Stefan Fomich Sambor worked as a telegraph operator at the Popelnya station of the Fastovskaya railway, near Zhitomir. He received 60 rubles a month - a very decent salary at that time.
In 1893, the future medium made a fatal mistake, either by confusing it, or by sending important telegrams at the wrong time. Finding himself out of work, he left for Kiev. His uncle lived there, who held a high position in the administration of the South-Western Railway. Sambor stayed with him so as not to spend money on a hotel.
Uncle and his acquaintances were fond of spiritualism, gathering every free evening around a round table. One day something went wrong with them. The table did not move, although the chain of closed arms around it was drawn up according to all the rules. Someone suggested including a fresh person in the chain. Sambor agreed to join.
Then something incredible began. In the presence of the former telegraph operator, the table spun, flew into the air and immediately tapped out an answer to every question.
The shocked participants in the session the next day spread the rumor about the miracle medium throughout Kiev. Stefan Fomich and his uncle were persuaded to arrange a public session at the railway administration building. There were even more miracles. Objects moved, flew through the air, people felt the touch of invisible hands.
Feeling his strength, Sambir held several sessions at the Metropol Hotel and private houses. Wandering lights appeared in the hotel, tables moved with noise. An ashtray and a book moved from one room to another, an invisible violin played.
In a private session, the "spirit" pulled chairs out of all the participants at the same time, played the invisible violin in different corners of the room, put the bottle on a candle and poured wine into glasses without spilling a drop on the tablecloth in the twilight. In another house, a "spirit" put hats on people, lifted the table into the air and showed "a large band of phosphoric light."
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During the session, Sambor remained attached to the chain at the table. He asked the neighbors to firmly hold his hands and press his feet with their feet to avoid suspicion of trickery. The strictest control measures did not prevent the "spirits" from reaching for objects and indulging in them.
Attempt to expose
The press vied with each other to describe spiritualistic miracles. A reporter from the newspaper "Kievlyanin", visiting the medium in January 1894, wrote:
“Sambor is a man of above average height, he looks in his early thirties, blond. During the session, two of those present held the medium's hands and with their feet touched his feet closely. The session consisted of five sections, during four of them I sat next to the medium and held his hand.
As is known from the descriptions of the sessions, spiritualistic experiences require complete silence. Our medium not only talked all the time, but also sang and asked us to sing with him. He sang, we pulled up.
The “spirit” that was playing around us is obviously funny. When we sang sad motives, he did nothing, with a cheerful motive, "phenomena" began. We felt a cold stream of air, as if someone was waving a fan over our hands. Some felt a breath in their faces, but I did not feel it …
Then something fell onto the table. Following this, Mr. X, felt that someone was strangling him by the throat and dragged away from the table. Someone pulled X with such force that all of us, clenching our hands tightly, moved from our seats.
They lit a candle. X, immediately felt liberated from the stranger's embrace. On the table lay the medium's coat. Those who held the medium's hands declared that they did not feel when the coat was removed from him.
When a person is held by the hands, it is impossible to unnoticeably take off his coat. Sleeves will get in the way. The clothes appear to have passed through the medium's body.
One of the Kiev doctors decided to expose Sambor by all means. What did he do with him in the name of science! At first, he decided that the medium was simulating a trance, and during the session he stuck long hairpins into him. Sambor did not move.
Then the doctor thought that Stefan is good at enduring pain, and decided to go from the other side. To deprive him of the opportunity to wield his teeth, the medium's mouth and face were firmly covered with a plaster, and his arms and legs were tied with such force that later they left blue stripes. The phenomena did not disappear from this."
Visits to St. Petersburg
The doctor did not have time to finish off the unfortunate man: rumors of Kiev miracles reached St. Petersburg. The publisher of the magazine "Rebus" Viktor Pribytkov invited Sambor to come to the capital and stay with him. For each session Sambor received 25-30 rubles. He soon became a professional medium.
“Fate played a joke on him,” the writer Andrei Zarin recalled. - An obscure telegraph operator, who did not see anyone higher than the head of the station, visited the salons of counts, princes, ministers. He was surrounded by fans and admirers, these passionate psychopaths who are looking for someone to worship.
I saw how real ladies vied with each other to give him a place, brought him a glass of tea, were ready to pick up a dropped handkerchief and surrounded him with a buzzing swarm when they appeared in society. He began to earn 900-1000 rubles a month by sitting in the evenings at sessions.
And he abused this work. Arriving in the fall healthy and strong, he left in the spring completely overwhelmed and tired, vaguely realizing that people hungry for entertainment are wasting his strength, buying his health for money.
Was he a charlatan, a deceiver? No. It was too simple for that. When, as his strength weakened towards the end of the season, the phenomena became weaker and more insignificant, it never happened that they suddenly received their former strength.
On the contrary, often, after sitting the whole evening, the participants in the seance, seeing nothing, dispersed disappointed and even irritated. If he were a magician, he would be able to console everyone with some kind of phenomenon.
Success and disappointment
Among the organizers of the sessions were not only ladies thirsty for exoticism, but also scientists wishing to personally get acquainted with the wonders of spiritualism. Count Mikhail Petrovo-Solovovo in exile recalled his attempts to study the medium:
- I attended 105 sessions with Sambor lasting at least three hours each. For several winters I took part in a spiritualist circle, of which Colonel Alexei Brusilov was a member. He later rose to the rank of general and became famous during the war for successfully breaking through the Austrian front.
One of Sambor's features was the passage of matter through each other, which was usually expressed in putting chairs on the hand of a neighbor of the medium, who did not break the chain for a second, and in tying knots on ropes with sealed ends. In one case, the knot appeared on a seamless ring cut from a single piece of leather. The ring, in addition, turned out to be put on my hand, although I held the medium well.
I created a circle of people I knew well to test his abilities in the most controlled conditions. The two sessions came out so great that I finally felt completely convinced.
Alas! Later it turned out that the person who "controlled" Sambor at these sessions was not above suspicion. He was a friend of mine, a colleague in the Office of the Foreign Office, a courageous mountaineer, a renowned writer, and a generally very pleasant gentleman. Subsequently, it was proved that he threw various objects at the sessions. Chamberlain X never admitted to deceiving us.
The count did not name the villain by name, but it is not very difficult to calculate him, knowing all the participants. The trust of colleagues was deceived by the actual state councilor Nikolai Poggenpol, a climber with 30 years of experience. Sambir, in a deep trance, did not know that someone was "helping" him.
Genuine phenomena
The chamberlain's tricks failed to discredit the research. Petrovo-Solovovo said that no less interesting miracles took place without his participation:
“The discovery of the role played by Chamberlain X obliges me, with the greatest regret, to discard the very best. Nevertheless, something remains: the phenomena of putting chairs on arms, which I investigated in 1899, were not affected by it.
There Sambor was controlled by other people, including myself. We only had to watch his hands, not paying attention to his legs or head. The chairs themselves belonged to me and naturally remained beyond suspicion.
The circle spent 17 sessions. We took all precautions: we did not extinguish the light before the chain was formed, but when we heard that a chair was put on someone's hand, we checked it with the light. We were personally convinced that the phenomenon took place under conditions when the medium's hands were held very securely.
Once a chair was put on my hand, which I was holding Stefan with, but on the other, with which I was holding a neighbor on a chain. Another time, two chairs were put on Madame Yudenich, who was holding Sambor. She, not letting go of the medium, bent her hand so as to clamp their backs, but the chairs passed through her body and fell to the floor!
Sambir spent the warm season in the city of Radomyshl near Kiev. But even there he did not have peace. Peasants came to the famous guest in droves, bringing the crippled and paralyzed. He healed many, and for free.
This way of life was not in vain. Sambir literally burned himself up in a few years, using up all his internal reserves. In 1902 he died, barely reaching the age of 40. The secret of his amazing gift has never been solved.
Mikhail Gershtein