Friday the thirteenth: the mystical legends of Krasnoyarsk, which still believe

The Girl Who Was Considered a Ghost - And Who Wasn't

The most famous urban legend of Krasnoyarsk began in 2015, when employees of the local history museum digitized glass negatives of the early XX century. Dozens of pictures — at the theater, the cathedral, the railway bridge — appeared the same skinny girl in a hat, with a scythe and unchanged facial expression. The dates on the envelopes did not match, and the child did not change. The city decided it was a ghost.

The solution waited seven years. In 2022, the funds found an album with the signature “Krasnoyarsk city administration”. Views of the city of Krasnoyarsk”. Its compiler was Evgeny Trofimovich Arkhipov, an employee of the board and an amateur photographer. The “Phantom” turned out to be his daughter Galina – her father just took her to the set in 1908-1909.

The legend, however, is not dead. The image of the girl now adorns the mural on Lenin, 63 - and remains part of urban folklore, despite all archival evidence.

The Devil's Cemetery: A Place No One Can Find

If a phantom girl is a story with a clue, then the Devil's Cemetery is a story without her. We are talking about a glade in the Angara taiga, in the basin of the Kova River, where, according to stories, all living things die: birds fall dead, animals die, and equipment fails.

The first mention refers to the beginning of the XX century. Hunters told about a scorched funnel from which smoke fell. In the 1930s, shepherds found dead cows in a clearing - and, after dividing the carcass, found that the meat from the inside was "baked", like animals were in the microwave.

The exact coordinates are still unknown. Those who tried to find the clearing complained of dizziness, weakness and strange behavior of the compasses. According to various reports, about 70 people were missing in the vicinity. Researcher of anomalous zones Sergey Rostovtsev searched for the Devil's cemetery for ten years - and admits: there are many versions, no confirmations.

Ghosts that half the city believes in

Krasnoyarsk is also rich in “classical” urban mysticism.

BSMP (Thousand Switch). According to legend, the hospital stands on the site of an old hospital, and the souls of deceased patients still roam the corridors. The nurses say that someone “helps” them with a gurney.

Organ room. A former church and now a concert hall. Workers staying overnight hear the sounds of the organ after midnight - when no one is in the hall.

Tuz. In early 2023, cameras recorded how the painting first fell in the theater, and after the guard hung it in place, furniture began to move and everything that hung on the walls began to fall.

Gadalov's house. In the 1980s, a student from the squad allegedly got into the reception room of the XIX century, where three men sat in antique clothes. One of them hinted that it was time to leave. Later, the student recognized the room - it was there that the Gadalovs received guests.

What science says

Each of these stories has a rational explanation - or at least skeptics. The phantom girl is solved by the archive. The damn cemetery is explained by geomagnetic anomalies, emissions of toxic gases or the fall of a fragment of the Tunguska meteorite. Ghosts in hospitals and theaters are often the play of light, the sounds of an old building, and the human habit of looking for history where one wants to find it.

But Friday the 13th doesn't exist to explain everything. It exists in order to once again tell the story of a girl with a scythe - which, to be honest, is much more interesting than any ghost.