Arangas

I can't vouch for the fact that the following story actually happened, but I was told it as if it were true when I lived in a Yakut village.

In the 1960s, a group of archaeology students from Yakutsk State University went on a summer internship expedition to one of the republic's remote uluses (districts). They excavated and studied graves in an ancient cemetery. At first, the students were scared, but then they got used to it. Then one of them suggested that they go on a weekend to a nearby large alas (clearing), where there was a lake and they could swim away from the eyes of the villagers. The "pivot" was that on the outskirts of this alas was the grave of a local shaman, highly revered by the villagers. Some of the students tried to dissuade their friends from the idea, but after all, it was the Soviet era—most urban youth didn't believe in the supernatural. In the end, 8-9 people expressed a desire to go on the hike.

On the appointed day, they arrived by car and camped near the lake. They played ball, swam, drank... after a few drinks, everyone went looking for the shaman's grave and quickly found it, as it was in plain sight. It wasn't even really a grave, but rather an arangas—the body was located in a closed wooden "mini-crypt" on the surface (this was how Yakuts buried shamans before the adoption of Christianity). Some of the students were eager to open the arangas and examine the remains: "Are we archaeologists, after all?" The girls eventually talked the boys out of it, but they still did a bunch of things at the grave that shouldn't have been done—making noise, littering, and so on. Two drunk guys were particularly "distinguished" by simply relieving themselves at the base of the arangas before leaving. With that, they returned to the large communal tent pitched by the lake, where they went to sleep.

That night, they were awakened by a real storm outside. They didn't dare venture out in such weather—they simply lay there, talking, and listening to the eerie noise of the wind. Suddenly, above the noise, they heard someone clearly circling the tent. Everyone's heart sank, for all the members of the "expedition" were inside the tent, and the alas was quite far from the village. The bravest ones shouted out who was there, but got no answer.

Soon, things got worse: someone began pounding the tent with terrible force from the outside. The thick fabric almost split under the blows. The girls began screaming, and then a booming male voice in Yakut ordered the two boys who had relieved themselves on the shaman's grave to come out of the tent, calling them by name. Naturally, they resisted, but their frightened friends practically pushed them out, despite their protests. The boys stood up and looked around—they couldn't see anything, it was dark, the wind was raging, grass and leaves were flying through the air... They stood there for a couple of minutes, shivered, and climbed back in. All their friends lay dead in their places, their faces distorted with terror. The sight of them completely freaked them out, they started screaming and running around in circles. Finally, they came to their senses, got into the car, and drove back to the village, where they reported the incident to the village council.

The subsequent fate of these two is unknown. It is only known that there was no storm in the area that night, and the investigation left the boys pretty battered, but they were ultimately released, as it was discovered that their friends ALL died of a heart attack.