"The territory of the fulfillment of dreams" /Guryevsk/

___ The village at the silver smelter, which was launched on November 15, 1816, was founded on the Small Bachat River, on the day of St. Guriy. The city is small, with a population of about 22,000 people, there is a metallurgical plant, a food processing plant, a mini-oil refinery, and there are road and rail links. Of the attractions - the Memorial to the Guryans who fell on the fronts of World War II. It stands on a big mountain and is visible from almost anywhere in the city.
___ There is also a haunted house in Guryevsk. At least that is what the Guryans themselves say about him. For more than half a century, children’s cries have been periodically heard in the house, and sometimes ghostly figures see them .... This is an old house of merchants Ermolaev. Pavel Timofeevich, and his son Narkis Pavlovich were actually among the “fathers” of Guryevsk at the beginning of the 20th century. In those days, they were incredibly rich. It’s enough to mention that for a long time a third of the production of the local metallurgical plant (20 thousand pounds with a total output of 60 thousand pounds per year) was sold through them. Shops, shops, a mill, a stud farm - almost the entire business Guryevsk of the beginning of the century was “Yermolaevsky”. And the house speaks for itself - red brick, two-story, spacious, and even with decorative balconies. At the same time, Guryevsk was only a small part of the business, a "subsidiary", if you like. The main business was carried out in Tomsk - the main center of civilization in Western Siberia.
___ According to legend, after the February Revolution of 1917, the Ermolaevs disappeared with the whole family on the night of March 1. And in front of the orphaned building, the first working meeting took place in the morning. The townspeople estimated that the matter was dirty and came to the conclusion that Narkis Pavlovich (his father had already died by then) was killed along with his wife and children in the basement of his own house. And they killed brutally, trying to find out where the merchant gold is hidden. How and where they were buried - no one knows. But it was hardly a normal Christian burial. So the souls of the dead were doomed to mourn their fate in the family home.
____ During the largest civil war in the house of the Ermolaevs, both “red” and “white” managed to settle. Which, in general, is clear - the best house in the village, and even in the strategic center of the settlement. Where else could they equip the temporary headquarters?

Although no supporting documents were preserved, the old-timers of the city claimed that both of them practiced interrogations directly at the headquarters, and casemates were equipped in basements. Before the adoption of the Geneva Convention, there remained 10 more years, so no one was particularly ceremonious with the prisoners - the methods used were barbaric, but effective. In general, a lot of blood was shed. There were rumors about tortured women, and even children, but no documentary evidence, we repeat, no. And who needs them, these pieces of paper, when unhappy people tortured by the “white” / “red” monsters have been mourning themselves for almost 100 years in the house where their life was cut short?
During the Great Patriotic War, students of the factory-apprenticeship school worked in the building. They asked not to appoint them night shifts in this terrible house, but somehow one of them was guilty and greatly angered the teacher. In punishment, the teacher locked the teenager in the basement of Ermolaev’s house for the night. In the morning, having replaced, the teacher and the Federal Law School found the classmate dead, without visible signs of violence. According to legend, the cause of death could not be established. But there was another version of the one who nevertheless cries in the museum silence of the house of merchants Ermolaevs.
Who knows, maybe that is why near the house of the Ermolaevs in 2019 the Temple of the Holy Martyrs Guria, Samon and Aviv was erected ?!
______ In 2020, the Guryev district was recognized as the "Territory of the fulfillment of dreams." If you take into account the mystical component of Guryevsk that goes in local legends, you can safely go there to make your most secret desires;)))