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Russian computer programmer buries himself alive

Subterranean good luck ritual a very bad idea

A Russian computer programmer who believed that spending the night buried alive would bring him good luck didn't survive the subterranean ritual.

The unnamed 35-year-old victim of the "supervised self-burial" dug a grave in a garden in Blagoveshchensk, in the Amur Oblast region of eastern Russia, then clambered into an "improvised coffin" - suitably supplied with breathing tubes, a blanket, a mobile phone and a bottle of water.

A friend covered the tomb with planks and 20cm of soil, and once the occupant had called to say he was fine, left him to his fate. The next morning, he returned to find the man dead. Investigators believe overnight rain may have blocked the breathing tubes.

The victim was possibly "influenced by reading stories about self-burial on the internet", as the BBC puts it. Online resources for those wishing to bury themselves apparently include numerous blog entries on the subject, and the practice popped up in a piece in state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Alexei Lubinsky, a senior aide to Amur Oblast's chief investigator, said: "According to his friend, the man wanted to test his endurance and insistently asked his friend to help him spend the night buried. We know that the victim was a computer programmer and that he has a small child." ®

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