In addition to real attractions, the southern countries are also rich in mythical ones. Fantastic creatures occupy a worthy place among other characters of legends and tales. The Karadag snake in Crimea is a worthy relative of the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot.
The Legend of the Crimean Serpent
Snakes are common characters in “scary” folklore of different nations. This is due to the real danger of many representatives of this group of reptiles to humans. What is surprising is that they are treated with the greatest respect by residents of those regions where there are really a lot of poisonous reptiles - dragons and snakes in South and Southeast Asia are considered symbols of wisdom and power.
But there are also many dangerous snakes in folklore. They are the embodiment of the evil principle (in the Bible), multi-headed lizards (Serpent-Gorynych and his relatives) demand human victims and kidnap maidens, giant representatives sink ships with their rings. The Karadag monster fits well into this scheme.
Finally, there is evidence of huge terrestrial reptiles in the Crimea. The appearance of the Anastasyevsky monastery in Kachi-Kalyon is associated with them - supposedly the saint held back the attack of the creatures. The Tatars talk about giant monsters who once lived among the Khan - the Khan had to ask the Sultan for Janissaries to deal with them. There is a legend about a 6 m long snake in the vicinity, and E. Abibulaev, who lived in Crimea before the war, even said that his father had such a specimen as something like a pet.
The legend of the snake is not firmly tied to - as we see, its geography is vast. Many stories also concern the Mount Opuk area.
Biological skepticism of specialists
Cryptozoologists exude confidence, but real zoologists only shrug their shoulders when it comes to the mythical snake. They point to glaring facts: none of those who observed the Karadag monster bothered to take a photo of it. The descriptions given by “eyewitnesses” vary so much that it should be assumed that the Black Sea gave shelter not to one monster, but to three dozen species. There’s simply no room for so much there. 
In data about the snake, its dimensions vary from 3 to 30 m, it can be blackish, gray, brown, greenish, with a head similar to a hare, snake, dog, horse and even a giraffe with horns, with or without a mane. With such an abundance of prehistoric living creatures, there should be hundreds of half-eaten dolphins, but they occur once every ten years. A tooth is simply a remnant of a prehistoric organism unknown to science; hundreds of such “shark teeth” are collected in limestone layers.
Biologists also know for sure: for any species to exist, it must exceed a certain minimum population size (they are different for everyone). And these are not “creatures in pairs”, but much more, otherwise the species is doomed to rapid extinction. And for this reason alone, the Karadag Serpent in Crimea and the Loch Ness Monster cannot exist in principle - not noticing a couple of dozen dinosaurs in busy regions for years is too much.
Screen test of the legend: real video filming
And recently proof has emerged. A certain diver with a flashlight and a video camera was exploring the underwater tunnels under, when something long, large and scary swam right at him.
Stories about him terrify local residents of the Crimean Peninsula, worry tourists who come to relax on the Black Sea coast, and worry the minds of scientists for several centuries. And his name is the Karadag Serpent or Blackie, as the researchers affectionately dubbed him.
Ancient tales don't lie
History knows many legends and tales about strange snakes and dragons. Take, for example, the Bible and the tempting serpent who offered an apple to Eve. There are mentions of the monster in the ancient Slavic Vedas and the Life of St. George the Victorious. Aristotle and Herodotus, Homer and Procopius of Caesarea spoke about him in their works. Alexander the Great and the heroes of the epic epic - heroes Alyosha Popovich, Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich - fought with the three-horned dragon. Vladimir Monomakh mentions him in his “Teaching”. And Russian fairy tales, almost every other, tell about battles between heroes and monsters, from which they emerge victorious.
Hercules saves Hesione from a sea monster. Engraving
The image of a snake appeared on the coat of arms of the Bakhchisarai Khan, the ancient coat of arms of Milan, one of the municipalities of Switzerland, and many other provinces and cities. Of course, this can be associated with wisdom, eternity and valor, but not everything is so simple in the origin of heraldry...
Monster of the Black Sea
The first mention of a terrible snake living in the depths of the Black Sea dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. One day, the royal police officer, who lived in Crimea, reported to the sovereign that a terrible beast was hunting in the territory of the district. Nicholas I ordered an expedition to be equipped and to catch the uninvited guest. Of course, it was not possible to find it, but they found the remains of a tail belonging to a large reptile, and a huge egg weighing 12 kg. Inside was an embryo that strikingly resembled a fairy-tale dragon. How reliable this information is, no one can argue. In the next century, after such an incredible discovery, no one remembered about the terrible and strange animal.
Monster of the Black Sea The monster reasserted itself at the beginning of the twentieth century. And Maximilian Voloshin’s wife met him and hastily reported the incident to the local press. The writer sent the news article to friends. It attracted the attention of his fellow writers so much that it became the basis for Mikhail Bulgakov’s story “Fatal Eggs.”
And yet it exists?
From 1936 to 1946, it was repeatedly encountered by local fishermen, and in the 1950s it was seen by the well-known Soviet writer Vsevolod Ivanov. The prose writer claims that he watched the thirty-meter block from a cliff in Carnelian Bay for half an hour. Later, he was seen sporadically not only by residents, but also by visiting holidaymakers, including famous writers, artists and historians. Some even found a huge red tooth on the coast. Biologists have not yet answered who it might belong to.
One way or another, all references in different years converge at a certain point - in the area Cape Meganom And Karadag mountain range. That is why they dubbed the monster of the Black Sea the Karadag Serpent.
In the early nineties, a dolphin that was almost bitten in half was caught in the net of Turkish fishermen. Scientists at Istanbul University discovered traces of huge teeth on the mammal’s body, but found it difficult to answer who they could belong to. Crimeans have come across similar “trophies” more than once.
Dinosaurs are among us
In 1971, the Japanese, off the coast of New Zealand, discovered an almost decomposed giant pangolin in the nets of a trawler. Then it was suggested that its outlines were very reminiscent of a plesiosaur, a predatory reptile that lived in the Cretaceous period. It turns out that they lived on our planet about a hundred million years ago. How could they have survived since then in the conditions of a sharply changed climate? Researchers do not find an answer, but they do not reject such a possibility, building numerous assumptions and hypotheses.
The fact is that the territory of modern Crimea used to be an ocean in which these same lizards lived. In the process of modifying the relief and raising the area, it became dry land, but many karst lakes remained in the underground voids. No one can say what their flora and fauna are like at the moment. Moreover, scientists periodically discover specimens hitherto unknown to science. Perhaps such places function independently of the earth’s biosphere and are a kind of natural repositories.
Something similar can be said about Karadag: given that the caves under the volcano retained heat for hundreds and thousands of years from the close occurrence of magmatic formations, the habitat of the mysterious reptile can even be explained from a logical point of view. But again: he must have both descendants and cubs... However, it is not possible to assert that numerous witnesses saw the same individual. Moreover, every second of them gives descriptions that differ sharply from the previous ones. This applies not only to size, but also to color.
By the way, the elusive Loch Ness monster from Scotland, judging by the descriptions, may also well be a descendant of an ancient plesiosaur. The facts associated with it are very reminiscent of the history of the Black Sea Black Sea.
Is Blackie alone?
Assuming that the speculation and eyewitness accounts are true, although not a single photograph exists to prove this, the question arises: “What does the animal feed on?” Given the dinosaur's impressive size, plankton and fish are just a handful of prey. And the Black Sea is a closed sea, that is, at a depth of two hundred meters it is completely lifeless.
Cryptozoologists agree that there are several prehistoric animals on the planet. These include Tanvlasaurus and Tauricus. They do not pose a danger to people, but act as marine orderlies, feeding on sick, injured or dead dolphins. Many biologists and oceanologists are very skeptical about such statements. And yet they admit: further searches for unknown inhabitants of the earth may present unprecedented surprises. And any opinion in this case, even the most controversial, has the right to exist. Whether it will be an amphibian man or another giant reptile, time will tell.
Crimea is famous for its natural beauty, delicious fruits, wines, amazing buildings, and also some mysteries. One of them is considered to be the habitat of the Karadag snake in the waters of the Black Sea. The first mentions of it appeared a long time ago. The Greeks composed legends that have survived to this day.
The Legend of the Karadag Serpent
Herodotus was the first to speak about the monster. The creature is described as black. It has a huge mouth, large teeth, claws, a long tail, a crest on its head and the head of a horse.
According to ancient legends, the monster raised waves and destroyed ships. In folklore they said that he moved quickly. Lives in water and on land, can change appearance. The look made you freeze with horror and not approach these places.
After their campaigns, Turkish sailors reported to the Sultan that a terrible monster was sinking ships and devouring people.
The legend "Chershambe" tells about the place of residence of the creature. According to eyewitnesses, he lives in the lowlands, curled up in a ball. It could be confused with a haystack.
In the Orthodox Church, icons depicting a serpent are known. Especially the image of St. Victorious. The legends say that George killed a snake near a swamp. 
George the Victorious kills the Crimean monster of Karadag. The Khan issued a decree to kill the snake, but the ancestors believe that the offspring remain. The image was included in the coat of arms of the Bakhchisarai Khan.
Who is the Karadag snake, what does it look like
Mount Kara-Dag keeps unexplored secrets. , eruptions led to displacements of layers, volcanic clay to layers, underwater caves and passages appeared that retained heat for many centuries. Excellent living conditions for reptiles, hence the name of the monster.
As eyewitnesses said, it is three hundred meters long, its body is covered with black scales. The ridge on its back fluttered with a wave that resembled the mane of a horse. It moved quickly, so it was difficult to see the image; it created waves similar to sea storms.
Nicholas I was inquisitive, having learned about the Crimean mystery, he sent people to explore the area. They could not reveal the secret, but in the depths of the water they found an egg weighing up to fifteen kilograms, the embryo looked like a dragon. No one argued about the reliability of this information, but after the discovery they did not remember about it.
Where is Mount Karadag located on the map of Crimea:
About dolphins killed by a snake
Many years ago, fishermen pulled a dolphin from the sea that had been bitten in half. Even traces of huge teeth were visible. The remains were sent to the university to determine the cause. After examination by scientists, it turned out that the marks on the dolphin’s body were left by the large fangs of an unknown animal.
In the 1990s, sailors discovered a wounded dolphin whose entire belly and ribs had been bitten off in one piece. The width was about a meter. Teeth marks up to four centimeters, the distance between which is up to fifteen millimeters. The head is deformed, compressed on all sides, as if they were trying to drag it into a narrow gap.
In 1991, they brought “Azovka” with similar bites in the same place as in 1990. This time it was wrapped in a net, like a doll. They invited specialists for an inspection, but no one came. After some time, the remains of the dolphin disappeared.
Zoologists refuted the claim that the animals died from the bites of a huge snake. The reason was determined to be completely inconsistent with the remains. They probably collided with a ship, a ship's propeller, or torpedoes.
What fishermen say about the monster
In 1961, a fisherman and the director of the sanatorium went fishing on a boat. We sailed towards the Golden Gate for three hundred meters. Suddenly, under the water they saw a black spot that was moving towards the mountain. The fishermen swam after him. As we approached, we saw a terrible, huge animal. The head was no more than a meter long. All brown. There are horny plates on the body. The mane swayed at the top of his head. The belly is dark gray. Looking into the eyes, they were scared. The fisherman turned the boat around and headed towards the shore. The unknown chased after them, but, not reaching a hundred meters from the shore, swam back into the sea.
INTERESTING! Some fishermen claim that there are a lot of them and they are harmless. Residents of the villages near the waterfall watched as he swam ashore to bask. But during the war they sailed away somewhere and returned after a while.
Serpent tooth
Crimean Alexander had strong evidence that an unknown creature lived in the depths of the Black Sea. He kept the tooth. Length about sixteen centimeters, dark red with a brown tint. Found it near, on the beach. Stuck in a piece of wood washed ashore.
INTERESTING! The ichthyologist who studied the find is convinced that the tooth belongs to an unknown living creature that has not been solved by science.
Vladimir Ternovsky's story about the snake
Vladimir Ternovsky had the pleasure of riding on the back of a sea monster. He was windsurfing two or three kilometers from the shore. He was standing at the stern of the boat, suddenly someone pushed him and he fell into the water. I felt something solid under my feet. Seeing that he was standing on top of a monster, he was able to overcome his fear, jumped off and headed towards the shore. He was lucky it didn't follow him. 
Black Sea monster?
Who else saw the creature - eyewitness accounts
The monastery servants had a chance to see him while hunting dolphins.
The Bentos-300 submariners, having reached a depth of 100 meters, noticed a shadow on the right side. A sea serpent slowly swam towards them, as if studying the guests. We wanted to take a photo, but didn't have time. He quickly floated away into the darkness.
Geologist Promtov saw Lagorio at the walls
In 1992, V.M. Belsky met a monster while swimming in the sea. Having emerged, I saw a huge snake in front of me. In horror, he swam to the shore and hid among the stones. Looking out, I saw a huge head with a mane. The skin is grey, on the back and neck of the cornea. The eyes are small and red. A year before this event, a master of sports died at the same place from a broken heart. The reserve's ranger says that drowned people are often found with horror on their faces.
In 1952, the writer Vsevolod Ivanov described the meeting in his work. He wrote that he looked at it for more than forty minutes, but for some reason he couldn’t take a photo.
In the 80s, Grigory Tabunov, who was on vacation, remembers that he had just sailed two hundred meters from the shore, the waves began to rustle, and he saw a black spot. A huge head with a mane appeared. I was frightened and didn’t understand how I ended up on the shore. I remember only one thing - the head is flat and green.
Artist Alexander Kudryavtsev was fishing in the village of Koktebel. Suddenly I felt someone’s gaze, raised my head up, and saw two bright lights. Out of fear, he pulled with all his might. Then I couldn’t sleep at night for a long time and had nightmares.
In 1979, Sevastopol artist Vladimir Dogvan and his colleagues from Moscow were returning late from a picnic. Near the lake, a huge monster was hanging upside down on a tree, with small paws visible. Returning home, I sketched based on my new impressions.
Vsevolod Ivanov began his investigation. It turns out that he was not the only one who met the monster. In 1921, in the newspaper M.S. Voloshin reported that a monster lived in the city of Karadag. After which the forwarders went to study the area, but found nothing. After all the events, M. Bulgakov’s work “Fatal Eggs” appeared.
In 1961, near the village of Azamat, teenagers were playing football and noticed a huge ring. A few minutes later a huge head poked out of the ring. Frightened, everyone ran away to the village. There were rumors that residents of the village of Azamat often met him near the waterfall. And there were several of them.
A resident of Koktebel was collecting brushwood. Returning home, I saw something, something like a log, lying on the road. Suddenly its head rose, stood on two legs, and hissed. Out of horror, the woman threw the brushwood and ran away.
To date, there is no single confirmation that the Karadag snake exists. As soon as people start searching, he disappears and appears after a while. It’s as if the monster knows how people think, so no one managed to photograph it clearly with a camera or shoot a video.
Expeditioners dived into the depths of the sea, but some did not return. And the survivors simply went crazy. Apparently, the waters of the planet contain secrets that are beyond the control of humanity. In our century, all water monsters do not try to contact people. Legends exist, but they come from the lips of people who are faced with incredible events. Biologists say that such creatures are doomed to rapid extinction.
Recently, a diver explored the tunnels under Opuk. Filmed a snake-like monster on camera. Experts confirmed that it was a subspecies of seals that resemble snakes in movement.
A quadcopter filmed a video of the Karadag kite, real footage: true or not? Watch in this video:
The Crimean Peninsula is famous not only for the beauty of nature, juicy fruits and sweet wines, and unique architectural structures, but also for its amazing mysteries. One of them is the Karadag snake, which supposedly lives in the waters of the Black Sea.
The oldest evidence
Even Herodotus, the “father of history,” mentioned in his writings that in the depths of the Black Sea (the Greeks of those times called it Pontus Euxine) there lives a huge monster, which is overtaken by the movement of waves. The Karadag serpent appeared to sailors more than once. For example, the Turks, who regularly sailed to the Azov and Crimea (Black Sea), wrote reports about the dragon to the Sultan.
According to eyewitnesses, this creature was about 30 meters long. Her body was covered with black scales. The comb fluttered on the back of the Karadag serpent, reminiscent of the mane of a horse. This creature moved quickly, it easily left fast ships behind. The wave it created was similar to that created by a storm. The people who inhabited the coast were also familiar first-hand with the sea reptile. This was reflected in their myths and fairy tales. The legend of the monster was very popular. The image of the Karadag serpent was even placed on the coat of arms of the Bakhchisarai Khan!
Discovery of the Karadag snake egg
In 1828, the Evpatoria police officer reported that a huge sea snake had appeared in the district. Nicholas I, who, like Peter I, was distinguished by his curiosity, learned about this and ordered scientists to be sent to Crimea to catch the snake. The researchers decided to look for it here, since evidence of sightings of this creature mainly came from Karadag (Crimea). The Black Sea, however, did not give them its secret - they did not find the monster. But they found an egg containing an embryo. The egg weighed 12 kg, and the embryo resembled a fairy-tale dragon. There was a crest on his head. Also found nearby were the remains of a tail, quite impressive in size. It was covered with scales.
Numerous eyewitnesses
Residents and guests of the peninsula for many centuries talk about how they met with this unknown and incomprehensible inhabitant of the depths of the sea. It should be said that among the eyewitnesses there were serious and famous personalities, and there is no reason not to believe them. Among them are the director of the reserve, a poet, geologists, military personnel, and an official of the local executive committee. It is clear that all these people have received an education and are unlikely to be prone to inventions and hoaxes.
Vsevolod Ivanov's meeting with the monster
In 1952, Vsevolod Ivanov, a Soviet writer, had a chance to observe the monster from a cliff located in Carnelian Bay. It is he who, perhaps, has the longest observation of this monster. The writer looked at the Karadag monster for about 40 minutes. The creature, he said, was of impressive size. It was about 25-30 meters long, and its thickness was approximately equal to the thickness of the desk top. This monster had a snake head “the size of the span of his arms.” The upper part of the Karadag monster was dark brown in color and had small eyes.
Investigation results
After this unique observation, Vsevolod Ivanov tried to find out whether any of the local residents had seen the Karadag monster. He undertook a little investigation. It turned out that Ivanov was not the only one who encountered the Karadag snake in Crimea. According to M. S. Voloshina, a note appeared in a Feodosia newspaper in 1921, which stated that a huge creature had appeared in the area of the city of Karadag. A company of Red Army soldiers was sent to capture him. Gad, as far as is known, was not caught then. But her husband, the famous Russian artist and poet M. A. Voloshin, sent M. Bulgakov this clipping about the reptile. It was she who formed the basis of the famous story called “Fatal Eggs”.
Vsevolod Ivanov also learned that a collective farmer had met with the monster. She came across the monster resting on the shore while collecting driftwood for firewood.
Dolphins eaten by a monster
The Karadag snake leaves very real evidence of its existence. A few years ago, Turkish fishermen pulled a dolphin from the sea, which had been bitten in half by some kind of monster. His remains were taken to Istanbul University. Here, scientists examined the dolphin and confirmed that the marks on its body were not wounds from a ship's propeller. Without a doubt, they were left by the teeth of a huge animal. In 1990 and 1991, Crimean fishermen also saw dead dolphins with wounds and marks from 16 large teeth. They even took one of them to the Karadag Nature Reserve.
Karadag snake tooth
Alexander Paraskevidi, a Crimean, has another material proof of the existence of this monster - his tooth. It is 6 cm long and red-brown in color. The tooth was discovered near the village of Maly Mayak, in a small piece of wood on the beach. Arif Harim, a Turkish ichthyologist who analyzed the find, is convinced that this tooth belongs to an animal unknown to science.
Fishermen observed the monster
In Crimea in May 1961, a shocking encounter with this monster took place. M.I. Kondratiev, a local fisherman, A. Mozhaisky, the director of a sanatorium called "Crimean Primorye", as well as the chief accountant of the enterprise V. Vostokov went fishing on a boat one morning. They walked only 300 meters away from the pier towards the Golden Gate, when suddenly they saw a brown spot under water 60 meters away. The fishermen directed their boat towards it, and it suddenly began to move away.
When we finally managed to get closer to the “spot,” it became clear that there was something very creepy and impressive under the water. The head of this giant snake, the size of which was about a meter, was quite clearly visible at a depth of 2-3 meters. Its surface was covered with brown tufts that looked like algae. Horny plates were visible on the body behind the head. The mane swayed in the water at the top of his back and head. The monster's belly was gray, and its back was dark brown. When the fishermen saw the small eyes of this monster, they were numb with horror. Mikhail Kondratyev, fortunately, managed to quickly come to his senses. Turning the boat around, he sent it at full speed towards the shore. However, the monster chased the fishermen! It moved at high speed, but stopped the chase 100 m from the shore and headed out to sea. Mikhail Kondratyev, 7 years later, again observed a Black Sea monster near the Karadag biological station in similar circumstances.
Meeting of Grigory Tabunov with a monster
Grigory Tabunov, who was vacationing in these places, had a chance to meet the monster in the 80s of the 20th century. He recalls that he swam 200 meters from the shore, and suddenly noticed a dark spot in the waves. A huge head appeared above the water. Gregory immediately rushed to the shore. He managed to remember that the monster’s head was flat and greenish in color.
Another eyewitness account
On August 12, 1992, V.M. Belsky, an employee of the Feodosia City Council, encountered the Karadag monster. He swam in the sea and, emerging, saw a huge snake head next to him. Belsky rushed to the shore in horror. He jumped out of the water and managed to hide among the stones. Belsky saw, looking out from behind a stone, that the monster’s head appeared where he was swimming. Water dripped from the monster's mane. Belsky also saw skin and gray horny plates on the neck and head. The creature had small eyes, and its body was dark gray in color, the lower part being lighter.
An amazing story by Vladimir Ternovsky
Vladimir Ternovsky relatively recently was even able to ride on the back of this sea monster! This man was windsurfing about 2-3 km from the coast. Suddenly, someone threw the stern of his board from below. Vladimir fell into the water after this shock, but to his amazement he felt something solid under his feet. He stood on the Karadag monster! Vladimir, fortunately, managed to overcome his fear. He jumped off the monster and reached the shore. He was lucky - the terrible monster did not pursue him.
Who else has seen an unusual creature?
One day, servants of one of the monasteries saw two monsters at once. They hunted dolphins, while coordinating their actions with each other.
The submariners also saw the Karadag monster. This happened during the dive of the Bentos-300 laboratory working at depth. The hydronaut, having reached a depth of 100 meters, saw a vague shadow on the right side of the ship. Slowly wriggling, the monster of the Black Sea swam up to the porthole, as if studying people with small eyes. As soon as the scientists wanted to take a photo of the snake, it, as if reading their thoughts, immediately rushed into the depths.
Who is the Karadag snake?
Who actually swam into the Black Sea? Can the legend of the monster be explained by science? Experts talked about a frilled shark resembling a huge eel, and the herring king - a strap fish reaching 9 m in length, which was found in the Mediterranean and North Seas. Perhaps some monster has been preserved in the Crimean waters since ancient times? Mount Karadag (Crimea), which has been a nature reserve for decades, is fraught with many mysteries. We know very little about her.
Mount Karadag (Crimea) is the remnant of an ancient volcano; its underwater part has not yet been studied. Displacements of earth layers, as well as volcanic clay, once led to complex layers, the appearance of underwater caves, unknown tunnels and passages. Perhaps the monster of the Black Sea is hiding here.
Today there is no official confirmation that this is a real creature. Perhaps expeditions could clarify the situation, but these activities require significant financial investments, and neither scientists, nor officials, nor individuals are in a hurry to do them. The waters of our planet still keep their secrets - the Karadag sea serpent, Loch Ness and other water monsters do not at all seek to contact people.
Salad LOVED BEANS
"LOVE BEANS" SALAD
1. Soak beans (0.5 kg and no matter what color they are!) in water overnight, and then boil until half cooked.
2.Cut the eggplants (2 kg) into cubes.
3.Pass 1.5 kg of tomatoes through a meat grinder.
4.Grate 0.5 kg of carrots on a coarse grater.
5.Cut bell peppers (0.5 kg) into pieces.
6. Mix all these wonderful vegetables and add 2.5 tbsp. salt, 1.5 cups sugar, 0.5 liters of vegetable oil. Mix everything thoroughly again and cook for 40 minutes from the moment it boils. About 5 minutes before the end of the process, add 200g of minced garlic and 100ml of 9% vinegar to the pan.
And then, cheerfully and in good spirits, put your salad into sterilized jars and close and wrap for 12 hours. When it cools down, put it on the shelf for storage.
taken from the Internet
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Sunday, April 12, 2015 10:45 ()
Crimean resident Alexander Georgievich Paraskevidi has a tooth at home (unfortunately, it was not possible to find a photo of it) of some sea monster. About 6 cm long, red-brown in color, it was found sticking out of a piece of wood on the beach near the village of Stary Mayak. Turkish ichthyologist Arif Hakim, after examining and analyzing the strange find, considered that the tooth belonged to an animal unknown to science.
TRADITION OF ANTIQUE DEEP
Official science does not recognize the existence of the Black Sea serpent. It is believed that such a large creature cannot live there, since the hydrogen sulfide layer begins at a depth of 100-150 m. But chronicles indicate that snakes lived in the Black Sea several hundred and even thousands of years ago. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that a mysterious monster lives in the waters of the Pontus Euxine (Black Sea).
According to his descriptions, the creature was dark, almost black in color, had a mane, clawed paws, a terrible mouth with huge teeth and burning red eyes. It moved along the surface of the water much faster than ancient Greek ships. In the 16th–17th centuries, captains of Turkish military and merchant ships repeatedly reported encounters with the Black Sea dragon. Sometimes the monster even chased small boats. Don Cossacks and officers who served under Admiral Ushakov also met with him.
In 1828, the appearance of a huge sea snake in the Karadag region was reported to higher authorities by the Evpatoria police officer. Emperor Nicholas I, known for his curiosity, learned about the Black Sea monster and sent scientists to Crimea.
The expedition members never found the snake, but they did find an egg weighing 12 kg, which contained an embryo that looked like a fairy-tale dragon with a crest on its head. The skeleton of a giant tail with a shell-like structure was also found nearby. Then a debate even arose in the scientific community: can a sea serpent shed its tail like a lizard?
In 1855, officers of the brig Mercury saw a dark gray creature over 20 m long in the water, which, making wave-like movements, was moving in the direction of Cape Meganom, located in the southeastern part of Crimea between Feodosia and Sudak. As soon as the brig approached the monster, it disappeared under the water.
During the First World War, Oberleutnant Günter Prüfner, commander of a Kaiser submarine cruising on the surface off the coast of Crimea, saw a strange, huge creature silently cutting through the waves. The officer got a good look at the monster through binoculars. The first thought was to torpedo the monster or shoot it from a cannon, but then he made a different decision and, fearing a collision with a giant reptile, gave the command for an urgent dive.
FANTASY OR REALITY?
On May 17, 1952, an unknown monster was observed for forty minutes in Carnelian Bay by the Soviet writer Vsevolod Ivanov. While watching dolphins hunting for mullet, he saw a large stone, about ten meters in circumference, overgrown with brown algae.
The writer had visited this place several times before, but this was the first time he saw this stone. Having looked closely, the writer noted that the “stone” was moving slowly. Assuming it was algae, he continued observing. After some time, the “ball of algae” turned around and stretched out.
“The creature swam in wave-like movements to the place where the dolphins were, that is, to the left side of the bay,” Ivanov described this phenomenon. – Everything was still quiet. Naturally, what immediately occurred to me: was this a hallucination? I took out my watch. It was 12:18. The reality of what I saw was hampered by the distance and the shine of the sun on the water, but since the water was transparent, I even saw the bodies of dolphins, which swam twice as far from me as the monster.
It was large, very large, 25-30 meters, and as thick as a desk top if you turned it sideways. It was under water and, it seems to me, was flat. Its lower part is white, as far as the blueness of the water allowed us to understand, and the upper part is dark brown, which made me mistake it for algae. The monster, wriggling in the same way as swimming snakes, swam towards the dolphins. They immediately disappeared."
The writer Stanislav Slavich also described something similar: “Eyewitnesses talk about an encounter with a huge snake on Kazantip. The shepherd noticed something shiny under a thorn bush, similar to a ram’s skull polished by the rains and winds, and just like that, out of nothing to do, he hit the skull with a gerlyga (a long staff with a wooden hook at the end).
And then the incredible happened: a cloud of dust shot up, pieces of earth flew in all directions. The shepherd became numb and numb, no longer understanding what was wrong with him and where he was.
He saw only this cloud of dust, and in it his sheepdogs, as if enraged, and something huge, writhing with monstrous strength and speed. When the shepherd came to his senses, one dog was killed, and the two survivors were frantically tearing the body of some huge reptile. What seemed to the shepherd to be a ram's skull was the head of a huge snake. Soon after that, the shepherd, they say, died.”
MONSTERS ATTACK
In 1961, another shocking encounter with a sea serpent took place in Crimea. One day, local fisherman M.I. Kondratyev, director of the Crimean Primorye sanatorium A. Mozhaisky and chief accountant of this enterprise V. Vostokov went fishing on a boat in the morning.
They walked some 300 meters from the pier of the Karadag biological station towards the Golden Gate, when suddenly, fifty meters away from them, they saw an incomprehensible brown spot under the water. When I tried to get closer to it, the spot began to move away. When they managed to catch up with him, it became clear that under the water there was something creepy and very impressive in size.
Two or three meters under the water, the head of a huge snake, about a meter in size, all dotted with brown hairs resembling algae in appearance, was quite clearly visible. Behind the head, horny plates were visible on the monster’s body. On the top of the head and dark brown back, a shaggy mane swayed in the water. The monster's belly was lighter - gray.
When people saw the monster’s small eyes, they literally became numb with horror. Mikhail Kondratyev still managed to quickly come to his senses, and he turned the boat around and rushed to the shore at full speed. Amazingly, the monster chased after them. Its speed was very high, and it stopped the chase only not far from the shore, after which it headed out to the open sea.
On August 12, 1992, a similar story happened to V.M. Belsky, an employee of the Feodosia City Council. He swam in the sea, dived about 30 meters from the shore, and at some point, emerging, he saw a huge snake head almost next to him.
In horror, Belsky rushed to the shore, jumped out of the water and hid among the stones. Looking out from behind the stone, he saw that where he had just swam, the head of a monster appeared, with water flowing from its mane. Belsky even managed to see the gray skin and horny plates on the head and neck. The sea monster's eyes were small and its body was dark gray in color with a lighter lower part. It is curious that a year earlier, in the same place, a young man, a master of sports in swimming, died of a heart attack.
NESSIE OF THE BLACK SEA
The Black Sea serpent has been exciting the human imagination for several thousand years. Nowadays, when the weather warms up, some enthusiasts spend days on end on the coast, armed with video equipment. They hope to become famous by being the first to capture a mysterious sea dragon on film.
In October 2009, the Gusarenko spouses seemed to succeed, and quite by accident. The video footage is not of good quality, since it was taken from a great distance, but you can still see the huge serpentine body moving quickly in the water.
In the early 1990s, Crimean fishermen found dead dolphins with huge lacerations. One of the dolphins' belly was literally ripped out along with its entrails. The size of the bite in an arc was about a meter, and the depth reached the spine. Along the edge of the arc on the dolphin's skin were visible traces of sixteen large teeth.
A few years ago, a dolphin bitten in half by some monster was pulled out of the water by regional neighbors - Turkish fishermen. Scientists at Istanbul University have concluded that the marks on the body were left by the teeth of a very large animal.
Victor BUMAGIN
Monday, October 22, 2013 00:31 ()On the southeastern coast of Crimea, glorified by Maximilian Voloshin, is the Karadag mountain range, whose name translates as Black Mountain. The age is truly amazing - 150-160 million years. Scientists assure that from time to time living remnants of long-gone eras appear here.
In June 2013, the lawyer of the branch of the scientific biological station on the territory of the Karadag Nature Reserve, E. Rud, received shocking video materials from his Yalta friends, the authenticity of which was difficult to doubt, although what he saw was like a horror film (unfortunately, the author of the article does not show either the video or at least a screenshot from him) On board the pleasure boat, people huddled together and screamed in fear. The ship rocked strongly, although there was no storm or wind, the bright sun was shining. The wave came from a monster that appeared next to the ship: its dimensions exceeded 50 meters in length! (The length of the ship is about 40 meters.) The sea serpent of ancient myths, wriggling in the water, quickly attacked the dolphins, immediately devouring them in front of the amazed public. These shots were complemented by others taken from above by tourists who climbed to the top of Karadag on that clear day in order to survey the endless blue expanses. Well, it wasn’t a massive hallucination?! In addition, there were many different eyewitnesses. There was a stir around the Karadag serpent; the problem required a scientific word, since a rare visitor to the reserve does not ask a question about the monster.
Red Army soldiers and Janissaries against the Karadag reptile A gigantic snake-like bloodthirsty creature that lives in the waters of Eastern Crimea is mentioned in ancient myths and legends. It entered the annals under the name “Karadag reptile.” Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Evgeniy Shnyukov says: “Having delved into the legends of Crimea, I found a description of how somewhere in the area of the Otuzka River there was some kind of snake that local residents were afraid of and to eliminate which even Janissaries from Central Europe had to be called in. Judging by the events, this was even before Crimea became part of Russia.” In 1921, Maximilian Voloshin sent Mikhail Bulgakov in Moscow a clipping from the local Feodosia district newspaper. The note said: the peasants of the village of Koktebel complain that a certain snake has appeared on Mount Karadag, which comes out of the sea and devours their sheep, and therefore a company of Red Army soldiers was sent to Karadag to capture it. Attempts to find and “distribute the giant reptile” were unsuccessful: they only managed to catch its trace sliding into the sea. But it is known that on the basis of this newspaper clipping Bulgakov wrote the story “Fatal Eggs.” After the war, the writer Vsevolod Ivanov said that on May 14, 1952, during his vacation in Crimea, he went for a walk in Carnelian Bay, where he saw something resembling a ball of algae. Suddenly this something began to unfold and lengthen. Finally, a huge snake with a meter-long head crawled out of the water onto the stones. The writer was lucky: while smoking a pipe, he watched the snake with interest for 40 minutes (!), made sketches and notes about how it played in the water and hunted dolphins, and then rested, basking on the rocks. Moreover, the “communication” lasted more than one day. O.S. Severtseva recalls that after Ivanov’s story, many young people, including her, went with him to the bay. Hoping to see the monster, they dived into neighboring bays. The water in the underwater cave - the supposed exit point of the monster - turned out to be icy. It became completely dark, it was impossible to determine the depth, and it seemed that there could be nothing alive there... Later, Yuri Senkevich collected information about the mysterious snake, personally participating in its search, for the “Film Travelers Club” program. He was convinced that it was a relic of an ancient fauna.
Dog head is deadly
In May 1961, a fisherman from the village of Kurortnoye M. Kondratiev with two companions went out to sea in the morning to fish. Having sailed from the biological station pier, the boat turned towards the Golden Gate. Suddenly, three hundred meters from the shore and 50 meters from the boat, the fishermen spotted something brown under the water. We came closer. A meter-long head, covered with tufts like algae, rose three meters above the water. The neck and visible part of the body were covered with horny plates. From the mane at the top of the head, small eyes looked at them, the look of which plunged everyone into horror. Having come to his senses, Kondratyev managed to turn the boat around and take off at top speed. The monster gave chase, but stopped a hundred meters from the shore and went into the open sea. The boat jumped ashore at full speed, and the unfortunate fishermen, screaming, rushed towards the biological station. Seven years later, Kondratiev was “lucky enough to meet an old friend again.” Approaching the boat, he saw a large brown spot 30 meters from the shore. The water began to boil, the monster’s head appeared a little - and then disappeared under the water, leaving behind a whirlpool with a funnel 10 meters in diameter and about two meters deep. The fisherman, taught by bitter experience, immediately left. Not everyone was so lucky. In the 1930s, a fisherman from Kuchuk-Lambat (now Maly Mayak) met a huge snake among the coastal rocks. When people came running to his inhuman cry, he only managed to whisper: “A dog’s head...” - then he was paralyzed, and a month later he died. So the artist from Moscow A. Kudryavtsev, one might say, escaped with a slight fright. On August 18, 1990, he decided to go fishing at night on the pier in the village of Planerskoye. Not a soul around. Suddenly he was seized with horror - in the darkness, two meters above the water, two eyes glowed. The artist, unable to meet their gaze, became petrified. As soon as he came to his senses, he jumped up and rushed to the shore. He was tormented by terrible dreams for a long time. In 1992, V.M. became closely acquainted with the Karadag dragon. Velsky, a former combat swimmer who served in special forces: “I went into the sea wearing a mask and fins. About five meters from the shore, I immediately went underwater and swam about 40 meters at a fairly great depth. Looking around, I saw that “handsome guy” to my right. I had no fear. I got a good look at him. It was a smooth snake, its body volume was more than half a meter, without any ridges, and more than 15 m long. He saw me, arched his neck upward, looked and rushed towards me. I realized that I had to run away, and broke all existing swimming records. Jumping ashore, I was amazed to see that the head of my pursuer had peeked out at the point from which I had begun to flee. He scanned the distance exactly! His head rose above the water by more than half a meter (it looked like a horse’s), and he, like me, began to look around. I realized that there was no time for jokes here, and began to quickly leave.” Occasionally, scientists also got lucky. In the late 1980s, the deep-sea underwater laboratory BENTOS operated off the coast of Crimea. During one of the dives, the researchers saw something huge, about two meters in diameter, floating 8-10 meters across the BENTHOS course. However, there was no clear visibility, and there were no special cameras for underwater filming. On December 7, 1990, a team of employees from the Karadag branch of the Ukrainian Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas of the Academy of Sciences went to sea to check the nets set to catch Black Sea stingrays at a depth of 40 meters in the area of Carnelian Bay, several miles from the shores of Karadag. When the nets were pulled up, they pulled out a dolphin with its belly eaten out so that its spine was visible. The teeth marks left on the insides resembled the edge of the dough from which circles for dumplings are cut with a faceted glass. How big was the mouth if the teeth were the size of a glass?! And what type of sea predators could they belong to? Perhaps a representative of the Mesozoic era... Scientists were at a loss. Later, another prey dolphin was removed from the nets - this one had its head sucked out, as it were. Despite all attempts to find out the truth, one can only guess who the senior researcher at the biological station, V. Machkevsky, recently met at sea. at night he went with his friends on a kayak to set his net behind a ready-made plug-in seine. Having completed the task and sailed a little, they saw from the shore, against the backdrop of Karadag, that same snake. “...The full moon rose in the sky, and it illuminated what was happening very well. The surface of the water was absolutely smooth, like glass. Suddenly I heard a splash to my left. He turned his head and... saw the rolling body of a rather large animal in the halo of foam. On its back there was no fin characteristic of a dolphin, there was no reflex inhalation and exhalation characteristic of dolphins. The back of the unknown creature was smooth and much larger than a dolphin. Perhaps its surface was scaly, but in the night light it was quite difficult to see. The rolling of my back in this halo of foam was so long that I managed to show this phenomenon to a friend. It was so close that I could touch the animal's back with the paddle. It all looked like a huge snake and a car camera, this creature is impossible to describe.”
Vulnerable Caddy
So who swam into Crimean waters? They talked about a frilled shark with flat sides, resembling a huge eel; according to another version, it was the herring king - a belt fish up to nine meters in length, found in the North and Mediterranean seas... Maybe some kind of lizard has been preserved in the Black Sea since ancient times? After all, what do we know about Karadag, which was a nature reserve for decades? And why shouldn’t this majestic mountain be a haven for exotic species? Karadag is the remnant of an ancient volcano, the underwater part of which has not been studied. Once upon a time, displacements of earth layers and volcanic clay led to complex layers, the formation of underwater caves, unknown passages and tunnels. Having settled in Koktebel, Voloshin, who had a spiritual vision, more than once talked to his friends about a certain secret hidden in the depths of Karadag. About wonderful, inaccessible underwater grottoes, about portals with access to the past, to other dimensions and, finally, about the spirits and mythical creatures that inhabit the “living” Cimmeria, which does not reveal its secrets to everyone. Official science is sure: if a living creature lives on Karadag, there must be several of them - mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, etc. But neither the remains nor the clutch of eggs of these creatures have yet been discovered. In addition, Crimean hydronautics is completely destroyed today, deep-sea equipment has been sold for scrap. It is known that North American zoologists successfully continue such research in their territories. In 1995, two Canadian oceanographers - Dr. Edward Busfield (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto) and Professor Paul Le Blond (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) - in the April issue of the scientific journal Amphipha-Tsifika, described what was discovered in the fjords of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast Canada, a new large species of animal for science - Cadborosaurus. They classified it as a plesiosaur, a group of highly specialized marine reptiles that went extinct during the Mesozoic era. This “saurus” got its name from the Cadboro Bay, where it was most often observed. The message caused a furore in the media. Newspapers immediately gave the creature the nickname Caddy, and local environmentalists demanded that the government immediately ensure the protection of such a rare and obviously vulnerable species. If you believe eyewitness accounts, the Cadborosaurus, by the way, which has been mentioned in Indian folklore since ancient times, is exactly like the Black Sea serpent, but feeds on fish, sometimes trying to hunt seabirds. Scientists have no doubt that the depths of the World Ocean hold many unexplored secrets. But they need facts. However, so far not a single high-quality photograph has been taken - neither by us nor by them. This is stubbornly explained by the fact that mysterious creatures appear and disappear suddenly, as if only to remind: the living Earth was not born yesterday, but it is necessary to study and protect it in all its manifestations, especially in unique ones. Nina Yakhontova
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