She was awakened by the sound of dozens of soldiers' boots marching as if on a parade ground in the echoing corridor. I looked at the clock - four in the morning. Dream or reality? Everything was quiet for a second, and then a shaky silence pierced by a heartbreaking howl, shaking off the remnants of sleep in a second
This is not a chapter from a horror book. This is a story about events that took place quite realistically over the course of several years in a building on Akademicheskaya Street, 3, more familiar to Volgograd residents as the "Gvardeets" cinema
And yet they exist
Vladimir Lyapichev, director of the State Don Cossack Theater, which today is located within the walls of a former cinema, for a long time could not understand why he had a turnover among the watchmen in the theater. Until one day I heard a heartbreaking story.
- When I began to ask the head of the personnel department why another woman-watchman wrote a letter of resignation, she said with surprise: “How, but don't you know anything?” And then it turned out that at night all sorts of devilry was going on in the theater building: someone invisible was running on the second floor, groaning, sighing, creaks and groans were heard. One day, another woman on duty, overcoming her fear, decided to find out who was disturbing the night's peace, and, going out into the corridor, saw an ephemeral transparent body moving silently along the corridor.
“A young man Sasha Darienko worked as a prop for us,” says Nadezhda Kosova, chief accountant of the State Don Cossack Theater. - Once he stayed late at the theater - there was a lot of work, the scenery needed to be handed over - and did not notice how everyone left, and the time passed after midnight. Sasha worked in the workshop, the door was closed, but the guy clearly heard heavy footsteps, as if the walking were wearing boots. And he went straight to the workshop. Sasha opened the door, but there was no one in the corridor.
Having learned that devilry had settled in his theater, Vladimir Lyapichev invited a priest. He consecrated the premises, and for a while everything stopped, but then the invisible tenants declared themselves again.
Anna K., who worked as a ticket clerk when she was at the Gvardeets cinema, recalls that strange things happened in the theater back then, in Soviet times, but few believed in ghosts at the time of stagnation. Except the eyewitnesses themselves.
“When I first came to work at the cinema, I was told many different cases,” the woman recalls. - Once the watchman said that she dozed off in the morning. But I woke up from the sounds of the march. As if the soldiers with their boots stamped a step on the cement. I looked at my watch - four in the morning. And a minute after five went, there was such a terrible howl, and everything was quiet. We did not tell the management about this, and if anyone did, they answered us: "They say, they fell asleep, they saw a terrible dream."
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Merchant Shlykov and captured Germans
The building at the crossroads of the former streets of Knyagininskaya and Dubovskaya once belonged to the wealthy Tsaritsyno merchant and timber-trading agent Shlykov. In 1910, the 4th women's gymnasium was opened here.
“There is a legend that the merchant Shlykov built this building for himself as a dwelling house,” says the architect Sergei Sena. - But a tragedy happened in his life - his beloved daughter drowned in the Volga waters, so on the facade of the building we see the bas-reliefs of a bowed girl's head, which the white-bearded old man Poseidon looks at from above. Broken with grief, the merchant handed over the house for the needs of the gymnasium.
In the pre-war years, the building was one of the buildings of the Pedagogical Institute. During the Battle of Stalingrad, according to some reports, a German hospital was located in the basements of the building.
“A lot of unusual things happen in life, things that don't fit into the framework of the usual,” says Vladimir Lyapichev. “Perhaps these are the restless souls of the German soldiers who died here during the war. And also the old-timers told, when the cinema "Guards" was located in the building of the theater, a woman approached the ushers and introduced herself as the heiress of the merchant Shlykov. She said that this building rightfully belongs to her, so until it is returned to her property, a curse will be imposed on it. Allegedly, from that moment the whole devilry began.
Invisible intercession
- We have established a public organization "Cossack Stanitsa" and named it Shlykovskaya in honor of a timber merchant. We counted, since we are using the building, it means that we must not forget about the person who built it, - Vladimir Lyapichev recalls. - From that time on, the merchant seemed to take patronage over us.
Renovation began in a dilapidated building. Funds were gradually allocated, and the stucco molding on the walls was revived in the hall, semi-antique chandeliers and portraits of Cossack chieftains were hung. And the watchmen no longer talk about the night visits of uninvited guests. The theater workers are sure: the soul of the merchant Shlykov has calmed down.