Witch mountain
Krasnoyarsk Territory - seventy kilometers north of the village of Kezhma, there is a high rocky hill overgrown with sparse forests, which the locals call Witch Mountain. According to legend, at the end of the 18th century, when these places 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 began to burn, then the death of livestock began. And every time before that, an old witch came to the village. Once, desperate people gathered, came to a lonely hut on the top of a hill, locked the door outside and set the house on fire together with the witch. They say that before her death, the old woman cursed that place and everyone who took part in the massacre …
Soon the curse of the burnt witch began to come true. A strong taiga fire completely destroyed 5 out of 7 villages in the district, taking with it several dozen human 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, villagers often saw a greenish fog streaming down the hillsides. From time to time they heard the roar of some animal, then the cry of a child. It happened that at night in the crowns of trees that grew on the hill, dancing colored lights appeared. Among the hunters, legends began to spread about a huge creature overgrown with wool, supposedly living on Witch Mountain. It was to him that they began to ascribe frightening sounds coming from the hill. Some residents claimed that they had seen a human figure flying in the night sky more than once. For this reason, a legend even appeared according to which the restless soul of a burnt witch rushes over the surroundings at night in search of a victim.
In the 30s of the XX century, camps of the notorious Kraslag began to appear in those places. One of the special institutions was also built 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." Indeed, even in the harsh 1930s, escape was not uncommon in the camp. But as a rule, the fugitives were found - alive or dead. The harsh Siberian climate and endless taiga did not always become allies of freedom-lovers.
One of the shoots was timed by a group of repeat offenders for another revolutionary anniversary back in 1948. The disappearance of the prisoners became known only a few hours after the escape. They immediately organized a search, which dragged on for several days. The head of the camp was already ready to suffer a harsh punishment for “failure to take proper measures to search for and capture the escaped convicts,” when at the end of the third day the operatives 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 to the camp as soon as possible.
During interrogation, he said that by the morning of the second day, he and two accomplices, 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. But the higher they climbed, the more terrible they became. As the detained prisoner testified, it was strange that among the trees no birds could be heard, and the steps of the fugitives were not heard when they walked on dry grass and branches barely covered with snow, and their quiet voices sounded unnaturally dull. Once at 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 every now and then multicolored sparks ran.
The tension and fear of the Witch Mountain intruders reached their limit when trees, bushes and boulders suddenly began to disappear one by one. Without understanding the road, the criminals rushed to flee from the hill. On their way there was a cedar trunk split into two halves. The two fugitives jumped into a tree rift and in the next moment, with a shrill cry, 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 went to the search group …
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The next day, a detachment of armed NKVD officers was sent to Witch Hill, who, after combing the entire hill, were able to find only two earflaps left over from the disappeared prisoners not far from the split cedar.
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 places considered the hill lost in the taiga to be a sacred place. At various 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.
According to another old belief, 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 scoured 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 enemies …
Based on the opinion of some Siberian geologists, Kupavtsev believes that Witch Mountain is the top of a very old dormant volcano, the acrid breath of which, perhaps, is the cause of such phenomena as colored fog, rumbling sounds from the ground, and the appearance of dancing colored lights … Poisonous gases, sometimes 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.
But the hypothesis about the volcanic origin of Witch Mountain does not explain in any way the mysterious disappearances of people and other inexplicable phenomena that have been happening here since time immemorial.
Y. Podolsky