Weekend Negotiations with Russian Doomsday Cult Fail

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Nikolskoye is about 640 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of Moscow in the Penza region; the sect members have been there since earlier this month, waiting for the end of the world next spring.

Despite pleas by Russian Orthodox priests yesterday, they have refused to emerge; in fact, the dooms-dayers say they have 100 gallons of gasoline and will blow themselves up in anyone tries to remove them. They say that winter survival will depend upon providence. A ventilation pipe is the only means that priests and other negotiators have to establish communication with the faithful.

Pyotr Kuznetsov, 43 and a self-described "prophet" who is their leader, blessed his believers before they entered the bunker but didn't go in with his worshippers, saying that he had to stay behind to meet others who might arrive and want to go to the cave. He claims that divine inspiration led to the cave encampment. Last week, he was charged with

setting up a religious organization associated with violence

and has undergone a psychiatric evaluation in the Penza area. He's thought to be schizophrenic.

Kuznetsov left the Russian Orthodox Church several years ago to establish the "True Russian Orthodox Church." His followers aren't allowed to listen to the radio, watch TV or handle money. They also don't eat any food packaged with a UPC code, as the code is interpreted as the Antichrist's mark, or use credit cards. Their children aren't allowed to go to school. The pay-off for all this is apparently Kuznetsov's promise that, in the afterlife, his congregation will get to judge who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. One parent of a Kuznetsov follower, Anna Vabischchevich, is reported in a Fox News article to have said that her son, Alexander, 41, and his family are cult members. She described the situation as

My son was kind and now he is mentally ill.