10 mysterious places of St. Petersburg

On the night of October 31 to November 1, All Saints' Eve Halloween is celebrated. A holiday rooted in the depths of centuries and the traditions of the ancient Celts. On the eve of this holiday, we want to share with you 10 interesting and mysterious places of St. Petersburg, which beckon with their secrets and mystical history

1. Wandering ghost in the Mikhailovsky Castle

The most miserable ghost of St. Petersburg lives in the Mikhailovsky Castle. The castle was built by the order of Paul I in a record time for those times - in just four years. The place for the building was not chosen by chance: before, the Summer Palace of Empress Elizabeth was located here, in which the future ruler was born on September 20, 1754.

Paul I was a superstitious man and decided to build a castle here so that death would find him in the same place where he was born. By an evil irony of fate, the emperor was destined to live in his creation for only 40 days - in March 1801, Paul I was strangled by the conspirators in his own bedroom.

Since then, the castle has gained gloomy fame: it is believed that the ghost of the ruler remained in the palace and restlessly wanders around in search of consolation. Chances to see the spirit with your own eyes come if you go to the castle at midnight and look through the windows of the former emperor's bedroom - they are located on the second floor on the left. Everyone decides for himself whether to believe or not to believe in ghosts, but there are obvious strange coincidences in the death of Paul I. The inscription above the castle gates consists of 46 letters, the same age as the emperor on the day of his death. 40 months and 6 days passed from the moment of Paul I accession to the throne until his death.

The castle brought neither peace nor happiness to Paul. According to legend, the Emperor had a presentiment of his fate, and on the last evening, leaving the table after dinner, he whispered: "What will be, cannot be avoided."

After Paul's death, the castle was abandoned: a member of the imperial family did not want to live in it. To this day, the Mikhailovsky Castle remains one of the most mysterious places in St. Petersburg, attracting visitors who hope to penetrate the secrets of this place.

2. Yusupov Palace and the place of the murder of Grigory Rasputin

One of the strangest and most terrible murders of the early 20th century took place in the basements of the mansion. On December 17, 1916, Grigory Rasputin, an outstanding and mystical personality, found his death here.

There were many dissatisfied with the rise of the "divine elder" and his influence on the emperor. And in 1916, several influential people of the empire, including Prince Felix Yusupov, prepared the assassination of Rasputin.

He was invited to the palace on the Moika in order to meet the owner's wife Irina. They tried to kill the elder several times in different ways in just one night. Here, in a deep basement, at first, they tried to poison Gregory, but the cyanide potassium, which was impregnated with Rasputin's favorite cakes, did not affect him. Then he was shot at point-blank range. Mortally wounded in the chest, the imperial favorite almost strangled Yusupov, and when the second managed to escape, Rasputin rushed to run.

Gregory was able to knock down even a locked door, and almost disappeared from the yard. He was not stopped by three shots in the back, and only the fourth bullet, which hit his neck, knocked the old man off his feet. After another shot in the head, Rasputin was still breathing, and the conspirators, having loaded the body into the car, took him to Malaya Nevka and threw him into the ice-hole.

3. The ghost of the gravedigger in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

The next place in our "mystical map" of St. Petersburg is the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. It was built three centuries ago on the territory of an ancient pagan temple. Numerous legends are associated with this area, and they say that here you can meet a variety of representatives of the other world.

White nights are especially dangerous for visiting the Lavra. On such days, a meeting with a "drunken gravedigger" is very likely. This ghost wanders with an uneven gait in the middle of the graves, and when he meets a passer-by, he asks to treat him with vodka. In no case deny the spirit: if you do not find a glass or two for the mystical inhabitant of the laurel, he will cut you in half with a shovel.

4. The Brusnitsyn mansion

This mansion is located in the industrial part of Vasilievsky Island. There is a legend about the Brusnitsyn's mirror, which was in the White Hall and brought troubles and misfortunes to its owners. According to the legend, Brusnitsyn ordered an antique mirror in Italy for his luxurious mansion under construction.

They say that earlier it hung in the tomb of Count Dracula (supposedly the tomb was in one of the Venetian palazzo). All people who were in the mansion and looked in the mirror immediately began to experience strange sensations, and since then inexplicable phenomena began to occur with the Brusnitsyn family, up to accidents, after one of which it was decided to put the mirror in the pantry. Some argue that the mirror really existed, but disappeared somewhere after the revolution.

5. The ominous clock of the Kunstkamera

There is a legend about a mysterious clock that one officer brought to St. Petersburg, and which supposedly stands in one of the halls of the Kunstkamera.

The watch is solid: mahogany with beautiful carvings and a dial. But the mechanism is not working. The museum staff noticed a strange thing: the clock hands periodically begin to move in the opposite direction and, having reached the “9:45” mark, the clock stops. They say that this is a bad sign, and if this happens, then one of the museum employees will soon die.

6. The Secret of the Queen of Spades

As you know, in the 19th century, many famous writers loved to play cards, and the most famous people of that time, such as Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Lermontov, Griboyedov and, of course, Pushkin, also sinned.

On Malaya Morskaya Street, 10, lived the maid of honor of Empress Catherine II, Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, not far from her at one time lived Alexander Pushkin himself. He met a woman when only word of mouth remained of her former glory. And he himself, just playing cards, learned about her a terrible legend, which would later become the prototype of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades".

By pure chance, Alexander Pushkin met the countess's nephew. A young nephew, a revelry and a gambler, told the poet how one day, after another major loss, the old woman told him the secret of the “three cards” - three, seven and ace, which Count Saint-Germain told her. This secret was not to be learned by any other living soul.

Otherwise ... "It is better for you not to know the horror that you will experience every second, both in sleep and in reality," said Count Natalya Petrovna. She promised to keep a secret, but did not yet know how wrong she was. By telling her nephew this secret, she incurred anxiety and fear for the rest of her life. Outside the window all the time she dreamed of a mysterious black officer whom she called "the angel of death."

The Countess was sure that Count Saint Germain had come for her, who had not kept her promise. She was diagnosed with persecution mania and never found peace until the end of her days.

Pushkin was inspired by the story. The story of Golitsyna's death also affected him. The nephew said that his aunt told him about the ghost of a black officer, rejected by his gentleman, who at the end of his life began to come to Golitsyna and call her with him to the next world. After her death, the spirit of Natalia Petrovna settled on Malaya Morskaya, and according to legend, took to himself more than one soul of those who lived in the mansion after her. Including the soul of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who died suddenly in a house on Malaya Morskaya, 13 after he returned from Florence, where he had recently finished work on the opera The Queen of Spades.

Nowadays, anyone can touch the history of the house, which became the hero of the work of Alexander Sergeevich and which still keeps a lot of secrets.

7. Stroganov Palace. Ghost of the First Builder

The Stroganov Palace, like many other St. Petersburg buildings, is literally built on bones: here, at the Moika, as historians believe, at the beginning of the 18th century was one of the city's cemeteries. With each next expansion of the city's boundaries, the cemeteries were destroyed, but the memory of the place was preserved.

Mysterious legends and dark traditions were born. Here is one of the legends about the ghost of a peasant driven to the construction of St. still stands at the corner of Moika and Nevsky Prospekt.

8. Underground tunnel across the Neva under the mansion of Matilda Kshesinskaya

The myths around the Art Nouveau monument at the corner of Kronverksky Prospect and Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street are primarily associated with the fictional and real love stories of the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya.

The most widespread legend: incredible allegations of a supposedly existing secret underground passage connecting the mansion under the Neva with the Winter Palace (according to it, according to the myth, Nicholas II often crossed to the other side to visit his beloved)

9. Obvodny channel

And now let's move on to the embankment of the Obvodny Canal, the mystical power of which was noticed soon after the revolution, or rather, in 1923. At this time, a trench was being dug here, and the workers stumbled upon a strange structure - plates with ancient signs and letters, laid out in a circle. Human remains were found under one of these slabs.

It turned out that they are of Scandinavian origin and date back to the XI-XII centuries. That is, most likely, this place once was one of the pagan temples where sacrifices were made. The call to stop the work and study in detail the mystical place was ignored, and construction continued at full speed. After this discovery, strange accidents and suicides began to occur.

During the year, 89 people died, and after 10 years such deaths were repeated in even greater numbers. This continues every third year of the decade.

10. Rotunda on Gorokhovaya

The house, which houses the unusual structure, is no different from other houses. If we go back to history, in 1827 the merchant Ustinov built a “round house” on his site for renting it out. According to another version, the early house served as a Masonic lodge, and then became a temple of Satanists.

According to legend, the building, made in the form of an inverted pentagram-pentagon with a five-pointed star, is a symbol of Satanists, from here an exit to parallel worlds opens. Rumor has it that evil spirits are still found in this place, a portal to another world is located in the basement, and at midnight you can meet the devil himself. The rotunda has incredible acoustics, thanks to which you can still experience mystical experiences.

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