A Russian historian with an unusual
interest in cemeteries has been arrested after police found more than 20
mummified corpses in his flat, all of which he had dressed in women's
clothes.

The 45-year-old man, who apparently was open about his enthusiasm for the dead, had been taking his work home with him.

Officers
who searched his flat in the city of Nizhny Novgorod discovered 29
bodies clothed in bright dresses and headscarves, their hands and faces
wrapped in what appeared to be cloth.

It was described as a macabre doll-like collection.

Instructions
for doll making were found in the apartment, police added, and there
were also old-fashioned plastic dolls in frilly dresses lying about.

Investigators
refused to name the man but identified him as a well-known specialist
in the history of Nizhny Novgorod, about 250 miles east of Moscow.