Ghosts huddle in supermarkets, drowned people scare onlookers, a mermaid can be "removed" in the city center, and a local masturbator is immortal. What to do? In the age of smartphones and general urbanization, evil spirits have to settle down and adapt to urban conditions. Anna Kalashnikova, a folklorist, associate professor of the Department of Journalism and Russian Literature, told Sibdepo how well the “move” went and what urban legends have firmly settled in Kemerovo.
Lake, cross and shopping center
As Anna Kalashnikova said, the most famous, perhaps, the Kemerovo urban legends, which the inhabitants of the city retell to folklorists in different variations and with different details, can be considered the "history" of the cross on the mountain above Tom, stories about the horrors of the depths of the Red Lake and the shopping center, which is inevitable collapse. The origins of these legends are different, and somewhere even based on real events, but over time it has already acquired amazingly fantastic details.
As Kalashnikova noted, in principle, any appearance of crosses within the city always becomes a source for legends. And the Kemerovo cross in Sosnovy Bor has been showing off since the mid-90s, so it managed, in the literal sense of the word, to acquire a legend. This is a story about a lover, or even two lovers who committed suicide at this place (representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church look at you in bewilderment). And, according to this legend, sometimes on the crossbeams of the cross, especially on a moonlit night, you can see the shadow of a hanging person or even two shadows (the bewilderment of the representatives of the ROC turns into righteous anger).
According to the folklorist, in principle, in the folk tradition, the appearance of crosses anywhere is bound to be associated with tragic events. And this association is quite simple - crosses are placed on graves, at the sites of fatal accidents. The fact that the cross on the mountain in Kemerovo was erected out of the best intentions, so that it "guarded" the city, now, perhaps, no one will remember. In addition, soon the "security" functions may be taken over by the statue of St. Barbara, and the cross will remain in the popular imagination an ominous symbol of unhappy love (the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church gave up tiredly).
Another disastrous and dangerous place in Kemerovo is Krasnoe Lake, fantastic information about which regularly flows to folklorists from various sources. Some of them are even close to reality: supposedly the lake has a double bottom, and when swimming there every summer, Kemerovo residents are quite seriously risking their lives, and it is because of this feature that several people drown there in every swimming season.
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But there are more mystical stories about the main Kemerovo beach: supposedly, the mysterious double bottom in the lake is not just geological features, but a real passage to another world.
And, absolutely terrible legends associated with the Red Lake, will compete with American horror movies: supposedly at night drowned people leave the Red Lake, hunt living people who had the imprudence to stay late, and drag them into the water. It turns out that the ranks of Kemerovo residents are thinning precisely because of the ominous floaters, and the half-liter taken before a night swim has nothing to do with it.
Another urban legend of Kemerovo is associated with the Laplandia shopping center, which, according to the prediction, must surely collapse. In fact, the origins of this story are in the news about the visit to Kemerovo by Mohsen Noruzi, one of the participants in the "Battle of Psychics", who, passing by the shopping center, said that it would collapse there during a big holiday with a huge crowd of people. Now this story with different variations is passed on to each other as an urban legend, said Anna Kalashnikova.
By the way, after the tragedy in "Winter Cherry" in March last year, some media suddenly recalled about the Kemerovo legend: they say, everything turned out the way the clairvoyant predicted. True, for some reason the journalists preferred to remain silent about the fact that the participant of the near-local show pointed to a completely different shopping center.
Ghost shoppers and road keepers
Like any decent capital, even a regional one, Kemerovo was not ignored by ghosts. But, since there are practically no old buildings in the city, restless souls are forced to huddle in places that are flagrantly inappropriate for self-respecting undead.
According to Anna Kalashnikova, in the list of city "horror stories" there are houses with ghosts and poltergeists, and angry spirits calmly appear in ordinary Kemerovo Khrushchev houses and rage there.
Another ghost, according to the stories of the residents of Kemerovo, was recorded by CCTV cameras at the Polyana checkout - the former customer hovered over the checkout out of habit. In the "Continent", allegedly, according to guards and late visitors, they saw the ghost of a woman, and sometimes a child, and both ghosts have a habit of freely leaving the walls and dead ends and coming back.
Another spirit, according to the stories of the residents of Kemerovo, lives in the Kirovsky district of the city, at a dangerous road junction. As Anna Kalashnikova noted, direct eyewitness accounts do not exist in principle, but acquaintances of acquaintances of someone's acquaintances now and then see on the road a pale image of a woman (sometimes she transforms into an old man), raising her hand in a pleading gesture. They say that in this way the restless soul tries to protect reckless drivers from an accident. The most interesting thing is that exactly the same ghost, according to local residents, lives on a dangerous turn to Verkhotomskoye. And all with the same noble mission. His correspondents even tried to find Sidepo, with a known result. However, who knows, maybe the same road ghost manages to control the situation in two areas at once?
In the list of urban legends collected by the Kemerovo folklorists, there are also stories that there used to be a psychiatric hospital on the site of one of the buildings of the KemSU, and sometimes strange sounds and knocks are heard in the walls of this building. Moreover, no one is particularly afraid of these knocks.
And, finally, the most mischievous and mischievous ghost has long and firmly settled within the walls of the KemSU hostel on Vasiliev - a “black student” lives as a humorous character, who sometimes appears in the corridors of the hostel. And it is he who is entirely responsible for the burnt dinner on the stove, the clogged toilet bowl in the toilet and the sausages that suddenly disappeared from the refrigerator.
Moved
Who in Kemerovo has not met elegant grooms in the summer, who heroically carry their brides in their arms across the bridges, cursing and getting confused in white skirts? In fact, according to Anna Kalashnikova, the Kemerovo wedding tradition of bypassing seven bridges stretches back many centuries.
Previously, in the villages, the newlyweds had to cross a bridge across the river on their way to the wedding, and over time, when the villagers moved to the cities, this village tradition was transformed into an urban one - you need to go around seven bridges in the city during a wedding walk, and then the life of the newlyweds will be cloudless …
Another example of such urbanized folklore traditions is the Kemerovo city mermaids. In the countryside, mermaids are a common thing, they live along the banks of rivers and there are a lot of stories when they are shown to the villagers, mainly men. Occasionally they hunger for human blood, sometimes for carnal pleasures, depending on the mood of the local storytellers. But more often they just show themselves to people and peacefully disappear. Here and on the embankment in Kemerovo, if you believe the legends, there is a mermaid. No, not the same bronze one that has been guarding the embankment for several decades, but the real one.
According to Anna Kalashnikova, the mermaid regularly appears on the Kemerovo embankment, in the very center of the city. The scum meets men and, under various pretexts, lures them into the water and drowns them. At the same time, the mermaid looks like a very beautiful girl in light clothes, she has no tail or membranes, and only the most cautious will be able to distinguish mean scum from a frivolous student. In any case, no matter how much the male Kemerovo people liked their new acquaintance, you shouldn't give in to persuasion, and you shouldn't go down to the river - no joy under the moon is expected.
Bad area
Unusual people, strange customs, even high-profile crime stories invariably leave their folklore trail and become urban legends, says Anna Kalashnikova. And even the city itself in the subconsciousness of its inhabitants inevitably turns out to be divided according to these ideas.
In the subconscious of the residents of Kemerovo, the townspeople perceive the Kirovsky district as an anti-urban space: not very cultured people wander there, chaotic events take place. Folklorists have a lot of stories about the "bad" Kirovskoe, and most of them are associated with negative experiences. Recently, another emotion after visiting Kirovsky, by the way, was shared by the governor Sergey Tsivilev - the head of the region was horrified by the communal nightmare that was going on there.
According to the folklorist, most of the stories about Kirovskoye are a common retelling of everyday criminal life. But among the Kemerovo "bylichki" about the "bad" area there is a truly terrible story.
Urban crazy and immortal maniacs
The city's madmen and cranks are an endless source of funny stories, rumors and news for residents of any city. In Kemerovo, there are also such individuals - what is only the frost-resistant Kola-man, which appears in the middle of winter in different parts of the city. Many people must have heard about the vociferous musician Igor "Goryn" Nikolaev wandering along the Kemerovo minibuses (and some even rewarded the work of the troubadour). And grandfather Leonid Konovalov, who either looks like a homeless person, or walks in a tuxedo and sends his films to the Cannes Film Festival, is also a fairly well-known personality. The hairstyle of the shocking Kemerovo resident had its own, no less famous.
True, so far none of these residents of Kemerovo has become a character in urban legends, but this, as they say, is a matter of time. But local folklorists have heard stories about a couple of other strange inhabitants of the city.
True, urban madmen are not only funny, mysterious or interesting, but also frankly dangerous. As Anna Kalashnikova said, in the folklore space of Kemerovo, Komsomolsky Park is considered one of the dangerous places precisely because of the maniac-masturbator who lives there, according to urban legends. There are several stories about how a lonely city woman wandering on a dark autumn / spring night meets a stranger on her way, suddenly opening her cloak. Apparently, real cases of exhibitionism gave rise to the folklore image of an immortal maniac.
Know-how
By the way, folklore reacts not only to crime, but also to social media. Remember, as a child, we read fairy tales about children who were strictly forbidden to go to the forest, and after breaking the ban everything deteriorated and in general, many terrible adventures awaited violators. Exactly the same horror stories, advice, as told by Anna Kalashnikova, are common in the city. Only, in the absence of a forest near by, children have to fear the already modern, urban, threats.
The spread of HIV has become one of these threats. Urban legends about HIV / AIDS infection began to appear in Kemerovo in the 90s-2000s. In different variations, but according to the same scenario.
This story, according to the folklorist, has at least two more options - that the girl walked through a dark entrance where syringes were lying around, did not notice this syringe with a note stuck into the rail, injected herself, became infected and died. And in the version about a boy who found a syringe with a note on the Tomi beach, but did not read the note, but tore it into eight pieces, the end of the story turned out to be more optimistic - the boy did not know that he was congratulated on AIDS, so he did not get infected and survived.
How legends are made
According to Anna Kalashnikova, most urban legends are folklore echoes of events that happened once. The more serious the tragedy, the more people it touched and the more emotions it aroused, there is a greater likelihood that its folklore retelling will soon appear - distorted, in several variations, with a touch of mysticism and horror.
One of such recent major events in Kemerovo is the fire in Zimnyaya Vishnya. After the tragedy in "Winter Cherry" no urban legends have yet appeared, but later they will certainly appear. And this is normal, according to folklorist Anna Kalashnikova. A few years just have to pass, the real pain of the loss of loved ones recedes, the feeling of empathizing with the relatives of the victims should subside. Legends and urban mystical stories in the wake of the tragedy in "Winter Cherry" should appear not earlier than in five years.
Ekaterina Bukhtiyarova
