Meet Anatoly Slivko – a Soviet youth club leader who exploited his position to satisfy his deep-seated childhood trauma and perverse inclinations by preying on vulnerable young children.
Between 1964 and 1985, Anatoly Slivko convinced 43 boys to participate in his “hanging experiments“—a ritual that allowed him to physically reenact the erotic fantasies triggered by a 1961 traffic accident in which a drunken motorcyclist fatally struck a young boy wearing a Young Pioneers uniform.
Slivko described witnessing the accident as one of the most pivotal moments of his life, claiming it gave him a powerful orgasm and triggered an overwhelming desire to engage in sexual activity with young males.
Once or twice a year, Anatoly Slivko would form a close friendship with a boy, aged between 11 and 15 (never older than 17), at the youth club he had established. After gaining the boy’s trust, Slivko would introduce him to an “experiment” he claimed could stretch the spine through a controlled hanging.
He insisted the boy wear a Young Pioneers uniform—replicating the attire of the boy he had seen die in the traffic accident. Slivko also reassured his victims that he would safely revive them from their unconscious state.
Once the boy was unconscious, Slivko would strip him naked, caress and fondle him, take photographs in which he would arrange the body in suggestive positions, and repeatedly masturbate – often onto the boy’s shoes.
Slivko filmed the entire process with one of his 16mm cameras and kept a collection of tapes so he could relive his erotic fantasies later.
In at least seven of the 43 cases, Slivko’s behavior turned violent: after his victims lost consciousness, he dismembered their bodies, doused their limbs and torso with gasoline, and set the remains on fire to remind himself of the traffic accident that ignited his twisted sexual arousal.
In addition to the films, Slivko would also keep the victims’ shoes as mementos, using them as stimuli for his masturbatory fantasies.
