Dobro pozhalovat', dear Reader. Welcome to "KITEZHGRAD,"   the electronic web-version of "KITEZH" – The Journal of the Russian Cultural Heritage Society (originally published quarterly, in English, since 1984, at which time it incorporated "THE  LIGHT  OF  ORTHODOXY" – The Journal of the St. Stefan Of Perm' Guild, an independent Russian Orthodox missionary group in America, affiliated at that time with

Red-haired and cat-eyed, this splendid young warrior, one, Temuchin, by name,

was of the firm opinion that

"man's supreme joy is in victory:
to conquer one's enemies,
to pursue them,
to deprive them of their possessions,
to make their beloved weep,
to ride upon their horses,
and to embrace their wives and daughters."

In order to realize his dream, Temuchin moved quickly as a leopard, uniting tribe after tribe beneath his tuq, which was always carried into battle whenever he himself was present.

Consisting of a pole, surmounted by nine white yak-tails, the tuq was Temuchin's renowned battle-standard, which soon became an object of divine significance to his followers – and an object of dread to their foes – as all Mongolia, Cathay, Tibet, India, and the whole of Central Asia reeled before the onslaught of his seemingly invincible legions.

Before long, all Asia knew the name of Temuchin, and quaked and quailed before it.  And soon this youth, claiming the mandate of heaven – given him by Tengri, the Eternal Great Blue Sky – began to style himself the khan of the Mongols, which title was confirmed by a kurultai [great assembly] of tribal chieftains, who proclaimed him to be not only the Kha-khan ["Great Khan"], but also Ching'his Khan ["the All-encompassing Lord"].

Led by Temuchin's nephew, Batyi, these fierce warriors would soon clash with an ill-equipped and ill-prepared Russian army at the River Kalka, gathered at the entreaty of their erstwhile enemies, the Polovtsy, who implored the Russians' help, saying: "Today, they come for us; on the morrow, they will come for you!"

When asked just who these fierce strangers were, the Polovtsy, who knew no more than the Russians in this matter, merely replied that they were "ta-ta" (that is, to say: "From far-far away!"). The Russians, however, took them to mean that they were "from Tartarus" (i.e., "from hell" ) and, accordingly, named them "Tatary."

Shortly before the impending battle, a "Tatar" envoy arrived in the Russian camp, seeking to dissuade the Russians from fighting them over the fate of "these accurséd Polovetzian slave-dogs," but the Russians had pledged their sacred word; they had kissed the Cross...

"or what was their origin, faith, or tongue. [...] Only God knoweth who these people are, or whence they came," as the Russian Chronicles reported.

But, for now, they were gone – and all Europe breathed a sigh of relief at their disappearance, looking upon their incursion in much the same manner as one would view a summer storm – a passing summer storm, nothing more.... Soon, however, she would learn – much to her horror – that it had been but the first shower!...

"The kniaz' [prince], together with his mother, wife, and sons; the boyars [nobles] and inhabitants; all, without regard to age or sex, were slaughtered with the savage cruelty of Mongol revenge; some were impaled or had nails or splinters of wood driven under their finger nails. Priests were roasted alive and nuns and maidens were ravished in the churches before their relatives. No eye remained open to weep for the dead."  (Less than three-quarters of a millennium later, the communists would do the same, throughout all of Holy Rus'.)

Wherever the Mongols ranged, like tales were repeated, for they believed, quite simply (and applied the principle of that belief quite ruthlessly), that their Kha-khan had been directed by Tengri to conquer and to rule the world. Resistance to the will of the khan was resistance to the will of Tengri, and must be punished by death.

One of the towns that suffered an especial show of cruelty was Kozyelsk, which the Mongols dubbed "the evil city," as it had dared courageously to withstand a Mongol siege for seven weeks. So wroth were the Mongols at this lengthy resistance to the will of Tengri by the citizens of Kozyelsk, that on finally taking the town, they butchered everyone and everything that had breath – citizens and animals alike. The blood ran so deep in the streets, as the Chronicler relates, that children drowned before they could be slain, thus further infuriating the Mongols, who therefore felt cheated of their prey.

Even Great Kiev, "the Mother of Russian Cities," where once upon a time "the thunder of the Gospel" had resounded and clouds of incense had ascended to the heavens, did not escape a tragic fate – a Divine visitation of wrath "for our sins," as the people would say.

The carnage was frightful. What had been the capital of Rus' – and, by the end of the Wise Yaroslav's reign, one of the greatest and most-advanced centers of civilization and trade in Europe, far exceeding those of the West – was left a mound of rubble and ashes, with "an innumerable multitude of men's skulls and bones, lying upon the earth."

Soon, it could rightly be said that:

"[N]ow hath a great misfortune befallen the Russian Land, the land that once had been ruled by the great Yaroslav ['the Wise'], and by Vladimir ['the Ruddy Sun']...,"

Of those Russian cities accessible to the Mongol invaders, only Great Kitezh was spared by the Lord "on account of the great piety of its citizens and the intercessory prayers of the Mother of God."

Two cities had been built by kniaz' Yurii Vsevolodovich in the forest of Murom, where that great

had captured Solovey Razboynik [Nightingale the Robber] – a frightful wind-demon who imperiled travelers going to and fro between Murom and Kiev. One of these cities – that of Little Kitezh – Yurii built at the edge of the forest, on the Volga. The other – Great Kitezh – he built deep in the heart of the forest.

Renowned for their hospitality and their intense piety, the citizens of Great Kitezh were at a loss as to what to do when the "Tatars," led thither by a traitorous Grishka Kutyerma, after they had sacked and destroyed Little Kitezh, threatened to destroy their city, as well – putting its houses to the torch, slaying its people, and carrying off its women-folk and maidens into captivity – instead of agreeing to peace and concord.

To deliver them from the wrath of "Batyga" [a pejorative form of Batyi].

So intense was their prayer, that the tears they shed were tears of blood; and the Most-holy Bogoroditsa, always ready to succour Orthodox Christians, heard their prayerful pleas and supplications; and She saw their tears and took pity upon them, imploring Her Divine Son to spare the city, for Her sake.

It was then that a voice resounded from the heavens, saying:

And a mist descended upon Great Kitezh, enveloping it.

For ten days and ten nights did the "Tatars" seek to find the city, yet search as they might, they could not descry it. And when, at the end of the ten days, the mist finally lifted, Great Kitezh was nowhere to be seen. In its stead, there had appeared

a beautiful, gleaming lake

– Svyetloyar –

shining with the radiance of an extraordinary and Divine Light.

So frightened out of their wits were Grishka Kutyerma and the "Tatars" by this miracle, which the Most-holy Bogoroditsa had wrought in answer to the prayers of the citizens of Kitezh, that the traitor went insane, while Batyga's "invincible legions" fled in terror from the spot, never to return.

And what happened to Kitezh?

According to some accounts, the city was submerged beneath the waters of the lake, partaking of a foretaste of that joy which [e]ye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love Him, where it will slumber until the end of the age.

Then, at the appointed time, a great miracle of God will be manifested and Kitezh will ascend from its watery tomb, to confirm the doctrine of the Resurrection, for all to see.

According to others, Kitezh was translated on-high, into another dimension – that of the Heavenly Realm – whence it will return shortly before the end of the world, that the Word of the Lord might go forth therefrom, in accordance with the prophecies of our Russian Saints and seers, not the least of the latter being the great writer Dostoyevsky, who had proclaimed that "Russia will yet speak a New Word to the World!"  But, in the meantime, Kitezh still casteth its reflection in the waters of Svetloyar!

Whatever the actual truth of the matter, although quite unseen, the city – with its walls of white stone, with its church-cupolas of gold, with rich monasteries, with princely palaces, with the stone houses of the boyars – exists to this very day; preserved inviolate (whether beneath the waters of the lake, or in that Heavenly Realm which men call the Sacrosphere) since the time of the Mongol invasion.

Many were they who, through the centuries, went in search of Kitezh;

one can see (whether beneath the water, or reflected therein, I wot not; God knoweth) -: the walls, the churches, the monasteries, the palaces and the houses, reflected in its waters.

And one can hear at night: the dull, mournful peal of the bells of Kitezh. But only such a one as truly loves Holy Rus'!

And how often such "moments" were realized in the lives of little Russian children who used to read by the steady, dispassionate glow of the little lampadka [a small Russian votive-lamp] long after they were supposed to be asleep. Never were they afraid of the dark, for an ikon [an Orthodox religious image, usually depicting Christ, or His Most-Holy Mother, or the Saints, or the Holy Angels] was always there,

And I, too, although I cannot recollect a direct experience of a truly Russian winter, having been still too small at the time to retain an active memory of one, did to some degree manage to experience it vicariously, blending in my child's imagination the actuality of the winters with which I was familiar in Germany with the tales my mother used to tell me of winters back home...

...there, where the first tentative snowflakes would come drifting down in October (whence sprung up the folk-belief that "if it snows on

– and, by December, will often bury two-storey houses beneath a downy comforter of white;

tales of the fabled "White Nights" of winter (as opposed to those of summer), when moonlight and starlight, unobstructed by clouds, so illuminated the earth's snowy mantle that the light of day blended into the light of night, pausing but briefly for twilight; of crackling frosts so intense that the walls of houses would buckle and any bird unfortunate or foolish enough to be on the wing would soon plummet to the ground – frozen solid!

And as for reading by the light of the lampadka, of feeling safe and secure: to that, too, I was no stranger – even when, out of necessity, my mother would be forced to leave me alone overnight in order to try and find some morsel of food that a German family might have thrown away, for we were refugees from our Native Land (where my mother had lost her husband – and I, of course, my father – under circumstances most-tragic, when he was tortured to death for his Orthodox Christian Faith by the satanic communist authorities who had seized power there, he having refused to deny Christ upon their demands that he do so).

Now, my Mother and I were dwelling in what had originally been a German D-P ["Displaced-Persons"] camp, whither we had been brought by the retreating German forces. After World War II, however, these camps had come under the management of the Allies, not a few of whom were openly hostile to the Orthodox Faith, and it was only due to my Mother's ardent faith and prayers that we managed to escape the "tender ministrations" of the Allies in such nefarious post-war crimes as

"Operation: KEELHAUL",

for example.

There, overhead then, was the krasnyi ugolok [the ikon-corner, which Russians have ever called the "beauteous" or "red" little corner], bathed in the ruddy glow of a dispassionate eye of flame, with ancient family ikons of the tender-eyed