Dog attack survivor blames mother for his fate

25 years ago, the horrific story of 7-year-old Igor Vinogradov shocked everyone — a fighting dog ripped off his entire face. The boy underwent numerous plastic surgeries. Then Igor disappeared. Years later, colleagues from the program «Pust Govoryat» (Let Them Talk) managed to find him. It turned out the young man now lives in Moscow.

Igor Vinogradov met his mother face-to-face live on air for the first time in many years; this horrific story had driven them apart. We tell you what he does and what he has been through, together with colleagues from StarHit.

«My brother managed to hide in the wardrobe, but I didn«t»

The story of an ordinary boy from the small town of Furmanov in the Ivanovo Region made headlines across the country in the early 2000s. He was viciously mauled by a Staffordshire terrier that his mother had brought home.

«I was home alone with my younger brother. The only adult was our great-grandmother, who was over 90. She could barely hear and could hardly walk,» Igor recalls that day. «Our parents were at work, and my brother and I — little kids — were running and playing in the yard and inside the house.»

Then Igor lost consciousness. After the attack, only his eyelids, eyeballs, and chin remained of his child«s face. Local doctors did everything possible to save his life. The seven-year-old»s condition was so critical that he was rushed to Moscow.

«It was a psychological nightmare,» admitted the surgeon who operated on Igor. «In the first operation, I had to close the scalp area first because the skull bones were completely exposed. The only way to close it was a graft of omentum from the abdominal cavity. In the first days, they brought him out of shock and prescribed powerful therapy to reduce inflammation, because such microsurgical operations take many hours and cannot be performed while the patient is in shock.»

A month in a coma and 15 operations. At one point, they had to stop — the body could no longer handle the anesthesia. No one spoke of recovery then. Yet the surgeons promised the impossible: to eliminate his facial defects by the age of 18. The Moscow doctors turned to their German colleagues for help.

«The operations were interrupted because the doctors said a break of 2-3 years was needed. When the time came, we went to a clinic in Munich and found that the doctors who had operated on him were simply gone,» said Igor«s mother Svetlana.

Instead of Germany«s best clinics — an orphanage

The boy«s life was difficult. His parents divorced; Igor continued to communicate with his father for a time. While in Germany, his mother started dating men and eventually remarried.

While everyone thought Igor was surrounded by family and recovering his face in the best clinics, he was living alone, abandoned by his mother in an orphanage.

«I spent part of my childhood abroad, got an education, and worked. In the end, I returned to Russia anyway. I lost my job and had no opportunity to find a new one,» Igor said. «Now my relationship with my relatives is very bad.»

Svetlana Vinogradova had to endure not only what happened to her son but also a torrent of accusations and harsh words directed at her.

«People, try living my life with my child! I went through all of this with him,» the woman exclaims. «No one who gets a dog can predict what will happen.»

Got involved in crime and served time in a colony

It turned out that the dog attack and his injuries were not the worst thing that had happened over the years in the relationship between Igor Vinogradov and his mother.

«You went to rob a bank and got arrested!» exclaims Svetlana Vinogradova. «He was living separately from us when he did it. The police came in the middle of the night; they were looking for him.»

In Russia, in a small provincial town, Igor also found it difficult to find a job. At some point, the young man with a disfigured face took a wrong step — he went down a criminal path. Together with others, he took part in car thefts.

«My son ended up in prison as a juvenile because of him,» Irina, the mother of Igor«s accomplice, said on the air of «Pust Govoryat» (Let Them Talk). «My son is very compassionate. They met when Igor was 22 and my son was 15. He would find such youngsters to sweet-talk: »I«m poor and unhappy, pity me.» Like, «My mother doesn»t support me, I was kicked out of Germany.« And with my son, they stole cars.»

In the end, Igor Vinogradov received a prison sentence in Russia.

Move to Moscow and wedding to a beauty

Igor is now 31. He rents an apartment in Moscow and works as a grocery delivery courier. The young man is trying not just to integrate into society but to make a name for himself — his profile can be found on Russian casting agencies« websites.

His appearance did not prevent Igor Vinogradov from having a personal life — he was married several times. At the end of September, he married again, to a sweet girl named Vika, who, like him, works as a courier.

Shortly before the New Year, Igor got a dog. Volunteers had picked up the puppy in Astrakhan, and the young man adopted it from a shelter. So a dog appeared in his home again — but this time not as a source of fear and cruelty.

Igor remained faceless — and has never been able to forgive his mother for bringing a fighting dog into their home.

«Partly. Most likely, no. [I believe that] my mother is to blame for my fate,» he said on the show. «Of course, I am partly grateful to her — she did do things for me, tried to fix the situation. But I believe that anyone who has small children bears responsibility for their actions.»