Stalinka

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An acquaintance of mine once told me a story about his apartment. He lives in a *Stalinka* (a Stalin-era building), so before him, at least two families had lived in that apartment. When he first moved in, the previous owners vaguely hinted that there was something wrong with the place. And, as you might expect, he soon became convinced of it himself.

It all began rather plainly and innocently — with rustling sounds. Here and there, they followed him throughout the apartment. Well, that happens, he thought — the building is old.

But one day, while my friend was taking a shower, his mobile phone suddenly rang. He turned off the water and reached for the phone, but before he could answer, the ringing stopped. He looked at the caller ID — and it showed his own landline number. The problem was that he lived alone, and there was no one who could have been calling.

At night, he also began hearing footsteps — in the hallway, in the kitchen, and sometimes it was as if someone sighed. My friend had the apartment blessed and personally went through every corner with a cross, but neither the noises nor the footsteps stopped.

Then truly unpleasant things began to happen — someone would slam the door to his room in the middle of the night. Out of nowhere — bang! — the door would shut. And this would happen several times a night. A couple of times, someone even knocked on his window — and he lives on the third floor…

Less than a year later, he moved out of the apartment. Who lives there now and what is happening there — I don’t know.