43-year-old St. Petersburg resident Natalya Balandina came with her daughter to the resort to unwind after the death of her mother

St. Petersburg resident Natalya Balandina could not leave her eight-year-old daughter Nastya in a Tunisian hotel room and go to the beach, her family is sure. The woman also did not intend to have affairs with foreigners. All this does not speak in favor of the charge, for which Natalya faces the death penalty.

Natalya’s eldest daughter was the first to learn about the tragedy. Pregnant Anya was waiting for her mother and sister in St. Petersburg. They were supposed to fly out on the night of May 13-14. But half a day passed, and the relatives did not come and did not call.

First, they called me from the travel agency,” Anna Alekseeva said on the air of “Russia-1”. - They said that Nastya was dead. It is unknown what happened to my mother. I didn’t let go of the phone. Then, late in the evening, after the examination, they reported that they suspected my mother.

According to Tunisian investigators, the woman strangled her own daughter and left her in the hotel bathroom, and then went to sunbathe. The mother, seemingly calm, was found on the beach. But Natalya’s eldest daughter is sure that this is a lie.

Yes, my mother often visited hot countries and went on vacation. But she never sunbathed,” Anna explained. - She was covered in spots from the sun. Therefore, I only went to the beach late in the evening or early in the morning. And she didn’t like the sun, even though she was born in the south.

The mother was detained and is not allowed to leave the country even to say goodbye to Nastya, who will be buried in Kuban. Meanwhile, another version is in the air. It is believed that the baby could have been killed by an Italian with whom Natalya began a holiday romance.

Natasha had no time for romances,” Natalia’s father told the channel. “She had just buried her mother and was under a lot of stress. And she and Nastena went on vacation to unwind.

Relatives and the public refuse to believe that a St. Petersburg woman could strangle her beloved youngest daughter with her own hands. Experts suggest that Natalya was deliberately brought under the article. After all, Tunisia, which lives off tourism, has no need for tragic incidents in hotels.

READ ALSO: A St. Petersburg woman strangled her eight-year-old daughter in Tunisia and went to the beach The terrible story that happened at the Mahdia resort in Tunisia almost caused a quarrel between the two countries. On Tuesday afternoon, the Russian Embassy in this country announced the death of an eight-year-old tourist. A schoolgirl was found strangled in the bathroom of the three-star Thapsus hotel Club Hotel. The girl died on May 13, but the fact that the child has Russian citizenship was only confirmed now ()
For the murder of her eight-year-old daughter at a resort in Tunisia, a St. Petersburg woman faces the death penalty At first glance, this terrible murder seems senseless. A mother strangled her eight-year-old daughter in hotel room, drowned the body in the bathtub and calmly went to the beach to sunbathe? And judging by reports from sources in Tunisia, this is exactly how it happened () This material was published on the BezFormata website on January 11, 2019,
Below is the date when the material was published on the original source website!

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A year later, investigators still have not brought charges against Natalya Balandina [video]

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Natalya Balandina. Where is the truth?

Shame on you! Leave Natasha alone, don’t bother her,” Balandina’s father, Valentin Artemyev, reprimands me. - She is doing well. Lives, works, nothing more to add.

- How good is that?- I’m surprised. - She's under investigation.

Yes, everything ended there, everything is fine. There is no need to harp on this topic anymore.

- I don't understand. Do you really care who killed Nastya?

Well, let the investigation find out, and I won’t talk more about this topic.

Now it’s hard to believe, but a year ago Balandina’s father himself sought meetings with journalists. “Save my Natasha,” the grandfather almost knelt in front of the cameras. She and Natasha performed together on a TV show, she knocked tears out of herself and the viewer, he spoke for both.

Balandina returned from Tunisia with a broken arm, but she does not say where exactly she broke it. Later, her dad considered this question to be incorrect.

How can a mother be suspected of killing her own child? - the impressionable audience groaned.

If we omit all emotions, then Natalya still has not explained how it happened that her eight-year-old daughter returned from a resort in Tunisia in a coffin.

Inconsolable mother

This story happened in May last year. 43-year-old Natalya Balandina went with her daughter Anastasia to Tunisia on vacation. On May 13, the day of their flight back, Nastya was found dead in the bathroom of a room at the Mahdia resort. The girl was lying in the water. Local experts found that the death was definitely violent - someone strangled the child. And this was most likely done by an inexperienced person.

The police found Natalya only three hours later on the beach of another hotel. She was with a suitcase, documents, dressed and for some reason with a bottle of untouched vinegar. Clearly not himself. She answered questions about the death of the child in a confused manner. Local investigators arrested her.

When the news reached Russia, a scandal broke out. With shouts of “They’re beating our people!” The online community came to the defense of the inconsolable mother. No one could believe that it was her; it would have been much easier to blame it on one of the hotel staff or some foreigner.

Check to see if the child was also raped before this. “They can do it there,” the “armchair” experts continued.

She's innocent

In her homeland, an urgent collection of material assistance was organized for Natalya. Her eldest daughter Anna turned to everyone who cared for help. The girl posted a video message on the social network, thereby launching donations.

At first, everyone felt sorry for Balandina. People transferred 300-500 rubles to the account of her daughter Anna Mikhalchevskaya. It was believed that the money would go to a lawyer in Tunisia. He allegedly already demanded an advance of 3.5 thousand dollars. As a result, they collected 600 thousand, which St. Petersburg activist Veniamin Dostoevsky gave to her family in Kuban. And whether this money went to a lawyer or somewhere else was of little interest to anyone, because the story was acquiring more and more new details.

The image of Balandina was portrayed as pitiful: an elderly, lonely woman, given over to be torn to pieces by African savages.

She never called Nastenka anything other than “my darling,” said Balandina’s colleagues. Indeed, Natalya took her daughter to dances, signed up for castings for TV series, and dressed her up like a doll. So it seemed that the child doted on the soul.

Balandin is a teacher by education. Originally from the village of Zassovskaya Krasnodar region. Previously, she worked at school as a teacher of Russian language and literature. She rose to the position of head teacher. What-not, but the rural intelligentsia. She had a husband, daughter and son. And after 11 years of marriage they divorced. Soon Natalya met a new man - Sergei Balandin, gave birth to Nastya from him, and then left school altogether and they went to conquer St. Petersburg. True, they say that Balandin was “left” and there were good reasons for that. However, this is a completely different story.

In Kolpino, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, she opened her own beauty salon in mall. There was also a children's hairdressing salon “Fairy Tale”. But life didn’t work out with Balandin either. So Natalya was left alone with the little girl.

She coped poorly on her own. I had health problems and had to undergo surgery. The business also did not bring much profit. She borrowed 80 thousand from a friend with whom she worked in a salon. Moreover, the woman took out a loan for her at exorbitant interest rates. Balandina paid it every other time. He will put in five thousand at the beginning of the month, and by the end of the month he will withdraw 12 thousand.

On top of everything, Balandina’s mother died in Zassovskaya. She was worried. Her friends say that she threatened to commit suicide and take Nastya with her to the next world. And then suddenly she flew to Tunisia.

Take it for yourself

Balandina spent a month under arrest. All the magical power of the Internet. Someone started a rumor that an orphaned mother was facing the death penalty in Tunisia. There was a resonance in the foreign media with the idea that Tunisia was “shielding its murderers and blaming everything on the poor mother.” And it worked. What in Russia is perceived as nothing other than unhealthy activity on social networks, in Tunisia was mistaken for public opinion.

She is good and we are bad? So deal with her yourself, the Tunisian police reasoned and released Balandina to her homeland. Although, as police sources say, they initially had a picture of the crime and Balandina was kept in prison for a reason.

However, on June 16, the authorities of the good Tunisian Republic dropped the charges against her. And on June 3, a criminal case was opened in St. Petersburg under the article “Murder of a minor.” It was easier for Tunisia to get rid of a high-profile case that had already tarnished its reputation sunny resort. Crimes are rarely committed there, and those directed against children are completely nonsense.

They turned a tragedy into a show,” Tatyana Yakhia sighs sadly.

A woman with Russian roots, now lives in Tunisia, takes tourists to the Sahara. When she heard the news about a Russian girl strangled in a hotel, she rushed to the consulate. I was looking for a lawyer for Balandina. But over time I just gave up.

I thought that my mother could not do such a thing. That's why I raised our Russians here. They wanted to help with clothes and food. Almost hired a lawyer. Everything collapsed in one moment when I talked to a woman who was there from the first to the last minute. And then, when I watched this story, I got the impression that they were making money from this. Her dad, after all, has a chain of restaurants in Sochi and a hotel, but for some reason he couldn’t help his daughter.

Valentin Artemyev appeared in this whole story as if out of nowhere. He did not live with Balandina; she was raised by her stepfather. But for some reason, he still went to Tunisia to pick up his granddaughter’s body. Only the trip turned out strange. Arriving at the Borj Sedria resort hotel, the first thing grandfather did was book himself...an excursion. And then I was even late for that bus. All because he spent the whole night in the local bar. He washed down his grief, as he later explained to the guides.

“You won’t be able to understand me”

It is difficult to understand the logic of this family. For example, Natalya’s ex-husband Sergei, when he arrived in St. Petersburg, promised to take revenge on his ex for Nastenka.

She ruined my daughter with her show-offs,” the father gritted his teeth. - I would kill her myself if she were here!

And now it turns out that Sergei and Natalya live together. Balandina works with children either as a nanny or as a orphanage. The business lady no longer pretends to be.

He broke her ribs, beat her so badly, but then he still forgave her,” says Balandina’s ex-friend Natalya. This is the one from whom she borrowed 80 thousand. No one returned her money; the beauty salon in Kolpino was closed.

The last time I talked to her was about a year ago,” says Natalya. - She called me from a Kuban number. I still didn’t understand what she wanted, it seems to me that she was not sober. I asked her: “Why did you leave? So, without telling anyone, she took the child and left”? She told me: “Don’t you dare judge me.” That's our whole conversation.

You can’t understand my grief,” Balandina said the same thing on a talk show, where she sat in mourning and rubbed tears over her swollen face.

According to her, on May 13, she and her daughter were supposed to fly to Russia. Together they decided to take a final swim. The girl, having taken a dip, told her mother that the sea was too cold and that she would go to the bathroom in the hotel room to warm up. Balandina let her daughter go, and she stayed on the beach for another half hour. When the mother returned to the room, she found her dead daughter in the bathroom. She tried to lift her, but she failed, then Balandina left the child in the bathroom, and she went back to the sea, as she claims, to drown herself. However, says Balandina, there were too many people at sea. The police detained her when she was allegedly looking for a deserted place.

Deadlock

Nastya was buried in Kuban. Balandina was detained there on June 26. Accompanied by investigators, she was taken to St. Petersburg. And they just interrogated him.

They wanted to lock him up in an isolation ward, but the bet didn’t work out. Now she is under recognizance not to leave, which the court renews for her every ten days.

But without Tunisian documents, the matter reached a dead end. Our detectives were unable to investigate in a foreign republic; they only went to Kuban, conducted an examination of the murdered woman again, and talked with Balandina’s strange relatives. That's all.

Due to international relations, the investigation will be seriously delayed,” Aleksey Panzhev, investigator for particularly important cases, warned back in August last year. - The procedure was coordinated with Moscow. Within a week the transfer was made, then the decision was made through the Prosecutor General's Office. Then this was agreed upon with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are waiting for Tunisia to give some kind of response on this matter. Either yes, and they will help us and provide materials, or allow us to go there. Only after they agree on this will it be possible to proceed.

This conversation with the investigator was repeated every month. A year later, things are still there.

Our people blame Tunisia’s sluggishness for everything, and they blame the Russian side for its frenzy.

She would have been sitting with us already,” says a source at the consulate. - They kept the room in that hotel locked for a month, they thought that your detectives would come. And now you won’t find anything. Our people didn’t want to put this on themselves, they were afraid of a scandal. It's a tourist country. I even know that some testimony was “rektana”, if only they could send her to Russia. But the fact that the girl was strangled and placed in a bathtub with water is certain, our expert report showed this. And Nastya had dark hair clutched in her fist, and there was skin and bruises under her nails. The body was found curled up in a fetal position.

Will it be possible to use this now? Big question.

In fact, investigators only have an expert opinion on the violent nature of the death. The rest is emotions, you can’t bring them to the point. Although, it seems like there was a motive. Almost just before leaving, Natalya Balandina insured her daughter’s life for thirty thousand euros. She had debts on loans from 7-8 banks. Therefore, paying out insurance would not be superfluous for her.

And she didn’t stand on ceremony with the girl in Tunisia.

Nastya was afraid of her. She drank so much that it was not only delirium tremens, but the devil himself could be there. Every day from morning to evening it’s a mess,” says one of the hotel’s guests, Pavel Kristya. - The child was alone all the time. She walked with us, my mother just came and picked me up. Balandina always wore glasses. Before the flight, she went out onto the beach and could not stand at all. And the child swam alone in the sea.

She was with some man for a week, Nastya called him uncle. Then he disappeared somewhere and Balandina was left only with her daughter.

The same the animator gave evidence hotel girl named Sirin.

Screams were heard in their room already on the first night after they arrived at the hotel, the girl testified. – There was a quarrel between a woman, her daughter and some man. The next day, two German women who lived in the next room complained about the noise. Afterwards, they heard the child’s screams and cries every day.

Even the sellers of the souvenir shop talk about Balandina’s rampant drunkenness. She even pawned the hotelier’s earrings, she didn’t have enough for drinks.

Instead of an afterword

There is no way to talk to Balandina now. She went on the defensive. Her husband and eldest daughter followed her there.

With the permission of the investigator, she will go to Kuban. A year has already passed, now it is possible to erect a monument on Nastya’s grave.

She is deeply depressed,” says lawyer Mikhail Miretsky for his client. - We are also waiting for documents so that she can be transferred from the accused to the victim. Ten to fifteen examinations were carried out here and all of them were in our favor. These are both linguistic and psychiatric. She even passed a polygraph. They all relate to Balandina’s attitude to this incident. If there were grounds after these examinations to believe that she was involved, she would already be an accused, believe me.

It is quite possible that Balandina is not lying about what she does not remember. But this does not mean that nothing happened.

We reached the consular department in Tunisia. Here they remember about Balandina without additional requests.

We have this issue under control,” says head of the consular department Rashid Atayev. - We received requests from the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office. We sent this to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from there, respectively, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But, according to the Foreign Ministry, there was no reaction from there.

And there is unlikely to be an answer in the future. Obviously, after the information attack from “these Russians,” they decided to simply bury the case along with little Nastenka. That's what we were counting on.

COMPETENTLY

Alexandra YAUROVA, clinical psychologist:

Murder is more of a state of physiological affect. But if this happens, the person usually does not hide any evidence, does not plan anything. These are impulsive actions. And then the person himself finds himself horrified by what he has done. This is determined by forensic psychiatrists.

Impaired consciousness also occurs against the background of severe alcohol intoxication. And, it is possible that at the time of the crime her consciousness was very clouded, then she really does not know anything. But, on the other hand, if she passes the polygraph positively, this is in her favor. It is difficult for an ordinary person to deceive this device.

But if she really doesn’t remember this, then she will think that she didn’t do it. This is already the work of a psychiatrist. But all this does not pass without a trace. If this happened, then the person most likely had such amnesty moments before.

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The suspect in the murder of her daughter Balandina in Tunisia was released. Shooting - Svyatoslav GOSTYUKHIN, Alexander GLUZ Svyatoslav GOSTYUKHIN

Natalya Balandina is hiding from strangers in the Kuban village

Photo: Liana YANKINA

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From the very beginning, the story of Natalya Balandina, whose daughter was found murdered in Tunisia, was full of mysteries. A child strangled in a hotel room with a tuft of his mother's hair clutched in his fist, a mother who for some reason was sunbathing alone on the beach, a woman's arrest and a month in a local prison, then removed - completely! – charges against her, unexpected release.

Now the killer has still not been found, a criminal case has been opened into the death of the child. Natalya herself came to Kuban, where 8-year-old Nastya was buried in the small village of Zassovskaya. The return coincided with the wake - 40 days had passed since the girl’s death.

At home, a woman is surrounded by her family. But before she had time to return to Russia, another misfortune befell her. At the Moscow airport, Natalya had a bad fall and broke her arm. Now her father, eldest daughter and son, and relatives protect her in every possible way and do not allow journalists near her (“my mother is stressed, she cries all the time and cannot speak”). It took Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondents a lot of effort to get a telephone conversation with Balandina.

All charges against me were dropped. The killer will be punished one way or another, but no one will return the child to me,” she said in a calm voice and agreed to the meeting.

However, two hours later, Balandina’s father called us and canceled the meeting, citing his daughter’s blood pressure had risen sharply. But it was too late, the car was already heading for the village of Zassovskaya, Labinsk district of Kuban...

I don’t even know what exactly I expected to see in Balandina’s house. A grief-stricken woman, an ambulance under the windows, women in black scarves... Anything, well, they can’t sing songs with a guitar. It turned out yes.

...In the courtyard, seven or eight people were sitting at a set table. Everything is like in ordinary family gatherings: a glass of vodka on the table and “the bend of a thin guitar...”. Seeing us, fairly tipsy relatives poured out into the street in a crowd. Balandina herself was about to go out, but she was immediately sent into the house, locking the door.

Mom won’t talk to you,” Balandina’s eldest daughter Anna told me.

Is there really something to hide?

She has nothing to hide, and we absolutely don’t care what others think about her. Those who believe - and so believe, and we will not prove anything to the rest. The investigation will sort it out,” with these words Anna closed the gate.

But how can this be? If you have nothing to hide, it is always easy to tell the truth. Moreover, there are thousands of people who sympathized with her, who collected money for her lawyer, who, by the way, was never needed. Don't they have the right to hear at least some adequate explanation of what happened?

Don’t you understand, she won’t talk to anyone because she drinks,” Sergei Balandin, the father of the murdered Nastenka, grins. He is also from Zassovskaya, although last years lives in St. Petersburg, and brought his daughter’s coffin here and decided to stay until the forties. “She doesn’t communicate with anyone, neither with friends, nor with neighbors, she didn’t even bother to explain anything to me. We were sitting at the same table at the wake, I took her hand: “Do you want to tell me anything?” Don't I have a right to the truth? I am the father of the child she killed. Yes, you heard right. I am sure that it was she who killed Nastenka. Open your eyes, stop protecting her! Everything points to her. When I read what her friends were saying about her (St. Petersburg acquaintances told KP correspondents that Balandina had spoken about suicide more than once), I decided not to remain silent. She told me too that she didn’t see the meaning of life. Moreover, this was a month before the trip to Tunisia. Her mother died. I met Natasha at the airport, and then she stunned me. He tried to calm her down, saying that we still had to raise Nastenka. And she so calmly: “She doesn’t need to either, I’ll take her with me!” And even before that, she often declared that I would throw myself out of the window with my daughter. It turns out that she killed her daughter, but didn’t raise her hand against herself?

Or maybe there was a reason to commit suicide? Colleagues say that Balandina is deeply in debt, banks are calling and demanding payments. And Sergei himself was cut off by his ex-wife’s creditors, the conclusion suggests itself. And her plans are strange: she plans to rent another apartment in St. Petersburg and find new job. It’s as if the old one wasn’t there, where her colleagues are waiting for her, on whom she “hanged” her debts.

READ ALSO

The village, located on the border of the Labinsky and Mostovsky districts, was excited to the limit. By the way, this is not such a remote place. By Kuban standards, the village is not small: the population is about 2.5 thousand. That is, this is not the case when the village has one street, three courtyards and everyone is related to each other. But everyone here knows Natalya Balandina after the recent events. Locals endlessly retell this story, complain that there is little information about what happened, and therefore add details of their own - The case is closed for lack of evidence of a crime, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman’s father Valentin Artemyev. - She flew from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg. A week ago he flew to Tunisia, planning to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison in the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want and cannot communicate with anyone except her relatives, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation fell apart due to the lack of any evidence (read more)

Father of a girl killed in Tunisia: “My wife killed my daughter with her show-offs!”

Suspect in daughter's murder in Tunisia released from prison

The case was closed for lack of evidence of a crime, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman’s father Valentin Artemyev. - She flew from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg. A week ago he flew to Tunisia, planning to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison in the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want and cannot communicate with anyone except her relatives, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation fell apart due to the lack of any evidence Tunisian hotel animator: “Nastya was terribly afraid of her mother” Guests say that the Russian tourist drank heavily on alcohol and wore glasses all the time, hiding her swollen eyes. It is obvious that Nastya was afraid of her mother. According to Sirin, the girl was hiding behind her back when she saw Natalya. Believe it or not? All this indirectly confirms the case that Balandina’s St. Petersburg colleagues have already told us about. They say that shortly before the tragedy, the girl began to drown in the hotel pool, and Natalya didn’t even move. The animator saved the day, and Balandina scolded him for it (read more)

The case was closed for lack of evidence of a crime, my daughter is not guilty! - said the woman’s father Valentin Artemyev. - She flew from Tunisia and is now next to me at home in St. Petersburg.

A week ago he flew to Tunisia, planning to hire a lawyer there and, if possible, meet with his daughter. It turned out more - Natasha left the prison in the city of Sousse with her father. Now she is under terrible stress, she does not want and cannot communicate with anyone except her relatives, say close women. And they add: in a foreign country, none of the representatives of our consulate helped her. And the accusation fell apart due to the lack of any evidence

Tunisian hotel animator: “Nastya was terribly afraid of her mother”

Guests say that the Russian tourist drank heavily on alcohol and wore glasses all the time, hiding her swollen eyes. It is obvious that Nastya was afraid of her mother. According to Sirin, the girl was hiding behind her back when she saw Natalya.

Believe it or not? All this indirectly confirms the case that Balandina’s St. Petersburg colleagues have already told us about. They say that shortly before the tragedy, the girl began to drown in the hotel pool, and Natalya didn’t even move. The animator saved the day, and Balandina scolded him for it

On May 13, 2014, a terrible event occurred at one of the hot resorts in Tunisia. The body of eight-year-old Nastya was found in one of the rooms of the Tapsus Hotel. Further events were so strange that the first suspect was the child’s mother, Natalya Balandina. Today we will remember all the details of this high-profile case.

Incident

On this hot June day, mother and daughter had to leave the resort and go home. But at the appointed hour they were not among the tourists who were loading their things onto the bus. I had to go to my room to remind them of my departure. There Nastya’s lifeless body was discovered in a bathtub half filled with water. Hotel employees called the police, and the search for Natalya Balandina began.

There is another version - the girl was discovered by a maid who needed to clean the room after the guests. Be that as it may, the search for the woman ended on the beach, where she was calmly sunbathing. When asked by the police: “Do you know that your daughter is dead?” she answered vaguely: “Yes. No. Don't know". The woman was absolutely calm and did not show any anxiety.

Indications

Natalya was arrested, and she began to give confusing testimony. At first the story looked like he and his daughter were going to the beach. The girl refused to swim in the cold sea and went alone to her room to take a hot bath. Her mother did not accompany her, and when she returned to the room, she saw that Nastya was lying under water without signs of life. Unable to get the child out of the bath, Natalya went to drown herself in the sea. She looked for a secluded place for a long time, got tired and sat down on a sun lounger, where she was detained.

Another version says that she left her daughter in the room and went to the beach to sunbathe before leaving. Natalya never returned to the hotel and learned about her daughter’s death only from the police. This option sounds more convincing, because it is almost impossible to believe in the first one. How could a far from fragile woman of forty-three years old fail to pull an eight-year-old girl out of the bath?

Even if she realized that her daughter was dead, she had to call medical care and the police. She took her bag and documents and went to look for a place to commit suicide. However, Natalya herself insisted on the first option. At the same time, she did not forget to clarify that it was the hotel employees who were to blame for her daughter’s death. They seemed strange to her from the first day of rest.

Consequence

The woman spent a month in a Tunisian pre-trial detention center. During this time, it was possible to interview witnesses and carry out all the examinations. The evidence was not in favor of the mother - pieces of Natalya’s skin were found under the girl’s nails, and witnesses claimed that they had heard the child’s screams from the room more than once. There were those who even saw that Nastya’s mother was beating her in front of people.

The most interesting thing was told by pathologists - the girl did not drown and was not even drowned. Before placing the child in the bath, she was strangled. There was no water in the lungs, and there were clear fingerprints on the throat. No sexual activities were carried out with the living or dead girl either.

Russians' reaction

The community was heatedly discussing the story the very next day. Numerous publications in the media and television programs talked about the tragic fate of Natalya Balandina. She worked in a beauty salon and adored all three of her children. She especially loved the younger Nastya: she sewed her dresses and did her hair herself. Shortly before the incident, Natalya’s mother died, and this was a heavy blow for her. That's why she went to rest and unwind in Tunisia.

People rushed to help the inconsolable mother. The whole world raised money for a lawyer and tried to achieve her return to her homeland. Soon the situation changed, and the mercy of society was replaced by anger. Unpleasant details emerged. It turns out that the money collected was spent by Nastya’s father on a ticket to Tunisia. Where he was in no hurry to take his daughter’s body, but went on an excursion. Natalya herself was no angel either - her colleague paid off a huge loan for a woman because she had the imprudence to act as a guarantor. She provided all payment receipts to the investigation.

People began to demand from the family that all the money be returned to them. No one wanted to help such citizens anymore. At this time, Natasha’s father spoke on federal channels calling for help and telling horror stories about Tunisian prisons. Allegedly, his daughter is not even fed there and may be tortured so that she confesses to the murder. After all, if it turns out that the killer lived at the hotel, then the reputation of the resort will suffer greatly.

Sentence

Natalya Balandina was released to Russia at the end of June. The woman reported that conditions in detention were normal. Investigators from St. Petersburg took up the case. They failed to achieve an arrest - an experienced lawyer was able to bring many arguments in favor of his client. Despite the fact that the investigation was sure that she killed her daughter, no one could prove it. Natalya Balandina escaped punishment and all charges against her were dropped. Criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was opened and has not yet been closed. The mother of the deceased is no longer a person of interest; the investigation is looking for other possible suspects. The woman herself left for Krasnodar and lives with relatives.