How to find and complete Earth dungeons in Remnant: From the Ashes. Underworld Expeditions do not return

REPTILOID BASE IN UNDERGROUND LABYRINTHS UNDER AKSAI

Not far from the large city of Rostov-on-Don, or rather even in its suburbs, since time immemorial people have discovered strange underground structures: Deep underground tunnels, grottoes, caves of obviously artificial origin.

Underground passages lead to God knows where for many kilometers. According to enthusiasts, the length of the underground passages exceeds a hundred kilometers!!! It is no coincidence that I mentioned enthusiasts. It is only enthusiasts who deal with such anomalies - after all, as always, official science and archeology stubbornly refuses to notice such zones. So, according to the estimates of the same independent experts, these dungeons are at least several thousand years old. Everyone who has ever been there points to their artificial origin. The purpose of creating such a giant underground structure is still unclear. I think the latest knowledge that was described in the book “The Way Home” will help us to reveal the mystery of this miracle at least a little.

Local residents, when it comes to dungeons, strongly advise against going there, even on pain of death. Locals experience panic at the thought of trying to penetrate the underground labyrinth. Many people talk about multiple strange cases of death of people trying to explore the caves. Cattle and other domestic animals have repeatedly disappeared at the entrance to the caves. Often only gnawed bones were found!!!

Several years ago, the military tried to use underground labyrinths for their own purposes. The command of the North Caucasus Military District planned to build a fortified secret control bunker in the catacombs in the event of a nuclear war. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Measurements were taken, soil samples were taken, and the area was carefully studied. Several groups were organized to study the extent of the underground passages. Two soldiers with a walkie-talkie and a flashlight in each group walked through cave after cave, labyrinth after labyrinth. Their path was tracked on the surface via radio.

Everything was going as well as possible, but the underground fortified bunker for the control of the North Caucasus Military District near Aksai was still not there. All work was unexpectedly and suddenly stopped. The military retreated from this damned place in panic. The entrance to the dungeon was sealed with a thick layer of reinforced concrete. They did their best - they spent hundreds of tons of selected concrete on this!

An emergency order to stop work came from Moscow after radio contact with one of the groups exploring the dungeons suddenly stopped, and the group did not reach the surface. Rescuers were sent to search. After some time, the rescuers managed to find two soldiers, or rather, what was left of them - only the lower half of the body of each of them!!! From the waist down to the feet in the boots, the rest seemed to have evaporated. The radio was surprisingly cut into two parts. Moreover, further research showed that the cut was so filigree that not even a small crack remained on the electronic boards. Real jewelry work!!! By the way, there was no blood either - the tissues of the soldiers’ bodies were slightly melted at the site of the cut. There is work - laser.

The case was immediately reported to Moscow. An urgent order came from the Ministry of Defense: Stop all work immediately! Remove people and equipment! The entrance to the dungeon is securely sealed with reinforced concrete! The why and wherefore was not explained in the order. Each of you, if you want to explore the dungeon, will now be able to easily detect this reinforced concrete wall with easily visible traces of formwork. The question remains: What so frightened our brave military with their missiles and nuclear power? And why seal the entrance to an ancient dungeon with tons of concrete?
The military classified information on these events so as not to cause panic, but the information surfaced as a result of the death of catacomb researcher Oleg Burlakov. He also died, he was cut in half, but the lower part remained untouched, but only bones remained from the upper part.
Local historians have been mystifying the Aksai catacombs for centuries. A couple of hundred years ago, a strange-looking overseas merchant came to Aksai - who later turned out to be a member of the secret Masonic order of the Jesuits. He spent more than one year in Aksai. During his stay, he spent a lot of money looking for something. What he was looking for, no one could understand. He constantly equipped large groups of diggers and carefully studied the area. It became clear to everyone that the foreigner was not looking for treasure or treasure. The money he spent during this time on diggers and all the work would have been more than enough for several treasure troves.

After all, none of the locals wanted to work near those dungeons for any money. The merchant constantly had to recruit and bring new people - after a while people fled for unknown reasons.

Whether the merchant managed to find what he was looking for remained a secret behind seven seals. It is only known that according to the ancient books of the Jesuit Masons, who, according to some sources, stand at the origins of the birth of the Roman Catholic Church, it is written that the area near Aksai is a holy land, somehow connected with their deity, whose cult they worship - namely reptiles-Lucifer. For them - to God, and for us - to Satan!!!

This information interested visiting diggers, who decided to take a walk through the dungeon, taking a dog just in case. However, they fell into a trap: after going several hundred meters deep, the diggers noticed that behind them, a couple of steps away, the walls came together, and after a few seconds they parted again. Apparently the mechanism was so ancient that it did not work in time, allowing the diggers to escape danger. The dog accompanying the diggers whined and broke off the leash and ran back through the maze... On the way back, the diggers decided to go around the ill-fated place, but this time they fell into a trap, a hole formed behind them, and then the floor returned to its original position. What secrets do Aksai’s dungeons hide? After all, people had to pay for them with their lives, and not a single one was supposed to leave this labyrinth by falling into a trap!

Residents of Aksai say that their ancestors, living in the Kobyakovsky settlement, made human sacrifices to a certain Dragon, who crawled out of the ground and ate people. This image can very often be found in chronicles, folk tales, among architectural and archaeological monuments. However, the legend of the dragon lives to this day, since just a few decades ago, during the collapse of the floor of a local cannery, workers witnessed a terrifying picture: they noticed below the body of what appeared to be a huge snake, quickly appearing and disappearing into the hole, a devilish roar was heard, dogs Those present during the search of the manhole jumped up from their seats and ran headlong away with their tails between their legs, while the workers looked on dumbfounded and could not come to their senses. This passage was walled up, but the dogs decided to return to this place only a week later.
These eyewitness accounts became the basis for the theory that this dragon crawled out not from underground, but from water. After all, according to geological exploration, there is a lake near Aksai at a depth of 40 meters, and a sea at a depth of 250 meters. The underground waters of the Don form another river; in the Don there is a funnel that sucks in any objects caught in the strong current of the river. They still cannot find the trailers and cars that entered the Don from the old Aksai bridge. Divers who examined the bottom of the lake stated that this funnel draws in objects with enormous force, even steel safety cables are stretched to the limit.

According to eyewitnesses, UFOs appear over the city quite often; they seem to emerge from underground, hang in the air and dive underground again. One day a translucent UFO floated over the city and humanoid figures were visible. One UFO blinded the sleeping Aksai with rays of light, when these rays reached the warships on the banks of the Don, the military attempted to attack the night guest and fired at him from guns, but this did not bring any visible results. The UFO disappeared from the spot and dived somewhere underground. Another case was described by many eyewitnesses: three spherical UFOs were spinning in the sky of the old Aksai bridge. The emanating light was so bright that it began to interfere with traffic on the highway; dozens of drivers watched this spectacle in fascination. The arriving police unit was unable to move the drivers from their place; they had to call for help from Aksai.

An underground network of tunnels piercing the Earth

There are many interconnected caves and artificial underground cavities in the Middle East, India, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Europe, the USA, Russia and many countries.
120 km from Saratov, in the area of ​​the Medveditskaya Ridge, the Kosmopoisk expedition led by Vadim Chernobrov, candidate of technical sciences, discovered in 1997 and in subsequent years mapped an extensive system of tunnels, surveyed for tens of kilometers. The tunnels have a round or oval cross-section with a diameter of 7 to 20 m and are located at a depth of 6 to 30 m from the surface. As they approach the Medveditskaya ridge, their diameter increases from 20 to 35 m, then 80 m, and already at the highest elevation the diameter of the cavities reaches 120 m, turning into a huge hall under the mountain.
Judging by numerous publications in newspapers, magazines and the Internet, ball lightning is often observed in the area of ​​the Medveditskaya Ridge (it ranks second in the world in the number of observed ball lightning) and UFOs, which sometimes disappear underground, which has long attracted the attention of ufologists. Members of the Kosmopoisk expedition hypothesized that the ridge is a “crossroads” where underground roads of many directions converge. They can even be used to reach Novaya Zemlya and the North American continent.
In the article “Tunnels of Disappeared Civilizations” E. Vorobyov reported that the Mramornaya cave in the Chatyr-Dag mountain range, located at an altitude of 900 m above sea level, was formed on the site of a tunnel with a diameter of about 20 m with perfectly smooth walls, going deep into the mountain range with a slope towards the sea. The walls of this tunnel are well preserved in places and have no traces of erosion from flowing waters - karst caverns. The author believes that the tunnel existed before the beginning of the Oligocene, that is, its age is at least 34 million years!
The newspaper "Astrakhanskie Izvestia"*** reported the existence in Krasnodar region near Gelendzhik, a straight, arrow-like vertical shaft with a diameter of about 1.5 m and a depth of more than 100 m with smooth, as if melted, walls - stronger than the cast-iron tubes in the metro. Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Polyakov from Moscow State University found that the microstructure of the soil in the section of the mine wall was damaged by physical impact by only 1-1.5 mm. Based on his conclusion and direct observations, it was concluded that the high fastening properties of the walls are most likely the result of simultaneous thermal and mechanical effects using some high technology unknown to us.
According to the same E. Vorobyov, in 1950, by a secret resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers, a decision was made to build a tunnel across the Tatar Strait in order to connect the mainland with Sakhalin by rail. Over time, the secrecy was lifted and Doctor of Physical and Mechanical Sciences L. S. Berman, who worked there at that time, said in 1991 in her memoirs addressed to the Voronezh branch of Memorial that the builders were not so much re-building as they were restoring an already existing tunnel, built in ancient times, extremely competently, taking into account the geological features of the bottom of the strait.

Judging by publications, radio and television broadcasts of previous years, the same ancient tunnels were found by the builders of modern metro tunnels and other underground communications in Moscow, Kyiv and other cities. This allows us to believe that, along with metro tunnels, rivers hidden in concrete boxes, sewer and drainage systems and the latest, equipped last word technology, “autonomous underground cities” with power plants; underneath them there are also numerous underground communications from earlier eras***. They form a multi-level, intricately intertwined system of countless underground passages and chambers, and the most ancient buildings are located deeper than the metro line and probably continue far beyond the city limits. There is information that in the territory Ancient Rus' there were underground galleries hundreds of kilometers long, connecting the country's largest cities. Having entered them, for example, in Kyiv, it was possible to exit in Chernigov (120 km), Lyubech (130 km) and even Smolensk (over 450 km).
And not a single word is said about all these grandiose underground structures in any reference book. There are neither their published maps nor publications dedicated to them. And all because in all countries the location of underground communications is a state secret, and information about them can be obtained mainly only from diggers who study them unofficially.

Of the underground communications found in other countries, noteworthy is the tunnel discovered on Mount Babia (altitude 1725 m) in the Tatra-Beskydy mountain range, located on the border of Poland and Slovakia. Encounters with UFOs also occurred quite often in this place. Studying this anomalous zone Polish ufologist Robert Lesniakiewicz, in search of information about the events that took place here in former times, contacted another Polish specialist on such problems, Dr. Jan Pajonc, a university professor in the New Zealand city of Dunedin.
Professor Payonk wrote to Lesnyakevich that in the mid-1960s, when he was a teenager and a graduating student at the Lyceum, he heard the following story from an elderly man named Vincent:

« Many years ago, my father said that it was time to learn to me the secret that the inhabitants of our region have long passed on from father to son. And this secret is the hidden entrance to the dungeon. And he also told me to remember the road well, because he would only show it to me once.
After that we walked on in silence. When we approached the foot of Babja Gora from the Slovak side, my father stopped again and pointed out to me a small rock protruding from the mountain slope at an altitude of about 600 meters...
When we leaned on the rock together, it suddenly trembled and unexpectedly easily moved to the side. An opening opened into which a cart with a horse harnessed to it could freely enter...
A tunnel opened in front of us, going quite steeply down. My father moved forward, I followed him, stunned by what had happened. The tunnel, similar in cross-section to a slightly flattened circle, was straight as an arrow, and so wide and high that an entire train could easily fit inside it. The smooth and shiny surface of the walls and floor seemed to be covered with glass, but when we walked, our feet did not slip, and the steps were almost inaudible. Taking a closer look, I noticed deep scratches on the floor and walls in many places. It was completely dry inside.
Our long journey along the inclined tunnel continued until it led to a spacious hall that looked like the inside of a huge barrel. Several more tunnels converged in it, some of them were triangular in cross-section, others were round.

...the father spoke again:

- Through the tunnels that diverge from here, you can get to different countries and to different continents. The one on the left leads to Germany, then to England, and further to the American continent. The right tunnel stretches to Russia, the Caucasus, then to China and Japan, and from there to America, where it connects with the left. You can also get to America through other tunnels laid under the Earth's poles - the North and South. Along the path of each tunnel there are “junction stations” similar to the one we are in now. So, without knowing the exact route, it’s easy to get lost in them...
The father's story was interrupted by a distant sound, similar at the same time to a low hum and a metallic clang. This is the sound a heavily loaded train makes when it starts to move or brakes sharply...

“The tunnels that you saw,” the father continued his story, “were built not by people, butpowerful creatures living underground. These are their roads for moving from one end of the underworld to the other. And they move onflying fire cars. If we were in the path of such a machine, we would burn alive. Fortunately, the sound in the tunnel can be heard at a great distance, and we had enough time to avoid such an encounter. Well, besides, these creatures live in another part of their world, and rarely appear in our area...”

One more mysterious place, similar to the Bear Ridge, Mount Babyu, Nevado de Cachi, and, perhaps, Shambhala, is Mount Shasta with a height of 4317 m in the Cascade Mountains in northern California. UFO sightings are quite common in the Shasta area...
English traveler and explorer Percy Fawcett, who worked for many years in South America and repeatedly visited North America, mentioned extensive tunnels located near the Popocatepetl and Inlacuatl volcanoes in Mexico... and in the area of ​​Mount Shasta. From local residents he had heard stories about tall, golden-haired people who supposedly inhabited the dungeons. The Indians believed that these were the descendants of people who, in ancient times, descended from heaven, failed to adapt to life on the surface and went into underground caves...

Some people even managed to see the mysterious underground empire.
Andrew Thomas, in his book “Shambhala - Oasis of Light,” also wrote that in the mountains of California there are straight, arrow-like underground passages leading to the state of New Mexico.
Maxim Yablokov in the book “Aliens” They are already here!!!” told about one interesting fact. Underground nuclear tests carried out at a test site in Nevada (USA) led to very interesting consequences. After 2 hours, at one of the military bases in Canada, located 2000 km from the test site, a radiation level 20 times higher than normal was recorded. It turned out that next to the Canadian base there was a huge cave, which was part of a huge system of caves and tunnels on the continent...

UNDERGROUND CIVILIZATION OF REPTOIDS

We have already written about reptoids - a race of intelligent lizards that arose simultaneously, and most likely, before humans. The publication wrote that lizards left the stage, giving way to humans. Let's correct ourselves: there are good reasons to believe that the lizards, leaving the surface of the planet to humans, went deep into the Earth.

Earth unknown to us

Despite all the technical achievements, a person still cannot say that he knows the planet as his own apartment. There are still places where no scientist has gone before. In other corners, if he appeared, it was only to write on a rock “I was here” and leave this area in pristine purity for another 200-300 years.

While studying the World Ocean, man descended to a depth of 11,000 m, but is in complete ignorance of what is deeper than 200-300 m. (To visit does not mean to study) As for the natural voids of the Earth, here a person has gone no further than the “hallway” and has no idea how many rooms there are in the underground “apartment” and what size they are. He only knows “a lot” and “very large”.

Endless underground labyrinths

There are caves in absolutely all parts of the world, on all continents, right down to Antarctica. Underground corridors weave into endless labyrinthine tunnels. Walking and crawling through these galleries for 40-50 km without ever reaching the end of the tunnel is quite a common thing for speleologists, not worth mentioning. There are caves 100, 200, 300 km long! Mamontov – 627 km. And none of the caves are considered to be fully explored.

The scientist Andrei Timoshevsky (better known as Andrew Thomas), who studied Tibet and the Himalayas for a long time, wrote that the monks led him into tunnels of endless length, through which, according to them, it was possible to go to the center of the Earth.

After an underground nuclear explosion at a test site in Nevada, in caves in Canada, located more than 2,000 km away, the level of radiation jumped 20 times. American speleologists are confident that all caves on the North American continent communicate with each other.

Russian researcher Pavel Miroshnichenko believes that there is a network of global underground voids stretching from Crimea through the Caucasus to the Volgograd region.

In fact, we have another continent - underground. Is it really not inhabited by anyone?

Masters of the Underworld

Our ancestors did not think so. They were simply convinced of the exact opposite. The peoples of Australia, the North American Indians, the same Tibetan monks, Hindus, residents of the Urals and the Rostov region of the South have traditions and legends about intelligent lizards living in underground labyrinths. federal district. Is it really an accident?

Most likely, as a result of climate change, life for lizards on the surface of the Earth has become impossible. If the unreasonable creatures remained on the surface and died, the reptoids went underground, where there is water, there are no deadly temperature changes, and the deeper it is, the higher it is even higher due to volcanic activity.

Having left the surface of the planet to man, they took possession of its underground part. Undoubtedly, someday the long-awaited meeting will take place. And most likely this will happen in South America. It was here that the wall separating the two civilizations thinned to a thin partition.

Chinkanasy

Jesuit priests also wrote about the presence in South America of a huge amount underground caves, connected together. The Indians called them "chinkanas". The Spaniards believed that the Chincanas were created by the Incas for military purposes: for a quick retreat or a covert attack. The Indians insisted that they had nothing to do with the dungeons; they were created by snake people who lived there and really did not like strangers.

The Europeans did not believe, as they thought, these “horror stories” were intended to prevent the valiant settlers from getting to the gold hidden by the Incas in underground caches. Therefore, there have been many attempts to explore the chincanas of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador.

Expeditions do not return

Most adventurers who set off on a risky journey through the underground labyrinths never returned. Rare lucky ones came without gold and talked about meetings with people covered with scales and huge eyes, but no one believed them. The authorities, who had absolutely no need for emergencies with missing “tourists,” blocked and covered all known entrances and exits.

Chinkanas were also studied by scientists. In the 20s of the 20th century, several Peruvian expeditions disappeared in the Peruvian chincanas. In 1952, a joint American-French group went underground. The scientists planned to return in 5 days. The only surviving member of the expedition, Philippe Lamontiere, came to the surface 15 days later, slightly mentally damaged.

It was not possible to establish what in his incoherent stories about endless labyrinths and lizards walking on two legs that killed everyone else was true and what was the fruit of a sick imagination. The Frenchman died a few days later from the bubonic plague. Where did he find the plague in the dungeon?

Reptoids, on their way out?

Who lives there, in the dungeon? Research into caves, including the mysterious Chancanas, continues. Returning members of the expeditions are confident that intelligent creatures live in the depths of the caves. The stairs and steps they found in the dungeons, the halls whose floors are paved with slabs, and kilometer-long gutters carved into the walls leave no other options. And the deeper and further the researchers go, the more often they come across all sorts of “surprises”.

Scientists in France, England, the USA and Russia have repeatedly recorded powerful flows of electromagnetic waves, the source of which is located in the depths of the Earth. Their nature is unclear.

EXCERPT FROM “INTERVIEW WITH REPTILOID LASERTA”

Lacerta: When I talk about our underground home, I'm talking about large cave systems. The caves you discover close to the surface are tiny compared to the real caves and the huge caves deep within the earth (2,000 to 8,000 of your meters, but connected by many hidden tunnels to the surface or to surfaces in the vicinity of the caves). And we live in large and developed cities and colonies inside such caves.

Our main cave sites are Antarctica, Inner Asia, North America and Australia. If I talk about artificial sunlight in our cities, I do not mean the real sun, but various technological light sources that illuminate caves and tunnels.

There are special cave areas and tunnels with strong UV light in every city and we use them to heat up our blood. In addition, we also have some areas of sunny surface spots in remote areas, especially in America and Australia.

Question: Where can we find such surfaces - near the entrance to your world?

Answer: Do you really think that I will tell you their exact location? If you want to find such an entrance, you should look for it (but I would advise you not to do so.) When I arrived on the surface four days ago, I used an entrance about 300 kilometers north of here, close to big lake, but I doubt you could find it (there are only a few occurrences in this part of the world - more - many more in the north and east.)

As a little tip: if you are in a narrow cave or in a tunnel or even something that looks like a man-made mine, and the deeper you go, the smoother the walls become; and if you feel unusual warm air flowing from the depths, or if you hear the sound of flowing air in the ventilation or lift shaft, and find a special kind of artificial things;

else – if you see a wall with a door made of gray metal somewhere in a cave – you might try to open that door (but I doubt it); or, you find yourself underground in an ordinary-looking technical room with ventilation systems and lifts in depth - then this is probably the entrance to our world;

If you have reached this place, you should know that we have now identified your location and are aware of your presence, you are already in big trouble. If you entered a circular room, then you should look for one of two reptilian symbols on the walls. If there are no symbols or there are other symbols, then you are perhaps in even more trouble than you think, because not every underground structure belongs to our species.

Some new tunnel systems are used by alien races (including hostile races). My general advice if you find yourself in an underground structure that seems strange to you: run as fast as you can.

Dungeons of the world

This is exactly how the theme of this chapter should be formulated carefully, because everyone knows that no one can embrace the immensity.

"THE CAPITAL OF OUR MOTHERLAND, MOSCOW"

The year the city was founded is considered to be 1147, when Prince Yuri Dolgoruky killed the local boyar Stepan Kuchka and seized his estate. Since then, Moscow has been repeatedly destroyed by enemies and rebuilt again. Wooden houses were replaced by stone ones on solid foundations sunk into the ground. The defensive function was performed by monasteries with underground passages. Usually the beginning of the creation of a network of these passages dates back to the 15th century. The underground labyrinths of the Kremlin, Borovitsky Hill and Kitay-Gorod, Simonov, Donskoy, Chudov and other monasteries were discovered, but little explored.

Not far from the Kitay-Gorod metro station, Ioanno-Predtechensky is still preserved convent, founded in the 15th century. This monastery had a sad reputation: women of noble origin were forcibly tonsured there - so selfish relatives seized their shares in the inheritance. In 1610, the former Tsarina Maria Petrovna Shuiskaya was tonsured here, who was forcibly separated from her husband, the deposed Tsar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky. In 1620, the nun Paraskeva died - in the world Pelageya Mikhailovna - the second wife of the eldest son of Ivan the Terrible. The mysterious Dosifeya, “the real princess Tarakanova,” and the evil landowner Saltychikha, who sadistically killed serf beauties, were kept here.

Women criminals and political criminals were brought from the Detective Order to this monastery under the guise of madmen. Adherents of the old rite who did not want to renounce their faith were brought here from the Raskolnichy office. Some were kept in “stone bags” under strict supervision, while others skillfully converted even nuns to their faith. Such were the Khlysty people, Akulina Lupkina and Agafya Karpova, who set up a “God’s house” in their cells for the zeal of the Khlysty people. Akulina died a natural death, and Agafya was executed in 1743.

There are also legends about the dungeons of the Novodevichy Convent in Khamovniki. These are mainly crypts, some of which have been discovered and studied by scientists. The imagination is stirred by the terrible legend about the last abbess of the monastery, Leonida Ozerova, who did not want to give the church wealth accumulated over centuries to the Bolsheviks and went underground with the treasures. Some say that Leonida died guarding objects sacred to her, others say that she only hid them, and she herself went out through an underground passage and disappeared. And this is quite likely, since some of those valuables were subsequently discovered in private collections.

It must be admitted that there are many more legends about Moscow dungeons than they have been explored. An interesting question is about the underground passage under the Moscow River. Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, master Azancheev made several attempts to dig through it. The unfinished passage was flooded twice; the documents are silent about what happened next, but it is known that Azancheev was granted nobility. On this basis, many conclude that this move was actually built. There are persistent rumors about secret passages under the Tsaritsyno estate (in its very real vast basements there are now exhibition halls), about the Masonic dungeons of the Menshikov Tower, about the Dorogomilovsky quarries...

In the Kropotkinskaya area lies the terrible Chertolye, which received its name from the Chertory stream, which flowed where Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane is now. During the flood, the stream overflowed, but when the water subsided, potholes and potholes remained on the banks of the stream, as if the devil was digging.

In this area the Oprichnina courtyard was located: there were torture huts, casemates, scaffolds with execution blocks. Diggers claim that deep underground there are voids, passages and galleries - the remains of the terrible prisons of Ivan the Terrible.

You can come across the statement that you can get anywhere from the basement of any house within the Garden Ring, even the Moscow metro. Indeed, the basements of old houses, especially churches and manor houses, often have walled-up passages leading to God knows where. Sometimes the building itself is no longer there, but the dungeons with passages have been preserved, and stubborn diggers manage to get to the bottom of it.

Back in 1912, newspapers wrote about the discovery of underground passages in Bogoslovsky Lane, on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, under the house of the Yusupov princes at the Red Gate, between the Novodevichy Convent and the Gübner manufactory, under the Donskoy Monastery, Golitsyn Hospital and Neskuchny Garden...

The man who devoted his life to studying the mysterious underground world of Moscow was named Ignatius Yakovlevich Stelletsky.

He was born in 1878 in the Yekaterinoslav province in the family of a teacher. After graduating from the Kyiv Theological Academy, he went to work as a teacher in Palestine - the land of “a thousand caves”. There Stelletsky became interested in archeology and, returning to Moscow, organized the Commission for the Study of Underground Antiquities and himself became its chairman. He collected traditions, legends, rumors, eyewitness accounts and, relying on them, conducted research. He discovered underground passages from the Round Tower of the Kitai-Gorod wall, from the Tainitskaya tower of the Simonov Monastery and the Taininskaya tower of the Kremlin, a white stone passage from the corner Arsenal Tower The Kremlin, the emptiness in the depths of Borovitsky Hill, under Nikolskaya, Trinity, Spasskaya and the terrible Beklemisheva Tower, in the basement prison of which the boyar Beklemishev’s tongue was once torn out.

His life's work was the search for the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible - a collection of books brought from Constantinople by the king's grandmother, the Byzantine princess Sophia Palaeologus. The scientist believed that the books were hidden somewhere in one of the many dungeons of the Kremlin or very close to it. Stelletsky died in 1949 without having found his Liberea. He was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, but the grave has not survived. His library and numerous records were lost. The scientist’s main work, “Dead Books in the Moscow Cache,” was published only in 1993.

Excavations in the Kremlin were carried out later, but their results were not advertised. In 1978, while digging a trench near the Grand Kremlin Palace, an underground room of about nine square meters with brick vaults was excavated, where a human skeleton lay. In the early 1980s, a 40-meter tunnel clogged with earth was excavated, the walls of which were decorated with multi-colored tiles.

In 1989, on the site where one of the churches of the blown-up Chudov Monastery used to stand, an ancient crypt was discovered. In a stone sarcophagus lay a human-sized wax doll, dressed in a military uniform. This was the burial place of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who died in 1905 in the explosion of a bomb thrown by Kalyaev. Since little was left of the body, a doll dressed in the uniform of Sergei Alexandrovich was placed in the sarcophagus, and the remains were collected in a vessel and placed at the head.

« Everywhere and everywhere, time and people have reduced dungeons to a state of, if not complete, then very great destruction. The Kremlin did not escape the common fate, and therefore one cannot delude oneself with the thought that it is enough to open one passage and it is already easy to pass through it under the entire Kremlin, if not under all of Moscow. In reality, traveling through underground Moscow is a race with obstacles, and very significant ones at that, the elimination of which will require great effort, time and money. But all this is nothing in comparison with the possible ideal result: cleaned, restored and illuminated by arc lamps, underground Moscow would reveal itself as an underground museum of scientific and any interest..."(I. Stelletsky)

Now Stelletsky’s dream has come true: there is such a museum! This is the Moscow Museum of Archeology on Manezhnaya Square. It is located underground at a depth of seven meters at the site of archaeological excavations from the nineties. The most remarkable part of the exhibition is the supports of the ancient Resurrection Bridge over the Neglinka from the time of Ivan the Terrible. In addition, the museum displays interesting artifacts discovered by archaeologists: objects of medieval life and weapons of Muscovites, a collection of tiles, valuable items from unclaimed treasures, religious objects from the necropolis of the Moiseevsky Monastery.

Maps and descriptions of underground Moscow began to be drawn up at the end of the 18th century. What is documented is mainly wells, the beds of rivers and streams collected in pipes, sewer collectors, that is, structures for purely utilitarian purposes.

The famous everyday life writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky spoke a lot about underground Moscow. The subject of his research was underground taverns and brothels, as well as the bed of the Neglinka River. These places were dirty in all respects, but Neglinka could generally be considered the Moscow analogue of the Roman sewer.

The first attempts to build a sewer system in Moscow were made back in the 14th century: then a canal was dug from the Kremlin to the ill-fated Neglinka to drain sewage.

The townspeople were supposed to pour sewage into cesspools, from where it was scooped out by sewage goldsmiths and transported in tubs further out of town. But the gold diggers had to be paid, so irresponsible townspeople constantly strove to dump the garbage somewhere out of sight or dig a canal under the house to drain all the dirt into the nearby river. This is how Neglinka and Samotek were completely ruined and the Yauza and Moskva Rivers were pretty much polluted: to avoid the stench, small rivers had to be blocked off with arches and taken underground.

In 1874, “Design drawings for the Moscow sewer system” were presented to the Moscow City Duma, which were discussed for a long time, but were never approved. The construction of the sewer network began only twenty years later, under the mayor Nikolai Alekseev, a man of vigorous activity and great intelligence. Since then, the sewerage system has been constantly being built and expanded, and today its total length is equal to the distance from Moscow to Novosibirsk. Those interested will be told more about the history of Moscow sewerage at the Water Museum in Krutitsy, located in the building of an ancient pumping station.

Museum visitors will not be taken to the sewer, but Gilyarovsky went down there and left us with a vivid description of what is underground. Having found two brave guides, Uncle Gilyay climbed into the fetid Moscow sewer through a hatch not far from Trubnaya Square. The underground channel was clogged with mud, and “something kept slipping under our feet.” What it was, Gilyarovsky was afraid to even think about, because once he himself witnessed how they tried to throw a still living, albeit stunned, person into the dirty and stinking waters of Neglinka. “What I’m saying is true: we go after people,” the guide confirmed his fears. A couple of years later, when clearing the riverbed, bones “similar to human” were actually found.

These unfortunates could have been drugged, robbed and killed in one of the underground taverns located right there, near modern Trubnaya Square. “...Deep in the ground, under the entire house between Grachevka and Tsvetnoy Boulevard, there was a huge basement floor, entirely occupied by one tavern, the most desperate place for bandits, where the criminal world had fun until it felt senseless...” The upper, “front” part of this tavern was called Hell, and the lower one is the Underworld. The police did not look here, there were no rounds, and they would not have led anywhere: under the house there were underground passages left over from the Mytishchi water supply system, built back in Catherine’s times, the above-ground parts of which (the Rostokinsky aqueduct and the Alekseevskaya water pump) are considered famous Moscow attractions.

« The story of the first attempt on the life of Alexander II on April 4, 1866 is connected with the “Hell” tavern. Here meetings took place at which a plan for an attack on the tsar was developed... The organizer and soul of the circle was student Ishutin, who stood at the head of the group, who lived in the house of the bourgeois Ipatova on Bolshoy Spassky Lane, in Karetny Ryad. After the name of the house, this group was called the Ipatovites. Here the idea of ​​regicide arose, unknown to other members of the “Organization”... Among them was Karakozov, who unsuccessfully shot the Tsar" (V. Gilyarovsky)

Moscow diggers love to travel along the Neglinka riverbed and along old sewers. Sometimes excursions are held to the safest places for extreme sports enthusiasts with good health and strong nerves.

Those who want to avoid extreme sports can also come into contact with the ancient Moscow sewer system, and they won’t even have to pay.

At the intersection of Pokrovka and Chistoprudny Boulevard there is an apartment building of the grain merchant F.S. Rakhmanov, built at the very end of the 19th century. On the side, behind the alley, there is a long and very steep staircase leading deep underground to the oldest toilet in Moscow.

This is the only surviving and still operating of the ten “retirads” opened simultaneously with the laying of the first stage of the Moscow sewer system.

Other Moscow dungeons with completely different purposes, previously secret, are also open to visitors. Bunker-42 on Taganka, located 60 meters underground, began construction in the early fifties and operated for 20 years. There were always 300–500 people here, air regeneration and purification systems, sewage systems and other amenities worked. The maximum capacity of the bunker is 3,000 people for three months. In the 80s, the bunker was abandoned, then bought by a commercial organization and turned into an excellent attraction. The tunnels with semicircular ceilings, lined with lead, the offices of the authorities, the desks of ordinary employees, and the conference room have been preserved. All rooms are decorated very simply, without frills. At one of the walls you can hear metro trains passing by - yes, the regular Moscow metro, which was also supposed to serve as a shelter in case of war.

The Izmailovsky bunker is more luxurious. It was intended for Stalin himself and for the country's top leadership. Its area is huge - 93 thousand square meters. m, troops and, as some say, even tanks could hide underground.

Part of this bunker serves as a museum. The round meeting room has excellent acoustics: a person standing in the center of the room can speak in a whisper, and the sound will spread throughout the room. It is said that to achieve this effect, empty clay vessels were built into the ceiling. This was done because the aging Stalin was physically unable to speak loudly. In his office there is a massive desk covered with green cloth, an armchair, and a bookcase. In other rooms there are display cases with exhibits from the forties.

The other part of the bunker, under the former Cherkizovsky market, is abandoned. Not long ago, a scandal broke out: it turned out that the old bomb shelter had been turned into an illegal cheap hotel, or rather a brothel. Soon the Cherkizovsky market was destroyed.

Legends claim that a tunnel led from the Izmailovsky bunker towards the Kremlin, which was last used during the storming of the White House and was blown up at the same time.

There is another bunker, smaller and not so deep, at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. It is located right in the building of the House of Peoples' Friendship. They claim that this building was also created for Stalin, but, according to archival information, no one used the bunker. There seems to be an underground passage leading from the bunker, which ends under the Lenin sculpture in front of the pavilion. That is why the sculpture has not yet been removed.

The capacity of the bunker is 300 people. There are rest rooms, extensive storage, an air filtration room, and an office for the General Secretary. The equipment allowed people to stay underground for two days. Until 1971, the bunker was regularly replenished with provisions and water.

This “museum” is under the protection of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and it takes 6 hours to bring it to a state of readiness.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief had another bunker, built in 1942 under the “Near Dacha” in Kuntsevo at a depth of 15–17 meters. Journalists were allowed in there several times, despite the fact that the bunker is still secret. The underground premises are in excellent condition, they are reliable and comfortable. The usual inconspicuous door leads there, the kind you can find in any entrance. A spacious office decorated with oak and Karelian birch, in which Joseph Stalin held meetings of the Defense Council, has been preserved. Next to him is his bedroom - a very small room with only a bed and a nightstand. Also underground there was a kitchen, a dining room and even a small diesel power station. According to rumors, one of the Metro-2 lines leads to this bunker.

There are also myths about other underground bunkers: in the Kremlin itself and in the Lubyanka. The most mysterious and “promoted” of them is the Sovetskaya metro station, located under Tverskaya Square. No one has been able to visit there, journalists are not allowed there, but nevertheless no one denies its existence. It is believed that its official name is “civil defense facility on Tverskaya Square.”

They claim that the same “civil defense facility” exists under the Chistye Prudy station (formerly Kirovskaya), where the General Staff was located during the war. They prove the existence of an entire underground city under the Ramenskoye district, designed for thousands of people. Allegedly, there is a direct line of the secret metro going there from the station “Biblioteka im. Lenin,” and in the event of a nuclear war, the country’s intellectual elite had to descend from the library halls to the secret station and go to the bomb shelter.

There is also one underground museum in Moscow, completely devoid of any sinister flair. It is located on Lesnaya Street under the sign “Wholesale trade of Caucasian fruits Kalandadze”. Official name museum - “Underground printing house 1905–1906.” In this apartment building, more than a hundred years ago there was a secret revolutionary printing house, and the store served as a cover. This museum is very small - two rooms, a kitchen and a basement, but quite interesting. The interiors of the premises have been completely restored and well illustrate the living conditions of poor Muscovites, and they lived, admittedly, modestly and crampedly, according to modern concepts- huddled together.

Under the store's warehouse in the basement of the house, a well was dug to drain groundwater, and another small cave was dug in its side wall, where there was a portable American printing press. The store was opened in the name of Mirian Kalandadze, a longshoreman from Batumi who had experience in trade and a “clean” reputation. There was actually no business going on, the store was unprofitable: fruits were brought from the Caucasus irregularly, therefore, if the police decided to look into Kalandadze’s trading affairs, everything would quickly come to light. However, the underground printing house operated very successfully - the police were never able to detect it, despite the fact that the police unit was located literally nearby, on the opposite side of the street, and there was a policeman’s post near the house itself. After working for a year, the printing house was liquidated and the front store was closed. The museum on this site was opened in 1924, and its organizers were the same revolutionary printers who once published a newspaper here.

MOSCOW REGION

Each of the fortified cities surrounding Moscow had underground defensive passages and “hiding places” - underground secret passages to water sources: Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great, Suzdal, Tver, Kaluga, Rzhev, Mozhaisk, Vereya, Volokolamsk, Przemysl, Tarusa, Kashira, Aleksin; Joseph-Volokolamsky, Nikolo-Berlyukovsky and Simonov monasteries in the Moscow region.

The Chernigov monastery is located three kilometers northeast of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in Sergiev Posad, on the northern shore of the eastern bay of the upper Korbushinsky pond. On the contrary, on south coast, there are buildings of the former Gethsemane monastery, which is much worse preserved.

In the past, in official documents, the Chernigov skete was called the “Cave Department of the Gethsemane Skete.” Legend dates its beginning to 1847, when the holy fool Philippushka, accepted by Metropolitan Philaret to live in the Lavra, began digging caves there. In fact, two years earlier, wooden cells were built in a grove on the northern shore of the bay, in one of which Philippushka probably settled.

The description of the Gethsemane monastery for 1899 says: “...Philip and his employees began to dig a small square hole, which he later began to expand, making underground corridors from it and in them separate small caves for cells; The middle large one was intended as a meeting place for cave dwellers for common prayer.” From 1849 to 1851, diggers, carpenters, and masons hired by the laurel already worked in the caves, turning the middle cave into a well-appointed chapel, which was a log structure buried in the ground, with windows cut into its upper part, protruding from the ground. The underground passages extending in different directions were turned into brick-lined vaulted underground corridors with the same vaulted small caves on the sides. In the fall of 1851, the cave chapel was consecrated as a temple in the name of the Ethereal Forces.

By the end of the 19th century, these caves were significantly expanded, and above them were built above-ground churches, first wooden, and at the end of the 19th century - stone. The monastery has turned into a fairly extensive complex in the Old Russian style. At the same time, the former middle cave of Filippushka turned into an altar, to which an extensive underground refectory with a vaulted ceiling was added from the west. South part returned to the monastery; in the north there is a boarding school for disabled children. Tours are available in the Cave Church.

During the recent restoration of the New Jerusalem Monastery, three underground passages were discovered, which, unfortunately, had already collapsed. They disperse from the monastery in different directions and at different distances. Due to the risk of collapses and mountains of debris inside, it was not possible to fully explore them. The moves are low, clearly intended for emergency situations, and not for everyday life. Only their entrances are accessible for inspection.

Russian landowners sometimes acquired underground passages in their estates. Usually these passages were laid at shallow depths and collapsed long ago or were deliberately filled up.

The Sviblovo estate on the Yauza has changed many owners: from Fyodor Shvibla, the governor of Dmitry Donskoy, to the merchant Ivan Kozhevnikov, who built a cloth factory on the other bank of the river. However, he was not the first industrialist here: a hundred years earlier, an associate of Peter I, Kirill Naryshkin, built a brick house, a church, a malt factory and a cookery here. It is difficult to say which of the owners laid the underground passage from the estate to the very bank of the Yauza, especially since not so long ago it was filled in during the renovation of the estate.

The existence of the passage in Sviblovo is documented, but in many cases we are forced to be content with only rumors.

In the village of Avdotino, Stupino district, some buildings have been preserved old manor, in the 18th century belonged to the famous educationalist-mason Nikolai Novikov. He created the first private printing house in Russia and aroused the wrath of Empress Catherine II with his bold satires. The empress can be understood: she was frightened by the terrible events of the French Revolution. By her order, Novikov was arrested and taken to the Shlisselburg fortress without trial. Paul I granted him freedom, but Novikov, deprived of his health and fortune, did not live long.

Legends have been preserved about the secret passages and underground halls for Masonic meetings he dug in Avdotino. One of the passages allegedly led to the neighboring Trinity-Lobanovo, which belonged to the Volkonskys. They searched for these passages for a long time, but never found them.

Many legends about underground passages are also associated with the preserved estate in the village of Voronovo, located on the old Kaluga road. It is believed that the first passage was dug from the main manor house to the stone church built in 1709. At the end of the 18th century, General Artemy Vorontsov built a luxurious palace with a horse yard on the estate and laid out a park with picturesque stone pavilions. A new tunnel was made from the palace to the equestrian yard, through which a horse could pass, and secret galleries were built to gazebos and other buildings.

But in 1812, all this was burned: the next owner, Moscow Governor-General Rostopchin, himself set fire to his house so that Napoleon would not get it. Several eyewitnesses testify to this, and the Napoleonic general noted in his diary that he found in Voronovo only ashes and a note pinned to the gate: “I set fire to my palace, which cost me a million...”

However, the count’s act caused not admiration among his compatriots, but horror: too many valuables were destroyed in vain by him. In addition, the owners of estates who suffered from Napoleon could claim some compensation from the Russian government, but Rostopchin, who burned down his palace himself, clearly did not fall into this category. Then the general began to deny it and claim that it was not he himself who burned his house, but the enemy. But they didn’t believe him, and rumors spread that the count had not suffered as much as he was trying to prove, and that he had prudently taken his treasures into the dungeon and hid them there until better times. The Count denied the accusations and pointedly did not return to Voronovo.

A hundred years later, history repeated itself: the last owner of Voronov, Countess Sheremeteva, frightened by the events of the February Revolution, left the estate without luggage. But the Bolsheviks did not find any particularly valuable things in the estate. Where did they go?

During excavations on the territory of the estate, researchers discovered several wide tunnels blocked by rubble. Some valuable objects, mostly metal, were also discovered in these underground passages. Hopes that the paintings would one day be found had long since evaporated: the paintings would not have survived two hundred years in the underground dampness.

120 kilometers from Moscow, in the city of Alexandrov, there was a country palace of Ivan the Terrible. Here tourists will be told about the morals and customs of the king. About how he married eight times, and sent his unloved wives to monasteries or killed them. How he fed the fish in the pond with the corpses of his enemies, and how fatty and tasty the fish served to the royal table was. They will show the underground casemates where the unfortunate prisoners were tortured, and other, more peaceful, but also underground rooms where food supplies were stored. Suffering from persecution mania, Ivan the Terrible loved dungeons, and even the royal bedchambers were built underground for the sake of safety. Tourists are shown these rooms: carved beds, carpets, embroidered bedspreads and no windows.

On the banks of the Pakhra River there is an extensive system of caves, both natural and artificial. Usually the Nikitsky quarries and a large group of Novlensky caves are distinguished, among which are the Syanovsky quarries, Kiseli, Novo-Syanovsky, Pionersky and others. The length of the underground labyrinth is very large, and it is believed that some of the caves were dug back in the days of Ancient Rus' for the extraction of limestone.

On weekends, the Syans are visited by dozens and even hundreds of people. The entrance to the dungeon is nicknamed the Cat's Eye. The passages and halls of the quarries are also assigned original titles: Milky, Pike, Venus's hole - a woman with a good figure fits perfectly into it.

At the entrance to the quarries there is a notebook - a log of visits, where you definitely need to check in when going down, and then again when leaving the caves. It is strictly forbidden to litter underground, let alone light fires. Flashlights should be pointed downwards and not in the faces of oncoming people.

Nikitsky quarries are another cave system of enormous length, discovered in the mid-fifties. Currently, some of the caves are equipped for excursions. The system has many halls and passages with enticing names: Wet Galleries, Ezhovaya, Chicken and Dokhlomyshinaya; the Commander's Hall, the Drunken Drummer Lake, Chagall's Well... Some caves are considered an anomalous zone.

SAINT PETERSBURG

Despite the fact that St. Petersburg is a city in a swamp, its oldest underground passage is almost the same age as the city itself. It was dug in the Sovereign Bastion Peter and Paul Fortress at the beginning of the 18th century during the reconstruction of the original wood-earth fortress into a stone one and is located in the thickness of the sloped outer wall for the safe movement of the fortress garrison from the left flank of the bastion to the right.

It is a tunnel 97 meters long and about two meters wide. The brick walls and vaults were not painted or plastered. 25 embrasures were made in the outer wall; in the 19th century, during the repair of the wall, they were filled in.

The fortress was never used for defense purposes, so the underground passage served as a storage room, and then it was completely filled up, discovered only in the fifties of the 20th century when laying a heating main.

The restoration of the postern and the casemate with which it is connected was a gift from the Kingdom of the Netherlands for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. The underground passage is now open to the public.

Another tunnel was built in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress, but it was also filled up and has not yet been dug up.

There are other historical dungeons in St. Petersburg. Under Truda Square (Blagoveshchenskaya Square) there is an underground part of the Kryukov Canal, hidden in a sewer back in the early 1840s. This underground tunnel with granite walls and brick vaults was considered one of the most sinister St. Petersburg slums and was described in the novel of the same name by Vsevolod Krestovsky: bandits took refuge and hid their loot there. The authorities took action, and in the 1870s the entrance to the canal from the Neva was closed with a grate and filled up.

However, in the spring of 1912, the soil in the square began to sag, and then a huge hole appeared - the arches of the Kryukov Canal collapsed. Having dismantled the already rusted lattice, the engineers sailed on a raft through the smelly underground waters and found that the structure was completely dilapidated. Then the canal was completely filled up and forgotten about. Only in the 1990s, when an underground passage was being built on Truda Square, did builders stumble upon the remains of a stone vault. The unique relic was preserved and made part of the design of the modern passage.

This concludes the list of explored and studied dungeons of the Northern capital. Most underground rooms are visited only by enthusiastic diggers. Shuvalovsky Park acquired such a gloomy reputation after two teenagers were buried in a dungeon under Mount Parnassus in 1988, and only one of them was saved. According to diggers, there is an extensive dungeon system under the park. Whether these are the secret passages of the former owner of these places, the freemason Count Shuvalov, or fortifications from the times of the First and Second World Wars, it is difficult to say: after the tragic incident they did not begin to examine them, but simply filled the entrances with soil.

They say that under the Alexander Nevsky Lavra there is a whole labyrinth of small rooms connected by narrow passages. They probably originally served as a monastery prison, and were later abandoned. Now they are partially flooded by the waters of the Monastyrka River, and their entrances are walled up for safety. The diggers nevertheless entered the monastery’s dungeon through one of the crypts at the Nikolskoye cemetery and discovered weapons and grenades from the Civil War.

Mikhailovsky Castle was built in less than three years on the site Summer Palace Elizabeth Petrovna by special order of Paul I. For forty days the castle was considered the residence of the emperor. Pavel was very concerned about his safety, so he wanted the castle to be surrounded on all sides by water. For this purpose, artificial canals were specially dug, and drawbridges were thrown across them. According to legend, in case of a sudden escape from the castle, several underground passages were dug, which the emperor could use in case of danger. But he did not have time to do this, but on the contrary: according to one version, it was through the underground passage that the conspirators who killed Paul entered the Mikhailovsky Castle.

In the neighboring Summer Garden there also seem to be underground passages dug on the orders of Peter I. For a long time it was believed that they were destroyed long ago, but during the work to restore the Summer Garden after the flood of 1924, an entrance to a deep underground was discovered near the Coffee House, from which there was a high and rather wide tunnel with brick walls. He led to a small vaulted hall, from which there were passages towards the Campus Martius and to the opposite side of the Fontanka River. It was not possible to pass through them: after ten meters the path was blocked by strong iron bars. The tunnels were examined, described and... backfilled. Since then they have not been found.

After the outbreak of World War I, an angry crowd stormed the German embassy and carried out a pogrom there. However, of the employees, only the gatekeeper who did not leave his post was injured; the rest were simply not in the building: by some unknown means they managed to escape. Then information surfaced about the existence of an underground passage between the German embassy and the neighboring Astoria Hotel, because both buildings were built by the same company. Nicholas II solved the problem wisely by ordering the confiscation of the hotel and the adjacent plot in favor of the treasury.

They say that there is an old bunker near Smolny that can withstand even an atomic bomb. During World War II, it served as a command post. A bunker was also built under the park of the Forestry Academy during the war, but now it is flooded, just like most of all bomb shelters from the war.

Enthusiastic researchers claim that there are underground passages in almost all central regions St. Petersburg. The entrances to the catacombs were noticed in the 30s on the street. Zodchego Rossi, on the square. Ostrovsky, on the Fontanka embankment. It is possible that in the Sennaya Square area there are several tiers of underground structures. These connecting and intersecting basements stretch from Nevsky Prospect to Lermontovsky. According to rumors, there is an underground passage in one of the houses on the Fontanka, which once belonged to Platon Zubov. This house is famous for its “rotunda” - an entrance with six columns and a spiral staircase. Legends say that there are underground passages and hiding places under Menshikov’s palace; it is believed that the disgraced favorite hid his untold wealth there.

Litovsky Prospekt has long been a hub of thieves' dens and dens. There was a whole complex of underground structures: basements, cellars, underground taverns and brothels, connected by secret passages. Unfortunately, these places are mainly explored by diggers, not scientists. There are many interesting finds - gramophones, porcelain figurines, thieves' tools... Some hope to find the legendary treasures of Lenka Panteleev there.

There is a legend that the FSB building on Liteiny Prospekt has multi-story basements with terrible torture chambers, boxes for medical experiments, and even a brothel for employees. But this is unlikely: the Neva is too close.

The atmosphere of these semi-mythical and unexplored dungeons is recreated by the “Horrors of St. Petersburg” museum, which is actually located on the surface. But another museum - “The World of Water of St. Petersburg” - is partially located underground. It talks about the history of water supply and sewerage in St. Petersburg and arouses delight among children and great interest among adults.

SURROUNDINGS OF ST. PETERSBURG

Catherine II built the Gatchina Palace as a gift to her favorite Grigory Orlov, but then their relationship underwent changes, and Orlov was forbidden to approach St. Petersburg, and Catherine bought Gatchina and gave it to her son, the future Emperor Paul I. Tradition associates his name with the creation of the Gatchina underground passage palace, although the documents say otherwise: the underground passage was built simultaneously with the palace itself.

There is a version that it was this underground passage that Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky used when escaping from sailors in 1917.

He actually mentioned in his memoirs that a palace employee came to him and indicated that he knew a secret, unknown underground passage that opened into the park outside the walls of this palace-fortress. But judging by his further words, he himself hastily fled some other way, and several of his people came out through an underground passage.

You can go down into the 130-meter-long underground passage directly from the state rooms on the second floor. In the wall of the front bedroom there is a secret door to a dark, narrow spiral staircase leading to the lower floor to the emperor's dressing room, and then to the palace cellars.

This passage was not secret; on the contrary, the passage and basements of the palace were used to entertain guests. Thanks to good acoustics, the echo here repeats up to four syllables, and visitors to the Gatchina Palace were entertained by special “chants”. Because of this, the exit from the tunnel to the shore of Silver Lake was called the Echo Grotto. The most famous of the ancient “chants” are “What flower is not afraid of frost?! - Rose!”, “What was the name of the first maiden?! - Eva!”, “Who stole the clamps?! - You!". The guides say that once upon a time a horse harness was hung along the walls of the tunnel, and then for some reason it was removed. For some reason, the little Grand Duchess ran there and, seeing the emptiness on the walls, exclaimed in bewilderment: “Who stole the clamps?” “You!.. You!.. You!..” echoed the echo.

A popular question among tourists is: “Who ruled us?!” - Paul!" They say that the echo repeats the name of the ill-fated emperor up to 30 times!

However, you should not abuse the patience of the underground echo - you can inadvertently awaken the ghost of Paul I himself. Thus, in the memoirs of the daughter of the chief keeper of the palace, a case is described when, in the mid-twenties, while walking with a friend, she wandered into the grotto and loudly shouted the name Paul. In response, from the darkness came: “He’s dead!” The girls ran in horror; it never occurred to them that someone could be playing a joke on them.

According to unverified information, there is another underground passage that connected the Gatchina Palace with the Priory Palace. While strengthening the foundation of the palace, the restorers actually came across an underground passage leading towards the reservoirs, but were only able to walk along it for about a hundred meters.

On the Oredezh River, near the village of Rozhdestveno, Gatchina Region, not far from the Siversky Canyon there are the Holy Cave and the Holy Spring. The area there is very beautiful: steep banks, hills, huge boulders, clear springs, beautiful forests, flowering meadows... Fossils of the Paleozoic era are often found in these places. The cave, nicknamed the Saint, apparently served as a place of worship since ancient times. In the 15th century there was a temple above it. It has long disappeared, but still, underground waters sometimes bring crosses, chains, and coins to the surface. There are many legends associated with this cave: they say that a whole network of underground tunnels radiates from it. Many people notice in her strange glow or human figures. Such caves are not uncommon in the Leningrad region. In the Slantsevsky district, near the village of Zaruchye, on the banks of the Dolgaya River, at the foot of the mountain there is a Monashka cave. Once upon a time a church was built over the cave, but it was blown up. The cave itself is half-filled and you can only walk about fifteen meters.

But the dungeons of Peterhof are not at all mysterious, although very interesting. There is an excursion “Secrets of the Peterhof Fountains” - tourists are led through dark, ominous-looking underground aqueduct passages, where the intricate mechanics of the famous fountains and their unique gravity water supply system are located. Tourists are shown the working adits under the grottoes of the Grand Cascade, the chambers under the “Favoritny” and “Basket” fountains, and turn on the “Water Road” for them. And visitors are allowed to turn the joke fountain “Sofa” on and off themselves, pouring water on those walking above. Special engines regulate the height of the fountain jets.

There is also a legendary unexplored dungeon in Peterhof - this is an underground passage under Olga's pond. They say that one of its exits is on the island where there is a cottage for the friends of Nicholas I, and the other is in the basements of the Great Peterhof Cathedral.

40 kilometers from St. Petersburg is the town of Sablino, in the vicinity of which there are a lot of attractions: two waterfalls, ancient mounds, the site of Alexander Nevsky before the battle with the Swedes, the former estate of Count A.K. Tolstoy, as well as more than ten caves. The largest of them - “Levoberezhnaya” - is open only to organized groups of visitors: the total length of its passages is five and a half kilometers, and a “wild” tourist can easily get lost. The entrance to it is located near the bridge over the Tosna River. The cave has three underground lakes, quite deep and extensive, several large beautiful halls with unusual names - Two-Eyed, Cosmic, Columned, Jubilee, Little Red Riding Hood and others. The walls of the caves are made of white and red sandstone, and the vaults are partly made of greenish limestone. Stalactites hang from the ceiling, and the floor is covered with spherical formations - “cave pearls”. Those who want to tickle their nerves can squeeze through the Cat's Hole. This can only be done while lying down, pressing your hands to your body. Even in summer, you need to dress warmly for this excursion: it is always +8 degrees in the cave.

Hundreds of bats hibernate in the Sablinsky Caves. This is the largest population in the region. You cannot touch them or even illuminate them with bright light, since a mouse awakened in winter dies of hunger.

In 2005, on the day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, a chapel was consecrated in the Left Bank Cave. It serves to perpetuate the memory of fallen travelers - geographers, geologists, polar explorers, speleologists, climbers, who gave their lives in the name of serving science.

The Taitsky water pipeline is a gravity water supply system for Tsarskoe Selo, built in 1773–1787 under the leadership of the military engineer Baur, the same one who built the first Mytishchi water supply system in Moscow.

The Taitsky water conduit consisted of open (about five kilometers) and underground (slightly less than four kilometers) canals with storage ponds and grottoes. The water came from the Hannibal or Soninsky springs. It was originally made of wood, but twenty years later it was rebuilt in stone. This water supply system supplied water to the entire population of Tsarskoe Selo, Sofia and Pavlovsk, the palace itself and all the park fountains until 1905, when the new Oryol water supply system was launched. By that time, the condition of the water pipeline was already critical, and soon it completely failed. Currently, only fragments of it can be seen.

In the city of Vsevolozhsk at the fork in the road Ladoga lake and Koltushi the Rumbolovskaya Mountain rises. In front of it, a monument-stele was erected, decorated with oak and laurel leaves: the “Road of Life” began from Rumbolovskaya Mountain.

Fans of underground travel claim that the entire Rumbolovskaya Mountain is dug with passages created in time immemorial. They lead quite far, connecting with the Koltush quarries, located a good ten kilometers from Vsevolozhsk. Their center is a deep and wide well in the so-called Red Castle on the top of the mountain - a medieval building that became the basis for the Vsevolozhsky estate. The estate burned down long ago, but the ancient walls still stand. According to local legends, the Red Castle with extensive basements was erected by order of the outstanding Swedish commander Pontus Delagardie, who participated in the Livonian War.

The Demidov estate is located in the village of Nikolskoye, Gatchina district, on the banks of the Sivorka River. At the beginning of the 20th century, the estate was bought by the St. Petersburg Zemstvo to establish a psychoneurological hospital there. The founder of the hospital was the outstanding psychiatrist Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko. The hospital still operates in the estate. During recent renovations, a network of underground passages between the outbuildings of the estate was discovered. They were laid at a shallow depth and therefore fell into complete disrepair.

Vyborg is located 130 kilometers northwest of St. Petersburg. Vyborg Castle was founded by the Swedes in 1293. In the 13th century, its watchtower was considered the highest dungeon in Scandinavia at that time. The thickness of the fortress walls was one and a half to two meters, and the thickness of the tower walls was four meters. The Novgorodians made more than once attempts to take the castle by storm, but were unsuccessful.

In the 15th century, the viceroy of the Swedish king spent a lot of time and effort decorating the fortress so that it would become a source of pride for him. In the middle of the next century, the famous Queen Christina and King Gustav Vasa visited here. In those days, Vyborg Castle was considered impregnable and majestic. He served the Swedes for another fifteen years, and in 1710, after a long siege, he finally surrendered to the Russians. From the second half of the 18th century, the castle began to be used as a prison and garrison premises. Here, in particular, some Decembrists were kept. At the end of the 19th century, the castle was repaired and significantly reconstructed, preserving only the external medieval façade. This is how the castle has survived to this day.

The castle has an underground passage to the river, Matveeva Yama, built in the early 1560s. At the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were made to explore it, but in the thirties the passage was walled up. Part of it was used for the pipeline.

Ivangorod and the fortress of the same name are located 147 kilometers from St. Petersburg. In 1492, in a bend of the Narva River on a hill opposite the Livonian castle, on the instructions of Ivan III, a small fortress was founded to protect against the Livonians and Swedes, but just four years later it was captured by the Swedes. Having recaptured the fortress, the Russians repaired it, expanded it, and by the beginning of the 16th century Ivangorod became narrower powerful fortification. On the contrary, on the other bank of the Narva River, the Livonians built their fortress - Narva, or otherwise Herman's Castle (in this case Herman is not a person, but the most high tower fortresses).

Ivangorod took part in hostilities many times, changed hands, was blown up, and then rebuilt again. Even now, as in ancient times, the border with Estonia runs along the Narva River, and a border regime operates in the fortress. Opposite Ivangorodskaya, Herman's Castle still stands.

Azure-fire from the underground Nature often preserves for us amazing echoes of the past. For centuries, and sometimes for thousands of years, it keeps traces ancient man until his descendants deliberately or accidentally find them and read from them about their deeds

From the book Historical Secrets of the Russian Empire author Mozheiko Igor

NEVIANSK DUNGEONS. EMPIRE OF THE DEMIDOVS Today from Yekaterinburg to Nevyansk is two hours by train. And once upon a time it took a day to get there along a good road. Nevyansk was the capital of the industrial kingdom of the Demidovs. Its founder, Akinfiy Demidov, fell in love with Peter the Great, who

author Burlak Vadim Nikolaevich

“WHEN THE DUNGEONS CLOSE, THE PEOPLE WILL GO MADNESS...” The missing map The Bolshevik government paid special attention to the Moscow dungeons in the spring of 1918. The leaders of the Extraordinary Commission and the police reported to the Soviet government about the danger emanating from the depths

From the book Moscow underground author Burlak Vadim Nikolaevich

Green-eyed avenger from the dungeon As green as two stars flare up in a row, Lock the gates and let out the fierce dogs. And in the hut many candles were lit, Don’t look outside the gate, fear creeps in, And that fear comes to torment Ivan Vasilyevich, And that fear is the black cat

From the book 1953. Deadly games author Prudnikova Elena Anatolyevna

From the book History of Russia in the biographies of its main figures. Second department author

From the book 100 Great Treasures author Ionina Nadezhda

Treasures of an Ancient Dungeon In 871, Yi Zong, the eighteenth emperor of the Tang dynasty that ruled China, ordered the holy relics of Buddha Sakyamuni to be transferred from Famen Temple to Changan, the then capital of the country, located about 100 kilometers from the temple. Chinese

From the book The State of the Incas. Glory and death of the sons of the sun author Stingle Miloslav

III. “The Navel of the World” Guaman Poma de Ayala’s illustrated narrative of the Inca Empire and its culture, so to speak, the oldest “comic” in the world, includes an extensive text part. From it you can find out what the Incas told about the first inhabitants of the country who lived here before

From the book Continent of Eurasia author Savitsky Petr Nikolaevich

TWO WORLDS IEurasianism contains the seed of the desire for general philosophical truth. But in relation to Eurasianism, another question is also legitimate and understandable: the question of the relationship of the developed circle of thoughts to the rapidly flowing, boiling stream of modernity. At this turn

From the book The Fifth Angel Sounded author Vorobyovsky Yuri Yurievich

Avdotya dungeons And now several years have passed. Together with Vladimir Ivanovich Novikov, we go to the former estate of Novikov - Nikolai Ivanovich. My companion, a historian of noble estates, culture, and everyday life of the 18th century, knows his way around Avdotino perfectly.

From the book Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi ideology author Goodrick-Clark Nicholas

Descent into the “dungeons of history” (announcement of the series) With the book “The Occult Roots of Nazism” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, the publishing house “Eurasia” opens a series under the general title “Dungeons of History”. What is behind this? Another attempt at commercial exploitation of secrets,

From the book Treasures and Relics of the Romanov Era author Nikolaev Nikolay Nikolaevich

8. Amber light from the dungeon People who study the mystery of the disappearance of the Amber Room probably know the name of Arseny Vladimirovich Maximov. He was one of the first officers of the Red Army who came into close contact with this history in 1945 when our troops entered

From the book Strategies for Happy Couples author Badrak Valentin Vladimirovich

Coming from the Soviet underground Rebellion of spirit and passion for original, independent and purely individual creativity were equally inherent in both Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya. Each of them went through their own thorny path of becoming a person, and in general their success

From the book Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. Second department author Kostomarov Nikolay Ivanovich

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From the book How America Became a World Leader author Galin Vasily Vasilievich

Remnant: From the Ashes is a co-op 3rd person shooter with a procedurally generated world that encourages players to play through it multiple times. Each new playthrough of the campaign results in a new set of dungeons that players can explore in different worlds. To help you find and complete these locations, we decided to publish this small guide.

Helpful Notes:

• The land is divided into four main levels: the area of ​​the city before the church (city area #1), the Church, the area of ​​​​the city after the church (city area #2) and the Guardian Tower. Both the Church and the Guardian Tower are fixed locations, as they are connected to the storyline.
• City District #1 will always have the following layout: one dungeon with a mini-boss (Shadow/Ripper), one dungeon without a boss and a Subway.
• City District #2 will always have the following layout: one mini-boss dungeon, one non-boss dungeon, and a world boss.
• You can determine the type of dungeon you are entering by examining its passage. Each dungeon has a unique environment, which directly affects its passage.

Earth Dungeons with Bosses

A total of six bosses can be encountered on Earth. Of these six, four are encountered in dungeons, and two are world enemies. In one playthrough, you may well encounter two dungeon bosses and one world boss.

• Sunken Passage (Sewer Entrance): Go through this to reach another area called the Grinder. Here you will face a boss called the Ripper.
• Hidden Sanctuary (Sewer Passage): Go through this area to reach an area called the Infested Well. A boss called Shadow lives here.
• Thug Canal (Sewer Passage): This is the bandit area. Go through it to reach the Depot. Here you will encounter a boss named Brabus. You can exchange his pocket watch for bandit armor.
• Tangled Passage (crack-shaped passage): Go through this to reach an area called "Artery". The Shredder lives here.
• Choking Hollow (Tunnel Passage): This area contains the World Boss, Ent.
• Ash Yard (tunnel passage): This area contains the world boss, Scorcher.

Dungeons of Earth without bosses

In these locations you will have to complete various tasks to unlock useful items. These dungeons typically include stages where the heroes are required to fend off multiple waves of enemies.

• Hidden Grotto (Sewer Passage): Receive the Hunter's Key from the appropriate character at the checkpoint at the beginning of the dungeon. Then enter the dungeon and go through it to reach a locked door. Open it with the key you received earlier and take all the valuables, including the Huntress Pistol.
• Garbage (Sewer Passage): This location is home to an NPC called the Mad Merchant. You can trade with him without mentioning his mask. If you keep talking about the object on his face, he will attack you. Kill him to get the Wicker Mask. Then talk to Weeping Tree to unlock the Woodskin talent.
• Subway: This is a story-driven dungeon that you will definitely have to go down into. You must go through it in order to get to the Root Mother in the Church.
• Field of Sorrow (Crack Passage): There are no quest items in this dungeon, and it ends at a dead-end checkpoint.
• Warren (Crack Passage): Go through the new area to reach "Land's End". Help the two Lisas defend themselves from the upcoming attack by the Roots.
• Gallows (tunnel passage): You will need to survive waves of enemies while waiting for the metamorphosis to occur. Once you complete the quest, you will be able to interact with the Root Temple to create a set of Chain Armor.
• Bone Pass (Sewer Passage): Find and talk to the cultist to receive the Crown Root. Once this is done, destroy the two Root Nodes and then kill the cultist to receive the Ring of Braided Thorns.
• Monkey Key: A dungeon with a locked door that can be opened with a monkey key.

This is the entire list of dungeons you can visit on Earth while playing through Remnant: From the Ashes. Let us note once again that you will not be able to visit them all at once.

Mines and voids in earth's crust, cave complexes and man-made tunnels, rock settlements found all over the planet, directly or indirectly, but still confirm the existence of an underground civilization.

In 1970, an American satellite photographed something strange near the North Pole. A strange hole was visible under the clouds. The image has undergone thousands of examinations. Scientists are still arguing about what this “hole” is, but there is no unanimous opinion. One of the opinions has become the most popular: this “hole” is an opening in the Earth leading to the inner world of our planet. Moreover, there is an assumption that this world is still inhabited today.

Mentions of underground civilization can be found in myths different nations. Very often in ancient mythologies there are stories about the existence of a certain underground civilization, which is very similar in its description to Agharti. In Hindu mythology, this is the underground kingdom where supernatural beings live who oppose the heavenly gods. Unlike hell, this world is described as a most beautiful place, a kind of underground paradise made of gold and precious stones.

There are a lot of supporters and opponents of the existence of underground life. Neither side has yet achieved any major victory to back up their case.

In 1976, an experiment was carried out: twelve military men were placed in the Czechoslovakian Krksona cave in order to be able to study the behavior of a group of people who were in absolute isolation from the outside world. People were provided with a full life with intellectual and physical activities. Everything that happened in the cave was bugged.

By the end of the fifth month of their underground life, the military began to report to the top that someone was constantly talking to them. Scientists, deciding that the soldiers began to have auditory hallucinations, did not attach any significance to this. But very soon the experimental military men began to talk among themselves about some underground city to which someone was inviting them to move.

On the one hundred and seventy-third day of the experiment, the soldiers unexpectedly cut off all power and communication wires. A group of speleologists and military specialists was immediately sent down into the cave to stop the experiment and evacuate people. But when they came down, they were simply amazed. They found only one sergeant who was in the deepest depression. And the rest of the experiment participants disappeared somewhere. To this day, what happened to them remains a mystery: did the strong-willed military volunteers go crazy and disappear in the numerous passages of this ancient cave, or did they really move to the mentioned underground city...

For the first time, an underground people unknown to mankind was mentioned in 1946. This happened when scientist, writer and journalist Richard Shaver wrote in the American magazine " Amazing stories”, dedicated to everything paranormal, spoke about his contact with aliens, but not flying from the Universe, but living with us, underground.

According to him, Shaver spent several weeks in the underworld among mutants similar to demons. This is how ancient legends and tales of many nationalities describe them. One can, of course, attribute the story of such a “contact” to the scientist’s wild imagination, it would be possible, if not for one thing... The editors began to receive hundreds of responses from readers who not only claimed that they themselves had visited underground cities, communicating with their inhabitants, but and saw such miracles of technology that provide the underground inhabitants of the Earth with a very comfortable existence in the depths of its bowels. Moreover, these technical miracles make it possible underground inhabitants control the consciousness of earthlings.

This story, surprisingly, had very “turbulent” consequences, having a huge impact on scientists and giving impetus to the study of this paranormal phenomenon.

However, the fact that our planet is an empty sphere was asserted in their works by the seventeenth-century English astronomer Edmund Halley, writers such as Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe and many others. Moreover, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the United States considered the possibility of mounting a secret scientific expedition that would try to find out whether our planet was truly a hollow sphere, and how its depths could be penetrated.

The Third Reich was also interested in the mysterious underground world. So, back in 1942, under the patronage of Himmler and Goering, and in an atmosphere of great secrecy, a very impressive expedition, which included the most advanced scientists of National Socialist Germany, set out to look for this underground civilization. It was assumed that the “home” of super-developed ancient peoples was located under the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea.

German scientists seriously hoped to place fundamentally new radar devices underground in order to get closer to the goal of world domination. It is not known how this adventure ended, but already in the second half of the last century, the hypothesis of an underground civilization suddenly began to be confirmed.

In 1963, two American miners David Fellin and Henry Thorne, while digging a tunnel, discovered a huge door behind which they saw marble stairs going down. Already in England, just a few years later, miners digging an underground tunnel also recorded the clanging and grinding of working mechanisms coming from below. When the rock mass was broken through, stairs leading to an underground well were again discovered. At the same time, the noise of the operating mechanisms immediately intensified. Frightened to death, the workers ran away, and when they returned to this place with help, they could no longer find either an entrance made in the rock mass, or an underground well, or a staircase.

The research of anthropologist James McKenna, who examined a strange cave in the American state of Idaho, which was notorious among the indigenous population, also aroused great interest. McKen and his companion, having walked several hundred meters along a wide cave corridor, suddenly clearly heard screams and moans. But what happened next was even more interesting. They soon saw terrible finds - human skeletons. Unfortunately, further research in the cave, which in these places was considered the gateway to the underworld, had to be stopped immediately: the smell of sulfur made many people feel sick.

Several years ago, a discovery was made in Ufa that contradicts the traditional idea of ​​human history. We are talking about the sensational map of Chuvyrov. In June 2002, in many ways mass media a message appeared that in Bashkiria, in the abandoned village of Chandar, a very ancient stone slab was found, on which, using technologies available only to highly developed civilizations, a three-dimensional map of the region of the entire Southern Urals was made.

A hypothesis immediately appeared that this plate was a fragment of a much more complete, three-dimensional image - a map of our entire planet Earth. When the mysterious find of Professor Chuvyrov was studied by scientists from the Center for Historical Cartography of the American state of Wisconsin, a unanimous conclusion was made: it was undoubtedly a map, but what’s interesting is that it was created for navigation. According to scientists, it is difficult to imagine its use for any other purpose. The creators of the map, according to not only ours, but also American scientists, had the ability to fly. Moreover, they even flew in orbits that went beyond the planetary atmosphere. The second layer of the image draws the underground part of the area, its underground relief. The result of the discovery was incredible: a map was found in Bashkiria that depicted the above-ground and underground worlds as a civilization many times technologically superior to ours.

Geologists do not share the theory of a cavity inside the Earth, but they also do not deny the possibility of the existence of huge hollow spaces there. It is incredible that people for whom this map was compiled could live there, because the temperature inside the Earth is quite high, there is little oxygen and is full of gases that are incompatible with the possibility of life. All this prompted researchers to hypothesize that the underground civilization may have had extraterrestrial origin.

But here a paradox arises: if our planet is still hollow, then why has the entrance to the underworld not been discovered? A group of scientists from the USA suggests that underground cities, although they exist..., but in the fourth dimension. And only when the electromagnetic field of the planet changes from time to time, the entrances to the tunnels suddenly open on its surface, and at other times they are closed.

Most likely, it was precisely for the purpose of recording the entrance to such underground cities that many religious buildings such as Stonehenge arose, the purpose of which scientists are still puzzling over; it was for this purpose that the map that Chuvyrov found was compiled. And if we really lean toward the hypothesis that some intelligent race lives in the depths of planet Earth, then many mysterious phenomena find their explanations...

Bunkers, dungeons, hiding places... Deep underground fortresses and vast cave cities. The flickering lights of a modern shopping center and the gray walls of the prehistoric corridors of the pyramids. Salvation from nuclear war or death from the curse of the pharaohs. Heaps of bones in the catacombs and crowds of people in the subway. Bright light and hectic work in a secret laboratory or darkness and silence in ancient cave temples. The cries of heretics in the dungeons of the Inquisition and the bloody showdowns of youth gangs in the basements. Such is the world of dungeons - man-made and full of secrets.

Although dungeons are man-made, they are often more dangerous than natural caves. Here pipes with boiling water burst, booby traps explode, or floors collapse and spikes pop up in secret passages. Maniacs routinely butcher victims in dark corners, and adherents of secret sects eliminate random witnesses. Technical power does not guarantee complete protection from natural forces: in the dungeons, a vault collapse, flooding with groundwater, or a breakthrough of poisonous gas from the bowels of the planet can occur. But there are many more mysteries in the dungeons of ancient civilizations than in ordinary natural caves.

Communal horrors

Under any modern city a whole underground world is hidden - a network of tunnels with life support systems. Additionally, under each house there is a basement - concrete catacombs. Rusty pipes and wheel valves, dusty light bulbs and wires. Despite the external banality, a walk through man-made dungeons is not safe. When funds for repairs ran out, many dungeons fell into disrepair, and communications in them wore out. Now old pipes can burst at any second, dousing a person with boiling water from a hot water supply or superheated steam from a heating plant. Power wires with insulation that has crumbled over time spark and threaten with electric shock. Burst sewer pipes fill the catacombs with thick brown liquid. Leaks from gas pipes are invisible, but the slightest spark is enough to cause an explosion.

Many dungeons were built with economy rather than ease of maintenance in mind. Therefore, in many catacombs you have to squeeze sideways in narrow corridors or duck under a concrete lintel in doorways. Most passages are clogged with pipes and wires, leaving very little free space. City dungeons are stuffy, dirty and often smelly. The water in the pipes flows noisily, constantly reminding you of the danger of breakthrough and flooding.

Abandoned city basements are often favored by criminal elements, so there is a chance to film a horror film with yourself in the leading role. Basements also become home for homeless people. The smell of rotten food from garbage dumps and laundry that has not been washed for a long time complements the picture of a thick layer of dirt, cobwebs and dust. But in city dungeons flies, rats, cockroaches, spiders and other living creatures such as woodlice and caterpillars live and breed comfortably (not to mention all sorts of infectious bacteria). These are urban dungeons - outcasts of urbanization and at the same time an irreplaceable part of modern megacities.

Mines

Man's greed is limitless: in pursuit of minerals, he dug up the bowels of the planet far and wide. South Africa's gold mines go deepest underground - up to 5 kilometers at the Tau Tona mine. At this depth, the temperature in the mines reaches 60-80 ºC, ventilation is poor, and air humidity reaches 97-98%. A real hell in which blacks mine gold for white masters.

Work in coal mines is no better. When crushing and mining coal, miners constantly breathe coal dust, which over decades leads to silicosis of the lungs with a bloody cough. Methane constantly accumulates in coal mines, causing underground explosions and fires with massive roof collapses at the slightest spark. The biggest disaster This kind of thing in the world was the methane explosion at the Raspadskaya mine in 2010, when all mine workings with a total length of 300 kilometers were destroyed and 91 miners died.

In general, coal mines love to burn and sometimes burn for a very long time and intensely: in 2004, China finally extinguished a 130-year-old fire in the Liuhuangou coal field, which burned 1.8 million tons of coal per year and released 100 thousand tons of harmful gases into the atmosphere and 40 tons of ash settled on the ground. In addition to coal dust, poisonous gases from the bowels of the Earth are concentrated in the stuffy, stale air of mines, which are also not good for health. Those who like to wander through abandoned mines should remember that the wooden roof and supports rot and collapse over time, so the walls and ceiling of the mine can collapse at the most inopportune moment.

Sometimes abandoned mines find a second, even more glorious life. Under many major cities there is a network of catacombs - the result of chaotic, unsystematic, but large-scale limestone mining. The most extensive catacombs with a total length of 1.5-2 thousand kilometers are located near Odessa, although the Parisian catacombs are more popular. The reason for this was a combination of several factors: the aura of a giant cemetery with the bones and skulls of millions of people, a vast and intricate labyrinth of passages with the possibility of getting lost, and heavy stone walls evoking the atmosphere of medieval castles. Of the numerous films about the Parisian catacombs, it is especially worth noting “The Catacombs” and. The first film presented the idea of ​​wandering in an original and non-standard way. underground labyrinth with maniacs, in the second - the idea of ​​ancient powerful artifacts of secret sects with deep philosophical meaning.

Cave cities, bunkers and underground inhabitants

Until man learned to build multi-story buildings, he actively used natural mountains for housing, cutting down corridors, rooms and stairs inside them. Entire underground cities are known all over the world, from the USA to Vietnam.

But the most life-threatening dungeons were built in China. If in other countries such cities were hewn out, for example, in granite or limestone, then in China - in loess rocks. This is, in fact, compressed sand, characterized by increased fragility and enhanced water absorption. The slightest earthquake causes a massive collapse of loess massifs, which bury people under them. What an earthquake! When water gets in, the loess shrinks, becomes heavier and crumbles. Therefore, even ordinary rain is fraught with the appearance of sinkholes and sinkholes in loess caves. When dry, loess dwellings emit a lot of dust at the slightest movement, which is very harmful to health. Cave cities were used only as a place to sleep, cook food, and sometimes as a temporary shelter.

The next level of underground life is completely isolated bunkers. In this case, the surface of the Earth is unsuitable for life and people are constantly sitting in bomb shelter bunkers. The main disadvantage and vulnerability of bunkers is the limited supply of food. In the movie Air, people sleep in suspended animation capsules, waiting for the Earth's surface to clear. Only two technicians wake up once a year for one hour for routine repairs and inspections. But the capsule of one of the technicians suddenly breaks down and now someone has to die - there is only air in the sealed bunker for one hour. The re-purified air will be automatically released into the bunker exactly in a year.

People living permanently underground are very popular in art, but implausible from a scientific point of view. Without sunlight and photosynthesis, the biosphere we are familiar with cannot exist. There is life underground using chemosynthesis, but its productivity is too low even for individual people - not to mention entire underground cities. Even turning people into dwarfs does not help to “pull an owl onto a globe” - except perhaps to reduce people to the size of underground crayfish. Without photosynthetic plants, it is unclear where the air for the inhabitants of underground cities comes from. You can, of course, prescribe powerful ventilation from the surface, but this is already cheating and in general - what is the point of people sitting underground when the surface is favorable for life?

There are even more misunderstandings with the metallurgy of all kinds of gnomes - where does the smoke go from the forge? If the Dwarven Moria has only a few carefully concealed exits, then the smoke from the metallurgy must fill and stagnate in the underground chambers. In the novel Metro 2033, people in the Moscow subway feed from mushroom plantations. Muscovites can estimate the size of the metro, where, in addition to the plantations, 50 thousand people will permanently live. In the film "City of Amber: Escape" it is not explained at all where the residents of the city get their food.

During a nuclear bombing, eight residents of a multi-story building break into the personal bunker of a firefighter who did not have time to slam the door. As famine approaches, the situation becomes more tense. The owner of the bunker is severely beaten, tied up and deprived of rations for hiding a room with an additional supply of food. Time passes, reserves decrease further, and then the most decisive ones seize power. Communist democracy “everyone eats equally” is being replaced by dictatorship. Now a group of rulers controls all the food, and the rest, for the sake of a “piece of bread,” are forced to humiliate themselves and serve the “masters.” At the end of the film, there is a natural riot of the “cattle”, a bloody massacre and only one girl runs upstairs in a chemical protection suit - the lifeless surface contaminated with radiation turned out to be better than the underground nightmare.

Involuntary underground inhabitants include prisoners of dungeons, because this is an indispensable attribute of knightly castles. For years, the prisoners do not know sunlight or fresh air, they sit in stuffy, damp and cold stone bags deep underground, and only the ringing of rusty chains breaks the grave silence. The jailer may not come, then the prisoner is free to scream and knock on the thick stone walls as much as he wants - no one will hear how he is dying of hunger and thirst. Like prisons, dungeons have two advantages: the difficulty of escaping and the harsh conditions of detention. Unlike above-ground prisons, such dungeons are located tens of meters away from the surface, or even rock. Try to break free with only a fragment of a knife as a tool!

Even worse than underground dungeons is being buried alive. In the film Buried Alive, Iraqi militants buried a captured American driver in a coffin, leaving him with only a flashlight and mobile phone to call home about the ransom. If the ransom is not paid, he will die from lack of air. But the American government does not want to follow the terrorists’ lead, and the company’s management is only concerned with the speedy dismissal of its employee in trouble in order to save money on insurance.

You can also recall the film “Kill Bill”. True, here the ending turned out to be happy: the heroine, with the help of Chinese fist art, was able to break the wooden lid of the coffin and break through a layer of still loose earth to the surface. Rescue from the underworld literally turned out to be a return from the other world.

Nuclear Dungeons

Most dungeons were formed as a result of mechanical extraction of rock from the depths of the Earth, but there are three very special types. To obtain combustible gas, shale or low-quality coal is sometimes specially set on fire. The result is underground cavities that are very reminiscent of pyrogenic caves (already in DARKER). In another method of mining, hot water is pumped into sulfur-containing rocks, and then the solution with sulfur is pumped out. The underground voids formed as a result of explosions stand apart, and among them are nuclear dungeons.

The main disadvantage of nuclear testing is the heavy radiation contamination of the surrounding area. Therefore, over time, under pressure from environmentalists, countries around the world gradually switched to underground nuclear explosions, when radiation does not reach the surface. A nuclear bomb is placed in a deep adit and walled up on top. During an underground nuclear explosion, a spherical cavity of significant diameter is formed, the surface of which is covered with a crust of melted radioactive substance, and the air inside is saturated with radiation. Nuclear cavities are the most dangerous types of underground for health and, of course, are never visited by people.

Dungeon Caves

It happens that when digging dungeons a person goes into natural caves (for example, the Odessa catacombs have exits to very ancient and deep natural caves). Often people use existing natural voids, expanding and rebuilding them to suit their needs: for example, deposits of polymetallic ores were discovered and developed right inside the Chagyrskaya cave in Altai, adding mine workings to the natural voids. The theme of convicts in mine caves is interestingly explored in the fantastic horror film “Chthon”. Abandoned dungeons are often exposed to natural forces and become indistinguishable from real caves.

Of these mixed types of caves, the most interesting are found on the coast. Aegean Sea. Waves of seas, lakes and rivers attack coastal cliffs every day, especially quickly destroying soft rocks such as limestone. Over time, under the impact of waves, grottoes appear - hemispherical depressions in the coastal cliffs. Gradually, these grottoes deepen, collapse, and in their place coastal caves are formed - going deep into the rocks long tunnels, partially filled with water. Sometimes the vaults of sea caves collapse, revealing small lakes, connected to the sea by an underground passage.

At the dawn of ancient Greek history, such sea grottoes were chosen by local pirates. They served as a secret refuge for them from patrol ships, which, as a rule, were larger and heavier than pirate boats and could not carefully examine the winding, shallow coastline. However, the path to the sea grottoes was dangerous even without government patrols.

The combination of strong currents with many shoals, rocks, reefs and stones led to the formation of a seething mess of waves, swells, whirlpools and breakers. Before the invention of engines and iron ships, strong currents could smash wooden sailing and oaring boats against rocks and reefs, and drag the crew down to the bottom. To transport loot or to escape from sea grottoes in an emergency, pirates dug underground passages to the surface or, in the event of a vault collapse, hewn steps in the limestone rock. The floor of the coastal caves was covered with a layer of water, and some were even half or completely flooded. Therefore, stone berths for ships and even sometimes temporary warehouses for mining were built in the grottoes themselves - a kind of prototype of later secret underground berths for strategic submarines of the USA and the USSR.

However, sea grottoes are not safe. Walls washed away by water can suddenly collapse. Collapses of sea caves, in addition to the death of people inside, are fraught with sudden failures on the surface. The noise and seething waves echoingly fills the enclosed space. At high tides, the entrances to some caves are below the water level and become temporarily inaccessible. During storms, some coastal caves are overwhelmed and filled with waves hitting the stones.

Like the secret hideouts of pirates, sea caves were sometimes used to store treasures (at least according to legends). In the 1930s, during excavations of a coastal cave, the remains of two treasure hunters were found who entered the coastal cave of Lundy Island on the north-west coast of England in search of the treasure of William de Morisco, who owned Lundy in the 13th century and from there pirated in British waters. However, instead of fabulous riches, the treasure hunters found their death: a sudden collapse blocked the exit from the cave, and with the tide, water filled the cave and people drowned.

The source of inspiration, and sometimes the beginning of desert cities, were aeolian caves. This is the complete opposite of sea caves. Sand instead of water, the whistle of the wind instead of the splash of waves, the dryness of deserts instead of coastal humidity.

Aeolian caves appeared as a result of the work of the wind. In arid areas, the wind picks up and carries with it huge amounts of sand. At high speed, grains of sand hit the rocks like shot, forming over time hemispherical recesses - aeolian grottoes. The sandy wind begins to concentrate in the grottoes and gradually deepens them into aeolian caves - dead-end tunnels deep into the mountain. Sometimes aeolian caves pierce right through the mountains, forming aeolian arches. However, they are also short-lived - the upper part of the arches often collapses, dividing the once single rock or mountain into two parts. So, in addition to sand shot, there is always the danger of the aeolian cave collapsing.

With a short length of up to 6-7 meters, aeolian caves have wide and high entrances through which the wind easily penetrates. During the day, aeolian caves provide good shelter from the sun's rays, but during a dust storm they turn into a death trap. A concentrated stream of sand-saturated wind flows inside through the entrance. Grains of sand at high speed can bleed your face or damage your eyes. Despite the danger, some aeolian caves show traces of human hewing and expansion - probably used for sleeping or storing valuables.

Read the continuation of the article in the next issue.