Published on March 14, 2023
Orek
Regions of expansion
Russian Federation
Description
A ghost, the soul of a sinner, a suicide, or a person who died a violent death; an evil entity.
According to legend, it lives in places of death; it can appear in the form of an adult or a girl in white with heart-rending screams.
The belief is connected with the pre-Muslim ideas of the Tatars that a person's soul is dissolved in his blood; spilled on the ground, it turns into orek. If this blood is burned, the orek will not appear.
The custom of burying those forcibly killed at the place of their death was associated with the belief about oreka.
