Academy maniacs

Artyom Alexandrovich Anoufriev (Артём Александрович Ануфриев; October 4, 1992) and Nikita Vakhtangovich Lytkin (Никита Вахтангович Лыткин; March 24, 1993 – November 30, 2021) are two serial killers from Irkutsk, Russia, known as the Academy maniacs and the Irkutsk Molotochniki.

Artyom Anoufriev was born on October 4, 1992, in Irkutsk, and was raised without a father.

Childhood friends described him in court positively, but nevertheless, his childhood was very difficult psychologically.

His mother, Nina Ivanovna Anoufrieva, who worked as an accountant in an insurance company, did not have a good influence on the teenager's upbringing.

According to the previous headmaster of the school he studied in, she had instructed young Anoufriev to hate people.

When he received bad grades, his mother immediately wrote statements in which she reproached teachers for psychological pressure on her son, and if the marks were written only in his journal, she would write complaints about the concealment of information.

Ultimately, while Anoufriev was in the 9th grade, the school management was forced to look for a new physics teacher, because the previous one refused to teach the class that Anoufriev was in.

Anoufriev did well in his studies; he had good marks in literature and English, he participated in many activities and school competitions, had musical lessons for the guitar and double bass in 5 years, and also sang and played in a local music group that fell apart after his organizer left Irkutsk.

Nikita Lytkin was born on March 24, 1993.

His great-grandparents were hydraulic builders, and participated in the construction of the Uglich and Irkutsk hydropower stations, while his mother Marina worked as an employee at a shoe store.

Like Artyom Anoufriev, his father was absent.

His father, of Ossetian ethnicity, left the family in Lytkin's early childhood.

Lytkin also had a younger half-brother, who shot himself after the death of his mother.

Soon after, the father returned to the family, but his depression, caused by the death of his second wife and the suicide of his second son, did not allow him to establish contact with his Nikita.

His father later returned to the family sporadically, leaving Lytkin even more disappointed each time he left.

The last time he saw him was at 16, but the two found it difficult to communicate.

Outwardly, Lytkin behaved quietly and calmly, but, according to his mother, he grew up very closed and uncommunicative.

If guests came to visit, Lytkin preferred not to appear and each time went to his room.

In childhood, he was often caught for painting walls at the entrance of the house.

In his elementary school, Lytkin had a friend named Artur Lysenko, who helped him adapt among his peers.

"He treated him like a thing. But he helped a lot - helped to adapt. Nikita could not refuse, did not know how to say no. He had no opinion. I taught him to be able to say this very no. And when he learned that, he stopped being friends with Artur," Lytkin's mother commented on their relationship.

Prior to the 5th grade, Lytkin was a good student, had exemplary behavior, often participated in creative contests and received commendable letters, his hobby being video games.

In 2004, Lytkin enrolled in the mathematics class, due to high test scores, however, his mother later stated the other children didn't accept him.

He met Anoufriev, who was a year older, at Lysenko's birthday party.

By that time, Lytkin was in a state of deep depression, and only decided to entrust all of his problems to Anoufriev, since he received support from him in return.

The pair collectively committed six murders and injured nine others in a series of attacks that took place in Irkutsk Academgorodok between December 2010 and April 2011, while still teenagers.

However, since first grade Anoufriev was an outcast, and only in senior classes, when his classmates gradually matured and became more friendly, Anoufriev managed to get rid of this stigma, but at the same time, while in the 10th grade, his performance worsened and graduated from school with a triple passport.

In the senior class, shortly before graduation, classmates shot a farewell amateur film, in which they told what happiness was in their opinion.

Anoufriev was the only one who said: "To be honest, I do not know what happiness is. But I would really like to quickly find out what it is."

After school, Anoufriev entered the Irkutsk State Medical University and at the same time went to work as an auxiliary worker in the art museum.

At the trial, Anoufriev's mother said that he had been beaten once by a group of Armenians, and a criminal case was opened, but nobody was charged.

The Anoufriev family was transferred a sum amounting of 50 thousand rubles as compensation for non-pecuniary damage, but according to his mother, Anoufriev became very unbalanced after this incident.

According to some reports, however, Anoufriev himself provoked the conflict by insulting the Armenians' family on an internet social networking site, after which his representatives called him to a "showdown", and the criminal case was stopped after the parties reconciled.

Nina Anoufrieva spoke against her son's friendship with Nikita Lytkin and believed that their communication should be prohibited, because, in her opinion, Lytkin was a bad influence on her son.

Both perpetrators were detained on the April 5, 2011, and were collectively charged with murder, robbery, abuse of victims' bodies and organizing extremist activities.

The judicial investigation of the case lasted from August 2012 to February 2013.

On April 2, 2013, the Irkutsk Regional Court sentenced Anoufriev to life imprisonment, and Lytkin to 24 years imprisonment.

On October 3, 2013, the Supreme Court of Russia finalized the verdict of Anoufriev's life sentence, while Lytkin's sentence was reduced to 20 years imprisonment.

On November 30, 2021, Lytkin slashed his wrists at the Correctional Colony No. 7 in Angarsk and was found dead in the early morning of December 1, 2021.

The case is noteworthy for the fact that it was the first ever time that a case concerning violent extremism in the Irkutsk Oblast was solved using forensic science.