Anatoly Moskvin’s Parents Thought He Collected Vintage Dolls — They Were Really Young Mummified Girls

"We saw these dolls but we 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."

Anatoly Moskvin loved history. He spoke 13 languages, traveled extensively, taught at the college level, and was a journalist in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s fifth-largest city. Moskvin was also a self-proclaimed expert on cemeteries, and dubbed himself a “necropolyst.” One colleague called his work “priceless.”

Too bad Moskvin took his expertise to unhealthy new levels. In 2011, the historian was arrested after the bodies of 29 girls between the ages of three and 25 were found mummified in his apartment.

A Bizarre Ritual

Anatoly Moskvin was known as the ultimate expert on cemeteries in his city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. He attributes his obsession with the macabre to a 1979 incident when the historian was 13. Moskvin shared this story in Necrologies, a weekly publication dedicated to cemeteries and obituaries, to which he was an avid contributor.

In his last article for the publication, dated Oct. 26, 2011, Moskvin divulged how a group of men in black suits stopped him on the way home from school. They were en route to the funeral of 11-year-old Natasha Petrova and dragged young Anatoly along to her coffin where they forced him to kiss the girl’s corpse.

Moskvin wrote, “I kissed her once, then again, then again.” The girl’s grieving mother then put a wedding ring on Anatoly’s finger and a wedding ring on her dead daughter’s finger.

“My strange marriage with Natasha Petrova was useful,” Moskvin said in the article. Strange, indeed. He said it led to a belief in magic and ultimately, a fascination with the dead. Whether the story is even true is beside the point by now, as his disturbing thoughts would go unchecked for more than 30 years.

A Macabre Obsession Festers

Anatoly Moskvin’s interest in the corpse-kissing incident never abated. He began to wander through cemeteries as a schoolboy.

His macabre interest even informed his studies and Moskvin eventually earned an advanced degree in Celtic studies, a culture whose mythology often blurs the lines between life and death. The historian also mastered some 13 languages and was a many-times published scholar.

Meanwhile, Moskvin roamed from cemetery to cemetery. “I don’t think anyone in the city knows them better than I do,” he said of his extensive knowledge of the region’s dead. From 2005 to 2007, Moskvin claimed to have visited 752 cemeteries in Nizhny Novgorod.

He took detailed notes on each one and delved into the histories of those buried there. The hands-on historian claimed to have walked up to 20 miles per day, sometimes sleeping on hay bales and drinking rainwater from puddles.

Moskvin posted a documentary series of his travels and discoveries entitled “Great Walks Around Cemeteries” and “What the Dead Said”. These continue to be published in a weekly newspaper.

He even said he spent one night sleeping in a coffin ahead of a deceased person’s funeral. His observations were more than just observations, however.

Desecration of Graves

In 2009, locals began to discover the graves of their loved ones desecrated, sometimes completely dug up.

Russian Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Valery Gribakin told CNN that initially, “Our leading theory was that it was done by some extremist organizations. We decided to beef up our police units and set up … groups composed of our most experienced detectives who specialize in extremist crimes.”

But for nearly two years, the Interior Ministry’s leads went nowhere. Graves continued to be desecrated and no one knew why.

Then, a break in the investigation came following a terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport in Moscow in 2011. Shortly afterward, authorities heard reports of Muslim graves being desecrated in Nizhny Novgorod. Investigators were led to a cemetery where someone was painting over the pictures of dead Muslims but not damaging anything else.

This was where Moskvin was finally caught. Eight police officers went to his apartment after they apprehended him at the graves of the Muslims to gather evidence.

What they found there shocked them all — and shook the world.

Read more at https://allthatsinteresting.com/anatoly-moskvin