Biography[]

Early life[]

Bashkatov was born in 1879 to a poor peasant family in the village of Semidesyatnoye, Voronezh Oblast. According to several sources, his actual birth name was Ustin Kuzmich Demidov and later renamed himself to Yegor Ivanovich Bashtakov - others claim that the opposite is true. Aside from this, details about his early life conflict greatly, leaving unclear what is true and what is not. Some sources say that his passed away while he was still a young boy and his father taught him how to cook chicken - one time, when Yegor swung an axe at one, he missed and accidentally cut off his big toe. This accident resulted in him being nicknamed "Yegor Grey-Foot".

When he was 12 years old, Bashkatov's intoxicated father drowned in the Kuban River after deciding to go for a swim.^{[note 1]} Considered a "difficult" teenager, he became addicted to alcohol and playing card games after dropping out of parish school.^[1] As a young adult, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army and sent to fight in the Eastern Front, but deserted soon after, with rumors claiming that he killed an officer and stole his epaulettes and medals.^[2] Bashkatov then returned to his native village with the stolen goods, where he quickly became despised by the local population for his criminal schemes.^[3] At some point, he married a woman who suffered from health issues and epilepsy, who tragically died soon after their marriage.^[2]

Following the October Revolution, it was alleged that he was assigned to be part of a prodotryad ^{[note 2]}, but was quickly expelled because for engaging in speculation with the confiscated property. As he refused to work, Bashkatov soon turned to theft and robbery for survival.^[1]

Murders[]

Bashkatov's first confirmed murder occurred sometime in March 1922, when he killed a fellow villager while intoxicated. Soon afterwards, he would start a killing spree that would last until his arrest in 1932.^[2]

His modus operandi consisted of pretending to be a coachman and singling out vulnerable targets, mostly women and children, as he was afraid of attacking men due to his short stature.^[4] If he found a suitable target, Bashkatov would invite them to spend the night inside the coach, and when they fell asleep, he would bludgeon them to death with a stone wrapped in a sack he would call his "mixture".^[3] He would then remove the victim's clothing and steal all their valuables and identification, before abandoning the corpse in a face-down position so it could decompose faster.^[1]

At some point, Bashkatov married a woman named Natalya after she let him stay overnight at her home. The pair later bought a house in Armavir, Krasnodar Krai, where his wife gave birth to three children and would later become an accomplice in the crimes, washing the stolen clothes from victims and then selling them. In the meantime, Bashkatov would travel around the country, occasionally recruiting accomplices along the way; by the time of his arrest, his gang had a total of 27 people. Bashkatov would eventually also start killing men and even victims' relatives - his scheme consisted of sending a letter in the name of the initial victim claiming that everything was fine and that they should come visit or work at a designated area.^[1] If the relative agreed, they would be met by Bashkatov's accomplices and brought to him, where they would be killed soon afterwards. The bodies would then be dumped in various locations ranging from haystacks, piles of grain, ravines, piles of weeds, fields, groves, forests, ditches, bushes, sunflower fields, sheds and uninhabited dachas.^[4] Roles in the gang were clearly distributed - some searched for victims at train stations, others sold the stolen goods and got rid of evidence, while Bashkatov himself committed all the murders - in some occasions, he was aided by his two main henchmen, Nikolai Sklyarov and Ilya Bobkov.^[2] The exact number of victims killed prior to the formation of the gang is unknown.^[3]

On at least one occasion in 1929, Bashkatov was arrested for attempted theft, but was given a lenient sentence of two weeks of corrective labor after he convinced the court with sob stories about his impoverished circumstances.^[2]

Investigation, arrest and execution[]

On February 11, 1931, Bashkatov and his henchmen went to the Kavkazskaya Station and approached three men with job offers at a state farm. The trio - Tikhon Perepyolkin, "Konstantin" and Mikhail Dyakov, all from Donbass - initially accepted the proposal, but the first two were ambushed and killed shortly afterwards.^[4] Dyakov managed to escape and later provided a description of the assailants, but in the beginning, he mistook another man for one of the killers. This man was later proven innocent and released, but the mistake temporarily hampered the investigation into the double murder.^[4]

By early 1932, police in Kavkazskaya, Krasnodar Krai, received a report that the bodies of a woman named Tamara Vasilyeva and her child were found near the railway station.^[3] A squad of Cheka agents were dispatched to investigate, learning that the pair had come from Moscow Oblast to visit the father of the child, who lived in the area. When they tried to contact him, the Chekas learned that Mr. Vasilyev had also been murdered in a suspiciously similar manner just a month prior.^[1] This led police to believe that they might be dealing with a gang, and after confirming that a dozen cases over the last couple of years were committed in the same manner, an investigative unit was formed to arrest the perpetrators.^[1]

At around this time, police started paying attention specifically to Bashkatov and Sklyarov (whom they knew under the alias 'Ivan Artemyevich Shamrikov') and their wives, as both were often observed leaving Armavir for days at a time then returning carrying peasants' clothing, which the wives later sold.^[4] Deciding to act out on their suspicions, on January 8, 1932, police went to an apartment on Shaumyan Street, where they detained Sklyarov, his wife Ekaterina Kabishcheva and another man named Gavriil Cherepyanoy. When queried about his identity, Sklyarov contended that he was "Shamrikov" and even presented documents showing that he was a native of the village of Manilovsky in Mari El, but the investigators did not believe him.^[4] A thorough search of the residence led to the discovery of bloodstained clothes and identification papers belonging to three murder victims - Ukrainians Dmitry Butko and Alexey Detko, and Russian Petro Lotnik.^[4]

On the following day, operatives went to an apartment on 18 Engels Street belonging to another accomplice, Nikolai Efimov. At night, Bashkatov and Bobkob were detained, with the latter presenting himself as "Ivan Vasilyevich Davydov".^[4] When searched, both men were found to have hidden amounts of money sewn on the insides of their jackets, as well as numerous incriminating pieces of evidence - bags containing men and women's clothing and shoes; documents belonging to a woman named Pelageya Zueva, reported missing in December 1931; a bloodied stone found in the corner of the room; documents belonging to another victim named Stepan Beresnev and handwritten note from the "manager of a state farm".^[4] During the search, they found a notebook in which Bashkatov meticulously recorded each and every victim's circumstances and death, with the total amounting to 459 people in total.^[3]

Initially, the convicts denied responsibility and continued to claim that the investigators had mistaken them for other people, but when faced with the mounting evidence, they all confessed to the crimes and admitted their real identities.^[4] While Sklyarov and Bobkob were reluctant to divulge into details, Bashkatov explained everything as best as he could - according to him, he and his gang operated predominantly in the North Caucasus region and occasionally moved to Moscow and the Central Black Earth Region, killing 360 men and 69 women, 78 of which were done with the help of others.^[4] He started recording his crimes in the notebook in October 1931, supposedly because he planned to surrender, with the last entry being January 3, 1932. According to him, the gang's most active year was 1930, when they killed 62 men and 2 women. When asked about his start in 1922, Bashkatov claimed that he killed 36 victims, 26 of whom were women and at least one was a child. He also revealed that he temporarily detained by authorities in Tikhoretsk, but presented himself with the identity of another victim, Pavel Tsygankov, and was released due to lack of evidence.^[4]

Despite the investigators' best efforts, they were able to prove only 121 of the claimed victims, but this was considered sufficient enough to convict both Bashkatov and all of his accomplices. At trial, he argued that the victims were enemies of the Soviet government such as White Army soldiers, kulaks and other counter-revolutionaries, claiming that he had "overdone it" and demanded that he be given only a 5-year sentence with hard penal labor.^[3] This demand was rejected, and at the end, Bashkatov and all the male members were sentenced to death and subsequently executed in 1933, while the women were given a lenient sentence of 6 years for hiding and selling the victims' clothes.^[3]

Victims[]

Murder victims[]

Attacked victims[]

Timeline[]

Bibliography[]

Literature[]

• Kisin, Sergey (September 30, 2019). Rostov-Papa: History of crime in Southern Russia, (Russian) Litres. ISBN 5041917361

Articles[]

Documentaries[]

Television[]

• "Killer No. 1" from the documentary series The investigation was conducted... with Leonid Kanevsky (in Russian)

YouTube Documentaries[]

Podcasts[]

In popular culture[]

Film adaptation[]

Related Articles[]

See also[]

Links[]

Notes[]

References[]