Argo changes course

Sochi failed to prove to the Greeks its right to be called the birthplace of the Golden Fleece

The expected arrival of a copy of the mythical ship "Argo" to the port of Sochi this fall has been postponed indefinitely. Modern Argonauts may not visit the Russian resort at all, and the project, which Sochi residents hoped could help the city in the fight for the right to host the XXII Winter Olympic Games, will not be realized.

The plans were rosy. Sochi, let us remind you, was one of the three contenders for the title of Olympic capital in 2014, but unlike its rivals, it does not yet have on its territory a single sports facility of the level necessary for such competitions. The residents of Sochi hoped to beat their competitors in another way: local enthusiasts and the city authorities who supported them intended, by correcting the well-known myth of the Argonauts, to prove to the whole world that the team of heroes led by Jason sailed for the Golden Fleece not to the shores of Georgia, as was previously thought, but to that region of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, which is now occupied by a Russian resort. That is, the closest connection between Sochi and Olympus itself would be confirmed. Neither Austrian Salzburg, nor even more so South Korean Pyeongchang, which also compete for the 2014 Winter Olympics, will ever be able to boast of anything like this...

As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported , in Sochi they re-read the “Argonautica” by the ancient Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes and found details in the myth that can be regarded as confirmation that Jason mined the Golden Fleece where the village of Krasnaya Polyana is now located. That is, in the very place where the Russian authorities propose to hold the 2014 Olympics. In particular, as they are convinced in Sochi, the mythical river Phasis, along which the “Argo” rose from the sea coast to the palace of the Colchisian king Eetos, who owned the golden mutton skin, is not the Georgian Rioni, but the Russian Mzymta, arcing around Krasnaya Polyana. Apollonius of Rhodes writes that the Argonauts, having sent the ship into the river, saw mountains on both its banks, but at the mouth of the Rioni there are no mountains, and the nearest hills are more than 150 km away. And both banks of the Mzymta, already 10 km from the mouth, are decorated with high mountains with steep slopes covered with dense forest...

In January 2006, Sochi enthusiasts traveled to Volos, Greece, the former ancient Greek city of Iolkos, from where the Argo set off on its legendary voyage 32 centuries ago. The visit, as it seemed then, was timely. It turned out that construction of a copy of the Argo was already underway in Volos and that 50 Greek athletes were going to make a trip to the Black Sea on this rowing vessel. True, the modern Argonauts, as they said, at first thought to sail to Odessa, but having learned that evidence had been collected in Sochi that Jason had sailed upstream of the Mzymta, they promised to change the route and be sure to land on the Sochi shore in the fall. Moreover, the mayor of the Greek city Kyriakos Mitrou happily accepted the proposal of the head of Sochi, Viktor Kolodyazhny, to sign an agreement on establishing sister city ties between Volos and Sochi. The Greeks even promised that the Argo would deliver the sacred fire from Olympus to Sochi.

Delighted by the opening prospects, the Sochi residents already saw in their dreams a grandiose PR campaign into which the voyage of the modern Argonauts was supposed to turn. The director of the Sochi Art Museum, sculptor Petr Khrisanov, sculpted a life-size Golden Fleece and assumed that the Greeks would take his work to Volos. In general, Argo was awaited in Sochi with great impatience.

But when relations between Russia and Georgia seriously deteriorated, it became known in Sochi that in Volos they intended to send the Argo not to the shores of the Krasnodar Territory, but to the Georgian port of Poti, to the Rioni River. It turned out that earlier high-ranking representatives of Georgia had visited Volos and that the chairman of the Volos City Duma, Vagelis Yusios, and his wife, at their invitation, went on vacation to a Georgian resort, where they were surrounded by such care and attention that only Georgians can provide their guests. In short, while the Sochi authorities were blissfully unaware and believed that the issue had already been resolved, Georgian representatives seized the initiative, demonstrating their determination to preserve for their country the glory of the homeland of the Golden Fleece...

Without a “fight,” as they say in Sochi, the Russian resort will not surrender. Now the idea, as they now say here, “to take away the ancient Greek myth from Georgia,” is actively supported by activists from the local Greek diaspora. They hope that they will be able to convince the new mayor of Volos, elected last Sunday, that Jason went to the shores of Russia, and not Georgia. And as evidence, in addition to all those already available, research by members of the Sochi branch of the Russian Geographical Society will be attached, confirming that the ancient Greeks mined a significant part of gold on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, in rivers flowing through the territory of the present city of Sochi, including in Mzymta . Although the most gold-bearing river in the resort was the Sochi River. It was here that, in ancient times, grains of golden sand were collected using sheep skins.

Igor GLANIN, Sochi