Remark: To anticipate any skepticism toward the title, I’ll clarify right away that the apartment owner later confirmed that something “is there,” preventing the owners from living there and scaring off any potential renters. But let's take it from the very beginning.

In April 2018, I arrived in Svitlovodsk, a small Ukrainian town on the Dnipro River. My goal was to open a new store selling massage equipment (that was my job from 2011-2018: traveling to different cities and launching new stores).

Svitlovodsk on the Google Maps:

One of our hydroelectric power plants is located in Svitlovodsk, and the Dnipro is so wide here that in some places you can’t see the opposite bank. Locals even call it “the sea.” Thanks to the river’s width, Svitlovodsk also has several yacht clubs, and before the war, annual sailing regattas (competitions) were held there. During the war, these have been prohibited because the hydroelectric power station is now under constant guard against possible Russian diversions. "Svitlovodsk" is literally translated into English as "A place of bright waters", but in reality, due to the proximity of the hydroelectric power plant, the state of the Dnipro River in this area is terrible: starting in July, the water becomes cloudy green from rotting algae.

With colleagues who came to help me and simultaneously learn from me about the challenging specifics of work in that field. Behind me is the Dnipro River. Even from the high hill in the center of Svitlovodsk, it’s hard to see the opposite shore.

When I was heading to Svitlovodsk, there were only two (!) advertisements for apartment rentals on OLX. After calling both owners in advance, I first went to see the cheaper apartment upon arrival (if it suited me, why pay more?). The city is built on hills, and the taxi couldn’t enter the courtyards, so I had to wander from hill to hill with two heavy bags in search of the required five-story building. An old 'Khrushchyovka' without an elevator, I climbed five flights of stairs with those bags and gasped at what I saw. The rent was only 800 UAH a month, and that's when I understood why (there were no photos on OLX). The empty apartment had no furniture (except for a stool, a table, and a half-collapsed bed in the bedroom), with torn walls and no wallpaper. It looked like an abandoned junkyard where even a drug den would be ashamed to settle in, let alone be 'unsuitable' for a store director to live in. I thanked the owner, who didn’t live there either and had only come to show me the apartment, and left, planning to rent the second, more expensive apartment, the photo of which I had seen on the website. But already in the courtyard, the landlord informed me over the phone that the apartment had already been rented out, and when I reminded him that we had an agreement, he replied, 'Well, sorry' and hung up.

What could I do? I had already arrived in a strange town with my things...and there was only one option left. It wasn’t like I could sleep on the street. So, I called the same woman again and agreed to rent that dreadful apartment.

This is how my store sign looked the day after opening (several weeks later). Some of the balloons had already deflated or popped:

True "Viy" at Nights

Footnote for foreign readers: Viy is a character from Ukrainian mythology, particularly in Slavic legends. He is depicted as a gigantic demon or spirit with hair made of snakes and the ability to fly. Viy serves as a guardian of the afterlife, often associated with darkness, fear, and death. He is described as an enemy of humans, capable of causing harm. Viy became well-known through Nikolai Gogol's story 'Viy,' which narrates his sinister powers and interactions with the protagonists.

The terrible condition of the apartment I rented in Svіtlovodsk turned out not to be the scariest thing awaiting me there. However, there was something that sweetened the bitter pill of living in that hovel: a balcony with a beautiful view of the Dnipro River. I spent my evenings on that balcony with a glass of cognac and a pack of cigarettes. Although I didn’t smoke when I arrived in Svetlovodsk, I soon began to.

At nights, some creature started walking around the apartment, scratching its claws on the bare parquet floor. Sometimes it would go up to the attic and walk loudly on the ceiling. It would sit on the windowsill outside and scratch at my bedroom window. And these were just the initial light attacks.

When I told my friend (an SBU officer) about this on the phone, he said:

"I would probably have shat myself and fled from there on the first day."

But I had nowhere to run: I came to Svetlovodsk with a specific purpose and had already received a pleasant advance from the investor. Additionally, a team followed me: a few more people from western Ukraine and a woman from Kharkiv. So, in the first few days, I tried to get along with my unexpected roommate, the "domovyk," in a good way: I put a saucer of milk and a few pieces of chocolate on the kitchen counter and invited him to treat himself.

But that didn’t calm the spirit. Since I turned out to be a man "hardened in battle" and didn’t flee the apartment, in the following days, the unknown creature began to behave even more aggressively: tugging at the bedroom door handle... Or hiding in the utility closet where the mop and such were stored, and pulling at the doors from the inside, which I had locked with a latch from the outside—like it was trying to break into the bedroom from the closet; the doors were genuinely shaking. This was really terrifying. At night, I prayed a lot, and then everything would quiet down. But as soon as I finished praying, half an hour later, it would start again, and I would get up to pray in the middle of the night because it was impossible to sleep anyway. By dawn, I had reached such a white rage that I got up in anger and flung open the closet doors: I thought, either I’ll tear the poltergeist's ass, or he’ll get me, but let’s clear things up already, because how much longer can this go on driving me crazy? But it turned out that no one was in the closet.

The adventure with the closet was not my first day of experiences with that "domovik," but it became a turning point. After such nights, I had to get up in the morning and work for 10-12 hours a day on setting up the new store and training the staff. So the next day, I called the apartment owner to ask if any previous tenants had complained about similar occurrences. I also wondered if maybe I was a little "off," losing my mind, and if it was all just in my head. But the owner, albeit reluctantly, confirmed that some entity lived there, which made all the tenants flee. The previous owner of the apartment had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, and it seemed that her restless spirit now resided in the apartment, trying to drive out anyone who showed up. She also offered me a discount to 500 UAH per month. I agreed since I had no other option, but I promised myself to check the local newspaper weekly for rental listings.

But week after week, not a single rental listing appeared. Svitlovodsk turned out to be a much worse "hole" than I could have imagined.

Isn't it enough to make you waste away and despair? I worked hard during the day, and at night I couldn't sleep because of the poltergeist in the apartment. A significant relief became my visits to the local yacht club on weekends.

A Temporary Respite

A month later (maybe a little more), my mother came to visit me since I hadn’t gone home to Oleksandriia even on weekends. She arrived fully prepared: bottles of holy water, sacred oil, incense, a bunch of icons, prayer books, and so on. She sprinkled holy water in all the corners of the apartment and painted crosses on the doorframes with sacred oil, especially on that cursed wardrobe, which the poltergeist had inexplicably favored the most and had been pulling at the doors every night. My mother recited some Christian exorcism ritual (I don't remember exactly what it was... I think it was an Akathist to Cyprian and Justina). And after that, oh miracle! The spirit disappeared for a while, and the apartment was quiet at night.

The Return of the Poltergeist

For about a week (maybe more, maybe less; I can’t recall such details) I enjoyed the peace, until I took a lady to the sauna and pleasantly “sinned” with her. That very evening, when I returned to the apartment, the poltergeist reappeared, and it was more furious than before. Since the Christian egregore had protected me from the spirit through my mother’s prayers, breaking the rules of the Christian egregore (fornication) shattered my protection and reopened access to me. The creature even attacked me directly and bit me on the leg (just above the ankle). Two deep, narrow wounds, as if from needle-like teeth, resembled a snake bite and took a long time to heal. I even returned to Oleksandriia with those wounds at the end of the summer and showed them to my parents. This convinced me that the creature in the apartment was unlikely to be the soul of a suicide victim but rather some fundamentally different entity with inhuman teeth.

After the sauna, everything returned to the hell way it was. Every night, the "Viy" and my battle with it continued, along with sprinkling holy water in the corners, prayers, spells, and chronic insomnia. This persisted until the very end of my stay in Svitlovodsk, as I couldn’t find another apartment there. So, I lived in Svitlovodsk for about 5 months in the same apartment with the poltergeist, but I left only after I had completed all my business. That little worker from the closet was probably glad to finally be rid of me because putting on a show and trying to scare someone for 5 months straight must also be quite a job, and I hope it got tired as well.

This was not the only experience, but one of the three most vivid ones that clearly demonstrated to me the reality of the afterlife and otherworldly beings in practice. I don’t think I was experiencing hallucinations, because after returning home to Oleksandriya, there were no similar manifestations: the entity stayed in its terrifying apartment in Svitlovodsk. Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, the owner of that apartment confirmed that other tenants who tried to live there before me had also complained about the "poltergeist."

It was there, in Svitlovodsk, that I celebrated my 35th birthday. In the photo, those aren’t red pimples on my nose; it’s lipstick)

✍ Bogdan Karasiov, 2ᛟ24.

• The post includes beneficiary rewards 10% for @worldsmile

I invite:

• @diodao
• @mama21
• @soulwind

Read the rules in @irawandedy blog: Adventures.

P.S. I added my original text (in Ukrainian) in the first comment.

And what do you think (?) that creature was, which can be invisible and pass through walls at will, but can also bite deeply with thin, long teeth like a snake’s? It doesn’t seem like a completely disembodied spirit, but it also doesn’t resemble a monster with a fully physical body.