Thread: Siberian/Kazakhstan folklore monster Sarudo (or something like that)

Dear forum,

I was wondering whether you may help me in tracking down the name of a folklore monster that seems to come from Siberia of Kazakhstan.

At the present time, I'm finding informations about it only in Japanese. In Japanese, the monster is called サルード (Sarudo), but as you may know Japanese characters only give you the Japanese pronounce of the name and not the correct spelling, so the name could be Saludo, Salud, Sarud, Salood, Sarood, etc. Does one of them ring any bell to you?

You can see a picture of the monster here: 神統録@ ウィキ - サルード

And here's my translations of what's written in that page (tha names of the regions/lakes/etc. are surely not correct, since I don't have a spelling in roman characters, but I hope they help anyway):

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Sarudo

Demonic being

Russia/Kazakhstan

Origin: Folklore

- Water demon of the Arumata region in Russia (the actual Kazakhstan, in the Kuruchai area near lake Barubashi).
- It lives in a lake and, if someone pees in it or pollute the water, he gets extremely angry, causes floods, drags people underwater and eats their internal organs, or so it's said.
- The 10th of July of every year, in Siberia, an image of Sarudo is celebrated in the lake shore, an altar is built, domestic animals and fruit are offered in sacrifice and the priest crawls around pouring water of the lake. If the sacrifices disappeared the day after, Sarudo won't get wild for that year.
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If someone of you knows this monster, could you please provide me the correct spelling of the name in latin characters and, if possibile, some general informations?

Thank you very much!

Looks like водяной (vodyanoy)


https://www.google.ru/search?q=vodya...w=1378&bih=815

Ok, I got interested and did some reaserch:
- The lake 'Barubashi' is Lake Balkhash (the only googlable toponym)
- It appears there's no creature named 'sarud', 'sarut' or something like that in Kazakh mythology (and 'salud' means 'to build').
- The closest thing probably is 'Cу ээзи' or 'Cуг ээзи' (Su Eezi/Sug Eezi, pron. Soo[g] eh-eh-zee, 'eh' as 'e' in 'pet'), Kazakh 'Су иесі', literally "master of water" - a spirit of water in Altai shamanism, and some sources mention it as part of ancient Kazakh pagan beliefs as well.
Video of ritual of offering to Su Eezi:

However, as an elemental spirit of nature it shouldn't be as aggressive and short-tempered as said in the article.

- Also there's 'ubbe', Kazakh evil spirit of water, but sources say it's almost disappeared from folklore since the adoption of Islam.

Thank you very much.

That vodyanoy seems really similar, there could be a common origin or something like that.

Yes, the lake is Balkhash! I've tried searching for "Balkhash", "monster" and "10th of July", but nothing pops out... maybe searching in Russian could bring some results?

Other Japanese sources just describe the monster as a demon/fairy/maiden who lives in ice... I've also tried searching through lists of mythological beings, but still no clue.

Thanks for your efforts!

Riccardo

Edit: Lake Bajkal in Siberia could also have something to do with our monster.