Among several settlements marked by Permian researchers for study, Chermoz is overgrown with myths, legends and stories of local residents about encounters with strange creatures.
A bit of history
According to legend, the town of Chermoz was founded by the Cheremis people, which means "sorcerers", "sorcerers".
The village of Chermoz was first mentioned in K. Tsizarev's abandoned books for 1701 for the right of ownership of G. D. Stroganov Obvinskaya and Invenskaya estates. The village was located near the ford, along which the highway passed from the village of Kylasova on the Inva River to the village of Dmitrievsky on the Obva. The area attracted Stroganov's attention with favorable conditions for the construction of a large pond.
In 1761 N. G. Stroganov received permission to build the Chermoz copper smelter. Due to the depletion of local cuprous sandstones in 1766, the plant switched to iron production. Soon the plant was sold to the court jeweler I. L. Lazarev.
But the inhabitants of Chermoz, although they worked at the plant, were closely connected with the surrounding forests, swamps, and the river. Each man hunted, observing the traditions of fathers and grandfathers, who not only knew animal habits - for the hunt to be successful, they communicated with the spirits of the forest, water and land.
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Booth in the swamp
Balagan is a hunting lodge set up in the forest. Actually, he was the reason why we decided to go to Chermoz. In June 2007, a letter from a local resident came to RUFORS (Russian Ufological Research Station) e-mail. He told about an unusual meeting in a swamp, not far from the booth, with a strange creature of small stature. I had to go and sort out everything on the spot.
“The balagan is being built according to certain rules,” Sergei, a local historian from Chermoz, told us. - You need to choose the right place: an old experienced hunter examines it, asks for permission from the owner of the forest - and only then gives the go-ahead for the construction of the booth. Each forest has its own master, and you need to know how to talk to him. We have several booths in the area that were built at random. Well, people rush about afterwards: either the gnarly gnawing - I won't save, then different misunderstandings occur … Twenty years ago, in one of these booths, a hunter at night riddled all the walls and windows with a gun, firing back from someone. I couldn't really tell anything, I just mentioned some creature, half a meter in height, similar to a woman with long blond uncombed hair …
It was not possible to get to the cherished booth, in which the night shootout took place. The local hunters refused all persuasions to take us there. It was evident: they do not like strangers in these places and are afraid, nobody was in a hurry to reveal local secrets. Only one of the hunters invited us to the opening of the season, which was to take place in a month:
- Come, we will raft into that booth. At night by the fire, maybe something will be seen …
After conversations with the residents of Chermoz, a strange feeling remained: it seemed that the town kept some kind of secret, which could not be entrusted to everyone.
The local police station was another valuable source of information. The talkative lieutenant recalled the sad incident that happened to three schoolchildren, who decided to go in search of the MiG-25 fighter that had crashed in these places. The guys got lost in the forest, wandered for almost a week, one of them died. Survivors reported that they allegedly saw a small, fair-haired creature, although, perhaps, it was hallucinations from overwork and fear …
Batin log
The same strange feeling of understatement remained after attempts to find Batin Log, about which there were many legends. Residents gave conflicting information. The first interlocutor said that it was very difficult to get to Batiny log, allegedly located almost ten kilometers from Chermoz, all roads were overgrown and it was impossible to find it without a guide. Another cut the distance by half, reassuring that "you can get there and by car." The last hunter pointed the direction confidently:
- Walk a couple of kilometers in-oh-oh-he there … and you will see Batin Log.
Batin Log is located northwest of Chermoz. It is a ravine in a flat area with gentle, overgrown slopes, which is notorious. In it, under mysterious circumstances, people disappeared. It is believed that evil spirits are found there. The ravine is full of berries and mushrooms, but mushroom pickers bypass the ravine.
Why Batin Log? They say that before the revolution the chieftain with a gang of robbers hid in this log. The ataman's nickname was Batya. Another story is told about Batin's Log. Once a local hunter walked towards his house, noticed a strange large stone in the grass, looked closely, and on it - strange letters, similar to church ones. The stone was too large and heavy. The hunter picked up a stick, stuck it next to the stone, in order to find it later by the mark. I went for help. We returned with the men - the stick is still there, but there is no stone.
Playing with fire
Collecting ethnographic information and preparing for the summer season, RUFORS researchers have collected a wealth of material on village mythology. Almost everywhere they talk about meetings with the inhabitants of the forest: goblin, water, moksha, mermaids. But there are stories that are even more incredible. In the Urals, there has long been a legend about the mysterious Chud people, who allegedly descended underground in ancient times. Until now, strange people are met in remote corners of the region. Here is what local historian Andrei Boytsov says about this:
- The latest information about the meeting with the representative of Chudi refers to the 1940s … A resident of the Solikamsk region told (though not me) that he met an old man of small stature with white eyes in his childhood in the forest. He said that he lived underground and that the entrance to the dungeon was in a small burial mound. But he did not manage to talk longer, because the voices of other people were heard, and the old man quickly disappeared. According to one well-known Perm writer who lives in Moscow, there is a person in Perm who knows the place of entrance, but does not tell anyone.
At first glance, all this seems at least strange, but only for those who have never gone on long hikes and were not left alone in the night forest. Last year, the author of these lines twice had a chance to encounter strange phenomena during an expedition. I told the Chermoz regional historian about my night meeting, he just shook his head:
- You are playing with fire, guys!..
Aircraft
Chermoz has another secret. On May 7, 1971, military pilot Valery Rubanenko flew on a MiG-25 with a full ammunition load (about two tons), taking off from an airfield in the north of the Perm Territory. An engine caught fire in the Chermoz area. The pilot took the plane away from the city and fell on the other side in a swamp.
Here is what Olga Anufrieva, an eyewitness to the events, says:
- I was in the tenth grade then. Before the Victory Day we were shown a documentary about the war … Suddenly the monotonous voice of the announcer was interrupted by a terrible explosion. The school building shook, the walls shook. Everyone rushed into the corridor. There were already shouts from there: “War! The war has begun! People ran out into the street and ran towards the Kama, from where they heard explosions and poured a thick column of black smoke … Then we learned that a military plane with a full load had fallen.
Local residents tried to find and raise the plane, but it got stuck in a swamp. Those who have seen it tell of a "tail with a red star" sticking out of the bog. It is strange that the military did not lift the plane, because then it was the most advanced and secret machine, adopted only in 1969. We tried to trace where this MiG could fly from, but we did not even determine the approximate location of the northern airfield.
Night in a dead village
Never reaching the protected areas, we learned that near Chermoz there are several extinct villages, in which mysterious events also took place earlier. We got to one of them along deaf country roads. From the village remained a couple of blackened log cabins, a bathhouse and a house, the roof of which collapsed from decay, covering it like a cocked hat.
The wind carried a sweetish smell. A hundred meters from the camp, we found the body of a goby, and how he got here 15 kilometers from the nearest living village was not clear. Someone carefully ripped open his belly - a straight cut. We walked around everything - no traces of people were found. It seems that over the past 20 years, as this village became uninhabited, we became the first guests here. So it was not possible to understand what or who drove the bull here and killed. It was a little creepy …
Toward night, fog began to stretch from the hollow. First, he filled all the lowlands, then crawled towards our camp with a white cotton cloud. We started photographing with ultra-sensitive long exposure film. Weird balls and lines appeared in some of the pictures. Despite warnings and beliefs, we went to the old bathhouse at night, took pictures, however, asked permission from the “owner” before entering. Nothing unusual happened to us that night.
But in the morning, when we were already going home, we were covered by a terrible downpour, literally ten meters away nothing was visible. I had to stand on the forest road and wait for him to stop a little, and then drive carefully, barely holding the car, which was trying to slide into the thick grass …
Nikolay SUBBOTIN Author's photo