Himalayan Yeti: Real Creature or Folklore Character?

The topic of the article is the mysterious Himalayan Yeti; it is also known under the names of the Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, etc. Its name has long been firmly rooted in the lexicon of the local population, who preserve legends about the Yeti; its image is actively used for advertising purposes to attract tourists eager for exoticism. In the West, the Yeti became known in the middle of the last century, when Nepal, until then a forbidden kingdom, opened its borders to foreigners. The descriptions of the Yeti they received in the highland country corresponded to the ideas of that period about prehistoric man or a relict hominoid; therefore, expeditions were repeatedly sent out to search for it. However, it was never possible to meet or even see the Yeti, and its tracks and other signs of existence were recognized as a fake. Scientific research findings have not confirmed the actual existence of the Yeti. It seems justified and appropriate to interpret the Yeti as a folklore character related to the sphere of folk demonology. But at present there is no representative database of Nepalese folklore and no scientific and theoretical classification of this folklore has been developed either in Nepal itself or in the West, so now, as a first approximation, one can identify the Yeti as a spirit or guardian of a natural locus that lives in the mountains and mountain forests. It is noteworthy that in recent decades the image of the Himalayan Yeti, having transformed, has entered Western and Russian popular culture, where it has gained great popularity.