A respected historian. A flat full of dolls. And a discovery that turned a cemetery investigation into something far darker.

This bonus feed-swap episode is a special cross-promotion with our friends over at Fringe Beyond Limits, who bring us their take on Anatoly Moskvin, the Russian historian and linguist better known as the Doll Maker. In 2011, police investigating grave desecrations in Nizhny Novgorod searched Moskvin’s apartment and found what appeared to be life-sized dolls. They were, in fact, mummified remains taken from local cemeteries, dressed, arranged, and treated as if they were still alive.

What makes the Anatoly Moskvin case so unsettling is not only the crime itself, but the belief system behind it: a fixation on cemeteries, burial rituals, resurrection, and the idea that the dead were calling out to be cared for. It is a strange true crime story about obsession, delusion, grief, and the uncomfortable line between punishment and psychiatric treatment.

Topics Included

  • Anatoly Moskvin and the Doll Maker case
  • the 2011 Nizhny Novgorod grave desecration investigation
  • the mummified bodies found inside Moskvin’s apartment
  • Moskvin’s fascination with cemeteries and burial rituals
  • the childhood story linked to his fixation on death
  • the use of clothing, wigs, glass eyes, and music boxes
  • the psychiatric evaluation and paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis
  • the impact on victims’ families
  • debates around justice, mental illness, and cemetery security

Fringe Beyond Limits

Host & Show Info

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