Category Archives: Russian Urban Legends
Mummified man found in Tula Russia
This is an article I found on the web earlier today. In the leadup to my Russian Urban legends, I bring you the first story in this series.
Mummy-Man In Russia!
Dwellers of an apartment building in the city of Tula, central Russia, were horrified to learn of a discovery made in one of the apartments. The mummified body of a tenant was found in a sitting position in the kitchen of his apartment. The tenant had been dead for six years.
One hazy morning a telephone started ringing in an office of Mark Ignashin, an investigator with the prosecutor’s office of Tula’s central district. “This is a duty officer of a district police station. We’ve received a report on a mummified body found in apartment building No 142 on Lenin Street. We’re sending a vehicle to pick you up, Mr. Ignashin,” said the officer and hung up.
No sooner had Ignashin stepped into a typical Khrushchev-era tiny apartment than he became aware of a pungent putrid smell. A mummified body in a plaid shirt was seated at a kitchen table. The brownish parchment-like skin covered the mummy’s dried-up bones. An empty vodka bottle and a glass sat on a dusty table. One of the policemen brought a bunch of newspapers from a living room. All the newspapers dated back to February of 2000.
Valentina Muradova was brought in as a witness to the official search. The woman peered at the mummy for some minutes until she finally recognized her neighbor called Vladimir Ledenev, 68, who vanished without a trace six years ago. According to police records, Ledevev had earlier spent four years in prison for battery. His neighbors told the police that the man had started drinking heavily after his mother passed away ten years ago. Ledenev was frequently seen collecting empty bottles for a living because his pension was pretty small. Eventually, Ledenev disappeared at the beginning of 2000.
“We reckoned that he’d moved somewhere else or checked himself into a hospital, he had TB,” said Irina Borodina, one of the neighbors. “Then we thought he’d ended up in prison again though our local policeman knew nothing about Ledenev’s new brushes with the law,” added the neighbor.
“A man just vanished from your house. Has anybody felt anything strange and tried to raise the alarm?” Ivanshin asked the neighbors.
“He was a standoffish kind of man, he rarely talked to us. He kept away from the neighbors most of the time. He was always short on money. People from a real estate agency tried to talk him into swapping his two-room apartment for a smaller place, promising him a handsome bonus for the deal. He just told them to get lost,” said Borodina.
The neighbors told the investigator that quite a few people tried to contact Ledenev for several months following his disappearance. Workers from a housing management office would knock at his door in an attempt to hand over utilities bills; a postman would do the same on the day when pensions were delivered. Ledenev’s son and nephew also tried to see him but to no avail. Then the whole world seemed to forget about Ledenev though he owed several thousand rubles in unpaid bills to a housing management office. It was obvious that the door of Ledenev’s apartment had been locked from the inside at a deadbolt and chain. For some strange reasons, nobody grew suspicious about the circumstance. All those years the lights and a fridge were on in the apartment.
“One of our neighbors, an obese man, died a sudden death a few years ago. Two days later people could feel the smell and soon found out what happened. However, in this case we didn’t smell anything. Maybe there was no smell because he died in winter; the temperatures were very low at the time. Besides, the guy was very thin, he looked like a mummy while still alive.
And you can imagine what kind of smell was usually hanging about that place. Ledenev was an alcoholic, by and large,” said Borodina.
The grisly discovery was made by workers of a housing management office as they were making their rounds in the apartments of those who owed large sums in unpaid utilities bills. According to a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, the death of Vladimir Ledenev did not entail any investigation since the police found no evidence indicating that the victim had died a violent death. Likewise, sanitation authorities refused to carry out decontamination of the apartment despite a request filed by a local police station. You have no problem after getting rid of a man who causes this problem, as Josef Stalin used to say.
The mummy was found in the sitting position
Russian Myths
This year has seen a new change come about with many things.
Firstly, with my book: I am pleased to announce that I had a professional translator translate my book into Russian, which is now available through this website.
For those who have read the excerpts, you can now pre-order limited Autographed paperback copies of The Chosen in Russian.
With other news, my article in SchoolEnglish magazine was a good success. Especially with my article on Ghosts of Chapayevsk. In continuing with Russian Folklore, I will be featuring more articles and expose shorts on such Urban Ghost Stories.. A treat definately not for the faint of heart 🙂
I would also like to announce that coming this year will feature an added bonus to this site. I am talking of course of Urban Legends Online.
YouTube:
My research on Urban Myths and Legends will be on YouTube, featuring some of the best Urban Legends of Russia.
Do you have an Urban Legend or Ghost Story that you would like to see on YouTube?
Contact me as I may feature you on my YouTube Channel.
Urban Legends
Urban Legends
Urban legends thrive on people’s deepest fears — that our safe world can crack at any moment and a madman will change our lives forever. That alone is enough to give anyone some second thoughts about our everyday routine.
Legends and folklore tales range from the maniacal serial killer to the completely unexplained. Everyone loves scary ghost stories, when the days get shorter, the nights get longer — and imaginations run wild.
Chances are you’ll find many versions of these stories as they get passed on from person to person. Children have a tendency to twist the plots and make them fit their particular circumstances. The Halloween season seems to bring out the best of local urban legends, both old and new.
Many spooky stories are old classics from years past. They may not be the version you’ve heard, but that’s what makes it fun. The following legend may not suitable for young children or the faint of heart. If you’ve got nerves of steel, proceed with caution…
So get comfortable, dim the lights and read this account of a True Ghost Story and then decide for yourself. Did it really happen, or was it just a figment of someone’s imagination?
Now as I have visited Chapayevsk before, I knew that there some horror stories to this city, as it is a city that is on the brink of ecological disaster. It has even been said that the mayor of Chapayevsk has considered relocating everyone to a new city and have Chapayevsk declared a quarantine zone. But the disasters did not happen in recent years, as this story will unfold.
The following is an account that was told to me by a good friend in Samara, who was told this story by her mother, who has witnessed the strange happenings in Chapayevsk. The story involves the only daughter of a farmer in Chapayevsk, who fell in love with a local factory worker during WW2.
It was known that Chapayevsk operated a chemical weapons plant during the Great Patriotic War, and during the War, it was known that many people had fatal accidents or died in that factory, either due to toxic poisoning, chemical fires or other unexplained circumstances.
Elena was a beautiful young woman in her twenties and was betrothed to Alexey Basanov, who worked at the chemical plant. Tragedy fell this young couple though, as reports attest that there was a chemical fire at the plant, and Alexey was one of the many victims that died, just some days before they were to be married.
Unable to cope with the loss of her only love, Elena threw herself infront of a train, wearing the long, white gown that was made for her wedding day by her grandmother.
Elena was buried in the Municipal Cemetery. Witnesses claim that Elena did not pass into the other world because they have seen her ghost roaming the cemetery, and walking along the train tracks, where she died, on numerous occasions.
The first claims of her sightings began back in January 1952, ten years after her death. Since the first sightings, it is said that her ghost appears searching for her lost love.
Whether she finds Alexey in this life or the next is a mystery, but nonetheless it seems that Elena does not want to be forgotten.
When I heard this story I went to Chapayevsk to see if these rumors were indeed true. Needless to say, my own visit to the Municipal Cemetery is something I will not forget in a long time. Although I did not physically see the ghost of Elena, I can attest that I did feel an eerie presence in that cemetery. Whether it was her spirit or not, that is for you to decide.
One thing is for sure, Chapayevsk has many ghost stories waiting to be uncovered
Now it’s is up to you, the reader to decide for yourself.
C.A. Milson 