From the life of provincial vampires

Vampirism is not merely an overused banality from horror movies, but a real disease. Usually genetically inherited, it can develop because of alcohol abuse. The story of a slaughter who became a vampire.

Fifty three years old Vasily Gembitskiy has never left his native village. The whole life he has been a watchman on the farm. Some other carrier was impossible partly because of his lameness. Apart from lameness, Gembitskiy was a nice-looking, fit guy with attractive face and curious eyes, and the family he created in the end was normal: a wife and a daughter. But when the daughter grew up, their life wrecked. 

Having graduated from the high school, the daughter commenced university. In the city she became a different person: parties, companies… She met her love and gave up studying. After the first serious talk with father, she left home. These events took all health out of her ever-fresh mother: she gave up fighting for joyless life and soon died. Soon Vasily lost the job. He started drinking, became alienated, stopped caring for the house and for himself: the terrace was all overgrown with grapevine, and Vasily's face lost in beard.

For a few years no one has seen him doing anything but drinking. Then Vasily found another passion: he slaughtered cattle for old women, who could not do this anymore. They paid him what they could, and he accepted everything: sometimes it was a plate of borsch. No one remembers now the first time he asked for a cup of fresh, still warm blood, but with time he has started asking this as payment.

The villagers could not see him with a bottle of samogon (self-made extra-strong vodka) anymore. Vasily himself spoke that blood activates one better than any spirit. Grannies first were surprised, but then accustomed to this. Youngsters, on the other hand, called him vampire. Vasily does not get offended, saying with a smile that the youth needs something like that to believe in.

"I loved loneliness and the night sky from my childhood, and when the wife died a strong reason for that appeared. The soul’s tortures were soothed by vodka first. Then a brake came: the spirits hurt my stomach, sometimes I lost consciousness, and then my eyes and all the skin felt like burning for a few days. I jumped to bed and spent 2-3 days not going out of home. Only hunger could make me think again. On one of such days, the neighbor asked me to help with a pig. When I saw warm blood, an idea came: "Why not try this? Maybe it’ll give some strength?", and I swallowed some. It tasted like good wine. I became attracted", recalls Vasily.

With time, Vasily became renowned as a professional cattle slaughter, and was employed by a farm. Because of his "bloody" interests, Vasily is the cheapest slaughter in the area. His services are used by probably the entire Grayvoronskiy rayon, so nearly everyday he has an extra ruble and a cup of fresh blood. As he claims, he feels himself much better since started drinking blood.

Vasily does not point much attention to such small things as a sudden change of skin color, its super-receptiveness to the sunlight and yellowed eyes. He does not count himself being sick, not caring that a nickname "vampire" matches the reality.

Vampirism is a rare but real disease. Another name for it is pofiria. It causes changes in the blood formula: shortage of erythrocytes and iron. For a "normal" life the ill people really need blood, but not necessarily human. Receptiveness to the sunlight grows, which can cause burns even after a short period, so the vampires lead a night life, their faces whiten, bodies get skinny and so they look like classical bloodsuckers from books. 

Physicians do not agree on the causes and development process of the disease. It is often said that it is being formed at genetics level, but alcohol abuse, hepatizes, some medical drugs overdose can also cause the disease.

Given the modern life realities, anyone can become a vampire. So to check how much of a vampire you are already, you can use the following test prepared by Vampire Research Center.

Are you skinny?
Is your face pale?
You often wear sunglasses and use sunburn protection cream?
You prefer candles to electric light?
Are you tolerant to temperature changes?
You look much younger than your age?
You have a deep, magnetizing look?
You are rarely ill, avoid medicines?
Do you judge smokers and drug users?
Do you like night-time loneliness?
Do you like raw meat?
You are not interested in sex much?
You like occult sciences?
You like dressing in black?

The more positive answers you gave, the closer you are to start drinking blood.