In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 70 km north of the village of Kezhma, there was a high rocky hill, overgrown with sparse forests, called among the local population Witch Mountain.
In 2012, the village of Kezhma was flooded by the Boguchansky reservoir in connection with the construction of the Boguchansk hydroelectric power station, the residents were relocated. Perhaps the territory of the hill was also flooded.
According to the legend, at the end of the 18th century, when these lands began to be actively populated by Russian settlers, an old witch lived on the hill who did a lot of harm to people. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, log houses caught fire, then the death of livestock began.
And every time before that, they saw an evil old woman in the villages. One day, desperate local residents gathered, came to a lonely hut, which stood on top of a hill, locked the door outside and set fire to the house along with the witch. They say that before her death, the old woman cursed that place and everyone who participated in the massacre.
Soon the curse of the burnt witch began to come true. A strong taiga fire completely destroyed five of the seven villages located in the district, taking with it several dozen lives. People, left without a roof over their heads, dispersed across the vast Siberia in search of a better life. Those who remained in the villages untouched by the fire regretted not leaving.
In the evenings, in calm weather, the villagers often saw a greenish fog that streamed down the slopes of the hill. From time to time they heard the growling of some animal, then the cry of a child. It happened that at night in the crowns of trees growing on the hill, dancing multi-colored lights appeared. Among the hunters, legends began to spread about a huge creature overgrown with wool, as if
who lived on Witch Mountain. It was to him that they began to ascribe frightening sounds coming from the hill. Some residents claimed to have seen a human figure flying in the night sky more than once. For this reason, a belief even arose according to which the restless soul of a burnt witch rushes over the surroundings at night in search of a victim. People covered the chimneys with dampers through which the witch could get into the house.
In the 1930s, camps of the notorious Kraslag began to emerge in those parts. One of the special institutions also appeared near the Kezhma village. In it, unlike the neighboring camps, it was not political prisoners who served long sentences, but criminals, who were distinguished by special audacity. Almost all convicts in their personal affairs were marked "inclined to escape."
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Indeed, even in the harsh 30s of the last century, escape was not uncommon in the camp. However, fugitives were usually found - alive or dead. The harsh Siberian climate and endless taiga did not always become allies of freedom-lovers.
One of the escapes was timed by a group of repeat offenders to the next anniversary of the revolution back in 1948. The disappearance of the prisoners became known only a few hours after the escape. A search was immediately organized, which dragged on for several days.
The head of the camp was already ready to suffer severe punishment for “failure to take appropriate measures to search for and capture the escaped convicts,” when by the end of the third day the task force returned with one of the fugitives. As it turned out, the criminal himself surrendered to the camp staff at the foot of Witch Mountain, begging him to return him to the place of detention as soon as possible.
During interrogation, he said that by the morning of the second day, he and two companions, finding themselves at Witch Mountain, decided to climb the hill in order to sit out the day in the thickets of trees and continue their journey at dusk. However, the higher they climbed, the more terrifying they became.
As the detained criminal testified, it was strange that among the trees there was no singing of birds, no footsteps of fugitives were heard walking on dry grass and branches, barely covered with snow, and their quiet voices sounded unnaturally dull. Climbing to the top of the hill, the prisoners suddenly felt a strong cold, chilling to the very bones.
When the sun rose, some devilry began. At first, they clearly saw gray, shadow-like figures that appeared and disappeared among the trees. At the same time, the air began to fill with a fog glowing in the sun's rays, in a dense veil of which multi-colored sparks ran continually.
The tension and fear of the intruders of the hill reached their limit when trees, bushes and boulders suddenly began to disappear one by one. Without making out the road, the convicts rushed to flee from the hill. On their way there was a cedar trunk split into two halves.
Two accomplices of the detained prisoner jumped into a tree split and in the next instant, with a shrill scream, disappeared into thin air. Seeing this, the criminal who stopped in front of the crippled cedar rushed in the opposite direction. A few hours later he met a search party …
The next day, a detachment of armed NKVD officers was sent to Witch Mountain, who, having combed the entire hill, were able to find only two earflaps, left over from the disappeared fugitives, not far from the split cedar.
Kezhma, photo 2005. It is possible that the flooding of the Kezhma village also happened due to the curse of the witch …
Historian Andrei Kupavtsev from Krasnoyarsk believes that the Witch Mountain enjoyed special fame long before the legendary burning of the witch by Russian settlers. For centuries, the Evenks who lived in those parts of the world considered the hill lost in the taiga to be a sacred place.
At different times, he served them as a burial place for the dead, then as a sanctuary, where rituals were performed in honor of the spirits of the taiga. It was rumored that there was an entrance to the other world. According to ancient Evenk legends, old and sick people who wanted death went to this hill, and no one ever saw them again.
Another old legend says that when the Dzungars attacked those lands in the 15th century, the Evenks from the surrounding villages decided to hide at the top of the sacred hill. Enemy warriors prowled through the taiga, bumping only into the deserted villages.
One of the horse troops of the Dzungars climbed the hill. The frightened Evenks already clearly saw the formidable horsemen, expecting either death or shameful captivity, and prayed to the spirits for salvation. And a miracle happened: an unknown force suddenly made them invisible to the enemy …
Based on the opinion of some Siberian geologists, Kupavtsev believes that Witch Mountain is the summit of a very old dormant volcano, the acrid breath of which, perhaps, is the reason for such phenomena as colored fog, rumbling sounds emanating from the ground, and the appearance of dancing colored lights … Poisonous gases, occasionally escaping from the bowels of the hill, most likely cause visual and auditory hallucinations in people. Prolonged exposure to underground fumes can lead to death.
However, the hypothesis about the volcanic origin of Witch Mountain does not explain in any way the disappearance of people without a trace and other inexplicable phenomena that have been happening here since time immemorial.