Since now, there are a huge number of versions and hypotheses about the origin of the Russian people and the first centuries of our history. Which one is true is impossible to say. It is only clear that Russian history is much more ancient than the Norman historians believed. Even in pre-revolutionary times, they paid attention to the fact that the term Rus was mentioned much earlier than the beginning of Rurik's reign in Novgorod. In the same way, the question remains unclear who the Rus were and what they had to do with the Slavic tribes known from the first century of our era. After all, even in the relatively late times of the Prophetic Oleg, the difference between the Slavs and the Rus is emphasized by the chroniclers. Option one: the Rus are Slavs. Then the question is, is the Rus a separate genus, tribe or the name of people of a certain profession, like, for example, the later ushkuiniki?

Option two: the Rus are not Slavs. Then who? Germans? Perhaps, but not a fact.

Historians have counted in historical materials at least four direct and eight indirect indications that before Kievan Rus there was a certain state that bore the name of Russian, headed by a kagan. This Turkic title denotes the sole head of a large state and corresponds to the European title of emperor. This emphasizes that the Russian Khaganate was an independent and rather powerful entity, capable of independently determining its policy. However, its exact location is still unknown. Some researchers believe that he was in the north of the East European Plain, some scientists believe that this state was located in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov.

According to E.S. Galkina (book "Secrets of the Russian Khaganate"), the center of this state was in the upper reaches of the Os-Kol, Seversky Donets and Don rivers. The Russian historian and philosopher Sergei Perevezentsev calls this state Alanian Russia and sees its origins in the Don. The Donetsk historian and publicist Aleksey Ivanov calls it the Russian Khaganate and outlines the borders of this state along the line of the Seversky Donets - Don - the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov in the southeast and the Dnieper in the west. The modern capital of Ukraine was also part of this civilization.

For a long time, the version dominated that it was not a separate state, but part of the Khazar Khaganate. This assumption played a fatal role in the study of this civilization. In Soviet times, historical science practically did not study the Khazar Khaganate. Naturally, no one has studied the history associated with our territory. The Russian Khaganate is not studied in independent Ukraine either. But in Russia, articles and entire books are devoted to this state. Even in pre-revolutionary times, they paid attention to the fact that the term "Rus" was mentioned much earlier than the beginning of Rurik's reign in Novgorod.

Comparing all the available historical data with archaeological finds, we come to the conclusion that only the Saltov-Mayatsky archaeological culture can be the Russian Khaganate.

It was one of the most urbanized states of the early Middle Ages. Now 25 cities have been excavated, in some of which up to a hundred thousand people lived. For that time, this was a huge population, because Paris at that time had only twenty thousand inhabitants, and Kyiv, even in the 11th century, had no more than forty thousand people. The cities of the Russian Khaganate were centers of trade and crafts. Pottery, jewelry and metallurgy were especially developed. The Russian Khaganate was a commercial and military state through which important trade routes from northern Europe to Byzantium and Asian countries passed. For example, one of them started on the southern coast of the Baltic, then went along the Dnieper, Seversky Donets, Don and ended in the North Caucasus. Another important trade artery controlled by the Rus is the well-known route “From the Varangians to the Greeks”. In addition, the Russian Khaganate had access to the sea and was active in maritime trade. The main export commodities were weapons, jewelry and slaves. Such activity could not but irritate the Khazar Khaganate, another military-trading state that sought to control trade routes. Apparently, relations between the two Khaganates were very tense. Apparently, parity was maintained for a certain time, and the border passed along the Don.

According to archeology, this culture of the kaganate was mixed Alano-Slavic-Turkic. At first (from the VI to the beginning of the VIII century), the Alanian component dominated. The Alans are an Indo-Aryan Iranian-speaking people, descendants of the Sarmatians and ancestors of modern Ossetians. It should be noted that for a long time our region was in the area of ​​settlement of Iranian tribes. At first it was the Scythians, then the Sarmatians, Roxolans, Yases, Alans. It was from those times that the root “don”, meaning “river”, remained in our language in the names of water sources. So the names Don, Sevsrsky Donets came to us from time immemorial. Then the territory of the forest-steppe strip (now the northern part of the Donbass) began to be populated by the Slavs. At the same time, the Iranians were moving deep into the Slavic lands. There is a symbiosis of Iranians and Slavs, and the Khaganate can be called a Slavic-Iranian state. In addition, the Khaganate was inhabited by Bulgars, Ases and even people from Scandinavia. By the end of the existence of the Russian Khaganate, the Slavs constituted the dominant part of its population. And most importantly - they had a high social status. This can be judged by the fact that the found Slavic burials are, as a rule, rich graves.

Now, perhaps, it is worth considering the origin of the term Rus, Russian. The root "rus" is of Indo-European origin and means "light, white." It retained this meaning in the language to this day. For example, in the words "fairy-haired", "fair-haired", "hare-hare" and so on. In addition, this term denoted a noble or dominant family. It is quite natural that two branches of the Indo-Europeans, the Iranians and the Slavs, equally used this word. Perhaps the spread of the self-name of "Saltovtsy" as "Rus", "Rus" is associated with the name of the current Seversky Donets, which, according to the Arabic source "Khudua-al-Alam", was called the river Rus, that is, a bright or clean river. Perhaps, from the name of the river, the inhabitants of the kaganate began to call themselves that. There is a version that the kaganate got its name from the Alanian people of the Rukhs, descendants of the Sarmatian tribe of Roxalans (Light Alans) and Ases.

Probably, the Rus were not originally Slavs, but were assimilated by the Slavs, leaving them their name. This is not the only such case in history. Let us recall at least the Bulgarians, the Slavic people, who received their name from a tribe of nomadic Turks.

The Russian Khaganate perished in the thirties of the ninth century, when its territory was captured by the Magyars (Hungarians), who roamed here until the end of the ninth century, and then went west. After the defeat of the kaganate, part of the remaining population moved north into the forests and assimilated among the Slavic tribe of the northerners. Perhaps, thanks to this, the toponymy of our region has been preserved. Part of the fugitives moved to the Dnieper region under the protection of the surviving Kyiv.

But the fate of the third group of immigrants from the kaganate is especially interesting. They were probably the remnants of a professional squad. They ended their campaign in the Baltic. Some researchers believe that the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea became their new homeland, some historians argue that the Rus settled in Prussia, where they, together with local tribes, form a tribal union, which is called Rusia. In addition, there is a version about the island of Saaremaa as a new haven for the Rus. Be that as it may, all researchers agree that the new state was in the Baltics. At this time, there is an active development of these territories by the Slavs. They needed an ally in the new lands. Naturally, they drew attention to the tribal formation, close to them in language and culture. So, perhaps, Rus Rurik, invited with his retinue to Novgorod, was not a Scandinavian, but a native of the Russian Khaganate.

If our reconstruction of the history of the Russian Khaganate is based on archeology, hypotheses and scattered historical information, then Rurik is a historical figure. His closest associate was Prophetic Oleg. In our country, this name is usually derived from the Scandinavian name Heleg, although it is more logical to derive it from the Iranian Khaleg (creator, creator, prince). Oleg, having become regent in 879 under the young son of Rurik Igor, organizes a campaign to the south along the Dnieper. In 882, Oleg actually captured Kyiv without a fight. It was then that the words “Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities” were uttered. Agree, it sounds more than strange if, following the Norman historians, Oleg is considered a Scandinavian. But if Oleg, like the people of Kiev, comes from the Russian Khaganate, then his act is logical. The prophetic prince proclaimed the beginning of the revival of his ancient state, but with the capital in Kyiv. By the way, the Kyiv people perceive the arrival of Oleg without much indignation. There were no riots or unrest. But when Rurik began to reign in Novgorod, there was an uprising of Vadim the Brave.

After being approved in Kyiv, Oleg established his control over the tribes of the northerners and Radimichi, who had previously paid tribute to the Khazars. That is, Oleg gathered around Kyiv just those Slavic tribes that were most closely in contact with the Russian Khaganate. Through the efforts of the Prophetic Oleg, at the beginning of the tenth century, a new state is formed, which unites the lands of the Russian Khaganate and receives the former name of Rus, and its ruler calls himself a Khagan. This title ceased to be used only under Yaroslav the Wise.

Prince Svyatoslav completed what Oleg had started by making a victorious campaign against Khazaria in 965. He not only destroyed this state, but also began to revive the Russian Khaganate through a new Slavic colonization of lands along the Don and Donets, the center of which was the former Khazar city of Sar-Kel, renamed by Svyatoslav into Belaya Vezha (vezha - tower). He is trying to resettle the Slavs there, but the situation was already different. Pecheneg nomads come to our steppes from the Trans-Volga region. After they were defeated in the thirties of the eleventh century, the Polovtsy came to their place. By the way, Vladimir Monomakh made two dozen campaigns in the steppes, where the Russian Khaganate was located, literally clearing them of nomads. So the princes of Kievan Rus did not forget about their ancestral home. But Kievan Rus had already entered a period of fragmentation, and the great princes did not have the strength to keep their southern possessions. Most of the Slavs during the time of Vladimir Monomakh moved back to Kievan Rus. The rest were partially slaughtered by the Polovtsy, who took Belaya Vezha by storm in 1117, and partially moved to Tmutarakan. A small part of the Slavs, united with representatives of neighboring peoples (Alans and Turks), became the founders of wanderers - free warriors who led the same lifestyle as the Cossacks four hundred years later.

So, let's sum up. The Russian Khaganate was the first proto-state in relation to which the term "Russian" was used. The legacy of this state subsequently had a serious impact on both Russia and the states formed on its territory. A lot of elements from the Russian Khaganate passed into the Russian state. This is the title of rulers, and the gods of Iranian origin in the pantheon of Slavic gods, and numerous words with an Iranian root in our language.

Russian Khaganate and Yarova Rus

Fascinating lectures by V. Chudinov about recent expeditions and new discoveries… Demonstration and decoding of inscriptions on objects found by archaeologists in the Russian Khaganate, on the territory of Wagria, Scandia and Russia Slavyans… Chudinov Valery Alekseevich Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor of SUM, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Chairman of the Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the culture of ancient and medieval Russia, director of the Center for Ancient Slavic Literature and Culture, writer ...

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Historians have been trying to figure out who the Russians are and where they came from for more than a hundred years, but so far no one has found a single right answer to this question. There are dozens of the most plausible theories, but each of them has its drawbacks, weaknesses. It is quite possible that we still have not found out where the ancestral home of the Slavs and the Russian people is, so that everyone can believe in what he considers most likely.

Where did the Russians come from?

It's no secret that the Russians came from the Slavs, but where they came from, these our ancestors, is a mystery.

In this regard, a number of interesting theories are put forward:

1. Norman.
2. Scythian.
3. Danube.
4. Autochthonous.
5. Hellenthal.

Briefly about each theory:

• Everyone heard about the first theory, the Scandinavian leaders came to us from northern lands , brought a squad and began to rule. But it is difficult to believe that the tribes living in this territory did not have their own state structure, culture and customs.
• Consider yourself descendants Scythians- one of the most pleasant options. Yet ancient Greek historians gave them too flattering a description. The veracity of this idea can also be doubted, especially if you approach the issue from the point of view of genetics.
• There is an assumption that all Slavic tribes came from across the Danube, from Europe. It happened about one and a half thousand years ago, and since then the Slavs have firmly entrenched themselves in new territories and actively explored the North and East.
• According to fourth theory, our distant ancestors were the "indigenous" inhabitants of those territories in which we live today. Where they were born, they came in handy there.
• And here Hellenthal made an interesting hypothesis. According to this scientist, for more than 4 thousand years, part of the tribes from the territory of modern Germany and Poland moved to Eastern Europe. And 3 thousand years ago there was a migration of the population from Altai, a mixture of these two groups led to the appearance of the Slavs, and later Russians.

Where did Russian music originate?

With music, everything is much easier. A huge number of scattered tribes lived on the territory of modern Russia, each of which sought to fill its life with music, fill solemn events with it. Folk music is at least a thousand years old and includes:

• Wedding songs.
• Dance.
• Ritual.
• Calendar.
• Lyrical.

It is not for nothing that folk art is called oral, because it was passed from mouth to mouth, rarely when works were recorded in writing.

So there are not so many sources that have come down to us from ancient times. By the number of songs and musical instruments, one can only indirectly conclude that our ancestors were musical people.

They used sonorous melodies not only to celebrate celebrations, but also to brighten up everyday life.

Where did the Russian language come from?

But in the history of the Russian language there are three stages:

Old Russian	Old Russian	National
Began to form during the birth of Kievan Rus.	A relatively recent period, the heyday came in the XIV-XVII century.	As early as the 17th century, Russians began to take shape as a nation.
In truth, it has little in common with modern Russian.	The spelling and pronunciation are more similar to the modern language.	Any nation needs a language, so Old Russian began to change.
It was used even in the pre-Christian era.	Actively used in church services.	The formation of the language is almost complete.

Even in our time, new words appear, new rules are introduced and completely new features are indicated.

The Russian language is not a kind of frozen substance, it changes according to modern trends. But the basis of the language was laid many centuries ago and it does not change. If two Russian people from the 17th and 21st centuries met now, they would not be able to explain normally.

But at the same time, our contemporary would have caught the essence of the ancestor's statements, but the "traveler from the past" would have too many problems with understanding. Now there are too many foreign words in the Russian language, and even without this, it has changed a lot over the past centuries.

Modern studies of the problem

Now pseudo-scientific articles regarding the origin of the Slavs have come into fashion. And they raise not only the topic of a common ancestor, but in all seriousness, "researchers" are trying to find the most "worthy" descendant. Actually:

• The process of nation-formation started and went full steam ahead just four centuries ago.
• Prior to this, self-identification was based on belonging to a particular territory, religion or community.
• Neighbors have always had a very similar culture, one religion and called themselves almost the same, with slight differences.
• Our ancestors probably would not have understood the enmity and the current degree of tension.
• They were absolutely not worried about the question of the dignity or not of the dignity of their descendants; in harsh times, people faced more pressing problems. Yes, even elementary physical survival.

Unfortunately, these simple facts are now ignored by many. One can only hope that in their work all researchers will rely on historical sources, and not write what comes into their heads. It's not hard to follow fashion, but the value of such materials tends to zero.

Common ancestral home of Russian people

Until now, the origin of Russians and all Slavs causes fierce debate:

1. Most likely, we did not originate in this territory, but came from somewhere.
2. Western Europe, the mouth of the Danube and the region of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea are named as the starting point of migration.
3. It is possible that the Slavs were formed as a result of a mixture of two or more groups that massively migrated towards each other or in the same direction.
4. It is likely that our distant ancestors were Indo-Europeans.
5. Ancient Roman helmets and other signs of the West are found on the territory of modern Russia, so our ancestors were familiar with Europe thousands of years ago. The only question is who "went to visit" whom.
6. Written sources of antiquity give conflicting information, but they agree on one thing - initially the Slavs came from somewhere in the West and moved to the East, developing new lands.

It would be nice to get a definitive answer to the question and find out where the very “small Motherland” of the whole people is located. But for now, we have to make do with these theories.

Someday we will be able to find out who the Russians are and where they came from. But one should not hope that scientists will name any one village, rather it will be about a territory that stretches over tens of thousands of square kilometers.

Video about the appearance of the Russians

In this video, historian Anatoly Klesov will tell you where, in his opinion, the Russians came from and who they are, what ancient race they belong to, what peoples they formed from:

Why are the Hittites, Pelasgi, Thracians, and Veneti our ancestors? Vyacheslav Manyagin

What surprise did the archeological "Vinca culture" discovered in Bulgaria present to scientists? Who was the first to create an urban civilization in Europe - 7,000 years ago? When was a distinct alphabetic writing first noted in Europe? Where did the first civilization arise - in the Nile Valley, in the Indus Valley, in Mesopotamia, or in the Danube River basin? What does the writing of the Vinca civilization look like? Where did the resettlement of the inhabitants of the "Vinca culture" move? Who created Venice? What people founded Troy? Who was the ancestor of the Etruscans? Why did the Romans erase the memory of the Etruscans? How did Slavens and Rasen appear? How did the Venets settle throughout Europe - from France to the Baltics? When did the first independent state of the Slavs appear (in their modern form)? Why did several Rusyas appear in Europe? Why are "Veneti" Aryans? How did the Russian people originate? Writer-historian Vyacheslav Manyagin expounds his point of view on the history of the Slavs and other peoples of the western part of Eurasia.

Vyacheslav Manyagin: Why are we talking about the Thracians? The fact is that the Thracians occupied the territory that a certain culture occupied before them, which, by the way, was also quite recently discovered by archaeologists in the 20th century, these were Bulgarian, Serbian archaeologists, because this culture occupied a vast territory from the mouth of the Danube to Adriatic Sea, it is called after the first excavation site, the Vinca culture. There is such a place Vinca somewhere in Bulgaria, that's why it is called Vinca culture. And it turned out that this culture was absolutely unique for Europe at that time, and it dates back to about 5 millennium BC, that is, it is now 7 thousand years old, this culture.

Why was she unique? This was the first culture in Europe, which is characterized by urban civilization, that is, they built really real cities, very large in area, and this is the first culture in Europe in which there was writing, moreover, it was writing in letters and writing, not hieroglyphs , no runes, these were just alphabetic characters. And so I just want to quote another, let's say, authoritative scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Academician Vladimir Alexandrovich Safronov, who dealt with this issue. He writes in his book on the Vinca culture: "The Vinca culture can be called one of the oldest centers of civilization, older than the civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley and the Indus." That is, in fact, civilization went from this place. And who lived there?

The ancestors of the Slavs, Russians lived there. And then this writing, which is characteristic of this culture, is also surprisingly similar to both the Pelasgian writing and the Etruscan writing, that is, there are coincidences that exclude chance, right? Here, in my book I give tables where both scripts are shown in parallel. And this writing of the Vinca culture, it then began to spread to the Aegean Sea, and to the Balkan Peninsula, to the north. And the carriers of this writing, they then already advanced in two streams, one bypassing the Adriatic Sea, along the Balkan Peninsula, along the northwestern coast of the Adriatic, came to where the glorious city of Venice is located today, descending from the Veneti tribe, who created a cultural area in the north -Western Italy, yes, Veneta is like that.

And the other part of the carriers of this writing, she lived, as I said, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, and as a result of the fact that the Trojan War was lost, the surviving representatives of this culture who fled from there, they already by sea through Sicily, through the islands got the same in northwestern Italy and became the founders of the Etruscan culture. That is, we have 2 cultures in northern Italy. To the north, these are the Veneti, who then created Venice, right? And south of northern Italy it was the Etruscans. Two closely related peoples who came to Italy in slightly different ways, but they had a closely related script, and they carried this script through the centuries.

What happens next in history? Then the following happens, Rome arises, Rome begins a tough aggression against the surrounding people. Initially, they, with the Etruscans and the Venets, act as allies against the Celts who attacked them, for example, there. But then, in the very next time after that, Rome simply absorbs both the Etruscans and the Veneti. And after that, yes, here, the most terrible thing begins, the cultural genocide begins. The Romans destroy all Etruscan writings. Everything that they could reach, up to the fact that there was a history of the Etruscans written by one of the first Roman kings, was also destroyed, not to mention the monuments of the Etruscans themselves. So what are we left with? We are left with inscriptions on some household items, on tombs, on funerary urns, on steles.

Fortunately, there are more monuments left from the Veneti, because they were conquered later, and, moreover, their culture, it expanded and expanded, the Veneti had such an interesting habit, for example, they could write on the rocks in the mountains. For example, lead cannonballs have been preserved, which were used by catapults, on which there are Venetian inscriptions. The inscriptions on the pots have been preserved. And what is most interesting, there are educational tables for schools that completely contain the Ventian alphabet, with teaching declensions, a table of declensions, and so on. Here it was also deciphered by Slovenian and Serbian scientists, thanks to which we can see that the Venetian language and the Russian language are brother languages, they are just dialects of the same language. And now the Venetian writing has been preserved, more than three hundred samples of the Venetian writing have already been found, it is from these Venetians, yes, that are perfectly translated into Slovenian.

It is clear that since they are translated into Slovenian perfectly, they are understood perfectly well by the Slavs in general. After all, Russian is Russian, their very name is “Slovenes” and “Russians”, yes, this is connected very simply. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the first independent Slavic state was the state that arose on the territory of the former Roman province of Norik, which was part of the area of ​​these Veneti, who lived on the Adriatic coast and created Venice. In this province of Norik, a huge number of, again, inscriptions have been preserved, yes, in this alphabet that comes from the Balkans. And the Balkans, as we know, even from the annals were written by Nestor, yes, Danube Bulgaria, yes, the Danube, Danubian Rus, this is the place where, in fact, all the Slavs came from, according to the annals.

How did the Venets settle from Norik, right? When I say "Venety", you must understand that I say "Slavs". Now I will explain why, in general, how you can connect the Slavs with the Venets. This is how the Venets settled throughout Europe, yes, almost to France, to Britain, to the Southern Baltic? The same Arkona that we talked about. And here are all those Russ that were listed by the doctor of historical sciences Kuzmin, yes, all these countless Russ throughout Europe, where did they come from? Under the pressure of various enemies who went to Norik, both from the West and from the East, the Slavs had to retreat in different directions. They gradually settled in this way throughout Eastern Europe and Central Europe.

They began to be called Veneti, in one place Veneti, in another place Veneti. There was such a famous researcher Hilferding, who wrote the history of the Baltic Slavs. He wrote that the Veneti are the same Aryans, because “Veneti” and “Aryans” are a word of the same meaning, meaning praiseworthy or glorious. And to this day, writes Hilferding, the Hindus have the word "vend" meaning to praise or glorify. That is, Vendi in Russian will be Slavs, right? That is, we glorify, praised people. Therefore, when we say “Vendi”, yes, “Veneti”, we must understand that we are talking about “Slavs”. Also, when we, for example, are talking, I mentioned the Hittites, the Hittite state arose on the territory of the Aloson River in Asia Minor, which flows into the Black Sea, and they themselves were called Alosons, yes, that is, this is also translated into Russian as “glorified ”, “glorious”. Therefore, everything is interconnected in fact, the Russian people, it did not arise from scratch, as they try to convince us at school that, there, until, probably, until the 7-8th century, there were no Russians at all, there were no Slavs, there were some Proto-Slavs , yes, who somewhere lived under the yoke of the Huns, there, the Avars and other conquerors, and then suddenly the Russian state arose.

No, any nation has its ancestors, has its own culture, which has remained unchanged for very long centuries and millennia, therefore we, the Russians, who now live in Eastern Europe, also had their own ancestors, and these ancestors are just the Hittites, Pelasgians , Thracians, Etruscans, Venets and Veneds, yes, that is, they are one and the same people, which in different eras were called a little differently, with some changes, but this name always had the same meaning glorious, Slavs, praised, glorified. It doesn’t matter where we lived, in Asia Minor we lived, in the Caucasus, in the Balkans, in the Southern Baltic, yes, or now in Eastern Europe, on the Central Russian Plain, it doesn’t matter at all. It is important that we are one and the same people. And this writing, yes, we carried through all these not even centuries, but millennia.

And here is the one that has been preserved for, well, at least two and a half thousand years, a huge number of examples of Slavic, Venetian writing, yes, such as Lemnos plates, Kyrgyz plates, yes, Aztec tables, these are just tables, according to which the Venets studied when they taught their children at school in their own, moreover, these tables are two and a half thousand years old. This is all, as it were, writing, which, perhaps, is slightly different, but, as the famous historian, Professor Pesic writes, is dialects of the same Slavic language, that is, all languages.

That is, all languages, starting from a thousand years ago, two thousand years, three thousand years, and in our time are just dialects of one and that Slavic and Russian language, which was spread, again, as Professor Pesic says, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and from Baltic to the Carpathians and to the island of Crete. Again, he, the professor writes, is a Serbian historian, not deservedly, by the way, hushed up, as much of what we say today, he said that it is unequivocally possible to put an equal sign between the Etruscans, Venets and Slavs.

Who are we Russians? What kind of people? How did it come about? Virtually no one knows anything about it. No wonder the Russians are called "Ivans who do not remember kinship." Psychologists are convinced that most of the troubles of modern Russia are due to the fact that the consciousness of the titular nation, that is, the Russians, is, as it were, covered with a veil. Sometimes it seems that some universal demiurge clouded our reason for the time being. But the time for clearing the mind is already coming.
Recently, a new book by Gennady Klimov "Russian Vedas" has been published, which tells in detail about the ancient history of Russia, the archaic civilizations of Eastern Europe, where the evolution of mankind took place. It turned out that from school textbooks we approximately know the history of only 5 thousand years, and even then with great distortions, and the history of the civilization of Russia has at least 50 thousand years, that is, 10 times more. Gennady Klimov is a professional researcher of ancient religions and epics. In the last book there is a fragment that tells about the birth of the peoples who became the progenitors of the Slavs. Today we asked Gennady Klimov to tell about the origin of the Russian people.
- Let's discard some of the myths that haunt us from the very beginning. Russians can be considered Slavs with a certain stretch. The Slavs are one of the peoples that separated from Russia, and nothing more. For example, in the Voronezh, Rostov, Kharkov regions, the population consists of 60 percent of the descendants of the Aryans, who later formed the Sarmatian-Scythian world. And in Novgorod, Tver, Pskov - also 40 percent of the descendants of the Scandinavians. The lower Volga region is populated in a certain proportion by a people, from which the Jews emerged in two waves.
Russians are a praethnos from which other peoples emerged. In the Russian language, in the Russian mentality, two codes are combined, as it were - Sarmatia, the world of female matriarchal foundations, and Scythia, the world of male sections and Cossack hordes. Russians have a very complex archetype, which is why Russian civilization has so many problems so far. But soon the consciousness of Russian-speaking people will be cleansed, a transformation will come. That's when the true flowering of the Russian world will come. This process has already begun.
The question is often asked: where did the Russians come from? The Russians have always lived in their place in Eastern Europe, even during the glaciation and flood. The continuous history of Russia observes a depth of 50-70 thousand years. For example, China is barely 5,000 years old. And the Egyptian pyramids were built only 4,000 years ago. But, of course, the Slavs played a significant role in the entosogenesis of the Russian nation. In figurative form, the ancient authors of the Aryan books preserved for us the message about the birth of the peoples of the Northern Black Sea region, including the Slavs. To a certain extent, the Venedi people can be considered the ancestors of the Russians.
Aryan ancient books tell the following. Kadru and Vinata were sisters. Their father was Daksha - the lord of creatures. He had 13 daughters, whom he gave in marriage to the sage Kashyapa. Kadru gave birth to a thousand sons, and Vinata only two. Kadru brought a lot of eggs, but Vinata brought only two eggs. Five hundred years later, a thousand mighty snakes - nagas - hatched from Kadru's eggs. By this time, another sister, Vinata, had not yet had a baby. In her impatience, Vinata broke one egg and saw her son there, only half developed. She named him Aruna.
Aryan texts contain many secrets. The name Arun means "runes of the stone Alatyr". This is a system of signs used by the priests of Valdai as secret writing. For his ugliness, the angry Arun cursed his impatient mother Vinata and predicted her to be a slave for five hundred years. From the name of Vinat, the Russian word "wine" and the name of the ancient Slavic families of the Wends come. This word was used at different times in relation to different peoples, sometimes to all Slavs in general, and is also sometimes associated with vandals. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Germans generally called all the neighboring Slavic peoples Wends (except for the Czechs and Poles, who descend from another branch of immigrants from Russia): the Lusatians, Lutichs, Bodrichs (who lived on the territory of modern Germany) and Pomeranians. In Germany, during the Weimar Republic, a special Wend department still existed in the internal affairs bodies, which was engaged in work with the Slavic population of Germany. Today, to a large extent, modern Germans are the genetic descendants of the Baltic Slavs. A large number of words with the root “vend” were found in the lands of eastern Germany: vendhaus, vendberg, vendgraben (grave), windenheim (homeland), windischland (land of the Wends), etc. On the territory of modern Latvia in the XII-XIII centuries. AD inhabited by a people known as the "Vendi". It is not difficult to assume that they come from the clans that laid two sons of the matriarchal commune of Vinata, mentioned in the Aryan Vedas. The word "Russia" in Finnish and Estonian sounds, respectively, "Venaja" and "Vene". It is assumed that the Finnish and Estonian names of the Russians are also associated with the name "Venedi".
The story that has been preserved in the Aryan Vedas says that the Slavs at the beginning of time appeared in the form of the son of Vinata, who was born prematurely, but received the name Arun, which means "possessing secret knowledge." Cursing his mother (having left the matriarchal commune that gave birth to him), he said: "In five hundred years, another son will deliver you from slavery if you do not break the second egg ahead of time."
This was shortly before the start of the Trojan War. At this time, the gods and asuras were in the world. The unified Aryan empire mobilized all forces to build a giant wall that separated the north from the south. So the ancients tried to protect themselves from diseases that were approaching Russia from the south. At this time, the sisters Kadru and Vinata saw the wonderful horse Uchchaihshravasa emerging from the waters of the sea. A dispute arose between them - what color is the tail of that horse. Vinata said that she was white (as she really was). Her sister Kadru is black. According to the terms of the dispute, the one who loses must become a slave.
At night, Kadru sent a thousand of her sons - "black kites" to hang on the tail of a white horse, and thus hide its natural color. So the insidious Kadru tricked her sister into slavery. And so the curse of the first Slavs of the Arun came true. Most likely, this is one of the tribes of the Scythians or Sarmatians, who moved to the Balkans after the Trojan War. Here the descendants of Arun began to be called Kolovyans - southern Slavs. They formed 12 Etruscan clans that created the ancient Etruscan state and Rome.
In the Russian epic, the history of the migrations of this people is preserved in the fairy tale about Kolobok. Actually, Kolobok is the Kolovyans. It was approximately in 1200 BC. After 2200 years, some of them will return to Russia in Kyiv and Novgorod, after Moravia was conquered by the Hungarians. When they returned, they brought with them many tales and tales about their ancient history. This is how the fairy tale about Kolobok appeared in Russia.
But this is only half of the history of the Slavs. Vinata gave birth to a gigantic eagle from the second egg. He was destined to become a naga slayer in revenge for his mother's servitude. When he was born, all living beings and the gods of Mount Alatyr themselves were in turmoil. The circumstances of the life and struggle of the giant eagle are very reminiscent of the circumstances of the history of modern Russia, although the Aryan Vedas were written several thousand years earlier. The peoples descended from the gigantic eagle Garuda are the Baltic Slavs, Germans and modern Russians. At birth, the Garuda eagle himself broke the egg shell with his beak and, barely born, soared into the sky in search of prey. The place of his birth, apparently, was the river Don. In slavery, the matriarchal commune of Vineta was among the steppe nomads of the Nagas. Nagas formed numerous southern peoples.
At that time, Surya, the god of the sun, began to threaten that he would burn the world. Drought began in the steppes. Then the eagle Garuda took on his back his older brother, the one who was born prematurely, and placed him on the chariot of the Sun, so that with his body he shielded the world from the destructive rays. From then on, Vinata's eldest son became Surya's charioteer and deity of the dawn.
Apparently, the Garuda tribe, whose coat of arms was an eagle, was born 500 years after the Trojan War and after the first expedition of immigrants from Russia to the Balkans and the settlement of Sicily. That is, it was about 750 BC. It was at this time that another religious crisis occurred in Russia. At this time, a new Jerusalem temple was being built in Russia, which continues the work begun in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. by the Aryan king Melchisidek religious reforms on the transition to monotheism. In addition, the reason that prompted the huge masses of the people of Eurasia to move was the drought.
Waves of people of “free will” appear at the mouth of the Don, a naval base of the southern Varangians appears on the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. These "people of the sea" are called "Greeks". They attack the shores of all inland seas, destroying the remnants of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization. The dark ages are coming. The city of Panticapaeum (the modern city of Kerch) arises in the Crimea. This is a transshipment naval base, from which thousands of ships sail across the seas. At the shipyards near the modern city of Voronezh, thousands of thousands more ships are being built from ship pines. The maritime expansion of Russia ends with the emergence of many independent cities along the shores of the Black and Mediterranean Seas. It was these settlers who became the nutrient medium on which ancient culture grew.
And Garuda, having delivered his brother to the south, returned to Russia. Dejected, he asked his mother: "Why should I serve snakes?" And his mother Vinata told him about how she fell into slavery to her sister. Garuda then asked the snakes: "What can I do to free myself and my mother from slavery?" And the snakes said to him: “Get us amrita from the gods. Then we will deliver you from slavery.” Amrita is the drink of immortality. The concept of "amrita" in the Aryan texts corresponds to Ayurveda - the science of the laws of life. It was the creation by the priests of the foundations of ancient medicine that made it possible to begin a less safe development of the territory outside of Russia. A person is not well adapted to live far from glaciers - in the southern world he is pursued by exotic diseases. After the foundation of Ayurveda was created, people began to populate the southern countries. There they met people from primitive eras, who also somehow adapted to live in the south. But these were already other people, not like northerners. The sun changed their appearance, and their habits, worldview, ethical standards were from archaic eras. Their archetype of consciousness corresponded to eras long gone. This is how the mechanism of evolution on planet Earth works. Evolution in the south is slower than in the north.
Garuda flew north, where the gods kept the amrita. On the way, he passed the Gandhamadana mountain, where he saw his meditating father, the wise Kashyapa. On the advice of his father, Garuda got himself an elephant and a giant tortoise to eat, and descended on a tree to eat his prey. But the branch gave way under his weight. Garuda picked it up with his beak and saw on it a lot of tiny sages - Valakhilyas, hanging upside down. Valakhilyas - mythical sages, sixty thousand in number, each the size of a finger; in the Aryan books they are called the sons of Kratu, the sixth son of Brahma.
With a branch in its beak and with an elephant and a tortoise in its claws, Garuda flew on. When he again flew past the Gandhamadana mountain, Kashyapa said: “Beware of harming the Valakhilyas! Fear their wrath!" Kashyapa told Garuda how powerful these tiny creatures were. Then Garuda carefully lowered the Valakhilyas to the ground, and he himself flew to a mountain covered with snow, and, sitting on a glacier, ate an elephant and a tortoise. Then he continued his flight.
The father of the Valakhilyas is one of the Sapta Rishis, Kratu. From the name of this rishi (sage) comes the Russian word "mole". Why? Understand a little later. The Valakhilyas drink the sun's rays and are the guardians of the sun's chariot. In fact, their place of residence is Valdai and the Riphean mountains, the mountains of sages. They study Vedas and Shastras. One of the main features of the Valakhilyas is their purity, virtue and chastity; they are constantly praying. Elders usually live in dugouts and are indifferent to wealth. Sometimes they are called "siddhis" in books.
These are the holy hermits of Russia. They settled in the upper reaches of the Volga, Beloozerye and the shores of the White Sea. The sketes of the holy elders can be found even far on the Kola Peninsula beyond the Arctic Circle. The Mahabharata tells how the leader of the gods Indra, together with the Valakhilyas, were responsible for kindling the fire. Indra, having collected a whole mountain of firewood, laughed at the Valakhilyas, each of which was barely pulling a stalk of grass. The wise men were offended and began to pray that another leader of the gods Indra, much more powerful, would appear. Indra, learning about this, was frightened and asked for help from the sage Kashyapa. The powerful priest was able to pacify the Valakhilyas, but so that their efforts would not be in vain, he decided that Indra should be born in the form of an eagle.
Not far from my house near Tver, in 2009, the relics of St. Savvaty, an elder who lived here at the end of the 14th century AD, were opened. His relics were found on 19 August. This is very symbolic. On this day the Orthodox Church celebrates the Transfiguration. This concept is a reflection of the philosophical concept of "smart doing" or the vision of the Light of Tabor. In the forest hermitages, hermit monks achieved by prayer that they began directly, on Earth, to see the Light of Tabor and communicate directly with God.
The tradition of building hermitages in Russia has its roots in the era of Cancer (7-6 thousand years BC) - a sign addressed to the world of the soul, and maybe even in even more ancient times. In the 4th-2nd millennium, the era of Taurus begins - the Valakhily populate the lands that have been released again from under the glacier. 60,000 hermit monks “weave” the Vedas here, which still determine the consciousness of modern man. It was they who created the archetype of consciousness that underlies world culture. The Valakhilyas persisted throughout the millennia. They exist today.
In relatively recent history, the Valakhilis, who in the Russian Church are called "Volga elders", have become most famous. These are the monks of Belozersky, Vologda and Tver small monasteries and forest sketes. Their monasteries differed sharply in their poor, simple furnishings from rich churches. They were not afraid to tell the kings the truth. The divorce of the Russian Tsar Vasily III from his wife and his new marriage caused condemnation from the "Zavolzhets". In 1523, one of the "Zavolzhets", hegumen Porfiry, was even imprisoned for standing up for Prince Vasily Shemyachich, who was summoned to Moscow and imprisoned, despite the oaths of the Grand Duke and Metropolitan Daniel. At the head of the "Volga elders" was Nil Sorsky.
Today, in the village of Savvatyevo near Tver, Father Andrei Yegorov is reviving and building a small monastery on the banks of the Orsha River, preserving the forest hermitage of the Monk Savvaty of Orshinsky, a hermit, according to legend, who came to Russian soil together with Metropolitan Cyprian and brought the teachings of the hesychasts to Russia. It was at the end of the XIV century.
Many names of the rivers, descriptions of the climate and the starry sky in the Aryan books indicate that the famous seven wise men, who gave people all the knowledge, in whose honor the seven stars of the constellation Ursa Major shine, lived in these places - along the banks of the rivers Medveditsa, Orsha, Mologa .
And at the end of the 14th century, Orthodox monks settled here, in sketes, the keepers of the doctrine of the Light of Tabor. Already at the beginning of the 15th century, in just a few decades, sketes and small monasteries spread from Tver to the very Arctic Ocean.
Father Andrei during our meeting was surprised at the speed with which the teaching of the Hesychasts spread throughout Russia. I think this is God's work. This is the Tabor Light of the Transfiguration - it spreads at the same speed as the Holy Fire from the Holy Sepulcher.
Many Orthodox monks settled in sketes in the very places where the rishis indicated in the Vedas lived. But there are at least 2500 years between these events. Seems like history repeats itself. That the rishis from the Aryan epic and the hesychasts from relatively recent history have manifested themselves in the same place on the planet is an amazing fact. It seems that events not only repeat themselves, but also happen in the same place.
Valakhily and Orthodox hermit monks of the northwest of Russia and Karelia are a continuous tradition of one phenomenon. It has been here for thousands of years.

Recorded by Marina GAVRISHENKO

For many centuries, scientists have wanted to know the origin of the Russian people. And if the studies of the past were based on archaeological and linguistic data, today even geneticists have taken up the matter.

From the Danube

Of all the theories of Russian ethnogenesis, the most famous is the Danube one. We owe its appearance to the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years", or rather the centuries-old love for this source of domestic academics.

The chronicler Nestor determined the initial territory of the settlement of the Slavs by the territories along the lower reaches of the Danube and the Vistula. The theory of the Danube "ancestral home" of the Slavs was developed by such historians as Sergei Solovyov and Vasily Klyuchevsky.
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky believed that the Slavs moved from the Danube to the Carpathian region, where an extensive military alliance of tribes arose, led by the Duleb-Volhynian tribe.

From the Carpathian region, according to Klyuchevsky, in the 7th-8th centuries, the Eastern Slavs settled in the East and Northeast to Ilmen Lake. The Danubian theory of Russian ethnogenesis is still adhered to by many historians and linguists. A great contribution to its development was made at the end of the 20th century by the Russian linguist Oleg Nikolaevich Trubachev.

Yes, we are Scythians!

One of the most fierce opponents of the Norman theory of the formation of Russian statehood, Mikhail Lomonosov, leaned towards the Scythian-Sarmatian theory of Russian ethnogenesis, which he wrote about in his Ancient Russian History. According to Lomonosov, the ethnogenesis of the Russians occurred as a result of the mixing of the Slavs and the Chudi tribe (Lomonosov's term applied to the Finno-Ugric peoples), and he named the interfluve of the Vistula and the Oder as the place of origin of the ethnic history of the Russians.

Supporters of the Sarmatian theory rely on ancient sources, as did Lomonosov. He compared Russian history with the history of the Roman Empire and ancient beliefs with the pagan beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, finding a large number of coincidences. The fierce struggle with the adherents of the Norman theory is quite understandable: the people-tribe Rus, according to Lomonosov, could not come from Scandinavia under the influence of the expansion of the Norman Vikings. First of all, Lomonosov opposed the thesis about the backwardness of the Slavs and their inability to independently form a state.

Hellenthal theory

The hypothesis about the origin of the Russians, published this year by the Oxford scholar Garrett Hellenthal, seems interesting. Having done a lot of work on the study of the DNA of various peoples, he and a group of scientists compiled a genetic atlas of the migration of peoples.
According to the scientist, two significant milestones can be distinguished in the ethnogenesis of the Russian people. In 2054 B.C. e., according to Hellenthal, the trans-Baltic peoples and peoples from the territories of modern Germany and Poland migrated to the northwestern regions of modern Russia. The second milestone is 1306, when the migration of the Altai peoples began, which actively interbred with representatives of the Slavic branches.
Hellenthal's study is also interesting in that genetic analysis proved that the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasion had practically no effect on Russian ethnogenesis.

Two ancestral homes

Another interesting migration theory was proposed at the end of the 19th century by the Russian linguist Aleksey Shakhmatov. His theory of "two ancestral homelands" is also sometimes called the Baltic one. The scientist believed that initially the Balto-Slavic community stood out from the Indo-European group, which became autochthonous on the territory of the Baltic states. After its collapse, the Slavs settled in the territory between the lower reaches of the Neman and the Western Dvina. This territory became the so-called "first ancestral home". Here, according to Shakhmatov, the Proto-Slavic language was formed, from which all Slavic languages ​​originated.

The further migration of the Slavs was associated with the great migration of peoples, during which, at the end of the second century AD, the Germans went south, freeing the Vistula River basin, where the Slavs came. Here, in the lower basin of the Vistula, Shakhmatov defines the second ancestral home of the Slavs. Already from here, according to the scientist, the division of the Slavs into branches began. The western one went to the Elbe region, the southern one was divided into two groups, one of which settled the Balkans and the Danube, the other - the Dnieper and the Dniester. The latter became the basis of the East Slavic peoples, which include the Russians.

We are local

Finally, another theory that is different from migration is the autochthonous theory. According to it, the Slavs were an indigenous people inhabiting eastern, central and even part of southern Europe. According to the theory of Slavic autochthonism, the Slavic tribes were the indigenous ethnic group of a vast territory - from the Urals to the Atlantic Ocean. This theory has rather ancient roots and many supporters and opponents. The Soviet linguist Nikolai Marr adhered to this theory. He believed that the Slavs did not come from anywhere, but were formed from tribal communities that lived in vast territories from the Middle Dnieper to Laba in the West and from the Baltic to the Carpathians in the south.
Polish scientists also adhered to the autochthonous theory - Klechevsky, Pototsky and Sestrentsevich. They even led the genealogy of the Slavs from the Vandals, basing their hypothesis, among other things, on the similarity of the words “Vendals” and “Vandals”. Of the Russians, the origin of the Slavs Rybakov, Mavrodin and Grekov was explained by autochthonous theory.