Beware the mad professor
Jul 08, 2021
3 minutes
Dressed in period uniform, red military sash stretched across his portly stomach, the man held out his hand to the young woman.
Serene and beautiful, with flowers in her hair, she was wearing a flowing 19th-century-style white gown.
Guests at the stately ball watched as Professor Oleg Sokolov led his partner Anastasia Yeshchenko to the dance floor.
The couple were members of the academic elite in St Petersburg, Russia.
Prof Sokolov, 63, was an acclaimed historian who’d taught at the Sorbonne – the University of
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