Anatoly Moskvin

Anatoly Yuryevich Moskvin (; born 1 September 1966) is a Russian linguist, philologist, and historian who was arrested in 2011 after the mummified bodies of 26 young girls between the ages of 3 and 13 were discovered in his apartment in Nizhny Novgorod. After exhuming the bodies from local cemeteries, Moskvin mummified the bodies before dressing and posing them around his home. Moskvin would celebrate their birthdays, watched fairytales with them and read books to them. Moskvin's parents, who shared the apartment with him, knew of the "Dolls" but it did not occur to them that they were real girls. They had one mummified girl in their room.

A psychiatric evaluation determined that Moskvin had a form of paranoid schizophrenia. In May 2012, he was sentenced to court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and has since been held in a psychiatric hospital. In an article written shortly before his arrest, he attributed his interest in the dead to a childhood incident in which he witnessed a funeral procession for an eleven-year-old girl. as well as a large doll collection. He abstained from drinking alcohol and smoking.

Career A former lecturer in Celtic studies at Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, and regularly contributed to local newspapers and publications. Moskvin claimed that over the next two years, he had gone on foot to inspect 752 cemeteries across the region, walking up to 30 km (18.6 miles) a day. mummified and dressed as "dolls" in Moskvin's flat and garage. released by police shows the bodies seated on shelves and sofas in small rooms full of books, papers and general clutter. Moskvin's treatment was again extended April 2014, 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." however, in February 2019 a subsequent psychiatric evaluation found that it was too early to release Moskvin, and the hospital withdrew their petition.

Motive In an interview after his arrest, Moskvin stated he felt great sympathy for the dead children and thought that they could be brought back to life by either science or black magic.