In the mid-1990s, in Vyatskiye Polyany in Russia’s Kirov region, Alexander Komin, later nicknamed the “Vyatka slave owner”, built a bunker beneath a garage where he and Alexander Mikheyev held abducted people captive. According to the article, Komin was born in 1953, had previously been convicted of hooliganism, and after the collapse of the USSR decided to create an illegal “enterprise” based on unpaid labor.
Komin and Mikheyev spent about five years constructing the underground space. They first considered growing vegetables there, but later turned it into a workshop sewing robes and underwear. Electricity was installed in the bunker, and Komin used it not only for lighting but also as a means of control and murder.
The first captive was 33-year-old Vera Talpayeva, abducted on January 13, 1995. She was drugged with clonidine-laced vodka and locked underground. Komin then kidnapped Tatyana Melnikova and her partner Nikolai Malykh; Malykh, whom he considered impossible to dominate, was taken outside in freezing weather and died. Later, Yevgeny Shishov was brought to the bunker and killed with electric current.
The women were forced to work 16 hours a day. Talpayeva, the report says, was used as both a helper and a sexual servant, and the women were repeatedly raped. After a failed escape attempt, Komin ordered two captives to be tattooed with the word “slave” on their foreheads and tightened the regime: before he came down, they had to lock collars around their necks.
Later victims included Tatyana Kozikova, Tatyana Nazimova and Irina Ganyushkina. Nazimova, whom Komin saw as a burden, was allegedly starved and poisoned with brake fluid. In 1997, Komin again used Talpayeva to help find victims, but after she tried to blackmail him, he killed her and dumped her body in a hole cut in the ice on the Vyatka River.
The turning point came with Ganyushkina. Komin decided he wanted to marry her, and when he took her from the garage to his apartment, she escaped and went straight to the police. At first officers did not believe her, but after she named the victims they set up an ambush near Komin’s garage. Tatyana Kozikova and Tatyana Melnikova were freed and hospitalized.
On June 12, 1999, the Kirov Regional Court sentenced Mikheyev to 20 years in prison and Komin to life imprisonment. Four days later, Komin killed himself in his cell. Mikheyev was released in 2017 and died of alcohol poisoning in 2022. According to the article, Kozikova and Melnikova died several years later from heart-related health problems.