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- Disruptive character: why the son of the former vice-governor of St. Petersburg went to murder
Disruptive character: why the son of the former vice-governor of St. Petersburg went to murder
On August 13, the Kuntsevsky District Court of Moscow arrested Alexander Khotin, the son of ex—official Igor Albin, who over the years held the posts of head of the Kostroma region, Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation and vice Governor of St. Petersburg. A graduate of the capital's elite school and Financial Academy stabbed to death a 54-year-old courier who brought him two mobile phones. During the trial, it was reported that Khotin had previously been in rehab, trying to overcome drug addiction. Why the golden youth goes into all sorts of trouble, including murder, is in the Izvestia article.
How was the trial held and what is Khotin accused of?
As soon as the bailiffs led Alexander Khotin into a glass aquarium in the courtroom, he rushed to consult with his lawyers without even letting them take off his handcuffs. While talking, the son of a former high-ranking official carefully covered his face from photos and television cameras, pulling the collar of a dark sweater almost to his eyes. Khotyn looked visibly rumpled.
The representative of the Investigative Committee, drawing the court's attention to the gravity of the crime, insisted on the arrest of the accused. The defense also asked the court to limit itself to a milder measure of restraint and not send Khotin to jail. However, the court agreed with the arguments of the investigation and arrested the defendant for two months. During the meeting, it was reported that Khotin had previously been in rehab due to drug use.
The murder, which became the reason for the arrest, occurred on the night of August 10. According to preliminary data, Khotin ordered two mobile phones online. They were delivered to the suspect's apartment on Govorova Street by a courier, 54—year-old Alexander Kumantsev.
According to investigators, the buyer invited the courier to enter the apartment, allegedly wanting to make sure that the phones were working, but then tried to take them away without paying. In the ensuing scuffle, Khotin stabbed the courier, hitting him in the neck, cutting the man's cheek, temple and ear. The wounded man was able to run out to the entrance, where he knocked on the neighbors' doors and asked for help.
Judging by the footage from the scene, almost the entire entrance was covered in blood. Paramedics hospitalized the injured man, but they could not save him — he died in the hospital a few hours later. The man has two adult sons, and his relatives, who live in the Tula region, where the courier is from, are now raising money for the funeral.
Khotin, according to the 112 channel, was detained the day after the murder in Mozhaisk, near Moscow. It is known about the arrested man that he studied at Moscow school No. 1737 with advanced studies in English and German, then graduated from the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
Igor Albin
But recently, according to media reports, the 34-year-old man was abusing alcohol and asking for money from his mother. She even contacted the police after missing precious metal tableware from her home. The damage was estimated at about 300 thousand rubles.
This is not the first arrest for the son of a former official: in 2011, Khotin got into a fight at a bar in Kostroma, and in 2022 he was tried for fraud.
The arrested man's father is Igor Albin (until 2014, Slyunyaev). In 2007-2012, he led the Kostroma Region, then headed the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation for two years, and from 2014 to 2018 he served as Vice-governor of St. Petersburg and oversaw capital construction, architecture, transport and energy. This is the second criminal case against Albin's relatives — in 2024, his relative Alexander Albin was accused of accepting a bribe in the amount of 6.5 million rubles.
Crimes of the majors
Alexander Khotin is not the first person accused of murder from among the "golden youth". In early 2025, the former mayor of Saratov, Viktor Tarkhov, and his wife stopped contacting each other, and suspicious messages were received from them. After their friend contacted the police, Tarkhov's granddaughter, Ekaterina Belskaya, was detained. The investigation found that the woman killed her relatives for money, after which she and her accomplice dismembered the bodies and gradually disposed of the remains.
The defendant had problems with illegal substances. As her father Sergey Loginov told the media, the daughter hated her relatives and complained that she was given only 100 thousand rubles a month. Lyudmila Tarkhova, the daughter of the ex-mayor of Samara and Belskaya's mother, was sentenced to seven years in 2022 for extorting 200 million rubles from Alexander Mileev, a deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma.
In 2024, Nikolai Kondrat, the son of former Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Ivan Kondrat and Moscow arbitration judge Elena Kondrat, was sentenced to 20 years. He was found guilty of organizing the murder of his driver and preparing for the murder of arbitration court judge Elena Makhalkina and two businessmen.
Why do the "golden youth" commit crimes
Not all children from well-off families are prone to antisocial behavior, and most of them do not commit offenses, Ksenia Varganova, a psychologist and specialist in the Alter psychological platform, told Izvestia.
— High-profile cases are widely publicized, but this rarely happens. Because of the resonance, there is a deceptive feeling that such behavior is the norm for people from wealthy families," she explained.
At the same time, the lack of clear boundaries, emotional distance from adults and the habit of not facing the consequences of their actions increase the risk of problematic behavior among the "golden youth," the expert emphasized.
— Maladjustment among those who grew up in wealthy families is not about money, but about a lack of internal supports and the necessary experience. If in childhood difficulties were solved with money or helpers, then a person does not have time to train resilience, and the rigid framework of life that he will sooner or later face — the law, the collective, the market — becomes a blow that a person is not ready for," said Ksenia Varganova.
The cult of exclusivity, the lack of experience of failure and the late encounter with generally accepted rules and regulations significantly increase the risk of maladaptation, the expert added. A value system where status and money are more important than empathy and work makes it difficult to flexibly respond to problems and see the consequences. Privileges without responsibility perpetuate impulsive behavior, and the idea of "we are special" blurs the boundaries of what is permissible, Varganova emphasized.
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