Let's start with the good. It turns out that even in such a gigantic metropolis as Moscow, there is still Wild Nature. That's right, with capital letters. And not because she is our mother and all that... Everything is much more prosaic and serious: we live in climatic zone forests, and while the capital is surrounded by forests, we have something to breathe. Neither parks, nor squares, nor other green spaces, no matter how many there are, will be able to fulfill the role of this natural air conditioner for a city of 15 million.

“Losiny Ostrov” is the green belt of the capital.

Now comes the bad news. The Moscow region's forests—and therefore all of us—are in great danger. Forests can disappear in just a matter of years. And the reason for this will not be the bark beetle, drought or lack of proper care. The unlimited urbanization of the territory, the greed of developers and the stupid urban planning policy of the authorities of the Moscow region can lead to the fact that in 10-15 years it will become impossible to live in the capital.

Shield like a Trojan horse

This summer, the Duma adopted amendments to the law “On the Protection of environment"concerning the creation of green shields around megacities. The initiative was taken by the Popular Front, which was warmly supported by ecologists and environmentalists. The initial idea was correct: it is necessary to assign a special protective status to forested areas around major cities countries. By protecting them from cutting down and development, we protect ourselves from environmental problems in the future.

But in the process of numerous editions, the text of this legislative initiative has undergone changes. For a person ignorant of environmental legislation, they seem to be insignificant - for example, around Moscow there was a “forest park protective belt”, but there will be a “forest park green belt”. But experts believe that now, under the new law, our suburban and urban forests will lose much more than they gain.

“Currently, any capital construction is prohibited in the forested park area, except for hydraulic structures,” explains the famous Moscow ecologist Galina Morozova. “And in the forests of forested green belts it will be possible to build everything except housing and industrial facilities. And if our specially protected natural areas, urban forests or specially protected green areas (there are such in Moscow!), not to mention the forest park areas near Moscow, are included in the forest park green belt of Moscow, then in its forests they will be able to build roads, all kinds of pipelines, children’s gardens, schools, tourism industry facilities, etc.”

“We believe that the ears of the capital’s developers are sticking out behind these amendments,” says Anton Khlynov, a member of the Moscow region branch of the ONF. — The President, who signed the amendments to the law on the “green shield”, was misled. But we will strive to correct the situation and will not rest until the forests are returned to their protective status.”

Capture and legitimize

Another dubious legislative initiative recently put forward by the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, is a forest amnesty. Behind last years In the region, about 300 thousand unauthorized seizures of forest land plots were recorded. The head of the region motivates his position by the fact that entire residential microdistricts have already been built somewhere, and people should not be evicted from there. And if these “squatters” are not given legal status, then it is impossible to accept the general plans of municipalities. After all, it turns out that according to the documents the forest is listed, but in fact there have been houses there for a long time or shopping mall works.

Boris Samoilov.

“This is a very dangerous precedent,” says Boris Samoilov, executive editor of the Moscow Red Book. - Firstly, lawlessness cannot be legitimized. Especially on such a huge scale. Just think about it: 300 thousand forest areas were seized and developed! So soon there will be nothing left of our forests. And secondly, the expansion of urbanization should not be encouraged, but, on the contrary, restrained in every possible way. Moscow and the region within the Central Ring Road are a huge agglomeration, a gigantic diffuse city. And if it continues to grow at this rate, destroying the forests around it, then very soon we will get a lot of environmental problems.”

The truth about bark beetles

The forests near Moscow are a huge wealth that we inherited. They occupy 42% of the territory of the capital region, and this is the minimum for environmental safety.

We have other reasons for national pride. For example, national park"Losiny Ostrov" Not only is it the largest urban forest on the continent, but it is also rich in biodiversity that has long been absent in some European countries. The Dutch tried for several years to revive the raised bogs. They transported soil by wagonload from Vladimir region- All in vain. And in Losiny Ostrov, surrounded by urban development, they exist. On its territory there is also a broad-leaved forest with 300-year-old forest patriarchs - this is the oldest forest in Europe!

But we don’t know how to be proud and appreciate what we inherited from our ancestors. And it seems that very soon we may lose the forests near Moscow. The process, as they say, has already begun. Over the past five years, the bark beetle has destroyed almost 40 thousand hectares of spruce forests near Moscow. Various reasons are cited: first, abnormal heat and drought in 2010, then freezing rain, strong winds, and, allegedly, forest care was not at the proper level.

But they are silent about the real reasons. Both summer drought and strong winds are only a consequence of climate change, and this is happening due to the total development of the territory of the Moscow region.

According to Boris Samoilov, in the Moscow region they are increasing average annual temperatures, the climate has become like in the Tula region, which is located further south. And spruce is a taiga tree, its roots are located close to the surface of the earth and need moist soil. A healthy tree will protect itself from pests. But weakened by the heat, when not enough resin is released, it turned out to be an excellent food source for bark beetle larvae.

By the way, all the stories from the Moscow region authorities that the typograph epidemic became possible because there is a large percentage of old forests in the region is a myth. In the Siberian taiga there are such giant spruce trees that it is impossible to grasp them, and no bark beetle is afraid of them. Because there is a healthy ecology there, and they grow in their own climate zone.

So far, in “Losiny Ostrov” - and this is not the case anywhere else in Europe - there is still a section of real southern taiga. Question: for how long?

"Detrimental influence huge city The climate is already being affected,” says Samoilov. - Buildings, roads - everything open areas heat up and then give off their heat. The temperature in the city is always higher than outside it. Moreover, we are talking not only about horizontal planes, the walls of houses also heat up, so multi-storey buildings from an environmental point of view are much more dangerous than low-rise ones. During the 2010 drought, the average temperature was about 32 degrees, and for many people this was already a serious problem, imagine what would happen if the average temperature rose a few more degrees! Christmas trees died in 2010, and in the future people may suffer.”

Moose and suckers

Although the president has not yet given permission to the Moscow region to hold a general forest amnesty, the region is already trying to legalize certain seized forest lands. So, on October 31, public hearings on the issue of changing borders should be held national park"Losiny Ostrov"

At first glance, the agenda is positive: they want to include the Moninsky and Gorensky forests in the park, the first site is now on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Defense, the second belongs to the Noginsky forestry. But, as it turned out, it is too early to rejoice for the inhabitants of the national park. Such a “royal” gift in the form of two additional territories is nothing more than compensation for other cut off lands that were previously included within the borders of “ Losiny Ostrov».

According to Galina Morozova, who, together with Boris Samoilov, designed the boundaries of the national park, several rural settlements located in the Shchelkovsky district, the urban districts of Balashikha, Korolev and Mytishchi were specifically included in its composition. This was done specifically in order to create a buffer zone around the protected forests, which would bear the main recreational load. After all, “Losiny Ostrov” is surrounded by urban development on almost all sides; several thousand people visit it every day, and there are already millions of vacationers a year. In addition, when the historical villages of Abramtsevo, Oboldino and others were included within the boundaries of the national park, they thought that this would protect the surrounding landscape from urbanization. But in reality it turned out quite the opposite.

Forest plots are like honey for the developer. Everyone, as one, advertises in their prospectuses the excellent ecology in the area of ​​their new buildings, but they themselves completely destroy all living things.

“The first land seizures on the territory of Losiny Ostrov began back in the dashing 90s,” says Anton Khlynov, a member of the ONF near Moscow. “Then the Balashikha brothers managed to build several houses along the Akulovsky water canal. The public was noisy, law enforcement agencies opened a case for show, but then everything died down.”

And impunity pushes people to repeat the crime. And soon construction, without an environmental assessment, without approval from the management of the national park, began in full swing on the adjacent lands. In the end, the authorities of Balashikha became indignant several years ago: why on earth was the village of Abramtsevo included within the boundaries of “Losiny Ostrov” - people live there, not moose. By the way, the residents themselves, as a rule, are very happy that their settlements are included within the boundaries of the park - for them this is a guarantee that the village will not turn into a city.

An even more interesting thing happened with 30 hectares of national park land in the Mytishchi district. They decided to build a large shopping center there, estimating the damage to nature at only 10 million rubles. Even if we assume that this is waste land, and not at all reserved, as in reality, let us only take into account its location - and the site is located 2 km from the Moscow Ring Road - isn’t it too cheap for 30 hectares? It seems that even moose could calculate the price for such a tasty piece of land better! But the Ministry of Ecology of the Russian Federation is not full of suckers... So the conclusions about the corruption component suggest themselves.

In defense of butterflies

In the summer, a round table was held in Moscow on the problems of the new ring road in the Moscow region. Among the speakers was an ecologist who tried to explain to the audience that as a result of construction, a rare species of butterflies, listed in the Red Book, could die. They listened to her politely, but this warning did not evoke much sympathy from anyone. And in vain. Man has learned to disturb the biological balance, but restoring it is not always so easy and simple.

“In Europe there is no longer wild forests within the city limits, not like we have around Moscow and even within the boundaries of the metropolis itself,” says Boris Samoilov. “Many people are touched that on the streets of Western capitals you can see squirrels jumping in trees, hedgehogs and chipmunks running in city parks. And this, of course, is great; it’s nice and comfortable to live in such cities. But it is not wild nature. This is all artificially supported.”

Recently, the Moscow region has been following the example of Moscow, and that, in turn, from Western capitals - city and regional authorities are trying to improve their territories, but in the pursuit of spending funds, officials do not know how to stop.

“Why was there flooding in Moscow this summer? - explain environmentalists. — In the capital, the permissible area for sealing natural surfaces has already been exceeded. While improving river valleys within the capital, builders violated the hydrological regime of the rivers. The situation is the same in most cities near Moscow. Pour a glass of water onto the oilcloth and it will all roll onto the floor. And if there is a velvet tablecloth on the table, then all the water will be absorbed. So it is with the banks of rivers, which are devoid of natural vegetation, oxbow lakes, water meadows, and are encased in concrete and paving slabs.”

They say that in Europe, forest trees by themselves - through self-seeding - no longer renew themselves. Because forest tree seeds require certain conditions to germinate. And there, even a dead tree will lie in the forest for at least twenty years without rotting - for this you need mushrooms, microorganisms that would feed on dead wood. To maintain life in these artificial forests, Europeans spend billions of euros a year. We don't have that kind of money. So, maybe we should still be more careful about the wealth we have inherited? As they say, take care of nature - our mother!

Incredible rumors have long been circulating about this small island, which is located within the city of Rostov-on-Don. And the biggest secret of the island is that it still remains abandoned. Neither the construction of recreation centers, nor children's camps - nothing helps to settle the island.

And no wonder. Even local residents compare occurring phenomena with secrets Bermuda Triangle. Inexplicable events on Green Island became known back in the mid-20s of the 20th century. At that time, townspeople told each other fantastic stories about ghosts, revived drowned people and mermaids who live on the island.

Today, stories about an alien spaceship that fell here and about a black stone are very famous.

According to eyewitnesses, NKVD troops arrived on Green Island before the start of the Great Patriotic War. At night, when the residents were sleeping, the military transported something in trucks. However, they were unable to complete what they started: German troops, in the fall of 1941, approached Rostov-on-Don. And instead of evacuating, the NKVD troops organized the defense of the deserted island. Almost everyone died during the defense of the island. personnel, ensuring the removal of something mysterious from the island into the interior of the country.

Many stories about unexplained phenomena associated with the “black stone” are told by local residents. But it should be noted that attempts to purposefully find the mysterious stone do not give any results. Although, eyewitnesses claim that they not only saw the black stone, but were also exposed to it.

The reason for the failure may be that the island is covered with rather dense vegetation, and the western side is completely inaccessible. However, it is the western part that, as eyewitnesses say, is an anomalous zone.

Scientific expeditions were organized to Green Island, including an expedition from the Kosmopoisk research association.

Research was carried out using special instruments on the western side of the Green Island. As a result, weak anomalies were recorded, which were possibly associated with underground structures (remains of old trenches and dugouts) located on the northwestern shore, and with small underground structures of unknown purpose. At the same time, the expedition members became eyewitnesses of sound signals of unknown origin and manifestations of the “prodigal place” anomaly (an anomaly in which the most mysterious events can occur, first of all, an absolute loss of orientation in space occurs).

Be that as it may, no one has yet seriously studied the secrets of Green Island. Vadim Chernobrov, a researcher of anomalous events and coordinator of Cosmopoisk, says this about this place: “Anomalies on Zeleny Island have been known for a long time. In addition, preliminary studies were carried out there. However, changes in the mental state of people, anomalies in the composition of the soil, and mutation processes in vegetation require further serious research.”

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View of Green Island from the right bank of the Don

The most important mystery of this island is its abandonment. No matter how much people try to develop it, build recreation centers and children’s camps here, Green Island is not particularly successful in this regard.

View from Green Island to the Rostov port

The databases not only become unusable, they turn into complete trash. The island is simply dotted with abandoned base houses.

Few survive here. And then only the bases of rich organizations.

In general, there is nothing surprising in this. People are already accustomed to comfortable hotels, and few people are attracted to spending several days in a crumbling house with rotten floors and outdoor amenities that are scary to enter.

Many organizations probably simply went bankrupt and abandoned their bases completely... A very sad sight. But many Rostovites spent their childhood holidays on Green.

Now it is covered with ruins, fallen trees and debris...

And when you know how other cities (especially European ones) deal with similar islands, what kind of candy they turn them into, and even make money from it, you can’t help but think: maybe there’s something wrong with us?

The fishermen will leave, but the garbage will remain...

Of course, Green Island is a little difficult to explore - there are many wetlands in which almost all year round the water is standing. But if they build entire cities in swamps, then wouldn’t they be able to cope with a small island if they wanted to?

Some attempts are being made to make it attractive to people. For example, a water park was built near the beach. And in the depths of the island there are a couple of restaurants. But this is still not enough.

No wonder people are afraid to walk around the island alone. Its abandonment even gave rise to legends that all kinds of evil spirits live on it: goblins, mermaids and completely unknown creatures.

But there are other creatures to be wary of here—dogs. There are quite a lot of them here. They are unlikely to be homeless. There are even purebred ones - I saw huge Asian shepherds lazily basking in the sun.

Asian man resting (filmed while driving from the car)

But even more mongrels. When they are full and happy, they do not pose any danger, but it is still better to stay away from them. Not a single one even barked at us - everyone lay there lazily.

Crooked trees and will-o'-the-wisps

A lot has been written about Green Island as an anomalous zone. I won’t retell all this; anyone who wants can find it and read it on the Internet. I will only say that there are really a lot of crooked trees (they are most often noted as a sign of anomaly). However, as in any wetland.

It's crooked like that...

What’s even more surprising is that there are a lot of burnt trees – it seems like there are fires here from time to time.

Well, of course, when charred trees stand in swamps, there is nothing strange anymore that at night some mysterious lights are seen on the island.

An expedition of the All-Russian scientific research public association "Cosmopoisk" led by Vadim Chernobrov also came to Green Island - this is a group of researchers studying anomalous phenomena, mysterious places and not only. They carefully examined the island with various instruments and indeed found some unusual phenomena on it: they heard strange sounds of unknown origin, and some expedition members even became victims of a “prodigal place” - an anomaly in which a loss of spatial orientation occurs.

The head of Kosmopoisk Vadim Chernobrov during a visit to the Don

Yes, just in case, I’ll say that there is a strict dry law on Kosmopoisk expeditions.))

Members of Kosmopoisk in Rostov-on-Don (Your author is also in the picture, did you recognize it? 😉)

One of the members of the regional branch of Cosmopoisk, Alexey Baskakov (pictured on the left), explains the strangeness of Green Island by the fact that it is not just an island, but a geopathogenic zone, since it is located in a tectonic fault.

On Green Island, even tree stumps suddenly turn into dogs))

They say that on the island they see will-o'-the-wisps at night - some even resemble the outlines of people.

And even the birds here fly not just in a school, but in the shape of a shark :)

Alexey also says that he saw a bald eagle on the island - a bird from North America, which doesn’t seem to be found in our area. How the eagle ended up on the island is another mystery.

Mysterious dungeons and other mysteries of the Green Island

There are also many rumors about the mysterious dungeons of the Green Island. But no matter how many times I ask my digger friends, they all say that there are no special dungeons there. So, ordinary communications - technical, water supply, no mystery - and especially giant tunnels leading to Rostov or the left bank of the Don. In general, if you think sensibly, then what kind of dungeons can you walk through on an eternally flooded island, where there is water in all the lowlands until the end of summer?

Of course, there are technical dungeons, and I have seen them, but such dungeons exist everywhere where people live. I think there is nothing interesting there and cannot be. Although…

This is what they are, the dungeons of the Green Island... :)

Walking around the island we saw a strange and mysterious phenomenon. In a small hollow there was a tiny lake with a real small whirlpool. The water in it was seething and bouncing, and deep gullies were clearly visible through the thickness of the water.

Not a quiet whirlpool...

As a somewhat romantically inclined person, I was immediately delighted - here it is, another mystery of the Green Island. But my husband was with me; he did not graduate from the journalism department and was not used to looking for riddles and sensations everywhere.)) He graduated from the physics department of our own Russian State University (now Southern Federal University) and is inclined to explain any riddles by natural causes.

At first we assumed that this was some kind of underground spring, in which water for some reason came out in spurts. Then - that maybe this lake has an underground connection with the Don and when a wave comes (and there was a strong wind that day) - the water rises and splashes out.

But why does it spin in circles, like in a bathtub?

whirlpool

We began to wander around and on the nearest hill we found two water supply hatches. Here is the solution. Probably a water pipe broke there and a clean drinking water, for which Rostov residents regularly pay money, just flows into the ground...

Sensations - alas, it didn’t work out... But the spectacle of the seething whirlpool is breathtaking. Someday, maybe I'll post a video of it.

By the way, if you watched the film about Green Island from the “Seekers” series by Andrei I, then you probably noticed the building in which the cameraman of the film crew allegedly failed. So it is not located on Green Island at all, but on the Left Bank of the Don. Here it is, do you recognize it?

Old pier on the left bank of the Don

I don’t quite understand why this kind of falsification is needed. After all, there is always a chance that the program will be watched by one of the locals who knows the surrounding area.

Moreover, the island is interesting without any falsifications or hoaxes.

Creature with red eyes

We saw on Green Island (not on the island itself, but in the Nakhichevan Channel) a strange creature with red eyes. I’ve never seen anything like this in our area before, much less in the city.

It was a black-necked grebe. A very unusual bird. Her eyes are red as coals - a bright ruby ​​​​color. And behind the eyes, on the cheeks, tufts of golden feathers puff up.

This bird's outfit is winter period and in the summer it is different. In winter she has no crest. And perhaps I could have seen such birds before, I just didn’t pay attention. Although I would definitely remember such eyes!

The eyes of the black-necked grebe are like two burning coals

Interestingly, black-necked grebes are found in the Rostov region closer to the border with Kalmykia - on Lake Manych-Gudilo, in Rostov Nature Reserve. And here - in the city itself... However, after I saw a kestrel (a bird from the order of falcons) in my own yard, it’s hard to surprise me.

Unfortunately, this toadstool is edible. People hunt these beautiful birds. It's a pity! In my opinion, the bird is very beautiful, no worse than a swan or a mandarin duck.

She ran away... across the water...

Not for the first time, I regretted that I didn’t have a telephoto lens, I couldn’t take a picture of the bird close-up with good quality.

Have you seen such birds?

And on the other side is Rostov... a big and noisy city

We walked around Green Island for two days (without spending the night, we came and left). Still a good place for a walk. Maybe someday we will get to see him well-groomed and beautiful...

P.S. Photos were taken in early April of this year. And now this island is truly Green - and looks like this...

Green Island in June 2013

This is it, our mysterious Green Island... And as you can see, it really has mysteries. And even more so, those who want to find them can find them...

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Related posts:

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Green Island.

Where did the Fayns go when they completed their feats of arms and left the earth? Some say that Fin and all his army fell in a great battle and died as mortals should die. After all, a certain hill in Perthshire is called Seal Fin, which means “Fin’s Grave.” And in Glenarkey, in the county of Inverness, another hill, similar in appearance to a boat, is rumored to be built over the mass grave of all his warriors.
Others say that Fin is not dead, but still lives on a certain green island. This island is somewhere in the far west, at the very edge of the world. It is called Ilen na Hoig, "Island of Eternal Youth." Magic apples grow there and all-healing water flows in life-giving springs. Blessed is the one who is lucky enough to get to that Celtic paradise, to this Land of Light, the Land of Fulfilled Desires. For as soon as a person steps on its shore, youth returns to him. He again becomes the same as he was at twenty years old - his body straightens, gray hair disappears, and wrinkles smooth out.
There is a legend that one person once set foot on this magical shore. He lived on Jura, one of the Inner Hebrides, and his name was Angus MacTregor. He had a small sailing boat and carried cargo from island to island and from the islands on the coast of Scotland.
One day he was standing on the pier in Greenock, and then a man of enormous stature approached him. Engas had never seen such heroes in his life. The man was three heads taller than ordinary people, and his chest was covered with a bright red beard. He patted Engas on the shoulder and said:
- They say you have a boat and transport goods to the islands and the mainland. I need to deliver meat to one island west of Islay. Can you transport me and my cargo there?
They made a deal, and the giant transferred his cargo to Engas’s boat. The boatman only shook his head when he saw the huge carcasses of beef and lamb that filled his boat.
“Perhaps this will be enough to feed an entire army of mountaineers,” he thought.
When everything was ready, Engas raised the sails and sailed in the direction where his employer pointed him. They left the mouth of the River Clyde, passed Arran, rounded Cape Kintyre and entered the Sound of Islay. And then a thick fog fell on the sea. Engas steered blindly, trying to steer west and obey the giant's instructions. For two days they saw neither earth nor sky, and Engas asked himself in bewilderment where they were.
“We must have already passed the furthest of the Outer Hebrides,” he thought.
On the third day, the fog cleared, and Engas realized that his boat was approaching the shore of some island that he had never seen. A gray calm sea washed the island, and to the boatman it seemed like some kind of green paradise, promising rest and peace.


“This is where our journey ends,” said his tall companion.
But Engas understood that they would not reach the shore very soon, and therefore he went to the cabin and lay down to get some sleep. He was awakened by the weak impacts of the boat on the shore. He climbed onto the deck and saw that his boat was rocking on the waves. There is no longer a load on it, and the trace of the giant has gone cold.
When the boatman negotiated with him, he promised to pay for the transportation when they arrived at the place. And now Engas realized that his employer wanted to deceive him, and decided to find him at any cost.
He got out of the boat and waded towards the grassy bank. And as soon as he stepped onto the island, it was as if some burden had been lifted from him. All traces of old age left his body, and it seemed to him as if he had become a twenty-year-old youth again. He was amazed at how easy it was for him to walk; I felt my forehead and felt that the wrinkles were gone.
“Apparently, I ended up on Ilen na Hoig - the “Island of Eternal Youth,” he guessed.
And he also guessed that the giant sitting in his boat was one of the Feins.
“There are no such strong men these days,” thought Engas. “And, therefore, the Island of Eternal Youth is the same as the Island of Heroes,”
Nevertheless, Engas was determined to receive payment from the fein for transportation. And so he went to wander around the island. Soon he came to a house built of huge stones. Its front door was twenty feet high and twenty feet wide.
Engas entered the house and found himself in a vast hall. Here, in a heavy chair, sat a huge old man with a beard down to his knees. On his face lay the gloomy stamp of a thousand battles in which he had once fought, and in his eyes lived eternal sorrow for those who fell in battle, fighting next to him. It was Fin McCool himself. He turned and noticed Engas.
- What do you want here? he asked and raised his huge hand. - However, drink first, then tell me later.
And he handed Engas a huge goblet full of golden honey. The cup was so heavy that it was only with great difficulty that Engas lifted it with both hands and brought it to his lips. And when he had drained it, he sat down and told Fin about everything that had happened to him.
Then Fin asked:
- Tell me, resident of the island of Jura, if that tall man who didn’t pay you comes here now, will you be able to recognize him?
“I can,” answered Engas.
Fin shouted the cry in a thunderous voice, and his heroes began to enter the hall. Their arms and legs were like tree trunks, and when they walked, the floor shook beneath them. Among them, Engas saw the man whom he had brought here from Greenock. It was easy to recognize him by his bright red beard.
- This is the man! - Engas said to Fin.
Fin ordered the giant to pay Engas in full, and he paid, although very reluctantly. Then Fin let Engas go, but when he left the house, the giant caught up with him, grabbed him by the shoulder and tore out his right eye. “If I had done this earlier, you wouldn’t have recognized me!” he said.
Suffering from acute pain and bleeding from his eye socket, Engas somehow made it to the shore. The giant walked behind him. When they reached the place where Engas had anchored his boat, the giant ordered him to shake off the dust of the island from his feet - every last speck of dust.
Then Engas got into his boat, raised the sails and sailed home. He saw the Green Island gradually disappear into the fog that rose above the water. And when the island was completely out of sight, the burden of the past years fell again on Engas’s shoulders.
So, the trip to the Island of Eternal Youth brought him only the loss of his right eye.

If you dream of going to the moon, you can start by climbing cones extinct volcanoes Easter Islands. Not only will you be infinitely far from the hectic life of our own world, but the landscape can also be considered lunar. A small friendly Moon between the sky and the sea, treeless craters covered with grass and ferns sleepily yawn in space, green with age, having long ago lost their fiery tongue and teeth. Several such peaceful volcanoes, green outside and inside, are grouped on the island. The time of eruptions passed so long ago that at the bottom of the two widest craters sky-blue lakes with bright green flexible reeds were formed, in which clouds driven by the trade wind were reflected.

In one of these craters, called Rano Raraku, the lunar inhabitants clearly developed particularly vigorous activity. They are not visible, but when you wander serenely through the grass, inspecting the things they have abandoned, it seems that they are simply hiding in black holes in the ground. Having interrupted the work, they hastily fled, so Rano Raraku turned out to be one of the greatest and most amazing monuments of creation - it is a monument to the unknown and lost past and a warning about the frailty of all things. The mountain is completely cut in places, people once crashed into the volcano with such greed, as if it were a bun, but a steel ax only strikes sparks when you test the hardness of the rock with it. Tens of thousands of cubic meters of stone are separated from mountain range and moved far away from the crater. And in the gaping wounds in the body of the mountain lie more than one and a half hundred stone giants, from barely begun to just completed. At the foot of the volcano, the finished idols are lined up in rows like an entire army of supernatural creatures, and you feel so tiny when you approach this mountain, even on horseback or in a jeep along the ancient road that the disappeared sculptors paved to their gigantic workshop.

You dismount near a rock and suddenly see in its lower part an image of a human face - this is not a rock, but the head of a fallen giant. The entire expedition can take shelter under it from the rain. You approach the nearby figures, buried chest-deep in the ground, and you feel terrified because you don’t even reach the giant’s chin. And if you try to climb onto a hero lying flat, you will feel like a real midget, because climbing on his stomach is a whole problem. But then you can freely walk over the body and face of the defeated Goliath and lie on his nose the length of a good bed. Many of the idols reach ten meters, and the largest, not yet finished, which lies obliquely on the slope, measures twenty-two meters. Counting three meters per floor, this stone man would be as tall as a seven-story building. Needless to say - a hero, a real mountain troll!



In the Rano Raraku crater, the mystery of Easter Island can be said to be felt in everything; here the very air is filled with mystery. One hundred and fifty eyeless faces silently survey you. Mystery looks at you with the empty eye sockets of standing idols, looks from every cornice, from every cave where unborn and deceased giants lie, as if in a cradle or on a deathbed, lifeless and helpless, because creative thought and creative power have abandoned them. This is how it was here when the sculptors left work, and this is how it will always be. Prim, proud, the oldest idols that were completed are standing with pursed lips, and with all their appearance they say that no chisel, not even atomic energy, will force them to open their mouths.

But although the mouths of the giants are sealed with seven seals, much can be guessed when you walk along the slopes of the mountain among the darkness of unfinished statues. Wherever we climbed, wherever we stopped, huge faces surrounded us, as if in a funhouse. We saw them full face, in profile, from all sorts of angles. They were all strikingly similar. They all have the same stoic expression and unusually long ears. We climbed over noses and chins, stepped on mouths and huge fists, and on the shelves along the slope above us lay more and more giants. Having learned to distinguish the artificial from the natural, we became convinced that the entire mountain from the very foot to the crater ridge almost entirely consists of stone bodies and heads. And on the ridge at an altitude of one and a half hundred meters above the plain, from time immemorial, half-finished heroes lay, looking at the sky and the kites soaring in it. But even here there was no end to the hordes of idols; they descended in a continuous line down the crater wall into the belly of the volcano. All the way to the lush thickets of green reeds along the perimeter of the crater lake stretched a cavalcade of prim, silent stone people, standing and lying, completed and unfinished, like a tribe of robots petrified with thirst in a vain search for living water.



The grandiose work that once took place in the Rano Raraku crater amazed and shocked everyone. Only little Annette reacted calmly to this picture.

“So many dolls,” she said joyfully when I took her off the horse and lowered her to the ground at the foot of the volcano.

However, when we got closer, the scale turned out to be too large. Annette hid behind the necks of the idols, not knowing that a stone head was rising above her. When the mother helped the little girl climb onto a high ledge, she had no idea that she had moved from the upper lip to the nose of the lying giant.

And when we started excavating, we were even more surprised. How huge the stone heads at the foot of the volcano seemed, and we, burrowing into the ground, first dug up the chest, then the stomach, arms, finally the thighs and long thin fingers with huge crooked nails connecting below the stomach. In the ground in front of the idol we came across human bones and traces of fires. The famous heads looked very different with the body and arms than in encyclopedias and gazetteers, where they appear severed. But no matter how much this spectacle captivated us, it did not answer any of the mysteries of Easter Island. We worked hard to throw the rope over the tallest heads, and only the most dexterous of us dared to climb up the rope. The hardest part is the last piece - from the eyebrow and above. Here the rope fit tightly to the hero’s forehead, and it was impossible to cling to it properly.

Yes, it’s not easy, even without a load, to climb a rope onto the top of a standing giant’s head. But it is even more difficult to understand how they could drag up and place a huge “hat” on their head, given that the “hat” was also made of stone and, with a volume of up to six cubic meters, weighed as much as two adult elephants. How to lift two elephants to the height of a four-story building if there is no crane or at least a handy hillock nearby? Let’s say several people climbed to the top of the head - will they drag such a colossus after them, God forbid they themselves can hold on! And all those who can be placed at the foot of the statue will be like helpless midgets, their hands will only reach the belly of the idol, but this heavy load must be lifted above the chest, chin and entire head, to the very top of the head! The Easter people did not know metal; there was practically no forest on the island. Our mechanics just shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment. We felt like schoolchildren who were given an impossible task. It seemed that the invisible lunar inhabitants were rejoicing, sitting in their holes, and teasing us: well, guess how it was done?! How did we get these colossi down a steep slope and carry them over mountains and valleys to where they needed to go?

There was no point in guessing. First of all, you need to take a good look around: maybe the mysterious artists of the past left some traces, even a small hint.

“Look at the root!” - they say, and we decided to first examine the numerous unfinished idols on the shelves in the quarry itself. Everything suggested that work had stopped suddenly: thousands of primitive stone axes lay on the work sites. And since the sculptors worked on many statues at the same time, we could see all the stages. First, they carved out the front part of the rock, then both ears and hands with long fingers that connected below the stomach. And finally they cut into the stone from the sides, forming the back. It originally resembled the bottom of a boat with a sharp keel connecting the statue to the mountain. Having completely carved out the entire front part, it was carefully processed and polished, but the eyes were not made under the steep brow ridges. For the time being, the giant remained blind. Then the sculptors cut down the “keel” under the back, while supporting the hero with stones so that he would not roll off the cliff. Apparently, the sculptors were indifferent to where and how to carve the statue - on a vertical wall or on a horizontal plane, with its head up or down. Unfinished giants lay haphazardly, as if on a battlefield.

Having separated our backs, we began a puzzling descent down the slope to the foot of the volcano. Sometimes multi-ton colossi were lowered down steep cliffs, through shelves on which work on idols was also going on. Quite a few of the idols were broken, but the vast majority were brought down intact, although there were not enough legs, because each statue ended with a flat cut where a person’s legs begin. In short, a long torso with arms.

The sculptors carried thousands of tons of fragments from the workshop to the foot of the volcano, where huge screes and artificial moraines grew. Deep holes were dug in these heaps and warriors were temporarily installed. Only now it was possible to trim the back and neck of the giant, and above the hips the back was decorated with a belt with symbolic images. This narrow belt was the only clothing" of the naked figures, and all of them, except one, depicted men.

However, the mysterious journey of the stone heroes did not end here; after finishing their backs, they went to their altars. Most of the Easter idols left the mountain, and very few remained to wait their turn at the foot of the volcano. The finished heroes dispersed to all ends of the island, up to fifteen kilometers from the workshop in which they were given the appearance of a man.

Father Sebastian was, as it were, the director of this museum under open air. He walked the length and breadth of the lunar kingdom and marked with numbers all the statues that he discovered, more than six hundred in total. They were all carved from the same rock, sculpted in a huge workshop on the steep slope of Rano Raraku. Only here you will see the characteristic gray-yellow color, by which you will then recognize the statue from afar, no matter where it lies among other stone blocks.

The most amazing thing is that the sculptors did not move blocks of stone, which do not care about shocks, but completely finished figures, polished from the earlobe to the hole of the nails. The only thing missing was the eyes. How did they manage to transport finished idols such a distance without damaging anything or scratching the polish? Nobody knew this.

Having delivered the blind idols to their place, they were not lowered with their base into the hole to stand upright; on the contrary, each idol was lifted and placed on an ahu, a stone altar about two meters high. Only now were the eye sockets cut out, only now could the hero see where he ended up. And finally, to top it all off, a “hat” weighing from two to ten tons was put on the giant’s head, which is exactly equal to the weight of two elephants.

However, the word “hat” is incorrect, even though it is customary to say so. The old Easter name for this huge headdress is pukao, that is, “bun of hair,” a hairstyle that many local men wore when Europeans arrived for Easter. Why did ancient sculptors place a special stone representing a pukao on the top of the hero’s head, and not carve the hairstyle at once, along with the entire statue? Yes, because the main thing in this hair bun was the color. The Easterers went to the other end of the island and ten kilometers from the Rano Raraku quarry, in a small overgrown crater, they mined red rock. It was this red color that they needed for their hair. And they dragged gray-yellow statues on one side, and red pukao on the other, to place them on each of the fifty-odd altars built along the coast. On most pedestals there were two idols, often there were four, five, six of them, and on one platform, four meters high, fifteen red-haired heroes were lined up.

But today none of the giants stands on his altar. Already Captain Cook, and in all likelihood even Roggeveen, sailed here too late to find all the statues in their original places, but most of the idols still stood with red pukao on their heads. In the middle of the last century, the last giant was thrown from the altar, and the red “tuft of hair”, like a bloody steam roller, rolled across the paved area. Now you will see only blind, hairless idols standing at the foot of the volcano with their chins defiantly raised upward. They went into the ground so deep that no one could knock them down, and an attempt to cut off one head with an ax ended in failure; the executioner was able to carve only a barely noticeable groove in the giant’s stone neck.

The last idol was toppled from the ahu around 1840, during a clash between cannibals who had settled in a cave nearby. The ten-meter figure was crowned with a pukao with a volume of six cubic meters, and she herself stood on a stone wall almost as tall as a person. We measured the defeated hero and determined his weight - fifty tons. Such a colossus was brought here four kilometers from Rano Raraku. Let's imagine that we overturned a ten-ton railway carriage upside down, because in Polynesia they did not know wheels. Next to the first one we will place the second carriage in the same way. Then we will drive twelve horses and five tall elephants into these carriages. Together it will be fifty tons, and we can pull, but it’s not enough to move the load from its place, we have to drag it over the rocks for four kilometers, so as not to damage anything. Without cars, you say, it’s impossible! This means that the original inhabitants of Easter Island accomplished the impossible. In any case, it is clear that this was not done by a bunch of Polynesians, lovers of wood carving, who, having landed on the island, began to hollow out the mountain because there was no wood to be found. No, the red-haired heroes of the classical type were sculpted by sailors from a country whose people have long been accustomed to working with heavy monoliths.

So, our fifty-ton cargo has been delivered. Now it needs to be lifted onto a stone wall and placed straight, and even crowned with a “bouffant” head at the height of a four-story building. This “bouffant” alone weighs ten tons, and it was delivered from the quarry eleven kilometers away, counting directly. Eleven kilometers is a fair way through such terrain, and ten meters by any measure is an impressive height if you need to lift ten tons - the weight of twenty-four good horses. But people dealt with it. And in 1840, cannibals destroyed everything, shaking the masonry of the pedestal, and in commemoration of this feat, they ate three dozen neighbors in the cave.

Standing on the ridge of the Rano Raraku crater, I admired the wonderful panorama of the island. Behind me, a rather steep slope went into the overgrown belly of the volcano, where the sky-blue crater lake shone like a mirror, bordered by a wide strip of unprecedented green reeds. Perhaps the reeds seemed especially green next to the drought-withered grass on the slopes. Directly in front of me, the wall of the workshop, lined with shelves, sloped down to an area at the foot of the mountain, where our people scurried around like ants, rummaging in the brown earth around the idols. The hobbled horses looked very small in front of the mighty stone heroes. I could clearly see what could be called the center and focus of the riddle, which primarily attracts the attention of those who find themselves on Easter Island. Here it is, the maternity hospital of idols; I stood on a huge embryo, and how many of them lay on the slopes of the crater in front and behind me. On the slopes at the foot, both outside and inside, hairless and sightless newborns lined up, waiting in vain for their turn to set off. From the ridge I could see the roads along which the statues once moved. Several finished idols were already preparing to emerge from the crater when all work was suddenly stopped. One of them managed to reach the ridge, the other even crossed into a hollow on the outer slope. But the transport was interrupted, and they were left lying, not on their backs, but on their stomachs. Along the grassy ancient roads diverging from the crater, cleared of stone, here and there lay one, two, three other statues. They were also blind and hairless, and it was obvious that they had not been toppled from any pedestal, but simply thrown along the way from Rano Raraku to the corresponding altar. Some went quite far from the cones sticking out on the horizon. And over there, in the west, out of sight from here, is the small crater Puna Pau, where they broke stone for pukao. I had already descended into it and at the bottom, under the steep walls, I examined half a dozen cylindrical “combings”, similar to the wheel of a steam roller. The ancient hairdressers had transported a fair number of huge boulders over the steep slope, and now they lay in disarray under the mountain, waiting to be dragged further. Others were abandoned on the way to their owners; we met them here and there in the steppe. I measured the largest pukao recovered from the crater. It was more than eighteen cubic meters in size and weighed thirty tons - the same as seventy-five large horses.

The scope of all this work was so enormous that it did not fit into my head. And I turned to the shepherd, who stood next to me, silently looking at the giants thrown along the roads.

Leonardo,” I said, “you are a business man, tell me how in the old days they dragged these stone heroes?”

“They walked on their own,” Leonardo answered.

If this had not been said so solemnly and seriously, I would have decided that he was joking, because this shepherd in clean trousers and shirt looked like a civilized person like us, and was even superior to many in intelligence.

Wait, Leonardo,” I objected, “how could they walk if they only have a torso and a head, and no legs?”

They walked like this. - Keeping his legs together, without bending his knees, Leonardo moved a little forward along the rock, then condescendingly asked me:

What did you think?

I couldn't find what to answer. And many before me also became confused. It is not surprising that Leonardo relied on the simple explanation of his father and grandfather. The statues walked on their own. Why rack your brains when there is a simple and clear answer.

Returning to the camp, I went to the kitchen, where Mariana was peeling potatoes at that time.

Have you ever heard how in the old days they moved large moai? - I asked.

“Si, senor,” she answered firmly. - They walked on their own. And Mariana began to tell long story about an ancient sorceress who lived near Rano Raraku at a time when stonemasons were carving huge idols. This witch revived with her magic stone giants and forced them to go where they needed to go. But one day the sculptors ate a large lobster, but forgot to treat the witch; she found an empty shell and became so angry that she made all the statues fall face down to the ground, and since then they have lay motionless.

The Routledge Easter Eggers told exactly the same story about the witch and the lobster fifty years ago. And now I was surprised to find that, no matter who you ask, everyone still clings to this version. Until they are offered a more convincing explanation, they will continue to talk about the witch and the lobster until the day of judgment.

In fact, the islanders could not be called naive. Rules are not rules, and they always had some cunning excuse to get out of the village and come to our camp with their crafts. Almost everyone knew the art of wood carving, many were true masters, but the burgomaster worked best of all. Everyone asked for his work, because although the islanders carved the same thing, no one could compare with him in the grace of line and perfection of finish. The expedition members flooded him with orders, just hurry up to do it. In exchange for the figures, the most willingly taken were American cigarettes, Norwegian fishhooks and colorful English fabrics. The Paschals were heavy smokers. Those who visited us on board the first night and exchanged several packs of cigarettes did not smoke them themselves. They galloped into the village and began going from house to house, rousing friends and relatives from their beds so that everyone could get a cigarette. The supply received with the last warship was used up several months ago.

Among the thin wooden crafts, sometimes worse stone figurines came across: sometimes naive small likenesses of large idols, sometimes rough heads, with barely outlined eyes and noses. At first, the owners tried to convince us that these were ancient objects, they say, found in the ground or in altars. But we just laughed, and more often than not they hung up, only a few stubbornly stood their ground.

One day a woman galloped into the camp and called me, saying she had found something strange in the scree. When we got there, she carefully began to dismantle the stones, and I saw a small, freshly made copy of the famous idols.

Leave her,” I told the woman. “It’s completely new, someone planted it on purpose to deceive you!”

The woman was visibly embarrassed, and neither she nor her husband tried to deceive us anymore.

Another time, late in the evening, a out of breath man rushed in with amazing news: while fishing by torchlight, he found a small figurine in the sand on the shore. If we want to get it, he will take us there right away, even though it’s hard to see, otherwise he needs to hurry to the village. The fisherman was clearly puzzled when we drove up in a jeep and illuminated the place of discovery with our headlights. A poorly made figurine lay on the grass, and even the sand in which it had been dumped could not hide the fact that it was completely new. Amidst general laughter, the owner hid his ugly product in a bag and dragged it back to the village. Nothing, it will happen to some sailor when a warship arrives...

Another trick was used by the Easter man, who led me to a grotto with wells and strange bas-reliefs on the vault. The bas-reliefs depicting the bird-men and huge eyes were authentic and I really liked them. While I was looking at them, my guide, with an innocent look, amused himself by dropping clods of earth into the water. Suddenly he screamed, I looked down and saw an earthen lump slowly disintegrating in the water. Like a chicken from an egg, a tiny doll hatched from it. It was so unexpected and funny that I burst out laughing, although the hapless rogue did not deserve such a violent reaction. And this Easter egg also no longer tried to deceive us.

True, in an effort to receive the goods that we brought for exchange, the Easter residents sometimes actually found antiques. One day a young couple came for me - they found four unusual stone heads. Oddly enough, the heads lay very close to the fence, to the east of the governor’s estate. When we arrived there, we were greeted by some old woman and her daughter, a true witch, who seemed ready to claw out our eyes. They were beside themselves with rage and poured out curses as fast as only the Polynesian language allows. When our guides tried to get a word in, they were met with a volley of abuse. The cameraman and I decided to sit down and wait until the eruption ended. Finally, the grandmother cooled down a little.

Senor Kon-Tiki,” she said. - These two are thieves and swindlers. My stones, no one dares to touch them! I am from the Hotu Matua clan, this land has belonged to us since ancient times.

Now it doesn't belong! - the young Easter resident interrupted her. - Now this is the pasture of the navy. And the stones are ours, we were the first to find them!

The old woman flared up again.

Found it first? How can you talk, you brat of thieves! These stones belong to our family, you bandits!

While they were foaming at the mouth, challenging each other's ownership, I finally understood from their gestures where the stones were located. we're talking about. The old woman and her daughter each sat on one of them, I sat on the third, and the young couple stood near the fourth. In appearance they were ordinary boulders. And I remembered the wise Solomon, how he, taking a sword, volunteered to divide the child between two women, each of whom called herself a mother. Here the dispute could be settled with a sledgehammer. The young people would probably be happy to support me, but the old woman would completely go berserk.

Just let us look at your stones, we won’t do anything with them,” I suggested to the grandmother.

She remained silent, but did not bother us, and we turned the boulders over with the bottom side up. Four bizarre faces with sightless round eyes the size of saucers gazed at the sky. Not a bit of resemblance to the classic Easter images; rather, it looks like the terrifying round-headed idols of the Marquesas Islands. The owners of the stones looked at us in complete despair. The young couple were openly triumphant, anticipating a profitable deal. Both sides watched us intently. We rolled the stones into place, turning them face down, thanked them and went home. Our guides stood gaping in surprise. And the old woman, the old woman, as we later became convinced, remembered this incident vividly.

In the meantime, another event occurred that made me seriously rack my brain. When in South Seas When Europeans arrived, neither on Easter Island nor in the rest of Polynesia did they know pottery. This is quite strange because pottery was an important feature of ancient cultures South America, and the peoples of Indonesia and Asia knew him even earlier. On Galapagos Islands we found many shards from South American products: firstly, the archipelago lies quite close to the mainland and was visited more than once by ancient sailors; secondly, the soil layer here is so poor that it could not hide the traces of antiquity. It was completely different on Easter Island. It is unlikely that the ancient inhabitants of South America often came here with their jars, and what little they could break here has long since disappeared under the turf. Nevertheless, I brought one shard with me to find out from the islanders whether they had seen anything similar. After all, such a shard can tell an archeological detective more than any other book.

And then the first surprise: several old men whom we interviewed separately called the shard maengo, this word was not in Father Sebastian’s dictionary. One of them heard from his grandfather that maengo is a thing that was used on the island in the old days. According to the old people, many years ago one Easter tried to make a maengo out of clay, but it didn’t work out. Eroria and Mariana remembered that they seemed to have come across such shards in some cave, and they spent two days searching for this cave, but in vain. The governor's wife also found shards while digging in her garden. And finally, one Easter man told us in confidence that he had such a shard at home.

Several days passed before this Easter boy - his name was Andres Haoa - was able to bring his shard. We were surprised to see that the vessel was sculpted with fingers in the Indian style, and not made on a potter's wheel, as the Europeans did. I promised Andres a generous reward if he showed where he found the shard, so that we could find more shards there and thereby confirm the authenticity of the find. Haoa led us to a large ahu with fallen statues. The mighty stone wall was strongly reminiscent of classic Inca structures in the Andes. Pointing to the masonry at the top of the platform, Andres said that many years ago he found three shards here between the stones. Easter workers helped us carefully remove several slabs. Our eyes saw an unusual burial for Easter: two intact skeletons lay at attention side by side. Next to them was a passage into two chambers, each covered with its own very carefully hewn slab. Old skulls were scattered randomly in both chambers. But there were no pottery shards, and Andres received only part of the promised reward.

The next day, Karl went there with workers and archaeological equipment, because Ahu Tepeu clearly deserved to be carefully studied. Suddenly, one worker, an old man, bent down and began collecting shards, so tiny that we were amazed how he noticed them, and no one else had come across anything like that. At this time, Arne and Gonzalo galloped from the village. One local woman told them that Andres Haoa gave the old man the shards to help him get the full reward. Having attached the fragments to the shard that Haoa had given me the day before, we immediately became convinced that one of them exactly fit the fracture. Andres was furious when he learned that he had been exposed, and flatly refused to say where he actually found his shard. To spite us, he went to Father Sebastian and stunned the old man by placing three whole clay jugs on the table in front of him.

“Look,” Haoa said indignantly, “I won’t show them to Senor Kon-Tiki, because he says I’m lying.” But I’m not lying!

Father Sebastian, who had never seen such jugs at Easter, asked Andres where he got them from.

“My father once found them in a cave and said that they were convenient for holding water,” Haoa answered.

Lies again! Haoa did not keep water in jugs, did not store them at home at all, we learned about this from neighbors who often visited his modest house and knew every corner there.

Immediately after Father Sebastian saw mysterious jugs, they disappeared without a trace. It became one more mystery. The vessels haven't returned to Haoa's hut, so where did they come from, and what's going on anyway?

And then a new problem was added. I decided, on the advice of the old policeman Casimiro, to go to legendary island bird-men, look for the secret storage of Rongo-Rongo, which his father knew about. The Easter people talked so passionately about the tablets with Rongorongo inscriptions, supposedly kept to this day in “sealed” caves, that any visitor eventually became infected with curiosity.

They offered us one hundred thousand pesos for one plank, the islanders said, which means their real price is no less than a million.

Deep down I knew they were right. But I also knew that if any of them found the rongo-rongo vault, he would hardly dare to enter it. After all, the tablets were a shrine for their ancestors, and the old sages, who hid their sacred rongo-rongo in the dungeon when Father Eugenio introduced Christianity to the island, read spells and placed taboos on the tablets with writing. The Easter people firmly believed that anyone who touched them would die.

There are no more than two dozen such tablets in museums around the world, and so far not a single scientist has been able to decipher the inscriptions. The intricate writing of Easter Island is unlike that of other nations. On the boards they are skillfully carved in a row and form a kind of serpentine, with every second row standing upside down. Almost all rongo-rongo stored in museums were obtained on the island a long time ago, directly from the hands of the owners. But the last tablet, Father Sebastian told us, was found in a forbidden cave. The Easter man who discovered it succumbed to the persuasion of one Englishman and led him almost to the very hiding place. Then he asked the Englishman to wait and laid out a semicircle of stones, which he did not order to step over. And he went further and after a while returned with rongo-rongo. The Englishman bought the tablet, but the Easterman soon lost his mind and died. Since then, Father Sebastian concluded, the islanders are more afraid than ever to enter the Rongorongo vaults.

Be that as it may, old Casimiro called it quits when I finally accepted his invitation to visit the cave. Citing ill health, he offered another guide in his place, old man Pacomio, with whom many years ago he stood and waited while Father Casimiro walked alone to the hiding place. Pacomio was the son of the fortune teller Angata, the same Angata who sowed confusion by playing on the superstitions of the Easter people when the Routledge expedition arrived on the island half a century ago. I turned to Father Sebastian, and he managed to persuade Pacomio. Having put the old man in our motor boat, we approached Motunui, a rocky island of bird-men. Behind us, the highest of the coastal cliffs of Easter rose up. On the ridge were the ruins of the Orongo sanctuary. There Ed and his crew were busy excavating and mapping. We could hardly distinguish the moving white dots, and to them our boat seemed like a grain of rice on a blue field. Even in the last century, the most distinguished Easter residents sat for weeks in stone boxes half dug into the ground above the cliff, waiting for the first flock of sea swallows of the year to land on the rocky island below. Every year there was a competition to see who could travel two kilometers to the island on a reed float and find the first egg. The winner was elevated to the rank of deity and received the title of bird-man. He was shaved bald, his head was painted red and then solemnly escorted to the sacred monastery among the statues at the foot of Rano Raraku, where he spent a year locked up without touching anyone. Special servants brought him food. The rocks behind the ruins where Ed was now working were completely covered with bas-reliefs depicting crouched human figures with a long crooked beak.

Having set foot on the legendary bird island, we did not even see a feather - the birds had long since moved to another steep island at a distance. As we walked past it, hordes of birds circled in the air, reminiscent of a cloud of smoke above a volcano.

But on Motunui we immediately saw many half-overgrown caves. In two of them, bones and moldy skulls lay along the wall, and in one place on the vault, like a hunting trophy, a demonic head painted red with a sharp beard stuck out. Routledge also visited two of the caves here; Pacomio remembered her well. Now he was waiting impatiently for us to come out so he could lead us to another hiding place. In the middle of the slope the old man suddenly stopped.

“We fried chicken here,” he whispered, pointing to his feet.

What kind of chicken?

Father Casimiro said that he should roast a chicken in the ground for good luck before entering the cave.

Not a very clear explanation, and Pacomio only added that this was the custom. They say that only an old man could stand so that he could smell the smell of fried chicken, and the children were ordered to wait on the other side of the fireplace. They didn't even get a glimpse of the cave, but they knew that something incredibly valuable was kept there. Just standing next door while the old man was checking the treasure in the hiding place was a big event for the kids.

Of course, we didn't find the cave. After a long search among the stones and ferns, Pacomio said that the old man, perhaps, deliberately went in this direction to confuse the boys, but in fact he should look in the opposite direction. We went in the other direction, and again to no avail. Soon interest in the search began to wane. The sun burned mercilessly, one after another we gave up and dived into a deep crevice filled to the brim with crystal clean water, which the ocean pumped through a crack in the rock. We collected purple ones sea ​​urchins(Pacomio ate them raw) and swam towards unprecedented fish of all colors of the rainbow, and they, with their mouths open, looked at what kind of new inhabitants appeared in the stone aquarium of Motunui. The sparkling rays of the sun created a fireworks of colors in the crevice, and the water was so clean and transparent that we felt like bird-men soaring among a swarm of golden autumn leaves. Fabulous beauty, a kind of underwater paradise... How we didn’t want to go out onto the rocks, knowing that all this beauty would again for a long time, if not forever, become the property of only eyeless sea urchins and color-blind fish.

True, on land, especially at Easter itself, there was also something to see. Shovels and picks revealed objects that even local residents had not seen for hundreds of years. The village began to whisper; the Easter residents perceived what was happening not without superstition. How can a stranger know that something lies under the turf? It is only with the help of mana - a supernatural gift - that he penetrates into the island's past! They haven’t talked about it out loud yet, but some of the islanders asked me: maybe I’m not a foreigner at all, but a Kanaka? They say that skin and hair color do not matter; among their ancestors there were also light-skinned blonds. And the fact that I know only a few words from the Paschal dialect of the Polynesian language can be explained very simply: I lived for so long in Tahiti, Noruega and other distant countries