Smolny Cathedral

Excerpts from the diary of Nikolai Verbin (189x):

"You saw the ghost of the pharmacist," a passerby told me excitedly, "I live next door here. That's where his pharmacy was. He brewed some potions, where he added pigeon blood. I don't know why, I avoided his pharmacy. Once, when catching birds, the apothecary stumbled and fell down. Since then, his ghost has been wandering through the belfries of the cathedral, stalking the birds… During the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, an assistant architect committed suicide right inside the temple under construction. That's why the service has never been held in this cathedral. It was said that after such a filth, service for 100 years could not be performed. So that's what the neighbors say," the interlocutor continued, "the unfortunate pharmacist did not stumble himself, it was the ghost of a suicide who pushed him from the bell tower. Too often the apothecary visited the domain of the restless soul, for which he paid, and his soul now remains here."