Appendix

Near St. George Spring

"Gyurdzhi's Day"

     Saint George… The most famous saint of the Great Steppe. His actual deeds are hidden in the fog of the Church policy… We have no memory and we have forgotten the truth about that outstanding peace-maker and enlightener. We remember him only as a killing rider… Ruthless image of a murderer - how can it be connected with a saint? Was George, the guardian of the Kipchaks, like that? Not at all. In fact, what do we know about him?

    In the sixth year of the eighth thousand,
    Under that tsar, under Theodore…
   
    That was the beginning of "The Poem about Brave George" in Russia. (1) ( See references marked with a number in the section "Notes and Comments to the Appendix". (Editor's note ) ). And they used to sing long songs in his honor - George the Beloved. And there were holidays in his honor - people hoped for best on George's Day.
    But in the Great Steppe George was worshipped in another way. The Kipchaks called him their highest guardian; they addressed entreaties and wishes, prayers and exorcisms to him. He was the mediator between God and man! "Help us, Saint George", - they used to say; and he helped, he guarded them. He was the second after Tengri in the Great Steppe.
    Tuesday was a hard day for the Kipchaks: one couldn't start on his journey or begin an important deed. They advised even not no eat and smile. No smiles, it's a hard day, "Saint George's day", - the steppe inhabitants used to say. According to folk beliefs our glorious guardian died on Tuesday.
    Why has Saint George been especially respected in the Great Steppe since olden days? There is an old story about it… The Turkic proverb "Our Gorge is stronger than their Nicola" isn't casual; it was usually mentioned speaking about their northern fellow countrymen… The image of Saint George only seems to be known.
    Let us remember the famous "St. George and the Dragon". A legend is a cryptography; thus the nations retained the most important from their lives and passed it to other generations from lips to lips. A myth - our ancestors said - conceals the truth from foreign ears. A message is enciphered in "St. George and the Dragon" and one should see living people in the legendary symbols; one should understand the symbols of their lives. The cryptography is opened only to those being consecrated… And who can be asked for consecration?

    The plot of the legend is known. A big serpent got the habit of marauding in one eastern town. He crawled from the morasses and took young inhabitants away. At last the time has come and the ruler also took leave of his daughter, beautiful Elisabeth. She was sitting near the road in tears waiting for her bitter fate, and George, Christ's warrior who was riding nearby, saw her. He wished to protect the young lady.
    When the monster appeared George didn't start a fight, he put his spear and sword away. He moved towards the enemy unarmed. He fell down on his knees behind the serpent and started to pray. The serpent became quiet. Minutes passed and soon the monster who was weak due to the prayer bent before the warrior. And the saved young lady put a lead made of her belt on the serpent and took it to the town. Having seen that miracle, all the inhabitants listened to George's sermon and accepted christening.
    Thus George proved that a word is stronger than a sword. So he became a saint, because there was a word - God - which wasn't known in Europe.
    The most ancient text of the legend didn't remain. It couldn't have remained since at first the passing thereof to new generations depended on the skills of the tellers - some things were added, others were erased. But the outline of the legend wasn't changed - they were afraid to sin… (2)
   
    Before analysis of the symbols of the legend it is important to recognize the epoch in which George lived. Not much is known about those times; much water has flowed under the bridges: floods washed the countries away, they drowned the nations in the abyss of obscurity. The warrior died on Tuesday, May 6th, 303, the official Church asserts. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single calendar those days; time was counted in different ways in different countries. There are several versions concerning the dates of birth and death of Saint George. But they are just the versions.
    That's why it would be correct, in my opinion, to say as follows: "A young man died in the beginning of IV century; that man is known as George now". He died as an immature young fellow who was about twenty years old. The saint lived in a glorious time: he was in the center of grand events by God's will; those events made his name the part of history.
    I'll remind you that IV century is the century of the Great Nations Migration; it determined the political advantages on the continent.
    One of the early legends about George was written in Greek in IV - V centuries, judging by orthography. That is the famous palimpsest: new text is put over the deleted one. Let us not discuss the reliability of the text. We'll just mention one very important detail which is invariable for all the legends about him: George said his word near an eastern town since he was a native of the East, of Cappadocia - a vast region of Transcaucasia and Minor Asia. (3).
    Besides, there is no doubt that the warrior was from a noble family, he got an excellent education and Christian upbringing. On ancient icons he was depicted as a courageous and staunch aristocrat in whose eyes one could see will, strength and wit.
    To tell the truth, in ancient times he was depicted without a horse and without a dragon. He wasn't a rider! And the palimpsest of V century, telling about George's life, never mentions a fight between a rider and a dragon.
    In Russia the most ancient icon of Saint George was found accidentally in 1935 when repair works were performed in the Kremlin. (4). A restorer saw a striking thing: a warrior with a spear. Scarlet cloak hardly covered his lamellar armor. That new image embodied magnificence and solemnity. A hilt of the sword was at the left. The painting was dated back to XI - XII centuries.

    "The icon from Dormitory Church, - wrote one of the outstanding experts in ancient paintings, professor V.N. Lazarev - is notable for unique beauty of coloring. Thick, clear, rich paints are elected so to underline the mental firmness and courage of the young warrior. George's figure is clear on the golden background of the light color. He wears brown armor which plates are divided with gold. The cloak is of rich vermilion color, the sleeve of the shirt is blue, the belt of the cloak is dark green, the sheath of the sword is oral green. In combination with whitish color of skin these paintings form that color spectrum in which there is not a single trace of the gloomy Byzantine palette" (bold provided. - M.A.). (5).
    That icon is the most ancient in the Kremlin and the oddest one at the same time. It was hidden from people's eyes several centuries ago. "Why, for what reason was it in disfavor"? - I thought. It seems that George didn't suite anyone.
    In XII - XIV centuries there was the fashion (the Western Church has changed the ancient icon-painting tradition) in Europe - they started to paint Saint George on a horse and with a spear, killing a serpent. As though thus he was seen by the crusaders in Palestine in 1099. A miracle seen during the storm of Jerusalem has become a part of culture of the Western Europe - George was deemed to be a knight in a white cloak with a red cross. (6). Richard the Lion-Heart considered him to be his guardian. George has become the saint patron of England bringing the spirit of knights into its life.     
    It is evident the Western innovations were also in fashion in Russia. It is possible that the image of Saint George on a horse was taken by the Russian to Kulikovo field for the first time. To tell the truth, the battle of 1380 is estimated in different ways. (7). According to J. Fletcher a military cunning took place there. (8). Before that in Russia George was painted as a warrior but not killing anybody. Because the killing couldn't be the feat of a saint.
    For example, on the famous Old Ladoga Icon (XII century) the maid leads the pacified serpent with her belt. The same as in the ancient legend. And more often the warrior was painted alone - full-length or waist-high… Why did they need to distort the ancient plot? Why was George killing a serpent that attractive?
    The answer is simple - a serpent is the symbol of the Great Steppe. It was on its flags and emblems of its cities: for example, Kazan had one serpent and Kharkov had even two. According to the legends of the Kipchaks people originated from Begsh Serpent, he - the personification of male strength and wisdom - was very close to the steppe inhabitants. (9).

    Killing of the ancestors - that's what an icon meant (in its steppe interpretation). The Russians came to Kulikovo Field with it, the knights - the crusaders "cleansed" Europe of the Turkci culture with it. An icon has become the secret weapon of the Western Church, certain Kipchaks read a verdict in it: Saint George turns away from them. Saint George himself, the guardian of the Turki… A subtle stroke, but it justified itself: the warriors whose belief was varying, deserve a defeat. Thus it happened on Kulikovo Field.
    Sometimes they added a little man on the new icon; he would sit behind George and keep silent mysteriously. He leant on the warrior's back with his hand either blessing him to the killing or in order not to fall down from the horse… It can be interpreted in different ways. On later icons a man behind the rider wasn't painted.

    And didn't they start to use a new word which meant "to deceive" with the same root as the word "George" in Russian after Kulikovo Field? A strange word. To deceit with the image of George?
    Since 1380 Moscow turned to the killing rider whom they considered to be the Victorious, in a little while his sculpture appeared on the top of the main tower of the Kremlin (part of that sculpture remained). In 1497 Prince Ivan III engraved his image on the "big" seal of the city. And later, having called Moscow the capital of the whole Russia, Moscow princes added the magic image into the emblem of the city… The rider has become the participant of urban life; however, he was called Michael until XVIII century.

    Different Georges

In Russia George is called "Victorious", in other countries - the Patron of Warriors, the Great Martyr, the Passion Bearer. George is the most important saint for the Ossetins: they raise him uncommonly. The same rider, but he is different - the grey-haired elder on a three-legged winged horse… "Uastyrdzhy", - the Ossetins aspirate. And that takes their breath away.
    That is the most ancient image of Saint George; it was formed… before his birth. Culture of the Ossetins (the Alans, as they were formerly called) is ancient; its roots are in the Persian lands. Legendary heroes were known there and in Tibet long before Common Era. Modern Kersaspa, Cedar, Geser, Khizr, Khadyr are of that kind. Young men imaged as the elders - thus they were made by rumours. (10).
    After acquaintance of the Ossetins with Christianity one thing happened, the thing which has been often happening in the history of the nations, - ancient spiritual values were supplemented with new ones. In conscience of the Alans nobility, purity, deeds of Saint George made him similar with former heroes: the single collective image appeared - Uastyrdzhy. Neither nation of the world worshipped George the same as the ancient Alans. Their ceremonies cannot be mixed up - they are Ossetin. One can see in them pleasure, hope and infinite respect towards the aged, the memory of the ancestors, which saved the Ossetins during hard times… Uastyrdzhy united "today" and "eternity" in him.
    In Islamic interpretation the feat of Saint George (or Djirdjisa according to Islamic tradition) is different. It is connected with the name of God (Allah), ancient eastern characters are also present in it: immortal and wise Khazyr and Ilyas - they give those their qualities to Uastyrdzhy. The Moslems supplemented and enriched the story about the great fighter for belief, revealed new shapes of his deeds.
    That "supplementing" tradition is natural, invisible ties of times and cultures are in it. For example, the Slavs call Saint George "cattle beater" or even "cattle god". At the same time they see the features of ancient Yarila and Yarovit - their spring deities of fertility - in him…
    Images of George are so different… They don't look the same. Each nation which worships him has its own warrior not being the same as others. And at the same time he is the one for everybody… Why? Explanation is in depth and immensity of the image. In my opinion it is accurately presented on another Moscow icon - an icon from the Historical Museum collection.

    Here Saint George is standing praying to God with his cut off head in his hands… There is no image more impressive than that. It contains the power of spirit and devotion to belief, life and death - everything is mixed up, everything is inseparably connected in unity which name is a Human Being.
   
    The Voice of Forgotten Motherland

    I saw his grave at night in Moscow for the first time - a dream has come and the voice said where to search. I didn't know what it looked like but I knew it existed… Prophetic dream wasn't accidental. It was preceded by the work during which the archival search subdued all my thoughts, time and imagination: hundreds of pages of the books, thousands of kilometers of the roads, long hours of sleepless thoughts cannot leave without a trace. It seems separate lines of the search started to come together at that time; later they drew that picture in my dream.
    One would think, a man died, which means his grave should exist. But that assertion was of no sense in relation to Saint George: six burial places are known today. Or even more? However, thirty-six more can be called - not a single one of them is connected with biography of the saint, not a single on of them complies with historical documents. It simply happened that someone wanted it to be like that.
    A historical fun? No! It turns out in Christian Churches there are about ten heads of John the Forerunner. Each church insists on authenticity of its relic. Six graves of one man is not the limit. But the historians of the church don't consider it funny; they refer to imperfection of human mind for which a great many things are marvelous… It may be. (11).
    In order to explain my position I'll say I consider George to be a real historical person who has performed a deed for which he was recognized as a saint. It means George and his deeds are interesting only as they were mentioned by God. Nothing can be changed in them! Otherwise they won't be holy and will loose their divinity.
    The image of George stroke me not with amount of its forms but with depressing obscurity: primitive routines alternate with high poetry; vulgar invention - with serious research. I started my work not with study of his life. I was attracted just by the Great Steppe like a traveler is attracted by an unexplored island. Thus that was to proceed if once I hadn't seen a wayfarer on the road and hadn't come up to him - that was Saint George… Unexplored islands exist in order to be explored, apparently.
    Intending to recall the forgotten events I wrote two books about my nation - the Kipchaks. (12). After each journey the thoughts about the Steppe came deeper and deeper into my mind; they awakened the genetic memory. Being carried away with deeds of the ancestors, I used to catch the crumbs of our precious past in the river of Time; that was our memory falling into pieces: Azerbaijan, Bashkiria, Kazakhstan, the Northern Caucasus, Siberia, the Ukraine, Don Russia.
    My search had no limits. And once I managed to get the notes of the ancient eastern chronicler Favst Buzand. (13). He lived in V century, during the Great Nations Migration - the steppe culture was becoming the property of Europe at that time. In the course of those years the Kipchak leaders were confidently sitting on their horses. Monarchs sought for inclination of the Kipchak tsar under whose heel the whole world was.
    Much has been written about Attila's empire - the whole black paint was put to the paper in order to humiliate the steppe nation and defile it… But has someone ever thought about the "wild hordes"? Or "the nomads"? The Kipchaks built hundreds of towns and settlements, thousands of kilometers of the roads, crossings over the biggest rivers. (14). European historians were allowed to write any nonsense about the steppe inhabitants. But not about their high culture which allowed the Turki to conquer and explore vast areas.

    … Notes of Favst Buzand relate to the period when the steppe inhabitants became known in the Caucasus. IV century was beginning. The Caucasus was turning into the theater of operations being grand in their consequences. Of course, not the whole Caucasus but its eastern lands - those that lay nearer to the Steppe and were called "Hun Passage" later. That narrow part of the steppe between the sea and the mountains was kept safe by nature in modern Dagestan; it kept it to make a wonder. And it was made there! The chronicler reported about that.

    As far as we know, the steppe inhabitants were a nation which was fond of a horse. A horse led them through the steppe; it was indispensable in towns and settlements; in the mountains its advantages disappeared. That's why the Kipchak army didn't move to the Caucasian mountains and stayed near the town of Derbent, on the steppe shore of the Caspian Sea, in the "Hun Passage" to put it more preciously.
    Derbent was not just a town being an obstacle on the way of the Great Nations Migration for them: near its walls the steppe inhabitants faced a civilization formerly unknown to them. Persia and the Roman Empire began (or ended) there. The roads led deep into the Middle East and Europe from Derbent… That was the only convenient land route from Asia to Europe in the whole Caucasus - the future Silk Route. East joined West on those lands.
    The more I learnt about Derbent, the stronger I felt there was a blind-spot concerning "Derbent" in European history. The notes of Favst Buzand cast light on that mystery. The historian wrote about Gregoris, a young Christian preacher from Armenia, who was the first who dared come there, to the appeared steppe inhabitants.
    Of course a great many researchers read Favst Buzanr. But it seems not a single one of them mentioned that the name of the man who brought the Christian ideas to the Steppe was Gregoris while the steppe inhabitants called him Djarghan or Gyurdzhi. In Russian his name is pronounced either as "George" or as "Yegor".
    What is it, discordance of the names or something else?.. It relates to one and the same person who has performed a deed which nobody has ever performed except for him! Thus a specific historical person appeared on the scene of my search. I didn't know much about him - he wasn't a rider like my ancestors but was the first Christian preacher among them; the bearer of the Western culture, in other words.
    At first a vague conjecture disappeared just after it came to my mind; in a little while it came back with pain. I was taken prisoner by Saint George. To tell the truth, not many things were clear - Saint George (Gregoris, to put it more preciously) was the first of the Europeans who came to the Kipchak camp with peace and unarmed; all the following events were to be seriously verified. And my entire hypothesis about the Great Steppe could be verified at the same time… There is a rule in science, as far as we know: in case a hypothesis allows to forecast the result it is called a theory. (Kiev 1500th anniversary celebrated in the Ukraine not long ago was the first pleasant result of that verification).

        The Mystery of the Cross

    I began, of course, with St. George Cross! It is an exact copy of the crosses known in Altai before Common Era. And a great deal of questions arose. Why is it called "St. George"? How did it appear in Christianity? Where? Under what circumstances? Trying to find the answers I understood that the history of the cross is not that simple as we used to think.
    Yes, we know that today a cross is the symbol of Christianity. But it hasn't always been like that. Until IV century - i.e. until arrival of the Kipchaks! - Christians didn't know a cross and tried to avoid it (for the first time I read about in Brockhaus and Efron dictionary).
    I'll quote the famous Christian author of III century, Felix Minucius, again: "Concerning the crosses, we don't worship them, we - the Christians - don't need them; you, the pagans, for whom wooden idols are sacred, you worship wooden crosses. Maybe, as the parts of your deities, and your flags, standards and military signs - what are they if not the crosses, golden and decorated ones?" (15).
    How can these words comply with what we know? But there was no doubt about the main thing - the Christians didn't recognize a cross until IV century. That's how and from whom Europe has got its cross - from the Turki, those steppe inhabitants whom it called "wild" and "pagan" later. (16).
    The Kipchaks, according to the archeologists, worshipped an equilateral cross as recently as in Common Era. The Buddhists (the northern branch) had a cross in their ceremonies since I century; they still paint it on their talismans and amulets (to tell the truth, they call it otherwise)… Science has no doubt about Asian origin of the cult of the cross.
    Thus I had the right to suppose that George was the first one (or among the first) who learnt about the Kipchak culture, the worship of Heavenly God and the cross by them. He accepted that culture having created (by the example of the Buddhists!) a new branch in Christianity. That's why the Christians called an equilateral cross "George's" in his honor… But all those suppositions were to be proved; it was necessary to find confirmations for them. However, the working hypothesis has been formed.

    Churches, prayers, icons, bells… almost all the church attributes and their history roused my interest; it turned out they appeared in the eastern Christianity in IV century, they appeared from the steppe inhabitants who have been crossing themselves from of old as a sign of purification and subjection to the Single God - Tengri. (17). Early Christians didn't do that.
    In order to become sure, I found the followers of Tengirchilik in Altai, on Ural, in Siberia; they remained there. I gathered what was written by the scientists about the great Tengri… Now I can assert that Tengirchilik followers cross themselves. But they do it in a different way as compared with the Christians, although exactly as it was painted on ancient icons: they don't make a pinch with their fingers but touch their forehead with a thumb and a third finger having elegantly put them together.
    No doubt, I was not the only on one who met Tengirchilik followers. For example, C.C. Valikhanov, saw Tengirchilik ceremonies remained in Kazakhstan by a miracle: "If one spills milk the Kirghiz would clean [everything] in order not to leave them [profaned] and propitiate… crossing and bowing… They do the same when they go through horse stables… If they see a blacksmith's anvil they come up to it and cross themselves". It is interesting that among the findings in the barrows of Ancient Altai dated back to V - III centuries B.C. there are many horse ornaments in the shape of golden equilateral crosses. Here it is - the living history of the Great Steppe! The sources of it.
    It is striking (or, I could say, indicative) - today the Christians call the Tengirchilik followers - those ancient keepers of belief in Heavenly God - "pagans" and "shamanists"…
    Immersing into the mysteries of the cross, I learnt another thing. In India - motherland of many nations - it is called not a cross but a vadzhra. Vadzhra means the shining rays of divine grace coming form the Single center.   
    That's why Tengirchilik followers marked a circle in the middle of the cross - it was the symbol of sun, the center of the universe! Rays come to four sides from it. It means in ancient times a cross was formed not as a result of crossing of two lines; it was formed of four rays and the sun. Hence is a tradition - to gild the crosses, to decorate them with precious stones; they are the sign of Heavenly, Sunny nature… Later the Church, having borrowed that tradition of Tengirchilik followers, didn't think about the fact that in Christianity a cross symbolized another thing: an instrument of torture and death. (18).
    Everything witnessed of the fact that George really was the first inhabitant of the Roman Empire who learnt about the spiritual life of the Kipchaks - Tengirchilik followers and accepted it. That's why the Turkic equilateral cross has become George's Cross! And that happened exactly in the beginning of IV century, which is reported by the history of Christianity… A cross appeared after young Gregoris met the Kipchaks - not earlier and not later. A religious symbol couldn't be an element of a casual coincidence. An equilateral cross is evidence - it was raised and started to shine on the churches of Armenia, the Caucasian Albania, Iberia… That has never happened before.
    And later, according to the notes by Favst Buzand, an irreparable and horrible thing happened near Derbent. Young Gregoris died in a terrible way: he was tied to a tail of the wild horse that was set to the steppe on the seashore… Who made that execution? That's not clear. The chronicler didn't describe the details clearly, he just established a fact.
    The place of the tragedy - the town of Derbent - is the only clear thing in his text.

        "Iron Gates"

    Grigoris, Djarang, Gyurdzhi, George… There were too many coincidences in that story. Sometimes everything seeded to me mystical, the words would become warm or cold, empty or palpable. Sometimes I even felt fear when all of sudden in the book I have got just by accident I found things I failed to find in dozens of other books (as though someone was carefully observing the course of my work)… What was that? A regularity? Or something else? It is hard to say, but I simply didn't have the right to remain indifferent. Knowledge doesn't appear from nowhere, it are given to man and one cannot reject it… In a word, an expedition was necessary.
    I decided to go to Derbent at all costs and search for the grave of Saint George there just because I saw it in a dream and knew something about it…
    In the opinion of local archeologists, Derbent is five thousand years old, it was the capital of the Silk Route for a long time and an object of many wars. The fortress guarded the only way from the Eastern Europe to the Southern Asia in the Caucasus - as a matter of fact, it was built for that purpose. Nowadays it certainly doesn't guard anything. Other roads appeared long ago; those roads moved the Silk Route and its fortresses to the past. (19).
    Former Derbent went in two walls separating the town from the south and from the north: four hundred meters in width, two kilometers lengthwise - that was the whole town. Its walls remained until now; they still stretch from the mountain, which has become the part of the ancient fortress, up to the seashore. Some time the walls stretched to the sea, then they were partly destroyed. They also destroyed the gates which fed the town and gave the name to it - "Iron Gates".
    Derbent population wasn't high in number - just several thousand - a big city simply couldn't be located in a stone bed. But unassailable walls helped a small group of inhabitants to stand any siege. Trade was carried out there day and night. That ancient tradition remained - the towns begins and ends with the bazaar for the most part of the visitors. One cannot assert that desolation has come to the modern Derbent. But at the same time one cannot say that the town is prosperous as in bygone days. It is proud as the elder forgotten by his relatives. It leads its life - its inhabitants inherited beautiful faces of their ancestors but they don't remember their great deeds. People have been being weaned away from the history of their nation and their town, and they have obediently forgotten everything.
    Derbent was the biggest town in the Caucasian Albania - an ancient state with high culture. Its nation was among the first in the Caucasus who found the image of Heavenly God… It is not by accident that Derbent is called "the sacred land", the Prophet himself spoke about the town… But where are the descendants of those heavenly Albans? There are no nations with that name in the Caucasus: everything has been forgotten! Nowadays, even looking at the Albanian churches and ruins of the fortresses, they - the people with Albanian appearance, never remember their ancestors! They talk about Iranian or Arabian rulers who were supposed to build those churches and fortresses there.
    When I said that Saint George (or Gregoris) was the first bishop of the Albanian Church before Islam was known there they looked at me as if I was speaking Chinese. Not many people there know that up to the middle of VI century the patriarchy's throne of the Caucasus (and maybe of the whole Christian world?!) was located in their town. That in the center of Derbent - to the south from the northern wall - Saint George, their spiritual father, was killed. Formerly a church in the memory of Saint George was there… (20). When and how were the ties between the times torn and people became indifferent even to themselves? I don't know.
    Sometimes offence or even shame arose, especially in relation to scientists who find only Iranian and Arabic inscriptions in ancient Derbent but markedly neglect Albanian and Turkic ones which are near. It seems someone needs to look at the world in that way - with a sidelong glance. So that other people are deemed to be a wild nation having no written language…
    I needed assistants for the expedition but how could they be found among forgetful people? To turn to the local scientists?.. Even if they knew anything about Saint George and his grave, they would have announced that long before me. And it was impossible to get through Derbent labyrinths all alone, without assistants - it is much easier to find a needle in a haystack than a grave stone there. Derbent and its neighborhood is a huge cemetery without exaggeration: thousands of different graves around - known and forgotten.
    This world made old a lot of people and hasn't become old itself…
    I understood that after George's dreadful death his body (or his remains, to put it more preciously) couldn't be taken far away. His grave is near his place of death - but not in the town. One of ancient names of Derbent - "Geore's Gates" (Djargan - Djar-Khan - Geore-Khan - Geore) - was a circumstantial evidence.
    Of course, the words "Derbent neighborhood" sounded earnestly in Moscow, but that reference point wasn't enough at the scene. It was necessary to narrow the bounds of the search: in case Derbent neighborhood was called "Hun passage", I reasoned, according to the toponymic rules I was to search for a settlement or a region which name is similar with the word "Djargan". There were also other variant of Turkic pronunciation: "Gyurgi", "Gyurdzhi", "Djyurdji". History was keeping the one and only sound among those "Dzhs"…

    Gregoris - George   
   
    Why was I interested in those sounds? I'm going to explain it. Favst Buzand called the preacher Gregoris, I supposed that was a secular name of the young man although changed in a little while in a Greek manner. It couldn't be different (i.e. a church name) so it means it should have sounded otherwise in the Church history. The Turki called him Djargan which is similar with the words "courageous", "temerity". It is evident that the name had a certain sense - only a brave person could go to the camp of the superior enemy and preach his ideas and beliefs there.
    "Gregoris" and "Djargan" - no similarity, at first sight. Although if written with Latin and Greek characters the names look almost the same and are read the same as well. (I'll remind that "-is" ending in "Gregoris" name is the tribute to the later Greek fashion).
    Another thing is also possible, I thought, - the name George simply didn't exist at that time, it could appear after the preacher's death. As well as his other names: Djirdjis, Gyurgy, Yuri, Egorius, Yurai, Jiri, Gevorge, Ezi, Georg, Uastyrzhi… There are many names, indeed, but they all (which should be surprising but it isn't) relate to one person.
    However, I put "Grigoris" and "Djargan" on the first places in this range… I thought that right also because the Byzantium emperor Constantine, founding a famous church of Saint George, at first gave the name of Gregory to it. The fact one shouldn't neglect… That was the time when everything, including the churches, was building in a new way in the new capital of the empire.
    The church in the name of Saint Gregory was perhaps the first undertaking of Constantine - the ally of the Kipchaks! But it was changed by the name of George in VI century. Why? Historians suppose that "under influence of the expanding cult of the Victorious not only in the manuscripts but also in practice the churches initially built in the name of Gregory were renamed at first in the masses and later in official spheres". (21). It is possible… And nevertheless ancient churches were initially called in the name of Gregory - Gregoris! Why, after all?
    It is interesting that until VI century church figures retained their names obtained during the christening ceremony, i.e. their secular names. John II (533 - 535 years of papacy) was the first who violated that tradition and changed his name. His name was Mercury and, having become the Pope, he considered his name to be obscenely pagan. Since that time a custom was included to the ceremonial of the Pope election: dean of the College of Cardinals, having made sure that the elected agrees to take the throne in Vatican, asks him the question: "What name would you like to get?" It means the tradition to change secular names for church ones appeared in Christianity in VI century. And maybe in VI century change of the secular "Gregoris" for the church "George" wasn't unexpected - for people and for churches built in the names of the saint.
    My increasing hope was corroborated by other arguments… For example, the name George itself. It is not known in the ancient history. It is time to wonder whether it has ever existed. I met it in the works by Herodotus for the first time; he reported about the Scythians - Georgous - the inhabitants of Herra - the steppe country. It seems other Greeks haven't mention "georges" and haven't called themselves with that name.
    But during the early Middle Ages in the Caucasus and later in Byzantine "George" was gradually becoming fashionable in the reigning dynasties. An unexpected rise of interest… Where was it from? Wasn't it from the Great Steppe where that name has always been respected?..

    There is another indirect confirmation of the steppe origin of the name George: in the whole (!) history of papacy there was not a single Pope with the name George. That was a Barbarian name! And everything Barbarian wasn't in respect there since certain times.
    Those observations allow if not to assert than to hope that the name George is of steppe, Kipchak origin. Or a European version of the Turkic name Dhargan or Gyurdzhi. And why did the European name of Georgia appear (the Land of Saint George)? (22). And why the Europeans say "Saint George" about cities and churches called in the name of Saint George… There must be an explanation. If not mine, than somebody else's.

    … Having that simple luggage I came to Dagestan, to the town of Derbent. I shouldn't make a secret of the fact that abundance of historical monuments and total indifference towards them were striking. The frame of mind was getting worse from day do day: wherever I went, sooner or later I faced cold indifference and hidden mockery.
    Some things happened by chance in the person of a very silent young man; he knew my former essays in "Around the World" magazine. That was a real mountaineer worthy of deep respect. He asked no questions and did everything I needed with a smile. But at first, of course, he generously entertained me in a cozy garden. That was a custom. And I was leisurely, as a guest on the Caucasus should do, asking questions about Derbent, about its neighborhood, about the news and in a little while I humbly asked about the settlements with the name interesting for me.
    - Here it is. On the top, - Khasplat said calmly and pointed to the mountain opposite the arbor in which we were dining.
    I couldn't believe my ears. I swear, I could have stood a thunderbolt easier. I thought Phasplat was joking. It is never like that. But Khasplat wasn't joking; there couldn't be any jokes since I haven't said anything about my search. Dzhalgan settlement was located on the top of the highest mountain.
    That was in a surprising accordance with ancient (apocryphal) texts describing the burial place of Saint George. It was also in accordance with a Turkic tradition being peculiar for them in Altai… Everything coincided.
    In order to hide my excitement I tried to proceed with the interrupted feast, but I failed. And thus I revealed my secret to Khasplat which, it seems, was no longer a secret.

    Diocletian Who Suffered Not Being Guilty

    By that time Saint George was very close to me, I could speak about him and his time for hours. That was, among other reasons, due to the book by professor A.I. Kirpichnikov written last century. It is called "Saint George and George the Brave". My handbook: not a single researcher has ever written about Saint George at greater length.
    Kirpichnikov gathered and analyzed almost everything which was known about Saint George in the world. As a result of a long-term work he came to the univocal conclusion: "official" church knowledge about the feat of the saint is nothing more than a myth. They are far from reality.
    Many things are not in compliance with each other. According to the "official" version George died in 303 during the bloody persecutions against the Christians organized by the Roman emperor Diocletian: they cut the saint's head off after tortures. But in fact it couldn't have been like that. (23). In order to prove it I had to deepen in literature of the times of Diocletian.
    He led an uncommon life: born in a family of the slave who got manumission, but he was born under a lucky star - his fate led him through the life up to the emperor's throne. When he was young he was famous for his wisdom and avoided unnecessary blood - he respected a word not less than a sword. For more than twenty years the grand Roman Empire listened to his quiet but firm voice. There is no reason to speak about his "indifference" towards the Christians - there were no religious conflicts during the twenty years of his reign. (24). The Empire was leading its measured life under Diocletian: it was suppressing, reconciling, conquering. He treated the Christians, who caused no danger, not worse than, say, Mitreists, Chaldean astrologer or bearer of other beliefs (there were many of them in the Empire), - he treated them calmly. The Christians didn't hold important offices at court. And that was all right.
    Thus it continued until the year 303 when the disturbance began. The Christians were the instigators of the troubles and thus in 303 an order was issued in Rome according to which the mutineers were deprived of civil rights. There were no executions; there was just disability. Two other orders followed: one of "religious" character and another - about isolation of the preachers calling for insurrection.
    That was a natural reaction of Rome for the insurrection in dependent Armenia. The Christians were suspected to be the organizers of the insurrection; thus there couldn't be another reaction to their actions. (Armenia, where Christianity was turning into a political power having become a religion, really bothered perspicacious Diocletian). The emperor was wise again - he pardoned the mutineers by his new order.
    The opponents neglected his fine gesture. In 304 the troubles have become of a threatening character: useless words grew silent - that was the time for executioners' axes to speak… But they persecuted not for belief but for "revolutionary activity" - for betrayal and instigation for rebellion… And in what country have the authorities ever acted otherwise? The documents show that bloody executions commenced in Rome a year later the "official" execution of George… An awkwardness? No, just the beginning thereof. But that fact alone allows to doubt the authenticity of the official church version!
    In the books by Eusebius, Lactancius and other contemporaries of Diocletian there is not a single word about George or his martyr death. There was no George among those who suffered due to persecutions (their names are mentioned!)! From the statements of the eyewitnesses it is clear that Diocletian hasn't even heard the name of George… It turns out professor Kirpichnikov was right when he was surprised with evident liberty of "official" stories about the saint.
    Thus a correct question arises - who tortured George? Who took him to an execution? The answer is clear. It is written in an ancient manuscript of IV - V centuries, in the aforementioned palimpsest. It is clearly said there: Persian ruler Dadian was George's torturer. That manuscript - the most ancient one about George which remained in Europe - has been never kept secret! Favst Buzand also points out that name.
    To tell the truth he calls the executioner Sanesan but such variant reading of the eastern names is common in history. Dadian is still the only one who is cursed in the Georgian legends about Saint George. The same is with ancient Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian legends. In Western Europe even Latin texts of IX century witness of misdeeds of the Persian ruler Dadian but not Diocletian.
    Diocletian suffered not being guilty - that's for sure. In one of the European legends about Saint George the stunning words are written: "Diocletian is the Persian tsar". And another Greek finding of the same epoch made the saint warrior the participant of the war of Diocletian against Persia neglecting the fact that George was hardly ten - twelve years old at that time. In that Byzantine poem the Roman emperor is represented as the tormentor, but the Persian also hasn't been forgotten - he was made almost the relative of Diocletian… Total absurd.
    Of course different comments can be provided but it is evident that ignorant descendants ascribed certain things which have never happened to Diocletian. They slandered a good person. But was the consonance of the names the only reason: Diocletian - Dadian?..
    A.I. Kirpichnikov mentioned that the copyists of Saint George's biography were "compromising with their conscience". Not just a confusion is evident, not a naive fantasy of the frightened monk, but planned actions which were notable for consistency and acute craftiness. Against whom did the "demons with unpleasant hearts" direct their arrows?

    Every Nation Has Its Own George

    In order to understand that let us remember the famous "look at their acts since the faces are known by the acts". In the end of V century (!) the Western Church announced the list of prohibited books: the works about Saint George were in the first row there. Newly-invented versions (with Diocletian) were not censored and everything in contradiction with them was prohibited… Did that happen by chance? Certainly not.
    Could the prohibitions destroy human memory? People invented new legends enciphering the truth in mythology. A struggle between the truth and fancy has been going on around the image of Saint George for centuries in Europe. Many talented persons of keen intellect suffered but we are obliged to those persecutions for appearance of that literature about George which is kept in the libraries of the world… They tried to prohibit the truth but it wasn't prohibited, they tried to brake it but it wasn't broken; it simply gave birth to new poems and stories. As far as we know, neither silver nor gold can tempt a true believer.
    Trying to keep the memory of Saint George full of belief but not invented by Rome, people were simply creating another warrior, calling his name in a different way. For some people George has become the guardian of the cattle-breeders, for others he turned into a farmer. For some nations he is the defender of the warriors, for other he the one struggling with a dragon.
    These differences are very notable and thus it's time to think: aren't they different Georges? An explanation is simple here: every nation made him its saint, approached him to its history, its way of life and thus saved him not only in the spiritual pantheon but also in everyday culture. That's why information of different nations about Saint George varies. That's why literary works about him are similar to each other and at the same time different in different countries.
    Hence another thing becomes clear - why there are too many "graves" of Saint George.
    The official biography asserts that according to the will of George (!) himself (that is inexplicable) the relics of the saint were delivered to his mother's motherland - to Palestine. There, in the town of Lidda, they lie in the church built in the honor of one great martyr. And in the course of time that absurdity has obtained the force of the law. But there are no historical documents (even circumstantial ones) confirming the presence of Saint George Church in Palestine in IV century. More or less authentic evidences about the churches in his honor mention Armenia, Byzantium, Syria but not Palestine.
    And there are no historical evidences of the town of Lidda as the motherland of George as well as of origin of his mother. Why did Lidda appear? When?.. That version, no doubt, was strengthened by the "miraculous discovery" of an underground church in Jerusalem. It was given the name of George. That happened in the 30s of XIX century. The reason for the name was the finding - a miniature with a rider who (not a Church) was called George at first. No one has ever thought that the theme of the rider in the image of George arose after the lapse of thousands of years after the saint's death… But logic and belief, as far as we know, are seldom in consent with each other. (25).
    Other places are also called the places of the last rapture of the great martyr. The Armenian monastery in Mugni, for example, declares about the relics of the saint. But that cloister was built and consecrated one hundred years after the death of George - not earlier than in XVI century, which is witnessed by its architecture and known historical documents… Thus the claims of the Armenians are unfounded for that reason. It should be mentioned, everything is inexplicable in Mugni.
    In the side-alter there, to the left, there is a grave stone under which, according to the legend, the body of the great martyr lay. As though the great Nerses brought it here from Nicodimia (where, according to the official version, Diocletian executed George). However, Vartan, the Armenian geographer, witnessed otherwise: not a body but the cut head was brought there. So what was lying under the grave stone? Nobody knows.
    Later the mysterious relic is supposed to be taken to Tbilisi by the Armenians, put to Bocharmsk Cloister and carried to Alaverd Cathedral from there. But the Armenian Mugni remains the place of pilgrimages not only for the Christians but for the Moslems as well especially during the holidays of Saint George… And thank God!
    The history of Ksenofont Monastery on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea is even more strange; the ashes of Saint George are also supposed to lie there. How did they get there, to the Greeks? It is not known. When? Nobody can tell. But, judging by the documents and the style of architecture, the monastery was founded in XV century, it isn't connected with the times of George the same as the Armenian town of Mugni. Consequently, authenticity of its relics also needs to be seriously proved; and it is unlikely that any evidences can be found.
    Other "impostors" shouldn't be even mentioned here. That is like the folk beliefs: they say Saint George is buried in this or that cave. When? Why? But there are similar legends in the Caucasus - in Ossetia and Abkhazia. They can also be found in Serbia and Montenegro. Let's leave them on their authors' conscience and turn to Rome, to the famous church in the name of great martyr Saint George near the foothills of Palatinsk Hill. The documents report "it was found in the end of IV century". "The true head of the great martyr Saint George from Cappadocia, the famous tribune of Diocletian, who suffered under that emperor" is kept in its sacristy.
    A handsome and convincing inscription. But other evidences remained according to which the relic appeared there just in the middle of VIII century. According to Anastasius, the Pope's librarian, Pope Zacharias, the Greek by birth, the last of the "eastern" Popes (741 - 752 years of papacy) delivered those ashes there from Lateran Cathedral where the relic was lying in a small shrine. But was it there, in the cathedral? There is no information on this point. And I think the question is appropriate.
Lateran Palace is one of the most ancient buildings; it was built in the times of Nero. It was the Popes' residence until 1340. The Church at court was deemed to be the main one in Europe. Only the heads of apostles Peter and Paul put into the altar part and kept as peculiar relics of Christianity have always been notable. But there is not a single line about Saint George and his feat in ancient chronicles of Rome. It is not known when and wherefrom the relic which was called "the head of Saint George" appeared in Lateran Palace in VIII century.
    As we can see, apart from Lidda there are other serious candidates for the burial place of the great martyr. To tell the truth, absence of historical evidences and simple logic in the arguments of the candidates doesn't allow to agree with their important statements… Alas, "the one in manacles won't go far" - a lie cannot turn into the truth even during a thousand years.

    Beginning of the Catastrophe

    Another interesting detail seemed very important to me. Whatever unbelievable inventions the legends about George were decorated with, everywhere he was called Cappadocian.
    Persistence with which ancient authors underlined the Persian name of the tormentor and Cappadocian roots of Saint George made me turn to the map of those times. Otherwise it is impossible to understand the events which happened in the beginning of IV century on the border between the Roman Empire and Persia.
    In 297 Diocletian defeated the Persians in Armenia having forced them to leave five provinces on the other side of the Tigris. Everything went successfully for Rome which expanded its territories and reestablished peace on the eastern borders, which has never happened there. Rhetoricians proclaimed the time of Diocletian "the return of the Golden Age". And soon that Golden Age has come.
    But… not for Rome.
    Nobody except for experienced Diocletian troubled due to that victory over the Persians. And an inevitable trouble was coming - like a roller, like a hurricane one would never escape from: the rebellion which rose in Armenia in a little while was just its faraway alarm. Rumours about an unknown cavalry noticed near the northern borders of the Roman Empire and Persia were enriched with frightening details. Soon a concrete name of "the Huns" was on everybody's lips! (26).
    Diocletian took a sober view of things, but he was oppressed by his own weakness. It also was hard to stand loathsome smiles of yesterday's friends: the vassals didn't conceal their evil intentions. The Christians, who were notable for gentleness and humility, were the first who showed themselves; they declared that the old gods are powerless in the empire… Of course, the rebellion in Armenia was suppressed; "church Apostles were put to prisons and dungeons", but that couldn't change anything.
    The emperor bothered not about the public declarations of the Christians which frightened nobody. He was at a loss for another reason - appearance of the "new" Christians, that fifth column of the empire. Having turned away from their Judaic gods, they stepped back from the old traditions. They declared about a new god.
    And the name was the only thing in common between their new belief and former Christianity! Another force appeared on the political scene; it untied the secret enemies of Rome. Wise Diocletian was feeling danger with every fiber of his skin. He had a foreboding of a fall and he couldn't prevent it. The Roman Empire was declining.
    The Armenian and Albanian Churches acted as the founders of the new Christianity. They urged to praying in churches (but not in synagogues or catacombs as it formerly was), rejection of circumcision, worship of a cross, crossing themselves, icons worship… During those years many things came to Christianity from the Caucasus. (27). There, in the Caucasus, Heavenly God, who hasn't been known in Europe, was recognized. The Caucasus was the real threat for pagan Rome.
    No doubt, Diocletian, being a politician, guessed about the reasons of all those innovations: a third force joined the age-old struggle for domination between Rome and Persia, and that force was frightful due to its obscurity. The "new" Christians regarded the Kipchaks, those eastern newcomers, as their allies. They accepted their spiritual ceremonies for the sake of a union with them, in order to prove their devotion.

    How could Rome reply? The ancient rule of politics - "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - wasn't suitable. The enemies were all around - there was danger from the inside and from the outside. Diocletian wished only one thing - to save the empire, but he comprehended his vulnerability: steppe inhabitants outnumbered his army. A cruel war was right behind. And thus wild Diocletian decided to start it having defeated the internal resistance. Although he avoided unneeded blood, he made a desperate step: he introduced the executions of all the "new" Christianity adherents in 304. Not all the Christians but only "new" ones. That is a very important detail which explains a lot.
    But the things were no longer under his control - Rome was late… And they started to talk about the end of the world in "the capital of the world" and "the guarantor of stability of everything existing on the earth". The secret was uncovered. People saw the will of fate even in a sudden disease of the Emperor. Diocletian left the throne and, according to bitter tongues, succeeded in cabbage growing in his estate.

    Who were the enemies of Rome? Who united them and who directed their actions which lead to such an unexpected outcome?
    Unfortunately Eusebius, as well as other eyewitnesses of those events, write in brief about them. I managed to find just an insignificant mention of the rebellion which led to persecution of the Christians. To tell the truth, its place was provided - Melitina. (28). Although I knew that Melitina is not just the Caucasus and even not just the Cappadocian province. Melitina is the birthplace of Saint George! (29).
    Another coincidence? Another fluke? But aren't they too frequent?.. Those "coincidences" allowed to think about the search of a person who took the risk of being in opposition to Rome, - an educated organizer, a wise person with a good name being a Christian. Did he have actual power? No. But he needed it. He had education, intellect and belief. That was enough.
    Why did I emphasize those three qualities? Only an educated person could read and understand Christian texts. Only an intelligent person is able to compare what he has read with reality. And nobody except for a true believer could see God's will in it.
    Today we don't know for sure whether believers had the Gospel at that time. Opinions of historians vary, but most likely they didn't. But the author's edition Apocalypse ("Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist") was in the lists. (30). Here are the first words from it: "Revelation of Jesus Christ given by God to him in order to show his slaves what is to happen soon (bold provided. - M.A.). And he showed having sent it with His Angel to John, His slave…". It turns out Saint John expounded the message about the Savior's arrival, which was brought to the Mediterranean region by Jesus Christ, in writing.
    Riders are often mentioned in that ancient Christian book. They gave me the key to solution.
    "I took a look and saw a white horse and a rider on it with a bow; he was given a halo and he same as victorious and in order to win".
    "And another sorrel horse appeared and the one sitting on it was to take peace away from the earth so that people kill each other; and he was given a big sword".
    "I took a look and saw a pale horse and the rider called "death" on it, and hell followed him and he was given power over the fourth part of the earth…"
    Thus the Christians saw the messengers of God's Agent. The riders! With bows and sabers. They've been waiting for deliverers from the Roman despotism from afar… (31). As a matter of fact waiting for them was the ideology of Christianity at that time - the hope for soon arrival of Messiah, God's Agent. The text of Apocalypse is full of messianic moods and belief in soon deliverance.
    It was very important for me to comprehend the essence of religion which was rising those days!.. A great many things could become clearer. I tried to put myself in the place of a believer of keen mind who knows Christian literature. He hears about appearance of the riders of whom Christ said, they came from afar, what is he to do?
   
    And he has to do something - time is getting short. The riders are near - they are around Derbent. The rumours about them agitated the Christian communities - Christ's prophecy has come true, here it is!..   
    A religious man out of the uncommon would see a special sign in it; he would leave in search for the divine riders. They are going to save Christianity and the Christians. That's why just the Christians (and nobody else) appeared at the political scene at that time.
    But who was that first one?

    The Great Enlightener of Armenia

    … And now let us return to the real events in the Caucasus from the supposed (hypothetic) ones: Favst Buzand and other historians accurately described what has happened.
    The young bishop Gregoris came to the camp of the enemies who have occupied Derbent. He introduced himself to the Kipchak tsar and, standing before the troops, started to preach Christ's teaching about salvation… Stop! Let us interrupt the story of Favst Buzand. There is no logic in it!
    Could Gregoris address to the Kipchak tsar all of a sudden? Who would allow him - that immature alien - to do that?..
    It seems something very important preceded that and the chronicler didn't know about it… It was important to understand how Gregoris addressed to the Kipchak tsar, what dialect he spoke? Armenian and Turkic languages are absolutely different… And a sermon in Armenian before the Turki would have been an empty sound… Presence of the translator didn't help since, as far as we know, language is the beginning of virtue!
    It turns out a sermon wasn't in question there. Something else was. For example, an important statement: he could be introduced to the tsar only in that case. Maybe Gregoris pronounced several learnt Turkic phrases. Maybe he delivered a message written in the Turkic language. (Just in the Turkic language. That was required by the diplomatic etiquette and necessity to be understood.) But what could be the sense of his words?
    Grigoris himself, his biography helped me to understand that… He was the grandson of Gregory the Enlightener - the legendary person in Armenia - it seems the caliber of his great apostolic deed hasn't been understood to the full extent either in Armenia or in the world.
    That was him, Gregory - Gregoris' grandfather - who was the first of the Christians who saw God's Sign in the shape of the cross; later he arrived to Caesaria in the chariot decorated with gold and precious stones accompanied with princes and a magnificent army. In order to give a cross to Europe! Because he, Gregory the Enlightener, having remembered Apocalypse, connected the Turkic cross with the message about Messiah in his mind for the first time… And Heaven confirmed the accuracy of his thought.
    Gregory the Enlightener was born in 157, he is the Persian, the descendant of the Parthian tsar, Apanak's son. His father, taking part in a palace intrigue, killed Khozroi - the Armenian leader. Murderer's family should have been annihilated in accordance with the law. But a wet nurse pulled the innocent baby Gregory out if the hands of the executioners and disappeared with him. She was wandering with the baby in her hands for a long time hiding from the persecutors, and at last the road led her to the house of Burdar and Sofia - the people who were rich not only in money but also in compassion. Sofia, the real Christian, undertook to bring Gregory up.
    Fortune smiled to the youth in everything. His inborn nobility was delightful and attracted people - Gregory's sermons to the glory of Christianity were being passed from mouth to mouth; they were discussed in huts and in palaces… But, as it often happens, his glory gave rise to envy, especially among the rulers. Their patience was exhausted by March 30th, 287 - it seems they remembered the crime of Gregory's father by that time. That was enough to exile the preacher. Gregory's biography is under veil. Where exactly was he? It is not known.
    In the saint's biography concerning those days it is just said that he was put into a ditch with snakes for fourteen years… I involuntarily stirred up when snakes were mentioned; it made me remember "serpent towns" form Scandinavian novels. (32). Especially since "serpent" tortures haven't been performed in Transcaucasia either before or after Gregory. It remained only to suppose that a known legend was in question which real sense has been forgotten in the course of centuries.

    The term "serpent ditch" hid an evident circumlocution connected with the Turki. The Kipchaks again? Of course. The tsar Tridiat - the ruler of Armenia of those times - exiled Gregory, the dangerous preacher, to them… The tsar simply didn't have any other decision.

    They couldn't kill Gregory; that could give rise to troubles in a restless country. To put him to prison in Armenia meant to promote the popularity of the preacher who wouldn't have kept silent in prison. To send him to the West, closer to Rome? But Christian moods prevailing there would have only done the exile good. An exile to Persia was also counter-indicative: the Persian by birth, descendant of Apanak who has killed the Armenian tsar had a chance to turn into a national hero in Persia.
    Tiridat had the only way out - to sell Gregory into slavery in secret or simply to send him to the Kipchaks. They wouldn't have respected the son of the person who has killed the tsar Khozroi - the first ally of the steppe inhabitants in the Caucasus!
    Gregory was sitting in the exile for fourteen years. Actually, he was "sitting"! And how? For that "sitting" the steppe inhabitants would dig deep holes where they would put the prisoners - that was according to the Steppe tradition (the word "prison" is the derivative of the Turkic "to sit"). But of course snakes weren't thrown there. That ditch was called "serpent" later by the Armenians who listened to Gregory after his return from the exile. And, we should give them due, one cannot give a more precise name to the Turkic prison.
    On June 15th, 301 the Turki set Gregory free. And he returned to Armenia being the Enlightener! The years of exile didn't pass in vain.
    Of course steppe inhabitants didn't reveal the religious secrets to prisoner Gregory. However, being an intelligent and observant person, he noticed a great many things not known in Europe. Gregory gradually learnt not only the language of the Turkic Kipchaks but also their spiritual culture. He saw equilateral crosses with steppe inhabitants, he felt the divine force of the sign of the cross and the whole Tengirchilik ceremony which was the difference between the Turkic and the European culture at that time… Heavenly God made the Kipchaks invincible - that's what Gregory understood.
    There wasn't even the term "Heavenly God", "One God" in Christianity at that time. But the Turki had it. In Old Testament (spiritual book of the Jews and the Christians) polytheism was in question. (33).
    Maybe in the exile saint martyr George was granted a prophetical idea to unite the saving cross with the message about Messiah. Nobody else was ready to accept that gift. Nobody was able to understand it.
    Having seen the image of Heavenly God, Gregory decided to make Armenia the ally of the Turki against the Romans and the Persians. Thus he has become the first Catholicos The word "Catholicos" (without the Greek "-os" ending) - is the derivative from the ancient Turkic "catyl" root and means "connector", "ally", "the acceded". It is interesting that the Church's patriarchies were called so only in the Caucasus; the Greeks have never used that word.
    Sacred relic of the Armenian Church is the copy of the Tengirchilik pacification gesture which was brought to the Caucasus and to Europe by the Turki

    The Armenian tsar Tiridat, who has exiled Gregory, solemnly accepted him upon his return having called him "God's Saint". God's Saint, exactly! The Armenian tsar bent his knees before his yesterday's prisoner in everyone's presence. Tiridat was the first who recognized the Enlightener. Thus the Armenians expressed their attitude to the idea of the union with the Kipchaks…
    I realize what I have said. My words are in full accordance with official biography of Gregory the Enlightener, with the notes of Favst Buzand and other chroniclers of those times. I simply united the legends of the Turki and the Armenians and extended them to the real historical ground not adding and not excluding anything. That's why I'll continue.   
    … In order to accomplish what was planned, the grandson of the Enlightener, who was called Gregoris in his grandfather's honor, was engaged: being fifteen years old he was granted the title of a bishop - he went to the north, to meet God's Agent, being an important ecclesiastic.. And maybe the boy was simply sent to be brought up, which was in accordance with the Turkic traditions and corresponds with further course of events.
    With steppe inhabitants - and only with the Kipchaks! - young Gregoris recognized the ceremonies of Heavenly God worship. They were the only ones who showed him the saving cross, icons, prayers, ring bells calling for a prayer about which his grandfather had told him… And the main thing - he was the first one who accepted baptism there and then crossed himself in sign of purification and subjection to God. (Adji Lake remained near Derbent as well as Gyurgi settlement near it).
    Thumb of his right hand he put together with his third finger, carried them to his forehead, lowered them to hid chest, put them to the left and then to the right shoulder… Thus the Tengirchilik followers would do crossing themselves with Tengri's Holy Cross; thus the Armenian Christians have been doing since then.
    Putting together a thumb and a third finger is the gesture known as the "pacification gesture" since olden days in the East. It is depicted perhaps on every image of Buddha and Tengri. According to a legend, evil spirits cannot stand that sign - demons' power exhausts due to it. "You glorious and victorious warrior having made many miracles, having known one of the three faces of God…", - a prayer in the honor of Saint George which is read the same everywhere expresses that idea. In conscience of the Europeans Saint George presented the Mediator between God and man… He turned to the envoys of Heavenly God!.. He gave rise to the union between the Caucasian nations and the steppe world. The cross of Tengirchilik was the sign of that union; nowadays it is known as Saint George Cross.
    And what about the legend? It is to be discussed a little bit later…

    Contradictions

    The truth is that at first the episode with a cross and rise of new Churches in the Caucasus didn't satisfy me. Slipshod chronology was perplexing: in different sources one and the same historical fact was dated with a variation of about thirty years. An evident contradiction of events appeared in my theory.

    For example, if the year 301 - the year of creation of the Armenian Church - is assumed to be the starting point, we have a picture into which the episode with the feat of George and finding of the cross by him in 302 doesn't fit. That was too early for it! It is logical for the 30s of IV century. Because during the first decades in Armenia and the Caucasian Albania there was a preparation for acceptance of new belief - the idea of new God was just finding its adherents, it entered people's conscience. Plowing up the pagan soil people built the churches and overthrew old gods; clergymen and parishioners were being prepared: great deeds are never performed during one day.
    However assumed chronology fails to correspond with real course of history. Contradictions are evident. Why? Because the finding of the Holy Cross in Armenia, according to its historical documents, happened on November 10th, 326. It means a cross was shining above the Armenian Church in a quarter of a century after its creation.
    To tell the truth, nowadays the Europeans connect the finding of the cross with another event which is supposed to happen in Palestine. "That Holiday was celebrated in honor of finding of Fair and Holy Tree of God's Cross by the tsarina Helen". However, even if everything was really like that, in any case they would have found just a T-beam on which Christ was crucified but not an equilateral cross. There was no cross at that time.
    Having compared many facts I came to a conclusion that chronological disorders which seemed frightful to me are vexingly banal. The date of Saint George's death - they year 303 - was simply invented by the Roman Church the same as many other facts of his biography. It was invented by the editors for whom it was important to connect George's fate with the Roman emperor Diocletian… And there are no other explanations here.    
    And thus another question arose: why did Favst Buzand call the Persian ruler "the commander of the numerous Hun army"? What was that - an inaccuracy of the translation? Or a mistake of the chronicler who was retelling from the words of others?.. Who was mistaken? Unfortunately I failed to find an answer. (23).
    But the fact remains: Dadian is the organizer of the murder of the bishop Gregoris; he is the copartner… But what reasons forced the Persian ruler to make that cruel step? What has the young preacher done wrong?
    In my opinion Gregoris himself was the one who… made for the crime; the reason was his successful missionary work in the Caucasus. Of course it was mentioned in Persia. Knowing about the Persian family tree of Gregory, it might be that Dadian was inclining him to propagation of Zoroastrianism - the religion of the Persians. Thus Persia got a chance to improve its cracked positions in the Caucasus… A political intrigue was setting in, and Gregoris refused to take part in it. Being a real spiritual warrior, he couldn't betray Heavenly God.
    But "if two are at enmity one of them must die", - they say in the East. Intractable and inexperienced bishop was simply slandered by the Persians before the Kipchaks. They did it without any difficulties since steppe inhabitants would believe words like children. A cause was found, which decided the youth's fate. He was killed… Killed in a violent way as a man who has committed a grave crime. The method of murder speaks for itself.
    But… and that "but" was the most difficult and the most inexplicable thing. It was impossible to understand why did the victim, who has possibly committed a grave crime, become the national hero of the Kipchaks?! Why hasn't anyone been ever respected and glorified more than him, Saint George? He is the next after God.
    It turns out there was an ancient custom in the Steppe; other researchers also paid their attention to it. (35). In case one of the enemies showed the miracles of bravery and heroism, if he was notable for exemplary noble deeds, he was not simply killed having been taken prisoner, he was violently killed with the words: "When you are re-born, honor us with being born in our lands".
    In those cases an execution would turn into a sacrifice of a hero. According to beliefs of the steppe inhabitants, in case the ceremony was accurately followed, the hero's soul satisfied with the last feast turned not into an enemy but into a guarding spirit for those who paid their last respect to him. They used to put a stone monument in his honor.
    Dadian, the Persian ruler (maybe not with his own hands), killed the bishop Gregoris, but the traditions of the Great Steppe made an innocent victim - Djargan, Gyurdzhi - the eternal hero… He - "being a foolhardy" - unlike the steppe inhabitants themselves who respected a saber, performed his great feat with a word. He met with a violent death. An alien was dying with Tengri's name on his lips; Tengri, Whom he served in his life and Whom he didn't betray in the moment of his death.
    Tengri's mark - godliness - was put on the hero. Having recognized that, the Kipchaks were amazed and they left him their guarding spirit forever. They simply couldn't do otherwise. That's why the image of the saint warrior is especially important for the European Kipchaks.
    That image couldn't appear with the Armenians or with the Greeks not because "no man is prophet in his own country, a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country". It simply happened that the feat of the hero bore no relation to those nations and thus they saw nothing more than a violent death in his execution. They didn't understand the highest sense of the ritual sacrifice. In Armenia Gregoris is remembered as the grandson of George the Enlightener and they don't have the slightest idea where his grave is. (36).
    The memory of Djargan's feat was kept only by the Great Steppe and the Kipchaks whose guardian he has become. Thus another thing becomes clear: why Saint George (Gevorg) came to the divine pantheon of the Armenian Church much later (in VII - VIII centuries, apparently) from Byzantium, when it has already been forgotten who was its originator. Two persons exist in Armenia since that time - alien Gevorg and native Gregoris. And nobody can guess that one is the reflection of the other… That has already happened in history of the nations. It seems historians of the Church should bring their work into accord; dozens of events are in contradiction with each other.
    And any disparity gives rise to another one. If, say, by example of Church historians, the Great Steppe isn't taken into consideration, it is not clear when, where and how was Gregory, the Enlightener of Armenia - Gregoris' grandfather, conferred orders. He couldn't accept a cross in a synagogue… And when and from whom did he accept it? (37).
    Who built and consecrated the first Armenian churches? They were really the churches! Why were they oriented to the East the same as Tengirchilik ones? They had a shape of the cross in their foundation - the same as the steppe inhabitants would build their ones. Why wouldn't believers enter them and pray near a church until VII - VIII centuries?.. How, in the course of one day, did the new church architecture appear in Armenia and why is it surprisingly similar with the Kipchak one? Finally, why did altars appear in them while the Christians didn't have them?   
    And what is the Turkic tamga doing on the walls of ancient Armenian churches? Doesn't it suggest anything to historians? In a wall of one of the monasteries (near the Chapel of Vatchagan the Blessed III) there is a stone with an image of a rider in Turkic clothes and a headdress (the Kipchaks called it a klobuk), with a saddle without stirrups… Who is that riding clergyman? And why does he remind of those who are carved on the rocks of Altai and the Southern Siberia?.. It is time for historians to bring many things to conformity with reality which looks with a silent reproach from the walls of ancient Armenian churches and monasteries.

    But that's not all… Say, why are there two snakes on a staff of the head of the Armenian Church - the same as Tengirchilik clergymen had? Is it connected with the "serpent ditch"? By the way, Tengirchilik (not Armenian, indeed!) staffs remained in the emblems of several Siberian towns which have been spiritual centers of the Turki from of old… It is interesting, isn't it?
    God opened my eyes… It is no sweat to make observations of that kind now in the Caucasus; they are in sight. Take the sign of the cross - the Armenians cross themselves according to a Tengirchilik tradition. Is it casual that reliquaries (receptacles for various kinds of relics) are still made in form of a hand with a pacification gesture? Being blessed the Armenians put their palms together in a Tengirchilik way - as a cross. Giving the Lord's Supper a clergyman draws a Tengirchilik cross on a parishioner's forehead with a brush… I won't even mention the outline of the cross accepted by the Christian Church - its Tengirchilik origin is evident… Clothes of Armenian bishops are of Tengirchilik style. (38).
    Neither Europe nor the Middle East could give Armenia what they themselves didn't have! So where was Gregory the Enlightener conferred orders? The first clergyman in the Christian world?! In Derbent.

    Let the Christians Be the Christians again

    Without exaggeration, Saint George was the first Eurasian in the world. He learnt the spiritual traditions of the East and made Europe familiar with them. With understanding of that fact, in my opinion, one can see a mysterious sense of a very important order of the Roman emperor Galerius, signed in 311, when the idea of possible union with steppe inhabitants has already got its adherents. The emperor would stop the persecution of the Christians under one condition: "Let the Christians be the Christians again".
    Generations of historians were trying to explain the meaning of his words, but the mystery remained. (42). Having become entangled with the versions, researchers waved it away. They agreed that that was a "common Roman legal formula not binding the Christians in any way and meaning nothing in reality"… Is it really like that?

As a matter of fact it meant a lot!.. Because further in the text one can read: "We also wanted certain Christians who have rejected the teaching of their fathers to return to a good way of thinking, since for some reason they've been seized by such simplicity, enthralled by such insanity that they don't follow the ancient rules which, it may be, their fathers followed, but produce the laws for themselves at their discretion, whichever they want, they issue them and, in accordance with different viewpoints, they form different societies". I emphasize the word "different" here: the first split in Christianity is evident. It is impossible to fix it more accurately and shorter than the author did: Jewish Christians remained with their former positions and the "new" ones started to design a ceremony borrowed form the Turkic Tengirchilik followers.
    It was evident from Galerius' order that authorities, having understood the usefulness of violence, tried to return the Christians to "established rules" they formerly had in a peaceful manner. As we can see, everything coincides again: that was the new ceremony borrowed from the Caucasus which gave a cause to Diocletian's persecutions; and he himself was the one who abolished them. Galerius tried to neutralize the "internal enemy" by his order. And that is confirmed by materials of Ancyr Councils (years 314 and 358) where rules of the "new" Christianity (Arianism) were formulated for the first time.
    Thus everything seemed to be in its right place; the logic and the documents connected separate events into a single whole explaining the caliber of Saint George's feat.
    However, that didn't satisfy me. I was embarrassed with the fact that in the works issued, for example, in Russia, there is not a single line about the things which seemed evident for me… I didn't accept the correctness of my own opinion: its evidence stumped me.
    Professor Kirpichnikov and his book helped. It turns out in 494 the Roman Council I PROHIBITED mentioning Saint George's activity. That's the reason of our ignorance and confusion around that pure soul and his feat in the name of the Great Steppe. The Christians weren't allowed to know and talk about his real life. "Let only God know George's case", - the Council decided. The Roman bishop Gelacius I condemned the disobedient persons bitterly.
    Thus church half-truth, legends and all other "explanations" appeared; their aim is to lead one further from the truth, from the Great Steppe… That's why the Armenian Church didn't "know" Gregoris and his deed!
    Another history editor - a monk Simeon Metathrastus - intensified the trouble in X century. On the instructions of the Byzantine Church he edited all the biographies of the canonized saints. (43). It is a big secret what has been added and what has been crossed out… Thus once again - and again "officially" - they changed the biography of George the warrior. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last "version" of it.
    Professor Kirpichnikov wrote about Metathrastus' additions in brief, as though it wasn't worthy of serious attention: church legends about the martyrs were always "reformed" according to a known form - hagiography was adjusted to the biblical plots.
    But the last and the biggest point, even not a point but a blot, was put in the church history in 1969: that's when the secret was revealed - George was EXCLUDED from the official list of saints of the Catholic Church…

   
    "Where Will this Lead? Where to Go?"

    Luckily, Apocrypha remained; it is like a breath of fresh air. Apocryphal works are the literary works not recognized by the official Church: sagas, legends, songs, poems. They are called folk stories (they don't have an author but everybody knows them). It is possible to prohibit the books, to edit something on paper, but all the people cannot be forced to keep silence…
    Contradictions were clearly expressed, maybe involuntarily, by Constantine Balmont, the great poet of the Great Steppe. That wasn't by accident that his contemporaries called him a genius:

    Saint George, having killed a dragon,
    Looked around in sorrow.
    He couldn't hear the dull moan,
    He couldn't be pure simply loving the light.

    With a light heart, in the name of God,
    He directed his spear and raised his shield,
    But there were so many thoughts,
    And he is struck; he is silent having struck.

    And the saint's horse wrathfully kicked
    The edge of the road with his hoof,
    He's come here by a well-trodden road,
    Where will this lead? Where to go?

    Saint George, Saint George,
    You've also tasted your highest hour!
    You were amazed before the strong serpent,
    You've faded out before the dead one!
   
    Maybe I understood the poet's words "in my own way" - while the serpent was alive George was also alive… If the steppe inhabitants, or their free spirit, disappear - the image of George will "fade out". The Western Church has already "faded" it out - the image of God's Agent, the Mediator between God and man…
    Regardless of the evil the apocryphal works kept what was to vanish according to intentions of Rome. They didn't deny the official version - they didn't notice it skillfully supplementing it with details which obtained a special sense. Using the book by professor Kirpichnikov I delved into translations of Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Anglo-Saxon, Slavic and Latin works, I saw their colors and tints which hid the information.
    I was rereading the extracts from the work by Tabari, the eastern historian of IX century, with particular attention (being free from the Roman censorship, he was one of the first who provided the Moslem version of Saint George's feat). And there was a miracle: centuries-old events turned out to be visible and their participants didn't look like ethereal imaginary characters which they were made by the Church.
    The name of Saint George is on the lips of people of different creeds. Doesn't that reflect his magnificence?! He is higher than the Christian apostles! Steppe inhabitants addressed to him as "prophet's deputy" in their prayers, i.e. they considered him to be equal to their prophets.
    That George was dangerous for Rome which was dreaming to return domination over the world. Hence is Jesuit alteration of his biography and the whole history of the Great Steppe which has been lasting for centuries. Water was wearing away the stone, a worm was eating away the tree; everybody was busy with its business until the great feat was reduced to a primitive murder and the Steppe - to the crowd of the nomads.
    And the Kipchaks are the only ones who retained Saint George propagating the name of Tengri on the Earth in their apocryphal works. A lie never sticks to real relics! Steppe inhabitants remember him as a "belief upholder", "invincible passion bearer".

    Dzhalgan Settlement

    I managed to get to Dzhalgan settlement with many difficulties. The place chosen for habitation was the most unsuitable in the whole neighborhood: on the top of the mountain, no roads, no tillage, not many pastures. But nevertheless people have been living there for a long time.
    It's better to get here by a landrover. And not in any weather. A very inconvenient place, although a plain is near as well as beautiful mountainsides and water. But Dzhalgan is located right there - on the top of the mountain! And it has always had other goals as compared with other neighboring settlements. Dzhalgan is the guard of sacred places. Everybody knows that.

    Settlement inhabitants kind of live aside from the rest of the world. Like another nation from another planet. Who are they? One can only guess. Near the settlement I noticed an ancient cemetery; there were the monuments deepened into the earth and there were ones which remained in rather good state. By their shape I understood that Persian culture was dominating in the settlement some time ago. Dzhalgan inhabitants speak Farsi. To tell the truth, their "Farsi" isn't understood by the Persians and be anybody else in the world. A separate language? A separate country? That may be. In Dagestan it isn't new.
    When I asked about their nationality they said they were the Azerbaijanians. And they added: "By the passport". But they are not like the Azerbaijanians judging by their language and appearance. The settlement has a different spirit. Low wattle and daub houses with flat roofs and windows facing the courtyard, tight stone fences reminded of Afghanistan. And people with expressive, peculiar faces looked like the Afghans. East and the Caucasus were all around; but the Caucasus was peculiar.
    Time has stopped in Dzhalgan long ago: the streets were of the fifteenth or even of the tenth century. Only electric poles returned imagination to reality. The settlement reminded of a big ground where a film was to be made…
    The first one whom we saw was a woman bearing a jug with water somewhere from below. Arrival of the aliens put her on her guard. Of course I failed to have a talk with her. Not the linguistic barrier was the reason but her true Moslem upbringing - she didn't have the right to stop before the aliens.
    The second one we met was more amiable. That was an elderly peasant returning from the fields into the settlement sleeping because of summer heat. He invited us to his house where we chatted about "this and that" drinking tea - in the East it is not correct to deluge with questions and requests. It was necessary to talk to the host easily, to make him feel you are a guest and only having understood what a person you are a host would decide himself whether to help you or not.
    The rumour of our arrival was spreading in Dzhalgan; wireless telegraphy was working. One of the neighbors needed to ask our host about something and he, making excuses, called him from the table at which we were sitting. As a matter of fact we were sitting not at table but on the wattle and daub floor where desired coolness of stone could be felt. Before us was the motley tablecloth onto which the hostess put tea-bowls, a sugar basin and slices of cheese on the plate… In a little while other people came; then we came out to the garden where branches were inclining because of ripe cherries… They were really examining us.
    - We have a pir, - I heard at least what I've been seeking for. (Pir means a holy place).

    The grave of the saint warrior is the place of honor in Dzerbent. It is near the mosque. Some time a chapel was rising above the grave; it was mentioned by Favst Buzand. As the centuries went on the chapel was destroyed and reconstructed several times - today just the walls remained from it. And an old fig-tree which was planted near sacred places according to an ancient tradition.
    Of course that is not that fig-tree, not the first one - it is its granddaughter. It has been getting old the same as the chapel and replaced by a new one. Thank God, about a thousand and seven hundred years have passed. Just the gravestone over which time and elements have no power remained safe. In an arrow passage of half-destroyed walls there was a stone which seemed to be polished from one side: palms and lips of pilgrims left their noticeable trace on it… Even stones yield to human belief.
    When I touched the headstone of Saint George standing on my knees an inexplicable thing happened. Warmth radiated by the stone was flowing in my hands pricking my fingers and filling my soul with joy and happiness. That was HIS warmth… I've never felt such bliss in my life. Something returned to me and the stone revived under my hands; it seemed I touched a living human being. I even felt the suppressed breathing…
    In a sacred grove - it is near the grave - some time ago the pilgrims would stop gathering for a prayer; those were Tengirchilik followers, Moslems, Christians who came there. They came there to have a rest, to make sacrifices in honor of the saint warrior who died for belief. An altar and a place for cutting of animals remained. To tell the truth, people haven't come here for a long time. Since 1917.
    Surges of atheism overwhelming Russia reached the Caucasus. But they also haven't washed the grave of Saint George out - people looked after it secretly. Not announcing and not making a show of their care. But the sacred grove suffered. They ordered to cut it down. Luckily, the authorities weren't able to execute that order.
    To tell the truth, destructions took place all the same. In the 30s they blew Church of Saint George up; it stood where according to a legend the warrior was killed. Long ago they led a water pipe to the Church from Dzhalgan settlement and parishioners would make an ablution with his water before the grave! (Ablution before a prayer was obligatory for Tengirchilik followers). The water pipe existed for almost a thousand and seven hundred years. In 1938 it was destroyed. Nowadays there is the Lenin monument in the place of Saint George's death…
    Only a spring in the sacred grove of Dzalgan settlement is immortal. Nursing mothers having no milk come there following a tradition. Those being sterile also drink holy water.

    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!

    Notes and Comments to the Appendix

1. See details: Collection of Folk Songs by P.V. Kireevskiy, Vol.2. L., 1986, page 16.        
    2. Transformation of the legend called "St. George and the Dragon" is interesting. The older is the text, the more "exact" details it contains. It seems thus church authors intended to convince the readers of its authenticity. For example, at first a certain eastern town, near which walls everything has happened, was in question. Then the "certain" town obtained an exact address: "In Phoenicia, near the town of Berit, close to Palestine, among the Lebanese mountains there was a lake on which shore there lived a big venomous serpent…"
    Geographical connection presupposes a geological confirmation of existence of the lake in a mountain desert, and it has never been provided. The biologists and the zoologists keep silent… What was that serpent being the only one in the world?
    "Saint George, having crossed himself, sitting on a horse, attacked the serpent…" - is written in the latter text of the legend. In its earlier versions it is said otherwise: having faced the serpent Saint George put off his arms and started to pray.
    Mixture of the old text and the new one leads to an evident awkwardness. In latter version George pierces the serpent with a spear and his horse tramples it down. So how could the young girl lead the killed "big" "venomous" serpent to the town on her belt? Let alone the fact that the warrior wasn't physically able to pierce a serpent with a spear for the length of a spear in the Roman army was just 95 centimeters.
    However, one shouldn't look for discrepancies in any legend - that is a literary work in which author's imagination isn't always in compliance with historical reality.

    3. See details of Saint George's biography and development of his mythological character: Kirpichnikov A.I. Saint George and George the Brave. SPb., 1879; in brief - Mythological Dictionary. M., 1991. Pages 145 - 146.

    4. See details: Lazarev V.N. New Monument of Easel Painting of XII century and Image of George the Warrior in Byzantium and Ancient Russian Arts // Byzantine Annals. Vol. VI. M., 1953. Page 186; The Moscow Kremlin. M., 1990. Page 49; Nenarokomova I.S. National Museums of the Moscow Kremlin. M., 1992. Pages 151 - 156.

    5. Lazarev V.N. Stated work. Page 187.

    6. Formerly Saint George was painted in a red cloak on the icons, and that contained a deep sense - a red cloak symbolized belonging to higher persons of the state, to the tsar's dynasty. People of the middle level usually wore a white cloak. That "disguise" of the saint can hardly be called accidental especially if one remembers the decisions of the Roman Council I and the whole further policy of the Western Church in relation to Saint George, which is hereinafter discussed.

    7. As a matter of fact the main thing which gives rise to doubts concerning the result of the Battle of Kulikovo is… the absence of the traces of the battle itself. If a military conflict has really taken place in the fields, it was really limited. Not the Horde but its minor part acted against the Russians.

    8. See details: Fletcher J. About the Russian State // On the Eve of Distemper. M., 1990. Pages 481 - 604.

    9. Poor knowledge or rather total ignorance of history and culture of the steppe inhabitants has been the reason of curious amusing incidents more than once. For example, in literary works relating to the Hun epoch there are phrases like "serpent court", "serpent town", "serpent ditch" and other similar phrases. In their time those "serpent" fancies were the symbols of the Steppe known to the Europeans. Later their sense has been forgotten. And for example the former "serpent town" where Attila lived becomes "the town of the dead" in the interpretation of a modern translator - serpents are supposed to eat the corpses there. Thus it happened with the modern translation of the ancient Scandinavian "Song about Atli".
    "The town of the dead" instead of "the town of the Kipchaks"; an insignificant changing and no one will ever know about the steppe culture, about the Kipchaks who came from Altai and conquered the whole Europe. History is distorted by those "insignificant" changes; serpents appear which, as it turns out, eat not the corpses but history of entire nations. (See details: Epos of the Northern Europe, Ways of Evolution / Edited by N.S. Chemodanov. M., 1989. Pages 143 - 150).

    10. See details: Kirpichnikov A.I. Stated works. Page 101; Mythological Dictionary (articles "Geser", "Uastyrdzhi", "Khadyr"). M., 1991. Page 151 - 152, 559, 580.

    11. See details: Kryvelev I.A. History of Religions. Vol. 1. M., 1975, Page 243. Giving examples from the chronicles of the Western Church, the author writes: "In many cases the number of specimens of one and the same relic was big, which seemed unlikely; for example, there were more than ten heads of John the Forerunner". There was a time when every monastery acted almost as an owner of this or that "biblical" relic; they didn't even pay attention to doubtfulness of their origin. The way of obtaining a relic also wasn't important for the Christians.

    12. About how I came to the term "steppe culture" and managed to find its distinctive features see: Adjiev M. We Are of the Polovtsian Origin! M., 1992; Adji M. Absinth of the Polovtsian Field. M., 1994.
    Here I'll remind that the first, the most ancient traces of a human being in Altai - they are about two hundred thousand years old - were discovered by archeological expeditions of academician A.P. Okladnikov and his colleagues. Those early findings are the beginning of chronology of the ancient culture; part of it was inherited by the Turki.
    Archeologists who researched the ancient culture of Altai often found crosses. But censorship prohibited to report about it. Monographs of professor S.I. Rudenko are indicative in this relation. The books published in 1953 didn't even mention crosses on its "Stalinist" pages. And in the edition of 1960 prepared during the "Khruschev's thaw" a detailed description with drawings and photographs is provided. To tell the truth, no explanation of the unique findings is given.
    Academician A.P. Okladnikov was more correct. He examined rock paintings of Altai where altars, clergymen in long clothes, caducies, ripidas and, of course, equilateral crosses were depicted. It seemed the scientist faced a Christian plot in its Orthodox edition! But all the signs witnessed of belonging of the image not simply to another culture, but also to pre-Christian times. A.P. Okladnikov didn't focus attention on that question, they didn't move on after the factual beginning - they weren't allowed to. And one can understand the censors: what religion could be in question if the archeologists were excavating a "wild", "Asian" culture?
    In this connection I can remember the reaction of Vatican on one of my articles. After a long analysis of it they delivered me a short message which I have remember for all my life: "We know Orthodoxy was preceded by some religion but we don't know which".
    For example, not many people know that the first Christian Church in the world is located in Derbent - the most ancient town of Russia. Some consider it too bold to include the history of the Caucasus into the history of Russia, although that was the place where a culture which is called Christian and Orthodox today started its way. Its appearance is directly connected with the Turkic culture and traditions of mountain nations which are neglected by Russian historians.
    It is interesting that Altai itself symbolized paradise on earth for the Turki. That is often mentioned in folk epics. Toponymy witnesses of the same. And the most important thing is that memory of paradisiacal earths in a literal sense is kept by the ancestors of modern Altai inhabitants. Thus in ancient burial places found to the east from Altai the deceased lie their faces to the west, while to the west from Altai (and later in the whole Europe) they used to bury the deceased their faces to the east. To the north of Altai burial places are directed to the south.
    That strict orientation contains enciphered memory about paradise where, according to the legends of the ancient Turki, people would find everlasting bliss having left for the other world.
    Of course, "paradise on earth" is a separate subject for analysis. It contains much of what was present in spiritual life of the Turki during the centuries but remained unknown to the masses. Tengrianism spring ceremony which was later borrowed by the Christians for Easter holiday will probably be another part of that analysis.
    Easter cakes, colored eggs, cheese cakes - all these were the attributes of the Turkic spring holiday which brought joy and pleasure to everyone. Not many of the Kipchaks remember that an egg is the symbol of sky and earth, of sun and origin of life. But painted eggs are sill an obligatory attribute of the spring feast of steppe inhabitants.
    Curds, fresh and sour cheese (bashtak and kurut for Altai inhabitants) is the traditional food for cattle-breeders and, of course, an obligatory element of sacrificial food. Why do Orthodox Christians usually make a cheese "Easter cake" in the form of a pyramid? It turns out the sources of that tradition are in Tengrianism. During the prayers they used to put an image of a sacred mountain cut of cheese on an altar. That custom remained in Altai. (See details: Okladnikova E.A. Ritual Sculptures of Animals Made of Cheese of the Cumandic Altai-kiji // Plastic Arts and Paintings of Ancient Cultures. Novosibirsk, 1983. Page 161.)
    Today accented unwillingness to initiate the aliens into the secrets of their religion is marked by many researchers of the Turkic culture. Maybe that is the explanation of insufficient study of Turkic religious ceremonies and a primitive interpretation thereof in scientific literature.

    13. See: History of Armenia by Favstos Buzand. Yerevan, 1953. Time has kept almost nothing about the author; we don't even know the dates of his life. Analysis of the text showed that the author lived in IV - V centuries and his work is one of the first ones written in Armenian alphabet which was formed be the year 406.
    Chronology is absent in the work which is natural for that epoch; their purpose consisted in descriptions of deeds of certain rulers. That's why counting out started from the moment of ascending the throne of this or that person.
    Another peculiarity of the work is the influence of the folk tradition on its style. Plenty of details which, probably, have never taken place, author's personal estimations reduce the historical value of the notes, and at the same time those peculiarities allow to relate the work to the most ancient literary monuments.
    I was very interested in the author's story about the great enlightener of Armenia - Gregory (Anak's son), about his children - Aristakes and Vrtanes. They were the descendants of Parthian tsars. There are interesting lines about Vrtanes' son, young Gregoris, "who had beautiful appearance full of spiritual and virtuous merits".
    Pages on which it is reported about Gregoris' visit to the Turkic Kipchaks are worthy of special attention: "And he went and introduced himself to the Mascut tsar, the sovereign of numerous Hun troops, he stood before them and started to propagate the Christ's Gospel, telling "Cognize God!" to them". (Favst Buzand. Stated work. Page 14). Of course one should be careful dealing with the works of the Middle Ages. Information was often distorted being passed from lips to lips before it appeared in the chronicler's field of vision. Apparently, thus it happened with "History" by Favst Buzand. But it is to be discussed later.

    14. See: History of Siberia. Vol.1. L., 1968. Pages 244 - 250.

    15. Quotation from the book Neikhardt A.A. The Mystery of the "Holy Cross". M., 1963. Page 21. For the first time an equilateral cross as a symbol of belief "was seen on the chest of Buddha's statue - the statue of the legendary founder of religion which appeared 600 years before Christianity". In the opinion of believers, crosses were made for attraction of heaven's fire in order to destroy the intrigues of the evil spirits.
    Until IV century Christianity wasn't an independent religion and was considered to be a branch of Buddhism; that period is customary called Judaic - Christian. The same as followers of other branches of Judaism (the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Zelots) Judaic-Christians neutrally treated a cross as the symbol of belief. Or they had nothing to do with it, to put it more preciously. They didn't even think about worship of it. To tell the truth, A.A. Neikhardt asserts that in Apocalypse - the earliest work of the New Testament - a cross is called "the sign of the Beast". (Neikhardt A.A. Stated work. Page 21). But it seems "not edited" ancient manuscripts are in question. At any rate, it is absent in the modern Russian translation of Apocalypse.
    However, a cross as an element of ornament was present in Europe. For example, in Ancient Greece jugs and vases were ornamented with designs which included a cross. But there is no reason to speak about the religious meaning if that sign.

    16. Many interesting things about those times remained. For example, these are the lines by Agathius, the historian of IV century, who reported about the invasion of Huns to Europe during the epoch of the emperor Leo: "In antiquity Hun nations lived around Meotian Lake (modern Azov Sea. - M.A.), from the eastern side and to the north of the Tanais river (modern Don. - M.A.); the same as other Barbarian nations they were hiding behind (-inside) the Imaon mountain which is situated in Asia (in the opinion of majority if researchers, Ural or the Caucasus is meant. - M.A.). They all are called (in Europe. - M.A.) the Scythians and the Huns, and separately their tribes are called Cotrigurs, Utigurs, Ultzurs and others are called the Burgundians" (quotation from: Pigulevskaya N. Syrian Sources for the History of the USSR Nations. M.; L., 1941. Page 107).
    I traced the way of one of the Kipchak families stated by Agathius - the Burgundians. As a matter of fact the route of the Great Nations Migration was repeated on a map. "Burgundu is a part of the ridge of the Baikal Mountains in Irkutsk province…". "Burgun - wells in the region behind the Caspian Sea…". "Burgustan - the mountain in 15 versts from Kislovodsk. Sometime the Christians lived there, which is witnessed by the ruins of towns and amount of coins, arms and small crosses found there…". And finally, "Burgundy - the country" which history, being the history of the French province, begins since 435 in Europe.
    Quotations provided above are from Brockhaus and Efron Dictionary. Who are they, those Burgundians? It seems they a part of the vanguard of the Great Nations Migrations since they used to give names to unknown lands. It is also likely that they gave a new name to the Kipchaks in Europe - the Huns (as it was suggested).
    And here is the phrase from a Byzantium document dated by the year 572: "the Huns, whom we usually call the Turki" (quotation from: Chichurov I.S. Byzantium Historical Works. M., 1980. Page 54). Similar phrases are often met in historical chronicles. It seems ancient chroniclers (not all of them, of course) realized that in spite of different names of tribes, the newcomers belonged to one nation - the Kipchaks. (This matter is considered in detail in clause 26).
    Toponymy of Eurasia includes hundreds of names which remained on the land of former Desht-I-Kipchak. An excellent book by E.M. Murzaev is dedicated to that subject. See: Murzaev E.M. Turkic Geographical Names. M., 1996.
    It remains to add that in Germany, where some time ago Attila found the allies who were the Francs, the Thurings, the Burgundians and others, there are also interesting works concerning the Turkic toponymy. See, for example: Scheinhardt H. Typen turkichen Ortnamen Beitrage zur Namenforschung. Heilberg, 1979.

    17.    I have already described the Turkic religion in detail in my book (see: Adji M. Absinth of the Polovtsian Field. M., 1994. Pages 195 - 283). Besides, religion of the Kipchaks is also described in other books. See, for example: Marco Polo. The Book. M., 1955; Jordan. About the Origin and Deeds of the Geths. M., 1960; Tisengausen V.G. Collection of Materials… SPb., 1886.
    Historical notes remained which authors have visited the steppe inhabitants trying to understand their way of life. For example, John de Plano Carpini wrote about pietism of the Turki: "They believe in one God whom they recognize as the creator of everything visible and invisible and they also recognize him as the creator of bliss and torments in this world but they don't worship him with prayers, praises or any kind of a ceremony" (See: [Carpini] John de Plano Carpini. History of the Moguls. SPb., 1910. Page 7). These lines were written in 1246. The Turki didn't reveal their secrets to the Italian sent by the Pope, as well as to other aliens.
    To tell the truth, it seems they made an exception for William de Rubruk. Either unique personal qualities of the messenger of the Western Europe, or diplomatic talents helped him to know certain peculiarities of religious mysteries.
    Rubruk was surprised with religion of the steppe inhabitants; it was the same as Christianity to a great extent. But he was promptly corrected: "Don't you say our lord is a Christian. He is not a Christian". And Rubruk mentioned in reply: "They were of such high pride that, although they might believe in Christ to a certain extent, they didn't wish to be called the Christians". (See: [Rubruk] William de Rubruk. The Traveling to Eastern Countries. SPb., 1910. Page 92).
    Here are other fragments: "I found a certain man who had a cross drawn with ink on his hand; thus I believed that he was a Christian since he answered as a Christian all my questions. So I asked him "Why don't you have a cross and an image of Jesus Christ here?" He answered: "That is not our custom"". (Ibid. Page 106).
    ""How do you believe in God?" They answered: "We believe only in one God". And I asked: "Do you believe He is the spirit or something material?" They said: "We believe He is the spirit". So I asked: "Do you believe He has never been of human nature?" They answered: "Never"". (Ibid. Page 108).
    "I saw a house above which there was a cross… I entered it and saw an altar decorated really beautifully. On the golden material I saw embroidered and laid images of the Savior, the Blessed Virgin, Precursor and two angels, at that outlines of their bodies and clothes were embroidered with pearl. There also was a big silver cross with precious stones in its corners and in the middle of it, and many other church ornaments, and an oil lamp consisting of eight parts was burning before the altar." (Ibid. Page 117).
    European haughtiness of Rubruk played a trick on him. He didn't even notice the fact that the Steppe Inhabitants didn't know the name of Christ. He took unwillingness to be called the Christians as common pride. And thus, having no doubts in relation to correctness of his conclusions, he presented his dreams as reality. The image of Tengri-Khan he took for the image of the Savior and the image of Umai - for the image of Blessed Virgin. And the one naively called Precursor by Rubruk was Dzhargan (or Saint George) - nobody else, especially from the Christian pantheon, could be there; and the cult of Dzargan has always been important in the Steppe. Those three themes became widespread in the Steppe. For example, in stone icons or rock paintings.
    Tengri-Khan was the head of the divine pantheon. They always made a nimbus around God's image on Tengirchilik icons. A nimbus is the most ancient symbol in the East; it meant outflow of vital energy and wisdom. A nimbus was usually painted in blue or sky-blue color. In Christian painting a nimbus appeared only in the Middle Ages, at that it was painted in yellow and (at first) was of triangular shape… However, let us return to the Rubruk's story.
    "He brought a beautiful silver cross made in Frankish style" (Ibid. Page 138). In other words that was a Tengirchilik cross. But Rubruk didn't understand that and thus, describing religious ceremonies of the steppe inhabitants, he perceived them not as Tengirchilik but as Christian.
    All the researchers marked striking toleration of the steppe inhabitants. Of course, they tried to explain it by wildness of the nation or indifference towards the questions of belief. However, the real reason is absolutely different: other religions were the variants of Tengirchilik for the Turki.   
    By the way, that is also an explanation of a very interesting observation of V.V. Bartold who mentioned that "in the Middle Asia the Christians didn't call themselves with that name which didn't move to eastern languages and cannot be met in inscriptions of Semirechye and Syrian and Chinese monuments". (Bartold V.V. Collected Works. Vol. II. Part 2. M., 1964. Page 264).
    I was pleasantly surprised by acquaintance with works by N.L. Zhukovskaya. She also considers that Carpini, Rubruk and Marco Polo expressed their idea of a religion of the steppe inhabitants unknown for them in terms of Christianity. (See in detail: Zhukovskaya N.L. Folk Beliefs of the Mongols and Buddhism // Archeologists and Ethnography of Mongolia. Novosibirsk, 1978. Page 24).
    So, religion existed in the Steppe from of old and many of its ceremonies were surprisingly the same as those of Christianity. Speaking about borrowings it is rational to provide the following quotation. "They search for alien Gods everywhere and make them their own… - Felix Minucius wrote about the Romans in III century, - they build altars even to unknown and unheard-of deities. Thus, appropriating the relics of all nations, they've become the lords of the kingdoms" (Quotation from: Ranovich A. Antique Critics of Christianity (fragments from Lucian, Celcius, Porphyrius and others). M., 1935. Page 111).
    The steppe inhabitants treated God otherwise; their attitude to Tengri hasn't been changing for centuries. Respecting beliefs of others, they considered their religion to be stronger than any other. "There are four great prophets which are respected and worshipped by people from different sects; the Christians worship Jesus Christ, the Saracens worship Mohammed, the Jews worship Moses and the idolaters worship the khan who is considered to be their main idol, - the khan of the steppe inhabitants told Marco Polo in XIII century. - I worship all the four and turn for help to that of them who is really the main in heaven" (bold provided. - M.A.).
    No doubt, the khan always turned only to Heavenly God, Tengri, not "that of them" but "who is really the main in heaven". The steppe master couldn't accept Christianity considering his religion to be stronger. (See details of Marco Polo's observations in: The Traveling of Eighty Thousand Versts in Tataria and other Eastern Countries of Marco Polo, also Known as the Millionaire, the Noble form Venice. SPb., 1874. Pages 80-81).
    As we can see, the question about mutual influence of religions isn't that simple as most people think. Early Christian works (they are often quoted by the authors: Kryvelev A.I. Stated work; Ranovich A.B. About Early Christianity. M., 1959; Posnov M.E. History of the Christian Church. Brussels, 1964) contain many confirmations. For example, they describe the coins which were minted in Byzantine in the time of Constantine the Great with an image of the Sun (using Turkic terminology - of Tengri-Khan). And the churches which were built by order of Constantine in honor of Tengri who was called "the Sun Man" in Europe.
    An equilateral cross, the same as "the Sun Man" (Tengri), were known in Byzantium since 306 - from the first days of reign of Constantine the Great and beginning of the union between Byzantium and the Kipchaks. And in 313 in the Milanese edict Constantine even proclaimed introduction of the Day of the Sun (Sunday) as the day of rest and worship (see: Kerns E. By the Roads of Christianity. M., 1992. Page 97). Also they've been minting only the image of the Sun on the coins of Constantine.
    I am far from asserting that the symbol of the Sun is worshipped only by the Turki. Cult of the Sun is widely represented everywhere in the East. But Constantine searched for the union just with the Turki, which means "his Sun" was Tengri's reflection. It had a considerably different religious and philosophic basis which differed it from all the former ideas (Salt god, etc.) known in Europe. That idea is also corroborated by the fact that formerly the cult of the Sun existed only among the Christians in the Roman Empire. And in the time of Constantine it has become the national cult.
    In a little while a teaching about the Sun as the Highest God and the keeper of justice appeared in Byzantium. Researchers of Byzantine make concrete statements: "In Byzantium the cult of the Sun was affected by eastern solar cults to a great extent". As we can see, Turkic religion has left a noticeable trace in the whole European culture.

    18. In this connection words of Augustin uttered a little bit later - in V century - are indicative. "The Christians - he wrote, - should less than whoever else reject anything good just because it belongs to one or another… That's why to continue good customs practiced by the idolaters, to keep (bold provided - M.A.) the items of the cult and the buildings they used doesn't mean to borrow them; on the contrary, it means to take what doesn't belong to them…" (Quotation from: Ranovich A.B. About Early Christianity. M., 1959. Page 382).
    Borrowed crosses, as well as other borrowings, were necessary and obligatory for Christianity of IV century; and it appeared at the political scene having no distinctive symbols. Having ruptured with Judaism and having rejected the Judaic tradition, Christianity turned into a religion having no ceremonies! That explains the fact that ceremonies of other beliefs were finding their continuation in Christianity starting exactly from IV century. For example, A. Garnak emphasized that Christianization of the Hellenic world started from the East… "The light begins in the East", indeed.
    Observations of G.V. Vilinbakhov, who analyzed shapes of a cross in Byzantium, are indicative. The author writes cautiously: "Byzantine's tradition in its attitude to the shape of a cross which was revealed to Constantine, wasn't a single one, apparently" (see in detail: Vilinbakhov G.V. Tsar Constantine s Cross in Medieval Military Blazonry of Europe//Arts Monuments and Problems of Culture of the East. L., 1985. Page 188). And it isn't surprising that researchers who tried to represent that cross by way of an Orthodox one, were contradicting to the miniatures of the times of Constantine where a cross with expanding ends was placed in a circle the same as Tengirchilik followers used to do before Common Era.
    "A Greek cross being absolutely similar with a Byzantine one can be met in Buddhist temples… as a solar sign… - B.A. Uspenskiy who was analyzing the symbols of Orthodox churches, writes. - A swastika is of course a variant of a cross: as a matter of fact it is named a cross… It is known in Christian arts as Crux gammata or a hooky cross. A swastika as a solar symbol (it represents the circulation of the Sun. - M.A.) was widespread… in India… It is necessary to remind that a series of ceremonies and symbols of the Christian Church has another and undoubtedly pagan origin. And that is conditioned by deliberate practice of the Church…" (see in detail: Uspenskiy B.A. Solar-Lunar Symbols in the Look of the Russian Church // Millennium of the Baptism of Russia. "Theology and Spirituality" International Church Conference. Moscow, May 11-18th, 1987. Vol. 1. Part IV. M., 1989. Pages 306 - 310).
    And there is a great deal of similar examples. From time to time certain works appeared in Russia, which cast light upon the problem. An article about appearance of and equilateral cross on Turkic and Sogdian coins by E.V. Rtveladze and S.S. Tamkhodzhaev is a good example (Byzantine Annals. Vo. 35. M., 1973. page 232). That theme was also considered by N.L. Zhukovskaya, A.P. Okladnikov, S.I. Rudenko and other scientists who, unfortunately, managed to say only what they were allowed by censorship.

    19. Of course the subject of Derbent - the most ancient town of Russia! - is worthy of a separate discussion. Books dedicated to its history were published in different times; but there are not many of them. See, for example: Kozubskiy E.I. History of the Town of Derbent. Temir-Khan-Shura, 1906; Markovin V. By the Roads and Paths of Dagestan. M., 1988; Khan-Magomedov S. Derbent. City Wall. Auls of Tabasaran. M., 1979.

    20. Exploited Saint George Church in Derbent is a shameful page in history of the town. They started to build the Church on May 8th, 1849. That was a large building - a Church for 500 persons. The place for it was chosen near an Albanian church. "Digging it (the foundation - M.A.) in many places were seen earthen tubes necessary for water supply and in one place an almost safe construction (bold provided. - M.A.) with arches of burnt bricks, with remains of columns and plated floor was found. Judging by the number of water pipes and a basin dug there it is possible to suppose that the building was a bath-house…" (see in detail: Kozubskiy E.I. History of the Town of Derbent. Temir-Khan-Shura, 1906. Page 221).
    Unfortunately the founding wasn't studied. In case it was there would have been no ambiguity of the basin and earthen pipes. Since IV century they started to build so-called baptisteries near Christian churches - buildings with basins where christening was performed. They were of rather big sizes. Since IX century baptisteries haven't been built - massive Christianization of population was completed. A laver in an antechurch has been playing a part of a basin for christening since then.
    Appearance of a baptistery in Christian ceremonies in IV century allows to suppose that before that the christening ceremony as such was absent. And it was borrowed from Tengirchilik. Actually in Judaism, which sect Judaic Christianity was, there is no ceremony of christening with water. It is time to ask was there John the Forerunner and the christening ceremony in his times?
    Of course they've chosen a place for a church in Derbent not by accident. And found ruins of an old construction are the best confirmation. Burnt bricks of the "safe construction" is an indirect evidence. It is known that before the arrival of the Turki the Caucasian architects weren't familiar with burnt brick. (In the opinion of academician A.P. Okladnikov, that building material is a kind of an identity card of the Turkic culture - from Siberia to the Central Europe).
    Who knows, maybe those were the ruins of the most ancient Christian church in the World! According to Derbent regional ethnographers there are other ancient buildings of Christian architecture in the town. There are many unexplored things in the neighborhood. For example, Adji Lake in which, it seems, Saint George was christened. Or the sacred place of Tengri where, it is likely, George crossed himself for the first time.

    21. Kirpichnikov A.I. Stated works. Page 63.

    22. The subject of Georgia requires a special research. When and why was Iberia called Georgia? I failed to find any scientific works on this subject. One can suppose that the new name appeared in XI century - during the reign of David the Builder who invited the Kipchak warriors. About forty thousand of their families moved to Transcaucasia at that time. They formed the core of David's army and united separate principalities into a single kingdom… Saint George united them!
    George was worshipped by the Kipchaks and by Iberia inhabitants as well. No doubt, spiritual intimacy of those nations existed earlier, since Christianity has been accepted by Iberia inhabitants. Due to geographical conditions their relations developed not that fast as with the Caucasian Albania. But an equilateral cross - an exact copy of that of Tengirchilik - appeared on coins in Iberia. There were churches of a crucial shape with hip architecture. Worship of Saint George brought together arrived Kipchaks and local nations in Iberia. Since that time Iberia is called Gyurdzhi in Turkic, which means "The Land of Saint George" (see, for example: Tsintsivadze G.I. // Millennium of the Baptism of Russia. "Theology and Spirituality" International Church Conference. Moscow, May 11-18th, 1987. Vol. 1. Part IV. M., 1989. Page 65).
    Thus many historical facts of those years become clear. For example, why Konchak, the young Kipchak khan who had certain controversies with the Russian prince Igor, was hiding in Gyurdzhi. Why Georgian tsarina Tamara was buried in Dagestan (near a Kipchak settlement). Or why did Syrchan-Khan send the messengers with a wisp of steppe absinth to Gyurdzhi when he wished to return Otrok, his brother:

    You'd better sing him our songs,
    And when he doesn't answer
    You tie a bunch of dry absinth
    And hand it him - and he'll be back

    A great many things have got mixed up in history of the nations!

    23. In our opinion that question was thoroughly analyzed by A.P. Lebedev in his book (see: Lebedev A.P. The Epoch of Persecution of the Christians. SPb., 1904). Analysis of Diocletian's deeds is preceded by the author's note about the sources of information: "These sources are: 1. Eighth Book of Church History by Eusebius… That book was written by Eusebius as a contemporary who has seen Diocletian's persecutions. 2. Eusebius' work called "About Palestinian Martyrs". That work contains information about the events of persecution. 3. Lactancius' work about death of the persecutors. It was written by a contemporary who lived in Nicomidia, the capital of that time, where Diocletian himself lived. Information contained in the work is authentic in general…"
    Neither of those works (and the list is not limited by them) contains a mention about George.
    A.P. Lebedev's book allows to see mutual relations between the Christians and Diocletian with the eyes of eyewitnesses. Eusebius writes: "Not only private persons could openly belong to a Christian society and declare about their Christian beliefs, but also emperor's officials and military men had the same liberty concerning Christianity". (Ibid. Page 137).
    "Diocletian's loyalty to the Christians was so big that one could think: is he going to join the Christians?". (Ibid. Page 142).
    Speaking about Saint George the name of Marcellius, which won't say much to a reader, should be mentioned. To all appearances, his history was put in the basis of the official church biography of Saint George. That Christian centurion refused to take part in celebrations of the emperor's birthday, threw off his military signs having said that as a Christian he couldn't keep on serving any longer. Thus he was sentenced to death… (Ibid. Page 155).
    It is striking that none of the ancient authors openly called the reason of persecution against the Christians. It seems further editors and censors have done good work with the texts. Only Eusebius reports about the rebellion on the border with Armenia and about the fact that two attempts to set the emperor's palace on fire were suppressed.

    24. Those cases when religious beliefs threatened safety of the Roman state were the only exceptions. Thus it happened, for example, with an order against the Chaldeans and the Manichees. Manichaeism as a religious sect, which appeared in Persia, bothered Diocletian. In his opinion it opened the way for political influence of the Persians in the Roman Empire.

    25. See: Kirpichnikov A.I. State work. Pages 29, 63 - 65. Verkhovets Y.D. Detailed Description of Life, Suffering, Miracles of the Great Martyr Saint George and Worship of his Name. SPb., 1893. Page 84.
    There is no grave of Saint George in Palestine. It was possible to a find a single argument in favor of the Middle East - notes by Foka, the Greek writer of XII century, who asserted that he has seen not a grave but a church in honor of Saint George. Not Lidda but Ramlah was in question.

    26. The idea of a wild crowd of separate tribes of nomads is far from reality. Confusion with names of steppe nations was created on purpose. That is clearly seen by the example of the Huns who are supposed to appear on the historical scene all of a sudden and disappear unexpectedly.
    K.A. Inostrantsev writes: "The name of the Huns has disappeared completely as it usually happens with the Tatars where the Horde, having got power, always gives its name to the whole nation". And later he draws a conclusion: "Similar changes of one nation into another are met quite often there. Not knowing that custom it is impossible to understand histories of those nations. Thus one must agree with the fact that during about ten years a nation that has occupied a vast area was wiped off the face of the earth, and a new unknown one appeared in its place". (See: Inostrantsev K.A. Hunnu and Huns. L., 1926. Page 8).
    K.A. Inostrantsev believes that those "political changes" "remained unknown to certain… scientists" considering the constant ethnic structure. As a result the Turki had dozens of names: the Huns in China and the Polovtsians in Russia, for instance. They are mentioned in historical chronicles under the names of any kind.
    That chaos in the names was a witness of existence of steppe tribes which obeyed to nobody and to nothing and made their living only by robbery. But it is enough to read Chinese chronicles to ascertain quite the opposite. "In China the Hunnu, - K.I. Inostranstev writes, - ware considered to be a nation which has created a vast state with established laws and a sole ruler but not a chaotic mass of different tribes of foreigners wandering somewhere in the North". (Inostrantsev K.A. Stated work. Page 15).
    That point of view is confirmed by archeological evidences of earlier and later times. For example, A.D. Gratch writes about the Turkic chagans of VI - X centuries: "The chagans consisted of big and comparatively stable for their epoch ethnic unions and not of temporal and ephemeral conglomerates". (See: Gratch A.D. Ancient Turkic Archeology in the USSR // Turkologist Conference in Leningrad. L., 1967. Page 52).

    27. The first (or another?) division of believers began. The most ancient branch of Christianity was called Judaic Christianity. Judaic Christians who remained at the positions of Judaism, were called "Jewish" or "the Subbotarians" in Russia. That name was also met in the Roman Empire of III century while the words "Christian" and "Jew" were considered to the synonyms. "Sparcianus says about a Jewish boy but it is more correct… to mean not a Jewish boy but a Christian one" (Lebedev A.P. Stated work. Page 223). Similar examples show that in Rome the Christians were the people (not only the Jews!) who used to come for a prayer into synagogues and follow the ceremonies of the Old Testament.
    Judaic Christianity followers retained their belief until now. They don't recognize the icons, they make circumcision and don't know the ceremony of christening with water. Detailed information about religious life of the Sabbatarians and their ceremonies see, for example: Zhabin I. Privolnoye Settlement of Baku Province of Lenkoransk District // Collection of Materials for Description of Regions and Tribes of the Caucasus. Issue 27. Tbilisi, 1900. Pages 42 - 94.

    28. "In many years, because some were trying to obtain tsar's power in the so-called Malatiah country (Malatiah is the province of Cappadocia in the Minor Asia), others - in Syria, tsar's order about imprisonment of all the Church clergymen was issued". (See: Church History of Eusebius Pamfilus. Vol. I. Spb., 1858. Page 436). From the further text it is clear that that happened soon after the fire in Nicodimia, in Diocletian's residence, i.e. in the very beginning of his persecutions against the Christians.

    29. Of course other places also claim for that role. But ancient Latin texts of IX century consistently name Malatiah (Melitene, modern Malatiah). See in detail: Kirpichnikov A.I. Stated work. Page 68.

    30. Apocalypse was created in the year 68, later it was "finished" by unification of different historical works into a single one. In the later text, speaking about Messiah, they wrote "Christ" and not "a lamb". Apocalypse is the first document of early Christianity; it stands apart in the lists of theological literature. And though it is full of omens of that epoch, precious evidences of the main eyewitness of the events, official Church historians turn to it unwillingly. It seems something confuses the theologians: many things fail to comply with other documents relating to the history of Christianity.
    It should be mentioned that historians failed to come to a conclusion with regard to dating of different books of the New Testament; there are many disputable and unspecified things there (see in detail: Vipper R.Y. Appearance of Christian Literature. M.; L., 1946. Pages 103 - 107; Kovalev S.I. Basic Questions of the Origin of Christianity. M.; L., 1964. Pages 58 - 60; Kryvelev I.A. Stated work. Pages 126 - 143, 190 - 191).

    31. Unfortunately history doesn't contain many descriptions of those events; almost nothing authentic remained. There is only logic and the message of Messiah connected with the Jew named Joshua.
    The message of salvation came to the Greeks from the Jews; it happened in the beginning of II century. At that time the Jewish name Joshua was arranged in a Greek way - Jesus called Christ, which meant "anointed" or "a person who has touched the divine nature" in Greek. Apocalypse which was written in Greek was addressed to the Jewish Christian sects in the Minor Asia.
    Christian dogmatics was set forth in Apocalypse. It was notable for the spirit of Christhood. At first the new belief found its followers in Jewish communities and later it has become international but within the limits of the Roman Empire. Independency of Christianity as a religion wasn't in question until IV century. Those were the Jewish Christian sects which secretly rejected the regime in the Empire. They connected the fall of Rome with wait for the riders.
    In the opinion of the first Christians, the riders were to destroy the Roman government and save the nations having established an order according to the norms of king of heaven on the earth. The Christians were preparing themselves for their soon arrival!

    32. See details in clause 9.

    33.    That's why a real Judaist will never call the name of God aloud. Starting from the Middle Ages translations of the Old Testament were edited many times and thus they fail to comply with the original! The original source itself has never been changed, of course. The Christian Church corrected only translations. Translations for the Christians! See detailed information: Kryvelev I.A. Stated work. Pages 68 - 124.

34. Researchers tried to answer that question. Unfortunately they were also forced to be limited to hypotheses. See, for example: Geyushev R.B. Christianity in the Caucasian Albania: According to Archeology and Written Sources. Baku, 1984; Dzhafarov Y.R. The Huns and Azerbaijan. Baku, 1985; Trever K.V. Essays on History and Culture of the Caucasian Albania. IV century B.C. - VII century A.D. M.; L., 1959.

    35. See details: Okladnikov A.P. Preface // In the Book: Gratch A.D. Ancient Turkic Names of Tuva. M., 1961. Pages 6 - 8.

    36. To tell the truth Favst Buzand writes that martyr's body "was carried by people who have come with him to Khaband… on the border with Armenia, to the village called Amaras". But who could give the sacred ashes to them?! Moses Kagankatvatsi intimates that saying that Gregoris' people "were escaping to Armenia". Practical reasons suggest that such a delicate load wouldn't have withstood transportation.
    It seems the lines about the burial in Amaras are a tribute to a tradition which required not to leave a body of a fellow countryman unburied. It was rather burning shame for those accompanying Gregoris than real events, which Favst Buzand followed. Especially since he writes that Gregoris "was buried near that church which was built by the first Gregory, Gregoris' grandfather, the great pontiff of the Armenian country. And every year the nations of those countries gather in that place and solemnly celebrate the day dedicated to the memory of his feat". A wish is openly presented as reality since it is in contradiction with other historical documents. For example, Moses Kagankatvatsi wrote that in V century when "pious Vachagan, the Aguanian tsar… wished to get the ashes of Saint George" nobody knew the burial place (History of the Aguans by Moses Kagankatvatsi. SPb., 1861. Page 47).
    In these latter days R.B. Geyushev, using instructions of ancient authors, performed archeological excavations in the territory of Amaras Monastery. It would seem that fortune smiled him. But the grave found by him… wasn't in accordance with the Christian burial ceremonies. "the skeleton was in a round box. It was lying squirmed. On one of the stones there was an inscription in the Armenian language which was engraved later, apparently (bold provided. - M.A.). It said: "This is the grave of Saint Gregoris, the wise man"". (Geyushev R.B. Stated work. Page 34). Thus that finding scuttled the version of "burial" of Gregoris in Amaras.
    That is a very important detail! The same as that a Christian grave should be oriented to the East. (The Persians buried their deceased their faces to the South). An there is one more thing: in case a hero was inhumed by the Kipchaks, some ritual construction should have been placed above the grave - for example, a mausoleum, a chapel or a barrow. That was required by the custom when an important person is in question.

    37. Church point of view is known: Gregory the Enlightener accepted his priesthood in the Greek Caesarea, in Cappadocia. However, researchers seriously doubt that fact: that assertion is in a serious contradiction with historical realities. For example. N.Y. Marr writes as follows: "The Armenians themselves gave rise to doubts in relation to acceptance of priesthood by them from the Greek Caesarea… especially since is was in contradiction with actual information about non-Greek origin of the actual local Christian Church in Armenia" (bold provided. - M.A.). N.Y. Marr, as well as other researchers, considered that the Greeks were the only ones who could insist on universal role of the Greek Church (Marr N. Christening if the Armenians, the Georgians, the Abkhazians and the Alans by Saint Gregory (the Arabic Version). SPb., 1905. Pages 155 - 156).
    Indeed, how could the Greeks perform the ceremony of ordination in case it appeared in Greece later than in Armenia? The Greeks haven't known a Holy Cross yet when Gregory the Enlightener was conferred orders!
    It is interesting that Byzantium also borrowed church architecture from Armenia. Many researchers who marked the distinctive character of Christian architecture wondered where the sources of that originality were. How did church architecture with a crucial foundation and a central dome appear in Armenia? Where did that idea come from? They've never built anything like that there or in Byzantium. (See, for example: Bauer Elizabeth. The Armenians in the Byzantium Empire and their Impact on its Politics, Economics and Culture; Faensen Hubert. About Origin of Church Architecture with a Crucial Foundation and a Central Dome // Armenian Arts International Symposium II. Yerevan, 1978, [14], [67]).
    It seems an answer has been partly given in this book. In addition to what has been already said one can turn to archeological information. The most ancient churches of Armenia, the Caucasian Albania, Iberia retained an "identification mark" of the builders. Their "signatures" engraved on stone are very laconic - these are the ancient Turkic runes! (see in detail: The Armenians. 200 Years of Art and Architecture. Paris, 1995. Page 45).
    Inconsistency in the Greek version of "appropriation of the cross and true belief" are seen with the naked eye. Ignorance of its creators, whose main instruments were rudeness and permissiveness, strikes the eye. The Greeks who were writing the spiritual history of Europe not thinking about eternity were let down by their own arrogance… As the Kipchaks say: "The one not mentioned by God will have nothing good".

    38. Those Siberian images of Tengirchilik clergymen with caduceis, an altar with a chalice and crosses are reproduced in the book: Alt-Altaishe Kunstdenmaler. Briefe und Bildermaterial von J.R. Aspelins Reisen in Sibirien und der Mongolei 1887 - 1899. Helngfors, 1931. Pages 19 - 23. Pictures 98 - 102.

    39. Apostolic rules executed by the bishop Dionisius the Small really copied the Tengirchilik norms of a divine service. That's why the Christians sent by the Pope to the Great Steppe (the monks Plano Carpini and William Rubruk) didn't understand why steppe inhabitants who had the churches didn't allow to call themselves the Christians.
    What was the spirit of Attila's people who brought a cross to the pagan Europe? The words "Tengri-Khan", "Tengirchilik" were often used by me and, as I want to be understood correctly, I will explain it once again: Turkic religion is known as Arianism in Christian literature. Arianism copies Tengirchilik. Simply stated, that is belief in God the Father, the Creator of this world.
    The struggle against Arianism was used by the West as a cover of its long and invisible war with the Steppe, with its spiritual wealth, declaring the dissidents "the heretics". Isn't it indicative that the first Christian who fairly interceded for purity and uncreativeness of the image of Heavenly God - the bishop Arius - was choked! That was done by Nicolas who was later canonized by the Greeks. That's why Nicolas has become a negative character identified with evil spirits in the legends of steppe inhabitants.    

    40. See in detail: Lebedev D. 19-years Cycle of Anatoly Laodicean (from the History of Ancient Easter Cycles) // Byzantium Annals. Vol. XVIII. SPb., 1913. Pages 148 - 389. It is interesting that the author, the same as many others, comes to a conclusion: "History of ancient Easter cycles as a matter of fact is the history of gradual rapture between the Christian Church and Judaism" (Lebedev D. Stated work. Page 150).

    41. It is considered that supplement of the Nicene Creed with an article concerning the Holy Spirit took place at the Ecumenical Council II in the year 381. However many researchers doubt that fact since for the first time the text of Nicene Creed was found only among the deeds of Council of Chalcedon of 451 (see in detail: Kryvelev I.A. Stated works. Page 171).

    42. See in detail: Lebedev D. Stated work. Page 269. Similar phrases which seem to be of no sense are also met in other documents of those times.

    43. It is considered that description of "passions" of Saint George in the very first Biography was "too fabulous". And that's why the church authorities, being shocked by unbelievable whimsicality of his torments decided to bring the Biography "in accordance with common sense". But how can one guess what the words "common sense" mean?

    44. That idea of the Serpent is closely connected with Armenian myths of the vishaps (the dragons). In the Armenia epos these are the monsters being the usurpers of water sources; they force the people to sacrifice young girls to them; the heroes killing those dragons release waters and the young girls.
    Similar plot is contained in myths of Georgia and other Caucasian nations where the vishaps act (see in detail: Mythological Dictionary. M., 1991).
    Formerly N. Marr, the researcher of the Caucasus, published the images of the vishaps - gigantic stone statues which are met in desert highlands of Armenia near the sources and close to the pastures. An image of the monstrous fish was supplemented with images of water jets and ox-horns - the symbols of "the lower world" as well as the signs of the Sun - crosses and birds. And the most striking thing is that the same stone statues were found in Siberia and in Altai! They were just elder. The same fish faces, wavy lines, an ox-horn above the faces with three big round eyes. Also there are three regular circles, and a cross is inscribed in each of them! And near it a snake is incused as a bigger and deeper gutter. The composition is crowned by a miniature figure of a deer with ramose horns near the three crosses.    
    Here it is - the outline of the great cultural synthesis which appeared long ago when the basics of Eurasia were formed and the Caucasus was a pillar of the bridge between East and West!

    Bibliography   

Abaza V.A. History of Armenia. Yerevan, 1990.
Akataev S.N. World Outlook Syncretism of the Kazakhs. Issues I-II. Alma-Ata., 1993-1994.
Alekseev N.A. Traditional Turkic Beliefs of Turkic-Speaking Nations of Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1992.
Aliev Igrar. Essays on Atropatene History. Baku, 1989.
Ambroz A.K. Stirrups and Saddles of the Early Middle Ages as a Chronological Index (IV - VII centuries) // Soviet Archeology. 1973. ¹ 4.
Anninskiy A. History of the Armenian Church (before XIX century). Kishinev, 1900.
Attsiaauri N.K. Source Studying Problems of Expansion of Christianity in the Caucasus ("Deeds of Gregory the Enlightener" Cycle): Autoabstract. Tbilisi, 1989.
Bakradze Dm. The Caucasus in the Ancient Monuments of Christianity. Tbilisi.
Bartold V.V. Isol from Pisa (Moslem Information about the Chngisid Christians). SPb., 1892.
Baskakov N.A. Russian Family Names of the Turkic Origin. M., 1993.
Bakhmeteva A.N. Selected Lives of Saints. M., 1913.
Belikov D.N. Origin of Christianity with the Goths and Bishop Ulfila actions. Kazan., 1887.
[Berberini] The Travel to Moscow of Raphael Berberini. SPb., 1843.
Bernstam A. N. Essay of Huns History. L., 1951.
Bernstein S.B. Constantine the Philosopher and Methodius. M., 1984.
Bira S.O. To "The Golden Book" by S. Damdin. Ulan Bator, 1974.
Bichurin N.Y. (Jakinf). Collection of Information about the Nations which Lived in the Middle Asia in Ancient Times. Vol. I. M.; L., 1950.
Blok Marc. History Apologia, or the Occupation of a Historian. M., 1986.
[Buzand] History of Armenia by Favtos Buzand. Yerevan., 1953.
Valikhanov C.C. Collected Works in 5 Volumes: vol. 1, 1961.
Valter K. Biography, Cult and Iconography of Saint George // Georgian Arts IV International Symposium. Tbilisi, 1983.
Van-Veik N. History of Old Slavonic Language. M., 1957.
Vasilyev V.P. Buddhism. Its dogmas, History and Literature. Parts I, III. SPb., 1857; 1869.
Vasilyev L.S. History of Religions of the East. M., 1983.
Vaidenbaum E. The Guide through the Caucasus. Tbilisi. 1888.
Verkhovets Y.D. Detailed Description of Life, Suffering, Miracles of the Great Martyr Saint George and Worship of his Name. SPb., 1893
Veselovskiy A.N. Investigations in the Field of Russian Spiritual Poems // Appendixes to Volume XXXVII of the Notes of the Emperor's Academy of Sciences. ¹ 3. Issues II, III - V. S{b., 1880.
Byzantium-Studying Essays. Tbilisi, 1978.
Vilinbakhov G.V. Tsar Constantine s Cross in Medieval Military Blazonry of Europe//Arts Monuments and Problems of Culture of the East. L., 1985.
Vilinbakhov G.V., Vilinbakhova T.B. Saint George: The Image of Saint George in Russia. SPb., 1995.
Vertoradova V. V. Discovery of Inscription with Unknown letters on Kara-Tel // Buddhist Monuments on Kara-Tel in the Old Termez. M., 1982.
Vipper R.Y. Appearance of Christian Literature. M.; L., 1946
Voitov V.E. Ancient Turkic Pantheon and the Model of the Universe in Cultural and Commemoration Monuments of Mongolia of VI - VIII centuries. M., 1996.
Voloshina I.E. Expansion of Christianity in Asianic Provinces of the Roman Empire (pre-Nicaean Period): Autoabstract. M., 1993.
Ghan K. Notes of Ancient Greek and Roman Authors about the Caucasus. Parts I - II. Tbilisi, 1984.
Garnak A. From the History of Early Christianity. M., 1907.
Herberstein S. Notes about the Muscovy Acts. SPb., 1908.
Geyushev R.B. Christianity in the Caucasian Albania: According to Archeology and Written Sources. Baku, 1984.
Gibbon E. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Parts I - II. M., 1883.
Hlinka S. Review of History of the Armenian Nation. M., 1832.
Gorsey D. Notes about Muscovy of XVI century. SPb., 1909.
Gratch A.D. Ancient Turkic Names of Tuva. M., 1961.
Gumilev L.N. The Ancient Turki. M., 1967.
Guseinov R.A. Syrian Sources of Beliefs and Customs of the Oguz of VII - XII centuries // Byzantium-Studying Essays. Tbilisi, 1978.
Debirov P.M. Stone Carving in Dagestan. M., 1966.
Dzhafarov Y.R. The Huns and Azerbaijan. Baku, 1985.
Johns A.K. Death of the Ancient Wirld. M., 1997.
Diringer D. The Alphabet. M., 1963.
Donelli A.S. Conquest of Bashkiria by Russia in 1552 - 1740. Ufa, 1995.
Ancient Russia. Legends. Epics. Chronicles. M., 1963.
Eugene (Bolkhovitinov) Historical Representation of Georgia in its Political, Church and Educational State. SPb., 1802.
Eugene (Bolkhovitinov) Historical Discussions. M, 1817.
[Eusebius] Church History of Eusebius Pamfilus. Vol. I. Spb., 1858.
Egishe About Vardan and the Armenian War. Yerevan, 1971.
Emelyuakh L.I. Origin of the Christian Cult. L., 1971.
Zhukovskaya N.L. Folk Beliefs of the Mongols and Buddhism // Archeologists and Ethnography of Mongolia. Novosibirsk, 1978
Zaborov M.A. The Crusades. M., 1956.
Zaborov M.A. Papacy and the Crusades. M., 1960.
Zakiev M.Z. The Tatars: Problems of History and Language. Kazan, 1995.
Zakharov A.A. Materials on Archeology of Siberia. Excavations of Academician V.V. Radlov in 1865 // Works of the National Historical Museum. Issue I. 1926.
Abraham T., Efremova N. Moslem Sacred History. From Adam to Jesus: the Koran Stories about Messengers of God. M., 1996.
From the History of Early Christianity: Collection of Articles by A. Garnak, Y. Wellgausen, A Yumekher. M., 1907.
Inostrantsev K.A. On History of pre-Moslem Culture of the Middle Asia. Pg., 1917.
Inostrantsev K.A. About Ancient Iranian Burial Customs and Building. SPb.,1909.
Inostrantsev K.A. Turkestan Ossuariums and Astodans. SPb., 1907.
Inostrantsev K.A. Hunnu and Huns. L., 1926.
John de Plano Carpini. History of the Moguls. SPb., 1910.
Jovius P. The Book about the Moscow Embassy. SPb., 1908.
Jordan. About the Origin and Deeds of the Geths. Getica. M., 1960.
History of Siberia. Vol. i. L., 1968.
History of the Old Believer Church. Brief Essay. M., 1991.
Istrin V.A. 1100 Years of Slavic Alphabet. M., 1988.
Istrin V.A. The Story about the Indian Kingdom // Antiquities. Works of the Slavonic Committee… Vol. I. M., 1985.
[Kagankatvatsi] History of the Aguans by Moses Kagankatvatsi. SPb., 1861.
Karamzin N.M. History of Russian State. Vol. I-V. M., 1989 - 1996.
Carger M.I. Ancient Kiev. Vol.1-2. M.; L., 1958; 1961.
[Carpini] John de Plano Carpini. History of the Moguls. SPb., 1911.
Kerns E. By the Roads of Christianity. History of the Church. M., 1992
Kirpichnikov A.I. Saint George and George the Brave. SPb., 1879
Klements D.D. Antiquities of the Minusinsk Museum: Monuments of Metal Epochs. Tomsk. 1886.
Klyuashtorniy S.G., Livshits V.A. Discovery and Research of Ancient Turkic and SOgdian Monuments of the Central Asia // Archeology and Ethnography of Mongolia. Novosibirks, 1978.
Kovalskiy Y.V. Popes and Papacy. M., 1991.
Kozubskiy E.I. History of the Town of Derbent. Temir-Khan-Shura, 1906.
Komarov A.V. Caves and Ancient Graves in Dagestan // Works of Initiative Committee for Organization of the 5th Archeological Conference in Tbilisi. M., 1880.
[Constantine Porfirorodniy] Proceedings of Byzantium Writers about Northern Black Sea Coast (first issue) // Proceedings of National Academy of Material Culture History. Issue 91. M.; L., 1934.
Krachkovskiy I. Legend about Saint George in the Arabic Edition. SPb., 1911.
Kryvelev I.A. History of Religions. Vol. 1. M., 1975.
Kulakovskiy Y. History of Byzantium. Vol. I. Kiev 1910.
[Quistine] Notes about Russia by the French Traveler Marquise de Quistine. M., 1990.
Lavrskiy N. Cherkassk and its Antiquity. M., 1917.
Lazarev V.N. New Monument of Easel Painting of XII century and Image of George the Warrior in Byzantium and Ancient Russian Arts // Byzantine Annals. Vol. VI. M., 1953.
[Landyshev] Stephen Landyshev. Cosmology and Theogonia of the Pagan Altai Inhabitants. Kazan, 1886.
Latyshev V.V. Notes of Ancient Greek and Latin Writers about Scythia and the Caucasus. Parts I - II. SPb., 1893 - 1906.
Lebedev A.P. The Epoch of Persecution of the Christians. SPb., 1904.
Lebedev D. 19-years Cycle of Anatoly Laodicean (from the history of ancient Easter cycles) // Byzantium Annals. Vol. XVIII. SPb., 1913.
Litvinskiy B.A. Ancient Nomads of the Roof of the World. M., 1972.
Loparev Khr. Modern Literature about Saint George // Byzantine Annals. Vol. XX. Issue I. SPb., 1913.
Magomedov M.G. Living Ties of Epochs and Cultures. Makhachkala, 1990.
Magomedov M.G. The Khazars in the Caucasus. Makhachkala, 1994.
Makarenko N.E. Archeological Researches of 1907 - 1909 // Bulletin of the Emperor's Archeological Committee. Issue 43. SPb., 1911.
Maslov S.E. Remains of Shamanism with the Yellow Uigurs. SPb., 1912
Maslov S. E. Monuments of Ancient Turkic Writing Language. M.; L., 1951
Maslov S.E. Uigursk Manuscript Documents of S. F. Oldenburg Expedition // Notes of Oriental Studies Institute of Academy of Sciences of the USSR, I, 1932.
Mamedova F.D. About the Chronological System of "History of the Albans" by Moses Kagankatvatsi // Byzantine Annals. Vol. VI. M., 1953.
Margulan A.K. Ancient Culture of the Central Kazakhstan. Alma-Ata, 1960.
Margulan A.K. From the History of the Towns and Building Skills of Ancient Kazakhstan. Alma-Ata, 1950.
Marr N. Arabic Extracts from the Syrian Chronicle of Mariba. SPb., 1902.
Marr N. Christening if the Armenians, the Georgians, the Abkhazians and the Alans by Saint Gregory: Arabic Version of Agathangel. SPb., 1905.
[Marcellin]. Ammian Marcellin. History. Issues 1 - 3. Kiev., 1906 - 1908.

Armenian Arts International Symposium II. Yerevan, 1978:

Bauer E. The Armenians in the Byzantium Empire and their Impact on its Politics, Economics and Culture.
Bushghausen K. Fragment from the Gospel…
Valyatek K. About the Sources of Ripsime-Dzhvari Architectural Type.
Galerkina O. About Certain Problems of Cultural Community of the Nations of "Christian" and "Moslem" East.
Gombosh K. Ancient Armenian Carpets with Dragons.
Eremyan A. About Relations between Armenian and Byzantium Architecture of IV - VII centuries.
Kleinbauer Y. Traditions and Innovations of Designing of Zvartnots.
Stavinskiy B.O. About Relations between the Middle Asia and Armenia in Ancient Times and about Common Elements in their Arts,
Faensen H. About Origin of Church Architecture with a Crucial Foundation and a Central Dome
Yakobson A. Arts of Khachkor Armenian Cross Stones.

Georgian Arts International Symposium II. Tbilisi, 1978.:

Anguladze N. From the History of Relation between Sasanid and Georgian Arts.
Asratyan M. Architecture of the Georgian and Armenian Churches with an Rectangular Altar Inside.
Beridze V. Georgian Cult Architecture of IV - VII centuries.
Blankov Z. About the Image of a Deer in the Arts of Eurasia…
Vagner G. The Inage of a Warrior - Rider in Statuary Art of Medieval Georgia and Ancient Russia.
Van-Esbrok M. The Ark for Hallows of Sakhakdukhta.
Vilinbakhov G. About the Traditions in the Georgian Symbols of the Standards.
Ovchinnikov A. Achi Signature as One of the Displays of Interrelation between the Eastern Christian Spiritual Centers of the "Byzantine world"
Tumanishvili Dm. The Theme of the "Free Cross" in Medieval Georgian Architecture.
Chubinashvili G. About the Initial forms of Christian Church.
Shandrovskaya V. The Image of Saint George on the Byzantine Seals.
Mekhovskiy M. The Treatise about Two Sarmatians. M.; L., 1936.
Murzaev E.M. Turkic Geographical Names. M., 1996.
Neikhardt A.A. The Mystery of the "Holy Cross". M., 1968.
Neikhardt A.A. Origin of the Cross. M., 1975.
[Nikitin] Voyage over Three Sees of Athanasius Nikitin 1466 - 1472. L., 1986.
Novoselskiy A.A. Struggle of Muscovy with the Tatars in XVII century. M.; L., 1948.
Appeal of Georgia. Tbilisi, 1989.
Okladnikov A. P. A Horse and a Flag on Lena Writings // Turcologist Collection. M.; L., 1951. ¹ 1.
Okladnikov A. P. Deer the Golden Horn. M.; L., 1964.
Okladnikov A. P. Shishkino Writings, Irkutsk, 1959.
Okladnikov A. P., Zaporozhskaya V. D. Lena Writings. M.; L., 1959.
Okladnikova E.A. Ritual Sculptures of Animals Made of Cheese of the Cumandic Altai-kiji // Plastic Arts and Paintings of Ancient Cultures. Novosibirsk, 1983
Opolovnikov A.V., Opolovnikova E.A. Wooden Architectonics of Yakutia, Yakutsk, 1983.
[Ormanian] Malachias Ormanian, Patriarchy of Constantinople. The Armenian Church: its History, Teaching, Administration, Internal Structure, Liturgy, Literature, its Present. M., 1913.
Pipes R. Russia under the Old Regime. M., 1993.
Pigulevskaya N. The Middle East. Byzantium. The Slavs L., 1976.
Pigulevskaya N. Syrian Sources for the History of the USSR Nations. M.; L., 1941
Pletneva S.A. The Polovtsians. M., 1990.
Full Hagiography of the Georgian Church. Parts I - III. 1994.
[Polo] Marco Polo. The Book. M., 1955.
Possevino A. Muscovy. Historical works about Russia. M., 1983.
Potanin G.N. Erke. The Cult of Heaven's Son in the Northern Asia. Tomsk, 1916.
Potapov L.P. About Ancient Turkic Basics and Dating of the Altaic Shamanism // Ethnography of the Nations of Altai and the Western Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1978.
Prelovskiy A. Poetry of the Ancient Turki of VI - XII centuries. M.,1993.
Privalova E.L. Pavnisi. Tbilisi, 1977.
Prisk. Roman Embassy to Attila. SPb., 1842.
Procopius from Caesarea. The War with the Goths. M., 1950.
Propp V.Y. George's fighting with a Serpent in the Light of Folklore // Folklore and Ethnography of Russian North. L., 1973.
Pugachenkova G. A. Khalchayan: about the Problems of Artistic Culture of the Northern Bactria. Tashkent, 1966.
Pugachenkova G. A. Arts of Bactria of Kushan Epoch. M., 1979.
Radzivillovskaya Chronicle; Photomechanical Reproduction of Radzivillovskaya (Konigsberg) Chronicle. SPb., 1902.
Radlov V. V. Siberian Antiquities: from the Notes of a Journey in Siberia. SPb., 1896.
Radlov V.V About the Language of the Cumans. Concerning the Publication of the "Codex Cumanicus" Dictionary. SPb., 1884.
Radlov V. V. Siberian Antiquities: Materials for Siberian Archeology. ¹ 3. 1888; ¹ 5. 1891; ¹ 15. 1902.
Radlov V.V. Ethnographic Review of the Turkic Tribes of the Southern Siberia and Dzungaria. Tomsk, 1887.
Ranovich A. Origin of the Christian Sacraments. M.; L., 1931.
Ranovich A. Antique Critics of Christianity:Fragments from Lucian, Celcius, Porphyrius and Others. M., 1935.
Renan E. The Gospels and the Second Generation of Christianity. SPb., 1907.
Renan E. The Apostles. CPb., 1907.
Renan E. Apostle Paul. SPb., 1907.
Renan E. Life of Jesus Christ. SPb., 1906.
Renan E. History of Rise of Christianity. SPb., 1906.
Rozhitsin V. "The Golden Legend": the Book about the Saint Martyrs. M.; K., 1925.
[Rubruk] William de Rubruk. The Traveling to Eastern Countries. SPb., 1911.
Rudenko S. I. The Second Pazyryksk Barrow: Results of Expedition's Work… L., 1948.
Rudenko S. I. The Most Ancient Artistic Carpets and Cloths from Certain Barrows of the Mountain Altai in the World. M., 1968.
Rudenko S. I. Culture of the Mountain Altai Inhabitants during the Scythian Times. M.; L., 1953.
Rudenko S. I. Culture of the Central Altai Inhabitants during the Scythian Times. M.; L., 1960.
Rudenko S. I. Culture of the Huns and Noinulian Barrows. M.; L., 1962.
Russia between East and West: Culture and Society X - XVII centuries // For XVII International Congress of Byzantium Explorers (Moscow, August 8-15th, 1991). Part I - III, M., 1991.
Rybakov B.A. Kiev Russia and Russian Principalities of XII - XIII centuries, M., 1982.
Rybakov B.A. Russian Chronicles and the author of "The Story of Igor's Regiment". M., 1972.
Rybakov B.A. Paganism of Ancient Russia. M., 1987.
Rystenko A.V. The Legend about Saint George and the Dragon in Byzantine and Slavo-Russian Literature. Odessa, 1909.
[Sabinin] Gobron (Michael) Sabinin. History of the Georgian Church until the End of VI century. SPb., 1877.
Savvinskiy I.I. Ceremonial Peculiarities of the Armenian Church for the Sacraments and Burial of the Deceased. Astrakhan, 1905.
Savinov D.G., Chlenova N.L. Western Bounds of Spread of the Route Stones and the Subjects if their Cultural and Ethnic Belonging // Archeology and Ethnography of Mongolia. Novosibirsk, 1978.
Sagalaev A.M. Mythology and Beliefs of Altai Inhabitants, Central Asia Influences. Novosibirsk, 1984.
Samashev Z.S. Rock Paintings of Upper Irtysh Banks. Alma-Ata, 1992.
Collection of Materials for Description of Regions and Tribes of the Caucasus. Tbilisi, 1900. Issue 27.
The Northern Caucasus in Ancient Times and in the Middle Ages. M., 1980.
[Simokkata] Feofilact Simokkata. History. M., 1957.
[Syrian] Ephraim the Syrian. About the Days of Christmas Celebration. About the Foundation of the First Churches in Jerusalem // Texts and Researches on Armenian and Georgian Philology. SPb., 1900.
Skrzhynskaya E.C. Barbaro and Contarini about Russia. L., 1971.
Sokolov P.P. "Octavius" by Minucius Felix and… SPb., 1910.
Surguladze I.K. Saint George in Georgian Religious Beliefs // Georgian Arts International Symposium IV. Tbilisi, 1983.
Tabyshalieva A.S. Belief in Turkestan: Essay on History of Religions of the Middle Asia and Kazakhstan. Bishkek, 1933.
Baptism of Christ in the Armenian Church Translated from the Armenian into Russian. SPb., 1799.
[Tacito] Cornelius Tacito Collected Works in Two Volumes. SPb., 1993.
Terenozhkin A.I., Mozolevskiy B.N. The Melitopol Barrow. Kiev, 1988.
Tisengausen V.G. Collection of Materials Relating to History of the Golden Horde. Extracts from Arabic Works. Vol. I. SPb., 1884.
Tisengausen V.G. Collection of Materials Relating to History of the Golden Horde. Extracts from Arabic Works. Vol. II. M.; L., 1941.
Tolstov S.P. In the Ancient Deltas of Oks and Yaksart. M., 1962.
Thomsen W. Deciphered Orchon and Yenisei Inscriptions / Translated by V. RAdlov // Notes of the Eastern Department of Russian Archeological Association. Vol. VIII. Issue III - IV. 1894. Pages 327 - 331.
Trever K.V. Essays on History and Culture of the Caucasian Albania (IV century B.C. - VII century A.D.). M.; L., 1959.
Trever K.V. Essays on History and Culture of Ancient Armenia (II century B.C. - IV century A.D.). M.; L., 1953.
Tugusheva L. Y. Uigur Version of Suan-Tzan Biography. M., 1991.
Millennium of the Baptism of Russia. "Theology and Spirituality" International Church Conference. Moscow, May 11-18th, 1987. Vol. 1. Part IV. M., 1989.
The Turkologic Conference: Philology and History of the Turkic Nations. L., 1967.
The Turkologic Collection: Materials of the Conference of July 7 - 10th, 1967. L., 1970.
The Turkologic Collective Volume. M., 1978.
Uspenskiy F.I. Church and Political Activity of the Pope Gregory I. Kazan, 1901.
Theodoritus, the Cyri Bishop. Church History. M., 1993.
Fletcher J. About the Russian State… SPb., 1906.
Florovskiy G.V. The Eastern Fathers of IV Century. M., 1992.
Khakhanov A. The Georgian Version of the Legend about Saint George. M., 1892.
[Khorenatsi] Moses Khorenatsi. History of Armenia. Yerevan, 1990.
Christianity. Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 - 3. M., 1993 - 1995.
Tsibikov T.T. The Buddhist Pilgrim near the Relics of Tibet. Pg., 1919.
Epos of the Northern Europe, Ways of Evolution / Edited by N.S. Chemodanov. M., 1989.
Chinchibaeva L.V. About the Modern Religious Survivals of the Altai Inhabitants // Ethnography of the Nations of Altai and the Western Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1978.
Chichurov I.S. Byzantine Historical Works. M., 1980.
Chubinashvili G.N. Researches on the Armenian Architecture. Tbilisi, 1967.
Shakhmatov A.A. Ancient Fates of Russian Nation. Pg., 1919.
Shakhmatov A.A. Essay of Modern Russian Literary Language. L., 1925.
Sherr I. The Nations Migration. SPb., 1898.
Emin N. Brief Essay on History of the Armenian Eastern Church. M., 1872.
Emin N.O. Essay on Religion and Beliefs of the Pagan Armenians. M., 1864.
Emin N.O. Translations and Articles on Spiritual Armenian Literature (for 1859 - 1882) by N.O. Emin: Apocrypha, Hagiography, Lays and Others. M., 1897.


The last page has been turned… And let it be not the last in the book, I hope a continuation will follow so that the smell of absinth calls to take a new route: the history of the Turki is an unknown theme. A very long way is to be made.
    This is happiness to make it! Sometimes the heart can't stand gladness due to long-awaited lines found among library and archival pages. A day turns lighter and the sky turns higher. There is a desire to live and create just for that.
    To tell the truth, now I mention another thing more often - the more I write, the more enemies and enviers appear. But I fancy that is a pleasure too since they are the obligatory companions of every deed. Another thing is worse - betrayals which one can never get accustomed to. I suffered from them in the Caucasus and Dagestan: I believed the empty people and then I burnt with dungeon and shame for those who have forgotten their promises… Work is the only thing which helps to survive the let-offs and desperately dark days of frustration. And, of course, my friends and their disinterested help.
    A writer is nothing without friends and support. Especially if he is a Turkic writer who lives in Moscow. I realized that in Baku and Derbent… I wish to dedicate this and all the other works to them - the real Kipchaks. I live for them.

	Adji Murad. Asia's Europa. Volume 1 (Europa, Turkic, the Great Steppe)   Author's Preface We are the Kipchaks! Altai Cradle The Great Nations Migration Our Spiritual Wealth European Kipchaks Part One “Moscow Stories” Saint Cyril and Methodius - Who Were They? “Mist” over the Baptism of Russia Rewriting History Kipchak Kiev Pictures on the Pages of the Chronicles Main Sources Part Two The World of the Wild Field Wild Field – The Great Steppe Main Sources Part Three Tengri-Khan and Christ, His Foster Son The Vanished Heritage Splits and Splitters Main Sources Part Four Desht-I-Kipchak – an Unknown Country? Main Sources Appendix Near St. George Spring “Gyurdzhi's Day” Different Georges The Voice of Forgotten Motherland The Mystery of the Cross “Iron Gates” Gregoris - George Diocletian Who Suffered Not Being Guilty Every Nation Has Its Own George Beginning of the Catastrophe The Great Enlightener of Armenia Contradictions Let the Christians Be the Christians again “Where Will this Lead? Where to Go?” Dzhalgan Settlement Spring of the Known Legend Notes and Comments to the Appendix Bibliography