Spring of the Known Legend
I was sitting on a glade in the sacred grove watching that spring - cryptographic legends were becoming real. Apocryphal works of the Serbs, Bulgarians, Croatians and other descendants of the Kipchaks are in a surprising accordance with legends of their Asian brothers forgotten by them.
However, it couldn't be otherwise. Church censorship didn't reach the eastern territories of the Great Steppe. Moslem Turkey, Iran, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Azerbaijan saved the message of Saint Khyzyr-Ilias - about George. And the truth cannot be different - it is one for everybody.
"Be happy for the Church of the faithful is enlightened by you and glorified between the infidels (bold provided. - M.A.)", - the Serbs and the Ukrainians, the Cossacks and the Croatians, the Russians and the Bulgarians say in a prayer to George keeping the memory of how that saint has united East and West… It remains to repeat again and again: human memory is eternal; it keeps even what has been forgotten by people!
It seems historians neglected a very important fact… They didn't mention that the crosses were not the only symbols on the flags of the Kipchaks: a wolf's head, a swan, a deer were also there. And a serpent - Azhdarkha - was considered to be the common totemic sign.
The image of a serpent or a dragon has always had a very deep sense in the East. For example in Chinese mythology a dragon (lun) is the embodiment of the light heavenly male strength; it is a kind creature whose appearance is deemed to be a good sign. For the Kipchaks it was the same - the guardian, the protector of the hearth. For the Russians it is the opposite; a firedrake is the devil incarnate in Russian folk stories.
The Hindu have worshipped the divine snakes (the "nags") since ancient times; they are the masters of the underground world being able to revive the deceased. In the myths of the Mongolian nations a lou (a dragon) is the master of water and the thunderer. They consider him to be a heaven god - Tengri (Lou-Tengri). The image of Lou can be also met in Tibetan mythology; his cult even had an impact on Buddhist ceremonies.
And for the Iranians Aji-Dakhaka (the dragon) is absolutely different. For them he is a foreign tsar who has usurped the power over Iran. Its character is interpreted otherwise: from a true Zoroastrianism follower to a competitor of Atar, the god of fire. It is interesting that here worship of Aji-Dakhaka remained for a long time. Local leaders traced their family trees back to him, they told family legends about the service of their ancestors at court of Aji-Dakhaka.
Ajdarkha, the dragon of the Turkic mythology, is surprisingly similar with Iranian Aji-Dakhaka. According to a legend, a serpent which lived a hundred years turned into it.
In the ancient Turkic legend Ajdarkha threatens the town with destruction. In order to save the town its inhabitants put young girls at his mercy. A hero defeats Ajdakhra saving the victim (tsar's daughter) whom he marries. In myths of the Azerbaijanians, the Caucasian Tatars and the Bashkirs Ajdarkha is also connected with water (a spring) or rain clouds… Doesn't that ancient Turkic legend remind of another one which is very famous in Europe - the one about Saint George? (44).
… And now let us read the legend called "St. George and the Dragon" once again and take a different look at its symbols. The serpent appeared from the morasses. It was really like that: the way of the steppe inhabitants to Dzhargan's motherland lay through the Kurinsk Plain which was often a morass, especially after a flood. Hence is insistent mentioning of the morass in the legend.
Concerning the fight, it is evident it was a theological, i.e. a mental fight. That's why the warrior put his spear and shield away… For a word is stronger than a sword. Wise Ajdarkha knew that; and then it was understood by Dzhargan.
And whom did the young girl, for whose life George was fighting, symbolize? Only Armenia which was the first to unite with a strong neighbor with assistance of George and accept Christianity. That's why the girl led the serpent on a belt to her town and a cross rose above the Caucasian churches which had no altars. It is difficult to call that in question - there are archeological witnesses… Unfortunately in a little while the serpent was killed in the town, which, alas, also corresponds with reality; the union with the Kipchaks wasn't long because of the Armenians.
The town where according to the legend Saint George met the serpent remained; it is half-way from Armenia to Derbent. That is Gandzha, it was called Elizabethople for a long time in honor of Elisabeth whom George had saved. Gandzha was known in the Great Steppe as a godly place (* It is wrong to think that Gandzha, the town in Azerbaijan, was called Elizabethpole in XIX century in honor of the Russian Empress Elizabeth. The place-name "Elizabethpole" is more ancient; it has the Turkic origin and it was met in the early Middle Ages. Its appearance is connected with the Great Nations Migration; it marked the place where an important event connected with the culture of Monotheism took place.
Here, on the Kura bank (at that time the river was called Kyr), the pagan West accepted the spiritual traditions of the Turki - Tengri, and gave birth to Monophysite Christianity. The place-name was formed of two Turkic words: "yel" - "road" and "sav" - "words". In other words, from that spiritual treasury ("gandzh" in Turkic) there lay "a road of a word" and the image of Heavenly God joined spiritual culture of the West having passed it over.
Later, during the Byzantium expansion, they gave the Greek pronunciation to the town, the same as to many other towns of the Middle East, having added the "pole" ending. And thus it remained in western history. But for the East Gandzha has always been Gandzha (a treasury) since the name of the town is connected with Tengri, with His symbol - an equilateral cross which in 301 the Europeans took to Cappadocia being the part of the Roman Empire accompanied by a solemn escort of Turkic riders… In fact, that was the beginning of Christianity.
That's why the emblem of the town was formerly marked with sacred crosses, that's why the great Nizami Gyandzhevi wrote his unfading poem called "The Treasury of Mysteries" which can be "uncharmed" "not by anyone", according to Navoi.).Who knows, maybe giving a new name to the town is connected with events which haven't been fixed in official documents but remained in people's memory? Was it by accident that the Dukhobors or "Spirit Wrestlers", members of a Russian peasant religious sect from "steppe" provinces left for that place when they were persecuted in Russia?.. By the way, there were two St. George Crosses on the emblem of Elizabethople province… Why? I realize that some people may be irritated with my explanations and consider them to be mere "coincidences". Let that be. But it is sometimes mentioned in apocryphal works that not far from Saint George's grave a healing spring appeared.
Moslem legends openly call Khyzyr-Ilias (George) the guard of spring of life who is forever young. Almost all the apocryphal stories contain an episode where he helps a woman with an infant: he cures the child and gives food to him. The story of the sacred grove is repeated more than once… And I'm sitting in that grove and drinking water from that spring… Everyone is near, I am looking at the people who occasionally come here with canisters for holy water… "Coincidences"?!
In the Anglo-Saxon medieval poem the warrior's face is dragged through the ground, which fully complies with the message of Favst Buzand the author of the poem has never heard about. The author begins with the statement: "The infidels wrote about Saint George in a wrong way in their books; we want to explain you where the truth is". And after that a story of the theological fight is set forth in which a word prevailed. Another "coincidence"?!
"Kipchak" memory keeps precious details of life and death of the saint warrior passing them from generation to generation. For example, on George's Day the Bulgarians and the Serbs slaughter a lamb in the fields, on a plain and to eat it on the top of a mountain: they still do it in certain regions although they don't know why. At that they slaughter only a young lamb (an innocent victim)…
Explanation of the custom can be found in the Apocrypha: it reports of another "coincidence" - the saint was killed on a plain and buried on the top of the mountain. One would think: how do they know these details in the Central Europe? It is too far from Derbent… But if one remembers that now Europe is inhabited by the descendants of those Kipchaks who were in the vanguard of the Great Nations Migration, everything falls into place.
And if one doesn't forget that in Turkic one of the names of the saint warrior was pronounced as "Khyzr", it seems that origin of the word "Khazaria" becomes clear - the land where Saint George used to preach and where he was buried. That Promised Land was revered by the Christians who have established their first Patriarchal Throne in Derbent. It is also appropriate that it was mentioned in the sacred Koran. Nothing happens by accident in the spiritual world!.. Later the natives of Khazaria created Georgia. The land of Saint George is alive.
A great deal of interesting and forgotten things about our Great Steppe remained in the "Slavic", "Roman" and other countries none of the researchers of the Turki have ever visited.
* * *
The spring which appeared after George's death originated in the cave; I looked into it and saw a low vault where clear water was dropping from the stalactites as though from swelled nipples. The drops were falling making a little lake with holy water. It seemed the Time was dropping its tears counting days, years and centuries with them. Indeed, nothing leaves without a trace: Tengri and Dzhargan - the two stars on the steppe horizon. They existed, they exist now and will always exist as long as Eternal Blue Sky and the Great Steppe exist.
After that memorable expedition I wrote this book, made a film and opened the charitable foundation called "Saint George" ("Dzhargan") in Moscow. I want to recall the memory of the Great Steppe and George, the son of mankind, to build a mosque and a church jointly. Let the people come to his grave, let them see and know - the Truth exists since it is eternal!
