Wrath? River Turns Bloody Red as Local Media Dubs "Biblical Bombshell"
Could Biblical prophecy be playing itself out in Siberia? At least one state-run news agency thinks that could very well be the case.
According to the U.K. Mirror, the Molchanka River — a waterway in the Tyumen region of the frosty Russian hinterlands — has seen its waters turn sanguinary, sparking fears of both plague and pollution, depending on what your level of piety is.
The tributary first turned red during January, the Siberian Times reported.
“The River Molchanka turned red, or red-orange about a week ago,” Maria Parashchenko, a resident of Novotarmansky, told the paper in a piece published Jan. 31.
“The unusual color is best noticed between the settlements of Novotarmansky and Molchanova. The color doesn’t seem to change in hue or intensity”
“This could be serious,” another resident noted in a comment that left me wondering what “Captain Obvious” translates to in Russian.
As you can see, things aren’t exactly looking so great. And it’s not just the fact that rivers the hue of vermillion are generally, you know, bad. The condition of the river has some fearing for the quality of the drinking water supply, and, well, let’s just say I don’t believe whatever’s in there tastes like tomato juice.
I’m sure all of you have brushed up on your book of Exodus recently (who hasn’t?), so you realize that rivers of blood are the first of the plagues God sent down to the Egyptians because the Pharaoh declined to let the Hebrews go free.
“Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, I will strike the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned to blood. The fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will become foul, and the Egyptians will find difficulty in drinking water from the Nile,’” Exodus 7:17-18 reads.
That’s caused a lot of people to declare this a spiritual intervention, with Russian news agency ITAR-TASS declaring it a “Biblical bombshell.”
If this is Biblical in nature, it’s unknown what the Deity is angry at the Russians for not releasing. (Opposition leaders currently jailed? More Hillary emails? Accurate doping records for all Russian athletes?) However, if this is the work of God, we should be seeing frogs and lice soon. Hopefully Putin can stop things before it gets to the whole locusts/death of the firstborn stages.
There is likely a more corporeal explanation to this, however. Alexander Rein, head of the Tyumen Region Water Resources and Ecology Department, has had officials “driving along the river, checking if this could have been caused by a dump from an enterprise.
“Water samples have been taken all along the contaminated area. We are working on the issue and hoping to get to the bottom of it within next 24 hours.”
We haven’t heard anything in the intervening weeks, so one can assume the mystery of the bloody river is still unsolved. However, aside from Putin’s rather ranine countenance, we also haven’t seen any evidence of frogs showing up where they shouldn’t over in Russia. One can draw two conclusions from this: Either it’s just pollution nobody’s found the source of, or God’s kind of easing Russia into the Biblical plagues.
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