Adam Davies telephoned us from Nalchik airport. All the team have arrived in Kabardino Balkaria safe and sound, with their baggage and equipment intact, and furthermore, they have liased as arranged with Grigoriy Panchenko and his colleagues who have been doing advance research in the region for the last two weeks.
Excitingly it appears that Panchenko and his compadres have already secured some faecal samples, as well as some bone fragments supposedly from a skull which may be of an almasty. Back here at Mission Control in North Devon I cannot comment further on these potentially exciting finds because I have no idea what their provenance is, and the telephone call with Adam didn't last long enough to find out.
They are leaving Nalchik now, and heading for Tyrnyauz in the mountains which will provide a base for operations for the next few days. All that we can do at this stage is to speculate, but the Foreign and Commenwealth Office [FCO] website has warned Britons against travelling to the area. Richard and the boys decided to ignore that warning, believing - after long talks with Grigoriy - that the risks were being over-stated. However, it makes sense for them to put as much distance between them and Nalchik, where a major terrorist attack took place in 2005.
According to the FCO, "In July 2007 fighters linked to the rebel cells in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus issued generic statements warning tourists not to visit Kabardino-Balkaria, listing casinos, hotels and bars as legitimate targets for terrorist-style activity". In October 2007, 59 suspects were put on trial for the 2005 atrocities. The main revolutionary group in Kabardino Balkaria appears to be a militant Islamic organisation called Yarmuk Jamaat who were responsible for the assasination of Anatoly Kyarov, the head of the Russia's Kabardino-Balkaria republic's UBOP (Unit for Fighting Organized Crime). He was assassinated on January 12, 2008 in Nalchik.
Panchenko and his colleagues have been working out of Tyrnyauz for 14 years now and have their own network of supporters, so the team will be safe when they get there.
We will be happier when we hear that the team have arrived safely, although we believe, after having talked at length with Grigoriy Panchenko, that there is no real need to worry, and every likelihood that the CFZ expedition will be able to carry out their search for evidence for the almasty - the enigmatic wildman of the Caucasus mountains - unhindered.
Showing posts with label kabardino balkaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kabardino balkaria. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Richard's final statement before the expedition left...
So, it’s the eve of another CFZ expedition, this time behind the iron curtain. I’m never at rest before an expedition. I can only feel easy when we are actually in the field. I’m often asked what worries me most about these endeavours in far-flung places. The answer is all the burocracy and hold ups getting there. Late flights and red tape worry me more than diseases or beast attacks.
We are playing with the big boys this time. We have funding from Channel 4 (after years of struggling for support it’s great to be financed at last) and the support of Professor Bryan Sykes, the world’s leading geneticist.
We have looked for mystery primates before but the Almasty seems to be a form of man, however bestial it may appear. More man-like than the yeti or Sasquatch, this may be our closest living relative, a creature of the genus Homo rather than a pongid. If the Almasty is a primitive man, perhaps a surviving form of Homo erectus then it begets a whole set of biological and ethical problems. Where does it fit on the tree of life? Will it be afforded the same rights as Homo sapiens? Would a creature with no fire or culture and only basic tool use be looked on in the same was as the ‘lost tribes’ who have had no contact with ‘civilized’ man? Would the almasty’s discovery be its death knell at the hands of it’s younger evolutionary brother?
Professor Sykes has asked us to take DNA samples of the local populace. All over the world there are stories of hominids interbreeding with modern man. Last year in Guyana we heard a story of a di-di siering a hybrid child with a human woman. Identical stories are told in North America and Nepal. If any modern humans have hominid gene in their ansestory it should stick out like a sore thumb in their DNA?
Kabardino Balkaria is almost unknown in the west. I’d never heard of it until I stumbled across an article on Grigory Panchenko’s research a couple of years ago. All the other places the CFZ expeditions have taken me I have known something about. This time I know next to nothing and have no pre-conceptions.
We are playing with the big boys this time. We have funding from Channel 4 (after years of struggling for support it’s great to be financed at last) and the support of Professor Bryan Sykes, the world’s leading geneticist.
We have looked for mystery primates before but the Almasty seems to be a form of man, however bestial it may appear. More man-like than the yeti or Sasquatch, this may be our closest living relative, a creature of the genus Homo rather than a pongid. If the Almasty is a primitive man, perhaps a surviving form of Homo erectus then it begets a whole set of biological and ethical problems. Where does it fit on the tree of life? Will it be afforded the same rights as Homo sapiens? Would a creature with no fire or culture and only basic tool use be looked on in the same was as the ‘lost tribes’ who have had no contact with ‘civilized’ man? Would the almasty’s discovery be its death knell at the hands of it’s younger evolutionary brother?
Professor Sykes has asked us to take DNA samples of the local populace. All over the world there are stories of hominids interbreeding with modern man. Last year in Guyana we heard a story of a di-di siering a hybrid child with a human woman. Identical stories are told in North America and Nepal. If any modern humans have hominid gene in their ansestory it should stick out like a sore thumb in their DNA?
Kabardino Balkaria is almost unknown in the west. I’d never heard of it until I stumbled across an article on Grigory Panchenko’s research a couple of years ago. All the other places the CFZ expeditions have taken me I have known something about. This time I know next to nothing and have no pre-conceptions.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
The last Press Release before the fun begins
For immediate release
2008-06-19
QUEST FOR A CAVEMAN
Man beasts and cave men in the 21st Century? Surely not. But a group of British explorers and scientists, backed by a renowned Geneticist from Oxford University, embark on an intrepid expedition into a war zone on Saturday, and they hope to come back with compelling evidence for the existence of such things.
The yeti is one of the most iconic mystery animals in the world. Even in the 21st Century when mankind likes to think that it has conquered all the wild places of the planet, this hulking, hairy man beast still rears its ancient head and intrigues zoologists and explorers alike.
Only this week, there has been news of a new yeti sighting in the remote West Garo hills of north-eastern India. Park ranger Dipu Marak described seeing "a black and grey ape-like animal which stands about 3m (nearly 10ft) tall". Recently Derbyshire based artist and conservationist Pollyanna Pickering hit the headlines when she released details of what appears, on the face of it, to be a specimen of a yeti scalp found in a remote monastery in Bhutan. The yeti appears to be an unknown species of ape, but sightings of such creatures, and perhaps more intriguingly, sightings of alleged primitive human-like creatures, which appear similar to the iconic Hollywood images of cave-men, still come in on a regular basis from around the world.
The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] in North Devon (the world's largest organisation which searches for unknown animal species) is launching a major new expedition this week. The five explorers, led by zoologist Richard Freeman (38) - the Zoological Director of the Bideford-based centre - will be ignoring Foreign Office suggestions and flying to the tiny Russian state of Kabardino-Balkaria for a three week expedition. In Russia they will be liaising with Ukranian biologist Grigoriy Panchenko who has been studying the creatures for fourteen years and who has had four sightings of the wildmen, which are known locally as almasty. The expedition is being backed by renowned academic Prof. Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, who hit the headlines a few years ago with his remarkable book The Seven Daughters of Eve which conclusively proved, through analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of a large sampling of people across the continent, that nearly everyone living in Europe today is descended from one of just seven women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago.
The Foreign Office website warns against travel to several Russian republics including Kabardino-Balkaria "as terrorism and kidnapping in these regions remain a serious problem", but in a statement released today Freeman explains why the expedition will still be going ahead.
"We haven't really got an option", he says. "If we pull out now, a lot of money and even more work will have been wasted. Grigoriy has told us that kidnapping and terrorism have not been an issue in the parts of the country where we are going, and anyway, the path of science MUST continue unhindered, if we are to push back the boundaries of human knowledge. There will be eight or ten of us in the party, if you include Grigoriy's guides, and any band of potential kidnappers would find that they had a fight on their hands".
The expedition will be tracking the almasty and using sophisticated infra-red trigger cameras and ex-military nightsight equipment, but will also be carrying out a campaign of DNA testing amongst the inhabitants of the remote mountainous forests. "According to local folklore the almasty can interbreed with humans" says Jonathan Downes (48), the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. "Professor Sykes has done some remarkable work with mitochondrial DNA, and if any of the people whom we are testing have any trace of DNA from anything other than a modern human, it will tell us that somewhere in the maternal line, one of his or her ancestors was not a member of the same species as the rest of us."
Although the expedition will not be returning to the UK until mid-July, you needn't wait until then for news from the expedition. Through the wonders of satellite technology the expedition website will be running updates every few days. On the 17th August the team will be presenting their findings to the world as part of the three-day annual convention of the CFZ. Pollyanna Pickering will also be there and, following the interest that her revelations about a putative yeti scalp in Bhutan caused recently, will be taking questions from cryptozoological researchers from around the world.
CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is available for interview. Images are also available. Please telephone Jon or Corinna on +44 (0)1237 431413 for details.
Notes for Editors:
* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (48) and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv (www.cfztv.org). One of their films Lair of the Red Worm which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 40,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (51). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
* Corinna and Jonathan Downes are shareholders in Tropiquaria – a small zoo in North Somerset (www.tropiquaria.co.uk).
* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Each year the CFZ presents an annual conference. This year’s event will be held in August, and will feature the first public appearance by the Russian Expedition team.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.
2008-06-19
QUEST FOR A CAVEMAN
Man beasts and cave men in the 21st Century? Surely not. But a group of British explorers and scientists, backed by a renowned Geneticist from Oxford University, embark on an intrepid expedition into a war zone on Saturday, and they hope to come back with compelling evidence for the existence of such things.
The yeti is one of the most iconic mystery animals in the world. Even in the 21st Century when mankind likes to think that it has conquered all the wild places of the planet, this hulking, hairy man beast still rears its ancient head and intrigues zoologists and explorers alike.
Only this week, there has been news of a new yeti sighting in the remote West Garo hills of north-eastern India. Park ranger Dipu Marak described seeing "a black and grey ape-like animal which stands about 3m (nearly 10ft) tall". Recently Derbyshire based artist and conservationist Pollyanna Pickering hit the headlines when she released details of what appears, on the face of it, to be a specimen of a yeti scalp found in a remote monastery in Bhutan. The yeti appears to be an unknown species of ape, but sightings of such creatures, and perhaps more intriguingly, sightings of alleged primitive human-like creatures, which appear similar to the iconic Hollywood images of cave-men, still come in on a regular basis from around the world.
The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] in North Devon (the world's largest organisation which searches for unknown animal species) is launching a major new expedition this week. The five explorers, led by zoologist Richard Freeman (38) - the Zoological Director of the Bideford-based centre - will be ignoring Foreign Office suggestions and flying to the tiny Russian state of Kabardino-Balkaria for a three week expedition. In Russia they will be liaising with Ukranian biologist Grigoriy Panchenko who has been studying the creatures for fourteen years and who has had four sightings of the wildmen, which are known locally as almasty. The expedition is being backed by renowned academic Prof. Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, who hit the headlines a few years ago with his remarkable book The Seven Daughters of Eve which conclusively proved, through analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of a large sampling of people across the continent, that nearly everyone living in Europe today is descended from one of just seven women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago.
The Foreign Office website warns against travel to several Russian republics including Kabardino-Balkaria "as terrorism and kidnapping in these regions remain a serious problem", but in a statement released today Freeman explains why the expedition will still be going ahead.
"We haven't really got an option", he says. "If we pull out now, a lot of money and even more work will have been wasted. Grigoriy has told us that kidnapping and terrorism have not been an issue in the parts of the country where we are going, and anyway, the path of science MUST continue unhindered, if we are to push back the boundaries of human knowledge. There will be eight or ten of us in the party, if you include Grigoriy's guides, and any band of potential kidnappers would find that they had a fight on their hands".
The expedition will be tracking the almasty and using sophisticated infra-red trigger cameras and ex-military nightsight equipment, but will also be carrying out a campaign of DNA testing amongst the inhabitants of the remote mountainous forests. "According to local folklore the almasty can interbreed with humans" says Jonathan Downes (48), the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. "Professor Sykes has done some remarkable work with mitochondrial DNA, and if any of the people whom we are testing have any trace of DNA from anything other than a modern human, it will tell us that somewhere in the maternal line, one of his or her ancestors was not a member of the same species as the rest of us."
Although the expedition will not be returning to the UK until mid-July, you needn't wait until then for news from the expedition. Through the wonders of satellite technology the expedition website will be running updates every few days. On the 17th August the team will be presenting their findings to the world as part of the three-day annual convention of the CFZ. Pollyanna Pickering will also be there and, following the interest that her revelations about a putative yeti scalp in Bhutan caused recently, will be taking questions from cryptozoological researchers from around the world.
CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is available for interview. Images are also available. Please telephone Jon or Corinna on +44 (0)1237 431413 for details.
Notes for Editors:
* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (48) and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv (www.cfztv.org). One of their films Lair of the Red Worm which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 40,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (51). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
* Corinna and Jonathan Downes are shareholders in Tropiquaria – a small zoo in North Somerset (www.tropiquaria.co.uk).
* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Each year the CFZ presents an annual conference. This year’s event will be held in August, and will feature the first public appearance by the Russian Expedition team.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Dave Archer writes:
As a schoolboy I read an article in a wildlife magazine on Russian Wildman which started a fascination with the Yeti, Bigfoot, Almas and Wildman.
In later years I read Odette Tchernines's book The Yeti. It has since then been my dream to go in search of these creatures especially in such apparently rich area's like Kabardino Balkaria and the Caucasus and feel lucky to have found like minded and experienced friends to go with.
On this expedition I would hope to find evidence of almasty bones, hair samples or any material containing DNA so as to try and identify the genetic line of this species.
My dream from this expedition would be to come into contact with the almasty and to encounter this species in its own environment. To be able to take photographs and share my findings with the rest of the world would be an honour.
I am also very interested in the mysterious reptiles that have been reported in the area as I am very interested in herpetology. All in all I can’t wait to get to Russia and begin what in my mind is a huge adventure, and hope this trip is the first of many to this exciting area.
I am also very interested in the mysterious reptiles that have been reported in the area as I am very interested in herpetology. All in all I can’t wait to get to Russia and begin what in my mind is a huge adventure, and hope this trip is the first of many to this exciting area.
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