Black volga
Encyclopedia
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
widespread in Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Mongolia, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. It was about a black (in some versions red) Volga
Volga (automobile)
Volga is an automobile brand that originated in the Soviet Union to replace the venerated GAZ-M20 Pobeda in 1956. Modern in design, it became a symbol of higher status in the Soviet nomenklatura...
limousine (with white wheel rims, white curtains or other white elements) that was allegedly used to abduct people, especially children. According to different versions, it was driven by priests
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
, nuns, Jews, vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s, satanists or Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
himself.
Children were kidnapped to use their blood
Blood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
as a cure for rich westerners or Arabs suffering from leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
; other variants used organ theft
Organ theft
Organ harvesting refers to the removal, preservation and use of human organs and tissue from the bodies of the recently deceased to be used in surgical transplants on the living...
as the motive, combining it with another famous legend about kidney theft by the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. The legend surfaced again in the late 20th century, with a BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
or Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
car taking the Volga's place, sometimes depicted with horns instead of wing mirrors. In this version, the driver would ask passers-by for the time and kill them when they approached the car to answer (in another version of the legend, they died at the same time a day later).
Further reading
- Dionizjusz Czubala, Współczesne Legendy Miejskie [Contemporary urban legends], Ph.D. thesis, Uniwersytet Sląski, Katowice, 1993, ISBN 83-226-0504-8
- Piotr Gajdziński, Imperium plotki [The empire of rumours], Prószyński i S-ka, Warszawa, 2000, pp. 197–200