Comp. T. V. Strygina. M.: Nikea, 2018. - 448 p. - (A Christmas gift).

Reading, you think: why are they scary, then? Informative, historically accurate - yes. Giving a colorful and colorful picture of Christmas customs, games, signs - of course! Cozy in their descriptions - no doubt! A circle of friends and relatives and stories "about ghosts, sorcerers and everything wonderful in the world."

The degree of artistry of works rises gradually. Here are the naive stories “Ring” by E. Baratynsky, “Masquerade” by V. Dmitriev, “Passer-by” by D. Grigorovich (it is striking here, as a writer, half a Frenchman, who barely spoke Russian in childhood, brilliantly conveyed the common language). This is followed by a truly exciting mini-cycle by G. Danilevsky “Christmas Evenings”, in the introduction to which he hints at a thematic relationship with the Decameron: they say, during the St. Petersburg plague of 1879, a circle of mystically inclined aristocrats told stories about ghosts, and he , author, kept the protocol. A curious story here is “The Dead Killer”, in which Catherine II herself sends the notorious head of the Secret Office, the detective Sheshkovsky, to investigate the mysterious murder of a priest in the altar. The Christmas story loses its mysticism and turns into a detective story in the spirit of moralizing stories of the Enlightenment. Like the story about the goat who was mistaken for you-know-who. "Moralite" is also present in the story "Dead Man in Masquerade" by W. A. ​​von Rotkirch. Some of the authors fantasize on the themes of folk stories (stories about a meeting with evil spirits). Someone uses fabulous poetics. In some stories, the everyday nature of what is happening is emphasized and the events are quite realistic, the mystical is rationally explained. Built on comic exposure humorous story A. Chekhov's "Terrible Night" is a brilliant parody of horror films. In the same vein, the story of a certain V. L-va "The Green Frock Coat", reminiscent of "pioneer" horror stories about black curtains, a red piano, and the like.

But the strongest and indeed scary stories belong to the recognized masters of Russian realism: V. Korolenko, N. Leskov, G. Uspensky, N. Garin-Mikhailovsky. They are about the fact that ghosts and goblin are not terrible, but ordinary people filled with grief, envy, despair. And then the Christmas stories end not according to the law of the genre - a happy ending, but according to the law of life - not always joyfully. But reading them is still fascinating, because these stories are very human, Christmas-like warm and bright. So turn off your computer, pick up this book and fill, like our ancestors, long winter evenings family reading. You look, the depths of being will be revealed to us, always hurrying somewhere...

In Moscow, kind, as Karamzin called it, many old people lived in former years, living chroniclers of the past. Far from the noise of the capital on Presnensky Ponds, in Zamoskvorechye, on Zemlyanoy Gorod, they quietly lived out and finished their lives: a person likes to talk when he cannot act; whoever acts speaks little. I have known Moscow for a long time and have heard stories in it, and there were stories from the Elizabethan and Catherine's centuries; I saw people in yellowed uniforms, with snow-white heads, with Kagul scars 1
That is, with scars from wounds received during the battle of Cahul (1770) during the Russian-Turkish war.

On the face and with badges for the capture of Khotin 2
Khotyn a fortress in Turkey. For the first time Russian troops occupied it in 1739.

And the conquest of the Crimea. I was still young then, but I already loved to listen to their endless stories, loved to move with them from reality to the past. When I was sad, when I was happy, I always willingly listened to the good old men who told me their own stories and fables: they transferred me to a circle of people who had not existed for a long time, vividly depicted before me the horrors of the Moscow plague, and the Pugachev rebellion, and the Chinese embassy to St. Petersburg, and the Swedish admiral, who captivated all Moscow beauties, forty years before our time. I have always liked Russian fairy tales, Russian stories and stories, and can I count all that I heard from the good old-timers of Moscow! Can I convey to you all their legends about dreams and hopes that have long fallen asleep with dreamers, about the impulses of hearts that boiled strong passions and long gone cold in the grave, about old beliefs and customs!

However, I want to tell you sometimes, my friends, some of what I myself have heard, and now, by the way, at Christmas time, listen to what I managed to hear in one evening alone in the conversation of several old people.

You don't need to know how many years have passed since one old, kind, amiable, talkative man lived in Moscow. A lot, a little: does it matter? I respected him as an old man and loved him as a person. In his family I spent several hours of happy youth. Then I still looked at the world through the prism of hopes, I lived in the realm of dreams. The smile of a pretty girl

And the nightingale in the shade of the oak forest,
And the sound of an unknown stream

rejoiced me with pure, unfeigned joy! When in the evening, around the fireplace, gathered good family my old friend, when you revived him with yourself, you, whom I dare not name, who later abandoned happiness and exchanged it for a shiny doll big light: I was happy at that time! But full of her! I will tell you that our friendly conversation was sometimes adorned by the presence of old friends of our host, who were also talkative, cheerful and good-natured.

There were, as now, Christmas time.

Where could I spend a better and more fun winter evening if not my old friend? I'm going to him. The weather was unbearable: the snow fell in flakes, and drifts of it were carried by a whirlwind from place to place. It was all the nicer after a difficult journey to rest in a warm, bright room, with happy and cheerful people.

I found complete collection. The owner, in his cap and Tatar dressing gown, occupied the main place near the fireplace. Smoke curled from the pipe of his colleague, a Suvorov warrior, next to whom sat our mutual acquaintance (let's call him Ternovsky though: we are already tired of Milons, Dobrovs and Pravdins in Russian comedies). He was a kind philosopher who believed in all ghosts, all sorcerers, everything wonderful in the world, and tried to explain everything, as he said, in a natural way. I will add Shumilov to this, kind old man, who in his lifetime traveled half of Russia, saw everything he told, told about everything he saw, and was a note hunter to tell Russians and there were fairy tales. I found them having a heated argument about some business of the first Turkish campaign 3
First Turkish Campaign – Russo-Turkish War 1768–1774

But at the same time I noticed the desire of the owner to talk about something else.

He had a strange habit of always talking about what was appropriate for the time and circumstances. In addition to the usual stories about his trip to the Caucasus, a trip to Poland and acquaintance there with Kosciuszka 4
Tadeusz Kosciuszko(1746–1817) – organizer and leader of the Polish uprising of 1794

(I’ll tell you about this sometime), he liked to talk about politics when he received newspapers, about the polar lands in winter, about Africa on a hot summer day, and about ghosts on the eve of Ivan Kupala.

He abruptly turned the conversation around, asking me about the weather, and informed me that all his family had left for the evening with one of his friends. “I thought,” he added, “that you would be there too.”

- No! They called me, but I refused.

- And for what? While youth, one must have fun and play with life. There will be a time for you too, when at home, near the fireplace, you will seem more cheerful than at the ball.

- Have you always followed this rule yourself?

- ABOUT! How else did you follow! My peers will not complain about me, so that I am stingy with affectionate greetings and madrigals, and in the menu a la Reine 5
queens (fr.).

No one knew how to stretch his legs better than me, how to greet his lady more courteously. You, today's young people, are sitting, and we were real good fellows.

– On the contrary, now they complain about the frivolity of young people.

- True, but this is an eternal complaint; but take a good look at it, you will see that you have become lumps against us and are replacing everything with some kind of American savagery! There is no rule without exceptions (he added, shaking my hand). I speak in general. Let's start with our dress: what we were dandies! Light steel buttons, leopard striped caftans, buckles on shoes, two watches with huge bunches of pendants; how can you compare your dark jackets, your sailor clothes with such a magnificent outfit! What about courtesy? The lady seemed like a queen in our circle; you turn your back on the ladies, push them and do not think to respect.

Do you know when it started? - said the Suvorov colleague. - WITH French Revolution. While we beat the revolutionaries in Italy, our ladies gasped at their tousled heads, at their liberal dress, cut their hair, put on wigs...

"But what's wrong with that?" Shumilov picked up. - All this is in the order of things: now they love simplicity, less brilliance on the outside, more internal dignity.

- If only so! - said the owner. - And the trouble is that, it seems to me, today's youth are the same glass dolls that we were, only we were transparent, at least look through, and now these dolls are painted with dark paint.

“You contradict the natural actions of nature,” objected Ternovsky. – Light is being made not worse, but better: this is a solved problem. Only our old brothers say that the world has become or is becoming worse.

- My friend! This I will never say; but the fact is that your light, becoming smarter, does not become happier.

- What is happiness? The concept is relative! Who gets better, he should be happier.

- Looks like a syllogism; yes, your will, but before it was somehow more alive. We knew how to live better: we were young in our youth and therefore lived to have gray hair; but God knows if our descendants will see old people from the present time. Now they grow old so early and that is why, perhaps, they do not have time to live, or, fearing not to have time, they rush to live and therefore grow old early. We had a past, a present and a future; now live in the same present. The youth does not think about the future, and we only talk about the past; life develops like a clock weight: the clock strikes, every man says: how late it is! - and the words fly by with the ringing of an hour bell, until the weight hits the floor ...

“Then they’ll bring her in again,” Shumilov said, laughing, “and again the hour bell begins to ring: irrevocable time flies!” It was said a long time ago.

“Perhaps I expressed my thought badly,” answered the host, “saying that people used to know how to live more lively ...

- Of course, more alive, like children who know how to admire a toy better than adults.

- Well, who is happier: a child with his toy or a philosopher, exhausted over the truths. You say: the world has become smarter! God knows my friend! Enough, isn't he smarter than before? I heartily rejoice in the present philosophical age, but no matter how I look at people, they are still the same people; the same, but an important difference! Previously, there was more of this, how to say, fun of life, without which it is cold in the world, like without a stove in a crackling frost. It deceives us with its magic lantern if you like, but people have fun with it.

“You look at the light from one side,” said Ternovsky.

- From the side of the heart! Naughty Voltaire was very right and probably said from the heart, ending his funny tale:

Le raisonneur tristement s'accredite;
On court, helas! apres la verite;
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite. 6
It's sad, but they believe only the reasoner; Chasing, alas, the flat truth; Oh, believe me, delusions have their own charm (fr.).

- Of course. Naked truth is not yet a guest. I'm sure she would be horrified current person if he looked at her face to face.

"Here you are, you agree with me!" Why, then, does the world renounce its youth: it is still early and there would be no need to rush. Truth is only peeping out of its well; they give her clicks, and she hides again. The human mind still wanders in the crutches of stupidity, when severe gout prevents it from staggering in the world itself.

“Around the world,” said Ternovsky, “there are enough well-meaning givers, and people, like peddlers, go about meanwhile and shout: “Um! Fresh mind! Open the box and it's empty.

Everyone laughed.

- That we philosophized, - said a Suvorov colleague, - there is nothing to look for examples far away. In my opinion, old age And new Age the same as the old silver ruble and the new one.

“The comparison is not bad,” said Shumilov, “but after all, a new ruble is all a ruble for someone who does not have an old one: so it is in the world; and you know what? I remember when I was in Siberia and I had to pay the Yakut shaman for divination, I took out two rubles and wanted to give him the old one, he told me: “Teyon of the tank! Give me that bright one!”

- Is our century bright? It looks like a coin, on which the brand is badly stamped.

- Remember the old, buddy! - said the owner. “Our coin had a rougher and clearer stamp. Just look at the current fun: such monotony, everything is so damp! They walk in dances, make grimaces with joy and smile with grief. We cried with grief, but we laughed with joy. I repeat what I said: before there was more life, more diversity in life!

“If you like,” said Ternovsky, “the further into the old days, the more it happened. These are the natural actions of nature. When we win in the mind, we lose in the heart. Our ancestors revived everything: they had spirits, ghosts, wizards, and we know that all these are natural actions of nature.

"And it's a pity we know that," added Shumilov. - Woe to the current poets, and only: there is nothing to write off from themselves! And look how much they will find in our and foreign antiquity!

“And see how willingly everyone will share with us the enjoyment of old times,” said the host. - No! Indeed, we were still living, if not better, happier. Let's just take it: now Christmas time. How are they different from Holy Week? We all had our own way! It used to be, about the Holy One, we build a swing, about the oily one we ride from the mountains, and about Christmas time we sing sing-along songs.

“Look into the old times older than ours,” said Ternovsky. – Already we looked at these games more, and our ancestors played them more themselves. Yes, and I love the old days, although I do not agree that it was better then. I love her like a child who is careless and innocent, is afraid of the chimney sweep, because he is black and with a clapperboard in his hands jumps for joy.

Then a conversation began between them about antiquity, about its fun and amusements.

“Do you remember,” the host said to Shumilov, “our Yuletide evenings!” It used to be that a lot of people would gather and fun will go. In the afternoon, riding: fifty sleighs go one after the other, as they say, arc on arc, like a wedding train; in the evening, forfeits, songs, fortune-telling will begin: we run to weed the snow, listen under the windows ...

“The girls run out of the gate to ask the names of passers-by and they used to strongly believe that that was the name of the groom, as the passer-by would say, and we’ll be mischievous,” said Shumilov.

“Didn’t the needle in the millstone tell the truth?” The poor needle squeaks, and the fortune tellers guess whose name the sufferer pronounces.

“You never know leprosy,” Shumilov said, laughing, “but ask me: I have seen how Christmas time was spent in Siberia before. Here's a holiday! What fun! Old men and women, youth, children go to visit from morning to evening. Everyone has peters and eders on the table, as the Siberians say. Russian hospitality is in full swing. Brushwood, containers, sugar bowls 7
Tarki- puff pastry. sugar bowls- sweet crackers.

They are piled on the tables in mountains; samovars are constantly boiling. From the frost, the roofs crack and the shutters fire like cannons, and in the upper rooms it is warm and hot. In fur coats, in hats, in warm boots, Siberians and Siberians go out in droves to run, there are big hunters for runners: Siberian trotters and pacers rush like a whirlwind. Having chilled, everyone goes to drink tea to the winner. Health begins, a feast on the mountain! The wines are boiling, it’s getting dark, the games will start: the old people sit in circles and watch how handsome man or a pretty girl, blindfolded, under the clapping of harnesses, catches her scattered enemies. Laughter! Laughter! Another, running from corner to corner, runs from the catcher into another room. "He burned!" - everyone shouts, and the criminal takes the place of the blind man. Oh! How I also like other simple Christmas games of Siberians! Do you know how poppies are grown?

- I myself was a poppy! Suvorovsky exclaimed. - They used to put me in a circle, dance, sing and ask: “Is the poppy ripe?” But the poppy is first sown, watered, it blooms, and then, ripe, everyone nibbles!

- I heard, - Shumilov added, - that many Christmas games came to us from the Greeks sometime in the old days. Remember the game of braiding wattle, when the whole round dance is mixed up with ribbons and they sing:

Weave, weave, weave.
You curl up, golden trumpet,
Shut up, crunchy stone!

This, experts say, is an imitation of the Greek game, and with this game the Greeks glorified the memory of Theseus and the killing of the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne's thread. “But the smoking room is alive, alive” is also a Greek game. But we have our own Russian games and Christmas customs. Do you know what caroling is in Little Russia?

- I heard, and I’m sorry that they won’t collect in some book all Russian Christmas customs, games, songs. Previously, Christmas time was celebrated, it happened, until the very Epiphany. From the very morning of the first day, the celebration of Christ began. Peter the Great loved this patriarchal rite. Crowds of people went from house to house, friends to friends and strangers to strangers, singing spiritual stichera:

"Christ is born, praise!" Behind them, the masters spoke racei 8
Racea- a long edifying argument.

One of them is especially famous all over Russia, here is how it starts:

New joy, all over the world,
Now appear to us!

In addition to dinners, feasts and conversations, the evenings were devoted to games and the singing of sing-along songs.

“You forget about other Christmas entertainments,” Suvorovsky said, “I still remember how horse races and fisticuffs took place in Moscow at that time. I remember that the late Count A. G. O. was a terrible hunter for all sorts of Russian games. Heaps of people will gather: hurrah! wall to wall... oh, wakeful people of Russia! And here, it happened, from a joke it comes to action ...

- In small Ukrainian towns, fistfighting is now occupied by everyone. Recently I was passing through Bogodukhiv, there was no one to harness the horses: everyone was in a fistfight; noise and screaming, and the whole city beats!

- And you must admit, - said the owner, - whoever understands everything that happens in Rus' about Christmas time, he will well understand the spirit of the Russian people, cheerful, kind, glorious! About Svyatki expanse to the Russian spirit!

“And the spirits,” said Shumilov, laughing, “you know that until the very Epiphany, the dead, spirits, sorcerers, witches roam freely and play pranks. They have privileged days.

“So you mean to say that they don’t exist at all?” Ternovsky asked.

– Of course! I don't think any of us will believe you if you say you've even seen spirits yourself.

“My dear,” answered Ternovsky, “I believe in spirits, only in my own way.

- Tell me, perhaps, how is it! they all shouted.

“Agree with me, my friends,” said Ternovsky in an important voice, “that in nature there is still much secret and not discovered by us. I don't limit human feelings only known feelings, which are equally possessed by monkeys and animals. If we have anything to contain what we call the mind, then it must also appear in certain open phenomena.

- Consequently? Shumilov asked.

– Consequently, everything that seems incomprehensible to us cannot be rejected, but must be attributed to this secret or these secret feelings and dispositions. That is, what I attribute to this is sympathy, the second is antipathy, the third ...

- Full of dreams, my friend! With your assumptions, everything can be brought to natural consequences.

- When you can, why not?

“Because it shouldn’t,” said Shumilov, “because all your natural consequences in this case are almost always fairy tales, distorted, changed, the fruits of an unhinged imagination.

- Often, but not always: I will give you a lot of evidence that cannot be explained without my assumptions. For example: physiognomy, knowledge, innate to man, although it is rejected, is not refuted by anything. Do not all of us feel a sympathetic longing for one person and an antipathetic aversion for the other?

- Nonsense! This is simply some kind of similarity of human constitutions, more or less close or distant to one or another person.

- So, you recognize some commonality in humanity? And premonitions, dreams, visions of oneself: these are things that are not subject to doubt. The Highlanders have a special property double vision because their feelings are more refined than ours: they know that at such and such a time a stranger will visit them, they see him and describe to you in advance what he is like.

“But what if it’s a subtle deception?” - said the Suvorov colleague.

- You chop from the shoulder, in Suvorov style! answered, laughing, Ternovsky. - If I give you many examples of people who, not thinking of deceiving, saw extraordinary phenomena. Do you know that Napoleon always saw a bright star in the sky?

- And if this brilliant star was one comedy played by Napoleon for a dozen years: what do you say to that? Didn't Numa Pompilius have the nymph Egeria? 9
Egeria- in ancient Roman mythology, a nymph-soothsayer, the wife of the Roman king Numa Pompilius, his adviser in the affairs of the organization religious life V Ancient Rome and his teacher in lawmaking.

Sertorius 10
Quintus Sertorius(c. 122-72 BC) - Roman political figure and a military leader.

There was no accustomed deer, did Mohammed have a tame dove?

- Fairy tales! Shumilov said.

- I think it's not quite a fairy tale. Let us suppose that many of smart people used tricks with common people; but if we see a difference in sight, hearing, touch, smell of people, why not suppose further limits even to these very senses? I know one truthful person in Moscow who is firmly convinced that until his friend appears to him, whom they agreed to see at the hour of death, he will not die.

“It seems that this firm assurance is the whole secret,” said Shumilov. - From her came all the signs, quirks, faith in dreams, premonitions. You can accustom your bodily feelings, you can also accustom your spiritual abilities to many things. I knew one person, wonderful, extraordinary. It was our glorious navigator Shelikhov 11
Shelikhov Grigory Ivanovich(1747-1795) - Russian explorer of Siberia.

You have heard of him. He firmly believed in dreams, forebodings, signs. Here is what a close friend of his told me. As I see now, he told me, when we were traveling to Okhotsk together, not reaching a hundred miles, Shelikhov became thoughtful, restless and importantly said to me: “When we arrive in Okhotsk, we will find a ship that came from America.” I was surprised, began to argue, and brought him out of patience: he had a hot, ardent character and said to me with a heart: on which Okhotsk stands). This ship is mine and with a rich cargo!” We were driving calmly, and as soon as we approached the sandy Okhotsk cat, a ship appeared in the sea. It definitely belonged to Shelikhov and was loaded with rich cargo. That this anecdote is true, I vouch for you; that Shelikhov could not have known about the ship's arrival in any way, you yourself will agree. You need to know that Shelikhov was an extraordinary person, with a vast mind, and so what? He believed in physiognomy, signs, and in his life he never knew failures. He amazed with his deliberation, insight, and from a poor Rylsky tradesman, at the end of his life, which was very short, he amassed millions. His very enterprise: to sail to then unknown America on a dilapidated boat, without shells, without supplies and by the stars, guiding the way - proves his determination to hope for his own happiness, and I conclude that ...

“From this I deduce,” Ternovsky said hastily, “that extraordinary people have spiritual and bodily strength greater than ours, and they are gifted with what we do not have and, therefore, cannot comprehend.

“Very well,” answered Shumilov, “but let them have powers unknown to us. They themselves in relation to nature under the same laws, like all of us.

- No! Their secret strength lies in their strong relationship with nature. And this is what they used to call spirits, ghosts: these are our secret relationships, not understood by others. Before, everyone personified. Socrates called his secret power a genius and frankly admitted that he had a secret genius that guided and often contradicted himself.

- You are a dreamer! Shumilov said. – And I must remember that the imagination can act and deceive us miraculously. A person in a fever does not see what he does not tell you, but all the words are his dreams, the seduction of feelings in which the fire of fever pours. Further: the news must be verified. People love everything wonderful so much, they love to add so much that it is impossible to rely on their stories. Add deceit, dexterity, cunning. I can't even vouch for the Socratic genius. Maybe it was his trick. Look at the ventriloquist, the conjurer, the swindler: if we didn't know that they do everything naturally, how can we not call them wizards? In the eyes of others, a person takes off his head, shaves it and puts it on again as before; water rushes into the room, floods the floor, everyone gets scared, screams, and all this is an optical, chemical prank.

Christmas stories in Russian literature special genre, favorite reading in the circle of loved ones on long winter evenings. This collection includes Christmas "horror stories" by Russian writers, including little-known ones. The stories are united by the theme of Christmas time - mysterious winter days when miracles seem possible, and the heroes, having endured fear and invoking all that is holy, dispel the delusion and become a little better, kinder and bolder.

A series: a Christmas gift

* * *

by the LitRes company.

Nikolai Polevoy

(1796–1846 )

Christmas stories

In Moscow, kind, as Karamzin called it, many old people lived in former years, living chroniclers of the past. Far from the noise of the capital on Presnensky Ponds, in Zamoskvorechye, on Zemlyanoy Gorod, they quietly lived out and finished their lives: a person likes to talk when he cannot act; whoever acts speaks little. I have known Moscow for a long time and have heard stories in it, and there were stories from the Elizabethan and Catherine's centuries; I saw people in yellowed uniforms, with snow-white heads, with Kagul scars on their faces and with badges for the capture of Khotin and the conquest of the Crimea. I was still young then, but I already loved to listen to their endless stories, loved to move with them from reality to the past. When I was sad, when I was happy, I always willingly listened to the good old men who told me their own stories and fables: they transferred me to a circle of people who had not existed for a long time, vividly depicted before me the horrors of the Moscow plague, and the Pugachev rebellion, and the Chinese embassy to St. Petersburg, and the Swedish admiral, who captivated all Moscow beauties, forty years before our time. I have always liked Russian fairy tales, Russian stories and stories, and can I count all that I heard from the good old-timers of Moscow! Can I convey to you all their legends about dreams and hopes that have long fallen asleep with dreamers, about the impulses of hearts that seethed with strong passions and have long gone cold in the grave, about old beliefs and customs!

However, I want to tell you sometimes, my friends, some of what I myself have heard, and now, by the way, at Christmas time, listen to what I managed to hear in one evening alone in the conversation of several old people.

You don't need to know how many years have passed since one old, kind, amiable, talkative man lived in Moscow. A lot, a little: does it matter? I respected him as an old man and loved him as a person. In his family I spent several hours of happy youth. Then I still looked at the world through the prism of hopes, I lived in the realm of dreams. The smile of a pretty girl

And the nightingale in the shade of the oak forest,

And the sound of an unknown stream

rejoiced me with pure, unfeigned joy! When in the evening, around the fireplace, the good family of my old friend gathered, when you revived him with yourself, you, whom I dare not name, who later abandoned happiness and exchanged it for a brilliant doll of great light: I was happy at that time! But full of her! I will tell you that our friendly conversation was sometimes adorned by the presence of old friends of our host, who were also talkative, cheerful and good-natured.

There were, as now, Christmas time. Where could I spend a long winter evening better and more cheerfully, if not with my old friend? I'm going to him. The weather was unbearable: the snow fell in flakes, and drifts of it were carried by a whirlwind from place to place. It was all the nicer after a difficult journey to rest in a warm, bright room, with happy and cheerful people.

I got the full assembly. The owner, in his cap and Tatar dressing gown, occupied the main place near the fireplace. Smoke curled from the pipe of his colleague, a Suvorov warrior, next to whom sat our mutual acquaintance (let's call him Ternovsky though: we are already tired of Milons, Dobrovs and Pravdins in Russian comedies). He was a kind philosopher who believed in all ghosts, all sorcerers, everything wonderful in the world, and tried to explain everything, as he said, in a natural way. I will add to this Shumilov, a kind old man who in his lifetime traveled half of Russia, saw everything he told, told about everything he saw, and was a note hunter to tell Russians and there were fairy tales. I found them having a heated argument about some business of the first Turkish campaign, but at the same time I noticed the owner's desire to talk about something else.

He had a strange habit of always talking about what was appropriate for the time and circumstances. In addition to the usual stories about his trip to the Caucasus, a trip to Poland and meeting Kosciuszka there (I’ll tell you about this someday), he liked to talk about politics when he received newspapers, about the polar lands in winter, about Africa on a hot summer day and about ghosts on the eve of Ivan Kupala.

He abruptly turned the conversation around, asking me about the weather, and informed me that all his family had left for the evening with one of his friends. “I thought,” he added, “that you would be there too.”

- No! They called me, but I refused.

- And for what? While youth, one must have fun and play with life. There will be a time for you too, when at home, near the fireplace, you will seem more cheerful than at the ball.

- Have you always followed this rule yourself?

- ABOUT! How else did you follow! My peers will not complain about me, so that I was stingy with affectionate greetings and madrigals, and in the menu a la Reine no one knew better than me to stretch my legs, to greet my lady more courteously. You, today's young people, are sitting, and we were real good fellows.

– On the contrary, now they complain about the frivolity of young people.

- True, but this is an eternal complaint; but take a good look at it, you will see that you have become lumps against us and are replacing everything with some kind of American savagery! There is no rule without exceptions (he added, shaking my hand). I speak in general. Let's start with our dress: what we were dandies! Light steel buttons, leopard striped caftans, buckles on shoes, two watches with huge bunches of pendants; how can you compare your dark jackets, your sailor clothes with such a magnificent outfit! What about courtesy? The lady seemed like a queen in our circle; you turn your back on the ladies, push them and do not think to respect.

Do you know when it started? - said the Suvorov colleague. - Since the French Revolution. While we beat the revolutionaries in Italy, our ladies gasped at their tousled heads, at their liberal dress, cut their hair, put on wigs...

"But what's wrong with that?" Shumilov picked up. - All this is in the order of things: now they love simplicity, less brilliance on the outside, more internal dignity.

- If only so! - said the owner. - And the trouble is that, it seems to me, today's youth are the same glass dolls that we were, only we were transparent, at least look through, and now these dolls are painted with dark paint.

“You contradict the natural actions of nature,” objected Ternovsky. – Light is being made not worse, but better: this is a solved problem. Only our old brothers say that the world has become or is becoming worse.

- My friend! This I will never say; but the fact is that your light, becoming smarter, does not become happier.

- What is happiness? The concept is relative! Who gets better, he should be happier.

- Looks like a syllogism; yes, your will, but before it was somehow more alive. We knew how to live better: we were young in our youth and therefore lived to have gray hair; but God knows if our descendants will see old people from the present time. Now they grow old so early and that is why, perhaps, they do not have time to live, or, fearing not to have time, they rush to live and therefore grow old early. We had a past, a present and a future; now live in the same present. The youth does not think about the future, and we only talk about the past; life develops like a clock weight: the clock strikes, every man says: how late it is! - and the words fly by with the ringing of an hour bell, until the weight hits the floor ...

“Then they’ll bring her in again,” Shumilov said, laughing, “and again the hour bell begins to ring: irrevocable time flies!” It was said a long time ago.

“Perhaps I expressed my thought badly,” answered the host, “saying that people used to know how to live more lively ...

- Of course, more alive, like children who know how to admire a toy better than adults.

- Well, who is happier: a child with his toy or a philosopher, exhausted over the truths. You say: the world has become smarter! God knows my friend! Enough, isn't he smarter than before? I heartily rejoice in the present philosophical age, but no matter how I look at people, they are still the same people; the same, but an important difference! Previously, there was more of this, how to say, fun of life, without which it is cold in the world, like without a stove in a crackling frost. It deceives us with its magic lantern if you like, but people have fun with it.

“You look at the light from one side,” said Ternovsky.

- From the side of the heart! Naughty Voltaire was very right and probably said from the heart, ending his funny tale:

Le raisonneur tristement s'accredite;

On court, helas! apres la verite;

Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite.

- Of course. Naked truth is not yet a guest. I am sure she would have terrified the present man if he had looked at her face to face.

"Here you are, you agree with me!" Why, then, does the world renounce its youth: it is still early and there would be no need to rush. Truth is only peeping out of its well; they give her clicks, and she hides again. The human mind still wanders in the crutches of stupidity, when severe gout prevents it from staggering in the world itself.

“Around the world,” said Ternovsky, “there are enough well-meaning givers, and people, like peddlers, go about meanwhile and shout: “Um! Fresh mind! Open the box and it's empty.

Everyone laughed.

- That we philosophized, - said a Suvorov colleague, - there is nothing to look for examples far away. In my opinion, the old century and the new century are the same as the old silver ruble and the new one.

“The comparison is not bad,” said Shumilov, “but after all, a new ruble is all a ruble for someone who does not have an old one: so it is in the world; and you know what? I remember when I was in Siberia and I had to pay the Yakut shaman for divination, I took out two rubles and wanted to give him the old one, he told me: “Teyon of the tank! Give me that bright one!”

- Is our century bright? It looks like a coin, on which the brand is badly stamped.

- Remember the old, buddy! - said the owner. “Our coin had a rougher and clearer stamp. Just look at the current fun: such monotony, everything is so damp! They walk in dances, make grimaces with joy and smile with grief. We cried with grief, but we laughed with joy. I repeat what I said: before there was more life, more diversity in life!

“If you like,” said Ternovsky, “the further into the old days, the more it happened. These are the natural actions of nature. When we win in the mind, we lose in the heart. Our ancestors revived everything: they had spirits, ghosts, wizards, and we know that all these are natural actions of nature.

"And it's a pity we know that," added Shumilov. - Woe to the current poets, and only: there is nothing to write off from themselves! And look how much they will find in our and foreign antiquity!

“And see how willingly everyone will share with us the enjoyment of old times,” said the host. - No! Indeed, we were still living, if not better, happier. Let's just take it: now Christmas time. How are they different from Holy Week? We all had our own way! It used to be, about the Holy One, we build a swing, about the oily one we ride from the mountains, and about Christmas time we sing sing-along songs.

“Look into the old times older than ours,” said Ternovsky. – Already we looked at these games more, and our ancestors played them more themselves. Yes, and I love the old days, although I do not agree that it was better then. I love her like a child who is careless and innocent, is afraid of the chimney sweep, because he is black and with a clapperboard in his hands jumps for joy.

Then a conversation began between them about antiquity, about its fun and amusements.

“Do you remember,” the host said to Shumilov, “our Yuletide evenings!” It used to be that a lot of people would gather and fun would go. In the afternoon, riding: fifty sleighs go one after the other, as they say, arc on arc, like a wedding train; in the evening, forfeits, songs, fortune-telling will begin: we run to weed the snow, listen under the windows ...

“The girls run out of the gate to ask the names of passers-by and they used to strongly believe that that was the name of the groom, as the passer-by would say, and we’ll be mischievous,” said Shumilov.

“Didn’t the needle in the millstone tell the truth?” The poor needle squeaks, and the fortune tellers guess whose name the sufferer pronounces.

“You never know leprosy,” Shumilov said, laughing, “but ask me: I have seen how Christmas time was spent in Siberia before. Here's a holiday! What fun! Old men and women, youth, children go to visit from morning to evening. Everyone has peters and eders on the table, as the Siberians say. Russian hospitality is in full swing. Brushwood, containers, sugar bowls are piled up on the tables in mountains; samovars are constantly boiling. From the frost, the roofs crack and the shutters fire like cannons, and in the upper rooms it is warm and hot. In fur coats, in hats, in warm boots, Siberians and Siberians go out in droves to run, there are big hunters for runners: Siberian trotters and pacers rush like a whirlwind. Having chilled, everyone goes to drink tea to the winner. Health begins, a feast on the mountain! The wine boils, it gets dark, the games begin: the old people sit in circles and watch how a handsome man or a pretty girl, blindfolded, under the clapping of harnesses, catches his scattered enemies. Laughter! Laughter! Another, running from corner to corner, runs from the catcher into another room. "He burned!" - everyone shouts, and the criminal takes the place of the blind man. Oh! How I also like other simple Christmas games of Siberians! Do you know how poppies are grown?

- I myself was a poppy! Suvorovsky exclaimed. - They used to put me in a circle, dance, sing and ask: “Is the poppy ripe?” But the poppy is first sown, watered, it blooms, and then, ripe, everyone nibbles!

- I heard, - Shumilov added, - that many Christmas games came to us from the Greeks sometime in the old days. Remember the game of braiding wattle, when the whole round dance is mixed up with ribbons and they sing:

Weave, weave, weave.

You curl up, golden trumpet,

Shut up, crunchy stone!

This, experts say, is an imitation of the Greek game, and with this game the Greeks glorified the memory of Theseus and the killing of the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne's thread. “But the smoking room is alive, alive” is also a Greek game. But we have our own Russian games and Christmas customs. Do you know what caroling is in Little Russia?

- I heard, and I’m sorry that they won’t collect in some book all Russian Christmas customs, games, songs. Previously, Christmas time was celebrated, it happened, until the very Epiphany. From the very morning of the first day, the celebration of Christ began. Peter the Great loved this patriarchal rite. Crowds of people went from house to house, friends to friends and strangers to strangers, singing spiritual stichera:

"Christ is born, praise!" Behind them, the masters spoke racei. One of them is especially famous all over Russia, here is how it starts:

New joy, all over the world,

Now appear to us!

In addition to dinners, feasts and conversations, the evenings were devoted to games and the singing of sing-along songs.

“You forget about other Christmas entertainments,” Suvorovsky said, “I still remember how horse races and fisticuffs took place in Moscow at that time. I remember that the late Count A. G. O. was a terrible hunter for all sorts of Russian games. Heaps of people will gather: hurrah! wall to wall... oh, wakeful people of Russia! And here, it happened, from a joke it comes to action ...

- In small Ukrainian towns, fistfighting is now occupied by everyone. Recently I was passing through Bogodukhiv, there was no one to harness the horses: everyone was in a fistfight; noise and screaming, and the whole city beats!

- And you must admit, - said the owner, - whoever understands everything that happens in Rus' about Christmas time, he will well understand the spirit of the Russian people, cheerful, kind, glorious! About Svyatki expanse to the Russian spirit!

“And the spirits,” said Shumilov, laughing, “you know that until the very Epiphany, the dead, spirits, sorcerers, witches roam freely and play pranks. They have privileged days.

“So you mean to say that they don’t exist at all?” Ternovsky asked.

– Of course! I don't think any of us will believe you if you say you've even seen spirits yourself.

“My dear,” answered Ternovsky, “I believe in spirits, only in my own way.

- Tell me, perhaps, how is it! they all shouted.

“Agree with me, my friends,” said Ternovsky in an important voice, “that in nature there is still much secret and not discovered by us. I do not in any way limit human senses to certain senses, which apes and beasts alike possess. If we have anything to contain what we call the mind, then it must also appear in certain open phenomena.

- Consequently? Shumilov asked.

– Consequently, everything that seems incomprehensible to us cannot be rejected, but must be attributed to this secret or these secret feelings and dispositions. That is, what I attribute to this is sympathy, the second is antipathy, the third ...

- Full of dreams, my friend! With your assumptions, everything can be brought to natural consequences.

- When you can, why not?

“Because it shouldn’t,” said Shumilov, “because all your natural consequences in this case are almost always fairy tales, distorted, changed, the fruits of an unhinged imagination.

- Often, but not always: I will give you a lot of evidence that cannot be explained without my assumptions. For example: physiognomy, knowledge, innate to man, although it is rejected, is not refuted by anything. Do not all of us feel a sympathetic longing for one person and an antipathetic aversion for the other?

- Nonsense! This is simply some kind of similarity of human constitutions, more or less close or distant to one or another person.

- So, you recognize some commonality in humanity? And premonitions, dreams, visions of oneself: these are things that are not subject to doubt. The Highlanders have a special property of double vision, because their senses are more refined than ours: they know that at such and such a time a stranger will visit them, they see him and describe to you in advance what he is like.

“But what if it’s a subtle deception?” - said the Suvorov colleague.

- You chop from the shoulder, in Suvorov style! answered, laughing, Ternovsky. - If I give you many examples of people who, not thinking of deceiving, saw extraordinary phenomena. Do you know that Napoleon always saw a bright star in the sky?

- And if this brilliant star was one comedy played by Napoleon for a dozen years: what do you say to that? Didn't Numa Pompilius have the nymph Egeria, didn't Sertorius have a trained deer, Mahomet a tame dove?

- Fairy tales! Shumilov said.

- I think it's not quite a fairy tale. Let us suppose that many of the smart people used tricks with the common people; but if we see a difference in sight, hearing, touch, smell of people, why not suppose further limits even to these very senses? I know one truthful person in Moscow who is firmly convinced that until his friend appears to him, whom they agreed to see at the hour of death, he will not die.

“It seems that this firm assurance is the whole secret,” said Shumilov. - From her came all the signs, quirks, faith in dreams, premonitions. You can accustom your bodily feelings, you can also accustom your spiritual abilities to many things. I knew one person, wonderful, extraordinary. It was our glorious navigator Shelikhov. You have heard of him. He firmly believed in dreams, forebodings, signs. Here is what a close friend of his told me. As I see now, he told me, when we were traveling to Okhotsk together, not reaching a hundred miles, Shelikhov became thoughtful, restless and importantly said to me: “When we arrive in Okhotsk, we will find a ship that came from America.” I was surprised, began to argue, and brought him out of patience: he had a hot, ardent character and said to me with a heart: on which Okhotsk stands). This ship is mine and with a rich cargo!” We were driving calmly, and as soon as we approached the sandy Okhotsk cat, a ship appeared in the sea. It definitely belonged to Shelikhov and was loaded with rich cargo. That this anecdote is true, I vouch for you; that Shelikhov could not have known about the ship's arrival in any way, you yourself will agree. You need to know that Shelikhov was an extraordinary person, with a vast mind, and so what? He believed in physiognomy, signs, and in his life he never knew failures. He amazed with his deliberation, insight, and from a poor Rylsky tradesman, at the end of his life, which was very short, he amassed millions. His very enterprise: to sail to then unknown America on a dilapidated boat, without shells, without supplies and by the stars, guiding the way - proves his determination to hope for his own happiness, and I conclude that ...

“From this I deduce,” Ternovsky said hastily, “that extraordinary people have spiritual and bodily strength greater than ours, and they are gifted with what we do not have and, therefore, cannot comprehend.

“Very well,” answered Shumilov, “but let them have powers unknown to us. They themselves in relation to nature under the same laws, like all of us.

- No! Their secret strength lies in their strong relationship with nature. And this is what they used to call spirits, ghosts: these are our secret relationships, not understood by others. Before, everyone personified. Socrates called his secret power a genius and frankly admitted that he had a secret genius that guided and often contradicted himself.

- You are a dreamer! Shumilov said. “And I must remember that the imagination can act and deceive us in amazing ways. A person in a fever does not see what he does not tell you, but all the words are his dreams, the seduction of feelings in which the fire of fever pours. Further: the news must be verified. People love everything wonderful so much, they love to add so much that it is impossible to rely on their stories. Add deceit, dexterity, cunning. I can't even vouch for the Socratic genius. Maybe it was his trick. Look at the ventriloquist, the conjurer, the swindler: if we didn't know that they do everything naturally, how can we not call them wizards? In the eyes of others, a person takes off his head, shaves it and puts it on again as before; water rushes into the room, floods the floor, everyone gets scared, screams, and all this is an optical, chemical prank.

– But why is this universal confidence that in nature there is a lot of secret, incomprehensible?

- Of course, there is, but this is a secret, incomprehensible not what you think. Otherwise, one must believe that goblin walks through the fields and leads people into swamps, mermaids laugh in the rivers, and witches ride on broomsticks and descend into pipes.

- This is nonsense!

- Why nonsense? This is just as believed by millions of people, just as you believe in your secret feeling and your relationship with nature. The story of a dead man who took away a girl, his bride, is told in England, in Russia, in Poland; covens of witches in Brocken and in Kyiv - the same belief in Russia and in German soil.

“Whatever you say, but I love stories about witches, the dead, sorcerers and ghosts, and I always listen to scary stories with joy,” said the owner.

“I myself like to listen to them and even tell them, but I don’t believe them at all,” said Shumilov, smiling.

It was evident that both of them were on their skates: one wanted to listen, and the other to tell.

“Don’t you know any scarier one?” said the owner, turning with pleasure.

- How not to know! I have traveled to Mother Rus', I have not eaten bread from seven ovens, and, if you like, I will regale you with Russian stories, which are just as terrible as the German ones. Listen.

“Begin, as Russian fairy tales begin: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, in distant lands, in a distant kingdom, out of the blue, like on a tablecloth…”

“Why, I’ll tell you the story,” answered Shumilov.

“And Ternovsky will explain to us her natural actions,” the owner added, glancing cheerfully at his neighbor.

Everyone fell silent, and Shumilov began.

* * *

The following excerpt from the book scary Christmas stories Russian writers (Collection, 2018) provided by our book partner -

We remember scary tales: Andersen, Brothers Grimm and Russian folk

Text: Albina Dragan
Photo: Laura Barrett

October 31st is Halloween, also known as All Saints' Day. But, frankly, few people remember about the saints, because everyone knows the Celtic pagan holiday as a carnival of evil spirits - an occasion to try on the sinister images of a witch, zombie or ghost. In our country, someone is trying to ban Halloween in the hope of protecting the fragile children's psyche from a nightmare.

Although, in fact, many fairy tales that the same vigilant grandmothers read to their children are still a nightmare if you look at them from the perspective of an adult. On the eve of "most terrible night of the year”, as the theme party organizers recommend this evening, we have compiled a selection of creepy tales, which we all remember from childhood - including because of the terrible details.

1. Hans Christian Andersen. "Red Shoes"

This is the story of Karen, a girl whose red shoes stick to her feet and her feet start dancing on their own. The girl herself is not happy with this turn of events - she has to dance to exhaustion in enchanted shoes. Fortunately, the executioner comes to the rescue, who arranges a bloody execution and cuts off the girl's legs along with red shoes - and they will live their own lives.

- Don't cut off my head! Karen said. “Then I won’t have time to repent of my sin.” Cut off my legs with red shoes.

And she confessed all her sin. The executioner cut off her feet with red shoes, - dancing feet rushed across the field and disappeared into the thicket of the forest.

Then the executioner attached pieces of wood to her instead of legs, gave her crutches and taught her a psalm, which sinners always sing. Karen kissed the hand that held the ax and wandered across the field.

2. Hans Christian Andersen. "The Tale of the Girl Who Stepped on Bread"

The girls in Andersen's fairy tale are somehow not very lucky. Either the Little Mermaid in exchange for a voice gets two legs, but each step is given through pain, then poor Eliza must inject nettles into complete silence to weave shirts for his brothers.

In this fairy tale, the heroine Inge is especially unlucky - neither with her character, nor with the circumstances. A girl who comes up with a brilliant idea to cross a puddle by standing on bread will be punished immediately. She falls into the dungeon to the swamp and toads, and her feet stick to the bread. Suddenly, the devil's grandmother appears, who makes an idol out of Inge and takes her to hell. In hell, Inge is tormented in literally words: she cannot eat, although she is standing on bread, and even she can repent only when it rains from heaven from bitter tears.

“Her dress was completely covered with mucus, he grabbed her hair and clapped her on the neck, and from every fold of the dress peeped out toads, barking like fat, hoarse pugs. Passion, how unpleasant it was! “Well, yes, and others here look no better than mine!” Inge consoled herself.

Worst of all was the feeling of terrible hunger. Is it really impossible for her to bend down and break off a piece of bread on which she stands? No, her back did not bend, her arms and legs did not move, she seemed to be all petrified and could only move her eyes in all directions, around, even turn them out of her sockets and look back. Phew, how nasty it came out! And on top of all this, flies came and began to crawl back and forth over her eyes; she blinked her eyes, but the flies did not fly away - their wings were plucked, and they could only crawl. That was agony! And then there's this hunger! In the end, Inge began to feel as if her insides had devoured themselves, and inside she became empty, terribly empty!

3. Brothers Grimm. "Juniper tree"

The "Tales of the Brothers Grimm", that is, the German folk tales collected by the linguist brothers, who did not even think that they would be considered storytellers, are rich in ominous details. If you ever read complete volume such tales, you will surely remember that in The Juniper Tree, the stepmother cut off the head of the child with the lid of the chest when he climbed for an apple. Then she bandaged his neck with a handkerchief, seated him on a chair and gave him an apple in his hands. Worse, she tried to disguise the crime - she advised her own daughter to hit her half-brother on the ear, which the poor girl did. As a result, they cooked soup from the stepson and fed him with the meat of his father. But the fairy tale turned out to be happy ending. The soul of the child moved into the bird, which plagued her stepmother with terrible songs, and then completely dropped a millstone on her - he crushed her head. As they say, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Marleniken went and said:
- Brother, give me an apple.
And he is silent, says nothing. And she struck him on the ear, and his head rolled to the ground. The girl was frightened, began to cry and scream; ran to her mother and said:
- Oh, mother, I beat off my brother's head! - and she wept, wept, and there was no way to console her.
- Marleniken, - said the mother, - what have you done?! But look, keep quiet so that no one knows about it, now there’s nothing to be done, we’ll boil it in soup.
Took mother little boy, chopped it into pieces, put them in a saucepan and boiled them in soup.

4. Brothers Grimm. "The Tale of Who Went to Learn Fear"

The plot of the youngest son, a simpleton, who still could not know fear and therefore embarked on all sorts of adventures that he was advised good people. But he didn't succeed at all. He accidentally threw a sexton from the bell tower (mistaken for a ghost), removed the gallows (mistaken for living), and then spent three nights in an enchanted castle. On the first night, huge black cats, dogs and a bouncing bed disturbed his peace. With cats, our hero did not want to play cards because of the huge claws. Therefore, he cut the claws of the cats, and then killed them altogether. On the second night, our hero was not afraid of the half-hearted body, and then he played quite merrily with scary people into skittles with human limbs and heads. On the third night, a dead man appeared in a coffin and a monstrous bearded man.

The wind swayed the corpses of the hanged, they knocked against each other. And the guy thought: “I’m cold even here, by the fire, what is it like for them to freeze and dangle up there?”
And, since he had a compassionate heart, he set up a ladder, climbed up, untied the hangers one by one, and lowered all seven to the ground. Then he blew a good fire and seated them all around so that they could warm themselves.
But they sat motionless, so that the flames began to cover their clothes. He told them: “Hey, you, beware! Or I'll hang you again!" But the dead did not hear anything, were silent and did not interfere with the burning of their rags.
Then he got angry: “Well, if you don’t want to beware, then I’m not your helper, and I don’t want to burn with you at all.” And he hung them up again in their original place. Then he sat down by his fire and fell asleep.

5. "Bear fake leg." Russian folktale

Actually, in Russian folk tales There are also some creepy details. In this tale, an old man cuts off a bear's leg with an ax, and the old woman cooks soup for them. The poor bear still could not forget the lost limb and regularly visited the old people to restore justice. But it didn't work out. The disabled bear was killed by the villagers who came to the rescue.

Here the bear is walking, his leg creaks, he himself says:

Skyrly, skyrly, skyrly,
On a sticky leg
On a birch stick.
Everyone in the villages is sleeping
They sleep in the villages
One woman does not sleep -
Sitting on my skin
Spinning my wool
My meat is cooking.

6. "Tiny-Havroshechka". Russian folktale
In this beloved fairy tale about a cow and a girl, everything is strange. Firstly, she lives with her stepmother and crooked sisters - One-eyed, Two-eyed and Treglazka, and secondly, she performs a gigantic amount of work in a non-trivial way - she gets into a cow's ear and crawls out of another. The stepmother, as usual, comes up with a terrible and illogical thing - to slaughter a miracle cow. But the request of a cow to bury the bones and water them looks quite creepy. As a result, strangely enough, not a new cow will grow, but only an apple tree.

Khavroshechka ran to the cow:
- Mother cow! They want to cut you.
- And you, red maiden, do not eat my meat; Gather my bones, tie them in a handkerchief, plant them in the garden and never forget me, water them every morning.

7. Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy. "Mermaid"

Nothing foreshadowed trouble - the lonely old man Semyon lived with an old cat and went fishing. Once he caught a mermaid and settled in his house - he even carefully covered it with a sieve so that cockroaches would not bite her. The sea maiden turned out to be a skilled manipulator - not only did she force the cat to be strangled and the house to be dismantled, she also killed the old man himself - tearing his ribs. So do good to people. But most of all in the tale it is a pity that "walked around the empty barn and meowed with a hoarse meow, as if he were burying children."

“And the mermaid of the old grandfather bit the very heart with her teeth, - she dug ...
Grandfather shook his head - yes, run to the river ...
And the mermaid put her fingers under the ribs, pushed them apart, grabbed her teeth again. Grandfather roared and fell from a steep bank into a whirlpool.
Since then, at night, he comes out of the pool, his gray-haired head stands above the water, tormented, opens his mouth.

Russian books in the horror genre

10 cool Russian horror books

Not everyone knows that the “Horror” genre is generally represented in rich Russian literature. And those who know are often skeptical about it. But the site checked and reports: scary, very scary, and there are horrors for every taste. Recommended.

Kirill Alekseev "Fly Eater"

The novel is good for its special cinematography. The mind of the reader, especially one already prepared by watching horror films, will immediately build a scene, arrange heroes, monsters and start disturbing music in the background. In addition, the plot is classic: a group of people is haunted by a nightmare from childhood. Slasher, based on Russian realities, turns out to be eerily close. Alekseev has another nice feature. When we read an ordinary horror movie, we often think: “Fools, don’t go to the cemetery, don’t go down to the basement – ​​and nothing will happen!” Our author, on the only night allotted to the heroes, simply does not give them any choice. Complete hopelessness.

What was once eaten must itself be eaten.

Alexey Ateev "The Mystery of the Old Cemetery"

This book, written in the 90s, is both creepy and funny, like the nineties themselves. The ancient evil spirits do not want to surrender to the Soviet system. Policemen, local historians, an old school librarian are fighting evil spirits as best they can. Against the backdrop of modern horror with all their special effects and an 18+ rating, the book may resemble horror stories in a pioneer camp. But do you remember what it's like to go into the darkness from this fire?

- What is twice two? she asked softly.
The goat looked at her silently for a while. Valentina Sergeevna had already decided that she would not wait for an answer. Suddenly the goat said:
- What are you, doo-hurrah? Oh, damn it, think!

Belobrov-Popov "Red Tambourine"

Village shooter with vampires, anti-Semites and the Soviet army takes on the role of our native "From Dusk Till Dawn". There is a lot of unmotivated cruelty and sickening details here, and all this is best read with a healthy sense of humor or with a love of postmodernity. The book is bright and catchy, and the plot in it rushes at full speed, forcing the reader to either discard the thick volume altogether, or hoot and ahh from unexpected bumps and turns.

So he imagined the Apocalypse and imagined - everything is scorched, and who the hell knows who rides on the scorched.

Nail Izmailov "Ubyr"

Every child at least once in childhood has to endure a terrible suspicion: what if your parents are not yours? Or not people at all? It’s scary, but you won’t complain to your mother ... After the introduction, plunging into deep childhood fears, a luxurious action begins with an exotic Tatar flavor. Although, what is exotic in it: American maniacs will not get to us, they will not be given a visa, and Izmailov's nightmares will take the night train, and they will come.

We stayed at night on an empty platform in the middle of fields, forests and dogs, in an almost winter cold and hunger.
Not alone.
Together.

Sergey Kuznetsov "Butterfly Skin"

In the horror genre, you can’t do without diving into the sick brain of a maniac. Well, at the same time in the no less unhealthy consciousness of madness in love with a maniac. And it is not yet known who wins. From the spectrum negative emotions Kuznetsov chooses "disgusting and a little ashamed." It is especially shameful, watching the deadly dance of heroes, to suddenly feel a response to their forbidden feelings. And then, in the subway, feeling that someone is looking into the book over your shoulder, you will automatically want to cover this text with your hand, as if you were hiding your own thoughts.

Remember, I once asked how you would like to die. And you answered: "Open my chest and take my heart" And I, having written this letter, feel: this is mine. rib cage opened, and it's my heart that flutters on your lips.

Igor Lesev "23"

A Tuvan witch and her henchmen are chasing a simple boy Vitenka. Well, how to say simple. Vitek - terribly nasty, arrogant, stupid, cowardly Sissy, obsessed with numerology and possessing an incredible lust for life. That is, he runs fast, but he doesn’t think very much. Of course, the reader absolutely does not want to associate himself with the young assistant to the deputy, but he believes in his crazy adventures on the fly. And at some point, you realize that you have been sucked into this ridiculous farce of horrors.

The dog howled again upon seeing the body of its master.
- Hell, calm down. He was old anyway, - finally, stepping over the corpse, I found myself on the threshold of a half-open door. - All the dog, do not be bored ...

Alexey Mavrin "Psoglavtsy"

Under the pseudonym Mavrin is hiding famous writer Aleksey Ivanov. So, predictably, the level "Blood, guts, zombies crawled out" in this book is lowered, and the level "Dying nature and the search for philosophical sense» raised higher. We also have a good love line, interesting topic schismatics and a quality atmosphere of quiet horror. It is difficult to figure out what is actually happening from the surrounding nightmare, and what is just a figment of the main character's imagination, choking on bitter smoke from peat bogs.

The door to hell can open anywhere: and in old grave collective farmer, and in his own soul. In my heart, even more likely.

Maryana Romanova "The Dead from the Upper Log"

Behind the forests, behind the mountains, in the modest Yaroslavl region, there is a village, and whoever comes there with brains will not live for three days. We're joking. Actually, Russian zombies eat something else. And that makes it even scarier. The author moves us in time and space: from the hinterland to the capital, from Russia to Africa, and weaves all the lines into a strong plot. The main note in this symphony of horror is anxiety. So, if you finish reading in the evening (and you, of course, will), then draw the curtains more tightly, otherwise you never know who wanders there in the dark.

It is easier to lean on darkness, its shoulder seems to be a stronghold, especially when you are so young.

Anna Starobinets "Vault 3/9"

The novel is based on Russian folk tales, and if you have read at least one not adapted for a younger school age a fairy tale, then you should already become slightly uncomfortable. Small child Fall into Far Far Away kingdom, and the young woman notices that people are looking at her strangely. And all this is connected with the end of the world. But the horror is not in Koschei, not in the Kafkaesque transformation of the heroine. The worst thing when reading will be those who are afraid of the indifference of loved ones and dream about lost children or parents.

When the night came - dark, starless, icy - the Boy sat down under a tree and began to think about what usually happens to children who find themselves alone in the forest at night. What happens to them?

Viktor Tochinov "Creature"

If you are a fan of blood, psychopathic maniacs, hellish batch seasoned with Nazis and tentacles, then Torchinov is exactly what you need. This time it takes place in the gloomy suburbs of St. Petersburg, and the author's historical and local lore excursions are very plausible. The hero of the book, even though the writer is a serious man, confidently swings a crowbar. Take an example from him if you start to twitch from suspicious rustles behind your back.

This is him, this is Filya... - thought Slavik before falling into the abyss, teeming with yellow, green and red balloons. His head also turned into a red ball - and immediately burst with the crimson ringing of a bronze pentagram ...

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