Friday 11 January 2019

Nessie's relative living in Romania?


Lake Tarnița is situated around 30 kilometers west of Cluj-Napoca in Romania.. It was created in 1974 when a dam was built on the River Someșul Cald for the purpose of harnessing electricity. It is 9.7 kilometers long and its depth reaches up to 70 meters. It also provides water for the inhabitants of Cluj-Napoca and many other small towns in the surrounding area.  The deep, dark water has  inspired many urban legends about monsters inhabiting the bottom of the lake. One of them has it that a descendant of the Loch Ness monster lives in Tarnița. Another that the lake is teeming with fish three metres long, which attack  swimmers and  boats. There are stories of  people who drowned in the lake, their bodies never being recovered.
Another  story is about a lorry that fell into the lake about 15 years ago and  the team of scuba divers that was brought in  to pull out the truck and the lifeless driver. When the divers came out of the water, they were so terrified of something they had seen down there that they refused to go back without protective metal cages. Allegedly, what had spooked them  were incredible monsters they had seen in the lake. Experts  to explain this off as an optical illusion created by the shadows on the bottom of the lake or as tricks played by the glass of the helmet, which might have enlarged everything out of proportion. (Reminds me of the story about the diver in Loch Ness who claimed to have seen a giant frog and refused to dive again)
A German researcher, Erich von Munchhausen dove to the depths of the lake in 2010 to investigate. His opinion was that there is a whale living in Tarnița,  a new  species discovered by him and those that have disappeared were eaten.

Then there is this article:

Monster of the Romanian Lake Tarnitsa

The Loch Ness monster also has a Romanian “fellow” who lives in Lake Tarniţa, in the Western Carpathians. In Romania, a few years ago became a popular photograph of the “Tarnitsky Monster”, which was accidentally made by local tourists in the surrounding mountains.
“At first it seemed to us a big tree, nailed to the shore,” one of the eyewitnesses said. – We calmly continued descending along a rather steep slope. When there was very little water left, I cast a casual glance towards the “log” and froze; It turned out to be the size of a whale.
A huge head and part of the body were clearly visible, small waves from the movements of the tail along the water. The maw of the monster resembled a car hood, it could easily absorb a person or an animal, and eyes, the size of a car’s headlights, seemed to phosphoresce in the water column. The silent scene lasted a few seconds, then I snatched out my Canon and managed to take some pictures until the monster disappeared in the depths of the lake. ”
The lucky man who captured the “monster” was the 15-year-old Cluj Victor Borogine. Because of the rush, only two successful shots were obtained, but on one of them the monster is still captured in the way that his schoolchildren saw, in all its glory and strength.
Unfortunately, the network of these images could not be found. Lake Tarnitsa is located 50 kilometers west of the Romanian city of Cluj. It is very deep – “bottomless,” as the old people say, and stretched for 5 km in length and 1 km in width.
According to its topographic data, the reservoir is very similar to the Scottish lake of Loch Ness, famous for its either a serpent, or a relic dinosaur that survived all times and epochs, and adapted to modern conditions.
The local fishermen have preserved an almost pagan custom. After a successful fishing they always return a few fish from the catch back into the water. As they say, as a sacrifice to the Dragon, so that next time he does not interfere with good biting.In the summer, when young people come to the nearby villages, superstitious old people will not fail to warn their grandchildren and grandchildren that swimming in the lake is unsafe, you can “disturb” the water snake.
As this is a man made lake it seems unlikely that a prehistoric relic exists there. However it is not the first man made lake with such claims. What do you think urban legend or monster ?

No comments: