Denis Kondakov, 17, died after climbing on top of a pile of gravel and then reaching up to touch a high-voltage electric cable while being watched by two teen girls
Ustinya Zembakhtin, 10, brother Sergey, 13, Vladislav Khoroshinkin, also 13, Maria Svitlenko, 14, 15-year-old Sergey Kustov and 17-year-old Denis Kondakov all perished in the last seven days at the start of the school holidays.
Three of the youngsters were killed at the same time while trying to pose in front of an oncoming freight train, while three more died in separate incidents after touching high-voltage electric cables.
Ustinya, Sergey and Vladislav all died on the Trans-Siberian railway track close to Vladivostok as they posed for a selfie on 11 June in front of an oncoming freight train.
Lera Sengeevskaya, 13, told how she pleaded with them to get off the track as the train approached.
She managed to pull one girl Anya Khvatova, 13, towards her but she was also hit by the train and is now in a 'grave but stable' condition in hospital.
'I was yelling at them: 'Stop! Get away!', said Lera, shellshocked and in tears as she spoke to local TV of seeing her friends killed in front of her.
'They didn't hear me. I managed to grab Anya but she still was hit by the train.
'When I ran to Sergey, he was already not breathing.
'When I ran to Anya, she was breathing. I pleaded with her not to die.'
Mikhail Skobenko, principal of School Number 6 in Novy village, described the 'huge shock' to parents and teachers.
He urged that all teachers redouble their warnings over selfies to children in the light of the 'tragic event' involving his students, but said he had often spoken to his students about the crisis.
'We gather students for assemblies and I personally stress to them that safety rules on roads, railways, near ponds or rivers must be observed,' he said.
'We openly tell them that all instructions are written in blood.'
Maria Svitlenko was electrocuted in Moscow region after climbing on a railway bridge at Ivanteevka causing her head to touch a high voltage cable.
She fell close to the railway track where she was found dead on 17 June.
Earlier she had been pictured looking at the bridge on which she died.
Maria's body was found alongside railway tracks after she climbed on to a bridge for a selfie and her head accidentally touched the overhead electrical wires
Maria was among six teens killed in a week at the start of the Russian summer holidays, as police warn there could be more deaths
His mobile and music player burned out and he suffered a severe electric shock.
'He was delivered to a medical facility with burns and, unfortunately, died there,' said Russian state investigator Alexey Maksimchenko.
His school director said: 'He was from a trouble-free, wealthy family. He studied well, and was quite a developed young man - social, lively, and open.
'He was finishing his final year at school.'
Sergey Kustov was killed on 13 June while climbing on a power transmission line in Perm region.
His friend, who survived, told police the pair wanted to take 'the ultimate selfie'.
Anya Aristova posted this message: 'Sergey, you had all your life in front of you. What the hell you were doing there? We remember you, love you and miss you...'
This week also saw an unnamed 16 year old girl in Yanaul, in Bashkortostan region, suffered 90 per cent burns after being electrocuted by overhead cables after climbing on a freight train to take selfies.
She is now in intensive care fighting for her life with multiple injuries.
The latest deaths come early in the long school summer holidays.
Russian rail official Maxim Kalennik warned parents over the latest incidents.
'We constantly tell people - be careful, do not go on railway tracks. Do not walk along them' he said.
'After every case, everyone feels sorry, but many parents for some reason continue to think that this will never happen to their kids.'
A security official in Moscow region is demanding a change in Russian laws to enable children and parents to be published for risking extreme selfies.
'Participants of these dangerous actions who get into potentially dangerous places and the parents of these teenagers should be made responsible,' Nikolay Cherkasov told Russian Radio.
'There is no single region where such problem does not exist. Either train riders or extreme selfie lovers, they are everywhere.'
Changes in the law were needed to 'influence the minds of our young people, in order to make them assess the risks in an adequate way'.
He claimed children attempting such risks were often 'seriously lacking' in parental attention.
He urged that such children should be made to work in 'ecological or labour camps' in their spare time.
Reader Comments
As a little kid we used to go down by this rail line un-supervised, like maybe 10 or 12 years old, sometimes we would put a penny on the tracks, but we knew better than to get too close to speeding train; the power and might of that passing speeding freight train was frightening. We never got too close, maybe 20 feet away was the closest I ever came to a speeding freight train. The thundering power and might of that machine should frighten any child or adult. I don't like being near them in car at rail road crossing. All I can think of when I'm forced to sit there helplessly is if this thing derails I'm kaput!
Despite knowing about the dangers of trains I had one close call myself in Glacier Park in Montana when I was in my early 20's. Myself and a friend were walking and had to cross over a set of tracks, there were two lines, or four sets of rails. Now this was basically in the middle of nowhere, so we weren't messing around the rails, we were just there walking along and going to cross over the rails on our way. So it' wasn't like we were screwing around on them. So just as we were going to cross we hear a train whistle and look down the line, well it seemed to be a long ways off, like a half to quarter mile, so we picked up our step. I figured we could safely cross in front of the train: Big mistake, about half way we hear the blaring horn and glance to see this damn thing is way too fricking close and closing fast. It was probably doing between 60 and 80 mph, suddenly we realize we don't know for sure what rail the on coming freight train is one! It's not like they are required to drive on the right side like a car on the highway. So now we are right between two sets of tracks with freight train of probably 100 plus cars doing 80mph bearing down on us and we don't know which line it's on! What, stand in the middle and hope nothing takes your head off or the blast of passing air doesn't knock you down and you lose your arm or head? Oh hell no, so we start running and it's like a nightmare where you're in slowmotion and in addition the rails are set on large lose rock, not tripping while running is problematic. So of course we made it but it was way too close, it was a close call really.
Moral of this story is teach your kids: Stay away from trains.
Re the train, I may have written of finding ourselves on a stretch of So. Cal. Railway, at Lower Trestles on the Orange/San Diego County Line. What saved us was refusal to panic. A long story for some other time, except the overriding fact that when reality gets heavy and
deadly, DO NOT PANIC!
Do NOT ever lose the use of your eyes or your ears. (You need to be able to see your threat so you can avoid it as much as possible.)
if it's night and the other side has night vision gear, still do not panic, think! To knock off from the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster needed to, and did, use her power of thought when faced with such a situation and she used her hearing
Only NON-panic will allow you to think such thoughts. Think! If ever you are in such a setting, rea if it's in such a setting Realize: it looks for a heat source for light and try to hide near under a warm car engine, etc. Only in a state ofcalm awareness will you be able to think your way out of danger. (You know you're panicking when the threat knows where you are and you simply cuddled up in a fetal position and praying, which is a natural and is generally a dangerous response to danger.)
R.C.
*Just like the concept that all firearms are always loaded.
RC