MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) – A kindergarten in northern Russia was fined 30,000 rubles ($900) for sanitary violations after children dug up a goat skull in the school’s sandbox, local media said Tuesday.
The discovery was made in late April, but officials in the city of Syktyvkar, capital of the Komi Republic, took more than four months to conduct an investigation, Progorod11.ru said.
The children, who were promptly told the find was a mask and were made to wash their hands, were unharmed, Progorod11.ru said, adding that the playground then underwent a thorough disinfection.
Investigators, however, never established where the skull came from. Local parents suspected Satanists, neo-pagans or even a wannabe witch, though a local member of the Church of Satan denied in May that his religion had any rites requiring the burial of goat skulls in children’s playgrounds, Progorod11.ru said at the time.
Kindergarten employees said the skull might have been buried at the source pit that supplied the sand to the playground.
