An ancient legend in the Greek mythology tells about a certain kingdom beyond the north wind, a land of the Giants, where the sun doesn’t go down for half the year, people are happy, healthy and they live to be very old; they do not make wars or kill each other like we do. The Greek called this Kingdom “Hyperborea”. For the ancient Greek people, “Hyperborea” was not a legend. It was a real place, where people lived and built a civilization. They even say that Apollo, the God of the Sun himself, went very often to visit them, to have a rest from our world of troubles and hate… So, if the descriptions are so accurate, where is this place then? The kingdom of “Hyperborea” has puzzled humans since ever. They kept searching for it, but it has never been found. Throughout history and into the present, many countries claim to be the location of this kingdom, but it’s all assumptions, all just bits and pieces from the old writings…nothing is for certain.

Prehistory

Now, with our knowledge of the planet, our instruments and our ‘so called’ science, we can tell that if “Hyperborea” existed in reality, then it must have been somewhere in the Arctic Circle, where the sun doesn’t really go down for 3 to 4 months each summer. But the Arctic Circle is huge, so where exactly was it?

This question and the whole legend of “Hyperborea” has always fascinated me since my childhood. I researched and read a lot about it over the years… and from all that I’ve heard and read, what made more sense to me (more than anything else) was that if this kingdom really existed on our planet, then it must have been somewhere around the white sea in the far north of the Arctic Circle in Russia! So, finally, when I got the chance, I decided to film this area for my travel show and see the traces of “Hyperborea” with my own eyes. I started in early June, in the town of Petrozavodsk in Karelia, where the governor there invited me and supported my quest for “Hyperborea”. They supplied me with whatever I needed for my trail, from a strong car to a modern boat and all accommodations (I really want to thank my friend Artur Parfenchikov, the governor of Karelia, for all of his help. I would not have managed to make that perfect movie without his support! Very much appreciated).

Petroglyphs in Zalavrug

From Petrozavodsk, I drove all the way north, through the beautiful virgin forest of Karelia to my first destination. It was the town of Belomorsk, and here I saw the White Sea for the first time. The White Sea is totally within the Russian territory and it lies between the republic of Karelia, Archangelsk oblast and Murmansk oblast. It’s an inlet of the Barents Sea, which is the southern part of the frozen Arctic Ocean. In Belomorsk, they have some of the most interesting traces of an ancient mysterious civilisation of the north… it’s the amazing Petroglyphs, in Zalavruga. In this part of the world, at this time of the year, the sun doesn’t set at all… there is always light and no darkness at night, which makes it very hard for me to sleep and, somehow, confuses my natural rhythm. So, by 5 a.m., I was penetrating the forest, to catch a good light on the rocks and, if I was lucky, to reach the place before the mosquitos wake up…

I finally reached that beautiful spot in the middle of the forest, sweaty and with 100 mosquito bites on my body, but as I got there. The magic of the place took my breath away and made me forget about those beasts whizzing around me. There are thousands of rock carvings here, in all kind of shapes and sizes, showing the way they hunted in the forest or how they caught Beluga whales in the ocean and many other human and mysterious activities. An hour later, a lady showed up on the site and, for my luck, she was a professor of archaeology and studying those petroglyphs, so I was very happy to meet her, as she showed me around and explained about all the different carvings. It was a very interesting experience, which I had the pleasure to film, as well. There are few thousand Petroglyphs here and the date of those carvings goes back to about six or seven thousands years ago, when the climate of the area was much warmer than today. Nobody knows who made those petroglyphs; the tribe who made them had disappeared into history and that’s all they left behind, but many people believe that this can only be the work of the Hyperborean, even though Nadyegda, my archaeology professor, thinks that this site in the forest was simply a school to teach young hunters the hunting technique on land and in the sea, and it has nothing to do with Hyperborea. But, I guess this is our eternal conflict in the world, between the mind and the heart.

For me, both arguments are possible, but more important than who is right and who is wrong is that they are simply amazing treasures and unique masterpieces of art that can hardly be found anywhere else in the world. The Hyperboreans must have been great artists though, as they left a big impression on me until now.

Solovetsky Islands and stone labyrinths

After Belomorsk, I drove to the town of Kem and then further to Rabocheostrovsk, this tiny settlement on the White Sea coast, with its small wooden church right on the rocky shore that became very famous all over Russia because they shot a movie called “The Island” here in 2006, which had won so many awards. So, most of Russians would recognise the scenery and the look of the place, even though not so many of them has been there. Here, I was picked by the yacht of the government of Karelia to take me to my next destination. We sailed for the next three days around different spots in the White Sea, starting at the famous Solovetsky Islands.

The Solovetsky Islands are a group of six small islands in the Onega Bay and they are hailed for being very spiritual and mystic places… people come here from all over the world to visit them for all different reasons. I was heading to a very special island, the Bolshoi Zayatsky. This island is only one square kilometre in total and has no inhabitants, but it has something very unique… it has 14 stone labyrinths scattered close to the shore. The origin, the builders and the purpose of those labyrinths are unknown and a huge mystery for us. They are different in patterns and sizes. Some people call them ‘Babylonian’ because of the ancient patterns they are designed with. The smallest here is about 6 metres in diameter, while the biggest is almost 25 metres. The date of those labyrinths is very controversial among researchers, but one thing they all agree about is that they are over 3,000 years old. There are also a lot of boulders heaps lying around the island in so many different places, like small pyramids, and we also don’t know what they were placed here for! Since we don’t really know the purpose of those stone circles, then we have lots of theories about them. Some people think that they were put there to guide the ancient sailors in the sea. Others believe that they were built to trap the fish in those mazes when the tide rises. Others say it was a burial site or used for an ancient spiritual ritual, while others believe that it was the entrance to the other world, the world of the spirit, and those mazes were designed so that the soul of the dead wouldn’t find its way back to the world of the living.

The dimensions and the places where the circles are standing makes a lot of people believe that those are certainly remains of the Hyperboreans; the race of giants who lived here thousands of years ago. I strolled the whole day on the island among those stone mazes wondering for myself who really made them and what for. I was transformed back in time to the world of the giants and seafarer.

The Gulag and Ivan the Terrible

Being here, I couldn’t miss visiting the biggest and the most famous Islands of them all, the Bolshoi Solovetsky. This island is famous for its huge monastery with the high walls. They say that it was built in 1436, but in less than 100 years, it became one of the richest landowners in all of Russia (how that happened, I don’t know!!. But, what really makes this monastery so unique all over Russia, if not all over the world, is that it was transformed, from 1926 until 1939, into something totally different… the monastery was abolished and it became a Gulag. We all know the word “Gulag”, which is a Russian term for political prison. Stalin established so many of them across the country and this monastery became one of them.

The Bolshoi Solovetsky, with its monastery, is the biggest tourist attraction in this Archipelago. People come here either to visit the church for its ancient traditions and rituals (it belonged to the “Old Believers” once) or to pay tribute to the people who died here during “the gulag” time. The complex is big and so impressive, with huge walls around it, which makes it look more like a fortress than a monastery. They say that those walls were built by Ivan the Terrible, to protect the richest landowner in Russia at the time from northern invaders. I am not a religious guy, but I always enjoy those beautiful houses of God, wherever they are and to whatever religion they belong. There is always something peaceful and calming about them, but I must say that, here on this island, the feeling for me was totally different. It was kind of depressive and I didn’t feel this peace or calm that I would usually feel, so while everybody else was enjoying and photographing around, I didn’t feel like being there at all and, after finishing my filming, I was more than happy to leave the Bolshoi Solovetsky, maybe because I know the history of it, or maybe because the spirit of the place started to haunt me!

Kuzova Island and the traces of the Reich

Being on the boat again in the White Sea, my soul started to rise and, this time, I was giving instructions to sail to Kuzova. Kuzova is a very small island, not far from the Solovetsky. No one lives on this island, but it’s a place that I really wanted to see for two reasons. As I landed on the island, I headed straight into the inner part of it, through heavy vegetation and swamps. In the middle of the island, there are mountains with very strange rock formations and to take a good look at them, I had to climb on the other side. Watching them closely from a distance, at first sight, it seems like they were carved by humans or that they were a part of a bigger structure that had already fallen. Lots of people think that this is the remains of a mighty Hyperborean structure and Kuzova was the centre of the kingdom, but, still, scientists believe that it’s only a pure work of nature, without any human interference, and Hyperborean has nothing to do with it.

I stroll the rest of the day on the island, feeling the energy of those rocks and trying to make my own mind up among all those theories, which proved to be impossible somehow…

Another strange thing that made me want to visit this island is what the local people of the White Sea told me, that Hitler used to come to this island. They said that he often came here for few days alone and then left. They believe he was searching for something. Well, we all know that Hitler was a “searcher” (whether you like him or not). He was dreaming of creating his own mighty imaginary world somehow, which turned disastrous… and, so, lots of people believe that he came here searching for traces of Hyperborea, to create a mighty kingdom, as well. If that is true or not, we will never know, I guess…

The day after I was dropped back on land again, I was leaving Arkhangelsk Oblast and driving in the north direction to the wild Kola Peninsula. I crossed the Arctic Circle as I entered the Kola Peninsula and my first stop in the south of the peninsula was the small town of Kandalaksha. Here, there’s another mysterious stone circle in the forest, but also very close to the coast. The circle is about 10 metres in diameter and, for a change, we don’t have a clue who built it here or why or how old it is… It was raining as I got there and the local boat driver, who got me there, was assuring me that this circle stood here for thousands of years and it can only be the work of the Hyperboreans. After he went back to his boat, I stood alone in the middle of the circle, feeling the drops of rain on my head, wishing they would answer me about when they saw those circles for the first time, but the only answer I heard was the silence of the forest…

In the evening, the local owner of the place where I stayed that night had a totally different opinion though. He believes that the circles are only a few hundred years old and not even a thousand, since the stones are small and they wouldn’t survive millenniums, so, again, he filled my head with heaps of contradictions and mysteries…

 Sámi and the “Sacred Lake”

My next destination was a small lake in the heart of the Kola Peninsula, which is very difficult to reach. First, I had to drive to a small town called Lovozero, which in the capital of the “Sami” people in the Kola Peninsula. The “Sami” are the indigenous reindeer herders who had lived here for thousands of years. In Lovozero, I took a boat for almost two hours in the rain to cross the lake with the same name. On the other side, I had to trek for half a day to reach the lake that I was after, hidden among the mountains, surrounded by dense forest. It’s called Seydozero; a “Sami” word that means the “sacred lake”. This lake is about 8 km long and over a kilometre wide. There’s nothing at all around the lake; not roads, tracks or any sign of humans. I must say that it looked very scary, especially in this weather. It looked like a haunted lake from “The Lord of the Rings”, or something like thatJ.

“Sami” people are scared to come here alone. They only come here with a “Shaman” and only when they are really seeking some big help from the spirits. It took me three days of trekking, boating and climbing to discover this area. The weather was so bad and filming was kind of impossible, but I tried to make the best of it…

The reason that I came to this lake and this area is because it’s probably the most connected area with the theory of Hyperborea. Here, there are ancient ruins scattered on the top of the mountains, which lots of people believe was a star observatory in the ancient kingdom. There are many stone piles in particular spots that seem to have been part of something big, but we have no idea what it was…

All of these unexplainable remains found in this area, that neither science nor history can explain, make people believe that here was the heart of Hyperborea. Others believe that this kingdom is under the lake, especially because of the historical fact about a scientist with the name Alexander Barchenko, who led an expedition in the beginning of the 20^th century to discover Hyperborea in the area of Seydozero. Rumours say that he discovered tunnels and passages leading under the lake, but then, mysteriously, the expedition was called off. The discovery that he made has never been revealed to the public and it was considered top secret, and a few years later, he was shot.

Another very mysterious thing on the lake is the giant carved item on the cliff over the lake, which the “Sami” people call “Kuiva”. This huge carving of a man on the wall over the Seydozero is visible from very far away. How and who painted him there, especially on that high position on the cliff, is a mystery and totally obscure for us. Ironically enough, on my way back after that expedition, when I met some “Sami” people on the shore of Lovozero Lake, none of them heard or knew about Hyperborea!!! I was kind of shocked that people would come here from around the globe in search of this kingdom, while the locals never heard of it… but, on the other hand, it’s neither in their culture or their mythology. A “Sami” old man told me that kuiva was an evil giant who lived in the Tundra a long time ago. He fought and killed the ‘Sami’ people and they could not conquer him because of his size, so they called on their god who lives on Seydozero to help them. He answered them and struck Kuiva by lightning and made a burn on that cliff like we see him now…interesting…

10,000 km on 10,000 years ago

Tired, wet and exhausted after this expedition, I was driving again further north. My aim was Murmansk, on the top of the peninsula. Murmansk has only a population of 300,000 people. Still, this number makes it the biggest city in the world above the Arctic Circle. In Murmansk, it was cold, but not raining. The sun doesn’t go under the horizon this time of the year for longer days than in the southern part of the peninsula, so I had more than 10 hours each day of this golden, magical, late afternoon light, which is perfect for filming. So, most of the travel was done at the so called ‘night’, from around 7 p.m. to 5 or 6 a.m. It was really perfect to have this light all night, while there is no one around to disturb my views… the whole city is in a deep asleep…

In the city, I had to climb to Alexey, the mighty statue that towers over Murmansk and marks the victory of the Second World War. I had to also see “Lenin”, the biggest nuclear icebreaker in the world, which is also home in this city. But, my main reason to come to this area was to gaze at the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean, far north of Russia, so I drove all the way to Teriberka.

This small settlement on the Barents Sea coast is not a very particular town in itself, but the coast around it is one of the wildest I have ever seen, with cliffs, rock, wind, waterfalls, bears on land and whales in the ocean… all this in front of my eyes… I just couldn’t get enough from filming here, but a camera can never capture the magic of the place the way it really is or the beauty that our own eyes see…

Standing here on the top of the cliff with a lake behind me, a waterfall pouring into the ocean beneath my feet, I thought I saw a big dolphin in the water below, but as it came out again, I could clearly see that it wasn’t a dolphin, but was an Orca or what we call a killer whale, with its spectacular black and white body; something I’ve never seen in the wild before. Those moments take my breath away and make me forget about the whole world behind me. For lots of people, there is a huge connection between this area and the legend of Hyperborea because, as we scientifically know now, 10,000 years ago, this area and the Arctic Ocean were not as cold as they are now. It was much warmer and suitable for living, so there must have been life here! Also, if we look at the satellite map of this area, we can see what seems like valleys and rivers in this Arctic continent under the water, which makes many people believe that Hyperborea was here and then it was flooded and was lost under the ocean, like Atlantis.

Another argument is the annual emigrations of the birds. They say that birds travel north each year because they still keep in their memory their ancient home in the north, which is lost now. So, there’s a scientific argument that support their theory.

As I stood there, I felt very small, gazing at this endless living ocean with all of its mystery, wondering if I am really gazing now on Hyperborea! A few days in the area, enjoying the light and the mighty wild nature that fits my soul perfectly well, it was time to start back. I had already driven 5000 km zigzagging through the north of Russia and, now, I still had to drive several thousand kilometres back, even though I would rather spend the whole summer here. In the car, driving along the wild coast, through mountains, forests and lakes, my head was spinning with all I’ve seen and heard and, still, I couldn’t make up my own mind about this legend… there is so much evidence that Hyperborea existed, but there is also much evidence against it…

Finally, I came to a conclusion for myself, that calmed my soul a bit: “I think it doesn’t really matter if Hyperborea existed in reality or not. Humans will always search for it because, for us, it is a heavenly world, a distance dream, a thought of freedom and salvation from the ugly world of troubles, anger and hate that we created…

 

So, for us, Hyperborea will always exist… even if only in our fantasy.