“They started knocking on the door, then we heard shots”

During the month of constant hearings, the key events of September 20, 2021 are described, when freshman Timur Bekmansurov came to the university campus with a gun and opened fire, killing 6 people and injuring dozens of students and visitors to the university. The one where the freshman of the law faculty did not study for even three weeks, where no one hounded or persecuted him. According to investigators – out of hooligan motives. In other words, just like that.

During the interrogation of the victims, which lasted two weeks, all episodes of the drama were overgrown with details. Their testimonies restored the entire chronology of events – from the western checkpoint of the university, where the first shots were fired, to the 8th building, and from there along the transition to the 6th building, where the traffic police officer stopped Bekmansurov, having shot the entire clip from his service weapon.

It was hard to listen to the victims. At the last meeting, student Alena Selivanova said that she “jumped unsuccessfully, of course” – she received a fracture of her tailbone. But there were no keys in the audience, the guys could not lock themselves, they did not know what to do. Sergey Yumatov miraculously survived after 9 wounds. Anaida Mikhailova lost a kidney. Alexandra Mokhova’s mother lost her daughter.

Junior Lieutenant Konstantin Kalinin also testified. Which on that day, together with a partner in the department of the traffic police regiment, literally a hundred meters from the checkpoint of the university, made out another accident. It was to him that a man ran into his office, shouting that they were shooting on campus. Kalinin told how they fled, how they saw blood on the pavement, shot at the doors and walls of the checkpoint, how they were looking for the shooter, asking oncoming people. The police did not know the location of the buildings on campus. As already in the lobby of the chemical building, he heard shots, saw that people were jumping from the next building from the second floor. I understood that fire was being directed at them, and from the second floor of the building where he was located … A tragic mistake, understandable in such a situation: the shooter was no longer in the 8th building. Jumping from windows, people not only broke bones, but also exposed themselves to shots from a neighboring building.

“I heard footsteps, he was going down the stairs,” Kalinin, now the commander of the platoon in the PPS regiment, who was awarded the Order of Courage, told the court. – On the move, I took out cartridges, loaded them. I yelled at him: “Give it up!”. He fired a shot in my direction, I used a weapon and returned fire. I ran up and took the gun from him, a large number of cartridges remained in the bandolier. In addition, Bekmansurov had a full bag of ammunition with him. He took the knife from him and threw it aside. After that, a woman came out, brought me bandages, and I began to give him first aid.

Sounds like protocol. But the facts speak of the intensity of passions at that moment. Kalinin shot Bekmansurov in the legs 8 times – from a distance of 5 meters. Hit 6 times.

From different angles

On September 26, the court began to hear witnesses – this part of the process is already less stressful. Still, people were not physically hurt. But the very first group of witnesses again surprises. A student, a teacher, an ambulance doctor – each of them saw the situation from his own side and assessed it to the extent of his own responsibility. Another witness is a pensioner who came to the university to pick up his second grade grandson after the tour. There also, it turns out, at that time there were two classes of kids!

… The meeting begins traditionally. Judge Sergey Korobeinikov, state prosecutor Svetlana Plotnikova, lawyer Viktor Pankov – all without changes. The accused, as usual, behind glass in a cage. Looks already tired. A small detail: a pair of crutches next to him after the testimony of the policeman seems to be more conspicuous. Although there is no one to watch: one camera, 4 journalists. The process will be long. Yes, and the weather is not favorable: in Perm it is cold, rain and snow – Indian summer ended in one night.

On the flimsy platform for giving evidence – a sheet with a standard formula about the fact that the rights and obligations are explained, about the responsibility under the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation. And then – a long list of names. And now one of the witnesses is already looking for his last name in it.

Mikhail Mamontov, a twenty-year-old student of the Mechanics and Mathematics, feels uncomfortable at the chair, shifts from foot to foot, stumbles. On that day, he heard from a teacher that something unusual was happening: did aliens fly in or is it all running so fast for a couple?

“Then we saw someone fall by the fountain, and we realized that this was not training. We wanted to jump out the window, but there was a key to the audience. We were told to lie on the floor. There was a knock on the door, then we heard shots. They lay on the floor for an hour and a half, they knocked on us several times, but we did not respond. Then it was already opened when the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations arrived. They took us out.

But the senior lecturer of Perm State National Research University Yury Aydarov feels calm at the department. On that day, he taught classes on the second floor in building 8 – room 212. In the break between the second and third classes, he stayed in the room – and saw a crowd running through the window:

– From the side of Genkel Street, people were running towards our building. Then I saw a man in a helmet and with a gun, he was moving from the fountain to our building. I did not see it very well – there was little time to assess the situation. We called whoever we could from the corridor, locked the windows and the door, and remained in the auditorium until the evacuation—two teachers, a technician, and 14 students. All are alive and well. We heard shots on our floor, a woman’s scream. And when they were evacuated, they saw corpses in the corridors.

Maxim Ovchinnikov, a resuscitator at the Perm emergency medical station, was on daily duty that day. His brigade arrived at the scene after the offender was neutralized, and the buildings of the university were cordoned off.

“We received a call for a gunshot injury – this is a call of the highest urgency. There were already other brigades on the spot, the police escorted us to the building. We saw three or four dead with gunshot wounds to the head. There were many victims, we, as an intensive care team, had to take the most severe ones. On the ground floor lay a young man in black, he was assisted by a line brigade. Colleagues said they could handle it, and we moved on to another wounded man. It was a guy of 19-20 years old, I don’t remember his last name, but his name was Maxim. He was conscious, lying on the left side of the building outside. He was wounded in the lower back – paresis of the lower extremities. He said he jumped out of the window. We stabilized him and handed him over to the line crew.

We ourselves returned to the first floor to a young man in black – his condition worsened, we were asked to help. He had three or four wounds in the thighs, one in the torso. We learned from the police that this was the attacker. I talked to him – he answered in monosyllables, identified himself, said that he was alone. Well, we were actually interested in how clear his mind was. I saw a knife sheath on him, nearby, about five meters away, a pump-action shotgun, a helmet, a bulletproof vest. There was a bandolier – it seems empty. The condition was serious, we provided infusion assistance, put him into an artificial coma, connected him to a ventilator. Together with the convoy, they were taken to the Perm Regional Clinical Hospital, handed over to the surgeons.

The judge had several questions for this witness. He was interested in whether the accused received medical assistance in full. The doctor confirmed that everything possible had been done. Including pain relief with narcotic analgesics.

But pensioner Sergei Bolshakov arrived at the campus just before the start of events – to pick up his grandson from the excursion. Two groups of second-graders from school No. 9 came to the university to see the museum and the botanical garden. At 11.45 the parents had to take the children away from the fountain. Bolshakov parked next to the checkpoint and approached the fountain 15-20 minutes ahead of schedule. And almost immediately I heard pops, car alarms. Together with everyone he ran to the 8th building.

– I saw that a man in black was already walking from the fountain, on his left hand – a gun. There was a crowd at the entrance to the building, jumping through the turnstile. From there he moved towards the first building. Then one of the university staff told us to hide in the assembly hall, there is a good metal door. When we were allowed to leave, I saw children coming from the museum…

In the evening, the pensioner checked the car’s DVR and realized that 3 minutes had passed from the moment he got out of the car to the moment a man in black appeared in the frame. And you can clearly see how he approaches and starts to shoot.

This video was then made available to the Investigative Committee. Psychologists worked with two groups of second-graders for a whole month.