A Russian family of four was found dead in the sauna of a luxury hotel in Albania. They had ordered drinks and food to be delivered in the sauna complex of the hotel but were found dead when the waiter arrived with their order.
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Tragic Visit
Sergey Burenkov, 60, and wife Natalya Burenkova, 58, from Moscow, were on holiday with their daughter Katya, 31, and her partner Nikita Belousov, 37.
The family was part of a group of tourists staying for a week at the five-star Gloria Palace resort in the village of Qerret in Albania.
According to the waiter who had gone to get them the drinks they had ordered, he entered the sauna when no one was responding to his call, only to find them all dead.
I shouted several times that the drinks and the fruit were ready. No-one answered, so I walked inside the sauna and saw them all. One person was lying on a sun bed, two were on the (sauna) benches. The last one was sitting down with his legs in the pool. They have all suffocated.
A source told local media, the family had only arrived at the hotel an hour before their dead bodies were found.
Investigations Underway
The Russian embassy in the Albanian capital, Tirana, has launched its own investigations into the deaths of the tourists, according to a Russian diplomatic source.
Police in Albania have also begin looking into the cause of death. A statement from the police read:
At around 10.20pm in Qerret, Kavaja the dead bodies of four people with Russian nationality were found in a sauna. All of them had been asphyxiated.
Investigations will now determine whether the suffocation was as a result of a technical failure of the sauna ventilation system, or inadequate care of the tourists by the hotel staff, who have all been questioned.
It was reported that police will be examining the alcohol consumption of the victims as well.
