A member of the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra, Denis Shulgin, was hospitalized with a fractured skull and brain concussion after an attack in the Russian capital on Monday. His violin - worth thousands of dollars - was taken.
The two young men from southern Siberia, who were detained during another failed robbery attempt, admitted to attacking the 34-year-old violinist thinking that the man had some food in his violin case.
"Twenty-three-year-old Vitaly and his 18-year-old friend Sergei worked as chefs in a restaurant, but were sacked," a popular Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted a police chief as saying.
The two hungry men decided that the man had some food in his "beautiful big bag," and attacked the musician. When they found out that their plunder was a musical instrument, they left the bag with violin, worth almost $35,000, in nearby bushes, where it was later found by police.
In a separate incident on Sunday, Shulgin's colleague Georgy Tsai, an ethnic Korean, was stabbed in the leg and stomach, and suffered numerous hand injuries. His bag was also stolen during the attack, which occurred near his home. Police dismissed reports of possible race-hate attack.
