Rustess village in the Sverdlovsk region. Rastess - the missing village in the Sverdlovsk region

The village of Rastess, whose phenomenon remains unsolved to this day, is located on the territory of the Sverdlovsk region, on the banks of the small river Kyrya. For more than 60 years, the settlement has been abandoned. The old inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared from it, and the new ones are afraid to settle there. Today, little remains of the village: only three abandoned dilapidated houses, located in a field overgrown with weeds and grass.

What happened in the village in the 1950s is difficult to say to this day. The fact is that its former inhabitants could not be found. There are no witnesses to the incidents in the village either. Now there are various legends about this settlement. Old theories are associated with witchcraft and dark forces, new ones are associated with UFOs and the mysteries of our planet.

It should be noted that the last reliable fact related to the village of Rastess is the following event: once the inhabitants of Kytlym, which was a neighboring settlement, noticed that they had not seen their neighbors for a long time. They gathered a detachment of men who went to a neighboring village to find out what had happened.

What they saw amazed the people's "forwarders". At first glance, nothing has changed in the village of Rastess. The houses stood in their places, and chickens were grazing in some yards. There were cattle in the stables, though a little emaciated and neglected. All the contents of the houses remained intact, which suggested the idea of ​​a mass disappearance of people under mysterious circumstances. Simply put, the men who decided to visit the neighbors had the feeling that they simply evaporated.

Not a single person was found in the entire village. The condition of the houses was also shocking. Most of them had open windows and unlocked front doors. Some of the tables were open for dinner. An open book remained on the bench of one of the houses, as if the one who read it decided to be distracted for just a minute. A particularly terrible mystery of the village, which was discovered later, were dug up graves in a nearby cemetery. Not a single clue that could tell where the inhabitants of Rastess had gone en masse was never found.

Returning to their native village, the “forwarders” remembered that almost all of their neighbors laughed at one family living in Rastess, who constantly seemed to see either mermaids, or any evil spirits, or flying saucers. These memories provoked the emergence of terrible legends about the village. From now on, they tried to bypass her, considering her cursed and dysfunctional. They refused to see tourists, researchers, lovers of the paranormal and ufologists there.

The Trans-Ural village is often compared with the English colony "Roanoke", which was the first to be established in the territory of North America. The colony was built in 1585, and it lasted only fifteen years, after which its inhabitants mysteriously disappeared. After people came to the already deserted colony, circumstances similar to those described above were found there: untouched houses, food thrown on the table, the remains of traces of human life.

The first expedition to Rastess was carried out by an ordinary lover of the mysterious and paranormal in 2005. He learned about the village from acquaintances, after which he became interested in its secret and decided to try to unravel it. The expedition did not last long. The amateur scientist was prevented by some circumstances related to the inaccessibility of the village.

From 2011 to 2014, the Eurasia Trophy event was held near the village, thanks to which jeepers began to visit the area. They did not pay much attention to the ruined settlement, as it was heavily overgrown with grass and trees.

The latest data on the village of Rastess date back to 2015, when a group of ATVs drove through it, who noted that the village was heavily overgrown, and only three half-ruins remained of its houses, which had long lost the appearance of a certain structure.

In the Sverdlovsk region, on the banks of the Kyrya River, there is an abandoned village of Rastess. For more than sixty years there has not been a single living soul in it, the houses are dilapidated, the yards have long been overgrown with weeds. However, hunters and travelers still try to bypass it.

After the Siberian Khanate fell at the end of the 16th century, the road beyond the Urals was open to enterprising Russian people who went east in search of gold, silver and furs. Boris Godunov, a very prudent and not devoid of intelligence, understood what benefits the Muscovite state could receive from the development of new lands. Therefore, being the de facto ruler under the painful and self-withdrawn from power Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, he achieved the signing of the royal decree, according to which the construction of a convenient road for traveling from Europe to Asia was started.

This path, by the name of the person who proposed and then carried out its construction, was called the Babinovsky tract. Artemy Babinov, who brought his own project to life, not only laid a 260 verst route from Solikamsk, but also founded settlements along its entire length, which were supposed to serve the road and protect people traveling along it.

One of these settlements was the Rastessky Guard, later the village of Rastess, whose name goes back to the outdated form of the word “clearing”, since the first inhabitants of the settlement were lumberjacks who felled the forest for laying the Babinovsky tract. Then they were replaced by service people who maintained the path in proper condition, carried armed guards of the convoys, welcomed the wanderers to the quarters.

For about a century and a half, the tract was the main route to Siberia, and the village of Rastess was one of the most important transit points on it. Messengers with royal decrees, peasants looking for a better life, scientific expeditions passed through it. Only after the construction of the Siberian-Moscow tract, the value of the old road began to decline, and in 1763 it was officially closed.

However, the village of Rastess did not become empty, and in the nineteenth century it even experienced a new heyday after deposits of gold and platinum were discovered in its vicinity. The villagers, by the standards of that time, became quite wealthy, and some even got rich. The village retained its industrial significance even in Soviet times until it mysteriously became empty in the middle of the twentieth century.

What exactly happened in the 1950s is still unknown. There were no witnesses left who could tell about what happened, no traces that could shed light on the mysterious disappearance. Just a few facts and even more speculation.

If we talk about the facts, they are as follows: once the inhabitants of the nearest settlement, Kytlym, located a couple of tens of kilometers from Rastess, realized that they had not seen a single inhabitant of the neighboring village for a long time and did not even receive news from any of them. Having gathered, the local men went in cars to find out what had happened.

What they saw on their neighbors left the villagers perplexed. From the outside, it seemed that everything was as usual in Rastess: the houses were untouched, the cattle and poultry were in their places, except that some animals looked obviously starved.

However, as soon as you got closer, it became clear that something strange had happened. Not a single person was found in the entire village. Moreover, there was a feeling that all the inhabitants of the village simply disappeared in the blink of an eye: the windows in the houses were open, the doors were not locked, there was a half-eaten lunch or dinner on the tables. On the bench lay an open book with a bookmark, as if its reader decided to digress for a minute, but never returned.

Continuing to search the village and its environs, people stumbled upon another mystery: it turned out that graves had been dug up in the local cemetery. However, there was not a single clue where the inhabitants of Rastess could have disappeared.

Only after returning to Kytlym, the men who did not understand anything began to remember that at one time they laughed at their eccentric neighbors, who either fancied mermaids, or light in the sky, or some kind of evil spirits wandering in the neighboring forest. These memories not only increased the halo of mystery of everything that happened, but also secured a bad reputation for Rastess.

From now on, there were fewer and fewer people wishing to voluntarily end up in the deserted village, despite the temptation to appropriate the property left by the ownerless. Moreover, the opinion about the curse hanging over the ancient settlement was later supported by many anomalies more than once.

According to the testimonies of those rare daredevils who nevertheless reached Rastes along the remains of the old Babinovsky tract, they saw strange lights among the trees, light pillars going into the sky, and sometimes, especially at night, a whisper came from nowhere, from which the blood ran cold .

The fate of the Trans-Ural village strangely unites it with the disappeared English colony of Roanoke, the first of those founded in North America. Founded in 1585, it was discovered completely deserted only 15 years later. At the same time, the same “symptoms” were observed as in the case of Rustess: the houses looked like people decided to leave them for a minute, but they could not return.

Abandoned settlements in North America and the Sverdlovsk region are united by the fact that the mystery of the disappearance of people still defies solution. Of course, one can name a great many versions that at the very least explain what happened - from quite realistic (a consequence of an attack by Indians or, in the case of Rastess, runaway prisoners) to mystical ones: alien abduction, opening doors to a parallel dimension, mass insanity, attack by monsters.

However, there are still too few facts to give preference to one of the hypotheses. And therefore, it is completely unclear whether Rustess will ever become a less mysterious place than it is now.

In 2005, the first expedition to Rastess was made by an amateur traveler. Due to the short duration of the expedition and the inaccessibility of the village, the collected material was not enough to study the history of this area. In 2011-2014, Rastess was repeatedly visited by Perm jeepers as part of the Eurasia Trophy event held in that area.

At the moment, Rastess is very much overgrown with wild grass, rare ruins of wooden log cabins remain from the buildings. In August 2014, another cast-iron tombstone of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was discovered and excavated at the cemetery.

In July 2015, the place was visited by a team of ATVs from Yekaterinburg on their way along the historical route of the Babinovskaya road from the village of Pavda to Verkhnaya Kosva. It turned out that the place where Rastess was located is now an overgrown field with the remains of three houses that have practically disappeared and a single old burial.

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Rastess is an abandoned village on the banks of the Kyrya River in the Sverdlovsk Region. More than 60 years have passed since not a single living soul was left here, human houses were very dilapidated, and yards were hopelessly overgrown with weeds. At the same time, travelers and hunters are still trying to bypass Rastess.

Gateway to Siberia

This village arose at the beginning of the 17th century, when the Babinovsky tract was laid in Siberia. Settlements appeared along it, playing the role of staging posts, and the village of Rastess became one of the most important among them. After the Siberian-Moscow tract was built, the old road began to lose its significance, and in 1763 it was officially closed. (esoreiter.ru).

Despite this, Rastess not only did not become empty, but even experienced a new heyday in the 19th century: deposits of platinum and gold were found in the vicinity of the village. Local residents became quite wealthy, some even got rich.

The village retained its industrial significance even in Soviet times - until the moment when it was mysteriously deserted in the middle of the last century.

Where have people gone?

What happened then, in the 50s, is still unknown. There were no witnesses who could tell what happened, no traces of any kind were left.

... The inhabitants of Kytlym (the nearest settlement, located twenty kilometers from Rastess) once thought about the fact that they had not seen anyone from the neighboring village for a long time. The men gathered and went to find out what had happened.

The sight they saw left them in amazement. At first glance, everything in Rastess was as before: the houses were intact, the livestock and poultry were in their place - except that some animals looked clearly starved.

But as soon as the Kytlym inhabitants came closer, it became clear that something extremely strange had happened. The village was completely empty of people. Moreover, it seemed that they all just disappeared at once. The doors of the houses were not locked, the windows were open. There was a half-eaten lunch or dinner on the tables. On the bench lay an open book with a bookmark, as if the reader was distracted for a minute - and never returned.

Continuing to search the village and its surroundings, people came across another mystery: the graves in the local cemetery were dug up. However, there was not the slightest clue as to where the inhabitants of Rastess might have gone.

Abnormal phenomena around the village

When the discouraged men returned to Kytlym, they remembered in hindsight that they once laughed at their eccentric neighbors, who talked either about mermaids, or about a strange light in the sky, or about evil spirits wandering in the forest ...

Such memories not only strengthened the halo of mystery over Rustess, but secured him a bad name. Now, those wishing to voluntarily find themselves in a fantastic village became less and less day by day - even with all the temptation to appropriate the property abandoned by the owners.

The opinion that a curse gravitates over Rastess was subsequently repeatedly supported by various anomalous phenomena. According to rare daredevils who nevertheless reached the deserted village, they saw strange lights among the trees and pillars of light going up. Sometimes, especially in the dark, it is not clear where a whisper was heard, chilling the blood ...

American "twin"

The inexplicable incident in the Trans-Ural village is very reminiscent of what once happened in the English colony of Roanoke, which was the first to be founded in North America (1585). Just 15 years later, this colony was found completely depopulated, and exactly the same “symptoms” were observed: the houses looked as if the residents wanted to leave for a minute, but could not return.

The abandoned North American settlement and the deserted village of Rastess are also related by the fact that the mystery of human disappearance has not been solved. Truly twin settlements! ..

The last time Rastess was visited by a group of quad bikes in July of this year. According to people, on the site of the former village there is an overgrown field in which the remains of the last three houses and one old burial place are barely visible ...

For 40 years now, a legend has been circulating in the Sverdlovsk region, how in 1977 the entire population of the village of Rastess (120 people) disappeared. Allegedly, yesterday the locals were going about their business, and in the morning there was no one left
Residents of neighboring villages believed that the inhabitants of Rastess had been taken away. Photo: archive of Lyudmila Polovnikova Residents of neighboring villages believed that the inhabitants of Rastes were taken away. Photo: archive of Lyudmila Polovnikova
The Sverdlovsk village of Rastess has been terrifying the people of the Urals for fifty years. According to legend, the village disappeared in one moment. The neighbors had not seen anyone from Rastess for a long time and sent several strong men there to check if everything was in order. The villagers returned pale and frightened. “There is not a single inhabitant left in the village,” they said. - At the same time, all things lie in their places. The furniture and icons were intact, there were dishes on the tables, and on one porch there was a book at all, open as if its owner had departed and would soon return.

Another shock awaited the neighboring peasants at the village cemetery: the graves were dug up ... Half a century later, the KP journalists conducted their own investigation and found out what really happened in the mysterious village ...

Some photos from the mysterious Rastess still give me goosebumps. Photo: archive of Lyudmila Polovnikova
"THE WIZARDS ARE TO BELIEVE IN EVERYTHING!"

Sorcerers have always lived near Rastess. They say they settled there in the 15th century, even before they laid the Babinovsky tract, which led from central Russia to Siberia. It was on this road that the village of Rastess arose. But sorcerers have always disliked alien people who settled on their territory ...

We are sitting in the cozy kitchen of Vladimir Ilyichenko, a resident of the village of Pavda. From the ruins of Rastess to Pavda, 25 kilometers. We stopped here to find out from the locals how best to get to the ruins.

“We want to unravel the mystery of the disappearance,” we chattered amiably to the natives. But they only waved them off and twisted their fingers at their temples. Like, I'm tired of living. Only Vladimir Petrovich showed hospitality. He invited me to warm up at his house. But as soon as we took a sip of hot tea with fragrant raspberry jam, the old man began to use "tales from the crypt."

Some resident of Rastess will go into the forest, come across this witch tribe, those thoughts will powder his thoughts. The person will return to his house, but he cannot go inside, he walks around, but he does not seem to see the door. Apparently hypnotized. Grandma told me this! It seems to me that the sorcerers stole all of Rastess for their rites.

Rastess existed for 4 centuries. Photo: archive of Lyudmila Polovnikova
We thank you for the afternoon snack and hurriedly get ready to go. Well, what kind of sorcerers? 21st century in the yard. And we continue to rush "unpublished fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm" after us:

If you suddenly hear mournful singing, close your ears. This mermaids can sing from the river. Sometimes they sing for several days, calling trouble ...

ARRIVED

So why are we sitting? We take backpacks and go on foot. We will definitely not go further, - our driver smiles gloomily when our Skoda is bogged down in a mud mess.

We are 500 kilometers from Yekaterinburg. The very outskirts of the Sverdlovsk region. There is an unfriendly forest around, underfoot there is a snowy swamp, through which it is difficult to move, and not a soul around. Here you involuntarily begin to believe in the tales of the old man from Pavda. We listen and shudder. Nearby someone sings ... Swept by! It was our driver who pulled the "Birches" of the "Lube" group.

Shuddering from every rustle, we still managed to cover the necessary kilometers. It looks like we should be in the abandoned Rastess by now. But we are standing in the middle of the field! And no sorcerers, no mermaids around. Although at minus five the latter, perhaps, are incapacitated.

There is simply no road to the "ghost village". Like Rastess himself Photo: Evgeny ZONOV
There is simply no road to the "ghost village". Like Rustes himself
Photo: Eugene ZONOVtrue_kpru

Or maybe grandfather Vladimir spoke the truth, - the driver crosses himself in fear. “Maybe it was the sorcerers who made us get lost?!

Suddenly, a loud voice is heard from behind: "Hey you." “It’s like the sorcerers found it!”, We look at each other in horror.

Guys, what are you doing here? a man approaches us, dressed from head to toe in camouflage. - I'm Sergei. Forester.

When we share our editorial task with a new acquaintance, he smiles sympathetically:

Here is your Rustess. We are right now standing in the place of the village. For half a century, no stone was left unturned. Although what are the stones here. All buildings were wooden.

Well, what do you think - where did all the locals go? Did they really disappear? we are interested.

And who told you that everyone disappeared? I personally know one woman from Rustess. Alive and well. Lives in the town of Kytlym. It's close here. Kilometers 20. Visit her!

Rastess “dissolved” like a ghost Photo: Evgeny ZONOV
Rustess "disappeared" like a ghost
Photo: Eugene ZONOVtrue_kpru
"GRAVES HAVE BEEN DIGGED BY Fugitive Prisoners"

Guys, you can't even imagine how sorry I am for Rustess, - 65-year-old Lyudmila Polovnikova meets us. “Oh, those tales of tourists. No one in our village disappeared.

And sorcerers did not live in the forests? We sigh in disappointment.

I beg you, - the old woman laughs. - Although the "devils" sometimes dropped in on us. That's what we called runaway convicts. A colony was built next to the village after the communists came to power. And, it happened, all sorts of bandits escaped from there. And we had gold mined in Rastess. So the fugitives first of all came to us - they robbed themselves for a new life.

Lyudmila Polovnikova spent her childhood in Rastess Photo: Alexander ISAKOV
Lyudmila Polovnikova spent her childhood in Rastess

Lyudmila Anatolyevna sorts through old black and white photographs - the only confirmation that the ghost village really was in her life. Here in the photo teenagers are laughing, here is a couple in love smiling ...

There were 32 houses in the village. They lived in large families, - recalls Polovnikova. Every week the adults gathered for a big meeting. Usually they discussed how to manage the household, who to help repair the house. But in 1967 people were talking more and more often about the time to leave Rastes. Gold was becoming rarer. I was then already 15 years old. Therefore, they began to take me to such meetings.

From conversations, the villagers turned to business only after another raid of escaped prisoners. For some reason, a rumor spread among the convicts: there is so much gold in Rastess that the locals, when they bury people, even put gold in the coffin. These scumbags in hiding once ransacked the entire cemetery. There was no precinct in the village. And no one wanted to go to Pavda. Therefore, at the next meeting, it was decided to finally leave the village that had become dangerous.

Of the former residents of Rastess, Lyudmila Anatolyevna maintains relations only with her childhood friend, Vera Popova. We meet with her in her current small homeland - in Krasnoturinsk.

Vera Popova is sure: there is no mysticism in the story of Rastess Photo: Alexander ISAKOV
Vera Popova is sure: there is no mysticism in the story of Rastess
Photo: Alexander ISAKOVtrue_kpru
- Why did the inhabitants of Rastess not take their belongings with them during the resettlement? we are perplexed.

Think for yourself, and who will drag furniture with them off-road? - Vera Mikhailovna chuckles. - Here are the icons, yes, it's a pity: someone had a lot of images, and it was not possible to take everything.

And why didn't the locals bury the desecrated graves?

Some people, of course, tidied up the cemetery. But there were also not very good people who gave up on the destroyed graves of their ancestors.

And who could come up with the legend of the disappeared Rastess?

Yes, anyone! The men from the neighboring village could very well be real: for example, they saw the village still blooming, and then they came and stumbled upon empty houses. If there was among them a connoisseur of local folklore, he could easily imagine that all the inhabitants had disappeared. Rumors in the villages spread instantly. And then, probably, some tourists came in. And the notoriety of the village in Russia rushed. Rastess was named by our ancestors in honor of the Babinovsky tract. People then said that they were “cleaving the forests”, that is, they were paving the way. So this legend has paved its way for many years to come.

Among the amazing and interesting places on our planet, the village of Rastess in the Sverdlovsk region deserves special attention. Not a single soul lives in it for about sixty years. Naturally, during this time, the houses began to collapse, the yards were overgrown with weeds. But travelers, as well as hunters, try to bypass this area.

A bit of the history of the village of Rastess

After the fall of the Siberian Khanate, in the sixteenth century, the road beyond the Urals was open to the Russian people who went east in search of furs, gold, silver. Naturally, Godunov was a smart and prudent person, so he perfectly understood what benefits the state could receive through the development of new lands. Being practically the ruler under the self-withdrawn Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, he managed to ensure that the royal decree was signed, in accordance with which they began to build a convenient road for traveling to Asia from Europe. This path was called the Babinovsky tract.

The path was named after Artemy Babinov, who not only created the project for this path, he also implemented it, and also laid the Solikamsk route, with a size of two hundred and sixty miles. He also substantiated settlements along its entire length, which were supposed to serve the road and protect the people who travel along it.

One of the created settlements was the Rastes Guard, later it became the village of Rastess. For more than a century and a half, such a tract was considered the main route to Siberia, and today, the dead village of Rastess has been an important transit point. It was through her that royal messengers with important decrees passed, as well as peasants who were looking for a better place to live, and, of course, scientists. In 1763 the road was closed.

But, despite this, the village was not empty and in the nineteenth century experienced a new heyday. The thing is that deposits of platinum and gold were found in the vicinity of this village. Thanks to such finds, the villagers, by the standards of that time, became quite rich people. In addition, the village retained its industrial significance, until it was deserted in the middle of the twentieth century, mysteriously.

Rustess missing village, why did it happen?

The most amazing thing is that to this day it is not known what exactly happened in the 1950s. Since there are not even witnesses alive who could tell about what happened, as well as shed light on the disappearance of people. There are only a few facts and conjectures about this.

If we talk about the facts, they are as follows: once, the inhabitants of the nearest settlement of Kytlym, who were several tens of kilometers from Rastess, realized that they had not seen the inhabitants of the neighboring village for a long time. Local representatives of the stronger sex decided to go on reconnaissance.

But when they arrived in Rastess, they were surprised, because in the village everything was as usual: the houses were standing, the birds and domestic animals were in their places. The main oddity in this area was that there were no people here. In addition, the windows and doors of the houses were not closed, and there was food on the tables. Yes, and in the yards there were traces of people who, as if in the ground, fell through. No less surprising was the situation at the local cemetery: graves were dug up here. But there was not a single clue where the inhabitants of this village could have gone.

Upon returning to Kytlym, the men began to recall that they had previously laughed at their neighbors, who sometimes seemed to see mermaids, sometimes light in the sky. In general, over time, the number of people wishing to master this village became less and less. And according to the testimonies of the daredevils, who nevertheless managed to reach the Babinovsky tract to Rastes, they saw light pillars, heard a whisper that made their blood freeze.

Attempts to explore the village of Rastess

In 2005, the first expedition to this mysterious village was made here. Made by amateur travelers. But the studies were short and the information collected was not enough to unravel the history of the disappeared people.

Currently, Rastess is very heavily overgrown with grass, and the buildings have begun to fall apart. In 2014, in the month of August, an excavated grave was discovered in the cemetery.