The story “Petrokhan“ can be told as a criminal chronicle - six people are dead, there are weapons, a fire, a hut in the mountains and a camper near Okolchitsa. But according to criminal psychologist Rosen Yordanov, this would mean seeing only the last episode of a much longer story.
In a two-hour conversation with Yavor Dachkov and Viktor Blaskov, Yordanov presents a reconstruction of the events and the environment around Ivaylo Kalushev. The recording was made on September 21, 2026 in “Echo Media Studio“. According to the psychologist and according to the presentation of the conversation, the reconstruction is based on forensic medical examinations, witness testimonies, video recordings from the cameras in the hut, audio recordings of Kalushev and criminal-psychological analysis.
This is an essential clarification. Because in this case there are many versions, assumptions and public disputes. However, Yordanov presents his story as the result of the work of an expert team, and not as a free criminal hypothesis.
And that is where the darkest part of the story begins.
Not only the last hours
According to Yordanov, in order to understand the tragedy, we need to go back long before the events that ended with the death of the six.
At the center of his analysis is Ivaylo Kalushev and the community that, according to the expert, formed around him.
The description is of a closed, hierarchical environment in which not all people had equal access to information. According to the conclusions presented by Yordanov, Kalushev was the figure who set the rules and distributed information among the others.
This creates a specific type of dependence.
A person does not necessarily have to be held by force in order to be controlled. Control can be through belonging, trust, fear of losing the group, the promise of a better life, or the belief that the person at the center of the community possesses special knowledge and the ability to solve the problems of others.
This is exactly the mechanism described by Yordanov.
According to him, a world with its own rules, roles, and levels of access has been built around Kalushev.
The control was not only psychological
One of the details that Yordanov focuses on in the conversation is the presence of pre-prepared scenarios for how community members should respond if questioned by the police about sexual matters.
This statement was already publicly presented by the psychologist before the conversation with Dachkov and Blaskov. According to him, scenarios were found in the materials in which it was discussed who should say what during a possible police interrogation. Yordanov defines this as part of a model of “total control“.
If confirmed within the investigation, such a detail is important not only because of the specific content of the conversations, but also because of what it shows about the relations within the group.
Because it is no longer just about influencing personal life.
It is about pre-management of behavior in a situation in which institutions can be held accountable.
The hardest part - the children
Among the most serious topics in the expertise and conversation are data on sexual abuse of children and adolescents.
An important distinction must be made here.
A psychological profile or expert opinion is not equivalent to a court verdict for a specific crime. That is why allegations of sexual violence should be presented as data and conclusions presented by the expert and contained in the materials on the case, and not as facts independently established by the editorial staff.
Yordanov publicly defines Kalushev as a person with a profile of a preferential and selective sexual abuser, stating that according to his analysis, the attraction to adolescents is traced through different periods of his life.
In subsequent appearances, the psychologist also spoke about witness evidence of an alleged sexual incident from Kalushev's teenage years.
These are extremely serious allegations and therefore cannot be turned into sensational details.
But they are an essential part of Yordanov's story, because according to him, sexual behavior, psychological influence and control over members of the community are connected elements of the same system.
„The Red Room“
In his public appearances about the expertise, Yordanov also spoke about a room in the „Petrohan“ hut, which according to witness accounts was called the „red room“.
According to him, the stories about the room also mention psychoactive substances. CCross.bg
This detail is important precisely as part of the overall picture that the expert is trying to build – isolated environment, special spaces, internal rules and behavior, which according to witness data remained out of sight of the outside world.
But here too the line is clear: a witness account or expert discussion of such an account should not be presented as a proven fact outside the context of the entire pre-trial proceedings.
What do the recordings show?
A special place in Yordanov's account is occupied by audio and video recordings.
According to the presentation of the conversation, it is the recordings from the cameras in the hut and Kalushev's audio materials that are among the sources on which the reconstruction.
In other public appearances, Yordanov also tells of a lengthy conversation between Kalushev and the parent of a girl who witnessed a sexual episode, and according to the psychologist, the recording shows an attempt to influence the parent and discredit the girl.
It is here that the recordings acquire a significance that goes beyond simple documentation.
They allow the stories of different people to be compared with actually recorded conversations and actions.
And this is one of the ways in which experts can check whether a given version of the relationship between the participants fits in with the others materials.
Petrohan and Okolchitsa
The second major part of the conversation is dedicated to the tragic outcome itself.
According to the conclusions presented by the prosecutor's office and the public explanations of the experts, the three men found dead near the "Petrohan" hut committed suicide. The version publicly presented about the events near Okolchitsa was that Ivaylo Kalushev shot Nikolay Zlatkov and 15-year-old Alexander Makulev, after which he committed suicide. The published data refers to ballistics studies, gunpowder smears, fingerprints and the location of the bodies.
Yordanov goes even further in interpreting the sequence of events.
According to him, Kalushev was the central figure who had the complete information, while the other members received only individual parts of it. The publicly presented conclusions also describe different roles and ranks in the community.
For Petrohan, Yordanov also presents a specific thesis about the roles of the participants – according to him, Kalushev planned the murders, and Plamen Stattev carried them out, while Decho Vassilev set the hut on fire. These are expert statements presented by Yordanov, not court verdicts.
It is this distinction that is important.
The expert's material may offer a reconstruction of the events, but the final criminal assessment belongs to the investigation and the court.
The telephones and the last unknowns
In the conversation and in his previous public appearances, Yordanov also spoke about the information from the participants' phones.
According to him, the devices were reset to factory settings before the suicide, but specialists were later able to restore some of the information. Individual devices have been sent for technical decoding and data extraction within the framework of international cooperation.
This means that even after the presentation of the main expert reports, not all information sources on the case have been finally exhausted.
It is precisely the digital traces that can provide additional context for communications, contacts and relationships between the participants.
The question for society
Perhaps the biggest question that Yordanov poses is not directly related to the weapon or with the last minutes of the victims.
He is much more uncomfortable:
How could such a community exist for so long?
According to the psychologist's account, relationships of dependence and control were created around Kalushev. In this environment, according to him, vulnerable people and children also fell.
If these data are confirmed by the investigation, the question inevitably arises as to whether and when there were signals that could have led to intervention.
Here the story is no longer just criminal.
It also becomes a story about missed signals, about the trust that society places on certain people, and about the boundary between personal freedom and the situation in which one person begins to exert a destructive influence on others.
And one more question – what we don't know
The "Petrokhan" case is one of those stories where the amount of information does not automatically mean that all questions have been finally answered.
On the contrary.
The more material that appears - expert reports, records, witness statements, digital data - the clearer it becomes that three things must be distinguished.
The first is the facts established through expert reports and other evidence.
The second is expert reconstructions and psychological conclusions.
And the third is the versions and allegations that are to be verified within the framework of the investigation and the trial.
This distinction is particularly important in the case of accusations of sexual abuse of children and allegations of involvement or connections with other individuals.
Because the weight of history needs no exaggeration.
The story behind the tragedy
Rosen Yordanov's story to Yavor Dachkov and Viktor Blaskov places “Petrohan“ in a broader framework.
Not just as the last hours of six people.
But as a story about a closed community, about the influence of a person who, according to expert analysis, stood at its center, about the psychological mechanisms of addiction and about the data on sexual violence that are part of the materials on the case.
This is also the reason why the story cannot be concluded only with the question of who shot and who died.
The questions about the time before the tragedy remain.
For the people who were inside.
For those who were outside.
For the information that existed but may not have been seen.
And for the limit to which a closed community can reach before the public understands what is happening behind closed doors.
It is there, beyond the last shots of Petrohan and Okolchitsa, that the most difficult part of this story begins.