Russian Doomsday Cult Sparks Mass Suicide Fears
Group Is Holed Up in a Cave and Believe Worlds Will End in May 2008
By CLARISSA WARD
MOSCOW, Nov. 16, 2007

At first glance the pictures of fields blanketed in thick, powder snow show no sign of life. Look closer and you can just make out a small hole in the snow, with smoke or steam occasionally piping out.

Inside that hole, deep in the countryside of central Russia, at least 29 people, four of whom are children, live in a cave. Authorities say that they are members of a little-known cult and that they refuse to leave the cave before May, when they believe the world will end.

They have threatened to blow themselves up if anyone tries to remove them. the rest