Access to the body: why it is forbidden to bury people in the Far East
In the village of Achaivayam in the Kamchatka Territory, a local resident cannot be buried for three weeks: a 65-year-old man died suddenly, and in a sudden death situation, a medical examiner's report is needed to rule out the criminal nature of the death. However, there is no such doctor in the village, and it is difficult to get to Achaivayam. As a result, the person has not been able to be buried for more than 20 days. The situation is not unique: in September, a similar story occurred in Yakutia, when an eight-year-old girl died there. Izvestia investigated where such problems arose.
Why is it forbidden to bury a person
The situation was reported by the Kamchatka North Telegram channel, publishing a letter from the deceased's daughter.
"On October 30, 2025, my father Boris Vasilyevich Maralcot died in the village of Achaivayam in the Olyutorsky district. Today, we cannot take the body and bury it, as a forensic medical examination is required, which cannot be carried out due to the remoteness of the village from the district center and the lack of specialists," the message says.
At first, the relatives were promised that a surgeon would be sent to the village, he was supposed to conduct an autopsy and issue a conclusion. However, after two weeks of waiting, it became known that the doctor would not arrive due to bad weather conditions. The Olyutorsky district hospital does not issue a death certificate, as the Interior Ministry authorities do not give permission for this without autopsy results.
The media reports that the body is now lying in a container on the territory of the FAP.
Boris Maralkot died suddenly: he got up in the morning, complained of pain in his side and lay down. His family thought he had fallen asleep, but he stopped breathing. The man was 65 years old, and he had not complained about his health before. A forensic examination is needed precisely because of the suddenness of death, but it can only be carried out in the village of Tilichiki (the administrative center of the Olyutorsky district), which is 2.5 hours away by helicopter. The police should arrange transportation, but law enforcement officers told the family that there was no money for this and they had to wait for December 2, when the Rosgvardiya helicopter would arrive in Achaivayam.
Aviation expert Maxim Fedosov explained to Izvestia that an hour of flight on Mi-2 or Mi-8 helicopters, which could transport the body, can cost up to 200 thousand rubles, and the entire flight will cost 1 million rubles. According to him, such a flight could be paid for by the police or the village administration. In addition, each region has a so-called reserve fund, which theoretically can provide money for such procedures.
The government of Kamchatka stated that they are making every effort to deliver the body of the deceased man from Achaivayam to Tilichiki. The report emphasizes that the transportation should be handled by "the authorities that appointed the forensic examination," but the government and the administration of the Olyutorsky district decided to get involved in the situation.
"We are currently exploring ways to deliver the body of the deceased resident either by all-terrain vehicles or by board the Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise. All forces have been mobilized to transport the body," the Ministry of Internal Policy and Development of the Koryak District of the Kamchatka Territory said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kamchatka Territory also stated that the issue of delivering the body to Tilichiki is being resolved, but this is fraught with "logistical difficulties due to the extreme remoteness and inaccessibility of the settlement, as well as the lack of transport links." At the same time, it is emphasized that the establishment of the cause of death "is a mandatory measure when conducting an inspection by the bodies of inquiry."
Where else were there problems
The incident is not the first for Kamchatka — in the comments to the message on the Telegram channel, a local resident said that only three weeks later she was able to bury her brother, whose body could also not be sent for forensic examination in Tilichiki. The problem has been around for many years.
So, last year, in the village of Talovka, Penzhinsky district, the body of a 30-year—old local resident could not be buried for a month for the same reason - due to the inability to promptly conduct a forensic examination. The body was kept in a makeshift morgue for several weeks.
A high-profile case occurred this year in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), in the village of Yukagir. An eight-year-old girl who died under the wheels of a tractor was buried there only three weeks later. The tragedy occurred on September 19: a child climbed up to ride a tractor with the permission of a local resident. The man did not notice that the girl had fallen out through the rear folding window, and backed up. Despite the fact that no one disputed the circumstances of the death, and a criminal case was opened against the man, they were not allowed to bury the girl until there was a conclusion from the medical examiner. There is no such specialist in the village of Yukagir, and the flights on which the doctor was supposed to arrive in the village were postponed all the time, explaining the non-flying weather.
At the same time, the reason was initially the cancellation of flights due to the lack of subsidized fares in conditions of budget deficit. It was reported that in 2025, 84.8 million rubles were allocated from the republican budget for the program of subsidizing domestic aviation routes in Yakutia. 110 flights cost this amount. The money ran out in June, as the real demand is much higher: 556.4 million rubles (or 921 flights).
The governments of the Kamchatka Territory and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) did not respond to Izvestia's request.
Are there enough forensic experts in Russia
Alexey Reshetun, an assistant at the Department of Operative Surgery and Topographic Anatomy at the Institute of Anatomical Medicine at Pirogov University, said that since Soviet times, standards for a forensic medical expert have been calculated based on residents of a particular region.
— That is, one rate was set based on a certain number of residents. And of course, due to the fact that some regions are not very densely populated, to put it mildly, especially in the Far North, the expert serves a very large area. Technically, sometimes it's not easy to do this," he told Izvestia.
According to the expert, such cases occur very rarely and really concern hard—to-reach, sparsely populated regions, because the main problem is logistics. In most parts of the country, such problems do not arise, as there is "both transport and personnel accessibility."
At the same time, the participation of forensic experts is mandatory when it is necessary to figure out what caused the death and exclude its criminal nature. It should be noted that the so-called external causes in Russia account for about 7% of deaths annually: that is, about 130-150 thousand people.
In addition, forensic experts often check those who died of natural causes (for example, from cardiovascular diseases), especially if everything happened suddenly and at first glance for no reason.
According to open data, about 4,000 forensic experts work in Russia. Only 26 vacancies are open on the website "Work in Russia" in the departments of forensic medical examination throughout the country, and not only doctors, but also laboratory assistants are needed. Their salary is usually within the regional average or slightly higher, but it depends on the specific subject of the Russian Federation: a doctor at the SME bureau in the Tomsk region will be able to receive from 85 to 110 thousand rubles, in Sakhalin — up to 124 thousand, in the Sverdlovsk region — from 70 to 75 thousand, and in the Bryansk region — from 34 to 69 thousand . rubles'.
Izvestia sent a request about the personnel situation in the SME to the Ministry of Health, the Russian Center for Forensic Medical Examination and the Association of Forensic Medical Experts.
How to solve problems
Alexey Reshetun is confident that the problem that has arisen in the remote villages of Yakutia and Kamchatka can be solved only through the development of logistics and transport links to deliver an expert to the scene and back.
— There is no other way, because according to our legislation, the production of a forensic medical examination of a corpse is mandatory in many cases. This is especially true for hard—to-reach areas, where, as a rule, there are no known circumstances of death," the source told Izvestia.
The government of Kamchatka, commenting on the situation with the burial of a resident of Achavayama, said that next year a modular unit will be purchased in the nearby village of Pahachi in the Olyutorsky district to conduct autopsies as part of the CME. Last year, such a unit was installed in Kamenskoye, and it is planned to continue to purchase one unit each year for northern settlements.
Another attempt to speed up diagnosis was the possible integration of pathologists and forensic experts into one service. So far, this has been abandoned at the federal level, although in a number of regions (in particular, in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Leningrad and Pskov Regions, the Perm Territory, and the Republic of Kalmykia), the merger of the pathology and anatomical bureaus (PUB) with the Bureau of forensic medical examination has nevertheless occurred.
Note that problems in hard-to-reach settlements arise in other situations, not just in the case of body delivery. So, in August, in Kamchatka, air ambulance could not transport two patients with a heart attack to a regional hospital.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
