Lake Brosno is a relatively small lake situated near the town of Andreapol in the Tver Region of Russia, roughly 250 miles north of Moscow. According to sonar tests Lake Brosno has a depth of 129 feet, with areas which seem to go much deeper, and has a long history of mystery and intrigue from legends of giant snakes and dragons to underwater volcanoes. Legends of the Lake Brosno monster, or Brosnie, supposedly go as far back as the 13th century when the creature saved a Russian city from the Mongol horde.

The story goes that a Tatar Mongol army, heading for Novgorod, was giving their horses a chance to drink on the shores of Lake Brosno when a huge beast reared up from the depths and began to devour both man and steed, causing the army to retreat. Other legends tell of an enormous mouth devouring unwary fisherman and of so called sand mountains that emerge from time to time. One chronicle relates how a group of Varagians, Swedish mercenaries, planned on hiding stolen treasure in the lake but when they approached the small island they had chosen, a dragon came from the depths and swallowed the island whole.

Brosnie was sighted again in the 18th and 19th centuries, appearing several times on the surface of the lake during the evening hours only to quickly disappear when approached. The creature was even rumored to have swallowed a German plan during World War II. To this day locals still insist Brosnie turns boats upside down and is involved in the disappearance of several people.

In the summer of 2002, Experts from the Kosmopoisk Research Association along with members from Karavan Magazine, went on an expedition to Lake Brosno and did deep echo location sounding. Vadim Chernobroiv, the Kosmopoisk coordinator said in an interview to the Moscow newspaper that the sonar research registered an anomaly. There was a huge jelly like mass the size of a railway car roughly five meters above the bottom of the lake. The mass stood motionless, until the group decided to throw an underwater petard, a low capacity explosive devise, at the mass. When the device detonated the mass started going up and although nothing ever surfaced resembling a monster the test did return some interesting results.

Today many people treat the existence of Brosnie skeptically and often suggest that the creature may be some form of giant pike or possibly groups of wild boar or elk known to cross the lake from time to time. A more scientific theory states that hydrogen sulfide is some times released from the lake bottom causing the water to bubble up, as this bubbling reaches the surface it could possibly be mistaken for a monster, however, the amount of hydrogen sulfide must be considerable to produce this effect.

Other scientific theories suggest that there is an underwater volcano at the bottom of Lake Brosno which makes ejections from time to time. It is well known that there are several fractures at the bottom of the lake; however the depth and the direction of the fractures cannot be defined. It has not been ruled out that the volcano crater is inside of one of the fractures.

Lyudmila Bolshakova, a member of Moscow’s Institute of Paleontology, dismissed ideas of a Brosno “dragon”, stating that it sounds like a country fairy tale, the kind of story told over the years in the countryside. Research into the creature and trips to the lake in search of Brosnie are increasingly popular among the researchers of the region and it may be just a matter of time before they bring back evidence of this remarkable creatures existence.

The Evidence
There is currently no physical evidence to suggest the existence of Brosnie.

The Sightings
No documented sightings of Brosnie could be found at this time.

The Stats – (Where applicable)

• Classification: Lake Monster
• Size: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Diet: Carnivorous
• Location: Lake Brosno, Russia
• Movement: Unknown
• Environment: Lake Bottom