STORIES

"I'll hit him with this chair - bam!" Ten years after the tragedy at the Nova Europa shopping center

Author: Olga Prokopyeva. Photo: Maxim Malinovsky

A guy with a chainsaw in a shopping center? It seemed impossible to imagine in Minsk. But on October 8, 2016, Vladislav Kazakevich entered the Nova Europa shopping center with a chainsaw and an axe and attacked people. Later in court, it would be said that this was a unique case in the history of Belarus. Ten years later, we recall how the events of that day unfolded and how the shopping center's visitors and employees tried to stop the attacker.

What this article is about

What happened at the Nova Europa shopping center on October 8, 2016

What sentence was handed down to Vladislav Kazakevich

Kazakevich's father: "I'm not giving any comments"

"I wanted to knock him down." How the shopping center's visitors chased Kazakevich

"They started putting out everyone who was there." The detention through the eyes of witnesses

Slava was put in the same UAZ. How a participant in the detention was mistaken for the attacker

This article was previously published on Onliner. On the anniversary of the tragedy at the Nova Europa shopping center, we once again recall what happened on October 8, 2016.

What happened at the Nova Europa shopping center on October 8, 2016

Saturday evening. Around 17:20, Vladislav Kazakevich, wearing a balaclava, enters the shopping center. He approaches the center's employee, Anna Razentova, and tries to hit her with a chainsaw. "I had pepper spray, planned to attack the security guards and cut them. I noticed that there were no guards. And I headed towards those who first caught my eye," the attacker would later say.

This girl manages to escape. Elena Aleksandronets, who also worked there, is not so lucky. Near her, Kazakevich throws down the chainsaw and walks down the corridors with an axe, which he had brought in a guitar case. In the pizzeria, he attacks Oksana Vitver, and the woman is taken to the intensive care unit.

In the corridors, he tries to attack another shopping center employee, Irina Bayeshko. The woman tries to fight back, but the axe still grazes her. Irina will provide first aid to herself and only learn the details of what happened on the electric train on her way home from Minsk.

What sentence was handed down to Vladislav Kazakevich

The attacker was detained near the exit of the shopping center. Further investigation and trial followed. It was revealed that Kazakевич had been diagnosed with certain conditions at the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Mental Health, had attempted suicide, and had undergone treatment in Novinki. His parents were convinced that everything had been fine with Vladislav recently, and they had left him alone for just a week (although Kazakевич himself claimed that he had been living alone since the age of 15). It was discovered that he had brought a chainsaw to MITSO, where he studied, but the tool had not worked.

The sentence was 15 years, taking into account that Kazakевич was 17 at the time of the attack. His father considered the decision unfair and was convinced that his son needed treatment.

Kazakевич fully acknowledged his guilt but did not repent, and in his final statement, he said: "Unfortunately, I did not fulfill all my plans for mass murder, so I will return to finish what I started."

Some time later, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the young man had committed another attack, this time on a colony employee. A new investigation, a new trial, and a new sentence followed, resulting in a total of 22 years of imprisonment. Of these, 5 years will be spent in prison, and the remaining 17 years will be spent in a maximum-security colony. At the time of the incident, Kazakевич was being held in the Shklov colony. The Department of Corrections of the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not specify where he is currently serving his sentence, as this information is provided to relatives upon request.

Kazakевич's father said: "I will not give any comments."

In 2021, five years after the tragedy, we contacted Valentin, Vladislav Kazakевич's father. He refused to talk about what had happened and his subsequent life.

"I will not give any comments. I do not see the point in this now. This is our decision with Vlod."

Alexander Aleksanronets, whose wife Elena died in the attack, admitted that he was not ready to publicly disclose details of his life:

"As for the past, I do not want to communicate. We all communicate and are friends among ourselves."

Had anyone contacted him after the trial, where the amounts of compensation for the victims were mentioned?

"There is no compensation. No one has contacted anyone after the trial or paid anything. About 12 rubles came from the colony somehow, and that's all..."

Alexander was not ready to answer other questions:

"We all have lives. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not very good."

"How he wanted to knock him out." How shopping center visitors chased Kazakевич

The day after the tragedy, on October 9, a bit more verified information became available. At a briefing in the Investigative Committee, the main events were reconstructed and the detention was described: "The sellers and visitors put up resistance with whatever means they had: someone threw an urn at him, someone a chair. As he moved through the corridors, he was pursued by between 5 and 15 people, trying to stop him and actively resisting."

These events are recalled by those who participated in the detention.

"I had spoken with the guys the day before, there were four of us: Svyatoslav, Daniil, Alexey, and I. We agreed to meet up together and close out the shashlik season. The day before, I had sold my car," Mikhail says, recounting the events that occurred with him and his friends on that day.

Why did they end up in this particular shopping center on October 8, 2016?

"A coincidence of circumstances, nothing more. That's just how it happened. We ended up in that place at that time," says Alexey, one of the four friends.

"We brought a barbecue grill with us, met up nearby," Mikhail continues. "I had $300, we went to the exchange office on the ground floor to buy meat and so on. There was a young girl there, she took a long time to examine the bills. I made a joke, and she returned the money and closed the window."

With the unsuccessful joke and the money, they had to take the escalator to another exchange office - at the entrance to the shopping center. There, something strange was happening: people were throwing bags, other items, clothing, and running out of the building.

"We didn't understand what was going on, what was happening. People were discussing that a woman had been killed with a chainsaw. We didn't see it ourselves and didn't believe it."

At that time, it turned out that the second exchange office had also quickly closed.

"We were behind the doors of the shopping center at that moment. I don't remember all the details, but it seems that Alexey came up and said something like 'Let's go, let's figure it out.' I told him, 'Lesh, why do you need to get involved? Do you want to get in trouble?' But he just said, 'Come on, come on...' I became curious. We entered the shopping center, and it was empty. There was no one there, no security guards, no people."

The only thing was that in the jewelry store on the corner, two girls were working. I thought to myself: "Damn, where is this person? There's no one around, what's going on?" Two nice-looking girls were standing there, pale, and I remembered them.

Here, the security guards usually walk around, but it was as if everyone had vanished, there was no one. And I see a guy coming out. I thought he was wearing a helmet and some kind of vest, and in his hands, he had something like an axe with a long handle.

I didn't understand if he was the attacker or not. He approached and somewhat uncertainly started hitting the jewelry store, but he didn't break anything. The girls didn't understand what was happening at all, and he didn't go inside. I started to realize that something serious was happening, and I went to film it.

I was full of adrenaline, and I understood the seriousness of what was happening. I was just walking, and on autopilot, I grabbed this chair and started chasing him. A family was walking by, and he didn't approach them, he just kept walking like a normal person strolling through the shopping center, if it weren't for the axe with a long handle.

As he approached the staircase, Kazakovich tried to stop him.

When he was approaching the steps to go up to the second floor, I ran up to him and hit him on the head with the chair from behind - bang! I wanted to knock him out, in short.

He didn't react at all, the chair just bounced off him like he was made of rubber. I didn't quite understand what was happening, I shouted something, and nearby, Svjatoslav was running.

Kazakovich went up to the second floor, and they continued to chase him. The chair that was thrown at him remained on the floor. But later, other chairs would be used as well.

The self-preservation mode is working for everyone, no one wants to be cut in half. On the second floor, someone was doing a manicure, and some men were sitting there. I told them, and then we all ran together, there were already about ten of us.

I said, "Let's all take him down." We formed a semicircle, wanting to approach him, but no one could because of the long axe handle, it was like a meter long, explains Mikhail. I understood that we had to affect him psychologically, that nothing else would work, he wasn't afraid of anyone. He started to run away, and I shouted at him. The guys who were with us on the second floor took some chairs and started throwing them at him (later, they wanted to charge us for breaking those chairs).

Everything happened on this staircase.

They started to subdue everyone who was there. Detention through the eyes of witnesses

Meanwhile, Kazakovich goes down to the stairs and ends up at the exit. Mikhail recalls that he and his friends, as well as a security guard, were there. Alexey remembered that someone entered the door and attacked Kazakovich from behind, which is how they were able to stop him.

It seemed to me that the security guard at the exit pressed the axe with his hand, Mikhail recalled the events. And we started to subdue him - everyone who was there. He's lying down, the police start to take him in. They twisted him and put him in a UAZ that was already standing on the street. A crowd of people gathered. It was tough and very fast, but somehow we reacted. And that security guard is a good guy, yes.

After all this, the guys returned to the shopping center and near one of the islands, they saw a woman lying on the floor. A chainsaw was next to her.

Of course, everyone is in shock, no one expected this. It's just unimaginable, something like this has never happened in Belarus.

Slava was put in the same UAZ. How a participant in the detention was taken for the attacker

The police were working at the scene of the incident. The guys gave explanations and were about to leave. Someone took a picture of the three of them: Alexey was in a red jacket, Danyil was on the right, and Mikhail was on the left.

Svyatoslav was not there.

I'm dialing, but Slava doesn't answer the phone. Lesha or Danyil call, but he doesn't answer them either. We start looking for him. Then some people pass by and say: there's a second one. What second one, there was only one?

Going back to what happened when they took the barbecue. The handle was sticking out of the bag. They thought it was an axe, and some guys rushed towards him. As a result, Slava was put in the same UAZ, sat together with the criminal, although initially he himself helped to detain him.

We immediately go to the police - they say: we'll bring everyone to the RUVD on Yakuba Kolasa and figure it out there. We walk towards Yakuba Kolasa, then we call some hotline, I think it was in the media, I don't remember exactly where. We say: our friend was taken away, they won't let him go. In the end, we come to the RUVD, they look at the cameras and see that it wasn't him who was attacking, he was participating in the detention of that person.

Apparently, another participant in this chase and the subsequent events was a shopping center employee, who later told the court about it as follows: "We shouted at him: 'What did we do to you?' He looked at us and left. We took chairs from our bar and went after him. Panic set in, at first we thought there were two of them. Then it became clear that he was alone."

When all this happened, there was no desire to talk about it to the media: "we didn't want a bad reputation," the men say now. It was later revealed that the deceased was a relative of the husband of Mikhail's sister.

Later, they followed the situation through the news. Sometimes they would visit the shopping center itself.

• Such a thing can happen anywhere, so there was no such thing as saying we would never come here again. Once there was an explosion in the metro, but people still ride it. The situation left some kind of negative imprint on the shopping center at the time. People knew what had happened here, probably they were afraid. But everything is forgotten over time.

If you don't know about those events, today "Novaya Evropa" looks like an ordinary shopping center. After so many years, some stores have closed, and new ones have taken their place.