Lake Monster... in Ukraine!?

Lake monster terrifies villagers in Ukraine
Front page / Science / Mysteries
25.06.2007 Source: Pravda.Ru
Pages: 1

A huge monster with the head of a serpent and the body of a crocodile is rumored to lurk at the bottom of a lake in Western Ukraine. The monster has been frightening residents of a nearby village for more than one hundred years. Now and again the gruesome creature comes ashore and attacks domestic animals. At times it harms humans too. As a rule, locals steer clear of the lake. Researchers keep gathering information in an attempt to unravel the lake mystery.

Huge monster terrorizes Ukrainian villagers (audri.com)

Quite a few bloodcurdling stories about the monster of the lake circulate through the village. It is said to attack animals and humans. The hideous monster is also said to moan and wheeze at night. The local elderly say that the “lizard” was last seen on the lake shore some 30 years ago.

“The monster assaulted Stepan, a groom. He was tending horses near the lake on that day. Actually, Stepan had too much of a drink so he stretched himself out on the grass and fell asleep. A crocodile-like creature crept on to the bank out of the water, moved up to the guy, and sniffed at him. Mushroom pickers came from the wood at the very moment. They saw that thing and started shouting out loud to scare it off. The monster reportedly opened its month and there wasn’t a single tooth inside,” said the 84-year-old Ivan Kovalchuk, a resident of the village.

It is believed that the first stories about the monster hiding in Lake Somin near the village of Lukiv appeared at the turn of the 19th century. The reference to the monster can be found in a report sent by a village chairman to Warsaw. He wrote that the villagers had not paid a tax on fishing because of a “serpent” which lived in the lake, eating the fishes. The unknown predator also harassed the livestock and locals, said the letter. The authorities had plans to dispatch an expedition to the area to investigate the case. But those plans fell through due the outbreak of World War I.

The German military made an attempt to solve the mystery of Lake Somin during World War II. The Germans used diving equipment and nets for exploring the bottom of the lake. However, their efforts to capture the creature ended in failure, reports Gazeta Po-ukrainski.

Some researchers believe that the lake monster is a huge cat fish. Lots of cat fishes can be found in numerous lakes and ponds located in the area. “Cat fishes can use their big strong fins for dragging themselves ashore. Several cat fishes caught around here were really big. They weighed about 100 kilos each, measuring up to two meters in length,” said Valentin Lyupa, a researcher of “the Somin Monster.”

Other scientists claim that the creature could be a prehistoric freshwater shark which somehow survived the Ice Age. “The archeological finds discovered in the area can back up this version. There’re many reports on fossilized teeth and bones of ancient fishes dug out by locals in their gardens,” said Valentin Volontai, an adviser with the Institute of Archeology under the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Lake Somin is located in Polessie lowlands, which formed at the bottom of an ancient freshwater sea. About 300 lakes scattered around the area are the remainders of the sea. Those karst lakes interconnect by means of underground passages and rives.

Lake Somin is 56 meters deep. A number of karst caves lie at its bottom. That is where the monster lies in wait, according to locals. The Polish researchers are reportedly going to give it another try and solve the lake mystery. A special research party is expected to commence work on location in the near future.

Translated by Guerman Grachev
Pravda.ru

Suspected smugglers flying ultralight detained by Ukraine police

Jun 13, 2007, 10:35 GMT


Kiev - Three men suspected of using an ultra-light aircraft to smuggle cigarettes from Ukraine into Hungary were detained Wednesday by border police, the Interfax news agency reported.

Officers stationed in the mountainous Mukachevo region of west Ukraine first became aware alerted after 'detecting a suspicious noise in the sky at 4 am.'

Border troops searching roads and fields near the village of Yanush halted a Ford automobile and a GAZ minibus, which carrying three Ukrainian nationals including a registered pilot.

The GAZ-66 also contained a disassembled ultra-light aircraft and eight cases of NEXT cigarettes with an estimated value of 9,000 dollars on Ukraine's black market. The smokes are projected to be worth two to three times that in Hungary, according to the report.

The pilot, a Crimean resident, admitted to police that he was in the air in the morning, explaining that he enjoyed flying in the dark. He denied using the ultra-light for smuggling.

Police said that 'operational information' - a Ukrainian law enforcement euphemism for data obtained from informants or eavesdropping - contradicted the pilot's claim of innocence.

The pilot was charged with illegal border crossing, and all three detainees with smuggling cigarettes. Police seized the vehicles, aircraft and cigarettes.

Smuggling is rampant along Ukraine's rugged western border, where the economies of whole villages depend on illicit movement of goods to and from neighbouring European Union members Poland and Hungary.

The most valuable trafficked goods according to Interpol reports are illegal migrants, cigarettes, narcotics and petrol.

Smugglers commonly use motor vehicles or passenger rail cars to move products, often with the complicity of corrupt officials.

A tightening of border controls on both sides of the frontier in recent years has cause traffickers to transport their goods by increasingly imaginative means including on foot, by pack animal or in small boats - and, now, ultra-light aircraft.

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300th Only in Ukraine... post - woo hoo!

Another Ukrainian Politician Poisoned?!

Ukraine minister 'poisoned'
01/06/2007 13:30 - (SA)






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Kiev - Vasyl Tsushko, Ukraine's controversial interior minister, flew to a German hospital by charter aircraft on Friday for treatment for poisoning, according to a close Tsushko associate.

Tatiana Muntian, Tsushko's lawyer and political ally, told Ukraine's Channel 5 television channel Tsushko had suffered "a massive heart attack due to an intentional attempt to murder him by poisoning".

Tsushko in recent weeks had been at the centre of a dramatic spike to tensions in the country's long-running constitutional crisis, by ordering an assault by riot police on a government building to return to office a prosecutor general sacked by President Viktor Yushchenko.

The late May incident was the first-ever case of outright violence between different branches of Ukraine's police forces, as building security guards resisted the assault led by Tsushko.

Yushchenko in retaliation mobilised elements of the army and lorry columns carrying about 3 000 combat troops who were en route to the capital with the mission of kicking Tsushko's men out of the building, when negotiations defused the potentially bloody confrontation.

Tsushko is a long-time supporter of Yushchenko's political opponent, pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Poisoning 'a rumour'

Unknown assailants using dioxin poisoned Yushchenko in September 2004, leaving him weakened and his face pockmarked. At the time, Yushchenko claimed he had been targeted by a foreign spy agency.

Interior ministry officials confirmed Tsushko had suffered a severe heart attack, but described Muntian's claims poison had caused the health problem "at the present moment on the level of rumour".

Muntian for her part was adamant, saying "I saw him with my own eyes and it was obvious the man had been poisoned".

Oleksander Moroz, Ukraine parliament speaker and another Tsushko ally, told the Interfax news agency "I spoke with him today and his condition is stable. I hope he will return (to Ukraine) in two or three weeks." - Sapa-dpa

More information on Missing Crocodil: Weight 350Kg!

Circus loses 350kg crocodile

June 01 2007 at 12:27PM
Kiev - Ukrainian air and sea search teams were on the lookout for a Nile crocodile on Friday after the reptile escaped from its circus handlers on a Black Sea beach, the Interfax news agency reported.

The incident took place in a resort district of the port city Marioupol. The crocodile's handler blamed high temperatures for the animal's decision to take to the water.

"It (the crocodile) just couldn't handle the heat," a circus representative told reporters.

Circus managers estimated the carnivore was nearly two metres long and weighed about 350 kilograms.

Beach patrols spotted the croc swimming offshore, but were unable to capture it as the animal would submerge if people or boats approached it, according to the report.


Throngs of beach-goers including women and children were continuing to bathe and play in the surf, despite warnings by loudspeaker of the crocodile's presence in the water.

The incident came less than two weeks after a Ukrainian animal trainer survived a circus bear attack leaving him unconscious and under water for close to four minutes.

That incident took place near the town Novy Rozdol in the western Lviv region after Volodymyr Herbovy, working for the travelling circus Europa, decided to bathe his trained bear Mishka in a lake during warm weather.

The brown bear turned on Herbovy for unknown reasons, but once the trainer was motionless under the water, the animal stopped its attack.

Herbovy survived the near-drowning but was hospitalised. Circus personnel recaptured Mishka the bear without incident.

Temperatures have been unseasonably high in Ukraine since mid-May, in places topping 35 degrees Centigrade. Much of the country's infrastructure lacks air conditioning, resulting in heavily-populated lake and sea beaches during summer months. - Sapa-dpa

Crocodile escapes from Ukrainian circus into Azov Sea

News Briefs
Crocodile escapes from Ukrainian circus into Azov Sea
Jun 01 2007, 16:21

KYIV (AP) - A crocodile escaped from a Ukrainian circus into the Azov Sea, a popular swimming and beach area, officials said Friday.

The 1-meter (3.2-foot) crocodile, named Godzi, escaped from the seaside circus in the city of Mariupol on Thursday, said Mykola Ranga, a spokesman for the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

He said ministry workers were searching for the crocodile, whose mouth was taped shut, and that it has been seen swimming in the sea, which lies north of the Black Sea between Ukraine and Russia.

Officials issued a warning to area beachgoers, but Ukrainian media reported that many sunbathers and swimmers were undeterred and came to the shore on Friday.