Observations on the Almasty

Thought a look at the Almasty might be interesting. Almasty or Almas, is apparently Mongolian for 'wild man', and is presumed to be a hominid which lives in the Caucasus and Pamir Mountains of central Asia, and also the Altai Mountains of southern Mongolia

The Almastys (Almasties?) are like people; they have arms and legs like people, except that they are covered with hair. The hair is like that of a bear, and dark. I always saw them without clothing . . . they do not know how to speak; they only mumble or bellow. They are not afraid of people, only of dogs. They run very fast." That is how 67-year-old Koumykov Feitsa, from the village of Kurkujm, deep in the Caucasus Mountains, described the Almastys he used to see as a youth in the 1930s.

Sightings have been recorded in writing as far back as the 15th century. In 1430, Hans Schildtberger recorded his personal observation of these creatures in the journal of his trip to Mongolia as a prisoner of the Mongol Khan. There is the story of Zana, said to have been a female Almasty who allegedly lived in the isolated mountain village of T'khina, fifty miles from Sukhumi in the Caucasus Mountains. Captured in the mountains in 1850, she was at first aggressive towards her captors; but very soon became domesticated and was supposedly even able to assist with simple household chores. Nikolai Przhevalsky was said to have observed the animals in Mongolia in 1871 .

A reported encounter with a male Almasty in 1941, shortly after the German invasion of what was then the USSR. According to the story, a creature somewhat similar to Zana was found in the Caucasus Mountains region by a detachment of the Red Army under the control of a Lt. Col. Vargen Karapetyan. According to Karapetyan, the beast was very human-like, but was covered in fine, dark hair. Interrogation revealed the creature’s apparent inability to speak. The beast was later killed.

British anthropologist Myra Shackley wrote about Ivan Ivlov's 1963 observation of a whole family of Almas. Ivlov, a pediatrician, decided to interview some of the Mongolian children who were his patients, and discovered that many of them had also seen Almas. Russian researcher Alexei Sitnikov and his team reported an encounter that took place in 1993, on the journey to Lake Tonee.

On February 26th, 2003, the Russian journal Itogi (Balances) published an extensive article with the title The Soviet 'Snowman'.The authors reported that in 1986 Leonid Yershov, had found "Snowman" hairs in the Lovozero region on the Kola peninsular in an expected 'Snowman' bed. The hairs were handed over to the Murmansk Office of Forensic Medicine and the "complex analyse" came to the conclusion that the hairs came not from any known mammal from the region but from a vegetarian creature.

So the mystery continues. Are Almasty a relic hominid or an ape, or simply people who chose to live wild ? All are theories that have been put forward over the years. Maybe the next expedition will find some truth.