The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Anatoly Moskvin: The Russian Puppeter

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

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On the 2nd November 2011, Russian police entered the home that Anatoly Moskvin, a writer and former university lecturer, shared with his parents, suspecting him of being involved in possible extremism against the Muslim population, they might have been expecting to find plans for some sort of attack, or at least extremist literature, but what they found was much more unusual. Around the flat, there were 29 life-sized homemade dolls. Created out of what appeared to be paper mache, the dolls were dressed in women's clothes,

and in many cases had buttons sewn into their faces for eyes. Many were covered in makeup. In some cases, faces had been drawn on. Others wore the faces of soft toys that had. had been removed and attached to the dolls. When the officers moved the dolls, they made an odd sound. It appeared a number of them had music boxes and toys, buried in their chests, that would emit a jingle when they were moved.

It was also noted that some appeared to have holes, directly underneath the eye area. It's hard to know what the anti-terror police would have made of this scene. But it didn't take them long to discover that these dolls, or hiding something much darker. Inside each of these dolls were the mummified remains of 29 young girls. What they had uncovered was one of the most bizarre crimes in recent years. It's time to dim the lights and get comfortable, as I bring you one of the strangest true crime reports I've ever come across.

A story of black magic, ghosts, cloning, insanity, and abuse. This is the story of the man the Russian media called The Puppeteer. This is the sad tale Anatoly Muskevin and its human dolls. If you love tales of the paranormal, true crime and unexplained mysteries, then make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications so that you never miss another entry into the tape library. With that out the way, let's get into it. Our story begins in Russia, 1966 The error of stagnation must have been a harsh time to grow up in the former Soviet Union

cold winters an economy collapsing for many drinking was the only way to get through today born on September 1st 1966 Anatoly Muscovin was an unusual child His parents soon realised that their child had certain gifts

Anatoly was extremely intelligent from a young young age and would be regarded by many through his life as a genius. As many before him, and many since though, that intellect seemed to come with a difficulty in grasping social conventions. Anatoly was a reclusive child who would find it difficult to make friends. This led to him being bullied and lonely. But Anatoly would keep his head down and dedicate himself to his studies. He would spend any spare money he had on books

and even managed to teach himself multiple languages. Anatole would come to realise there was a darkness in this world at a very early age. Returning home from school one day covered in bruises, he revealed that he had been attacked and raped by an unknown man on his way home. If this wasn't enough, at the age of 13, he would end up involved in a truly strange incident

that certainly sent him down the path that led him to commit his crimes. Anatoly was out collecting recycling as part of a task for school. There was a competitive element to this, so the children would travel far and wide to collect paper to take back with them. This saw Anatoly finding himself alone in a strange part of town, in front of a strange house. Entering the yard, he was shocked to discover, he had wandered into what appeared to be some sort of funeral.

He saw 13 people stood around a coffin, dressed in black cloaks, and holding candles. The coffin was open, but he didn't get a look at who was inside. It would have been hard not to notice the size, however. This was a child's coffin. Anatoly was understandably terrified,

and he turned to run out of the garden as quickly. as he could. But as he did, the closest adult grabbed him by the shoulder. He was brought over to the coffin. There he saw the body of 11-year-old Natasha Petrova. Although they never met during Natasha's short life, she would go on to become a huge influence into young Anatolis. The adults at the funeral demanded that Anatoly kissed the girl's corpse. He was terrified and kept refusing, crying and begging to be allowed to go home. Natasha's mother kept trying to bripe in with sweets and money, but still, Anatoly said no,

realising that his cries of protest were going unheard, Anatoly eventually caved in and was pushed down towards the girl's cold forehead, where he was forced to kiss her multiple times. This wouldn't be the end of this bizarre scene though, as the kiss was seemingly only the start of what appears to be an unusual ritual these people were performing. The girl's mother produced two rings, one for Anatoly, and one for him to place on Natasha's ring finger. What they had carried out was a twisted wedding ceremony that in their eyes saw Anatoly betrothed to the corpse of an 11-year-old girl.

Once the rings were swapped, Anatoly was given a basket of fruit and some money. He was then told he could not tell anyone for 40 days and let go. That incident alone could be enough to explain Anatoly's future fascination with death and the afterlife. But what would cement the dark road he was about to travel down was a few nights later, when Natasha would visit him. Anatoly said he started to see Natasha in his dreams. Now, it's completely understandable. that he could be acting out this traumatic experience in his subconscious.

But what was interesting is how that appears to have manifested. The ritualistic aspect of their supposed wedding appears to have had a strong impact on Anatoly. The supposed spirit of Natasha would visit him at night and offer to teach him the ways of black magic. Not something Anatoly was very knowledgeable one at the time. He turned down her eyes. But she would still return, night after night, and make the same offer.

Insistent that it was important that Anatoly learn about the practices of the occult. But that wasn't her only demand. She also wanted him to return to the village where they had been married. If he visited, then she would disappear from his dreams. But if he didn't keep up his visits often enough, she would come creeping back into his mind. into his mind late at night. Anatoly confided in his parents about Natasha. Confused and concerned, they took their son to a doctor and claimed that these strange fantasies were merely the result of puberty. He prescribed Anatoly as sedative to help him sleep. But still, Natasha came. Anatoly hated

these visits from Natasha. She terrified him, and her insistence on him learning master. magic unnerved him. Eventually though, Natasha made him a deal if he would perform one simple ritual for her and she would leave him alone. Eventually, Anatoly agreed. The only difficulty was though to complete this ritual he would need a tooth of one of his classmates. Despite this, Anatoly was able to complete the ritual as per Natasha's instructions. and the little girl's spirits kept her word and left Anatole alone. He kept an annual visit to her grave site though, which maybe helped keep her soul at rest.

Anatoly's interest in death had grown outwards now to encompass the occult and magical rituals. It seems Natasha's incessant requests had gotten through to him, albeit a little later in life. He studied at the University of Moscow and while there gained a degree in Celtic studies, he became extremely interested in the ancient practices surrounding death and the afterlife between different cultures. It was during his time at university that Anatoly, despite his continued social reclusiveness, found some like-minded souls. He joined a group of Luciferians, an order that would help cement his interest in the left-hand path and bring him deeper into the world of magic. He was dedicated to his practice, taking a vowel of celibacy, although it appears that

sex wasn't something of a priority for Anatoly, maybe understandably due to his past childhood traumas. Anatoly said, it was at this time that he regretted all the times he had denied Natasha's request to teach him magic, but when he would tell other practitioners about his experience with his child bride, they were extremely interested and all too happy to teach Anatoly the secrets of the occult. It was around this time he first started physically experimenting with the dead. He would use dead animals as a key part of his ritualistic magic. Had the incident with Natasha and the ritual he was involved in sparked an interest in the occult that lay dormant to some degree

until we found like-minded people to work with. Or had he been guided down the left-hand path by something greater than himself? After completing his studies, Anatoly became a university lecturer. However, he was seen as an eccentric by other members of staff and apparently could be very difficult to work with. It didn't take long before he was forced out of his role.

But Anatoly saw this as a chance to focus on his passion of writing, as well as some of his other interests. He began a project with a fellow academic. Records during the Soviet Union were messy at times, and much of local history had been lost. This project could be seen as a way to recount the local stories that had been lost, and surveying the cemetery seemed like a sensible way to do this. It obviously helped that Anatoly had a fascination with cemeteries and was quoted as saying he is attracted to them like a magnet. To make ends meet during this extensive writing project, Anatoly would become a language shooter. He could speak 13 different languages by this point

and enjoyed teaching children. His mother noticed how good he appeared to be at communicating with children. it sounds like interacting with them was when Anatoly was at his happiest. He also wrote a number of articles for different publications as he travelled around. This would ultimately be his undoing, but we'll get to that a little later. Anatoly was becoming an expert on the graveyards. He claims to have visited over 752 different cemeteries over the course of three years. He knew them like the back of his hand.

He knew everyone's names, the dates and situations they had died on. He was developing an encyclopedic knowledge of the cemeteries and all the local history that went along with them. But it was all taking a toll on him. Anatoly was travelling mostly by foot during these years. He was exhausted and physically broken by the long walks to the cemeteries. He found himself dream. drinking from puddles and sleeping wherever he could. Although, if where he chose to sleep was always by design or circumstance, it's definitely up for debate.

He was once found by a group of drunken gravediggers one morning, a sleep in a coffin that was due to be buried. Being a strange man hanging around graveyards at all hours of the day and night, he was attacked and robbed on more than one occasion. A more disturbing behaviour started to emerge during these research trips though. Something Anatoly had learned during his studies into folk history was about the practice of sleeping on graves. It appeared he had a deep love for children. And at some point he began sleeping on top of the graves of young girls that he would find on his walks through cemeteries.

This took an even darker turn though, when Anatoly said that these children would start talking to him. They would visit him during the night, much like Natasha, as he slept on their graves. He would only sleep on the graves of the children that he said liked him. Using his knowledge of local history, he would ask the children questions. This was his way of determining whether these were really the ghosts of the children, or in fact demons in disguise. In 2003, Anatoly entered into a seemingly very spiritual but non-sexual relationship with a woman.

They both decided that they wanted to have children. Anatoly had grown very attached to the idea of having a child of his own, particularly a little girl. But due to his vow of celibacy and the nature of their relationship, adoption was the only way to go. They soon applied for the adoption of a young girl, but Anatoly's parents, who he was living with, were not happy with this idea. With his erratic financial situation, Anatoly couldn't afford a place of his own, so that would seemingly see the four of them and a small child all living together. Due to his low income, the adoption application was denied, and his relationship quickly fell apart soon after. It could be said that Anatoly's grip on reality had shattered long before this, but this incident was clearly an acceleration point for him.

It was at this point, angry and sad, that he told his mother he was practicing black magic, but she simply shrugged it off, as just being yet another one of her sons, odd eccentricities. After the argument about the adoption with his parents, Anatoly headed to his spiritual home. The cemetery. This is when his collection would begin.

He dug up the body of a young girl, the first of many. He decided that since he couldn't have a child of his own, he would give someone else's child a second chance. He would use his increasing magical knowledge to venture into necromancy and bring a child who didn't have a full life back. He had clearly been planning this for some time and had been studying the process of mummification.

He dried out the body, mummified it and took it back to the home he shared with his parents. There he encased the remains into a homemade doll and dressed it in clothes he found in the rubbish. Anatoly's attempts to bring the girl back to life obviously failed. But he wasn't someone who was dismissing. of the powers of science.

He was sure that at some point science could catch up and make death a thing of the past in one way or another. He said he felt sorry for the children who didn't get a full life and wanted to revive them. When his magical practices didn't work,

he kept the bodies for that when genetic research caught up, they could be used to create clones of the children. To give them the chance, to live the life that was cruelly snatched away from them. This mission meant that Anatoli wouldn't stop but just one child. He needed more. Around 2009, police were receiving increasing reports about disturbed gravesites, but were having difficulty tracking down any concrete leads, so the investigation didn't go

anywhere. During this time, Anatolia was increasing his dull collection. collecting bodies from the various cemeteries he visited and bringing them home to join his warped family. He would create faces for the dolls, sew buttoned onto their eyes, and apply makeup to give them more life-like appearance. Once again, his parents shrugged off the increasing number of life-sized dolls as just another one of their sons' weird hobbies. On occasion, his mother would find him talking to the dolls. She would chastise him for this and call him a child. When his parents had friends over, they would talk about Anatoli's art project with the dolls. Neighbours smelt the putrid smell of rotting corpses coming from the apartment,

but chalked it up to some sort of drainage issue. Anatoly even went as far as to introduce one of the dolls to his aunt and placed it at the dinner table with them as they ate. It's absolutely astonishing and so strange that no one raised any concerns about Anatoly's behaviour during this time. Or how his parents lived with the smell of death all around their home. Each year his parents would leave the apartment for the summer. This allowed Anatole to live as freely as he wanted with his children, without judgment. And that is how he saw them, as his children.

He knew their names, their birthdays and the circumstances of their deaths. Anatoly tried to learn everything he could about his children. He had his favourites and he had some that he wasn't so keen on. The ones he didn't like so much were relegated to the garage, whereas his favourites would stay in his room. He wouldn't swear in front of them. He would celebrate events and births, birthdays. He would eat with them. He would play them cartoons, drilling holes in their masks so they could see the TV. He would sing them songs. Anatoly didn't see them as corpses. He claimed that he never dismembered them when creating the dolls and carried out his work with kindness and respect in his own twisted way. He treated them as if they were living children that were just temporary.

rarely dead, and he was waiting for a way to bring them back. This carried on for almost a decade. He would never get rid of any of the bodies, just add more and more to his growing collection. Anatolia had been of interest to the police for some time by this point, but not for the reasons you may think. A number of articles he had written were somewhat controversial, including one on the history of the swastika. This had seen in his story of the swastika. This had seen in his added to a list of potential extremist suspects to keep an eye on. After a 2011 terrorist attack, Anatolia was discovered by police seemingly desecrating the graves in a Muslim cemetery. This led to his arrest and to the police raiding his home to discover the macabre secret he had been keeping

for the past nine years. Some media outlets have pushed the suggestion that the dolls were dressed in sexually suggestive clothing. but textual attraction doesn't appear to have played a part in Anatoly's crimes, and I'm not sure why the need to sensationalise such an already gruesome story is needed. I'm guessing the choice of clothing in most cases was simply whatever women's clothing he was able to find. The use of makeup was to give the dolls a more lifelike appearance, and in many cases he apparently dressed them in the same clothes that they were buried in. Anatoly omitted he knew what he had done was illegal, but thought he was doing it for the greater good.

He left grave sites as undisturbed as possible, in the hope that no one would notice the bodies were missing. He claimed this was not so he wasn't caught, but to save the relatives from any trauma. An act of kindness in his eyes, but there were parents visiting the graves of their children, oblivious to the fact that they had been taken from them for a second time. Anatoly was ruled to have schizophrenia and deemed unfit to stand trial. He was sent to a psychiatric clinic where he is evaluated every six months to see if he can be released back into society. Despite appeals, he remains confined to a clinic to this day.

He could potentially spend the rest of his life there. Human rights activists have tried to free him after reports of him being abused by guards and fellow inmates he is being kept docile with a huge cocktail of medication The parents of those bodies that he stole Understandably do not want him released He wanted a child of his own To pass on his knowledge to

When he couldn't have one He took the children that in his eyes Had been discarded as part of his punishment he was ordered to pay compensation to the parents although one father refused claiming that Moskavin had treated his daughter better than he had during her life

in some people's eyes and Toli Moskavin is a vile monster in others he is a figure of tragic sympathy who is now a victim of the Russian state's mistreatment this entire story has left me feeling very odd What he has done is obviously totally wrong and it's hard not to imagine where his crimes could have led to

if he was not caught Plus I can't begin to imagine the trauma that the families have gone through knowing that their children have been taken away from their graves and kept for years but on the other hand

there is such a sadness behind Anatoly's story I'd be interested to know where you stand on this one Let me know in the comments if you think Anatoly should ever be released. Thank you for joining me on this dark tale. It's been a rough one to get through in places. And I appreciate you making it to the end. Again, thank you.

And as always, pleasant dreams. I'll see you next time.