A Black Market Deal That Changed Everything

When 19-year-old Vera started selling contraband through a Moscow tea shop, she never imagined meeting someone like Mikhail. The charming Georgian businessman offered her a dangerous proposition: smuggling caviar and champagne for substantial payment, plus an invitation to his Black Sea home during the May Day holiday. (Trust no one was Vera's survival rule, but something about Mikhail's gentleness made her hesitate.)

From the moment she boarded that private train in 1990, nothing made sense. Why would this mysterious figure possess such wealth in communist Russia? At his seaside mansion, surrounded by Fabergé eggs and priceless artifacts from across Soviet republics, Mikhail compared Vera to Saint Shushanik and revealed his true purpose—he needed someone brave enough to preserve cultural treasures as the regime crumbled. Was he protecting history or recruiting an accomplice?

The arrangement worked perfectly for a year until the Soviet collapse. Vera emigrated and rebuilt her life, but years later spotted Mikhail on television looking exactly the same.

Could he have possessed supernatural knowledge, or was something even stranger at work? Listen to discover how one risky decision at a tea shop led to an encounter that defies explanation.

Have you experienced something unexplainable? We're actively seeking your vampire encounter stories and folklore topics for upcoming episodes. If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com.

Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/