For more than two hundred years of history, Krasnodar has witnessed incredible events and incidents. What is true in the stories passed from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, and what is fiction is difficult to determine, and sometimes already impossible. The Yuga.ru portal decided to recall some of these legends. We will not tell you the hackneyed stories about the underground passages of Yekaterinodar, the legends of the Vsesyatsk cemetery and the ghosts of Meotian warriors from the dug mounds - there is something more interesting on our list.
The end of the world after the collapse of the Krasnodar reservoir
Many townspeople know that if the dam of the Krasnodar reservoir breaks through, tens of thousands of people will die and most of the city will be under water. The residents of Krasnodar, whose father / uncle / grandfather worked / built the Kuban Sea, will tell you about this, and they know everything for sure. And even personally saw the cracks in the dam. According to one of the popular versions, back in 2012, British scientists (well, who else?) Calculated that an earthquake of magnitude 5–7 would be enough to start the disaster, as a result of which a huge crack would form in the central part of the dam.
Then the natural apocalypse will begin. The water rushing into this fault will destroy the dam in 2-3 minutes, and a wave of 12 or more meters high in a matter of minutes will wash away Enem, New Adygea, Afipsky and a dozen other settlements. The regional center will not spare either. Gidrostroy, Yubileiny, the area of MZhK and Krasnodar-1 railway station will be especially affected. Only residents of the northern part of the city will be able to feel relatively safe.
In addition to residential buildings, an oil refinery, a railway station, an oil and fat plant, oil depots and gas stations will be hit by the elements. Dozens of high-voltage towers will collapse. Chemical contamination and electrical injuries will cause a significant proportion of human casualties. Having dealt with part of Krasnodar and Adygea, the wave will go to Primorsko-Akhtarsk, washing off Slavyansk-on-Kuban and Temryuk along the way.
The mass of water, unnamed British scientists fear, will exert such a strong pressure on the Azov-Black Sea tectonic plate that huge masses of hydrogen sulfide will be released from the depths of the Black Sea. An explosion of hydrogen sulfide of unprecedented power will move lithospheric plates and cause earthquakes throughout the planet. This will provoke hurricanes and tsunamis of unprecedented strength that will fall on Europe. As a result of the explosion of the Black Sea, hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfuric acid and ash will be released into the atmosphere. As a result, "nuclear winter" will come, and acid rains will fall on the surface of the earth, which will destroy all life on the planet.
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And although it is hard to believe in such a pessimistic scenario of events, many are convinced that the Kuban Sea is somehow capable of causing problems for people. However, according to annual reports of officials, the situation with the reservoir is under control, it is regularly repaired and is still ready to withstand any disasters. It remains for us to believe in it.
Sexual slavery in Yekaterinodar
Old-timers recall that during the Civil War in the Kuban, there was a law that declared women to be public domain. Allegedly, not a single girl had the right to refuse reciprocity to an honest Bolshevik, which they enjoyed with pleasure. Where did these rumors come from?
On October 5, 1919, the American newspaper El Paso herald published an article "The Reds Socialize Russian Girls." The article said that after the capture of Yekaterinodar by Denikin, a commission was created to investigate the activities of the Bolsheviks in the city. A well-known Moscow lawyer and public figure, member of the Cadet party G. A. Meingardt. One of the results of the commission's work was a document on the investigation of the socialization of Yekaterinodar girls under the mandates of the Soviet regime.
The document indicated that in the spring of 1918 in Yekaterinodar, the Bolsheviks issued a decree, according to which girls aged 16 to 25 were subject to "socialization", and those wishing to use this decree had to apply to revolutionary institutions. The initiator of this "socialization" was the Commissioner for Internal Affairs Bronstein. He also issued “mandates” for this “socialization”. The same mandates were issued by the subordinate head of the Bolshevik equestrian detachment Kobzyrev, commander-in-chief Ivashev, as well as other representatives of the Soviet government, and the mandates were stamped with the headquarters of the revolutionary troops of the North Caucasian Soviet Republic. Mandates were issued both in the name of the Red Army soldiers and in the name of Soviet commanders - for example, in the name of Karaseev, the commandant of the palace in which Bronstein lived:according to this model, 10 girls were given the right to "socialize".
According to eyewitnesses, the girls were detained on the basis of these orders, and were forcibly taken to a hotel, where they were subjected to sexual violence. Then they were shot, and the bodies were thrown into the Kuban.
A special commission studying the atrocities of the Bolsheviks certified the authenticity of these documents. The original document was signed by Meingard, the chairman of the commission, and other members of the investigation team.
In Soviet historiography, there is no single point of view about the appearance of this unlikely story. Although it is known that in 1918 in Moscow there was a trial over a certain Khvatov, who was charged with making and sticking on fences and houses in Moscow "Decree on the socialization of Russian girls and women", published allegedly by the Moscow Free Association of Anarchists.
At the end of the 80s of the last century, in Ogonyok, Argumenty i Fakty and other central mass media of the USSR, publications began to appear that since 1918 the decree was not only replicated by many regional newspapers, but, having become a kind of indulgence for hunters before female attention, was used by them in practice.
According to another, most common version, during the Civil War, this document was adopted by the White Guards. Attributing authorship to the Bolsheviks, they began to widely use it in agitating the population against the Soviet regime.
A lot of time has passed since those revolutionary years, but the old-timers remember how in the 1970s. on the dance floor in Gorky Park, a pensioner with a thick gray mustache pestered the Komsomol members, and when the vigilantes tried to cool his ardor, he threatened to chop everyone up with a saber, took out worn paper with a seal and demanded that a certain decree of Comrade Bronstein be observed. This pensioner was last seen in the park before the start of the anti-alcohol campaign in the mid-80s.
Submarine hijacking from Zaton
The Soviet diesel submarine M-261 was launched in May 1955. In 1956, she became part of the Black Sea Fleet. The boats A-615 were not well known among submariners: because of their increased fire hazard, they were called "lighters". In the 1960s, the importance of quiet underwater passage increased, and obsolete boats began to be written off. In 1965, the M-261 was withdrawn from the combat strength of the USSR Navy and put on a joke in Balaklava.
In May 1980, they decided to dispose of the submarine, but changed their minds and eventually handed it over to the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU, which decided to convert the boat into a museum. In April 1981, she approached Temryuk, and from there she was towed along the Kuban River to Krasnodar. In 1982, the submarine was handed over to the Weapon of Victory Museum - and excursions were started on the boat. And in the summer of the same year, after one of the excursions, an emergency occurred.
A group of retired submariners celebrated the day of the USSR Navy on a grand scale. Warmed up with barbecue, alcohol and the July Kuban sun, five young men in vests at the end of the excursion wanted to remember the service and get inside the cabin. They were not allowed there - especially since the museum was supposed to be closed according to the schedule. This caused serious discontent among the tipsy sailors. Having twisted the guide and the cleaning lady, the men climbed into the cabin and entered the engine room.
Despite the fact that the submarine was withdrawn from the fleet 17 years ago, it was in good technical condition, had serviceable engines and a certain amount of fuel in the tanks. The sailors serving in the Black Sea Fleet were well acquainted with the technical device of the M-261 and after some effort were able to start the engines. The jokers had no plans to sail abroad - and there was very little fuel left, but the idea of going to Starobrzegokai for vodka was received with a bang. The submarine left the Zaton and sailed at a speed of no more than 3 knots to the designated target.
The law enforcement authorities learned about the emergency on board the museum when the submarine approached the Turgenevsky bridge. Several boats went to intercept, and within five minutes the Soviet special services took control of the situation. After making sure that the hijacking of the boat had no political motives, the regional leadership decided to let the story down. Publicity of the entire Soviet Union on the eve of the 65th anniversary of the Great October Revolution could lead to resignations in the Regional Executive Committee, the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The dashing sailors escaped serious consequences, having escaped with ten days for hooligan behavior and "immorality", and they were ordered to forget about the incident in the Kuban. But the engines from the submarine, which returned to its museum site, were dismantled after a few weeks.
Crocodiles in the Shukhov Tower
The tower, designed by the famous engineer Shukhov, was built in Krasnodar in 1935 and was used as a water tower in Soviet times. At its top there was a reservoir with a capacity of 9.5 thousand buckets of water. And already at the end of the USSR, rumors spread around the city that the perestroika cooperatives had raised crocodiles in the tank. Information about the victims of bloodthirsty creatures also appeared. So, according to rumors, crocodiles ate a student who was painting a tank during her summer practice. Another victim of either rumor or reptiles was the Satanist, who climbed the tower at night to perform some kind of ritual there.
In general, the tower was not well-known - and, as they say, before Gorbachev's arrival in Krasnodar, they decided to dismantle the old tank and take it out of town. On the appointed day, a helicopter flew in, hooked a piece of iron and flew towards the Gidrostroiteley microdistrict. But during the flight, the predators sensed something was wrong and began to rock the tank. The cable could not stand it and broke off, and the massive structure, together with the reptiles, collapsed into the Old Kuban.
It is not known exactly how many crocodiles there were and which of them survived, but since then Krasnodar people knew: a crocodile lives in the Kuban. Perhaps not even one. The legendary creature ate fish, small animals living near the coast, but, according to rumors, it did not disdain human flesh either. Eyewitnesses said that drunken vacationers, as well as victims of criminal showdowns in the 90s, became the prey of the crocodile. In winter, the reptile hibernated, but did not freeze, which was facilitated by the warm waters of the Kuban due to the discharge from the thermal power plant. Someone from Krasnodar believed in these stories and even claimed that he personally saw this reptile, someone considered everything to be fictions and sent overly gullible citizens to the comic article "The Tower of Cannibals", published in the "Kuban Courier" in early 1994, in which for the first time they told this whole story.
Be that as it may, in November 2011, a dead crocodile was found in the area of "Sunny Island". The reason for the death of the animal is a huge wound in the side, inflicted, apparently, by the propeller of a motor boat. One and a half meter caiman (and the creature turned out to be a caiman) was discovered by one of the coaches of the rowing base, who said that he and his charges repeatedly saw the reptile while it was still alive. Despite the fact that almost six years have passed since that discovery, fishermen say that the waters of the Old Kuban are still restless.
Meat grinder in the building of the NKVD
The story that in the Soviet years in the NKVD building, located at the corner of Mira and Krasnoarmeiskaya streets, there was a meat grinder in which the bodies of people were ground, so old and famous that they whispered about it not only in trams, but even spoke about it from the pages of textbooks. and now they are discussing it on the Internet.
In the first edition of the book “History of Russia. XX century”(executive editor AB Zubov) it was reported:“After Yezhovism, the mass graves remained under every city [list]. Many of the victims have no graves at all. In Krasnodar, in the building of the NKVD, there was a meat grinder, which grinds the corpses of those shot and flushes them down the drain. During the German occupation, it was shown to foreign journalists."
It seems that the only printed source of these words is not even the German, but the émigré press. On October 15, 1944, in Berlin, the Zarya newspaper published an article “Krasnodar meat grinder”: “… Indeed, there was a small cell outside the door. As soon as the suicide bomber entered it, the floor moved apart and was pulled into the walls, and the person flew down and immediately fell into the open mouth of the receiving bunker - a meat grinder; it quickly crawled along its smooth, sliding surfaces to the sharp knives of the drum and passed through them, grinding into mince … pipe and to the Kuban. In its muddy waters, the "convict without the right to correspond" ended his last journey. Over the course of five years, hundreds and thousands of Cossacks sentenced to death have passed along this path.
They wrote about the meat grinder in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and each time the stories were supplemented with new details, which the Krasnodar people with fear told each other in queues and during gatherings in the kitchen.
Apparently, the German historian Andrei Angrik sheds light on the secret of the Krasnodar meat grinder in his monograph dedicated to the actions of fascist death squads in southern Russia. According to this book, on August 17, 1942, five corpses were found in the courtyard of the NKVD building on Proletarskaya Street (now Mira). They were lying in a sewer well filled with water. The people were obviously brutally killed.
A complaint was received in the murder case, after which the head of the Sonderkommando SS Sturmbannfuehrer Christmann ordered to immediately spread rumors throughout the city that more corpses had been found in the building's sewer system. To attract the attention of the public, a mourning procession was organized, during which the bodies of the dead were carried through the city to the cemetery. But it was all a massive staging. Five people were killed according to Christmann's plan, and the scene of the murder was prepared accordingly. The calculation was simple - to win the sympathy of the population and turn people against the Soviet regime.
The Einsatzkommando's operation was local, so information about the five "NKVD victims" did not make it into the centralized Nazi propaganda news feed. However, the story of the mutilated bodies was remembered for a long time by the locals - and, as it happens when rumors spread, it gradually grew into a story about the "Chekist meat grinder", which even now the impressionable Krasnodar residents are frightened with.
It is not known why people love mystical stories so much, but even more they love to retell them to others. While Krasnodar is standing, people will look for the gold of the Kuban Rada, tell horror stories about the ghost of a Red Army soldier in the City Garden and swear that they personally descended into the underground passage along which 100 years ago the Cossack, certainly on horseback, could rush away from the Aurora in five minutes to the coast of the Kuban. Rumor has it that the strange dull patter of hooves, coming as if from under the ground, is even now heard at night on Krasnaya …
