On December 25, 2020, the St. Petersburg court delivered a verdict in the case of 64-year-old historian Oleg Sokolov, who killed and dismembered his young lover, graduate student Anastasia Eshchenko. How the trial would end was unclear until the very last moment. Firstly, the defendant was a respected man, an associate professor at St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU), a scholar of international renown. Secondly, Sokolov repeatedly claimed that he was under stress due to harassment by colleagues and that Eshchenko provoked him with her attacks that day. However, the court did not take these circumstances into account and closed the case by sentencing Sokolov to 12.5 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

When the press was allowed into the courtroom, the defendant and relatives of the victim, Anastasia Eshchenko, were already inside. Oleg Sokolov demonstratively turned away from the cameras, trying to ignore what was happening. Only once, at the very beginning of the session, did he briefly meet eyes with the mother of the girl he had killed.

According to the case materials, Sokolov shot Anastasia Eshchenko in the head at close range with a sawed-off shotgun. Experts concluded that the victim still showed signs of life, and Sokolov strangled her with his hands, then fired three more shots into her head. Eshchenko died on the spot from multiple wounds and injuries. After that, Sokolov kept Eshchenko’s body until November 9, and in his apartment, he dismembered the body using a saw, a hacksaw, kitchen knives, and an axe.

During the verdict reading, Judge Yulia Maksimenko reminded those present of the essence of the case: on November 9, 2019, Oleg Sokolov was noticed by a taxi driver passing by the Moyka River embankment.

The man, who was in the cold water, was trying to drown a backpack in the Moyka River.

A concerned bystander called an ambulance and pulled the man out of the water. He also pulled the backpack ashore, but Sokolov threw it back into the water. The taxi driver paid no attention, attributing it to the man’s hypothermia-induced state.

Indeed, hypothermia “was present.” The arriving ambulance team diagnosed Sokolov with hypothermia, although he did not require hospitalization. Soon, a police squad arrived at the scene. At that moment, the medics assisting Sokolov discovered a sawed-off shotgun in his jacket.

The police searched the suspicious citizen and all his belongings, including the backpack floating near the shore. Inside, the officers found two hands — female, judging by the manicure. It then became clear: a crime had been committed.

An operational-investigative team was dispatched to the Moyka embankment, and detectives accompanied the associate professor to his home. Sokolov immediately confessed that he had killed his beloved —

24-year-old Anastasia Eshchenko — and then dismembered her body to get rid of the evidence. After that, he allegedly planned to end his life at the Peter and Paul Fortress dressed as Napoleon.

In the historian’s apartment, police found a bag containing the girl’s head, a TOZ-17-01 sawed-off shotgun with a 5.6-millimeter shell, ten boxes of cartridges, a saw, an axe, as well as the victim’s belongings: a student ID, a graduate student certificate, and jewelry with blood traces discarded in a trash bin. A few days later, divers found more remains in a plastic bag in the Peterhofka River.

Oleg Sokolov was an extraordinary man — a historian of world renown and Russia’s leading specialist on Napoleonic France. His achievements and qualifications were recognized by both domestic and foreign academic communities.

Sokolov authored over 100 scientific works, including 16 monographs in Russian, French, Polish, and Spanish. In 2003, he was even awarded the French Legion of Honor for his outstanding contribution to the development of research on French history and its popularization.

A Candidate of Historical Sciences and associate professor at St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU), Sokolov is considered the founder of military-historical reenactment in Russia. As early as 1976, he created the first military-historical reenactment group in the USSR dedicated to the Napoleonic Wars. His lectures were very popular among students, who tried not to miss them.

The 64-year-old associate professor, despite his age, was confident in the saddle, refined in his interactions with women, and knew how to win their hearts both with his decisiveness and candlelit dinners in the style of the 18th century. It is no surprise that he was popular among female students as well. Sokolov was married several times; from his last marriage, which ended in 2018, he had two daughters.

However, despite his passion for French history, Sokolov’s manners were more those of a dashing Russian landowner than the refined French chevalier he tried to portray. This was revealed during the trial by Sokolov’s former student, Ekaterina Przhigodskaya.

She enrolled at the university in 2005 and began dating the professor two years later. Despite the age difference of more than 30 years, Sokolov easily swept her off her feet. There were candles, dancing in the hall, and elegant speeches. But Sokolov demanded complete submission and tried to dominate in everything.

Whenever the girl showed defiance, he behaved cruelly. In court, Przhigodskaya testified that Sokolov threatened to kill her and bury her at the nearest construction site. Once, he tied her to a chair and beat her, then put a tourniquet around her neck and began to strangle her. “I was an idiot, a 21-year-old idiot! Now I celebrate November 29 as my second birthday.”

24-year-old Anastasia Eshchenko — daughter of police colonel Galina Eshchenko — was a young and talented scholar, as numerous witnesses noted during the trial. According to witnesses who knew Sokolov and Eshchenko, their relationship developed rapidly despite nearly a 40-year age difference. Within a few months of meeting, Sokolov spoke of marriage, and soon the young lover moved in with him on the Moyka embankment.

However, their relationship was not always smooth. They began to quarrel more often after Sokolov, accustomed to popularity, gained a young professional rival — publicist Evgeny Ponasenkov.

In 2018, the young historian published a historical work titled “The First Scientific History of the War of 1812.” Even the title implied that before this publication, no other scientific works on the topic existed. Meanwhile, Sokolov had been studying this issue extensively since Soviet times. Soon, the conflict between Sokolov and Ponasenkov spilled into the public arena.

During one court session, Sokolov said that Ponasenkov and his followers mocked him and Eshchenko — writing nasty things online, hacking emails, threatening Sokolov with murder, and staging “provocations at lectures.”

Trying to explain the reason for the brutal murder of Anastasia Eshchenko, the defendant even claimed that the 24-year-old student conspired with Ponasenkov’s supporters. Ponasenkov, however, stated that he had never personally met Eshchenko and was not involved in harassment or persecution of Sokolov.

On October 12, Ponasenkov called Sokolov’s words in court “nonsense of cattle.” In a conversation with journalists, Ponasenkov also noted that Sokolov constantly shifted blame onto others: first onto the victim, then onto her parents. “So everyone is guilty except him,” said the publicist.

During the investigation, the authorities and court primarily sought to find the motive for the crime. Over the ten months of the trial, Sokolov alternated between professing love for the victim and telling stories about her dark schemes.

According to Sokolov, besides shady dealings with Ponasenkov, Eshchenko also associated with criminal authorities. He allegedly learned this while in detention. According to the associate professor, Eshchenko had a romance with a man involved in illegal real estate dealings and deliberately provoked him into scandals to get him to hit her.

After that, Eshchenko, Sokolov claimed, could have gone to the police, and the whole plan was designed to seize his apartment on the Moyka.

Meanwhile, after examining all the circumstances and conducting several expert evaluations, it was established that the defendant shot Eshchenko in the head at least four times.

Sokolov tried to convince the investigation and court that he committed the murder in a state of affect: allegedly, he could not endure the insults directed at him. According to him, he and Anastasia often had conflicts because she disliked that he communicated with his two daughters from a previous marriage. These words were later confirmed by studying Anastasia’s diaries and notes.

Eshchenko dreamed of a normal family where a man would have one wife and their own children.

She was convinced that the historian regularly cheated on her, including with his ex-wife. According to the victim’s lawyer, Alexandra Baksheeva, this provoked sharp remarks from Eshchenko toward Sokolov and his children.

According to Sokolov’s version presented in court, on the fateful day, he and Anastasia had a quarrel. She behaved irrationally, shouted, left, then returned, and later grabbed a knife. Sokolov allegedly wanted to calm her down by frightening her with the sound of gunshots. But he could not explain why all the shots hit Anastasia’s head.

Sokolov said he did not remember his actions after the murder, including the dismemberment. He said he came to only when he was waist-deep in water from the terrible cold. But the forensic psychiatric examination declared the accused sane. According to its results, Sokolov was not in a state of affect and was aware of his actions.

Realizing he could not drag the girl’s body out of the apartment and hide it alone, he decided to dismember it. According to research, Sokolov did this using an ordinary saw with a wooden handle. Then he went to Leroy Merlin, where he bought large bags to put the body parts in.

He also stopped by the IKEA furniture center, where he bought a new mattress to replace the old one stained with blood. The court found that the historian committed the murder under prolonged psychological trauma but remained sane.

The court learned that the lovers’ relationship deteriorated significantly after a joint vacation in 2019. Of course, Sokolov’s problems with historian Ponasenkov affected his state, but the main factor was his personality traits — he was prone to domination and always got irritated if someone did not obey him. This was noted repeatedly by people who knew Oleg Sokolov well.

Anastasia began to feel burdened by the relationship. On the fateful day, she was invited to a friend’s birthday party at a café. Eshchenko wanted to go, but this ended in a quarrel with Sokolov over his jealousy.

The raised-voice dialogue quickly turned into mutual insults: Anastasia again reminded him that she disliked his communication with his children and that he was cheating on her. She wished to leave, but he would not let her, and as a result, he took up the weapon.

It was not excluded that the girl also grabbed a knife, but she likely did so out of fear. This did not help — Oleg Sokolov managed to pull the trigger first.

The court noted that the murder was spontaneous and unplanned. A neighbor of Sokolov testified that she regularly heard music from the scholar’s apartment and, in her words, the lovers often argued.

On the day of the tragedy, the neighbor heard Anastasia say she wanted to leave. Sokolov sternly called out: “You’re not going anywhere.” Then there were “sounds of blows against the wall and a woman’s scream.”

Throughout most of the court session, Anastasia Eshchenko’s mother tried to meet Oleg Sokolov’s gaze, but he tried to look only at the judge and lawyers. During the several-hour verdict reading, journalists asked Oleg Sokolov to make a statement.

They reminded him that at one court session, he was outraged that the press had made him out to be a villain who killed an innocent girl. However, Sokolov turned away and did not utter a word. He tried to behave so that it was uncomfortable for journalists to film him.

Immediately after the verdict was announced, Sokolov stood motionless for some time, as if trying to imagine all the years he would have to spend in prison. By the time his sentence ends, he will be 76 years old.

Lawyer Alexandra Baksheeva stated that the victim’s family is satisfied with the verdict and will not appeal the 12.5-year sentence for Sokolov. The lawyer noted that the court objectively examined the case.

The appellate court denied the request to reduce the sentence.

The 12.5-year sentenced associate professor from St. Petersburg, Oleg Sokolov, is currently serving his sentence in Correctional Colony No. 6 in Obukhovo. He lives there, one might say, comfortably and apparently feels no remorse for the crime committed. The inmate manages the library and also runs a history club, telling prisoners about the history of Russia and his beloved France.

Sources:

https://lenta.ru/articles/2020/12/26/sokolov/

https://ria.ru/20201225/sokolov-1590685817.html