Whales die in pools of gasoline

I won't lie, many of its residents often don't get along with each other, and some doors are better off staying closed forever. And when a fire starts in the house, it affects everyone in one way or another. And the fire started. It came to us with thousands of strange hashtags, hundreds of unusual communities, later called death groups, and dozens of child suicides. Meanwhile, the flames have been raging for several years now.

It all started on November 23, 2015 in the glorious city of Ussuriysk. This day was marked by the death of sixteen-year-old Rina Palenkova, who threw herself onto the rails right in front of an approaching train. A few minutes before her own death, Rina published two photographs on her page with the now iconic caption: Nya. Bye. This incident caused a huge public outcry and served as a kind of impetus for everything that happened next.

A few days after Palenkova’s suicide, on December 4, the very first death group entitled f57. Its creators stated that what happened in Ussuriysk was organized by them and began to actively increase the number 1642 , supposedly the number of that fateful train (in fact, this is the year when the concept was introduced into use suicide). In addition, it was announced that under the control of “f57” there is a group of people who are ready to commit suicide at any moment.

Over the next four days, the sect grows, gaining more and more various symbols and hashtags. On December 8, when the organizers realize that the topic of organized self-drinking has attracted sufficient attention, a list with names is posted in the group dead and links to their pages. As luck would have it, everyone was last online on the same day.

Following this, rumors appeared that the editor of Memnav Public Black Nulchan Milena somehow connected with the newly formed sect. The public administration published photographs on its wall allegedly confirming the fact of her suicide. Only one of them was stolen from thematic group and at that time she was already about six months old.

Despite numerous f57 failures, proving that everything that was happening was just one big staged act, the dirty hype stubbornly continued to grow. And in its wake, more and more death groups appeared, the organizers of which craved easy fame. It would be a serious omission not to talk about at least a few of them.

Sea of ​​Whale, also known as Philip Chelov- a man who perfectly demonstrated exactly how the whole scheme of fake suicides worked. Philip's group was created on December 4, 2015 at 22:38 Moscow time. There he started his game. More gave everyone who wanted to take part a personal number and date of death, after which the player was not supposed to visit the dead page for several months. Meanwhile in numerous groups Philippa published with might and main lists of the dead.

But suddenly something interesting happened. Something that forced the narcissistic schizophrenic Chelov to hastily cover all traces of himself and, imagine, start providing psychological assistance to teenagers. The Sea of ​​Whales removed old acquaintances from friends and angrily denied his past activities, ignoring any evidence. What was the reason for such a rapid change of shoes? Perhaps Philip was just scared. Or maybe one of his players actually committed suicide. We are unlikely to ever know the truth about this, but, one way or another, it is the Sea that the RuNet owes to the crazy force of suicidal whales.

Sea of ​​Whales.

Actually, the same “death administrator”.

Philip Lis (aka Philip Budeikin) is another person who wanted to gain easy fame on a popular topic. And no, you heard right, these two are namesakes, and not the same person. So, Budeikin tried to shine where he could. He carried suicidal delirium in other groups, carried it in his own, just like More, handed out numbers and elevated his personality to a cult. In addition, several times for some reason Fox arranged his death and threatened terrorist attacks in Russian cities.

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Fortunately, no hype can last forever, and fake suicides are no exception. Soon everything calmed down relatively. Most of 2016 passed quietly. However, in November, almost a year after the start of the whole movement, citizen Budeykin was suddenly detained in his apartment in only shorts and promptly sent to dry the crackers. Fox was brought to criminal responsibility for a reason, because according to reliable information, several people actually committed suicide because of death groups and their ideology. After this incident, almost all communities were completely closed, and game organizers deleted their accounts. It seemed that everything would calm down at this point. The main evil (who was actually just a power-hungry fool) was caught, justice was triumphed, and overall a complete happy ending. But for some reason the whale tale did not end.

About a month ago, a wave of suicidal hype that had already subsided, with the help of the media, reached our southern neighbors - Kazakhstan. It was there that the story flared up again with unprecedented force. Supposedly, several more actual suicides occurred, which caused widespread hysteria and alarmed the authorities. Preventive conversations in schools, monitoring of teenagers' pages, special instructions for parents - all this only contributed to the promotion of a new, slightly modified legend. As one would expect, having gained a critical mass, it boomeranged back to Russia.

According to a new story, there is a secret society on the Internet, hidden from the eyes of the common man and organizing a certain game called blue whale. It is controlled by the mysterious Chief, who is subordinate to many pawns - curators. To join the game, you need to post several special hashtags on your wall (for example,

Children's "death groups" on VKONTAKTE - what really happened?

— 26.01.2017 As promised, I’m writing a continuation about children’s death groups, how it started and what law enforcement agencies found out.

The return of interest in these events in my blog is due to the fact that in our city of Voronezh, on the same day, two teenagers committed suicide in different parts of the city, which is nonsense, and schools began to hold parent meetings with explanatory work. What I am sharing with you is - be careful, your children can also be in such groups, did you have something that your parents had no idea about? In the age of social networks, children have even more access to the forbidden and secrets.

So, a criminal case was opened for incitement to suicide. Among the defendants charged with the deaths of 15 teenagers is Philip Budeikin, who was beaten by his mother as a child and decided as an adult that the world needed to be cleansed of “biogarbage.” According to him, he also suffers from bipolar disorder.

After Rina’s death under a train with her dying selfie, a stir began around her death, wondering whether her head on the flights was photoshopped and whether it was all fake. Gradually, VKONTAKT users connected her death with psychedelic videos from the group “f57”, to which the schoolgirl was subscribed - the girl was also fond of videos of ISIS executions.

The administration of the group decides to come up with a myth about the sect where Rina was a member in order to increase their popularity on this wave. The group “Sea of ​​Whale” appears (by analogy with whales ending their lives on the shore by throwing themselves out), which first promotes suicide, and then abruptly changes its style to the opposite. There are versions that they were frightened by the wave of suicides that had begun among their subscribers.

On December 8, 2016, the administrators of “f57” announced a “flash mob of suicides,” lists of “victims” that were posted in the group and they “cut out” themselves by posting videos of their suicides.

It is believed that all this is to increase the popularity of the group and the video - staging. The reason is the thirst for popularity and money. Lenta.ru told about all this in some detail, with screenshots of correspondence. I'll move it here.

How did the f57 sect appear?

At the end of November 2015, a girl known on social networks under the nickname Irina Kambalina (name changed), or simply Rina, committed suicide. A number of network users believe that the cause of the tragedy was conflicts with parents and separation from a young man. A day before committing suicide, Rina even sent him photos with cuts, but never received an answer.

Rina’s death unexpectedly gave rise to many versions among young VKontakte users. The thing is that the news about the tragedy was posted in the f57 group, which usually published “meat” videos with dismemberment and acts of suicide. At the same time, the author of the entry noted that in fact, Rina became the first victim of the ominous sect f57, whose goal is to drive teenagers to suicide. The post said that it was assigned serial number 1. Most likely, the post was published by a community administrator who decided to further increase the audience in this way.

Soon the original group was blocked by the VKontakte administration. The reason was the abundance of videos with dismemberment and suicide scenes. But already on December 6, a community called #f57Terminal5751ุ ς☈ψ ς☈ψ ς☈ψ 666 arose on the vastness of the social network. Its founder and administrator is a man hiding under the name Philip Lis.

Standard post in one of Philip Lis's groups

Lenta.ru managed to contact Lis himself. During a telephone conversation and subsequent correspondence, he willingly admitted to creating several closed communities at once, in particular #f57Terminal5751ุ and f57#source. In the “terminal,” Philip is listed as the “creator,” and there is also his mobile number, which Lenta.ru used to contact him. The same number was published in one of the Dvacha threads.

According to Philip, the groups contain “psychedelic content.” “I add different numbers, no one knows anything about them, no one can solve anything. Only I know all the answers,” he emphasizes. When asked if he had published calls for suicide in his group, he suddenly asks: “Do you really think that you can call for suicide through social networks?”

Philip Lees claims he posted psychedelic content

Philip admitted that he actively corresponds with subscribers and they often complain to him about their problems. “Well, I explain to them that life doesn’t end there, there is always a way out. And this solution is not suicide. But I don’t seem to dissuade anyone, I don’t care.” At the same time, the subscribers themselves regularly informed Philip about their suicidal intentions.

During the conversation, Philip approved the application of the Lenta.ru correspondent to join the group and noted that he knew nothing about the story with Rina. However, after a few seconds, he admitted that the girl’s death was used to promote first the original f57, and then his group. He also talked about his acquaintance with Miron Seth, another person involved in the Novaya Gazeta investigation.

One of Philip Lys's groups

According to him, Miron made him some kind of “video with trap music that showed suicide.” On March 18, Miron published this video on Philip’s page. In it, administrator f57 very convincingly pretends to commit suicide to a trap song.

Who are the “Insiders” and how are they connected to f57?

Immediately after the end of the dialogue with Philip Lis, two VKontakte users wrote to the Lenta.ru correspondent and asked not to mention their names. They said that they belonged to the “Insiders” movement and were participating in a certain game, the goal of which was to help suicidal teenagers. At the end of November, one of the game's organizers launched a popular closed community and also created a web page with a timer symbolizing the moment the game ends.

The goal was simple - to lure lonely teenagers contemplating suicide into groups with supposedly suicidal content, where mysterious videos and symbols were published, after which the “Insiders” entered into correspondence with them and tried to dissuade them from committing rash acts. "Everything was great. Dozens of people were dissuaded from the delusional idea [of suicide]. All this was diluted with numerical and program quests that gave out a certain number. This number appeared in the next creepy (scary - Lenta.ru note) video and so on,” notes the creator of the community.

The first phase of the game ended in mid-December, and shortly before that, Philip Lis contacted Insiders. He tried to continue the game on their behalf, but the creator of the original community did not allow him to do so. Then Lis finally adopted the style of the original f57, began publishing photographs and videos of suicides, as well as strange symbols, one of which in “ Novaya Gazeta"is called IT. It was invented by Fox himself, taking the underwear brand as a basis. One of the “Insiders”, who had been communicating with Lis for a long time and even was in the same general chat with him, told Lenta.ru about this.

Symbol of the Philip Lys groups and the mark of the lingerie brand

Both “insiders” explain Fox’s true motives as a desire to become famous. “He makes a mess (in this case, bad secondary content - approx. Lenta.ru) and he knows it. He's chasing subscribers. That's all he needs. I told him a long time ago that it’s time to stop,” notes one of them.

At the same time, he justifies another character, Miron Seth, popular among fans of the bands, who “simply collected videos for lovers of meat and minced meat.” But Lis, according to him, stole ideas from several communities and combined them together in his public pages. He got the idea of ​​​​conversations with subscribers from “Insiders”, and borrowed the general style from the original f57.

How did communities about whales appear?

But there is something else - Lis actively assigns numbers to his subscribers. And he does this both in the public and in personal correspondence. “Insiders” could not tell exactly where Fox got the idea for the numbers, but they provided screenshots of his posts, where he gives them numbers when joining the group and talks about some mysterious rituals.

A post in Philip Lis’s group, in which he suggests sorting out numbers

The appearance of the numbers was explained by another person - the creator of several communities about “whales”, which Novaya Gazeta put on a par with f57. As we were able to establish earlier, a rumor appeared on the network that the girl Rina committed suicide after watching a video in the original f57 group. At the same time, the network began to claim that f57 is a closed suicidal sect, and Rina is its first victim.

An example of a post from the original f57 group, blocked by the VKontakte administration

“Some kind of codes, a lot of letters with incomprehensible content, a video without much meaning, accompanied by music that intensified and caused inner excitement. An ordinary psychedelic, but the rumor that it leads to a state of depression, followed by suicide, spread in just two days,” the creator of “whales” under the nickname Sea of ​​Whales describes f57. Even before the closure of the original group, many of its clones appeared, which “already at the initial stage posted photographs with shock content, old photos of cut veins, quotes that depressed the guys and instilled in them a feeling of uselessness...”

After blocking the very first group, Philip Lis created the most famous fake, in which he scared teenagers with a couple of fresh posts about suicide with the headings “This is just the beginning...” and “Initiation into mass suicide...”.

“I looked at all this noise, went crazy with the excitement and created whales. The idea is mine,” says the interlocutor. Like Insiders, the main goal of the project was to help teenagers prone to suicidal thoughts. But in order to gain trust and gather an audience, he decided to “become one of them.”

“And not just a suicidal person, but a leader. If I had immediately offered help, dissuading me from death, no one would have listened. Such kids hate it when they are treated and introduced to a happy life, I know from myself. For me, all the subscribers who were drawn into this nonsense were scared, and I understood that the further this topic develops, the more suicide will become fashionable. “Everyone has already put Rina’s dying photos on the Ava,” explains the creator of “whales”.

To attract the audience, he downloaded the very first video from the f57 group through the VK opt program, which allows you to hide the author of the video and prohibits it from being reposted or added. After that, he began to promote his page, placing a link to the video under posts in groups with investigations about Rina’s death. He also wrote private messages to several teenagers in which he contemplated suicide. “Everyone thought that I was the administrator of the f57 sect. This was my approach: moving from the f57 administrator to his opponent by attracting attention with the help of similar posts,” explains Sea of ​​Whale.

Correspondence between Philip the Fox and the Sea of ​​Whale

“You have to understand that there are hundreds of guys who approached me, and I am alone. Naturally, you can’t answer everyone. I don’t know the dead girls (whose relatives the author of the Novaya Gazeta investigation spoke with - note from Lenta.ru), especially since their names have been changed. But the point is that they died at the hands of Philip Lys and Myron Seth, who continued to promote suicide to this day. While I dissuaded,” sums up the Sea of ​​Whales.

How did the Fox take the place of the Sea of ​​Whale?

According to Sea of ​​Whales, Fox borrowed his idea of ​​assigning numbers, which he then used in his group f57. “Insiders” claim that he assigned these numbers in random order, and then conducted personal correspondence with subscribers and invited them to closed general chats, where he threw various mystical symbols and riddles. But this does not negate the fact that he regularly wrote very strange and frightening things to his interlocutors, containing veiled calls for suicide.

One of the riddles in the general chat of Philip Lis’s group

Moreover, after some time the Fox pretended to be the Sea of ​​Whales and began to correspond with the “whales” on his behalf. He told them about suicide and assigned numbers, but did not pursue the goal of helping teenagers, as the Sea of ​​Whale himself did.

Philip Lis was also hiding under the names Artur Avdeev and Escort Soznanie (listed as the administrator of the f57 reserve group). From these pages, teenagers were also assigned numbers and told about suicide.

Correspondence of Philip Lis from another account

At the same time, “Insiders” are sure that Fox simply got carried away, turning a bad joke into a tragedy. They prove that Philip likes to embellish and create mystery, but in a personal conversation on Skype he repeatedly admitted that everything that happens around f57 and the correspondence on behalf of the Sea of ​​Whales is nothing more than evil trolling.

Philip Lis corresponds with a subscriber

At the same time, they admit that Lis always wanted to gain more fame and subscribers and, perhaps, that is why he decided to attract the original audience of the Sea of ​​​​Whales to f57.

What is a “self-drunk” flash mob and how did Lis participate in it?

Before pretending to be the Sea of ​​Whales, Lis, along with “insiders,” also participated in a large-scale Internet flash mob that took place in early December last year, during which dozens of schoolchildren pretended to commit suicide. The “insiders” themselves confirm this. Partially for this purpose (another goal was to help suicidal teenagers), they launched a large-scale multi-level quest, where the date of mass “self-drinking” (suicide) was set on December 8th.

In reality, administrators of insider publics agreed in advance with schoolchildren that they would fake their suicides. They found photos of cut veins, which were then uploaded to the group’s albums as evidence of completing one of the levels. After that, they were sent videos of suicides found on the Internet, and the flash mob participants uploaded them to their walls and promised not to use their page for the next couple of months, so that everyone would believe that they really died.

As “insiders” explain, the rest of the group began to think that the schoolchildren really committed suicide, after which they began to massively subscribe to their pages and like the supposedly suicide posts. The “insider” cites correspondence with one of the girls after her “miraculous resurrection.” She admits that in the photo with the cuts there was plum jam instead of blood, and the video of her alleged death had long been posted on the Internet, and she simply published it on her page. She is also very worried that the VKontakte administration deleted the video, because it received 40 thousand views.

A girl who suddenly appears online scares one of the administrators of the Insiders community

According to another version, the meaning of the quest was to solve riddles by a certain date. If the participants could not solve them, then they had to imitate suicide. The authors of this version are the community from the Dvach imageboard, who contacted the quest organizer himself. At the same time, the author of the quest does not hide that the ultimate goal of the entire game should be “bringing all participants to Rina’s condition,” that is, to suicide. True, he immediately invites his interlocutor to simulate his suicide, so his true motives remain unclear. A user under the nickname Dematerium Neogen did not respond to Lenta.ru’s request.

Correspondence between user “Dvacha” and Dematerium Neogen

After the flash mob, most “insiders,” including Lenta.ru’s interlocutors, admitted that it was all nothing more than a game and partially abandoned their communities.

How did Lis adapt other people's ideas for f57?

Having participated in the flash mob, but having been denied the opportunity to communicate with their subscribers by the “Insiders,” Lis focused on his f57 community. Having gotten the idea from the Sea of ​​Whale to distribute numbers and wanting to gain as many followers as possible, he began communicating with teenagers who had joined the group and gave each of them a number, and also published mystical posts in the group itself, some of them indirectly calling for suicide.

Correspondence between Philip Lees and Sea of ​​Whales and another community member

He also contacted Miron Seth (his page has now been deleted), the administrator of a number of similar communities, to help him edit several suicide videos. Philip Lis repeatedly published posts on his page and in the f57 group that he was taking his own life, and gave his number, after which he published a video of his suicide. This attracted additional popularity to his community, and many subscribers began to ask for the number themselves and were more willing to make contact.

Philip himself repeatedly boasted of his influence on girls, forwarding to the Sea of ​​Whale or “Insiders” their requests for a number. Subscribers sent him photographs with cuts, made signs (inscriptions and drawings on the body) with the mystical sign IT and his name, and also sent him their intimate photographs.

Philip Lis boasts of his popularity among subscribers

In response, the Fox noted that some majestic event would soon take place and made veiled promises. On behalf of the Sea of ​​Whales, he also invited teenagers to f57 and gave out numbers.

Who is Myron Seth?

Miron Seth is the administrator of several communities, similar in style and content to the Fox f57 community. Among them are f57 Suicide 18+ (currently deleted), “White Whale”, I cut myself, “Sorrow My Soul” (currently deleted) and “Nekres Psyches”. According to the testimony of “Insiders” and Fox himself, Seth was also the author of many videos with scenes of suicide, which were uploaded to various closed groups, including the original f57. It is known that Lis communicated with Miron and suggested that he make a viral video in which he commits suicide. It is possible that Miron is the author of several videos with the alleged suicide of Fox.

After the publication of Novaya Gazeta’s investigation, Miron wrote a post in which he tried to prove that he actually provided psychological support to teenagers with suicidal tendencies. He also provided a link to the page of a person he called a “psychologist.”

The “psychologist” himself told Lenta.ru that a few weeks ago he joined the “Sorrow My Soul” community, where people anonymously shared their problems, and they wrote words of support in the comments. He helped several interlocutors, after which he was invited to play the role of a psychologist in Nekres Psyches. “I tried to provide all possible psychological assistance; I myself have experience in the rehabilitation of drug addicts. Those who had problems beyond my capabilities were recommended to see a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Many felt better, they said thank you, it was like a hotline,” notes the interlocutor.

According to the “psychologist,” he communicated with Miron and knows that he posted shocking content in the VKontakte communities. “As soon as this fuss arose, I strongly recommended that he delete the group and stop with shock content. But he refused,” he concluded.

The main version of what really happened

Since mid-autumn 2015, a number of communities have appeared on VKontakte, where the topic of suicide was directly or indirectly discussed. At the same time, there was an original group f57, where they published shock videos found on the Internet, including scenes of suicide. Some videos were probably uploaded by Myron Seth.

After the death of the girl Rina, f57 decided to increase their popularity and started a rumor online that she was the first victim of the mystical sect of the same name. Many young users immediately began feverishly searching for traces of the sect, subscribing en masse to f57. In response, the administration decided to pose as that same sect, starting to publish mystical records.

The Insiders took advantage of this and staged a themed game of the same name with riddles. Presumably, they came up with the idea of ​​handing out numbers to participants, and if someone couldn’t guess what the strange symbols meant, they had to fake suicide by publishing a farewell post and not logging into VKontakte for some time. The most massive flash mob happened on December 8, when those who had not solved the last riddle staged a massive “self-drinking.” After this, most “insiders” leave the game and stop managing communities.

Two days before this, the “Sea of ​​Whales” community appeared, the creator of which, according to his own assurances, wanted to confront f57 and help suicidal teenagers. There is a version that he personally took part in the game, handing out numbers and promoting suicide. The Sea of ​​Whale itself explains this by the need to gain the trust of f57 subscribers and an attempt to pretend to be the admin of this group.

But soon the original f57 is blocked, and Philip Lis, who is well familiar with the general theme of such communities and thirsty for fame, creates several copycat groups, where he uploads the content of the original f57 found on the network. To promote the group, he simulates his own suicide several times, actively promotes the myth of the existence of the sect, communicates with subscribers on the principle of “Insiders” and gives them numbers. A number of posts in his group and fragments of correspondence contain unveiled calls for suicide. At the same time, hundreds of f57 and “Sea of ​​Whales” clone groups appear online, united by a common theme and symbolism.

Unfortunately, such an obvious popularization of suicide among teenagers leads to several tragic cases described in the Novaya Gazeta investigation. The Sea of ​​Whales is the first to understand the danger and decides to step away from control of its groups. However, back in mid-December, Philip Lis created a fake account and group, and on behalf of the Sea of ​​Whale, he began inviting teenagers to his group f57 and promoting suicide.

As cases of suicide repeat, another administrator of such groups, the same Miron Seth, understands the danger of what is happening. It is likely that with the help of a “psychologist” he tried to correct the situation and change the mood of his subscribers.

As a result, Philip Lis remained the most active promoter of suicide groups. After the publication of Novaya Gazeta’s investigation, he at first did not consider himself guilty of what happened, but other administrators of similar communities hint that he encouraged subscribers to commit suicide. This is confirmed by screenshots of correspondence and posts in his communities.

Philip Fox's attempt to explain to subscribers that he was just joking

As promised, I’m writing a continuation about children’s death groups, how it started and what law enforcement agencies found out. Summary first series of posts. Elya Davydova, a schoolgirl, commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Her mother Elena and Galina Mursalieva, a journalist, started their...

On Thursday, March 2, the prosecutor's office Astrakhan region opened a criminal case involving 21-year-old Philip Budeikin, known under the pseudonym Philip Lis. Budeykin is already in a pre-trial detention center, he is accused of driving teenagers to suicide. He is the most famous hero of the story about the “death groups” on VKontakte. The game of " blue whales”, which allegedly leads to suicide, began to be actively discussed again in recent weeks, when an increase in relevant search queries was recorded, not only in Russia, but also in neighboring countries. VKontakte blocks posts related to “blue whales”; in contrast to the “death groups,” communities of volunteers have emerged to combat this phenomenon; teenage suicides are discussed in the government. Meduza journalist Evgeny Berg tells who Philip Budeikin is and what his role is in the story of the “death groups.”

Audio version of the text:

In the early morning of November 15, 2016, employees came to the apartment of unemployed Philip Budeikin in Solnechnogorsk near Moscow, where he lived with his mother. Investigative Committee. On video, later shown on Russian television channels, shows 21-year-old Budeykin lying under a blanket in his bed, surrounded by operatives. “Get out okay, Philip,” the woman says off-screen.

November 16 Oktyabrsky district court St. Petersburg sent Budeikin to the Kresty pre-trial detention center (January 10, 2017, the arrest was extended until May 15), investigators charged him under Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Part 4 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - incitement to commit suicide.

The criminal case in which Budeykin is accused was opened by the Main Investigation Department of the RF Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg on May 20, 2016, five days after the publication of the text of journalist Galina Mursalieva in Novaya Gazeta - “Death Groups (18+).” It spoke of numerous communities on the social network VKontakte, in which unnamed “adults”, “secret “puppeteers”” “systematically, systematically and clearly” drove teenagers to suicide, using “manipulation of meanings and invented symbols.”

“We counted 130 (!) suicides of children that occurred in Russia from November 2015 to April 2016 - almost all of them were members of the same groups on the Internet,” the material said. The author claimed that such communities contain the phrases “f57”, “f58”, “Quiet House”, “Sea of ​​Whales”, “Nya Bye” in their names, and their administrators give participants tasks: for example, they ask them to get up at 4:20 in the morning, draw a whale on your hand, cut yourself; the last task is supposedly committing suicide. The dates of suicides, according to Novaya Gazeta, were planned in advance, so the participants received certain serial numbers, which, after the publication of the material in the media, began to be called “death numbers” (Novaya Gazeta did not use such a phrase). Mursalieva wrote that the communities are united in a “monstrous system,” but admitted that she “doesn’t know who Woland is,” and “sees only small bosses.”

One of these “minor bosses” was a user named Philip Lis. His real name, Budeykin, became known after his arrest, but was not mentioned in the text of Novaya Gazeta.

Children

Immediately after Budeikin’s arrest, the Investigative Committee stated that he was “the administrator of one of the ‘death groups,’” where “minor users were encouraged to commit suicide.” “The consistent impact on children was facilitated by tactics that were clearly calibrated from a psycho-emotional point of view,” she said on November 15, 2016. O. Svetlana Petrenko, head of the department for interaction with the media of the RF IC. In total, they wanted to charge Budeykin with 15 episodes of driving teenagers to suicide.

Philip Budeykin is 21 years old; at the beginning of the 2000s, his family settled in Ukhta (Komi Republic). It is known that Philip has two older brothers, Denis and Evgeniy. According to an unnamed friend of the Budeikins, the family in the city was considered “very peculiar people”: “Relations in the family were very tense. The mother argued with her sons almost every week, and in public. The brothers communicated little with each other. Philip was a very reserved guy; sometimes you just had to get words out of him. On the street he looked completely detached from the rest of the world. I often saw him very irritated.”

On November 25, the head of the investigative department of the department for investigating particularly important cases of the Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg, Anton Breido, said that he considers Budeikin’s guilt “already proven” and assessed the chances of the prosecution as “good.” Nevertheless, on December 13, the publication Sankt-Peterburg.ru, citing a source close to the investigation, said: the accusation is based on the testimony of one girl whom Budeikin allegedly threatened to “help” commit suicide.

“If a person showed [a suicide victim] a video and said: “I think that death is good,” the court will not be able to find this person guilty under this article, there is no corpus delicti,” the publication quoted St. Petersburg lawyer Alexei Shpadyrev as saying (about the problems qualification of the crime under Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, associated with its technical imperfections and ambiguity of wording, say many experts; in 2014, 33 people were convicted of incitement to suicide in Russia).

On December 15, the St. Petersburg Investigative Committee distributed an appeal to the city media in which it asked those who knew about those who died “under the influence of an Internet user under the pseudonym Philip Lis” to respond.

In a conversation with Meduza, lawyer Rostislav Gubenko (Budeikin’s state-appointed defense attorney) confirmed that the charge was indeed brought for one episode, and information about 15 victims “disappeared from the case.” He does not consider the young man involved in child suicides. “I look at him - he’s just an ordinary Internet-savvy guy,” Gubenko said.

On March 2, the Investigative Committee for the Astrakhan Region opened a criminal case for attempted incitement to suicide. “The investigation established that in the spring of 2016, an unidentified person, using the pseudonym “Philip Lis,” posted audiovisual works, discussion topics and statements promoting the topic of suicide in a closed group on the social network “VKontakte,” the Astrakhan Investigative Committee says on its website. The report notes that the suicide of a 16-year-old girl, which was being prepared in the spring of 2016, was prevented by FSB officers.

There's noise all around

In 2017 in in social networks, a new round of discussion about “death groups” has begun on parent forums and other media platforms. The reason was the detention of Budeikin, as well as the surge in interest of Internet users in the game known as “ Blue whale"("Medusa" about her). Its mechanics repeated the mechanics of the games described by Novaya Gazeta, with the difference that it was not community administrators who communicated with the players, but users who called themselves “curators” of the game; almost always they were hidden behind anonymous pages.

“Blue Whale” turned out to be so popular that the VKontakte administration began blocking users for using certain hashtags. Nevertheless, new posts related to the game still appear every minute.

A specialist in the research group “Monitoring of Current Folklore” at the Institute of Social Sciences at RANEPA, anthropologist Maria Volkova became interested in the topic of “death groups” after publication in Novaya Gazeta - she subscribed to such communities and communicated with their participants. “Most of them, like me, were just trying to figure out what was going on. In some communities, they announced the start of the game, handed out numbers, but no one could explain what to do with them and what the rules were,” Volkova said.

According to her, for teenagers, the Blue Whale, like the “death groups,” function as a children’s horror story. “Like when teenagers get together and someone says that they can summon the Queen of Spades. “Blue Whale” is a new way to get scared, says Volkova. - The motives are different. For example, one teenager explained that he wanted to scare his girlfriend to see if she loved him. Children also gain a sense of authority through play—a task from a fifth-grader can be asked by a much older person. Teenagers construct the rules in such games here and now; they take motives and ideas from everywhere. Thus, the practice of playing in “death groups” is rooted in the culture of netstalkers, which was popular in 2013–2014. A number of images were taken from there, for example “The Quiet House.”

Volkova notes that during her study of communities, she did not encounter “anything that was designed and invented by an adult,” and the “curators” turned out to be schoolchildren.

Despite the lack of evidence,