republic of Khakassia | Lada Ray Blog

Tags

Гурудэ, Новая Звезда, Хакасия, energy portal, Khakassia fires, Moscow, republic of Khakassia, Ruslan Gurude, Russia, Russian stonehenge, shaman, Siberia, The New Star singing competition, throat singing

This post is about Khakassia, Siberia – a hidden cultural and archeological gem, full of treasured forbidden history monuments and home to incredible shamanic throat singining. Khakassia is now being rebuilt, while struggling to overcome tragic consequences of the recent forest fire.

Khakassia is a small autonomous republic in southern Siberia, Russian Federation; population about 500,000. It’s located between the large metropolises of Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk.

Map of the Russian Federation – Khakassia is in red

Just like the nearby Tyva and other mystical stretches of Siberia and the Far East, Khakassia is the realm of ancient shamans, famous for its one-of-a-kind throat singing. This land of steppes and forests resembles an open-air museum, the keeper of mysteries of our true past. It is called the archeological Mecca of Siberia, with 30,000 stonehenges, remnants of ancient cities and fortresses, kurgan pyramids as burial sites, and rock engravings strewn all over Khakassian steppes.

Khakassia primordial stone engravings

Sunduki, Khakassia: 16,000 year old stone monuments – kurgans/pyramids

The primordial rocks dotting the landscape are sacred ancestral energy portals commonly found in Siberia, Crimea, Caucasus and all over Russia. The British Stonehenge was made famous, but you could say that the entire Russia is one giant Stonehenge. Some of these ancient portals are still awaiting their discovery.

Khakassian stonehenges, Siberia, Russia

Recently, Khakassia experienced a terrible tragedy. An unusually dry and warm weather for this time of year resulted in a giant forest fire. This fire was carried by the improbably strong winds, reaching 30 m/second. Since the traditional construction material of choice in the forested northern parts of Khakassia is wood, a number of local villages burned down, leaving thousands displaced.

Meet Ruslan Gurude, amazing shamanic singer from Khakassia.

Ruslan Gurude (Ivakin) is a multi-talented economist, singer and composer from Khakassia. During the first show of the New Star («Новая Звезда») All-Russia singing competition, he amazed both audience and judges with his powerful performance of a Khakassian shamanic song. His incredible throat singing, common for these parts, but interpreted by Ruslan in a fresh and unique way, left his audience in awe.

Gurude (emphasis on ‘e’) showed an equally beautiful and unique singing in Round 2 and in semi-finals, all three times receiving the maximum score of 100.

Just before the semi-finals Gurude received a call from his family that despite all the state and local authorities’ precautions, his native village and his ancestral home burned down as the 30 m/second wind carried fire from the nearby forest.

Thanks to the «Новая Звезда» competition, Gurude’s singing already made an impression internationally. He was invited by UNESCO to sing at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva, as well as Paris and several other European cities.

The New Star is a brand new competition. It is unique and advanced in its own right. Every region of Russia (every subject of the Federation) gets to send one representative. What has especially impressed me is this: a brief film about each Russian region (87 in total) is presented to the audience before singers’ performances, which allows each oblast and autonomy to promote its beauty, treasures and acomplishments, while people from all over the country get the chance to re-discover for themselves various far away corners of their vast and varied Motherland.

The New Star competition has five judges, who are famous singers, artistic directors and composers. Center stage represents a star with five lit rays. Each judge can choose to turn off his/her ray, thus taking away 20 points from a competitor. Citizens all over the country can also vote and thus help their favorite singer to advance, or not. Any genre is welcome, from folk and shamanic, to rock, pop, classic and opera. Singers sing in Russian, but also in languages of their origin, as well as in foreign languages. English and Spanish are popular. This competition allows talented people from all over the country get noticed.

Gurude is one of my personal favorites. I am charmed and impressed with his talent and multi-dimensional, cosmic presentation. There are several singers I am rooting for, but I will be happy if Gurude wins.

The competition level is very high and there are many wonderful singers, including a couple of other smashing throat singers from Chukotka and Buryatia. I’ll post their videos soon.

I think our only salvation from the mindless, mind-numbing pop that is flooding stage and TV screens all over the world is this kind of genuine, authentic folk singing. The future is the kind of singing that is encoded with our genetic memory. This is what the world needs to listen to in order to awaken and recall our real roots. It is up to us to decode it and remember the truth…

Gurude Round 1: Mirage in the Steppe – in Khakassian. “Степной мираж”. Играет на флейте (хобрах) Гурудэ (Руслан Ивакин, республика Хакассия). Новая звезда