Por-Bazhyn (Bor-Bazhin), Tyva. Port Bajin

In the Republic of Tyva, located in the Siberian Federal District, on an island in the middle of a lake, there is an amazing building that is over 1250 years old. Scholars disagree about who built fortress Por-Bazhyn, a building comparable in cultural significance to the famous one. It impresses not only with its geometrically correct proportions, but also with the fact that it lies far from the ancient centers and roads. Historians are puzzling over the riddle: who and why built such a serious fortification. And the size of the building with its nine-meter-thick walls is amazing.

Por-Bazhyn, the fortress of the Uighur Khagan

The ruins of Por-Bazhyn, or translated from the Tuvan language as “clay house”, are located on an island in the middle of Lake Tere-Khol, which is located in the southeast of Tyva, in the Tere-Khol tectonic basin. The lake is relatively large - about 40 km2, but at the same time shallow.

Por-Bazhyn is the remains of a fortification during the period of the Uighur Khaganate. Built, presumably, by order of the Uyghur Khagan Moyun-Chur (Moyun-Chura), who ruled from 746 to 759.

The Uighur Khaganate existed from the 8th to the 9th centuries. and died after a 20-year war with the Yenisei Kirghiz in 840. The ancient settlement of Por-Bazhyn is obviously one of the first signs of the settlement of the Uighurs, who already combined cattle breeding with agriculture and handicrafts. The reign of the Khagan Moyun-Chur is endless internecine wars with pretenders to the throne and many external enemies: Karluks, Tatars, Khitans, Chiks, Kirghiz, Turgesh, Basmals. Por-Bazhyn was not the only settlement of that era: the kagan built palaces-fortresses for himself, but he did not like to sit behind their walls, spending all his time on campaigns. Despite the seeming plausibility of such a version, the purpose of Por-Bazhyn, built in the wilderness, remains largely a mystery today.

The historical ruins were discovered in 1891 by the first explorer of the ancient cities of Tuva, Russian ethnographer, archaeologist and geographer Dmitry Klements (1848-1914). Exploring the islands of Lake Tere-Khol, he found an ancient settlement of 26 dwellings located along the inner perimeter of the wall, forming a rectangle stretched from west to east. Even in the destroyed state, the wall reaches a height of 9.5 m and the same thickness.

The layout of the hillfort is characterized by simplicity of lines and, at the same time, exact observance of proportions. It is interesting that the living quarters, lined up along the perimeter of the wall, are comparable in area to those in the center and are called the palace.

The mystery of the lake fortress Por-Bazhyn

To date, the number of versions regarding the appointment of Por-Bazhyn is approaching three dozen. None of them has yet received irrefutable evidence.

In the center of the ancient settlement Por-Bazhyn there are two buildings - a large one and a smaller one, separated from other dwellings by a wall. On the eastern side of the buildings there are two wide front brick staircases. The excellent quality of the building material attracts attention: the brick is perfectly preserved. Both buildings were under roofs, which lay, respectively, on 36 and 8 massive columns standing on granite slabs, which have also survived to this day.

In the middle of the eastern wall there were gates, on both sides of them, on the outside, there were fortified towers. They could be climbed from the inner side of the settlement along the ramps, located parallel to the wall.

The mystery of Por-Bazhyn lies in the fact that it has not been finally proven who and why built it in this wilderness. The places are wild, the Tuvans have always shunned them, and the mounds around were left by the nomads of the era of the Great Migration of Nations. Legends only attribute the complex to the Uyghur kagan Moyun-Chur, but researchers have found similarities between the fortress, including the northern Chinese buildings of the Tang Dynasty (7th-10th centuries), and the bricks were made using the technologies of Central Asian Sogdiana. It could be temple complex: layout reminds Buddhist monastery. The settlement could have been built by people of the Andronovo, Afanasiev, Okunev or Tagar cultures, who were not nomads.

There are also quite fantastic versions about the tomb of Genghis Khan, the entrance to Shambhala and the construction of the fortress by the Sumerians. It is known that the inhabitants abandoned Por-Bazhyn suddenly, but it is not clear why. The real reason could be a fire or an assault on the settlement: a breach was discovered in the northeastern corner of the wall.

In 1995, the ancient settlement received the status of a monument of federal significance under the name "Ancient Uighur fortress Por-Bazhyn, VIII-IX centuries"

Curious facts

• During the excavations of Por-Bazhyn in the 1950s. found fragments of Buddhist cult sculpture, Chinese patterned tiles, fragments of pottery and, most importantly, the remains of frescoes. Unfortunately, they were not saved.
• The bottom of the valley in which Lake Tere-Khol is located is an ancient glacier. The water level in it fluctuates noticeably, due to which the area of ​​​​the island is now increasing. Aerial photography revealed an ancient road and a quarry at the bottom of the lake, where builders took clay, as well as buildings that were once part of the complex. Probably, earlier the island was a hill, on top of which the fortress was built, and later the lowland was flooded with water from underground sources.
• Dmitry Klements, who discovered the Por-Bazhyn settlement to the world, is known not only as an outstanding scientist, but also as a populist revolutionary. During his studies at St. Petersburg University, he joined the Narodnik circle, was friends with the then young Pyotr Kropotkin, was an active revolutionary propagandist and supporter of the idea of ​​"going to the people." In 1879 he was arrested, served his sentence first in Peter and Paul Fortress, and then exiled into exile and ended up in Minusinsk, Yenisei province. Here he participated in geographical expeditions. After serving the term of hard labor, he remained in Siberia and at the same time opened Por-Bazhyn. The merits of the scientist turned out to be so great that, having moved to St. Petersburg, in 1902, despite his revolutionary past, he got a job as a curator of the Academic Ethnographic Museum of Emperor Alexander III.
• The conclusion about the possible belonging of the fortress to the Uighurs was made on the basis of the coincidence of the ruins of Por-Bazhyn with the layout of the fortress of Khara-Balgas, or Karabalgasun (“black city”), also known as Ordu-Balyk, the ancient capital of the Uyghur Khaganate in the 8th-9th centuries.

In the Republic of Tuva, near the border of Mongolia, at an altitude of 1300 meters, Lake Tere-Khol is hidden in the mountains. In the 17th century, Semyon Remezov, the famous compiler of maps of Siberia, discovered the ruins of a monumental fortress on an island in the center of the lake, which he wrote about in his papers: “The old stone city, two walls are intact, two were destroyed, and which cities we don’t know” . The locals call the fortress on the island “Por-Bazhyn”, which means “clay house” in Tuvan.

The first mention of Por-Bazhyn is in the Drawing Book of Siberia, compiled by the Tobolsk boyar son Semyon Remezov in 1701 (published in St. Petersburg in 1882). In 1891, the settlement was surveyed by the Russian ethnologist and archaeologist D.A. Klements, who filmed his plan and first drew attention to the similarity with the ruins of the city of Karabalgasun on the Orkhon River in Mongolia. He wrote that the builders of Por-Bazhyn were "not Mongols or Chinese, and hardly Khitan or Jurgeni, most likely the same or a people related to the builders of the ancient Karakorum."

For a very long time, Por-Bazhyn did not attract the attention of researchers due to its inaccessibility. Nevertheless, archaeologists sometimes referred to it and even suggested that the settlement belonged to the period of the Uighur Khaganate (744-840).

In 1957, the Soviet archaeologist S. I. Vainshtein began excavations of the settlement and continued with the Tuva expedition of the Institute of Ethnology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The dating and attribution of the fortress were based on the typological similarity of the surviving end ornamented tile discs.

According to the description of the scientist, the remains of the Por-Bazhyn fortress were ruined walls arranged in the form of a rectangle consisting of walls oriented to the cardinal points. The height of the walls in some places reached 10 meters. In the middle of the eastern wall, the remains of a gate with well-fortified perverse towers have been preserved. Inside the fortress, archaeologists also found traces of dwellings and outbuildings, on the site of which fragments of ceramic and stone utensils, iron nails and other artifacts were found in 1957 and 1963. In the central part of the fortress, two earthen hills up to 2 meters high were found, under which there were the foundations of two buildings.

The purpose of the Por-Bazhyn fortress remains not entirely clear. Initially, the idea was expressed that the settlement could be a monastery, but very soon scientists abandoned it. Based on the information from the Bayan-Chor inscription, on the basis of which the date of construction of the fortress was determined, we can say that the fortress was built as a summer residence of the Uyghur kagan. Here is how Bayan-Chor tells about his campaign against the Chik tribe:

Then, in the year of the Tiger (750), I went on a campaign against the Chiki. In the second month, on the 14th day, near the [river] By whom I broke them. In the same year, I ordered the establishment of the headquarters of Kasar Kordan in the upper reaches of the [river] Tez (on the western slope of Otuken). I ordered walls to be erected there and spent the summer there. There I set the boundaries [of my domain]. There I ordered my signs and my letters to be drawn.

Russian Turkologist S.G. Klyashtorny, who corrected these lines, believed that Kasar Kordan (in the Terkhinsky inscription - Kasar Korug) was the western camp and headquarters of Eletmish Bilge-kagan. He identified Qasar Kordan with the Por-Bazhyn fortress.

Many Tuvan legends are associated with the ruins of Por-Bazhyn. One of them tells about a khan who had big ears, for which he received the name Elchigen-kulak-khan - donkey ears. Khan hid his ears from others and killed anyone who saw them. Only one barber managed to see them and tell everyone about it. According to another legend, the fortress was built by a certain khan in the Yenisei valley, where there was no lake yet. The lake was formed from water gushing from a well built in the fortress. Khan, running away from the water that flooded the vicinity of the fortress, looking at the valley, exclaimed in Mongolian in surprise: “Teri-nur bolchi!” (She became a lake!).

Currently, researchers are attracted by the legend that Por-Bazhyn was a palace built by the Uighur Khagan for a Chinese princess. The Uyghur Eletmish Bilge-Kagan really got the Chinese princess Ningo as his wife in gratitude for the military assistance he provided to the Tang dynasty in suppressing the An Lushan uprising (755-762). It is known from sources that Princess Ningo went to the Uyghur headquarters in September 758, but the Uyghur Khagan died six months later. The Tang chronicles tell how the Uighurs wanted to bury the princess with her late husband, but, having met with strong objection, they left her alive. A few months after the death of the kagan, the princess returned to China.

The Tang princess was accompanied to the Uighur headquarters by another representative of the imperial house - Xiao Ningguo (Younger Ningguo), the daughter of one of the Chinese princes. Xiao Ningguo remained with the Uyghurs and was successively the wife of Bayanchor and his son Begyu-Kagan (759-779). During a palace coup in 779, her two sons, born of Bogyu-Kagan, were killed, and Xiao Ningguo herself "left and lived outside (the capital)". If the assumption that the Por-Bazhyn palace was built in 750-751 is correct, it could not have been built for a Chinese princess who arrived at the Uyghur headquarters many years after the construction of Por-Bazhyn - in 758 and lived among the Uyghurs for only about one year.

Of course, palaces and cities for princesses were built by the Uighurs. Among the Uyghur cities in Chinese sources, for example, the “city of the princess” is called “Gongzhu cheng”. However, they were located much to the south of the Kagan headquarters. Thus, the legend that the Uyghur palace Por-Bazhyn was built for a Chinese princess has no basis. The latter, however, does not exclude the possibility that Chinese craftsmen could have taken part in its construction.

For a long time, no one could understand why it was necessary to build such a massive structure in an almost deserted area and from whom the inhabitants of the fortress defended themselves. Scientists are now skeptical about the version that the fortress used to be a guard post on the Great Silk Road from China to Europe, since the northernmost branches of the Silk Road passed about a thousand kilometers south of the place where the fortress stands. There were no military bases, gold deposits or food warehouses near the fortress either.

In addition, scientists could not understand for a long time how the ancient builders managed to build a fortress on an island in the middle of the lake. How were building materials delivered, where were the brick-making workshops, how could hundreds of builders fit on a small piece of land? The expedition of 1957-1963 was also unable to establish the reason why people eventually left Por-Bazhyn.

And only comprehensive studies of 2007-2008, conducted under the auspices of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, were able to slightly reveal the secret of this place. As a result of the work, the appearance was completely restored. ancient city, many objects were found confirming the "Uighur trace", and it was found out why Por-Bazhyn was destroyed.

V.V. Putin and S.K. Shoigu in Por-Bajin, August 2007 / Photo: por-bajin.ru

So, what was Por-Bazhyn? The ruins of the fortress occupy almost the entire area of ​​the island and are a regular rectangle oriented to the cardinal points, with dimensions of 211 by 158 meters. The height of the fortress walls, even in a dilapidated form, reaches 10 meters. On the eastern side, gates with perverse towers have been preserved; the remains of entrance ramps lead to the towers.

Inside the fortress walls there is a whole labyrinth of buildings and structures. Along the western, southern and northern walls there are 26 compartments, separated by adobe walls up to one and a half meters high. In each of them, a room measuring 7 by 8 meters was built of raw brick - apparently, the palace servants, artisans and the protection of the fortress lived in them. In the middle, two palace buildings were found, perhaps one of them was a temple.

Both "palaces" were placed on a hill of rammed earth and clay. Apparently, they were connected to each other by a 6-meter covered walkway. The first building has dimensions of 23 by 23 meters, and the second - 15 by 15. Their roof was supported by wooden columns. It is believed that there were 36 of them in the large room, and only 8 in the small one. The roofs were covered with cylindrical tiles. The thickness of the walls in the palaces, apparently, was more than a meter, which is not surprising, because winters in Kungurtug are very severe, and temperatures of -45 ° C are the norm here. Ornamental frescoes of orange and red colors covered this thickness of clay and brick.

Archaeologists were most surprised by the extremely thin cultural layer of the settlement. In some places, bones of rams were found (this disproved the version of local residents that Por-Bazhyn was a Buddhist monastery, since Buddhist monks do not eat meat), several women's jewelry and blacksmith blanks - that's all that the inhabitants of this city lost in a few decades of existence of the fortress. In addition, only one burial was found in the vicinity of Por-Bazhyn, and there are none at all on the territory of the fortress.

All this suggests that Por-Bazhyn, most likely, was the summer residence of the Uyghur Khagans or major dignitaries. Apparently, no one lived permanently in this fortress, people appeared there only during the warm period. And it was very pleasant for the Uighur aristocrats to rest on Kungurtug - clean mountain air, an abundance of wild animals around, a lot of fish in the lake, and healing hydrogen sulfide springs are located a five-minute drive from the fortress. Was it their presence that made the kagan decide to build a "sanatorium" in this particular place?

It was possible to find out why the fortress suddenly appeared on the island. Thanks to the research of a group of geomorphologists and soil scientists from Moscow State University. Lomonosov and the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences managed to establish that in its entire history, Lake Tere-Khol disappeared almost completely several times. This happened as a result of the fact that earthquakes, which in the past quite often occurred in these places, from time to time led to the disappearance of the underground springs that feed this reservoir. Apparently, during one of these periods of "drainage" of Tere-Khol, the fortress was built.

This is also evidenced by the traces of the road discovered by geologists, located at the bottom of the reservoir. But no one builds roads under water, which means that when it was laid, there was no lake. After that, during the next earthquake, the keys “opened” again and the Tere-Khol basin was filled with water.

Earthquakes, in the end, destroyed the fortress itself. Soil scientists on the island found traces of characteristic shifts in the occurrence of soil layers, which occurs as a result of fluctuations in the earth's firmament. By dating, these displacements coincide with the age of traces of the fortress fire, found earlier by archaeologists. But the remains of those who died from this natural disaster were not found. This refuted the version put forward earlier about the death of the fortress as a result of an assault by enemy armies or during an uprising of local residents.

In reality, most likely, the earthquake destroyed the fortress in winter or autumn, when there was no one in it. Apparently, having arrived the following summer at the “sanatorium” and found a pile of ruins in its place, the kagan did not want to restore the buildings, since he considered this place dangerous for recreation.

Although, according to the stories of local residents, the kagan and his warriors still sometimes return to these places. According to them, on dark nights on the island among the ruins you can see ghosts on horseback, with weapons and in clothes of the 8th century. It is possible that the rest in Por-Bazhyn was so liked by the Uyghur nobility that many of its representatives continue to visit this wonderful “rest house” even after death.

In the Republic of Tuva, which is located near the border of Russia and Mongolia, at an altitude of 1300 meters, Lake Tere-Khol is hidden in the mountains. In the 17th century, Semyon Remezov, the famous map maker of Siberia, discovered the ruins of a monumental fortress on an island in the center of the lake. What he wrote about in his papers: “The old stone city, two walls are intact, two have collapsed, but which city we don’t know.” The locals call the fortress on the island "Por-Bazhin" (translated from the Tuvan language it means "clay house").

The ruins of the fortress were discovered in 1891 by Dmitry Aleksandrovich Klements, an employee of the Minusinsk Museum.

Coordinates: 50° 36" 54.19" N 97° 23" 5.23" E

Some sources report that the fortress is oriented to the cardinal points. But as you can see, this is not the case. The smaller side of the fortress looks to the northwest.

The fortress has a clear internal layout, which includes a central structure and a system of courtyards with small buildings in the center along the inner perimeter of the walls.
The total area of ​​the fortress is 3.3 hectares.
The fortress is relatively well preserved due to its inaccessible location and remoteness from transport routes. You can get to the fortress area only by air or during the dry period by off-road vehicle.

The exact dates of construction and destruction of the fortress have not been established.
The fortress is a regular rectangle, the walls preserved in some places reach a height of 8 meters. There is a gate in the center of the eastern wall. Fortified towers stood to the left and right of the gate on the outside of the fortress. The length of the island on which the ruins are located is about 240 meters. The fortress stretched from west to east for 211 meters, from north to south for 158 meters.

In 1957-1963, an archaeological expedition was organized to the island. It was then that the first excavations were made on the territory of the fortress. And they confirmed that, indeed, the architects and, possibly, the builders of the fortress were immigrants from China. This was evidenced by fragments of roofing tiles with Chinese ornaments and disks for closing drain holes with the image of a dragon.
But when the foundation and raw bricks from which the walls were made were carefully examined, it turned out that they were made according to Sogdian technologies (Sogdiana is an ancient state, it was located on the territory of modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).

Researchers immediately seized on the "Uighur" trace in the history of the fortress. The fact is that in the 8th century AD, the territory of modern Tuva was part of the Uighur Kaganate, the most powerful "nomadic empire" of Central Asia at that time. Despite the fact that Por-Bazhin is not directly mentioned in the Uighur sources.

fortress walls

For a long time, no one could understand why it was necessary to build such a massive structure in an almost deserted area - from whom did the inhabitants of the fortress defend themselves, from bears, or what? Scientists are now skeptical about the version that the fortress used to be a guard post on the Great Silk Road from China to Europe - the northernmost branches of the Silk Road passed about a thousand kilometers south of the place where the fortress stands. There were no military bases, gold deposits or food warehouses near the fortress either.

The wooden elements of the buildings have also been preserved.

In addition, scientists could not understand for a long time how the ancient builders managed to build a fortress on an island in the middle of the lake. How were building materials delivered, where were the brick-making workshops, how could hundreds of builders fit on a small piece of land? Expedition 1957-63 nor was it able to ascertain why the people eventually left Por-Bajin.

Archaeologists were most surprised by the extremely thin cultural layer of the settlement. In some places, bones of rams were found (this disproved the version of local residents that Por-Bazhin was a Buddhist monastery, since Buddhist monks do not eat meat), several women's jewelry and blacksmith blanks - that's all that the inhabitants of this city lost in a few decades of existence of the fortress. In addition, only one burial was found in the vicinity of Por-Bazhin, and there are none at all on the territory of the fortress.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that Por-Bazhin, most likely, was the summer residence of the Uyghur Khagans or large dignitaries. But this is just their version.

It was also possible to find out why the fortress suddenly appeared on the island. Thanks to the research of a group of geomorphologists and soil scientists from Moscow State University. Lomonosov and the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences managed to establish that in its entire history, Lake Tere-Khol disappeared almost completely several times. This happened as a result of the fact that earthquakes, which in the past quite often occurred in these places, from time to time led to the disappearance of the underground springs that feed this reservoir. Apparently, during one of these periods of "drainage" of Tere-Khol, the fortress was built.

This is also evidenced by the traces of the road discovered by geologists, located at the bottom of the reservoir. But no one builds roads under water, which means that when it was laid, there was no lake. After that, during the next earthquake, the keys “opened” again and the Tere-Khol basin was again filled with water.

If you look closely, you can actually see another structure underwater.

In August 2007, Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Prince Albert II of Monaco visited Por-Bazhyn. Such persons have an unusual interest in the object. Por-Bazhyn became a monument of federal significance thanks to the efforts of Sergei Shoigu. But at present, the excavations have been completed, conservation has not been carried out, the discovered structures are being intensively destroyed by erosion.

"Cheburashka"

Photos from the excavations of the mid-20th century:

Well-preserved brickwork

Where was the production of this brick?

Historians claim that this is the structure of the Uighurs (by analogy with the buildings of Sogdiana). And if you look at it under other facts?

Once I wrote about

The place where this fortress is located is in the territories where long time Aryans lived: Andronovskaya, Afanasievskaya, Okunevskaya, Tagarskaya and subsequent cultures. They have been studied to some extent, but little known to the public. They are even credited with the creation of irrigation canals:. And most likely, they were not nomads.

So maybe Port-Bazhin is one of the surviving small fortress towns of representatives of these cultures?

In the Republic of Tuva, which is located near the border of Russia and Mongolia, at an altitude of 1300 meters, Lake Tere-Khol is hidden in the mountains. In the 17th century, Semyon Remezov, the famous map maker of Siberia, discovered the ruins of a monumental fortress on an island in the center of the lake. What he wrote about in his papers: “The old stone city, two walls are intact, two have collapsed, but which city we don’t know.” The locals call the fortress on the island "Por-Bazhin" (translated from the Tuvan language it means "clay house").

Let's find out more about her...

Photo 2.

Let's start with the fact that the study of the Uighur fortress Por-Bazhin began a long time ago and has its own history. The ruins of Por-Bazhin have become known to Russian geographers since the end of the 17th century: the first mention of it is in the Drawing Book of Siberia, compiled by the Tobolsk boyar son Semyon Remezov in 1701 (published in St. Petersburg in 1882). Mentioning the remains of an ancient settlement on an island located on Lake Tere-Khol, S. Remezov could not and did not try to determine by whom and when it was built. Subsequently, in 1891, the settlement was surveyed by the Russian ethnologist and archaeologist D.A. Klements, who filmed his plan and first drew attention to its resemblance to the ruins of the city of Karabalgasun on the river. Orkhon in Mongolia. He wrote that the builders of Por-Bazhin were “neither Mongols nor Chinese, and hardly Khitan or Jurgeni. Most likely the same or related people to the builders of the ancient Karakorum.

For a very long time, Por-Bazhin did not attract the attention of researchers due to its inaccessibility. Nevertheless, archaeologists sometimes referred to it and even, following D. Klemenets, suggested that the settlement belonged to the period of the Uighur Khaganate (744-840) (for example, G. Sosnovsky, L. Potapov). The conclusion that the fortress belonged to the Uighurs was made on the basis of the coincidence of the topography of the ruins of Por-Bazhin with the fortress of Khara-Balgas (Karabalgasun) on the Orkhon River, which has already been identified with the capital of the Orkhon Uyghurs - the city of Ordubalyk.

Photo 3.

In 1964, a more detailed study of the settlement was undertaken by the Soviet archaeologist S.I. Vainshtein, who published the article "Ancient Por-Bazhin". By the way, this special archaeological study was not noted in any of the books of the famous archaeologist L.R. Kyzlasov, author of "History of Tuva in the Middle Ages" (1969) and "Ancient Tuva" (1979). Only in one of his early articles " Medieval cities Tuva" he mentions Por-Bazhin as "another quadrangular settlement surrounded by adobe walls (obviously a monastery), located on the southeastern outskirts of Tuva, on the island of Lake. Tere-Khol.

Meanwhile, it was S.I. Weinstein first made a description of the fortress (1952), following D. Clemens, he substantiated the belonging of the fortress to the Uighurs in an article published in the newspaper Tuvinskaya Pravda (09/25/1953). The excavations of Por-Bazhin were started by him in 1957 and continued by the Tuva expedition of the Institute of Ethnology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The dating and attribution of the fortress were based on the typological similarity of the surviving end ornamented tile discs. “It is known that such ceramic roof decorations can serve as a reliable source for dating the architectural monuments of the East. The closest analogues to most of the end disks of the roofs of the Por-Bazhin palaces are found in the finds of S.V. Kiseleva from Ordu-Balyk,” wrote S. I. Weinstein.

Photo 4.

S.I. Vainshtein made an even more concrete conclusion that the Por-Bazhin fortress with the palace complex was built by order of the Uyghur kagan Bayan-chor during a campaign against the Turkic tribes of the Chiks, who inhabited the territory of present-day Tuva. This campaign, which took place in 750, is described in the Uighur runic inscription in honor of Bayan-chor.

According to S.I. Weinstein, the remains of the Por-Bazhin fortress were ruined walls arranged in the form of a rectangle consisting of walls oriented to the cardinal points. The height of the walls in some places reached 10 m. In the middle of the eastern wall, the remains of a gate with well-fortified gate towers were preserved. Inside the fortress, archaeologists also found traces of dwellings and outbuildings, on the site of which in 1957 and 1963. fragments of ceramic and stone utensils, iron nails and other things were found. In the central part of the fortress, two earthen hills up to 2 m high were discovered, under which there were the foundations of two buildings. From this description of the ruins of Por-Bazhin, it is obvious that the Uyghur fortress is mainly an object for archaeological research, in which architectural historians can also take part.

Photo 5.

The purpose of the Por-Bazhin fortress remains quite clear. Initially, the idea was expressed that the settlement could be a monastery. But very soon scientists abandoned this idea. Based on the information from the Bayan-Chor inscription, on the basis of which the date of construction of the fortress was determined, we can say that the fortress was built as a summer residence of the Uyghur kagan. This is how Bayan-Chor tells about his campaign against the Chik tribes: “Then, in the year of the Tiger (750), I went on a campaign against the Chiks. In the second month, on the 14th day, near (the river) Whom did I break them. In the same year, I ordered the establishment of the Qasar Kordan headquarters in the upper reaches of the (river) [to cut out my signs and my letters."

S. Klyashtorny, who corrected these lines, believed that the Kasar Kordan mentioned here (in the Tesinsky inscription - Kasar Korug) was the western camp and headquarters of the Eletmish Bilge kagan. He identified Kasar Kordan/Kasar Korug with the fortress of Por-Bajin. S. Klyashtorny noted that "Kordan, the Turkic name of Khotan, turned out to be transferred to the headquarters of the Uyghur Khagan in Tuva, which testifies to the long-standing ties of the Uyghurs with Eastern Turkestan." At the same time, it should be noted that the identification of Kordan with Khotan, proposed by Sir J. Clauson and Sir G. Bailey, is not accepted by all scientists.

Photo 6.

Many Tuvan legends are associated with the ruins of Por-Bazhin. One of them connects the fortress with the khan, who had big ears, for which he received the name Elchigen-kulak-khan, i.e. Donkey ears. Khan hid his ears from others and killed anyone who saw them. Only one barber managed to see them and tell everyone about it. According to another legend, the fortress was built by a certain khan in the Yenisei valley, where there was no lake yet. The lake was formed from water gushing from a well built in the fortress. Khan, running away from the water that flooded the vicinity of the fortress, looking at the valley, exclaimed in surprise in Mongolian "Teri-nur bolchi!" (she became a lake!).

Photo 7.

Currently, researchers are attracted by another legend that Por-Bazhin was a palace built by the Uyghur Khagan for a Chinese princess. The Uyghur Eletmish Bilge-kagan did indeed marry the Chinese princess Ningo in gratitude for the military assistance he provided to the Tang dynasty in suppressing the An Lushan uprising (755-762). It is known from sources that Princess Ningo went to the Uyghur headquarters in September 758, but already in May 759 the Uyghur Khagan died. The Tang chronicles tell how the Uighurs wanted to bury the princess with her late husband, but, having met with strong objection, they not only left her alive. Immediately after the death of the kagan, in August-September 759, the princess returned to China.

The Tang princess was accompanied to the Uighur headquarters by another representative of the imperial house - Xiao Ningguo (Younger Ningguo), the daughter of one of the Chinese princes. Xiao Ningguo remained with the Uyghurs and was successively the wife of Bayanchor and his son Begyu-Kagan (759-779). During a palace coup in 779, two of her sons, born of Bogyu-kagan, were killed, and Xiao Ningguo herself "left and lived outside (the capital)". If the assumption that the Por-Bazhin palace was built in 750-751 is correct, it could not have been built for a Chinese princess who arrived at the Uighur headquarters many years after the construction of Por-Bazhin - in 758 and lived among the Uyghurs only about one year. Of course, palaces and cities for princesses were built by the Uyghurs - among the Uyghur cities in Chinese sources, for example, the “city of the princess” is called “Gongzhu chen” (Uig. “Gunchui balyk”). However, they were located much to the south of the Kagan headquarters. Thus, the legend that the Uyghur palace Por-Bajin was built for a Chinese princess has no basis. The latter, however, does not exclude the possibility that Chinese craftsmen could have taken part in its construction.

Photo 8.

For a long time, no one could understand why it was necessary to build such a massive structure in an almost deserted area - from whom did the inhabitants of the fortress defend themselves, from bears, or what? Scientists are now skeptical about the version that the fortress used to be a guard post on the Great Silk Road from China to Europe - the northernmost branches of the Silk Road passed about a thousand kilometers south of the place where the fortress stands. There were no military bases, gold deposits or food warehouses near the fortress either.
In addition, scientists could not understand for a long time how the ancient builders managed to build a fortress on an island in the middle of the lake. How were building materials delivered, where were the brick-making workshops, how could hundreds of builders fit on a small piece of land? Expedition 1957-63 nor was it able to ascertain why the people eventually left Por-Bajin.

And only comprehensive studies in 2007-2008, conducted under the auspices of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, were able to slightly reveal the secret of this place. As a result of the work, the appearance of the ancient city was completely restored, many objects were found confirming the "Uighur trace", and it was found out why Por-Bazhin was destroyed

Photo 9.

So, what was Por-Bazhin? The ruins of the fortress occupy almost the entire area of ​​the island and are a regular rectangle oriented to the cardinal points, with dimensions of 211 by 158 meters. The height of the fortress walls, even in a dilapidated form, reaches 10 meters. On the eastern side, gates with perverse towers have been preserved; the remains of entrance ramps lead to the towers.

Inside the fortress walls there is a whole labyrinth of buildings and structures. Along the western, southern and northern walls there are 26 compartments, separated by adobe walls up to one and a half meters high. In each of them, a room measuring 7 by 8 meters was built of raw brick - apparently, the palace servants, artisans and the protection of the fortress lived in them. In the middle, two palace buildings were found (although one of them may have been a temple).

Photo 10.

Both "palaces" were placed on a hill of rammed earth and clay. Apparently, they were connected to each other by a 6-meter covered walkway. The first building has dimensions of 23 by 23 meters, and the second - 15 by 15. Their roof was supported by wooden columns. It is believed that there were 36 of them in the large room, and only 8 in the small one. The roofs were covered with cylindrical tiles. The thickness of the walls in the palaces, apparently, was more than a meter - which is not surprising, because the winters in Kungurtug are very severe, the temperature is -45 ° C here is the norm.

Ornamental frescoes of orange and red colors covered this thickness of clay and brick.
Archaeologists were most surprised by the extremely thin cultural layer of the settlement. In some places, bones of rams were found (this disproved the version of local residents that Por-Bazhin was a Buddhist monastery, since Buddhist monks do not eat meat), several women's jewelry and blacksmith blanks - that's all that the inhabitants of this city lost in a few decades of existence of the fortress. In addition, only one burial was found in the vicinity of Por-Bazhin, and there are none at all on the territory of the fortress.

All this suggests that Por-Bazhin, most likely, was the summer residence of the Uyghur Khagans or major dignitaries. Apparently, no one lived permanently in this fortress, people appeared there only during the warm period. And it was very pleasant for the Uyghur aristocrats to rest on Kungurtug - clean mountain air, an abundance of wild animals around (good hunting), a lot of fish on the lake, and healing hydrogen sulfide springs are literally a five-minute drive from the fortress. Was it their presence that made the kagan decide to build a "sanatorium" in this particular place?

Photo 11.

It was also possible to find out why the fortress suddenly appeared on the island. Thanks to the research of a group of geomorphologists and soil scientists from Moscow State University. Lomonosov and the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences managed to establish that in its entire history, Lake Tere-Khol disappeared almost completely several times. This happened as a result of the fact that earthquakes, which in the past quite often occurred in these places, from time to time led to the disappearance of the underground springs that feed this reservoir. Apparently, during one of these periods of "drainage" of Tere-Khol, the fortress was built.

Photo 12.

This is also evidenced by the traces of the road discovered by geologists, located at the bottom of the reservoir. But no one builds roads under water, which means that when it was laid, there was no lake. After that, during the next earthquake, the keys “opened” again and the Tere-Khol basin was again filled with water.

Earthquakes, in the end, destroyed the fortress itself. Soil scientists on the island found traces of characteristic shifts in the occurrence of soil layers - this occurs as a result of fluctuations in the earth's firmament. By dating, these displacements coincide with the age of traces of the fortress fire, found earlier by archaeologists. But the remains of the people who died from this natural disaster were not found (this refuted the version put forward earlier about the death of the fortress as a result of an assault by enemy armies or during an uprising of local residents).

Photo 13.

It turns out that the story of the destruction of Por-Bazhin somewhat contradicts the local Tuvan legend. According to it, once a fountain of water began to beat from a well outside the walls of the fortress (this happens during earthquakes), and the kagan, frightened of flooding, hastily left Por-Bazhyn with all his retinue to take refuge in the mountains. And the water kept coming until the lake Tere-Khol was formed.

In reality, most likely, the earthquake destroyed the fortress in winter or autumn, when there was no one in it (otherwise, it would hardly have been possible to carry out the evacuation in a record short time without any losses at all, someone would have been slammed for sure). Apparently, having arrived the following summer at the “sanatorium” and found a pile of ruins on the site, the kagan did not want to restore it, since he considered this place dangerous for recreation.

Photo 14.

Although, according to the stories of local residents, the kagan and his warriors still sometimes return to these places. According to them, on dark nights on the island you can see ghosts on horseback, with weapons and clothes of the 8th century, which slowly prance among the ruins. It is quite possible that the Uyghur nobility liked their rest in Por-Bazhin so much that many of its representatives, even after death, do not continue to visit this wonderful “rest house”…

It should be said that in addition to Por-Bazhin, on the territory of Tuva, scientists discovered and studied the remains of many other Uyghur settlements. L.R. Kyzlasov in 1969 described fifteen Uighur settlements and one observation stronghold. All settlements were quadrangles, surrounded by adobe or brick walls, outside having ditches filled with water. The size of the inner area of ​​the settlements varied from 0.6 to 5 hectares. All fifteen settlements were located in a chain in the valley of the Khemchik River. The largest of them were Eldeg-Kezhig (12.5 ha) on the river. Barlyk and Bazhin-Alak (18.2 ha) on the Chadan River. L.R. Kyzlasov studied in most detail a group of 5 settlements located in the area of ​​the city of Shagonar (Shagonar settlements). The location of the settlements and their features testified to their defensive purpose, although over time they became centers of agriculture and handicrafts. Settlements on the territory of Tuva were created as a chain of fortifications to repel an enemy attack from the north, which became especially relevant at the beginning of the 9th century due to the strengthening of the Yenisei Kyrgyz. As is known, it was in the last decades of the existence of the Uyghur Khaganate that the long-term Uyghur-Kyrgyz wars began, which in 840 ended with the liquidation of the Uyghur domination in the steppe.

Photo 15.

The study of the Uyghur settlements in Tuva shows that urban planning in the Uyghur Khaganate developed under the great influence of the Central Asian-East Turkestan (Iranian) tradition. The role of the Sogdians in the society of the Turks and Uighurs is well known, and the Uyghur monument especially notes the involvement of Sogdians and Chinese in the construction of the city of Bai-balyk. The influence of the Central Asian town-planning tradition can also be seen on the layout and the remains of the Uighur fortress Por-Bazhin.

What is the significance of Por-Bajin for history? As can be seen from the above, Por-Bazhin is not the only monument of the Uighur era on the territory of Tuva. A large number of other settlements built by the Uighurs have been discovered here. The difference between Por-Bazhin and other similar monuments is 1) that it is so far the only fortress in Southern Siberia, built during the establishment of Uyghur domination in Central Asia and the expansion of the borders of the Uyghur empire, while all other similar structures belong to beginning of the 9th century, and 2) it was not a fortification designed to repel an enemy attack.

It was during the reign of the Uyghur Eletmish-Bilge kagan/Bayan-chor (747-759) that a series of aggressive campaigns were carried out, during which the Uighurs established their power over the vast territory of Inner Asia. The Uighur campaigns of that time are described in two inscriptions created in honor of Eletmish Bilge-kagan - the Terkhinsky inscription (c. 753) and the inscription of Bayanchor (Moyunchura), known as the Selenga stone (759-760). These inscriptions are not only a source of information about the heroic deeds of the Uyghur kagan, but they themselves are of value as monuments of the material culture of the Uyghurs. The Uyghur fortress Por-Bazhin also belongs to such cultural monuments, close to the inscriptions in time.

Photo 16.

The project for the study of Por-Bazhyn shows the great interest of the Russian government and the Tuvan authorities in the study of Uighur antiquities. This interest is not only academic. The fact is that the Uyghur period left its traces in the history of Tuva: there is still among the Tuvans the genus "Uyghur" (Ondar-Uyghur), which is considered the descendants of the ancient Uyghurs who remained on the territory of Tuva. Back in 1889, the famous Turkologist and ethnographer N.F. Katanov wrote down a Tuvan legend, according to which “the Uighurs used to live along the river. Bom-Kemchik and Ulu-kem” and recorded the Tuvan clan “Uigur”, who lived on the river. Khemchik. It is obvious that the ancient Uighurs, who remained on the territory of Southern Siberia, took part in the formation of the modern Tuvan people. In this regard, Por-Bazhin is one of the brightest pages of the historical past of Tuva, associated with the power of the Uighur Empire, the northern periphery of which was its territory.

Photo 17.

The ethnic connection between the Tuvans and the ancient Uighurs is connected with the question of the relationship between ancient and modern peoples. All the large tribal unions that existed in the past in Central Asia, such as the Oguzes, Kipchaks, Karluks, ancient Uighurs, took part in the formation of not one, but many modern peoples. For example, the Oghuz, on the one hand, formed the basis for the formation of modern Turks, Turkmen, Azerbaijanis, but at the same time, Oguz elements are found in many other modern ethnic groups, including Uzbeks. In exactly the same way, "shards" of the ancient Uighurs can be found in many modern ethnic groups. The ancient Uyghurs participated in the formation of the modern Uyghurs of East Turkestan and the Yellow Uyghurs of Gansu, but at the same time, the Uyghur clan division can be found in many Turkic peoples, including Tuvans.

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