There are terrible legends in Moscow, which only the lazy does not know. The ghost of Jacob Bruce, a sorcerer and associate of Peter I, wanders either in the place of the Sukharev Tower, demolished in the 1930s, or in the vicinity of his home on Spartakovskaya Street with a "magic" sundial on the wall.
The ghosts of Ostankino are wandering in the place of an old cemetery - allegedly from this the toponym "Ostankino" originated. The shadow of a huge fat cat imposingly crosses Tverskaya Street in the area of the Mossovet building.
But there are legends that are not told to everyone. Local legends, frightening by their similarity to children's "scary stories". They tell them quietly, in an undertone, so as not to please the examination by a psychiatrist.
Many of the official legends selflessly debunk the corrosive Moscow ethnographers with a scientific type of thinking. Local historians of a different, romantic nature have a more loyal approach to these stories, but we will take an average weighted position and, at the same time letting out the mystery, will try to get to the bottom of these legends. Let's start with the unidentified monsters.
Swamp miracle
In the 17th century, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich decided to create a positive image of the "founder" of Moscow, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who had a very bad reputation before. On the instructions of the sovereign, many stories and tales about Dolgoruky were collected, not only from chronicles, but also from oral folklore. In the course of these investigations, a story surfaced about a monster that appeared to Prince Yuri in a swamp, on the outskirts of the future Moscow.
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Legend has it that when the prince was making his way with his squad through an impenetrable forest along the Neglinka River (near the present Kuznetsky Most Street), a swamp, covered with thick fog, suddenly opened in front of him.
Suddenly the fog began to melt, and a huge unprecedented animal with three heads, covered with thick multi-colored wool, appeared before the travelers. Soon he slowly disappeared into space following the fog. The elder accompanying the prince - either a monk or a shaman - interpreted what he saw as the need to urgently found a city here.
Soon the prince's squad got out of the forest and approached Borovitsky Hill, where there was already a small town that belonged to the leader of the local Vyatichi Kuchka. Prince Yuri killed Kuchka, and took over the town. So, on the advice of an outlandish beast, Yuri Dolgoruky "founded" Moscow.
Ravine monsters
Shaggy monsters quite often become characters in Moscow legends. Especially a lot of them are found in the famous for its secrets Golosov ravine, which served as a natural border between the ancient villages of Kolomenskoye and Dyakovo.
There is a terrible story of the early 19th century about two local peasants who were returning from a wedding from the neighboring village of Sadovniki. They descended into a ravine and entered a thick green fog. There they were greeted by strange humanoid creatures covered with hair from head to toe.
Having admired the frightened peasants, the creatures brought them out of the fog. Returning home, the friends realized with horror that more than 20 years had passed. This story was allegedly described in the July 9, 1832 issue of the Moskovskie Vedomosti newspaper. However, no such note was found in this or in other issues of Vedomosti.
A stone-paved stream bed in the Voice Ravine in Kolomenskoye
Approximately the same woolen monster in the twenties of the twentieth century was driven through the ravine by young pioneers who did not believe in mysticism. Later they were joined by a local police officer with a revolver. At the sight of the revolver, the hairy man disappeared into the same green mist. This time, "Pionerskaya Pravda" allegedly wrote about the history. And again the skeptics found nothing in the archives of the newspaper.
People in the know say that these "documented" stories were written overnight by a lazy archivist student for his source studies coursework. However, this student himself has already become another legend of Golosov's ravine.
The Barber's Dead Wife
There is an inconspicuous old house made of dark red brick not far from Baumanskaya (formerly German) street. Now it houses a drinking establishment and a police stronghold. There used to be drafting workshops where graduate students worked on drawings. The workshops moved from one university to another, but everyone who was "lucky" to stay in this house after midnight, grim faced and told the same story.
A minute before midnight, measured steps were heard in the central corridor of the house. The brightest light, as if from electric welding, began to beat in the crack of the door. The footsteps died away in front of the workshop door, where, bristling with piercing and cutting objects, frightened students gathered …
Gradually, the bright light from under the door faded away and silence fell. And one brave student, who dared to open the door to the corridor after the disappearance of the ghost, lost her senses, and upon their return - her sight. For 15 minutes. Interestingly, similar stories were told by people who have visited this house with a difference of decades.
According to legend, in the 19th century, a barber lived in this house, also a criminal authority. And he had a beautiful wife. He loved her with all thieves' passion. But he was no less jealous. Once out of jealousy, a barber stabbed his wife to death with a straight razor. Since then, she has been walking around the old house, to the delight of the students.
Shadows of the Shipilov dam
The outskirts of Moscow are not without their ghosts. They say that in the vicinity of the Shipilovskaya dam, which separates the Tsaritsyn and Borisov ponds, in the morning fog, the silhouettes of two men in long overcoats sometimes appear. Slowly sailing along the banks of the ponds, they seem to be looking for something.
Local legend says that in the winter at the end of 1917, two marauding deserters broke into a water mill, which was then standing on the dam. Armed with a revolver, they decided to rob the miller's family under the guise of expropriation. The miller, having lulled their vigilance with a bottle of moonshine, took a double-barreled gun and fired at both robbers in turn.
The local police chief, who arrived in the morning, fired “control” shots at the robbers with a revolver and ordered them to bury their bodies on the beach, not far from the dam. Since then, for almost a hundred years now, their strange silhouettes sometimes emerge from the coastal fog, frightening local fishermen.
Witch from Manezhka
In the very center of Moscow there is an underground museum of archeology. It recently reopened after a long renovation. But even before the closure of the museum halls for repairs, they unanimously assured that when the museum was empty, they observed some movement at the showcases with the finds made during the excavation of the Moiseevsky women's monastery.
This monastery was located on the modern Manezhnaya Square, in that part of it that adjoins Tverskaya Street. The monastery was closed during the reign of Catherine II. There was a women's almshouse at the monastery, which existed for some time.
In 1995, during large-scale archaeological work on Manezhnaya Square, the necropolis of the Moiseevsky Monastery was excavated, and several hundred graves were opened. Basically, these were the graves of the nuns of the monastery, but there were also graves of the inhabitants of the almshouse.
Fragment of the Moscow plan of 1610. In the center, to the right of the Voskresensky Bridge across the Neglinnaya River, is the Moiseevsky Monastery of the 16th century.
For some reason not yet explained, the bodies of the buried women did not decompose in one section of the necropolis. There were many versions: from the incorruptibility of the saints to the diametrically opposite - the belonging of the deceased to evil spirits. The latest version is supported by the strange burial of a woman with an aspen stake driven into her stomach.
Judging by the clothes, it was one of the inhabitants of the poorhouse. How she deserved such a posthumous fate is anyone's guess. One way or another, but among the technical staff of the museum, the corner where the items found at the monastery's dead are exhibited is not well known.
As you can see, Moscow not only has its "terrible" secrets, like any other self-respecting ancient city, but every year it acquires new legends. This means that Moscow is not just a big city, but also alive. And very, very mysterious.
Maxim Krylovich
