Natalya Balandina hides from strangers in the Kuban village

Photo: Liana YANKINA

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From the very beginning, the story of Natalya Balandina, whose daughter was found murdered in Tunisia, was full of mysteries. A child strangled in a hotel room with a tuft of mother's hair clamped in her fist, a mother who for some reason sunbathed alone on the beach, the arrest of a woman and a month in a local prison, then removed - completely! - accusations from her, unexpected release.

Now the killer is still not found, a criminal case has been opened on the fact of the death of a child. Natalya herself came to the Kuban, where 8-year-old Nastya was buried in the small village of Zassovskaya. The return coincided with the commemoration - 40 days have passed since the death of the girl.

At home, a woman in the circle of relatives. But before she had time to return to Russia, another misfortune befell her. At the Moscow airport, Natalia fell badly and broke her arm. Now her father, eldest daughter and son, relatives protect her in every possible way, do not let journalists near her (“Mom has stress, she cries all the time and cannot speak”). It took a long time for Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondents to get a telephone conversation with Balandina.

All charges were dropped from me. The killer will be punished one way or another, but no one will return the child to me, - she said in a calm voice and agreed to a meeting.

However, two hours later, Balandina's father called us and canceled the meeting, citing his daughter's blood pressure rising sharply. But it was too late, the car was already heading for the village of Zassovskaya, Labinsk district of Kuban ...

I don't even know what exactly I expected to see in Balandina's house. A heartbroken woman, an ambulance under the windows, women in black headscarves ... Anything, well, they shouldn’t sing songs with a guitar. It turned out yes.

... In the yard, seven or eight people were sitting at the laid table. Everything is like in ordinary family gatherings: a glass of vodka on the table and "the bend of a thin guitar ...". Seeing us, fairly tipsy relatives poured out into the street in a crowd. Balandina herself was about to leave, but she was immediately sent to the house, having locked the door.

Mom will not talk to you, - Anna, the eldest daughter of Balandina, told me.

Is there really something to hide?

She has nothing to hide, and we absolutely do not care what others think of her. Those who believe - and so believe, and the rest will not prove anything. The investigation will sort it out, - with these words Anna closed the gate.

But how is it? If you have nothing to hide, always just tell the truth. Moreover, there are thousands of people who sympathized, who collected money for her for a lawyer, who, by the way, was never needed. Do they not have the right to hear at least some adequate explanation of what happened?

Don't you understand, she won't talk to anyone, because she drinks, - the father of the murdered Nastenka, Sergei Balandin, grins. He is also from Zassovskaya, although he has been living in St. Petersburg for the last years, and brought his daughter's coffin here and decided to stay until the forties. - She does not communicate with anyone, neither with friends, nor with neighbors, she did not even bother to explain anything to me. We were sitting at the same table at the wake, I took her by the hand: “Do you want to tell me anything?”. Am I not entitled to the truth? I am the father of the child she killed. Yes, you heard right. I am sure that it was she who killed Nastenka. Open your eyes, stop protecting her! Everything points to her. When I read that her friends were talking about her (St. Petersburg acquaintances told KP correspondents that Balandina spoke more than once about suicide), I decided not to be silent. She told me that she did not see the meaning of life. Moreover, it was a month before the trip to Tunisia. Her mother died. I met Natasha at the airport, then she stunned me. He tried to calm her down, saying that we still had to raise Nastenka. And she is so calm: “She also has no need, I will take her with me!”. And before that, she often said, they say, I will throw myself out of the window with my daughter. It turns out that she killed her daughter, but did not raise a hand against herself?

Or maybe there was a reason to settle scores with life? Colleagues say - Balandina is in debt as if in silks, banks are calling, demanding payments. Yes, and Sergey himself was cut off by the creditors of his ex-wife, the conclusion suggests itself. Yes, and her plans are strange: she is going to rent another apartment in St. Petersburg and find a new job. As if there was no old one, where her colleagues are waiting for her, on whom she “hung” her debts.

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The village, located on the border of the Labinsk and Mostovsky districts, is agitated to the limit. By the way, here is not such a backwater. By Kuban standards, the village is rather big: the population is about 2.5 thousand. That is, this is not the case when in the village there is one street, three yards and all relatives to each other. But after the recent events, everyone here knows Natalya Balandina. Locals endlessly retell this story, complaining that there is little information about what happened, and therefore they add details from themselves - The case is closed due to the lack of corpus delicti, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman's father Valentin Artemyev. - She flew in from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg. A week ago, he flew to Tunisia, he was going to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison of the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want to communicate with anyone except relatives and cannot, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation crumbled due to the lack of any evidence (read more)

Father of a girl killed in Tunisia: “My wife killed my daughter with her show-offs!”

Suspect in murder of daughter in Tunisia released from prison

Case closed for lack of corpus delicti, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman's father, Valentin Artemyev. - She flew in from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg. A week ago, he flew to Tunisia, he was going to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison of the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want to communicate with anyone except relatives and cannot, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation crumbled due to the lack of any evidence. Tunisian hotel animator: "Nastya was terribly afraid of her mother" The guests say that the Russian tourist leaned heavily on alcohol and wore glasses all the time, hiding her swollen eyes. Obviously, Nastya was afraid of her mother. According to Sirin, the girl hid behind her when she saw Natalia. Believe it or not? Indirectly, all this confirms the case, which Balandina's St. Petersburg colleagues have already told us about. Like, shortly before the tragedy, the girl began to drown in the hotel pool, and Natalia did not even move. Saved by the animator, and Balandina scolded him for it (read more)

Case closed for lack of corpus delicti, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman's father, Valentin Artemiev. - She flew in from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg.

A week ago, he flew to Tunisia, he was going to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison of the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want to communicate with anyone except relatives and cannot, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation crumbled due to the lack of any evidence.

Tunisian hotel animator: "Nastya was terribly afraid of her mother"

The guests say that the Russian tourist leaned heavily on alcohol and wore glasses all the time, hiding her swollen eyes. Obviously, Nastya was afraid of her mother. According to Sirin, the girl hid behind her when she saw Natalia.

Believe it or not? Indirectly, all this confirms the case, which Balandina's St. Petersburg colleagues have already told us about. Like, shortly before the tragedy, the girl began to drown in the hotel pool, and Natalia did not even move. Saved by the animator, and Balandina scolded him for it

How did 6-year-old Nastya die?

The St. Petersburg Investigative Committee is investigating the circumstances of the death of an 8-year-old girl, Nastya, found in the bathtub of a Tunisian hotel. Her own mother, 43-year-old Petersburger Natalya Balandina, is suspected of killing a child. During interrogation - first in Tunisia, then in Russia - a woman says one thing: "I'm not to blame." A month and a half after the murder of the girl in this confusing story, there is still no clarity. About what is happening with Natalia Balandina, her lawyer Ketevan Baramia told MK in St. Petersburg.

Not a single piece of evidence

The tragedy occurred on May 13 this year in a three-star hotel in the Tunisian city of Mahdia. The maid found the body of an 8-year-old girl in the room - she was lying in the bath. As the examination will later show, the child was strangled. Nastya's mother will be found a little later on the beach. But she was unable to explain to the police what happened to her daughter. The police conducted their own investigation and, finding no evidence of Natalia's guilt, let her go home. The woman went straight to Krasnodar region to relatives (a little earlier she sent the coffin with the girl's body there), from where Balandina had already been brought to St. Petersburg - for interrogation. The St. Petersburg IC opened a criminal case under the article "murder".

The investigation considered that Natalya should be taken into custody (according to unofficial information, one of the reasons allegedly could be the inappropriate behavior of a suspect capable of suicide). Oktyabrsky district court found no grounds for arrest. There is not a single piece of evidence against Natalia Balandina proving her involvement in the murder of her daughter. But the pendulum of public opinion has already swung in the accusatory side.

Although in the first days after the news of the murder of Nastya, the reaction of people who knew Natalya was the same - “we don’t believe it!”. Colleagues at the OKA shopping center in Kolpino, where Balandina worked as a children's hairdresser, unanimously argued that she could not commit such an atrocity. “Kind, sympathetic, loving mother,” they said. Veniamin Dostoevsky, who worked with Balandina in the same mall, created a group on VKontakte with a call to help, as he believed, an innocent mother who had lost her child. He also organized a fundraiser for a lawyer in Tunisia (it was believed that Natalia was facing the death penalty), the money was transferred to the account of Balandina's eldest daughter, Anna Mikhalchevskaya. As Benjamin wrote on the group's page, a lawyer in Tunisia asked for an advance - 3.5 thousand dollars. People began to transfer money - 300, 500 rubles each. And then everything changed dramatically. Donors suddenly began to demand the return of their money, dissatisfied with how Balandina's relatives could dispose of them (for example, Natalya's father was going to fly to Tunisia on them).

Natalya, having returned to Russia, did not begin to explain herself to her former colleagues, friends and acquaintances, who collected money for her, were looking for a lawyer and a translator. Gradually, facts began to leak out that testified not in favor of Natalya - they began to say that she allegedly drank and could yell at her daughter in irritation, that she threatened to commit suicide, that she had accumulated debts in the bank, that she was experiencing severe depression after the death of her mother ...

"Positive Woman"

Natalya told the investigator that she was innocent of the murder of her daughter, - lawyer Ketevan Baramia, who was present at the first interrogation of her client, told MK in St. Petersburg. - Her version is as follows: on the day of departure, she went with Nastya to the beach, her daughter froze and asked to go to her room to take a warm bath. Natalya soon came for her and saw her already dead daughter. She tried to get the body out of the tub, but she couldn't. Then she decided to drown herself. She went to the seashore and wandered there for some time in search of a secluded place until she was picked up by a police patrol.

Why didn't she call for help right away?

She does not explain, apparently, she was in a state of deep stress.

- Does she have her own assumptions about who killed her daughter and why?

Natalia says she doesn't know who could have done it. She suspects everyone - hotel staff, guests...

- Is it true that she is allegedly on the verge of suicide?

No. Natalia, of course, is under stress. Cries as soon as it comes to Nastya. But she is not going to lay hands on herself. Natalia generally makes a very positive impression when communicating. If it suddenly turns out that it was she who killed the child, then I don’t understand people at all ... After all, lawyers are good psychologists, we immediately understand whether a person is guilty or not.

- Natalia's ex-husband and acquaintances say that she abused alcohol.

Once - yes, it is possible. But the Tunisian police immediately after the incident made an examination (including a blood alcohol test) and, according to my information, did not find anything suspicious. In any case, we are waiting for the results of the examination.

- Where is Balandina now?

She lives with a friend.

Natalya Balandina was released on bail. Suspicions of the murder of her own child have not been removed from her. The Russian Embassy in Tunisia sent a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this country with a request to transfer all the materials available on the case to the Investigative Committee. So much now depends on what the Tunisian police say.

On May 13, 2014, a terrible event happened at one of the hot resorts in Tunisia. The body of eight-year-old Nastya was found in one of the rooms of the Tapsus Hotel. Further developments were so strange that the first suspect was the mother of the child - Natalia Balandina. Today we recall all the details of this high-profile case.

incident

On this hot June day, mother and daughter had to leave the resort and go home. But at the appointed hour, they were not among the tourists who were loading things onto the bus. I had to go to my room to be reminded of my departure. There, Nastya's lifeless body was found in a bathtub half-filled with water. The hotel employees called the police, and the search for Natalia Balandina began.

There is another version - the girl was discovered by a maid who needed to clean the room after the guests. Be that as it may, the search for the woman ended on the beach, where she calmly sunbathed. To the question of the police: "Do you know that your daughter is dead?" she vaguely replied, “Yes. No. Don't know". The woman was absolutely calm and did not show any anxiety.

Indications

Natalya was arrested, and she began to give confused testimony. At first, the story looked like they went to the beach with their daughter. The girl refused to swim in the cold sea and went to her room alone to take a hot bath. Her mother did not accompany her, and when she returned to the room, she saw that Nastya was lying under water with no signs of life. Unable to get the child out of the bath, Natalia went to drown herself in the sea. She looked for a secluded place for a long time, got tired and sat down on a deck chair, where she was detained.

Another version says that she left her daughter in the room and went to the beach to sunbathe before leaving. Natalya never returned to the hotel and only learned about her daughter's death from the police. This option sounds more convincing, because it is almost impossible to believe in the first one. How could a far from fragile woman of forty-three fail to pull an eight-year-old girl out of the bath?

Even if she realized that her daughter was dead, then it was necessary to call medical help and the police. She took a bag, documents and went to look for a place in order to commit suicide. However, Natalia herself insisted on the first option. At the same time, she did not forget to clarify that it was the hotel employees who were responsible for the death of her daughter. They seemed strange to her from the first day of rest.

Consequence

The woman spent a month in a pre-trial detention center in Tunisia. During this time, it was possible to interview witnesses and conduct all examinations. The evidence was not in favor of the mother - under the nails of the girl they found particles of Natalya's skin, and witnesses claimed that they had heard the child's screams from the room more than once. There were those who even saw that Nastya's mother was beating her in front of people.

The most interesting thing was told by pathologists - the girl did not drown and was not even drowned. Before placing the child in the bath, she was strangled. No water was found in the lungs, and there were clear fingerprints on the throat. No acts of a sexual nature were carried out with a living or dead girl either.

The reaction of the Russians

Society heatedly discussed the story the very next day. Numerous publications in the media and programs on television told about the tragic fate of Natalia Balandina. She worked in a beauty salon and adored all three of her children. She especially loved the younger Nastya: she sewed dresses for her and did her hair. Shortly before the incident, Natalya's mother died, and this was a heavy blow for her. Therefore, she went to rest and unwind in Tunisia.

People hurried to help the inconsolable mother. The whole world collected money for a lawyer and tried to achieve her return to her homeland. Soon the situation changed, and the mercy of society was replaced by anger. Embarrassing details surfaced. It turns out that the collected money was spent by Nastya's father on a ticket to Tunisia. Where he was in no hurry to pick up the body of his daughter, but went on an excursion. Natalya herself was not an angel either - her colleague paid off a huge loan for a woman, because she had the imprudence to become a guarantor. She provided all receipts for payment to the investigation.

People began to demand from the family that all the money be returned to them. Nobody wanted to help such citizens. At this time, Natasha's father spoke on federal channels calling for help and told horror stories about Tunisian prisons. Allegedly, his daughter is not even fed there and may be tortured so that she confesses to the murder. After all, if it turns out that the killer lived in a hotel, then the reputation of the resort will suffer greatly.

Sentence

Natalya Balandina was released to Russia at the end of June. The woman reported that the conditions in detention were normal. Investigators from St. Petersburg took up the case. They failed to achieve an arrest - an experienced lawyer managed to bring many arguments in favor of the client. Despite the fact that the investigation was sure that she killed her daughter, no one could prove it. Natalya Balandina escaped punishment, all charges were dropped from her. Criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was initiated and has not yet been closed. The mother of the deceased is no longer a defendant, the investigation is looking for other likely suspects. The woman herself left for Krasnodar and lives with relatives.

A year later, investigators still haven't charged Natalya Balandina [video]

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Natalya Balandina. Where is the truth?

Shame on you! Leave Natasha alone already, don’t disturb her, Valentin Artemyev, Balandina’s father, reprimands me. - She is doing well. Lives, works, nothing more to add.

- How is it good? I wonder. - She's under investigation.

Yes, everything is over there, everything is fine. You don't need to bring up this topic.

- I don't understand. Do you care who killed Nastya?

Well, let the investigation find out, but I won't talk about it anymore.

Now it's hard to believe, but a year ago, Balandina's father himself was looking for meetings with journalists. “Save my Natasha,” the grandfather almost knelt in front of the cameras. With Natasha, they performed together on a TV show, she knocked out a tear from herself and the viewer, he spoke for two.

Balandina returned from Tunisia with a broken arm, but she does not say exactly where she broke it. Later, her father considered this question incorrect.

How can a mother be suspected of killing her own child! - groaned the impressionable audience.

If you omit all emotions, then Natalya still has not explained how it happened that her eight-year-old daughter returned from a resort in Tunisia in a coffin.

Inconsolable mother

This story happened in May last year. 43-year-old Natalya Balandina went with her daughter Anastasia to Tunisia on vacation. On May 13, on the day of their flight back, Nastya was found dead in the bathroom of a room in the resort of Mahdia. The girl was in the water. Local experts found that the death was clearly violent - someone strangled the child. And he did it, most likely, an inexperienced person.

The police found Natalya only three hours later on the beach of another hotel. She was with a suitcase, documents, dressed and for some reason with a bottle of untouched vinegar. Obviously not himself. She answered questions about the death of a child confusedly. Local investigators arrested her.

When the news reached Russia, a scandal erupted. With shouts of “Ours are being beaten!” the Internet community came to the defense of the inconsolable mother. No one could believe that it was her, it was much easier to push it onto someone from the hotel staff or some foreigner.

Check, and suddenly the child was also raped before that. They can, - the “sofa” experts did not let up.

She is innocent

In the homeland for Natalia, an urgent collection of material assistance was organized. With a plea for help, her eldest daughter Anna turned to all those who were not indifferent. The girl posted a video message on the social network, thereby launching the start of donations.

At first everyone felt sorry for Balandin. People transferred 300-500 rubles each to the account of her daughter Anna Mikhalchevskaya. It was believed that the money would go to a lawyer in Tunisia. He allegedly already demanded an advance payment of 3.5 thousand dollars. As a result, they collected 600 thousand, which the St. Petersburg activist Veniamin Dostoevsky handed over to her family in the Kuban. And whether this money went to a lawyer or somewhere else, few people were interested, because the story was overgrown with more and more details.

The image of Balandina was drawn miserable: a middle-aged, lonely woman, given to the mercy of African savages.

She didn’t call Nastenka anything other than “my sweetheart,” Balandina’s colleagues said. Indeed, after all, Natalya took her daughter to dances, signed up for TV series auditions, dressed up like a doll. So it seemed that the soul does not have a soul in a child.

Balandin is a teacher by education. Originally from the village of Zassovskaya Krasnodar Territory. Previously, she worked at a school as a teacher of Russian language and literature. She rose to the head teacher. What-no, but the rural intelligentsia. She had a husband, a daughter and a son. And after 11 years of marriage, they divorced. Soon Natalya met a new man - Sergei Balandin, gave birth to Nastya from him, and then completely left school and they went to conquer St. Petersburg. True, they say that Balandin was "left" and there were good reasons for that. However, this is a completely different story.

In Kolpino, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, she opened her beauty salon in a shopping mall. It also had a children's hairdresser "Fairy Tale". But life did not work out with Balandin either. So Natalia was left alone with a little girl.

She did poorly on her own. There were health problems, went to the operation. The business also did not bring much profit. She borrowed 80 thousand from a friend with whom they worked together in the salon. Moreover, the woman took out a loan for her at frantic interest. Balandina paid him every other time. That will put at the beginning of the month five thousand, and by the end of 12 he will remove.

On top of that, Balandina's mother died in Zassovskaya. She was worried. Friends say that she threatened to put her hands on herself and take Nastya to the other world with her. And then suddenly flew to Tunisia.

Take her to yourself

Balandina spent a month under arrest. All the magic power of the Internet. Someone started a rumor that in Tunisia, an orphaned mother is facing the death penalty. There was a resonance in the foreign media with the filing that Tunisia "is shielding its killers and blames everything on the poor mother." And it worked. What in Russia is perceived only as unhealthy activity of social networks, in Tunisia was taken for public opinion.

Is she good and we are bad? So deal with her yourself, - the Tunisian police reasoned and released Balandina to her homeland. Although, according to police sources, they initially had a picture of the crime and Balandina was kept in prison for a reason.

However, on June 16, the authorities of the good Tunisian Republic dropped the charges against her. And on June 3, a criminal case was opened in St. Petersburg under the article “Murder of a minor”. It was easier for Tunisia to get rid of a high-profile case that had already tarnished the reputation of a sunny resort. Crimes are rarely committed there, and even those directed against children are completely nonsense.

They turned the tragedy into a show,” Tatyana Yakhia sighs sadly.

A woman with Russian roots, now lives in Tunisia, takes tourists to the Sahara. When she heard the news about a Russian girl strangled in a hotel, she rushed to the consulate. I was looking for a lawyer for Balandina. But over time, she just gave up.

I thought that mother could not do such a thing. That's why I raised our Russians here. They wanted to help with clothes and food. Almost got a lawyer. Everything collapsed at one moment when I talked with a woman who was there from the first to the last minute. And then, when I watched this story, I got the impression that they were making money on this. Her dad, after all, has a chain of restaurants in Sochi and a hotel, but for some reason he himself could not help his daughter.

Valentin Artemiev appeared in this whole story as if from nowhere. He did not live with Balandina, her stepfather raised her. But for some reason, he went to Tunisia to pick up the body of his granddaughter. Only the trip turned out strange. Arriving at the Borj Sedria resort hotel, the first thing grandfather ordered was an excursion. And then I missed even this bus. All due to the fact that he spent the whole night sitting in a place bar. He washed down grief, as he later explained to the guides.

"You can't understand me"

It is difficult to understand the logic of this family. For example, Natalya's ex-husband Sergei, when he flew to St. Petersburg, promised to take revenge on the former for Nastenka.

She ruined my daughter with her show-offs, - the father gritted his teeth. “I would kill her myself if she were here!”

And now it turns out that Sergei and Natalia live together. Balandina works with children either as a nanny or in an orphanage. The business lady no longer poses herself.

He broke her ribs, beat her so hard, but then he forgave her anyway, - says Balandina's former girlfriend Natalya. This is the one from which she borrowed 80 thousand. Nobody returned the money to her, the beauty salon in Kolpino closed.

The last time I talked to her about a year ago, - says Natalia. - She called me from a Kuban number. I did not understand what she wanted, it seems to me that she was not sober. I asked her: “Why did you leave? Like this, without telling anyone, she took the child and dumped it”? She told me: "Don't you dare judge me." That's our whole conversation.

You don’t understand my grief, - Balandina said the same thing on a talk show, where she sat in mourning and rubbed tears down her swollen face.

According to her, on May 13, she and her daughter were supposed to fly to Russia. Together they decided to take a last swim. The girl, having taken a dip, told her mother that the sea was too cold and that she would go to warm herself in the bathroom in the hotel room. Balandina let her daughter go, and she herself remained on the beach for another half an hour. When the mother returned to the room, she found her dead daughter in the bathroom. She tried to lift her, but she failed, then Balandina left the child in the bathroom, and she herself went back to the sea, as she claims, to drown herself. However, says Balandina, there were too many people on the sea. The police detained her when she allegedly was looking for a deserted place.

Deadlock

Nastya was buried in the Kuban. Balandina was detained there on June 26. Accompanied by investigators, she was taken to St. Petersburg. And they just interrogated.

They wanted to close in the isolation ward, but the bet did not play. Now she is under house arrest, which the court renews for her every ten days.

And without the documents of Tunisia, the case came to a standstill. Our detectives could not investigate in a foreign republic, they only went to the Kuban, conducted an examination of the murdered woman again, talked with Balandina's strange relatives. And that's it.

Due to international relations, the investigation will be seriously delayed, - Aleksey Panzhev, an investigator for especially important cases, warned back in August last year. - The procedure was coordinated with Moscow. A transfer was made within a week, then it was decided through the Prosecutor General's Office. Then it was coordinated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are waiting for Tunisia to give some answer on this matter. Either yes, and they will help us and provide materials, or they will allow us to come there. Only after they agree on this, it will be possible to engage.

We had this conversation with the investigator every month. A year later, things are still there.

Our people blame the sluggishness of Tunisia for everything, and they blame the Russian side for their franticness.

With us, she would have already been sitting, - says a source at the consulate. - The room in that hotel was kept closed for a month, they thought that your detectives would come. And now you won't find anything. After all, ours did not want to hang it on themselves, they were afraid of a scandal. The country is touristic. I even know that some testimonies were “fucked up”, if only she could be sent to Russia. But the fact that the girl was strangled and transferred to a bathroom with water is for sure, ours had it in the conclusion of the examination. And Nastya's dark hair was squeezed in her fist, and under the nails there was skin and bruises. The body was found twisted in a fetal position.

Can it be used now? Big question.

In fact, the investigators only have an expert opinion on the violent nature of the death. The rest is emotions, you can’t sew them to the point. Although, it seems like there was a motive. Almost before leaving, Natalya Balandina insured her daughter's life for thirty thousand euros. She had debts on loans in 7-8 banks. Therefore, the payment of insurance would not be superfluous for her.

And she did not stand on ceremony with a girl in Tunisia.

Nastya was afraid of her. She drank so that there was not only delirium tremens, the devil himself could be there. Every day from morning to evening in the trash, - says one of the guests of the hotel, Pavel Krista. - The child was alone all the time. She walked with us, mother only came and took away. Balandina always wore glasses. Before the flight, she went to the beach, could not stand at all. And the child swam in the sea alone.

For a week she was with some man, Nastya called him uncle. Then he disappeared somewhere and Balandina was left only with her daughter.

The hotel animator, a girl named Sirin, gave the same testimony.

The screams in their room were heard already on the first night after they arrived at the hotel, the girl testified. - There was a quarrel between a woman, a daughter and some man. The next day, two German women who lived in the next room complained about the noise. After that, they heard the cries and cries of the child every day.

Even the sellers of the souvenir shop talk about Balandina's unbridled drunkenness. She even pawned her earrings to the hotelier, she didn’t have enough for a drink.

Instead of an afterword

Don't talk to Balandina now. She went on the defensive. Her husband and eldest daughter followed her there.

With the permission of the investigator, she will go to the Kuban. A year has passed, now you can put a monument on Nastya's grave.

She is deeply depressed, - lawyer Mikhail Miretsky speaks for his client. - We are also waiting for documents so that she will be transferred from the accused to the victims. Ten-fifteen examinations were carried out here, and all of them were in our favor. These are both linguistic and psychiatric. She even passed a polygraph. All of them relate to Balandina's attitude to this incident. If there were grounds after these examinations to believe that she was involved, she would have already been accused, believe me.

It is quite possible that Balandina is not lying about what she does not remember. But this does not mean that there was nothing.

We got through to the consular department in Tunisia. Here they remember Balandina even without additional requests.

We have this issue under control, - says the head of the consular department Rashid Ataev. - We received requests from the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office. We sent this to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from there, respectively, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there was no reaction from there.

And it is unlikely that there will be an answer in the future. Obviously, after the informational attack by “these Russians”, they decided to simply bury the case along with little Nastenka. That was the calculation.

COMPETENT

Alexandra YAUROVA, clinical psychologist:

Murder is rather a state of physiological affect. But if this happens, the person usually does not hide any evidence, does not plan anything. These are impulsive actions. And then the person himself is horrified by what he has done. This is established by forensic psychiatrists.

Violations of consciousness are also against the background of severe alcoholic intoxication. And, it is possible that at the time of the crime, her consciousness was greatly clouded, then she really does not know anything. But, on the other hand, if she positively passes the polygraph, it is in her favor. It is difficult for an ordinary person to deceive this apparatus.

But if she doesn't really remember it, then she will think she didn't do it. This is the job of a psychiatrist. But all this does not go unnoticed. If this happened, then the person, most likely, had such amnesty moments before.

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Balandina, suspected in the murder of her daughter, was released in Tunisia. Shooting - Svyatoslav GOSTYUKHIN, Alexander GLUZ Svyatoslav GOSTYUKHIN