Bahram Iosifovich Kafarov, a former Baku citizen, a physicist by education, now lives and works in Prague. He works in a very interesting place - in a laboratory for the study of ghosts.
This laboratory has existed for about fifteen years, at first it was organized on a voluntary basis, and now legally belongs to one research institute on the basis of Charles University.
- To paraphrase a quote from a famous film, we can say: ghosts are a dark subject, they are not subject to research. And you have created a whole laboratory to study them. Can ghosts really be learned? Of course, there are all sorts of amateur and pseudo-scientific associations, such as the Russian "Cosmopoisk", which are chasing green men and inexplicable phenomena, but, as far as I know, there is no serious study - from a scientific point of view - there.
“Everything can and should be studied from a scientific point of view. If we learn not to close our eyes to the obvious, then we will automatically learn to study any abnormal phenomena. To do this, one has only to admit that microbes cannot be measured using a centimeter tape, and the current strength - using a balance. There is simply no such device with which it was possible to study ghosts.
Yes, there are cases when ghosts were captured on film and digital video, dictaphones recorded some inexplicable noises and sounds, but this is all wrong. These are accidents. And all those "devices" that are used by independent researchers are all amateur activities. In the extreme case, well-known physical devices simply adapted for other needs, to which some additions or improvements have been made.
We need equipment specially created for such purposes, we need research institutes - not even laboratories! - which would be focused on the development and creation of such devices. We are working on the creation of such devices. Until this happens, we will all remain at the level "Hey, Wan, here yesterday my neighbor saw a brownie!" - “What are you doing! And how much did she drink?"
- But you will not deny that the "devils are being driven" for the most part by people who have just thoroughly accepted the day before?
- There are also such, why deny? But there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to be believed. And there are even more witnesses who never officially or publicly admit that they actually saw something like this, but at the same time they were sober and mentally complete, and also did not have an overly developed imagination and fantasy to just come up with all this. Because very often the descriptions of certain mysterious and incomprehensible creatures coincide to the smallest detail in people of different social groups and living in different countries.
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- Do you yourself believe in ghosts?
- I believe! Prague water, white ladies, enchanted castles and devils smoking a pipe somewhere on a willow near Hrusice (a district in Prague - OB) at a time when the highway did not pass there yet - this is not a figment of our imagination. We are simply afraid to admit to ourselves that which our mind cannot explain. In addition, we have become a little different compared to our ancestors.
They took ghosts much more seriously and feared them. Today we are afraid of unemployment, terrorists, and we laugh at some bewitched monk or a drowned woman who appears at midnight. We call normal, but difficult to explain from the modern point of view, phenomena supernatural, but in vain. They are not supernatural, they are germs in the sixteenth century. Nobody saw them then, but they caused illness, and people were afraid of them.
- Anyway, if we are talking about such an elusive subject as ghosts, let's talk only about those ghosts that you yourself saw.
- well! It is about them that I can speak competently. Because retelling other people's impressions or legends is not the most rewarding occupation. Although with the very first ghost in my life in Prague, I first met in absentia.
In Prague, in narrow circles, Martin Steiskal, a graphic artist and collector of legends by vocation, is well known. In one of his articles, he wrote about the ghost of a young noble girl, the so-called "white lady". Steiskal wrote that until the age of seven, he lived in an old castle, which was literally crumbling before our eyes, near Prague.
Nowadays, no one lives there, the castle has come to complete desolation, but people still lived there thirty or forty years ago. Seven-year-old Steiskal listened to the legends about the white lady. Most likely, it was a Russian noblewoman who lived there and then died in the seventeenth century. Then Steiskal saw her. I made allowances for the fact that the child's imagination, and even inflamed, could draw anything, especially, let me remind you, everything happened in an old castle.
Vaulted ceilings, large halls where drafts walk and everything creaks and grinds from them - all this strengthened the child's imagination, and I am still sure that as a child I really saw a white lady. I decided that I would go to that castle - I won't say the name.
- But then the story will make a more reliable impression!
- I have already made a similar mistake once. There are a huge number of people with a shattered psyche, a huge number of adventurers and adventurers. Are you guaranteeing me that among the readers of your newspaper there are not a couple of insane ones who will not go there and start climbing in attics and ceilings? And then they will be blown out of there and break their necks. And their broken necks will be on my conscience. No really!..
Therefore, back to the white lady. I watched her with all the equipment available to me for eight nights and waited. A young woman in 17th century clothing walked without touching the floor. As if through the air about ten centimeters from the floor. Completely silent. In my photographs, there is only a whitish spot, smeared, as it happens when you shoot fast motion.
- Was the girl translucent?
- Ordinary. It is one of the misconceptions that ghosts are always dressed in white and translucent or completely transparent. Yes, there are transparent ones, but most often they look like people. For example, as the daughter of a miller in Malaya Strana. This is the ghost of a girl who is believed to have sold her soul to the devil. Or like Fext. I "met" him in the Czech-Moravian region of the Czech Republic, I went there precisely because most of the legends about Fexta were there.
This is, so to speak, a typical Czech ghost. The legends about him are very old, their plot and origin are closely related to the period after the Thirty Years War. Fekst is an invulnerable man of tall stature and remarkable strength. This is a kind of zombie, a living dead. Or lively - different legends say different things. It is believed that it cannot be destroyed, cannot be freed and sent back to the world of the dead. Experts say that in order to destroy or release him, you need to carry out a whole ritual, for example, shoot Fext right in the heart with a consecrated silver bullet and the like.
I saw Fext at the moment when the whole, one might say, team decided to hunt him down and send him "home." We saw a man in medieval clothes, two, two and twenty meters tall, with wide shoulders. Several bullets were fired at him, we saw how they hit the target in different places of his body, but he continued to move at us as if our bullets were mosquito bites.
- Were you scared at that moment?
- Honestly? Very! But when he literally passed through us, I realized that he lived as if in his own world, not intersecting with ours. He does not harm us. He's like a walking hologram. Which, however, disappears and appears according to some known schedule. I can say that we watched him for more than two months.
- Where are ghosts most common?
- In the castles. There is such a joke that in every self-respecting ancient castle there must be a ghost. So this is not a joke. In the Czech Republic, almost every castle has its own ghost. This is, most often, a special person "working" as a ghost. Museum directors, heads of fortresses, castellans - they perfectly understand how to attract tourists. Because of competition, they hire a special person, put on a medieval costume, sometimes smear him with all sorts of phosphorescent drugs and let the public go for a walk along the castle corridors to delight the public.
- And what is your task? To catch such an original employee ?!
- The thing is that the castle workers only joke with tourists. And when the last visitor leaves their property, they don't stay there either. Because they have seen so many different things in their lifetime that there is enough for a bestseller! For example, I was once invited by a castellan friend of mine to spend the night with him in one of the halls. He claimed that once a year, at midnight, on the eve of the death of the owner of the castle, which happened about four hundred years ago, his portrait, taken during his lifetime, spontaneously falls.
And so for many years. We examined the hall, doors, windows, a rope on which a portrait hangs, a nail, a wall and found nothing suspicious. We got into the "ambush" at eight o'clock, camouflaging ourselves with the utmost care. And now, a few minutes before midnight, the picture fell safely.
Imagine a heavy portrait eighty centimeters by sixty, on a stretcher, in a wide baguette, which crashes to the floor in the middle of the night! The rope is intact, the nail is safe, and the painting is on the floor! And nothing more! Not a breath of breeze, not the slightest draft, no phenomena of transparent or opaque personalities!
Or there was such a case in the Bukhlov castle. Here I myself was not an eyewitness, but they showed me a video. This is one of those rare examples of a ghost in a video. Bukhlov is just that case when the guides were actively having fun and, having dressed up a volunteer girl in a nightgown, let her walk along the fortress walls - to scare tourists. And they filmed their reaction. They did it for a long time - until one fine day, more precisely, late in the evening. That evening, someone laughed, someone applauded the girl - creative tourists were caught, someone squealed with fear.
But exactly until that moment, when a quite clear outline of a woman's figure in a white chlamyd-like dress appeared behind the girl in a nightie. She looked like a ball of light. Everyone froze with fear - somehow realizing that the jokes were over, and a real ghost was moving behind the "ghost" girl. Everyone must have watched amateur videos - from parties, from birthdays … A jumping image and a bunch of voices and off-screen laughs. It was the same here at first.
Then, when a real ghost appeared, all the voices fell silent, only the choked breathing of the operator and the voice were heard: "Don't call, just don't call Milanka - she'll be scared!" Milana was the name of the girl in the nightie. She walked down the walls and the ghost suddenly disappeared. In addition to the video, there were six witnesses. I met with four of them. They all said the same thing.
- And how do you assess this?
- I think that a real ghost lived in Bukhlov, quiet, peaceful, not shown to anyone. Apparently, he just really did not like these rallies. Like, you entered my diocese, so get it and sign it. Although, maybe I approach ghosts with a human measure, and they do not experience any such feelings, and this appearance of a ghost next to an imitator was just a coincidence.
- What did the castellan Bukhlova say? Did he comment on this somehow?
- I didn’t comment. Here, in fact, the point is this. When a person comes to such work, his superiors strictly warn: “If you believe in ghosts, you will not work in the castle. This is no place for those who believe in ghosts. Therefore, the castellans and other employees of the castles can only in private conversation tell someone that every night they hear footsteps, creaking of floorboards, slamming of locked doors, howling of non-existent dogs and so on.
But you rarely meet an employee of the castle who will lead you to a specific place and show some mysterious phenomena - according to the principle of the one with the picture. People are afraid of losing their jobs. Although it seems to me personally that such a warning from the authorities when hiring is already indirectly confirms the existence of ghosts.
- To be honest, I don't see the connection …
- The connection is obvious. If the bosses admit that ghosts actually take place in this particular castle, will you go to work there? When applying for a job, this phrase is like proof that there is nothing like that in the castle and cannot be. But one could go from the opposite: to accept precisely those who believe in them and want to study them.
Thus, they would greatly facilitate life for everyone: first, the castellans would not be afraid to go to work and the night watchmen would not shake with fear; secondly, researchers like myself and my colleagues would not have been inventing a bunch of clever tricks on how to sneak into the castle every night. We humans, with a tenacity worthy of better use, make our own life more difficult. Let me repeat myself: ghosts and all sorts of mysterious entities are worthy of studying! Seriously and thoughtfully!
- Is your laboratory the only detailed institution? Hasn't anyone tried to organize something like this before you?
- We tried, and how many times! Moreover - and not only in our time! Ideas about the need to review the appearance in the Czech kingdom of spirits, ghosts, ghosts, and all kinds of incomprehensible visions appeared in the early Middle Ages. This is evidenced by many written sources. People - travelers, merchants and the like - were warned about evil spirits on the road, in the forest and in the mountains. In addition, city dwellers were specifically asked about the oldest ghosts. All this speaks, firstly, of the mass character of such phenomena and, secondly, of a serious attitude towards these phenomena.
- Are there any glossaries, collections that would classify Czech ghosts?
- Yes, I have studied many of them. They describe ghosts from various regions of Prague and the Czech Republic, but apart from them, in such collections there are many descriptions and various creatures that, strictly speaking, are not ghosts. They - something like spirits, goblin, brownies, devils and other things in the same spirit.
Often there is a description of the greenhouse, which, like the spirit of trees, lives in trees near rivers. If a traveler passed by, the greenhouse began to sing in the sonorous voice of a finch. This creature does no harm, it feeds only on the fright of passers-by. He looks like a marvel. He usually lives in a water meadow, pulls the apprentice's carts into the mud, and they swear.
For a wonder, their abuse was a tidbit. Love the fear of people and luobas and shila. There are many of these creatures, but, I repeat, they are still not “pure” ghosts, they are rather folklore characters, which, of course, also did not appear out of nowhere and are worthy of serious study.
- Have you ever met ghosts that, upon closer examination, turned out to be not ghosts at all, but something that had a completely normal explanation?
- Certainly. In one castle, shadows from the hands of an ancient clock turned out to be ghosts. The shooters cast a shadow thanks to a spotlight on a tower nearby. By the way, a similar effect is very well described by Vladimir Korotkevich in the novel "Black Castle Olshansky". But there are not many such cases. Rather, there are explanations for some legends from the point of view of a modern person.
For example, in Prague there are many legends about fiery dogs running along the old fishing rods of the Old Town or Lesser Town. These legends could have arisen back in the Middle Ages, when at night on the corners of the streets there were baskets with flaming tarred tow or something similar. From them, the servants who accompanied the masters lit their torches - there was no street lighting then. It is possible that an ignorant but imaginative population could mistake these bonfires and torches for running fiery dogs.
Everything is fine in this explanation if these dogs had stayed there in the Middle Ages. However, they are still being seen! What are these - phantoms? Ghosts? Until we learn to somehow catch these ghosts, they will remain an inexplicable phenomenon. In general, ghosts, ghosts and mysterious creatures, one way or another associated with fire, are found in the Czech Republic in general and in Prague in particular very often.
For example, in Kladno there was its own kind of incomprehensible lights - a Zeitle - a forest ghost, a light running mostly in the form of a wild dog grabbing by the trousers. He could scare, lead far into the forest … They were wildly afraid of him.
Fiery ghosts exist even now, moreover, specifically in Prague, a completely modern, recent "bottling" ghost appeared, about which for some reason they do not want to spread, they did not even give him a name. Locals call him a fiery man. In one district of Prague, not so long ago, the roadway was widened, demolishing quite a few old houses. Something like the one in Baku with Fizuli street. Surprisingly, there were many more misfortunes, accidents and the like on this track than there were on a narrow, uncomfortable street.
The fiery man distracts the attention of people on the road, motorists complain that this fiery man either lures them under the barrier - the track crosses the railroad track, or will so confuse their brains that they do not see or hear the approaching train. Either he forces the cars to disobey the steering wheel, or the driver himself, for no reason at all, drives into a street lighting mast or a stand with a billboard. And all at the same time see the burning man.
Statue of the Waterman in Prague
- How can you explain the origin or appearance of this person?
- Let's start with how ghosts generally appear. On this score, there is a well-established opinion, which I largely share, that ghosts are not the reposed souls of people who died a violent or especially horrible accidental death. Specifically, there are many ghosts in Prague because of the special mystical spirit of this city, which was built taking into account esoteric knowledge, astrological formulas and the like.
During the time of Rudolf II, a huge number of alchemists, magicians, sorcerers, astrologers came to Prague. The emperor had a weakness for people of this kind, he invited them. What these people were doing is unknown to anyone. But the fact that the Golem is still being met on Prague rods is a fact. I saw him too. True, once and not very long.
- Why are there so many ghosts in castles?
- Castles belonged, as it is not difficult to guess, not to peasants or ordinary townspeople, but to people of the upper class. And that means rich people. And where there is wealth, there is power. And where there is power and money, there is a fear of losing it all.
All sorts of heirs claiming medieval "real estate", county, throne and the like. Disposed of such heirs very often in the most disgusting way. They were buried in the walls, in the foundation, poisoned, strangled … The girls were forced to go to monasteries, raped, and then killed. But you never know options to take away a person's life or freedom? So the ghosts turned out.
- Aren't there such cases now?
- Are there not enough ghosts now ?!
- Is it true that Prague is the most "densely populated" haunted city in the world?
- Yes, all researchers note this. On Vysehrad alone, you can count more than sixty very different ghosts, about fifteen of them I saw personally. It must be said that this density in Prague is not uniform, for example, only three ghosts are known on Wenceslas Square. This is the suicidal spirit of Baltsarek, who rushed from the Horse Gate in 1862.
The second is the ghost of a horse merchant. It appeared with enviable regularity in the former pub in the house number 805. The third - such a cute brownie Baltazar, who secretly drinks beer in the house number 824 "At the Shenflocks". The third I have not seen, and in general there is very little evidence of its real existence. It seems to me that it was simply invented at one time - in order to obscure the real reasons for the decrease in alcohol from the pub.
A lot of ghosts "bunch" in the area of the Havel market, on the mysterious crooked streets near the Estates Theater and the Tyn Church. There are no less ghosts in the streets of Tseletnaya and Ungelt. There used to be inns for travelers and merchants.
And where there are merchants, there are murders. On Celetnaya Street, the chaplain is often seen running away from a Prague prostitute who tempted him for a long time until he accidentally broke her head. A skeleton wanders here, leaving the Carolinum medical collection at midnight. This is the ghost of the professor's drunken servant. Karolinum - as the prestigious Charles University is called - is a very difficult place. It was founded by Charles IV. But before founding, he waited many years for a suitable position of the planets. More precisely, the astrologer was waiting for him. The butcher Thomas wanders around the church of St. Jacob on especially dark moonless nights, who, because of a meeting with his beloved, abandoned his comrades who were going to defend Prague from the German invasion. It is not difficult to guess that he was killed as a traitor.
There are a lot of aquatic animals in Prague. Each section of the Vltava has its own water. Legends say that the king of the aquatic lives in a crystal palace under the Vysehrad rock. His attitude towards people has changed over time.
During the time of Princess Libuše, who founded Prague, he was supportive of people. During the Maiden's War, they say, he even fell in love with Vlasta herself. And she at first answered him in return. But later, when she gathered her army and with six hundred warriors withdrew to her fortress Devin, she rejected the king of the water.
Since then, the area under the Vysehrad rock has become very dangerous for swimmers and pilots. It is possible not to believe that this section with a rather uncomplicated fairway is in fact a disastrous place. The pilots literally do not know what to expect from him: every day there are shoals, then whirlpools, then some pieces of iron perforating the bottoms. And the next day, no piece of iron is found.
The so-called "water men" or people "who walk naked" can also be attributed to the water. Their history goes back to the XIV-XV centuries. Then they were called Vastrmanas. These were insidious, malevolent inhabitants of the pools. It was believed that they were half dragons, half snakes, living in water and on land and able to fly. As you know, many scientists believe that such creatures actually existed, otherwise how to explain the huge number of legends in which they appear, moreover, legends of various peoples?
By the 16th century, the Vastrmans were “modified”, they began to look like peasants with a smoking pipe in a green frock coat, from which water was constantly dripping. They began to be called gastronomists. They were presented as disgusting, overgrown, living in rivers and on land, diving under the water when a passer-by approached. Mermaids are also met in Prague, especially in the Petřín area. We saw mermaids, gastromanov - no.