Vladimir Nikolayevich Nikolayev (Russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Никола́ев) (born March 16, 1959) is a Russian

murderer Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

from

Novocheboksarsk Novocheboksarsk (russian: Новочебокса́рск; cv, Ҫӗнӗ Шупашкар, ''Śĕnĕ Şupaşkar'') is a city in the Chuvash Republic, Russia, located on the southern bank of the Volga River, about east of Cheboksary, the capital o ...

. Nikolayev is best known for the

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...

of his victims, and of distributing and selling their

flesh Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as mu ...

to others in disguise of exotic animal meat.

Background

Prior to his

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

convictions, Nikolayev had a long

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

history, first being convicted for theft and robbery in 1980. On his own account, the first murder happened "accidentally" when Nikolayev killed a drinking companion, (who also had a criminal history) during a fist fight. He then carried the victim upstairs to his apartment and attempted to revive him with cold water. When he realized that the man was dead he

dismembered Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...

his body in the bathtub. Nikolaev has stated via later interview that it was not originally his intent to cannibalize his victims, but rather the idea occurred to him spontaneously while dismembering the first body. He stated that he had originally intended only to bury it. During this first dismemberment Nikolayev removed a portion of flesh from the victim's

thigh In human anatomy, the thigh is the area between the hip (pelvis) and the knee. Anatomically, it is part of the lower limb. The single bone in the thigh is called the femur. This bone is very thick and strong (due to the high proportion of bone ...

, which he

roasted Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization ...

. Finding the results of this

culinary Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of outline of food preparation, food preparation, cooking and food presentation, presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as res ...

experiment satisfactory, he continued utilizing flesh from his victims as food. Nikolayev distributed the flesh to acquaintances, and even went so far as to sell at an open market, telling buyers that it was

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

meat. He used the money from this venture to buy alcohol. The ruse was at last discovered when some people who ate the product Nikolayev procured as "

Saiga The saiga antelope (, ''Saiga tatarica''), or saiga, is a critically endangered antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in ...

trimmings" became suspicious of the taste and submitted it to a doctor. Upon analysis the meat was found to contain human blood. Vladimir Nikolayev was

arrested An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...

and confessed shortly thereafter. Investigators searched his apartment, where they found human remains and a heavily blood stained bathtub.

Sentence

In 1997 Vladimir Nikolayev was convicted under articles 105, 152, 162 of the Criminal Code of the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. He was sentenced to death. In 1999, by presidential decree, the death penalty was suspended, being replaced by life imprisonment. He has stated that while he is generally against the idea of the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, he would prefer it for himself, rather than continuing to live in

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

for the duration of his life. In 2001 he was transferred to IK-6 Black Dolphin Prison. Vladimir Nikolayev was featured in the

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

documentary "''Russia's Toughest Prisons''".

References

Additional sources

NatGeo interview with "Vladimir the Cannibal" (English translation)

Тюрьма_Чёрный_дельфин,_людоед_-_DTV_[Interview:_Cannibal_of_Black_Dolphin
/nowiki>_(in_Russian).html" ;"title="nterview: Cannibal of Black Dolphin">Тюрьма Чёрный дельфин, людоед - DTV [Interview: Cannibal of Black Dolphin
/nowiki> (in Russian)">nterview: Cannibal of Black Dolphin">Тюрьма Чёрный дельфин, людоед - DTV [Interview: Cannibal of Black Dolphin
/nowiki> (in Russian)

Background

Sentence

References

Additional sources

See also