The Terror of the 'Squint-Eyed' Gang: Young Ruffians Reigning Over the Slums of Volgograd

I have walked the foulest alleys and shared a pot of tea with the lowest layabouts, but the news from Volgograd chills the blood of any man who knows the street. There, in the heart of the city, a pack of young scoundrels has taken it upon themselves to play the part of the underworld lords. They call themselves the disciples of one 'Kosoy'—the Squint-Eyed—and they hunt schoolboys like wolves hunting lambs.

In the waning days of June, the horror came to light. Imagine a quiet courtyard, only to be shattered by the arrival of the 'Elders from Traktorny'. These street urchins, possessing the cruelty of seasoned convicts, set upon a lad of fifteen. The cause? A trifle! A mere disagreement over the throwing of seeds between the boy and a girl. The girl, with a heart as cold as a winter fog, summoned these ruffians from the distant Traktorozavod district to settle the score.

One poor soul recounted the brutality with a shudder: “Maratka rained blows upon my head with fists and elbows. Another joined the fray, striking me blindly. They cast me upon a flowerbed, and as I struggled to rise, they beat me back down—striking my head, striking my belly. There were three of them, a veritable gang of devils.”

When the local constables finally appeared on the scene, the culprits vanished into the smog and shadows, as nimble as any pickpocket in a crowded market.

But this was no solitary act of madness. It is a plague. Before this, another lad had his nose shattered and was shaken down for a few paltry coins—two hundred rubles, a mere pittance, yet stolen with the arrogance of a highwayman. And back in April, the same 'Elders' laid waste to another youth. This brave boy had attempted to break up a brawl, only to be lured later under the guise of a 'civil conversation'.

His mother’s voice trembled as she recalled the ambush: “My son thought he went to speak. Instead, he was pushed, his head striking a bench with a sickening thud. They set him against another, a so-called equal, while the mob roared, ‘Finish him!’ He fell to the earth under a hail of blows. Had it lasted a minute longer, I fear we should be speaking of a funeral.”

Now, the wheels of justice turn slowly, as a court considers the April atrocity. Yet, the mothers of these broken children find themselves forsaken. One distraught woman lamented that she had to hunt for the evidence herself, scouring the streets for camera footage, for it seemed the authorities cared as little for her son as a landlord cares for a tenant in a cellar.

It is a wretched state of affairs. Even in Chelyabinsk, the report reaches us that a gang of ten—a veritable army of street brutes—shattered a boy's nose in a similarly savage assault. The police may begin their inquiries, but until the streets are cleansed of such juvenile malice, the innocent shall continue to tremble in the shadows of these young predators.