d: 1973
Summary
Name:
Nikolai Nikolaevich SavrasovYears Active:
1973Status:
DeceasedClass:
Mass MurdererVictims:
2Method:
BombingDeath:
September 01, 1973Nationality:
Soviet Uniond: 1973
Summary: Mass Murderer
Name:
Nikolai Nikolaevich SavrasovStatus:
DeceasedVictims:
2Method:
BombingNationality:
Soviet UnionDeath:
September 01, 1973Years Active:
1973Nikolai Nikolaevich Savrasov was born in 1939.
He was a resident of Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast.
On September 1, 1973, Nikolai Nikolaevich Savrasov entered Lenin's Mausoleum carrying a pre-fabricated explosive device hidden under his clothes during school excursions. Security guards mistook him for a schoolteacher and let him into the funeral hall. When he reached the sarcophagus containing Lenin's body, he connected the wires and the device exploded. The sarcophagus was protected by bulletproof glass from a previous attack and remained undamaged. The blast killed Savrasov and a married couple from Astrakhan who were following him. Sixteen people were wounded, including four schoolchildren, and soldiers of the Kremlin Regiment were thrown back by the blast wave. Only an arm and a fragment of the terrorist's head were recovered at the scene. Scraps of documents found with the remains suggested he had once been sentenced to ten years in prison, but it was not clear whether the papers belonged to him. Yuri Andropov, his deputy Georgy Tsinev, and the Kremlin commandant General Sergei Shornikov came to the scene. Investigators considered the main theory that a maniac wanted to immortalize himself by attacking the Mausoleum, but the investigation did not lead to conclusive results.
