There is such a place in the Leningrad region - Vepsian swamps. There is a legend that this place once stood a rich city of Vepsians - the original inhabitants of these places. He disappeared, but the city's treasures still lie somewhere in the middle of the swamps. There is a belief that this city is guarded by evil spirits, which will kill anyone who decides to seize the wealth of the Vepsians. According to another legend, you need to cover the swamps with bodies in order to find the entrance to the underground temple. These are just legends, but several dozen people did indeed die in the Vepsian bogs.
Chronology of events
The recorded cases start in 1993. Of course, people have disappeared here before, but not all deaths have been documented. People disappeared, after which they were found dead. The bodies were naked, a grimace of horror froze on their faces.
In 1993, a caretaker from a local sawmill disappeared. He was found naked in a swamp. The clothes were lying nearby, as if the deceased was taking them off in a hurry. Lumps of dirt were found in the mouth and in the nostrils. An autopsy showed that he had a lot of this dirt in his stomach.
Until 2005, missing people were found here. They were all naked and died of hypothermia. Clothes were strewn about. Those who came for mushrooms or berries had their clothes folded into baskets, and the spoils were scattered. The victims were not always completely undressed; some of them removed only part of their clothes.
It is noteworthy that among several dozen dead, only three were visitors. The rest are local residents who knew these places like the back of their hand. All without exception were healthy young people, only a few people were over 40 years old. Among the dead, only two women, the rest are men.
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Forensic experts concluded that in almost all cases, death occurred from hypothermia. No traces of violence were found. There were no poisons or alcohol in the blood. That is, no one killed or poisoned these people. Although no one excludes the possibility that in some cases the poison had time to decay, and no traces remained of it.
Swamps, which are better not to walk
People disagree about what happened. It was speculated that alcohol was to blame. In the 1990s, there really was a lot of low-quality alcohol. It is assumed that people were poisoned, and they began to delirium. In their delirium, they undressed and ate the earth. But no trace of ethanol was found in the blood. There is a version that it disintegrated, but some bodies were found a few days after the disappearance, alcohol does not disintegrate in such a short time.
There was a version that a maniac was operating in the swamp. But in the area of the Vepsian bogs there is only one village where people still live. Residents know each other by sight and will instantly discover the disappearance of someone. The involvement of newcomers is excluded: communication with other settlements is carried out through a single highway, and a new person will immediately catch the eye. No biological traces were found on the bodies, and this excludes the version with the maniac. But despite this, her supporters did not diminish.
There is a version that people were poisoned with harvested mushrooms or berries. But this theory does not hold water. The victims were locals who knew what to eat and what not. And the very assumption that people began to eat raw mushrooms in the swamp sounds strange. And there were no toxins in the blood of the victims. Then there was a hypothesis that swamp grasses were to blame for everything. Indeed, the marsh wild rosemary intoxicates the mind, but not so much that a person undresses or starts eating earth. And in other places where wild rosemary grows, such cases are not observed.
A quote from the collection * Tikhvin bylichki about snakes *. Author Vasilyeva L. S.
Locals claim that a flying kite lives in the swamp. There is a red comb on his head, and he is so poisonous that after a bite people die instantly. In fact, he does not fly, but jumps from tree to tree, at least that's what local legends say. Old-timers talk about him only from the words of their fathers and grandfathers. But despite this, there is a documented case of meeting with a swamp snake. In 1942, the Red Army soldiers of General Vlasov, then still fighting for the USSR, caught a creature, according to the description, identical to an inhabitant of the Vepsian swamps. They put him in a barrel and decided to send the scientists to Leningrad. But heavy fighting began and the unknown snake was forgotten.
Later, the area was treated with special substances to destroy low-value trees. According to old-timers, even frogs died out in the swamp. Recently, the population of these unknown creatures could well have recovered, and one of them could start attacking people.