Russian 'kills friend in argument over whether poetry or prose is better'

Investigators say drunken literary dispute led to 53-year-old former teacher, who preferred poetry, killing friend with knife

A former schoolteacher killed his friend after a drunken argument over which is superior, poetry or prose, investigators in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia say.

"The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, on the basis of which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with the help of a knife," the regional branch of the federal investigative committee said in a statement.

The suspect fled his home in the town of Irbit, where the 67-year-old victim was killed after the argument on 20 January, and hid at another friend's house in a nearby village before he was found and detained, it said.

The killing came four months after an argument over the theories of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant ended in a man being shot in a grocery store in southern Russia.

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