Urban legends of Irad

Urban legends of Irad are modern folk tales told in Iradi cities and on the road. They circulate on the FREEFORUM boards and in student dormitories, and since 2012 the Talas Herald has retold them in Halloween features.^[1]

Legends

• The Kariz bride (Kariz kelini): a woman in white who is said to walk the underground galleries of the Kok-Tash Kariz System and lead smugglers astray.
• The sanatorium lights: the lights of an empty Soviet sanatorium on the ridge above Iyık Janyl are said to come on during the Feast of St. Janyl.
• The last marshrutka: a minibus to Aulie-Ata that picks up passengers after midnight on the road that the war of 2007 emptied.
• The humming tower: the Kobozev radio mast, built by Doolotov in 1934, is said to hum the anthem before an earthquake.
• The Sary-Say bell: a church bell heard on hot July nights above Kara-Buura, where the Sary-Say mudflow buried a village in 1973.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ Talas Herald (31 October 2012). 'Five things that go bump in the Irad night.' Talas.
2. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2016). The Professor, the Driller and the Herder: Iradi Joke Cycles. Talas State University Press.