He was assassinated three times. Having recovered from severe injuries, 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 2009-16-11 at the hands of neo-Nazis turned his name into a legend. Today it symbolizes those who cleansed Russian punk culture from the brown plague.
Strokes to the portrait
He was born in an ordinary family on February 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 Kostol, 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 at the Overpass, where the first domestic bands performed: Naiv, Distemper, Purgen.
In the 90s, the club in the Proletarsky district had a bad reputation. Shaved-headed thugs in black Lonsdale T-shirts and sweatshirts set the rules at punk parties,jumping onto the stage shouting "Sieg heil". Neo-Nazis sought to penetrate the youth subculture, and punks seemed to them an easy target.
From a he althy teenager with a funny green Mohawk, striving to stand out from the crowd, Ivan Khutorskoy turned into an informal leader of the he althy part of the youth, who decided to repulse the fascist thugs. Taking on the mission of protecting musicians and bringing order to the scene, he led the most militant part of the punk rock fans, responding with violence with violence.
First assassination attempt
The fact that his path is associated with a risk to life, it became clear at the beginning of the 2000s, when the clashes between anti-fascists and the ultra-right began to lead to real human casu alties. One of the first was Timur Kacharava, a student from St. Petersburg, who was torn to pieces by a crowd of juvenile neo-Nazis in 2005. In the same year, musicians from the bands "TushkA" and "Sluice", returning from the festival in Dubna, were brutally beaten. The first attempt was made on the Bonebreaker.
At that time, anti-fascist groups were extremely scattered, and Ivan Khutorskoy responded to an invitation from "newcomers" to get acquainted, sent via the Internet. It was an ambush. He and three friends were surrounded by a crowd of thirty people. The guys managed to escape, and the powerful Ivan was severely beaten, having slashed his head with a dangerous razor. To humiliate the leader of the radical left, the video was posted on the Internet with the slogan “Kill the anti-fascist.”
Second assassination attempt and father's death
For his and rock musicians, Ivan became the personificationsecurity, and for neo-Nazis expelled from concerts, enemy number one. They had to "snarl" on the streets and in the doorways, meeting scattered spectators of punk concerts. They began to purposefully follow Kostolom, and six months later they attacked him in the entrance of his own house. A baseball bat smashed the face of a young guy, crushing the bones of his nose. More than ten blows were inflicted with a sharpened screwdriver, disfiguring outwardly and injuring the neck.
Ivan Khutorskoy barely recovered from his injuries. By an effort of will, he recovered, but until the last days he was slightly cranky when walking. The father fell ill from the experience, and soon died of cancer. The mother and sister remained in the care of the young guy. 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, Kostol became possessed. He broke up with the girl, realizing that he had chosen a different path. Friends say that in recent years he was especially intolerant of the Nazis, pursuing anyone who got in his way. Began to wear brass knuckles. In a winter fight with the far right, he was seriously stabbed. A wound in the stomach could have been fatal, but the doctors pulled him out of the world.
In October 2008, his friend Fyodor Filatov (Fedya) died, who was stabbed to death near his house. Today it is known that this is the first of the murders in the chain of crimes created by Tikhonov and Goryachev of the ultra-right group BORN. But then it seemed to everyone that this group was just an attempt to create an image for the neo-Nazi movement on the Internet.
Ivan Khutorskoy, whose photo during the tournament in memory of Filatov can be seen above, gathered more than a hundred guys from all over the country to increase the combat capability of the organization. Mixed martial arts competitions were supposed to become a tradition, but a month later another attempt was made on their organizer.
Murder
At 9 pm on November 16, 2009, a young man went to the mailbox to take out the mail. A shot rang out from behind. They shot in the head, and the inhabitants of the house on Khabarovskaya Street heard only a pop, not realizing what a tragedy had played out in their entrance. The ambulance, which arrived at the call of a neighbor who discovered the body of a young man, had only to state death. The news that Ivan Khutorskoy had been killed instantly spread through the media, and representatives of the antifa movement urgently turned to the Moscow mayor's office with a request to organize a rally. The most authoritative informal leader of the RASH subculture, a community of red and anarchist skinheads, has died.
Having been refused, more than a hundred young people organized a flower laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. For them, the life of a twenty-six-year-old guy is an example of serving the ideals of justice and fighting for their convictions.
Funeral
The family didn't have enough money to bury Ivan's body. A place in the cemetery was prepared for an elderly grandmother, so the young man was cremated. In order to avoid bloody skirmishes, the ceremony was accompanied by OMON fighters. Several hundredfriends and supporters saw off their comrade on his last journey. Ivan Khutorskoy, whose grave is located at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery, was dressed in the style of a skinhead. During his lifetime, he always wore suspenders, cuffed pants, and red Dr. Martens. The Martens were placed next to the body, considering this the fundamental moment of the mourning ceremony.
When the song “Solidarity” by the Stage Bottles group sounded, the stern guys could not hold back their tears. They vowed to find the killers and tell people about Ivan Khutorsky, because for the townsfolk and the police, youth clashes are common hooliganism. And for them - the struggle for beliefs. Once in Germany, at the dawn of fascism, the combat brigades of the German Communist Party also fought the Nazis with radical methods. Red skinheads in Russia consider themselves the successors of their cause.
Afterword
In April 2015, a trial took place over activists of the BORN extremist community, who committed a number of murders for ideological reasons. On the dock were Isaev and Baklagin, carrying out surveillance of Ivan. The performer himself, by the name of Korshunov, allegedly blew himself up on a bunch of grenades in Ukraine. Ivan Khutorskoy was not the only victim of criminals. They were charged with six episodes. Among those killed are not only anti-fascists, but also judge Chuvashov, sportsman Muslim Abdullayev. 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 theirfriend and his beliefs. Every year, in many cities, young people organize actions 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.
