ST. PETERSBURG: A GHOST IS LIVING IN A TOILET

She is wandering along the corridors, holding a saucer with an unlit candle. She sometimes sits in the kitchen, moving her lips without saying
anything, as if she is trying to remember something. The wan face in warts, the tufts of her gray hair. There is no use talking to her. You can
not even touch her. This old lady Kazimirovna died 49 years ago.

Only two people remember the old lady. They said that Kazimirovna was from Poland, and she had lived in that communal apartment in St.
Petersburg with her family before the revolution. During the last five years of her life the old lady never gone outside, she was walking around
in the apartment, spreading the stinky odor of the dirty body. She used to enter the rooms of her neighbors in that communal apartment, and
stay there for long, trying to remember, what furniture there was before.

Kazimirovna died in 1953, to great relief of other inhabitants of the apartment. The neighbors arranged the commemoration, but forgot to
mark 40 days since her death (nine and 40 days commemoration for the dead are traditionally marked in Russia). Horrifying wail was heard
in the apartment on the forty-first night. A man wanted to go to the lavatory in the middle of the night, and when he opened the door of the
closet, he saw the dead old lady sitting on the w.c. pan. Other people woke up and rushed to see what happened - the lady was still there.
She disappeared only when someone called the police. This ghost has been living like that in the apartment for 50 years now. The tenants of
the apartment say that the ghost of the lady will never appear for the eyes of a stranger, so the police do not believe their "insane" story at all.
The priests said they should have marked the 40 days commemoration, and that's all. The people spent a lot of money for magicians and
exorcists - no luck. They even tried the "help" of strangers: Kazimirovna did not appear just for several nights. But several days later, she
took the revenge: there was horrible smell in the apartment, and no one could stay in, but Kazimirovna could.

The tenants of the communal apartment do not fight with the ghost anymore. They are used to her. Sometimes men sit up late in the kitchen
to talk and drink, and if old lady Kazimirovna is there with them - they do not care.

From: Pravada RU. Site: http://english.pravda.ru/fun/2001/10/19/

Russia