Mystical tour of Yekaterinburg

The first month of summer pleased us with a mystical calendar coincidence – the 13th fell on Friday. On such days, it's time to remember about otherworldly forces and ghosts… Do you think that they are found only in medieval castles in Europe, and there are none in our city? We invite you to a mystical tour of Yekaterinburg.

Not far from the Atrium Palace Hotel, on Rosa Luxemburg Street, there is an old house made of dark brick, with a turret and a lace lattice. This is the House of Zheleznov, now the Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The wife of merchant Alexey Zheleznov, Maria Efimovna, was a beautiful but strange woman. She loved the theater and bright spectacles, but at the same time shunned people, remained closed. More than anything in the world, the strange beauty loved flowers and ... loneliness. In addition, Maria Efimovna suffered from kleptomania. All the merchants knew this, but they tried to pretend not to notice when a rich lady secretly took something from the store. The husband, knowing this weakness of hers, followed and paid for the goods stolen by his wife. Maria Zheleznova died suddenly on November 7, 1914, the cause of her death remained unknown. Since then, in the silence of the old house, sometimes you can hear the eerie creaking of the door, the sound of footsteps and the subtle aroma of French perfume…

...The staff of the library named after. Belinsky, who happened to spend the night at the workplace, is assured that Vissarion Grigoryevich himself visits Belinka. And how else to explain the creaking of the parquet, the sound of footsteps that are now approaching, then moving away, and the rustle of turning pages?..

On the left side of Krylova Street stands an old brick house No. 2. Have you received a foreign passport? Here, it's here. Passport and Visa Department of the regional Police Department. The organization is absolutely not mystical. However, sometimes night guards hear some strange noises, children's voices, moans. They searched everything, looked into all corners, once even called dog handlers with dogs… There is no one! This house was built specifically for an orphanage that existed on the money of merchant Semyon Petrov. It is noteworthy that all his pupils received the patronymic Semenovich and the surname Petrov. The orphanage existed exactly before the revolution of 1917, when there were more important things in the state than the Petrov orphans. The shelter was closed, the children were dismissed. Maybe it's one of them crying in the old corridors…

Who among us has not heard about the Rastorguev-Kharitonov House full of riddles? They say that not only the ghost of his master, Lev Rastorguev, a strong and strange personality, lives in the dark basements of the House, but also a whole host of ghosts – his servants and his victims. But as for the murder of Lev Rastorguev, his son–in-law, Pyotr Kharitonov, a rich merchant and gold industrialist, a lover of noisy entertainment and carousing, surpassed him. Day and night there was music in the house, there was a card game, champagne flowed like a river in the literal sense of the word – they even washed horses with it.

Pyotr Yakovlevich was reputed to be a cruel man. Debtors and people who simply did not please him disappeared forever. Many years later, a gardener who worked for Kharitonov repented before his death that he "ruined many people in the cellars of the palace on the orders of the owner." There was a sluice in the basement holding back water from the park lake. You open the hatch - the water floods the dungeon, ruining all living things. So restless souls are in the house and in the park. Anyone who walks there with a dog can confirm that sometimes animals behave strangely: as if they see someone who cannot be seen…

By the way, about dungeons and underground passages. There are plenty of them in our city, as in any self-respecting city with a history. Don't you believe it? Ask the experts. Under the House of Unions there is, under the house of the Ipatievs there is, even somewhere on Stone Tents. And from the Town of the Chekists - through tunnels - it was possible to walk to ODO, to the headquarters of the URVO (where the monument to Zhukov is) and to Voznesenskaya Hill, where a secret government bunker was located. But, alas, thrill-seekers are no longer destined to pass these routes: the passages are filled up. And only the underground river that flows under Pervomaiskaya Street can reach Kharitonovsky Park unseen.…