Excavations in Demyansk. Demyansk cauldron - demonism of the anomalous zone

All three documentaries about "black diggers" are quite versatile material, I recommend it!

A variety of people visit Death Valley. Search teams are looking for remains, suicide medallions, Red Army books, orders and medals in order to identify the dead with their help and bury them in mass graves. Trophyrs and marauders, known as black trackers, come to the Valley for cold and firearms, cartridges, grenades, mines, shells, they search for and dig up unknown burial places of Soviet and German military personnel in search of gold teeth and wedding rings, personal belongings and awards - everything it subsequently ends up in private museums or goes on sale, providing a stable income for amateur military archaeologists, because the demand for such things does not weaken over time.

Local residents from settlements on the outskirts of the Valley are primarily interested in small arms and ammunition for them, explosives and detonators for poachers shooting animals and killing fish - the need for survival in the post-Soviet space and the poverty of the majority of the population dictate their harsh conditions.

Recently, a new, rather numerous category of people has appeared who come to Death Valley exclusively for scrap non-ferrous metals - in semi-legal collection points, which are in almost every regional center and large villages in Russia, they willingly accept brass shells, aluminum kettles, mugs and flasks, copper rims from artillery shells, fragments of duralumin sheathing from smashed planes. For some, hiking in the Valley is a way to earn a living, someone comes there because of fiery patriotism, for someone it is a hobby and just an exciting pastime - but all these people were united by the war.

The realistic, shocking film "DEATH VALLEY" was filmed in 2001 with an amateur video camera and edited by the author on a PC based on his own thesis in forensic science for a limited audience. The film "VALLEY OF DEATH" is provided with comments by the author and music, is dedicated to amateur military archeology and tells about the activities of search parties and black rangers at the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. Not recommended for viewing by persons with an unstable psyche!

"NUMBER OF THE HUNTER"- these are several short stories on the military-archaeological theme in cyberpunk style, united by one lyrical hero who considers himself a hooligan and a bastard, an emotional, sincere and contradictory person. Exhumation of the remains of a Red Army soldier. Our response to black journalists. Excursion to the line of Stalin. Chest of grandfather Hans. Excavations of four MAXIM machine guns, Eva Braun's dildo and many other interesting trophies.

Hello comrades. I'll start with useful INFO Every year it's getting harder and harder to dig. Last year, there was nowhere to go from the Reds, but this year it’s completely melancholy. What leaves in the forest. Like last year, Ramushey has a camp on the left. About 30 people. They dug the same old cemetery last time. Because there is nothing more to dig there. It's been banged up for a long time. Here clicked them nah. Davydov last year had a camp on the right, now on the left. The camp is simply huge for 100 people. With a flag. I think in the district within a radius of km-2 uibito mustache.--Tsuki. Where is Zaluchye after him by the road Camp 50 people. Mostly Novgorodians. And a few cars from St. Petersburg. Also knocked out before knocked out. Dolina works near Demyansk. They are the best equipped on the GTS And are undermined in the very depths. Photo September 2015 This is what is visible. Damp holes in the water in the forest. Cop 90% riding. The rivers are swollen. We couldn't go where we wanted to. although the car is imprisoned under the forest. Out of grief, we went to the old Nemchurov places. As usual rubbish and howls. I won't even show it. There is no way. They sat and puffed with grief. Then they ran into a mined place. Frozen and caught treason. And then they laughed until colic.

(Watch YUTUB Demyansk cauldron. Change of black.) some pictures

The fact that in Demyansky Bor, located in one of the picturesque tracts of the Novgorod province, some kind of demonism, something transcendent, was going on, back in 1862, the manager of the soap-making artels, Nikolai Prokhortsev, told. “These marvelous places, in terms of terrain, are similar to a huge cauldron,” he wrote to his boss Alexei Yurskov, “they are rich in natural aromas ideal for perfumery needs, various plants and fruits. Only a mystical little business happens in places, unsuitable for human habitation. A repulsive feeling develops when something in certain guises is imagined. Morok, in a word.

That looks, directed at the back of the head and back, capable of knocking down. That loss of orientation in place. You will go from the right place to the wrong one. If they don't help, then don't come back. You will perish. Before nights in bad weather, you will definitely see a fiery goblin here. A kind of foggy bundle grows before you from the ground, and well, it glows until it sticks around you with wet fiery cotton. Compasses don't work here. A lone person in a bork will definitely take a sip of dashing. It happens that his bones will not always be found.

Half a century has passed. 1912 - a native of the area, St. Petersburg geologist Afanasy Zabrodov, using the most advanced instruments at that time, revealed anomalously high magnetization and electrical conductivity of the soil along the perimeter of the Demyansk boiler in the forest, when “energy emissions were distributed by combs, moved, swinging like pendulums, with a frequency of 5-10 seconds. stopping traffic."

Anyone could check this by watching the compass needle indicating a false north direction. Using an accurate oil compass, placed on the edge, it was possible to observe the slow non-stop rotation of the arrow. Once, doing such “tricks”, Zabrodov filled a glass balloon with weightless silvery threads, about the physical properties of which he wrote:

“This substance, although extremely light, although it looks like dandelion fluff, is cellular in itself and fell out along with the snow. It is incombustible, insoluble in acid and alkali. When passing electrical currents, it resonates, emitting a high-pitched squeak, deflecting the pointing needle of the galvanometer. The fall of cotton wool was preceded by a strong glow of the lower edge of the clouds.

The question of the origin of "thread cotton wool", like cotton wool itself, hung in the air. In any case, in 1926, the red commander Nikolai Savelyev, who went to the forest to pick mushrooms, while on a visit to the town of Demyansk, told his brother Vasily: “There were so many mushrooms on the rotten wood that the cart box was not enough. The horse trembled and did not move. It didn’t take long to guess what was the matter. The low clouds from within were filled with an ominous red light. Ice pellets began to pour out of them, mixed with shreds of prickly gray cotton wool. I filled the bag with this cotton.

It was getting dark fast like autumn. The clouds burned like large lanterns, illuminating everything in the area. I was very surprised that the conifer, bushes, rotten fallows, grass and mushrooms in the box shimmered with a trembling green light. Each slashing wave of the hand traced a green tracing line in the red air. When I decided not to pay attention to the devilry, I made a fire, the flame, the pot over it, the brew in the pot - everything glowed and pulsed, changing colors from red to green. I went for brushwood and came across a ghost that exactly repeated my movements. I realized that this ghost is my light double, my exact copy walking at a distance. I became uncomfortable. As soon as I approached the hot fire, the double recoiled from me and floated through the air into the thicket, where, turning into a white ball, it scattered with multi-colored sparks.

By morning, nothing reminded of evening adventures. Only the bag in which I stuffed the heavenly cotton wool was wet and very dirty. I think I was mistaken in mistaking tar for dirt. But where did the tar come from in a clean and dry bag? The best of the wise men will not say what is happening, who is in charge in Demyansky Bor.

Until the 1960s, official science stubbornly refused to study the "flagrant oddities" of the Demyansk anomalous zone, attributing much evidence about them to fiction, superstition, and folklore.
During the war years, the Demyansk offensive operation of the troops of the North-Western Front of the Red Army took place in these parts. In January-February 1942, Soviet troops went on the offensive and surrounded a large group of Germans (the so-called "Demyansky cauldron"). But in April 1942, the encirclement broke through, the German troops held Demyansk. More than 10,000 people died in this operation on the Soviet side alone.

1962 - a former front-line soldier, party worker Boris Levchenkov, having spent a vacation in the restless territory of the boiler and indignant at the fact that the remains of the Red Army soldiers, who held the defense here to the last, were not buried, sent a letter to the CPSU Central Committee in which he shared his sore thoughts that, in his opinion, it was necessary to do for the arrangement of mass graves. The letter did not go unnoticed. Sappers and scientists visited places of not so long ago bloody battles. The sappers did something to neutralize and eliminate mines and unexploded ordnance. The conclusions of the scientists came down to the fact that the area actually "has active deviations, which adversely affects people's health, causing hallucinations accompanied by unmotivated actions."

As for the burial of the remains of Soviet soldiers, the public began to deal with this. They did a lot, but they could have done even more if it weren’t for the devilish temper of the Demyansk cauldron, which, it seems, did not tolerate the newcomers and blocked their good intentions. Levchenkov himself, undoubtedly a brave man, in his letter of confession signed his impotence to understand the mysteries of these places.

“There are many unburied bones, bleached by rain and sun, and in the dark they sometimes glow. Above crumbling trenches, dugouts destroyed by fogs, condensing, visibly bring out almost human figures. This could be called purely natural curiosities, if there were no nightly meetings with ghosts seen in the swampy lowlands, where there are well-preserved corpses, ours and Germans. With the appearance of the ghost, I personally, with the participation of collective farmers V. I. Nikolaev, P. A. Trotsenko, and L. A. Milovanov, observed spontaneous combustion of fresh vegetation, spontaneously stopping. On other days, the oppressive mood of unreasonable fear so overcame that it forced me to look for another place to sleep. It is rightly said among the people: where there are human remains, everything is alien to life. The bones of the fallen soldiers must be given to the ground. A lot of dead energy has accumulated in Demyansky Bor. The water in the river there is dead, it takes strength. Behind the forest, she is different, alive, gives strength. Scientists need, forgetting about pride, to take on the solution of the mystery of the Demyansk cauldron.

But scientists, as before, proudly refuse to recognize such anti-scientific "devilry", and the Demyansk cauldron is still regularly harvesting bloody harvest. The black trackers, frequenting here for German awards, soldier and officer dog tags, quite serviceable weapons that can be profitably sold, are blown up by disturbing rusted ammunition. Even experienced "black diggers" are troubled.

According to local old-timers, “... young people came here, neither in God nor in hell ... They were looking for all the awards and German weapons. So, at first, someone almost strangled their friend in the swamp, then at midnight someone got into the habit of coming to them from the forest, so out of fear they not only fired from a machine gun, but also began to throw grenades. And soon they fled.

And here is what the designer and artist, collector and traveler Yuri Nikolaev says about the secrets of Demyansky Bor, who traveled to those places for several years himself, with friends and relatives to bury the remains, to erect home-made monuments:

“...Walking through the swamp, I began to notice that someone's gaze was chasing me in the same area. You look around - no one, turn away - again someone drills your back, you feel a look for 200 meters, then everything disappears.
I didn’t want to look ridiculous, and therefore I didn’t tell anyone about it, however, I tried to bypass that section of the swamp. And in 1989, my nephew ran to the camp and said that someone was following him in the swamp: “I didn’t see anyone nearby, but our fearless husky was so scared, pressed herself against my legs and began to squeal plaintively.” Then my son experienced the same. In general, I forbade the kids to go alone.

... Moving a few meters away from the camp, we saw two bunches of short silvery threads in the grass. I picked it up, the threads were silky and completely weightless.

“Throw away,” said Yuri, “that you take all sorts of filth!” But I continued to examine the threads and tried to understand how they got here: the grass was not crumpled. Then we came to the swamp. I immediately saw a good rifle, and Yuri found a shell that he wanted to take to Moscow as a souvenir. We took pictures of each other with the finds, and I looked at the clock - 12:06. What happened next, none of us remembers.
We woke up in a thicket of reeds, taller than human height. It was already 16:10.
The head buzzed in both of them as if from a hangover, although we only drank tea.

But what is most strange of all is that our footprints are nowhere to be seen, the reeds stood like a wall, and only the patch where we were was trampled down.
We had neither a rifle nor a shell. True, the camera hung around my neck, and the bowler hat was tied to Yura's belt.

We tried to remember how we ended up here and where our finds were, but all in vain. We felt as if someone had fooled us.
... As soon as we went to the forest, some kind of devilry began to happen. You reach a certain point and then you can’t take a single step: your legs fill with lead, your body becomes numb, and, what is most disgusting, such horror rolls in, from which the hair stands on end, perspiration appears all over the body. He looked at Yura, something was wrong with him as well. Silently turned back, went down to the river, immediately let go, only trembling in the knees.

W WikiHelp
Black diggers are search and archaeological teams or lone enthusiasts, specializing mainly in artifacts of the Great Patriotic War and other wars. The main artifacts are parts of soldier's ammunition, old household items, awards, etc.
Sometimes black diggers post reports on various thematic forums or sites.
The term “black archaeologists” is not synonymous with black diggers, meaning people who search for historical artifacts of various eras without official permission.
Who are they, Black diggers, let's try to figure it out.

Some of them are people who do what they love, but who do not have permission to excavate. It often happens that then they join historical clubs that have these permits.
But there are others who carry out excavations not for the local history or institute museum, but for sale: collectors pay dearly for various military items, awards, and especially weapons.


There is a hierarchy in the environment of "black trackers".
"Cool". These are small, well-organized groups that are looking exclusively for ammunition and weapons. Mostly they come across cartridges and explosives.
"Professionals". For them, forest search is also the main source of income. They usually go to the forest for two or three months. Finding an untouched position, they dig out everything more or less valuable. In addition to weapons and ammunition, "professionals" also take German helmets, buckles, buttons, and SS symbols.
Representatives of the third type of search engines call themselves "archaeologists". According to them, the guys are not pursuing any material gain. Like, searching for them is something like a hobby.
The fourth type "jackals". Guys 17-18 years old. They do not dig themselves, they pick up what the professionals left on the "opened" positions. They can, having collected grenades, throw them into the fire and watch with curiosity what will come of it. This is the craziest category.
"Black diggers" are digging the earth, extracting from it the half-decayed attributes of the war: weapons, orders and medals, personal belongings of those left on the battlefields, their skulls and bones. But for them, bones are worthless rubbish, the costs of a trophy business, for which they won’t even give a penny on the market.


The object of their attention is, first of all, weapons, military awards, personal values.
Buttons, buckles and other small things from the times of the Great Patriotic War hit the market. Badges and medals are in high demand.
These things are bought by collectors and fascist teenagers. If collectors are interested in rare specimens, then shaven-headed teenagers buy something cheaper, if only with a swastika. This forms the assortment: fascist paraphernalia prevails on the shelves.





It happens that behind the "black trackers" there are serious structures selling their findings. They manage to smuggle tanks and cannons from the war times under the guise of scrap metal. There, all this is restored and appears in museums.


With the help of special equipment, the detainees tried to lift a tank from the times of the Great Patriotic War from under the water and sell it on the illegal market.
If the “black diggers” put the dug up weapons in order, then such weapons are in demand in the criminal world, because the number of the weapon is often erased during cleaning, the ammunition for it is no longer used anywhere and also lost its marking, eaten away by corrosion. In addition, explosives obtained from shell cases are also in demand.



The worst thing is that the "black digger" easily endangers his own and other people's lives. After all, many of them drag their dangerous finds home without thinking about the consequences.
All illegal activities of diggers with weapons fall under Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It provides for punishment for trafficking in weapons and ammunition, as well as for their storage and transportation. Even a few bullets and a part of some kind of explosive device can lead to the dock. The maximum punishment is 8 years in prison.
Article 223 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation states that "illegal manufacture or repair of firearms, components for them, as well as the illegal manufacture of ammunition, explosives or explosive devices are punishable by imprisonment for up to 4 years."


Excerpts from an interview with a black digger
Mikhail is what we would call a "black digger".
He hastened to make up his mind.
- In order to understand who the "black trackers" are, it is necessary to understand that the "blacks" are those who are not "reds". That is, everyone who does not have official permission to conduct search operations, and few people have it, automatically falls into the category of “black trackers”.
- And what, as a rule, are looking for "black diggers"?
They are looking for what they find. We are happy with every find.
In fact, there are very, very few really hardcore "black diggers" who go to "bomb" German cemeteries. Just because such untouched cemeteries have always been considered a tasty morsel. Only there the deceased was buried in uniform, with all his regalia, rings, awards, sometimes with ceremonial weapons and other personal items.
So you understand, right? It is much easier to find such burial places than to comb the places of military clashes, where almost everything is chopped up and ground up by artillery and mortar shells. Finding something really surviving in such a field is quite difficult. In addition, the German officers had clear instructions: to pull their dead, as far as possible, from the battlefield for further burial. Therefore, to find the remains of a German soldier on the battlefield for us, "black pathfinders", is a rather rare success.


- But what about the rumors about a bunch of "Schmeisser" found in the fields and other weapons, which are then sold to dishonest people?
Bullshit. Full. In six years of practice, I saw only one found German submachine gun MP-40, which for some reason we call "Schmeisser". He was in such a state that we generally understood with great difficulty what we had found.
I repeat, finding a whole weapon on the battlefield is almost impossible. Just imagine, they killed a man, he dropped his weapon, and then the battle continues, and the shells are torn, and the mines are pouring in a hail. What kind of safety can we talk about at all?


Secondly, the very fact that the Germans have automatic weapons in such a huge amount, as it is customary to show in the movies, can be called into great doubt. There were very few automatic weapons. Armed or special units and crews of armored vehicles, or unit commanders.
That is, approximately 1 out of 20, at best, was armed with a machine gun, and to be more precise, a submachine gun. The rest of the audience fought with Mauser-98k carbines. There were also companies of submachine gunners, but again in a very limited number.
In addition, there was a clear order from our command - to collect things from the dead and hand them over to special reception points. More or less useful things were collected from the dead by special trophy teams. And after the war, sappers involved in mine clearance of huge areas also "had a hand" in collecting trophies.



All these shots are from "Brother-2", where they sell a similar "echo of war" - pure farce. What normal person will go to "business" with a semi-rusty machine gun, rifle or pistol? With the same success, you can shoot from some kind of arquebus.
No, I do not argue, somewhere this can happen, but this is rather a very rare exception than the rule. They can trade weapons that were hidden, oiled and neatly stored in the gas compartment during the war. It's true.
What about the remains of the dead? How is it with them?
- How, how ... Locals, as a rule, are left to lie on the surface. We dig in, if the remains are scattered, or bury like a human being, if we find the whole soldier.
There is a rumor that if you find the bones of a German soldier, with a token on which his data is stamped, and contact the relatives of the deceased, then you will receive some kind of reward for this. This is a legend. I myself took the tokens I found to Germany. Brought just like that, did not take any money. The only thing I can say is that it's creepy. Really oppressive and pressing on the psyche of the atmosphere, sometimes it is very difficult to endure. Especially in such places of mass death of people as the Demyansk cauldron in the Novgorod region.
“Tell me what is this occupation for you?” Is there any purpose to this lesson of yours?
- I have a dream: I would like to find a place that would be completely untouched by anyone. Understand? So that even a human foot would not set foot there. The fight is over...and that's it. Time stopped. There are very few of them, but, they say, you can find them.
- What about material goods? You are a "black digger"! ..
- Oh, I'm begging you. Not everyone is doing this business because of the dough. I assure you that ninety percent digs in the ground solely for the sake of interest. Hobbies, adrenaline, some desire to learn history. For the most part, among the “black trackers” there are well-versed people who understand the subject sometimes better than armchair historians. Don't forget that "black digger" is a label. In fact, this is a person who wants to do what he loves, but who simply does not have permission to excavate. It often happens that then people are served in historical clubs, which, of course, have these permits. But let's not forget about the real marauders. There are also them. But God is their judge.
Video
Black diggers spin GPs (explosive objects)
ABNORMAL LANGUAGE PRESENT
The dream of black diggers

To view videos on the site, please enable JavaScript and make sure your browser supports HTML5 video.

A group of enthusiastic diggers (read black trackers or illegal archaeologists) have been looking for interesting places for a long time in order to dig up rich trophies. When they came to seemingly untouched pits and trenches, joyful excitement awaited them. The first pits showed the presence of rubbish, but when they began to come across more or less whole and meaningful things, the diggers could not believe their eyes for a long time: in front of them were things marked SS.

SS helmets, "Meine Ehre heiss Treue" SS buckles, a lighter, an SS eagle and a silver ring and other cherished artifacts! But... Some experts and experienced diggers, having watched this video, doubted its authenticity. There are too many SS things per square meter of forest, isn't that fake? And the fact that the author of the video cut it off a lot and did not show the process of finding the ring, the buckle in full ... All this makes you especially carefully look at the footage from the excavations, review them several times. And the final scene, where the digger, seemingly even deliberately filming the process of cleaning the SS buckle from dirt in the nearest funnel, immediately hides it in his pants pocket, suggests that this is all a staged video, and by no means a documentary. What do you think about the authenticity of this video? Have you ever come across such rich and sweet places?

The SS men wore black uniforms, as well as insignia in the form of two Zig runes. Initially, the SS men wore the usual form of attack aircraft. There were differences, but they were not very big. The SS men wore black caps, ties, breeches and an armband with a black border. At first, on their caps, the SS men wore a dead head with a round metal cockade with concentric rings of black, white and red.

In the autumn of 1929, the uniform of the musicians of the SS units was supplemented with black and white "swallow's nests" - a kind of mantles. In 1930, Himmler abolished the old brown uniform and black ties and introduced a new, black uniform. New black uniforms were worn with breeches and knee-high boots, as well as officer marching belts. Usually they wore a light tobacco-brown shirt, for solemn occasions there was a white shirt. To attend society (balls, clubs, etc.), a black club tunic with SS symbols was developed for officers. On June 27, 1939, the officers received a white version of the daily uniform, intended for use as a summer holiday uniform from April 1 to September 30. The white uniform then appeared among the soldiers, but, with the exception of the cavalry, it was rarely worn.

From 1934, the "SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" and the SS Troops began military training, and it was found that the black SS uniform was not suitable for combat operations. Therefore, in 1935, a gray field uniform was developed, which differed from black only in color. By 1940, the Waffen-SS adopted the army style uniform. As the formation of the SS troops expanded, new uniforms and insignia appeared: the crews of the SS tanks received black jackets, reminiscent of the cut of the Wehrmacht tank jackets (the difference was in the cut of the lapels, which were smaller).

In 1938 the Allgemeine-SS received a new, pale gray uniform. The new uniform looked like black, but had two shoulder straps, and an eagle was located in place of the armband. Pale gray uniforms were first given to employees of the main departments, and then to everyone else. During the war, the pale gray uniform was gradually superseded by the gray uniform of the SS Troops, especially the field uniforms worn by members of the SD and Allgemeine-SS officers serving in the occupied territories. By 1944, the black uniform had become associated with the concept of "rear rat", so wearing it was not as prestigious as it was before the war. During operations in Italy, in the Balkans and in the south of the USSR, the SS men wore a sandy-yellow tropical uniform, designed according to the Italian model. Boots with short gaiters were worn with this uniform, which, as the war grew, replaced expensive boots.

Initially, the SS men wore a black overcoat. A black overcoat with white ammunition was very often worn by soldiers of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Simultaneously with the introduction of the gray uniform, a gray overcoat was introduced. The double-breasted smell of the overcoat provided reliable protection from the wind. For sentries, there was a variant of the same overcoat, sewn from thicker cloth. Officers in the rank of Oberführer and above received permission not to fasten the top three buttons on their overcoats so that colored valves were visible (they were supposed to have gray lapels on their overcoats).

Since 1941, holders of the Knight's Cross also received the right not to fasten the top buttons. However, the overcoats turned out to be “weak” against the harsh Russian winters, so in the fall of 1942 the SS men received thick, warmly lined parkas with a hood. The hood had a drawstring, which, together with the waist belt, protected the soldiers from the piercing wind.

The SS men took on a voluntary basis tall men of Aryan origin 25-35 years old, who knew their origin to the fifth generation (more precisely: officers - until 1750, others - until 1800), the soldier also had to have healthy teeth and should not I had vision problems. However, later this requirement only applied to the so-called Allgemeine-SS. During the Second World War, numerous national units were created under the SS, where people of any nation were recruited, except for Jews and Gypsies.

They could not count on a career in the Allgemeine-SS, but they had the right to receive German citizenship after a few years of service. Ethnic Germans living outside of Germany (Volksdeutsche) played a prominent role in the formation of the so-called "native" SS divisions (divisions in which non-SS members could serve) - in many of them the battalions were mainly or completely staffed by soldiers - Volksdeutsche.

However, the leadership of the divisions noted the lack of reliability of these units, which began to manifest itself more and more as the war progressed, closer to the defeat of Nazi Germany.