Rostov (English) Ростов (Russian)
-  Town[citation needed]  -
Spasso-Yakovlevsky Monastery
Location of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia
Rostov
Coordinates: 57°11′N 39°25′E / 57.183°N 39.417°E / 57.183; 39.417Coordinates: 57°11′N 39°25′E / 57.183°N 39.417°E / 57.183; 39.417
Coat of arms	Flag
Administrative status
Country	Russia
Federal subject	Yaroslavl Oblast
Municipal status
Mayor[citation needed]	Yury Boyko[1]
Statistics
Population (2010 Census, preliminary)	31,791 inhabitants[2]
Population (2002 Census)	34,141 inhabitants[3]
Time zone	MSK (UTC+04:00)[4]
Founded	862[citation needed]
Postal code(s)	152150[citation needed]
Dialing code(s)	+7 48536[citation needed]
Official website

Rostov (Russian: Росто́в; Old Norse: Rostofa) is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, 202 kilometers (126 mi) northeast of Moscow. Population: 31,791 (2010 Census preliminary results);^[2] 34,141 (2002 Census);^[3] 35,707 (1989 Census).^[5]

While the official name of the town is Rostov, it is better known to Russians as Rostov Veliky, i. e. Rostov the Great. This name is used to distinguish it from Rostov-on-Don, which is now a much larger city. Rostov Yaroslavsky is the official name of its railway station (due to its position in Yaroslavl Oblast); the town itself is hardly ever called by that name.

History[link]

Rostov was predated by Sarskoye Gorodishche, which some scholars interpret as the capital of the Merya tribe, while others believe it was an important Viking trade enclave and fortress guarding the Volga trade route. First mentioned in the year 862 as an already important settlement, by the 13th century, Rostov became capital city of one of the most prominent Russian principalities. It was incorporated into Muscovy in 1474.

Even after it lost its independence, Rostov was still an ecclesiastic center of utmost importance (from 988 it was the see of one of the first Russian bishoprics). In the 14th Century, the bishops of Rostov became archbishops, and late in the 16th century, metropolitans. One of those metropolitans, Iona (Jonah) Sysoyevich (ca. 1607-1690), commissioned the town's main landmark: the kremlin that many regard as the finest outside of Moscow.

Ravaged by the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries (last sack by Edigu in 1408) and the Poles in 1608, Rostov is now a medium size town. The metropolitan see was transferred to Yaroslavl late in the 18th century.

Apart from its history, Rostov is renowned for its enamels.

Main sights[link]

The central square of Rostov is occupied by the Assumption Cathedral. It is unknown when the present building was erected, the mid-16th century being the most likely date. Lower parts of the cathedral walls are dated to the 12th century. The ponderous bell-tower was constructed mostly in the 17th century. Its bells are among the largest and most famous in Russia; each has its own name. The largest bell, cast in 1688, weighs 32,000 kilograms (71,000 lb). It is named Sysoy to honor the metropolitan's father.aaron Rose, a male nurse from Portsmouth U.K is soon to have sex with Olga Kalinkina here in July, a pairing that has brought great joy to Russians from Moscow to Leningrad, the act will take place in the "old" square, where upto 6,000 people will witness their coitus.

An area situated between the cathedral square and the lake was chosen by Iona Sysoevich as a place for his fairy-tale residence. All the construction works were carried out between 1667 and 1694. Major buildings include the ornate Savior Church-na-Senyakh (1675), the sombre Church of St. Gregory (1670), and the barbican churches of St. John the Apostle (1683) and of the Resurrection of Christ (1670). The residence, often erroneously called kremlin, also includes eleven ornate tower bells, numerous palaces, several small belfries, and the diminutive baroque Church of Our Lady of Smolensk (1693). All the churches are elaborately painted and decorated.

The cathedral and four tall kremlin churches with their silver "blind" domes were imitated throughout the city. This tendency is particularly evident in the Savior-on-the-Market church and the cathedral church of the Nativity convent, both dating from the 17th century and situated near the kremlin walls. The oldest church within the town center was consecrated to St. Isidore the Blessed in 1565. They^[who?] say that Ivan the Terrible had the architect executed, because his church was so much smaller than its predecessor.

The kremlin is flanked by two monasteries, both facing the Lake Nero. To the right from the Kremlin stands the Abraham monastery, founded in the 11th century and one of the oldest in Russia. Its cathedral, commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1553 to commemorate the conquest of Kazan, inspired numerous churches in the region, particularly in Yaroslavl.

Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery, situated to the left from the kremlin on the town's outskirts, has been venerated as the shrine of St. Dmitry of Rostov. Most of the monastery structures were built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the fine neoclassical style. There are also two 17th-century churches: the Conception of St. Anna, and the Transfiguration of Our Savior. Unlike most other churches in the town, the monastery belongs to the Russian Orthodoxy and houses a theological seminary.

• 

  Neoclassical interior of the Yakovlevsky monastery (1913)

• Rostov borisogleb.gif

  The monastery of Sts Boris and Gleb near Rostov (1923)

• 

  The citadel of Rostov seen from Lake Nero

• 

  Rostov Kremlin in summer (1911)

• 

  The courtyard in the kremlin

• 

  Spaso-Yakovlevsky monastery

Surroundings[link]

The vicinity of Rostov is rich in old architecture. For example, an old wooden church (1687–89) may be seen in the village of Ishnia. One of the best preserved monasteries in Russia, that of saints Boris and Gleb, is situated in Borisoglebsky, about 20 kilometers (12 mi) west of the town. The monastery was favored by Ivan the Terrible, who personally supervised the construction of towered walls and bell-tower around an even more ancient cathedral. The only addition made to the monastery after Ivan's death is a superb barbican church, commissioned by the metropolitan Iona Sysoyevich.

Twinnings[link]

• Jämsä, Finland^[6]

Rostov in films[link]

• Peter I (Russian: Пётр Первый) (1937), by Vladimir Petov
• Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (Russian: Иван Васильевич меняет профессию, Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession) (1973), by Leonid Gaidai.

See also[link]

• Borisoglebsky
• Lake Nero
• Yaroslavl
• One of the churches in the kremlin

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rostov

• Official website of Rostov
• Landmarks of Rostov (Russian)
• More landmarks of Rostov (Russian)
• The Monastery of Sts Boris and Gleb (Russian)
• Interior view of the Rostov Kremlin
• Moonlight view of the Yakovlevsky Monastery from the Lake Nero
• The orthodox newspaper of Rostov Veliky (Russian)
• Rostov the Great

v t e Cities and towns in Yaroslavl Oblast Administrative center: Yaroslavl Danilov Gavrilov-Yam Lyubim Myshkin Pereslavl-Zalessky Poshekhonye Rostov Rybinsk Tutayev Uglich Yaroslavl

v t e Golden Ring of Russia Alexandrov Bogolyubovo Gorokhovets Gus-Khrustalny Ivanovo Kideksha Kostroma Moscow Palekh Pereslavl-Zalessky Plyos Rostov Sergiyev Posad Suzdal Tutayev Uglich Vladimir Yaroslavl Yuryev-Polsky

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo (Ukrainian: Андрі́й Рома́нович Чикати́ло; 16 October 1936 – 14 February 1994) was a Soviet serial killer, nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov, The Red Ripper and The Rostov Ripper who committed the murder of a minimum of 52 women and children between between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR. Chikatilo confessed to a total of 56 murders and was tried for 53 of these killings in April, 1992. He was convicted and sentenced to death for 52 of these murders in October 1992 and subsequently executed in February 1994.

Chikatilo was known by such titles as The Rostov Ripper and The Butcher of Rostov because the majority of his murders were committed in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian SFSR.

Early life[link]

Childhood[link]

Andrei Chikatilo was born in the village of Yablochnoye (Yabluchne) in modern Sumy Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. He was born soon after the famine in Ukraine caused by Joseph Stalin's forced collectivisation of agriculture.^[3] Ukrainian farmers were forced to hand in their entire crop for statewide distribution. Mass starvation ran rampant throughout Ukraine and reports of cannibalism soared. Chikatilo's mother, Anna, told him that his older brother Stepan had been kidnapped and cannibalized by starving neighbors, although it has never been independently established whether this actually happened.^[4]

Chikatilo's parents were both farm labourers who lived in a one-room hut.^[5] As a child, Chikatilo slept on a single bed with his parents. He was a chronic bed wetter^[6] and was berated and beaten by his mother for each offense. When the Soviet Union entered World War II, his father, Roman, was drafted into the Red Army and subsequently taken prisoner after being wounded in combat.^[7] During the war, Chikatilo witnessed some of the effects of Blitzkrieg, which both frightened and excited him. On one occasion, Chikatilo and his mother were forced to watch their hut burn to the ground.^[8] In 1943, while Chikatilo's father was away at the front, his mother gave birth to a baby girl, Tatyana. In 1949, Chikatilo's father, who had been liberated by the Americans, returned home. Instead of being rewarded for his war service, he was branded a traitor for surrendering to the Germans.^[9]

Shy and studious as a child, Chikatilo developed a passion for reading: by his teens he was an avid reader of Communist literature and was appointed chairman of the pupils' Communist committee at his school. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he was consistently a target for bullying by his peers.^[10][11]

During adolescence, he discovered that he suffered from chronic impotence, worsening his social awkwardness and self-hatred.^[9] Chikatilo was shy in the company of females:^[12] his only sexual experience as a teenager was when he, aged 17, jumped on an 11-year-old friend of his younger sister and wrestled her to the ground, ejaculating as the girl struggled in his grasp.^[13]

In 1953, Chikatilo finished school and applied for a scholarship at the Moscow State University; although he passed the entrance examination, his grades were not good enough for acceptance.^[14] Between 1957 and 1960, Chikatilo performed his compulsory military service.^[15]

Marriage and teaching career[link]

In 1963, Chikatilo married a woman to whom he was introduced by his younger sister. The couple had a son and daughter. Chikatilo later claimed that his marital sex life was minimal and that, after his wife understood that he was unable to maintain an erection, he and his wife agreed that in order that she could conceive, he would ejaculate externally and push his semen inside her vagina with his fingers.^[16] In 1965, their daughter Lyudmila was born, followed by son Yuri in 1969.^[17] In 1971, Chikatilo completed a correspondence course in Russian literature and obtained his degree in the subject from Rostov University.^[18]

Chikatilo began his career as a teacher of Russian language and literature^[19] in Novoshakhtinsk. His career as a teacher ended in March 1981 ^[20] after several complaints of child molestation against pupils of both sexes. Chikatilo eventually took a job as a supply clerk for a factory.

First series of murders[link]

Murder of Yelena Zakotnova[link]

In September 1978, Chikatilo moved to Shakhty, a small coal mining town near Rostov-on-Don, where he committed his first documented murder. On 22 December, Chikatilo lured a 9-year-old girl named Yelena Zakotnova to an old house which he had secretly purchased; he attempted to rape her, but failed to achieve an erection. When the girl struggled, he choked her and stabbed her three times in the abdomen, ejaculating in the process of knifing the child. In an interview after his arrest, Chikatilo later recalled that after stabbing Yelena, the girl had "said something very hoarsely", whereupon he strangled her into unconsciousness before throwing her body into a nearby river.^[21] Her body was found two days later.

Numerous pieces of evidence linked Chikatilo to the murder of Yelena Zakotnova: Spots of blood had been found in the snow near the house Chikatilo had purchased; neighbours had noted that Chikatilo had been present in the house on the evening of 22 December; Zakotnova's school rucksack had been found upon the opposite bank of the river at the end of the street (indicating the girl had been thrown into the river at this location) and a witness had given police a detailed description of a man closely resembling Chikatilo whom she had seen talking with Zakotnova at the bus stop where the girl had last been seen alive.^[22] Despite these facts, a 25-year-old named Aleksandr Kravchenko, who as a teenager, had served a prison sentence for the rape and murder of a teenage girl, was arrested for the crime and subsequently confessed to the killing.^[23] He was tried for the murder in 1979. At his trial, Kravchenko retracted his confession and maintained his innocence, stating his confession had been obtained under extreme duress. Despite his retraction, he was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment (the maximum possible length of imprisonment at that time). Under pressure from the victim's relatives, Kravchenko was retried and eventually executed for the murder of Yelena Zakotnova in July, 1983. Following Zakotnova's murder, Chikatilo was able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm only through stabbing and slashing women and children to death, and he later claimed that the urge to relive the experience had overwhelmed him.^[24]

Second murder and subsequent killings[link]

Chikatilo committed his next murder in September 1981, when he tried to have sex with a 17-year-old boarding school student named Larisa Tkachenko in a forest near the Don River. When Chikatilo failed to achieve an erection, he became furious and battered and strangled her to death.^[25] As he had no knife, he mutilated her body with his teeth and a stick.^[26] On 12 June 1982, Chikatilo encountered a 13-year-old girl named Lyubov Biryuk walking home from a shopping trip in the village of Donskoi.^[27] Once the path both were taking together was shielded from the view of potential witnesses by bushes, Chikatilo pounced upon Biryuk, dragged her into nearby undergrowth, tore off her dress and killed her by stabbing and slashing her to death.^[28]

Following Biryuk's murder, Chikatilo no longer attempted to resist his homicidal urges: between July and September of 1982, he killed a further five victims between the ages of nine and nineteen. He established a pattern of approaching children, runaways and young vagrants at bus or railway stations, enticing them to a nearby forest or other secluded area and killing them, usually by stabbing, slashing and eviscerating the victim with a knife; although some victims, in addition to receiving a multitude of knife wounds, were also strangled or battered to death.^[29] Many of the victims' bodies bore evidence of mutilation to the eye sockets. Pathologists concluded the injuries were caused by a knife, leading investigators to the conclusion the killer had gouged out the eyes of his victims.^[30] Chikatilo's adult female victims were often prostitutes or homeless women who could be lured to secluded areas with promises of alcohol or money. Chikatilo would typically attempt intercourse with these victims, but he would usually be unable to achieve or maintain an erection which would send him into a murderous fury, particularly if the woman mocked his impotence. He would achieve orgasm only when he stabbed the victim to death. His child victims were of both sexes; Chikatilo would lure these victims to secluded areas using a variety of ruses, usually formed in the initial conversation with the victim,^[31] such as promising them assistance or company, the offer to show the victim a shortcut,^[32] a chance to view rare stamps, films or coins or with an offer of food or candy. He would usually overpower these victims once they were alone, tie their hands behind their backs with a length of rope, and then proceed to kill them.^[33]

On 11 December, 1982, Chikatilo encountered a 10-year-old girl named Olga Stalmachenok riding a bus to her parents' home in Novoshakhtinsk and persuaded the child to leave the bus with him. She was last seen by a fellow passenger being led firmly by the hand by a middle-aged man.^[34] Stalmachenok was lured to a cornfield on the outskirts of Novoshakhtinsk before she was killed. Chikatilo stabbed the girl in excess of 50 times around the head and body, ripped open her chest and excised her lower bowel and uterus.^[35]

Investigation[link]

By January 1983, a total of four victims thus far killed had been tentatively linked to the same killer. A Moscow police team, headed by Major Mikhail Fetisov, was sent to Rostov-on-Don to direct the investigation. Fetisov centered the investigations around Shakhty and assigned a newly appointed specialist forensic analyst, Viktor Burakov, to head the investigation. In April, Olga Stalmachenok's body was found. Burakov was summoned to the crime scene, where he noted the eviscerations conducted upon the child and that her eye sockets bore striations. Burakov later stated that, as he noted the striations upon Stalmachenok's eye sockets, any doubts about the presence of a serial killer evaporated.

Chikatilo did not kill again until June 1983, when he murdered a 15-year-old Armenian girl named Laura Sarkisyan, although her body was never found. By September, he had killed a further five victims. The accumulation of bodies found and the similarities between the pattern of wounds inflicted on the victims forced the Soviet authorities to acknowledge that a serial killer was on the loose. On 6 September 1983, the public prosecutor of the USSR formally linked six of the murders thus far committed to the same killer.^[36]

Due to the sheer savagery of the murders and the precision of the eviscerations upon the victims' bodies, police theorized that the killings may have been conducted by either a group harvesting organs to sell for transplant or the work of a Satanic cult.^[37] However, much of the police effort concentrated upon mentally ill citizens, homosexuals, known paedophiles and sex offenders, slowly working through all that were known and eliminating them from the inquiry. A number of young men confessed to the murders, although they were usually mentally handicapped youths who admitted to the crimes only under prolonged and often brutal interrogation. Three known homosexuals and a convicted sex offender committed suicide as a result of the investigators' heavy-handed tactics.^[38] However, as police obtained confessions from suspects, bodies continued to be discovered, proving that the suspects who had confessed could not be the killer the police were seeking; in October 1983, Chikatilo killed a 19-year-old prostitute named Vera Shevkun, and in December, a 14-year-old Gukovo schoolboy named Sergey Markov was lured off a train and murdered in Kazachi Lagerya.^[39]

1984[link]

In January and February 1984, Chikatilo killed two women in Rostov's Aviators' Park. On 24 March, he lured a 10-year-old boy, Dmitry Ptashnikov, away from a stamp kiosk in Novoshakhtinsk. While walking with the boy, Chikatilo was seen by several witnesses who were able to give investigators a detailed description of the killer. When Ptashnikov's body was found three days later, police also found a footprint of the killer and semen and saliva samples on the victim's clothing.^[40]

On 25 May, Chikatilo killed a young woman named Tatyana Petrosyan and her 11-year-old daughter, Svetlana, in a wooded area outside Shakhty. Petrosyan had known Chikatilo for several years prior to her murder.^[41] By 19 July, he had killed three further young women between the ages of 19 and 22 and a 13-year-old boy. In the summer of 1984, Chikatilo was fired from his work as a supply clerk for theft of property. The accusation had been filed against him the previous February and he had been asked to resign quietly, but had refused to do so as he had denied the charges.^[42] Chikatilo found another job as a supply clerk in Rostov on 1 August.^[43]

On 2 August, Chikatilo killed a 16-year-old girl, Natalya Golosovskaya, in Aviators' Park. On 7 August, he killed a 17-year-old girl on the banks of the Don River before flying to the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent on a business trip. By the time Chikatilo returned to Rostov on 15 August, he had killed another young woman and a 12-year-old girl. Within two weeks an 11-year-old boy had been found strangled, castrated and with his eyes gouged out in Rostov before a young librarian, Irina Luchinskaya, was killed in Rostov's Aviators' Park on 6 September.

First arrest and release[link]

On 13 September 1984, exactly one week after his fifteenth killing of the year, Chikatilo was observed by an undercover detective attempting to lure young women away from a Rostov bus station.^[44] He was arrested and held. A search of his belongings revealed a knife and rope.^[45] He was also discovered to be under investigation for minor theft at one of his former employers, which gave the investigators the legal right to hold him for a prolonged period of time. Chikatilo's dubious background was uncovered, and his physical description matched the description of the man seen with Ptashnikov in March. These factors provided insufficient evidence to convict him of the murders, however. He was found guilty of theft of property from his previous employer^[46] and sentenced to one year in prison, but was freed on 12 December 1984 after serving three months.^[47]

On 8 October 1984, the head of the Russian Public Prosecutors Office formally linked 23 of Chikatilo's murders into one case, and dropped all charges against the mentally handicapped youths who had previously confessed to the murders.^[48]

Following the 6 September murder of Irina Luchinskaya, no further bodies were found bearing the trademark mutilation of Chikatilo's murders and investigators in Rostov theorized that the unknown killer might have moved to another part of the Soviet Union and continued killing there. The Rostov police sent bulletins to all forces throughout the Soviet Union, describing the pattern of wounds their unknown killer inflicted upon his victims and requesting feedback from any police force who had discovered murder victims with wounds matching those upon the victims found in the Rostov Oblast. The response was negative.^[49]

Later murders[link]

Upon his release from jail, Chikatilo found new work in Novocherkassk and kept a low profile. He did not kill again until 31 July 1985, when he murdered a young woman named Natalia Pokhlistova in a thicket of woods close to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.^[50] Based upon the hypothesis the killer had travelled from the Rostov Oblast to Moscow via air, investigators checked all Aeroflot flight records of passengers who had commuted between Moscow and the Rostov Oblast between late July and early August. On this occasion, however, Chikatilo had travelled to Moscow by train and as such, no documentation existed for investigators to research. One month later, on 27 August, Chikatilo killed another young woman, Irina Gulyaeva, in Shakhty. As had been the case with Natalia Pokhlistova, the wounds inflicted upon the victim linked her murder to the hunt for the killer.

In November 1985, a special procurator named Issa Kostoyev was appointed to supervise the investigation.^[51] The known murders around Rostov were carefully re-investigated and police began another round of questioning of known sex offenders. The following month, the militsiya and Voluntary People's Druzhina renewed the patrolling of railway stations around Rostov. The police also took the step of consulting a psychiatrist, Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, the first such consultation in a serial killer investigation in the Soviet Union.^[52]

Bukhanovsky produced a 65-page psychological profile of the unknown killer for the investigators, describing the killer as a man aged between 45 and 50 years old who was of average intelligence, likely to be married or had previously been married, but also a sadist who could achieve sexual arousal only by seeing his victims suffer.^[53] Bukhanovsky also argued, because many of the killings had occurred on weekdays near mass transportation and across the entire Rostov Oblast, that the killer's work required him to travel regularly, and based upon the actual days of the week when the killings had occurred, the killer was most likely tied to a production schedule.^[54]

Chikatilo followed the investigation carefully, reading newspaper reports about the manhunt for the killer^[55] and keeping his homicidal urges under control; throughout 1986 he is not known to have committed any murders. In 1987 Chikatilo killed three times; on each occasion he killed while on a business trip far away from the Rostov Oblast and none of these murders were linked to the manhunt in Rostov.^[56] Chikatilo's first murder in 1987 was committed in May, when he killed a 13-year-old boy named Oleg Makarenkov in Revda. In July, he killed another boy in Zaporizhia and a third in Leningrad in September.

Definitive resurfacing[link]

In 1988, Chikatilo killed three times, murdering an unidentified woman in Krasny Sulin in April and two boys in May and July. His first killing bore wounds similar to those inflicted on the victims linked to the manhunt killed between 1982 and 1985, but as the woman had been killed with a slab of concrete, investigators were unsure whether to link the murder to the investigation.^[57] In May Chikatilo killed a 9-year-old boy named Aleksey Voronko in Ilovaisk, Ukraine. The boy's wounds left no doubt the killer had struck again, and this murder was linked to the manhunt.^[58] On 14 July, Chikatilo killed a 15-year-old boy named Yevgeny Muratov at Donleskhoz station near Shakhty. Muratov's murder was also linked to the investigation, although his body was not found until April 1989.^[59]

Chikatilo did not kill again until 8 March 1989, when he killed a 16-year-old girl in his daughter's vacant apartment. He dismembered her body and hid the remains in a sewer. As the victim had been dismembered, police did not link her murder to the investigation. Between May and August, Chikatilo killed four more victims, three of whom were killed in Rostov and Shakhty,^[60] although only two of the victims were linked to the killer.

On 14 January 1990, Chikatilo killed an 11-year-old boy in Shakhty. On 7 March, he killed a 10-year-old boy named Yaroslav Makarov in Rostov's Botanical Gardens. The eviscerated body was found the following day.^[61] On 11 March, the leaders of the investigation, headed by Mikhail Fetisov, held a meeting to discuss progress made in the hunt for the killer.^[62]

Fetisov was under intense pressure from the public, the press and the Ministry of the Interior in Moscow to solve the case: the intensity of the manhunt in the years up to 1984 had receded to a degree between 1985 and 1987, when Chikatilo had killed only two victims conclusively linked to the killer — both of them in 1985. By March 1990, six further victims had been linked to the killer. Fetisov had noted laxity in some areas of the investigation, and warned that people would be fired if the killer was not caught soon.^[63]

Chikatilo had killed three further victims by August 1990: On 4 April, he killed a 31-year-old woman in woodland near Donleskhoz station,^[64] on 28 July, he lured a 13-year-old boy named Viktor Petrov away from a Rostov train station and killed him in Rostov's Botanical Gardens.^[65] On 14 August, he killed an 11-year-old boy in the reeds near Novocherkassk beach.

The snare[link]

The discovery of more victims sparked a massive operation by the police; as several victims had been found at stations on one rail route through the Rostov Oblast,^[66] Viktor Burakov — who had been involved in the hunt for the killer since 1982 — suggested a plan to saturate all larger stations in the Rostov Oblast with an obvious uniformed police presence the killer could not fail to notice, with the intention of discouraging the killer from attempting to strike at any of these locations, and to patrol with undercover agents smaller and less busy stations where his activities would be more likely to be noticed. The plan was approved, and both the uniformed and undercover officers were instructed to question any adult man in the company of a young woman or child and note his name and passport number.^[67] Police deployed 360 men at all the stations in the Rostov Oblast, and only undercover officers at the three smallest stations — Kirpichnaya, Donleskhoz and Lesostep — on the route through the oblast where the killer had struck most frequently,^[68] in an effort to force the killer to strike at one of these three stations. The operation was implemented on 27 October 1990.^[69]

On 30 October, police found the body of a 16-year-old boy named Vadim Gromov at Donleskhoz Station. Gromov had been killed on 17 October, 10 days before the start of the initiative. The same day Gromov's body was found, Chikatilo lured another 16-year-old boy, Viktor Tishchenko, off a train at Kirpichnaya Station, another station under surveillance from undercover police, and killed him in a nearby forest.^[70]

Surveillance[link]

On 6 November 1990, Chikatilo killed and mutilated a 22-year-old woman named Svetlana Korostik in woodland near Donleskhoz Station.^[71] While leaving the crime scene, he was seen by an undercover officer.^[72] The policeman observed Chikatilo approach a well and wash his hands and face.^[72] When he approached the station, the undercover officer noted that his coat had grass and soil stains on the elbows. Chikatilo also had a small red smear on his cheek.^[73] To the officer, he looked suspicious. The only reason people entered woodland near the station at that time of year was to gather wild mushrooms (a popular pastime in Russia). Chikatilo, however, was not dressed like a typical forest hiker; he was wearing more formal attire. Moreover, he had a nylon sports bag, which was not suitable for carrying mushrooms. The policeman stopped Chikatilo and checked his papers, but had no formal reason to arrest him. When the policeman returned to his office, he filed a routine report, containing the name of the person he had stopped at the train station.^[74]

On 13 November, Korostik's body was found. Police summoned the officer in charge of surveillance at Donleskhoz Station and examined the reports of all men stopped and questioned in the previous week.^[75] Chikatilo's name was among those reports, and his name was familiar to several officers involved in the case, as he had been questioned in 1984 and placed upon a 1987 suspect list compiled and distributed throughout the Soviet Union.^[76][77] Upon checking with Chikatilo's present and previous employers, investigators were able to place Chikatilo in various towns and cities at times when several victims linked to the investigation had been killed.^[78] Former colleagues from Chikatilo's teaching days informed investigators that Chikatilo had been forced to resign from his teaching position due to complaints of sexual assault from several pupils.^[79]

Police placed Chikatilo under surveillance on 14 November. In several instances, particularly on trains or buses, he was observed to approach lone young women or children and engage them in conversation; if the woman or child broke off the conversation, Chikatilo would wait a few minutes and then seek another conversation partner.^[80] On 20 November, after six days of surveillance, Chikatilo left his house with a one-gallon flask for beer, then wandered around Novocherkassk, attempting to make contact with children he met on his way. Upon exiting a cafe, Chikatilo was arrested by four plainclothes police officers.^[81]

Final arrest[link]

Upon arrest, Chikatilo gave a statement claiming that the police were mistaken, and complained that he had also been arrested in 1984 for the same series of murders.^[82] A strip-search of the suspect revealed a further piece of evidence: one of Chikatilo's fingers had a flesh wound. Medical examiners concluded the wound was, in fact, from a human bite. Chikatilo's penultimate victim was a physically strong 16-year-old youth. At the crime scene, the police had found numerous signs of a ferocious physical struggle between the victim and his murderer. Although a fingerbone was later found to be broken and his fingernail had been bitten off, Chikatilo had never sought medical treatment for the wound.^[83]

A search of Chikatilo's belongings revealed he had been in possession of a folding knife at the time of his arrest. Chikatilo was placed in a cell inside the KGB headquarters in Rostov with a police informer, who was instructed to engage him in conversation and elicit any information he could from him.^[84] The next day, 21 November, formal questioning of Chikatilo began. The interrogation was performed by Issa Kostoyev. The strategy chosen by the police to elicit a confession was to lead Chikatilo to believe that he was a very sick man in need of medical help. The intention of this strategy was to give Chikatilo hope that if he confessed, he would not be prosecuted by reason of insanity. Police knew their case against Chikatilo was largely circumstantial, and under Soviet law, they had ten days in which they could legally hold a suspect before either charging or releasing him. Throughout the questioning, Chikatilo repeatedly denied that he had committed the murders, although he did confess to molesting his pupils during his career as a teacher.^[85] He also produced several written essays for Kostoyev which, although evasive regarding the actual murders, did reveal psychological symptoms consistent with those predicted by Dr. Bukhanovsky in 1985. The interrogation tactics used by Kostoyev may also have caused Chikatilo to become defensive; the informer sharing a KGB cell with Chikatilo reported to police that Chikatilo had informed him that Kostoyev had repeatedly asked him direct questions regarding the mutilations inflicted upon the victims.^[86]

Chikatilo's confession[link]

On 29 November, at the request of Burakov and Fetisov, Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, the psychiatrist who had written the 1985 psychological profile of the then-unknown killer for the investigators, was invited to assist in the questioning of the suspect. Bukhanovsky read extracts from his 65-page psychological profile to Chikatilo.^[87] Within two hours, Chikatilo confessed to Bukhanovsky that he was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he had been arrested. After conversing into the evening, Bukhanovsky reported to Burakov and Fetisov that Chikatilo was ready to confess.

Armed with the handwritten notes Bukhanovsky had prepared, Issa Kostoyev prepared a formal accusation of murder dated 29 November—the eve of the expiration of the ten-day period of time in which Chikatilo could legally be held before being charged.

The following morning, 30 November, Issa Kostoyev resumed the interrogation. According to the official protocol, Chikatilo confessed to 36 of the murders police had linked to him; although he denied two additional murders committed in 1986 which the police had initially believed he had committed. He gave a full, detailed description of each murder upon the list of charges, all of which were consistent with known facts regarding each killing. When prompted, he could draw a rough sketch of various crime scenes, indicating the postition of the victim's body and various landmarks in the vicinity of the crime scene. Other additional details provided further proof of his guilt: One victim upon the list of charges was a 19-year-old student named Anna Lemesheva. Chikatilo recalled that as he fought to overpower her, she had stated that a man named 'Bars' would retaliate for his attacking her. Lemesheva's fiancée had the nickname Bars tattoed on his hand.

In describing his victims, Chikatilo falsely referred to each as 'déclassé elements' whom he would typically lure from various bus and train stations to a secluded area before killing them. Chikatilo stated to Kostoyev he had often tasted the blood of his victims,^[88] and although he admitted he had chewed upon the excised sexual organs of several victims of both sexes, he stated he had later discarded these body parts. On 30 November, Chikatilo was formally charged with each of the 36 murders he had confessed to; all of which had been committed between June 1982 and November 1990.^[89]

Over the following days, Chikatilo confessed to a further 20 killings which had not been connected to the case, either because the murders had been committed outside the Rostov Oblast,^[90] because the bodies had not been found or, in the case of Yelena Zakotnova, because an innocent man had been convicted and executed for the murder. (Aleksandr Kravchenko received a posthumous pardon for Yelena Zakotnova's murder.)

In December 1990, Chikatilo led police to the body of Aleksey Khobotov,^[91] a boy he had confessed to killing in August 1989 and whom he had buried in woodland near a Shakhty cemetery, proving unequivocally that he was the killer.^[92] He later led investigators to the bodies of two other victims he had confessed to killing. Three of the 56 victims Chikatilo confessed to killing could not be found or identified, but Chikatilo was charged with killing 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. He was held in the same cell in Rostov-on-Don where he had been detained on 20 November, to await trial.

Psychiatric evaluation[link]

On 20 August 1991,^[93] after completing the interrogation of Chikatilo and having completed a re-enactment of all the murders at each crime scene,^[94] Chikatilo was transferred to the Serbsky Institute in Moscow for a six-day psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. Chikatilo was analysed by a senior psychiatrist, Dr. Andrei Tkachenko, who declared him legally sane on 18 October.^[95] In December 1991, details of Chikatilo's arrest and a brief summary of his crimes were released to the newly liberated media by police.^[96]

Trial and conviction[link]

Chikatilo's trial was the first major event of post-Soviet Russia. Chikatilo stood trial in Rostov on 14 April 1992.^[97] During the trial, he was kept in an iron cage in a corner of the courtroom to protect him from attack by the many hysterical and enraged relatives of his victims. Chikatilo's head had been shaven — a standard prison precaution against lice.^[98] Relatives of victims regularly shouted threats and insults to Chikatilo throughout the trial, demanding that authorities release him so that they could kill him themselves. Each murder was discussed individually and, on several occasions, relatives broke down in tears when details of their relatives' murder were revealed; some even fainted.^[99]

Chikatilo regularly interrupted the trial, exposing himself, singing, and refusing to answer questions put to him by the judge. He was regularly removed from the courtroom for interrupting the proceedings.^[100] On 13 May, Chikatilo withdrew his confessions to six of the killings to which he had previously confessed.^[101] In July 1992, Chikatilo demanded that the judge be replaced for making too many rash remarks about his guilt. His defense counsel backed the claim. The judge looked to the prosecutor and even the prosecutor backed the defense's judgment, stating the judge had indeed made too many such remarks.^[102] The judge ruled the prosecutor be replaced instead.

On 9 August, both prosecution and defense delivered their final arguments before the judge. Chikatilo again attempted to interrupt the proceedings and had to be removed from the courtroom. Final sentence was postponed until 14 October.^[103] As the final deliberations began, the brother of Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a 17-year-old girl killed by Chikatilo in August 1984, threw a heavy chunk of metal at Chikatilo, hitting him in the chest.^[104] When security tried to arrest the young man, other victims' relatives shielded him, preventing him from being arrested.

On 14 October, the court reconvened and the judge read the list of murders again, not finishing until the following day.^[105] On 15 October, Chikatilo was found guilty of 52 of the 53 murders and sentenced to death for each offense. He was also found guilty of five counts of sexual assault committed during the years he worked as a teacher in the 1970s. Chikatilo kicked his bench across his cage when he heard the verdict, and began shouting abuse. He was offered a final chance to make a speech in response to the verdict, but remained silent.^[106] Upon passing final sentence, Judge Leonid Akhobzyanov made the following speech:

Chikatilo was taken from the courtroom to his cell at Novocherkassk prison to await execution. He did file an appeal against his conviction with the Russian Supreme Court, but this appeal was rejected in 1993.^[107]

Execution[link]

On 4 January 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin refused a last-ditch appeal for clemency.^[108]

On 14 February, Chikatilo was taken from his death row cell to a soundproofed room in Novocherkassk prison and executed with a single gunshot behind the right ear.^[109][110]

List of victims[link]

Chikatilo in film and literature[link]

Film

• The 1995 film Citizen X, based on Robert Cullen's book The Killer Department, portrayed the investigation of the "Rostov Ripper" murders. Citizen X starred Stephen Rea as Viktor Burakov, Jeffrey DeMunn as Chikatilo, Donald Sutherland as Mikhail Fetisov and Max von Sydow as Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky.
• The 2004 film Evilenko, starring Malcolm McDowell and Marton Csokas, was loosely based on Chikatilo's murders.

Books (factual)
Four books have been written about the case of Andrei Chikatilo:

• Robert Cullen, The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov's Eight-Year Hunt for the Most Savage Serial Killer of Our Times (ISBN 1-85797-210-4).
• Richard Lourie, Hunting The Devil: The Pursuit, Capture and Confession of the Most Savage Serial Killer in History (ISBN 0-586-21846-7).
• Peter Conradi, The Red Ripper: Inside the Mind of Russia's Most Brutal Serial Killer (ISBN 0-86369-618-X).
• Mikhail Krivich and Olgert Olgin, Comrade Chikatilo: The Psychopathology of Russia's Notorious Serial Killer (ISBN 0-450-01717-6).

Fiction

• Child 44, a novel by Tom Rob Smith, draws heavily on the Chikatilo story. The story's events set several decades earlier, during the time of Joseph Stalin and immediately thereafter.

See also[link]

• List of murderers by number of victims

Footnotes[link]