Ghost. Russia

The photographer captured the ghost of a girl against the background of an old church. A curious photo "surfaced" in the Vkontakte social network: an old, almost collapsed Tikhvin Church on an overgrown meadow in the village of Timokhino in the Nekrasovsky district. Such as there seem to be many in the country. But the beauty of this photo is that the ghost is clearly visible against the background of the church!

Photo the author (nickname "Sashka Varaksin") signed: "Here we took a picture of such a thing on a cell phone. The village of Timokhino, Yaroslavl region is ominous, however." Yeah, that's not the word!

A strange white spot is visible in the lower left corner. And it's too much like the silhouette of a girl. Maybe there is a mystical place here that attracts ghosts?

- Very little is known about the Tikhvin Church. As well as about Timokhino himself. We don't even really know where the name of the village came from. It is clear that in honor of a man named Timothy, but who is he? - Natalia Kopylova, the head of the excursion department of the Nekrasov Museum of Local Lore, throws up her hands.

Well, if even historians don't know, then the mysterious photo becomes even more interesting!

There is still a little information on the Internet confirmed by historians about the village and the church. They write that a small but cozy church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God was built in 1797 with the money of a rich peasant Semyon Zherikhov. To this day, only a "skeleton" has remained of its baroque decoration: a five-headed quadrangle. There was once a bell tower and a refectory, but the years of Soviet power did not spare the structure.

And a little more than ten houses with two dozen inhabitants and several abandoned buildings remained from the once prosperous Timokhino. Standard Russian wilderness.

Previously, there was a road from Yaroslavl to Kostroma in these places. It is logical that small villages, such as Timokhino, began to appear on the roadsides here and there. There was even once a prison house where the Decembrists were kept. Yes, why was there? It exists, only today even the locals call this old building, matching the ruins of the Tikhvin Church, a school and do not know what was there in the old days.

A strange white spot is visible in the lower left corner. And it's too much like the silhouette of a girl. Maybe there is a mystical place here that attracts ghosts?

The Tikhvin Church was closed in 1950. The building was not dismantled brick by brick — it was blown up (the bell tower was blown up by a local resident, on rubble).

— I came here in the sixties, - says Claudia Vasilyevna, a resident of Timokhino. — Even then, only ruins remained of the church. The locals dismantled it for building materials…

Timokhin residents dream of reviving the Tikhvin Church, but the hope is very weak: who will donate a few million to restore a church that has almost disappeared?

- There are many other churches of the XVII-XVIII century built in the Nekrasovsky district, some are architectural monuments. But does this prevent them from collapsing? - complains Natalia Viktorovna. — Besides, their status does not add money for maintenance.

A dead bride?

So maybe a ghost wandering through the ruins is a transparent reproach to the locals - they say they did not save the temple of God? Or is it a dead bride who never got married? After all, there is a cemetery next to the church. Old, overgrown, with crooked crosses — all in the best traditions of thrillers. By the way, they are still buried there.

Romantic and mystical versions are, of course, always interesting. But professional photographers are skeptical about them.

— It seems to me that it does not look like a ghost, since the object is clearly not far from the lens. Just something caught in the frame. Most likely, a spikelet. But it turned out to be interesting, that's for sure, - says Yaroslavl photographer Sergey Afonichev. — No matter how many churches I shot, I never caught ghosts in the frame. But I often do blurring of the object in front of the lens on the set — that's how "ghosts" turn out.