St. Petersburg is a mystical city. Perhaps because it is built on water. And water, as you know, is one of the most mysterious elements. About 350 bridges have been erected across the St. Petersburg rivers and canals. Many of them are masterpieces of bridge architecture.
Each bridge is undoubtedly unique and attracts attention with its style, architectural solution, and its history, finally. But there are also special bridges in St. Petersburg, for example Liteiny, which recently celebrated its 130th anniversary. It is considered one of the most mystical places in the former capital of the Russian Empire.
Legend of the Atakan
Liteiny Bridge connects the two banks of the Neva and is located in the alignment of Liteiny Prospekt and Akademik Lebedev Street, and its name comes from the Liteiny Dvor, founded on the left bank in 1711.
An international competition was announced for the bridge construction project, which eventually received 17 applications. The commission approved the project of engineer-colonel A. E. Struve and engineer-captain A. A. Weiss, and already on August 30, 1875, work began on the construction of a new crossing over the Neva.
Its construction lasted four whole years, which, unfortunately, was accompanied by great human casualties.
Rumors spread throughout the city that, they say, this place is bewitched, that at the bottom of the river - where construction is going on - there is a "bloody" boulder, popularly called the Ancient Atakan. Historians claim that in ancient times this stone was worshiped and human sacrifices were made by the tribes that once lived at the mouth of the Neva. According to the legend, prisoners captured during the wars were killed and sprinkled with their blood on this stone. And then the captives began to pray to Neva, asking that she save them from a terrible death.
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And the river seemed to have heard their prayers: it changed its course, and the terrible stone that lay on the bank was now at the bottom. But now Atakan began to take revenge on the people who sailed over him: either the boat would sink with the fishermen, or, by an absurd accident, some sailor would be overboard …
Construction victims
It is not known whether Atakan was to blame, but in September 1876, semi-liquid soil broke into the caissons (structures for forming under water or in the water-saturated soil of the working chamber free of water), where 28 people worked. However, the work continued, and about a year later an explosion thundered at the construction site, the cause of which was never established. And again - human casualties, nine builders died. And this was not the last accident!
Fragment of the cast-iron grating of the Liteiny Bridge
Today the exact number of victims of the construction of the bridge is difficult to name. This figure ranges from 40 to 100 people, and all the bodies of the victims disappeared without a trace. Numerous tragedies with human casualties forced bridge builders to seek an explanation for what was happening. The most fantastic versions, guesses, rumors appeared.
Black whirlpool
There is a legend that the Liteiny Bridge was supposedly built on the site where the "werewolf bridge" stood in ancient times. It was said that under this "werewolf" on moonless nights a black whirlpool suddenly appeared, which sucked in people who were near the river. And then out of the whirlpool "all kinds of evil spirits climbed out", which mocked passers-by, "made nasty faces and screamed shameful words." And, like a magnet, this whirlpool of all Petersburg suicides attracted to itself …
The true location of the "werewolf bridge" was not known for sure. But the old-timers, who knew a lot of Petersburg secrets, said that this bridge could be shrouded in fog in the blink of an eye and lead a lonely pedestrian to some unknown place: at other times, other lands from which there is no return. Perhaps this bridge was the entrance to another dimension?
Lenin's ghost
The bridge, named Alexandrovsky (in honor of Emperor Alexander II), was inaugurated on September 30, 1879 and recognized as one of the most grandiose structures of that time. All construction participants received generous awards.
However, the name Aleksandrovsky did not take root, and later the bridge was renamed Liteiny (this is how it was called from the day of its foundation by the people of St. Petersburg). It was reconstructed several times, and later, already during perestroika, they even began to conduct excursions around it, showing the complex structure of the bridge, its lifting mechanism and telling about the mystical events associated with this place.
Start of construction of the Liteiny Bridge
Inexplicable events in the Liteiny Bridge region continue to occur in the 21st century. For example, eyewitnesses here repeatedly noticed the ghost of the leader of the world proletariat V. I. Lenin. So, once, walking not far from the bridge, in the area of Mokhovaya Street, pensioner A. P. Alyoshin noticed in front of him some strange bald man with a characteristic beard and wearing a cap. At first, he took him for a double of Lenin and decided to get to know him and talk to him. But then he suddenly noticed some oddities in the appearance of the "double".
The wind was very strong, and passers-by had to hold on to their hats and coats. And "Lenin" clearly did not react to the weather: the wind did not blow off the cap from his head and did not inflate the hem of his coat. Alyoshin followed the strange man further, and as they passed the Big House on Liteiny Prospect, it seemed to him that a man so similar to Lenin looked at this house with surprise (this is not surprising: during Ilyich's lifetime, the Big House had not yet been built). Then he went to Liteiny Bridge and … disappeared. Only then did Aleshin realize that he had seen a ghost!
And this is not the only case when passers-by saw the figure of Lenin here disappearing without a trace on the Liteiny Bridge. From time to time, other heroes-revolutionaries also "walk" here, and sometimes whole companies of soldiers and sailors of the Civil War march across the bridge, also suddenly dissolving in the night darkness.
Mysterious number
Astrologers believe that mysticism is already contained in the length of the bridge, more precisely, in its numerical expression - 396 meters. If we add these numbers in a special numerological way, then in total we get the number 9. This number corresponds to the planet Neptune, which is responsible for secrets, mysticism, everything irrational, intuition. And in mythology, Neptune is the king of the water element.
Perhaps, in order for the bridge to "take root" here, Providence itself took care of the correspondence of its parameters to this area full of mysteries. Like attracts like. Let's turn to the facts. As you know, they are stubborn things.
On this bridge it happened not only to commit suicide, here with enviable constancy the criminals took the lives of their victims.
One of the last cases is striking in its cruelty. A certain criminal authority "ordered" the killer of his competitor, but he confused the victim with another person and, fulfilling the order, inflicted many knife wounds on him. The murder weapon was later found at the scene of the crime, and the murdered man, according to eyewitnesses, was thrown from the bridge by a killer (in this place, by the way, the depth of the Neva reaches 24 meters!). No matter how hard the St. Petersburg detectives tried, neither the killer nor the body of his victim were found.
… The stories associated with the Liteiny Bridge are fascinating, mysterious, and sometimes frightening. Yet Liteiny Bridge is one of the architectural gems of our city, and it is worth coming to admire it during the white nights: it is truly a mesmerizing, mystical sight, especially when the bridge is raised.
Ekaterina KUDRYASHOVA