Chyskhaan, the Lord of the Cold

Santa Claus meets Chyskhaan, Lord of the Cold, in the village of Tomtor in the remote Sakhar region of Russia. Picture: WENN. via Telegraph

First of all merry merry Xmas to all of you. I really hope you've passed a nice day close to the people you love.
Talking about the picture you can see here above, for sure you've already identified the red-dressed oldman on the background as Santa Claus (Papa Noel, Babbo Natale ecc. ecc..) that is the reason why I've chosen the picture for this post. Probably however you might be wondering "who is the blue one?!?". No, it's not a psychedelic version of Santa Claus even if I have to say that his blue dress is much cooler than Santa's one!
Well, the blue oldman is Chyskhaan The lord of the Cold!



Chyskhaan, the lord of the cold, is a character from the folkore of Yakutia, a federal republic of Russia also known as Sakha Republic (well, if you've played at Risiko at least once in your life you do know what Yakutia is!). It is very difficult to find info on the web about this character because of the many different ways in which the name is translated and transliterated from the Sakha language (you can find him as Chyskhaan, Chyskhan but also Tshicxaan and described as Lord of the Cold, Lord of the Frost or Father of Cold) but also beacause Yakutia is a very remote region, where as you can imagine, an internet connection is not exactly an ordinary thing.

However I've found this description of the legend behind Chyskhaan:

The Lord of Cold has always existed! His responsibility is to keep the cold confined to specific latitudes, to specific heights, and to specific land masses. He keeps the Arctic and the Antarctic pristine with cold and snow. At Yule, the longest night and shortest day, people in the north gathered at shrines built in his name, and offered gifts to him to take away the cold and to allow the sun to return. The gifts were left at the shrine. Chyskhaan would gather up the gifts and redistribute them to those that were in need, keeping for himself what he needed to honour the magic he would work over the next several months. His magic would chase away the night and bring forth the sun. At the same time, he controlled how quickly the ice and snow would melt in order to avoid flooding out the villages and people that depended on him. He also buried sacred places beneath the snow so that they would be undetected by those that would seek to use the knowledge for personal goals and for power. As the people in the world are becoming more enlightened, he is relaxing his hold on the cold to allow discovery of new information at the appropriate time.

via Angels and Ancestors

It is an interesting legend indeed, even if the fact that the people in the world are becoming more enlightened is questionable... Have a Merry Christmas and let's hope that the Chyskhaan will not relax his hold on the cold too much ('cause global warming seems already too much on-the-go...)

Photos by kristin