A 53-year-old Belarusian named Anatol, known among friends and colleagues as Takhir, died on the night of September 4 in a forest near the Russian city of Vyborg. According to Fontanka, he had been a longtime participant in the Solar Systo festival.
According to the outlet, the festival had not yet begun at the time of the tragedy. Preparations for the September event were underway at the site, including at the camp of Anatol and his common-law wife Dina. Three members of the festival administration were detained and arrested. They were charged with intentionally causing grievous bodily harm resulting in death by negligence.
After the necessary documents were processed in Vyborg, the deceased man’s brother Oleg took his body to Belarus, where the funeral is due to take place today.
“My brother was a kind person, responsive, honest, calm and reasonable. He loved nature and communicating with people — with good people. He stayed away from bad people because he could sense bad people. He was a very good person. He always tried to avoid conflict situations, not to get into conflicts. He himself never liked to start a conflict and did not like entering someone else’s space without some kind of consent. In short, he was a kind and good person. For the last 10–15 years, he worked in industrial climbing. For the last year or two, he no longer climbed ropes himself, but he still worked as an assistant. He loved animals, whether domestic or wild. He treated all living things with respect. He loved being in nature,” he said.
The relatives asked people to refrain temporarily from commenting, but said they intend to seek justice and punishment for those responsible.
One of the festival organizers, Sergei, expressed condolences to the deceased man’s loved ones and said the event team felt involved in what had happened.
“As a team, we feel that we are involved in this. Not in the sense that we could somehow have prevented it or that we failed to do something, but in the sense that we, well, empathize with what happened. We have never before dealt with a person’s death, especially one involving people who, although not directly our employees, are not strangers to us. We would like to express our condolences to the relatives and acquaintances of the deceased. We deeply regret what happened…” he said.
Earlier, 47news reported that criminal investigation officers and investigators from the Leningrad Region Investigative Committee examined the shore of Lake Vysokinskoye near the 55th kilometer of Primorskoye Highway on September 4. A 53-year-old man was found there unconscious with signs of severe blows from fists and kicks. There were many people around, presumably festival participants. According to preliminary information, he had earlier grabbed an axe while in an altered state of consciousness and started chasing people at the site, the report said. One festival participant was struck in the back with the axe and later went to hospital. Other participants tried to stop the attacker, “but misjudged their strength,” the outlet wrote.
The deceased man’s common-law wife Dina, however, claims that three men attacked Anatol and her.
The couple came to the festival as visitors and also sold their own clothing there, mainly harem pants. On the night of the incident, they were alone at their camp. According to Dina, they were sober, particularly because Takhir could not drink alcohol for health reasons.
In the evening, three men came to the tents. Her husband went outside after hearing the noise, while Dina came out later and, according to her, saw Anatol already being beaten.
“Late in the evening, three men came to the camp. It seemed to me that they were drunk or under the influence of something, I don’t know. They were looking for other guys from our camp. When they realized there were only the two of us, they started confronting us: ‘What are you doing in our forest?’ My husband came out of the tent, and they started beating him. I heard it and came out too. I tried to stop them, and they started beating me as well,” she told the outlet.
When Dina tried to intervene, she was also struck. According to her, one of her teeth was knocked out, and she was diagnosed with soft tissue injuries, bruises and abrasions. Since she did not see the beginning of the fight and was then being hit herself, she did not see the moment when her partner used an axe as a weapon. One of the men who had arrived, Vladimir, showed a wound on his back during the conflict, but Dina described it as a large scratch that did not look like an axe wound. She denies the account that Anatol was in an altered state of consciousness and had been running around the festival site with an axe.
“He was lying where they had beaten him. I ran to neighboring camps for help. I asked someone to call an ambulance. The men left and came back several times. Anton, whom I know nothing about, came over and intervened in the situation. He tried to calm everyone down and prevented the fight from continuing,” she said.
An ambulance arrived, but because of the poor roads in the festival forest, it waited on the highway. According to the woman, those involved in the incident did not want to take her husband to the medics until his condition became extremely serious.
“He couldn’t speak. The last coherent words I heard were: ‘I can’t breathe’ (cries). They put him in a car and drove him toward the checkpoint where the ambulance was waiting. On the way, apparently, they discovered that he was dead, and instead of handing over the body, they simply dumped him on the roadside at the turnoff to the festival. They waved to the ambulance and said they had found him there on the roadside, even though the ambulance staff have a recording of a phone conversation in which they were told, ‘We’re bringing him to you now.’ I ran there when the ambulance staff were already examining him. After I arrived, those people quietly got into the car and drove back into the forest. The ambulance staff and I stayed there waiting for the police to arrive,” she said.
“The police arrived at night and questioned me. Then dawn came, and they went to inspect the camp, Dina recalled. “They questioned the person who had called the ambulance. Two people were detained that night. One of them fled and apparently planted that story about the axe, because later his lawyer contacted the detective, and he then came to the Investigative Committee together with his lawyer. They admitted nothing. The man who beat me sat in front of me and said, ‘I didn’t beat her.'”
After the funeral, Dina intends to contact the police about items that she says disappeared from the camp.
Festival organizer Sergei confirmed that some of those detained were connected to the event’s administration. One of them had worked as an administrator for several years, but according to the organizer, they had not planned to work with him this time. The second was connected to the tent rental service, while the third, Sergei said, regularly attended festivals as a volunteer.
“One of the men, Artyom, worked as an administrator for several years… We have now parted ways with him, meaning we did not plan to work with him at this event because he is seriously ill. But he came to the site of the upcoming event, apparently to see people he knew there,” Sergei said, giving his version of events. “Vladimir, the next person, is actually an employee of another service that handled tent rentals. And I am absolutely certain that he played no role in this story because he is someone who always defused aggression, prevented it and tried in every way to neutralize it. As for Dmitry, the third man, I can’t say much about him. He goes everywhere as a volunteer. He tags along to every event; he’s that kind of partygoer. How he ended up there, what he was doing, and generally anything specific about him, I can’t say.”
Three men, Abramov, Mazanik and Yeremin, have been remanded in custody for two months. They have been charged with intentionally causing grievous bodily harm resulting in death by negligence.
Solar Systo Togathering is a large-scale open-air festival held near Primorsk in Russia’s Leningrad Region twice a year and attended by several thousand people. The festival combines music stages, fairs and exhibitions and is held in the format of a tent camp.
