Можно ли сказать про Зурбаган, что это город, which is not? Yes and no. Half a century ago only fans of Alexander Green knew about him - this toponym appears in a good half of his works. Living under the generous Crimean sun and close to unpredictably beautiful sea spaces, Green created the fictional Zurbagan in his books.
City on the map
The city is described in some detail in the story.Alexander Stepanovich "Zurbagansky shooter." Contemporaries of the writer argue that the city of Sevastopol could be the prototype of a fabulous place. In the Alexander Green Museum in Feodosia (a writer lived there since 1924) there is a map on which the bay and the city of Zurbagan very much resemble the cartographic image of Sevastopol.
Dream symbol
Once upon a time a fabulous city with a ringthe arrangement of streets, with arches and bridges, with gabled tiled roofs, has become a symbol of dreams, romance, magic. Poets write poems about him, composers compose music, and adventure seekers make attempts to find this place on the face of the planet. And now there are news that scientists have found its coordinates and visited the wonderful city called Zurbagan. Is this a hoax, a joke or a truth? It is rumored that the city opens to the eyes of the most talented creators and dream-obsessed inventors. As if Lewis Carroll, after visiting an amazing city, said that the world is not what it seems, and that we can see its true face by fantasizing.
Parallel universe
Attentive readers claim that Green wroteabout a city that exists in another reality. The writer insisted that his mysterious Zurbagan lived in another time, that it was something like a parallel world. Perhaps the portal to this world was his imagination and creative obsession, and perhaps other worlds do exist.
Cultural code
In the mid 80s of the last century on the Sovietscreens appeared musical "Above the Rainbow", musical compositions for it were written by Yuri Chernavsky and Leonid Derbenev. There, for the first time, a legendary song about Zurbagan was performed, which became the hallmark of the young Vladimir Presnyakov. Zurbagan rhymed with a hurricane, the dream of happiness was read in the poetics of the song and the very secret that enveloped the magnificent and alluring Zurbagan was living.
Today, the name of the Green city can be found innames of tourist centers, water parks, cafes and in the name of creative groups. The name of the exotic city is the pass near Elbrus. Rumor has it that the Crimean authorities want to make happy the residents of one of the local villages, renaming it from Ordzhonikidze to Zurbagan. If this happens, we will see a cute name on the map, and it remains only to hope that its inhabitants will become a little happier than they were before.
