Today, Tajikistan is an independent country, having declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The country is still little visited, but is promoted as a beautiful, scenic mountain destination with opportunities for mountaineering, rock climbing, hiking, horse and camel riding—and presumably, yeti and almas hunting. In Tajikistan, the yeti or almas is known as the golub-yavan and the ksy-gyik in nearby Kazakhstan to the north. South of the Pamirs in Afghanistan and Pakistan they are known as barmanu.
In 1992 a yeti-almas expedition into the Pamirs was led by the Russian-French cryptozoologist Dr. Marie-Jeanne Kofman (or Koffmann) and the French cryptozoologist Sylvain Pallix. Kofman and Pallix collected hair samples and droppings, and took photographs and casts of footprints. Kofman described the almas as a large hairy creature weighing as much as 500 pounds that could run at a speed of 40 miles per hour.
World Weekly News headline.
Reports of the Almas from the Caucasus Mountains
Dr. Marie-Jeanne Kofman was also involved in researching the almas or almasty in the Causcasus Mountains west of the Caspian Sea in Armenia and southern Russia and Georgia. She issued a 1984 report in Russian entitled in English, “Brief Ecological Description of the Caucasus Relic Hominoid (Almasti) Based on Oral Reports by Local Inhabitants and on Field Investigations,” translated from Russian into English by Dmitri Bayanov. It said in part:
The following example from my field observations will help illuminate the Almasti’s alimentary ways: A section of a corn field where an Almasti “girl,” sighted in the vicinity by the locals a short time before, must have been searching for sweet cobs, opening the wrapping leaves and taking a bite here and there, apparently to test the sweetness of the corn, without even tearing some of them off; this allowed us to obtain the creature’s tooth line contours of the upper and lower mandibles; left-overs of a rat, having some characteristic peculiarities: the rat had been disemboweled very neatly and expertly, with the tail bitten off; fresh feces consisting almost exclusively of cherry stones, over I60 in all (cherries were not ripe at the time), and “tails,” plus some seeds of different plants; a collection of almost fresh but unripe vegetables and fruits lying on a bedding of dry grass inside a low grotto rather difficult of access: the collection contained: eight potatoes, three apples, two small pumpkins, a half-nibbled corncob, a half-eaten sunflower center, some dog rose berries, plus four round pellets of horse dung (it is believed the Almasti eats horse dung because of its salt content). Among animal foods of the Almasti what strikes one as unusual is the placenta of domestic animals and, therefore, possibly of wild animals as well. The Almasti’s taste for it is so well-known that old herders, being in retirement and not quite realizing how different the conditions of keeping herds are at present, advised me to visit herds of horses and flocks of sheep in the spring to catch the Almasti searching for placenta. “You ask what the Almasti eats? He eats placenta, he eats dead horses, dead animals” (Report No. 19 K). “Sheep were giving birth then, and the Almasti was taking their placenta. Once, when I came nearer, he grabbed the placenta and, grumbling, went away behind the stones” (Report No. 111 K).106
Shackley gives the fascinating tale of an almas captured in the Caucasus region in the 19th century, sometime around 1850. According to testimony from villagers of Tkhina, on the Mokvi River, a female almasti was captured in the forests of Mt. Zaadan and held prisoner. For three years the female was kept imprisoned in a shed, but then she became domesticated and was allowed to live in a house. The villagers called her Zana.
Khwit, part almas, 1954.
According to Shackley, her skin was a greyish-black colour, covered with reddish hair, longer on her head than elsewhere. The female creature was capable of inarticulate cries but never developed a language. She had a “large face with big cheek bones, muzzle-like prognathous jaw and large eyebrows, big white teeth and a fierce expression.”13
Eventually Zana, through sexual relations with a villager, had children. One of her children was a man named Khwit, who was very hairy and known to be someone who got into many fights. He died in 1954 and at least one photo of him has been published. Some of Zana’s grandchildren, including Khwit’s children, were seen by Boris Porshnev in 1964. In Shackley’s account of Porshnev’s investigations, he noted: “The grandchildren, Chalikoua and Taia, had darkish skin of rather negroid appearance, with very prominent chewing muscles and extra strong jaws.” Porshnev also interviewed villagers who, as children, had been present at Zana’s funeral in the 1880s.13
According to Ivan T. Sanderson in his book, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, in the Caucasus region, the almas is sometimes called Biaban-guli. Sanderson claims that in 1899, a Russian zoologist named K. A. Satunin, spotted a female Biaban-guli in the Talysh hills of the southern Caucasus. He stated that the creature had “fully human movements.”9
Sanderson then asserts that in 1941, V. S. Karapetyan, a lieutenant colonel of the medical service of the Soviet army, performed a direct physical examination of a living wildman captured in the Dagestan autonomous republic, just north of the Caucasus Mountains.
According to Sanderson, Karapetyan said:
I entered a shed with two members of the local authorities. When I asked why I had to examine the man in a cold shed and not in a warm room, I was told that the prisoner could not be kept in a warm room. He had sweated in the house so profusely that they had had to keep him in the shed. I can still see the creature as it stood before me, a male, naked and barefooted. And it was doubtlessly a man, because its entire shape was human. The chest, back, and shoulders, however, were covered with shaggy hair of a dark brown color. This fur of his was much like that of a bear, and 2 to 3 centimeters [1 inch] long. The fur was thinner and softer below the chest. His wrists were crude and sparsely covered with hair. The palms of his hands and soles of his feet were free of hair. But the hair on his head reached to his shoulders partly covering his forehead. The hair on his head, moreover, felt very rough to the hand. He had no beard or moustache, though his face was completely covered with a light growth of hair. The hair around his mouth was also short and sparse. The man stood absolutely straight with his arms hanging, and his height was above the average—about 180 cm [almost 5 feet 11 inches]. He stood before me like a giant, his mighty chest thrust forward. His fingers were thick, strong and exceptionally large. On the whole, he was considerably bigger than any of the local inhabitants. His eyes told me nothing. They were dull and empty—the eyes of an animal. And he seemed to me like an animal and nothing more.9
Significantly, says Sanderson, the creature had lice of a kind different from those that infect humans. Sadly, the captured wildman of Dagestan was shot by his Soviet military captors as they retreated before the advancing German army, according to published accounts. Perhaps the Russians felt he could have become a secret weapon for the Nazis—or even used in their infamous genetic experiments. This scenario sounds like some B-movie plot of the 40s and 50s— but, hey, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Shortly afterward, in the 1950s, Shackley reports that a man named Y. I. Merezhinski, senior lecturer in the department of ethnography and anthropology at Kiev University, was doing research in Azerbaijan (in the northern part of the Caucasus region) when he began hearing stories of a wildman. The local people told Merezhinski of an almas-like wildman called the kaptar that lived in a remote mountain forest. An expert hunter named Khadzi Magoma told Merezhinski that he would take him to a stream where the kaptar sometimes bathed at night. In exchange, the hunter asked Merezhinski to take a flash photo of the creature for him with his camera. Merezhinski agreed to do this for the hunter and they went to the stream, near which several albino kaptars were said to live.
Russian yeti, Dec. 1941.
From a hiding spot, Merezhinski saw one at a distance of only a few yards. Says Shackley, “It was damp, lean and covered from head to foot with white hair. Unfortunately the reality of the creature was too much for Merezhinski, who instead o
f photographing it shot at it with his revolver but missed in his excitement. The old hunter, furious at the deception, refused to repeat the experiment.”13
Nearly all of these reports are from professional scientists who often directly observed a wildman. As an anthropologist, Merezhinski was well qualified to evaluate what he saw and there is no reason to doubt his story or observations. It is difficult to conclude that these stories are cases of mistaken identity or mere fantasties.
Compounding the problems of authenticating these reports is the fact that Dagestan and Georgia are very underdeveloped and have been going through a protracted war with Islamic separatist groups. Russia is only now becoming a modern country, but the ubiquitous presence of cell phones with super high-tech cameras in them may bring us more photos of these wildmen than we have been used to seeing in the past.
A Yeti Family Terrifies Campers in the Ukraine
The Ukrainian newspaper Situation reported on August 21, 2005 that a group of 12 campers (seven adults and five children), were hiking on the Demedzhi Plateau in Crimea, between North Demedzhi Mountain and Stol-Gora (Table Top) Mountain, when they encountered a family, or tribe, of yeti, called kapustin in Ukrainian and Russian. Kapustin in Russian refers to a hairy, man-beast commonly seen in the Crimea region and the Caucasus.
Said the newspaper:
“On that Sunday, Ivan S., 21, and his group of 12 tourists were spending their second day camped on the plateau. The kids went to sleep early, while the adults stayed up a while. The night was very bright with a full moon,” reported Crimean ufologist Anton A. Anfalov. “Ivan’s assistant, Sasha, and several of the men left the campsite to use the bathroom and when they returned, they looked terrified and trembled with fear, It was then everyone heard a frightful growl near the camp.”
Ivan, Sasha and the others grabbed their camping axes and knives and faced the creatures, which looked like naked, hairy men, nearly eight feet tall. Said the newspaper article:
“There were three creatures,” Sasha said. “And they were about 6 meters (20 feet) away from us. The hairy humanoids were 2 to 2.5 meters in height (about 6 feet, 6 inches to 8 feet tall). Their true height was hard to estimate because they were all crouched down and balancing themselves on their fists, like large apes. All three were growling at us. Their faces were very hairy, almost without wrinkles, and their eyes were not shiny at all. Their heads were set or positioned very low, as if they had no necks. On their backs they had something like humps on their spine.”
The witnesses say they were unable to determine if the creatures were male or female.
“The creatures were very aggressive. Everyone was scared and the beasts’ growls awoke the children who became hysterical,” Sasha said.
The standoff lasted for about 45 minutes. Finally the creatures turned and bounded away with strange ape-like bouncing leaps.
The campers spent a sleepless night around their fire. In the morning Ivan and the others searched the ground around their camp, but due to a dense layer of fallen leaves the creatures didn’t leave any distinct prints.
The Demedzhi Plateau’s Stol-Gora Mountain sounds like a good spot to do a little yeti hunting, if this story is true. Perhaps some Ukrainian television station is sponsoring a cryptozological expedition as I write this. I think that we will be hearing more about the Crimean kapustin in the future.
The Sheregesh Russian Yeti
The Russians have capitalized on the yeti at the relatively new ski resort called Sheregesh at the northern foot of the Altai Himalaya. Known for the best snow in Russia, Sheregesh is now the snowboarding capital of Siberia. Recent reports of almas in the area have the Russians hoping that Sheregesh will become a famous tourist spot because of the “Sheregesh Snowman.”
Sheregesh is a former remote miners’ settlement near Novokuznetsk (home of the Kuzbass mines). About twenty years ago the ski resort was built at the nearby Zelenaya mountain. With the growing popularity of skiing and snowboarding in Russia, the town transformed gradually. It now is rapidly expanding with new cafes and hotels catering for more and more tourists each year. The resort itself is developing quickly with new lifts being built every new season.
The Russian news agency Russia-ic (Russiaic.com/news) released this brief story with a photo of a yeti statue on May 14, 2009:
The sculpture of Yeti made of cedar wood fixed near the entry to Sheregesh, a Kuzbass settlement and popular ski resort. The appearance of this monument comes from persistent rumors about Yeti met thereabouts and dozen hunters’ applications sent to regional administration. Naturally, the beholders met him near the Azass caves. As its known, all the self-respecting Abominable Snowmen prefer caves for living. The expedition organized by local officers has really detected some trails supposing to belong to this creature. Nevertheless the wooden Yeti stands beside the entry into Sheregesh with snowboard in his hands. The artist says that it is a comic detail not to frighten people but most likely Yeti calls the habitants and guests of settlement for a healthy lifestyle.
Presumably, local media will continue to get reports of yetis in the region. With wealthy Russians and foreign snowboarders, all with the latest cell phone cameras, flocking to Sheregesh perhaps we will see a sudden flurry of new photos on the Russian Internet.
The Search Goes on for Yetis and Almas
In fact, not only is there a new, well equipped army of yeti hunters out there with cell phone cameras and video cameras, but the mega-company Google has become part of the quest. The Russian newspaper Pravda reported on April 6, 2009, that Russian scientists were using Google maps in their efforts to find yeti habitats. They are apparently referring to the same cave, known as Azass or Azassky.
The article, entitled “Russian scientists use Google maps to find yeti,” said:
The authorities of the Russian town of Kemerovo arranged a special expedition to find the yeti habitat which was discovered by Google maps.
Recently there have been more than 20 claims from the local hunters who said they had seen strange creatures in the forests. These creatures resembled yeti. After the claims from the local hunters Kemerovo authorities decided to create the team of scientists for yeti searches.
The expedition turned out to be successful. Scientists managed to find ‘fresh’ yeti footprints in the Azassky cave.
Scientists found two identical yeti footprints. One of them was left on the rock and it dates back 5,000 years ago, and the other footprint which was left not long ago was found at the bottom of the cave.
“They are absolutely identical. Five thousand years ago yetis settled down in this cave and now their descendants are still living here. The conditions in the cave are suitable for yeti. The cave defends them from rains, snow and wind. There is also a lake in the middle of the cave where yetis can find clean water,” say the scientists.
Unfortunately, the scientists did not manage to see yetis that time. They say their snowmobiles were too noisy and yetis had to hide somewhere in the forests. However, the scientists say they managed to reach their main goal—they got the proof that yetis are living there. A new expedition to the site will be arranged this summer.
Moscow explorers discovered a wigwam of a creature unknown to science in the snow-covered forest.
Members of the Kosmopoisk association have returned from an expedition to Russia’s Kirov Region where they searched for a Bigfoot that allegedly lived in that region. Kosmopoisk leader Vadim Chernobrov says the expedition has discovered a den occupied by a mysterious giant and an underground passage dug obviously not by a human.
The article goes on to give the story of a Russian forest warden named Ivan Konovalov. Konovalov, the article says, has been working as a warden for 30 years in the Kirov Region and at first he did not plan to stay in that area for any extended time. However warden Konovalov had an important meeting in November 1985 and changed his mind.
Says the Pravda article:
Ivan Konovalov tells about that meeting: “It was snowing on the day
when I was walking along the fir wood and suddenly heard snap of twigs. I turned around and saw an awesome creature covered with dark hair that was much taller than me. It smelt strongly. The beast leant against a pine tree and started bending it down to the ground.
The tree was rather thick, but it cracked under the creature’s burden. Then the creature started breaking the tree against the knee. Its hands were as thick and long as its legs. Quite of a sudden, the creature felt something and turned its “face” to me. I saw two black eyes and the impression at the bottom of the eyes deeply impressed me. I still remember the look of the eyes. Then the creature flung the tree and quickly left. But I stood thunderstruck and could not move a finger.”
After that awesome meeting the forest warden was anticipating another meeting with the Bigfoot. However, the man did not doubt that it was a snowman. Ivan Konovalov thinks the creature unknown to science has some mysterious capabilities resembling hypnosis.
It was only twice that he managed to come across the creature face to face. Another time Ivan Konovalov met with a she-yeti and a baby. They noticed the forest warden and ran deep into the forest emitting sounds resembling dog’s barking.
This unusual story is reminiscent of Bhutanese tales of yetis having the power of invisibility and other magical attributes. This is also a scene in the 1957 movie The Abominable Snowman with Forrest Tucker and Peter Cushing. At the end of the film, Tucker, who is playing an American big game hunter very similar to Tom Slick, comes face to face with the yeti. Tucker is dumbstruck, and the eyes of the yeti are hypnotic and engaging, just as Ivan Konovalov described. Large snakes are also said to have a mesmerizing effect on their prey, who are paralyzed with hypnotic fear as they look the snake in the eye, moments before it strikes.
Yeti, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants Page 12