Russian tour operators and travelers are actively exploring a new type of recreation - mystical tourism. Places surrounded by secrets and legends attract both young people and the older generation. Our region occupies a worthy place on the map of mystical zones. "OV" has prepared a list of objects that are worth visiting for people with a craving for the supernatural.
The ghost of the Suryanen forest
The Oryol region is rich in mysteries and ancient legends. For more than two centuries, the legend of the ghost of the supposedly French tutor Theophile Henri, Viscount de Blangy, wandering in the Suryaninsky forest near the villages of Suryanino and Rudnevo of the Bolkhov region and calling to follow him to the judgment of God has been stirring the minds of our fellow countrymen.
In 1895, Prince Golitsyn published in the Oryol Vestnik a story about the headless ghost of a teacher who had previously served with the master Alexei Denisovich Yurasovsky, and now frightens the people he meets on his way.
The hero of this lending fled from his native France during the revolution. A donkey in the Bolkhov district of the Oryol province, getting a job as a tutor and teacher for the growing children of Barin Yurasovsky. The middle-aged Frenchman fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do serf peasant Semyon Karneev. The girl, charmed by graceful manners, reciprocated. However, my father did not want to hear about such a party. Yurasovsky, sympathetic to lovers, presented a serf family to a poor teacher. Played a wedding.
Karneev, dissatisfied with the fate of his daughter, conceived the murder of his son-in-law. According to legend, once Yurasovsky instructed the viscount to divert a large amount of money from the estate to Karachev, where the landowner was at that time. The fatal trip was the last one for the migrant. In the Suryaninsky forest, the unfortunate viscount was attacked by a gang of Semyon Karneev, who, according to legend, cut off the head of his daughter's husband.
After the police investigation, all the participants in the murder ended up in hard labor, except for the main conspirator, who bought off money. A restless soul, demanding retribution, appeared to the murderer in that very forest. To meet the dumbfounded with fear Karneev, who was returning to Bolkhov from Karachev, came the late Viscount in blood-stained clothes. In the best traditions of politeness, the Frenchman removed his head from his shoulders, bowed to his father-in-law and called him to the judgment of God. Since then, the ghost of the viscount haunted Karneev everywhere, even in the church. The prosperous serf, mad with fear, hanged himself. They say that at the hour of his death in Bolkhov a thousand-pound bell struck by itself.
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Surprisingly, even after the death of his murderer, the viscount did not find peace. Passers-by saw a headless ghost here and there. In the year of cholera rampant (1831), a ghost was blamed in a massive sea. Like, the infection came from the village of Suryanino. And ravaged the Frenchman's grave. According to the stories, at night, five men, stocking themselves with an aspen stake, pierced the heart of the viscount under pagan spells, and then sprinkled the grave with the blood of a black rooster. The police quickly found the vandals and sent them to Siberia. The names of two have come down to our times. These are Nikita Khromin, who later became a monk, and Mihaya Sautin, who became a coachman for a prison guard in Omsk.
Today, not a single witness to this story is already dead. But the ghost, according to rumors, still wanders in the Suryaninsky forest, frightening passers-by.
Death Valley Timeline
"Valley of Death" is an established, almost official name given to the valleys of the Oka and Zusha rivers in the section from Bolkhov to Novosil. Here, from the autumn of 1941 to the summer of 1943, continuous battles took place. The front line ran along the banks of these rivers. Losses of killed and missing persons are estimated in hundreds of thousands. The exact figure has not yet been established.
On September 16, 1970, on the slope of Krivtsovskaya height, not far from the village of the same name, a memorial was opened in a solemn atmosphere in memory of the soldiers of the 3rd and 61st armies who died here in battles in the winter of 1942. According to the testimony of local residents, it is here that chronomirages appear - supernatural phenomena that allow you to observe events from the past, and sometimes from the future. For a short time, the border between the present and some other time period becomes thinner, thanks to which eyewitnesses have the opportunity to contemplate and hear what once happened or will happen in the future.
The fighting in Death Valley was fierce. Memories of captain P. I. Kuznetsov, the commander of the mortar battalion, is quoted by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yegor Schekotikhin in his book: “After a week of stubborn battle for Fetishchevo, under pressure from the 339th German Infantry Regiment, which was replenished with fresh forces, we withdrew to the left bank of Berezuyka. Here they got stuck in positional battles. February and March pestered us with terrible frosts. And then there's the wind. He always walked there along the Oka valley. The coastal land turned to stone. The sapper blade bounced off her with a clink and sparks. We are in full view of the German. You move a little - and get a "reward": either a machine gun burst, or a mortar and artillery salvo. And I want to live, and take shelter, and keep warm from the chilling wind. What to do? Have come up with. At night they began to collect corpses. They made sheds out of them. We will cover the top with raincoats, overcoats,and they were covered with snow. I remember that one of the deceased had his hand thrown back, we put a lamp on it. This is how we lived and fought on the battlefield for a whole month, where the dead saved the living."
And here is an excerpt from the memoirs of Ustimenko, a participant of the Second World War: “During the four years of the war, I had to see and endure a lot. I took part in many battles, but I have never met such fighter ones either before or after. The winter that year was cold and snowy. Large drifts prevented the delivery of
supplies, food. It was difficult, but they fought … The enemy let him close, and then opened fire with all types of weapons. There I was wounded. When we were taken on a sleigh to the medical battalion, I remember that we drove through the forest. The frozen corpses of the dead lay in stacks in the clearing. There were a lot of them. The soldiers tore up the frozen ground with a pile and buried the dead in large mass graves …"
In Death Valley, as an echo of those times, sometimes a machine-gun burst is heard, or mountains of bodies dotting the ground are seen …
Author: Veronika Pryanikova