Mysterious Petersburg. Ghosts of the Great City

Peter I chose a sinister location for this city in the swamps and banned "stone construction" throughout Russia. All the stone went to Petersburg. And just a few years later, from a regular military fortification in Peter and Paul Fortress, it grew into the center of Russian art and culture, science and technology, trade, industry, and charity. It also became a city of martial glory — both Swedes, French, and Germans broke their teeth against it. A city with an astonishing history and fate. It is no coincidence that there are many myths and legends associated with Petersburg about mystical encounters with the otherworld. These are sometimes unimaginable, inexplicable historical facts about ghosts and prophecies that concern both common people and crowned individuals. What is worth, for example, the story of the stay in the capital city of the stellar trio of legendary mystics Cagliostro, Casanova, and Saint Germain? Or the grim rumors about the terrifying moans of the five hanged Decembrists, which can be heard in the mornings in the foggy haze near the crownwork? Or the memories of A.S. Pushkin, to whom a fortune-teller operating on Nevsky predicted an early and unnatural death…