Villa Anna, Old Salt

Villa Anna is a striking example of a Secessionist private house. It was built in 1911. The building impresses with its slenderness, colorful stucco moldings on the walls, and an overly imposing tilted weather vane on the tower. Nothing is known about the builder and customer of this villa. It is known that for some time the county court was located there. Now it is a department of the district hospital.

Villa Anna, which appears in the novel Tamdevin, leaves no doubt that the imagination of a person who has seen a horror movie at least once in his or her life will have room to run wild here. What is the resemblance of this building to a chapel with a tilted cross on top of it... When you step on the path leading to the villa on a gloomy Sunday morning and the sounds of the liturgy come from unknown sources (it seems that they are coming from underground) (as it turned out later, the Sunday church service is "broadcast" to the whole village with the help of loudspeakers), the stories about ghosts come to mind by themselves.

On approaching the villa, it turns out that it is not a chapel with a tilted cross, but an extremely elegant, slender two-story building decorated with numerous moldings in the form of wreaths and bouquets intertwined with ribbons. The only thing is that the weather vane on the roof is really tilted - they say it was once struck by lightning. Residents of Staraya Solya do not know for sure the history of the villa's appearance, although it was built relatively recently: according to the inscription above the windows of the second floor, in 1911. To enhance the exotic effect produced by the villa, one should approach its entrance and read the inscription on the sign near the door: the house now houses... the neurological department of the district hospital. By the way, the nurses who work here will gladly tell visitors a few spooky stories related to the villa, ending almost every one with a meaningful: "And then this happened... But you don't want to know about it."

One of the legends goes like this:

"Once upon a time, long ago, in Stara Sol, a girl named Anna lived in the family of a salt worker. One day a young and handsome count passed through their town, and she fell in love with him. She prayed a lot that God would give her eternal love and that the count would reciprocate. One night she had a dream that if she prayed sincerely in Sambir on St. Valentine's Day, the count would love her. After a sincere prayer to Valentine's relics, the girl returned home and met the count on the bridge over the river, who immediately fell madly in love with her. Despite the objections of his family and friends, the count married the poor girl. The count's parents did not accept this and drove him out of the house. But the newlyweds built a beautiful villa in the yard of the girl's father, which the count named Anna. They lived very well until they were very old and died on the same day. Shrouded in legends, the villa became the most beautiful building in the town, and people came to see it from all over the neighborhood.

Stara Sil is one of those towns in the Lviv region that you should definitely visit. You will be amazed by the charm of the old defensive church, the aksakal bell tower, the romantic villa "Anna", two wooden churches and wooden huts. The village is located in the Starosambir district on the road between Staryi Sambir and Khyrovo in the foothills of the Middle Beskyd (Ukrainian Carpathians). The name, of course, comes from salt. There are many salt deposits around the town. Stara Sil was founded in 1255. Under Polish rule, in 1421 it received Magdeburg Law and the status of a city called Salzbork. Since then it has been a free royal city. Until the mid-19th century, it was one of the most important salt production centers in Galicia.