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Somewhere in the vicinity was Chihu, the metropolitan city of a mighty state of Wusung nomads, which ancient Chinese chronicles mentioned on many occasions.

The Great Silk Road lay along the lake’s coast until the 18th century. Even today, the descendants of caravan drivers recollect their ancestors’ stories about travelling from Asia to Europe and back.

Tamerlane built a fortress on one of the lake islets to hold aristocratic captives and keep his treasures. The famous Asian expeditions of Russian explorers Dmitry Przhevalsky and Pyotr Semyonov-Tianshansky started from that spot.

The latter left us an enticing mystery. When he visited Venice in 1850, he looked at the Catalan Atlas of 1375 and came across a picture of a lakeside monastery with the caption: “The spot is named Isikol. Here is a monastery of Armenian brethren, which is rumored to possess the relics of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist.”

Semyonov-Tianshansky embarked on a relentless but vain search for the shrine. To all appearances, the monastery was engulfed by water. Hydrologists have not to this day sufficiently studied the unique lake with regular shifts in its water level. Some changes are gradual, others sudden and disastrous since they are caused by earthquakes and torrents of water rush from lakes higher up in the mountains. Floods recede sooner or later, and people come back to the shores-only to become the victims of other floods 500-700 years later.

Throughout the years of their partnership, Russian and Kyrgyz archeologists discovered and examined more than ten major flooded urban and rural settlements of varying ages. Their ample finds generously add to present-day ideas of everyday life in times long ago.

Some artifacts are stunning. A 2,500 year-old ritual bronze cauldron was found on the bottom of the lake. The subtlety of its craftsmanship is amazing. Such excellent quality of joining details together can be presently obtained by metalwork in an inert gas. How did ancient people achieve their high-tech perfection? Also of superb workmanship are bronze mirrors, festive horse harnesses and many other objects. Articles identified as the world’s oldest extant coins were also found underwater-gold wire rings used as small change and a large hexahedral goldpiece.

Side by side with the settlements are remnants of ritual complexes of times immemorial, dwellings and household outbuildings. Later expeditions will study them.

The information collected there allows us to conjecture that local people had a socio-economic system hitherto unknown to historians. As a blending of nomadic and settled life, it either gradually evolved into something different or-more likely-was destroyed by one of the many local floods. Legends confirm the latter assumption.

Nikolai Lukashov, a member of the Russian Confederation of Underwater Sports, took part in the the Issyk Kul expedition.

The Legend of Issyk Kul’s Creation

In pre-Islamic legend, the king of the Ossounes had donkey’s ears. He would hide them, and order each of his barbers killed to hide his secret. One barber yelled the secret into a well, but he didn’t cover the well after. The well water rose and flooded the kingdom. The kingdom is today under the waters of Issyk-Kul. This is how the lake was formed, so legend says. Other legends say that four drowned cities lie at the bottom of the lake; in fact, substantial archaeological finds have been made in shallow waters of the lake.