There are many mysterious and even frightening places on the map of Moscow, the history of which is shrouded in secrets and legends. Which buildings in the capital have a reputation for being haunted?
Beria's house
A huge number of myths and legends surround this seemingly unremarkable one-story house number 28 on Malaya Nikitskaya. Now the embassy of Tunisia is located here, but half a century ago it was in this house that the head of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, the right hand of Stalin, lived. Beria was a rather mysterious figure during his lifetime. He was also arrested and executed under rather mysterious circumstances, and historians are still arguing about where he was actually buried.
The name of Lavrenty Beria is still shrouded in an ominous halo, like his house. They say that the ghost of the people's commissar periodically returns here, and sometimes around midnight his ghost car drives up to the house on Malaya Nikitskaya.
According to eyewitnesses, it is impossible to see it, but you can clearly hear the noise of the car's engine running, the sound of the door opening, the heavy steps of a person who got out of the car, and someone's unintelligible voices.
Promotional video:
House on the embankment
There are many gloomy legends about the famous house on the Bersenevskaya embankment. It was built in the 1930s for the Soviet elite - high-ranking civil servants, party leaders, participants in the Civil War, scientists and artists. However, the life of those who settled in the house on the embankment could not be called happy and calm, because they were constantly monitored by the NKVD officers. According to some reports, the Chekists listened to apartments, hiding in secret corridors inside the building. Perhaps for this they also used the immured 11th entrance of the building, which has no elevators or apartments.
In the late 1930s, many of the residents of the House on the Embankment were repressed along with their families. Terrible things also happened to others: someone committed suicide, and someone died in a strange way. The current residents of the house note that there is some kind of oppressive atmosphere in this place. It is said that the spirits of those who lived in the house on the waterfront in the 1930s still live here today. The most famous of these ghosts is considered the daughter of an army commander. According to legend, after her father was arrested, she did not let the NKVD officers into the apartment, threatening to shoot them. Then they cut off the light, water and telephone and actually walled up her in the apartment, which doomed the young girl to death.
House of the merchant Igumnov
Another haunted house in the center of Moscow is occupied by the French Embassy. It is located at the address: Bolshaya Yakimanka, 43. The house belonged to a wealthy merchant and owner of the Yaroslavl Big Manufactory Nikolai Igumnov. At the end of the 19th century, he built this mansion for himself in the Russian style.
The house of the merchant Igumnov does not look ominous at all, it looks more like a fairytale tower or a gingerbread house. However, this old mansion is notorious. It is allegedly inhabited by the ghost of a certain "white woman". An urban legend says that this is the kept woman of the merchant Igumnov, who once lived here and which the jealous owner of the house immured in the wall for treason. And the fact that at one time the tower belonged to the Institute of the Brain, and here they were studying the brain of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and other famous people is a confirmed fact.
Pashkov house
Among the employees of the former "Leninka" there is a legend that the spirit of the bibliophile and writer Nikolai Rubakin lives in the oldest building of the largest library in Russia, Pashkov's house. Before his death in 1946, he bequeathed all his books to the Lenin Library. For some time the urn with his ashes was also in the store.
The attendants sometimes hear at night someone's footsteps in the library vault, despite the fact that all the rooms are locked and sealed. However, librarians are not afraid of the spirit and claim that it is kind, since it does no harm to anyone and helps to find books. However, according to the Leninka workers, sometimes he frightens new employees, thus testing them for strength.
House of the Kusovnikovs on Myasnitskaya
In the house number 17 on Myasnitskaya (next to the famous Tea House) there once lived a fairly rich elderly couple - Pyotr Petrovich and Sofya Ivanovna Kusovnikov. During their lifetime, they were very stingy, they saved on everything and were very afraid of robbery, and therefore they did not keep servants, they constantly hid money, and often took jewelry with them when they left home.
Once the Kusovnikovs hid the box with banknotes in the janitor's fireplace. The janitor, who did not know about this, lit the fireplace, and all the money was burned. Upon learning of this, the hostess of the house died of a heart failure, her husband also died some time after that. They say that the ghost of an old man in a coat still appears near the house on Myasnitskaya, who has never been able to get his money back.
Gallows House on Arbat
Once on the Old Arbat there was a house number 14. It has not survived to this day, because it was destroyed during the bombing during the Great Patriotic War. This house, on the site of which the park is now located, belonged to Suvorov's grandfather, as well as to the princes Shakhovsky and Obolensky.
House # 14 was notorious and was known as a haunted house. It was rented out and some of its tenants committed suicide. Legend has it that somehow a whole family and five children were found strangled here. In addition, criminals and beggars were hiding in its basements at the end of the 19th century. Muscovites have always avoided this house and tried to bypass it on the other side of the street. Discussions are currently underway about whether to restore it.
Cursed house in Perovo
The relatively new districts of Moscow also have their black spots. One of them is an ordinary panel high-rise building located at 39 Perovskaya Street (building 3). In the third entrance of this house, young men die almost every year. Some of the residents had a heart attack, someone drowned, someone was hit by a train, and someone was killed. At the same time, almost all of the victims did not live to be 30 years old.
The residents of the house claim that it was built in a cemetery, and on the spot where the third entrance is located was the grave of a young woman who committed suicide after a young man abandoned her. And now the ghost of a suicide takes revenge on all the men living here, dragging them along to the next world.
John the Baptist (Ivanovsky) convent
In this monastery, which is located near the Kitay-Gorod metro station, for 33 years a dangerous criminal and murderer, landowner Daria Saltykova, better known as Saltychikha, was kept. She was found guilty of having tortured at least 38 of her peasants to death. Most of the victims were girls and women, often brides or young mothers. Catherine II sentenced Saltychikha to deprivation of the nobility and life imprisonment in an underground prison without light and communication with people.
The ghost of Saltychikha in the form of a terrible old woman with a black face and dirty hands allegedly appears on the territory of the monastery, in an underground passage not far from it, as well as on the corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka and Kuznetsky Most, where her house stood. Seeing this old woman is considered a very bad sign. It is believed that in addition to Saltychikha, other ghosts also live in the monastery, including the spirit of Pelageya, the wife of Ivan the Terrible's eldest son, who was also imprisoned here.
Teply Stan
Residents of some houses in Tepliy Stan believe that the spirit of Saltychikha does not leave them either. Allegedly, the old woman terrorizes the young girls living here. Various troubles constantly happen to them, they are pursued by misfortunes and diseases. Their personal life does not work out, rarely anyone manages to get married. If this works out, then the couple will soon get divorced, or the husband dies.
The village of Saltychikha, where she abused her peasants, was just near the Tyoply Stan. Now at this place is the village of Mosrentgen.
Houses on Guryanova
In 1999, the militants staged a terrorist attack on Guryanov Street in Pechatniki. An explosion occurred on the first floor of house No. 19, as a result of which two entrances were completely destroyed. The neighboring house No. 17 was also badly damaged. As a result of the terrorist attack, more than 100 people were killed and another 700 were injured.
After the terrorist attack, both houses were razed to the ground, and a chapel and four new high-rise buildings were built in their place. However, sometimes white shadows of the dead residents are seen here, who cannot find peace while one of the organizers of the terrorist attack is still at large.