The Smorodina River is one of the most mysterious rivers in Russian fairy tales, epics and conspiracies, moreover, one of the most mentioned. Whether it really existed, and if so, where it was or is, are questions to which it is difficult to give an unambiguous answer.
The complete consonance of the hydronym with the name of the famous berry bush paints a picture of a river with banks overgrown with currant bushes. But only before studying the etymology of the word "currant". It turns out that a number of words with the same root describe other qualities of the famous river: currant is a stench, a heavy spirit, a smell. There is a variant with spontaneous generation - in the case of the captive vowel "a", that is, Samorodin.
Geographic coordinates of the river Smorodina
If we forget about the exact epic references, according to which the Smorodin river meets Ilya-Muromts on the road from the “glorious city of Murom” to the “capital city of Kiev”, we can count several rivers-namesakes. It turns out that the Sestra River on the Karelian Isthmus is the Smorodina River: this is how its name is translated from the Finnish language (Siestar-joki). Historical documents contain information that the Moskva River was also called so, this fact is also confirmed in some ancient epics.
At a distance from the capital regions of different eras of Russia, there are also rivers of the same name: the Smorodinka flows in the Kursk region, there is the Smorodinovaya river in the Northern Elbrus region. In addition, researchers of ancient texts meet with the name, which has one root with "currant", namely "stench", "smerd", learning about the existence of rivers Smerdya, Smerdel, Smerdnitsa in ancient Russia.
Returning to the text of one of the versions of the epic about Ilya-Muromets, you can find specific instructions and discover that there really is a river Smorodina in the Bryansk region, not far from the city of Karachev. But the reality of the existence of a real Currant River collides with mythological details of the description of its features.
River Smorodina in fairy tales, epics and conspiracies
It turns out that the banks of the river are strewn with human bones, and crossing it is deadly. She is "black" and "formidable", allows good fellows to cross over herself for bows and affectionate words, and for disrespect she takes revenge by drowning. She speaks with people who have come to its shores in a human voice, is pacified by accepting a bloody sacrifice. It burns with hot tar, glows with fire or hides behind a veil of smoke, but often gives the heroes pure water to drink from it.
According to the testimony of some epics, the Kalinov Bridge is thrown across it - just like the river, which has nothing to do with a berry, now a viburnum. "Kalinov", in the opinion of many linguists-researchers of Russian fairy tales, is nothing more than "red-hot", and the old word "viburnum" means "red-hot iron".
Not far from Currant, epic heroes meet with the Nightingale the Robber. On its banks Alyosha Popovich finds the murdered Dobrynya Nikitich. The name of the river is often found in various Slavic conspiracies. According to ancient Slavic legends, Koshchei's wife, the goddess Morana (Mara), lived on the Smorodina River near the Kalinov bridge. So does it really exist, the fabulous river Smorodina?
Ethnographers who have studied the myths of many peoples of the world answer this question negatively - they do not exist, like Styx, Acheron, Lethe and other rivers of Aida, for example. In Slavic mythology, they argue, the Smorodina river is the border between the world of the living (reality) and the non-existent (navu), and crossing it is a journey to another world.
