The Mysterious Suicide of Standart Captain Ivan Chagin

At seven on the morning of October 11, 1912, a shot rang out from an apartment at No. 5 Italian Street in St. Petersburg.  Servants rushed to the closed bedroom door and flung it open, only to encounter a scene of horror.  Their master, fifty-one-year-old Rear-Admiral Ivan Chagin, captain of the Imperial yacht Standart, sat in a chair by his bed, dressed in his nightclothes.  An unfinished glass of tea stood on the side table, and he still clutched an old rifle in his left hand.  The top of Chagin's head was missing – blown against the wall behind him; only his lower jaw and beard-clad chin remained. (1)