Legends and Lore in Pitt's Nationality Rooms

If you like a good ghost story with your history lesson, the Cathedral of Learning is a fun place to spend a Halloween evening. During Halloween week, costumed guides lead tours through the university's Nationality Rooms, sharing folklore, urban legends, and ghost stories tied to each room's culture. The tours are run by Quo Vadis, a student club that has been guiding visitors through the rooms since it started in 1944 as International Hostesses.

The Turkish Room (Room 339) is a good place to start. Guides point out the evil eye symbol, which is believed to ward off evil creatures, and tell the story of the Gulyabani, a creature that appears at night as an older man or woman to travelers and lures them to their deaths. Down the hall, the Norwegian Room (Room 151) brings a darker chapter of history into the story. Norway lost about half its population during the Bubonic Plague, and the plague was personified as Pesta, an old woman who wandered the streets deciding who would live and who would die.

The Slavic rooms are just as spooky. In the Ukrainian Room (Room 341), you'll hear about Baba Yaga, an old woman who lives deep in the wilderness and looks for children to trick and eat. The Russian Room (Room 153) features the Vodyanoi, a water spirit who lives in lakes, ponds, and rivers and tends to prefer mill-ponds. Stories describe him attacking swimmers at night and dragging them down to his underwater home, and guides explain that drowning victims were often not buried, so as not to offend him.

For planning, the Visitor Center and Gift Shop on the first floor of the Cathedral of Learning is open Monday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Wednesday through Saturday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and Sunday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. It's closed on Tuesdays. Guided tour dates are posted one month at a time, so check the tours page or call the Visitor Center at 412-624-6000, Option 1, or email nationalityroomstours@pitt.edu for the Halloween schedule. Personal photos are generally allowed while you're on a tour, but visitors aren't permitted to record video of the tours. If you want to see the rooms outside the Halloween tours, the building holds 31 Nationality Rooms on the first and third floors, designed by Pittsburgh's ethnic communities. Admission is $10 for adults 19 and over and $6 for youth 18 and under, with children under 5 free. The Visitor Center accepts debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, and checks, but not cash.