The man who swallows nails

Chief endomorphist of Tatarstan’s Public Health Ministry Vladimir Muraviev has a rich collection of professional “souvenirs” that have been ablated from the stomachs and bronchial tubes of his patients. The collection consists of coins, spoons, tooth coronas, expansion bolts, watch, buttons, and even supinators. Imprisoned people swallowed the articles for a change of their imprisonment period after a long medical treatment.

However, the collection does not stand any comparison with a record number of nails extracted from a stomach of imprisoned Ivanov, a resident of Tatarstan’s city of Kazan. When Ivanov was imprisoned for eight years for a rape, he considered the term and the conditions of his imprisonment to be rather cruel, which is why he decided to swallow the first nail to be taken to hospital.

He felt very comfortable in a hospital ward: the personnel treated him well and regular board was provided. Ivanov underwent an operation successfully. However, to stay in the hospital for a longer period of time, he swallowed two more nails and was operated on once again. Then, more operations followed. The patient underwent about thirty operations in total! Sometimes, Ivanov swallowed several nails at once (he put them into bread-crumbs). It is hard to imagine what Ivanov’s organs look like after so numerous operations. It seemed as though the prisoner could hardly stand any more operations, but no persuasions helped: Ivanov kept on swallowing nails.

Therefore, he served his whole term in the hospital and not in a cell.

However, Ivanov’s parting with the doctors was not long. On his release, Ivanov committed another rape and was sentenced to a 17-year imprisonment. To avoid staying in a cell, he used his previous experience and swallowed several nails while already being already the investigation center.

Translated by Maria Gousseva