The ancient city of Solikamsk in the Perm Territory is known all over the world for its rich deposits of potash salts. This city was mentioned in his novel "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe. And Solikamsk is also famous for its underground passages. This is an extensive, mysterious and gigantic network …
The first mention of the underground passages in Solikamsk dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. In 1623, when describing the Solikamsk fortress, Mikhail Kaisarov reported that "yes, the Nugal Towers have a cache from under the city walls to the Usolka River."
On all four sides
In the old days, the word "cache" meant an underground passage that ended in a well. Such passages during the siege of the fortress served to supply water.
This move did not crumble immediately: one section stood for quite a long time, until the end of the 1930s. In 1937, in the courtyard of Solikamsk Korovin, a deep failure formed - this fact was recorded by Udimov, a researcher at the Solikamsk Museum. If you take the failure for the end of the cache, then you can roughly calculate its length - about 40 meters.
There is another interesting point in the same description of Kaisarov. He writes: "Yes, there is a cannon storehouse in the city with an exit." And exits at that time were precisely what we mean by an underground passage today. This is, in fact, a kind of corridor that had an entrance to the fortress, and an exit somewhere outside of it. Such moves were used in order to be able to secretly enter or exit the fortress during a siege.
The most powerful system of underground passages was created in Solikamsk at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. It united almost all the stone buildings in the center of the old city: churches, an official hut, the house of the governor. Moreover, it was the latter that was the center of this entire system. Underground passages from it diverged in all four directions.
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One of them walked towards the Cathedral bell tower, and then towards the summer Trinity Cathedral. The second passage led to the clerk hut, which stood about 30 meters from the governor's house (it has not been preserved). The third move stretched towards the Epiphany Church. And the fourth course led to the bank of the Usolka river, densely overgrown with willow trees.
There are many legends about these moves. First of all, because no one knows for what purpose they were built and in what way, because the soils are stony here! It is also unknown what extent they had - most were covered with earth.
The earliest information about the passages was recorded by Archpriest Theodor Lyubimov in 1838-1839, as well as the Solikamsk regional historian Slupsky at the beginning of the 20th century. Lyubimov, from the words of the petty bourgeois woman Plotnikova, wrote that in 1830 the wife of the Perm vice-governor Popov dared to pass along the underground passage from the governor's house. Five more people went with her. They managed to pass only 40 fathoms, and then because of the stale air the candles went out, people began to suffocate and hastened to leave the passage.
Another petty bourgeois woman named Shulgina said that when she served as a maid for the zemstvo judge Karnaukhov (the governor's house then belonged to him), one day she also tried to go down into the underground passage. However, due to the fear of darkness and heavy air, she could not pass even four fathoms.
Was there a treasure?
In 1839, the famous Russian writer Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky visited Solikamsk. In "Road notes on the way from the Tambov province to Siberia", later published in the "Notes of the Fatherland", he wrote: "On the square near the cathedral bell tower, I saw a lot of people. Large earthworks were carried out - they were looking for the famous underground passages, about which there are many legends among the people. I learned that these passages were arranged in the old days, when attacks by Tatars, Bashkirs and Voguls happened. Residents fled to the dungeons along with their property, and the rich hid their treasury there. One of the diggers confidentially reported that as if ten years ago someone, being at his last gasp, announced that he knew a rich treasure - a whole barrel of gold buried near cathedrals. Having looked closely at the chaotic nature of the work, I realized that the barrel is the most sought after. Meanwhile, in the depths of the dug holes, real treasures were seen - the remains of ancient wooden log cabins, parts of the foundations. But nobody paid attention to them."
Melnikov-Pechersky also wrote that an obese gentleman watched the earthworks with curiosity. It was the Solikamsk official, the provincial secretary Plotnikov, the next owner of the governor's house. Having met the writer, he said that in his house in the basement there is an iron door facing the cathedrals. According to Plotnikov, the entrance to the dungeon could be hidden behind this door. This was confirmed by popular rumor.
"It's only strange," Melnikov-Pechersky wrote further, "that neither Plotnikov nor anyone else tried to open this door."
However, later this door was nevertheless opened and an underground passage was actually found behind it.
In 1781, the voivodeship in Solikamsk was abolished by the decree of Empress Catherine II, and the entire administration was transferred to the new provincial city of Perm. The order hut was vacated and sold to a private person. And the house of the governor was acquired by the richest salt industrialist Maxim Grigorievich Surovtsev, who settled there with his family. Like any owner, Surovtsev walked around all the rooms, halls, then went down to the basement, and from there into the underground passage.
And then the legend begins. In one of the moves, Surovtsev allegedly found a casket with jewelry. But as soon as he brought the find into the house, he and all his household were struck by a terrible ailment: everyone's heads moved to one side. To whatever doctors the owner of the governor's house turned to, nothing helped. Then, on the advice of a priest, he decided to give the found riches for the construction of the temple. And as soon as it was laid, the disease receded!
And then Surovtsev ordered his servants to brick up the underground passages so that no one would ever find them.
But they found out about these moves. Today, the governor's house houses a local history museum, and most of all, visitors like to go down into the preserved underground passage.
Legendary "triangles"
In 1938, the Solikamsk local historian Dmitry Udimov recorded another failure - between the buildings of the Turchaninov estate. The famous salt producers Turchaninovs began to build their estate in Solikamsk in the 1760s. Moreover, as legends say, an underground passage was erected under the buildings: it connected the house with the building of the factory administration, as well as a temple in the name of Saints Simeon and Anna. That is, all three buildings were connected underground by a kind of underground triangle.
For what purpose was this underground passage laid? The fact is that, apparently, in the first years of the existence of the plant and settlement, when attacks by the Bashkir freemen were frequent, and later, during the Pugachev rebellion, the owners could not help but have thoughts about secret shelters and secret escape routes, as well as about the ability to take out and hide the factory cash register. Perhaps these thoughts were especially strengthened after labor unrest - and they were not uncommon. One way or another, but once the salt producers decided to build secret dungeons. However, their secret has not yet been fully solved.
It is known that many Ural industrialists built their estates in such a way that an underground passage would connect the manor house, the factory management and the enterprise itself. There were frequent cases when the owner, in order to observe his workers, appeared unexpectedly, as if from under the ground. But often it was so - from underground, from a secret passage. Moreover, quite often, in addition to the passages uniting the main buildings, another passage was built leading to some secret place.
Aleksey Turchaninov almost simultaneously with the construction of the estate in Solikamsk began to build the estate in the Sysert plant. It is known that in Sysert, a residential building, a factory office and a cathedral were also connected by underground passages. Another underground passage went from the factory office to the territory of the enterprise, in one place passing directly under the riverbed.
According to popular legend, the Sysert underground passages were built by a specially invited Englishman for Turchaninov. Perhaps he was doing the same in Solikamsk - the construction time is the same.
By the way, according to one of the legends, the Englishman was walled up in one of the underground passages so that he could not tell anyone about them.
Alina DANILOVA