Legend about Khaim river

There are many legends about Pribaikalye. One of them is about the name of River Khaim recorded by the writer Afrikan Balburov.

The legend says that among political exiles there was a Polish Jew, Khaim by name, a very tall grey-bearded old man with a beard to his waist, who walked upright, held his head high. Old Khaim had five sons. They all were choice stalwart and hefty fellows. Khaim and his sons held farmsteads along the Barguzinsky high road, lived in the thick forest at the very peak of the pass. Besides load transportation, the Khaim family did one more secret business. Khaim gave shelter and helped fugitive state convicts. Those days in the taiga near Lake Baikal there were a lot of escapees. The Mountain Watch, set to guard the gold mines, caught and treated them very ruthlessly.

Once Khaim and his sons was leading a group of fugitive convicts across the taiga along the road that only he knew. Somebody followed them and reported to the Mountain Watch. When Khaim understood that they were pursued he told one of his sons to lead the people further on; and he himself with his four sons made an ambush for the watch. The fight with the guards lasted the whole day. The son who led people came back and joined the others. The guards surrounded Khaim and his sons. The latter tried to break away but failed. When they were out of ammunition the blood-stained Khaim and his sons stood upright. Each of them had a knife in his hands; and nobody of them gave up alive. The enraged guards hung Khaim and his sons by their feet in the trees in front of the house along the road. They wanted to teach everybody a lesson and let them see and tell others that it was what waited for those who helped fugitive convicts.

Another Baikal tragedy can be told by Bay Talanki and Cape Tonky located to the south-west of the village of Gremyachinsk and Lake Bolshoye Dukhovnoye. People can still see a grave and gravestone at that place on the shore and there is an impressing inscription there: “Killed for two loafs of bread – Ivan Semenovich Karnishev and Vasily Yakovlevich Rogov, They were fishing on the Baklanyi Islands during the wartime and were killed by the villain Chernetsky”. The cruel temper of people capable of different crimes worsens during difficult times and in distant regions. At times it’s impossible to believe how meanly the man can fall and the facts about such killed people serve as reminder and warning.

See also

• The Many Faces of Multilingual and Mysterious Baikal. A.D.Karnyshev

Literature

1. A.D. Karnyshev "The Many Faces of Multilingual and Mysterious Baikal"© BSU Publishing House, 2011