Tower complex Erzi Ingushetia. State Nature Reserve “Erzi. Other stories of the cycle "travels in the USSR"

It is difficult to find a point in the Dzheyrakh Gorge and its environs from which one cannot see at least one tower or an ancient burial ground: now, after the deportation and mass resettlement of the highlanders to the plain, these places have become sparsely populated, but it was here that the historical homeland of the strongest Ingush teips was once located.

Several centuries ago, the Ingush were divided into several teip associations-shahars: Dzheirakh, Tsorints, Metskhal, Khamkhins . stand apart Orstkhoys, who are considered their own by both the Ingush and the Chechens, and sometimes they are singled out as a separate nationality.

Large settlements of strong shakhars - impressive agglomerations of ancestral towers - can be considered real cities by medieval standards. Several are especially large and spectacular - such as Erzi, Targim and Egikal. Alas, due to lack of time, I did not get to properly examine them all (however, I managed to see both Targim and Egikal from the road on the way to Thaba-Erdy). So the next morning, having had a good night's sleep in the large kunatskaya in the Nazir's courtyard under the sound of rain on the roof, I decided to move to Erzi, which of the "primary" ancient villages of the gorge is closest to modern Dzheyrakh.

Once Erzi (in translation - "Eagle") belonged to the Metskhal Shahar - a strong society, which included several other large villages. Now the village is located below, by the road itself - in the old place, in the towers, by my arrival there was only a shepherd's kosh (Nazir even went on purpose to find out from the locals whether dogs were tied upstairs - they should be afraid here much more than people).

Most of the surviving buildings of Erzi are residential towers, squat and wide at the base, called in Ingush gIala. But first of all, the predatory and slender animals that dominate them are striking. vioy- battle towers.

There are nine combat towers in Erzi - only the foundations remained from a part, and one was rebuilt quite recently.

The construction of a "wow", adapted exclusively for defense, required more skill from the architect, and cost much more; not every teip could afford its own combat tower. Accordingly, the builders of such towers were famous far beyond their shahars. The family of Nazir, who received me as a guest in Dzheirakh, belongs to the Lyanov teip - Detsa Lyanov, one of the few builders of towers, whose name has remained in history, also came from it.

“The Vainakhs had a custom,” Markovin wrote, “the place selected for the tower was watered with milk. If the milk did not seep into the ground, then such a site was considered good and then construction began. When building towers, the craftsmen did not use outdoor scaffolding. from the inside. As the building grew, boards were laid. Work was carried out with the help of a special gate - "chegyrk", they lifted stone blocks and slate slabs. "

We managed to climb inside one of the "wow" - I was impressed by an interesting cross vault:

At some distance there is an unchanging crypt necropolis. Islam came to these mountains, we recall, quite recently - pagan funeral traditions in these parts were outlived only in the 19th century, if not later.

The rain finally drove me out of the ruins - again, Nazir promised to pick me up at the appointed time below (the option "yes, there are a couple of kilometers, I will calmly walk" categorically did not pass). Later, after a short rest at his house and saying goodbye to the whole large family, I was going to get back to the Georgian Military Highway - and further to Tbilisi.

Nazir and his family were going to a neighboring village for a funeral, and after making a short detour, they took me to the Ossetian post. Soon, after standing for a short time on the highway and exchanging words with a fat Ossetian police officer on duty, I was already in Upper Lars, at the border.

The border guard girl, seeing the Kyiv stamps for January and February in my passport, did not fail to call the special officers - soon a young man with an inconspicuous but penetrating face appeared and began to ask me if I knew that VGTRK journalists had recently died in the Donbass (there was an end June) and what emotions I feel about this - simultaneously probing me with a look. To end the interrogation with prejudice, the young man had to wave his editorial certificate, after which the question was dropped. Georgian customs, as always, passed without a hitch.

By that time, they had barely managed to clear the road from the mudflow: in May, a catastrophic landslide descended from Kazbek, and for a month and a half, traffic between Russia and Georgia was completely blocked. I was lucky: after my trip there was a second exit, again blocking the road for a long time.

Kazbegi, renamed Stepantsminda under Saakashvili, has changed a lot in the nine years since I first got there - a bunch of guesthouses and restaurants have appeared, crowds of backpackers and trekkers have appeared on the streets. I leave the city on foot, hoping to walk to the ancient basilica in Sioni, about five kilometers from the city - on the mountain near this temple of the 10th century, on our first visit to Georgia, we once spent the night under open sky, snacking on peaches and puri bread, which the altar boy treated us to.

A passing car stopped right to Tbilisi with a nice Russian-speaking Czech guy, an OSCE worker, upset my plans - I decided not to refuse such an opportunity and move straight to the capital. But about Tbilisi - some other time.

Ingushetia-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Dagestan, summer 2014

I continue the cycle "Journey through the USSR". We are moving from to Ingushetia.
I give the floor to my father, a photographer with 55 years of experience and the author of the presented slides,
Anatoly Sirota ( turnepsik ).
Slides are done in 1980 on color reversible film ORWO CHROM, produced in the GDR.
The slides were scanned by me in 2016 on a Plustek OpticFilm 7600i slide scanner.

Here and below: Erzi tower complex in Ingushetia. 1980 slides

After a trip to Grozny in 1969, when fog prevented me from photographing a watchtower in a Chechen village, for several years I dreamed of seeing the Erzi tower complex in Ingushetia. As far as I could tell, Erzi is as unique a phenomenon in the Caucasus as. Separately standing towers are encountered "in the country of the Vainakhs" quite often, but they do not make such a strong impression as Erzi - dozens of towers standing on a small mountain plateau.

When during my next business trip to Grozny (somewhere in the mid-70s) I learned that the traditional banquet after defending my dissertation was supposed to be held in the open air, I suggested doing it in Erzi. While the "public" conjured over barbecue on the banks of the local river, I went up to the towers and photographed them in detail, since there was no fog this time. Upon returning to Moscow, I was looking forward to the autumn cooling of the water in the water supply - an indispensable condition for the development of inverted films at home. And now I already see the towers "in the negative." But then someone called on the phone ... and for the first time in my life I ruined the film: I hopelessly overexposed it in a color developer! Unique slides are dead!

A few years later, in 1980, I again visited Grozny, and again asked to be taken to Erzi. But this time it was not without trouble: I dropped my favorite universal removable viewfinder for the Kyiv camera, again for the first time in my life, and watched in a daze as it, accelerating, rolled to the edge of the abyss. I did not dare to pursue him, and he fell into the abyss before my eyes! I had to buy a new camera in a thrift store: the viewfinder for the "Kyiv" was not sold separately. As if some spirits of the mountains guarded the towers from persistent photographers!

And more recently, this was found a new confirmation. When trying to start scanning the slides made in Erzi in 1980, it turned out that the box with the inscription "Erzi" was empty. Almost a month passed in melancholy and vain searches before the slides were accidentally found in a completely different box.

It remains to be added that since 2000, the Erzi tower complex has been part of the state natural reserve. And now let's stop our story and read the guide together "In the land of the Vainakhs" Vladimir Ivanovich Markovin from the famous "yellow series". For many travelers, this modest book, published in 1968, was the first to reveal the architecture of the mountain villages of Chechnya and Ingushetia. The text is abbreviated.

"In the village of Erzi, there are nine battle and twenty-two residential towers. The gala residential towers are wide, low and taper slightly upwards. The residential towers are located between the battle towers, occupying the entire area of ​​the slightly sloping terrace. The combat tower is called "woo". Combat towers close the village from all sides, one of them, leaning against the layers of slate, stands at the entrance to the village.The towers are composed mainly of river boulders and only in the corners there are massive hewn blocks.

Tower buildings do not have a foundation; they are placed directly on a rocky or slate base - the mainland. The Vainakhs had a custom - the place selected for the tower was watered with milk. If at the same time milk did not seep into the ground, then such a site was considered good, and then construction began. When erecting the towers, the craftsmen did not use outdoor scaffolding. The towers were built from the inside. As the building grew, boards were laid. The work was carried out with the help of a special gate, they lifted stone blocks and slate slabs.

Residential towers "gala" rarely reached a height of more than 10 m (their usual size of the base is 9-10 m x 8-9 m). They were two and three stories high. For storey ceilings, special protrusions of the walls and recessed niches were used, into which beams were inserted. In the center of large towers, a column was very often installed, rather, a supporting tetrahedral pillar with a massive base and stone pillows located at different heights. Leaning on pillar pillows, ledges and niches of the walls, the ceilings of the floors rested - beams with a flooring of slate and brushwood.

Door and window openings end with semicircular arches of a fairly regular shape. They were carved either in whole monolithic stones, or in two massive stones moved to each other. In the cold season and at night, doors and windows were covered with wooden boards. The roof of residential towers was flat, it was smeared with clay and rammed with a stone cylindrical roller. The walls of the tower rose above the roof in the form of a parapet. Livestock was usually placed on the lower floor, household supplies were stored, and people lived in the upper rooms.
The walls were full of niches in which earthenware and metal utensils were stored. Felt carpets decorated the floor and walls. The room was heated by a fireplace. Sometimes residential towers are equipped with loopholes and machicolation balconies.

The fighting towers are especially beautiful in the village of Erzi. These towers, unlike residential towers, reach 18-20 m in height; their base area is 5x5 m, they taper strongly upward. Towers "woo" were built four- and five-story. The combat tower has one entrance, rarely two, and they lead immediately to the second and third floors. This was done for defense purposes, while the ladder - a beam with notches - could be raised up at any time. Inside the tower, the passages were arranged in the corners and arranged in a zigzag pattern. "Vou" are covered either with a flat roof with ledges-parapets at the corners, or more often with a stepped-pyramidal ceiling with a spire in the center. Combat towers are always equipped with a mass of loopholes - narrow cracks, and at the very top - combat balconies-machicols. The loopholes are well suited for archery and flintlock shooting. Sometimes wells were made in such towers to raise water, and small underground passages were arranged under the tower.

Earthquakes are frequent in the mountains, but the tower buildings, despite the apparent primitiveness of the masonry, stand. It depends, first of all, on the fact that the towers are built, as a rule, on rocky platforms and shales, the petals of which act as a dampening impact force. The walls of the towers from the inside are well connected with each other with corner stones, from the outside the side blocks are always well matched and hewn. By the way, we point out that the cost of laying a corner stone was equal to the cost of a sheep.

The construction of the combat and residential tower was arranged very solemnly. The first rows of stones were stained with the blood of a sacrificial ram. All construction was supposed to last no more than a year. The customer of the tower had to feed the master well. According to the beliefs of the Vainakhs, hunger brings all misfortunes. And if the master fell from the tower from dizziness, the owner of the tower was accused of deliberate greed and expelled from the village. The skill of building towers was passed down from father to son. The most difficult operation was the construction of the stepped roof of the tower. When it was necessary to finish covering the vault and put up the capstone, a ladder was placed on the machicols, tied with ropes attached to a pole placed for a while in the upper floor. The master tied himself with a belt to this ladder, climbed the dome of the tower and finished the work. For the installation of a keystone they gave a horse or a bull.

Undoubtedly, tower-type buildings appeared a very long time ago. And, of course, residential towers, simple in design, arose before combat ones. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact time of their appearance, but judging by the manner of their masonry, the design of door and window openings, residential towers existed in the 10th-12th centuries. Finds of coins, fragments of dishes of the 13th-14th centuries in Ingushetia and Chechnya, in the area of ​​tower buildings, suggest that the construction of towers was carried out especially intensively during the offensive of the Tatar-Mongol hordes (the stories about the fact that the Ingush heroically defended themselves from the troops of Batu, for a long time were considered a legend, but later archaeologists proved this - M.A.).

In battle towers, residents also took refuge later, during periods of endless strife between families, the main reason for which was blood feud (“dow”). Intra-family murders (the father killed his son, brother, or vice versa) did not cause blood feud, but if the murderer and the murdered were not relatives, then the relatives of the murdered should have killed either the murderer or his closest relative. The injured relatives gathered together, forming a kind of army - "bo", and then moved "war" ("tuom") to the killer's house. The besieged took refuge in the combat tower "woo". With blood feuds, the “war” at the tower was sometimes conducted only formally, the besieged were afraid to kill one of the besiegers, this would increase the strife and worsen their situation. But killing one of the besieged, on the contrary, could lead to a relative truce. In the future, the killer could receive for a ransom (in the form of bulls) the right to safely roam the territory of his estate, but no further. Sooner or later, a punishing blow overtook him, for in the Middle Ages, the price of blood was blood.

Full text of the book by V.I. Markovin "In the land of the Vainakhs" can be read at this link:
http://www.rulit.me/books/v-strane-vajnahov-read-293899-1.html

I had the opportunity to learn that medieval customs of blood feud existed in the Soviet republic of Checheno-Ingushetia. On our very first trip to the mountains with a local native in 1969, our car was blocked by a herd of cows. And one of them, frightened by the car, almost fell into the abyss. Immediately, the face of a shepherd squeezed into the window of the car, who said something, from which our escort immediately became very serious, got out of the car and talked with the shepherd for a long time before we moved on. In answer to our questions, he replied that the shepherd said: "If at least one cow falls into the abyss, look for a place in the mountains." This meant the declaration of blood feud. Our companion explained that the old customs are still alive and told how he saw the terrible scene with his own eyes. On a narrow bridge in the form of a board thrown across the river, without noticing each other, two Chechens entered from different directions. They met in the middle, and none of them could turn around and go back: it meant losing face. There was no other choice but to kill. One of them drew a dagger and stabbed the other. The victim fell into the river, and the killer continued on his way.

According to one version, the self-name of the Ingush "galgay" is translated as "builders of towers". However, not only the Ingush deserve this title, but also... the Italians! Many years later, in Italy, I again met with the ancestral towers, in which the Italian feudal lords fled from the revenge of their enemies. It is surprising that in such distant lands that did not communicate with each other, different peoples under similar historical conditions (European and Asian feudalism) developed an architecture similar in function and form - a curious illustration of the controversial problem of historical patterns.

San Gimignano (Tuscany)

In 13th century Florence, there were one and a half hundred tower houses that could be easily and quickly barricaded from the inside. The height of some of them reached 60 meters, but in 1250 a law was passed according to which the height of the tower should not exceed 25 meters, and many towers had their tops cut off. The construction of a sixty-meter tower took from three to ten years. There are almost no towers left in Florence - they were destroyed by the rulers of the city in order to weaken the constantly warring feudal lords, but the towers have survived in many Italian cities: Bologna, Albenga, Bergamo , Lucca, Noli . .. The town of San Gimignano in Tuscany, surrounded by mountains, is especially famous for its towers: how could one not remember the Erzi tower complex, which I have been trying to photograph for so long!

Ancestral Towers in San Gimignano

Ancestral towers in Albenga (Liguria)

Ancestral tower in Bologna (Emilia-Romagna)

The Asinelli and Garisenda Ancestral Towers in Bologna

Ancestral tower in Noli (Liguria)

Ancestral tower in Bergamo (Lombardy)

Other stories in the cycle "Traveling around the USSR"

We went to Ingushetia through Chechnya. As soon as we got to the territory of Chechnya, the absence of garbage and billboards along the highway caught my eye. There are new roads in cities and villages, everything is being built everywhere, but basically it has already been built. Traffic cops, unfortunately, like everywhere else. And why on numbers to specify the region??? It turns out, only to make it easier to rob people :)
In Ingushetia, we were greeted with old Caucasian hospitality and sent to the Erzi nature reserve. This is the hundredth reserve in Russia in order of formation, which was created in 2000. The reserve is famous for its medieval (XII-XVII) tower complexes. The concentration of these structures is especially high on the territory of the reserve, but there are some outside the boundaries of the reserve. Each complex belongs to a certain genus (precisely in the present tense, since the living descendants know their ancestral settlements). Almost all buildings consist of low residential towers (3-4 levels), a high defensive tower (there are from one to 5-6 of them) and a crypt. Everything is very compact. Neighboring structures are often just a few hundred meters away.
Ozig. Ancestral settlement of the Barkinkhoevs. By the way, the director of the reserve Erzi Barkinkhoev B.U. Taken on a previous trip in June.

Despite the fact that these are architectural monuments, they are often used on the farm, as cattle pens or the like. Some even live.

Famous Vovnushki. In 2008, the Vovnushki tower complex became a finalist in the competition project Seven Wonders of Russia.

I liked Targim better.

But the strongest impression I had was from the meeting with the red-bellied redstarts. I have never seen these birds before. Didn't really get it off, but still.

Red-bellied redstarts descend from the mountains into the valley of the river. Assa only in winter. In summer, the stone ruins are happy to use the common wheatears and black redstarts for nesting.

Federal State Budgetary Institution Erzi State Nature Reserve of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation is an environmental institution with research and environmental education.

Establishment of a state natural reserve allows preserving typical landscapes of the northern slope of the Main Caucasian Range, as well as a number of unique relic, endemic and endangered species and communities of plants and animals, geological and geomorphological objects, archaeological and architectural monuments of the most ancient cultures of the South Russian steppes, the Caucasus and the Front Asia.

This territory serves the purposes of maintaining ecological balance, improving the environment of human life.

The creation of the FSBI GPZ "Erzi" was preceded by a long work of the public on the need for its creation, numerous scientific and scientific-journalistic works of various scientists and public figures. The former chairman of the State Committee for Ecology of the Republic of Ingushetia played an important role in the opening of the reserve. Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation - B.U.-G.Barkinkhoev. On the basis of the Law of the Republic of Ingushetia No. 572-R of April 23, 1994 “On Specially Protected Natural Territories”, the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Ingushetia No. 326 of September 23, 1999 “On the Establishment of the Erzi State Nature Reserve” was adopted. Based on this Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, Decree No. 992 of December 21, 2000 “On the Establishment of the Erzi State Nature Reserve” was issued. Thus, the 100th State Reserve was created in Russia, which began functioning in 2001.

The total area of ​​protected areas is 69,366 ha, including the territory of the State Natural Reserve "Erzi" has an area of ​​-35,292 ha, the FZ "Ingush" - an area of ​​- 34,074 ha.

Role in conservation

The reserve was established to preserve and study typical and unique mountain natural complexes of the southeastern part of the Republic of Ingushetia

Role in recreational activities

Taking into account the special scientific aesthetic and cognitive value among the landscapes of this territory, it is advisable to single out the following unique natural objects for visiting:

The gorge at the former with. Furtoug with a waterfall and walnut plantations;
Olgetinskoe gorge with mountain broad-leaved forests;
Trough valley in the Amalchoch gorge;
Shoan glacier with the sources of the Armkhi river;
A plot of high-mountainous dry steppe near the village. Lie down;
Forest area along Tetris-Tskhali above the former village. Hamhi;
Forest area near the former village of Targim and along Thabakhro;
Gorge of the river Nelkh;
Sea buckthorn grove in the Targim basin.
The crest of the Rocky Ridge from the town of Khakhalga to the gorge of the Assy River (the place of growth of the endemic of Ingushetia - Ingush cinquefoil);
A section of beech-hornbeam forest on the right side of the gorge of the Assy River with an undergrowth of Caucasian blueberries.
On the territory of the reserve there are four natural monuments of republican significance:

Armkhinsky (Lezhginsky) waterfall - located in the Armhinsky gorge on the Lezhga River, 1.5 km from its confluence with the Armkhi River, 4 km east of the former resort of Armkhi. The waterfall is located in a deep overgrown forest gorge and falls down from the steep cliffs in two cascades from a height of 15 km. the waterfall is a magnificent sight and is relatively accessible to visitors.

Armkhi pine grove is located on the left bank of the Armkhi river in the territory of the Armkhi forestry. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Crimean pine forest cultures were planted here - its only place in the mountainous Ingushetia. Average height - 12 meters, diameter - 20 cm, fullness 0.6-0.7. Undergrowth: heart-leaved linden, Norway maple. Undergrowth: various types of wild rose, hazel.

An array of hook pine in the upper reaches of the Myagi-khi River is located on its right bank, 2.5 km from the place where it flows into the Salgi-khi River, on its western slope of the top of one of the spurs of the Side Range at an altitude of 1600 m above sea level. The sanctuary of Myagi-Erda is located on the same peak. The tree stand is clean, fullness 0.5, height up to 20 m, age 100-150 years, crowns are high, trunks are covered with mosses and lichens.

A spring on the Bisht pass - located 4 km west of the village. Guli is 50 m from the Jeirakh-Targim highway, located at an altitude of 2100 m above sea level in the belt of subalpine meadows. It is characterized by high organoleptic properties and high flow rate. The water of the spring has a rather high content of silver ions and therefore the water can be stored for a long time, retaining its high quality. The spring is used by the local population for self-healing and is considered "sacred". Approaches to it are landscaped.

The territory hosts 160 historical and cultural monuments of different value and in varying degrees of preservation. Monuments of medieval culture are conditionally divided into several groups according to their functional significance:

Sanctuaries, temples and other places of worship;
Tower settlements and free-standing residential towers;
Battle towers;
Necropolises and crypts;
sacred groves.

The most interesting and unique in their appearance are religious buildings. Among them, a special place is occupied by the Mai-Lam complex of sanctuaries, stretching in a chain along the Choi-Lam ridge (Rocky Range). It includes the once majestic temples-sanctuaries of Metzil, Myager-Dela, Susoy-Dela. In the best preserved form, the Myatzel has survived to our time.
There are other religious buildings built in ancient times: the temples of Gal-Erdy, Magi-Erdy, Malar-Erdy and others, various sanctuaries in the form stone buildings, pillar-shaped stone structures, stone heaps, sacred stones. All these structures belong to the period of pagan beliefs.
The largest accumulation of monuments is located in the northern part, located in a strip of 5-6 km and south of the Rocky Range from the village of Erzi in the west to the settlements of Tsori and Osag in the east.

Particularly valuable natural objects

Description

Russia, North Caucasus. The reserve is located in the mountains of the North Caucasus on the territory of the Dzheyrakhsky and Sunzhensky regions of the Republic of Ingushetia. The territory borders on the Chechen Republic, the Republic North Ossetia- Alania, along the Main Caucasian Range - with the Republic of Georgia.

Photo: Erzi State Nature Reserve