Within the city limits of St. Petersburg there are more than ninety rivers, tributaries, branches and canals, including twenty artificial canals. The most famous are the Griboyedovsky and Obvodny Canals, which many townspeople perceive as pernicious, damned places.
The Griboyedov Canal, named after the famous Russian writer and diplomat, was called Catherine's until 1923, since it was laid during the reign of Empress Catherine II. It starts from the Moika River, in the Field of Mars area and flows into the Fontanka near the Malo-Kalinkin Bridge.
At one time, the canal passed along the bed of the Krivushi river, which the locals also called the Deaf River. Its source was a swampy bog. In the period from 1764 to 1790, the channel was deepened and widened, the banks were faced with granite. However, Petersburgers remembered well that the channel was laid through the black spots, which were always considered swamps and swamps.
Since March 1, 1881, the Griboyedov Canal has been firmly associated with the tragedy that happened on its banks: the murder of Emperor Alexander II by the Narodnaya Volya. And on April 3, 1881, on the scaffold of the Semyonovsky parade ground, the organizer and participant of this assassination attempt, the famous terrorist Sophia Perovskaya, was executed.
Stone bridge, Griboyedov canal
In St. Petersburg, they said that, climbing onto the platform, she suddenly suddenly grabbed a white handkerchief from somewhere and waved it in front of the gathered crowd, as on March 1, when she signaled the bombers with the same white handkerchief.
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So she hung in mortal convulsions in a noose with a handkerchief in her hand. Since that day, a legend has lived in St. Petersburg that every year, at the beginning of spring, when the city is still dark, and the wind with sleet hits rare passers-by, a terrible ghost of a lonely woman appears on the steep bridge of the Catherine Canal. Her face is blue from suffocation, a crimson rope trail is visible on her neck, and in her hands she holds a handkerchief, which she used to signal her accomplices, sending them to a bloody crime.
An even more eerie place is the Obvodny Canal. Both before and after the October coup, many exciting events took place on its banks. Basically, these were suicides inexplicable from the point of view of human logic.
The construction of the canal took place in 1803-1835. It was planned that the canal would divert the Neva waters from the city during floods, and also serve as a corridor for transporting goods to industrial enterprises located on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The canal was named Obvodny, because it seemed to circle the city from the south, connecting the Neva and Yekateringofka.
In the 19th century, the canal was located on the outskirts of the capital, surrounded by factories and factories, so it did not enjoy love and popularity among the townspeople. Moreover, liquid waste was often poured into the Bypass Canal, which caused the water to acquire an unpleasant odor and an unnatural color.
For this reason, Petersburgers often called the Obvodny Canal the City Moat or the New Ditch, in contrast to Griboyedovsky, who was nicknamed the Ditch. But the gloomy glory of the Obvodny Canal is connected not only with the stench.
During the previous centuries, the Neva banks passed from hand to hand more than once - from Swedes to Novgorodians and back. According to the medieval chronicles of Erik Abossky, in 1300 the governor of the Folkung dynasty, the actual ruler of Sweden, Marshal Torgils Knutsson, who had founded the city of Vyborg seven years earlier, erected a fortress called Landskrona ("The Crown of the Earth") at the mouth of the Okhta River. From there, the Swedes began to carry out systematic raids on the nearest Karelian settlements.
In one of these raids, the royal soldiers, led by Torgils himself, reached the Sutilla River (now the Volkovka River), where they stumbled upon an old pagan sanctuary. From behind the stone idols that had grown into the ground, an ancient old man came out to meet the invaders and, raising his hands to the sky, began to shower curses on both the conquerors themselves and the Swedish crown.
Knutsson and his soldiers heard about the power of the Karelian shamans, who, according to rumors, brought numerous human sacrifices to their pagan gods. Horror clouded the minds of the soldiers, but the hands, accustomed to bloodshed, did their job: a minute later the old man fell, chopped into pieces by swords, and the Swedes began to smash the temple, smash stones covered with mysterious inscriptions into pieces and destroy idols that are disgusting to any kind Christian.
Marshal Torgils returned to Landskrona with his soldiers, but he was troubled by the thought of a curse hanging over the whole of Sweden and over him personally. However, soon one of the local residents came to him and offered his help in removing the spell for a reward.
The next night, five young virgins were sacrificed. Their bodies, along with the body of the shaman, were buried in the center of a pagan sanctuary, the grave was covered with a stone slab. After that, the ceremony of sealing the grave was performed.
A connoisseur of otherworldly secrets forever cursed the spirit of an evil old man, but in the end he defiled the holy crucifix. As the chronicle further narrates, as soon as the sacrilege was accomplished, a terrifying laughter spread through the night forest and a whirlwind suddenly rose by the roots tore up a huge fir tree from the ground.
According to the Novgorod Chronicle, the following year the Russians captured Landskrona, “firing and raking” the fortress itself, and “beating and issekosh” the defenders. Whether it was a consequence of the curse or not - it's hard to say. However, the place on the banks of Sutilla, where the ancient pagan temple was located and where terrible murders were committed, all the locals bypassed for a long time and considered it damned.
In the time of Peter I and later, inexplicable, mysterious incidents often happened in the local forests. For example, in 1805, the excavators who worked on the construction of the Obvodny Canal refused to select the soil near Volkovka, explaining the termination of work by bad rumors about these places. Lieutenant General Gerard achieved the resumption of construction, only half to death beating the instigator and threatening the rest of the workers with exile to hard labor.
And in February 1923, workers who were laying a heating main not far from the place where Volkovka flows into the Obvodny Canal, came across pieces of granite covered with strange signs. Half-rotted human bones were removed from under the largest stone.
The work was suspended for some time, and one of the few remaining archaeologists in the city was invited to the place of discovery. After a cursory examination, he pronounced the verdict: the find is unique, since it is a perfectly preserved temple, or burial, dating back to the 11th-12th centuries and most likely of Scandinavian origin.
The archaeologist demanded to stop work in order to thoroughly examine the artifact, but did not meet with understanding from the responsible workers. He got it for "bourgeois tricks" and "misunderstanding of the historical moment", and the granite slabs were taken to the stone-cutting artel "Free Labor", where they were cut into curbs for the pavements of the Lithuanian Avenue. The human remains were put in several bags and taken to a landfill.
At noon on April 12 of the same year, a laundress rushed from Borovoy Bridge into the Obvodny Canal. It was not possible to save the suicide. From that moment Borovoy, Novokamenny, Predtechensky bridges and the railway viaduct near Volkovka became the favorite places of urban suicides.
The slow, dark waters of the Obvodny Canal, like a magnet, attracted those who decided to commit suicide. According to a reporter for Krasnaya Gazeta, "suicides are often drowned here and even willingly."
That year, the waters of the Obvodny Canal closed forever over the heads of eighty-nine people! Only one was saved. It turned out to be a respected comrade, a member of the RSDLP since 1903, personally acquainted with Lenin. In broad daylight, he jumped with a wild cry into the Obvodny Canal from Borovoy Bridge. He fell into shallow water and was pulled out by firefighters. The famous psychiatrist Efimson took up the failed suicide, but the rescued person could not explain what made him try to commit suicide.
Since 1924, suicides on Obvodny stopped abruptly, and until the early 30s there were no more such cases. But in 1933, the canal was again swept by an epidemic of suicide, and again in the same section - from Borovsky Bridge to the railway viaduct. One hundred and seven cases of suicide were recorded by the 28th police station, on the territory of which this section was located. The nightmare marathon continued throughout the year, but with the beginning of the new 1934, it ended just as suddenly.
Dr. Efimson, who lived a long life, was able to examine more than thirty survivors of the suicide attempt of the townspeople. According to his conclusions, all suicides were distinguished by good physical and mental health, moreover, they did not have the slightest reason to commit suicide.
According to them, passing along Borovoy Bridge, the unfortunate people felt that some irresistible force from the outside was pushing them to take the fatal step into the void! It was simply impossible not to obey the order of the creepy disembodied master. Others said that they were simply picked up by some powerful energy and thrown into the water.
Another "boom" of suicides also happened exactly ten years later, in 1943. True, in the besieged city, such cases were ignored. But, according to eyewitnesses, the Obvodny Canal was a terrible sight that year. When German shells exploded in the canal, numerous bodies of suicides floated to the surface from explosions here and there, and the current slowly carried them towards the Neva.
Since the spirit of the Karelian priest, disturbed by the builders, escaped to freedom, every ten years the waters of the Obvodny Canal turn into a suicide cemetery. In 1993, three hundred and three people died at the ominous site. The deaths of these unfortunates were attributed to banal suicides. And ten years later, in 2003, the data on suicides on the Obvodny Canal turned out to be classified …