Apocalyptic cult emerges from underground

A Russian sect emerged from underground - literally.

[Fayzrahman Satarov's] followers were encouraged to read his manuscripts and most were banned from leaving their eight-storey underground bunker which had been dug in the basement of a building...

Seventy members of an Islamist sect who have been living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight for nearly a decade have been discovered living on the outskirts of the city of Kazan in Russia, local media reported. The sect members included 20 children, the youngest of whom had just turned 18 months. Many of them were born underground and had never seen daylight until the prosecutors discovered their dwelling on August 1 and sent them for health checks.

A 17-year-old girl turned out to be pregnant.

Soviet Gothic, from the first days of the Cold War's end.

(thanks to Steven Kaye)

Comments

[Hipbonegamer]

Hi Bryan:

A more recent AP report is titled "Visit to Russian underground sect reveals few signs of horrors trumpeted by authorities" and begins:

Authorities spoke of a creepy cult living in an "eight-level ant house" dug deep into the ground, where children were kept in unheated cells and starved of daylight. A visit to the compound suggests a more ordinary reality.

A brief visit inside the compound, which provided shocking headlines around the world when police raided it and seized the children, revealed none of the elaborate underground design described by prosecutors. Nor does a police video showing rooms inside. The father of a cult member, who originally disapproved of his daughter joining the group, said he was able to visit freely and has no complaints about how members live or treat their children.

The conflicting portrayals raise questions about whether authorities may have exaggerated the eccentricity of the sect, perhaps in an effort to show they are cracking down on radical Islamic groups...

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/world/Visit+Russian+underground+sect+reveals+signs+horrors+trumpeted/7086557/story.html#ixzz23j2pO2JF

The story is still plenty gothic -- but it looks as though it may be the gothic of a Russian police imagination rather than the gothic of an Islamic "cult"...