Belukha – the queen of the Altai Mountains

(Source: Legends, myths of East Kazakhstan – Semey: Arteks, 2018. – 122 p.)

… From a height of several thousand meters, a Beluga whale looks at the surrounding mountain region. In the morning, she washes herself with fog, and in the afternoon, shaking her snow cap, looks into the Yazev Lake shaded by tall cedars. The rangers claim that the green algae on its bottom have medicinal properties. Fir, larch and spruce trees grow in the vicinity.

The many-headed Mountain is located in the heart of the ancient Altai Mountains, near the intersection of the borders of four states: Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia. The winds of Eurasia twist clockwise over it and form a spiral resembling the sacred sign of the Buddhists — the power of light and sky Yang.

There is an interesting assumption that the Belukha caves extend for several thousand kilometers under the continent and have a connection with the caves of Tibet. Here, according to Buddhist legends, was located the transcendental land of the gods Shambhala — a paradise where people fall after death. And the Old Believers of Orthodox Christianity believed that somewhere nearby there is a happy country of Belovodye, which not everyone can penetrate.