Forests on the left bank of the Volga, where the estate that belonged in the last century to A. N. Ostrovsky is located, has long been considered a dark and mysterious place. Either the goblin will make the traveler wander in three pines and, it used to be, for many days, then he will lead him to a fabulous clearing and even leave him. It was in these forests that Ivan Susanin ruined a detachment of foreigners who attempted the independence of Russia.
Even so far, it is not recommended to go deep into the thicket along the right bank. And if you go, for example, for mushrooms or berries, locals advise you to take a pinch of salt wrapped in a piece of paper into your pocket.
“Once I forgot salt, and I was circling in one place until dark,” admitted the old-timer of these places, an inveterate mushroom picker Vladimir Shcherbinin. - So the owner had to bow, if he was wrong. And I can hear the noise of the cars along the Navolok road, but I can't get out, for the life of me.
The owner is a goblin. To understand the true meaning of the goblin or brownie, kikimora can only be here - checked.
Once we came to visit Kineshma and went with my wife to pick mushrooms. It was in the afternoon - according to any laws, the time for mushrooms is not quite right. But still some mushroom pickers came back to meet us from the forest, and each had a good linen basket of honey agarics hats: the legs are traditionally neglected here.
We entered the forest, walked for half an hour, an hour - no mushrooms.
“Bah,” I think, “they didn’t observe the ritual! Completely out of my head."
- Granddad! - I say. - Please, let me pick mushrooms in your woods. We are a little bit - only two baskets. - Bowed to the ground.
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- Come here! - shouts the wife.
And I'm already tired. I sit, frown: he does not let me smoke. He climbed to her through the thicket. I come and look: a clearing, all lined with stumps, and on each - a huge hat of honey agarics. Half an hour later, both of us were with full baskets, and there was nothing more to collect.
This is a long adage. And here is a fairy tale.
On the left bank, in the wilds, there are several villages, a manor house, a church and a cemetery. All this is the property of the great Russian playwright, bought by him and his brother from his stepmother after the death of his father, Nikolai Fedorovich. It happened only in 1867, and Alexander Nikolaevich came here since 1849, here he worked, here he was inspired.
Here he wrote his most captivating, most pagan of the plays - the fairy tale "The Snow Maiden". Even the film was later filmed in Shchelykovo: the places are fabulous.
On the edge of the Berendeeva glade, where the shooting of the film took place, where the playwright reveled in the spectacle of folk games rooted in ancient paganism, there is the Devil's Spring (unofficial name). It looks like a simple spring, in a civilized way, lined with a mighty log house in the shape of a hexagon.
From the bottom it seems to be beating keys: the bottom is boiling, throwing out a beautiful yellow sand. In the very heat, you want not only to scoop and drink from the source, but also to plunge into it.
Officially, the spring is called the "Blue Key" - it is located in Yarilina Valley, on the territory of the reserve of the museum-estate of the great playwright A. N. Ostrovsky, near the village of Shchelykovo, Ostrovsky district, Kostroma region. According to legend, the spring was formed at the place where the Snow Maiden melted, and her quivering heart did not die, but continues to beat at the bottom of the "Blue Key". The water in the spring is salty. Photo: svyato.info
However, it is not recommended to approach the spring alone. There were cases when people, great sinners, not only drowned in it, but disappeared without a trace, going straight to hell. For it is not the sand that boils at the bottom of the well: there is a direct exit to the surface of the earth for deposits of pure-bred sulfur!
I sat down on the edge of the log house, looked into the depths - it seems like a meter and a half to the bottom and drowning is problematic. But it turns out that the impression is deceiving: the depth of the source is 12-13 meters. Most likely, it is 13. And 13 keys are constantly catching up with new portions of sulfur. However, the amount of emissions sometimes suddenly doubles or triples for unknown reasons. If you count 40 keys, don't believe them: there are 39 of them - a number that is always a multiple of 13.
A giant lens of poisoned gray water attracts like a magnet. Let a fellow traveler or fellow traveler be with you, let him in time grab you by the hem of your clothes, by the collar - otherwise death. It happens that a loner is not saved here. It happens that it is not possible to fish out a corpse in order to bury the body in a Christian way: it takes the entire underworld for itself - both the soul and the body.
They say that an unknown geoenergetic field is often turned on here, which multiplies, in the language of physics, the effect of electromagnetic fields familiar to man. During these hours, the forest evil spirits are saturated with witchcraft energy, witches and sorcerers are activated, and local radio amateurs working in the VHF range, in which stable radio communication is kept only 15-20 kilometers, suddenly begin to talk with the same amateur stations around the world:
It is thanks to this local peculiarity that black magicians and psychics from those who are not disdainful in choosing means gather twice a year in Kmnneshmu for their "covens".
From the book “XX century. Chronicle of the inexplicable. Curse of things and cursed places"