A photo from open sources
The first county prison in Balakhna was built in 1867, although, as they say, earlier there was a prison too. But over the years crime grew, more cameras were needed to isolate the villains and disagreeing with the ruling regime. And in 1898 in Balakhna erected a new prison castle, and with it the church of the Icon of the Mother of God of All Mourners Joy.
The temple has long been gone, and the former prison has been preserved. It’s worth it as if nothing had happened. True, it has long changed its orientation. The last convict left her shortly after the death of the father of all times and peoples, and the building on Ryazanov Street was settled by archivists. First, documents of the border troops of the USSR were stored here, and then – documentation of all the northern regions of the Gorky region.
In 1966, when the acceptance of premises from one departments to another, together with two two-story buildings, carpentry workshop, garage, warehouse, stoker and blacksmith available branch of the state archive of the Gorky region did it property inherited from imperial times. As, however, and cadres registered as employees in a military unit. Among them was and Taisiya Ivanovna Shpak (last name changed at her request).
Prison smell does not disappear even after major repairs buildings, even after a thorough restructuring. There is nothing to bring him out like a web in the corners. Pain and suffering remember dead stones, any objects that were nearby. And Taisia Ivanovna became convinced this almost immediately, as soon as she came to work in the archive.
“At first it was very hard,” she recalls. – some squeaks, tapping, rustling … Moaning, sobbing, moaning, even someone’s distant cry. And then I saw him. Without eyes, without hair. After some time, I found out that this is Bear German.
Bear Germanets
The ghost began to appear more and more often. Encounters hostile he was silent, looked faded and tired, and Taisiya Ivanovna stopped him afraid and even a little regretted. We are all mortal, she thought, and ghosts live for centuries, even millennia. You can go crazy such longevity. ”
She suddenly wanted to know as much as possible about Mishka. Germanese. Who is he at all? Why is he and not others honored prisoners of imperial time, became a ghost?
A photo from open sources
Documents were, as they say, at hand. And here is what succeeded to find out. Criminal Mishka Germanets, who was born in 1857 (his name was actually Mikhail Gershhorn, and in the file cabinet Nizhny Novgorod police, he figured as “German”), was recruited agent. With four criminal records and twenty years of term, he enjoyed authority among criminals, but reported police about all alleged criminal activities community.
But, receiving a reward for informing, I did not forget about himself, continued to steal. Taking advantage of the fact that they stopped him observation, entered the house of one of the richest people in the Lower Novgorod – Nikolai Bugrov. Opening his chest, stole a large amount of money and jewelry.
He, of course, figured out, and Bear Germanic, redeeming his guilt, contributed to the capture of the serial killer Zhidelev, and then a large Funin scammer. With his help, the police went on the trail of the kidnapper two church bells of the peasant Ryadkov …
The thieves’ world was at a loss, figuring out a traitor. bear The German was pierced in September 1905, when he took personal participation in the detention of a gang of robbers at the Pohvaly Congress. And him a real war was declared.
The German knew well that this would not end in good, and somewhere hid for a very long time. As much as 12 years. He went to jail after the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. For what – it is unclear. In 1919, German and another former police informant Poimenov filed a petition to change the preventive measure and the speedy consideration of the case, however about what happened next, nothing is known. Apparently German they killed it in prison. Only here in which, it is not clear.
Nizhny Novgorod prison
Bear Germanets was noted in the Nizhny Novgorod prison. And he and his ghost. And this is, as they say, no way.
A photo from open sources
But here again an excursion into history is needed. The first prison appeared in Lower in the year the city was founded, in 1221. Only after six centuries (!), in 1823 under the guidance of a famous architect Betancourt ended the construction of a stone prison on the street Gully – now it’s Freedom Square. And prisoners, like prison the bosses were very pleased: the conditions of detention and work here were much better than before. The prison looked like a medieval fortifications.
A square courtyard was delineated by a high stone fence, inside which stood a two-story prison building with a round tower on every corner. Inside the buildings were cameras for men, women and minors (this separation did not happen immediately), but also a prison infirmary and a hospital. In the center was a prison the church, and in its basement there are solitary casemates for especially dangerous “murderers”. However, there were the same loners in every corner the tower.
When Mishka Germanets was here, now it’s impossible to establish. In 1914, when the First World War began, all the inhabitants the prison was hastily relocated to a new prison building on Arzamas highway. Therefore, a double agent has been here before 1914 year. However, is it really that important? More important, probably, is that his ghost appeared here in the 50s of the last century.
Here is the testimony of an employee of the Gorky pharmacy Valentina O-sky (after the workshop of the Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division in 1929, the complex of structures of the Nizhny Novgorod prison was transferred pharmacy management):
“It always seemed to me that someone was watching me. Maybe be, because the doors still have the contours of the tops into which overseers watched the prisoners. But it was not a warder, but a real ghost. He was watching me. It’s like me later explained by colleagues (they also saw him), there was a certain Bear A German, a thief and a big crook. ”
But how the ghost of Bear Germanic could split, occurring then in Nizhny Novgorod, then in Balakhna? This is what is called a question on backfilling.
Reference. Prison ghosts
* The former military prison of the Liepaja port in Latvia was built in 1900. Sailors and royal officers were put here. army, then the deserters of the German Wehrmacht and the enemies of Stalin mode. In this prison, they often see the so-called White Lady. By legend, in 1944, German soldiers during a document check detained and put in one of the cells of the prison a young man, who was suspected of desertion. His bride found out about it and somehow entered the prison, but it turned out that the guy already shot. From grief, the girl laid hands on herself right here. “To this day, she is in white robes, with a red braid to the waist, wandering around to prison casemates, ”says Liepaja’s boss Monta Craft Regional Tourist Information Office.
* In England, one of the most haunted prisons is former prison in the center of Derby. From 1756 to 1828 they led away from here. seasoned criminals in the backyard, where they were hung and even Quartered on a special machine, which is now located in prison crossing. In the back of the room there is also a gallows, on which the death row sent their last breath. There are many documented ghost reports. in Derby prison, strange noises, as well as strange smells and sensations.
* In the spring of 1992, the newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda reported that the leadership of the Sailor Silence prison asked for help in Museum of anomalous phenomena. Further in the note it said: “How did known from informed sources, the reason for this unexpected cooperation were complaints of prisoners who told that at night they clearly hear someone’s voices, and some even saw some obscure figures.
* Ghosts of former prisoners in US prisons have been noticed. So with 1829 to 1971 in an abandoned prison in the state of Pennsylvania there were 75 thousand prisoners, including the famous Al Capone. Now the cameras are empty, but when you enter them, eyewitnesses say there is a feeling that someone is there. Researcher paranormal Laura Hladik is sure that the prison is flooded ghosts. And the mechanic Gary Johnson working here even saw one of them and felt his icy breath.
* Ghosts were also observed in the building of the former prison in Varnavino, where the bone-cutting factory is located in the buildings of the former county prisons of Semyonov and Lukoyanov.
Ghost talk
– In the end, I realized that the prison, even the former, is unbearable for the perception of a normal person, ”says Taisiya Ivanovna. – Such rooms where negative energy is concentrated are a kind of clock with a reverse stroke. The man who is here is like would mix into the past and experience what they experienced prisoners. And it turned out that I am the same prisoner, only came here voluntarily.
Before, even before meeting Taisia Ivanovna, I had a chance to visit the branch of the regional archive on Ryazanova street. Yes, indeed, the atmosphere here is very difficult. Psychotherapists argue that it can contribute to and the progression of mental illness, and I believe them. True, frankly, I have not seen the ghost of Bear Germanz. But probably I have not been there too long.
A comment
– The concept of “ghost” generalizes a whole class of phenomena having, according to apparently of a different origin, says the doctor Physics and Mathematics Evgeny Vysheslavtsev. – Among other things, with ghosts bind evidence of strange sounds and phenomenon poltergeist. The multiple appearances of a ghost to one and to the same person, but here is the appearance of the same ghost in different places – this is something new. This does not match any of “rules of conduct” of ghosts.
These “rules” are: ghosts appear on the eve of some certain events, in order to inform the living of the impending misfortune, reassure the mourners, warn of danger. However a ghost Germanic Bears do not follow these rules. Maybe because he a ghost of a criminal for whom ordinary morality and logic are simply not have any power?
And here we observe that this ghost is subject to some kind a completely obscure goal, and if he still fulfills it, no one will be good. Therefore, the version that this kind of ghosts are being sent to us from some other world, in general, to refute is difficult enough.
Sergey Stepanov
War time
