Locals advise against coming here even during the day.
That she is, then she is gone
An unusual river called Panika (stress on the last syllable) flows in the Dankovsky district of the Lipetsk region. And its unusualness lies in the fact that it has an amazing property to disappear. Local residents do not even bathe in it, because either it flows or flows, then suddenly it disappears at once, revealing its bed with pebbles. As soon as you get out on dry land, it appears again!
The disappearing river is of interest not only for tourists, but also for geologists. They explain this phenomenon by the peculiarity of the soil, but the locals believe that they cannot do without mysticism.
The vegetation of the hilly banks of the Panica is striking in its picturesqueness. The meadows along the river bed are strewn with wild strawberries and flowers; in the rich forbs, silvery feather grass panicles delight the eye. Feather grass in the Lipetsk region is very rare. It has long been considered a weed that clogs cultivated plants, which even cattle were not given. They fought with him for many decades, which led to his almost complete disappearance. Now the feather grass is shown to the visitors of the Galichya Gora reserve as something outlandish. And here, on the banks of the Panica, there are whole meadows.
But these lands are famous not only for picturesqueness and invisible river. On one of the hills near the river, huge stones have settled, which the Dankovites call "bad" or "damnable". A kind of "Dunk Stonehenge", created, however, not by human hands, but by Mother Nature, according to scientists, during the Ice Age.
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Ivan da Anna
Local historians also believe that when Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea, the warm Gulf Stream headed for Scandinavia, causing the ice to melt. Glaciers crept across the Russian Plain. Some of them stopped just on the hilly bank of the Panika. Even preglacial mosses have been preserved on the stones brought here with the glacier. On some of them, traces of human processing were found - signs, hollowed out recesses.
However, over hundreds of years the fact of the appearance of these stones has overgrown with such legends that, unlike tourists, Dankovites are wary of coming here, it is believed that everyone who visits this "rock garden" will surely suffer some misfortune. One of the old legends says that a couple of lovers, Ivan and Anna, once lived not far from here. The matter was already going to the wedding, but Ivan's parents decided to marry their son a rich bride and married him against his will. Anna, grieving from parting with her beloved, came to the shore of Panica to the stones - the place of their constant meetings - and, throwing herself down, she crashed to death. And Ivan kept walking and walking here. And once he met his dead betrothed, but instead of legs she had … hooves! Anna turned into a werewolf. From that time on, the stones began to be considered "bad", and they also assured that human groans were constantly heard from the river …
Locals advise against coming here even during the day. Not only were sacrifices performed on the hill in ancient times, but even now the "devil's stones" were chosen by admirers of black magic, they gather here for their sabbaths. At the same time, it is completely inexplicable that the stones, despite their simple location and size, are not easy to get to. Tourists often have the feeling that evil spirits are circling around here. Well, I, wandering among the "damn stones", fell ill the next day. My friend soon got into a car accident right outside his own house - a soft-boiled car!
Ryazan miracles
The river, which glorified the Dankovsky district of the Lipetsk region, has a twin sister (under the same name Panica, only with an accent on the second syllable) in the Miloslavsky district of the Ryazan region.
Local historians explain the name of the river by the fact that Russian soldiers in ancient times won here a victory over the Tatars, sowing panic in their ranks. But the Miloslavskaya river conceals a mystery not only in its name. No wonder they call her the twin sister of Dunk's Panic. And its waters also disappear - they say about it "a river without water"; and its shores surprise with rich herbs, and mysterious stones lie at the mouth.
Yulia Skopich