In 1980, amid tall pine trees and greenery, a hospital rose from the ground with auspicious poise. It was to offer its services to the residents of the Hovrino District in Moscow, Russia, but plans sometimes take unexpected turns.
And in 1985, just five years after construction had begun, the project was brought to a halt. Ever since that day, the hospital remains to be a source of ghostly urban legends, for ghosts are said to wander the halls of this lonely edifice.
The people behind the design had planned for this hospital to welcome no less than 1,300 people. Instead, it stands completely empty but attracting legend and superstition.
Legends the likes of which include the secret satanic cult The Club of Nimostor that apparently made use of the emptiness in their worship of Satan. Those daring enough to venture inside emerge with new tales from the hospital’s womb clearly stating that the walls still bear the mark of Satan and countless graffiti covers the walls.
With so many stories such as a murder, suicide, and sacrifice of innocent animals, it becomes burdensome to distinguish between fact and fiction, the latter of which flourishes with utmost ease. The vast empty space is here to welcome them all, from homeless to sectarians, from photojournalists to defacers. The second story of the hospital bears the mark of Alexey Krayushkin, an unofficial memorial to this 16-year-old boy who took his own life at the hospital in 2005. People say that his friends still come to visit and leave a pack of cigarettes or a poem in front of the elevator shaft where Alexey died.
And the reason why this hospital is crippled and dying instead of saving lives is – according to the local urban legends– simply because the hospital is built on top of old cemeteries. And the curse is now slowly reclaiming the building as a whole, for its basements are flooded and the structure is said to be gradually sinking.
The most gruesome conspiracy of them all has to do with a disastrous police raid that stormed the hospital in an attempt to put an end to The Club of Nimostor; the tales say that OMON, the Special Purpose Police Unit of Russia, rigged the basement of the hospital with bombs that upon detonation killed many of the Satanists and this is why the cellars are flooded today. One thing is for certain, the police are constantly patrolling the premises of the hospital in search of any illegal activities and trespassers.
A proposal was made in 2012 to demolish the building and to construct two new buildings on its place, but since then nothing has changed and the hospital continues to be part of its own cycle of creating new legends. In 2015 a group of producers set out to create a mockumentary about Hovrinskaya Hospital, named Hovrino, in the style of the horror movie The Blair Witch Project. The man behind this project is Sergei Kuznetsov.
According to Russia! magazine “The plot will revolve around a woman named Ira and a collective of students who explore the off-limits area and its connected stories, becoming slowly entwined in its mysteries as they learn where myth meets reality.” As of late, the hospital’s grounds are under heavy guard, and getting inside is said to be as challenging as getting out alive.
Not because of ghosts and unnatural forces, but because the building has been standing there for more than 30 years completely open to the elements and becomming overgrown with vegetation. The urban myths of Hovrinskaya Hospital continue to haunt the Hovrino area as this place awaits its future.