Stavropol is of great interest to mystics and historians. Including because of the large number of legends about old city mansions, cemeteries and, of course, about their mysterious inhabitants. And local "ghost hunters" even claim that sometimes the opening spectacle is so scary that it becomes bad.
City Duma building: the ghost of the governor and the old mirror
It is impossible, when walking along Karl Marx Avenue, not to notice a building with four caryatids - sculptures of women in ancient Greek tunics. Now it is the building of the city council. And it was built in 1903 by the head of the Stavropol province Nikolai Nikiforaki as his residence.
Photo: Igor Kozhevnikov / etokavkaz.ru
According to the descriptions of contemporaries, the interior was striking in its magnificence: furniture made of ebony and mahogany, artistic stucco molding, heavy crystal chandeliers, lacquered parquet. Since then, the residence has changed more than one governor, and almost nothing has survived from the interior decoration. But over the years, very strange things began to happen in the house.
“They say in the Duma that the guards are afraid to stay on night duty,” says Roman Nutrikhin, a local historian from Stavropol. - At night, the house literally comes to life: someone groans, gasps, walks, creaks with parquet.
It is difficult to say who exactly walks along the corridors of the old governor's residence: no bloody events took place here. But, of course, there are guesses. And partly the answer is given by literature. The fact is that this house appears in the story "The Governor" by the Russian writer Ilya Surguchev, who lived in Stavropol before the revolution.
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- The story describes the difficult fate of the governor in the pre-revolutionary years, during numerous bloody events, continues Nutrikhin. - He pacifies numerous uprisings in the villages at the cost of human blood, his own daughter dies of consumption, and then the revolution - all this fell on the shoulders of the governor. It is not clear what kind of person we are talking about, but the action takes place in this house and is clearly based on real events. The story clearly shows this extraordinary state of mind of people who were in power in the pre-revolutionary years. For Surguchev, all this is imprinted in the mirror: the governor approaches him and sees his pain. By the way, this ancient mirror has survived there to this day. Maybe it's true, something was imprinted in him - who knows. Such is the urban mythology.
Picture gallery of Pavel Grechishkin: the ghost of the deceased princess
There is a museum in Stavropol that can boast of its "regular" ghost. This is an art gallery of landscapes by the artist Pavel Grechishkin, located in the building of a former mosque on one of the central streets of the city.
Photo: Igor Kozhevnikov / etokavkaz.ru
The history of this place is long and, according to the legends, quite tragic. Once on the site of the mosque there was an estate that belonged to Prince Davlet Girey Biberdov. However, in 1886, the prince unexpectedly gave up his property and transferred the land to the local Muslim community - for the construction of the temple.
- In the book by German Belikov “Stavropol. Gates of the Caucasus tells one old legend associated with the prince, - says Roman Nutrikhin. - Biberdov had only one beloved daughter. At the age of 17, she suddenly dies from an unknown illness, and the prince buries his daughter right in the garden of the house. It was as if a mosque was erected on this place: the prince wanted the child to rest in a prayer place. And now, every year, on the balcony of the minaret, on the full moon, at midnight, on the holiday of Ramadan, an image of a girl in a white dress appears.
It's hard to say whether it is true or not. After the revolution, the mosque was nationalized. Employees of the gallery, which opened in the building of the mosque in the 80s of the last century, claim that they did not see any ghosts.
"Castle of Ghosts": Murdered Lovers, Mysterious Monks and Repression
House at number 100 on Komsomolskaya Street is perhaps the most mystical place in Stavropol. What they just do not say about him. According to one version, it was built for one of his mistresses by the Baku merchant Aga Bali Guliyev, known under the nickname “the bread king of the Caucasus”.
According to the other, it belonged to one of the Georgian princesses, who won the fame of the second queen Tamara. Allegedly, the princess invited her numerous young lovers here, whom she then killed in cold blood - she mixed poison into the wine. So they say that the shadows of the murdered young men still have not left the house …
But these are, of course, only rumors. In fact, the history of the house is a little more prosaic. The first owner of the estate was the merchant Ignat Volobuev - he built a house for his daughter Anna, who peacefully settled here with her husband. True, after the death of her husband, she was forced to sell the house. It turned into a profitable one - the new owners rented out rooms to tenants.
- The upper floor was occupied by some monks from the Caucasus, frightening the inhabitants of the house with black cassocks with hoods and faces overgrown with stubble. Since that time, speculations have appeared in the city that incomprehensible demonic acts are taking place in the castle house, accompanied by strange sounds, reminiscent of laughter, then sobs, - writes the Stavropol regional historian German Belikov in the book "Old Stavropol".
However, the dark history of the house does not end there. During the Civil War, the castle housed a military hospital. At the same time, a terrible massacre took place within the walls of the house: several mountain officers from the famous "Wild Division" cut the throats of more than 30 wounded Red Army men. The bloody episode reinforced the house's notoriety.
But that's not all. In Soviet times, one of the Bolsheviks' repressive apparatus was housed in the estate - and people began to completely bypass the house. And when, after the Great Patriotic War, the tuberculosis dispensary moved there, the image of a “dangerous place” was finally fixed with it.
Photo: Igor Kozhevnikov / etokavkaz.ru
Nowadays, the building is gradually turning into ruins - now only the walls are left of it. For many years it has been "closed for reconstruction", which is still being carried out only in words. In the meantime, this is a place of attraction for Stavropol stalkers, who, after returning from the "castle of ghosts," tell scary stories.
“When we left this house, we saw a silhouette in the windows that resembled a woman’s figure,” recalls the head of the Stavrostalker movement Snezhana. - The sight was so terrible that one of our guys became ill. I got dizzy. The ghost in the window lasted less than a minute, I guess. Although it seemed to us that we were left alone with him for a long time. The sense of time in this castle completely disappears.
Kravtsovo lake: underwater cemetery
Ghost legends walk not only around the old mansions of Stavropol. Lake Kravtsovo on the outskirts of the city is considered one of the most anomalous places in the region. And among the people it is called at all nothing but the cemetery of the drowned.
Photo: Igor Kozhevnikov / etokavkaz.ru
Before it was officially banned from swimming, the local media were full of headlines about the numerous victims - fishermen, bathers and even hunters who accidentally wandered into the swampy area.
You will not hear a variety of versions from local residents. Some are sure that algae is to blame, in which people get entangled and cannot swim out. Others - that a giant mollusk lives at the bottom of the lake, devouring its victims, others - that this is not a mollusk, but a huge toothy fish … However, of course, nobody saw this "Loch Ness monster" in the eyes.
“Lake Kravtsovo can really be called a kind of natural cemetery,” says Vasily Gaazov, a local historian and geographer from Stavropol. - Peat has been accumulating here for a very long time. That could not but affect the strong energy of this place. Any body of water, when overgrown, turns into a swamp, and then disappears. And although the Kravtsovo lake is overgrown, it continues to hold. Anomalies are, of course, possible. And special devices record that this is a hepatogenic zone. It is possible that in this place there is even an opening of a portal and contact with a parallel world.
Today Kravtsovo Lake is a natural reserve of regional significance. Swimming and fishing are strictly prohibited here. However, "ghost hunters" often come here for new sensations.
Mamaysky forest: an ancient burial ground
The old micro-district of Stavropol "Mamayka", where the mysterious Mamai forest grows, is also notorious. Not everyone knows that almost the entire territory of the forest is an ancient cemetery and, as the locals say, there are still "real ghosts" from time to time.
- The name itself is interesting - "Mamaysky", - explains local historian Roman Nutrikhin. - The fact is that in this forest there are ancient burials - something like small mounds. They say that when the first settlers from Little Russia came to the city, they saw stone idols - stone women, presumably of Polovtsian origin. Little Russians always called such statues "mamai" - this is how this name was attached to the forest.
Photo: Igor Kozhevnikov / etokavkaz.ru
To this day, these very idols have not survived, the memory of them has remained only in the stories of local residents, whose ancestors probably stole stone women for souvenirs, the expert believes.
The settlers began to further bury the dead here, and even in the 19th century, the Mamaisky forest was one of the city's cemeteries, part of it has survived to this day. Now the forest has become part of the city, and nearby is the private sector of the same name Mamayka, whose residents still notice strange phenomena.
- This story was told to me by a native of Stavropol, - says Roman Nutrikhin. - When she was about 10 years old, she and her mother went to the funeral of friends in the evening. They returned home at night past the cemetery on Mamaika. The road went uphill, in the moonlight they saw that a high pillar was moving along the cemetery level with them, resembling a very dense swirling cloud or fog. The girl shouted: "Mom, look." But the woman pulled her daughter up and, hissing through her teeth, forced her to pray. Has forbidden to look in that direction. The terrible pillar gradually lagged behind, but they walked all the way to the house, whispering prayers.
Author: Asya Asryan