Divnogorye Museum-Reserve

Divnogorye - a hill and a museum-reserve in Liskinsky district Voronezh Region Of Russia. The complex has been mentioned in documents since 1653, although there are assumptions about its earlier origin. The monastery was founded in the middle of the XVII century . natives of the left-bank Ukraine, led by Abbot Guriy. The heyday of the monastery falls on the XIX century . Then there was already an oak throne in the altar, and the iconostasis was one-tiered, painted on sheet iron. The Last Supper was written over the iconostasis. In the 1858-1860s, schemamonk Marcel dug himself a crypt inside the complex, where he was buried. In Soviet times, there was a rest house here, and later an anti-tuberculosis sanatorium. The museum was founded here in 1988, and in 1991 it received the status of a museum-reserve. Since 2020, it is a candidate for inclusion in the list of World Heritage Sites.

The area of the museum-reserve is more than 11 km2. From a geological point of view, the reserve represents the outcrops of Cretaceous deposits on the surface of the earth. The maximum height of the plateau above sea level reaches 181 meters, relative - 103 meters (the mouth of the river The Quiet Pine at the confluence with the Don, which flows at the foot of the plateau, is located at an altitude of 78 m above sea level). Due to the rather significant height difference between the plateau and the floodplain of the Don and Quiet Pine rivers, its microclimate differs significantly from the surrounding floodplain lowlands. The raised dry surface of the plateau heats up quickly. Rising up streams of hot air drive away the forming thunderclouds towards the low floodplain lands. As a result, the already small average annual precipitation in the region (on average 480 mm per year) over the plateau is reduced by 1.5-2 times. The summer period is especially dry. This slows down the process of water erosion, and also reduces the likelihood of sinkholes. Voids inside the chalk layer are present and are detected as follows: when passing over its surface, human steps emit a kind of hum. Despite the rather steep slopes, the plateau underwent anthropogenic changes: in 1860, part of it was blown up with dynamite to lay a railway. In addition, the activities of sheep farms and vandalism caused great damage to the reserve.

According to rumors, the ghost of a black monk still haunts the Divnogorye Museum-Reserve, appearing in July near the Small Divas.

The story begins several centuries ago, when a young monk Pavel lived in the monastery, who walked around the villages and collected money for casting a new bell (rumored to be golden). When he reached the White Mountains, where the robbers lived, he buried the collected money on the bank of the Don. Pavel fell into the hands of robbers, but he did not say where he buried the money. The monk was not killed, but tortured and half-dead was thrown under the walls of the Belogorsky monastery. When he came to, he couldn't remember where he hid the money. 

Many years later, Pavel became a bishop and, together with the monk Vasily from the Divnogorsky monastery, found himself near the place where the money was buried, and immediately remembered him. On the same day, Pavel became ill, and he died suddenly, having managed to tell Vasily where the money was (according to another version, he told Vasily about the treasure, after which he killed / poisoned him). 

It took only a week, and the young monk was found dead near the bank of the Don next to a dug-out pit, which turned out to be empty. Vasily was buried next to Pavel.

Since then, it is believed that every summer in the cemetery people see the ghost of a monk who rises from the grave and goes in search of treasure. Some say that it is Pavel who wants to return the money stolen from him, others are inclined to think that the restless soul of Vasily wanders at night, who was seduced by someone else.

We were there in July 2009 and 2010 in the daytime and in the evening, unfortunately, the ghost could not be seen or photographed.