Barsa-Kelmes
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Barsa-Kelmes (russian: Барсакельмес, kk, Барсакелмес, ''Barsakelmes'' meaning "the place of no return") is a former island, the largest in the
Aral Sea The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic basin, endorheic lake lyi ...
. Its area was 133 km2 in the 1980s, but as the sea became more shallow it steadily grew, until in the 1990s it ceased to be an island. Its highest altitude is 113 m. "Barsa-Kelmes" means "the place of no return". It was given such a name because of number of stories by people (or groups of people) returning after years or even decades after going to the island whilst those people were saying of only 2 or 3 days. It encompasses the
Barsa-Kelmes Nature Reserve Barsa-Kelmes Nature Reserve ( kk, Барсакелмес мемлекеттік табиғи қорығы, ''Barsakelmes memlekettık tabiği qoryğy'') is a wildlife refuge on the former island of Barsa-Kelmes in Kyzylorda Region of Kazakhstan, ...
. Because of the native
salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
deposits, visitors are recommended to close their eyes during
dust storm A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transporte ...
s and strong winds.


History

The first recorded survey of Barsa-Kelmes was made in August 1848, when Geographer A. Maksheyev and
topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...
A. Akishev made a topographical survey of the island and described its landscape. The first sketches of the local flora and fauna were made by
Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ( uk, Тарас Григорович Шевченко , pronounced without the middle name; – ), also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar (a kobzar is a bard in Ukrainian culture), was a Ukraine, Ukrainian p ...
. A
jumping spider Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family (biology), family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all sp ...
, '' Sitticus barsakelmes'', was named after the island in 1998.


Urban legend

During the second half of the 20th century, there was a persistent
urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
about
paranormal phenomena Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
occurring on the island. The legend reached its peak in the early 1990s, when popular science magazine '' Tekhnika Molodyozhi'' published a large article about these phenomena, listing local medical student
Sergey Lukyanenko Sergei Vasilyevich Lukyanenko (russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Лукья́ненко, ; born 11 April 1968) is a Russian science fiction and fantasy author, writing in Russian. His works often feature intense action-packed plots, ...
as their chief source.''Tekhnika Molodyozhi'' (''Техника молодежи''), 1991, No. 3;''Tekhnika Molodyozhi'' 1993, No. 4. It told an engaging story of variable flow of time on the island and possible
UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
visitation, and featured letters and stories from local fishermen about strange temporal variations, disappearing expeditions, and other mysteries. It was later revealed, however, that the legends were a series of elaborate
hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
es perpetrated by successive generations of local writers and journalists, which central publications in the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
had believed and picked up to boost public interest. The hoax had in fact been first perpetrated and then revealed by Lukyanenko and Grigory Neverov, then president of KLF MGU (KLF = ''kluba lyubiteley fantastiki'', club of fantasy fans), whose involvement started it all. As the story went, when Neverov asked his colleagues throughout the Soviet Union whether they recalled any stories about paranormal phenomena in their regions, Lukyanenko, then an active member of the
Almaty Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to ...
KLF, remembered some rumors about mysterious doings on Barsa-Kelmes and decided to play a practical joke on the Muscovite. He found the origin of the rumors, an old story in a local newspaper, together with his friends fabricated the evidences like the letters from fishermen, and even invented a local version of a Kazakh epic about the hero . Neverov bought into a story and reported it to the ''TM'' editorial staff, who published the article. Later, when Lukyanenko admitted the hoax to Neverov, they tried to trace the origin of the article that had inspired the joke, and found that it itself was a joke by a local journalist.


References


External links


Чернобров В. А. Остров Барсакельмес
{{UFOs Lake islands of Kazakhstan Islands of the Aral Sea Paranormal places in Kazakhstan