The Chinese Almas or Yeti - 1925 Almas killing

[Shazzoir]

In Mongolian folklore, an almas, alma, or almasty, among other variants (Mongolian: Алмас, Chechen: Алмазы, Turkish: Albıs/Albız or Albastı), is a creature or deity said to inhabit the Caucasus and Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, and the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia.

I have just come upon this rather interesting description of an Almas or Yeti, killed in 1925, so thought I would share.

"According to Soviet major-general Mikhail Stephanovitch Topilski, in 1925 his forces chased an opposing guerilla force into a cave where most of the enemy met their deaths. However, one of the surviving enemy soldiers said that while in the cave they had been attacked by a number of apelike creatures. One of their bodies was brought out, about which Maj. Gen. Topilski related the following, which is here translated into English:

Continuing our chase, we caught up with what was left of the exhausted gang, who had stopped for a rest at a place where the glacier was split apart by a stone cliff. The upper tongue of the glacier hung from the cliff in which there was a crevice or cave. We surrounded the gang and took up a position above where they were resting. A machine-gun was placed in position. When we threw the first grenade, a man (a Russian officer) ran out onto the glacier and started shouting that the shooter would make the ice cave in and that everyone would be buried. When we demanded that they surrender he asked for time to talk it over with the other bandits, and went back into the cave. Soon after we heard an ominous hissing as the ice began to move. At almost the same moment we heard shots, and not knowing what they meant decided that it was the beginning of an assault.

Pieces of snow and ice started falling down from the cliff, gradually burying the entrance to the cave. When it was nearly buried three men managed to escape, and the rest were buried under the debris. Our shots killed two of the bandits and seriously wounded the third. When we reached him, he showed us the spot where the body of a Russian officer was buried and we dug it out. The wounded man turned out to be an Uzbek tea-house owner from Samarkand.

We questioned him and he gave us the following information. While the bandits were discussing out order to surrender, some hairy man-like creatures, howling inarticulately, appeared in the cave through the crevice (which possibly led upwards from he cave). There were several of them and they had sticks in their hands. The bandits tried to shoot their way through. One of the bandits was killed by the creatures with the sticks. Our narrator received a blow from a stick on his shoulder, and rushed to the cave entrance with one of the monsters hard on his heels. It ran out of the cave after him, but he shot it and it was buried under the snow.

To check up on this strange story we made him show us the exact spot and cleared the show away. We recovered the body all right. It had three bullet wounds. Not far off we found a stick made of very hard wood, though it cannot be stated for certain that it belonged to the creature. At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature’s own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front, and measured it. Our doctor made a long and thorough inspection of the body, and it was clear that it was not a human being.

The body had three bullet wounds. Not far off we found a stick made of very hard wood, though it cannot be stated for certain that it belonged to the creature. At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature's own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front and measured it. Our doctor (who was killed later the same year) made a long and thorough inspection of the body, and it was clear that it was not a human.

The body belonged to a male creature 170 cm tall, elderly or even old judging by the greyish colour of the hair in places. The chest was covered by brownish hair and the belly with greyish hair. The hair was longer but sparser on the chest but short and thick on the belly. In general the hair was very thick, without any underfur. There was least hair on the buttocks, from which fat our doctor deduced that the creature sat like a human being. There was most hair on the hips. The knees were completely bare of hair and had callous growths on them. The whole foot including the sole was quite hairless and was covered by hard brown skin. The hair got thinner near the hand and the palms had none at all, but only callous skin.

The colour of the face was dark, and the creature had neither beard nor mustache. The temples were bald and the back of the head was covered by thick, matted hair. The dead creature lay with its eyes open and its teeth bared. The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jaw bones made the face resembling the Mongol type of face. The nose was flat with a deeply sunk bridge. The ears were hairless and looked a little more pointed than a human being's with a longer lope. The lower jaw was very massive.

The creature had a very powerful chest and well developed muscles. We didn't find any important anatomical difference between it and man. The genitalia were like a man's. The arms were of normal length, the hands were slightly wider and the feet much wider and shorter than a man's.

We did not know exactly where we were, because no accurate maps of the Pamirs were then in existence. But we must have been somewhere between the Yazgulem and the Rushan Ranges. As we had completed our task we had to return. ... The nature of the dead creature presented us with a problem. But it was impossible to take the body with us on the difficult trek that lay ahead. Also, it could have caused complications with the local population. We could say, of course, that we were carrying the body of an animal, but the creature looked too much like a human being. We thought about skinning it, but it was too much like skinning a man. In the end we decided to bury the creature where we had found it. We did not try to enter the cave because we were afraid of another cave-in."

1925 almas.png

Cheers,
Shazz

[David]

Fascinating Shaz. Thanks.

[Searcher]

Entertaining stories of encounters like this are a great help in passing the time during lockdown...

Thanks for sharing, Shazz.

[Cewfs]

There's more recent info on the Pamir Almas...
https://www.biologyonline.com/articles/almas

[Mad Academic]

I visited the Altai Mountains of Altai Province, Russia in 2017.
During a walk through the woods we came to a small "display area" where life-size models of wildlife were placed.
One of these was that of an "Almasty".
I took a photo of it and posted it on this website.
Later, I visited the Altai Museum (which was quite modern and very well constructed) and asked an attendant about the creature's model that I had photographed. She disappeared for a few minutes to consult with someone. When she returned she said that those creatures were known, but that no-one had seen one for about 25 years. Having seen the mountainous terrain there though, I could well believe that they may still exist.

FWIW

[Simon Park]

Interesting account, Shazz.

What always intrigues me about any story of this nature are the many similarities in the creature being described - regardless of where in the world the events are said to have occurred. When you get stories that have so many common elements in them that are so widely dispersed geographically and chronologically it definitely makes you think.