More than half a century ago, an event took place in the Soviet city of Kuibyshev, which subsequently gave rise to many rumors. It was then that the story was born, which became the main urban legend of present-day Samara. Word of mouth passed on to the people the news about a girl who, on New Year's Eve, turned to stone, dancing with an icon in her hands. Yes, and stood immovable for four months. Based on this story, several documentaries and a feature film were shot.
New Year's Eve
The event that stirred up the city, according to rumors, took place on the eve of 1956, on December 31st. Young people gathered in house number 84, which is on Chkalovskaya street in the Volga city of Kuibyshev, to celebrate the holiday. The party is in full swing. Young people drink a little, sing, dance in pairs. But Zoya Karnaukhova did not have enough gentleman - her boyfriend Nikolai did not come that evening. Well, since my friend is not there, Zoya decided, I will dance with the icon of his namesake. The girl took down the image of St. Nicholas from the wall. And as soon as she started dancing with him, she was immediately punished for blasphemy.
Legend has it that a terrible thunder suddenly thundered, lightning flashed, and the girl immediately turned into a living statue. It was simply rooted in the floor and could not move. It seems that the girl is alive, but she cannot leave the place. And he cannot utter a word. As if petrified in an instant.
The news of the miracle quickly spread throughout the city. Soon an excited crowd gathered near the mysterious house. Hundreds of people wanted to look at the girl who was punished by higher powers for sacrilege. Mounted police tried to disperse the crowd, but there were so many people that it was not possible to do this. As a result, the police authorities decided to set up a cordon near the private house. To protect the building from destruction.
As the legend says, "the standing of the stone Zoe" lasted four months. Others believe that the girl was almost immediately knocked out of the floor and taken to a special psychiatric clinic of the KGB. Others say that the petrified girl stood in the house until Easter, after which a mysterious old man set her free with his holy word. The whole history was supposedly strictly classified by the decision of the party organs and the Soviet authorities, since it did not fit into the canons of dialectical materialism.
So, here's a summary of the legend:
- in a house on Chkalovskaya street, a girl danced with an icon;
- dancing Zoya Karnaukhova turned to stone;
- the girl stood motionless for 128 days.
Stone Zoya: facts
Journalists more than once began to conduct an investigation of the described event. And they came to the conclusion that no mystical miracle happened on the eve of 1956 and in the next four months. Where did the legend come from?
If we turn to the confirmed facts, it turns out that in the first two weeks of January 1956, crowds of people were indeed observed in the area where the house was located on Chkalovskaya Street. According to some estimates, the number of pilgrims at times reached several thousand at a time. They were attracted to this place by oral reports spread by human rumor that here on New Year's Eve a girl committed a crime against religion, daring to dance with the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in her hands. And for this she was turned by higher powers into a stone statue.
At the same time, the name and surname of the girl were not called by anyone. The name "Zoya" surfaced much later, around the beginning of the 80s of the last century. And the surname "Karnaukhova" appeared ten years later. Researchers working in the archives of Samara could not find any traces of a real personality with such data.
The local archive of socio-political history contains a transcript of the regional party conference held in the last days of January 1956. It contains the words of the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU, Efremov: he mentioned a shameful phenomenon, to which religious fanatics and disseminators of harmful rumors must have had a hand. In the message of the party leader, it is said about the New Year's Eve, a dance with an icon and a fictional girl who allegedly turned to stone.
The leadership of the regional party committee instructed the editor of the newspaper Volzhskaya Kommuna to publish material exposing the falsification, and to the propaganda department of the regional committee to carry out explanatory work among the masses. The corresponding feuilleton was published in the newspaper on January 24 of the same year.
From eyewitness accounts
The documentaries on the subject cite the testimony of four alleged eyewitnesses to divine intervention in earthly affairs. They confirm the fact that the girl turned to stone after being punished for desecrating the shrine. It is striking that two of those who describe the events that took place in the mysterious house on Chkalovskaya are ministers of the church, and by their age they can hardly remember what happened. Two more eyewitnesses who assure the audience of the reality of the "miracle" are simply illiterate.
The journalists who were conducting the investigation managed to find residents of the houses that were in the vicinity of the "damned" place. It turned out that they did not know about the "miracle of the petrified Zoe". But they remember that just at that time, huge crowds of curious people were gathering near house 84. The people huddled in a crowd for several days, and then the crowd quickly dispersed. The neighbors of the house on Chkalovskaya pointed out that in the middle of January 1956, strange people came to them more than once, asking if they had a stone maiden by chance. The tenants, who did not understand anything, just shrugged their shoulders.
It was possible to establish that in the said house, which mysteriously burned down many years later, Claudia Bolonkina lived at the described time. The woman traded in beer and, according to rumors, did not have a high moral character. They said that for the opportunity to look at the petrified girl in her house, she allegedly took ten rubles from the curious. The amount at that time was not the smallest. But, as it turned out, Klavdia took money only for a picky inspection of her apartment, and not for showing some mythical girl.
Stone Zoya: what really happened?
Experts have repeatedly expressed that in the case of the urban legend of the "stone Zoya" we can talk about a phenomenon known in science, which is called mass psychosis. It happens that a phrase or even one word accidentally dropped by someone in a crowd can provoke riots and even riots. This requires only a certain attitude of people.
In publications on the topic of "stone Zoya" evidence is given that the ambulance doctors who came to rescue the girl from trouble could not give her an injection - the body tissues were so dense, although Zoya's weak breathing and pulse were allegedly audible. Psychiatrists speculate that there may have been a real case of catatonia, a torpor that is common in people with schizophrenia. But a person cannot stand in a catatonic stupor for a long time.
Do not stand up to any criticism and reports about the multitude of police officers who stood in a cordon and allegedly turned gray overnight at the sight of a terrifying sight. There were no such people among the former police officers. Researchers are inclined to believe that the cordon was set up only in order to preserve public order in a place of mass unrest, and not at all to protect the "stone Zoe" from the pressing crowd.
The attempts to establish the identity of the elder, who allegedly arrived in Kuibyshev for Easter from a distant monastery, also turned out in vain. According to legend, that holy man freed the sinner by saying a few prayer words to her. Then he took the icon in his hands, which the girl was still clutching to her chest. Only then did Zoya supposedly leave her place, but she never fully regained consciousness.
The described events became possible due to a number of factors, which include:
- human ignorance;
- low cultural level of the population;
- high speed of spread of rumors, not supported by facts.
Religious fanaticism and the dishonesty of individuals may well become the cause of mass phenomena that can lead the crowd into a state of dull excitement. It is sad that even now, half a century later, there are people who continue to excite weak minds with new and frank speculations about the miracles that allegedly took place in Kuibyshev.
