Four years ago, just in a leap year, tragic events occurred that many did not consider to be coincidences. I learned about what happened that summer from an old acquaintance of mine, a native of the village of Bilimbay in the Sverdlovsk region.
His fellow countryman Ivanich is an avid mushroom picker, herbalist and berry grower. He never missed a summer day to wander through the woods with a basket. But things did not work out that summer. At first, I was very ill. After the bad weather did not allow him to go into the taiga, or even out of the house. So almost the whole summer passed in vain. Only at the very end of August Ivanovich finally managed to escape into the long-awaited forest element. And even that with a scandal. His woman, like a tick, clung to his sleeve and cried, "Do not go, and do not go ...!"
And all because some fellow-talker told her that mushrooms in a leap year are a coffin. Well, if it isn't the old woman! We've been mushrooming all our lives, and of course we've never seen a coffin in a leap year. And here you are...!
Ivanovich disobeyed his silly wife and went to the forest with a basket under his arm. To the cherished glades of mushrooms, of which he had long dreamed.
He went and disappeared. When the husband did not return home in the evening, his wife, who had been missing for a whole day, alerted all her friends and relatives.
The search for the missing elderly man began in the early morning. The supposed place where the mushroom picker went was, fortunately, known to many. Therefore, on the same day, in the evening, he was found. Unfortunately, already breathless. A heart attack, the medical board later concluded.
There was a basket full to the brim with selected red and white mulberries near Ivanovich's body, lying motionless under a tree. The man, like a real woodsman, always collected few and only the very best mushrooms. Without a single worm and squirrel gnawing. Anything you take out of the jar and take a picture on a postcard.
One of the searchers, Ivanovich's neighbor, couldn't help but take home a basket with mushrooms, forgotten by everybody in the turmoil. Not to leave such beauty to rot in the woods...
And the next day this hapless neighbor and his cohabitant were found dead in their own hut. On the dining table there was a pan with half-eaten mushrooms and a half-drunk bottle of vodka...
What exactly was the cause of death, it seems, was not found out. It was either mushroom poisoning or drunk vodka. The couple led an asocial way of life, so they did not bother to investigate. There are very few cases like that in the villages. You can't run around with everyone...
But the superstitious prophecy "mushrooms in a leap year - to the coffin" came true. And three times over...
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