About the author

Carl Schreck cut his journalism teeth as a crime reporter for The Moscow Times and now spends an unhealthy amount of time scanning the web for the most disturbing and tragicomic crimes Russia has to offer. He is currently a freelance writer based in Moscow and can be reached by e-mail at this address.

With Russia’s demographic crisis and impoverished rural areas, little wonder that many villages are simply disappearing.
 
A Mordovian man helped speed along the process in the village of Vinogradovka, killing the town’s last two residents, an elderly married couple.

Mordovia’s Supreme Court this week found Alexander Lebedev — nicknamed “The Gypsy” — guilty of robbing and killing 70-year-old Olga Grigoryevna and her 71-year-old husband, Anatoly Stepanovich (no last names were given for the victims, only patronymics), the local newspaper Stolits S reported.

Lebedev, presumably of no relation to the liberal darling billionaire, came to the couple’s house in Vinogradovka intending to rob them. Only Anatoly Stepanovich was home when he arrived, and after a short conversation, he found a hammer in the hallway and proceed to smash the pensioner’s skull, the report said.

He then tossed the body into the basement and waited for Olga Grigoryevna to return. When the woman came back from the store, Lebedev forced her to hand over 4,000 rubles and a cell phone, after which he murdered her, prosecutors said.

He was apprehended several days later in Ryazan. Lebedev admitted his guilt and was sentenced to 16 ½ years in prison. Newsru.com said he quit school after first grade.

Hundreds of towns and villages have disappeared from the map across Russia over the past several years as elderly residents die off and young people flee the poverty of the countryside for the cities.

R.I.P Olga Grigoryevna, Anatoly Stepanovich and Vinogradovka.