Yeltsin's Culler (Sanitar Yeltsina)

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,640 Any doubts vanish when he identifies 2 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:07,400 the only surviving item in the case: Zheleztsov's wristwatch, 3 00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:09,720 with its personalized inscription. 4 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:12,600 As the grim circle of his victims closes in, 5 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:17,000 Murylev finally admits to the eight murders. 6 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,800 Even seasoned investigators are shocked by some of the details 7 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,720 now readily shared by the killer. 8 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:29,400 He put Zheleztsov to sleep by drugging his vodka 9 00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:33,520 and shot the sleeping man with a homemade crossbow. 10 00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:36,560 Turning on the light, he saw he'd hit the man's hand. 11 00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:41,200 Done with experimenting, he loaded a powerful harpoon gun 12 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:45,600 and opened his victim tally with a shot to the heart. 13 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:52,520 But this was not the only murder technique at his disposal. 14 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:54,920 She was lying more or less like that. 15 00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:57,800 - What did you do? - I made a noose. 16 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:03,600 - How? - I held the cord like this. 17 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,200 - A cord like this one? - Yes, about the same length. 18 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:10,480 Then, I just sat on the bed. 19 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:22,160 I passed the cord carefully under her head. 20 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:25,160 I secured it... 21 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:30,200 and pulled hard. 22 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:36,960 Murylev's medical training was the perfect aid to his principal role. 23 00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:40,040 He dealt with Petukhova junior like an expert, 24 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:43,080 applying precise pressure to her carotid artery. 25 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:45,320 - Like this. - With your thumbs? 26 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:46,480 Yes. 27 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:48,880 - Just your thumbs? - Yes. 28 00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:55,840 Troshin met a similar end, 29 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,760 while Sidorov was dispatched with a cleaver. 30 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,800 Yershov was half asleep on a dose of Clonidine 31 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:07,680 when he was driven out of town and shot in the back of the head. 32 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,160 The killer used a TT pistol, but as usual took a spare: 33 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:13,640 this time, a Nagant revolver. 34 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:21,560 His method for Bulanenkov was brilliantly simple. 35 00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:24,840 He took his drunk victim to a well outside Moscow, 36 00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:27,440 placed him beside the opening, 37 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,400 and waited for him to topple into it. 38 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,040 He didn't have to wait long. 39 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:34,840 Ever the diligent paramedic, 40 00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:38,880 Murylev carefully oversaw the deaths of his victims. 41 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:42,120 He repeatedly checked for a pulse until he was sure 42 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:44,800 the victim would never wake up. 43 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:52,800 But Murylev's most bizarre admission came in a police interview 44 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:56,760 where he explained the motive behind his method of privatization. 45 00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,880 By killing drunks and degenerates, 46 00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:02,280 which most of his victims were, 47 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:05,680 he was essentially acting as Yeltsin's janitor. 48 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:09,800 He was helping cleanse society of its fringe elements. 49 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:13,920 Their flats could then be given to more deserving owners. 50 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,160 The money he got from selling the flats 51 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:20,400 would be put into positive social initiatives, 52 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:23,760 such as the launch of a private detective agency. 53 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,000 Based, believe it or not, in Germany.

This artifact excerpts the first episode of Kriminalnaia Rossiia (Criminal Russia), the first true crime show on Russian TV. It aired on the channel NTV between 1995-2002, epitomizing the genre of 1990s chernukha (gore). Loosely inspired by the American reality show COPS (1989-), Kriminalnaia Rossiia combined documentary footage with staged reconstructions, and, like its American counterpart, came under fire for sensationalism and graphic content—including actual footage of decomposing or maimed bodies and detailed simulations of violent crimes. Kriminalnaia Rossiia covered cases of serial killers—like the infamous “Monster of Rostov,” Andrei Chikatilo (1936-1994)—as well as gang- and drug-related violence. This first episode, “The Murylev Case: Death for Apartments,” reveals the ruthlessness and banalization of violence in post-Soviet Russia and points to the importance of private property in the new reality. Alexander Murylev (1971-), the son of a Russian counter-intelligence agent stationed in Germany and a former medical student, murdered several destitute homeowners (mostly unemployed alcoholics) after tricking them into transferring their apartments to his name on the promise of a later payment. The chronicle of his crimes opens with a nostalgic historical digression about early-Soviet and Khrushchev-era dreams of state-assigned homes for all. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the voiceover explains, some Soviet citizens became homeowners overnight. As they follow the police investigation of Murylev’s crimes, the show’s producers strive to balance depicting a “normalized Russia,” where crimes are routinely investigated and prosecuted, with framing the case as a particularly brutal tip of the iceberg. Accordingly, when detectives try to approach “likely victims” of the type of scam Murylev perpetrated, the camera shows several homeless people who, we are told, lost their homes as a result of privatization. Once he is caught and confesses, Murylev demonstrates for the camera, in a matter-of-fact way, how he murdered his victims: strangling them with his bare hands or a wire, shooting them in their sleep, or simply letting them fall into a well after getting them drunk. At the end of the episode, the narrator relates a statement by Murylev that encapsulates the darkest forms of social Darwinism pervading Russian society at the time. During police questioning, Murylev famously claimed that his actions—or, as the show’s narrator mockingly calls them, his “privatization method”—were justified, because by killing “drunks and degenerates” he was in fact freeing up living space that could then be handed to “far more deserving people.” In doing so, he explained, he was behaving as “Yeltsin’s Culler” (sanitar Yeltsina; lit: Yeltsin’s hospital orderly), “helping him purge” Russian society of its “marginal elements.”