Cult of the Paymur Dragon

Russian explorer Alexander Remple returned from long days out on the barren taiga with numerous stories of truly enormous serpentine dragons living out in the frozen wastelands. These dragons were known as *Paymurs* by the locals, and were described as having faces like wels catfish and bodies similar to those of crocodiles. Other Eastern dragons are often noted as having barbels on their faces like catfish as well. Whatever the reality of the Paymurs was - Remple certainly told quite a few tales about the monstrous reptiles which would suggest that they have (or at least had) a very considerable existence in the area, and might've even been worshipped...

## Mountain or Monster?

Remple talked to a man named Anatoly Komandigu - and obtained a third-hand story about three hunters who had a very close encounter with one of the terrifying Paymurs. The sun was setting, and the hunters decided to make their camp by a snow-covered mound, starting a cozy fire in the twilight taiga. They sat down, putting their backs to the mound and warming themselves by the fire. Suddenly, sharp prickles of dread ran down their spines when they all felt the mound behind them shift. Whirling around, they were horrified to find that the so-called mound was actually an enormous reptile. It was covered in grey and black scales, and had short legs with a long tail. The creature heaved, and the men fled from the site in terror - abandoning their gear where they'd sat. Three days later, they plucked up the courage to return to the site in order to retrieve their gear, and although the source implies that they were able to successfully find the gear, they were also terrified to see the carcass of an animal in the same area, which they believed was possibly the dragon's prey.

## The Snake Cult

Vladimir Semyonovich Kuzetsov was a seasoned hunter, having spent many a day wandering the inhospitable Russian taiga in search of game. He was seventy-one in 1991, when Alexander Remple came to interview him about a bizarre experience he had had '*some years before the Second World War*'. He was pushing through the wilderness one day when he heard strange singing coming from a nearby clearing, in which he could also make out a blazing bonfire. Curious, he quietly approached the clearing and was intrigued (and doubtless at least a little frightened) to see a semicircle of people congregated around the fire singing in a strange language. In the dusky light of the setting sun, he could see the cultists performing '*incomprehensible gestures*' with their hands before all starting to bow down. Kuzetsov was horror-stricken as he watched a huge shape come crawling out of the forest from the direction of the sunset.

As he stared at the bizarre scene, he slowly came to the realisation that the shape was an enormous black snake. He estimated its length as being approximately 10 meters (33ft). He said that he thought he could see small front legs on the creature's body, but he added that he was unsure of this. The cultists all raised their voices in a '*guttural chant*' and Kuzetsov felt that he had seen enough - panicking and madly fleeing back through the trees without being able to see the trail. He had no concept of how long he was running for, but when he finally felt safe enough to stop his face and hands were covered in scratches.

## Conclusion

Cryptozoologist Richard Freeman is the one responsible for having collected these intriguing reports - and he speculates that perhaps these colossal reptiles survive out in the Russian wilderness by hibernating during the Winters - but this makes no sense when faced with the first of the reports, unless we are to suppose that the creature's hibernation was disturbed by the hunters and their fire, which I suppose might be possible. Leatherback turtles can survive in freezing cold waters by being gigantothermic - which is, having heat preserved within their bodies simply through their titanic size - but Freeman once again points out that this wouldn't work nearly as well for an elongated creature of the Paymur variety. Overall, we are left with something of an unsettling mystery here. Are there dragons in the Russian wilderness? Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

## Sources

'*Adventures in Cryptozoology*' and '*Dragons: More Than A Myth?*' by Richard Freeman