For several months now, employees of the Staraya Sarepta Museum-Reserve in the Krasnoarmeysky District have been pouring fresh dark beer into a thick-walled mug every day, covering it with a crumb of black bread and leaving it in the exhibition hall of the Goldbach house.
They were asked about it … the spirit of the old German Johan, who lived in this house a long time ago. And in the neighboring house of the manufacturer Glitch, we managed to photograph the ghost of a woman who died here long before the appearance of the Sareptians.
The house is shining, and on the wall is a face
Footsteps, whispers, strange knocking at night - the employees of "Staraya Sarepta" have long been accustomed to this. Inhabitants of houses adjacent to the territory of the museum-reserve often encountered inexplicable phenomena: on Freedom Square, people saw the disembodied figure of a girl and a ghostly dog with bright green eyes.
“In our museum, doors opened and closed by themselves, things moved in closed windows, and we stopped paying attention to constantly triggered motion sensors,” says Elena Kazanova, press secretary of the museum-reserve. - Having decided to find out who or what lives in "Staraya Sarepta", we turned to the TNT TV channel, to the "Battle of psychics" program. They responded immediately - the leader of the first season Alena Orlova and the finalist of the ninth battle Nona Khidiryan came to us. As soon as psychics set foot on the territory of Zarepta, miracles began.
“Nona Khidiryan immediately went to the Glich house, where a youth leisure center and a billiard club are now located,” says Svetlana Shoshina, head of the Glich club. “She said," The house is shining, and there is a face on the wall. " Nona entered the building, went down to the basement and almost immediately came into contact with the spirits.
There were two of them - an elderly woman and her child. They told Nona that they have lived here since time immemorial. Old Sarepta is the only colony of the German religious brotherhood of the Hernguthers in Russia, founded in 1765. Before the arrival of the Gernguthers, nomadic tribes lived in dugouts in these places. During one of the internecine wars, a woman with a baby was walled up in her home. They starved to death. Over the years, the manufacturer Glitch built a whole complex of buildings here, in one of which the souls of mother and child settled.
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- The woman told Nona that this is her home and she will not go anywhere from here, - says Svetlana. - But no one is going to drive her away. The psychic assured us that the ghost of the nomad would not do anything bad to us, moreover, she is the keeper of this building, his kind spirit. The only thing she wants is for people to know about her and not be afraid.
Photo: oblvesti.ru
- On the second floor we have a wall that one of our regular visitors suggested painting. He drew the Sareptians playing billiards. Men have the most typical faces, and the only woman strikes with unusual features. Seeing the drawing, Nona exclaimed: "So here she is, your keeper!" and explained: in this way, through creative people, the soul of a nomad tries to express itself.
- Nona moved our spirits to another basement - uninhabited, where no one goes, - says Svetlana. “But still, the ghost sometimes appears. The psychic is sure: the phantom of the nomad somehow influences the modern inhabitants of the Glich house. So, for some reason, the club employees brought to work an old mirror, sewing accessories, women's clothing, even a bunch of dried eggplants. Nona Khidiryan assures that in this way she makes her own corner here.
Beer and bread
The basement of the Goldbach Trading House is one of the most beautiful and significant in Sarepta. Psychic Alena Orlova said that the keeper also lives here, and immediately got in touch with him.
“She said,“This is an elderly, lean German named Johan,”says Viktor Medvedev, head of the history and ethnography department of the Old Sarepta Museum. - And then she spoke to Johan in his native language, noticing that she had difficulty understanding him, since Johan's speech was replete with old German phrases.
By the way, the Sareptians often used Old German. So all this is very similar to the truth.
Johan complained to Alena about the museum staff: they say, he takes offense at them for the lack of attention. And yet he, Johan, in his youth was very fond of drinking beer with black Sarepta bread and would be grateful to the employees of Sarepta if they would give him a place in the House where he could indulge in his favorite pastime.
Alena chose a place right in the exhibition hall, where for several months the staff of the museum-reserve have been putting a mug of beer covered with dark bread.
Photo: oblvesti.ru
- During the contact, an amazing thing happened: a disabled alarm suddenly went off, - continues Viktor Medvedev. - Everyone rushed about, no one knew what to do, how to silence the howling siren. All of a sudden, everything stopped: it turns out that the spirit did it in response to Alena's request to find herself …
Who was this Johan? The Sareptans have a legend about the ghost of an old potter named Johann Niedenthal. Having arrived from Germany to Sarepta at the end of the 18th century, Niedenthal founded a pottery workshop here. Business flourished, a small workshop grew into a whole factory, the fame of which resounded throughout Russia. After the death of Niedenthal, night after night in the deserted room of his workshop (with the doors securely closed), the noise of a rotating potter's wheel began to be clearly heard.
From time to time, in the silence of the night, the clink of broken dishes was heard. The frightened watchmen told the young owner of the factory, Johann's heir, about what was happening. He entered the workshop in the middle of the night and saw … his late father, sitting at a potter's wheel and grinding a pot. Old Niedenthal looked up, saw his son and disappeared, disappearing into thin air. The next day, according to old man Johann, a funeral service was ordered at the local Lutheran church, and from that moment on, the strange visions and sounds in the factory building ceased. Who knows, maybe a century later old Niedenthal reminded of himself again?
Photo: oblvesti.ru
- Having promised the spirit of the old German beer and bread, Alena said: "And now I feel death" and described the invasion of Pugachev's troops. Pogroms, robberies, murders. As a historian, I can confirm her words. Here blood flowed like a river, - continues Viktor Medvedev. - Then the magic began. Alena asked: “What have you got down there? Luke?" We were amazed: indeed, right under the place where she stood, there is a hatch in the basement, which about ten of the museum employees out of a hundred know about. What is this hole and where it leads - we are not completely clear. Maybe in the basements below, maybe it's part of the drainage system …
For some reason, no one covered this hole, even when the museum was re-exposed. They just put a barrel on top of it.
According to Alena, it was from this hatch that essences carrying negative energy flew out. To get rid of them, it is necessary to carry out a ceremony - to close the energy funnel.
- She burned candles and some exotic grass, read prayers in an incomprehensible language, then for some reason asked everyone present for small coins and threw them into the hatch, - eyewitnesses of the magical action tell. - At the same time, she warned that evil spirits that are about to jump out of the hatch can move into someone present. In someone who is weak in spirit and will not be able to defend himself. Is it different, but after what Alena did, the spirits no longer bother us …
Photo: oblvesti.ru
“We are grateful to the psychics,” the museum staff continues. “They helped us understand what we are dealing with and even make friends with our spirits. But the way the program was broadcast disappointed us. It's good if we were shown at least a third of what actually happened during the visit of psychics. They made us frightened people who do not understand anything. Meanwhile, it was not fear that made us turn to Nona and Alena, but a desire to understand what was happening within the walls of our buildings.
Spirits guard this place
- In fact, I am a big skeptic, - the director of the museum-reserve Anatoly Malchenko confessed to us. - But I was personally convinced that psychics are very different from you and me and really have supernatural powers. For example, I witnessed how a guy from the crowd ran up to Nona Khidiryan and demanded: "Nona, tell me something about me!" She immediately, looking into his eyes, replied: "What can I say to you, if you just got married, you have mutual love, which is rare, and besides, your wife is pregnant and you will have a son!"
He shouted: "Hurray!" and disappeared into the crowd. And when the alarm went off in Goldbach's house … After the visit of the psychics, I remained a skeptic, but in a somewhat different sense. Now I am skeptical about those who categorically reject the existence of people with paranormal abilities.
As for the spirits of Zarepta, it seems to me that the ghosts are guarding this place, somehow helping us to make it exist and develop. I treat them as museum workers whom we met thanks to Alena and Nona, - Anatoly Malchenko smiles. - In general, Sarepta without ghosts is not Sarepta. This is a unique place. So much so that you will not find anything like it in Europe or Asia. For example, representatives of four religions peacefully coexisted on this territory. Sarepta lived actively for almost 200 years.
The Sareptians were innovators in many ways. The first kindergarten in Russia appeared here, the first elevator started working. During the terrible plague in the Volga region in Sarepta, not a single person fell ill. Muslims and Tatars were engaged in wine in Sarepta, which is not at all characteristic of them, and the vodka that was made here was in great demand in Russia. And the balm, and the beer from watermelons ?! Perhaps the only thing that the Sarepta missionaries failed to do was to convert the Kalmyks to Christianity. They say that they listened to them attentively, and then went to their room and prayed to Buddha …
We were personally convinced of the existence of Sarepta ghosts. In the very basement where Nona Khidiryan communicated with the spirit of the nomad, one of the photographs showed a female profile. This is not a montage or a play of light: a series of photographs was taken from one point, and there are simply no windows in the old basement …
Lilia Cantour