After six and a half years of unrest on the Russian soil, which included the First World War much of which took place in Russia, the 1917 Lenin lead Russian October Revolution and the Civil Wars between the seceding nationalities, the Whites, the Bolsheviks and the Anarchists, Russia found itself on the brink of an economic collapse which left many people starving. Things got even worse for people living around the river Volga (the Povolzhye region) who had a bad year for crops due to unfavorable weather. Because armed groups at war with each other needed food for their soldiers, they took anything they could from already deprived families causing widespread famine which claimed the lives of 5 million people.

The Povolzhye famine lasted from spring of 1921 to fall of 1922. During the year and a half, after running out of the little food supplies they had, the desperately starved people turned to eating their pets, then to eating grass and eventually, when long and harsh winter befell the region, to eating one another.

Soviet government played a pivotal role in the Povolzhye famine, having traded the grains to the European countries in exchange for money they wanted to use towards the industrialization of the country. Stores had no food to sell and because Povolzhye was struck with bad weather, millions of people who lived in the Volga-Ural region were left with nothing to put in their mouth.

There were many cases of desperate families cannibalizing their dead relatives and then… turning to killing one another. Parents were often forced to choose one son or daughter to kill so the rest of their family could survive.

Many thanks to Best Gore member NihilismGrave for the pics: