Fifty kilometers from the big city, people regularly hear alarming cries from the reeds, believing that they are emitted by navki.
In 2017, the beginning of the week with the mermaid is June 5. According to legend, at this time on the banks of reservoirs you can see otherworldly creatures. Fifty kilometers from the big city, people regularly hear alarming cries from the reeds, believing that they are emitted by navki. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" checked what is really going on in the enchanted lake.
Didn't come across
At first glance, the small village of Verkhnyaya Pisarevka in the Volchansky district is no different from other villages in the Kharkov region. Local attractions include the abandoned old estate of Count Kolokoltsov and the Seversky Donets River, dotted with blooming white lilies. The locals know that in the swamp, which has formed on the side of the river, strange creatures are wailing. And they even called them mermaids. But now the people are somehow not up to mysticism - the village stands on the border with the Belgorod region and the shots of guns have recently been heard more often than the screams of mermaids.
We went to see the mysterious swamp with our own eyes. In broad daylight, in bright sunlight, the lake does not seem scary. The water surface is covered with mud, the shore is covered with snags, and a little in the distance there are dense thickets of reeds. According to local residents, the voices of unknown creatures are heard from there, from the reeds. They say that the creatures have never shown themselves, but they make themselves known almost every day. From what the locals said, the hair stands on end.
“Most often, sounds are heard in the early morning, before sunrise and after sunset,” says a local resident Anatoly Danilenko. - If you sit on the beach for a long time, the chances of hearing these voices are very high.
It is not surprising that at such a time the voices of mythical mermaids are most often heard by fishermen and lovers of romance sitting by the reservoir.
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“These sounds resemble the cry of a baby, a kind of cry-cry, very short, rhythmic and repetitive,” says Vitaly, a 28-year-old local resident. - A few shouts - and silence. Sometimes it was drawn-out, mournful moans. Like children. At the same time, it is clear that this sound is not transmitted through the air, but comes from under the water. Such a deep and dark sound.
Locals say: mermaids have lived here for several decades. Even non-believers, who believed that the voices were not at all mystical, pondered.
“Once a fisherman from a neighboring area came to us, he kept laughing at my stories:“Well, what are you inventing, what kind of mermaids, these are catfish,”Anatoly Danilenko recalls. - But when I brought him to the lake and he heard it, he was just dumbfounded. She says catfish don't scream like that. Moreover, where the catfish come from here, the lake is heavily overgrown with reeds.
Neither a fish nor a bird definitely makes such a sound, say the villagers, who have heard enough of various sounds of nature in their lives.
- I cannot describe it in words, but when you hear them, you understand that this is not quite a natural sound, - Anatoly whispers.
Correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda visited a bad place. Photo: Roman SHUPENKO
Otherworldly occurs often
Ethnographer Mikhail Krasikov has been traveling through the villages all his adult life, collecting eyewitness stories about contacts with otherworldly entities. According to him, the appearance of mermaids, goblin and brownies is an ordinary thing.
“Sounds from the lake, according to popular belief, can be made by different creatures - goblin, watery, but a mermaid is a more acceptable image,” says Mikhail Mikhailovich. - Often they are the souls of people who died an unnatural death. Mostly drowned. In general, it is believed that any restless soul becomes an entity that regularly returns to the world of people and worries the living.
According to Krasikov, mermaids are not only beautiful women with a tail.
“In the Zolochevsky district in the Kharkov region, one man told me a story,” the ethnographer narrates. - After Trinity, on Rusalnaya week, in the evening he went to the river to swim. He looks - a lot of children are swimming on the nearby beach. He thought: "What is it from the garden?" But what kind of kindergarten if it was about 9 pm outside? When he looked closely and realized that these were not children, but some kind of creatures, he quickly pulled himself together and ran away.
Krasikov conducts an educational program: mermaids are not only aquatic, but also forest and field. The latter are active on a hot afternoon.
- People told how they walked along the side of the road between villages, on both sides - a rye field. And at some point they saw - the kids were jumping on the rye and laughing. These were the mermaid children.
By the way
The mermaid is beautiful only from the front
According to the ethnographer, the usual occupation of mermaids is to lure men with hypnotic voices and take them to the forest, mountains and water, where inevitable death awaits them. If the mermaid is an adult, it is quite possible to distinguish it from an ordinary person. Its height is about two human heights. And she is only beautiful in front. Behind such creatures, there is no skin, and if it turns its back, the insides will be visible and the person may lose consciousness from fright.
“There is a whole system of amulets from mermaids, which are especially relevant now, during Green Week,” says Krasikov. - For example, these days it is advisable to limit communication with nature - not to go to the river, to the forest, or to the vegetable garden. And if you really go - wear wormwood and garlic. And since ancient times, it was customary that this week near the ponds for mermaids you need to leave shirts, as a sign of respect. Most often this is done by women whose children have drowned.
Biologist's comment
Biologists don't believe in mermaids. Although they admit: I want them to be.
- There are several options where such sounds can appear, - suggests the head of the Department of Biology and Ecology of Animals at KhNU. Karazin Andrey Utevsky. - It could be a bittern from the heron-like squad. People call her "bugay" and she shouts accordingly. There may be all sorts of frogs, however, now their spawning has already ended, they do not really cry. And hydrogen sulfide gases can also come out. At such times, they usually accumulate in swampy areas.