Anatoly Moskvin

Personal life and education

Moskvin lived in Nizhny Novgorod, the fifth largest city in Russia. Moskvin said he began wandering through cemeteries with friends when still a schoolboy. In particular, they visited the Krasnaya Etna Cemetery located in the Leninsky district of Nizhny Novgorod. In an article written shortly before his arrest, Moskvin explained his interest in the dead, attributing it to a childhood incident during which he witnessed a funeral procession for an eleven-year-old girl. Moskvin alleged that the participants forced him to kiss the dead girl's face, writing that "an adult pushed my face down to the waxy forehead of the girl in an embroidered cap, and there was nothing I could do but kiss her as ordered."

After graduating from the Philological faculty of Moscow State University Moskvin became well known in academic circles. His main areas of academic interests were Celtic history and folklore, as well as languages and linguistics. Moskvin also had a deep interest in cemeteries, burial rituals, death, and the occult. He also kept a personal library of over 60,000 books and documents, as well as a large collection of dolls. Fellow academics described him as both a genius and an eccentric.

As an adult, Moskvin led a secluded life. He never married or dated, instead preferring to live with his parents including his father, Yuri F. Moskvin. He abstained from drinking alcohol and smoking and is purportedly a virgin.

Career

A former lecturer in Celtic studies at Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, Moskvin also previously worked at the Institute of Foreign Languages. A philologist, linguist and polyglot who spoke thirteen languages, Moskvin wrote several books, papers and translations, all well-known in academic circles. Moskvin also occasionally worked as a journalist and regularly contributed to local newspapers and publications. Describing himself as a "necropolist", Moskvin was considered an expert on local cemeteries in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

In 2005, Oleg Riabov, a fellow academic and publisher, commissioned Moskvin to summarize and list the dead in more than 700 cemeteries in forty regions of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Moskvin claimed to have gone on foot to inspect 752 cemeteries across the region from 2005 to 2007, walking up to 30 km (18.6 miles) a day. During these travels, he drank from puddles, spent nights in haystacks and at abandoned farms, or slept in the cemeteries themselves, even going so far as to spend a night in a coffin being prepared for a funeral. Moskvin also claimed that on his extensive travels he was sometimes questioned by police on the suspicion of vandalism and theft, but that he was never arrested or repremanded. The work itself remains unpublished but has been described as "unique" and "priceless" by Alexei Yesin, the editor of Necrologies, a weekly paper to which Moskvin was a regular contributor. After Moskvin's arrest, Yesin stated that he was confident that there had been a mistake and Moskvin would soon be exonerated. He also told the Associated Press that Moskvin was a loner who had "certain quirks" but who had given no indication that he was up to anything unusual.

Between 2006 and 2010, Moskvin worked as a freelance correspondent for the newspaper Nizhny Novgorod Worker, publishing articles twice a month. His father also sometimes wrote for the paper. During 2008, Moskvin wrote an extensive series of articles on the history of Nizhny Novgorod cemeteries that appeared in the paper.

Arrest and Criminal Proceedings

Moskvin was arrested on 2 November 2011 by police investigating a spate of grave desecrations in cemeteries in and around Nizhny Novgorod. Investigators from the Center for Combating Extremism discovered the twenty-six bodies (initially reported as twenty-nine) in Moskvin's flat and garage. Video released by police shows the bodies seated on shelves and sofas in small rooms full of books, papers and general clutter. Although only twenty-six bodies were discovered in his home, Moskvin was suspected of desecrating as many as 150 graves after police found numerous grave accoutrements such as metal nameplates removed from headstones. Police also discovered instructions for making the "dolls," maps of cemeteries in the region, and a collection of photographs and videos depicting open graves and disinterred bodies, though none of these photos or videos could conclusively be connected to bodies found in the apartment. According to the investigation, the bodies were removed from cemeteries in the Nizhny Novgorod region as well as cemeteries in Moscow and Moscow region. Moskvin actively cooperated with investigators.

After exhuming the corpses from their graves, Moskvin researched mummification theories and technique from books in an attempt to preserve the bodies. He dried the corpses using a combination of salt and baking soda and then cached the bodies in secure and dry places in and around cemeteries. Once the bodies were dried, he carried the bodies back to his home where he would used various methods to make "dolls" of the corpses. Unable to prevent the bodies from withering and shrinking as they dried, he would wrap the limbs in strips of cloth to provide fullness, or he would stuff the bodies with rags and padding, sometimes adding wax masks decorated with nail polish over their faces before dressing them in brightly colored children's clothes and wigs. These details made the bodies appear to be large homemade dolls, which prevented their discovery. It was unclear if each dolls contained a full set of human remains. Moskvin claimed he made the dolls over the course of ten years. His parents, who were away for large portions of the year, were unaware of his activities.

Moskvin was charged under Article 244 of the Criminal Code for the desecration of graves and dead bodies, a charge which carried up to five years in prison. Originally Moskvin was also accused of having defaced the graves of Muslims, but this charge was later dropped.

After a psychiatric evaluation, it was determined that Moskvin suffered from a form of paranoid schizophrenia. In a hearing on 25 May 2012, the Leninsky District court of Nizhny Novgorod deemed Moskvin unfit to stand trial, releasing him from criminal liability. He was instead sentenced to "coercive medical measures". The prosecution was satisfied with the decision and did not appeal the verdict.

Moskvin was removed to a psychiatric clinic, with his stay to be reviewed regularly. In February 2013, a hearing approved an extension of his psychiatric treatment. His treatment was again extended April 2014, and yet again in July 2015. In 2014 a spokesman stated, "After three years of monitoring him in a psychiatric clinic, it is absolutely clear that Moskvin is not mentally fit for trial...He will therefore be kept for psychiatric treatment at the clinic." As of 2016, every request for the extension of Moskvin's treatment has been approved.

Motive

Moskvin has stated that he felt great sympathy for the dead children and felt that they could be brought back to life by either science or black magic. He enclosed the remains in the dolls in an attempt to give them functional bodies to be used when he eventually discovered a way to bring them back to life, feeling that their physical remains were too decayed and ugly for them to feel comfortable or happy. Moskvin claims to have been aware that he was committing a crime, but felt the dead children were "calling out" to him, begging to be rescued. He believed that rescuing the children was more important than obeying the law. He was also motivated by his own desire to have children, specifically a daughter. Moskvin often regretted that he never had children and at one point attempted to adopt a young girl against the wishes of his parents, but his application was declined due to his low income. Moskvin denied any sexual attraction to the dolls and instead considered them to be his children. He would talk to and interact with the corpses, sing songs to them, watch cartoons with them, and even hold birthday parties and celebrate holidays for their benefit.

In a post-arrest interview, Moskvin explained that as an expert on Celtic culture, he had learned that the ancient Druids slept on graves in order to communicate with spirits of their dead. He also studied the culture of the peoples of Siberia, in particular, the culture of the ancient Yakuts, and discovered they had a similar practice for communicating with the dead. Moskvin began searching for obituaries of recently dead children. When he found an obituary that "spoke" to him, he would sleep on her grave in order to determine if the child's spirit wished to be brought back to life. Moskvin claimed he had been doing this for around twenty years and insisted that when he began, he never dug up a grave without the permission of the child within. As he grew older, it became physically painful for him to sleep on the graves, so he began bringing the bodies home where it would be more comfortable to sleep near them. He hoped the spirits would be more willing to speak in a safe, welcoming home and that they might be easier for him to hear when they were no longer underground.

Works

Publications contributed to:

Dictionaries

Translations

Essays/Chapters