RUSSIA: Devil-worshippers have begun targeting a Moscow apartment block made famous by the writer Mikhail Bulgakov, terrifying local residents.
Swastikas, SS symbols and pentagrams cover the walls and stairwells of this apartment block where the writer set his most famous work, The Master And Margarita. The appearance has triggered a real-life struggle between the forces of good and evil that mimics the battle of the novel.
For years, residents of the block, 10 Bolshoya Sadovaya, have put up with local youths arriving, with beer and guitars, to loll around outside apartment 50, where part of the text is set.
They even tolerated their graffiti, featuring choice quotes and fantastical paintings of the book's characters, including evil devils, enigmatic cats and sexy Margaritas. But the Nazi symbols are different.
"I am afraid to go out," says resident Ms Elena Sapronenkova, a film director. "I come out of my apartment and there it is. Satan." Such is the fear in this block that she was the only tenant to agree to speak publicly.
Devil worship has been thriving in Russia ever since the demise of Communism 14 years ago. Some blame the ideological vacuum left by the collapse of socialism, others say Satanism is a front for racists.
It is a threat the authorities are taking seriously. Since 2003, Russia's interior ministry has monitored devil worship cults.
Most of the 500 estimated members are teenagers and most of their activities are harmless, but several crimes and ritual murders have been linked to these cults.
The presence of the devil in Master And Margarita has been seized on by these Satanists, though Bulgakov himself was no glorifier of the devil.
"It doesn't have to do with Bulgakov at all," says local orthodox priest, Father Alexander. Standing outside Bulgakov's block, white snowflakes dusting his black robes, the bearded priest explained that he does not blame the writer for the arrival of Satanists.
"These slogans support the proposition of Satanism and Fascism, and this is not the cultural ideology of Bulgakov at all."
The graffiti painters work in the dead of night, and get into the block despite combination locks. "Locks don't help, there is no way of getting them out," says Ms Sapronenkova. "They always find a way in."
Residents at first covered up the slogans with black paint. But days later the graffiti were back, some of themscratched with a knife deep into the black painted wall.
The residents did not give up, saying they were inspired by Bulgakov and his famous challenge to Stalin.
When the writer had his work blocked by Communist censors, he wrote to Stalin asking to leave the country. Stalin, who had a soft spot for the writer, phoned Bulgakov personally and gave him a job at a state theatre - though he never let him leave the country.
Taking a leaf out of Bulgakov's book, the residents have launched a campaign to reopen apartment 50 as a museum, as it was in the 1990s, and use the cash to pay for a security guard.
Their problem is that nobody knows who owns apartment 50.
Three years ago a mystery purchaser bought it from the city, stuck a big lock on the door, and it still remains deserted.
"The apartment is locked but you can hear people coming and going, there are noises there in the night," says Ms Sapronenkova. "It is pure Hitchcock."
Father Alexander has stepped in and is leading a court action to trace the owner. Meanwhile, the residents hope for support from a government which has shown itself keen to promote Russia's great artists.
In recent years millions of pounds has been poured into a much-needed renovation of the Bolshoi theatre.
Museums celebrating Russia's great writers and composers have been opened and President Vladimir Putin has befriended former dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
"We've got the plan, we've written to everyone, to the city, to President Vladimir Putin, but we cannot find an investor," says Ms Sapronenkova.
But she stays optimistic. A devout Christian, her flat is home to dozens of Orthodox icons.
A small icon has now been placed amid the Nazi graffiti over the door of apartment 50.
Ms Sapronenkova is sure of victory "I have faith," she says. "I think we will win."