‘Brought them home’: Grave robber mummified 29 girls, lived with corpses
WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT: A historian jailed for robbing the graves of 29 young girls and living with their mummified corpses has refused to apologise to their parents.
Anatoly Moskvin, 53, turned the dead children into “dolls”, dressing them in stockings, clothes and knee length boots. He also applied lipstick and make-up to their faces.
The bodysnatcher is said to have marked the birthday of each of his dead victims in his bedroom.
Moskvin was detained in 2011 and confessed to 44 counts of abusing graves of girls aged three to 12.
His parents, who lived in the same flat in Russian city Nizhny Novgorod, claimed to know nothing of his macabre activities.
During a recent custody hearing, the grave robber refused to apologise to his victims’ parents.
Moskvin is trying to be released from psychiatric hospital to care for his elderly mother and live with a new girlfriend.
“These girls are girls,” he said.
“There are no parents in my view. I don’t know any of them.
“Besides, they buried their daughters, and this is where I believe their rights over them finished…
“So no, I would not apologise.”
Previously, he told the parents of his victims: "You abandoned your girls in the cold - and I brought them home and warmed them up."
Moskvin also said he wanted to become a teacher of English to children after an initiative by Vladimir Putin to boost foreign languages in schools.
In Soviet times, he worked as a translator for military intelligence in the Red Army, and later wrote several history books.
One medical commission has already recommended releasing Moskvin, asserting his schizophrenia had been treated, but this was overturned by a court.
A judge last week renewed his detention in a psychiatric hospital for another six months.
“Sorry, I won't speak about it,” Moskvin said after the decision.
‘Grotesque’ abuse of the dead children
The corpse of murder victim Olga Chardymova, ten, was one of the 29 young girls he dug up and turned into mummified dolls, some with music boxes wedged in their chests.
Her mother Natalia Chardymova, 46, did not realise that on her regular visits to her daughter’s graveside, the coffin was empty.
She has opposed Moskvin’s release and said “this creature brought fear, terror and panic into my life” with his “grotesque” abuse of the dead children.
She called for him to be permanently locked up.
“I would be happy to know he will spend his life in the hospital,” she said.
“He is a sick person. From one side, it's not good to be happy about this. But I will give me the chance to put a gravestone on the plot of my daughter.
“She was buried unnamed to prevent him finding her grave again if he is released.”
Moskvin’s mother Elvira, 77, said she had seen the dolls but “did not suspect there were dead bodies inside.”
“We thought it was his hobby to make such big dolls and did not see anything wrong with it,” she said.
She claimed the court was biased against her son, who was “not able to be in society, work, or get married”.
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