Enchanted fortress
Belgorod-Dniester fortress (Akkerman) dates back to the XIII-XV centuries, built on the site of the ancient city of Tire, surrounded on three sides by a moat 10-12 m wide, from the north it is washed by the waters of the Dniester estuary.
Fortress Belgorod-Dnestrovskaya is a defensive structure and a network of underground communications in the Odessa region, inside and near which anomalous and unexplained phenomena were repeatedly observed. Since the post-war period, in the area of the former ancient Greek fortress of Tyra, at night, local residents met unknown "horned and unpleasantly smelling dark creatures" who attacked people.
The appearance of the "inhabitants of the underground" ended in the late 1980s, after at night the inhabitants of Belgorod-Dnestrovsky were awakened by an earthquake and the roar of underground explosions, which lasted about an hour. Research of the passages did not allow to clarify the secret, since many of the dungeons were littered with the consequences of the explosion or were laid with stones. Among the hypotheses put forward by local ethnographers, there were assumptions that a degraded branch of Australopithecus or the descendants of people born from earthly women and aliens who could not stand sunlight lived in the caves.
This population was destroyed, in their opinion, by methane explosions. There is a hypothesis that after the liberation of the city in 1944, Romanian soldiers hid underground for more than a quarter of a century who did not want to be captured or deserted.
Soon another mysterious news spread across Belgorod-Dnestrovsky.
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A local sewer network fitter testified that once, while fixing a problem, he, sitting in an underground well, heard voices below, which gradually became more and more muffled, someone walked underground. These mysterious incidents began to disturb Belgorod-Dnestrovsky immediately after the war. A group of teenagers who were fishing at night near the estuary, on the wall of an ancient fortress in the light of the moon near one of the towers saw several figures, and they had horns on their heads.
A resident of the city, who suffered from insomnia, told about the same figures, who noticed how at dawn these creatures ran by the fence of an old Armenian woman, famous in the city for her orchard. In the morning, almost all the fruits were removed from the trees.
Locals are still very excited. What kind of horned creatures have settled in the abandoned underground passages? Or is it the devils themselves come out of the underworld here? Or the souls of those tortured in the fortress dungeons … And again there are alarming signs: someone heard an underground knock, someone, passing by the fortress ditch, saw at its bottom the swaying of huge thickets of nettles: there someone was moving.
The fortress and the adjacent territory are today considered an anomalous zone on the territory of Ukraine.
Maybe now next to us, but underground, hiding from us, our ancestors live, who have chosen another branch of evolutionary development … These are only guesses, but in connection with reports of the new appearance of underground people there is a chance that their secret will still be solved … And Belgorod-Dnestrovsky will become part of this solution.
Old ghost castle
Podgoretsky Castle is an outstanding architectural monument of the 16th century. It has not only a high aesthetic value, but is also famous for its otherworldly inhabitants.
The village of Pidhirtsi is located in the Brody district of the Lviv region. The castle was built here between 1635 and 1640 at the expense of the magnate Konetspolsky. The Podgoretsky defense complex, an example of a combination of an imposing palace with bastion fortifications, at the time of dawn was considered one of the best palace and castle complexes in Europe. It was created by renowned architects Guiem de Beauplan and Andrea del Avqua with French and Italian roots. Before the Soviet Union, the castle was owned alternately by wealthy Polish families. The monarchs have been here more than once: Polish kings Wladyslaw IV and Jan Sobieski, Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I and German Kaiser Wilhelm.
Ghost stories of the Pidhirtsi Castle have been around for more than one hundred years. However, confirmation of the existence of the paranormal within the walls and surroundings of the palace was obtained only recently. Several years ago, during the preparatory work for the restoration of the castle and the park, a photo session of all the objects of the complex was held. In several photographs taken at the entrance to the dungeon and in the inner chambers of the palace, a translucent silhouette of a man was discovered. From that moment on, Pidhirtsi Castle became a laboratory for numerous studies of paranormal phenomena.
Positive conclusions were made by the popular Ukrainian TV show "The Battle of Psychics". The presence of ghosts was confirmed not by one or two, but by all the invited psychics! Also, the Podgoretsky Castle was visited by specialists from the American research group "Ghostbusters". After conducting experiments with the use of sensitive equipment, the Americans concluded that otherworldly beings undoubtedly live in the castle and that they roam all its nooks and crannies. Where did these creatures come from?
The legend about the ghost of the castle tells that one of its owners, Count Zhevutsky, in a fit of jealousy, immured his young wife Maria into the walls. Historians also do not exclude such a possibility - no evidence has been found that the countess's body was buried. Since the time of imprisonment, Mary's soul knows no rest, she walks around the castle and constantly cries.
Those who have seen the ghost of the Podgoretsky castle claim that it has the outlines of a female figure in light clothes, so the ghost was named "White Lady".
There are many references to strange sounds in the basements of the palace, emanating from the very place where, according to legend, the count committed his crime. And sometimes here you can hear quite distinct tapping of heels. Even tourists who are not familiar with the legends about ghosts, of which there are many, note the oppressive atmosphere of the inner chambers and the park; they often have an inexplicable feeling of uneasiness. The mystery of the Pidhirtsi castle remains unsolved to this day, but perhaps a new study in Pidhirtsi, for which Western experts in the field of paranormal phenomena are preparing, will shed light on it.
Text and photo: Andrey Turtsevich and Veronica Belozerova