A short message about the Ossetian towers. Riddles of medieval towers. Round towers of Ireland

On the territory of the Ossetians there are a large number of architectural monuments, the most prominent of which are medieval towers and castles, widespread in the mountainous zone.
The beginning of tower construction is attributed to the early Middle Ages - to the times of the Alanian era. Possibly even earlier. The typical style of the Caucasian Ossetian tower with characteristic features developed in the late Middle Ages, approximately in the 17th-18th centuries.

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With the support of Nikon, in the fall of 2015, Nikon Ambassador Alexander Zheleznyak made a great research trip to the Caucasus to find the descendants of the builders of the famous ancestral towers of North Ossetia. Upon his return, Alexander told an amazing story about this photo expedition, about the reasons for the trip to this amazing land, and also about what he managed to see and capture in the pictures there.

In my childhood there was a magazine "Soviet Photo". Then I reviewed all the filings with my grandfather, I really liked the photos. And somehow a report from North Ossetia caught my eye with these harsh mountains and battlements of dilapidated turrets. And when I was in the Digorsky Gorge for the first time five years ago, I suddenly realized that this is the very place that I saw in my childhood in that magazine. We have many underestimated places in terms of tourism, and North Ossetia is definitely worth a trip.

My main task, as in any trip, was to shoot a good human story. That is, not just a single photo to show later: “Oh, look, what a frame!”, But a whole report where there are heroes and the space in which they live. The frame itself is often just luck. But to pull out stories, characters, human stories - this, it seems to me, is more important. Every photographer, of course, wants to shoot something that no one has yet taken, that no one else has seen. And, by and large, if we talk about nature, probably almost everything has been filmed. A lot of things have already been recorded, documented.

How can we surprise people now? Only a new emotion that you convey through the frame. Towers for me are the material evidence of human existence in this space many centuries ago. They have been standing here for so long that they have already merged with nature. It is like a continuation of the mountain, carrying the spirit of history, the spirit of the people who once lived here. It is also interesting that now the historical owners are returning here. And I just hoped to find those towers where people still live, and find those families who are restoring their ancestral towers. I have always been bribed when a family keeps its history, knows its roots. In the era of globalism, which mercilessly blurs cultural differences, these towers are a kind of opposition to globalization. Something that you can hold on to and preserve history and traditions.

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There are many stunningly beautiful places in Digoria, which, with skillful management, will become popular tourist routes. Now there is just a need for such tourism - our people have traveled around the world and now they want to receive such services at home. And in North Ossetia there are more than enough textures. Digoria is considered one of the most untouched gorges in the North Caucasus. Only now a normal road has been built here, it will allow tourists to come here, and not just off-road fans in SUVs. Higher up the gorge, the Alania National Park begins, and the development of ecotourism here will definitely be in demand.

At the entrance to North Ossetia, all guides in Digoria show the Devil's Bridge first. The place is really impressive! They even bungee jump from the bridge, but, frankly, I would be afraid. The Devil's Bridge is located in the narrowest part of the gorge, where the river has cut a narrow passage to the plain. And from above opens a great plan for the first frame. When you stand at the top point of the shooting, from this angle you almost always get a beautiful composition. I was too lazy to take a tripod with me, so I used the railing to take a long exposure view and blur the texture of the water. Due to the difference in the texture of the water and the rocky terrain, the river sticks out directly in the frame, as if drawn.

This is how our reportage begins: we found a car, a dzhigit driver and drove to the Digorsky Gorge. A good driver and a good car are, by the way, very important conditions for successful shooting while traveling. In general, organizational moments very often either drag out a report or kill it. Therefore, when thinking about a trip, you need to look not just for a formal driver in a dead car, but for sure a fan of the region who knows the locals how to communicate correctly, and he himself lights up with the idea of ​​​​taking a good shot. And, of course, the car should not be afraid of mountain roads or their absence.

We arrived in North Ossetia in early October, when autumn is just beginning, and the larches are still turning a little yellow. The perfect time for photography here is late October, when the mountain slopes and terraces are ablaze with the yellow-red fire of autumn foliage. But you can't guess with the weather. Of course, we also lacked the sun at some points, but on a short trip you always use the weather that is today - maybe tomorrow it will rain like a wall, and there will be no visibility at all, not like landscapes. In some places, I deliberately lingered a little longer to wait for the sun to highlight the top with the tower and get a beautiful shot. At such moments, I recall the stories of the master of Soviet landscape photography, Vadim Evgenievich Gippenreiter, who told me how he spent a week in a tent on the banks of the Lena River, waiting for that very light...

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For landscape photography, first of all, it is important that the composition develops versatility, so that the picture turns out to be voluminous, deep in content. Then you start thinking about light and color. Sometimes there are no differences in depth, relief, but unexpected light spots complement and make the picture deep. In the foreground we have, for example, a river that glitters like a silver snake. On the second - a ridge with many towers. And then there are several more ridges, and the most jagged peak at the top is the Greater Caucasus Range, followed by Georgia. It turns out a very rich landscape. Such pictures can be taken for a very long time, because either the light changes, or the wind drives the clouds, or the rays break through. Serious landscape photography, of course, requires a lot of time. But you won’t be full of landscapes alone, and therefore you should devote some time to local cuisine. Not in the sense of consumption, but as a reportage photograph. Any region has established culinary traditions, and when you get into the kitchen, where the hostess is preparing something completely ordinary in her opinion, then for you it turns out to be the very case when the hero is busy and he has no time to pose for the camera.

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Then we came to the village of Akhsau. Many people know this name from the mineral water of the same name, which is sold throughout Russia. A whole defensive complex of several towers has been preserved in the village. Our guide Fidar says that the complexes were built in the Alanian era. Wherever the Alans settled, residential towers and defensive complexes were built. Masuk - defensive towers, ganakh - residential. Then, outbuildings grew around the tower, gradually the ancestral towers of different families turned into a single fortification. In Ahsau, we found one restored tower. At ground level, there was usually a barn and all sorts of household chores, higher - a tier with a hearth, even higher - a residential level, then a warehouse, and already on the roof - a signal and defensive platform. There were no cannons in the mountains in those days, there was nowhere for wall-beating guns to deploy on such a terrain. Therefore, in autonomous mode, such a tower could live and defend itself for at least a few months, if there were enough provisions and water. The towers were built all over the gorge in such a way that one could see the other. If the enemy approached, a signal fire was set up on the roof, and after five minutes the whole gorge knew about the danger, when the enemy was just entering the gorge from the plain.

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Only wealthy families could build ancestral towers. Each processed stone had a considerable price. Again, it was also not cheap to deliver materials from the quarry to the construction site along the trails on special devices - carts were not used then, and there were no roads for them. One stone could cost a whole lamb or even a bull. They say that it was easier to build the Egyptian pyramids than to build such construction in the mountains. There were several masters throughout Digoria. In fact, the stones of the tower can be used to count the flock of sheep needed to start construction. Depending on the complexity, one tower required from a month to several years of work.

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One of the towers in the village of Akhsau belongs to the Buzoev family or, as they say here, surnames. The entire family raised funds and carried out the restoration on their own. By today's standards, the restoration of the tower, depending on its condition, can cost several million. And the Telokurov family, for example, has a whole castle complex. The number of restored or at least mothballed towers in modern Ossetia is small. The towers are architectural monuments, but families have to rely only on their own efforts to restore them.

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Today it is already difficult to say how many towers there were and how many are left for the whole of North Ossetia. The archaeologist and ethnographer of the North Ossetian Research Institute of History, Philology and Economics Vitaly Tmenov published a book on this issue, but even this thorough work did not include all the mountain architectural heritage, which could have numbered several hundred towers in the old days. The turrets are scattered throughout the mountain gorges of North Ossetia. With their help, the mountains became absolutely controlled territory. They can be compared to modern webcams. Towers are not only a fight against invaders. Danger in the mountains can come from a completely different direction: mudflows, glaciers, earthquakes. Remember the Kolka glacier and the tragedy in the Karmadon Gorge. After all, it is not a one-time event, this glacier is constantly growing and breaking off, two or three times in a hundred years.

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In general, it must be said that the plan of our short expedition was simple. We traveled from tower to tower, looked into almost every residential courtyard, talked to people and asked about the fate of clans, towers, villages, hoping to find representatives of families who guard architectural treasures. And, of course, just chatting is not about Ossetians. The old people, when they found out that we had come for the towers, immediately led us into the house. Then granddaughters-daughters came, Ossetian pies and something stronger than tea appeared on the table. They enjoyed talking to the camera, as if it did not exist at all. Each such spontaneous acquaintance with the family ends with a table, lunch, dinner, and, of course, a good trip around Ossetia takes not three days, not a week, but a month or two. I had to fight off the endless "eat." It usually started like this: “We are happy. Thanks a lot". Then: "We have already overeat, this is no longer possible." And already at the end: “Let's go, let's go, otherwise we will die here from overeating!”

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Ossetians, of course, consider the Digorsky Gorge the most beautiful in the Caucasus. And there is a reason, of course. Locals also say that Prometheus was chained to the rocks right here. But, to be honest, there are so many "Promethean" rocks in the Caucasus, as if a titan went on tour.

In the end, we got to the ancient Galiat, which was once a rich city and where the highest towers of Ossetia stand. On one of them, diapers were calmly drying themselves, as if this monument of the Middle Ages had never interrupted its measured rural life with its life.

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Travel is amazing in that, even if it is planned, there is always a place for chance meetings and extraordinary things. We visited a modern Galiatian. At his house, we saw a photo reproduction of what the city was like in the 19th century, and just outside the door we compared how the mountain town has changed over the years. Of course, in Galiata we also got to a feast and risked being drunk by a hospitable host to unconsciousness. We arrived in the afternoon, and the last video was shot in the headlights. But what a feast it was - with talk about the ancient city, Odin, the great Thor Heyerdahl and Roerich ... Sometimes it seemed to me that they have something like a sport - to get a guest drunk. And therefore you need to know the local traditions of the feast. There is even a special toast. If you need to leave, you need to raise a glass and say: "Over the rapids." This means that after this toast you should be released, because the road is waiting for you. So it's always better to study the background of the place where you're going, otherwise the shooting, of course, may fail altogether due to the enthusiasm of the local population. Therefore, working in Ossetia is difficult, but very interesting.

Further, our path lay in the neighboring Dargav Gorge, in which the city of the dead Dargavs is located. This is a whole complex of semi-underground crypts. A couple of years ago, a good road was laid here, and I highly recommend getting to these places if you travel around Ossetia. These are perfect views for landscape photography. You climb onto one of the shelves, put on a wide-angle lens and get just crazy shots of the valley from the top angle. The dead in these crypts were not buried in coffins, but were left on hollowed-out wooden pirogues. And today it is clearly seen that many generations of the family rest in each crypt. This city of the dead looks like in ancient Greek myths - on one side of the river is life, and on the other - the last refuge.

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In the Kurtatinsky Gorge, we met with the Alborov-Lazarov family, who restored their tower, and now, on major holidays, they come to her both old and young. Their tower was destroyed almost to the first floor in the 18th century. And then one day the elders called the backbone of the family for a meeting from all over the republic, pulled up the youth, and in their free time, whoever could come to work. The modern surname has 150 households - this is more than five hundred people. So, on their own, in three years they restored their family symbol. Each put his hand to the family shrine. To be honest, I would also like to have such an ancestral tower. This is such a centuries-old connection of one family, definitely a reason for pride!

On this tower we were able to climb to the roof, and if it were not for the signal function of the site, I would say that the ancient Ossetians were great lovers of landscape photography, because they built ideal high points for shooting.

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Since we are talking about mountains, I want to note the survivability and reliability of Nikon equipment in such difficult conditions for it. We even by car, but on a hike. Mountains are sand, dust, humidity, uneven surface and height. This means, according to the rule of a gun on the wall, the camera will one day experience this height on itself. So, my Nikon D810 can be dropped in the valley, then found - it will work. In case of emergency, this device can hammer nails and then continue to photograph. Since I wanted to see a lot of places, and the travel time is very limited, it means that there is no time to wait for ideal conditions. Let's say that we reached the tower and got inside, and that's it, the sun has set. About ten years ago, I would have just spread my hands, or the trouble with a flash and a tripod would have begun, but now I just raise the ISO to 12000 and continue to shoot. As for lenses, the AF-S VR NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED and AF-S VR NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED proved to be indispensable on this trip. Both lenses are versatile and suitable for both landscape and reportage photography, which is exactly what was needed on this trip so as not to overload yourself with unnecessary equipment.

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The highest point of our journey was the pass from Kurtatinsky to Alagirsky gorge. It turned out to shoot the best panoramic shot. The higher we climbed the mountains, the more nature changed. Alpine meadows, mountain tundra, shumsha berries, which I had previously met only in the mountains of the Kola Peninsula and Kamchatka, dwarf birch, rhododendron fields ... If you find yourself in North Ossetia with a camera at the end of June, then all the slopes will be covered with rhododendrons. Landscape photography is good because at any time of the year and even day it will be completely different colors, different shots. The main thing in the work of a landscape painter is not to be lazy. Get up in the dark, climb the mountain higher, look for shots that will be only yours.

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“The builder of the tower, before putting the stone in the wall, turned it a hundred times. And when he found the face of a stone, he laid it so that it looked outward, ”says an ancient legend.

Looking at the Ossetian towers, you begin to believe it. Only with such an attitude to work, they were able to stand for seven centuries. Not just stand still, but still remain remarkably even. And, after all, the stones just lie on top of each other, they are stacked without cement!

3. We are in the village of Lirsi in the Mamison Gorge. 14 towers, of which seven survived, and many outbuildings created a small labyrinth town.

4. Come in, study, the place is not crowded - there are not even paths trodden in the grass.

5. No guards, no tickets, not even ribbons "No entry" and signs "Do not touch with your hands."

6. They lived and defended in the towers. Usually they had three or four floors. On the first - cattle, on the second - a hearth and a bedroom, above - a room for guests and pantries.

7. Later towers were built already with a binder solution. I climbed into this one from below, where the sheep entered, and the gap above is the door to which the ladder was attached.

8. The towers had everything you need, they could withstand a long siege and it was useless to even set fire to them.

9. But by the 18th century, the Ossetians moved to the plains and the mountainous areas were deserted.

10. Nobody built new ones - they could no longer resist modern weapons. And by that time, the first brick factories had already appeared in Vladikavkaz, which greatly simplified construction.

11. Processing this photo in the evening, I increased the light in the shadows and got scared - there is a head! But I was inside all alone! Phew... it's me...

12. Rock cave fortresses - another amazing view of Ossetian structures.

13. Higher in the mountains, in a hard-to-reach place, fortresses were built around the caves.

14. Dangerous paths carved into the rocks connected the structures, and rope ladders were the entrance.

15. The Dzivgis fortress is the largest in the Caucasus; dozens of soldiers could be in it.

16. Here, too, you will be told a legend. About the cat that was released in the fortress and how she came out through the cave passages on the other side of the ridge.

17. How she was frightened that she did not return back, how they realized that this was the cat and how someone could meet her on the other side, history is silent.

Very interesting and informative article about towers.

Originally posted by gvernikov at Ingush family towers

And towers of castles on the rocks
Looked menacingly through the mists -
At the gates of the Caucasus on the clock
Guard Giants!

Mikhail Lermontov. Daemon.

This fully affected the trip to the family towers in the Dzheirakhskoe gorge, which in Ingushetia was kindly organized for us by Kaloy Akhilgov . Despite the obvious uniqueness of these places and architectural monuments, there is not as much information about them on the net as I expected, and almost all the materials are concentrated on Ingush sites. This is nothing more than a consequence of the unrealized tourism potential and the status of a closed border zone, in which the Dzheyrakho-Assinovskiy Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve is located.

A bit from the history of family towers

According to modern historians, the mass construction of stone towers in the mountainous regions of modern Ingushetia dates back to the 16th-17th centuries.

To climb up to the towers, it is necessary to overcome a difficult path, winding along steep cliffs (however, our Seva from Kinokruzhok, armed with a camera, overcame this path without any problems). Such an arrangement of buildings ruled out an unexpected attack. Moreover, the inhabitants of the castle could, on occasion, successfully resist the attackers, withstanding a long siege of the fortress. The legend about a woman who, during the days of the siege, saved small children in cradles from the fire and the attacking enemies, is passed from mouth to mouth to descendants. The legend says that she miraculously managed to make several transitions from one tower of the fortress to another along the rope left from the suspension bridge destroyed by the besiegers.

The place where the Vovnushki are built deserves a separate story. This is a sample of mountain nature - the fast and cold mountain river Assa, surrounded by thickets, flows at the foot of the high rocky ridge Tsoreylam. Assa arises from springs and melt waters of snowfields at an altitude of 2700 meters. It has many tributaries and rivers flowing into it, such as the Galgai-Che and Guloikhi rivers. A dense forest grows on the shady slope of the mountain range, and on the sunny side, where the towers of Vovnushki's castle stand, only individual trees stubbornly cling to the stones. The whole area in which Vovnushki are located is called the Targim basin. The bottom of the Targim basin lies at an altitude of 1000-1100 m above sea level. This basin, as well as the valley of the Armkhi River, is located in the “rain shadow” zone. Precipitation in it falls much less than in the zone of the northern foothills. The high mountain range blocks it from the rainy northern winds, which leave all the moisture on the northern slopes of the ranges and enter the basin in the form of descending - dry and warm air currents. Therefore, dry and sunny weather prevails here.

By the way, one of the employees of the Dzheyrakho-Assinovsky Reserve, who accompanied us on the trip, is a direct descendant of the Ozdoevs, who erected a castle in Vovnushki in the Middle Ages.

It can also be noted that there is at least one Ingush who builds the tower today. Since childhood, the artist Murad Polonkoev, who has been fond of the history of his homeland, depicted towers in almost every painting. And one day he put down his easel and took up a trowel. It took ten years and six trucks of mountain stones to build the tower. We wish Murad good luck and successful completion of construction!

Ingushetia Tourism

The most beautiful historical building Vovnushki got its name from the Ingush village of the same name in the Dzheyrakhsky district. The defensive castle was built by the ancient Ingush Ozdoev family, for whom the village was a family nest.

By ear, the name is perceived too frivolously for a place where a lot of blood was shed at one time. But in the local dialect, it's pronounced "vouvnushke" with the stress on the first syllable. Literally translated, it means "a place of battle towers."

The first reliable descriptions of Vovnushki date back to the beginning of the 18th century. At that time, the Ozdoev family castle played an important strategic role. The fact is that the neighboring Assinsky Gorge at that time was the only direct and relatively convenient passage through the Caucasus Range. Caravans constantly went along this route, which were raided by robbers. Vovnushki served as a refuge and protection for travelers.

From time to time, raids were made on the castle, not to mention local conflicts. But it was built in such a good place that it could withstand the longest siege. Mountain slopes were reliably protected from uninvited guests.

If an ignorant person is shown a photo of the castle and asked what kind of place it is, he will probably name some European country without hesitation. “A typical building for the late Middle Ages,” historians say. Strange, but none of them can tell the exact time of the castle's creation. Presumably this is the 17th-18th centuries, but possibly even earlier. Most likely, when the castle was being built, Christians still lived on the territory of Ingushetia. Islam began to spread among the local population in the 18th century and had not yet had time to leave an imprint on the appearance of local buildings.

The cult of stone - this is how you can briefly characterize the very essence of this structure. It is surprising, but two massive battle towers were erected without any foundation. In fact, they stand on slate rocks. Quite a common building technology of that time: milk was poured onto the proposed construction site, on the ground. All the soil through which it seeped was removed and poured further - until the milk ceased to be absorbed. After that, the very first stones of huge sizes, larger than human growth, were placed, which ensured the stability of the structure. “With amazing harmony, proportionality and rather high height, they are stable and durable,” wrote the artist Shcheblykin about the Ingush military towers, who left quite a lot of research on this place and sketches of local structures. A special lifting gate was used to transport the stones.

And in the Caucasian legends there is a mention that the stones for the foundation of the tower were pulled by nine pairs of bulls, and twelve horses could not budge.

Before the construction of a castle or tower began, a sacrifice was made. The place of the future building was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial ram, and only after that it was possible to start work.

In addition to the method of construction, the technology of preparing a mortar for bonding stones together on the upper tiers of the tower is also surprising. One of its main components, judging by the results of laboratory studies, is casein (a protein that is formed during the souring of milk). In fact, the solution is a mixture of lime, sand and milk. He still holds the masonry "tightly".

It is not surprising that the skill of handling stone was highly valued in those days. From generation to generation, the practice of building stone castles was passed down for centuries, and all prominent masters in this business were known by name. For the successors of traditions, it was a matter of honor not only the quality of construction, but also the observance of construction deadlines. The master was given exactly a year, and if for some reason he did not meet the deadlines, a shameful stain fell on his entire family, and the tower itself was dismantled to the ground and the order was given to others. As a rule, the masters always had time. In any case, Vovnushka's castle is a clear confirmation of the skill and punctuality of its creators.

The Ingush believed that all troubles were caused by hunger. Therefore, the responsibilities of the customer included a daily dense diet for builders and masons. If the master fell from the tower from dizziness, the owner was accused of greed and expelled from the village.

Vovnushki, 1910

In the Middle Ages in the North Caucasus, tribal associations - teips - served as the main unit of organization. The defensive watchtowers in Vovnushki were built by the respected ancient teip Ozda (Ozdoevs).

Life and customs of the inhabitants of the castle

Previously, the two towers were connected by a suspension bridge, and in the event of a siege, women, old people and children moved to a safer tower. If we talk about height, then we can draw a parallel with a seven-story building (architects of that time, as a rule, did not build combat towers higher than 30 meters).

It was possible to get inside only through the second floor, it was there that the front door was - this made it impossible for the enemies to use a ram during the siege. The ground floor, without windows and doors, served both as a place to store food and as a basement for prisoners. On the second floor, as a rule, there was the most valuable thing that the inhabitants of military towers possessed - a fraternal cauldron: a large container on a thick chain. The cauldron was endowed with magical qualities and worshiped as a shrine (it was believed that the souls of the dead hovered over it). Even if the bloodlines, fleeing persecution, managed to run inside the tower and touch the sacred cauldron, they did not touch him until he was far enough away from the shrine.

The upper floors were inhabited. Between the floors, the inhabitants of the towers moved along ladders. And the topmost was used as an attic, where weapons, building materials and other things needed in everyday life were stored.

Features of the burials of the Ingush warriors

Crypt structures were usually always built not far from the battle castles. Vovnushki are no exception: if you climb a little up the gorge, you can find an ancient crypt and mausoleum, which has a very curious shape of a cannonball. In the Middle Ages, above-ground crypts were often erected in Ingushetia, where the dead were placed in several rows on the shelves, and their bodies were subjected to the so-called "natural mummification".

The medieval castle complex "Vovnushki" is one of the most exotic and striking monuments of the country. It delights not only tourists, but also architects who pay tribute to the Ingush, who were able not only to defend themselves perfectly, but also to build superbly. It is no coincidence that this castle is one of the wonders of the Caucasus, and even periodically claims to be among the wonders of the world. His greatness is binding. After all, the self-name of the Ingush is galgay, which means the inhabitants of the towers.

The foundations of the castle were the crests of slate rocks in the gorge of the Gulai-khi River. The fortress consists of two separate castles, once connected by a suspension bridge. The basis of each is one and two combat four-tiered towers with flat roofs and a parapet.

"Vovnushki" are part of the Dzheirakhsko-Assinovskiy Museum-Reserve. Historians and art historians consider it one of the masterpieces of medieval architecture, and in general, the ethnocultural traces of the Ingush go back to the New Stone Age. Tourists, accompanied by a detailed guide about the events associated with this unusual castle, are well aware of how these towers once met trade caravans of the Great Silk Road and repelled the raids of robbers greedy for them.

They say that the highlanders built this castle on a non-random place. It was determined with the help of milk, which was poured onto the ground. They began to build where it did not soak into the soil. Moreover, with the help of milk they made a solution that has been holding the stones of the building for five centuries, and will keep, apparently, forever. Such a strong masonry is nowhere else in the world. The peculiarity of the territory where Vovnushki are located is a live, never-ending wind. Free and fresh, like the character of the highlanders. No wonder they are so proud of themselves and their historical monuments.

Very little is known about the time of construction of the towers of the Vovnushki complex, but it can be confidently assumed that each of the towers was built within one year, like other ancestral towers of the Vainakhs. Meeting the construction of the tower within 365 days was considered mandatory. If it was not possible to complete the construction of the tower within a year, then it was not completed, but dismantled into stones or left abandoned. The very fact was a stain of weakness on the teip building the tower.

There are many legends associated with Vovnushki, but one of them looks like a true story. The essence of the legend is simple: once, during the siege of the towers, a Vainakh woman saved many babies. When one of the towers was set on fire, she dragged the cradles with the kids, miraculously managing to run several times along the rope left from the suspension bridge destroyed by the enemies between the two Vovnushki towers.

In 2008, the Vovnushki tower complex became a finalist in the Seven Wonders of Russia competition project organized by the Izvestia newspaper, the Rossiya TV channel and the Mayak radio station.

In 2009, the image of the Vovnushki tower complex appeared on the stamp of the Russian Post "Republic of Ingushetia" in the "Regions" series.

In 2010, in the “Architectural Monuments” series of commemorative coins of Russia, the Bank of Russia issued a silver coin with the image of one of the watchtowers of the Vovnushki complex with a face value of 3 rubles and a weight of 31.1 grams in a circulation of 10,000 copies.