In my article 10 Cities with the Biggest Parks in the World, I mentioned Bitsevsky Park in Moscow.

This park offers a huge open area to get away from the city. It is the place in Moscow to go cycling in the summer and skiing in the winter. Don’t be put off by stories of a serial killer who used the park for his amusement from 2001 to 2006.

I spent a lot of time researching this park, because I was sidetracked by the story of the Chessboard Killer. Supposedly, Alexander Pichushkin would lure people into playing chess and drinking vodka with him. Then he would club them in the head.

He claimed to have killed 61 people. His goal was to reach 64 – the number of squares on a chessboard. He was arrested in 2006. In 2007 he was sentenced to life in prison, with the first 15 years to be served in solitary confinement.