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Haunted places in Russia
What are the most haunted places in Russia? The best-known are Mikhailovsky Castle and The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
Russia’s best-known ghost story belongs to an emperor. Paul I built the moated Mikhailovsky Castle in Saint Petersburg to protect himself from conspirators – and was killed there in March 1801, about forty days after moving in. Stories of his ghost appeared decades later, spread by cadets of the military engineering school that occupied the building, and the writer Nikolai Leskov turned them into a story that exposed the ‘ghost’ as a prank.
- 2 hauntings
- 5 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Russia
Mikhailovsky Castle
The moated palace where Emperor Paul I was killed 40 days after moving in – and where generations of cadets swore his ghost still walked. Regional legendThe Vanishing Hitchhiker
A driver picks up a young woman by the road; she gives an address, then vanishes from the car – a ghost story told in a thousand towns. FolkloreThe ghost lore of Russia
Russian folklore is rich in spirits of house and wild – the domovoi who lives behind the stove, the rusalka of rivers and lakes, the leshy of the forest – and in legends attached to palaces, monasteries and old merchant houses.
Saint Petersburg’s ghost and legend tours, often by boat along the canals, are the easiest way to meet this tradition.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Saint Petersburg
The imperial capital’s palaces, canals and white nights feed countless legends, told on walking and boat tours.
- Moscow’s historic centre
Guides tell legends of the Kremlin – such as Fanny Kaplan, shot there in 1918, said to appear by the Commandant’s Tower – and of the old mansions around it.
- Russky Island, Vladivostok
Students at the Far Eastern Federal University’s campus tell stories of ghosts in their dormitories.
Timeline
- 8 November 1800The castle is consecrated Mikhailovsky Castle
On St Michael’s Day the new residence is consecrated, though work on the interiors continues into the spring of 1801.
- 11–12 March 1801 (O.S.)Assassination of Paul I Mikhailovsky Castle
Conspiring officers enter the emperor’s bedroom and kill him, about forty nights after he moved in. The court leaves the castle soon afterwards.
- c. 1820The Engineers’ Castle Mikhailovsky Castle
The abandoned palace is given to the Main Engineering School, whose cadets – among them the young Dostoevsky – live and study there.
- late 1840sThe ghost appears in rumour Mikhailovsky Castle
Stories of the murdered emperor’s ghost begin to circulate, closely tied to the cadets’ tradition of frightening junior students.
- 1980sAn unofficial investigation Mikhailovsky Castle
Members of a Russian Geographical Society commission on anomalous phenomena interview staff of the patent library then housed in the castle and take photographs and magnetic readings.
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