According to statistics from different years, about 80-100 thousand people go missing in Russia every year. A quarter of them are children. This includes minors of all ages: from early infancy to 17 years old inclusive.
On average, 50 children disappear a day without a trace. More often, the most defenseless - children under 10-12 years old - disappear and become victims of various crimes.
As it was in the Soviet Union
Nostalgic fans of the Soviet system unanimously assure that there used to be
safer - there was no such rampant crime as now. This is a misconception. The pioneers really felt more at ease in the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. They stayed up late in the yards, went on impromptu hikes, climbed construction sites in search of scrap metal and showed independence in all possible ways.
Their parents firmly believed that nothing would happen to the child in the "best country in the world", because the Communist Party was protecting a happy childhood. This opinion was formed under the influence of carefully implanted ideology and always hidden terrible statistics of crimes. The Soviet Union simply could not admit its own imperfection in the face of the world community.
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Was there no kidnapping in the USSR?
It is now almost impossible to find reliable statistics on crimes against minors in the Soviet Union. They are buried under the heading "secret" in the archives of law enforcement agencies. But at least part of the real picture can be restored from the history of Soviet maniacs who committed crimes against children.
One of the most perverted Soviet serial killers, Anatoly Biryukov, hunted for his victims - babies - in 1977. He abducted children from wheelchairs, committed violent acts against them, and then killed them if the child did not die as a result of rape. This maniac was reported personally to Brezhnev. The operation to capture Biryukov was one of the most serious in the history of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.
In the early 80s, the cannibal and rapist from Kazan Aleksey Sukletin was preparing his terrible meals. On account of his seven victims, among whom were 11-year-old girls.
The story of the pedophile and murderer Sergei Golovkin, known by the nickname Fisher, is widely known. And there are many such examples. There were always enough people with mental shifts in the Soviet Union as well, but then the general public did not know about them.
New phenomenon
For the first time about kidnapping - kidnapping of children for the purpose of extorting money from their parents - in the Soviet Union it became known in 1984. The first victim of a new generation of criminals was Ruben Gasparyan, a minor resident of the small village of Kishechny (Dzerzhinsky District). The kidnappers then demanded 150 thousand rubles for the boy, which was an unheard-of amount at that time.
This first case of kidnapping made a lot of noise and presented Soviet citizens with a new problem. Two years later, another schoolboy was kidnapped in Alma-Ata. The ransom for the child's life this time amounted to 15 thousand. In both cases, the kidnappers were caught and the children were rescued, but even this did not stop the new generation of criminals greedy for profit.
Now in Russia, 200-300 children are abducted annually for ransom. In addition to kidnapping in its purest form against minors, there are still continuing sexual crimes, with the aim of removing organs, etc. According to statistics, about 1.5 thousand children who have disappeared per year are never found.