New York in the very early 1900s, showing some tall Old World buildings (Yes, these buildings are partially mud flooded as well – and look at the steps leading up to the shorter building on the left… modified) What intrigued the internet was a declassified document by the CIA, which mentions the deletion of this country’s history which seems to have been located in the land of modern Russia/Siberia & Asia. Tartarian fireplaces were as ornamentally grand as the buildings that they resided in. These fireplaces were used as a type of bragging rights by revealing the intricate architecture of the homeowner’s taste to visiting guests and relatives. The globalized version of the conspiracy theory is based on an alternative view of architectural history. Adherents propose that demolished buildings such as the Singer Building, the original New York Penn Station, or the temporary grounds of the 1915's World's Fair were actually the buildings of a vast empire based in Tartary that has been suppressed from history. Sumptuously styled Gilded Age buildings are often held out as really having been built by the supposed Tartaria. Other buildings, such as the Great Pyramids and the White House, are further held out as Tartarian buildings. The conspiracy theory only vaguely describes how such a supposedly advanced civilization which had reputedly achieved world peace could have fallen and been hidden. [5] [6] The destruction of the Tartarian Empire is typically attributed to a colossal "mud flood". In the meantime, a race of beings have taken over what is left of the great Empire of Tartaria and murder all who oppose them.

The theory is that Americans and Europeans didn’t build those monuments. They are the legacy of a Tartarian Empire that emanated out of Northeast Asia. Sela, Ron (April 2016). "Svetlana Gorshenina. L'invention de l'Asie centrale: Histoire du concept de la Tartarie a' l'Eurasie. (Rayon histoire de la librairie Droz, no. 4.) Geneva: Droz, 2014. pp. 702". American Historical Review: 542–543. doi: 10.1353/imp.2015.0005. S2CID 176332219. Knowledge of Manchuria, Siberia and Central Asia in Europe prior to the 18th century was limited. The entire area was known simply as "Tartary" and its inhabitants "Tartars". [3] In the early modern period, as understanding of the geography increased, Europeans began to subdivide Tartary into sections with prefixes denoting the name of the ruling power or the geographical location. Thus, Siberia was Great Tartary or Russian Tartary, the Crimean Khanate was Little Tartary, Manchuria was Chinese Tartary, and western Central Asia (prior to becoming Russian Central Asia) was known as Independent Tartary. [3] [4] [5] By the seventeenth century, however, largely under the influence of Catholic missionary writings, the word "Tartar" came to refer to the Manchus and the lands they ruled as "Tartary". [6]At this point I’d like to share the intro of Garry Hogg’s book With Peter Fleming in Tartary, it describes in great poetic detail the vast steppes of Asia and the Silk Road which ran through the lands that we are talking about now. On TikTok, the #tartaria tag has amassed almost 300 million views, and the associated #mudflood, the supposed reason for the empire’s disappearance, a further 150 million. In many cases, Tartarian interest groups present themselves as inquisitive and free-thinking, like other conspiracy theorists. The sidebar description of Reddit’s /r/Tartaria 23,000-strong community suggests “Maybe the History we’ve been told is a lie!” This content easily seeps, through algorithmic recommendations , into the feeds of users who did not directly seek content on Tartaria, especially when it is presented in a purposefully engaging way. As users search for meaning and identity in a radically-changing world, conspiracy theories provide both a welcoming in-group as well as a method of explaining the chaos through cohesive narratives, complete with heroes and villains. Tartary (Latin: Tartaria) or Great Tartary (Latin: Tartaria Magna) was a historical region in Asia located between the Caspian Sea-Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Tartary was a blanket term used by Europeans for the areas of Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia unknown to European geography. It encompassed the vast region of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the Volga-Urals, the Caucasus, Siberia, Inner Asia, Mongolia and Manchuria. By the 20th century, Tartary as a term for Siberia and Central Asia was obsolete. [ citation needed] However, it lent the title to Peter Fleming's 1936 book News from Tartary, which detailed his travels in Central Asia.

The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) published on February 21, 2023. The video's description says: Everything you were taught is a lie. Babies were grown in incubators and sent out West to repopulate abandoned Tartarian cities. The 'Cabbage Patch Kids' were sent on orphan trains and distributed as free labour to farms and factories. Research Tartaria. And just like the previously mentioned lost civilizations, their story ends in submersion, although this one is a mud flood. History is an ever-changing field; we are constantly re-evaluating the past with fresh perspectives and changing our outlook as new evidence comes to light. To keep in step with individuals seeking to bend the historical fact to their own will, it is vital that we both recognise and formulate responses to the rising popularity of pseudohistory and its potential to harbour extreme perspectives .Hundreds of cathedrals, churches and mosques were less fortunate; they are lost forever. It isn’t hard to imagine there must have been something more sinister at play than bad taste, and of course there was: an attempt to stamp out religion. Opinions are divided about the empire’s demise. Some believe a biblical-sized mud flood decimated Tartaria, which also explains why so many old buildings have what we now call semi-basements. Adherent of this theory suspect monuments like Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square continue tens or even hundreds of meters underground. Art by Carioca Studio By 1887, foundling homes in St. Petersburg and Moscow began receiving over 27,000 babies on their doorstep. Historian David L. Ransel records that Moscow was receiving between 16,000 and 18,000 infants annually by the 1880’s, and sending over 10,000 of these each year to outlying villages for care. “In 1882 there were all told 41,720 foundlings from the Moscow home living with 32,000 foster families scattered throughout 4,418 villages. A dozen villages had over 90 fosterings each.”