Time does not stand still - people, customs change, entire villages disappear from the maps. The reasons for this devastation can be:

• change natural conditions- loss of water, flooding, landslides (in mountainous areas);
• military operations - the massacre of people or a demographic crisis (against the background of the fact that men defended their homeland, the death rate exceeded the birth rate by several times);
• enlargement of villages in the 60-70s. of the last century - the inhabitants of one settlement were massively relocated to another, and the authorities used the territory of the devastated village for military or agricultural purposes.

Also abandoned villages Nizhny Novgorod region annually replenish their ranks due to the reluctance of young people to live in small settlements. As a result, old people die, their houses become useless.

Why are people drawn to abandoned corners

The lands that people have abandoned are gradually turning into a favorite place for treasure hunters, adventurers and hermits. Some curious seekers spend whole days in the archives, looking for information on the Internet, travel to the site of former flourishing villages. There can be several reasons for such fanaticism:

• adventurism, craving for adventure;
• the desire to get rich on the sale of found seed relics and rare things;
• nostalgia - people return to the places where they were born and raised.

The Nizhny Novgorod region is one of the most remarkable parts of the country. To see the picturesque beauty, tourists come to the central corner of Russia from different countries.

Most of all, those who like to see something unusual and original are attracted by villages that were abandoned and erased from the maps at different times.

List of abandoned and forgotten villages

In the vicinity of the Borsky, Gorodetsky district, there are several dozen former prosperous settlements, from which only ruins and dilapidated buildings remain. In this list you can see the following names:

• Mavritsy is a lost village in the Semenovsky district, whose history began in 1902-1907, and after 70 years the population began to decline sharply. The reason is that the collective farm in the village of Mavritsa did not make a profit, people began to move to neighboring villages. In the early 90s of the last century, Mavritsy was excluded from the official register of settlements, and today one dilapidated house can be seen on the site of the village;
• Yamki is an ancient village, which was formed in 1690-1697. Before the outbreak of the First World War, the population of the village was just over 200 people, but after the closure of the school in the 60s with the onset of urbanization (relocation of rural residents to cities), the population decreased to 7 people (according to the population census in 1979). In 1983 Yamki was excluded from the official register of settlements, today treasure hunters and adventurers can see one building in its place;
• Beaters - the village got its colorful name in honor of musical instrument, on which its inhabitants liked to play. The settlement originated in 1834 and stood until the middle of the twentieth century, until a strong fire broke out in the neighboring village of Grachi. This was the impetus for the devastation of Kolotushki - in 1977 the village disappeared from official maps as a functioning settlement. Today, you can find the place of the former location of the village only by the lower logs of the log cabins of the houses that once stood.

The list of areas rich in ghost villages includes Arzamas. The most notable settlements from which the ruins remained are Fedorovka, Shorino, Ivanovtsy.

There is no point in hiding that abandoned villages and others settlements are the object of study for many people who are passionate about treasure hunting (and not only). There is also a place for lovers of attic search to roam, and “ring out” the basements of abandoned houses, explore wells, and more. etc. Of course, the likelihood that your colleagues or local residents have visited this locality before you is very high, but, nevertheless, there are no “knocked out places”.

Causes that lead to the depopulation of villages

Disappeared settlements - geographic features, to date, completely ceased to exist due to military actions, man-made and natural disasters, time. In the place of such points, one can now observe a forest, a field, a pond, anything, but not standing abandoned houses. This category of objects is also interesting for treasure hunters, but now we are not talking about them.

Abandoned villages just belong to the category of abandoned settlements, i.e. settlements, villages, farms, etc., abandoned by the inhabitants. Unlike the disappeared settlements, the abandoned ones for the most part retain their architectural appearance, buildings and infrastructure, i.e. are in a state close to the time when the settlement was abandoned. So people left, why? recession economic activity what we can observe now, when people from the villages tend to move to the city; wars; disasters of a different nature (Chernobyl and its environs); other conditions that make living in this region inconvenient, unprofitable.

How to find abandoned villages?

To date, one of the most accessible and sufficiently informative sources is Internet:

The second fairly popular and accessible source These are conventional topographic maps. It would seem, how can they be useful? Yes, very simple. Firstly, both tracts and non-residential villages have already been marked on the fairly well-known maps of the General Staff. It is important to understand one thing here, that the tract is not only an abandoned settlement, but simply any part of the area that is different from the rest of the surrounding areas. And yet, there may not be any village on the site of the tract for a long time, well, nothing, walk around with a metal detector among the pits, collect metal debris, and then you look and get lucky. With non-residential villages, too, not everything is simple. They may turn out to be not entirely uninhabited, but used, say, as dachas or may be inhabited illegally. In this case, I see no reason to do anything, no one needs problems with the law, and the local population can be quite aggressive.

If we compare the same map of the General Staff and a more modern atlas, we can notice some differences. For example, there was a village in the forest at the General Staff, a road led to it, and suddenly the road disappeared on a more modern map, most likely, the inhabitants left the village and began to bother with road repairs, etc.

The third source is local newspapers, local population, local museums. Communicate more with the natives, there will always be interesting topics for conversation, and in the meantime you can ask about the historical past of this region. What can the locals say? Yes, a lot of things, the location of the estate, the manor's pond, where there are abandoned houses or even abandoned villages, etc.

Local media is also a fairly informative source. Especially now even the most provincial newspapers are trying / trying to get their own website, where they diligently post individual notes or even entire archives. Journalists go to many places on their business, interview, including old-timers, who like to mention various interesting facts in the course of their stories.

Do not hesitate to go to provincial local history museums. Not only are their expositions often interesting, but a museum employee or guide can also tell you a lot of interesting things.

Every country and every city has its own scary tales based either on real events or fiction. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what's true and what's fiction. There were such tales in the Nizhny Novgorod region, telling about ghosts, underwater monsters, flooded cities and mystical forests. In this article, I have collected eight of the most interesting mystical legends of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Do you believe in them?

Ghosts of the Kamensky estate

In the very center of Nizhny Novgorod, there is an old mansion with columns, which looks out over the Volga from a high hill. on the Nizhnevolzhskaya embankment keeps many secrets and rightfully deserves to be in this rating. They built a city estate at the beginning of the 20th century for the family of merchants Kamensky, who owned their own river shipping company. But the owners did not live long in their luxurious mansion. In 1918, the head of the family was arrested for non-payment of tax, and after some time Kamensky had to flee to Moscow to escape persecution. The merchants left all the family heirlooms in the estate, hiding the treasures under the stairs. They hoped to return home someday, but they never did. In the seventies, the building was transferred to one of the municipal departments, and during its restoration, the worker discovered the very treasure that the runaway family had left until better times. Soon the builder was accused of stealing some of the valuables and sent into exile, where he died.

An urban legend says that a curse has been placed on the Kamensky house. Allegedly, the former owners cursed the mansion after they were forced to flee. Sometimes at night, passing by an abandoned manor, you can hear strange voices, groans, laughter, old music and the clink of dishes. They say that these are the souls of the deceased owners.

Phantoms of Zarechnaya metro station

The Zarechnaya metro station in Nizhny Novgorod is considered the most mystical place in the entire Nizhny Novgorod drift. Various cataclysms periodically occur there, and night passengers sometimes see strange translucent white figures in the tunnels. Many believe that they are wandering around the station, but there really was a fact of death in the subway. On July 13, 1984, during the construction of the Moskovskaya station in the pit, the walls collapsed, as a result of an accident, two students who were involved in the work died.

According to legend, the souls of the dead builders still roam the metro stations, frightening late passengers. The workers themselves confirm that strange sounds are regularly heard in the tunnels, including the rumble of jackhammers and the grinding of iron, which can only be during the construction of the station. And some passengers talk about a ghost in a helmet, who was noticed more than once between the wall and the train car at the Zarechnaya station.

Abandoned village of Shkavyrna

Abandoned villages in the Russian outback are always surrounded by rumors and legends. The languages ​​did not bypass the Nizhny Novgorod village of Shkavirna, which is located in the Lyskovsky district. Its main feature is that, despite the long years of oblivion, everything in it looks like people still live there. The researchers who have been there claim that all things in the houses continue to lie in their places, including valuable ones. One gets the feeling that the inhabitants left the settlement just a couple of minutes ago.

Residents of neighboring villages say that a certain woman in black lives in Shkavyrna, who picks up travelers who look there. This story could still be considered a mere urban legend, if not for the facts. There are indeed a lot of cases of missing people in that area. And even marauders bypass Shkavyrna.

Ghost Village Malaya Kuverba

Another strange phenomenon can be observed in the Tonshaevsky district. A translucent ghost village is often noticed by mushroom pickers and hunters who find themselves in those places. On the slope of the ravine certain period During the day you can see the roofs of houses and the light of the sun reflected in the windows. But if you get closer, the settlement disappears like a dissipating fog. There are no people, no animals, no buildings of any kind. Local historians became interested in such an unusual phenomenon and began to study old maps.

It turned out that once there really was a small village called Malaya Kuverba. But over time, the inhabitants moved to Bolshaya Kuverba in the neighborhood, and the settlement gradually disappeared from the face of the earth. After many years of oblivion, the village again reminds of itself with ghostly outlines on the hills.

Lake Svetloyar and city of Kitezh

Perhaps this is the most famous legend of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 1237, holy Russia suffered from the invasion of the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Refugees, fleeing the invaders, flocked to the city of Kitezh, which was located in a hard-to-reach swampy area in the northern part of the Nizhny Novgorod region, near the village of Vladimirsky (now Voskresensky district). People hoped that the Busurmans would not get them there, but the Mongols were still able to find the city, thanks to a certain traitor. The enemy invaders stormed the walls of Kitezh for several days, and it soon became clear that the city would not survive.

Then all its inhabitants closed themselves in churches and began to pray for salvation. And unexpectedly, Kitezh, along with people and houses, went under water, never getting to the Mongol conquerors. In its place, a large lake Svetloyar was formed. They say that sometimes you can see the outlines of churches and towers in it. And on a moonlit night, bells and church hymns can be heard from under the water.

May Day Triangle

About the Bermuda Triangle Atlantic Ocean, in which ships and planes disappear, everyone knows, but there is a similar anomalous zone in the Nizhny Novgorod region. In the south of the region is the "Pervomaisky Triangle", which includes the Sarov Desert, founded in 1705, and the center is located near the city of Pervomaisk. Initially, the zone had negative energy, which Seraphim of Sarov managed to weaken. He was able to sharpen the "dead power" of these places into stones.

Unusual twisted trees grow within the boundaries of the May Day Triangle, the trunks of which are bent in one direction. The researchers argue that such phenomena are often recorded in UFO landing sites, as well as where there is an increased electromagnetic background. Local residents note that in the anomalous zone, people often experience inexplicable hallucinations.

Mochalny Island

Vacationers with barbecues and tents like to come to Mochalny Island in the summer, as it is located almost in the city - opposite the Chkalov Stairs. But those who know the history of this place and superstitious people will never stay there overnight. At the end of the 19th century, trade in bast and bast was brought to the island from the Nizhny Novgorod fair, hence its name. The first tragedy occurred on the island on the night of August 17-18, 1918, when 15 monks of the Oransky Monastery, its rector Archimandrite Augustine and the rector of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God Nikolai Orlovsky were shot there.

Since then, the island has become a place of massacres, the bodies of people were dumped directly into the Volga. In total, during the years of the Red Terror (1917-1923), according to various sources, up to five thousand people objectionable to the Soviet regime were shot there. On September 30, 2004, a wooden cross was erected in memory of the dead on Mochalny, and two years later it was replaced with a stone one.

Wadska voklina

Residents of the Vadsky district prefer to stay away from Lake Mordovskoye, because even in the hottest weather it remains very cold and does not freeze in winter. And all because there is a strong current under the water, and a karst failure is formed below - a wokline that connects the reservoir with an underground river. In no case should you dive into the waterline itself without a rope tied to the boat, otherwise you may not return. The underground hole has killed more than one adventurer who is drawn to the karst cave.

There is a legend about a monster living in the bottomless abyss of Lake Mordovia. Some believe that something inexplicable like the Loch Ness monster drags bathers into its underwater cave. There have indeed been cases of people disappearing without a trace in the reservoir. But the divers who descended to the very bottom did not find confirmation of the legends. Although, maybe the monster was just skillfully hiding?

It also keeps a lot of mystical secrets and secrets, and on Rozhdestvenskaya Street in Blinovsky Passage, a surveillance camera filmed at night. There are still many mystical places and urban legends in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which I will continue to tell you about.

You can comment on this material by logging in to the site through social networks - Vkontakte and Facebook.

___________________________________________________________

A new service has appeared on the Internet that collects information about abandoned objects in Russia. Objects are divided into the following groups: "Institutions", "Military", "Factories", "Construction", "Underground" and others. As it turned out, many abandoned objects are registered in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which connoisseurs of a certain atmosphere use for photo shoots, role-playing games, and just for walking. The ProGorodNN portal lists the TOP 10 abandoned, sometimes impressive, and sometimes creepy objects:

Abandoned church in Lindo Desert village

Photo - russian-church.ru

Brick five-domed temple in the Russian-Byzantine style with a two-aisled refectory and a hipped bell tower. The church was built in 1852 in the Russian-Byzantine style at the expense of the merchant Smirnov. It was closed in the late 1930s and is now abandoned, but drawings of icons remain inside.

The estate of the Priklonsky-Rukavishnikovs in the village of Podvyazye, Bogorodsky district

The estate, built at the end of the 18th century, was owned by the Priklonskys and the Rukovishnikovs. This is an old noble estate, a unique architectural ensemble of the 18th century, a family nest of the richest nobles of the Priklonskys, millionaires Rukavishnikovs.
The estate is located on a vast territory, with a stable, a water tower, a winter garden, a main house and many other structures.

ZS GO No. 4, Nizhny Novgorod

The shelter is located next to the factory. Class A-2. The layout is standard.
It is noteworthy that the GO posters survived on the walls, since the fire that raged in the shelter almost did not touch them. There is absolutely nothing else here, unfortunately, they took everything out. One of the exits is almost completely blocked, the second is open. Hermetic doors, FVU, equipment - everything was cut into metal a long time ago and taken away.

Borzovka River, Nizhny Novgorod

The Borzovka River flows on the surface for most of its length, but part of the river is in a collector underground. In the tunnels of water just above the shin. The diameter of the collectors is 2.5 meters. There is a current in the left tunnel, at the end there is a grate blocking the entire exit, and some rubbish.

Adit No. 7 ("Holy Adit"), Nizhny Novgorod.

By a strange whim of circumstances, the place is considered a "holy spring". Perhaps the priests from the nearest temple had a hand in this. A couple of years ago, the water from this facility was much better and cleaner, but in 2011 an inspection was carried out, which ruled that the water had deteriorated and became dirtier.

Slaughterhouse, Nizhny Novgorod

The place, which has been abandoned for almost 10 years, was a "slaughterhouse" factory.
The structures are now very dilapidated, they are falling apart before our eyes. Laser tag is often played on the territory. Despite the fact that the object is under protection, the perimeter is simply dotted with climbs into the territory.

Red House, Nizhny Novgorod

The building is more than a hundred years old, about ten years ago they wanted to build a police station in it, but the construction was frozen due to a lack of budget. During World War II, a bomb fell on the building, but did not explode. Now there are only walls, with ceilings preserved in some places. The rooftop offers a good view of a small square and a nearby temple.

Flour mill, Nizhny Novgorod

A beautiful place on the embankment, a huge elevator. There are a lot of dogs here, and sometimes the authorities come. The exit to the roof is closed, but you can climb the side stairs.

Shelter under the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin

Two small shelters that should be one. At the end of 2012 brewed.

Kuibyshev water station, Nizhny Novgorod

Once this place was called the Kuibyshev water tower. The water pumping station was built in 1880 and lasted more than a century, until 1988. Today, this monument of historical and cultural heritage of the most peaceful purpose has become a rather dangerous place.

Chemical equipment plant, Nizhny Novgorod region

This is about a huge enterprise founded in the 1930s and declared bankrupt in the early 2000s, the territory of which is almost completely abandoned. There are more than a hundred buildings and a dozen and a half bomb shelters of various sizes.

Recall that we previously wrote that

The abandoned villages of the Nizhny Novgorod region are a sad reality that you can see with your own eyes and photograph. Why residents leave their homes, which leads to the desolation of entire settlements, this article will tell.

Nizhny Novgorod Region

To date, just over 20,000 people live in the district, of which 53% live in the district center. The municipal district has one city council and 9 village councils. There are abandoned villages in the Nizhny Novgorod Region in almost all its parts, and the Chkalovsky District did not escape this fate. This is due to the fact that residents of small villages prefer to leave for larger settlements if there is work for them. According to the census, over the past ten years, the population has decreased in the region by almost 5,000 people, which is quite a bit on a national scale, but for a small area it is a significant loss of labor resources.

Ardatovsky district

Ardatovsky district is located 160 km from Nizhny Novgorod, famous for its arable land, thanks to which 90 collective farms were organized during the period of wholesale collectivization.

Today, the same situation is observed here: the abandoned villages of the Nizhny Novgorod region of the Ardatovsky district are the result of the relocation of former collective farmers to the regional center, where almost 57% of the region's population lives.

The number of people leaving the area permanently ranges from 200 to 500 per year, and the villages are usually the first to suffer.

Abandoned objects of the Nizhny Novgorod region

It is a common situation in the world when villages and even small towns are empty, which economically and financially depended on an enterprise or a strategic facility that was closed over time for some reason.

There are many such objects in the country, and if you count all the abandoned villages of the Nizhny Novgorod region, the list will turn out to be impressive. It includes such settlements as Mavritsa, which was empty due to lack of profit and the collapse of the collective farm in the 80s of the last century. The village of Yamki was deserted after the school was closed in it in the 1960s.

There are many such examples, and the trend towards the appearance of ghost villages was the improper management of the economy within the framework of collective farms back in the Soviet era.

Interest in abandoned villages

Novgorod region has all natural resources to attract people here who want to own land and work on it. Everything is here: rivers with excellent fishing grounds, and forests full of game, berries and mushrooms, and fertile lands that are waiting to be cultivated by industrious hands.

Today you can see the great interest of urban residents in abandoned villages. As a rule, they come with their families, settle in empty houses for the whole summer, adults cultivate gardens, fish, and children spend time playing outdoors. After harvesting, they go back to the city.

Another interest in abandoned villages is found among treasure hunters and antiquities. Since most of the villages of the region were founded in the period from the 14th to the 18th centuries, under the buildings Soviet era there may well be interesting artifacts, jewelry and utensils of distant times.

Revival of the Russian village

If we believe the scientists who claim that history repeats itself, then maybe someday people tired of urbanization will want peace and clean air, and this will be the revival of villages in the Nizhny Novgorod region.