What omens did Alexander Pushkin fear?

According to a legend that he, himself, supported, upon learning of the death of Emperor Alexander I, he decided to break his forced isolation and travel to St. Petersburg using forged documents, as he was aware of the conspirators' plans. He intended to take part in the Decembrist uprising. However, the trip did not go well.

First, the servant who was supposed to accompany Pushkin "fell ill with delirium tremens". No sooner had they left home, the poet and his coachman saw a hare dart across their path, then another –  and, in 19th-century Russia, a hare was considered a worse omen than a black cat. To make matters worse, they encountered a village priest, whom seeing was also considered extremely bad.

For the superstitious Pushkin, this sequence of events proved fateful. The poet and his coachman took it all as a sign from above and decided to return to the estate.

Although it's highly likely that this is just a historical anecdote, its story has become so beloved by later generations that, in 2000, a monument titled ‘The Hare Who Saved Pushkin’ was erected in the village of Mikhailovskoye. It's a milestone with the following inscription: "416 versts [~441 km - ed.] left to Senate Square".