This is very serious, sick story of some utter bastards. The reconstruction à la Sims style is just baffling. http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=44449_0_2_0_C

http://www.side-line.com/images/uploads/april09012010.jpg

"Two Russian men, goths as you can see above, are accused of chopping up a 16-year-old girl and serving her with potatoes to a lodger. The trial has now been postponed after the juror had to be excused while examining photographs of student Karina Barduchian after her death. Maxim Golovatskikh and his friend florist Yury Mozhnov, both 20, drowned 16-year-old Karina Barduchian in a bath, then carved up her body and served her meat with potatoes to a lodger."

-LS

Not as serious and sick as the fact that you posted this in Domesticated. What were you going to do, post a recipe?

Now if they'd served her with fava beans and a nice Chianti...

People like this are the reason that Goths have such a terrible name. And he's the lead singer of a pop band? Makes you reconsider the messages that mainstream msic is spreading now a days.

Poor girl, They seriously need all sorts of mind wipe and reconditioning.

Yep, just my sick sense of humor to post it in Domesticated (I'm aware admins can always whup my ass). It seems there is just some really disturbed people who glom onto this subculture, another nutter from 2002: http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/satanist_blame_devil_killing.htm

Murder is usually from some emotion - rage, revenge, jealousy etc. or its the money. Doing this is too abstract for me to get a handle on, and infinitely repugnant. WTF is wrong with them? Only a psychiatric assessment can answer I suppose.

-LS

EDIT: Why mention the potatoes? Its surreal.

I think a little bit of connection with the fact that you eat potatoes can add a little bit of disturbed-ness to your perecption of the case. Also to make it seem like they were just eating her like some one just eating turkey, acting casually with no remorse.

Check. I getcha.

-LS

Oh good, more negative perception of Goths. Not like the real subculture members seem to commit these crimes, rather these Dani Filth-wannabe little fucking pansies.

Oh, some douche-metal band in black pretended to be vampires in their videos, so we MUST eat people or murder them. Because you know, the fiction-based video tells us to so we can achieve Maximum Gawfness. UGH.

Euthanasia should be a more common practice for people like this.

As Letalis has already stated:
The fuck is wrong with people?

Not sure which is more offensive their crime or make-up jobs?

One of the articles about this claimed that one was Goth and one was Emo.

It's almost like they just said, 'Well, they're dressed funny, and one of them has something to do with music. Hey, let's find the most sensational possible associations and run with it!'

Edit: I'm quite sure that for me, it's the crimes. Poor girl.

Given that most posts here are about recipes one should try, I was glad that this was not a highly inappropriate dish-name (or recipe, that would have been very wrong). What those two did, is unexcusable and I cannot understand the why's and wherefore's.

But I think they will be thinking about what they did in a Russian prison for quite a long time. As they deserve to. I just hope that they won't get any make-up in there, because - in my opinion - the quality of their make-up is the second crime they committed...

I feel sorry for the girl though.

There are a number of issues arising from this horrendous crime.

Firstly... The goth angle. Unfortunately it's a media tendency to sensationalise any aspect of a crime like this which can, in any way, potentially be associated with a "fringe" group which in some way may act as a threat to mainstream morality. Look at Columbine. However, we're not the only subculture to suffer this - the hippy angle of the atrocities committed by the Charles Manson was equally blown out of all proportion. And, whether you like the comparison or not, the hippies effectively had the same outcast, threat-to-the-moral-order reputation that the goth culture has in the beady eyes of the media.

HOWEVER... The second issue. Outcast/alternative/fringe cultures are a magnet for strange people, let's face it. In most cases, that's strange people with a sense of morality and the ability not to let dissociation with mainstream society become pathological. Unfortunately, perhaps, goth/gothic culture is one which embraces darker aspects of the human psyche, and therefore, might attract those who, instead of just looking at the fire to appreciate the beauty of the flames, might walk into those flames to seek oneness with them.

The third issue... I find the geographical origins of the individuals concerned in both the cases Letalis has brought to light to be interesting, and may well play more of a part in the crimes than might initially be thought.

One was a local Pop singer and the other looked like a cliche Juggalo. I don't see either as being Goth.

In most scenes/subcultures, there are not entirely sane persons (and I do agree that the darker the subculture, the more twisted persons can be attracted). Sometimes those will cross lines and commit crimes. But "normal" people (for lack of appropriate word) also commit crimes. Such people and actions are often shown in the media (the "tragic crimes", "(s)he seemed to be so nice, I don't understand it" etc. stories). If the crime is horrible enough, 'normal' people will get the same treatment as these 'goths' and media will look for something irregular in the other criminals as well. Especially in the case of cannibalism.

Sensationalism stems, in part, from trying to find the new, strange, or curious in each case (and the many, many newsoutlets competing to feed a ever hungrier audience with 'news' has probably to do with it as well). So, I think we more or less agree on that.

But what I wanted to ask you (why so much words to get to the point? don't know myself) is: could you explain why it being in Russia might be important?

Hmmmm...

What I have to say here is going to sound like an awful generalisation, but I would beg all readers to remember that it's based on personal observation and experience. I would also point out that I love the company of Russians; if anything stated here sounds harsh, it certainly isn't meant to be - it is, as stated, pure observation.

We have a tendency to see Russians through a Western European prism, mainly through the efforts of all rulers since Peter I to drag the country into the European family.

To do so is a massive mistake. While they have a veneer of Europeanness, it is only a veneer; not far beneath the surface, there's something unique. On the positive side, the Russian underneath can be a ridiculously life-affirming being, outrageous fun and "live for today" personified; on the negative side, they can be dark and cruelly dismissive of other lives. I think the reasons for this are historical; relatively late to establish itself as a "state", the lands we know today as "Russia" were once continually ravaged by invaders from all sides. Even when it stabilised, and formed into something akin to the country we know now, it maintained a virtually feudal system until the mid-19th century. Scarcely had the yoke of serfdom been thrown off when the country found itself bathed in the light of the red star of Socialism; from oppression to oppression and repression.

So, I think a formative influence on the Russian spirit is a sense of grim desperation, which informs the qualities I described above. Add to that the fact that Russia, despite its Orthodox church, was never totally christianised (paganism pervades all Russian folklore), and the result can be explosive. Since Russia joined the world family in 1993, how many times have we heard stories of bizarre and grotesque crimes emerging from the once-hidden East? The ruthlessness of the Russian mafia?

So, having found out that this occurred in Russia - terrible though it obviously is - I wasn't surprised. Oh, no.