A CHILDREN’S shop worker from Russia has fallen in love with the country’s most prolific and savage serial killer since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Alexander Pichushkin, 42, aimed to murder one victim for each square on the chessboard – wedging a vodka bottle into the skulls of his victims as sick calling card.

19 Natalya is obsessed with mass murderer Alexander Pichushkin who murdered 49 people Credit: Vkontakte / The Siberian Times

19 Natalya appeared on a TV show in Russia where she posed in a bridal gown as she hoped to marry the murderer Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

The mass killer was convicted of killing 49 victims; although he claims his bloody tally is nearer 60.

He now languishes inside “impossible-to-escape” Polar Owl penal colony at Kharp village in the Arctic north of Siberia serving where he will die behind bars.

Escapees in winter would face certain death from the cold, and in the brief, bleak summer, the marshmallowy tundra offers no route out even if an inmate should penetrate the ring of ravenous German Shepherd dogs.

Yet the “Bitsa Park Maniac” - the name comes from the Moscow park where many of his victims were killed - has become a magnet for women, with around 80 writing to him.

One Siberian woman, who works in a children's shop, has won a special place in his heart, and she even calls herself Natalya Pichushkin, as if they are already married.

19 Alexander Pichushkin brutally murdered 49 people including women and children Credit: Eva Merkacheva / The Siberian Times

19 Pichushkin is in Polar Owl prison camp in Siberia Credit: The Siberian Times

19 Natalya with letters she has received from Pichushkin Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

19 Pichushkin has said he would murder and rape immediately if he were released from prison

He admitted recently in an interview with Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets that he had proposed to her - and she accepted.

Aged 29, Natalya, from Nyagan, also the birthplace of banned tennis champion Maria Sharapova, has spoken properly for the first time to explain her obsession with Pichushkin, even though they have only ever communicated by letter, and never met.

If you let me out now, first of all I will kill couple of people, just to get rid of stress, then I will rape a woman and drink some vodka.. Alexander Pichushkin,

She angrily denied recently reports that she had ditched him, complaining instead that their letters between the pair have been blocked by the authorities for two years.

Calling the murderer by the pet name Sasha she said: “Nothing has changed since he proposed to me.

“Whatever people say, I love him more than life itself. It never crossed my mind to part with him.

“I have not received Sasha's letters in recent years. But we both know that it does not depend on us. Employees of the institution where he is serving his sentence do not want us to communicate.”

She complained: “I don't know what have I have done, or why they do this to me. He is my everything. I have nothing in this world without him. I'm dead without him.”

19 The killer copped to 49 murders in a televised confession

19 Pichushkin will die in his Siberian prison Credit: The Siberian Times

She had previously written to other jailed killers before striking up a correspondence with Pichushkin starting in 2009 when she was 22. To her surprise, the mass murderer wrote back.

She said: “He replied. Correspondence followed between us. After two years, I realised that I had fallen in love. I have had no special feelings for my other pen friends.”

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She claimed: “Sasha has created such a stir not only in our country but throughout the world. So, I was curious to know what he really is like. It turned out that he was not so bad as he is shown in media.

“Every maniac lives two lives. In one body coexist two completely opposite personalities.

“I managed to get rid - psychologically - of my thoughts that I was dealing with a maniac. And I loved what I see behind this.”

She added: “He had many women-pen friends. He is very popular among women, especially among those who live abroad.

“You should have seen what stupidities they write in (social media) communities that are dedicated to him.

“I do not remember, how and when I confessed my love for the first time. It was me who took the first step, that's for sure.”

Pichuskin says: “I proposed to Natasha (Natalya). It was spontaneous.

“'But I proposed to her, like a man should do. She immediately agreed. Maybe if I were free, I would not have paid any attention to her but here she is ideal for me. I have been here since 2008 and I need her.”

Divorcee Natalya admitted: “My relatives were initially shocked. I understand them. Over time, they reconciled and accepted my choice. Its OK now.”

19 Natalya pictured in Bitsa Park where Pichushkin murdered most of his victims Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

19 Pichushkin claims he has claimed another 11 lives on top of those he was convicted for Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

19 Natalya says she first started contacting one time murderers in high school but quickly was in search of something 'hotter' Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

19 Natalya poses with a hammer which was Pichushkin's weapon of choice Credit: Vkontakte

She has also faced outrage from her public comments about her 'love' for the monster, stemming from her participation in a television documentary two years ago.

She replies to this criticism: “I'm not a maniac. I have not the slightest interest in murdering people.”

Natalya acknowledges: “He committed terrible things, I admit.”

But the she goes on absurdly to argue that “no-one can blame him except relatives of the victims,” adding: “This is the case just between him and them. All others simply do not have the right to open their mouths.

“Someone else in my place would have committed suicide long ago if they had to cope with my dubious fame.

“Psychologically it was not easy to endure all this. But Alexander knew that I withstood everything, and this is why, probably, he proposed to me.”

19 She has even had the serial killer's face tattooed on her arm as show of her love Credit: Vkontakte / The Siberian Time

19 A map showing Natalyas village and the Siberian penal colony where the Pichuskin is incarcerated Credit: The Siberian Times

Told by a journalist that no woman with a healthy mind could fall for a mass killer, she said: “Many people think so. I have a lot of enemies, but also a lot of supporters.

“There so many opinions in such cases, I always remember the saying: 'Do what you want - you will be condemned for the rest of your life anyway'.”

She was reminded in his recent interview 'her maniac' had said that if he was released tomorrow he would immediately “kill couple of people, just to get rid of stress - then I will rape a woman and drink some vodka”.

She replied: “He does not say anything without a reason. Once he told me that he would never hurt his own family.

“I believe him. And about rape? I think he was just joking. I have talked to him about it. He has never been a proponent of sexual violence.”

“He is a very clever and cunning man who thought every action through two steps ahead, and always had at least three fallback positions in case something went wrong.

“He's a maniac. He cannot in principle be stupid or crazy.”

Alexander Pichushkin: 'The Bitsa Park Maniac' BULLIED and taunted at school, he was raised by his grandad whose death some believe may have triggered his killing spree. Most of his victims were battered to death with a hammer.

The psychotic murderer killed women and children but most of his victims were elderly men he befriended often with chess or vodka in Bitsa Park.

The sick serial killer would leave them for dead with a bottle wedged into their cracked skulls as his “signature”.

His final victim Marina Moskalyova, 36, who he took on a date in the spring of 2006, was his last. She had left a note for her son with his name and phone number on it.

A metro ticket found on her body also led police to track her journey and he was seen with her on surveillance tape footage.

He confessed at once, his only condition was doing it in front of TV camera, which investigators staged for him. The confession was then shown on NTV channel.

He was convicted on 24 October 2007 of 49 murders and three attempted murders.

He claimed 11 more victims who he confessed to killing, which would take his gruesome death toll to 60.

Almost 30, she now wants a child, she said. She doubts Pichushkin and her can ever be physically close, otherwise she would have given birth to his child.

Deprived of the chosen father of her child, she is ready to find a father 'in freedom' for her future baby, and says the mass killer agrees to this

She said: “I'm almost 30. I do not want to feel flawed, so I need a child. It's not a problem to find a sperm donor. Sasha understands all this and supports me. I will always belong to Sasha.”

She claimed her interest in serial killers began from childhood.

She said: “My friends still played with dolls, and I already knew by heart the biography of Chikatilo.”

Andrei Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov and the Red Ripper, who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990.

19 Natalya has even met the maniacs mother Natalia Pichushkina Credit: NTV / The Siberian Times

A hero to Pichushkin, he was executed in 1994.

After starting to communicate with one time murderers while still at high school Natalya said she quickly wanted something “hotter” and so sought out “real maniacs.”

She said: “I wanted to understand them, talk to them.

“Now I'm like a 'walking encyclopaedia', I can tell you about any of them.

“Remember the movie Silence of the Lambs, where the investigator during interviews felt sympathy to the main villain?

“In fact maniacs are very interesting people, each of them is unique and original.

“They are better and smarter than any of us.”

For me, life without killing is like life without food for you. Alexander Pichushkin,

She also got to know the maniac's mother saying “I remember when we met for the first time in the subway, she grabbed my hand, and immediately pulled me to her home.”

Natalya added: “I was so touched... She hugged me, open up, I immediately became kind of relative for her. She's a wonderful person, her love would be enough for children, grandchildren, daughters-in-law. From our conversation, I realised that she still loved her son.”

She also said that Pichushkin's mother Natalia, 64, had stopped writing to her son but “never opposed our marriage.”

19 Natalya want's to have a child with Puchushkin but accepts that is unlikely Credit: Vkontakte

19 Shop worker Natalya is from Nyagan, the same town as Maria Sharapova

19 Natalya says maniacs are better than most of us Credit: Vkontakte

But Natalya admits she faced a barrage of abuse for her love. In the 2014 documentary she posed in a wedding dress as Pichushkin's bride, highlighting her love for the savage mass murderer.

“Everything changed (for me) when they showed the Bitsa Maniac on TV,' she said. 'It was love from first sight. He became my ray of sunshine. I began writing, he answered, and we exchanged letters.

“In his letters, he told me in detail about the murders he committed, and how it was 'interesting for him to turn the living into the dead'.'

She added: “I go to bed thinking about him, I wake up thinking about him.' To her, he was like 'a Hollywood star”.

After the TV show she said: “When I returned home, I was showered with numerous threats, insults. Tons of mud from around the country poured out on my head.

“I did not become worse because I love the man who is believed to be a devil. I knew that neither me, nor my choice, would be approved.

“I remember people were shouting in the social networks that they are afraid to live in the same city as me, and that I should be isolated from society.”