His family believe he was murdered \u2013 probably \u201cknifed\u201d to death \u2013 and his body disposed of. To date, they have no idea how or why.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating \u2026 we have no idea,\u201d his brother Colin Borcovsky told the Herald.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened in the winter \u2026 I really thought that, come the spring over there, somebody walking along in the bush would find something \u2026 but that hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borcovsky, 55 and a father of four, was tracing his family history in the former Soviet state when he vanished. <\/p>\n
Kevin Borcovsky was tracing his family history in Russia.<\/p>\n
His grandfather and father left Russia for Australia, then New Zealand, in a journey that began in 1917.<\/p>\n
Borcovsky\u2019s grandfather was a confirmed Tsarist, and it is thought he fled Tynda – a small, remote city in Russia\u2019s Amur Oblast, in the country\u2019s far east near the border with China – with police close on his heels, his life otherwise forfeit in the turmoil that led to Lenin taking power.<\/p>\n
Borcovsky in Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could all go way back to then \u2026 someone never forgetting,\u201d Colin said of his brother\u2019s disappearance and a possible connection to their forefathers.<\/p>\n
Borcovsky was reported missing when he did not return to New Zealand as planned.<\/p>\n
The last contact he had with anyone was an email to one of his daughters on September 20, 2006. He was en route to Tynda \u2013 about three hours out from his destination at the time.<\/p>\n
From there, he was to take a 40-hour train ride to Khabarovsk \u2013 one of the largest cities in the Russian Far East, about 800km north of Vladivostok.<\/p>\n
But he never took the journey.<\/p>\n
It later emerged that the next day, a woman tried to cash in the ticket Borcovsky had purchased at the train station.<\/p>\n
Rebuffed, she returned with Borcovsky\u2019s passport and a man claiming to be the New Zealander. They were again denied the money.<\/p>\n
After he was reported missing, police tracked the woman down and found several items belonging to Borcovsky, including his diaries, three rolls of film and two Lonely Planet travel books.<\/p>\n
The woman explained that she \u201cfound\u201d the items in a plastic bag by a river.<\/p>\n
Weeks later, police went back to question the woman further, but found her dead \u2013 killed in a fire along with the three men she shared a house with.<\/p>\n
For a long time, police in New Zealand worked with their Russian counterparts to piece together what happened to Borcovsky. <\/p>\n
Borcovsky’s last known whereabouts was Tynda in Russia.<\/p>\n
To this day, every inquiry has ended in a dead end. All efforts to uncover answers have come up empty.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s really happened for seven or eight years; we haven\u2019t heard from anyone,\u201d said Colin Borcovsky. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where we\u2019re at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now 82, he says he has \u201clost a bit of enthusiasm\u201d for continuing the search for his brother.<\/p>\n
He still gets emotional speaking about the loss and the impact on the family \u2013 the pain, anger and frustration are clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can do about it. We don\u2019t know what happened or how it happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the whole thing \u2026 it seems a bit fishy. I mean, when you look at how they just suddenly died in a house fire \u2013 that was the first thing that wasn\u2019t normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borcovsky is still listed as a missing person on the New Zealand police website. His face and details are included alongside 44 other men, women and children.<\/p>\n
Numbered among them are Amber-Lee Cruickshank, Kirsa Jensen, John Beckenridge and his stepson Mike; more recent disappearances include Breanna Muriwai, Jessica Boyce and Eloi Rolland. <\/p>\n
The police missing person listing. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
\u201cLast confirmed sighting was when he purchased a ticket at the Tynda Railway station in Russia for his onward journey,\u201d the listing for Borcovsky reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never made that trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police confirmed the investigation had well stagnated.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice and Russian authorities made a number of inquiries in Russia and New Zealand to locate Mr Borcovsky in the immediate period after he was reported missing; however, none led to locating him,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, there are no further lines of inquiry, and the missing persons\u2019 file has been inactivated both in New Zealand and Russia, with relevant alerts attached should any new leads come to hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October 2010, a memorial for Borcovsky was unveiled in the Murchison Cemetery, also the final resting place of his parents.<\/p>\n
The engraved stone plaque is simple but moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cTreasured memories \u2026 much-loved husband, father, grandfather and brother,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cAvid traveller and artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
A memorial for Borcovsky is at the Murchison Cemetery.<\/p>\n
The final etching comes from Borcovsky\u2019s own words \u2013 taken from a message to a loved one shortly before he stepped completely out of being.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext stop, Kahborovsk and then Harbin \u2013 back soon to tell you all about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colin Borcovsky once told the Herald his brother was an experienced traveller, an extraordinary backpacker who had easily navigated the Middle East \u2013 Israel and Afghanistan \u2013 and India.<\/p>\n
He said Borcovsky travelled light and often dressed like a local.<\/p>\n
He carried little cash, getting by on an easy manner and an enthusiasm for the road, which resulted in a collection of lifelong friends across the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just so unfortunate he got caught out in a place that was probably safer than [other places] he\u2019d been,\u201d Colin Borcovsky lamented.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese things happen to everybody else. They don\u2019t happen at your back door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His family believe he was murdered \u2013 probably \u201cknifed\u201d to death \u2013 and his body disposed of. To…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20391,74,5845,38864,4496,80654,17184,80653,80657,1121,17163,4509,803,9060,127,9770,80656,2026,2245,15356,12513,2109,9064,52098,71,27917,2219,80655,305,2883,78,8454,1019,61092,194,27135,22055,5846,80652,2190,3025,11692,111,43,139,69,10538,46930,13120,10715,766,8105,5652,24002,1361,8229,10507,11685,6506,1530,2963],"class_list":["post-113064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-20391","tag-after","tag-anna","tag-answers","tag-attempt","tag-belongings","tag-blenheim","tag-borcovsky","tag-borcovskys","tag-case","tag-closure","tag-cold","tag-continue","tag-decades","tag-despite","tag-disappearance","tag-disappearances","tag-discovery","tag-early","tag-emerged","tag-failed","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-foul","tag-from","tag-frustrating","tag-gone","tag-haunting","tag-have","tag-hope","tag-in","tag-including","tag-international","tag-kevin","tag-kiwi","tag-lack","tag-leads","tag-leask","tag-limbo","tag-long","tag-most","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-play","tag-pointing","tag-remain","tag-remains","tag-reports","tag-russia","tag-signs","tag-stranger","tag-that","tag-they","tag-ticket","tag-train","tag-vanished","tag-years","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}