KITEZH,

the Russian Atlantis
Instruction for the Immersion
 
  

Kitezh has nothing to do with the ‘history’. By the fact how easily it got over from the legends of Tartar-Mongol Yoke period and into the sagas of Old Believers, Silver Age poetry and rock-n-roll “time of bells”, we can affirm this symbol to be of general nature to the Russian culture as an ever modern mystical symbol. It is not only a symbol of redemption and escape from the trivial superficies: the sacred waters embracing Kitezh-grad for its inhabitants turn into a clear-cut prism (quite like the magical sunglasses from Carpenter’s movie “They live”) allowing to watch the superficial events as they appear in their true - strange and paradoxical - form.  

In reality, the superficies itself with all these structures and standards piled upon it is nothing more than light spots and shadows. Conservatives fight with postmodernists, westerners with patriots, etc. - it all can be looked upon as at the battle of Big-Endians and Small-Endians for a long time rotten egg.  

Old Believers were the first to open a liberating secret of Kitezh: tradition and vanguard are just one and the same. It came to them in a form of total identity of apocalypticism and nihilism. At the present time, now in regard to postmodernism, similar ideas had been expressed by Sergey Kuryokhin, and perceived rather negatively by the ‘superficial’ people, however different. 

Here, in the virtual Kitezh you will find the unexpected interpretations of ancient symbols and religious teachings, analysis of modern cults and contemporary art as a cult itself, literary works of classical postmodern writers, and the magical poetry with such mind-altering affect which lovers of chemical substitutes may not ever imagine. Also, new political and geopolitical strategies will be introduced, those not fitting into a commonplace scheme of “power and opposition”, thus most perspective. The main idea is to create a new humanitarian context in the Russian net, beyond the narrow, habitual, and sometimes totally obsolete classifications.  

We don’t want to detach Russian net from the International. But there’s an interesting difference between Russian Kitezh and Tibetan Aggartha: while the latter went underground, Kitezh was hidden in a lake - literally it went underwater. This is significant, cause in Russian consciousness (and subconsciousness) usually all the above-named matters are not clearly structured and do not fall into strict ‘mundane’ definitions. They live like a reflection on water, where the silhouettes of superficies mix, blur and dissolve... And under this reflection 
  

At the bed of soul
Roars the underwater Kitezh
Our unbegotten dream
      Max Voloshin
 
To materialize a dream means to wake up. But before dealing with such subtle psychological matters we must give a piece of good advice to those who got used to the superficial maxims, heavy as sand and obsessive as nightmares. Getting rid of these maxims might be painful, but you can’t get into Kitezh, the Russian Atlantis, when your aqualung is full of that air. You won’t see anything - at the best, or even join the numerous ‘drowned in esoterics’. Better reread Lovecraft now... Sorry, for reading the rest of text at Kitezh you need to learn Russian! 

... And for the experienced guests of Kitezh Veche (or, if your Latin is better - the Forum) is opened.  

Yours,
Vadim Shtepa, 
Kitezh server chief.
  
Translated by Liliana Nikogosian