'Vladimir The Cannibal' Shares Chilling Moment He Ate Human Flesh For First Time

Warning: This article contains content some readers may find upsetting

A convicted killer given the nickname ‘Vladimir the Cannibal’ after he confessed to eating one of his victims has spoken about the first time he ate human flesh. 

Vladimir Nikolayevich Nikolayev, 63, was convicted of killing two men in 1997 in Novocheboksarsk in Russia. 

Although initially handed the death penalty, Nikolayev had his sentence commuted to life behind bars after the country abolished the death penalty. 

Nikolayev took part in a National Geographic documentary titled Inside Russia’s Toughest Prisons, in which he spoke about eating one of his victims. 

National Geographic

Speaking while inside the notorious K-6 Dolphin prison, where he was transferred in 2001, Nikolayev said he had no intention of eating human flesh when he carried out the murder, but was tempted to try it while dismembering his victim’s corpse. 

Talking about the murder, he said: ​​ "I was coming home from a party a little drunk. And next to the door of my building another guy, also drunk, asked me for a light.

"We started arguing and got into a fight. He hit me, and I hit him, and it turned out he died."

In the chilling clip, he went on: "What was I to do? I dragged him to the bathroom, undressed him, and started cutting him apart."

After cutting the man’s head and limbs, Nikolayev gave a laugh and said he then felt the urge to ‘try him’. 

"I cut off a piece of meat from his thigh and boiled it,” he said. “I tried it, didn't like it, so I chopped it up and fried it in a frying pan."

National Geographic

Even more horrifically, Nikolayev said he then gave some of the flesh to an unwitting acquaintance who took it home and fed to it his children and wife - with none of them knowing where the ‘meat’ had originated. 

He said: "He took it home and gave it to his wife. She made dumplings with it, she had some herself and fed some to her children. They didn't know what it was.”

Nikolayev was accused of selling around 5kg of human flesh at an open market, claiming it was kangaroo meat. 

He was eventually caught after a woman noted the unusual taste and took it to a doctor for examination, where it was discovered to contain human blood. 

After making the grim discovery, the doctor contacted the police and Nikolayev was arrested shortly after at his home.