Gypsy houses. Legends of Balashikha: the death of Anna Karenina and the cursed gypsy house
Alexander Kozhokhin
Balashikha is the largest city in the Moscow region. It was founded in 1830, but this land near Moscow also preserves more ancient legends. Like any place with a rich history, it has its own beliefs. The RIAMO in Balashikha columnist selected the most common legends and learned from local historians which of them actually have some truth.
City name
Website of the hotel "Zolotoy Sazan"
There are many versions regarding the origin of the name “Balashikha”. One of them talks about a tavern that was located not far from the Vladimirka road - now it is Gorkovskoye Highway. The fact is that the word “balash” is of eastern origin and is translated as overnight stay or hotel. According to another legend, the city received its name from a noble Tatar named Balash, who had lands in these parts.
Commentary from local historians
On the territory of the modern city, not far from the Pekhorka River, there once existed a tiny village called Bloshino, and then Bloshikha. There were only four courtyards, and the residents were mainly engaged in growing and collecting flea beetles - a set of medicinal plants that included fern, forest mint and a number of others.
In 1830, the owners of the manufacturing partnership decided to build a cotton spinning factory on the lands of Bloshikha, which still operates to this day. At first they began to call it “Balashikha”, but soon the abbreviated name “Balashikha” spread among the people. When a railway was built to these places at the beginning of the 20th century, the nearby station was named Balashikha.
Obiralovka
The city of Zheleznodorozhny, which recently became part of Balashikha, was called Obiralovka until 1939. They say that it received such an unflattering name because of the constant robberies that happened on the local roads leading to Moscow.
Commentary from local historians
In ancient times, vast spaces of the Russian land were connected by roads along which horse-drawn carts and carts moved. The roads leading to Moscow were especially busy. Merchants carried their goods, and robbers hid in roadside ravines and forests, stopped travelers, robbed them, unharnessed their horses and safely disappeared with the loot. Most often, the robbers were peasants from surrounding villages.
The most suitable place for robberies was on the Vladimirskaya and Nosovikhinskaya roads - these are the modern Gorkovskoye and Nosovikhinskoye highways. The dense forest above the marshy swamps served as a reliable refuge for robbers. The Vladimir road ran along the edge of the forest, and although from here to Moscow it was no more than 20 miles, few managed to safely pass the remote places. It was even more dangerous on the winding Nosovikhinskaya road, which ran through the forest. Passers-by, robbed by robbers, called the surrounding area Obiralovka.
"Waterway" of Catherine II
Travel guide website Spb.Hi
The Troitskoye-Kainardzhi estate, located on the territory of the modern Pavlino microdistrict, belonged to Field Marshal Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, who commanded troops in the Russian-Turkish war. In honor of the victory over the enemy, the count organized a celebration in his possessions; the celebration was attended by Empress Catherine II herself, who, as they say, sailed here along the Pekhorka River.
Commentary from local historians
This beautiful legend first appeared in Mikhail Pylyaev’s book “Old Moscow”. Probably, the author really wanted the holiday in Trinity, dedicated to the victorious end of the Russian-Turkish war under the command of Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, to be magnificent and beautiful. Therefore, he came up with three-day festivities and the arrival of the queen on a ship along Pekhorka.
In the Chamber-Fourier journal - a real historical ceremonial document, there is an entry: “On October 28, 1775, on Wednesday, Catherine II arrived at 13 o’clock in Troitskoye. She was met by the owner of the estate, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and his eldest son, Lieutenant General Mikhail Petrovich. In the empress's retinue were: Praskovya Alexandrovna Bruce, the field marshal's sister, Count Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin, Lev Alexandrovich Naryshkin and 9 other courtiers. Count Kirill Grigoryevich Razumovsky and Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn were also invited to the celebration. During the arrival, the orchestra of the Belarusian Hussar Regiment played. A festive dinner took place at the palace. After lunch, Her Imperial Majesty deigned to leave for Moscow.”
In addition, the empress could not sail along Pekhorka by ship for a simple reason: at that time there were more than a dozen dams on the river, since there were mills along the banks.
Death of Anna Karenina
Some believe that the tragic end of the life of the heroine of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina is a real incident that occurred at the Obiralovka station. At one time, the city wanted to erect a monument to this literary character, and the platform at Zheleznodorozhnaya station was chosen as the location for it. It was from there that Anna Karenina allegedly threw herself under the train.
There is an abandoned house on our street. There lived a poor old woman with her drunkard son. They let the yard go no further, and when they both died, the house completely fell apart, no one wants to buy it like that.
It’s a pity that the house is completely falling apart without its owner,” I said to my neighbor Aunt Tanya, walking past this house with her.
- And it’s good that it’s falling apart, which means there are no ghosts in it. It’s worse if the house remains intact for years - a sure sign that something is unclean there,” said Aunt Tanya.
- Why is this? - I ask. So she told me the story...
My grandmother also told me. She lived in Belarus in a small village. It was post-war time, many houses were boarded up - no one's houses. A family of gypsies settled in one of these houses. They settled to the misfortune of their neighbors. The gypsy and gypsy woman had six children - a few less. The father of the family often treated them with slaps and slaps instead of bread, and there was often screaming and crying in their yard. The children were always hungry and dirty, looked at people from under their brows and stole everything in people's gardens and vegetable gardens. Compassionate people felt sorry for the children, but were afraid to do it openly - this made the gypsy even angrier, so they hid pieces of bread somewhere in the grass or hay, and the children found the luggage.
They lived like this until one pullet invited a tiny gypsy girl to her place and gave her her daughter’s old dress. The joyful little girl ran home, where she was greeted very unkindly. The next day, the gypsies gathered their belongings into bundles, harnessed the cart and left without saying goodbye to anyone. Their house was empty and people breathed a sigh of relief.
But after a while, people began to notice strange things: no, no, and gypsy speech was heard in the house, something was falling, creaking, moaning. In the evenings, passers-by would see a light in the dirty windows, and if someone’s dog passed by the house, he would always raise his muzzle to the sky and howl protractedly. The house very soon acquired the reputation of a cursed place and people began to avoid it. The house was overgrown with weeds, and owls settled in its chimney, but otherwise it remained intact and did not rot, did not decay, did not collapse - and so on for ten whole years.
But one day a husband and wife quarreled, and the woman kicked her husband out of the house. He had nowhere to go, so he decided to spend the night in a damned gypsy house, after all, a roof over his head. He climbed into the house, raked up the trash, and went to bed because he was drunk.
He woke up with something dripping on his face. He looks - a girl of about five years old is sitting next to him and is crying, tears are dripping onto his face. “It’s cold, uncle, oh it’s cold,” she said and, going to the opposite wall, disappeared. "Curse me!" - the man yelled and jumped out of the house as if scalded. The intoxication disappeared and he told his wife for a long time what happened to him in that house. His wife spread the news of the girl’s ghost throughout the village. People who believed and who didn’t. And then one grandmother, who lived closest to the gypsy house, suddenly remembered.
But when the gypsies left, there were five children on the chaise, not six,” she said.
“Why didn’t you say it right away?” everyone attacked her.
“Yes, I was afraid, you never know how it is with them, with the gypsies,” the woman answered.
A crowd gathered and moved towards the house. The yard is overgrown and wild. The inside of the hut is full of cobwebs and dust, there is an old stove, and even some kitchen utensils remain. It was clear that the owners were getting ready in a hurry, taking the most necessary things.
Where did you see the girl? - they asked the man.
- At this wall.
The wall was plastered well, unlike the others, and this was suspicious. They began to break it with a sledgehammer and soon came across a child’s skeleton. He still has the remains of a dress and long hair. People looked at the find in shock and crossed themselves.
What a son of a bitch, he overdid it by beating his daughter. - hissed the woman, recognizing the dress she had given to the gypsy girl many years ago. I wish I could find him and put him in prison.
“We need to bury the child in a Christian way,” said the grandmother.
And then they suddenly remembered that they didn’t even know the girl’s name. They named her Ksyusha and buried her in the local cemetery. After that, people walked around like themselves, they had no choice but to bring wild flowers to Ksyusha’s grave.
Since then, the house calmed down and began to slowly die, gypsy speech was no longer heard in it, the lights no longer sparkled, and the dogs no longer howled as they passed by. The roof collapsed, the corners came off, and the foundation sank. No one knew why the house suddenly collapsed so dramatically...
This is the story my grandmother told me, and then I read somewhere that when building castles and fortresses, they always walled up living people in the walls, believing that such a structure would stand indestructible.
“Oh, Aunt Tanya, your story gives me chills,” I said, glancing sideways at the abandoned estate.
“That’s what I’m saying - it’s good that the house is falling apart, so it’s not standing on bones,” Tatyana answered somehow even cheerfully and, waving her hand at me, went into her yard.
I recently talked about how the poorest gypsies live in Romania - we visited the outskirts of Bucharest, went into several entrances and apartments and saw naked poverty - people live 7-8 people in single-window apartments with an area of 12-14 meters and do not see any light in life, surviving on occasional earnings.
However, not all gypsies in Romania are so poor - among the gypsies there is their own “middle class”, as well as their own millionaires. It so happened that gypsy millionaires like to settle in Buzescu - this is a small town 80 kilometers southwest of, the main street of which is lined with “palaces” of wealthy gypsies - by the way, the cost of each building ranges from 2 to 30 or more million dollars.
Gypsy palaces are not scattered throughout the city, but are concentrated on one street and several adjacent streets. The appearance of the street is amazing - on small plots of several hundred square meters in size there are huge cottages the size of almost an entire plot. The appearance of the palaces is very unique - it perfectly reflects what is commonly called the “gypsy style” - one building can combine a variety of architectural influences, brought together for one purpose - to show everyone how rich and influential the owner of the house is.
So, today we will walk around Buzescu and see what the palaces of millionaire gypsies look like.
02. We enter the “gypsy quarter” of Buzescu - already at the very beginning of the street we are greeted by this palace - for some reason it is not finished, construction is frozen. There is also no fence around the building - this indicates that the house is non-residential. Next we will see more non-residential buildings, but for now we’ll just move on.
03. We drive forward - here the blocks of inhabited palaces, built quite a long time ago, already begin. In general, rich gypsies began to build more houses in Buzescu about 20 years ago, in the mid-nineties. Many rich people, having become even richer, demolished old cottages and built new houses, even larger and more luxurious than the previous ones.
04. None of the “palaces” lends itself to a clear stylistic definition - most often, from 2 to 10 architectural styles are mixed in each building. According to the principle “richer, brighter, more elaborate”. However, all the buildings still have something in common - all the buildings are similar in their gigantic size, and the gypsies are very fond of turrets and open balconies-galleries.
05. Turrets come in all shapes and sizes. There are, for example, these faceted ones, very reminiscent of the Romanian architecture of a hundred years ago:
06. Most often, the “palace” occupies an entire site. If you look from above, the site will look like this - a fence, then a right of way of 2-4 meters behind the fence (so that you can walk around the site), and the rest of the space is occupied by a building.
07. In some projects, even the fence itself is integrated directly into the building - so as not to lose “valuable area”. Here, for example, is a house that literally occupies the entire plot - the outer fence here is part of the first floor.
08. If the plot itself is small and does not allow building a house of great length and width, then the house will definitely be “stretched” in height, building at least 4 floors and even with tall towers.
Let everyone see that the owner of the house has a successful life.
09. Elements of a “rich life” as the gypsies imagine it can also be seen in the decoration/decor. Here, for example, the terrace on the second floor is decorated with stars, which most likely glow in the dark:
10. And here on the ceiling of the balcony there is a whole glowing dollar sign, this is not a lot of fun!
11. And this house has railings made of bent stainless steel pipes, as well as light bulbs hanging on wires from the balconies - the wires are mounted directly into the slab. How can a poor person afford this?
12. The streets of the gypsy quarter in Buzescu look like this. Sometimes there are windows and doors only on those sides of houses that face the street - this is done due to very dense buildings; some residents do not want to look into each other’s windows, preferring to isolate themselves from the neighbor’s house with a blank wall.
13. And this is what the local car park looks like.
14. The roads and other “public spaces” in the gypsy quarter look very decent - there is good asphalt, normal sidewalks, there are benches along the road, there are high-quality and beautiful storm drains:
15. Cyclists ride on the roads)
16. However, the good quality of the road only concerns the main street - as soon as you move away from the main road literally a hundred meters into the depths of the block, the carriage turns into a pumpkin; all the chic and shine ends, revealing an unsightly dirt road and modest houses of local residents.
Well, this is already progress - here local residents arrange at least a few square meters around their homes, the “comfort zone” ends immediately outside the apartment doors.
17. Apparently, the plots at intersections are the most expensive - for some reason, the largest and most expensive buildings are located on them:
18. Here is another intersection with a house on the entire site. Apparently, according to gypsy concepts, if the house is visible to as many people as possible (and at an intersection such visibility is better than just on the street), then the plot should be more expensive. The richest and most powerful build at the intersections. You may have doubts that this is the house of a rich man?
19. You may ask how and how do the gypsies who built such huge houses earn money? No one will give you an exact answer. There is an “official version” that says that the gypsies make very good money from trading non-ferrous metals, and “classic” gold and silver are far from the first places in circulation.
20. Most of the gypsies in Buzescu belong to a group called "kalderash", which translates as "copper workers". In the eighties, these gypsies traded copper equipment for brandy factories and also collected scrap metal.
21. After the Ceausescu regime fell in Romania, the Calderas families went throughout Eastern Europe to collect non-ferrous metals from all abandoned plants and factories, amassing considerable capital from the resale of metal.
22. Towards the mid-nineties, the first gypsy mansions began to appear in Buzescu. At first these were quite modest houses by today's standards - some of them can still be seen on the streets:
23. And in the 2000s, a full-scale “construction boom” began, as a result of which all these mansions appeared.
24. By the way, not all residents of Buzescu are rich. Around the “gypsy quarter” live ordinary local residents doing ordinary rural work.
25. On the main street of the gypsy quarter you can see the following signs prohibiting cattle driving:
26. Cows have to be driven along side streets - at breakfast, gypsy millionaires can contemplate this picture:
27. More palaces:
29. Recreation area on the site:
30. The truck brought firewood:
31. This is how dreams come true!
32. There are also abandoned unfinished houses in Buzescu. They are adjacent to a completely lived-in building:
33. They stand in the form of a whole architectural cluster:
34. Pompous stairs lead inside. Why were the houses never completed? I don’t know, there can be a lot of reasons - from the banal ruin of the owner to moving to another country or death.
35. We go into one of the unfinished buildings. Do you know what is most striking here? Emptiness. In fact, most of the space is occupied by a huge "hall" that extends across all floors.
36. There are several small rooms around the perimeter, but most of the building is empty. From the inside, the palace resembles a soap bubble.
37. Living rooms look like this:
38. For some reason they decided to install a large arched window here, leaving only a small opening.
39. And here there was some kind of builders’ cabin. The bags of cement still hope for something, but my intuition tells me that the house will never be completed.
40. This is such a gypsy village.
41. Successful people live here.
The famous gypsy village of Buzescu is located 80 km from the capital of Romania, Bucharest. In this small town with a population of only 5,000 people you can find a large number of luxurious houses, striking with their architecture and unusual solutions. Some houses surprise you with their strangeness, what all this strangeness is about, you will understand when you look at this post.
Have you seen a stainless steel fence? The one that sparkles in the photo?
The gypsy, who owned a “firm” for the robbery of copper extracted on European railways, also dreamed of one and stole, it turns out, for the sake of something sacred, namely, a house in his homeland. The employees of his “company,” who received 50 euros per outing, were given a suspended sentence, and Dan Julien, as the leader, was sentenced to 4 years in prison and a 70,000 euro fine. This very house should be used to pay this fine.
This is the main street of the village.
There is a competition here - whoever has a taller and fancier house is cooler.
It is clear from the architecture that the gypsies love the Belle Epoque style.
People are rare on the streets of the village, since the majority of the population spends a lot of time in Western Europe to work.
But some residents prefer the antique style - with porticoes.
Roofs clad in metal rival the sophistication of their shapes.
Here is a close-up of the forged roof of one of the houses in the previous photo. Probably also made of stainless steel.
When a house is located on the outskirts of a village, that is, in a less prestigious location, its owner tries to increase the number of floors.
Where does the view of this type of fairy-tale town come from?)))
There are many unfinished houses among these houses - their owners have still earned enough to complete them.
Limousines are part of the bragging rights of the villagers.
Of course, there is no arguing about tastes.
The owners of these houses declare their spiritual values in their decorative decoration.
In some houses the fence ends with pins made of pure silver
However, many members of the families living in these “villas” continue to do traditional work and ride horse-drawn carts.
This house is modeled after a courthouse.
His owner is a drug dealer. When he was tried, he vowed that if he was not convicted, he would build a house in the style of a courthouse in Buzesko.
Apparently, he was cleared out.
Roma children usually study little. Girls get married early, and boys get used to real “business.”
But the owners of the pompous pitchforks do not keep an eye on the outskirts of their village.
The same toilets on the streets.
And they also keep their original houses. Often their relatives simply do not want to move to “palaces” because they do not feel comfortable there.
The interior of one of the houses.
If we abstract from the display of attributes of spiritual values, the interior of these houses, like their facades, also imitates villas from Hollywood films.
