In December 2017, Margarita Gracheva’s husband took her to a wooded area near their home and chopped off both her hands in a jealous rage. She has since emerged as one of the most high-profile victims of Russia’s epidemic of domestic violence, Chris Brown writes.
Given the savagery of what Margarita Gracheva’s husband did to her, you’d think Russian lawmakers would want to stop it from happening to other women.
Instead, attitudes toward legislating tougher laws on domestic violence remain stuck in another century.
Two years ago, Gracheva’s husband cut off both of her hands, leaving the 27-year-old mother of two mutilated for life.
“I still have pain. It hurts and aches, but you get used to it,” Gracheva told CBC News in her St. Petersburg home, flexing the fingers on her artificial hand, which is attached to her right arm at the wrist.
The black fingers and silver joints give the German-made device an almost skeletal look, but it is dexterous enough for Gracheva to grasp small objects — after some practice.
Her left hand, meanwhile, is wrapped in a bandage and also clearly far from normal, visibly scarred and only partially functioning. But at least it allows her to once again feel her children’s skin.
“I still have a problem [combing] hair,” she said. “But really, happiness is in the little things.”
Gracheva has emerged as one of the most high-profile victims of Russia’s epidemic of domestic violence, and has given a powerful voice to the frustrations felt by women’s advocates who have tried for years to get stronger domestic violence legislation passed.
“There is no law now — nothing exists,” Gracheva said. “There is only help if there are beatings or a dead body. I don’t know how many more tragic cases have to happen for that to change.”
Sadistic attack
As Gracheva recounted her story, she acknowledged that “even now, when I read about it, my tears well up.”
She and her husband, Dmitry, met more than a decade ago, when she was still a teenager. A couple of years ago, they started having difficulties in their marriage, and she claims he was paranoid that she was having an affair.
WATCH | Margarita Gracheva describes how her husband turned from loving partner to sadist overnight:
Margarita Gracheva describes how her loving husband turned into ‘a sadist and a maniac,’ seemingly overnight. 0:27
In October 2017, she told him she wanted a divorce, and shortly afterward he moved out, although they continued to jointly parent their two boys, then aged three and five.
On the morning of Dec. 11, 2017, Gracheva needed a ride to get the children to daycare. It was the moment Dmitry had been waiting for to execute a sickening plan.
In his court testimony, he explained that he had scouted out a wooded area near their home. And he bought an axe.
Dmitry recounted how he picked Gracheva up in his car, overpowered her, tied her up and blindfolded her.
Then, Dmitry attacked her with the axe, over and over again, delivering 40 blows. First, he sliced into one of her legs. Then, he cut off one hand, followed by the other.
“She was crying and asking, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?'” he said in his testimony.
Leaving parts of Gracheva’s severed and pulverized hands on the ground sticking out of the snow, Dmitry carried her to the car and took her to the hospital.
Police returned to the forest and recovered what they could, but surgeons were only able to re-attach one hand. Even that might not have been possible were it not for the fact that the snow had kept the bones and flesh cold.
Photos of the procedure — too gruesome for CBC to publish — show horrible scars where surgeons sewed Gracheva’s small hand back together in three pieces, and then reattached it to her arm.
During his sentencing, where he received 14 years in prison, Dmitry told the court, “I’m not trying