Russian authorities are playing a waiting game with members of a doomsday sect who have barricaded themselves into a cave in a remote village to await the end of the world.
Negotiations are continuing with 11 members of the sect holed up in the cave complex in the Penza region since November.
However, attention has also turned to their leader, Pavel Kuznetsov, who has warned of approaching Apocalypse but never actually joined his followers in the cave.
Yesterday evening, he was found beating himself over the head with a log in an apparent suicide attempt. He was later hospitalised for a head injury.
He is being held in a psychiatric hospital for treatment but has been periodically released to help try to persuade fellow sect members to leave the cave, amid fears that it could collapse.
This morning other members of the sect visited the cave to try to persuade those inside to end their vigil.
35 sect members went into the cave in Nikolskoye, some 700km southeast of Moscow, last November, claiming that the end of the world would occur this May.
Many have been enticed out in recent weeks.
Officials have also brought in a priest specialising in apocalyptic literature to speak to the sect, who have threatened to blow themselves up with cooking gas canisters if the authorities attempt to force them out.
The sect members adhere to an extremely simple lifestyle, believing among other things that barcodes on food products are a symbol of the devil.
They were even given a cow by local authorities after they said they could not use milk from cartons since they carried bar codes.
Mr Kuznetsov's followers come from other parts of Russia and from Belarus, a neighbouring former Soviet republic.
Villagers say the cultists would wander quietly around the village, dressed in long black robes.
Rescuers yesterday used their hands to clear mud from the entrance of the cave to avoid further collapses.
Doctors, psychologists, police and Orthodox priests are on standby near the cave.
