The boys were 10-12 years old, they were friends and often walked together. The last time they were seen was on the day of their disappearance in the courtyard of house number 16 on Glinka Street, not far from their school.

When none of the children returned home by evening, their parents started calling the police. When five minors disappear at once, this was not just an emergency, but something very rare and unusual.

Initially, the version of the escape was even considered, because the family of one of the boys was considered dysfunctional and he had already escaped from it, but then an investigation into the probable abduction began.

A search operation unprecedented in the history of the city was organized in Krasnoyarsk. The boys were first searched for by about 200 police officers and a group of relatives of the children, then the number of searchers increased to 5 thousand people.

It was reported that they carefully checked all nearby suspicious places – abandoned premises, ditches, including sewers. But they didn’t find anything.

In early May, Sasha Lavrenov’s father, along with several policemen, personally checked a suspicious sewer at an abandoned private lot. It was empty there too. But on May 8, 2005, scrap metal collectors climbed into the same collector and stumbled upon a terrible find – the remains of several people burned beyond recognition.

When the police arrived at the scene, it became clear that these were the remains of children. Initially, the relatives of the missing boys still had a glimmer of hope that “It’s not them,” but rumors quickly spread around the district that the remains of those 5 missing boys were found in the sewer.

It was reported that they found one charred corpse and several fragments of other bodies and clothing. The rest turned to ashes. But a certain local man (he was never found later), who helped the police get the bodies out of the sewer, assured that the remains of the boys were practically not burned. This caused great confusion and immediately caused the parents of the missing boys to distrust the authorities. 

The police began to investigate and one of the main versions was an accident. A canister was found next to the bodies of the schoolchildren, so there was a version that the children themselves climbed into the well and the contents of the can caught fire there. But then it turned out that the sewer was extremely narrow and that five living children could hardly fit there. Also, it was quite deep. 

The boys’ parents weren’t shown the remains and weren’t even allowed into the morgue, fueling even more rumors. On May 13, information appeared that an excess of carbon dioxide was detected in the traces of the blood of one of the dead children. On 20 May there was talk of an accident, but on 26 May it was reported that it could have been a murder and that the children could have been burned while they were still alive.

Later, using DNA analysis, it was possible to recognize the remains of 4 of the 5 bodies. They were Maxim Taumanov, Galash Mamedgasanov, Alexander Lavrenov, and Dmitry Makarov. Presumably, the fifth body belonged to Safar Aliyev, but it was in such a state that DNA could not be extracted from the remains.

Then the strangeness began. An incomprehensible mold was found on the body of Dima Makarov. There were no traces of her in the sewer or on other bodies. It was then that a version appeared that before they were thrown into the sewer, the bodies of the children were in different places. Moreover, the mold was such that often occurs in places where blood accumulates – for example, in slaughterhouses.

But the strangest fact was that three of the five bodies were completely bled, and Makarov’s body was partially bled. Experts were unable to find traces of hemoglobin or carboxyhemoglobin in their remains, while Makarov found hemoglobin only in muscle tissue. And the bleeding happened BEFORE the bodies were burned.

And then there were conspiracy theories and a lot of people started talking about the fact that a ritual murder had taken place in Krasnoyarsk. This version was first expressed by the writer Mikhail Nazarov, a well-known monarchist and nationalist in certain circles, and then it spread through the media.

He stated that a sect of Hasidic Jews worked in Krasnoyarsk and that the murder of five boys with exsanguination occurred just on Easter, which is very similar to the famous “Beilis Affair” that happened in 1911 in Kyiv. Then, a local Jew, Beilis, was accused of bleeding and killing a 12-year-old boy, Andrei Yushchinsky. The court acquitted Beilis, but the case caused a lot of unrest and anti-Semitic hysteria among the people.

Nazarov’s statements caused a lot of protests, and against their background, information about how the investigation going on in the case was completely lost. It is only known that several samples from the bodies were sent for an expensive examination in England, but it remains unknown what the results were. And then silence. On December 18, 2007, the criminal case was officially closed.

Many believe that the Krasnoyarsk boys were killed by a serial maniac that was never caught or an organization of pedophiles. But these versions pass only as rumors. Nothing new has appeared in the 15 years that have passed since that year.

In 2006 and 2007, in the same Krasnoyarsk, two more murdered children were found in the sewers – Sergey Malkov and Polina Malkova. They were only namesakes, but this is also a rather strange detail. Their bodies were not burned, and only on the body of Polina there were clear signs of a violent death, however, many associated these murders with the case of 5 boys.

In 2009, 36-year-old Vladimir Naumov was convicted of the rape and murder of Polina Malkova. He was given a life sentence. It was not possible to establish his involvement in the death of other children.