Babushka

On a dark Moscow street, Vasilissa, the tallest of a gang of street girls, snatches a wooden doll from an old crone, sending her tumbling backwards into a fire barrel where she is engulfed in flames. Vasilissa follows the other girls into an alley and is haunted by strange shadows and a cackling that seems to come out of nowhere. A fence made from human bones and skulls with glowing eye sockets blocks her way, and she turns to see two spectral witch-like hands reaching towards her. The next morning, Ivan, a disheveled detective, and Sergei, a policeman, examine the naked body of Vasillisa in the alleyway with the doll still clutched in her hands and a simple chain-link fence now blocking the way. Frustrated by the lack of clues in the disappearance of the other girls, Ivan hurls the doll against the ground and gets an idea. He shoves past Sergei and begins to cut open the body near the split babushka doll where the halves of each of the smaller dolls nestle snugly inside the other, revealing the missing girls’ grisly fate.