The majestic sequoia tree captivates everyone with its pomp. Green Island - anomalous zone of Rostov-on-Don Island of Green Giants

If you dream of flying to the moon, you can start by climbing the cones of the extinct volcanoes of Easter Island. 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 rock have been separated from the 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 person.

Father Sebastian was, as it were, the director of this open-air museum. 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 a long story about an ancient sorceress who lived near Rano Raraku at the time when stonemasons were carving huge idols. This sorceress, with her magic, revived the stone giants and made them 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 and challenging each other's ownership, I finally understood from their gestures where the stones in question were located. 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 Europeans came to the South Seas, neither Easter Island nor the rest of Polynesia knew pottery. This is quite strange because pottery was an important feature of the ancient cultures of South America, and the peoples of Indonesia and Asia knew it even earlier. On the 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 the 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 the legendary island of the bird-men, to look for the secret storage room of Rongorongo, 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, the rocky island of the 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 was mercilessly hot, one by one we gave up and dived into a deep crevice filled to the brim with crystal clear water, which the ocean pumped through a crack in the rock. We collected purple sea urchins (Pacomio ate them raw) and swam towards unprecedented fish of all colors of the rainbow, and they, mouth agape, looked at what kind of new inhabitants appeared in the Motunui stone aquarium. 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

There is such a Green Island near Rostov, it is washed on both sides by the Don River. There are many legends and superstitions associated with this island. Some believe that there is a drifting anomaly on its territory. A kind of portal leading to an unknown destination. Allegedly, people who fall into it will not be able to return and may get lost both in space and in time. This anomaly is not easy to detect, and this is explained by the fact that it can appear anywhere on the island.

Rumors that “not everything is clean” on Green Island spread in Rostov long before the current craze for “flying saucers” and aliens from the other world. Somewhere in the mid-20s, according to the recollections of old-timers, townspeople passed on from mouth to mouth scary stories about ghosts, drowned people and the living dead, supposedly “entrenched” on the island.

Then the excitement subsided. And the time has come such that you wouldn’t get a pat on the head for being infatuated with mysticism. Only just before the war did people in the city begin to talk quietly about some mysterious omens that had happened, again, in the area of ​​the Green Island. People who spoke about this then, according to rumors, the NKVD urgently took care of it.

Then for many years they remained silent about Green Island. And only somewhere in the mid-70s did he begin to come up in conversations again. Here is a brief account of an eyewitness, recorded from memory, directly related to the island:

“... I sailed to the Green Island in the evening, at sunset. Leaving the boat on the shore, not far from the sand spit, I went into the bushes for dry wood to make a fire. I went very far from the Don and moved straight all the time - in the direction opposite to where I was standing.

Imagine my surprise when the branches ahead suddenly parted, and I went ashore straight to my boat. I couldn’t get lost, the forest here has just the same name! And yet the impression was as if, having wandered through the dense thicket, I made a circle and returned to where I started.

This puzzled me. I went back into the thickets, though in a different place, but again I ended up on the shore. And so - five times. The most amazing thing is that the small compass embedded in the strap of my watch always showed the right direction. I made the last two attempts, specifically checking with him...”

There is also a mention of UFOs. One of the Rostov amateur ufologists, citing an eyewitness, told an incredible story about a “flying saucer” accident that allegedly happened on the island on the eve of the war. The scene of the accident, according to a witness, was immediately cordoned off by NKVD officers, since the UFO was mistaken for a secret fascist plane. While his research was underway, war broke out. For some reason (the debris may have gone deep into the ground, some of it was scattered over a large area) the object was not evacuated in time. And it was he, as well as a group of scientists and a secret laboratory built right there (the ruins of which can still be seen on the island), who were defended by the NKVD regiment, which fought to the death.

After the war, the removed remains of the “plate” may have continued to be studied in one of Beria’s “sharashkas”. But not everything was taken out. The science of that time, very far from the problems of UFOs, and, to be honest, did not take into account the possibility of space expansion, turned a blind eye to the side effects caused by the parts of the “plate” remaining in the ground.

But these are still flowers. The most interesting thing is that this island is considered a haven of dark forces, which modern magicians use for their own purposes. The green island, with its dense vegetation, sparsely populated areas and sufficient distance from housing, has long become a familiar place for witchcraft and magical rituals. It is not known how much of this is true witchcraft and how much is a game of it, but even the weakest degree of “advancement” in this area of ​​​​magic is, believe me, a very bad thing.

The choice of Green Island as a witchcraft “testing ground” is explained not only by its seclusion. There is a legend that once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, on the site where the island is now located, there was a pagan temple where steppe peoples performed giant hecatombs with human sacrifices. According to another version, a fierce battle between nomads took place here, as a result of which some ancient tribes were enslaved and displaced by others.

Be that as it may, the evil generated by thousands of violent deaths occupied the entire nearby territory for a long time, causing sacred awe among the ancient peoples. Over time, phantoms have lost their harmful essence, and only that part of them, which, thanks to the change in the riverbed of the Don, has isolated itself on the Green Island (flowing water, as is known, is the best barrier to the so-called “evil spirits”), is still capable of hostile manifestations.

Thus, in the neighborhood of Rostov, a natural reservoir of “black” energy spontaneously formed, capable of “recharging” modern sorcerers and witches. And here an interesting question arises. At first glance, the location of churches in Rostov does not obey logical understanding. Why exactly this way and not otherwise? And what was the goal of their builders? But everything appears in a different light if you look at the map. It seems that they are, as it were, protecting the city from the negative influence of the island (taking into account the fact that some churches have not survived to this day). Is this a coincidence or did our ancestors, guided by intuition, create a powerful system to counter the harmful influence of the “devil’s island”?

There were two more like-minded people who agreed to this expedition. Then I did not yet know that one of them practices magic and considers himself a shaman. As the years passed, it seems to me that he did not fully understand the dangers of his manipulations, which, even with a stretch, can hardly be called professional. Most likely, this was perceived at the level of pampering and play. And this is very dangerous when practicing magic (I would like to note that I myself am involved in parapsychology, and I have supersensible perception. Therefore, in the future I will describe subjective sensations). But then no one thought about it, especially me. All my thoughts were focused on time.

Having met at a pre-agreed time, we got to know each other (“I didn’t know the shaman, he was a friend of the second participant”). And then it turned out that he was a shaman and they had their own program. They heard about great human casualties on this island and, as a result, about a huge number of entities or ghosts, as you like. This is what they wanted to do. I didn't mind. But if I had known what I would have to face, I most likely would have refused.

We reached the island somewhere around 6 pm. It was late summer, at that time it was still very light. We first drove to the southern part of the island as far as we could. Then they were afraid that the car would get stuck and stopped. It may not matter, but all three of us felt like we saw the same person twice on the way here. The first time was almost at the entrance to the island, and the second time was almost at the same place where we stopped (well, there was no way he could have overtaken us, especially since we didn’t stop). The trees stood like a wall around us, and there was some kind of oppressive feeling in our chests, anxiety. Therefore, we did not dare to tempt fate and went back to where it was more crowded and there was no such discomfort as here.

Our second stop turned out to be more successful. We got out of the car and went into the depths of the forest. What immediately caught my eye was the fact that many trees had broken branches that were burned on the broken side (whole trees were also found in the same condition, but less often). Perhaps these are the consequences of being hit by lightning. It has been noticed that lightning is literally “attached” to places that have the status of anomalous.

Having made our way through dense vegetation, we found ourselves in more or less free space. We took a few pictures, and then they asked me a question: what do I feel? I had to describe my feelings. I had to look inside myself and answer this question. It seemed like nothing serious, but although there was no one nearby within a radius of one hundred meters, the presence of something was clearly felt (although the area was more crowded, but this does not mean that it was “teeming” with people. During the entire time we met four people) . Nothing else.

Then came instruction and an introductory course into magic. It was interesting, and I agreed to participate in their “program”. What happened next might seem like a game of madmen to an outside observer. The second participant and I were assigned the role of “indicators” of paranormal activity. The “shaman” took up his task. Acting according to his own method, he tried to provoke invisible entities into contact and their exposure. I will not describe his methods in detail, so that there are no brave souls ready to repeat it. I will only say that it was dancing, a piercing look into the void and strange words sent either to spirits or demons. But it was then that a feeling of anxiety came over me, or rather, the first signs of it. In general, I believe that this technique is not only dangerous, but also stupid. You never know how an entity will behave if you put it into a state of rage or anger. And this is exactly what the “shaman” was counting on.

It is known that with the so-called “lateral vision” a person (not only a trained one) can see hidden things (ghosts, for example). So, at first, occasionally, and then more often, “shadows” began to appear, which could be “seen” with peripheral vision. As soon as you turned your gaze in that direction, everything disappeared. Some of them stood motionless, others “rushed” like meteors. Only their rapid movement and no forms were visible. This is where anxiety began to give way to fear.

Some time after such manipulations by the “shaman”, I began to clearly “see” with my inner vision strange eyes and only them, nothing else. Yellow-orange, almond-shaped, terrifying eyes, glowing against a black background. They completely filled my consciousness, I practically saw nothing except them. However, I did not see them constantly, but as flashes of “visions” with a frequency of about one vision per 10 minutes.

Naturally, I talked about them. I think if the "shaman" was experienced, he would stop or at least say who or what they belong to. But in response I heard that this is normal. Here I felt his amateurism and hope for “maybe”: if only he could provoke something to manifest itself, and no one thought about the consequences. I want to say that I feel a real danger and at the level of instinct I can counteract it. I cannot accurately describe this process, since it happens without consciousness. In short, this is complete abstraction from the reality of what is happening and immersion in a protective cocoon... This is what happened this time. I was a passive observer and took no part in it. In this state, time flies very quickly, and I practically don’t remember what happened next. Only fragments of memories. I remember that we met people, went to the eastern side of the island...

I finally came to my senses when we left the island. It was already getting dark, the sun was setting behind the horizon. Driving through the crossing, I clearly “saw” with my inner vision that something black and evil was following us. It felt like the entire underworld was following us. It was as if a black impenetrable darkness was covering the sky behind us, and even the last rays of the setting sun could not break through it. We drove away from this unknown, even my “like-minded people” noted that they had quite provoked this something. And they also described the effect of presence. I wanted to look back at the island, but none of us dared. Perhaps this is correct, you never know what could happen.

This feeling that someone or something was following us lasted for a very long time. It wasn't until we were in the city center that the influence of the island's negativity began to wane. Even when we parted and I headed home, the strange feeling did not leave me. Despite the crowded streets of Rostov, there was a feeling of fear, insecurity and someone's presence. But just as everything in this world has its ending, so this feeling of “presence” gradually faded away...

Finally, I would like to add that you should not delve into the unknown so thoughtlessly, since it almost never ends well. After such an “experiment,” the author of these lines’ health deteriorated and his life went through a dark streak. And only recently things started to get better. So don't do anything stupid, learn from other people's mistakes!

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.