'She split my head with a ladle.' Mother jailed for years of abuse

Diveyevo is a quiet village where pilgrims from across Russia come to pray. It is hard to imagine that behind the doors of one local house there was a real hell, whose hostages were six children at once. In 2024, Diveyevo, along with the whole country, was shocked by a story that is truly horrifying.

A mother of many children, known to her neighbors as a deeply religious woman, turned out to be a monster in human form. For ten years she systematically tortured her own children. We recall the story of Natalya Finogeyeva and the details of the high-profile case.

Lies under the guise of piety

Finogeyeva appeared in the Diveyevo district in 2014. She came from another region with her children, without a single document. No passport, no birth certificates, no medical insurance policies. The family lived in a house near the rural administration, hardly communicating with anyone except similarly devout people.

On social media, the woman presented herself as an Orthodox herbal healer. She promised to treat everything with herbs — from colds to cancer. She wore modest clothing and always covered her head.

Natalya had children from different men, never officially married them, and tried not to mention this in conversations.

Initially, the mother of many children evoked only sympathy and respect, but everything changed when unexpected details of the family«s life began to emerge.

«Poor mother» and kind-hearted people

The large family settled in an old wooden house in the village of Bolshoye Cherevatovo, and their arrival immediately drew the attention of child welfare authorities. Colleagues from the Ivanovo region immediately warned the Nizhny Novgorod services that the woman might disappear and leave the children alone, which was quickly confirmed.

At such moments, the children could not explain where their mother was and when she would return. The woman did not leave them food; they tried to cook something from stale vegetables on a faulty stove, which once predictably ended in a fire. The children did not attend school and never visited a clinic.

When social workers uncovered the children«s living conditions, many sided with Natalya. Volunteers constantly contacted her, tidying up her house, bringing food and clothes for the children, paying utility bills, and covering other family needs. Natalya herself, by the way, did not work. Even for the new house the family moved into after the fire, money was raised by kind-hearted people.

Hell behind closed doors

Meanwhile, at home, unimaginable things were happening. For ten years, Finogeyeva tortured four young children. Two older ones ran away from home when they turned 15 and began living independently.

The remaining children were beaten when she was dissatisfied with their household behavior. She inflicted physical injuries, deprived them of food, and left them hungry.

But the most horrifying part — she never sought medical help. When she needed to deal with the consequences of her beatings, she treated the wounds herself, and sometimes — took an ordinary needle and thread, sewing up the wounds of her own children live, without anesthesia.

In 2025, the woman«s eldest daughter, Diana, appeared on the program »Muzhskoe i Zhenskoe« (Men»s and Women«s), where she spoke in detail about all the horrors she experienced together with her brothers and sisters.

Diana recalled that she, like all the other children, was severely beaten. According to the girl, there were even cases of harassment from her mother«s partner.

— Father of Fevronia lived in the village of Bolshoye Cherevatovo with my mother; he met her at the monastery. Mom tried, but something happened that broke her. When Fevronia was born, he did not stop drinking and allowed things that are simply impossible to talk about. Mom turned a blind eye to a lot, — the girl shared on air.

When the abuse became known to the public, Natalya was living with four young children. After the uproar, they were taken to a rehabilitation center.

— I once made a collar for a kitten, and she did not like it. She almost strangled me with a scarf; I hit my nose against the stove and lost consciousness, — said Natalya«s youngest daughter.

— Mom split my head with a ladle, beat me with a log. Living with her was impossible; she practically did not feed us, and we slept four of us on the floor on a small mattress. I already got used to that life. It is a life of hell, and not the best life, — said another child.

System failure

The most terrible thing about this story is not only Finogeyeva«s atrocities, but also that they could have been prevented.

As early as 2015, the woman was attempted to be deprived of parental rights. Child welfare authorities saw that the children did not attend school, had no documents, and that the mother did not work and could not support them. But the court then refused — volunteers and the religious community stood up for Finogeyeva.

The family changed their place of residence several times, and each time new kind-hearted people were found ready to help the «poor mother of many children».

The reckoning

In December 2024, Natalya Finogeyeva was detained and taken into custody. The investigation lasted more than a year, and on May 7, 2026, the Diveyevo court handed down a sentence to the Nizhny Novgorod woman.

The woman was sentenced to 5 years in a general-regime colony. She was found guilty on two charges: torture of minors (paragraphs «a, g» of Part 2 of Article 117 of the Russian Criminal Code) and failure to fulfill parental duties (Article 156 of the Russian Criminal Code). Also, in favor of each of the four children, compensation for moral damages was awarded — 500 thousand rubles (about $5,500). All four children are currently in a specialized institution. Their older sister Diana is trying to obtain custody over them.

And sometimes it is the other way around: parents love their children too much — but that also leads to nothing good. An example is the story of Nizhny Novgorod resident Elena Antonova, who took a child from an orphanage to raise and as a result got hit in the head with a dumbbell.