Legends of the Bolshoi Theater

The Bolshoi Theater is a visiting card of theatrical art in Russia. As those who have visited it at least once say, this is not just a stage and an auditorium, here, in the Bolshoi, magic truly happens.

But the Bolshoi itself is covered with rumors and legends that are filled with mysticism. Major misfortunes happened one after another. During the first hundred years, the building of the Bolshoi Theater burned down at least three times. The first – in the 1780s, even before the official opening, the second – in 1805 and the third – in 1853. Since then, a bitter joke has been preserved that firefighters in the Bolshoi are the main people after the artists.

The building itself was built on a once swampy area. Perhaps, and because of this, including the people began to invent and transmit legends that explain a series of large fires with evil fate.

This is how the legend of the swindler doctor appeared. In 1603 plague and famine struck Moscow. In that terrible Time of Troubles, many dashing people appeared who robbed the inhabitants. They say that one of these swindlers, in order to gain confidence in the townspeople, presented himself as a doctor. He committed crimes according to the same scheme: he found a wealthy family, offered them to drink a wonderful “cure for all diseases”, but instead of medicine he gave poison, which desperate people drank and then died. After the “doctor” stole valuables.

But one day he was not lucky, the youngest child, Nikitka, became capricious and did not drink the medicine. He quietly poured it out and gave the empty bottle to the criminal. After a short time, the whole family of the boy died, and he managed to hide and escape. Well, while the “doctor” was fascinated by theft, Nikita ran to the neighbors and told everything. The killer was caught off guard. People killed the criminal, and his body was thrown into the swamp, in the place where the Bolshoi Theater is now located. Allegedly, since then this place has been forever cursed for the excesses and ruthlessness of the robber buried there.

There have been no major fires in the Bolshoi since 1853. And people also found an explanation for this, but in a different legend.

And it sounds like this: during one of the fires, the peasant Vasily Marin pulled out a man stuck there from the burning building of the Bolshoi Theater and was subsequently awarded a medal by Nicholas I. The peasant, with his act and kind heart, was able to remove the curse, and after his death, in the form of his ghost, he began to protect not only the Bolshoi Theater from fires, but also appear on Moscow fires in different places to save people.

Olga Bakhareva.

Author’s photo