Can we say about Zurbagan that this is a city that really is not?

Can we say about Zurbagan that this is a city that does not exist? Yes and no. Half a century ago only fans of Alexander Green's creativity knew about him - this toponym appears in the good half of his works. Living under the generous Crimean sun and next to the unpredictably beautiful sea expanses, Green created in his books a fictional Zurbagan.

City on the map

The city is described in great detail in the story of Alexander Stepanovich "Zurbagan Shooter". Contemporaries of the writer argue that the prototype of a fairytale place could be the city of Sevastopol. In the museum of Alexander Green in Feodosia (there was a writer from 1924), there is a map on which the bay and the city of Zurbagan very much resemble the cartographic appearance of Sevastopol.

Dream symbol

A long time ago a fabulous city with a ring-like arrangement of streets, with arches and bridges, with pointed tiled roofs became a symbol of dreams, romance, magic. Poets write poems about him, composers compose music, and adventurers make attempts to find this place on the face of the planet. And already there are news that scientists have found its coordinates and visited a wonderful city called Zurbagan. Is it hoax, hoax or truth? There are rumors that the city opens to the eyes of the most talented creators and obsessed with the dream of inventors. It would be like Lewis Carroll after visiting a wonderful city, he said that the world is not what it seems, and that fantasizing we can see his true face.

Parallel universe

Attentive readers argue that Green wrote about a city that exists in another reality. The writer insisted that in another time he lives his mysterious Zurbagan, that this is something like a parallel world. Perhaps the portal to this world was his imagination and creative obsession, and maybe other worlds really exist.

Cultural code

In the mid-80s of the last century on Soviet screens appeared the musical "Above the Rainbow", musical compositions to it were written by Yuri Chernavsky and Leonid Derbenev. There, for the first time, a legendary song about Zurbagan was sounded, which became the hallmark of young Vladimir Presnyakov. Zurbagan rhymed with the hurricane, in the poetics of the song the dream of happiness was read and the very mystery that enveloped Zurbagan's magnificent and enticing one lived.

Today the name of the city of Green can be found in the name of tourist bases, water parks, cafes and in the name of creative groups. The name of the exotic city is called the pass near Elbrus. It is rumored that the Crimean authorities want to make happy the inhabitants of one of the local settlements, renaming it from Ordzhonikidze to Zurbagan. If this happens, we will see a nice name on the map, and it remains only to hope that its inhabitants will become a little happier than they were before.