Police are currently searching for those involved in the attack on the two men, who worked at a vegetable warehouse close to the village of Zhabkino in the Moscow Region's Leningrad District.
Investigators say that the two Tajiks, aged 20 and 22, were returning from work through a local grove at around 11.30 p.m. on Friday when unknown assailants attacked them with weapons firing non-lethal ammunition.
One of the men was hit in the temple, but somehow managed to escape from the attackers, who were described as eyewitnesses as being of "Slavic appearance."
The decapitated body of the other man was later discovered in the grove by his brother, who had been informed about the attack by the survivor. The head was not located.
According to the Russian non-governmental organization SOVA, 68 people died and 262 were injured in racially motivated attacks in the country in the first eight months of this year. Eighty-five people died in race-hate murders in 2007 in Russia.
