The Volga Maniac

In the early months of 2011, a mysterious Russian serial killer would emerge from Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. Here, he would kill almost a dozen women over the next year, before moving on to other cities in the region…

Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan, a republic within the Russian Federation. With a population that exceeds one million, Kazan - which lies along the Volga River, Europe's longest body of water - is located about 800 kilometers east of Moscow, and is the largest city in Tatarstan.

You may know of Kazan because it was the host of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and has become known as one of Russia's largest and most diverse cities. In addition to being a major hub for Russian travel and education, Kazan is also home to many diverse ethnic groups, including the Volga Tatars: a Turkish ethnic group that is native to the area (many of whom are followers of Sunni Islam).

Kazan has grown to become the 6th largest city in all of Russia and become one of the nation's most reliable economic hubs. But it was here that a mysterious serial killer would make his first known appearance at the home of an elderly woman, who let her guard down just long enough to become a victim.

On March 5th, 2011, an 82-year-old that lived by herself in Kazan - who was usually pretty cautious about who she opened the door to, even among her own family - was targeted by this unknown killer. This woman's phone had been out-of-order in the days leading up to her murder, and she was waiting for a repairman to come by and fix it. This possibly provided the killer with an avenue to gain entry into her apartment, but we will never know.

Throughout the day, the 82-year-old woman's family would attempt to call her several times but were unable to get through. Her adult daughter decided to stop by that evening after work to check in on her elderly mother, and would be the one to discover the woman's body inside her apartment; having been strangled and left for dead.

Investigators would later theorize that the crime had taken place that afternoon, sometime between 2:30 PM and the early evening (when the woman's daughter had arrived). Curiously, nothing of value had been stolen from the apartment, but investigators were not ready to rule out some kind of motive tied to material gain. You see, they would learn that the victim had often loaned out money to a handful of friends and family members; some of whom owed her upwards of 180,000 rubles (the equivalent of $6000 at the time). However, that didn't explain how someone could (or would) commit such a heinous crime against an elderly widow that lived alone.

The only thing that investigators would state was missing from the crime scene was a key to the apartment, which the victim often left on a table near the front door. Police speculated that this had been taken by the killer, who - after leaving the crime scene - locked the door behind him and possibly kept the key or disposed of it elsewhere.

Over the past decade, that killer has gone on to kill anywhere between 23 and 32 people, all of whom fit in the same demographic as this victim: elderly women who lived alone, oftentimes in low-rent apartments built decades ago. Although, as you'll learn, this individual has potentially evolved to target older couples in general, and has become known for the region he primarily stalks his prey.

This is the story of the Volga Maniac.

In March of 2012, police responded to a crime scene along Gubkina Street, in the city of Kazan. There, they would find the 8th victim of this mysterious killer, who had been instilling terror in elderly women and their families for almost an entire year.

Originally, police had hesitated to label these crimes as part of a larger spree. For the first six or so months that elderly women were being strangled or smothered to death throughout Kazan, police investigated each of the crimes individually, believing them to be personal in nature (or tied to some kind of impulsive monetary gain). But over time, the killer's M.O. had revealed itself to be pretty uniform. And by March of 2012 - nearly a year after the spree had started - Russian investigators were sure that this was the work of a single serial killer.

This victim was an 83-year-old that lived alone in her apartment and had been strangled by an iron cord that the killer found inside. That had become known as one of the killer's calling cards: he often strangled these women with items found inside their home. This victim had not been answering her family's phone calls for several days, and they eventually grew suspicious enough to travel to her apartment, where they discovered her body.

Police were unable to learn why this victim had been targeted, but they suspected that it had something to do with the woman's pension: as she had previously worked on the home-front for the Soviet Union during World War 2, and her husband had been a soldier in the same war. Both of those gave her an increased monthly pension, and the killer had made off with her life savings after strangling the life from her.

This was actually the second victim of this killer that month: earlier that March, an 84-year-old living along Kazan's Daurskaya Street had been strangled with the belt from her own nightgown. In that case, the victim's family had only been able to gain access to the apartment with a spare set of keys that her neighbor had, and they would find that - like in all of the other cases - the killer had absconded with the victim's apartment key, locking the door behind him as he left the crime scene.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, police had hesitated to publicly call these crimes related early on. They could find nothing linking the victims together - other than their age and approximate location (in the city of Kazan) - and all seemed to have become victims of opportunity. But police would soon learn that a strange appearance had preceded the murders: a young man, who introduced himself to those in the apartment buildings that these women lived as either a member of the building's staff or as a utility or social worker. Using these identities, the young man often asked about those who lived inside, and it was believed that this young man had been the killer doing his necessary reconnaissance, hoping to learn where vulnerable older women lived so that he could later single them out.

None of the apartment buildings or governmental agencies could recall hiring such a man, nor sending him out to those buildings in question.

By the time police caught onto the trail of this killer, he had already managed to take approximately eight lives within a single year but was nowhere near finished. Police had begun to refer to this individual as "Raskolnikov" in the press, referencing the main character from the classic Russian novel "Crime and Punishment," whose descent into mental illness causes him to lash out with violence as he breaks into an older woman's apartment to kill her and steal valuables.

Over the next several months, this sadistic killer would continue to prey upon elderly women between 75 and 90 years old; those who were often identified as "pensioners" in news reports. Most of these women lived in the Ural region of Russia; relatively close to the Volga River, whom this killer would later be named after.

It is believed that the killer posed as a social worker of an employee of the apartment building these women lived at; and through these identities, he befriended the women, and eventually gained access to their homes.

This individual typically struck older widows living alone in mid-sized apartment buildings that had been built back in the 1960s. These are known as "Khrushchyovka": cheap and affordable apartments, which those surviving off of pensions typically live in throughout Russia. Once he gained access to these women's apartments, he would strangle or smother them with an item he found inside: pieces of clothing, small items, a pillow, etc. He would then steal whatever money or jewelry was readily available, but police did not believe that this theft was the killer's true motive: this was likely just a bonus for the killer, or a means for him to obfuscate the investigation.

The first nine murders took place in the city of Kazan, but a woman managed to survive what would have been a potential 10th attack in August of 2011. In that case, the survivor was hit over the head repeatedly from behind but was unfortunately unable to provide police with a very detailed description of the killer, due to her poor eyesight. However, she was able to provide investigators with a broad description of the man who had attacked her, which matched what witnesses and neighbors had seen: a young man who had been posing as a social worker in the days leading up to this attack.

In another case from September of 2011, the killer was interrupted by the victim's family member knocking on the door; who heard rustling sounds coming from inside the apartment but no response from their loved one, leading to them growing increasingly concerned. They were eventually able to gain entry to the third story apartment, causing the killer inside to jump from the balcony to escape. This would be the last known murder in Kazan for several months, and from this point forward, the killer would refuse to strike at victims who lived above the second floor (as this incident almost resulted in his identification or capture).

After these two incidents in the late summer months of 2011, the killer would reportedly begin to spread out into other areas of Russia, as his description began to be distributed amongst local authorities and new outlets.

According to investigators - who compiled this description from dozens of witnesses that had claimed to see the young man masquerading as a social/utility worker - the suspect was believed to be anywhere between 20 and 35 years old, stood around 170-175 centimeters tall (about 5'6" or 5'7"), had a medium build, dark hair and dark eyes, and had a non-Slavic appearance: which didn't mean that he didn't look Russian, necessarily, he just might be of Tatar descent and belong to one of the many ethnic groups native to the region.

As the news of this killer began to spread, police in Russia would offer up a reward of one million rubles (the equivalent of roughly $35,000 back in 2012) for any information leading to his apprehension.

After failing to kill his 10th victim in Kazan - and almost getting caught the following month - this killer seems to have begun branching out into the vast region around the city. In subsequent months, the killer would supposedly murder:

- One woman in Ulyanovsk (about 200 kilometers south of Kazan)

- One woman in Nizhny Novgorod (about 400 kilometers west, roughly halfway between Kazan and Moscow)

- One woman in Izhevsk (about 400 kilometers northeast)

- Two women in Perm (about 600 kilometers northeast)

- And two women in Samara (about 350 kilometers south)

While reports of these murders are hard to find (due, primarily, to the language barrier and the lack of detail in Russian-language articles), police would state that by August of 2012 this killer had murdered 18 women in total (which included the victims from Kazan). They would not reveal what, exactly, was linking all of these crimes together; but in the years since we've learned that this killer had distinct calling cards.

Namely, this killer would strangle his victims with either his bare hands or with items he found lying around their apartment, and would then leave personal documents of theirs near the bodies: this included things such as ID cards, medical records, etc. It seemed like this was some kind of sick joke left behind by the killer at almost all of his crime scenes.

After spreading out into this vast region of Russia, the killer would return to the region of Kazan in February of 2012, strangling a woman with an iron cord he found inside of her home. But in that case, he had left behind several thousand rubles, which were easily found by police (indicating that money was still just a secondary motive to this individual). He would then go on to kill the two victims from March of 2012, whose grisly ends I detailed just minutes ago, before leaving town once again.

In September of 2012, the killer's spree would continue in the city of Ufa, about 530 kilometers southeast of Kazan. Here, between September 25th and 27th, the killer would murder three elderly women under almost identical circumstances. Supposedly, he had been observing the women from the street and then following them up to their apartments, carrying a stack of papers (and supposedly masquerading as a social worker yet again).

We know this because security cameras at one of the victim's apartment buildings captured this individual walking into the apartment complex just ahead of his victim, likely awaiting her return. Once inside, he waited at the top of the stairwell for the woman to make it to the second floor, and then followed her into her apartment. The time-stamp shows that this was recorded at around 3:30 local time, and that is when police believe this victim - murdered on September 26th - met her end.

The individual seen in this footage seems to fit the physical description previously described by witnesses and his one known survivor. Even though the footage is somewhat-grainy, the footage shows this to be a young man with light skin, who stands at an average height and with a medium build. He has dark hair and features, and in this clip, he is wearing some kind of hooded jacket or sweatshirt and jeans. Other than the stack of papers that he's carrying, he appears to be just a normal-looking young man, who would fit in almost anywhere in Russia.

Investigators would begin to distribute this footage to media outlets throughout the region, telling the public that this was the unidentified serial killer that had been preying upon elderly women for the past 18 months. However, these last three crimes in Ufa - committed before the publication of this surveillance footage - would bring the killer's spree to an anticlimactic end.

At this point, it is believed that roughly two dozen women had died at the hands of this unknown offender, with his crimes spanning over hundreds of kilometers (but centered around the Kazan region, running along the Volga River).

Police had already distributed several sketches of the young man - made from witness descriptions - but now had surveillance footage and stills to go along with them, showing this killer as a living and breathing young man, not just a vague boogeyman. From the outside looking in, this appeared to be just a normal-looking young man, but Russian authorities were assured that he had killed at least 23 women over 18 months... and that number would continue to rise in the years to come, as more deaths from the surrounding region were attributed to this spree.

As police began hoping to track down this individual - with the ultimate goal being to identify and bring him to justice - investigators sat down with mental health experts to come up with a psychological profile, which they would begin to distribute to the media alongside images of the killer.

According to this profile, this was a young man that had likely been raised by a single grandmother, with whom he ultimately developed a complicated relationship with, causing him to lash out at elderly women in particular. He likely came from a broken home and didn't have a good relationship with either his parents or any siblings he may have had. It was probable that if he did have a relationship with his father, it was splintered at best.

Investigators speculated that this killer had likely grown up with a grandmother-like figure in a Khruschev, the type of cheap apartment targeted by the killer. This provided him with some familiarity with the apartment complexes themselves, as well as the layout of each apartment. Each of the victims had lived in one, and it made sense that he had some kind of history with them.

Additionally, it was believed that the killer seemed like a charming and intelligent young man to those that knew him. That was how the witnesses had described him during their brief interactions with him, and investigators knew that he had been able to charm his way inside each of the victims' apartments. He was likely able to easily speak with older women and quickly gain their trust.

Police feared that the killer had likely been inspired by Irina Gaidamachuk, a female Russian serial killer that had posed as a social worker to gain her victims' trust between 2002 and 2010. Her reign of terror came to an end just as this maniac's spree started, but she had targeted the same demographic as this killer did: older women that lived alone in these specific type of apartment buildings.

Because the crimes had started in Kazan (within the Republic of Tatarstan), the killer was believed to be a native of the area, and likely lived there permanently. However, based on the spread of the crimes, investigators speculated that he occasionally visited other areas of familiarity, which may be due in some small part to his ethnicity. Investigators theorized that the killer was non-Slavic in appearance, and may or may not have had familial ties to eastern Russia: in particular, Sakhalin Island, just off of the eastern coast of Russia, north of Japan. Police officials speculated that he might have gone into hiding there after his likeness was featured in news broadcasts. Other investigators believed that he might be a permanent resident of Udmurtia, which neighbored Tatarstan to the east.

It would later come to light that DNA from this killer had been recovered from at least two crime scenes in 2012, which officially linked them as having been perpetrated by the same offender. But in the years since, that forensic evidence has not helped investigators put a name to this phantom, who continues to elude them to this day.

This case would eventually be handed off from local authorities to the Investigative Committee of Russia, who began to oversee the investigation and centered it around Tatarstan (where the original crimes had occurred). Here, flyers and material with the killer's image and description would be distributed amongst the media and the public; primarily among those that worked in the field of education between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s. Police believed that someone might be able to identify this killer, having worked with him in the past, but this would ultimately turn into a dead-end for police.

Over the next several years, this killer's trail would go cold, with his crimes seeming to come to an end in the latter half of 2012. For whatever reason, this killer had decided to stop after perpetrating the three murders in Ufa in September of 2012; a period that happened to correlate with the release of surveillance footage, showing this young man as he waited for and entered the home of one of his many victims. Investigators believed that the release of this footage might have spooked the culprit, causing his spree to come to a non-glamorous end.

Years later, police would announce that this individual's crime spree had likely come to an end back then, in 2012. Due to there being no confirmed murders in almost half-a-decade, police speculated that the killer had unwillingly moved on, having been incarcerated for other crimes, having become disabled or died, or becoming unable to physically commit the crimes anymore.

Regardless, this would not deter investigators from their dogged pursuit of this killer, who had preyed upon elderly women in the Volga region for several months... eventually earning himself the nickname "The Volga Maniac."

Before I continue on any further, I just want to let you all know that records, in this case, are rather hard to track down. Since this story is set in Russia, and there are only a handful of English-language articles about it (none of which go into much detail), most of the sources I used to compile this episode were Russian news outlets... which seem to differ on some of the specific facts of this case.

When I originally started digging into this story, I tried looking for early reports of this killer; which, in itself, was rather hard, as the outlets themselves tend to vary on what terminology they use to define a serial killer. Even then, the police weren't investigating these deaths as part of a spree well into the latter half of 2011, when half-a-dozen women had already been killed. And, for the most part, Russian news outlets tend not to report the names of murder victims or suspects, so trying to find specific information about each case was a nightmare. That's not even going into the fact that Russian news outlets - which are generally censored by the state - can be somewhat unreliable when it comes to reporting hard fact.

So, throughout the episode, please keep all of this in mind, as searching for specific information, in this case, has proven to be quite difficult, even without the language barrier.

Over time, the reporting would mirror the information from the early reports; sporadic news releases that generally repeated the same facts, but seemed to differ when it came to the total number of victims. Some sources put the number of confirmed murders at 19, while others say 23. Others yet would report as many as 32 murders by the same individual, but this includes all of the murders that police believe might be linked (spanning hundreds of miles across the region).

Due to the language barrier and the withholding of information by investigators, it's almost impossible to determine which of these numbers is true (and how many of the cases are confirmed to be linked). Many English-language sources cite the largest number available, 32, but I think that is based primarily on speculation from investigators, which has jumbled together a bunch of cases that may or may not be related.

I just wanted you all to be aware of this discrepancy moving forward, as this killer is undoubtedly a savage individual who murdered several elderly women, but the reporting in this story has made it hard to determine the actual victim total. Police speculate that it could be as high as 32, but 23 murders (as well as the 24th assault on a woman who survived) is the confirmed number investigators often cling to.

In October of 2016 - more than four years after the Volga Maniac's last known murder - authorities from the city of Kazan would reveal recent surveillance footage, which they allege showed the Volga Maniac stalking elderly women in their apartment complex.

This footage showed a young man matching the Maniac's description peeping on elderly women in Kazan on October 7th, 2016. In one brief shot, this individual is attempting to peep through a door, and in another, this young man is stepping off of an elevator. In that shot, you see the individual's face directly, and he even notices the camera a moment later. At that moment, he attempts to hide his face, and returns to the security of the elevator, closing the door and heading to another floor of the apartment complex.

The sight of security cameras might have deterred any actual crime from taking place, but someone observing the footage later turned it in to police, believing that this might be the notorious Volga Maniac. After all, the young man's bizarre actions and his physical appearance seem to be a dead ringer for the unidentified killer, who had been on the lam for several years at this point.

In the years since this footage was released to the public, investigators have been very non-committal about this footage, theorizing that it might have been someone else - and not the killer. Because no crime had been committed at the location, it was impossible to tell, so investigators advised caution against witch-hunts (should this individual be identified in the future). To date, police have not released what information they obtained about this individual, and why they believe he wasn't the Volga Maniac.

On March 27th, 2017, the body of a 66-year-old woman was found inside of her apartment, in the Russian city of Samara (about 350 kilometers south of Kazan). The woman had been stabbed repeatedly all over her body, and police initially feared that this could mark not only a return for the Volga Maniac but an escalation of sorts (as all of his prior victims had been strangled or smothered to death).

Just two days earlier - on March 25th - another elderly woman had been murdered under similar circumstances. In that case, a 64-year-old had been strangled to death inside of her home, in a different district of Samara. But both crimes had happened in a 3-day span, and due to similar circumstances, police believed that they could be linked.

However, police were able to quickly identify a suspect in the second of these two crimes: a 37-year-old named Pavel Shayakhmetov. Shayakhmetov had been born in Kazakhstan and illegally immigrated to Russia, where he racked up two failed marriages in quick succession (but not before having a child with each of his ex-wives). He had a prior criminal record back in Kazakhstan, but that was limited to non-violent crime, such as auto theft. Most concerning to police, however, was Shayakhmetov's history with substance abuse: he was known to be an addict among those that knew him, and that had kept him from keeping up any kind of employment in his adult life. He often floated between friends and family and had no real home of his own.

According to police, Shayakhmetov had left behind evidence at the second of the two crime scenes, which ultimately led police right to him. When they caught up with him at the place he was living, they found money and belongings from both victims, implicating him in their murders.

After being taken in for questioning, Pavel Shayakhmetov confessed to the two murders, and even allegedly confessed to a third murder that he had committed in the city of Yartsevo earlier that month (March 6th). In that case, a 56-year-old woman had been killed inside of her home, more than 1000 kilometers away from Samara; and Shayakhmetov reportedly told investigators that the motive for all three crimes had been monetary.

Over the next several months, hearings would begin to determine when Shayakhmetov would stand trial for the three murders. Sadly, he would never get the chance. Roughly one year after his arrest, in March of 2018, Shayakhmetov would commit suicide while awaiting trial.

To this day, it remains unconfirmed whether or not Pavel Shayakhmetov perpetrated any other crimes than the three he was accused of at the time of his untimely death. Even though he seemingly confessed to all three, his later statements - about investigators coercing his confession - raises an element of doubt. Today, Russian journalists continue to speculate about his potential involvement in the Volga Maniac crimes, due - primarily - to the type of victims he chose (older women that lived alone) as well as the location of his crimes (which were well within the Maniac's reported territory).

In the summer of 2019, the story of the Volga Maniac would become headline news throughout parts of Russia once again, as a pair of brutal murders shocked the region of Saratov (about 675 kilometers south of Kazan).

The first murder took place on May 28th, 2019, in the village of Studeny. The victims were a married couple that was 71 and 68 years old, and both had been robbed after being strangled to death inside their own home. The second murder took place just three days later - on May 31st - in the village of Koleno (about 150 kilometers away from the first double-murder). In that case, the victims were 82 and 83 years old and faced a more gruesome end than any of the other victims: having been brutally hacked to death with an ax.

Police would not initially reveal what linked these crimes together - let alone to the Volga Maniac crime spree - but would later state that there were characteristics of these two double-murders that showed extreme similarities to the Maniac's spree from years prior. This included the robbery of the victims' pension funds, the taking of the victims' keys (which were used to lock the doors to their home afterward), and certain items having been arranged in a certain way (which investigators considered the Volga Maniac's calling card).

Initially, the death of the first couple (from Studeny) raised alarms that perhaps the Maniac had returned from his hiatus; and, like some other killers we've seen in the past (namely the Golden State Killer), he might have begun to escalate. Now, instead of just targeting individual women, he was more focused on couples, hoping to relish in the terror from both of them. The second murder - which came just days later - revealed that if this was the same killer as before, he might not shy away from more brutal forms of violence in the future, made evident by the use of an ax to murder the second couple.

Witnesses had seen a person matching the Volga Maniac's description in the area both before and after each of these murders, and the only noticeable change in the suspect's appearance seemed to be a beard. But other than that, the sketch seemed to look incredibly similar to the initial depictions of the Volga Maniac.

Many were skeptical that this was the same perpetrator, however; not only because of the geographic difference (since the Volga Maniac usually preyed upon victims in larger cities) but the huge time lapse (nearly 7 years had elapsed since his last known crime, at this point). Additionally, the huge evolution in his M.O. - advancing from attacking elderly women that lived alone to attacking elderly couples, as well as the use of an ax in one murder - seemed to be too huge of a leap in the killer's escalation.

The following month - June of 2019 - police would announce that they had apprehended a suspect in the first murder, the strangled couple from Studeny. The suspect's name would be withheld for the foreseeable future, and those cases have yet to come to any kind of resolution. However, many continue to believe that the Volga Maniac was responsible for at least one of these double-murders, returning after a seven-year-hiatus only to disappear once again.

Sadly, today, the Volga Maniac is not widely known throughout the world. Even in Russia, his image hasn't been circulated as much as it should be. Many who live in the region he struck - east of Moscow, in and around Kazan - are not even aware of this criminal's existence, due to the under-reporting of certain information that plagues this case.

The Volga Maniac is not even listed among Russia's top-10 most wanted criminals, even though he has committed at least 23 murders (linked together through DNA and other forensic factors) and is rumored to have committed at least 9 others (not including the 4 murders from 2019, which remain just a single piece of this cryptic puzzle). His confirmed total alone would make him one of the deadliest unidentified killers in all of Russia, if not Europe or the world.

The serial killer known as the Volga Maniac remains unidentified, with police having only a broad description of the man: he is likely between 30 and 45 years old, stands around 170 cm tall (around 5'6") with a medium/athletic build, has dark hair and eyes, and appears non-Slavic to native Russians.

In recent years, police have begun to commit more resources to the investigation, hoping to bring this individual to justice. In addition to tripling the reward for his apprehension (to 3 million rubles, approx. $40,000 in USD), they have since released images of a specific type of shoe worn by the killer, which they identified by finding a shoeprint near one of the crime scenes. I'll be posting pictures of this shoe on the podcast social media accounts, as well as on the website.

Nearly one decade after this crime spree began, the Volga Maniac remains unidentified, and the stories of his victims remain unresolved.