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Antarctica scientist stabbed colleague for spoiling book endings


By Natalie O'Neill

In the first attempted murder ever on the frozen continent of Antarctica, a Russian scientist reportedly snapped and allegedly tried to stab a colleague to death because the victim kept giving away the endings of books.
Sergey Savitsky had been trying to use literature to pass the lonesome months at Bellingshausen Station on King George Island, but his colleague Oleg Beloguzov was making it impossible to enjoy his hobby.
“[He] kept telling [him] the endings of books before he read them,” The Sun reported, citing an unnamed source.
So on Oct. 9, the 55-year-old Savitsky finally had enough and allegedly plunged a kitchen knife into the chest of his 52-year-old tormenter. Part of Beloguzov’s heart was wounded, Russian authorities said.
Beloguzov, a welder, was flown to the nearest hospital, in Chile, where he is expected to survive.
The men previously had spent four frigid years working together at the facility. Officials said that while the reading dispute was the final straw, the close confinement in the camp on remote Antarctica played a role in fueling the attack.
“They are both professional scientists who have been working in our expeditions, spending year-long seasons at the station,” deputy director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute Alexander Klepikov told the Russian news outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“It is down to investigators to figure out what sparked the conflict, but both men are members of our team,” he said.
Savitsky was deported to St. Petersburg, Russia, and charged with attempted murder on Oct. 22, according to Pravda.
Savitsky admitted to the stabbing but claimed he didn’t mean to kill him, the Russian news outlet Nevskie Novosti reported, citing law-enforcement sources.
The station, which was set up by the Soviets in 1968, is located in one of Antarctica’s few mild regions — where winter temperatures hover around a balmy 15 degrees.
Workers can spend time flipping between two Russian TV channels, exercising at a gym — or reading in the research library.