Esoteric tourism at archaeological sites: why didn't Savin become Arkaim?

Baimov Airat Gaisarovich ORCID: 0009-0003-8985-0676 Junior Researcher; R.G. Kuzeev Institute of Ethnological Research, UNC RAS 6 Karl Marx str., Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan, 450077, Russia baimov.airat@mail.ru Other publications by this author

In one of his works, the famous Soviet and Russian archaeologist V. A. Shnirelman, using the example of Arkaim, noted that today archeology meets great public demand and attracts masses of tourists. Also, continuing the thought, he stressed that the archaeological sites themselves and the museums around them are of little interest to visitors, who are rather attracted by spiritual research (participation in ritual activities, communication with higher powers, receiving consultations from traditional healers, magicians and psychics, studying with astrologers, wellness procedures through meditation, obtaining energy from space, etc. etc.), rather than the desire to look at the discoveries of scientists ^{[1, pp. 134-136]}. Of course, such statements by reputable researchers force local regional executive authorities to adopt these theses every time it comes to the development of domestic tourism. However, they intentionally or unintentionally ignore the second part of the question. As a result, considerable funds are spent on the development of tourist infrastructure and landscaping, and the payback of such actions in the future, it turns out, at best, is zero. One of these archaeological sites was the monument "Eneolithic sanctuary "Savin—1", located in the Kurgan region.

It would seem that this object has all the formal signs in order for it to become a popular "place of power" for tourists engaged in "self-search". Firstly, its territory is "salted" (the name speaks for itself —"sanctuary"), the object was created in ancient times as a sacred space^[2], with clear astronomical landmarks^[3]. Secondly, the presence of a number of semiotic markers, for example, the circular layout of the object, where two moats in the form of a ring are connected to each other, forming the number 8, by the way, revered not only in esotericism^[4]. Thirdly, the interest in the landscape from the regional authorities^[5] and private business^[6], the creation of an open-air museum, with the organization of special "sacred places" for rituals (metal "tree of desires", spirals laid out of stones, idolatrous art objects, reconstruction of the monument in the immediate place etc.) ^[7].

The administration of the Kurgan Region is trying to "promote" Savin in the media by holding various festivals ^[8], forums and master classes^[9], attracting professional photographers and videographers^[10]. However, these efforts do not bring the expected flow of tourists. The last statement came as a complete surprise to us. Assuming that such an object must necessarily be a place of attraction for esoteric tourists, we planned an expedition to Savin for the summer solstice, which in 2024 coincided with the end of the working week. Based on this fact, going on a short-term expedition to the Kurgan region, we anticipated that during the night and after dawn, we would witness a wide variety of rituals performed by esotericists of different stripes from different parts of Russia. However, once at the site, we witnessed, on the one hand, a large—scale work done to popularize the archaeological monument, on the other - the absence of anyone on it on such a significant day for esotericists. It should be noted that the museum administration has previously prepared the object for the flow of tourists by mowing the grass on the trail and near the accompanying art objects. Ritual spirals of stones were also laid out on the site, a special metal "Tree of Desires" was installed, where it is recommended to tie ribbons.

However, despite all the preparations, on the night of June 21-22, there was no one at the facility, and only on the morning of June 22, a group of tourists from Yekaterinburg arrived in two minibuses, numbering 24 people, who, according to them, regularly visit the "places of power" on the longest day of the year to "to get enough of the energy of nature." There were three men and 21 women among them. Two of the men went fishing on the old river Tobol, waiting for their companions. This group did not conduct any special rituals, limiting itself to "barefoot walks", meditations and offerings.

By noon, we witnessed the performance of rituals by another group of 15 women and two men, led by a woman in shamanic garb. Two men carried out preparatory work for the performance of subsequent rituals. Further, at the direction of their leader, they lined up in a row facing east, but so that there was space between the members of the group "for the spirits." A woman in shamanic clothes explained that before visiting the "dwelling place of spirits" it is necessary to greet them, purify yourself on a shamanic bonfire, bring gifts, and only after that you can step on the "holy place" itself.

After the group repeated the words of greeting of the spirits after the shaman, a shamanic bonfire was lit and they lined up around it. The shaman beat a tambourine and performed a purification ritual, after which each of the group members jumped over the fire. It is curious that the words of greeting featured ancient Slavic deities such as Perun, Lada, Dazhbog, which, it would seem, do not combine with shamanic traditions.

In the afternoon, a group of school students arrived at the archaeological site as part of an excursion organized by the Belozersk Regional Museum of Local Lore. That's probably all.

Why, despite all the efforts on the part of the regional administration, did we not see thousands of tourists on Savin? To a certain extent, fellow ethnographers have already given an objective answer to this question. According to F. S. Korandey and M. G. Agapov, Savin from the very beginning became the subject of conflict between four groups: professional archaeologists, the tourism business, local communities, representatives of new religious movements. Archaeologists are trying to obtain funds for the preservation of the monument and further research, but the regional administration requires the development of tourism, which is not within their area of competence. The tourism business faced resistance from the local population, who bought out land shares around the monument in order to prevent businessmen from making money, bypassing the interests of the villagers. Representatives of the new religious movements were negatively received by the local Orthodox community. The authors of this study, based on field material that was collected during the year, note that the reason for such confrontations was the extraterritorial participation of regional authorities in the process of developing the territory of the archaeological monument, which was limited to descending vertically along the general direction of local development, excluding the lively participation of government representatives in discussions.

Based on the experience of creating the recreation area vokurg of Lake Ipkul in the Tyumen region, researchers believe that it would be possible to mitigate the inevitable conflict of interests of different groups by assigning the functions of moderator of the ongoing landscape transformation to private business, as a result of which everyone would benefit: local residents get jobs, the administration deductions to the budget, tourists thoughtful infrastructure, and business He earns money. At the same time, the authors admit that they observed the process at the stage of formation, in connection with which the object of their scientific interest were the "organizers" of the process, and there are no "ordinary" visitors to the facilities among the informants^[11].

The classical ethnographic research method, in the form of included observation and in-depth interviewing, was not quite suitable for our study, since it requires a longer stay at the object, which in our case was not possible. As we noted earlier, we could not find the "ordinary" visitors to the monument in place in sufficient numbers for objective scientific analysis, despite the fact that the day of the trip (June 21-23) was chosen because it is important in esoteric practice. Conversations with those we met there, including local residents, confirmed the existence of conflicts described by colleagues in the work that we discussed above.

Back in the 90s, when this whole topic with wizards and witches began, it seemed to someone that a green ray appeared from under the ground, which connected with the sky, at the very place where the monument is located. I think that the source of the green light is actually an ordinary blue (alcoholic beverages—A.B.). Then all sorts of witches gathered here, long before they built all this mess (an open—air museum with a full-size reconstruction of the monument-A.B.). (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Kurgan region. Inf. 1, a local resident, the entry was made on 06/21/2024).

We are already used to constant attacks from local marginals here, so you and your questions do not bother us at all. (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Kurgan region. Inf. 2, participant of trips to Savin, recorded on 06/22/2024).

The woman in shamanic attire also did not demonstrate readiness for an open conversation, saying only that she organizes such rituals 4 times a year: on the days of the winter and summer solstices, autumn and spring equinoxes. According to her, the same people take part in her rituals, they try to include "beginners" in a dosed manner, no more than 1-2 people. Such closeness is probably caused by caution and unwillingness to engage in an open dialogue with strangers. It is important to emphasize here that on Arkaim, participants in the celebration of the summer solstice, on the contrary, were distinguished by demonstrative simplicity and openness, and willingly answered any questions we were interested in.

In connection with the above, in order to study the "ordinary" visitors of the monument, collect sources and structure them, as an additional method, we chose the methods of digital ethnography (Digital ethnography). Digital ethnography implies a set of methods. These include network analysis, the technique of "matching words analysis" (ACC) (co-word analysis), semantic analysis and discourse Analysis ^[12]. We use these methods in the understanding proposed by A. Caliandro, not only limited to automated machine analysis of Internet data, but also the integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including the analysis and interpretation of digital data^[13]. For ethical reasons and in accordance with Article 7 "Publicly available information" of the Federal Law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" dated 07/27/2006 No. 149-FZ, we have used information only from open sources, in a generalized and depersonalized form.

Using the approach described above allowed us to collect sufficient information for analysis not only about users, but also about their impressions of the trip to Savin, which they posted in the public domain. This gives us the opportunity to find answers to the questions of what exactly the visitors liked or disliked, what they personally paid attention to and what, in their opinion, the organizers of tourist trips need to pay attention to, as well as other information we need to build an objective picture of the attitude of tourists to the studied object. It is important to understand that the methods of digital ethnography cannot be used to accurately calculate the number of adherents of esoteric teachings, but at the same time they allow us to determine their approximate social composition^[14].

For our research, we chose the Vkontakte social network because it is the most popular in Russia^[15]. The information was collected by the VK.BARKOV automated information retrieval system.NET^[16] (hereinafter referred to as the parser), the choice of which was due to the availability of tools necessary for our research ("search for news and VK hashtags", "complete information about users", "analysis of any user audience") and the ability to upload data in Excel format. We partially used the capabilities of the Microsoft Excel program for automated analysis.

To achieve our goals, we have collected all the posts on the Vkontakte social network containing the keyword "Savin Sanctuary". A total of 651 publications were discovered. Most of the texts are scientific and informative in nature about the monument or museum, reports on sightseeing trips with students to Savin in official communities of educational institutions, announcements and reports on planned or already held official events on the territory of the monument.

By semantic analysis of the texts, we have identified 87 posts made by 75 unique users that are of the greatest interest to us. In them, the authors of the publications consider the archaeological monument as a "place of power", "a territory with special energy", "a sacred place", and also declare their attitude to the sacralization of the object by esotericists. At the same time, 64 users are "urban inhabitants" who admit Savin's "special energy", 8 are trip organizers offering "spiritual purification" for a certain organizational fee, 2 are adherents of occult teachings who visited the monument individually, 1 is a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church.

All 75 users indicated their gender identity in their questionnaires. 51 accounts, which we have conditionally designated as "urban inhabitants", belong to women, 13 to men. Also, 51 people from the considered category indicated their city of residence: 28 live in settlements in the Kurgan region, 10 in the Sverdlovsk region, 4 in the Tyumen region, 3 in the Chelyabinsk Region, 2 in the Krasnodar Territory, one each in the Kirov region, KhMAO, Moscow and Sevastopol. 19 people indicated the year of birth, of which 14 were women and 5 were men. Most of the users (10) belong to the 35-49 age group, which, according to the international age periodization (1965), corresponds to the second period of adulthood ^[17].

Graph 1. The gender and age composition of the "urban inhabitants" who left a comment about the trip to Savin.

An analysis of the pages of "esotericists", where we included both "trip organizers" and "adherents of occult teachings", showed similar results: 8 of them are women, 2 are men, while 6 users live in the Kurgan region, one each in the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions, as well as in the KhMAO. 3 users indicated their age, of which 2 were women, aged 39 to 45 years, and 1 man was 51 years old (mature age, second period).

Based on the data obtained, it is obvious that Savin is rather an object for family tourism at the regional level. Most of both tourists and trip organizers permanently reside directly in the Kurgan region or in neighboring regions, which confirms the thesis that this archaeological site is still little known nationwide, not to mention the countries of the near and far abroad, and cannot claim to be a "tourist Mecca".

Our discourse analysis of the texts also showed the weak popularity of Savin among tourists. Analyzing the texts of the publications, we were able to identify 3 main reasons why this happened. Firstly, there is no tourist infrastructure: glamping and camping sites are not equipped, a place for tent camps is not organized, there are no grocery stores and souvenirs, catering facilities in the accessibility area, most importantly, there are no regular buses in this direction, and the road does not have an asphalt surface. In fact, the dirt roads to the monument have a length of 30 km, if you go from the Kurgan, through Paderinskoye, and 25 km through Belozerskoye. In 2024, the situation worsened due to the difficult flood situation.

To be honest, it's not worth going just for Savin's sake. But if you are somewhere nearby, you can look into the place. (Vkontakte social network, Katerina T., Yekaterinburg).

Only something, as always, does not fit in my grumpy head. If Savin is the second Stonehenge and Arkaim and it is positioned as a sanctuary and a place of power for people who are passionate about spiritual practices, then what are hundreds of people and beer tents doing there? And if this is a place of entertainment for the development of tourism in the Kurgan region, then why are they going to entertain people there the rest of the time? And if it is an archaeological monument, then it should not be treated more carefully? (Vkontakte social network, Lisa P., Kurgan).

On Savin, we found ourselves in the company of cows. All the art objects were in their original places, but some were still in the water. We decided to drive closer to Savin himself. We found traces of the previous pioneer and rode to the water barrier. They began to turn around, and the barrier in the form of a swamp defeated the front left wheel. (Vkontakte social network, Svetlana D., Kurgan).

Secondly, there is a conflict with the local Orthodox community (including Cossacks and local residents), which is actively fighting against the penetration of representatives of new religious teachings into the territory of the monument. According to information from the official community of the Kurgan Diocese on the Vkontakte social network, since 2019, every year at midnight from June 21 to 22 in the church of S. Zyuzino, priests celebrate the Divine Liturgy and go in procession to the monument. A prayer service "for deliverance from witchcraft and demonic obsessions" is held at the site of the monument, after which the territory is sprinkled with holy water and a memorial service is held for those who died during the Great Patriotic War.

Every year we pray at this place to help the lost to get rid of demonic obsessions and the influence of dark forces (Vkontakte social network, David M., Kurgan region)

A balanced ethno-confessional policy that takes into account the interests of various groups of the population is one of the key directions of domestic policy in any Russian region. Therefore, this fact, in principle, "puts the regional administration on its shoulder blades", forcing it to look for other ways to use the already created tourist site. Negotiations with the Orthodox community are probably underway in parallel, since in 2024 a traditional procession was not organized at the monument, with the performance of the Orthodox rites described earlier on site.

The esoteric community is also not interested in being a party to the conflict, as this will inevitably draw attention to them from the competent authorities (executive authorities, law enforcement agencies, tax service, etc.). Therefore, legally "clean" non-profit organizations (for example, the Siberian Center for Social Development) are mainly engaged in organizing trips of an esoteric nature ^[18]. In other cases, the monument is visited individually or in small groups, and they prefer to keep silent about the purpose of the visit. Obviously, this is why word of mouth in esoteric communities also prefers to keep silent about Savin.

Woodhenge, located near the city of Kurgan, has been reconstructed. This place is still little known, so there are few visitors and an energetically clean space. I wish you to make a group trip to the summer solstice with a visit to the great Tobol River, the ancient city of Shchadrinsk and the ancient Dalmatian fortress monastery. (Vkontakte social network, Maria M., Yekaterinburg).

Thirdly, no work has been done to create and disseminate myths that would serve as a kind of "advertisement" to popularize the esoteric component of trips to Savin.

Savin is an ancient sanctuary and, presumably, an observatory, and now an object of tourist attraction, but not yet promoted and overgrown with the tales of guides and tourists impressed by what they saw, like the famous and visited Arkaim. (Vkontakte social network, Elena Ch., Yekaterinburg).

Esoteric travel organizers prefer not to advertise their activities on the territory of the monument, for the reasons mentioned above. If trips are made, they are more often in established groups, in the company of familiar people.

We're just a group of friends. Our hobby is to spend the night in interesting places, with a special energy. Now we have arrived at Savin, there are no main ones among us, witches and wizards too. (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Kurgan region. Inf. 3, participant of trips to Savin, recorded on 06/22/2024).

You won't be able to join us right now. You need to make an appointment in advance, pay the registration fee. We usually come here in the same line-up, new people rarely appear in our company. We ourselves try not to include newcomers in our ranks in large numbers. Sometimes, we can take a couple of people (The author's field materials. An expedition to the Kurgan region. Inf. 4, participant of trips to Savin, recorded on 06/22/2024).

It is curious that on the territory of the Kurgan region, in relative proximity to Savin, there are locations that could be used in the complex for the tourist attractiveness of the region, including through the creation of certain myths about the need to follow the order of visits to a particular object. Such locations could be the Chimeevsky holy spring (81 km to Savin) and Lake Medvezhye (209 km to Savin), which netizens endow with healing properties.

One and a half kilometers north of Chimeevo is the equally famous Chimeevo holy spring. You can collect bottles of water, and some do not limit themselves to this and climb into the bath with ice water. By the way, scientists have found that this water contains silver. And it is known to kill all germs and has healing power. (Vkontakte social network, Larisa I., Kamensk-Uralsky).

Kurgan is the capital of orthopedics. It is here that the world-famous Ilizarov Center was opened, where Russia's leading experts in spinal pathology work. Kurgan region is the birthplace of the ancient observatory. The Savin Sanctuary is older than the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and Arkaim. The healing properties of Lake Medvezhye are not inferior to the Dead Sea. (Vkontakte social network, Natalia L., Sevastopol)

Among the texts analyzed by us, phrases such as "Savin is the grandfather of Arkaim", "Savin is older than the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and Arkaim" are most often found. These theses are most likely borrowed by netizens from guides working on the territory of the open-air museum. At the same time, visitors to the museum give a very different dating from 6 thousand years ago to 2.5 thousand years, this indicates that an ordinary person, far from archaeology, is poorly oriented in historical periodization, and visiting the museum did not consolidate this knowledge for him. I remember only loud statements about the uniqueness of the monument, which surpasses the "famous brothers" in age.

If we recall the example of Arkaim, the author of the main myths was the head of the excavations and the creator of the Arkaim research center G. B. Zdanovich ("the land of cities ^[19]}", "the grave of Zarathustra" and "The Ancestral homeland of world religions" ^[20], "proto-urban civilization", "arias in the Urals^[21]", "magic circles^[22]", etc.). These myths have "generated" such a flood of esoteric tourists that neither science nor government institutions can cope with it anymore. As V. A. Shnirelman noted: "... the staff of the museum-reserve is no longer able to control the situation ... ^{[1, p. 134]}". And F. N. Petrov, then deputy director for science at the Arkaim Center, wrote: "... consciously launched cultural, and today already natural processes associated with Arkaim, are beginning to develop largely independently, they are no longer amenable to unambiguous regulation and control. State structures no longer manage them, but only participate in them ...^[23]". G. B. Zdanovich himself expressed regret that tourism had taken exactly this form^[24].

But, if we talk about the popularity of tourism at archaeological sites, without the "spiritual component" and paranoscience, there simply will not be tourists in the number desired by the organizers. "Cultural and educational tourism" is often limited to visits by school students, students, labor collectives of budgetary institutions and pensioners. Therefore, esotericism can be treated in different ways, but, subject to limited investments in the development of tourist infrastructure, they, and only they, can provide a constant and massive flow of tourists to archaeological sites, with regular replenishment of the regional budget.

Communicating with tourists on Arkaim, it was found out that the main purpose of their trip is to "make a wish", "desire to get married", "have a child", "get rid of an incurable disease", "gratitude to Higher Powers for fulfilling a previous wish", "recharge with special energy", etc. They believe that this landscape has such energy, while a considerable part of the interlocutors did not even know about the existence of an archaeological monument in this territory. Interest in museums (the Arkaim Museum-Reserve, the Museum of Nature and Man, the house and estate of the Orenburg Cossack) was also weak, and not everyone showed it.

We calculated that this year about 7 thousand tourists came to Arkaim on the summer solstice, but even a tenth of them did not visit museums. They sit on their hills and pray. They don't need science. (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Chelyabinsk region. Inf. 1, an employee of the Arkaim Museum-Reserve, recorded on 06/23/2024).

Of course, conflicts in a latent form exist here, between representatives of various esoteric teachings, but they do not move to open confrontation, limiting themselves only to criticism of some tourists who "incorrectly" perform certain rituals.

They're building these pyramids over there, they've built a whole stone city. And they don't know what they're building for. They think the higher the better, and they make these pyramids thoroughly. In fact, the wish will be fulfilled only when nature destroys the pyramid in a natural way. And they've had them for years. (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Chelyabinsk region. Inf. 2, participant of trips to Arkaim, recorded on 06/23/2024)

Local residents have also adapted to what is happening, and have actively integrated into market relations.

And what about the locals? Tourists bring them money, someone sells agricultural products, someone souvenirs. Shamans, sorcerers, and astrologers live in our village. They have nothing to share there, they all have different clients. (Field materials of the author. An expedition to the Chelyabinsk region. Inf. 1, an employee of the Arkaim Museum-Reserve, recorded on 06/23/2024)

Of course, you need to understand that Arkaim stands apart from the sacred objects of archeology. The popularization of the object took place back in the 90s of the last century. At that time, they did not actively talk about "traditional values", "spiritual bonds", "the unique role of traditional religions", etc. Therefore, esotericism practically did not meet noticeable resistance from both local residents and the archaeological community. Today we have a different picture. Considering that at least 82% of the population in the Kurgan region are ethnic Orthodox^[25], myths and paranientific concepts around Savin with a "Christian" connotation could be an acceptable option for popularizing the monument among tourists.

For example, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, where ethnic Muslims predominate, the mythologization of archaeological sites ("Turakhan mausoleum", "Ilchigulov kurgan burial ground IV", etc.) is successfully carried out by the religious group "Hakkanites" (Muslim Sufi order, followers of the Cypriot Sheikh Nazim Al-Haqqani)^[26]. Of course, the number of tourists does not number in the tens of thousands, as in Arkaim, but nevertheless the monuments are regularly visited, and there is no open confrontation between anyone (with the exception of on-line attacks by a few religious fundamentalists).

Conclusion. So, a simultaneous visit to two archaeological sites on the day of the summer solstice allowed us to conclude that at this stage the monument "Eneolithic sanctuary Savin–1" in terms of the development of esoteric tourism really did not become the second Arkaim. We have identified three main reasons why the ambitions of the organizers have not been fully realized:

1) relatively small financial investments for the development of tourism and road transport infrastructure;

2) the presence of an open confrontation between different groups of interested parties;

3) the absence of myths, traditions and rituals, in other words, Savin's own "spiritual highlight", which could stimulate the popularization of esoteric tourism at the site.

The organization of an open-air museum, with the installation of art objects and photo zones, holding official events and festivals at the regional level could not attract a large number of tourists who would visit the facility on a regular basis. In fact, in relation to Savin, the definition of "event tourism" is more appropriate, to a lesser extent "cultural and educational" or "family tourism". However, the invested funds and activities carried out are not enough for the full development of these areas. Elementary, the lack of high-quality roads, even with a developed tourist infrastructure, is unlikely to contribute to the flow of tourists if the main purpose of their trip is not spiritual research. The undoubted advantage of "esoteric tourism" is that the same people visit the same object with constant frequency, since in this case the very fact of "pilgrimage" is important for them, and the availability of entertainment attractions, hotels and high-quality roads is of secondary importance.