At the beginning of the 19th century, a merchant with a large family lived in Orel. Things were going well for him. But in the spring, due to an unusually large flood of the river, its warehouses were flooded, the goods were spoiled, and the merchant's estate went bankrupt. And to improve his well-being, he decided to marry his beautiful daughter to a rich old man.
The girl begged her father not to ruin her life, but he was adamant. The next spring, when the ice was still floating on the river, the wedding procession passed along the bank. Suddenly, the bride jumped out of the carriage, threw herself into the water and disappeared into the depths.
Since then, rumors have spread that the ghost of this unfortunate woman has settled in the Pyatnitsky catacombs.
In the Pyatnitsky catacombs (Oryol)
There was no laughing matter
My great-great-grandfather Nikita Tsukanov was a man of extraordinary strength. Besides, he is handsome, merry fellow and joker. He worked in quarries, the development of which was carried out even before Catherine the Great. Some of the workers swore that they had seen a ghost, but Nikita just chuckled, not believing in this nonsense.
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One night he was fishing on the river, not far from the entrance to the development. The bite was excellent. And soon Nikita filled a whole net with fish. He collected the tackle, climbed to the first tier of the bank, when suddenly a girl in a white dress and a wreath of wax white roses on her head came up to him.
“Hello,” she said, touching his arm. Nikita felt the coldness of the touch, but did not immediately attach any importance to it.
- Where are you from, beauty? - he asked. The moon was shining, and he got a good look at the girl's face. Her searing black eyes bathed him with a deathly, afterlife light. Nikita shuddered, but he suppressed a surging anxiety.
- I'm lost. Will you see me? - demanded the night stranger. And for some reason Nikita unquestioningly went with her. They walked, as he later recalled, quite a long time. On some unfamiliar hills, lowlands overgrown with pale blue grass and gnarled bushes.
“Well, this is my house,” the girl suddenly said and pointed to a beautiful building hiding in some strange garden. She walked forward and, opening the gate, invited:
- Nikita, come in, you will be my fiancé.
He was about to take a step, but he felt pain in his leg, and this stopped him. Horror pierced Nikita from head to toe when he realized that he was in pitch darkness, no one knows where. The girl in white still loomed in the distance for some time (for some reason he saw her figure clearly).
Then her laughter rang out, and the vision disappeared. Great-great-grandfather was a courageous person. He overcame his fear, took a metal box with phosphor matches from his pocket, struck one of them on the sole of his boot and raised the light above him. A dim flame illuminated the dungeon adit. Loudly reading "Our Father", Nikita soon found a way out - two kilometers from his house (there were several entrances and exits to the catacombs).
Nikita himself ran home and frightened his relatives with a story about what had happened. They sprinkled him with holy water and reassured him as best they could. The vigorous vodka infused with St. John's wort also helped. But still, my great-great-grandfather was ill for a whole week: he healed the soul and the wound on his leg.
Then we will meet
My grandfather Alexey Ivanovich also met the ghost of a girl in white. The acquaintance of my grandmother Evdokia Grigorievna with my grandfather is shrouded in mystery. She saw her fiancé - a dashing cavalryman of the tsarist army - in the mirror when she and her friend were fortune-telling in the barn on Christmas time.
For a long time nothing appeared in the mirror. The girls laughed, teasing each other. And then an officer appeared with a gracefully curled mustache. The girls froze. Then a couple appeared. The same officer, but in a suit and bowler hat, with a cane in his hand. And next to him is a girl in a beige dress.
- Dunya, it's you! - the girlfriend sighed. The couple disappeared.
Then a sad gray-haired old man appeared in the mirror. He waved his hand and disappeared too. Six months later, when the cavalryman, who was galloping by me, asked for a drink, Dunyashka's girlish heart beat violently - in him she recognized the person from the mirror. And a year later, my grandfather, who could not forget a casual acquaintance, came to get married.
The wedding took place soon. Grandfather demobilized from the regiment and began to work as an assistant accountant at a winery. My great-grandmother Nadezhda admonished her son-in-law: “Why are you bending your back for twenty rubles? Go to the police, there you will receive as much as thirty-four rubles! My grandfather could not resist, quit his job at the winery and went to the police as a clerk, maybe that's why he ended up in the thirties, being an old man, among the repressed.
On an autumn night in 1908 (my grandmother remembered this day well) my grandfather was returning from duty. He walked past remote gardens and stone sheds, dreaming of hot, rich cabbage soup, a glass and an affectionate wife. It was dark, only sometimes the moon appeared in the breaks of the clouds, dimly illuminating everything around. Suddenly a lamb jumped out of the darkness and began rubbing against his grandfather's legs, like a cat … The brave officer was taken aback by surprise.
- Don't be afraid, Alexey. This is my kitten, - was heard from the left, and a girl in a white long dress and a wreath of wax roses came out of the darkness.
- Aren't you cold? - my grandfather asked sympathetically, feeling the piercing cold coming from the girl. "Where does she come from here, and at night?" - flashed through his head.
- I'm lost. Show me off, officer,”the girl said and touched his face with her icy hand. My grandfather's heart sank from an incomprehensible feeling. He wanted to ask the strange girl about something else, but he could not. Obediently he walked beside her into the darkness. And all along some hills illuminated by a ghostly greenish light.
“This is where I live,” his companion suddenly said and pointed to a magnificent house, towering among the gnarled strange trees. She walked forward, opened the gate in the twisted fence and suggested:
- Come in, blue-eyed, you will become my fiancé.
“I'm married,” he murmured. And then the wild cold brought him back to reality. The girl's ghost began to move away and disappeared. But my grandfather heard her parting words:
- The time will come, Alexey, and your soul will wander restless. That's when we'll meet! - The girl laughed, but, as he later recalled, not evil, but kind.
My grandfather was terribly surprised and frightened. He - in an overcoat, with a saber - stood up to his throat in the water, in the river, not far from the village of Polovets. Barely getting out, he ran home and with his story alarmed his wife and family.
And the abandoned passages of the catacombs still exist. It is said that the ghost of the girl in white is sometimes shown to some adventurers who have visited these dungeons.
Vladimir Konstantinov