Many people know the area of the Ostankino television center as the area with the tallest structure in Moscow, but not everyone knows that the land on which the tower stands has an ancient and mystical glory. A strange old hunchback woman sometimes meets here. She appears near the TV tower, and then slowly and silently walks to the nearby palace ensemble and hides behind a high fence.
They say that the first appearance of the old woman took place in 1558, when the boyar Alexei Sotin owned the area. He had only thought to plow the wasteland, on which the palace now stands, when a hunchback-prophet appeared to him and predicted: “Don't you dare to plow, don't disturb this land. No wonder she is called Ostankina. Human remains lie here. If you touch it, there will be inevitable disaster. The boyar laughed in her face and did not change his plans, and after 3 days he was executed by order of Ivan IV the Terrible.
The next owner of Ostankino was the German oprichnik Orne. The locals spoke of him with horror. At night, he arranged demonic games in his possession, and during the day he tore up old graves, apparently looking for treasures. And the hunchback came to him, shook her stick and said: "Calm down, cursed will be your name and all your family!"
The foreign oprichnik did not obey and soon committed a terrible crime. By order of Ivan the Terrible, overseas merchants carried a ring with a mysterious sign of the "universe". Ornn took the ring, killed the merchants and buried them along with the treasures among the ancient graves. Grozny visited about what had happened, sent guards for Orn, but the foreigner managed to hide in the Ostankino swamps, where he disappeared in the end.
The next appearance of the prophet happened during the reign of Paul I. After visiting the island of Malta, the Russian emperor visited the Ostankino estate. By this time, the famous Sheremetev Palace was already here. How the prophet could pass through the vigilant imperial guard, no one could understand. They wanted to drive her away, but Pavel stopped the guard and talked to the old woman alone for a long time. Then he summoned Count Sheremetev and sadly told him: "Now I know when I will be killed." On the night of March 12, 1801, the emperor was strangled.
During the Patriotic War of 1812, Ostankino was occupied by units of the French General Orne. The general came to the estate several times and forced the soldiers to excavate in the area of ancient burials. The locals were sure that the French general was a descendant of a foreign oprichnik and was looking for the treasures of the murdered merchants buried by his ancestor. The general did not find any treasure and, disappointed, left the estate …
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In 1856, Emperor Alexander II visited the magnificent estate with his wife and children. Once on the porch, the emperor stumbled. He was supported by an out of nowhere hunchbacked old woman who quietly whispered to him: "You, Emperor-Father, will rule for 25 years, and an atheist will destroy you." In March 1881, the old woman's prediction came true: the bomb of the revolutionary Narodnaya Volya cut short the life of Alexander II.
Everything would be fine, but urban legends are constantly supported by the words of eyewitnesses: guards, watchmen and other people who constantly stay in the area of the TV tower in the evening and at night. Here is the testimony of one of the guards who identified himself as Sergei:
“At nights everything seems to be quiet here, people walk around the clock, they have editing, then a report … And at the central entrance it is also calm. But the building opposite is weird. There are some sounds all the time: now moans, then grunting. At first I thought that the guys were kidding me. But no, the sound seems to be right above the ear, I turn - no one.
It's a pity, Pashka is on vacation, he would tell you his favorite story about the old woman. In October 1991, a couple of days before the storming of the television center, an old hunchbacked woman appeared, and so she rushes to our building. Pashka - to her: “It’s not allowed, mother, you need a pass,” and she moved her nose and hoarsely: “It smells of blood here,” turned around and disappeared. Pashka is not a kid, but he drifted cool. I saw her too, though from afar. When I am on duty at the gate, I come across various bells and whistles.
Once, for almost the entire shift, I chased an incomprehensible ball, so shaggy in appearance, the size of a small watermelon, no head or legs are visible, rolling along the technical corridor, rolling so impudently, slowly. I try to approach him, and he is from me, I follow him, he is from me, and then rolled up to the gate and spread out in such a stinking puddle, similar to diarrhea …"
Until now, the zone of the television center is considered anomalous and every decade you can hear several new stories about the devilry happening here, forcing even non-believers to read prayers in horror.