Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko (Russian: Анатолий Емельянович Сливко; December 28, 1938 – September 16, 1989) was a Soviet serial killer, convicted of killing seven teenage boys in and around Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, between 1964 and 1985.^[2]

Over a two decade-long period, Slivko molested young boys at his youth club after tricking them into unconsciousness, killing some of them in an attempt to recreate the violent death of a teenage boy he had witnessed in 1961, which had sexually aroused him.^[3]

Slivko was executed by shooting on 16 September 1989.^[4]

Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko was born on 28 December 1938 in Izerbash, Dagestan ASSR, Soviet Union. He lived in Stavropol and was a married father of two children, although he had known himself to be homosexual since puberty.^[5]

In 1961, Slivko witnessed a traffic accident in which a drunken motorcyclist had swerved into a group of pedestrians, fatally injuring a boy in his early teens who was wearing a Young Pioneers uniform.^[6] For reasons Slivko would later insist he never could explain, this scene had sexually excited him. He later recalled the accident vividly: "The boy had experienced convulsions in his death throes as the smell of gasoline and fire permeated the air."^[7]

Beginning in 1963, Slivko exploited his position at a children's club he ran to relive the fantasies of this accident.^[8] Once or twice a year, he would form a close friendship with a boy who was usually aged between 12 and 15 and never older than 17.^[1] The boy would be short for his age and would be wearing a Young Pioneers uniform - just like the boy Slivko had seen die in the traffic accident. Slivko would gain the boy's confidence and tell him of an experiment he knew which involved a controlled hanging to stretch the spine, and that he would reenact the scene of a partisan executed by Nazi soldiers for his children's club in order to film this scene,^[10] after which, the boy was assured, Slivko would revive him from his state of unconsciousness.^[11]

Prior to each boy undertaking this "experiment", Slivko would purchase a new uniform for the victim to wear and shine his shoes. In addition, to prevent any vomiting, the victim was required not to eat for several hours before the experiment.^[12] Once the boy was unconscious, Slivko would strip him naked, caress and fondle him, take films in which he would arrange the body in suggestive positions, and repeatedly masturbate.^[13]

Over the course of 22 years, Slivko persuaded 43 boys to take part in this contrived experiment. In 36 cases, following his established ritual of photography, filming, and repeated masturbation, Slivko revived these boys. Cautioned by Slivko into silence, these individuals resumed their lives unaware of what had happened to them whilst they had been unconscious.^[14] However, in seven cases, Slivko's behavior became violent: once these victims were unconscious, he dismembered their bodies, poured gasoline on their limbs and torso, and set the remains on fire to remind himself of the traffic accident which had sparked his arousal. Slivko typically retained the victim's shoes as a memento, as well as the photographs and films which he developed in a home laboratory.^[15] The pictures and films served as stimuli for Slivko's masturbatory fantasies for months or years until he needed fresher stimuli and killed again.^[16]

On June 2, 1964, Slivko killed his first victim, a 15-year-old runaway boy named Nikolai Dobryshev.^[17] Slivko claimed this particular victim was killed unintentionally, as he had been unable to revive Dobryshev once he was unconscious. He dismembered the boy's body and buried him, also destroying the film and photographs he had taken of this particular victim. In May 1965, Slivko killed his second victim, Aleksei Kovalenko. Slivko began operating a tourist club for boys named Chergid in 1966, after his first club had been destroyed in a fire.

Eight years later, on November 14, 1973, a 15-year-old boy named Aleksander Nesmeyanov disappeared in Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Krai. Two years later, on May 11, 1975, an 11-year-old boy named Andrei Pogasyan disappeared. Pogasyan's mother told the police that a man had shot a film in a nearby forest and that her son was going to participate. However, the police did nothing to prevent this because they knew Slivko, who had won awards for other, more innocuous films. In 1980, a 13-year-old boy named Sergei Fatsiyev, who along with Nesmeyanov and Pogasyan was a member of Chergid, disappeared. The next victim was a fifteen-year-old named Vyacheslav Khovistik, who was killed in 1982. On July 23, 1985, Slivko killed his final victim, a 13-year-old boy named Sergei Pavlov, who disappeared after telling a neighbor he was going to meet the leader of Chergid.

In November 1985, prosecutor Tamara Languyeva investigated Pavlov's disappearance and took an interest in Chergid's activities. However, she had no evidence of anything illegal in the way the club was run. Languyeva questioned many boys who had belonged to the club, who said they had suffered "temporary amnesia" and that Slivko had performed many experiments with them.^[18] Following a long inquiry, Slivko was arrested at his Stavropol home in December 1985. He would later be formally accused of seven murders, seven counts of sexual abuse, and seven counts of necrophilia. In early 1986, he led investigators to the bodies of six of his victims, although he was unable to locate the body of his first victim, Nikolai Dobryshev. In June 1986, he was sentenced to death and placed on death row in Novocherkassk prison.

In 1989, Slivko was asked by the police to help arrest a then-unidentified serial killer of Rostov Oblast who had killed a minimum of 29 victims by the time he was approached.^[19] Although Slivko did provide some insight into how offenders such as himself were able to function, much of the actual advice he provided to police would prove to be incorrect.^[20] The then-unidentified serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, was arrested in 1990 and would be convicted of killing 52 women and children.^[21]

On September 16, 1989, just hours after he was interviewed by the police, Slivko was executed by shooting.^[22]