“… The city seems to have died out. There was nothing to catch the eye - the birds disappeared, there were no dogs, cats, and even summer midges. There were houses, the streets were in place, however, for some reason he did not remember the tram track along Engels Street. Maybe there were … Suddenly something made him turn around. About a hundred meters behind I saw a figure in a light brown cloak. Just thought, they say, summer, and the man in the raincoat wanted to wait for him, when the word “thank you” sounded nearby, and the stranger was far ahead.”…
Gennady Belimov, researcher, head of the Volga group for the study of anomalous phenomena.
To try to investigate and, if possible, understand the mysterious phenomenon, which is connected either with chrono-mirage, or with spontaneous movements of people into another reality, I was pushed by facts that for a long time did not find any reasonable explanation … Although even now, to admit, everything is far from clear here … The stories that happened seem very incredible.
Space traps
For the first time, a resident of the 39th quarter M. V. told me about a strange case of transporting to another reality. Obolkin. An inexplicable "devilry" happened to him in 1995.
- You see, I ended up in another Volzhsky! He assured me. - Not in our, earthly and understandable, but in some other. There are differences from "our".
For example, the tram track went straight along the entire Engels Street, without turning to Karbyshev, and the houses were slightly different …
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Mikhail Vasilyevich told in detail, but I have never come across such a thing, and, not finding a sensible explanation, he just shrugged his shoulders: "Maybe you dreamed?.."
Then the story was forgotten for a long time. But relatively recently, my old friend, an avid tourist and orienteer, a candidate for master of sports in these types of competitions, Volodya Lebedev, recalled the mysterious phenomenon of chronomire. Now he is Vladimir Vyacheslavovich, the head of the construction site for industrial mountaineering, the director of the training center, and then, in the 70s, everyone knew him as an active athlete.
1976, end of July, Friday - he began his story. - I remember well about Friday, because on Saturday there were scheduled competitions in the floodplain, and I wanted to go there that day. He jumped out of the entrance of his beauty at the beginning of the ninth evening and immediately went to the arch of the house, which is on Stalingradskaya Street. It was still daylight, but lights were supposed to come on in the windows here and there. Must! However, they didn’t burn … And the yard seemed strange: on the bench at the entrance there were always grannies, and here - no one … The children were not buzzing, and nowhere was there a single car. As a rule, it is crowded in the evenings, but now … even a ball!
He slipped through the arch going to Stalingrad. There was an almost completed Palace of Culture, Lenin Square opened before our eyes, but there were no people here either. At all! Empty … Well, this simply cannot be!.. Summer, July, it is getting dark - and nobody!
- I went diagonally to the podium … Fantastic! The silence is unusual, it is already ringing in my ears … It is calm, there are no clouds in the sky, and there are no cars according to Lenin or Engels, - Vladimir recalls the details. - True, the sky is a little unusual - some kind of blue-violet. I look at an apartment building - as a rule, there are already lights on in the windows at this time. And now, not a light! He bit his lip, but hard - I taste blood. I hit myself on the jaw - it hurts!.. But I need to go home, and this is the 10th microdistrict!
Walking along Engels, going up to the acacia, I plucked a handful of leaves, chewed - bitterly … In a word, I feel everything, I feel, I understand, but I can not understand anything. Why is the city empty ?! The roof, or what, has gone? The city seemed to be extinct. I was in a hurry home, walking quickly. I fly into my yard - there are usually a lot of people, many children, men sit on the benches of the agitation platform, playing cards, dominoes, hubbub … And there is no one here, empty. And the twilight is already noticeable. I fly into the staircase, run to my floor, open the apartment with the key and hit the switch with a bang … A spark flashed - and at the same moment the noise of the yard burst into the apartment. I went to the window, to the balcony, and there was noise and din, the city was alive, lights in all windows … Here it is, dear, everything is in place … Oh my God! And everything is available at home - mother, brother …
But then he did not say anything to them - he was frightened of the incomprehensible. And I didn't go to understand in the evening. It was not up to that …
Something happened to me that could not be! - Volodya convinced me. - Most likely, for these 40 minutes I found myself in a parallel world. Only now I am well-read, I heard something, and then, sheer idiocy!
Lebedev took me on the Zhiguli along the route he had taken on the July evening, recollecting the details - the incident was imprinted in my head like on a film strip.
- Then I was always interested in one thing - did the same happen to someone else? He mused.
“It happened,” I assured him and told the situation with Obolkin.
Glamor
The story that happened to Mikhail Vasilyevich came to my mind immediately. Moreover, the courtyard from which Lebedev started his race through the strangely empty city is adjacent to it; home. We can say this is one yard. Without delay, I called Obolkin and we met. The story repeated itself exactly as then, in the mid-90s.
- I came to the motorcycle parts store, which is located on Engels almost opposite the technical school, - Obolkin recalls the past. - Second half of August, sunny, three in the afternoon, the store has just opened after lunch. I walked around the windows for about twenty minutes, without buying anything I went out into the street. It seemed that it had become gloomy, and there were no people. I immediately did not attach any importance to this, and headed back home through Karbyshev Square along the path through the lawn. And then suddenly I saw that the tram rails did not turn onto this street, but went straight along Engels! Stopped - what is it? Lost your bearings? But to tell the truth, at that moment my head really was, as after anesthesia, bad, in a word, a familiar feeling after one surgical operation.
- What else do you remember?
- Metal railings along the path, they were not there before, there is some other building on the site of the school … There is also no monument to General Karbyshev. But the main thing - no lights in the windows, no people, no cars. And the twilight is already - maybe even deep night, but without our usual crown.
In utter confusion, Mikhail Vasilyevich returned to the store as to the starting point. It is dark, the shop windows are not lit, the sky is dark gray and the city is absolutely gloomy! In the past, an experienced taiga man, he began to guess that some anomalous phenomena were taking place either with him or in the city. Thought: did you get there? But we must return!.. I went back across the square. And then a man in some kind of hoodie walks towards him: a jacket with a hood, hands in pockets, head bowed, face not visible.
- I wanted to ask him what is the name of this city? But I realized that I would simply be mistaken for a madman, and at the last moment remained silent, - recalled my friend. - The man quickly passed by, and I continue to walk along Engels. And then it dawned on me: I'll go to my grandson. He lived in a house next to the library. I already realize that I am in another world and I have to get out. Of course, fear rolled over - what if I stay here forever?
On a sharp bell, the door was opened … his Leshka! “Come in, grandfather! - he was surprised at the late visit. - What are you so pale? "Why, my heart seemed to grab hold, - Mikhail Vasilyevich looked closely at his grandson (is that one?) - Can you pour some tea?"
The light was on in the apartment, the TV was turned on, cars were noisy outside the window, the city hum was heard, to which Obolkin was incredibly happy. The glamor is over. He looked at the clock - nine in the evening. "Where have I been for almost six hours?" - the thought flashed. At tea, he told his grandson about the adventure. "Well, you, grandfather, give it!.." - he just said.
- And what are your versions? - I ask the interlocutor.
- Only one, - Obolkin thought, - this is a parallel world. The other does not come to mind. I was told about such gaps in other dimensions. Transitions of this kind are sometimes irrevocable. Consider myself lucky.
And in conclusion of this story, let me remind you of the volzhanka, the X-ray girl Katya Cherkasova. Once she told me that she feels and knows about the portals - transitions to other dimensions. One of them seems to be on Engels Street. At what moment and why they open - nobody knows. But this happens. Maybe someone else got into such situations? It would be nice to hear a new version.
Gennady Belimov, head of the Volga group for the study of anomalous phenomena.
Mysterious disappearance
The working day had already ended for half an hour, and all the employees of the department went home. Pyotr Sergeevich was also about to leave. He took off his dressing gown, put on his jacket, turned off the light in the office, went out into the corridor and put his hand in his pocket for the keys to close the door. There were no keys. I felt all the pockets of my jacket and even my jeans - no keys! I returned to my office, examined the table, checked the pockets of the robe, looked at the lock of the safe (maybe I forgot to take them out) - there are no keys! What to do? After all, the key fob contains the keys not only to the safe and cabinet, but also to the house!
I had to start a systematic search for keys. Denisov took off his jacket, laid it out on the sofa and slowly, sequentially - more than once - searched all the pockets. Then he examined the drawers of the table, even looked under the sofa, checked all the pockets of the dressing gowns hanging in the closet. There are no keys!
A fruitless search
Frustrated, Denisov moved the search to neighboring offices and the corridor - where he could accidentally leave them. I reviewed it in all offices, in all tables … Although, it makes no sense to list the places that the elderly doctor examined in search of keys. The fact remains: the keys are gone!
There was only one thing left - to call your employees: did anyone of them - by chance - grab a keychain with keys? One of the doctors, whom we managed to get through, said that when he was the last to leave, he saw Pyotr Sergeevich looking for something in an open safe. From this it followed that Denisov closed it himself, and this meant that no one could accidentally take away the keys! Where are they?
An unexpected find
It should be noted that Petr Sergeevich, despite his considerable age, was completely sane and adequate! He sat in his office, lamented and, finally, called his orderly - fortunately, he lived nearby! - so that he brings his keys. About 15 minutes later the orderly came. The men closed the front door and went home, rightly judging that the morning was wiser than the evening! The loss, of course, was depressing, creating a lot of problems, and what kind of problems!
With such gloomy thoughts, Denisov trudged along the dark streets, consoled only by the fact that the spare keys to his house were hidden in the courtyard under the porch and there would be no need to break the lock. Having found a spare bundle, Pyotr Sergeevich successively opened the doors of the veranda and the house itself. In the hallway I put my briefcase on the floor, and put the spare keys out of habit! - into a jacket pocket and they … blurted out against a bunch of keys already lying there, the one that was lost and which had to be searched for so long and hard!
Deja vu
And here it should be noted: the strangest thing, perhaps, was not even the mysterious disappearance of a weighty bunch of keys, but in that mental state that Denisov had as soon as the loss was discovered. Instantly, a strange feeling of loss of balance appeared. In a split second, the ceiling and floor were reversed and returned to their original positions. There was a feeling of unreality of what was happening. Denisov suddenly thought that he was not he, but a completely different, unfamiliar person! And there was complete silence, and with it - the feeling that he, Denisov, was enveloped in a thick layer of cotton wool. And yet - oddly enough - it seemed to Pyotr Sergeevich that something similar had already happened to him …
So Denisov stood and stood in the hallway, holding two bunches of keys in his hands and moving a puzzled look from one to the other. Is it really old age? How could it be possible not to notice a bunch in his pocket - mind you, a weighty bunch of keys, noticeably pulling off the pocket, he could not imagine! Not to notice after numerous and lengthy searches!
As a doctor, a specialist trained in psychiatry, Denisov knew many phenomena of the human psyche, but can what happened to him be explained by such reasons? Hardly! And not even because the bunch of keys is too large, and he, Denisov, is completely adequate, but because all this was accompanied by a kind of inner feeling of unreality of what was happening and even depersonalization - that is, a symptom of "already seen", the famous deja vu! These inner mental sensations left no doubt that Peter Sergeevich had to meet with the unknown!
A slightly different reality
Several years have passed. From time to time, Denisov mentally returned to that mysterious case. And one day I decided to sit in the library, look for publications that would describe similar situations. And that's what he managed to find out.
According to the testimony of the coordinator of the All-Russian Society "Cosmopoisk" V. A. Chernobrov, in 1995 he accidentally met with his fellow student - they studied together at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). And this fellow student told Vadim Alexandrovich that he once spent about two weeks in "a slightly different reality." I was in that world and MAI, and the same people, but those who in one world knew him well, in another - turned away, as if from a stranger; his bride in that other reality was the wife of another … How he got there and how he got back, Chernobrov's fellow student did not know. He only said that it happened unexpectedly …