Turtles of Eternity
In 1866, on the place where the present Ussuriysk stands, the village of Nikolskoye arose - in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. It was founded by 13 families who came here to settle from the Astrakhan and Voronezh provinces. In 1898 the village was transformed into the city of Nikolsk-Ussuriysk (later - Voroshilov and, finally, Ussuriysk).
The main historical attraction of Ussuriysk is stone sculptures of turtles of the 12th century, which were installed on the graves of representatives of the imperial family of the Chzhurchen kingdom. Turtles have served as a symbol of longevity. One of the sculptures was donated to the Khabarovsk Regional Museum. The Soviet archaeologist Vitaly Larichev established that it was the tombstone on the grave of the Jurchen commander Esykuya (1080-1148) from the Wanyan clan, the founder of the Jin dynasty.
Hill of love
The historical name of the hill, located at the very end of Leningradskaya Street, is Ilyushkina Sopka. A picturesque panorama of the entire city opens from the top of this hill.
In the Jurchen era, on the site of the hill there was a small settlement, in the center of which there was a temple dedicated to the goddess of fertility. Local residents worshiped her statue - the "golden woman". She allegedly possessed supernatural power: she filled the hearts of people with love, gave men indomitable sexual power, and women - a love desire … True, this is just a beautiful legend.
During one of the many wars, the "golden woman" disappeared without a trace. According to one version, it is hidden in the caves of Mount Pidan, according to another, it was taken out of Primorye. But there is another version - the statue is hidden somewhere in the secret dungeons of the temple.
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It seems that it was precisely the "golden woman" that the Chinese hunghuzes were looking for in 1868, who attacked the village of Nikolskoye during the Manzov war. Among the dead were Fyodor Ilyushenko and his son Dmitry, after whom the hill was later named Ilyushkina.
In 1899, coal deposits were discovered on Ilyushkina Sopka and quarries were built. But it is possible that, in fact, they were again looking for the notorious statue of the goddess in the bowels of the mountain.
Nowadays, coal is no longer mined here, but the hill has become a place of pilgrimage for couples who seek to make love on its top. This is how the ancient Jurchen tradition was transformed …
Monsters of the "Green Island"
According to the stories of local residents, at night from the park "Green Island" (in common parlance - "Zelenka") someone's roar can be heard. And once on the bank of the Razdolnaya River, flowing through the territory of Ussuriysk, they found the corpse of a cow torn to pieces by someone.
This is how the legend was born that monsters live in the park. Back in 1911, a circus troupe arrived in the city. Among other numbers, the circus showed two "ape-men" allegedly caught in the forests of the Amazon.
Two days before the departure of the circus performers, the "people-monkeys" allegedly managed to break the bars of the enclosure and escape. The police searched for them but did not find them. And soon poultry began to disappear from local residents. Some saw the hairy "beastmen" with their own eyes. After the raids began, nothing was heard of them. But, it seems, the monsters have not gone anywhere … Although it is not clear how they managed to live for so many years? Or are they some mystical creatures?
Dead men in brothels
There are many places within the city where, according to rumors, ghosts and various devilry happen. Most of the local "anomalies" are associated with the distant past. So, on Muravyevskaya Street (now Sovetskaya) until 1912, there were houses of tolerance, which were kept by Japanese courtesans. It was often visited by soldiers from nearby military barracks. Since their bosses did not like the fact that girls of easy virtue distract their subordinates from military service, brothels were moved farther from the city center - to the corner of Nikolaevskaya (now Red Banner). In the neighborhood there was a convent and a parish school attached to it, as well as … a city cemetery.
And then strange things began to happen. Clients suddenly started complaining about being beaten … dead from the cemetery! Prostitutes were thrown out of the windows by an unknown force, and some of them disappeared completely without a trace. Brothels began to close one by one, and then they were gone.
One terrible story is associated with the same old churchyard. Even before the revolution, a rich merchant was buried there. The very next night after the funeral, the cemetery watchman heard a grinding sound coming from the grave. After opening the grave, it turned out that the corpse was lying on its stomach, and the face was distorted with a grimace of horror … It was decided that the merchant was buried alive by mistake.
After that, the devilry began to happen at the churchyard. At night, there was someone's howling. There were rumors that the deceased merchant was a black sorcerer, he howls at night, his spirit cannot rest.
Soon the cemetery fell into decay, and after the revolution it was completely razed to the ground. But even today, in some of the surrounding houses, sometimes something strange happens: at night screams and stomping are heard in apartments, dishes fall, and someone else's faces are looking out of the mirrors.
In one of the courtyards, next to two barracks, there was an old crypt for a long time. They say that sometimes at night they saw two women in white come out of there, and come back in the morning. True, now this crypt is no longer there, as well as the barracks themselves.
The horrors of the former hotel
At the beginning of the last century, at the intersection of Khabarovskaya and Zanadvorskaya streets (now Lenin and Chicherin), an old two-story house stood on the site of the current building of Sberbank. Before the revolution, it housed a hotel called Versailles.
At first, the hotel was used for its intended purpose. But during the Civil War, the Japanese interventionists set up a counterintelligence headquarters there. Those who were suspected of having links with the Bolsheviks were arrested and brutally tortured within these walls. After being tortured, the prisoners were shot in the basement of a former hotel.
Then for many years the building stood abandoned, with empty sockets of windows. For the 130th anniversary of the city, it was finally decided to demolish the house, and a modern colossus of concrete and glass was erected in its place. Meanwhile, local residents say that they still hear strange sounds at night, reminiscent of Japanese speech and the clanging of bolts. As if someone is being led to the basement to be shot.
Samurai in the "General's House"
There was once a huge building on Pushkin Street, popularly known as the General's House. The fact is that the highest officers' ranks lived there. They say that the Japanese prisoners of war built the house. Due to the harsh conditions, many of them died. Their bodies were buried right in the construction pit.
In our time, it was decided to demolish the central part of the building. After it was empty, fires suddenly began to occur there for no reason. Moreover, local homeless people, who apparently chose the house planned for demolition as a temporary lodging for the night, said that they saw ghostly Japanese samurai who were engaged in arson.
The ghost of the "Chaika" pool
On the same Pushkin street, house No. 36, there is the Chaika swimming pool. About 15 years ago a tragic event happened here. A 10-year-old girl jumped into the pool from a five-meter tower on a bet and lost consciousness. When she was taken out of the water, the child was no longer breathing …
After that, strange things began to happen in the pool. Children and adults told how, during training, someone's icy hand grabbed them and tried to pull them in depth. One swimmer accidentally dropped his cap into the water and, diving behind it with open eyes, clearly saw in front of him a girl of about ten, who stood motionless at the bottom and gazed at him intently.
Over time, people practically stopped visiting the pool, it was closed, and the building began to collapse. And then, in addition, there was a fire on the second floor - according to official data, due to faulty wiring.
The devilry, meanwhile, continued. Several times the bodies of homeless people who decided to spend the night in an abandoned building were found here. The boys who dared to enter here broke their legs more than once. And many claimed to have seen the girl's ghost.
The windows and doors of the former pool were boarded up, making it almost impossible to get inside the building. But sometimes at night strange wandering lights were seen in the windows of the second floor, and some heard someone's "grave" voice, apparently inviting victims to the kingdom of the dead.
In 2010 the pool was renovated and reopened. Until the terrible ghost makes itself felt.
Irina SHLIONSKAYA