27 Facts About Anatoly Moskvin

Anatoly Moskvin was born in the city of Gorky in Soviet Russia, which is known as Nizhny Novgorod.

Anatoly Moskvin had a deep interest in cemeteries, burial rituals, death, and the occult.

Anatoly Moskvin kept a personal library of over 60,000 books and documents, as well as a large doll collection.

Anatoly Moskvin never married or dated, preferring to live with his parents.

In 2016, it was reported that Anatoly Moskvin planned to marry a 25-year-old native of his hometown who attended his trial.

Anatoly Moskvin is a philologist, linguist, and polyglot who speaks thirteen languages and has written several books, papers, and translations, all of which are well known in academic circles.

Anatoly Moskvin occasionally worked as a journalist and regularly contributed to local newspapers and publications.

In 2005, Oleg Riabov, a fellow academic and publisher, commissioned Anatoly Moskvin to summarize and list the dead in more than 700 cemeteries in forty regions of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

On his extensive travels, Anatoly Moskvin was sometimes questioned by police on the suspicion of vandalism and theft, but was never arrested or detained after stating his academic credentials and purpose.

The work itself remains unpublished but has been described as "unique" and "priceless" by Alexei Yesin, the editor of Necrologies, a weekly paper to which Anatoly Moskvin was a regular contributor.

Later, Yesin told the Associated Press that Anatoly Moskvin was a loner who had "certain quirks" but who gave no indication that he was up to anything unusual.

Between 2006 and 2010, Anatoly Moskvin worked as a freelance correspondent for the newspaper Nizhny Novgorod Worker, publishing articles twice a month.

Anatoly Moskvin was arrested on November 2,2011, by police investigating a spate of grave desecrations in cemeteries in and around Nizhny Novgorod.

Anatoly Moskvin actively cooperated with investigators and claimed he made the dolls over the course of ten years.

Anatoly 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 Anatoly Moskvin was accused of having defaced the graves of Muslims, considered a hate crime, but this charge was later dropped.

Anatoly Moskvin was moved to a psychiatric clinic, with his stay to be reviewed regularly.

Anatoly Moskvin's treatment was again extended April 2014, and yet again in July 2015.

Anatoly Moskvin studied the culture of the peoples of Siberia, in particular the ancient Yakuts, and discovered they had a similar practice for communicating with the dead.

Anatoly 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.

Anatoly Moskvin hoped the spirits would be more willing to speak in a safe, welcoming home and that they might be easier to hear when they were no longer underground.

Anatoly Moskvin dried the corpses using a combination of salt and baking soda and then cached the bodies in secure, dry places in and around cemeteries.

Once the bodies dried, Anatoly Moskvin carried them to his home where he used various methods to make "dolls" in an attempt to give the children 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.

Anatoly Moskvin was aware that he was committing a crime, but felt the dead children were "calling out" to be rescued and believed that rescuing the children was more important than obeying the law.

Anatoly Moskvin was motivated by his own desire to have children, specifically a daughter.

Anatoly 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.

Anatoly Moskvin spoke to and interacted with the corpses, sang songs to them, watched cartoons with them, and even held birthday parties and celebrated holidays for their benefit.