On the territory of Komi, there are several places from which the ubiquitous and omnivorous rats flee, like from a drowning ship. The largest is located in the area of the Vishera River and its tributary, the Nivshera: rodents are not found here, and those who are brought in either run away or die. These cases have received their own name among the researchers of strangeness - the "Visher phenomenon." The reasons for this behavior of rats are not exactly clear, there are only folk versions. This is the fear of the local land, and the common peony that scares away animals, and magnetic anomalies.
It is known that the rat is one of the most tenacious creatures on Earth. When people met rats, it's hard to say. It seems that they have always been with a person. A black rat lived in Europe, a Turkestan rat in Central Asia. From the first half of the 18th century, large gray-brown rats began to appear in European cities. Daring, cunning, nosy aliens drove out or even simply killed the black aborigines and multiplied rapidly, capturing territory after territory. It was a pasyuk, or, scientifically, rattus norvegicus - "Norwegian rat." He supplanted the black rat and is now the main urban and rural predator. But, regardless of names and species, rats ate and spoiled human reserves, spread diseases, and supported the life of an army of fleas. No one, of course, was happy with them, but still people treated their presence,as a habitual evil. Rats are omnivorous and ubiquitous. In Europe, including in the North, rats live almost everywhere where people live.
Not only Troitsk, but also neighboring villages and villages: Bolshelug, Vilyb, Zuleb, Syuzyab, Bogorodsk, Pasvomyn, Nivshera, and others fall into the zone of the “Visher phenomenon”.
Old-timers say that during the war and before the war, most of the cargo in the Vishera region was brought by barges. So the rats still in Syktyvkar in panic left those barges that were heading to Vishera. It is incomprehensible how they could guess the destination of the cargo. And everyone who sailed on the river on boats, boats, barges, argue that when 12-15 kilometers are left to Bolshelug, rats opposite the town of Nam-Vomin jump from ships into the water. Somehow one rat "gape" and got to Bogorodsk. She jumped ashore, ran a little, and immediately died. Exactly the same stories about rats are told by residents of the village of Ust-Ilych in the Troitsko-Pechora district. Rats have been prohibited from entering there for centuries.
Science has not yet answered what is the reason for the "Visher phenomenon." But there are several popular versions. Some Visher residents are sure that rats are scared off by the common peony (Paeonia) growing in these places or by its roots. But the same peony grows in other parts of the republic, where rats feel quite "at home."
Another version is that rats are afraid of the local land. Therefore, the land from Vishera is taken by residents of the entire district, taken to themselves and scattered around houses and outbuildings. They say that after this there are fewer rodents.
A place on Vishera, above which rats are not found, is the Görd Choy (Red Mountain) tract. The clay is red here. Local residents are sure that this clay contains a lot of cinnabar - a mineral with an admixture of mercury ore. This can scare off rats. According to another "soil" version, rats are scared away by the fact that in the vicinity of Troitsk and neighboring villages there is no iodine in the water and soil. But none of the scientists tested these versions.
Another version is radiation. But it was checked more than once using a Geiger counter, the level of radiation in the area is half that of Syktyvkar.
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There is a legend about the local sorcerer Tuvö. According to legend, he had a powerful witchcraft gift. The water element obeyed him. So, being at the head of a hunting artel, Tuvö, in order to overcome the portage, made it rain for two weeks. The river overflowed its banks, and on the big water his artel easily got over the portage. Being under water and not coming out to the surface, Tuvö was able to travel long distances, traveling from one village to another. He also possessed such a unique gift as the ability to teleport. Somehow, his team was late in the forest almost before Christmas, and all the hunters were bored of home. Tuvö noticed this and said that it was time to go home, but one more night needed to sleep in the hut. The hunters went to bed, and in the morning they all woke up in the village, in the house near Tuvö. All their equipment and loot were also there. It revealed,that each of the hunters had the same dream that night: as if he flew out of a fishing hut, flew through the middle window into Tuvö's house and went to sleep on the stove. From competing artels, Tuvö could “steal the road”, which caused a large group of hunters to keep returning to the place where they started their journey. In addition, Tyuvö is credited with the gift of foresight. He, like Nostradamus, predicted the emergence of many modern technical advances: iron horses (tractors), birds (airplanes), and an iron web (power lines).like Nostradamus, predicted the emergence of many modern technical advances: iron horses (tractors), birds (planes) and iron spider webs (power lines).like Nostradamus, predicted the emergence of many modern technical advances: iron horses (tractors), birds (planes) and iron spider webs (power lines).
But, most importantly, Tuvö is credited with the absence of rats on Vishera and Nivshera. According to legend, it happened like this. Once Tyuvö was returning home to Bogorodsk from Storozhevsk. After walking several kilometers up the river, the sorcerer got tired and sat down to have a bite. But there were only bread crumbs in the bag - the rats ate all the bread. Angry with them, the sorcerer put a curse and said: "Do not go here again." Since then, rats have not been able to cross this, invisible to others, border.
Rats bring a lot of problems to mankind, and until now the only correct remedy for the ubiquitous rodents has not been invented. Therefore, the solution to the mystery of the "Visher phenomenon" can bring a lot of benefit to all mankind and grief to the … rat community.
