About 30 doomsday cultists, including four children, have bricked themselves up in a dugout in the village of Poganovka, in Russia’s Penza Region, to survive an oncoming apocalypse. They have threatened to blow themselves up if they are forced to get out of the cave.

The cultists claim to be the “True Russian Orthodox Church”, and believe the apocalypse will come in May 2008. Police authorities have cordoned off the dugout fearing more cultists may join them in the coming weeks. Armed with gas-cylinders, the cultists have warned that they would rather die in a blast than leave their shelters. According to reports, the cultists excavated the cave after their leader; one Father Pyotr Kuznetsov ordered them to hide in order to escape the end of the world, which he predicted will happen next May. They took their children, the youngest being sixteen months of age, underground, too.

Kuznetsov’s followers are from Rostov, Belarus and Moscow. They bought houses in the village 18 months ago, turning one of them into a chapel and led isolated lives. They even prohibited their children from attending school.

The Russian newspaper Izvestia daily reported that Kuznetsov is a schizophrenic and received medical treatment for the same a few years ago

Born in the village of Nikolskoye, Kuznetsov was a deeply religious from his childhood. However, with time his piety became increasingly unhealthy, the daily reported.

He always spoke about an upcoming doomsday and sometimes discussed philosophic matters with strangers. His wife, unable to deal with her husband’s curious nature, alerted psychiatrists. Thereafter he spent a month in a local psychiatric clinic and was discharged only after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Later Kuznetsov declared himself to be a priest-monk and a prophet, and soon attracted a large following.Some reports said Kuznetsov is under custody and under psychiatric examination.