… “This is the lake where the monster lives. There are plenty of rumors about this strange place. It subjugates people to its will and drives them to suicide. " This is what they say about Lake Ivachev. And for some reason, the swamp around him is called the Living …
Alexander Nikitaev has heard the story of the monster many times. Some call it a spirit, others a beast. It is enough to get there once, and this something will not let go - it will impose its will: “It seems that I have to go to this side, but I am drawn to go along a different road. Then I went to Hemalda, and this is a big detour …"
Previously, the Cherepovets swamps, near which the Ivachevskoye Lake is located, was called nothing else than the Living Swamp. According to documents from the second half of the 19th century, there were three suicides here, and 9 times more crimes than in other provinces of the Russian Empire.
And rumors about Lake Ivachev were circulating in the last century. We cite an excerpt from Alexei Vinogradov's book "The Ghost of the Swamp Beast": "He howls, this spirit. Once you get there, he will stay with you forever. It sucks the brain. He thinks and makes you silent. My father went crazy before I was born, but only admitted it before he died. He confessed that for twenty years he had lived in kinship with this swamp, which took away his strength, his thoughts, forced him to do something incredible. My father drove me out of town … I got my education and returned. From now on it is no longer possible to leave. These swamps are found everywhere. How can you deal with such a colossal smelly peat? And how wonderful this swamp is when you find it for the first time! And there are almost no berries, and few birds. This is not a swamp at all. And how you can hear him in the city! I already knew three people who hear him. The swamp is thousands of years old. And in this city there will always be people who will serve him. You can't refuse, it's too late to refuse …"
Lyudmila Pospelova did not encounter the spirit, but she heard about Ivachevskoye Lake. He knows plenty of stories that chill the spirit. One of these is almost half a century old. A drowned girl, the bride of one of the villagers. They say she was swallowed up by a terrible lake: “Her hair was wrapped around a snag and she drowned. He returned, and she was already dead. Since then, he has not had any happiness in his life. I was married several times, but I could not forget this love!"
Lake Ivachev is often called the anomalous zone. He was included in the Encyclopedia of Mysterious Lands. It is enough to type in the Internet the combination of the words "Ivachevskoe Lake" and the computer gives out a lot of links.
But the old-timers do not confirm the terrible rumors. And Ivachevskoe Lake does not give offense. They say that it is the main breadwinner for the villagers. Now the lake is crumbling, but earlier there were fish here, and there were plenty of berries around, says a local resident Lidiya Pivovarova: “It's a good lake, big. We spent the night there, set up a hut, there was nothing strange!"
The locals also cannot remember the missing people. The bad reputation of the lake is associated with its proximity to the Cherepovets bogs. And the only story that emerged in the memory of the villagers was the peat fire in August 72. Then the Cherepovets swamps killed dozens of people, says Nadezhda Maisyuk: "They extinguished, they came from a military unit, then they fell into the swamp along with heavy equipment."
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Combustion of peat is not a mysterious phenomenon. Swamps generate gas that burns in air. For humans, it is deadly. One way or another, people who study anomalous phenomena are sure: Ivachevskoye Lake is a lost place. And this is confirmed by the fact that even trees in this area grow in a special way. Not straight, but intricately curved, says Nadezhda Grigorieva, a member of the Cherepovets Regional Branch of the Cosmopoisk ONIOO: “We had two versions. Either it is some unknown animal, or it is force fields, and the trees are directed towards the center."
Among those who question such stories are rescuers. According to them, people with a violent imagination invent horror stories about the lake. But in fact, the Cherepovets swamps are no more dangerous than others, says Andrei Rastorguev. Itself in these places happens quite often, but did not notice any oddities: "It is abandoned, far away, it is difficult to get to it, so they come there to be alone."
As often happens, the truth is somewhere in between …