The outskirts of Ostankino and the television center itself have long been considered one of the most mystical corners of Moscow.
After all, here people more than once faced inexplicable incidents or met the most real ghosts.
Almost every employee of the television center, especially an old-timer, can share stories about local ghosts and beasts that he encountered while working at Ostankino.
True, not every story should be blindly believed, because often, apart from the narrator himself, no one else watched the brownie living in the operator's room, or the midnight "get-together" of Tsoi, Sorin, Belousov, Talkov and other late pop stars in one of the television center studios.
But the strange old hunchback woman, who usually appears before some sad event, was noticed near the television center and the palace ensemble of the same name, erected by Count Sheremetev, many times.
It is not known who she is and where she came from in Ostankino, although some researchers consider her to be the spirit of a witch who was once buried alive in the ground: according to archaeologists, before the adoption of Christianity in Russia, there was a pagan temple in these places, where sacrifices were repeatedly performed.
Later, suicides and murderers were buried here, and under Peter I, a small German cemetery was opened - for those who died in the capital of foreign aliens.
In the middle of the 18th century, a morgue was transferred to this territory from Bozhedomka and another churchyard was founded under it, where they began to bury beggars, vagrants, criminals, suicides and unidentified victims of crimes at the public expense. In a word, all those people whom there was no one to accompany on their last journey.
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After a couple of decades, the cemetery expanded, acquired the status of an urban one and began to be called Lazarevsky - after the chapel of St. Lazarus erected near it.
Television center in Ostankino
Unsurprisingly, the area has had a long history of ill-fame and a host of eerie legends. Nevertheless, it was here in the 60s of the last century that it was decided to build a new television center due to the fact that the district was located on the outskirts of the capital, there was enough space for large-scale construction. Thus, it was possible to build a television center twice as large as originally planned.
It is not known when exactly the television employees first encountered the strange old woman - then it was not customary to believe in any mysticism and "devilry". True, from the very beginning, many of them complained about the ailments that torment them at the workplace. At the same time, most of these sufferers worked in the ASK-3 building (Small TV Center on Akademika Korolev Street), which, like the TV tower, stands on the site of a former cemetery.
However, these health problems were explained quite realistically: they say, the level of electromagnetic radiation in the buildings of the television center greatly exceeds the norm, which is not particularly useful for the human body. So he "junk".
As for the hunchbacked old woman in black, who from time to time appears near the television center, how few grandmothers lived in those days near Ostankino? Although, after meeting with this particular "granny", many TV people felt severe headaches …
But in the 90s, the old woman was noticed and well remembered. One of her most memorable appearances dates back to October 1993: a couple of days before the infamous storming of the TV tower, the guards saw an unfamiliar hunched old woman in dark clothes at the entrance, trying to enter.
One of them stopped a strange visitor, saying: "It is not allowed, mother, without a pass!" The woman suddenly turned her nose and, croaking hoarsely: "You smell like blood here!" - turned around and seemed to melt into thin air. As the guards later said, they were startled then in earnest - although they were strong men who had seen a lot.
Militants from among the supporters of the Supreme Council at the entrance to the Ostankino shopping center. October 3, 1993
In August 2000, a few days before the famous fire at the TV tower, journalist Timofey Bazhenov in the hall of ASK-3 saw an old hunchback woman wandering towards him, who shook her stick and shouted: "It smells like smoke here!"
By the way, on the same days TV presenter Lev Novozhenov also saw the old thing, who ran into it in the so-called "quiet zone" - the place above the studio-equipment blocks where various talk shows are filmed. And the old woman warned him about the fire, although, unfortunately, no one took her words seriously.
And on August 27, the TV tower burst into flames - three floors were completely burnt out, most of the cables holding the concrete structure of the tower burst, a high-speed elevator collapsed … The fire resulted in human casualties, and also interrupted the normal broadcasting of most of the TV channels for a long time.
By the way, the story of the "black old woman" is much older than both the TV tower and the district itself - even in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Muscovites met a hunchbacked prophetess here.
The first surviving mentions of it date back to 1558. The then owner of these lands, boyar Alexei Satin, was going to plow the wasteland, on which the Sheremetev palace would later be built. Before he had time to start work, a hunchbacked old woman came to him and said: “Don't disturb this land! No wonder she is called Ostankino. Human remains lie here. If you touch it, there will be trouble!"
The boyarin just laughed and drove the intruder away. And three days later he was executed by order of the king. The land remained unplowed …
Ostankino passed to the tsar's oprichnik - "nemchin" Orn (as they used to call it in the capital of Europeans). Like his “comrades-in-arms,” Ornn was distinguished by his fierce disposition, easily shedding other people's blood and performing unthinkable atrocities.
In Ostankino, the oprichnik danced and raged with the guests, terrifying local residents. During the day, he often tore up old graves in the churchyard in search of valuables, and at night he arranged terrible orgies: he and his drinking companions howled at the moon, rode naked near the fires, killed stray dogs and drank wine mixed with blood.
Once, a strange hunchback visited him. She swung at the owner of Ostankino with a stick and said: "Calm down, dog's head, otherwise your name and all your family will be cursed!"
According to legend, Ornn did not pay attention to the words of the witch, ordering to drive the old woman out of the yard. Moreover, soon the foreigner committed another atrocity: he took away from the overseas merchants passing by the unusual ring intended for the king. According to legend, that ring had a special sign made of precious stones - an ancient symbol of the universe. It was owned by French kings from the Carolingian dynasty, and after their fall, the decoration passed to distant relatives.
Ivan the Terrible had known for a long time about the ring to which mystical properties were attributed, and ordered his servants to find this artifact without fail. After a long search, the Tsar's envoys nevertheless got hold of a ring and, under the guise of merchants, took it to Ivan Vasilyevich.
To cover up his crime, Orne killed the robbed "merchants" and buried their bodies in an old cemetery. However, the "kind" people managed to inform Tsar Ivan about the guardsman's misconduct, and he sent guards after him so that they knocked out a confession and a stolen artifact from him.
But the disgraced oprichnik at the last moment managed to escape and disappeared among the Ostankino swamps, where he disappeared without a trace. And the royal servants did not find either the plundered gold from the graves, or the ring he had stolen …
After that, Ostankino passed from hand to hand for a long time, until it became the property of the Sheremetevs. One of its owners, Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, fell in love with the serf actress from his theater - the talented and beautiful Praskovya Kovaleva, who bore the stage name Zhemchugova.
This sad love story of a serf actress and an aristocrat is well known: the emperor did not allow the count to marry a peasant woman, and Sheremetev decided on a desperate step - at first he gave his beloved a free one, and in 1801 he secretly married her. At the end of the same year, the newlyweds decided to go to St. Petersburg.
Ostankino Palace
In the evening before leaving, the young countess met in one of the corridors of the Ostankino palace an old woman she did not know - a hunchbacked woman with a gloomy wrinkled face, who said: “I have come to warn you. Two plays have been sent to your theater today. Take only one manuscript, and leave the other!"
The actress was very surprised: indeed, that day she was given from an unknown author a translation of two of Shakespeare's plays - "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Hamlet". Zhemchugova liked the roles of Ophelia and Cleopatra so much that she decided to play them by all means, despite the fact that both heroines were dying …
But the old prophetic woman had a different opinion: “Where there are two pretend deaths, there will be a third in reality! Believe my words, do not take two plays at once."
This conversation seemed so strange to the countess that she did not believe the thing. And Count Sheremetev, having learned about him, supported his wife's decision: after all, these were the works of the great Shakespeare and the translator put his heart and soul into translating them from English. So Praskovya began to rehearse both roles.
But the performances did not take place - the old woman was right. Shortly before the scheduled premiere, the actress realized that she was pregnant and stopped going on stage. Moreover, due to pregnancy and previous anxieties, her health deteriorated significantly, and she died a couple of weeks after the birth of her son. Only a little over a year has passed since her meeting with the mysterious old woman …
The humpbacked witch also appeared to Paul I, when he, returning from Malta, visited the palace of Count Sheremetev. Somehow she managed to break through the guards to the emperor himself. They say that Pavel had a long conversation with her in private and after that told Sheremetev that now he knew exactly when he would be killed. True, he kept silent about the time he was given …
The fateful meeting was not avoided by the Polish king Svyatoslav August Poniatowski, who was visiting the count in Ostankino in June 1797: the sinister old woman predicted the exact date of his death for him. Like the Russian monarch, Poniatovsky did not reveal to anyone what exactly the prophetess told him. And six months later, he died suddenly. Until now, the reasons for his death have not been precisely established.
In the summer of 1856, Emperor Alexander II arrived with his family at the Sheremetev estate, which was then owned by Dmitry - the son of Praskovya Zhemchugova and Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev.
Ascending the high porch, the emperor stumbled. Someone supported him - it turned out to be an unfamiliar hunchbacked old woman. She immediately disappeared, having managed to mutter: "You, sir-father, will rule for 25 years, and an evil atheist will destroy you."
The terrible prediction was heard not only by the emperor, but also by his entourage - his retinue and Dmitry Sheremetev. The count was particularly shocked: after all, the Ostankino old woman turned out to be not legends of the times of Ivan the Terrible, not the gossip of superstitious villagers and not vague rumors about a prediction allegedly given to his mother shortly before her death.
Being a deeply religious person, Sheremetev decided to take a desperate step: in order to rid his lands forever of an ominous ghost, in the summer of 1866, with the permission of the Moscow clergy, he brought to Ostankino one of the main shrines of the capital - the miraculous icon of the Iberian Mother of God.
First, a divine service was held in the local church, and then the icon was taken to the count's palace, where a moleben with blessing of water was served. To consolidate the success, Dmitry Sheremetev ordered to carry the miraculous icon to the homes of local peasants who had ever seen the ghost of an old woman …
For a while, peace reigned in Ostankino: neither the hunchbacked old woman, nor strange phenomena disturbed the inhabitants of these places. However, the prediction of the Ostankino sorceress nevertheless came true: in March 1881, Alexander was killed by a revolutionary, People's Will, who threw a bomb at him.
And at the beginning of the twentieth century, the old hunchback woman began to reappear - to once again warn Muscovites about impending troubles and misfortunes. Although, as before, few believed her …
