The Tale of Tsar Saltan

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 2, 2026

I love Russian fairy tales.
But I don’t like the way Russians distort them.

And they have already distorted a great many Russian fairy tales.

I wrote to you here about Pushkin — Pushkin is not your everything

And let’s not forget about the Slavic primer — Slavic primer

I especially want to emphasize that Pushkin was trying to convey specifically Russian fairy tales, not Russian-state ones. In other words, all his fairy tales are Russian. They existed before Russia. They existed before the Russians were conquered by the people of Russia. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why Russians killed Pushkin. Although there were many more reasons for it.

And of course, we need to understand that Pushkin could not speak directly. So he concealed his message somewhat behind Orthodoxy and certain other things associated with Russia. Nevertheless, he conveyed the essence of The Tale of Tsar Saltan and other Russian fairy tales. And I repeat once again that these fairy tales are not Russian-state tales. They belong to times when Russia had not yet conquered Rus.

And, surprising as it may seem, it is precisely now, as Vedic culture is spreading across the Earth, that people are beginning to understand these fairy tales—and therefore to understand what existed before Russia, what existed on our lands before we were conquered and forced to believe in a foreign culture and a foreign religion.

And, of course, this topic cannot bypass me, a person who has spent more than half his life studying the Vedas and the Vedic culture that existed here in Rus until itforeigners and those of other faiths did not begin destroying them.

Of course, it is impossible to destroy what is given by God and what was given by God. Moreover, the Vedas themselves say that God comes personally from generation to generation to restore the Vedas—the true knowledge. And fairy tales are among them.

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 2, 2026

First of all, why is the tale named after Saltan rather than Gvidon? After all, Gvidon is the main character of this tale. In fact, everything is very simple. Saltan is God. Therefore, no matter who the main character or characters may be, God still remains the main one. That is why the tale is named after God.

And here it is important to know that Saltan, Sultan, and Soltan are the same name.

Sol means the Sun.
Tan means ruler.

Ultimately, Saltan (Sultan) is the Sun King.

And Gvidon is the Son of the Sun.

And here is something else that is important. The thing is that this tale is for every person, about every person, concerning every person. This tale is not for people as a group. It is specifically for each person individually. This tale is not meant to be read to children so that they fall asleep. It is meant to help every person understand why they live and how to live. You can see that Gvidon did not work by the sweat of his brow. He did not work at all. Yet he had everything. Absolutely everything that even people who worked by the sweat of their brow all their lives could not afford. He received everything one could only dream of. But I am getting a little ahead of myself.

And I will begin the story from the very beginning...

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 2, 2026

This fairy tale has no introduction. That is, no one prepares you for what is about to happen in it. It immediately begins with a conversation about three maidens.

Why? Because the main character, Guidon, begins right here. Because the tale is about him. Or, more precisely, about each of you.

And everything begins with three sisters. I think that the eldest sister, who became the tsarina, is Sushumna—or, more precisely, the primary energy of Sushumna: Shakti, Kundalini. And the other two are Ida and Pingala, along with their energies.

In other words, these are three energy channels. And the tsar chose the maiden who had matured enough to bear fruit, new life, new consciousness, a new soul. Something new. And she announced this.

And God always knows who says what, who thinks what, and who has matured for what. That is why, in the tale, he seems to eavesdrop. In reality, he eavesdrops on each of us.

And from this point on, the tale is not at all for children, because it openly speaks about sex. And Saltan lay with the maiden on ivory.

And the muladhara, as we know, has a symbol. It is an elephant.

And, incidentally, jumping slightly ahead again, I will say that no one calls Saltan by a patronymic, because God has no father. But Guidon is called Saltanovich, emphasizing that he is the son of God. And from the union of Shakti and God, a son is born.

More precisely, he is not yet born but conceived—in the place where the Kundalini energy is located.

God/Spirit/Absolute descends to Shakti.
And then leaves, just as it came.

And then we have a story about the life and development of the fetus in a woman’s womb. This is where what I told you about in the film, my film The Birth of a Human, takes place. It is all scientific data.

Your Yoga. The Film "The Birth of a Human".

Inside a pregnant woman’s womb, you do not know who is developing there. Whether it is a boy, a girl, or some kind of little animal.

The human embryo passes through all these stages. That is, it goes through the entire evolution of all living beings.

And this is conveyed in this fairy tale. Then the embryo develops in the uterus, floating in the waters as if in a barrel. It then synchronizes with the energy waves and ends up on the shore. And when it has matured, it emerges from this barrel—the birth canal—on its own. Together with Shakti, the universal energy that accompanies it throughout the entire journey. And when the waters break during birth, it finds itself on an island. The island is its own life.

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 3, 2026

I’ll summarize my interpretation of the fairy tale, starting with the very beginning.

It speaks of the birth of a human being. It says that a person is born many times before becoming what we are usually accustomed to seeing—for example, an infant.

Many births take place before this process is complete.

Now look: the first birth is when Shakti and the Absolute unite. That is, the part of the fairy tale where it says that the princess conceived.

This is the first birth. It is energetic and invisible; no medical equipment will be able to confirm it.

Next come the two sisters—Ida and Pingala—which essentially describe the process and substitute the process for the goal.

That is, the third sister promised a bogatyr, but these two sisters wrote to the tsar that the bogatyr had not been born. They describe the process of his birth—that is, the embryo’s development, the human embryo’s passage through its stages.

At first, it is unclear whether it is a boy or a girl—some kind of unknown little creature.

They describe the process of the bogatyr’s birth.

And the life of a human embryo in its mother’s womb is the second type of life. In other words, it is already a living being moving toward its goal: the next birth.

And the third type of birth is when a person emerges from the mother’s womb with the waters, from the “barrel”—the uterus.

Thus, the Being undergoes several types of birth before becoming human.

Before taking on a human body.

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 3, 2026

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Веретенников Сергей · Sep 3, 2026

I mainly base this on the assumption that you have already read Pushkin’s fairy tale about Tsar Saltan. In other words, I try to provide less of the original tale, assuming that you have already read it and that what I am talking about brings it back to your memory and is understandable to you.

For example, there is the moment when the tsarevich, who was in the barrel, reached the island. The moment of childbirth is described there quite directly. In other words, he braces himself with his feet and pushes with his head—the position of the fetus trying to leave the mother’s womb is described literally.

There are also various interpretations of what the barrel represents. It can quite reasonably be understood as an egg cell released from the ovaries. I discuss this in detail in the film “The Birth of a Human.” The barrel can be regarded as an egg cell that later turns into a human being.

But these are merely details that do not change the essence of the fairy tale in any way.

And throughout this story, you can see that Shakti, who was with the human embryo, does not interfere in its life in any way, although she could have done everything for it and instead of it.

At every stage, a person—even one who has not yet been born—is given the opportunity to act independently and decisively, exactly as they wish, as they feel, and as they have attuned themselves to the rhythm of nature and their own desire.

Another important point is that these two girls created an illusion. In other words, they created a deception.

It is precisely thanks to this deception that a human being is born.

In Vedic teachings, Maya is discussed. In other words, Maya exists, thanks tofrom whom a person is born.

If it were not for Maya, the soul would never have found itself in this illusory world.

And here it says that they were the ones who created these conditions.

Otherwise, it would have been an ordinary fairy tale: the princess would have given birth to a son, the tsar would have arrived, and everything would have been wonderful. But the person would not have been born.

That is, his life would not have begun.

Instead, the soul’s life would have continued in the beautiful spiritual world, where there is a spiritual Father and a spiritual Mother.

And the whole point is precisely for Maya, illusion and untruth, to arise so that a person can be born into this material world.

Without this plan, the birth of a person would simply be impossible.

On the one hand, Maya is bad, but on the other hand, it gives a person experience and new knowledge.

And the subject itself is interesting: these two girls are constantly either cooking something or knitting, spinning, or weaving something.

In other words, they create, create, and nourish.

To cook is, essentially, not simply to make soup; it is to nourish and feed.

So imagine that you have created and spun something, and then you nourish it.

This is very much like creating an illusion: weaving it and feeding it.

But the central figure here is not one of these two sisters, but Babarikha herself.

And Babarikha is actually Tsar Saltan’s grandmother.

Besides Pushkin’s main version of the fairy tale, there are also his drafts. In other words, what we now read as the main version of Pushkin’s fairy tale also has draft versions, where we can see how Pushkinwas choosing what and how to write.

And if we consider all of this together, we see that Babariha is Saltan’s grandmother.

And she is positioned between Saltan and Shakti, who gives birth to a new person.

And, essentially, this Babariha is Avidya-Maya.

She is neither good nor bad. She simply performs this function: to be between a living being and God and create an illusion.

70324 · Sep 4, 2026

Interesting.

009988 · Sep 4, 2026

Well done, Pushkin! A fairy tale is a lie, but there’s a hint in it—a lesson for good fellows!
Truth will resonate in the heart.
Very interesting, OM Shanti.

873415 · Sep 4, 2026

It’s amazing how different people look at the same thing, yet some see (encrypted images), while others don’t see anything at all.

5557778 · Sep 4, 2026

A very interesting analysis! I’m eagerly awaiting the continuation! I reread the fairy tale once again and noticed that the number three is repeated quite often here... I’m trying to understand

Веретенников Сергей · Sep 4, 2026

As the next step, I’ll tell you about the swan. And I’ll say right away, to make it more interesting for you, that the swan is the most important character in this fairy tale.

You probably understand this yourselves, because it is he/she who makes the prince’s life easy and wonderful. So you can write here in this thread what you think about who the swan is. Because if you don’t know who the swan is, then, essentially, this fairy tale will be meaningless to you.

And of course, I’ll continue soon.

And I’ll tell you how I see the swan.

2346789 · Sep 4, 2026

I see the swan as a creative and protective divine energy, Shakti.
The kite—a demonic energy, false ego, illusion.
Killed the kite—spiritual awakening.

5678 · Sep 4, 2026

Somewhere in the ’90s (those were the days))) there was a series of evening programs on ordinary wired radio on the subject of Pushkin and esotericism. I only managed to catch one of them. That was the first time I heard that there was a non-classical analysis of literary works, and that Pushkin was not simply a writer. They analyzed—though I don’t remember exactly, I think it was The Captain’s Daughter. I may be mistaken, because what stayed with me most was the shock of the discovery. And, of course, I can’t assess the quality of the analysis. But even then it was clear that people who studied Pushkin’s works in this way faced considerable pressure from the “classical school.” There was no internet then, and later I forgot everything and never took the initiative to study anything further. But I would sometimes remember it and wonder: what exactly was that? And now, here it is—this topic in our School! It took all these years for me to understand! Thank you so much. A very interesting topic.

55555 · Sep 4, 2026

I suppose that the swan represents our subconscious, the creative part of our personality. And a star burns on the forehead—the third eye, the Ajna chakra, mysticism, intuition, supernatural abilities, the materialization of objects.
In that case, the kite represents the left side of the brain: logic, facts, and arguments. The brain always wants to control and manage everything, and only when its control weakens—when a person dozes off or enters an alpha state—does the swan appear in its full power, allowing the person to create their own life.

5557778 · Sep 4, 2026

Yes, the struggle between light and darkness is immediately apparent here. But I was especially intrigued by this point..! When the prince defeated the kite, the Swan told him, “Do not grieve that because of me you will not eat for three days.” This looks like the observance of some kind of austerity—a three-day fast... ) And here is something else... At the beginning of the fairy tale, the Tsar says, “Give birth to a hero for me by the end of September!” And now it is the beginning of September!

210515 · Sep 4, 2026

OM Shanti, thank you for the incredible, amazing analysis of this wonderful fairy tale

.
I read it with great interest.
How the details of the fairy tale unfold in a new way, how unexpectedly they acquire a completely different—unfamiliar, special resonance.

I would assume that the Tsarevna-Swan is the divine spark, the particle, the spiritual essence placed by the Supreme Being within every living creature. The higher, deeper essence symbolizing absolute purity, radiance, and perfection. I noticed that in the fairy tale too— White Swan.
The sea, the water—this is the material world. Apparently, this refers to how, upon entering it, one can forget one’s true essence. The kite is materialistic consciousness; it sustains the illusion and contributes to forgetfulness. The prince freed the Swan and thereby managed to overcome the power of maya and remember and realize his true inner nature.
It is interesting that in the fairy tale the Swan helps the prince in everything, resolves all difficulties, and helps him attain the spiritual world. At first, he secretly visits the spiritual world for a short time, as an uninvited guest in the form of a mosquito, then in the form of a fly and a bumblebee.

I also noticed that the Swan often calls Prince Gvidon “my soul.” Perhaps the prince and his journey represent the soul’s experience of self-awareness.
The ending of the fairy tale is even more enchanting—the Tsar Saltan himself decides to visit the island and call on Prince Gvidon. This is so unusual—perhaps in this way the spiritual world manifests its presence in a person who has realized themselves?

And it was very interesting to read about the three Goddesses; I especially remembered OM Shanti’s words that they spin, braid, and cut something. For some reason, Makosh, Dolya, and Nedolya immediately came to mind.

I have always been curious about who matchmaker Baba Babarikha really was). Such an unusual name, and the prefix Baba—holy, wise, a guru... It is very similar to the word Satya—Truth. Only the letter V changes the name a little).

7371 · Sep 4, 2026

When the question about the Swan came up, I immediately remembered the film about Nilkanth Varni and his encounter with the Swans in one of the episodes, where the Swan is described. In the Vedic tradition, the Swan is one of the most powerful spiritual symbols, representing the higher Soul (Atman), purity, wisdom, higher knowledge, and liberation (Moksha). I think this description perfectly corresponds to the image of the Swan Princess in Pushkin’s fairy tale.
And if we look closely at the sequence of events from the moment Guidon saw the Swan and received an inner impulse to save her, we can trace the beginning and course of a person’s spiritual development (although it begins even in the womb):
Guidon, sensing a bright spark and impulse within himself, saves the Swan without even knowing who She really is; the Swan gradually reveals her true nature, begins to help Guidon, literally becoming his Guide into the subtle world; creates the conditions and space for his kingdom; becomes his Princess; and Guidon receives “everything one could possibly dream of.”
As an inner spiritual process, this can be described as follows:
A person protects their subtle and luminous, yet “unknown,” nature (spirituality), overcoming their own demons (fears, doubts, false beliefs, etc.); establishes a connection with it; gains access to inner knowledge; remembers their true self; becomes the creator of their own world and begins to create their own reality; spiritualknowledge begins to materialize.
It turns out that the Swan is Kundalini Energy, which develops from a tiny spark in the muladhara into a powerful flow, rising to the ajna. As it moves, it changes a person’s State, and upon reaching the ajna, it can do anything.
And I would like to point out that the Swan does not do anything "instead of" Guidon—she helps and guides him; she is his Guide, literally giving him the States necessary to overcome obstacles (first a mosquito, then a bumblebee...).
But it is also interesting that the Swan alone, without Guidon, would not have accomplished anything either.
(I’ll add: Of course, it is interesting to look at the heroes (the Swan and Guidon) and perhaps also at them as inner images in the human psyche—Anima and Animus. And likewise as a compass for genuine harmonious interaction between true Partners in real life, as Man and Woman. When the woman does not suppress the man but Very Calmly inspires and cares for him, while the man protects and cares for the woman.)
In short, OM Shanti’s definition, "A fairy tale is a hidden Map of the human Path," is especially palpable in Pushkin’s fairy tales. And it is very interesting to take part in such an analysis. I am amazed by the boundless versatility of A. S. Pushkin’s talent and Thank him for the Beautiful and Rich Legacy he left for us, his descendants (despite a very difficult

life in terms of inner experience).
Thank you, OM Shanti, for the Topic, the most interesting professional analysis, and involvement. A rare opportunity to “look at” the map and your own path.

5557778 · Sep 4, 2026

I also want to continue and expand on my thoughts about who the Swan is. The Tsarevich saw her, reacted, and thus set some kind of process in motion. Perhaps the Swan is a kind of energy. But what kind of energy could make someone fast for three days? The Swan says it herself: there is now no escape—three days without food...

009988 · Sep 5, 2026

Tsarevna Swan is not merely a bird or maiden; she is a symbol of supreme Wisdom, Sophia, or the Soul itself, languishing in the shackles of the material world. Guidon, whose journey begins in the cramped confinement of a barrel (a symbol of the womb and the flesh), is cast into the ocean of life. His salvation by the Swan is an act of spiritual awakening.

Esoterically, the Swan is “Hamsa,” the sacred bird capable of separating milk from water—that is, the eternal from the transient. She guides Guidon, helps him overcome anger (the kite), and attain three wonders—the three stages of initiation:
1. The squirrel with golden nuts is the alchemy of the spirit, the transformation of coarse matter into the pure gold of awareness.
2. The 33 bogatyrs represent the awakening of inner forces, emerging from the “sea foam” of the subconscious.
3. The Tsarevna herself represents the merging of the masculine and feminine principles, the attainment of wholeness, and the return to the Father (Tsar Saltan), symbolizing the spirit’s return to its Source.

Thus, the “falsehood” of the fairy tale becomes a “hint” for those who are ready to be born not only in the flesh, but also in the spirit.

5557778 · Sep 5, 2026

Here’s another interesting point… The Tsarevich always comes to the blue sea, and a swan appears there. The color blue. Water. And yet September still won’t leave me alone… Look..! Pushkin could have used any of these months for the rhyme—September, October, November, December, January)… (bogatyRYA—sentyabRYA). And these are exactly the months that fit the rhyme. And he chose September specifically. I can therefore suppose that this period has some special significance (September–January). And perhaps the Swan especially manifests its power during this time… It observes ascetic discipline and fasts. It meditates (each time it comes to the blue sea), and it visits the Astral Plane (mosquito… bumblebee)…

The Tale of Tsar Saltan

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The Tale of Tsar Saltan

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