They say that the ghost of a woman who was killed there more than 70 years ago lives in the building of the former city pawnshop on Karl Marx Street, 26.
To this day, her restless soul wanders among the shelves with documents, the guards hear the sound of her heels on the front staircase, and she helps the archivists find the necessary papers. We are sharing with you the details of the mystical story, which Olga Timofeeva, the head of the archive of the Tomsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, told us.
There's someone here
It's the beginning of the 90s. Olga Timofeeva, a 19-year-old TSU student, recently got a job at the State Archives of the Tomsk Region, which was then located in a historical building on Karl Marx Street. The day when she first learned about the ghost that dwells within these walls was no different from the working days of a simple guardian.
- As usual, I sat in the store between the shelves and worked with documents. And suddenly I had an unpleasant feeling that someone was standing behind my back and watching me. It seemed just about, and I will feel the breath on the back of my head. She looked around - no one was there. It was creepy.
Olga Timofeeva among the archive shelves. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
Later, Olga found out that she was not the only one who felt someone's presence on herself. Colleagues told the girl that at different times under different circumstances they encountered a certain force or a ghost. Nobody saw him, but everyone was quite clearly aware that there was something here.
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One of the employees of the state archive - Olga Timofeeva does not remember exactly who it was - decided to study the history of the building and understand what is happening here.
Archive murder
The story turned out to be very dramatic. At the beginning of the 40s of the last century in the building on Karl Marx, 26 housed several archives and a medical unit of the evacuated Tula Arms-Technical School. Apartments for employees of these institutions were equipped on the ground floor. According to documents, a married woman aged 33-35 lived in one of them. The head of the family went to war, and the young wife was left alone in Tomsk. They say the lady was pretty, and she didn't have to spend the evening alone for a long time. The woman has a lover.
Secrets are hidden behind these windows. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
The story developed according to the classics of the genre - the husband unexpectedly returned from the front and found his wife with another. And he shot her in the same place. Whether the lover managed to escape and what happened to the deceived husband is not known for sure. But our story is not about them.
The coffin with the deceased at the time of parting was on the second floor of the building of the former city pawnshop. After that, the coffin was taken out, and the woman was buried in the cemetery. But since then, inexplicable things began to happen in the archive - people heard footsteps in empty rooms and the sounds of moving furniture, doors opened by themselves. Opinions agreed that the woman's life ended abruptly and tragically, so her soul could not find peace.
Building owner
In 2014, Olga Yuryevna Timofeeva returned to the building where her career once began. The archive of the Tomsk Regional Museum of Local Lore named after M. B. Shatilova, of which she is the head. And she soon discovered that the ghost had not left the walls of the former pawnshop.
Footsteps can be heard here at night. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
One dark winter evening Olga Yuryevna stayed late at work and was looking through documents among the shelves in the store, when she suddenly heard the sounds of footsteps on the concrete floor.
- By that time, there could be no one in the building, except that my colleague from another archive could have been just as late. I called her, there was no answer. It seemed strange to me. I peeked out from behind the shelving, but saw no one. I left the storehouse and into the office - I didn't find anyone there. I returned to work, and at that moment I heard footsteps in the storage room one floor above. The employees left there for a long time, the premises were closed, and no one could get there. I dropped my business, closed all the doors and went downstairs. The guard, seeing me, said: "You have such eyes as if you saw a ghost." To which I replied: "I did not see - I heard."
Olga Timofeeva returned to her former place of work 20 years later. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
According to Olga Yuryevna, the owner of the building, as the archives officers affectionately call her, is not an evil creature, does not do dirty tricks, does not spoil things and does not harm her living neighbors. On the contrary, sometimes she even helps to find lost documents.
Five years ago, when the archive of the local history museum had just moved to a historical building, and the storehouse was filled with boxes with still unsorted documents, a man contacted the institution with a request. A citizen about 10 years ago wrote a scientific work entitled "Where the stream flows." He decided to continue his research, but he did not have the first article. And he remembered that he had once handed it over to the archive.
- The problem was not only that the documents had not yet been taken apart. The person could not remember to whom he handed over his work, in any year or so it was. Once again I got up and mentally turned to our young lady with a request to help. I had large boxes in which I was putting the still unsorted cases. I reach into one of them with my hand, pull out the file, read, and my eyes are enlarged five times. I see the title "Where the Stream Flows". Believe it or not, I don’t know how it happens or how to explain it.
The archive owner helps you find the papers you need. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
The presence of the mysterious lady was felt not only by the employees who work in the building, but also by ordinary citizens. This happened seven or eight years ago. The State Archives of the Tomsk Region joined the "Night at the Museum" action and opened its doors for Tomsk citizens. The event took place on a warm May evening, and many guests gathered on the long balcony overlooking the courtyard of the building. Some of them claimed that strange white spots were visible in photographs taken at the site with phones and digital cameras. The guests of the evening decided that they had managed to take a photo with a ghost. But what it really was - the play of light or the intervention of a ghost - remained a mystery.
It's not hard to believe in ghosts here. Photo: Veronica Beletskaya.
Valentina Beikova