One of Russia's most notorious killers died in Minsk. He lived under a false name and became a fantasy writer
Semyon Yermalinsky — a member of the Yekaterinburg gang that killed at least 16 people — was sought by Interpol worldwide. But the killer lived in Minsk under a false name, hosted streams, and wrote fantasy.
Semyon Yermalinsky. Photo: VK page
In the early 2010s, a brutal criminal gang operated in Yekaterinburg, Russia, attacking random people in the middle of the night. Victims were robbed and then killed. Knives, pistols, and even hammers were used for the killings. The gang killed at least 16 people, Komsomolskaya Pravda reports.
When the police managed to apprehend some of the members, it turned out that they were far from marginalized individuals. The gang leader, Vasily Fedorovich, was a lawyer. His father worked as a deputy prosecutor of the Railway District of Yekaterinburg, his mother was a professor at the Ural Conservatory, and his grandfather was the principal conductor of the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.
Another member of the group, Daniil Potashnikov, was a businessman and the son of a top manager of a well-known state company.
The subject of the investigation, Semyon Yermalinsky, studied aircraft instrumentation engineering in St. Petersburg and also traded combat knives. His father, the renowned chess player Alexey Yermalinsky, emigrated to the USA when his son was only two years old. There, he became a national champion and a medalist at the Chess Olympiad. At his peak, he was ranked 21st in the world.
Among the gang members were also a police officer, an accountant, and the son of a high-ranking employee of the Sverdlovsk Oblast administration.
As the investigation's authors note, the gang members maintained blogs and described scenes of violence online, presenting them as literary fantasy. Investigators later concluded that many of these texts were, in fact, retellings of actual crimes.
According to the investigation, Yermalinsky published not only descriptions of murders but also photographs of torture victims. In one text, he meticulously described how several people inflicted fatal knife wounds on a person in a matter of seconds and then disappeared in a car with fake license plates.
From Killer to Famous Writer
After mass arrests began in 2012, Yermalinsky managed to escape. He was placed on the international wanted list. Wanted posters were displayed in all Russian police departments: a man born in 1987, athletic build, with tattoos, skilled in knife combat tactics and proficient in firearms. May be armed. The investigation considered him particularly dangerous.
Wanted poster for Yermalinsky. Photo: interpol.int
According to Alexander Mazayev, head of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Criminal Investigation Department, after the arrest of the gang leader, Yermalinsky realized that they would soon come for him too. According to Interpol information received by investigators, the man allegedly lived in Algeria for a year, and later his trail disappeared.
In 2017, a reward of about $17,000 was offered for information on Yermalinsky's whereabouts. At that time, journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda tried to find out where he was hiding on their own.
They interviewed Yermalinsky's friends and relatives in St. Petersburg, spoke via video call with his grandmother in the American city of Sioux Falls, and even visited a life-sentence colony in Mordovia where one of the gang members, Roman Kiriyakov, was serving his sentence. There was also information that Yermalinsky had allegedly fled to Ukraine to fight against Russia. However, he should actually have been sought in Belarus.
As it later turned out, when the arrests began, Yermalinsky collected advance payments from his regular customers for what was allegedly a new batch of unique combat knives, received tens of thousands of dollars, and moved to Belarus.
In Minsk, he rented a one-room apartment on the outskirts of the city and lived with false documents under the name Andrey Miller. Yermalinsky rarely appeared in public and did not publish his photos. Online, he claimed to live in one of the Baltic countries, was interested in medieval history, and was involved in computer game development.
Gradually, the killer became an active member of the literary community of science fiction and dark fantasy enthusiasts. He collaborated particularly closely with the online magazine Darker, well-known in the genre.
The only photo of Yermalinsky after changing his name. Photo: Andrey Miller's VK page
According to the publication, Andrey Miller's literary career began in 2016. He was published in various anthologies and online projects, participated in the release of a fantasy almanac, and organized literary contests.
Over several years, Yermalinsky, under the pseudonym Miller, was published in 39 collections and magazines. Several anthologies with his participation were nominated for the 'Masters of Horror' award.
In 2020, he announced his desire to transition from short prose to novels. But the major projects remained unfinished.
The authors of Darker noted that his works showed the influence of Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ernest Hemingway.
An Unexpected End
It is unknown how far Miller-Yermalinsky's literary career could have gone if not for COVID-19, which he contracted after the pandemic had already subsided. The killer was afraid to go to the hospital, fearing exposure. For several weeks, the man tried to treat himself at home, but his condition worsened.
His readers were the first to raise the alarm: the writer had not been online for a long time. Then the landlady of the apartment became worried — the tenant stopped paying rent and did not answer calls. When the woman entered the apartment, she found the body and called the police.
Yermalinsky's mother, Valentina, later confirmed to journalists that the cause of death was complications from COVID-19. According to her, heart failure was officially recorded, but the pathologist found almost complete lung damage.
She also stated that during a search of the Minsk apartment, police officers found not only fake documents in the name of Andrey Miller but also Semyon Yermalinsky's real Russian passport. After this, Russian law enforcement conducted a DNA examination, which confirmed his identity.
His mother claimed that all these years she had not maintained contact with her son and had not even wished him a happy birthday, as the family was constantly monitored by operatives.
According to her, after the writer's death, his admirers collected money for a monument, which was erected in a cemetery in St. Petersburg.
As the authors note, there is no precise information about what Yermalinsky did in Belarus apart from literary work. They sent an inquiry to Belarusian law enforcement agencies requesting information on how thoroughly his activities in Minsk were investigated.
After Yermalinsky's death, the Investigative Committee of Russia terminated his criminal prosecution "due to non-rehabilitative circumstances in connection with his death."
Comments