Ural Skier Beats Teen, Then Weeps in Court

Black mustaches made Yakov Shusharin, an ordinary marketer, famous throughout Yekaterinburg. They were on his face when he beat a 13-year-old schoolboy on the Ukhtus slope, and became a distinguishing feature when the attacker was declared wanted. Details in the E1.RU report.

Yakov turned himself in to the police. Law enforcement officers did not immediately realize that the man before them was the one from the alert, because he had shaved off those thick mustaches right after the incident on the mountain. He says he wasn«t trying to change his appearance, but just wanted to tidy up.

Yakov explained that he attacked the child in defense of his wife and young daughter. The teenager accidentally knocked down his wife while riding a snow scooter down the mountain. At that moment, the man flew into a rage: without even giving the boy a chance to apologize, he lunged at him with his fists and struck him several times in the head.

«He wasn»t just hitting him; he was beating him senseless«

13-year-old Vlastimir was walking on «Ukhtus» with a friend; they were riding a snow scooter. Once again descending the mountain, the boy saw people standing on the slope. The child says he tried to brake, but didn«t have time, so he collided with a woman.

«I stretched my arms forward to cushion the impact for the woman,» the boy told the police. «I didn»t have time to apologize before they started beating me. My head was spinning, and my vision went blurry.«

Literally a minute later, the boy«s friend ran up to the slope. He wanted to distract the aggressor so he would stop beating him. When the man chased after the second teenager, Vlastimir managed to get up and go home.

When he told his parents what happened, they immediately took him to the hospital. The boy was diagnosed with a broken nose, a concussion, and a closed head injury.

«If I had been there, I don»t know what I would have done. He [Yakov] wasn«t just hitting him; he was beating him senseless. The child was put on sick leave for a month, he»s not going to school, and an old neurological condition has flared up. It«s still unclear what the consequences of the head injury will be; they might show up later,» explained the teenager«s mother, Kristina, to E1.RU.

Vlastimir«s mother, Kristina, is a world champion in Oriental dance, and she has her own Telegram channel where she talks about her life and travels. She also posted there the video from the ski resort cameras showing her son being brutally beaten by a mustached man. Within a few days, it spread across all media and public channels in the city.

Kristina has four children. Vlastimir is the eldest child in the family. He visited «Ukhtus» often; his mother considered the ski resort territory a safe place for walks, especially since her son knows it well. The boy regularly rides there with an instructor on a snowboard.

«Now the child is very upset after what happened, and the younger children are too,» shared Kristina.

«Wife possibly pregnant»

Yakov surrendered to the police four days after beating the boy. He says he wasn«t trying to hide from the investigation or disguise himself, but during that time he managed to change his hairstyle and shave his mustache.

He came to confess when he saw himself on the video that was already everywhere. That day on the slope, he and his wife were teaching their four-year-old daughter to ski. The man flew into a rage when the snow scooter crashed into them.

«In a fit of rage, I struck the person who knocked down my wife several times. With my fist to the head area and the torso area. My wife might have been pregnant. That is, we are trying to conceive a second child, and for me this was a stressful situation,» explained Yakov.

Investigators opened a criminal case under the article «Hooliganism.» In court, where his pretrial restrictions were being determined, the former mustache-man asked for forgiveness from the child«s mother and even burst into tears.

He wiped away tears while explaining why he attacked and beat the boy.

«My vision went dark, I didn»t see a child in front of me, I saw a man who knocked down my wife. I was very frightened, I don«t understand what came over me at that moment. I am willing to see a psychiatrist to find out if I am a danger to society, if necessary. Please forgive me,» said Yakov in court.

The man was supported by his wife, Anastasia, who had stopped her enraged husband on the slope. She brought their four-year-old daughter with her to court. The girl was not allowed into the hall, although she really wanted to see her father. In the corridor, the little girl watched cartoons with her grandfather while her mother explained why dad attacked someone else«s child.

«We»ve been trying to conceive a child for several months, we«re not succeeding, we»re under stress. Here I fall, I could have been pregnant, my husband is stressed about that. So it«s not like he thought, »Now I«ll beat him up,» something just snapped in him. It was a reaction to a specific situation,« says Yakov»s wife.

The mother of 38-year-old Yakov also came to the hearing. She whispered into the camera to her son: «You»re not guilty!« and defended him before journalists. Friendly, active, an avid hiker (he grew those thick mustaches during another trek), he never got into serious conflicts, has no criminal record, and no bad habits.

The woman is convinced that the teenager whom her adult son was punching in the head is also to blame. In the courthouse corridor, she even tried to explain this to the child«s mother, who was shocked by such accusations and preferred to step aside to avoid a discussion.

«Your son committed a hooligan act,» declared the accused«s mother to the mother of the injured teenager. »And my son did it unintentionally.«

«Thank you, I understand that you were also beating him,» snapped Kristina and went to another part of the corridor.

Yakov«s mother continued her thought in front of journalists» cameras.

«This slope is meant for teaching children, not for riding snow scooters. The boy committed hooligan acts; he didn»t even shout, didn«t ask people to move aside,» says the accused«s mother, Lyudmila Yuryevna. »He and his friend were giggling and looking towards my children. And the video shows that the slope is big, but they just had to ride right towards my kids.«

«You acted like a beast!»

Yakov, unlike his relatives, does not doubt his guilt. He offered to compensate the boy«s family for the damages (the child»s treatment requires financial costs), but the schoolboy«s mother categorically refused both apologies and money.

«You acted like a beast. I believe your behavior is dangerous, like that of a beast,» said the child«s mother and asked for the strictest possible pretrial restrictions for the man.

The skier«s lawyer insisted on house arrest, but investigators believed that at large he could pressure witnesses or disappear, since after beating the teenager he left the scene. The court agreed with this position and sent Yakov into custody for a month and a half.

«Yasha, hang in there! We will appeal!» said the accused«s mother as she left the courtroom.

Under the «Hooliganism» article, the man faces up to five years in prison.

We followed the court hearing online. All news on this topic can be found in a special section.