Around eight that evening, Sam happened to see Principal Gromov and facilities manager Savelyev near a side entrance. The two men were unloading large cardboard boxes from a car. The boxes were clearly heavy from the way both men strained to carry them.
Sam didn’t walk over or ask questions. He figured it wasn’t his place. After all, the principal had every right to move school property around. So the old watchman turned around and went back to his small office to finish his tea.
Around nine o’clock, Sam made another round of the building. He noticed the lights were still on in the auditorium. At the same time, he heard dull noises coming from deep in the basement.
It sounded like someone was working in the old boiler area. Sam assumed Savelyev was checking equipment. Finally, around 9:30, the auditorium lights went out.
Sam felt relieved and assumed the teenagers had wrapped up and gone home. He didn’t actually see them leave, but that didn’t strike him as unusual. The building had several exits.
Early the next morning, May 24, panic spread through town. Parents woke up and realized their children had never come home. A flurry of phone calls quickly revealed the full scale of the nightmare.
Every one of the 24 seniors was missing. In their mailboxes, parents found nearly identical handwritten notes. Each one was written on a torn sheet from a school notebook.
The message was short and chilling: “We’re leaving for the city.” The notes claimed there were more opportunities there. At the bottom was a blunt line: “Don’t look for us. We’re old enough to decide our own future.”
The handwriting looked different from note to note. At first glance, it seemed as if each student had written a personal message. Parents were in shock, but not all of them rushed straight to the police.
In 1992, plenty of young people really were leaving small towns for bigger cities, hoping to find work and a better life. Anna Korneva learned about the mass disappearance around noon.
She dropped everything and drove straight to the school. Principal Gromov was in his office. He looked shaken and insisted he had no idea what could have happened to an entire senior class.
Anna pressed him to call the police immediately. After some hesitation, he agreed. By late that evening, an official investigation had been opened into the disappearance of 24 minors.
Detectives first questioned the night watchman, Sam Volkov. He honestly told them he had seen the students in the school late into the evening. According to him, they had been rehearsing in the auditorium.
Then the lights went out, and he assumed they had all gone home. Principal Gromov confirmed that a long rehearsal had taken place that evening. But he insisted he had not seen any of the students later that night.
In his first statement, he said he had left school around six. Facilities manager Savelyev gave investigators a similar account. He said he had left campus by 6:30.
He claimed he had noticed nothing unusual before leaving. But investigators quickly found a serious contradiction. Watchman Volkov had clearly seen both men at the school at eight o’clock.
According to Sam, they had been unloading heavy boxes from a car. Because of that discrepancy, Gromov was called back in for a second, tougher interview. Realizing denial wouldn’t hold, he changed his story.
He admitted he had briefly returned to the school that evening. Gromov awkwardly explained that he had brought in office supplies for the school. He said he had simply forgotten to mention it because it didn’t seem important.
After that, Savelyev also revised his statement. He confirmed he had helped the principal unload the boxes. According to his new version, they finished around 8:30 and then went home.
Meanwhile, officers searched the entire school building. They found no signs of a struggle, no blood, and no obvious evidence of violence. The auditorium was spotless, as if no one had stayed late at all…
