In the old days, in the place called Shandib, there were a lot of shulmus (evil spirits, demons). For example, a man was riding a cart and suddenly the wheel came off and rolled off. This was thought to be caused by demons, domam. Another story was that a man tied up his horse and left, on his return he found that horse’s mane was braided. Although I do not believe in such stories, I do remember that once myself and three other women worked in a cattle barn in Shandib. We had a little time and left our horse harnessed. After finishing work, we cleaned our clothes, climbed into the cart, pulled the reins, but the horse remained standing. I hopped off the cart and saw that the reins were relinked and the breeching was cut. Who could do this? The horse couldn’t do it, it could only tear the reins. We were surprised, we tied the horse bridles with wire and went to see the shepherd, who lived nearby. We asked him, ‘Did anyone approach our horse?’. He answered ‘No’. Then we got scared. There was little water in the steppe, we took water from a pit (such pits were dug in places where there was water under the ground). Sometimes I had to go out to collect water from a pit at twilight. When I came back home, two grey dogs always followed me. Grandmother Pyurveeva told me that early one morning she went to the warehouse and queued. She was standing when suddenly someone said to her, ‘Anya, is that you?’ and slapped her on her shoulder. She looked and saw a hand all covered in hair. This really happened.