The scariest creepy places in the world. scary places on the planet, like working torture rooms of the criminal investigation department in the district police departments. About the places where the little one is played every day. New Guinea "pearl" looks quite attractive

In this material, we will tell you about the most terrible places on the planet, which deserved this title not so much by their appearance, but by their terrible backstory.

Places that look frightening, but nothing more, we will devote a separate article.

The creepiest places on earth

Chernobyl. Ukraine

The authorities concealed the true reason for the evacuation to the last, so people were sure that they were leaving their homes for a couple of days. Until now, unread newspapers lie in abandoned apartments, toys are scattered in children's rooms, textbooks are on school desks.

On Labor Day, May 1, 1986, an amusement park was to open in Pripyat. But the local children were not destined to ride the carousels. The slowly rusting Ferris wheel has become the most recognizable symbol of the abandoned Pripyat. Meanwhile, this is one of the most infected places in the city.

Although the official population of Pripyat is zero, in the 1990s there were about 900 “self-settlers” of advanced age in the Exclusion Zone who, due to circumstances, could not or did not want to leave the city.

The forest area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is today called the "Red Forest" because of the yellowish tint. Even the shoots that grew after the accident turned yellow due to radiation dust that settled on the soil and absorbed into the roots.

IN last years the level of radiation in the city dropped significantly - time and a new sarcophagus over the accident site affected. The radioactive background in Pripyat is cleaner than in megacities, but there are still places with "radioactive bookmarks" where the dosimeter starts beeping dangerously.

Poveglia is an island of ghosts. Italy

In 1892, a clinic for the mentally ill opened on the island. The first doctor of the hospital could be ideally described by the epithet "insane": obsessed with scientific ambitions, he experimented with patients with impunity - he cut the frontal lobes of the brain with a hammer and a chisel through the eye socket, beat the patients with electric current, forced them to lie in ice water for hours.

Their torment ended when the doctor threw himself off the lighthouse for unknown reasons. Under the new management, the hospital existed until 1968, but nothing else out of the ordinary happened within its walls. It was this place that inspired Dennis Lehane's novel Shutter Island, which later formed the basis of the screenplay. movie of the same name with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Aokigahara. Suicide Forest in Japan

The forest looks pretty creepy, but mysticism has nothing to do with it: when in 864 AD. happened major eruption Fuji volcano, these lands were covered with a thick layer of lava. Making their way up through the thickness of the solidified magma, the roots of the trees curved at bizarre angles. In addition, in the forest, covering an area of ​​35 square meters. km. you can get lost in no time, because due to the iron ore deposits in these places, the compass does not work.

It is these two circumstances that have made the forest one of the most frightening places in Japan of the past. In ancient times, the Japanese took old people and hopelessly ill family members to the Aokigahara forest and left them to die. To this day, there are legends about ghosts who take revenge on random travelers for a terrible death in hunger and cold.

Aokigahara retains this title today, and deservedly so. Since the middle of the 20th century, suicides have been regularly committed in it. In terms of popularity among suicidal people, this place is second only to the Golden Bridge in Los Angeles. Every year, a detachment of volunteers goes into the forest to search for the bodies of suicides. During such search operations, an average of 30 to 80 people who committed suicide are found. This means that on average every week someone goes deep into the forest, never to return alive.

Walking through the forest, here and there you can see signs asking you to take care of your loved ones in order to protect potential suicides from rash acts. Phone numbers of psychological support services are also listed there.

Manchak swamps in Louisiana

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the area was not so swampy, but everything changed after in 1915 the inhabitants of the village located in Manchak caught and executed Julia Brown, a voodoo sorceress, in a fire. Before her death, she cursed the tormentors: "I will die, but one day you will all leave after me."

The witch's words were only laughed at, but a few days after her death, the swamps began to expand. Two months later, a hurricane hit the village, destroying all the houses. Hundreds of people died. To this day, the corpses of hurricane victims sometimes float to the surface - the thickness of the swamp does not allow them to rot. For some reason, even alligators do not touch their remains.

There were witnesses who heard someone in the bowels of the swamps screaming at night in a "disgusting creaky voice", and some claim to have seen the ghost of Julia.

Another local legend is the werewolf Rugaru, whose howl echoes across the marshes every night. Farmers often find dead cows and birds in the paddocks in the morning; corpses as if tormented by a predator.

Paris catacombs

In 1763, the city authorities found a new use for the former quarries. It was decided to move underground the bones from the urban cemeteries, which were threateningly overcrowded due to plague epidemics. The catacombs received the remains of not only ordinary Parisians: somewhere in their bowels lie the bones of Franus Rabelais, Charles Perrault, Blaise Pascal, Maximilian Robespierre ...

By 1809, the skeletal remains were arranged into corridors, and the gigantic ossuary became a favorite sightseeing spot for adventurers of all ages and classes. Many visitors to the catacombs stated that they encountered a certain shadow in the labyrinths, which moved swiftly and silently, and smelled of stench and dampness from it. There were many who went underground and did not return. For many years, the bodies of the missing were found in hard-to-reach back streets, until all the entrances to the catacombs, except for the main one, were walled up.

In 1846, a merchant named Lebrille complained to the police that every night someone threw stones at the window of his shop, which was being built on the site of the recently destroyed old quarters. Moreover, the stones, he argued, were huge - hardly a common person would pick them up. The police examined the house and indeed fixed the damage, as if caused by hitting the cobblestones. For several nights, a patrol was on duty at the store. Indeed, someone threw stones, but the identity of the offender did not help to establish even the bloodhounds released from the chain. A few days later, the strange rockfall stopped and never happened again, and the superstitious Parisians decided that the merchant was a victim of the dead, who were disturbed by the demolition of ancient houses.

There are places on our planet that brave travelers avoid, curious tourists and even the coldest locals. As a rule, these are places where bloody tragedies or murders took place, or places that were “marked” by the fact that supernatural phenomena took place there. This review will focus on these terrible places. Whether it is worth visiting is up to you.

1. Hashima Island

Japan
More than 5,000 people once lived on this island. Today, Hashima is an abandoned and scary place, which is located about 15 km from the city of Nagasaki. Previously, there were coal mines on the island, near which a whole town grew up, but after the deposits were depleted, Hasima was left to fend for herself.

2. Catacombs of Paris

France
Also, this place is sometimes called the "empire of the dead." Paris catacombs- one of the largest and most terrible in the world. The underground tunnels, which stretch for more than 200 km, contain the remains of about six million people. Due to the extreme length and complexity of the catacombs, many people got lost and died in them.

3. Vrolik Museum

Netherlands
One of the creepiest museums in the world can be found at the University of Amsterdam. Named after the Dutch anatomist Willem Wrolik, the museum exhibits various parts of human bodies, embryos and dummies in alcohol, which demonstrate various aspects of embryology, pathology and anatomy. Also among the exhibits there are numerous examples of congenital malformations and medical anomalies.

4. Hill of Crosses

Lithuania
The Hill of Crosses, located about 12 km north of the city of Siauliai in northern Lithuania, is unique place pilgrimages for Catholics. It is notable for the huge number of crosses installed on it (at least 250,000 of them), crucifixes and giant statues Virgin Mary.

5 Suicide Forest

Japan
Aokigahara Forest, better known as the "suicide forest", is located at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. In Japanese mythology, this place is associated with demons. Aokigahara is notable for the fact that trees grow so densely in it that the wind does not blow at all in the forest. This makes it an exceptionally quiet and creepy place. There are about 100 suicides in Aokigahara every year.

6. Chauchilla Cemetery

Peru
30 km south of the city of Nazca in southwestern Peru is Chauchilla, an ancient cemetery where many mummified human remains can be found sitting in open graves. Due to the exceptionally dry climate of the Peruvian desert, the corpses, dressed in embroidered cotton robes, are surprisingly well preserved.

7. Freeman Ranch

USA, Texas
A 1,400-hectare piece of land between San Marcos and Wimberley in Central Texas is a forensic anthropology research farm. Scattered throughout the ranch are corpses in various stages of decomposition. And what is being studied here, as you might guess, is the decomposition of human bodies under various conditions.

8. City of Pripyat

Ukraine
Pripyat is a city in northern Ukraine, next to Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where the worst accident in the history of mankind occurred at a nuclear power plant. Its effects are still felt today. The city from which people were evacuated has been abandoned for 30 years.

9. Island of Dolls

Mexico
The Island of the Dolls, located on Lake Techuilo near Mexico City, is one of the creepiest places in Mexico. Legend has it that the only inhabitant of the island, Don Julian Santana, found the body of a drowned girl in the canal. After Santana began to be haunted by her spirit, the man decided to "appease" him with dolls and continued to do so for many years until he drowned in the same canal. Today, the island is "decorated" by hundreds of terrifying mutilated dolls with severed limbs and heads.

10. Darvaza

Turkmenistan
Also known as the "fire crater" or "gateway to hell", Darvaza is a natural gas field in Turkmenistan. During the drilling of an exploration well in 1971, geologists stumbled upon an underground void, which caused all the equipment to fall underground and form a large hole filled with methane. Geologists decided to set fire to this gas so that it would burn out in a few days, but the crater, 60 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep, has been burning continuously ever since.

11. Sedlec ossuary

Czech
In Central Bohemia, in the town of Sedlec, you can find a small Roman Catholic chapel, which is famous for containing the skeletons of up to 70,000 people, whose bones were used to make decorations and furniture. Thanks to its unique frightening appearance and the atmosphere of this creepy place has been featured in several horror films.

12. Capuchin Catacombs

Italy
In the Sicilian city of Palermo, there are unique Capuchin Catacombs, famous for the fact that corpses dressed and seated like living people are exhibited as museum exhibits. About 8000 corpses and 1252 mummies can be found in the catacombs.

13. Akodesseva Fetish Market

Togo
In the capital of Togo, the city of Lome is the world's largest market for fetishes and voodoo products. This is one of the creepiest places in Africa where you can safely buy, for example, a human skull.

14. Bran Castle

Romania
One of the most feared castles in the world is said to have been the residence of Vlad III, the cruel Romanian ruler better known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler. It was he who inspired Bram Stoker to write his famous gothic horror novel about the vampire Dracula.

15. Mummy cave Kabayan

Philippines
This place in the Philippine province of Benguet is also known as the Caves of the Fire Mummies. It is here that some of the best preserved mummies in the world are located, which are already 4,000 years old. Before death, a person was given a very salty drink, and then the corpse was washed and placed next to the fire for up to six months in order for it to dry out.

In order not to get into a mess when going on a trip, you should learn about.

For many of us, horror is exclusively a movie or, at the very least, a Halloween element. However, there are places on Earth that attract lovers of adrenaline and creepy stories. For normal people, such spectacles freeze the blood so much that you want to run wherever your eyes look. However, for many thrill-seekers, the goal is to visit the maximum number of such places. We will tell below about the 10 most terrible places on Earth.

Mutter Museum of Medical History, Philadelphia. This complex belongs to the oldest educational institution for the training of physicians in North America, College of Physicians in Philadelphia. All sorts of pathologies are collected here, as well as ancient medical equipment and biological exhibits. The museum is best known for its collection of skulls, there are also unique and terrible exhibits, for example, a female corpse that turned into soap in the ground after burial, or an intestine 12.5 centimeters long. You can also see Siamese twins with a common liver, the skeleton of a two-headed human child, and other creepy exhibits. Many wax models and simply preserved organs and bodies are stored here. We can safely say that a visit to the museum is recommended either for doctors or for people with a strong psyche.

Truk Lagoon, Micronesia. A significant part of the Japanese naval forces are buried here, which were sunk here during the American air raid in 1944. The shallow Micronesian Truk lagoon southwest of Hawaii has become the last refuge and real underwater graveyard for 40 Japanese ships and more than 100 aircraft. For the first time these places were explored by Jacques Yves Cousteau in 1971, after which there are often divers who love extreme experiences. Although many are scared away by thousands of crews of the Japanese, who remained in the hulls of sunken ships. Today, planes and ships have become part of the reef kingdom, but excessively curious tourists and divers still disappear here.

Sonoran Witch Market, Mexico. In the city of Mexico City, the Sonoran Market houses cramped booths full of witches. Terrible women for just $10 promise a speedy deliverance from both poverty and adultery. Frog carcasses, birds and exotic iguanas hung on the walls of their tents give color to the interior. Anyone can purchase these items. Sonora is open every day, both tourists and pilgrims from Mexico City come here. All of them are attracted by the opportunity to receive predictions of fate and promises of another life. Everything in these places local population believes in the power of supernatural amulets and potions, both Aztec recipes and Buddha figurines are held in high esteem here. Enthusiasts can find here for their experiments the blood of a rattlesnake or dried hummingbirds, which give good luck. Witchcraft in Mexico should not be taken as a joke and local exotic, the local National Association of Sorcerers even took part in the presidential elections. Witches with the help of spells turned the vote into free and fair.

Easter Island, Chile. This place is considered to be one of the most mysterious on the planet. On the island there are several hundred huge stone statues of giants that have grown into the ground under their own weight. The statues seem to be guilty of something and look to the sky, repenting of their own mystical crimes. Until now, no one can understand where the creators of these sculptures disappeared. It is difficult for us to even understand how giant sculptures were made and moved. But their height reaches 21 meters, and their weight is up to 90 tons! Meanwhile, from the quarry where the statues were made, they moved over distances of up to 20 kilometers. Scientists agree that a powerful civilization once existed here, but today life on the island has practically stopped. When and where the mysterious builders left, it remains a mystery. Only statues remained, inspiring awe and awe-inspiring horror. However, having familiarized with the travels and diaries of Thor Heyerdahl, one can reveal the secrets of the manufacture and placement of ancient figures.

Manchak Marshes, Louisiana. It's especially scary here at night. Tourists are taken through the swamps on a boat, lighting the way with a torch. All around, old cypresses grow out of the water, with long threads of moss hanging from their branches. At times, a distant, drawn-out howl is heard in the swamp, which some believe belongs to rougarou, the legendary werewolf of folklore. These swamps are also referred to as "ghost swamps". Places located near New Orleans simply beckon ready. According to local legend, the swamps were cursed by a voodoo queen who was taken prisoner here in the early 20th century. Added credibility to the legend and the hurricane that arose here in 1915 and destroyed 3 villages. Cemeteries of animals and people turned out to be under water, which is manifested in periodically floating corpses. They are not disdained by local alligators, who would love to try fresh tourists.

Paris catacombs, France. There are corridors underground here, in which skulls and bones are neatly stacked on both sides of the passage. In the dry air of the catacombs, decomposition is extremely slow. On the walls, there are well-preserved inscriptions from the times of the Great French Revolution with calls to overthrow the royal power and nobles. Once in the Paris catacombs, it becomes clear why these mysterious and mysterious places such masters as Ann Rice and Victor Hugo wrote. The total length of the catacombs is 187 kilometers, they are located under the entire city, and only a small part is open to the public. There are rumors about the existence of the legendary special underground police, and many mention in whispers about the legions of the roaming dead and vampires. The lack of accurate information and inflames the fantasy, giving rise to terrible images. Meanwhile, quarries in these places existed in the time of the Romans, and in 1785 the tunnels acquired their final form, which was associated with the growth of the city and the overflow of the cemeteries of Paris.

Winchester House, San Jose, USA. This California construction is a house with a lot of prejudice and magic associated with it. Once upon a time, a fortune teller predicted to Sarah Winchester, whose late husband's ancestors founded a well-known arms company, that she would be constantly haunted by the ghosts of people killed from Winchesters. To end the nightmare, the woman had to move from Connecticut to the West and build such a house that it would not have time to finish during her whole life. The cessation of knocking hammers here will mean the death of the hostess. Sarah listened to a fortune teller, and in 1884, construction began on a house in San Jose, which lasted 38 long years, while the woman was alive. At the same time, the hostess did not use the services of professional architects. The building has 160 rooms, which successfully demonstrate all the madness of the hostess - there are stairs leading to the ceiling, doors in the middle of the wall, the design is replete with spider motifs. This was done in order to confuse the spirits that would come after the soul of Mrs. Winchester as much as possible. There are many secret windows and doors, many rooms contain 13 windows, and the number of steps on all stairs is 13. The house was made exclusively for the hostess, guests were never expected here. It is said that the future President Roosevelt himself received a refusal to visit the house. Since the building opened to tourists, there have been constant complaints about footsteps at night, doors slamming, lights moving, and doorknobs turning inadvertently. The house is interesting for everyone. Those who do not believe in ghosts can simply enjoy its size.

Dead End Mary King, Edinburgh. Under this name, several streets of the Old Town of Edinburgh in Scotland are united. Everything here breathes the Middle Ages. Once upon a time, victims of the plague were left to die here in the 17th century, but now many felt the presence of a poltergeist. Tourists are often touched by something invisible by the arms and legs. Tradition says that the ghost of a young girl, Annie, lives in the dead end and was left here to die by her parents in 1645. The dead end was named after the owner of most of the buildings in the area. Rumor has it that during the epidemic, the entire quarter was sealed off in order to stop the march of the plague. A century later, a large and new building was built here. Today, the place has been open for several years to tourists who come here from all over the world to listen to stories about supernatural spirits and, perhaps, feel their touch for themselves. Tour guides lead people down stone steps into oppressive alleys, cramped and cold. You can see Annie's room, as well as an exhibition about life in the Middle Ages and the plague. It is not surprising that tourists prefer not to linger in this place.

Thelme Abbey, Sicily. One of the most famous and nefarious occultists in the world was Aleister Crowley, his stone farmhouse in the 1920s was considered literally the world capital of Satanism and related orgies. Crowley's fame today is based on fans, one of them is Marilyn Manson, the occultist himself even appeared on the cover of one of the Beatles' albums. Alistair founded his own Abbey of Thelma, named after Rabelais's utopia "Gargantua" with the ringing motto "Do whatever you want". The community has become a place of free love. The newcomers were placed in the Nightmare Room, where they stared at frescoes of heaven, earth, and hell under the influence of drugs. When a famous English aristocrat died in the abbey, the press raised a scandal and forced Crowley to close his establishment. In 1945, this story was filmed by underground filmmaker Kenneth Angier, but the film mysteriously disappeared. Today the abbey is ruined and overgrown with grass. However, the walls still contain the frescoes that Crowley used to scare his henchmen. The place attracts esoteric lovers with strong nerves.

Chernobyl, Ukraine. When in 1986 there was an accident at a nuclear power plant, the city of Pripyat was abandoned by tens of thousands of people within a few hours. Today here is an exclusion zone, things have been thrown in a hurry, apartments and institutions have been discovered. Ivy has settled in kindergartens, and abandoned toys are lying on the floor. Gusts of a dead wind swing the swing that no one needs. Today, the level of radiation is already safe enough for a short-term tourist, the zone is open to tourists. Excursions to Chernobyl do not differ in variety, since the time of stay is rather limited. People arrive by bus from Kyiv, walk to the station itself, where they are offered an excursion. Those who wish can inspect the sarcophagus and wander through the streets of Pripyat, a ghost town. There are also parking lots of infected vehicles. If you're lucky, you can also meet self-settlers, residents of the forbidden zone who have returned to their native lands.

Ossuary, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. The tradition of storing skeletal remains of mankind has existed for a long time. But the most famous ossuary was the Czech one in Kutna Hora. Once there was built the Chapel of All Saints with a basement chapel. About 30 thousand people who died during the plague in 1318 were buried in the local cemetery of 3.5 hectares. Over time, the victims of the Hussian wars were also buried here. The necropolis was so overcrowded that the bones began to be removed from the ground and dumped into the basement chapel at random, turning it into a crypt. In 1511, a half-blind monk decided to restore order here and built six pyramids of bones in honor of the dead. But the matter was limited to that until the 18th century, while local lands did not pass into the possession of Prince Schwarzenberg. The new owner commissioned the well-known woodcarver František Rint to decorate the chapel and arrange the remains. As a result, the entire interior of the chapel and even the coat of arms of the prince is made up of human bones. According to anthropologists, the remains of at least 40 thousand people are represented here.

Museum of Devils, Kaunas, Lithuania. This is the only place on Earth where the exclamation "A thousand devils" will be very appropriate. Just about as many devils, devils and devils are collected here. The museum was created on the basis of the personal collection of Professor Žmuidzinavičius in 1966, and has been continuously replenished since then. By 1991, there were already 1742 exhibits. The materials of the figurines are the most diverse - plastic, leather, metal, wood and ceramics, there are also quite exotic ones. The homeland of the exhibits is more than 20 countries, as a result, this representation of evil spirits is the largest in the world.

Elmina Castle, Ghana. Once in this fortress of the 15th century there was a center of the slave trade. Today it is a monument to the crime of white people in front of the entire population of Africa. There are quite a lot of such buildings in Ghana, they are found every 15 kilometers. There are all the attributes of slavery here - a stuffy casemate with a tiny window under the ceiling, shackles, a narrow gap in the wall called the "Gate of Non-Return" is the exit for loading. The most terrible place is the stone well where people stayed for months, waiting for their turn to be sent.

"Gate of prisoners", The Hague. There are many torture museums in the world, in Holland, even the Amsterdam museum is much more famous than The Hague. However, it is in political capital The Netherlands has the most terrible exposition. Once upon a time central square the city of Bautenhof was located an ancient casemate built in the 13th century. Criminals from all over the kingdom came here for torture. Today, visitors are invited to take a look at the working tools of executors. Falling in horror from fainting here is a common thing, the museum guide will tell you in detail about all the intricacies of using certain instruments of torture.

Museum of the Lost Souls, Rome. In the sacristy of the Italian church of Del Sacro Cuore there is a small museum that proves the presence of the souls of dead people on earth. In order to get here, you need to ask permission from the priest. However, usually this is just a formality, the doors are open to everyone, and the holy father will also tell about everything. The collection of objects was born thanks to the local abbot in 1912. Today there are hundreds of exhibits testifying to the existence of ghosts. For example, there is a nightcap on which the sooty fingers of the ghost of Louise le Senechel remained. Her ghost appeared on May 7, 1873 to her sleeping husband, pinched him several times on the nose and pulled off his cap. The widower himself later said that this is how his deceased wife punished him for frivolity during mourning. Only here you can’t find photographs of ghosts here - they remain undeveloped.

Dracula's castle, Romania. Transylvanian Bran Castle is better known as Dracula's Castle. It was built in the Carpathians on the edge of the most terrible abyss here. The style of the castle corresponds to the Gothic standards as much as possible - there are narrow passages, stone stairs, and cramped rooms are more suitable for a vampire than for a normal person, whom they put pressure on the psyche. The castle looks quite in the spirit of presenting it in famous novel Stoker's Dracula. And the main chimney looks like it came from a horror movie, strong wind there are special howling sounds. There are 56 rooms in the castle, one of them has a huge bed with four pillars and a canopy. According to legend, it was here that the owner sucked the blood from his victims. The house was named "Castle of Horrors" thanks to Vlad IV or Vlad the Impaler. He got such a nickname and reputation as a bloody monster because of his passion to impale everyone in a row. And the road that leads to the castle is still called the "Road of Pointed Stakes".

Museum of Torture, Mdina, Malta. This museum is one of many of its kind in Europe. However, the Maltese congregation is unrivaled in its power of influence. The museum is located in the ancient capital of Malta, the city of Mdina. Now life here has almost stopped, there are practically no people on the medieval streets. Going down to the basement, the tourist will be shocked. People without heads, hangmen, a rack, tongs for tearing out nails, a vice for squeezing the skull immediately catch your eye. All instruments are real, from the Middle Ages. But the characters are made of wax, but they look extremely naturalistic. Here you can see a man with eyes bulging in pain, because an executor pours hot oil into his throat. A scene of pulling out the tongue is shown, you can see two mesh bags, one of which contains a whole person, and the other is a skeleton. The hunchback caretaker relentlessly follows the brave sightseers, giving even more flavor to this terrible place.

Tower of the Mad, Vienna. Sometime in the 18th century, a lunatic asylum was located in Spitalgasse. Today there is a museum of pathological anatomy, where it is recommended to visit either very brave people or notorious cynics. Visitors are offered an elegant mahogany gynecological chair, alcoholized and dried organs, mummified bodies and dissected skulls, exhibits with the consequences of venereal diseases and cases of unnatural enlargement of the genitals. For a long time, the pride of the museum was the sculptural composition of Laocoon with his sons, entirely made of the bones of people and animals, but it was destroyed during the bombing of World War II.

Museum of Hygiene, St. Petersburg. Petersburg Kunstkamera is known to many, but about this museum on Italian street not everyone knows. Here, everyone can get acquainted with the stuffed dog Pavlov, which is enclosed in his famous torture device with a bell, transparent figures of a man and a woman with an inactive, alas, mechanism for demonstrating the circulatory system. In the "motherhood and childhood" protection section, there are postcards frankly urging not to twist children in swaddling bags and not to feed them with a chewed nipple. Mothers were once even forbidden to kiss their children on the lips. The dental chair of the end of the 19th century looks like a terrible torture device. Tourists can be frightened by very natural dummies of female and male genital organs. There are both enlarged and reduced samples among them, which also demonstrate the course of intimate diseases in different stages. The revelation with which our museum shows all these horrors often makes foreign visitors realize that their native horrors are rather harmless.

Castle of Horrors, London. The interior of the castle is made quite naturally, the British even managed to create the appropriate aroma. Real historical events are displayed here, for example, a fire in London in 1666, you can see medieval confinement chambers and torture instruments. Spectators are involved even in the action. So, the court of the 16th century is staged. Judges in wigs sit upstairs, and the attendant announces the lists of tourists sitting in the dock, pronouncing them a disappointing verdict - "Guilty!"

Our world is beautiful and amazing, a lifetime is not enough to see all the beauties of the planet. However, some people like to tickle their nerves and see something frightening with their own eyes. Many believe in the supernatural and otherworldly, so they visit these creepy and dangerous places shrouded in mystery.

15. Gates to Hell, Darvaz

Aptly named the "Gate to Hell," Turkmen's Darvaz is a fiery hole in the ground that has been burning steadily for more than four decades, with no sign of stopping. It all started because of a mistake by workers during exploration of underground natural gas fields. In the end, they decided it was safer to flare the gas in 1971 than risk it to the people trying to get it. Darvaz is one of the most surreal landscapes on Earth.

14. Cemetery of ships, Muynak, Uzbekistan

Years ago, hundreds of boats moored at this busy fishing port. Aral Sea, but over time, the water receded by 4 meters, after the Soviet engineers changed the direction of the rivers feeding this large port

13. Mass suicide of birds in Jatinga, India

Every year in the valley of Jatinga, India, there is a real "bird fall". Migratory and local birds commit mass suicide here: just after sunset, hundreds of birds fall from the sky and crash to death on trees and walls. The birds tend to be disorientated by the mist that comes from the monsoons. Birds are attracted to village lights and fly towards them, sometimes crashing into trees and walls along the way.

12. Ghost Town - Oradour-sur-Glane, France

The village of Oradur in 1944 turned into a ghost - the Nazis shot and burned 642 of its inhabitants (including children and women) in one day. First, they drove the men into the sheds and started shooting at the legs, immobilizing the people, the Nazis doused them with gasoline and burned them. The soldiers locked the women and children in the church. First, asphyxiating gas was let into the building, and then the church was set on fire.

11. Crooked Forest, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

To the west of the city of Cluj-Napoca lies an unusual forest - all the trees in it are twisted. An explanation for this phenomenon has not been found; other paranormal activity. In 1968, a UFO was photographed here. I even call this place bermuda triangle Romania", people often go missing here.

10. Leap Castle, Ireland

It is called the creepiest castle in Ireland. In the 16th century, the O'Carroll family lived in it, who fought with other Irish clans. The O'Carrolls often invited their enemies to dinner at the castle under the pretext of reconciliation, and then killed them right at the table. Under the dining room was a dungeon (“ubliyet”), into which unsuspecting guests fell through a secret door in the floor of the hall. The bottom of the dungeon was strewn with sharp stakes, on which the victims fell. According to some reports, when the castle was restored after a fire in the 20s of the last century, workers found a huge amount of bones in the "ubliette" - it took three wagons to clean the dungeon.

9. UFO houses in Taiwan

The construction of these houses began in 1978, they were supposed to be a tourist attraction. But in 1980, construction was stopped when the company went bankrupt. During construction, there were several serious accidents and suicides due to the supposedly disturbed spirit of the mythical Chinese dragon. As a result, the village was abandoned and soon became known as a ghost town.

8. Akodesseva Fetish Market in Togo

Akodesseva is located in the capital of the Togolese Republic, Lome, a strange and unexpectedly friendly place, which differs from ordinary markets only by a fetishistic afterlife assortment. Mountains here lie the skulls of cattle, the dried heads of monkeys, buffaloes and leopards, and even human bones. The tents of folk healers and healers are popular on the market, where terminally ill people flock in strings.

Centralia was a thriving mining town in Pennsylvania whose population dropped from 1,000 in 1981 to 12 in 2005 and 10 in 2010. The reason for this is the seemingly harmless burning of garbage in a landfill in 1962. 5 firefighters were hired by the city authorities to burn the garbage dump. They set fire to piles of garbage, and then extinguished them. Not completely extinguished garbage provoked an underground fire. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it burns to this day. Unbearably noxious fumes and poisonous earth forces people to leave the city.

6. Island of the Dolls, Mexico

The island of the dolls can be called one of the creepiest sights in Mexico. It is located in one of the districts of Mexico City, which is called Xochimilco and is known to the whole world thanks to the ancient Aztec canals - chinampas, listed in the World Heritage List. cultural heritage UNESCO. This island is located on one of them. They say that in the middle of the last century, a little girl drowned in a canal near the island, and soon after the accident, old broken dolls thrown into the canal began to swim up to the islet. The hermit Don Julian Santana, who lived on the island, decided that this was a sign and began to catch dolls, and then hang them on trees in order to protect himself from evil and calm the spirit of the dead girl.

5. Hashima Ghost Town, Japan

This island is located in the East China Sea, about 15 kilometers from the city of Nagasaki. Before the island was settled at the beginning of the 19th century, due to the discovery of coal on it, it was just a piece of rock. Thanks to the coal industry, the construction of houses for miners and their families began. The reef has turned into an artificial island with a diameter of about one kilometer in the perimeter, with a population of 5300 people. By 1974, all the inhabitants left the island due to the dried up fossils, and the city turned into a ghost town. Committee world heritage UNESCO has included this abandoned city in the World Heritage List.

4. Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine

Once it was planned as an advanced city where representatives of the technical intelligentsia would live: engineers, scientists, researchers. It was built around the most modern nuclear power plant at that time. But a combination of circumstances led to the worst man-made disaster in history. At the nuclear power plant, there was an explosion and the release of tons of radiation dust that polluted the earth for many kilometers around.

3. Hanging coffins of Sagada, Philippines

On the island of Luzon in the village of Sagada is one of the creepiest places in the Philippines. Here you can see unusual burial structures made of coffins placed high above the ground on the rocks. Therefore, this place is called "the hanging coffins of Sagada". There is a belief among the indigenous population that the higher the body of the deceased is buried, the closer his soul will be to heaven.

2. Poveglia, Italy

A quarantine station, a common grave for victims of the plague, and more recently, by historical standards, a shelter for the insane - tiny island Poveglia, sheltered from view in the Venetian lagoon. They say that the island was twice the last refuge for thousands of patients during the black plague epidemics, that its soil is 50% composed of the ashes of burned corpses, that local fishermen bypass the island, afraid to find in their nets a catch from human bones polished by waves, which in In the 20s of the last century, horrific experiments were carried out on mentally ill people here, that the head physician of the psychiatric hospital eventually went crazy from his deeds and committed suicide by jumping from the island bell tower, and a completely mystical version suggests that Poveglia is densely populated the spirits of tortured victims.

1. Aokigahara Forest, Japan

Throughout the forest you can find signs with the words: "Your life is a priceless gift from your parents. Please contact the police before you decide to die." Aokigahara Forest is located at the northwestern foot of Mount Fuji, sacred to every Japanese, on the island of Honshu, and is considered a place where ghosts from all over Japan have gathered. Aokigahara is a popular suicide site among residents of Tokyo and the surrounding area. Between 70 and 100 bodies are found in the forest each year.

If you think that scarier than a castle There is nothing Dracula in the world, which means that you read a lot and travel little. The island of dolls, the cemetery of hanging coffins, the forest of suicides - ELLE has selected the TOP 10 scariest places in the world, visiting which can not only expand your horizons, but also deprive you of sleep.

Nazca is the name of a city and a desert plateau in southern Peru. A tiny city with a population of 27 thousand people is constantly teeming with tourists. Some want to look at the mysterious drawings left on dry desert soil, others want to visit the Chauchilla cemetery. Spread out in the suburbs of Nazca, this necropolis is literally open to visitors. Imagine large pits paved with sticks in which the dead sit. The amazing technology of embalming kept the bodies - at least the bones - in perfect order. Among the inhabitants of Chauchilla, there are many who can boast of magnificent hairstyles - despite the fact that the last dead man was buried here 11 centuries ago.

The city on the banks of the river of the same name stands two kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Until April 27, 1986, it was a rapidly developing atomic city, all the inhabitants of which were somehow related to nuclear power plants. Immediately after the terrible accident at the station, almost fifty thousand of its population was evacuated and the city turned into a monument. Or rather, a memorial. So it stands empty for more than thirty years, becoming a creepy museum under open sky. Residential buildings, a hospital, kindergartens and schools, playgrounds, a Ferris wheel - everything remains. And not a single soul.

The Echo Valley in the Philippines is full of rocks. Coffins hang close to each other on them. The locals are convinced that the higher the body of the deceased is located, the faster he will be in heaven. Forcing them to bury the bodies is useless. The tradition of burying the dead in the air has existed for more than two thousand years, and how and on what the coffins are attached, the locals do not tell - this is a secret.

There are many islands in the suburbs of Mexico City, the most famous of course is La Isla de las Muñecas, the Island of the Dolls. In the fifties of the last century, a young man named Julian Barrera witnessed the death of a child, a girl, who drowned near this island. Barrera kept her doll for himself, and from that moment the spirit of the deceased began to appear to him. To appease the spirit, Julian began to hang old dolls found in the garbage heaps on the island. And in the end, he settled on this island. In 2001, after his death (Barrera, like that same girl, drowned near the island), enthusiasts, his relatives, continued the work. There are a lot of dolls here and together they look very creepy.

The real name of the mansion located in Transylvania is Bran, but it is known, of course, as the castle of Dracula, Count Vlad the Fourth, who received the nickname the Piercer because of his love for impaling his subjects. The castle built on the edge of the abyss is one hundred percent embodiment gothic style: gloomy decoration, howling sounds (caused by a chimney that begins to hum in strong winds). The main attraction of the castle is Dracula's bedroom with a huge bed, it is here, according to legend, that the owner preferred to drink the blood of his victims. The “house” looks very well-groomed, for which thanks to Francis Ford Coppola, who invested in the reconstruction of the castle when he filmed his film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel there.

In the Czech village of Lukova, the church of St. George (St. George) has been standing since the 14th century. It was empty in 1968, after a fire broke out during the funeral service and the roof collapsed. A few years ago, the sculptor Yakov Hadrava, preparing to submit his thesis, decided to turn the church into a platform for his experiments. And he populated the empty building with human statues, whose heads are covered under the covers. The sight is mesmerizing and scary. The teachers, by the way, were also imbued with Jacob's diploma - in such a original form- accepted.

The famous Mount Fuji is known not only in itself: at its foot lies Aokigahara, a dense forest full of rocky caves. Aokigahara is incredibly quiet and very, very gloomy. Already in ancient times, the forest was considered a place of "residence" of monsters and ghosts. And it was here that the inhabitants brought and left their loved ones whom they could not feed - the infirm old people and children. The dark reputation of Aokigahara with might and main attracts people who are inclined to take their own lives there. Over the past 60 years, the bodies of more than five hundred suicides have been found in the forest - in this sense, Aokigahara is second only to famous bridge"Golden Gate".

Not surprisingly, the "Suicide Forest" is crammed full of signs urging would-be suicides to come to their senses. The Japanese believe that once they enter Aokigahara, they cannot leave it. Therefore, only rescuers visit it, looking for willing commit suicide, yes daredevils-tourists.

They buried here for four centuries in a row, until the end of the 18th century. There was little space, a lot of bodies. As a result, more than 100,000 dead people found shelter in a small area. So that everyone had enough space, the old tombstones were covered with earth and new ones were immediately put up. Thus, 12 layers of graves were accumulated. Over time, some layers due to the sagging earth crawled out into the light of day, running into later ones, and the cemetery became like a crowd at rush hour in public transport.

Here it is, South American Gothic in all its glory. The Manchak swamp is located near New Orleans and is called nothing more than a swamp of ghosts. Slaves fled here from their masters, but none of them got out of here - they were all eaten by giant crocodiles. The spirits of the dead and those same crocodiles are the main ingredients in the eerie menu of Manchak, a place that attracts tourists so much. Excursions are actively led in the swamp, both during the day and at night.

Built in Portugal in the 16th century, the chapel is filled with the remains of monks: in total, more than five thousand people rest there. Bones, skulls are everywhere, wherever you look. And the inscription on the roof of the building - "Better the day of death than the birthday" - sets in an optimistic mood.