Attempted at him three times. Having recovered from severe wounds, Ivan Khutorskoy did not give up his beliefs and did not hide, remaining the leader of the radical direction of the anti-fascist youth movement. His death on November 16, 2009, at the hands of neo-Nazis turned his name into a legend. Today it symbolizes those who have cleansed punk culture in Russia from the brown plague.
Strokes to the portrait
He was born in an ordinary family on 02.17.1983 in the eastern part of the capital. He went in for sports and achieved good success in arm wrestling. From here came his nickname - Ivan Khutorskoy Kostolom, by which he was well known in the youth movement. He was fond of sambo. But the biggest passion of his life is punk rock. From the age of eleven, he went to concerts in the "Flyover", where the first domestic groups performed: "Naive", "Dysistemper", "Purgen".
In the 90s, the club in the Proletarsky district was notorious. At punk parties, order was established by skinhead youths in black T-shirts and Lonsdale sweatshirts, who jumped onto the stage shouting “Zig Heil”. Neo-Nazis sought to penetrate the youth subculture, and punks seemed to them an easy target.
From a healthy teenager with a funny green Iroquois striving to stand out from the crowd, Ivan Khutorskoy turned into an informal leader of a healthy part of youth who decided to repulse fascist youths. Having taken on the mission of protecting musicians and putting things in order on stage, he led the most militant part of punk rock fans who respond with violence to violence.
First attempt
The fact that his path was associated with a risk to his life became clear at the beginning of the 2000s, when the clashes between anti-fascists and the ultra-right began to lead to real human casualties. One of the first was a student from St. Petersburg Timur Kacharava, torn to pieces by a crowd of juvenile neo-Nazis in 2005. In the same year, musicians from the groups “TushkA” and “Gateway” returning from the festival in Dubna were brutally beaten. Done the first assassination attempt on Kostolom.
At this time, anti-fascist groups were extremely fragmented, and Ivan Khutorskoy responded to the invitation of “newcomers” to get acquainted, sent via the Internet. It was an ambush. A crowd of thirty people surrounded him with three friends. The guys managed to escape, and the powerful Ivan was brutally beaten, having rinsed his head with a dangerous razor. To humiliate the leader of the left radicals, the video was posted on the Internet with the slogan "Kill the anti-fascist."
Second attempt and death of father
For his own and rock musicians, Ivan became the personification of security, and for neo-Nazis expelled from concerts - the number one enemy. They had to snarl in the streets and in the gateways, meeting disparate spectators of punk concerts. They began to watch Kostolom purposefully and after six months they attacked in the entrance of their own house. With a baseball bat, the young guy smashed his face, crushing the bones of his nose. A sharpened screwdriver inflicted more than ten blows, mutilating externally and injuring the neck.
Ivan Khutorskoy barely recovered from his injuries. By force of will, he recovered, but until the last days he was slightly led by walking. The father suffered from the experience, and soon died of cancer. In the care of a young guy were his mother and sister. While working as a lawyer in the charity center "Street Children", he fully supported them, not refusing to continue the fight against neo-Nazis.
Obsession
After the second assassination attempt, Kostolom became obsessed. He broke up with the girl, realizing that he had chosen a different path. Friends say that in recent years he has been especially intolerant of the Nazis, chasing everyone who fell in the way. He began to wear brass knuckles. In a winter fight with the far right, he was seriously injured by a knife strike. A wound in the stomach could be fatal, but doctors dragged him from the other world.
In October 2008, his friend Fyodor Filatov (Feday), who was stabbed to death near his home, died. Today it is known that this is the first of the murders in the crime chain created by the Tikhonov and Goryachev ultra-right group BORN. But then it seemed to everyone that this group was just an attempt to create an image of the neo-Nazi movement on the Internet.
Ivan Khutorskoy, whose photo during the tournament in memory of Filatov can be seen above, brought together more than a hundred guys from all over the country to increase the fighting efficiency of the organization. Competitions in mixed martial arts were to become a tradition, but a month later another attempt was made on their organizer.
Murder
At nine o’clock in the evening on November 16, 2009, a young man went to the mailbox to take out the mail. A shot rang out from behind. They shot into the head, and the residents of the house on Khabarovskaya Street heard only a clap, not knowing what kind of tragedy erupted in their entrance. An ambulance, who came to call a neighbor who discovered the body of a young man, it remains only to state death. The news that Ivan Khutorskoy was killed instantly circulated around the media, and representatives of the anti-movement urgently appealed to the Moscow City Hall with a request to organize a rally. The most authoritative informal leader of the RAS subculture, the community of red and anarchist skinheads, was killed.
Having been refused, more than a hundred young people organized the laying of flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. For them, the life of a twenty-six year old is a model of serving the ideals of justice and the struggle for their beliefs.
The funeral
The family did not have enough funds to bring Ivan's body to the ground. The cemetery was prepared for an elderly grandmother, so the young man was cremated. To avoid bloody clashes, the ceremony was accompanied by riot police. Several hundred friends and supporters spent the last journey of their comrade. Ivan Khutorskoy, whose grave is located at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery, was dressed in the style of skinhead. During his lifetime, he always wore suspenders, trousers with twists and red Dr. boots. Martens. Martens were laid next to the body, considering this a fundamental moment of the mourning ceremony.
When Stage Bottles solidarity began, the tough guys couldn't hold back their tears. They vowed to find the killers and tell people about Ivan Khutorsky, because for the townsfolk and the police, skirmishes of youth are common hooliganism. And for them - the struggle for conviction. Once in Germany, at the dawn of fascism, the fighting brigades of the German Communist Party also fought against the Nazis using radical methods. Red skinheads in Russia consider themselves the successors of their business.
Afterword
In April 2015, a trial was held of activists of the BORN extremist community who committed a series of ideological killings. In the dock were Isaev and Baklagin, conducting surveillance of Ivan. The very same artist by the name of Korshunov allegedly blew up a bunch of grenades in Ukraine. Ivan Khutorskoy was not the only victim of criminals. They were charged with six episodes. Among the dead are not only anti-fascists, but also judge Chuvashov, an athlete Muslim Abdullaev. Most members of the community received a life sentence; the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the sentence.
Friends created a film in which they told people about their friend and his beliefs. Every year, in many cities, young people hold rallies in memory of all the victims of the anti-fascist movement under the slogan "We Remember." For them, this is no longer a game - human life is at stake.