Mystical Kiev. Kiev's inhabitants' fondness for spiritism.

The world of the mystical and mysterious has always attracted people. Various mysteries and phenomena that cannot be explained also fascinated the ancestors of Kiev. And some of them managed to touch the true and mysterious knowledge.

In the 19th century, characterised by progress, the belief in witches, water-masters and mermaids of all kinds weakened considerably. Scientific progress began to make itself felt, but the yearning for secrets and mysteries did not diminish, and the existence of various phenomena, such as electricity, only fuelled the imagination of the later mystics. Thus was born the latest scientific doctrine known to the world as spiritism. The programme Labyrinths of the Streets on Radio Kyiv 98 FM investigated its fascination in Kiev.

The widespread fascination with spiritism came to Europe in the mid-19th century. The inhabitants of Kiev first became aware of them through an article published in the Kiev provincial newspaper in June 1853. This article was the first to describe the ‘agnetic phenomena of positive and negative electricity’. It also spoke of the electromagnetic circuits that spiritists could generate when they sat at a table and touched themselves with their little finger.

Most of the inhabitants of Kiev did not believe in the veracity of the spiritism seances, either because of their extensive education or because they were practically uneducated. The pragmatic city dwellers did not see any benefit for themselves in this business. Therefore, the initial attitude towards spiritism in Kiev was rather sceptical. The mediums themselves and those who attended their séances caused astonishment and laughter among the population of Kiev.

People even made up jokes about them. Here is one of them: «Hubo una sesión de espiritismo en un salón aristocrático. Hay muchos invitados. La sesión está llegando a su fin. La anfitriona de la casa hace preguntas a los espíritus: «Espíritus, decidme cuántos hijos tengo». «Cuatro», responde el fantasma con voz seria. El marido de la bella dama también quiso hacer una pregunta a los espíritus: «Espíritus, ¿cuántos hijos tengo?». «Dos», respondieron los espíritus. El marido dio su palabra de no volver a preguntar a los espíritus.»

But despite the scepticism of the majority, spiritism developed successfully. Many people, including intelligent writers and scientists, even university professors practised spiritism, but their séances were more scientific experiments than a banal desire to tickle nerves.

In Kiev, it was mostly guest mediums who held séances for money. Those who managed to frighten the public were particularly successful.

This is how a traditional seance was conducted. This is how it was described in one of the Kiev newspapers of the time: “A medium appeared in the city and held two spiritism séances in the Metropol Hotel and several in private homes. At the seances, not very complicated but interesting phenomena occurred. In one house, someone removed the chairs of everyone present at the same time and played the violin in different corners of the room. In another house, a ghost put hats on everyone present, lifted tables in the air and showed a rather large strip of phosphorescent light. Travelling lights appeared, tables moved with sounds, an ashtray and a book moved from one room to another and chairs danced“.

All these miracles occurred at the spiritism séances of a Mr. Sambor, a former telegraph operator at the Popelnia station of the South Western Railway. According to his eyewitnesses, he was a man of average height, about 30 years old. After losing his job at the railway station, he began holding spiritism séances out of boredom. At first, everything took place in the family circle, and the more séances he held, the more successful they became.

When he arrived in Kiev to look for work, Mr. Sambor told one of his friends that he was a medium. He immediately received invitations to a spiritism séance. Unlike the others, this medium did not hide behind a screen, but sat at the table with everyone else. During the reading, everyone present formed a chain, i.e. two guests held his hands at the same time and were able to touch his feet with theirs. Everything pointed to the fact that Mr. Sambor was indeed a rare medium and not a charlatan. However, not all the inhabitants of Kiev accepted these unusual things willingly, so the séances ended in scandal and denunciation, as is the case with most mediums.

A former telegraph clerk from Popelnia was also unlucky. To amuse himself, another employee of the same department of the South Western Railways, a Mr Schurawski, decided to expose him. He gathered doctors, journalists and writers in a room of the Metropol Hotel and repeated to them everything that had happened at Sambor's meetings. And when the lights came on, he demonstrated how these simple tricks are done.

In addition to dubious travelling entertainers, spiritism also attracted very serious people. Unlike charlatans, they did not try to make money from their séances, nor did they impose their views on anyone. Some old inhabitants of Kiev can still point to the square in the Yaroslaviv valley where the so-called Spiritism House was located. At the beginning of the 20th century, meetings of Kiev mystics were held there.

Incidentally, this society was quite large. In 1913 it had 90 members. One of the most mysterious personalities in Kiev in the early 19th century was General Dmytro Matviiovych Bihichev. He was a freemason, mystic, astrologer and healer. On his estate, located on the site of today's October Palace, Dmitry Begichev organised a circle of romantics like himself. Among them were the famous philosopher, writer and clairvoyant Anna Turchaninova, one of the first archaeologists of Kiev, Kindratii Lokhvitskyi, and an honorary citizen of Kiev, the herdsman Ivan Romanovskyi.

Only fragmentary information about the activities of this group has survived. We only know that they regarded electricity not only as a physical phenomenon, but also as a manifestation of universal magnetism. The members of the club tried to master this phenomenon and use it for physical and spiritual healing. For example, Turchaninova put children with orthopaedic diseases in a clairvoyant state and they told her how to treat them. Although she caused a stir with her treatments, her experiments failed. Parents began to complain that he was not curing their children, but mutilating them. After this failure, Ivan Romanovskyi's star began to rise.

Of all the members of the circle, Romanovskyi was the most interesting Kiev-Podilskyi breeder. When he married in 1816, he received a large plot of land in the Yurkiv Potik area as a dowry. There he found clay from which he could make terracotta. The enthusiastic man immediately set up a factory to produce bricks and tiles. The demand for these products was enormous, so the factory soon made tangible profits.

A contemporary wrote about him: "When his work began to bring him an undoubted income, he did not limit himself to working as a roofer. He built up a large library with the best literary works and everything that interested him. But, above all, he was interested in electricity, so that his whole office was equipped with various machines".

His interest in electricity brought him into contact with Dmytro Bihichev and his group. But unlike other mystics of Begichev's circle, Ivan Romanovsky managed to perform real miracles. For example, a student at the theological academy came to Romanovsky when the doctors could no longer help him. He took the unfortunate man, laid him down on a sofa and began to magnetise him. The patient fell asleep and, in a trance, walked past the astonished maids and into the garden with his eyes closed.

The student spent a long time there gathering herbs, then took the potion to the kitchen and asked for it to be prepared. After doing so, he returned to the couch, where he woke up. A drink prepared from these herbs helped the disciple to recover. In this way, Romanovskyi performed his incredible cures casually and sometimes even in the presence of guests.