In Troitsk, a science town near Moscow, in an old factory district, there is a three-storey house built of red brick. For many years now, it has housed a working hostel.
But in the town, the building is better known as the Chudilnik. They say that in the old days miracles really happened here …
The area of the Troitskaya worsted factory began to be built up at the end of the 18th century. True, no houses of that time have survived in the city.
In 1908, Emil Karlovich Risch, a German by birth, became the owner of the factory. Under him, a dormitory for workers was erected.
The local inhabitants lived in tiny rooms with an area of nine to ten square meters. Downstairs, in the basement, there was a kitchen with a huge stove. It was used not only by the aborigines, but also by the inhabitants of neighboring villages and villages. The hostesses came here to bake pies on the hearth (that is, in the place where the firewood is put), and often on the street near the hostel one could meet a woman with a baking sheet full of hot, ardently, with the heat of baking.
The factory had a bakery, and the villagers came here for fresh bread. In the war, they took a line behind him at three in the morning and went to the stove - to warm up from the frost.
Nobody can really say where the current nickname - Chudilnik - came from. According to one of the versions, under Soviet rule, central heating was installed in the hostel. But during the war years it was turned off, and the residents drowned the "stoves". Chimneys then protruded from each window, and the entire façade was covered in soot. It was at that time that the house was nicknamed Chadilnik. And later it was automatically renamed Chudilnik.
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According to another version, the strange architecture of the building is to blame. It is absolutely not typical of either the pre-revolutionary or the Soviet era: lack of symmetry, winding passages … One woman who visited her grandmother here in her childhood said that walking along the corridor, one could get from one entrance to another. He and the neighbors' kids often used it, playing tag and hide and seek here.
The name "Chudilnik" was also attributed to the fact that the people here were weird. They lived in close quarters, family quarrels and drunken fights often took place between people. One grandmother told me that during the war, a female worker who had a room in the basement had rats eating a baby. And sometimes there was real devilry going on.
Once a husband and wife were quarreling over drunkenness, and suddenly they looked - a devil with horns was jumping between them. Both men and women saw him, so this can hardly be attributed to delirium tremens. They say they did not take alcohol in their mouths afterwards.
There were many strange rumors about the Oddball. Praskovya Vladimirovna Shirokova, 82, formerly taught Russian language and literature at a factory evening school and often visited her students in Chudilnik.
“Once there was a case where a woman fell asleep and slept soundly for two weeks,” the teacher recalls.
During the perestroika period, both the factory and the hostel fell into decay. The third floor of the Chudilnik was empty for a long time.
One day a company that came to visit one of the inhabitants of the second floor clearly heard someone walking over them.
Hinges creaked and doors slammed distinctly. The tipsy friends decided to "catch the ghost" and rushed upstairs. An absolutely empty corridor appeared to their eyes, but the doors of all rooms, by that time uninhabited, for some reason turned out to be wide open. If someone was on the third floor and left, he would certainly have met them on the stairs. However, I did not meet …
On another occasion, a man visiting a friend went out at dusk for some need to a dark staircase and felt that someone was watching him. Suddenly, the guest heard a clink. It was repeated three times. Looking closely, the man saw a small coin at his feet. Two more lay at a distance. Who planted them? Apparently a spirit.
About 15 years ago, local authorities decided to demolish a brick monster, which had already been resettled by that time. A bulldozer drove up to Chudilnik, and a heavy metal "woman" hit the wall of the building several times. However, the masonry did not give in. But the load broke loose from the chain, miraculously not killing any of the onlookers who gathered to gawk at the spectacular show.
After that, the house was left alone, and its mystical fame increased even more: the old-timers were sure that the mysterious forces living in the Oddball were hindering the demolition.
Later, the building was re-populated, before that it was rebuilt and major repairs were made. Then the miracles stopped.
From the outside, the building makes a strange impression: a cross between a mansion and a barrack. Sharp spiers of the roof with a claim to style - and the lower floor, almost buried in the ground, they say, the house is sinking. Maybe here underground - emptiness or quicksand, it is these zones that are considered pathogenic, various anomalies can be found in them.
