Sekhmet statue
Sekhmet is an Egyptian goddess, daughter of the god Ra, patroness of war and at the same time giver of life. The Hermitage has a two-meter statue of Sekhmet, created in the 14th century BC by order of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
A rather creepy legend is associated with the statue. Allegedly, on a full moon, blood appears on her knees. By morning, the puddle disappears, and only the guards become witnesses. According to one version, blood appears once a year, according to another, on the eve of serious upheavals in the country.
Modes under the Hermitage
It is believed that a whole network of passages has been created under the museum building. These underground arteries connect the Hermitage with the General Headquarters and, for example, with the mansion of the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya, located on the other bank of the Neva. The legend of the underground passages is very tenacious, although there is no confirmation of this. The pipes are another matter - they really stretch far beyond the Hermitage. “… We found some kind of incomprehensible hatch, launched a cat with a bright bow on the collar, and then saw it on the Moika, on the other side of the Neva and Petropavlovka. So, of course, only cats know the entire system of pipes and communications in the basements of the Hermitage,”The Art Newspaper quoted Alexei Bogdanov, deputy director general of the museum for exploitation.
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Ghosts
The Hermitage is considered to be full of ghosts. The most "popular" of them is Nicholas I, whose ghost often strolls through the Hermitage halls. “The ghost of Catherine II on St. Catherine's Day, December 7, bypasses the palace, after which an alarm goes off along the entire perimeter of the museum.
I saw it all myself! - said the aforementioned Alexey Bogdanov. Whether he was joking or not, we do not know, but a museum like the Hermitage cannot be without ghosts. Spirits and shadows have always inhabited the Winter Palace. Empress Anna Ioannovna encountered the ghost of a woman similar to her, and this happened shortly before her death in 1740. Half a century later, the same story allegedly happened to Catherine II: she saw a ghost in the Great Throne Room and considered it the approach of death. And she was not mistaken.
Wish-granting Atlantes
10 figures, created by Alexander Terebenev, have been holding the roof of the entrance to the New Hermitage on Millionnaya Street since 1848 (where the entrance to the museum was until 1920).
In December 1941, during an enemy shelling, a shell seriously damaged one of the sculptures. Atlas survived nonetheless. Since then, this sculpture (the one on the right and looking at the Champ de Mars) is believed to grant wishes. You just need to reach for his right toe.
Knight - keeper of the storerooms
This story is well known thanks to Mikhail Weller, who dedicated a chapter to it in his book Legends of Nevsky Prospect. We are talking about an employee of the Hermitage Leonid Tarasyuk, who tried to protect the royal service from the whim of the head of Leningrad, Grigory Romanov. It was most likely in the 70s. Romanov, planning his daughter's wedding, allegedly decided to decorate the festive table with the same set from the Hermitage storerooms. Upon learning of this, Tarasyuk dressed in medieval knightly armor and at night went out to those who had arrived for the relic in order to scare them. As a result, he was fired, and the service was still sent to the wedding. Here is an excerpt from Weller's book, which, of course, is not a document, but a piece of fiction.
“… And several strong guys in gray suits, accompanied by the deputy director and a tear-stained keeper, went through the echoing empty enfilades to get plates for the nomenclature meal. They walk in the weak night illumination of these majestic labyrinths, and suddenly - already on the way - they hear: tu-spirit, that-spirit … heavy iron steps on stone slabs. Measured, afterlife sound … And in the doorway, stepping in the way, there is such a knight.
… And with the wrong gait of a dead man, rumbling with steel shoes and jingling with star-shaped spurs, he moves on them. And in the midnight silence, they distinguish a distant, eerie dog whining …"
