Anatoly Moskvin’s morbid obsession with death, which led him to create dreadful doll-corpse sculptures, can be traced back to a childhood filled with intense trauma. As a young boy in Soviet Russia, Moskvin was brutally raped over an extended period of time. According to clinical psychologist Dr. Mindy Farmer, “enduring repeated sexual violence, especially during formative years, often causes irreparable harm to a child’s developing psyche.” Despite this early trauma, Moskvin grew into a highly intelligent man, establishing himself as a respected linguist, academic and journalist by adulthood. Beneath the surface however, the seeds of obsession had taken root.
In later years, Moskvin developed an all-consuming preoccupation with cemeteries, graves and the occult. Shockingly, his fascination appears to have begun with the childhood funeral of an 11-year-old girl named Natasha Petrova. At her wake, Moskvin was coerced by the bereaved mother into kissing Natasha’s corpse, after which she pronounced, “You are husband and wife now.” This bizarre declaration seemingly resonated with the troubled Moskvin. Soon after, he reported being visited in nightmares by Natasha’s demanding spirit. She implored him to satisfy her longing through mastering black magic rituals, which he reluctantly began studying.
As an adult, Moskvin was enthralled by all things gothic and joined an underground satanic sect known for manipulating dark energy. He traveled widely documenting details of gravesites and researching the dead. Cemeteries became Moskvin’s sanctuary. He compiled extensive data on burial locations across Russia and even beyond its borders. At the same time, Moskvin forged a career as a well-regarded scholar of linguistics and journalism. He wrote 25 books and dozens of academic papers. Few colleagues took note of his ghoulish hobby or questioned if it went beyond eccentricity.
However, anger in local communities mounted as Moskvin’s cemetery visits became more frequent. According to 2011 analysis by historian Anya Sykes, incidents of graveyard disturbance and tomb vandalism were increasing annually across Russia, with over 54 recorded cases that year alone. Moskvin’s ceaseless note-taking made villagers suspicious. While studying graves of ethnic German Mennonites, he faced threats of violence, even abduction by men who assumed he was trafficking graveyard artifacts. Moskvin took to hiring bodyguards to accompany him. But repeated harassment only led him to withdraw further into isolation and paranoia. It also brought back excruciating childhood memories that intensified his warped passions.
The shocking scale of Moskvin’s obsession was tragically exposed in 2011 after police searched his home believing he was responsible for several instances of tomb raiding. Authorities instead uncovered an elaborate collection of intricately dressed life-sized doll sculptures. Further examination revealed the horrific truth–the dolls contained human remains extracted from as many as 29 different corpses in the local “Nadezhdinskoe” cemetery. Rib bones and skulls gave shape to the figures beneath their sewn clothing and styled wigs. Paper labels attached with metal pins indicated names and dates from graveyard memorials. Police were astounded by the scale of desecration.
Clinical psychologists describe obsession as the mind’s repetitive fixation on specific thoughts or behaviors that provide comfort or distraction, often rooted in trauma or distress. Moskvin’s dreadful doll creations clearly represented the disturbing end-result of a psyche lost within the echo chamber of its own anguish. Through the lens of his childhood rape, we perhaps better understand what drove Moskvin to such darkness. The funeral kiss, the ghostly nightmares, the satanic rituals all pointed to someone unable to reconcile past and present suffering. While Moskvin‘s acts cannot be justified, examining them with nuance may help us prevent such harms and redirect others from this precipice of destructive obsession. Our shared duty is recognizing symptoms early on and meeting them with compassion.