Missing girls in St. Petersburg could have fled to a sect

The 11-year-old and 18-year-old sisters Irina and Marina Zhvalev, who disappeared in St. Petersburg, could have fled to the sect in which their mother is a member, the girls’ grandmother named Maria told 78.ru.

She noted that the girls’ mother—her son’s wife—has always been a religious person. Four years ago, a woman joined the “Royal Empire” sect, which came as a surprise to the family. She also tried to introduce her daughters to the ideas of the cult: refusal of Russian documents, strict fasts, specific clothing and veneration of the sect leader.

“The girls’ father, suspecting something was wrong, took his daughters to his place in St. Petersburg. They underwent treatment and went to psychologists. The younger one began to gradually adapt to normal life, but the older one could not be convinced. She saw the specialist literally twice. There was almost no contact,” said the grandmother of the missing sisters.

The girls lived with their father and two brothers in the St. Petersburg district of Kupchino. According to Maria, at some point the father noticed that his daughters stopped wearing anything other than skirts, began to fast and bring strange icons into the house. The pensioner did not specify whether he did anything.

The last message from the sisters' mother, according to their grandmother, came on February 4. The woman stated that she was deleting the family chat and there would be no more contact with her. Her daughters disappeared on February 9. The last time the girls were seen was on Planernaya Street in the Primorsky district of the city. According to the volunteers of the Lisa Alert search team, they have already left St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

Later, the girls’ grandmother received a video where they assured them that everything was fine. The youngest, Irina, only said her name, and the eldest, Marina, read the text written on a piece of paper.

“I have my own will to live where I want and with whom I want. I wrote down a few points on a piece of paper so as not to lose track. Due to religious beliefs, I refused the documents and do not use them, but my father forced me to take them and use them,” Marina said in the video. The sisters’ grandmother did not specify when and who sent this video.

Members of the “Russian Orthodox Church - Tsarist Empire” sect do not recognize the documents and the very existence of modern Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, considering them non-existent structures. They advocate the restoration of autocracy under the leadership of their leader, Leonid Vlasov, who is called “Patriarch-Tsar Zosima.” The head of the cult and two other members of the sect are being tried in Samara for public calls for terrorism and its justification.