Posted by Anatoly Slivko (1938-1989) ran a youth club for boys in Nevinnomyssk, in southern Russia. For over twenty years, pretending to carry out “experiments” or make films, he abused dozens of boys and between 1964 and 1985 killed seven of them, aged 11 to 15. He was caught after the disappearance of Sergey Pavlov, sentenced to death in 1986 and executed on September 16, 1989.
Anatoly Slivko was a Soviet serial killer who, between 1964 and 1985, killed seven boys aged 11 to 15. He was the leader of a youth club, and he filmed and photographed his crimes.
Note: in this article I have chosen not to describe the sexual abuse and mutilation suffered by the victims, all of them children and teenagers. I have also removed the link to a video that circulated online, which should not be watched or shared.
Anatoly Slivko
Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko was born on December 28, 1938 in Izerbash, Dagestan, the eldest of two children of a very poor family. His father was an alcoholic and his parents often fought. As a child he was intelligent but sickly, suffered from insomnia and grew up isolated, amid hunger and war: during the German invasion he witnessed many atrocities.
As a young man he was ashamed of himself and hid his homosexuality and his sexual problems from everyone. After a military service that ended badly, in 1961 he moved to Stavropol Krai, where he worked as a telephone engineer. In 1962 his sister introduced him to a colleague, Lyudmila, whom he married the following summer. The couple moved to Nevinnomyssk, where they had two children and became a family respected by all.
The accident that triggered his fantasies
In 1961, at 23, Anatoly witnessed a terrible road accident in which a boy died, a boy wearing the uniform of the Young Pioneers, the Soviet youth organization.
That scene, the blood, the petrol on the asphalt and the fire, affected him in a morbid way and awakened violent fantasies that never left him. For the rest of his life he tried to recreate it.
Finding victims was not a problem, because he was the leader of a youth club, called Chergid, similar to the scouts, which organized hikes and outdoor activities. Parents praised him for keeping their children out of trouble.
The “experiments”
Slivko won the trust of the boys in the club and then asked them to take part in “films”, in which they acted out the scene of a partisan executed by the Nazis, or in “experiments” that were supposed to stretch their spine and make them grow.
In reality he hanged them until they lost consciousness, and while they were unconscious he abused them, filming and photographing everything. Then he revived them: many boys woke up remembering nothing and thought the experiment had worked.
Over 22 years he drew 43 boys into this. At least 36 survived, but were abused without knowing it.
The murders
On June 2, 1964 Slivko committed his first murder: the victim was Nikolai Dobryshev, a 15-year-old runaway. Slivko claimed it was an accident, because he had been unable to revive him. He burned the body and destroyed the photos, but kept his shoes.
The following victims were killed deliberately. In May 1965 it was Aleksei Kovalenko, a boy from the club. Then, after a long pause, Aleksandr Nesmeyanov in 1973 and other boys in the following years, up to Vyacheslav Khovistik, 15, in the autumn of 1984. Police told the parents their sons had run away.
On July 23, 1985 Slivko killed his last victim, 13-year-old Sergey Pavlov, who before disappearing had told a neighbor he was going to meet the leader of Chergid to make a film.
The arrest
Once again police told Sergey’s mother her son had run away, but his parents did not believe it. They questioned Slivko, who denied everything, and then talked to other boys in the club. That is how they found out that many of them had taken part in hanging “experiments” and had suffered memory loss.
Police began to investigate and in the club premises found a darkroom, ropes, knives, saws and axes, along with photos and films of the crimes. Until then Slivko had been considered a good family man and a respected member of the community.
Anatoly was arrested at the end of 1985 and charged with seven murders, seven counts of sexual abuse and seven of necrophilia. In the following months he showed investigators where he had hidden the victims’ remains. At his trial, in Nevinnomyssk in June 1986, he pleaded not guilty, claiming all the deaths had been accidental, but he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
While he was on death row, prosecutor Issa Kostoyev went to question him for help in hunting another killer terrorizing the Soviet Union, the Rostov ripper, Andrei Chikatilo, who would only be arrested in November 1990. His advice, however, led to no breakthrough.
On September 16, 1989, a few hours after his last interview with Kostoyev, Anatoly Slivko was executed in Novocherkassk prison.
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