant of the Chegem Gorge, they will answer without hesitation: “This is the Upper Chegem!”. Yes, and in the reference book "Concise Dictionary mountain names Kabardino-Balkaria" directly states: "El-tyubyu is a village in the Chegem Gorge, also called Upper Chegem." The same Upper Chegem, to which several materials are devoted in this book at once, the same Upper Chegem, the surroundings of which we went far and wide, the very village in which people live, close and dear to us. Yes, and the photograph illustrating the sensational material captures not only the "house of centenarians, located in the very center of the zone", but also the famous architectural monument- Malkaruk-kala tower.

So there is no mistake: the mythical Eltyubi is the real Upper Chegem. The only difference between the second and the first is that normal people live in it, whose watches, due to the wear of the mechanisms, happen to show different times. And television is always accurate: after all, it broadcasts from Moscow. Refrigerators are really not favored here - most of the year the climate allows you to do without them. Nevertheless, in many houses - we saw for ourselves - there are such devices. As for houses that do not require repair, this is how to look. If the Upper Chegemians had extra money, they would have repaired it long ago. And so you have to save a lot - after all, with the beginning of perestroika, the number of jobs in the village has decreased significantly. As for centenarians, there are no more of them here than in other settlements of Kabardino-Balkaria - the latest census data quite convincingly testify to this. We have noted almost all the unusual features of this place, with the exception of the one that has been given the appearance of the main evidence. But this is not a scientific question, but an ethical one. Including the ethics of the profession of both a journalist and a scientist.

The Upper Chegem does not live “out of time”, but in the time, moreover, the newest, all the trends of which (unemployment, low birth rate, lack of medical care) have, unfortunately, fully tasted.

And as for the “chronal zone”, it is really worth looking for here: the same talking Chegem mummies, which were described above without any fiction, don’t they testify to its presence? ..

Chegem Gorge- a unique natural site, famous for its waterfalls, gorge and historical monuments, in particular the ancient villages. In addition, an important section of the Great Silk Road once passed here, connecting Kabardino-Balkaria with other regions of the world. Near the Chegem River is the village of Upper Chegem, which is divided into two parts by the Dzhilgi-Su gorge. Previously, on the site of the village there was a settlement of the ancestors of the Balkars, which was called El-Tyubu. Literally from the Turkic language, it is translated as a village at the bottom of the valley, which indicated its geographical location. A necropolis was opened near the settlement - this city of the dead constantly attracts the attention of guests of the republic and local residents.

The first settlers in El-Tyubu

Archaeologists have found human sites here, which are about 15 thousand years old. Traces of vital activity found in the grotto Cala-Tyubu, which became a haven for the first inhabitants of this area. Later, in the 6th-10th centuries, a wooden city with water supply was built here. Centuries later, wooden buildings were replaced by stone ones. El-Tyubu did not have a special city layout, which was due to the proximity of the mountains and the need to defend against the attacks of neighbors. For this purpose, towers were erected in which the nobility lived. Such buildings were a characteristic feature of many Caucasian villages, but only a few of them have survived to this day.

Necropolis city

The features of the terrain did not allow burying dead people in the ground, so not far from El-Tyubu crypts and tombs were built, which gradually turned into a separate city. They were built during the X-XVII centuries next to the more ancient cemetery. Only eight mausoleums have survived to this day: six of them are very well preserved, the other two are in a dilapidated state. The crypts have a unique shape - rectangular and octagonal cones. They are made of stone. The masonry technique was ancient - the stones were hewn and fastened together with lime. Outside and inside they are whitewashed and plastered.
According to their type, the graves can be divided into mounds (earthen and stone), boxes (stone), burial grounds with square windows in the east, and crypts of two types. The first group includes keshene crypts with a high roof and a window on the east side. The second type of crypts is represented by octagons, which have a stepped high roof. Keshen were built much earlier than the octagonal crypts.
Graves and crypts have a height of about six meters, a thin cornice, a false vault. The walls are irregular, convex, with curved edges. The roofs are made of stones. Burials in graves and crypts were made according to Muslim customs. In the city of the dead, archaeologists found the remains of vessels, metal objects of the 11th-12th centuries, silver jewelry, and pottery.

Why mountains?

The necropolis is shrouded in secrets and legends. The local population believes that the titans who lived thousands of years ago were buried here. The place for their burial was not chosen by chance. It is believed that the mountains are on the border of immortality and health, so the ancient settlers lived for a very long time and practically did not get sick. Such legends are supported by real facts: some descendants of the Alans celebrated their 200th (!) birthday. But the inhabitants of the modern village of Upper Chegem try not to go to the necropolis, being afraid of the spirits of their dead ancestors. According to another legend, the remains of people with a ten-meter skeletal structure were excavated near the crypts, but this has not been confirmed by archaeological research.

How to get to the burial grounds of El-Tyubu

The Caucasus Mountains have many hiking trails, but the mountainous terrain does not allow walking to the burial grounds. Therefore, it is worth traveling from Nalchik to the Chegem Gorge only by car. Then the road passes through the mountains - it's better to walk here. Although a bus runs from Nalchik to the mountain village of Bulungu. Settlement Upper Chegem or El-Tyubu is very close - at a distance of five kilometers. It is recommended to visit the necropolis in the warm season, as landslides and glacier convergence often occur in the mountains. AT winter time the temperature is not too low (reaches -12 degrees), but there is serious icing of paths and roads - this not only makes it much more difficult to go to the graves, but also creates danger for the visitors themselves!

One of the most accessible to visit, but at the same time very picturesque pass North Caucasus, on the way to which you can enjoy beautiful views of the mountains.

1. As I already said, the night before, near the rear left wheel, I heard some kind of weak whistle, similar to the squeak of a mosquito, and it could only be heard from one place: it was worth moving a little to the side, as the sound disappeared. The first thing I thought was that the hose of the gas cylinder was loose from shaking, but it turned out to be something completely different.

And here we are again in Tyrnyauz. For some reason, two tire shops at the entrance did not work on a weekday, in both places the neighbors told me that "the owner will probably come later", but it is not clear when this will be.

There was a car wash nearby, where two very polite young men (in the days of my youth in the Caucasus they communicated, how to express an idea in a slightly different way, but here it’s straight - " thanks/please", "Have a nice holiday", "come to us again"- in general, after the conversation, the most pleasant impressions of meeting with the guys remained) they explained in some detail how to get to the garages on a side street at the end of the city, where the tire service will definitely work.

There we were accepted without a queue (" well, you are not local people, probably, there is not enough time, you have to go further") and repaired the wheel, for which we were also very grateful. Of course, this incident slightly violated our morning plans, but, on the other hand, we are not in a particular hurry, right? Adventures on the road must be able to enjoy.

2. And now our bus returns to the village of Bylym, from where a short dirt road leads towards the Chegem Gorge through the Aktoprak pass.

3. At first there were thoughts that we would not go there, although in the fall we went to the Caucasus on studded tires and, as it turned out, not in vain. However, the snow-covered area did not last long.

If you climb the mountains from the side of Bylym, then there is only one "unpleasant" place - this is crossing a small stream. On it, our bus caught diagonal hanging, and the system of electronic blocking simulation began ... correctly, electronically simulating blocking, and it didn’t do it very well, since I chose not the most successful trajectory so as not to hit the bottom and bumper.

However, we have a mechanical lock in the rear axle differential, by turning it on from the button on the dashboard, we quite easily drove through that place, however, turning two wheels in the air. For some reason, I didn’t guess to take a picture of the posted bus, but I found a video of this stream on YouTube.

4. Further along the ideal primer, we abruptly begin to climb up, and the higher - the more interesting the views around!

5. We did not find these places in the summer, because of the constant rains, mudflows descended and washed away the roads.

6. We are late for the "golden autumn", the trees have long shed their foliage.

7. But, nevertheless, there was excellent warm weather, and the mountains were painted in different shades of orange.

8. It was this Caucasus that I dreamed of showing to my wife and son. And it looks like I did it!

9. The height of the pass is only 1950 meters. But when you drive along that road, it seems that you are higher than many mountains around.

10. And, again, the great thing is that the road is accessible for almost any car, so you can see all this beauty with your own eyes! If you still don’t want to cross the stream, then you can climb the pass from the side of the Chegem waterfalls.

11. A lonely donkey and mountains, in which my wife and I saw some resemblance to the Dolomites. But in general - silence, minimalism and no one around - everything we love!

12. The descent in some places was even more interesting than the ascent.

13. We remember the Chegem Gorge with old Soviet signs about the need to drop people out of the cabin.

14. And the slopes of the mountains, painted in sunset colors. Something similar could be seen only in Kyrgyzstan, in the Tien Shan.

15. And so we arrived at the village of Eltyubyu, or as it was indicated on the entrance shield - El-Tubyu ("Village on two valleys"). It seems like there is no soft sign in the Balkar language. In 1944, the inhabitants were deported, and the village was transferred to the Georgian SSR. Now it is still 20 kilometers to the border with Georgia. The photo shows the family tower of the Malkorukovs, built by craftsmen from Svaneti. In the film "War" by Alexei Balabanov, it was just her.

16. But we are more interested in medieval burials - the City of the Dead, which is located a little further along the road. There is no car access to them, but this is definitely for the better. So, leaving the car on the side of the road, we went for a walk.

17. This is a complex of ancient Balkar tombs of the X-XIV centuries.

18. Four rectangular mausoleums with a gable roof are considered more ancient.

19. While the remaining four - octagonal with a domed roof - are later buildings. You can freely walk up to all the mausoleums and look through a tiny window. Inside there are plastered walls and... nothing else. Empty. Although how it was possible to get into the tombs without destroying them is not clear, because the windows are small even for a child.

20. Looking around, you understand that the location of this place was chosen for a reason. Around the mountains, majestic and harsh at the same time. To be honest, it seemed to us a little uncomfortable there, so, after going around all the mausoleums and looking into each one, we decided not to bother them with our presence anymore and went to the car. If you look straight ahead, then there will be a thought pass. Locals said that a few days ago it snowed there and the prepared "loaf" could not get through it. Even though we didn't want to go there. They advised us to drive further along the gorge, where after 10-12 kilometers of the way there will be a waterfall Abay-Su.

But by that time we were already a little tired of the waterfalls, so the decision to go to reverse side and looking for a place to sleep there seemed the most optimal.

the road passes the village of Upper Chegem, the former name - Eltyubyu (El-Tubyu) - "The village at the bottom of the valley", where we briefly stopped at the bridge over the Zhilgy-Su, a tributary of the Chegem. The Dzhilgi-Su gorge cuts the village into two parts.

It was impossible to skip past without stopping, because this is also a very interesting place.

Firstly, this is the birthplace of the national poet of Kabardino-Balkaria Kaisyn Shuvayevich Kuliev.

Kuliev once lived there,
there was his cradle,
there remained his saklya
on the banks of the Zhylgy-Su river.

This monument is the center of the village, near it local residents gather to celebrate holidays and solemn events.

Secondly, Upper Chegem is an open-air museum. It is of great interest to archaeologists. In the center stands a 17th century watchtower, reminiscent of the towers of Svaneti.

This is the watchtower of the Malkorukov family.

But Dmitry hid something from us in this village:
Right there, near the bridge, there is a “stone of shame”, to which, according to legend, criminals were tied in the Middle Ages. Along the river Dzhilgi-Su, which flows into the Chegem on the left, the remains of Greek temples carved into the rocks are visible. A poorly preserved path in the form of a staircase carved into the rock leads to one of the former temples, located in a cave. This trail is called the "Greek stairs". Here, in the Kyzla-Kyuygenkaya mountain range (from the Balkar "Rock of Burnt Girls"), there is the Kala-Tubyu grotto - an ancient human site (13 - 15 thousand years old).
The path to the gorge is dangerous and steep,
Stones fall into a mountain stream
On a high rock along the wall
Along the path you will come to the writings.
Not far from the grotto is the ancient settlement "Lygyt", which belongs to the VIII-X centuries. AD, with underground wooden plumbing.
And, perhaps, he himself did not know this ... So, there is a reason to visit here again with a more detailed tour! But we admired the local shop ...

After standing at the head of Kaisyn Kuliyev, having examined the tower and the surrounding rocks, we went further and, after a short time, became visible ancient necropolis, also known as the "City of the Dead", surrounded by a low wall, built of stones that were not fastened together.

In the "City of the Dead" eight ground mausoleums (keshene) have been preserved, four of which are rectangular with a gable roof,

and the other four are octagonal with domed,

as well as ancient earthen family graves, fenced with small stone walls, without any identification marks.

The necropolis belongs to the XI - XIV centuries. ad. The severity and grandiosity of the surrounding landscape is striking. You experience a holy awe.

Keshene stand above the village,
between the crypts on the ground
spread out in a thick carpet
juniper bushes.

The crypts, apparently, were looted, some were destroyed, it is not clear whether people or the raging elements.

Looking inside one of the surviving keshene

through a small, uncovered window,

and having examined the floor and the space under the dome, you will be convinced - they are empty. The walls from the inside, as you can see, are plastered.



If you think about it, there are many mysteries. Whether there was actually at least something there, how something was put there and how it was removed afterwards, remains unclear. The windows are too small...

Galina Vladimirovna picked up a couple of stones from the ground, intending to take them as a souvenir,

but, according to mature reasoning, I decided that let them stay where they were, it’s not worth taking anything from this place ...

Dmitry not only lifted us up to the clouds and brought us to this place, but also became our guide.

No detailed (and even brief) scientific information about the "City of the Dead" can be found on the Internet, at least I did not find it ... Experts are silent, so it's really not clear what these keshene are, so I use retellings other people's opinions and ideas, possibly erroneous ...

We didn't see this either.
Opposite the village, on the right bank of the Chegem, one can see the walls of a medieval caravanserai, one of the hotels that stood on the ancient trade route that once passed through the mountains of the Caucasus.
Caravans are long gone
From China to oblivion.
Framed by clouds
Sleeping legends of old.

Bypassing the crypts, again caught in the rain. How cold he was! But, as soon as, having set off on the return journey, we found ourselves at the paraplanodrome, the clouds dispersed and the sun appeared. Really, unique place! In general, if you do not find fault with individual details, the trip was a success. Possible repetitions in the future.

El-tyubyu is a Balkar village, 337 inhabitants (2002), 296 (2010). Verkhnechegemskoye rural settlement of the Chegemsky district.
Nearby cities: Argudan, Pyatigorsk, Vladikavkaz
Coordinates: 43°16’3″N 43°9’3″E

Review
The mysterious ancient Balkar village of El-Tubyu is the center of the history of the whole Balkaria. Ancient watchtowers, the remains of Greek temples and anomalous phenomena attract adventurers and connoisseurs of beauty here.

Story
The ancient Balkar village of El-Tubyu in the upper reaches of the Chegem Gorge on the left bank of the Chegem River. This is the birthplace of the great Balkar poet and sage Kaisyn Kuliev.
The Balkarukov Tower in El-Tyubu is also called the Tower of Love. The legend tells that Akhtugan Balkarukov built it to defend himself from the relatives of the beautiful Kerime stolen by him in Dagestan.
Not far from the village, two ancient defensive Greek stairs go up the rocky wall. They rise to a height of about 30 meters and lead to a small area enclosed by walls up to two meters high and about half a meter thick. According to the legends, the path could be continued further, along a narrow path leading to mysterious cave where Christian relics were hidden - books and utensils. Hidden so far no one has been able to find. In ancient times, the stairs went to the mountains from the enemies, and above the stairs, the soldiers took up positions for defense.
A little higher than the Greek stairs are the ancient Balkar mausoleums, in which the local nobility were buried in the 8th-18th centuries.
(c) according to the materials of the site

City of dead
The nature of the Verkhnechegemskaya basin is extraordinarily beautiful. In the south, the peaks of the Lateral Range (Kurmytau and others), more than four kilometers high, sparkle with eternal snow. Magnificent and impregnable as a citadel, Mount Karakaya (“black rock” - Balk.; 3646 meters), the highest in the Rocky Range, rises in the east. In its spur, in the Kyzla-Kyuygenkaya mountain range (from the Balkar “Rock of Burnt Girls”), there is the Kala-Tubyu grotto - an ancient human site (13 - 15 thousand years old). Not far from the grotto is the ancient settlement "Lygyt", which dates back to the VIII-X centuries. AD, with underground wooden plumbing.

The Chegem Gorge somehow miraculously combines the beauty of nature and the mysteries of history. Probably, this inspired the filmmakers to shoot here the feature film "Sannikov Land" (dir. A. Mkrtchyan, L. Popov; 1973). In the upper reaches of the Chegem, near the village of El-Tubyu, the Chegem waterfalls, and the Andai-Su waterfall, a significant part of the film's action takes place. In the gorge, including at the waterfalls, episodes of the film by S. Rostotsky "A Hero of Our Time" (1965-1966) were filmed. In 1975, in the village of El-Tyubu, the film "The Horseman with Lightning in His Hand" was filmed.
The village of El-Tyubu resembles an open-air museum. When this village appeared, now no one knows. In a literal translation, "El-Tyubu" means "foundation of the village." Its name suggests that it was founded on the site of some even older settlement. When the current village was founded, there were already collapsed foundations of some more ancient buildings. The spirit of antiquity reigns everywhere here. Stone houses that are hundreds of years old have been preserved. In the center of the village we can see an old tower, which, at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century, was built by invited Svan masters. This tower belonged to the local princes Balkarukov, who were related to the Tarkovsky shamkhals and in the 18th century. This tower is also called the "Tower of Love". According to legend, Akhtugan Balkarukov built it to defend himself from his relatives, the beauty Kerime, a Kumyk woman, stolen by him in Dagestan. One of the sacred relics of the family was a 14th-century Koran brought from Dagestan. At the end of the XIX century. a mosque with a minaret was built in the village (unfortunately, it has not been preserved), and it had a school where local children studied the Koran. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The Balkarukovs owned the only cheese factory in the gorge.

Right there, near the bridge, there is a “stone of shame” with a hole made in it (according to legend, criminals were tied to it in the Middle Ages. There is also a stone Avsoltu, who used to be worshiped, seeing in it the patron saint of hunting Afsati; and the “sacred” stone Bayram-tashi , and a stone of strongmen weighing three hundred kilograms (the winner in the competition was the one who tore it off the ground) ...

Near the village, on a rocky wall, two ancient defensive Greek staircases go up, leading to a cave in which, according to legend, ancient Christian relics were buried, which are still being sought.
In ancient times, when the enemy attacked, people went up the stairs to the mountains, and the warriors took up defense above the stairs to bring down stones and arrows on the enemy. Climbing stairs today, in peacetime, you understand how hard it was for the attackers.
In the center of the village, near the bridge, there is a monument to K. Kuliyev in the form of a bust. Not far from here you can see ancient stone huts with flat sod roofs. Due to the lack of arable land, barley and oats used to be grown on these roofs, and after a meager harvest, goats were released to graze. These old buildings of the village became natural scenery when A. Balabanov's feature film "War" (2002) was filmed here.
At the foot of another interesting natural object - the Kum-Tube volcanic massif (“sandy hill” - balk.), more than 3500 m high, is the “City of the Dead”. This array was included in the list of anomalous places in Russia as the anomalous zone "Alpha". Above its summit in the 1980s, mysterious night glows were observed.

So the "Town of the Dead" - a monument of history and culture - is located a few hundred meters from the village of El-Tubyu. The “houses of the dead” or “keshene” of the early Middle Ages (X-XII centuries) and later Muslim mausoleums of the late 17th and early 18th centuries have been preserved here. The ancient "keshene" are called "Christian", although they undoubtedly represent the result of the layering of a wide variety of cultural influences. Similar tetrahedral houses of the dead with gable roofs and a small window on the front facade are found in the mountains of Ossetia, Ingushetia, in the Cherek Gorge of Kabardino-Balkaria, and even in the upper reaches of the Kuban River near the Karachay village of Kart-Dzhurt. There is an opinion that the custom of burying the dead in such "houses of the dead" is one of the remnants of Zoroastrianism, which gained some distribution among the population of Alania of the Caucasus in the early Middle Ages. According to Zoroastrian rites, a dead body was not supposed to defile the sacred element of the earth, so it was forbidden to bury it in the ground. Cremation was also ruled out, since fire is also sacred. Likewise with water. So I had to isolate the body with the help of special facilities. In Persia, these were "towers of silence", and in the Caucasus - dry caves, burials in ossuaries (special vessels for collecting bones) and "houses of the dead". When Zoroastrianism was supplanted by Christianity, and then paganism revived with renewed vigor (due to the decrease in the influence of Byzantium), traditions continued to be preserved for a long time.

On one of the mausoleums of El-Tyubu, a stone “knob” has been preserved, which indicates that the men of the clan to which this mausoleum belongs are still alive, although no one has been buried in this mausoleum for a long time.


Here is what, in particular, L. I. Lavrov writes: “An external examination of the Verkhnechegemsky burial ground makes it possible to distinguish seven types of graves in it: 1) an earthen mound lined with stones along the edges; 2) stone embankment; 3) a stone box made of smoothly fitted stones and covered with stones inside. That is, the same stone embankment, but with fortified walls; 4) a stone cemented box with a steep gable roof; the inside of the box is filled with stones; this grave differs from the previous one only in that it is better protected from destruction; 5) a grave with the same box as the previous one, differing from it in that, firstly, it is empty inside and, secondly, “it has a small square window on the eastern side. That is, this is a small crypt, as if repeating the external forms of a stone cemented embankment; 6) a large quadrangular crypt (keshene) with a high gable roof and a window on the east side; "7) a large octagonal crypt with a pyramidal (also octagonal) high roof, turning into a cone at the top."
further: “Already one simple list of seven encountered types suggests that the crypts of the North Caucasus do not repeat the architectural tradition of one or another, in the past more cultured peoples that influenced the highlanders. The crypts are organically linked with the local "architecture" of mountain graves. We see how each type is only a complication of the previous one.
On the way from the village to the "town of the dead" you can see an irrigation canal - a channel of a mountain stream diverted to the side. This channel was created more than one century ago and, apparently, served to irrigate the fields in the lower part of the slope. As soon as a damper was installed in the canal, the water began to overflow through the low earthen ledge and irrigate the crops below.

Eltyubyu and the city of the dead in the valley of the Chegem River
After the flights and lunch, it was the turn of the "cultural program" - they went to pay tribute to the ancestors of the current inhabitants of Kabardino-Balkaria. Dmitry took us to the "City of the Dead".

Higher up the Chegem Gorge from the place where paragliding flights take place, the road passes the village of Upper Chegem, the former name is Eltyubyu (El-Tyubyu) - “Village at the bottom of the valley”, where we briefly stopped at the bridge over the Zhilgy-Su, a tributary of the Chegem. The Dzhilgi-Su gorge cuts the village into two parts.

It was impossible to skip past without stopping, because this is also a very interesting place.


Firstly, this is the birthplace of the national poet of Kabardino-Balkaria Kaisyn Shuvayevich Kuliev.


This monument is the center of the village, near it local residents gather to celebrate holidays and solemn events.
Secondly, Upper Chegem is an open-air museum. It is of great interest to archaeologists. In the center stands a 17th century watchtower, reminiscent of the towers of Svaneti.


This is the watchtower of the Malkorukov family.

Having stood at the head of Kaisyn Kuliev, having examined the tower and the surrounding rocks, we went further and, after a short time, the ancient necropolis became visible, also known as the “City of the Dead”, surrounded by a low wall made of stones that were not fastened together.



In the “City of the Dead”, eight ground mausoleums (keshene) have been preserved, four of which are rectangular with a gable roof, and the other four are octagonal with a domed roof, as well as ancient earthen family graves fenced with small stone walls without any identification marks.




The necropolis belongs to the XI - XIV centuries. ad. The severity and grandiosity of the surrounding landscape is striking. You experience a holy awe.

Keshene stand above the village,
between the crypts on the ground
spread out in a thick carpet
juniper bushes.
The crypts, apparently, were looted, some were destroyed, it is not clear whether people or the raging elements.

Looking inside one of the surviving keshene, through a small window that was not covered by anything, and examining the floor and the space under the dome, you will be convinced that they are empty. The walls from the inside, as you can see, are plastered.

If you think about it, there are many mysteries. Whether there was actually at least something there, how something was put there and how it was removed afterwards, remains unclear. The windows are too small...

Galina Vladimirovna picked up a couple of stones from the ground, intending to take them as a keepsake, but, according to mature reasoning, she decided that let them stay where they were, it was not worth taking anything from this place ...


Dmitry not only lifted us up to the clouds and brought us to this place, but also became our guide.
I can’t find any detailed (and even brief) scientific information about the “City of the Dead” on the Internet, at least I didn’t find it ... Experts are silent, so it’s really not clear what these keshene are, so I use retellings of other people’s opinions and ideas, possibly erroneous ...
Bypassing the crypts, again caught in the rain. How cold he was! But, as soon as, having set off on the return journey, we found ourselves at the paraplanodrome, the clouds dispersed and the sun appeared. Truly a unique place! In general, if you do not find fault with individual details, the trip was a success. Possible repetitions in the future.



(c) according to the materials of the site

Prepared by: Seagull