In Shukshin's film “There is such a guy,” the main character Pasha Kolokolnikov, opening his mouth, listens to the incredible story of how one driver saw a naked woman on the road and what it was before that war. The woman asked the driver to buy white cloth. In the end, it turned out that it was Death.
Vasily Shukshin translated the bright chauffeur's story into the legend of Pasha's love, and the film ended - at least on this topic - quite well. What do truck drivers say today, what stories are in circulation?
It does not happen that everyone suddenly starts lying about the same thing. Moreover, dozens of people from various geographic locations. About the same thing! Moreover - people of the same profession! This means that history has objective grounds.
Now it is already difficult, if not completely impossible, to find out the statistics of meetings on the roads of the USSR of a naked lady who slowed down rare then cars for several months, weeks and days before the start of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. But such stories are fragmentarily remembered in Altai, where the Shukshin hero listened to his grandmother, and in the Urals, and on the Volga, and near Moscow. "It was Death that walked the earth!" - the grandmother told Pasha.
Everything is possible. And of course, Vasily Makarovich did not take this case from the ceiling: the facts of such meetings were transmitted from mouth to mouth. Where the woman was young, where she was old, where she was completely naked, where she was in a white shroud. But in each case, she asked the driver to bring her some sheet.
But history repeated itself one to one after forty years! Just before the Afghan war. Only the geography of meetings has shifted to the south of the country. For some reason, the woman walked more on the roads of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. We say "for some reason" for a reason: after all, it was mostly Russian guys from Ryazan, Tambov, Smolensk who died in Afghanistan. Perhaps, in this way the geographic point of the war was "marked"?
As a rule, encounters were observed either in distant swampy areas and on forgotten routes (to abandoned mines, for example), or near large water: at the Charvak reservoir (Tashkent), on Lake Issyk-Kul. And the meetings were certainly not with any people, but with the drivers, specifically. Is another profession a different symbol?
Well, not every meliorator will tell another meliorator (more often he will forget to tell!) An incredible story. Perhaps that is why in other strata of the population the "signs" were lost, but among the drivers - very sociable, especially among themselves - they remained. And it doesn't even matter if he is a professional or an amateur, the owner of a Zhiguli or a truck driver. Several stories in a short time happened in Issyk-Kul, and with the drivers of the Zhiguli (all of them are vacationers, amateurs).
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And the woman did not always "vote" on the road. In a story known to us from the first hand, she rode to the lake on a horse, jumped on the shore, ignoring the eyewitness Yura (by the way, a person who is not inclined to lie), plunged into the icy water of the lake and so, naked, approached him:
- You won't have a sheet? I would like to hide …
A beautiful, slim, tanned body. But such a universal cold breathed from him!
With trembling hands, Yura reached into the trunk, into his bags - and his wife and children had just left for the village - and took out a sheet for the woman. She almost snatched the sheet out of his hands, deftly wrapped herself in it, jumped on her horse - and dashed off.
In the same 1979, in the swamps on the road from Vladimir to Gus-Khrustalny, a half-dressed woman “voted”, braking cars. Sometimes she was in an old Russian sarafan, sometimes in a Mordovian one: Meschera is a Finno-Ugric tribe, and this area is Meshchera-Murom forests, concealing many mysteries besides the one described. In only one case known to us, the woman was naked. But in all, without exception, she asked for a sheet!
Once the author of this article met with the driver Viktor Golubev, nicknamed Columbus: every day he runs along the Moscow-Gus-Khrustalny highway.
“There are dozens, hundreds of such stories,” Victor said. - Many have no background - just chauffeur jokes, moreover, embellished. Recently, I had a chance to communicate with evil spirits - werewolves in the form of a bear or a wolf. But all this is understandable: hunting has sharply decreased - it is too expensive nowadays pleasure. North of Moscow, right up to the Arctic, the pre-war population of wolves has been restored! Before that war, not before the Afghan one, okay? That brought the people!
- Well, did you meet anyone on the road yourself?
- No, I haven't seen the woman. But the racketeering - everyone has seen. So many years traveled. Only do you know what I'm driving? Horns and hooves! No kidding! And they stink. So no racketeering is terrible. And when you go to the Goose, you can't hide anywhere. For others, it must be hard. I can handle it. It seems not far away, but try to drive along this track?
- I understand your problems. But I would like to hear something about meetings with the unknown. Well, maybe a symbol, some sign.
- UFO, or what? I would say so, the peasants have seen, but I have not. God had mercy. In Gus there are enough of their own "plates". They stand on each pillar, sell crystal. And who needs him there? Do you want my own statistics for many years?
- Come on.
- You now know that there are cat, dog, bird days?
- That is, as?
- And so. Strictly on one certain day, only cats are crushed on the road. Then - dogs. Etc. Moreover, these days always go one after another in order. Sometimes you go, and on the asphalt - completely bird feathers. So there will be hares tomorrow.
- Seriously?
- Quite. And on this day, no other living creatures are crushed.
- Victor, why … do people also have a certain day?
- And how! No wonder, they say, when the tsar was getting ready for the journey, the astrologers figured out for him whether he could go or wait. I think it's connected with astrology. Or, for example, we had sovereigns, lovers of bear hunting …
- You talk about people, about people in more detail.
- You are welcome. On such a day, until you get from Moscow to Goose, a couple of attendants will cross the road on the wrong road. Sometimes even to death. But I didn't get caught myself. I know these days, I keep my ear on the alert.
- Fantastic!
- And there are also chauffeur days! Don't push anyone, beware yourself! Sometimes they are warned about them on TV. It's all the same: you go, and here and there someone is lying in a ditch. And for the entire route there is always one major accident. Listen, talk to the traffic police - they have better stories.
- Okay, thanks for that.
In fact, astrological days on the roads were a revelation for us. Columbus was caught in time.
- It was on one of these driving days that this old woman became attached to Genka and me, whether she was wrong …
- Where, what?
- Yes, we passed the turn to Ulybyshevo - it leaves the kikimora forest. Barefoot and blue feet. It's winter! She opened her fur coat and slows down.
- Did you ask for a sheet?
- Not. The boss gave me the task to overtake the "Volgeshnik". "Volgeshnik" is new. Genka and I asked for it. Well, she got attached: roll and roll! And the muzzle itself is blue, you can't see your eyes. We are not sorry … Only you know, such a horror took something! And Genka was driving. I slam the door. "Drive!" - yell at him as much as possible. Well, Genk does not need to be persuaded, he is on the gas - and we flew like crazy all the way to Goose.
- Maybe it seemed to you?
- What seemed there! She caught up with us! I grabbed the door handle - and … I don't know if you believe it. I drove ten kilometers behind the car on my own two feet!
- Did you run?
- I say: I went! Like a sled. And winter, you know what it is, the roads are bare asphalt. Sparks flew from under your heels!
- So, what is next?
- Now, I don't remember very much. She let go of the door herself. And - aside! Well, I think, you skiff, granny. Yes, so as not to suspect, it will be necessary to wipe the doors and handles thoroughly, otherwise they suddenly find some prints. Seriously! - I was already thinking about the murder - she won't survive, I think, granny, and Genka and I will be jailed, counting, for nothing.
So what are you going to do! She suddenly - I saw in the mirror, and then turned around … she suddenly became three times larger, then rose above the road, flew another hundred meters behind us - and disappeared into the air. Well, thank God, I think a ghost. Probably, someone ran over her shortly before at the turn to Ulybyshevo. It has been hovering since then. But we didn't come across any more.
From the book: "Secrets of the Third Planet". A. Varakin, L. Zdanovich